Micropolitan

…that you’re relying on to lead you home.

I’ve always found mountains oppressive, the way they carve up the sky; the way they bring on the night just a bit too early or the day a bit too late. Here, though, the impact was less claustrophobic than it was haunting; dreamlike. The silence and darkness sizzled off the pavement as we sailed smooth American highways, chatting endlessly to fill the void.

Somewhere in the night, we stopped at a KOA campground. I had never heard of them, but I think I pretended that I had. I did that a lot back then. Or, I should say…I do that a lot. I usually nod, then piece the concept together using  fragments of conversation and minor visual cues…I just gamble I’ll get there by the time I have to offer an opinion. No idea why I do that. But the place…it didn’t match the conversation at all. It looked abandoned, run down. People spoke in thick accents that I couldn’t penetrate. Shadows developed a musty, woolen consistency as they slapped themselves down amid the shaggy grass.

We paid a guy who seemed to work there, then parked on one of the little sites; in my memory, there was not a single other person around. There were cars and tents set up, but no visible occupants. The giant chessboard from the brochure was empty.  They were showing “Twister” in one of the rickety shacks on an outdated, half-burnt out projection screen. Bill Paxton moved like a ghost, shouting against some invisible force of nature, to a audience of no one.

We climbed back into the van, in the manner that every band in every tour story ever in history does, escaping the danger, and also the beauty, of the world. Letting experience slide off you in the literally stifling familiarity of your vehicle. We ate canned vegetables, continued our endless conversation and listened to music.

We had been playing the same tape the whole time, some Weakerthans music that hadn’t come out yet. Our friends, singing in a secret language we were privileged enough to speak. Words and voices we knew the hidden layers of. A portrait of the place that we knew best.

But here’s the thing: those songs didn’t just apply to home; they felt just as relevant to the haunted world outside our van, as well the one we willed into existence inside of it. They stuck to our clothes just like the scent of foreign foliage, meals, alcohol, and in fact enhanced the actual scents of those things. And here’s the other thing: they didn’t just apply to us, either; every stop on that American tour, every stop on the subsequent European tour, we would hear the words “Weakerthans” drop from some set of lips, the weight moving from one syllable to another, but the level of affection remaining at an almost mathematically precise constant. Time, distance, culture, language: none of these things unseated the firm kernel of universality available in those songs.

Certainly, it can be daunting to dabble in the same art as someone close to you, who does it all so successfully…who takes the raw material, the landmarks, the personalities of your shared experience and absolutely owns them. What’s left, you know? But then you’re huddled in the van with some friends, sharing a small experience with the whole world and it’s like: oh, yeah. All the half-buried envy finally gets fully buried, because this music is awesome, this experience is crucial, and this is the reason you even try to do anything. Oh, yeah…

The future brings many more moments like this; more alien environments and  unusual personalities, more miniscule ideas pushing up against towering, thundering beliefs. More records made, more shows played, more canned food in immobile vans. And so much will change, but the constant is that hope: the hope that you will connect with, and remain connected to, things outside of yourself. That…and the soundtrack provided by friends who show that it’s not out of reach. That you can do this.

I usually find mountains oppressive. But the comfort of the music gave way to sleep, sleep gave way to uncomplicated dreams, and day took hold eventually. We woke to people, whole families apparently forged from the mists of night, wandering the campground, kicking up the dew like tiny diamonds. And it looked alright. I could get used to it.

I Keep Faith.

We were seeing Billy Bragg at the worst venue in the city, one I normally avoid, but for some reason I got in free; Jo must have had tickets or something? Not important. Point is, we were there.

Billy talked about Youtube videos, comedic animal ones. I believe this was a segueway into broadcasting his principled stand against the MySpace terms-of-use or some such timely internet-related bother. It seems like ancient history to even type “MySpace terms-of-use,” but there you go. That’s why we will forever have trouble talking about the 2000s as we move on through history; we will be forced to reference these endless technological and cultural trifles with extreme annotation just to get through the most basic story.

