Thursday, July 16, 2009

The idea for one blog has actually turned into two. I took all of my movie reviews and created a blog specifically for them called "Joel's Ticket Stub". I've got 17 reviews up now and I'm going to try to have 20 in total before I take off for Europe. I may expand it in the future to include other features.

Be the first to check it out: Joel's Ticket Stub

I'm going to work on the other for a bit longer before I make it public. I'm still messing around with the format and writing about different things to figure out what I'm going to use it for.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

I have had a series of blogs that I've gone through in the past nine years. Titles have included:

The Standard
Mental Piracy
Life on Drugs
Dave the Moon Man
Field Trip City
2AM Traffic
Things to Do Before I'm 30

That's seven altogether. Almost one a year. I've kept some going longer than others, but I've always moved on. I don't know why. I get to the point where a part of me thinks, "Enough is enough. Time to start over. Time to clear the slate and get on with life. Time for a new set of thought processes." Each move to a new journal has signaled a shift in my personality or what I regarded as dawns to new times in my life. Almost one a year.

I'm finding readers increasingly hard to hold on to. The most fruitful of my blogs was undoubtedly "Dave the Moon Man", the blog I kept up at livejournal.com. It was because I became involved in a network of other people who also blogged and everyone seemed to share a mutual appreciation for each other's entries. Almost all of my friends had blogs or started them. Now, livejournal is all but a barren wasteland of community and university updates and the occasional collection of film stills. Most of those people who kept blogs have moved on.

I have seven blogs belonging to friends that I keep an eye on. Of those, only two of them are updated with anything close to a regular frequency. I have two friends who update still somewhat regularly on livejournal, bringing the grand total to four. Blogs used to be a great way to keep track of my friends' lives. It was a great way to find out their thoughts and activities and desires. Now I have no idea what anyone is thinking.

Just ask them in person, right? Sure. But blogs sometimes afforded my friends the chance to really get their thoughts into the words that they couldn't summon when I would see them, which is also happening more infrequently than it used to. I get that. People move on in life. Some folks just aren't writers. Blogs were a phase for most. I just miss it. Because the old network is gone, people are also not as inclined to read what I have to say, and I generally have to keep my blogs under lock and key with invite-only type friend lists and other nonsense, which makes it harder.

I know I mentioned this recently, but I've been thinking more and more about it - a completely open and honest blog that I can fully admit to having without worrying about repercussions. It's what I've always wanted. I think I can pull it off now, because I don't write as much about the same things I used to write about (re: girl problems). However, I'll have to write it under a slightly different name. I'll use my middle names: Joel Crary.

I'm still working on what kind of shape it will take and where I'll post it. I just know this new phase is coming, and soon.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

It's another late night up browsing the Internet, usually dwelling on Wikipedia for facts on things for which I sometimes have only the most general curiosity (searched in the last couple of nights: Amsterdam, Jesus, Krakatoa, the K-T boundary, Tsar Bomba, Venus). I had lunch with my dad and brother this afternoon. My dad brought up the issue of subjecting the spirit to questionable content found in horror films and such. I tried to put my thoughts into words for a while before resorting to staring on the window in a defeated haze.

Later, though, I thought: What has become of my "spirit"? Has it succumbed to years of desensitization brought on by viewings of material that might bring my parents to give up on the world once and for all if they were to witness it? There are still films that I won't subject myself to, but it's for the reason that when a film becomes an exercise in testing the will's endurance to tolerate the darkest recesses of the human psyche, all of the entertainment value is sucked from it. Even if a film is bleak, I'm entertained by the deep questions it can ask. If it poses none, I fail to see why I should bother with it at all. But that's a hard idea to communicate to one who seemingly tries their best to shut the bad parts of the world off.

Then again, I've never worked in a hospital, so what the fuck do I know?

I've been eating poorly again lately and it's gotten to the point where I'm feeling self-conscious about my weight. It's kind of new territory for me and I've become fed up with it. I feel like it's finally time to make a drastic change to my diet and exercise regimen. Since I finished work I've been sitting on my ass and basking in the glory of doing absolutely nothing. That has to stop. When I get back to Ottawa on Wednesday, I'm going to hit the grocery store and stock up on better food. I'm going to start walking every day and I'm going to go back to doing the stretches and exercises I was doing to help my back (while being careful not to return it to its former fragile aching state - around this time last year, some overzealous crunches broke a straw that softened my back up to slip out).

I'm going to Europe in two weeks. Dear God. I've got this bizarre feeling that if I don't start paying more attention to it, it's going to go by far too quickly, even though I've thought about it every day for a over a year. It's EUROPE. It's the kind of trip I've been wanting to make for a decade. It's London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris and Amsterdam, with trains and planes between each. I'm so excited to see things I've never seen before. The thing I've always loved about traveling somewhere I've never been is that it completely opens me up to the moment. New surroundings make for guaranteed brand new thoughts and memories. A month from now I will have new images and experiences burned into my brain for the rest of my life. It's a liberating expectation.

I want very badly to write about the things I see and do while I'm there. I feel like I should be doing the trip justice that way. Not in the moment, but slightly removed from it, sitting in the dim light on an overnight train to a new destination, the darkened shapes of foreign terrain passing in the distance. Words and sentences finding their way onto the page while the heart rests in suspended animation.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I had been wanting to see the 1970 Woodstock documentary for a few weeks before I finally broke down and picked up a copy of the new 2-disc 40th anniversary edition director's cut. I watched it over a couple of days. It's pretty phenomenal.

Lately I've been feeling a compulsion to investigate some of the history of popular music. This time last month I probably couldn't have identified a quarter of the acts that played at the Woodstock festival. Now I know how powerful Joe Cocker's cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends" was, and how it stood as an anthem for a generation of young people who wanted to put a stop to a war they thought was unjust. Now I know about the hypnotizing ability of Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, who performs the best drum solo I've ever heard during the band's performance of "Soul Sacrifice". Now I know about the counterbalance of Joan Baez, whose acapella performance of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" resonated across a sea of 400,000 people, and Janice Joplin, who appeared to come apart at the seams as she sang just over a year before her death. I've seen the size of Richie Havens' hands as he not so much played but attacked an acoustic guitar to open the show, and Jimi Hendrix's skillful forays into noise during his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner to close it.

It reminded me of the festival shows I used to frequent a few years back, but Woodstock carried with it a far different feeling. What made the event so special was the nearly blind faith of the organizers that it would successfully capture and promote a sentiment that was purely of the time. I've always thought of the 60's as a time far removed from the world in which I grew up, but they were kids just like I was. Some of them looked just like typical kids of today.

