From January to September, the light lasts a little longer each day.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Ushering In The Spring
There are rows and rows of things to come. Nothing in this life is certain. All we have is a raveled up mystery - and we do the best we can with the knowledge and time that we have.
Tomorrow, I'm starting a new venture. This whole year away has led up to this - internship. Placement. Connecting with the job world. CBC. Real world Journalism. No more bullshit.
This is the big time.
Tonight, I stepped out on to my parent's back deck. This house is vacant. It was the place where I grew up and yet I feel so distant from it. I try to connect with the bricks and the mortar and the trusses, but I can't. The spring, it seems, is here. At a balmy 12 degrees today, I drove to the grocery store and saw my brother there. I couldn't see him in the sunspots. I had on a vest and a short sleeve t-shirt - and I was almost too warm.
I lit a mini-cigar and took a swig of scotch. Yeah - I have to get up early, but I don't care. This life is all about routine and getting up early. We need to break the routine.
I have the house to myself this week and Sarah is away in Jamaiica. I have time to recollect but I'll be busy as a bee.
I recently connected with an old, teenage friend who has been a good friend to me for many years. I am continually reminded that the friends who want to dig deep with me and be in my life are the ones who show up - bottom line.
The weather reminds me that new things are afoot. Soon enough, all of this crusty, brown/white Ottawa snow will be melted and in the sewers - and people will have to deal with all of the garbage buried underneath.
Slay The Anger Dragon
Sometimes it comes out - this spiteful and unsightly beast that tries, with all of its might, to get the better of me and turn my view to a downward gaze of seeing red and taking revenge.
It can be righteous - but most of the time, it is just unfounded at every turn. It burrows its way in behind the framework of my thoughts and takes up arms. It tries to trick me into thinking it's pure - it turns a disagreement between two friends into a slanderous rage.
It is an energy waster and a user of resources.
We think we are so justified when we get angry. We think our opinions are from the heavens and that our status-structure of other people is properly balanced.
But it's not a fleeting thought or a quick blast - it begins to take over our thought process and influences our actions.
The scars we carry with us tend to turn inward, after a while, forming callous scabs on the insides of our beings.
We must cleanse. We must get it out.
We must confess.
The beast will always be the beast - that is its nature. It will exist and writhe in fiery pits of fear and it will do its best to encapsulate our energy.
But that doesn't mean it can't be slain. That doesn't mean that we cannot, armed with the arrows of honesty and the swords of peace, sever it out at the knees.
We may chase it a long, long way - we but must slay it.
The Art Of Friendship Old friends...in a deep groove...
Friendship is a fickle mistress. Over the years, it is a primordial stew whose essence is like nailing jelly to a wall. Nothing can define it - nothing can truly verbalize it. Words fall short on the doorstep of description.
It transcends.
I used to think I knew who my good friends were. I made a lot of friends through a specific place and a specific venue. Those were golden times - framed in a warm innocence that can't be recaptured or relived. Ultimately, though, those times will be raptured. Raked under the gardening tool of God.
Siphoned. Recalled.
Friends are the folks who you think about calling but then end up calling you. Friends put their families aside, sometimes, because they know that the meaning of the words 'kinship' extend beyond bloodlines and into something very visceral.
I've lost some friends. I'm saddened by that - I truly am. There were some serious battle partners who held my psychological and spiritual weaponry in some tough times (and whom I did the same for). As time draws out like a lengthened blade, though, we are standing the wake of dirty reality and those 'friends' we thought we would never part with are ghosts - memories. Apparitions of a fake vapour trail.
But to be honest, and somewhat dirtily truthful, I don't care to be friends with those who don't get the cost of friendship. Those people are robots and moving through life in a dead, dry-weed manner - blown about by every passing breeze and non-foundational whir in everything they exude. I don't care for friends who want to play 'hide and seek' in a childish fashion, and who expect me to do all the work of contact and correspondence. I'm tired of being that guy. I've been that guy all my life.
Cut me some fucking slack. Pick up the damn phone and get over yourself.
Where are the friends who will return the favour? Where are the friends who will put aside their bullshit and pettiness, reaching out through the fog of the unknown and finding the lighthouse of contact?
I long for those people. I long to be in community with those people.
I long to hear from my friends.
My friends are a great people - often shifting in size and scope but certain in their outlook. They are friends who live on islands and friends who are not my immediate neighbours, but friends who are still truly 'there' in every notion of the word. They know what's going on in my current life. They don't smile at me falsely, and give me a handshake and a hug and a parting word. They stick with me. They jag with me.
They get over themselves - as they understand that I'm constantly getting over myself.
Thankful For All Of It
Today, I am thankful. I look back on the things that have happened in this life and the things that I've done, and I have a deep gratitude for all of it. Paths have unfolded in a manner I could never have predicted and I've done some things that I deeply despise - but I've done other things that make me innately proud.
I have a great family. I have an incredible wife. I have some golden friends.
We have to get it right, this balance - the balance of the beast.
Two years ago, I was directionless. I had creativity and I had support but personally, I had no resolve. I didn't know where I wanted to go, in any professional sense, and how I would make ends meet in a career setting. After 6 months, my mind-frame is rejuvenated. Since 2010, I've traveled across Canada with two different Juno-winning musicians and filmed footage for them. I've traveled across Canada as a musician, on my own, playing original material.
And more recently, I've been accepted as an intern for CBC.
All this time, I've been working. I've been honing my craft and forging my end goal and my ultimate output in the furnace of dedication.
We live in such an ageist society and for many people, I often get the response 'Haha! Well that's great. Don't you wish you'd figured this out when you were 25 instead of in your thirties?' And to be completely honest with those debbie-downers, no I don't. I'm glad that I know now, if at all, because now, I have a consciousness. I have a fully-formed frontal lobe and I can make the decisions and accept the outcomes and fully invest myself into what I'm doing.
