Conversation With Myself #1

I'm constantly having conversations with myself. It makes me think I should become a playwright. Of course, I can never remember anything long enough to actually write it down, with some notable exceptions. I happened to be sitting at my desk with a Word document open while smoking a bowl when this one flashed through my mind. I was therefore able to type it up immediately, and now I'll share it with you oh unsuspecting reader.

“It’s better if you have to suck harder.”

“Oh yeah, why is that?”

“Because then more of the good stuff gets forced down your throat.”

“And what exactly is ‘the good stuff’?”

“All of the white stuff in the barrel.”

“Don’t you mean the chamber?”

“Sure.”


(picture is of Dave smoking my pipe up at the platform)

Wood & Steel

So what ever happened with my guitar shopping excursion? I went to Long & McQuade on the South Granville Rise Tuesday after work and stood staring wide-eyed at all the beautiful wood creations. Eventually a salesperson came up and asked me if I was doing alright. I told him no, that I needed aid, and if he had the time and patience, that I knew nothing about guitars but wanted to buy one. So he introduced himself (Jeremy) and proceeded to give me a condensed lesson in the history of guitars, how they're made, what they're made with, how sound is produced with them, which brands were from where, how they'd change over time, which ones retain their resale value, and which ones had the features I was looking for. Of course, the only stipulations I had were that it had to be acoustic and pluggable. I had done a little of my own research as well, and I ended up spending about 3 hours in the store molesting dozens of guitars. I don't really know how to play a guitar yet, I can still play most of American Pie because the chords are easy to play and remember, but that's about it. Jeremy told me to just 'try on' a bunch of guitars to get a feel for what I might want, and that when I had my choices narrowed down he'd play some of them for me to hear. Hours later, with the help of Jeremy, I picked out The One. We put it on layaway because he thought I should take a couple of days to think about it before spending the cash. Being true to form, I had not picked out an affordable guitar, especially considering I walked in there with the notion of only spending up to about $400. Jeremy wasn't working the next day, so I had to wait until Thursday to hand in my verdict. I knew I couldn't afford it, and my employment contract is up at the end of March, but I figured, if I end up unemployed at that point, I'd have nothing but time to play my new guitar. I started to get very excited about buying it. By Thursday my stomach was fluttering with anticipation and I could barely eat a thing all day. I borrowed a car so that I could pick up my purchase after work. When I showed up at the store I said to Jeremy; "I'm here to pick up my guitar." and he went to pack it up. I asked him to play it a little for me, so he plugged it in and played a few bars of a variety of different styles of music. It was aurally orgasmic, and when he was done I said, "Man, that was fucking hot." And I meant it, this guitar sounds amazing. Plus, it's a gorgeous piece of art whose value should actually increase if I take care of it. I don't have any audio, but I do have a couple of pictures that don't do it justice. So what did I end up with? A Taylor 2005 Fall Limited Edition Hawaiian Koa Dreadnought Cutaway Acoustic/Electric with Koa Top and Expression System (that's its whole name, the Expression System is a unique to Taylor two pickup system, and here's the Fall Limited site). It set me back a cool $2400.00 for the honour of having one. In fact, when Jeremy handed me the case when I was ready to leave, he shook my hand and said, "Congratulations."

Zen & Cleanse

I need to take my mind off of Harper and his Conservative cronies. I think I'll go shop for a guitar after work today. An electric acoustic maybe? Braemar and I want to become a Dave & Tim cover duo. Well, you know, it's stoned ambition, so it's something we like to talk about but will likely never do. But I still practice my Dave singing voice just in case. I should really be practicing my guitar playing instead. I have an old (70's) acoustic and a new (mid-90's) electric at home, but I don't really like playing either of them. The acoustic was my mom's and the electric was a birthday present when I was a teenager who played about 10 different instruments. The guitars just don't feel or sound right to me though, so I'm pretty sure at least one of those problems can be fixed by holding and picking out my own instrument. Now I'm pretty excited about going to the store to touch guitars. I don't really know anything technical about guitars, so I'll have to ask for help and advice. If I'm going to do that, I'd better be off to do some research on what it is I want exactly. I hope to actually buy a guitar today. Once I get an idea in my head, I'm all about spending the money now, regardless of affordability. Last week, it took a lot of restraint to not book a flight to Chicago for a couple of days to see a Doughty show. I'm still considering it though. Money. It certainly can buy happiness for those who don't have enough of it. Rich people try to make the lower castes believe otherwise so that we won't get restless and revolt. If I make enough references to revolution, will I finally be able to start one?

