I was thinking about "O Brother Where Art Thou". Its too bad that one bluegrass record gets so overexposed, fat & huge on the back of a great movie. What happens now? Its like swing music only its in a worse situation. Bluegrass is an even older and more important part of American history and now it will be relegated to the dustbin of trendiness in a few more weeks. Have people rushed out to buy other bluegrass records? I pray this massive media feeding frenzy happens to me so that I don't have to worry about money.
BUT...but...but...by the time people have had enough of my record and all the Craig Northeyisms popping up in the media it will be too late for all the people who have influenced me. I will have destroyed their careers. Everyone will be so sick of me that my mentors and heros will be caught in the backlash. Buyers will condemn them for spawning such horribly insipid dreck and will shut them out at the sales counter. The people I most respected will become social outcasts. I will be forced to take them out on package tours in a revue style. The revue will play shooter bars and malls in all suburban outlands. The audience will be mostly composed of sociologists, masochists, hecklers and people who just came in because it was too cold outside. This is why I remain in obscurity. For my peeps.
Oops I missed a day. I'll apologise to myself for letting me down. I only hurt myself when I don't find time to do whatever this is that I'm doing. I'm sure of it. I'm pretty sure I'll one day hurt someone else by doing this. That's just the way it works. If you write or talk long enough you'll surely hurt someone with your words. I'm waiting for the first incident. I guess I've primed the engines by hurting myself first (by not writing in the journal yesterday). Don't you feel bad for letting me get hurt first?
Excuses: My ghostwriter was off on a field trip to Hunter S. Thompson's shooting range. My dog ate the computer. There was a terrible accident on the highway and I was unable to drive my scooter through the creamed corn. I was busted in a pyramid scheme involving real pyramids. I was so excited about the Grammy awards that my dink exploded.
Today someone told me about the gift pack that Grammy nominees get when they check into their (all expenses paid) nice hotel. One of the items in the goody bag was an "ipod". Bastards! I want one of those. If I had known I'd get a free "ipod" I would have had myself nominated. What was I thinking? I've been waiting all this time for something good to show up in the corporate swag basket and I blew it by not cashing in this year. When the Olsen twins called me about whether I wanted to be selected I just said no because I knew I would be helping clean the rubbery stuff out of my friend's little dog Gurf's eye on that very night. Gurf has a problem with eye stuff. Apparently it's common with the breed. When I told people that I'd turned them down...again...they were really surprised. First they were surprised that the Olsen twins (Mary-Kate and Ashley) actually picked the Grammies and secondly they were surprised that I turned down the "ipod". I said, "just watch the show and you'll see its pretty obvious that Mary-Kate & Ashley control the whole thing and how the hell was I to predict they were Mac people. I assumed the girls were into giant, cheap PC's with lots of games and the ability to bootleg first-run movies over the net while still hooked up to a chat room." Apparently they swung a Grammy deal with U2 in exchange for the band teaching them how to act serious. Alicia Keys bartered by trying to teach them what a soul was but it just made the girls hungry for fish and they bolted for the nearest French restaurant. Just the sound of the the word soul was enough. Who needs more than that. Well...I better go and think of what I might write in the journal before I write what I just wrote.
Kids in the Hall. I'm going on tour with the Kids in the Hall. Can you believe it? I don't think I have to keep it a secret anymore. Now that the Olympics are over the world's focus will land squarely on me. My exploits will become the most exciting "reality based" happening since "Survivor" or "Cops". You journal snoopers can live vicariously through me as I eat insects, drink cow's urine, scream curse words through a mouthful of my own blood while in handcuffs, and . . . try not to laugh in places where one shouldn't laugh in order to make the situation even funnier to an onlooker.
