Rented a room and forgot my pen.

(Found here.)

How to survive the retail/service industry: refuse to learn any customer names. They don't deserve your friendship, and they'll only break your heart in the end. It's much better (and healthier) to serve them their drinks and quietly hate them. No, really.

Sled Island, in a nutshell, for me:

Wednesday: I don't care about Cat Power. Fuck off.

Thursday: Hey, look, that godawful Dan Bejar-project, Destroyer, is playing at the church across from my work, which means that a thousand of his little clones will want to sip iced soy lattes while they listen to his wank. Dan Bejar should be sodomized with a roto-rooter for inflicting such irredeemable crap onto our brains. Hey, look! CBC wants to tape Chad VanGaalen, and not him! There IS a god.

The Summerlad is STILL the best that Calgary has to offer, musically. I shit you not. Even if I only caught four songs out of their My Bloody Valentine tribute, it was far more enjoyable than discovering that Ocean & Rachel had dragged me to a motherfucking Dudes show afterwards (because they're nice guys, and they try to make sure that everyone has a good time at their shows, I shall refrain from calling The Dudes a glorified bar band. Seriously, though: check out Dojo Workhorse instead. It's MUCH better). Ladies: you OWE me.

Friday: things that annoyed me at the Spoon show:

The two lumbering, 7-foot-tall amorphous twins who danced in front of me as though they'd been raised on Huey Lewis and The News.

The threesome that felt as though they had to dance 'Peanuts' style in front of me every time they met a new friend at the show.

(This is where I wish a big bag of cancer on a certain scenester who really needs to be beaten, but I won't name him because then he'll get even more attention. But, dude, seriously: I need to stop seeing you everywhere I go. I spent the better part of the Spoon encore trying to come up with a way to pick a fight with you, simply because you need to be punched many times in the head; then I realized that I'd be the asshole in that scenario, so I stopped, but I didn't feel THAT badly about it...)

Other than that: Spoon is one of those fantastic bands that play their songs pretty much the way they sound on their albums, with very little deviation, so that you don't spend ten minutes asking yourself if you came to the wrong venue. All bands should be like this (Exception to this rule: Wilco can play their songs any which way they'd like because they are awesome and I want to carry their babies even if they seem to wanna be Woody Guthrie of late...). Also I like the way Britt Daniel plays his guitar like he's aiming a Thompson machine gun.

Fuck, that was a good show. Even the dancing people didn't REALLY annoy me, because they were having a good time, too. I'm sure I'll get an earful of "...but all they did was get up and play their songs it was so boooooooorrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggggg...", since Calgary's typical audience is fickle and aggressively insecure and therefore pays more attention to who came to the show as opposed to who's actually PLAYING ONSTAGE, but, hey, I enjoyed it, so fuck the rest of you.

Mother Mother was like a country/indie-rock cabaret on a steam-engine locomotive plowing through Mac Hall, despite what Paul referred to as their chipmunk-esque vocal style (it's true), which was actually kind of endearing after a few songs; and Hot Little Rocket were quite good, speeding through their set in less than half an hour because they'd rather be watching Spoon instead of playing. Andrew said right at the beginning, "...we've all got better things to do and better bands to watch...", but, hey, I bought the HLR album tonight (produced by Steve Albini, yeah, well, whatever...), and I NEVER buy albums at shows. I'm a bastard that way.

Also: when did it become cool to start dressing like Ralph Macchio circa Karate Kid? Honestly, why do we recycle all the stupid fashions, and none of the good ones? Y'all look like retards, just like you did back in the 80's. Stop wearing headbands, stop wearing neon, stop wearing ill-fitted blazers, stop popping your collars, and get a fucking haircut, alla you. It's not funny, it's sad, and ten years from now you'll hate yourselves.

Anyway, that's Sled Island for me, because I work tomorrow night which means I have to miss Eric Bachmann (he of Archers Of Loaf/Crooked Fingers fame. FUCK.), but I'm sure it'll be wonderful because...well, I don't know. I won't be there, and this is causing me a great amount of grief, but I now have better ways to get over it than cheap alcohol and internet porn. Still, I'm crying on the inside.

Lesbian zombies and forecasting earthquakes.

So.

This is what a week is like.

