Nature's Blue Fury

So the waves have hit, crested and are slowly beginning to recede.
New Orleans has sunk.
Water, wind and rain turned people into "bodies", turned streets into snake and crocodile infested swamps of sewage, and put a damper on southern decadence as we know it.
I always wanted to see New Orleans - mainly the French Quarter - but - the way things are now - I don't think it will ever be as charming or innocent as I once dreamed.
There's so much talk about all the "looting".
What the hell else are they supposed to do when there is no food, water, electricity - or order - in any of the drenched and filth-ridden chaos that has become their new home?
A man who was looting a grocery store (for bread and milk and bottled water for his family - what a horrific criminal!!) was asked why he was taking food if it was not his store.
His reply: "This is everyone's store now."
Chaos. I mean - I don't blame him. If the streets of Windsor suddenly flooded over with raw sewage, oil, decay, mold and filth - and I was dying of thirst and my cat or my family or loved ones were thirsty and starving to death - and I passed the market - of COURSE I would help myself as well.
While criminal behaviour (I've also heard stories of power-tripping, gunshots being fired, people being mugged and women being RAPED) is absolutely disgusting and apalling and just fucking more unbelievable than the fact that New Orleans is in ruins and the people are still stranded without any food, medicine or help - I think the fact that martial law has been declared there, is probably grounds for "help yourself". Because not everyone is getting the help they need at the moment. No one's fault. It's just chaos. But with chaos - comes a new set of rules.
Face it:
They are so fucked.
It's sad to say that - but they are.
People are not going to recover from this.
Of course - some will.
Some will be rebuilt.
But some - who had not a whole hell of a lot to begin with:
Fucked.
They can't rebuild that much.
Mold gets in, starts to grow.
I don't know how they are going to recover.
New Orleans is going to become like a post-riot Detroit.
My mother remembers a day when she was a little girl - and my grandmother would take her and my aunt across the border to go "downtown shopping" in Detroit.
Stores were everywhere, restaurants.
While Detroit is once again beginning to give off that vibe - it was only a few years ago that you had to be VERY careful going downtown Detroit, because it was a desolate, worn out, shell of a city that was known only for its high rate of poverty and of course - the inevitable criminal activity that goes hand-in-hand with it.
It is only NOW starting to fully recover from the dump and trashed poverty ridden state it was left in since the sixties riots.
How long is New Orleans going to be out of commission?
I've heard talks that some people are saying it could be beyond help. A write-off.
Gone.
Just a semi-submerged city which will eventually sink.
It makes me wonder though.
About suffering. And about internal suffering, within your own country.
How much is the government responsible for?
Not to get all anti-war - but how much was spent so far on this war (which seems to have one common goal: Make a select few RICH while U.S. and Iraq citizens die for no reason except financial gain) - but how much was spent on that - when meanwhile - we have cities here that are in ruins? Detroit is only NOW recoving?
Probably because the fucking Superbowl is going to be there come 2006.
But - other than that - fuck it, right? It's only poor people.
It's only one of the highest crime rates in North America - BECAUSE of this poverty problem that is being ignored.
"It doesn't need any help. Not until the tourists come. For now lets concentrate on getting more oil."
It just makes me sick.
But fuck.
What do I know?
I hardly follow politics anyway.
In all honesty - maybe I am brainwashed by left-wing propaganda too, and Bush really is a GREAT guy (with some fucked up views on a few social issues) who is trying to save us from the "evil doers".
But I doubt it.
It's just scary.
Seeing all these people on t.v., hanging onto their roofs or wading through disease-ridden water, waiting for help that is too slow in the coming.
So much money is needed - and so much is being spent to fight a stupid, childish war.
What are they fighting for anymore anyway??
Seriously? Why are they still over there? Is this a joke?
No! We just made it into one!
It's almost just a passing trend to say "the war sucks".
The truth is - it is going on NOW! Under our noses!!!
There could still be a fucking draft for all I know.
Who knows what's in the works? Are we just headed towards third-world mentality, where the rich white man is king - and we live in a constant state of war with the rest of the world?
Each other?
It almost seems not real.
Just like the hurricane seems unreal.
I can turn it off anytime I want and look out my window and see a nice cool late-August sky, on the cusp of Autumn.
Meanwhile - it's Noah's Arc in the South.
Go fucking figure, eh?
Of all places for Mother Nature to get all "biblical".

Ah well.
Shameless self-promotion - Visit www.girliesogroovie.com if you haven't yet!

hearts and farts,
dan

GirlieSoGroovie.com

Ladies and gents and brothers and sister...
I am SOOOOO happy to announce the launch of my website!!!!
Life Partner designed it and did the layout - I did all the writing (and picked the colours!)!!!
It's simply www.girliesogroovie.com
Visit! bookmark! re-visit!!
It's finally up and running. The calendar is still coming soon - but other than that..my work with XX Magazine is in there, 120 Reviews I personally wrote especially for the site, playlists from the show, a little journal kinda thing - backlogue of all the songs I play, news, about, upcoming events, local music - it's all there.
I'm soo proud of it.
Life Partner (wayne - i have to use his real name because he needs all the recognition here) did like...a mind-blowing job. mind boggling.
there it goes again: My mind - Boggling! I can't help it!
His layout is just like...more than I ever could have dreamed it could be. not that i doubted him. i just NEVER pictured my show having such a GORGEOUS website.
if i had hired someone - and paid them big bucks - I'd think it was worth it.
the fact that this is all the work of my nearest and dearest - i'm blown away.
it makes me love the website even more.
THANK YOU ! I LOVE YOU!!!!
:)
All self-gushing aside - check out the website and let me know what you think - constructive critisism is welcome.
someone did express a problem with the slogan "Reverse Sexism Never Sounded So Good."
And - someone (windsor feminist theatre) said they loved it.
Reverse-Sexism is a bad slogan, for the most part. I agree completely.
but - in context with my website - It is supposed to be paradoxal.
Taken in context.
Reverse Sexism as a slogan - is bad.
i'm taking the idea of "Sexism" as simply favoring one sex over another.
I just thought it was a tongue-in-cheek way of acknowleging the fact that I ONLY play female musicians - and then make fun of that very fact.
In truth - music is music. i just happen to like the way women sound more than men.
i always have. it's been well documented since I was a wee youngling.
(see - Bangles and Jem and the Holograms posts).
it certainly doesn't make "reverse sexism" any kind of reality.
hence -the semi-paradox.
it's all in fun, given the context i tried to present the website as a whole.
In fact - I don't think it would be TOO out of the question to say my website and the show is feminist slanted.
i've always been PROUD to be a feminist.
however - i never chose to motor down that politically charged road on my show - props to those who do - but i only started this radio show (and the website) for pure, playful - sometimes tongue-in-cheek fun.
it's never supposed to offend anyone. BUT - if it is truely an offensive website - OF COURSE i will take it down.
but - i just want a chance to say - "It's paradoxal. It's tongue in cheek."
I think it's playful, stupid humour that pokes fun at sexist ideologies, rather than practice them.
It's all about the music anyway.
Tell me what you think of the website! i hope you all like it.
www.girliesogroovie.com
hearts and farts,
dan

I Made an "Ouchie"

So yeah...I'm bending over the toilet bowl around 7:45 a.m. this morning, vomitting my heart out because I haven't gotten drunk like that since....gee....I don't know...highschool maybe?
So just as I'm wretching up all that can be wretched up - it hits me:
"JESUS!! YOUWROTEABLOGLASTNIGHT!"
I instantly stopped heaving and ran to the computer - hand to mouth - and realized with horror that someone had already read my drunken slurrings.
"Happy birthday to anyone who reads this."
Kill me. Now.
Then I was like "Ahhhhh fuck it."
I guess that's the point of a blog, right? And if I recall correctly - when I first started this whole "blog" thing - I I promised "Drunken posts" and "sober posts".
so yeah. that was a drunken post.
a little added bonus - after I puked my guts out this morning - I realized (to my delight) that someone ordered a pizza last night, after I passed out. It was great.
Nothing like cold pizza to welcome a sore belly.
I hesitate to say it - but ...well...it sorta felt like a warm hug.
At any rate- it's 7:56 and I think I am going back to bed. No use in deleteting my post (which I totally planned to do) if someone already read it.
Oi, Yoi, Yoi.
My stomach is doing the splitz again.
Dan.
ps - i threw up something that looks like baked beans.
i didn't eat baked beans yesterday.
(insert sobbing sounds here)

like..."oh my fuckin gawd.": a blogd

too drunk to understand anything.
vanessa and mike..thanks for the shot. totally serious about the two of u drinking w/ us. and gettin stoned with us.
totally.
my head spins.
i feel embarassed for previous drunken escapades.
i hate janet jackson.
i admit it, in my drunkeness:
I hate her.
"hate her".
wayne just screamed to me:
"don' t write a blog," he yelled. "just come down here!!"
i heart my life partner.
i heart my life.
i am rich.
i am the richest guy in the world.
i just heard LIfe Partner say to his friends:
"oy b oy. help me. i want wa-wah...help me. oh help me."
ou r friend looks like liz phair.
i'm too drunk for this.
blah.
blah.
blah.
happpy birthday to anyone who read this.
i love my cat.
i hear Life Partner calling to her.
god.
i am drunk.
goodnight.
dan.
ps - if this is too embarassing -= erase al of it. if not. remember us for it. too drunk.
"too drunk," i say.
too drunk.
night.
danny.

like: "Oh my fuckin; gawwd"...a blog.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIELLE AND KERRI!!!! - This Calls for the Loop!

