The Bests and Worsts of 2004

Happy drinking, brothers and sisters.
It's New Year's Eve, yet again. My 27th time experiencing one year turning into another.
Break out the Chinese firecrackers and bottles of booze. Bang your pots and pans.
Kiss the drunken lips of your lover.
Our time in 2004 is up. We've done all we can do.
It's time to stare at the intricate mess we've made of things - or bask in the inevitable disappointment of another year biting the big one.
We're five years removed from the consumer bait and switch hoax that The Liars were calling Y2K. We're half way through the first decade of the new millennium. The mid-nineties mark is ten years gone. Pop is king and the king of Pop has been de-throned.
Madonna got botox.
Prince is born again.
Dick Clark has been replaced by Regis Philbin.
If this doesn't spell the end of the world as we know it - I don't know what does.
For me - music usually spells things out perfectly.
If I have to tell someone something, I usually send them a mix tape and hope they catch the subliminal message in the songs I choose.
That's actually based on a line a friend of mine, Emily Carr - a fantastic songwriter and performer - wrote in one of her songs, but it's also something I've lived by for years now.
So props to her. And props to me.
Here are my favorite and least favorite albums of 2004:

DISAPPOINTMENTS:
K.D. Lang - Hyms from the 49th Parallel
Bjork - Medulla
Lisa Loeb - The Way it Really Is
The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free
Matthew Sweet - Living Things
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two

ALBUMS I REALLY ENJOYED
Mary Lou Lord - Baby Blue
Loveless - Gift to the World
Mirah - C'mon Miracle
Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Feist - Let it Die
Beastie Boys - To the 5 Burroughs
Ember Swift - Disarming
Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova - One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two
Jem - Finally Woken
Snow Patrol - Final Straw
Secret Machines - Now Here is Nowhere
Magnetic Fields - s/t
The Donnas - Gold Medal
Marilyn Manson - Lest We Forget (the best of...)
Gwen Stefani - Love Angel Music Baby

ALBUMS ON THE CUSP OF "MY FAVORITE"
Air - Talkie Walkie
Grandaddy - Below the Radio
Le Tigre - This Island
Scissor Sisters - s/t

MY TOP ELEVEN of 2004 (because it's just too hard to pick ten)
11. Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
10. Juliana Hatfield - In Exile Deo
09. Neil Young - Greatest Hits
08. Patti Smith - Trampin'
07. Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy
06. Hayden - Elk Lake Serenade
05. Tanya Donelly - Whiskey Tango Ghosts
04. PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
03. Emily Carr - Nov. 11 2004 Recording
02. Courtney Love - America's Sweetheart
01. Stars - Set Yourself On Fire

There you have it. I'd like to thank the Canadian band STARS for bringing some magic back to music for me this year. They saved it this time around. The Set Yourself on Fire album is hands-down, the best thing to happen to music in a long time.
If you have not heard of the band - do yourself a favour and just buy it. It's that good. If you are leary of buying CDs, download "Your Ex Lover Is Dead", "Calendar Girl" or "One More Night".
If you like those three songs - which you will - bite the bullet, fork over the $14.99 to support a Canadian band and buy the best record of 2004. It's worth it.
That's all I have to say for today folks.
Keep your eyes on the skies for strange lights. Get on your knees and pray for the end of the world to be bumped to next year.
Make any new year resolutions you want, but prepare yourself for the inevitable disappointment that's only 365 days away, when you realize you've broken all of them.
Happy New Year.

