there's now a link to a consolidated rss feed, the 6 blogs + 4 youtube
sites, which is the best i can do. i will update this link as it
improves itself.
but, i cannot get rss feeds from bandcamp, noise trade, patreon or
facebook, unfortunately. in a sense, that is irrelevant, as i should
cross-reference everything to the blogs; this feed will give you
everything, and double or triple a lot of it.
http://www.rssmix.com/u/8317252/rss.xml
Thursday, April 18, 2019
i almost never vomit, actually. but, i was feeling it all morning; it was inevitable, and probably not entirely caused by the vodka, but also contributed to by my diet and the travelling and even the coffee. it could have happened hours earlier, really. as it is, it was the tums that triggered it.
i often bring antacids with me when i'm drinking, because the things we drink alcohol with are so inherently acidic. how many of us assume that that stomach ache you get after your third drink is because you've had too much alcohol? in fact, it's probably acid reflux, because you've consumed a litre of carbonated pop or whatever else in the process. maybe you want to take it as a cue to quit drinking, or maybe you don't - maybe you just want to pop a few grams of calcium to balance it out, and keep going. i find the latter usually works just fine...
so, i didn't think much about it when i started to feel it in my gut - i just got some tums at the corner store, scarfed them down and went back to browsing in the coffee shop. it was a little before 18:00, when i had to run outside...
i didn't take it seriously, at first. i put a shot in my coffee on the way in, but it was a tall cup, tall enough that i could have put in two. further, it took me five hours to drink it. so, i was only on my third drink in 10 hours. sure, i just had a big cup of coffee; sure, i hadn't eaten since early in the morning. but, i wasn't going to puke on three drinks in 10 hours was i? that would be lame.
so, i just sat outside the shop for a minute and waited. it's not going to happen...
...but, yes. it is going to happen.
i made it just past the band's vans for the first iteration, which was unfortunately directly on the sidewalk. well, i wasn't taking the situation seriously. i was able to get across the street into an alleyway for round two, to the concerns of some onlookers that were smoking something in the back.
"i'm alright. just a little too much vodka. nothing serious. i'll be fine in a few minutes. sorry for freaking you out."
this was met with some visually cautious skepticism, but at least the concern faded to indifference.
but, was it really too much vodka? i've never had difficulty with such little vodka, before. while i'll acknowledge that i hadn't had any alcohol at all since last may, it still seems like an absurdly low tolerance level. so, i'm going to reject the claim that i drank too much, and rather assert quite sternly that i wasn't even drunk. rather, i suspect that the coffee and the extra strength tums may have created an acid-base reaction that actually stimulated vomiting as a pressure release; this was more like a volcanic eruption in a grade school science fair project than alcohol poisoning.
i needed a third round before i was done and able to walk off.
"i'm fine. really. i'm sorry."
that was apparently more convincing, as i got a laugh and a wave.
the reality is that i wasn't feeling drunk before i puked, and i wasn't feeling drunk after i puked, either; the nausea faded a little, if not totally, but it didn't really make much of a difference at all, in terms of how i was feeling.
i made a choice, however, to stand outside, just in case - and to put my coffee away. it was about an hour's wait until doors.
there were some kids lined up early, so i just got in line behind them and waited.
"my friend is convinced he's in a coma and everything is just a dream."
"that's so ridiculously stupid, really. obviously false."
"i agree, but, like, how do you prove to him that it's wrong?"
"actually, maybe you can't do that, can you?"
*ahem*
that's right, kids. what you'd say is that that's not even wrong, that you could never disprove it and that it is therefore worthless as a hypothesis.
"makes sense."
the fact is that i've been to lots of shows with knapsacks, and nobody has ever given me a hard time about it before, so i couldn't imagine anybody giving me a hard time about it here. i expected there would be some kind of mosh pit, but moshing (or really dancing at all) to la dispute is like dancing at a funeral - it's inappropriate, in context. they're technically a hardcore band still, but they've always leaned towards beatnik poetry, and they're coming up on a flip over the cusp, to the point that i do suspect that there will be a time in a few years when the shows are almost entirely abandoned by hardcore fans. i didn't expect that to be true of this show, but my intent was to stand a little further back, out of the pit, while sipping on a beer and listening to the lyrics.
this isn't a rejection of the pit, it's just that la dispute is not really body music, it's more of an intellectual kind of thing, something that might even be better experienced at a seated venue than a general admission punk show. if you're showing up to a la dispute concert looking to dance it up and have a good time, you're kind of missing the plot.
so, in my mind, it wouldn't be much of a problem if i brought my bag in, considering i was going to be standing in the back, anyways. but, i wasn't able to get the point across to security, who just insisted they were sold out. well, they couldn't be that sold out; surely, they're not being reasonable. but, i simply wasn't getting in with the bag, so i had to relent and leave it at coat check, along with everything in it. they insisted it was safe...
so, i get in and learn it's $9 for a beer at the opera house in toronto. it was at least a big beer, but i only got one...
the place was about half full for the first act, called slow mass, which didn't make much of an impression on me. what they sound like is a parody of mopey 90s alt rock, without even the minimal amounts of tension that you got out of a genre that was intended to town done. there were some unnecessary outbursts of noise by the drummer and guitarist, but it just kind of added to the buttoned up feel of the show by telling the audience that the band itself recognizes that they are actually boring, and are even bored with being boring. while the self-awareness is perhaps a positive step, i don't have much else to say about this, other than to point out that this is indiscernible from any of the other thousand bands that have sounded exactly like this over the last forty years.
i let them finish, downed my beer and then went to retrieve my marijuana from my bag, which i had absent-mindedly left in there when i was unexpectedly coat-checked. i wasn't sure if it would be a hassle or not...