Sorry: that was just me talking to myself. It's been busy, and by busy I mean different. And by different, I mean good. And here's me being all cryptic again, so: a recap of this past week: holy crap is kissing amazing, freaking out over a sponge and a bathtub, winged ants, don't yell at me, anime hair, "so?" a thousand times, burning books, lifting rocks and breaking thumbnails, an uncomfortable amount of liquor, CAPSLOCK IS THE NEW AWESOME, mosquitos, being responsible but sometimes slipping and sometimes looking, "don' worry 'bout it", waking in unfamiliar places, driving in the rain without windshield wipers, this is MY crazy, strange milky stuff on the bathroom at work, smile when you serve me my coffee, (holy shit did it break please don't let it be broken), still throwing things at the people I like and being nice to the people I loathe, apparently my eyes are now blue, naps in the staff room, missing the show but catching the circle-jerk, free Tubby Dogs, I have no idea what this is but it's good, if you come in tonight I will yell at you.

Comics, an extraordinary amount of comics. "Don't Fucking Talk To Me". Zombie dog apocalypse. I don't smoke so I'm no longer cool. The Many Trials In Attaining The Wilco Book CD. Everyone's so much younger than me and twice as smart. Everyone knows everyone else. Josh Barsky must write my obituary when I die. Free coffee is not so free. Bribing little girls with cookies and free punches so they won't tell their parents that I accidentally hit them with a wad of oatmeal-raisin cookie dough. Arguing over how to spell 'raisin'. Hugging many men. Oh, and apparently there's oatmeal in the peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookies.

Shut up. No, you shut up.

This is the only way to describe this last week, as I'm still filtering and decompressing, and sometimes the whole can only be described by its parts. Understand that I love you all, even when I'm scowling and grumbling and telling you to fuck right off.

And now it's Monday, 8 AM.

God, do I need sleep. I need to do laundry. I need to clean my house. I need to call my friends, and make sure that no one's died or converted to catholicism during my absence. I need to do my taxes for the last few years, again. I need to listen to about ten new CDs and read a hundred different comic books, plus a few REAL books that I've promised other people that I'd read. Sleep comes first, though, because it means I don't have to be awake. If you call me during my sleeping hours, I will hit you with a rake and claim that I thought you were a large rodent come to steal my cabbages, so consider yourselves warned.

Oh my goodness.

I was gonna write something here, but then I thought better of it, so I'll simply complain about the fact that I'm weirded out by upstairs neighbour playing '99 Luftballoons' continously for the last two hours.

But. Still: Oh my goodness.

Things? Hm.


1. The new White Stripes is an amazing example of awesome-ness, even if I've only listened to it once; Rachel said it was a bit too squonky to be played at Beano (as IF), especially at the volume I had it at, so I didn't get the best listen, but still. (You people are so lucky that she works with me, y'know; there's every possibility that I'd be serving everyone lukewarm bile and congealed monkey semen while the sound of Mike Patton sodomizing an elephant played on the stereo overhead, if she weren't around. Y'all'd better smile when you drink that shit, too, dammit.)

Speaking of the Adventures of Chris & Rachel: Josh makes pretty pictures.

But yes: White Stripes. Icky Thump. Fuck yes.


2. By the way, The Go! Team have a new song on their Myspace page (I know: it's Myspace. Could be worse, though: it could be a Facebook page...); anyone who didn't like Thunder, Lightning, Strike is either a liar or just fooling themselves. There is nothing better than mixing schoolyard hopscotch rap with saturday morning cartoon theme music. All that and horns, too. I cannot wait. Look for a shitty review on both Pitchfork and Metacritic, because none o' y'all can think for yourselves.

3. Honestly, I think I'm just giving up on Sled Island, because the whole 'tickets available ONLINE ONLY' thing really bugs me. We'll see.

4. Dude. They hacked a news broadcast and put a MUSHROOM CLOUD in the background. I could just kiss these people:


5. Jamie Hewlett designs vibrators.

6. Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn do an opera, and it's not Gorillaz, but it's probably just as genius.

7.'Someday we will all be ghosts.' It's like someone's jotting down everything Twyla Dawn says and puts it on t-shirts.

