sit down, stand up

T-Mok and I are going vegetarian and sober this week. So far, so good.

I'm actually not finding the vegetarian part hard at all. There are so many bomb fruits and veg that, in consistency alone, stand proudly next to the finest meats. Assorted mushrooms, avocado, and tomatoes all contain umami which is a beautiful quality that gives certain vegetables and fruit their meaty, hearty taste. Cooking with any of these items is an easy way to sub' meat out of your diet - just learn how to cook with them.

The absence of beer has been the harder of the two.

I'm going to try to write this next part in a way that makes me seem as little like an alcoholic as possible.

I love beer. It's a wonderful thing. That's a point worth making.

Yet however nice it is, like anything, there are limits.
Most times over the summer alcohol is just straight up over-used. I was going to use the word "abused", but that sounds a bit overdone. Abuse usually involves binges beginning in the a.m.
But most of the time, amongst my circle of friends, boozing is just something to do on a nice sunny afternoon or to congratulate yourself on a hard work week over $10 pitchers.

Although fun, it has some restrictions.
I began drinking when I was 19, which is quite uncommon given that most people I've met used to hustle old men or their brothers for Max Ice outside of the LC when they were 13. The bottom line is that I've been drinking long enough to recognize a good time from a shit one. Fifty per cent of the time, it is an absolutely worthy effort to get drunk for i.e. birthdays, essay completion, fridays, exams, sporting events etc. The other fifty usually isn't, and it's something to recognize as one gets older. You can avoid certain outtings by simply dividing what you know of the setting, the day of the week, the occasion (or lack of one), what you're drinking and who's coming. Is getting drunk at that point a good idea? Not really.

I know I can't preach to people about the importance of drinking in moderation, because I am in fact one of the biggest drinkers (in frequency and volume) of beer that I know. But every man's got his limits, unless your an alcoholic of course, and that's a completely different story.

The difficult part that I mentioned earlier is strictly derrived from the pleasure that I get from hanging on a patio with my friends and some brews. So when I walked down Queen Street this afternoon, seeing patios like The Horseshoe Tavern, Black Bull, Smokeless Joe's, and The Rivoli completely packed made me sad I couldn't call my friends for a beer. Because it's not always about the drinking as much as it the aroused senses that come with it.

Either way, this no meat and no beer diet is being coupled with 300 sit-ups a day and nine glasses of water in an effort to cleanse myself for next weeks cottage fest in Sauble Beach, because lord knows there will be plenty of meat and beer up there.

cravings

Sometimes all I really feel like doing is watching Boyz in the Hood. I honestly get a craving to watch this once every two weeks, just below The Last Waltz and Citizen Kane.

I consider it a small masterpiece. A little slice of 90's Americana set in the South side of Los Angeles. Everyone's performances are unique and memorable, and there's just enough gritty storyline and character development that it keeps your eyes peeled to the screen from start to finish.

Additionally, it has easily the greatest movie dad in cinematic history. Furious Styles (played by Lawrence Fishburn), is a take-no-shit kind of dad that'll give you "rubbers", eat admiring neighbours' bbq'd ribs, fix your fade, and still pay the bills and love you by the end of the day. If I were up for adoption and Furious Styles walked into the room, I'd be like "Shit yeah, take me home daddyo". Even Rotten Tomatoes gave Furious the top honor in their Fathers Day Special called "Top 5 Movie Dads of All Time" click on it to watch.

Plus, everytime Ice Cube's character is on screen he has an Olde E in his hand (except for the flash back to when they were kids at the beginning). So gangster. In fact, I might host a forty party in my house in the future where we do nothing but drink OE and watch Boyz in Hood quietly and let Furious teach us about sex ed. Shit yeah.

the winds of shit

It's Danny's birthday today. My main man is 24.

Tonight there will be a party of some proportion. I'm kind of scared.
It reminds me of the morning of St. Paddy's Day, where you know some shit is going to go down.

I can feel the shit pressure rising, and the shit barometer dropping.

hitchhiker's guide

After so many major consequtive purchases, I literally have a few dollars to my name at the moment. When asked if I wanted to go out tonight by my dear friend Kudzai, one story came to mind immediately.

