Attention all henchpeople of the Craigspace. It was inevitable that my subversive blogging would be attacked by unseen forces. Frogmen have drilled holes in the hull of the ship and I have awoken to the sound of rushing water. Assuming that no evil doers own a Mac I have not protected myself from viruses or worms. The Jobs vs Gates battle has no saintly side. Consider my innocence lost. It has been eaten by an ugly puss mouthed worm. The worm’s name is W32/Klez-H. I hate it. More so I feel sorry for the wormsman who had such little joy in his life that he spent his time (a woman would never do this) figuring out a way to do virtual “drive bys” on bystanders waiting at the bus stops of the interweb.
That said, I now need your help. Could any of you readers who have contacted me in the past, or any of you faithful who have bought my CD, please send me a note to my e-mail so I can get hold of you in the future. All your particulars are being digested by W32/Klez-H and will be binary stool samples soon.
posted by Craig Northey at 11:50 AM

A couple of days ago I saw a crow who had taken its prized find up onto a telephone wire slung across the road. It was balanced along the wire with one end of the mass under foot and the other being yanked upward by its beak. The frayed end of the stringy mass looked like a giant shoelace that had lost its plastic sheath and was impossible to get through any eyelet. I marveled that the crow was agile enough to perform this task while balancing so well on such a narrow surface above a busy thoroughfare but I also wondered if it wouldn’t be less stressful to find a quiet place on the ground to shred the grotty flesh. “Nobody will take my booty here”, thought the crow as a bigger crow swooped down and knocked him off the wire only to retrieve the “mouse and or snake and or beef jerky” at the first real break in traffic. The big crow could return later to pick up the newly processed smaller crow from the tarmac. Perhaps this was a cannibalistic cycle that had gone on for eons. That stringy mass could have easily been crow that had suffered under about thirty all season radials. Maybe an eagle, falcon or hawk was waiting in the trees to cap off the days action. I noticed a few of those on lamp standards and roadside trees along the days drive. Animals are opportunists and scavengers are at the top of this game. Raccoons, rats, seagulls and crows seem to be painted with the same dirty brush. If a plane went down in the Andes carrying raccoons, rats, seagulls and crows one should be really afraid of the survivors. You can bet they didn’t wait around for the “food” to slowly ripen on the vine. These animals will be the ones outside your sliding glass door compelling you to make garbage faster or die. I know there are people out there who keep these species as pets. They defend the honour and intelligence of the animals and lobby for compassion and understanding. Sometimes they will walk shirtless down pedestrian malls with their loved ones crawling and scampering nervously across the flat of their shoulders. The animals nibble at the breaded ends of their wide fu-manchu moustaches as the owners bark, “see dude, he’s giving me kisses”. I tell you if the animal was as big as the man and he stopped feeding it . . . kiss of death is what it would give. I have never seen one of these characters with a seagull but I reserve the right to use that image in future works of fiction.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:52 AM

Starting point. I came back from shoveling in the trenches to write something pithy about the pending war. I wrote it and decided I had no answers. My opinions weren’t far enough away from the common editorial line to be interesting enough. What a musician thinks is not always the most valuable perspective. This journal is not the place to contribute to the solution. So .... I will stop the war with telekinetic energy.

People will believe televangelists, faith healers, and TV psychics. This is because they want so badly to believe. To be a positive force. The generally good hearted populace is preyed on by the cynical and opportunistic minority. Saddam comes to power. George W. Bush comes to power. Snake oil and light shows. These two men lead nations for reasons that are not dissimilar. Their devotion to “the people” is oftentimes not a prime mover. Careerism and unending perks pretty much win out. The subtlety of execution is important. Saddam has none and George has a little. It must be remembered that they are just people who shit, piss and cry like babies on occasion.
They have no power outside the posse they have organized around themselves. But I do.
I can crack the foundation of a house merely by moving into it. I can make a sports team lose simply by getting behind it and cheering. I can make important mail be diverted to addresses unknown. I can make a computer crash by filling it with a very important project that is almost done. I can make a recording artist sell less CDs simply by liking their music. Yes. My power is real. It is independent of lobby groups or weapons of mass destruction.
As soon as I can figure out how to control it I will stop the pending war. I will make sure George W. Bush is never wearing pants in public and is obviously drunk -- though it didn’t really hurt our current premier or our first prime minister. I will cause Saddam to levitate and land somewhere in a refugee camp outside his borders with a “kick me hard” sign on his back. The only words they will be able to say are “don’t listen to me” and “I love you mom”.