Wouldn't you want to get somewhere and fully realize the action and potential of your destination - instead of just magically plopping there and realizing its significance years later?
I can't wait to sleep tonight. I'm excited to pull up the covers and let the sheets pull me into a warm womb of dreams.
It really is draining to let the words loose - to let them explode from the corners of your freed mind and spout in a fount of revolutionary truth. They rattle around and careen off the sides of my cortex, like a pinball off of a rubber bumper.
The words take shape. They live. They breathe. They form an entity.
I long for lakes. Lakes and long sunsets that make you see the cracks in your skin in the silhouette of the grapefruit coloured sky. We squint our eyes at the source but the light pixelates and distorts in the water of our eye.
But instead, I am here. Here in this deep, dark frost.
We bundle up. We face the winter.
A windowsill cracks open in a frozen crunch of suction and dead cold. The wind is like a vacuum that pulls the breath from our lungs.
Get out your favourite comedy - maybe even the one that you hide from your kids.
Watch it.
Laugh.
Repeat.
When we lose sight of everything childlike - everything that sparks that sense of wonder and rejeuvenation and joy within us - well, then we've lost it all. The goofy sensation that overcomes us when we really laugh, and lose the sense of worry that comes with feeling guilty or watched by others, is something not of this world.
It cannot be. I don't buy it.
The serious vultures of somber reality swoon and spiral above the stratosphere. We avoid them and don't look up, but we know that they are there. Flying. Shadowing. Lurking.
Bills mount. Obstacles stack. Smiles turn into half-forced grins.
We are sucked in by the sorcery of the serious world.
Why can't you tell people that they're beautiful? When did we get so ashamed about being publicly uplifting?
Truth is a laser beam. It strikes light and heat all in a nanosecond, and it is there without warning.
I don't think that if anyone is truly laughing at something, and laughing with all of their being and feeling a sense of bewilderment and uncontrollable reckless abandon, that they should be made to feel guilty about that action.
That quiver. That body shake.
That laugh.
There's an inspiration that comes like a shock of cold water on your cortex. You open your eyes for the first time, the scales come off and you see how we are really meant to live. And the tears come without warning - in a hot stream of conscious sobriety.
When you write your friend and ask 'What do you think it would be like to live inside of a candy cane?' just to get a golden, dumbfounded response and a returned laugh...
We forge our way through this disgusting land of compromise and the stink of failure looms large.
The moonlight saves our pity and spits it out in a cool, February night light. The landscape of our dreams and our youthful desires dies against the furry flesh of all that we've become.
I think that I've finally figured out how to end The Matt Show.
I think I have the framework in my mind.
I don't want to feel shame anymore. I don't want to keep thinking about what an old, wizened and sickened bunch will think of my lifestyle when their crust-cut-off sandwiches are ready on trays in a sterile kitchen. I want to run free in the fields and think about nothing but the sting of a spring wind.
We now hope we will wait. We don't want to run or act or exist in a cogent space - we want to be hidden and unidentifiable. In a land that has no markings or geo-coding ability.
Trees. Water. A piece of sky.
We're alright.
When Jack Nicholson walks into the restaurant, in that epic scene of As Good As It Gets, extends his arms and gut-wrenchingly asks:
"What if this is as good as it gets?"
There is reality to that. We are always yearning for this example - this ideal of how we think things should be. The ultimate being. The ultimate me.
The ultimate you.
But we are stuck with who we are. We cannot change it. Though we try and struggle and kick against the goads of this life.
We try to look so distinguished - so polished - so ripe.
So holy.
But in reality, we are part of the mud and the roots and the guts of this world. We are connected to the breeze, when it swipes our cheek in a moment of ethereal chill.
That's us.
We are roving beasts, caged in a game of beauty.
Whatever we will get, whether we think we deserve it or not, will only ever be...
The Best Of The Beast.
'And the beasts will dance...in a sunny field of grass and warmth and joy...in a space that exists beyond time...in a forever summer....a forever summer..."
Write the lead. Write your guts out. Eat hearts and take no emotional prisoners because you are here. You have made your way and you are almost out of the tough slog.
We all make mistakes and look for ways to stay alive. We constantly undercut the impression that we are actually making a mark - a carbon footprint on the planet of our creativity.
Light explodes into a ball of frequency and disjointed perception. Our brains try to keep up but they just can't.
The words come too fast - and the actions come even quicker.
It's hard to respond. And some times, we do the things we should have never done. We feel regret like we've never felt it - in stinging waves of hurt and drenchings of anguish and Irish guilt.
We go to dark places that we should not have tread to. We feel the darkness of the moon as we look behind us to see if we are being followed. We do the deed and we embellish upon our deepest and most twisted desire.
And then, in a flash, we see that the deed is not as monumental as we made it out to be.
We want accountability and strive for it at the core of our humanity - but in reality, we reject it. Accountability is hard. Accountability is a continued practice.
But then we find someone. Someone to truly connect with and establish an innate and sibling-like understanding with them. And they get you. And you get them. And it's glory.
And this dark night shall pass.
But the weather turns and all harsh storms must truly end. The river of futures and potential rise to meet my feet as I stand on the banks of uncertainity; waiting and pacing. The water gets higher still and overtakes the grasses and the pine cones and sticks around my feet. I close my eyes and feel the cascade of coolness continue to climb all around me. I succumb. I let go. I fluid-ize as my joints and parts become limber. And I move.
I am at one with the Water.
The bright, cool Water.
Sometimes, maybe our own perception of 'how our lives might or might not turn out' should not, in fact, be the standard that we should set ourselves to -
And maybe, just maybe, the life that we've all wanted and desired and pined after for so long is the exact same one that we are living.
