ON NOTHING DAYS

The title of this entry is a reference to a short film made by one of my old film profs for the CBC when he was 16. It's a teen angst epic which you can catch a glimpse of here. By my estimation, it probably wasn't an amazing film. but for a 16 year old with a Bolex? It's probably watchable, if not slightly genuine, which is not something you can say about the vast majority of films made by 16 year olds in the 1960s.

I am feeling severly uncreative these days. Perhaps it's the heat and humidity. Is there something about clothes sticking to your skin that draws the inspiration juices away from your brain and into the atmosphere for others to steal?

The problem stems with music. Since my epic video-game-sapce-country-funkpunk band broke up due to unsustainable long distance issues this past March, I've touched my guitar maybe ten times, and it seems like each time I do so, a string breaks. I could buy a new set, but I've got nothing to play! I tried the old 1985 electric piano I've had since I was 5 for a while, to some fantastic results, but those days seems long gone now. When will I break out another "Morning In the City"? ) oh, wait, considering the circumstances under which that song was written, probably never again in that context (ie. a certain "drug" was "used" in the making of that song that caused some serious reality issues for the next couple of weeks). It's been months since I've written a song and I'm wondering what this is all about.

The other day, I came to realize: maybe it's because I'm bored? Ok, well, I'm not bored in the "I've got nothing to do" sense. I'm talking about something much deeper and paralyzing.

Let me explain briefly:

Over the course of the 20th century, movements that pushed great art to the forefront were spurned from causes borne from desperation and imminent threats to well being. What does our generation do now? We just get bored, despite the fact that world is more fucked up than ever. As a result, a lot of our work in the atistic fields is aimless, guided only by the "we've got nothing better to do" mentality.

I'm afraid I suffer from this numbing inability to strive for change, and thus, I've got no songs to sing for anyone at this moment in time because singing out of boredom is like masturbating without feeling horny.

TAKE AWAY THE GHOSTS THAT HAUNT ME NOW

I swear to sweet christ a ghost follows me around in my apartment. I hear little things here and there, like the doorbell going off when it doesn't, and some rumblings and shouts when no one else can hear anything. I feel my cellphone vibrating in this one corner of the kitchen, every time I'm there my leg feels that sensation through the pocket where I keep my phone, yet it never actually goes off. In fact, I can barely get signal in my apartment. All summer, I lived just one floor above in another apartment in the same building, and I had no problems with cellphone service, but here, I'm lucky if I don't have to dial 3 times before I can get through to the other end.

When I told this to Angela last night, she was the classic skeptic. "Solution: get a new phone, and have your hearing checked!" she said.

WORK DIARIES : DAY ONE

We make lamposts for a living, here in this dark cauldron under the city. My sister says she's got enough money to make it through college, but I don't believe her. That's why I'm working down in the pit, so she can go to college. I was never terribly enthralled by her being courted by intellectual types, but they don't have to make lamposts underground for a living, like me. Perhaps she will marry a nice student who can one day become a good father and husband.

"Let's get goin!" shouts the foreman. He's from Boltsville, where they make bolts for our lamposts. He transferred over so he could "get into the reeeaaal workin!" or so he keeps telling us.

"YOU! GUY STEVOS! MOVE YER ARSE!!!"

I hustle. I've only got about three hundred bolts left to screw in on the main shaft, but if I don't beat the clock, I can't get started on the head chassis by afternoon, and they'll keep me on main shafts for the rest of the day as a penalty. That would be rather fine with me if it weren't for the financial cost. You can make as much money finishing a single lampost as you could working a hundred shafts.

The lunch whistle blows right by my face at usually sometime around 3am, but never at the exact same time. I'm not sure why it's been left without an autmoated time clock, but then again, it is a steam whistle. It's so loud and grating that even with my hearing protection in place, it sears my aural canals and rattles my ear drums. My ability to hear high frequencies is out of whack for several minutes afterward, which is generally fine, but today I've been taken aside by the autocrat, who speaks with more sibilance than I can bear at the moment.

"rgghghgVObwmnuah! Come see me in myofffffmhgggn!"

