You're a sensitive nighttime creature, but it's over

God bless you Cam Dilworth, wherever you are tonight.



Goodbye to the night, hello to the day!

I can't shake this guy

I saw Lee Henderson again tonight.
I was on Carrall Street, taking the first part of the dinner break of my last nightshift. I missed most of the art, but there was still some lingering around, mixing in with the panhandlers, nightclubbers and other Gastown regulars. He was in a closed circle of conversation. I was eating streetza (which has mysteriously dropped back down to a dollar a slice, after rising to $1.25 last January and then peaking at $1.50 this summer). I thought about going over and introducing myself, but then I saw some coworkers and decided to make awkward smalltalk with them instead.
It's the second time Henderson crept into my life today. I woke up sometime before noon to Jian Ghomeshi promoting tomorrow's episode of Q, where Henderson will argue the relevancy of The Catcher In The Rye.
I first read Catcher in the ninth grade, during my one-year stint at Evan Hardy. Henderson was in Grade 12 that year, and was one of the editors of Crampl, the school's literary and art annual that published at least one of my poems and a pencil drawing of Sting(who I had seen in concert the summer before) I may have traced. Probably not though, as I was drawing a lot that year, mostly copying off Keith Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes art. I borrowed the book from the school library, which makes it entirely possible that Henderson and I both read The Catcher In The Rye for the first time from the same volume. Which is interesting and isn't. I dunno, it's interesting to me.
Henderson's got a new book out called The Man Game. It looks good. It looks real good. My current moratorium on new books is really hard to uphold. I reviewed his book of short stories, The Broken Record Technique, for the P-Dog way back when. And also interviewed him via email, which is more like exchanging emails and less like interviewing.
On Sunday, I saw him read at the Word on the Street fair downtown. I laughed a little at a part no one else laughed at, more an appreciative laugh at a fine turn of words than a laugh-at-a-joke laugh. I think he looked at me, but I was way in the back.
About a month ago, co-worker Ryan--the man I've spent nearly every single night with for the last year--told me that I look just like Neal Henderson, "you know, the writer?"
What did he write?
"The Man Game."
This was before the book had even been reviewed by the Globe & Mail.
Oh, you mean Lee Henderson.
"Yeah, whatever. You look just like him. We were riding the bus the other day, and this girl was had his book, and she was talking on her cell. She was saying that the book was kind of boring, but she had to read it for a class or something. And Neal I mean Lee was right there. I asked him how that made him feel, and he...."
And then Ryan shrugged his shoulders.
When I got back from my walkabout tonight, I looked in the mirror. I tried to see what Ryan was talking about. Sure, both Henderson and I wear glasses. And we are both wearing checked button-up shirts tonight, just as we both were on Sunday. That's when I noticed a small patch of stubble I missed when I shaved this afternoon. I looked at the shadows under my eyes, the result of two years of working nights. Two years of being underslept and malnourished and missing out on spending time with my wife (who's only been my wife for two months, but, y'know). That all comes to an end tonight. This is my last night shift. I should be commemorating it somehow, but instead I'm thinking about how close Lee Henderson's shave looked tonight. I'm thinking that he doesn't drowsily scrub his face with an electric razor once every couple of days like some character in a Rebus novel. I'm thinking that he takes the time, uses a hot towel and everything. Maybe even eucalyptus. I bet he uses a straightblade, an antique, with something ruggedly arcane on the celluloid handle. Something like a lighthouse with a sea serpent wrapped around it, or well, probably something that looks like an early Marcel Dzama drawing. (Dzama illustrated The Broken Record Technique, so, like, go figure.)

video: "Shiver" by Giant Sand

Small world, about the size of a poppy seed

Last night I watched Greg and Gentillon, an admirable little film that finally brings some much-deserved glory to Aylmer, Quebec. It's a mockumentary about a small town comedy duo that sets out to conquer the Big City. My jaw nearly dropped when Gentillon went for a guitar lesson and was met by none other than Keith Carman! If you've ever spent any amount of time in the shallow pool that is the Canadian music press (and I think I mean that in a good way), you've probably crossed paths with Carman. His writing has appeared in notable mags like Exclaim! and Chart!, and probably lots of other places as well. He also plays guitar for a kick-ass rock and roll outfit called Maximum RNR. Mostly I knew Max RNR's other guitar playing Keith, Keith Maurik, who was at one time (and maybe still is?) a publicist for Epitaph Records. Despite the fact that they look like total scuzzbags, the two Keiths of Maximum RNR are actually some of the nicest folks you'll ever want to meet.
Keith Maurik is in a few scenes in Greg and Gentillon, but Keith Carman has a pretty large role, in which he not only shines, but gets across the exact impression I got of him the one time I met him face to face (when Max RNR played the Gaslight Saloon in Regina a few years ago): a sincerely nice guy who plays really loud music.

