The Things I've Done and Haven't Done

(Above) - Still from Buck Starball's 'Our Last Year' Music Video
(Left) - 'Adorable Puppies' Bike Polo Team Shirt
(Bottom) - Album Cover for The Creepshow's 'They All Fall Down.' by Ashlea Wessel

- 2010 -

UPDATE! (March 22nd): A lot of things happened in 2010, but that shit's the past, man...

It was a transitional year, and while all years are, this last one really did seem like a setup for something I'm only just supposed to get started in these next few months; whether that's completing the Buck Starball music video I've begun or tapping out pages for that first novel I haven't yet.*

*Please note that a period has been used - and not a question mark - to punctuate the statement above.

I've never believed in forcing myself to make anything, or that you need to endlessly practice your craft in order to maintain it. I much rather prefer to let work happen when impulse or idea strikes than to exhaust my efforts and audience on filler pieces (like this post.. haha!).

This past weekend, a friend of mine (who actually gets her shit done) said to me.. "Inspiration is for assholes! Just show up to work."

I think at the time she was disagreeing with my position; dismissing it as an excuse. ...And probably it is an excuse! But whatever?! Right or wrong, the greater point is that I do need to show up for work more often than I have been.

But it's not like I'm not showing up for a different sort of work! I show up to my job-job. I show up with friends. I spend my time learning new skills and trades, going to new places and trying new things... I feel good about how I've been showing up on lots of stuff lately (sometimes with fist-pumping enthusiasm even)!

Over the last year, I helped create and facilitate a new model of program for dual diagnosed adults (that's people with a developmental and mental health disability), became an uncle, lost a sister (sorta), and played enough bike polo to get a little better at it and even compete. I've shared a lot of my time with others and for others...

And, on the other hand... I've been the biggest asshole!

Why the Black Bloc is more awesome than.. (not-awesome?!)

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!*

*(Yes, I know it isn't Canada Day anymore.. but shit's too hot outside and I thought this was published already!)

Since the G20 superstars' bash that happened last weekend in my city (or June 26-27), many folks -from journalists to newscasters, politicians, protesters and chiefs of policing.. to the most totally innocent of bystanders, tourists and TTC drivers - are hating on the 'Black Bloc' for the 'violence' and property damage that took place.

"Thugs!" They all cried.

"No good criminals!" Others shouted.

Perhaps smashing a bunch of windows in the downtown core was idiotic; I mean, "Fuck Capitalism!" ..Totally. I'm there. But is the gathering of the G20 really the right time or place for this action, when these nations (not corporations*) are gathering to specifically not-impose taxes on banks and not-include abortion in an African healthcare plan?

* (Yes there are global corporations that offer shitty wages and muscle out small/local competition, but they aren't these 20 fuckers who are right here, right now fucking over the most shit ever to everyone all the time!!)

I don't see why today's proletariat shouldn't still be able to non-fat milk their mocha lattes or get their early morning 2 for $3.49 buffalo chicken taquito fixes on? Like, you can talk all you want about the 'lethargy of the masses' but, do you really expect the State to be properly smashed when six hours in, everyone around you is nodding off for-realz?! That thinking seems lazy to me. And no, I don't feel like trail-mix right now.. but thanks (again) for asking.

Maybe you just wanted us to get a taste of what third-world countries are having to live through everyday? Maybe you just mean to provoke our spoiled North American disregard for anything-other-than-ourselves, and bring out the enraged world citizen inside us?

Maybe...

Or maybe you're just some angry kids whose parents and school systems failed them... Some spoiled brats who are too proud to work the shitty jobs they are allotted.

Those awkward few who stay up all night on a queen-sized bed they resent, playing Lucrate Milk on giant BOSE headphones that only play through one ear; writing shitty Romantic poems about even shittier teenaged sex. You combat the towns you grew up in with Wong Kar-Wai films and a terrible haircut. Those 'punks' who've gotten into Chomsky because of Propagandhi, Debord because of Monty Python, and Goldman because one day.. far away.. it'll get him/her laid by some Manic in combat boots and the shortest skirt ever made; whose spazzy-bratty-toughness won't mind how wimpy they really are.

But you can't wait on such fatalisms.

You want your lives ruined TODAY!

These sprees of 'death-and-destruction' in the name of 'Anarcho-Syndicalism' or just plain boredom (whether either is really them or not?!) are to be expected. We become our dreams, and sometimes even our 'girl of our dreams.' I mean, why not smash a few windows out?! '...Are we opposed to fun?'

Much later in life, after back pain, meth addiction, and the malaise of never really finding such a lady have taken their toll.. these youthful transgressions will prove valuable to the memoirs they'll (pretend to) type out.

If the world doesn't blow itself up before then (am I right?!).

Or maybe I'm totally off...

Who are these assholes?!

For those involved who weren't police provocateurs, off their meds, or opportunistic thieves whose inner-hooligan had been left waiting since '93... the Black Bloc is about more than just hoodies and burning cop cars.

