What happens while I'm asleep?

Bless you Lynda Carter

I was just minding my own business... whatever that is... and next thing I knew a Campus security guard came and got me then ushered me into a room full of other Campus security and Fredericton Police officers. Turns out they couldn't get their laptop PowerPoint presentation to project. Mostly because they had no projector. I find it tough to be a smartass when people are carrying weapons. Head Security dude retrieved a projector from downstairs and set it up but still no dice, so back into the heavily uniformed room I went. After some futzing with the laptop and projector it all popped to life.

As I left I did get the whole room to laugh... so I guess I don't have to worry about getting a billy club to the head walking home from work.

My other evening malaise came from having to buy dinner in the cafeteria downstairs. The cheapest thing I could buy was a wrapped and refrigerated Roast Beef sub (6 inch), a can of V8 and a bag of Munchos... total $7.53. My longstanding standard has been expensive equals either very tasty or very plentiful, and cheap is ok if your expectations are low and again quantity is abundant... i.e. Jubilee Super Buffet all you can eat for about $12 if you don't mind 100 items that all vaguely taste of propane. You develop a forgiving palate.

One recent item I've become addicted to (much in the manner of the Lays Salt and Pepper Chips of last year) is the 691 mL can of Arizona Honey Ginseng Iced Green Tea. Tasty, voluminous and 99 cents!!! I can be cheap and at least marginally healthy. Bizarre!!! I can't find a picture of the can right now... but take my word for it. Unless you have a spare lasso of truth hanging around.

Like I wasn't saying

Sometimes pictures get trapped in your camera.
You forget then find them. Kinda like Easter eggs, except without that sulfur smell when they've spent two and a half years behind the lay-z-boy that finally gets moved to vacuum or tipped forward to find change for laundry, or all the pens it swallowed.

I had a bag of T-shirts left from the first Surge! event in September, and since I didn't have anything like party hats or noise makers I figure what could be more group spirit instilling than being dressed alike for New Year's? It worked for the Nazis.

So what's new? What's happened?

Well X-mas break was about 5 days long this year... a high water mark holidaywise.
The home part of it was the usual low-grade mesmerism I've come to expect: food, sleep, flashing lights. The kind of palliative care terminal rave goers would probably thrive upon.
The Fredericton part of it was likewise pleasant: Seeing Marc L. and spending a bit more time with M. (both pictured above). Work weeks that were only 24-30 hours long vs. my current 56. I have to say though, after years of silently mocking folks who complained how prolonged stretches of junk food and drink put them on their heels after the holidays... now the mock is on me. My system seems to yearly throw out new curves for me to consider. Is that a muscle pull or a stroke? That sort of thing.

There seemed to be a more-than-average portion of illness, death and relation rupture over the holidays. Perhaps another age-derived side effect.

What else? There was cat care, best of list countdowns, birthdays, sleep in short bursts at odd hours, plenty of chaos-fueled ducks that needed whacking back into rows. There always seems to be a pivot-point (usually around day 14-16 of January) where the possibility of a year that flows smoothly along the rails gets ker-knocked askance... either through mishap or plain ol' laziness. This year it's a little of both.

One speed bump was trying to get to a slightly less hectic work schedule, temporarily inverted by the departure of Mike the Saturday Guy (one of his many aliases) who finished school at Xmas and, due to some personal turmoil, picked up stakes and headed North (near North, but still).

The other dip in the road is getting a handle on how my routine impacts mealtime... i.e. my eating while walking or during 3 minute breaks at work. Less McD more macrobiotic? I'm still on the see saw with that one... I'll get back to you.

The last little hill to conquer is consolidating/moving forward with many disparate projects: writing, the Surgery blog and it's expanded possibilities, and the Surge! festival's posibilities for May.

The Surgery Radio one is the most tangible and exciting one at the moment. I installed a site meter and Cluster Map a little while ago, so now I can track not only how many visitors I get, but where they're visiting from. For example:





So what challenges am I gearing up for next? Well Kyle of The Fussy Part has enlisted J. Arnold (Proffessor Undressor) and me to open for them at The Capitol on February 3rd. We are cobbling together a DJ set that will hopefully both entertain and enlighten the masses. At least those who decide to come out before midnight and come inside rather that shiver and smoke on the deck. So those five people.

