Too hot to handle

It's SO hot out. So hot I can't sleep. It's getting late.

I'm loving summertime. Yesterday I drove all over the city, dropping shit off for work, postering, etc. I managed to get in some longboarding at the brand new skatepark in the northsiiiide, AND at the St. Albert park. Both = fun. I felt old though. have I mentioned it's my birthday soon?

I DJ'd tonight, again at some weird party. It was for this; a national high school film festival. They had me play in the theatre, where it was about 87 degrees celcius. Notice on the site how it's sponsored by milk? it always struck me as odd that a PRODUCT like milk, eggs, meat...all have represetnative organizations, touting their benefit. Wouldn't it be weird to be a 'milk guy', and constantly rad-up milk? Furthermore, whose interest is it in to double up the milk attack? They have CHEESE people and BUTTER people and CREAM people...lines drawn in fat (content), literally. I guess in the end, cows lose. I mean, win. Uh... Weird weird.


Bill Welychka was the host. He was a nice enough guy, but seemed...Unbelievable when he says things like, "boy, it's hot in here. I sure could go for a tall, cold glass of MILK." and, "hey kids, did you get your MILK SMOOTHIES outside? isn't it amazing how easy it is to make MILK smoothies at home?!"

he sounded like he should be on TV. oh, wait.

I'm thirsty.


I'll have some news for you all very soon.
Big tings afoot.

Take care of eachother.

Oh, and Listen to Nouvelle Vague.

Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool Opotamus?

Sometimes I'm reminded about what a tradgedy it is when comedians die young.




Mitch Hedberg (February 24, 1968 – March 29, 2005)

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I'm writing 'cause I feel I should. Because I haven't written about my trip yet; because random friends have recently told me that they actually read this, and are disappointed when I don't update; because I have been places and done things I probably should report on, or something.


Before I was hopping fences, becoming a temporary hockey fan and going hippy for the weekend, I was in PEI. What a neat place. I would post photos, but I've lost the cord for my camera. Soon soon. The actual land of PEI is gorgeous - rolling hills, nice ocean/bay views almost everywhere you go. I didn't meet a single person who wasn't exceptionally kind and generous and genuine. The shows I talked about earlier went well, the panels went well, it all ran smooth. Thank Liv. Being there gave me an idea about what it might be like to be somewhere else in work and life, shaking things up, having new...experiences. Not that I'm unhappy, but as Prince Buster once said, "Sometimes I sit back and I wonder"...

what else happened this month? Oh yeah, The Oilers. I must admit that I have a new appreciation for hockey, but I know it won't last. Not that I disrespect it, but unless something is ON THE LINE, I can't get that into sports. It's simply not in my blood. I also went and communed with my inner hippy this past weekend at North Country Fair - I think this makes 5 years straight for me. I like it, but I think I might have overdid the consumption this time. I'm still a wee woozy, and it's Tuesday. Speaking of Tuesday...today I DJ'd at my oddest locale yet. City Hall. It's true. Check it:


yep, I wore pink. I'm so manly.

It was for a reception for The NextGen Task Force Report presentation. The city paid to have this report on the next generation of Edmontonians, and how to make the city a "hip and vibrant" place to WANT to be. I sat on the advisory committee that brainstormed suggestions, some of which actually made it to paper. Check the link above for the official recommendations.

In music/workness, I'm stoked about some things I've been working on. I just confirmed two dates with M.Ward (July 22 - Calgary @ The Ironwood, July 24 - Winnipeg, WECC); I'm also doing a Do Make Say Think show in Calgary on Nov. 21st. There is so much in between now and then. My birthday is coming up, so is Shambhala.


I'm feeling so in love these days its making me dizzy.

Oh look, it's summer. Happy June 21st. I'm beaming, inside and out.

up/down, in/out

We walked the full perimeter, looking for the best way in. We found it, then went for a walk and talked about it.

We agreed that we needed an exit plan. We agreed to stick together. We were nervous, and agreed to go get a drink first.

We returned just after midnight, nerves fueled by beer & pool. I went over the fence first - it had been way too long since I'd done that. The scaffolding behind provided a stiffness to the fence that I hadn't counted on. It was easier than I expected, but once I was in, my heart started to race. I helped her over the fence, and as we crept around the side of the building, I started to get excited about what lay ahead. The target was an active construction site.

Ninjalicious repeats the Sierra Club mantra: "Take only photographs, leave only footprints."

We entered the building on the first floor and quickly found the half-built staircase, and using my cell phone as a flashlight, we tiptoed up to the second floor. It was SO dark, and it looked unsafe. I needed more light to see where I was going, so we went up further to the third floor. They were just starting to build the roof/4th floor, and the moonlight was creeping in through the slats in the ceiling.

We tiptoed ever-so gently towards the edge. The site splayed out below us, and we finally had a view of the security booth that had us so on-edge. We watched the windows for a good five minutes, and decided that it was a front - there was nobody watching us. Carefully avoiding the gaping elevator shaft, we wandered around, looking at the work-in-progress, avoiding puddles which would track our movement for us.

