ours: a sweet and vulgar torch song,
drawn out and in relief,
like the string of bones that line your back.
huddled together, bathed in ash and salt,
you:
held out my eyes so i could see
a raven's nest between the sheets.
covered my ears so i could hear
a siren blaring in the rail-yard.
cut out my tongue so i could speak
the words to sing your praise.
when old men claim that 'rust never sleeps,'
we march them down to the Calvary.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday, March 05, 2009
"pre-pay for gas? 'the fuck am I, a fortune teller?"
Yesterday was a rather uneventful Wedneday and I can appreciate that. My week-end was intense, to say the least, and I suppose I’m still feeling mildly exhausted from it.
As I mentioned last week, myself and a few friends drove to Atlanta over the week-end to attend the Scion Rock Fest. Atlanta is about 21 hours away if you factor in brief food/gas stops, so all in all we spent about 42 hours in my Honda Civic between Friday and Sunday. Needless to say, 4 dudes barrelling down the highway in a Civic doesn’t make for the most physically comfortable situation, so sleep was almost nil over those three days. Lack of sleep is a strange thing, as its effects can be wide-ranging and wildly incongruous. Having left Friday at lunch time, we drove straight to Georgia and got there at around 10:30 Saturday morning. We first felt the effects of the sleep deprivation at 6am on Saturday morning when we stopped at a Waffle House somewhere in North (South?) Carolina. Vince had been at the wheel since 2:30am or so, and he’d been looking forward to handing the torch over for some time. There was a consensus amongst the four of us that food was to be had, and Max and I were adamant that we go to an IHOP. So we pressured Vince to keep driving until he found said IHOP from 5am to 6am, at which point he lost patience and told us to shove it, because we were settling for Waffle House. This was a big mistake. The food at Waffle house was sub-par, to say the least. By the time we were done with our meals, all had been afflicted with horrible stomach aches and Vince had attained a near translucent pallor. The first signs of madness were settling in as well, with the four of us giggling non-stop at the sight of this grungy middle-aged lady in a trucker’s cap, bathrobe and crocs, that we had nicknamed ‘the skeleton witch.’ ‘She IS the skeleton witch,’ is the phrase that somehow sent our mind’s off the deep-end.
Somehow, we reached the venue intact (mentally + physically) and we managed to stand and watch nearly twelve hours of ridiculously delicious metal music. The highlights for me were Neurosis (who were so heavy it made your ribcage rattle inside your chest) and Baroness (who were just awesome to watch and are simply one of my favourite bands, period.)
At around midnight, we left the venue and boosted from Atlanta with thinned ranks (Brandon was getting on a flight back to Ottawa the next morning, as he had prior engagements on Sunday.) The rest of us soldiered on despite the emergent lunacy and we reached Ottawa at around 11pm on Sunday night. Again, we barely slept, despite the added comfort of an empty seat. By Sunday morning, our minds were totally gone. Our conversations mostly revolved around how Vince was an ‘archiver’ of things (as I berated him for buying a Jarritos grapefruit juice and not drinking it immediately), or about how hungry Vince was.
Sample dialogue:
JM: Yo Max, on va arrêter manger là, Vince a faim.
Max : Ah, c’est nice. Moi aussi j’ai faim.
JM : Ouin, moi aussi j’ai faim, mais est-ce qu’on peut s’entendre que Vince a faim?
Vince : Hey, fuck you d’essayer de faire passer ça sur mon dos, toi aussi t’as faim.
JM : Vince, calme-toi là. C’est pas parce que t’as faim que t’es obligé d’être impatient avec moi.
Other highlights :
- Vince corralling sea-gulls with the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot
- A terribly ambiguous ‘spirit canyon’ metaphor
- The ridiculous selection of junk food at U.S. corner stores
- The eventual IHOP meal, which was fantastic
- A gas station attendant in Virginia muttering the phrase ‘I seen possum three feet wide and two feet tall. What you hit was a possum.’
- In-car sing-alongs to Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday and assorted others
I know I’m forgetting/leaving out a bunch of things. Really, we just had a fantastic week-end, despite the lack of sleep and retarded amounts of driving. Good music and good times spent with the best of friends. I couldn’t really ask for anything better.
In other news, I start a new job on Monday. It’s still a government job, it’s in the same building I work in now and it’s part of the same ministry, but still, a new job is a new job. The new gig will probably keep me on my toes a lot more, and that’s a good thing.
