The trial of Squirrel

One memorable Saturday evening, Ashley Dawn and I attended slam poetry at Mercury Lounge in hopes of feeling inspired. When it was over we felt great. We headed to the Dom and ran into the infamous Jason Squirrel. He's always been a hoot and a riot when he's drunk. These are snaps of his never-ending battle with his wool sweater. I'm not sure if he ever tied it up.

One. Solo mission.


Two. here comes the distraction.


Three. conversation errupts


Four. conversation continues


Five. frustration sets in.


Six. give up the dream.

colours colours colours

BUY NOTHING DAY

is this FRIDAY NOVEMBER 26TH in NORTH AMERICA! And the 27th internationally.

I'm trying to think of ways to celebrate this day. Ways to influence even the smallest portion of the consumerist's wheel and put things in motion. Some have suggested dumpstering. Others have proposed placing pylons in front of targeted stores such as Wal-Mart. I even read one idea (for Americans) to walk into large US banks and strip naked.

Adbusters is pushing this day to help with the environment, moral fibre, standard of living, integrity, revolution, evolution, rebellion, for the children, for the elders, for today and for tomorrow.
Pick a motive...whichever you choose, do something about the effervescent entity that is capitalism. Help to put a cap on it, shake it up again, and turn it into something else.

We continue to be a part of the problem. We continute to aid in the swelling of the demand for things that are irrelevent, expendable, and lavish. When we do this, we create more supply, waste, pollution, poverty, inflation, recession, depression, plagues, and regression. If we don't show up, they won't build it again. If we don't buy it, they won't make it. If they don't make it, they won't advertise for it.

If you take part in BUY NOTHING DAY and thrive on the variance then perhaps you will find satisfaction in altering your consumer ways every day of the year. It's simple. Whenever you can, thrift shop. Go to thrift stores for your clothes, housewares, books, whatever! It's a greener way to shop and often supports a noble cause. In the summer, hit up garage sales when you're looking for furniture, or estate sales even! These are ways to purchase essentials under the radar and outside of the system.

For details check http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd and sign up for a meeting near you.

retreat

She stands there. Lamp posts lay ahead of her, shrinking in a line.
Go to this girl. Go!
to her and see what you yourself are afraid of being.
Look to her when you ask "Who is going to be my revolution? "
And she holds no stiff and long shaft to defend herself on a day when
She finds herself in a vice of two genders.
Two people she is supposed to be just to be
The one person she wants to be.
And is
The person you would be if you fled the scene of your systematically
Choreographed
masquerade
that you claim to be the purpose
Of your life
Of your meaning
Of your plan.
She will not avoid the hobo, even in the night when
Shadows and imagery are no longer useful.
She has confidence in the nature of her race.
She dissects all stereotypes and judgements to a grain
And it is soluble
And edible
And tastes of sovereignty.
And she is then clean of it after this ritual
When she can love something in everyone.
And is free to discover that which many people don't see in others
As they have reservations about the poet,
the prostitute
and the skid.
I will go to her
And to her I will become the anomaly that conforms
to a sensible
a better
a worthy
representation of herself.

moonstruck

I don't sleep. I have not been able to sleep a good sleep in years. Instead, my face burns, my cheeks are a stained pink, and I constantly turn the pillow over in a hunt for the cooler side. I stick my foot out from under the blanket. I put my feet at the head of the bed for a change of scenery. I do all of the routine things most people do when they are faced with a night of restlessness. Do any if these strategies ever work for anyone? Why do i repeat this ritual if it has failed me so loyally? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Dammit Einstein, must you be such a judicious mad scientist? Of course you must, especially with a name like Einstein.

On nights when the tears are too plentiful for my eyes to read pages in a book or to write pages of my own, I gravitate toward the mirror. I stare at myself...I stare at me... at my absolute worst. I watch my eyes turn a bloodshot red and puff up. I put my hands to my cheeks as if to assume the "poor me" position. And on occasion I provoke dialogue. Yes,this is a fancy dancy beat-around-the-mulberry-bush way of saying "I talk to myself."

To say I talk to myself, however, is a misrepresentation. I definitely talk while I'm alone during an episode, but I am not talking to the frail figure in the mirror. I'd go so far as to say that the girl in the mirror is stronger, and talking to the girl standing in front of her, begging for empathy. Every time I'm there, conversing with the reflective surface, I'm telling the dumb-ass emotionally overwhelmed narcissistic borderline psycho that she is undoubtedly a dumb-ass narcissistic psycho. In short: I take part in malevolent self-talk.

Disregarding how absolutely awful, cruel, and contradictory this self-talk may seem....it usually calms me down. Perhaps it's humbling to see myself while I'm not quite myself. I tend to judge the girl I'm looking at and out of spite I try to prove her wrong...to rise to the occasion if you will. To "snap out of it", get to bed and go fuck James Dean in my dreams.

There's a very large and almost overwhelming part of me that says my psychiatrist would have a problem with this self-soothing method. I can't understand why...I mean, who doesn't need to give themselves a good kick in the cunt once in a while?

frenemy? try foodemy!

I've taken to a new leisurely activity... that is: to be honest with myself. I may weigh only 93 lbs. I may be a vegetarian who is quite strict with her diet. But I also adore eating. So when I eat, I over eat, because I'm like those little sex addicts...you know those things we call rabbits. Rabbits have no intellectual or physical capacity to know when they've stuffed their faces enough. They also disperse fecal matter while they eat (they quite literally shit where they eat).

