THERE'S NOTHING LEFT BUT THE TRIARII

Chagrin

2009-12-31T14:47:00.005-05:00

All night I dreamt of my home,

of the roads that tangle and weave, confused

until they strangle and suffocate

strung out and bloody,

cul-de-sac.

It's over, tonight I'll kill off Kowalski.

When you wake up tomorrow, I'll be on my way to London, Ontario.

My sojourn in this here fair city is over.

An ode to this last year - records with high therapeutic capabilities: (one note - the universe has no centre and edges, as a result lists and the numbering systems are inherently arbitrary, yet following in a tradition of human affliction for segregation, there shall be an outer core, and then the seed; so here is a list without numbers)

The Outer Core

baroness - blue record

Progressions with variation, an album rich with southern drawl and heavy handed in doling out offerings to the riff.

hope sandoval and the warm inventions - through the devil softly

Never louder than a whisper/ Never so piercing.

timber timbre - s/t

Slow, waltzing, and courting death at every corner. The lyrics stand, imposing in the foreground.

atlas sound - logos

Fell asleep to the sound of water gurgling underneath my window.

jodis - secret house

Disjunct drums allow the lyrics to build like a prayer - my mind seeps into memories of self-flagellation for the third imam.

raekwon - only built 4 cuban linx II

A little scale, some baggies, and a mean ratchet.

evening hymns - spirit guides

"My life is now built upon wheels/ which means I'm always moving on/ through the forest in out to the desert/ where my head will finally clear."

---

The Seed

animal collective - merriweather post pavillion

mastodon - crack the skye

isis - wavering radiant

Don't look back, press on.

Deluge

2009-10-19T20:59:00.003-04:00

Separate reason from your thoughts. Allow them, room.

I remember the warmth of our carpets, against the hardwood floors – so Scandinavian and sterile – in the middle of January or maybe February. The sky was so grandiose. Large, and occupying so much of the canvas. In Iran, there are buildings, tall, obtuse, and all set at different angles, against a backdrop of mountains. They do the talking, they’ve seen it all, and they occupy your eyes. Sure the azure sky is there, on a good windy day. But, it’s the mountains, jagged, changing colours with season that command your synapses.

I related this to my mother. She agreed. The sky held sway over low-lying coniferous trees.

Acres of blue/grey,

Thick line of green,

And then ice.

So was the tripartite division of finnish landscape.

And then this:

An object that

tells of the loss, destruction, disappearance of objects. Does not speak of itself. Tells of others. Will it include them?

Deluge.

Jasper Johns

(art as idea as idea)

photocopy on wood

HaRishon

2009-10-15T22:34:00.005-04:00

I pushed the bar of the fire door and fell into: the street, pulsing and groaning, dragging its wretched, cracked face like the furrowed worker, fluorescent jumpsuit, who stands behind, manning the atavistic street gouger, spitting old asphalt into the rear of a truck, biting and chewing, large mechanical mastication, to remove, peel the old offensive scalp of Madison Avenue.

“The cycle starts anew, lets start with 6:9 Bereshit, 1:1 Genesis...” Rabbi Richman utters, as his grizzled beard capers and cavorts after each syllable that is spoken.

HaRishon, stirred envy and admiration amongst the angels; but he was rooted, rooted in something tangible, physical and sexual. And thus his superiority.

Lets return to the cyclical revolutions of "street dermatology"!

But before, I must digress (prudently, as digressions often assume their own vitality and consequently, hubris.)

Ah... well at some other point, I pushed another door and fell out again, this time onto a bustling Bloor. With one fell swoop, I amassed the pedestrians and hurled 'em across the street, yes I changed the colours, red to green. See? More cycles.

Yes. I go up to my bicycle. Me all wrapped up and holding something with cinnamon, providing succor for my parched palate and respite from the iron taste of my tongue.

Whenever someone asks: “Hey this is really good. What’s in it?” the answer invariably is: Cinnamon.

Cinnamon and Caramel. Woooh. As I bend my knees and reach for my combo bike lock, I turn and see him, jump up and perch on the hood of his truck. He's got a toque on, gloves holding a cup of joe. His day is over. I turn to him.

Long day?

- Uh, yeah, man. Been working at it all day.

Shit, well... what you got back there?

-Huh? Oh yeah... I'm in the scrap metal business.

I twist my neck to see jagged and corrugated metal, huddled in the back, looking dark and hopeless. Like shit-out-of-luck mexicans, waiting for the promises of mañana and the next white farmer’s fields that might offer some work for wandering labourers.

How’s that going?

- Well apart from the Waiting… I guess it’s OK.

The waiting?

- The Waiting. We’re waiting for… You don’t understand we are operating at the limit Man! (He was getting worked up. Paused, got off the hood, and addressed me, holding the brown cup to his mouth, like a microphone.) We’re hitting the pavement ‘fore the cracka dawn. (Arms akimbo, twitching his right hand – free of coffee and gesturing like a historian at the podium). My brother, I know the ‘alf of us, “scraps” are shootin’, basing or snorting sulphate. All hours behind that black wheel can do things to a man. Fried, man, and spat out (like old asphalt obviously). We’re operating at a diff’rent level of traffic man. We gotta mutate to survive.

Wow. Uh man… shit... I didn’t realize.

- *chuckles*. So you working at this coffeeshop, aren’t ya? How’s that?

Uh…(mumbles something about lower lumbar pains from standing up all day)…shit man. What can I say.

- Say you ain’t scrappin’ for metal and thank the lord!

Amen!

// Understand the wait, and persuade yourself that you’re merely waiting to turn the corner, from this odd job, onto the real thing, you’re coming up to that juncture, where:

“The Imminent meets the Immanent”

Dark Pools

2009-07-20T01:45:00.002-04:00

Excerpt, slipped out of print:

"Charming were the thoughts that pierced my heart. My mind had bred them. Apparelled so becomingly, they danced along and scarcely touched the ground. A ball, a fashionable ball. In pairs they went gliding through the moonlight. Cowardice with Courage, Lies with Uprightness, Wretchedness with Strength, Malice with Valour. Only Reason and Understanding did not join in the dance. Reason and Understanding were wretchedly drunk. They had lost their virtue. But the dance went on, and I listened to the music.

A song of the streets - the song of filth.

According to language, race and nation, we set ourselves apart, and each pile up our filth to overtower the other's.

Filth - for manure - for the earth, so that something may grow. Not flowers, but rather bread. Yes! But do not worship it - the filth of which you've eaten. "

Heat

2009-07-10T21:30:00.002-04:00

When I was seven, I stared at my fair and fleshy palms, red

and today turned towards the kitchen, flooded with light - the satiety box - and from within the cavernous depths of the cupboard directly below the sink, sprawled a grand, rotund belly, Black. I hovered over, still staring at my palms, red in the sun. He was beyond comprehension, Old Brain, wisdom that transcends books - the kind his young daughter of a second wife, does not have - jabbering away. Bolts, washers, and a torch littered the cheap tile floor. He's let himself go, volumes of fat spill over his belt buckle as he turns the screw. Reebok basketball shoes, old, flail in the sunlight. I stand over, staring at the black pepper grinder.

Mr. C was fixing the faucet, when his digestive tract got caught, the heat lulled the great gut: an extension of the kitchen pipings it became. I bent over the sink, and turned on the tap. Behold, his breakfast gushed out first, then his innards, running red and black. I gasped in excitement, biting my tongue.

Now, I am cloaked in a white apron. Hovering, floating over, as the gut-pipe, convulses in spasms of fear, four hundred years, blood wells up and over, covering my face, like a triumphant warrior, I bring down my foot on his body, stamping out his dignity. Forever a slave.

"How long will the trial last?"

Pinchas was a good Zealot

2009-07-06T01:55:00.002-04:00

Zealotry, must be wielded to destroy the sin. You can not, and shall not attempt to destroy the sinners - the sin shall rise again, as the sun upon the eastern shore - and the harlots gaze is ever-vengeful, when it falls upon her assailants, whom yesterday shared her insidious bed.

But,

stand upright in the assembly, Pinchas, your righteous spear shall drive into the heart of this licentious cavorting that is debasing your tribe.

Raise your arm up in antiquated pathos! Higher! Strike, and turn the tide of my wrath that would undoubtedly consume your people.

This fille de joie shall make a ripe sacrifice.

Your tenure on this earth has been granted a new lease.

"Therefore say: behold, I have given him my covenant of peace."

Poison Pier

2009-05-17T20:12:00.004-04:00

walk from cherry street to poison pier - reads a poor boy's strip of paper.

Polson/Poison

A pier, a-ppear-s,

ah-peer through the side window;

//all off the bus!

hesitation, this isn't our stop? but the people have decided to get off. peers decide for peers. a man, "these people must not be from around here... don't know how to get off a bus". "oh that's an insult" sez a boy,

indignant.

//foreshadowing

walking in groups to polson pier, past large cylinders of industry - the cranks and shafts beat out a rhythm, very "fireworks"-esque - wonder if SENSUOUS-X in the apparel acid-wash digs, hears it?

//go-karts

past the go-karts, not long left now. picks up the pace, now the line-up, now strangers eye your passport, YES, the date IS at the bottom. two looks down, one look at yer face. all good. past the gates, around the corner into the venue. people milling around. that tea is brewing in yer stomach kid, head to the room marked MENS. pissing....... pissing..................................piss...sss......... - somebody opens the door - AH - siiiiingggg

// ambient drones for a room-full of drunks and heads

standing near the bar was never a good idea, but don't want to hassle the kids standing so stoic. the money clinks and dudes with drinks make their way for friends engulfed in a sea......of people..... "PEOPLE PASS THE POT!!!! WHERE'S THE POT??? I SEE IT THERE..AND THERE....man everyone's blazing, hey buddy c'mon pass us the bone, we'll pay you five bucks!"

// alvy singer vs. the guy who called fellini "indulgent" in the lineup for the sorrow and the pity

"see spinoza writes stuff that is all about angst about philosophy -- see all the dudes who are in philosophy but don't like all the crap...like spinoza, coz he cuts through all the shit", booms BIG-BLAZE, as he leans into BAT-FOR-LASHES' ear. she unknowingly nods her bangs and agrees with big-blaze as he raves on and on like he's actually read Spinoza. he dons an anti-flag shirt and blazer over that... he will soon light up a bone and pass it to grateful bat-for-lashes. he booms and booms... louder and louder over the drones of GROUPER on stage, right into my poor ear. Why? Come on man.

"hey you should ask yer swedish profs about that!!". "oh I'm not in school anymore". way to kill it girl. get the bone 'n get outta blazer country!

//BODY-ODOUR and KATE-THE-BAIT

he's big, he stinks, and breaks the unspoken equilibrium of the crowd at the start of the collective's set - to stand and perceive, most of the crowd are still, not digging the vibrations - he's bouncing from side to side and grabs kate to sing-along into her ear. they crash and dance, stepping on my feet, I care not, for at that moment I am all into my zen-out-this-crowd vibe. I have cancelled all the bad trips and negative vibes.. head swimming around, tapping my feet - hear fireworks coming four minutes before the rest of the crowd applaud in appreciation. this is brilliant. they are playing panda bear material now! ah jesus! but when they get into "my girls", ah the Blazers that read about it in eyeweekly or heard it thinking they heard the next mgmt single, start dancing and jumping...their negative vibes and jabber throughout the experimental tunes gather now into a rally cry. AND NOW BODY-ODOUR RAISES HIS BLAZERED ARM FLAILING IT AROUND LIKE A FLAG - pumping it up and down and grabbing kate-the-bait. YES!!! I KNOW THIS SONG! right on... oh no! they crash into BAT-FOR-LASHES! she is perturbed and turns a hateful stare at body-odour and demands that they not disturb her RIGHT TO STAND STILL AT A MUSIC CONCERT! she will not give into the vibrations. she remains staunchly, firmly rooted in the ground. standing still. striking a pose like Franco and Mussolini. no dancing around her!

