Dog yelps at kids on trampolines. I leave soon.
Don't leave her to stop the kids. She's a dog. This is all she can do.
Thought the car was on fire. It was steam. The hardest working dream. Ploughed under. The air tastes good when you dig yourself out. I leave too soon. Figure that one out. Go figure.
I was driving past the skate park. A brand new concrete cubist strategic game board the size of an Olympic pool is nestled in the crotch of a busy east/west highway and the main north/south thoroughfare. Behind a chain link fence and some scraggly blackberry bushes it speaks quietly of a post apocalyptic LA as depicted by Disney. The rails and ramps look like the recreated bone gray ruins of an industrial structure long ago burned down, sand blasted and picked clean. The community built it and probably tried to enforce the use of helmets for the first 5 hours of its use. Helmets are only for sanctioned competition. If you want to know where your kids are you better let them ride tough without the lids. They’ll be hanging at the cool new skate park. Bring on the rulebook and watch them leave to grind those trucks down the fluorescent-lit rails leading to the door of the nearest 7/11.
It was hot and clear today. The older teens skipping class were pausing with the noses of their boards in one hand and tails on the ground. You know how they stomp down casually on the back end of the board and the nose comes up into their hand? They stand at ease staring at the 40 or 50 dark blue robed college graduates in mortarboard hats and gold tassels. The theatre beside the skate park has just played host to a college convocation ceremony. Some rocket scientist of a photographer has decided that the city view behind the theatre would be a brilliant backdrop for the group photo. He has lined them all up on the hem of the skate park with their backs to the skaters and is snapping his Leica SLR from atop a stepladder some twenty feet on the other side of the grads. He hopes, through the proper angle, to hide the immediate rumpled background of concrete and capture the grads against the city scene in the distance. I pass by right at the time the skaters are sniping the well-groomed and straight-backed grads with the first wiseass cracks. The heads of the first grads to rise to the bait are snapping their heads around to fire back. The middle aged photographer in the khaki vest with those film canisters pockets is waving his free hand madly and beginning to shout in what I fear will be a vain attempt to shepherd his idiotic plan to fruition. The light turns green and I must drive on. I am forced to keep this exact moment in my head and not taint it with what I think might happen in the next ten minutes. I want to remember the potential energy of the situation and believe this could go either way. I want to believe there is a 50% chance it could all turn out well. When will street smarts hit the ivory tower?
Drunken high school grads arrive in rented limos at the lakeshore for their party on the rented ship. Limo drivers lean against pearl white, slightly worn stretch limos. They look mint from twenty metres but dents and scratches reveal themselves on closer inspection. Duty calls and the drivers answer with shifting feet and stifled yawns. It will be a few hours and the teens will return with a few shoes missing, or puke spackled rented patent leather loafers. Weeping falling, fighting, yelling. In celebration of something they can’t quite fathom just yet they work their way toward the hangover that signals something is really starting. Really…they are just on the “on ramp” of responsibility. This should be thought of more as a wake but foreboding should not be on the menu at this point. Society refrains from framing graduation in this manner. The limo drivers smile politely and maintain their steady and positive demeanor. Today they are stewards of hope, tolerance and patience. Bound by their own hippocratic oath they mention nothing to the parents. Parents are losing their charges to the effects of learning “the hard way”. It would make little difference. This bar mitzvah of barf is a ritual scarification of the memory. This Frankenstein day of posturing and release will become a cornerstone of one’s image life. It may be different for the new breed. Vomiting, staggering and mumbling, “I love you man” will never be held against you today.
It is more often the case that one can feel more embarrassment for others than they feel for themselves. There is probably a German word for this feeling. They have all the cool words applying to complex emotional distress. There are new ideas about what can be exposed without taking on psychological baggage. It may now be wrong to be the one person feeling waves of gut churning shame for modern humanity. Has Jerry Springer taught us nothing? The grads have long ago established their independence on web cams and “Girls Gone Wild” videos. Parents have long ago hung their heads, waited at some wee hour for the tumbler of the front lock to quietly turn, had the “heart to heart” conversation and resigned to repeatedly reading the same page of their book back in the bedroom. Huge tracts of time are spent on the Internet and all roads eventually lead to hardcore porn. With Photoshop it is possible that sexual athletes can now demonstrate feats that may not be possible in nature. There is a lot to live up to. A disproportionate amount of degrading and unpleasant behaviour may, one-day turn people off sex altogether. Expectations will range into painful territory. This is not a moral issue. It is an issue of sullying the sensual and pleasurable with an “X games” attitude.
