Thursday 25 December 2008

Wallowing in Love and Capitalism

So you know that monkey in Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium that kept on reaching for Jason Bateman. Well I got that monkey for Christmas. And it really is a love-monkey. A solidly constructed sock monkey that has arms perfectly shaped for hugging. And I mean perfectly shaped, ergonomically designed, the perfect hug formula, with just the right amount of all factors to make it a hug-monkey. On our way home from Kelowna the Volvo broke down outside Agassiz so we had to tow it into Burnaby. Unfortunately that means that Mindy (my Firefly) is stuck out in Aldergrove and I have too much stuff (including hug-monkey and an awesome old portable typewriter) to take on the bus so I'm kindof stuck in Burnaby for a while. It's not that great because I have to move into Langley on the 1st or before and I need to start work on maybe the 2nd and school on like the 4th or something. But hey, I'll get there eventually. In the meantime I'm going to do some typing on the typewriter, maybe spit out some masterpieces. Merry Christmas all!!

pipesmokingprofessor

Sunday 21 December 2008

Dawn to Darkness

It's hard to believe that a Christmas could ever be spent away from home. Ever since we actually started celebrating Christmas (only about five years ago I guess) I've always been there, no matter where I'm at, I'll always show up for Christmas. This year I've been up in the Okanagan for the last week, seeing my incredibly cute new nephew Jonas and visiting all my friends and family up here, but with the weather conditions the way they are, driving home come Monday may not be a possibility. The roads are supposed to be a bit better tommorow, but there's that possibility that just looms over my head that we might not be able to make the trip. Then this morning I was reading Christoph's most excellent travel blog and I realized that he's going to be spending his Christmas in Liberia. I mean he doesn't even have snow, but the place of contentment that he has over there, because it's where God wants him to be, makes his blog entries so joyful. That's the kind of peace that I want, that's the kind of contentment that only God can give. I was reading my bible this morning and I came across this verse in Amos:

Amos 4:13
He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
He who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth-
the Lord God Almighty is his name.

God is in control.

Monday 1 December 2008

Powder

I believe this is the last poem that I wrote for my creative writing class that I actually edited and handed in. On Thursday, when I read three of my poems to the class, I had a sudden realization that most of my poems are really dark. Most of them seem to focus on the down and outs, the druggies, the prostitutes, "White Trash" and "Beardo". In fact this made me realize that there is a definate distinction between what I write and emo. To be certain, some of my stuff has been fairly introspective, but most of it is about other people or things. When it gets as dark as some of my stuff it's a small line, but it's a big deal. On that note here's the poem.

Powder
down the front steps
white sneakers left behind to bake in the sunshine
and far out in the field you lie
mesmerized by the white rabbit
white whale
albino everything in the sky

beneath you is a world of dark
you dig in black loam and find
oily white tuber roots
remember one time back home
dog's ear sitting in the trash can
maggots like ants, milling

your whole world turned around
and from then on
it was all ash from a chimney fire
or snow by the late night light of the streetlamp
the universe glimpsed from your bedside
white powder, illuminated dark

snorted in a downtown hotel
beauty takes its time
and then its toll
heads banging on a short carpet
think of nothing else
you don't remember anymore

awake to white walls and watching rerun tv
you OD'd and hit the floor
buck stops at the bottom
watching Charlie Chaplin faded Buster Keaton
pratfalls in a nearby hurricane
nothing fades to grey in film reels
just shades of black and white

so one day you'll walk out
put on a clean cotton shirt
good to the skin
ready for dirt stains
find a field
leave your shoes behind

Zen Master

Sunday 30 November 2008

Pillar of Smoke by Day

Pillar of Smoke by Day

Suspended over the city
like the sepia tone frames
of an antique mushroom cloud
it's a pillar of smoke by day

Charcoal dark it rises up
to mingle with the sky
either man has built an idol
to worship the night gods
or God is pouring down black paint
to mark the earth

Below it is the burnt apartment shell
like a dead animal carcass
the smoke a cloud of dark flies
keep sentry and call the predators in
sirens howling at your ears
put out this toxic campfire
asbestos and wood fill up our noses
gaped wide in search of autumn

As you move through the city
your eyes are drawn
they follow it like Israelites
until a building shields your view
and you can look away

Park Ranger

Saturday 29 November 2008

Ashoka

Listening to Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire

Last post I was listening to a really great song, Danger! High Voltage, and when it was done I put up the hyperlink to the video of it, which I unfortunately only barely glanced at. So then when I finally do watch the video and realize I need to change the link because it's pretty sketchy, I turn right around and post the most sketchy sounding song I can find. I mean what's with that. No, it truly is a good song and a not sketchy video (as well as being a really good band). My only initial complaint was that the main riff sounds strikingly similar to the one from Soundgarden's "Mind Riot", but I think that's just because he uses the same sound and manages to capture the same vibe, so not bad.
I'm now officially finished with my first class. (dropping out of philosophy of religion halfway through doesn't count) I handed in the rest of my poems for creative writing and had a public reading and some brownies that the prof made. All I'm waiting for now is my final marks (which have to be above 60% in order for me to advance to the next creative writing class). I also won the award for the student who was most likely to be late. A very dubious honor. Here's one of the poems that I handed in on Thursday. It's about a really great indian restaurant in Langley.

soundmime

Ashoka

It's sense of smell that draws you in
To find a crowded restaurant
And what you want you know
But finding chicken biryani
Is hard when you don't know the words
Of what your nose descries

Paper thin papadums for appetizer
Menu tells you what you want
It's butter chicken isn't it
The only one you understood

There are other choices now
If you're so inclined
Floury naan bread fills you up
Chunky biryani, cautioned to be hot

Eating with your hands tastes better
Feel every grain of rice in sauce
And every tender chunk of chicken
Disintegrating, butter melting
Curry yellow, in your mouth

Wash your hands in cold water
And return for pungent anise
Biryani in a box, waiting at the door
Lunch tommorow or the next
Or just when you get home

Thursday 27 November 2008

Blood Behind Your Ear

Listening to Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage

Editing your work is important. This never really connected with me fully until last week on Sunday night. In my creative writing class a few of us have started up a "write club" for reading our stuff and giving and recieving constructive criticism. I read out some stuff that was totally freewritten and unedited and I got a lot of great ideas for it, but I realized how much better my stuff would be if I actually bothered to edit it. That's not to say that I don't (I do), but I'm not guerilla enough in my approach, I get too attached to what I write that I have a hard time changing it. I did this great freewrite about this actual person wandering around Surrey central station a while back so I decided to take all the constructive criticism on it from the first "write club" meeting, and get medieval with it. This is after editing.

Listening to Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry

Blood Behind Your Ear
You, middle aged man, wander through the bus stop crowd, cry Lucy with your head upturned. The pavement is your friend, it is your only friend. Cause Lucy is out there in the city, in a hotel room, on the floor, on a binge, with a snot slide burning at her cheek in fevered convulsion. In her eyes is infinity, the hotel bedside and the universe of stars and planets collide like her coke and LSD. But out here you wear down the rocks, caked blood behind your ear from when she left, two days ago, but you still call out her name. Throat bare and raw, chimes cut from a string, windtunnel backporch, untuned, unhinged, in love, in the city, waiting. You wonder was it drugs or a pusher brought her out and down? Or was it just running away? The blood behind your ear, testament to a bathroom fight with pillbottles and a razor. And you know it could be yours or hers, neither one of you is sure. So I look up to you, looking up as you walk by. You, middle aged man, keep calling her name. She's lost to the rest of suburbia, but you've left that world behind. You belong in the gutter and the motel room where she lies in waiting, not knowing. Mistress of mud, and you, middle aged man, will become the mud for her.