This morning, I walked to school with a lighter head. The clouds seemed to break open, if only for a moment, and get torn apart by a sun fighting to reach me. The lightness of the barely frigid air comforted me as I didn't even need to wear gloves for the first time all winter.
I've been in a bit of a spiritual funk lately, but it seems as if I'm emerging from the smoke.
I've been watching a lot of Rescue Me lately and in many ways, I'm a lot like Tommy Gavin. I stay strong for others and I gain strength from being a figure of solidarity. Underneath, though, I have my demons. I have a lot of secrets but then again, who doesn't? I like whiskey, too, but I don't drink nearly as much as he does.
I have a theory that secrets can sometimes can provide strength and allow me to learn how to deal with issues on my own and without the need of others.
In other ways, I'm learning to let go of some of the ones I once held dear. This year has been incestuous, in the sense that I spend most of time, days, hours and weeks with the same people, but in another sense, I am building a portfolio and a network of people who want to work hard, write hard and get a lot of information out into the public sector. There are some good people, here, and I've dug the lot of them.
Friends are a weird beast. Those days when you laugh, live and love with them are the days that you could never imagine being without their presence. But when they go, sometimes very suddenly and with no explanation, you feel a tinge of sadness, but you regroup and journey on.
Sometimes friends aren't really friends - and it takes time and distance and meditation to see and understand that truth.
For a long time, I put everything under the umbrella of this special property. This property had (and in some ways still has) a vibrant community of young and old people and I made many connections through there.
But as much as I love that property and that community, it's a very ethereal and almost angelic place. It's romantic. It's star-soaked. It's luster-filled. It's a little bit magical.
But it's also not really real, at times.
Well, at least, not real for me.
But that's okay. There is a time and a season for all things. These days, I'm focusing on an end goal. I'm very, and admittedly, self-absorbed these days but I have to be to get to the next step. I'm honing my craft. I'm working out the kinks.
All around me, I see them. They're coming. They're approaching. They lurk on the horizon, just barely out of the crest of your view but still within the whiff of a strong breeze.
They are the walking dead.
I'm not talking about the HBO series - I'm talking about the people who have given up on this life and who are basically dead in their own shoes.
You've met them. Their views are set. They know everything. They judge. They don't need to go out past eleven because nothing good happens after eleven. They drive minivans. They have kids when they don't need to. They own a house that they can barely pay for. They wear sweatpants most days. They enjoy watching others and offer little creatively.
They are done, in every existential sense, but they continue to exist just for the sake of fulfilling some earthly quota.
They haunt me. They haunt you.
They haunt because they are.
I have recurring dreams of laying in a field, on a warm and mystical summer night, in the shower of a billion stars. I feel the grass through my fingers like the hair of the earth. I feel cared for, I feel warm and I feel connected to everything around me. I'm wearing a hoodie my friend Garry bought for me at Value Village. I celebrate the summer. I smile in the darkness where no one can see my expression, but it's as real as the stars. The corners of my lips spread. My face warms. I tuck my hands into my front pocket.
I tap my foot to rhythm of the universe.
And I get it.
Between the highways of and bi-ways of the rocky crags of this great country, I've seen peace and I've seen interest. The arms of the road are endless and they call to me, extending from molten rock into the flesh of my being.
Sadness is all around us, friends. It pervades our thoughts. It perverts our innocence. But in another way, it must be embraced. As children, we get coddled into thinking that the power of 'happy thoughts' will pacify us through the eye of any life-storm. Real strength and spiritual compassing, however, comes from the welcoming of sadness and the learning that is involved with dealing.
Dealing with the fact that we all have our burdens and our own shit to get through.
Sometimes songs say it best.
Torquil Campbell of 'Stars' drips it best from the steam of his pen in Life 2: Unhappy Ending. On one of their best albums to date, images of street brawls, riots and spray-painted hearts cascade through the flow.
'Life was supposed to be a film - was supposed to be a thriller Was supposed to end in tears But life could be nothing but a life - could be nothing but a con Where's my unhappy ending gone?'
What happened to this life? Where did we go wrong? When did we, as humans, lose the passion and replace it with predictable, inane bullshit and comfortable couches?
Whatever we get is short, often filled with regret and never the way we'd imagined it to be. The moments and seconds are machine-click reminders that we are here and in that whatever we do, we need to inspire.
We need to fuel the lifeblood of each other's dreams. We need to stop being afraid of what people think of us.
We must sail on, through the stinging winds of conformity and the cold crash of rejection. Jon Brooks once said that even if one person, through the performing of his own songs, stepped out of their crappy basement and wrote an album, then it was all worth it.
I really miss my grandma. I feel that without her in my life, I'm missing a lot of spiritual navigation these days. She was the one who grounded everything. She was the one who brought my father into being who later made me.
She was the one who made me feel everything.
This life is an emotionally and spiritually bankrupt one, at times. I just finished watching the golden globes and though there were some people admonished, on a pearly, glittery stage who I really desire, I kept asking myself; "Is this it? Is this what all of us want?"
What the tract of land that we so desire to perch upon? Where does it rest in those seas of mysteries? Where does it reside in the skies of the great divide?
A friend of mine told me about her grandmother tonight. Some idiot told her that her grandma died and had no soul and that nothing would become of her eternity.
What a shitty, decrepit and ethereally bereft thought. And what an asshole to say such a thing.
How can we think that we have rights or ranks to supersede other people in what they believe and in what comforts them in the darkest nights? We are all working at it the only way we know how on this spinning, floundering, careening ball of mud.
My grandma just made sense. She knew God. And I'd like to think I know Him, too - in fact, I know I do. The One she spoke of loved everyone. The One she spoke of poured light and life into neighbours, widows, cellmates, hangers-on, hobos, artists and all people within its immediate vicinity.
And my grandma emanated those attributes. She was light. She was life. She was joy in a very immediate sense.
