a journal of the one man revolution

Blacksploitation Vader and Van Damme pops a stiffy on Brazillian Television

2008-05-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

heheheheheh

what do you do with a cranky prophet?

2008-04-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

that really sounds like it ought to be the setup for a joke but if it's a joke it's totally on me.

Caveat Emptor is the phrase for the week... possibly the month. Depending on how much I have to shell out to get this thing working right.

by now you must be wondering what I'm on about.

I'm talking about an analog synthesizer. Oh no, the Korg I got for my birthday is working fine it's nearly perfect and the small instabillities in that one aren't enough for me to worry about it.

it's the other one.

I bought a Prophet 600 analog synth back in March for $650.00 a price I bargained the guy down from 800 on and thought was a good deal until I brought it home. It's a polyphonic synth, which means I can make chords and play more than one note at a time (unlike my other synth). Anyway the keyboard was acting really strange and not in tune with itself, it was playing a bit like an old piano that's been ignored for twenty five years, you play one note and the next one is flat and the third one sounds just like the first note you played. Anyway that was my problem. So I called a repair shop which specializes in old gear, they're mercifully near by. long story short they got it fixed in a couple of weeks and for only about $275 including labour and parts, that's great I bring it home and have a ball, making sounds with it, learning how to program it and teaching myself how to play two keyboards at once.

Then this week I decided to go through all of it's memory (it can store 100 different sounds that can be accessed by a keypad that looks a bit like the one on your phone)

Anyway this was a good idea at the time, it meant I could make notes of what sounds were where and get a better idea of it's capabillities.

still no problem.

then yesterday I'm playing it and it's drifted out of tune. I tune it but it's not goten better, it's actually a bit worse, then I notice that I've been doing it wrong and that's thrown it out of balance. I've spent the last two days trying to get it back and slowly it's been complying. not a problem right?

wrong.

I decide to try some different sounds and discover much to my own frustration and curiosity that it seems to be out of tune in each patch and in unique ways, one might be flat another sharp another just so slightly that it sounds off to the ear and still another that's three or four notes off completely.

I've heard that this synth was legendary for going out of tune, that's one of the reasons I think that the manufacturer made it so easy to re-tune it (just hit a button if it doesn't work do it over and over untl it sounds right, just make sure you have the mod wheel in the right place first).

except that I have 100 different sounds and many of them are uniquely out of key.

aarrgh

I'm going to have to call the repair shop and ask them if they know what's wrong with it I'm praying I don't have to get it repaired again because it's a little pricey even if the synth itself is badass when it works right.

ok so lessons learned:

1. don't buy vintage synthesizers from craigslist

2 if you do buy old gear from craigslist take the time to test it thuroughly if the dude, or lady who's trying to sell you the gear starts to get irritated with how long you are taking to check it in every concievable way you're doing it right.

3. what's that phrase again? Caveat Emptor: buyer beware. Even if you've worn out your welcome, and haggled like a Lebonese grandma to get the vintage synth of your dreams that doesn't mean that it's still ging to do what you want it to when you get it back to your place, especially if it's older than some of your friends, that shit don't have warrenties.

close to the end

2008-04-22T02:09:00.000-07:00

in maybe one or two more studio sessions my long awaited album will be finished and ready to be pressed. I still need to design most of the art but the music and audio collage are coming together really well. After over a year the end is clearly in sight. it's exciting.

new web-komiks

2008-04-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

yes. I've been hard at work if by hard you mean writing poorly over images I found on my computer and on the internet and by work you mean updating it every night with one of them then yes, I have been one industrious amphibious mammal.

I have decided that I have enough pictures that I can make a fair go of things over there but who knows? When I started this blog I actually thought it would act as a journal of the one man revolution, instead it's turned into a cool sounding but infrequently updated shaddow of my former Live Journal blog.

Don't expect anything more exciting from this one, I don't.

As for these web-komiks I'm having fun and it's a pleasant reminder to me that I have a sense of humour at all. God willing this will go on at least until I've exhausted my supply of easily manipulated images. After that, well, we'll see...

go there... go there now!

passtimes

2008-04-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to try my hand at webcomicrey.

here are two I just made...

I just started another blog to put comics on
here's the url: click on this to see my comics or else.

the Christian Radical: problems and pleas

2008-03-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hi,

if you read the print version of The Christian Radical in Vancouver BC and you've been wondering where this one is and why you havn't seen any in the usual spots around town, it's because they are all still at the Catholic Worker waiting to be folded, stapled and distributed.

There is a very good reason for this: I can't do it all by myself.

The past couple of months maybe you have noticed that they don't all appear promptly or maybe there are fewer around. The Christian Radical has never been a one man show. In times past I was able to manage a 200 copy print run each month because I had help from one of my best friends but as he has had to retire to heal from an illness I have been saddled with this city on my own. I can afford to print two hundred a month no problem but getting them assembled and distributed is another matter.