Today is the birthday of two great friends - Danielle and Kerri.
Last night Life Partner and I went over to Kerri's and hung out, drank beer and got a little stoned with everyone. It was great fun.
I've known Kerri in various serendipidous ways for the last....seven or eight years.
The first time we met - I was a mere 20 year old youngling working the midnight shifts at Jumbo Video.
One night - along comes this young lady looking for a film called BaraKa, on video cassette I might add.
This is before the silver-lined, futuristic era of DVD.
The film itself is this beautifully filmed "documentary" which collages random images of nature from around the globe - and then juxtaposes the amazingly awesome images with the destruction of nature, and the huge ugly thumb print that WE have put on it, via industry, urban poverty, blasting, strip mining, mass graves and war.
The only thing I really remember about her from that one instance was her saying: "It's a movie that every single human being should see."
Immediately after she left the store that day with her copy - I ordered another one in (hey - if Every human being should see it - I figured it was an important film to have in stock!) and when it arrived, I immediatly tore off the cellophane wrap and popped it in at the store - and was, of course - dumbfounded by how simple and beautiful a film it is.
I always thought "Hmmmm...that girl seemed pretty cool, whoever she was."
Cut to about three years later.
I get a job at a place called Campus Worklink (which ran out of Toronto) and had to meet up with a Windsor contact - someone who did Campus Worklink before and could give me a heads up about what the job was all about.
We made arrangements via email and decided to meet at a Tim Hortons right near Jumbo Video (now closed down).
I walk in - and who is it - but the girl who bought Baraka!
She remembered me and I remembered her and we ended up talking about music, movies and even Baraka, more than we talked about Campus Worklink.
Then we parted ways.
And then that was it for another few years.
So - Life Partner (about two years ago) is working on organizing a HUGE event for his work - and he has to work with another girl who works out of the university (god, could I say "work" anymore in that sentence?) so he would be chatting about her now and then, "Kerri this and Kerri that" and I never made the connection (of course not - why would I?) so I was like "oh yeah - she sounds nice"....
So one day he has to invite her over so they can work on some details for the event.
So I'm upstairs - I hear Life Partner letting her in downstairs, and I kind of get up figuring I should at least say hello before leaving them alone to work so I don't seem like a snob.
I go downstairs - and who is it? The girl who bought Baraka!!!!!!
My face immediately lit up. It was sooo cool to see her again because we always got along SOO well. It was just so weird.
Even weirder:
It turns out - she was buying a house just two streets over from us.
So that was it. History.
The three of us have been buddies ever since - usually hanging out a few times a week and she is one of our closest friends now.
For her birthday - we decided to get her the DVD of - what else? Baraka.
We thought it was kinda fitting.
Happy Birthday Kerri!!!!!
I always believe that people keep popping into your life for a reason -maybe that's supid and superstitious of me - but who cares? I believe it.

And now - Danielle....
Tonight - Life Partner and I and a group of twenty-somethings (older twenty somethings) are going to be cougaring it up and heading out to the Loop on a Saturday.
I have not been to the Loop on a Saturday for about seven or eight months - and the last time I went it was VERY overrun with university types.
So tonight - I'm gonna TOTALLY do it up and be a cougar and just get wasted and dance and do god knows what. I'm totally psyched.
I met Danielle through Life Partner as well.
She worked in his office and I always heard him talking about "this funny girl who says anything" in his office.
Of course, easily intimidated fool that I am, I was a little leary of meeting her, afraid she might be mean or something.
So one day - I was going to class at the college (where LIfe Partner works) and I was my usualy half hour late for class. It was a beautiful, gorgeous day.
When I got to my class I noticed a note taped to the door.
"WE are having class outside today by the pond. Meet us there."
I sighed (now I would be even MORE late) and started walking back out to where I had just come from to find my class.
On my way there outside and I see a good friend Julie (who also works at the college) sitting in the courtyard with some other girl. I stopped to chat and she introduced me to Danielle.
"ah..so this is the famous Danielle," I thought to myself.
"Where are you headed?" Julie asked.
"Class," I responded. "We're having class outside today."
"Huh?" blurted in Danielle, almost sounding shocked. "You're having class outside? What? Are you in fucking KINDERGARTEN or something???"
Although I didn't know her - something about her made her extremely easy to talk to and laugh with. If anyone else said that - I probably would have answered "Um..no. I'm not." But something about the way Danielle said it was just soo... "Danielle" - that all I can do is laugh at how fitting a first encounter that was.
Since then - Danielle has been a staple for us.
Be it her great taste in music, the fact that she is always quoting cool writers and reading intriguing books - and ALWAYS saying EXACTLY what is on her mind - even if it is the most inapprorpriate thought EVER - make her a true character that I would NEVEr change a single thing about.
She is also my icon of physical health and will-power.
The fact that she can put the drinks down and go home early so she can get UP early to (gasp) go to the gym - boggles my mind.
LIterally.
My mind BOGGLES.
I can barely get up to take a shower sometimes. And that's at 10 a.m.!
By the way - all these trips to the gym have transformed Danielle into a totaly NEW person since our first encounter.
It's a fact: We have a hottie for a friend, who damn well WORKED her ASS for it - which makes it all the better.
So Happy B-Day to you Danielle! I look forward to getting wasted toonight and dancing to some Disco 2000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hearts and farts,
dan

R.I.P. Six Feet Under

Just wanted to give a little "shout out" to Six Feet Under for rocking my world the last five years.
Well...the last three years. I only got into it after the second season.
And a big thanks to Karmen and James for coming over "religiously" every single Monday for our "showing" of this brilliantly entertaining show.
I have never been this addicted or touched by ANY television show, (short of Jem and the Holograms when I was ten, of course).
I swear - not only did (do) I believe the characters are totally real - it seriously made me question things about my own life (and inevitable death) and the ways I want to spend the short time we all have on this planet.
The cast was probably the most perfect and talented group of actors to EVER work under one roof. They had their characters down to perfection - almost to the point where it could be damaging to their careers because for real - they ARE the characters.
I could never see them as anyone else now. But wow - these are people MADE for theatre.
It's just awe-inspiring.
But - if anyone is not familiar with the series - I cannot stress ENOUGH - GO RENT SEASON ONE.
I don't watch T.V. either. Sure I'll channel surf and if there is some trashy reality show, I might give it a watch - or if there is some cool E! True Hollywood Story - I'm glued...but other than that - T.V. holds no commitments for me.
Never saw an episode of Seinfeld, barely watched Friends, saw maybe four episodes of the Simpsons in my entire life, maybe a total of three episodes of Survivor (drunk off my ass while my friends SHHHHHHHed me the entire time) and the odd episode of DIY Births.
So for me to be glued to the television set every monday night without QUESTION (I've cut my radio show short before so I could make it home) - shocks even myself that I would get that sucked in.
I think also - this show is such a "discussion" show...but more than that. When I go online to look at Six Feet Under message boards (Okay, I admit it - I'm a geek) - I notice there are clusters of other people just like us: Friends who have friends over and have Six Feet Under parties.
It's just....such a cult following - but HUGE.
Twin Peaks all over again.
*sigh* Twin Peaks...that's a whole other blog.
Anyway, just had to give my "Shout out" to the departed Six Feet Under.
I'm going to miss it SO much - I haven't even let myself THINK about next monday, because it's going to feel so weird with no Six Feet Under.
*tear*

"Just In Case!"

I was thinking of the weird quirks that people have.
Weird, paranoid quirks people have - fears - what ever - that sometimes force us to do childish or irrational things.
Almost compulsively.
Not necessarily harmful things - just...strange decisions we make - based on a "just in case" scenario.
On September 11th, 2001 - not to bring in all that depressing shit - but - I was sitting with a few of my class mates (I was a college boy at the time) in Griffs (the College pub) getting wasted and watching the explosions over and over on the big screen.
My friend Jeff was going through his bag, looking for his wallet.
He pulled out average everday things.
A few books, a paperback, a harmonica, the odd cluster of pencils.
And a butcher knife.
"Jesus!! What the fuck is the butcher knife for?" I asked, shocked, recoiling from it.
He immediately blushed.
"Oh yeah. That." He began, and a sly, embarassed smile spread across his face. "Well...I left this morning just after watching the planes crash - and they announced that there were also attacks on the Pentagon. So I kinda got freaked out that chaos might be happening in town today. So....I kinda just threw the butcher knife in my back pack. Just in case."
"Just in case of WHAT?" I asked. "In case you had to butcher someone on the spot?"
We all thought it was hysterical. I'm still not sure what scenarios he had playing out in his head that might prompt him to think a butcher knife would be somewhat of a necessity on a day like this - but hey - it made him feel safe that day. So be it.
So I started noticing little weird "Better do this - just in case" things that I do all the time too.
Some common sense. Some flat-out ridiculous.
Here's my top ten paranoid "Just In Case" list.
10. Walk on the road - rather than the sidewalk at night. I'm always worried someone will pop out of their house and drag me in, to slaughter me. If I walk on the road - I'm away from the houses and have a better vantage point of everything around me, so I have a head start when the psycho breaks out of his front door and comes barrelling towards me.
9. Clutch my keys so the keys are jutting out like spikes through my clenched fingers. I learned this when I was a kid. That way - if the pscyho does catch me, I can gouge his eyes out with my keys. If I'm alone at night - you'll be sure to find me holding my keys like this.
8. Check in my backseat before I get into my car at night. Probably not as much a paranoid thing as it is a safe thing. Everyone really should do this. I know it's unlikely that a scary kidnapper will be hiding in your car - but hey - wouldn't you be fucking pissed at yourself if you DON'T check one time - and sure enough - there's someone in there waiting for you? Fuck that. It doesn't hurt to check.
7. Bring the cordless phone to bed with me at night. THere is no phone in my room - but I make sure to always bring the cordless in before we go to sleep "Just in case." If all of a sudden, we hear someone downstairs - we would have no way to call the cops cuz our phone is down there. But now - we could lock ourselves in the bathroom and call 911. Totally safe. And we could even put the cops on speaker phone so the psycho could hear it while he bangs on the bathroom door and know we for real called.
6. Turn all the lights on before I enter a room. I hate entering a dark room. It terrifies me. So if the lights are on before I enter - I get a good idea of what the layout of the room looks like - "Just in case".
5. Check under my bed before going to sleep. I've done this since I was a kid. "Just in case".
4. I always make sure all the stove burners are turned off before I leave. Even if I haven't used the stove for months. Seriously. Don't ask why.
3. Always bring the phone if I am alone and having a bath. Not because I don't want to miss any calls. I want the phone there in case someone breaks in while I'm soaking in my tubby.
2. Sleep with the lights on if I am alone. Seriously. Sure, ghosts don't exist. Monsters don't exist. Creatures that go bump in the night don't exist. But the light stays on. "Just in case".
1. Bring Pluto (my kitty) with me if I am alone in the house. If Life Partner is not home - and it is night - and I need something from upstairs - I make sure kitty is by my side, to protect me.

Also - every single night people are over in my backyard, and I have to come in to use the bathroom - I'm fine going upstairs. But coming out - something about my spare bedroom...I can't look at it as I turn the corner to go backdownstairs.
I get this feeling that someone is sitting in there, staring at me in the darkness. The feeling grows as I head down the stairs and my back is to the room. I get a weird feeling that whoever it was who was watching me - has gotten up and his on his way out of the room, behind me.
So I end up RUNNING down the stairs, and into the living room and kitchen, usually scaring the SHIT out of whoever is in there, making a drink.
"WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU RUNNING!? JESUS YOU SCARED ME!"
"Um...," I reply..."Just in case."

