| this is part one of the EUROPEAN ADVENTURE. soon to come, movie and pictures! |
[Jan. 17th, 2006|08:14 pm] |
|
Firstly an educational primary, context is everything after
all...
|
I can't be the only one
confused by Belgium and the Netherlands.
I saw this movie that was set
in Holland, and I was trying to figure
out what language they were speaking.
But the first thing you'll find if you try to look up Holland
is that it's not really the name of a country.
It turns out Holland is
actually the Netherlands.
So nobody speaks Hollandaise.
Holland is actually just two states (actually provinces) in the Netherlands.
But, just to make sure we're totally confused, people still call the
Netherlands "Holland."
They do speak Netherlandic in
the Netherlands, but nobody calls it that; everybody
calls it Dutch.
And the people who live there
aren't Hollandaisers or Netherlanders.
They're Dutch. Even the ones who don't speak Dutch, I guess, are Dutch.
The ones who don't speak Dutch are the Frisian-speaking Dutch; they don't
live in Holland, they
live in Friesland.
Maybe they call themselves Frisians. But Friesland and Holland are both in
the Netherlands.
Now the Dutch aren't the only
ones who speak Dutch. Right below the Netherlands is Belgium.
More than half the people in Belgium speak Dutch. But the people who live in
Belgium aren't Dutch.
Even the ones who speak Dutch. They're Belgians.
But Belgians don't speak Belgian.
Are you still with me?
The people in Belgium who speak
Dutch live in a place called Flanders.
In the same way that Holland is and isn't the Netherlands,
Flanders is and isn't Belgium.
Flanders is north Belgium. (Belgium actually used to be part of the
Netherlands;
it could therefore also be considered as the Southern Netherlands [1], or the higher low lands.)
Now they don't speak Belgianese
in Belgium; they speak Flemish, which is actually Dutch.
There isn't really a language called Flemish [2].
So the Dutch Belgians are
Flemings. The ones that don't speak Dutch are Walloons.
Seriously. They're called Walloons. And they live in Wallonia. (I am not
making this up.)
But, as you can probably guess by now, they don't speak Walloonian.
They speak French. [3]
So by now, you might be
developing the same opinion: they should just call the whole
region "Dutch-land" and be done with it. But wait, that sounds a
bit like "Deutsch-land "
(Germany), doesn't it?
Well, guess what: according to
http://www.geocities.com/mikenassau/BlackDutch.htm,
"Dutch is the English form of Deutsch in German (in Dutch, it's
"Duits").
[Dutch] has come to mean the people of the Netherlands only in English
recently; it originally
meant all speakers of German in the broadest sense. The Dutch called
themselves Nederduitser /
Nederduitse (Nether German, low germans) until recently, when they switched
to Nederlander (low
landers)." I don't know if this is true, but it sounds plausible...
So here's what you need to know
for the test:
* Holland = Netherlands, and
most people speak Dutch there, but some people speak Frisian.
Nearly 58 percent of the people in Belgium speak Dutch. "Flemish"
is the collective term used
for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. It is not a separate language,
though the term is often
used to distinguish the Dutch spoken in Flanders from that of the
Netherlands.
"Flanders" is the name for the Dutch-speaking northern region of
the federal state of Belgium
-L. Miller, Aug 26, 2003
|
There you go, now you should have no trouble following our
adventures through this strange part of the world..
Pictures to come... also HANKandLILY:IN EUROPE, the MOVIE!
for download as soon as we figure out how to post it on the internet.
Dear Penelope,
DAY 1:
Amsterdam. Rather,
hundred miles above the Northwest Territories in a metal tube en route to
Amsterdam. Lily, you and me have taken a Pink Pool to this tube, which was
slightly less tricky than you’d expect.
Above us there is a TV, numbered 23, that is giving us
helpful tips on how to relieve THE FEAR. The dutch princess says “relax...”
many times during this video. If i end up taking a wrong turn in the Pink Pools
and come out here again, i will count how many times she says it. I will say it
with her now....relax....it’s working.. i can tell... i’m not gonna die on this
deathtrap metal tube hurtling over the Northwest Territories...nope siree.
Meeting us in Amsterdam will be A.S.S. agent 000010,
operative “Germs” and double-agent Jezebelle, who will sing seductive melodies,
and sell some Hank and Lily merchandise. Also meeting us will be Gijs
(pronounced Hhheeyeshhhh, only with more phlegm) who will be our guide in this
strange, Dutch, Land.
My family is dutch, sorta, so i sometimes wonder about the
homeland. How will it look when us colonists return all goggled and disfigured?
It is now May 3rd, 2005. Seven short years before
THE FIRE. Is there time to stop it? In my heart Pen, i know there ain’t, but
you never know. I can’t shake the
feeling that Lily is the wild card in this... I haven’t told her anything about
it yet. SHe seems so happy why ruin it? I might be drunk right now, I’ll have
to check....YEP. Here’s to the first of a month with FREE BOOZE.
We step from the Pink Pools and scour the foreign landscape.
There are giant plastic rabbits, and bread, bread, everywhere....We greet Germs
and Gijs with our signs and flowers and head back to Gijs’s town, which has
canals! Dutch canals! and windmills! and bridges, and i’m quite certain,
...klogs somewhere lurking...
Yes we are below sea-level, Gijs says.
Gijs picks up Jezebelle, Queen of Decadent Living, and our
little group is complete.
After feigning sleep in the bright harsh daylight, Gijs
takes our sleep-deprived bodies to this “squat” in Amsterdam to see one of
Lily’s and my favourite bands... THE EX. Let me tell you a little about the EX,
they formed in 1979 and embody all that is good about punk rock. They sound
kinda like Fugazi only better, with
more groove. It was so amazing. The drummer lady plays with such style and
power.
Afterwards we got to meet Steven, the man from Labelman, who
together with Gijs, made Lily’s and my dreams come true, and surprise surprise,
he’s a great guy, nice, sweet, funny. We go to celebrate this knowledge with
what will be the first of my Belgian Beers. I get drunk off the first one and
tell Gijs and Steven how i got the scars all over my chest and back. They stare
back in what i imagine to be horrified and awed silence.
DAY 2:
Hasselt, Belgium.
We awaken and leave Holland, tilt at windmills, whilst
waving at yachts that cruise above our heads on the highway. Steven says that
we when we cross the border we will feeeeeel Belgium, and he’s right. I could
get used to this “no-border’ thing, though it sounds like Holland got fucked by
the euro.
We eat in the city square, and visit Steven’s shop, JJ
Records, and then hang out in his skinny, yet green, backyard.A nice friend of
Steven’s named Kristien, makes us all dinner. We meet our touring mates, the
band South San Gabriel, nice blokes from Southern Texas, well except for Matt,
who’s from Atlanta, Georgia.
South San Gabriel are an interesting anomaly. They tour
relentlessly in Europe, yet more often than not, forsake their homeland. By the
end of this journey i will understand why...and i will give you a hint.....FREE
BOOZE. FREE FOOD. FREE HOTELS. ahhh and the women.....
Steven’s house is real nice, and so are his friends. That
night, we go to see some hip-hop one town over, and great duo from somewhere in
America called Subtitle.
Day 3: HECHTEL, belgium.
Our hostess Kristien tells the tale of SECRET WWII GRAVEYARD
in the woods by her house. We get really lost looking for it. Like lost for the
whole day, which is fine, because we don’t have to be anywhere really. Kristien
makes us some real good food.
Round bout 1 AM Germs and i decide we are going to find that
graveyard if it fucking kills us...which it almost does...As soon as we get
close to the woods THE FEAR kicks in, we have a only a camera with eerie
nightvision to guide us as the one flashlight we brought dims to a dull and
maddening amber colour, then fades completely on the sign which reads “Military
Personnel Only: No Trespassing,” in Dutch, but still barely legible.
Then, it is near pitch-black in the woods
We’re having a pretty good time re-enacting scenes from the
Blair Witch Project until an unexplainable noise interrupts our mock
hysterics...A giant bird rushes us, probably for crushing its giant nest or
something, and we get separated and start to run all willy-nilly. Although, if
you ask Germs he’ll tell you he was we merely jogging at a healthy pace away
from perceived danger..but my adrenaline is tapped by the second hour of
searching for dead people, and i am relieved when without notice the trees part
and we stumble across a tank buried in the sand. I step on what i am sure is a
skull, and have decided that just as
soon as we climb onto the carcass of the tank and play gunner and Nazi, it is
time to head home, ...with no graveyard. Unfortunately home is back through the
haunted woods, which takes us even longer this time. Over 3hours later we pound
on Kristien’s door until Lily lets us in.
DAY 4:
Playtime is over, and today we play our first show in an
attempt to finance this European excursion. Jezebelle makes breakfast while we
pour over our footage from the night before, identifying ghosts of dead
soldiers in the back of each shot.
We have a quick, and mildly debilitating practice, and then
hurry off to the show, getting a ride with Paat (pronounced pot) a friend of
Kristien’s. Once we arrive at the show we get the Royal Rock Star Treatment,
which throws us off a bit. Our own bottle of whiskey and all the vegetarian
food we can eat.
The venue is huge and empty, but when it fills up, it fills
up with one of our biggest crowds ever.
The other bands playing this show are all super-fucking
slick and we can’t help but feel like the crusty bunch of misfits we are.
Fellow Canadians,(aren’t there any Belgian bands?) Great Lake Swimmers play
haunting songs that make me wanna cry. Followed by a group called Album Leaf
who are playing to choreographed visuals broadcast on a screen behind them...
and then, US. We start off with Black Pine, sure, fine, and
then quickly launch into the songs about nutsacks and poop. We’ve decided to
fuck with the formula of the night by not playing slow and pretty, we do a
variety act, which is fun even though my guitar sounds like a dry white turd.
Steven likes it, which is all that really matters, seeing as how he’s never
seen us play live and we’re on his label. Also, the crowd rules, they
laugh at our jokes, and give us a floor-pounding ovation, until we play a
couple encores, which is even better
cause we’re just the filler opening band, better than we could have hoped.
After we go upstairs,
to this fellow Rob’s birthday party. He invited us over the phone while
we were in Canada. Here there is more Free fancy beers and lots of halting
awkward converstions. Jezebelle breezes in, fresh from her merch duty, and we
dance and dance and dance. I am pressuring Germs to show his break-dancing
skills, which i have heard he possesses in abundance, but there is no
cardboard, just concrete. He declines.
DAY 5:
Which is where i am now, somewhere near the end of it’s
fifthness...in Diksmuide, Belgium. I am sitting at the base of a well-lit
cathedral, the streets are empty except or this bar across from me. If i hadn’t
given Jezebelle all my euros for merch table-float, i might be tempted to go
buy a tasty belgian beer. I normally don’t enjoy beer, unless, it’s hot and i
have been somethin to deserve sweating, but MAN. I am out here to cool down,
and nothing cools like hops.
We just played a sweltering set to some steadfast belgians.
I am airing out as Souther Culture on the Skids rocks them a new asshole. The
Skids were late getting into Diksmuide (dicksmyduh) so Lily and i placated the
audience with every song we knew and a few we didn’t really know. And man were
those lights HOT. I guess wearing a metal suit has its drawbacks, but would i
trade it for cotton or hemp? Not unless it were bullet proof hemp, which surely
existed before it was wiped off the planet by the Republicans.
Apparently Diksmuide we almost completely destroyed in the
war, and they rebuilt it as close to exact as possible. Everyone is very keen
on telling us how exciting it is to have these new buildings, but, being from
North America, our response has been dissapointingly lackluster i’m sure.
There is block of stone with a creepy face onnit, on an
illuminated pedestal, right in front of me.
I am going to assume it was from the original church. There
is no plaque to tell me otherwise and even if there was, it is likely i
wouldn’t understand it because I didn’t buy the Dutch phrasebook at the
airport. I thought they’d have cheaper ones available elsewhere..turns out i
was wrong, maybe because everyone here ALREADY SPEAKS DUTCH. Sorry, Flemish,
NOT DUTCH. It seems that Belgium feels the same way abnout Holland that
Canadians feel about America. Lily gaffed onstage tonight and made a crack
about Holland, so i over-compensated and accidentally insulted our Dutch driver
and nanny, Gijs. Oy vey.
Yes, quite a feat, rebuilding a whole town exactly as they
could, including the circular labyrinth of canals and tunnels and alleys i took
to get here, far away from the club. It is near time to go though, the face in
stone with its white pupil-less eyes is starting to wig me out. If yr reading
this Penelope, then i found my way back....Wow. Look at it though, all this
brick and Glass. And its not just the cathedral in front of me, all the
buildings are beautiful. Very different than a trailer park in a rainforest.
Now, the nights events i super-fast-recapitualtion;
Head back to the club and party with the Skids and the
Baseball Furies from Chicago. We go on
an ill-fated mission for fries. No fries, so back to the 4AD, a legendary club
so legendary they built the new club around it. It’s weird, a little brick building
surrounded by steel on all sides, there is this beautiful girl. Germs and i
fall in love. Thank god yr here. I
don’t even try my shitty Dutch phrases on her. The manager of the club, a sweet
guy name Paatrick buys us Rochefort, we offer a toast to the Marquis de
Rochefort back home.
On the way out of the bathroom i see that the singer from
the Skids has big flannel pajamas on, as do i, we exchange a knowing look.
Pajamas.
DAY 6: Wake up in
Diksmuide, do some yoga on the street, and celebrate our health with pain de
chocalat with the Skids, who i am quite fond of by now. Then we have a
delightful drive through the country. At the end of it we are introduced to
Sander Verschuur, a young, blonde, handsome Dutchman who will be our driver
later on.. I am worried about him, but then i see the handmade ‘spongebob
squarepants’ costume in the corner, the thing is made to fucking code, and i
relax. He’ll be alright. He introduces us to his cat, Himpy (pronounced
hhhhchcccccimpy with more phlegm) which means ‘sneakers’ in English. We sleep
well, despite the horrible dream i have about suffocating under cobwebs at the
base of a giant hairy spider thing.
DAY 7: Alphen aan den Reine.
Wake at Sanders, do some wandering and buying of shit. This
afternoon we will be driving through the country side, the green flat pastures,
to Utrecht, a university town.
On the way there, we stop, and go for a walk on the fjords.
