Misery is the River of the World

So Quebec wants to seperate for no reason at all, Alberta wants to be torn from Canada because they are the greediest bastards in the country. All the people building cars are whining because they are going to lose their shitty overpaid factory slave jobs. Fuck'em all. That what you get for believing in a country. There are no free people anywhere except for the the people that realize that being free is not having anyone else impose their idea of freedom. So I guess that you are free until you realize you are a shitty cog in a big shitstorm of cogs that are badly lubricated then you have the choice of becoming an outlaw or to become a cog in a better lubricated part of the machine. I guess lubrication in this case symbolizes money. Whoever is big enough to know all the workings of the machine doesn't really give a two shits about our scrawny epiphanies because he feeds our addictions to toothpaste, lotion, sushi, tights, beer, music, internet, crack, shoe selection, 28 different flavors of gum etc......so fuck this messy anguished existence....I'm going to live on a boat where the influence of that bastard in charge is diluted by the influence of the weather, the tides....maybe get eaten by a big whale pinnochio style. HA

Misery is the River of the World by Tom Waits

The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery's The River Of The World
Misery's The River Of The World
Misery's The River Of The World
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
Misery's The River Of The World
Misery's The River Of The World
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Misery's The River Of The World
Misery's The River Of The World
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Everybody Row!

Uhhhhh....

You are a molecule of water in a river. You know that you are part of the river but feel alone. On judgement day,you will be torn apart, releasing a torrent of energy to be spread evenly across the universe.. One molecule closer to the heat death of the universe. There must be a trace of memory hidden somewhere in those three little atoms, all alone. Something to distinguish them from all the surrounding descendants of water molecules, many of whom travelled the same rivers and clouds, each on a unique path but all headed towards to the uniformity. Surely the first evaporation, the first waterfall must have left some mark, but not even your quarks and gluons give any indication of memory. All that’s left is destiny or maybe being a part of this vague phenomenon known as the universe. It’s definitely there.....moving changing breathing but resists being contained within a specific word or meaning.

Turn Off the Radio

Taste the highway with steel belted radial tires that are like the needles of a turntable that plays asphalt records. Feel the harmonic magnetic fields produced by these rotating tires with the edges of your mind; the sixth sense whose presence is not yet strong enough to demand your attention but is crystal clear during moments of stillness. Let these fields lull you into a meditative state enabling you to temporarily escaped the shackles holding you from the truth. Decide whether it's better to spend a life chasing down impulses or preparing for some vague calamity whose imminence has been predicted for thousands of year....

Questionnaire/Interview with myself

**Originally posted July 17th 2007

80 % of notes on facebook are questionnaires. It's an awkward (i thought it was spelled ackward hmmmmm) word to write down. The facebook spellcheck doesn't recognize facebook as a word. Anyways, i've decided to make my own questionnaire because all the others are so lame.

1) When is the last time you spent money?
June 21st, i bought some books, pizza and silicon waterproofing spray. And i think i bought a beer on the plane.

2)When is the next time you will spend money? 
Probably on thursday

3) Are all your facebook albums pictures of you and your friends wasted?
no

4) Have you ever been charged by a muskox
yes

5) Please write down your last 3 epiphanies
i) it's spelled awkward not ackward
ii) everyone is obsessed with themselves
iii) eating slowly is an art

6) Do you ever try to speak to animals in their own language?
yes

7) Do you walk or run up stairs?
In general i like to run up the stairs, but if I have company on the stairs, i tend to match their speed.

8) Have you been accused of any crimes lately?
yes, i've been accused of kidnapping and sodomizing a garden gnome

9) If you could augment any of your senses, which one would you pick and why?
Tough question, probably my eyes because i'm a visual boy in a visual word. ALthough ears are a STRONG second and possibly even first because i really like sounds. On a side note, if growing wings is considered to be a sense, i would pick that.

10) Name some skills that you would like to add to your palette
i) climbing gigantic trees
ii) fly fishing
iii) playing the spoons
iv) eating slowly and TASTING the food
v) recognizing different helicopters from their sound
vi) gold panning

11) In 1 words, describe what you think is missing from the world
community

12) When is the last time you were really pissed off?
about a month ago while planting trees, the elastic chord on my silvicool bag was caught on a branch. Planters will understand.

13) Tell me about love
Theres all kinds of love : real love, fake love, green love, red love, fast love, slow love, you lie to make me feel better about myself love, oh my god that dog is so cute love, love on the dance floor, ocean love, river love, universal love, unconditional love, slightly conditional love, highly conditional love, i'm so drunk i can't even speak love, i'm lonely and your convenient love, i'm high on ectasy love, love that comes from the core of the earth, love that comes from outer space, love like a snowflake that melts in your hand the second you catch it, you are just out of my reach love, everyone loves chips, we just shared a near-life experience love etc.... Hopefully we all get to sample many of these before we die.

14) Do you believe in magic?
Depends on your definition of magic, but in general - yes.

15) One complaint about yourself?
I let people get away with being phony assholes a bit too much. THis is a question of integrity. I'm working on it

16) Do you think it's better to make one person feel much better or to make many people feel a bit better?
i don't know.....the first goal seems more achievable....unless you are a celebrity or something

16) Any closing statements?
Everything is connected. Don't depend on this because it's inherently unpredictable. Release your white knuckled grip on time and try not to use machines whose nature you can't comprehend. Cell phones are gross. Find something you love doing that doesn't require the sacrifice of someone else's standard of living and perfect it.

