Imaginary Cigarettes

2008-12-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

And to all a good night.

2008-12-23T17:45:00.001-08:00

2008-12-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

At least 23 cm of snow out there. Line up of cars all the way down the street have the same classic "cock and balls" symbol scratched into the snow that encases them, like perverse snow angels.

2008-12-17T12:02:00.001-08:00

It's snowing like a bastard out there. Snow deadens much of the city's natural rythm and noise, but other sounds are oddly highlighted. Buses struggling by outside, their diesel engines emitting a high pitched wail that sounds like strange whale-song. The crunch and tinkle of low speed car collisions.

Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby" is the musical selection of the day.

I Turned My Face Away And Dreamed About You

2008-12-15T16:50:00.001-08:00

Kirsty MacColl died eight years ago this week. I keep thinking about Christmas songs that don't make me want to go on a killing spree and I figured if you're going to do something as bloggy as a list of Christmas songs, why not start with the best?

A song concerning booze, hate, loss and love that triumphs and transcends death. Ms. MacColl's voice is the song's beating heart. The greatest Christmas song ever written, The Pogues "A Fairytale of New York".

2008-12-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

A little defeated today, a little crushed. Getting by doing even more with drastically less is the forecast for at least the next four months at least. This week’s crowning glory was persons planning a return trip to Canada doomed to inevitable deportation just to try and avoid a cholera outbreak for a month. No way of shining up that turd of a case, but you’ve got to admire their moxie.

I am burned out trying to contribute to hopeless cases this week and I’m back on the imaginary cigarettes while I still have this cough.

There is, however, an odd feeling of togetherness that I’m enjoying with the work folks. Picture angry optimists lying half strangled in a mud puddle shouting at cowardly retreating backs “come back here and say that again, bastard. You just wait until I catch my breath and then we’ll see what’s what. You just wait. I’m just going to lie here a minute.”

Brain Fugue

2008-12-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

I have been ill. The fever has receded at last but I have a cough that would make Dashiell Hammett proud. It strikes at the strangest times. I'm cruising along and it even feels like I'm breathing normally and then suddenly I'm in the midst of a coughing fit that actually frightens people on the bus away from me.

Not quite a cough at Dash Hammett's level mind you. TB or no TB he kept smoking 70 packs of cigarettes a day, drinking whiskey by the crate and injecting typewriter ink directly into his veins. Men were made of sterner stuff in those days. Hammett kept a spare Underwood on hand at all times to beat men to death if they tried to take his cigarettes or booze away. I make sad little whimpery noises, drink juice and watch all the little fever hallucinations float by. Bah.

Bells Clanging

2008-11-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

Last Friday night I sat in the back room of the Railway Club having a drink and waiting for the music to start. I was there to see Bells Clanging; a show that I hoped would cleanse my headspace as last week was the beginning of Christmas carol onslaught 2008. The first week of many to be top-heavy with glossy pop retreads of lousy 50’s era seasonal jingles, with the occasional original version thrown in to remind you that they were almost uniformly awful to begin with. For me, Christmas music (Vince Guilardi’s ‘It’s Christmas Charlie Brown’ theme music aside) is something that can only be enjoyed by people desperate to reinforce the appearance of holiday cheer. People who have never worked a retail job where you can’t escape any of these horrible tunes no matter how hard you try.

Bells Clanging have a surprising and delicate sound composed of high, brittle melodies. It’s hypnotic and shifty pop, textured and spare. The first time I saw them play the band had a human rhythm section that has since departed; it’s more of a one man show now. Jason Starnes’ vocals accompanied by his own guitar, keyboard and an array of programmed beats.

There’s a Radiohead comparison to be made to Bells Clanging, but that’s probably just a lazy reaction to the sound of Mr. Starnes’ voice. I love Radiohead, but he tone of Bells’ songs and the nature of the melodies lack the sense of anxiety and doom that shroud Radiohead’s music. It’s emotive without digressing into vocal wankery, ambitious without being pretentious, joyous without being sappy.

I was humming the brilliant “Even Stars Burn Out” by B.C. as I headed to the men's room and was greeted by the sight of a wad of blood stained toilet paper rotating anti-clockwise in a toilet bowl constantly trying to refill itself. I love the Railway Club on a Friday night.