There are sheep on either side of us, but not even Lily gets to pick them up,
she chases them for a while though. It would be good to have a sheep on tour
perhaps, but i talk her out of it.
The show that night is weird. There is communication
breakdown for some strange reason, and we start to play too early, just as the
club is starting to fill, which it does. I leave early, missing South San Gabriel, and go with Sander for fries. His is covered
in raw onions.
DAY 8: Gent.
Our drive to (hhchhcccchhent) is filled with joy and song.
So much joy and song that i can see Gijs starting to crack. This man has toured
with a veritable who’s-who of rock bands from all over the world and we come
close to breaking him this day with our joy, and more specifically, our song.
Gent is a beautiful old city with more churches than i have
seen in a long, long time. One looks like it was made entirely out of interwoven
sandstone. Yeah nice work Gent! geniuses, ...just wait til it rains! Hmm... I
haven’t seen it rain yet....will i dry out?
The gig is at this place called the Handelsbaurs in the
middle of a city square. I can’t explain in words just how swanky this place
is. The front doors are huuuuuuge and made of glass, leading into this giant,
bare foyer. To the right is a classy opera house thing, all baroque and la tee
frickin da, and the room we are playing in has velvet curtains all the way up
to the thirty or fourty foot ceilings, and the stage, get this, the stage rises
slowly out of the floor, ..robots!
Our dressing room has mirrors, which i avoid, ..wine,
sandwiches, a real piano, a soft couch, more velvet curtains, and a view of
canals out the window, with cute girls on bikes riding past.
They serve us dinner in the shmantsy french restaurant on
massive plates. I feel grubby and misbehaven,
as looking around I notice that the South San Gabriel lads take all this
in stride, the Handelsbaurs and its opulence. I don’t even pretend. I may have
seen a lot of shit in my years Pen, but most of it was just that, shit.
The food here is french and i’m fairly sure not vegetarian,
but who can tell, and piled in a tiny, vertical mound on the, did i mention,
MASSIVE PLATE.
Our show is strange, which is a different adjective than
weird, ..it’s another huge crowd that doesn’t move too much, and you can’t
really tell if they dig it, but when the song ends they applaud real loud and
hoot and thus, one is led to think, they are in fact having a grand ole time!
Maybe they’re all stoned. The lack of dancing is remedied by Kristien smiling
in the front row, who i play the Bubba song for, but my throat is fucked and
feels like pins and needles, but that’s okay...these grown-ups are here to see
South San Gabriel anyway. Speaking of which, Will, the singer of that band does
an excellent job as Jungle Bunny considering the bunny head of the costume has
swiveled around and he is essentially stumbling around the stage blinded in front
of a thousand people.
And that is the test Penelope, to examine your ability to
summon grace into your life. Can you dance in the hot costume under blazing
lights with whirling rock noise around you and no way to see where you are
going? You’ll be happy to know Will passed gracefully.
After the show, Germs and i go for a tour, and don’t get too
lost, it is so beautiful in this city, old and classy. Square after square and
courtyard after courtyard and fountain after fountain all trying to get us
lost, but no!
Afterwards, much to all our chagrin, we drive back to Alphen
aan den Rijn.
DAY 9:
The Lake. A day off at the lake in Alphen aan den Rijn.
Germs gets drunk and passes out in the grass and is ambushed by Lily and
Jezebelle. I decide that you and me need alone time, but soon grow lonely as yr
not much for conversation these days...
That evening, Steven comes to take us into Amsterdam to see
....dunh dunh dunh! tourmate BROTHER DANIELSON! yEEEEEHAW! Lily and i have been
literally jumping up and down in anticipation of seeing any member of the
Danielson Famille live, and tonight is the night!
Little do we know what else the pregnant, bloated night
holds...
You see, also sharing the stage of the Paradiso in Amsterdam
tonight will be the one the only, the surfer and hippie-jock icon, Jack
Johnson. But not alone, no, he has brought what appears to be legions of
American fans. They are packing the house with their sweat and ‘it’s all good
vibe’. I am told this after i accidentally push this guy aside so that Lily can
get a better view of Jack. “It’s all good dude.” and inside i want to scream
out that bitter-little-jew-man-Geoff Berner’s patented response, “Yeah, like
the holocaust?” But i don’t because Germs is doing his best hippie-jock dance
impression and i can’t help but smile. The funny thing is, while Lily shoots me
this utterly confused look on her face, and i sit there i with my bemused
expression, Germs could melt into this crowd perfectly. I try to explain to
Lily that this is Tofino, this is what the people like.
But she keeps pointing at the stage and saying, “I don’t get
it..I just.. all these..people! They’re going nuts! and...the music......it’s so ....average.”
I give up trying to explain and we all join in for the “lat
dat dat dat dat dahs..” at the end of Jack’s set.
I am still elated from meeting Daniel of the Danielson
Famille in the labyrinth basement of the Paradiso. Steven had led us there,
knowing how much we adore his music, which makes me incapable of all the modes
of communication related to speech. I start to talk fast and with little focus,
basically just nattering about nothing until i trail off completely.
Daniel is this tall, normal, stocky fellah with a calmness
and ease that’s palpable. Basically, the complete opposite of the strung-out,
long-haired twitchy Jesus-freak i was anticipating, which further throws me
off.
His show is amazing, he’s a giant tree! With felt fruit!
Lily and i are agonizing over what gift to give him and i’ve been carrying
around this lone banana all day. So when i notice his tree is missing a banana
i give it to him. Later he tells us his banana was stolen from his tree last
time he was in Holland! How fortuitous! He duct tapes it to his mic stand! We
sing and clap along with several Danielson favourites.
We sleep that night at Sanders. Sander and Autumn went to
see the Arcade Fire.
DAY 10:
Sander and i make breakfast. Lily buys klogs. Today, soon,
we will head to Nijmegen to play the Onderbroek, which means ‘underwear’ in
Dutch. I’ll write you soon Pen, and tell you what i find there...
We arrive in Nijmegen to find an unnervingly clean and
manicured city center. There is a creepy monument to dead children in a
desolate square, composed of an ancient tree that survived the bombing, and a
rusted iron swing covered in blossoms.
The Onderbroek is typical European ‘squat’, which means it’s
nicer than most clubs we play. The roof is low enough to cause some concern
though..
They feed us well, we eat in clipped english at the communal
table, do some wandering and then gear up for the show.
The opening band is called Dyees. Apparently they are a
Johnny Cash cover band, but i don’t recognize most of their songs.
This is our best show of this tour so far. The Road to New
Orleans is not our stadium rock album, it was written for dingy punk bars like
the Onderbroek so this is where these songs really work their magic. Here i can
leap off the stage and dance with the crowd, we can pass out sparklers,
balloons or condoms with ease. Jezebelle joins to sing the lead on a Pink
Mountaintops cover, ‘Tourist in Yr Town, and Gijs dons the bunny suit for the
Jungle Bunny. We do a lot of encores,
which is nice, welcoming up some locals to play guitar solos in an impromptu competition.
Afterwards the DJ plays a lot of good old records and you
and me dance.
DAY 11:
We woke up at Done and Mica’s awesome apartment with a view
of the freakiest clock tower i had ever seen. We ate breakfast on their rooftop
terrace in the sunshine and then hit the road for Gronigen and the Vera,
reportedly the best club in Europe, and thus, the best club in the world.
Once in Gronigen (hhhccchhhhohnihchen), we head for the
STRIPNACHT, an independent comic book festival already in progress. Lily and i
suit up and greet our fellow comic book geeks, getting our picture taken and
trading stuff with people who make comics because they love it, not because it
makes them money or cause they are any good. Naturally, we can relate. We are
headlining at the after party show, finally an audience of comic book people!
We eat dinner in this room covered in posters from the
Vera’s illustrious 37 years, which prompts the game where you think of a band,
then look for their poster.... “U2” “..check..” “Pixies” “..gottit” “Nick
Cave?” “over here..”
Yes, the Vera rules. The food is great, and rooms! Each one
is decorated by a different artist. The Red room is the communist propaganda
room with slogans like “Good Rockstar wash ears!”, the White room is all-white
with religious paraphernalia, the Green room has a sixties-kitsch thing going,
and the Blue room, which Lily and grab, has a comic-art theme! Also, no
mirrors, and rooftop access, which i appreciate for speedy getaways. A glorious
pink sunset, and the bed so soft and white.
There is a carnival in the city square a block away, so Lily
and i sneak away to ride the Ferris Wheel and are joined by Germs and
Jezebelle, making for a memorable ride as we pole-dance for Germ’s video camera
and harass the carnies.
And the show, or best crowd EVER! Lots of them, and they
sing and dance and clap. At the end of ‘Hasselhoff’, they keep clapping and
“mm-hmm David Hasselhoff”-ing long after Lily and i have stopped. They won’t
let it die for over a minute, while we can only stare in awe and get chills. Oh
David, if you could have heard that! Peter, who has been working at the Vera
for years dons the bunny suit and does a magnificent job. We end with Muchas
Caliente and Laika and i leave the stage feeling good.
Three times this night i get told that our band is reminiscent
of WEEN, but with better costumes, which is an awesome a compliment as coupla
scotch-guard huffers can git, no offense to WEEN’s costumes.
The hyper-efficient Vera staff, composed mainly of 100
volunteers, clear all our debris away in minutes and let in the hoochies for
the techno dance party which will rage until way past 4.
But Germs, Jezebelle, Lily and i head for the carnival,
which is, like i said, ONE BLOCK AWAY..We ride the haunted house and Germs
films it. And the Ferris Wheel, and then this horrible vomit machine at Lily’s
request. The operator-carny goes “Hey! Hank and Lily! Alright!” gives us a
thumbs-up, then sets the machine for liquify. It reminds me of an A.S.S.
torture device back on the moon base. Why we decided to do this to ourselves
after downing the twixers of complimentary whiskey is beyond me. Still, a
carnival.
Then we head back to the Vera for more whiskey, you know, to
take the edge off the vomit machine, and some dancing and finally get to meet
Sabine Hoes, the nice lady that gave us a cover story in her fancy newspaper.
She says i’m cute, and i get weak in the knees. (or is that the vomit machine
still?) but i know that you’re waiting upstairs Pen, so i excuse myself with a
tip of the hat and a kiss on the hand.
When i get back to the room, Lily is watching the coma-chick
phone ads, but here in Europe, they are very different than back home in one
special way,..........BOOBIES! Lots of boobies. i fall asleep to the slowing
rotating torsos, and dream, amazingly, of soapy breasts.
DAY 12:
TO BE CONTINUED VERY SOON, I PROMISE.....
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 10th, 2005|02:54 pm] |
http://www.hankandlily.com/large%20photos/hl3w_jpg.jpg
Penelope,
Who cares about an EPITAPH?
Who longs to speak when their lips have rotted and fallen off tHe BoNe?
It’s not like it will GarnER you kissess.
It’s not like you will know if, or when, it is read..
Is it that all these gravestone carvers believe in ghosts? That spirits are everywhere, insecure souls intact and appreciative of all our effort?
Or am I to believe that one leaves behind this piece of themselves for NOBLE GOALS? The slow laborious progress of Mankind, a process too long for one life.
That is nice. That is faith.
to hope, against evidence to the contrary , that we ARE working at something...
Look at what we’ve done!
Well,
some of us...
But EVERYONE? Everywhere?! busying themself, making and scrawling and etching..
What a noble beast, then....
Science.
In my mind Science is linked with disproving any and all romantic notions.
So it is a biological imperative, laid down in our genetics to communicate to each other from beyond the grave.
What an ingenious beast, cunning, and cleverly cheating death.
And Face to fAce with such a creature, how could you not wonder at its origins?
WHO made the makers? What made them?
If there was a beginning, a creator, where is THeIR epitaph?
There was no beginning? There is no end.
in science this is called a singularity. a cosmic unity.
a oneness.
Science hates a sinGularity, all of its rules break down.
i hate a sinGularity.
In this state of no change, of uniform matter, there are no ghosts to stand back and say, “Job well Done!”
Just all of us together. Just existing.
Or NOt existing, i guess.
Does that sound like fun to you?
You see what i mean about singularities.
No, far better for Science to prove the existence of ghosts.
c'mon Science!
So many things to do...
So little time...
time enough to PrioRitize...
If today was my last day, what would i do? Would i even bother with an epitaph?
I like to think i would be...busy...having fun.
Assuming tomorrow morning i will be dead, then these would be my last words..
I must think, hARd, and decided WhY i have written them.
Because i am lonely.
To busy myself.
Because my tear ducts and thoracic cavity (chest) felt tight and i am releasing the pressure using this somewhat complicated biological method.
Because i DO have faith in humanity.
Because I want be remembered as a separate entity in a select piece of space and time before I get stirred into a goo of unity.....of one..
i need one reason, one above all of the above,
because i want to know someone else feels all these things also, because the pressure of feeling i am the oNLy oNe is too much for me, i NeeD to BeLOnG.
tHAt is a good reason.
i know it sounds bad,
but if i AM faced with unity,
then i WiLL belong very soon, so this then, is me preparing.
Epitaphs, This is all of us, preparing..
soon, Pen, soon. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 9th, 2005|12:16 pm] |
The following was recovered from tattered pieces of paper found at the burn site of the Fitzgeral Mental Hospital in the year 2023. The filing cabinet containing the paper was left undiscovered until our operatives became aware of its presence by accident while searching for the body of Operative 00023. The body was not found. It was brought back to our archives and remained hidden until the year 2004, where it was re-assembled by Operative 00042 under strictest observation.
The HeRMiT in the HOusE of GoD.
Little pieces of words.
I wanted to write you now because i want to write you now. It is a curious thing, one of the many curious things that many of the abhorrent evil monkey geniuses do, to want to sit alone in a room on what i think is a Saturday night, and type words for an imagined audience. But here i am. Here we are. Let's begin.
I usually like to start at the end, and move back, trace my steps to what led to such an beautifically heart-rending and garrishly tragic single event such as..
plummeting through the air like a fat javelin, a smooth rainbowed arc towards the icy water below.
or
smiling as i turn on the tape player in the sunny, painted city square, pulls the automatic assault rifle from the suitcase, i flip off the safety just as the tinny sound of the recorded violins swoop into the warm air.
or even,
I pull the plastic bag up against my leg and imagine it holds warmth as the headlights round the corner and wipe me clean with their hot white light..
