3 gulls

Glow at midnight,
while at play
over a sleeping city's lights...
Imagine the joy:
your belly under a slight pressure
from the currents of tide that
have carried on into the
sky
.
quiet.

all my feathers have become
mirrors....

whoa. still in victoria.

so here i sit.
typing for an invisible audience, lamenting over being stuck-in-the-rabbit hole i call my hometown.
gotta get on the road again!
considering selling all of my wordly possesions just to buy a motorcycle and ride south...
or maybe catch a train back to new york city?
that small, smoggy island has been on my brain for the last two years just like an unforgettable lover - sick, crowed, beautiful, and....... messy. sigh. my perfect man.

three more months to go! then i'm dropping it all and climbing out.

art postings -- finally!

yo check it out.... these are just a few, painted about a year ago....
just a sample of my work, a vein i was riding and have started to
embrace and encourage. not all i can do, though!

--

Fran Lebowitz - "Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep."

i bite my lip, i scratch my nose

well, that about sums up how i've been spending the last few months....
living in victoria is wasting time that happens to be moving supremely
slow, following the stuttering hands of an island clock.
painting, working, laughing, dancing, drinking wine and sleeping with
men and cats.

i am currently living with two wonderful humans, and sharing a home
with them deserves it's own epic graphic novel. battling with the
energy seeping downstairs from the glass-heads that live above us,
talking with ghosts until four am, sneezing from all the cigarette
smoke and making schedules as to who gets the bed for a one-night
stand (ha! not that steve has to worry - lucky bastard has his own
room! ... and a wonderful sanctuary he's built in there). it is quite
a hilarious experience sharing all of one's space - bed, closet,
Everything - with a woman whom i absolutely love dearly right down to
the very core of her existence..... but am not romantically involved
with. by all definition, we should be! *sigh* the woes of being
straight. needless to say, it's been interesting and i will remember
this time with much fondness until the end of my days.

i know i've been promising pictures from my travels this summer, and
i tried a few times to throw some up here, but it's not working right
now, soooooooooooooo you're gunna have to wait!

i will sail far away.

tie your troubles
to the tide
and wash your woes
in the wind,
for when they return
again
they'll bring
good spirit
within.

so let your worry
ride the waves,
and build a raft
of tears,
for you will see
through the all salt
that we grow strong
from fear.

an hour to kill

an hour and i'm on the road.... i've played a ridiculous amount of solitaire already...... drank so much coffee that it's almost hard to type for the shake in my hands.... wicked, though, to be a few days from home, the back of that car is going to be ssssssttttiiiiinnnnnkkkkkkyyyy with b.o., hahahaha! three crammed into the backseat and me with no boots on, hell, at least then i know we'll have the windows open and fresh air flowing. and music. good tunes, i think a couple of the five (myself included) have tiny-electronic-music-storing-and-playing-devices.... and some iron maiden on tape. shit yeah, i'll be thinking of being in sweaty arenas with friends and early summer rain mixed with smog and loud, loud, loud, watching the prairies roll by forever. daydreaming is a wicked past time. i've been practising quite a bit, lately.... very easy to do in the soo, there's not much else but it sure is quiet enough to listen to your thoughs.... accompanied by bug chatter and green and blue and the sun in your eyes so it all melds together, feeling so lazy from the heat you barely have your eyes open and it doesn't matter, time doesn't exist.
northern ontario is a northern beauty.... the kind from old films where the girl on the farm is more shy than she is gorgeous, and that in itself is like a crisp apple, the smaller red kind, her skin fair and hair dark, eyes so pure from the fear of god and her parents, sweet and unassuming. spending the afternoon riding bikes down small lanes and watching the neighbours go about thier day. a steel plant up the road. a lake a little farther after that. and then one more. and another and another and another and another connected to another and lots of them stream-fed with water as clear as the air.
but
there's no place like home.

sault ste. marie

i meant this stop as a 'quick hello' and foray again on my way west.... turns out kat and adam are driving out, too, leaving on the first. far more interesting than catching the bus! should be fun... a car full of kids flying for gas along the way.... what was that, the thing i heard once about driving across canada, a pirate ship sailing through a sea of wheat... amongs other obsitcles, i'm sure. in the meantime, we're cooking good food and hangin out. went to the lake yesterday, caught some fish, fried em' up, ate 'em down.... yum.
well, that about sums up the sault...
back in b.c. a week from now.... home.

back in toronto

minor stop! finally got out of montreal.... it was a GREAT time, but i kinda got a little stuck, wound up in making montreal MY BITCH (to coin the phrase of sam). i was just about to leave when lo-and-behold, i see good ol' sam from the brickyard, someone i smoked with but never really knew.... oh, how i miss pitchers of phoenix and ms.pac-man! ended up running around montreal for a week, drinking beer, hopping the metro, checking out porno theatres for free and sneaking into warped tour in order to fuck with all the folks working the tents and show some young kids what moshing is reeeeally like.... hahahahaha, man oh man, was that a fun time. i also enjoyed playing 'the spinning game' in a massive thunderstorm and getting absolutely soaked and dizzy-drunk. i like that city. and rent is pretty cheap.

