Excuse me... I ordered the "Ordinary" madness

"Writing about yourself isn't as fun as talking about yourself"

~ Briana "Glossy" Loca

A-to the fucking-men, sister.

When Polonius tells his son, Laertes, "To thins own self be true," does that include other people? I mean, if your honest to yourself about yourself, do you need to share it?

As I progress with the notes I'm making before I start the real work on LA Woman, I need to decide how much honesty I, personally, can put on the page. The scope of the book has grown considerably, which was to be expected I suppose. The way I do things, these projects often swell, then get pared back down to a reasonable size. Which brings me back to honesty?

How much is too much? Where do we enter the realm of TMI? Just because I am willing to share something, should I?

And lastly, what are friends and family going to think when they read an undiluted account of the last year of my life?

Blargh

So... the Great Turkey Fuck-Fest is over for another year and I seem to really be into napping. I managed to avoid the obligatory change to my Facebook status telling the world what I'm thankful for because, of the 830 people who do their damndest to ignore my inane little posts, the vast majority of them know that simply being alive is good enough for me at the moment.
In the past few weeks, I have been to more non-pub/house parties than I have in several years. One of them was even a dinner party... at a real restaurant and everything. It felt good. I do realize that I am thankful for friends and family, not that it was ever in real doubt, just kind of popped in to my head a little stronger than usual.
Chasing my cock too often leads to chasing my heart. When it doesn't, the end result is often the same. Go figure.
I'm just starting to wonder if my calendar age can continue to be so completely at odds with my ability to refuse to grow up that one day I might just implode. Thing is, I don't like 38 year old stuff. I don't want a mortgage. I want to use my Blackberry to take pictures of hot club girls instead of sending spreadsheets or whatever it is responsible people do with their Blackberries.
I don't mind waking up on the floor of recording studios and strange couches. Getting cock-blocked by moms is a bit tiring after a while, but I still can't help but smile when I'm told (by a third party quoting a cutie way below my age bracket) that "even though [I'm] older, [I'm] still really cool and fucking hot." Jesus man! Who doesn't want to hear that? (She managed to arrive in her own bed unbesmirched, I might add.)
Time doesn't heal all wounds. Sometimes it creates a gap, like a ferry sailing in the wrong direction, that causes you to feel the swim is too far, too hard, to get back to solid ground beneath your well worn Converse.
A dear friend of mine is having troubles with "the guy she likes" and I'm not being patronizing. Over a year ago, chatting on Facebook at two in the morning, she asked me what is was like to be in love. How the hell do I answer that? I could tell her, because I most certainly know. But should I?
It was her and her feelings of being a little more lost, a little more alone, than feels comfortable that really got me thinking tonight.
I think it's time to go to more parties. Playing King of the Castle is only fun when that castle actually represents a kingdom, not "a pile of shit" as was lovingly pointed out by a concerned friend.
So here's to those friends: the weak, the strong, the subtle, the loud.
Love you all.

Dinner anyone?

And so it begins... again

2010 was supposed to be my year. It was all perfect... then it all went to hell and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When I told people about what happened, one of them commented that it was a great story and should be told. I suggested the Battle of Stalingrad was also a "great story" unless, of course, you happened to be living there at the time.
My problem with telling the story is it would force me to be more honest about myself in my writing than I ever have before. It was then that I realized that until I came clean to myself about exactly what happened, this demon would be sitting on my chest for much longer than I could let it. So I begin to write the story. Not here. What it will be when it is done, I don't know. Maybe I'll just launch the manuscript into a bonfire and be done with it. Who knows.
Working title: LA Woman

Gifts

To forget and be forgotten: two of life's greatest gifts it can give. Unfortunately for most of us, remembering and remembrance are the prices we pay for our living sins. There is no heaven, no hell, and no final judgement. It is an ongoing process, in which, we built our own hells and prisons. It is not necessarily a sad or depressing process. It is more like the buzzing mosquito in a dark room: the constant reminder that there are forces at work, preying upon us, which we will never catch, stop, or otherwise interrupt from their unstated goals.

Some Warren Zevon lyrics to ponder...

Well, I went to the doctor. I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough..." 

"Let me break it to you son; you're shit's fucked up!" 

I said, "My shit's fucked up? Well, I don't see how!" 

He said, "The shit that used to work, won't work now!" 

~

That amazing grace, thought it passed you by.

You wake up every day, and you start to cry.

You want to die but you just can't quit.

Let me break it on down; it's the fucked up shit.

Hair-brained Year-long Project #18284-F: The dress

Okay.

I have decided I am making a dress (no, not for me, thx).

I've always liked fashion. But I can't sketch, stitch, cut, or sew.

I am starting from scratch. But with my library card, my passion for ridiculous ideas, and my mom's sewing machine, I'm giving myself one year, 365 days, to design and make a dress. Why? Why the fuck not?

