Ron the Pawn

I've been feeling terrible about my previous article about Alberta's minister of Arts and his glaringly inarticulate tweeting ever since posting it, and so would like to apologize for my public knit picking - as though I'm some accomplished and acclaimed writer. Still, it pisses me off that he does - and I don't - have a cool job and make loads of money for doing cool shit. I heard Lindsay on the radio a couple weeks ago and he sounds like a really nice guy, so I feel like a complete ass.

I started a wordpress thing where I publish my off-the-cuff poetry. I like getting stuff out there fast in the event that I die unexpectedly; lest the world never have a chance to appreciate my literary genius.

In the spirit of the original intent of this blog, I will refrain from addressing politics here in the future, and focus on a brief discussion about one of my latest videos and throw a couple of dumb, unrelated pics in the mix - like this one:

  
Often times I get carried away with editing and augmenting my photo images, but lately I'm more into writing and twitter and facebook and youtube. I'm usually too lazy to put a whole bunch of links in my articles. I find politics baffling and alcohol liberating. Sometimes I just want to banish the problems of the world from my thoughts and just ease my mind with a song to share with my numerous friends and the throngs of mortal admirers of my supernatural talent. The video embedded below is of me performing a song I wrote when I was about twenty so.




Ron "The Pawn" had a bit of a temper - like so many of the merchants of assorted stuff I've met. I've always thought that running a pawn shop would be a great retirement gig for someone like me who likes to tinker with electronics and collect vintage things.

Alberta's Minister of Arts and Culture Tweets, "...we are trulu blessed."

Indeed we are trulu blessed to not only to live in this great country- as trulu blessed as I am trulu proud of my Anglo-Saxon heritage. A heritage of ancestors who were, for the most part, sufficiently fluent in the English language to at least string together a proper English sentence. Judging by Linday's Twitter home page, fluency in written English is somewhat of an obstacle for our Province's Minister of Arts and Culture.

I think today I'll heed the advice of Mr. Blackett and enjoy myself safely from behind the keyboard of my PC, within the sanctuary of my 450 square foot abode in downtown Edmonton, adding fuel to the fires of political rebellion sprigging from the spongy muskeg of the vast northern wilderness to the craggy outcroppings of the foothills of this majestic province. 

The fact that eloquence is not a strong suit for Alberta's Progressive Conservative party is obviated by examples like the one above of Blackett's "dudebombs", or Mr. Stelmach's useless hand-wringing, lullaby speeches. 

Like my own seeming inability to hold down a steady job, we all have our own weaknesses. Depending on what your post is in society, some shortcomings are acceptable; if you're an English teacher,  for example, it doesn't matter much if you're baffled by Boolean Algebra. If you're an accountant, it's not going to be expected of you to quote famous philosophers throughout the day. If you're a provincial minister - of Arts & Culture no less - is it too much to expect you demonstrate parlance in at least one of the official languages at a minimum of a grade 12 level? 

Let's examine(d) a few of Mr. Blackett's Twitter entries together(s):

I wouldn't accept such a grammatical catastrophe from most ten year olds! You're in a PUBLIC OFFICE of the Commonwealth, Sir! I invite you to drag my feet through the coals, but... 

How about this somewhat cryptic entry:

 

I know for me, seeing piles of reports on a desk always fills me with a certain amount of glee. They're capable of spurring an even greater sense of joyousness when you can actually understand the language that they're written in! From this particular entry, I can't help but deduce that this is an obvious and classic example of a fight or flight response: See work = hide out in Calgary.

The more of Mr. Blackett's tweets I read, the more incensed I become. Our "Minister of Arts and Community Spirit" is lavishly travelling around to all kinds of events on the taxpayer dime in some air conditioned luxury car and probably dining out at some fancy affair every night! While I would presume at least that he's a good and personable fellow, (singularly the most important trait of any politician) I cannot help but fail to see how he's of any particular benefit to Alberta's cultural image (or" community spirit"). Maybe I'm wrong or ignorant about Mr. Blackett's professional accolades. Publicly pointing out what he perceives as being "shit" in regard to  whatever creative content he was referring to hardly got a mixed reception here in the province, if I'm not mistaken.   

Great, great, great. Wow... everything is so great when you've got a high salaried position demanding nothing from you beyond trotting around events and tweeting about them inarticulately. Polite words could never  express the outright ire boiling inside of me when I think of how I actually voted for these yahoos. Ted Morton is so far the only member of Ed's old boy's commie club who even seems capable of speaking convincingly - even if is only spinning some confounded yarn about green really being blue!

Someone throw me a frickin' bone here!

Dear Readers

Hey folks... it's the King of Empty Promises here. Just heard an inside ad from a popular, local, right-wing, AM talk-radio station seeking a writer for, I think, writing ad copy. They want someone with a background in marketing and communication... of course... and of course they wouldn't want some pan-fried unpredictable, horsepuck-selling free agent like this strange benevolent cat working spin for their corporate / business sponsors' agendas, would they? While I may be a powerful creative force in the minds of many, I am also a bit of a passive aggressive wild man with a penchant for skipping the light fantastic; in a moderately hard-core way though, if you will.

