I don’t have cable. There are seven of us in Vancouver. Seven in 2 million. Its not a “holier than thou” move. The decision was first motivated by parenthood and economics and things just stuck. TV is now like eating ice cream as an entrée. I will do it whenever I can. Voyeurs are opportunists. So . . .
I get out on the road and draw the darkness blinds tight in my little hotel cave. After the reel of sports news repeats itself I sigh and move on to examine the freakish priorities of a lost world . I gave up on trying to live up to it or live in it. My attempts at analysis fall into the “7/11 food Noam Chomsky” category --not quite the real thing but something that can take its place if you’re drunk and up too late. Everything on the tube seems to be on a repeating reel. The wartainment is the same footage every 15 minutes. In this way highly alarming and soul disturbing realities can be reduced to tired iconography. The infotainment is the same information with different sets of capped teeth reading it on five different channels. The sportstainment repeats on a loop on three channels. The reality dating shows are the same people in only slightly different bodies. The men have the same conservative college hairstyles and the women all have navel rings. A hot tub comes into play and there is always that inane “in car” conversation. Conversations in a car are very important because people say more interesting things when they don’t have to look at each other. The man is always driving. Does this not send a message right away? This gives the man a chance to lie more effectively as he doesn’t have to make eye contact.
I’ve had enough.
Frustration results in sleep. After sleep I have less time to do something with my day. Bolting is in order. I bolt out of bed to rip open the darkness blinds. After working through temporary blindness and adjusting to a bright spring day, I see the river valley below and the rest of Edmonton. These are the prairies and we all know the biggest thing out here is the sky. Today’s sky is like the “pale blue boy’s bedroom ceiling with painted clouds”. Do you know the one? There is one in my house. Naive country painter, children’s book clouds. Life imitates young art? Wait. I have it wrong. I shake the TV from my head. The sky is the inspiration for innocence. I think of my dad. He asked me once, “why, to this day, are so many children’s books about African animals and steam trains”? Children may never see any of these things in their natural environment. They are endangered anachronisms. Innocence lost. This sky falls into that category. Its a sky that shouldn’t exist. It suspends the dark logic of the glib and street wise corporate treadmill that churns inside your TV or rotates the facade along all roadside strip malls like a cheap Hanna Barbara cartoon. I let the sky recharge my innocence and answer my Dad’s question for me.
Click. Click. Now it’s back to Toby Keith’s video for “Whiskey Girl”. Country Music Television . . .so transparent its hilarious. Are these people joking? Heavy metal is the music that best underscores pro wrestling but “new country” is the music that embodies its spirit. It is the last video genre where you’re still allowed to fake at actually knowing how to play guitar. Brooks & Dunn. Loggins and Oates. That John Oates type cat (moustache not beard) doesn’t even know how to play! He’s faking! I am back to the TV. Ooooo...a song called “Redneck Girls”. Now there’s a marketing twist. She’s faking on the guitar too. There is finally something good on TV. Maybe I need cable.
photo of Edmonton sky now available at the end of the "Found on Road" Gallery in the mutimedia section.
Oriental features, holding a single yellow rose and walking far enough into the street and smiling so much to herself that you know she’s just fallen in love. She steps with some new confidence wearing heals higher than her usual day wear and a black skirt that says, “I’m going out”. It’s 1:40 am.
Maybe a block behind her and walking the other direction . . . he must be wearing the same smile. His hands are probably tucked into his pockets. There is such anticipation of the near future . . . underscored by his low grade boner. The temperature perfectly matches the degree of moonlight. Its a cool blue and one measure above just T-shirt weather. It is the perfect evening cool to bring down skin temperature, like the slow sepia afterglow of an acid trip, and land it at normal.
My headlights framed her for maybe four seconds and I’ve been piecing together her back story as I follow those headlights until they reach busier streets where headlights don’t matter as much. Its a dodgey yet colourful neighbourood so when you’re in the darkest reaches and you see a smiling young woman with a flower, alone, walking and happy, you think about why she is there. You think about why she doesn’t have that logical fear of her surroundings that makes her appear smaller. Wariness provides a hint of camouflage. Before the spiny puffer fish expands it is in a form that already says, “I’m not asking you to approach me”. She, however, is in a protective bubble of bliss. People who have this temporary power do not know they have it.