I went back at looked at the revival of the shows in 1994 and 1999, the latter of which I remember a bit more vividly. Woodstock 1999 ended in violence and anger. The show featured loud, aggressive and testosterone-fueled acts that incited the crowd to riot. It was such an embarrassment.

It's been forty years since Woodstock and I can't imagine another event of that size taking place, especially with the labels in the shape they're in today. But eventually, slowly but surely, a new group of young people are going to want to say that enough is enough. Music will break free of commercialism and hundreds of thousands will flock to celebrate it again. It's an ideal that I'd like to see renew itself. All it will take is a positive use of the technology we have at our disposal and the right set of principles that no product or marketing plan can sell us. Music was an expression of our humanity not too long ago. It will feel that way again.

Some other notes that I've been meaning to write lately: I'd like to start updating a blog every day again, but one that takes a look at issues that are going on in the world. I've been blogging for about ten years now and I miss the communal feel of certain blogs I used to run. Nobody seems to write or comment any longer. I miss reading about what people had on their minds. A lot of people have become stagnant in expressing themselves through the blogging medium (myself included).

I'd like my next blog to be the first completely and totally open blog that I run. In the past, I've worried about posting material that some of the people I know might find objectionable, but I'm becoming less inclined to write updates that delve into the kind of controversy I used to envision. I've been thinking of extending it off of wireandlight.ca along with the film reviews I've been writing lately. Wire and Light can encompass a creative hub that meets the needs of my ever-changing artistic inclinations.

I've started working on a live show for Wire and Light. I need to write a set list down so that I can hone it.

I'll be in Europe in less than a month. I'll be back with more thoughts on that next time.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

"His sudden death gives us all an opportunity to appreciate the enduring genius of his art but to realize that we have no musician that speaks to all of us... and that we haven’t for some time now."

- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

I don't own any Michael Jackson albums and I never have. He was undeniably talented and the richer he became, the grander the terms in which he thought about his art became. If you were born in North America in the last 40 years, he was a part of your childhood. There's no getting around that. His face, songs and videos were everywhere.

My sister had a crush on him until she saw the Thriller video. It made her cry. My parents forbade us to watch the video for years, though I remember clearly seeing the discretionary warning that it didn't endorse a belief in the occult. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't see these days.

Michael had a love for the theatrical and the debuts of his videos on television were always an event. I remember tuning in to see the premieres of Bad, Black or White, Remember the Time and Scream on network television. They usually amounted to miniature films, each with its own complete vision.

"Dangerous" was the album I remember most. I heard it played in bedrooms and basements during the transition of my taste into rock music. The Weird Al parodies were huge, of course. I had a red leather jacket like the one from Thriller in the 4th grade and got made fun of for wearing it.

I wouldn't say that Jackson's music ever spoke to me personally, but it was impossible to not get chills over his grandiose presentation of a pop song. Nobody did it better. He was the total package of ability in voice, dance and passion. During the 90's, a societal shift in attitude away from the excess and pomp of the 80's didn't stop Michael from going to extreme lengths to promote himself, and while his ego went on trial around the same time he did, it was hard to not admire the guy.

People didn't want to believe that Michael had a sick side because of the way his music had made them feel. He was raised in the public spotlight from a young age and had everyone's attention. Nobody wanted to see such a creation turn into Frankenstein's monster. Michael's appearance was indicative of the insecurities of a person trying to remain high in the world's imagination. His skin disease was a nasty reminder of his humanity and he appeared to work against it rather than with it.

It's been nice to see people try to honour Michael as a brilliant artist instead of the freak that he seemed to become. A part of me was looking forward to his upcoming tour. It would have been one last shot for the master to go out on top - a final chance to change the world's minds and live up to old potentials, renew old victories and bring the people to dance again. It would have been nice for him.

One of the richest, most popular and most mysterious performers has passed on very suddenly. Time will tell how this will impact a variety of things - the media, music, the tabloids. It would be great to see changes made. As brilliant as he might have been, we don't need another Michael Jackson. No one deserves such a fate.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

We all have our hang-ups. One of mine is insecurity, about a number of things. I remember being 20 and greatly concerned about the size of my ego, because I suddenly became aware of how much time I was spending feeling self-involved and introspective. Of course, ten years later I've come to realize that that's the way MOST people are. Most people are too worried about their own hang-ups to notice anyone else's.

One's own insecurity can result in a tendency to trash others to make themselves feel better. I've been guilty of it in the past, but I haven't spoken ill of anyone in a long time. It's a rotten byproduct of insecurity and I believe that one's actions and words go a long way in structuring their world. I loathe negativity and separate myself from it consciously. Sometimes it's felt like a technique of survival.

It's not very poetic for me to sit here and type about the moments during each day when I feel as though the world looks at me with disdain or contempt, but I feel as though I'm so rarely honest with myself in print these days. There's a quadrant in my brain that's obsessed with the idea that somewhere out there, people I have only a perfunctory relationship with think I'm worthless. That I shouldn't be taken seriously. That I'm an infantile person with insincere opinions, desires and goals. It burns away in that part of me and leaves a black spot.

I've always felt a need to make an impression on people. Sometimes I think that I should have gone into acting at a younger age, or thrown myself headlong into some sort of career as a performance artist. But I've never been able to match up the aesthetics of people who perform with my own tastes and perceptions. And maybe that's a GOOD thing, because it theoretically leaves me with an original take. But it also ostracizes me, on a certain level, and it makes me afraid to try.

I have, in the past, Googled the phrase "proving people wrong". That part of me that thinks that people view me with contempt also thinks that I have an uphill battle in actively changing their opinions. I try to reconcile that thought process with the tendency that everyone has to marry themselves to their opinions as they get older. When does proving people wrong stop becoming important? One of the greatest sources of elation in the world is finding out that the idea I had of someone in my head was completely false. When I find out that I was wrong, so wrong about somebody. That they're so much better than I was willing to give them credit for.

What do you do when no one thinks you can do something? Do you find new people who are willing to give you a shot? I think I suffer from the delusion that the world is much, much smaller than it actually is. I feel like I'm living in a bubble all the time and that one day it's finally going to pop and I'll wonder why it took so long. I'm afraid. I'm afraid to try certain things. Yet there is so much I want to try, and so much I'm trying to try. I'm doing the best I can with my time and money and drive.