Just watch me.
posted by Craig Northey at 9:41 AM

One dank and sturdy night the message came in on flashes of light. It whined and it whinnied and took on a high pitch. It deafened the drivers who drove into the ditch. Those who were chewing spat up their gum. Some got tinitis and a permanent hum. Some got infections or holes in their tongues. Others ran down into basements and cellars. The light made its way to these underground dwellers. Noone mistook what it meant for an instant but nobody spoke it. They stared into the distance.
posted by Craig Northey at 3:10 PM

A whirlwind of activity has swept me from my perch in front of the Imac. The “secret show” at the Green Room seems to have been an all out good time for all involved. I thought the trio was in fine form and we certainly had a lot of friends and well wishers there to once again launch “Giddy Up” into new realms.
The next day featured my Kids in the Hall on David Letterman’s TV show. I thought they were fantastic. My vote has been bought long ago but I will nevertheless stand up any day and proclaim their genius.
I got the see the Kids in the Hall “Tour of Duty” pay per view special over at my chum Norm Fisher's today. He has a dish and a high definition, widescreen TV. I thought it turned out really well. It freaks me out when I see myself. When anyone was giving performance “notes” during that tour I only half got it. I can now see the full meaning of all comments. In retrospect I shouldn’t have worn the hats. I played the glum foil pretty well though. I notice that I toe out a lot when I walk. Its something I always knew but now I know what it looks like from the other side. You can always hide your physical oddities in rock videos. Who looks at feet? Today is my birthday and I really enjoyed my kids and ran around in the woods...with my toe out style. Tomorrow is “Breakfast TV”, some writing, and a late night hockey scrimmage. What more do I need in my life?
posted by Craig Northey at 11:26 PM

Happy record release day to me.

Don't forget my brethren in "Kids in the Hall" will be on Letterman on Friday and the Pay Per view is really soon. I think its the 8th or 9th or 12th or something. The DVD has a "special feature" that has my two songs on it. I hope I was good that night.
posted by Craig Northey at 1:06 AM

Self help litany. It was supposed to be a short flight but its getting longer all the time. The conversation in the row in front of me is relentless. One of these women has internalized the sentence structure and presentation of the “self help” juggernaut. She is working hard on the other one. She is dancing and squeezing with all the might of the jargon she has memorized. As the Oprahs and Dr.Phils and the Atkins diet sweep through and heal the continent they also leave strange language in their wake. What if everyone who watched the news ended up talking like an anchorman? There has not been a break in the analysis. I will capture snippets of what I hear. This is not as scarey as the whole package but its as fast as I can type.

“Practicing non self care”, “I’m interested in people”, “there is no reason you can’t have that in your life”, “we don’t experience ourselves the way that other people do so we buy into our own stories”, “I knew this was happening with Scott and we dismantled a lot of that and cleared the relatrionship”, “its the ‘have to’s’ and ‘becauses’ in your answers that clue you into the promises”, I get out of my own way and out of their way”, “that was the piece that was wrong with me”, “rather than just being a whole person”, “I’m experiencing freedom in my life”, “talking to George last night was really about talking to George”, “to get out of everybody’s way and net even have my ego be present at that table”, “I knew what I was doing”, “I love how we project” , “here’s my comittment”, “its absolutely what it is at that moment and there has to be perfect integrity”, “I don’t know but I like that statement”, “fully self expressed in the world”, “everyone goes through life resisting their own power”, “I see the leaders of this organization actually practicing what they preach”, “communication is all we do”, “all day long we are commited to true and full communication”, “this is the really cool thing about opinions”, “Landmark is commited to peace in the world but commited to structures that can be put into place and if they don’t work they can be removed”.

