Sunday, August 13, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Stuff
As always, things are changing for me. I've got many more stories from my travels that I'm working on, but won't be posting them anytime soon. My best New Orleans photos are still to come. In the meantime, read about my super exciting life in Vancouver:
Last wednesday Ninja High School, the tight-pants-rap outfit out of South Toronto (jokes), who manage to make yelling over mp3 beats, slam dancing and writhing around on stage look like high art, played the Video-In. I had a great time. Tom, a new aquaintance, recorded the show and posted it on his blog noiseandsound.blogspot.com. Rumour has it they're playing again tonight:
Castle in the Clouds with lots of solo performers!
152 W. Hastings, Vancouver, BC
$5, Doors 8pm!
The opener Hot Loins would have been good if the first band Blue Grey Dots hadn't been amazing.
Last night I saw some noisy art bands at the Waldorf's Tiki Room, a delightful little bar reminiscent of Tony Montana's hangout in Scarface. Except for the high price of drinks, this is the place to be in East Vancouver. Still, it felt hollow. What is it about going out here that is just way less grungy, and far more expensive, than back east? I'm craving the dark and stinky little places with cheap beer that are so ubiquitous in Central Canada. More dirt and more drinks equals more fun. Speaking of which, after leaving the place around one (we skipped the Shearing Pinx) we trekked through the Downtown Eastside looking for Funky Winker Beans, the best (and dirtiest) pub in the world. Unfortunately, it was closed so we went over to the "good" side of town and oggled the Ginos and the jocks on the Granville Strip. Imagine the confluence of clueless yuppies with violent suburban trash and drunken Australians and you have one of the most shockingly awful spectacles in the world.
Okay, enough complaining. In a week I'm driving to Los Angeles via Eugene and my "spiritual homeland" the Bay Area.
Last wednesday Ninja High School, the tight-pants-rap outfit out of South Toronto (jokes), who manage to make yelling over mp3 beats, slam dancing and writhing around on stage look like high art, played the Video-In. I had a great time. Tom, a new aquaintance, recorded the show and posted it on his blog noiseandsound.blogspot.com. Rumour has it they're playing again tonight:
Castle in the Clouds with lots of solo performers!
152 W. Hastings, Vancouver, BC
$5, Doors 8pm!
The opener Hot Loins would have been good if the first band Blue Grey Dots hadn't been amazing.
Last night I saw some noisy art bands at the Waldorf's Tiki Room, a delightful little bar reminiscent of Tony Montana's hangout in Scarface. Except for the high price of drinks, this is the place to be in East Vancouver. Still, it felt hollow. What is it about going out here that is just way less grungy, and far more expensive, than back east? I'm craving the dark and stinky little places with cheap beer that are so ubiquitous in Central Canada. More dirt and more drinks equals more fun. Speaking of which, after leaving the place around one (we skipped the Shearing Pinx) we trekked through the Downtown Eastside looking for Funky Winker Beans, the best (and dirtiest) pub in the world. Unfortunately, it was closed so we went over to the "good" side of town and oggled the Ginos and the jocks on the Granville Strip. Imagine the confluence of clueless yuppies with violent suburban trash and drunken Australians and you have one of the most shockingly awful spectacles in the world.
Okay, enough complaining. In a week I'm driving to Los Angeles via Eugene and my "spiritual homeland" the Bay Area.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Arriving in New Orleans
The 11:45 PM bus to Montgomery was full so we sat on the ground of the Atlanta terminal until 2 AM for the next one.
"I'm from N'awlins," said the young woman across from us.
"Oh, that explains your accent" said the girl from Alabama. "We were wondering."
The woman had a little son. He was the age where, not yet able to talk, he communicated by throwing things and making outrageous facial expressions. He was black but with light hair and blue eyes. His mother was white.
"How is it there now?" asked the girl.
"About the same as eleven months ago. St. Jean's parish isn't half as bad as the Ninth Ward, but it's still mostly empty. Nothing's really been rebuilt."
The India House Hostel is in the mostly empty Mid City Neighbourhood. It, however is full of travellers, young construction workers and locals who get a bed for working a few hours per week.