I'm going to Europe in a month, for a couple of weeks or so. Maybe that will jostle my sense of geography a bit.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

I've sat down a few times over the last couple of weeks to attempt to write an entry, since I've had a lot on my mind about work, music, writing, love, faith, film and life in general. The thoughts won't fall into place and trickle down to my fingers. I just got off work a little over 30 minutes ago and I have to be back in less than eight hours. I type thousands of words a day. No wonder I want to cool it on the computer when I get home.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with these songs. I want people to hear them. I'll put them online. I'd like to get some hard copies printed up to send to radio stations, labels and magazine, and I've been considering going through a company called Indie Pool. They also have a service that would allow me to copyright the songs for about 60 bucks. For about 600 bucks plus tax, I could get the songs on iTunes and the like, plus make them available for order through HMV and Chapters.

I should chip away at that sort of thing gradually, I think. I still haven't played a show yet. I've been thinking of spending hundreds of dollars on a speaker setup so that I can practice a live show in my apartment. This music venture is costing me more money than a band normally would because it's just me, for the most part. I have to cover all the expenses. I don't know how I'd do it if I didn't have a grown-up job, and even now I'm pushing it.

It's been kind of nice, the way the job has afforded me the opportunity to grow as an artist. Sometimes I think I'm turning into one of those people who, when you ask them what they do for a living, they say "I'm an artist," but what they REALLY mean is, "I'm a bus driver who plays guitar for an open mic at this shit bar downtown once a month." Such a cliche. Is that an okay way to be? Is there an alternative?

I've been working on these songs, listening to them pretty closely lately, and lately I've found myself kind of proud of them instead of embarrassed. When I heard my voice singing on a track for the first time in about 10 years, I almost couldn't stand it. I buried it under reverb and put it way back in the mix. But I've been turning down the reverb lately and adding layers for clarity. I'm starting to not mind the way my voice sounds because it's more a part of the songs now. If it doesn't work, I can change it. I can be in the song rather than always apart from it, which is really what this whole process has been about on some level, I think.

Does anybody really care about this besides me? I've been thinking back to the things that I felt when I started really hearing music for the first time. As much as it manipulated me through the forms it took, I didn't question it or apply bullshit theories to it. I felt it through and through when I joined my first band at 14. I would show up at Darryl and Jeff's house with my bass and we'd play, just to see if we could get the songs to sound right. And sometimes they would sound exactly, perfectly right, and I'd be so happy. I'd grin my face off, and I don't know if they ever felt the same way completely. That feeling has always been something I've convinced myself into thinking is mine alone.

What are these songs I've written about? A lot of the time they're about words that I think sound good together. As a teenager I always liked the way the word "away" sounded in a rock song. A word that kept coming to me while writing songs this time around is "another", like I was joining these efforts at creation in progress somehow, as if they'd always been going on. Just more words in a long line of word-speakers, but I'm happy to take part.

A lot of the time, the songs are about the state of the world. They're about technology and worrying about getting old and marveling at how it feels to be alone in an environment that has been pulled so close together. They're about finding happiness in simplicity and finding a role to play and the enormity of the universe. And love, of course, because all songs are about that.

Playing these songs live and pulling them off is going to impress even me, if I can make them sound and look appealing. That will be the next part of this process, after I've done all I can to the songs in that little basement bedroom of mine.

Some of this is going to end up in liner notes. No doubt about it.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

My top five most likely religious identifications, according to a survey on http://www.beliefnet.com:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (89%)
3. Neo-Pagan (89%)
4. Secular Humanism (82%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (74%)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Just a few notes from the Red Pill, aka my living room, before I hit the sack...

I've had an Acer Aspire 3620 laptop for almost exactly three years. The main reason I purchased it was so that I could use it to record and play music. I have used it to mess around with Reason a bit in the past, but it gradually replaced my whole desktop computer once it went belly up. The Acer was the computer I used while I lived in Toronto. For almost the entire time I've had the thing, I've typically had to point an external fan at the processor to keep it from overheating. The internal fan is probably caked with dirt. I've never squirted the vents with compressed air or popped it open for a closer look. I don't have a small screwdriver or the willingness to buy one, especially since I bought the huge Mac desktop last summer.

I've wiped the hard drive clean several times to try and restore its functionality. Now, I'm finally getting around to seriously wanting to use it for music purposes. I've taken most of the non-essential program off the hard drive and installed Reason, plus an ASIO driver to cut down on signal delay from my MIDI keyboard to the computer. I'm now downloading FL Studio for installation, which should complete the software end of what I need it for. A next step is picking up a powered speaker that I can run from my mixer and the laptop. If I can get the software to work well in conjunction, I'll be pretty well set.

This doesn't change the fact that the laptop isn't the greatest, but maybe I can get a show out of it. I've got it raised on a stack of coasters right now to allow ventilation and it seems to be helping it tremendously. I really should have taken better care of this thing.

I think about what I'm going to do with the music a lot. Right now the plan is to put it online and play a show. Small steps. I've been thinking about hard copies to send out to places and how hardcore I want to go on designing/printing them. Over the next few weekends I'm planning to finalize the tacks, design a website and finish a music video, with everything coming together for a launch on Tuesday, May 19th. Once my equipment comes together, I'm going to practice my ass off and schedule a show. And then, well, I guess that's when I'll see how serious I am about this.

I spent the week in Peterborough with a lot of ideas floating around in my head. I came back with some poems written and ideas for poems and a short story brewing. It felt like the vacation kind of threw off the rhythm I had going of working, songwriting and review writing, but at least I have a lot to aim for. If only work weren't getting in the way.

I'm still listening to a lot of Wilco. I've got four of their albums. Some of these songs will be with me forever, I think. As long as I get to listen to a song like "Poor Places" as often as I want, the world can't be all bad.

Tomorrow night I'm going to check out a set by Adam Saikely at the Avant Garde Bar. I want to spy on his audio setup. It feels like my ego has kept me out of a lot of venues in Ottawa over the last few years. I'm trying to get past it because it's bullshit and I'm too old to be concerned with things like that. Andrea helps me out on that front. The world is hers to hold while the rest of us are just trying to stay standing.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

I've been listening to a lot of Wilco lately. Pretty well exclusively, even. I got a hold of three of their albums. Tonight I went out for a walk around Centretown in the snow, listening, listening...

I think part of my new fascination with Wilco is stripping away each layer of their production, trying to listen to their records on separate levels. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a record that places noise and ambient soundscapes upon fairly straight-ahead acoustic and pop rock numbers. The newer Sky Blue Sky record is one that lead singer Jeff Tweedy called an album of songs, pure and simple - a lot of guitar progressions and jamming. The other day I picked up A.M. and it's different than I thought it would be. I had heard so much about the influence of country music on Wilco's earlier stuff, but it's different from country music. Sure, they use slide guitar, but it's taken out of the context of the country music style and put into one that sound more like 90's alternative rock.

