the fun theory

IF Pollard's Law of human behaviour- we do what we must, then we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun- is true, then the folks The Fun Theory done got it right.

They built a piano staircase to see if they could get more people to take the stairs by making it fun. See what happened here.

Seeing Andre Williams sing at the Horseshoe Tavern last night exceeded my expectations and here’s why.

I’d been YouTube-ing the legend for weeks prior, trying to catch a glimpse of the draw. Andrew Toth, my event engineer and conveyor of necessity, had made me a mixed disc with a variety of Williams’ sleaze rock. I was sold on faith but didn't really have context from experience and for some reason this morning, I feel that I do. One night, one show folks. That's all it takes.

It's the perfect example of what the Internet and CDs are incapable of capturing. When you’re a showman, when you have charisma, when you’re born in 1936 Alabama and are releasing singles in the 50’s, living in Detroit and Chicago, when your music’s on the web not because you sit around thinking about what virtually does well but because you’ve been BRINGING IT for 60 years, when putting on a show means putting on a 3 piece RED suit, matching hat and tie and walking out onstage with at least 2 sexy dancing girls in lingerie and wigs, no matter what your camera angle or sound record, you will not capture the magic of the show.

I don't introduce myself as a performer despite ISOL, my life in music, dance and theatre, having an IMDB listing AND being hyper self promotional because I can’t stand the private, impermeable elitist club of people who do based on their having memorized an hour of words or notes a couple times a year. But when you love it, when you do it, you need to feel it and see it, live, a lot. Andre Williams is a performer and he is a man to see.

I will not sign off with a YouTube, Wiki or mp3 link because I’ve already done that below AND you have to look into it yourself because: context and experience are everything and you have to earn those things on your own.

ooooh! big anti-surprise for me. cal's been listening to a report on the radio that confirms what i've been saying all along. CELL PHONES ARE TERRIBLE BRAIN MUTATORS. there's a mobile phone company conspiracy to hide research that says otherwise. i'm telling you, wireless connections, broadcast signals, cordless phones, anything that is BEAMING A SIGNAL AT YOUR HEAD can only be regressive for our species.

i remember the look the bell guy gave me when he came to set up my internet connection and i told him i didn't want the hub in my bedroom let alone beside my pillow. it was the same look people used to give environmentalists in the 80s like I'M the whack job. i remember thinking you won't remember me bud, but you heard it here first.

i will never own a cell phone and am proud of it. truth be told i also hate the city and long to move far far away. don't listen to me now but do me a favour and remember me when all of today's children grow up to sprout giant tumours on the sides of their heads.

loveless love

if you're going to listen to this for the first minute then decide you're too bored i say first stop being such an impatient ADD addict cause you'll never be happy with THAT attitude then jump to 4:16 so you can appreciate why listening to the song in its entirety is the way to go.

sooooo exhausted from celebrating greta's 30th birthday with her mom and widar and mel and hugh and vanessa last night at sidecar. her mom's another greta who remembered that there 'used to be a very popular drink called a sidecar' that, surprise, the bartender knew how to make so we had six for the table twice (eldest greta was driving so only sipped her husband's) as well as wine and i started with sweet vermouth on the rocks after the drinks i'll mention momentarily from other locations. when it pours it shines.

sidecar = 1 1/2 oz. Brandy, 1/2 oz. Triple Sec, 1/2 oz. Lemon or Lime Juice

EVERYONE else ordered and raved about the steak frites which was part of a 24$ table d'haute. i had the salmon and their (salty) cauliflower soup.

before that i went to exan's screening of the most recent music vid she made for justin rutledge at the spoke club and it was my second time there and i recalled why i tried to forget it the first time. it wasn't cause i was immature then or cause i dressed like a skid (last night i made a point of dressing up un poquito) and it wasn't cause years ago i went with a former boss who shall remain nameless but who fired me with the exact words some people you can't teach to dance and some people you can't teach to sing and some people you can't teach to work in an office as if i wanted to be taught to work in an office with a dinky woman who had the most predictable thoughts about the pretentious art house films she distributed for a french company still not naming names but your initials are CM. thankfully that's well behind me (and the only time i've ever been fired btw but i'm OVER it) cause i still think spoke drinks are a waaay over priced crock of a rip that can't even be consumed in the screening room and all the regulars wear suits and the decor makes me feel like i'm going to break something. so super outta place is the sum of me and the spoke club. also hate remote affiliations with ANY club, not that i'm a member of any or ever will be hold me to it.

