Urban Vancouver

Holy shit: I just read that Stooges' guitarist Ron Asheton died yesterday of a heart attack. This is very sad news - even moreso since the Stooges have been so active since regrouping. My condolences to the Stooges (especially Watt... jeez) and to anyone who didn't get a chance to see them play live. Way sad news.

Sometimes the blurry shots are the best ones: Joe Keithley by Cindy Metherel


I'm proud and a bit stunned to see it: a Vancouver punk band - I'd call them the "grandfathers of Vancouver punk" but I'm not sure how Joe (or Chris Arnett!) would feel about that - is touring China! Chinese DOA fans (or happy Canadian expats) can catch them at these shows:


Jan. 9 Mao Live House, Beijing
Jan. 10 Vox, Wuhan
Jan. 11 Yuyintang, Shanghai
Jan. 12 Castle Bar, Nanjing
Jan. 13 D-22, Beijing


People unaware of DOA's Asian following are strongly advised to check out the Japanese DOA cover-tune compilation, We Still Keep On Running with DOA - really fun stuff, and available from Sudden Death. More on the new Spores comp later...!

I've occasionally done comic strips, dubbed "The Allan Funnies," for my own amusement, more than anything else. I don't have the discipline or the ambition to do anything serious with the form, but it's kind of fun - a way to direct my compulsive doodling. A friend of mine, Michael Carrothers, suggested I apply myself to some "cartoon blogging," and it seemed like a fun idea.

The SNFU article referenced is viewable online here, by the way; the Blowfly piece is here.

I'll have more to say about the Rude Norton show (the one I was going to) later, along with a couple of great Bev Davies pictures, but in the meantime, I give you, "Al Goes to the Cobalt."















To be continued...!

Sounds like a must-see. Opened yesterday, not playin' much longer - check it out.

I only note obituaries here for people I was actually a fan of. I know Freddie Hubbard did some fine work, but I've never really followed it; there was one really out-there CTI recording that I'd probably spin again if I bumped into it, but other than his appearance on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, I suspect I own nothing with him on it. My condolences to those who knew him or loved his music, I mean no disrespect. Donald E. Westlake, however - fuck, do you KNOW how many Parker novels I've read? I've lost count. I'd guess about a dozen, both the originals and a few of the new ones. I've seen a bunch of the film adaptations, too (The Outfit is likely the best of those I've tracked down, but I enjoyed the non-funny director's cut of Payback more than I would normally care to admit. I haven't seen Godard's Made In USA yet).

I'm so excited! It opens next Friday!



*see previously

(photo by Dan Kibke)

It's cold and windy - the sort of wind that howls in trees and corridors, knocks a few things over here and there. I'm at my parents' apartment in Maple Ridge, the no-neck suburb where I grew up. In a few hours, I wake to go on a trip that I'm very apprehensive about; my mother's twice-monthly casino visits, postponed for the Christmas holiday, resume tomorrow. The plan was that she would go alone, and father and I would spend some "quality time" together, while I helped out around the place - did some grocery shopping or maybe a bit of vacuuming; but then the manager of the senior's building that my parents are live-in caretakers for returned from vacation, allowing my father, who has been filling in for him, to go with her. Of course, they want me along too.

All of this is a bit of an issue, you see, because my father is seriously ill - he has cancer, and has been undergoing chemotherapy, with one slight break, for over a year now. He's lost a lot of weight and looking very ill, but it's impossible to tell at this point what's caused by chemo and what by cancer; the two seem more to be working together than to be battling each other. He's finally starting to admit that he can't do the job like he used to, and has been resting more, and accepting my help more, which comes as a relief to me - but he's still proud and willful and stubborn; and he insists on accompanying my mother tomorrow, wanting me to go with them. Of course, the roads are awful, black ice everywhere, and - I haven't mentioned this part - the casino isn't merely River Rock or someplace close; it's on an Indian reserve in the States - Nooksack - with a bus that comes to our door and picks us (and various other seniors) up and drives us there. Great! So if something goes wrong, we're in the States - and no one goes about issuing insurance on cancer patients, so we have no medical coverage there whatsoever. If there's an emergency, his fantasy plan is to take a taxi to the border and then to a Canadian hospital, to avoid paying hospital bills. This, of course, reflects no serious thinking; it's based more in some sort of sense of his own immortality than anything else, the same sort of logic that has seen him set out in the snow to buy groceries on several occasions these last couple of weeks, even though he's been losing his balance and falling over (he almost lost his glasses in the snow the other day, not realizing they were missing until he made it to Extra Foods, did his shopping, and turned back; he found them on a snowbank in the corner). My father has always been a stubborn man - he settles on a plan and won't budge, like his insistence, when we sit down to Scrabble, that we play at least three games - but it's gotten absurd. I can sympathize with his desire to be with his wife and to not let his illness stop him - but there are just so many variables in taking this show on the road that terrify me. What if the bus breaks down and we're stuck overnight? There are certain medical supplies my father needs - I don't want to go into detail, but things could get very unpleasant if we were stranded. More probably, what if there were an accident at the casino - if my father falls over, or loses consciousness, and the casino has some sort of insurance-dictated policy of calling an ambulance? What if he simply gets very sick and weak, and wants to be home in bed (but the bus isn't scheduled to leave for hours...?). I'll have my panicky mother, my ill father (who is getting a bit foggy-of-mind), and whatever new variables the casino managers (or police or ambulance attendants, possibly) impose upon the situation, and we'll be a two hour drive from home without a car. I'd protest and refuse to join them on this folly, but the situation is slightly less dangerous for my being there - for one, I can help my father in the Men's Room, if required, whereas my mother would have a harder time of it. And I'd be more likely, I think, to successfully insist on one course of action over the other than my mother, who - dependent on my father all her life and un-used to making crisis decisions - tends to get very flustered and make bad choices when things get scary.