I've been trying to wrap my head around Jeff Tweedy. He's a huge punk rock fan, yet he fronts what a lot of people have called an alt. country band. He collaborates with a guy like Jim O'Rourke and has a predilection for noise and art rock, yet from what I've heard of the Wilco albums, they only scratch the surface of how different that style can get. I think part of the reason for that is Tweedy's love for writing lyrics. I think he regards himself as a poet who happens to be a songwriter.

I've always been a little bewildered by noise, but experimenting with Reason has turned me on to some of its possibilities. I'm still a much bigger fan of structure and melody, but I love the challenge of crafting something out of both. I'd really like to try something drastic with noise while still keeping an identifiable rhythm and lyrics as elements. I'm really interested in songs like "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and "Radio Cure", songs that shift in structure yet still hold together as beautiful pieces of music that start at A and end at Z.

The problem with the way I currently write songs in Reason is that I'm still married to writing overly segmented arrangements. I need to mix them up. I need to take a hammer to them and shatter them somehow, yet avoid the problem of them turning out too "weird". A lot of folks are into music that I find "weird". The music I make has to make sense to me. I don't want to write a song and feel like I didn't try hard to shape it appropriately afterward. I also need to spend more time on writing lyrics. Right now I'm writing words off the top of my head to gel with the songs. I'd like to try working on stuff that's more imagistically rich.

I started working on a new song today. These days listening to music feels more like a process of deconstruction to me. It's impressing me on a whole new level.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I've never thought much about meditation or finding some sort of spiritual peace through another culture's beliefs or religious tenets. My spiritual side seems to be permanently entangled with what I regard as my common sense. That's not to say that I find meditation or what have you nonsensical or ridiculous. I just feel as though my thoughts and emotions already come out of my spiritual side. Meditating would be like walking around outside with an oxygen mask strapped to my face. I can breathe just fine without it.

At the same time, I do wonder how spiritual a person I actually am. I suppose "spiritual" is a word I've used to describe myself since I was able to admit that I wasn't particularly religious. I find it difficult to believe in the finer points of anyone's God and rely more on impressions that I've gathered from being alive. In that, I'm spiritual. When I think about meditation, I think of it in the context of something that's needed when our wiring starts to overheat. I believe it allows a person an opportunity to relax and think themselves past a problem that's interfering with their happiness. It helps a person gain perspective, if not an "insight" into God's plan, even if that plan takes the form of a general universal harmony without a figurehead.

I'm a curious person. I wouldn't mind knowing how this whole life business got started in the first place and for what reason, if there is a reason, I'm conscious in this mind and body at this moment in the history of the world. It seems convenient that this vast expanse of a universe was created and none of it would have ever been so much as perceived if life hadn't sprung up. What would the point of the sun, moon and planets have been if we hadn't been around to figure out how they work? Maybe they would have been acting elements in a play we can't yet comprehend, put on by intelligences far greater than our own for their amusement, though one would tire of the repetitiveness of orbits and asteroids after milennia, wouldn't they?

Maybe time is perceived differently by greater intelligences, if they do exist. Species of Arctica islandica (mollusks) have been discovered to live for over 400 years. What would a year be to a man who lived that long? As human beings, we're aware of the average age at which we're bound to keel over. We have a common perception of time expressed in a completely physical term. I guess meditation helps some folks think of it in terms of the soul. It helps lift some of the weight of mortality.

I'm quite confident that I have a soul. Whether I'm bound for a destination of paradise or damnation is another story. Must it be one or the other? Why would the afterlife be so much more definite, so much more black and white than the physical world? Would the seemingly infinite facets of human intelligence be forced into line, the mind shackled in the ethereal state after years of being shackled to the physical body? But I'm confusing the soul with the mind. Maybe the soul is the part of us in between emotion and thought, the carrier that cradles the two and experiences hurt when they go into two directions.

All these years of human life and now all this information at our fingertips and we still haven't seemed to trip over the one piece of information that answers it all. We probably won't. The grand answer will be kept grand, I think, because why deny life the opportunity to recognize itself as such? You're alive. Have an ice cream cone and give a chuckle. Yes, we feel pain. Life gets downright unbearable. When it comes down to it, the only alternative is to not have it. It seems natural to me. I have the opportunity. My mind and heart recognize it, and so I live.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I browse the CBC news websites quite frequently at work. Today I came across this article, which details the near-miss of a 10-story-sized asteroid that flew by the earth at a distance of 72,000 km on Monday. The article says that astronomers didn't know about it until Saturday.

The article compares the asteroid with one of a similar size that exploded over Siberia in 1908, devastating the landscapes with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs. That was called the Tunguska event (More on that here).

There is a lot of talk in the astronomy community lately about finding another Earth in the extrasolar regions of the Milky Way. This Friday, NASA is launching the Kepler telescope to take a closer look at the orbital patterns of Earth-like planets.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Eight, Part Two)

I'm at Andrea's watching the red carpet coverage of the Academy Awards. This E! newscaster is really annoying, losing her mind over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They're just fucking actors. And who cares what these people are wearing? All of that artifice is ridiculous. Actors are nominated for roles that on some level convey a universal and true sense of humanity, yet we're supposed to care about how superhuman they can look. Don't get it. Never will.

One of the things on my list of things to do before I turn 30 is write the introduction to my memoirs. I wanted to get a start on it this week. I've been thinking a bit about it. Memoirs are written to convey a life lived. I wonder who would read a collection of my writings after I pass on. I've wondered that for a while.

I finished off The Medium is the Massage tonight. McLuhan makes the point that people have lost interest in self-expression and individual ideas, preferring instead the expressions of a collective. One person with their own ideas is hard to take seriously.

I think I'm coming to an understanding about the way I see the world. All these bits and pieces are connected. McLuhan makes a great deal of sense to me. I wish I'd paid him more attention in school. I think I'm going to send an email off to Brian Johnson. He was my undergraduate honours thesis supervisor and he had a predilection for McLuhan. Maybe he can help me make greater sense of these ideas. I haven't talked to him in quite some time, so it would give me an excuse.

I've been thinking a little bit over this past week about going back to school one day. Mostly I'm hoping that I can keep that door open. I think there's something very important I have yet to write. I'm not through learning. I'm not through arguing. I'm not through figuring things out.

Picks: Mickey Rourke, Kate Winslet, Heath Ledger, Viola Davis, Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire.

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Eight)

Much as I hate to admit it, I'm really impressed by Lily Allen's new song, "The Fear." She slagged on Radiohead, proving that she's a dimwit, yet the song is incisive and intelligent, and her producers produced the HELL out of it. It's really the best song about popular culture I've heard in probably the last five years.