The city might still be mostly rubble, but Capitalism don't stop for nothing. Brand new billboards are everywhere, advertising liquor and lottery tickets to a meagre bunch of returning residents, those poor few who never left, and Mexican construction workers.
"I'm from N'awlins," said the young woman across from us.
"Oh, that explains your accent" said the girl from Alabama. "We were wondering."
The woman had a little son. He was the age where, not yet able to talk, he communicated by throwing things and making outrageous facial expressions. He was black but with light hair and blue eyes. His mother was white.
"How is it there now?" asked the girl.
"About the same as eleven months ago. St. Jean's parish isn't half as bad as the Ninth Ward, but it's still mostly empty. Nothing's really been rebuilt."
The India House Hostel is in the mostly empty Mid City Neighbourhood. It, however is full of travellers, young construction workers and locals who get a bed for working a few hours per week.
The city might still be mostly rubble, but Capitalism don't stop for nothing. Brand new billboards are everywhere, advertising liquor and lottery tickets to a meagre bunch of returning residents, those poor few who never left, and Mexican construction workers.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Waiting in Charleston
Across Dorchester Road, in the swamp behind the store selling boiled peanuts, two kids (braids, XL tees and denim shorts) inadvertently celebrate July first by setting off the bottle rockets intended for Tuesday.
"The two forty five bus to Atlanta broke down outside Florence," says the intercom. "It won't be here for another four hours. Don't blame me because it ain't our fault."
The intercom is a single outside speaker broadcasting the station manager's announcement through a foot of concrete to the bench where I sit, next to two older West African women with name tags.
Inside the cooled air of the one room station, a gang of Mexicans joke around and buy each other rounds of cola from the machine in the corner. The stuffed animal claw game periodically bursts into action accompanied by an electronic melody. The computer is broken and the station manager (a fat woman with skin tight jeans and hair extensions)shouts at the five person line, "y'all haf to wait a while." Nobody looks at her.
At the store, the vats of boiled peanuts are a sickly green so I buy the dry ones instead. The woman who is looking after my bag wants a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and the boy in front of me (braids, an XL tee and Air Force Ones) buys onion rings and a stick of beef jerky. He counts out his coins one at a time.
The Arab behind the counter is watching the World Cup on a little TV. His accent is both deep south ebonics and Arab ESL. "Who won the early game" I ask.
"Tie...England and some place, Borto. I don't know what that is."
"Portugal?"
"Yeah, Portugal"
He yells at a guy stacking boxes in the back and smiles as he counts out the change.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Albuquerque is the Greatest Place on Earth
Chicken Fried Steak, Okra and Mashed Potatos with a Butterscotch Malt at the Route 66 Diner.
Two Dollar pints of Blue Moon Wit Beer at the Copper Tank
Sweet Rolls at the Frontier
Green Meat and Chorizo New Mexican style Burritos from a stand off Route 66
Fair Trade Coffee at Winnings
Carne Adovada, an Enchilada, a Taco, a salad and a Coke with a shot of Vanilla Syrup at some student run place in Santa Fe
plus more cool people than I met on my whole trip, mountains, adobe buildings and aging hippies.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Remembering the London Bombings
A year ago yesterday, I waited half an hour for a bus that never came. Deciding to take the tube, we walked towards Liverpool Street station, right into a news scrum outside the gates of a London hospital. Ambulances, helicopters and police cars made it impossible to hear the spokesman give his press statement. On the other side of the street, women in head-to-toe Burqas shopped in the Bangladeshi vegetable market. We walked through Brick Lane, and past the police presence at Aldgate East. People were still being evacuated from Liverpool Street Station. A guy in a suit came up to us warning us to stay away. "Terrorism," he said with an air of self importance. "It's the fucking Arabs." I bought a newspaper with the headline "Terrorists Bomb Tube, Scores Dead" only to find no article inside. It only happened , like, half an hour before. What could they know that I didn't.
Yesterday, I was on a bus from New Orleans to Austin Texas. At Houston, five recently released convicts came on wearing their prison regulation pants and shoes. The first white people I'd seen on a Greyhound since New York City. They all had only one red mesh bag, big enough for a change of underwear and big box of condoms. Except when one tried miserably to hit on a blonde girl, they all just sat and stared forward, arms crossed, shirt sleeves rolled up Tattoos bulging.