mp3: "I Hate the Cold" by Maximum RNR

Aside from making Keith Carman look good, and providing lots of laffs (especially the fight in the alley), Greg and Gentillon also, surprisingly, made Toronto look really good. Not as good as the Scott Pilgrim books make it look, but, hmmm, Toronto. It's a city that looks not bad. Of all the outdoor scenes in Hogtown, it only rained once. Something to think about.

In the meantime, Vancouver's not so awful. Unless you count the staggering housing costs and consequential epidemic of homelessness (an aside, Frances Bula's City States blog at the Vancouver Sun website is pretty great). But the Black Angels are coming on June 10, and they're bringing the Warlocks! The Black Angels' new album Directions To See A Ghost is out today for your digital downloading, and will be in finer record stores on May 13. If you liked Passover...

mp3: "Science Killer" by the Black Angels

finally, an update on some bands we've previously covered here at ABWAWBA:

Jesse Matheson and the Midnight Snacks will be releasing their brand new CD Pleasure Pounds this Saturday, April 19 at Rime in Vancouver.

The Fake Fictions will be releasing their brand new CD Krakatoa this Friday, April 18 at the Empty Bottle in Chicago.

If you can make it to both shows, you are well on your way to awesomeness.

Thursday are for Jazz

Slow week. Busy week.

I've got a few submissions from musical people sitting in my inbox, but haven't really been making/taking the time to listen to them and figure things out. Working. Writing. Posing for pictures. Thinking about the future. Working towards it.

Wade over at Signal Response has launched a new feature called Today. It's kinda like Twitter, but also not. Wade also recently linked to a conversation between ABWAWBA fave Douglas Wolk and David Hadju, author of The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. I would like to read that book, and I'm sure that one day I will.

Who do I call at Universal Music to come pick up those Hawksley Workman Christmas albums?

I finished Ian Rankin's Strip Jack earlier this week. My fourth Rebus novel. I'm not sure how I liked it. It definitely takes for granted that you are already interested in Rebus and his environs, since the crime angle is not quite as interesting or thrilling as in the other books. I mean, there's not even a corpse until page 65. The character work, however, is very enjoyable and makes the book worth reading for if you're into the series.

Taking a break from Rebus and Edinburgh, I've launched into Dan Fesperman's latest, The Amateur Spy. I suppose it's only a matter of time before we start seeing terrible movies based on Fesperman's excellent novels.

As you already know, we're going to see Wanda Sykes tomorrow night. This is doubly good because A) I like Wanda Sykes and B) it means I'm not going to be at work tomorrow night. It's not that I don't like being at work, it's just that I like not being at work even more.

Walking home last night/this morning, I saw many bats. In the stillness of pre-dawn Vancouver, they seemed huge, but not terrifying like they can seem in the August night out at Buffalo Pound Lake.

Is there a sweeter song in all of jazzdom than Roland Kirk's "The Creole Love Call"? I doubt it. If I was forced by some bizarre new federal law intended to impose someone else's warped morality on the nation insiduously tacked on to an Income Tax amendment to only listen to one artist for the rest of my earthly days, I would probably pick Roland Kirk. So far, no such law exists, but with this government, anything's possible. Eric Dolphy's "Iron Man" is pretty wicked, but not exactly sweet in the same way.

mp3: "The Creole Love Call" by Roland Kirk
mp3: "Iron Man" by Eric Dolphy

Walk Down the Street

I live in a nice neighbourhood. What that means, in this town, is that after 9 p.m., I have to walk a fair way to get a cup of coffee. It also means that on this walk I will see no more than half a dozen homeless people snuggled in for the night in storefront nooks, between dumpsters, and beside the shrubs outside the bank. Oh, I'm sure there are more then six of them out there, but because I live in a nice neighbourhood, only a handful are visible. I walk past the bombed out taco restaurant, but it's still not exactly Beirut over here.