"sorry, there's just too many bags."
and, there were, indeed, a lot of bags.
"listen, i could understand if there was a long line-up here and i was in your way, but it looks like the place has mostly filled up, and you're just kind of sitting around, so..."
"were you in recently or near the start?"
"i was one of the first people in."
"so, i'm going to have to sort through this to the bottom. there's no way."
"well, you're going to have to do this eventually, right?"
"what?"
"well, i'm going to eventually pick the bag up."
"but, that's only if you're here at the start of the line."
"i need to catch a bus out."
"so, i'll have to do it anyways. ugh. fine. i'm making you pay to recheck it, though: $4."
it was a good night for logic in toronto, at least.
i've rolled up a lot of marijuana in a lot of toilet stalls in a lot of cities, but this was the first time it was actually legal.....
a few minutes later, and i'm overhearing some lesbians talk to each other, as they're standing a few feet in front of me.
"my grandmother thinks we're all monsters. like, she seriously thinks we're evil. it's crazy. i love my grandmother and everything, but it kind of scares me. so, i'm just never telling her. ever. we're just not having this talk. she'll die thinking i'm straight."
i had to interject.
until she starts bothering you about having kids, then you're going to have to bring it up.
laughs from the crowd, as always.
"she already bugs me."
it's just going to get worse.
"well, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. i'll have kids, just not with a dude."
you're still going to have to bring it up.
"well..."
listen, studies have been done on this. your grandmother is an individual, but homophobic people often find themselves with a change of opinion when they are confronted with queer family members, as it presents them with a reality rather than an abstraction. i mean, she's going to go to some church or something..
"mosque."
right. whatever. so, she's going to go to that mosque, and they're going to say all kinds of hateful, damaging things about queer people as though they're some distant other, as though they don't actually exist as human beings, but then she's going to go home and see somebody she loves, and she's going to have to make a choice to trust these words that are thrown at her abstractly by this stranger on a podium, or a person in front of her that she know and loves and trusts.
"i'm not telling her."
that bad, huh?
a passing homeless person then interrupted the conversation with a request for change, of which neither of us had any. but, the other lesbian was upset about it.
"i wish i had some change. i once gave somebody $20."
the male member of the group that included the two lesbians is upset about this.
"you gave him $20?"
"i'm a generous person."
"but, they're all drug addicts. it's really hard to be homeless in canada, you know."
ugh. not on my sidewalk.
poverty does exist, you know. i mean, it might be true that there's a high percentage of drug addicts in the homeless population, but you can't just jump to the conclusion that if you're homeless then you're a drug addict. that would just be wrong.
(some applause on the street)
but, he didn't want a debate; he went inside, and i followed not far behind him.
the fiasco with the bag, and subsequent detour rolling and smoking, meant i actually missed most of the second band's set. the place also filled up to the brim in the time i was gone, forcing me to watch from the landing, which was actually the plan anyways, but perhaps not in the space i ended up in. gouge away are named after a pixies track, and sounded like it. the following audiotree set has some generic pixies-type tracks and some noisier hardcore; the bit of the set that i caught was in the generic pixies-type track style, and didn't appeal much to me. in fact, i decided to find somewhere to sit and take a rest...
i went directly back to the floor when the set was done, trying to measure the size of the crowd and how to set up and came to the conclusion that the place was packed as tight as possible; they weren't exaggerating about the place being sold out, and there really wasn't room to stand with a bag. that said, leaving my bag in coat check didn't all of a sudden make me want to go into the pit - i was still hoping to hang back a little and just watch. but there was barely even anywhere to stand. so, i decided i'd wait the pit out a little and then try and work my way in.
they started off with some less intense tracks, so i couldn't really get a feel on the size of the pit, or what was going to happen when they clicked in. if i could get some separation so that i could stand on the edge of the pit, it could work, but there just didn't look like there was much space. i was hoping to wait a little longer, wait for them to tire themselves out, so i could move up. but, the opposite happened: i saw the train of frat boys walk by me from the back a few songs in, and realized i was going to need to hang back.