I always thought that was the weirdest part about comedy. The actors would do something really funny but it wouldn't crack them up. I imagined them to do some sort of G-force training or rituals of harsh physical denial (see Survivor). What was the training required to stop someone from laughing? Were some trained to think of something horribly tragic? Maybe there were variations on biting one's inner cheek so as to freeze your facial expression? Maybe they had a special gland removed (most all problems are glandular)? Or maybe...just maybe...they didn't think it was funny at all and we were all laughing at something that they really didn't think was funny. Perhaps comedians were far more serious and reserved people than I could ever be. Maybe they had strong glands.
Gland is such a goopy word to say. It sounds like what it is. Say it with me ten times, "gland, gland, gland, gland, gland, gland, gland, gland, gland, gland." Doesn't that make any word obsurd? It rubs its outer coat until the the meaning disolves into just plain rubbing. Repeat it ten times and its just a strange sound without a place to go. Bring your bulging laugh glands out to see the Kids in the Hall. I dare you to control yourself. Better start training now. Say the funny words ten times. maybe it will make them unfunny. maybe it will make them funnier. Boner, boner, boner, boner, boner, boner, boner, boner, boner, boner.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I was wearing my Team Canada Jersey signed by Paul Henderson. The Trail Smokeaters jersey from the '66 team that beat Sweden in the World Championships was behind me. The guitar I had signed by Henderson was in front of me. The pennants from across Canada that I collected in my youth were draped across the piano. The Team Canada practice jersey I won in a bet (came from the Hall of fame) hung over top of the piano. Good on the USA. The sportsmanship shown was so appropriate to the event. Its a sunny day here. Now I can write about something outside of sports. This has cleared my head.
Critical mass. We hit some sort of stride in Calgary and I had one of those shows you hope to have when you really need to have one of those shows. The Back Alley is a real "rock bar" and I didn't have great expectations what with the oncoming technical confusion created by a four band bill. It wasn't a problem in the end. Received some very supportive comments from the other bands. They were all pretty vital and fresh musical combos... if I were to pass a general compliment back. The coupling of the in-ear monitors and the gigantic bass bins under the stage finally worked to our advantage as our monitor mixes became surprisingly inspiring. Thanks to Andrew White for setting up so many things for this little run and for hosting us in Edmonton. Cheers to Jenn Jenkinson for seeing a record number of shows...sorry I missed you afterward. Set list:
Giddy Up
Slow Motion
Take A Hit Off This
Satisfied
Write It In Lightning
Old Mistakes
Famous Grave
Make You Mad
After Walking In Space
Someone Who's Cool
Son's & Daughters
The highway was closed due to avalanches so we had to hole up in Golden B.C. for a couple of hours. managed to catch the last period of the Canada vs Belarus game at a local roadhouse. The highway opened just in time for us to miss the US vs Russia excitement. Damn. I figure sunday's game will be a bit exciting.
Had some fortunate radio reception on the drive home and managed to pick up a ton of strong signals from various open-line shows ranging as far south as Oregon. Wow! There sure is a lot to yell about in this world. Those open line hosts have a way of blowing a gasket about just about anything. Their incendiary tone is so carefully tailored to incite a riot of support from those people who just happen to have enough time to wait in line and gripe about people not taking a hard enough line about "topic A". It all boils down to sucking it up and taking the bastards to task. Every conversation immediately steers itself to the simple solutions: a) change the government b) fire someone c) eliminate social welfare and immigration. If the topic is the Russian plan to boycott the closing ceremonies in Salt lake it will still happen that our top three "answers" will be utilized. The "answers" might not make any sense but they somehow get around to them in the end. They will definitely start with the simple "take a hard line" approach. In the Russian example it would be, "well good riddance to the Russians." Within one call they would be talking about "the communist system" and why they should get rid of it in Russia (see answer "a" ...I know I know...the USSR has disolved...you see...that's the level of the conversation) and how its amazing that we allow these people into the country knowing they're going to defect and be a burden on the social welfare system that is already out of control (see answer "c"). The big finish would be to call for the I.O.C. to fire the board member responsible for passing the motion that allowed the Russians to compete at all (voila answer "b")! We've hit our big three "answers" within 5 minutes and the topic is Olympic diplomacy. If there is an argument in favour of these shows it lies somewhere in the idea that at least these people are at home waiting on the phone to say their piece instead of pursuing jobs as diplomats, politicians or labour relations arbitrators.
