Writings of Faith

Going to Nuit Blanche

2009-10-02T20:13:00.004-05:00

Kindness is a portal I slip through this night
you only get to see what the cool kids see
by seeing through them and through them the me
different angles, colours, angels, mothers, lips-

Speaking, entreating, retreating, repose,
a parallel dimesion reaching out its smooth palm.
I will take a cheap umbrella and a six megapixel cam
through kensington, art, crowds and song, nuit blanche...

Summer Progress Report

2009-08-16T13:50:00.002-05:00

Woe is me for not having an air conditioner! As the summer weather starts to actually feel (uncomfortably) like summer, it is time to realize that there is not much of it left! Still, it has been a busy/productive summer for many people, getting out to cottages, sailing, swimming, camping, starting new romances (and putting others behind).

I have wrapped up an activity sandwich complete with biking, two weddings, made good headway in my completion of my CCPE and started hosting open mics at Wally's (Oh snap! I better practice, that's tonight!) My friend shared this discovery as well. Nick Pitera:

I can't believe how precise his voice impersonations are!! Part of me is glad he's too busy to attend my open mics...

But I still have a few things that I want to do this summer, including

-actually catch a fish, not just go "fishing"
-goto Canada's Wonderland
-perfect a cover of Lover, You Should Have Come Over (Jeff Buckley). Maybe tonight?
-go back to and complete recording of my first album
-catch a VIA rail train somewhere without it going on strike

May we all achieve what we can, and milk this season dry. Good luck!

I Totally Got YouTubed!

2009-07-08T18:27:00.008-05:00

Ever google yourself just to see what will turn up? Maybe people aren't as narcissistic as me, but when I did that today, I found out that someone totally youtubed me!

Remember that singer songwriter competition where Aralie.com told you you would be recorded and uploaded, Barrett? Yeah, but they told me they were having trouble doing that after the first few contestants and so therefore they weren't going to do that for me. Excuse the conversation with myself. Boy, did I get a surprise!

It's a nice surprise of course. I'm happy to have my original music on record. It's not the best performance (and I kinda squirmed watching myself recount the Batman Begins plot) but at least this gives you an idea of my music. Watching myself play is such a bizarre experience but it also serves as a reminder that I REALLY NEED TO GET A NEW GUITAR!! (I do not heart the tone).

The song is actually called "Lay Down and Die" and it was based on something my mother told me (viz. that you CAN'T "just lay down and die") when I was going through a rough patch in my early adulthood. My father, at that time, gave me a card quoting Winston Churchill which read, on the outside: "If you're going through hell..." and then on the inside: "keep going!" I have always remembered those words and I can always compare whatever bad situation that I'm going through to the fact that at least I'm not actually going through hell. I haven't lived through war, for example. Sartre said "hell is other people" and sometimes they are but I'm thankful to live around people, not in a bunker, waiting for certain death.

Events

Just a Thought

2009-06-04T21:47:00.005-05:00

Ideas are like viruses,
if you get exposed to them,
they grow in you

Ideas are a very dangerous thing

because..
they have the potential to change

And who knows
rather
who would imagine

that we could observe the world
and come up with our own conclusion?

The facts are right there!

Ideas. Get infected by them
and you will never be bored...

Cool T's

2009-05-25T20:54:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to curb my out-of-control online shopping addiction, but must admit I was lured onto threadless.com by an ad that was on Facebook, and ALMOST spent money. The designs on some of these T-shirts are amazing! Everything from punk vampires and vintage iconography to quirky spins or out-there messaging put on by diverse individual artists. For example, the Hooray for Cryptology T-shirt really caught my fancy. Thank goodness it was sold out anyway.

But it's more fun just browsing through and looking at the designs. If I were ever going to get a tattoo. I'm pretty sure these would at least give me some ideas.

Another Missing Child

2009-05-20T11:20:00.007-05:00

As I took the bus to work this morning, each with a Child Missing poster taped near the doors, helicopters loomed overhead, looking for the remains of Tori Stafford, believed to have been murdered the first day of her abduction, and disposed of in a rural area of Guelph, about an hour from her home in Woodstock.