One must be unaware to use this “get of jail free card”. For what it is worth it is enlightenment.
Enlightenment is temporary. In the half sleep before rapid eye movement you discover the cure for cancer and do not have the wherewithal to wake yourself up and write it down. You write the most beautiful music ever written but cannot wake up to sing it into a tape recorder. You are protected in those moments. That is your pay back for not being able to use this enlightenment for anything else. You can’t use it for accumulating wealth or upping your social status. You can’t save lives with it. You can only save your own life with it. In these moments the world makes a promise to get you through the night alive. You are asleep and can be attacked by anything from any angle. While the promise is made you are safe. After that . . .well . . .you believe the promise in order to allow yourself to sleep. You need that promise but it is erased by your deep sleep and then your day plays against it until you lie down and wait for it again. Here comes the half sleep. When you realize it is happening it is over. The instant flash of falling in love passes before you know what it is. Being in love is different. That’s another feeling. That can last a lifetime or come in waves. When you fall in love you are protected. When you ARE in love you are vulnerable. I hope she gets home safely before she figures out what just happened.
Just thought I'd let you know about the demographic profiling and information gathering I am doing on my site.
Most visited gallery: Movies
These people like to be entertained by modern "talkies". Some have called this the "Sesame Street" syndrome. More people have high speed internet than you think.
Least visited gallery: Dirt Bikes of My Youth
People don't come to my site to see vintage motorcycles. Why? Note to self: Continue to shove what you like down people's throats.
2nd Least Visited Gallery: Sea to Sky Hockey
People don't like hockey as much as I do. They are not interested in seeing me play hockey. Note to self: put more hockey pictures up.
Most popular dog: Zoe the lab
Most popular hotel room: Kansas City
Most popular distorted Kid in the Hall face: Kevin
Most viewed photograph: #1. "Mighty Rock Power" by Angie Serson
People cannot deny the mighty power of rock.
#2. Acoustic Loudness #3. Billy Preston #4. Who's Been eating the Rider? #5. Mt.Washingtongue #6. A Face & a Crowd #7. Simon & Pat #8. Set List from "Upstairs" #9. Jumbotron #10. How I see Colin James
Most people are too lazy to go more than 1 page deep. Note to self: divide it all up into smaller galleries. People like silly pictures . . .I was right all along.
Can only Jesus write on liquid paper? If he can walk on it then he can write on it in any form.
I have a feeling that liquid paper is not made from paper at all. I will call 1-800-884-4443 and ask the person on the other end if there is any paper in the liquid paper. If he/she says no then I will launch a class action lawsuit based on "truth in advertising". Anyone with me?
It also says on the bottle that the stuff "corrects anything". Lies. "Spellcheck" works better. You can spread this stuff all over the words on the page and whatever is spelled incorrectly . . .remains incorrect. Liquid Paper can actually make things worse. Mmmm . . . hmmmmm . . .It sure smells gud thoug . . .
This inane Steven Wright impersonation is brought to you by me restricting my time on the net so as to get something done today.
I noodled with the galleries a bit last night. There are some more photo's in the "Found on Road" gallery and a new movie in the "Movies" gallery. Thanks to David Leonard Reimer & Robert Kemmis for their fine contributions.
