I remember that kid Fabian, a proud native guy out of the mountains of Ecuador with a big apache warrior emblazoned across the chest of his shirt. Right about my age. He was down in the urban recesses of his country, hitting up the reggaetón underground dance fests pretty hard -- he was a good dancer and the ladies loved him. Lights. Booze. Cuties. Just a good guy too. He was there in the city living it up, but had come from the mountains just to the north.
And I remembered those dark and rhythmic nights as I met Leanne, a girl who had recently gotten back from those exact mountains, chilling with those exact same peoples -- indigenous groups from the mountains of Ecuador and Peru, stocking up on wares for her Fair Trade company. Selling high-quality crap up North, and giving those that made it a pretty good deal. And as I headed to the grindstone of factory work on my bicycle in what felt like sweltering heat to make burgers for giant international companies, she and her partner were kicking back during the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, hitting up that marketplace.
Hell, her partner even learned to surf in the same place that I was at last year -- the beach break of Canoa. Brought me right back.
I listened intently as Leanne pointed out all the interesting little facets of the wares she was selling. For example, on cloth had these rectangular designs on them. To the untrained eye what you see is just a fun little pattern. Like how waves all look the same when they're rolling in towards shore -- from a distance. Well, turns out there's like this hidden map the craftsman or craftswoman were actually stitching in, and you can accurately find the location of ruins and historic sites and stuff like that if you know how to read it. Kind of like how each and every wave is different if you look closely enough. But I didn't know such a simple piece of fabric could be so rich with detail and textured with geography.
This girl is hardcore though. Seriously. She's lived in conflict-imbued Sri Lanka for an extended period of time and has been at the forefront of Fair Trade work on the island there, even establishing a tea company, and working in partnership with a Buddhist NGO of some sort. I really kind of wish I had her job, instead of, you know, stacking patties for 9 hours a day... And it was cool to chill out with Aryn too -- the Broadway punk kid that everyone loves. He's looking at sheet music here. I've seen him play guitar at an Oxfam benefit show. And he's always just around town, you know. He's got a show coming up at Ness Creek you should all check out if you're in Saskatchewan later this summer.
It's funny for me to think that in the land of the urban cowboy -- Saskatoon -- a folk-punk rocker, a newly-minted surfer and a development worker/art-lover would be the thing that links me to that memory I have of just having a fun time hanging out for a few hours in the hazy late-night along Earth's half-way marker at an extremely high altitude, with people as rad and chill as Fabian.
Photo by Greg Pender (borrowed from the StarPhoenix)
Last weekend on my way home from work I stopped off for some lemonade. There were a couple cute kids behind the booth, and they were raising awareness about Canada's role in Afghanistan, but more specifically, they were raising funds for a school in Panjawaii there. The money was going straight to the school construction.
Turns out their daddy, a guy from my neighbourhood here, is one of the big boys leading our troops.
I had just seen the movie We Three Kings (with George Clooney, Spike Jonze and Ice Cube...) the day before, so I had Middle Eastern conflict on the brain (specifically, how convoluted the on the ground "war" can be -- exploding footballs and everything). It was crazy for me to see the ways in which a similar event that's happening so far away filters back into the day to day life of the citizens of the country that's fighting it. Most days I could forget I'm part of a country that's at war. Maybe I feel like there are a million other "wars" going on in my personal life at any given time, but war in Afghanistan is rarely one of them.
When I went in to work the following Monday, I saw they had made the front cover of the paper.
Oh, and check out the lead on this one:
"The Cabana-Boucher family of Saskatoon had to adjust to life without their husband and father, but they have decided to pass the time he's away by finding creative ways to help him on his mission.
In other words, they've turned lemons into lemonade."
Wow. I predict a rosy Inside Edition future for this intrepid local reporter with quips like that.
A new way of wave riding. You too could could be hitting waves from the comfort of your own home if some new renewable energy projects go right through to completion. BC Hydro, General Electric and Chevron TVC among other giants are hopping on "board" the wave power bandwagon.
So ya, a gas company is working on getting rid of greenhouse gases. Weird.
"Chevron estimates its project would eliminate 308,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be produced by coal-fired power plants."
Click here for a really straight-up introduction to wave power (brought to you by Chevron's partners)... you're bound to learn something.
Also, BC Hydro's trying to get its citizens on board now. Just so you know the company's boss is the B.C. government, specifically the part that's in charge of exploiting petroleum, coal and that sort of thing, and promoting those industries.
i will love the way you look at me, the way you look into my eyes, and show me everything's all right. across these waters that has come between us, my heart beats fast...
That Unexpected Swell Spits Green
You follow the right forecasts and head for the right shores and you too could hit on the unexpected swell of the season. Largest for the country. Look out The Mansbridge is on his way.
Traversing the barren plains of near-suburbia, the land where I have been forced to rest my head for now, heading south, and out and out and out -- towards the cusp of it all -- the new oil and mineral fueled explosion: nouveau suburbia. On my bike. The unexpected happens.