The story of a penniless, stranded Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy goes as follows:

"Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Europe book, and while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck with a copy of the book and looking up at the stars, thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well."

The book went on to sell more than 14 million copies.

I plan to do something similar tonight.

I'm literally going to take the twenty dollar bill in my pocket and blow it on beer with one of my best friends in effort to drink and dance my way into some flash-of-genius-stupor that will send my artistic career into another (if any) stratosphere.

I really enjoy putting myself in holes like this. At times I consider money to be simply a privilege; something to be enjoyed and dealt with at a later date. It's one of the great freedoms we allow ourselves to relish in: the ability to do whatever we want with our earnings. The simple fact about money that doesn't scare me one bit goes like this:

I know I'm not going to die.

I have food in my house and money coming my way in various directions. I know I'm not going to go hungry or homeless tonight, so it's time to put my inspiration on the stove and let it cook for a while.

3B.

Budapest. Beer. Broken Hand. Christ, summer was good.

amazing!

Before leaving for home, I decided that it would be a good idea to deep clean the house. Here in Toronto, the garbage system outside of waste and recycling also has a bin for organic compost. Seeing as I hadn't changed my bin in a while, it was go time.

There must have been some seriously rotten shit in there, because as soon as I removed the bag from the bin, I barfed!! Blluughghhaaaahhhuuuuwwa!!! Amazing! It smelled so rotten that I barfed right there on my lino floor!

I think barfing is the funniest shit ever. One time my dogs got sprayed by a skunk back home and the sheer smell of the skunky-dogs getting washed in the tub made my sister barf. I thought that was amazing.

I've never personally barfed from smell alone, until about ten minutes ago. It happened instantly. So rad.

I've never had a big problem with barfing. Most of my close friends know this. I used to barf on purpose after big nights of binge drinking, just so I wouldn't feel like shit in the morning. I don't do it anymore. Come to think of it, I've gone through all kinds of drinking ritual phases. Two sweet barfing instances come to mind: one was with Tiff on the Nathan Phillips Square ice rink last winter after drinking super expired McDonalds milk (one halfwit security guard thought we were bulimic, so I made him smell the milk), and the second with Meme in the city hall parking lot on top of a Smart Car, which subsequently led to Meme spewing the most amazing rice barf of all time.

Barf is awesome. Don't be afraid of it, unless you have the flu, then prepare for shittyness.

Honorable Mention goes to Lwam last Saturday night at the Madison, which was based on a gag reflex rather than drunkenness. Beautiful Heinekin barf cascading down a set of wooden stairs followed by the roar of 20 screaming jocks? RAD TO THE BONER.

things I've learned at 1806

I'll preface this next bit with some notes. I've lived here, in the same room, for three years, and I know every in and out of this neighborhood within a four-block radius. I've lived with some serious characters and have experienced some pretty amazing times. There's been some quiet times, and some really loud times. If these walls could talk, there would probably be a lot of bleeping-out.

The Sound

My room at 1806 is partly separated by glass from another bedroom. Apparently, everything can be heard coming from my room in the other bedroom, and I mean everything. Yet the strange thing is, I've never heard much of anything come from the other side. It's almost like a one-way-mirror, except for sound. Strange, indeed.

The Lifts.

The elevators are incredibly smart here. I've never seen elevators like it. When idled, one sits at ground level, another in the middle, and the other at the penthouse. They juggle perfectly as if actually controlled by one very considerate man.

The Delta Chelsea.

This hotel sits across the street from my room. It ruins what would be an incredible view of south downtown Toronto. The shortcut through the lobby is the only real redeeming quality about the place, which I've probably passed through over 500 times. It's also extremely ugly. On top of that, I never saw any full-on sex coming from any of the rooms. How lame is that? Every night I'd look out my window to see if anything was going down, and nothing. I've seen some weird stuff however. I've seen a blowjob in progress, an old guy masturbating naked, two naked people laying on the bed with the lights on, and a whole lot of people changing. So, for all my real friends, do me a favor and go have sex at the Delta. Not so that I can sit and watch, but so that I can finally say after three years "Oh look, people are having sex at the Delta. Neat". On a final note - Blair and I are still trying to figure a way to blow up the entire building, just so he'll have a nice view.