//visuals and escape

did I speak of the visuals? oh how rude of me! well the visuals were fantastic - straight out of the acid tests in Watts - after the blacks burnt it down and the whites partied on with the aid of kool-aid. there was a great big white inflatable ball o'erhead the collective and projections were cast onto this great white ball. magnificent! they screamed and gave birth to new beasts out of old songs - no album versions here - six minute intros into lion in a coma! brilliant! YES, YES!

but then the lights went and they went off stage. i did not stay for the encore. yes the music was brilliant but the cauldron of decrepit, drunk, hollows was unbearable. out of the fire... and into the blissful chills!

//clank-a-clank and stop!

I walked towards the cylinders of industry once more...they were still beating out that fireworks beat, UNTIL MY FEET WERE ALLIGNED WITH THEIR BASE... AND STOP! they stopped, as if they knew and were saying... "hey friend, our entertainment for the night is over, follow yer trip elsewhere, but you must carry on with the good vibes".

//paranoid trips

now I feel released and euphoric. I pick up the beat to brothersport and rap-it-on for a while, underneath bridges and highways. now I pick up the chatter from before but louder, since there is not a living soul around 'cept for the fools in their iron carriages on the highway! rap-a-rap... a-pier-appear-a-peer.. bop-a-top...cop-a-piss-a-piss-a-piss-a-piss-a-piss-aaaaaaaaaaaaah scream into the night, and WHY NOT?! I am in full merry mode, as-if CHIEF-CHINOOK was here. now I look across the road, there is a breach in the railing, I will jump onto the 6-lane highway and go across. no cars.. LETS GO!! ACROSS - FURTHER - ADRENALINE! now that I'm on the other side, I realize there is no sidewalk, just gravel! Shitters. That's OK! I jump around nimbly, taut, agile and keep on rappin' away nonsensical collective tunes. derivations of brothersport. oh----

shit!

is that a bum, wrapped completely in a sleeping bag under the highway?? I cannot see a face, but the rappin' stops and I continue on faster. SHIT! I cannot be so reckless! needles? there could be aids-needles anywhere in this silvery gravel ... OK, jump around like you're on hot embers!

past the gravel patch of paranoia.

//MOOO-NDANE creeps back in!

a long walk to union from poison pier this has been, but the warm, loving embrace of the underground metro awaits. methinkst to my myself... hmm that concert would come in at three k's, with the newly improved système kowalski. brilliant music weighed down by characters such as big-blaze, body-odour, kate-the-bait... bad-trips-folk. zen allowed me to overcome: "fireworks" was dazzling live, to respond to an inquisitive text from trois-rivieres.

//up to bloor

hot chocolate sipping, PLAID-CLAD waits for his buds - it's a pub-crawl on bloor - yes! we have brought fish.

THIS HAS BEEN A KOWALSKI FEATURE PRESENTATION

Fauna of Central Toronto

2009-04-30T22:55:00.007-04:00

The "cringe-reflex". A contortion of the face and sudden, involuntary collapse of the upper eyelid. Followed by a convulsive one-eighty jerk of the neck. A feeling of repulsion lingers.

I am walking home past the usual cantankerous old white folk. The sun is on the demise. See the subway sign, and my eyes fall upon the bench just outside the automatic doors.

Moby Dick lies on said bench. Moby, the she-bum; naked belly basking in the last, unfortunate rays of sunlight. She is the matron bum of the Spadina-Bloor intersection. Layers upon layers of fat, coalescing into one planetary formation. This april evening she was trying desperately - well, effortlessly - to drive her gut temperature up to an optimum. She knows it will rain soon.

Please, I do not intend to make light of this situation, but let me go on. Her pillar-like legs are calloused and purple, from annual exposure to the harshest of winters. I cannot begin to fathom her tragic existence, but I see it, see her, Moby; the guy with the big trench coat and boots, with the strange gait; the black bum with the headphones and shopping bags; the younger girl who reads books outside scotia, asking for money in return for "good karma", etc. There is a large and seemingly growing homeless fauna, with new species erupting everyday from the concrete and asphalt expanses of Toronto, pregnant with the seeds of misfortune and injustice. Crumbling and decomposing, these neanderthals seek safety and warmth.

Rummaging through our green bins: Procyon lotor and Homo Sapien. Post-modern competition. Darwin never saw this coming.

Left-field Tapes vs. Persistent Vacuum

2009-04-23T02:16:00.003-04:00

Time and Space sprawl before me, like the bird I ran over the other day. A red-breasted robin of unparalleled beauty.

My room, the chamber, where entropy ran supreme, is now reduced to minimalist sterility. An obvious reflection of the empty cassettes I gather. One day they shall complete the metamorphosis into an experimental tape collage. I will capture the pulsating, throbbing night out on Spadina, as it seeps in through the open windows of my alcove. Endless possibilities, dashed by the vast, expansive time that I have ahead of me. My brain yearns for the temporal confines of deadlines and exams.

My proposed self-renewing left-field musical experimentation is experiencing Zimbabwean stagflation. Thoughts have grown independent. I can no longer bare the teratology of my being as it separates like oil from water, rejecting my sincere proposal to supplant this room into the burgeoning cassette recording network. Dim, dim, dim.

I shall resign this dim mind to a dwindling and atrophied existence.

Shrine-building Nation

2009-04-23T01:22:00.008-04:00

We took out a war film, cut out the words, and let the sound run on.

The men, their bodies, became extensions of the sound; migrant workers from all reaches of the empire, who neither understood each other, nor spoke the same tongue. The aural detritus of bomb blasts and artillery fire, kept the wheelbarrows rolling and the hammers smashing and clattering in quick succession. Images of mushroom clouds loomed overhead. The ukrainian workers, belted with passion. A high-strung bunch, wishing they had stayed home with their mothers. Any distractions were pulverized once their ears were adequately saturated with war drums. They worked like negroes!

One million hands are ready today. This week they are tasked with chiseling her gilded lips. An artist's rendition is blown up on a large screen in the middle of the gardens. Every meal is served under her panopticon gaze.

No incantations and no mantra, She only demands mute exaltation. Our lips do not part in reverence, our work here is a silent wind-born hymn, rising and swirling with every addition, floating across burnt-out fields and brackish waters, up to the purple mountains.

I kneel before the deity; her eyes and lips have that narcotized tranquility of assured omniscience.

Sanitation

2009-04-22T00:00:00.006-04:00

Depression struck me low and hard that night. I was perched on my bed, with a glow in my face and in the center of that source a news emerged that had me floored, desperate for the destitute and other miserable beings on Bloor, I fled.

There is no treatment for psychosis

Flight, endless flight!

Began, down Madison

Past a line of cabs: a funeral procession

They will absolve the empty puppets

Thrown up, from the belly of a maddened beast

A carnivore pouring out vomit onto the sidewalk,

Strike out the dirge

Lament for the years of folly, the lager, and grub

Spent, spent, spent is the cow of enlightenment; her poor tits have gone dry.

A negation of everything living and spontaneous

The human being moved out long ago,

The rigid doll faces, the angry lout are here to stay.

And in all this madness, I turn and look at old Tengye Ling, across the street from the Madison Pub. I ask him for an explanation. How? How does he get up in the morning after the brawls and vanities of the night across the street, to wash his face and begin the Puja? Your face, it is so, placid and attentive. How?

"Quiet is a state of mind", he replies, pensively. No! I cry he is not in deep thought! This man, Tengye, he is clearly doped on Rohypnol! Sedatives! YES YES!

Elms on Lowther

2009-04-16T00:46:00.004-04:00

The white van parked outside their newly renovated Victorian house reads, "Hartt & Son - Certified Technician & Chimney Sweep".

She opens the door for him - a pause at the threshold - reaches for his hand and leads him past her lazy-eyed brother, who is engrossed with his Nintendo DS. Up the stairs they go. Last wednesday it was the Pizza Pizza delivery guy, today it's Kevin. Her mother is out enjoying the all-inclusive spa package her husband got her to quell suspicions of an affair with the realtor.

As Kevin unbuttons his coveralls, Judie dreams of the day when the guy on the fifth row of her thursday class, "Introduction to Frederico Fellini", finally turns around to ask her for notes on La Dolca Vita. She would comply graciously with a flutter of her long eyelashes. Then maybe after the ritual coffee date, she could ask him to return a favour, and walk her to 15 Lowther. They would walk through the Huron street playground, where they would stop for fifteen pristine minutes; Judie would take out D.H. Lawrence - in the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark elm tree - and read it to him.

O' but till the day that these dreams come to fruition, she will carry on in anonymity, for she does not know his name, and him hers. She will slip out every thursday before the end of class, during the 10 minute break, and walk over to the Manulife Centre, pay 11 bucks, and watch the images flicker across the great wide screen, in solitude.

She will heave a great sigh as her lungs, like the trees, fill with air.

Vomitus

2009-04-08T01:56:00.004-04:00

The shifting tectonics of my thoughts are dangerous tonight.

It all finally snapped the other day, when I stepped out of his truck onto the cold asphalt at the corner of Lippincott and something. She greets my approach with an accusing stare. I have something written down on a napkin that I intend to hand over to her, tonight before I leave for FSJ - the last laugh.

I yell, "you're looking radiant today, love".

She responds angrily, channelling all her banner-wielding female empowerment, "all objects in the universe radiate energy. "

"Is that right, well let's see to it that you're chock-full of the stuff. C'mon I know a place; they serve freshly squeezed OJ and right sizzlin' bacon."

"NO! I'm not going to hear you indulge about the fields and self-apathy. I'm going with the girls to Donna LaFramboise's book signing, over on the eastend."

"There will be plenty more opportunities to trade tips on growing out your armpits... [trail of low-brow humor].."

"You are INSUFFERABLE!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaah, insufferable! That's why I love you."

"That's it, I won't be buttered over by you. I lost you a long time ago. Now I won't render myself useless and sit around moping, because you have decided to up and leave us."

"I'm glad, your fatalism will keep you company, while I'm gone."

She turns around, but before she does, I grab her and we embrace. I feel her tears soak right through my denim lapel. I decide to hold onto the napkin. We separate.

Saturated

2009-04-07T17:25:00.004-04:00

My nose and sinuses have had enough! They have been raped and annexed pugnaciously, by the putrid smell of fried burgers, again and again. How can I come home after witnessing my team throw away a lead in the 89th minute, at home, when my house is infested with bastards devoid of culinary skills? Rancid... rancid fucks!

Last Night

2009-03-31T23:41:00.003-04:00

Last night sleep refused me entrance into its anodynic domain with increasing resistance. Intermittently I would turn on my side, reach for my bedside lamp, turn it on, and read Headbirths. The Turks and Asians are milling around in the Führer's room. They are setting up their Döner Kebab stalls and selling six tees for ten marks, respectively; as Helmut Schimdt pontificates on the virtues of the pill. The non-practicing Lutheran has taken over the pulpit and the altar will remain, barren.

They keep a cat and still have no child.

They give birth to Athene at the crest of their skull. They shall nurture her. An immaculate conception.

Why push little Karl or Gerhard out of the poor unsuspecting cervix, when Germany is severed at the head by ideologies: communism and capitalism. No, once conceived, let them fall off the precipice, desperately grasping at the inhospitable uterus. They shall all meet again in the Rheine.