8. Justin Bua. Need I say more?

Okay, I really have to go do laundry now, because I'm out of clean underwear, and I can't remember how to make a diaper out of a dishtowel. Be good, or I'll smack you good.

Bugs in my bathroom, mushrooms in my ceiling, Eggos in my belly...

Don't play Tomb Raider drunk. You'll only get frustrated, and if there's a REAL Ms. Croft out there somewhere, you know she's pissed. Probably at YOU.

Yes. I is been drinking. I'm sorry. Again: Rachel is a bad co-worker, because she always tricks me into doing this. TRICKS, I tell you. But: we have established that she is only fun when she ends up hurting herself.

See, I had a better blog in mind, full of weird hypernarrative and metafictional discourse contained within Teen Titans Go! (I swear to god: Robin takes off his mask and becomes AKIRA. Fuckin' A.), and all other kindsa weird stuff, but instead I'm sitting here trying to get Lara Croft to jump onto a goddamned ledge.

Plus: you would not believe how hard it was to find that picture at the top. Type in Tomb Raider or Lara Croft into Google, and you end up with pictures like this. Or this. How does this woman actually breathe? This is to say nothing of the amount of slash fiction out there pertaining to our favourite female archeologist. You people are sick, so much so that I feel a wake-up call is necessary: She is a video game character. You will never be able to have sex with her. Unplug and go play in the sun, before you start growing mushrooms in the folds of your white greasy skin.

I have spoken.

Why is it that I never have food in the house at times like these? Jeez...

This is getting ridiculous.

Oops. It's not my fault. We just kept stealing drinks from some guy named Pedro, and he didn't even notice. Which is why I'm kinda drunk. Again. Also: I guess I have to give Justin free coffee now, as he comped us our drinks when we first got there. (See how cool I am? I said 'comped'. I am SO the shit.)

I know. I know. It's...y'know, bad, right? It's not really like I'm drinking much: I fall over if you even open a bottle of scotch.

How is it possible that I can hurt myself by blinking? My eyelash just pierced my eyeball. I am so lame.

Did you know: I've had the new Tomb Raider game for TWO DAYS now, and I've yet to crack it open. Something is wrong with me.

Also: I have the new Queens. Of The Stone Age, that is. We listened to it at work tonight, and it was rad. Am I surprised? Of course not. Josh Homme is the sexiest rock god around. No foolies. Here is a taste for all you fellow carnivores:

So. We went to the Marquee Room, which was pretty cool. When I told Chris Vail that it was my first time there, he asked me why I hate him so much. It's our thing. Apparently, I REALLY freaked him out one day at Megawhatsit when I went on a tangent about eating babies. I have no idea what he's talking about, and he's got no proof. Honest.

Rachel: Marcus TOTALLY wants to bone you. You should TOTALLY tap that, or else I'll point and laugh at you. You know I will.

Gunther is actually a really good local band, even IF the bass player would much rather dance with his instrument as opposed to actually playing it. Pedro, who sported one of those horrid v-neck American Apparel t-shirts that was decorated with his previous attempts at drinking, kept going on about a) how they had no vocalist, and b) the fact that they only played two chords. Being musically illiterate, I couldn't argue with him, and instead focused on stealing the many gin-&-sodas that he kept ordering. I think it took him an hour to figure out that his drinks kept disappearing. Pedro, if you're reading this: if I see you again, I will buy you a box of wine. Classy, no?

I should point out that, once again, this was all Rachel's fault. She tried to climb a tree later, but it defeated her. I even have pictures. Here is her valiant attempt:


...and here is Rachel defeated:


I will give her points for trying, though. Plus, I am supposed to say: Rachel is graceful and charming and oh-so-nice. It's not true, though...

Okay, now I need food. Currently, I have frozen perogies, an Orangina and two Certs in my apartment. I'm too inebriated to operate my stove, so I'm going to Gerry's to get some hopefully-untainted food. I figure I have a 50-50 chance of not dying. Wish me luck.

I'm not counting these any more.

Beano might be g9ood for my social life, but it's bad for my non-drinking-status; also I am ashamed because I am quite inebriated after TWO ciders. How does that happen?

ALso I have the hiccups. You cannot imagine how much this sucks.

But! I have chips. This is a good thing.