How quickly do you switch off the TV when your team loses? I instantly leap from the couch or the floor and deftly smote the television’s off switch. It takes too long to scramble for the remote. I need not watch a millisecond of the other team’s victory celebration. I do not need to see the goal again and again. I do not need to get in there and analyze what went wrong with Kelly Hrudey’s electric crayon scratches across my TV screen. No offense directed at Kelly. I like Kelly a lot. He does a better and better job each year (goalies make the best analysts because they have intently watched the game develop in front of them all their lives). At that instant it is time to move on. I will disassemble the shrine tomorrow. Like a Christmas tree it gets to stay up a few extra days after the celebration has ended. There was so much work put into the Christmas effort that it seems too soon to have it grind to a halt. Later the Christmas tree will weigh heavy on you and it must be instantly taken out of sight. The bills roll in. The NHL playoff equivalent of the bills are the constant reminders that you have spent grand three hour chunks of work time in front of the TV or at the rink. The falling behind feeling fills the space that the roller coaster emotions of losing and winning once occupied.
If you ask an NHL player about what he honestly thinks any team’s chances are in the playoffs they, to a man, shrug and say, “Who knows. Its the playoffs”. The educated guessing by sports media figures can bear heavily on the colour commentary. Here’s a trend I have spotted in “educated guessing”. If you correlate the predictions of the sportscasters and hockey writers they are, for the most part, identical. In this way all parties can save face when they are wrong. When they are wrong it is a “surprise result”. When they are universally right they all get to slap each other on the back and marvel at their collective base of knowledge. How can you REALLY say “________ in 7 games”? Why don’t you just say, “I’m flipping a coin”?
People of Calgary. I do not hold it against you. I imagine someone there as passionate about their Flames in equal proportion to my passion for the Canucks. My imagination, however, is stumped. Who could actually love the Flames? I really like the city so I take the leap of faith. I will trust that it is possible. All the best to the Flames. Go Wings Go. Oops ...did I say Wings? I’m sorry. I meant to say Red Wings.
The Swan. last night I caught 5 minutes of a game/reality show called “the Swan”. Contestants win the chance to have their body carved up by the most popular plastic surgeons available in the back pages of the LA Weekly. Most claim to be looking for the real “inner” them. They are not allowed to look in the mirror during the months of their transformation. They stand before a mirror hidden behind a large velvet curtain. I think they are in a recreation of the ballroom used in the animated version of “Beauty & the Beast”. The host asks them if they would like to see themselves for the first time in three months -- with a new face, body, $500 haircut and rented formal wear. At this point they tremble and say, “yes”. They really have no choice because they have been led down the cattle corridor to this very moment. They stand in front of the velvet curtain and the host repeats all the data regarding their transformation and asks again if they want to see themselves. The pitiful waifs say “yes” again. The therapists, supportive friends, designers, stylists and surgeons flank them in a V shaped gauntlet leading to the giant cloaked mirror. The floor director holds the opening of the curtain for another twenty seconds. Has the curtain failed in its proper operation? It begins to open and then hiccups and pauses one more time. The curtain finally draws back. The contestant’s reaction is typical. They cry, shake, scream and yell a lot about how beautiful they are. Last night’s lady claimed that she had, “ come to America, like so many Latinos, for the American Dream and now she HAD IT”. That is a juicy one that I will not touch in a big way other than to say congratulations to all the well dressed rich white people who transformed her and thus upheld the values of imperial England, the Dutch slave traders and Dr. Joseph Mengele. They sent their ancient and horrible message back out to a new generation of preteens in such a subtle and effective way.
There are many things to rant about here. I can ride any logical tributary down into the sea of shit from which all these shows are fished like so many bottom feeding sturgeons. Let’s pick one small and seemingly inconsequential point. The lynchpin.
The pause before the curtain opens. This is a device that has been used to absurd degrees. The pause is sickeningly long and is beyond drama and tension and into just plain wasting of time. Regis Philbin used it to nauseating lengths on that zillion dollar question show. He’d ask over and over if it was the person’s final answer. He would repeat what was at stake (that is an important one) a couple of times. “Survivor” is about the worst. The whole “voting off the island segment” could be cut into about one 30th of its final length. Would it not be more dramatic to just let the fireworks go? What is it that the producer’s see in the pause that they feel will prop up their vacuous and crappy show? The final results in the contest should contain the payoff to the “real life” drama. The answers. The proof. The score in the game. The withholding of the results is an obvious manipulation that reveals the greed of the production overlords. It reveals the game. The longer the pause the slimier the show’s creators must be. In this pause the show’s creators are making their most obvious move to control me. If I wanted to be controlled I wouldn’t have become a musician. I am the wrong person to try this one on.
