The little gate
was locked and we couldn’t get in.
Through caste iron bars that we gripped, SO HARD, there were many lovely
things to be made out… birds, trees, squirrels and lilacs… etc, etc. The thought of climbing the adjacent stone
post was in Julie’s eyes, and though she doesn’t carry a reputation for such
criminal activity… this scene of
springtime bounty was just, THAT LOVELY!
I did not want
to disappoint her, considering our recent back-and-forths, so I leaned forward
and cupped my hands for her step. “How
DARLING!” she called me, planting her palms upon my shoulders, and her thighs - through knee-length cotton - upon my cheek... “Shoot me up, then!”
I sprung up, and
she leaped stretching for the ledge. She
grabbed ahold and squirmed to the top. A
good five feet she had on me. Though
then I heard a groundskeeper clambering at the gate…
“Here you are
then,” the gentleman said, opening his gate to a nervous-and-guilt-ridden-me. I tipped my hat and entered the garden, fully
expecting Julie to be in close proximity; perhaps hiding among the shrubbery? There waiting for her MAN.
From there in the garden I
looked and called out... but never found, saw
or heard from my Julie again.
If you go to - http://bikepolo.to/ - you will find a post about some bike polo league games called 'Acid Cat Reflex vs. I Wanna Beard' that I wrote.
It was fun pretending to be a sports
commentator for all of 30 minutes, though
the play-by-play I recorded shall never be heard by an audience,
because of its colourless content and my dull and seemingly disinterested
telling of events. Rather, I decided to let it sit on my phone for a
couple of days before getting around to banging it out, and I feel good about
the piece.
Let it be known that we have since cancelled this foolish league of ours (not my call, but we still play all the time and I'm moving away in a month/who cares), so if those extra three paragraphs of introduction before my style of after-the-fact play-by-play are too much sentence for the casual reader (of never ever read blogs), please allow this easy to click upon link - http://bikepolo.to/blog/trevor/20120405/acid-cat-reflex-vs-i-wanna-beard-0 - as a relieve to all your fantasy bicycle-croquet team roster concerns!
(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!
*(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, whynot 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!!
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!*
- 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.
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?!)
I had a dream a couple nights ago where I drove a big van down a really steep hill and then rolled it 25 times off a bend and into suburban homes because the breaks wouldn't work.
When I woke up in the dream I was like, 'Holy Fucking Shit!? My head must've exploded all over some poor kid's first afterschool-livingroom-handjob and now I'm dead! DEAD!!' But I wasn't..
It was the next day and I wasn't even in the hospital. My legs had thousands of stitches in them, sticks and whatever to hold things in place, but I could walk. My body was in shock, and my head a little funny or drugged; but everything worked. The only concern I had really, was that there was a gaping hole in my abdomen... with no skin or muscle or anything other than a flap of clear, rectangular-shaped plexi-glass taped across it; covering up some very fucked up and rotten intestines of mine. They were disgusting (but also amazing!). The flap opened from the bottom and you could swoosh things around with your hands (maybe not the best surgeon-al choice?) but otherwise I felt fine.
When my dad was young, he once rolled his 1970 Dodge Challenger down a valley in Pennsylvania - mangling it - but coming out with only some bruising and a concussion. I remember in the dream trying to call him up to let him know that I was in an accident. That I was okay, sure, but more importantly..
..that I totally beat him!
* * *
(BUT ANYWAYS...)
What I think it's really all about is an idea I've been having lately:
I really want to buy a used car, drive it as far into South America as possible (or until it dies), and then blow it up.
I'm thinking of doing this next summer if I can afford it, and after working out some logistical details like whether or not you can actually get a car through the Derien Gap (a stretch of swampland between Panama and Columbia that doesn't seem to have any listed roads), and which giant rainforest insects can kill you? (at this point, I will have to assume all!)
Reasons for doing it/Things I'm sure of...
1. I love Mexican food. 2. I love adventure. 3. I'd like having the real excuse to learn Spanish again. 4. There would be so much to film and write about. 5. If I pull it off (in whatever form).. I will be the most awesome person ever.
One of my most favourite people ever is a 22 yr old man with Down's Syndrome, who I've known since I was just starting out in the Special Needs' racket. It's only recently that I changed jobs and am able to hang out with him nearly everyday again. He is hilarious and awesome, and his most favourite thing to do ever is draw! Sometimes he draws pictures of me (because we are best buds!), and so here are some of them:
* From 2007: Notice the attention to detail.. My earplugs and faces on my arms to represent tattoos (and no moustache).
* I dunno.. I think I was hungover this day?!
* From Today: 'We're going to Kensington Market!'
* September 2009: This is my favourite for some reason, but I'm not sure why?
