Sometimes you’re down in the trenches for a long time. Pinned to your post and losing what made the position interesting in the first place. Challenges are problems. There is no real way out. There are only the exotic and unbelievable ways out. You conjure them in your constant daydreams. It takes an out of body experience to put it all back into perspective. We all have our ways of getting there but frequently these experiences pick their own spots. It always happens when you are alone. You do something different then . . .endorphin intervention. Nothing has changed except the way you see the situation. You break loose and then slide back into your right place in the order of things. You feel everything at once. You feel your friends asleep in their homes. You feel that its a half moon. You feel the temperature and the speed and the people awake on the other side of the world where the sun has gone. You fly out of yourself in all directions to everywhere you want to go. You are part of the whole and at the same time every little detail presents itself in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you. Your breathing is slow and cool and measured. There is no need to fight to change anything. Terrible things will happen and maybe they will involve you and yours but in this instant there is incalculable beauty. When you feel it happening it is over but the last thing you say to yourself is, “remember what this feels like”. You write it down in your heart to protect you against the fear that it will never happen again. There are no photographs or promises but there is the hope that this will happen when you need it most.
High enough up that this city appears as a map of the city I will soon come down into. I am huge now. Soon I will shrink to scale and fit in its tiny cars traveling down its tiny streets. Its twinkling. Not quite real yet. I’ll soon walk out from this universal airline interior decor and its trusted ergonomics. Then its through the expected and globally unified airport environment. This is a type of neurological “slate cleaner” -- generic environments with functional objects that stick to a soothing formula.
Walking outside I will first smell cigarette smoke. I know this. Then comes the diesel and monoxides trapped under the parkades and overhangs and curling, sometimes invisibly, down to greet you. The smokers have been exiled to glass rooms or the entrance and exit doors to the airport. They rush outside after their flights and drink in that cigarette like its a glass of cold lemonade after three days in the dessert. I now involuntarily hold my breath before the sliding doors part just as I instinctively plug my ears after flushing the toilet on the plane -- preventing that incredible suction from blowing my eardrums out.
Once you’re through the nicotine veil your senses immediately swim outward for any unique sensations. They want to feel the new temperature, smell out the proximity of an ocean or strange vegetation, push up against the wind, crawl inside the new humidity and push against barometric pressure. For hours they have been suspended and still.
Perhaps this is a metaphor for what is happening to this continent? God I can be melodramatic sometimes. Generic architecture, repeating aesthetics, the franchise trail to the same taste sensations. The smell of a Starbucks or MacDonalds can take over a whole city block. How do blind people smell a silent assailant anywhere near a MacDonalds? The look of these institutions no longer has an effect on us. They make too much money to be doubted. They are like banks. They are overused words. Clichés that make sound but have worn out their value. We are all stuck on that long flight. One big airport. Big slick airports now have all that the outside world offers. Suburbs strive to offer their community everything the airport offers . . . except a way out. Legoland. Everyday theme parks. Concrete molded into realistic river rocks and plastic plants that are oh so lifelike. Piped in birdcalls. Disneyland is our land. From Bonavista to the Vancouver Island.
Our senses need more work. They crave real culture shock. Each new place shouldn’t be trying to perfect the same cup of coffee or the same over lit facade. Can’t the new drive for unity be in human spirit rather than cultural production? Regional pride should not be based on how well one neighbourhood lives up to a global standard. Who wants to win the uniformity competition? I have the most uniform teeth, tits, and belly button ring! I win! I am evenly tanned, completely shaven, and deloused!
No different as seen from the air than deep down inside. Cities will be maps of themselves.
Not too much energy reserve tonight but enough to lay out the running order for the benefit show at the Wiltern for those of you who've asked. Information not creation. My contribution to this day in modern media.
Clash of the Titans
Paul F Tompkins host
Mr.Show with Bob & Dave
• Hellos (Bob & Dave)
• Victim’s Statement (Bob, John, Brian, Jay, Stephanie)
• Priest Down a Hole Update (David)
• Lifeboat (Bob, David, Suli, Jerry, Karen, Brett)
• Audition (David, Paul, Jay)
• God (Bob)
• First Grain of Sand (Brian, David, Bob)
• Hail Satan (Jill, Tom, Bob, David, Brian)
Janeane Garofalo
Intermission
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ( Robert Smigel . . .& band “The Hard Pink Ones” featuring Eban Schletter, Mark Rivers & Craig)
• Underage Bichon
• Cats are Cunts (with: David Foley, Janeane Garofalo)
• Insulting Robert Wuhl (with: Robert Wuhl)
• Ya Gotta Work Blue (with: Bruce McCulloch, Bob Odenkirk)
Kids in the Hall
• Womyn
• Buddy Cole
• Doors (with: Janeane Garofalo)
• Blues Guy (with Craig)
• Pinter
• Dave’s I Know (with Craig)
• Comfortable
Finale
• Laughter Cures Cancer (all cast)
Back home after a swing to LA for the "Clash of the Titans" benefit show at the Wiltern Theatre.
