I posted this comment on someone’s blog today. No im not clever.
It is a thought I had after reading their post. It does not reflect the quality of their writing, which I happen to think is quite exquisit. Simply it is a notion I had which I didn’t think much about as I wrote it and am not thinking much about as I post it now, but if you care to think about it, please drop me a line and perhaps we could go for a walk.

Michael 21:12
blog culture is interesting.
life culture is interesting.

**the first space was to create anticipation as to what that asterix might mean.
[fancy]

So my blog formatting is all gone to hell because I changed the smallest thing with the header formatting.
It works in Mozilla, which speaks worlds to you IE hangers on….

Use Mozilla. And I’ll keep workign to fix this garbage. It won’t take long, but I certainly don’t have the patience in this weather.

Peace

Sunday!
This weekend was pretty fun. I played 2 gigs at the Bass Line Station Friday and Saturday with Jake and Lucas. They were pretty fun, and always a good learning atmosphere with musicians the likes of those two.
The turnout was pretty poor. Hopefully we can do better next time.

I have an essay due Friday! That’s actually kind of exciting. I think I would rather have small things like that to do every once in a while throughout the summer. Otherwise I would have found a fulltime job by now and would certainly despise it by now (g*d forbid I find a job I really enjoy). I really don’t like the routine of showing up somewhere once you know all the ropes. My experience has always been that once you know everything the job is boring, the clients are retarded, and I just spend the rest of my hours trying to figure out ways to scam the system. So for now I continue to play as many gigs as possible. It won’t be $800 paychecks, but Im honing my craft and doing what I love. The clients seem to enjoy it and are always pulling new entertaining strangery throughout gigs.
Friday night there was an older man there who had clearly had too much to drink. Dressed in a nice beige blazer/getup with a hat that may have even had a small feather in it… he persistently approached the stage pressing downwards with his hands; slower. he wanted everything slower. he wanted everything cooler. he wanted jake to stop moving his mouth? he wanted llucas to stop ‘popping’. he made a lot of good observations, but this was a blues bar, not Frank Sinatra’s playhouse. And so the music goes on…

The girl I am giving my attention to is showing little in return. I am left to analyze my past experiences and so-called ‘wisdom’ about girls to try and figure out what I feel would be the best next step. Nothing too extreme. Maybe a conversation would sort things out, but in that case we would need to be in the same room first. And so tomorrow is Jazz Band rehearsal!

I have 4 gigs in June that are on either a Tuesday or a Thursday. Domenic’s is going to shit a rectangle sideways.

Finally, Easel Outside is coming along. We have musical acts. We have the interest of some of our Easel Members visual artists, which leads me to conclude that we shouldn’t have any problem getting a full roster of visual artists, once our letter of invitation is complete.

Paul has a cool picture on his blog today. The layers make for plenty of examination and movement between depths. The creepy silhouette in the back right is also quite disturbing. Who is it!?

I will try to blog more often so that the spirits that be can ease (that being primarily my conscience).

The lines of my hands speak more than the limited syntax of this cinema of words.
Play is far too disfiguring. Ideas become vastly different ideas in the end.
Sweet broken telephone.

I am home and what a relief. I can’t wait to do it again. There is some shame in not traveling. If anything about my previous thoughts are correct, that is, the entirety of existence as the sum of the thoughts of one mind (your own subjective mind), then the more you experience the greater your existence; if not only to a miniscule degree of relativity.

bracket quote end quote bracket

I saw a great deal of friends tonight at Paul Jeff Bashir’s new place. It was a warming reminder of comfort as well as an emptyness of those that were not visited, despite a relative viscinity.

Ah, home. Welcome wherever you are.

TuesDay was great. Walked around the downtown area and saw everything I was hoping, except live music and Good (naturally).

Im off to Main street this evening to catch as much live music as I can.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to Tswaassen (about an hour away) and then take the Ferry from there to Swartz Bay, Vancouver Island to visit some elementary school friends somewhere in Victoria.

Excitement at every turn!

Peace is overwhelming.

Monday was great. Lots of walking. Lots of walking.

Went to Mushroom and Armoury studios but having arrived rather late to Vancouver, they were both closed by the time I got there. Oh well, really.