I returned to the back room, four men sat close by reaching the end of a loud aggressive drunkening. As they got up and prepared to walk out into the frigid arms of the evening one stood out as extra annoying. His skin was badly mottled with drink; a pork pie hat was pushed back over his broad greasy forehead. He wavered a short distance across the room where his much slimmer, more attractive Australian friend had found himself pulled into conversation with two women.

Loud boy pushed himself into their midst and heard his friend utter the word "virgin". He was clearly not going to let a little thing like a total lack of conversational context keep him from shoehorning his excess of charm into their lives. He pointed a sausage-like finger at his friend for emphasis as his beer breath washed over them like a toxic cloud.

“Virgin?” he shouted. “So what you’re trying to say here is that you’re a virgin?”

His friend squirmed visibly, tried desperately to acknowledge his friend and somehow maintain eye contact with the women as their orbs rotated disgustedly to the left.

“Yep. I, I guess that must be what I’m saying.” He said.

The question was repeated a few more times at greater volume and got the same response. Loud boy seemed frustrated that the ribs of his audience weren’t shattering under onslaught of convulsive laughter. He had become the anti-wingman but couldn’t see it. Another of his table mates collected him and guided him out with surprising and totally unearned gentleness. You could see the same word twisting its way out of everyone left in their wake. A potent phrase for annoying dude-bro motherfuckers like him, a word whose passage you can taste. We dubbed him Douchebag.

When you see a man like this in a bar, a man who no less than three times punctuated his drunken jackassery by throwing an imaginary woman across the table to mime fucking her roughly while slapping her invisible ass, there is no word that springs to mind faster. But I don’t think it’s all that fitting a description. Actual douchebags serve a purpose in the world and honestly, unlike a douchebag, when I looked at that guy I found it really hard to believe he'd be inserted into a woman, ever.

I eventually left the back room of the Railway and pushed myself near the front of the stage for the set. Bells’ songs start more gently now without the drum kit banging away. The songs don’t have the incessant energy that live drums can provide, but rather draw you in with how simply, heartbreakingly pretty they are. The show had the immeasurable benefit of the great Kris Hooper on second guitar providing a restrained tone of mixed chime and bite and Leanne Coughlin playing keys and providing a lovely harmonic counterpoint. Choreography was provided by the hypnotic blinking of LED lights racing back and forth across the drum machines.

Their music made all the douchebag pain go far, far away. I’d like to see them play several more times as the holiday approaches, if for no other reason than to provide actual beautiful sound to wash away the taste of Christmas’ musical NutraSweet.

Slowly My Poor Brain Engages

2008-11-25T15:47:00.000-08:00

Slight delay over the last few weeks, basically because I’m lazy. I’m trying to finish something off to post here and it’s not quite coming together. In the meantime, here’s a little light music.

Tremble before the awesome power of the Hex Dispensers.

There's No Time To Lose

2008-11-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

Well, that’s a relief.

At one point while they were still counting the votes the TV news coverage cut to a split screen of the Obama and McCain crowds waiting for the results to come in. The Obama crowd milled about, tense and hopeful, the McCain footage didn’t show the crowd, just some Nashville wonk strumming his way through a plaintive country ballad. It was the perfect soundtrack for a generation of sociopathic neo-cons weeping and counting what remains of their money before they ooze off in disgrace.

For once it appears voting for hope and change trumps hate and fear. Toby Keith's Album Sales Are Going to Plummet.

Don't Make Me a Target

2008-10-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

The #19 bus journey serves up the same sights and sounds every day. There's a rustle of bad commuter papers that make up for their total lack of news merit with brevity. Commuters send cold glares at each other or quickly avert their eyes from elderly people looking for reassuring conversations, or pipeheads looking for someone to bark at for awhile. Shoulder to shoulder we bounce off each other as the bad transmission of the cheap eco friendly electric bus lurches through every intersection switch. There’s a tinny symphony of cranked MP3s in the air this morning; dull thudding bass and overwrought shrieks from miscellaneous pop divas.

I’m disgorged into the street, into the cold snap of too-early-in-the-morning air. It’s lightly scented with financial district musk: expensive cologne, perfume, Italian coffee, baked goods, diesel exhaust, and the greasy funk of bike courier body odour. One Quebecois courier waits at an intersection pounding on the hood of a car that’s nearly killed her, cursing its terrified carpoolers in thickly accented English. She flips them off, winks at me and takes off a fraction of a second after the light changes.

