Brooklyn

  Lazing around the apartment was getting pretty old, and schedules were needing to be aligned pretty quickly, so a fairly last minute trip to Brooklyn ensued.

  I was supposed to do one of those "fast after 8pm and go in and have your blood tested" things this week, and have plumbers come and work on all three fixtures in the apartment.  The plumbers were told they could come when I was away, and I fasted and had my blood tested before Friday's travelling.

   As some know, my birthdate (including year) and first and last names are identical with those of a convicted felon in the Ottawa area, so many times when I cross the border, I have to be handcuffed, yanked across all the lanes of cars waiting at the border, and explain in the little room (where I am handcuffed to a bench set in concrete) that I am a different guy entirely.  Then they let me in.

  Last time, the guy was especially helpful.  He stamped my passport, even though you don't do that to come into America from Canada, just to help indicate that I was let in, and told me to try including a note next time.  I was dubious, but set out with a note in my passport saying "For your information: I share the EXACT first and last names, and birthdate (including year) with a convicted felon" and etc.  After more than an hour-long wait, I gave the border guard a note, saying "In December they said to give you a note."  He took a look, as two miles of six lanes of cars waited.  Border guards were everywhere.  I waited to hear "Sir, can you turn the engine off and place both hands on the steering wheel.  Now can you take your keys in your left hand and give them to me."  

  It didn't come.  He chuckled and said "That was you?" and I realized he was him.  He was the exact same guy who'd stamped it last time.  

  He paused with his finger over his keypad and said "I really hate to type the number in in case it goes off, but I have to."  He entered the passport number, waited, and breathed a sigh of relief.  "What I did last time was I flagged your passport number, saying you were a different person from the other guy.  Looks like it worked for now.  No guarantees in future.  Anyway, you have a nice time."

  Then it was to New Jersey, where I left my car with relatives, who drove me to the train station.  From there, a short train trip to the World Trade Centre, which oddly, seems to have an awful lot of construction work going on.  Some of the most unhelpful, lacking and "arrows pointing in the opposite direction" signage I've ever seen was there.  I asked a guy "Which way to get to the subways?" and he did the whole "are you scamming/on crack/stupid?" reaction, wondering why I just didn't know where to go, like everyone else.  "I'm from Canada" I said, to explain why I didn't 'just know' where to go.  He then escorted me through some Do Not Cross tape and lifted aside a barrier so I could get through and said "You have a real nice day."  Then I was out of the under construction part, and followed better signs "to the subway" which led me out of the building and then sent me to go up a block, turn right, and then walk two blocks and look around the right corner, where a subway entrance was. 

  Then it was a matter of figuring out subway service that has been specially altered this weekend, and arriving at the brownstone.  Then it was sitting on the stoop with friends, drinking a beer and eating ice cream while the neighbourhood went on around us.

  This afternoon, Brooklyn is steamy and sweat-stained, with a thin patina of greyish grease, as always.

Summer Blahs

  I always have trouble not getting a bit down in the dumps (understatement) when I have too much time off.  Problem is I'm a teacher.  I need to keep myself occupied, and have stuff I'm looking forward to doing, or I just lie around and my days feel and get very pointless.

  It's hot, this summer.  I've been keeping at the fruit smoothies, which is, no doubt, very healthy, and eating less.  That's all good.  I've not been getting out and getting exercise, which isn't.  Also, due to the extreme heat and all the fruit, I've gotten quite the cloud of fruit flies around my kitchen sink.  Dunno how you get rid of those.  I just hope they die out when the garbage is taken out this week.  I'll look them up online.

  Every time I teach English (including Creative Writing) I tend to teach "the hero's journey," and I reference all of these movies that follow the "hero story" structure.  It's fun, but I wanted to finally edit something together.  Therefore, I have got snippets of any number of movies that I am taking bits out of and sticking said bits into the appropriate one of ten folders, each with a hero's journey element ("Hero is pulled into the danger" "Hero refuses his/her calling" "Hero receives a talisman/weapon to help in his/her quest" "Hero is brought to the end of him/herself and has a symbollic or near death" and so on).  Buffy, Hercules, Spider-man, Superman, Luke Skywalker, Frodo, Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid and so on.

  I eBayed a lot of repro (someone took molds and remade them) little weapons for the 1977 Star Wars figures I'm collecting.  It was cheap, and it helps the authenticity of the collection for them to have the weapons.  Figures still in their packages would cost $500-$1000 each, of course.  These cost me maybe $2 each because I bought them loose in lots.

Holes

This song I just remixed this evening. Was intending a bunch of music room additions (tubular bells, huge bass drum) and may still. For now, here it is.