Finally I will impart upon you my favourite retail moment of the last few weeks. This time I had to go to another store to experience it:

Getting set up for the Surge! show on January 12th it became apparent that my stage rigging would benefit from a nice extension chord. We had about an hour and a half before showtime so John B. and I went up to Wendy's to grab some nice drive through dining to eat in the Canadian Tire parking lot. Following our dining we entered C'Tire which was fairly devoid of traffic for a Friday night. I found a suitable 10 m extension that was on sale for $14.99 and brought it to the cash. It has been a regular (pleasant) occurance at C'Tire that an even further reduced price comes up on the register screen when it's rung in... not this time.

Girl at Cash: That'll be $29.99.

Me: errr... the price in the aisle said $14.99 on sale.

GaC: Really?

Me: Really.

GaC: Well it comes up this price here. I'll call someone for a price check. [picks up phone on speaker]: Hardware call 103, hardware 103.

(five minutes elapse... a few more people are rung through... John is reading the back of battery packages).

GaC: I don't know who's back there. [tries again]: Hardware call 103, hardware 103.

(five more minutes... people are buy marked down garbage bags, John is sampling engine coolant flavours).

GaC: [to the other cashier two aisles over]: Who's back there?

GaC2: Jason, I think.

GaC: Is he on dinner?

GaC2: Not anymore. [Picks up her phone/speaker]: Jason in hardware call 105, Jason 105.

(her phone rings almost immediately and she transfers the call over to 103... I guess Jason is a little more scared of GaC2)

GaC: I have a guy here with an extension he says is on sale for $14.99, but it comes up as $29.99. OK? OK. He'll be right up.

GaC2: I had the same thing earlier tonight.

GaC: I know, but I can't just ring it in without Jason's OK.

(five more minutes elapse, then Jason, a slightly haggard post-holiday 1000 yard stare teenager shambles out of the back holding loops of extensions... looking a little like he's auditioning to replace the Crocodile Hunter dude.)

Jason: Ah... this one is $14.99 (holding up a nearly identical chord), but it's a one outlet. That one's a three outlet. They were mixed up on the shelf. (Shambles back).

GaC: Which one do you want?

Me: The cheap one.

So the whole thing took about 15-20 minutes. In the end the Girl rings it through and then looks into the pile of plastic bags as I exit without a "sorry for the wait" or "have a good night" or "never fucking come in here again." The holidays affect us all differently I guess.

Ahead to the future

So this is the new advanced blogger.

It wiped out my fish and chips header so I replaced it with dancing Russian GI Joes... at least I think that's what those are.

Some of you might be saying: What is he hiding by not having written any posts this new year? Or virtually none. Truth is... nothing to hide.

The Xmas season skidded on through 'til around the 14th of January. The end of the season was marked by Howard's countdown party at which we learned it was Band of Horses that most tickled his fancy.

Since then the weather has shut down most human interactions I normally have.

For instance on Monday through Friday of last week the store made one third of the amount we sold for on Saturday... and this is not to say that Saturday was an exceptionally busy day... just good n busy.

I'll have some perhaps more pertinent insights tomorrow... but for now revel in the wonder that is the NEW BLOGGER.

SUUUUUUUUUUURGE

So we go from the festival of lit turkeys and diving headlong into the festival of surging minor chords:



I'm making my fingers bony in preparation so I don't have a lot of time to bring you all up to speed with everything else... but after Friday I will, and up to speed you will be.

Be wary, be informed. Tall men with bad haircuts and underqualified numbskulls abound... in hallways near you!! (Well near me.)

Arg. Coconut.

Who knew there were that many Christmas albums by country artists? Every day someone calls and asks me for another different one. If anyone out there has Oak Ridge Boys Christmas Cookies get on eBay with it right now... somebody's a-lookin for it!!!

A couple of other favourite Xmessy interactions were the guy who came in looking for music "for the wife" who apparently is into "hip-hop be-bop." When I confessed to never having heard of this type of music he clarified with the more concrete terminology of "dance shit." He left with a Ray Charles and a Basement Jaxx CD.