Also.
I keep a spare roll of toilet paper, a set of matches and a can of Airwick in my bathroom at all times.
"Just in case."

hearts and farts,
dan

Old Friend's B-Day

Me and my friend Mike - or - I guess it's "My friend Mike and I" - were pretty good friends for about ten or eleven years.
Best friends I guess.
I shouldn't guess - I know.
Anyway - it was pretty much a typical "Stand By Me"-esque boyhood friendship.
We met in Kindergarten - he had a red face and was screaming, tears pouring down his cheeks - not wanting his mom to leave, screaming for his father.
"I want my dad. I want my dad."
I was all dolled up in a brand new navy sweater and brown cords (for real - *eyeroll* - some things never change) and I just could not wrap my head around why he was so petrified to come to school.
Personally - I was totally excited, but I felt bad for him...it's upsetting seeing another kid screaming his lungs out like he's being tortured.
But eventually - mom had to go home - and he was fine.
More or less.
It was the second or third day of school - and during "playtime" - he waved to me from across the room.
I can't even remember if we said anything to each other.
He just waved to me. I remember it distinctly.
So I came over and we started playing together. I still dont' know if we actually SAID anything - we just spoke that weird -unspoken language of "play" that kids seem to be fluent in - but adults forget how to use.
And that was it. That was the beginning.
We were pretty much together for the rest of our gradeschool careers.
It was "Mike and Dan" - "Dan and Mike".
We went everywhere together. When I was sick for three months in grade one with pnemonia - he called every day - a SIX YEAR OLD - and made me drawings that he caleld "surprises" to make me feel better.
We totally grew up together. Had crushes on the same girls in school together.
Shannon Bagley. *sigh*
He ended up getting her. Not that I cared anyway. I was queer.
Anyway...we did everything:
Built forts together - kick-ass forts. Had our first sleepover together.
Taught each other to ride bikes and how to do "freestyle stunts" on our bikes.
In grade four Mike scraped the entire side of his face on the asphalt and almost took his eye out on a "stunt" and that was the end of that.
In grade five I forged a letter that read:
"To whom it may concern,
I hereby grant my nephews Daniel and Michael permission to purchase a pornographic magazine as I am sick and in bed and unable to do so.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Robert Louson."
Now - I'm not even sure "Louson" is a real last name - but it sounded good at the time.
The entire idea sounded good.
We'd give the letter to the shop keeper - and he'd have no choice BUT to sell us a porno rag, for our poor, sick uncle - who was in DIRE need of Hustler Magazine - and we were his last fleeting hope before he kicked the bucket.
It bombed.
We ended up nicking a damn porno book from the store and bolting out the door.
We stashed it in our forest fort.
Yep - that's right.
And - we ended up ripping off a bunch of Mike's grandpa's porno mags too.
We left them ALL in the fort - and you better believe - that place became a fucking legendary MECCA - a haven - for pre-pubescent, porn-loving boys.
We're talking pre-internet-porn.
One of the few available stashes for young boys to feast their eyes on.
You know how EVERY area ALWAYS had a forest where there was porn hidden in it?
Mike and I invented it in our neck of town.
Forests were so sexual back then.
Now computers (aka - porn machines) have become sexualized.
Kids like us no longer have to hunt and steal to find titty shots. They just press a few buttons and they are offered an entire spectrum of fetishes and body types to choose from.
Back in my day - we earned our tittie shots.
Times, they are a-changing.
But yeah - I pretty much grew up at his house too.
Anytime that I couldn't be home - if no one was there - or when my mom was in the hospital - I was at Mike's.
I remember Mike's Dad saying that he considered me family - and anytime I ever needed to stay with them for awhile - I totally could.
It was just - a comfort - their family.
They were my second family, no doubt.
So highschool rolled around and egos started growing.
For real.
Well - I was lost in my Madonna T-shirts and doc marten world - while Mike was going the "Maestro Fresh Wes" route.
Something just wasn't meshing.
We slowly grew apart.
He got WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY into drugs.
I got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay into drama class.
We just kind of...drifted. The way so many people do.
And it sucks.
I don't even know why we COULDN'T be friends..or why we WEREN'T friends.
We just all of a sudden, didn't know how to talk to each other.
He ended up dropping out of highschool and I think he MAY have graduated eventually - but by then - I didn't even know him anymore.
In all fairness - he didn't know me anymore either.
It's been about ...probably close to ten years since I spoke more than a few sentences to Mike.
I saw him once maybe four years ago at the video store.
Then I heard his Dad died about three years ago.
Which is sad because his Dad was his life. He looked up to his dad so much - and was soo worried about disappointing him or not living up to his expectation.
I rembered the way he looked on the first day of school - with tears streaming down his face, screaming "I want my Dad. I Want my Dad."
The article mentioned Michael's daughter:
Savannah.
He had a daughter.
It was official - I knew NOTHING about his life now.
It really bothers me that I don't know him anymore.
I've tried looking him but I don't think his number is listed. Life is just TOO short anymore.
That is my one regret in highschool.
Everyone always revels in the fact - or claim - that they have "no regrets".
(A term I strongly believe Madonna brought into fashion, but anyway...)
Personally - I have many regrets.
And I love that I do.
It's paths - different paths I could have chosen - and chose not to.
I don't begrudge my regrets - nor do I put any blame on my choices or myself for how my life turned out. I'm actually very happy how it's going.
However...I regret that in highschool - I couldn't get off whatever high horse I thought I was on and just hang out with him.
Or - why he couldn't get off his high horse and come hang out with me.
Neither of us were popular snobs. We were both easy-going guys.
We both smoked pot and partied.
We knew each other ALL our lives.
Why didn't we smoke pot together for the first time? Or get drunk together for the first time?
He was big into music too and bought a drum kit.
I had an electric guitar.
Do I regret not EVER ONCE calling him up (we lived three doors down from each other all our lives) and asking if I could bring my guitar over for a jam?
You bet my ass I do!
I totally regret losing touch with him. He was a great friend to me - and I know I was a great friend to him too.
The fact that that's gone because of "no real reason"....how could you not regret something like that: Letting it just drift away..?
It makes no sense. It's a loss - not a gain.
We both lost a close friend, for no real reason.
Anyway, I wrote him a short letter when I found out his father died - and it was weird, I saw him about three nights later on the corner of Ouellette and Wyandotte at 2:30 a.m.
I was walking with Life Partner and a big ole group of drunks - including myself - and we were coming back from the Loop.
He saw me and stopped - and I stopped and he just kinda half-waved -and I kinda half smiled - and he looked back at his friends and I looked at mine - and for real:
We just kept walking.
None of my friends even saw him - and his didn't see me.
I don't even think I bothered telling any of my friends that I saw him that night.
The cool thing - there was a TINY spark in his eye that said all I needed to hear.
It was a whole conversation we had in a mili-second - maybe something like that same language we used when he first waved me over when we were five.
"Hey - long time no see."
"You too. How are you?"
"Sad. My Dad died."
"I know. I sent you a card."
"I know. Thanks."
"So...this is how we turned out eh?"
"Yup. We're still friends right?"
"Of couse."
"Well...Bye."
"Ya. See ya later."
It seemed to be the exchange - without actually exchanging any words.
Anyway - it's his birthday today and I had to give him a little tribute.
I think of him every year on this day - always "Wow...we're the same age again.."
So yeah - I woud have written a blog for him EVERY birthday since I knew him - except - this is my first year with a blog!
So: Happy 28th Birthday Mike!

Hope you're as cool as ever.

That Was Summer

Saturday night - my friend Faustine and I had the honour and privelege to see one of the world's greatest song-writers, performers and producers EVER.
Brian Wilson.
Everyone laughs when I use the former Beach Boy's name in the same sentence as "one of the world's best" - but it couldn't be closer to the truth.

Let me tell you a little story, brothers and sister.

Life Partner had a wedding to go to - so I had the entire evening to do whatever I want. Faustine phoned me up with the option of checking out Brian Wilson's solo show - in which he performs his latest album - SMILE - from start to finish. A fan of the album - and a fan of the Beach Boys since I was old enough to HEAR (thanks to my mom's records from the sixties) - it was their summer-inspired nostalgia harmony songs that I am SOOO all about.
So we hop in her little car - and make our way across the border.
We were a little freaked out at first - thinking they were pulling over EVERYONE - but they weren't - and within seconds - we were in America, on our way to the beautiful Meadowbrook Music Festival.
That was when Faustine turned to me and said matter-of-factly,"Guess who just smuggled a joint across the border?"
Yeah - I was a little flabbergasted that she did that - but hell - I wasn't complaining!
We now had a joint to smoke - outdoor on a beautiful evening - while Brian Wilson performed songs with a twenty-five piece band and orchestra.
An awful night - it would not be.
So - we eventually get to the show just as he is starting.
We sat down on a nice cozy spot on the lawn - there was a warm breeze - everyone was laying on beach blankets and chilling out.
Steel drums in the air. Brian Wilson harmonizing with his orchestra and choir while band members stroked ukelele's and shook tambourines.
Faustine left me to get a beer and I took a look around, just as the sun was going down.
It was the perfect August night. Seriously.
In two seconds - I wished Life Partner was there.
I wished all my friends were there.
I wished my sister and my parents were there.
I kept looking around and just thinking how cool it was - that everyone there was HAPPY - so happy to be sitting outside on the grass hearing the songs we grew up with.
He broke into Do You Wanna Dance - and I felt it coming in my stomach.
It was the perfect time of night when the sky is every colour from navy blue to bright pink.
You can still see the sun - but a full moon was slowly rising above us - and stars were coming out.
Everyone was smiling, I took my shoes off - put my palms on the ground and I could feel the steel drums vibrating.
If this kind of perfection were written into a novel, I wouldn't believe it for a second - because nothing is ever that picture perfect. But it was.
So yeah - the inevitable.
Anyone who knows me knows I can work things up and become a little emotional once in a blue moon - and of course - the tears started coming.
"Stupid weepy fuckin' hippy," I thought to myself - but it felt SOOO good.
It was just - this release.
I was crying because I was so happy with the MOMENT.
It was just one of those moments you stop and think about - and all corners kind of meet up for a minute.
This childhood legend of mine playing onstage - twenty five people banging instruments together to make some of the glorious sounds I have ever heard.
And nature matched it perfectly.
And my friend was coming back with two of the biggest, fattest, wet beers I ever saw.
It HAD to be energy - of everyone there - focused on having such a beautiful, positive time.
The fact that groups still gather just to sit around and be HAPPY and think positive things...it was so overwhelming.
Luckily I wiped the tracks of my tears away from my cheeks before Faustine came back and sat down so she didn't know I hit my mini-epiphany to the tune of the Pet Sounds album.

