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Everything you see is © by me

(Except the Zeldman above)


Tuesday, July 30, 2002

 

Grande venti (or Italian for "bloody hell"): someone has the same email address as me, but somehow got the .com version. Granted, they were kind enough to forward wayward email. Still, I can't help but worry that the pop3tart smear campaign is underway.

When I was growing up, there was another man in the same city with the same name as my father. Same last name (extremely rare), same first name with the exception that my dad spells his with one "r" and this other fellow had two. The major difference between the two men: their credit ratings. While my dad was an upstanding citizen, this doppelganger was a credit nightmare. Theoretically, we could have been related, what with the uncommon last name and the fact that my great-grandfather up and disappeared from Sweden one day and was never seen again. I'm sure if Money Troubles was loaded, we would have been dropping by with jello salads and DNA kits. But, as it was, it was best to remain on the down-low.

Which is all to say -- pop3tart Dotcom, treat me right.


posted at 10:52 AM

Thursday, July 25, 2002

 

Eleven months ago, as I set out on my first three-day novel, I created Things Fall Apart as a dual-action repository/sepository for my thoughts while hepped up on toaster strudels and words. I wasn’t answering the phone (nothing new there) and wasn’t going out of my apartment (also, status quo). Sure, I’d call people once in awhile with a breakthrough – "This whole wolf child thing is really paying off", for instance – to which they’d sigh, "Uh, yeah, um, great, right?"

Last night, while rooting through my mailbox in the hopes of a musical treat, I found instead the entry form for this year’s three day novel. And lo, it includes a statement from lil’ole’me right there on the verso (well, really it was on the recto but that just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, no?). I’ve started to give it a bit of thought, and yes, I think I’ll do it again this year. And not just because it gives me an excuse to eat toaster strudels three times a day.

Competing interests: Bumbershoot. Fresh air. Sonic Youth. Lake water. Wilco.


posted at 4:34 PM

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

 

It was too hot yesterday to sleep, and too hot to eat, and too hot to do anything but sit in a puddle of your own self. And it was one of those temperature fluxes that Vancouverites are not prepared for, not like heat waves in Toronto where everyone has the deodorant and shower thing down to a precise art, or the heat waves in Montreal where people just stay in bed and self-lubricate all day and into the night. Here, there's just dark triangles of sweat pressing through t-shirts, equal parts sexy and gross, the sexy element depending on the sweat-er. I’m not complaining.

Case in point: I stopped in at a little clothing store on Main Street on my way home last night, and ran into Jason of former Saddlesores fame, (who’s now single, girls) and who always looks hot. Hot as in sexy, but yesterday, also hot as in sweltering. While we’d normally hug, we thought twice about it yesterday -- both exposing too much skin, we would have stuck together like the Wonder bread in a grilled-cheese sandwich. Mmm…no, it’s too hot to even think about food. Mostly, I felt badly for the shop owner who allowed sweaty us into his brain-melting-they're-so-hot change rooms to try on his clothes.

Try explaining this to a lesbian: sweaty men smell great. The more "Afternoon in Saskatoon" than "Evening in Paris" they are, the better. It’s not the smell itself but the underlying testosterone, like a hint of nutmeg in Alfredo. Nicki thinks I’m deranged. As far as I’m concerned, it can keep on keeping on like a Nelly video outside because half-naked and sweaty people are alright by me. I’m pulling for the heat wave to come back in full force, and for us to handle it in true Montreal fashion.


posted at 3:17 PM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

 

Musical interlude:

Busy. Oh, so busy. And there’s something wrong with my neck again and therefore my personality is off-key and I can do little more than Stepford-wife around the office. Thankfully, there’s a hammock in my life. And someone new who puts up with my bouts of anti-social behaviour AND who’s willing to see the bands I want to see.

This song has been stuck in my head for months, brought to me by the lovely Msquat as part of the first round of the CD exchange program for needy third-world children like me. I love Craig Finn’s voice and would add this to the list of the things that he’s got that you don't have and that his girl would want. Also, assless chaps. Lifter Puller, alas, are no more, but you can grab some of Craig Finn’s new band The Brokerdealer here.

A short review about the American Analog Set show: nobody rocks the xylophones better.


posted at 3:06 PM

Friday, July 19, 2002

 

There are few things suckier than arriving back to work from lunch hour with a lazy dog who's afraid of the dark, a bike, a bike helmet, a retractable leash, three new-to-me albums (includes Gary Glitter!), and a sandwich, only to find out that the elevators are being serviced and the only option for getting to the sixth floor is the pitch-black and sweltering hot staircase.


posted at 1:31 PM

Thursday, July 18, 2002

 

Note to men re: facial hair.

Beards and moustaches are a natural match. Do not try to divorce these two, for they are lifelong mates of the swan variety. When you wear a moustache without a beard, it says you are some comb-in-the-back-pocket, stuck-in-the-70s porn-star-wannabe. Exceptions: the gays; RCMP officers; Canned Hamm. When you wear a beard without a moustache, it says you believe you were a druid in a former life and have seen The Phantom Menace once for every year you have walked this infernal soul-wrenching earth. Exceptions: the Amish.