The Alarms.

My condo is allergic to smoke. Even if you burn toast, the smoke alarm goes off. There's been some perticularly hilarious stories surrounding that device. The interesting thing is though, howcome the alarm never went off after we Jamaican Sauna'd the bathroom? I've seen steam come out of that bathroom that would honestly rival Niagara Falls.

The Changes.

Something is always wrong with this place. They're always shutting off the water, closing the gym, renovating the pool, fixing soggy ceilings, tearing up floors, bleaching something, and removing something else. I'm going to guess that there were only a total of 21 days where nothing was wrong with this building. I'm sure the site coordinator loses sleep at night.

The Halls.

The hallways smell like Toys R' Us. I noticed that the day I moved in. Do you know the smell I'm talking about? It's dominantly a fresh plastic smell, mixed with the odd stroller that passes by.

The Water.

It's god-damn delicious. Toronto water in general is the tastiest water ever. I have no idea why either. If the water here could be embody an inanimate object, it would probably be a milk shake, because that's how good it feels to drink. Going from another other towns water to Toronto's is like going from Marble Cheese to Double-Creme Brie. Get the picture?

The Tank.

I was never busted for practically living in my studio. My studio space is a large storage unit located one floor below street level. Two security cameras point directly at the door, and yet I was never hassled for being down there for hours at a time. Sometimes, a few people will accompany me, back in the good old Think Tank days. We'd stay there for hours. I'd have girls down there (intentionally or not). I play albums on full blast. I empty piss jugs and used oils/chemicals into the small drain outside the door. I clean by brushes at the Car Wash bay (and I usually do a pretty good job of spraying all the colors into the drain). Strange things come and go from that room as well, such as: a gigantic mirror, a five-foot wagon wheel, bee bee guns, an oven door, countless canvases, and lots of busted furniture.

24/7

It's too convenient here. It's literally impossible to go hungry in this area. There are four 24-hour establishments within five minutes of each other, and I couldn't even tell you how many times I've visited them at 5 a.m. There's a Panago next to my front door, a Subway, and a Falafel house around the corner. The convenience is also one of the major factors in leaving this place: I just don't want it that easy anymore.

Blair.

I love living with Blair, because he thinks I'm a pretty cool guy and really hams me up when I'm in the kitchen. He laughs at all my bad jokes and catches all my movie references. He is easily persuaded by his vices, and I've practiced that persuasion many, many times. His hobby is cleaning, which is good, because my hobbies create a lot of mess. He thinks I look like Sinatra, and once said I'm like the Dos Equis guy. No wonder I love Blair.

assault and pepper

Hey Friends!

I've not been a slack as of late. It was just old Ted Rogers holding our internet signal ransom for several days. Yet, a lot has happened.

I might as well start with last Thursdays show at Call The Office in London.

The night itself was an overall success. Seeing as I don't have Facebook, I never really know who's "attending" and who's not. I'd heard word that many old friends were confirmed guests, and nearly all of them showed! This made for some, well, I'll just say interesting events. Even great friend, past-bandmate, and wonderful human in general Nathan Albion made his appearance. Dan and I used to be in a band with Nathan called Gerald Pessy way back in the day. We also almost won our highschool Battle Of The Bands together after only two weeks of playing our instruments.


The show also went quite well. There's a young and shakey kid doing sound at CTO nowadays, which caused us a bit of sweat. Aparently the show sounded good from the croud. People seemed to respond well to the new material. Even the new-new material (a near remix of an untitled song that had been played at several shows) went off without a hitch. That new version is pretty awesome, and a lot more fun to play, even though I stole the beat from a Josh Ritter album.
I have to mention, the Call The Office stage has heat like no other club. I'd rather play in the desert than feel the lights of that place. I always bring a change of clothes to those shows because, combining the heat with the vigor I play with, always makes for a sweaty performance.

The next morning, after some delicious King's Inn Diner lunch, we made for the road. I drove. Upon arrival, we all split for a Triple S before the show. I got Chippy's, located directly across the steet. If you've never eaten there, and have an appreciation for fish & chips, boot your ass over there as soon as possible. We then showed up for sound check.