She loved to entertain and discuss. She loved to read the bible.
She once gave me 60 bucks so I could fly somewhere and visit a girl I liked to see if it could work out.
I was 19 - that was over a decade ago.
As we sat in her kitchen and I told her the deal, she said 'Well ya know Matt, you're a good kid. You're not on drugs or out screwing around so yeah - I'll lend you the money."
As she worked her way through the oggled logic of her loving mind, it somehow made perfect sense. She respected my dream and my desire.
She was really something.
We dance our way through this ridiculous maze and we only know how to spin, move, intermingle and intermix to the music and the beat that is being played.
I'm trying out this Journalism thing, and I hope it leads to something promising and career-oriented...
But my heart will always be with my grandma. She had a way of speaking into my life that no one else embodied. She was tender, understanding but firm when she needed to be.
The Computer Of Deep Thought
I've got a lot of thinking to do, these days. Scenarios and situations seem to be happening so quick - too quick - and beyond my control. I play a part. I fill a role. I shift my shape. I chameleonize.
But I can't continue on in that way.
I know that there is life to be lived - and good life, at that - just beyond the horizon. But I also know that there will be some hardships ahead. I hate talking in generalities but in a way, it's sort of comforting. Tolkein always told Lewis 'You're being too literal!' - I will always be more of a Tolkein.
The holidays are here and I'm in Port Hope. Thinking. Waiting. Trusting. Planning. Meditating.
Family will soon surround everything. Meaning will rise out of small conversations around the dining room table. We'll go the malls, and we'll hate it, but we'll secretly love it, too. It is those visits and those spiced coffees and those first world problems that make life cinematic.
Rob Lowe and the Lost Boys
I've been listening to Rob Lowe's life story lately and I have to say that it's pretty damned interesting. I mean, this guy grew up in Malibu in the same neigbourhood as Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez while their dad Martin jumped out of bushes, on Halloween night, with a baseball bat and scared kids.
His first real cinematic break came in the movie 'The Outsiders' - an adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola of S.E. Hinton's famous book. He was almost done with acting when he was given a call-back for The Outsiders and showed up at a sound stage with Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, 20 some other teen actors and a very young Tom Cruise.
Little did I know that 'the Lost Boys' (a movie made about disappearing teenagers that turn into vampires starring Corey Haim, Corey Feldman and Kiefer Sutherland) was a real thing in Malibu because teenagers actually disappeared. Lowe speaks of high school friends who were found in garages disemboweled by shotguns and drowned with their girlfriends while diving for lobsters and a kayaking couple eaten by a great white shark in Paradise Cove.
It was a real time and a raw time for the budding actor who was trying to make his way through faith, life and a greater grasp of the cosmos.
I idealize his words when I hear them because as a young gaffer, I watched a lot of movies. At times, I dreamed that Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and Arnold Schwarzeneger were my friends. I wanted the spotlight that they had - bright, un-waning and expedient. I wanted a chance for my creative vibe to shine. But as a Canadian kid with little connections, I would bide my time and let the players play.
To be an actor, or to be famous creatively, there is a lot of sacrifice. The sacrifice, however, comes in the form of betraying all that you hold dear and always looking out for number one. Lowe puts it ever so eloquently in his somber, reminiscent words that sum up the era of his teens.
"Underneath the glorious exuberance and the counter-culture ethos, the fantastical weather and dream-like beauty, Malibu's malignant undercurrents were a danger to adults as well...Why was hideous and untimely death so co-mingled in the experience that was Malibu in the mid 70's? There were drugs which weren't as understood as they are today. There were also the wild and the rough nature of the personalities Mailbu attracted. But more importantly, there was a price to be paid for a culture that idealizes the relentless pursuit of self.
Everything And Nothing
How can we be the ones we were perceived to be? It doesn't seem real. It's all angelic and posthumous in the way it floats, air-like in its breath.
I remember my Grandma. She was a beautiful lady with a massive heart. I have picked up some habits since I last saw her and I wonder at times what she thinks of me from the great beyond. I can smell the pie from the window sill - baked apples, cinnamon and coffee in clear cups where you could see
the cream going in.
Tonight, the window is open agape and I am dreaming aloud. The cold crack of December has startled something within the ashes of my creative fire. Listless and rollicking in the momentous seconds and ticks, I listen to streams of music flow through my brain and stimulate me - my core - my heart - my soul - my feel - my me.
I have put off writing for some time and in a lot of ways, this Journalism program has dried out my wet words. I feel a tad obscured and realm-struck by the vastness of living beyond Neptune, on a distant moon of thought. The words were once rife with struggle and stacked with chunky substance. Now, I'm eeking my way through most things and just living in the hour and the second and the moment.
And the words - the words seem so ridiculously calloused and dusty.
There are codes and keys and fabrics behind everything. We are floating on a fast-moving iceberg towards resolution and deeper thought.
Why don't we fucking understand each other? Why are we trying so hard to connect furiously when all we need is a warm contact to drive the spark?
We are alive.
We are here.
We are making it.
Rest assured, though, that all will change. We will zoom through cosmos and monolithic fractures in time. The gaps in the galaxy will be full and gleaming with answers.
My mind can't keep up, right now. My hands are an extension of something utterly gut-wrenching and real.
Your naked heart needs a jacket. Gets fuckin' cold out there.
I think things have changed and I'm adrift in some sort of sea of realization. The sea, however, has its own temptations. I want to float in it and swim in it and dip my being into its cool, blue luster. I'd like to stay in this sea for a while and bask in the embrace - but I can't. I must go. This sea is temporary and soon, the land will come. The land requires action. Building. Docking. Traveling. Navigating. Mountains. Pain.
