happy birthday to me

happy birthday to me
happy birthday dear meee-eeee
happy birthday to me.

My friend Sean at work brought me cupcakes.

Just wanted to share the joy.

House of Ill-Repute

My friend Chanelle manages the ultra-fabulous Good For Her in Toronto. Right now she's organizing an event called Vixens and Visionaries, celebrating women who are revolutionizing and creating feminist porn. Among many others, the event will feature Tristan Taormino, who will be promoting her new video, House of Ass. Which is easily the best title ever. In fact, this entire post is merely an excuse to type House of Ass. House of Ass. HOUSE OF ASS. heh.

Which, of course, leads me to wonder - what is the proper typographical treatment of this brilliant title?

I think a western theme could work, bringing up all sorts of wild west connotations (and bonus Brokeback tie-in!)


Or a classy retro feel, like a hair salon from the 60s where all the stylists wore gogo boots. But instead of the House of Beauty it's the


Or something a bit more reserved and proper, all the better to cause a nice bit of cognitive dissonance


Hee. Man, I could this all night. No, really, this is prime humor to me.

Okay, I'll stop.

Sing it!

I've always insisted that no amount of alcohol could make me sing karaoke, and over the years I've held firm to this belief. I am a non-karaoker. In fact, I think these things might be decided on the genetic level. How, then, to explain last night's stirring rendition of The Final Countdown?

Obviously, Lisa is to blame. Rather than merely tolerating the odd karaoke outing, my dear friend Lisa lives for them. So when her husband planned a surprise birthday party for her, there was no question of the theme. He booked a private room at a club on the edge of downtown, where all she and all her friends could wail away to our heart's content.

At first, just about everyone claimed to be an avowed non-singer. Luckily, one of Dan's friends was willing to take one for the team and climbed up on a table to perform Sweet Caroline. (Sometimes I think the sole reason karaoke even exists is to allow people to sing along with the horns on Sweet Caroline's chorus - Bom-Bom-BOM. It's impossible to resist. Just try it some time.) Anyway, soon guests who had been karaoke virgins were collaborating on heart-wrenching renditions of MacArthur Park.

I guess it was a desire not to yet again be the boring, non-singing one that led me to try the Final Countdown. It didn't turn out so well. Apparently there's more to that song than periodically shouting out THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Who knew? I did much better with my performance of Paranoid, although it drew some shockingly blank looks. How can there be people that don't know that song inside and out? Yanni-listening commie bastards.

A bizarre moment came when Dan decided to sing Living Next Door to Alice - a deservedly obscure semi-hit from the 70s. Apparently it's gained cult status as a big sing-along song in bars. Specifically, after the line Now I've got to get used to not living next door to Alice... everyone is supposed to chant ALICE! ALICE! WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE! I had no idea. But everyone but me knew it, so I guess I've been missing out all these years. Anyway, after a few rousing repetitions of ALICE! ALICE! etc., one of the waiters came to the door and asked if we could keep it down, as there was a children's party outside. We were embarrassed, but also suspicious. There couldn't really be kids in a bar, could there? Dan went out to investigate and turns out there was a whole table full of children just around the corner. So... a children's party, in a downtown asian bar, at 10 pm on a Saturday night. I have no explanation for this.

So, I think I've made great progress on the karaoke front. I can now say that I'm not always the designated pain-in-the-ass who refuses to sing. However, I feel perfectly content to rest on my laurels and go back to being a non-karaoker. Trust me, it's better for everyone that way...

LACMA Parking Garage

LACMA Parking Garage
Originally uploaded by sketchypad.annex.

Today on Flickr I came across a really amazing series of photographs of the LACMA parking garage. I had never heard of it before, but apparently in 2000, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art commissioned Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee to decorate their parkade in conjunction with an exhibit.

The space is fascinating, it looks like you could wander around there for days, viewing the paintings from new perspectives and finding new pieces hidden in corners. Even better, their pieces brought in more artists that added more work, so the whole thing was covered with paintings and paste-ups and tags.