A giant turquoise wave rises up. Untouched. Pristine. Just begging its hardest for some rider to carve out the perfect line and read it like a book. That rider was me. The time was ideal. I laid low while a white work half-ton drove by on the ridge behind. But then I was off. And in the flying greenish shit and slippery mud I gave'er hell. As I was pounding along I realized there was a good chance shit that green was poisonous or carcinogenic. But then again, what isn't these days? What doesn't pollute your body/mind/soul? My grandma always told me not to eat coloured Rice Crispies since food colouring gives you cancer. Nope. What I was doing was the most freeing, relaxing and healthy thing I could possibly do. Just follow the patterns, in even the most banal mockry of existence and you too could find yourself "surfing" a triple overhead.
Before: "Danger"
After: Well-ridden thank you very much.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Destiny Shone Down and So I Listened
A white light shone down off in the distance where a magnificent outcropping of identical houses had popped up. I had seen this before -- in Alberta last year. When I bussed through -- this is the exact same feeling I got when I looked out on the outskirt construction there. Now imported to Saskatchewan. A tide moves East. Oil under the ground. To be exploited with no real regulation. Poor Chinese labourers double their money through the real estate market.
The were selling bliss. So regal. Just like castles. But without the tradition. Nothing to hold us back. Nouveau riche eat up that pie in the sky. Upward mobility is the name of the game.
It feels like Baghdad out there. Powerful trucks bob up and down along wavy dirt roads while daily life goes on. Half the homes are lived in the other half are skeletons. There's no real distinction or separation here between the shirtless work crews and the soccer moms (one mini-van had a license plate that said "I Love Ringette"). A mother pushes a stroller. Of course the difference is this is the result of a resource extraction fueled economic explosion in a lucky country, not a CNN-style shock-and-awe cluster-fuck bombed out "progress" explosion.
I was nosing around at the scent of good-paying work. There were a few guys working on cement at the mouth of the beast. There was much paving to be done. And so much landscaping. Just tons. The bosses all want you to know them by their first names, they'll go right over everything they'd be looking for, and go out of their way to get you a business card. In short, they're hurting for guys. One company just has a shitload of sod to lay here, and it has to be done in the next few weeks, the guy said.
To catch these things in the middle of the day is kind of fun, and you see interesting contraptions and things. Watch bobcats spinning around, for example. Or like, there was one guy on the back of a truck loading shingles onto a conveyor belt, kind of like the ones we have in the grind section of the burger factory for loading meat onto the line, except modified specifically for shingles. Then there was another guy at the top who would grab the shingles once they reached the top, and set them down right next to the last package. It was kind of methodical. Grab, set, rise, grab, plonk! Grab, set, rise, grab, plonk! Grab, set, rise, grab, plonk! And on and on in the heavy sun. No speech. Just work. Just the pure, enduring, gradual, pace of economic expansion.
It's like I stepped into another whole dimension or something. Where everything goes. Your normality is half baked but overcooked. Golf ball sits on the side of the road with no course in sight. Pink rubber boots lay out at the front of the house while the one next to it has no steps. There are price tags on the doorknobs and miniature bushes. I pass by clusters of people, within feet of them, and they don't even notice me. Only saying, "Yep. 500 watt metal halogen. Right about there for the sign. Uh-huh. Pointing up from the sod." A lady in a leopard print dress smiles at me though. She looks at me the way almost-grandmothers look at me when they're thinking about a time their child roared and they didn't get to see it, but were proud of them for it. I was really glad she waved.
I noticed a few things while giving myself an on-the-ground history lesson, riding from the old housing developments to the new up-and-coming ones. First off they are way fucking huger now than they used to be -- by about three times, just count the number of garage doors and cars parked out front. Second, instead of being laid out in a grid, they are way more pointless boulevards, cul-de-sacs and that sort of thing. And third, the homes are more identical to each other than the older ones I passed. I can only think of how this trend models the wealth expansion that took place in this country over the exact same time period as labour resources were harassed in emerging states around the world to a degree never seen before, where a man could easily make twice as much what his father had made. Does money make us fat and boring?
+++++++++++++++++
Mass Coffee Saloon
So I go into the new local watering hole. Surprise, surprise. Tim Horton's. The guy that runs the company thinks he's all gangster and shit. Told a newspaper one time that he knows how things work on the streets. I fucking laughed my ass off since I was reading the article on the streetcar while passing through the ghetto downtown. Those kids don't drink Tim Horton's. There isn't even one at all around in the area. But what they do know is money -- and how to make it. And I couldn't help but deny that they too had hit a sweet spot. They were prepped for success.
As I walked inside, even though it was only a commercial coffee shop, I felt like I was walking into a roadhouse bar down in New Mexico or Nevada or something. I had just come from the modern Canadian equivalent of the frontier -- where those looking to live rich are just staking out their existence, their lifestyle. This was the watering hole for construction kids, travelers and the newly minted locals. I thought I'd just sit back with a drink and soak it in.
Chilled out, exhausted from the rough terrain and hard riding, this is what I could have swore I heard playing over the bland radio:
"...The money has died ahhhh!!!!!! Ohahahahahah! Hahahaeuahahahya!!!! [end of song] ... It will show you a life you can understand... Hate without love.... Iraqi road..."
This is the shitty music these people listen to, drive to, party to. I felt like it was trying to tell me something by I couldn't quite make it out.