Another grave lady called up asking if we had anything in stock by The War Brides. I said we had nothing in stock but we might be able to get something in for her. I then asked if they were a local band (figuring she might be shopping for some glam metal band from Penniac to give to her grandson, or something). She took a deep breath and informed me... "They are NOT a local band. I'm referring to The War Brides... [dramatic pause]... OF CANADA. Ah.

Since I rarely go to the malls I seldom have to deal with the weird bulldog-like behaviour the holiday brings out in people. Today though, I took a fifteen minute break to get lunch and grab a new notebook from Shopper's Drug Mart in Kings Place to keep track of special orders. There was only one cashier line open and two people ahead of me. I hadn't gotten food yet, but this looked like a short wait. Just as I was thinking this the lady just ahead of me reached into her huge stringy shopping sack and yanked out a wrinkled and knotted Shopper's bag from an earlier visit. The thing was you see... she'd been in on Saturday and bought some Pot of Gold chocolates that were on special. BUT... when she got home she realized she had bought the brown box... and, you know, those are nuts. She didn't like nuts. So... she'd come in a grabbed a white box... and, you know, those are just milk chocolate (or something). She really wanted a black box... but they were, you know, all out. So... the cashier (who was male and sported a Shopper's name tag that advertised his name was Jonni [his spelling, not mine]) struggled, and struggled, and struggle to untie the top of this bag (why the fuck do people tie the tops of bags that only contain large rectangular objects that will never in a million year slip out?) while my brain screamed at him SCISSORS. SCISSORS. SCISSORS!!!. Finally Jonni got the bag open and pulled out the receipt and told the lady, "the other box was $3.99... this box is $4.99." To this she countered, "I called and the girl said I could just swap them." While all this was going on the line behind me had begun to stretch out to near the back of the store... so a "supervisory cashier" came along to open another till. The Supervisor told Jonni that he'd have to fill out a refund slip then ring the new box in at the sale price and then bob's your uncle. Then he wandered away. Jonni filled in the refund slip... something that involved a handwritten document... then he moved on to the ringing in the sale price. BUT... the supervisor had taken the returned box away when he left, which Jonni apparently needed to re-swipe the UPC (or some shit). So he runs to the back of the store, gets the brown box, swipes it, then looks at the white box for what seems like a very long time. He swipes it, and it comes up at $4.99... because... obviously... it isn't on sale... the sale was on Saturday. It should be mentioned that all this time the lady, mid-60s, weird backwoods accent, is offering all sorts of non-helpful suggestions that are only further confusing poor Jonni. Finally, with the help of two other cashiers, a ring of keys and a new spool of register paper... they arrive at the novel solution for getting the $4.99 box of chocolates to be $3.99... they ring it in manually!!!! Somewhere outside a tenament apartment a small crippled child named Tim was weeping tears of joy!!!

So next time someone tells you life is like a box of chocolates... get out of line.

Holla Holla Holla

Here's something you can print out, photocopy and staple/tape to any surface you desire:




Hopefully first in a series.



Things I have learned, but will soon forget:

1) Don't pick Sunday for your night to drink.
2) If you do pick Sunday for your night to drink, don't drink strong beer, lager, stout, rum and eggnog & creme de menthe in one sitting.
3) If you do #2, don't make it on a day you went to a buffet for breakfast.
4) Buffet and Breakfast... not a happy pairing.

Things I've seen/heard:

Cover of Cosmopolitan at Shoppers with Kate Winslet on the cover... they quote her philosophy: "You have to make the most out of every day." What would we have done without that bit of wisdom?

In the same vein was a radio "report" on the nature of crosswalk signal buttons... do they work? Should radio do "reports" on shit people talk about when they're too stoned to cross a street?

A blind guy with a walking stick trying to get through the King's Place food court. He started whacking people, then the anchored seating, eventually getting turned around and heading in the completely opposite direction he was initially heading. It never occurs that someone could really suck at being blind.

Three people, two guys and a girl, all wearing high style camo tops at the Subway on King. (The girl had red jogging pants on... someone is going to spot them).

The other labs in D'Avray are closed tonight. I have a bunch of beefy guys working on some Education or Phys Ed. group project and Shane singing along to country videos with headphones on.