park ranger

Tuesday 25 November 2008

2046

I just finished watching 2046. Best movie I've watched in a long time. It walks a fine line. It lost its way often, without ever losing meaning. It was full of sex, but it was never obscene. It had science fiction, but only ever as a metaphor. It was hard to watch, but in the same frame compelling. It was beautiful and artistic, full of drawn out pauses and avant-garde cinematography, but it never alienates the viewer. I would recommend it, but unfortunately I don't think a lot of people would appreciate it, to be honest I'm not sure why I did. Not for the faint of heart or those with a short attention span.
I had a great test this morning. I only studied for it while I was driving to school, but I had taken surprisingly good notes so i think I did pretty good on the test. Next up is a whole slew of papers and approximately two poems that need doing. I could be doing the poems right now, but unfortunately I need to do the papers at the library and I haven't really had much time on campus now that I'm on the scc. And now that I'm acting director I probably will have even less time. I truly am fortunate that Kari is there to take the majority of the responsibility and show me how it all works.

fool sitting here typing

Friday 21 November 2008

Vesuvius

This wasn't one of the rejected poems, but it was given a terrible mark because apparently it didn't follow the criteria close enough. I'm okay with that. (it's also pretty bleak and almost verging on nihilism).

pipesmokingprofessor

Vesuvius
I'm raked over the hot loud mouth of Vesuvius
old man spewing words of senile wisdom
"The world is going to end tommorow Pompeii"
"Punk music is cyanide filling your veins"
as I turn around to protest, he holds high his sign
telling me I'm sinking this ship, but i feel different
and yell back "don't bring me down old man"
he rubs a gumstain with his toe
and becomes melted down into the pavement
walked on by a thousand feet, after being spat out
and after all, i'm just another one of these

Where I'm going is a place of seizure lights
people screaming on a low stage
closer now than ever before, it seems
we will jostle and mosh, fighting for a piece of them
rats trying to escape a flooding sewer
weeds fighting for sunlight in a crowded pond

The old man will not dissuade me
I will have my fix
inject my poison in full knowledge
his drugs are his homemade clean white signs
he's a little child clutching his blanket or favorite toy
at least I know who I am

Wednesday 19 November 2008

All the Wrong Reasons

listening to Rolling Stones: Can't Always Get What You Want

We sit on a sofa our whole lives. Getting worked up over our soap opera girlfriends. The monologue is our vehicle of choice. We don't want to speak, but we'd rather us than anyone else. On the backs of napkins there are half thought phrases. Boxes litter this room, left from warranty deals or just moving your things. you came, you sat, you've never done much since. I think it's called a burn out, but it sure feels like I'm fading away. You don't sleep enough to stay in tense or in person, blackouts if you try to go somewhere. It becomes a prison that you have a key to. You grasp what you need to do, but there is so much of it that you don't sleep. You still wont do it though.

listening to The Clash: London Calling

I finally understand why I get so little sleep. knowledge of self is important, but I often can't understand how I feel or why I do things until I write them out. I would say the reason I get so little sleep is that, although I know it's important in order to function properly, there are so many things that I could be doing with my time that somehow in my mind I lessen its importance. Case in point is what I'm doing right now. On one hand I haven't slept for quite a while now, but on the other hand I've finally been able to articulate why that is, so I'm going to finish typing before I go to bed. Part of it is certainly conditioning. I pull all nighters so often that my sleep meter doesn't register as loud in my mind, kind of like a concience. I will hereby refer to it as my sleep concience (even though it really has no moral significance).

pipe smoking professor

Saturday 8 November 2008

Child of the Trumpeter

This is one of the rejected poems, due to the fact that it's an extended metaphor rather than multiple metaphors. May be a bit disturbing.
pipesmokingprofessor


You are the egg of a regal swan
Laid with care upon a feather nest
Your mother watching over you
With jealous guardianship
Entrusted to her faithfulness

Not much swayed her eye upon that day
A ripple or a summer breeze
She moved to guard her charge
And from the reeds a hungry hand
Lunged and held its daily bread

Entrenched within a woolen satchel
He brought you to his country home
Where you were prodded poked and pierced
your lifeblood spilled and from you stolen
Sucked dry by old men and little boys

Now you sit upon a kitchen shelf
No natural beauty to attract
You're painted bold and clear
The blue and white of August sky
The red of prostituted pouting lips

Friday 7 November 2008

A Mildly Interesting Diversion and a Frustrated Monologue

What I'm listening to today is what the soundtrack would be if my life was a movie. I was reminded earlier today of this gimmicky list that made the rounds a couple of years back, where you would put your itunes on shuffle and the order in which they played would correspond to parts of the soundtrack to the movie of your life. Pretty inane, but I just finished burning all my music onto my computer so I've pulled it up and here's the list.

Opening credits: "These Stones Will Shout" - Raconteurs
Waking up: "A Rush of Blood to the Head" - Coldplay
First day of school: "Symbol in my Driveway" - Jack Johnson
Falling in love: "Pork and Beans" - Weezer
Fight song: "Mother Nature's Son" - The Beatles
Breaking up: "Love is a Miracle" - Delirious
Prom: "One After 909" - The Beatles
Life: "Michelle" - The Beatles
Mental breakdown: "Trip Through Your Wires" - U2
Driving: "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" - Coldplay
Flashback: "King of Fools" - Delirious
Getting back together: "August 30th" - Delirious
Wedding: "Waking the Dead" - Sam Roberts
Birth of a child: "Quiet Storm" - Toby Mac
Final battle: "Consolacao" - Smokey and Miho
Death scene: "November Has Come" - Gorillaz
Funeral song: "Everything I Said" - The Cranberries
End credits: "All Star" - Smash Mouth

Overall it didn't work near as well as the first time I did it. There were quite a few repeat artists (although I do have 150 Beatles songs on my itunes) and there was some music that I simply don't listen to anymore (Smash Mouth, Toby Mac). There also some pretty bad fits like Pork and Beans for falling in love, Mother Natures Son for the fight song, Love is a Miracle for the breakup song, and... Actually almost the whole thing didn't fit. That's really dissapointing. Y'all should give it a shot anyways, it's a mildly interesting diversion.

I had a tough time with my crwr prof today. Throughout the semester we've had to write a number of poems, but they were always pretty specific as to what we could write about, so today when she gave us an assignment to do some freewriting I was pretty happy. Unfortunately I read further and I realized that the catch was I had to pick a specific color and write it on that. There are two reasons why I would be pretty choked about this. Firstly, having done quite a lot of freewriting previously, I've found that when you start freewriting, your thoughts will be generally be pretty jumbled. It's only after you've got that initial confusion out of the way that you eventually settle on what you're writing about. If I started freewriting with a color, I would almost certainly not end with the color. I voiced this concern and stayed after class to discuss it with her, but only minor concessions were made. It wasn't until later, on my way home, that I realized the real reason it jarred with me so much. The real reason I don't like it is that I won't be able to write anything meaningful. The scope of my poem has been confined to someone else's purely physical topic. When I write poetry, I like it to be meaningful, to be able to impact somebody. There is a big difference between poetry written just for the sounds, images, etc. and political poetry. I try to write the latter. There is certainly something to be said for simply practicing your technique, but in this class we have to put a lot of work into our poems, editing multiple times, and I would like to have something to show for that. So I will definately overstep my boundaries on this (I have on all my other poems) and accept the bad mark. All I need in the class to advance is a 60% and it's not worth sacrificing your academic standards just for better marks. So that's that for that.

zen master

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Morning Dreams

listening to Matthew Good - Champions of Nothing

I had a dream last night. I dreamt that I had a pregnant girlfriend. At the same time I had to go to China to visit my family. the baby was going to be born while I was back in China, something to do with my grandfather. I looked at my girlfriend and I told her "Have you ever had a conversation where you miss one little word, just one single word and all of a sudden the conversation doesn't make sense anymore. You have no context to place what's being said." and then I paused and was going to tell her that that's how I felt about my life, but I woke up. I don't know why I dreamt that, and I don't know why it felt so important, but i can't get it out of my head because sometimes I feel that way. It's as though I'm living in a dream and I all of a sudden wake up, take a step backwards, and look at my life, wondering "how did I get here". I had a word given me when I left Glenmore to move back to the coast. It might have been Bob who gave it, but it was about a compass pointing True North. He said I was going true north, that the direction I was going was where God wanted me to go. Sometimes I look at where I am and that's all I have to go on... God wants me here...