I tried to catch up with a construction guy to see if he had any cash-cow gig leads before he jetted out of the Timmie's, but I swerved back inside after I realized he was too far ahead and I wasn't THAT desperate (I mean, shit, the odds were in MY favour after all anyways).
It was then that I caught sight of the lady with dark dyed hair and heavy makeup heading inside too. I had first noticed her on the way in and I was a bit curious. Seemed like she had a story. But I had forgotten about her until now, as I trudged back inside.
And then all of the sudden there she was again, as I walked past the far counter and I actually almost bumped into her. This kind of scared me because I was afraid she might think I was some creep who had been following that construction dude. But to my amazement she nervously laughed and said, "Oh, don't worry. I wasn't following you or anything like that." See she was afraid of the exact same thing I was. And so we got to talking.
I wasn't quite sure how to approach her. She wasn't young at all. But somehow she didn't feel old. Like the auntie your mom never wanted you to meet. She had a big Merlin wizard with a crescent moon over it tattooed on her shoulder. I remembered some of Patrick's stuff he put up in his room had that flavour. And when James moved into my old room the first thing he put up was this big wizard-type thing just outside the door. Plus I've known other bikers who dig wizards. I just thought it looked rad. I asked her about it and she let me check the big one of some sort of goddess on her back. Smooth, healthy skin.
A metal worker, she knew the value of hard work. Look to the unions for a good job, she advised me a couple times. Course, I'm already in a union right now. But I got her point.
It was when I asked her about her motorcycle, though, that instantly she hit her stride. Turns out Gayle's a road-warrior to the death, one of the true riders. She's been going about 30 years and won't be stopping anytime soon. She looked me in the eyes and said comically, "You know, when it gets in your blood after first doing it, you can't get it out." But I knew better. She wasn't joking. Fearless but relaxed, she'll ride with the best of 'em -- putting men in their place left and right when she has to. Good on her, fuck! One of the stickers on her helmet reads: "If your dick was half the size of your mouth I might be interested!" She knows how the scene runs. And this is her life.
"Let's go out for a smoke." And so we did. The perfect antidote to a pre-fab grandiose mortgaged subdivision.
She was just on her way to take her bike in to get all stenciled up. Big huge fucking things all the way down the back. She's been saving up for this for awhile. "Maybe the Harley dealership will give me a loner," she said. Probably not.
I sat down first, and she decided she'd follow.
The road is a harsh mistress sometimes though, and the semis and vans can be life threatening. Gayle told me about a friend of hers who was sucked under a vehicle off her bike. She had been riding with her kid. The kid survived. She didn't. That was just a little while back. The danger rings fresh in the mind. I thought about Micheal J. Sinclair.
I told her about surfing. How much it meant to me to do it and all that. It didn't surprise me that she understood. She just seemed like she would. In fact, a lot of my rides and people I meet can really connect with it. Moreso even than my friends can. It's kind of weird how that happens. For me surfing has become this fun bridge-builder and boundary-eraser. And that's exactly what it should be.
And as we sat, just chilling on the newly formed curb in front of her Harley, a boy followed his father out of the Tim Horton's entranceway. In large bright letters the only thing his shirt said was: "OCEAN".
And so she told me about a run down to California and Mexico she just got back from. Tijuana's just nuts, she says. Like so many of the others, to save having to get her vehicle licensed, she parked at the border and walked on down in. She just loved all the little shops of all kinds everywhere. There's all sorts of commotion. She went around and bought a bunch of silver bracelets for nothing. Then she brought them back and had them appraised -- turns out they're real silver.
And she knows about the bandits, the drugs and the questionable policing and legal practices. "Boy, you don't want to get caught doing anything down there," she said. "Nope. If you go to jail there you're done. Lock you up and throw away the key."
Hearing her talk about her trip and just how the general atmosphere and everything is down there made me really excited. For her. And it gave me a boost too, for my plans. It made me want to be there so bad. It was just so fresh on my ears to hear it from someone who'd actually been there and done it up right. In style. With a Harley.
But cigarettes go out. Appointments need to be kept. And dreams need preparing (via making it to work at the factory on time). And so we had to head our separate ways.
But with someone as rad as her floating around up and down the highways and byways of the world, and she said it too, you never know what might happen. "You meet the most unexpected people in the strangest places," she said. And I couldn't agree more.
Maybe I'll see her again. I told her I hoped so.
I head back to work, to do what I can to keep my own ride moving along...
I've been living through the boom, hitting and missing, everything slightly chaotic.
But I'm really starting to feel it...
Just wait...
I promise you.... I'm almost there (I tell myself this over and over again).
-Bombs Over Providence "May Cruise Missile Diplomacy Keep Us Truthful Good and Mild" -Van Atta High "Eyes on the Prize" -Panic! at the Disco "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage" -The International Noise Conspiracy "My Star" -Spoken "Across these Waters" -The Whilhelm Scream "The Kids Can Eat a Bag of Dicks" -Ninjaspy "Hit by a Cement Mixer"
*Here's some tunage that falls a little more towards the adolescent screamo-punk-and-moving-towards-electro end of the spectrum -- a suburban development over the last half-decade I swear. How can you not like the titles???????