I miss my old pals from Kingston, I really do. Even though I have become self-obsessed and fully absorbed into this world of writing and publishing and multi-tasking and selling myself, I still see the way that things were. It shines in my conscience - a wick of remorse. A pang of unresolved worth.
But I have new loving companions, now. Things have changed. I've left behind a lot of the stinking worlds that I thought were unscented. I thought many things were real but it turns out, they weren't - How can I tell?
Because they are not here, now. Real things stick around. Real things admit to their bullshit and man up.
The ones who are here are good folks. They are young and they are old. They fight hard and they work hard and they know how to fight and work with the mud of words and the soil of thoughts. They push through and make sense of the nonsensical. They are good people. Some, I've even learned to love in a way that I never knew, in the framework of all that is platonic.
These folks laugh. They have no money. They smoke. They smoke more than smoke. They eat the marrow out of the bones of life and they want to get their thought-seedlings into printed beings. They are a hearty breed and they have glass livers. They have lungs that are bruised and scabbed with the coughs of fulfillment.
I am fully immersed into this world, and I'm liking it and scared by it at the same time. I know only a few things can crop out the photography of memory, but really, the tools can only cut so much. The imperfection shines through. We are living in an ocean of slow motion sound. The academic clock ticks loudly and twangs the highway wires of our futures. We only know what we can get and we only know what we can do and we only ever do those things. We do those things. We do them.
We are counting down. We are all waiting. Waiting for God.
Waiting for everything to become nothing and for the playing field to be level, once again.
A lot has happened in the past few days and weeks, and it has all happened in such a rash, riotous way that it's difficult for me take stock.
A few weeks back, I was in Port Hope for Thanksgiving. After the massive monday meal at casa de Harvey, Sarah and I pulled up to a stoplight at the intersection of Cty Rd 9 and Hwy 28. This is an infamous intersection for collisions and that night was no different. As we waited to turn left off 9 on to 28, a car came through the intersection. We waited for it to pass so we could turn. Out of nowhere, in the deep black night, a truck with a horse trailer came barreling through the lights on 28 and plowed into the driver side door.
Everyone was okay (at least, we think they were) as we called 911 and waited by the roadside. Pieces of glass and plastic were strewn across the pavement. The little Chevy cavalier looked destroyed. The driver of the truck with the horse trailer came back and asked 'What was that car doing' as if to say he had no idea that he ran a red light. A few witnesses explained that he had run a red light. The driver left and went back to his truck, disappearing a hundred feet up the road.
The driver of the plowed car was a teenage boy and his dad was in the passenger seat. The father was fine but the boy was jammed between the steering wheel and the seat. The burly dad made a few phone calls and also attended to two people in the backseat - his daughters. The ambulance showed up and took away the boy driver and the girl behind his seat. Everyone else seemed okay.
Sarah and I realized that if it weren't for that car coming through the intersection, we would have turned left and WE would have been the ones getting smoked. Close call.
This life is fleeting. We are passers-by on a train; waiting for our final stop.
This past weekend, I had the chance to travel to an old haunt of mine with a few old friends. Joel picked me up on Saturday morning around 10:30. We hit Richmond with a full head of steam and trucked on past Smiths Falls. Otter Lake was the goal.
Joel's cottage is not an immaculate building by any stretch - it is a glorified shack. But in this life, it is truly all that you need to re-connect with yourself and with your Maker.
Joel and I discussed the fact that the city is complex. In the city, it's always a toss-up deciding what to do for entertainment. We are overrun with options. Bars, restos, golf, go-karts, movies, etc. We can't decide because we want to do the 'coolest' thing. Our expectations are massive.
In the country, though, you can kill 6 hours by building, burning and stoking a bonfire. And then, for an added bonus, you can cook something on it!
The chainsaw roared away for hours on end as we cleared some brush and took down a few trees. The crack of falling branches pierced the deadened country air, thudding on the forest floor. Axes whacked away at the remains, sending slivers madly flying in all directions.
The November weather simplified everything. The sun shone for two days straight. The beer flowed. The fireplace glow flickered to keep us warm. The lake glistened in a cold, expectant way - bracing itself for winter. The bugs were non-existent. The meats sizzled on the charcoal cooking fire. Steve, Simon, Jill and Mark showed up intermittently.
We lived like kings.
All I need is Otter Lake and good friends - and I'll be alright.
The Tracks
Tonight, I'm inspired. Tonight, I realize what friendship means. Tonight, I
understand 30 some years of being misunderstood, misread and misplayed.
I had the chance to walk amongst the ruins of my old childhood traintracks
tonight. The moon had set. Dusk had moved into the neighbourhood. The
wind whistled on its own course. Me and my old pal Steve ascended the
hill that we had climbed over a decade ago and surveyed our lives under the
microscopes of truth and night.
Steve is one of those friends that has been there through thick and thin. Steve
is almost like a character in a book - except he is flesh, blood and pulse. He
is as real as it gets. Steve and I realized that it was a decade ago that we
would, without much aim, walk these tracks from our respective dwellings
and meet up with each other.
Once, when I was 25, I needed to get the fuck out of my parents domain and
walked from Nepean to Bells Corners along the tracks and knocked on Steve's
door. His mom answered and informed me that he was not in and would not be
for the remainder of the night. I had wasted a 40 minute walk. I walked through
the woods behind Bell High School and felt an elevated sense of fear that I had
never experienced before. The darkness and the woods overtook me. My pulse
quickened and my blood thickened.
But I made it out.
Steve and I talked about many things, tonight. We talked about love. We talked
about life. We talked about love and life and things gone missing. We realized
that we'd been stupid. We realized that we are young. We relished all of it.
At one point, I ascended an old train tower and reminisced about many nights
and afternoons spent on that same tower, while pining and whining. Steve
looked up at me from the dark tracks and listened while I spewed diatribes
of faith and philosophy. The air grew colder and the wind grew stronger.
