yes, I recognize the irony.

Heavy metal.

it's not just a movie.
it's not just a genre.


it IS however:

-a set of stances where your guitar becomes an extension of your dick.
-an array of hair whips, head bangs and raised fists.
-a veritable potpourri of screeches, yelps, choruses sang above C.
-attitude. poses. gestures indicating manhood and (false) confidence.
-a threat to you. they want it to be, anyways.

the truth is, I've worked more metal shows in the last year than any other genre; and in the end, they are ALL the same. it runs like this:

they roll in late to the venue. they bitch about having to load stuff in themselves. before they unpack anything, they start to drink. they take forever to setup. their soundcheck is meticulous and painfully slow. they eat all their food. they smoke dope in the dressing room. they get hungry and demand pizza. I acquiesce, because I'm a total pushover in the face of agressive assholes. they play to a half-empty room and look to me like I'm responsible for a lack of ads or whatever, never once considering that perhaps THEY HAVE NO FANS HERE.

when the victory lounge used to have metal fridays, I'd often have to work upstairs in the starlite, so I'd see all the locals and their ways and fans and friends and fights. it's exactly the same.

ugh. I'm pessimistic for no good reason. This show tonight bugged me. These guys are just so fucking gruff.

Wyclef said it best: Too many MCs, not enough mics.

rock the body politic.

The election has come and gone. The tories won. Whoopee. This isn't a commentary.

But voting today has got me thinking.

This is about altererting politics. About once identifying as anarchist, pacifist, social democrat, antiracist, antiviolent, environmentalist, feminist, socialist, pseudoqueer, anticapitalist, capitalist, 'equalist', raver, punk, political 'scientist', student, what-fucking-ever.

Titles, identities, labels. I've worn them all with pride (or fear), and suddenly today, as I instinctually reached to vote for the NDP, I paused and considered my politics. Where AM I, now? What DO I believe? Am I still just a little of 'all of the above'? I'd like to think so, at the same time as I feel like I've fallen free of being able to identify with...

...much of anything. Can I be everything and feel nothing? I'm watching this...fucking automaton douchebag Stephen Harper promise us more and more lies; and I feel like I could tolerate this. Tolerate. What the FUCK has happened to me?





ok ok ok, I'm taking this, and myself, way too seriously... it's just that it feels like evidence of going 'soft in my old age', like I'm giving up. Is this what happens? That makes me sad. I used to have a fire inside, an itch to act up. Hell, I DID act up; so...what happened?

IS this what happens to people?


I say...fuck that. Who wants to get angry about stuff with me? Who wants to talk late and red wine drunk about wordy shit and flex these...thinkin' muscles of ours? I think I've been feeling a bit...numbed lately, or something. Like I need a kick in the brain. Like I could (and should) start tagging again, start messing with people's minds in tiny, personal ways. Fun pranks. Shit disturbing. I used to be SO good at it. Who's in?

Who?


Maybe it's all about love.


"Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful mould of human destiny...

"Some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can forsee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness...love will be the parent."


-Emma Goldman, American anarchist

Munich

Munich.
In 1998 I visited Munich, Germany while travelling Europe as a starry-eyed teenager. I remember getting off the train and not knowing where I was going just yet, so I wandered around the station looking for a map, a sandwich, and perhaps someone to talk to. I went upstairs to this balcony which overlooked the entire breadth of the station, over all the trains coming in, going out; I watched as 2 approached at about the same time, on opposite sides of the stations. both appeared to be shaking and shuddering as they slowed to a halt, and as the doors opened, HUNDREDS of drunk soccer fans piled out, each from their own train, one side wearing green, the other wearing red. They walked out to the main concourse, each chanting their team chant - until they heard the competing chants from the other side. I looked left - green team, angry and storming towards team red, also advancing. In the middle, 3 hapless DeutchBahn security officers and 2 cops. 5 vs. 500. They started yelling, butting chests, screaming what i assume was "we're gonna win today" or something of the sort, probably a little more crass. But nobody was fighting - just taunting, jeering, teasing.

While this was all transpiring, I looked to my right and standing beside me was a crew of three gutter punks, all with spiky hair and dirty clothes, reeking of booze, watching this happen below, and the closest one to me suddenly looked at me, looked at my sandwich and just said, "yum yum". He grabbed my sandwich, took a huge bite, and then THROWS the sandwich at the mob below. It lands directly in cop-zone. All eyes on us. He screams, "FUCK MARX! FUCK HITLER! THERE IS ONLY VICTORY!!!!", turns around, gives me this cryptic, uncomfortable smile, and proceeds to barf my sandwich bite (and much, much more) over the floor of the balcony. The cops below look at eachother and start running towards the stairs. The punks do the same...I guess they escaped, because the 2 cops came running up towards me, nearly slipping on the puddle of puke at my feet; yelling at me in German, they are pointing to the puke and sandwich, etc...I dont know what to tell them, so I just turn around and show them my Canadian flag on my backpack. "Sprechen nein Deutch", ('speak no german', literally) I stammer...they all look at me skeptically, and realize I'm just a bystander. They have other people to deal with.