You've no one but yourselves to blame: When asses grow fat, thought grows thin

Paris Hilton is not capable of world domination; well, not by herself she isn't. People love to jump up and down about how we shouldn't care about where she goes, who she goes with, and what she's wearing when she gets there. I agree. But there is one aspect to the train wreck that is Paris Hilton that most people overlook: themselves.
Paris was born rich. There's no denying that. As the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, one could hardly expect her to be poor. She modeled as a child and then "grew up" into a life of leisure and took her tiara as one of America's socialites. Then something awful happened...
Someone out there, you perhaps, decided what she did was newsworthy. Suddenly the cameras couldn't get enough of this young woman, and, like any other capitalist on the planet, she decided to use her new glory for her own ends. Can you blame her? No. I blame you.
Keep this in mind if you keep reading today's little diatribe...

This coming Friday (October 1, 2010), I'm going to a live music show at The Anza Club in Vancouver. You probably won't be there. If you go out that night maybe you'll be in a little cafe with a loved one; if so, you get a pass. If not, you might be in a club somewhere listening to garbage music made by someone's computer software. Then on the way home to catch Jersey Shore, you'll listen to your iPod and complain, complain about Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton...
You have no one but yourselves to blame.
If you don't like the state of popular music turn off MTV. Turn off your ultra-mainstream radios. Turn off.
Then turn ON.
If you don't like what is being delivered to you, stop delivery. Get off your ass and search out something better. It's out there. I promise.
The band I am going to see this Friday can be shamelessly classified as Country Music (among other genres). How often do I hear people say they "HATE" Country Music only to add, "but I like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson."? What you hate is bad Country Music. Find some good stuff. Right now you are sitting in the rain complaining about being wet. If you move, shelter can be found. I think some of you just like to complain.
Some people seek refuge in the old albums, Classic Rock, etc... I have no problem with these bands and their music has lasted because it was good. But how do you find new Pop Music that is good? Make Good Music popular.
We created Paris Hilton just as Frankenstein created his monster. Not everything we create has to be bad. Find good music. Buy the CD. Buy the shirt. Tell your friends. Give Good Music the ear it deserves.

First they came for the music lovers...

See you at the show... someday.

Guh...

This pic just floated across my Internet goggles...
Below is a new picture of "alt-model", Apnea - Amanda Pemberton to her friends and recent fiancee, photographer, Chase Lisbon. As far as I am concerned, Apnea's eyes have always been what set her apart from the other models in her field (despite the fact this tattooed cutie is amazingly flexible).
I'm reposting this pic because it caught me as different, another new look for this little chameleon. Looks as though she's channeling Pris (Blade Runner) in this one with some Harley Quinn (Batman) and Conan the Barbarian thrown in for good measure. Whether the ghosting was done during or post, I don't know but it certainly adds to the feeling this image provokes.
If you have some time (and you're not at work), swing by her blog. It's a fun collection of picture sets, cats, cookies, and travel stories.

photo credit: Nathan Appel

Kool Shit for Cooler Seasons: Viktor & Rolf Fall/Winter 2010

Designers have their Fall/Winter shows the previous spring. Got it? So these are from March of this year from the show in Paris. Yeah, I like bums and boobs, gazes and gams, etc, etc, etc... But I also love good clothes. These are my favs from this collection. Think of me of the Mr. Burns of fashion: I know what I hate and I don't hate this...

Viktor & Rolf: Fall/Winter 2010

(Paris, March 2010)

Drunk Video Version of Previous Post

What do you say that this Saturday we throw a bunch of bigoted pea-brains on a bonfire?

As the clock ticks down to possibly the dumbest idea in recent history, one can't help but wonder what burning the Quran could possibly accomplish in any positive sense. I watched a clip from an interview with one of this church's pastors replayed on MSNBC today. In the clip, the pastor said they just wanted to expose something that everyone already knew. Um... that's not exposure; that's exploitation. Somehow, the idea of deliberately pissing off a group of people (albeit small) just to egg this group into doing what the group are doing already doesn't seem to prove the point they wanted.
For me, watching two airplanes soar into the World Trade Center seemed to be evidence enough that a minute faction of radicalized Islamic fanatics wanted to rain death on the West. The idea of deliberately pissing them, and all Muslims, off just doesn't register with me as a terribly well thought out plan. The pastors of this church claim that the radical elements they are sending this message to cannot be reasoned with. The pastors of this church also stated that nothing and no one could dissuade them from going through with the book burning. This too sounds like radicalized religious zealots who "cannot be reasoned with".
The US needs to realize the road they are being led down by reactionary forces. Too many of its politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are trying too hard to merely get elected to govern a country that will lay in ruins if their governing is anything like their campaigning.
I'd be interested to see figures as to which has more members: Al-Qaeda or whack-job, splinter-Christian churches in the US.
Hope, however, is not lost. Also on MSNBC, I saw an interview with the pastor of a Tennessee church that had opened its doors to local Muslims building a mosque and community centre beside them. With the centre still incomplete, the Heartsong Church of Cordova, TN, invited their Muslim neighbours to use their church for evening prayers and feasts during Ramadan. When I first Googled this, Google News had over 6000 stories about the Quran burning and only 15 about the openess and tolerance shown by the congregation at the Heartsong Church. Go figure.

