a squeek in the life of...

Aaaah. A moment to write. But what about?

Well...This weekend has been a gnarly bit of ups and downs: My headphones snapped in the middle of opping a show. I missed my Thursday morning 6 to 9 air-shift on CKDJ.

That last was like a Bugs-Bunny cartoon where he suddenly sits up straight in bed with a "boing!" noise and spinning spirals in his eyes. Except with me it went R-rated almost immediately.

"Faaaaack!" I screamed as soon as I saw the light of day beneath the window blinds. It was 8.30. I had overslept by four hours. I was supposed to get up at 4.15am. The alarm I had so carefully set the night before on this very laptop had gone off at the right time. The speaker jack just wasn't in at the right angle for the message to be passed to my audio system.

So I jumped into the car and sped to school where I was told that the professor knew I missed the shift. Duly he lopped off 20% of my final mark. This, I believe is, fair. It's a 'The Show Must Go On" kind of industry.

I got kicked out of a local bar the Saturday night before because of a difference of opinion with a Nazi bouncer. Nothing violent, and the place was playing country music so it could have a been a blessing in disguise.

So could the spontaneous explosion of my headphones in the middle of a show. It earned me a new pair from an empathetic father. But not before the bizarre scene of the two of us huddled, yet again, in his sawdust filled work room trying to "Super-Epoxy" the original headphones back together.

I reckon the most super thing about that particular epoxy was that that it hardened in a matter of minutes. . . Except when it was in place to secure bits of Sony plastic together. But kudos to my dad who worked at the thing like Conan turning the grain mill. Even with sardonic comments from his son:

"You know dad this, whole scene is giving me bad thoughts." I said after 45 minutes of us pinching stiffened fingers like vices around the two pieces of plastic waiting for the glue to dry (we tried speeding up the process with a hair-dryer but succeeded only in burning our fingers).
"What? Why is that?"
"I have this memory of you repairing my clarinet the same way, and the bottom half falling off in the middle of a concert."

It's true. One of the more awkward moments in my youth.

But forget all that...

Courses are going generally well. They should continue to do so as long as I don't fuck things up enough to lose all my credibility .

The restaurant work, of course, is annoying. There is only so much to say about a place that serves food to the lowest common denominator. So low, in fact, they may be buried under seven inches of hardened steel and missed the whole 15% gratuity thing we have here in Canada.

At this restaurant I work for Lebanese people that cook Italian food. This is not as bizarre as it might sound. There is a landed immigrant Chinese guy nearby that owns an Irish pub. He told me and my friend that the patio was not designed for smoking, despite it being outside and totally without walls.

Anyway, these Lebanese people speak Lebanese to each other when there is only me to talk to. Which is always because we never have any customers. Regardless, they're all nice people, just really moody. Sometimes I feel they are inexplicably frustrated with me. Other times they feed me some of the Lebanese food they secretly cook when no one is around. Which is always.

I'm still single and could probably use a shag and a warm body, but that would distract me from developing my theories. Like the one about how the Internet is tweaking the female intellect while it dulls the male's exactly the same way beer and communism did in the Czech Republic.

We had a federal election and despite much whining and mud-slinging Canadian politicians showed just what a bunch of bitches they are capable of being.

Running, was a guy with a sketchy moustache and not a hope in hell, a woman who looked like a groundhog with even less of a hope, a man who couldn't wrap his tongue around basic English words, and said things like, "We alf to waken up de canade-jun peeples wit de dvlop-ment off hour new eelec-shun.", and finally a guy who looks like he should be propped up in a shop window at a second-hand clothing store wearing a hat with ear-flaps.

The last guy --the head of the Conservative party-- won last Tuesday night. We once had a Prime Minister who couldn't operate half his face because of a stroke. This guy can't operate any of his face for reasons that remain a mystery. I assume relief will finally come to the man- and his face -when he finally has a successful bowel movement.

Two day after that some of my more retarded classmates made loud innuendos about the Medias Sales Prof having the hots for me in front of her face.. The don't know this, but if this sort of thing continues they will wake up one morning to find their kidneys floating in a jar of Listerine beside their heads.

Unwittingly they have brought lollipops to a knife fight.

I did an insane amount of push-ups last night and am starting to feel the soreness. In a couple of days I'll do an insane amount of pull-ups...the goal being muscle failure. I'm actually impressed at my commitment to this kind sado-masochism. There is something cerebral and zen about the whole thing I guess. It could also be a convenient way to do the best with excess food and a social vacuum.

Today squeaked by with my Friday evening sports broadcast in the evening. I'm finding newer and more creative ways to express myself on air; saying things like, "..while the economy plummets like fat people on a ski hill.." and, "It's civil war in the Province of Alberta tonight as Edmonton faces off against Calgary on a frozen pond." The irony doesn't escape me that I know virtually nothing about sports, and care very little. It's the process I enjoy.

I enjoy being on the air. I enjoy doing production. I enjoy the fact that our Friday Evening News Anchor got the word "incentive" correct on the third try, and she fucking nailed it.