The other day I had a caprese salad... and marinated tofu.... And (drum roll please) more cheese. Yes I realize cheese is awful for you. Yes I realize it is fattening. I'm also aware of how disgusting the concept of cheese is, trust me, I'm aware! But everything about it says "I want to be inside of you" So, if I'm being honest with myself about my diet it's that I've fallen off the wagon and I probably shouldn't complain if my stomach isn't what I want it to be or my love handles have made a comeback. It's nobody's fault but my own...or rather the crooked and corrupt dairy industry's fault. Damn you and your incredibly delicious tasting smoked gouda and creamy double-churned goat's cheese.

But seriously, why should I be eating something from a goat? What an odd concept. Mammals are gross to begin with, but our species is the only species that take it to another derogatory level. They start us off as mild cannibals with the breast milk feeding and nipple gnawing and all that Freud "I secretly want to marry a woman who has the same tits as my mother" bullshit. And then suddenly that becomes taboo and we are expected to drink cow's milk that is not only 130% more fattening and full of BHT from a cow that has never seen the light of day but also probably contains carcinogens (because everything causes cancer nowadays) and really we are all just slowly committing suicide. So much of our food today makes me say "I forbide you to enter my little belly!!!" and then sometimes I am bad and eat it anyway...like cheese...fucking cheese!!!!

And you can't trust anybody. You can't trust eggs they're awful for you too, not to mention how awful it is for the poor hens in the factory farms. You can't trust yogurt, that is just insanity! And you can forget about coffee, unless you can sleep at night knowing what those poor farmers in South America go through just so you can get the jitters and stay awake. The only way is a purely organic diet, plant based, and if you can..keep it local.

Except for the coffee part of course. Try and find a local roaster who purchases organic fairly traded coffee, or even better, who work as a CO-OP with their farmers. There's nothing like having your coffee roasted on site, right in front of you. I had the pleasure of going to a roaster in Almonte, Ontario, which is coincidentally only 20 minutes from my house.

Here is what a fairly good sized roasting machine looks like:



And here is what the coffee looks like before it's roasted:



The above coffee is from a co-op farm in Ethiopa. This coffee tastes spectacular.
So the only way to win is to be a good person I suppose. Think of the farmers, think of your own body, think of the animals!!!

And no, I am not on a caffeine high right now. I have had to drop the Joe habbit and replace it with all natural herbal teas. The last time I had caffeine I was at Ashley's house and I puked up my Orange Pekoe. Yes. It was a tragic day, the day I bid farewell to caffeine.

I did not intend to preach, but I suppose I may have done so a little bit in this here post.

HOWL -- Premiers November 5th, at Bytowne Cinema

Next Friday is opening night of "HOWL" at BYTOWNE! I'm counting on this film to inspire me, re-invite me into the world that was the Beat Generation, and to re-read all of Ginsberg's work.. I have quite a bit of faith in James Franco to portray him well, after all, he did play James Dean. Not to mention that writers/directors Rob Epstein and Jeff Friedman have lots of experience making documentaries in the past, so I have a feeling this will be mockumentary style with just the right pinch of drama. I'm very very very eager to see, not only the performances, but the way in which the film is written and what it is about Ginsberg that they will focus on. It's no secret that Allen was an oddball...But how much of that will shine through in HOWL?

For showtimes check out http://bytowne.ca/movie-calendar

please, call me Downer.... Debbie Downer

I'm asking for a revolution of my dreams. to sleep in a basin of new ideas. progress and assertion and all the things I need to feel alive when I'm awake and asleep when I am in suspended consciousness. homo sapien sapiens have this inert ability to derive everything they need from everything around them. self sustainability is obsolete. post modern world is nothing more than ideas metamorphosed into some other version of its original self into another remix of its newest update and it never ends. It doesn't stop there.

What did this world do before ideas belonged to someone else? Where did it all begin? How did it begin? The first thought, the first creative thought...the first sign of hindsight...the very first song. The aboriginal expression of emotion and of inner existence. Who are we now? How do we define ourselves?

There's this thing we do called "communication." but really it's just "regurgitation."

The literal definition of regurgitation often pertains to puking up your food. Food is a thing creatures use as fuel to stay alive and function. Fuel is a thing cars need to remain mobile. Cars are a thing humans use to become mobile. Humans are a thing Earth doesn't need.

We are at the bottom of the chain, no matter which way we look at it. Who the fuck needs US?

Shit, I have some serious pessimistic doctrines.

Good thing we have almost wrapped day 12 of filming. I can finally get to sleep at 8am.

I don't care... I want the iPhone.

snap from my iPhone.

this film gig seems to welcome a lot of down time. A sign that someone is experiencing a time of "down" is the elevation of their feet onto their work station as I have displayed so informatively in the photo below.



For some reason, the human race has decided that this is the universal symbol for slacking. I am one who frequents the 'slacking' position. Probably because I tend not to take work seriously. In fact, the only thing I take seriously is myself, which is decidedly a tragic flaw.

I have only read two Vonnegut novels but have many more on my shelf at home and am eager to turn their pages. Here is a photo from Breakfast of Champions, which I have recently finished reading.

t-bag