The crazy part is...it's gone. The entire parkade was demolished a few months ago to make way for a new museum wing. Almost none of the artwork was saved. I can't really wrap my head around that. Every gallery and museum I've ever worked at always had an impossible reverence for everything in it's collection. No matter how insignificant an object seemed, I always had to handle it with the same care as one that famous or precious. LACMA had some strange reasoning, that street art is meant to be ephemeral and thus shouldn't be saved from the demolition. Which is true, but also totally ridiculous when you look at how valuable and collectable this stuff has become. It's long since transcended throw-away status and become a respected art form (and whether this is good or bad could be debated forever)

So, does that mean that LACMA thought of the whole thing as decorative rather than legitimately artistic? As in, rather than commissioning artists to create a site-specific work, they had simply hired a couple people to brighten the place up? Like when banks hire someone to paint their windows for major holidays. Holiday ends, paint gets scraped off, nobody thinks twice. I guess if that was their opinion, then they really wouldn't have seen the point of spending thousands of dollars to slice the concrete and transport the painted slabs. To me it looks like the inexplicable destruction of irreplacable art which reflected a specific time, place and culture...

But hey, what do I know? It's too late now.

Sugar Rush

I tend to spend the year careening from one candy-related holiday to another. Christmas is always nice, since gorging becomes not just acceptable, but practically mandatory. Halloween is good for sheer quantity, and the built-in excuse of "leftovers." For the past ten years I've lived either in apartment buildings or in houses that were so rundown and unsavory-looking that kids wouldn't come near them, but I've still bought halloween candy anyway. What can I say? If kids are going to be all wimpy about rotting steps, then they don't deserve candy.

But Easter is definitely the worst. It's ground zero for the all godawful sugar-and-food colouring garbage I crave. I mean, you can get jellybeans year round, but only around Easter can you get the pastel 'spring' jellybeans that seem to be twice as sweet the regular kind. You know, the good kind. But of the full array of sugary junk, marshmallow eggs are definitely my favourite. It must be a genetic abnormality - the only other person I've ever met who can even tolerate them is my sister. Every Easter, after we had finished our own allotment of marshmallow eggs, we would raid our younger brother's basket for more. The sugar gene must have skipped him, since he can't stand them.

I've noticed that every year it gets harder and harder to find the right kind of marshmallow eggs. Gummy-type eggs aren't acceptable. Neither are the soft, puffy marshmallow candies shaped like distorted bunnies. It has to be the kind with a stiff (but not crunchy) outer shell, brightly coloured with artificial sheen. The inside is soft but slightly granular, like there's too much sugar in the recipe for it all to properly dissolve. The outer shell is essential, since the proper method for eating marshmallow eggs involves putting one on your tongue and letting the outer layer of sugar and color melt off. After this, the surface will be rough and granular, but still solid. Only once the shell has melted sufficiently and started to collapse are you allowed to actually bite. The inexperienced should be prepared for a coma-inducing wave of sugar and maybe even a bit of subsequent nausea.

Those lucky enough to possess the marshmallow egg gene, however, can start in on the rest of the bag and relax knowing that the happiest time of the year has finally arrived.

Dread

I just read that Xavier Rudd is playing here in May, and bought some tickets right away. I saw him at the folk festival last summer and loved his set. I'll admit that it sounds bad - an Australian surfer dude who plays didgeridoo, but I swear, he's actually really good.

Oh crap, I just realized - this show is going to be totally overrun with hippies. Crap! I hope security will be confiscating bongos at the door. I'm willing to indulge what little inner-hippie I have by going to this show, but I draw the line at indoor drum circles...

Combat Shopping

Shawn dragged me along on his quest for new shirts today. He got one that he liked at the Winners downtown, and wanted to look for more at another location. Learn from our mistake. Do not go discount shopping on a Sunday. You have to be both infinitely patient and quick with the elbows whenever necessary. I'm neither, so I usually give up before I finish a single aisle. Also, it gives me terrible flashbacks to the brief period when I worked as a cashier at Winners. The only thing I really remember is the vast hordes of office workers that descended during their lunch hour and cleaned the place out. It's amazing how irresistable orphaned, slightly irregular clothing becomes when someone knocks 20% off the price...

