sit down. stand up.
awaken what you are.
Céline will bat
lead-off,
Shostakovich is in the
second
spot,
Dostoevsky should hit
3rd,
Beethoven will definately bat
clean-up,
Jeffers is in the 5th
spot,
Dreiser can hit
6th
and batting 7th
let's have
Boccaccio
and 8th the
catcher:
Hemingway.
the pitcher?
hell, give me the
fucking
ball.
- Charles Bukowski
Before going to the party i asked craig if he'd drive to emily's house. I knew emily wasn't home, and i intended to drop a gift off into the mailbox. Strangely enough, during the proceedure i felt very embarassed. I felt like i was doing a relationshippy thing, and i didn't know why. Head hanging low, embarassed.
I arrived at the party, wine in hand, with craig, doug, and justin. I started slow on the bottle, I didn't seem to feel much like drinking. I saw emily at the party, wished her a happy birthday, but the whole interaction felt weird and forced. I was really thinking way too hard.
Went into the other room, and kait was on the couch. Now here was a bright little easy feeling. I wondered why the end of kait was so much easier, why seeing her was so cool. I kept working on the wine.
I saw emily a little later and things were far far easier. I couldn't venture a guess why, but i was certainly happy with the feeling (or lack there-of).
I left, went to robs. Wasn't feeling it so much. Steve gave me a pack of smokes in celebration of monday's show. Nice gesture. Number 7s.
Robs was cool, I was surprised with the small crew of people there. Sandy (dark haired w/ magnetic eyes), Anne and Emily were there. Same ladies from the hot box episode the previous day. I smoked a bit, feelin' fine. Wine got finished. Craig showed up, said he wasn't going downtown. I never went back to emily's birthday bash.
Seeing Sandy was fantastic. I didn't feel weird about the previous day's attemts. And she reminded me that emily is not a problem. And I felt good about emily's gift at that point, cause i did it for myself, cause it's a nice thing to do. I started to feel good about everything.
There was alot of guitar played by myself and sandy, some cards played by the lot of us, and time ticked away. And smokes disappeared.
At a little after 4am sandy got up to get some water. I followed. Sue me.
So i'm there, standing by the sink, and i start to feel light headed. VERY light headed. I grab the counter for some balance. It doesn't help. I stumble, fall hard to my knees, not in control of the situation at all.
I end up either sitting or lying on the floor, kingsley comes into the room to find out what the racket was. I explain to him and sandy that i got very light headed and fell, and that it had happened once before, so it's not a big deal... the worst was over. Apparently this is feinting. It sucked.
But kingsley, sandy and myself sat on the kitchen floor for about two hours, first just talking, then i grabbed a deck of cards and we tossed them into a hat placed in the middle of our 3 pointed circle. Lots of fun. Needless to say, i enjoyed sandy's company.
A little bit more guitar, more chatting, Kingsley, Sandy and myself went to the cafeteria at 8:00 for breakfast. Back to robs. And at about 10 i went to sleep on robs couch, fetal position, so sandy didn't have to get up from her seat at the end.
Pinnicle of masculinity.
I wake up around 1:30 or 2, I worked at 4:30. Called my mom at about 3:30, asking if she'd be able to pick me up from robs, cause of the storm outside. She seems reluctant, which is okay, I start walking and she gets to me about half way. We get home, and i'm getting the same story about shoveling the walkway, "y'know, helping out once in a while."
I shovel the step, and go in for a shower. When i get out and get changed my mom suggests i put on wool socks. I'm told that i dont deserve a drive to work.
Pretty effing cold hike, but, like most hard things, when i finished the walk i felt good about it.
Nick and Craig pick me up from work at about 7. We go to liquer store, so i can get my bottle of red. Jindalee merlot.
We pick up dave, and go to nicks, for a bit of cards, a bit of video games, and a bit of booze consumption. When number 3 is no longer an option, we hike to the wave. What normally feels like a very short walk becomes a thrilling reminder of winter.
Six shocking dollars of cover later, i pick up a pitcher of Canadian for 7.50, paying dave his dues of finishing four positions higher then me in a five person tourney. We drink the beer, play some foosball, and i seem to recall the boys wanting to leave at 1ish. I hear k-os while i have my jacket on at the door, and decide i'm going back inside to dance.