I've tried to cut the print run down by 50 but 150 copies is no easier to do than 200 and it's an overwhelming thing to do all on ones own.

So I have a unique petition: if you live in Vancouver BC and you care about seeing this zine apear in paper each month and have time you would be willing to donate to making this happen with me could you please write me at the.christian.radical.zine@gmail.com
I really need the help and I don't want to stop but if I can't get someone who is willing and able to at least distribute them with or for me each month then I don't know what I'll have to do.

If you are out there, please write to me, or post in this blog.

thanks in advance
Chris Rooney

electric mayhem

2008-03-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

so my synth and sequencer came in the mail today. I'm excited... making sounds, playing notes... tweaking dials, plugging things in. it's all very exciting, but what good is it with no one to jam with? It's all very lonely sometimes. I have all these songs written and learned on guitar and I'm ok at playing keyboard and there is a lot of gear in my room now but I'm not a one man band, at least I don't really want to be.

My head's full of ideas but they're all my ideas I like tem better when combined with other people's. I'm going to be bringing my electric guitar back with me from North Van after the 22nd and that could be ok but it would be really awsme to put all of this stuff to use.

lol

2008-01-31T22:45:00.001-08:00

Where Are The Dogs Humping.com

Using the internet to buy things

2008-01-22T03:39:00.000-08:00

Closed-bag exchange

from wikipedia.org

Hofstadter^[10] once suggested that people often find problems such as the Prisoners Dilemma problem easier to understand when it is illustrated in the form of a simple game, or trade-off. One of several examples he used was "closed bag exchange":

Two people meet and exchange closed bags, with the understanding that one of them contains money, and the other contains a purchase. Either player can choose to honour the deal by putting into his bag what he agreed, or he can defect by handing over an empty bag.

In this game, defection is always the best course, implying that rational agents will never play, and that "closed bag exchange" will be a missing market due to adverse selection. However, in this case both players cooperating and both players defecting actually give the same result, so chances of mutual cooperation, even in repeated games, are few.

---------------------------

I've ben engaged in a week-long search for a Korg MS-20 Analog Synth. Let me tell you first off that finding one of these things second hand in playable condition and for a reasonable price is next to impossible.

Now I want to tell you about the one I did find.

It was about as good as you could get, second hand from someone who bought it in Japan, lightly used the photos on craigslist were mint and the guy selling the thing seemed like a reasonable and honest person. I had been looking on e-bay and another site which specialises in used modular gear and the going price is close to $1700.00 USD not counting postage and duties and international shipping costs. uggh.

After rigorusly scouring google I came across one for $1300 US. A guy on craigslist in St. Paul Minnesota was selling his and it looked better than the ones I'd seen on e-bay and it wasn't going to have to be shipped from Asia w00t says I as I wrote him to inquire.

He gave me the run down and offered to knock $50.00 off the price and include six or seven patch cords for the patch bay part of the machine. I was excited, I've been wanting an analog synth for years and my birthday is coming up, if there's anything I'd want it's one of these things. I got in touch with my mom because I figured I could get her to pay for it as a birthday present. then the e-mails got interesting, see there was no way that I could verify the guys claims that the synth was in the condition it appeared to be in and there was no way that I could convince him that a post dated check would clear by the time I had the keyboard. And here is the birth of the prisoners dilemma I've been playing for the past couple of days.

There was the possibillity that he, like myself was on the up and up, he: just a dude selling some gear to make student loan payments and myself: an interested potential buyer with a twist, St. Paul is way to far away for me to do the transaction in person.

My mom justifiably didn't want to be out 1300.00 incase the thing never materialised or arived broken or something, and the seller didn't want to be stuck with sending a valuable instrument overseas on a fake check. ten e-mails later we had settled on a post-dated money order which would validate after I recieved the keyboard (with fedex probably about 24 hours later). another e-mail was sent and I went to dinner thinking that the prisoners dilemma was overcome and that we would both be better off for it... if only life were that simple.

I got home from dinner to find a new e-mail from the man this time insisting on cash upfront or a non post-dated check or money order before he would mail out the gear. The prisoners dilemma had struck again. I called up my mom and after some discussion I looked up the section of craigslist which tells you how to avoid scams and much to my surprise and amazement this transaction had all the appearance of a scam but not on his part.

from the craigslist website:

Recognizing scams

Most scams involve one or more of the following:

inquiry from someone far away, often in another country
Western Union, Money Gram, cashier's check, money order, shipping, escrow service, or a "guarantee"
inability or refusal to meet face-to-face before consumating transaction

more in detail here

I have a bleak moment of clarity while reading the sites admonitions where I realise that to anyone in his position it would appear as though I were trying to pull a con on the guy. Shit I think, fucking hell. The only honest thing I can do is write to the guy explaining that I'm not going to persue buying from him because not only is there no guarantee on either side that we'll both cooperate but that by all appearances to the cautious and concientious user of craigslist I have made of myself the impression of being a con-artist. Since I'm not a swindler and I also don't want to get burned and since the dynamic of trying to buy this thing was a clasic prisoners dilemma I had no alternative but to bow out. He had told me in an earlier e-mail that he knew someone else who was interested and so I told him that if that guy was in his area and could buy the thing in person that he should sell it to him and I sugested that he give this other possible byer the same deal he had agreed on with me (because it was a good deal but not so good as to be a "steal"). Anyway this has left me frustrated because I'm back at square one and feeling like my dreams of monophonic madness with keyboards are for the forseeable future going to have to remain dreams.

I had to apend the pertinent section of the wikipedia article on game theory and the prisoners dilemma, I also sent it to the guy in Minnesota. I couldn't believe just how close it seemed to the classic dilemma to read the whole article (it's interesting if you like stuff like this) you should go here

the impatience of a man who wants the housing market to crash in Vancouver

2007-12-20T02:21:00.000-08:00

Yvonne and I have been talking about opening a new Catholic Worker house, to help expand the Van CW. This is something I've been hoping to do since I first got involved with the movement. My mom has pledged to help buy the place and I have a small inheritance that I don't want to use in any other way in total between us we have $500,000 to buy a house and make whatever repairs need to be made to the place. You might look at that figure and say to yourself "that's a lot of money" and anywhere else in the world it would be more than enough to buy an aging house in a working class neighbourhood, maybe even with enough left over for emergencies, not in Vancouver. I know, I've been looking. If you reading this are from Vancouver you'll no doubt be thinking as you read this "well duh but wait until after 2010". Of course the Olympics have destroyed any normal person's abillity to own his/her own home. I went on craigslist after getting sick of real estate websites and for 200,000 I could own a house on two acres on the top of a hill with a panoramic ocean view and a basketball/tennis court near Panama City in Central America.

Of course While I have no idea if Panama could use a CW community I don't think that it's my calling to start that one. I'm grasping at straws here, Perhas I ought to try and write to church communities here in Van and see if that would work. I know already that the Catholic Arch Diocese is a write off but perhaps the Anglicans or United Church would be able to oblige. if you're the praying sort could you please keep the Vancouver Catholic Worker in your prayers and especially for our small community to grow a little? Also, if you happen to know of a nice old house in the Downtown East Side or Mount Pleasant that could house more than three people and is selling on the cheap (for vancouver) that would help as well.

I think I'm going to write up a basic form letter to send to church groups.

This stuff is fucking hardcore plus some kind of update on my life.

2007-12-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

--
In the past month lots has been happening. Yvonne and I thought about moving to Hornby Island and start a Catholic Worker Farm. The Christmas Issue of the Christian Radical came out online and is sitting in a big unstapled pile in my room waiting to be assembled and placed around the city I bought a rare vintage bicycle which is hard to find new wheels for (probably why I got it cheap) and Yvonne and I have goten engaged!

A few other things happened but I don't really want to talk about them because they concern one of my best friends and it's upsetting to me also I've talked about it enough with individual friends as things were happening and I don't feel too hot about writing it all out.

In music news I'm going back into the studio next week to put down the final track on the CD and to start tweaking things with Jeremy, I'm also playing a gig for the War Resisters Support Campaign tomorrow (Saturday) night.

I'm kind of tired right now, I've been in transit all day coming home from visiting Yvonne's family on the island.

I like BC Ferries.

detournment at it's finest

2007-11-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

Winnie the Pooh... oh the horror, the horror!

Updating an old blog

2007-11-10T02:42:00.000-08:00

I'm sick. I've been ill now for two days and I'm optimistic that it's going to cough it's way through me by the end of the weekend. Things in my life are going really well over all. Yvonne warms my heart and I still find myself grinning like, well like a man in love. It was her birthday on the 8th I wish I had been in better sorts but we still went out to a nice french restaurant I know though I was too illl to go to the gallery opening or the movie afterwards. bleh.

It's been so long I'm no longer sure what to write here. The Christian Radical blog takes up a lot more of my energy but none of my personal writing. I have still to write something new for the Christmas issue and I'll feel a lot better once I'm no longer sick.

my room's a mess I think tomorrow I'll put on some propagandhi and actually clean something. I've also fallen behind on some other things that need to get done. Maybe this being sick thing can work for me after all.

"Church Surfing" as my mom calls it seems to have calmed down. Yvonne and I found a nice Anglo-Catholic mass that starts at 11:15 which is a lot more civil than 9:00am and it's a lot more transit acccessible. The Orthodox church is still a place very dear to my heart but I'm not sure if it's where I'm supposed to be.