There was still a floor to explore. We walked slowly and carefully though support beams holding up freshly-built staircases, down, down, down to the basement. The roof was lower near the entrance, but it was the most complete floor by far. Lights hung from the room in long strings, and the walls were beginning to take shape. We walked to the far end where tall walls (of what will likely be a loading dock) towered above us. We'd done it. We'd seen it all.

We hung out in the basement for a while longer before letting ourselves out, in the same way we came in. As we made our hasty exit, we looked at each other with mutual pride, and in ourselves...

I won't look at the building the same way again.

Becephalus bouncing ball

Note: I wrote this bit last friday, but didn't have internet until today. I'll talk more about the fest itself later this week.
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The moon was like a slice of a mandarin orange as it hung low, hiding beneath wispy clouds over the Gulf of St.Lawrence. I listened to her talk about the project, why we’re here in the first place, and what to expect tomorrow. Expect cameras. Expect curious locals. Expect drunk teenagers with nothing better to do. Expect to have to boss dumb band members around (as per usual).

But I’m feeling out of my element here, like I’m not sure what’s right outside of my own…world. I’m in Charlottetown, PEI, helping Liv out on a project she and Jeremy have been working on for months called Stand East. Basically, it’s the radio show I’ve been loosely associated with over the last 6 or 7 years, CJSR’s Youth Menace. The event tomorrow kicks off a 2 day, 20-band mini-festival, spliced in with panel discussions surround the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child. I’m here in two capacities: as a stage manager, and as a delegate on said panels.

Need some context? Ok.

When I was a young and idealistic political science student, I was deeply involved in the protection and promotion of youth rights. Rewinding further, I met Liv back in high school, and she introduced me to (read: an incredibly intelligent, deeply committed, but completely crazy old man) Wallis Kendal, who ran a program called iHuman – in short, it has become a drop-in center/arts program for ‘youth at risk’, by providing art/music/dance/theatre space as a way of keeping kids off the streets, and out of trouble. When the group was founded, Wallis was interested in having us kids write a book about violence as we saw it. To me, son of hippy pacifist parents, victim of minor bullying in elementary school, violence was…unaffecting me. Then I met Regina, who was 16 and just got out of jail for beating a girl within an inch of her life with a baseball bat. I met Adam, a drug addict with a penchant for cutting himself. Barry, a FAS victim with an obsession with painting mountain scenes, despite never actually having been to the Rockies. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. We put aside our differences, and brought our experiences together and wrote the storyboard for an art/poetry/photography book working under the title of The Red Tear. Over the years I came to the iHuman studios, the book and project came together, fell apart, came together, fell apart. I left it in 2002, but not before I got involved in another aspect of this ‘youth-defense’ project, founding Youth Menace with the help of producer and youth worker Mark Cherrington.

As the founding host of Youth Menace, I interviewed over 100 youth in various stages of the child welfare or youth justice system. I talked to 12-year old hookers and 16-year old murderers, teenage mothers hooked on meth and bewildered children being charged with throwing a snowball at a passing car. The deal was that they were working off (part of or all of) a community service sentence by ‘volunteering’ to come onto the show and discuss the case (anonymously). Every show, we’d start off the same way, as it still does today. We’d play the clip from the film Network , where Peter Finch says,

“I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up, go to your window, open it, stick your head out and yell, “I’m MAD AS HELL, and I’m not going to take this anymore!””


Now, at risk of repeating myself, I’m often sent running to my blog to gripe about how my getting older is somehow paralyzing my ability to BE mad as hell about anything bigger than my own problems. I used to be such a bitter and angry young man, pissed off at how the government acts undemocratically every fucking day, about how youth are shit on by all levels of society. I went to protests, wrote letters, got involved, read up on the anarchists, the Marxists, took the hardest classes I could, delving into the deepest of political theory and thought. In retrospect, I think I was in search of an answer to the question of what made me care? WHY did I think it was important to stand up for the voiceless, when it was simply easier to ignore them? HOW did I think that reading and talking and reading and talking was going to change anything?

School didn’t give me the answers I was looking for. I think I’m here, now, still seeking out the solution. It’s 2:30 in the morning, I’m thousands of miles from home and I’m sitting up in bed after my walk to the ocean with Liv, my best pal and confidante. We talked about what’s keeping HER involved, why it matters, and where she wants to take it…but I’m still without answers of my own. It’s something I’ve been trying to reconcile this past year of being 25 years old; trying to assemble the pieces of my past into a salient and complete puzzle whereby I have a frame of reference for where I should take my passions and interests into the next 5 or 10 years of my life. Where I’ll live. Who with. Will I be working? Traveling? Writing? Doing radio? Promoting shows? The options are endless, yet I feel…limited, or something.

It reminds me of when I was a child, sitting at the dinner table across from my late dad, at the end of dinner when I still had food on my plate, he’d look at me and say “your eyes are bigger than your stomach”; it meant that my ambition had got the better of me. I fear that happening in my life SO much. I need to keep focused on the future, while never forgetting the past. I’ve learned too much and worked too hard to start fresh, which is suddenly tempting these days.

Is anyone else feeling all tumultuous inside?


Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

-Shakespeare, The Tempest