This is another of my old songs I want to make bigger and bombastic-er. And with a Lord of the Rings elves part in the bridge. Notable things in this song are that I'm playing all instruments (organ, piano, guitar, crash symbols, drums, pennywhistles) except the violins, and Julian was holding the microphone against his neck and humming in a bass range below what I can quite hit, to give an ominous threatening rumble. An entire choir of my sister is singing the bridge. Bill amused us all with that scream, which he did first take.  We said "Are you Ok?!" and he said "You need a couple more?"

Happyfake

Like so many things, it started right back when I was a kid.  I noticed that in most social situations, we were very much expected to be happyfake.  The people who said not to lie to them lied all the time and asked us to lie to others.  It was largely about giving the expected impression even if that meant giving a false impression.  Being in church circles made that get worse, not better.  We were not to tell unpleasant or awkward truths.  We had to like everything and think everything was fine all the time.  I think being Canadian is more that than being American is, and not so much "that" as being British is.  Probably about on a par with being a New Zealander, and more than being an Australian.  We're not very blunt, in Canada, to speak in generalizations, as one needs to do on occasion.  We're just not.  We can only gaze on in baffled amazement at the confident, strident nonsense so many Americans seem willing to spew.

Our house was almost always deadly silent.  I wasn't to run up the stairs.  Ever.  Voices were not generally raised in our house, and when they were, it was my dad who got to do it, and you'd better believe something bad was about to happen.  Raising my voice in annoyance, or expressing annoyance, or being negative about anyone or anything we were too closely connected to was just rude.  Judging other, disconnected people was ok, of course.  Judgments that no one present could in any way take personally were idle chit-chat.  "Saying the wrong thing" to or about someone who was present, though, was something we lived in terror of.  We still do.  When you "say the wrong thing" people walk out of the room.  They stop talking to you.

You weren't to complain in any way that mattered.  It had to be impotent complaining to be OK.  You could complain endlessly about stuff you bought in stores and service in restaurants, but NEVER to the people in question, and never in aid of seeking a refund, an exchange or an apology.  To do that would have been ridiculous and unthinkably embarrassing.  When anyone we were with actually did it, we were mortified and resented them.  It wasn't done.  None of the complaining seemed to result in people getting in touch with their feelings and getting themselves figured out, either.  When people were angry, half the time they didn't know it, let alone admit it.  If they did admit it, they would have had to apologize.  Being caught feeling angry was NOT OK.

A church youth group was about teenagers being together and having a good time, without (in theory) using cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, sex, TV or movies to have said good time.   That's what you were to do.  Prove that the good time could be had.  Not fitting in, not having a good time meant something was wrong with you.  Not enjoying what was going on (I remember board games, volleyball and songs, as well as a lot of standing around) meant something was wrong with you.  Was something wrong with you?  It was like social groups at school, and it was like living in suburbia, only a lot worse.

When people asked you how you were, you were fine.  When people asked if you liked what the speaker had said, you did.  When people asked if you were looking forward to, well, anything at all, including school (in September when it was August and you were 12) of course you were.

I had a problem.  Something was wrong with me.  I'd say "Not really."  I'd say "I have allergies."  Sometimes I'd just baldly say "Nope."  Unacceptable.  Problematic.  Negative. (grammatically so)  Not how to meet and keep friends.  Asshole behaviour of the first order.  People would take me aside when I was 12, when I was 16, when I was 18 and reveal that, obviously, most people felt most of the things I did, that NO ONE felt like they fit in (especially the leaders) but that one didn't refer to those feelings, as they weren't constructive.  They skewed the status of the quo. Stiff upper-lipped smile.  Tough it out.

I still "say the wrong thing" all the time.  Sometimes I mean to and I still think afterward that it needed to be said.  Too often I didn't see the negative reaction coming and didn't know it would be "the wrong thing."  That always makes me feel like such an idiot.

So, if I could somehow, magically just not have negative (or disconnected) emotional reactions (or lack of reactions) to anything, then I'd have more friends?  People would like me more as a unique, special human being?  Oddly, I have found the opposite to be true.  If it's about "true" (and I try to live as if it is) being honest whenever you can (and most of us aren't even trying most days) makes quite a difference.  Part of that difference is you are inconvenient.  You are being (cardinal damning adjective of the early 21st century) awkward.  You're not supposed to tell the truth if it's going to make people feel awkward.

Saying something that makes people feel bad is looked at as having uttered something that was somehow inherently, regardless of context or intent, "negative."  Similarly, saying things that make people feel awkward is looked at as having given voice to something that was somehow inherently, regardless of context or intent, "awkward."

