He Raped Me... with his words!

Taking The Short Bus To The Civic Planning Department

With practices like 'planned obsolescence' and 'manufactured scarcity' being a part of the every day lexicon of modern day marketing strategists, it's not implausible to think that similarly nefarious schemes will eventually begin to permeate public sector planning as well.

The 90 day warranty is a testament to the existence of planned obsolescence. I’m merely speculating here, but I imagine that manufacturers use statistical data to determine things like consumer tolerance thresholds for their products.

An article in The Edmonton Journal today, “Crowded new schools weigh options” led me to construct the following crude diagram:

Weighing options, reviewing analysis, forming committees, holding discussions, and hiring consultants; supposed action to public outcry that seems to me like more of an ends to a mean than a means to an end! If the people occupying positions of public trust aren’t all utterly incompetent, unthinking boobs, then they must have secretive guidelines to ensure their own survival. Something like:

How can we, as entrusted civic planners, see to it that these resolutions will only lead to eventual greater problems that begin to unfold far enough down the road that our office is unlikely to be scrutinized for such undesirable outcomes? We, as entrusted civic planners, must remain vigilant in our unofficial mandate to evoke maximum public dissatisfaction from the outcomes of our planning decisions. Only strict adherence to these guidelines will fortify our institution by avoidance of invalidating our own existence as solutions providers.

Perhaps a tad far-fetched, but sometimes you’ve just got to scratch your head when they start crying for more tax dollars.

    

Into Something Good?

The other day I scanned the A Side of a Herman’s Hermits 7” record. Upon pulling the image up for cropping and editing, it occurred to me that I could fit something in the emptiness of the center spindle hole, so I put some weed in there. Well, not actual weed, but an image of a nugget of weed I found using Google images. Vinyl records and weed make a great combination, right folks? 

I then left the home office room to head to the kitchen for a cigarette and a beer. While sitting there, I began to sketch out a floor plan for what would soon manifest itself into a pipe dream, pardon the pun. Imagine if you will, most excellent reader, a bistro / studio / record store that also serves marijuana under one roof. In my own imaginings, it could all be neatly contained within a two-storey structure and a basement.  

Now, I do realize that I’ve neglected to include any allotment of space for a mechanical room, but these drawings were merely an impulsive stab in the dark at designing something fun. Of course something as critical to the functioning of any building as a mechanical room should never be a frivolous afterthought, so rest assured, I will be certain to remedy this crucial oversight with the first revision of the floor plan!

As you can see, the music studio is in the basement. Note that there is a circular column running clear through to the second floor, herein I will refer to as the listening lounge. It is intended as a perch to isolate a hi-fi turntable from any external vibrations, and so should probably be enclosed by sound absorbent material in the basement as well as on the main floor. Also, it should be dipped into the firmament to a depth of at least eight feet beneath the foundation floor. Record playing turntables are highly sensitive devices, and we wouldn’t want noise interference or styluses jumping every time a heavy truck drives past.

It’s my understanding that this is a building practice not uncommon amongst serious audiophiles in Japan, and it makes perfect sense to include it in the blueprint; I’m no construction expert, but it seems fairly obvious that attempting to retrofit such a concrete monstrosity would be ridiculously expensive, time consuming, and difficult.

You might be wondering about the three sound rooms along the north wall of the basement level. Musicians tend to be a finicky bunch, and many producers and engineers can be persistent in achieving a very particular type of sound when recording a track. The tonal characteristics of sound waves travel in unseen shapes and patterns, and will reflect from or sink into the confines of any walls surrounding their source of their eminence to varying degrees. I’m not an acoustical engineer or anything, but I felt that having three distinctively shaped sound booths would provide enough variation to hopefully satisfy the most discerning of golden ears. So you think the vocals don’t seem to have enough bite in the rounded room? Let’s try singing it in the triangular sound booth.

Good take gang! I see it’s now half-past eleven so the kitchen should be open. Why don’t we all head upstairs for some lunch before remixing?

So.... the singer is a vegan, the guitar player- a celiac, and the drummer happens to be an observant Muslim. What’s to eat? While I haven’t put a great deal of thought into the menu, I would not dream of seeing anyone secluded from lunch due to dietary restrictions. Soup of the day would always be from homemade stock, and sandwiches could be ordered on wheat-free breads or whatever wholesome grains the eventual celiac in our midst would find agreeable.

Albeit I’m a regular human garburator with a voracious appetite who loves eating most anything that isn’t synthetically processed or filled with starches and additives, I’m cognizant of other’s sensitivities to food, and, as a Christian man, I have a deep respect for Kosher and Halal considerations. Were I a proprietor of an establishment that served meals, I’d likely have a menu with a core rotation of affordable soul & comfort foods while leaving room for a few delightful surprise dishes ready to order. Things like salads with mandarin orange slices and sautéed almonds, or mini fondue plates with freshly baked breads to dip.

I understand how challenging it would be to run a profitable restaurant. Presumably the other facets generating income within “Into Something” (the sound studio, the record sales, the weed profits) would provide enough of a buffer to help the restaurant through any growing pains. I would never want the spectre of compromising the quality of food in order to survive a few bumps in the road. That could easily be the beginning of the end in this era of food reviews being a quick iPHONE transmission away from publication on the internet where they’ll spread like wildfire!

Before returning to the studio for some remixing, the guitar player and drummer make clear that they would like to head to the van for a quick toke before continuing.

