No rain for months, then in a moment
a skyline hanging low
like parchment cracking
and clouds strewn
discarded newspaper
and starlight
underfoot,

crackling spitting cool
letters forming
sentences on a
page flickering flame
at the edges,

the end of its
story a wordsmith
hanging seven
colours out
to dry.

Thanks to the generous donation of time by Geof, our lovely site admin I now have the good old-fashioned mailing list working. I can hear the collective sigh of relief - or was that a scream of horror? I don’t really know. Suffice it to say that this is merely a test post to see if everything is working properly.

If you’d like to subscribe and I haven’t already forced subscription upon you, there’s a nice little box on the sidebar that’ll let you do just that. I don’t know why - it just seemed like a good idea.

I just thought about people judging from appearance again, thanks to the Rumor Forum. More in the context of how I look at girls - if I look at them at all - than in the context of what people wear and what value judgements one makes based on that. But it’s the same - I judge people by how they look all the time, whether right or wrong - and people judge me.

The thing is, there are certain things you can objectively judge (at least most of the time) from the way people dress, but there are several questions I like to ask myself when doing that.

1) Is this helpful? What is my judgement prodding me to do? What impetus does it give me? If I see someone dressed in such-and-such a way, does it make me want to ignore or avoid them.

2) Is it right? Am I walking over lines here, predicating my own feelings and experiences on someone else’s mode of dressing?

3) What are my motives? Why the judgement? Why not ignore it altogether.

Those are some questions I like to ask. I know people are always going to judge by appearances, quite frankly because it’s a lot easier than judging someone’s heart by getting to know them.

So you can call me a prep, punk, goth, slut, fool, or whatever four-letter stylistic designation you like. I don’t mind. I have people who love me in spite of that.

Thank God for friends. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. Me and Nick took a long walk and basically ranted - to borrow a phrase I graciously attribute to someone else who will not be named - about life and the complications and tension of it. He played the role of councellor and I played the role of patient, and at the end of it, the decisions in my head seemed the more clear for it. The things that seemed twisted became straight, and I feel like a new man.

Let me ask you: are you afraid of emotion? Is logic better? Do the emotions get in the way? Answer me this riddle.

For all you Americans wondering about the great beers that you can’t get in the US, here are a few of my favorites: Rickard’s Red, Alexander Keith’s India Pale, Sleeman Original, Guinness (I know, you can get it), Creemore Springs Premium, Rickard’s Honey Brown, and Sleeman Honey Brown. These are beer that, if you ever come to Ontario, you must try. Without exception. Every one of them, though preferably not in one sitting.

And I’m out - have a great night, all!

I just got finished tracking the song “February” (you can read the lyrics under in the archives, if you’d like). I tell you, I get really sick of playing the same guitar track over about seventy times, but hey, you do what you gotta do. Not to mention that I’ve still got this wonderful cold which makes me sound like a busted frog when I sing. However, the lucky green gino shirt came into play, and everything sounds wonderful.

Let me, for the layperson (me, a couple hours ago), explain my setup. First of all, I have no monitors. That’s right - no monitors at all, except the kind of monitors that attach to computers and display information, but by monitors I mean “speakers designed for this sort of thing”. I’m using the nice system that came with my computer (by Yamaha), but it doesn’t exactly give me the full sound - for instance, the noise I know is there from my computer and laptop is showing up in the headphones, but not on the speakers, so that’s a bit annoying. However, I shall remedy that as soon as have what I like to call “money”.

Anyhow, I’m using my Shure SM-57 mic to record with, and get this: I don’t have a mixer, either. My mic is plugged directly into the 1/8″ sterio jack on my laptop, which happens to give decent sound, thank you very much. I’d like something more… direct and designed for the job, but I’m a starving musician and don’t have the cash for it. Although I have three pretty fast computer sitting around here. So my mic is plugged in directly and I’m basically recording directly into Acid Pro 4.0.

I started with a good old fashioned click track to keep me on time, and then recorded the guitar track. Remember, I only I have one mic. I’m still trying to get the positioning right (and the levels, come to think of it), but it sounded good. I had to record it at least five times before I got something I even liked - I’m no guitar mystro - and then I went to the vocal track. It’s a pretty simple song. I also had to record that several times before I could combine them and have it sound like a guy singing with a guitar, not some screeching bird disembowling a small rodent.

I screwed around with the EQ for a little while, working mostly on the high shelf for some technical reasons, and now I’m taking a break from this process. It’s good to do something, not just lounge around and wait for the night to fall so I can head over to the Irish Pub and sit down with a pint and read a book in the (relatively) relaxing atmosphere.

Also, for those of you who wonder if you’re ever going to hear this track, yes, I’ll post it somewhere when it’s ready for semi-public consumption. And if you’re wondering if I’m planning a wonderful career in showbiz based on this track, no I’m not. There’s quite enough people in my family pimping their songs around trying to break onto the scene. I’m going to copyleft them with Creative Commons and let people do what they want to do with them, if anything.

