The Park Ranger Strikes Back

The other day I realized that I say the word 'epic' much too much so I went to thesaurus.com and looked up some synonyms. I think the best results I could find were 'Homeric' and 'Herculean' so from now on I will replace 'epic' with one or the other, depending on the situation. This will be an exercise in broadening my vocabulary because words or phrases like 'epic' tend to temporarily take over everything I say.
I actually looked the word up when I was down in Bellingham last week for American Thanksgiving. I went down with Josh Burdick and a whole crew of people (Jenny, Toshi, Jackie, Anne, Justin, Phil) going to his house for the dinner and the shopping. Americans are hardcore about celebrating thanksgiving and a Homeric weekend was had by all. The morning after the herculean dinner, however, I spotted an ancient typewriter in the Burdick house and Mrs. Burdick grabbed a piece of paper and said I could type on it. It was definitely a pretty Homeric experience and the following is the awesomecore poetry of the morning that I typed out.

beeswax daytime wakes me from my repose
while sunlight filters through the window frame
it's no surprise the nighttime went so fast
so soft the daylight came so soon
I've not yet woken from my moonlit dream

I dreamt a golden tear was falling from his face
while all around the ocean waves kept pace
with the beating of my own familiar heart
and though it captivated in me every part
I could not hold it from the break of day
I woke to golden tears in place of sunlit rays

and all around me happiness is in my ear
the sight of day has brought my heart to tears
the birdsong, the dog bark, the beeswax daytime
the clear sky, the warm hearts beating next to mine

Later in the morning I wrote more awesomecore (I can't use Homeric or herculean in this situation, although I would have used epic) poetry on a scrap of paper and the day before I was writing a sweetness punk song so I have been pretty busy, but my basic routine doesn't really encourage time for writing. Basically I get up and go to work, work for eight hours, and come home and entertain myself with movies and games. I feel like I'm amusing myself to death. The only real time when I get anything done is right now, in the morning before i leave for work, but usually I work at the Victoria Drive location of Surplus Sam's so that doesn't leave me much time. Hopefully I'll be working at the Burnaby location for a while and I can write a sweet series of morning poems. That would be Homeric.

Park Ranger

A New Smoke

I got a great new book today, it's a comprehensive collection of Robert Frost's poetry. So far I've only read the first two poems, but he starts off with crazy crazy awesomeness. Although Robert Frost is the man, I would also like to get hold of some of T.S. Elliot's poetry because I read "The Hollow Men" ages ago and it's pretty much my favorite poem ever, but I've never read anything else by Elliot.
On the epic journey i missed out on Michigan and Detroit and I was sorely disappointed by this. However, everyone says that I missed nothing, that Detroit is the worst city in America, but they don't realize that out of the worst conditions comes the best poetry and music. I think that's why, when musicians get famous and make a lot of money, their music tends to lose much of its awesomeness. It's because now they are living the good life and they have nothing to sing about except how happy and boring their lives are. The poetry of T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost is not about how happy and boring their lives are. It is good poetry. I look forward with eager anticipation to reading them both.

Pipe Smoking Professor

The Return of the Pipe Smoking Professor

I am definitely back in Canada now and it's good to be sleeping in a real bed and eating real food, my last meal before coming home on Tuesday was a can of "Chef Boyardee ChiliMac". Trust me, Chef Boyardee is good, chili is good, and macaroni is good, but together and cold they taste pretty disgusting. Sorry for not updating for the past couple of weeks, for the las two weeks of my trip I didn't stay in any hostels because I was rushing around so much on the train so I didn't have ready access to the internet. The only times I stayed overnight in a city in the last two weeks were Sacramento and Kansas city and I just stayed up all night. Sacramento was pretty good, but at about 3:00am at Denny's I realized I had lost my ticket and pass and had to run back through the city and retrace my steps. Eventually I ended up at the train station around when it opened and one of the employees had found the ticket and given it to the ticket counter people where I found it. I did write an epic song about Sacramento though, but it's really epic and therefore would take a while to type out so I'm not putting it on here. Kansas city was the least welcoming place on my travels, I just don't think people liked other people there, it was like the antithesis to Halifax. Also there was at least one bumbling security guard who made my life miserable, another who was doing his job, his job being keeping people out of a public park, a criminal purse thief, a 24 hour bail bonds place, a burning sewer vent, many many drunk people, a non-24-hour Denny's, a homeless man, another homeless man, music screamed in the middle of the night, chunks of ice for toes, the book of Lamentations, and an epic journey. The epic journey was the journey from Missouri to Kansas. Kansas city falls on the state line between Missouri and Kansas and unfortunately the train stops in the Missouri half of the city. I had to make it to Kansas so I had about 3 or 4 miles to trek across the city to get to Kansas proper. It was an epic journey and I documented it on film, but I want to get this entry out there so I will put the videos in another entry. Later on in the non-24hr Denny's I documented the results of my entire epic journey (the whole thing) in a poem:

It's been so long, been on the road
cause Kansas winds were in my bones
I've searched the high and Northern shores
I've stood and knocked at strangers doors
I've walked alone on broken streets
I've nursed my cold and broken feet
I've drunk my fill on golden draughts
but never once i have forgot
the sacred song, the silent night
the ancient dream, eternal sight
the yellow sun on Kansas fields
the great expanse, the boundful yields
for this I've searched for countless years
for every mile, another tear
but now it seems they're shed in vain
as darkened skies turn into rain
this is Kansas
a streetcorner
this is Kansas
a neon sign
this is Kansas
a black mourner
this is Kansas
a yellow line
this is Kansas
a chainlink fence
this is Kansas
a dying dance
if this is Kansas
why does it look like the Kingdom of God?

That last line is an epic line for its multiple awesome meanings and although I don't really like explaining my poetry, I feel this line could easily be twisted so I will clarify its meaning. It refers to both the fact that I am sorely disappointed in the real Kansas (it was not what I expected), and the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand and these streets and these broken and dying people in this broken and dying city are what the Kingdom of God is made up of and because of this I'm not really disappointed, but happy. The Kingdom of God isn't made up of rolling hills and fields of golden wheat, but out of broken and hurting people who have nothing to give, least of all beauty. It's a pretty epic realization.

So if i uploaded any of the other videos it would take hours because they're so big and the internet costs money so i don't think I will, but when I get home I'll put them up. For the time being, here's some photos.

The Plains of Abraham

Fields of corn in the U.S. (I don't know why, but it warranted a picture)

a little piece of New York early in the morning when it was deserted

another little piece of New York

A much bigger piece of New York taken from central park

Anyways that's it for now because those things take time to upload, and again time is money. I miss you guys. That was a pretty nondescript 'I miss you' so that it doesn't offend the people that I haven't even thought about since I left and I don't really miss so I guess nobody can really know if I miss them at all. C'est la vie.

New York, New York

Every time I say that, 'New York, New York', it definately makes me feel pretty groovy. New York, New York is both an awesome and cool place, and a very sad place. When I arrived on Friday (I missed my train on Thursday) it was late at night and it was pouring rain when I walked out of the station and my first thought was 'oh crap it's raining'. the handle on my umbrella had broken off up in Montreal so I was holding on to this little stick and trying to keep my backpack dry because all my books and important things were in the top, so this meant that I got soaked, but I got used to the rain after a while and it really didn't end up being too bad, it added atmosphere to the city (although I'm still glad that it's sunny right now). Right across the station was madison square garden so I snapped a picture of that and started out into the city with no idea where I was going and no maps or even an adress or number for a hostel. I should have gotten a map at least from the train station, but I didn't think of it and before I knew it I was on the street and walking. My first instinct was to head toward the place where all the excitement and people were coming from so pretty soon I hit broadway and then turned along that and walked for a couple of blocks and then, sensing that it was nearby, I asked someone where times square was. They informed me that I was in it and I was a bit confused for a minute because I though squares had to be these big open spaces, but then as I walked onto the median in the middle of the street, the whole place sort of expanded around me, until when I was standing on the subway grate in the middle, with an almost musical sound coming up from the underground and all the taxis and people yelling and honking and the hundreds of flashing lights and big screens blurring my vision and me spinning inside it all, it felt like it was the center of the world and the world was spinning around the ground where I stood, it was truly a magnificant feeling. Evidently, however, New Yorkers also think that New York is the center of the world and sometimes it can be hilarious to see people walking down the street who obviously think 'I'm all that' and how visible, without saying a word to them but just in their fashions and the way they walk, their conceit is. it gives it a pretty cool feeling though. the sad side of New York came later in the night. I had decided that since it was so late and all I knew about where I was, was that I was in times square, I wasn't gonig to look around for a hostel too far from the square, but instead I was going to stay up all night and wander around in the close area. So I pretty much explored every corner of times square and though they say that the city never sleeps, there was a time from around 3 to 5 in the morning where there were very few people on the street. However, at this time of night you could walk down Broadway and on every streetcorner there would be a pusher trying to sell you drugs and depending which street you walked down, there could be half a dozen guys walking down the street with a hooker. It was definately a sad city at that time and not a very safe place, even though the city has being swarming with police since Bloomberg I'm told, but fortunately there were a few 24/7 mcdonalds and starbucks in the direct vicinity of times square so I spent a good percentage of my time in those (or standing under the big overhanging broadway theater signs because it rained the whole time). I made it through the night, but I was really tired the next day and didn't do a whole lot except for walk from times square to Amsterdam and 103rd st. (trust me it's a long way, especially with a backpack in the semi-rain) and check into the hostelling international hostel there. today I didn't do a whole lot either, but I went to church this morning (at about noon) and met a bunch of cool people and went for lunch with them, so that was pretty good I guess. right now I only have about a minute and a half left on my internet time so I'm going to have to wrap up, but I took a bunch of videos in New York and I'm going to see if I can find somewhere to upload those.