So please, give the people what they want: matching beards and moustaches. Order your complete set now!




posted at 2:37 PM

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

 

Finally, a pop band had the sense to write a song about me. They don't know it's about me, but you do. And my dog does too.


posted at 3:20 PM

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

 

The Passing of the Grail:

So Pam, my podmate, has given her 2-weeks and is down to the last few days. She’s in today, clearing out her desk, and, as she informs me, was the previous keeper of the Ladies of the Animation House porn, which she has dutifully passed on to me. I couldn’t feel more honored. I, the keeper of porn, do solemnly swear to hold, I mean uphold the standards and good willy, I mean good will of the porn collective. Actually, come to think of it, there just might be a photo of a young stud passing a grail, if you get my meaning.

The porn of choice: Leather Man. (Find your own link if you’re that curious, or swing by my desk).

Note: not to be confused with this Leatherman.


posted at 11:59 AM

Friday, July 05, 2002

 

D.F.,

A current lifestyle amendment brought to mind John Donne’s "The Flea". Think back on this: us at 16, uniformed in tartan with the solid tome of English Lit on our desks, spine split to the Metaphysical poets. I can’t even remember the name of the Lit teacher, save for "Rachel" which was the moniker assigned to the massive neck mole that half-cropped her head. The name was in reference to the head on Ms. Grale’s shoulder in A Canticle for Leibowitz and was surely the inspiration behind How to Get Ahead in Advertising. Ms. Mackie? Ms. McKay? Ms. MacKeight? They all seemed to have a variation on the same name, as though off the conveyer belt of a school-marm factory hidden somewhere in the Lakes District. Funny that, not remembering her name. She made our lives hell with memorization by rote ("Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…"), and point/counterpoint of God vs. Satan as per John Milton’s blind vision of the Fall. But seeing as it was girls’ school, and seeing how certain truths need be hidden, her reading of "The Flea" was less Metaphysical, more Puritan. Oh, yes, a flea bit her, a flea bit him, and in doing so, became the receptacle of their romance. ‘Nuff said, right?

Then, we found ourselves in Undergrad English Lit, with the stoner from Slammin’ Arm who asked us if we’d ever read any "Sho-soor". Rachel had seen to it that we’d done the prologue and more than half of the crew’s worth of The Canterbury Tales before setting foot in university. Here, though, under the tutelage of the pace-makered professor, the one who keeled over his desk as a joke then ended up in intensive care and on sabbatical two days later, leaving us with the meek grad student, we learned that blood exchange in "The Flea" was really about "getting some" and the showing of sheets. At that same time, we had an outbreak of scabies in the first year dormitory. It was Quellada lock-down, with everyone monopolizing on the laundry facilities to rid themselves of the scourge. A simple handshake or handjob ensured the spread of scratching as though we all stood with our faces against the same warm breeze. That’s when you swore you’d never buy "dryclean-only" again. You ran through all your book money at the expense of your woolens.

I remember years later, you wrote to complain of yet another Metaphysical professor. This time, the worst of all possible creations: the research professor who demands the inclusion of an obscure poet in the curriculum. So obscure, in fact, that said professor had cornered the market on publishing the required reading. Plum assignment, I said. *#&*#$#$^%, you said. Only this time around, "The Flea" was tawdry, from Donne’s "blue" period, and heaven forbid anyone would prefer his un-Christian rubbish to his post-ordained perfection. All work and no play made both you and Donne rather dull (let’s not forget the point here – the professor’s last name spelled "Murdur" backwards). The experience left you amped on Ativan and pulling the sheets over your head.

Which brings me to the point. You need a new bed.

Much love,
A.M.


posted at 4:13 PM

Thursday, July 04, 2002

 

Creepy.

This was in my inbox this morning:

Note to self. Next time make sure to log out. You never know who might be watching.

PSI

Then this link, which you should follow, because it's exceptionally creepy.


Sucka.







posted at 9:43 AM

Tuesday, July 02, 2002

 

I had completely forgotten about this, and then a scene of a Nashville fiddler rushed it back:

Late Saturday night, or rather early Sunday morning, after decoying along with Nicki at the all girls’ dance, I was weaving up Clark on my bicycle. The night being solid with the heat and my blood stream being awash with ale meant my pace was more meandering than "straight as an arrow" (Nicki’s response to the line of questioning regarding my player status). Where the Skytrain cranes above Clark, the remains of a never-was Roman empire are crammed between the old SPCA thrift store and a salmonberried gully. And at 2:30 am, this tiny amphitheater also held a violinist in full shine. I slowed to a stand, out of sight but still within earshot, half-hoping for a maestro to add a magic element to an otherwise magikless evening. Instead, between the sound of passing motorists, all I could make out was the whittled cacophony of a nutter.

Encore, East Van!


posted at 2:20 PM


 


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