Chris Rooney discovers the Nation of Ulysses

spurred on by an obscure refrence to the Nation of Ulysses in a Joan of Arc song on my Ipod I decided to find out what they were talking about. I'm listening to the few mp3's I could find on limewire right now, they were a hardcore band from Washington DC back in the 80's and 90's

their website is actually pretty funny, their hunor reminds me of a lot of the post-situationist anarchist stuff that floats around, Hakim Bey, Subgenious, random zines falling off the shelves at Spartacus books or mouldering in the basement of my mom's place. in a more successful way they remind me of the greatest punk rock band of all time Attack Plan R.

Who are Atttack Plan R, you ask? You've never heard them? it's no surprise they recorded about 90 minutes of the hardest, baddest-core punk rock of all time and then evaporated into the vaporizer fumes of time. Attack Plan R stormed the basements of ex-urban Vancouver BC at the dawn of time (the new milennium) and without ever appearing on stage managed to play several gigs, got shut down by the VPD and almost started a riot at Seylynn Hall upstaging DOA and causing the ultimate decline of that community centre as an arena for punk rock shows and babysitting.

Anyway the Nation of Ulysses did a lot of that but not as well and in the end they broke up, but not before they released three albums (one posthumously) and a number of panphlettes many can be read online here http://ulyssesspeaks.blogspot.com/

I took my Attack Plan R tape with me to Boulder Colorado back in 2003 when I went there for the Naropa University Summer Writing Program. One of the guys from the beatnick band The Fuggs teaches there and a variety of other aged beatnicks sort of mill about like a part of a living museum of Buddhist-American poetry. I lent the Attack Plan R tape to Ed Saunders from the Fuggs one night after a poetry slam and asked him to listen to it because Attack Plan R were spawned by his band's scratchy LP's and lots of druggs. He gave it back to me a few days later and said "This shit totally kicks the shit out of Nation of Ulysses, those guys have got shit on Attack Plan R, also I like the first song on the second side" but since neither side was clearly marked I couldn't tell you which song it was that he was refering to (to this day it remains a mystery).

Anyway this is all going into their book. But it also proves the point that I'm not even trying to make any more that the Nation of Ulysses is like Attack Plan R only Attack Plan R are better and you've probably never heard of them.

go to this event because it will be awsome

I have a phone again!

big sigh of relief.

After two weeks of frustration and missed connections and appointments and social isolation I have a new cell phone!

it's the same phone number as before.

Thanks to everyone who stayed in contact with me over e-mail or in person it would have been a very hard two weeks without your friendship and communication.

waiting through the winter

Just figured I'd update a bit since I aired my launbdry in the last post.

Things are going about as well as I'd expect them to. Much remains the same, but that's my own set of problems. I'm not as despairing as I was when last I wrote in here though so I guess that's a start. I wonder why it is that after a person shares his grievances he's left with the almost subconcious need to reassure everyone that things are better even if they are simply no worse?

Anyway I am not doing so bad that I'm overwhelmed by my problems, I simply have yet to find positive and creative ways to adress and solve most of them. Having my phone back might help a bit, it's starting to get under my skin that I havn't even heard from Telus about it and it's been longer than a week.

It's raining hard here in Vancouver, we have a boil water advisory in place right now because of the ammount of dirty runoff in the reservoires, bleh.

I'm not broke any longer, and I've been reading a great book that I'm almost finished.

I have more help this month with the zine, I asked Mike Friesen if he'd like to do the graphic editing for the Radical and he said yes, he's going to give it a try over Christmas and if this month works out and I like his work he'll be doing more with Karl and I, I'm really looking forward to getting that extra help. I have to go photo hunting soon for the coming issue and that's ok. I was at the Worker tonight and Sarah gave me some idea of what I can do with it. Also they leant me this book full of art by Fritz Eichenberg that I am going to scann into my computer.

I wish I could ride my bike but I am never sure that the dry spell is going to last all day or not so I just have to make do with feet and busses, it's not so bad though, I've goten a lot of reading done.

