Lightning rod in one hand, fist and hook 'em horns in the other, a connosieur of loud & heavy music could, if honed and dedicated enough, conduct music of distortion, feedback, speed and weight. Take the music in your mind and channel it out through your figures and palms, bicepts and spine -- divine enactment of power and luxury and beauty.

The variety of musical experience, dedication & aesthetic never ceases to amaze & enthuse me. Scrawled on the wall of an abandoned building in cursive spraypaint a band's name makes itself known, probably unknown to the happenstance reader, and yet so meaningful to its author. In our sneakers and boots, coats and hair we embody the sountrack of our lives & days, walk inside the music that gives us our rhythms, melodies, distortions and harmonies. In the eyes, the intensities, in the expression and through the stance, we are given words for the wordless, and more meaning where there was none before.

Decorate me musically in life and after make a tune that the kids can hum.

An old friend of mine... not that HE'S old, but moreso that we've been friends for long enough that I FEEL old... contacted me the other day and opened a window onto his life for me -- a gallery of images of places he'd been, things he'd done and people he'd met. For the most part, I guess that that is what this blog is for me -- a visual representation of the architecture of my life, an x-ray shot of the skeleton of my existence.

With that in mind, then, here's a few more for the bucket...

Rock on Peter... I miss our good conversation.

as tall as I can feel as I
learn to live to
breathe fire

Why don't the kids mosh anymore?

Please explain.

Besides the music, that was always the best... are the kids just too cool to get sweaty? Are they text messaging each other across the dance floor (as E.-- suggests)?

Tell me. Please.

Why don't the kids mosh anymore?

Please explain.

Besides the music, that was always the best... are the kids just too cool to get sweaty? Are they text messaging each other across the dance floor (as E.-- suggests)?

Tell me. Please.

My dreams of late have been nothing short of terrifying -- stark, black, bigger than life, wake me up in a cold sweat nightmares.

I read that these dreams of violence, dismemberment, immolation spell something out along the lines of being overwhelmed by the dark side, a repressed anger, that feeling that 'things fall apart/ the centre cannot hold'... and it's all probably right.

I read also of a loss of trust in others, a feeling that my safety has been violated, that I have put myself out there too much and now suffer from exhaustion...

Nietzsche says we only need 'a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal"...
Yes, I live for it all
No, I will not succumb to a world dictating that I work more than I play
a straight line towards more creative living
a goal that I will never tell

I lock myself in a world wrapped in jazz, rapt
and dream of better dreams

Memorial Hall. Friday, March 17th.
I've never really been sure exactly what St. Patrick's Day is other than a day when everyone in public school wears green and only the coolest of the cool (read: the ones who fail later in life) looks half decent, and everyone in university drinks green beer and listens to loud Great Big Sea all evening (read: the ones that looked good in green in grade 8).

But now I know for certain that I've discovered the true meaning of St. Paddy's Day...




Yes little Ms. McRedhead and little Master McFreckleface, the true meaning of St. Pat's Day is to totally rock out with 100 of your best friends, to give to the high heavens a piece of your music thirsty soul, to give it to the people, to kick out the funkin jams with your best suit on and your strongest foot forward...



And then, of course, it's about the poetry... music and poetry, what more could you ask for?

And so, thank you to everyone who came down to freakin get your Paddy's Day freak on with us at Mem... to Chris and Rachel for winning the slam in fine form... to Whitefeather and Denis and Sam for doing such a fine job judging, for John and the finest beats I've ever heard (and the finest hat I've ever owned), for Fats Robinson for being the most talented and experimental trumpt player I've ever heard (and for being such a great partner on stage for an hour's worth of improv... ah, the chemistry!), mto Phil for bringing his one man techno show to our grand home and swooning us all, to all the slammers in their slamming...

and to Marie and Lori and ArtZone for making it happen... such talent humbles me everyday

to Mike for fixing my bass (thanks dude, you rock), and to Mitchell for saving the freakin day (thanks dude, you rock too)...

and for all you sad and sorry souls who didn't make it because you were too busy swilling green beers and remebering the glory days of public school -- when are you gonna catch on that we throw the best party in town huh?!

surrounded by beauty

LOVE IS BLUE & SEA

if you turn the machine parts
inside a clock, or if you

see through your lover's eyes that love
is blue and sea
shells its way into your heart, and

if you look long enough at the horizon
of any country

you'll see music the way
a friend hears
your absence

A figured eight
and then a turn on
the minor fifth

as a finger waves, wags
and pivots off
its bass


I am in love
with all of the blisters that
music makes and



wear them like proud wounds
on my sleeve

truth is
I never played the bass, it
played me

Last Wish

After having passed off wish
one with ridding us of poverty, and two
with eradicating war, I would piss away

wish three in granting that
in a moment of subtlety

Margaret Atwood would write
about great sex. I don’t much care

what kind – lesbian, bi-
sexual, threesome, or even
simply missionary because
I don’t much care
which way her pendulum swings – I would

just want for her

to have this cultural treasure.
Then I could spend the rest of my days

hoping that it is tucked
deep inside her
practical underwear drawer.

I spent last week undercover. Sick and dazed and taking in so little nourishment that all I could do was fall back on the very few skills that I inately seem to have -- reading, thinking, listening to music.

In this sickness, the health
of art revived me.





In the darkness, a voice
just like it's supposed to
do

rapture comes and we wake
to our own self
be true, to our

impulses relax, to our
passions
divide

and now from
the top

Winter in my mind & out & about...