Hearts and farts,

dan

Happy New Year's Eve-Eve, brothers and sisters.
A few of my friends and I have been doing these little online quiz things for years now - sending each other (in a group email) a bunch of random questions about ourselves and each other - and each person answers and sends back to the entire group. Questions like - "Who is most likely to star in a vampire movie, and why?" or "Who would you have been friends with in highschool...Who would have been the school geek..." etc...
Anyway - a recent question - "Who would be most likely to start or join a cult" seemed to evoke a common response from all 12 people who were asked the question:
"DAN." "dan". "Danny". "Daniel". "Without a doubt - Dan". "This could ONLY be Dan". "I'd have to say Dan".
The most insulting: "I don't think ANY of us would join a cult - but if one did - it would for sure be Dan."
I was in shock, speechless.
What did this mean? Did it mean I was the most gullible, easily won over by evil, scamming, brainwashing cult leaders? Or did it mean I had the traits of an evil, scamming brainwashing cult leader? What kind of person joins a cult..?
Worse yet - what kind of person is "Most likely" to join a cult?
So I've been thinking about cults.
Of course - cults of the satanic nature immediately come to mind.
Although I do think the "black hooded robe" thing is a hot look, I think Satanism is a fucking joke. It's no different than any other religion and anyone who buys into belonging to some stupid club of Goth-rejects who worship a scary monster with pointy red horns needs to be beaten with a burlap sack of Marilyn Manson CDs.
The whole "look at me, I'm Trent Reznor" thing is boring.
I know a Goth kid who got his black goth-skirt at fucking Smart Set, for crying out loud.
Anyway - the second cult I thought of is the disgusting Windsor Christian Fellowship.
I might as well say RIGHT NOW - this is all my opinion, in case any of those dorks try to sue me for defamation. I'm not ACCUSING them of being a cult - but in my own opinion - any organized group with such strict guidelines and repressive rules - and elitist attitude - is a cult, and this one scares the begeezus out of me.
It freaks me out because they come off as so normal. So nice.
I did an interview with one of the head pastors about a year and a half ago for a story I was writing - and I have to admit, he was a charming, intelligent, friendly guy.
He made me feel like I knew him for YEARS - he was not some preacher with a red face and perma-boner, screaming about the fires of hell and damnation like I had imagined.
Keep in mind - the interview was about speaking in "tongues".
For all you heathens out there - speaking in tongues is this ...ritual, I guess...That hardcore Christians and nutcases alike partake in. They believe it is the holy language of the angels - that it is our soul speaking directly to god and only their god can understand it.
It just sounds like yammering gibberish...Like baby talk..
"Gablaga Napeeeoscrampino fallamentio Braamantiaskmana kaaboola".
Seriously. They actually do this. Grown men and women - and children - all do this at this church.
They also hold (in my opinion) very sexist, homophobic and ass-backwards views which they base in hardcore, oldschool biblical teachings or bible study.
They also ask that each member of the church give a percentage of their pay cheque directly to the church - skimmed right off the top of their pay - and into the account of the church.
A friend of mine recently got sucked into this place after meeting a man who is heavily involved. She is now engaged to him, refuses to speak to ANY of her old friends, and will be moving away so her friends (us) will not "influence" her the wrong way.
"Influence her the wrong way" is actually translation for - "talk some fucking SENSE into her head".
The cult suggests that if someone has a lot of friends who are NOT in the church - that they ex-communicate them - and if necessary - leave town, which is what she is going to be doing.
We lost her, and that's SO unbelievably sad.
They do not celebrate Halloween, they believe Santa is Satan and the children are not allowed to listen to any music that does not correspond with biblical teachings.
They also believe in corporal punishment - "spare the rod, spoil the child".