So i dance. Pretty hard, for about an hour. Scratch Bastid was playing, and there was a real good croud. Then it's time to leave, but instead of going back to nicks i go to robs, chill out there with the same crew as previous two days. Typical few hours ensue. Anne and Sandy were both assumed to be gone back to their respective provinces before seeing me again, so i give some parting hugs. Anne's was very nice. Sandy seemed afraid to touch. I smiled on the inside.
Went to nicks to show the guys how to play Warioware. Chilled out there for not too long, caught a cab home split with Jared and Duran.
Got to bed around 4:30 - 5:00. Worked at 10:30 this morning. Woke up at 10:34. Heh, these mornings are adventurous. Beat my boss to work by about five minutes. The staff that opened this morning were fully cool. No trouble for simon.
Now i'm home from work, and it seems i might be drinking again this evening. It's been a neat week thus far. And i seem to have put each day online, with painful amounts of detail.
Adieu (sp?).
Yesterday i woke up and had a large glass of apple juice (using my juiceman jr. no less). I Ate a banana during the afternoon.
And yesterday evening, i found myself hanging out in the arts guild, occasionally testing mics, and fiddling around on my guitar. I asked the lead singer of Nudie and the Turks to mention that I would be playing downstairs following his set.
At 8:00 or so, Craig and Steve showed up, right on the heels of Marcel, Matti, and Cedric. We all sat down, music wasn't going on yet. Steve gave Emily a call, and we learned she wasn't coming.
At 8:15 or so, a handful of chicks showed up, so I had everything I wanted: Someone I wanted to impress/A reason to be nervous. I recognised a few of them, and soon after they sat down, marcel turned around and asked if i was nervous. I said i was. He said that almost everyone here was here to see me. I was pleased to hear that.
When Nudie and the Turks finished their set, they suggested the croud go downstairs to listen to Colin Arsenault, he was corrected by an audience member (kingsley?) and i headed down to get ready.
By get ready, I mean take off my shoes and socks. I was given some advice to play barefoot. I followed the advice, and was happy i did. Jenny Christenson.
All the girls shuffled off to a corner, which was only mildly disapointing. I gestured to one of them that she come listen in front of the stage. She saw the gesture, but remained with her friends. A very likely result.
So I played to my attentive audience, six men strong. And I thought I played pretty well. Opened with Without You, a song that Dave called, "a good choice". Hah, nice friggen quote.
2. Appreciate
3. Sneakers Lined With Snow
4. My Things
5. Too Kind
6. Untitled Aminor riffs
I thought everything went well in the first set. I thought my voice felt good. I wasn't told anything to the contrary, so I think I was alright. Dave said my voice could've used a mic, which was nice, cause it means I was succesful in laying off a bit. It sounds prettier that way, I'm told.
Then back upstairs to listen to the real Colin Arsenault. He played a solid set, accompanied by a second acoustic guitar, and a drummer. Nudie was acoustic guitar, standup bass, and fiddle. The fiddler was occasionally fantastic.
Following Colin's set, I was back downstairs for my second. After losing the shoes and socks I started with kissing sober, and I definately felt listened to at times. A nice feeling. But i also felt myself lose touch, which is not what i want. The chorus-esc riff went beautifully, but the soft strum with lyrics lost touch during the first and third verses.
Then I played Wounds To Clean, and that went about as well as could be expected. It's a pretty solid song in my eyes.
At this point Dave called for a cover, so I decided to go with "Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't" by Brand New. It was going fair, then i broke a string. I was more then fine with it, though, so the song closed out a bit early and I put my guitar away. A dude came downstairs and ushered us upstairs soon after that, so i guess I didn't have much time to spare. It worked out.
While most people left at that point, i went back upstairs for Mike Dixon. Remarkable musician. Solo acoustic, and he played some folk and some blues. All beautiful stuff. He really knows his way around a guitar. Watching his performance was likely the highlight of the night, and I really had a good time playing.