But this does not end at any of those points, it ends here, with just you, me and this typewriter. After the typing is done, these words will go into many forms, being diluted and rendered into different colours at the hands of computers, at the hands of evil monkey geniuses. But for now, for this instant, they are as pure as the white walls which surround me on all sides.
As black as night.
As clear and concise as the simple white door to this room, with its smooth metal rectangle panel where the doorknob should be.
A door which can't be opened from this side.
There is a toilet, also white. And toilet paper, white. There is a metal bar by the toilet, same steel as the panel on the door, to help me get on and off the pot. I don't usually have trouble getting on and off the pot, but it's just a precaution. As is the padding in the walls. It's in case i get the bright idea to bash my head into the wall repeatedly. I haven't yet.
But it was my bright ideas that landed me here in the first place.
It was the young doctor's bright idea to give me a typewriter. So now my ideas are concrete. I can rip them out of this machine and chew on them if i had that impulse. I haven't done that yet either.
There are no windows. No moon. No stars. It is light sometimes, and dark sometimes, but i wonder who decides that now. The young doctor? No. I believe it is a team of them, all around a table. They are leaning back, one of them nibbles absently on a pen.
But then again, i believe a lot of things.
I am wearing yellow pajamas. They have letters on them that i have traced with my fingers a hundred times. A while ago, let's just say, ...a year ago, i had white pajamas. But i complained that i felt like i was dissappearing into the walls, and one day i woke up, and there were yellow ones, folded tightly by my feet.
I had a bed once. But i used it for a bunch of other things besides sleeping, and they took it away. What did i use it for? Well, a battering ram for one. A trampouline for another. And a hiding place. It's not that i'm being punished, says the young doctor, it's just that hiding under a bed all day is not a good thing for a grown man to do.
I have a blanket though. It is baby blue, just like the one i had as a child. Only, it's much bigger, as i am a full-grown man. I have a pillow, which i used to make sweet love to, but not anymore. I feel i am being watched all the time, and have not been in the sweet love mood for a while. This is different than my feeling of dissappearing, i know for a fact i am being watched.
I know they will read all of this. So you won't hear me complain. Not about the bed, not about the cameras, not about the sickly bright yellow pajamas. No sir, it's a stand-up joint they've got going here. Ace bananas.
There's not a whole lot to complain about really. There is not a whole lot to sing about either.
I do sing though. I sing all the time. I think that's why they got me this typewriter, my throat was going hoarse from all that singing.
What do i sing? Every song i've ever heard. I usually have to make up most of the words, i was never good at remembering the words to songs. I remember little pieces of words.
There are no mirrors. Of course. I wonder what i look like. When I do get shaved, my face that is, i can never read the reaction of the male orderly that shaves me. It isn't disgust, it isn't affection. It isn't even disdain. It's as white and opaque as these walls. When they shave me my hands are bound to my sides, so that i don't reach up, grab the blade and slice his thick neck veins. Or take the blade and cut myself into oblivion.
Wee! Typing is fun!
Agony and Ecstasy
I can't help but revisit the past given my present. I mean, wouldn't you? Luckily, i have a long, sordid past to revisit. It's not actually revisiting, i want to make that clear. All i do nowadays is remember the past, which is a different thing entirely.
Remembering is foggy, it is like dreaming. Sure, a smell might take you back, but you are not smelling the same smell again, you are smelling something similar. It will never be the same combination of smells.
So my remembrance will be missing some smells, that much i can guarantee.
The first time i saw Penelope it was summer. She was wearing a little white dress, sitting on the dock with her smooth pink legs in the water, moving them around in slow, careful circles. She couldn't have been more than nine. The trees were a wall of green surrounding us, but the water was dark and the sky was yellow and strange. It smelled like salt.
She didn't see me watching her, so i watched her for a long, long time. Her long blonde hair fell onto her lap and her two arms were splayed out from her sides, hands open wide and delicate on the weathered wood.
I walked up to her slowly, not wanting to startle her, but as soon as my bare foot creaked onto the dock, i knew i had been found out.
"I knew you were there all along." she said, still looking down, and then slowly turned to look at me. She had green eyes much brighter than the trees, and the whites of her eyes shone against the yellow sky.
I was frozen. I hugged my skinny sides and stared.
I stared at her white dress. Girls didn't wear white dresses like that here. They wore shorts or tight pants, but not dresses. "Were you at a wedding?" I asked.
"No." she said. She looked self-consciously down at her lap and moved her hands to rest there. Her eyes grew tighter.
I was afraid i had upset her by talking about her dress, and i obviously had. "Weird looking sky." I said.
She looked up from her lap and at the tree-choked horizon. "Storm's coming." she said, and then turned to look back at me. Her eyes, her mouth set tight in a very grown up look of defiance.
Denial
And that's all i remember about the first time we met.
You might wonder why i wrote the word 'denial' up there. I also wrote 'agony and ecstasy' above my last little story about Penelope. My hope is that you read these words, and then, as you're reading the words that follow them, these underlined words will stick in your head and weave through the other ones, giving them even more meaning. I could have written any word up there. Like, 'blood' or, 'starfruit', or even 'barbituate', but no, i wrote 'denial'.
I didn't want to kill Penelope. Even though a lot of people, especially the young doctor, think that i did. It's important that you know this. Important to me, and important to you. Regardless, she died by my hand, and i can't stop remembering that, even with all the barbituates they have coursing through my blood.
I can help but see her blood pouring out of that wound in her chest, shaped like a starfruit.
The Planet.
I have a lot to say.
Even now, that i have already begun, i don't know where to begin. I already told you about when i first met Penelope. Who's name is pronounced pehn-ell-oh-pee, and who i will often refer to as Penny. I used to call her Pen, but i would never ask you to think of her that way, as you hardly know her.
We were married once, me and her. It was not the happiest day of my life. It was the saddest. I knew that one day she would die, and i would be unable to bear it. I only realized this fully as we stood there, man and wife, talking to one of her friends at the reception. My arm was around her waist, and she laughed her boisterous, melodious laugh, and i knew it.
I was right i guess. I can't bear it. Here i am.
If i could, i wouldn't be here, i would be out there, in the world. On the planet earth. I would be buying something, maybe something useful like a toilet plunger, or maybe something useless like a colourful flower i like. I would take one of these things back to wherever i lived. And, if i had bought the plunger, place it next to my green plastic toilet. Or, if it was the flower, place it in a vase of some kind so that i could watch it die at my leisure.
I have a lot to say about the earth.
Abhorrent evil monkey geniuses. Even after all that i learnt from and about humankind, so much remains unknown. Here is the one biggest question, is there any hope for them? I would say is there any hope for us? but sitting here, in this white room, i am quickly losing any sense of kinship with my fellow man.
Another good question, if the goal of places like these is the rehabilitaion, and re-emergence into daily life on planet earth, how is this white-walled gas chamber of an isolation tank going to be in any way beneficial? Easy answer. Much easier than the 'hope question',
The goal of this place is not, was not, and never will be re-emergence into life on planet earth. I am here for the long haul. I am here to be watched until i die.
How can hope live in a world where places like this exist? How can it not? What else have i got? Stop me before i start singing again.
Red, White and Black.
There are no days here, it's true, ..but they try. Today is another day. I am in a better mood than when i wrote that thing yesterday. I just finished what i like to call breakfast. It is the same as dinner, so it is hard to tell really. These meals are my bridge to some the world beyond that door. They smell exotic and foreign, even after eating them every day for an inumerable amount of time. I can't help but look at the green slime and picture the people or machines involved in producing it. Or the plants. There must have been real, honest-to-goodness plants involved at some point. How out of place a plant would seem in this room. The green slime is a pale green, sort of washed out and whitened with some chemical whitening agent. My skin too, used to be brown like sand, but now i am near translucent. But I still look pink against the walls, the whitening isn't complete yet.
I am tempted to make a flower out of ripped up pieces of paper. I could make a rose, or a daisy, but then they might take away the paper.
I am surprised they haven't yet, a paper cut can be a serious thing. I cut myself the other day, on purpose, but i was careful to make it look like an accident. The pain was intoxicatingly vivid and red in my brain, but the cut was small. Today i can't even see it.
And even if i made a paper rose, it would still be white.
So what should i do today? I will have to wait a few hours before the food passes through my body, and i get to sit on the toilet. I used to read on the toilet, because i so resented having to be there i wanted to avoid being there as much as possible. Now i write about being there. That's not quite irony, but it's something.
I will tell you about another day i remember, this is also a good one, like that one with Penelope and the dock..
The Day I found the Hornet's Nest.
Penny and i lived in the same trailer park. Welp, she lived in the old house down the dirt road just outside of the boundaries of the trailer park. Black Pine Trailer Park by the sea, which my family had owned since my grandfather first set up his tent there years ago. Like most places in that area, before he got there it was a Native American indian burial ground. Native Americans used to die all around the place until white people came and stuck them all together to die in one small area.
Grandfather was called crazy too. That's why he set up the canvas tent up in the woods away from all the abhorrent evil monkey geniuses. But his money ran out, and his hunger for booze kicked in, and so he opened up his sanctuary to others in the hopes that it would give him booze. All it really did though, was feed his need for the booze. He hated the entire human race, but he hated his neighbours more.
In particular was his hate for Penelope's aunt, who built a giant luxurious house on the lot next to Grandfather's tent. So profound and relentless was this hate that eventually Penelope's aunt moved away, and the house lay abandoned to the underbrush until Penny and her sickly mother arrived to pull back the weeds many years later.
I guess i should talk about MY parents now. That is what people do when telling their life story. This is not my life story, not hardly, this is a few random images and smells i can string together in the hopes that it will form a cohesive whole. Besides, if i am right, i will not die in this white room. If i am right, i have a little more to see and do besides shitting and typing just yet.
My father's name was Jim Pine. He had the luxury of being born in a hospital, whereas i was born in a trailer in the Black Pine Trailer Park. He moved to the trailer park to sell it, but never got that far. Not because of the booze, because of my mother.
Her name was Marilyn Pine. But before that, she was Marilyn Froze. I never knew Marilyn Froze. I barely knew Marilyn Pine. She remarried after leaving my father. I wonder where she is now. She's not dead, i know that much.
I lost track of Jim Pine too, against my will. I also had brothers, they too are scattered around this planet earth. I'm guessing none of them know i am here now, or they believe i killed Penelope, and will never forgive me.
I used to have a name once. Several names. None of them fit quite right, but they all made me into who i am now. A lunatic with a typewriter. Ha. Ha. hee. hee.
This story is about the day my two brothers, Penelope, and i found the hornet's nest behind Mrs. Neopald's trailer.
There was a loud buzzing all day. It wasn't the electrical low-level hum of the power lines. It was frenetic and sporadic and exciting, and it took us until the mid-afternoon to locate the source of the sound. Penny was dressed in shorts and a shirt, i don't know how old we were, maybe twelve. We were staring at the black mass and erratic movements of nest for a long while in the hot sun, hypnotised. The nest lay in the shadow of the trailer and the tree beside it, and the dark, swirling motion of the hornets looked like they were from another world.
"Let's throw a rock at it." My older brother saiddd
Interruption
Sorry. The door just opened, and one of the blank-faced orderlies completely clothed in white came and laid down the meds. His shoes were white. He did not look at me as i sat here hunched over the typewriter, he laid down the meds, all colour-coded into separate clear plastic cups, and then left through the white door. The air behind him was dark, almost black, which either means it is night-time out there in the real world, or he stepped from the void. He had brown hair, if that interests you.
The colour of the pills is not like the colour of the food. It is vibrant and exciting. Bright yellows, warm blues, fierce oranges. A cornucopia that clashes garishly against each other. Maybe that is why each one has its own disposable plastic cup. I mean, i swallow them all in a fistful anyway.
The cups have ridges, little bumps that i savour. Sometimes i run them across my bottom lip, which i hope makes me appear thoughtful to my watchers, and not in need of more pills. Today, there are two circular yellows, three small oval blue ones, and two giant orange ones. Just like yesterday.
I think i spelled cornucopia wrong. The effort it took to hunt and peck that word, and now it is wrong.
Yes, i used to try and hide the pills. To no avail. I take an amazing amount of pills every day. They turn my stool a thick black. Like coal, like the void behind the orderlies head.
There will be a lot more type about stool, i can assure you of that.
There is a small cup of water with just enough to swallow the horse-sized pills. Hold on, i will drink it. glug glug.Where was i?
The Hornet's Nest Part Two
"Let's throw a rock at it." My older brother said.
I was resistant. I was a chickenshit. I tried to talk him out of it. So did Penelope. But secretly, i wanted to throw a rock at it, despite its fearsome consequences, if only because the thing itself was so terrifying. The way the hornets zipped around it made me swoon, and compared to my bunk bed in the trailer, where the stuffed animals were arranged according to height, it seemed unnatural. I did not protest when he was unable to find a rock in the long grass and settle for upon a large, tight pinecone, lifting it back over his head and waiting.
We all waited. I was wearing a red shirt. I thought what happened next was a result of my red shirt, but i think now that i was wrong.
The pine cone flew through the air, but even before it hit i knew we were in trouble. So did Penelope. She clutched my arm with her warm hand and i remember thinking it was the first time she had touched me, ever. The hornets swarmed at us, two long, dark spirals pouring out of the shade, not individual insects. It was beautiful. Suddenly i was aware that the others were gone, i could hear them behind me. My older brother's hoots and calls were joyous and manic, and my younger's were less so. He was stung on the back of the neck, and on the arm.
I started to run too, and bolted until i was sure there was no shade near me. Then, as i turned back and looked at the direction of Mrs. Neopald's trailer i felt them, all over my chest. I lifted up my shirt and found several under there, striking me again and again in swift, venomous justice. Then i heard them in all my ears and turned, but the others had gone on to the ocean. The ocean. I remember my only thought being that i could lose them in the ocean, but that meant i would have to run down the shady path. I started, but stopped when i was stung on the leg. I tried flaying my arms around wildly and running, but they stung my arms. They stung me on the lip. I fell down and they waited a second, and then started stinging again. I was in the shade.
