Doukhobor choir music

I really love this stuff. A few years ago I was corresponding with a girl from Victoria who was Doukhobor and also getting a degree in music from Uvic, her specialty was Doukhobor choir music and she also apparently had a great set of pipes being operatically trained and such. She was the first Doukhobor I'd ever met who wasn't also a relative of mine so that was cool, she sent me mp3's of some traditional music and I had them all on my old computer, I especially love the psalms. the Doukhobor Psalter comprises a large part of an even larger oral tradition which for a very long time was the foundation of the religion. Being a heretical breakway sect in Russia my ancestors suffered a lot at the hands of both the church and the Tsar they were victims of progroms and were routinely sent to forced labour camps in Siberia where the hope was that they would work themselves to death. There's a story in my family about one of my great-great-grand fathers who was conscripted into the millitary where in protest he refused to carry any form of weapon and refused to ackgnowlege the ranking officers, he was sent to a millitary prison where they flayed him to death and threw his body onto a pile of horse shit.

Anyway this is sort of coming back to Doukhobor Choir music. Doukhobor worship as I understand it could be described as charismatic, centred on the Holy Spirit and in communal singing. The number of hymns and psalms is amazing, nobody knows them all and until relativly recently nobody who knew them knew how to write them down. Another thing that developed from being forced into gulags was since they weren't allowed to sing their prayers or hymns they would take one of their songs or something like the Lord's Prayer and then chant it in a monotone and drag out every word for as long as possible so that way the guards wouldn't immediatly catch on to what they were singing. The girl who told me all about this didn't like the chanting as much as some of the other Doukhobor music but I think that's one of the best parts of the tradition.

The majority of Doukhobors were rescued from genocide by the efforts of Leo Tolstoy, the Quakers and members of the international Anarchist community most notably Peter Kropotkin. The novel Ressurection by Tolstoy was written as a way for money to be raised so that the Doukhobors could move to Canada and the book The Kingdom of God is Within You was based in part on correspondances that Tolstoy had with Peter Verrigan The Lordly who became the leader of the sect after one of my relatives Lukeria Kalmykova died.

I'm writing all about this now because I found an old sample tape where I had dubbed a couple of the songs off of my computer. I would love to learn what the words they are singing actually mean but I'd have to learn russian or borrow the skills of one of my friends... Josina can I use your mind for a few minutes?

this is going to be a good show.

The War Resisters Support Campaign Presents:

War Resist Tour

Featuring Toronto Hip Hop Artist
Mohammad Ali

8:00 PM Friday March 30
Rhizome Cafe - 317 E. Broadway

A benefit to support US war resisters seeking refuge in Canada
$5 at the door

For more info: www.resisters.ca and
www.myspace.com/mcmohammadali

only the cold war could have produced Ayn Rand

I wonder what kinds of strange appologism we'll see in this era?

recording!

http://www.cluborlov.com/ClubOrlov/ConfSlides/index.html

the above link I nabbed from Larry Gambone's blog http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/

it's a powerpoint thing about the collapse of the American empire compared to the collapse of the USSR, fascinating stuff you should check it out.

in other news today I went back into the studio to work on my next CD, The Autobiography. I'm working on this with an old friend of mine who's become a professional music producer and plays keyboards in Front Line Assembly. It's really great to be working with him on this, I can remember when we were both just kids, pretentious as fuck and spending our weekends high at all ages shows at Seylinn Hall. How far we've both gone from then. I don't know how long this one is going to take but it will be a lot shorter than the preious CD which btw if you want copies of I can send them by mail or something, that or you could stop me in the street and ask me to get you one. I have no website, myspace, distribution, I'm burning them at home so really it's pretty fucking ghetto right now and I don't know when that'll change. I'll have copies of the first CD at the gig tomorrow...

its such a psain in the ass to hand write all the stuff on the cd sleves I'm going to do this instrumental album differently, I'll probably sit on it for a while and then get it professionally pressed in small batches.

sword of the mind, a sword which heals.

I had an interesting conversation at work today, it started off being about the comodification of learning, how the free market has all but destroyed education for it's own sake. Then, meandering through Karl Marx and past the "lost tomb of jesus" we wound up with a rather passionate and confounding discussion about the church in the first three centuries.

It's interesting how when I try and talk about early Christianity with people, most folks can't seem to concieve of a world where Christianity and Oligarchy aren't synonymous. Mention the church in the first centuries and people seem to envision some midevil world where the church is already well ensconced as an oppressive force. If you try and explain to these people that there was a time when you could be killed by the state just for telling someone you believed in Jesus it doesn't quite register, and that's to say nothing of Russia.

