Old Skull Speaks

2007-06-12T10:34:00.001-07:00

Kissing Alma Mater
Wilderness is that capacity of all things to elude the mind’s appropriations.
D. McKay

That’s some cool shit, eh? Not unlike

the sunny revelations of an afternoon’s worth
of good reefer, a mouthful

of whispy words and a Kilimanjaro look
in an eye, it has

just enough gravity to keep itself on the page and physic its
way into the way
you see the world. Man

that stuff blows my mind.

But here’s where we part ways, my scholar
and mentor and
closer friend than you know. You’ve
carried me a long
time, but I’ve seen enough of the landscape
from the back of your
metaphoric
pick up. So, I’m hitting the blacktop, thanks

for the lift Don, I hope
the birds keep you well and the Leafs
win the cup.

2007-06-04T08:56:00.001-07:00

The daily practices of mindfulness and compassion are far easier to spout on about than actually accomplish. In recent months, these seemingly simple things have awakened demons (namely Guilt and Anger), brought about radical questioning into things that I had always considered to be rock solid (the work I do, the attitudes I hold), and have made it virtually impossible to take for granted all of the many things I just considered to be part-and-parcel of being me... Waking up, it seems, in metaphor certainly as much as in tangible reality, is far harder than going to sleep.

I am focussed on this path though, take it one step at a time, and look for guidance wherever it comes from.

2007-04-11T10:47:00.001-07:00

It's in 1980. What the hell do I know? I'm like 10 years old, but in a short 4 years my world will be transformed by the glorious rips and chords of punk rock. Like a train waiting for collision, Ian Mackaye is in Washington DC preparing to make history.

As a recent article in Exclaim ! says:

"The last Teen Idles show takes place in November at the new 9:30 Club, with management heeding the band’s wish to allow X-marked minors inside; X-marked hands eventually become the key signifier of straight edge punk. After the show, Nelson and MacKaye resolve that their new band will be called Minor Threat but, along with Groff, re-visit their old band’s recent recording session. Using the Teen Idles’ savings ($600), MacKaye, Nelson, and Strejcek press and self-assemble 1000 copies of the Idles’ Minor Disturbance E.P. seven-inch on their own label in December, which MacKaye dubs Dischord Records. (“The Teen Idles,” Putting DC on the Map, Dischord Records, p.16) Minor Threat play their first show at a house party opening up for Bad Brains in December and, miles ahead of the ramshackle Teen Idles, they floor everyone with their prowess and intensity with a sound soon dubbed “harDCore.”

Ready, the Straight Edge scene and the Hardcore scene strat together. You see, it's not a Joe-Dick-let's-all-get-wacked-and-blow-our-brains-out, and neither is it the-only-way-is-the-violence-way... Punk is non-conformity. The Anarchy symbol doesn't stand for punk rock, punk is that 'A'... preaching means nothing.

DIY now and forever. Do it different-like.

***

Maybe I'll just put this here... who's to say what could happen.

2007-04-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

2007-04-02T08:00:00.001-07:00

GOOD
GONE
DEAD

Our days are filled with the bitter and the sweet, with moments lost and those forever instilled - and still, I can hardly believe what it was that I witnessed over two days in Toronto. The Rheostatics, after all those miles and years and litres and goals of music... just stopped. The last note sounded and then faded away. The people smiled inside and some wept openly and all of us were left milling on the street outside Massey Hall and couldn't believe that it was over.

Where does it go? What will we do?

It went nowhere and everywhere of course, and we will continue on, perhaps even richer for the experience.

My wife and I sat in silence afterwards, wondering outloud at the perfection of it all. Of how they could muster all that strength. Of how the glowed and shone as only falling stars can. Of how even laryngitis couldn't hold back the final, long, bitter sweet note.

We are the winter. It feels good to be alive.

2007-03-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

BLACK TOP MOTORCYCLE GANG hits the pavement hard!

The satisfaction of starting something new can only be surpassed by actually accomplishing something with it -- and in under a week, we seem to have done both...