At Least It's A Minority

So the Conservatives won a small majority government last night. Sigh. Harper closed his victory speech with "God bless Canada." That's fucking disgusting. The vote reminded me of America's last presidential election where the rural areas (who are also least likely to be effected by terrorism) voted Republican and the urban areas voted Democratic. Here we got the urban areas voting Liberal and the rural areas voting Conservative. I knew Canada was starting to feel less like Canada, and this election proved it. The rural people have decided that we need a god-love spouting, right-wing, America butt kisser tarnishing our image around the world. I think it's been over 15 years since a Prime Minister in Canada has had the gall to bring up his religious beliefs in a political context. That's not how things are supposed to be done up here, we're happily accustomed to a clear separation between church and state. Harper is all about taking away the rights of women and homosexuals. He's trying to erase the fact that he was always pro-invasion of Iraq. He wants to reduce social spending. He thinks we should be modeling ourselves after America. All this, when the world has finally evolved to a point where we're starting to realize that the opposite is better. I actually feel a little sick to my stomach today. I already feel like I'm living in a different country than I did yesterday. We've switched from a fiscally conservative, socially liberal government to the opposite. For the past 12 years, I've gotten used to living in a liberal left-leaning land. In fact, the Liberals had governed Canada for the majority of the past hundred years. The oppressive cloud of right-wing ideology is looming, and I couldn't be more pissed off.

Globe and Mail column about Harper/America posted on rabble.ca
John Chuckman column posted on Canadian Content Harper/God
Charles Adler's column on the same topic.

A Dog By Any Other Name

Sometimes I have theme days, I thought it was Election today, but it turns out it's Names...unless I post about the election again tonight. Wookiee & Co. have decided to name their dog Otter. Braemar and I do not approve. I didn't think any of my suggestions were great either, but hell, they were better than Otter! Braemar believes that you can't name a pet using the common name of another animal. I countered that you can name a cat Tiger, and he agrees that at least in that case, it's the same family of animals. Now I'm not into absolutes like Braemar, so I wouldn't say that you can never name an animal another animal, I just think that in this case, it doesn't work. I had the opportunity to hear Wookiee use it on the dog in person. It fit even less when I experienced it first hand. Oh well. It's not my dog. However, Braemar and I can not bring ourselves to call the pup by it's given name. We are pulling a Wookiee on Wookiee à la Pimp Dog Rat Weasel.

Years ago, when one of Wook's old housemates, Ttebroc Ttam (a.k.a. Hugs or Huggy Bear), got a cat and declared its name to be Jesse, we all cried foul. While Hugs insisted on calling the cat Jesse, we renamed her Pimp Dog Rat Weasel, or Pimp Dog for short. As far as we were concerned, that was her name. We always referred to her as Pimp Dog and it eventually became her name.

So if Wook had no problem overriding someone's pet naming then with his own preferred name, he should really hold no grudge against us for doing it now. Of course he will though, it is Wookiee after all, and not even his own rules apply to him. Braemar and I haven't finalized what we'll be calling his dog yet, but we both thought it would be apropos to reference the Pimp Dog naming incident, and Braemar likes the idea of naming it after a different animal. So our first short-listed name for the dog is Jesse the Giraffe.

A Candidate By Any Other Name

I hope to not post anything more about the election today...although the polls haven't closed yet, so we'll see about that. On my way home today, I saw a sign for a candidate with a great name. If a) he wasn't Conservative, b) he was running in my riding, and c) this election was not such a close call, he may have gotten my vote, because it would amuse me greatly to have an MP by the name of Tarlok Sablok.