Soon enough, Steve and I meandered back to my parents house. We watched
our shadows among the lights of the Arlington apartment tennis courts.
We felt like giants - old giants.
It's nights like these where time is truly frozen and eternity is graspable.
Friends like Steve are friends that must be cherished, admonished and
loved.
Night Walker
Going to school has jump-started some old feelings that have been long
hidden inside of me. For one, I've been walking a lot at night. It seems
that in the last few years, walking at night only ever happened out of
coincidence (i.e. no ride home from the bar, not enough money for a bus
or a cab, running outside to pee, etc.) - Now, I do it out of necessity.
A lot of my classes don't end until after sundown. I've been forced,
therefore, to get back into the night-walking mode.
It is a mode I've missed.
It's sort of like the re-opening of the wardrobe by the children of
Narnia or Robin Williams in Hook remembering how to fly. It's a bit
of a magical, ethereal and enchanting experience to walk at night.
Distractions are few. The air smells alive. Streetlights do their best to
cast you their glow but most of the time, you find your own way out
of shapes and shadows.
Rainy nights are even better (if you have the gear).
Tonight, I walked home in a mist that seemed to be lightly spraying
me from all directions. It refreshed me with each step and left a
clean taste on my lips and mustache. The grass had a little more
give than usual and I felt renewed.
I've been doing a lot of thinking on my nightwalks. I've been clearing
out the mental cobwebs and hearing bolts clang and click back into
place as the mill of my mind churns.
I'm getting back to myself and at the same time, I'm changing completely.
I'm seeing the cyclical nature of it all.
Pretty soon, October will be a memory - and we all know what's next.
The Bag Is In The River
I love my life right now. It is fast paced and cut throat. It is based on
writing and knowing what to write.
If there is one thing that I must do at all times, without any sliver of
uncertainty, it is write. My fingers are exploding on the keyboard. They
are word bombs. Boom.
I carry a thunder stick. It is called a typewriter.
Months ago, I said I would go another 365 days with this blog.
Let's be honest; I haven't come close to doing that.
But in all things, in the core and at the crux of the matter, I must write.
Sentences fire out the tip of my word barrel. I am a linguistic assassin.
It's Friday. It's 12:51 am. And I'm having a bit of an awakening.
Bear with me.
Life will always present competition and hurdles that you need to clear in
order to get from obstacle A to obstacle B. One can only do the best they can.
Anything else is sublime. Anything extra is extraterrestrial. Anything
additional is gravy.
Write like the wind, dear friends - and the stories will follow.
A few weeks ago, while walking to school, I was stuck in the midst of a furious
hailstorm. It was magnanimous. It was crude. It was irk-ridden. But it was
real. While walking on a crestfallen loft of fresh cut grass, I saw white pellets
bouncing off the ground. I thought it was hard rain - but it was the real deal. It
was motherfucking hail.
I pulled out an umbrella and shielded my computer and camera bags. The hail
almost shredded my protection and clapped against the vinyl and metal in a
flurry of hellish speed. I stood near a fence and a tree as lightning danced
around me. I stood strong.
Blogless
I feel a bit awash in the sea of this blog because I can't be bothered to keep it up.
Life has begun to affix itself to a crazy surface - and crazy is all I know.
I am a full time student, now - at Algonquin College. I am doing something that
I've needed to do for a while. I am getting certified in Journalism. I am amazed
at the pace of College life. University was slow stroll that ramped up at times
but that really just plodded along a set course. In College, you are thrown to the
wolves on day 1. You have to advocate for yourself at every turn and fight the
currents of realism.
Earlier this evening, one of my profs said 'If you don't want a job, you midaswell
go home. Go ahead.'
I like the pace and I like the action - but it means that a lot of things will take a
backseat; music, writing, blogging, etc.
I remember last November. I remember going out West when it meant uncertainty.
I remember getting more serious about my music. My life has been so full of
experience this past year that I need to journal but haven't the time or the energy.
I spent a week at Camp IAWAH.
I traveled around with Joel Plaskett and his band for a week.
I'm sitting at the Cobourg beach alone with my thoughts. The waves are rustling lightly against a dirty shore. The beach sand is littered with cigarette butts as smells of fish detritus linger in the lake Ontario breeze. People are playing volleyball. Cheers, laughs and hollow ball smack sounds are alight.
Earlier today, I played some golf with a friend. The crack of a golf ball off the head of a driver in a treed corridor is a thing of beauty and solace. My friend and I shared some expensive beers and took in some scenery. It has been a good day considering the events of the past few days. Lately, some events have transpired that have made me question some friendships and the fibre of those very friendships. Don't get me wrong - I make mistakes all the time and I am nowhere near perfect. But one thing I have no time, energy or respect for is throwing friends under the bus to clear your own name. Bus-throwers usually have an opportunity to take the high road and sacrifice themselves for a friend, but they will always take the low road and leave their friends hung out to dry.
Another thing I have lost all sympathy for is 'deadbeatery'. By deadbeatery, I'm referring to a breed of humans who never have any money and somehow learn to expect that others will pay for them out of empathy.
The last and final persona that I can no longer associate myself with are 'axe-wielders'. Axe-wielders are people who have long stored grudges and anger against you, but who are too infantile with their emotions to express how they feel. They then, therefore, wield the axe the first chance they get and turn a minor argument into a soapbox rant and character assault. They lose focus of the argument and go for your jugular.
You can sometimes stay friends with axe-wielders, deadbeats and bus-throwers for a time - but eventually, they will wear you down. They are waiting in the shadows to use you up and move on to their next targets.
I've realized lately that I've been friends with all 3 - and I'm tired of the games they play. I'm tired of being a friend who cares for people - people who, in turn, only care for their own personal gain. These people have no sense of community and are utterly directionless. These people are sad sacks but make no mistake - they want you to feel sad for them.