Went to rob's afterwords for some smokie smoke. Had a nice little hot box in the closet. There were a handful of girls there, an emily, an anne, and a brunette that i couldn't stop looking into the eyes of. Her name eludes me, unfortionately.
When we got out of the hot box, I grabbed walker's guitar, and with a measly four strings, i pulled off a convincingly nice version of Take Me Down. Then I snaked one of rob's strings, and put it on my guitar to replace the one i broke, and played Emily. I told Emily the title, she dug. When the song was done, I said that the emily i wrote it for was supposed to come to the show, and didn't. Anne said "awww," in what i thought was a sincere tone.
But dispite what seemed like positive attention from the other two, (please note, if i like a girl, and she doesn't flat out tell me she's not interested, i assume things are going great) i figured if i was to do something, it had to be that little brunette. So I wandered over to where she was sitting, mostly in an effort to find my jacket. But then she said something about being good at thumb wars.
Now, if unprovoked, I would never claim to be good at such a sport. But I'll make an exception for this post. I'm a talented thumb war combatant.
So after a heated battle (possibly over a minute long) I took her down. Then i asked her for her number, which she didn't give me. She said she was going back home in four days, home was fredericton. In turn I asked for her email. She offered her last name. Which was difficult to remember, quite long, started with Z. It wasn't zalapski, and it probably wasn't zaproski. I asked if it was the only one in the phone book, thinking this was her way of letting me contact her. She said there might be two, and asked if I was planning on stalking her. I may have given an affirmative answer, although I hope i wasn't too tasteless.
Either way, by the time I left Robs, I had come to the conclusion that by not giving me contact information, and bringing up stalking, she probably wasn't interested. Dispite intoxicants, my logic skills were put to use there, no doubt.
Good day though, all in all. I think i'm getting drunker tonight. Wish me luck.
I'd like to see the world run wild for a while.
No man is the boss of me. No man has the right to punish me for acts i've committed. I think we should leave punishment up to God. If we do wrong, then guilt will clean our conscience.
I think it's time to stop living in the world where man is our leader. We've put alot of responsibility on ourselves.
Please.
Let us decrease in number.
Let us feel pain again.
Forget "I".
Live for us. Don't forget it.
I'm pleased enough, i think there's at least a outside chance that people will listen to me. The people that i've invited will be paying attention, anyway.
G'night.
So I guess i'm not opening at the arts guild on the 12th anymore. None of you thought i was, so i can see how this isn't crushing news. I thought i was though, i was looking forward to it. But from what i can tell, i'm not up to their level. "This isn't some open mic," is the verdict from the kid who appears to have put himself in charge.
So what do i do? Tell myself that my chords have more meaning then those of Johnny Highschool and the Four Piece? Convince myself that the world is wrong until they see how great i am?
That's clearly not the coolest choice.
So i guess i'll just put another chip on the "simon can't sing" pile, strap on the old yamaha, stand in front of my picture window, and play some songs.
All it is now is my recognition that 3.5 riffs of mine fit together delightfully well. One of these riffs has words. I'm excited to see where it goes. They're powerful riffs.
I got drunk last night, it was a good time.
I'm listening to an album by The Autumns now. And it's probably my fourth or fifth time hearing it through, and from this point, i could say it's been my favorite listen through. I like when albums do that. And they frequently do that.
I listened to some ben folds five yesterday. Specifically, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner". The third and final album by the group. I had that almost crying feeling from the fourth song, Magic. And it surprised me how much i wanted to cry. It's just such a nice feeling. A feeling i haven't felt for a little while.
Seems like it's going to be a fairly social weekend. Party tonight at rob walker's place. A farewell for Cedric and Matti. Good men.
Saturday looks like a formal event at the wave. I get to wear a suit. That's all i'm really asking for. That and a girl to lose my mind over.
awaken what you are.
9 bad boys
Céline will bat
lead-off,
Shostakovich is in the
second
spot,
Dostoevsky should hit
3rd,
Beethoven will definately bat
clean-up,
Jeffers is in the 5th
spot,
Dreiser can hit
6th
and batting 7th
let's have
Boccaccio
and 8th the
catcher:
Hemingway.
the pitcher?
hell, give me the
fucking
ball.