There is always this readiness for people to believe that throughout history Christianity was always a tool of the state, employed primarily in the validation of feudal patriarchy and empire, a weapon of the ruling class. Try and tell someone of a radical bent that two thousand years earlier they would have been tighter with the Christians than the Pagans and they shut it out. I wonder as I proof-read this how people might react when confronted with the simple reality that in all totalitarian regimes the rule of empire comes through the suppression of true Christianity, wether it's through the fascisms of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Bush or Cesear.

I shouldn't be surprised, after all nearly fifteen hundred years of church and state has sapped the cultural imagination in the West. I imagine it would be easier for someone of Eastern European or Palestinian descent to identify with the Catacomb Church. But the word of the day in our modern, bourgeois society remains "religion, the opiate of the masses". It remains this because it's comfortable; and this watchword is intellectual robbery.

Sloganeering robbs people of the truth because it denies further thought and replaces it with easy to memorise and convienient sound bites "better dead than red", "The Bible says it, God wrote it, that settles it", "Religion is the opiate of the masses". Religion isn't the opiate of the masses, rather power and it's aquisition by any means nescessary is the opiate and religiosity and fake piety are too often the blasphemous smoke screens by which the unscrupulous trick the un-wary and seek to silence or discredit those genuine saints and heros who give their lives in the service of a higher truth.

For every person who cites Hobbes or Maciavelli to me as an example of Christianity's triumph over all things good and free, I wonder what they'd say after reading The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi, the life of St. Mary of Egypt, or the Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer? And as I mention the saints who put Hobbes in his shameful place I wonder to myself why the church is so willing to ban books like Harry Potter while doing nothing with Maciavelli's The Prince. And then I wonder why any church should presume to keep an index of banned books at all, and why I should encourage it--if even hypothetically?

I tried--but failed--to explain to my incredulous customer today that there was once a time when the only weapons a Christian was allowed to use were the weapons of the spirit: the works of mercy practiced in genine sacrificial love, the charisims of intelligent and thoughtful witness and the Holy Spirit of God at work within us. At the time of Origen and Justin Martyr and even at the time of Augustine these were the weapons of the faithful; not to be used as so many try today, to bludgeon people over the head, either with one's own opinons or worse still with the Bible, rather the use of refutation in a loving and intelligent way. A way which was un afraid to call things by their proper names but which never intended to cause pain, indeed which was even capable of grieving with those hurt.

It's with these intellectual and emotional tools that the early Christian appologists and theologians went to work, taking apart the arguments and philosophies of their opponents with patience and with care. It was with their minds and with their words and with reason through the Spirit that the early Christian heresies were shown to be fallacious and it was through reason, through thoughtful dialogue, and by the faith of the martyrs that converts were won.

Only after the marriage of church and state and the advent of the "Christian" empire did conversion by force, and refutation with the sword become the fasion--as it still is today. And it's been through violence that the worst perversions of faith and morals have found their genesis. This can be seen even today as politicians and other people in leadership roles try and associate faith with national pride, or by making a show of their own sanctity. To the credit of most athiests, when they rail against Christianity what they are attacking is most often the stench of false religion, the hypocricy of faith used as a political tool, or as validation for the very things Christ spoke out against for his entire life.

The defense of power which motivated the rulers of Cesear's empire and the chief priests and hierarchs of many nations to execute the faithful within them. The defense of worldly power which sent Jesus to the cross and continues to send martyrs to their graves. The retaliation of empires against the treson of proclaiming that the only true king is Christ and that his kingdom is coming; a kingdom where every tear is wiped dry and where this present world will no longer be brought to mind.

fun with real audio?

Since moving to a place where my house mates value my creativity I've started breaking out the tapes again. For those of you who don't know I am a bit of an electro-accoustic nut. I love to collect sounds and samples from various places and then when I have the right gear and friends to make noise with I'll put it together with them in the last few years I've been part of two noise and sound collage projects both unfortunatly are on hold right now. One, North is on an indefinite absence as the co-creator Spud has moved to the UK with his spouse and the other, The Empire of Crime needs tto start making stuff and doing things again because I now live only a few blocks from British Mark and have a preponderance of spare time and musical equipment. Tonight I was thinking about making a tape of percussion that I could play on a ghettoblaster to keep time durring my folk set on friday, it didn't work out and instead turned into me playing waist deep in the big muddy several times and trying to overlay them unsuccessfully, I was hoping it would come out better than it did but because of the song and the way I've taught myself to play it it sounds more like an exercise in tedium than the fun with real audio I was having.