Two terrifying things await me at my desk. One, an advisory that something called “Scary Bingo” is going to begin circulating to assist in ramming this month’s enforced fun agenda down our throats. I’m afraid to ask what Scary Bingo is. Certainly the dauber stained people standing outside Planet Bingo in my neighborhood are certainly scary enough some days, but I don’t think this is what’s meant.

Scary thing number two is a Happy Halloween card that’s been sent to us by one of our low function sex offenders who’s taken to incessantly calling us. He is the world’s worst mascot. It looks like it was drawn by an eager to please six year-old. It has the same obvious determination to stay inside the lines hidden in the black and orange strokes of pencil crayon. One dimensional black bat on the front says “boo”. A bedsheet ghost next to it smiles happily.

Good morning downtown.

That’s When I Reach For My Revolver

2008-10-05T23:07:00.001-07:00

Friday morning the sky was full of hazy clouds slowly beginning to thicken and obscure the sun. I had a perfect vantage point to slowly watch everything turn grey. There was one last gasp of incredibly bright sunlight that washed over the building across from me. A huge reflection of gold on the obsidian black windowpanes of the financial district before the clouds closed in fully and the sky started to look like the inside of a smoker’s lung.

True Vancouver October at last. The air turns cold and the wind slowly leeches away the last of the summer heat stored in the pavement and in the building stones. The rain starts in earnest and rinses away the last lingering scents of piss and rotting garbage that haunt the alleyways all summer long. That’s the real signal for the beginning of fall. By mid-October I’ll be shivering outside in the gusty damp trying to keep a cigarette lit while the rain undoes any plans I have to stay even half dry by coming at me sideways.

Mission of Burma played a brilliant show this week. It’s a rare treat to see a band reform and not only play incredibly well, but to clearly be having a really great time while doing it. Hell of a loud set too. Roger Miller doesn’t wear the industrial headgear he used to use to combat his tinnitus anymore. I guess the last tour allowed them to spring for fancy, nearly invisible earpieces. Sadly the ringing in my own ears after the show was not sufficient to drown out the three-way hippie drum circle that broke out on the bus on the way home.

Picture a Tim Buckley circa 1970 looking tye dyed alpha male, arm slung around peasant skirt wearing earth mother with a drum clutched between her matronly thighs. Third wheel dirty sidekick in a camouflage baseball cap (what kind of self respecting hippie wears a camouflage cap anyway) cackling like a madman throughout the rhythmic frenzy. All of them proudly flying the freak flag, 40 years too late.

Perhaps they were celebrating the coming of fall, or the fact that Phish reformed, or some such thing. A common sight in Vancouver during the summer months. Watered down, fourth generation counter cultural bullshit sadly mistaking annoying all and sundry with “blowing our minds”.

The trip with them was mercifully brief, and this behavior is one that is also seen less and less once the fall rains start; I guess all the damp in the air makes hippie drum-skins too flaccid to help them freak out the squares. Welcome back October. I've missed you.

"We're all heroes here....twat"

2008-09-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

What the 21st century needs most is a tv show about superheroes that drink. I give you...No Heroics.

Dream me oh dreamer, Down to the floor

2008-09-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

I was on my way home last week and saw posters up all along Pender Street advertising an upcoming show from a Motley Crue “tribute” band. You don’t pay tribute to a band like Motley Crue; they appear in your town like the first sore before a major herpes outbreak and infect other innocent bands. The World Health Organization should follow them on tour. They were here a couple of months ago on another cash-in tour of sad, predictable Disneysleaze and two months later here comes a poster advising me that “rock n’ roll ain’t dead”. What a relief.

I don’t want to come across like some effete indie fan who sits at home listening to The Decemberists or Belle and Sebastian albums, cataloging my cardigans and bursting into tears every time I get an erection. But I also don’t need a washed-up cock rock band touring around perpetuating the myth that if you don’t wake up next to some strange silicone and peroxide casualty every morning while coughing up cigarette tar onto a pile of money and cocaine somehow you’re a less authentic rock band. Yep, rock and roll is all about sex and there are tons of awesome sleazy bands that rock out with their cock out but clinging to that faded rock star fantasy is a tired move. The 80’s were a dark time that is currently in vogue, we don’t need any more reminders than we already have.