It's 1:57 AM and i'm all fired up on Earl Grey Tea and Sunlight

Originally posted on July 13th, 2007

How can you tell if a person is civilized? They always piss and shit in the same spot. That's how gross cities are. If you need more proof then go to the dump. If you need free stuff, go to the swap shed at the dump (only if you are lucky enough to live in a city that believes in swap sheds). The swap shed experience is comparable to the value village experience, without the guilt of supporting walmart and the guilt of spending money in general. Here is a list of things i manage to scavenge at the swap shed in Prince George and Valemount in only 3 visits.

1) Green (olive) corduroy (fat cords not thin ones) dinner jacket. It almost matches my green corduroy pants.
2) National Geographic from the late 90's about robots and sumo wrestling
3) Little glass spice jars that have an airtight seal.
4)1 square foot of plaid cloth
5) Pair of size 10.5 rubber boots without holes.
6) Some fancy British machine that ticks and has something to do with time (i think it's going to be a very important ingredient of my time machine)
7) Binder with a picture of Louis Riel on the cover.
8) shoelace
9) A book about the erotic adventures of a french ski instructor. (on and off the slopes)

My brother Matt got a new bag, a motorcycle helmet and a sweet BMX bike. 

Free stuff kicks ass

Tundra Glamour Shots by Lou

***Originally posted on Facebook July 7th, 2007

I'm pretty sure that i'm the only person I know of who has worn longjohns both 3 out of the last 6 and 7 out of the last 9 days. Here is a ackwardly incomplete list of nouns and ideas that describe my current mental, spiritual, physical and stylistic coordinates (UTM NAD 83). 

Canvas tents, lakes that crackle, red longjohns, grey lonjohns, sentient diesel stoves with a devilish nature, wool socks with a red stripe and a black stripe that smell like lysol and swamp, fluorescent hats whose fluorescense is challenged by dirt and sweat, the feeling that saturates your whole being for a few days after experiencing perfection in your dream, 7976648N 559933E Zone 11W, gigantic trees, frozen waterfalls, cargo pockets on any kind of pants, babes who are completely vulnerable but still ferocious, being attached to an artic char by a thin buoyant string, million hectare sandboxes, gigantic fields of gabbro boulders whose shadows circle them endlessly (for a couple months anyways), multiple layers of clouds moving in different directions because of complicated winds, natural acid mine drainage, the urgency of a minor ninth chord, the pioneering spirit of our grandparents that we will never be able to equal, fifty pounds of tundra muck in large white rice bags identified by a bold number and a blue security tag that will be airlifted to south africa, sieved, and examined by someone with a magnifying glass, a lot of patience and an eye for kimberlite indicator minerals.

"I can never understand someone by their strengths. Nothing is revealed there. I can only understand someone by their weaknesses"
-Anil (from Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje)

"i know i can't be free"
-Johnny Cash

"red rose growin' on another man's vine"
-Tom Waits

"A sense of urgency had crept into her style. Whereas in the past Sissy had kept up her astonishing pace out of sheer exhileration at being unique and being free, she now kept going because she was afraid to stop"
-Tom Robbins

"a cotton dress snagged in a willow tree"
-undertakin' daddies

"Someone saves your life, and they'll love you forever. You might be the one good deed, the deathbed memory that justifies their whole existence"
-Chuck Palahniuk

Rebirth of the blog

This blog is now the home of spontaneous musical recordings/videos.  It will probably be getting a lot more attention.

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel & telecasters

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel & telecasters

Just when I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, i'm realizing that I'm probably in the wrong tunnel. Today I hand in my thesis, next month I get my university degree and the month after that i'll be in a far off land measuring potential fields for rich people who want to dig gigantic holes in the earth and use the contents of the holes to build all sorts of wonderful things. I'm not opposed to the mining industry or any of that, I'd just rather be making music. I keep telling myself that I'll take a year off someday to give it a shot, but at this rate I'll be thirty years old and regretting that I was a slave to money when I didn't really need that much of it.
Theres the added complication that my job will take me to all corners of the world and give my tonnes of adventures to write songs about.

At the end of the day i'm just a bit frustrated because I have all sorts of awesome songs and ideas that just need to be polished a little bit. I just don't have the 8 hours a day required to get my music to the level I want.

On a side note, I desperately want a telecaster after watching Grant Siemens (Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans) and the guitar player from Hayes Carll wail on them for 3 hours straight last night

The art of being humble

Being humble is very difficult.  

Back to basics

My recent exodus from facebook has left me with nowhere to ramble but my blog, which has largely been neglected in the past while.  
There are a lot of reasons for quitting facebook.  First and foremost, i see it as a big ego trip that took up a lot of my time, and decreased the amount of real contact I had with the people around me.  I've noticed a difference since I stopped...

In other words, i went to the Xavier Rudd concert and enjoyed his techno-folk music very very much.  However I didn't enjoy the superfluous hippy dogma that ineviatably arose.  I say that if you are going to raise issues such as environmental awareness, you'd better know your shit and present a balanced point of view, or at least an educated one.  He was drinking from plastic cups telling me that plastic is evil.....said how disgusted he was with "holes in mountains where trees used to be" when he has 40 guitars made exclusively from wood and metal.  Anyways, i'm being an asshole about the whole thing, because he really is talented, and I guess there just aren't enough hours in a day to be both an activist and incredible musician.