Last night I saw Danielson at Emo's. Tomorrow, Albuquerque.
Yesterday, I was on a bus from New Orleans to Austin Texas. At Houston, five recently released convicts came on wearing their prison regulation pants and shoes. The first white people I'd seen on a Greyhound since New York City. They all had only one red mesh bag, big enough for a change of underwear and big box of condoms. Except when one tried miserably to hit on a blonde girl, they all just sat and stared forward, arms crossed, shirt sleeves rolled up Tattoos bulging.
Last night I saw Danielson at Emo's. Tomorrow, Albuquerque.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Friday, June 30, 2006
The Mid-Atlantic
So I know I haven't been keeping up with this. I hardly have any internet access so I'll just do a quick recap.
I spent four nights with my homeboy John in Jersey City (aka one PATH away stop from Manhattan and a pretty cool place in its own right). He is also the sole member of the (amazingly good) indie folk act Soul of Jonas. I met him in Rome last year and he invited me to stay with him. In New York I did the usual stuff, wandered the Lower East Side, got lost in the Met and the MOMA, ate in incredible delis, pizza places and Chinese dumpling shops. In a Puerto Rican neighbourhood I had a Tamarind shaved ice from a street vendor. It was incredible. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn we saw a bunch of bands (Anoushka or something like that, Sticks and Stones and something else I can't remember but who were awesome nonetheless). That neighbourhood is absolutely ridiculous. Imagine Queen West between Bathurst and Ossington and multiply it by sixteen. Harlem was also awesome. I spent about 15 minutes debating whether to buy a limited edition Diplomats T-shirt but didn't because they only had them in double XL.
In Philadelphia I danced all night Saturday (Low Budget of Hollertronix, Mark Ronsson) and on Sunday went to see Espers, Bright Black Morning Light and Marie Sioux in a Unitarian Church. They were all quality Psychedelic Folk of the Joanna Newsome, Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart vein.
DC is pretty awful. I got ripped off by a cab driver, stayed in a shitty hostel and missed most of the Smithsonian because it was flooded. The rain was the hardest I've ever seen, like a tropical downpour. The city also felt like a police state, with bag checks, dogs and metal detectors in every building including the public library. Plus everywhere there were reminders of mass slaughter: the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, the museum of the American Indian, the air and Space Museum (including the Enola Gay), the Holocaust memorial and the Museum of American History (which was actually closed but I can imagine). In front of the Whitehouse I chatted with some Grandmother types and torture victims in the rain as they observed the UN's international day against torture.
I met some really interesting people at the hostel. A veteran who claims he was the victim of a covert US government program showed me piles of documents proving that he has microchips embedded all over his body, has had his life intentionally ruined and is perpetually on the run. When he heard I have a journalism degree he gave me all kinds of phone numbers. I ended up on a party line with a bunch of other people just like him.
I also met a guy from UC Berkeley who is researching covert government biological tests from the sixties. This guy was more legit with actual access to the National Archives and stuff. Then there was the Lebanese/German guy who has a PHD in something to do with Native American music and is in DC working at the Smithsonian and the Berlin Anthropological museum. He had a native (Indian) accent because he learned english on a reserve in North Dakota. We drank beer together.
Baltimore (aka Mobtown) was cool. I had Sushi there and wandered clueslessly through the "Ghetto." The fourteen hour overnight bus ride to Charleston South Carolina was not cool. Torturous actually, but an interesting cultural experience. There were two transfers: one at 2 AM and the other at 6. Imagine the tiny Greyhound station in Richmond Virginia at 2AM after ten busses have rolled up and about 800 sleepy, angry people are trying to find the right place to catch their transfer south. The crowd is all black with some latinos and one or two white people. The white people though (and I'm not making this up) were so strange looking. They all had weird lips, and strange bowl cuts, dressed in oversize sweat suits and had the most vacant expressions on their faces like they were mentally disabled.