Maybe one last trip won't be so bad, I tell myself. It won't be the first we've taken since my Dad got sick (indeed, it was his sickness that prompted him to start going regularly with her, and me to join them). Plus I've actually won a fair bit of money at the slots, which has come in handy indeed. A little voice says I should just go along with it - it could be a perfectly nice family trip, at a time when it's important for us to be together - and besides, the chances of dissuading my father at the last minute are next-to-none. I'm terrified of locking horns with him, too - if I push too hard, he could lose his temper, and I have my own temper to keep in check. I still cringe with guilt at the thought of the last couple of ugly episodes between us, which I feel all the worse about since he's gotten ill. I don't really feel like I can win this battle, but if I go along, it might just give me the ammunition I need to win the next one. I suspect he'll come to agree with me at some point tomorrow that the whole thing was one hell of a mistake.

As much as there's part of me that is starting to think it's time for me to move back to Maple Ridge to help out all the time, part of me just wants to escape from this town and get back to my life in Vancouver and hide in whatever obsessive distractions I can lose myself in - writing, film, music, sex, drugs, or a combination of all the above. I want to seize my father's stubborn refusals to take what I say seriously and use them as an excuse to absolve myself of trying to further influence him: "screw this!" I gave up trying to educate myself about alternative cancer treatments months ago, since he'll have none of it. My only "success" thus far with him has been that he occasionally dilutes his beer with cheap de-alcoholised stuff. (In fact, I was suggesting drinking de-alcoholized beer instead of the real stuff, to give his liver a break, since that's where the cancer mostly is based, and since liver cancer + chemotherapy + drinking every day does not seem to equal "a picture of health," to me; but not even his oncologist will back me up on that. Everyone just wants him to be "comfortable" - no one wants to fight a stubborn old man, or deprive a sick man of his few comforts - however you want to spin it). He's very proud to report to guests

2009 is going to be a very unusual year for me, I expect. Perhaps quite a difficult one.

Anyhow, I won't post for a couple of days, most likely, so - Happy New Year.


EDIT! NEW MATERIAL BELOW...


...So I got cranky with my parents this morning. I voiced my strong disapproval of the trip and begged them to see reason. It did no good - it got heated, though not ugly. My mother pouted that I was trying to "jinx" or "ruin" the day, and my father told me that if I didn't shut up I couldn't come. In the end, I could do nothing but relent and go with them, keeping further worries to myself.

It turns out the roads were fine once we got across the border - there's barely any snow left in Washington State; it ain't like here. My father was much better than he was over Christmas, too - it's been awhile since his last treatment and he's nowhere near as rough as he was when last I was here on the 26th. He could walk without stumbling, didn't vomit up his lunch, seemed pretty energetic by comparison to last week. Feeling a little less worried, I sat down to play slots...

...and won $550 US on the first machine I sat down at (Double Dolphins - a favourite of mine, because of its colourful and generous bonus round; plus I'm partial to dolphins; during the free spins, dolphin "wild cards" dive about on the wheel, chattering happily as the points mount up). I tucked that away to cover expenses and my parents' cut - I was going to end up ahead, no matter what - and continued to gamble with slot tickets I'd already purchased. I then won another $550 US on the same machine. (Actually I won a bit more, but I pushed my luck and whittled it back down to $550). Now the trip was paid for and I had enough money to tide me over until my next paycheque, maybe even buy an LP or two. This was all before sitting down to the free buffet lunch (including steamed catfish! Yum!). I resolved to have fun with the remaining tickets, following my general philosophy of betting the utmost on penny machines that have decent bonus rounds - strategically raising and lowering the bet depending on whether I thought a payout was on the way; I sat next to my Mom at an American Originals slot, and, in one spin, won over $1000 US on it. Again, I gave some of that back to them, trying to make Even More, but after giving my parents a cut, at the end of the day, I was up $1100 Canadian. I often win at slots - my approach to them works pretty well, though its not foolproof - but $1100 is a record thus far.

At one point, when the mood had changed - me happy with my winnings, and my parents having had a chance to think over what I'd said - my father admitted to me that everything I said about the risks was reasonable and that he understood my concern. He reassured me that he would stop coming when he couldn't, anymore. Attempts to talk him into going to Canadian casinos instead didn't cut it - he doesn't like how blackjack is played up here, apparently - but at least he heard me; at least I know he's taking it seriously. I still don't think it's a good idea for us to be gambling in the 'States, given his health - we're gambling with a lot more than money -

...but with payouts like I received today, I have a hard time feeling that bad that we went. We gambled and won.

It won't always be like that, though.

Never get involved in a boy and girl fight.