He tells me that my flow rate has deteriorated to a state of virtual unsustainability and if I drop any lower, he's giving me my papers.

"We NEED these lampost, Stevos! If you can't keep up with demand, you'll have to hope for some better luck when you'e keeping up to life on the street!"

What a day it's been already. I'll have to spend another afternoon bolting in a hundred tin shafts.

When the day finishes at 11am I'll have to make sure I pray to the big Morgantaler in the sky that my sis gets a scholarship.

OLD SONG IN NEW FORMAT

GUY STEVOS - Morning in the City

Those of you who attended the last two FUN! shows would have heard this tune live. I based the parts on an acid jam I'd had with Trevor in January, which I basically transcribed from memory. The lyrics came a couple of weeks later, after a particularly moody and confusing day. Teaching it to the band took 15 minutes and it was all of a sudden a real tune. After our final gig, I recorded it at home in two hours and passed it on to Jason at Synaptic Plastic to master it, hence all the nice reverb.

But I have to admit, this song was inspired lyrically by a hip-hop group called Heavyweight. I'd sat in on a couple of studio sessions with them, and they'd had this one sorta gloomy, jazzy tune about taking the train to work everyday that put in me in a certain mood everyday. I suppose the chord progression must have had that same atmosphere to it, so as soon as I started to put the aforementioned jam into a song, I was back in that same mood. You know what I mean, that lethargic, dredging feeling you get sometimes on a dolorous day. It snows in the morning and rains at night, life is riding on a slow current day in day out, and you can feel the wave of desire moutning within you, assuring you that there must be something more to life than cycling through your day.

I needed some kind of hook, and I remembered the MC jokingly rhyming "up up down down" to the beat. Everyone laughed and didn't take him seriously at the time, but I must have stored it away in some special place, because as I wrote the hook, the "up - down - together" bit came naturally.

So yeah, props to that session with Trevor, the inspiration from Heavyweight, and the two live performances with FUN!

REBEL ENTERTAINMENT UNIT : THE SECOND COMING

it's amateur night at the drake hotel
i wake up from my crash pad, and here i live in hell
there's a scarf wearin girl lyin naked to my right
and there's a scar on my face from a second row fight
i ate breakfast in the lounge, free food receptions
for the afterwork crowd making serious connections
i go down to the basement and there's the whole band
they're gonna play without me and take home a grand
but i plug in my laptop and proceed to drop
the hottest shit from brooklyn and the kids start to hop
and the band starts whinin and gets booed out of town
this is how i do it when them bitches aint around

(sample)
girl: ooh, is that my favourite dj?
guy: aw yeah.
girl: aww yea!
(busta rhymes sample)
busta: wooha!
(macarena sample)
aiiight!
CLAP!

they dragged me to some bougie party after last round
it was so exclusive that it couldn't be found
just some random cheap apartment and my ex was in the sink
pukin all her guts out from too much to drink
it was her first time drinkin since she got out of the clink
and her voice is so loud, it's gettin hard to hear me think
she gives me a kiss and i taste her nasty vomit
she says "honey let's go hit it it, c'mon, you know you want it!"
i said "baby, i love you but i gotta turn the page,
and besides, i left my fuckin gear alone on the stage!"
i busted back to beaconsfield and headed down the stairs
but like i expected some fucker stole my wares
but i could buy another deck, the cash i made was tight
i'll set it up like fiya and boom: another night!

MY NIGHT BITCHES!

(guest dancehall vocalist)

dema sey dema sey dat mi nuh pley no geetah
and mi papy tell me "bwoy, gwan git yaself a job!"
so me wire up him table and me make a rinky sound
but dem girla and dem rudie come to dance me all around
dey pey money affa money, me pley dub a rub a dub
me pley soca me pley fela me pley all of africah
me pley all de rootie skankie nuttie rocksteady fi jah
and me take home all dem money and me show it up to pa
he sey "bwoy, me tinkin crazy, but is you now self-employed?
gi ya daddy one touch, me little rudie jungle bwoy!"
and now me play up drake hotel and all dem wanna hear
is original bob, but jah know, it pay de bill
and dem girlie still wanna make pass me bombaras
but in dis drake hotel, and dem be all bombaclat


(sample from the film "max")
hitler: i am the new artist practising the newww aaaaart!