the happiness parade

So pretty much the legal drinking age in Quebec city is 18. So I definitely went to the pub down the street last night and got drunk. Not totally drunk, just swaying and slight blurring and a bit of lack of the ability to talk very well. So yeah I guess you would classify that as drunk, but not drunk so that I don't remember stuff. I definitely did chronicle the entire experience though so that might have been what kept me remembering everything. there's a few pages of just random writings in my journal, that examined in the light of day are pretty funny, if a little hard to translate because my writing is already bad, but with alcohol in me it's atrocious. Also, one of the reasons I got drunk is because I wanted to see if I could still write when drunk, and how exactly that affects what I write. so here's a song I wrote when I only had 1-1.5 out of 2 pints in me.

The Happiness Parade

Welcome one and all
the tightrope walker tries to say
while jerking back the tears of laughter
clowns in caricture of the queen
will entertain you for a penny
paupers, princes all the same
and if we fail to put a smile upon your face
we'll give you cotton candy entertaaaiinment
for to say

(chorus)
welcome to the happiness parade
monkeys elephants and trains
pulling into town the big band plays
the circus master flips a magic switch
and all throughout the day it never rains
it's the happiness parade

welcome one and all
to the last show of the day
there's tears aplenty if you miss it
but windmills, all the whirligigs
and the wonderful month of May
will bring you smiles all the same
and if nothing in this world can cheer you up
we'll spell you all the numbers backward, it's a gaaame see
for to say

chorus

and if the monkeys start to riot
at the mayors house we'll pay
for we're so full of glee and happiness
that any bill we're glad to foot
but to the animals we'll say
go back and bring the lion train
for if I put my head into the lions mouth
we'll earn a killing just by plaaaying
at a game

chorus

welcome one and all
to virtual reality
it's magic tricks and pick up sticks
and no one here's to blame
and no one in the town they say
and no one at the fair today
if all the children die of laughter
it's smiles killing currents of the braaaiinwaves
for to say

chorus

when the children fall
we'll gather up the people now
dancing cucaracha down the street
and hurling colored bricks through windows
we'll send them to the bars and pray
that when the day is done they'll say
"Oh happiness! Oh happiness! It is enough."
all sadness turns to gaaaiity
in this game

chorus

So it's definitely a pretty confusing a sad song, not really happy at all. Alcohol is not a happy thing and cannot make you happy. Overall I'm not sure if it was worth it, but I won't do it again anyways so there's no need to worry. Anyways, I'm off to get a souvenir from this city and then catch my train.

Quebec

So Quebec is officially an alright city in my books. the place is seriously packed with massive amounts of history and culture. This morning I arrived before sunrise and searched around the city for a place to watch the sun rise. the city was deadly quiet and there was absolutely no signs of life anywhere, I almost made it to the top of the main hill in the old city before I spotted somebody. I eventually settled on an awesome park overlooking the Saint Lawrence River (by the way, does anybody know who Saint Lawrence was? I'm curious, but don't want to do the hard work of looking it up). After the sun rose I went and had breakfast at a French restaurant called 'La Omellette' or something and then wandered the city streets. The citadel was cool I guess, but it didn't even come close to the Halifax citadel, which was pretty much awesome (but not, contrary to popular belief, impenetrable (as these blurry photos taken after closing from inside the citadel will demonstrate))

Seriously folks, I'm pretty sure the guard almost caught me... it was intense. I totally went to the Quebec parlaiment building today (which was awesome) and had a tour (which was awesome) and had lunch in the cafeteria (which was pretty good but I regret not pilfering a Quebec Parlaiment spoon) and scored a seat in question period (which was awesome even though I didn't understand a word of what was said (except for A B C, at one point, and Quebec and Quebequioua (I seriously don't know how to spell that word), in another), but I understood the basic system of parliamentary debate so that made it a lot more interesting (I still fell asleep)). I think I'm just going to put pictures of random things in here now because I can't top the wordy awesomeness of those brackets.

Quebec wall

me and the CN tower giftshop

Nuk Luk and the CN tower

Quebec parlaiment statues that look better in real life

train view in tunnel with rain

Edmonton

Halifax sunset and the next one is the view from the hotel in Toronto