Anyhow, I’m out for now. Here’s some music to consider:
- Buried Inside – Spoils of Failure
- Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (get the leak, it’s insanely wonderful)
- Baroness – Red Album
- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Self-titled
- Malajube - Labyrinthes
- N.A.S.A. - The Spirit of Apollo
- Mastodon - Crack the Skye
As I mentioned last week, myself and a few friends drove to Atlanta over the week-end to attend the Scion Rock Fest. Atlanta is about 21 hours away if you factor in brief food/gas stops, so all in all we spent about 42 hours in my Honda Civic between Friday and Sunday. Needless to say, 4 dudes barrelling down the highway in a Civic doesn’t make for the most physically comfortable situation, so sleep was almost nil over those three days. Lack of sleep is a strange thing, as its effects can be wide-ranging and wildly incongruous. Having left Friday at lunch time, we drove straight to Georgia and got there at around 10:30 Saturday morning. We first felt the effects of the sleep deprivation at 6am on Saturday morning when we stopped at a Waffle House somewhere in North (South?) Carolina. Vince had been at the wheel since 2:30am or so, and he’d been looking forward to handing the torch over for some time. There was a consensus amongst the four of us that food was to be had, and Max and I were adamant that we go to an IHOP. So we pressured Vince to keep driving until he found said IHOP from 5am to 6am, at which point he lost patience and told us to shove it, because we were settling for Waffle House. This was a big mistake. The food at Waffle house was sub-par, to say the least. By the time we were done with our meals, all had been afflicted with horrible stomach aches and Vince had attained a near translucent pallor. The first signs of madness were settling in as well, with the four of us giggling non-stop at the sight of this grungy middle-aged lady in a trucker’s cap, bathrobe and crocs, that we had nicknamed ‘the skeleton witch.’ ‘She IS the skeleton witch,’ is the phrase that somehow sent our mind’s off the deep-end.
Somehow, we reached the venue intact (mentally + physically) and we managed to stand and watch nearly twelve hours of ridiculously delicious metal music. The highlights for me were Neurosis (who were so heavy it made your ribcage rattle inside your chest) and Baroness (who were just awesome to watch and are simply one of my favourite bands, period.)
At around midnight, we left the venue and boosted from Atlanta with thinned ranks (Brandon was getting on a flight back to Ottawa the next morning, as he had prior engagements on Sunday.) The rest of us soldiered on despite the emergent lunacy and we reached Ottawa at around 11pm on Sunday night. Again, we barely slept, despite the added comfort of an empty seat. By Sunday morning, our minds were totally gone. Our conversations mostly revolved around how Vince was an ‘archiver’ of things (as I berated him for buying a Jarritos grapefruit juice and not drinking it immediately), or about how hungry Vince was.
Sample dialogue:
JM: Yo Max, on va arrêter manger là, Vince a faim.
Max : Ah, c’est nice. Moi aussi j’ai faim.
JM : Ouin, moi aussi j’ai faim, mais est-ce qu’on peut s’entendre que Vince a faim?
Vince : Hey, fuck you d’essayer de faire passer ça sur mon dos, toi aussi t’as faim.
JM : Vince, calme-toi là. C’est pas parce que t’as faim que t’es obligé d’être impatient avec moi.
Other highlights :
- Vince corralling sea-gulls with the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot
- A terribly ambiguous ‘spirit canyon’ metaphor
- The ridiculous selection of junk food at U.S. corner stores
- The eventual IHOP meal, which was fantastic
- A gas station attendant in Virginia muttering the phrase ‘I seen possum three feet wide and two feet tall. What you hit was a possum.’
- In-car sing-alongs to Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday and assorted others
I know I’m forgetting/leaving out a bunch of things. Really, we just had a fantastic week-end, despite the lack of sleep and retarded amounts of driving. Good music and good times spent with the best of friends. I couldn’t really ask for anything better.
In other news, I start a new job on Monday. It’s still a government job, it’s in the same building I work in now and it’s part of the same ministry, but still, a new job is a new job. The new gig will probably keep me on my toes a lot more, and that’s a good thing.
Anyhow, I’m out for now. Here’s some music to consider:
- Buried Inside – Spoils of Failure
- Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (get the leak, it’s insanely wonderful)
- Baroness – Red Album
- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Self-titled
- Malajube - Labyrinthes
- N.A.S.A. - The Spirit of Apollo
- Mastodon - Crack the Skye
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