FredROCKton is filled to the gunnels with crazed people and their equally crazy plots. From Sir Charles GodDamn Roberts &c., up to and through the middle century antics of the street trolling stock car racers, and into the punk and jazz infused late 20th century, this place has always been a hotbed for the weird and wonderul, the exiled, the lunatic. (Remember everyone -- where nothing happens, anything is possible... don't forget, DTK records started here, the UNB Art Centre has pumped out shows on everything frojm the Holocaust to grafitti and tattoos, the creative writing department here is the oldest in Canada, Eric Hill lives here and Walter the Farting dog passed his gas on our hallowed streets...)

The BalckTop MotorCycle Gang, our quiet city's latest collective is set to squeel forth and lay down the rubber on the main drags. Watch out for us at art openings, and local coffee houses, birthday parties, weddings, and any open green space we can find.

You know them all.
You love them all.
Now feel the power of the Spoken Word...

Jeannine Gallant
Matte Robinson
WhiteFeather
John Heinstein
Biff Mitchell
Eric Hill and here
Old Skull

2007-03-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

Strange how sometimes it takes so long to discover something -- how, for some reason, it just slips you by.

Well, regardless of all that time that I spent in the mosh pit in the mid 80's, and despite how much and how long I have loved and lived for punk rock, Tim Armstrong and Rancid have just entered my life -- and how very happy I am to have them here...

That combination of early style Clash/ east cost hardcore/ west coast growl is, well, music to my ears. A beautiful swirl of angst and anger and fun and love and hate and authenticity...

And speaking of happy accidents, these are the Weakerthans. Comparable to discovering Marilyn Manson and White Zombie when Rage Against the Machine broke up, it is a serendipitous moment that I should fall for these fine Winnipegian songsters just as the Rheostatics prepare to play their final gigs (at Masey Hall and the Horeshoe Tavern next week -- a moment in Canadian music history which I will be in attendance/ awe of and will report back to you directly)...

Never forget -- the world is BIG (really, REALLY BIG) and music is everywhere -- even in places where you figured you'd flipped all them rocks... As a matter of fact, if you still think you know it all, and just can't find anything new worth listening to, check THIS out.

Over and out,
A.

2007-03-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

Watch it and weep...

One more time Sportsracers.

2007-03-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

This is Noah Levine and his book "Dharma Punx".

Time makes us stupid -- causes us to say things like "oh wow, it's been THAT long" and some such shit. And such is the foolishness that has recently erupted from my mouth...

You see, I've been practicing zen sitting meditation for 18 years now -- yup, that's right, 18 years worth of sitting there, staring at the wall, counting breaths.

Not only that, but I started going to punk shows 23 years ago -- oh wow, that's a LONG time...

And for all that, they have coexisted inside me -- remember, it was the Buddha who said 'and question me too'. Question authority, question reality, question yourself... it all fits together...

So as time passes, and we see that passing, we sometimes slip into the stupidity that makes us throw our balding head back and laugh and say "Mick Jagger is still at it? Oh man!"

But here I am, still buying Rancid CDs and still sitting still, counting breaths.

And in my best moments, I know this to be right and true, that I am on a good path, and that it all fits together in grand stupidity.

Right on Noah. Thanks.

2007-02-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

Whose demon is THAT?

Sometimes we just have to get down, get right on down in one's own kitchen, and face the demons... you know, pull the big foamy swords out and have it out with your ugly faced, venom spittin bad dudes that live inside your heart.

It's a nasty business, this living life to the fullest business... but we do what we have to.

Growin up ain't for sissies, and this vid ain't for the faint of heart...

2007-02-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

I'm grouchy today. My parts hurt -- this one right here, the chest-rib section... and over there, the gullet bits... and in there, the back muscle complex -- and when my parts hurt I get grouchy. So there.

So here. I was recently surfing about and came across this and it reallt got my gumption because, well come on! we can all agree I think Jimi Hendrix was the greatest guitar player of all time, but there are so many fucked up things about this list that I don't even know where to begin.

No, wait, let's begin right here.

Django -- that dude, after a killer fire that didn't kill him, could only play with two fingers on his right hand and yet still wrote some of the most amazing licks that your or my sorry ears will ever hear -- oh yeah, but Jerry Fuckin Garcia (#13) was better than he was. Sure sure -- all that stupid strummity strummity truckin bullshit was righteous... COME ON!