The Falling Dream Contained in the Venom
And then i don't remember anything except for this dream. It was a horrible dream, of course, brought on by being stung by hornets until i blacked out. In the dream there were people falling all around me, down and down and down, screaming all the while. I was trying to save them, but suddenly realized i was falling too, and would be no good to anyone. I saw people i knew, and some i didn't. I didn't know that many people back then, so there were a lot of repeat performances of gut-twisting, curdling screams. My father fell past me many times. See? Horrible.
That dream stayed with me for years, probably because it lasted for days.
When i woke up, it was in my bunk bed. Penelope was there, building a small sculpture out of popsicle sticks on the table. She was wearing shorts and a blue green tank-top and the door was open, pouring warm afternoon sun in a smooth slant against the wood panelling of the trailer. Her head was down, her fingers curling slowly and thoughtfully around the popsicle sticks, and so i watched her for a long time, just like i had the first time. She finished what she was doing, set the little man up on his feet, admired him for a second with her hands on her lap and said, "I made this for you."
I tried to talk, to express my surprise, but instead a gurgling sound came out. She looked up at me, and then grabbed her popsicle stick man, walking him along the sink up to my bed. The little figure stopped near my forearm, which lay pink and swollen across the blue blanket and white sheets. She rested her head and elbows near my knees and looked at me with her large, green eyes. I struggled to make some noise with my throat and finally coughed out,
"How do you always know when ah'm lookin atch you?"
She shrugged her tanned shoulders slightly and looked away, moving her hand to play with the sheets on my bed. "I don't know." She said, "I can feel it." Then she looked back at me, and smiled, "Maybe cuz our eyes are the same colour."
"No they're not." I said.
"Yes they are." she said, leaning back from the bed.
I tried to move forward, but was met with excruciating pain and let out a small, embarrassing gasp.
"My mom said you're not supposed to move. So don't move, I'll go get her." She smiled and hopped down from the bunk bed, thundering out the door of the trailer. I remember laying there thinking how thirsty i was.
I'm thirsty now. I will go drink from the sink with one of my new plastic cups.
The Promise.
The a few days later, while we were walking down the long broken dirt road towards the highway, Penelope made me promise her i would never do that again.
"What?" I said.
"Make me think you're dead." she said, kicking a pine cone at her feet down into a pothole. She kicked stuff a lot, always with her bare feet, and never seemed to get hurt. I don't ever remember her with a scraped knee or even a bruise. It hadn't occured to me that i had come close to death from the hornets. It seemed like i had taken a long nap, and that was all.
I thought about it for a long time, dying, and looking back it seemed like the first time, although i'm sure there were others. We were ten years old after all, and surrounded by things living and dying and breathing and shitting in the woods in all directions.
"I promise i won't die." I replied after waiting too long.
"Good." she said. "Race you to the house.." Even in barefeet, with rocks and pointed sticks everywhere, she beat me.
That was the closest i ever came to saying "I love you." to Penelope.
The skeleton in my head.
For kicks, i press the knuckles of my hands into my eye sockets. The shapes and colours are amazing, even without the medication. This morning, after i got up, i did that for a full minute or so, until i had a hallucination of my face without any flesh on it, inches away and staring back at me. Those big Black and Decker hollowed-out eyes. Its amazing how much one can frighten oneself, with just their imagination to horrify them.
So death finds its way anywhere, even here, surrounded by a white room with no hard edges.
When i first got here, i was delirious. It felt like a dream, but i remember i could hear the song "White Room" by the hard-rocking band, Cream, all echoey and relentlessly swooning. I'm glad that went away.
Truth be told, the details of how exactly i got here are ...fuzzy.
When i think real hard, it comes back to me much like when i press my knuckles into my eyes. A malleable, twisting barrage of images. A woman screaming, my hands soaked in blood, all the clear signs of something you don't really want to remember.
Soft in the moonlight
.
But enough nightmare visions. I want to tell you about the first time i ever kissed Penelope. It had been a long time coming. I want to tell you about that. But i am so alone right now. It might kill me trying to remember a moment like that.
Instead let's talk about one other thing i miss, though not as much, nowhere near as much. I miss going into a store, seeing something i like, like a keychain in the shape of Batman, and buying it. I miss that feeling of freedom right when i had decided to buy it. Of course, the good feeling was usually gone by the time would step up to the counter with my plastic piece of crap keychain, replaced instead with mild embarrasment, which would turn to solid, hot shame by the time the person behind the counter had given me their best bored expression and unceremoniously dropped my keychain into a soft, crinkly and soon-to-be trash plastic bag.
I want to tell you about the day Penny and i found something in the woods. Something wonderful.
The sunlight was tearing bright, hot holes through the thick, mossy branches, causing tiny pools of light to form on the salal and grass, which shone like diamonds against the rest of the dark, crowded forest. It was just Penny and i, and i can't remember what it was exactly we were looking for, but i know what we found.
"..And she has horns like a deer and lives alone with all the forest animals.." Penny said.
"Right." I said.
"No, Mrs. Neopald says she's seen her!"
"Right." I said.
"That's your problem Hank Pine, you don't believe anything you haven't seen with your own eyes.."
"Exactly." I said.
She stopped in one of the clearings and i joined her, warm sunlight draining the chill of the forest from our bones.
"There's more to this world than you can see you know." she said, looking up into the sun. Her hair against her shoulders was almost blinding.
"Like what?"
She looked down, pressing with her bare foot into the moss. "I don't know." she paused, and rubbed her right foot quickly against her leg. "But i can feel it."
"Ha!" I exploded, but immediately felt bad. "You and your feelings..." I said. "Come on..." I had hoped to drag her away, but as my hand moved to grab her arm, i froze and rested it back against my side. We weren't yet at the touching point in our adolescence. She took in this awkward gesture and decided to spare me any further embarassment by leaping out of the sunny patch and back into the shade.
She hadn't leapt very far before she stopped cold, her bright eyes squinting into the darkness. "What's that?"
I followed her gaze, but couldn't see anything. Finally, my eyes adjusted and i saw a small silvery shape shining in the nearly black.
Appointment with the Doctor
So here we are, another saturday night and i ain't got no body. Ain't got no money neither.
But i got you, you will read this once this building burns to the ground and you stumbled across these pages in the blackened filing cabinet. It will be incomplete, i am sure, and only a few phrases will be legible. Soft in the moonlight. A woman screaming. And you will be tempted to disregard me as a crackpot until you get to this part right, ...here...where i am predicting you standing over the rubble, your face worn beyond recognition under the mask and goggles that are etched deep into your skin. Yes, i saw it all coming. I saw because i have seen it before. I see it when i close my eyes.
The whole earth, and a tidal wave of fire across the sky. It is bright and orange leaving a smoldering red-black in its wake. Detroying all that is green, grey, and blue in this world. The inside of this room is white, but i feel confident the outside is grey.
I often get the horrible feeling that it has already happened, and i don't even realize it, because i am in here.
"When did you first start having these....visions?" The doctor asks.
I have to laugh at this.
He is sitting with one leg crossed over. He is wearing a lab coat, which seems pretty useless, he won't be messing with any noxious chemicals any time soon, or getting coated in blood from a ruptured artery. He has a pencil sharpener, yes, but it is the electric kind, sealed against any mishaps that could lead to a lost finger or anything like that. He is holding a pencil, but not a clipboard, tapping the pencil idly against his crossed leg. The socks are blue, and they match. He has classes, thin wire frames, and a big bulbous nose. Brown eyes, greying brown hair. Yellow tinted teeth. You can sense my disdain, can you not? I would not mention his yellowed teeth if i loved him, i would look past it, imagine them whiter. Although, it is his filing cabinet this will end up in, his office you will step on with your booted feet, so i will say something nice to ensure he files this and does not shred it.
He is a smart man, this doctor. He knows that his profession has reached its peak and is on the decline. He knows that mankind is losing faith in science for the answers. So he reverts to the methods of the old masters. Isolation, beatings, electro-shock. He uses fear like so many have before him and will again. But, like all the really successful institutions on this planet, he lets it seem like he is progressive, humanitarian, a tool of a greater good. He gives me a typewriter, he talks to me as if i will one day be released from this place. He refers to all my drugs as 'medication' not 'tranquilizers'.
I want to tell him when i first had these 'visions'. He is using the hippy word, visions, to lull me and relax me. He did not call them paranoid delusions, which i know he was just itching to say. At first, he insisted that i use those words too, that i recognize everything i have seen and done as such. Then, for a while, i think he gave up, started to humour me.
I like to think he started to believe me.
And then he got scared, took a week off work, and now we're back to words like hallucination, and seizure, which is more comfortable for both of us.
I take a deep breath and say, "When i was a child." This will make him happy, this is a concrete answer. This is a lie. A lie will not be met with frustration and more medication.
"How old?"
"When i was 14."
Here is what really happened when i was fourteen...
TO BE CONTINUED.. |
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| Whut's hapnin RIGHT NOW... |
[Apr. 5th, 2005|06:47 pm] |
Broadcast Incoming..
Received from Operative..
Translation from Etruscan...
Attention People of Earth. You are all in great danger.
Geekspeak disengaged.
My friend Kathleen has instructed me that i should write. I was going to save myself until the European adventure this May, but will use this opportunity to build up suspense for that big day this May by letting you in on a little of April...
The Fawn and i recently escaped from the clutches of Palmeira of the Ponds, a land-sacked mermaid of the deep with a siren's voice that ensnares all who hear her. She was holed up at the Railway Club in the seaside town of Vancouver, on the edges of Gastown, and we stumbled in to assist our friends Run Chico Run and the Doers, not knowing that we would be unable to leave, ever.
How did we escape you ask? By accident of course. I wish i had pictures of her, she sure was purdy. I did some drawings of the whole thing, i will post them on the infernet, Maybe soon....
And in other news,
Lily has been hard at work on her Lullaby Album, enlisting the aid of a slew of celebrity songwriters and singers, including Lady Fibula, the Madam of Sodom, Cecil the Weasel, Murray the Bad Rooster, Charter Cruise, too many to even think of at this moment. But it sounds freakin great, and i know the kiddies will eat it up.
I am gearing up for an album of my own, lamely entitled, "Late Night Spirituals" which i will record completely on a dock by a lake with my cello once it gets warmer out. Most likely after we hitch a ride away from Belgium. Yes, we are already working on solo albums..
Wowee, Hank and Lily are going to Belgium! And all because of the nice folk at Labelman, ..Steven and Gijs specifically, who believe in what we do, ah tell ya, we be some lucky freaks uh nature.
And in still other news, we have amassed another album of cabaret rock and i have begun chronicling... is that a word? chroincling. No, it surely ain't. I started doin some drawrings of our adventures in the Madam of Sodom's Brothel. This album's songs, having been written in a brothel, are all about sex. I'm not sure when we will find time to record that, as Lily and Cecil are leaving on a mission to rescue an ally from the Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas within mere moments.
Me, i will meet them on the road, Penelope and i have another mission to perform which i will write about next time..
I wasn't really planning on using this space to rant on n' on bout whut's hapnin, but now that's outta the way, and next time i will tell you a real good story.
Until then folks, watch the skies.
-Hank. |
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[Jan. 2nd, 2005|09:09 pm] |
The
Journal
of
Hank Pine,
Happiest Man Alive
Volume Two.
To Penelope, (and YouknoWho)
Welcome to Day 0: a tragedy in small parts...
The crickets are eerily silent these days. It’s almost comforting. Almost.
My thumb is black, but more on that later.
So I hear Lily’s voice echoing through the trees, and finally a little bird squats next to me . I look into its dark pool black eyes, waiting for some message from the deer girl. It looks back, blinks, cocks its head...Then the phone rings and Lily says from what sounds like miles away, “Hank! There's a tragedy.” And I think, what could be worse than yesterday, when we were forced to fork over $900 dollars over to the Satanic Mechanic just to get the tour van on the road..”The show is tonight , not tomorrow!”
So I leave my spot in the trees and beg Bubba the Dancing Bear to give me a ride to the ferry boat, which he does in his typical grumbling Bubba manner. I think he might be hungover, so I try not to push him too hard. You never want to anger the bear unneccessarily.
And now I am at the well-lit Ferry Terminal darlin, and we’re getting a lot of stares due to your limbs pokin out of the garbage bag. Waitin, waitin, for Charon and his employees to safely shuttle us across the deep, dark sea and towards the BIG CITY. Big citIES I guess. Bemidji, Minnesota, for example.
All goin well, Lily will meet us in our impossibly well-laden and overtly covert humanized vehicle, a non-descript and commonplace as possible burgundy mini-van, on the other side of all this water. On the continent. And we will rush off to play the BIG ShOW at the Railway with the Winks, Amy and Andrew as The Nervous Breakdowns, and victoria-folk Imacculate Machine. I’ve always wnated to roll on into town and hit the satge, but in my not-so-elaborate fantasy, the spotlight is shinin bright, my guitar is tuned and ready to go, and there are folk by the hundred chanting my name and stompin their feet.
On a side note, I have pneumonia in my arm and it hurts. I have decided to vaccinate as I know that the road can be LONG, HARD, and RIFE with Disease. It is standard procedure for all of us in the A.S.S. to be injected with all kinds of vaccines, but this pneumonia one was new, even to me.
And now I will write much smaller, because paper is expensive and trees are rare.
And now it is later, after the show. It was fun, we were exceptionally clumsy and rough, but Charter Cruise was there, and Steve McBean of Pink MOuntaintops, and Josh from my new favourite band They Shoot Horse Don’t They. I really want to unite the Hank and Lily Show with that band. We would be an unstoppable juggernaut.
I slept at Jaana’s (YAH-NAH) mom’s house, which was funny, we had to be all quiet, and we were not very quiet. I dreamt of you Penelope, even though you were right beside me, but it was the old you, the moving, breathing, pink you, and it was good.
DAY 1: a day off in Vancouver, British Molumbia.
Jaana n’ I go to Bonn’s Off Broadway for breakfast, and then meet Lily and Trevor at Cafe Deux Soleil on Commercial. By complete cosmic fluke, Emma Crowe flaps in. Emma will be accompanying Lily and I on this journey eastward, as she has many, many skills that we know will come in handy. We inform her the show was in fact last night, but console her with the information that she will see us perform almost every night for the next two months. She has a weeping wound on her chin and a mouth full of chipped teeth from breaking a drunken fall with her pretty, pretty face. She is beyond hungover, and we all part ways, Emma to find a dentist, Lily to hang with CHarter Cruise, and Jaana and I to wander aimlessly.