Edmonton. I think I struggled tonight at the show. Sometimes the technical things throw you enough that you don't get into the right rhythm. The other guys didn't feel it like I did. Here's the set list as requested:
Giddy Up
Slow Motion
Take a Hit Off This
Satisfied
Famous Grave
What Lack of Love Has Done
Beautiful Pain
Old Mistakes
After Walking In Space
Write It In Lightning
Mercy to Go
Jumper On the Bridge
Always Breaking Heart
Make You Mad
Sons & Daughters
encore
I Am Bob Seger
Three Sided Story
Someone Who's Cool
It was nice to come out to pick up my gear and see flowers left on the pedal board. Thanks to the person who did that. I'm starting to feel better about the gig now. Canada winning the hockey game helped the vibe a bit but most people were consumed by that event.
A couple of days ago I got an e-mail about Gretzky's speech regarding Canadian Olympic hockey. My friend Larry Palm asked if I agreed that Canadians were whiners about not winning. What a loaded question. Of course we aren't whiners. One person makes a statement in an emotionally charged situation and all of a sudden a whole country is implicated. Its tough to say anything to the US media right now that indicates any allegiance to anything other than America. Oh well. I trust that the greatest hockey player in world history might know something about what other NHL players might be thinking or saying...just a hunch. Maybe he even knows more than sports writers? I'm happy that Canada won tonight but sorry for my friend Jyrki Lumme who plays for Finland. If you're reading Jyrki (which I doubt you are...tonight) I was rooting for you whenever you had the puck. Even though I am not a big Leafs fan I watch all the Leaf games I can just to see how you're doing.
It would be cool to see the US team do well too. That way North Vancouver's Brett Hull could have a medal! Calgary tomorrow.
I watched the northern lights for the last hour of the drive. Made it to Edmonton. It struck me that I'd asked how the northern lights worked, and had it explained to me, about 6 times. I still can't remember how they work. I now know that I don't want to know how they work. That spoils everything. Shards of green and white light shoot thousands of feet in the air into the crisp starry sky. The scientific explanation is so stupid. Its magic...for sure. Its not a God thing either. Its just magic. I realize now that I want to have things explained to me a lot less now. I want to be suspended in mid air in that zone I can only imagine the dread marijuana to create. I f I were to try it I'm sure it would be like that. Can one not be allowed to be in awe of the incomprehensible? Is it not a better feeling to be small and powerless in the face of such naturally hallucinogenic fun. Shoving the stubby pink fingers of some clumsy drug into ones pink folds is only half as nice...I imagine. I can only imagine.
By the way....I've been told by some regular readers to look into spell-check software. That would spoil the whole thing. The moment I start thinking about this thing is the moment I won't know how to do it.
Birds stop singing in this country while Team Canada plays. Baby's stop crying and stare at the screen as we wait for goals. The boys are taking a bit of time to put it together but today's tie with the Czechs was a lot better than the first two. Man its exciting to watch. It's after midnight and I get to watch the rest of the game and get up early to drive to Edmonton for the gig on Wednesday. I already know the result in this hockey game and my heart still beats like a bunny.