There are new definitions of what is private. To the modern teen blowjobs are less intimate than a passionate kiss. Public cell phone conversations on a bus are considered private. “Chelsea is a fuckin bitch and Kyle and me are gonna be getting’ into some serious shit tonight”. Reality television reveals private moments and redefines them as some sort of public/private hybrid. Where are the words for the new sense of over exposure and needless disclosure?
How many times today have the limo drivers followed the code and politely referred to their booze addled charges as “sir” or “miss”? How long before the nouveau riche teen renters, at $30 a head, grow comfortable and begin to treat the driver as their servant? So begins the new Lord of the Flies. This is perhaps the most important of grad night role-play games. The valedictorian arrives in a taxi.
Rules: use Yahoo's top twenty search words in their original order.
Jennifer Lopez slid her avocado scented feet down into the Wal Mart knock off retro trainers as
Matt Starr prepared, in his own apartment for his own clandestine night on the town.
It had been 23 days since all the Britney Spears CDs were destroyed by the punk rebels. The stars felt it was safe to come out onto the streets again now that Jessica Simpson’s press conference had taken the heat off. Applying the spirit gum and fake beards they then slid out along the shadowed inside edge of sidewalks toward their local watering holes. It was still safer to go incognito. Jeanie Buss even chose to go out as a hunchback. It was a vintage look right down to the yellowed and crooked dental caps.
The Euro 2004 fashion show had been a bloodbath. All hell had broken loose, as the Givenchy spring line was unveiled. The story goes something like this.
Marion Jones had shown up with her husband and when a vodka martini was spilled in her lap she leapt upward in a typical shock reaction. For a split second her broad back blocked Paris Hilton’s view of the runway. While her boyfriend du jour Dallas Radisson tried to restrain her Paris began screaming gutter slang and scratching the air like a stuck weasel. The rising heat of her breath hit the sprinkler system and set off a downpour. The chaos that ensued easily equaled the special effects in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which had won in yesterday’s Golden Globes for “Best Effects in a Picture With a Budget Higher than the GNP of 60% of the World’s Nations”.
The savvy Jennifer Lopez understood this as the perfect candid wet T-shirt “photo op” that is was and turned toward the paparazzi to “give them some sugar”.
Usher, blinded in the glare of flashing bulbs, quickly took off his shirt and pulled his pants down further in order to protect himself from harm.
A chair mislabeled with Johnny Ramone’s name (a secretary misheard the name LuLuLemon) was, at some point, hurled into a crowd striking and paralyzing Jessica Simpson. The impact of the chair had dislodged one of her “Nike air” brain implants and she flew around the room like an expiring party balloon. Shareholders in Jessica Simpson stock called for the head of any founding father of punk rock. So began the war between the old school punks and the star system.
The Glitterati began to hunt down punk rockers and have their assistants kill them. The new school punk poppers thought they were immune but it was apparent that all the supermodels were breaking up with them left, right and centre. They would now have to feed further down the chain and they weren’t happy.
On the anniversary of Bloomsday that was to follow the outbreak of war the Irish physician attending to the babbling puddle that was now Jessica Simpson announced to her hospital visitors, the Detroit Pistons, (lecherous mob that they were…holding binoculars and hoping for a shift in the hospital gown) that Jessica was speaking in that very particular English found in James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses”. Knowing that the last book Jessica read would have had to be assigned to her in grade 8 (probably “the Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton) he assumed she was being used as a conduit for the communications of some otherworldly and more literate spirit.
