Sunday, August 05, 2001

gosh, been a while.
summer half over.
on vacation now, up north floating in a lake for a week.
sometimes a heavy feeling descends on me, just for a moment, and it's a whole huge long thing wrapped up in a split second feeling of woe...the terrifying, crushing thought that i will die several decades from now having only lived in toronto for my entire life.


posted by b g m 7:10 PM

Tuesday, April 24, 2001

i am tending to wallow in nostalgia lately.
it's a deadly cancer and prevents you from doing anything NEW.
posted by b g m 12:33 AM

Sunday, April 15, 2001

saw the whole hurray hurray for the u.s.a. thing on cnn today about the soldiers back from china.
i especially enjoyed shawn osborne's speech thanking god, since "god is the one who landed that plane". i thought it was nice of god to let the americans live while choosing to ignore the chinese pilot who parachuted to his watery death. he had to make a decision, i guess.
posted by b g m 1:42 AM

as per the last post, song is on the radio thingy again, but it's here now.
segment 3.
posted by b g m 1:34 AM

Friday, March 16, 2001

oh ya, i almost forgot.
they put my song "like sun" on that mp3.com syndicated radio show thing again.
it's good, i guess, but it's a little bit cheesy. the host guy is kind of lame.
and he does this kind of sarcastic thing right as my song is starting...he goes, "oooh, pretty".
hmph.
anyhow, check it out, if you are so inclined. i'm in segment 6.
all for now.
posted by b g m 2:19 PM

still winter.
i think i'm gettin that seasonal affected disorder, "SAD", as they call it.
it's the illness that relates your sad, sad life-feelings to grey, dreary days.
i think i'm going to have to buy one of those giant fake-sunlight machines and sit under it.
or better yet, those big goofy glasses that have flashlights shining into your pupils all day.
that's gotta be good for your eyes.
if you are sad go and listen to my music.
actually, it's not all that cheerful.
friday night. yee-haw. looks like it's movies on the couch.
posted by b g m 2:11 PM

Sunday, March 11, 2001

god i'm gonna be a happy, snappy pappy when winter is over. what's up with that fuckin' groundhog, anyway? 2 more weeks of winter my ass.
they've taken to cutting down the huge old nice trees on our street lately. just cause one fell over in the wind in december and crushed a lady's car.
today i bought cd's.
low: beautiful, very nice. a bit religious in tone, but nice nonetheless.
grandaddy: a bit goofy, what with the computer-man kinda theme, but catchy. we'll see in the next coupla days if it's a keeper or a returner.
the doves: listening right now. on song 3. quite good. very hyped lately, so i was reluctant, and didn't think i knew them. but it was that thing where i heard a song and said "aha!" because i remember hearing that song months and months ago and liking it and trying to make a mental note about it but then i forgot because i'm dumb and getting older and older each moment. who isn't.

drinking too much. was sick for 10 days and didn't drink and now scarfing down beck's like it was going out of style, which it is.

going to montreal end of month. dave's art show.

all for now.
posted by b g m 1:46 AM

Friday, March 02, 2001

i think my mom is the mole.
posted by b g m 12:27 AM

Thursday, February 08, 2001

champaign for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
posted by b g m 3:48 PM

Tuesday, January 23, 2001

i got that 7 pound beatles anthology book for christmas.
i'm almost finished reading it.
i think they should sell it with some sort of lap-table thing that supports it, because it is absolutely painfull holding the thing up after a while, especially if you're trying to read it in bed.
forget about reading it in the bathtub. i tried it, once.
paul mccartney is certainly the whiney dick of the band, as i always suspected.
posted by b g m 2:05 PM

Monday, January 22, 2001

wow. did absolutely nothing today. stayed inside the entire day. not too difficult to do if it's freezing outside.
saw traffic yesterday. pretty good film. i thought the whole colour-theme thing (blue in washington, sepia in tijuana) was a bit unnecessary.
al waxman died. a country mourns.
posted by b g m 6:21 PM