You know, Dear Readers, that it has become painfully obvious to all of my friends, my family, and most importantly, me, that I am incapable of handling so much as a provincial work-kindergarten-welfare program, let alone a straight job day in and day out. I've demonstrated this lack of caring to not only myself but to a multitude of employers and teachers throughout the years by exhibiting behavioural patterns such as: struggling to be on time for things... skipping classes... staying up all night... being generally irresponsible... making inappropriate or inflammatory statements... jeopardizing production quotas... fostering rebellious ideas amongst disgruntled co-workers I’ve only just met... ignoring redundant make-work tasks assigned by superiors who's only motivation it seems is to flex their managerial muscle in the face of my outright defiance.

I just can’t bring myself to jive with the whole modern-day corporate movement that I see as a feeble attempt to redefine common sense or somehow regulate instinct. Everyone has just got to lighten up a little, stop all the infighting and gang-up on the bankers.

Can I change? Is it too late for me to seize the yoke of reality and really do something with my life? Heck, I feel that I’m just a measly spring chicken at the age of thirty-three. My life is beautiful. I cook fancy meals for myself from time to time, and if I’m not enjoying a cigarette with my black coffee, you’re quite likely to find me scouring public opinion on CBC, flirting with women on Plenty Of Fish, or working on a new video or song idea, but I need to get paid. Maybe I could be a top album cover designer. Here’s one I came up with last night – band name and all:

THE UNDERSTANDERS: That is the name I shall call my band. I like it. Has a sort of retro college radio band edge to it.

I’ve been getting out for many a long walks with the dogs throughout the days and evenings. Here in Edmonton, it’s imperative for us to capitalize on the sunny days of our somewhat brief sunny season. I’ve actually enjoyed the spectacular thunderstorms we’ve been treated to this summer.

Edmonton only had to shiver through nary a dozen ridiculously cold days last winter, it seems to me – and the winter before was rather mild compared with the last decade at least. I can recall weeks on end of temperatures hovering close to the minus forty centigrade mark just ten to fifteen years ago; factor in the wind chill on those bone chilling cold days and the out of doors becomes an arena that is downright hostile to the point that perilous pneumonic death awaits you should you find yourself not well appointed with some substantial thermal layers of clothing. From my own experience, animal hides serve as the best defence against the heatless wintery nights. Brrrrr!

Coronation Street

Coronation Street; that's where I want to live! Watching the last batch of episodes got my tears welling heavier than the incinerator load at the abortion clinic after a power outage!

It seems that one of my decidedly favorite faces from the show (and truly I love them all) Umed (Harish Patel) may be leaving the pages... that's the impression that I get anyhow. If Patel is indeed nearing the end of his term with Coronation Street then I look forward to seeing any future projects he might appear in. Does anyone out there know the scoop on this guy? What did he do before Corrie?

Forget About The Castocracy - Don't Look Now... It's a Cat Apostrophe!

Quarter after nine in the evening on a Monday, it is; as I sit down to finally do a bit of internally intellectualizing my intellectualisms... the telephone rings... of course - predictably, it's Cap'n Gimmiemoore wanting to share his tantalizingly sea-sickening scurvy yarn-spinnin stories wit' da likes-o-Yarr.

Anyhoo, I was intending on blogging in somewhat of a simplistic fashion, I guess. Is that not what I usually do anyway? I don't know. I don't read my own blog anymore. I know I have a tendency to be verbose and epistemological at times, eh?

What I wanted to share with all both of my readers this eve, were a couple of pictures that I snapped while out on a little Monday night stroll-about here in the fine city of Edmonton. Edmonton has an Avenue She calls, "Jasper Ave", and facing it from the North side of the main-way is one of the few of a small chain of bookseller outlets that stays open until 2:00 a.m.

Sometimes I feel inclined to pop in to The Wee Book Inn - usually on the rare occasion that I happen to be walking past (though I think I sort-of had it in my head to wind up there) and see how the wee in-store -kitty-cat is faring whilst I'm passively checking out the reference section for stellar deals on dictionaries or atlases. Most often, I'll purchase no titles whatsoever, if not from the classic's section. This time, though, I did happen to make a purchase called, "Anniversary Reflections" - 232 pages of stories and B&W pictures of Edmonton and it's people-folk between the years of ‘38 and ‘88 by The Edmonton Photo Club. For someone like me, this is a great find that only cost a single dollar plus G.S.T., and it's in near-mint condition to boot!

I love limited edition books of any kind, and especially tales of a bygone era. It just so happens that I happen to have a bit of a passive interest in the recent history of my favourite place in the world, my own personal choice of habitat, Edmonton. It was even printed right here in the Provincial Capital at our very own Northern Alberta Institute of Technology almost twenty years ago. How cool is that?

Bought a sack of onions today too - used ‘em in a little potato pan fry w/ Mozzarella cheese between writing the lines in this very article!

 Grand total of shopping trip: $3.15 CAN.

The commentary on this article really piqued my curiosity about a certain contraband, controversial and combustible substance, and so, being unable to help my "George the Monkey" mindset,  just now broke down and decided to telephone a certain friend of Lord Black's to see if she/he wasn't indeed able to "hook a Brother up" so to speak, and bring me a little of what I once heard Sir Paul McCartney allude to in an interview as as the stuff you might find rolled up into a, "Herbal Jazz Cigarette."