How many days 'til Xmas?

Holla.

Ahhooooooooum.

Thank goodness for a weekend away.

November typically features a dipping down of the energy from September until the resurgence that comes before Xmas. The parents with lists haven't started in earnest, so the offbeat interactions are limited to arbitrarily strange:

The woman looking for any scratched 7"s we'd like to give her... but passing on the 99 cent ones... free only, please.

The man who wants buttons for his daughter... but not music buttons, because his daughter isn't into music buttons... which leads one to wonder, ah, what time of buttons might a music store carry?

And my favourite:

Quick background note: At times folks bring in boxes of records that are less than absolutely necessary for our collection... when we make noises like we're going to pass on them they usually go from bartering for a small amount for each or a small amount for the lot or, ultimately, offering them for free to do whatever we'd like.

So, in this case... it's August, guy brings a box of records. The guy has other business in town and says he'll drop by later after I've had a chance to look them over. The records are mostly crap, damaged no-gos or more of the same titles we have 3-6 copies of already. However, as is usually the case, there are a handful that we can actually, probably, sell. Day ends. Guy doesn't come back in.

Two days later guy calls and asks about the records. I tell him I can offer $20 for the few we can use and he can have the rest back. He says he doesn't want the rest back, but will stop in on Saturday for the cash and to see which ones we took.

Saturday comes along. Guy doesn't.

Week goes by. And half of another... and finally I figure the statute of limitations have gone by. I've not put anything out yet because it isn't totally out of the question for dudes to change their mind after, say, talking to an idiot buddy who says something like, "Shit man, I would've given you $10 bucks for that Best of Steve Miller Band!" Then when dude comes back to find out I've sold it for 25 cents, he gets a little huffy. But. Two weeks after they've dropped them off and still no contact... shit is mine.

Late November comes along. Dude wanders in and says, "Hi, my name is ***** and I dropped off a box of records in August. You said I could have $20 for the ones you could use."

I have to point out here that this is not a bottle picking, King's place hanging out kinda guy. This is a wife and kids and weekends at the cottage kinda guy.

I say, "well, all my paperwork from FOUR MONTHS AGO is packed and sent down to Saint John, but if you have your copy of the receipt for the cash...."

Dude says, "I didn't get a receipt."

I say, "How's that?"

Dude says, "I didn't come back in for one."

I say, "Ah."

So. Beyond everything else, the question I'd like to ask is: Why today? Why after four months would it suddenly occur to him that he's owed $20? He was always cheerful and never demanding, even when he came back in... but that makes it even more puzzling. In the usual case, after four months and no contact, one would expect just a nice clean write off.

I wonder if anyone out there owes me $20. Maybe I'll start a store to store inquiry.

Post-Remberance

Ah, underwear.

How I missed your firm support.

Let's Not Twist Again...

I have a folder of pictures from the last Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville from this past May. It's a New Music festival that I go to with Marc LeBlanc every year... and this time I managed to get ahold of the standard press package that goes out to all the journals and magazines that review the event (which I do actually do for Exclaim!, but they usually only run 2, 1 or none of the photos to save space). My idea was that I'd do a full show by show review of the festival over on the Surgery blog, but now it's November and it seems a little past prime time to proceed.

The shot above is of Norwegian duo Fe-Mail who make a fiercely loud and varied racket with their voices, french horn and a table-load of homemade/modified electronic apparatuses. Tear your head off they will, and look damn good doing it, too.

The Third annual UNB Poetry Weekend is over. It was a fun time seeing old friends visiting to read, like Matt Tierney and Adam Dickinson, Michael Debeyer and some recent and new acquaintances to boot (not that I booted them). The semi-official kickoff was a Friday night launch of QWERTY's tenth anniversary anthology at Alden Nowlan house. The anthology has an introduction of sorts by me, some captions for images and a poem. Since I'm a local, surviving old-timer I was invited to read. Although the other readers were current MAs reading from works in the anthology I decided to present a non-reading/reading. Having been to more than a few readings in my time I've developed a mild allergy to the standard process... often finding that the introductions and descriptions of the works about to be read more compelling than the works themselves. To that end I prepared an introduction for the reading of a chapter of a book I haven't written, nor have any plan of writing. The "book" was titled The Coefficiency of Friction and it involved, centrally, irritations. I'll leave the rest to your imaginations.