The time in Bavaria was fun. I stayed at this hippy hostel that night and befriended an evangelical christian punk(?) from South Africa and a quasi-queer photo student from Hong Kong - we visited the castle of crazy king Ludwig in Fussel, built above Swan Lake (yep, that swan lake), and went to Dachau concentration camp the next day...it was horrifying, cathartic, emotional and cold. I saw torture 'labs', gas chambers, residence blocks, and of course, this:


Work Equals Freedom.

...which is where this blog was *supposed* to start - I saw the movie "Munich" last night; I'm full of conflicting emotions about it. As a jew, we're brought up with extreme conciousness of the past as it is related to our future - the whole idea of BIRTHRIGHT and HOMELAND really...irks me. I've never been a zionist, nor have my parents. But this movie made me realize the interests at stake in consideration of a jewish state...the cost in human lives just seems to be a case of the ends NOT justifying the means - erg...this isnt what I mean.

What I mean to say is what I'm sure the movie wants me to think - violence begets violence, terrorism is in the eye of the beholder, the hunted become the hunters, etc etc...but I didn't LIKE the movie - I thought it was overly violent, with unnecessary shots, bullet wounds, and the final scene seriously pissed me off. It just left a bad taste in my mouth about my identity as a jew. I can see any non-jew coming out of that film thinking, "oh, so Isreal is right to occupy and torture and murder...but those Arabs do it so...illegally! how dare they?". And on the flipside, any self-righteous zionist would see it as a three-hour justification of anything they've ever felt; that the violence of protection is blessed by god, that their homeland isn't just legal, it's god-given. That anything against those orders is terror; that arabs are animals. It sickens me that Speilberg thinks it was his duty to paint a drama around such tradegdy.

Whatever, he still gets paid.

In the end, I still don't know what to think. Yes, "we" are a historically oppressed people, but WHEN do the ends justify means, and when and where do we draw the line? When "work equals freedom"? FOR WHO? FOR WHAT? WHO IS FREE, AND AT WHAT COST? HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

erg. I'm grumpy now.

i sing of Olaf glad and big

by e.e. Cummings

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelov'd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.




this is a roundabout way to tell you to all vote.

Things fall apart. (Then fall together.)

Things are coming together suddenly. January is like that. It's Sunday, I'm kinda bored, so here's a stream of consciousness.

I hung out with my youngest sister today for a few hours, somewhat by random. I found her on MSN when looking to assemble a breakfast posse and she was online, so I invited her out and we ended up spending all afternoon together on Whyte ave. Kyra is 15 and awesome. I took her to Broken Social Scene recently and she loved it.. I've felt like I've needed to better my relationship with my family, and it starts with her. Again, not a resolution, but a plan.

I've realized that I might actually like artichokes after all.

I found an mp3 of a rad rad rad song that I've been looking for forfuckingever. It's called "Tears" by The Children Of The Mission, this german soul/reggae band from the late 70s. You'll recognize the hook instantly.

I'm dating someone I like. Alot. For lots of reasons. It's all very surprising to me still, but its superfun, and it's making me happy.

I've been tying up loose ends in my life. Clearing up misunderstandings, inaccuracies and dishonesties; moving past old bullshit and avoiding the creation of drama.

Work is about to consume me. I'll be alone in my office for the next 2 weeks as my co-workers tan on beaches thousands of miles from me and eachother. I'll be doing work for 4 in the coming weeks. INTENSE.

The light of the end of the tunnel is my OWN vacation that I'm looking forward to SO SO SO SO SO SO SO much. So much. So. Much. I fly to Montreal on Feb. 20 to visit my sister and hang w/my mama. There, I'll be seeing Animal Collective, AND AND AND Belle & Sebastian w/The New Pornographers(!!!). Holy Crap, huh? it only gets better. I go to Toronto for Canadian Music Week, a work conference involving shows and beer. How sad. The showcases havent been announced yet, but I know of one with Holy Fuck w/Shout Out Out Out...the icing on the cake is that instead of flying home on the 5th when the conference is done, I'm flying to Vancouver for 3 days and seeing (one of) MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BANDS EVER (srsly, ever), STEREOLAB.

Then I come home to work for the next 6 months straight, highlighted perhaps by a trip to San Diego in August for MaryBoo's wedding.

Life is funny sometimes...everything falls apart, just to fall back together again.

ps: esqjr.com updated with new shows!

Thanking the academy

I won't go into a huge list here - but I just want to say THANK YOU - to sooooo many people for their help on and before New Years' Eve. It was a fucking BLAST, to say the least...WAY too many people had WAY WAY too much fun, and it was all thanks to the hard work of lots and lots of people, including and not limited to: ALL the bands, ALL the staff of the Starlite Room, the peeps at Union Events and shitloads more.

YOU MADE MY NIGHT. THANKS!