zen master

Sunday 26 October 2008

Dealers vs. Dealers

listening to Neil Young - On The Beach

I had a discussion today about drugs, about dealers. Everybody was pretty animated, everybody had their piece to say. I was reminded of a Bob Doede class at Trinity. There was a few classes in which we discussed the problem of evil. It was heavy, we were discussing how a loving and omnipotent God can allow people to suffer. How can he allow little children to be raped and pregnant women to step on mines?

listening to Neil Young - Vampire Blues

How can he allow natural disaster to wipe out thousands of "innocent" people? There are a number of answers and the discussion became heated. Especially as Christians we all had our views on the problem of evil, it's something we had probably all had to think about. At the end of the section on the problem of evil, Doede said something that will stick with me. He said that we were welcome to our theories and that we should think about it, that we should try to reason out how a loving and omnipotent God can let these things happen, but there was one thing we had to be able to do. We had to be able to bring our theories forward and present them to the little child and his family, to the pregnant mother and her family, and to the victims of the natural disaster. If we can not do that, if our theories are divorced from the actual suffering, then we should not hold them.

listening to Neil Young - Revolution Blues

So we were talking about drugs. And we were talking about dealers. And it occured to me that we can talk about throwing them in jail, we can talk about shooting them, we can talk about giving the addict his drugs for free, but we have to be able to see these people when we pass judgement. We have to be able to know these people before we can say a word or pass a law. If you know someone, and love them, then you can condemn them to death. But not before. We have a real problem in our society, drugs are an enormous problem. And I want to find a solution, I'm sure most of us do. But before we do, we have to get to know the people who are on drugs and who are dealing drugs. We can't pass by on the other side of the street any longer.

fool sitting here typing

Friday 24 October 2008

Enter the Cheese

listening to Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla

I confess to being a cheesy movie buff. Not even joking. Back when I was living in Burnaby, Alpha and I would go to the theaters on a regular basis; not to see great quality flicks, but to see the stuff that looked really enjoyable. Like Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium (great movie by the way). I guess I just never stopped watching cheesy movies after that. I went to see Speed Racer in the Imax, and Sammy and I were the only two people in the entire theater, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've watched countless other cheesy movies, animated flicks, kids movies that were actually really fun to watch. Tonight I watched Penelope. I know. It was surprisingly good though. Sure it had its kitschy moments, but overall it told a really good story and actually had something to it, unlike a lot of comedies these days. Plus, it ended with Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros. What's not to love.

Soundmime

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Spiral

Bad things come in pairs, or that's the hope. It's unfortunate, but I missed a class in philosophy of religion. Unfortunate because when I went to class yesterday I realized that the class I missed had been the midterm. Unfortunate because I could have easily aced it. Unfortunate because it was worth 30% of my mark. So I drop it like it's Pluto and I feel a lot better. The class sucked anyways and I still have a full time course load without it. So we're good right, but it still sucked. This morning it just gets worse. The car is having transmission problems, it wont stay in gear, but I take it to school anyways, thinking that it's not too bad. I actually make it all the way to Langley before it loses all functionality. I creep in 1st to Langley Center, park the car, and take a bus to school. I'm a good half an hour late because I missed my connection at the Newton exchange by about 1 minute. It turns out all right, but I still have to bus it back to Langley to find a garage for the car. Woo hoo, sounds fun. So I hope bad things only come in pairs because I don't think I could take anything more. For instance, what if my car were stolen. Now that would truly suck.

Park Ranger

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Exercise your Franchise

Did you know that, to vote, all you have to have at the polls is somebody to sign for you to say that you are who you say you are. That's pretty easy to find. That's stinking easy to find. Do you work today? Is that the excuse you're using to not vote? I'll tell you what, your employer is legally obligated to give you time off work to vote. Take that time. Vote. Did you realize it was voting day late in the afternoon and you don't think you'll have time to hit the polls? They're open until 7:00 tonight; just don't wait too long, do it now. Do you not have transportation to the polls? They should be walking distance, get some fresh air. If they're not, phone the NDP and they might be able to give you a ride (you don't even have to be voting for them). Elections Canada has a handy polling station finder on their website if you don't know where to vote. People, there is really no reason why you shouldn't exercise your franchise and vote. The most commonly used excuse, however, is that people simply don't like any of the candidates. That's the worst load of crap I've ever heard. If you really thought about, you would at least find a candidate that wasn't quite as bad as the others. Choose one and vote. This is serious stuff people.

Pipe Smoking Professor

Saturday 11 October 2008

Whatever happened to White Trash and Beardo

listening to New and Improved Nummy Mixtape - Various Artists

Turn it on shuffle, it needs mixing.
They say that most geniuses produce their greatest works before 30, most of them earlier. That doesn't leave me much time.
I was taking a walk this evening in Aldergrove, wearing shorts, a big old jacket, no socks with shoes, and a toque covering my nearly bald head. I was wondering where I was headed when I realized what I looked like. For all the time that I lived in Summerland I had inhabited the hobo look, but now, as I walked the streets of Aldergrove, I was quintessential white trash. And I thought, "Whatever happened to White Trash and Beardo?". It was a good question so I pulled it up on my computer when I got home. It's seven stanzas in and it's beautiful as it sits, but it's only the very beginning of the story. I think the reason it's so short right now, the reason I have been so slow with writing it, is that I love it. I'm in love with the concept, I'm in love with the story, it's like my favorite child, I look at it as my best piece to date and I honestly don't know that I could write something better. Therein lies my dilemma, I know that I'm not a great writer, I know that my skills are not developed, and I know what would happen if I tried to write it now. It simply wouldn't live up to all that it could be. So do I wait on it, do I let it get stale? I am, in this moment, the embodiment of white trash; I feel like I need to capture that feeling, bottle it like dandelion wine*, put it on paper so I don't ever forget it. This moment is crucial.

fool sitting here typing

Wednesday 1 October 2008

darkness at the edge of dawn

I was feeling really out of sorts yesterday. I hadn't been getting enough sleep (it's 3:52 am right now), my pols classes had been really boring, my philosophy class that I had waited on campus for hours for was cancelled, I was having trouble finishing "Don't Waste Your Life" (it's finished now), and the time spent waiting for my philosophy class was spent watching a really stupid movie (Saved). So I sat down and poured out my frustration onto the page. It's pretty dark and strange, so be forewarned.

Drowning Out the Demons

vampire, you are drowning out the demons
stay your hand
stop your unadulterated sidewalk signage
they are whores
but you are breaking up their broken homes
vampire, you refuse to look in a mirror
so look at me
so tell me you have white hands
vampire, you are burning witches every day
so burn me
just tell me that you feel the fire
vampire, it's just you now
the last suspect has just been stoned
se tell me that it's me
so roll out your guillotine
or just a kiss of death
one on either cheek


fool sitting here typing

Sunday 28 September 2008

Aldergrove Rockstar Sangiovese '08

listening to Sam Roberts - Love at the End of the World (album)

I've come to a point where it's not worth my money to keep X. There's a certain amount of insurance money that I could get back and taking the bus is cheaper than paying for gas. The only problem is that I can't seem to part with X. I feel like a father who's going to sell his child because he can't afford to keep him. That just feels heartless, you have no idea.
Last week I emailed in one of the best pieces I've ever written. It was Monday night and I decided that I was going to pull an all-nighter and finish it, because I was already late. I went out and bought a 12 pack of Rockstar for the fridge and plowed my way through it. If any of you know the way that I study, you'll know that it's the worst possible way. Before I actually write a word I will do everything else that it's possible to do, and then, if I'm still awake, I'll buckle down and do what I need to do. Well, it turns out you can do a lot in one night (have you ever heard of the band Cibo Matto). Eventually, however, I started typing. I actually had a really good story lined up to write, that any other day i would have enjoyed typing, but the fact that i had to do it made it really hard. I only drank 4 of the Rockstars (I found out later that it was about double the amount that an adult can usually consume without feeling the side effects (I don't think I was doing that bad (then again, I was shaking all over on my way to school))), but at 6:15 in the morning, right before I left, I emailed in my short story. And it was brilliant. I don't like to brag about my stuff, but this was straight up good. Anyways, the point is that I am living proof that all-nighters work (although the next day I didn't wake up until both my classes were over).