I'm convinced that music is like fresh fruit.
It's glorious - all of it. But when it's fresh - being created - when the ORIGINAL vibrations are moving through a crowd - directly from their source - finding each other in the air and then travelling through the acoustics of the outdoors and into your ears: there is nothing on earth like it.
The wind - seriously - was moving in time with the rhythms.
He ended his first set with Wouldn't It Be Nice? and left for a 1/2 hour intermission.
Faustine and I snuck off to the woods - to smoke pot and talk about how blown away we were.
We were higher than kites in seconds, giggling like highschool kids - hell - we WERE highschool kids again.
We started the long walk back up the hill - and saw that a bunch of the seats under the pavillion were open.
We moved up - asked the usher if we could just sit up there - closer - under the pavillion - and she said yes.
Just as we sat, the lights went out.
For real.
Brian Wilson and his band came out and performed the ENTIRE Smile album from start to finish. No breaks between songs.
Just one, big, long, glorious, california-summer-style rock and roll opera.
We could only stare in awe the entire time.
Yeah - we were stoned - but the entire night was seriously laced with magic.
Of course - I cried again near the end - when the choir was chanting to sound like the ocean and waves.
I thought about how great it would be if all my friends and family could be THIS HAPPY ALL THE TIME - or if EVERYONE could - how great the world would be.
The show ended - and the stage went black - with one simple word on a HUGE screen blinking back at the entire audience like a parting gift:
SMILE.
It was like a gigantic sigh.
With all the crappy things that have been happening lately - to the world and my own friends - and when everything seems desperate and helpless and utterly unfair and shitty - even when you can't keep your mind from shitty things that happened in the past - it is the best thing in the world to just have a reminder of why we are here in the first place.
SMILE.
And that just seems to put it all into perspective again.

great night,

dan

(oh yeah - P.S. - I got the new Juliana Hatfield album today. Finally.)

After Death - A Human Supernova

The crazy druggie gonzo journalist writer Hunter S. Thompson is going to become a hurricane of shooting stars tonight, and I think it's beautiful.

He shot himself in the head about six months ago.

Today - his ashes are going to be put into firework shells - loaded into a canon - ignited with gun powder - and then launched off into the night sky from a 150 foot monument that was erected in his honour, just behind his old home in Woody Creek, Colorado.

That's the way to fucking go.

A star-studded farwell, if there ever was one.

When I die - and I've stood by this since highschool - I never wanted to be embalmed, stuffed into a suit - which I hate wearing - DETEST wearing - and laid out for all to stare at my new make up and spray paint job. Then what? I'm thrown into a fucking landfill and marked with a piece of granite for the rest of eternity?

I'm claustrophobic for crying out loud! The most ironic thing would be if my body ended up in a box and buried underground for all eterntity. And in a SUIT of all things?!?!?!?!?

Sounds like hell to me.

Nope - I don't want my body polluting up this world any more than it already is.

Cremate me - in a crematorium - or roast fucking marshmellows by a campfire while my body burns - because it is just my body.

After that - do whatever you want with my ashes, but don't keep them around as clutter and dust. We have to much junk as it is.

Scatter me, throw me in people's faces, mail envelopes of me around the world to all the places I never went to when I was alive.

Throw me in your gardens, sprinkle me on your lawn, drop bits of me on the floors of concert halls.

Put me in a gunshell and ignite me in flames.

I hope the people who are in charge of taking care of my funeral have a sense of humour. And a sense of excitement.

My only request (and i've made it a point to tell EVERYONE I know for the last fifteen years now) is that David Bowie's Star Man be played at whatever kind of tribute is held for me.

Everyone drink and listen to my favorite songs. Or your favorite songs. Cuz it's all for you anyway.

I've been watching WAY too much Six Feet Under lately - but when I read the story about Hunter S. Thompson, I thought it was really nice.

It also goes to show - even if you are looked at as having made a vital impact on the world with your art - you can still feel like it might be more worthwhile to put a gun in your mouth and end it all, just for the fuck of it.

So three cheers to Thompson - for living a good one and ending it on his own time - even if no one wanted to see him go.

But seriously - does anyone EVER want to see anyone go?

*sigh*....Hawksley...

If anyone isn't familiar with Hawksley Workman - do yourself a favour and get aquainted, fast. He's Canadian - from Bay Lake area - but moved to Toronto, got into dance, starting jotting down little poems and cool lines into his little black book - and it wasn't long before he started putting his genius words to music.

My friend "Zion" was introduced to Hawksley a few years ago when I slapped the song "Autumn's Here" on a mix tape I made for him - so that is as good a song to start as any. If you like song writers with melodic, sad, epic, full production - and profound lyrics that make you examine your own life when you juxtapose them to your own experiences - he's for you.

Hands down as strong a song writer as Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Liz Phair, Patti Smith or Rufus Wainwright - but in my opinion - better.

His first album - For Him and the Girls - was dubbed "My New Exile in Guyville" back in 1999 - so for anyone who knows what that means - you'll know it's a compliment I don't dole out to just anyone.

His second - Last Night We Were (the delcious wolves) - solidified it for me that he will forever go down as one of my all time favorite songwriters and performers - ever.

His EP - Almost a Full Moon - made me cry one minute and thirty-five seconds into it. It's sad, original Christmas music for people who feel like their hands are tied (emotionally) during the witner.

And of course - Lover/Fighter - his latest release. The first ten tracks may fool you. They sound a little too much like Coldplay (and Hawksley is far better than having to dumb himself down so he can have a hit song for sounding like every other "hot" band out there) - but - the trick is - keep listening - even after the 11 or 12 songs listed on the album are done.

There are SEVEN more songs that are TRUE Hawksley tunes - not listed on the track listing or inlay of the CD. Very much like him saying "here are 11 songs that are sure to be a hit so my record company will be happy and I'll make them and myself money - but if you keep listening (and the ones who care will) you'll see that the good songs aren't going anywhere."

But seriously - his music is great music to play in the background, great music to drink alone to, great music to drink with friends to, gay friendly and self-depricating, great stoner music, great music to just put on, lay on the couch and think about it - fall into the songs, seriously. I can't listen to a Hawksley Workman album by myself without spacing out and making some kind of profound decision or realization about my life and where it's going - or without reflecting on where it's been.

*sigh*

Hawksley...so hot..so great...sorry - i had to gush....

hearts and farts,

dan

The Most Annoying Girls in the World

Warning: The following blog is just for fun. Totally. It's opinionated - my own opinion - totally not meant to start any fights with anyone who likes any of the personalities listed her.
Which also means - my mind cannot be changed or persuaded to think otherwise of what I write here. But again - all in good fun. Now and then it's kind of stress-relief to really be rude and mean and evil and bitchy and judgemental and shallow and just downright - AWFUL.
If it's all in good fun. I'm actually posting this equally as much for my friends - or anyone else who feels the same way about this group of delightful people (and I am sure there are many).
It's been a while since I've posted a mean or spiteful blog, just for the sake of fun.
Not that it's fun to put people down.
It's not.
And for the record - Secretly I have "love-to-hate-them" crushes on all of the celebrities I am about to tear a piece out of, via my blog.
Hey - could I do better than them? Fuck no.
Could I even do as GOOD as they are doing for that matter?
Well...now that I think of it - I could Probably do far better, if I tried.
But alas - I am not trying.
So they, for the time being, are beating me.
I'm just a pop culture junkie who's looking for a little meat to rip into.
THe following is a list of supposedly "hot" female celebrities - who I think put the "ass" in nASSty!!

Number One: FERGIE - from the Black Eyed Peas.

If her annoying whine doesn't kill you - her face will. I think she needs a new stylist, a new makeup artist and a new set of eyebrows. The frosted lipstick may work on Beth Ditto of the Gossip - but it makes Fergie look like she's been sucking off her plastic surgeon for free collogen injections, and from the look of the piss poor job, she is apparently not even a very good lay. She probably should have stuck to her old band - Wild Orchid - which was an all girl country tinged power vocal trio - who sucked as well. At least when she sucked back then - she wasn't shredding the credibility of a cool band, like what the Black Eyed Peas USED to be. Fergie = Poo.

Number Two (literally!) - Stevie Nicks

Let's just face it: She was probably born with a penis. But, aside from looking like a pre-op male to female transexual, "Stevie" (probably born Steven) does nothing but sound like complete shit in her band Fleetwood Mac and on her solo albums.

I just don't get what all the fuss is over "Steven".
If I draped my grandma's doiley over me, and wore a black veil over my face (hey...maybe she DOES have the right idea after all...) would people fawn over me like I was making some grand fashion statement? Hell no.
Which is exactly why I don't get the big deal over "Steven". Her voice sucks. Her clothes suck. The songs she sings in her band sound like Eartha Kitt on testosterone.
And to put the rotten cherry on this disgusting cake of horrors: She's an eyesore.
She should probably just go back to snorting cocaine. At least cokeheads are interesting.

Number Three - Esthero

Esthero sucks. Plain and simple. She too looks like a botched botox job, and her fake lips make her look like some diseased pyke fish that came out of the Detroit river (an improvement, nonetheless) and an eyelift that was probably done with a steak knife. The punchline: Her songs suck. Hilarious eh? They sound like she's trying to hold amazing searing notes like Bjork - but she comes off sounding like a burn victim getting their bandages changed. She whines about always hearing "the same shit on the radio" yet seems to be blinded to the fact that she herself is part of this shit-melting pot she is speaking out against, seeing as her songs are lacking one important element: Originality.

Time to pack it in, Esthero.

I'm sick of hearing your same shit on the radio.

NUMBER FOUR - Devon from Much Music.

Just when you thought the atrocity that was the stuttering Rick "The Temp" was about to turn 40 and be fired (and we'd never have to look at his annoying face again) - they unleash this youngling on us. He's good for at least another 15 years of painful air-time, which pretty much solidifies the ruination of the Nations's Music Station. Now I know the men in suits at Much Music were looking to tap into a younger crowd - and props to them for getting a very femme, metro-sexual young guy to take center stage at Much Music, but let's face it: This guy blows, whcih - I am guessing - is how he got this job, because his on screen presence is painful to watch. First of all - he looks like Jonathan from Who's The Boss (except how he looked when he starred in CUJO), sounds like a pre-pubescent Rufus Wainwright who is painfully trying to sound "butch" and his pseudo-rock star thing hurts like a hangnail. Cut his hair and let him be as gay as he wants - and I might be able to like him. But getting me to believe this guy actually LIKES the bands he wears on his "cool-for-trendy-sake" vintage t-shirts is like trying to convince me the psychos at the Windsor Christian Fellowship would make good parents. It's just not possible.
In fact - thumbs DOWN to ALL the Much Music VJays.
They all suck.