Always liked that about Sir Paul. He's wonderful when it comes to concocting new ways of saying things. And for being highly introspective about his own works of art. Always liked that about the chap. Though you know, John is totally my fave of the "Fab Four."

There, just finished "reefing on it", and am wanting very badly to know how, if at all, the influence of this sacred herb will affect my writing in some measurable way.

Feel pretty well in control of both my senses and my dialogue- perhaps a tad more excitable than usual, but I've always been one to love a strong cup of coffee at any hour of the day or night. Drinking it piping hot really opens up the airways and stimulates the bowel movements. Does this mark the first occasion that I've actually used that particualar word combo (B.M.) at anypoint in my blogging history? Doubtful, I'm sure.

So, how's about joining me for dinner and holding an informal lesson in French lessons, Ms. Rollergirl is it?

Skulking About On The CBC

What we're discussing here is my response to an article, posted by the CBC on their website entitled,

Markets rebound from recent losses

Dow breaks 7-day losing streak

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/07/06/markets-rebound.html#ixzz0sxEFGitX

I'm far better at poetry than numbers, however still, I feel my guess as to what the future ultimately has in store for our shared economies is as good as any other stooge's guess.

Think positively, hombres!

Messy Living Editorial

Trying to get myself back on the wagon for good, and my conflicted thinking is telling me it'll never work. The power of positive thinking does help sometimes, but the real problem lies in never having enough money to finance the simple things that keep my psyche within the parameters of what society might deem to be a reasonably measured level of stability.

Sometimes I wish I weren't so highly literate. It's not like I'll ever find the time to focus on music or writing when I'm busy working ten hour days to afford my cigar smoking habit, and nobody likes a smarty pants. I've never been able to find the conviction to hang onto any one job, and I've had scores of them since graduating from high school - mostly the types of jobs that anyone with little more than a grade six education could perform.

My parents never really took my dreams seriously, and always suggested more practical avenues than music and literature. If it weren't for my folks, however, I'd probably be in jail by now.

I don't have a calendar and I never wear a watch. I'm always running late and cannot be counted on for appointments. I change my mind frequently, and break previously made engagements to sit here alone, smoking and thinking about futility. I've never been much of a team player, but I love to entertain others.

Yesterday, I crawled out of bed around eleven in the morning, and immediately began working on a new video after brewing some coffee and making a cigarette out of the remnants of yesterday's cigar stub. The whole process of video production I find thoroughly enjoyable, and the narrative I was concocting as I went along was humorous and strangely poetic. Six hours of inserting subtitles later, I was nearly ready to wrap it up and make any final revisions before publishing the piece to my hard drive when the Windows Movie Maker program decided to crash.

Murphy's Law, it might seem, was in full effect. Anyone who's taken any sort of introductory computing class knows of course that one of the cardinal rules of computing is to routinely save one's progress. Why couldn't it have crashed when I was only two hours into it instead of six? It's almost as though the computer sensed I was nearing the finish line and made an executive decision without my permission to scrap the whole project.
I resolved to make the reconstruction even more humorous and more poetic than the one I'd just lost - if I ever find the time.

My parents and some of my friends are under the impression that since I "don't work" that I should have "nothing but time." Now, I'm not trying to convince anyone that my videos are necessarily worthy of critical acclaim, but even making a crappy video all on your own is fairly time consuming. First you need to get the source footage, then you need to edit the video and line it up with an audio track. Typing out the subtitles. Before you know it, you're eight hours in. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with it at all, but somehow think it'll earn me some measure of recognition one day.

I don't have any children of my own, and I haven't been in a serious relationship for over six years. The white picket fence and a couple of yard apes getting into trouble at every turn hasn't been, and likely will never be my thing. I'm too paranoid to be a parent. I suppose I could abandon my dreams of rock stardom, go to work every day on time, hang onto some thankless job until I'm sixty eight, get a wife, a forty year mortgage, and obsess over keeping the house tidy - clipping coupons, and washing the car on the weekends - but it's not me - not yet anyway.

I intend to be filthy rich some day, and women have a most wonderful way of encroaching on such ambitions. Suddenly an expensive vacation is in order, or a plethora of specialized products you never even knew existed are becoming daily necessities. Yoga classes, fancy clothes, pet grooming, hair and skin care essentials. Maybe it's just Edmonton chicks... trips to the pharmacy that once numbered no more than twice a year during your lonely, useless period of bachelorhood are now a daily occurrence. The $50, 000 you had earmarked to prudently invest in gold bullion is now in the hands of your brother-in-law the commerce flunky who thinks that mutual funds and life insurance are "a great way to go." No thanks.

When I was fresh out of high school, I got a summer job working at a trucking company for nine bucks an hour. It was a reasonable wage back then considering how many of my peers were earning little more than half of what I was making in their various retail engagements. The job was tough, but I was nineteen, and embraced the macho element of being a trucker. Anyway, fast forward just twelve years, and fifteen bucks an hour hardly cuts it anymore. With my low overhead such a rate of pay is slightly more than ample, but I can forget about ever driving a car or buying a home with such paltry wages.

