YEARS PASS

i kept a journal two summers ago when i was a housepainter. it was the first summer i'd ever lived out on my own and i was in the mood to document it. i guess it's no different than any period of my life since i turned 15, but this one wasn't fictionalized like my memoires of high school. i did not give myself an anagrammed pseudonym or hide my identity behind an invented character. i recently took the journal out of the notebook it's been kept in for the past two years, and read the first entry. it was written on a day not unlike this one. i remember it quite well, in fact, it was end of may/early june and i was only a couple weeks away from a series of changes that brought my life to where it is now. this is what i wrote, word for word:

"Walked by a place in Collins Bay, a fairly tall dike with lovely wild flowers peeking through the grass and weeds. I figured a river was behind it; I was surprised to see railroad tracks.

I made sure to take a good look at the surroundings, so that when I make my next train trip to Kingston from Toronto, I'll pass by it and say 'Hey, I was there on such and such day thinking about what I would think when I see the place the next time I head by on the train.'

It's like staring yourself in the face sometime in the future.

There I'll be, standing in my painting clothes with my canvassing notebook in my hands, saying to myself, 'So you stood here once...who cares.'"

i remember writing it with some sense that what i'd experienced was some kind of rift-in-time moment, the kind of realization when you recognize that in the future, no matter who you aturn out to be, you'll always be the same person you once were. my cynicism at the time, however, brought on by my serious doubts about my place in the world, prompted me to write the final words which, in retropsect, was a deliberate attempt to sabotage my own wonderment. i remember feeling really excited about my little exercise in self-reflexivity, but once i'd gotten to the end of my journal entry, i remember thinking "you're not supposed to feel wonderment and excitement about anything." so i shat on it without thinking twice.

i'll never forget that afternoon, and i'm not sure why. i still watch for that spot when i'm on the train and i still picture myself in that paint-stained uniform, staring at myself on the train. so on the dike i'm imagining my future and on the train i'm conguring up my past. perhaps i have not been able to separate the moments from one another. i always felt the urge to put this into a script somehow. it'd be the beginning of a movie about a young guy and his pivotal moments. this would be the opening scene, in which the young guy would approach the tracks and see a train go buy, and a scene of himself on the train in the future would be edited into the larger scene so that both moments looked as if they were happening simultaneously. the older version of himself would be on his way to some important conference, and the rest of the movie would sporadically jump back and forth through time to tell the story of two or three really important years of his life. the movie will have no soundtrack and will have no sex in it.

EVER WONDER WHY DADAISTS LOVE UMBRELLAS?

i read an article this morning about jandek, an "outsider" musician and recent subject of a doc entitled jandek on corwood, which i will go see on sunday at the NFB. i'd like to get a hold of this gary gold guy, if he still resides in toronto i'd like to have him on my new radio show in the coming weeks to discuss the film and jandek himself. i'd also like to see how he feels about "outsider" music. does he think the term appropriatly represents jandek and other musicians associated with the genre, like daniel johnston and the langley schools music project?

i suppose you could find it surprising that someone like jandek renders himself so reclusive. he's apparently never played live or made public appearances as jandek. he's only consented to a couple of official interviews. it cannot be confirmed that the pictures of the young man which accompany his albums are photos of himself. but then again, if you consider the fact that the beatles stopped playing live after '66 and refrained from public appearances so vehemently, it makes a lot of sense.

we know how much reverence people have for their favourite artists. we've seen it go to excess time and time again. a guy like jandek, i suppose, feels that there's no need for such overwhelming adulation. perhaps he feels that any artist is at risk to the terrorism of rabid fandom, so he chooses to not to partake in any activity that could jeopardize his love of making music. after all, artists want their work to stand alone, and it's more often than not the case that an artist's public image taints the way people receive them. i'm sure john lennon had desires like those of jandek on a daily basis.