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore
I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
Because I'm being taken over by the fear


That's the condition of the 21st century captured in a pop song chorus. And it's catchy as hell.

Andrea called me at 5:30 this morning (2:30 California time). I haven't been able to get back to sleep. Today is my last day off.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Seven)

I like the sound of traffic at 2 AM. There isn't much of it downtown. Downtown Ottawa shuts down around midnight, after most of the buses have stopped running. Lately I've been falling asleep to the sound of snow plows, but that won't last forever.

When I go for periods without working or going to school, I tend to gravitate towards keeping late night hours. I had no daytime obligations for a few months last fall and would often stay up past 3 o'clock in the morning. If I was at Andrea's, I would watch TV, or go on the Internet.

I'm on the Internet a lot, for hours at a time each day. It's been that way for years now. And it strikes me that I spend an inordinate amount of time online checking to see if I'm being noticed. Recognition of me, as a living, breathing person, more often comes in the page view as it clicks up, or the view counter as it moves forward, or the notification of a comment, or an email in the inbox. It is beyond being noticed - it is being seen. I know I am alive when I am seen by other people, and my computer tells me when I am seen. Without it, I would be invisible.

It is an isolating experience. I often feel alone. And I'm okay with that, I think. It only gets to me when I fool myself into thinking that no one cares about me. 95% of the time, I believe I am cared for. And I think that's all anyone can hope for. Luckily, fascination is high on my list of character traits, if it could be called that. I am fascinated by the idea that I can be whoever I want to be on it. It's a new world. A new environment. I can change a person's perception of me with the click of a mouse or the clatter of a few keys in succession. And all along, I seem to carry with me the belief that I'm the only one who thinks about the Internet that way, that everyone else is simply using it as a tool to replace the post office and diaries and telephones and television. They stay who they are. I become someone else.

I can pretend to be here. I can pretend to disappear. I can make my life sound full or empty. I can proclaim to be in love or that I feel lost. I have over 300 people on my Facebook friends list. More than two-thirds of those people will never know the difference between my online identity and my real life identity. They will know that I make music and watch movies and read books and that's it. They will know the same 25 things about me that everyone else I tagged knows. It's how we get to know a person these days, perhaps because there are more people now than there's ever been (a fact that seems shocking to me at 2 AM on a deserted downtown Ottawa street).

What I really want out of life is to be thought of while I'm alive and to be remembered when I'm no longer living. That's my ego talking. What I really want out of life is to fall in love and eventually raise a family. That's my society talking. What I really want out of life is a great job and enough money to take care of me in old age. That's my government talking. What I really want out of life is to create art. That's my heart. Art in everything and everyone, in every thought and emotion and belief. Quiet moments of grace. A trembling of the hand. The way the sun hits the faces of people during sunsets. The look of Andrea's teeth between her lips. Note changes. C to B to A to A flat. When I woke up, there seemed such promise. It seemed like nothing I did would change this. I put my hand through a running faucet and flinched to feel it: a final notice. I put my shoes on and hit the pavement. I passed a stranger and looked right at her. If I could capture this pregnant moment, I'd give birth to it and never feel alone again.

Something like that. The waiting for a loved one to return. Thinking of her. Being thought of. Remembering the sound of traffic at 2 AM.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Six, Part Two)

Some points made by Marshall McLuhan in "The Medium is the Massage":

The concept of "you" as an individual, unique being is not the same as it was 100 years ago. The concept of "you" is now much closer to the concept of "us". The individual has become the mass.

The family unit has been replaced by the world unit. Children now learn from societies instead of parents.

Electric circuitry has changed the meaning of time and space. Old groupings such as civic, state and nation no longer operate, because technology has exploded geography.

Education and schooling are archaic institutions operating against technology. The media of television contradicts the media of the classroom. Children progress into the adult world confused by the mixing of media, both of which work to communicate the message: Grow up!

"Jobs" are antithetical to both survival and sanity.

Politics, once a form of passive entertainment, has changed drastically. How the world operates politically is now far more apparent than it ever has been. The mass audience has begun to participate. "The living room has become a voting booth."

The individual has become inextricably attached to everyone else. To survive requires participation and a heretofore unseen involvement in each other's lives.

The development of print has conditioned the world to think in a linear manner and to understand physical environments in visual and spatial terms for thousands of years. Before print, hearing was the dominant sense for the means of understanding. Today, technology has brought on a regression. Due to the deluge of information now available, we learn in bits and pieces rather than in the large chunks offered by texts.

Books created the illusion of individuality by offering emotion and thought in a series of physically fixed states - pages in between covers. "Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless, in the dark of the mind, in the world of emotion, by primordial intuition, by terror." So it is today, in the global village of technology. Individuality is history. Detachment is impossible.

Our perceptions of time and space have developed to the point where it feels as though they have ceased to exist. The speed of technology has forever altered our concept of the speed of natural evolution. All we have to respond to this reality are outdated modes of thinking and feeling. It is totally new.

We no longer put faith in a fixed point of view. Now, we only suspend judgement.

As information piles on information, the desire to fill in the cracks builds higher and higher. And that, my friends, is your cue to comment.

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Six)

I'm heading out to meet folks for some diner of the Elgin Street variety. It's been too long.

I wrote a film review for the Things to Do Before I'm 30 blog. I'll post it tomorrow once I've taken some screen captures.

I'm planning an update about what I've been reading in The Medium is the Massage. Next one, hopefully. For now, I dine.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Five)

It's been a busy day, and now, at the end of it, I'm sitting across the room from four televisions hooked up to a DVD player through an RF modulator and stacked on top of one another. I've unplugged them so as to not cause an electrical fire. I watched some footage on them and they create a pretty hypnotizing effect, especially when I alter the picture settings individually. Should be fun to play around with them.

Hanging out with Jim was fun, but I do get the feeling that he's disappointed that we don't see much at all of each other anymore. We're living different lives. His life is his marriage, his job, his house and car. And maybe that's not so different from what constitutes my life, but we've drifted apart. Our interests and social lives stopped overlapping a while ago. But hell, it sure was nice of him to cart me around while I looted thrift shops in the west end. That's something a true friend would do. I certainly appreciated his help. And talking with him was engaging, because I'm finding myself becoming more interested in what has interested him for years.

The President of the United States was in town today. He briefly waved to a crowd of thousands strong on Parliament Hill before sending for a BeaverTail from his limo en route to the airport, initiating the most pride this city has felt in months in the process. O'Connor Street was packed with cars today as part of Elgin and the streets closer to Parliament were shut down. I even saw a couple of cars drive the wrong way down Gilmour to some energetic honking from oncoming traffic and pedestrians. It's days like today I feel grateful that I live within walking distance of most amenities.