Positive thinking is all fine and dandy, but if as some predict we are about to see our food and gasoline prices double at a time when employers feel a need to cut back wages, I doubt there will be much room for any sort of rational discourse in the minds of the hungry masses.

Having a Cigarette on Canada Day 2010

Smoking is terribly addictive, and against all odds, some folks manage to routinely light up until their very last cigarette in their ripe old age:

Others die young.

Some folks smoke while other refute the temptations of tobacco.

Some people manage to quit altogether or cut back significantly.

Others might huff and puff away with such conviction, and smoke one endless chain of little white sticks throughout their dying days.

Then of course we have specialty tobaccos and tobacco covered in a gooey molasses for use in water bongs, a tradition from times immemorial in lands far away.

Nobles wear expensive garb and do it in luxurious royal sanctuaries - or just have one in the carriage on the way the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Workers grab one every chance they can to have a stimulating discussion filled break from the monotony of the old day-in-day-out.

Bums are notorious for bumming smokes:

How many times has one heard, "Hey man, can I have one of yours?"

Whether you chew it and spit it, sniff it and blow it, cough it and hack it, tobacco, I'm guessing, will remain a friend to mankind, and chicks (so many stunning women smokers)  for years to come!

Happy Canada Day, my fellow free men! I'll quit when I'm ready damn it!

Romance Party or Wild Rose Alliance Party?

Daniel Smith: Reality or Myth?

I can recall listening to talk radio (something I routinely do when I'm at home), and hearing Danielle Smith, leader of the Wild Rose Alliance Party, being interviewed by, I think it was Dave Rutherford, and hearing her making a response to one of his simple questions that to me - sounded as though she might drone on for hours in some unnatural corpo-speak fashioned language that drove me entirely nuts to the point that I had to slam the radio's off button before she got to drawing up any strange or asinine conclusions to her convoluted ramblings. Sorry ma'am, but I just don't reckon that I can handle your jargon 'cause it simply ain't about to jive with this cowboy!

Using Star Office Writer for my article this time. I suppose I'm a fairly heavy computer user, and some people I know ask me where I find the time to do so much writing. These folks should see me type! I've been typing since I was about five or six, and a few years later, would find myself spending hours inputting lengthy computer programs, written out on the glossy pages of computer periodicals from the mid-to-late 80s, and then, of course, proofing your efforts after you type the “RUN” command, only to see the computer spit back, “Syntax Error Line 2090.”

The resulting computer games and programs varied in their playability and functionality, but they were always a good lesson-by-example in how the BASIC computer language worked.

Anyway, I often change up the software I use for various media publishing tasks. Sometimes I get to thinking I should make more of an effort to employ the multitasking capabilities of modern personal computer by always having multiple windows on the screen visible at the same time. While I often have dozens of programs running in the background, I'm more of an [ALT]-[TAB] program changer. I tend to run things in full screen, finish what I'm doing in the moment, copy what I want to import to another program, and then jump right into the next program like.

I'll move images freely between Microsoft “Paint” and Corel “Photopaint” to circumnavigate my limited ability in using the fairly complex Photopaint software. When it comes to working with graphic images, I discover new ways of doing things nearly every time I decide to work with an image – come up with new ideas, and in my experimental pursuits would end up with something that I'd describe as: album cover art.

"Third Bedroom"

The picture above was originally taken using B&W film exposed by a Nikon FE, processed by a shop, the resulting prints scanned into my PC at 1200 d.p.i. using an Hewlitt Packard C-4210 "All in One" Printer / Scanner / Copier. The one you see above, though, is of course the rendered JPEG. I once stayed in that room for a couple of months - it was one of two bedrooms in an old "war house" not too far from the banks of the mighty North Saskatchewan River here in Edmonton. The community is known as Rossdale. Now-a-days I live in the Grandin neighbourhood. 

"Kid Rock"

My efforts to “put the plug in the jug” and to not live my life like a careless hammerhead recently have been going very well for me. I'm greatly enjoying the sobriety of my thoughts, and I hope that I can sustain my self-discipline – commit to doing a great deal more writing of things both frivolous and serious – the writing itself being the subject of my work...

Still love making videos. Still haven't given up on the dreams of rock music stardom. My folks still don't want to hear it! Oh well.

Here's my latest music video:

Hope and Despair

Just kicking back allowing the breathy, sultry sound of Hope Sandoval's forlorn voice singing "Fade Into You" with her band, Mazzy Star as it gently renders me love-stricken. She's like a hybrid of Diana Ross and Margo Timmins? It really takes me back to that special place in my mind that began to develop in the early nineties when I first discovered the melancholy joys of smoking herbal jazz cigarettes whilst listening to late night radio within the confines of my "trip emporium" / bedroom of my parent's basement. I'd sure like the opportunity to fade into Hope Sandoval someday! I think she even gives the young Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas a run for her money in the cuteness department. Yowza! I wonder if she ever smiles? She's so dreamy!