And Woody Guthrie -- how about that punk rock dude? "This machine kills fascists" crazy wicked crooner of labout songs yes! But also the original man to pen "On top of old smokey", "The ABC Song" and innumerable (literally) others that made your and mine childhood's sing! Oh yeah, but The Edge (#24, 15 marks ahead opf Brian May for Chissakes!) who has admitted several times that he doesn't really know how to play, is clearly way better. WHATEVER! Je-sus!

And, how about this shit... where are all the women?

You know, Joan Jett, Auf Der Maur, Liona Boyd, etc etc etc...

Ugh. Not a wonder I'm sick.

2007-02-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

Good times...

I have gone music buying mad. And let me tell you how good it feels... it feels, like totally good.

The beauty of being a musicphile is that it's really easy to get quality stuff relatively cheaply (by that I mean that I can buy a stack of CDs for the same amount of bones as what a wanker of a different ilk would spend on one Grammy Award winner...)

So, the booty for this weekend runs like a twisted narrative of my current existence. Read em and weep:

The Police - Ghost in the Machine
54-40 - Dear Dear
K-os - Atlantis
The Tragically Hip - Music @ work
The White Stripes - De Stijl
The RedHot Chili Peppers
Nirvana Unplugged
Hole
Smashing Pumpkins
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

It's gonna be a groovy week from the looks of things.
A.

2007-02-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

After so very long, I am back on, and so glad to be here.

There will be no update, it is in the present that we must live...

Here is one of the greatest and weirdest things I've seen in a long time. A sort of eclectic cross between Ze Frank and Hi Fidelity, Eric Hill has, in a bold move, decided to listen to all of his massive cd collection over the course of the next year. Although a seeming mundane thing to do -- I entreat you to listen closely, for surely there is no greater intellect amongst us when it comes to music.

I say again, listen closely -- the oracle will speak of music 300 out of the next 365 days. I for one will listen. Care to join me?

2006-08-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-04-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-12T09:35:00.001-07:00

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.

2006-04-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

2006-04-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

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

2006-03-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

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?!

2006-02-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

surrounded by beauty

2006-02-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-09T07:13:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-02-06T03:59:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-30T05:41:00.000-08:00

Winter in my mind & out & about...

2005-12-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

REJOICE PUNK ROCKERS AND ARTSY FARTSIES!

Yesterday, December 14th, at 7pm, Mark and Hope had their baby! A rockin 5 1/2lb baby girl Rosa! Rosa Rosa Surfer Rosa! Hope is doing pretty good and Mark performed admirably in there! Send out your love vibes people! Send out your love!

Roses for Rosa.

2005-12-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

FEEDBACK: TONING FOR THE SONICALLY DISTORTED
For centuries, people from all around the globe have practiced the art of toning, or intoning. This meditation style practice involves everything from the deep and mysterious chanting of Tibetan monks, to the soft hummings of various practioners of the healing arts as they attempt to realign your out of synch body-mind connection. Beginning from the understandable belief that the sound of the voice is a powerful force (easily demonstrated by trying out various ways of saying 'fuck you' to people and observing their various raeactions), toning works with the philosophy that just as electro-magnetic vibrations impact the emotional and physical world we live in, so too does one's voice. Ipso facto -- the more harsh the sound, the more sonically disturbed our environ can be.

Straightforward enough, yes?

But what if you're one of those that simply doesn't like things quite and calm? What if you're one of those deranged and unique people who like it loud? Like it distorted? Like it a chaotic and noisey?

I have come to find that this basic principle of toning can be practiced in a way more conducive for those, like myself, who find distortion, white noise, and feedback to be the element that soothes most emphatically.

Take your average evening at home, after the kids are asleep, and you are confronted with a veritable mountain of exams to mark. The formula to conquer this mountain is simple -- two parts Jesus and Mary Chain, one part Pixies, two parts Husker Du and, finally, if the work still isn't done, three parts Iggy and the Stooges/ Sex Pistols/ John Coltrane in equal proportion. Mix with red wine and VOILA! Work done, wine gone, good night's sleep ahead.