Park Ranger

Wednesday 24 September 2008

RADIANT

I am radiant
a lone beacon in a dirty underground
I am radiant
white heat on the road to nowhere
flashbulb underwater
a torch in a room full of stale air
let it shine
burning bush in the desert night
I am radiant
cold reflection of shiny and bright
I am radiant

warm fire at the top of the mountain climb

lonely lighthouse
not going away with the summertime
swampwater firefly
this little light aint a candle, but I flicker and burn
I twist when the wind blows, in the tunnels I turn
runnning out of control on a highway, my high beams
slow down traffic, like burning matches slow my heartbeat
a little slow tonight for my daydreams,
but little do I know I'm like a mirror
or a nickle on the pavement
reflecting what you're saying
I am radiant


pipe smoking professor

Wednesday 17 September 2008

X bites the dust

So the day before yesterday Sam f-books me about paintballing, and he asks me about the X-tra Cab. I take a day to respond, and yesterday morning I reply that it's doing well and there are no problems with it. Nice Will, real nice. So after my last class of the day I start it up and everything is tickety-boo. I notice that I've traveled a ridiculous amount on $20 worth of fuel, so I decide to tank up. When I'm at the pump, however, my resolve weakens at the thought of paying $1.47/litre and I decide to put only $20 in again. Good thing. I sit in the parking lot for a while, eating my disgusting white spot burger and fries, and when I pull out there is a strong scent of gas. However, I'm in a gas station and I just put gas in X, so it makes sense. A ways down the road, X just isn't driving quite right, the smell of gas is still present, and i have a bad feeling. However, I somehow made it all the way to the Kwantlen campus in Langley. I stop to buy a textbook at the bookstore there and when I get back to X I realize that there's a trail of gas running behind it and a little puddle sitting under the passenger side. Not good. I don't have any mechanical skills, or even any tools, so I do my best to try and find out where the leak is coming from. I can't really find it. This sucks. From there it's only 22 km to my house so I figure I can make it back and find out what's wrong once I'm there. Not true. I make it about as far as 216th and Fraser Highway before my plans really collapse. X is having serious trouble so I stop at the gas station to see what's wrong with it. I put some oil in, even though there's an 'acceptable' amount already in there. Still the same. Then I decide that there's really nothing for it but to try and make it home in any shape. I make it as far as the gas station across the street. X is having problems with throttle control, and those are problems I'm not qualified to treat. Fortunately I have the number of Clover Towing in my wallet from my last adventure in Langley. X gets towed. I am sad. I have to take the bus this morning and turn up half an hour late for class. It's like my life has been a constant downward spiral ever since Sam asked me how X was doing. People say I'm lucky, I say 'if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all'.

Park Ranger

Friday 5 September 2008

Irregularily Published News Edition Presented in Glorious Monotone

You know what the first thing I felt when I got my cast off was? Relieved... and then scared. Of course I felt relieved because I had put up with the stupid thing for a good month at least and I was finally free, but I felt scared because I felt powerless. The lower half of my leg and my foot were so weak that it was hard walking on them, my heel had lost most of its flesh so I was stepping directly on the bone which made it painful to walk. Running was out of the question and is still pretty hard. As I walked to the highway to hitchhike back to Summerland I realized that I had just lost the ability to do a whole catalogue of things associated with youthful athleticism, I felt destined to grow into a bitter old man well before my time. It was completely irrational, but it scared me.
It took me a while and I went through a series of misadventures, but I've finally made it to the coast. Driving down in the X-tra Cab proved more difficult than I thought. It was the first time I had really driven standard, I had only driven around the block a couple of times a few months back, so it felt like I was jumping into the deep end making the trip. I'm pretty sure that I've stalled it a few thousand times already, trying to get it into first. The other problem with coming down in the x-tra cab was that the alternator doesn't really work that well (I wouldn't say it's completely fried because so far it hasn't died while driving during the day). The battery died about 13 km outside of Princeton so I stood by the side of the road with my hazards on in the middle of the night and waited for about half an hour before someone stopped. It turns out they were a transmission mechanic and had a shop in town so they loaned me an extra battery and put my dead battery on charge. I spent the night in the ridiculously expensive Deers Head motel. I guess I may be spoiled having stayed in hostels, but $60 seemed pretty expensive for just one night. I should have just stayed in the truck. In the morning I bought an extra battery from the transmission mechanic and completed the trip with relatively few incidents.
I've already registered for all my courses, but I've missed the first week of classes. Not a good start, but it's not too serious of a blow and I should get back into the swing of things fairly quickly. The house is pretty cool, it's just a basement suite and my room is pretty small, but I've got enough room, it's pretty clean, fairly new, and so far I get along pretty well with my house mate.
That's pretty much the news edition of this blog, presented in glorious monotone (I never realized it was possible to type in monotone, but apparently it is). Tune in next time for more exciting adventures in the life of the
pipe smoking professor

Saturday 23 August 2008

The Smell of Autumn

Went for a walk the other day and as soon as I got out of the door I smelled Autumn. It's just a subtle smell, but it's one of my favorites. It was overcast, but down the road there were still men out in their yards, mowing or trimming hedges. It's as though they knew what was coming and were trying to push it back, filling the air with the smell of freshly mown grass to cover the deadly scent of fall.
I do love the summer, but in the same way I like the winter, because it's a fun season. Autumn, however, is something special. In Autumn the leaves turn, you start smelling woodsmoke, there's a crispness in the air, everything is dying in the fall, but it's in passing that nature is its most beautiful. I don't subscribe to the season of spring. It's still pretty decent, especially at the end of a long cold winter, but there's not the same mystery as the Autumn.
The other part of the fall is that November is the saddest month of the entire year. September is back to school, new beginnings, a new year. October is color and fire and the joie de vivre is in everything. But November is like purgatory, everything dies in November, but we're still left waiting for the winter. It rains in November, not a warm spring rain, but a bitter rain. In the spring it's tears of joy, but in November it's tear of sadness.
So I welcome the smell of Autumn. I won't fight against it like the yardmen and lawnmowers. I'll embrace it.

smell it in the air
all the yardmen push it back
but fall is coming

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Dropping the Bomb

listening to K-os - Love Song

today is the anniversary of Hiroshima's destruction, nuclear style. How does one celebrate such an auspicious occasion? How indeed, one may set of fireworks or burn a mock-city, Guy Fawkes style. One might take some time, have a moment of silence. Reading Watchmen again a few days ago and realize how hard it is for me to take a position on it. We grew up taught that destroying Hiroshima was the only way to end a bloody war, that it was neccessary. It's true in a way, if Hiroshima hadn't been bombed, and Nagasaki a couple of days later, the resulting casualties from the invasion of japan would have been greater than the loss of life in both cities.

listening to Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World

That's not all we have to consider. You might call into account the deaths from radiation poisoning after the fact, you might call into account that we introduced the single worst weapon of mass destruction in history. We introduced mustard gas in the first world war and changed the face of warfare. Splitting the atom changed it again, just as radically. There's no real defence from nukes, and we're making more and better/worse ones all the time. If a nuclear war started now, at this late stage, we'd be looking at the collapse of civilization as we know it, literally a man-made doomsday. We unleashed something we didn't fully understand.