Sarah at the Catholic Worker suggested that I try and start some kind of prayer and discernment group around the idea of a new Catholic Worker house here. I have a fewpeople I'd like to invite to that (Rob you would be one of them). It would be good even if it only stayed as a prayer and discussion group, though my hope would be that eventually this might lead to starting another house of hospitality, it would certainly be a good way of spending some of these long nights.

ok so that's my life in a nutshell, waiting on submissions for the zine, this is the week where I start to get antsy, it's a strangely good feeling of discomfort, like right before a drug kicks in, you know it's only a short time before everything starts happening.

laundry list of complaints

Lately I've been letting a lot of things eat me up inside and I havn't been able to get any of it off my chest so I'm doing it here, I'm pretty sure only a hand full of people read this anyway, most of whom I don't know so it's kind of like writing in a real journal or talking to strangers.

A lot of the time I feel worn out, emotionally bare and sometimes I find I have to try pretty hard to keep myself from crying but I don't know quite why. I have been without a phone since last tuesday and probably won't have one until next wednesday, as a result the number of close friends I have been able to see and spend any meaningful time with has been reduced to two. I have msn messenger sure except that I'm never online at the same time as most of the people on my friends list and so many of them I havn't seen or spoken with since I got home from my pilgrimage that it wouldn't feel right to lay this heavy trip on them, and since I've returned only a few of them have even written to me at all.

I can't play guitar at night here because of the family living downstairs but most days I have to leave for work almost as soon as I'm up so I don't get to play in the day time either.

I've got this kind of gingivitis that is slowly and painfully eating away my gums despite my brushing and using mouthwash twice a day, and though it's been like this for over a month the dentist wanted to wait an extra two weeks to see if it would go away on it's own before giving me any sort of anti-biotics, it hurts to brush and it scares me to look into my mouth and see that my gums havn't goten any better.

Until yesterday I was afraid I wouldn't have any money to buy food with because of the combined expenses of buying medication to treat my chronic acid reflux and shelling out for a new battery and charger for my phone. I've been living in my own place since the first of October yet the only two of my friends to have even come over to see it are the same ones I havn't lost contact with.

I feel isolated because I don't have a phone and making plans with everyone has become almost impossible as e-mails get lost or my account goes into peoples spam boxes or I don't get acccess to their messages until I'm tired and at home and don't want to go out again. Because of the medications I have to take I've been fifty pounds over weight since 2001 and despite regular exercise things havn't changed much, it makes me sad to look in the mirror.

I tie myself up in knots over women I find attractive but never get either the courage or the opportunity to do anything about it except tie myself into further knots, I've been doing this one for years.

I am getting tired of hearing the same predictable reactions from people when they find out that I'm a self identified anarchist pacifist and also a Christian. I'm sad that I don't have many friends who I can seriously talk theology with and the one friend I have who was always the best for that and who I'd be laying this trip on were he still around has moved to New York state, I miss him.

I'm tired of feeling like I don't have anyone to share my life with and I don't know how to go about changing that. I've tried internet dating and all it's acccomplished is to leave me feeling worse than I did before I joined their sites, I don't get out much nor do I tend to frequent the sorts of places that you meet a lot of people. It doesn't help that I neither drink nor smoke and that I am pretty introverted when I'm with new people.

I used to be a news junky but lately I go to websites to read the news and I have to stop before the end of the first paragraph because I can't bring myself to care or because I care so much that I don't want to know any more.

I miss my friends whom I met on my travels but don't know when I'll get to see any of them again, I miss my friends in Vancouver but I don't know when I'll get to see them either.

my emotional exhaustion and frustration has made me really irritable and sometimes I find that I'm taking this out on my friends and that bothers me too because I don't want to give them grief, they are really good to me and I love them.

I guess that's about it. I don't know if this post has made me feel any better, at least I've got some of this out of me.