I was wondering today if each person had an age gene that freezes them at a certain central level. Take me for example. That is the point of this journal. I believe my age gene to be frozen at 8 years. I am an 8 year old boy. The rest of the cognitive & physical developments are allowed but the basic attitude that shapes behaviour is only 8. My sense of obsession, enthusiasm, hedonism, and sentimentality are all products of the age gene. On top of that basic attitude is piled later developments in sexuality, physical growth, education and wisdom. For all the intellectually satisfying pursuits I can figure taking part in I would still choose a game of road hockey in a flash. There is still such wonder and excitement in the idea of coming close to a naked lady. I maintain elements of faith & hope even when experience has taught me that there is no possibility of success. This is the only explanation. I can think of people who were born 35. Most of my friends have a 13 to 16 year old age gene. Look at how late I stay up. I hate going to bed if I can still keep my eyes open. Eight. I play with this computer because it is "neat" and its way bigger than a Game Boy. Eight. I still have trouble with the days of the week. I like things that blow up. I'm excited by the fact that I might see an elk tomorrow on the drive. I've seen thousands of the damn things. Proof. It comes down to elk.
My middle child wanted me to shave his hair into a Mohawk today. He's been asking for a week so I did his bidding during a break in recording. My parents would always nix such behaviour until I just did it out of defiance. I never understood why they did that. I still don't understand it. I loved shaving his little head and marvelling at the mini-pops Joe Strummer with his one front tooth. He had grown his hair pretty long so he's got some good length to soap up in the morning. It will be an interesting day at school! He's big for his age. That will help. I was the middle child too. Why does that make you want to screw with things just as they get rolling? You want to push the envelope but you still care if you get caught. You vacilate between raising hell and getting good grades. Accomplishment and sabotage. Graduate from university and then never get a real job for the rest of your life. The glorious middle.
Worked out in the studio on small tasks. Its too late to write too much. Long day of organizing and drudgery. There are ways to properly end a day like this that involve anesthetics. Can't figure out the dosage on the tank valve so I better not get into it tonight or there might be another "incident". I'm going to decide on a good dream tonight. Usually I can make it happen. If I am chased by a mad horse or am coming perilously close to having extra marital affairs with unholy beasts I will just wake up and start again. I will say, "this is only a dream and I'm stopping it now and starting a new one about driving a real Hot Wheel"
Quarantine. I'm in quarantine out at my parents. We've been passing this bug around the house for long enough so I've been banished to the woods until my contagious period has ended. I'm just like the astronauts after they come home. How would that make you feel? Nice going boys, risking your lives, growing beards, peeing into a tube and eating from a bag. We're going to show our appreciation by making you live in a trailer together for another week with your families just inches away. Doctors will probe you and will give you a nice skin peel before you go.
I knew they didn't have any space diseases. If the astronauts were smiling and waving it was pretty clear to me that the space diseases were not present. As a child you know that space diseases are much more deadly than that. If the astronauts returned with green skin, 5 extra arms, and puss pockets on their scalps the quarantine would make more sense. I, however, go away into the world -- hunting, gathering, exploring -- and bring real disease back to my people. Sometimes I bring money and funny stories that make up for the plagues. This is my very first quarantine and I'm feeling that the money and funny story aspect must be fading in its importance. I'm going to have to cook the books and fabricate some better stories.
I watched a lot of TV today. Olympics again. I think if they put deadly poison on those poles that make up the gates in slalom skiing then it would be a lot more interesting. They just whack those things down with their arms. I think deadly space poison would make it a more interesting race. It could combine elements of "Survivor" with a fast sport. The biathalon would be a lot more interesting right away if you took the restrictions off their use of the rifles. Its already a strange frontier style event. You definitely would want to be bringing up the rear on your skis in that one if they loosened up the gun control. Commentator#1: "Yes! Gern Sviddlin of Switzerland has taken down the field once again with his patented strategy of coming out of the gate last and using those quick hands to bring down the other skiiers." Commentator #2: "Oh you're so right Bob and its so like the Swiss to be good about it and only shoot for the legs." Commentator #1: "Yes Earl it will be a nice time in quarantine for Gern as he waits two more weeks in isolation for his medal. New Olympic rules require appropriate punishment before victory."