Lily, Trevor and I meet Amy and Andrew of Red Cat Records for Nachos. Nachoes? Tortilla chips and cheese. It’s all about the beans, good nachoes have beans. I bunk that night at my brother’s place. His name is Evan.
DAY 2: tRAvel to Kelowna.
It starts grey and cold and wet. Emma has visited the dentist and we hit the road. The drive to Kelowna is impossibly beautiful. When we arrive, it is dark and we comb the barren university for signs of life. Very cold. No people, no club.
Where’s the show?
I dunno.
Let’s ask those old people.
When we do find it,..Courtney the really nice girl promoting the show, is freakin out. I like her instantly, despite her allegiance to a certain ex-girlfriend of mine. Ha. We play with local bands Devil’s Lounge, and the Lo-Fi Cowboys, who are all swell. We kidnap the saxophone player for our sloppy, chaotic set, and he plays like a pro. For some reason, a lot of hot girls are in costumes, and we convince them to dance onstage and sing, spilling beer and gin and tonics all over our pedals. There aren’t a whole lotta people there, but the ones that show up are quality, and they buy lots of comics and CDs.
Courtney takes us back to her place, which is nice despite its eerie townhouse landscape. She tells me about this time her and Jesse Ladret saw a spaceship outside her house, and I don’t tell her it was most likely an A.S.S. eye-in-the-sky, I just nod in silent agreement. Sleep is cramped, but warm.
DAY 3: Kelowna to Calgary.
Breakfasat at IHOP, which totally sucks, but we try to make the best of it. I drive through the rockies, and by 9 pm, we are in Canmore, NOT Calgary, where the show is. We finally arrive and find that once again we are headlining, which seems weird, but suits us just fine, we don’t really get good until the middle of our set anyway, once we have the audience on their feet and sweaty.
There are three bands openin for us, one of which is this awesome country band called Blood Dungeon, featuring both Lenny (Blood Bunny, as we dress him in the bunny suit), Peter, (who we dress as Buck, Lily’s dad), and uhm.. Rod Iron Jay..(dressed in my fedora...Okay I know it’s a lame costume, but we can only fit so many in the mini-van. We are also joined onstage by Kara Keith of Falconhawk, who sings back up and plays the maracca like she was born with it stapled to her hand. A slight exaggeration perhaps, but she meant well.The night Gallery is a pretty standard venue, it reminds me of 3B’s in Bellingham. The ultimate highlight is either Lenny Blood Bunny looking surly and smoking in the Bunny suit, or the entire Blood Dungeon set.
We play a twenty minute version of Foetus Lake at the end of the night that rocks ridiculously hard.
We spend the night at Rod Iron Jay’s immaculate apartment, doing yoga and playin Mortal Kombat. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 1st, 2005|09:21 pm] |
DAY 4: on the road to Trevor Anderson’s Birthday.
We go for breakfast at the Ship and Anchor, Lenny buys us all food. All of Blood Dungeon are so good to us, we almost weep, and feel a very real sadness when it is time to leave them. But this is life on the road, and they understand.
On the way to the Black Dog in Edmonton, we stop at the Donut MIll and buy Trevor a pinwheel because we realize with horror we have nothing for him except our crappy merchandise. We find out later it’s not even his BIRTHDAY. -he just planning this elaborate ruse so that we can get a show in Edmonton that people will come to. Whatta guy.
A popular guy luckily, the basement of the Black Dog fills up and we cram our full stage and gear into a corner of the room. The contained crowd warms up slow, but once LIly busts out her tap shoes, they are ours. We butcher a Johnny Cash and a Charter Cruise song and have same-sex slow dances by the end. All-in-all, it’s a lot less G A Y than I woulda thought, Trevor’s party. I guess he’s not part of “the community”.
DAY 5: Matt Damon!
We eat a late, and I mean 2:45, breakfast at Cafe Mosaic, and then go to see “Team America: World Police”...finally! Oh Penelope, I pledge my love once more to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But more Trey Parker. After that fine peice of cinema we are treated to a fuckin amazin meal by Trevor’s roomates, Tash and Gavin. Then we go to the Sidetrack, where we are headlining the open stage. It is a harrowing performance, with no reverb, no curtains, no smoke, but we survive, and they give us a CD copy of our 30 minute and 100 dollars. Thank you Edmonton!
I am getting the pains which make it hard to live, so I go to perform the ritual. I am still the happiest man alive, but when the pains come I can feel the air turn black as cancerous stool around me. My hand shakes and the A.S.S training starts to course through my ice cold veins. I swear Penelope, without you by my side, this would have ended so many times already. Emma and Lily go on to party the night away across the street at Gavin’s house.
DAY 6: Mannville.
We eat at Cafe Mosaic, and the staff buys our food. It’s almost too much, the generosity, and we feel at a loss with how to repay their kindness. On the way to Saskatoon, we stop in Mannville.
Actually,
we turn around and drive back to Mannville, taking in the sights and eating rice. The ladies go shoppin, even Penelope, and I wait in the van with the other men that wait in their cars for their women to be done shopping.
The cold air causes all my scars to twinge and snap. A frequent reminder that yes, I LIVE.
We meet up with Keith in Saskatoon who puts us up at his warm house. We sleep well, which is nice.
DAY 7: wINNIpig..
Our attempt to leave Saskatoon early fails miserably, and we haul ass to make it to our show at a place called ‘Hooligans’ My friend Becky has set up this show at the last minute and it has a definite Hedwig and the Angry Inch feel. I want to go all the way with this feeling, and set up the stage, smoke lights and curtains, but Becky wins the rock-paper-scissors. That, and the fact that we’re not gettin paid, lead us to stripped down set. Lily and I are both starving, and when the food arrives during our first song, we instantly lose a whole shwak of MOJO, our eyes glued to the table. It turns out the food is disgustapatin, nee-inedible, and funny thing, we don’t actually have a tab here at Hooligans, we’ve been misled, and the waitress would like her money now please.
The band we’re openin for is good and the people are friendly, but I know there is more, better fun to be had. Like real assholes, we ditch during the bands 2nd set and go to Becky’s friend Nora’s mansion outside WInnipeg.
They have statuette’s everywhere, a piano, chandeliers and downstairs, THE BIGGEST POOL TABLE I HAVE EVER SEEN. And a punching bag. The Lebanese Mafia, says Mark, Becky’s other friend, and Nora doesn’t deny it. I wiped out hard by falling off a counter or into a chair, How it happened is fuzzy, but I know my pool cue went into the ceiling. The Lebanese Mafia should know better than to invite Lily, Emma and us into their homes.
In the morn, a mere three hours after bedding down, Nora is up makin us breakfast and coffee. I eat bacon just to show my gratitude. Tonight we are playing in Thunder Bay, my ass is bruised, and my homicidal urges and visions are rampant and vivid. The A.S.S would be so satisfied to know that even now i indulged them, so I won’t. Sleep will help. |
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[Dec. 31st, 2004|09:23 pm] |
DAY 8: WAWA!
Played in Thunder Bay last night. What can i say? I get the feelin talkin to certain bands that they have played to empty unresponsive rooms a LOT. Run CHico RUn for example. I can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. Is it vain of me to never want that in my own eyes and hear it in my own voice when people ask about our travels?
We rocked solid, and this was definitely my Hedwig dream come true, as there was a 2 dollar shooter night down the street from where we were playing. I feel the staff enjoyed our set.
We stayed upstairs at the cleanest punk rock flophouse i have ever seen. And then we drive...
Right now, we’re in Wawa, at a diner of food we cannot eat. BC hippie cuisine has spoiled us, and now it all looks like dog feces on big white plates. Lily eats a tomato dip. Why? i dunno. We must make it to Montreal by morning, which is very far away. We WILL make it to Montreal by morning, which is very far away.
DAY 9: Devil’s NIght in Montreal.
After a hellish drive through rural Onterrible, we arrive in Montreal. I try to sleep at Hana’s, but every time i close my eyes i see a dark road at night with deer and moose leaping onto it.
We play a show at Casa del Popolo and then after that at a house party two doors down. Hallowe’en is our Time to Shine. My favourite moment is Jimmie Holyoak in the bunny suit. and the crowd of freaks literally climbing on the roof. Our best show ever? I could have shit in a bucket with Lily holding a microphone up to my ass and they would have loved it!
We slept at Hana’s and while i was dreamin, a topless girl in a bunny head stole my coat with my wallet in it.
DAY 10: HALLOWE’EN Montreal to Hamilton.
The next morning we play detective and track her down with the aid of Willow Wind, who has relocated to Montreal. We wrote a song about her once, for her birthday, now we must write another one.
After finding my I.D., we book it to Hamilton, city of dreams. Well, someone's dreams i'm sure. Lily and i are frickin stoked cuz we're openin for Wax Mannequin, our hero. I saw him in Victoria and he blew me away. He didn't crack a smile once, but leaped and spun and rocked until he bled from the hand, all the while singin lines like, “a message to you, from the Queen!” and, “Push all of the buttons, all at the same time..” hmm.. having written that, i see that most of the ineffible nature of Waxy lies in his delivery, the oddness of which is enhanced by his ridiculously competent backing band.
Cecil the Weasel, operative of the sixth order of the A.S.S. Joins us onstage.
Lily stabs a knife through her heart, for Hallowe’en, and i rip my own throat out. It's a good thing Lily brought lots of healing herbs with her. Cecil, being a creepy motherfucker doesn’t have to do anything to look menacing.We had such huge fucking plans for this show, i mean, it's hallowe’en after all! But in all honesty, saturday felt like hallowe’en, and this feels like a bonus party. Lily does play the theremin though, which always enhances the horror aspect of our show tenfold.
Thankfully the nice folk from Rantmusic show up to dance their freaky masks off. Geoff Berner is there too, and his goofy little smile lights up the night. At one point i say how it must be hard being away from his new child, and he says, “I have three.” Christ. It's a good thing you never talked me into getting you knocked up Penny, i don think i could handle a Henry Pine Jr. at this point.
We sleep at Heather's. We get a parking ticket, which Waxy takes, saying, “i have a way with people.” That he does. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 30th, 2004|09:29 pm] |
DAY 11: LONDON.
Got lost on the way to London. We play this fancy yuppie bar called the Alex P. Keaton. Yes, named after THAT Alex P. Keaton. The whole experience reminds me of the Maitreya days. Emma too. In honour of this, i try to do one of our songs, to which Lily gives me a look. The owner is really, and i mean, really stoked on us, -i start to suspect he hasn't come out of character from hallowe’en yet.
The big surprise of the night comes when one of my loves, the indomintable Casey appears with her new man. You remember her i'm sure Penny, she was the one i told you about from when i lived in the grey world, the bombshell carny. Holy shit. We sleep at her house which is large, warm and clean.
I have terrifying and vivid dreams about barren lakes, mountain goats with suction cup hooves, endless pubs, magic spells, abandoned temples. At one point my dream 'team' are gathered in a semi-circle at the base of the temple discussing which one of us is dreaming this dream. I don't know any of them real well, and for a while i'm convinced we're in a collective dream. I start to get scared and excited, but i tell them i can prove to them it's my dream by flying, and i do, and then i pull down my pants, and then i wake up.
Casey and i go for breakfast at a shitty diner, just the two of us, just for old time's sake. Then we spend
DAY 12: Hangin out in LondoN !
and goin to Joey's house, watchin South Park. Joey is Wax's booking dude, and a swell guy all around. His house is tiny and his dog is HUGE.
DAY 13: Lunch with Joey and then drive to TORONTO.
A nice gal named Amy, (head of the Chet fan club), is our hostess and we play Alan's birthday bash at Rancho Relaxo with Cecil. Alan does a great junkie shuffle, but the crowd of cool youngsters has thinned considerably by the time we hit the stage.
All i want is ONE BEER at the end of the night, and i can't seem to find one anywhere. This seems ridiculous at the time. Playing last isn't always good. It's true.
I'll tell you what is good, visiting Toronto after living here so long ago. That being said, i accidentally let it slip 3 times how much i hate it here. We all sleep at Amy's.
DAY 14: TORONTO, the gateway to the grey world.
Most don't know that there is a mirror in Honest Ed's, way in the back, that leads to the grey world. This is a good thing. I don't advise anyone of you to search it out.
We awaken. Emma Crowe goes to drive Cecil somewhere and gets lost in Toronto for 4 and half hours! Lily and i get annoyed, and then worried sick, and then hungry, so we go for expensive hippie food. Emma shows up, and i ask her about the mirror and the grey world, and how could she be so careless, but she just gives me a funny look and says that she needs new boots.
Then we go to hang out with RANTmusic on Queen St. They're openin fer Luther Wright and the Wrongs at the Rivoli. After that we go to see our other tourmate Andrew Vincent at Mitzi's sister. There are lots of homemade instruments on the wall, which excites Lily and i immensely. More hippie food and then we go back to watch 'Binge and Purge'. It's a zombie movie about models, and stars all sorts of folk we know. Including Stef, as the hero, the guy that i met on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and to our surprise, Amy, our host. Realizing that this is making her uncomfortable, we do the socially irresponsible thing, and continue to watch and laugh and scream at her performance. She goes to bed. |
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[Dec. 29th, 2004|09:39 pm] |
DAY 15: Windsor, which is next to Detroit.
We've been listening to Joanna Newsom a lot. She inspires me, makes Emma happy, and Lily has finally warmed up to her, because she reminds her of Dolly Parton. We are now prepared to defend her to the death, should it ever come to that.
Emma takes us for Korean food and then we hit the road! The two-week point is big on any sort of journey, it's when you finally ADJUST. Be it Mexico, the woods, or whatever, i have adjusted to spending whole days in a mini-van, being thoroughly confused when i wake up, and hauling heavy amps up and down tiny staircases in the dark. The overwhelming generosity of complete strangers is something i will never get used to, and hope that i never do, lest i seem ungrateful.
I just went and looked across the river at DETROIT.
I could hear what sounded like twenty sirens and the whole city seemed to be in ChaOs. Ah-mer-ee-ee-ka! As if all this makes sense. As if George Jr. did it again and they all swallowed it up like so much hot steaming shit. As if i could spit on Detroit if the wind was right, but there's no way i can paddle across with a guitar, because that's illegal. Yes, to Rock has been outlawed. Finally! As i leisurely jaywalk across the main street of Windsor, i try to sing 'Oh Canada!' but can only remember the 1st and last lines.
