His Name is Phillip.

The beats my friends have kept

I should be making music with my friends, of that there's no doubt. Out there with the fucking Orcas, gliding among the straits we sound meaningfully at each other, keeping time and caressing the melody. Life is so short, it's a wonder that music is possible. I wonder if all of the gods are offended. The divine beings suspect that we should be ashamed of our existence, our ancient ancestors wrote that we were profoundly failed beings. But it seems to me, and I'm indifferent to my error, that we are only meant to care for each other. And tight beats, tight music making is one of the quickest and bestest means to immortality. If you have to ask, you'll never know, said Louis Armstong.

It's hard to imagine that the nonsense of our time means anything. I'll be damned if Stephen Harper has any bearing on my life. The state of Canada can seep into the drain of oblivion for all I'm concerned. It's not my parents' fault that they lived here therefore it's not my ancestors' fault that I'm Canadian. I prefer to imagine myself as a being of the pale blue dot. I'm simply one of those of the earth. What significance are the tones of my language? Hundreds of languages have existed and they are translated. It's the modern world, children. What adventures exist? Only those which happen in our minds. And the adventure that exists in my mind involves the musicianship of my friends, my comrades. Once I suggested that our band be called "Not Now Later and the Some Other Time." It will always be later and some other time. I love you guys.

Orcas and wolves are always surprising. It's because we know so little about them. Seriously. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick a long time ago, and one of the major themes he emphasized was the complete and endlessly deep ignorance that humans idiotically nurtured about the behavior of Sperm Whales. The mighty Sperm Whale is plagued by human idiocy. First of all, do you know why this wondrous "beast of the deep" is named as it is? It's because the merchant monkeys who raced to massacre them noticed that the oily white substance which served as a fuel for lanterns had the viscosity and coloring of human male sperm. Kill 'em all. Their heads are filled with fucking sperm, like. Today, at the cutting edge of the present, we know barely anything more than the mighty Melville. Don't fret, the Sperm Whale is nearly a memory, we've almost murdered the entire species, praise be to God. To hell with us.

My friends are great musicians. I would love to imagine that all the Gods have an interest in human music making. In this endless universe, isn't it amazing that this stranger "human", self named, chooses to create rhythms to mark the march of time? I don't know if it's amazing, but I know that my friends are. Let's kick it.

Uhhh....?

Fiery and incomprehensible sermons*

It's probably the case that I am not "replete with honor," whatever I intended that to mean. I mean, come on, how can one be stuffed full with honor? It's not like we're Turkeys. Anyway, I am further convinced that a person would be in error should they imagine that I was overflowing with honor for the following reason: I bought a homeless man a beer. Now before you get upset, dear reader, and rush to remark on the foolhardiness of my action, first hear my tale of how it was that I gladly brought an ice cold beer to this solitary man, this reluctant Tom Sawyer. My principle reason was this: He wasn't my mortal enemy.

So I was walking down the street - literally down it and not up it (there are only the two options strictly speaking) when I realized I would likely find him up ahead. By "him" I mean my mortal enemy. I knew to expect him because whenever I run into him it's almost always outside my local beer store. That's where he tries to part from me my heaps of cash. I've learned to anticipate him whatever direction I'm walking in. Even across the street (at a MacDonald's, another of his favorite places) I can easily spot him, his posture is always the same: Widely spread legs undergird a proud gut that overhangs his pants as a bluff does the sea. The confident orb of his blessed gut chimes in time to the music of the heavens, extending in flawless convexity to where his neck should be. There we are surprised to find not his neck but a noble chin, which begins cutting a miniature version of the same shape upwards to the top of his forehead. He looks like a grapefruit on top of a pumpkin, both of which are miraculously balanced upon the apex of his two perfectly straight, spreadeagled and sweat-panted legs. His arms hang at his side, his shoulders he holds back as though to showoff imaginary medals on his grimey and tattered uniform. I dare not quote from his encyclopedic face, except to mention that most of it's covered in a mat of stubble.

I can't imagine the complete variety of adventures this demon finds himself in but from what I've seen it's all about conflict for most of the day. He seems to approach everything with fearlessness and curiosity, he leaves no stone unturned and few passersby unharassed. He makes no bones about his intention to part us from our heaps of cash. He begs for and demands money using a range of techniques, but even at his most passive he exudes bravado and playfulness. I get the sense that most of us are indistinguishable to him as drops of rain. He is a cat that has died many times and is not afraid of doing it again. I've seen him do battle with fellow street folk, and though he rapidly seeks shelter from another's blows, he somehow manages to stand his ground and usually regains position after his temporary combatant has slowly drifted away. At times in a whispered mumble, at others like an opera singer, he chatters away at everyone and everything in sight, rarely without a cigarette, which he easily keeps teetering on his lower lip.