Grammatically perfect, eloquently constructed sentences can be "awkward" now, if anyone feels funny once you've said them.  And if you do enough awkward things?  You are a "creeper."  And no one wants to be a creeper, right?  Even if they are telling the truth?

Funny thing: when you are the first person to tell the awkward, creepy truth about something, whole herds of people find it makes them glow inside, every bit as much as it makes them squirm outside.  They don't want to be near you in public, they sometimes don't even want to be seen talking to you or seeming to support you, but they glow inside anyway.  Sometimes they tell you secretly, afterward, trusting you to not reveal they ever did that.

If Christians are to become more like Jesus, they'd better give up on fitting in, keeping a low profile and just being quietly supportive, as well as keeping their mouths shut when they see hypocrisy and abuses of power and authority.

When I worked for the first time with a whole lot of people from  a large number of other cultures, I suddenly found out how uptight and emotionally shut up we really were in Canada.  I learned that if someone from Somalia or Lebanon disagrees with you, they may well simply tell you in no uncertain terms.  They may not even feel the need of having a handy argument ready.  They might simply not like your idea and tell you that and say nothing else.  They may not say "I'm sorry, but I feel..." at the start. They may not say "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel" at the end.  They may not say "OK, but have you considered..." in the middle.  There is much less ambiguity and doubt in the discussion when it rolls like that.  People speak their hearts, even if they're angry, like they've simply got that right, and all in a country where being angry is something one generally needs to apologize for, just like getting teary.  "Sorry.  I got a bit emotional.  Give me a moment to compose myself.  If I can't get myself composed, I'll leave of course, even if it's my own mother's funeral.  I promise not to trouble you with my emotions.  OK.  There.  Now what were you saying?"

I was raised that Hispanic people were known to generally be hot-tempered and passionate people.  That black people had an easy, open, natural emotionality and connectedness to their feelings.  That Asian people were excitable.  That Greeks and Italians were too.  That Arabic people were hot-tempered and passionate too.  Even people from Newfoundland, on the east coast of our country, were weird.  They were blunt.  They laughed and partied and joked more.  They cared how they looked and what people thought less.  Eventually I realized: it's just us.  It's not really a matter of all of them being more something.  It is us  being less a bunch of very human, very emotional things.  It's a matter of us faking stuff, and repressing and suppressing stuff.  (the difference between repressing and suppressing stuff is that you don't know it when you've repressed stuff)

To this day, when someone is ungodly happy in a conversation, and is presenting the image of  "Oh, I'm not actually in a giddy mood at all.  This is just me! I'm just the sort of person who walks around smiling and humming to myself most days!  Yup!  This really me!  I'm just happy most of the time!  I LOVE exclamation points too!  Don't you?" I immediately think "Fake.  You aren't that at all.  Not really.  You're just BEing it because you think it's how you want people to view you."  And too often, with white people in Canada?  I'm right.  I'm tired of that.  Being right is so not enough.

Some Trite Words for Sunday

Inspired in part by the Slam Poetry Finals I taped.

When I meet people, there is always a little part of me that wants to "adjust" bits of them.  Not big changes, just little adjustments.  Things like "Why are you dying those colours into your hair?" "Why are you using that weird voice when you want people to laugh?"  "Why are you trying so hard to be good-looking when you're already good-looking except that now your desperate efforts to fix perceived faults are eroding that and underlining/creating said faults?"  Stuff like that.

If any of us somehow gained the ability to simply "adjust" everyone to be more to our liking, a lot of the differences would go away.  Certain kinds of traits and behaviours in certain kinds of people would disappear entirely.  There might not be a single mullet-wearing hunter, yuppie douchebag, dirty hippie or soccer mom left on the planet.  People would be much more "the same."  And that really wouldn't be good, no matter how tempting it can sound.  It's not what God wants.  He has no intentions along those lines.  He's really not about conformity.  He's rather into diversity, to say the least.  I mean, how many kinds of butterflies does He actually need to make...

This all seems too obvious to be worth mentioning.  Obviously as well, if this is true, every time I meet someone and something small bugs me about them, the fact that I can't change that thing is what's keeping the world full of diversity.  And without diversity, it would be a whole hell of a lot more boring.

Bitterness (originally "The Blade of Bitterness")

This song is about the damage it does to you to be eaten away inside by bitterness. I get accused of that all the time. I think there is a difference though, between correctly attributing harm that was done you, and "dwelling" on it. You have to deal with stuff, and if you don't, and try to "just move on" or "get past that," you'll see the damage soon enough. It was based on the idea that you can arm yourself, with the attitudinal equivalent of a steel blade, to feel safe, but if it has no handle, you can clutch it tight and only end up bleeding everywhere.  The idea that this was rather like a razor blade and teen acts of self-harm, and that it felt, in my troubled adolescence like I was walking around bleeding mysteriously from no one place in particular are all in the song.  It's as emo as I got, I suppose.