I'm out because it's a Monday night. It's after 11, and though I'm tired, I shouldn't sleep. Not yet. I'm on the nightshift, four out of seven, and if I sleep like a normal person, like a real person, on a Monday night, I'm screwed. Saturday and Sunday, I'm in bed by midnight. Up the next morning no later than 9, but usually earlier, and ready to make at least a half-assed attempt at dealing with the day. But Monday nights are different. Mondays, I have to slow myself town, retreat from the normal world and get back into the nocturnal rythms that hold sway over the majority of my life these days/nights.

So I'm off to the all-night coffee shop. A million times removed from the all-night coffee shops of my youth, this one is populated not by night people, truckers, shift workers, ne'er-do-wells and insomniacs, but by laptop computers. It's a study hall. It's like something out of a Ray Bradbury short story. There are easily 30, maybe even 40, screens casting a weird blue pall against the flourescent lights above. I don't like it. I sit outside.

I've just watched Wordplay, and I decide that my third favourite thing about Vancouver is that the Sun carries the New York Times Crossword. (Though Walter D. Feener's Canadian Criss Cross in the Nat'l Post is very good as well--except when the clues involve the names of actors in Canadian TV series. I mean, I appreciate what Feener's trying to do there, but solving a crossword puzzle just doesn't justify me watching Wind At My Back.) I've never timed myself, but I hear "Purple Rain" in its entirety before I finish. So, it took me more than eight minutes. Probably about 12, maybe 15. On a Monday. So I'm no Ellen Ripstein.

But even at a luxurious 15 minutes, the Monday New York Times Crossword is little more than distraction tonight. Lucky for me, I've got Inspector Rebus in my pocket. Tooth & Nail, the third book, I'll finish it tonight. It will be a long night, and I'll catch myself overidentifying with Rebus. Sitting alone, outside of things, while very much caught up in it all. Tired, but plodding on.

I'm a little worried about finishing Tooth & Nail. I'm finding it difficult to sort out the order of the Rebus books, so I'm not sure which to read next. And I'm not sure if I should read the next one next. At the rate I'm going, I'll be done the entire series (or at least caught up to Exit Music, which seems like it might be the end?) by the end of the year. And where will that leave me? I've got another book anyway. Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life by John Sellers. Which seems to be some sort of Guided By Voices love letter. Which, I don't know, am I really that into it? Do I want to read a book about someone who is like me, rather than someone who seems like me? Rebus I can relate to on a metaphoric level...I've never brought down a serial killer, but I have alienated the people around me while striving to achieve something I didn't really have a lot of faith I could achieve anyway. Sellers, maybe it just cuts to close to the bone.

The book opens with a chapter about why Sellers hates Bob Dylan (amusing enough), which leads to a chapter where Sellers sits at his computer and listens to music. And there are asides dressed up as footnotes. Oh yes, there are. A friend told me recently, "I hate footnotes. Can't stand 'em." At the time, I thought he was out of line. Now, not so much.

mp3: "Walk Down the Street" by Cheater Slicks

mp3: "Fly Into the Mystery" by the Walkmen

It's not Bertrand Russell, but what do you want?

I work the nightshift. Four nights a week, every week, since May of this year. I'm part Travis Bickle, part Bodhisattva. I see the worst and quite often the best this city has to offer about 350 times a night. And I listen to a lot of classic rock.
Things I've learned from listening to classic rock in a room full of constantly changing people:

• Everybody loves CCR. It's totally foolproof.
• Joni Mitchell, not so much, surprisingly.
• If you're desperate to hear the words "Turn it up, man!", lay a little Back in Black on a brother.
• AC/DC, reportedly, has a better song than "Who Made Who".
• That song might be "You Shook Me All Night Long".
• Sometimes Jonathan Richman does sound like Neil Diamond.
• "Coney Island Baby" from the album of the same name just might be Lou Reed's best song ever.
• When AC/DC gets overplayed, reach for the Nazareth (but avoid the ballads).
• People like the Band almost as unanimously as they like CCR.
• If you turn off Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" and turn on Jay-Z's new album, you will get your ass beat.
• Even the toughest thug (of a certain age) will soften a little for the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love".

mp3: "Sunset to Dawn" by the Sadies

Sometimes I Miss Television: Tracking Readers

So there's a new Gordon Ramsay show, and I missed it. It's a US-version of Kitchen Nightmares, and the part of Ramsay is played by Steve Carell. OR IS IT???