Thirty years later, give or take, I sit here contemplating the rise of Jewry, and how Europeans are still grappling with their sterile wombs after all these years. Take a pill, once more, vanquish this thought, take these palpitations and allow me to sleep.

Auto De Fé

2009-03-24T23:28:00.004-04:00

When 'me' became rapt in my immediate carnal desires, and myself was the end of those desires, the raison d'être; I sought and intended to exhaust my flesh.

To rid myself of these demons. In the process I pierced my eyes, wore gloves over my hands, stuffed my ears with bright orange ear plugs, and held my nose with my right hand. My tongue I held too dear. Instead I walked with a pair of black sunglasses over my bandaged eyes, holding a cane and a top hat to boot, and I walked to the nearest tea house. There I sat down at the furthest table from the entrance. I asked my good friend, the waitress, Luise Dorothea, a large stout lady of Bavarian descent, to bring me a cupful of earl grey tea every hour on the strike of the grand clock behind her ancient Samovar.

I asked her to describe the tea with her powers of perception that I had so willfully forsaken. She said the tremor over the surface of the tea was like that of a great stygian lake, fuming with prehistoric fumes that would surely scald and incense my tongue. I nodded. She knew that 'it' had started. I was undergoing the last procedure.

You see, Dorothea had been the ear to many of my musings and eyes to the chalk sketches in my large notebook. She fought it first, tried to persuade me, but she learnt very soon that "my flesh had to go." My heart could not bear to beat underneath all this sin. It had to be shed.

My cerebral hemispheres, they alone were capable of instructing me. I yielded to them.

Frozen

2009-03-03T01:06:00.008-05:00

On my way home: my muscles and sinews cling to my bones longingly, dreaming of summer days sprawled on the beach, in the good company of Les chemins de la liberté, my body bare to the radiant features of Apollo, except for my groins and face, the latter cool and shaded by the undulant brim of an emerald green bucket hat.

I walk past a white land-owner as he waits in the glacial conditions; waiting patiently to deny the bare grass, the warmth of his dog's shit. He will place the polyethylene bag carefully over his hands, nonchalantly thrusting his hand to grasp the newly produced excrement of this overtly fecund, recto-anal canal. I see four separate pieces of shit aligned like the stars on the curbside grass. The dog moves along a bit, not caring to inspect the colour or shape of his production, but to sniff the grass further ahead. Likely to spare himself the stench of a close encounter. This man, however, willingly stoops to clasp the brown manifestations of digestion. Shit, dog shit on the ground, yet he will laugh and scorn at the immigrants who wash their own ass instead of wiping it. He will sit around his poker table, enjoying his brew, speaking of his "paki friend" who uses water to clean his ass.

I walk along, making my observations, moving hurriedly past Cody, outside the frathouse. I move swiftly to the sound of an orchestra, raging in my ears. Here's Mike, he's got a job, he drives a car manufactured in Canada. He stands, slothful, outside the rehabilitation centre for alcoholics. His wife is not with him. She pays a man. Enters a room, decorated to resemble a Hindu temple, as accurately as it can be perceived on Queen street. She's wearing her tight-fitting yoga pants, purchased on Bloor. Now she's doing the upside down dog, and learning the eight pillars of Ashtanga, from the Swami. Swami, goes and takes a bathroom break, as he charges Mike's wife 30 dollars an hour. Swami now washes his ass with water.

I look at Mike, and then move along, still swaying to the voices and instruments in my head.

To Marcel Duchamp

2009-02-19T22:22:00.006-05:00

18th of March, 79

//page 1

I slipped the newspaper clipping from yesterday's Le Monde, into the pocket of my blue thrift-store blazer.

DEPARTURE from Marseilles in a violent wind.

I am trying to leave my years of devotion to gospel teachings. I am in barbaric pursuit of the girl sitting beside me, clad in a soft, airy red dress. We will spend our days along the coastline, subsisting on her trust fund. Absorbing Sartre and Gide.

No! No money for records! She loves swing and she loves chanson. She has an ear for the blues and tears for algerian folk. She will spend all our money on polyvinyl chloride. My stomach begs her to eke out our existence on the coast, 'til our blue fiat reaches the cobblestones of old Milan.

The sun is choleric and offers no respite to my mounting qualms, perspiring onto my poor, weary forehead. We drive into a local ESSO. I walk into the magasin (store) to buy a pack of marlboro reds. As he swipes the black and white code, I tinker with a cassette rack full of "essentials": essential mod, essential elvis, essential bop...etc. Meanwhile the guy is waiting for me to pay up. He has silky long hair, flowing down onto his blue esso collared shirt, concealing a purple tie-die tee underneath. This guy must know time. Maybe he can afford me some advice on my current folly; does my destiny meander with a red dress in Milan? He sways from side to side to a tune, uncomfortably self-conscious of my burning gaze. Most people must walk right past him. But this kid, and he's just a kid in his early twenties, he's adding some momentum to the turbulence in my carotid artery, shooting up to my brain. I almost crush the pack in my palm, with a sudden pang of acid distrust. I place five francs on the counter and run out .

Calm, Fervour

2009-02-08T16:19:00.003-05:00

I walk her to the subway wherefrom she came. I was only going out to get some air... only going out to come back in.

Great large murky puddles fill this road,

Great large blue skies fill the dome above,

I whistle the tune to a loney, dear song.

Life is beautiful.

Oh, why have you not understood that all happiness is a chance encounter and at every moment stands beside you like a beggar by the roadside.

It's Not Me, It's You

2009-02-02T18:19:00.003-05:00

A phone goes off with a cheery ringer, in the middle of an embryology lecture. Prof turns around with a smile, "better pick that up, could be your dealer!"

Being an older citizen, he must've had an acid lapse and reminisced back on the 60's when he would drive up clad in leather on his bike, up to the intersection of Huron and Bloor: the drug haven of the north (before they were shut down, dragged out, beaten dead into a petrified stone edifice, only for Uxbridge to become the heir to their throne). Yes thats right, thanks to a good linkster provided by an avid reader of this blog, I've been made aware of the dark history that surrounds my neighbourhood and the University.

With a little research I found out that Burroughs wrote the script to a Junky's Christmas, right here. In fact, his dealer was a grad student in the Dept. of Anatomy! It all comes together.

Two days from now, they're going to paint a new building-length advertisement along the side of the rochdale project, now named after a dead senator, who was in cahoots with the drug trade and was integral in committing canadians to a north atlantic treaty of infamy.

I'm not a fan of this new Lily Allen record. I need a new teapot! Damnit.

Hazy Days

2009-01-08T22:37:00.004-05:00

Plants have integrity too, he says!

When confronted with harsh iniquity, oppressive heat, they transiently produce a small little fucker of a molecule, a four carbon chain bastard that exited his mother's womb abruptly, prematurely and was christened, Isoprene. So this spade... beset on all sides with a glut of siblings, lodges himself, perhaps for a couple of hours in the lipid bilayer of the leaves of... say Aspen, for the sake of integrity.

But when the heat subsides, when all fear is gone, what do you do with this spawn of adulterous copulation? It evaporates profusely from the leaves of the said tree, no longer of use, dissipating into the flowing cosmos. Blue haze from this congregation of Isoprene brotherhood, give jagged rocks, their name: Blue-Ridge Mountains.

Ah recalled in mah infinite solitude, a lonely molecule, ripped from mah berth, the words of the prophet Isaiah:

But draw near hither, ye child of the sorceress,

the seed of the adulterer and the whore.

Against whom do ye sport yourself?

Against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue?

Are ye not a child of transgression, a seed of falsehood?

Add These To Your Jukebox

2009-01-03T16:06:00.008-05:00

In the year 2008, Cannibals ransacked Fort Knox; tales of their pillages were broadcasted on flatscreen, in high definition and on Sharp TVs.

I witnessed from a safe distance, as the tumultous waters rose higher, I witnessed the turn of the screw...

...I waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to me in the evening...

in its beak it held a string attached to a basket, containing no more than 10 records. I retired to my study, and played these tunes on my old Kenwood stereo receiver (KR-7600, with wood casing).

The songs that I heard, offered some respite to my visions of post-pre-apocalyptic carnage. The ten records are as follows:

10 - GZA/Genius - Pro Tools:

The perfect soundtrack to the Way of the Samurai. Imagine black assassins with full fro's, dressed in black robes, meditating inevitable death.

9 - Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes:

Heard it in the summer, envisioned today: nursing a cup full of the maddie mocha and peering out of my window, onto snow-draped landscapes.

8 - Bison B.C. - Quiet Earth:

Local (Canadian) gnarlsters dream up visions of an earthbound mammoth, and its heavy!

7 - Genghis Tron - Board up the House:

They whipped us in the face with their brutal blend of metal, affectionately known as cybergrind.

6 - Boris - Smile:

Cult Japanese psych metal gods, dressed in leather pants and silky shirts, with double-neck guitars and a gong, no seriously. Best live act of this god forsaken year.

5 - Gojira - The Way of All Flesh:

French metal never tasted better, the addition of Randy Blythe (LoG) was the "fancy sauce" to my french fries. Fuck the naysayers... I'm going to join in with the earth/life mantra.

4 - Dungen - Four

Their music is the furthest thing from the symmetry of their artwork. I hope Ikea catches onto their buzz and names a chair or a shelf after them.

3 - The Mars Volta - Bedlam in Goliath

Five songs on in I felt a miscarriage coming

2 - Grails - Doomsdayer's Holiday

Pictures worth a thousand drones? yes. Imagine a tibetan monk, one minute in absolute serenity, the next being chased by a half wolf/half topless woman riding a boar. I remember purchasing this at soundscapes, walking all the way home, and listening to it, sipping on Al-Wazaah tea, with dale sprawled on the floor on his towel...totally spaced out.

1 - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Chanting incantations, guru-ing down the streets, juxtaposing a poor fella who never asked to be brought back from the dead with New York bordellos...

Here comes Alina with two black eyes, she's given herself a transfusion

She's filled herself with panda blood to avoid all the confusion...

and its getting strange in here

Yeah its getting stranger every year!

Outskirts of Town

2008-12-15T01:00:00.002-05:00

Enter several ROADSWEEPERS, pushing their carts. They sing in unison:

The wise man sleeps on a bed of wool,

The lazy man sleeps on a bed of feathers.

The rheumatic sleeps on wood,

And the rogue on a pretty girl's breasts.

If I were a worker at a Ferromanganese Plant just outside of Brescia in Italy, I would have Parkinson's by now. Instead I have lower-lombar pains that I drown in Tylenol, assuming postures only rivaled by the most self-conscious, vegan, steven and chris-watching, homosexuals.

Calamity James

2008-12-05T02:07:00.007-05:00

You've all probably seen it by now... "Calamity James" has struck again. The lad just doesn't do himself any justice, with these silly mistakes. How is Capello expected to stick with him, when he pulls off performances as willy wonky and ghastly as this spectacle against Wolfsburg? and you all know what I'm talking about, he's done it time and time again. He's been sterling between the sticks all season and then... good lord... who was he passing the bloody thing to?

"Porous Portsmouth Crash Out of UEFA" reads the headlines now... the kids aren't alright. You haven't done Tony Adams a whole lot of good now, have you James? He'll be the next one to get the hammer.

Oh and Big Sam's got a shoe-in at the proverbial door at Sunderland? Keano couldn't handle it.. even after months of sporting that horrendous beard! Ferguson throws in his weight behind Ince, eh...didn't see him do that for good ol' keano?

17 dogs tried to track us down

2008-12-01T23:50:00.003-05:00

"1938, he was 27. At that time, the Blacks often died beaten by the Whites."