if i had a chance to escape the back at that point, it closed pretty quickly, as this annoying teenage girl decided she was going to dance in front of me all night. i've been through this before; the girl wants to dance, but she doesn't want to get molested at the punk show, so she parks herself directly on top of the obvious fag, after testing it first to make sure it's safe. it's then my instant responsibility to make sure she's safe until she walks off, whether i asked for it or not and she inevitably gets pissy when i don't react, which is really quite the contradiction. if you check my reviews, you'll see me point to this happening repeatedly, and pretty much always at punk shows. in general, i can handle this - i can even enjoy dancing, and often do - but the lack of space on this floor, combined with the nature of the music, just made the scenario comical. even if there was space to dance, i would not have wanted to on this night - i wanted to watch the band. a lot of these lyrics are really quite morbid. and, this girl wanted to dance too - bumping into me repeatedly, flipping her hair around and just generally trying to get me grooving. nope...
in order to get by her, i would have had to shove her out of the way, and i wasn't going to do that. i didn't see any obvious space, anyway, as the pit seemed to take up most of the floor, and nothing was opening up. so, i spent most of the concert trying to dodge tassled hair flying into my face from this hyperactive kid that was hopping all over me, apparently desiring some kind of response.
if they had played for another hour, i would have moved up. alas...
and, what of these moshers? is it not somewhat perverse to mosh to la dispute? if anything, they ate it up. it was lines like "we buried our son today!" that got the pit in motion. i'm not going to pretend i understand that, but so be it. i'd rather be a little bit more sombre about such things and watch quietly from the side...
how was the show, though?
this is the third time i saw la dispute, but the second time was an acoustic set in detroit. the first time i saw them was with touche amore & balance & composure at maverick's in ottawa in 2011, and what i remember about the show is that the songs were unrecognizable when compared to the recordings. at the time, i decided that i hadn't listened to the material that much, and i was just not following it because i didn't know it. but, the same thing happened in toronto, on this night - i could sort of make out the songs, but not really. i mean, some of them were clear, but some of them seemed radically different and hard to follow.
i'm left to wonder if the band radically rearranges it's studio material for performance - or perhaps radically rearranges it's live material in studio - and if there's an entirely parallel discography that i'm not aware of. the other option is that the sound tech is terrible, but this seems unlikely, given that i experienced the same thing in two different bars, in two different cities and separated by 7.5 years.
a quick run through the setlist suggests that it may have mostly been tracks from rooms of the house that were rearranged, and i guess i can get my head around that, even if it threw me for a bit of a loop. there's some bands you go to see just expecting something new, and there's some that you go to see with the discography burned directly into your cortex, and la dispute are really in the latter category.
i don't want to play the show down; i enjoyed the components that i recognized, even as i was spitting the hair out of my mouth and craning my neck around to get a view. but, there were tracks i only half-recognized, and it left me wondering what was really going on.
i can't currently find a recent show on youtube and don't want to post an old one, so we'll leave this space open until one appears.
(insert youtube link)
i wasn't first in line, but i was near the front of the line, and the coat check had it ready for me.
"see, this is actually better, right? 'cause the line moves faster."
"oh, shut up."
"ok. have a good night.."
i had to step into the bathroom for a few minutes, again.
i was out before 11:30, so i just walked back to the greyhound. the subways were all closed, unfortunately, so no late night sub on the bus. it was a short wait, meaning i have a working model, even if this is not a frequent trip.
the migraine and the rain started almost immediately, and almost simultaneously, leaving me crunched up in pain and kind of freaked out, at the same time. i tried to sleep the migraine off, but it wouldn't come. the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the streetlamps, making it hard to tell where i actually was. yet, the driver of this express bus was not interested in slowing down, regardless of visibility, of the slippery roads or of the potholes that the bus was ripping through. but, it actually seemed like a short ride, somehow. and, i was in windsor and off the bus in no time - and home by around 6:30 in the morning.
so, would i do that again? yeah, for the right act. i just wish the weather was a little nicer.
i often bring antacids with me when i'm drinking, because the things we drink alcohol with are so inherently acidic. how many of us assume that that stomach ache you get after your third drink is because you've had too much alcohol? in fact, it's probably acid reflux, because you've consumed a litre of carbonated pop or whatever else in the process. maybe you want to take it as a cue to quit drinking, or maybe you don't - maybe you just want to pop a few grams of calcium to balance it out, and keep going. i find the latter usually works just fine...
so, i didn't think much about it when i started to feel it in my gut - i just got some tums at the corner store, scarfed them down and went back to browsing in the coffee shop. it was a little before 18:00, when i had to run outside...
i didn't take it seriously, at first. i put a shot in my coffee on the way in, but it was a tall cup, tall enough that i could have put in two. further, it took me five hours to drink it. so, i was only on my third drink in 10 hours. sure, i just had a big cup of coffee; sure, i hadn't eaten since early in the morning. but, i wasn't going to puke on three drinks in 10 hours was i? that would be lame.
so, i just sat outside the shop for a minute and waited. it's not going to happen...
...but, yes. it is going to happen.
i made it just past the band's vans for the first iteration, which was unfortunately directly on the sidewalk. well, i wasn't taking the situation seriously. i was able to get across the street into an alleyway for round two, to the concerns of some onlookers that were smoking something in the back.