the details

well, i finally have the time to tell some stories in all their full, gruesome detail.... but i guess i'll start with new york, since that's where i just came from.... it's a funny city, not rally as intimidating as i had expected, just big. i suppose all these years of the media pumping it up to be so fast and busy and scary and murderous and backstabbing cold gossip-filled rich rich rich culture kinda got to me. but i found it quite... uhh... quaint? very friendly, at least in the area i was staying in. i booked this hotel online, it was kinda like a hostel except it didn't have any dorm rooms, they were all private (which is AWESOME, considering you then have a safe, locked door to stash your gear behind)..... my room was about the size of a jail cell, complete with scratchy wool blanket and a bed that was too short. it did the trick, though. AND it was right across the road from joey ramone place (yes, i DID get a picture of it for you, zac) down in east village. so i got there at about 11:30pm, ditched my shit (my room was too hot to even think about passing out in there after being stuck on a bus for 13 hours, AND going through customs). so like half a block away i see this window that's all covered in graffiti, the lights aren't on but the neon beer sign is. turns out to be this wicked dive bar, good tunes pumping -- lots of homemade mixed cds in the jukebox, even hank the third -- the beer was kind of expensive, but at this point i really didn't care. it was cold, and i was listening to metal in the dark, i didn't care. this is one thing about nyc that i really didn't expect -- people were really friendly. like, outspokenly friendly, they came up to you and made sure you were being safe and having a good time in the city, it was pretty cool. i did, however, realize fairly quickly that they weren't really used to genuinely nice, pretty girls.... i guess all the hot chicks know it there. cuz after about a day or so (at most) hanging out with any one person they'd start in on me..... ha! not to say that the individuals that i hung out with weren't really cool people, they were, i had a great time with them, but by the end of my week there, i was ready to disappear into the woodwork again.
anyway, so back to the stories, and away from the commentary....
my first independence day:
the morning started off by waking up in the bronx, after a night of drinking at this dude named cable's house, he was pretty rad to hang out with, got me started on all the cool shit to do around new york.... (but also got me freaked about wandering the bronx on my own cuz he'd always insist on walking me somewhere when i was there, said it wasn't really that great of an idea - i'd probably be okay. heavy on the probably). so i went across the street and got some more $1 tall cans -- yes, $1 tallies -- the ones that are thicker around than regular cans, as well as taller... beers from the store, a.k.a. deli, are waaaaaaaay cheaper, but bars are about the same as here, if not a little more. smokes are expensive, too, unless you get TOPS which is rolling tobacco. then it's $2/pouch. pretty much just wandered around for the rest of the day, cable got his friend scott to show me the city, so we walked a bit then went and drank another beer in tompkins park.... at which point a friend of his phoned, mentioning that he had a free ticket to sonic youth(?).... scott, ever the gentleman, got rob to find one for me too and then we were 6 deep in a cab, on our way to battery park by ellis island to stand in a ridiculously loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong line-up (luckily it was moving quite quickly) and then dance dance dance. i mean, i like sonic youth, i've listened to the album daydream nation a bunch, but it's not like i hold a torch for them or anything. LIVE, though, they were the shit. then after the show, it was back to the village, hit up a deli for some beeeeers, and chill on edgar's rooftop, waiting for the fireworks to start..... i mean, how can you go wrong when it's so hot out you feel like you're constantly 'just out of the pool' with sweat, there is cold beer in your hand, and shit blowing up all around you making pretty lights in the sky. good day.
saturday:
napped all day. wandered around come happy hour, questing for the cheapest drink... found (another, though not quite as sensational) dive bar on avenue B called, you guessed it! 'the b-side'.... $5 for a beer and a shot o' whiskey, couldn't say no to that! met a couple of other people that night, good conversation all of them, ended up talking punk rock and politics with a guy named phil a.k.a. henry a.k.a. heinrich while drinking by the williamsburg bridge, looking over at factories on the other side of the river --- i love that dirty, smelly, industrious beauty. gets my ticker goin' every time..... then we climbed up to his roof and chainsmoked while watching the sun come up (yeah, east coast!).......

well well well i still have sunday to tell you all about, but unfortunately i have not slept at all on the bus ride and it is 6am. i will rant another day, now that i have found the cheapest spot to surf the web..... and it's 24 hours.
------ cheers from montreal! (it sure is nice to be back, well, in canada at least).

eye heart new york

okay, gotta make this quick because internet kiosks in the states are hard to find and damn expensive.... but here i am in nyc, staying in the lower east side of manhattan, it's fucking cool. found a rad dive bar right off the bat, mars bar, they're covered in graffiti and have a juke box that's stoked with some awesome tunes... so far i've met a couple other punk rockers, drank beer, hung out in the bronx, got a free ticket to sonic youth, watched fireworks from a tar-covered roof top, drank more beer, sweated my ass off in the humidity and learned how to navigate around the dirty, smelly, nyc subway system.
gotta run -- cheers!