Charleston South Carolina is gorgeous. The hostel where I'm staying is an old house with two porches and a hammock. I borrowed a bike from one of the staff and rode through a neighbourhood of nineteenth century wooden houses all with peeling paint, grandmas on the stoop and little kids on lowrider bikes (everyone is black). At the beach there were sand dunes, marshes and herons.
Everyone here is maaaad cool. I think we're going out to eat soul food now and listen to a blue grass band. Later I'm going to sit on the porch and drink beer.
I spent four nights with my homeboy John in Jersey City (aka one PATH away stop from Manhattan and a pretty cool place in its own right). He is also the sole member of the (amazingly good) indie folk act Soul of Jonas. I met him in Rome last year and he invited me to stay with him. In New York I did the usual stuff, wandered the Lower East Side, got lost in the Met and the MOMA, ate in incredible delis, pizza places and Chinese dumpling shops. In a Puerto Rican neighbourhood I had a Tamarind shaved ice from a street vendor. It was incredible. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn we saw a bunch of bands (Anoushka or something like that, Sticks and Stones and something else I can't remember but who were awesome nonetheless). That neighbourhood is absolutely ridiculous. Imagine Queen West between Bathurst and Ossington and multiply it by sixteen. Harlem was also awesome. I spent about 15 minutes debating whether to buy a limited edition Diplomats T-shirt but didn't because they only had them in double XL.
In Philadelphia I danced all night Saturday (Low Budget of Hollertronix, Mark Ronsson) and on Sunday went to see Espers, Bright Black Morning Light and Marie Sioux in a Unitarian Church. They were all quality Psychedelic Folk of the Joanna Newsome, Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart vein.
DC is pretty awful. I got ripped off by a cab driver, stayed in a shitty hostel and missed most of the Smithsonian because it was flooded. The rain was the hardest I've ever seen, like a tropical downpour. The city also felt like a police state, with bag checks, dogs and metal detectors in every building including the public library. Plus everywhere there were reminders of mass slaughter: the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, the museum of the American Indian, the air and Space Museum (including the Enola Gay), the Holocaust memorial and the Museum of American History (which was actually closed but I can imagine). In front of the Whitehouse I chatted with some Grandmother types and torture victims in the rain as they observed the UN's international day against torture.
I met some really interesting people at the hostel. A veteran who claims he was the victim of a covert US government program showed me piles of documents proving that he has microchips embedded all over his body, has had his life intentionally ruined and is perpetually on the run. When he heard I have a journalism degree he gave me all kinds of phone numbers. I ended up on a party line with a bunch of other people just like him.
I also met a guy from UC Berkeley who is researching covert government biological tests from the sixties. This guy was more legit with actual access to the National Archives and stuff. Then there was the Lebanese/German guy who has a PHD in something to do with Native American music and is in DC working at the Smithsonian and the Berlin Anthropological museum. He had a native (Indian) accent because he learned english on a reserve in North Dakota. We drank beer together.
Baltimore (aka Mobtown) was cool. I had Sushi there and wandered clueslessly through the "Ghetto." The fourteen hour overnight bus ride to Charleston South Carolina was not cool. Torturous actually, but an interesting cultural experience. There were two transfers: one at 2 AM and the other at 6. Imagine the tiny Greyhound station in Richmond Virginia at 2AM after ten busses have rolled up and about 800 sleepy, angry people are trying to find the right place to catch their transfer south. The crowd is all black with some latinos and one or two white people. The white people though (and I'm not making this up) were so strange looking. They all had weird lips, and strange bowl cuts, dressed in oversize sweat suits and had the most vacant expressions on their faces like they were mentally disabled.
Charleston South Carolina is gorgeous. The hostel where I'm staying is an old house with two porches and a hammock. I borrowed a bike from one of the staff and rode through a neighbourhood of nineteenth century wooden houses all with peeling paint, grandmas on the stoop and little kids on lowrider bikes (everyone is black). At the beach there were sand dunes, marshes and herons.