Number Five - The Much Music VeeJays

I was going to leave the rest of them out of this - but I kept on thinking about how MUCH all the new VeeJays at Much Music SUCK SHIT - I just couldn't leave them out. Back in the day - there was Laurie Anderson, Erica Ehm, Steve Anthony, Michael Williams - and the only one who really sucked shit was "Ziggy" - but she did Mush Music - and that show clearly sucked anyway, so it didn't matter. Then we got Sook Yin Lee, Bradford and the hot, sexy, incredibly talented George Stombolopolous. And yeah - Rick "the Temp" who unfortunately was not so "temporary". But - he was an easy flub on the producer's part to overlook, because the rest of the VeeJays were SOO cool.

For a while - I truely enjoyed watching Much Music. There were even a few cute blondes in there I kinda liked...one of them went on to be a sex kitten in New York - but whatever. She rocked.

Which brings me to my next question? How the FUCK did they lower their standards down to the pack of riff raff who are fronting the mics at Much Music today? And my second question: What trashy hole in Canada did they find these people? The "Black One" looks like a shitty Scary Spice impersonator - the "Blonde One" looks like a has-been actress who was rejected from Desperate Housewives and neither one can hold my attention for more than 41 seconds.

Or hold an interview, for that matter. I keep waiting for one of them to whip out a compact. They are the worst at "Live" events, like when Paris Hilton or the cast of Dukes of Hazzard came to town. Jesus. I didn't know who to feel more sorry for - them for being so embarassingly bad when they were on the spot trying desperately to make "cool, hip" conversation with the likes of Johnny Knoxville - or MYSELF - for having to listen to the torture that was disguised as "television".

*Shiver*.

Jennifer Hollett - the red head "break dancing dork" who hosts Much On Demand should have been fired years ago for sucking so bad. Her hair, clothes and make up remind me of a Sarah McLaughlin fan who got caught playing with Mommy's makeup. She was probably the kid in school who always had to take control of class projects, (thus ruining them) and kiss ass to the teacher. She is also probably a Christian - and despite her on air "quirkiness" (code for "Annoying as shit") - she still speaks in tongues on a regular basis and is the leader of the "Christian Youth Break Dancing Team!" - proof that you can be Christ-like and hip!

Barf on her! Much On Demand Sucks and so does she.

*sigh*

I'm gonna go watch a special on Whitney Houston now.

I heard she just had a nervous breakdown.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

I mean nervous breakdowns. Not Whitney.

hearts and farts,

dan

Diary-Ah

Dear Diary-ah,

My supposedly "indie" radio station didn't have the fucking juliana hatfield record either.
I fucking give up.

dan.

What does it all mean?

Ahhh...slumberland.
I had a fucked up series of inter-connected "Six Feet Under-esque" dreams last night.
It began at my highschool.
I was back- and so were all my friends, including Life Partner (who didn't go to my highschool).
Anyway, we're all in computer science class - and my friend Karmen was talking about Courtney Love and she said "She knows what everyone is REALLY afraid of...that's why everyone hates her so much."
And I whipped my head around and said "I wanna be in your conversation!"
But when I whipped my head around, I flipped my chair and it fell back- and everyone laughed - including myself. So I got up - and made some crack to the entire class - and everyone laughed again.
And then I sat there - and I was like "Hm..that's how I changed. If I were sixteen - I would not have laughed. I would have been too embarassed. But now, I can laugh at myself a bit easier - and realize that it really isn't funny in a "bad way" - its funny because...it's funny!"
Then I thought about how - if I had just thought of it that way in highschool - the four years would have had so many less headaches. Why did I give a shit?
I think (even though I was far from being some popular snob kid) I was super self-centered in highschool, in an insecure way. I thought every snicker and every whispered finger point was directed at me - when in truth - 99 percent of them probably weren't. And if they were - who cares? I had my friends. Why did it matter anyway? Ah well. Retrospect is a great thing.
On with my dream. Here's where it gets a little weird...
So - this kid packs a bunch of shit (literally - feces) into a video tape cassette and said "You guys want a REAL class presentation of what computers are all about?"
and he put the tape into the VCR (the kind that stood on the steel frame) and hit play and nothing happened.
Then - he pulled out a flair gun and shot the VCR - and flames erupted from it and the stink of shit filled the room.
So everyone is grumbling and getting up and about to leave, and Karmen gets up and her voice is cracking and she's like "Godammit! why the FUCK did you do that? Do you realize I am the only one who is going to bother dealing with this? Why the fuck are you even here?? Go away - just fucking leave!"
And I couldn't believe how upset she was - but at the same time - it was awful because she was so visibly shaken - so she gets up and I follow her out to the hall - and we realize by this time some of the flames have spread and are starting to climb up the walls behind the t.v. - so Karm was like "YOu know what - we have to for real pull the fire bell this time..."
and then I was like "Oh my god - she's not doing all this to be a hero..she's doing this because she is seriously afraid students are going to get hurt here..."
Then I had another Six Feet Under retrospect moment and I was like "Wow..that's SOOOO how karmen is..."
- so she pulls the fire alarm and gets her stuff and the room is soaking wet and everyone is running out screaming and I notice that since the water started coming - little clouds of mosquitos were forming all over the classroom - like after a tropical rainstorm.
So somewhere in the chaos I lose everyone and I'm walking around - and I notice all these kids everywhere - adorable little kids all dressed up for school in nice little cute sweaters and chords and pretty dresses, and they are everywhere, uncaring that the fire alarms are ringing.
But then I listened closer and the fire alarms were NOT ringing anymore.
So I see this one kid who is about three and he asks if I can carry him and I said sure...
So I lift him up and he is SOOO cute and he told me he is worried about his sister because he can't find her and his mom because he couldn't find her - but he was calm.
So I was like "Well we'll walk around till we find them, okay?" and he got all happy that I was paying attention to him.
So we're walking and I'm carrying him and we finally see his sister and he tells me not to stop - that he wants to keep walking with me - and I asked him why he didn't want to stop if he was so worried about her - and it looked like he was gonna cry - so I was like "Hey - don't worry! Look - she looks happy at least, right? SHe looks like she's having fun with her friends.."
and that made him happier.
Then he told me he was adopted and felt like he never fit in -and I told him that was all in his head because he fits in PERFECTLY fine with everyone - if not better. Then i told him it's better to stand out rather than blend in and have no one notice you.
Then I was like thinking "Hmmmm....maybe I have issues with attention. Maybe I want people to notice me...maybe that is why I cared so much what people thought of me in highschool...shit am I giving this poor kid good advice, or fucking him up even more?"
So then i told the kid - "YOu know what? All you have to do is make sure you take care of yourself in every way you know how to."
And then he was like "What about the people who are mean to me? Do i take care of them too? Because I think they probably need it more than me."
and I was stumped. And I wondered why the kid go so happy that I was just walking and talking with him. he wanted SOOmuch attention - but nothing more. Just someone to touch him and talk to him.
And then - i was all of a sudden outside.
I saw this chick Tina Demarco who I went to highschool with, and her clique of bitches.
And Julie, Jeff, Danielle, Life Parter, Karmen and Faust (my present-day friends) were out by the front doors signing each others year books...
So Tina and her posse walk by - and one of them looks at me and motions to my group of friends and says "writing notes to each other already, are we? It's only the first day of school!"
and I felt all pressured -and I was like "I know! Can you believe it??"
THEN
I realized the bitch who said that was fucking Heather Phalher - the CUNT who used to call me BONER in gradeschool.
For real. I even wrote a blog about her a few months ago (I think one of my first blogs ever) saying if i ever see her again - I made a promise to tell her what a BITCH she was.
But i blew it. I just agreed with her, even though she as attacking my friends. Because I was terrified what she would think of me if I expressed my own feeling.
So I thought back to what that little cute kid told me and I was like "Fuck..you know what? Why would I tell her what a cunt she was? How would that take back or make any kind of reparation for what she did to me when I was 12? This would just mean that making her feel bad about herself would make me feel better about MYSELF - which is exactly what she was doing to me in the first place. WOuld that make me a better person? No."
Thank you, cute little boy, for that advice. Putting someone down - although sometimes tempting and delicious - is NEVER a good option.
Sure - it could probably feel good - especially if motivated by revenge - but in the long run - it's just as disgusting and selfish and inconsiderate and void of emotion or conscience as the first hurtful action that got you into the self-pitying situation.
Then LIfe Partner started telling me that Kristen HErsh was in the school gymnasium and she was signing autographs. But he told me in a really weird way.
He told me that "There's a singer you love...her name rhymes with Twistin' Girth and she will be signing autographs.."
and I was like "Twistin' Girth??? I have no fucking idea...just tell me who it is..."
and he was like "No, you have to guess..."
So I was like "Fuck ! just tell me! Or else i won't even bother going. Please."
So he told me.
ANd I was disappointed because I WISHED it was Juliana Hatfield instead!!!
THEN - I was all of a sudden on an empty, beautiful paradise beach, laying down on a hammock and there were whales WAAAAY out in the water and I could see them perfectly, blowing air out of their blow holes and I was thinking:
"So this is what it's really all about...."
and I looked around and the water went on forever and the sun was shining and there was not a single cloud and there was this nice ocean breeze and I just closed my eyes and thought:
"Wow...I could fall asleep right here, forever."
And then I woke up.

Searching for Juliana: A Trip to the Mall, Hall of Horrors.