Michael Thomas Rafferty, 28, of Woodstock, Ont. and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, were charged with the abduction and taken into custody today. Mr. Rafferty pulled his shirt over his head while he left the Woodstock courtroom today to hide his face as a crowd of gathered people shouted insults at him, and warned of what was to come.

Since Tori disappeared on April 8, she has been kept in the news by the persistence of concerned and commited parents and friends who organized candlelight vigils and news conferences to keep the issue top-of-mind and in the eyes of the media. The key to identifying the suspects was the grainy image of Tori with a woman with a puffy white jacket, taken from the adjacent school's surveillance system.

It's creepy to think of such abductions and murder taking place literally so close to home. Why is it that Southern Ontario is full of rapists and murderers like Paul Bernardo?

I've recently gone fishing at Guelph lake, near where the helicopters were searching. Only last week my friends were giving themselves chills recounting how a girl had been abducted and raped there in the 80's. Although the trails and nature are beautiful -I hike there often, the place now seems tainted. After such a long search, this story seems fated only for a tragic ending...

News Reviews

My Town Exports Freaks

2009-04-26T19:05:00.003-05:00

I was bored/surfing/tooling the internet for something to look at, such as Vice's 'Do's and Don'ts' photo fashion series when the familiar face of the Great Orbax, a former freak resident of my city, Guelph, jumped out from their homepage, on Viceland.com.

Click here to watch the interview

He took Physics at the same university that I went to, was friends with friends of mine, and I would see him out viewing championship wrestling or go to see his 'Freak Shows' when he hosted them annually at the E-bar. (You can still see the "Freak Show" graffitti in a blood drip font on the side of my building. Someone must have done it to advertise one of the shows. I think someone complained about it to Dr. Orbax, who himself didn't encourage it, but was a victim of being loved and promoted by arsonists.)

At the Freak Shows, I always suspected that both practice and skill were involved in his odd, physically dangerous stunts. Attempting things like smashing cinderblocks with sledgehammers on people's bodies, were something only someone very calculated and careful would ever attempt (if they were in their right mind at all) and putting tubes down your nose down into your stomach, pumping in blue and yellow liquid, and manually pushing green liquid back out? That was something else! However, accidents can always happen, which is why Cris Angel stuff like this always takes so much meticulous preparation. When I saw this trick performed once, and the hammer came down, the "China Doll's" stomach, on which the cinder block lay, was not even bruised, but little did anyone know that one of the chunks of smashed block would hit her foot, and make her bleed on stage. Dr. Orbax knows that the distribution of force in that cinder block will allow it to shatter without it doing damage to the body behind it, but he couldn't anticipate where the pieces would land once the block broke.

I'm sure the China Doll is fine today, and Dr. Orbax hasn't suffered too much more than 3rd degree burns all over his body. As for myself, I have a weak stomach for seeing people get their tongues caught in mousetraps and the like, but I'm entertained to think someone who I know from my city is world-renowned enough to be interviewed by Vice Magazine.

This April Fool's Joke is on the Taxpayer

2009-04-01T12:37:00.011-05:00

Harper is a walking contradiction. When you think "Conservative" you don't naturally think of a 'leader' who spends money that he doesn't have. But that's what he's urging countries to do globally: spend OUR money. In the UK, G-20 protesters took their frustration out on the Royal Bank of Scotland, smashing it's windows and condemning the greedy cash-grabbers, even as bankers waved money and taunted them from above.

You would think we would learn from history. Politicians argue that, were we to have injected enough money into the economy during the great depression of the 30's, we might have avoided it altogether but there has to be a limit somewhere. You can't save by "overacting" and overspending. Perhaps Harper knows that his indulgent decisions will be reflected in the years to come, not in the next quarter. By then he will be out of parliament anyway. It's precisely this thinking that has led our financial institutions to economic collapse in the first place.

Newsflash: Banks don't stimulate the economy!

Politrix

Biology Blast: Epigenetics in the News and Can your Hair Really Turn From Grey to Brown?

2009-03-21T13:12:00.005-05:00

When I was studying biology in university, we were taught that we had one set of genes that determined everything from hair colour to which thumb naturally folds over the other when our hands clasp. You had one book of instructions. That was it.