- William S. Burroughs, "Words of Advice"


Okay, right: bringing y'all up to date:

a) I ran a little interview with Gerry Hannah about the last election awhile back, that generated some nasty comments, connected to Gerry's past involvement with a radical group known most usually as the Squamish Five. No one who commented actually discussed the election; Stephen Harper won. Coincidence?

b) In the spirit of objectivity, lest I seem entirely like Gerry's butt-boy, as someone implied I was, I posted a previously unpublished interview with Terry Chikowski, the security guard most badly injured when the Five detonated 550lbs of dynamite at a plant in Toronto that was making Cruise missile parts for the US. The nasty comments continued.

c) More than one person involved - including me - thought some of these nasty comments came from Warren Kinsella, who does nasty so well that he once was in a band called the Hot Nasties (Some have said they sucked, but I confess to finding that "Tribbles" song they did - "March of the Tribbles?" "Migration of the Tribbles?" Something about Tribbles, in any event* - rather amusing and creative, truth be told). It happened that, in the months after having read Kinsella's book, Fury's Hour - having been somewhat scandalized by his representation of events, which is by no means objective, and which, in smearing Gerry, smeared me and every other Vancouver punk who felt at least some sympathy for the Five at the time - I did a lot of interviews with people connected to the Vancouver punk scene, during which I talked to them about the Five and Kinsella, and solicited their views. I'd done nothing with most of these interviews, so I collected a sort of "best of" compendium and published it under the title "An Open Letter to Warren Kinsella." This was a couple of months ago. Outside observers (Reg Harkema, Chris Walter, Scott Beadle, and Dave Chokroun) as well as people who know Gerry and/or Kinsella (Joe Keithley, Mike Graham, Jon Card, and Brian Goble) weighed in.

d) In the comments section for that, Warren Kinsella popped up briefly and said, among other things, that he hadn't posted anything anonymously. Bully for him! Nasty comments continued, however, and there began to be a bit of private speculation off the blog that one of these anonymous commentors was likely Julie Belmas, onetime girlfriend to Gerry, member of the Five, and herself a former Vancouver punk. Ms. Belmas, I can attest, can be, ohh, a bit intense...

e) Whether she had posted anonymously or not, I see tonight that Julie Belmas has actually spoken up on this blog, again in the comments to "An Open Letter to Warren Kinsella." I figured this may be of interest to some of y'all. Bearing Uncle Bill's advice in mind, if anyone wishes to comment further, I'd recommend doing so on that post, not here.


*Oh: it's "Invasion of the Tribbles."

Though it is nowhere in our city at present, The Wrestler's US release appears to have started this week; it's the film that supposedly marks Darren Aronofsky's return to serious filmmaking after the embarrassing and expensive folly of The Fountain, and has a comeback lead performance by Mickey Rourke (whose turn in Sin City was about the only thing I liked or respected about that film). Roger Ebert's (highly praising) review here, official site here. I have a very good feeling about this film. It's an odd sort of excitement to feel, this quivering anticipation: I remember when I used to get similarly worked up to hear that there would be a new film opening by people like John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, or Jim Jarmusch. I'm far more jaded, more mistrustful now. There are American filmmakers who DO excite me now - Kelly Reichardt, Robinson Devor, Gregg Araki - but it's not quite the same thing; I know that when I go see The Wrestler, there will be a few dozen people in the same audience who REALLY want to see Mickey Rourke in it, and a dozen more who are curious to see what Aronofsky's next step will be, having seen all his previous films. It's the anticipation of a public event, as much as it is excitement about a new movie - the knowledge that you are going somewhere to be with other people who know just as well as you do what they're going for, who are in the same state of hope and anticipation, who will be watching as attentively as you. ...it probably won't even play here theatrically, right? I wonder.

I've been enjoying my recent nights at the Railway - from seeing Nick Jones do Slim Whitman and David M. revise a certain old hit by Rick Springfield so that he's singing about how he wishes he had Santa's girl, it's been pretty easy to enjoy myself, even when drunken blondes are spraying saliva on my cheek as they hector me for not dancin' (a rare occurence, thankfully). I'm out in Maple Ridge doing family stuff for the holiday, but I may just make it back tomorrow; Rodney Decroo is having a birthday bash, and I've been meaning to catch him again for the longest time. I've chatted with him more lately than I've listened to his music, and feel like it's way past time I saw him play again. Rodney's offering a holiday discount on his CDs (and digital downloads) at this link. The show also features Mikey Manville and His Side Arms - Mr. and Mrs. Manville are apparently also celebrating a birthday or two - and Heather Griffin. Last time Mr. Decroo played the Railway it was a bit too packed for my tastes and I bailed; what with all the snow, I'm thinkin' this may be a good opportunity to see him from a seated position...

Hey, y'all! Any of you with a craving to hear a Vancouver punk "fuck band" cover "Gilligan's Island" or the theme from "Green Acres?" Do you have a secret fondness for "Tits on the Beach?" Here's your chance: Rude Norton plays January 2nd at the Cobalt! It's been a few years since any lineup o' Rude Norton has played Vancouver - to my knowledge, the last gig was at the Vancouver Complication show of 2004 or 5 or wheneverthefuck that was. The press announcement goes somethin' like this:

"A Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate over this holiday season. While there is at the moment no new Subhumans news to pass on, there is an upcoming show, with a couple of Subhumans involved, taking place Jan. 2nd 2009 at the Cobalt hotel on Main St. in Vancouver. The band is called RUDE NORTON and has current Subhumans drummer Jon Card, and Subs singer B.R.Goble, performing with Darryl Licked ( White Trash Debs, Absinthe Boy, San Francisco) , Tim Rollins (harmonica virtuoso supreme) and wiz kid Mike Agronavich (Solemn Fist), filling out the line-up. Rude Norton's forte has always been massacring the classics, so steel yourself for a no holds barred night of ear puncturing, sense assaulting 'entertainment?'.....also playing will be the SPECKLED JIM, lead by Butch Murphy and the ever sought after, THIRD RATE."