I'm so excited for Alexandra. She's been working on it hard for so long and now I'm excited to hear how she's made it to Greece just how she's planed it. Here's an excerpt of what she posted on my Facebook wall:
"...I wanted to send this to you quickly to let you know I'm fine and very well. The waves are outstanding, here Everything is a sensual experience in the village.... right now, I am living near the moutains of Kalamata with my godparents... they're house is actually on one of the hills. So on one side of me every morning, I have the mountains, and on the other is a vast view of the sea. It's so beautiful.... I'll have to write more at a later time, unfortunately. This is my cousin's computer and we're off to a dance tonight...."
This image I stole off of Google could very well be of the very Greek beech Alex describes.
I wrote this last month while sitting in a Tim Horton's munching on a chocolate danish and sipping a double double, in the middle of my break in a split shift at work, after I found out I was working alongside a ex-Sudanese youth warrior, who had already felt the rush of battle and the power of loss:
I feel the rush of wind throughout my veins, sending ripples to the tips of my fingers and toes. All my skin is shivering. But it's not the warm breeze swaying the maroon planters outside the glass so lazily that's doing it. And it's not the swaying afternoon trees by the curb. And it's not the lulling air conditioning inside, circulating the atmosphere constantly, artificially, which is doing this to me either.
Instead, I shake from the silent screams I know are still emanating from desert-covered village wells that now serves as burial grounds for so many of Sudan's non-Arab Darfurians -- where the water supply is now poisoned. I hear the wide sweeping gusts of sand along the Sahara. So far, so foreign, to these pretty cars cruising slowly through the intersections and past traffic lights. The closest we might come to hearing echoes of a similar scene is the now-laughable epic electronic dance number they still play at the club by Darude called "Sandstorm". And we might be able to comprehend a prairie whirlwind. But nothing could really capture the sorrow of the 400,000 that died in only four years in the Darfur region, or the half-century of civil war and rebel conflicts that we have had a hand in perpetuating. But listen well and you might just hear the aftershock. Eyes wide open. Tears well. Muscles spasm.
Because just knowing is such a struggle for some reason out here. It's so hard to find people who give a shit. So fucking hard to tap into what's really going on. And sometimes the only way is through the back channels. And it's strange how liberating it can feel to uncover the truth behind disaster and tragedy. Finally piercing the thick wall of bullshit our protectors and authorities set up for us is like reaching the surface again after an agonizing struggle with volatile waves on an ocean has kept you under and totally disoriented. Savour that first breath. Drink it in son. For it might be awhile until you get another.
"The discovery of oil in Africa can be a blessing or a curse, as is the case in southern Sudan. Against all odds and predictions, the Sudanese regime, backed by Chinese, Malaysian, and Canadian oil companies -- was able to forcibly clear out the populations of huge swathes of south-central Sudan in order to secure the way for the oil companies to begin exploiting the oil. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or displaced by these vicious scorched earth campaigns -- in which everything is burned including crops, villages, and houses -- in the oil fields and the manipulation of relief flights was an effective complement to government air strikes and ground assaults."
The Sudanese government recruited Janjaweed from the poorest reaches of Sudan's north. Khartoum "released criminals from jail, recruited fighters from neighboring countries, and gave cash handouts of around $100 to anyone who would take up arms against Darfur's non-Arab tribes. The government provided the Janjaweed with new rifles and heavy weapons, and some of them even got uniforms."
"Beyond indifference and the ghosts of Somalia, responding to Darfur has an additional obstacle. Sudanese government officials, who were close to Osama bin Laden when he lived in that country from 1991 until 1996, are now cooperating with American counterterrorism authorities. The regime in Khartoum rightly concluded that if they provided nuggets of information about al-Qaeda suspects and detainees to the Americans, the value of this information would outweigh outrage over their state-supported genocide. In other words, when U.S. counterterrorism objectives meet up with anti-genocide objectives, Sudanese officials had a hunch that counterterrorism would win every time. These officials have been right in their calculations so far. As of this writing, near the end of 2006, the United States had done little to seriously confront the Sudanese regime over its policies." --From Not On Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast
I have just so many questions I want and need but can't really ask of that kid who says he's an ex-Janjaweed from Sudan. I don't know how much to believe, but he can't be lying about everything. Why would he? And I mean, I work with him, but I'm not really sure how I would go about asking. But just seeing him. Hearing the stories about cutting off the enemy and pounding out slaughter. About the thrill of having an army of your fellow rebels outfitted with American firearms (note: the U.S. is not allowed to sell Sudan weapons). Feeling where the bullet went into his chest was a shock. It was like his ribcage bent inwards. Just watching the transition, his own recovery and switch into materialistic North American society -- the finesse and silence -- says quite a lot on its own though. Girls love the dude.
But when you were shot in the chest in a foreign war and had two of your brothers fucking die there -- I can't imagine how hard it would be to try to fit in to a world where the hugest damn issue the kids out here are in emotional turmoil over is: whether it's a big deal or not that they kissed another girl and liked it.
One day we'll be sultans again, oh glorious Fur who have suffered so much.
Now go watch Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond to get a sense of modern African conflict, the influence of Western consumers and the culture of child warriors.
Or read more about an Alberta company's oil work in Sudan.