Of course, we knew that obviously you could control (to a degree) the way your body kept in shape, or how it aged. You just needed to watch your diet and get enough exercise.

But last week when my friend, who suffers some premature greying, told me his grey hair "was turning brown again," I didn't believe him. Maybe that's changed too.

In lectures, we were taught that there were genes that didn't express themselves, like when someone is a "carrier" of a gene, but doesn't necessarily go on to develop breast cancer, for example. Still, we understood, that when two recessive genes were matched up from both parents, an offspring could express the trait of which neither of their "carrier" parents did. Sometimes this was dangerous, other times, it merely resulted in blue eyes.

Now it seems the whole study of genetics and DNA has had a revolution! I watched a BBC documentary which featured some geneticists who were studying the possibility of something outside of genetics affecting the way genetics themselves were operating. However, it was just a theory at that point. It proposed that we shouldn't only be talking about the set of instructions our bodies operate by, but which of those instructions are operating when, and how.

This is the relatively new (unless I'm the last to catch on) study of 'Epigenetics', best described as a set of "switches" in our genes that are either turned "on" or "off". We already know that specific deletions of genetic material can result in very different syndromes depending on whether the carrier is a man or a woman, now it seems as if a gene does one thing in one man and absolutely nothing in another. So genetics can't be explained by the genome alone. There's now the all epic epigenome.

I realized that scientists have now adopted epigenetics and are finding more applications for its study. Dr. William King was awarded researcher of the Month by the Canadian Cancer Society this March, for finding links between methylation, a DNA function which regulation the division of cells, and the possibility of detecting high risk patients, before they even develop colorectal cancer.
Read Article

Epigenetics has both exciting and chilling results that can be drawn as we learn more about it. With genetics, our thinking was that we could do whatever we wanted to to our bodies, and while that might affect our own health, it wouldn't have any affect on our children's health, or their children's. They would inherit the same chance of suffering from any various disease, it was up to them to protect themselves from the environment. But now, epigenetics has suggested that things like stress may have an affect on the way even our children's genes might be operating.

The preservatives, amount of exercise we get, the computers, cell phones, cigarettes and machinery we're exposing ourselves to day in and day out may not mutate our genetics today, but what if they have a sort of accumulation snowball affect? Perhaps environmental factors could have effects on our epigenetics, so that chemicals we're dispensing, polluting and eating today, affect the way future generations bodies work. Either way, the course of our evolution depends on whether or not we find out what exactly epigenetics is and how it works, and how best we can work, so that we don't destroy human epigenome, so that we can preserve life.

Health

Bitter Green, Sweet Spring!

2009-03-18T19:35:00.003-05:00

"Bitter Green, they call her, walking in the sun."...Because it will be the first day of spring this Friday and I can't wait for more sun! Because I will probably be singing this Tony Rice song at karaoke tonight. It reminds me of driving around with my dad in his pickup truck when I was a kid, listening to the "oldies but the goodies".

Another one of my favorite pre-summer songs is "First Day of Spring" by Gandharvas.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

2009-03-06T08:59:00.002-06:00

I will be! I've been anticipating this movie for years, ever since reading Alan Moore and Frank Gibbon's The Watchmen and it is finally here, as of today! There were many trials and tribulations involved in bringing this graphic novel to the screen, scuffles over ownership etc. In the end, the director of 300 (Zack Snyder) was able to make the movie.

Since the date of release kept getting set back, I re-read the novel in excited anticipation. Because I don't like large crowds of screaming teenagers, I won't be going tonight, opening night. But you can bet your secret superhero suit I'll be there next week!

What Katie Perry Can Teach Us About Poetry

2009-03-02T20:44:00.003-06:00

Do you ever get sick of songs you have heard a million times? Of course you do! But Katie Perry's song 'I Kissed a Girl' probably tops it for this past year (or was it 2007's?) song that everyone can love to hate (or secretly just love).

There is still yet another way to beat a dead horse even deader, and that's to try an innovative exercise, employing the song. An exercise to rework our minds out of the most grueling overplayed (or is that just my fault for still having it as my ringtone?) brain-washing song's control over our psyche's. Bring it down from the inside; like a Trojan Horse.