Anyway, then he talked about his son, which I believe was just basically a segueway into more tales of hilarious animal hijinks, which may have at some point led to a song. Definitely there was a song eventually, though I may have it framed incorrectly. I do remember I felt a bit of a jolt when he actually strummed a chord, the feeling one might get watching someone hanging high up on a slowly fraying rope. The rope would fray and fray and you would fret and fret and then eventually the whole slow process would get pretty fucking boring. You’d look around at other stuff or, at the very least, the suspense would sort of evaporate, leaving probably even the person hanging from the rope with a creeping sense of security. Maybe it would even get sort of comfortable, everyone making jokes back and forth, ordering dinner, checking if their bangs had grown long enough to tuck behind their ears yet and then SNAP. Billy plays a song.

Anyway, there’s certainly more talking and kidding about, but I may as well get to my point: sometime in the throes of this, Billy points out a poster for Underoath that says “CHRISTIAN PUNK ROCK” on it and talks about how this is a contradiction in terms; he does this with that same smugness that anyone who trots out the old “military intelligence” saw does. And I have no love for either Christian Punk Rock or the Military-Industrial Complex, but usually these “contradiction in terms” gags are so lazy and non-conducive to an actual conversation that I instantly feel exhausted when someone throws them on the table. But, whatever. Lousy, boring joke, I can handle that; I’ve just listened to the guy talk about a squirrel eating a cookie for 20 minutes for crissakes.

But then he follows it up with “IN MY DAY…,” and I know things are going to completely fall apart and I’m going to have to toss all my Billy Bragg discs in the river in a weighted sack. And: of course. “IN MY DAY, A PUNK BAND WAS THE CLASH!” Well, shit, brother. You have officially lost me. Just like a few years earlier when I was reading an interview with Neil Young about his so-so Living With War disc, where he says, “I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer 18 to 22 years old to write these songs and stand up, I waited a long time. Then I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the ’60s generation. We’re still here.” Or just like when I saw American Hardcore, a tiresome documentary about a bunch of 80s screamers who decided that punk ended at whatever point they became uninterested in it. Or like every damn day I worked at a CD shop, hearing people say how music has sucked since 1966 or 1981 or 1999 or whenever they stopped being 22, whenever their subculture matchstick burned down, whenever the first twist in the plot came that didn’t fully engage them.

We all grow older, we all change. Many of us lack for the time or energy it takes to hear all the amazing new music that’s being produced, especially now, when the venues for finding it are so increasingly self-directed. Or maybe all music is boring to you after your experiences in the trenches; perfectly valid, too. Interest splinters and dwindles and shifts and so on. But it’s important to remember that, a) the world goes on without you, b) young people and old people alike continue to create vibrant art, even if you don’t like or understand it, and c) to the larger culture, or even the smaller subculture, your lack of interest or participation is the last thing that anyone still involved gives a flying shit about.

Thing is, in spite of whether you think punk or whatever died and became irrelevant at some mythical cut-off point when you and your friends stopped going to house shows, it’s still happening. If Sony Recording Artists The Clash are the standard-bearers for your dreams and ideals, please at least recognise that someone who is 15 may have different points of reference, and they may want to engage with things that are not 30 years in the past. They may want to be in and support living, thriving communities of musicians and artists…people who need that support desperately. They may care more about current issues than the dangers of Thatcher and Reagan, as instructive as those histories are.

So, rather than insulting the inabilities of younger artists to respond to their times, perhaps your time would be better spent actually looking for the ones who do, and not just waiting for it to appear from your label rep or on commercial radio. Neil Young may not have detected a single voice responding to war, but I sure heard thousands upon thousands, many more eloquent and more stinging than anything he’s produced in his lifetime.

And, finally, rather than imagining yourself the centerpiece of every movement you’ve ever dabbled in, be aware that no matter how tired a mode of expression may seem to you, it’s still fresh as a daisy to someone else. That bubbling passion that started you on whatever road you’re on? That passion is being felt all over the world, in an 8 year-old kid who just heard their older sister’s band practicing in the basement, or a 15 year-old kid who just got a raging MP3 im’d to them, or a 35 year-old who just finished their 16th European tour.  Because age isn’t the qualifying factor, nor is it the amount of time you’ve been involved. It’s simply belief and interest. You’re perfectly welcome to abandon all of that, but please don’t deny everybody else the opportunity.

Bill. Billy. Maybe check out the lyrics to this song; I believe this is a current artist you’re familiar with. “You have to make great sacrifice for such little gain…” Lots of young people continue to make those sacrifices, sir. Check ‘em out on the Youtube.

Chrisa.