NOT EVEN A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW

"good lord, what 'aaaaave ye done?" said the middle aged british woman as she walked by the housepainters. "you've got bluddy paint all over the bricks! well, oi'd say, if that were moi ploice, i'd 'ave you clean it right off!" as i watched from the front balcony her argument with the painter about whether or not the offending marks were made while they painted, she smiled at me as if she were helping me out. but i gave her a look of disrespect, the kind of "you're crazy, lady!" look, but she sauntered on proud of herself for helping out the little guy, when the truth of the matter is that no one cares if a bit more fresh paint got splattered on the already splattered brick wall. get a life!

they've turned the water back on in the building, only two hours later than promised. not bad, i must say. they're also paiting the front doors and putting new varnish on the wood interiors in the halls. and to top it off, we're getting new vinyl windows in every apartment free of charge. let's just hope they're not priming up the place to throw us out and start renting it off to the expanding crowds of forest hill and yorkville that are soon to invade the annex and quite possibly my beloved home.

THE INTERNET IS OUTTA CONTROL

i made a tune today that's being played on CKUW in winnipeg tonight. i'm not sure when exactly but i'll leave the song for you to download:



GUY STEVOS - June June (Jean Rouche mix)

FUN WITH THE PHOTOSHOP ARCHIVES

great, just what i need. a bleedin' TTC strike!

why are cities such poor managers of public utilities? our transit system is far too important for this kind of fuckery. it's being ruined and we'll have a real tough time working this out.

the TTC and everyone who has a hand in it can go to hell. my hope is that this strike is so devastating and punishing to the city that they have to overhaul the system altogether. they should fire moscoe and all the goddamn people in the head office, and start fresh. they ought to hire young, innovative thinkers who can change the face of the organization (a face that has grown progressively uglier since i started riding in my childhood.) maybe then we'll get some consumer-friendly fares and packaged token deals, better staff than those dicks who wear the maroon jacket these days, a serious above-ground lightrail system covering the city to replace these dinosaur streetcars and slow buses, and a stronger relationship between city council and the workers of the TTC.

in the meantime, we can all forget about economic recovery for a while. we can all forget about our taxes going to use as well, and while we're at it, we can all start wearing comfortable shoes.

i know i'll be walking all summer. if there was no winter in this town, i'd never use that stinking transit system.

A CALL FOR YOU TO PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON AND THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND

it's so easy to feel the void that's supposed to be filled by a significant other, but why does it have to be a void? and if it cannot be any other way, why does it have to be filled by only that one thing? do you really need it? in the long run, for most of us, yes, but right now?

there are certain things that we need because we're constantly told that we need them. one of these things is the love-sex-romance continuum.

i feel that films, television shows, contemporary songs, literature, photography and advertising dictate to us that without a sexual/romantic partner, we are nothing, useless human beings who have nothing to share with anyone and no future to look forward to. every character in every story about young people is either in love, dating or having sex with someone or many many people or looking to have sex, date or fall in love with someone or many people.

every character is in some form of a relationship with another human that involves sexual or romantic tension and fulfillment. even the single characters.

the single character is a complex one, however, portrayed primarily through paradox. they are alotted a certain amount of freedom, but always in the context of having the choice between partners at the snap of a finger. but in the end, they are never allowed to NOT have any sexual interests. they always pursue and either succeed or fail. i move that these characters are not single at all, for they are reliant on these relationships or potential relationships, however meaningless or fleeting they may be.

but what if we were to invent a character that was driven by other motivations than procreation and sexual pleasure? what if success and failure with regards to relationships was irrelevent to this person? no major character that i've come across has been free of their sexual impulses or perceived romantic responsibilities. for once i'd like to see a film in a conventional setting (ie person goes about daily life trying to find meaning) that has NOTHING to do with sex. a film i saw tonight, called The Rage in Placid Lake, came close, but of course ended in the same old female-male hookup at the end. a novel by michel houllebecq called the elementary particles works in reverse, starting it out with a relationship that ends up inspiring a character to reject sexuality from his world view. i propose that sex not be a part of the equation from point a to point z, just for once. an experiment in trying to concentrate on something else.