So, in the interests of reminding myself that there’s more to rock and roll than the “we like to score” ethic I decided to get me a scalped ticket to TV on the Radio last night. I wanted a good show to cap off the summer and TVOTR seemed like a safe bet as they’re a transcendent live band, and one that I’ve got a mad love on for.

I hit the street early and ended up waiting some time for the scalpers to show up while sitting drinking cheap beer on the patio of a café next to the Commodore Ballroom. It wasn’t a pleasant wait.

Granville Street is a weird place to hang around these days. The entire street has a nasty “brought to you by Jagermeister” vibe. Crowds of people wander around drunk, coming up with increasingly annoying ways to let passers-by know what a good time they’re having. Three douchebags had set up shop next to me with pitchers of beer and an Mp3 player and proceeded to serenade everyone with bad renditions of popular rock hits. One of the three didn’t even sing, he just screeched out phonetic recreations of all the guitar solos.

Bad karaoke like this is the dark by-product of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. There was a horrible moment when they started to sing and I realized that they were practicing for another marathon gaming session. Don't they have homes to go to? Girlfriends to neglect? I had to sit through not one, but two renditions of Say it Ain’t So. They went on for at least an hour and a half and finally wandered off singing We are the Champions. I had rich, detailed fantasies of beating them to death with my chair. I should have moved, but the patio had an excellent view of the street and as I said the beer was cheap. In a way I was a little bonded to them by the end. Some kind of weird Stockholm syndrome thing. After they left I missed hating them so much I kind of wished they’d come back.

Eventually I sidled up and bought a ticket. I ended up paying more than I would have if I'd gotten off my ass earlier and bought it through regular channels, but I consider the extra cash paid to be a sloth tax. The show was worth every penny.

TV on the Radio played brilliantly. There's no point in breaking it down to "they played this song, they played that song" commentary. The band don't waste a lot of time with banter, they just wander out on stage and get right down to business. They take songs that on their albums are interconnected sheets of noise and adapt them into epic rock songs that are free of irony, free of cliche. Each song is totally reborn from the way you're used to hearing it every time they play. Well worth wading through a sea of douchebags to listen to.

I feel more like smiling these days than I have for some time and they made the perfect soundtrack. One last burst of summer enthusiasm to carry along with me as the nights get longer and colder and wetter.

Oh, be joyful

2008-08-18T01:12:00.000-07:00

Hot and humid out there today. Air’s thick like syrup and the light has this tan coloured particulate quality, polluted and grimy. A wasp flew into my apartment and has been slowly flying in confused angry circles for 10 minutes. I’m hesitant to disturb him. It started raining for a few short minutes and that did nothing but drag down more oppressive heat. Humidity like this doesn’t break, it cracks.

Had the distinct pleasure of watching the Pack AD last night. There’s never any shortage of blues in this city, from the seriously limp white-boy portions served up most nights at the Yale to the odd busker ripping out his best sub-Clapton street corner shtick. For the most part BC should hang its head in collective shame for we are the province that brought you both Colin James and David Gogo. None of our home grown blues has any bite, which is horrible. Phoning it in while playing the blues is like having a loaded .357 and only using it as a paperweight. The Pack AD play some mean blues and the .357 is not only loaded, the safety is off and they're coming for you and your loved ones. Not an ounce of fat on those songs and they're totally free of the ego driven noodling that is the downfall of so very, very many blues songs played by so very, very many white people.

It was a bit of a sloppy performance, there was some confusion over a misplaced bottleneck and some guitar tech issues seemed to have them both a little peeved, but their phenomenal live dynamic was as great as ever and the new album is killer-b.

After an evening of too much drinking I spent most of today reading outside on my balcony, consuming cigarettes and pomegranate juice in equal amounts and listening to the masterpiece that is "Oh Be Joyful" over and over and over. All around the world yet another poncho wearing bastard in a Stevie Ray Vaughn cover band burst into flames while slouching through his set and few people know why. Anyone who hears Funeral Mixtape by the Pack AD knows why. The world is at last beginning to balance itself out.

That is all.