It's always a fun trip considering how long I've lived in my studio apartment here in Edmonton. Just moments ago, as I was walking home from the corner store this evening, remarking to myself about how much I appreciate the familiarity of the neighbourhood - from the old Victorian houses lining the avenue down to the old cracks in the sidewalks - the streets turned inward; all the congruousness therein caught me off guard. As a crayon, I was forced to move around like a lopsided top, spun around haphazardly by a couple of the greatest diplomats in the world, and now, on my fifth year of living in this tiny downtown abode, my surroundings feel ever more like home with each passing season. Running into familiar faces, chatting with the shop keepers... my own sort of Coronation Street reality with a Canadian twist to it.

So much time wasted? While I haven't been as productive as I could've / should've been, I like to think my ship will eventually come in - in due time - if it's even bound to moor at all. All those booze fueled, debaucherous nights, listless and unemployed days, dreaming about writing songs and singing them to the enthusiastic young arts majoresses in the front row at one of the local open stages... certainly the wastrel lifestyle must be leading up to something great? I keep trying to convince my benevolent parents that this is indeed the case.

Just finished painting my rather large walk-in closet a sort of cappuccino colour - the same as I painted the rest of the walls in this apartment. Perfect tone for a heavy smoker like myself without being too dark. I find the light brown colour really works well to mellow-out the intense deep green of the baseboards, vertical blinds, and doors. The colour was even hand picked by a professional Benjamin Moore dude with an eye for hues and such.

I plan on transforming the biggish small closet space into an office of yesteryear- an oasis from modern-day info-tech status quo, complete with a desk, a Rolodex, a typewriter, a telephone, and extensive reference library. A place where I can break free from the internet and do some writing without the distraction of the World Wide Web and super-PC at my fingertips. My own personal time portal. Maybe you'd like to call me at the office sometime? I'll jot down your vitals on a reference card and get back to you pronto!

Are you nostalgiac like me? Would you consider yourself a solitary man / woman? Care to start a band?

Dog Food Recipe Experiment

It's sure been a long time since I've felt compelled to post anything here - how many blog entries have begun with that one? I guess I'll just resort to talking about the mundane specifics of my agenda- my agenda of recovery.

My City will be soon to hold an election for Mayor of Edmonton, AB, and there's a new challenger in town. Hopefully more brave individuals throw their names in the ring- hopefully they're not devils in disguise if indeed they do run!

New Mayoral Candidate in Town, CAF 2'nd Leftenant Running for Edmonton's Top Dog

As for me, I'm trying to make some healthy yet palatable (both for the dogs and for my wallet) chow for the two ravenous little wolves I'm currently dog-sitting. I'm tempted to just let them go rabbit chasing in the parks, or chicken hunting in the valley. I won't go into detail about the preparation, but here are the ingredients:

Brown Rice
Oatmeal
Flax Seed
Eggs
Chicken Soup
Brian Hall's One of a Kind Style and Voice Yammering On in the Background. Love ya Brian! And I hardly give a damn about pro-sporting events!

Okay, okay - so you're dying to find out how I'm throwing it all together. The truth is, I already presented these fussy Belgian dogs with a mixture of the above ingredients sans the chicken soup. They just gracefully refused the gruel, and promptly went back to their lounging around, patiently awaiting the next excursion.

My plan now is to introduce chicken soup broth to the slop and see if it tempts them. I'm fairly confident it will work. Maybe a little olive oil as well. Probably good for their coats...

So Called "Classic Rock" Radio Stations Disgraceful

If one thing can be counted on in this world, it's that commercial classic rock stations rarely, if ever, venture to play anything other than a sliver of cross section of the music made throughout the sixties, seventies, and now I suppose the eighties are to be counted as well. If these classic rock jocks play something from Pink Floyd, you can almost guarantee that it's NOT going to be anything other than post Barrett era, and will almost always be track from "Another Brick in the Wall" or "Dark Side of the Moon".

What about Frank Zappa? Heck, we play "Joe's Garage" at least once every two weeks! The Beatles? Oh yeah, we run "Hey Jude" twice a day, and "Yesterday"... well, we played that yesterday AND the day before! How about Captain Beefhart? Who the hell is Captain Beefhart? Can I guess what your eighteenth Led Zepplin selection for the evening might be?

XYZ FM, where the same roster of old hits are played in a slightly different order each week . Oh boy, here comes Loverboy's "The Kid is Hot Tonight" - and just when you thought they couldn't turn up the heat any higher the Canadian content quota kicks in and you're treated to Bryan Adam's "Summer of ‘69".

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the so called Djs (a title they're not really deserving of anyway as I'm almost sure many of the younger ones of the current radio personalities who haunt these so called classic rock stations have never even queued up an LP) but their corporate masters' voices who cater to their affiliated advertisers or something like that.

Now, I'm not the type of person who feels the need to shun some song just because it happens to be popular, but for shit's sake, can you at least throw caution to the wind and play the occasional B-Side once in a while? Or maybe have at least one "Sweet Home Alabama" free day each week? Oh, and while you're at it, just take any "Toronto" albums you might happen to have kicking around and see if the nearest pawn shop owner isn't willing to add them to the umpteen Toronto albums he's had languishing on the rack for the last two decades.

Taylor Swift's duet with Stevie Nicks at the 52'nd Grammy Awards

If you've followed my shit for any length of time, you'd know that I rarely watch television, and so, if it weren't for Michael Buckly's celebrity gossip updates, I likely wouldn't have bothered to watch a clip of Taylor Swift performing a few songs at the Grammy awards.