i can certainly understand the temptation to drive yourself into obscurity. having played in FUN! there were moments when i was a bit upset about the positive response. people loved us and liked to tell us that as much as possible. being praised can often be torturous, and you can't really understand why. i always felt that after a set, i just wanted to blend in and relax, but often it feels like an assault on your nerves when one person after the other approaches you right then and there. there's a tranquility after you'v played that you don't want to lose, but you can get the feeling that no one lets you have it to yourself, so you grow resentful of the people who love you.

but without the blatant approval, you'd have no idea what kind of an effect your music has on people. there are some of us who don't care what others think, but everyone has some inclination to enrich their surroundings with their life's work. when their art is recognized as beneficial to someone's consciousness or instrumental in the growth of a certain culture, the artist likes to know that.

the truth is, when you look back on it, it's far better to have the knowledge that what you've done has bettered someone's life. to everyone who ever said "stevo, that show was fuckin awesome! you guys are amazing!" i 'll always be grateful for it.

perhaps what satisfies jandek is the fact that despite his obscurity and reclusivity, people still mail him requests for his albums. that's got to make you feel like your work means something.

it's amazing how you can get all doom and gloom when your hands are idle. you play strange games in your head.

you tell yourself you're suffering while all the while you know you're nowhere near suffering. time goes much slower than you're used to. you feel like things will never pick up and you start to get irrational...

but you stumble onto something that turns it all around again and you find yourself saying "why do i gotta worry so much all the time?"

it feels so much better to get back to something i love to do. i'll be starting monday at CIUT 89.5 with a two hour tech spot and then a gig hosting an hour of music. i've also got the rest of the week to saturate my brain with various activities around the station.

"i liked you from the minute you walked in here," said the programming director ken stowar. "you just get a flow off someone when you meet them, and your demeanor and eagerness made for a good flow."

that was something i needed to hear quite badly. it's also nice to see that he has enough faith in my abilities that he's willing to try me out so quickly without having seen any real evidence of my previous work. much thanks is owed to good people like ken stowar, who show that you can still trust someone's word in these highly suspicious times.

i met a girl at the station who wants me to help her with photography at the u of t's varsity newspaper. she's 29 and has a 9 year old daughter, which surprises me since she looks not a whole lot older than myself. she's very cheery and sweet. i'm not sure if she's a single mother but if she is, she's accomplished quite the feat. i admire any woman who has a child at a young age and raises them on their own. she's already offered me some kind of a cover assignment, without having seen any of my photos. the assignment will have me taking photos of the election riding's party candidates. i figure the challenge is not taking the photo itself but merel being in the same room with a number of candidate i might automatically dislike because of their party affilliation.

she wants me to come with her this weekend while she covers north by northeast. i haven't been to a city wide indie music fest since 1999, when i attended winnipeg's corefest in its final year. although held in multiple venues, the main site of festival was on garbage hill, a man-made slope in the middle of the city's industrial district by the airport. a number of parties were held there during the rave days, and the site was used as the setting for the post-apocalyptic rave in noam gonick's hello happy! the place is amazing in the hours just before sunset, the perfect spot for a summer festival. the hill is not too huge, has some nice greenery here and there, and offers you a nice view of the whole city, as it's the most elevated point in winnipeg. i remember we went there to see elevator, but they didn't show up so we got treated to the political hip hop of fermented reptile and the beatboxing/feestyling/car jumping high jinx of mood ruff. what a day that was...

MEMORIES CAN'T WAIT

it wasn't too long ago i had two incomes that afforded me all the luxuries a 22 year old kid could want. making way more than i needed to get by each month, i was left with a vastly disposable income after paying housing costs and buying groceries. after a year of buying many lunches, drinking cup after cup at any cafe of my choosing, buying dope whenever i wanted, covering my friends when they couldn't afford door charge and drinks, taking trips out of town on a whim, treating myself and a friend or two to dinner whenevr i felt the urge, even investing in small business transactions and financial risks, all of these things have lessened my ability to save money and manageme finances (despite the fact that i successfully handled $100,000 of someone else's money in one of my jobs). while i regret none of my indulgences, i could have learned a few more things about fiscal responsibility.