Yowza. Might be a fun night. I bet the Cobalt smells much better in winter than in summer. Maybe I can finally pin down Brian Goble (last seen dancin' to the Frank Frink Five) for a bit more of a Q&A...

...whose wife, linguist Carol Chomsky, died this week of cancer.

A follow-up on the homeless woman who burned to death trying to keep warm. Her name was apparently Tracey.

Drunken girls stalk Granville Street with stocking'd legs exposed from high heels to thigh, sharp little steps through three inches of powdery white. They teeter shivering in doorways as I pass by, my scarf wrapped around the lower half of my face; I can hear them talking about Polish shopping sprees or men or - towards the later portions of the night - trying to flag rides back to whichever suburb they come from. "Ohmigod I'm fucking FREEZING" is a common refrain, offered in tones of giggly awe; but I also overhear - again in a female voice, but this one belonging to a woman in boots - "What's wrong with these people? Are they fucking retards? Don't they know it's the middle of December?"

En route to 1067 from Richards, I see a homeless man (I think) in a doorway, sleeping in his parka on a ledge. He lingers in my mind as I make my way to Megabite to spend some of my last $10 on two slices (overhearing, en route, a man bellowing to his friends: "The Fraser River has fucking frozen over!"). If he dies, am I responsible for it, by virtue of having done nothing? Thanks, Christianity. After eating, I go to Blenz at Nelson and Granville - the location that mysteriously closed and then re-opened - and, having settled on a course of action, make my pitch: "Hey, excuse me. I don't have a cell phone. There's a homeless guy sleeping a couple of blocks from here - I'm hoping I could use your phone to call the poilce, see if they can get him into a shelter."

The guy behind the counter looks uncomfortable. "Ah... well... we don't really have an 'office phone,'" he says. He looks a bit sheepish. I don't so much as raise an eyebrow - he's young and he has rules to follow, after all. I just go next door to the Pita Pit, where they oblige. I sit at a table with their cordless. "Police, fire, or ambulance?"

Soon enough, a police operator is asking me, "Does he appear to be injured or intoxicated?"

"No, he seems to be sleeping. He's wearing a parka." I don't think to say: I didn't look too closely.

"Sir, I'm going to give you another number to call..."

When the non-emergency operator takes my name and address, I feel bizarrely concerned that my gesture could be used against me at some point. "Keep an eye on this one - he intervenes."
I make my way to 1067, where, when no one is playing, I visibly register my concern with a few people - Femke, Dave Chokroun, Jeff Younger. "What do you do in a case like this? Is calling the police it?" I watch two sets, one a Fond of Tigers offshoot of some sort who at times sound like they haven't figured out how to play with each other just yet and at other times approach the sublime; then there's a brief set from a Darren Williams-less Semi-Sorrow and the Pity, with Stephen Lyons pitching in some skronky guitar as Dave rants and drums. Their version of "Apeman" kills. Lyons tense guitar reminding me, I dunno, of something you might hear D. Boon do (on "Base King," for example). I worry throughout: what if I go back in an hour and the homeless guy is still there? What then? Do I bring him back to my apartment? He could be nuts, a drunk, a junkie; I don't want him sleeping in my space, he could rip me off. What about the hallway? What if he rips off one of my neighbours, or what if I get in shit for letting him in?
On the other hand, what if he freezes to death?

One of the 1067'ers I ask remarks that the shelters are probably full by now... Eventually I decide to skip the FOT-offshoot's second set - following Dave and Stephen's - and make my way back to the corner where I saw the guy. I'm relieved he isn't there. I stand and watch snow sheet the city, then turn back. Drunk 20-somethings clutter the roads, laughing and shouting at cars that honk at them. I feel like telling one cluster that a guy got killed a few months ago, standing in the road in front of my building, mowed over by a drunk driver - likely some drunk suburban brat like them. I could warn them that standing in the road and making cars veer around them in the snow is dangerous. Their tone of voice dissuades me. "Fuggit," I think, adjusting my gloves as I tramp up Nelson. "Let'em get hit... teach'em a lesson."

I wonder if the Fraser is really iced over...