i believe that some of the greatest minds in history have prevented themselves from improving humanity because they were unable to channel their unrequited sexual feelings into a different kind of energy that still propagates the good things about the human condition.

you might say that making an asexual character would be problematic because it wouldn't be realistic. true indeed. we are all sexual creatures and we act upon those urges and desires daily. but for chrissakes! it's fiction we're dealing with here! we can make up anybody we want!

let's put this sacrifical lamb into the fray and see what happens.

now, if you'll excuse me, i have to go and fantasize about the lovely gemma from the aforementioned film.

MORNING IN THE CITYYYYY

up...down...together
up...down...together
it's morning in the city and the paper's at the door, your coffee's on the table and your shoes are on the floor
up...down...together
up...down...together
the weather today across the gta calls for periods of snow and then some rain
up...down...together
up...down...together
let it out, c'mon let it out, it's a long day ahead and it's only just morning
up...down...together
up...down...together
the train is now boarding, this is your final warning

sometimes in this city it is not easy to meet people. no one really wants to talk to you because they already have enough friends, acquaintances and people they just met in the last hour. no one wants to start a band with you because, well, they're already in five, and attempting to create a new "scene" in this town is about as useful to anyone as an extra button on their nicely pressed vintage shirt. so i say "fuggeddaboutit!" be anonymous and have fun with it. take a good walk and discover that buildings, windows and trees can be your friends too.

such was the mood on my way to class this morning. i could have sat in a dim studio for four hours with a bunch of people who don't give a fuck while our instructor spent the session just correcting all the cabling errors the last group left behind for us to fix. and all for what? so we can mix some whack cacophanic tune with so many tracks stacked on top of one another that it's like the tower of babylon in a pro tools folder. no thanks.

so instead of going straight, i turned right as i got off the streetcar on bathurst and headed westward to the far reaches of the queen west expansion. i finally found a place that is trying to kill me. a small diner near the hotel stretch fed me, for the price of 3.95, a pile of potatoes that looked like they'd been glazed with paint, three shimmering sausages, a coffee and FOUR EGGS!!! i got so much energy from all the protein and caffeine that i could have thrown a table over the bar. it was a great meal but now i can't have breakfast for a week.

from there, i proceeded through the grey area between portugal city and little italy. a little shop on dundads west near ossington housed a display in their window of portraits taken by their photographers over the years. grey pictures of children on their communion days rested for eternity behind cheap glass under fake gold frames. men, who by all accounts must be either old and withered or dead by now, shine in their prime as slick-haired gentlement on the store's walls.

on mansfield ave. between grace st. and bellwoods ave., a franciscan church has yet to take down its nativity scene display from its front lawn. larger than life dummies dressed in biblical shepherd clothing advertise a long since passed passion play, and stand watch over the manger. draped across its side walls hangs a sign in italian and english that says:

ILLUMINI UNA CANDELA PER IL VOSTRO CARO
LIGHT A CANDLE FOR YOUR LOVED ONES

inside the hut are several large, transparent candle holders that house white candles. around these glass monstrances are tape strips with names like "vecchio" and "andolini", but no first names. beside the church sits a palatial home with a statue of the virgin mary holding her baby boy on her lap. it looks at you so personally that you can't help but think it's a friendly presence.

gradually i stepped lightly towards my annex paradise after two or three hours on my feet. on ulster st., a mobile window washer on his bicycle recites a joke about president bush to a female friend. "jokes are ok," he informs her, "so long as no one's getting made fun of. i don't like mean jokes or racist jokes. but newfoundlanders tell the best newfie jokes ever!" they part ways and he waits at the traffic light, radiating a kind of modern-day gallantry perched atop his bike with his long red beard flowing from his cheeks and his scottish tam resting on his head. with buckets and squeegees slung over his shoulder, he rides off to go wash windows. chim chimeney cheeroo, i almost sang.