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Hebrews xiii. 2

The line came to me as I was cycling home. I've spent the better part of the past year deliberatly praying for a life in voluntary poverty and since coming home to Vancouver I have started to discover it. I seem to have much less money these days though I make more at work than I did previously, I believe am learning the value of the money I do have, though I am learning it in a difficult way.

My phone going out and other unexpected expenses have placed me in the predicament of wondering where my next meal will come from, it's not so bad as that though. I know quite a few people in this city have it worse than I do, I can always get an advance on my checque from my boss and I have a CD and guitar talent, I intend on taking my instrument and wares downtown tomorrow to see if I can busk up some cash and I do have some food in the fridge, I guess what I'm saying is that I'll make it fine if I tighten my belt a few days and thank God for the kindness of strangers.

But it's the title of this post that I want to reflect on because something really strange happened today early on in my shift.

I was settling into things at the bookstore and recoiling from the shock of finding I only have 90 dollars left to me until payday. I was feeling really low and wondering how I was going to replace my phone battery and eat on the same dime when this large man in a bulky overcoat walked into the store. He brusquely turned and after a very short glance at the bookshelves in front of him he said loudly and apropos of nothing "THE WRLD COULD USE SOME MORE LOVE IN IT COULDN'T IT?" I replied that it certainly could and he said "IT SURE COULD, SOMETIMES THE WERLD FEELS LIKE IT COULD USE SOME MORE LOVE IN IT, LIKE IT FEELS LIKE IT'S A FRIENDLY AND TERRIFYING PLACE... I MEAN IT FEELS LIKE A MEAN AND TERRIFYING PLACE SOMETIMES ISN'T IT?"

I replied that it did and couldn't help but hold back a bit of a smile, this large and simple sounding man who seemed totally out of place and uninterested in books yet guided by a benevolent hand to walk into my book store and remind me that there is still goodness after all.

I told him that I thought that was why it was important for people to try and be kind to each other and he agreed then he walked into the literature and classics section. He picked up what could have been the first book he saw and read aloud the author's name with a soft and light hearted chuckle "JANE AUSTEN" his voice smiled, then placing the book right back in it's place he came up to the desk "JAZZ BANDS USED TO BE REALLY SMALL AND THEN THEY GOT REALLY BIG. NOW JAZZ BANDS ARE REALLY BIG DON'T YOU THINK?" I replied that there were also some really small ones and told him about Jaco Pastorius, he half closed his eyes and smiled "JAZZ BANDS ARE REALLY BIG AND SOME OF THEM ARE ALSO SMALLER... THOSE MICROPHONES IN THE HANNA BARBARRA STUDIOS WERE REALLY SOMETHING WEREN'T THEY?" I replied that they must have been "YAH THEY WERE REALLY GOOD MICS THEY HAD THERE. OK, GOODBYE" and as quickly as he'd come in he left me to puzzle over our encounter for the rest of the shift.

things like that happen at my store every day, maybe not just like that but the odd people are one of the rewards of working where I do.

I think I'll be alright,
and writing about that meeting makes me smile to think about it.

I have no phone

really though. I have no phone right now.

I'd been stalling on replacing the battery for a few months and then today it finally gave up the ghose. I guess it had been running on fumes for a lot longer than I figured, also the charger is fucked up from being on the road this last summer so I need to get one of those too. This means that for the next couple of days I will be rather hard to get hold of. I'll change my answering machine message to let folks know but I don't think I'll be able to get to the telus store until wednesday afternoon. you can reach me by e-mail, I'd suggest msn messenger but it seems I'm rarely on at the same time as anyone else these days and my work number is in my phone book which I can't access because it's on my phone.

Wow, there is a value to being a luddite which I kind of envy right now.

anyway if you're like most people I know you probably don't read this blog anyway but it's just about the only appropriate place for me to post this (the christian radical blog... maybe I'll xpost) anyway in the mean time it's probably going to be really tough to get a hold of me so you better just try and send me an e-mail I check all my accounts daily so I will get them.

or if you were really so inclined you could also comment in the blogs.