The Fantastic Voyage is on the tube. I always wanted a shrink ray. Honey I shrunk the neighbour's car with the megaphone muffler and the boom system. Honey I shrunk all the Creed CDs. Honey I shrunk the bylaw enforcement officer. Donald Pleasance as Dr.Michaels was one of the memorable performances of my youth. There are far more bald people in the media now so Donald Pleasance & Yul Bryner probably wouldn't have become as famous today. They were two of the only bald guys on TV. OK...OK...Pleasance had a fringe. Later came Kojak. Now all the receding rockers have shaved heads. All famous basketball players have shaved heads. Neo nazi youths have shaved heads. Hardly a component of originality and distinction now.
They're starting to explain how they will shrink the people and bring them back after the voyage through the body. I remember thinking if they could describe the scientific theory so well to a little kid then why couldn't they just build the godamn thing! Jurrasic Park was pretty good that way too. they demonstrated how they could make new dinosaurs...geezuz...get on with it! If they got out of control we'd just shrink them. Simple.
Look at the two guys from Estonia. They won the first medals for their country . . .EVER. Both in cross-country skiing. Both in the same race. Today we should all be Estonian -- completely Estoned. We should all be the overachieving underdogs at the afterparty. None of us would be practiced in winning and thus more appreciative than past winners. We'd be quickly drunk and asleep with a smile and a few scrapes leftover from all the "rushing out" and in the morning walking to the breakfast smorgasbord in our most comfortable shoes and being that almost impossible combination of tired and content. Todays job is only to prepare for further accolades and congratulations at the coming banquet. This Estonian thing could catch on. Downside?
A woman's body is so much more complicated than my own. If mine is a temple then her's is the Taj Mahal. Its got all that extra blood volume, milk makers and a infinitely more complex component of the baby making process. Its got more hormones, more nooks and crannies and so much more to love on all levels. I was listening to a show about breast cancer and its correlation to early mentruation and childbirth. If there is a correlation to variations in these activities what the hell is a woman supposed to do about it? Should I be rushing right now to tell my daughter not to get her period too early? No matter how much we rationalize and muse on the beauty surrounding a woman's ovulation it still must suck. Having to overcome those gross feelings on a regular basis is just not something most men have to deal with. As an experiment men could kick each other in the nuts for about three consecutive days a month and then we'll see just how long the imbalance of partiarchal influence lasts. I say a year. I say we start the experiment with the area where men wield way too much influence...right wing politicians and corporate executives. Lets get them kicking each other in the nuts starting every third wednesday of the month in varying rotations. There will be a lot of government funds spent on studies linking nut kicking to nut damage but there will be peace in our time.
The computer crashed earlier this evening. Not unlike the Volvos with those crash test dummies, the essential bits were saved but it took awhile to get the car working again. It took long enough for me to want to go to bed. Scored some goals at musician's hockey tonight after being too busy to play for the last few weeks. Felt good. It gave me the energy to tackle the Imac head on and win. Now it works and my body is shutting down. Vince Jones visited today and got something going on my studio computer that I had struggled with for a month. Bastard. Nice bastard. So...Today I improved the general feng and shwing of my digital limbs and improved my hockey stats. It doesn't seem like a groundbreaking day but if small victories are my only victories I will relish them into momentus advances. Too bad about the Canadian pairs coming in second at the big O. Maybe I shouldn't tell them I fixed my computer & got 4 goals in rec hockey. It would make them feel worse.