rastafarian city workers, their big bright hats clashing with their orange jumpsuits, take posters down from the streetlamps on harbord. the fish and chips store owner shovels the slush from his sidewalk. central tech high school students skip class and fuck around outside the pizza place. beautiful university girls in their long skirts and black tights walk home from lectures with books in arm. today is a cloudy, average day, and nobody is really up to anything special that i can see, but such a day is what keeps me living here in this, my beautiful city, the place of my birth.

but what's a walk in the west end without a trudge up the baldwin steps? from there i look down at dupont, spadina and bloor and further beyond, breaking through the haze with sheer force, the CN tower and the skydome. this is one of my favourite spots in the city, as it's one of its the most elevated points. one day i will go to the top of casa loma and get an even better view. i was always too afraid of climbing those tourets when i was a kid and therefore missed out on a lot.

a man walks up the steps carrying his bike, upside down, on his shoulders. the tires extend sideways as far as his arms would, and he rests the seat on the groove bewtween shoulder and neck in some ritual exercise that makes a proud pedestrian like myself gasp in horror.

it's time to go home.

NEW PHRASES FOR THE BORED : PART THREE

reject all forms of formal language and start combining various dialects and patois.

ex/

"tabarnak! ya done fuck up all mi rasclat shit! ben crisse, bredrin!"
= holy fuck! you messed up all my goddamn stuff! sweet christ, brother! (quebecois and jamaican patois)

"ye bampot! n'eo ket ur banne kafe, met stot marc'h eo!"
= you fool! that's not coffee, that's horse urine!" (scot slang and breton)

"that patrinfikulo better bec mon chu or i'll onanigi his alligator c^iesulino!"
= that motherfucker better kiss my ass or i'll jerk off his alligator whore! (esperanto and cajun)

courtesy of the alternative dictionaries (and no, they're not some new band from new york).

NEW PHRASES FOR THE BORED : PART TWO

you ruined my day (or anything to that effect) = "you sunk my bizzle shizzle!"

NEW PHRASES FOR THE BORED : PART ONE

beside the point = "beside the pint"

you lived beside a graveyard
but were buried miles away
with such ground to traverse
i'll visit on a rainy day
they wouldn't make you ashes
it was never meant that way
so they put you in a box
i carried you into to the grave
i took all your possessions
and i livened up my place
so my monument to you is now
inside my living space
the instrument's in storage
never sees the light of day
but when i listen through the f-holes
i can hear the songs you play
i'll never sell it off
not even for the highest bid
and when they see me play it
they'll say "my, just like she did!"
when it gets restored
i'll learn your flighty bow technique
so that when they see me playing
they'll be talking for a week

AYY MAMA!

don't you just love your mother? i love my mine. she came to town this weekend on business, the one time a year they throw money at her for an afternoon of easy work, and she spent it all on me! steaks from fine shops were cut and grilled into pies of blood, ice cream and strawberries consumed by the gallon and vodka shared in the after dinner twilight. and she even cleaned my bathroom and fed the cat!

i think my mom should sublet here over the summer. considering all the rapacious bullshit she traverses through every day in the confines of a university dental school in the middle of the prairies, she could use a few months of rock n' roll life with her little baby boy.

i'd offer her weed but she's probably have a heart attack.

REBEL ENTERTAINMENT UNIT: VERSES FROM THE DARKROOM

CULTURE WAR

they'll never let you join the military
so you might as well become a revolutionary
start your own party
political party
militant wing revolutionary army

culture war! knees to the floor!
en garde, monsieur, it's a culture war!

put on a mask
grab a gasoline hip flask
put your hands together and
BLAST! BLAST!
rebel entertainment unit radio broadcast
lightning fast, looks aghast
this is how the spirit of '22 lasts



