You have a found a portal for time travel. You close your eyes on the cliffs of the faraway but somehow familiar seashore. With them open you can almost see England lying north across the channel. This is rare highland seashore. Dover, Donegal, Cape Spear, Gijon, and Cape Town are bound together by similarities in light, scent and birdcalls on the arc of the wind. The smell of that wind brings images of life to you from the far distance. It hits the warm terra firma and brings you tide pool sea life, exotic flavoured oxygen. Close your eyes and imagine you are back on your own stretch of familiar seashore. Nine thousand miles away on the edge of a different ocean altogether are the same smells, textures and a wind that can sometimes make you plant one foot behind you to brace against it. It’s a cool day in Spain but it would be a warm day there. Conjure a familiar shoreline all those miles away. It is one you know. Sandstone sculptured in even ridges at low tide lies at the bottom of a familiar trail down through the long grass and blackberry brambles. Spanish children’s chatter fades to Anglo babble. It’s been two weeks but you can be home in minutes. Feel you are there. Wait it out. Clean the slate. Don’t speak. Feel the home feeling. It’s so much like falling asleep in another hotel room and dreaming a dream that puts you in your own bed. The air conditioning is the same. The darkness is the same. Similar habitats facilitate time travel. Your particles vapourize and reconstruct themselves to stand on home soil for what can seem like hours but is only for seconds. It happens accidentally at first like any great scientific discovery. Newton is hit on the head by an apple. The apple tells him how to play with the forces of natural law. Somehow we are being told that the laws of time and space can be liquefied and manipulated. It may be in our heads but who’s to say that is any different than actual physical travel. You cannot divorce the mind and body. Systems connect. Feed one and you feed the other. This trip home refreshes you almost as much as doing it the hard way by dragging your flesh and bone all the way back. Meditation works like sleep reconstructed from a concentrate -- concentrated rest. Feed your home fire then fill up on adrenaline during re-entry. Open your eyes. Scare yourself in the freefall from the astral plane. Enjoy the ride. You don’t have to understand the laws of nature to defy them.
Had some fantastic shows in Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Belgium with the CJBand. I think one plays better when stimulated by exotic surroundings. If the theory pans out I think we'd pretty much explode if we got to play in New Guinea or the Antarctic. There will be more musings as I find time to jot them down.
MTV Europe. A small German boy can see all the way to California. His scrotum feels funny when he watches the nubile blonde women in her kitchen. He doesn’t speak English but there are subtitles.
Someone forgot to shop for her. When she came home from shopping for new place settings there was no food in the fridge. Not NO food but just not the right food. She thought she wanted to cook a meal. She didn’t know how to cook. The stove was top of the line. It was the type of stainless steel massive appliance you see in the best restaurants in big cities. Her “baby” bought her this kitchen. He is a rich musician. When they moved into the house the kitchen was beautiful but it wasn’t theirs. A kitchen is a personal thing so they had someone tear all the other stainless steel stuff out and they put in stainless steel things that they picked out themselves. She was thinking of cooking for the family so she got out a cookbook. Food should be like it is in those pictures. Life should be like it is in those pictures. The ideal is captured. There were a lot of flat-screen LCD TV’s. Big ones on the walls of every room. When she wanted to discipline the child she turned one off. Simple. The child was well loved and never a burden because at just the moment when she put up a fuss she could be handed off to a nanny who knew what to do about it. The cameras follow them all the time. In a 24-hour period there is nothing interesting that happens. There is not enough colouring outside the lines. Sidebar: for the little German boy is not old enough to understand the irony of the massively wealthy punk rocker. Outrageousness has given way to impulsive consumption. Punk rockers have left the squats and harnessed their energy to build lightships on the hills of the gated communities. In tinted Land Rovers they slide out of the compound. The exhaust smells of mango or jasmine. They arrive at the $2500 a day studio and with every extra overdub and digital edit they move closer to the ubermusic that is scientifically tuned to the frequency of a 12 year-old’s crocodile brain. Their concentration is intense for a 2 full hours. It goes “bigger” in the chorus. The mannish boy becomes hungry. His trophy bride is at home staring at the stove. Her career is on hold for the kids but she fills her days with “things”. Where does the time go? Can we watch that movie again? She does not ask her friends about their problems. She has problems of her own. The cameras are waiting for her problems. If there are no problems she talks about minor pitfalls as if they were problems. Kindness to others makes her feel good. In that way she thinks about herself. There is no outside world when the cameras are on. Working out can solve a lot of problems. The kids have someone to watch them if both parents decide to work out at the same time. They have their own gym and their own pool but they prefer to go to a health club. The personal trainer can provide motivation if motivation is lacking. Can she use soy milk in this dish? What is that clicking sound when the element fires up? Its scary. She needs to call his cell phone because she is scared of the clicking. Is there something wrong with the stove? Its getting too late to cook this meal before he arrives home from the studio. She asks the nanny to order something from the place she and her husband ate at on their first date. She needs to go upstairs for a steam. She puts on a slinky piece she bought a month ago and forgot about. It makes her feel good. The cameras sparkle back at her. He’ll be so impressed that she did something this nice for him. They eat dinner and mumble terms of endearment that are all variations on “baby” and “baby doll”. The cameras follow them to the bedroom and fade to black over giggling.