"i'm alright. just a little too much vodka. nothing serious. i'll be fine in a few minutes. sorry for freaking you out."
this was met with some visually cautious skepticism, but at least the concern faded to indifference.
but, was it really too much vodka? i've never had difficulty with such little vodka, before. while i'll acknowledge that i hadn't had any alcohol at all since last may, it still seems like an absurdly low tolerance level. so, i'm going to reject the claim that i drank too much, and rather assert quite sternly that i wasn't even drunk. rather, i suspect that the coffee and the extra strength tums may have created an acid-base reaction that actually stimulated vomiting as a pressure release; this was more like a volcanic eruption in a grade school science fair project than alcohol poisoning.
i needed a third round before i was done and able to walk off.
"i'm fine. really. i'm sorry."
that was apparently more convincing, as i got a laugh and a wave.
the reality is that i wasn't feeling drunk before i puked, and i wasn't feeling drunk after i puked, either; the nausea faded a little, if not totally, but it didn't really make much of a difference at all, in terms of how i was feeling.
i made a choice, however, to stand outside, just in case - and to put my coffee away. it was about an hour's wait until doors.
there were some kids lined up early, so i just got in line behind them and waited.
"my friend is convinced he's in a coma and everything is just a dream."
"that's so ridiculously stupid, really. obviously false."
"i agree, but, like, how do you prove to him that it's wrong?"
"actually, maybe you can't do that, can you?"
*ahem*
that's right, kids. what you'd say is that that's not even wrong, that you could never disprove it and that it is therefore worthless as a hypothesis.
"makes sense."
the fact is that i've been to lots of shows with knapsacks, and nobody has ever given me a hard time about it before, so i couldn't imagine anybody giving me a hard time about it here. i expected there would be some kind of mosh pit, but moshing (or really dancing at all) to la dispute is like dancing at a funeral - it's inappropriate, in context. they're technically a hardcore band still, but they've always leaned towards beatnik poetry, and they're coming up on a flip over the cusp, to the point that i do suspect that there will be a time in a few years when the shows are almost entirely abandoned by hardcore fans. i didn't expect that to be true of this show, but my intent was to stand a little further back, out of the pit, while sipping on a beer and listening to the lyrics.
this isn't a rejection of the pit, it's just that la dispute is not really body music, it's more of an intellectual kind of thing, something that might even be better experienced at a seated venue than a general admission punk show. if you're showing up to a la dispute concert looking to dance it up and have a good time, you're kind of missing the plot.
so, in my mind, it wouldn't be much of a problem if i brought my bag in, considering i was going to be standing in the back, anyways. but, i wasn't able to get the point across to security, who just insisted they were sold out. well, they couldn't be that sold out; surely, they're not being reasonable. but, i simply wasn't getting in with the bag, so i had to relent and leave it at coat check, along with everything in it. they insisted it was safe...
so, i get in and learn it's $9 for a beer at the opera house in toronto. it was at least a big beer, but i only got one...
the place was about half full for the first act, called slow mass, which didn't make much of an impression on me. what they sound like is a parody of mopey 90s alt rock, without even the minimal amounts of tension that you got out of a genre that was intended to town done. there were some unnecessary outbursts of noise by the drummer and guitarist, but it just kind of added to the buttoned up feel of the show by telling the audience that the band itself recognizes that they are actually boring, and are even bored with being boring. while the self-awareness is perhaps a positive step, i don't have much else to say about this, other than to point out that this is indiscernible from any of the other thousand bands that have sounded exactly like this over the last forty years.
i let them finish, downed my beer and then went to retrieve my marijuana from my bag, which i had absent-mindedly left in there when i was unexpectedly coat-checked. i wasn't sure if it would be a hassle or not...
"sorry, there's just too many bags."
and, there were, indeed, a lot of bags.
"listen, i could understand if there was a long line-up here and i was in your way, but it looks like the place has mostly filled up, and you're just kind of sitting around, so..."
"were you in recently or near the start?"
"i was one of the first people in."
"so, i'm going to have to sort through this to the bottom. there's no way."
"well, you're going to have to do this eventually, right?"
"what?"
"well, i'm going to eventually pick the bag up."
"but, that's only if you're here at the start of the line."
"i need to catch a bus out."
"so, i'll have to do it anyways. ugh. fine. i'm making you pay to recheck it, though: $4."
it was a good night for logic in toronto, at least.
i've rolled up a lot of marijuana in a lot of toilet stalls in a lot of cities, but this was the first time it was actually legal.....
a few minutes later, and i'm overhearing some lesbians talk to each other, as they're standing a few feet in front of me.
"my grandmother thinks we're all monsters. like, she seriously thinks we're evil. it's crazy. i love my grandmother and everything, but it kind of scares me. so, i'm just never telling her. ever. we're just not having this talk. she'll die thinking i'm straight."
i had to interject.
until she starts bothering you about having kids, then you're going to have to bring it up.
laughs from the crowd, as always.