Meanwhile stars continued to hunt down old punks. No one was safe despite his or her apparent innocence. While carrying the Olympic Torch through Orange County the members of Agent Orange were ironically maced from the crowd by some mixture of Chanel perfume and sulphuric acid. Massive Collateral damage was being sustained as the star’s lack of even the slightest knowledge of music history had them striking willy-nilly. Linkin Park were attacked in the Prestige Lounge of an unnamed airline, held down and sliced repeatedly across their forearm tattoos with paper cuts from their own 1st class boarding passes. At one point a debutant yelled, “this is for being the first bastards to combine rap with heavy guitar rock... and that might as well be punk”. Hadn’t they even heard of “Limp Bizkit”? Had they not heard of the the original, correctly spelled, “Lincoln Biscuit”?
The NBA had, by this time, brought in a team of officials to look into the Jessica Simpson/James Joyce “possession” theories. The Boston Celtic were particularly interested. It was later revealed that they were only acting on a tip that Simpson was inadvertently showing more skin and had scratched her belly in a way reminiscent of the “You Take My Breath Away” video.
Outside the punks were starting to get the upper hand. More adept at running an underground network the punks soon turned public opinion in their favour and exposed the star warriors for their misguided vengeance. Hadn’t it been proven by Billy Idol that there was no ill will between the two worlds? The backlash against “the stars” was swift and massive. From the Mississippi to the Nile River it was not safe for anyone sporting designer labels until Jessica awoke from her Joycian coma and barked immediately for a Pelligrino and a facial sponge.
Only Jessica Simpson could call the whole thing off. In a well-coached press conference she claimed the whole “coma thing” had really only given her some much needed beauty rest. She thanked Johnny Ramone for all he had done and (in front of a massive wall of cameras) after plunged her tongue deep into the mouth of her new special friend Blazes Boylon (Iggy Pop’s new stage name) she chirped, “um…Happy Father’s Day”.
afterward: Our strength and positive energy goes out to Johnny Ramone. Gabba Gabba Hey.
Ask the Love Scientist
Q: I have been in a long-term relationship for eleven years. I love my boyfriend very much but we break up every year or so for one reason or another. I’ve cheated on him once and he’s cheated on me about 8 times. He says I must have cheated on him more because, and I quote, “if you see one mouse there must be at least 100 more around”. He claims he has to cheat 92 more times before we are even. He also says, “its different for guys”. I guess I understand this because he cries a lot less than I do about our problems. He says he is internalizing his pain. I guess his sullen silence is better than when he swears at me and throws things. Lately he’s been forced to work late almost every night of the week and has even been putting in extra time on the weekends. I watch his car come down the road and it comes from the south. His work is to the north of us. He comes home tired and smelling of bean sprouts, wet dog and Listerine. The zoo is three blocks away and he says its El Nino blowing the pong in through our ventilation. I thought El Nino was something to do with temperature not wind. Could you please clear this all up for me? I think something is wrong with this picture.
Signed
Suspicious in Sunnybrook
A:
Dear Suspicious,
Your boyfriend is not quite as smart as he may seem. I think you have him here! You are correct in your assumption that El Nino is more about temperature than wind. Although temperature and wind are causally related I would bet on you if it were a battle of whose definition is more correct.
There has been a confusing range of uses for the terms El Niño, La Niña and ENSO by both the scientific community and the general public. Originally, the term El Niño (in reference to the Christ child) denoted a warm southward flowing ocean current that occurred every year around Christmas time off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador. The term was later restricted to unusually strong warmings that disrupted local fish and bird populations every few years. However, as a result of the frequent association of South American coastal temperature anomalies with interannual basin scale equatorial warm events, El Niño has also become synonymous with larger scale, climatically significant, warm events. There is not, however, unanimity in the use of the term El Niño. The tendency in the scientific community though is to refer interchangeably to El Niño, ENSO warm event, or the warm phase of ENSO as those times of warm eastern and central equatorial Pacific SST anomalies. Conversely, the terms La Niña, ENSO cold event, or cold phase of ENSO are used interchangeably to describe those times of cold eastern and central equatorial Pacific SST anomalies. El Niño (EN) is characterized by a large scale weakening of the trade winds and warming of the surface layers in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean. If you are near any trade winds in Sunny brook chances are good the smells from the zoo would have a harder time reaching your place but due to the warming effects of El Nino they may be stronger and more distinct.