Four fun shows for those of you with an interest in unusual music: at 7:30 PM, Solder and Sons will feature Set Sail to Sea, Burrow Owl, and the Italian Husbands - an ambitiously large gig for such a cozy space. I've already written about this below - check it out.
If you go directly to 1067 after the show, there's a special event there that will also delight, A Very Heartwarmongering Christmas, a project the details of which are a little vague to me; Fond of Tigers' Stephen Lyons will be involved, and I'm promised "a secret cameo appearance by the Sorrow and the Pity performing a cover of a Christmas song by an ostensibly socially-minded superband named after an adhesive bandage," which is enough to make me brave the moldy old couches. (The Sorrow and the Pity's Myspace is queerly hard to find, not turning up in my searches, but it's here no less. They DO have a CD out now, by the way - what other stocking stuffer will equally please Minutemen and Albert Ayler fans, I ask you? My past interview with their ranter/drummer Dave Chokroun, is here, and a fun read indeed).
No, that's not Mats Gustafsson, it's Darren H. Williams of The Sorrow and the Pity, by Femke van Delft


Gig three is at the Railway and I wish I had a gig poster for it! The Frank Frink Five play The Railway Club; it will be my first opportunity to see them, as I've managed to miss every other gig they've done. In fact, I only know the names of three fifths of them (assuming there are, in fact, five members): Nick Jones of the Pointed Sticks, former Modernettes member and bluegrass mandolinist Randy Carpenter (who appears not to have a Myspace), and drummer extrodinaire Jon Card. Oh, do check out the Pointed Sticks' free Christmas downloads, if you haven't!

I do confess, delightful as the fact of the Sticks' new output may be, that these songs are a tad cheery for me. What with treestumps lining Granville Street, homeless women burning themselves to death as a remedy for our cold spell, and the dread that comes in knowing that we're only a year away from the Olympics, and nowhere near prepared for it - I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood and more inclined to watch one of those horror movies where Santa's got an axe. If I'm going to hear a large number of Christmas-themed songs sung by anyone this year, it's gonna be No Fun frontman and Chapters Magazine Guy, David M. I've been an attendee of his free Saturday afternoon Chapters shows on repeated occasions, which, since I'm at best one of five people in the audience and, more usually, one of one, can be quite intimate (David even let me hold his Gorgo once - starfuck your way above THAT, geek!). Hey, wait - is this the third Saturday in December?

Wow! It IS! Unless something has gone weird, there's a free David M. concert at Chapter's today! 1PM to 3PM! What an amazing coincidence! Check out David M's Ironic Acronym's toe-tappin' "Baby Jesus Drank My Blood" for free here, if you remain unconvinced. Then come say hi to me and David on the 3rd floor of Chapters - these one-to-one artist/performance ratios get stressful - you can't slouch on applause when you're three feet away from the singer and you're the only one there!

Isn't David's poster heartwarming?

(Edited for accuracy after the story was updated online):

...a 47-year old homeless woman at the corner of Hornby and Davie has burned to death in a shopping cart she was using as a shelter. She apparently was trying to light a fire to stay warm when it went out of control. Let us hope her horrible death mobilizes the city to get homeless off the streets and into shelters, and to create more housing. Oh, and, um, FUCK THE OLYMPICS! (Did I say that already?).

I am going to the Hotel Vancouver with an envelope in my hand - some important business that I must complete. I discover that, due to economic conditions, the hotel is surrounded by women - workin' girls - desperate for money. I practically have to shake one off my arm on my way in the door, as she begs me to take her up to my room. I complain to the desk clerk - a very professional young man - about the aggressive solicitations and he says he knows, he apologizes, says things have really gotten out of hand. Maybe he even helps get this particularly needy woman to leave me alone. I drop off my envelope and leave...

...when somehow either this same woman, or another one - slim, blonde, in her 40's, with short hair and intelligent eyes - approaches me again and convinces me that she needs my help, and that the right thing for me to do is to have sex with her and pay her. I have no idea how she convinces me - I cannot recall - but the feeling is, afterwards, that "I'm on her side;" I have no doubt that this is what I want to do, because it will help her (for some reason just giving her money is not part of the scenario; my motivator, though, is altruism, not lust, or so it seems in the dream). The same young professional desk clerk greets me with great skepticism when I go back in (the blonde waits outside) and explain that I want a room for two. He is trying to dissuade these women from soliciting, he tells me somewhat sadly, since it's bad for business to have them plaguing every man entering the hotel; he understands that they can make some pretty convincing pitches, but I shouldn't feel obliged. He's clearly sighing inwardly, thinking, "They've got another one."

No, I lie, I want a room for me and my wife. She's meeting me here. She's probably outside now.

He looks at me, unconvinced, and I try to hurry him along, registering us. It takes some hassling. Then I go outside and find this woman, hoping she'll know to play along that we're husband and wife; she does. I put my arm around her and we go to the elevators, but the desk clerk follows us up. He is carrying the key. He is watching us. He won't relent. He follows us down the hallway. I turn to him: "Are you going to give me the key, or what?" I'm maintaining the pretense: THIS IS MY WIFE, this is the woman I love, why are you insulting her? He continues to haunt us. He makes comments. He won't leave us alone, it's apparent. Finally I fly into a rage and turn on him, beating him, screaming at him. How dare he - his snide implications, his sanctimoniousness. He cringes under my blows. My "wife" and I never make it into the room.

Afterwards - for reasons I cannot recall - we are outside the hotel, the prostitute and myself, and I am sitting with my arm around her on a bench. We're talking; we have developed some sort of bond. Another woman - more gaudily dressed, an obvious hooker, approaches, talking at me, desperate; I stick my foot up to block her approach - I get a POV shot in my dream of my shoe rising (just like in "Sock and Awe," except my foot is still in it) - and immediately feel guilty, wondering how the woman I'm with will feel about my so rudely turning away one of her own.

There is nothing more that I remember.