See, me and Meagan and Meagan's new FRIEND Alan (who is very nice and cool and funny, so I approve...) went to play pool with Rachel and Brandon, because Racxhel's having a whole mess o' problems, and we thought it'd be nice to hang out with her.

Wait. How come every time I drink, it's with Rachel? That girl's TRUBBLE. Capital T.

Also: seeing how Rachel and Ian just broke up, does this mean I can't be friends with Ian any more? How does this stuff work? Damn. I like Ian. He's good shit.

Wait, am I allowed to say things like that on the internet?

...sorry. Hiccups. Anyway. I don't care what any of you saay: those dry ribs were fantastic. Plus: I rule at pool.

Damn. I totally had some good things to say here, but now I can't remember. Let's see:

1. Y'know, normally, I'd have a modicum of, I dunno, tact, when it came to someone going through hard times like this (THIS IS A LIE. I WILL LAUGH AT ALL OF YOU, GIVEN THE CHANCE...); but, honestly? Cry all you want, lady; when you treat the world like your own personal toilet, don't be surprised when the repercussions rise up to slap you in the face. You're so fucking lucky that you live in the time that you do; any other society would've strung you and your ilk up long ago.

Who knows; maybe there's a human being underneath all that socialite artifice, one that'll be allowed to surface through all this drama. I doubt it, though. Look for The Simple Life: Paris Tosses A Salad, coming to a network near you this fall. I'm sure half of you have bought t-shirts already.

2. This woman makes pictures that are so fucking good. No, really. Look through her portfolio until you find the 'Chubby Birthday Dance'. If that doesn't win you over, then you have no soul.

3. New Ween. It makes everything better. If you don't understand the amazing power of Ween, again, you have no soul.

4. (This is mainly for Clint) THIS IS GONNA ROCK SO HARD, EVEN IF WILL SMITH CAN'T HELP PLAYING HIMSELF. To the rest of you: I Am Legend is a wonderful/terrifying short story by Richard Matheson about the last man on earth dealing with his predicament whilst surrounded by vampires. I know how that sounds, but trust me: it's good. And don't listen to Rachel, because it doesn't matter that vampires wouldn't have developed an agricultural eceonomic system, or that technically it should be a post-apocalyptic zombie strory, or whatever else she might be spewing. It's good, it's scary, and thank good they went with Smith instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yes, I know it sounds remarkably like Omega Man with Charlton Heston; where do you think they got the idea for THAT? Don't test me, people. I have mad trivia skillz.

5. Y'know what? No. Even drunk, I am saying no to this. Thanks, but no. I'm not THAT stupid.

Hey, look. Hiccups are gone. So are my chips. I think I must sleep. If you call me, I won't pick up the phone. It's not that I don't like you, it's just that i don't care.

(I'm truly sorry; I'll have smarter things to say once I'm sober. Hopefully watching a live version of the Most Kick-ass Song In The Universe will make up for my tipsy kepboard skills:

...why does Gene Ween remind me of Brad?)

Your momma buys your bling.

God bless me, I just narrowly avoided being sucked into the 70s disaster that is known as Xanadu. It's one of those movies that has so much WRONG with it that you find yourself inexplicably unable to turn away from it's disco-glitter-on-rollerskates unholiness. Holy Christ, did Olivia Newton-John do ANY good movies? Poor Michael Beck; he went from this:

...to this:


...all in the space of one movie.

Okay, maybe he wasn't that good to begin with...

This is why I must cancel my cable subscription; otherwise, I end up watching dreck like this, for no other reason than 'it's four in the morning and I really don't feel like moving oh look cookies!'.

This is also why I am fat.

Anyway. Stuff:


1. The new Dizzee Rascal is holy-frigging-good. Think Ice Cube circa The Predator, and you'll have some idea of what I'm talking about. Tomorrow I'm gonna call everyone I know a 'pussyhole'. Plus: try to imagine a group of grown men in a studio surrounding a microphone and chanting 'Suck My Dick! Suck My Dick! Suck My Dick!' without busting a gut laughing.



Also: the DJ Food/DK Solid Steel comp is really worth checking out, despite it's thirty dollar price tag. Go to your local record store and steal it, instead. No, really, do it.