We Are Our Only Saviors

2008-08-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

"I didn’t make this myself but I’m gonna do it. ‘Twas a man he had a pretty wife and she went and losed her mind, about her husband. We’d go out and play for the insane asylum people and they would dance. She was there and her husband would go and sing to her. And two weeks after he sang this song, she came back to her senses and they got back together. That’s to show how music can bring you back….if you ain’t too far gone."

Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter talking about the song Dancing With Tears in my Eyes.

Was there really any point at which a song saved your life or was it just self aggrandizing hyperbole? I’ve spent so much time this week, when I wasn’t sleeping, thinking that there was such a thing as a song that was keeping me alive. Maybe it was me the whole time and the songs were just reminding me.

For the last month I’ve been on a search for a new really great summer album. The album that provides you with a single that gives you a real survival anthem. I’ve combed through the bins at every record store in this sad little city on what I feared was a futile search, and then all of a sudden the great Steve Lee reminds me that the Hold Steady have a new album out and I gave that bastard a listen

Even though at their worst, songs by the Hold Steady just kind of sluggishly relay on power chords and roll along like the worst lay ever, at their best you realize they’re writing hymns. Big power chord fuelled hymns. The kind of songs that can keep you alive. Or that remind you that you need to get out in the street with the kind of people that keep you alive.

I’ve cheated this week and put up You Tube posts when I could have been writing something better. I’ll try to be less lazy in the future. At the best, at least I've kept to a week long theme.

In closing I will give you what I think is the best survival anthem I’ve heard in some time. A very nice reminder. We are our only saviors. Let's see how I do next week.

Damp City

2008-07-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

Went and saw Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson this evening. It’s a fine documentary. Nothing too spectacular but it has some wonderful footage and the obligatory Johnny Depp voice over. I never get tired of watching Dr. Thompson shoot typewriters and pour scorn on Richard Nixon.

I walked most of the way home in the rain. I should have stayed on foot. The bus I rode the last few blocks home on smelled like a beer can left out in the sun with cigarette butts floating in three inches of rancid lager at the bottom.

It is uncharacteristically cold, wet and dreary for this time of the summer. There are strange booming noises somewhere out in the street.
I desperately need to sleep but I've been having the dream about the pit bulls fairly regularly this week and I'm afraid to close my eyes for any great length of time. I am experimenting with a rather potent combination of red bull and cachasa (Brazilian sugar cane booze) and it appears to be keeping me on my feet, or at least crawling semi-coherently. I am focusing on beautiful things and aggressive noises. Today's survival anthem is both a beautiful thing and an aggressive noise. My most favorite punk song ever. by X.

My phone's off the hook, but I'm not.

Lonely is all we are, lovely so far.

2008-07-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

I forgot to bring the ashtray in from the balcony before the rain arrived. I went out there last night and found four cigarette butts floating in three inches of brackish brown water. Ah the metropolitan life I lead. I am a velour smoking jacket held together with duct tape.

Crappy sound quality be dammed, I think this next survival anthem sounds better over-cranked and the most important thing is you can hear the Tunde Adebimbe’s ethereal rasp just fine. It’s what’s keeping me moving forward today, stumbling along on 1 ½ hours of sleep, determination and six and a half cups of coffee. Thank you for taking my hand.

Next Anthem. Heard best past 4 am. Kills hangovers

2008-07-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

You roll home just as the sky starts to get light. Things are as quiet as they're likely to get, the clock is starting to close in uncomfortably towards five. You both crash down on the couch like dead weight. It does not collapse. She falls sideways and her head comes to rest on your leg, further incentive to stay upright as it would be horrible if she were to move.

You cry out in unison disgustedly as the birds begin to sing. The sky turns the colour of an old bruise, like the one on your arm where she squeezed you too hard when the band started playing. Your mouth tastes of cigarettes. You help her into bed and close the door and curtains against the horrible encroaching daylight.

2008-07-27T22:49:00.001-07:00

This weekend has left me feeling less than refreshed as I stare down the barrel towards another week of working with freaks and other assorted deviant motherfuckers. Drinking with co-workers on Friday night had me staggering home in the wee hours. I also checked out Les Savy Fav and Jay Reatard at the Commodore which was an amazing show but doesn't exactly have my liver writing me any mash notes.