Checking in with the reader-tracker for the last week:

Favourite search term leading visitors to this blog: (tie) "rhetorical
terms/comics" and "steven jesse berstein [sic] and explanation of face"
Favourite city to have been read in: San Dimas (excellent!)
Cities in which I continue to be more widely read than my hometown of Regina: Taegu, Kobe, Brooklyn, Viroflay, Calgary, South Gate, Dublin, Pohang
Search term most likely to have led to disappointment: "wrecking ball sound
bites"

Call Me, I Won't Call You and other random stuff

After a full year of having a cell phone, I finally put a ringtone on it. I'm not going to tell you what it is, though. You'll have to hang out with me until I get a call to find out.

I don't get many calls, but I do enjoy the security of having when I'm coming home late at night/early in the morning. I make even fewer calls. In fact, I hardly call anyone at all.

Working the nightshift, I feel out of step with the rest of the world. I'm pretty guarded about my free time, and so I figure that everybody else is too. Like, people probably have better things to do at two in the afternoon--namely, work--when I'm ready to hang out? Maybe I don't give my friends enough credit. Maybe I don't see or talk to them enough to even have a sense of what their daily schedules are like.

Before this turns into a pity party: The point is, if I haven't called you, don't take it personally. In fact, if you have a number to call me at, I'd probably like to hear from you, and I am available to hang out weekday afternoons!

-----

On the way to work, I usually pick up a coffee at that place named after the guy from Battlestar Galactica who was named after Moby Dick. I'm not particularly proud of myself, but what can I say, they've got all the most convenient locations. And now that I've been hitting them up four days a week for four months, I'm kinda hooked on their blends. When I'm ahead of schedule (never) I like to grab my coffee from Blake's, but they're like, three whole blocks out of the way. So I'm at the Bucks of Star, and I see a little sign (really little!) that reads "Like many of you, we've changed to 2% milk". Say what? What is this, 1991? 1987? I don't remember the last time homogenized milk (now more sensitively referred to as "whole" milk) passed my lips. In my parents' house, 2% became de rigeur about the time I grew my first sideburns, and skim took over by the time my shaving syncked up with the lunar cycle. For a company that has a reputation (among rubes, at least) for being near the vanguard of consumer culture, it sure loves its milk fat!

---

Saskploitation link of the day: Recent UFO activity in the motherland.

A Tempting Song

It's the summer and it's hot, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of summer tunes.
I'm sitting on my back porch in a Tricky Woo t-shirt with a drink. I've got a Dan Fesperman novel that I'm reading by the light coming through the kitchen window. The dishes are done and there's a cool breeze. Somewhere down the block, someone's having a backyard party with what sounds like dancing.
I can see mountaintops dimly outlined in the night sky. Not like at Jesse's place, where I was earlier tonight. We ate hamburgers and played Rummy-O. From his balcony, you can see most of the North Shore and all of the mountains.
There's something magical about having nothing to do. You end up pulling out albums you haven't listened to forever and wondering if you're still the same person who bought it.
I bought The Perfect Little Door because it has Ken Vandermark on it, but I'm listening to it tonight mainly for the Portastatic.

The neighbours' motion sensor lights turn on. A raccoon is moving up their yard. He climbs the fence and looks at me, his eyes eerie and glowing. I meet the raccoon's stare.