One of the hottest tunes of the season, they play this song at least twice each night at the club: Kate Perry "I Kissed a Girl"
(Or just in case that one craps out on us again, here's another vid cut with Degrassi the Next Generation clips -- almost more relevant since there are actually chicks kissing in it instead of the official music video which just teases the consumer, seeking controversy but not too much controversy, eyes squarely on your pocketbook... yumm)
From a rave at the community centre on Friday night. I met a traveling book salesman who looked and sounded just like Michael Alig from Party Monster.
So I've been living here in Saskatoon for like two months now, chilling out with a million different people, and working a couple different jobs. I work like 60 hours a week so I don't have much time to do anything else -- especially not blogging.
Let me give you a brief overview of what I've been up to:
I've been living at my buddie Lewis' place -- he was in the hospital for about a month, so I spent every other day crashing the hospital there -- hanging out with his family (I wake up to and watch episodes of House with Caleb, I showed Michael how to watch the Simpsons online, talk NGOs and mining with Kerry, feel the pain of working and looking forward to returning to university with Carly, and chat about jazz music with Dave). I eat sandwiches for breakfast lunch and supper. I'm getting so sick of them (eating sandwiches). Haha. I now have a choice of strawberry or raspberry jam, marmalade, and salami or ham and cheddar sandwiches.
There've been a zillion things I've been up to here that I can't really describe them all. I remember the time Lewis and I stole a cantaloupe out of the fridge and took it to the Mexican-style bar "and resort" just down the street by the ice cream shop, and stuck it alongside the limes there just to throw them off. It was kind of an insane day. And then Dave freaked out so hard when I found out the cantaloupe was missing. The cute waitresses seemed so baffled by our little trick, and I guess the magical cantaloupe floated a million different places around the bar, before we returned to find out why they had "stolen" our cantaloupe. We were seated and ate chocolate bars we had brought along in front of them, while they searched for our lovely melon. We kept bugging them after we had it in our possession vying for free drinks. Instead we got kicked out by the head cook, I think. That was a weird but really fun memory I have now. I thought I'd share it. The first day we went in there we had gotten Pacificos -- genuine Mexican beer. It reminded us of our surf trip last year. And I imagined being South of the border already... That was so long ago already, it seems like another lifetime.
I work at a nightclub downtown called Overdrive International Nightclub, where cowboys, University of Saskatchewan kids, rich suburbanites, yuppies, factory bosses and gangsters (some real but mostly posers) like to frequent. I ride a bicycle (purple and pink ... totally mid-90s rad) to work, and I always swerve in and out of traffic to make it there on time. Sometimes I'm so good at it I think I should be a courier.
I also work at a factory in the north end of the city where I ride the bus to every day that makes burgers. I mean, most meatpacking plants have a kill floor and might make a ton of different types of food. We get meat in slabs and make just burgers. That's it. I work in a huge new facility that does one thing: grind up, stamp out, freeze and package little circular objects that people like to ingest between buns. I ate a burger for supper tonight, and I had a burger at Overdrive last night at the end of my shift (there's a BBQ on the patio). We do all of A+W's burgers for all across Canada. And we even ship President's Choice burgers to the states apparently. And the work is fucking boring. But we just got a raise ($11.50 an hour or something now) because the labour market is so needy out here (an oil boom in the region has sent housing prices sky high and almost every restaurant, lumber yard and factory will have some type of "Now Hiring" sign out). I'll have to write a post sometime and be a little more in depth about what working in a factory is like. I was pretty fascinated at first. Now I want to kill myself. It's that boring. Haha. We take a shuttle bus home -- which is just a taxi van the company loads to the hilt. They left me behind one day when I had to stay behind to help clean up in another department (I usually just do packaging), and somehow I wasn't surprised. It's not the best most exciting place to work that's for sure.
The only day off I have is Sunday. And it doesn't last long enough. I slept until 5 p.m. today. And I was still sore and tired when I woke up.
I can't wait to get out of here. But I don't know how soon that will be...
I'll just have to keep on busting my ass until that happens. For now it's burgers, beer and bike riding.
The crescent moon shows its face from behind dusty wisps of heavy clouds that are darker than the twilight, and you know it's time for those jazzy funky records to come out. Flip through stacks, dust 'em off, and fire up the old turntable in the garage. We are about to step into another era...
It's pretty cool to be able to pick up a relic of history -- a square case with roughed up edges and a yellowed inner slip-cover -- and know that at one point someone else -- maybe even a younger version of you -- held this very artifact in their hands when the world was younger, more naive, less connected, and quite a bit bigger. And someone liked it enough to keep it. Maybe there's a picture of an evening ocean that covers the back of it, the whole thing a rich harvest orange, with shades of water, earth and sky running from peachy yellow to fiery bright and right down to a heavy auburn. But you know this isn't a manipulation -- the computer software to do that didn't exist back then. You know equally well too, and just as unconsciously, that this isn't the real deal either. See, the way you've been presented with the beach scene is not how it really was. Just think of an old mid-20th century National Geographic if you're having a hard time visualizing the effect: the shot appears the way it does because of the camera equipment that was available at the time. What you're seeing is how they wanted to believe the world was 20 years ago. This was all that could be captured. And it maintains its radiance. So we're left with an enigmatic image to stamp Jean-Luc Ponty's "Enigmatic Ocean" all across our brains -- all across the times. Fretless basses, organs, synthesizers (the ARP -- so wandering, unrefined and lost by today's standards), grand pianos and electric guitars -- quintessential elements of a 1977 attempt at the modern concerto. The Enigmatic Ocean spans four parts. There are three portions to "the Struggle of the Turtle to the Sea".