The Black Bloc is an ongoing narrative... internationally minded and concerned, and practiced by those of us too pissed off by the injustices taking place in the world to just stand by and ogle the police state that had taken over our city. They see the fight (whether Africa, native land, the rights of queers, homeless and the disabled, etc..) as something that needs to be engaged in all-at-once; in solidarity with those facing abuses each-and-everyday who don't have any 'freedom to assemble.' Something people should stand up for on a grander-scale desperation rather than splintered and co-ordinated into smaller, singular battles or factions.

While I feel I'm growing to understand that change - when it's concerned with people's non-abstract, everyday welfare - is something to be brought about slow and carefully... I cannot condemn these kids whose actions (whether an instigator to police violence or not?!), are actions made in the interest of direct objection to atrocities that are on-going throughout the world right now. They've taken the time to research and build an empathy towards their fellow man that is uniquely unselfish. Their objection is more closely concerned with a person's actual civil needs, and not just those liberties we as Torontonians and Canadians can comfortably forget most of the time/non-G20 weekends.

Unlike embittered old punks like me (I spent most of Saturday walking around with Jeff - an Autistic guy I work with - and trying not to get him caught in any of the rough stuff), these are kids who truly don't give a fuck. Kids who act rash, swift and in the spirit of our heart's contempt. Their tactics are romantic; so of course, also misguided... but this is not something to discourage because some property got damaged!

Property damage always happens, and is to be expected at these summits; especially ones as mismanaged - by all levels of government - as the Toronto G20.

"Where in the $1 Billion spent on the G20 Summit, was any money left to help businesses in their repair costs? Where is the money to help all those put out of work for a week make rent and living costs for the month?!"

I call BULLSHIT on the idea that the Black Bloc's actions led police to violently overreact! Rather than spearhead the gross police misconduct that took place, they anticipated it. And I for one really don't mind the extra tax dollars lost on this...

When considering this...

Fuck the Hippies! I'll take my politicized youth movements BLACK please!!

'Somebody you know went to France and all you got was this lousy Bike Polo Video I'm in...'

I went to a Bike Polo Tournament in Rouen, France with some London people in April 2009 and this is a video some French dudes made about that. ...Starring me!*

* (not really.. but I'm in it a bunch)

Crappy Crafts I Made at Work

'Flying Pig'
newspaper, balloons, cardboard, wallpaper glue, acrylic paint

'Nutrition Chart'
felt (many colours), scissors, gluestick, marker, glitter

the FAMINES! [as recovered from the notepad feature on my cellphone]:

Thu, Jul 30 12:33am

- the arrested-spastic development of my 52 year old culture [ed: ??] -

the famines.. i apologize for the crowd [ed: small, disinterested].  if you were brunettes proper (in the sense of being brunettes that also had lady parts and were actual ladies) instead of two dudes from edmonton with a penchant for being amazing... i would leave with you in your shitty rental for the horrors of hamilton or guelph or whatever place i don't want to be, but will be... just to be next to your cosmic awesome. to learn and feed my withered and mistreated affections on.  like a pariah.   a sex-crazed ruiner of your everything... 

instead i will settle for your wares - your tapes, a small poster - and conservatively declare, 'bravo!' (...such disco-ordinated coherence among those 8 limbs of yours!)  i feel like chopping off my left hand for the hindrance it caused in my learning guitar-proper at the age of 15.

MOVING APARTy

with Buck Starball and Chang-a-Lang!

Friday, February 26th, 2010 

@ 688 College St. Apt. 2

I threw a party a few weeks ago because I was moving out of my apartment of 4+ years, and because we have always had one around this time; the end of February... sort of as a send off to the shittiest month of the year.  True..  a bunch of people have birthdays then (including me!), but rather than focus on celebrating the same old people again and again... I thought the empty space, this time around, was a good opportunity to celebrate everyone else. 

...Including living space (or our relationship to the places we inhabit).

It was a special night - and not just because it got busted by the cops (12 officers! 7 squad cars!!) - but because of how much of it came from so many friends helping out; and just because!

Whether by driving band gear and furniture back-and-forth, picking up kegs and lasers, or filling up rooms with their installations, rock n' roll or dance parties...  It was really fun to orchestrate and collaborate on the bigger scale!  To witness how wonderful folks can be... how willing they are to contribute if/when asked or given the opportunity... and then have a crap-load of people come out and enjoy themselves with it...

..Thanks again! ...Goodbye apartment!*

* (Yes! This is most-definitely.. super-late, dwelling-on-the-past-type-shit instead of making and writing something new!  ..A half-assed rehashing rather than a respectable documentation of what went on, and I'm sorry for that... but not really.  I don't have the internet on my computer yet and I've had other shit to do.  BLEH!  It's hard to be self-indulgent and on-time sometimes, y'know?!)