Also also: it stands to reason that you ALL should be proud owners of the new Pelican by now. It's only logical; to not do so is to be the type of person who says things like "bananas fit in my hand therefore god is real and science is dumb and also guys can't kiss each other." - and, frankly, if you're THAT type of person, maybe you don't DESERVE to listen to good music.


Did I mention that the new Battles is amazing? It sounds like the little people going off to war, and if that doesn't entice you, nothing will...

2. I'm a nerd. I love sci-fi, I can't wait until the day when we all have computers in our heads, I sometimes find robots sexy.

This, however, freaks me the fuck out.

3. 'Ship Of Fools' by Richard Paul Russo: this won an award named after Phillip K Dick? Seriously? Are you all high? What a boring piece of shit. "We've been going through space in a ship for so long that we can't remember where we're from and oh here are some bodies that means that there's evil in the universe and god has abandoned us and oh yeah I'm a dwarf with a clubfoot the end." Fuck off. Even your aliens were lame.

Next up: 'Song of Kali' by Dan Simmons, simply because three people whose judgement I trust have called it the scariest thing they've ever read. I'm skeptical, as Simmons wrote that bloated Hyperion series, which started out well, but ended with one of the biggest anticlimaxes I've ever read - "...wait, these tombs that we've been unable to penetrate for centuries are now opening of their own accord, and they're...empty!!!"

There ya go: I just saved you about eighty bucks and twice that amount in time spent reading four volumes of overhyped garbage.

Still: here's hoping.

4. Fuck you Harry Potter.



No, I don't mean that; but anyone who thinks J.K. Rowlings wrote anything revolutionary should read Pullman's trilogy to see how one writes for kids without being condescending, and you never once hear the term 'muggles'.

Okay now I'm tired so I'm going to bed and if you call me and wake me up I will scream and stab you with a fork. No foolies.

Just Because...

...people need to understand why Crispin Glover is not to be emulated:

...although, in retrospect, this just makes people love him even more, doesn't it?

Whatever. I gots me things to do. See ya.

Drunk blog #2: even though I'm not drunk. Just, like, THIS much.

I have a sammich.

It's 3:42 am, and I am a LITTLE tipsy, but it's okay because I have a sammich from that bakery down the street.

Damn, that bakery makes good sammiches.

It's all Rachels falt, because we had a shitty day at work (Gerald: Fuck you, you creepy old man. I hope you get hit by a truck full of cancer. I totally mean that, too.); when we were taking a whole hour to close (because for some reason people think it's a good idea to come in ten minutes before we close and, like, order ten drinks at a time, and then they wonder why we HATE THEM SO MUCH...) she just said, 'Beers?' and I couuld not resist! How could I? Technically, though, Strongbow is not a beer. It is a CIDER. There is a difference, damn you.

Things we have established:

1. There is not much difference between professional wrestling and porn. Honest to god: start watching one, and you'll be reminded of the other.

2. Our high school drama teacher could sometimes be a dick. Even though Rachel is, like, a decade younger than me. Dickishness pervades, I guess...

3. Hoochie-mamas catfighting while atop the shoulders of midgets is quite possibly THE BEST THING EVER. Actually, no, watching a full-grown Irishman dropkick a midget is THE BEST THING EVER. That other thing comes a close second, though.

4.Holy crap, this sammich is good.

5 . Church is bad.

...and then, while walking home, I realized that I'd purchased a sammich from the Rustic Sourdough Bakery BEFORE I even started work, and I never got a chance to eat it, because everyone thinks Caffe Beano is peachy-keen and The Best Place To Meet Your Webdate (ask FFWD), and so Rachel and I couldn't take breaks because the shop was full of whiny Mount Royal trophy wives and creepy semi-pedophilic old men and then I forgot about it until I dropped REachel off at home, and so I had to go in and get it because I just KNEW that if I left it there, Shauna would TOTALLY be all up in that shit, yo.

I'm kidding. Shauna wouldn't do something like that. Shauna's nothing but niceness squared. I was just really hungry, so I stopped at Beano a couple of minutes ago ( deftly avoiding the two drunk men asking me if I had any weed while they crashed on our benches) and rescued my sammich from the fridge, and now I'm not I'm not hungry any more, because I just finished it, and MAN ALIVE, was that ever good.

I'm gonna go shave my head now. This is what being a grown-up is all about. Sorry for all the shouting.