- Charles Bukowski
Tuesday was the night of Emily's birthday party. The actual big day being Wednesday, the plan was to go to browns, and drink until midnight, then head downtown.
Before going to the party i asked craig if he'd drive to emily's house. I knew emily wasn't home, and i intended to drop a gift off into the mailbox. Strangely enough, during the proceedure i felt very embarassed. I felt like i was doing a relationshippy thing, and i didn't know why. Head hanging low, embarassed.
I arrived at the party, wine in hand, with craig, doug, and justin. I started slow on the bottle, I didn't seem to feel much like drinking. I saw emily at the party, wished her a happy birthday, but the whole interaction felt weird and forced. I was really thinking way too hard.
Went into the other room, and kait was on the couch. Now here was a bright little easy feeling. I wondered why the end of kait was so much easier, why seeing her was so cool. I kept working on the wine.
I saw emily a little later and things were far far easier. I couldn't venture a guess why, but i was certainly happy with the feeling (or lack there-of).
I left, went to robs. Wasn't feeling it so much. Steve gave me a pack of smokes in celebration of monday's show. Nice gesture. Number 7s.
Robs was cool, I was surprised with the small crew of people there. Sandy (dark haired w/ magnetic eyes), Anne and Emily were there. Same ladies from the hot box episode the previous day. I smoked a bit, feelin' fine. Wine got finished. Craig showed up, said he wasn't going downtown. I never went back to emily's birthday bash.
Seeing Sandy was fantastic. I didn't feel weird about the previous day's attemts. And she reminded me that emily is not a problem. And I felt good about emily's gift at that point, cause i did it for myself, cause it's a nice thing to do. I started to feel good about everything.
There was alot of guitar played by myself and sandy, some cards played by the lot of us, and time ticked away. And smokes disappeared.
At a little after 4am sandy got up to get some water. I followed. Sue me.
So i'm there, standing by the sink, and i start to feel light headed. VERY light headed. I grab the counter for some balance. It doesn't help. I stumble, fall hard to my knees, not in control of the situation at all.
I end up either sitting or lying on the floor, kingsley comes into the room to find out what the racket was. I explain to him and sandy that i got very light headed and fell, and that it had happened once before, so it's not a big deal... the worst was over. Apparently this is feinting. It sucked.
But kingsley, sandy and myself sat on the kitchen floor for about two hours, first just talking, then i grabbed a deck of cards and we tossed them into a hat placed in the middle of our 3 pointed circle. Lots of fun. Needless to say, i enjoyed sandy's company.
A little bit more guitar, more chatting, Kingsley, Sandy and myself went to the cafeteria at 8:00 for breakfast. Back to robs. And at about 10 i went to sleep on robs couch, fetal position, so sandy didn't have to get up from her seat at the end.
Pinnicle of masculinity.
I wake up around 1:30 or 2, I worked at 4:30. Called my mom at about 3:30, asking if she'd be able to pick me up from robs, cause of the storm outside. She seems reluctant, which is okay, I start walking and she gets to me about half way. We get home, and i'm getting the same story about shoveling the walkway, "y'know, helping out once in a while."
I shovel the step, and go in for a shower. When i get out and get changed my mom suggests i put on wool socks. I'm told that i dont deserve a drive to work.
Pretty effing cold hike, but, like most hard things, when i finished the walk i felt good about it.
Nick and Craig pick me up from work at about 7. We go to liquer store, so i can get my bottle of red. Jindalee merlot.
We pick up dave, and go to nicks, for a bit of cards, a bit of video games, and a bit of booze consumption. When number 3 is no longer an option, we hike to the wave. What normally feels like a very short walk becomes a thrilling reminder of winter.
Six shocking dollars of cover later, i pick up a pitcher of Canadian for 7.50, paying dave his dues of finishing four positions higher then me in a five person tourney. We drink the beer, play some foosball, and i seem to recall the boys wanting to leave at 1ish. I hear k-os while i have my jacket on at the door, and decide i'm going back inside to dance.