Your boyfriend may have the idea of El Nino a little confused but it may be true that warming trends may have accentuated the scent of animal sex near your home. Though your hunches were right about El Nino’s definition it may, in fact, still play a role in bringing up those nasty smells. Try a bowl of vinegar in the open window or maybe light a match every half hour or so.
All the best
The Love Scientist
Translucent rat. I think it’s a rat. It has no eyes, fur, stomach, ears or tail. The elements have washed all pigment away. It lies on its side on the wet asphalt with its “glow in the dark” whitish green rubber skin and feet. The viscera that is exposed seems to have all turned to gray pudding the texture of the wet pavement itself. Today the whole city takes on this palour. Not even appealing enough for scavengers to eat. Gulls, raccoons, cats, dogs and other rats have all passed on this ghostly morsel. The city announces with every sigh that it was sunny just yesterday. The homeless have fallen asleep exposed and shoeless on a muggy June night only to wake up wet and cold. Sidewalk sale wardens have pulled their “3 for 1” tourist t-shirts and last year’s jeans in tight under the awnings of storefronts. Pigeons puff out ruffled, rumpled and looking mildly drugged. With the dank day comes a grumpy wariness. It would have been easier to catch one with your bare hands yesterday. The heat forces the nordic world to take small chances. It calls out the smaller inhibitions. Those who do not comply suffer discomfort. Open a window. Spill out onto the street. Take off a layer of clothing. Drink a cold beer before 7pm. Eat a meal out in the open air. Laundry flies like so many flags along ships lanyards and all these lonely brick walkups once again join the fleet.
Today the lines are drawn back in and the moles are in their holes. The fleet has disbanded and taken shelter in remote ports. Cloud cover rolls in and obscures all but the first six stories of downtown skyscrapers. Garish phalluses of human achievement are deflated effortlessly by a yawning mother nature who drums her fingers and stifles a cough with her free hand. Incandescent and fluorescent light turns sexuality toward the pornographic rather than sun dappled naturally nude. Yesterday’s potential office trysts are consummated under more forced and cloistered circumstances. It would have seemed natural to pursue animal urges when the sweat helped obscure moral boundaries. Now there are no excuses. Guilt is a cold hungry weed. The dead translucent rat seems like the only one at an advantage today. He isn’t immediately recognizable as a rat. In his decay he could be something more elegantly tragic. He could transcend class. I couldn’t tell at first glance. I thought maybe a kitten. I thought maybe a bunny. I thought maybe a marsupial. In those moments of zen unfocusing and focusing the rat became, at least in perception, more worthy of genuine sympathy. There was no focus on his beady eyes, nasty needlish over bite, bubonicly radiant fur or earthworm tail. This is a day that gives the rat back some dignity. Translucent rat.
Well. It just gets worse for awhile I guess. Found out tonight that Robert Quine had died. Tributes are pouring out. We in the Odds got to spend some time with Robert in NYC when he came to help us on the "Bedbugs" album. Our producer Jim invited Robert over to hang out and go for dinner because he knew we would hit it off as people. He was right. Bob was an extremely funny and intelligent man who could fire out riffs that no one else could even imagine much less create for themselves -- verbally and on the guitar. I was fascinated by how he had originally divined his sound from the most evil rock sounds of the 50's. What he did was so hip and contemporary but his foundation was way back in the roots of rock. As is my bad habit, I picked his brains about influences, great shows, gear, life lessons, favourite tracks he’d played on and things you just can’t find out any other way. After dinner we all stumbled back into the studio, threw up a track we knew Bob would like and after he said, "man I just love this" we chirped in unison, "go get your guitar". He was back in about 15 minutes with that famous Strat. Jim asked Bob if he wanted to know what key it was in (they'd worked together before) and Bob said "nope". He sat down on a stool and we ran the track 3 times all the way through with Bob just going nuts. He was literally shaking the guitar by its tremelo arm at times and the neck was bobbing and weaving like fencing practice. The trademark dark glasses were on and his face was all business. I quietly and slowly picked up the video camera and got a lot of it down. I guess I'll be going to look for that hi-8 tape. The next day we went through Bob's unearthly and stupefying sounds and kept them just where he had left them. Man he picked that song up and shook it hard. We were ecstatic. Warren Zevon later answered Robert's riffs and Steven got to go for the overkill when we decided it had become a "guitar pull". Robert had set it all up for the grand slam. People like Robert can take all the things they love about music and life, learn them, and reproduce them through a filter of their own unique being. They refocus things. Familiar ideas go through their machinery and come out supercharged and almost unrecognizable. His sound was pure intuition and guts. That day I took something from Robert’s approach and I am now reminded how important it is. I think there are hundreds if not thousands of other guitar players out there who have done the same. His spirit will stay with us.