Right now I'm listening to one of the sample tapes that I've been working on, most of it is sounds from the inside of the VAG where I took the tape recorder on a walk about the Andy Warhol exhibit last year, there's some real gold but most of it was unfortunate static, though this means that I can take the tape out and record over a bunch of things and other sounds could be used ambiently if I ever wanted to.

man I'm tired. There will be no audiotape mischief at my gig, too much work and not enough time. I wish I had my drum machine here.

I have a problem

either that or a very interesting passtime.

Have you ever been to craigslist sites in other countries? Have you ever just gone online to see what kinds of stuff people give away in the free section? I was just on the LA craigslist site and man they give away the best shit down there. Why can't people ever give away good stuff up here or why is it that I just don't know about it? After I finish blogging about this I'm going to see what I could get for free if I lived in Tel Aviv.

The weather outside today was a Godsend! I rode my bike along the seawall to work and picked up a DVD collection of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse films there's three of them on one DVD. Not the Last Testament of Dr. Mabuse unfortunatly that one is my favourite but I've got three of the other ones now. I also went to this new thai place next door and got some really awsome noodles.

On my way home I got some MASSIVE GUAVA JUICE and red bean cakes at TnT and have just spent a bunch of time surfing the free sections. I met the dude who I'm opening for on Friday, he's cool, I'll have to try and find some CD sleves so I can take some copies of my album to sell.

for now I'm going to see what's for free in Tel Aviv and listen to Wall of Voodoo...


... Israeli Craigslist sucks nothing free in Jerusalem, Haifa, or Tel Aviv. I'm dissappointed but not completely surprised.

Sometimes I surprise even myself!

I made a thai curry for dinner tonight, I've never made a curry before. This is something I've got to do more often. Actually, this is something I am going to do again in a coupple of days.

So tasty... so... spicy...

mmmmmmmcurry.

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Today is the first ever official feast day for the Archbishop Oscar Romero, this year the Episcopal Church added the Salvadorean martyr to their calendar of saints, twenty seven years after his death at the hands of death squad mercenaries trained and funded by America.

God rest his soul, and have mercy on his executioners.

"I would like to appeal in a special way to the men of the army, and in particular to the troops of the National Guard, the Police, and the garrisons. Brothers, you belong to our own people. You kill your own brother peasants; and in the face of an order to kill that is given by a man, the law of God should prevail that says: Do not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin. The Church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of the dignity of the human person, cannot remain silent before so much abomination.

We want the government to seriously consider that reforms mean nothing when they come bathed in so much blood. Therefore, in the name of God, and in the name of this long-suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: Cease the repression!"

- Saint Oscar Romero, August 15th 1917 – March 24th 1980

I'm playing a gig!

Opening for this guy...

The War Resisters Support Campaign Presents:

War Resist Tour

Featuring Toronto Hip Hop Artist
Mohammad Ali

8:00 PM Friday March 30
Rhizome Cafe - 317 E. Broadway

A benefit to support US war resisters seeking refuge in Canada
$5 at the door

For more info: www.resisters.ca and
www.myspace.com/mcmohammadali

maybe I need a new kind of website

Made updates to the Christian Radical blog, so much to post, so many things that shouldn't go un observed so little space on the blog, even though I update every day and the stuff stays up for a whole week the blog format is woefully incomplete particularly since I don't know how to use html code and there is always something to post. I've got it in my mind something akin to truthout.org where there's a front page with headlines and photos where you can click on the headlines that interest you and they take you to the story and a link to their site of origin and other links where you can watch video footage and a place where all the back issues are collected in both online and print friendly versions. In my website fantasy this site would also act as a website for the Van CW with information about the Catholic Worker here in Vancouver, the house/houses, our activities, a paypal section where you could donate to help the community, maybe a place where you could order CD's I've recorded (the money would go to the worker) and with links to other affilliated groups and contact info for people who might want to get involved or volunteer.

This would be the best but I don't think it will happen in the immediate future, the thing I'd like to learn first is how to do the equivalent of an JL-cut in blogger. For those of you who never used live journal, an LJ-cut is a link that says (read more here) if you were posting a long story or whatever to your blog you could abbreviate it on the main page with one of those, clicking on the link would take you to another page where you could read the whole story and post comments if you wanted to. this bit of code made blogging a lot easier when I still used LJ, knowing the html equivalent would really help over at the christian radical blog.