This is a tried and true method. Back in the day, when I first stated university and the workload seemed more motherlode than cartload, I tried the relaxation method -- quiet music, quiet space, quiet time. And I fell asleep. Thinking it was exhaustion, I tried coffee, but all that made me do was go to the can more often. I tried working in the daytime, but that just lead to afternoon catnaps. That's when I realized the problem -- it's too damn quiet! My mind was raging, but my surroundings were dead. And so, in a moment of epiphany I came to my senses and jammed Barbed Wire Kisses into the ol' boom box and the paper was flying like trees out the nether end of a chipper on a June afternoon in Northern New Brunswick.

Frank Black, I'm sending you my undergrad degree. And Bob Mould, you can have my Masters.

You see, I am Sonically Distorted. I like the monks, don't get me wrong, but they have their place -- bedtime. But when it comes to working and creativity, only one thing will do for this Twisted Feedback Machine -- raunch and roll, squeeling saxaphones, and notes that defy the music stave. Oh yes my friends, there is life in the noise off the scale, and they are the notes of the mind driven by distortion.

2005-12-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

I've been spending time reading other people's blogs (Eric Hill, James MacGregor, John Born, Biff Mitchell, Phil Clark), and I have to admit that I am genuinely impressed by people's desire to voice themselves in words, to live their own lives vicariously online, and to out their inner monologue. I feel, sometimes, that I am living in the greatest time ever -- that despite all the calamity of the world, the curse 'may you live in interesting times' is ever so right, and true, and good. You folks are awesome -- are true inspiration. Thanks for being you.

2005-11-24T08:27:00.000-08:00

Mephisto came to life, threw
his magic down, pistons
cracking out alchemy and

filled a theatre
with a lifetime of hauntings in
one solid night

(Photo credit -- Suzanne Archibald)

2005-11-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

THINGS NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT MY FRIENDS (AND MAYBE NEVER SHOULD, BUT OH WELL)

1. LoMo has a parasite in her brain that she feeds by drinking gravy from the boat when no one's looking
2. JoBo has a dog fetish -- not that dogs get his rocks off, but he really does have a dog named fetish which nobody is allowed to see because jb likes it that way
3. JaMa didn't really shave his legs for Hallowe'en, they're like that from September - April... don't ask me why or how I know
4.ErHi is actually OLDER than he's telling us --ALOT older, and he won't ever tell the truth because the rest of us with receeding hairlines hate him enough already as is
5. MiBe is a Russian spy, and that's all I'm saying about that... comrades
6. JoGa, as much as she does a superb job hiding it behind that sheen of dreaminess, actually is a real, sure-as-shootin WITCH, capable of immense feats and conjurer of many a powerful spell
7. MaMa did not spend her childhood in Europe, as she is want to tell us, but in South America where she learned the ancient arts of Crocodile Wrestling and Shamsnistic VooDoo -- both of which she still practices, only now by a different name
8. KaWa is the Queen of the Universe (though anyone who really knows her is already aware of this, even if it's only subconsciously)
9. FaMa once scaled a mountain, bareback tamed a Camel, conquered a concubine and discovered a new line of Homo Sapien -- on the same day, all before tea-time
10. MaBr has no secrets

2005-11-24T04:45:00.000-08:00

THE ONLY FIVE THINGS WORTH KNOWING ABOUT ME

1. My family is #1
2. Teaching, speaking, music & poetry are art & alchemy to me
3. The world as I live it each moment
4. I try my very best, always pouring my whole person into everything
5. There is no #5

2005-11-23T05:54:00.000-08:00

The body of Toni Onley
VANCOUVER – The body of Vancouver artist Toni Onley has been recovered nearly three months after his plane crashed into the Fraser River, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported Wednesday.

Grim landscape, a reaping of the sun
set out on the canvass. He’s looking into the sun, nose
scooping across the water, the light

blinds him but he figures it
for vision and just

as he’s about to touch the godhead, or
a revelation more real than
it is art, it’s

over, a wall of river
splashing into the cockpit
like paint – crimson, azure,

overpowering.

2005-11-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

Mephisto comes alive tomorrow evening, a gargoyle hatched from the roof of Memorial Hall, a daemon unleashed onto the suspicious public, an awakening for all those who have ears to hear the truth.

Prepare yourselves mortals. Be ready for the spirit to be unleashed. Too long has he been chained, too long hidden from sight.

This coming night he will sing and rage and roar and howl. Come and feel the steam.