Not exactly hung over. Just dispirited and a little jumpy. I feel wrung out. I feel a theme week coming on, all survivor anthems all the time. Songs that make it easier to roll out of the house tomorrow morning. Steve Earle seems like the perfect place to start. More to come....

Listening to Watchmen

2008-07-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

Whoever cut the Watchmen trailer deserves a prize. I'm sitting there watching The Owlship rise out of the sea, and Dr. Manhattan exploding Vietcong, and The Comedian being chucked out a window in slow motion and all I can think about the whole time is that they chose to play The Smashing Pumpkins' “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” behind it. An inspired choice, I thought.

Terrible, terrible song; but an inspired choice.

The movie Batman and Robin is a shit comic book adaptation and an assault against all that is pure and good in humankind. Playing it behind the trailer for a film adaptation of one of the greater graphic novels ever made takes irony to all new heights. I don't know if the finished film will be any good, but the trailer made my day.

Watched the Watchmen trailer in front of the Dark Knight, a really damn good movie. Christian Bale's Batman needs a lozenge.

2008-07-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

Ah, blowing the dust off the long neglected blog (again)....

This year say it with an internet meme: Pick a most important album of the year for every year since your birth....

1973 The Stooges - Raw Power

1974 Big Star - Radio City

1975 Bob Dylan and the Band - The Basement Tapes

1976 The Ramomes - The Ramones

1977 Television - Marquee Moon

1978 Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

1979 Talking Heads - Fear of Music

1980 The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight

1981 The Gun Club - Fire of Love

1982 The Clash - Combat Rock

1983 X - More Fun in the New World

1984 The Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

1985 Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

1986 Spacemen 3 - Sound of Confusion

1987 The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands

1988 The Pixies - Surfer Rosa

1989 Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

1990 Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

1991 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

1992 Buffalo Tom - Let Me Come Over

1993 Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville

1994 Weezer - Weezer

1995 Bjork - Post

1996 Cracker - The Golden Age

1997 Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole

1998 Massive Attack - Mezzanine

1999 Junior Kimbrough - Meet Me in the City

2000 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

2001 The Dirtbombs - Ultraglide in Black

2002 Spoon - Kill the Moonlight

2003 The Kills - Keep on Your Mean Side

2004 TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes

2005 The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday

2006 The Roots - Game Theory

2007 PJ Harvey - White Chalk

2008 Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07

Searching for Criminal Masterminds

2007-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

I would like to take this opportunity to call out to all budding criminals everywhere to step up their fucking game. I mean, a combination of anti-ADD drugs, food additives, lack of understanding of the fundamentals of birth control and poor parenting should have us surrounded by flesh eating sociopaths who communicate entirely through emoticons or Internet speak in just a few more years. Soon we'll have the pleasure of watching the little bastards kick us to death as their speedy little fingers text away (Dy u fukr!). Can plans for world domination be so far behind? Dream bigger little thugs, dare to dream bigger.

While we're waiting for supervillians we can be entertained by this guy. Clearly Blofeld here is a bastion of the old guard, and one from my hometown. (thanks Boing Boing)

Geeks will buy anything

2007-09-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

People have heard me rant about this before, but it's worth mentioning again. The action figure market has created what is, without doubt, the greatest action figure ever. It is certainly the only one that I would ever consider buying.

I never got into the toys. You can't spend any amount of time in most comic shops in Vancouver without coming across guys who are just scary crazy for them, and mercy knows I've spent far too much time in comic shops. Those people have always left me scratching my head a little. Perhaps I knew that I already spent so much damn money on the comics and that if I started buying toys it was a slippery slope towards becoming one of those fanboys who live in small basement suites and dine nightly on Mountain Dew and Ramen noodles while cackling with joy at the latest posable Mr. Frodo toy (push his tummy and he cries real Hobbit tears). In honesty I think it was just never my thing, until now.

Yes, the good people at Jakks, in an effort to sell off more plastic shards of the childhoods of 30-somethings who should know better have created a toy that belongs in every home. Sure it's clearly intended for movie geeks and the irony obsessed, but why shouldn't it be in the toy box of every child? It's part of the Rocky action figure set and whoever came up with the idea deserves a big prize. It's... Meat.