It always felt funny to write your name, like something was missing…like I had hit the backspace key by mistake, or rushed through a letter in my loopy cursive, sloppily melding several characters into one. Even saying it was strange, though I don’t know whether it seemed to drag on a syllable too long or clip off a few too short. Chris-a. Chrisa.

We were walking by the ROM as they were redesigning; you were describing its future contours. You scribbled in the air with your pinky, saying names I had never heard before in a manner that suggested that I had heard them before. “Chrisa,” I said, “I don’t need a tour again…,” but you seemed unable to stop being a guide; you slung your bag around your back as you slithered through the crowd, anticipating and darting through each available bit of space, listing landmarks both historical and personal. Your clothes were so basic and your hair so wind-flattened that you almost went invisible against the distracting rush.

I remember meeting you a year or two earlier, your handful of cassettes with hand-drawn covers, your fingers stained with glitter and paint. You offered your water, a patch cable, a drawing and a place to stay, all in such rapid succession that I barely knew what I was saying yes to. No matter who joined the conversation, you led. The most random assortment of people greeted you by name: gutter punks, little kids, mid-level Canadian pop stars. They all said your name and smiled.

Now, already, you seemed so much older than the day I met you; already an exhaustion had seeped into your understanding of the world. Happiness wasn’t something to strive for, more something to be acknowledged as temporary relief from the darker, natural state of things. The skies darkened, the Earth iced over, friends in Burlington died. Our cab crashed into the side of a truck; you barely took your chin from your palm as you unbuckled and slid out. You brushed off sexual assaults and robberies, your parents’ divorce, your broken thumb, all with the same weariness. It happened, I can deal with it, end of fucking story.

And your dead-eyed diagnoses and predictions were always so hard to refute because you always turned out to be right. I have the first letter I ever got from you, and it shows you had it figured even then; you traced my future just as effortlessly in the sky as any developing architecture, point A goes to point B, so on. You walked me right through it, with the same distracted precision: This will happen to you. It’ll be okay, then all of a sudden it won’t be okay. The likelyhood is, I won’t be around anymore by then. And it’s true, you’re not here, through every fault of my own.

I write this all down, and it feels like I’m missing something. Like we missed something. Or maybe…I just miss you. I miss walking with purpose in the crisp city air, waiting for those little bits of humour to creep into your voice, those little lights to dance across your eyes, even if only for a moment. Those times with you, those couple times a year, they were great; they were more important to me than I could have ever imagined at the time.

Anyway. I heard this song today and thought of you. I pictured you singing along, doing an occassional fist pump, an occassional off-beat tap on the edge of the stage. A big, uncomplicated smile at the chorus.

I hope that still happens for you. I hope whatever does that for you, whatever brings you that joy now…I hope it happens a whole hell of a lot.

Recipes For Mae, Pt. 1

A while ago, my friend Mae made a request for me to cover vegan cooking in my (old) blog. And what better time than today, Norwegian National Vegan Tolerance Day, to launch this new regular feature! So get out your remaining functional cookware, and lets get to it. And a word of warning: we’re going to start lowbrow, but it’s going to get haute pretty quickly, so watch out.


Lets start with the absolute basics. A good vegan recipe tends to fall into one of two categories:
1) Delicious, reasonably constructed dishes that provide bountiful nutrition.
2) Desperate, fevered attempts to replicate bologna.

For this first recipe, I will be delving hardcore into category 2. Here it is: my recipe for “Chicken” “Fingers”.

You need:
1) A block of firm or extra firm tofu (cut into cubes or strips).
2) A bunch of flour
3) A bit of nutritional yeast
4) Seasoning Salt
5) Pepper
6) Oil

There are other things you can add (I‘ll get to that in a moment), but these are the basics.

So you do this:
1) Get a plastic bag. Make sure the plastic bag is not crappy and full of holes.
2) Honestly, make absolutely sure the bag has no holes. I can‘t stress this enough.
3) Put the flour in the bag. Add the nutritional yeast, seasoning salt and pepper in sensible quantities.
4) Put the cubes of tofu into the bag of flour. Raise the bag in the air.
5) Shake it like you just don’t care.
6) When the tofu cubes are covered in the flour mixture, sift the excess flour with a sifter, or, if you’re living below subsistence level like me, your fingers.
7) Deep fry (should you be blessed with the means) or pan fry them with unfortunate amounts of oil. Wear prescription goggles. Cook until golden brown. Then cook them a bit more. Serve.