Seasick Steve picked up a beat guitar and assembled / deconstructed his ragged persona, under bridges and under the noses of the Whites. He's a white, he's American. He was a hobo, living in France, spewing out the blues that comes naturally to those with fervour of the heart and leaky shoes. He bled it out for frenchmen, wearing white pants, and rosied up cheeks, from too much wine and too little discretion; thinking to themselves who is this ragged yank, how come he's got soul, and should I dispense with a euro?

...though we all wish to feed on certainties,

few things are certain,

but one thing is clear, blues saves lives, and ragged old dharma bums once laid out to dry, hitching train rides with ol' moriarty, can earn a dime or two on forgiving parisian streets.

Spontaneous Prose

2008-11-28T02:51:00.004-05:00

I was at the adult theater with five guys,

we were watching as they huddled around her on the large projected image,

and then "jamaican five" whispers in my ear, hey you wanna some herb?

so i take a hit and the characters in this 70s porno jump straight at me, the suckers were all around me with their cocks and muff.

and then i climaxed

resulting in this... [points at a stain on his corduroys]

now in my post-orgasmic paranoia i usher the russian thugs with their cocks and the concubines with their hairy muff back into the tele, i don't know how they got out!

jamaican five asks me if i want to take another hit, i say, no man no, hell no, marijuana is a hell of a drug

i'm on my way out of this joint and the watchman spots me out with his flashlight,

hey there feller i think i saw you committing some illicit actions in our backroom there.

he looks at the giant oil spill-like stain on my cords,

hey man, i was just milking a cow

...and thats your moment of zen kids.

a spoken-word narrative from "silky hair charlie" at 2:50am

Secretly Canadian

2008-11-19T23:06:00.008-05:00

The first day of real snowfall in Toronto. Two rad dudes, labelled immigrants by their housemate of Jamaican descent, put on their shoes, double down the fire escape, embracing what they see as quintessentially "metal". Now they find an old chevy van, older than themselves, remnant of a time when a Jew named Woody would put his "Impeach Nixon" pin on, and go see Ingmar's new, Viskingar och rop.

Times have changed, we now get amp'd to go see the new bond. Some things, however stand the test of time: snow and old vans, still spells, Canadiana.

What else makes me feel a little Canadian inside, only to hide it with racist slurs:

Chevy Silverado - Canada's Best Truck, a phallic symbol and the cornerstone of Canada's dependence on America, which is only held from shining truly by commie barnacles, also known as Unions. *cough* scum!

Caesar Sourdough Croutons - In a recent revelation, I have set aside my former distaste for this, the indisputable pinnacle of whiteness, and am now fully committed to putting little pieces of bread on my salad, and further dousing it in Zesty Italian. I need to subsidize this for the folks back home. Damn you US embargoes!

JD Blue Collar Love - Put on your flannel jacket and let the good times begin! Everything from arm-wrestling to black people is fair play!

Molson Canadian Rules - This should have really been added to my assimilation kit, I'll have to sit down with Mitchell and go over the nitty-gritty of what's expected by any respectable Canadian male (He's really the go-to-guy when it comes to the essence of being white. Example, he calls me Taj and thinks I'm an Ay-rab)

Trading Caaaards -

You will walk in the cold for it, while you've got perfectly marinated drumsticks in the fridge.

You will stand in line with schoolkids for it.

You will stand in line with Black schoolkids from the Jane and Finch area for it.

You will walk all the way back home to enjoy opening the shiny packaging, as the Guv General pursues a profession of small talk with navy folk, and Harpie looks on.

Yes I am talking about the NHL Trading Cards, pictured above, and sold at your local Macdo!

Cooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach!

"But the water's just getting good"

Computer Liebe

2008-11-13T11:24:00.004-05:00

Wolfgang Muller: Hey it's potato head, and potato head's lover!

Biba Kopf: I got my shades in the January of 2006

Pil Kollektiv: Who's the blind guy?

Leon's Christmas specials are here!

2008-11-06T19:45:00.006-05:00

My Shitlist – 08

An ode to the worst this year had to offer:

//Look on down from the bridge

Worst blog of the year and the biggest let down

Political musings run dry on debut

Brad Cox

Proof that in hyping this hollow posturing hipster that certain quarters of the blogosphere have no soul – I’ve listened to Deerhunter, its garbage

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music2/coxglamour.jpg

Level Nightclub

A Great Lake collecting all the douche canals and tributaries of the greater Toronto area – be prepared to listen to audio diarrhea and see double-popped collars

Canadian Elections

What was this about? Asides from Layton proving that he could run a campaign on the strength of two words “Kitchen table” and “Corporations”. At least we got to see Dion play hockey and now we have some Green party memorabilia.

Twice in a lifetime

This is more a statement about CTV and CBC in general. Let’s continue our no-TV run indefinitely Dale

If you know Colin, he’s a cool dude. You wouldn’t be able to tell judging from this pick. The most comic part of the night came thanks to the gentleman in the first row, toying with an iphone he clearly didn’t know how to use!

Crackhead who stole my laptop

You came into my room on a hot sunny day

You saw the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran

You saw a copy of Soul on Ice by Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver

and yet you stole my laptop,

at least you got a pair!

The Hammer

Hamilton, affectionately known as the hammer

A milieu for crackwhores, pimps and meth addicts, a dainty bunch!

Cooners

This goes out to that sly raccoon that came up our fire escape, one rainy night, trotted nimbly through our living room, glanced upon my room, and jumped into my bed, and dried himself out on my bedsheets. FUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCK YOUUUUS

Spencer Rice//

YOU GOT BLOWN BY A PRE-OP TRANNY!

What might have been lost - don't bother me

2008-11-01T20:23:00.005-04:00

Have you ever felt all your sensations driven from your appendages to your ears,

have you ever felt your whole life coalescing on the crest of a yell, a note, a shrill cry from a silver flute?

Last night we were driven from the twilight of desert landscapes slowly to the brink of a murky reverb-laden cliff, by two nomadic plaid-dressed musicians, only to swim down below in the tumultuous swedish waters, wave after wave crashing against our eardrums, sending us into a crazed bliss. Respite was offered in small doses of melodic beauty, cocooning us in warm lyrics spoken in an unfamiliar tongue, only to be deconstructed quickly by spiraling, down-right venomous jamming.

We came in a haze to see you play your songs, you left us not buddhists, but most certainly enlightened and resolutely content.

I want to be on a mountaintop,

with a radio and good batteries

Dialogue with a consumer product

2008-10-28T03:42:00.003-04:00

Following in the admirable standard I have set in my bloggings, I shall not continue with my Icelandic episodes. Nothing but pilots here. Routines are for cowards.

A consistent product - Coca Cola, the Mugabes, the Olmerts of this world

You gotta know when your days are up,

You gotta know your shelf-time

So, to cut with my fascist leanings, I shall remain: the transmutating product!

So come on friends

To the barricades again!

ICELAND in 1991 - episode I

2008-10-27T00:39:00.002-04:00

Iceland, as far from Washington as from Moscow, is advantageously placed in a political climate of improved relations between East and West. Having played host to the memorable Fischer-Spassky chess match in 1972, it moved onto the political chessboard in 1986, with the Reykjavik summit meeting of President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Tipping is not customary in Iceland"

Hunter

2008-10-26T20:18:00.004-04:00

"thought that i could organise freedom
how scandinavian of me"

The owner of one, "delaware car", replaced his license plate, with ontario ubiquity.

Maps and Directions

2008-10-23T00:54:00.006-04:00

I would scalp his head and put it on my face....

He's just got such a great thick beard when he grows it out, and naturally brilliant long hair

Dude...dude.....!

....But its going to waste!

Somewhere in white Ontario, he sits behind his desk, sipping on his apple cider. I would like to picture him calm, but placidity seldom resides on his visage. Maybe its the flowing hair that he parts every morning. Maybe it's his affliction, you know his, his.... Leon. It's a long story.

He's intrigued; a white man trying to understand the suffering of a people quite distant.

Turns an inquisitive look towards his map.

He gets up, frowning, searches his pockets for his glasses - vanity is the death of his vision - trying to focus on this small stretch of yellow.

It stops there. His mind, like a native, is not known for a sedentary lifestyle. His thoughts are nomadic in nature, wild and easily perturbed.

He dreams of a dreamy french girl, who dances like Zizi Jeanmaire and lives everyday through chanson.

He'll come back to his academic wanderings sometime. For now he's frequenting art galleries, affectionately known as parisian laundry.

Relapse

2008-10-01T01:43:00.004-04:00

Deleware - The First State, delcares a license plate.

Let me rewind a few shots; I feel like I'm falling into a routine, well hardly, but for the sake of brevity, yes a routine.

I wake up, run through some menial rituals, assemble my persona, walk out the door, past our green party sign and down madison. On a good day with at least ten minutes to spare before my prof starts rambling on, about god knows no what, I'll have my headphones on.

Nothing like a good vibration of the eardrums, before the monotone annexes brain cells.

Now I stare at middle-aged white men, standing around their houses, smoking, walking their dogs, or women.

Now its the muscle-men unloading trucks of beer into the same dreary establishment....Madison Pub.

Now I jump over into the parking lot; I've always preferred diagonals: a line joining two nonconsecutive vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, plus they save time. Here I come across the familiar license plate. What exactly its doing, in a parking lot behind a church, I have no clue. The enigmatic message, well at least for me, has me wondering every morning: Delaware, the first state?

Huh,

named after a British nobleman,

Thomas West, the 3rd Baron De La Warr,

the famous message on the plate comes from the auspicious fact that it was the first State to ratify the constitution of the United States.

Sa Blev Det Bestamt... so it was settled!

He speaks twice tonight

2008-09-30T01:44:00.003-04:00

//The two Negro's on the metro turn to a young white broad:

Charlie Parker, wouldn't play another note, if they were to let him kill ten whites. //

If I were to draw a self-portrait, preferably with black ink, and a steady hand, YOU would throw up your hands and declare it the physical manifestation of a depraved mind.

You would throw me glances of distaste, as I lay on your couch, precariously vulturing on my existence and half a dozen others. Stupendously unstable, and prone to convulsive, abrupt eruptions of laughter and melancholic troughs, unheard of in your circles.

Yet here I am, at your doorstep. Both of us neurotic and suspicious.

Let me in, I bring company. We'll feast on pictures of old, saturate ourselves in droning guitars and maybe venture out into the night.

Ancaster via Toronto--

On The Nod - Segment One

2008-09-30T01:24:00.002-04:00

He sat in front of me, beady eyes glaring through thick, dark, half-rimmed glasses.

The gutters were running with blood outside.

He sat his book down on the top shelf, kneeling down beside me. Picked up my head, in one hand and stared deeply into my eyes, as I lay on his Persian, hand-woven rug.

Look here mister,

Don’t be a sap

You’re done.

This place is rigged like an Indian Casino.

You wait long enough and the heat’s on you

Play it good, pack it in. Go to your old lady and sing her the tune she’s waiting to hear.

-Johnny enters the room.

Boss I got the wire.

We take him to the old garage on the water?

-He turns to me

You going to end up a drifter?

Revenge is for suckers.

Lay on the meet, and I’ll see to it that the Spade takes the fall.

That negro is on the nod, like a lush.

-I stare at him blankly through my black eye

-He lifts up the receiver

Should I put down the hype with George, or you rather hear me calling up the Pigeon?

Its your turn.

Broken Ballad

2008-08-18T04:35:00.002-04:00

Left the hum of my cubicle, at three thirty am.

Seconds later I felt the slight chill of an empty night, and cried out "all hail the American night!"
Walked into a fluorescent lit pizzeria. One look at the police officer talking on his walkie and the stale margarita pizza on display and I was back on the road with a terse apology to the man working there. I would not be hustled into swallowing unpalatable Italian food, made and served by a servile chinaman.