"she already bugs me."
it's just going to get worse.
"well, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. i'll have kids, just not with a dude."
you're still going to have to bring it up.
"well..."
listen, studies have been done on this. your grandmother is an individual, but homophobic people often find themselves with a change of opinion when they are confronted with queer family members, as it presents them with a reality rather than an abstraction. i mean, she's going to go to some church or something..
"mosque."
right. whatever. so, she's going to go to that mosque, and they're going to say all kinds of hateful, damaging things about queer people as though they're some distant other, as though they don't actually exist as human beings, but then she's going to go home and see somebody she loves, and she's going to have to make a choice to trust these words that are thrown at her abstractly by this stranger on a podium, or a person in front of her that she know and loves and trusts.
"i'm not telling her."
that bad, huh?
a passing homeless person then interrupted the conversation with a request for change, of which neither of us had any. but, the other lesbian was upset about it.
"i wish i had some change. i once gave somebody $20."
the male member of the group that included the two lesbians is upset about this.
"you gave him $20?"
"i'm a generous person."
"but, they're all drug addicts. it's really hard to be homeless in canada, you know."
ugh. not on my sidewalk.
poverty does exist, you know. i mean, it might be true that there's a high percentage of drug addicts in the homeless population, but you can't just jump to the conclusion that if you're homeless then you're a drug addict. that would just be wrong.
(some applause on the street)
but, he didn't want a debate; he went inside, and i followed not far behind him.
the fiasco with the bag, and subsequent detour rolling and smoking, meant i actually missed most of the second band's set. the place also filled up to the brim in the time i was gone, forcing me to watch from the landing, which was actually the plan anyways, but perhaps not in the space i ended up in. gouge away are named after a pixies track, and sounded like it. the following audiotree set has some generic pixies-type tracks and some noisier hardcore; the bit of the set that i caught was in the generic pixies-type track style, and didn't appeal much to me. in fact, i decided to find somewhere to sit and take a rest...
i went directly back to the floor when the set was done, trying to measure the size of the crowd and how to set up and came to the conclusion that the place was packed as tight as possible; they weren't exaggerating about the place being sold out, and there really wasn't room to stand with a bag. that said, leaving my bag in coat check didn't all of a sudden make me want to go into the pit - i was still hoping to hang back a little and just watch. but there was barely even anywhere to stand. so, i decided i'd wait the pit out a little and then try and work my way in.
they started off with some less intense tracks, so i couldn't really get a feel on the size of the pit, or what was going to happen when they clicked in. if i could get some separation so that i could stand on the edge of the pit, it could work, but there just didn't look like there was much space. i was hoping to wait a little longer, wait for them to tire themselves out, so i could move up. but, the opposite happened: i saw the train of frat boys walk by me from the back a few songs in, and realized i was going to need to hang back.
if i had a chance to escape the back at that point, it closed pretty quickly, as this annoying teenage girl decided she was going to dance in front of me all night. i've been through this before; the girl wants to dance, but she doesn't want to get molested at the punk show, so she parks herself directly on top of the obvious fag, after testing it first to make sure it's safe. it's then my instant responsibility to make sure she's safe until she walks off, whether i asked for it or not and she inevitably gets pissy when i don't react, which is really quite the contradiction. if you check my reviews, you'll see me point to this happening repeatedly, and pretty much always at punk shows. in general, i can handle this - i can even enjoy dancing, and often do - but the lack of space on this floor, combined with the nature of the music, just made the scenario comical. even if there was space to dance, i would not have wanted to on this night - i wanted to watch the band. a lot of these lyrics are really quite morbid. and, this girl wanted to dance too - bumping into me repeatedly, flipping her hair around and just generally trying to get me grooving. nope...
in order to get by her, i would have had to shove her out of the way, and i wasn't going to do that. i didn't see any obvious space, anyway, as the pit seemed to take up most of the floor, and nothing was opening up. so, i spent most of the concert trying to dodge tassled hair flying into my face from this hyperactive kid that was hopping all over me, apparently desiring some kind of response.
if they had played for another hour, i would have moved up. alas...
and, what of these moshers? is it not somewhat perverse to mosh to la dispute? if anything, they ate it up. it was lines like "we buried our son today!" that got the pit in motion. i'm not going to pretend i understand that, but so be it. i'd rather be a little bit more sombre about such things and watch quietly from the side...
how was the show, though?
this is the third time i saw la dispute, but the second time was an acoustic set in detroit. the first time i saw them was with touche amore & balance & composure at maverick's in ottawa in 2011, and what i remember about the show is that the songs were unrecognizable when compared to the recordings. at the time, i decided that i hadn't listened to the material that much, and i was just not following it because i didn't know it. but, the same thing happened in toronto, on this night - i could sort of make out the songs, but not really. i mean, some of them were clear, but some of them seemed radically different and hard to follow.
i'm left to wonder if the band radically rearranges it's studio material for performance - or perhaps radically rearranges it's live material in studio - and if there's an entirely parallel discography that i'm not aware of. the other option is that the sound tech is terrible, but this seems unlikely, given that i experienced the same thing in two different bars, in two different cities and separated by 7.5 years.
a quick run through the setlist suggests that it may have mostly been tracks from rooms of the house that were rearranged, and i guess i can get my head around that, even if it threw me for a bit of a loop. there's some bands you go to see just expecting something new, and there's some that you go to see with the discography burned directly into your cortex, and la dispute are really in the latter category.
i don't want to play the show down; i enjoyed the components that i recognized, even as i was spitting the hair out of my mouth and craning my neck around to get a view. but, there were tracks i only half-recognized, and it left me wondering what was really going on.
i can't currently find a recent show on youtube and don't want to post an old one, so we'll leave this space open until one appears.