listening to Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

If we hadn't dropped the bomb we would still have nuclear weapons today, they still would have been developed, even if the Americans hadn't done it. If the war had have gone on, where would we be today, I don't know. It may have been another Vietnam. What would we have to become to win the war, what did we become? The people that would have died, would have been mostly soldiers, they knew what they were getting into. The people that did die were civilians, they were "innocent". But really, what's the difference? They're all people. We mourn them all the same. I've never really been able to fully come to terms with whether it was right or wrong, and there's always been something nagging me that says I should know. That we all should know. That if the time comes again to make that decision, that we would make the right decision. It's something we really have to understand, but it takes knowing ourselves for what we really are. It takes looking at who we are (our history defines us) and facing the fact that we may have been wrong. That we may have done something profoundly wrong. I don't know how I should celebrate, or if I should, maybe the only way to honor its history would be to search it out, to find out for ourselves if we were right or if we were wrong.

pipesmokingprofessor

Thursday 31 July 2008

Parallel Universes

listening to MGMT - Time to Pretend

Today I went to the Summerland Health Center to get my foot re-x-rayed. I crutched and hobbled all the way from Orchard Crescent to the Tim Hortons and got a ride up the hill because at that point I was too exhausted and my arms hurt too much to really consider scaling it on crutch. I was fifteen minutes late because I had thought the appointment was at Dr. B Harrold's office. I was also fifteen minutes early at Dr. Harrold's office to put the distance in perspective. Fortunately, even though they book every ten minutes, the x-ray specialist took pity and slotted me in. I didn't get any results back today, but I'm going for an appointment with Dr. Harrold next week, I've got my fingers crossed (really, it's getting pretty hard to type (with my fingers crossed, I wasn't referring to the foot (although it would be pretty crazy to learn how to type with one's feet))). As I was walking through the lobby I saw someone familiar and said hi (it took me a moment to realize I actually did know them) and she stared at me for a full, awkward, long second before realizing who I was and said hi. The usual "what did you do to your foot" followed by "I broke it" and "are you still working at timmies" followed by "yes" and then an awkward silence followed by me mumbling something about having to go and walking out the door, and I realized that we really had absolutely nothing in common now I'm no longer working at tim hortons and a few months have gone by. It's almost as though we'd been inhabiting parallel universes for the last few months. And it's funny how often that happens. We change. And if you haven't seen someone for a long time it can be like getting to know an entirely new person. I know for myself that I change constantly. Sure there will be things that will always stay the same about me, but I'm not the same person that I was seven months ago and I never will be that person again. I know that when I move back to the coast there will be a lot of people that I'm good friends with that I will appear to be an entirely different person to. For the last 7 months I've inhabited and been influenced by an entirely different environment, a parallel universe, to the lower mainland. It's not better and it's not worse, but it's radically different. So I'm nervous, apprehensive, looking forward to seeing you, looking forward to getting to know you again. I haven't kept in touch that well, and for that I'm sorry, but I do miss you. So here's to meeting again in a month or so.

fool sitting here typing

Monday 28 July 2008

In Metronome

I was born on a cold day in Metronome
with the factories beating in time
and in an old, old cradle of sorts
my heart made the city's beat mine

now I grew up a son in the steely streets
my father the son of a beggar
and though the woman who gave me my life was alive
the city was my mother
and I would have no other

please come back to me woman in Metronome
you left me the day I was born
but I'll be waiting for you, here in Metronome
waiting for you to come home

as a young man I rode on the trolley car
and searched through the city for renassiance
I wrote my first poem about the sun
and I gave it to a friend

he took the first train getting out of here
and I never bothered to follow
though I miss them both and will shed a tear
I wouldn't take the train
and I know I would do it again

please come back to me here in Metronome
you have my words and my song
I'll be waiting for you, here in Metronome
waiting for you to come home

when I was a man my father died
as he walked from the house on the corner
he died in the streets with a pocket in his hand
and was washed into the gutter
for the city was his lover

interlude

it was another cold day in Metronome
and I found you in a cafe
we talked for hours until you went home
and I waited for you the next day

now each day I could find I would meet you there
and we'd ride on the trolley for hours
we'd sit on the tops of the factories
and visit the birds in the square
we thrilled just breathing the air

now the winter had passed and the spring had come
and I brought you factory flowers
then springtime passed by and the summer came
we walked in the shade or the shadow of towers

soon autumn had come into Metronome
then we felt the chill in the air
each day we would meet and go wandering
we loved and were loved in return

but November, November I should have known
I stood in the leaves in the square
I waited for you in the steely streets
I waited, but you were not there

and I cannot abandon cold Metronome
though I'd search the world entire
my heart beats in time with the factories
the beat of my heart would expire
though for you I would die

please come back to me darling in Metronome
without you my heart will go cold
I'll be waiting for you, here in Metronome
waiting for you to come home

Invasion of the Clumsy Lovers

listening to Clumsy Lovers

I had an epic dream last night, a really great one. It was an invasion of the bodysnatchers dream, pretty similar to the new The Invasion one, but it still had the awesome pods from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Either way it was pretty scary. It started out as Dad acting pretty strangely and I was getting kindof suspicious of him, but then Dad asked Mom something really personal and judging by the way she answered somehow I found out that it was actually the rest of the family that had already been changed into alien clones and only Dad and Alpha were still themselves. Anyways, we all had to get out of there to try and find a safe house or warn the government of the invasion already underway. Eventually we got seperated and ended up at this old warehouse. I don't know what happened to Alpha and Dad, but Alpha's Jetta was on the second floor of the warehouse and Dad's flatbed was in the parking lot. Also we had met up with this little boy who's parents had already been changed and he had ended up with me. So anyways I ran into the truck with the boy and we were trying to find the key, but we were being mobbed by the crazy emotionless changed people so we had to boot it out of the truck and up to Alpha's car on the second floor. The only problem was that it had somehow gotten onto the second floor and the only way to get it down was to back up and drive as fast as we could off the second floor balcony, and that's where my dream ended.
I try not to tell people my dreams because they're usually pretty crazy and I'm not the greatest at telling them, but when I have a really vivid one I can't help it. Credits for the eastcoast music go Ashley travelling in Newfoundland. In other news I've got a crazy cast on my foot/leg because the x-ray technician thinks the break extends into the joint on the bone so I'm still off work, but hopefully I can get it off in a week or so because it's getting pretty boring. Also I'm working on a sweet song called "In Metronome" which I'll post as soon as I'm done.

Park Ranger

Monday 21 July 2008

Lamp

I broke my lava lamp. In the cluttered room I stumbled, struggling with a puffy sleeping bag and knocked it off the desk. It happened instantly, there was no bullet time, no beautiful memories of hours spent gazing into its limitless depths and pondering the mysteries of the universe, no last moment grasp at its falling, lifeless, beauty. There was no time. One moment it was standing like a resolute sentinel, guarding the deskspace, and the next it was lying broken on the floor, never again to shine. I knelt as best as I could, encumbered by my half-cast, to mourn the loss, but necessity drove me onwards. I hobbled up the stairs, a feat which I was hesitant to repeat as I had done it only moments before. With towels and rags I dried its clear blood from the ground and swept its broken body and organs into an empty candy bag. I will miss you lava lamp... always.

pipe smoking professor

pulsing ruby jar
no more heat in your body
I lament your death

Sunday 20 July 2008

broken

It sucks being broken. On Wednesday night I was playing capture the flag in the dark, in bare feet, and I went to jump over a wall to get into my home base (with the opposing teams flag). I couldn't see what was on the other side and ended up sortof flailing and smashing my foot on the cement. Breaking it... or at least one of those bones in it. So here I sit, my foot up on Prince's cage, swollen up and puffy, confined in a half-cast, in the blazing heat of summer, trying to type. It's safe to say it was a stupid move.