This morning it had snowed, so the walk to work was a little gunky... but still I was in pretty high spirits; mentally energized by the better segments of work I'd heard over the previous two days. At the store there were a few milk crates of vinyl and CDs to reshelve after a record show in Moncton. I grabbed an armload of records out of the very first crate and a few slipped out of my arms so I pivoted and bend to grab them and my lower back wrenched or pinched or buckled or some shit. Anyhow now I have to walk around like I have a load in my pants, wince like a beaten puppy each step I climb and in the interim sit in this chair while my spine locks up into a new interesting shape.

Of course tonight is the night where printers get jammed, polycoms break down and need replacement parts, posters are picked up and multimedia stations need setting up... everyone is very sympathetic and ask if I'm o.k., which is nice, but it'd be nicer if they just went and built snowmen and left me alone... oh well.

Also, something else I've been wondering about...

What you suspected afterhours might look like

Watch a nearly one minute movie here.

Music courtesy of Bill Frisell and Dana Hope's iTunes

Never leave your rubber on the road

Like, why would I, like, care about, like, that?

One of the strange new modern quirks in communication comes courtesy of the cell phone. Something that always gives me a chuckle is the sight of two folks walking side by side down the street and one of them is having a conversation on their cell phone. It raises the question: how boring is that person they're with? Are they friends? If so why aren't they talking to each other?

I was asked, last year, by a student doing a project on the impact of new communication tools upon the process of education. The upshot of his questions to me was, "what was it like before you had cell phones and IM?" e.g. "How did you survive not being in constant touch with your moron friends?"

After a brief chin stroke I had to confess I never really felt out of touch. After all, I did have a telephone. I knew my friends' telephone numbers. Frequently I would actually go to where they lived and saw them in person... often carrying on full, open air conversations using verbs, nouns and modifiers. Moreover, we were often in the same places at the same time, drinking similar beverages. Is that out of touch? Then thank goodness for being out of touch.

I read an interview in UNCUT magazine with Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers yesterday. One of his points about the vacuity of current youth culture brings up the point that kids have no skill at being bored any more. He rhapsodizes about "sitting on a wall for six hours" doing nothing except being bored. It makes sense. After a while the boredom festers and you're driven to action... to accomplish... to do something structured and big and sometimes fucking lunatic. These days low grade stimulus (cell phones, IM, iPod, PS2, XBox, YouTube, etc.) provides a constant buzz of low grade radiation that elevates its users a step up from boredom: catatonia. Admittedly this catatonia looks very social, everyone talking to everyone all the time about whatever stimulus they were radiated with that day. William Burroughs said "language is a virus." Maybe then communication can cause a new kind of cancer.

As I write this two young women are sitting about 10-15 feet behind me. One is carrying on a IM conversation with someone somewhere else while the other one is carrying on a one-sided conversation; directed at the first, but really to no one in particular; as she swivels in her chair, smells the inside of her shoes and monologues about her exploits on various wrestling team excursions. A quick glance over my shoulder and my imagination of what that must look like will make eating and sleeping difficult for some time to come.

I can only imagine what the IM conversation must be about, but if it's anything like the real world one...

"When I, like, got here, he was, like, messaging me to come over and, like, see him and stuff. But when I, like, got there, he was gone."

The Posey Question

First a gag:From Dork #11 by Evan Dorkin.

Then on to the post:

When it turned out that I wouldn't be going up to visit my folks until Sunday (instead of Saturday) last weekend I decided to use my now-clearer Friday evening to visit the uptown Mall district of Fredericton. My main objective was to purchase a new stock of receipt books for the store... but while I was up there I decided to peruse the many other goods and services offered. I bought a bottle of cheap Italian wine, for instance.

The other object/appliance I thought of purchasing was an mp3 player. There have been periods where I was so obsessed with having a portable music player (walkman, discman, whatever) that I can recall once not leaving the house because I'd neglected to recharge batteries. No music... no walking. Recently it's been less and less important to me... not to mention some concerns about what hearing loss I might already have inflicted upon myself. The one instance where it still seems vital is during prolonged travel by bus. Not having something that shields you from direct contact with the fellow transit patrons is as dangerous as practing unprotected sex in Central Africa.