You can get auction items from the show at:
Clash of the Titans Ebay auction
The cause is the McCarton School and the Autism Research Centre of UCSB. Very worthy. You'll find cool stuff there from all the people on the bill: Kids in the hall, Mr.Show, Janeane Garofalo, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
There is a lot of other stuff too related to these people. Have fun.
I welcome my new buddy Alexander Scott Flanagan Lonneberg to the world.
Harmless as a fluttering leaf. Nothing too threatening. A regular New York city rain as tornados rip the seams out of the rest of the USA. The weather porn floods the TV with money shots of destruction, despair, and shaky testimonials. Here its just rain but New Yorkers deserve sun everyday for what they’ve weathered of late. I had a break in rehearsing for tomorrow’s show and decided to take a run.
It was dark as I ran uptown from 52nd on 7th Avenue towards Central Park. Ducking umbrellas and trying not to slip on metal grates I survived several unintended pick plays to make it to the end zone at the bottom of the park. I was already soaked to the skin only a few minutes into it but I started to lift my head as I ducked into the park. The wind was picking up and those old fashioned cast iron street lamps threw soft edged ovals of dim light across the wet road heading up into the heart of the trees. A soggy blanket of orange umber leaves lay across the puddles and streams that were reclaiming the sidewalks. The wind carried the leaves sideways and down from the trees like so many sighing confetti cannons. Heading into the dark fall underworld I heard the voice in my head start singing a tune. It was the the Stones “Miss You”. You know, “I walk in Central Park singing after dark. People think I’m crazy”. I started to take the lyrics to heart and wondered how prudent it was to run into the bowels of the park at this late wet hour. I saw one other runner and knew that in the new New York I’d be just fine. Street smarts overlap into your “touch wood” world. You think you have the skills but you’re still running on some speculation. Know the hot spots and hope that stepping around them will be enough. You figure that some of those people in the tornado’s path had seen it all and probably knew what they were up against. Street smarts. But those are big ones. Big hazards that require intense preparation. After deciding I was safe from these hazards I started to take my world in. After being cooped up in a hotel and heading out into one of the world’s most exciting cities one should try to take in the details. Be aware. It pays off. You can add a lot of what you see to the collection of your image life. I kept my head up. At that instant a falling leaf poked me in the right eye.
Temporarily blinded I stopped and clutched my face. Standing in that cold puddle I became aware that I was really too close to the road. When the blurry vision cleared, and I began running again, one hilarious scenario played out in my head. Like this: the leaf hits me in the eye. Being surprised and temporarily blinded (when one eye is poked you close both) I unintentionally stagger into traffic and am mowed down by a yellow cab on its shortcut uptown. I am carrying no identification. The generic plastic key card in my back pocket leads investigators to the wrong hotel and my identity is assumed to be that of the guest who just checked out of the room. If it were a movie plot I would survive to have amnesia and be taken to the other guy’s hometown. You can be ready for the big hazards but the little ones are too surreal to even calculate. I guess you just give into the touch wood world. Not far from the wood is the leaf at the end of that branch.
In the “I can’t believe I forgot to post this” category:
I’ll be performing with the “Kids in the Hall” at an autism benefit in Los Angeles November 17th. The bill will include Janeane Garofalo and “Mr.Show” (Bob Odenkirk, David Cross and other cast members). Its going to be one great night at the Wiltern Theatre. Hope some of you can come and cough up for a very worthy cause.
I’d like to welcome Finn Crozier & the new Injeti boy into this world. I’m sure they’re already surfing the web what with modern steroids and all. These are the new sons of Mike and Lisa and Chin & Beula respectively. Lots of beautiful babies to enjoy.
Don’t forget to set your VCRs for Conan O’Brien on Wednesday the 13th. I will be wearing the Rod Stewart wig. I don’t have cable so I’ll have to get a copy from one of you later.