Why go out to the van when we can simply head upstairs from the restaurant, and enjoy a sample of British Columbia’s finest buds with a cold, light beer, plush seating, and sunshine from the skylight above? While the rhythm section are busy imbibing, the straight-laced singer and the recovering bass player might like to browse through the extensive selection of LPs and various publications lining the walls of the listening lounge. I’ll be over here, chatting with the bar tender over a glass of Beaujolais until everyone’s fit to get back to work!

In the center of the listening lounge is a showpiece turntable resting at the top of the exposed column of high density concrete. To prevent patrons from accidentally bumping into it, it should terminate around chest level above the top floor, surrounded by a circular handrail breached by a two step riser for access. All members of the wait staff working in the lounge will be briefed on correct procedures for handling and changing the records to the whims of the members of Into Something’s listening lounge club. There would be an exhaust hood directly above the record player, as well as ceiling ventilation troughs tracing along the north and west walls to suck smoke away from the vinyl collection.

Originally I drew-in a fireplace on the top floor, but now I’m thinking of all the ash and particles creating a headache by finding their way into the grooves of the records. Also, it just wouldn’t be prudent to pull firewood up on the dumb waiter, and who’d want to haul armfuls of split logs up a flight of stairs? A far more practical alternative would be some kind of decorative radiator distributing heat from the fire directly below.

Members only! While opening a studio and restaurant in British Columbia shouldn’t present any licensing concerns beyond the ordinary, I’d anticipate that running a lounge where marijuana is openly sold and consumed would likely raise the spectre of red tape issues. Let’s face it – to do so would be opening a can of worms – at least until such a time that federal legislation catches up with the will of most ordinary people who understand that smoking a bit (or a lot) of weed is probably far less hazardous than guzzling one of those new fangled energy drinks! When one considers that our law makers allow for things like safe injection sites, I find it hard to understand the rationale behind disallowing something as benign as a weed bistro catering to aficionados of music, food, wine, and culture in general. To be sure, prohibitive laws surrounding cannabis seem retarded in a society where even most people who abstain from it have no issue with their friends doing it.

Unfortunately, there will always be grumpy complainers in society who will refuse to see the forest for the trees… even after taking them up in a hot air balloon. The ugly souls among us who see fit to spoil everyone’s good time because they’re either too simple or stubborn to accept anything that challenges their cut and dry idea of how things should be. If I can live without smoking pot, nobody should smoke it! Since I never do anything other than eat, sleep, watch Bill O’Reilly and masturbate, I’ll call the cops if the party next door gets too loud with all their music and laughing! If I’m too simple to get the joke, I’ll complain to the human rights commission! How dare someone try to discretely drink a can of beer as they walk along the sidewalk… I see them! I see everything!

A neighbour who’s always got one eye on the street– just lying in wait for someone to inadvertently violate any trivial bylaw. They’re the church goer who interprets every sermon far too literally because they lack any imagination, elegance, or pragmatic reasoning ability. Meanwhile, the pastor is shagging the tattle-tale’s former significant other on the sly once a week after ritualistically snorting cocaine from the cover of some occultist publication! Okay, I’m getting a little off track here…

One final possibility I’ve entertained for “Into Something” is a small production room to cut and press 7” promotional singles. I really don’t know much about the process, but I believe it could probably fit into an 8’ X 13’ space. It’d be nice to produce a limited vinyl edition of potential hit songs. Then everyone could traipse upstairs to the listening lounge and have a little celebration after a gruelling session in the studio.  

So… anyone out there reading this up for loaning me $3.75 million bucks to manifest my vision? Would that be enough? I’m thinking it might be somewhat of a liberal estimate, but no more liberal than the scope of my dreams! Sketching a floor plan and outlining a high level overview is the easy part. Building the place and finding the right talent for studio operations, cuisine, and regulatory obstacles seems insurmountable, but who knows? Having the dream is the root of the foundation.

 

Big Boy Budget

Now that I'm a bigboy, I figured it's time to fire-up the spreadsheet and start tracking a realistic, grown-up budget to help fortify my long-term financial outlook. These are my personal fiduciary projections for 2013. It might require a bit of retooling if I have to start buying my own tobacco, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed! The only sources of income I currently foresee will be from self-employment endeavors like walking other people's dogs, trading vinyl LPs over eBay, and maybe doing some private music lessons.

If I can manage to save up six hundred bucks by 2014, I'll be that much richer than today. With that kind of money, I might invest it in some poor man's gold bullion or perhaps some original paintings. The thing I most aspire to have is a quiet refuge in the form of an audio / visual studio. At $600 / year growth, it should only take about fifty years or so to afford it. I imagine by that time there will be medical or nutritional or cybernetic technology to enable people to live to be 700 years as we did in Biblical times. Once again, fingers crossed!     

Idle No More, Idle No Less

I feel nothing for either side.

I could care less if pipelines crisscross the landscape.

My ancestors were coal miners, potato farmers, and survivors.

You Indians:

Your claims of global warming have been discredited.

Your children steal my designer clothes and break my windows.

They talk on whiteman’s wireless phones.

They worship whiteman culture.

They ask me for money I don’t have to buy things I don’t want.

When I don’t comply they steal from me the little I’ve amassed.

You Whitemen:
You treat everyone with impunity.
Your children are on drugs from Columbia.
They think you can perpetually kick the can down the road.
They ask me for money I don't have to buy things I don't want.
They shoot themselves in the foot and blame the Indians.

You Indians can pound on your stretched animal skins until the spirit wolf howls for your ancestors.

You titans of industry can bulldoze and scrape and drill your way into the center of the earth.

It makes no difference to me.