I went to Future Shop and looked at the iPods and the iPod knock offs. The winsome little Shuffles were on sale for $75... but then I thought: if I were to get one of these buggers for my Sunday departure I'd be faced with the hassle of bringing CDs up to the lab, ripping them, loading the player, charging it, etc. Instead I perused the portable CD player section. Pickings were slim, with models ranging from $19.99 bottom feeders to, remarkably, high end ones that ran for around $150. The brilliant flash I had a while ago revolved around the fact that the $75 512 MB Shuffle was a diaphonous and sexy little electronic doodad... but... BUT... doesn't a blank CD-R hold 700 MB of info? Therefore if you were of a mind to fill one of those with mp3s it would contain more music than your Shuffle would hold. AND couldn't you prepare a few dozen of these based on your unstable mood shifts, therby never being locked into whatever you planned on one measly little 512 MB plastic bookmark??

So I looked a little harder at the CD players that played mp3 discs. The one that caught my eye was the Panasonic SL-SX480:
It had the added bonus of looking like a digital clam, and the headphones were white so I could hide it in my jacket and the casual passerby might mistake it for an iPod... so I could maintain my futuristic cred, yo. The Future Shop price was $49.99. I looked at it long and hard. I looked at it harder. I picked up its little clamshell casing and lifted it and lowered it along a vertical axis several times. Then I put it back.

Then I went over to Zellers and bought the same one for $39.99. Yay!!! I like shopping at Zellers. Somehow it feels like I'm buying something from a slightly retarded street vendor... like I'm doing something good for my community.

I decided also to stop at Rogers to flip through their discount DVDs. Occasionally you can turn up something good... and in fact I did. I had been just talking to James Kerr during our trip to Montreal how I never seem to see After Hours for sale anywhere (I believe this derived from the original topic of Rosanna Arquette). But here now in the 3/$24 pile was a honest to goodness copy of the underrated Martin Scorcese comedy (that's right... Martin Scorcese comedy!!!) I also bought a copy of Wolf Creek, which I hadn't seen but did enjoy, though Roger Ebert says this of the Australian film:

I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.

Roger Ebert can be a bit of a pussy sometimes.

The last piece of the tryptich-de-DVD was Blade:Trinity. Now, yes... I should know better. I saw the movie in the theatre. I know it's crap. Really I do. But I like the other two movies so much... and... and... what good is a trilogy if you don't hve the third part. I mean, some of you out there bought Godfather III, right? Right?


One of the things about the movie that contributed to it's badness, but simultaneously somehow made it more fun was the trio of vampire villains who worked the evil machinations against Blade... y'know by resurrecting Dracula... I mean, what would you do to defeat him? The trio was played by... ahem... from left to right... Triple H, Parker Posey and Callum Keith Rennie. Having these three together in one movie, let alone one onscreen frame, is akin to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom featuring a segment on Koalas stalking Penguins in Nebraska. A WWE wrestler, the guy who played Billy Talent in Hard Core Logo and... well... Parker Posey. WTF?

By far the most fun is watching Parker, who seems to be acting in a different movie altogether... something closer to an all-female Three Stooges retrospective.

Made me start thinking about her work in general... I mean how's this for a schizophrenic list of credits... the ones I've bolded are movies I've seen and think are great... the ones in italics... well, you decide. The last one (or first one, actually) on the list is a new Hal Hartley film... a sequel to Henry Fool... I can't wait to see it.

Fay Grim (2006)
For Your Consideration (2006)
Superman Returns (2006)
The OH in Ohio (2006)
Adam & Steve (2005)
Blade Trinity (2004)
Laws of Attraction (2004)
The Event (2003)
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Personal Velocity (2002)
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
The Anniversary Party (2001)
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Best in Show (2000)
Scream 3 (2000)
Dinner at Fred's (1999)
The Venice Project (1999)
The Misadventures of Margaret (1998)
What Rats Won't Do (1998)
You've Got Mail (1998)
Clockwatchers (1997)
Drunks (1997)
Henry Fool (1997)
The House of Yes (1997)
SubUrbia (1997)
Basquiat (1996)
The Daytrippers (1996)
Waiting for Guffman (1996)
The Doom Generation (1995)
Flirt (1995)
Frisk (1995)
Kicking & Screaming (1995)
Party Girl (1995)
Amateur (1994)
Dead Connection (1994)
Mixed Nuts (1994)
Sleep with Me (1994)
Coneheads (1993)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Joey Breaker (1993)

So... overall... Parker Posey? Should we keep her? Is dating Ryan Adams the last straw? Is being in that commercial with Jimmy Fallon?