Here is where they play on all our wants and fears. This is one of the many oil slicks that float on top of these “reality” shows. “Survivor” or “the Swan” or even “Cops” are no more reality shows than “the Wizard of Oz”. They all have a man behind the curtain. They all have an agenda. “Survivor” teaches us that life is a game and that honesty is optional in pursuit of the win. Each person along the way is a stepping stone to your next situation. It all harkens back to that 80’s philosophy that if you admit you are an asshole it is OK to continue being an asshole. “Cops” is us placing ourselves above those less fortunate through the use of some spectacular editing and the human tendency to play to a camera. Need I explain “the Swan”? Its not so much the preying on low self esteem that I take issue with. When we are discussing the manipulative pause another more vile agenda being played out.
Having lately spent a lot of time reading works on palliative care I have determined that we all die. Duh. What happens after that is up for grabs. Dying is a process and needs to be understood and embraced more than curative medicine. We have come to believe pills and surgery will save us from death. The appearance of youth and beauty is not really youth and beauty. Children hold out the hope that something will be invented in their lifetime that will fend it off entirely. I know I did.
The pause before the curtain opens is a suspension of the inevitable. We are all trying to suspend the inevitable. The longer I try to hang onto the idea that I can climb over to the other side the more terrifying the fall from the mountain of inevitability. I want to delay the inevitable forever. I have not come to terms with the fact that all this will end BUT I have heard the answer to the big question thousands of times. I have seen the results confirmed daily. I don’t need to wait until after the commercial to find out what I already know. I don’t need to be pitched the product of "suspension of belief" in the Bermuda Triangle moment before my landing on a familiar airstrip. I have, at least, worked out enough aspects of the equation that I am not vulnerable in this moment. I won’t allow some Hollywood asshole to take that moment to poke his finger in the soft spot on my baby’s head. I know the weakness. I live the weakness. I forgive the weakness. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
I wrote a good one but I just erased it when I switched over to Explorer. I give up. Happy hockey playoffs. Go Canucks. Check out the ever expanding galleries.
Dear Everyone,
Let it be known that Alistair Calder designed and built this site. He is some sort of virtual saint. Actual saints are designated by the pope. Perhaps he drinks creme de menthe just like the pope but I'm sure that's as close as he's been to actual sainthood. I'd like to send my eternal gratitude out to him in a public forum. You can check him out at" alistair.com
yours
Craig
Everyone was so uncomfortable in the distressed leather furniture. There was a tiny fridge with a glass front. They had all filled out the essential information on the clip boards with the sharpened pencils supplied. Lulu Lemon track suits colour coordinated and never used for working out. Mall slut cleavage and urinal cake perfume. All that was missing were the neon beer signs and black lit murals of hip hop stars we lost in the 90’s. Those were in the next room. Thongs crawled up backsides and no one could admit their discomfort. Those who were truly sexy could not speak of such practicalities. The dog knew. The dog lazed against the ottoman with a C shaped spine and with her face down to the breeze coming in through the cat door -- the cat was busy with a "Ford Truck" spot over in studio B. The breeze cleansed her palette for another run at fortune telling. She had a pretty comprehensive read on every crotch in the room. She knew who was ovulating, who was thinking of last night’s episode of “Fifth Wheel” (the obligatory hot tub, camera incentive, booze & date rape sequence), who had used the course toilet paper in the public lavatory at next door’s Tim Horton's and had shied away from the pain of a comprehensive cleansing. The men had a pretty interesting tang to them. One had, for some unknown reason, recently scrubbed his entire genital region with some sort of raw beef. The dog was confused but appreciative of such olfactory teasers. One over muscled and overconfident oaf had made sure to over spray his nether regions with “Axe”. Even the dog could sense irony in this pathetic overture. She could tell who had waxed and who had shaved. She had already determined a year ago that none would show up with natural bush. The dog knew who would be selected for the spot. Just ask the dog in the green room. She’d done the social profiles within minutes. No need for genital sensory perception. She could smell fear, self consciousness, window dressing, posing, low self esteem, blind consumerism, delusions of grandeur or any low class ploy. Its all there in the crotch. Not any young man or woman can be in a Royal Bank commercial but all these would be fine for the Molson Canadian “Great Rock Adventure 2004” promotion. The dog's job was done. Thank Christ she was in show business and didn’t end up like those poor workaday schmucks at the airport. Hash stench is so one dimensional.