I feel like ass, ass with phleghm and a very sore chest from coughing so I'm going to take a lot of pills and cough medicine and conk out soon but for the maybe five people who ever read this blog I thought I'd post something just to re-assert my web-presence.

night

tape decks rocking the shit out

2007-09-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

So I brought this three channel mixer down from my mom's place I didn't have veryhigh hopes for it because the last time I'd tried to mix with it is was a real let down and I suspected it might be a dud but I plugged it in and ran three tape recorders through it and into my amp and I was so surprised it's really awsome and pretty sensitive too I have to figure out the levels but with three decks I can do some rad shit, I had this tape of computer voices saying all this funny stuff and a James Brown tape and I was mixing them with the cramps, minor threat and this meditation/relaxation tape that was all about subliminally learning how to sing. It's been a while since I did this sort of thing but it is so much fun when I get the chance. I also figured that if I were to buy a battery powered amp I could litterally spin anything anywhere so I could theoretically busk with tapes as easily as I could with other instruments.

Also in tape related news Spud and Alicia are back from the UK and so I'm going to have to get some stuff together to rock out with Spud. I have another of these three channel things and some cassio keyboards wich means North again! I'm so excited to get that project back up. Jamming with Spud was sometimes not that great but when we were on we were right fucking on!

the trouble with housing...

2007-09-17T00:49:00.000-07:00

is that it's so fucking expensive and mostly constructed to fit with the whole "nuclear family" paradigm in mind.

I've been thinking about opening another Catholic Worker house for a few years and am coming to a point in my life where I would be very happy if it came about sooner than later. I've got a fair ammount of capital because of inheritance and a generous donation from my family but it still isn't enough to get a place in the city and there doesn't seem to be anything like what I envision out there in the Gulf, the inside passage, or on Van Island. Also there've been some changes take place as to who is interested in helping this take shape and I've been left feeling a little scattered. I'll be discussing all of this in greater detail both with my girlfriend and with anyone else interested in opening a Catholic Worker house. I havn't been updating this blog nearly at all but I hope that I can use it as a sounding board for this process and maybe aid in discerning how to proceed. Honestly folks I'm really kind of going on faith alone, maybe this is the best way to do it but at the same time it's a little rattling because I just don't know what's on the horizon.

I guess I should add to this post by telling you about what's been going on in my life. Well Let's start with the Girlfriend.

you know how God works in mysterious ways well I think about how we came together and all I can do is shake my head in amazement.

Two years ago Gary invited me to Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Vogue Theatre. I met some of his friends, one of whom was stunning and I spent the whole evening working up the nerve to ask her for her number. I didn't quite get up enough nerve for that but I did give her my number all the while not really expecting anything to come of it.

She didn't call me back and so I shrugged it off and went on with my life. Now I'd like to fast forward to the day I got back from Kenora. I was on MSN with Garey and he asked me if he gave me this girl's number would I call her. Well my first thoughts were that he was drunk and wanted me to call her for him or something and after assuring me that he was neither he told me her story.

This was the same girl I had given my number to a few years earlier. I was the first guy to ever give his number to her and she'd been wondering wether or not to call it for two years. Finally her best friend decided to go behind her back and get Gary to get me to call her. After having my memory jogged I took down her number and after our conversation finished I decided that if I didn't call her then I might forget or something so I called her up and we made a date to go for coffee. I was really kind of nervous that she wouldn't show up or that we wouldn't have anything in common or that it would be a dissappointment in some other unforseen way but from the moment I saw her at the cafee there was this chemistry that I'm at a loss to describe except to say that I was swept up in it.

We sat and talked for a couple of hours and then left and went for a walk and then we ended our date cuddling on a park bench we caught the bus down Main and as we left each other I think that the both of us were equally blissed out. We made plans to go to a movie a few days later and the next day we hung out while I got the Radical printed and did a couple of other errands. We've spent almost every day together since then and it's been wonderful.

I feel so comfortable around Yvonne I've been able to tell her things about my life that I'm not usually very forthcoming about and I've told her things that no one else knows about. She's told me a lot about her family and what it was like being home schooled. There's nights when we just lay in each others arms and talk and look into eachothers eyes, she's got these eyes that look a bit like a solar eclypse and this smile that turns me into dumb. Just writing this entry has me grinning like an idiot, in short I'm crazy about her, and the really amazing part is that it's mutual.

I'm sure I'll have more to share later but right now I want to watch homestar runner and go to sleep, she's coming to my mom's with me tomorrow.

3D Dialogue: The Catholic Worker Movement

2007-08-27T10:20:00.001-07:00

For more info contact:

Zacchaeus CW House
5 Close Ave
Toronto ONT M6K 2V2
Ph 416 516 8198
E-mail zacchaeushouse@sympatico.ca

take action against the police

2007-08-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

On August 20th a Union leader stopped members of the Quebec provincial police dressed as black bloc Anarchists from inciting a riot at the anti-spp protests the footage below was taken at the scene. Below that is a way to take action to let our politicians know that this can not go on. As citizens of an allegedly free country we have the right to voice our dissent without fear of reprisal or police attempts to discredit our movements. Please take a moment to write parliment, and share this with others.