I want to go and do something active but I guess I'm catching this flu that's going around. Feeling like you might vomit really slows you down. You get down to one word answers and amoeboid economy of movement. All people figure they can fend it off with variations on yogic relaxation. Typing about it is putting me at significant risk. This Imac wouldn't really benefit from the redecorating you can only imagine would occur if I were to push the envelope much further. I am reminded of the time I left our downtown rehearsal space during rush hour to make the trip home. I was struck, shortly after pulling out onto the crowded thoroughfare, with the headache and bodyache that signals my descent into nausea. "I'll be fine", I said. About 10 minutes later I hit gridlock on Georgia Street before the Stanley Park causeway. The decision had to be made. Was I going to pull off into the Park and run to sanctuary in a grove of trees or was I going to commit to being locked into a 30 kph crawl for the next 15 minutes? I gambled. Midway through the causeway the final wave hit me. The one wave that says the next wave will be the tsunami. I raised my hand to my mouth just as my body conquered my mind. I had to keep my eyes front as I was trapped between cars on all sides going about 40kph. The hand to mouth only served to deflect the torrent in all directions around me -- lap, roof, windshield, dashboard, steering wheel, side window. One more huge blast went out unobstructed as I struggled to keep my head up and hands tight on the wheel. I had no choice. My vision obscured by tears and a blanket of lunch. I pulled off into the final emergency parking spot before the Lion's Gate bridge. I was able to regain enough composure to get myself home...oh geez...there's more to the story...but...better go
I love my friends. I love them all. I am blessed with beautiful friends. This seems simple and dumb. To know they think about me and that I can make them laugh makes me happy. Tonight's post is brought to you by that feeling that we all get all too rarely. Happiness. No time to type. I must go and enjoy this fleeting thing.
The Olympic opening ceremonies. What a weird, conflicted experience. I cried at one point (the flag) and I was grossed out by the cheesiness at several other points. Why did it have to end on that Celine Dion kind of note? I know it wasn't Celine but you know what I mean. Anytime there is a song with all those modulations backed by a gigantic choir and a symphony you know what kind of words are going to come out. The gross kind. At least Ms.Rhimes (sp?) doesn't whack her chest and then throw her deep emotions to the stars on the back of her hand like Celine. I always like the fist clench while pulling the elbow towards the solar plexus move. If you are lip synching you can do a double eh...'cause you don't have to hold the mic. If you're Garth Brooks you just wear the Cowboy airtraffic controller outfit (the shirts help the planes see the runway too) and you have both hands free to do the double fist pull. Its really effective when combined with the word "thunder". I love emotions. They are so emotional.
I love watching the Olympics too. I wish I could luge. Getting over the hump would be the tough part. Surviving one or two near fatal crashes just in time to get your technique down would be the trick. This "skeleton" thing looks good too. Head first luge is next. Maybe some idiot will strap on a pair of hockey skates and shoot through the bobsled run one day. Maybe when "Craig Northey & his Booty Boys" hit Calgary on February 21st that just might happen. Maybe after a few pints at the Back Alley some Port Moody bad boy will put luge in the Curling Bonspiel category with his clandestine feat captured on digital video by his equally lubricated cohorts. Maybe just maybe he will relegate this Olympiad to compete only with the cruiseship shuffleboard tourney happening on channel 72. Just watch the news. He will wear the cowboy airtraffic controller outfit -- Wranglers hiked up to make a nice camel toe...crease pressed in front. He will be singin' Stompin' Tom's "the Hockey Song" and downing the local Big Rock Ale. He will be emoting.
Oh yeah. Just confirmed: the Sidetrack in Edmonton AB, February 20th & the Back Alley in Calgary on February 21st. There may be dates around this but they are TBA.
And the thunder rolls.
Spent the whole day without going outside. Maybe I am subconsciously preparing for being institutionalized. I see now how much I will enjoy "excercise period". Here it is a little better since I'm still allowed to open the knife drawer and the food is homemade. As you can see I'm typing a little earlier in the evening because if you stay inside all day it gets to feeling late at a faster rate. Through these posts I'm gradually approaching a state of enlightened gibberish. My friend Alistair has an English to Gaelic translator on his website. I would like an English to Gibberish translator. Alistair helps me with my website and I think he's smart enough to build a Gibberish to English translator. I dare you Mr.Smartypants! Ideally you could play old REM records and Esa Tikkanen postgame interviews into it and they would come out as lucid as a cold prairie morning. Wait...IKEA instructions. It could help me with IKEA instructions. Fuck IKEA instructions! They aren't straightforward at all. There are always two ways to build anything you buy. I screw it together the wrong way first, turn the air blue, undo it, and then do it the right way. First the automan is a pommel horse and then it is finally an automan. It is an automan I therefore resent for the first three months of its assembled existence. It has a name like SKVAR or KOLIK. Ski instructors who get chicks and have perfect blonde hair and real pectoral muscles. Why shouldn't I resent an automan with that profile? I have to get out of the house before I say something I don't mean to Skvar & Kolik. They can't help who they are. They can't help that they didn't come assembled. Perhaps today my thoughts should come with the proviso, "some assembly required". I'll have that English/Gibberish: Gibberish/English thing up and running soon.