And whether you like the old record, the style, the approach, the flow of the segments -- or not -- You can always delve into each and every bar and note like a book. Just let the sounds sweep you away into another land far gone. Or -- more precisely -- the same places, the exact same space -- but in a completely separate mindspace and soundscape. But the structures of the waveforms remain the same.
So whether you're looking at the abstract shapes that spread out over "Where Have I known You Before -- Return to Forever" featuring Chick Corea, while hearing parts you fucking hate or moments that glisten so hard you just want to reach out and touch them, sample them and soak yourself in them -- or whether you're looking at brown bodies playing on the sand and in the light blue water on the Weather Report's Black Market album jacket, greeted by a deep foghorn and textured saxophones from its vinyl -->> you're being given the gift of playing in a landscape that exists now as only a dream, a remembrance in someone else's mind. And now it belongs to you too. Quite a trip if you ever want to try it.
Or maybe you want to travel on with Herbie Hancock on his "Maiden Voyage". The sleeve has a lime green border at the top with white text denoting the album. The photo across most of the front is a blurred ocean blue. Sit back and listen to a man delve into his fascination with the great deep beyond -- the heaving and crashing big blue.
Keep in mind that this sophisticated man with a piano was not only imaginative as hell in years past -- but has the staying power to keep on headlining right through the new millennium to today. So he says:
"the sea has often stirred the imagination of creative minds involved in all spheres of art. There still exists an element of mystery which surrounds the sea and the living aquatic creatures which provide it with its vital essence....This music attempts to capture its vastness and majesty, the splendor of a seagoing vessel on its maiden voyage, the graceful beauty of the playful dolphins, the constant struggle for survival of even the tiniest sea creatures, and the awesome destructive power of the hurricane, nemesis of seamen."
So do yourself a favour, hit a garage sale and dig dep. Maybe you too can be soaked in the grand schemes of rhythmic time travel. Catching sonic waves along side homemade chip dip and drifting on and on and on. Look. Over there across the dirt back lane, over the covered automobile, across the wooden fence, the white haired lady is out on her porch again, and again. She sure has to throw out a lot of garbage for some reason today.
In the Acknowledgement section the perceptive Korean/Torontonian poet writes:
"When I hear the vacuum of time and tide, the waves revive the songs of leaves as fresh memories, and the shining moon on the water whispers to me about my past. Even now, I see and hear the last Korean war, the forgotten wounds deeply rooted in my shadow. It seems to me like endless words murmuring in the roar of the sea shell."
Of Waves
Does the sea its penetrating eyes that speak search for footsteps on shore?
It weeps once again erasing the shadows of yesterday and swallowing the sands of the past.
Or, are the waves stirring the currents and moaning to open a new dawn? They call for tomorrow.
In the countryside where the treeplanters run the towns on the weekend to the chagrin of the good-natured rural residents that actually inspired CTV's runaway it sit-com Corner Gas -- 50 km north of a struggling town called Hudson Bay, some miners struck it rich. Looking far and wide for the diamonds rumoured to be so plentiful beneath the Earth, instead of finding bling, the mining junior Goldsource hit coal.
Though potash had its turn a couple of years ago, the star of the mining show out in Saskatchewan this year is the dirty black stuff. You might get a lump of it at Christmas time if you've been bad but hang up a stocking, loads of it powered the Titanic to a very icy conclusion, and it continues to supply the average family in the province with the majority of their power. Yep, coal is going to make a few lucky souls mighty rich coming up here. Although it might take a bit of time. And things could get mushy too -- because the Goldsource find is under a giant "swamp" that is "hampering" the dig.
As soon as Goldsource announced its findings, their stock rocketed up 2100 per cent in just three weeks. They had found the first-ever quality coal deposits buried in Saskatchewan. With the help of the provincial government they now can say the bulk coal-filled land here belongs to them. And plenty are following in Goldsource's footsteps. Nine other companies have joined the rush, surveying ground, selecting plots of land. Things are getting pretty heavy. Watch for claims of insider trading. Keep tabs on Saturn Minerals (SMI-V, SAEUF-O). There are interesting dealings afoot.
It's become evident that the value of physical land is actually quite high according to miners and aboriginals -- although they've formed this opinion for quite different reasons.
For more information check out "The Northern Miner" May 26-June 1 2008 edition.
Last week, while dining on seafood here in the prairies I had the opportunity to chat with a hydrogeologist from Pakistan named Rashid. Being surrounded by proudly-racist but hardworking farm boys with nice vehicles, and lulled by the long winds that flow across tall grasses only to hit up against the concrete skyscrapers and animal byproduct warehouses of the urban centre we have come to inhabit -- sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on something. It's as if I can't quite tap into the full range of ideas and innovations that are so ripe and plentiful when you get a wider variety of people at the table. And Rashid was a breath of fresh air.