Our show is at a place called Phog. (fog) and i goes really well. There are people there and they dig it. We write a set list, and then double it, and then play some covers. I inform this obnoxious jerk that refused to pay cover that if he wants in for free he has to be a part of our show. At first this jerk, Captain Jack, resists, but after my haranguing and the crowds jeers, he ends up redeeming himself by doing the best Junkie shuffle Lily, Emma and i have ever seen.
We sleep that night at Ron's apartment, which is very, very small.
DAY 16: kINgstOn.
After an early rise, and some 'smoothies', which look more like 'chunkies' if you ask me, we head fer Luther Wright's hometown. After some searchin, we find the venue, -a converted frat house on campus complete with ping pong, foosball, pool, make-out rooms, you name it.
We play first, a hurried, spastic set to a wary crowd that didn't laugh at my cancer joke. You'd think they all knew someone who died of cancer or something. I do. I did. I still think it's funny. I tell it to you now, even though it definitely won't be funny in the typed form.
Q: What did the little boy in the wheelchair get for christmas?
Give up?
A: Cancer.
Ahahahaha.Lookin back we should have just covered ourselves in blood and rolled around the stage. It would have been a lot more fun... Of course, when is that not fun? Lily and i are crappy openers, as 8 songs seems just long enough to confound and isolate our audience. Then again, if we were worth a pot to piss in, we'd do it in ONE song. Y'all get what i'm sayin...
I spend most of the night wandering around the labyrinth house, alternating between chuggin beer and napping in discreet locales. So i catch some of Rant's set, but miss most of Luther Wright and the Wrongs.
After, we all go to Dan Curtis' house, who has Star Wars dioramas set up everywhere, toys and crap in all corners of the kitchen. I feel instantly comfortable in such an environment, though unnerved by all the NEW Star Wars shit, because those movies really sucked shit.
I slept in the mini-van and had a restless nightmare night involving giant cats and mad doctorz.
DAY 17: Oshawa...
We're in this craplousy restaurant called, 'a taste of China' i highly recommend you stay away. I ask for the vegetarian plate and get deep-fried chunks of deep-fried air, covered in red sauce.
Playin tonight at a place called 'the Velvet Elvis' with a band called the Real Priscillas, who dress up in bee-hives and play rockabilly and that smooth, smooth pop that haunts the soul. Friends of Carolyn Mark's. Friends of her every have been so good to us. We owe her Big Time.
The Priscillas rule. After a fun night a the Velvet Elvis, we drive to Kate of the Priscillas huge farmhouse, built in 1865, outside Oshawa. It has so many rooms that we each get a bed with clean sheets. On the way, Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo, Kate's neighbour and ally, gets pulled over by the FUZZ for a bogus plate, but they let him go because he's Greg Fuckin Keelor of Blue Rodeo.
When we arrive, the aurora borealis is UNREAL. A green and purple vortex over the house pulling us up.. and honest to goodness COYOTES!! We try to tape it, but the tape won't work. I hear them all night, and it truly is one of the most haunting sounds i have ever heard.
And then i dream that we have taken the Queen, whom we call 'Queenie' under our wing and our showing her a good time. No one believes she is really the Queen, but when they do find out, oh how we LaUgh! My last dream involves a lake of BLood, an unholy rital, a crowded flat and a giant pink sperm whale of the apocalypse laying seige, to a soundtrack by Corrosion of Conformity. uh..yeah... |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 28th, 2004|09:45 pm] |
DAY 18: This World is NOT my Home, I'm just a-passing Through.
a LAZY and wonderful day with our hostess Kate, MOjo the dog, and the two horses at the farm house.
We go for a beautiful walk through the hilly countryside, just as it starts to snow. We knew this day would come. MOtherfukin snow day. It's what you git for travlin through Canada in the winter.
DAY 19: Kate's Farm.
We venture to Port Hope, a delightful place clogged with yuppies like cholesterol in an old guy's arteries. Or shit in an old lady's colon. Or scabs on a junkies arm, but you get the picture. Upon returning home we assist Kate in her insane mission of building twelve giant snowmen out of plaster for the city of Oshawa. Her efforts will appear on, of all things, the Blue Rodeo DVD thingy.
DAY 20: And now we are dining in Port HOpe again, at Stippy's!
Today we will be driving to Ottawa, playin at Irene's with Andrew VIncent and the RANT. And then Ithaca, NY.
Ottawa show was good. We tossed a coin and ended up playing our 'ANgRY' set. As you well know darlin, i have a lot of hate and rage in me, a nearly endless supply. All the A.S.S training unlocked something, i know HOw to kill but how NOt to kill is the tricky part.
We slept at Andrew Vincent's. I dreamt of THomas Shields, which made me homesick. But not for any home i can remember, as i know this world was not meant for me. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 26th, 2004|09:49 pm] |
DAY 21: Borderguard.
We ended up at the border earlier than anticipated, i.e. before any of us went to the bathroom. Unfortunately HOMELAND SECURITY demands that you cannot got to the bathroom until AFTeR they have;
a) asked a serious of ridiculous, misleading questions,
b) gone through EVERYTHING in yr vehicle and then
c) made idle conversation with James Regan, head of security.
Later, we are in AMERICA. There are magnets on every second car that says 'support our troops'. Lots of magnets. Dear god.
Our show at the college in Ithaca gets swarmed by honest to goodness frat-boys yelling for AC/DC. Unfortunately, this one fraternity doesn't have to pay cover, so there is little compensation for their meaty heads.
I play trumpet with the RANT. I rule. The local band plays metal of the 'funky' kind, and we pole-dance, break-dance, slam-dance and dirty dance the shit outta the beer soaked floor. At a certain point i decide tonight is MY night on this tour to get drunk. I begin grabbing beer from people's hands and chugging until i start to feel love. We get back to the metal band's house and there is a keg, and a ridiculously well-stocked bar in the living room complete with a congenial bartender. We do shots of whiskey, tequila, dr. pepper's, depth charges, more tequila and i start to feel u n h in g e d. I force myself to find somewhere to pass out before i do anything crazy. Two polish fellows on the porch teach me how to say
"w moye snach z tobah holtzeh..."
DAY 22: ItHaca, NY.
The folks are inside the party house making a late breakfast. I am in the mini-van with the keyboard, freezing my ass off and writing to you, even though you are beside me now. It is 3:30. Apparently we're gonna play a house party here tonight, we'll see how that pans out...
Instead, Cecil, Lily and i go to see 'the Incredibles'. Which is incredible.
DAY 23: Long Branch, NJ.
Before our show Sarah Heartache and i go to hang out on the beach. The beach! We haven't been to the ocean, an ocean, since we left Vancouver, so we spend a long time staring, her and i. It is weird to be facing the other direction than back home whilst looking out across the open sea.
Played in a bar called the 'Brighton', where the Jimmy Wilson group (WEEN!) still plays. SHow was strange, we played a dark, dark set to a mostly stunned audience. Highlights include our improv song. On this tour, to keep it fresh, I decided that every set where i am feeling bored we will make up a song on the spot. I usually have a title, or a few verses, and we go from there. This one however, is a cover of Nirvana's 'You've got no right' which we render unintelligible in homage to WEEN.
Afterwards we go to Andy's house where there is a rager of a raging party raging. There is another band that played that night called Sketch, and they are good times. We try to light our farts on fire, and one of them actually succeeds.
DAY 24: Asbury Park, NJ.
We have a very relaxing day, Andy brings us all bagels and orange juice, with cream cheese! The bagels that is.
And then that night we play at THE COOLEST BOWLING ALLEY EVER, Asbury Lanes. They have a really good sushi bar with a charming and attractive lady chef, old movies projected onto the lanes, free ten-pin, a tiki lounge, mood lighting, and big plastic clowns. We play in amongst the lanes, as people bowl, ..a heavy drugged set, with no drugs of course. the RANT join us for 'Laika' which takes the simple song over the threshold into outer space where it belongs.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 25th, 2004|10:00 pm] |
DAY 25: Long Branch, NJ
Surfing in the Atlantic. CHili Fries at this roadside diner called the WIndmill with miss Emma Crowe. Then Ms. Crowe and i cruise through Jersey, noticing how LOng Branch is the white neighbourhood, and there, just across the bridge in Asbury Park, is the black neighbourhood. If it's one thing i like, it's black folk.
It is a fun time, but Emma and i discuss some heavy shit, for hours.
When we get back to Andy's apartment, i literally barricade myself in a tiny room with an organ and a guitar and write four songs, "L.A.P.D.", a song for you darlin, n' "Animals Unite Against Man", "This World Will Never be the Same Size Again" and "Jesus was a bad, bad man". These few hours of 'alone-time' are precious and sacred.
DAY 26: New York CIty!!!
We drive into Brooklyn, find a bathroom in a deli. FInd the club, and then we go to TImes Square. It is very..commercial. We go to Central Park, where the squirrels all pack guns. Lily warns me that these city squirrels are even craftier than the ones back home, and i listen.
A man sings on the subway, he sings, 'Under the boardwalk' and for the first time ever, i like that song. I give him money, even though i don't have any. I borrow money to give him.
Stefan aka Baffy the Deer just asked me if he's in this journal. NOw he is. We go to Grand Central Station which is uhm, busy! I see the Empire State building which is small. I hear they are remaking KIng Kong. Why?
We play tonight at the Hook. THe staff are friendly. Hanna (HOH-NUH) says we can stay at her place, which is very sweet. She is very sweet, she has blonde hair Penelope, just like you. SHe is bike courier who left CHicago to become a bike courier here, for the challenge, she says. Wow. I say. I'll let you know all this pans out later.
Okay it is later. We played to an empty room, emptier than THunder Bay, but got offered a gig by the bar manager, John, to open for GIBBY HAYNES' new band, called Jack Officer. You remember GIbby, don't you Penelope? from the Butthole Surfers? Yah him. Yah, I know!
Slept at Hannah's awesome loft. Flat. In Brooklyn, with her chihuahua named FideL.
DAY 27: Greenwich Village in Manhattan.
Woke early in an attempt to get Letterman tickets. Now Sarah Heartache, Emma Crowe and i are in a real cool cafe in THE village. Great food and friendly folk. There are friendly folk everywhere. Who told me that New Yorkers were rude? Even in a mask and goggles they've been very helpful.
Turns out David Letterman hates Canadians. I'm hardly a Canadian. Maybe it's because of Paul Shafer, in which case i can't blame him.
But we go to the PiErs and then go fer a cab ride to the MET. Picasso, Munsch, ROdin, Cezanne, Pollock, Van Gogh, Klee, Da Vinci, everyone who's anyone all in one spot. I felt like i was going to cry. And i saw REAL mummies. From Egypt. These ones didn't move. Yet.
THen we ate on Lexington, wandered down Park Avenue feeling very out of place. There were doorguys. Guys that open the door for you!
And then we went and drank red wine in Central Park. For the first time started to get nervous, but realized we are the people that other people are afraid of, and it all worked out.
Then we stumble drunkenly around TImes Square hollering and singing to the posters of Jude Law our ammended version of the Beatles song.
We showed up to collect our van with Lily and Cecil, but they were not there, so we went to the second sketchiest bar i have ever frequented. Second only to Dixie Lee's Roadside Saloon. It was called the Acupulco. I am spelling that wron, but you git the ideer..
At one point, ..the details are fuzzy, Sarah Heartache and i run three blocks in our socks, jumping over needles, back to the Acupulco for one last beer before we have to leave New York. The waitress behind the bar is loaded beyond belief. Her eyes are closed and she is belligerent.
Then we sleep in Asbury at Melissa's Mexican Pad, which is coated in Day of the Dead shit, so i instantly feel at home. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2004|10:06 pm] |
DAY 28: Asbury Park.
We do some much needed laundry at this laundromat where they have everything possible to make sure you don't get bored. Jukebox, Movies, Video Games, Magazines,.. Boh-RinnnG. Laundry will always be boring as fuck. Inspired by Melissa's Mexican apartment i decide to make us Huevos Rancheros with Mole (moh-lay) sauce. The mole doesn't work out at all, and it takes hours to prepare, but it's good.
Then Sarah Heartache and i go for this awesome twilight bike ride down to the boardwalk, where all is abandoned and desolate. Chipped murals of clowns, an empty fortune teller booth, giant bony ampitheatres, that sorta thing.
While bumpedbumpin over this surreal landscape, this creepy, beautfiul music comes floating from the direction of the sea. We bike around and around and can never tell which direction the music is coming from, and end up finally in this neighbourhood four blocks from the ocean, where this tiny church is unleashing this chaotic, robotic bell arrangement. Sarah Heartache says, "do you think they meant it to sound like that?"
To which i silently respond, no.
That night we play at Asbury Lanes again, because they were nice enough to ask us back for 'garage night'. The night starts off with nickel beers. That's right Pen, beer for a nickel! I walk up and say, I'll have ten please, even though i don't normally even drink beer. After that it gets confusing, i hurt myself bowling, which is a feat in itself. We're playing with a band called the Blackouts, who are good. Our set is madness. (Nickel beers.) We have a chorus line onstage with sparklers, which for some reason angers the good folk of Asbury Lanes a great deal.
Emma Crowe gets so drunk she starts to cry when she thinks she has lost her keys, which she hasn't. We still laugh about that one, me and her. We sleep at Melissa's again.
DAY 29: The Unofficial Day of the Dead. or, Jersey Turnpike Blues.
In the morn, Melissa takes us to Dunkin Donuts. THen We gather our troop, which includes Emma, Lily, you, me, Sarah Heartache, and Cecil the Weasel, and get lost in Jersey on the way to New York City. Real, real lost. But eventually we make it.
Emma, Sarah and i get 40's of Colt 45 malt liquor rom the corner store next to the garbage can with the TV in it and hone our mad skills underneath the barbed wire gate on the streets of Brooklyn. That little keyboard has become my life force in the past week.
That malt liquor packs a punch, i tells yah.
We suit up for our show at the Hook openin fer JACK OFFICER!