Friday 11 July 2008

Bird on the Hanging Tree

clawing at the crimson branch
and holding through the storm
of wild, throbbing screaming flesh
of old and young alike
of wool and dirt, a little bird
a little slowly understood
yet wholly free and holding still
among the body maelstrom

pound the mud and raise a toast
build nothing
know nothing
but round and round they go
call it a dance floor
call it a flesh fair
call it a warzone
call it a celebration
meaningless but for the battle
won on a muddy proxy field
a spectator war that everyone sees
a little bird fallen from the hanging tree
but round and round they dance
feathers in their hats and blood on their feet

Monday 16 June 2008

albumness

We had a pretty blazing hot, shirtless working day today. It was a pretty greasy day all things considered, but at least the weather was alright. I've just been listening to Cake and Weezer and I've been trying to decide what album to buy. Should I buy Weezer's Red Album or should I buy Cake's Fashion Nugget. It's a tough choice because I really love Weezer and this new album promises to be a killer, but I also want to branch out and I've really been getting into Cake because they've got such a unique and cool sound. It's a tough choice. Any suggestions?

Park Ranger

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Festival Sunset

sunlight on the mountain
festival
with the joyful people
gathered on the hill
sometimes
the joyful people
gather on the mountain too
sometimes
the waters rise
sometimes
I get drowned in the night tide
copyright of Luc Lhereux
circa two-thousand and two

but sometimes
baby sometimes
I think of you

The sun is going down
but on the hill
the joyful people gather still
sometimes
a word of doubt will pull them back
and beat them black and blue
sometimes
I burn the things
that keep me to

but sometimes
baby sometimes
I think of you

we're in the dark of night
the festival
will pass us by
we've come down from the hill
sometimes
the joyful people
sit entombed in wood and steel
sometimes
we burn the midnight candle through
sometimes
we sit in silence, watch the moon
sometimes
in dreams I walk the city streets

but sometimes
baby sometimes
I dream of you


soundmime

Monday 9 June 2008

perfectly still

listening to Bright Eyes - A Perfect Sonnet

Summerland is a town in stasis. Nothing happens really. On the weekend we had Action Fest and everybody got out of their houses and watched the parade and went to the beer garden and danced through the night at the Summerland dance. And in the morning everyone awoke and went to work and the lady serving coffee missed our order because she had been at the dance, but on the tommorow of yesterday, nothing's changed. Everything has returned to normal like a rubber band or a boomerang.

listening to Bob Dylan - Tangled up in Blue

Sometimes it gets to me, I like to do things. I like to do things that stay, things that make a concrete change in the world I live in. In mmorpg's, programmers try to give gamers the illusion of the power to change things, you're slotted into instanced events where you can defeat a boss or a battalion of enemies, but the fact of the matter is that game companies simply can't afford to let gamers make concrete changes in a game world with other players. Things happen, like the parade, but when all is said and done it won't affect anybody else. Life shouldn't be like a game. We can change concrete things in our world.

listening to The Pixies - Where is my Mind

Sometimes it feels like we`re set in stone, we do the same things every week, we say the same things when the same things happen, and we do the same thing every time when we get tired of it... we go on a bloody vacation. I don`t want to go on a vacation. Before I went to the Timothy encounter I was apprehensive because with all these conferences and events we get all fired up and ready to go when we leave, but when we get home nothing has changed. We`re the same person as when we went, we haven`t changed, we just wasted our time and our money and we go back for another helping next year and to a dozen different conferences in between. It`s a bit like taking drugs, we take our supplements to keep our bodies healthy, but when we don`t get stronger we just take more and our body learns to depend on them until we can`t stand up on our own. And we will... We will continue to take our drugs, we will continue going to our conferences, we will continue playing our games, until we`re just shells, or until we come to a realization that we need to get off our pills.

listening to Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy

When we came back from Timothy something was different. Mark had been blown away by the Holy Spirit and when he came back it carried into his life and it was powerful, Aaron and Sam were also given direction and the teaching from Timothy and the refilling of the Holy Spirit had a huge impact on their lives when they came back. I was also blown away, and when I came back there were things that changed, big things, but there are things that stayed the same. It reminds me of being in New York and walking to the middle of Times Square and turning around and feeling like the world was rushing all around me and I was perfectly still, a blur of motion all around me. I feel like I`ve stopped moving in one direction, but I`ve stopped moving and I need to start moving again, I need to start moving in the right direction. Oftentimes we can be doing nothing wrong and be doing nothing. I want to do something. I want to change something, burn something, build something.

fool sitting here typing

Saturday 31 May 2008

Ode to a Friend

There are places I cannot visit anymore
Without you
There are places I can only visit alone
An empty hole beside me
There are thoughts I find it hard to resurrect
There are things I cannot do

There's a place in the city we frequented
Sandstone blocks and pizza dirt
Burned brick building and the arena of words
A music house always changing
It's form in flux with all contained
It's hard for me to go there
Without you

There's an album I can't buy
Maybe for the best
It was your favorite once upon a time
Adorned with Rosa or Delilah I can't tell
But you were convinced of Rosa for a reason
I will never find out why
Without you

Without you
There's something missing
The sidewalk's harder
The city sounds are dissonant
There's blood in the alley
There's cursing on the beggars tongue
Without you
I can't be here anymore



Pipe Smoking Professor

Monday 28 April 2008

Stormbreak

The turning point was the erasure of memory, all that followed will not be forgotten. Like a diamond drill cutting deep in the subconcious, not tipped, but in fullness, not denying but embracing, not seeing nor understanding nor doubting the presence of God.
In the air is a water, a flood, tangible and intangible, cleansing and breaking in thunderous appellation. A mist not mystical nor mystifying, but real as the air in which it resides. And sat in a mountaintop or a valley the feeling is the same, of isolation, of camaraderie, of waiting and of consumation. We sit it out, some plan their escape, others revel in it, but all sense it. We're blindsided, we come to a halt. It's been hanging on the very air for some time, but none of us really saw it coming. The weight of the day has decended. Though we stoop to pick it up, it has dissipated. We have lived in tension without knowing it, and all of us came here for the same reason. We were waiting to wait, both knowing it and not knowing it in the same breath, but we all feel it.

Soundmime

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Subject Matter

Listening to Zombie by The Cranberries

My right hand is in shreds right now because I was sofitting. It's not even funny. I figure I have about 1,200 cuts on my thumb and the first two fingers alone. in fact those are the only three fingers that really have a good amount of cuts, but I must have lost about a gallon of blood between them. Really there are so many that you can't even distinguish between the different cuts, it all blends together into one big wide cut. It's actually pretty cool, pretty savage.

Listening to I`m Blue by Eiffel 65

I`ve been looking for a typewriter for a long time now because when I use my computer to type I always get distracted and end up playing just one game of star wars battlefront II or doing a dozen other things other than what I started out to do, type. I figure that if I can find a typewriter then I can find myself an isolated place and I`ll be able to actually get some stuff down. Also I figure that the quality of work goes up when you do it on a typewriter because there`s no backspace key (if you get an old enough typewriter). Coincidentally the typewriter that I just found the other day is old enough. Now all I have to do is pick it up before 5:00 tommorow (and buy it (for more than I would have wanted to)) and I`ll be in the clear.

Listening to Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do in the fall. I've given it a lot of thought and I've prayed about it, but I haven't got an answer and I haven't been thinking of it much lately. It feels like I thought about it so much and tried so hard to decide and prayed so much about it that I'm tired of it and the very idea of thinking about it just feels like a lot of work now. My original plan was to go to Kwantlen because going to TWU would be too expensive to do on my own without loans, but then I was talking to Dad about it and he said he would make up the difference between Kwantlen and Trinity if I went to Trinity. So now I don't know what to choose. Trinity is a good university and it's a christian university and I know a lot of people there, but if I'm not paying for it myself and there are always strings attached when someone else is paying for you, I like my independence, sometimes I think too much. Kwantlen isn't a christian university, but it is a reasonably good university and it's only fifteen minutes down the road from Trinity so I wont miss my old friends and I'll have an opportunity to meet many more, but the biggest difference is that if I go to Kwantlen I can probably pay for it myself without loans. Is it about independence or just pride, or even simply freedom. I pretty much have to pray about it. I'd also appreciate any prayers from anybody, because that would just be way cool.

fool sitting here typing

Saturday 12 April 2008

X-tra Cab

Here, in all it's beater awesomeness is my Toyota X-tra Cab.