I finished off "Born a Ghost", which can be heard on the Wire and Light myspace. The mixer works great. The next step is making a video, hopefully soon, with Ian's help. I just have to figure out the mechanics of staging it in the apartment.

Right now I'm watching Back to the Future with the producers' commentary track on. After this week I'm going to start eating healthier. I think I've been putting on weight and I don't give much of a damn these days about the food I've been eating. Time to change that attitude.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Four)

I've felt tired all day. I just woke up from a nap, so who knows when I'll be going to bed, but I'm up now and I suppose that's all that matters.

I picked up my paycheque from work and deposited it. It wasn't as much as I'd hoped I was going to make. Then again, I won't actually make a real, honest-to-goodness full two weeks of pay on one cheque until the end of March. The first cheque reflects the end of prorogation, and the next two will reflect this week off. Welcome to adulthood, self. Never enough money to pay for being alive. If this is just the beginning of REAL money problems, I might just disappear to a shack in the woods after all.

I'm only half-serious. It's starting to dwell on me how expensive my goals and ambitions are. I want to do a lot of things, and a lot of things take money. I'm also living alone for the first time, so I can't chop every living expense into halves or thirds like I used to. I suppose I should feel lucky to even have a job, but even to the jobless that's a somewhat hollow thing to be thankful for. I'm so THANKFUL I can be just another cog in our society's huge capitalist machine! Don't need anything more! Happy and livin' the dream!

I need something more. No matter what I ever do, it won't be enough to satisfy me. These days that fact excites me way more often than it upsets me. It makes me think I can try new things constantly. I just don't want to find myself sitting at a desk pumping out text ten years from now because I'm still waiting for life to REALLY ACTUALLY start. The only things between me and a classic, full-fledged, stereotypical adult version of me are marriage, children and a house. If I end up with any of those things, I don't want to look back at the way I am today and think, oh, what a silly ass I was. I had no idea what responsibilities really were. I do. I have a responsibility to myself to feel happy, and it may be selfish in the eyes of parents and the betrothed and the property owners but it's the most important responsibility I have. If I don't tend to myself, what's the point?

Sometimes I think that I'm just another product of the "me" generation, people of an age brought up to think that they can change the world and inherit it completely without making any mistakes. A boy fed too many compliments in grade school on his ability to do well, to answer the questions, to write the right words, play the right notes and finish all the assignments and texts. I rarely hit the honour roll in high school, typically averaging out to marks of 78 or 79 each semester - just enough to not be recognized for superior work. Enough to get by. Slightly above average, but not enough to notice. I was the only one out of 13 or so OAC honour students to go to college instead of university.

In college, it was the same thing. Although I ended up with an award for the highest marks in the program, I never felt as though I had the artistic ability to create something that merited the praise. Not like a guy like Matt, who never finished his stuff on time but produced strikingly original graphic design every time and still does to this day. That was his niche, not mine. When I decided to go back to school, it was a decision based on equal parts of wanting to avoid the real world. Average though I was in high school, I always did well in English, and that trend continued. I got passionate about writing and put on shows and wrote and helped put together a magazine. The things I cared about might have been small but I really and truly cared about them.

Why am I going through this little historical recap? Part of my ground-up nature, I guess. Start with a level field and get to the point. But I was never the kid who took stuff apart to figure out how it worked. I would just try to make a facsimile, and it never turned out as good as the thing I was trying to replicate. I do, however, recognize a truth when I see it. There's a truth there, and it means something.

I'm still trying to come up with my own original thing. Not really because it's what I think I should do, but because I won't be complete without it. There's an adage that no matter how good a person is at something, there will always be someone better. Sometimes I think that I try to be half-good at EVERYTHING rather than really great at one thing, as if it's an equation that balances out somehow. But math, once a strong point, no longer is. I cycle through strong points and let them become weaknesses. I do a thing and end up thinking it's not enough.

Like this job, I guess.

I know I should calm down and try to gain some perspective. I can live a full life doing many things as long as I remember to take pleasure in them and try not to beat myself up too much over things I'll never be or be good at. There are an almost infinite number of those things. I will never operate the super hadron collider, or travel into outer space, or swim across Lake Ontario, or build a farm house with my bare hands. But maybe I can write some songs. I may not ever play the piano as well as Mozart, but maybe I can push the keys in a certain way at a given time and give one, two, three people chills. I may not ever own a publishing firm or accept a Giller prize, but maybe I can write a few poems, or a short story that someone reads and feels good about because it's a truth they couldn't understand before. And maybe I can put enough money away, not to do everything I want, but a few of the things that would mean a lot to me. There are things I want to see and do. There are things I want to feel, when I'm ready to feel them. If I can't see or do or feel them right now, that's okay. But I will find ways to have the experiences I want to have.

It amazes me that life doesn't drive more people fully mad, rather than simply mad in little, individualistic ways. There is no greater pressure to undertake. There are many definitions in place for what a life should and should not look like. The rest is a separation by desire and circumstance, and a fulfillment by means and ambition.

Today I bought a mixer.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Three)

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from my friend Mindi in Toronto, a girl I met online a few years ago and have only ever met once. She's hosting this show called Lit Kick on Ryerson's radio station once a month, from 6-7 AM. She was wondering if she could read some of my stuff, so I sent her a bunch of poems. I set my alarm and listened to the show in bed. She played some great material and read some great stuff. Listening to it felt good. There's something about college radio stations sending out signals at a certain time of morning or late night that clicks with something inside me. Hearing my stuff read was just icing. I was even inspired enough to download some music and write a poem before falling back to sleep.

I'm heading over to Ian's today to act in a web series he's written and directing called The Horror in the Eidolon Apartmnets, which can so far be seen online at http://www.pulp-horror.com/index.html. He's also asked me to read for a role in a project he wants to do afterward. It's kind of dark stuff to come from such a clean cut young guy.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day Two)

I took the bus out to Value Village this morning with the intent to browse around, but the store was closed because it's Family Day. Thanks, Dalton. That holiday is still fresh, but I wager I'll remember it next year. All the same, it was interesting being on a bus for the first time in quite a while. Fares are half price. I'm meeting up with Jim on Thursday and he's going to drive me around to some thrift stores.

I finally get paid on Wednesday and it's going to indicate the kind of money I'll be bringing in over the next little while. Andrea and I have been planning a Europe trip this summer for a few months. By the looks of ticket prices, I'm going to have to start saving a shitload of cash. I currently have three debts to pay off and bills to pay every month. The new job pays well, but we'll see how well. I really want to make it work, though. I haven't spent nearly enough time overseas.