Whoooaa there!!

Now I have a name. I am going to get on the net as soon as I get home and bust this thing. There is a lot of nodding and mmhhmm’s and uhhuhs and earnest eye contact ...always a dominant one in the pair. There has not been a pause. An answer for everything comes from the dominant one’s life experiences. I am learning that she is part of some “learning team management leadership” -- this “Landmark” I guess. She is having trouble remembering Nelson Mandela’s name in order to support her quote. She has only memorized the buzzwords and sentence structure but not the real information. She surrenders to the description of him as “that South African activist”. Screenplays and murder mysteries are in her plans and she talks extremely loudly about them with the middle of each sentence featuring the elongation of the “emphasis word” and then a quick salvo before further punctuation. I’m going to have to switch seats because I can’t think about anything except making her stop. When I get back to Vancouver I will get on Google and, no doubt, will be led to some corporate religious system bafflegab.
It facinates me to think about the moments when she is alone. Can she enjoy a moment without reflection? If she ski’s can she feel the snow beneath her and the sun on her face and let the activity work her to a zen moment? How many times has she payed a big fee, slapped on a “hello my name is” and enjoyed complimantary coffee from big silver urns. Has the decaf been clearly marked? Was salmon served and were the tables numbered? Salmon means we’re spoiling you and despite its hotel issue uniform shape is always described as “fresh”. Chicken doesn’t sell the seminar well enough. Guaranteed this has all cost her a lot more time and money than one trip to a remote corner of Tibet and a blessed silence leading to actual understanding.
There has been a strong smell of human gas coming from her seat the whole time. It is truly nauseating. Sometimes the real answers to interpersonal disfunction can be wildly illusive. Simple truths can be divided into little portions and sold for money. You will never put the puzzle together. All discussions are filled with crazy leaps of logic and maddening cul de sacs of narcissism. The price is high.

I have just left the plane and my jaw has finally relaxed emitting a loud crack. I didn’t realize how hard I was grinding my teeth.

••••••

OK. I’m home and have stumbled across the “Landmark Forum” with its roots firmly planted in EST and Werner Erhard. Oh my. If any of you have tried to live or work with those afflicted by their association with these clap trap, snake-oil, quasi religious programs then you’ll enjoy this page I found.

http://www.rickross.com/groups/landmark.html

Please try the mp3 on the page marked:
“Werner Goes Reggae: an Erhard experience”.

All these charlatans include some greasy doctrine regarding the exploration of sexuality. Shivers. I’ve also noted that the Landmark Forum offers “courses” to children as young as 8 years old.

For those of you who want to find the crux of my net research encapsulated in a favourite comment and do not wish to surf around this page for fear of your net cookies attracting the goggle eyed zombies to your door:

“Though the case is the first of its kind against Landmark, it is one of several brought in recent years against similar self-improvement groups, including the Forum's predecessor, est. The Forum and est were designed by Werner Erhard, who said that the Erhard Seminar Training he unveiled in 1971 could significantly increase human potential.

Erhard has not been seen publicly for several months, having disappeared after one of his daughters accused him in a televised interview on "60 Minutes" of molesting her. Shortly before Erhard disappeared, the IRS seized $ 7 million of his property, al leging that he had claimed phony income tax deductions.

Through a spokesman, Erhard has denied both allegations.

The Forum, one of several properties Erhard sold in the last few years, was bought by Landmark, according to a spokeswoman.”

I assume Erhard is busy playing a white baby grand piano on the deck of his yaught drifting into the harbour in Rio. I suspect him to be wearing a loin cloth and sporting a cigarette holder.

posted by Craig Northey at 12:44 AM