CRAIG NORTHEY POWER TRIO at the Media Club (695 Cambie St) Vancouver
this WEDNESDAY APRIL 7th
with special guests Shaun Verreault
and Paul Myers
show starts at 8:45 pm
check out the Galleries for some fun. GIDDY UP video is there.
So! It looks like our site is resembling a modern airport. It will be under construction on a continual basis from here on in. Security is tight and coffee is everywhere. I can't be responsible for your baggage. Information comes to you in dribs and drabs.
CRAIG NORTHEY POWER TRIO at the Media Club (695 Cambie St) this WEDNESDAY APRIL 7th
with special guests Shaun Verreault
and Paul Myers
show starts at 8:45 pm
I will get into my usual journal mode now...not tonight. Just drove home from Prince George and I have some important sleeping to accomplish.
So much real life has gone undocumented. I have spent the days of the downed website in the moment. For awhile the recent loss of my friend Dave “Blood” Schulthise (bass player for Philly’s Dead Milkmen) plunged me back into the dark parts of my own mortal coil. You keep smiling and moving on but you feel like a wheel has fallen off the wagon. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of years. This is not unusual with people who live down the block from me. I commute to the airport and kids sporting events down narrow lanes of traffic rarely venturing into the space between space stations. If you live in a Starbucks I just might bump into you. The internet brings you all bad news. Its not as soft as the radio. You must read it. There is no context to the voice. The voice is “Palatino” or “Helvetica” or cold cold “Times bold”. In this case I met a new friend of a friend as the context was slowly revealed through a steady tap on the reply button. I shuffled out to the studio the next night and slowly divined the chords for “Punk Rock Girl”. I sang the words I knew. It was the Dead Milkmen’s commercial high water mark. An ironic hiccup in the steady belching of unpretentious heckling thrown at the pop culture status quo. Man...did Griel Marcus write that or did I? I should back off on the Village Voice cream. “Punk Rock Girl” has that beautiful classical melody that flows into the headwater of River’s Coumo’s river. The lyric is perfect. Sounds stupidly simple and romantic but is as subversive as can be. I’ve been playing the song at live shows and it makes me feel better. Dirge lite. A light at the end of the dirge. Its like finding a picture of someone in a drawer and making it come to life by singing to it. It doesn’t matter what the song is. Only the attitude matters. It has to match the picture to make the molecules resonate. I had such fun with Dave. Any conversation could quickly veer into intense philosophical assessment and back onto the road of fart humour and goon show barking laughs. He was smart, sensitive . . . a slightly framed yet giant hearted ambassador of goodness. Equal parts approachable, well read, affable, garrulous then quiet and . . . ultimately . . . fun loving. I guess it was the quiet part that eventually built up and overwhelmed the fun. As is always the case I am angry that I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of years and have, therefore, less of him to keep alive in my heart. We connected over what music is on the earth to do. The Odds had that same prankster element that the Dead Milkmen completely embodied. While neither of us were ever or would ever be hired for a corporate party the Milkmen would need a restraining order from said event. He was at the heart of the smartipants movement that placed whoopee cushions on all celebrity seats. In recent years he spent a lot of time in Serbia and that must have been really good for the Serbs. Enough Dave’s would have eventually made everyone over there feel good again.
There are plenty of heartfelt tributes to Dave on deadmilkmen.com. Please go and celebrate Dave.