My impressions? Well, from listening to her Grammy set, I think the girl does have a bit of a knack for writing catchy numbers, but I found the overall performance to be vastly unremarkable. Taylor's just a kid really, and her music career is only in its infancy, so with some concentrated effort I imagine that one day she'll get her guitar and voice where it needs to be to attract serious criticism regarding her abilities as a musician.

What I really wanted to remark upon in this posting however, were the stylistic considerations of the guy who played the lead guitar solo for Gold Dust Woman on the Swift / Nicks duet at the Grammy Awards ceremony, Mr. Waddy Wachtel. I'm hardly an aficionado when it comes to fashion considerations, but if you're going to wear a nice suit, then for fuck's sake, pull back that thinning lion's mane of a hairdo into a ponytail! It looks conflicted and pretentious... dare I say goofy and awkward. Nothing I can think of clashes worse with a formal looking suit jacket than hair running past your shoulders - especially if you're an aging hipster. A mu mu would've been more a more fitting choice.

On the other hand, what rights do I have to discuss the goofiness factor of anyone's look when I make a video of myself singing a "Culture Club" song with a towel wrapped around my head?



What kind of name is Waddy? That's almost as unusual a name as 'Juice'. Thoughts?

Spending, Spending, Hallucinating, Reaping, Whatever

It came to my attention, while listening to the radio the other night, that the great David Suzuki has recently addressed issues surrounding the dangers of THC in relation to mental health on his award winning program, "The Nature of Things". I used to love sitting down with my folks in the evening - I'd insist on watching, and becoming frightened/enraged by listening to Dr. Suzuki's dire warnings to clean up our act or else!

Then, last night, one of the local radio station's personalities, Leslie Primo, was nattering on about the connection between schizophrenia and pot use with, I think, a "mental health specialist", i.e. designer drug pusher? There was a young man attesting to the improvement in his life since giving up the herb, but interestingly, also said that it was soon after abandoning his alleged three joint per day habit, wherein his life began taking a turn for the worse.

One might assume this would be considered a normal result, the seeming imbalance of everything when you are suddenly faced with the pain of having to contend with the physical and mental pangs of withdrawal from a substance that has entrenched its way as yet another routine behavior in your day to day affairs.

But is it really, truly, necessarily, or beyond a shadow of a doubt, better that this lad, once a "chronic" pot head, is now on dependent upon some experimental cocktail medley of powerful synthetic pill-form "medicine" with relatively little known of it's long term potential side effects, in order to deal with the tribulations of life? I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I do intimately understand the perils of addiction... I don't want to admit how much money I spend on coffee and the occasional cigar / cigarette.

And David Suzuki? Since I was a mere "crayon", I've always found David to be engaging, brilliant, and rational if not too sensational, but I imagine he would probably be disgusted with the level of air-born impurities or pathogenic atomic whatever in my little man-cave of an apartment - the stale smoke, the incense, the seal meat pie baking in the oven...

Anyway, I started out not really intending to write about Suzuki, Primo, or pot-heads, but more so to discuss my participation in Boy Scouts, the significance of numbers, and what some "mental health expert" might label, a hallucination - which would be my assessment of what I "heard" blowing in the wind, while camping with some of my fellow subjects in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta on summer in the mid to late 90's.

My adVENTURES in the wilderness are not what I wanted to really discuss here either. As for hallucinations, think of an (example I heard from a researcher interviewed by George Noory on Coast to Coast AM the other night) interior decorator who makes a living by essentially hallucinating about how a room will look after his imagined layout is conjured into the real physical space. I immediately thought of a songwriter who sings and / or plays musical instruments and how a tune-smith will "hear" a song in their mind before performing, recording it, writing it down.

Music and dance/movement, are ethereal concepts. A painting in progress is ethereal. Needless to say more at this time, on that!

Time for a video. I've know this song for a long time now, and was inspired after hearing Ronnie Spector's voice on her version of the song, to make an attempt to sing it myself, and dedicate it to the one and only fleeting marvel that is Brian Wilson:

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First Beta Release of, "Pet Project"

Well that didn't take long! Now you can try it out... just need to alter a few settings, and we can see where this goes...

Pet Project, 1st Evolution

My Latest Pet Project

This is my idea of conceptual advertising...

... a template if you will. I don't really know what to say about the image to the left, my new collage, except that like most of my stuff, it lacks coherency and was thrown together on a whim. It's supposed to direct you to, "My ever more resentful neighbour" blog. I wrote some poetry there earlier this afternoon. Can't stop thinking about the situation in Haiti. Very unsettling for me though I sit here so far away from it all. I imagine the shouting and the barking and the venomous snakes and strange voodoo magic.

Spent some "time" over Haiti using the Google Earth's Flight Sim feature. Made an almost reasonably half decent landing on Port au Prince's roller coaster runway. I found the simulator to be quite nimble, and of course the graphics are superb in full screen mode with Direct X (which from now on I'll simply refer to as "Dirext"... or maybe that could be a super 3-D text mega sharp display mode...) running on my super-duper computer. (Not really, just a relatively high performance box from off the shelf of the computer stuff store.)