The little German boy turns the channel to a show about goats. He smiles and wishes he had a goat. His mother has returned from work with that same cough. He misses his father. He will make her the dinner he knows how to make on nights when she works late. His mother will go to the bathroom to wash the smell from the fish plant off her skin. She uses a special shampoo with natural lemon in it. If they had a yard he would definitely try to have a goat. Goats have personality and they give something back to you.
Back on MTV: The couple haven’t actually touched each other in private for seven months. They are divorced by the next year. He pairs up with someone who looks like her and she with someone who looks like him. They move to new haciendas and villas. The children grow and watch more TV. One is, “very interested in computers” they say when someone asks what the kids are into. Sometimes they feel lost but they don’t know exactly why. She thinks about recycling and what her efforts will do for the environment. He is still all about his music.
Their eldest child has a dream one night. She dreams she is on a farm. There is a steel gray sky and a boy who speaks a different language is trying to show her how to feed a goat without getting bitten. They laugh because the goat’s tongue feels strange. When she wakes up she feels happy. Her mom tells her she can have a goat if she really wants one. She says, “No thank you. A goat wouldn’t be happy here.”
There are interviews with Pat Steward, Doug Elliott & Simon Kendall now up in the journal section of strippersunion.ca
You'll also find a nice "song by song" piece written by Rob Baker & myself.
Great news. The "Northey Valenzuela" CD will finally find wide release. Jesse & I have signed a deal with "Fuel2000 in Los Angeles and "True North Records in Canada. We'd like to say a huge thanks to Len Fico and Bernie Finkelstein.
A remastered version of the CD will be released, with new fancy artwork, in Canada by late September. A slightly different version will be available in the USA in January. Jesse and I will be hitting the road to play shows for you in step with these releases. More on that soon.
...oh...and we have arranged for NHL hockey to come back to coincide with our releases. We hope you like it.
I'm going to Europe with Colin James (see colinjames.com) and I am not taking a computer. "Be here now", said the little bird. I will try to put up things the hard way and we'll see what happens.
“A black cowboy hat has been left at security. Please return to the security screening area if you are missing a black cowboy hat”. The bad guy is on the plane. This is hard evidence. There is cause to be nervous. This, a most obvious plot to go incognito, has been brought into the light. Maybe the bad guy will be dumb enough to fall for their first attempt to identify him. He will stand up slowly from his vinyl sling of a seat in the waiting room, scrub his five o’clock shadow with a meaty, calloused hand and trudge dutifully, one eel skinned boot in front of the other, back to the luggage X-ray machine to ask for his hat back. If this doesn’t work we will see airport security talking into their sleeves and moving briskly to the gates, fanning out in a more frenzied approximation of the drill they practiced not two weeks ago. Quiet announcement s will be made about technical problems onboard each craft and those who have already taken their seats on the planes will grab their carry-ons from the overhead bins and head back up the jet way to mill bewildered in the fluorescent glow of the collecting areas. Somewhere near a potted plant, by a bank of payphones, arms around his knees and sitting with his back to the far wall is a tousled swarthy and mustachioed figure shifting his eyes from exit to exit. Security have their profiling locked on stun. He somehow made it through with the spurs, black leather riding gloves and neckerchief but this is as far as he will get. He will be found out. He will later be caught standing on a toilet lid in a stall in a washroom down the hall. There is no perfect plan and it’s easy to spot a bad guy. They wear the black hats.
Its been said that you go to the world's biggest western cities because they offer infinite possibilities. It's true. I consider myself an urbanite. I enjoy nature to its fullest but feel more stimulated by throngs of people with all their differences and layered life stories. Infinite possibilities run in all directions. In general, man’s sense of fear and respect seems to hold things together but a city offering no glass ceiling also offers no net. If someone decides to break the chain of trust hell can bubble up right into the streets. New York, London, Paris and Madrid. What amazing places. The spectacular sea foam scene comes with an undertow. It is doubly tragic if the people affected by the evils perpetrated in these cities were the types of people who really needed to get out of the city. I know many people like this. Some of my closest loved ones are not made to be in the city. They can mine their soul’s fuel better in open spaces and private places. I feel worst for those just trying to get by who can find no other way than to live and work in a place they don’t want to be. I’m saddened and horrified by it all but my feelings are compounded for anyone who was not feeling free and empowered at the moment some evil prick forced them off the road. We will forever be fighting against the will of God. There is a version of God created to justify ethnic cleansing and martyrdom. God justified colonialism, imperialism and crusades and now God calls for revenge. Make up your mind oh bearded man in the sky with the light emanating from your head. An eye for an eye or is it turn the other cheek? Is it "turn your cheek so I can poke out your other eye"? God creates hell on earth when for any atheist this is our only chance to create heaven. Let thou not commit the sin of being born or moving to the right place at the wrong time. Dr.John had a better version than St.John. Innocence will be punished. Atone for your comfort. It takes a long time to make this make any sense. Share the wealth. Treat other people right. Try not to be afraid.
Dear all,
If you have a minute we could really use some help convincing Vancouver's CFOX that "Give Up & Go Away" (by Stripper's Union) is worthy of being added to their playlist. They're usually quite supportive and this might push it over the top.
Here's the request page. You can e-mail, call ot text them.
you can just paste this address into your browser
http://www.cfox.com/contact/requests.cfm
or e-mail: requests@cfox.com
Thanks