Voting Day

The news has bored me lately. I still read cbc.ca every day, and there actually have been interesting things going on, such as the Pluto probe being launched, new stars around Polaris found, a University of Prince Edward Island professor offering his students a B- (70%) if they didn't come to class, Yamaha Motor Co. was raided by police for allegedly sending military helicopters to China without cabinet approval, the isolated Munduruku people of Brazil have a "spontaneous understanding of geometrical concepts" without having previously been exposed to geometry which supports Plato's chronicled tests of geometric intuition done 2,400 years ago, and the Stardust space capsule, "the first spacecraft to return to Earth with comet dust", arrived containing "more than a million specks of dust from stars and comets". Lots of stuff like that, but I think the problem has been that the election wind down was in full effect, which means that political rhetoric was in high gear. I really tried to tune most of it out, I'm amazed that people learn nothing from the past and still believe that election promises mean something. Regardless, today is the day we all go out and vote (or at least 55% of us) and decide who the next Prime Minister will be. Now that the day is finally here, I'm actually a little anxious to see how it all plays out. I hope this country doesn't go all right-wing on me as part of some reactionary bullshit. Either way, at least the campaign machines will be put back in storage for a little while.

Yours Truly

It's contract renewal time at my place of work. We have many sites throughout British Columbia and they are all sending in renewal applications for continued funding. I can't get into any detail about this process or what exactly I'm talking about because I don't want to jeopardize my security clearance. Don't worry, it's nothing exciting, so you're not missing out. Anyway, the point is, a lot of the applications come with cover letters. It's basic stuff that most of us have written before and signed off with the common Sincerely, Respectfully, Regards, or something like that. This morning I read one with a great closer, instead of the standard, it's signed;

In a good way,

Brenda

Unnamed Dog

Wookiee and fiancée have adopted a puppy from the SPCA! She's cute of course, playful, and will fall asleep in your lap. She doesn't have a name yet, but we're all coming up with ideas. In other news, 'Kevin' and girlfriend are pregnant! They are both very happy and looking forward to welcoming the new human into the world. As far as the highest marks for cuteness? My money's on the dog. No question.

Magnetic Poetry #2

tell my lusciousness
never incubate peaches

Spageism #3

I've been finding the Spageism posts difficult. Mostly because they are so frequent that I forget to take note of them before they vanish from memory, but also because you can't write with sounds. That said, here is a quasi-Spageism.

I always hope that every new Coke that is unveiled will taste the same as the original Coke. I saw my co-worker drinking the new Coke Zero and asked her if it tasted like the original. She enthusiastically declared it to be, and zealously encouraged me to try it soon. So I did. A couple of weeks later when somebody asked me if Coke Zero tasted like original Coke I said, "No. It's the chemical approximation of what a computer might think Coke tastes like."

Strange Fruit

Sadly, all of my gear and the pouring rain thwarted my ability to take a picture of an amusing sight.

This morning, as I walked from my motorcycle to work, I passed a Durian at the foot of a parking meter.

Cuba: Days 3-5

I got to my Casa at about quarter to 7 in the morning and sat in the front foyer waiting for my room to be vacated. My host said it would be about an hour, so I had a seat, grabbed my travel journal, my Cuban cigarettes, and wrote a little update of arrival in Santiago. The sun had come up and the streets were no longer silent, they were now alive and teeming with people, dogs, cars, and an incredible number of motorcycles. The Casa was right on the main thoroughfare of town just a couple of blocks up from the centre. I watched all the activity through the bars of the front window until two hours had passed. The sweet coffee I had been offered was long gone and I was starting to smoke too many cigarettes trying to stay awake. I watched a man take the little engine of his motorcycle apart, wipe everything down, and put it all back together. It was an unsuccessful operation, as he was unable to get the machine started. Two mornings later, I watched him do it all over again. It still wouldn't run. I wished I had already taken the motorcycle mechanics course at BCIT, then I could have joined him in trying to fix it.