If you know little of Robert please learn more about him at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~stayclean/quine.html
I was barely concentrating as I drove home up the empty corridor of our local high street. Holding the needle at 60k so as to hit every green light, the road wet and shiny, I rolled down the window to keep myself awake for the last few blocks. Five conspiracy theorists were on the late night talk radio. All of a sudden I realized they were agreeing with each other over the point that the planes used in 911 where operated by remote control and the whole event was a necessary sacrifice perpetrated by a secret illuminati, that included George W. Bush -- “illuminati” is a stretch for such a rube. The catastrophe would leverage US public opinion by justifying an imperialist war to seize world oil supplies under the guise of anti-terrorist action. Some of this didn’t seem far from the truth. Its when the remote controlled planes and directives from alien super beings came into the picture that the whole thing started to veer onto the soft shoulder of logic. Years ago we had this discussion of conspiracy theories on the Zevon tour bus. One of us was spouting off Kennedy assassination theories when Warren said, “I understand that this is all fun and games but in these situations it is more likely that crazy people perpetrate straight up horrible and stupid crimes”. I paraphrase because this was 12 years ago. A couple of days later he gave me Joyce Carol Oates “The Rise of Life on Earth” and said he thought I’d like it. It was so good it made me late for the stage at one gig . . .which he later forgave after he found out it was because I was reading. When I was done with the book he said, “You see? Its those types of people who commit these unspeakable acts. Its that simple” (I recommend you read it because I’m not going to provide a plot summary and character profile).
I think he’s right. When a theory becomes overly complicated it probably isn’t the truth even if it does make a better movie than the real story. The truth can be strange but its never too complicated.
Let's all take moment out of our day for brother Ray. His contribution to music and the world is immense. As I get a little older it seems the mentors, heroes, friends and loved ones are moving into that other realm at an accelerated rate. Better get used to it I guess.
I was terrified when Ronald Reagan took office. I thought we were all going to be vapourized before he completed his first year. We were lucky. My friend Paul Myers sent me some wonderful thoughts on the Orwellian madness revolving around the "new history" of Reagan. I agree with him and hope we stop repainting the past for successive saccharine tributes. America needs a lift but they don't need to get it this way. Its easy to find some hard ass show business stories about Ray Charles (see: addiction, hirings and firings, relationships). His life is an open book. No spin doctor is here to help him. Paint him with whatever brush you want but take some puffy false glory from Reagan and give the real glory to Ray Charles today. Please.
Hope to see some of you over in the nirvana of Saltspring Island tomorrow. We start playing at 7pm. The "CNPT" will sport one of our Green Room alumni, Geoff Hicks, on drums. He's a lefty so if you like the hi hat you'll have to sit on stage right this time.