So i dance. Pretty hard, for about an hour. Scratch Bastid was playing, and there was a real good croud. Then it's time to leave, but instead of going back to nicks i go to robs, chill out there with the same crew as previous two days. Typical few hours ensue. Anne and Sandy were both assumed to be gone back to their respective provinces before seeing me again, so i give some parting hugs. Anne's was very nice. Sandy seemed afraid to touch. I smiled on the inside.
Went to nicks to show the guys how to play Warioware. Chilled out there for not too long, caught a cab home split with Jared and Duran.
Got to bed around 4:30 - 5:00. Worked at 10:30 this morning. Woke up at 10:34. Heh, these mornings are adventurous. Beat my boss to work by about five minutes. The staff that opened this morning were fully cool. No trouble for simon.
Now i'm home from work, and it seems i might be drinking again this evening. It's been a neat week thus far. And i seem to have put each day online, with painful amounts of detail.
Adieu (sp?).
My life is optimistic words, in a minor key.
Two days ago, i decided that i'd like to have a quick little fast before my perfomance. So i ate a handful of grapes instead of supper, and passed on the pretzels and chips which were available during poker.
Yesterday i woke up and had a large glass of apple juice (using my juiceman jr. no less). I Ate a banana during the afternoon.
And yesterday evening, i found myself hanging out in the arts guild, occasionally testing mics, and fiddling around on my guitar. I asked the lead singer of Nudie and the Turks to mention that I would be playing downstairs following his set.
At 8:00 or so, Craig and Steve showed up, right on the heels of Marcel, Matti, and Cedric. We all sat down, music wasn't going on yet. Steve gave Emily a call, and we learned she wasn't coming.
At 8:15 or so, a handful of chicks showed up, so I had everything I wanted: Someone I wanted to impress/A reason to be nervous. I recognised a few of them, and soon after they sat down, marcel turned around and asked if i was nervous. I said i was. He said that almost everyone here was here to see me. I was pleased to hear that.
When Nudie and the Turks finished their set, they suggested the croud go downstairs to listen to Colin Arsenault, he was corrected by an audience member (kingsley?) and i headed down to get ready.
By get ready, I mean take off my shoes and socks. I was given some advice to play barefoot. I followed the advice, and was happy i did. Jenny Christenson.
All the girls shuffled off to a corner, which was only mildly disapointing. I gestured to one of them that she come listen in front of the stage. She saw the gesture, but remained with her friends. A very likely result.
So I played to my attentive audience, six men strong. And I thought I played pretty well. Opened with Without You, a song that Dave called, "a good choice". Hah, nice friggen quote.
2. Appreciate
3. Sneakers Lined With Snow
4. My Things
5. Too Kind
6. Untitled Aminor riffs
I thought everything went well in the first set. I thought my voice felt good. I wasn't told anything to the contrary, so I think I was alright. Dave said my voice could've used a mic, which was nice, cause it means I was succesful in laying off a bit. It sounds prettier that way, I'm told.
Then back upstairs to listen to the real Colin Arsenault. He played a solid set, accompanied by a second acoustic guitar, and a drummer. Nudie was acoustic guitar, standup bass, and fiddle. The fiddler was occasionally fantastic.
Following Colin's set, I was back downstairs for my second. After losing the shoes and socks I started with kissing sober, and I definately felt listened to at times. A nice feeling. But i also felt myself lose touch, which is not what i want. The chorus-esc riff went beautifully, but the soft strum with lyrics lost touch during the first and third verses.
Then I played Wounds To Clean, and that went about as well as could be expected. It's a pretty solid song in my eyes.
At this point Dave called for a cover, so I decided to go with "Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't" by Brand New. It was going fair, then i broke a string. I was more then fine with it, though, so the song closed out a bit early and I put my guitar away. A dude came downstairs and ushered us upstairs soon after that, so i guess I didn't have much time to spare. It worked out.
While most people left at that point, i went back upstairs for Mike Dixon. Remarkable musician. Solo acoustic, and he played some folk and some blues. All beautiful stuff. He really knows his way around a guitar. Watching his performance was likely the highlight of the night, and I really had a good time playing.
Went to rob's afterwords for some smokie smoke. Had a nice little hot box in the closet. There were a handful of girls there, an emily, an anne, and a brunette that i couldn't stop looking into the eyes of. Her name eludes me, unfortionately.