A friend of mine who WAS involved in this church as a child witnessed her brothers LITERALLY getting the tar beaten out of them by a certain pastor at the church.
Now - one smack on the hand if a child is reaching for an electrical outlet is one thing.
But the beatings she described sounded brutal, and anyone who still believes that you can teach a child by hurting them needs to pick on someone their own size for a MIGHTY wake up call.
AGAIN - let me make it CLEAR - I am not accusing this church of abusing children. I have no proof except for the stories former members have told me.
They can't drink alcohol either.
That's just sick and wrong. Twisted.
But from the interview alone, I kind of caught a drift of MUCH sexism and homophobia - and of course - the pastor came at me with a surprisingly effective plug to join the club.
Seriously - he looked me dead in the eye and said "Dan..I can tell you are someone who has been searching for where to fit in all your life...it's no coincidence that you stumbled upon us."
And it was like he REALLY REALLY meant it - for real.
And me, being the romantic fuck that I am who still believes in fate and writing in the stars - nodded in agreement with him.
Then, when he asked me to say a prayer with him, while he placed his hand on my forehead - I snapped out of it. Literally.
I was thinking "What the FUCK are you doing?!?!? How the hell are YOU falling for this bullshit?!?"
I politely said no to the prayer - and told him it was unprofessional for him to ask that of me during an interview - and it would be even more unprofessional and unethical for me to do something like that while working.
He said he respected that - and gave me a pamphlet with his phone number telling me to call him when I was ready.
I threw the pamphlet in the garbage, but took a big dump in their toilet (which are BEAUTIFUL, I might add) before I left the place.
Expelling some evil demons, indeed.
Anyway, that was my brush with a cult.
But - my IDEAL cult - would be something like the Cockettes. They were that dramatic dance/acting troupe from San Francisco back in the 60's who did LSD, grew their hair long, prided themselves on gender-chaos and starred in burlesque style shows around local art houses.
They rocked. The leader Hibiscus was this crazy hippy acid freak - everyone was gay, straight, bi, transgendered, girls, boys - and none of the above.
They all lived together, preached happiness and made up little shows that were (from what I have read about) a cross between John Waters films and Moulin Rouge.
Now THAT'S a club I'd join in a heart beat.
I also like the look of the band the Polyphonic Spree...Even though they are just a band and not a cult.
But - having twenty-something people travel around, long hair and robes (such an effective "Joseph and the Amazing Techni-Colour Dreamcoat" cult look) and play music about nothing more than BEING HAPPY - now THAT'S a cult I'd join.
But it couldn't be restrictive. And it would have to be totally positive.
Given the right circumstances, and the right guidelines and ideals...I guess I COULD see myself joining a certain kind of cult. One that was productive on a creative level, that kept people using both sides of their brain, one that kept minds open and positive energies flowing...hell yeah.
And for cheese factor - I'd kinda want it to be on where I'd have to grow my hair long.
And wear robes. Like the Polyphonic Spree.
God, I'm obsessed.
Anyway, that's all for today.
Album review: One of my favorite albums this year is one I just picked up a few days ago.
It's called "BELOW THE RADIO" and it's one of those artist's choice mix CD compilations from Jason Lytle, the frontman for one of my favorite bands Grandaddy.
Bands on the album include Beck, Beulah, Snow Patrol, Earlimart, Fruit Bars, Little Wings, Blonde Redhead, Giant Sand, Goldenboy and of course - a new song by Grandaddy called Nature Anthem.
It's a beautiful collection of songs, happy, sad and uplifting, all at the same time. Many have pegged the new Grandaddy song as "sappy" - but I find the lyrics to be so positive and nice.
It's a repetative song - one line of lyrics:
"I wanna walk up the side of the mountain/I wanna walk down the other side of the mountain/I wanna swim in the rivers and lie in the sun/I wanna try to be nice to everyone".
Maybe that's what it's REALLY all about? Or maybe I'm just buying into the cult of Grandaddy.
You decide.