In third world countries stadiums fill up for politicians.

I cast an abject glance towards the north and abruptly picked up pace, running to my house. A quick shower and some grub awaited me. Got to my house and realized I had left my keys.

I laughed out loud. I was going to trounce the night!
My spirits hadn't dropped yet. I walked to an old friend, Timmy's. This is where the night really threw me a look.

In I walked, looked around, attempting to mimick the keen observance of a writer.
There stood the beatest old timer with some very respectable mutton chops, talking to this old short four foot pudgy lady. As I began to survey the empty racks, where hot rasberry muffins usually sit during the day, I heard him say: You seen this guy, Morrocan lookin fella with a reeeal nice suite (he gestures at his faded black shirt)? She slowly sways her greasy crown like a pendulum. It was like as if the great wired sieve of toronto had placed within the grimy of walls of this establishment its finest characters. On a table to my left was a balding character with a stained white shirt and bushy eyebrows toiling over math problems; on my right a young gal with a white dress rocking languidly to a tune in her headphones working on some fashion sketches in a great large drawing book; surveying her, and then shifting his glare towards me, is this other old thin hipster, his hair slicked back in grease, headphones on, with a small notebook (could he be sketching my character in this notebook, as I sit down with my mocha?).

Pervez Musharraf resigns on the tele, as I type this up proclaiming his humanity. Bhutto is dead, and Sharif is lurking around the corner. Pakistan's politics is laconic and dead. They recyle the old faces, like an old czech writer who loathes to baptise new characters in a novel he's been working on during the long cold years of Soviet occupation.

Ravenous as Nixon? Nah, he has a pretty blunt set of canines.

2008-08-11T23:13:00.003-04:00

A self-appointed moralist? Saint Ralph?
If "the National" had their way with Ralph Nader, he would get shot fifty six times for having vague ideas.

This resident of Washington, rides his once eco-friendly white horse through and through, parading about this message he's allegedly been sending to the public, for too many years already.

Shit, man maybe he is aight, but people in America aren't that badly off, at least they don't know it yet, to listen to a populist leader who spins the political jargon wheel about "citizen power". Its the mere fact that he will never sit in the oval office that allows non-actors like him or your taxi-driver to talk horse-raddish about the bi-partisan stranglehold on America.

The words of "Summerbirds in your cellar" resound loudly...beware of false prophets!

Give the mule what he wants!

2008-08-03T19:43:00.005-04:00

I was just watching the electric kettle reach a boiling precipice and automatically switch off, when I heard a rhinoceros or some other horned mammal devour a transmission tower, stirring up a commotion of rage and electronic clamour from my room.

I dumped the vociferous water into my mug, which contained equal amounts of coffee and sugar, and ran into my room; entering through the doorframe astounded, top hat and all!

Crying out in a fix, I dashed to my desk, dotted with mugs, like a german minefield, half-full with dark shadowy liquids.

The noise that had erupted from my room and garnered my attention from the kitchen, had been captured in a studio in Offenberg, in the dark reaches of southwest germany, by Judy Winter and Peter Oehler, and a handful of their long-haired, shabby friends. They probably lived as a collective on a lake, for four weeks leading up to their memorable session; indulging in all but a myriad of mind-altering activities. The revolutionary beggar's opera that ensued was probably the apex of their lives...just as my water came to a triumphant boil! Don't take their word for it, listen to their only remaining recordings: SWF sessions, available, only on vinyl from the subterranean German music company, aptly named, Longhair Music Label.

Moloch in the Ghetto

2008-07-26T21:16:00.020-04:00

Moloch was a blood-thirsty Semitic deity known for demanding sacrifices of the human flesh. Allen Ginsberg was the reigning poet king of the beatnik era, with a passion for words and men!

What's the link between the two?

I wouldn't know, but ask Eldridge Cleaver:

The rebellion of the white youth in the epoch of worldwide revolution, against the oppressive injustice of their fathers, apparently took four discernible stages.

The first steps were heralded, by the irrevocable war-cry, of an oft-times tunic clad jew, followed by his assiduous pilgrims, "who were too lazy to take baths and too stingy to buy a haircut". This ravenous modern-day deity was raising his howl, a scathing, outraged denunciation of the system - demanding the first-born child of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and all the way down the lineages of these "great" slave-owners.

Cleaver, then quotes Kerouac... the lilac evening when Moriarty, a disillusioned white man, wishes he were a Denver Mexican or a soulful young negro with a husky voice.

This was just the first stage though. Moloch's revolution was content to passively withdraw into reclusive communal living, rejecting the economy of oppression. "In their cool beat pads, smoking pot and listening to jazz in a perpetual orgy of esoteric bliss, there were others, less crushed by the system, who recognized the need for positive action."

"Moloch would gladly have legalized the use of euphoric drugs and marijuana, passed out free jazz albums and sleeping bags, to all those willing to sign affidavits promising to remain 'beat'."
Hah... and yes that is where the deity of poetry ended and non-violent sit ins started.

My blues are the deepest of reds

2008-07-21T17:28:00.002-04:00

when it rains it pours...
just had a horrible day; the human race is fickle and ineffectual

No wonder Stuart Murdoch thinks its a sin to leave the house!

I turned around an otherwise miserable excuse for the sun to come up, by turning into dominion after class, turning up the volume on b&s and turning down the aisle to pick up some delectable pasta sauce on sale!

Now, I'm no merchant, but this struck a chord with me, somewhere in between looking for bread and waiting in line:

I'm not as sad as Doestoevsky,
I'm not as clever as Mark Twain,
I'll only buy a book for the way it looks,
And then I stick it on the shelf again...

I'm only lucid when I'm writing songs.

Intermission

2008-07-17T01:06:00.002-04:00

a man of culture is as far from an artist, as a historian is from a man of action

they were in the countryside,
he held a microphone,
she eluded him, resigning only to yes or no responses

"and your surname,
is it republic?

no

totalitarianism?

no

liberalism?

no

trade-unionism?

no

democracy?

yes"

Lady Grinning Soul

2008-06-20T05:59:00.003-04:00

"Time – he’s waiting in the wings
He speaks of senseless things
His script is you and me, boy"

Two black Rastas were standing outside a Caribbean record shop, dressed in black leather jackets, eating instant noodles.

And the other day, I was on the subway, right.
Thoroughly enjoying Coldplay’s new album, right. (Oh the horror! Commercial music!? Oh no!)
And this flamboyant man of the homosexual persuasion enters and sits a few seats away, with one of his “girlfriends”, all the while gesturing and moving his hands in the air, like an opera conductor!
Now I am listening to “Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love”, completely oblivious to this flamboyant presence on the subway, well not completely, but I could care less, right?
And then across from me, is sitting this, this hulk-esque Asian guy who is so jacked, he can barely sit on the small subway seats. Him and his buddy, have probably just left the gym and he’s trying to read some sort of massive textbook, nursing I’m guessing. He’s inscribed on every side of the textbook, what must be his last name: HO.
Now this guy had finally settled with his highlighter, and like five different coloured post-its, right?
Then the aforementioned gaudy, glitzy, character enters the subway. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I saw Hulk get all uncomfortable, shifting and fidgeting his enormous limbs trying to concentrate on his textbook. He finally gives up!
I am out-and-out enjoying myself with this show, as I overhear Hulk talk about workout routines and his adversary talk about issues of femininity, along with all but a myriad of hand and full-body contortions and gesticulations!

look at my watch it says 9:25 and I think oh God I’m still alive

song for sunshine/goliath is ill

2008-05-31T23:21:00.010-04:00

Goliath: 0001001110011001

Assailant: (in this case a young rebellious, sexually promiscuous, self-replicating Spyware infection of sorts) your days of nonchalant, opulent existence, and swift accumulation of funky, digital, voodoo soul food are over!

Goliath: no response - turns to flip some Jamaican beef patties!

Speaking of beef patties.. Kowalski the arbiter elegantiarum of music, movies, false ideologies and matters of the State, has resigned to reading SOUL ON ICE by Eldridge Cleaver and not downloading any music and not listening to anything but Joe Bataan (that is a such a lie.. oh god!).

Goliath will have to get a makeover in order to make it through his midlife crisis, and I.....need to go back to reading Latin American politics!

Mother Earth is Pregnant for the Third Time

2008-03-18T02:34:00.005-04:00

There was a moment,
walking, sprinting, jumping on the sidewalk...now into the snowbank...now into someone's front yard,

there was all that and more...a song, a moment, that I mistook for an epiphany,
if not, a full out revelation, at least an idea for a post?? a frothy blend of my shapeshifting vision, to serve you guys out there in cyberland, never to come into fruition.

Two hours later, after walking through my front door:
after discussing the rejection of new music for old funk n' soul,
after trying to convince my roommate that contemporary porn is not art,
and I'm sitting at my laptop, before I park my chevrolet in the dusty drive-in of my otherworldy silverscreen of dreams;
rustling up the scraps of my intended post.

Alas, my conceptual monuments never secrete onto the keyboard, before flowing lusciously through a prism....leaving it altered, for better or worse, I'll be the judge and jury. No convincing, rousing, preacher-type, african-american lawyers are allowed for the defendant in my court either!

wars of armageddon by funkadelic is seeping quietly through my speakers... 1971 was the beginning and end of music.

Highlight of today: I printed out "The dream of a ridiculous man", as recommended by a friend of a friend. It's rich literature in courier new format is mind tantalizing pleasure when I'm on the can! CHEERS! GOODNIGHT!

Surrogate People

2008-03-15T21:15:00.003-04:00

Triple-plied toilet paper is the death of the plumbing system!

Today I managed to clog someone else's facilities... I blame it on the triple-plied thick korean paper being used in the said household! No good! First of all its worse for the environment, and secondly it is the root of all fiascos.. (yes even the pigs of bay).

"New Dawn Fades" - Joy Division ...officially the best song to start your day off, as you exit your not-so-humble-yet-mildly-nonchalant bachelor pad! (Oui! my house takes after myself, with regards to being fashionably indifferent)

Last night...or no it was actually friday evening, I finally sat back and watched david lynch blow my mind with a wierd mixed drink of erotica, metamorphosizing characters, and blonde/brunette duality, all imploding in a plot that will leave you scratching your head. Perfect score! Reminds me of an Isis or Explosions in the sky song... calm even placid serenity at one second and the next everything is deconstructed with violent furor! Man... it was classic. I need to watch it again as soon as possible. ..and did you see Marilyn Manson feature as a pornstar???! haha

My judgement resounds: KKKK + ½K

that's all ladies n gents

Scam!!! (More news from nowhere)

2008-03-09T01:44:00.016-05:00

I have some ideas... some sketches, a meaty blogpost with extra mustard and a mouth full of bourbon is forthcoming.

For now though I want to vent anger and enunciate on the future!

The whole "Rrroll up the Rim" thing Tim Hortons does is a Scam! I have come away with nothing... every single time, when I dig my teeth into the cup..the same red french text tells me: REESSAYEZ S.V.P

It's like invoking larry lazarus' dead body...only to find out he was content with laying down his tools! Did anyone ask him if he wanted to be raised back from the dead into the whirlpool of shit that must have been life in palestine? The romans must have been working him nine-to-five with not a prospect of a pension retirement fund...

Nick Cave is an auteur, riding his chariot through biblical lands and transporting it back to a contemporary New York, placing Larry in the queue for milk, surrounded by dope fiends and misty-eyed poets.

turn on the radio

some cat on the saxophone

she rubs a lamp between her thighs

and hopes the genie comes out alive

Archangels Don't Play Pinball

2008-02-18T03:03:00.003-05:00

"The night is like a giant umbrella full of holes.
Someone's shot it full of drops of lime.
Like a giant pinball game constructed for King-Kong,
The moon is like a flashing 'Replay' sign.
And my city's like a giant pinball too.
The girls are flipper buttons there to press.
Easy does it, or they'll go into a tilt.
Steady there 'cos this game needs finesse."