I got out of bed sometime in the afternoon so I'm still pretty insanely scruffy looking (along with the fact that I have a bunch of polycoat in my hair, which makes it do strange things). It's pretty solid up here and amazingly warm out today so I think I'm going to take a walk. I still need to get the truck insured, but I've been learning standard on it so driving it around a bit anyways.

Park Ranger

Wednesday 9 April 2008

pulp non-fiction

listening to paper planes by MIA

I just woke from a drooling nap episode. I woke up when the light was turned off by Amy. I guess I just fell asleep on my bed because i was so tired, which doesn't make sense because we only had a half day of work today. Just before I crashed I was reading Douglas Adams' Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, the sequel to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I think that's what put me to sleep. Not because the book wasn't great, because it's a really great book, but because it was a book. I never used to have this problem, I was a voracious reader, but soon after I left university to take a year off I found that I was unable to read for more than a few minutes without becoming extremely drowsy. I've still managed to push my way through some great books, but it has become increasingly difficult to do so. Partially I blame this on the fact that during university I read books because I had to and I generally read them extremely late at night. I figure that whenever I pick up a book now, my subconcious automatically associates that with sleeping. The only other explanation is that the pages of books contain a powerful aphrodisiac, our reaction to it being latent at birth but activated through a complicated series of events. Before I was reading I watched the movie Ella Enchanted with Anne Hathaway, a really odd film that didn't make a lot of sense and aped a lot of other more successful and overall better films, but had a decent premise and actually came out alright in the end (not in the sense that it had a happy ending because all fairy tales but Pan's Labyrinth have happy endings (though Pan's Labyrinth had one of the best and most beautiful endings ever... period.), but that it actually had a decent climax and wizard of Oz like twist that made you think... a bit.. for a few seconds...). The reason I was lounging about and doing leisure activities in the middle of the day was that we only had a half day of work today, just some loose ends that needed tying up. We finished around noon. in the intervening time I got a truck.

Zen Master

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Pope and Kepsie: page 1


Here's the crappily drawn first page of Pope and Kepsie. I think I like it overall, even considering the ms paint mix and match graphics. Enjoy.

Pipe Smoking Professor

Monday 17 March 2008

real and virtual adventures

The other day I stumbled upon what might just be the greatest browser based game ever made: Off-Road Velociraptor Safari...

(Space of about an hour where I play Off-Road Velociraptor Safari and finally achieve my 1000th velociraptor kill (over the last couple of days))

...I became heavily addicted to the game the other day and could not pull myself away from it. the basic premise of the game is that you drive your jeep around killing velociraptors and doing ridiculously awesome stunts... I know... You actually get points for doing awesome things like totally thrashing your jeep, getting killer velociraptor airtime, and jump killing velociraptors from extreme distances.
Anyways, as awesome as it was, I finally tore myself away from the game at about 3:00 in the morning on Saturday and then got up at an indecent hour to go canoeing. definately worth getting up for. We canoed down a 14?km section of the Kettle river (way past big white coming from Kelowna). at first it was pretty lame because the river was pretty shallow and we had to get out into the freezing cold river to push it through some parts. eventually, however, it picked up and then joined with the West Kettle River and got really rolling. A ways later though we were trying to manouver the canoe through a rapidish bit and the river channeled into this turn. we tried to manouver around it, but ended up broadsiding a log, the canoe filling with watter immediately and getting lodged underneath. It took us about 8 minutes alternately standing in the freezing cold water and standing on the ice, so we wouldn't get hypothermia or something, to get the thing out and miraculously we didn't lose anything but the bailer. We had to break out a fire on the shore because we were dead frozen and then we had to do it again an hour or so later down the river. The whole rest of the trip though, we were pretty much all shivering and it started raining and getting windy. it was simultaneously really miserable and a really awesome adventure, but we had chili at the Beukerts house when we got back to Kelowna so it was all good.

park ranger

Wednesday 5 March 2008

In Limbo with Dylan

Listening to - Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan)

So I've been having myself a pity party, griping about how much it sucks working for Tim Hortons and about how crappy my manager is and so on and I was planning on finding a job in Kelowna and leaving, but then suddenly my manager is replaced by a really solid person who it would be great to work for and I'm caught flat-footed, it was like a slap in the face it was so quick and because my manager was the main reason why I was planning on leaving and now I don't have a great excuse to leave, but I still want to leave... I just can't think of a good enough reason. Maggie's Farm has pretty much been my anthem the last few days because it fit so well to my situation, but now the rules are changed and I really don't know what to do. I feel like Mr. Jones...

Listening to - Ballad of a Thin man (Bob Dylan)

I was thinking a while back about working at Tim Hortons and the fact that I was no longer being challenged in my work. For the first week it was challenging just learing the ropes and how things worked, but then I had pretty much mastered most of what I had to do and there was no room for expansion and then it just got boring because I wasn't learning and I wasn't being challenged, mentally or physically, I think the only way I was being challenged was learning how to deal with crappy people. In pretty much every job you will encounter and deal with crappy people, but when it is the only challenge in your job and when you have to take the crap they deal out without reacting (which I really have a hard time doing (case in point, losing it with my manager and telling her how crappy she was being)) then something's wrong with the whole situation. I want a job where A: I'm being challenged, and B: there's a healthy amount of respect going around. Tim Hortons, to date, hasn't really been that job at all. So we will see, if having a new manager changes the atmosphere and changes the way the job works, then I may just stick around, but most likely I will be gone by the end of the month... I am a rambler after all.

Park Ranger

Friday 29 February 2008

die murmeltiere kommen

Listening to Brother Iz - Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World

I hereby declare that winter has been defeated, Aslan is on the move, it's a rocket summer, die murmeltiere kommen. I got off of work today, changed, and walked straight out into this amazing beautiful sunny day with a warm breeze stirring the trees and blowing the last traces of winter away. As I walked back to Aarons house I glanced up at the once snow-covered Giants Head and was surprised to see only patches of snow, as if it was winters last stand and it was dying. Death dies inevitably. It was as if God was reminding us all of the resurection, a metaphor on a colossal scale. Then I walked into the bookstore to buy a comic before the bookstore closed and as I looked around, Brother Iz came on the radio with this medley and the storekeeper opened the door and the wild wind whipped leaves from the sunny street into the store and I stood there and took it in and after I bought my comic I walked back out and strolled down the street, holding my jacket in one hand because it was too hot out to wear it. What a wonderful world. (If you didn't get the rocket summer reference, go get Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles and read the first chapter)

fool sitting here typing

Monday 25 February 2008

behind the scenes on the set of White Trash and Beardo

I failed to finish the ballad of White Trash and Beardo, but rest assured it is currently underway. I've got this really old anthology of the works of Longfellow that I've had for a while, so I decided to start reading it. The first work is Evangaline, a ten page or so poem/prose (I'm really not sure what it would be classified as) about the Acadians. Anyways, it inspired me so I'm writing the ballad of White Trash and Beardo as an epic poem, but I'm still on only the third stanza because I don't have my computer down in the valley (not Happy Valley, the Farmhouse is on a hill). The first characters I'm introducing are the Ballcaps who live in Trashcan Village also known as RVland (there's no comma between Trashcan Village and RVland, it's all one name). Trashcan Village also known as RVland is inspired by the RV park that Sam and I pushed the Jetta into to find some jumper cables, but it's also inspired by the grunge of Penticton (in fact the Ballcaps are inspired by three people standing by the side of the road in Penticton that we laughed at when we were looking for black shirts for Sam's wedding). There is also a garbage can fire that's inspired mostly by our barrel fires out back of the Farmhouse. Essentially the entire epic will draw from my experiences with the white trash aspect the Okanagan, the main characters are even customers in the Summerland Tim Hortons. There, a pretty vague and uninteresting behind the scenes look at the ballad of White Trash and Beardo. Seriously though, if you could actually read it or understand the epic storyline, it would be way more interesting.