Hoarfrost

I guess that's what I was talking about. Except that it wasn't really hoarfrost because it wasn't cold enough. So, faux-frost?

Sorry for the amateur poetics below and any inconvenience it may have caused. Sometimes these things can't be avoided.

White on White

When I stepped out this morning, the whole world had become blindingly white. The layer of snow was thin, but it seemed to cover every possible surface and detail. Maybe it was the thick fog, I can imagine it turning from mist to frozen crystal sometime during the night, then coating everything with a thin layer of ice and snow. The most amazing part was the trees. Every twig was sparkling, making each tree into an intricate pattern and a lacy fringe. Even the evergreens had turned white. It made me feel like I was walking through a black-and-white photograph, maybe one that had been overexposed, leaving the entire picture white on white on white.

This isn't that unusual, it happens to the trees by the river every time the weather turns shockingly cold. Days like this. What made it strange was the spring-like feeling of the air. I was too warm in my long winter coat. I couldn't decide if it was me or the trees that had not dressed for the weather.

The Trapeze Swinger

They went on to say
that the pearly gates had some eloquent graffiti
like We'll meet again and Fuck The Man and
Tell my mother not to worry

from The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine. Easily the most beautiful song I've heard in ages. Sometimes I'll hear words spoken or sung and feel absolutely compelled to write them down, to see if they retain their magic even after they've been pinned down. Most of the time they can't - stripped of voice and music and time, they're just...words. Not meant to be sitting on a page or a screen. Still, I'm somehow convinced that if I can look at the words that they will reveal their secrets and intrinsic grace and I'll be able to figure out why they capture me. It never works.

Bonus Frequencies

Last night we went to yet another show. I'm really happy that there's nothing I want to see for at least a few more weeks 'cause I'm way way too old for this kind of thing. I think that was four shows in five nights. On the one night we didn't go out I was tired enough that I actually watched the Oscars in their wretched entirety. (The best part definitely the pimps-n-hos interpretive dance - now with added hotpants!)

I've seen Bob Wiseman at least twenty times over the past ten years, and I still go almost every time he's in town. Which means that every once in a while I find myself at a club, hanging out with a couple dozen other true believers, watching this demented guy jam out and get all experimental with the accordion. The last few shows he's brought along a stack of his strange short films and played his music over top of them.

Y'know, there are very people I would tolerate this behavior from. Accordions, short films, the occasional plaid outfit... normally that would be enough to make me flee. But then in the middle of his art school freak out he'll pull out something amazing and heartfelt and even more unexpected than an accordion freak-out. Like a cover of Unchained Melody. Go to his site and watch the video for the Real Thing, it might help explain things...

(Oh, bonus frequencies was a joke from one of his films, which advertised his imaginary upcoming album, which will feature more 100 instruments and, as a bonus, frequencies too low for human perception)

We are Creepy Skulls

We went out to the HiFi Club on Saturday night to see We Are Wolves. I saw them a few months ago when they opened up the International Pop Conspiracy and Trail of Dead (and they were better than either of them). This time they weren't so great, but it was worth it just to see them wearing their skull outfits. Photo by Shawn.

Also, I hereby take back every bad thing I said about You Say Party! We Say Die! They may be demented amateurs, but they were fascinating to watch. Can't say the same about the Daggers. They opened for We Are Wolves and were coma-inducing dull, like an unbearably loud radio I couldn't turn off. By the second song I was desperate for some handclaps and glitter...

Right between two states of mind

I went out again last night, this time to the old Mac Hall Ballroom to see Bob Mould. Middle age and grey hair obviously mean nothing to this man, because it was an amazing show. He still has that voice, that shout with the ragged tear in it that makes everything he sings sound like it's coming from inside my head.