Life Partner and I went to the mall today in search of two albums.
He was looking for Martina Topley Bird's "Quixotic".
I was looking for the new Juliana Hatfield "Made in China" record.
We went to four (4!!!) record stores today - and none of them even had a section for either artist!
First - CD Warehouse on Walker road.
Normally a cool place to pick up a used CD -and they usually have a not-all-that-bad selection of cool alternative artists.
Not today.
They didn't even HAVE a fucking Juliana Hatfield section! Or a Mary Timony section. Or Helium. Or Sleater-Kinney.
I will not be going there for a long, long, long, long, long, long time.
Mark my words.
Next - Best Buy.
Yeah - it's Best Buy. It's supposed to suck - but believe it or not - I found some DAMN FINE "hard to find" CDs at Best Buy a few months ago - so I figured - we might as well give it a shot.
They looked at me like I had a steaming pile of pink dogshit on my head when I asked where they kept their Juliana CDs.
Last stop:
DEVONSHIRE MALL, aka - Hell.
Can I say - as a 28 year old (and I am in no way suggesting I am "old") - the Mall on a friday night is NO PLACE for someone like me or LIfe Partner.
We roamed the mall halls looking like two aging pedophile cougars - me in my orange "shark" t-shirt (that I have dubbed as "My big-tit t-shirt") and he in his Curious George t-shirt.
Together, we bowed our heads and entered.
HMV sucks shit.
They didn't have a fucking Juliana Hatfield section either.
So I walked out of the store, with no plans of EVER looking back and decided that from now on - I'll be shopping at Music World. It may be shitty - but at least they have a good selection.
SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE!!!
They didn't have a Juliana Hatfield section either.
As Life Partner and I waited in line at the Dariy Queen (my first time ever!) I was glaring around at all the kids - pissed off about the fact that no one had my Juliana.
"This s absolutely ridiculous," I finally broke. "So - basically - what this means is, it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to buy ANY Juliana Hatfield album in the city of Windsor?"
"I know...so stupid. But in all honesty...if it weren't for you, I wouldn't even know about Juliana Hatfield..."
"What about Reality Bites soundtrack??" I asked, stunned.
"Except from the Reality Bites soundtrack." He agreed.
I was flabbergasted still.
No where could you buy a Juliana CD. Back in the day - her CDs were all over the place.
She has like - fucking twelve! They should at least carry her singles compilation.
But - nothing! Sure she's not fucking Madonna - and certainly not the musical genius of Lindsay Lohan or Hillary Duff -but as a founding member of the Blake Babies and the Lemonheads - and a pretty damn critically acclaimed solo-artist with about 10 self-penned albums to her name - one would think there would at least be a SECTION where her Cds would go if by chance anyone even happened to (gasp!) keep them in stock.
But - nada. Nothing . Zip.
I was amazed though - by the kids there.
So many of them with golf shirts - pink, baby blue and yellows - with the collar turned up.
And they all had britney glasses.
The whole "metrosexual" look is totally in with lots of young kids.
Either that - or there has been one HELL of a surge in the gay population - because half of these kids dressed like a fag straight out of the pastel and coiffed hair look of queer-miami vice!
The new trend - or poofters? THe line is now completely blurred.
My head was spinning.
"Let's count how many upturned collars we see," LIfe Partner suggested.
We lost count after forty seven.
Also there was a big... like...a "pseudo-punker-rocker" look.
Except the "punks" were running around with cellphones and darting from one end of the stores to the next, grabbing each other, whipspering, darting out into the halls and running to god only knows where - Sears, maybe??
I dont' fucking know.
Paris Hiltons in training. Lindsay Lohans before the weight loss (and plus a few extra pounds), guys who looked like a cross between Don Johnson and Justin Timberlake.
"I'm scared, I just want the new Juliana Hatfield CD and I want to go home!" I exclaimed to Life Partner as I clutched his arm and spilled half my Blizzard on my big tit t-shirt - just as a very pink and fairy-purple group of N'Sync boys and Christina Spears-girls walked by us.
Not one of the girls checked me out.
Yes, I noticed.
Teen girls always used to check me out - and I used to love it - thinking "Oh honey...look all ya want...waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too old (and gay) for you."
Not really.
But I liked to think they were checking me out, if they at least made eye contact.
Now - they didn't even make eye contact.
So it is confirmed:
I'm an Olde Phart.
And speaking of Pharts...We passed the old facade and remains of Waitress Hell and I felt a lump grow in my throat.
But it turned out to be just me still pouting and pissy over the Juliana no-show.
I shovelled more of my Blizzard into my mouth.
"The icecream is not helping," I whined to LIfe Partner.
"Maybe I'll buy you another CD - pick out anything you want - I'll get it for you."
"mmmph." I replied. It was all I could muster.
Self-loathing for my girlie so groovie dream come true had over-taken me.
"I just want to curl up into a corner and die," then I had a thought.. "Unless they have the new Yoko Ono album."
Surprise surprise surprise.
They didn't.
Why would they? Could you imagine her in a pair of aviators and a thong?
The aviators, maybe.
"Fine. I'll just get drunk tonight."
The liquor store is now closed.
(Insert temper tantrum here)
I think I'm gonna get stoned, put my hair in "i mean business" pig tails (it's long enough to do that now!) and order the fucking thing off line.
Yes, I'm still harping about the Juliana album.
www.julianahatfield.net - check her out, she's good.
XX Magazine contacted me asking me if I would write a bunch of reviews for their mag - so thankfully - I did include a review of Juliana.
But apparently - no will care.
I'm the only fucking fan in Windsor.
*sigh*
The lonely life of a music snob.
It's a tough way to live - but somebody's gotta do it.

getting out my pigtail ties,

hearts and farts,
dan

Who Took the Bomp?

That's jeff with the harmonica and MOI with the gee-tar.
Do we look like rock and roll gods playing out our souls so they may be saved from the burning fires of hell, or what?
Playing music by fire is fun.
Playing music in general is fun.
We should do it more often.
And James Crabbe is a photo-artiste.
Thanks for the great photo james.
And thanks for playing fun instruments with me Jeff!
Great night...we need to party more.
And next time - we all get an instrument. Even if it means pulling out my gazzoo.

hearts and marshmellows,
danny

To Remove Ads

A little cool advice - if you don't want your blog junked up by the annoying "This post has been removed by the administrator" - click the trashcan button again - and it will offer you a "Remove Forever" button. This blocks that ad from posting again - and gets rif of the annoying "This message has been blocked" phrase.
Fight the real enemy!!!

dam

And that was how blogging began....

Well brothers and sisters - here we go.
The beginning of the end has arrived.
For about four and a half seconds - i was hypnotized into believing that the pop-up-ridden, money-hungry world of the supposed silver-lined information super highway was slowly being taken back by us - through blogging.
Untouched by spam, ads or "make your dick bigger" viagra-wannabe campaigns.
Funny how I'm noticing little new comments...by "outsiders" on my blog.
It appears I (among others here) have aquired QUITE a fanbase of strangers - all of who are book marking our blogs.
Wait a minute...
they're not people!
They're Robots! ROBOTS!!! So help me god - ANDROIDS who attack us with the last secret weapon we had stashed away that we were banking on helping us win the war against internet terrorism - BLOGGING!
They sneak up on us and hype us up with messages that SOUND like compliments by strangers - they are mimicking us, posing as us. Pretending they are just LIKE US - except - they are only ads.
"Great blog. Hey - I have a great debt and loan blog. Check it out. I'll for sure be checking your blog now!"
"Interesting blog of yours. I've bookmarked it. I'll be checking back. You should check out my blog. I have a great blog on Wedding Planning. Check it out."
Four messages like that.
I started deleting them at first - but it's pointless.
This is how the internet was fucked up in the first place.
For the first little bit - it was real people passionate about certain things - making websites about whatever. Then it all got into advertising and everyone realized how quick we can make a buck off the hard work of other people by installing pop-ups.
Better yet - let's get inside the people's mailboxes and spread viruses or more "make your dick bigger" ad campaings.
This is the lowest of the low.
I've heard many people saying how "blogging saved the internet" -and it really has.
It made it interesting again. Maybe it's reality television one step further - but something about reading all the creative ideas and concerns and daydreams and ho-hums of strangers and my own friends - was great.
I enjoy blogging more than emailing - realizing things about all these people - most of them my own friends - that I didn't even know. So much talent.
And then there's a huge group of people who i feel like I know - jusst through their blogs.
IT was intriguing. Interesting again.
Now - the ads start.
How long until we are getting "Sexy Sadie" messages - saying "I have a great lesbian blog..you should check me and all my girlfriends out...we all just turned 18 today.... SweetHotThings.blogspot.com " ??
And the sad thing - they use it under the guise that they are someone who is commenting on our blog - playing on the fact that we love it so much when we get a new comment from anyone - the way our eyes light up when we see it is a stranger or someone we haven't heard from in a long time - posting a comment on OUR BLOG!! It's a rush...
so basically - they use that rush - that excitement - the spot that everyone always checks when they go to their own blog - and plant a fucking dirty, cheap, stab at a sales pitch.
This should not be tolerated.
I don't want any ads for consolidated loans and wedding planners on my blog.
Can't they save commercials for ....commercial sites?
Blogging is supposed to be just people. No interference by "the man".
We have to live with him 24-7 anyway.
Product placement in movies, on t.v., on breaks from t.v., on the internet, on our favorite website, in our favorite magazine - in our own daily email boxes - and now - sharing our little stupid thoughts on a freeform spectrum?
sorry - what was "once" a free-form spectrum.
Soon they'll be charging membership fees just to blog.
Or - we'll be so bombarded with pop-up windows about viagra and how to score teen pussy, we won't be able to read our own blogs.
So enjoy this small scrap of time we have left, and relish it.
Mustard and ketchup it too.
Hell - throw on some mayo and a few Jalepenos, just for me.
Sorry. Just venting. I'm stoned for the first time in a week..
Good to be back.

hearts and farts,
dan

ps - while we're on the subject of ads..my website is coming really soon! make sure you keep checking back and i'll keep you posted. Oooh..maybe there is something to this...

My Vagina Monologues: The Bangles and my Mom

This is probably as much about my mother as it is about the band - and the influence both have had on me and who I am today.
It sounds ridiculous - being it's the Bangles - and most people chalk them up as a big stupid joke - but - to each his own.
I'm currently making a website for my radio show (girlie so groovie - focuses on all female fronted bands), so I've been writing a LOT of reviews lately - and going through all my CDs, picking some of my favorites.
It really, REALLY hit me - that the Bangles are hands-down the most influential band of my entire life. And I don't just mean musical tastes.
They were like...defining for me. I've said this pretty much since day one - but it has really hit home the last few days - looking through all the CDs I own.
When I was a kid - my parents bought me all the "in records" like Michael Jackson Thriller, Cyndi Lauper She's So Unusual and Culture Club's Colour by Numbers.
I was so thrilled Christmas in 1982 when I got all three records.
I was five.
I totally wore them out.
Anyway, I was a very average music fan - every five year old liked those bands - no biggie.
It wasn't until three years later - that I became a music FANATIC.
It was 1985 - I was eight years old - and my mom was my biggest link to anything pop culture. I followed everything she said and watched and listened to like it was scripture - which to me - it was.
She started telling me about different kinds of music.
I'll never forget the day.
She was in a pink bathrobe and she was doing her makeup and I was eating cereal - and a song called "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship came on - and she turned it up.
"Do you like this song, Danny?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's good," I replied through a mouthful of cereal.
"This is called pop-rock," she stated while applying her mascara.
Pop-rock, I thought to myself. That sounds interesting.
Being an inquisitive child of a thousand questions - I pressed the issue further.
"Mom," I began, crunching my daily Flinstone vitamin, "Why do they call it pop-rock? Why not just rock?"
"Because...." she paused. "Do you hear how this song has a certain beat to it? You can clap along to it? There aren't really any loud, screeching guitars - and you can understand what they are singing? That's why it's pop rock. Hard rock is louder - and the singers scream more. Hard rock is good too, but I like pop-rock better."
I then started asking her about all her sixties records (that I started listening to religiously) and asking who was hard rock and who was pop.
"What about the Shangri-La's?"
"Pop." She replied.
"Tommy Roe?"
"Pop."
"Bob Seger?"
"That's hard rock."
"Oh." I thought about it for a moment. "What about Eurythmics?"
"You know the Eurythmics!?!?" she asked, surpised.
I had also started watching video hits.
"Hmm...." she thought about it, staring intensely into the mirror as she applied foundation.
"They are probably...Lazer Rock. They kind of sound robotic. They use lots of keyboards."
"Oh."
My mother had no idea - I was a sponge - sucking up all of this - automatically putting bands I was listening to (from the sixties and seventies, since I didn't have any more records of my own) into categories of who was Pop, Hard and "Lazer" ( a true eighties term) into my head and rating how much I liked them.
That was when I first heard Manic Monday. It came on the radio like an alarm call - perking me up - singing into my face sounding like something I had heard a million times before - yet nothing ever quite like it.
Half-way through the second chorus, I turned it up.
"What kind of music is this?" I asked my mom.
"Hmm...this is probably pop rock," she said. "This is the Bangles. They're new."
The Bangles, I thought to myself. Wow.
I was head over heels in love. Something about the way their voices harmonized, the music reminded me of what I loved about my mom's sixties music - but this was something I could relate to.
We started hearing Manic Monday on the radio every morning, and we'd always turn it up - sometimes dance to it.
"I sing this song every day on the way to work," my mom said.
She was a secretary at the time. I too began singing it everyday walking to school - knowing my mom was singing it in her car at the same time.
Then...stop everything.
The next single: Walk Like an Egyptian.
Same scenario - I was sitting wolfing down some captain crunch - when I heard the opening guitar riffs and Vicki Peterson's sandpaper-dipped-in-honey vocals: "All the old paintings on the tomb they do the sun-dance, dontcha know...if ya move to quick (Oh-way-oh) they're fallin' down like a domino...."
"Mom...who is this?" I asked, floored - literally in shock and awe.
"It's the new Bangles song! Walk LIke an Egyptian. Isn't it great?"
It was literally - the greatest song I had ever heard.
The fact that it was by the same band who sang Manic Monday...blew my mind. Up until this time, I only liked one-hit-wonders from the sixties. I never "followed" a band before.
I loved the fact that it was all four members who sang their own part...again - same sixties influence that I knew and loved and recognized from studying my mother's records - but updated. It was the coolest shit I ever heard.