(insert youtube link)
i wasn't first in line, but i was near the front of the line, and the coat check had it ready for me.
"see, this is actually better, right? 'cause the line moves faster."
"oh, shut up."
"ok. have a good night.."
i had to step into the bathroom for a few minutes, again.
i was out before 11:30, so i just walked back to the greyhound. the subways were all closed, unfortunately, so no late night sub on the bus. it was a short wait, meaning i have a working model, even if this is not a frequent trip.
the migraine and the rain started almost immediately, and almost simultaneously, leaving me crunched up in pain and kind of freaked out, at the same time. i tried to sleep the migraine off, but it wouldn't come. the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the streetlamps, making it hard to tell where i actually was. yet, the driver of this express bus was not interested in slowing down, regardless of visibility, of the slippery roads or of the potholes that the bus was ripping through. but, it actually seemed like a short ride, somehow. and, i was in windsor and off the bus in no time - and home by around 6:30 in the morning.
so, would i do that again? yeah, for the right act. i just wish the weather was a little nicer.
it's now thursday afternoon, and i'm typing from home in windsor. i wanted to do some typing on the bus on the way home, but the migraine hit as soon as i sat down, and i was really just done for the ride; i wasn't able to sleep it off as i like to, but i nonetheless didn't want to do anything except roll up in a ball. as mentioned, i was nauseous on the way in as well, so i'm thinking it was partly to do with the air quality on the bus. the third hand smoke was noticeable - even after i'd smoked a few myself - but i'm wondering if it was more about a lack of circulation. it was also raining very hard through a lot of the ride, and i know i'm sensitive to the weather. whatever it was, it actually made the trip seem very short, as uncomfortable as it was.
i wanted to eat and shower first, but i was passed out within minutes of coming in on wednesday morning. i've tried to wake up a few times since yesterday afternoon, but it hasn't really succeeded; i've mostly been asleep since i got home. well, i'm up now, so i'm going to pick up where i left off...
i wanted to eat and shower first, but i was passed out within minutes of coming in on wednesday morning. i've tried to wake up a few times since yesterday afternoon, but it hasn't really succeeded; i've mostly been asleep since i got home. well, i'm up now, so i'm going to pick up where i left off...
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
so, i'm in toronto, at the opera house grill, a small coffee shop directly beside/below the venue in toronto.
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
Sunday, April 14, 2019
unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.
the readable version of the july archive for this blog is now available as a standalone in the music journal package at bandcamp:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
...or as a component in the full first reconstruction phase archive, available in the following places:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026660
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-travel-blog/ebook/product-nm4jeq.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13M7Vvz2hLiuGdywPL2oNRgUY3nmn26E6/view
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
what this is all about
another blog? what? but, there's a good reason for this, and it's conceptually reasonable, as well.
i've never been an early adopter of new technology, but rather the type that waits until the bugs are worked out, and looks for a fully realized product that can actually do something i actually need. i don't have the interest in wasting money on toys or gadgets with little clear functionality; i want something that works and something that is going to last for a long time. it took me some time to articulate this as that i approach a product for it's use value, but i always i did, even as a young child. so, i wasn't ever the kid with the newest cell phone; i was the kid that claimed i'd never get a cell phone, ever, because it's business normative and bourgeois.
"just send me an email or a message over icq or something."
i eventually relented in early 2007 when i moved into a new apartment, but it was out of functionality - it cost less than a landline. so, i got a shiny new flip phone from rogers. i still have this phone, but i stopped paying for it in 2010. i might have made 100 calls on it, total. there was little thought put into models or functions. i just picked the cheapest one in the list because i needed a phone, right? we all need phones....at least sometimes....
i haven't had a working phone since i stopped making payments on that one in 2010.
it was around this time that i picked up my first mp3 player with a best buy gift card from extended family. i got a nice ipod mini, right? nope - i didn't want itunes on my system, to deal with drm or to have issues with proprietary file formats. geeky issues, to be sure, but determined solely from a distance, with careful study and not by trial and error or early adoption. i opted for a flash-based sandisk mini, instead; no software, no drm. still works. sadly, the sennheisers i got for them do not. by mid-2007, this was a mature market that had already discarded it's kinks, so i knew exactly what i wanted and exactly what i didn't. so, i don't have pictures of myself holding an ipod in 2002, but how many of those devices are still useful? i still use my mp3 player on a monthly basis, because it still works exactly as it did when i bought it.