Now Rashid's seen waves of sand spin across the Arabian desert, and had a peice of the petroleum extraction pie for himself to taste -- learning about how static and dynamic natural processes affect what humans want to do ("I mean, you can't just take a pipeline meant for the water and cover it with mountains of sand. It's not going to work."). I figure, hey, if a multibillion dollar mining corporation will headhunt a guy to fly him around the country, I can probably trust what he says. Or at least what he knows. I mean, hell, he's in Europe right now at a geologist's conference.
And so I read about groundwater. I read from the book that mining engineers will highlight line by line as they try figure out how best to interact with the way the world works around them. Because they've figured out that we can't just dictate. To get the most out of the natural environment you have to come to terms with its flow.
Water and Mining: Groundwater
From Groundwater by R. Allan Freeze and John A. Cherry...
"This may well be the only book that either of us will ever write...We recognize and appreciate the lifelong influences of our parents, our wives, our families, our teachers, and our students. This book is dedicated to all of them./This book is also dedicated to the taxpayers of Canada and the United States, few of whom will ever read it, but all of whom have contributed to its birth"
The endless circulation of water between ocean, atmosphere, and land is called the hydrologic cycle. The land-based portion is called groundwater.
To study groundwater is to understand the geological environments that control the occurrence of groundwater, to look at the physical laws that describe the flow of groundwater, about the chemical evolution that accompanies that flow, and how we fit into the cycle.
The old school emphasized the importance of groundwater solely as a resource, just a decade ago. They focused on the development of water supplies through wells and the calculation of aquifer yields. The only thing they considered "problems" were any threats to the extraction of water resources.
"But groundwater is more than a resource. It is an important feature of the natural environment; it leads to environmental problems, and may in some cases offer a medium for environmental solutions. It is part of the hydrologic cycle, and an understanding of its role in this cycle is mandatory if integrated analyses are to be promoted in the consideration of watershed resources, and in the regional assessment of environmental contamination."
Translation: to understand the water under our feet is to understand the movement of waves on the ocean, to understand that perfect breaking wave at Mavericks or La Jolla. And miners are starting to realize it.
And rich oilmen take note, the same forces that surfers take so deeply to heart -- swell generating earthquakes, varying landforms, and underground streams that hold up the back end of things (all elements involved with the hydrologic cycle) -- watching all these little details enfold over time is also like viewing the migration and accumulation of petroleum. You have to credit way we play in waves with allowing you to buy that big 10 gallon hat. That Harley you were given for the great job you did patching up the rig real quick, and turned down because you already had 6 -- thank the lonely idiot out in Tofino or the native Hawaiian on the North Shore in big swell season.
And here is a Navajo woman's reaction to the manipulation of groundwater in her homeland:
"I want to see them stop taking water from inside the mesa. The water underground works with the water that falls to the surface of Mother Earth, will wash away....I want to see the burial grounds left alone. All of my relatives graves are being disturbed. I want to see the mining stopped."
To get the way water moves through sand and rock and space and time why not start by looking at Darcy's Law.
Because all this liquid stuff that we swim in or drink from the ground or use to help us get at the uranium or petroleum -- you probably don't know the half of it --
"Water is formed by the union of two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen atom. The oxygen atom is bonded to the hydrogen atoms unsymmetrically, with a bond angle of 105 degrees. This unsymmetrical arrangement gives rise to an unbalanced electrical charge that imparts a polar characteristic to the molecule....Water is unusual in that the density of the solid phase, ice, is substantially lower than the density of the liquid phase, water. In the liquid phase the maximum density is achieved at 4 degrees Celsius....The formula H2O is a gross simplification from the structural viewpoint and is also a simplification from the atomic viewpoint. Natural water can be a mixture of" six nuclides. "Eighteen combinations of H-O-H are possible using these nuclides."
-Flow Nets by Analog Simulation Mapping it out: "The analogy between electrical flow and groundwater flow is the basis for two types of analog model that have proven useful for the generation of quantitative flow nets.
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-Read a bottled water consumption blog called Liquid Assethere.
-Find out about the affects of groundwater on coastal areas and ecosystems here. The page is produced by the U.S. Geological Survey.
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So ya, I had fun reading about groundwater on a heated afternoon on my day off from both jobs anyways.... You'd be surprised what you'll find out about what you thought you knew if you only start flipping pages.
When you're away, as dislocated from home as I am -- with little news coming back to me really from Toronto via emails or telephone calls or Facebook posts (it would be too costly and time consuming when you're trying to deal with the people and circumstances in your hear and now, and I don't really have the time to return many emails either... I have a hard enough time posting blog entries) -- you spend a lot of time wondering what all your friends and loved ones are up to. And you try to balance the person you are while on the road and in new cities and climates with the person you where when surrounded by high-density urban boxes, with all their marvelous nighttime colours. I think most of all I dream about how my life will be when I return. Because there is absolutely no way of knowing. Somethings never change. And then, some things will never be the same. Some things just regenerate or explode or blossom or... commit suicide.