I was thinking perhaps I could go to Haiti and drive some Gravel Trucks around, but I doubt I'd have the stomach for seeing so many dead, carted off like so much as if they were never animated souls. So I hear. Also, the heat would be almost unbearable for an Arctic Boy like me.This is why I so very much appreciate the invaluable service that our men and women provide who take up the call of the armed forces of our Great Nation. They courageously go to often hostile places mostly no one else but the bravest of Doctors and Nurses and I'm sure very many good fearless volunteers and missionaries dare tread, to help people they've never met before, and hopefully, God willing, will exchange pleasantries instead of bullets - sadly, the latter is too often the outcome of putting men with rifles into strange places.

Those Crazy Canadian Liberals

The year is 2019 and the Liberal Party of Canada has become all but entirely irrelevant to the leaders of the "New World Order" - little more than a standing joke to Canada's now, rigidly overwhelming Conservative minded populace.

Five unlikely companions who just so happen to share an obsession with the life and times of Andy Warhol, reluctantly band together on a journey that is sure to be rife with perilous dangers and unprecedented glory... the quest for the "Lost Lemon".

If they succeed in this last ditch effort to restore the righteous coffers of Canada's (un)original political camp by discovering the whereabouts of the fabled "Lost Lemon", an alleged gold deposit of mythic proportions rumored to be somewhere in the Crow's Nest Pass region of Alberta's majestic Rocky Mountains, they just might have a shot at saving Canada from the wretched tyranny of the Conservatives!

--- *** --- *** _________*** --- *** ---

Father Ignatieff: Finding this so called "Lost Lemon" will be less likely than inadvertently unearthing the day-old excrement of the noble Puffin by way of tripping over oneself, but we need to keep pressing on! Just look for something in the cliffs as shiny as this new Oyster Perpetual Day-Date watch I happen to be wearing right now.

Dr. Morgentaler: Speaking of obsessions with puffins, Father, just please do us a favour and make sure you actually wash your hands before preparing dinner for our little camp tonight... I can hardly believe you really are the best cook amongst the lot of us! No offence, Ben, your boiled and salted green beans with Guinness stewed veal was almost divine, but Father Michael's... what were they again, now, stewed "Prarie Oysters" served upon wild rice patties, were indeed something to write home about, wouldn't you say? I'd take the Prairie Oysters over Fois Gras any day! Comfort food!

Mulroney: Right back at ya there... you should try my Swiss Char casserole.

Father Ignatieff: Your appreciation makes my effort worthwhile. Wash my hands doctor? But why are you now reminding me of this societal given... and whatsoever does it have to do with me trying to tap into my inner Puffin?

All but Michael: (laughter)

Dr. Morgentaller: Oh Father! Haven't you had your H1N1 shot yet? (laughs) I was only considering the chances of EColi transmission to the rest of our party if you continue to so closely imitate the Puffin's propensity to hide it's processed pellet post poop.

Justin: Yeah. That's tellin' him, Doc. Besides, haven't we already quietly reached a consensus that we all would prefer you'd just outright stuff that Puffin stuff altogether? It's effin' queer, Mikey! I mean, come on now...bird watching?

Father: That's *Father* Mikey to you, Lottobot... my son.

All: (Laughter)

________----____________----____________

With their Co-op Mountain Equipment TM supplies packed tightly in haunch of the ol' Volkswagon Microbus (converted of course to run on something other than fossil fuels), our cadre of righteous gold seekers, armed with so many hints from the locals, are well poised to actually find this legendary Lost Lemon; rumored to exist in days of yore, and still yet to be claimed- which represents for them, the end of dirty politicking, and the beginning of their version of a socialistic utopia that, whether they realize it or not, any rational minded citizens of Canada should be fast to nurture and embrace.

Unbeknown to our stalwart heroes, however, is that a renegade team of not-so-well wishers from Camp CON, ruthless corporate kowtowing mercenaries made up by Marc Carney, David Rutherford, Steven Harper, and Wayne Gretzky, aren't so keen on seeing these Liberal hucksters gain a leg up so easily as setting up a gold mine.

A prayer for Haiti

If you'd have asked myself fifteen years or so ago if I thought that I might grow into the type of person who would become obsessed with public opinion and tune in to a guy named David Rutherford, I would have probably given you a long quizzical gaze and asked you if you would like a turkey sandwich. Today, Dave Rutherford reminds me of George Noory, host of "Coast to Coast AM" most nights of the week; he addresses an ever growing audience and is truly a very well respected man with a somewhat mystifying profile?

Dave Rutherford has always run his radio program within the limits of good taste as my memory serves, and I've definitely grown to appreciate his rigid arguments on "hot topic issues", primarily focused on Alberta and her affairs, unless there is literal earth shaking news as there was this morning.

I will pray for the people of Haiti, especially for the many Canadians down there.
 

Let us all pray to God: God Help Us all to cope as only your help can, and through Your divine guidance, may our lives prevail beyond this dark and life shattering day. May we live in peace with one another - brother; and may God let us live to learn of his unknowable ways and glorious works in this eternal life. Amen.