HARDCORE MAN

he's a hardcore, hardcore man
he's a hardcore, hardcore man
he's a hardcore, hardcore man
hardcore, hardcore man

lives his life by a hardcore plan
(he's a hardcore, hardcore man)
has a brother named hardcore dan
(he's a hardcore, hardcore man)
drives around in a hardcore van
(he's a hardcore, hardcore man)
cools his room with a hardcore fan
(he's a hardcore, hardcore man)

he's a hardcore, hardcore man
he's a hardcore, hardcore man
he's a hardcore, hardcore man
hardcore, hardcore man



SOUL

i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings

i'm sitttin in a bar with artists, actors, rockstars, lawyers
mothers and their children, mailmen, escorts
quarterbacks, gardners, nurses, doctors
out comes the waitress, dour faces
clocks on the wall from different places
someone here's got words for the masses
but who has spoken? no one yet.

i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings
i'm sittin in a bar where nobody laughs, nobody talks, nobody sings

hey, you, lookin out the window
show me a sign that you're living, breathing
blow me a kiss, tell me a story
shake my hand, feel my pain
you...who me? yes you!
grab me by the shirtcollar, kick my face in
drag my little broken body off the stage and throw me in the gutter
put your feet into my shoes and wear them down with the soles of another
SOUL!

yeah! uh huh! this is the way we break the silence!
yeah! uh huh! this is the way we channel rage!
yeah! uh huh! this is the way we break the silence!
yeah! uh huh! this is the way we channel rage!



AFTERLIFE AFTERBIRTH

i'm an aborted foetus in the afterlife
colda had a job, coulda had a wife
coulda had myself a kid one day
but no! the doctors killed me

abraham lincoln suffered from afflictions
spiritual inhibitions and eerie premonitions
they say he loved the theatre, it took away his breathe
but his balcony tendency set the stage for death
the reunited nation, wrapt in celebration, were shocked at the murder
they felt for america and how much it hurt her
but we look at things now in the twenty first century
they've released john wilkes booth from the penitentiary
lee harvey oswald is on the attack
he wears a flack jacket in the streets of iraq
our potential for compassion has falle through a crack
in a global black hole and there's no turning back

i'm an aborted foetus in the afterlife
coulda had a job, coulda had a wife
coulda had myself a kid one day
but no! the doctors killed me

LA POSTE NOUVELLE

ok, ok, "new post!" says kerri, so i'm obliged to update. my ears are "squished", as they say in the field, from some listening tests i took a few hours ago. they had us sit in a room and listen to pink noise (all audible frequncies in human hearing played at once) at high volumes (~100dB SPL). an octave band would be increased by 12 dB for 3 or 4 seconds and we had to identify which octave on the frequency scale it came from. i found it quite easy, despite its taxing nature. all you had to do was listen during the training rounds (i'm not kidding, that's what they were called) and associate a sound with a certain octave. for example:

octave 0 - prehistoric earth
octave 1 - distant prehistoric earthquake
octave 2 - close jet engine
octave 3 - subway moming towards you down near the edge of the station entrance
octave 4 - subway moving right in front of you
octave 5 - roaring crowd
octave 6 - clapping audience
octave 7 - releasing steam
octave 8 - car driving through rain
octave 10 - deflating ballon

i aced it, thankfully, but since it was our first test, it's the easiest. next week and, for the rest of this semester, we will have a one and a half hour listening test based on music and dialogue, much more complicated ad subtle than pink noise.

so, reflections on the past month:

.1 it turned out to be much less impoverished than i thought it would be. i managed to go out three or four times a week to enjoy live music and didn't necessarily have to get loaded to do so, thus sparing me much cash and some room in the brain(click on that link for a new grand theft bus song that captures everything nicely.)

.2 mind you, there were some times when the catacombs of the old cranial organ were flooded with shite. i managed to get a lot out of a little. here's the explanation:

(f)x = more than x

where x is cost

i spent a good deal of time in that warm blanket that only a good toxic haze can bring you in the coldest of times. no damage has been done and i'm sittin pretty waiting for the next bomb to drop.

.3 i learned a tonne in school, but not everyday. sometimes it was a frustrating waste of time. but there were enough key moments and full days where my attention was sharp and my thirst for the knowledge at its highest.

it's friday and all i wanna do is DANCE DANCE DANCE...