This is an exercise you could really do with any song, whether it be Otis, Regina or Winehouse. But the goal of the exercise is to take a song and write alternate lyrics, while maintaining somewhat the same form and rhythmic flow.

The following may not a perfect picture of greatness, but I think I might have somewhat achieved the goal. I'll warn you it's a little stream-of-consciousness and as such, doesn't really make any sense at all, but here goes:

I kissed a girl and she liked it
I like the weave of her homemade plastic
I kissed a girl She's Earp, Wyatt
Her gunshot lips laid me in the casket.

And I reel so long and she falls so right
I think I might get dressed up tonight

I kissed a girl just to quiet
the longing urge I've felt to not deny it

I don't even know where I live
I've got amnesia
I wore my pants all inside out
well, whatever

don't dare me to
don't dare me not
I think that's ten cents I've got

I kissed a girl just to fly it
don't you tell me that you've never tried it

Yes! Don't tell me that you've never tried it! It's fun making up alternate song lyrics! That's probably how I made it through so many mindless part time jobs in the past, because I entertained myself. I invite you to add on, write alternate lyrics for songs we might know. See if we can guess which ones they are!

Thank God for Black Adder

2009-03-01T14:33:00.004-06:00

Forgoing cable TV during these cold months, I have strived to get my entertainment where I can get it: on DVD or the internet. Convenient for me, I live just across from a public library whose free movie supply has yet to be exhausted. Although I'm familiar with Rowan Atkinson from Mr. Bean, Black Adder is a cult comedy that somehow slipped my notice...until now. I've blazed through and rewatched episodes from season one and two all last week.

The costumes are great, the characters witty and the plot about a scheming royal makes for a great series that seemingly never ends. The Black Adder is like the Coyote from Roadrunner, in that he has plan after plan to do his enemies in. The only consistent result is that he always fails.

No other theme song pumps me up as this one:

The sound of hoofbeats cross the glade,
Good folk, lock up your son and daughter,
Beware the deadly flashing blade,
Unless, you want to end up shorter,

Black Adder!
Black Adder!
He rides a pitch-black steed,
Black Adder!
Black Adder!
He's very bad indeed,

Black, his gloves of finest mole,
Black, his codpiece made of metal,
His horse is blacker than his vole,
His pot is blacker than his kettle,

Black Adder!
Black Adder!
With many a cunning plan,
Black Adder!
Black Adder!
You horrid little man!

Movies (and shows)

Let the Clock Decide Your Fate

2009-02-20T20:00:00.004-06:00

Excited for the weekend, but too tired out from the week, I lay "napping" on a Friday evening. The faces of people and things dance on my eyelids, and I'm impressed by the beauty that is a familiar part of my every day. When the mind is quieted, the important parts emerge. I strategically utilize the yogic breathing I learned this week to try to lull myself to sleep, but it just makes me more alert, remembering how I laughed uncontrollably due to the massive blood flow to my brain, as I stood on my shoulders.

I'm trying to get healthier as the spring nears, and so I've taken up yoga on a semi-casual basis. I like it for the mental discipline it offers, and of course because my body could use it. I want life to be more like a breath that doesn't slip away without being noticed.

I can't sleep on a Friday evening, but I could use the rest.

I decide that I will open my eyes to look at the clock.
If it is an even number, I will stay laying until the alarm goes off, and either fall asleep, or continue meditating.
If it is an uneven number, I will get up and do something.

It is 9:35pm.

People Should Be More Like these Peruvian Shanty Children

2009-02-06T08:36:00.006-06:00

Photo: Mariana Bazo/Reuter

"Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 18:3

When I saw this picture, firstly I thought: people should be more like this. Content, playful, making do with what they have. Secondly, this picture makes me miss warm weather, warm heavenly weather, not this icy hades that has been dominating the scene, weather which allows us all to play outside, children and adults alike. I've started playing Squash on Tuesdays, but what I really crave is to be out in a park playing soccer. Damn you groundhog!

Will Naked Apes Take Over the World?

2009-01-29T23:15:00.007-06:00

"Unless we can colonize other planets on a massive scale and spread the load, or seriously check our population increase in some way, we shall, in the not-too-far-distant future, have to remove all other forms of life from the earth."*

That was written in 1967!