MP3: "Late Night Wait Around" by Portastatic featuring Ken Vandermark and Tim Mulvenna

30 Under 30 #7: Category: Living People

As Scott pointed out last week, I'm way behind on this 30 Under 30 business. From here, I think I need to blog at least twice a day to even think about hitting #30 by the time I hit 30.
Believe it or not, I actually had grand plans for this. I was going to do some ACTUAL REPORTAGE TYPE biz, like track down stories and interview folks and do research. I might still do some of that, but, hey, let's not kid ourselves.
One of things I wanted to do was check in with my old hero Richard Meltzer. It's been nearly seven years since last we spoke, and nearly four years since I've seen any new writing from him.
As far as I know, he's still in Portland, OR, which is pretty dang close. I was originally thinking of justing going down there some weekend and knocking on his door. But a) that would be rude, and b) that whole passport mess. But now that I'm talking about it, I might as well see some of this through or something.

30 Under 30 #1: The Night is the Future and also the Past

"the night is a liar, it will never be a friend to anyone" Andre Ethier, "The Night"

I'm walking home down Commercial, a little after 4 a.m. It's the start of the day, but it's the end of mine. I'm on my way home, to curse the motion-sensor lights and to try to be gentle with the door.
Fresh newspapers are being delivered to the squat metal bins outside convenience stores, still closed for the night. In the coin-op boxes I see tomorrow's headlines today. I'm glimpsing into the future. It will be another two-to-four hours before the rest of the city knows what I know, but this secret knowledge is useless. I won't have anyone to tell it to until mid-to-late afternoon. By then it will be old news.
It reminds me of Montreal, when I was young(er). When I could close a St-Laurent bar and stumble out into the street to meet newspaper hawkers with fresh broadsheets. I wasn't all that interested in the news back then. In fact, the one time I actually went out in search of a newspaper, I didn't even know where to look for one. I found what I was looking for (a place to live) en route. I remember it as a Wednesday morning, though I have no reason to believe it was actually so.

Adventures in Pandora, Episode 1: WTF

On the nightshift, and sometimes just at home, I often listen to ye olde Pandora on the internet. Quite frequently, I listen to Jon Ronson's Ronson On archives, but sometimes I listen to music, too.
As of right now, I have, um, let's see, 10 stations on Pandora, which follow:

Bad Ass Folk: based on my suggestions of the Mountain Goats, Two Gallants, etc.
Big Pop: which is an attempt to scratch my Andy Kim/Tommy James itch.
Global Psych: this is the newest station, still very ill-defined. Hoping for some Luaka Bop-type stuff. Os Mutantes, Jorge Ben, etc. I've been trying to get some 60s French pop in there too to try to broaden the base.
Herky Jerky: a dismal failure reaching for White Hassle/Railroad Jerk type stuff, of which there is none. So instead, based on the Railroad Jerk entry, I get tubloads of 90s rock, including Hootie & the Blowfish.
Howling Hex: for all things Neil Hagerty/Jennifer Herrema related, I suppose it should be called Truxrox or something, but having it "H" based keeps it near the top of the list, alphabetically.
Mello Instro: another poorly defined station, ranges from Precious Fathers to Tin Hat Trio. Okay, "poorly defined" in this case = "too narrowly definied"
Nerd Rap: De La, Talib, Ghostface, etc
Sweet Country: trying to get countrypolitan, like 70s Jerry Lee Lewis, but the Jerry Lee Lewis stuff triggers 50s r&b, so it's kind of a bust. And the Willie Nelson suggestion triggers Sheryle Crow(e?). So it needs more
Sweet Soul: I plugged in the Dramatics and the Commodores.
Rough Soul: Rufus Thomas to Sugarman Three.