I'm going to have to rock the claritin

Oh man, after not living with a cat for almost seven years I'm starting to realise just how alergic I am to them. it just hit today, the itchy eyes and the clogged nose... I wonder how much worse it'll get. I guess I'll have to keep my room cat free and rock the anti-histamines this year. On the other hand stroking a cat in my lap makes me feel a bit like a Bond villan, now all I need is a swivvel chair and a shark tank, or maybe a sattelite....

hehehehe nintendo quiz

:: how nintendo are you? ::

Wall of Voodoo

God Belss Youtube.

seriously though this site might be just about the best thing going on the web. Since I started actually using this site I've found live footage of so many bands I grew up loving but will never be able to see live. Tonight I've been watching live footage of a group called Wall of Voodoo. If you remember these guys at all it's probably for the one big hit they had, Mexican Radio. I can remember when my mom bought their album by the same name. I think I was six or seven years old and she had bought it because she had heard the song on the CBC and decided to check them out. It's really odd the way my mom does that with some bands and stranger that many of my favourite groups have made their way into my life through her.

Wall of Voodoo were really one of the strangest for sure, I never would have figured my mom to like them and perhaps this is why the tape passed so easily into my hands and stuck around, I finally lost track of it on New Years 2000 when I left it at an art squat near Main and Hastings street. Most of the bands a person likes when they're seven or so get pushed aside once you hit puberty and start trying to be cool. This only happened with Wall of Voodoo because I think I lost the tape for a while because when I found it again in highschool I couldn't stop listening to it then when I lost the tape I bought it on vinyl. They were certainly one of the most unique bands to come out of the LA punk rock scene.

I'm embedding a video clip of one of my favourite songs from them here



I changed the video above to a better live clip from the album I was writing about. One of the things I like best about this group is the way that Stan Ridgeway wrote songs, his use of narrative is something really uncommon in popular music these days. They also used to do covers of Woody Guthrie songs in their own peculiar style. They have a version of Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash that's really worth searching for.

this one's for you Rob

toothpastefordinner.com

these election seasons vote Joe Octo the people's octopus

a post to the comments section a few days ago brought back to mind my idea of trying to get an octopus into the municipal election. It never got past the talking stage but there's a bit more to the story.

A few years ago I went to Ottawa to visit friends and family. When I go out to O-town I usually stay with my God-mom and look forward to spending time with her kids who are about my age and we've sort of, but not quite, grown up together so they're like family but not close enough to call siblings yet they are closer to me than most of my friends. Anyway Jess the oldest hitchiked down from Northern Ontario with her boyfriend and got there just in time to see me for a day before I came home. She took me to this Chinese supermarket on Wellington street, it was like a smaller, dirtier version of the TNT near Stadium Station. As we were perusing the isles I came uppon the most astounding thing: a bag of DRIED FUCKIN OCTOPUS!

I was so excited by this discovery that no sooner had I seen them than I decided we needed to buy some. I bought a pre-sealed bag of five and we left the shop. On our way home we picked up some strange flavoured "guava" juice from a neighbouring vietnamese place, this guava juice had cyrilic writing on one half of the can and it was one of those soup can things with the soda can tops, so we were sitting at a bus stop after drinking our soviet guava juice and we hatched a plot involving octopi.

The plan was this, to go around and put dried octopus in the toilets at public restrooms, the goal was that if we both did it on either side of the country and got other people to get in on this with us, that eventually an urban legend would start up about octopus in public toilets. And concievably you could one day be cautioned against using the public facillities at a place because of the octopus.

For me this started a long love affair with the idea of octopus doing things they ought not to be doing... like running for Mayor, or Prime Minister as an independant candidate. We could get a live octopus and at the debates we get it into an aquarium with a tie arround it and then have one of those LCD stock ticker things stream the responses or the speech or whatever... it was going to be marvelous.

I did a google image search one bored night with the word octopus and found a picture of an octopus hiding in a pine tree and I used to use it as an icon on msn and live journal when I had my last computer, never ever do an image search for octopus... there are some things a man was never meant to see and it's all on the internet.

Meanwhile the pre-sealed bag of dried octopus hung from a tack on the wall of my apartment with the word OCTOPOLUTION written on it in black felt marker, it hung there for some months.

Then one day I decided that talk was cheap and I wanted an excuse not to do my homework so I walked down to the starbucks on the corner with my octobag and went into the lavatory. I placed a single dried octopus in the toilet, giggled to myself for a little while and after waiting an appropriate ammount of time I washed my hands and left. I sat outside the starbucks for a while but got nervous about being fingered as the asshole who left the octopus in the toilet so I finished my coffee and went home.

I never did find out what became of that octopus and the prank died soon after I got home when I discovered how dried octopus smells after you've had it hanging in a bag on your wall for months. It took a few days to get that horrible smell out of my place and my backpack and it involved me throwing out the rest of the octopus and vowing never again to buy dried octopi for nefarious reasons.