I was little hesitant to go, afraid he would be reduced to a nostalgic novelty act. It seems like so many bands from the eighties and early nineties are dusting themselves off, grabbing a few replacement members and hitting the road in search of a bit of cash. Growing up in Calgary, I never really got to see most of the bands I liked, at least not when they most relevant or popular. So I'm pretty susceptible to the lure of these reformed bands... Even though I know that seeing Camper Van Beethoven in 2004 is much, much different than in 1984, I still fall victim to the collector mentality - well, at least I'll be able to say that I saw them. (Actually, I resisted on that show, and heard that it was painful to watch...)

It was funny, too, because unlike the super-young and ultra cool crowd at the Warehouse on Thursday, I actually recognized people at this show. Lots and lots of guys with less hair than I remember, and wives instead of girlfriends. I actually saw someone walking around in a Soul Asylum shirt, which must be as thin as a tissue by now. We must have been at the same show: Soul Asylum at the Ballroom, 1994. they sucked. It was making me feel very old and pathetically nostalgic for the crappy gigs of my youth

But Bob Mould was having none of that crap. He played solo, with just his electric guitar, although he turned the distortion and feedback up to 11 in order to replicate some of the racket of Husker Du. He's actually looking pretty good these days. I guess that's fringe benefit of looking middle-aged at 20 like Bob Mould did - things can only get better as you age.

Exclamation!!!

Went out last night to see controller.controller at the Warehouse. I saw them last year, opening for Death From Above 1979, and wasn't too into them, but Shawn wanted to check it out. First we saw You Say Party! We Say Die! who were absolutely terrible, although sort of fascinating in their awfulness.

They do a demented type of new wave dance with chanty lyrics and lots of hand claps. They're still learning their instruments and figuring out how to play as a band and if it wasn't the in-unison singing, you'd swear they were all playing different songs. It's been a while since I've seen a band this young and bad and it was kinda fun. Actually, it made me wish I could be an all-ages kid today instead of the early 90s. Crappy new wave punk dance looks way more exciting and fun to watch than crappy angsty grunge and earnest punk. And there was no flannel to be seen.

The first time I saw controller.controller they reminded me of Rough Trade.
Which, well, how scary is that? And I had High School Confidential stuck in my head for days. This time they didn't bring up scary, long-buried Carole Pope memories, but I still wasn't really into them. The lead singer is pretty sexy, but other than that I was more interested in the crowd. I love all the mini Pat Benatars wandering around these days...

Vengeance

Apparently I just wasn't feeling misanthropic and ranty enough yesterday, because the television elves decided it was a good time to mess with me. Last night I tried to watch Lost and found that it had been pre-empted in favour of the Family Guy. oh, the horror.

I can't express how much I hate the Family Guy. It's like the only reason they bother to produce the show is to annoy me personally. And I can't seem to escape it. As soon as someone finally cancelled it, a cult following rose up and flooded the world with t-shirts and posters and DVDs. Enough of this crap sells that the show gets resurrected and ends up on TV again. Now we've reached the point were NO ONE IS SAFE. Apparently, someone has decided to just ditch the whole schedule and just show the Family Guy all the time.

The whole scenario reeks of some kind of elaborate conspiracy.

I need a nap

shake your head it's empty

Christ, today it seems like everything is just grating on my nerves. I put on my headphones to block out noise, only to realize I hate all the music on my itunes, and on everybody else's, too. I swear the goddamn shuffle is trying to push me over the edge. Why does it persist in feeding all the useless hipster crap I've ever bought? As if Broken Social Scene isn't the most godawful waste of time I've ever heard. And Nick Lowe really needs a smack to knock all that freaking cleverness out of him, but not as badly as Magnetic Fields does. And wow do I ever hate that chick from Metric. Why is she trying to kill me? Buy a car to drive to work, go to work to pay for this car. I'm so glad she decided to share her high school poetry with me. It's amazing how it gets more and more meaningful ever time she chants it. And who doesn't enjoy a good chant now and again? Okay, it's time to take off the headphones before I get one of those forehead veins.