Well, so much for Bob Ostertag's Throw My Shoes, Too: there is apparently a new online video game called "Sock and Awe," in which you can pitch virtual shoes at the disgraced President, who, presumably, ducks out of the way each time. I've seen a picture, too, of an angry Middle Eastern journalist holding up a shoe with "Bush" written on it. It's spreading worldwide, I'm sure. I almost feel bad for Bush, faced with such hate and disdain! Somewhere the poor fucker must have a soul, a conscience; surely something in him burns and trembles and feels shame, no? How can any one human bear the weight of the loathing and contempt of so many people on this planet? If he doesn't really feel it yet... surely someday he will, no?

It will not stop me from seeking out Sock and Awe and trying it myself, mind you. And I still plan to ask someone to photograph me with my shoes. But part of me still wonders -- how would the world react if Bush killed himself, or if, at the very least, he admitted vast wrongdoings - crimes against humanity, I think they're called - and actively sought out some form of punishment? Could the man even begin to atone for what he's done in this lifetime? Since I imagine the answer is "no" - despite all his crimes, how can one not feel compassion for such a miserable soul? Mocked, condemned, without hope of expiation... it's a horrible fate to contemplate, even though he richly deserves it.

Sock and Awe. Jeezis.

Pauline Oliveros performs at FUSE, by Femke van Delft


Last month, Pauline Oliveros, pictured above, played two sets of dreamy avant-accordion at the FUSE event at the VAG, treating us to the experience of her Expanded Instrument System, a sort of surround-sound aural paradise (with a few snaps, crackles and pops thrown in for good measure). She then did two workshops at the Western Front. These were events that I was much excited about; I've listened to a few of the Deep Listening Band's recordings, and find them so profoundly meditative and enrapturing that, yes, folks, I've even used them as "mood music" for making out (beats the hell out of Barry White! ...I also highly recommend Zoviet France or LaMonte Young's more subdued piano works. I kid you not). Troglodyte's Delight, in particular, is a particularly interesting form of "underground" music, in that it's recorded in a cave - Tarpaper Cave, an "old limestone quarry near Rosendale, New York that had lovely dripping water sounds and Valhalla-like mists,” DLB member Stuart Dempster says of it - the band's improvisations interacting very quietly and beautifully with the environment and the musicians being highly affected by the unusual circumstances of their performance and their need to attend to ambient sound and space. Oliveros is not the only musician to experiment with caves and cisterns as environments for recordings, mind you - I'd recommend checking out the linked recordings by Lustmord (Heresy, I believe, is the most relevant), Vancouver's own G42 (The Cistern Sessions), and Don Cherry (playing the stalactites - or were they stalagmites? - in a cave on this Live from Soundscape DIW release, now apparently OOP)... all of which are pieces where the spaces become another instrument; feel free to comment below if you know others! Still, Oliveros - some of whose scores make up an exhibit at the Wack! event at the art gallery, as well - is the person whose work inspired the entire concept of "deep listening," and is an extremely interesting composer and artist; it was a privilege and a pleasure to meet her, to hear her play, and to partake in one of the workshops - thanks are due to Ben Wilson and DB Boyko for making the event happen (and whoever else at the Front I'm supposed to thank...). Oliveros' music exists in such a way as to make one even more aware of the silence around it, inviting you to expand your awareness into that silence, merging with something beyond the self - a kind of transcendent experience, which is what I go to these sorts of events in pursuit of, generally (doesn't everyone?).
Ione and Pauline Oliveros by Femke van Delft
For her Vancouver appearance, however, Oliveros came complete with her partner and collaborator Ione. Ione - an interesting character in her own right and someone many Vancouverites would have delighted to hear - Common Ground readers, say - is (it says on her website) a spoken word artist, an Ordained Inter-faith Minister, a Certified Hypnotherapist, a Certified Qi Healer, and a Certified Helix Therapist (the last being a domain completely unheard of by me). Her most interesting role, and the one most visibly brought to bear at FUSE during her spoken word performance, was that of "dream facilitator;" as Oliveros played, she sketched an indeed rather dreamlike narrative of travelling to a land of thousands (or was it hundreds of thousands?) of forgotten dreams, a strangely familiar place which we were encouraged to explore. Dreams are a fascinating province and her suggestion, at the end of the workshop, that we pay attention to SOUND in our dreams was fascinating and thought-provoking, since it made me aware that my dreams, while having narratives and visuals and meaning, do not seem to have sound per se: I have the understanding of sound - I register that people in my dreams speak to me, and "hear" what they say - but there is no sense of the sound having quality or existence on its own; I'm sure in order to really "hear" in a dream, I would have to carefully train myself into it through the sort of attentive behaviour she suggested, which would probably considerably enrich my experience of dreams - or even the dreams themselves. Interesting stuff, to be sure. I liked her suggestion of keeping a dream journal, too, and having workshop attendees share it with each other - I've kept dream journals at various points in my life, and am glad to see friends of mine explore the idea at her suggestion... though admittedly I didn't take up her suggestion myself, as I've been trying to recuperate from over-writing. Ione by Femke van Delft