it wasn't too long ago that i found myself as a mover and shaker in my little scene. i was well known, loved by the vast majority of those around me, i never hesitated to either join or start the party at every opportunity. i could look around and see people i knew from all walks of the community at every turn. all my endeavours were recognized by my peers as something worthwhile, something that made thier lives more enjoyable. while i worked my hardest, i ensured that my presence in the surrounding social environment was realized to its maximum potential. but i tell ya, i could have prepared better for the time when those things ceased to be,. i realize now that i'd forgotten what the view was like from within the sea of faces.

i find myself now wondering what reason i have to even think about what now only resides in my own memory and that of those i lived with.

in recent conversation with my ex-girlfriend, we'd been discussing the emotional realm of childhood memories. i'd been drawn to tell a story about one of my earliest recollections: i was about 3 or 4, and my folks and i went to some place known to me, even to this day, only as "bob's place", some cottage near a resort area in the killarnies. i've never been back and for the life of me, i have no clue where this place is and my parents probably don't remember how to get there, so for all the good it can do me, it's really just someplace within my head.

i remember being on the shore of a lake, in a bay, leaning forward with both hands on the hull of an upturned fishing boat. jumping up the keel of the boat was a little green frog, hopping at quick intervals. the whole episode lasted only a few seconds, but i remember my fascination and joy at watching this tiny frog leap up the boat. i remember my mother standing behind me saying "look, isn't that something?" what a marvelous thing it was to witness. i can only express in tears how it felt to experience the joy of that simple moment, when nothing mattered but life itself and the precious relationship we have with our surroundings.

if i were condemned to a psychological limbo and was given only one memory to relive for eternity, it would be this one. i cannot remember ever again having felt that happy and content with life. i've had moments that in certain contexts seemed highly liberating and exceptionally wonderful, but that memory of the frog cannot be overtaken. that seemingly insignificant and brief period of time was the best moment of my life.

why? because it was not a moment i had to fight for. it was simply given to me by nature. all i had to do was watch it happen. everything else since then was wrought from the daily struggle we endure to make ourselves happy. the older we get, the more imbued we are with stress and doubt, so we have to work to make ourselves happy again. we are disrupted by our fear of the worst that can happen, and thus, we are always stand on guard.

i don't blame us for doing so. we live in a world where simplicty and meaning are hidden by all the walls that we've built around the notions of human experience. we rarely have the opportunity to see things as they exist behind the curtains of our sophistication.

i regret nothing. i've never in my life expected anything to make me happier than some of those peaceful childhood moments. nor do i consider it resignation when i don't think i'll ever achieve that kind of fullfillment again. but my life is absent of continued horror and pain, and the hardships i've endured have been solved by my soundness of mind and spirit. a great number of people wish for such luck.

when you think about how many people have lived in human history, and take into account what you know about slavery, war, famine, and other disasters of human existence, it's not far fetched to think that the vast majority of souls lived tormented lives that they wished daily were not their own.

i long for the day that we can experience what it once meant to be human, long before our times, eons ago, when everyday one could see themselves as a part of the soil they walked on and the air they breathed. we've abstracted our closeness to nature and we have little knowledge that being human means to a great extent living in cooperation with our surroundings.

but i myself cannot make such things happen. i can only hope to work with countless others to ensure that those alive many generations down the line won't have to see frogs and millions of other creatures go extinct.

in the meantime, i say fuck finding a "job" for the moment. i'd rather work for free on something much larger than myself and my pocketbook while i have the chance. we the affluent youth live in the prime conditions to give ourselves to the betterment of the world we share with over 6 billion other people. we'll all die within the next century, every one of us, but perhaps if we work hard enough such death will be more bearable than it's been over previous centuries.

"i'm not here sellin hamburgers," says chad kroeger, "i'm just doin this to promote responsible downloading."

yes, that's right, mr. nickleback has teamed up in a promotional deal with mcdonald's and sony that offers free downloads with purchase of a big mac.

i'm thoroughly unconvinced.

no, chad, i DON'T want that supersized, you talentless hack.