Author Desmond Morris apparently thought we were pretty close to a population crisis, but I was baffled by his estimation of what will happen in another 222 years:

"In 260 years' time, if the rate of increase stays steady - which is unlikely - there will be a seething mass of 400,000 million naked apes crowding the face of the earth." *

We now have almost 7 billion. I don't know, is the rate if increase staying steady? I think it's growing exponentially! We might be there soon...

*Morris, Desmond "The Naked Ape Trilogy: The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo and Intimate Behaviour" (Random House, UK: 1994) p.162

Does Abortion Make you Gag?

2009-01-27T22:42:00.008-06:00

Since Obama reversed the "Global Gag Rule" yesterday, family planning groups that offer abortion and/or abortion-related services will have access to funding again, a decision lauded by many as a wise no-brainer.

The rule began with Reagan, who presumably wanted to endorse a certain image of family -one that would never consider abortion for their own family or any other, even if it saved a mother's life. So he brought in the ban. Clinton banned the ban. He didn't like it. He thought perhaps women should have a choice for themselves. But Bush was a fan of the ban. He was against stem cell research. He was against many things that could have helped science and health care be more progressive. He wasn't going to condone or make it possible in any way for women to have the choice of abortion, not on his watch!

But now, on the anniversary of the Wade vs Roe decision, Obama has lifted the oppression that has been placed upon many women and girls around the world.

Pro-choice activists are ecstatic.
Religious fanatics are horrified.
Many are probably relieved.
Others won't be able to sleep.
Yet others "would rather not talk about it"

Let me ask you this: Whether or not you were going to make one decision or another about your unborn child, whether they were in their first trimester or a few minutes old, wouldn't you want to know all your options?

Politics

Intellectual Property on the Internet: Making AdSense of Google Geeks

2009-01-18T12:51:00.006-06:00

I'm trying to do some research on how Google AdSense works. It's the program that organizes the Internet according to key words and click ads. Obviously, Google is a web giant concerned with maintaining ethical practices. So it has it's own policies regarding types of websites their ads can be linked to, and one of those requirements is that the sites it is hosted on isn't infringing on any copyrights.

I was thinking that maybe if I were a bit more Internet savvy, I could make a bit of pocket change while helping out Internet users all over the world! But I would have to make sure to comply by Google's policies, which I read painstakingly.

So where do I start?

First, I was stuck at what constitutes "fair use" in terms of using parts of copyrighted material as say, you would do when quoting an author in a review you write about them on the Internet. If I was hosting an ad for Google, could it be on a page that has a Felix the Cat cartoon on it? Hmm, what if I drew the cartoon of Felix the Cat? Would I have to cite original animator Otto Messmer? I guess I should make sure, I thought. After all, I wouldn't want to sign up with Google AdSense and then end up having my account with them brutally suspended for unwittingly tramping all over someone's licenced material. I'm not even sure how I get other sites to host the ads, nevermind sort out which ones were infringers, but here I am. I'm paranoid about plaigarism.

There are different ways to infringe on someone's licenced material, but the largest factor the courts usually consider is whether your "use" of the material has an effect on the market ie. are you providing an accessible copy of a Rembrandt painting, and as a result, does it diminish the value of the original? Are you making money off of it? If you were, I think you would be conclusively infringing on whoever owns that painting.

But in clarifying the distinction between copyright infringement and fair use, I got a real kick out of the examples used by chillingeffects.org, an organization about online intellectual property rights. Note the references to Startrek:

"Only material that originated with the author can support a copyright. Items from the public domain which appear in a work, as well as work borrowed from others, cannot be the subject of an infringement claim. Also, certain stock material might not be copyrightable, such as footage that indicates a location like the standard shots of San Francisco in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Also exempted are stock characters like the noisy punk rocker who gets the Vulcan death grip in Star Trek IV."

It goes on to explain how licensed material has to be in a fixed form of expression, so that:
"if I perform a Klingon death wail in a local park, my performance is not copyrightable. However, if I film the performance, then the film is copyrightable."
Source

Watch Startrek much?

With the ever-increasing need to classify ever-increasing amounts of information on the internet, I think it's going to be an increasing challenge/opportunity to maximize information use without violating creative property.