The Cellar was a great spot I checked out at night. Unfortunately Mondays are improv/freejazz evenings and the band, The Existential Angst Party, didn’t ever hold a beat for much more than a couple bars. Their singer, a woman who prefered the French language and limited herself mostly to one or two words per song, spent a good deal of time cackling and screeching and whispering like a chorus of little nervous mice.

The band consisted of a drummer, guitarist, the singer, an upright bass player, and a fellow on ‘laptop and violin’, who added some cool atmosphere and on-the-spot mixing and effects processing the singer’s voice. Some cool stuff for sure, but not what I travelled 3,000km to see

Today I hope to get around downtown as much as possible; spread some Easel love and find some good spots to check out tonight.

Wednesday I am off to Victoria island to visit some old chums. I don’t know how the internet situation will be.

Im enjoying the alone time (marked so by my staying close to the computer- just checking up really!).
Figuring out what I like and what I don’t. Greek dinner last night was delicious. I like Greek. I also like walking, and being free of pop and nonsense conversation, though I haven’t ventured downtown yet…

And Im off!

My experiential development is beginning to bourgeon beyond blogspression. I had dinner today with 18 family members of different walks of life. I am gaining a feeling of belonging within this community as well as the world.
I continue to reveal new ideas and polish old thoughts about the nature of existence, as I feeeeeel.

I finally took it upon myself to ask my uncle Ray what exactly he does for a living. As it turns out, he works at the Brockwood Park School in Winchester, UK. He used to teach there but now spends his time editing philosophical works for publishing as texts, mainly the work of (now past) J. Krishnamurti. I would label (and run) it a school of theology, except one of his first ideals is to transcend religion, sacred practice, following leaders and other practices of coersion and organization.
A book by him which I anticipate reading, is a recording of thirteen discussions held between Krishnamurti and leading quantum physicist (of his time) David Bohm, who wrote the first text book on the topic, entitled Quantum Mechanics. The dialogues are from 1960.

These are my thoughts for the day. Thanks for reading.

The entirety of the universe and existence as the sum of the thoughts of one mind. Im not sure potential can collapse into reality anywhere beyond that.

Driving back from the Summerland Pyramid Winery, I figure I will recount my thoughts now rather than in the company of seldom seen visitors.

The winery was, needless to say, a thirst quenching. We began with an overpriced lunch at a post-modern traditional restaurant on the estate. We had great conversation about music, younger times, and the elasticity of language.

Aunt Eve exemplified Ebonics as a recently acknowledged new language that was entirely acceptable and appropriate. My counter argument was something like, “That ain’t no proper language, I says. Same way it don’t make no sense for a guy to approach me and ask if I know where the washrooms is.” She then noted the importance of it having been identified as significant enough by a guild of sorts to be included in a dictionary. Eventually, and as always I concluded that everything is contextual, and referred to conversations between Jeff, Paul, Jesse and I, when we would ask someone to “pass the jam”, or “pull the shlivel ‘round the sang”. In both instances, the inquisitor received exactly the response they had anticipated. So what to English? And who cares if a language is dictionary worthy or not? Dictionaries do not necessarily dictated what words will be understood by those with whom you converse. There will always be misunderstandings and unknown definitions. That’s why these attempted word-constraining encyclopaedias exist in the first place.

MS Word just underlined encyclopedias, to inform me that it was in fact spelt encyclopaedias. But really, what does it matter? It isn’t even necessary that you be thinking of my definition of encyclopedia, or word bank and explainer. Simply that enough of the meaning is conveyed so that you can feel comfortable nodding your head and providing a response (i.e comment!).

Uncle Fred is lost. To be continued once we arrive at Marg’s…

Tonight was very nice…

The day began as I awoke to the sound of the family making noise in the kitchen around 7am. I was asleep in the living room, being the youngest and most limbre I was automatically alotted ‘pull-out couch’ status.

After breakfast we went back to aunt Margaret’s and the group of us went to downtown Kelowna to check out the arts district and all that it entailed. There were some fairly neat galleries in the area and I had the chance to drop some Easel posters and such which was great. Following that we had lunch at the Grand hotel restaurant. A ritzy place; I had a burger.