Most recently he's been plying his trade in a leg brace. Somehow he still manages his trademarked posture only with the added flair of crutches. He might have a neck brace as well but if he does it's kept hidden beneath the juncture at which the two orbs of his head and torso collide. While it is easy to appreciate his singularity and admire his unique way of living, one fateful evening I ran under his rails and he ran me over. From then on I do not hide my expansive dislike and avoidance of him. As far as I am concerned he deserves nothing less than my best flying elbow, my elbow is aimed at his temple. The universe has no time or place for such depraved selfishness, such unrelenting abuse and repulsiveness. Fortunately on this day, the one described several inches above, when I had foolishly stumbled into what was usually his territory he was no where to be seen. Like a stupid baby vulture I committed a mistake. I bite at noses and and get trapped in traps!

Well, no matter, it didn't matter, there is almost no empathy at all in the world for the struggles of baby vultures. Their vulnerability does not affect the profound morality of mankind, our development is too vast and penetrating to consider such natural quibbles. So it turned out that the idiot who pretended that they should speak about things they had no thought about was me. And I spoke anyway: "My nemesis, my hated adversary is no where to be seen. I won't hesitate in providing his replacement with the coldest, cheapest beer." And so I did. When I saw with my own eyes that my despised enemy was not present, I rushed into the beer store and greedily grasped for the cheapest beer available; only the most barely acceptable for my random beggar. And I ran in, and clasped the cheapest tall can of beer I could find. I paid for it, I thrust with a passionate eagerness my 2 dollar coin (Canadians are totally genius, we like deplore carbon footprints) into the cashier's palm. I exited the place where the government taxes vice, and strode up to this new homeless man with confidence and good will. "Would you like a beer?" I asked, and he answered: "Yes! Respect!" Respect indeed my dear troubled friend, respect indeed. Like a baby's first steps, the divine truths of human behavior reveal themselves.

*post title thieved from Mario Vargas Llosa

Chatter and natter and patter, oh my!

I remember well that lame speech foisted on us underachieving students about how carrying out one's routine chores was the precipice upon which a great and noble character could be built. The talk's dominant theme was the nasty though crucial task of gathering dog poop and the varied methods wherein this duty might be discharged. I remember feeling awkward for her, as she stood at the podium in front of throngs of her disinterested cohorts. Her noticeable lisp didn't help matters either, and you can imagine the difficulty we had in suppressing our laughter every time she uttered the phrase "pooper-scooper," or for the sake of accuracy, "pooper-schcooper." Yes, the memory is fixed in my mind, largely because even then I was amazed, my jaw hung to my knees in shock and disbelief, that what I was hearing constituted the best my cohort could offer by way of public oratory.

Where this promising young woman ended up I cannot say, and I sincerely wish that the best has happened to her and will continue to do so. Perhaps she now consults, maybe leading a community of toast masters in their quest to master toasting. If the eager, beaming faces of our teachers – not all of them, surely there were a few healthy cynics in their ranks (one can only hope!) – who enthusiastically offered her up as a paradigm of good student were then anything to go by, then I imagine more than a few have helped guide her cheery, accommodating personality towards ambitious goals and influential positions. From what little else I remember of this kind, soft-spoken, lisping girl, I can only hope that she is enjoying her life and the fruits that only schcooping poop can lead to.

Nevertheless, the sort of optimistic, nincompoopic nonsense that then earned her the acclaim of my junior high school’s teachers and administrators reflects the murky depths of lazy idiocy our culture has long been mired in. Ahem. That is to say, I cannot stomach for long the cheery chatter, optimistic natter and doe-eyed patter of asinine speeches. And when this morning a memory of this event clouded my already confused thinking and that young girl’s lisping platitudes about duty, diligence and cleanliness filled my mind, I rushed to represent my disgust by spitting on the floor. But being that I was inside my own living quarters and remembering well an element of the insights of her idiotic harangue, I held back from ejecting my foul saliva and instead swallowed it down, a lonely tear tracing its path beneath my eye, the tart saltiness of my spit offended me so.

Apparently it’s a Spanish proverb which holds that “honor and money share not the same purse.” Perhaps as I’ve none of the latter, I am replete with the former, and though I did not gain the enthusiastic plaudits of my teachers, I nevertheless have not sullied the world with vacuous speeches which return again and again into the minds of my listeners, who though less ambitious or aim-oriented, have not violated the world with unsolicited crap. In related news, Obama has heralded a new era of peace, indeed he has been given a medal for his peacemaking inclinations.