I've never written a prayer before, but I have prayed to God throughout my life. Though I can only imagine what it would be like facing a crisis of proportions like the one in Haiti on this day, the continuing saga of Man v. Nature will always remind us of the crushing power of nature and her innocent cruelty.

Glimpse of Boy on This Day Haiti

Tell me, "WHY?"

My Learning Curve is Longer than Most People's

http://resentfulneighbour.blogspot.com/

Just so you know, folks, I've taken to doing some writing under a different banner. The blog-site is called, "My Ever More Resentful Neighbour", and my intent is to have it reflect and extrapolate upon any thoughts that might be ping-ponging around in my stupid head upon crawling out of bed. This site, moremoreenough I would like to reserve for discussions involving the evolution of my video making endeavors and my progressive You Tube progress.

So, without further adieu, I would like to introduce, "iHINDUISM".



I don't really know how to begin to describe the impetus for this little 'piece'. Like much of my 'work', it's simply some doctored-up video, or a grouping of piecemeal video clips then set to absurdly engineered 'music'. Not sure if my portrayal of a retarded person is at all convincing, but I hope you get something out of it!

One thing I know, is that I get a kick out of making this stuff. It would be nice to get more feedback or at least some kind of acknowledgment for what I'm doing, but I suppose that fame and recognition will only come when I actually produce something worthwhile. Still, I encounter some videos that make mine look like slick Hollywood productions by contrast, and they somehow manage to get multiple thousands of views. Oh well. I suppose that art really is in the eye of the beholder.

Vulgar Nastiness

I've recently set my blog to grown-up status so that I can feel at ease when peppering my paragraphs with vulgar nastiness.

Been working tirelessly on videos and what not, and must say that I welcome the challenge of doing it all. From concept to publication, Web 2.0 makes it so easy. Setting up the camera, playing some guitar, transferring the video, designing banners and mashing it all together in the virtual editing suite. Titles and paragraphs.

I must admit though, that I wouldn't consider myself especially business savvy which is why I find great value in the idea of aligning myself with partners of expertise greater than my own in the world of commerce.

I bring this up because I think it remotely possible that I may one day find myself at the helm of a busy production company or something equally as stressful. Since I dabble in all the various elements that go into making video shorts and the somewhat sophisticated work involved in developing a web log network to promote my shit, it will I hope lead me to eventually be in a position to introduce myself as the leading executive authority over company affairs...

So now I'm playing catch up with this online record of my progress through the webwork strands of electrical impulses and peoples' lives! I decided to give my You Tube home page a slicker design, and thinned out my playlist. I imagine that some of my experimental music works might only appeal to other musician types or pot heads? Anyway, I see this whole thing as the ultimate exercise in maintaining an online presence and leaving a portfolio of sorts in your midst. Everything may as well be written in stone, I say...here's some of that experimental music of mine with a cool video accompanying the harsh and cutting guitar music:



Thanks for watching. I've got hours upon hours of footage to work with, and I'm always pushing boundaries and innovating new ways of working with media manipulation software. I'm from the old school of 8mm video tape and dual deck editing machines, but haven't had much exposure time to film. ;) I must say, that working with digital video does make for quicker transfer time... you can chop your media up and recombine it with relative ease. Looped sequences are a breeze. It's like all those would-be writers out there that hardly wrote a word until the advent of the word processor.

I would like to eventually have some more serious hardware interfaces, like a high speed USB transfer device to do the best job possible of rendering analogue sound sources as digital waveforms. I borrowed on from my good friend Mr. Esquire, and was quite impressed by it's performance. I believe I mentioned it in a previous entry somewhere - anyway, it's Roland model UA-101, or the EDIROL High Speed Audio USB transfer device, I think.

Of course I'd like to have some nice traditional analogue recording equipment some day, but for now, I still feel I've only scraped the surface of what can be achieved with some very decent software tools, like Corel Photo Paint 9, Windows Movie Maker, and Audacity. Okay, enough. It just became apparent to me why my blog seems to have a limited appeal... boring!

Okay then. I hope to bring you some exciting news next time. Maybe some neat pictures. Here's one I'll leave you with:

"Solette" your new guide to the internet!

I apologize for having not written here in quite some time. I've been having some issues with self-confidence lately, and being unemployed and broke can be extremely difficult. Somehow, I have managed to accomplish a bit of video making projectiles, and would like to shure to you, present, introduce, "Solette"; your new guide to the internet.

It was a concept that just occurred to me at some point, and so a few ovals and circles later, I had a series of digital "paintings", ready to be imported to Windows Movie Maker.

I swear that some of you are wondering where I find the time for such things, and all I can tell you is that I'm very fast and adept with my computer. I can type rapid fire, perhaps eighty words per minute or more. I'm also pretty swift at using keyboard shortcuts to jump between programs, and I have a few shortcuts of my own in the practice of graphic artistry.

The computerized voice you hear was generated using the "Text to Speech" program on my computah machine and then introduced to the "Audacity" software - I believe it is either shareware, or freeware. It's an incredibly well designed program, and I would highly recommend it to any amateur or professional out there.

Yup. Then I brought it all together using Movie Maker, to which I also introduced some Casio keyboard generated music originally recorded on cassette.

And there you have it, "Solette" - your new guide to the internet.