before THAT andrew and tony and i went to wellington bar i think it was called and i unimaginatively drank a wellington. yesterday and today i wore a faux fur hat that looks like this.


there's nothing wrong with my camera but there's something wrong with me in that i can't seem to dedicate a sincere moment to locating my charger, a status that should defs be considered a metaphor for my life as a whole. the cam's still taking pics but is too weak to upload anything. have i got a slew for you when i do.

so feeling so pooped and today was busy at work we had a guest actress in to help host the show and everyone was in high profesh mode and after we finished shooting i had to put my head on my desk and stare at the wall for 5. not that there's anything wrong with THAT.

then i was reading this super interesting article that i later decided might not be AS interesting as i'd originally thought. introduced me to what blogger dave pollard has called Pollard's Law of human behaviour which states We do what we must, then we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun then adds the addendum We have no time or energy left to do what's merely right. It is not in our nature. and he talks about all the things we don't really want to know about.

this is obviously a rambling post and i kinda like it cause my only goal is to keep typing and capture the sloppy feeling that's capsized my day. will probably loathe this thing tomorrow or in an hour and may even revoke the entire thing, so catch it while it's hot, here and aimless.

the subway was closed after work, something about an accidental hole permeating the subway tunnel. this worked to my advantage, not that you care, but i actually walked towards the horseshoe instead to pick up tix to see andre williams tomorrow night as i had dreaded i wouldn't do goodnight.

smile! no one cares how you feel

when you're a baby, you can not reason with yourself.

you can not say, yes i am sweating to death in this ridiculous puffy snowsuit but i'll keep quiet about it to appease my mother.

you can not play mental word games to distract from the fact that your tongue will not taste a lick of sustenance until some adult deems it an appropriate time and you can not consume the kind of intoxicant necessary to forget about the human bi product squished against your privates until the next washroom with a change table shows itself.

never mind the existential angst that any bundle of joy will be privy to through the isolating ages of babeness.

so when i hear a baby screaming like they're being tortured on the bus ride home from work, i smile because A, i feel their pain or i can imagine it and B, IF the baby's eyes fall on me, i believe a happy face will lift a mood before an angry one.

the adult response to scoff or cringe at the wails of an infant is nothing short of arrogant. many adults (who i'd argue are caught in worse infantile response mechanisms within their own unfolding traumas) throw glances of disapproval at one another while trying to sneak peaks a baby who is in a greater amount of pain than themselves.

i find this behaviour shameful and want to say get a grip because you can.

Victoria, Australia

apparently the title of britney spears song If U Seek Amy has a hidden meaning. are you ready for this?

If = F
U = U
See = C
K A = K
my = ME

I was cesarean born though you can't really tell. Although, whenever I leave the house, I go out through the window.

Steven Wright

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

fine print = And will be reported to the authorities

Brad uploaded WALK ON (TO JESUS) to our myspace. Give it a listen.

you are not what you think you are

contrary to my last post and complimentary to my howl.



wanted to post this version with better sound but the parameters were too large for my page, no metaphor meant.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Kurt Vonnegut

Phi Phi Island, Thailand

and you may make out with fish.

i now know of

Roy Harper

Church of the SubGenius/ JR “Bob” Dobbs

Associative thinking and the concept of traversing events by association rather than time.

Note that these 3 items might now be associated, in our brains only, by virtue of my having learned of and posted about their existence today.

Medusa
Joao Pedro Vale

cause i wanna

merçi vanessa!

was good all week. by the time friday aft came all i could smell was the devil's pale ale reeking from its keg in the market into my nostrils behind my computer at queen and john.

cal met me at 8:30 AND my boss let me leave early so i got about 4 solid hours in before rescue. of course i saw lee and mel martin and robbie. i met a new friend around 6:30 named andrew whose contact i left without, counter to our agreement shame on me.

we went to rancho to dance to the hoa hoas then came home and i have a sprained wrist but no idea why. i also have an insatiable desire for mountains of eggs and toast. the sun is shining.

both chemicals and mental states will now be measured according to this here my little edward scissorhands ponies scale, exhibit A representing a purely basic, alkaline state and exhibit B expressing the acidic extreme.

let it be stated that the school of amy science and speculation recognizes both pure water and temperament as equivalent to ph 0 but refuses to recognize the ph scale beyond the description outlined herein.

EXHIBIT A


EXHIBIT B

Bonne année.