I'll be honest, and I've said before, Lee's Palace scares the shit out of me. It's a massive venue that has seen some of the best bands on the planet play since before you were born. The walls of the place just ache with history. Not only is it one of the most notorious, but the best sounding clubs in the city. So naturally it was a bit nerve-racking packing our gear in it's hollow state. All of the bands were cool, except the bill didn't have any flow whatsoever.

The order went as follows: college funk, hue, hip-hop, then metal. Goofy.

We were rushed going on, seeing as the previous band ran late. I was literally still tightening my stands while Darcy tinkered the opening chords of our set. A great amount of people showed up, except we didn't make any money because they were all on the guestlist haha. S'all good. We payed for our gas money the night before.

Afterward we all hit Dance Cave and danced uncontrollably. Kevin Black and I jammed so fucking hard to Arcade Fire. I'm pretty sure we created our own dance circle in the middle of the floor just because nobody wanted to be hit by our flailing limbs. Atta boy. Another story that deserves some attention is actually quite funny. Minutes before we left after packing our gear, a fight broke out only a few feet from us. The cops showed up, and one of the guys who sucker-punched another dude approached us and told him to take his wallet. We said no, so he kicked it under our van. All I did for the next ten minutes was stare at the guy while he was being questioned by the cops. But why would he do this? It's simple really. The oldest in the book.

See, when a cop questions you for something illegal, all you really need to do is chuck your wallet away. That way, upon questioning, you can make up any address you feel like and the cops would be none the wiser. You'll never recieve a ticket and never pay a fine.

The punchers girlfriend noticed me eyeing him up and pleeded with me to not rat him out. To be honest, the only reason I didn't was because Darcy was driving and didn't want to get involved. Lucky him, because I was drunk and wanted justice. The most funny part is, she was pleeding with me as I was sitting in a van full of people, and after I continued to shove everything she said to the ground, my only reply to her was:

"Na na na na na na na na, BATMAN!!!"

We all had a good laugh at her expense right then and there.

I went home after that and slept. Then! Just when life couldn't get any better! I awoke to tickets to that afternoons Jays game against the Kansas City Royals! My good friend Andrew Siu and his lovely girlfriend treated Blair and I to some free tickets behind the plate. That was fucking awesome. I don't really have any good stories about that, except that I would shout any obscenity Andrew asked me to, including telling Vernon Wells to "EARN THAT 20 MILL!!!" when he was up to bat. He then struck out.

A week later, Darcy and I attended the annual Alzheimer's Tournament at The Highland in London. This was our fourth year playing, and easily the most hilarious yet. I won't go into too much detail, because I have a tonne of pics and video from that day, which I will post hopefully as soon as my sister sends them. You're in for some hilarity.

That same night a whole whack of us went out to Raygun and party-hardy'd, until we eventually ended up at Caitlin's place, free-styling and putting back drinks until the sun came up. Those freestyle tapes exist somewhere and I'll see what I can do to retrieve them.


Nowadays I've just been working, doing laundry, rehearsing, recording, painting, photographing, working on a website, Luminato, watching playoff basketball with K, walking, organizing, and enjoying what has been one of the best summers in years. My life seems to be one hectic, fantastic moment after another.

please! no more meat! (in every sense of the word)

Ahhh, the ever-glorious May 2-4 weekend. This year we had the privileged of staying, cost-free, at a beautiful lakefront summer home in New Baltimore, Michigan (about 20 minutes outside of Detroit).
BK, Mills, and Billy are staying there for the summer, so we thought we'd pay them a visit.

The view from the back porch wasn't that bad either.

The next photo I won't go into too much detail about. For those of you who know this means, let's all share a laugh together.

The best (and worst) thing about America is how they've seemed to bridge the gap between food and convenience. Here, I can be seen drinking a pre-bottled A&W Rootbeer Float. Now, the most unusual thing about it wasn't the taste or the texture, but the ingredients. I wasn't shocked when I noticed that last diddy. Laughing gas anyone?