I have written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to investigate what happened in Montebello, and if there were undercover police officers trying to incite violence.

To join me, go to http://www.rightoncanada.ca

Click this link to take action now!!

Nick Drake is my musical hero

2007-08-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

so some updates...

After thinking further on the place at 70 mile house and talking with james, also after looking at a map of BC we've both agreed that it's not the place to start.

I'm leaving in the morning for Kenora/Grassy Narrows with Christian Peacemaker Teams I'm pretty excited about this I don't know what to expect at all.

I'm still questioning whether I ought to remain in the Roman Catholic Church. I havn't been to mass in a couple of weeks and the last time I was part of an eucharist was in Guadalupe at the Catholic Worker. I'm kind of in a different space than I was last year at this time, though I still disagree over the Papal claims and the Vatican I Doctrines I'm no longer angry with the church just sad and though I believe that God wouldn't let the Roman church out to dry because the Pope wants to grasp at power I also get this twinge each time I recite some of the prayers in my Catholic prayer book whenever Mary's immaculate conception is mentioned.

Also I find it difficult to go to church in Vancouver generally, the parish I like I have difficulty getting to and I'm the youngest person there by about thirty years and the Cathedral downtown is full of fanatics and I'm not using hyperbole, I have heard some very distressing homilies there and I don't feel comfortable in a place where I have to remind myself that I'm there for the Eucharist not some man's opinion.

I'm currently still trying to sort out my vocation. I have no doubt that the life I want to live is the life of a Catholic Worker, in community and poverty and in servise and solidarity with the poor. But since going to Assisi a new dimension has arisen. I can't recall if I wrote about this here but when I was on the steps leaving San Damiano I had for just a moment this clarity about going into Holy Orders. It was at once exciting and infuriating and has left me with a lot to think about and it's clarified my position on something, marriage is very important to me and I don't feel that I could live a life of service apart from the life of a husband and father. So you can understand one reason I've had issue with the Catholic position on clerical celibacy.

I've been thinking about going back to St. Nina's or St. Raphael's and I hope that my trip to Kenora will help me think clearly about this issue.

In other, non church-related news work on the new CD is coming along really well, I'll be wrapping up the studio sessions when I get home and I've written two new songs that I hope to put on the album. I'm also thinking about starting a band but I'm not certain how or with whom. I've got gear and I've got a whole bunch of songs that I'd love to play with other people but for now I think that just getting the CD finished and pressed and playing around town will be a lot of work to start with.

I think that's it for now. I'm going to go to bed I've got an early morning.

zine machine rides again

2007-08-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

Making zines can be really addictive. I've been putting together some that I've wanted to make for quite a while now. In the last two days I've made zines out of writing by Ched Myers, Jon Sobrino and Monk Damascene Christensen. It's my hope that I could print them off and sell them to help with the expenses of The Christian Radical. Also it's really awsome to put something together in a way that looks good. I wish I could print them out but I think my printer has officially bought the farm it's only printing junk these days no good for anything not even copy.

Speaking of buying the farm I was talking to my mom yesterday afternoon and she told me that she knew a guy near 70 Mile House who wanted to sell this huge acreage with a big house that has a stage and can sleep something like 20 people for $400,000. I was really pretty excited and my mom would help with the cash but 7o Mile House is really far away from everything and I do mean everything (it's a six hour drive north of Hope BC). I've been looking at info about the area where this place is and I'm starting to have serious doubts. On the one hand the place sounds palatial on the other hand the place sounds palatial, it's also really far away from the area that I originally thought about starting a CW Farm and I have no idea wether I want to live somewhere so far away and so cold in the winter.

I told James about it and he got cold feet, I said that there's no way I can even get away to look at the place until September or late August because of CPT and after thinking about it more I'm getting hesitant myself. I wish there was some way for James and I to actually spend some time together that's not at his work but he's there open to close every day until Alan gets back from his vacation so any time spent with him has to be while he's at work. yech.

I'm going to try and get together with him in the afternoon maybe we can talk further, I'm also going to talk a bit more with my mom and I think that no matter what there's still a lot of prayer and discernment that needs to happen around this.