Opinions

Barack and the Middle East: Will We See a Change?

2009-01-04T12:55:00.010-06:00

Some would suggest that the US has always been Israeli-biased. This article criticizes Barack Obama for remaining silent regarding Israel's recent bombardment of Gaza that started December 27th. But should we be surprised that the not-even-yet President hasn't been very vocal about his condemnations of Israel? Is it weird to see him hanging out with Ehud?

Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Infitada states: "It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel's murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament."

Sure. Easy for you to say. You're right though. Someone should say something. Preferably someone who has a plan to do something about it. But you try walking into a gang fight and say "Hey, this just doesn't feel right" and see how easily you walk out. Now try to imagine you're soon to be President of the US and you do that. See what I mean? It takes a very careful Politician not to derail the trajectory of their campaign before they even take parliament. As Barack's spokesperson said: "There is only one president at a time." And anyways, when President's have condemned leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (for his Anti-Semetic remarks) in the past, what has that done? Could you really call that a "change"? Last time I checked, Iran still isn't a pro-Israeli nation.

It just doesn't seem to be the best idea for Barack to sever ties with Israel before he even takes office. Or worse, get too entangled internally. Why should he further alienate America from itself or others? The US supplies Israel with it's weapons. What does it think they are going to do with them?? Perhaps this is more of a weapons proliferation issue in general that US foreign policy should examine more in-depth? Barack will get his chance to initiate that starting January 20th, 2009.

Hopefully, we'll see some major changes when Barack Obama actually takes the stage but until then, I don't think we can blame him for being so tight-lipped. I would hope what Obama has to say to all those Palestinian refugees screaming "Let my people go!" would be a responsive "Yes we can!" I would hope Obama would think of his daughters in the place of all the innocent Israeli OR Palestinian children being rocketed to death, even if he doesn't say so. The fact that he's keeping good diplomatic ties with Israel doesn't seem a bad political move* but maybe it is just too early to see him playing hop-scotch with Palestinian orphans. Or, (and here's a novel thought) he might have other priorities.

As this month's Times Person of the Year interview suggests, Obama has a long laundry list of to do's. Although, the top three main things that keep Obama awake at night are:
1/Nuclear Proliferation
2/The Economy
3/The Environment
(not necessarily in that order)

Should the list be amended? Do you think the Middle-Eastern struggle, which has been going on for as long as I can remember, should be this President's particular responsibility to solve?

*What if toppling the Hamas government is the only way to end rocket fire between the two nations? And at what cost?

Politics

More than just Dreaming of a White Christmas...

2008-12-23T09:10:00.003-06:00

Environment Canada says this may be the first coast to coast white Christmas in a decade! Vancouver got hit with snow, which doesn't apparently happen too often and the East coast is battling some 163 kilometre per hour winds. Here in Onterrible, we're used to the big snow dumps that have given rise to the term "snowmeggedon" since the beginning of November already!

Merry Christmas...and bundle up!

Oh Christmas Tree

2008-12-12T11:25:00.004-06:00

Things are getting pretty festive around the office...at least in my pod. Here's my podmate, who is the social committee leader, who spearheaded our departmental competition to see who can decorate their surroundings the most. Note the look of sheer enthusiasm on his face as he proudly perches on his desk, post garland affixing, seconded by the 'thumbs up' gesture.

So far it looks like our pod might even win, considering we're the only pod to participate. But the end date for the competition has been extended, so I'm *sure* everyone will catch up sooner or later. My contribution was a large blue sock or "stocking" not pictured here.

I'm definitely in holiday mode. At least I'm anticipating it. Tonight, I look forward
drinking egg nog and caroling my face off with friends.

UPDATE DECEMBER 18:
No, the hangover from the eggnog wasn't too bad, especially considering it was just eggnog. However, thanks for your concern. And things have been turned up a notch here around the office, to my chagrin. It seems that my competitors were strategically holding out until the last day before the competition finale, at which point they went out on dollar store shopping sprees that left us looking like a couple of bums. As a result (wait for the disbelief)...we DIDN'T win our pod decorating competition! That's according to our judges. I'm not satisfied with their conclusion. Let's let you decide which pod says "Christmas" to you:

I have always wondered why Frosty is called Frosty when he's not Frosty, he's snowy. Anyway, the lyrics to the popular song can be seen on the window behind him, in case anyone's wondering.