I just had this urge to hop on Facebook around midnight this morning and check out what some of my friends from Toronto have been up to. I stumbled upon a Facebook group called In Memory of Micheal J. Sinclair. My heart skipped a beat. I thought it might be a joke, and I saw his profile page showed no new activity. But when I read the text on the page that said Michael had committed suicide recently, I just somehow instantly KNEW that it wasn't a joke at all. And I've been in shock ever since. I cried as I stayed up the rest of the night and watched RENT for the first time in my life (this'll be the night to watch it I had thought to myself earlier). The movie/musical is about a bunch of young urban bohemian characters who ride the line so close to the edge, while struggling with artistic vision, emotional baggage, and creative independence. And so many of the images ring so true. The inner-city silence can be a deep and hard one. And I know a lot of kids that'll back me up on that -- especially in Toronto.
It's funny how well you can come to like someone even if you haven't known them for long. I was busy as hell and he was working all the time too last year. But I definitely remember jamming out with the dude a few times as he came and crashed at our downtown Chinatown pad in Toronto last year a whole bunch. He was just a fucking awesome guy to have around. He was never an asshole, was a great musician, was quiet but pretty hilarious and was always adding that little extra, you know -- like making our small little apartment feel like a home. He was the type of guy who you could count on if he said he'd be there. I mean he was super cynical and everything -- but I've come to expect that from anyone who's lived in Toronto for more than a couple years. And had kind of this inner goth that I never really saw come out too much. But I never expected this. As it turns out, he hung himself about a month ago.
I remember the last time I chilled out with him -- it was at Pierre's show at the Cameron House. This was the first time that the new roommate that was taking my place, James, came to a show with a bunch of us that had been at the place previously (Me, Casey, Pierre and his roommate, for example), so I remember the night pretty well. I remember Michael had stopped by our house to jam with Casey I think, but no one was there. I recall being just outside the side of that bar that has the giant ants and the murals all over it, telling him he should come check out the show. He said he would, and I believed him. I saw some people blazing outside. And he showed up a few minutes later. The band bought us beers because we helped promote the concert. I remember what seemed to be a funny middle-aged gay man take forever to ask us for beers, and then way overcharge us for the pitcher. Someone passed out right there, and I can't remember if it was Casey or Michael -- but that's just how soothing Benhur is, I guess.
And it's funny for me to think that the guy I knew that reminded me most of Matthew Good (Michael had a similar sense of humour even kind of looked like him) and the band that sounds like Matthew Good the most to me (Benhur has a ton of similarities to Matt Good's music, you can't deny it Pierre) were in the same room at the same time for that moment. This is one moment that will never take place again.
So I didn't fall asleep until after my alarm had already gone off. But I passed out of an hour and had to spend $20 bucks on a taxi to try to make it to work for 6:30 a.m. to make burgers. And I kept falling asleep in the mists of the early morning burger freezers. I've never seen the plant in such a fog as that. Wearing my white smock, I crouched down and disappeared, except for my orange hardhard. It was the hardest I've ever had to struggle there so far. If I stood still for more than 5 seconds I would start falling asleep or dreaming. And the lines were down a lot, which means the burger stampers or something were broken, and so standing around was the only thing to really do. I had to sneak off to the bathroom once and I hid in the materials room for a bit, and I kept switching the job I was doing on the line --anything to keep me sort of awake. Three times I almost told the supervisor I was going home. But somehow I made it to break -- and immediately downed as much coffee as I could afford from the vending machine. Things went pretty smoothly after that.
But strange thing is that today -- the day I found out that Michael J. Sinclair killed himself -- is also his birthday. Holy fuck. Happy birthday bro. You're radder than shit and always will be.
The worst part is, I didn't even have the chance to learn you loved waves this much.
What a kick ass summer-sweet record from the king of indie-country, Ryan Adams. Check out his CD Demolition on Amazon.com if you're interested in seeing the playlist and all that... Here's his Myspace.
Just think long highways, country flowers and tears of men. There's nothing like the music that springs up from the land as if after a rainshower and hovers around with sweeps and fade-away pullbacks. So much strain. So much release.
The song "Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)" is just how California should be.
Thick and rosy smoke, keeping your chin up, playing cards now and again -- and taking your chances at the bar. Let's not forget to let the morning sun ride our hearts with its flare, staring on through reflections, out past sandy beaches and into a sparkling mist...
I remember that kid Fabian, a proud native guy out of the mountains of Ecuador with a big apache warrior emblazoned across the chest of his shirt. Right about my age. He was down in the urban recesses of his country, hitting up the reggaetón underground dance fests pretty hard -- he was a good dancer and the ladies loved him. Lights. Booze. Cuties. Just a good guy too. He was there in the city living it up, but had come from the mountains just to the north.
I listened intently as Leanne pointed out all the interesting little facets of the wares she was selling. For example, on cloth had these rectangular designs on them. To the untrained eye what you see is just a fun little pattern. Like how waves all look the same when they're rolling in towards shore -- from a distance. Well, turns out there's like this hidden map the craftsman or craftswoman were actually stitching in, and you can accurately find the location of ruins and historic sites and stuff like that if you know how to read it. Kind of like how each and every wave is different if you look closely enough. But I didn't know such a simple piece of fabric could be so rich with detail and textured with geography.
And it was cool to chill out with Aryn too -- the Broadway punk kid that everyone loves. He's looking at sheet music here. I've seen him play guitar at an Oxfam benefit show. And he's always just around town, you know. He's got a show coming up at Ness Creek you should all check out if you're in Saskatchewan later this summer.
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