Anyway...not to bring the email down - but my life took a bit of a darker turn at this point.
My mom got really sick very shortly after - and had to be admitted to the hospital for a very indefinite amount of time.
My mornings were now shared with a babysitter - who didn't know shit-all about music and we rarely had the radio on.
I missed it so much. I missed her so much. All I could think about was the Bangles - and my mom - and how they were both all of a sudden not in my life.
When an eight year old bases his whole life around two things - and they are gone - it's a very big deal.
So...
My dad - who had his hands full with me and my little sister, raising us by himself for the time-being - did the horrific task of taking us clothes shopping. We were upstairs at Sears - and at the time - they had a music section.
I browsed through...not even thinking of anything really - just looking - and there it was:
The Different Light album, in all it's glory.
It was the first time I saw PICTURES of these amazing women who made music that really, literally blew my MIND. Music that was (little did I know) changing my life.
Music that was not bought for me because it was the "in thing".
Music that did not belong to another person, another generation.
This music - this sound - belonged to me.
It was for me.
Discovered by me (and my mom).
I begged my father.
Begged him.
I said I'd wear my old clothes to school - I'd forfeit my christmas gifts - my birthday gifts - but I absolutely HAD to have the tape.
I was drawn to it like nothing ever before or since. I needed to have this album, I knew in my head - if he was not going to buy it for me - I was going to steal it. Pure and simple.
I needed to go home with this tape.
He bought it for me, and I was in heaven.
An entire album of songs I had never heard by the band that meant so much to me and my mom. I hoped every song was as good as Manic Monday and Walk LIke an Egyptian.
I was wrong.
They were better.
It was the first time I heard their voices since my mom was admitted to the hospital - she was battling manic depression at the time.
I didn't *really* understand anything about mental illness.
I was eight, how could any kid?
I still to this day don't understand how the human mind works - nor do I understand who gets to choose what "sane" or "insane" means.
Who draws the line?
Is there even such a thing as reality, if we all have our own perception of it?
I just knew my mom wasn't herself. I couldn't explain it. No one could.
But - this sounds cheese - I found this...PEACE in the bangles music.
Seriously. It just brought me somewhere else.
I was in a different place. I realized I didn't have to sit in silence with some babysitter every morning. I could take my breakfast in my room and listen to the Bangles tape over and over.
I could hear Manic Monday and walk Like an Egyptian as many times as I wanted.
And I also learned so much more about music.
They were the first "garage band" I ever fell in love with. The first I ever heard for that matter.
Guitars that moved in and out of tune, vocals that didn't always match up - it all added to the charm.
ANd their raw harmonies. Songs like Angles Don't Fall in Love, Return Post, In A Different Light, September Gurls and Let It Go.... I was just in ecstasy.
It made me forget about my mom being sick - about any problems that I was trying (or trying not) to deal with - and they saved my life.
I visited my mom a few times in the hospital (she was transferred to St.Thomas which was a few hours away) and she told me that she still thinks of me whenever she hears Walk LIke an Egyptian - and sometimes even does the dance in the halls of the hospital.
I told her that the whole album was even better - so good she won't even believe it - and when she gets home we can listen to it over and over again. I had the whole day planned out - her first day back - we'd sit at the kitchen table and I'd play the album from start to finish for her. I couldn't wait to hear what she thought of it.
I had actually tried making her a copy of it - truely beliving the album could make her better - better than the fucked up medication "they" were putting her on - which seemed to be the biggest of her problems.
However, I didn't have a dual tape-recorder - I had to record with my old Fisher Price tape recorder that most kids my age were playing Cabbage Patch sing-a-long-read-a-long cassettes on - from my parent's big stero and it didn't turn out good.
I would have even given her my copy - but it was literally the only good thing in my life at the time. I couldn't part with it.
Almost a year went by without my mom.
I spent that entire year alone - except I wasn't alone. I was in my room - staring into the speakers of a ghetto blaster, pretending to be somewhere else.
My dad, seeing how much time I focused, staring into the speakers of the tape player listening to this album - bought me the OTHER Bangles album - All Over the Place.
It was the greatest gift - and greatest comfort he could have ever given me.
There was nothing he could have said at the time to make me feel better. No explanation. No promise. Nothing to make the things I was feeling go away.
I think because of this he felt helpless, like he couldn't be a good father.
But - he proved he was the best father he could ever be by giving me this record - be realizing that THIS was what I needed to help me get through the shit we were all dealing with.
The fact that he knew to get me this album - even had to look it up and venture into a record store and (bless his heart) ask the girl for "some old bangles tape" - makes him the greatest dad in the world. He knew exactly how to help his son.
Garage songs about running away to a perfect world.
I turned my whole world into a Bangles song.
I connected with this record more than any other record - to this day.
They reference so many things that would become major influences in my life.
The album touched down on poets like Matthew Arnold and William Blake, introspective stuff, soul-searching stuff - "dont' fuck with me" stuff.
This was it for me. I knew what music could do for me now.
This album set the basis for EVERY OTHER singer I would get into - present day included.
Of course - my mother came back from the hospital after almost a year.
The same - but not quite herself.
She was admitted back again in 1987 - the year the Bangles released their singele for Hazy Shade of WInter. It was a dark, depressing and evil song - and if you look back at the songs of 87 - they were all dark and depressing.
It was exactly how I felt.
Once again - I was totally, helplessly connected to this band.
Their next album Everything came out while my mom was still in the hospital - and I felt like I was eight years old all over again, even though I was now 11.
Again - the songs stayed by my side when my mom couldn't be there - and I truely believe without them - I could have been one of those sad case kids who did god-only-knows to himself.
But I wasn't as depressed, because they were my outlet.
They broke up a year after that - and I was left with a bit of a void.
Who was going to make weird, garage-pop-rock songs that made and kept me happy?
So within a few short years - I found other bands - I was particularily drawn to female vocalists - who had a "garage" feel and used vocal layerings and harmonies.
Bands like the B-52s, Supremes, Madonna, Lisa Lisa + the Cult Jam, Siouxsie Sioux.
And then - Liz Phair.
Liz Phair's album reminded me so much of All Over the Place - it freaked me out.
From the Liz Phair album- I kind of learned all about the snobby underworld of indie garage rock - and the rest is history.
Oddly enough - Liz Phair's producer - Brad Wood posted a message to a Liz Phair email list I was on about five years ago.
It just so happened the Bangles were planning a reunion.
And guess who was producing?
Brad Wood.
I have never done anything like this - but I took it as a sign - a serendipidous sign.
Liz Phair - my new favorite singer - "The one who filled the void" - if you will - kind of linked me to this guy's email address. And he was linked to the Bangles.
I emailed him. Telling him I love his work. His work with bands like Veruca Salt, Ben Lee, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch - and that I could NOT be happier that he was producing their new album.
THen I got a little silly - and even apologized in advance...but I had to ask - if there was any way that he could pass a message on to the Bangles for me.
Stupid, I know.
But it made sense. One led to the other and led me to Brad Wood - and he led me back to square one - but this time - I was speaking with a source directly connected to the Bangles.
I asked him to just tell them - a fan of their music since the beginning says "thanks for everything".
It was probably the kid in me - the eight year old who was really saying "thanks".

In a few days - he emailed me back and said he passed the message on to the girls ("Yeah right," i thought to myself) and they were very flattered.
He then said - that he has attached a little note that Debbi Peterson of the Bangles emailed to him - to email to ME.
I held my breath and my hand went to my mouth. I couldn't believe what I was reading.

It read:

Hi Dan -
You're quite the detective! No one has ever tried to contact us through our producer before! You can imagine our surprise when Brad said he had recieved a fan letter for us. It's fans like you who have stuck with us through all this time while we were inactive that we are making this album for. Music is so important to us as well and we all have our favorites who have made an impact on our lives, so to hear someone such as yourself, who is obviously very passionate about your music, speaking of our music the way you do it reminds us why we are doing this..
Thanks again for sticking with us all these years,
Debbi.

I cried when I read it. It was just like this full circle thing.
Finally - the band I directed so much attention to - was acknowledging me - taking time to type a letter to me!
That was so kind of Brad Wood to do that for me - he will never know what he did for me, seriously.
He could have so easily deleted that email - but he didn't. He seriously forwarded it to them - he was by no means ANY fan club - just some guy they hired to do the album - but he went out of his way.
It was weird though, hearing one of the Bangles say "thanks for sticking with us for all these years".
That was when I kind of lost it and just became an eight year old again for a minute - because all I could keep thinking was - "No. thank YOU for sticking with me."
So yeah.
My mom has been out of the hospital for almost fifteen years and is doing great - the new album (Doll Revolution) rocks - and my entire radio show and CD collection - hell - even the fact that I met up with Life Partner and we clicked so heavily because we both feel so passionately about the music we listen to - can be attributed back to that small spark that was ignited in me one morning in 1985 while I munched on cereal before school and my mom was putting on mascara in her pink bath robe, humming along to the best band in the world.

dan
(sorry it's so long, but i had to get it all down).