Everyone here is maaaad cool. I think we're going out to eat soul food now and listen to a blue grass band. Later I'm going to sit on the porch and drink beer.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Snap Yo' Fingers
I heard that song at least three times last night as I completed, what to me was, the ultimate Philadelphia club crawl. We started at the Five Spot, across the street from the hostel. It was ridiculously crowded and humid, and the clinetele was a hundred percent black. They played rap and dancehall. The energy was low, alot of playas just hanging out by the bar sipping Hennesy-and-coke through straws. Alot of bumping and grinding as the night went on.
We moved to the Metro lounge where Low-Budget of Hollertronix fame plus a few more likeminded mashup, indie dance rap DJs were throwing their Saturday night party. Fucking incredible. It was everything I'd expected of that scene except way more intense. The crowd was perfectly mixed, black/white, boys/girls and they were all losing their shit. I haven't danced that hard maybe ever. Unlike their Toronto equivalents, these guys can mix. Plus the full time guy on the mic is actually exciting instead of embarassing.
After that ended we moved to Transit, a massive afterhours place with three floors. I expected to be let down but again it was amazing. The top floor was Lil' John, the second floor Bjork and the bottom was rock and electro. We danced until early. It was way past the hostel curfew but it didn't matter because the manager was with us. I passed out on my top bunk in my clothes feeling completely validated.
Maybe some other day I'll write about my New York experience but tonight I'm going to some folk show in a church.
We moved to the Metro lounge where Low-Budget of Hollertronix fame plus a few more likeminded mashup, indie dance rap DJs were throwing their Saturday night party. Fucking incredible. It was everything I'd expected of that scene except way more intense. The crowd was perfectly mixed, black/white, boys/girls and they were all losing their shit. I haven't danced that hard maybe ever. Unlike their Toronto equivalents, these guys can mix. Plus the full time guy on the mic is actually exciting instead of embarassing.
After that ended we moved to Transit, a massive afterhours place with three floors. I expected to be let down but again it was amazing. The top floor was Lil' John, the second floor Bjork and the bottom was rock and electro. We danced until early. It was way past the hostel curfew but it didn't matter because the manager was with us. I passed out on my top bunk in my clothes feeling completely validated.
Maybe some other day I'll write about my New York experience but tonight I'm going to some folk show in a church.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Upstate New York
I've actually written two blog posts since the last one but the computer that I was working on swallowed them both. The Erie county library doesn't exactly have the greatest facilities. They do, however, have the original manuscript of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Fin. He's apparently from Buffalo, not Mississippi as I'd always thought.
Anyways, I'm in Boston now staying with my dad's cousin. I don't really have the energy to write about my last week, as a lot has happened, but I will list some of the highlights:
Niagara Falls is dull, even the kitsch. Downtown is the most depressed, boarded up, crumbling place I've ever seen.
Buffalo is amazing. The art gallery is better than Toronto's. The chicken wings are stellar. And Buffalonians are either the most sullen, dangerous looking people ever or incredibly friendly depending on if you're being hustled or not. I got hustled but I'm saving that story for a future blog post called "Conversations with Americans" that I guarantee will be filled with sex, violence, drug abuse, class warfare, racism, xenophobia and religious fundamentalism.
Cortland, New York is the small town where my dad grew up. It's pretty and kinda slow. I stayed with my dad's highschool buddy who is also the former mayor. I went with his family to see motherfucking Dave Matthews in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was the whitest experience I've ever had by far, and I've had some pretty white experiences. It was also kinda good...
Anyways, now I'm in Boston. An amazing place.
Anyways, I'm in Boston now staying with my dad's cousin. I don't really have the energy to write about my last week, as a lot has happened, but I will list some of the highlights:
Niagara Falls is dull, even the kitsch. Downtown is the most depressed, boarded up, crumbling place I've ever seen.
Buffalo is amazing. The art gallery is better than Toronto's. The chicken wings are stellar. And Buffalonians are either the most sullen, dangerous looking people ever or incredibly friendly depending on if you're being hustled or not. I got hustled but I'm saving that story for a future blog post called "Conversations with Americans" that I guarantee will be filled with sex, violence, drug abuse, class warfare, racism, xenophobia and religious fundamentalism.