There are five bands, but the club owner digs us, and we get the sweet spot right before the headliners. So lucky. In the basement of the club, we hang wit the members of Jack Officer, Gibby Haynes and Nathan of the BUTTHOLE SURFERs, our favourite band of all time, and Andrew Weiss, producer of all those great WEEN albums, our other favourite band of all time.
I teach Gibby how to play the saw, and talk shit about WEEN with Andrew. (i accidentally call him Mean Ween because i am so nervous. He isn't Mean Ween at all, he's Andrew Fuckin Weiss.) It is surreal rock moment and the only thing that spares me is the fact that i wear a mask and goggles at all times.
Our set is fun, but short. (5 bands). I break a string on the first chord of LaikA, but we slough through. Once the song ends, i beg the audience for a guitar, seeing as how all our other gear is borrowed, ..why stop now? Luckily a nice fellow named Ed loans me one. Cecil borrows Nathan's bass and we Rip in to the rest. My favourites include a wailing 'Murray the Bad Rooster', and a "new" song entitled 'Gibby Haynes' which is the Ford Pier song with different words and few new notes. Gibby says he likes it, so that's enough for me.
The Jack Officer set is techno which is, i'll admit, unexpected. But Hanna, the beautiful bike courier says it's weirder due to the look on Gibby's face, ..which, when poised over the screen like that, looks like someone staring with glazed attention at internet porn. At the end of the night i get to kiss Hanna, which is great, and she understands perfectly that i could only ever love you. Then Mr. Haynes invites us to hang out, but i decline both offers cuz we gotta go to Jersey...?
DAY 30: wHich is November 20th, 2004, a saturday.
I am safely ensconced in the van once more. We are headed off into the Canadian Wilderness again, Montreal specifically. I will miss the Jersey Shore. It feels very much like BC, whereas Montreal fells like another planet. I just got word that PaLmeira of the Ponds has left Chet, again. I hope Bubba is okay.
We arrive in Montreal late and Emma and i paint the town amber in the gay village. Then bed down at 5 am, (i love montreal), at Willow Wind's new pad, an old church.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 22nd, 2004|10:09 pm] |
DAY 31: Montreal, no Ottawa, no, Montreal.
We go to Ottawa. Rather, we drive all day in our sick, sick van to collect our stashed gear from Andrew Vincent's, stay for 10 minutes, then book it back to Montreal for our show at Cafe Chaos. The other band, Demon's Claws is great, and when the promoter, who says he loves our band, decides not to pay us, they give us all their money from the night. JeebuZ.
My chest aches, the black snake stirs, but i ignore it.
DAY 32: Montreal for Real this time.
Finally, a whole day to just be in Queerbec. Emma Crowe and i wander the streets all day. We eat at Patati Patata, take in a horrific play about Argentinian War Crimes. The A.S.S are everywhere, even Argentina. Lily and Willow Wind do other things. We meet at the Casa. My chest hurts so bad i contemplate ripping it open with a fork and killing what is inside.
That night we play on the Concordia University radio station. The two interviewers are sweet, but nervous as hell, which makes us nervous. We play three songs, including a new one called 'L.A.P.D.' Which stands for Life After Penelope Died, Emma says it's my most depressing song ever, and she might be right.
I prefer to think of it as darkly comic.
Then we eat some "asian" food at 1:30 in the mornin, all the while singin the praises of BIG CITY LIFE.
DAY 33: A truly shit sandwich of a day.
We awake late and leave Montreal late. Drivin down Ste. Catherine, Emma says, "look at that cool guy, smoking with his hands in his pockets.." to which Lily responds, "Hey, that's DAN!" Dan Beckner from Atlas Strategic and God Shaped Vacuum, currently in Wolf Parade. We have to leave right away but stop to say 'Howdy!' And then we make our beleaguered way to Hamilton.
Our van, recently christened 'FREEDOM' by Emma, is havin shit fits. It jus don wanna go.
Apparently, Freedom knows better than us..
We arrive at our show at the Casbah at 11:30 pm, hit the stage and rip through a rock set.
We find out later we're not getting paid. After nearly killing ourselves and Freedom too many times to count over the course of the day, this news hits hard. Yay! Pay 2 Play! Then we sleep at a guy named Martin's artist.....squat. Well, not squat, that sounds harsh, but the ladies refuse to use the bathrOOm, and we leave as early as possible.
Some nice folk, a different guy named Martin, Stan, and Terry look at our van, change the Fuel Filter and send us on our way into...
DAY 34: November 24, 2004, a wednesday in Onterrible.
We're in Hamilton now. But soon we wil leave to go to Oshawa.
Kate greets us, and we are glad to see her and her dog Mojo and her beautiful farmland. and clean house. I jerk off in the bathroom while the ladies watch some Cher movies. We drink wine, eat hors d'ouerves, generally have a great time. I borrow this great book on magic that i haven't seen since my early days at A.S.S. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 21st, 2004|10:11 pm] |
DAY 35: Oshawa Farm House to Queen St.
We awake to Kate bein her typical great hostess self and the day is full of light and promise. This glow is dampened when Kate gets a disturbing call from her bandmate in the Real Priscillas, JoAnne. They cancel their show, which by the end of the night works out good for us, as it means that they can come to our show. I'm not as callous as that sounds. Or i am, but i'm so callous i wrote it anyway. Fuckit, movin on...
We head into the BIG STINK of Toronto and Emma, our Korean Food Connosieur, takes us out to a great place on Blooooooooooooooooor.
We walk into the 360 on Queen St to find a poster that reads,
Hank and Lily
Ford Pier
Tacoma Hell Farm Tragedy.
That's right baby, we're playin a show with FORD PIER! Lily and i do our happy dance.
The show is sparsely attended at first, but the Priscillas are there! Which means that Tara White from Elevator is there. You remember her don't you Penelope? Not long after i received my first pair of goggles and mask i followed that band around, telling them after every show that they need a cello player, which i knew even then wasn't true. Happily, Tara remembers me from those days so long ago.
The Priscillas join us onstage, minus JoAnne, for some sweet back-up singin. Our set is fraught with peril. Things fall over, and Lily forgets her drumsticks.
Our supreme rock moment comes when Ford Pier fills Milky T's shoes and plays the solo on Laika.
Afterwards, we go to Kate, Tara and Andrew's swanky Queens St. apartment and drink applejacks, a Tara creation of apple juice and Jack Daniels, uhg.. and continue dance the night away. Literally. By the time i hit the pillow it is very obviously day time.
DAY 36: Windsor Redux.
So hungover. We arrive in Windsor, visit the Flying Monkey, set up our stage and gear, and then head back to Ron Leary's for chili. As you remember Ron lives in a tiny, rEALLY tiny apartment with a view of Detroit. Remember this, cuz it's key to the tragic element of my story today.
Then we go to the Avalon where the show is, and it's packed! Realizing that we need to ingest all our drugs prior to our hopeful desperate border crossing tomorow, we gobble ecstasy and head into our HARDEST CROWD EVER. Sure it's packed, but they're all sitting and talkin to each other, trying to ignore us, -and our new 'perspective' makes us hyper-sensitive to this fact.
We start out rocking and we rally some dancers, so things are lookin up, excluding this one table of bitchy girls, sitting front and center, glaring at us with undisguised disinterest. The one guy at the table is hollering and yelling along to all our songs, and when the bitchy girls notice he is no longer talking to them, they focus this rage on me and Lily, but mostly Lily. Each song comes close to turnin things around, but none do, even with the addition of "Whiskers". (Ron Leary in the bunny suit)
Earlier that night, during a phone interview with a fellow from Edmonton, he asked if we ever came across a crowd that just didn't get it, I feel this night is the closest we've come, but it's probably just the drugs.
The most nefarious side effect of said drugs is that one point in our set, i crack, and decide that this whole music thing is the wrong way to go. I realize that i should be in the hills, away from humans, i am a poison and a cancer, in a world of poison and cancer. I was wrong to bring Lily out of those woods and into this big bad world, wrong to bring her on this fool's errand of dragging you to New Orleans. I look to her in desperation, and she gets the message. Our set falls apart and we hide behind the curtain at the end of the night for a long, long time.
After crawling out from behind the curtain we go and drink with Ron and Kenneth until the big hours, 5, 6. Again. Once we get back to Ron's tiny, tiny apartment he starts puking chili, and doesn't stop until, finally, at 10:30, just as he's crawling into bed, the alarm goes off. Time to go the U!S! of A!! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 20th, 2004|10:18 pm] |
DAY 37: Today. Detroit and Chicago.
Detroit is a city after the A.S.S. have laid seige to it. The zombies have come and gone. The old stone buildings, the upturned streets, all of it lay open like a wound. But i'm gettin ahead of myself, this story starts at the border.
Lily has a hard time understanding borders. I know all too well about them. To her it's just land, rivers and trees, there is no imaginary line that seperates the two. Me, i know that the mind is a foul weapon capable of creating all manner of horrors.
After sweatin our proverbial sacs off about crossing the border,
we cross the bridge,
pull up,
the young black dude scopes Lily's tattoos,
says
"Nice colours!"
and waves us through. Proving once again the Hank and Lily love all black folk! Our efforts were most likely aided by our careful cloaking and 'border drag' as Carolyn Mark calls it, which involved Emma Crowe in a burgundy turtleneck.
Emma gets the cartilage of both ears pierced at Detroit Tattoo, and we hit the road, into a ferocious rainstorm.
We arrive in Chicago at night. Lots of light, canals, no parking.
Right now, we're sitting in the Golden Apple Diner on Lincoln, listening to Chicagans talk.
This is THE place in Chicago to EAT. It says so right on the menu. Tonight we will drive, drive, drive. We're gonna try and find the RANT, cause we know they're here in America somewhere, and Cecil sent out a distress call not too long ago.
Later that night, we get pulled over by a cop in Wisconsin. It always creepy getting pulled over by a cop that looks younger than you do. Apparently we have a headlight missin. We he asks for my license and i'm forced to respond, "I don't have one."
He takes my "name" and "address" and then says,
"I don't think i've ever pulled over anyone from British..Molumbia before.." trailing off when he gets to the "Molumbia" part. No, i reckon you haven't. He's a nice enough guy, we get to talkin, he's not really a traffic cop, he's a detective just working tonight as all the other guys are off on account of thanksgiving weekend, and he directs us back in the direction we came from towards a motel.
Not just any motel, the nondescipt wonder that is the Knights Inn in Cottage Creek.
I buy a postcard with a kid milking a cow onnit at 4 in the morning because at the time i think it is the funniest shit i have ever seen.
DAY 38: Freedom is SPASTIC.
We are 40 miles outside of Fargo, and Freedom is finally, officially FuCKED.
We make it to a tiny truckstop, called Pam's Truckstop, in Rothsay Minnesota just off the highway.
It is night now, and there is snow. Lots of snow, everywhere. Our mission to meet Cecil has been derailed. The people at Pam's are all fine folk, joining us at our table and discussing our woes.
They don't even mention Lily's antlers. They direct us to the Comfort Zone Inn which is indeed comfortable and tacky as all hell. There is a bed, a robot bed, and we amuse ourselves for hours moving it up, down, and then up and down.
DAY 39: Rothsay, Minnesota.
And now we wait, like concerned family members in the emergency room truckstop.
We gotta gig tonight in Bemidji with RANT. Here's hopin'..
The hours pass, as the cold air flows outside. The landscape is flat and white in all directions, save this one truckstop, the Comfort Zone Inn, and the road to the church. We are definitely far from the woods now, and i can tell it's making Lily nervous. Not too many hiding places out here..This fact is made revoltingly evident when the truck and trailer pull up literally over-flowing with deer carcasses. I have to shield her eyes until they leave.
Welp.
A fuel pump and a moonlit, star-soaked, snow-covered drive leads me here, hidden behind this christmas tree in a coffeeshop called 'the Cabin' on third st. in Bemidji, Minnesota. The Hard Times Saloon is full of noxious fumes, so i am hiding. Also appreciating the chance to attempt some focus. All this moving around and ingesting salt is weakening the defenses that took so long to construct, but running has its merits. I haven't seen any members of A.S.S., except for Cecil of course, but i have been avoiding mirrors at all costs, even if i have to crawl on the floor through crowded coffeeshops.
I can only appreciate all this, the running, the shows with Ms. Fawn, Emma Crowe's friendship, the RANT, the life coursing through my battered, broken body, when i am alone. Now that the crickets are silently sleeping under the snow, i have only my own thoughts to contend with. And they go as follows,
Will i make it to New Orleans in time? I can't help but wonder. Here i am so very far from there. These are tenuous times, clearly.
We play a short, tight set. I have not yet recovered from that Windsor show where i cracked and decided that i should never play music again, so i over-compensate by changing all the songs midway, adding an improv number, which Lily and Cecil play amazingly well on, and solo-ing gratuitously.
I spend the rest of the long, long night freezing my arse off in the van with you, cuz the air is toxic in the bar and everything else is locked up. The Hard Times Saloon is locked up, but the gang is all inside after hours, partying the night away. I pound on the door, then give up, then pound again. This unfortunate circumstance only amplifies my decision to abandon music and take to the road alone with you. Finally, they come out, Sarah Heartache talks me out of my decision, and the barmaid Tara gives me scotch then takes us back to her house for sleeping. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 18th, 2004|10:23 pm] |
DAY 40: The Frozen Lair of Paul Bunyan.
We meet up with the RANT crew for our day off in Bemidji. Sarah Heartache and I wander past the frosty Paul Bunyan statue onto the frozen lake and are busy blowing our minds looking down at all the water underneath when the ice cracks and we have to slide on all fours back to the shoreline.
Here we find a plaque telling the story of Chief Bemidji, who wasn't called that at all. It's just what the bastards that killed him called him until they killed him in a trade argument.
We go to the Science Center and look at all the caged poisonous creatures, eat corn dogs, buy a crib board with our last two bucks, and head back to the house we're staying at. Turns out they have AIR HOCKEY!
The crew goes back to the Hard Times Saloon, which is obviously not an option as I have no desire to sit in the van, so I build a fort out of a lamp, some cushions and another lamp.
Once inside I write a song, but our host, Brian gets a phone call saying that his friend who got in a barfight and ended up in a coma has just died.