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: JESUS!!!!! LIVE IN SYDNEY AUSTRALIA!!- Experience the Torture, The Agony, The Suffering, The Blood and the Dying....AGAIN!!!!

I'm gonna keep this short and sweet, brothers and sisters.
Hollywood actor-director Mel Gibson has been asked to recreate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the streets of Sydney if the city is selected to host a major Catholic gathering in 2008, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Now, while I understand that the point is to show us sinners how "he died on the cross for us because we are all such rotten people" - I still don't get it.
Yeah - the point is - "look how much jesus loved you -he died for you."
But wait...
Now let's just put this into perspective for a minute.
We all have a grandparent, a mom, a dad, a guardian or partner - someone who loves and cares for us very much. Someone who would literally die for us.
Let's just say - we're in a dark alley in a shite area of town.
Out pops a gangster and he pulls a gun on you with the full intention of shooting you.
Our mother - the loving, caring, nurturing and protective beast that she is - jumps infront of the bullet and takes it for you - without a second though - dying to protect her child.
My mom would probably do this without even considering otherwise.
I know I would do it for her.
Now - while this is proof that she has strong love for me - that she would DIE for me - I would in no circumstance EVER want to see the scenario recreated.
What is the motivation?
"Gee...my mom must have really loved me to take a bullet for me. Let's see it again - only this time - get a hollywood guy with lots of connections with make-up and special effects so we can make it SUPER bloody - just to show exactly how hard her stomach exploded when the bad man shot her in it, and exactly how much blood splattered on my face - and how much bone fragment flew from her splintered ribs."
Sound sick that I am talking about my mother that way?
Or worse yet - for me to be talking about YOUR MOTHER in that situation?
It is. It's very fucking sick. I love my mom. You love your mom.
To even imagine her in this situation is almost enough to make me puke.
So why is it - if these people INSIST they love a guy named Jesus - who probably was nailed to a cross - why is it they INSIST on seeing it redone again and again and again and again.
I thought they loved him?
Does the fact that they can stomach a three hour torture session of him being beaten and cut black and blue mean they love him more? Does it make them feel like they love him more?
You know - maybe what happened to a guy named Jesus was brutally awful.
What happened in the holocaust is brutally awful too - so awful - that I don't want to see vivid and realistic depictions of what happens when you put jewish men, women and children into ovens and bake them.
I don't want to know what happens when you do "experimental surgery" on the vaginas of pregnant women without any pain killer.
I don't want to know what it looks like to castrate gay men who are forced to wear pink triangles and live in their own shit and piss.
I know it happened. And it's awful.
All those people died for no reason. were tortured for no reason. I know this.
Do I need to see it redone - full off torture and gore and graphic screams of babies burning and starving to death in Death Camps?
FUCK NO.
So why do people who profess to love Jesus SOOO much - insist on continuously seeing him strung up on a cross by nails like a piece of meat - whipped and beaten with a crown of thorns jammed into his skull?
Do we want to see the ones we love suffer?
It makes no sense to me - I would find no peace in that - and I don't think it's a very peaceful demonstration and I have no idea what emotions it is meant to invoke, other than disgust, guilt and pure sadness.
Can't we start concentrating on the good for a change? Or are humans just messy, messy, evil creatures - obsessed with death and torture?
Who the fuck knows anymore.

Why Modern Technology is Evil

Remember the early days of three-way calling?
Remember the windows of possibility this new, cutting edge technology opened up for all us teenage phone-callers?
We could now conference call our pot orders.
Make plans with three, six - even twelve people, simultaneously over the telephone.
No more mincing words or mis-planning.
The world of telecommunications was a big, fat oyster, marinated in juicey garlic sauce.
Yum.
Then...we learned quickly how to use this technology as a weapon.
The feared "Three-way attack" - when you phone someone out of the blue and ask questions about another friend.
Except you fail to mention that the "other friend" you are asking questions about is also on the line, listening silently.
So when the poor person you are victimizing drops his or her real feelings about the third party, the third party pipes in with a shocking:
"Well...that's fucking NICE - I'm glad I now know what you really think of me."
And the poor victim is on their end of the phone, red-faced and at a loss for words - knowing they are caught - and there ain't nothing they can say to dig their asses out of trap they were unknowingly lead into.
In fact - they are so fucked by this point - that they aren't even MAD at the person who set the trap and asked them the question.
There's no point in being mad - because you're just flat-out fucked.
Evil, evil people we are.
Three way calling - although a luxury to some - is a dangerous, dangerous toy - capable of ruining friendships and destroying reputations with a few, simple button pushes.
Gather round, brothers and sisters.
I have a tale.
Once, a long, long time ago - in a time before CD-burning, blogging or instant-messaging (1998), three young children (aged 21, 24 and 25) were bored to death, each at their own home - lying around, restless...wondering what the fuck they were going to do.
It was a hot, muggy August day.
Not a cloud in the sky.
A haze of humidity rested over everything.
Nancy, 25- "The Girl" - had a six pack of coolers.
Zion, 24 - "The Butch Fag" - had a 24 case of beer.
Daniel, 21 (me) - "The Drunk Poofter" - had scored a small amount of hash.
But the question remained:
"What to do.....?"
Of course - a three-way call was in order.
The three hummed and hawed over plans.
Another night of porch drinking and a trip to the disgusting happy tap was redundant and exhausted.
A backyard BBQ was out of the question - as no one had a free backyard.
A trip downtown to a "new bar" was out of the question, as these three starving "wannabe-artists" were dirt ass broke.
Nancy had the best suggestion of the night.
"Oh my GOD!" She bubbled enthusiastically. "I have the PERFECT plan!"
She said she knew some guy who lived out in the county who had a big piece of property on a beach- and he owed her a favour.
She thought it would be a decent idea if the three of us kiddies pitched a tent, brought our drug of choice and had us a little intoxicated bonfire.
Zion and I concurred.
So of course - she told us to "hush", contain our excitement while she linked up to this guy via three-way, while we still remained on the line.
Zion and myself felt our hearts sink when the guy's voicemail clicked in.
Nancy left a message:
"Hi Mark, it's Nancy...I remember a few weeks back you said that if you could ever do me any favours - to just call you. Well....I was kinda wondering if it wouldn't be too much trouble..if myself and two friends could maybe pitch a tent out by your beach property. We won't be any trouble...give me a call back as soon as you get this. Talk to you soon! Thanks!"
*click*
And we resumed our own three-way phone call with each other:
"Do you think he'll call back," I asked, concerned - fishing out my old styrofoam cooler from my messy closet.
"Um..he better fucking call me back," Nancy said - from her end of the phone. "That little mother fucker owes me so bad - cuz I bailed his fucking ass out of a ditch of shit last month."
"Is he a fudge packer?" Zion asked.
"Ugh. Who knows," Nancy snorted. "You know...he might be now that I think about it."
"Mmmm...can he come? Think I'll get to fuck him tonight?" I smiled.
"Trust me, you wouldn't want to," Nancy said. "Where are my fucking coolers?"
"Why - is he not cute?" asked Zion.
"He looks like a fucking troll. But he's a laywer."
"Oooh," I grinned. "A lawyer eh? Nothing like a Hung Jury. Maybe I will fuck him tonight and score myself a sugar daddy. HOw old is he?"
"You're so awful, Dan!" laughed Nancy. "He's about 26 or 27."
"Yum! I'm cravin' me some twink-laywer!"
I licked my lips.
"I wonder how big his cock is," pondered Zion.
"Could you imagine," I began. "Me and Zion tag-teaming him tonight by the fire?"
"Okay, enough you guys," Nancy said.
We all burst out laughing.
"I wonder if he's into water-sports or scat?" I asked.
"Ewww!!!" barfed Zion. "Too far! You're fucking disgusting!"
"Um...I'm totally kidding! Jesus!"
"All I know is, that little shit owes me and he better fucking call me back," stated Nancy.
I then found my old cooler in my closet and opened it.
"Oh my god! I found my cooler!!" I examined it. "Eww!! It looks like there is dried blood at the bottom of my cooler!"
"Honey," began Nancy. "This is not the time of the month to be talking to ME about blood."
*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*
We were all silent for a moment.
"What was that?" asked Nancy, calmly.
"Oh my FUCKING GAWWWD!" Zion began laughing hysterically.
Nancy's voice was dead serious.
"You guys," she asked again. "What the fuck was that?"
I felt her terror.
"Nancy," I began slowly. "I don't know how to tell you this. I don't think you hung up with that guy's answering machine."
Zion was in hysterics on his end of the phone - and that was when I lost it - I was thinking about all the shit we said about this guy. Nancy called him every name in the book - Zion and I put him in every sexual position possible - and to add insult to injury - Nancy even made reference to the fact that she's on the rag.
All of it - recorded in stereo - on his answering machine.
In the 45 seconds that the machine was recording our conversation - we successfully depicted ourselves as the most vile, foul, vulgar and flat out RUDEST people on the planet. We said everything bad that could be possibly said to a stranger who didn't know us - and even invented a few new ones.
I laughed so hard I almost pissed.
Nancy, however - failed to see any humour in the situation.
"You guys!" her voice cracking, "Do you know what this means???"
"We're not going camping tonight??" I asked - and Zion and I continued on, laughing hysterically.
"You GUYS!"
The helpless desperation in her voice made us laugh harder.
There was nothing she could do.
"Is there ANY way I can retrieve that message from his machine?"
"Nancy - you'd have to break into his house and literally steal the tape from his answering machine."
"I wonder how long he's going to be gone for...?"
"Oh come on! you're not seriously going to break into his house!"
"Well Jesus Christ! you guys are talking about tag-teaming him, I'm calling him a little fucker....what the fuck...how am I ever supposed to face him again?"
"Nancy," Zion piped in. "You're gonna have to bite the bullet. You fucked up. Just avoid him like the plague from now on. You're only other option is to break into his house, and I'm not about to go to prison for swearing on someone's answering machine."
"Oh my god..." She was still worried sick.
"Anyway," I changed the subject. "What ARE we gonna do tonight?"

We ended up getting wasted on somenoe's front porch - and going to the Happy Tap.
A far cry from a beachside campsite.
But such is life.

The moral of this story:
Always double check that you hung up on your third party during a threeway call.
Because technology can and WILL bite you on the ass.

hearts and farts,

dan