it would have also been in 2007 that i finally ended up with a laptop, but there wasn't any intent around it. my dad had an old laptop that he was on the brink of trashing; i took it to keep it out of the landfill. this was a compaq evo from the late 90s, and i still use it on a daily basis as a youtube controller when i eat, although i don't bother to send it out through s-video to a crt television, like i did at first. this old compaq evo has a custom nlited version of windows xp on it. youtube will eventually stop serving to it; for now, it works fine, although i have to run chrome to get a lightweight enough browser with html5. maybe there's a better fork out there, or maybe it's long tern future is with linux. this machine has never been used as a mobile device; it doesn't even have a wireless card in it.
i briefly did a network admin job in mid-2010 that lent me out a nice newish laptop, and while i didn't care much for the job, losing the laptop was somewhat of a downer. so, i took my last pay check with them and used it to get a refurbished compaq with vista on it. this machine was a few years old, even at the time. it cost me around $300, with shipping, which i considered a steal. i just wanted something i could take out of the house; i figured 2010 was about time. while the machine is pretty beaten up at this point - the lamp on the screen has burned out, the hard drive has crashed and the sd reader is unresponsive - i am actually still using it as my general gateway. again: i wanted something cheap that would last, not something shiny and new, and it's worked out pretty well, i think.
life moved in a weird direction for me in late 2011, and that laptop become my primary computer, as i found myself traveling through some weird experiences and living in some unusual circumstances. so, i all of a sudden found myself typing in coffee shops and libraries, something i'd never done before. i also found myself going to more concerts, and traveling further to get to them.
but, when i moved to windsor in 2013, i no longer found myself in need of a mobile option. further, my main laptop became kind of glued to my bed; i didn't really want to take it out of the house. slowly, my laptops fell apart, with shorts in boards and burnt lamps, to the point that i no longer had a mobile option. this became a serious problem in late 2017, when i found myself unable to contact my isp from home (after a move), and without a device to contact them with remotely.
i bought a smart phone in the summer of 2017, but i hadn't used it much and hadn't bought a sim card. it's a waterproof chinese phone with 4 gb of ram - again, i did the research from a distance, knowing what i want and don't want. it was around $130, and i expect it to be the only phone in the house for the next 20 years. but, i found the thing to be frustrating to type on, and i didn't like exposing my passwords in a tim horton's, regardless of the time of day. it worked in a pinch, but it wasn't acceptable in the long run.
i had to move again in the fall of 2018 and this time i decided i needed a netbook. so, i picked up an out-of-service ibm chromebook for $200 at the factory direct. again: cheap because it's at the end of it's life cycle, but a high quality machine that will last for years. the purpose of this netbook is solely for remote use, so i shouldn't be using any of my accounts on it - and i especially shouldn't be using my gmail password. this is somewhat of a contradiction, as the chromebook is of course designed for precisely that reason. i initially thought that just signing is as guest would be good enough, but it cuts the functionality of the machine down; you can't even install ad block. what to do?
i decided that the answer would be to create a fake account and use it solely for connecting remotely with. but, then, how do i post to my blogs, if i'm using a fake account? isn't that the whole point?
i tried the post-over-email option, and while you can expect me to post that way sometimes, the limitations were too great for it to be feasible; i decided i'd need to set up a fake blog, instead, for explicitly posting to remotely. and, here it is.
but, then, why not extend it backwards? i've been on some adventures, right?
indeed, i have, and i'm going to give myself a little bit of artistic license on this. certainly, moving forwards, this blog will only contain entries that are written remotely - from a place that is not my bedroom. further, i have plenty of posts post-2010 that were written in places that were not my bedroom, so i have material to plug in. but, what about adventures before 2010, as i run through the alter-reality? and, what about adventures i've told once i've returned home? do those count? i think they should.
so, some of this will be narrated in real time from some coffee shop somewhere, while some of it will be told from my memory, and may only be somewhat reliable. i think it is nonetheless interesting to isolate this into it's own place, even outside of it's clear functionality.
so, here we have the travel blog, which will be built up the same way as the others, starting in mid-2013 and building in parallel through the alter-reality.
i've never been an early adopter of new technology, but rather the type that waits until the bugs are worked out, and looks for a fully realized product that can actually do something i actually need. i don't have the interest in wasting money on toys or gadgets with little clear functionality; i want something that works and something that is going to last for a long time. it took me some time to articulate this as that i approach a product for it's use value, but i always i did, even as a young child. so, i wasn't ever the kid with the newest cell phone; i was the kid that claimed i'd never get a cell phone, ever, because it's business normative and bourgeois.