Mere survival

A dear friend of mine was lamenting her lot in life. Not in a pitiful or whiny way, but in the way people in their early-20s often think when the world jumps up and bites them in the ass. There is nothing wrong with someone wanting the world to be a fair place to live. I just don't know how far I should push my existentialist belief when it comes to dealing with her.

Life is not about mere survival; it is about living. But, to my way of thinking, one cannot live until they have freed themselves from the belief that life was, is, or will be fair. The only meaning to life is that which we give it.

Some may find this bleak. It isn't. Living without delusions is the freest and happiest a person can truly be. We just have to get there. My worst delusion is believing this is entirely possible.

BSC

Things that make you go "hmmm" right before you go "What the F***?"

At what point does a tactless thought actually become a crime? I've never been a big fan of hate crime legislation. Not because I love to dream racist, homophobic, or misogynist scenarios but because I believe that curbing such thought should be done through education and the occasional public flogging as opposed to legislation.

But is tact a qualifier of whether or not something is hate speech? Let us hope not.

For instance, there's a sick little bastard in me that would probably enjoy Justin Bieber being repeatedly kicked in the shin or held down while someone tattooed "KICK ME" on his forehead. Though it's probably not worth it to put it on his forehead because no one could see it with his combination Twiggy/Donny Osmond haircut. Now, I'm not calling for it to happen or putting out a bounty or anything but still...

Then there's Snooki.

I've decided I've wanted a Snooki bobblehead for Xmas. Doesn't have to be her real head. It can be plastic if that's easier and within the laws of your nation.

Does music soothe the savage beast?

I was lamenting the fact that I met someone this weekend who I was unable to contact again. Walking up the hill at about 1am this morning, my iPod was rattling my skull. I usually don't listen to my iPod walking up this hill in the dark; we have a bear and a cougar roaming about, and they, like I, do not like to be surprised. I was taking the risk. Did I mention I was really really drunk? My feet weren't quite dragging and my mind was racing thinking about her, it, them.

"60 Feet Tall" by The Dead Weather was bouncing around my head at full volume.
No bear.
No cougar.
A coyote dropped by for a visit. We spend a moment looking at each other. My music was loud enough for it to hear. It nodded and scampered off into the undergrowth.

*Turns out my Cinderella has a fella. Oh well.
The coyote and I have a plan.

photo by Ruth Swanson

Here's a wee story for yeh...

So I'm watching TV and an ad comes on, trying to get me to pay some service to track down my family history. For my mother's family, The Bradfords, I'd ask my Great Aunt. She seems to have it pretty much down. For my father's family, The McQueens then Camerons, I need go no farther than my bookcase.

My great great great grandfather, Alexander McQueen, was born in Contrea, Invernesshire, Scotland. He came to Nova Scotia with a contingent of Scottish soldiers to reinforce the 82nd British Army Regiment. Apparently they were having a problem with some pesky colonists to the south. The year was 1778. He was 30.

After [losing] the American War of Independence, Alexander was given property in Nova Scotia. According to the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Alexander McQueen was the first McQueen in Nova Scotia. That's kind of cool...

My father's mother was a descendant of Alexander McQueen.

Below are Alexander's papers for his honourable discharge from the King's Army and the McQueen clan badge.

My father's step-father, Colin Cameron, was born in Glasgow in 1900. When Colin was five, his father, David (a Glasgow dock worker) decided to move the family to Canada. They lived on a farm in the Fort Steele area of British Columbia's East Kootenay region. My grandfather was a trapper, a B.C. Forest Service ranger, and eventually a lumberman, starting Colin Cameron Lumber in 1942. He died in 1963. I never met him.

My grandmother died in 1985. Both sources I consulted for this blog, talk of her love of music and her piano. She left it to me in her will and it sits seven feet to the right of me as I write this entry.

Below are pictures of Colin and Queenie on their wedding day, Colin's logging camp and a pay stub, and the Cameron clan badge, as tattooed on my right shoulder.

I think this stuff is pretty cool. You may not share my enthusiasm for my father's family but I posted this, not for my father's family, but in the hopes that you might take an interest in your own. We are all connected to history so we all share the stewardship of the future.