Cortland, New York is the small town where my dad grew up. It's pretty and kinda slow. I stayed with my dad's highschool buddy who is also the former mayor. I went with his family to see motherfucking Dave Matthews in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was the whitest experience I've ever had by far, and I've had some pretty white experiences. It was also kinda good...
Anyways, now I'm in Boston. An amazing place.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The World Cup in Toronto
And so it's world cup time again in Toronto. When the great Portugese underclass of this city rise up and honk their horns for eight hours straight to celebrate their one nil win over former colony Angola. My friend Mike wrote about his experience at Toronto's favourite Angolan bar yesterday on his blog romsaca.blogspot.com
Today I'm putting on my Sao Paolo FC, Cicinho jersey and going down to the local Brazilian hotspot to watch the game. Do I know anything about sports? No, but it doesn't matter because the beer is cold and no matter who wins there will be street dancing and perhaps some brawls.
I forgot to include, in my far too hasty post about Montreal the other day, a picture of some Quebecois-Algerian guys who sat beside me on a park bench. While I ate my smoked meat, they smoked weed and then in broken english asked me about Vancouver. They liked the beaches but not the incredible dullness. They claimed Montreal was the greatest place on earth and seemed to be especially excited about multiculturalism. They talked to me at length about how Jews, Arabs and Greeks all get along in Montreal and how I must learn French. They encouraged me to visit Algeria and reminisced about the beautiful sand dunes they had once known.
Also, I now know my travel schedule. Tomorrow morning I go to Niagara falls. I'll explore Buffalo for the day before hopping on a bus to Cortland, New York where my father grew up. I'm staying with a high school friend of his, the former mayor for a night before heading on to Boston.
Today I'm putting on my Sao Paolo FC, Cicinho jersey and going down to the local Brazilian hotspot to watch the game. Do I know anything about sports? No, but it doesn't matter because the beer is cold and no matter who wins there will be street dancing and perhaps some brawls.
I forgot to include, in my far too hasty post about Montreal the other day, a picture of some Quebecois-Algerian guys who sat beside me on a park bench. While I ate my smoked meat, they smoked weed and then in broken english asked me about Vancouver. They liked the beaches but not the incredible dullness. They claimed Montreal was the greatest place on earth and seemed to be especially excited about multiculturalism. They talked to me at length about how Jews, Arabs and Greeks all get along in Montreal and how I must learn French. They encouraged me to visit Algeria and reminisced about the beautiful sand dunes they had once known.
Also, I now know my travel schedule. Tomorrow morning I go to Niagara falls. I'll explore Buffalo for the day before hopping on a bus to Cortland, New York where my father grew up. I'm staying with a high school friend of his, the former mayor for a night before heading on to Boston.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Montreal in the Summer
The quick version of my trip to Montreal: I stayed in the Plateau with a very beautiful girl. We spent alot of time hanging out on the patio listening to A Tribe Called Quest, PJ Harvey and Nick Drake while drinking heavy Quebecois beer like Maudite and Fin Du Monde. The nearby Mile End neighbourhood is an amazing confluence of Hasidic Jews, Haitians, and hip people. I walked through a Just for Laughs gag and realised that it's mostly staged: Those "unsuspecting" people are actors!
Tam Tams makes me embarassed to be human. The weekly neo-hippy extravaganza is one part massive drum circle, one part medieval battle recreations and another part faux ethnic bazzar. Imagine the body odour of thousands of peace loving dreadlocked Quebecois youth in the summer humidity.
The Smoked Meat from Schwartz's deli just solidified my opinion that vegetarianism is completely immoral (and perhaps even anti-semitic). Likewise, the chewy Bagels that I ate in Mile End were far better than that doughy shit they sell at the supermarket.
Tam Tams makes me embarassed to be human. The weekly neo-hippy extravaganza is one part massive drum circle, one part medieval battle recreations and another part faux ethnic bazzar. Imagine the body odour of thousands of peace loving dreadlocked Quebecois youth in the summer humidity.
The Smoked Meat from Schwartz's deli just solidified my opinion that vegetarianism is completely immoral (and perhaps even anti-semitic). Likewise, the chewy Bagels that I ate in Mile End were far better than that doughy shit they sell at the supermarket.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)