The end.

This is how it works: it comes and goes,
always in the wings, it ebbs, it flows,
and we should work together.
Don’t you call it love and keep it in.
A battle never fought you never win.
But we could fight together.

You trade risk for peace.
I’ll taunt the karma police.
You set out the fleece,
but we should live together.

If I were a path and you the tread
would the gravel here be running red?
Oh, we should walk together.
Don’t you call it love and let it die.
A decent animal, no air supply.
We should breathe together.

You trade risk for peace.
I’ll taunt the karma police.
You set out the fleece,
but we should live together.

These words red in their birth and painful,
screaming their sour lungfuls,
calling you February.

You sift laughter to find me frowning
and point out the words as reason,
calling me February.

But it’s not you, it’s me, I am getting bitter.
But it’s not me, it’s you, you are getting better.

These words green at the heart and hoping;
lean rings for desert seasons;
rooted in February.

You paint these coins into a corner;
afraid of admitting interest;
buried in February.

But it’s not me, it’s you, trying to be bitter.
But it’s not you, it’s me, tying it together.

So tell me now, what’s the use
of having these muscles that you never use.
So tell me now that you can’t discard
how it works, how it got so hard.

You’re so screwed up, you can’t deny it,
but I would have walked you through it,
if not for February.

I’m so broken at every nightfall,
I’d love you again, I promise,
maybe in February.

If it’s hard then it must be better,
so your letter said inbetween the lines.
It doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger,
you’re no longer feeling so alive.

Oh, you’re building a wall
you’re building it all around your heart.
Oh, you’re digging a moat,
keeping remote, filling it with sharks.

If you’re lonely you must be growing,
if you’re flowing backwards up this hill.
When you make my decision for me,
will you warn me just before the kill?

Oh, you’re building a plane,
trying to stay sane and logical.
Oh, you’re in this place,
trying to face the impossible.

And I am writing a song
about how, about how you’re wrong.
And I am building a fence
to the tune of how you never make sense.

It’s alright to be in love.
It’s just a figment of your imagination.
And true love doesn’t really exist.
It’s lifelong movement to incarceration,
It’s alright to be in love.
It’s just a thing you feel until it’s faded.
But you will bind its cord around your wrist,
and love the way its strands are braided.

If it’s easy, then it’s mistaken:
nothing taken, nothing given in.
It doesn’t kill you, it makes you harder:
and the martyr twists with a broken grin.

Oh, you’re building a wall,
you’re building it all around your heart.
Oh, you’re digging a hole
all round your soul and filling it with sharks.

You can have a piece of me to keep,
if the peace would only help me sleep.
You can have a piece of me to hold,
to steady your hands as you grow old.

I’ve fallen in love. Not with a girl, of course, but with a collection of songs: Mae’s “Everglow”. It’s an amazingly, heartbreakingly beautiful disc, especially the second track. Exquisite.

The world is also too small a place to live quietly. A lifetime’s too little to not live out loud, to walk on the edges of nothing and everything. Eternity may be looming and casting shadows over the now, but the now is what we’ve got in the hand (worth two in the bush); I, for one, want bright colours and strange hairdos and good wine and friends and church family and loud music and sharp poems and demanding emails and half-baked schemes and humming tires over pavement and vistiting India and writing so that others will understand and a thousand other things you shouldn’t ever want to miss!

I dare you: say that all in one breath. Go somewhere and shout it - maybe somebody’ll hear it. Maybe they’ll think you’re crazy.

But then again, who cares?

I must have set my alarm clock wrong last night, what with all the moving around of electronics and such, considering how I woke up thinking it was 7:30am to find exactly how wrong I was as soon as I stepped into the car.

This morning’s breakfast was McDonalds - I admit it. Should I stop doing that? I think so. McDonald’s food always comes back to haunt me, and a good bowl of cereal and a glass of fresh-pressed orange juice is much cheaper anyways.

New York is out of the question right now. Nick and I were going to take a roadtrip there and stay outside the city, taking the subway in every morning for a week to be tourists and try not to get killed in gang warfare and terrorist acts. However, my work graciously informed me this week that there’s going to be plant shutdown at the end of July - which means I can’t really afford to take a week off now with associated expenses and then take another week off in July. That just really won’t do. The vacation becomes, now, the same week as the plant shutdown. And yes, that is very clever.

I’ve decided I don’t much like people that can’t make up their minds: I’ve never had that problem, and I consider it a weakness.

Someday after going to NY, I want to go to Memphis. Yeah that’s right, Heather and Jeff, I want to come to Memphis and possibly gain twenty pounds on that good Southern cooking.

There you have it, folks - that’s my morning so far. I really have to do some work now. Bye.