This little stroll down someone else's memory lane retold from The McQueen Story by my great aunt, Phylis McQueen Smith; my great uncle, Archie McQueen; with memorabilia supplied by my grandmother, Margaret "Queenie" McQueen Cameron. I also used pieces written for Kootenay Ripples: Wasa, Ta Ta Creek, Skookumchuck by Scott Owen, Frances West, and Ken Roberts.

The History of the Hipster

The common mosquito, in its current form, is over 95 million years old. Despite its many eons of bothering the hell out of others and the sad truth that it probably isn’t going to go away any time soon, we still feel the need to complain about it, them. This is not hard to believe of course; they are annoying as hell and generally don’t provide a whole lot in return. Some would argue the same could be said of hipsters. I’m deciding. Granted they haven’t been around for 95 million years. Contemporary hipsters can be traced back a decade or so. But, as I will explain, there have always been hipsters, the parasitic culture gentrifier.

A Time article, written almost a year ago to the day, outlines the modern hipster. Dan Fletcher describes them as “smug, full of contradictions and, ultimately, the dead end of Western civilization.” This may be a bit harsh, but it’s not the first time it has been said.

Herb Caen, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, coined the term “beatnik” in 1958. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were not amused. If you read the Beat writers’ work, you’d know they almost always had jobs and worked very hard to play very hard. Kerouac was admitted to Columbia on a football scholarship, a strange crossover for the King of the Beats. They did not create a scene, but drew attention to it. This is the invitation, the opening of the door that beckons to all the hipsters. In a letter to the New York Times Ginsberg wrote, “if the beatniks and not the illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash men.” When Ginsberg wrote of “Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,” I suspect he was referring to those who came before, those who were the scene, not the ones who made it. Even the French Revolution was going along swimmingly until Maximillien Robespierre hijacked the Committee for Public Safety and kind of ruined it for everyone. Hipsters have existed everywhere.

The term “hip” is from the jazz clubs of the 30s and 40s. Before that, the etymology becomes a little hazy. Suffice it to say, to be “hip” meant that you were in the know. To be “in the know” now is not very difficult, especially in the digital age, when music and image are swapped like so many hockey cards. I think what angers a lot of people is that the hipster culture isn’t a culture; it’s a flea market where culture is bought and sold. Fletcher writes, “...instead of creating a culture of their own, hipsters proved content to borrow from trends long past.” Indeed. I once had a 15 year old kid tell me that I was responsible for Kurt Cobain’s death because I “didn’t appreciate him.” I didn’t have a calendar on hand, but simple math revealed that he would have been two years old when we killed Cobain and not even an egg-seeking sperm when “Bleach” was released. That’s probably why I don’t remember seeing him at a show.

You would never go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. dressed as a veteran if you were born in 1987. The Black Label Society had to cancel a show in Manchester because of threats of violence from a local motorcycle club. The club argued that BLS’s use of “rockers” on their jackets was an insult to any 1%er who’d actually earned them.

So is there anything actually wrong with a parasitic subculture intent on the lifelong search for cool? If there is, I blame Henry V. His Saint Crispin’s day speech called out all the “gentlemen in England now abed” and called their “manhoods cheap.” Essentially, if you’re not at the party, if you’re not hip, you suck and should think yourself “accursed.” Maybe that’s a bit of stretch. We are a society of consumers, of course, but cultures are supposed to produce as well. The true danger of a parasitic culture is not what it feeds on but how it feeds.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a sentiment first expressed in the 3^rd century BC by some Greek guy, then it doesn’t actually exist except in the abstract. We must see it for it to exist. This would also imply we should look for it. But if our search only extends as far as what someone else has told us is beautiful, the buck stops at the “industries of mass communication” Ginsberg railed against.

Candace Pert was responsible for discovering the opiate receptor in the human brain. In a 1981 interview with OMNI she stated, “Heroin bludgeons the opiate receptors into submission, functionally shrinking them.” In other words, if we keep outsourcing our opiates (she also stated that most drugs have less potent, natural analogs within the human body) our bodies can lose the ability to use our own; if we never leave the house, we become dependent on the deliveryman. This is the danger of the cool-seeker who doesn’t actually look. Hunter S. Thompson takes a similar stab at Leary’s Acid Culture in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, calling them “a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture.”

I too am a cool seeker. I too am a hipster in some aspects. But I want to believe that I replace that which I mine from the depths of culture in equal measures. I write about culture and society not to hand down truth from on high but to inspire you to take up the search as well. As Shakespeare wrote in Love’s Labour’s Lost, “Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, / Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.”

So we continue to swat at the hipsters buzzing around us. They’re not going anywhere though so get used to them. As for yourself, art can be art for art’s sake but cool shouldn’t be cool for its own sake. Cool is the blind faith of the unoriginal. At least that’s what I heard.