Joe Octo for city council would have been a good stunt too but every so often I think about the poor barista who had to fish a re-constituted octopus from the washroom at that starbucks and giggle. I'd feel worse except I know that he or she now has an equally interesting story to tell about the time somebody left an octopus in the toilet at work.

no more nights in the house of anger

So today was trhe long anticipated moving day. and it took considerably less time than I had anticipated. My mom had arranged for a friend of hers with a van to help me out, though I had no idea when she told me this that the van was a full on moving van! I got everything moved in one go and now I'm settling into my new room at Samaritan House. Sadly I missed church today and vespers the yesterday night. I really intended to be ant one of the two but I got there late yesterday and slept through my alarm this morning but I'm moved! And to make things that much easier my agro-roommate got her fiancee (who's a really decent guy) to ask me if he and T could move in that day, I told him I still had to clean the room out because the land lady had advanced me my damage deposit and I didn't want to be a slacker about it but he told me that his old lady really wanted to move in that day and they would clean the room themselves I accepted, gave him my key, lent him my vacuum and told him to give me a call when he'd have a free afternoon so I could come back and pick it up, I'm thinking I might also take my garbage can which I left in the washroom though I might just let them keep that too. I'm just so happy to knock the dirt from those shoes and move into the worker. I played guitar for the first time in six months, I mean really played held nothing back and just belted it out, it felt so good. Apparently Sarah here has got me a gig playing a benifit for War Resisters on the 3oth, I'll post the info soon, I need to get it and it will go up on both blogs. Right now I'm just so pleased with my new diggs.

it's funny because it's true

toothpastefordinner.com

Beware the ides of March

On March 17, march and rally with thousands to say: "Canada out of Afghanistan, into Kyoto!"

War Resister Support Campaign contingent, meet at the banner "WAR RESISTERS WELCOME HERE"

Saturday, March 17 Gather: 12:30pm at English Bay (Denman & Davie) March: 1:00pm Rally: 2:00pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Georgia & Hornby)

Featuring:

-Francisco Juarez, Canada's first Afghanistan war resister
-Colleen McCrory of the Valhalla Wilderness Society
-Onesimo Hidalgo, co-director of the Center for Economic Research and Social Action in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
-Great live music by Headwater
(http://www.headwaterband.com/), Ndidi Cascade and Deanna, and the Carnival Band.

On the weekend marking the 4th anniversary of the Iraq War, join tens of thousands across the country in sending a loud message to Ottawa: Fight climate change, not wars for oil! Bring the troops home from Afghanistan.

March 17th is a pan-Canadian Day of Action. To find events in other cities, check out the Canadian Peace Alliance listings:
http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/M172007Events.htm

StopWar.ca is a broad-based coalition with over 160 endorsing organizations. For more information, email contact@stopwar.ca.

--
- All events organized or endorsed by StopWar.ca, a broad-based coalition with over 160 endorsing organizations and prominent individuals.

- For more anti-war information:

www.stopwar.ca, www.zmag.org, www.unitedforpeace.org, www.haitiaction.net, http://www.stopwar.org.uk/, http://electroniciraq.net/

zombies!

Reminder for zombies lacking brains...

Calling classy zombies of all persuasions for a ...

! Gala Premiere Screaming of "Fido" !
A heartworming film about a boy and his pet zombie...

Thursday, March 15th; show up at 6:30pm SHARP! Paramount Theatre (Burrard and Smithe) - sophistication neon style! Zombies get in free!

Hot zombie starlets, suave zombie fellas, and undead big-shots of all kinds are invited to this gala affair.

If you're more inclined to be on the other side of the lens, then bring along a camera and a nosey-parker attitude - zombie paparazzi are invited as well, just to make things fair.

Lurch, bike, car pool or cab your way to the red carpet for the premiere Vancouver screaming of Fido, a homegrown Pleasantville-meets-The Power of Nightmares-with-zombies film (more info here: http://fidothemovie.com/ )

If you're coming from work, think day-to-night Barbie, but with more rotting. If you've been sitting in front of a computer all day then chances are you're already half-way there!

If you're unemployed then you should have no problems disguising yourself as an actor...adding zombie to the equation isn't really that much more of a stretch.

Try to keep your oozing to a minimum as the poor ushers at the Paramount don't get paid nearly enough to clean zombie goo from the seat upholstery.