I stop playing my morbid little song, which I am forcing myself to do anyway in the hopes of regaining my music mojo, dismantle my fort, and move towards the TV. 'Beetlejuice' is on, and I happily start watching it, only realizing later that this movie is all about death and I'm being grossly insensitive to Brian. Instead of doing the right thing, I watch the whole thing. I do mute the commercials though. The gang gets back and they're drunk and loud and don't notice the sadness in the air. My dreams are, not surprisingly, all about dying.
And that is happiness Pen, just livin. I know it. I will be happy for the two of us, because you are gone now.
DAY 41: Moo r h ead.
After some furious morning Air Hockey tournaments, we leave Bemidji and its blue ox behind to head for Moorhead which is three hours down back country roads in the snow.
We're playing at Foxes, a skeevy bar that is redeemed by its amazing disco lite show dance floor.
The opening band are what Cecil calls "nu metal". I don't how to make an umlaut on this machine, so you'll have to place it over the u in nu yourself. I think they sound like Tool and the Deftones combined.
We play a rockin set, which Emma says is our best ever! I still have no interest in playing music, so I'm glad I succeed in hiding this fact. There are moments to this show, surely... Sarah Heartache dons this freaky monster mask we found behind the stage and I hump her leg as she does the junkie shuffle, or when I set down my guitar and we close with Laika as played entirely by RANTmusic.
The RANT play a good, hard set, but once again I abscond to huddle in the freezing van. I dream of a tour bus, and New Orleans. We stay at a very beautiful young couple's house, Ryan and Christa. It's a comfortable, tiny place that the ten of us fill to the brim.
DAY 42: Fargo...to Winnipeg, Cananada.
We go to a weird 99 cent store. Where EVERYTHING is 99 cents. I only mention this because their selection is immense. Everything you will ever need in your entire life. So of course, I can't find anything I want, but I do buy Lily a book I know she will like. Then we go to a Jesus store. I get the heebie-jeebies, for obvious reasons, all the robes and white jesus pictures. One real good black one though, he has a fro! We buy a Jesus fish to add to our collection of Jesus paraphenilia for Freedom. It is now officially a jesus vehicle. Emma earlier bought a thing you stick in you window which says, "Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly" which was even funnier when Freedom was dying a slow, 30 mile per hour death.
Fargo is right on. And yes, the people talk like how they do in the movie. One nice girl with thick painted eyebrows at a gas station informs me that "people get lost around her, like, a LOT." I ask her how we get to Canada, and without missin a beat she puts her hand to chin and replies, "North? Yep, that's in the north."
We are (hopefully) going to approach the border soon, as our 'detour' has waylaid us for hours. How does someone get lost in the prairies? I have no easy answer to that, but we did.
When we finally pull up to the border, the RANT van is directly in front of us, which is hilarious. When pressed for what we have in the van, Lily informs Emma to tell them about the booze. Emma says, we have a bottle of Everclear. Everclear is a moonshine that is illegal in Canada. The borderguard says, "What's that?" and then they have a discussion about their favourite alcoholic beverages before he waves us through...
And now it is later,
We played last night at the High and Lonesome Club, which used to be called the Times Change, a comfortable, tiny place. It is a frozen wasteland outside, and we are frightened. I even contemplate using one of the mirrors to transport us to the Pink Pools and away, but I look down at your corpse and quickly reconsider.
The openers are Jaxon, Scott, Romi and another guy, and they play country of the good kind. Their harmonies are sweet and soulful.
Our set is fun and short, with Cecil and I dry humping for way too long during 'Hasslehoff'. The RANT plays real good and then we do 'Laika' again, with Lily and I just singin and Rant rockin the shit outta the shit, as Mr.Producer would say.
Then there is the chicken toss, Jo Mills, the reigning champ wins again with a very determined look on her face while I work the megaphone. Cecil, Lily and I sleep at Becky McIvor's and the rest go on to meet us in |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 16th, 2004|10:26 pm] |
DAY 43: Vegina. The day of the worst show in a long, long while! (maybe ever)
Becky makes breakfast and we start the drivin. I phone British Molumbia from a truckstop 2 hours outside of Regina, notifying all the freaks to make their way back to Victoria for our Carnival of Horrors homecoming show.
Yes, we now are headed back that way as Lily has a friend named Korma that needs her help desperately. My guts twist at the notion, but i understand when something must be done, and this must be done.
At this truckstop, Lily leaves her wallet in the bathroom, but we don't notice this fact until we get all the way to Regina.
We also left the nuts and bolts, crucial to construction of the stage, back in Moorhead, so i drive around lookin for "Home Depot", but the soundman lied, and there isn't one anywhere near where he sent me. Wee! And then we play at an Irish Pub called McNally's. The beer comes from there, maybe you've drunk some.
The bar manager doesn't know that Lily and i are playing, and when we do, he HATES it. He says we're obnoxious, which i cannot argue against, seeing as how WE ARE. The staff like our set, but i end it quick cuz i can tell we're goin over like a lead balloon. This fact dawns on me one song too late, so down we go, which wounds me nonetheless.
Some toe in the audience tries to pick a fight later, because he objects to my mask. "What, are you saying my province stinks?! Well screw you!" I am in the mood to kill, not fight. I cannot fight. I wish sometimes i could fight, but i've had enough corpses at my feet and feelings of 'not again' to last me another 126 years.
At least i'm not Lily, who is, as i write this, on her way, alone, to that truckstop.
Yes, i feel guilty for having her go alone, but Emma convinces me it's okay. We will sleep tonight at Ramsey Reid of RANT's grandma's house. From the sound in the next room, the RANT is having a shitty time winning over this crowd too, which is hardly a condolence. At least this place pays good.
DAY 44: Saskatoooon.
We awake at Grandma's which is very grandma-y. She calls us all her kids. We watch The Simpsons, have pillow fights. Us vs. RANT. Rant wins.
And then we drive to Saskatoon, which is cold and full of snow. We're playing at Lydia's, which is 3-story bar. We sleep on the 4th floor in deluxe hotel rooms with clean sheets, a full bed EACH! We buy a bottle of whiskey and start to whoop it up. I love being able to hang out in a hotel room right above where we have to play, it makes for a good night.
We play an all-fun set, forcing RANT and random strangers onto the stage for 'Barfly', the 'Junkie Shuffle' and a few others. Once again, the staff really dig it. RANT plays to a happy, packed dance floor, which they desperately need after Regina. I polish off an entire huge bottle of whiskey in my room, but don't get drunk. The rest of the gang eats mushrooms, including Lily, and when we play 'Laika' i can feel them all coming up around me, which is amazing. It makes for an awesome second set by the RANT.
And then we let it all out upstairs,
singin songs, armwrestlin.. On numerous occasions, both grotesquely handsome men and strong vivacious women try to make sweet love to me, but my heart belongs to you darlin, so i resist.
DAY 45: Saskatooon to Edmonton.
We awake, feel great, and Pale Blue Eyed Steve, Sarah Heartache and i go for mornin beverages and eat a gravy-soaked breakfast at a diner. The waitress is a christmas robot, with a santa claus hat that has lights blinkin out of it, and smile that only cracks once. This once is when she robotically asks, "How is everything?" To which i respond, "Freakin Awesome!" She looks down at my gravy-soaked plate and a look of complete disgust cracks her robot guise. This makes us all laugh.
It has been snowing all day, and all last night, so our over 6 hour drive is long, frightening, AND horrific. We finally arrive at Trevor Anderson's house, make some beanie weenies, and hit the sack. |
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[Dec. 15th, 2004|10:30 pm] |
DAY 46: Edmonton, our new frozen home. Which we lovingly refer to as 'the wasteland'.
The beautiful folk, Gavin Dunn, Trevor and Tash have loaned me a cello, as they could tell that i was becoming unhinged without one. As soon as i see it, i dissappear into a room without even saying thank you and play until i can play no longer. It feels good, but this cello is not Melora, who being looked after by Adrienne on the island. I will return and reclaim her soon enough.
Trevor is at work, and we wake up late and have to haul arse 'twards our afternoon radio performance at CJSR. It is so cold it hurts to walk outside. How the hell do these people live in this wasteland? We play 'The Tragic Tale of Buck', one of our newer songs about Lily's dad, 'Deviltown' by Daniel Johnston, and a couple others, forcing the radio staff to sing with us on 'Barfly'.
Afterwards, the girls do some shopping in the SUB, then we go back to Trevor's where Gavin Dunn cooks us another fuckin great shwack of food. Lily does some recording at Gavin's house, and we attempt to practice with Gavin's twin, Nicolai the Narcoleptic, straight from Siberia, but he keeps falling asleep and we're hammered from too much dinner party wine. I play chess with Tash, who whips my butt. I try to sleep, and succeed until the crew stumbles in at 5 am. Apparently it was free beer night at the Black Dog, so they have a plant-spilling, floor-thumpin dance party. I stumble upstairs and there is this guy named Kevin in this tacky sweater. I say to him, "Nice sweater." He says, "Thanks. Do you want it?" I pause, then say, "Okay." I put on my new sweater and join the dance party.
DAY 47: is hangover day.
I'm not hungover, but everyone else is. Free Beer! Nothin in life is free kids, i say all-knowingly. They shoot me dirty looks. We eat at Cafe Mosaics, which rules.
And then we finally make it to Home Depot for the bolts and nuts we need to make the show happen. This makes us all feel strange inside. So head towards the cheap theatre. 2 bucks! I see "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" starring Jude Law and some giant robots. And then, Spiderman2 starring Spider-Man. We eat dinner at Tim Horton's in between the screenings. Yah! Tim Horton's! Then we come back and do some interviews until bed-down.
DAY 48: Big Show Day.
Slow waking. I dream that we're on tour. Weird, i know. With the RANT. Weirder. In Mexico, which is warm. The whole dream plays out like an episode of Scooby-Doo with all of us becoming caricatures of ourselves. There's a hidden world beneath Chichen Iza that Sarah Heartache accidentally discovers by racing Lily up the stairs. Rob is being a curmudgeon and doesn't wanna go inside. Pale Blue Eyed Steve is hitting on our guide, which angers Ramsey and Cecil, and Emma and i are arguing over which direction to take in the labyrinth.
Right now we're at Cafe Mosaic. As i write this, i can't help but notice we eat here often. Tonight is the big show at Seedy's.
Trevor and Tash have done an awesome job workin the press and the place is packed. We are starving by show time so Trevor, Lily and i go for hot dogs at the cavernous gay bar across the street. All in all an unusual occurence.
Hmm.. this journal is all about food. What else is there? Least now you'll know where to get a good hot dog. NOt the gay bar in Edmonton.
Nicolai performs with his band, Vernois Constellation and they're very cool. They remind me of that band Smog, only with better vocals. Our set sounds like shit onstage, but apparently the good folk of Edmonton love it. We have a cakewalk halfway through our set, and Elizabeth, Raymond of the Vertical Struts beeyooootiful girlfriend wins it! Nicolai the Narcoleptic falls asleep during his solo on 'the Hermit in the House of God', but this is to be expected. Edmonton has once again amazed us with their support.
Afterwards we go to the Black Dog, where Matt Allen and the RANT are heavy into the booze after their show at the Sidetrack. Then Tim Roth, the actor with the unfortunate name, opens up the Underdog, buying us all the beer we can drink. He is a real solid dude, that Tim. We dance on the Tables, yell, arm wrestle, and a girl named Candy with blue eye shadow proposes to me. I turn her down, because i am hopelessly devoted to you, and because i know it's only because of the sweater Kevin gave me. |
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[Dec. 12th, 2004|10:34 pm] |
DAY 49: The tangled road to Red Deer.
Woke up in Edmonton. I passed out last night to Lord of the Rings before they even got into the Mines of Moria. We roughly assemble our things and head to.....Cafe Mosaic! What can i say, it is hippie food, and if there's one thing hippies are good for, it's food. Then we search for Emma's bag. We find out later that RANT has it.
In a few hours we will hit the stage here in Red Deer, at the Vat. But everyone thinks that some band called WIL is playin, not us. They are accomodating though, and set us up in this nice warm house across the street, as well as renting us a hotel room. I collapse into a sweaty ball from the chest pains that make it hard to live, so i miss Matt Allen's set. But RANT plays real good.
I am eyeing the cougar-filled room hesitantly as the curtain opens on our set, but luckily a bunch of punk kids show up just in time to dance, sing and yell to our set, which makes it all worth it.
Then we head back to the house to watch marathon episodes of the Muppet Show and sleep in the big, comfortable beds.
DAY 50: Red Deer.
A Fiftie's diner with an eighties soundtrack. Lily and Tim Roth, who has joined our caravan, just for morale, are sucking down dairy with two straws in one glass. Tonight we drive to Canmore. The Canmore Hotel. I have fond memories of the hotel, and the area around Canmore, and thus don't really want to go and face the dissappointment.. Could be worse. Could be those airborne worms that bore into your eyes like in that jelly-world.
I ride with delightful chap Matt Allen and the sugared Sarah Heartache. We dine at the CanHo and gear up for the show in our rooms by poundin whiskey and rockin out on the CASIO keyboard. Ms. Heartache and i sing our new hit song entitled, 'Anvil'.
During our carousing country set, she joins us with her mean fiddle, ripping through some Johnny Cash and a few other moldy oldies. Cecil plays very well that night, so much that i have to mention it here. It's funny that he is a phenomenal guitar player and songwriter, but in our band, we make him play the bass. We cram Matt Allen into the bunny suit, and he wounds himself by smacking his head against a monitor during the dance breakdown.
Then he performs one epic song, the most depressing I have ever heard, made comical by his bunny suit and kangaroo head, a leftover from the Bellingham show. Cecil’s father smuggled drugs across the border in the kangaroo and the crowd in Bellingham ripped it to pieces during a particularly frenzied number.
I retreat back to the bottle of whiskey for the RANT’s double set. But Emma collects me for another rousing version of ‘Laika’. The rest of the gang plays noisy Euker until very late.
DAY 52: CANHO.
I awake at the Ho, to find that my bedmate Sarah Heartache is missing. Ramsey Reid and her went off to do some late night recording with the soundguy. Apparently they indulged heavy as they woke up in strange clothes. Sarah looked over as Ramsey raised his said, looked straight ahead and uttered one of my favourite quotes,
“I-I don’t know where we are, but we have to go…”
So we assemble and drive the icy road to Calgary. |
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hank_pine's journal