*footnote: Esa Tikkanen: Left Wing, shoots left. 6'1", 190 lbs born, Helsinki Finland Jan 25/65, NHL teams: Edmonton, NY Rangers, St.Louis, New Jersey, Vancouver, Rangers again, Florida, Washington, Rangers again.
Now works in IKEA technical specs and instruction manual department.
Got some e-mails this morning regarding the Railway Club show and it seems some of you "out of towners" are interested in what the set list was. Maybe I'll just print it out after all my shows. I think this is right.
What Lack of Love Has Done (Nick Lowe)
Take A Hit Off This
Always Breaking Heart (new one)
Famous Grave
Three Sided Story (new one)
Old Mistakes -- Paul Myers & Gary Durban on Bvox
Write it in Lightning
Cheers to Rich Hope for playing so well in his set. Check out his band "John Ford" whenever they're around your area. I guarantee it. Hey "Finger", Mya delivered your message and I almost understood it!
Teach cowardice. My close friend Paul and I sat in my car after the gig (I played tonight) and talked for a long time. Talking for a long time usually brings you around to some really good ideas. All the currents and back-eddies of conversation eventually add up to something. It could be a real aphorism or a belly laugh over a fart joke. If there are moments of brilliance they are what you save for songs. If you cram enough of them together you can pretend that they just fell out that way and you look like a genius. In reality you talked or wrote or thought for hours, days, weeks, years and those three sentences were the result. I guess the idea is to talk and write as much as you can in private. You can then throw away all the yammering and fluff and pretend that you wrote it as a first draft. The two words I used to start tonight's meandering blab were, "teach cowardice". If we teach our kids to be more afraid of getting hurt then maybe it will help them see the line that you just shouldn't cross. Where did that line go? was it erased by Roadrunner cartoons? If you drop an anvil on someone it will kill them. Killing them is bad. You shouldn't kill them because then bad things will happen to you. Either you'll get killed or go to jail. Maybe you will spend the afterlife in a flaming sesspool. If we are giving into the idea that it's every person for themselves then wouldn't it be OK to council people that harming others just brings it all back home? If you don't care about others then at least leave them alone to help ensure you don't get hurt yourself. It is noble to die for a cause but its more important to live to see another day. OK...OK...I know I've shot hoops by myself as a teenager and whispered (to myself), "If you don't sink this next one then your whole family will be wiped out in a flood". That provided me some incentive to score. Artificially raising the stakes in this manner proved one thing. My family being wiped out seemed to be the worst thing I could think of... and...when it comes down to it we all want to be heros. Some would argue that the lesson learned is that basketball can be really important to some people.
There is a conscious part of hero behaviour and an unconscious component as well. The hero said, "I just jumped into the raging river to save her officer and I didn't even think about it at all". I truly believe that this is a human instinct. Rush into the burning building. The fear falls away. The conscious part of hero behaviour is the sad part. Its the part where someone creates their own opportunity to become a hero. This is where cowardice comes in. Its getting late and my logical path is overgrown with fatigue so I'll try to sew this up. Columbine. There's the nail. Those kids lost track and the sanctity of human life was lost. They didn't even know how to apply real value to their own lives. Cowards REALLY value their own lives and, therefore, might just have a chance to understand the value of other people's lives as well. The lightbulb might go on when they realize that other people feel the same way they do. Scared. All hail the coward.