Tickle a ginger!!
What May 2-4 would be complete without tickling Jordan to the ground (which takes anywhere between 1 and 6 seconds, depending on how much he resists). Jordan, I wish I had your giggle as my ringtone, because it warms my heart.

We watched Family Matters (which is surprisingly still a good show), and it turned out that it was Steve's birthday as well. I cradled his head and wished I was there with him and Carl.

Funny face time. Aparently Josh's monkey face had never been captured on film until now. I consider that a damn shame, because it's fucking hilarious.

One of my personal favorites: The Rubber Mask. It scares pretty girls.

David, I don't know what to call this, but that doesn't mean it's not funny. It reminds me of somebody, mostly Egon from Ghostbusters.

"Oh man, BK is totally drinking from my dick. That's hilarious!"

I'm sure that's what I was thinking at the time of this birthday countdown photo.

Detroit, what.

We met blair right about here, because he's a Backstreet Boy.

I remember agreeing to see a Detroit Tigers game the night before, but I don't know how they managed to pull me out of bed the next morning. I was in hangover central. Although, the best cure for one of this is movement, Tylenol, sunlight, and more booze.
The daquiri stand looked damn tempting when sitting in 26 degree sun in the outfield.

Josh, enjoying that shit, even without the huge collectable fist drink holder.

The employees at the daquiri stand honestly loved their jobs. They made us honkies feel right at home.

Time for another.

Well played, honkies.

That motherfucker (and I can say that because he was hitting on Cougars the whole game) was one part hilarious drunk hick, one part annoying Yank. He didn't say much more than reciting rap lyrics and screaming "I'm on a boat!" during lulls in between plays. At least he gave us some good daquiri insight.

The new Tigers Stadium is beautiful. Everything I think a baseball stadium should be.

8 Mile!

Yeah, we got ourselves some White Castle. It had been about a decade since I'd last eaten here, and thank God for that. I forgot how absolutely horrible this food is. We ended up calling it Grey Castle because of the grey-matter-meat. Fucking terrible excuses for burgers. Under no circumstance should a food joint have a 40-burger combo on its menu. We all had to shit immediately afterwards. I think this venture capped off the meat consumption limit for the trip.

Mills and BK. More like East and DP.

Jordan loving the Five O'Clock Rum. That shit was so damn gross. But hey, it was only $16 for that entire bottle. Where do you draw the line between value and quality? Actually, how about value and dignity.

We opened our own bar after visiting Wal-Mart.

The spinning-head Exorcist owl.

BK and I held dinner down the second night. I made a red wine and worcestershire sauce marinade for the steaks and stuffed the potatoes with garlic, onion, and fresh rosemary. PS - damn you guys for having such beautiful rosemary and basil plants.

Of course, I was getting my feet dirty running through farmers fields to capture some sweet cloudage. Billy warned me that people here have guns and are not afraid to use them. Let's just say I made it quick.

Life's tough.

What the hell was with this thing in Billy's room. The creepiest thing isn't the imitation chest hair, but that fact that it came with the house when they moved in.

I should have known that these two would be gambling the entire trip. I'm sure only twenty minutes after knowing eachother bets were made.

And what May 2-4 weekend would be complete without a passed-out-early-Blair!?

I really don't know what to say about this photo below. Words that come to mind include: confusion, liquor, party, gay, sexy, drunk dad, wow, sweet, what?, nice!, and general laughter. I honestly can't even glance at this photo without busting a gut laughing. I think it's his stance and the fact that nobody else can be seen in the photo, which means it got late and Mrs. Clause decided to put on her sexy low-cut V neck that Santa loves so much. Except Mrs. Clause is played by a drunk Josh sporting three days of beard growth.

Meme, you're wonderful. Thanks for coming and leveling the sausage ratio a bit.

Middle of the night long-exposures during a lightning storm.

Crew.

All in all, this was another weekend for the books. Although it was filled with too much meat (foodly speaking), everyone had an amazing time, and I even got to play Hide and Seek. I speak on the behalf of every guest when I say it was great seeing you guys and thanks for showing us just how fucking crazy America is. Because, three words:

Smokes N' Stuff