Hearts and farts,

dan

The Dilemma of the Year

Good evening brothers and sistas.
Of course by "evening" I mean "morning".
Last night, after coming home from eight and a half excruciating hours of kissing the big fat ass of the public and hoping for a two dollar tip, I had a small panic attack.
I was in the middle of my second after-work-vodka martini (I'm dramatic like that sometimes) when it hit me like a blast of confetti in the face:
What the FUCK was I going to drink on New Year's eve?
I threw my martini at "Life Partner" who was busy playing with black stereotypes of crime and violence with the new Grand Theft Auto game and darted over to our alcohol supply.
I noticed I had an entire (but smaller) bottle of Canadian Club Whiskey, aged 12 years.
"Now that's classy," I thought to myself, and stroked my ego with a mental high-five.
But then I had visions of me wasting 12-year old rye on something as demeaning as a "rye and diet coke" or worse yet: a rye and President's Choice Cola.
It was a gift from my dad, so I promised myself I'd drink it in peace, alone - with some nice music on - on the rocks, the way a good alcoholic should drink any boozey gift from a father.
We also have a bottle of chocolate liqueur, 3 quarters full, which my friend Julie gave to me after she raided her grandmother's forgotten liquor cabinet.
This stuff packs a wallop straight out of moonshine territory but it tastes like Hershey chocolate syrup, mixed with cat ejaculate.
A six pack of Guinness (which I also think tastes like cat ejaculate and I don't care if beer snobs crucify me for saying that - I'd rather drink a glass of Buckley's than fucking nasty Guinness) and 12 Corona.
Beer is social, but beer also has a lot of baggage and potential to ruin a night when everyone is supposed to have a good, clean, strong buzz.
Some nights I can drink beer until the cows come home (even though I don't own any cows and probably never will - but for the record, if I did - you can rest assured they would be locked in my backyard, on my patio and there would never be a chance in hell that I would have to do ANYTHING until they came home, because they would ALWAYS be home) and carry a powerful buzz. Beer can make me feel like Superman, like everything I say is hilarious and witty, like I can shit butterflies and have a genius comeback for everything anyone says.
Or - it can make me feel like my stomach has been pumped full of helium and I'm about to projectile burp-vomit if I so much as laugh too hard.
Nevermind the messy array of half-drank bottles, the warm, left-over bottoms (which, after in depth study by beer-scientists, is mainly made up of human saliva) and there's always that one guest who comes over with nothing to drink and asks if he can have "a couple beers".
Then you're stuck with only HALF your drinking supply.
Malibu and pineapple juice is too trendy, and none of us wear tube tops, so that's out of the question.
White wine makes me vomit and red wine turns me into a quiet, introspective drunk who slurs about days gone by and ends up passing out upstairs on a trip to the bathroom after everyone is all but disgusted with the horrifically sad reflections I've made.
I was fucking clueless as to what to do - until I saw the bottle of vermouth and an unopened jar of olives. I eyed the vodka bottle. The wheels started turning.
My head turned slyly towards Life Partner, who sat on the couch - the purple christmas-bong (a gift from a dear friend) sitting like a smoking gun at his feet.
Next to the bong, sat my martini - cradled in one of the martini glasses my sister bought me for Christmas, like an image of perfection.
It was all coming together.
Triple olive, dirty martinis it will be.
The perfect drink for New Year's Eve. I remember barfing up six martinis I drank in under 15 minutes on New Year's Eve, 2001-2002. I ended off the night by wiping my mouth with Life Partner's new Christmas scarf, and farting in his face while I puked out the passenger door.
One of "those" incidents.
But this year will be different.
I'll practice my "Martini-conversation" hold on the glass and how I'll swagger around, with the martini glass as an accessory to show how classy and cultured I am for drinking such a sophisticated drink.
I'll pause, the martini glass inches from my lips and raise my eyebrow quizzically at some funny nugget of information a fellow New Year's partier will pass along to me on that magical night.
When I say "I'm gonna go grab a drink" - the whole house will hear me suavely shaking my silver martini shaker and I'll feel like one of those pretentious fucking snobby bitches who bartends at Dean Martini's.
One of my many girlfriends (who I called with the idea of drinking Martinis - or as I call them "Mar-Toonies" because I don't think I make them the right way) thought it was a fantastic idea as well, when I called her to ask what she thought of drinking Mar-toonies all night.
So, that settled, I hung up the phone, shaked myself up another after work martini and thought about how stressed out I got over what I was going to drink, when meanwhile, the answer was sitting in my hand the entire time.
Kind of a metaphor for life...the way we sometimes see...ah fuck it. whatever. you know what i mean.
I gotta go to work.
If anyone has a better idea of what to drink - email me. DeadShark77@hotmail.com
Also - I'm listening to the new Sigur Ros album "VON" right now.
It's actually the icelandic band's FIRST full lenght album - FINALLY getting a North American release. VERY disappointing. I am not a huge Sigur Ros fan, but I really enjoyed their untitled "( )" album. This one...at times it sounds like a "sounds of horror" halloween mix cassette - you know - the kind you find at Shoppers Drugmart (or Big V) for $3.99?
I don't know...it has it's interesting moment near the end of the album, but I think the most excited I got was when I realized the album was done and I could take it out.
OUCH.
Anyway, Happy pre-new year everyone,
the days are ticking by....

hearts and farts,

dan

BLOG ME! BLOG ME! HARDER! FASTER! MORE! MORE! BLOG ME! YES! YES!