But it's too late. Your sadness can do nothing. They are wastes of space and they yearn to live off the fat of the land and squat where they can.
If you have any of these people in your life, I implore you to get shut of them.
Dispose of them. Cut off their cancerous touch.
Leave them. Let them writhe in the dust of your creative speed trails. Let them wallow in their mud while you head for salt water springs of clarity. Let them jump from rock and rock and use the land while you blaze new paths and grow new gardens of production and intelligence.
For this life is only a fragment of a pixelated picture of a mountain - but they are only fly specks of colourless shades on the wallpaper behind the frame.
This summer is a minefield of activity, and in the same breath, it
is a slow ghost. The weeks have been passing by and I've been too
dang pre-occupied to get on this here blog. I feel like I'm just putting
in time when I write on here.
Fuck it.
These past few weeks and days have been chundering. Sputtering.
Stalled but moving. Is that possible? I played 2 songs at a local
songwriters showcase in Cobourg (to see if I could get into the
Shelter Valley Folk Fest for a spot on the main stage) and I wasn't
selected. The judges went with a girl (who already won the contest
a few years ago) and two other guys who were more poppy and
upbeat than me. The contest is supposed to be about songwriting
and I cannot for the life of me tell you what any 3 of them wrote
their songs about. Oh wait - I remember now; love. Because
that's what every overdone bullshit song is this universe is about.
It sounds petty to say it but I know I was among the top 2 in
songwriting and lyricism at that competition. People smile
politely and say 'Ah well. Try again next year!' What can you
do when you know you rightfully should have won?
Anyways, I'm getting a little whiny. I was selected to be a part of
the 10 so I guess I should take that as an honour and chalk it all
up to experience.
Sometimes, we need to get sick. We need to lay low and take stock
of everything around us and survey our fears. I have a huge need to
be liked by other people and a lot of the time, it drives what I do. I
weigh a lot of decisions through the filter of what I think someone else's
thoughts might be.
I've also always had trouble with money. I've never really been able
to get ahead in life and even where I've made plenty of money, I've had
to rely on getting help from others to get by. I've never been a self-made
financial guy and I think it definitely reflects in my confidence at times.
I also have some repressed thoughts and for the past few years, I've been
trying to figure out a lot of things in life. I still believe in community and
the power of gathering together with like-minded and offsetting folks, but
I don't know how that is supposed to look these days. I still believe there
is a Force guiding us and loving us but I can't seem to see that being played
out in a live setting.
I want to be a better person. I want to love my friends and family but
I also don't want to be so concerned about what they think that I hold
myself back from reaching potential.
Lately, I've been getting this premonition that I don't belong. I don't fit.
Sometimes in life, the waves flow by and you catch one, hold on for
dear life and make it back to the harbour. Other times, the waves pass
you in succession letting you know that it's not your time to stay.
I need to go. I need to leave. I've never felt more certain about anything
in my life. And yes - it's taken me 34 years to feel this certain but truly,
my heart is on the road.
I need to live in different places. I need to move around. I need to meet
new people constantly. I can't stay in one place or I get stagnant and
complacent.
Easy Flow
It all flows by so quickly, this season that we call summer. We aim to
do new things and make lists and clean - but it never gets done. We
are slaves to the clock and the clock wins every time.
I spent some time in Kingston recently with some good friends. In
this life, we are constantly re-arranging our values and losing grip on
all that we once held dear. I used to love hanging out with people - and
lots of different people. I'm finding as I grow, though, that I have less
energy for moronic folks who take, take and take and never give.
I like my Kingston friends - and yet, in the same breath, I have other
friends in Kingston who I have to prod, poke and pester to get to do
anything or take two steps outside of their domiciles for 5 minutes.
I think I've become 'damaged goods' for some folks or 'high risk' for
those who want to play it safe. 'Stay away from McKechnie - he's a
wild card'.
Sports Guy
Through some emails between my brother and my cousins, I have
been dubbed as 'sports guy' due to the number of weekly activities
that I have going on that revolve around the playing of sport. On
Sundays, I play a grueling session of Ultimate Frisbee that requires
you to run for almost an hour and a half straight (2 40 minute halves).
On Mondays, I play on a lob ball softball team. On Tuesdays or
Wednesdays, I try to play tennis against a local friend and get good
and sweaty for an hour or more. On the days off (Thurs - Sat), I try
to use to workout gym here at the school for some cardio and
weights.
I don't know if it really has any impact on my physique but I sure do
feel good and sleep a lot better these days. The mixture of exertion and
steady sunshine seems to be good for the heart and the soul. There's
something childlike about playing sports for me. Basketball in my
driveway, intermingled with some serious snow football, were common
trappings of my youth. Now, as we all get older, it's harder and harder
to find people to play sports with. People have kids - and just
generally get lazy.
As you can see from my sullen surroundings, all is calm here at
TCS for the moment. It's strange living on the campus of a private
school in the summertime - when there is no school or students to
be found. It becomes a bit of a pastoral landscape. I need to get
out and experience it more.
I haven't thought, for many summers now, that it has actually felt
like summer. This summer, however, has had all the trappings of
a great season of green fields, dancing leaves and perfect
temperature. The slow rising breezes. The stillness and the very
slight heat. The clouds that have no desire to anything else but
hang in the blue backdrop. Birds that soar for hours on end and
seem to be singing songs of contentment.
Tonight, I am blogging from the great outdoors. I believe that
nature is something that has been placed into our lives to help us
escape - to help us get outside of our own brain spaces. Tonight,
I write from the guts with a goblet of cabernet. I raise my chalice
(and I really am raising it as I type) to this summer.
One More Spin Around The Sun
Despite the hardships and the problems, when someone's birthday comes
around, it's time to throw bygones to the curbs and celebrate another
year of kickin' around this ball of dirt.