I'm probably going to lay low today, but I'd like to try and plan something for every day of the week. Tuesday through Thursday are pretty well covered. A bit of partying this weekend would be a nice way to end things off. I'd certainly like to see and do things with people this week. I'd also like to contact some people I haven't talked to in ages.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day One, Part Two)

I've been working on a song lately. I've about finished the computer work. I'm going to call it "Born a Ghost," a reference to a conversation I had recently. My intent this week is to finish it, as well as collect a few things for the music video I want to make. It's going to require visits to a few thrift shops. Basically, I'm looking for used televisions. Small ones that no one wants any more.

It seems that over the last little while I've become fascinated with technology in a whole new way. I still don't know the basics of how electronics work, but I find it interesting how technology becomes obsolete. Especially on my radar right now is the fact that analog television will soon be completely a thing of the past. June 12th is the cut-off date for people to switch to digital. Analog transmissions will no longer be sent by stations. There are small rural communities all across the country that don't have digital service in their areas. Signals will cease hurling through the air.

What will happen to the snow on televisions? Fun fact: when an analog television is not receiving a signal, the snow that appears on the screen is a combination of internal thermal noise caused by agitated electrons in the television itself, electromagnetic fields generated by nearby electronic devices, and microwaves from the cosmic microwave background radiation that runs throughout the universe. That last one, CMB, was discovered in the 1960's by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, winning them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978. The only model of universal operation that effectively explains CMB is the Big Bang theory.

I'm planning to read a bit of Marshall McLuhan this week. I've had a copy of "The Medium is the Massage" for years now, which is the book he produced in collaboration with graphic artist Quentin Fiore. While it looks very neat I've never actually sat down and read the thing. I did leaf through it last night and read McLuhan's observations on how the human being finds technological extensions into his/her natural environment. The wheel is an extension of the foot, the book an extension of the eye and so on. Most notable, however, is McLuhan's observation that the circuit is an extension of the central nervous system. The other week I was reading a Wired article about these students at MIT who have created what they call a "sixth human sense":



McLuhan was writing about this more than forty years ago. It is quite literally coming to fruition. I'm always interested in seeing how technology will develop in my lifetime. When I was a kid, I was always excited to see the arrival of the year 2000. It felt so significant to be alive at the turn of a millennium, as though we would immediately see a change. And there have been pretty drastic changes to how the world works, even in my own lifetime. I think it's the speed with which we handle information nowadays that makes it feel as though technology is dragging. When will we be wearing computers? When will life not be what we encounter but what we construct? And would that be better?

I'm pondering these ideas in front of a computer screen. In three years time I will have spent half my life with ready access to a wide internal world at my disposal. Without it, I would have been entirely different. With it, I will continue to change, hopefully into someone that won't go obsolete anytime soon.

Gloucester Street Spring Break Journals (Day One)

For the past few years I've had, in effect, "spring break" periods of about a week or so over which I have consistently had experiences that I will probably recall for years to come. Despite being out of school this year, I have a reading week, of sorts, because the House of Commons is taking the week off debating. What has been largely characteristic about these weeks is that I have been pretty well left to my own devices. In 2006, I stayed at Kat's place for a week in March while she took a trip to Spain. In 2007, Andrea and Holly were both out of town, so I had an apartment to myself. Last year was an exception to the general rule as I spent a week NOT being alone and visited Andrea in her hometown for the first time. This year, I'm flying solo again. Andrea left for California for a week. As I'm writing these words, her plane is taking off from the Ottawa airport.

I haven't been able to sleep since she left. I went online and had a look at old journal entries covering weeks like this. 2006 was most notable, because I made a concerted effort to update everyday. The entries turned into brief treatises on what I thought about love. I quite admire some of the observations I made and find others unnecessarily heavy-handed and overly dramatic. Ultimately, though, I find myself glad that they were made. And I'd like to make more.

Maybe I will this week. I would certainly like to get a fair bit of writing done, just a housecleaning of the soul. I find myself sitting with another cat, in another girl's apartment, three years after experiencing what it was like to live completely alone for the first time. Lately I've been finding myself increasingly reliant on Andrea's love to feel happy. She went out of town last weekend and I felt almost powerless in her absence. I couldn't leave the house last Saturday without her. I felt anxious and strange, in a way I rarely do any longer. I miss Andrea. She's the most important thing in the world to me. But I want to feel good about being alone, and I think the only way that's going to happen this week is if I take the opportunity to write.

I'd like to take hold of life this week. Lately, being back at work, I've felt like I've only been fulfilling a function. I've been feeling a bit down because I spend so much time working and I'm very rarely told that I'm doing a good job. I seem to have a complex about such things. If I'm not told that I'm doing well, I assume I'm doing poorly. I think that's part of the reason why school appealed to me so much. I could work and work and finally receive guaranteed feedback about my performance in the form of a grade. I need that bottom line or my mind starts hurling all sorts of negativity at me. And a little bit of that is okay, because I like a challenge, and I like to feel that I can improve and think around barriers and change. But I don't want to be a robot. I want to feel like what I do matters, of course.

The first step is to maybe nail down what matters, to figure out what's important to me and put it into words. That way I can start making better decisions and prioritizing and feeling better about how I'm alive. Last night I was brushing my teeth and I was suddenly and momentarily overwhelmed by how much of a gift life is. That feeling still hits me in waves, three years later, in a girl's apartment with a cat searching for affection. This week, I want to show my appreciation.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Over the past couple of years or so, whenever I've felt insecure, or unwanted, or unappreciated, or unloved, I think about the fact that Andrea Wrobel is in love with me.

And then I wonder what the fuck anyone else ever did with THEIR lives.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I'm back at Hansard, having shed the shackles of customer service once again. I'm hard on myself when it comes to the job. I've got to learn to not be so hard on myself. I want to do well, but I have to remember that it will continue to be a learning process for a while. Hopefully this time around I'll have a steadier schedule to rely on. We'll see what this week brings. Either way, it looks like I'll have a week off in February.

I finished reading "Heavier than Heaven," and I found it to be a great, interesting read despite Cross' forays into dramatic purpose. It was hard to finish, since it's essentially the tale of a man with an almost supernatural drug habit slowly and then suddenly killing himself. Fascinating nonetheless. Kurt Cobain is a subject I seem to feel the need to revisit intently every few years to gain a newer perspective.