Merry Christmas, brothers and sisters.
Jesus' birthday has come and gone, washing over us in a tsunami of 50% off bargains and two-for-one deals, so fucking gigantic it would make the puny little wave pool over in Thailand rigid with jealousy.
So we're on the cusp of a new year, teetering on indecision of what to do with our lives, where to put the christmas juicer we just scored, whether or not we should buy MORE shit we don't need just because someone told us there are "killer sales" right now or whether or not we should start looking for a new job.
I've been debating starting up a small magazine. Or at least releasing a little zine - without any advertising in it. Just for the fuck of it.
I've also gone as far as jot ideas down on the computer about this little compilation of short stories I've been working on for a long time. Stories about farting, shitting and expelling other unpleasant bodily fluids in public places - but even moreso - the way even READING about these things STILL makes people uncomfortable. So it boils down to - me not knowing what the stories are really about. Aside from farting and shitting of course.
Here's a few titles of some of the stories I already have skeletons for:
- Pelee Island Bathroom Massacre, 2003
- Track and Field Trip, Grade 8
- The Mailman Golf Course Incident (this one's about my daddy, a mailman. They get diarrhea too you know!)
- Thai-Loving House Guests
- Pool Party at Karen's
- K.F.C., Kitchener
- My Own Private Vomitorium
- VIA Rail, London
- "Here Guys, Have Some Farts"
- The Gourmand
- Toilet Overflow at Work
- Castor Oil Eruption
- Chocolate Ex-Lax and Vanilla Bowel Buddies
- Valley Girl Waitress Pinches a Loaf and Tries to Hide It
- The Frizbee Shit

What do you think? Would you read a compilation like that? God knows I would. Well, I'd at least write one like that. And I'd for sure pick it up. I guess it's all part of that post-xmas/pre-new year indecision. What to do...what to do...
I've been hearing about this BLOG business for some time now. I've been flipping through supposed "Blogs" online, seeing that they are little (if less than) more than an online diary.
I kept a diary for 5 years throughout highschool, but I lied in it - so it's not really a true account of the shit that went down. I'm not even sure WHO I was lying to, seeing as I was the only person who ever read it. Funny how time makes things clearer. or foggier. or bloggier.
God, I'm a liar.
But I always liked the idea of an online diary...or "blog" - whatever the fuck that means. A chance to keep a record of my thoughts, plans, ideas, farts, shits - and let the entire world - or anyone who's bored out of their skull - read it as well.
It's masturbatory, it's the "in thing", it's innovative, it keeps me honest (until i start lying) and it gives me a chance to yap my trap without ruining my vocal chords.
I have no idea what "Blog" means...I don't even care to. Thirteen year old girls have Blogs about the hot boys they bang or the date rape drugs they take. Thirty-eight year old cougar soccer moms have Blogs about the eighteen year old boys they fuck in the back of their station wagons amidst their kid's school books and little league uniforms.
I guess "blog" is just a bunch of SUMS - all summed up into one big...Bloggy mess of a thing.
A big summary of lies or half truths - shit we want people to know about us - or shit we don't want people to know about us that leaks through between the lines of our bloggy blogs.
So - expect sad posts and happy posts, sober posts and drunk posts, musical numbers and boring narratives, poetic sonnets and brick walls of text - walls of words, mountains of thought - useless or inventive - that's up to you.
Thanks for reading this far - and since I still have your attention - I might as well plug a record I've been listening to (for the first time this morning).
It's by a band called LUNA and it's called Rendevous. You can look it up on www.jetsetrecords.com
If you like bands like the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Snow Patrol, Grandaddy - they are kinda like that. VERY Lou Reed-ish... i give the album (on my first listen) a 7/10...it could really grow on me.
Again - thanks for reading...and my posts will get better. I'm still basking in the after glow of post-xmas/pre-new year crapola.
Hearts and farts,

dan macdonald