Sarah's birthday is today and it started with some blueberry pancakes,
a super-cheese-rific Shania Twain singing card and some tennis.
Later today, a bonfire will be had and friends will be invited.
If you're near the Northumberland region, come on by, won't ya?
Celebrate with us.
Driving The Bus
Jerome Bettis. The bus. He will always be a Ram in my mind.
I used to go to school with this guy named Russ. Russ played a lot
of Command and Conquer (Red Alert - the only version) and hung
out with people when he wanted but also shut himself in quite a bit -
but whatever the case, he seemed content.
People used to call him 'the bus' and he used to always say 'When
you have the keys to the bus, there's no need to hurry'. I like that
philosophy that Russ prescribed to - he didn't rush for anyone
except himself and he didn't waste time trying to please others.
He did what made him happy.
Sometimes, we all need to learn to drive the bus a bit more.
Turn Of The Summer
Sometimes, life throws you curveballs. You step into the box, you
eye up the pitch, you take a hard cut but you can't connect because
the bottom of the pitch dropped out like 12th grade shop.
Everyone has their own crosses to bear and their own pain to get
through. The beauty of community is being to able to support,
encourage and admonish one another in the midst of that. I long
for community - and it seems to happen everywhere I go even
when I don't think it's there.
I've been playing a lot of softball and hanging out with a lot of
folks in the Northumberland region lately. It's been kinda refreshing
to have good times in the actual place where you live. Oddly
enough, I am leaving this region in September to go back to
school in Ottawa for a 2nd degree in Journalism.
I had a fire with some friends last night. I have softball practice
this afternoon. I have good friends and loved ones around.
Life is alright for the moment. The equinox has set.
Ya know, I'm halfway through another year of this blogging 365
deal and I must say that writing really takes its own shape as it
progresses. If you asked me a month ago about blogging, I'd say
'it's for shit' or "I'm sick of it' but now, as things have progressed,
I'd say it's a lot like journaling (only much more random and a lot
more metaphorical and less personal).
I named my acoustic guitar Caroline a long time ago. The
name came from the fact that Caroline Records was the record
label that released 'Gish' - the first Smashing Pumpkins album
ever.
I've grown a deep affection for Caroline over the years - and
I rarely call her by name. I usually just grab her and start
strumming, picking or smashin'. She's been with me through
many loves, many trials and many dark nights of the soul. I
bought her used from Jason Verburg in 1994 for 200 bucks.
Caroline came with me on a trip across Western Canada last
year. She's been there when others haven't - or couldn't.
Here's to you Caroline and 17 sweet years of your glorious
sound.
This is a picture I took last summer at a rented cottage in Calabogie.
The clouds were picture perfect. The sun was just peeking out.
The water was glass.
This past week has been a doozy but oddly enough, I think I'm
getting back on my feet again. The cover show was pretty brilliant
although a few awkward faculty speeches wrecked the vibe for
the evening for many - but that didn't stop the serious dancers
from cutting a rug under the big top.
I'm trying to write some new songs and get my head out of a non-
creative fog. It's not easy, and like anything, music can be a job
that you don't want to do - a discipline.
The Art Of The Cover Band
There is something kinda refreshing and joyous about playing other people's
music - it's not your own and you can have fun with it. In an interview I
did with Jim Bryson last year, he talked about the difference between
being a frontman and playing your own music and being a support player
while playing someone else's music. I think I'm starting to see the
importance of that dichotomy.
Playing your own music is such a serious thing. The hours you've spent
crafting a song in a bedroom and the translation of that to include
other players in a band, and the furthest extension from that in playing
it live for other strangers, is a massive process and one that requires a
lot of head space. Playing as a support player (which is basically what I'm
doing in this cover band as a bassist) is a pretty fun thing. You can move
around more. You don't have to worry about the microphone so much
and how you appear to the folks in the audience.
You can have fun with it and get the energy level ramped up.
Tonight is our second cover gig. We are playing for a bunch of wild
teachers who want to dance the night away.
Reviews A Comin'
Recently, I'm getting back into writing for my music mag (which you can find here) and I had the chance to interview David Bazan (pictured above).
Please go read it and get ready for a slew of reviews coming your way.
Barely Kingstonian
Today was a day of reckoning - a day of taking stock. Lately, I've
been living a theme of appreciation and I got the chance today to
appreciate a city that I've spent many hours of my life within -
Kingston. And I had the chance to do it with someone who has
become a good friend to me.
Kingston will always be one of those enchanted cities for me.
Though it definitely has its very dirty and dilapidated sections, it
is like a second home. For many a summer season, Kingston was
the closest 'real' city to a summer camp that I grew up within.
It's hard to believe how much time has passed since those listless
teenage days of spending hard-earned, blood & sweat camp money
on t-shirts, video games and movies with no remorse or fortitude.
Today, I met up with a good Kingston friend - Taylor. Taylor is one of
those guys who is a serious hippie-looking dude (I think he could
grow a full, thick beard at 15) but who also has a childlike spirit of
amazement and wonder at the things around him. Oddly enough,
if it wasn't for the aforementioned camp, I don't think we would
have ever become good friends. Even though I am more than a
decade older than Taylor, we get along and pass time together
well as we are both deeply into music, writing and philosophical
meandering.
We've been through some serious times of conversation and
pondering over the past few years - and some epic moments of
side-cramping silliness. He's been great to have on the wing.
Sometimes, life throws us good friends in the form of folks we
would have never expected. Tay Tay has been a welcome
surprise.
God bless friends. God bless Kingston. My city by the lake.
The Judas In All Of Us
We want so badly to be righteous - to appear good. But we
forget our roots. We forget our flaws. We forget the inner
conflict and start coasting on fumes.
No one can make you do it differently - you have to do it
the way that you know best.