Three and a half hours after my arrival, I was finally admitted to my room. After a shower and a nap, I headed out on my first exploration of Santiago. I ended up going straight to the centre square (Parques Cespedes) and hired a taxi to drive me out of town to a fortress called Castillo del Morro that is on a bluff over the Caribbean Sea. When I got back to town I checked out a bunch of sights: Ayuntamiento, where Castro stood on the balcony overlooking the Parque Cespedes and delivered his triumphant speech on New Year's Day 1959; Plaza Marte, a very busy square which has a monument to the veterans of the Wars of Independence and a constant gathering of locals jamming on a variety of instruments; Parque Abel Santamaria, where there is a large monument to Abel featuring the epigram "Morir por la patria es vivir" (To die for your country is to live) next to a field where myself and two kids watched a big group of boys playing baseball; and The Cuartel Moncada, the building that Castro and his revolutionaries unsuccessfully stormed on July 26, 1953. The Cuartel still features bullet holes from the battle, and one of Castro's guns from his time in the Sierra Maestra is there which has carved in it the national flag and the inscription "Vale mas morir de pies a vivir de rodillas" (It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees), and while this initial attack was a failure, it lead to Castro's historic "history will absolve me" speech, won him widespread support, and set him on road to victory. These were really all the 'sights' I wanted to see in town, and I reconfirmed my theory that I tour too quickly. I guess I'm too used to only being able to afford quick trips (like the two day weekend I spent seeing everything in D.C. and taking a bus to Charlottesville, VA and back before catching a plane home to go to work), which isn't so bad I guess, because then I have lots of time left over to not be all touristy and just absorb the locale instead. That night I had one of the longest, most intricate, interesting, craziest dreams I've ever had.




Over breakfast the next morning, I was furiously writing the story of my dream before it was lost in my brain forever when one of the other guests, a young woman from Guantanamo who did not speak English, struck up a 'conversation' with me. We ended up exchanging addresses, and I absolutely must remember to send her a postcard. The next day I decided to try and find the Cemerterio Santa Ifigenia where Jose Marti's mausoleum is. It's not on my map, but I knew it was 3km northwest of Parques Cespedes, so I grabbed my compass and just started walking out of town. I found the train station along the way, and ended up walking through the mud hut slums on the outer edge of town before I finally found the cemetery. As I was leaving I got to watch the changing of the guards at the mausoleum. They do it every half hour to the sound of blasting revolutionary marching music. After that, on my way to the Plaza de Revolucion on a bicitaxi, some guy sitting in a doorway yelled "Hey lady! I saw you in Havana!", he looked familiar, so maybe I talked to him, so I just shouted, "Oh yeah! Hello!" and waved as we passed each other. My ride was through more of the same poor neighbourhoods, places that are not at all like the poor city dwelling areas. Nobody treated me with contempt or scorn for my obvious wealth in comparison, though somehow I felt like I should have been. It's remarkable how these places seem so untouched by the kind of anger, greed and resentment that I'm used to in the western world. I felt perfectly safe everywhere I went, even late a night, in places that I would likely absolute avoid by day in North America. The Plaza de Revolucion has an enormous monument to Antonio Maceo in it. It's a 16 metre steel effigy of Maceo on a rearing horse atop a jade marble staircase that is backed by dozens of even higher steel machetes that represent his rebellion and courage. I walked the few kilometres back into town from there and ate dinner at this fabulous Paladares. I took a seat on the narrow little balcony and ate the standard pollo frito with the usual beans and rice accompaniment. After dinner I had a seat in a doorway across the street from the famous Casa de la Trova and listened to the wonderful music being performed. The club is on the second floor, and I could see the musicians and people dancing through the open doors that let out onto a long balcony. After two sets, I walked the two blocks back to my Casa and called it a night.