I have found a musical saviour in Zappa,
I have found satire in Dario Fo,
I have yet to find victuals for my poor stomach.
Untimely hunger born at 3am, dead at four, and resurrected at five. These odd hours of the morn I dwell, for I am working now as we speak; all the while omar rodriguez-lopez jams away to a salsa beat in the background, drowned in muffled alien sounds.

I envisioned the avanguardista, I envisioned Mussolini and I sought finely cut linen clothing.
I need to revist some Frederico Fellini pictures, over my week-long break.

Tonight I was somewhat intrigued enough to view some Pink Floyd jams from swinging London in 66, a generation obssessed with sex and musical experimentation. I was impressed and I will probably do as our contemporaries do when confronted by something precious, download it in a rage and forget about it in an ironically named folder. (reference to older post: the infamous "hot off the frying pan") Eitherway, I have so much Zappa to go through that I should probably refrain from any further indulgent downloading before I have fully absorbed the new avalanche of music hot on my ears.

Previous to this I was going to watch the "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", a picture from the year 1920! ... I decided against it though, for some reason silent movies do not appeal to me as much?! Apparently there is an american remake of the german original, released in 2005. Elitism equips me with self-righteous, indignant, pessimism against such remakes.

Let me finish this post off, as 'Good Girl/Carrots' - Panda Bear, plays softly in the background, with another excerpt from Dario: (this one's a keeper!)

FIRST SWEEPER: Alright... But what's this yoga got to do with being a roadsweeper?

SECOND SWEEPER: It's got a lot to do with it... Basically, it's the same principle. What can be more suitable than a roadsweeper's life, in order to suppress within us that baggage of arrogance, pride and ambition which prevents us from stripping ourselves of pointless vanities, and going forward, naked but happy, to attain the bliss and ecstasy of the platonic world of ideas?

turquoise boy puts on the blues

2008-02-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

"lay down your lucky hand, upon her heart
morning becomes a kite, tangled up in stars
laugh in the midday light, and leave - it behind
move out into his sundry eyes, and sing, unwind"

somnolent and sober, I approach this palette
fired up on monster and wired on after eight splendor
out of this town and into an idyllic sunset I throw myself
there's something too familiar, that I seek to avoid. Maybe that can explain my ever increasing penchant for finding shelter in extensive jams. Experimentation and songs that clock in past the twelve minute mark, somehow bring me a taste of salvation. Whether its Dungen, Panda Bear or the Mars Volta... I aspire to repeat and encapsulate the "goliath", the "perfect trip", fixate on the intangible freedom that the escape from formulaic songs can bring.

I need to fix my boots... this goes beyond a simple removal of the crusts of chlorine that are left when the snow melts away. The sole/soul needs the gentle hands of a shoemaker, who works under the strict condition that his shop is dimly lit and smells of fine Italian leather, littered with empty boxes and scrap pieces, maybe a small am/fm radio in the corner playing distant jamaican dub tunes.

memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

2008-01-20T13:08:00.000-05:00

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread
bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all
beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed

I sat here, here behind my desk - hungry, wrought with exhaustion - reading the sunflower sutra.

Jesus and his lawyer are coming back in an hour.
Let me rewind:
I watched Belle de Jour today. A surrealistic work by Luis Buñuel: engimatic.

Yeasayer is immense! The demonic beast of finding new music has been put to sleep for now:
All hours cymbals provides the inebriation I require to escape the mundane.

hue of blue

2008-01-16T01:31:00.000-05:00

retirement would do me good.

I could just put on my nice big headphones and zone out to music,
...speaking of which, there must be a glitch in the system, or I'm too bohemian to go out and look for new music. Eitherway quality* new music has been few and far between in the past months.
so I've been dusting my virtual shelf of old music that has been lying around in my ironically named downloads folder: "hot off the frying pan".

so far the only good to come out of this endeavour has been:

Autechre - Amber
Soft, textured, ambient electronic soundscapes - alien yet very human at the same time, like a martian with a human kidney (omitted heart to escape kitsch-ness, don't want to get caught in that web again. )

Sylph versus Crab

2008-01-11T01:06:00.000-05:00

...; they thought I was like them, that I was a man, and I deceived them. I suddenly lost the appearance of a man and they saw a crab running backwards out of this human room. Now the unmasked intruder has fled: the show goes on.

I turn back, lean both hands on the balustrade. The true sea is cold and black, full of animals; it crawls under this thin green film made to deceive human beings. The sylphs all round me have let themselves be taken in: they only see the thin film, which proves the existence of god. I see beneath it! The veneer melts, the shining velvety scales, the scales of God's catch explode everywhere at my look, they split and gape.

A house offers me its black heart through open windows;

Things are divorced from their names.

-nausea

last note falls off your skin

2007-12-31T04:40:00.000-05:00

I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag within
I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Drumroll....barambarambarap!
As promised, I deliver to your naked eyes:

Top 10 Kowalski-Approved* Albums of Two Thousand and Show-Stoppin' Seven

10. Pocket Symphony - Wow! Ok I completely forgot about this gem that showed up earlier in the year. This one nudged out Burial's Untrue and Seawolf; quite the one-two punch..eh? From the starting notes this one's a classic. God and my neighbours back in rez know how many times I fell asleep on my desk listening to this one.. while pushing papers n digits (well I don't work with digits coz I'm a life sci man..but whatevs you know the deal). I bow my head to the french duo who create such ...wait is that a japanese shamisen (instrument) they just used!

9. 23 - Blonde Redhead bought my soul and a pack of crisps to go along with it when I first heard Kazu Makino's crooning yet eerie voice atop of a mountain of soaring guitars and clockwork beats. Ace, ace, ace..exist, sweet and sugary existence. (something about impure hair just drives me nuts! - in a completely sexual and wholesome good way)

8. Year Zero - Ok so I've been a nine inch nails fan for a while now, but with teeth was predominantly a let down. According to my bro Trent had become too infatuated with his own voice. On this album the music takes over in some sorts.. and it is grand takeover indeed. It's like the Bastille is coming down again! If that wasn't good enough there is a yearzeroremixed as well.. top notch.

7. Tio Bitar - Love the Swedes! Go ahead love them. They're good.. this album is psychedlic heaven. I dug Dungen's digs when I first heard ta det lungt and when the new album came up I was there to catch it. This is such an acid trip of an album...ah ace! Så Blev Det Bestämt - swedish for "so it was settled" is such a nugget, dear lord I remember crouching in corner of my room, and then reeling on the floor when I heard the madness on this track.

6. The Shepard's Dog - Oh Sam Beam! If Jesus was ever to grow his hair out and sport a nice ol' beard ...wait he did: he would pick up a guitar and stum out "boy with a coin" or "white tooth man". This album is better than bavarian fruit beard with extra icing sugar on top! oh dear...

5. Voxtrot - Ever felt like kickin around in your room and ripping down post'its one second and then settling down thinking of a girl you want to crane your neck and kiss on the lips, the other? Voxtrot is like that chick you love in highschool but can never get your grimy hands on...!Yes voxtrot finally released their eponymous debut...and yes they ditched out on me when I stood outside the modclub trying to see them... You left me in the cloud/cold you bastards!!! But you still love 'em all the same.

4. Fancy Footwork - Kick out the jams - this is one for the times when you feel like you're dressed divine and you're out to tear the dancefloor down with your teeth. KICK OFF YOUR SUNDAYS SHOES.....UH HUH FOOTLOOOOOSE! Each song on this album took turns being my fave song of the week. Chromeo never let me down. Praise the lord!

3. Myths of the Near Future - I forgot this one was released in the glorious month of January 07. Rocked out to it in Montreal, in Toronto, Saigon and the effin' Brixton Academy. Well the latter two are untrue...but god is this music heavenly. David Bowie would put the Klaxons aka the fourse horsemen of 2012 on his top shelf..if he could reach it on his high heels.

2. The Boxer - The National are my saviours. 2007 came and went, but all I'll hear will be the drums on Squalor Victoria...
Underline everything, I’m a professional in my beloved white shirt
I'm going down among the saints
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!

1. In Rainbows - Take a bow lads... I've been saving this one: Top Drawer!
Moments I'm proud of, looking back at this year with my retrospective specs' on:
Sitting on the couch with my roommate, sipping on earl grey tea, listening to reckoner! Radiohead will slip into the vacumm left by the corporations once their demise comes to fruition.

No matter what happens now
I won't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day
I've ever seen.

"Get A Shot of the Refrigerator"

2007-12-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

He arrives through the doorway... with a knapsack over one shoulder and an "enviro-shopping bag" in the other. Apparently he's trying to reduce his ecological footprint? Trudges up the stairs, to the third floor. Kickin' off his boots he comes into the living room, positively glowing. It's been god-knows-how-long since his refrigerator held any food.

pause
...kettle is whistling in the background over the sweet kraut-inspired motorik beats of stereolab's acclaimed fab four suture; are they singing in french? ah he loves it

comes back now to his computer, tea mug in hand. Freshly brewed from the new batch of Earl Grey he has just brought back from his grocery shopping venture.

ah yet another pause!
..this time its his toast

ok no more intermissions, he decides. Sits down at his spot on the couch. The living room is flowing with euphonious melodies. Now the walls reverberate.. and a voice sings of john wayne gacy. jr's mom folding her son's clothes. Oh Sufjan!
The holidays are in their infancy and two or so weeks, stretch far ahead of him.
Okay I'm going to let go of the third person voice! I revisited an old picture american beauty with my room mate yesterday. I have decided to go through my collection of foreign movies over the break so I can cement my position as an ostentatious self-proclaimed elitist, but with a little more conviction than I possess at the moment.
Look out for an end of the year Top 10 albums in the future on this blog...hopefully before the year expires. Maybe I'll go over the list with my compadre from the suburbs, if he decides to come down from his lofty ivory towers.

Over and Out

Pirate Radio Transmissions

2007-12-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

...waiting for the endorphins to kick in
radio crackles with some distant voice telling me that 10 more vietcong soldiers are dead
jean seberg makes a comment, something about how we are so desensitized....rubbish
if i had any more nerve endings, i would crash into a pile of smoldering embers...rubbish

"weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised, smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void."

"I like putting uplifting elements in something that’s moody as fuck. Make them appear for a moment, and then take them away. That’s the sound I love…like embers in the tune…little glowing bits of vocals…they appear for a second, then fade away and you’re left with an empty, sort of air-duct sound…something that’s eerie and empty. Like you’re waiting just inside a newsagent in the rain…a little sanctuary, then you walk out in it. I love that."

i lick my lips with satisfaction
here is something to compare with in rainbows:
burial - untrue

Tendercrisp Death

2007-12-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside...
so declares the wrapping on the outside of a healthy burger I purchase at the ubiquitous BK

had work today,
woke up at 6:30
my bed warm with another
stepped out
stepped into snow
trudged forward
thought of norwegian death metal
"immortal"
barbaric face paint
,get to work
now my ears thaw
boots glisten
now hunger pangs...