However, I must say, when I listen to quiet, meditative improvised music, it is uniformly done with the intent of escaping my normally dominant linguistic self - of getting away from words and thoughts, getting at something deeper, more profound; and so to have someone telling stories, however abstract or poetic, throughout Oliveros' improvisations - stories which required me to think and process language at a time when I really didn't want to do these things at all - was basically about as welcome and useful as having someone repeatedly tapping me on the back of the head throughout the performance; it did more to make any actual "dreamlike" state completely unattainable than to facilitate one. I liked it far better (and heard similar comments from friends in attendance) when Ione made tentative forays into vocal improv - clicks and tweets and trills which complimented Oliveros' fascinating, multidemensional sound explorations much more effectively and were thus much more welcome. As for the workshop - which had a charmingly unpretentious, dare I say "high-school-drama-class" feel to it - a good thing, with the 30-some attendees happily lying on the floor at its peak making a delightfully weird and quite unself-conscious group vocal improv together - I must further 'fess up that Ione's suggestion that we hold hands and close by making a sound from a "wonderful dream" that we've had also didn't really connect with me at all, as my best dreams are my most interesting and dramatic ones; the idea of "wonderful" doesn't really enter into things. (As I recall, I'd had dreams the night before of being stalked by a slasher, which were quite engaging, but by no means "wonderful;" a good dream for me is like a good horror movie - intense and thought provoking - but seldom even pleasant). Ah, well -the group improv was still really fun, and I look forward to acquiring the Deep Listening Band's new double LP - the first in their history, previously dominated by CDs - which features the Tarpaper Cave sessions and more. Pauline Oliveros, by Femke van Delft
Jeffrey Allport and Tyler Wilcox, by Dan Kibke
In terms of "deep listening," tho' - which I understand as listening that requires and produces a profound attentiveness that transports one from the mundane into a different sphere - I got a bit of a better workout, I must confess, from Jeffrey Allport's set last weekend with Seattle's Tyler Wilcox at Solder and Sons (a hip little bookstore/ electronics shop/ music shop/ cultural space, located at 247 Main, near the Cordova intersection). Allport is a drummer, but calling him that in no way prepares the reader for what this man does with his instrument. It's like calling LaMonte Young a pianist, or Phil Minton a singer, or Derek Bailey a guitarist; while accurate, these designations are only a small slice of the story, and without more elaboration, get you nowhere; for instance, drummer or no, Allport seldom - at least during the performances I've seen - does anything so crude or primitive as to hit a drum with a drumstick. (Sometimes he'll hit a drum with a mallet, but odds are it'll be on the side of the drum or the rim, rather than the actual skin). The picture above is quite revealing of his method; we see him with an array of cymbals, in his hand or placed in different configurations on the drumskin; a mallet in his hand; and a reserve of bows and sticks on his lap. It's a tad too dark to see, but he also has a spring (I believe) attached to the rim of one of his drums, which will be used to produce subtle vibrations and buzzes, often happening in reaction to what he is doing elsewhere, as Allport hits or rubs his cymbals gently with the head of his mallets; rubs the mallets, or bits of tinfoil, on the surface or rim of the snare or floor tom; places a tinfoil plate upside-down inside the cymbal, itself lying on a drumskin, to let it reverberate as he bows the edge; or does other things with the sides or rim of the drum that one simply would not normally see a mere "drummer" do. He brings an intense, dare-I-say meditative focus to his investigations of his instrument, and is quite comfortable - as was Wilcox - in letting silence reign for long periods, choosing when to insert another sound into it, so that the absence of sound itself is a cue for attentive listening; when the Art Ensemble of Chicago talk about the "drum and silent gong" in "Illistrum," on Fanfare for the Warriors, it's come to be Allport that I think of. I'm excited to hear that he'll be curating a three-day event at VIVO in February - I believe featuring many people who will be playing at the Seattle Improvised Music Festival, whose artistic director, Gust Burns, is a past collaborator of Jeffrey's... Hopefully I'll have more on that later, as the date approaches.
Jeffrey Allport and Tyler Wilcox by Dan Kibke

And what a great environment for a concert! Fake Jazz Wednesdays suffers from the Cobalt's foul smells, sticky seats, so-so sound system, and occasional mood of yahoo-ism among the audience, who sometimes are more interested in socializing than listening. 1067 is among the least aesthetically appealing spaces I've spent time in - it looks like exactly what it is, a disused office space, and I can no longer sit in its thrift-store-quality furniture without fear of picking up bedbugs or such. The Western Front is great - probably my favourite venue for hearing live music in Vancouver, mostly due to the superb programming - but, unless one sits right up front, is not particularly intimate or warm. By contrast, what could be more comfortable than gathering with 20 or so interesting people in a flippin' used bookstore? I love used bookstores, and Solder and Sons is a good one, tho' it has somewhat quirky hours; last I checked, it's not open weekends, save for occasional evening performances. For quiet music like Allport's, it has the added bonus of being right on the street, so passing cars or even passing pedestrians can be unofficially "incorporated" into the soundscape, which is more charming than one might expect. You can even park pretty safely, knowin' the courthouse and cop shop are right across the street!