"just send me an email or a message over icq or something."
i eventually relented in early 2007 when i moved into a new apartment, but it was out of functionality - it cost less than a landline. so, i got a shiny new flip phone from rogers. i still have this phone, but i stopped paying for it in 2010. i might have made 100 calls on it, total. there was little thought put into models or functions. i just picked the cheapest one in the list because i needed a phone, right? we all need phones....at least sometimes....
i haven't had a working phone since i stopped making payments on that one in 2010.
it was around this time that i picked up my first mp3 player with a best buy gift card from extended family. i got a nice ipod mini, right? nope - i didn't want itunes on my system, to deal with drm or to have issues with proprietary file formats. geeky issues, to be sure, but determined solely from a distance, with careful study and not by trial and error or early adoption. i opted for a flash-based sandisk mini, instead; no software, no drm. still works. sadly, the sennheisers i got for them do not. by mid-2007, this was a mature market that had already discarded it's kinks, so i knew exactly what i wanted and exactly what i didn't. so, i don't have pictures of myself holding an ipod in 2002, but how many of those devices are still useful? i still use my mp3 player on a monthly basis, because it still works exactly as it did when i bought it.
it would have also been in 2007 that i finally ended up with a laptop, but there wasn't any intent around it. my dad had an old laptop that he was on the brink of trashing; i took it to keep it out of the landfill. this was a compaq evo from the late 90s, and i still use it on a daily basis as a youtube controller when i eat, although i don't bother to send it out through s-video to a crt television, like i did at first. this old compaq evo has a custom nlited version of windows xp on it. youtube will eventually stop serving to it; for now, it works fine, although i have to run chrome to get a lightweight enough browser with html5. maybe there's a better fork out there, or maybe it's long tern future is with linux. this machine has never been used as a mobile device; it doesn't even have a wireless card in it.
i briefly did a network admin job in mid-2010 that lent me out a nice newish laptop, and while i didn't care much for the job, losing the laptop was somewhat of a downer. so, i took my last pay check with them and used it to get a refurbished compaq with vista on it. this machine was a few years old, even at the time. it cost me around $300, with shipping, which i considered a steal. i just wanted something i could take out of the house; i figured 2010 was about time. while the machine is pretty beaten up at this point - the lamp on the screen has burned out, the hard drive has crashed and the sd reader is unresponsive - i am actually still using it as my general gateway. again: i wanted something cheap that would last, not something shiny and new, and it's worked out pretty well, i think.
life moved in a weird direction for me in late 2011, and that laptop become my primary computer, as i found myself traveling through some weird experiences and living in some unusual circumstances. so, i all of a sudden found myself typing in coffee shops and libraries, something i'd never done before. i also found myself going to more concerts, and traveling further to get to them.
but, when i moved to windsor in 2013, i no longer found myself in need of a mobile option. further, my main laptop became kind of glued to my bed; i didn't really want to take it out of the house. slowly, my laptops fell apart, with shorts in boards and burnt lamps, to the point that i no longer had a mobile option. this became a serious problem in late 2017, when i found myself unable to contact my isp from home (after a move), and without a device to contact them with remotely.
i bought a smart phone in the summer of 2017, but i hadn't used it much and hadn't bought a sim card. it's a waterproof chinese phone with 4 gb of ram - again, i did the research from a distance, knowing what i want and don't want. it was around $130, and i expect it to be the only phone in the house for the next 20 years. but, i found the thing to be frustrating to type on, and i didn't like exposing my passwords in a tim horton's, regardless of the time of day. it worked in a pinch, but it wasn't acceptable in the long run.
i had to move again in the fall of 2018 and this time i decided i needed a netbook. so, i picked up an out-of-service ibm chromebook for $200 at the factory direct. again: cheap because it's at the end of it's life cycle, but a high quality machine that will last for years. the purpose of this netbook is solely for remote use, so i shouldn't be using any of my accounts on it - and i especially shouldn't be using my gmail password. this is somewhat of a contradiction, as the chromebook is of course designed for precisely that reason. i initially thought that just signing is as guest would be good enough, but it cuts the functionality of the machine down; you can't even install ad block. what to do?
i decided that the answer would be to create a fake account and use it solely for connecting remotely with. but, then, how do i post to my blogs, if i'm using a fake account? isn't that the whole point?
i tried the post-over-email option, and while you can expect me to post that way sometimes, the limitations were too great for it to be feasible; i decided i'd need to set up a fake blog, instead, for explicitly posting to remotely. and, here it is.
but, then, why not extend it backwards? i've been on some adventures, right?
indeed, i have, and i'm going to give myself a little bit of artistic license on this. certainly, moving forwards, this blog will only contain entries that are written remotely - from a place that is not my bedroom. further, i have plenty of posts post-2010 that were written in places that were not my bedroom, so i have material to plug in. but, what about adventures before 2010, as i run through the alter-reality? and, what about adventures i've told once i've returned home? do those count? i think they should.
so, some of this will be narrated in real time from some coffee shop somewhere, while some of it will be told from my memory, and may only be somewhat reliable. i think it is nonetheless interesting to isolate this into it's own place, even outside of it's clear functionality.
so, here we have the travel blog, which will be built up the same way as the others, starting in mid-2013 and building in parallel through the alter-reality.
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