UNMADE BED
“Look who's come back home again
Loser lookin' for his lucky break
This time he says he just needs a friend
Ain't on the run, he ain't on the take”
This weekend I bit the bullet and joined forces to become the newest member of the Fine Arts Society of Milton. I have less then a few weeks to get my submissions in for the ever popular FASM Studio Art Tour, an event that invites the public to enter the artists studio to buy and admire local artwork. I have to admit, I have to thank local sculptor Nancy Cuttle for pushing me into this situation.
Nancy is a great woman, as well as a talented artist. I remember that last month she stopped me on one of my walking travels to ask if she could pop in a bit earlier during the Milton Concert Presentations to finish this bit of painting she did on the community painting. Nancy is a joy to work with.
Thinking of doing the Studio Tour is a great way to exhibit the other art talents I have other then just the paintings that many people in the area know me for and what I am popular for creating. This means I will be able to have a bit more freedom with the work I will display and also it means dusting off the older projects to slab them on the design table once more. I am thinking to display some of my illustration work alongside my paintings and I’ll talk to Garry to see if he would like to play acoustic blues on my lawn for people as they walk along the lawn. (This is all pending because I have yet to know if I have even been accepted for the tour, but plan anyways since time is always a harsh commodity for me.)
IN THE LAND OF A THOUSAND LEAVES
Last night, bully friend Kinetix came out to shoot the old and new in his last waking hours before he returns to his old northern homelands of Montréal. I made a few phone calls and Tom and James came out to join us out at the bar for a few pints and to get our brew shakes jiggling. I felt tired and distant in the cold enclosure of the Post Office and wished I was miles away- becoming a regular Saturday feeling. It’s hard to get a group out in the coldness, its hard to get into it when your heart is disconnected, hard to connect when you received the notice in your mailbox only a week ago. (Cryptic metaphor-play).
I remember I turned to him in that night and wanted to say so much on so many things. “Hey, I know- its hard when were all too distant, hard to reach out when the air is stale and your grabbing nothing- yet my hand is always going to be there for those who need it… the thing is it might not be warm since it is worn from being used for whatever selfish reasons come with always trying to be there….”

AND THEN IT WAS ONLY YOU AND ME AGAIN VS THE WORLD
Tom and I sit on the sofa when we came back from the bar- we had abandoned everyone behind us, we always do, still the situation is different now and I keep my distance as he keeps his. He came in behind me stopping at his car to bring out a CD he had in heavy rotation. “You’re going to love this- its Daft Punk.”
“Daft. I prolly have it already,” I say turning on the TV.
Tom puts the CD by the stereo and sits back down on the couch. For a while, we just sit and finally I pull myself out of my stance, put the CD on, and sit back down. I hear a very familiar mix in my ears.
“Oh this mix,” I say. “I’ve had this mix for over four years now, it’s the DJ Sneak vs Daft Punk Live from Ibiza.”
“Didn’t know that,”
“I prolly left this in your car that one time we stole that carpet,” I say and I bring up a cheesy pink box. I pull off the cover to reveal a heart-shaped box inside, pull the lid off that and start glaring at the selection of chocolate before me, humming stupidly that Nirvana song with the same name. Tom glares at me.
“Who gave you that?”
“A boy,” I say shoving a piece in my mouth. “You want some?”
Tom looks uninterested. “No, they are yours, you eat them.”
“I hate boxes of chocolates like these,” I say pawing thru the few remaining full pieces and half eaten ones. “They don’t tell you what is inside and if you get a fruit cream one you’re stuck eating it.”
“You hate the fruit cream ones,” Tom said. “You always did.”
“Yeah, they suck. At least with the harder ones if I don’t like them I can find some chump to feed ‘em to,” I take out the bitter chocolate-coated peppermint candy piece and shove it in Tom’s face. “Eat.”
Tom’s lips halt. I shove the chocolate in. He chews it slowly. “You’re drunk so if you get one that tastes bad, it wont be as bad.”
I take out another half eaten chocolate and stuff it in his face. He chews away at the half stale chocolate and rolls his eyes. I take out a new chocolate piece and take a bite out of it. Crap, more fruit cream junk. I try to shove it in Tom’s face, but he refuses and I put it back in the box, cover it up, place it back under the table and turn the stereo off.
“Who gave you the chocolates again, or did we cover that already?” he asks.
“A boy,” I say turning on the TV.
“Tell him to stop giving you fruit cream chocolates for the safety of your friends.”
I turn to Tom and poke him in the ribs. He jumps halfway out of his seat and makes an awkward shake. My eyes glaze out towards the TV set as I feel the nights drinking catching up with me. “You don’t have to worry about that,” I said. “I doubt I’ll accept another box like this for a while.”
THE AIR NEAR MY FINGERS
I stuck these fabric softener sheets in the air ducts and was pleased with myself. Anything that masks the smell of the cigarettes is a good idea because when you are trying to cut back in a place where the chimneys come in and make it ripe with the burning stench of tobacco.I am finding myself retreating into the comical ways I used to have since they have always brought me joy in the dismal layout of banality of waiting for things to begin.

The Music Lovers

The Man with Gusto wipes a clean stream of white sauce from his lips with a napkin, eyes lurching up at one moment. His eyes coolly reach out past the windows, past the clear gauze reflections into a dart of colour bouncing through smears of blue brown and grey town strip…
…he knew he could capture her in a moment with a wave of his hand, a slight gesture of the wrist. Still, he knew that this one would elude him to no end, even if she was there.

She is eluding him in the most downright satisfying manner- she’s got the headphones on to the loudest point, trucking down and passing it by. Some just cant get it- they don’t shove music into their ears all the time, they don’t see the point in it. Besides, if everyone was intended to have that all the time, then it should be issued that way or put on paper someplace to make it… the music lovers should suffer like everyone else and be restricted to the appreciation of music in the privacy of your own home.

IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR OWN HOME- as if music was some erotic taboo issue we cant let our friends and co-workers know. OH SNAP! They’re listening to Michael Jackson! That’s so wrong! Marvin Gaye and your collection of dance house classics, 80’s synth-pop, folk, dirty DnB is suddenly pandered and feels like pornography. Music is restricted almost as to be regarded as an “at home” activity because of the basic human appreciation for it. The perfect drug, the ultimate satisfier, the ultimate crave.
Even the industry is shady at best- a lesser, but visible demon, able to make, break, and take souls.

The Music Lovers, the music junkies, the music influenza- a special breed of “PC-Snubbers”, the avid collector and breeders of the perfect all life pushing and basic need to express. They are questioned by the rules of static, challenged constantly by the electric hum of emptiness. “Why must you be so loud? Why must you simply exist?”