I just feel that it looks like me. Like it captures my essence perfectly.. and despite the pink moustache and zombie teeth (or maybe because -of ?).**-/-+
I started out the day in Communications' class with some friends, planning out what to shoot for one of their skateboarding videos; a mishmash of trick footage and guerilla-style tomfoolery in the vain of CKY (which had just come out). Since some of us were not as interested in the skate aspect, yet all of us were interested in fucking off to go pick up lunch somewhere.. we decided upon a mock kidnapping at a major intersection in downtown Collingwood for our scene.
- C'wood Town Hall, with Second St. traffic lights in the distance.
Wearing balaclavas and gripping fake plastic clubs while parked behind a nearby TD bank, we laughed about someone spotting us and calling the cops.
There were five of us. A cameraman, a driver, two goons and myself; elected victim despite my Tempo being the getaway vehicle. This meant an explanation on my part about the sensitivity of the brakes, and why, when popping the trunk, you couldn't just hit the button (because it was broken and nothing would happen). Instead, you had to put the car in park, turn off the engine and physically get up and out of the car to go around and turn the only key I had in the keyhole, if you wanted in.
We made plans on how the shit would go down, finished our Wendy's Jr. Burgers and pulled out of there. When we were a block away from our location, I got out with our cameraman and started walking...
As I approached the crosswalk at Hurontario and Second St, I heard the engine accelerate and then.. ‘SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!’
The car had pulled in fast and stopped in way of traffic.The ‘kidnappers’ jumped out masked and swinging their plastic clubs to attack.
They were on me in seconds.
I screamed out as ridiculous and over-the-top as I could while they kicked and batted at me (tenderly). I pretended to struggle and whine as they dragged me over and into the trunk of my car; and I thumped once they slammed it shut again and shuffled to their doors.*
*On the tape (which I lost a long time ago) you could actually hear an old lady scream and then, absolutely petrified, ask: "Why are you doing this? What's going on?"
The car sped away.
Five minutes later the car stopped, my friends let me out, and we returned to class; just in time for the lunch bell.
* * *
When I pulled into the parking lot of my afternoon co-op, I was very much surprised to find two police cruisers already awaiting my arrive.
'Awww.. fuck!' and other swear words were said, ..but all I could do was park and face whatever driving infractions were coming my way. I thought maybe 'Disturbing the Peace' might get tossed around, but I was still just 17, so 'whatever' right!? I was more afraid that my mom was going to have my balls for it.*
*She was always psycho-scary when it came to being angry!
I walked into Roger's Television with an 'OH FUCK?!' look on my face; but totally sweet and pure and Honour Role otherwise. This was my plan.
A couple of cops were chatting up my employer because they knew one another. Doug spots me and then a smirk forms on his face. The officers are still talking, but he stops them mid-sentence to announce me (and to his credit, rather cordially*).
*He tells me later that something like 15 cruisers sped in there earlier, and officers were coming up to his front door with their hands on their holsters. He felt the need to step outside and explain that 'there must be some mistake... ' and so thankfully, I only had to deal with these two dripping in butter(ed).
I learn that these cops - and cops from three other counties (don't ask me which ones?) - had been driving everywhere that morning searching for my car, but couldn't find me because they were looking for a blue Ford Taurus instead of my Tempo.The detail was slight, but enough.
Several witnesses had read the plates and reported us (one of them from when we were parked behind the bank). How any of these people failed to see our cameraman and just how stupid and obviously fake our stunt was, is still beyond me?!*
* I think maybe we just blew their small town minds..
..AND AS FOR THE POLICE?!?!?!
Well... it seemed in the end that all the hullabaloo and detail put in investigation would have less to do with these institutions' inability to take a prank, and more to do with our performance's parallel to events that had happened the night before in the GTA.
Having not read the Toronto Sun earlier in the day, neither my friends or I knew that a teenager named Matty Baronofsky had been assaulted and killed by a group of teenagers in G. Rossland Park the night before. Or that the perpetrators had worn balaclavas and used small clubs and baseball bats in his beating-death.
With our ‘kidnapping’ having happened so soon after, and the plates of my (grandma’s) car being traced back to Toronto, for some two or three hours I was a prime murder suspect and, simultaneously, my own next victim.*
*They had got in touch with my grandma and mom (how they found out where I'd be), and both didn't know which one I was either.
If they had rolled up on me during lunch, I feel like they probably would've thrown me hard onto the cruiser and beaten me down...
...but thankfully, no such thing happened.
The encounter would take over the remainder of my day, though no hostile infraction on my liberties resulted from it. No suspension. No jail time. Only a small amount of notoriety and pride for having pulled a rather absurd affront to a couple of institutions – the O.P.P and the Simcoe County District School Board – deemed ‘oppressive’ by my then Anarcho-Socialist political perspective. Heck, we even got in the paper!*
*...BUT HOLY-FUCKING-SHIT DID I EVER HAVE TO TALK MY ASS OFF LIKE NEVER BEFORE (OR SINCE)!!!
* * *
NOTE: This happened 10 years ago this month... and I still find it totally hilarious.*
*..So thanks again for kidnapping me Sid, Tyler, Jesse, and Mike!