T.O.

yo yo yo.... here i am in Toronto, got in on monday morn', and have been hanging out with my most wonderful aunties and their familes.... lots of laughs and wine and good stories and jokes and staying up until the wee hours sitting in a hot tub filled with clean water and love. it's been fabulous just re-couperating from wandering solo, and although i've been travelling for a good two weeks now, i haven't once felt uncomforable, or foreign.... well, i have felt less-than-comfortable squished into a seat on the back of the greyhound surrounded by roudy assholes trying to sleep at 3am (at least they shared their whiskey). oh! the stories i do have to tell you all when i get back home! and that's  just the half of it.... i must run, however, it's unfortunate that i only have limited times on the net so i can't write them all down here for you while i'm on my way. you'll just have to wait.

CALGARY

i've been staying at a friend's place in calgary for the last day or so.... we've been having a great time catching up since he left victoria, lots of beers and good laughs. i've had a bit of a chance to explore the city while he'd at work, too, which is pretty cool. i've never really spent much time in calgary, and man, it's a funny city.... not really sure how to explain it, but it seems like there's quite a divide between the people. and i find it reather hilarious that while the arts scence (galleries and such) are very conservative, the tattoo community is thriving. meh. anyway, i'll post again soon, but this was just a quick update before i'm off to Punk Rock Bingo!

EDMONTON!

well here i am in edmonton, got here on tuesday, and tomorrow is FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH! mua haha ahahaha i think i ruckus may be in order.... it was so nice to see all of my friends, zac and liam and isha and ashley and cale and michaela oh man oh man oh man did it feel good. we've been chilling out in the sunshine drinking beer after beer in the gazebo on whyte (until we got banned) oh man, edmonton totally IS the texas of canada. twenty-one dollar flats and bored kids who are nice enough to leave us six-packs before parting ways... yeah, it's a good time. off to calgary in a few days, though! hopefully before the week is out... however, we've staying at simon snotface's house and waiting for his weekend so that we can get him hammered in gratitude. so, monday, here we come. love you all, miss you all, sending hugs over the mountains and across the straight all the way to vic.

bah... penticton....

well, here i am at the public library in penticton, hoping to get out to edmonton before 2am.... most likely i will end up there at an internet cafe drinking coffe to stay awake until meeting up with my friends. had kind-of a cool, random time in this town, acctually..... i stopped by to see my friend kev from vic (sorry i missed you, dude!) but couldn't find him. okay, here's the story:

so i get off the ridiculously long bus ride from vancouver (after waiting for three hours at pacific central station), cramped in a seat beside a (lovely) old woman who ate potato chips loudly and sat there playing word-find the entire time.... she was a sweet woman, though, it's true. it's just too bad that i was so stoned outta my gourd so i was unable to function conversationally...... okay, so it's 9:30pm when i land here, don't know anybody (except kev and i have no way to find him at that hour), and i light a smoke only to hear some mysterious guitar riffs coming across the breeze.....

so i walk into a bar called "voodoo's", looking like a scumbag frozen in a pair of headlights. end up talking to some random dudes, they buy me a shot because i look like a traveller.... they got here three days ago themselves, staying in penticton in order to write some tunes and rock out. they were super cool and offered me one of the bunks in the trailer they were staying in..... so needless to say, there were alot of toasted marshmallows consumed alongside some good laughs.

Jody, Jack, Filipe and Luke, glad to have met you boys.... may you rock out where ever you are.

 

Cheers.

vancouver rain

well, here i am in vancouver, the sounds of rain mingling with wind in the leaves and the spleunk of my boots hitting a shallow puddle. i'm staying at my brother's house having one last comfortable human connection before i take off and start meeting complete strangers. the last week has been a bit of a blur, hosting my first art show (pictures and posting to come!) and rocking out to Iron Maiden with some of my closest. it's been an all-round WICKED send-off.... stay tuned, watchers, more adventures to come -- same flea-time, same pest-channel.

yo ho ho, and a bottle of wine! (or three)

here are a few pictures from my last days in Victoria... friends and the like... hanging out, causing a ruckus, and general drunken public debauchery. This is my first time owning a camera, and I like how these ones turned out.

--a conversation with jane-- acrylic & mixed-media on canvas (28X40")

okay, here's my first attempt at A) photographing my work and B) posting it on here.

jane spits spoken word and has a beautiful soul.... i had a chance to paint her as part of an upcoming art show. (in Victoria on May 2nd @ The Project Arts Collective on Fisgard St.)

birth into technology

holy fuck.
i'm not one for buttons, or things that beep in general.... so this feels a bit foreign to be typing the contents of my brain for all the surf-literate world to read.
anyway, i've got a month to go before i dive into a country that i should really know by now. regardless, i don't, and i'm going to create some beautiful shit and learn about myself along the way. you, lucky reader, get to hear all of the mindless ranting and drivel that i am aching to share with my family at home. lucky you.
most likely i won't be back on here for an update until i'm in a panic trying to find band-aids and a p-38.

here goes!