Here are the dollar store pimps I was referring to earlier. At least they didn't die of Bah Humbug disease. I like them though cause they are my neighbours, and because they didn't win, either.
And here's the winner. "Starry Night" was their theme. Lame. I do like the little Santa belaying down the string of lights though. I bet his arms are sore.

I've Been Searching For a Heart of Gold

2008-12-05T14:42:00.006-06:00

If it wasn't for the rapid-fire bidding finger of some stranger on Ebay, I would be on my way to see Neil Young play in Toronto tonight. Instead, within the last minute, someone suckered me out of an incredibly cheap ticket. I bid $60US then they bid $61. I went to bid again when the message came up that the sale was final and that I was out of luck. As a result I get to see my friend who's visiting from Toronto...so life is always full of serendipity.

Something else that kinda sucks/could be full of serendipitous potential:
I've been cut back to part time. So I suppose I will have more free time to play guitar and/or look for another part time job in 2009. My boss assures me that the decision is probably temporary and she realizes it's kind of a "kick in the face" but it's merely based on business needs, or lack thereof.

It seems my work situation is always changing. I spent last year working three part time jobs, then this summer I replaced them all with one full time job. Now, just as I am coming into being eligible for Health Benefits at work, my schedule is changing again.

I'm glad that things are kept interesting though. I'm going to try to rebuild my karass -those people in my wheel of fate (if you can call it fate) that allow me to actualize and whom I help actualize. In Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut talks about the fictional concept of karass as those people who often unknowingly work together to bring about God's will, not to be confused with your granfalloon: a group of people who think they are connected, based on a superficial commonality, but they really aren't. An contemporary example of a granfalloon might be...people who think Sara Palin's not very intelligent?

Having been cut to part time, I am reminded that the people I speak to on the phone daily do indeed have a hand to play in deciding my fate, even though I never see their face. They could well be part of my extended karass. Or is it moreso the people who DON'T call who hold the power?

Personal Diegesis

Dead Rockstar Café

2008-11-17T19:08:00.004-06:00

There's a place I can't go called Dead Rockstar Café
It's lost somewhere between Andromeda and Bombay
But possessed by a geist, I got a small sneak peak
of bumps in the night and things that go creak

The wood was so nice, the drinks quite a rush
I sat in the corner where I could keep things all hush
But then came my idol, appearing at the bar
real as in flesh, brandished flaming guitar

He set down his radiantly lush purple coat
shining black afro, dark as hell's mote
safe here in heaven, tho death doth us part
and brings back together those souls of lost art

Reaching across times longest forearm
he takes the stringed instrument down without harm
thumbs a brass note of distortion to quake
move and groove under, electric vibrate

Timeless and spaceless, servers never ask why
Excusing Jimmy Hendrix while he kisses the sky
Red house a yonder does call us along
Our souls a rumblin through on the great old bard's song

Like Otis said he'll just stay the same
out on the dock you see both ends of the game
Elliot smiths words to brighten, and tighten the air
of Cooke's long time coming, glass half full of glare

Since Shakespeare had hair on his chinny, chin, chin
The corporate pigs captured Kurt, and did himself in,
But lifeless, love can't kill, his ghost feels no pain
Spiteless, these artists pass on like Kobain

In symbols and structures that work in our minds
People suffer while we have such good times
Life's for the living, but there you don't stay
Nothing is wasted in Dead Rockstar Café

Poetry

A Change Gonna Come

2008-11-04T07:08:00.005-06:00

I'm ready for a change. I think America is too. It's already spoken, and that's just the first wave of change...

Here's me supporting, with my "Barack's How I Roll" T-shirt.

The Finished Product

2008-10-27T17:59:00.002-05:00

Remember how I was working on this? Well, here's the finished product (I know it's not the clearest picture). Tonight it was reported that the zine itself is finished! That means that my story submission, the paintings, comics and poems of other contributers etc are all wrapped up in one, glossy, pretty little book. So, in a few moments...I will get to see the first issue of Vox Populi.