The show at Solder and Sons, by Dan Kibke

Good news, then: Anju Singh tells me that there will be another show at Solder and Sons this Saturday, December 20th. One Jake Hardy described the main act, the Italian Husbands - in the email that Anju forwarded to me - as "romantics of the trash-core," who "will bring you the deep pervasiveness in the form of ultra lo-fi ritualism and hippy nihilism." I'm really not quite sure what that means, but it sounds like it might be quite interesting (the "lo-fi ritualism" part, anyhow). Apparently these guys are affiliated with Sludge House in Alberta (see the link above, which has a video of them performing there) and have an album coming out. Also on the bill are Burrow Owl (Hardy: "harsh noise, pins-and-needles style;" I am unsure of their Myspace and unwilling to weed through websites about actual owls to find it); and Anju's project with Shearing Pinx guitarist/ fellow Her Jazzer Erin, Set Sail to Sea (Hardy: "Set Sail to Sea will dampen the walls and bookshelves of Solder and Sons with thick layers of down-tuned doom sludge" - which is not exactly how I would describe the one set of theirs I saw at the Cobalt awhile back, but it WAS the only occasion, of many at which I've seen Erin and Anju perform, where I thought briefly of Black Sabbath, so I do kind of get what Jake is sayin', here.) You are recommended to show up around 7:30, since things will begin early. You can always browse the books, or better yet, check out the CDs - Jeffrey Allport has a few (and an LP, too); I particularly liked Hawker's Delight, with Angharad Davies and Chandan Narayan on violin and autoharp, which I bought after seeing Jeffrey awhile back at 1067, with Arrington de Dionysio and Yamauchi Katsura.

PS: Single women in attendance at the Saturday show are encouraged to offer me sexual favours, or at least say hi. Do not be alarmed that I have shaved off my beard. I am growing it back.

I've always known people had shitty tastes in movies - I mean, I used to work at a Rogers Video, for one, so I know all too well what sort of crap people would favor; and I've seen critics get movies very, very wrong before. From Pauline Kael's legendary hatred of Cassavetes to Ray Carney's dismissal of the entire work of Hitchcock (among others) to Jonathan Rosenbaum suggesting Joe Dante's Small Soldiers is some sort of satirical masterpiece to - oh, hell, I don't know, about every fifteenth review Roger Ebert writes - I've known you can't place stock in even the most celebrated critics; one must rely on ones own judgment and view films very carefully, regardless of what anyone says. I would never prevent myself from seeing a film that interested me based on a bad review, or see a film that didn't interest me because of a good review; there is no critic whose opinions I trust that much. (Robin Wood, whom I esteem more than any of the above, admires Larry Cohen's It's Alive, for fuck's sake! His writing off of Cronenberg at least made for an interesting contribution to the discourse about that filmmaker, who deserves to be queried more than he is). Rotten Tomatoes suggests that somehow if you poll enough critics, you can abstract some sort of trustworthy judgment about a movie, but various recent films that I have genuinely enjoyed, like M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water and his somewhat less delightful, but still interesting The Happening, have gotten below 25% on the Tomatometer, while predictable, trivial garbage like Iron Man, morally bankrupt, politically unacceptable shit like The Dark Knight, and expansive follies like PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood (which presumes to write the politics out of an Upton Sinclair novel and re-inscribe the text so that it offers an intellectually hollow "false dilemma" choice between two flavours of greed, and not much else) have been praised to no end, all receiving over 90%. (My views on those last three films here, here and here). The vast success of these films at the box office further suggests that one cannot trust audiences, either. Shit will rise to the surface as often as it sinks, and not everything that sinks is shit. Though a sort of critic myself, I really think people should trust no one when it comes to what movies to see, but rather follow their own intuitions and keep an open mind. The best critics go very very wrong on occasion, and the vast majority of them are just newspaper hacks who wouldn't know a good movie from a grilled cheese sandwich.

Somehow, though - cynical as I am about what people write about movies - when actually watching a film, I can still be awestruck to know that people are so wrong about it. Case in point: The Day the Earth Stood Still, a consistently interesting reworking of the old SF classic that succeeds on any number of levels. It has a few problems - it takes a few too many shortcuts in the name of keeping a brisk pace, leaving more unexplained than it rightly should, and its CGI, when not spectacular, is embarrassingly bad - like the video game quality snake wriggling towards the floating sphere - but it is generally narratively engaging, visually striking, has some fascinating dialogue, interesting characters, sympathetic politics, and, even when it pushes too far in one direction or another, does so no more than almost any other Hollywood entertainment currently in theatres. People with a serious interest in SF, with a fondness for B-movie values - because this is basically a very expensive and very good B-movie - or who just want to see how the story has been updated will find even more reasons for enjoying the film. It's a tough one not to like, overall - I even choked up at times while watching it (try to guess when).


Despite all this, in what I believe is its opening week in Vancouver, it is playing to near empty cinemas - there were fewer than a dozen people in Cinema One at the Scotiabank tonight - and has a mere 21%, as of this writing, on the Tomatometer. It is going to be an expensive failure indeed. This is truly a shame. And while I can hardly complain that there were fewer idiots in the cinema than usual to distract me from appreciating the film, I have to say in the movie's defense that I had a great ol' time tonight - that it gave me exactly what I wanted and hoped for, and that I think it worth anyone's time. I doubt I'd see it again, mind you, and I'm not going to praise it as I would the works of Kelly Reichardt or Robinson Devor or other truly important contemporary American filmmakers - but I would suggest that anyone with a hint of curiosity about this film not be dissuaded by its bad box office, bad reviews, or so forth. Go see it for yourself; I think this film deserves a fighting chance, and if you're the sort to be bothering with actually reading what I write, you might find yourself in agreement with me...

Or not...