The last three days indulged my stale dated education. I spent all those years wanting to become the guy who could walk into a recording studio and play with the big dogs. It was only a few years ago that it was still important to reach down deep and figure out a way to fall back behind the beat and water-ski your way through a live track with a full band. Everyone played and the engineer recorded it on these giant reels of tape. Your eyes rolled back in your head and when you regained consciousness the song had just ended and you probably had “the take”. Everyone smiled, pulled off the headphones and walked into the control room to have a listen. It took a lot of hard knocks to be able to know when to say, “that’s it” and leave the thing alone. There were cables and microphones everywhere, the ceilings were high and there were a lot of little coloured lights. We all busted a nut trying to learn how to do this right. Then we got computers.
Digital manipulation was a different kind of fun. An Orwellian reinvention of time and space was possible. There was a chance to be better than you actually were. This process has value. All that mucking around with waveforms only helps you figure out that what you actually are is much more interesting than the impossible you. Your limitations create something far more complex and interesting. The human hand makes shapes far more complex than a million zeros and ones can describe. The iris of your eye is the most highly encrypted security code. They still dust for fingerprints. It was a life affirming and sinfully indulgent three days recording a live quartet with no “click tracks” and only a couple of kicks at the can. All the music for 13 songs with just vocals to mess around with later. Thanks to Jesse Valenzuela, Pat Steward, Doug Elliott, Simon Kendall, Blair Calibaba, Colin Nairne, Mike Rogerson, Paul Baker, and Colin James for their talents.
oh...I guess I'm nominated in two categories for the 2002 "Just Plain Folks Awards". "Best Modern Rock Album" and twice for "Best Modern Rock Song" ("Take a Hit Off This" and "Giddy Up"). I think you can even become a judge and vote. We're all just plain folks. Some of you know my record for nominations versus wins so if you're placing bets you know the odds have just narrowed for you.
http://www.jpfolks.com/home.html
Northey Valenzuela Sonic Soul Implosion. One of the dozen or so names we’ve thought of for our little writing team/groupo magnifico. Jesse is here in Vancouver and we had our first rehearsal yesterday for the re-recording of an album we shelved almost two years ago. I am so proud of the fact that we had the courage to turf it and start again. Aside from my work in film I’ve never had so much good music and hard work be thrown away in one fell swoop. Its a testament to our faith in the songs that we’ve waited to have the chance to immortalize these ditties in a more organic way. The previous recordings were a patchwork of tracks overdubbed in 3 different cities and on every recording format imaginable. By the time they were done they didn’t have a centre to them. There was never more than two of us in the room at any given time so a “band feel” was pretty hard to achieve. This time its going to be the opposite approach. Same guys as before but all in one room, in one city, on the same day. I wonder if it has been done before. If we can stop laughing long enough to play its going to work like mad. Its pretty obvious after yesterday that Pat Steward should have his own TV show hosted from behind a drum kit. He will need no guests and no props and only one camera angle -- you know that thing where you’re laughing so hard that the back of your scalp knots up and the fact that you are in pain makes you laugh harder? I think you do.
The din of the halloween battlefield rages all around my house. Cats are hiding. The jaded 13 year old boys show up at the door in groups of four or five with their skateboards. They hold their school day backpacks open and remain silent. No costumes. If provoked they wisecrack and lope away slowly muttering curses. Its a combination candy jacking and sport panhandling. They want to be kids but are now into the year where they are afraid to admit it. They are a species in evolutionary limbo. They are the ones who will return to snatch our jack o’ lanterns and smash them on the road. They are the ones who will lift the lid, drop in the lit screecher and run. I can identify with them because I was there too. Its a good thing they have a sanctioned night where they will only half get in trouble for it. By the sound of the relentless crossfading sirens in the distance the police have no time to deal with this stuff. These are the post Trick or Treat and pre Halloween party years. I have fond memories of tricking and treating and the in-between mischief years. The halloween costume parties were less my thing. Watching a giant bunny lying in the dirty clothes of a foreign laundry room puking up what looked like a tuna sandwich and saying, “I love you man” was pretty good but perhaps undignified for all involved. There were years when you stood a chance of being the bunny. I think about those boys and hope they don’t blow their hands off, weld their eyes shut, or get a plank in the head from the old man who just can’t take it anymore. If we teach kids how to use a condom maybe we better teach them how to use explosives in a safe manner. Restrict your targets to inanimate objects of little value. Don’t bring the little ones into your game. Have a nice warm up before all your sprinting across moist dark lawns. You might miss hockey practice the next day with a sprain and I hear that cute girl from division 16 is showing up with her brother. Don’t look down the end and say, ”dude, maybe its a dud” ‘cause
. . .maybe not dude.