Little poster can be found here in the comments section:
http://www.myspace.com/zombiewalkvancouver

hit the wall

I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night. I've been punchy all day and propping myself up with caffine. I'm going to sleep right now sweet sleep. sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

4 am rumblings

my typing hand is all numb and cold. I've decided to start work on a new CD. I hope to be able to record it once I've moved into Samaritan House, I have all the nescessary accoutrements: mandolin, guitars, amp, digital four track, jewsharp, microphones, other instruments I'm not afraid to play, and friends I could persuade to master my footage. I'll have something else too, more time and neighbours who like my music and encourage me to play it. All I need now is the grace of God that this actually happens and doesn't turn into a post about something that never takes place.

I'm not going to say much more other than it's going to be a covers album, I realised tonight that I know a lot of cover songs, a surprising number actually, I started playing them about 3am and I just finished a few minutes ago. I'm looking forward to moving into a place where I'll be able to actually make music without worrying about the neighbours.

further thoughts about the world wide web

Spent the last hour or so reading about John Hutchison. John Hutchison is a self-taught electrical engineer who has a host of scientific phenomena named after him. I first heard about him a few years ago when The Empire of Crime was still active. I tracked down his e-mail adress after findng out that he lives in Vancouver. I wanted to collect audio samples of his lab when all the gear was running he brushed me off and that was it. I am still fascinated by his claims concerning the hutchison effect (google it, or search youtube, you'll find all kinds of neat stuff). At the time he was more interested in being a discovery channel personality, it makes me sad that when I found his blog today he's posted his resume. I guess zero-point energy and levitating cannonballs just isn't as hot an item these days, it's too bad the effect is so hard to reproduce if he was able to get the interest of some real scientists who were able to reproduce faithfully his effect and study it and its applications masybe he wouldn't be peddling his resume on the web.

After being let down by his reply I recorded some really distorted synth stuff that Spud and I made and I used the tape of it with British Mark to make the song The Hutchison Effect that's on our CD, I really need to get another copy of it so I can sell it or give it to people, it sucks but I no longer have most of the Empire of Crime material.

I've made arrangements to be moved out of here on Saturday which gives me a week to finish packing and cleaning my place out.

Went for Jamaican food on Main street for dinner, there's a place that has jerk tofu roti. mmmm jerk.

I miss being able to get out on my bike and ride around downtown. Partly it's this fucking weather and partly it's the location but once I'm moved into Samaritan House I anticipate I'll be able to take up my old habit of night riding. I miss the ocean at 2:00am.

I'm so bored. I slep too long after mass today and now it's 3:am and I'm not tired in the least. I have work tomorrow but it's not like I have to get up really early or anything. maybe if the weather is ok I'll go and ride in the cemetery, I'm amped for spring... I can't wait for it to stop raining.

tired of the news

yup, that's right, in less than four years I've gone from apathetic and not caring about current events to being a self described "inveterate news junky" who would read internet news sites for hours on end and find it all engrossing, to being sick of the news and no longer really caring all that much. I have become jaded and bored and frustrated that the internets just don't serve up the goods so much any more. thank God the web has more to it than news websites or I'd probably never log on again... bleh

bands I'm really enjoying these days

A not too factually accurate shortlist of my favourite bands (I've got lots more)

in response to a friend's recent blog entry at www.followthekoala.blogspot.com and also because I went to see Sebadoh last Saturday I thought I'd make a short list of bands that rock my software all day long:

The Arcade Fire! I went to see these guys play at the Agrodome a couple of years ago and it was one of the most amazing concerts I've ever seen. you can check out their web page at
http://www.arcadefire.com/flash.html

Sebadoh: I've seen them twice now. They are easily one of my all time favourite groups and Lou Barlow has had a marked influence on my own music. Their early stuff is better but despite being given to the occasionally over-sentimental indie-rock ballad (or album) they managed to develop some of their best qualities as late as their second to last album. They recently re-united with their original line-up and re-released one of their best and hasrdest to find CD's; III they have a website at http://www.sebadoh.com/

Resplendant: I wrote to the dude who used to record with Resplendant and told him that his albums (all available for free on the website www.resplendent.com) was one of the reasons I got back into playing and recording. He wrote me back thanking me, I guess he had given up in frustration and my e-mail was well timed encouragement. The later projects he did are also available to download for free on the same site. They do a good cover of a Rites of Spring song.