Good for her. I owe it to myself to at least keep up to that kind of conviction, and learn, and fall flat on my face, and learn some more, and fall less.

So I guess that's what I should write about.

dhool scaze

So school has begun...

I've got my two rollerball pens which glide across the paper like hawks in the wind. I'll probably lose them both tomorrow. I've got a new-fangled binder thing in which I will write ALL my notes. This is opposed to last year where I has a bunch of books which I carefully labeled and colour coded based on the class. By the end of the first semester they were as confused and convoluted as land-ownership records after Russian occupation. Actually studying for an exam involved an absurd cross-notebook paper-trail and the deciphering of codes that I probably dreamed up while drunk. I figure if I'm doing mental acrobatics just to kick-off the study process I'll keep all my notes in one place.

I don't have class before 10am which is a wonderful relief. This means I have two whole hours to work myself into a wild rage about the Ottawa bus system before I get to school. Sadly, however --like last semester-- I've got a three hour radio show every Thursday morning starting at 6am. Like last semester I'll be crucified by my professor for 'not giving it enough life' on air. Perhaps I will start a serious cocaine addiction to deal with this issue.

Hey it is showbiz...

Our class of 50 has been whittled down to about 25 since the beginning of last year. It's hard to tell the exact number because everyone is moving around too much. They are an older more mature bunch, many of them are even 20 years old now. Many haircuts have been redesigned and streamlined. Many outfits slightly more subtle. Many zits far more sparse.

Even the class goof, whose chair toppled backwards, said "Oops, my bad." rather than make ass-head comments at the rest of the class from where he lay prone, his legs sticking straight up in the air.

They guy with the huge ego (who I genuinely like because of his honest authenticity) is slightly toned down. The guy with non-sequitors is slightly less non-sequitous. The chattering dumb-ass may have a bead. The girl I have a not-so-secret crush is more underwhelmed, and the other one with the outfits smiles a little more.

Yes. The electricity of shared excitement and/or doom permeates the air. We are second years now. They are first years --all 50 of them.

I got my first year buddies yesterday; the two guys who I am meant to train and coach along the way. Like many of the other first years I wonder if they'll make the cut. Will they strive and persevere amidst the torrent of work and extreme stress of on air work. Will they climb the scholarly mountain and shake their fists at the sky when May rolls around next year?

Nah. They're pretty much fucked.

But forget all that. The question really is: Will I?

music here: a fresh rant

I wish people would stop asking me what I think of the band:

Sweaty, with crazed glee in their eyes, they'll say, "So, what do you think of the band, pretty awesome, eh?"

I'm a lot more tame now. Whipped into standard issue Canadian politeness I will say, "Well, they're not really my thing..."
To which they'll reply, over the blare of Hotel California, "Huh?" they're heads bobbing up and down to the sweet awesomeness of the song.
I'll repeat, "They're NOT REALLY MY THING."

So the conversation ends.

I used to say, "Fucking hell, this is absolutely the worst crap I've heard since the last time I was out in Ottawa listening to music. How is this possible? Are ALL the bands in this town competing to be the most unoriginal emitters of saccharine shit around? How is it possible that there is not an iota of creativity amongst musicians here? And what is wrong with you people actually encouraging this utter garbage?"

This also ends the conversation with added bonus of glares. It is also a lot closer to the truth in terms of my feelings about local music.

Last Saturday I met a friend at a bar in the trendy part of Ottawa, the so-called 'Glebe', which sounds suspiciously like something you might find under a toilet rim. She was there because her friend played in 'The Band'. I was there to see her and was willing to put up with inevitable gunk coming out of the amplifiers. They were a young bunch of guys: two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboardist. Sadly the venue was so small the bassist was almost sitting on the drummers lap, and the guitarists were forced to do the 'The Two Guitarists Rubbing Their Back's Together Thing" out of necessity rather than the sheer coolitude of the act.

They played all the standards that Canadians are obsessed with involving three chord progressions, four/four timing, and the kind of whine usually associated with the highest calibre of pussy. This kind of thing is on par with the faux-british accents of punk rockers, and the soulful throaty bellowing of jack-asses and their ballads.

What finally did it for me was when they burst --to the obvious happiness of the crowd-- into country music. I did a double-take; yes they were a band of twenty-somethings in the ubiquitous plaid shirts and jeans playing country.

Country music offends me. It's a little like mullets in that it's common knowledge that they are totally uncool, and that none of your friends has one, and none of their friends has one, yet you know they're out there lurking in some inbred throwback possum-eating town waiting to cause you paroxysms of horror and/or giggles.

In the blessed quiet after the band's set I found myself in conversation with a woman in her fourties. She asked, "So, what did you think of the band?"
"Erm..."
"They're pretty great aren't they?"
"Ah?"
"I think these guys are going to go far" she gives me a sly, modest, smirk, "I'm actually kind of promoting them."
I can't resist, "Go where? They didn't play anything original. Then again it may be just what Ottawa needs; another cover band to replay the same music written by people decades ago because nobody has the creative muscle to come up with something different today. I'm not positive, but I think I can safely say that if my asshole was an amplifier that's what it would sound like."
"So, I guess they're not really your thing, eh?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Good luck with that promoting thing though."