I've been writing music lately, far more often than I've been writing words. It's what comes out of my need to create something, and now that I have a general hold on writing music on a computer I feel like the outlet is completely in place. I think about where I might be able to take it - in the near future, a gig or three, and hopefully some studio time within the next year. I'd really like music to become as big a part of my artistic life as it once was. Lately it's been fruitful. I've recorded seven originals and three covers, the latest of which has driven up my myspace page hits by about 20% in the last two days alone. I'm looking at the songs I'm recording in my bedroom right now as demos. I'm putting them online in lieu of a demo tape to pass around. For the time being, I'm happy with the momentum I'm building.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had quite a lot on my mind. I've been thinking a bit about Ottawa and the kind of city it's become. Lack of public transportation, lack of government and the palpable sense of a sinking morale amongst the city's art communities have made it a hard place to like lately. My perception of Ottawa has changed. It's starting to seem smaller and smaller. I've been admitting to myself quite strongly lately that I'm not going to stay here for the rest of my life. I've been making it a point to leave. Maybe not next year or the year after, but I know I won't be here forever. There is too much to see, and too much to do.

That said, I'm generally quite happy with life right now. I'm looking forward to returning to a steadier income and putting some money into traveling. It will be an eventful year, and I'm just now falling under the impression that the year has finally started.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

From Jack Endino's website, producer of bands from Nirvana to Hot Hot Heat:

"I don't know how to sell 'em or promote 'em. I'm a freelance studio guy, not a record company guy.

However, I was once in a band and learned a thing or two. Here's some steps a typical 'rock band' should follow:

1) Make a tape, any quality at all. Use it to get...
2) gigs. Play lots of gigs and get...
3) fans. Get better at playing and get...
4) lots of fans. If you get enough fans, and you play well enough, it will...
5) get people talking about you. At THAT point, not before, you can consider...
6) making a better sounding tape, and either...
7) send it around, or...
8) release it yourself on a CD, or BOTH. If you release anything yourself, you can get...
9) reviews. Send it to 'zines. People read these. If you can...
10) make enough of a buzz, the record industry will either come to you, or pathways will present themselves for you to get your foot in the door so to speak (thru people you meet, other bands that like you, etc). Good luck."

Still on step one.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

I've had a lot on my mind lately, and I've been meaning to write one of these journal thingies, but I suppose I wasn't done thinking. I'm still not. So it goes.

The new year has gotten off to a bit of a slow start. I'm running low on money, so I've been watching my spending for the last couple of weeks while trying to scrape together a living at Haven books, a student-owned and run bookstore that caters to Carleton University syllibi. I've been walking to and from work, 40 minutes each way, and it's been good exercise. At first I felt tired and really ached from walking so much and standing for such long periods of time, but I'm more used to it now since I started the routine. I have two more shifts to work next week. At the very least it's been a friendly reminder of why I never, ever want to return to the customer service industry again. I've done my time.

One of the neat things about the job, however, is the fact that I can spend my half hour break at the Second Cup at Bank and Sunnyside. I used to go for breaks at that same coffee shop when I worked as a technical writer for the 3-Way Street Corporation. When I can, I sit in the window, reading and sipping a caramel corretto, sensing the tiniest hint of nostalgia for the early part of 2006, when I was writing my undergraduate honours thesis while working two jobs to make ends meet. I've been reading Charles R. Cross' biography of Kurt Cobain, Heavier than Heaven, and it's hard to describe the impact it's having on me. It will have to wait for a later update.

Tomorrow morning I'm testing for a full-time position at the House, knowing full well it's a position I probably won't get. I'm only taking the test because several people on the floor coerced me into it. I feel like it's going to make some kind of statement of which I'm not even aware, but one that should be made. By me. Maybe?

More to come. Much more.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

From Wikipedia, everyone's favourite online encyclopedia:

Generation X is a term used to group people born after the post-World War II increase in birth rates (the Baby Boom), from roughly 1965 to 1980. While 1965 remains a commonly recognized first birth year for Generation X, other proposed ranges include: the late 1950s and 1960s, 1968 to 1979, 1964 to 1980, or 1961 to 1981.

Generation Y, sometimes referred to as "Millennials" or "Net Generation" is the group of people born anywhere between the second half of the 1970's and anywhere from the mid 1990s to around the year 2000, depending on the source.


I was born on November 7th, 1979. When I think of Generation X in active context, I think of the 1990's from about 1992-1997, when I was 12-17 years old and enjoyed the popularity of grunge music and alternative pop. When I think of Generation Y's beginnings, I think of the rise in popularity of boy bands, young female pop singers and rap metal. I think of the generational split in terms of the dramatic change in popular music, brought about by the death of Kurt Cobain.

Now. What am I? I've often defined myself as having been born at the tail end of Generation X. I've always felt as though I WANTED to be a part but was never ACTUALLY a part of the generation that now runs or is about to run things in North America. When I was 14, I watched men and women in their 20's on my television set with envy and a sense of personal identification. As a teenager I armed myself with a drive to CHANGE the way the world was, keeping myself forever open to the new, in spite of the fact that I really had no idea how the world had been working, nor what was wrong with the way it was working.

The more I look back at the 90's in retrospect, the more I think I understand. Bill Clinton was elected the American president in 1992 after 12 years of a Republican White House. America was coming out of a war and the youth had trouble understanding exactly what they were inheriting out of the capitalist consumer focus of the 80's. I remember it most in the music. Without knowing anything about politics or money, I tapped into the unabashed purity of chord changes and screams from shaggy-haired singers. For a few years I felt in perfect sync with the voices and attitudes I saw in Much Music interviews.

But Gen X grew up just before I did, leaving me to flounder in my late teens and early twenties in the swill of modern pop. I was so incredibly bitter about the change. How DARE these new bands and singers and attitudes replace what had been such a perfect expression of soul-spoken angst and a willingness to establish a better order of things? After a while I understood. It's all marketing. It's always been about what sells. I was sold the identity I adopted as a young Gen X-er riding the tip of the whipcrack, and I told myself it was a lucky coincidence that the Kool-Aid I drank was laced with honesty and sincerity.

I was too young to help define Generation X, and I canceled out my association with Generation Y by despising its contributions to popular culture. I guess the conclusion here is that even defining generations themselves is up to marketing firms. They're demographics. But dammit, I've always wanted to be a part of one. I've wanted to make decisions that would change the world for the better. I've wanted to shoulder the responsibility of a society. I've wanted to turn to others and point out the mistakes of our predecessors so that they wouldn't be repeated.

Maybe the problem is that "predecessors" have turned into last year's leader instead of last generation's. My old man is right. Things move quickly these days, maybe too quickly. They slip through your grasp, and no one can quite explain who they are as a result. I know I can't.