Yes, your very own plastic replica of the side of beef that helped Rocky train for the big match...and not win (sorry, should have warned about spoilers there) can now be yours. Comes with a bloody butcher apron, Rocky figure not included. Batteries are also not included, which is a good thing I think. I believe that to market a toy like this to kids you should try to emphasize the joy of imagination that can only be inspired in a child by a plastic side of beef.

Just putting out a toy like this isn't enough. Time has rendered Rocky a little played out as a franchise character. It's time for a spin-off. It should be treated as part of a big 80's/90's throwback of toy marketing. Let's get Marvel to put out a comic about The Meat and give The Meat it's own cartoon series. "Evil PETA hoards are attacking the city! Jesus, who can save us now? Somebody light the Beefsignal and summon The Meat and his Side Order The Fries before it's too late!" Nicholas Cage can play The Meat when they make the live action adaptation of the comic book too.

I miss John Peel more than ever

2007-09-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

The lady who sits next to me at work is truly a kind person. When I went away to Spain last year she tutored me in Spanish during the lunch hour to get my high school level of communication up to a standard where I could speak with the people of Barcelona on my and my girlfriend’s behalf. She is sweet and professional, friendly, and is a member of the “fun club” that tries to keep us all mollified with ice cream socials and tea parties with wacky hats.

Sweet lady to be sure, however, if I had the ability to kill using only my mind she would be nothing but a bittersweet memory and it’s all because of our local Lite FM station. I know that every city in the western world has one of these stations. The kind that plays music that was once described by someone wittier than me as being “for people who hate music but love to shop”. She plays this station at a discreet volume that guarantees that you can’t ask her to turn the radio down any further, because that will mean just turning it off altogether, but still means I can make out every single word and discern every limp, accessible melody.

This music is making my life a misery and yet if I smash her radio into little tiny pieces I would be seen as the bad guy. The songs drill into my brain, the inane banter of the DJ’s kills your soul faster than watching any sex scene described by Takeshi Miike as “tender” and the radio call sign (which sounds like it was sung by a choir driven to unemployment when Laurence Welk died) haunts my dreams. I’ve never regretted being cubicle veal more in my entire life.

It’s not just that the songs are awful, trite and yet memorable at the same time. It’s that they play the same songs over and over again, day after day. Every day without fail I will hear a cavalcade of songs that I hoped to never hear again after the first time they pissed on my eardrums.

Despite my plentiful suffering it’s really the DJ’s that I feel sorry for. At one time I’m sure they listened to mainstream radio and dreamed of charging out of DJ College to join in the wacky hi-jinks of the Morning Zoo’s in their town. They wanted to pummel listeners with that classic “old car horn” sound effect, make limp innuendos and interview Gene Simmons or the drummer from Limp Bizkit. Instead they get to speak in measured tones so as not to upset anyone on their morning or evening commute who’s awaiting another replay of ‘Mambo #5’ with bated anticipation. They have to pretend to be excited at the prospect of playing the Pina Coladas song or anything by Shakira.

It's not like they can quit. All they have to fall back on is playing the chicken dance for drunk assholes at weddings. The DJ suicide rate must be higher than dentists, either that or they have on site psychiatric staff that talks them in off the ledge every day before the commercial break ends.

Here is a small sample of the artists or songs that haunt me, every day. This is the magic that happens when white meets bread:

Matchbox 20
Goo Goo Dolls
Maroon 5
Whitney Huston
Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams”
Corey Hart “Sunglasses at Night”
Bryan Adams
Yet another cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” that’s so bland and obscure I have no idea who’s responsible for it. Have mercy, I think it’s Bonnie Raitt.
A-Ha
Have You Ever Seen the Rain – the stunning new cover version by Rod Stewart
Everlasting Love
Believe – Cher
My Heart Will Go On
Your Song – Elton John
More Shania Twain than any one person should have to endure
Sometimes When We Touch
Break my Stride
Drift Away
Africa by Toto
I also think I heard Jamiroquai once but I fled the room screaming

House Hunting Sucks

2007-09-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

Finally the noise of the condo construction has driven us back out to drift through the rental market. Saw a giant house yesterday that had been converted into apartments. The landlord/owner looked like a badly aging Steve McQueen who'd had all the moisture scientifically removed from his body. Evil house dwarf tried to rent us an apartment without toilet or shower for $1025. Another suite in the building had a small bathroom but that cost an extra $100.