2005-11-15T06:23:00.000-08:00

Dali in the dark
They’re alive,
they’re awake,
while the rest of the world is asleep.
T. Waits

On Main, sometime
after dark, the clack and roll

of tructs on pavement starts. These
are the Athletes, Prodigies
of ollies and half pipe. To hell

with all of the wankers on their boards in broad daylight, fashion
plating through downtown, and to hell

likewise with arena rockers and Sunday afternoon
bikers and art museums
open from 8 til 5. I’d rather just

sit before the Dali in the dark, slowly
taking off all my clothes, showing
the master my tattoos one

at a time.

2005-11-15T04:49:00.000-08:00

This Canadian Dreamscape

once upon a time I spent
8 months watching Hard
Core Logo over and over

again and once upon a time
I slept with a copy of Whale Music under
my arm under my
pillow and once upon a time

I believed in it all because
once upon a time the music bled
through me in waves just like
once upon a time the words spilled
onto the page in avalanches

Gord Downey came to me last night in a dream though and
speaking as Neil Young might have
told me a story about Glen
Gould, how he
spent all of his time
practicing andd how
even ugly Mordechi Richler would let
a cigar burn to the stub if he was
writing with fury, which is as much to say
once a day

and I woke up drenched
and bent my head into my palms
and wished for a song that would start

once upon a time

2005-11-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

There are these moments
when concrete sense of morality
overloads
our inhibitions, and all
that is honest expresses itself. Do

you see the granite nature
of time? Do we know our fiends, our
friends as they

unwind time, all
your eggs in one
basket.

2005-11-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

If you get down
to the soil, you can smell
creation, can feel the worms of
creation turn the marrow
as it whispers over geological time
of sacrafice, how thought
is a forgery of metals and how
our faults are but cracks
along the lines of
our soldering.

2005-11-09T04:32:00.000-08:00

You wake some days and see the sun in all its majesty and know that she has risen for you.

A moment of thanks.
A gesture of friendship.
A glimpse into that which blinds, even if just for a second.
Divine -- dee-vine, squeeze it, you get wine.

2005-11-07T05:59:00.000-08:00

HYMN FOR PROMETHEUS
A hand reaches in
to the open wound of the world
and extracts its own liver
to feed the vultures.

They are hungry
and he will grow
a new one tomorrow, spreading
his flesh like bread.

2005-11-04T05:09:00.000-08:00

Art is everywhere. Open your wide and bright and beautiful eyes, sunshine.

2005-11-04T04:55:00.000-08:00

The valley, she opens, and make
no mistake, the valley
is a woman, opening
her legs in invitation. Fall upon her
with love and worship and all
the sensations your million nerves can offer
and she will fulfill you,

try to take her, to ravage her, she
waits for that too, and will
crush you within
her vices: indulgence, lunacy,
wilderness.

2005-11-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

Rain means nothing, darkens
while it whispers, rasps out
some cantankerous old tune
on Tom Waits' tin roof piano, a canon
literary as it is loud
and steeled into the earth.

2005-11-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

Musical genres transform, for better or for worse is a matter of taste I suppose, and only very rarely fade to nothing, are swallowed by our collective unconsciousness or apathy, and are sent, like gods that have passed their age, to simmer in the dark corners of our belief as they wait for oblivion. For those of us who sacraficed so much spiritual mettle pouring sweat and cells into our sheets and sleepless nights as we extended our faith over the alters of belief in the Gods of Distortion and Feedback, the fact that they have left us is hard to suffer.

The Jesus and Mary Chain singing through walls of noise; Husker Du yelling their commandments from on high sonic waves; Skinny Puppy unleashing all the dogs of culture at once; all of the elemental powers left to sleep in the secret corners of our breasts, dreaming of revival and empowerment. Each day I give a little stronger prayer to keep you alive, gasoline into the engine of industrial honesty.

Afterall, everone needs a little more feedback.

2005-11-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

The University of New Brunswick campus is a beautiful place of mystery, music and archaic secrets. This is how I adapt, make my place here understandable and, above all, secure my place within the storybooks of Ivory Tower history -- by riding my scooter in Chuck Berry fashion and weilding all the trust my rusty spine can muster that I will haunt these halls for all of eternity.

Old Skull legacy, sagacity and a love for all things that hide in the shadows.

Black is the new black.