Options:
-You can marinate the tofu in soy sauce (or Braggs) with a bit of sugar and hot sauce before breading for added flavour. This is highly recommended.
-You can add stuff into the breading like sage or chili pepper or tumeric or whatever.
-You can serve with a lovely sauce…maybe plum sauce or something. Barbecue sauce?

Mae additionally requested that I write these recipes in poem form; I have not ignored that part, I just chose to do it separately. I’ll give this a shot: here is the same recipe in verse. The parameters are that I have given myself 30 minutes to do it from start to finish, and I can only refer to the recipe for inspiration.


Invisible Detours.

There is music, perhaps, or teaspoons, but they are somehow
misaligned. Why believe them? Your own rhythm quakes through you
and you keep remarkable time, for the most part. Hunger,
longing; you wear this armor just to give them form. It’s
terrifically awkward. Remnantal lumber lies in a wet heap outside
the apartment; rodents skitter by on electrical wires. It all continues
to escape your attention

 And the clock, the ringing phone, kettles and pans.
They study impatience. They assume scrappy little
motives and shift to mournful postures. The uppermost shelves
recoil at your touch. Beliefs hiss and harden; globes of
sweat form on appliances. Beneath your skin, things
are in turmoil, too. And isn‘t this how you wanted it.

Elsewhere, servants of landowners cook while the land,
so indentured, drafts a fresh betrayal. Codes appear in
the latticework and in the seams of leaves. What comes next
requires a re-reading: a whistling swirl, a shifting weight,
the cactiform shadows on desert. The gnashing of plates

 And in kitchens everywhere, the identical drama.
These grains of sugar that hew soul to body,
the laminated maps of fire exits, escape hatches,
the workspace obscured by flour,
the haunted bits, the orange peels, the detritus.
The quality of your mercy; you
pick at it gingerly through the evening
and nature, in tender siege
sends you love letters on cones of frigid air.

Well…I tried. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, Mae. Next time: Eggplants. Exact measurements. And more bewitching culinary verse.

With love for the Norwegian work week,
Doug.

Tickets to the Sun.

Hats off, moon. I’ve been disappointed by your eclipses before, but that was pretty top-notch.

I always forget how sloppy and herky-jerky cosmic events can be. But all the factors that go into an eclipse make the final product a total goulash. The colours were pulsing and twitching; the radius of light was inconsistent. The redness was totally random; it looked like a half-assed pencil crayon doodle one minute, then a classy photoshop overlay the next.

I will allow that my perceptions were skewed by the fact that it was minus 8 billion degrees, and sometimes I would be involuntarily sobbing icicles. But reading about it beforehand, everyone was like: it’ll be maybe red or brown or something between 8 or 8:30 and maybe 9? But possibly not. And, honestly, that’s the kind of thing I can really get behind: standing around to see something turn maybe red.

Which leads me to this: I like events like this eclipse because a) they’re awesome but also b) they put things into perspective. Like, for example, how much time, effort and money I spend attempting to entertain myself; going to movies, driving to concerts, making elaborate plans to do this or that, preparing, expecting, etc. And then this amazing celestial thing happens outside my window, for free, and I just stumble out and watch it for two hours, like a belted-down infant staring at a mobile in a carseat.

It made me think of this art project where Rose Marshack sold tickets to the sunset. Like, though Ticketmaster! And she sold these tickets and went on a tour, with all the stuff: shirts, hats, an audio recording of the sunset…and people totally went. Like, paying for things is the only way we can enjoy them, contextualize their value or feel like we’re making use of our time.

But, shit. I have skipped many sunsets to do things like watch a rental DVD of “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Even though if you stacked them up against each other and asked me to rate them, the distance between their estimated quality would be some outrageous digit higher than a kajillion, odds are, on the average night, I will not watch the sunset. I will do something more elaborate, more expensive, but ultimately less fun or refreshing.

So thank you, eclipse providers, for schooling me. Maybe next time I’m stuck for plans, I will be satisfied sitting outside with a glass of water, watching a still cloud. Or sometime when I’m walking around and it’s not minus 99 degrees Kelvin, I’ll stop and appreciate my situation and and enjoy a nice breath of warm, fresh air.

(To be on the safe side, though, maybe shoot me another reminder in 2010.)