I hadn’t seen a snake in a long time. I think you can easily remember the last time a snake surprised you. It was a dark garter snake last summer. It whipped across the trail and disappeared into the dry white tan summer grass that carpeted the area under a grove of arbutus trees. It moved in a stretched out manner for most snakes. The ocean on my right and the grove on my left. This time it was a metre long bull snake. It triggered its sequence of muscles into that tighter “S” shape and slid quickly across the concrete pathway from my left to right. I could see the darting of its tongue. St.Lawrence River on my left scrub and tall green grass on my right. I stopped running and remained still. I always do this. It may have saved me from danger. It may have further endangered me. It’s an instinct that may come into question when I come across a grizzly bear cub. The snake stopped. I finally grew bored of my examination and rustled the bushes to watch it move again. Movement is always more interesting than the static display and a battle of patience. Two minutes later, along the waterfront path, a small mottled brown rabbit hopped across in front of me. I stopped. He kept his distance but seemed to understand that I couldn’t catch him. He seemed an urban bunny and this was underscored by the shabby molting away of his gray undercoat. He could easily be supplementing his grasses, grains, tubers and vegetables with Tim Horton’s crumbs and sips from puddles of sticky cola behind the 7-11. I continued my run and thought of the lawyer joke about the blind rabbit and the blind snake. I was “run dreaming” as I spotted an elderly woman walking her Persian cat. No matter how much people say their cats like to be walked on a leash the behaviour of the cat heavily underscores its discomfort. She snapped at me, “Don’t run across the lawn”. I was surprised and disappointed, as it appeared to be a perfectly good public lawn running beside a riverside walking path. I love to run across lawns. Nobody has ever asked me not to. I said, “ok”. She said, “The sidewalk is right there”. Instead of saying “oh my! Where?” I said, “thanks”. I wanted to say, “thanks but did you know you’re walking a cat?” or “I saw a snake and then a rabbit back there. Your grass is in real trouble. I might trample it. The rabbit will eat it and the snake will hide in it and maybe swallow your cat while you’re looking the other way and telling people to stay off it”. I ran on without really stopping. I broke the cycle.
Forgot to mention that there are many stalwarts in the Odds friend network located out there on the net and connected by Yahoo...serious. No not Yahoo Serious...Yahoo....I'm serious.
Here is the great list administrator: Kevin Gandel (oddsman@wam.umd.edu)
Odds Fan Club Page: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~oddsman
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit this group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Truth_Untold/
Message from Tim "the finger" Der.
"go to http://oddstp.com and click on the news section. there you will see,
like okayplayer.com, it's part news, part blog where group discussions are
strongly, strongly encouraged. I'm a big fan of okayplayer so I'm really
hoping it works."
Tim is referring to a discussion group. I believe this is where you talk about things related to the Odds or its factions or factoids. I will not get involved because I feel the possible fiction created is far more interesting than the truth. I don't want to drive a nail through the foot of any good running yarn. I will, however, verify one thing ...yes...I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Dear all,
Some of you USA type people are already hip to this but I will announce to the rest of you that you can download all of "Giddy Up" through the apple itunes store. The newest version of itunes (downloadable on the apple site) streams right to the store so you need not use a browser.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/discover.html
You don't get the nifty graphics & liner notes but I'm sure you folks are creative enough to come up with something better. I suggest using Springsteen's "Born to Run" cover and just photoshopping my name on there. Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" is pretty good too. The apple itunes store is not quite ready for those outside the USA so I highly recommend my "sub site" at maplemusic.com.
Tim Der has apparently made some changes to his Craig Northey site at oddstp.com so that might be worth a look. I'll be trying to hook up links to my favourite sites one day as this new website grows more tentacles.
I write to you now from the Calgary airport. I am sitting at gate A11. I'm leaving through gate A19 but the wireless network doesn't work down there. If you're on your wireless laptop and waiting for a plane come over and say hello. I will wait here to see what happens. I'm right across from "Stavro's" sports bar. On the outside wall of Stavro's (under the wooden letters S.T.A.V.R.O.'S.) is a large contour cut picture of George Gardner in his 1970 Canucks home whites. Its a four foot tall, wooden mounted & contour cut, black and white photo. George is barefaced, smiling and looking for the puck in his goalie skates. He sports the traditional brown leather pads, trapper & white polka dot blocker of the era. Why is he here? I checked his stats:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php3?pid%5B%5D=1846
He never played here and was born in Lachine Quebec. He is not Greek and Stavros may very well be a Greek name. I wonder why there is no giant wooden photographic print of Mike Vernon, Lanny MacDonald or a Sutter brother. I used to draw pictures of George on my schoolbooks. I drew long pencil ovals to fill in those giant brown pads. I drew his sideburns or, more often, his white fibreglass mask. I emblazoned that blue rink on his chest. Now he is here to keep me company. The image is comforting amidst the unsettling sea of red & black "grade 8 graphics" Calgary Flames "C"s. Black fire! We're in this together George.