Guided By Voices: I have two of their albums on my computer and another mix CD that my friend Jill gave me a year or two ago. I don't know why but every album I've heard by them seems more like they just record clips of their songs and hope you'll catch them live for the whole thing. despite this I can'tr stop listening. http://gbv.com/

Joan of Arc: These guys are one of the very best bands to ever come out of Chicago, they've gone from being a vaguely-electronic manifestation of the early Emo group Cap N Jazz to being an ever shifting collective of musicians who aren't afraid of taking music to places it might never get to again in a hundred years, combining free-jazz, punk, electronic sounds and complex guitar with sometimes cynical always poetic lyrics and distinctive vocals I want them to come to Vancouver and play multiple shows so I can see them twice in a row.
http://www.joanfrc.com/bands.html

Eric's Trip: if you've known me a long time you still havn't known me longer than I've known about this group. I've also seen them twice (Once at Another Roadside Attraction festival in High River Alberta and again when they played their reunion tour at Richards on Richards) They were darlings of the Halifax Pop Explosion which occurred in the late nineties producing groups like Sloan, Jail, and The Hardship Post and bringing industry attention to Canada's untapped maritimes punk scene. They were originally on Murder Records and later moved to Sub Pop before breaking into pieces the two best being Elevator and The Wooden Stars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric's_Trip
http://ogami.subpop.com/bands/ericstrip/et.html
http://www.juliedoiron.com/html/about.html
http://www.elevator.ca/main.htm

Stan Rogers: This man is a Canadian hero. there isn't another band or musician who can make me choke up like this man's songs can. Along with Nick Drake and a hand full of other musicians this man embodies modern folk music. He died too soon.
http://www.stanrogers.net/

Nick Drake: Nick Drake was obscurre and under appreciated in his lifetime, he had bi-polar mood disorder and died as a result of an accidental overdose of his medication his almum Pink Moon and the recently released home recordings that he made near the end of his life fill me with awe. http://www.nickdrake.com/index.html

Johnny Cash: I don't need to say any more about the man in black, let his music speak for him. God rest his soul. http://www.johnnycash.com/

Current 93: I can't talk about my favourite groups without a curious tilt of the head towards Current 93. Current 93 started as a group formed by front man David Tibet and one or two others, Tibet was friends with Gennisis P. Orridge and the Psyckik TV crowd. At the time the band was named Tibet was heavily influenced by Crowley and was a Thelemite. His music which was a combination between traditional sounding european folk music and really creepy sounding instrumental pieces evolved with Tibet's religious development taking the band from thelemic inspired rock through esoteric Buddhism into Gnostic Christianity and then firmly into actual Christianity . About four years ago (about the time I un-lapsed my Catholicism) David Tibet released his last CD with Current 93 and announced that he was changing his name, dropping "tibet" and disowning the earlier half his back catalogue of recordings claiming that the CD's from Thunder Perfect Mind to the final one were the ones which most clearly reflected his religious and mystical outlook. One of his CD's uses an illumination by Saint Hildegaard of Bingen as it's cover and Thunder Perfect Mind is one of my favourite CD's though I have a hard time sitting down to listen to a lot of his stuff all at once and individual CD's of his are hard to find and expensive, better to rip them from the web I doubt he'd mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_93


Husker Du: I don't think placing them last in this list is right but the short list is getting pretty long. Husker Du released two of the best rock records ever made one after the other New Day Rising and Zen Arcade, their early stuff is fairly generic 80's hardcore and their albums that came after began the slow descent into the mainstream but those two albums are pieces of sheer beauty mixing a raw intensity with a guitar sound I've spent twelve years trying to emulate and never quite getting it (they use pedals I have an accoustic). The lead Singer Bob Mould went on to make some good stuff with the group Sugar.
http://world.std.com/~thirdave/hd.html

The Fall: My mom bought me a CD called The Complete A-Sides one year for Christmas, they are kind of like a hard rock Scottish version of the B52's only a lot better than that description makes out. http://www.thefall.info/fallsite/index.php

Joy Division and New Order are really awsome and I'm not going to elaborate on that statement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Division

The Winks are a group from Vancouver who've moveed to Montreal. I went to highschool with the two founding members and one of them, Todd, helped me to record my own CD. they are a chello and mandolin duet with sometimes drums and sometimes a lot of other stuff, I don't know who's in the Montreal incarnation of their group but their music is awsome and I miss them. www.thewinks.net

negativland have the distinction of being sued both by U2 and Casey Casem over the same song they have been really prolific for a joke band and have been part of the debate over intellectual property rights since before the internet was a consumer object. don't buy their CD's if you can get them for free on the internet I know they love file sharing and if you were to talk with any of them they'd probably tell you to rip their stuff instead of buying it. of course if you're going to spend the cash the CD's ABC's of Anarchy, Dispepsi, and the Leter U and the Numeral 2 are all good ones to look for http://www.negativland.com/

ok that's the list. I hope you find some good stuff here, maybe comment with groups you think I should listen to, since I stopped listening to radio in grade 7 and can't afford to buy a lot of music these days I'm always looking for good bands to expand my horizons with.