After lunch the group headed to see our cousin Dianne and her horse at a ranch way out wherever. Nice horses and goats make me think about the minds of organisms large and small, simple and complex.
Uncle Gerry apparently went to pat Dianne’s horse prior to us arriving and the horse, thinking his fingers were carrots, bit his fingers and held on for a moment before realizing that he wasn’t to break a piece off for chewing. I hope he’s doing alright, I haven’t seen him since before the incident, but I will be sure to get some pictures tomorrow!

After the ranch we came back to our place and chilled out a while. As people started getting on each other’s nerves my mom and aunt eve and I decided to go walk around the waterfront. There’s plenty to see there- sculptures, ships, gardens, people. Good times for sure and good exercise.

Following that wonderful walk we all met up again and went to dinner. I tell you nothing is more frustrating than trying to convince a bunch of people who are set in their ways, where to go for dinner.
We ended up eating at White Spot, which was like any other chain. Good teriyaki chicken though, I guess.

To sum it all up, after a long day of spending way too much time with the same people, I walked myself out to the end of the docks with my guitar and some beer and played into the evening. My thoughts were scattered and for possibly the first time, I sang like I may have not before. The view is absolutely incredible and the photos will certainly not portray it, but thanks anyways to Paul for sharing his knowledge of Exposure and ISO levels, which definately made the pictures possible in such night lighting, whereas the first ones shot were simply black.

Check that Flickr for pics!

Note to 80 year old aunt and easily persuaded, FordWindstar driving husband:
When Mike says “Don’t turn right because you won’t be able to turn left onto the highway,”
Heed his instructions!
Otherwise you…
a) Won’t be able to turn left onto the highway to get us home
b) Will end up driving in the wrong direction, coming to a complete stop on said highway, while vaguely recognizing a passing dairy queen
c) Will take TWO, that’s right TWO left hand turns too sharp and will come within inches of hitting medians (rubbing tires against, in fact).
d) Will drive the rest of the way home with your high beams on because all of these medians are coming out of nowhere
e) All of the above. *ding ding*

Dinner this evening at my aunt Margaret’s was great. I learned something. I would like to blogscuss it now but it’s currently 930pm, which is actually 1230am, and Ive been up since 4am. Furthermore, I am sleeping in the living room of a (beautiful) condo-resortishtype where I am sure to be roused by any of the four 50+ partygoers before the cock crows dawn.

Keep checkin’ that Flickr page link to the lower right of the page as pictures speak louder than words.

Tomorrow I will write in the morning of our family tree, yours and mine.

12:30
39,847 feet
498 MPH

This plane has everything. The back of every seat is fitted with a small television. Mine is randomly playing the Discovery Channel. Something about surgery and tree frogs. A piece on environmentally conscious energy coming up. The seat beside me informs me that we’re currently flying at an altitude of 39,890 feet, moving 495 miles per hour west, relative to the ground; I wonder if that include the earth’s rotation.

The isle seat, where my mom sits with her legs up reading Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair, displays Fox News. Today’s latest Fox News Alert: Defence Dept releases new video footage of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. I haven’t bothered to plug in my headphones for the moment, but I can only imagine the fear-imposing overtones. Of course he’s still alive and dangerous, I don’t think I have read a single article in the past 3 years that exclaimed the capture of a ‘terrorist’ we had heard of before. Bin Laden? Zarqawi?

Discovery Channel is now showing a man in a wave-pool research lab, holding on to a rope with an expression, not anxious but understanding, as a 6 foot wave billows towards him.

I was lucky enough to get a window seat. Life in detail overwhelms me when the plane lifts off. Macro quickly subsides to micro. Micro dissolves into itself. As the process continues I quickly find myself amongst the inviting clouds. Like perfect scoops of vanilla ice cream suspended on layers of saran wrap that extend for miles. I take a bite, and fall asleep. 4am arousals never last very long.

It supposed to be warm in Kelowna. Just before we pass Calgary I see the ground as it stretches for miles like a graham cracker, with a powdered sugar sprinkle of what must be the last bit of snow for the season.

And then, the mountains…

[pics to come]

Flight departs 06:50
I should probably get some sleep.