The Dream, Picasso, 1932

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe, 1850

orgone energize this phrase rising up and falling down many times but once

the darker hour set in tonight the sky in oakwood village like a bruised mood on friday at 5 the barbers were smiling their shiny scissors flashed like teeth through the air now the people are moving like swimmers pushing waves away behind me is a ship on a wooden floor in a giant room of webbing spiders and corners of dusty light that smell of rotten water and on the ship pyre after pyre has brittled down tortured planks of angles waiting to break

i love when paper bags look longingly up towards the lamp in the kitchen like a pulcinella mask.

Stand For the Fire Demon

Back in the early spring, after playing a show with the Flowers of Hell at the Horseshoe, I accidentally picked up the wrong, generic, black, reusable shopping bag and brought it home with me. Inside the bag was a book called Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators among other things, mostly vitamins.

Cut to Wednesday night of this week, three days before Hallowe’en, a load of magic salting the air. I’m outside of Lee’s Palace on Bloor with visions of demons, vampires and Roky Erickson’s fan blown hair dancing in my head. It was one of those inspired post concert moments when the audience morphs into one dreamy, electrically charged beast. We hollered for an encore for what felt like half an hour only to have our glossy eyes fed house lights for dessert. We had the cheering in us still, an appetite for more where there was none.

It was in this state that I ran into Greg from the Flowers of Hell. I told him how I’d come to learn about Roky through the case of the mistaken bag, and isn’t it strange, the things that lead us to the surprisingly sacred. Greg told me the book and bag both belong to his band mate, also named Amy, who, unbeknownst to me, was the cute, smiley girl I had lent a lighter to and had been trying to chat up before the show. Then the story ends. As far as I know. I wanted to jot it down because I think it’s good to keep aware of the circles being drawn around us.

If you typed *Roky Erickson Toronto* into Google this morning, two sleeps after the show, the only items that appeared were listings of the concert. One person has posted a review - a blogger like me.

Roky Erickson was the charismatic front man of The 13th Floor Elevators, one of the first psychedelic rock bands to emerge from Austin, Texas in the mid to late sixties. He and the Elevators have influenced such an impressive list of musicians including the psych, garage and punk rock genres as wholes. Hearing him sing last night was a chance of a lifetime and I am so grateful I got to witness the ease with which he practices the magic that is his art.

this is funny.

This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars near the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331. A mere 50 million light-years away, the large spiral is one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. The disturbed looking group of galaxies at the lower left is well-known as Stephan's Quintet. About 300 million light-years distant, the quintet dramatically illustrates a multiple galaxy collision, its powerful, ongoing interactions posed for a brief cosmic snapshot. On the sky, the quintet and NGC 7331 are separated by about half a degree.

copright credit to Dietmar Hager

so still

so still
while subway
shakes the waiting
eyes turned off
or in book,
in the distance
wall spots
when stopped
could be licked
if no glass
passed between
how many eyes

this is the part where i run into the washroom and put on far too much eye makeup in a rush.

Alright paternalistic signage geared to instruct our most basic public behaviours, I’ve had enough of you. Like with any set of instructions, the people who stand to gain from these either don’t read or don’t care. It comes with insult that I am confused and perplexed by these campaigns.

Crossing the street in Toronto
These signs are everywhere and some of them are even titled How to Cross the Street. I find myself looking at the signs too long, getting distracted from the task at hand. It should be straightforward: either I walk or I wait. No need for a sign. I’d be curious to see how many of these postings have directly caused pedestrian accidents. I don’t buy that they’re meant for out of towners; the best way to learn convention is to follow the herd. Are the rules so drastically different in other parts of the world that Toronto requires this? How about instead of spending money detailing signage about how to cross the street, we spend it synchronizing traffic lights at major intersections, a lack of which causes millions of city dollars lost ever year? Just a thought.

Sneezing Into One’s Sleeve
Gross. And I’m pretty sure my mum advised AGAINST snotting in my sleeve. Perhaps it is better than sneezing into one’s hands, but I’d like to see some numbers on how this campaign has actually saved Toronto health care dollars. Chances are the people who had trouble directing their sneezes before this initiative still do.

How To Wash One’s Hands
What the unnecessary-ness?! How tough can it be? And worse, these hand washing signs are so ubiquitous, we don’t even read them anymore. ‘Don’t stop washing until you’ve sung all of Happy Birthday’ or ‘Don’t Forget the Interdigital Spaces’. Talk about letting semantics slide. Interdigital? Thanks for clarifying. Happy Birthday? Who picked that song, The Perpetuation of Worst Generic Songs Ever Society? I wash my hands the same way I always have thank-you very much. Your stinky signs are bacterial magnets and it’s time to take them down.

Awkward Family Photos Here

When you’re happy and you know it, you don’t need to clap your hands.