HEY, LOOK, IT'S THE EVER INCREASING COST OF LIFE

ttc fares are going up to $2.50 a ride next month, which upsets me thoroughly. if you use the ttc twice a day, five times a week, then how much more do you pay per year starting march 6th? roughly an extra $120.

oh, that doesn't sound like much to you, does it, mr. briefcase man? is that what you spend on paper and office supplies a day? an hour? a minute? does it ever occur to you that you're subjecting riders to an even faster rise in the cost of living?

oh, but you don't ride, of course! after all, if i were a ciy councillor responsible for a fare hike, i'd steer clear of the ttc to avoid some of the wrath that would certainly meet me every time i hear the click of the turnstyles or the dropping of tokens into the slot or the hiss of the automated doors opening and closing. (mind you, if i were a councillor who rode the ttc - perhaps there are some - i might be more inclined to oppose the hike.)

now, i'm all for things like user responsible services, and no problem with adding costs to them. i take no issue with putting a small price on grocery and garbage bags. but we can be responsible for the upkeep of those things. if we don't want t pay the price for a shopping bag, we get a bin and bring it to the store. if our garbage is too full, we work on minimizing waste in the future. but there are major problems with this fare hike from a populist perspective.

one of the biggest problems is not the cost, but who pays for it. we cannot possibly be made to think that we are wholly responsible for the upkeep of our transit system. aside from basic measures of considerate behaviour, like paying our fare or keeping the stations and vehicles clean and non-violent, we cannot be expected to do much else. we as citizens cannot fix a damaged track or operate a tcc vehicle. the ttc is a specialized service which requires specialized service people to keep it working. and that costs a lot of money, fine. many millions if not a billion to run that system every year, and that's ok with me. but it's rather painful to think that we, as riders have done little to degrade the quality of the system, yet we must bear the brunt of the cost to repair it. which brings me to...

2) the extra $120 a year this will cost us. save some office workers who ditch their expensive cars for "the rocket" (who do make up a good percentage of riders, admittedly), the ttc is for most riders a budgeted cost that must be met each day or week or month. another $120 a year means that parents, married and single alike, may not be able to afford some vital material with which to raise their children. some people may have to start waking places more often, like myself. i as a young healthy able-bodied person can handle that, but what about the middle aged? it's not fair that they might have to walk longer distances, in some cases up to an extra hour or two a day, no joke.

what can we do? boycott the ttc? protest? well, i guess by default many of us will be staging our own little mass walkout when we can't afford to ride everyday.

as far as advertant opposition, it's too late to stop this increase, but you can bet in another couple years, city council will raise the spectre of the dreaded fare. and when that time comes, we should tell tour loyal and dedicated public servants to take a salary cut instead.

i wonder why the paper guy never fails to creep me out late at night/early in the morning. i was out front of the building during the wee hours enjoying what looks to me like the tail end of the nice weather we've been having, when i mistook the paper guy for a thief in reconnaissance. i figured he might have been a collector, driving around in his van to pick up discarded chairs and bottles and cans to sell out of the recycling boxes out on the street, but then i saw his newspaper in hand. i suppose the paranoia over newspaper guys dates back to my high school years in winnipeg, where i once woke up to a car pulling into my driveway. i went to the front door to see who was there, only to come across what i interpreted as a shadowy figure on my front walk throwing a brick at my front door.

spent yesterday evening and night at the el mo, where as part of a class assignment, i got to help record The Dream Band's reggae set. we used a really raw and basic method (we omly worked levels so that another class can do a proper mix) but it served as a fine opportunity to test out some of the stuff we learn in class. it's also rather nice to have your instructors' bosses listening to your mix in the phones while they close their eyes and bob their heads as a smile spreads across their cheeks.

i must go out and buy a couple of things today: a) the replacement for my one and only patch cable that i deemed too unimportant to pack after a few too man at a gig in kingston. b) some soap...i ran out yesterday and i feel so greasy under my clothes. i hate that shit!