If you reading this are so inclined as to pray we could use and would appreciate your prayers for starting a new Catholic Worker community.

end of internship update

2007-08-08T00:59:00.000-07:00

What follows is my essay for The Catholic Agitator it'll be printed in their October issue along with whatever other interns wrote. just to preface I had a great time with my friends in the community though I never fit in with the other interns and by the end of the six weeks I had given up at even trying. It's remarkable what a four year age difference can do. I really felt alone some of the time because I wasn't an "intern" in the same way as the rest of them were and being straight edge I couldn't really mix with them easily in our off hours because they were all about partying and that's something I burnt out on a long time ago. I'm also not quite a member of the LACW because I an a Catholic Worker in Vancouver though I have hopes and plans to go down there for six months to live and work with them when they are short staffed in the winter but that's not going to be for a year at least I have stuff I want and need to do up here in the interim. Here's the essay:

Where Am I and What Am I Doing?
Chris Rooney

So it’s the evening before the end of the summer program and I’m in the Agitator office trying to hammer something out. Writing about my faith journey would take a long time and, it’s something that I’ve been trying to write about for years, one of my more successful attempts took three hundred pages before I ran out of steam and gave up.

A lot of things have combined in my life to bring me to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. On my first trip here I wrote on what I called Divine Futility, knowing that caring for people and trying to serve the homeless wouldn’t ever end homelessness and that in a strange way the act, though at times wearying, had in itself a kind of perseverance and that this perseverance comes from God.

I think that when I wrote that essay I downplayed the very mundane feelings that come along with it. It scares me a little to write about the other side of that coin and as I do I’m reminded of the title of Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness. The other side of this vocation for bringing good things into the lives of the poor is the real and heavy feeling that some times you have a lot to carry around and that it might never get any easier.

I was making the August issue of The Christian Radical when I asked Catherine what she did when she felt defeated. She made a knowing sound and told me that the trick she’d learned was to keep so busy that you don’t have time to think about it; that’s solid advice, but it’s not always easy to follow.

This past year has been one of searching and reconciliation for me. As I returned to Vancouver from my pilgrimage here, and to Jonah House, and the Toronto Catholic Worker I was coming to terms with the history of the Catholic Church and with the false doctrine of papal infallibility. I found it easier to be a Catholic without thinking about this, but as I started to read more what I learned was enough to make me want to leave. Leaving was an easy thing for me to do because I don’t really have any special attachment to the Vancouver Archdiocese. I don’t have anything good to say about the Roman church in Vancouver so I’ll talk more about the things I found while I went looking, and what I did with them.

Coming back to Vancouver I started attending mass at the Old Catholic church where I found a community which was pleasant enough but though I have an affinity for the Old Catholics I didn’t feel that I fit in there and I didn’t feel comfortable talking with the clergy or most of the congregation. I left after a lot of hard questioning, and after even more questioning I started going to an Orthodox mission with one of my best friends. The community I found there was young and vibrant and intellectual, concerned about social justice and interested in the Catholic Worker movement. To date they are the only church in Vancouver that reads The Christian Radical and they are like family I don’t visit enough. As I struggled for more understanding of where I was and what I was doing I wrote to Fr. Steve Kelly and he also gave me some good advice about the importance of prayer, I don’t remember if I ever thanked him.

I was preparing to become a catechumen in the Orthodox Church and all the while ignoring that I was doing it because I was running from the Catholic Church. My pastor at the Orthodox mission told me early on that if I weren’t running towards Christ in choosing to convert then it would be better for me to remain Catholic despite my issues. And that’s why I’m not an Orthodox Christian right now. I had to admit that my whole reason for leaving the church in the first place was because of my unwillingness to forgive it for lying and for the awful things it has done in Christ’s name. Faced with this I had no other choice but to start going back and to forgive this church for it’s sordid past and present. I’ve said this a lot and it keeps proving true that sooner or later everyone has to forgive their church, I’ve had to do it a number of times already and I’ll probably have to do it a lot more before I’m dead.

I’ve still got issues with Catholicism but they are mine and I know these things won’t change on my or anyone else’s account, all I can do is remember that I’m charged with the responsibility to forgive unconditionally and to try and do my small part to be a Christian in the midst of a heavily corrupted institution.

As I packed my bags I asked myself one question everyplace I left last year; “If I could only go home with one thing what would it be?” Last year when I was packing to leave this place I said to myself that it was the graciousness and total hospitality that I was shown by this community, this year it’s the stoic determination that Catherine hinted at when she advised me to just plow on through.

The last time I went to the Cathedral in Vancouver I was upset by signs that had been taped to the inner doors of the church. The signs told people absolutely not to sleep in the pews or on the floor inside. I wanted to take the signs down but as people started to exit I got scared of being caught and I left them up. When I go home I’m going to go back up to those doors and if they’re still there I’m going to take those signs down. And I hope to get caught doing it I want to remind the priests that the church is the mansion of the poor. That no matter how much wealth it accumulates, no matter how much they might want to close and lock their doors to the panhandlers on the steps outside, those are the people Christ came to meet, not the rich families who gather there for mass every Sunday.