When we got out of the hot box, I grabbed walker's guitar, and with a measly four strings, i pulled off a convincingly nice version of Take Me Down. Then I snaked one of rob's strings, and put it on my guitar to replace the one i broke, and played Emily. I told Emily the title, she dug. When the song was done, I said that the emily i wrote it for was supposed to come to the show, and didn't. Anne said "awww," in what i thought was a sincere tone.
But dispite what seemed like positive attention from the other two, (please note, if i like a girl, and she doesn't flat out tell me she's not interested, i assume things are going great) i figured if i was to do something, it had to be that little brunette. So I wandered over to where she was sitting, mostly in an effort to find my jacket. But then she said something about being good at thumb wars.
Now, if unprovoked, I would never claim to be good at such a sport. But I'll make an exception for this post. I'm a talented thumb war combatant.
So after a heated battle (possibly over a minute long) I took her down. Then i asked her for her number, which she didn't give me. She said she was going back home in four days, home was fredericton. In turn I asked for her email. She offered her last name. Which was difficult to remember, quite long, started with Z. It wasn't zalapski, and it probably wasn't zaproski. I asked if it was the only one in the phone book, thinking this was her way of letting me contact her. She said there might be two, and asked if I was planning on stalking her. I may have given an affirmative answer, although I hope i wasn't too tasteless.
Either way, by the time I left Robs, I had come to the conclusion that by not giving me contact information, and bringing up stalking, she probably wasn't interested. Dispite intoxicants, my logic skills were put to use there, no doubt.
Good day though, all in all. I think i'm getting drunker tonight. Wish me luck.
I don't think there should be laws.
I'd like to see the world run wild for a while.
No man is the boss of me. No man has the right to punish me for acts i've committed. I think we should leave punishment up to God. If we do wrong, then guilt will clean our conscience.
I think it's time to stop living in the world where man is our leader. We've put alot of responsibility on ourselves.
Please.
Let us decrease in number.
Let us feel pain again.
Forget "I".
Live for us. Don't forget it.
Alright, so I am playing on monday. But i wont be on stage. In between bands there will be about a 15 minute intermission, where the audience is invited to go downstairs and enjoy some drinks and snacks. When they get there they'll find me, in a corner, set up with a mic or two, singing and strumming. After 10-15 minutes I'll stop, and everyone will go back upstairs to listen to the real musicians. heh.
I'm pleased enough, i think there's at least a outside chance that people will listen to me. The people that i've invited will be paying attention, anyway.
G'night.
a little slap in the face never hurt anybody.
So I guess i'm not opening at the arts guild on the 12th anymore. None of you thought i was, so i can see how this isn't crushing news. I thought i was though, i was looking forward to it. But from what i can tell, i'm not up to their level. "This isn't some open mic," is the verdict from the kid who appears to have put himself in charge.
So what do i do? Tell myself that my chords have more meaning then those of Johnny Highschool and the Four Piece? Convince myself that the world is wrong until they see how great i am?
That's clearly not the coolest choice.
So i guess i'll just put another chip on the "simon can't sing" pile, strap on the old yamaha, stand in front of my picture window, and play some songs.
Ladies and Bitches, i've got a new song in the works.
All it is now is my recognition that 3.5 riffs of mine fit together delightfully well. One of these riffs has words. I'm excited to see where it goes. They're powerful riffs.
I got drunk last night, it was a good time.
Yet again, i find myself drawn here with the desire to post, not the desire to say anything in particular. We'll see.
I'm listening to an album by The Autumns now. And it's probably my fourth or fifth time hearing it through, and from this point, i could say it's been my favorite listen through. I like when albums do that. And they frequently do that.
I listened to some ben folds five yesterday. Specifically, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner". The third and final album by the group. I had that almost crying feeling from the fourth song, Magic. And it surprised me how much i wanted to cry. It's just such a nice feeling. A feeling i haven't felt for a little while.
Seems like it's going to be a fairly social weekend. Party tonight at rob walker's place. A farewell for Cedric and Matti. Good men.
Saturday looks like a formal event at the wave. I get to wear a suit. That's all i'm really asking for. That and a girl to lose my mind over.