zen master

Tuesday 12 February 2008

character study

So I was listening to Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" and I noticed the number of random characters thrown into the song that had crazy names like Cinderella, The Phantom of the Opera, and Cassanova. Then I started looking through some of his songs and I noticed that he almost always used pseudonames for the characters in his songs, so I got inspired and started writing up a list of characters that I've had on my mind. My list so far:
White trash
Beardo
Roosvelt
St. Matthew
Soundmime (from a bit of a lyric that I wrote)

This is definately a short blog, but that's all that was on my mind. Next post expect to see the ballad of White Trash and Beardo.

soundmime

Saturday 9 February 2008

memory flooding

Last night I stayed up really late and listened to music and stuff. I started listening to the Beatles, Help, and that brought back a whole bunch of memories, some of my favorites and I just sat around and remembered certain times and places and people. At 2:00am I took a walk through the vinyard above the Mansion. There were no stars because it was clouded over, but because Summerland is mostly a retirement community so there's not a lot of lights and because of our location on the other side of Giants Head on the top of a hill, I could see the whole valley stretched out and the glow off of the surrounding towns lighting up the sky in places, it was pretty breathtaking. Also it was completely silent, no cars screeching, no train, not even the rumble of a highway or the sound of the wind. It was completely silent and I stood in the middle of the vineyard and was just quiet and just stood there, until I could hear the residue from all the sounds in my ears buzzing until it was deafening. It was beautiful. Then I walked over the hill in the vineyard and sat on the road at the base of Giants head and wrote the first verse and the chorus of a song about this one time when I walked on a frozen pond in the dark with some great people, one of my favorite memories of all time. Top 5 definately. Then I walked back and jammed with the night on my harmonica and found this two-note progression that I found on a train this one time and it brought back even more memories. I was recalling moments and people all night it seemed, every little thing I'd do would trigger a new train of them and even though I was living in the moment I was awash with memories. I think I want to go back to the Lower Mainland or move into Kelowna because no matter where you are and what you're doing, no matter how beautiful nature is, no matter how quiet, no matter how majestic, it doesn't matter if you don't have anyone to share it with. I've been wondering what I'm doing up here and I've started thinking of this stage of my life as my time in the wilderness, kindof a formative period where I figure out who I am and what I'm going to do with my life, but I can't wait to see everybody again because I miss you all desperately.

soundmime

Thursday 31 January 2008

The Glow off Giants Head

Hitchhiking is a truly beautiful thing. This past couple of weeks I've done a whole lot of it because I don't have a car up here, but I have to say that I haven't once not been picked up. I wouldn't so much reccomend it down in the city though. Up here there's a great small-town-feel (kindof like new car smell) where most people are pretty friendly and it's also pretty safe so you don't have to lock your doors on your house or car or anything. Also it's pretty safe for hitchhikers and for people picking up hitchhikers... which is the way it should be because it is quickly becoming a lost art. The other day an awesome burnt out old hippy dude picked me up. he was totally white bearded and white pony-tailed and had his two dogs, Peanut Butter and something else in the back of his car, a great experience. You meet interesting people when you hitchhike. Actually, come to think of it, you meet interesting people anytime you choose to open yourself up and put yourself in a position of vulnerability. I guess that's pretty much me though, I wear my heart on my sleeve for perfect strangers, but it's hard for me to open up to people know. Wow... self discovery in a public forum... that was profound. Whatever, here's The Ballad of Miss Weatherby (she sang it in my dream (not the exact words (except the I was a Canadian and I was dying bit)) when she was on a riverboat (the story's the story from my dream)).

I was a Canadian
I was a Canadian
and I was dying

I came down from the mountain
to the valley of the shadow
where I made my home
but I really should have known
I really should have known

I was a Canadian
I was a Canadian
and I was dying

In time I taught their children
about the mountain and the sky
thought they understood
now I think I was just blind

I was a Canadian
I was a Canadian
and I was dying

In the night the cloud came down
while everybody turned their eyes
and my blood was shed
on their sacrificial knives

I was a Canadian
I was a Canadian
and I was dying

now I'm on a riverboat
and I'm telling you my story
and a bird sings hallelujah
so I couldn't say I'm sorry


Zen Master

Tuesday 15 January 2008

3 Haiku

3 deep and meaningful haiku I wrote in Tim Hortons yesterday morning. Haiku is a beautiful way of expressing oneself and does a lot for your writing/poetry skills. All these ones are pretty intricately linked and should be read together, though I'm sure they could be read seperately as well. Trust me, they actually make sense in context. Unfortunately I'm not going to give you the context until you take a good guess at what they mean because then I can laugh at you. "you" being whoever the crap reads this. I could get into a rant about the nature of blogs, bloggers, and anonymous readers, but I gotta go so I won't.

bitter morning air
cold, wet pavement to walk on
it's good to be here

snake trail water line
whispers in the tree branches
whitetail on the move

smiling down at me
fifteen perfect people frown
am I one of them

pipe smoking professor

Monday 14 January 2008

The House on Happy Valley

So I was going to upload this filmed tour of The House on Happy Valley (an obscure reference to classic radio-drama (I am a nerd)), but then Aarons computer doesn't accept my SD card and I don't have a cord for my camera. A typed tour will have to suffice. Our fictional character, discovering this house for the first time, will be Greg.
Greg walks up steps and enters through front screen door. He takes off his shoes in the ante-chamber (whatever that thing is called) and enters through the duct tape sealed second front door. A toasty warm house greets him because Sam has been busy making a blazing fire in the wood furnace. Crossing to the fridge Greg opens it to find there is very little in it, Greg is dissapointed. There isn't even any decent snack food in the cupboards because it doesn't last very long in this house. Moving past the Bob bar and into the living room, Greg notices the stark lack of furniture in the house. This is because Sam and Will recently moved most of the awesome stuff into the basement. All that's left is a pair of couches and a pretty decent lying-on carpet (a carpet for lying on and spacing out). He takes a quick glance into the far room, observing how tidy it is and then makes his way into the three-pronged hallway/open space. The first door to the left contains emptiness and a desk in the corner, cluttered with papers and a laptop, this room is evidently Sam's office/The Theater (hence the laptop). Moving on, Greg steps into the poorly lit bathroom, but upon noticing the awesomeness of the medivel light fixtures, he changes his mind and decides it is well lit. The next room, it appears, has been ransacked, with papers and books lying everywhere, boxes full of clothes and assorted crap taking up at least half of the room, an unmade bed, a pile of dirty laundry a computer and acessories sitting on boxes in the corner with the closet. Also the chair is broken and wont hold you up unless you sit at the back of it. It's pretty craptacular. Moving out of the hallway, Greg encounters a random door and decides to open it. It's dark inside so he hits the lightswitch and to his surprise his path is outlined in an unearthly green light. Taking the set of stairs downwards he encounters a weird yellowish light and an awesome red one as he emerges into the basement. Sitting on a shelf is a wierd pulsing lava lamp, nearly hypnotising Greg. Fortunately he pulls away at the last second and moves on into the next room, switching on the light to reveal a foosball table in thge center of the room, flanked by a record player with piles of records and a sound system on one side and a skukum electric guitar and amp on the other side (which Will bought for $120 from Classic Guitars in Penticton (it's an epic tale)).
That's pretty much the whole house and I have to go because we're heading off to the Blind Angler for dinner in Peachland. Miss you guys.
Will