waiting for the other shoe to drop

I should be in bed. I finished making both versions of the zine almost two hours ago but I want to squeeze the last of the web out before it gets cut off. I don't think it will be for too long. Luke, the room mate who doesn't do anything actually bought the router and so I would suspect that he's going to get a new connection going here which will be nice it will mean I've spent a lot of time fretting over nothing. On the other hand it will be good to have to find other ways of communicating and entertaining myself. To tell you the truth I don't really get that much entertainment out of the web these days. I use it to blog, read too much news, watch video clips of old hardcore punk bands that broke up in the eighties and read web comics and my friends blogs. I'm not as sucked into the virtual world of an online community as I was this time last year with livejournal but I'm not having that much fun on here. the internet is a cold and lonely place for those of us who aren't fooling ourselves with sites like friendster or myspace or facebook which promise the user an endless and expanding social scene but end up leaving one hooked on a mirage of virtual friends in a virtual world.

Last night I was feeling really down because my life has been reduced to about four locations and almost as many activities. It still depresses me to think about it but I'm not so upset today. I told my boss today that I wanted to cut back my hours and though it was like pulling teeth he did understand and I know my "manager" will like the extra work.

the zine's finished! both versions!

I'm getting good at this, if you want to read it online it should be getting posted to www.vancouverdiy.com/christianradical.htm soon otherwise you can write me an e-mail and I'll get back to you when I can.

it's five in the morning and I want to sleep.
good night

zombies... I like zombies.

Calling classy zombies of all persuasions for a ...

! Gala Premiere Screaming of "Fido" ! A heartworming film about a boy and his pet zombie...

Thursday, March 15th; show up at 6:30pm SHARP! Paramount Theatre (Burrard and Smithe) - sophistication neon style! Zombies get in free! Hot zombie starlets, suave zombie fellas, and undead big-shots of all kinds are invited to this gala affair. If you're more inclined to be on the other side of the lens, then bring along a camera and a nosey-parker attitude - zombie paparazzi are invited as well, just to make things fair.

Lurch, bike, car pool or cab your way to the red carpet for the premiere Vancouver screaming of Fido, a homegrown Pleasantville-meets-The Power of Nightmares-with-zombies film (more info here: http://fidothemovie.com/ )

If you're coming from work, think day-to-night Barbie, but with more rotting. If you've been sitting in front of a computer all day then chances are you're already half-way there!

If you're unemployed then you should have no problems disguising yourself as an actor...adding zombie to the equation isn't really that much more of a stretch.

Try to keep your oozing to a minimum as the poor ushers at the Paramount don't get paid nearly enough to clean zombie goo from the seat upholstery.

email any querulous grunts and groans to zombiewalkvancouver@yahoo.ca

it's been a hard winter

I'm completely wiped out.

balancing work at two bookstores and a very time consuming zine has been an act of God, I doubt very much that I could have done as well as I have without my faith but I'm wiped. I miss substantial human contact with people I can talk with, I'm tired of making plans with ppeople who never follow through and then getting shit from them when I don't have the energy to go to their social events.

It's not that I don't want to see people, quite the opposite, it's human contact that I'm yearning for, but what I miss isn't the big impersonal social functions where I don't know anyone and can't carry on a real conversation it's the small groups and one on one human contact that I'm longing for. I'm telling my boss that in two weeks he can give my fridays to someone else but will more time make any difference? I already work part time but I worry that I won't spend that time with friends. I also miss being physically active. this winter my life has been divided between book stores and my bedroom and church. I love my parish and the people I worship with but I have other friends some of whom I havn't seen in a whole year and I don't know when I'll have the chance to.

I go down town and it's like visiting another city, living so far south depending on the bus to get anywhere has been isolating and when I try and talk with people about it I either feel like I have no right to complain or that it sounds trivial. the guy who pulls two full time jobs and raises a family without a spouse has it harder than I likely ever will and the stuff I do is all stuff I believe in and enjoy. I just have no social life most of the time and I miss my friends. I miss being able to go on long night time bike rides by myself, but mostly I miss seeing people.

I keep telling myself that things are getting better, I'm moving out of the house of anger and my land lady advanced me my damage deposit and I'll have fewer hours by the middle of march, these are all good things but right now half the time it feels like I'm passing time and the other half is so ull of the little annoyances that I feel overwhelmed.

Something's got to change, I need to get out and have some time not to think about my life. Every time I look outside and see that it's snowed it feels like I've been kicked in the chest, I'd say I need a vacation but what I need more is just to talk with someone, a break from the routine I've fallen into where I go to work and come home and sit in my room until I go to sleep.

I think that's all I've got to write about right now I don't want to start repeating myself.