For this I shave on a Sunday. Bastards.

Dreaming of a Softer World

2007-09-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

I was reading the "Comics Should be Good" blog over at Comic Book Resources today (an indespensible site for all nerds who want to get their comic shit correct) and they reminded me about how good A Softer World is. A Softer World is one of my favorite web comics but I haven’t checked up with it in ages. It’s a righteous on-line comic strip that uses photography in the panels rather than drawings. It is by turns funny and sad and is a treat to read. I will be perusing the archives over the next few days so I can get caught up. Make with the link and check it out for it is superb.

Shaking some action

2007-09-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

Aaaaand we’re back. I guess nothing worth writing about here happened in the last few months huh?

So my friends and I started playing music again this evening. That’s right, we’re putting the band back together. I don’t know if we’re going to keep it up long term, but we are playing once a week all month long and seeing what happens. We wrote together for a few years until all musical creative urges fell comatose and we started playing the same songs over and over. Just like that, playing a song that you helped write and used to love became something to be avoided; all the songs suddenly reminded me of someone I owed money to. Picture five guys standing in a smelly room staring at their shoes waiting to go home. Maybe that was just me that wanted to go home.

Still, when we first started out, helping create new music and playing it real loud was exhilarating (the first half a year especially). Gigs were fun too, although I’d rather be given a killer bee enema and then have my asshole sewn shut than play that shitty jock bar out on Broadway again. Picture tequila vomit in the urinals and and a guy in a backward baseball cap who called me a fag and tried to hit me with a beer bottle after our set. Those images sum the place up nicely.

Lo and behold, tonight was fun again. I’d forgotten how hilariously hard it is to harmonize with the other singer in the band and how unique an opportunity it is to watch Kris jump out of the way of clichés while playing lead guitar. I’ve got much respect for him for suddenly remembering the chords for Teenage Kicks too.

Standing in the Way of Control

2007-05-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Hah. My job is trying to kill me but I elude death once again, for I am made of stern stuff. I fear no workload no matter how overwhelming. Short-staffed, underpaid and over-caffeinated, I’m taking on all callers like Jack Johnson.

Bring on the criminal youth clients who are caught masturbating over the body of a small cat that they just finished mutilating and then set on fire, throw your dysfunctional families or desperate immigrants fleeing death squads into the mix. It’s all under control. Deadlines? All I need is a day to work my magic you bastards. One day.

I spit my broken teeth into your eye and shout “is that the best you’ve got?” There’s no stopping me.

New blog person trudges to work, tries to write about it and avoid cliches

2007-05-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Another one of those Vancouver mornings where a.m. blue sky and weak p.m. starlight the day before gives way to slate gray skies and weak drizzle. People march across bridges clutching travel mugs full of cheap coffee looking miserable. Lady on the bus today, expensive suit, unopened paperback clutched in her lap, simultaneously scowling and fighting back tears. Office drone sits in traffic in a shiny rain-repellent SUV with Pink Floyd blasting through open windows, checks his hair plugs, scratches himself and sets the controls for the heart of the sun. I liked the older trolley buses where you were a little bit above the traffic and couldn’t see into the cars.

Another morning commute spent resisting the temptation to get everyone on the bus to join in a rousing rendition of Whistle While You Work. I get to count myself as a member of this-blessed-plod, these proud few, these happy few, this band of brothers (and sisters).

Today’s Music so far:
Tom Waits: Low Down
TV on the Radio: Blues from Down Here
Coleman Hawkins: Picasso
Clap Your Hands: Some Loud Thunder

Sit Right Down My Wicked Son....

2007-04-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

So I get a day off on a beautiful day like today and all I can do is peer suspiciously at the sun through the blinds. I should get my pale self outside.

There's a construction crew demolishing the last of the building just a ways down the alley to clear space for more condos. The sound of grinding concrete as they sweep away 70's eyesore to make room for 21st century eyesore has the cat trembling under the bed. Vibration travels through the floor to raise more nails through the aging hardwood to assault my feet. As good a time as any to greet the day.

(Brings LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio, Thelonious Monk and that Kings of Leon album that Steve got me that I haven't made my mind up about yet. Exit wringing hands, searching for coffee.)