...and thats how the proverbial cookie crumbles; you end up in burger king looking confounded. Why on earth am I contemplating dietary death? You grap the tendercrisp chicken burger and chump chump,bite away. Exceptionally salty fries...even for the persian that I am this is too much! What's this now?? You bite your tongue? It's bleeding... but apathy has long since taken over the golden reins

heavy rotation:
daft punk - alive
electric wizard - witchcult today (look up bongzilla meets sludge doom metal)

Le boudoir de la femme

2007-11-21T00:13:00.000-05:00

“I thought I was through with this day. All I wanted to do was unplug the phone, pour myself a bourbon whiskey, glance through the clippings concerning that particular case, just to check, and switch off the lights except for the old lamp on my desk. Maybe I’ll fall asleep right here, in my office. So there I was, sitting alone in the feeble light and silence, when she came in. Annie. She did not knock before she entered the room but quietly closed the door and turned towards me. I was barely able to see her, but I could imagine her large eyes, her smile. She whispered, ethereal, “Hello”, her voice mingling with the plumes of smoke. The night had just begun...”

Mercury Tear, Catch Me When I Falter

2007-10-26T23:46:00.000-04:00

There are three days, and four nights to go
And I won’t be with you anymore
Four nights like this to go

In the trees like a freeway without wind
A devil howling, silent again

And the chill of that sheet
On your skin

We ain’t free my love
We are not our masters
Without side looks faster
Drowned and distanced

Rest and listen
As I cross these miles
I try to tell you “I love you”

The walk we take
In the rain today
Your feet in your boots
Under mine are the greatest

The way we refuse to be saved
The way we refuse to be saved
The way we refuse to be saved

This Station is Non-operational

2007-10-19T22:16:00.001-04:00

the robots have taken over
the soul is on hiatus
the last triarii has been breached

Forget about your house of cards
And I'll do mine

JOG ON!!!

2007-08-15T23:02:00.000-04:00

Sergeant Butterman, the little hand says it's time to rock and roll!

Okay this day in my post-exam life ..aka brief interval between the next shitstorm of an academic session, was somewhat eventful.

Woke up relatively late..ate.. and headed over to the pub (duke of gloucester) to settle down for a good pint of ice tea and watch the match with my mates. The game in question was man utd away at fratton park against portsmouth. Now following a draw on the weekend at old trafford, picking up all the points was imperative. I don't want to dwell too much on the details of the game... we played exceptionally, especially scholes who nailed his 96th goal for manutd. But alas...

What was most frustrating was this american guy in the pub. This yank would not shut up with his america uber alles accent...shouting out such ignorant comments as would appear to him appropriate. It was like hearing asians talk about hockey.

Anyway as a demulcent measure... I watched "Hot Fuzz" ..following the disappointing draw. It certainly lived up to all the hype. As a longtime fan of british slang and Snatch-like humour, this film was well into my list of enjoyable flicks right off the starting reel. Quick cuts and lots of editing might not appeal to some of my bourgeois faux film critique friends (aka the nags), but it was a solid watch. In the end I was left with a happy after-taste and an impulse to shout out all the wicked british catch phrases I had just learnt. It also had some hilarious segments, where our brit protagonists ripped apart bad boys II and break point (classic yank guy flicks). Despite all these positive elements I am hesitant to put it on the shelf next to Snatch and Lock Stock... in all honesty I don't think Hot Fuzz can wrestle in the same ring as the aformentioned heavy-weights. Hence, Hot Fuzz = KKK/kkkkk, which makes it a pleasant eye candy for one watch ...maybe two.

DS Andy Wainwright: We're just hoping to talk to the last people to see Mr Merchant alive. Namely a Sergeant Nicolas Ass-wipe and Cuntstable Fanny Batterbum.

Danny Butterman: [Smiling] Hey, that's us!

En Passant

2007-07-31T06:54:00.000-04:00

"there were bookshops with racks of magazines printed without capital letters or the bourgeois disturbance of full stops" - the buddha of suburbia

let me turn on some sonic youth (circa daydream nation) to help me create the required zen for this post

okay that's better

now let me paint a picture:

a coquette - elegantly poised, meticulously adding salad dressing to her ready-made salad, that she must have purchased only minutes ago from some cornerstore

me - watching from a couple rows away, drinking in the sights and sounds of a city abuzz with vibrant energy that has only just gone under the dark embrace of the night

we are on the streetcar that is carrying us away from the harsh and oppressive heat of the heart of chinatown towards the more plaintive and sullen harbourfront

the day has only left its ruins along the road
vendors are collecting their livelihood and closing up for the night
chinese neon signs still offer me their fried goods and their banking services
I watch it all in a blur
flitting images

back to our coquette; she indulges now in her salad, from time to time adding a dab more of dressing
while asobi seksu that is blaring in my eardrums from my mp3 player lays on pounds more of jarring guitars and beautiful ebullient vocals that steer me carefully into the abyss

Circa July

2007-07-08T19:57:00.000-04:00

I'm hesitant today.

I've been waiting for the right moment to bring my blog back into the daylight. It's become akin to a low-budget indie movie that has the critics rattling in their cages and cafés, waiting for the next self-acclaimed scantimonious prick out of paris to declare their new, 6 minute, black and white, silent movie, worthy of the palm d'or.

Well I knew the timing would never be anywhere near perfect to launch my coup de grace (for all the illiterate plebians that read my blog that's the french term for a death blow), but the weather today had me thinking.

Toronto seemed to have been covered in a deathly pall of oppressive humidity, an incubus of grimy heat, foreshadowing the looming disaster that my day would turn out to be. It had me thinking of the story "Death in Venice". Especially since the last few days, a certain putrid smell had filled the hallways on my floor; probably from the garbage not being emptied. Mr. Venezuela must have been attending his son's wedding down in el paso?!

Anyhow, this stench dominated the air and impregnated it with a sort of impending doom. I was weary to leave my room and it was thus that I spent most of the hours of the day locked up in my abode, reminiscing on the past or debating on the future; which brought me to think how closely this situation mirrored that of the man in the aforementioned book (minus the fact that he was lusting over a young boy). His condition and his final death followed that of the city's slow demise (after the introduction of a plague into the venician canals).
Was the foul smell in the hallways and the humid cocoon of air that had beset Toronto a sign of things to come?

to be continued...

Junkie Freakshow

2007-06-21T05:04:00.000-04:00

Spoof. Dope. Crank. Creep. Bomb. Spank. Shit. Bang. Zip. Tweak. Chard. Call it what you will. It's all methamphetamine. That's what I'm here for.

Opening lines from the movie: Spun

The main protagonist over here... going on a week-long binge of the shit is jason schwartzman. The movie also has in its cast, among others, brittany murphy (one of my favourite white-trash chicks). She can really fill those tight jeans, that go along with her look as the trashy vegas side-kick to the "Cook" - an overweight cowboy who lives in a motel cooking up the smack that has everyone hooked and enjoys watching a healthy dose of adult movies and wrestling.

I actually enjoyed this movie - I would describe it as a: a swaggering journey into hell, less heat more drugs; however ... and although I fully recommend it, I won't splash out my highest mark: KKKK (for information on the kowalski rating scheme, visit the blog entry of april 12)

I won't give it the four K's because I don't believe in handing out marks like sweeties..or in this case.. crank.

The movie will have you enthralled and on the edge, holding on .. like a rollercoaster flick gone bad. It has a lot of editing ...cuts and close-ups of ross (the protagonist) sniffing phet off the bare breasts of a stripper...etc. All good ... almost reminiscent of requiem for a dream. But where requiem was despondent and depressing ... harsh and brutal, this movie never releases the pedal... melancholia will have to wait on this one. Sure we get the usual riff about the girlfriend and the worries of the real world... but as long as Ross is in his cocoon of drugs (and the movie doesn't use the card that requiem frequently flips out - that is lack of money to buy the trip) he can stay at the helm of this binge... until of course he crashes.

All in all ..an enjoyable watch; and if you want to turn off your brain and actually enjoy something for a while, why not?!

The following excerpt is from the movie...towards the end, when the straits get...well.. dire.. for lack of a better word:

" tell ya, I remember a time when I was about... I was little, I don't know... 4, 5 something like that. We had this old dog that had a litter of puppies. And I walked in the bathroom one day and my Mother was standing there, kneeling down... Dog had a litter of about 8, and my Mother was bending over killing each one of these little puppies in the bathtub. I remember I said 'why?'... She said 'Im just killing what I can't take care of' - Then my momma said to me, she looked at me and she said 'I wish I could do that to you'. - Maybe she, maybe she shoulda."

A Modern Midnight Conversation

2007-06-18T06:22:00.000-04:00

This will be a quickie...
I have a lot on my mind
most importantly in the music arena:

I'm currenty hooked on electro/psych/trance-mind enchancing trips...
There a few culprits to this crime...smeared with bloody dj-ing hands and a few pills to savour

A friterie in the back alley of a french rave club in the banlieue (aka ghetto/suburb/hotbed for exotic music spurning from barren concrete)

Two men intent on changing the electro soundscape or at least delivering it to me - hot to handle - a cockslap of a first listen.... ringing ears and such.

The two unlikely duo are:......DRUMROLL
Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay of the french electronic band JUSTICE
Good lord...and when you think the river had ran dry after daft punk's monumental Homework - go back to year 1993 if you missed out on the rush when it came.

anyway I'll let wikipedia to do the rest ...
go out n get Justice's album "cross"

in other news... oh dear: new CHEMICAL BROTHERS ALBUM (we are the night)!
and it has tracks featuring midlake and the klaxons!!!
What more can you honestly ask for??!

ok this was s'posed to be a short one.
I'm off

À bientôt

Goodbye Enemy Airship

2007-06-06T03:36:00.000-04:00

Eins, zwei, drei, vier!

Rollback the camera now... slowly pluck the guitar strings

"I'll meet you in West Germany
October 1983
I know that freedom was a lie
And your husband was a spy
You say that words are impotent
But they can help us pay the rent
I knew for sure there was nothing left
Except the vodka on your breath"

More and more everyday the world appears surreal and rather bizarre to be honest. Well not my immediate surroundings; probably because they are closest to me, and appear blurry at best. I'm usually too enamoured with some new band or record to be able to be too introspective.

But today while fixing up some pasta and a broth of meaty goodness, the tele was on in the background... and they were advertising this new "reality" tv show: it was about this woman addicted to meth and she had a family with two kids at the same time. To cut to the chase the punchline was: will she choose meth over her kids?

It sickened me to my stomach to see to what new levels they stoop to grab airtime and ratings! To quote one of my friends back in helsinki its "social pornography" (of course he said that about Dr. Phil... a man who is on my deathlist. Truly repulsive individual!).

Is this the new stage in our psychological evolution? We've become so detatched and desensitized that we can enjoy full-on self-destruction and tragedy.

The question is this a new thing, born of urbanization and people jacked up on meds and lack of faith or whether its just the institutionalization of a sick tradition. Should we just blame corporate tv companies for cashing in on our tears?

If we take a retrospective viewpoint on the matter... a parallel comparison could be drawn to the Greek tradition of tragic theatre. The pinnacle of Greek literature are the works of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. A favorite theatrical device of many ancient Greek tragedians was the ekkyklêma, a cart hidden behind the scenery which could be rolled out to display the aftermath of some event which had happened out of sight of the audience. This event was frequently a brutal murder of some sort, an act of violence which could not be effectively portrayed visually, because the theatre was also conisidered a holy place?!

The Greeks for whatever reason, thus omitted the image and the actuality of death and the climatic execution of a tragedy. The reality tv show drew back the Greek veil over suffering and rolled the cart so-to-speak on to our Flatscreens. Without any tangible restrictions we get to enjoy even more of the gory details of a woman shooting up, while her kid is growing up in a world where he might as well have been victim of an abortion.

To be honest...we do enjoy tragedy, its the most sincere form of sympathy.

For 45 minutes we can feel like we share some of this woman's ordeal and can feel her pain. But we don't! We have enough commercials in between to distract us and tell us to buy more ford SUVs.