I say we keep her.

Dave's girlfriend knows what Yo La Tengo means.

So I saw YO LA TENGO, right?

Here are the point form details (edited down from an e-mail sent to someone who will also read this and wonder why I wasted her time making her read both... sorry, m.)

Friday September 30

5:30 pm: Road gets hit. Travellers: Driver: James Kerr. Shotgun: James MacGregor. (we are proud to feature a Jamesian front line) Center-seaters: Mike Nason and Muhammad AD Rock. Back row (bad kids): Marc Bragdon, Eric Hill. Bad kids have a half-pint of Crown Royal.

8:00 pm: We stop at gas station in Grand Falls to food up. My footlong oversauced Meatball sub turns into a two pound bag of marinara. Marc B. compares it to a full diaper. I shove it under the seat.

11:00 pm: Another gas station after Quebec City. I buy two Heineken tall boys to celebrate... whatever. Turns out my bladder doesn't need the work. The first half hour in Montreal is a tense one.

1:30 am (ish... or 12:30 am Quebec time...) We drop off Marc B. and start the chain of MapQuest fueled destination searches. We immediately get turned around, heading the wrong way on Decarie and I have to wind over to a parked Police Car and chat up an attractive Police Lady to get re-oriented. She didn't seemed taken with my obvious charms, perhaps it was my beer breath or the bullet proof jacket around her heart. The directions start to take effect, after Mo deciphers that the distances between turns are on the wrong lines. Thee drop offs continue. Finally the Jameses and I end up at James' M's buddy Dave's place. We scarf some Pabst Blue Ribbon and lay our heads down for a few hours.

Saturday September 31st

9:30 am: Is that the phone? I don't live here, so it's not for me. There's that phone again... still don't live here. Again. (Dave and James M. are staying across the street at Dave's girlfriend's apartment). Is that the doorbell? I don't live here. It's probably a Jehovah's Witness anyway. Is that Mike Nason talking on his cell phone below the window on the street? I better put some pants on and see. Yes it's Mike... he's talking to Cristal, Dave's girlfriend, on his cellphone. I wave. Cristal waves. He goes to Cristal. Who can blame him.

11:00 am: Breakfast at John's. From the Grill means two eggs, toast, homefries and every type of breakfast meat you could imagine, incl. Cretons!! So greasy. So good.

2:00 pm: Science of Sleep at Forum AMC. Quirky fun... maybe not as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... I'll think on it. Charlotte Gainsbourg has that unkempt Parisian hotness nailed, plus her mom's (Jane Birkin) British accent... double whammy.

7:00 pm: Dinner at Abiata... Ethiopian restaurant. There are 13 of us. Jameses, Dave, Cristal, Jess (her roommate), Mike w/ Steve and Scott, Mo with Sean (i think, right?), and James M's sister Margo who happens to be in MTL. coincidentally, and here boyfriend. The food is served atop soft bread on platters: spiced meats of all types, grains, lentils, vegetables... all eaten with bread and hands and nothing else. My taste buds thanked me.

9:00 pm: The National (venue) Why? and Yo La Tengo. Reminds you how good indie rock can get when professional and unpretentious balance out. We run into Mireille about 78 seconds after getting there. World? Not big. Afterwards there are beers and cabs and kitties and sleep.

Sunday October 1:

10:00 am. Wake up, shower. No one around yet. Weren't we supposed to meet to go to breakfast around 10:00?? 10:15 am Mike and Steve show up. 10:30 James shows up, tells us that Mo can't make it 'til 11am. 10:35 Mireille calls asks for directions, she is 15 minutes away. Dave, Cristal and Jess show up. 10:45 am Mo calls and won't be joining us, we'll pick him up after breakfast. We wait for Mireille. 11:30 am... no Mireille, we follow our stomachs to Greene's on Greene. We have huge breakfasts, made even more impressive by one half of the group splitting an enormous smoked meat poutine.