So that's what I'm working with. I'm listening to Sweet Soul right now, and it's playing the Commodores' "Night Shift", which is, y'know, PERFECT. But two songs ago, when I decided to start this entry, it played "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind)", one of my VERY FAVOURITE Soul/R&B songs, only they played the one (I didn't even know it existed, HOW COULD I KNOW?) by the New Kids On the Block!!! And that's why Robots will never rule the Earth. They have no judgment, no sense of context. This Pandora robot just coldly examines quite superficial aspects of songs and doesn't seem to take in to consideration the fact that I am not a 12-year-old girl in the year 1990! In fact, the mere suggestion that I am a 12-y-o-g-i-t-y-1990 should make the Pandorbot self-destruct. And then I could go back to listening to Mastodon on the iTunes.
So now, I've switched to Sweet Country, and it's playing Jay Bennett, who I think used to be in Wilco or somesuch, which has ZERO to do with what I'm looking for in this station, but I think I entered Smog into the computation, which has completely ruined the experiment. Okay, axe the J-Ben, and we get "Why Baby Why" by GeoJones, which is is still a little hillbilly for what I'm after. Fast forward it, though, cuz I still might some 70s George, esp. George & Tammy, whoo! So now it's giving me Merle Haggard (thanks to the Willie, no doubt), CRIPES. Merle gets THUMBS DOWN. Not it life, just for this station. THIS IS SCIENCE DAMMIT. So now it's playing Iron & Wine. GIVE ME ONE BREAK, YOU CURSED MACHINE!
Okay, switch I&W to Bad Ass Folk, right? That's more or less the secondary reason for that station, as a clearing house for most of the stuff that's coming up in Sweet Country thanks to my ill-conceived Smog request (I just wanted to hear "Dress Sexy at My Funeral", which, to me, is a Countrypolitan song).
Okay, Charley Pride, "A Shoulder to Cry On". Nice. I've interviewed CP about three times, back in my music journalist days. I highly recommend interviewing him if you get the chance. He'll tell you a story, and I don't just mean he'll tell a story, but he'll tell YOU a story. He'll take the jist of your conversation, and find some anecdote that will sublimely express the very thing you were wondering about, only he won't actually answer your question, and he'll take LOTS of sidetrips in making the point. But it's wonderful. And if you can get tix at a decent price, go see him. He wears awesome sweaters, and still sings great.

DIRECTOR'S CUT BONUS MATERIAL CHARLEY PRIDE PULL QUOTE

Each night that I go out there and I hear that applause and appreciation, it's just like it was the first time. I love what I do, and I think that permeates out to my fans and right back to me. They love it, and we love doing it. It's a good marriage.

Okay, let's move over to the Howling Hex station...what've we got? Old Time Relijun, YES! Skronky w/o sax (at least no sax yet). I don't think these guys have any actual connection to Trux, but I dig their spirit in the same way. There's a sort of rock-as-freejazz, but not really aesthetic. Next up, the Minutemen, which, okay, that's closer to OTR than Trux for nu-jazz fakeness and turbull singing, but okay, yeah, plus the Meltzer connection (D. Boon had a Meltzer pome in his pocket when he died, sad, huh?). So now, Erase Errata, who, um, I think my brother likes these guys. I get why Pandorobot is playing this, it has that same syncopated Zappa-like swirl thing, but it's a little to proggo for me. So skip that, and now it's Tricky Woo, which I plugged in as a variable. Only, Pandora has a very poor selection of CanRock, and they only have Tricky Woo's hair metal album, First Blush, which I like, but, um, I don't think I like the stuff that it triggers, so maybe I should take it out of the equation. So now I get Chavez, which has nothing to do with anything except 90s alt-rock (i think they toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, blecccchhhh). So this station is broken. TIME TO MOVE ON.
Let's see what Herky Jerky gives us...Clem Snide, okay, I can kinda see the Railroad Jerk connection there. Very Brooklyn-y, very, um, rootsy but also wordy. Urbane. Or as Pandorbot sez: "features subtle use of vocal harmony and electric guitar" GREAT. NICE TO PULL OFF THE PANEL AND SEE THE MACHINE AT WORK. But I kind of like "End of Love", so who cares WHY, let's just listen. Back to the Nat'l Post cryptic x-word, which feels reallyl easy this week. Anagrams are always the easiest for me, because, y'know, the answer is LITERALLY right there. I mean, Withdraws corrupt decrees (7)...
Who the hell is Karl Blau? Sometimes I think Pandorbot just makes shit up to piss me off. NEXT!
Global Psych, okay, this one holds the most promise of actually introducing me to new (to me) music, since it's sort of a (fake) genre that I'm only sort of casually into. Zuco 103, sorta triphoppy, foreign language, I like. Sez P'bot: "features minor key tonalities, portoguese lyrics and synthesizers", which are all things P'bot believes I dig, so: RESULT!

BONUS CHARLEY PRIDE PULL QUOTE PART TWO

When I first got in to the business, people would always ask me, 'How does it feel to be the Jackie Robinson of country music? How does it feel to be the first coloured country singer? How does it feel to be the first negro country singer?' I'd say, 'I don't feel no different.'