This song was supposed to be bullfighting music from the beginning, with the idea of loud guitars eventually added to give more nastiness.  Chris Lochner was amazing at casually ripping out those melodramatic, over-the-top flamenc-ish guitar bits.  I am tempted to learn this style of guitar myself.  It's so dramatic.

I did trumpets for this song, taking advantage of the fact that I'd been playing trumpet with the teacher's brass band at school in order to perform Bohemian Rhapsody at graduation and was in better shape for playing trumpet than usual (because I'd been, you know, playing it).  I played shakers, conga drums (huge ones), chimes and organ.  I messed around with various people singing the chorus as guest vocalists, and wasn't happy with anything that got put down to tape, so I just did it myself today and AM banded it to make the choruses more different from the verses without a different voice.  My sister was doing "aaaaaaaahs" in the song, and I had her actually scream, and mixed that in quietly, then slowed it down and made a "wolf pack howling" effect out of the slowed-down screams, and generally tried to make the song sound very upset.  It's slightly briefer than my other songs, despite the prolonged intro and outro soundscapes. 

Woman

This song was definitely me "reaching" a bit.  Trippy space funk  like Pink Floyd?  Sure.  I enlisted Adam Fogo and Mike Dubue bass guitar and keyboard players extraordinaire respectively.  They were good at that kind of thing and also played together in a band called Gammahootchie.  That was all ten years ago at least and I don't see either of them around anymore much.  Dubue is lead singer for an Ottawa band called The Hilotrons.  Those guys certainly aren't about making slow, draggy music like I tend to do.

So, Bill played the drums without much chance to practice.  They weren't expertly played and they were worse recorded.  Sounded like the kick drum was a five year old kicking a cardboard box.  If I'd actually recorded  a five year old kicking a cardboard box, it might have been interesting.  It wasn't really the recording engineer's fault, either.  The studio's gear sucked.  I liked the interplay between Adam the bass player (who was playing to a simple acoustic guitar track and taking it very much on trust that this song would have any groove or funk to it at any point) and Mike the keyboardist.  I liked the crazy guitar sound I got by putting a distortion pedal before a wah pedal in my effects chain.  I liked my sister singing like Tori Amos when I'd asked her to sing like Clare Torey.  (Clare Torey sang the wordless, orgasmic vocal parts on "Great Gig in the Sky" on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.  Tori Amos did not.  Clare Torey is a little white British woman who can moan and howl.  Tori Amos sings in a mumbly, whispery voice.  But I liked it.)

The song itself was about the wonder and sense of awe that men feel when they meet a woman who makes them think immediately, irrationally of commitment.  (When I was 20, pretty much any woman who smiled at me and had some features I liked qualified.  Many looked like the Plymouth Brethren church girl I drew in the illustration here.)  My friend Mark told me that women "get under men's skin," and that men "let women in."  He said that's why "Hey Jude" says that.  He said sex is God being funny, because it works backwards to that, so the psychology and the physical are opposite.  He said men love their own bodies and their own selves (witnessed by how they protect themselves and their own so unthinkingly and universally), and so they love a woman as if the woman was their own right arm and heaven forfend anyone mess with her.  He said that, by contrast, women were not predisposed to love themselves as naturally and unthinkingly, and tended rather to love from their skin out, taking care of people and places and things that are near them, in their living space.  So I wrote this song about that conversation.

I later recorded Chris playing drums more the way I wanted them, and despite using only a very few, very crappy mics, and my computer putting stuff randomly off beat so I had to end up looping the drums and pasting them back into the song, I was happier with them than the studio work. 

I played a bunch of trumpet parts on it.  I also tried to talk like Barry White throughout, but this made it sound too funny, so I left that bit out in the end. 

I asked Troy to make beep-beep, spacey sounds with his guitar (I could have done it, or asked Joel, but Troy was around and I wanted to give him a part to play, as he had skills and gear).  Today I ran his beeps through (of course) the rotating Leslie Speaker Cabinet and spend the evening messing with stuff.

A facebook friend linked me to a YouTube video of Paul Washer, a preacher, so I "stole" him shouting "That's not Poetry!" and sampled that in to make it sound more "modern" and fiddled and fooled and messed with it until I was so sick of it that I quit.  It ended up like this.