But the woman in the tv show...if she's actually real, can't take a break from her miserable shit-storm of a life. No it's a bottomless pit and she's the star!

"Shoot to kill, I dropped a pill
Then I threw a bottle of drink down my throat"

Lost in a Supermarket

2007-06-01T01:27:00.000-04:00

So I nearly lost a friend to the coup de grâce of electricity... and that before he could give me a leather-bound gospel!

I will recite his requiem if destiny beckons, pay the priest for the ceremony and duly coordinate a swedish chamber pop band to do the honours.

On to the mundane matters of life...
I was browsing through Dominion today shopping for groceries and whatnot... my staple diet of pasta and muslix, and suddenly all I could hear in the secret aeons of my head was that tune by the Clash: Lost in a supermarket

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for the special offer
A guaranteed personality

In the dreamy state that I was, I walked around, humming to myself, just tapping my feet twice and then knocking on a can of tin soup...how andy warhol of me?!! Oh mys... I surprise myself sometimes with these little quirky oddities.

Tomorrow I have decided that I will travel long and far along bloor and reach some distant indie shop which I have set in my sights...followers are free to come along, equipped with pens and cameras!

No pictures today.. no fancy quotes... no frenchness
I don't want to belabour the point! (ooh belabour...god I love that word)

Desert Sessions

2007-05-21T03:29:00.000-04:00

Musings:

lines from nausea ~

A perfect day to turn back to one's self: these cold clarities which the sun projects like a judgement shorn of pity, over all creatures - enter through my eyes; I am illuminated within by a diminishing light. I am sure that fifteen minutes would be enough to reach supreme self-contempt. No thank you, I want none of that.

Sometimes I read a passage like that and I stop to think of myself, almost attempting the existential climb outside my own body to take on the third person outlook at God's creation which I have so debased. I see myself in dim light, in a moonlit cafe of awkward jarring sensibilites. Crouching in a dark corner, satisfied... satisfied with the mediocrity that I have brought upon myself. I do not labour to achieve anything worthy of the mantle so polished in childhood. Forgotten the splendour of the day.

.. and then I shrug off the doubts ...actually the facts. Rationalizing that what I accomplish now is actually respectable. But then you come upon the works of my buddy ... jean-jacques.. the big rousseau. He says:

"A man who will be all his life a bad versifier, or a third-rate geometrician, might have made nevertheless an excellent clothier. Those whom nature intended for her disciples have not needed masters."

Then you stop think ... oh no! My doubts are clear as a blue sky of deepest azure! My imperfections lie manifest upon destiny's door! ...am I destined to be a third-rate life science student? But no time for such thoughts... no the day is too narrow for such questions. To loiter is to extirpate oneself!

Such musings shall only remain on the drawing board.. never to be published.

That was the first part of my blog!
Let's move on to lighter matters:

Les Chansons de Ma Vie:
So what's occupying the airwaves in room 468???

The Desert Sessions (Volumes 1 & 2, for the moment): founded by Josh Homme - guitarist and singer of "queens of the stone age", "eagles of death metal" and previously of "kyuss". The Desert Sessions began in August 1997 at the "Rancho de la Luna" in Joshua Tree when Homme brought together other musicians. The ranch is an old house filled to the brim with rare and unique recording equipment and instruments. Songs are written on the spot in matters of hours usually, and no place in the home is safe from the music.The first Desert Session was not actually a "session" per se, but Homme and his band at the time, playing for three days straight under the non-stop influence of psychedelic mushrooms. Since then the ranch has grown legendary and the Desert Sessions have grown in intensity and artistic merit.

"At Desert Sessions, you play for the sake of music. That’s why it’s good for musicians. If someday that’s not enough anymore, or that’s not the reason behind you doing it--that’s not your raison d’etre--then a quick reminder like Desert Sessions can do so much for you, it’s amazing. It’s easy to forget that this all starts from playing in your garage and loving it." - Josh Homme

That's it from me this morning... I hope you've enjoyed the clear cut outline to this blog - first some musings and then songs that I would put on a video documenting this chapter of my life!

Credits for the pictures to my brov!

-Ya hagh

Down at Queens Quay

2007-05-10T09:23:00.000-04:00

Steel?

We have no butter,

But I ask you

Would you rather have butter or guns?

Shall we import lard or steel?

Let me tell you Prepardness makes us powerful,

Butter merely makes us fat? Lard?

Soviet Kitsch

2007-04-30T02:08:00.000-04:00

A few clues for latecomers: Several weeks ago... A pile of money... An English class... A house by the river... A romantic young girl...

A season in hell.

I can almost smell the death-like sulphorous odour of exams; while the sun shines brightly outside on the vast canadian "concrete expanses laying fallow in the sun". I dreamt of long summer days, were I dressed in the softest of linen, lounging in a bed - a little sunshine through the drapes, a soft whisper of a wind - and kafka, sartre and black n white pictures of brooding young french actresses in army fatigue, laying strewn on my floor.

It will all come.. until then I share a desk with asians in the library, sipping silently with a hint of cynicism at my earl grey and english breakfast combo tea. One sip at a time.

Corinne: Didn't you hear what he said? Marx says we're all brothers!
Roland: Marx didn't say that. Some other communist said that. Jesus said that!

This blog has been bloody sporadic... which is what you feel like with a mouthful of valium and bottle brimming with obsession.

Anyhow what's on my playlist at the moment.. I think that should be a section I do each time.. yes! I'll make a note of that. Maybe that'll add some rigour and form to this blog...or an excuse for one!
Here you go (albums)

"Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo" ~~ by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (the amazing guitarist for the mars volta - he wrote this album and four others while in Amsterdam. A lot of the staple guest artists including Cedric Bixler are on this one, but there's one highlight: Damo Suzuki from the legendry Can. He features on the song: please heat this eventually - which is also on an ep that was released by omar, but that also includes vocals by damo which are missing on this album track. Anyhow when I am reading my physiology and genetics, this is what keeps me hacking away!!!)

"Volta" THE NEW BJORK ALBUM! ~~~ I got a leaked version for this one off torrents.. and it was substantially amazing. The first song Earth Intruders just sold it to me! Bam! I was like this woman is amazing! The beats are phenomenal.. !!! I'm running low on brain ink right now, but ask me in person and I will blow the trumpet for this one all the way to afghanistan!

Ok... I won't do anymore, because I wouldn't do the bands justice with less than 50 words.

Time for me to turn in with this line from Bande A Part:

My story ends here like a dime novel. At a superb moment, when everything is going right. Our next episode, this time in Cinemascope and Technicolor: Odile and Franz in the tropics.

Mind the Gap

2007-04-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

"A revolution isn't a gala dinner. It cannot be created like a book, a drawing or a tapestry. It cannot unfold with such elegance, tranquility and delicacy. Or such sweetness, affability, courtesy, restraint and generosity. A revolution is an uprising, a violent act by which one class overthrows another. " - from the movie THE DREAMERS

...I thoroughly enjoyed that quote and I wanted to cherish it in communion with everyone, as that is the end towards which this blog was created. ...oh I nearly forgot this one.. oh uh..oh here you go:

"I was one of the insatiables. The ones you'd always find sitting closest to the screen. Why do we sit so close? Maybe it was because we wanted to receive the images first. When they were still new, still fresh. Before they cleared the hurdles of the rows behind us. Before they'd been relayed back from row to row, spectator to spectator; until worn out, secondhand, the size of a postage stamp, it returned to the projectionist's cabin. Maybe, too, the screen was really a screen. It screened us... from the world. "

Do I really need to elaborate on this movie... or... or oh you're not even there.. you left.. you lept out of your set to go and somehow procure it, like a medication for the ailement that beguiles the empty theatre of your mind. Let this movie and its images dance before you...for if it were likened to a dance it wouldn't be a waltz...this is the kinda stuff people go wild with on the dancefloor of some run-down club with euro-trash bleeding out of speakers... a couple of teens dancing on acid, high on the lethargic grip of life, allowing them to wallow in euphoric bliss.

The above picture is that of two tickets that will light up my summer!!!
I think I might devote two different posts to introduce the bands.
For the moment I would like to deliberate on the following:

The book you see in the picture... is "THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA". A book which I will devour with intellectual avarice previously unknown to man.

I've read other books by Nietzche, notably "The Birth of Tragedy"... and if his other works are anything to go by... this will definitely not be a cul-de-sac or minor work..but an engaging whirl of philosophy that will change me as a person and allow me to be even more of a self-acclaimed elitist.
They say once you read Nietzsche, you can't live inside the perimeter of a claustrophobic western society..you will flee to the embrace of the wild (actually I just coined that). As Aristotle would say Man outside of a community is either God or Insane. We'll see where I end up! Next stop: Existentialism... MIND THE GAP

Someone say GRINDHOUSE???

2007-04-12T04:52:00.000-04:00

Ok! So I saw "Grindhouse".. and let me say it lives up to the genre from which it takes its name. Clockin in at 3 hrs & 11 minutes of gore, testosterone-fuelled car chases, rosario dawson's hard nipples... and rose mcgowan's half machine gun leg (which replaced the half that was bitten off earlier by zombies)..i must say i'm desensitized and aroused at the same time!

Personally I liked tarantino's flicker Deathproof better than rodriguez's Planet Terror. It was penultimate Tarantino... with all his signature images... you know the diner, the dialogues and the close-ups!

The downpoint in the end was that now EVERYONE knows about vanishing point and kowalski and the white 70's dodge. Film geeks and elitists, alike shall shed a tear for this loss to the mainstream. Overall the movie was good... it's a must see.. but it's not going to get the five K's ... OH SORRY... I forgot to introduce the scale by which i'll be going on, on this blog for rating movies and music a like:
KKKKK = excellent/cult-classic (with K signifying kowalski-approved...kowalski being moi)
KKKK = solid flicker
KKK = enjoyable one-time watch
KK = ok... can I be doing something more useful??
K = i'd rather cut myself with a rusty razor from the french revolution

ok people that's it from me ... at 5:04 am ...its my bedtime!

Voxtrottin Through Toronto

2007-04-11T11:40:00.000-04:00

Voxtrot - Austin, Texas-based indie-pop five piece band is coming to Sneaky Dees on the 8th of June!!! (can i hear people going crazy on the other side of their computers??) if not ... let me heave a sigh of disappointment, brimming with an undertone of angst, somewhat reminiscent of the blow-up of grunge back in the days of nirvana.

Anyhow I digress...back to the matter at hand.. ramesh srivastava and his band of merry musicians are voxtrottin into 'our' city!
I've put up a video of their particularly raucous number entitled "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives", which was the sonic starting point for the band's sophomore epic EP!

Just yesterday I picked up their new eponymous album. Contrary to some criticisms a friend of mine had given, I was happily surprised. It seems they have been able to form a delightful marriage between the chaotic bliss of previous EPs and their new found calm reassuring touch. Lilting lyrics abound my friend... this record will consume you and replenish your strength at the same time.

"Listen to the sounds of ringing out around you

These are the cries of the dying beat

Politics of hate you'd never get around to

Blood over brains that we never need

I saw you in the back, studied and relaxed

Fixed in the post like a silent stone

Serenity in tact, it's the feeling that I lack

Life in the floors of a stable home "

- voxtrot - kid gloves

...

Anyhow I don't think I need to further elaborate on how quintessential it is to see voxtrot perform live this June. Put your pens aside critics...this is a band to truly applaud if there ever was one!

survivalism

2007-04-10T11:30:00.000-04:00

should have listened to her

so hard to keep control

we kept on eating but

our bloated belly's still not full

she gave us all she had but

we went and took some more

can't seem to shut her legs

our mother Nature is a whore