So this brings me back here, to me sitting in the office trying to make something for the Agitator. I have to thank God for stoicism; I think that it might be an underrated grace. Perhaps it’s the only way to keep living this vocation, like Dennis Appel said in a talk he and Tenzie gave here, the spirit of God blows where She will and we’re all just holding on until She blows back in. Sometimes it can be easy to feel alone in this work but then there are these moments where for one reason or another I’m reminded that my struggle is just a small part of a very beautiful thing, something that is so very much larger than any one person, and I thank God as I write this that despite my occasional lonliness the view is still better from the cross.

LA in the summer

2007-07-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

Damn it's been a long while since I updated this blog.

I'm in Los Angeles right now watching the phones at the LA Catholic Worker. I'm an intern here until the 7th of August and I've been keeping really busy. Our average day at the kitchen starts at 7:00am with breakfast and coffee and waking up. Then we all pile into a big van and drive to the soup kitchen located in the heart of skid row. We open with a prayer and then we get to work making the salad, stirring giant pots of soup or chilli or stew, buttering and slicing bread and serving ice water to the people who have started to line up as early as 9:00am. Our community here has a daily vigil near the Federal Building and so someone will go to our usual spot with a sign to keep the protest going that person leads the reflection at the end of our day.

We are not a missionary organisation.

I can't stress this enough, often when I tell people about the work that we do here in LA or about the Catholic Worker movement in general it seems that people think that because we're Christian and serving food to peoplee that we have some mandate to lead people to God and to pray over them and prosteletize. That's not what we are about and that's not what this movement is about. If people are lead to God by our actions then it is the work of God intervening in their lives and is hopefully as a result of the consistency with which the people here live what they believe. We don't nor have we ever prayed over the people eating with us nor do we make the hungry listen to sermons, there are actual missions in the neighbourhood and that's their bag.

The Catholic Worker movement is and has always been firstly about recognizing Christ in other people and uppon seeing him there, serving that person as though they were Christ. This means we are all about practicing what has been called the works of mercy, these are:

feeding the hungry
giving drink to the thirsty
clothing the naked
sheltering the homeless
caring for the sick
visiting the imprisoned
burrying the dead

with the exception of the last one the LA Catholic Worker engages in all of these. At our soup kitchen we feed and give drink to the people of skid row, when we recieve donations of clothing or blankets they are given away to all who need them, there is a small clinic which provides medical care and a dentist who works for free providing care for people who could never otherwise afford dental work.

The house here was donated to the community back in the seventies and has somewhere in the neighbourhood of fifteen bedrooms many of which are occupied by long and medium term guests. The LA Catholic Worker doesn't operate on a shelter model, if someone asks to move in it's voted on by the community and if there's a room free and nobody objects then they are welcome to move in and stay as long as they like with no obligations put uppon them other than that they stay sober and don't drink or do drugs.

It gets hot here and sometimes the work is tiring but it's not without its rewards. The kitchen closes at noon and by two we are all home and free for the rest of the day. We eat dinner together every night with different people taking turns to cook. We eat what we serve at the kitchen and rest in the afternoons and evenings. Occasionally someone will come and give a talk or there will be some presentation like a documentary followed by discussion and we do other things together like community meetings to divide up the chores for the coming week and to plan protest actions and of course there's lots of time to relax.

No one in the community needs to work joe jobs to keep food coming in or money in the bank, all the food and money that we recieve from donors and organisations is held in common and there is always enough for everyone.

If you want to learn more about the Catholic Worker movement or the LA community you can go to
www.catholicworker.org
www.ctholicworker.com
and
www.lacatholicworker.org

That's pretty much what's been going on in my life. The other thing that's been taking yp my time has been The Christian Radical, maintaining our blog and putting the zine together it's kind of eaten up a lot of my blog energy. I'll try and write more here but for now don't expect a lot.

intensive studio week and making mix cd

2007-06-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

I'm making a mix CD for my friend Jeremy. Jeremy is recording me right now and I told him that I'd put together a mix CD of stuff that would give him an idea of what I'm thinking of artistically. It's a difficult thing to do actually, try and find songs by artists which typify the sort of sound and asthetic that you want on a CD. I wish I could just hand him a bunch of old tapes of things I've done myself but that's impractical for a number of reasons, mainly it wouldn't work because the stuff I'd give him is in storage and some of the tapes are lost. I'm curious though what Jeremy is going to do with what I do give him because it's really a departure from the sorts of music that he makes and records. It's been a long journey for both of us from the days when we were swapping punk CD's at all ages shows and getting high in North Van to now. He's become a keyboardist in a famous industrial band and I've gone on to make folk music in my bedroom. I'm really curious to see what comes of this collaboration, I think that if it works it will work very well. I have a lot of confidence in Jeremy and I'm happy to be working with him on a project finally but if it doesn't work then it's going to suck.