Since I've returned to Ottawa I haven't heard a single band that has caught my fancy, and yet everyone is a self-described musician. . .Shit, I'm a self-described musician (among other things), but you can forget me assaulting other's with my sound in anything other than a campfire situation unless it was new, unique, imaginative, and good.

There's a new song on the radio. It has the exact same melody/progression as the song Werewolves of London ("A-woooooo, werewolves of London"). Because these assholes couldn't come up with a chorus for their rip-off they used Sweet Home Alabama, verbatim .

Essentially what has happened here is the blatant combination of two of the most overplayed songs on contemporary Canadian radio. If you were to line up the the fans that embrace this whole-hearted chicanery, the pig-fucking sales people that promoted it, or the creativity by-pass motherfuckers that perform it and gave me a flame-thrower, I would not know who to torch first.

This, to me, is the sign of a coming localized musical apocalypse --'apocalypso' you might say. Music in Canada --what is popular-- is imploding into a black hole which will suck the last squeaks of Canadian creativity into it.

I suppose I can't blame the musicians though. The close-mindedness of the audience perpetuates the brutal cycle of unoriginality that saturates this country.

But I tell you this:

If I hear one more jerk with a guitar telling me how confused he is, or another glasses-wearing pixie girl describing how battered and bruised on the floor she is, or another fuckwit clever-hairstyle sporting band revelling in the hot girl across the room, or any songs about heroes, dancing, what they're striving for, what they're running from, retards that succeed, or successes that retard, I'm going to start getting violent.

riding the retarded mule

Oooo two blog days in a row...

Must be a lack of life:

Anyway, once a week the lads and I go and see a film. Those without babies that are able to tear themselves away from their wives/girlfriends, that is. You see, my friend's in Ottawa have the worst case of pussy-whipping I have ever seen...and that's saying a lot, because I've seen a lot. I can't comment on my female friend's because I seem to not have them anymore. At least not in Ottawa...Sad actually, I suppose the female/male imperative is too high here --the expectation to fuck to serious in this eviscerated town...

And blah, blah, blah...

So we saw Tropic Thunder and I loved it. Why? Because it tore Hollywood a new asshole. It brought to light all the stupid clichés that the American blockbuster bashes stupid people with. My thinking is this: whether you get it or not doesn't really matter. However, if you don't get it you're an idiot.

Something else unique I did was actually take a bus. A miracle, really, considering everyone drives in order to tackle the huge distances from suburb to suburb through suburb. Actually, that's what Ottawa is; a massive sprawling suburb, jammed with split-level wall-to-wall carpeting houses with tiny little lawns and garage doors. Sure we have the odd building here and there but they're bunched up like elephants in a defensive clusterfuck around the Parliament Buildings; the seat of Canada's government.

It's no wonder that no matter how green Ottawa claims to be the majority of people are driving cars the size of Gulfstreams to get around. The public transportation in The Nation's Crapital is the worst I've ever seen...And that too is saying a lot, because I've seen a lot.

First of all it's expensive; three bucks a ride. The routes are erratic and silly, having very little to do with anyone's actual destination no matter where they're trying to go. The stops themselves are usually hidden behind trees and other tall shrubbery so nobody can find them, including the bus driver. Although Ottawa is very up to date with the computerization of the routes, including having schedules posted on a website, there is very little correlation between what you read and when the bus actually shows up.

That last is a crime worthy of a flogging. I mean, what is the point of even posting a schedule even nobody follows it?

Last night I looked online (wistfully at this point) to figure out when the last bus was leaving downtown because I was watching the late show (ah yes, the last bus runs at midnight, the bars close at two. You do the math.) The website told me the last bus goes at 00.23. Fine, the film should be over by 23.50. Except when I got to the station after the movie the schedule there said the last was at 23.59. Methinks the OCTranspo Website People need to communicate with the OCTranspo Bustop People by using some other means than farts in a room.

Luckily I was in time for the last bus. It was late naturally. Buses are always late in Ottawa. Except when they're not. When they're not they're early. This has happened to me a number of times; the bus cruising by ten or fifteen minutes early (or was the one before it late?).

I can barely describe the mute, hopeless, and rending frustration when this happens. The incredible self-control it takes to not jam a pen into the driver of the following bus; arriving 45 minutes later.

It's that limbo when you're not sure if the bus is late or whether it went by pre-maturely and you missed it. The utter helplessness that you have to rely on the schedule of a half-baked bureaucracy which is run by a bunch of crack smoking chimps. This can really fuck up your day.

Anyway, last night, the 23.59 arrived at 00.15... and promptly went in the wrong direction. There was a few moments of reserved contained Ottawa-style panic --like the hissing of cats in a box-- and then an announcement by the driver over intercom, "Sorry folks, my mind wandered a bit there."

Astounding.