I didn't have the car today and I had errands to run. So I ran. As a few of you know I love to run. If one has errands to accomplish it all takes on an olympian vibe. Sprinting over hill and dale to get the important tactical message from HQ to the general in the field. "Sire! Sire! The Centurions doth approach from Troy via the Lonsdale off-ramp. They command a massive fleet of imported minivans!" OK...OK...so it was just the bank, some mail, and a prescription to pick up. Somehow the whole venture seems more worthy if you actually sweat. Nothing can stem the tide of minivans. We have lost that battle and resigned to our comfortable, sexless, pods. Tie your last shred of identity to the aerial to pick yours out from the others in the parking lot. I have chosen the Jolly Roger so no one dents my doors. I've told the family to pilliage whenever possible. Run down the road with the sliding side doors open with "Ride of the Valkyries" blasting from the stereo. "Kids! Jump out and grab that man's sandwich! It looks good and we have no food!".
Soon it will be illegal for the kids to go to school without a corporate logo on their clothes. No one will know which class to put them in if it cannot be determined if they are GAP kids, Nike kids or from the clan of Abercrombie & Fitch. When they graduate they can get a better sense of direction by enlisting in the Old Navy. I will surely be arrested for running around town on the sidewalks. Unless...unless..people assume that, with my unaturally dyed red hair, I must be late for my initiation into the clan McDonald and am meeting the other Ronalds under the arches of gold for the sacrifice.
If you build it they will come. Perhaps the rallying cry of many porn web designers but I still find some value in the "Field of Dreams" message. The mere mention of Jim Croce brought on several casual references to him by others over the next few days. All of the people who brought him up claimed to not have had a look at my "journal". Why does that happen? You buy a shirt and then you see way more people than ever before wearing the same one. Is it that you never noticed the shirt until you bought the shirt or is it that your purchase somehow started a chain reaction? Am I turning into Andy Rooney or Jerry Seinfeld? If you read this particular post with one of their voices in mind then you'll see what I mean. I'm pretty sure that there are causal connections far more interesting than the ones I can grasp. A 35 year old man in China is picking lint from his bellybutton while repeating an English phrase he is hearing through the white plastic airline headphones he kept from a business trip he took last month. In Berlitz fashion he is saying "you look lovely".
Did my saying that actually make it happen? Is it happening? Science says that there is no logical connection. I am playing only with probabilties and not with events that are coordinated in any concrete way. Oh my god. The man is turning toward me and is actually saying, "no Craig it is specifically you that looks lovely". His english is poor but I can make it out. He seems so sincere. He is taking off the headphones and starting to remove his shirt. I have to go.
Played a Sharkskin gig tonight without Simon. Weird. Flew home to do the gig and poor Simon has a broken back. Tom Arntzen did a fantastic job handling the keys and singing. We had a lot of fun inserting TV themes and riffs from bad musicals into the R&B classics. For the first two sets we were just audio wallpaper and in those situations you can do whatever you want. I always thought that the lounge guys were in some sort of musical straightjacket and were suffering to make a buck. Instead I find those situations to provide way more freedom than a regular rock show where everyone is expecting you to overwhelm them with your rock power. We designed Sharkskin as musical therapy and a vehicle for learning the soul essentials. I love the musical excercise I get by challenging myself in these situations. Two years ago I wouldn't have imagined getting through a five hour gig of instrumental music with more than half of it just happening on the fly. I would have choked in the first 45 minutes. I'm just not the right lounge lizard. But because its not my bread & butter I can throw common sense and my fragile reputation to the wind. I can just say "no way" when the promoter comes up at the end of the night and says, "I want to play 'Time in a Bottle' on your guitar" -- it happened tonight. That is somehow empowering. Its like your boss saying, "Let me grope your girlfriend or you're fired" and you get to say, "how about I hold your arms while my girlfriend emasculates you with the dull edge of a Jim Croce record".
Try to get "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" out of your head after I mention the title.
CN