I spent the next day wandering about Santiago and even walked way east out of town to where the rich people used to live. It's now just crumbling mansions, but the roads are wide and leafy. It was very peaceful and beautiful. That was it, just walked around looking at stuff, listening to musicians, keeping my eyes and ears open. I gathered my pack in the evening and walked out of town to the bus station to wait for my ride back to Havana. I watched two hours of Cuban television, which was fucking fantastic! Saw the end of some kind of cowboy movie/show, a little public service announcement/cartoon about how programming directed/suitable for children was now over, the news, and lastly, a show dedicated to the upcoming New Year and Liberation Day celebrations that featured different bands, singers, and dancers. The bus was not at all full so I got two seats to myself, but it was so cold that I could barely sleep a wink. This bus stopped in many places, which was cool to see, but proved that I was not on an express line but the 16 hour route. A very sleepy, tired, hungry, thirsty Spage arrived in Havana at about 2 p.m. the next day. I didn't even care that I was being hosed for the cost of my ride back into town from the station. When I got back to my Casa, I didn't stop, just turned around and left again because I knew I'd just pass out. It was December 31st and I was back in Havana. I wasn't about to miss a thing.

Rain Record

I'm not sure I can recall ever seeing this many Vancouverites excited about a month straight of rain. Most years people are indifferent. We're used to the constant rain in the winter, but excited? That's rare. Locals have been hoping that a 1953 record of 28 consecutive days of rain would be met and surpassed. Yesterday would have been the 28th day of rain here, but it was disappointingly sunny all day. The kicker is that it's been raining all night, and it looks like it will continue to rain all day, and through the week. Our record attempt has just started back up at 1 day of rain. The city mourns. Or as my friend put it, "It sucks! I wanted it go 40 days and 40 nights, build and ark, and get all Noah on your ass!"

For the record, it did actually rain in many parts of Vancouver yesterday, just not where meteorologists measure rainfall.

Random Quote #3

I don't recall how it came up exactly, but we were sitting around talking about Gretzky. Someone said something about him not playing anymore, or in a specific event, or something like that. Wookiee, explaining the power of Wayne replied, "The Great One, doesn't need to play."

Cuba: Day Two

I had tried to get a train ticket to Santiago, and after hours of searching for the ticket booth, trying phrases out of my Berlitz book, and miming my questions, I discovered that all trains to Santiago were cancelled for the rest of December. Great. Plan B it is. I then had to run all over town trying to track down a bus ticket, it was of great importance that I get to my destinations as planned because I had no place to stay in Havana if I got stuck there, and the town was full up. Everywhere I went, the answer was the same, the bus was sold out. Fuck. I waited at another terminal for an hour and the woman said she'd take down my ID (you're constantly asked for your passport in Cuba) and I could come back later and try my luck as a standby passenger. I spent the rest of the day walking the Malecon from Vieja to Vedado and then explored that end of town, all while hefting my pack with me. In the evening I made my way back to the bus terminal and sat for an hour while watching Cuban children's television. It was all about teaching the kids how to sing and dance. Finally, I was called up, and told that I got a seat on the bus. What relief! The bus was packed, there were even people standing in the aisle (who weren't going as far as I was). I settled into an aisle seat with my pack on my lap, and we started out on the 12 hour journey. They played a movie on the little screen up front as we left Havana, it was The Real McCoy starring Kim Basinger and Val Kilmer with Spanish subtitles and no sound. I'd never seen it before, but I got the gist of it. The air cond was cranked on the bus, I didn't get much sleep, and upon arrival in Santiago at 6 a.m., I felt both cold and sweaty. An Indian girl from London, Nav, and her travelling companion, Yani, a Cuban who spends 6 months of the year in London teaching salsa dancing, offered to share a ride into town with me. We got into an old jeep with no doors, or roof (it was basically just the frame of the jeep), me and my gear hanging out the passenger side, and the other two girls sitting on a pile of their luggage in the back hanging on for dear life. I got dropped at my Casa, and never saw them again.

2nd Avenue Deli

I can't believe it's gone! Or at least this is the rumour I've heard...can anyone local to New York confirm or refute this?

Havana: Buildings & Streets

Not a street or building, I know, but he was on a street.