So I went and saw this Vancouver band Sunday night at Lydia's called Language Arts. I was with Eddie -- who is momentarily rich having just collected some cash from social services or something, and has nice dolache coming in from his simple painting work he's doing for the new immigrant network service centre downtown. Instead of the faux-gangstas at the Overdrive who dance to songs like "Party Like a Rockstar" and think they're hardcore, Eddie (who's actually in a metal band) and I were actually rocking out hard in genuine devil-may-care punked-up fashion to the swanky indie-hop bliss of the co-ed band on stage. Headbanging to alternative harmonies. Very sweet stuff.
Eddie told me he thought their music was "different" -- but then again, you have to understand he's more accustomed to singing about limbless bodies and necrophilia a la Cannibal Corpse. In fact, Language Arts spun lovely lyrical lilt with their voices and yet dolled out complex time signature changes and tempo changes with their smooth instrumentation. It was very listenable. Dancable. Math-rock indie-pop.
The drums sounded like they could have been programed, only just a bit fresher. The Nord synth the backup singer played had the most authentic sultry Rhodes piano sounds I have ever heard emanate from a piece of electronic machinery. The bassist played a stand up like a funky punk rocker. Oh -- and the lead singer with the Spanish guitar rapped real quick over top of it all. The general atmosphere of the east-side bar turned into a kind of imported-samba swing fest.
Just imagine listening to the Cranberries churned up with Buck 65. Or like Bonobo remixing the Camera Obscura. Or a beachside reincarnation of former Western female underground loved ones Andre's Last Chance (since disbanded, but not without having left their mark). Or think about the limitless possibilities of what might happen if female jungalist MCs wore your grandma's old cardigans. File next to Scratch Bastid or Kid Koala. Maybe one day they'll be signed to Anticon and open for Why?, Dose One and the lot of 'em. They deserve it.
For my Toronto peeps, you can check them out a Rancho Relaxo on July 5th (maybe bring them some Chinese food or tell them about the street meat in the area) coming up. If you're doing any hitchhiking heading east in the next couple days from Western Canada to Hamilton -- you just might run into these fine musicians. They'll be spending Canada Day living it up on the road in their van -- passing stranded hikers no doubt along Lake Superior's awe inspiring northern shores. They'll be on the road all summer -- heading east then right back west. That's the life.
------->>>>>
The scene:
Charise, the drunk street-urchin, was floating around town with a new boyfriend -- a smooth-skinned fedora-wearing straight and long brown-haired dude from Regina who never took off his backpack. We saw them down by the library and then later on up by the Hose and Hydrant (a bar that's set up like a fire hall). She just collapsed by a tree and her mind seemed to be elsewhere. She was wearing the exact same hoodie she had on every time I've seen her before. Some purple-haired hippie came up to us and chatted with Eddie for a bit. With her glittering scarf on I figured she must be going somewhere, but she said nope. Eddie said, "She's not headed anywhere -- she's just a hippie". And so it goes.
I hadn't seen Eddie for at least a month, and I was beginning to think he had just disappeared. But I found him alive and well hitting up the jazz fest crowd, in his most street-ghetto fashion. I chatted with him for minutes before he randomly pulled out a rat.That was before it shit in his pocket.
Anyways, we followed the purple-haired chick for a bit until we ran into two beefy dudes who told us about the commotion just down the street. Turns out a guy tried to abduct some little girl from the side of the road in front of all the family-dining patio goers at Nino's. I guess everyone saw it happen too. Then some other guy jumped out of a big truck and beat the shit out of the first dude. The police were at the scene all night and I saw them take a guy into custody. Just another night here on the Broadway strip.
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)
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