1:30 pm. We pick up Mo, find our way out of MTL.

5:00 pm. Stop for gas, somewhere. Pick up 12 Labatt's 50 for Howard, James M. buys two quarts of near lethally alcoholized beer, stores them in the hatch of the van, and we're off.

7:00 pm. Stop in Edmunston for food... they've taken the Subway around the corner to beat it up. Mo. opens the hatch to get something from his bag... James' quarts attack him, he defends himself, he wins, James loses. Mo buys James a sub. And we're off.

10:30 pm. Fredericton. I watch Basquiat. I go to sleep.

Monday October 2

7:30 am I get up and start to gather documentation for grants... and the cycle continues.

This week's favourite quote. So far.

Young woman, responding to a message I left reminding her a CD she'd ordered was ready to pick up... She said she hadn't been in yet because she "had a lot of College and stuff to do."

Don't we all.

Sometimes you are your own worst enemy.

Magnetism.

Awhile ago I made a joke in passing about how I planned to get rich in about 10 years. My scheme was to go to all the pawn shops, flea markets and yard sales and buy up every last cassette Walkman that I could find. Then around 2010 I could start selling them--- perhaps repainted or decorated--- to teenagers as fashion accessories. The trick would be to get whoever the Paris Hilton or Avril Lavigne of the day was to be seen wearing one first.

I can actually see this working... it has a component of nostalgia (the good kind... the kind for things you never participated in in the first place), it has kitsch, it has functional uselessness, it promotes uniformity with enough variety to make a fad viable (you got a red Kenwood? mine's a Sony--- the kind you could take in the shower!) etc.

One of the reasons I started thinking about this again, and thinking it could catch on, is the alarming rise in people asking if we carry cassettes at the store. We haven't for about 5-6 years by the way. At first it was just the people who only had a tape deck in their car... usually a car less valuable than the cost of installing a CD player. Then it was mostly hipsters on tour with their skinny bands who wanted a few yucks listening to the soundtrack of Against All Odds. Now it seems to be confused young men in their early 20s looking to "collect" them for their eventual skyrocketing value. Again only people who hadn't previously been exposed to cassettes would believe that they have any secondary value.

I mean the Bubonic Plague is rare... but I wouldn't buy it on eBay. Or would I?

Surge gone... tide goes out.

The weekend has passed, and these things I have learned.

1) The best time to plan/promote/stage/play an evening of multimedia excitement is not your first 50-hour work week of the year.

2) It's especially not a good idea to have to go set up and play three hours after said work week ends.

3) Climbing ladders makes you sweaty.

4) Harmless Jazz. Booze. ZZZzzz.


All in all it was a fairly successful affair. We could've had more people, but you always can have more people. The pieces fit well together... though a little more time smoothening out the rough edges and improving the "look" of the evening might've been a good idea. All things to carry forward to January.

Now it's a matter of figuring out what's next... and that could be a show down in Moncton with the Houlton RD Trio folks sometime in late October... details have to be ironed out (or ironied out, perhaps).

On the day to day front... there's a Fredericton loiterer who seems to be following me around in a bid to have me witness his passing. I say this because for the last couple of days there has been the sound of a very distinctive, and very mortally-wounded coughing coming from across the street in front of City Hall. That alone is not a matter to raise speculation. After all, those park benches are magnetic beacons for those loafers who aren't part of the King's Place food court caste. However, on my way through the graveyard connecting Carleton St. this morning what did I hear but KAAWRRRF (more or less the sound of styrofoam packing encased in a block of ice and thrown into a wood chipper) coming from beneath a tree near the Junior High building. I thought, "oh good, he knows the end is nigh so he's crawled into a cemetary... nice planning." Except that around noon I was doing some paperwork at the store and what did I hear but KAAWRRRF coming from a bench in Phoenix square yet again.

All I can say is that when I'm in Montreal at the end of the month if I hear that noise... I'm running.