Fingers crossed for this working out. I'll be in the studio just about every day until I leave. If you're in North Vancouver and want to get together send me an e-mail and let's try and work around this.

making a mix tape

2007-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

That's right I'm making a mix tape. The sad casualty of digital technology making mix tapes used to be a real art form like knitting or recording an album finding those songs that are just right, inserting arty and interesting filler when you end up with thirty seconds of dead air at the end of a side creating a cool looking tape cover and listening to the whole thing afterwards and writing up the song list. I think it's been almost ten years since the last mix tape I made.

This one is for my mom on the occasion of her 60th birthday. I took a lot of raw audio of songs I'd either written or learned and I had been thinking of putting them all together in one place for some time this just seemed the most appealing way. So I've been working on it for hours and it's just about finished. I really like how it's come out and I learned something really awsome about my double tape deck. It doesn't exactly record over something... It records overtop of things, so I can layer tracks overtop of one another but after two tracks it starts to get muddy but this means that I can basically make primitive audio collage, and I did.

I'm sad that the mix tape has been phased out in favour of the ipod and mp3 technology. We think that this technology has made things easier, and maybe it has but it's also taken a lot of our freedom away. I'm talking about the freedom to record and shape sounds in analog. If you want to do what I did today with track layering you need to buy a lot of fancy audio software and get really technical and granted if you've got the time and the skill it could come out better than what I did but all I had to do was put on two tapes and record them playing together and with a little patience and good timing I've made some awsome sound collage.

The Killing of Sexy Wayne

2007-06-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

So someone asked me one time if I knew anything about the business of selling human hair

And so I says: Yes as a matter of fact my father was a hair salesman, and his father before him. I was raised in the noble trade of hair selling. But I opted instead for a life of wonderment as a Siamese twin in a circus side show. We travelled all through the south until one day I was so sad that I was beside myself. That’s when I knew that show business just wasn't for me.

The days of vaudeville were gone and nobody in America ever went into sparsely populated communities to show Russian films from the side of the train, show business was dead they all used to say. So I went into the patent medicine business

Ever heard of snake oil?

Well I never sold that, but I heard it was pretty lucrative. I sold rock oil... otherwise known as petroleum.

I didn't make up the name of course, that was done by some dunce who found some petroleum on these rocks someplace and figured the rocks were excreting the oil.

He was pretty sad to find out that the oil came from dinosaurs instead of rocks, especially because he didn't even know what a dinosaur was...

I first got into selling petroleum when I was running away from the circus and the patent medicine thing was really big at the time so I started mixing petroleum with opium and selling it as a nerve tonic.

It made people so calm that they died.

So I got out of selling petroleum and instead I began to buy large quantities of bananna peel.

What?

Aren’t you interested anymore?

Ok so anyway

I started to buy all these banana peels.

I got it into my head that the best way to make me a living was as a professional assassin and that the first thing I needed to do, as an assassin was to get a calling card. That way everyone would know who it was that killed the guy and I'd get famous like the Joker.

So I bought these banannapels and started placing them on the ground near places where I figured guys who needed to die would hang out, y'know places like lavatories and ice cream parlours and dinosaurs.

So yah I started putting these banana peels down everywhere and sure enough people started slipping on them and cracking their heads open and saying "ow my head".

That’s about when when Al Capone hired me to start running petroleum for him back in ought five. Yah Petroleum had taken off in a big way, but not as a nerve tonic. See it was the thirties now and people wanted a new way to keep their skin all shiny and reflective so they began using petroleum instead of tanning butter, which they had started putting on their toast.

Why they used tanning butter on their toast I'll never know.

I'm not an expert on bread.

So yah Al Capone, he hired me to run petroleum from Chicago to New Delhi. But I wasn't too good at that so he got me to do his taxes. But I wasn't too good at that either and so he went to jail…

...Alcatraz I think it was.

Yes.

So I went back into business as the bananna peel killer. But the bananas had gotten wise and didn't want to get killed no more so I started to think that maybe this whole human hair kick my pops was on wasn't such a bum idea after all...

And that's how I became president of the United States of America.

We ate our way across the prairies.

2007-06-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

Exerpted from a longer piece titled The Saskatchewan Play By Play

On our way to Regina we went through this town called Wroxville which had no paved streets and one sidewalk which somebody probably thought was a good idea back in 1960 but then in 1961 realised it wasn’t a good idea and decided to forget it ever happened… it’s always the sidewalks which suffer the most in situations like that.

We went through Wroxville because there’s a big old Orthodox church there that I had to take pictures of. The church was the tallest thing in the town the rest of the town consisted of a few houses and some trailers and a couple of long forgotten and boarded up storefronts. We wanted to go inside the church but some people in a vegetable garden next door said that it was only open on holidays and then one of them, a man about my mom's age, said he had never been inside of the church as long as he’d lived.

There was a falling apart old grain elevator near the train tracks, it sort of slouched and shared its commiserations with us over the death of the Wroxville parish district as we drove out of town.

I had a lot of fun on my family trip to Saskatchewan.