Monday, January 15, 2001

sunday i watched scooby-doo for the first time in a long time. it said at the end that it was made in 1976. i was wondering if i had watched that very episode when i was little, and what i did right after. was it saturday morning...was i allowed to sleep in the tv room the night before and made a fort out of the pillows from the fold-out couch? shameless nostalgia. it was, strangely enough, an episode where they were chasing down some ghosts in canada. montréal, to be exact. or MONN-treal, as they, and most americans seem to say. then i was thinking, much in the vein of the last post, that scooby-doo and the x-files are basically the same show. investigating paranormal incidents relating to crimes. scoob and shaggy are the all-believing, (zoinks!) slightly gullible mulder-types, and the rest of the kids, especially the vaguely lesbian-ish girl, are the doubting, skeptical scully types. just a thought.
those kids always seemed way older than they were supposed to be.
saturday mornings are a sad search for witty cartoons, these days.
posted by b g m 11:58 PM

Wednesday, January 10, 2001

train of thought:
i was thinking about the recent radiohead album, how i really liked it at first and thought that critics who panned it were just doing it so they wouldn't be automatically loving it like everyone else. now i'm sort of missing ok computer, i liked that album a lot. i know that they are 'deconstructing rock and roll' or whatever, but the charm is wearing off. someone put it perfectly when they said, "it's a really good album, it's just not very fun to listen to in the car." that's exactly it. plus i'm getting really sick of thom yorke, seeing him everywhere and hearing him on everyone's album. even though i love the duet with bjork and also the one with p.j. harvey (love her), thom yorke has become the new michael stipe. i said it first. first come the duets on every album that comes out, then it's wearing t-shirts with slogans on them to the grammy awards. then hair problems, so wear some hats and then (phew!) shaved heads are in so that's the new image to hide aging and balding. mark my words. then i was thinking that matt damon is the new mathew modine. he is the same guy or at least has the same career that mathew modine had in the '80's. isn't it true?
so cynical.
posted by b g m 6:19 PM

Tuesday, January 09, 2001

fuck collection agencies.
pimps.
posted by b g m 2:34 AM

Monday, January 08, 2001

see december 5th post for story.
then look at crash pix.
posted by b g m 2:14 PM

Tuesday, January 02, 2001

well, that last post was a bit self-pity boy, wasn't it?
i didn't mean it that way. i just meant that i've been so uninspired of late, and i know i can do stuff i just have to get off my ass and do it. but...new year, fresh page. fresh. fresh and clean. clean slate.

obligatory list for this time of year

i)     be more social.  return phonecalls.  go out more, don't complain about it's too smokey. 
       remember that , when at bars, i used to smoke and talk really loud about inane things and have dumb
       hair, too.  try not to be so old and crusty.  try to adjust theory that teenagers are way stupider now.
ii)    join the fucking Y already, like i keep meaning to.  man-breasts come from brie cheese and beer
       should be a mantra.
iii)   write more lyrics.
iv)   hang up clothes instead of draping them all over everything, until there are giant mounds everywhere
       and the floor is a thick carpet of soiled laundry and we have to shut the bedroom door when people
       come over, because it's so humiliating.
v)    get rid of the cats.  cats are evil, and they steal your breath.
vi)   buy fresh guitar strings.

posted by b g m 3:52 PM

Thursday, December 28, 2000

i can make beautiful music.
i just never do.
posted by b g m 11:46 PM

Saturday, December 23, 2000

it is f r e e z i n g outside today.
it's a good thing that halloween and christmas aren't reversed. think of all those crying, frost-bitten children ringing your doorbell on december 25th. screw the candy, give us coffee...or a scarf.
not to mention the difficulty of putting all your presents under a pumpkin.
posted by b g m 12:10 AM

Thursday, December 21, 2000

wow.
4 days until christmas. 3 until the german one.
i've seen people being really bitchy, mean to eachother all over the place lately. last night on the subway these 2 strangers, a man and a woman, were totally snapping at each other, nattering away about a newspaper that was on one of the seats and she didn't move or he was rude or there wasn't enough room or i didn't know it was your paper or something to that effect. anyway, they were just going on and on all nasty to eachother. happy holidays!
god forbid you try to do some x-mas shopping. or go down yonge street like i did yesterday afternoon, trying to park in a parking garage, waiting in a line of honking, yelling angry cars. and people are so snotty and short-tempered everywhere, just angry about everything. it makes me think, if that's the kind of crappy mood your in when you're buying things for your family or loved ones or whoever, then what's the point? that's the spirit your giving them, when you give them your gift: "this was a major pain in the ass and i hate this fucking crowded mall". it's a wonderful life.
i think of the summertime, when you go up to the lake and you go for a nice long sunny boat ride and as other boats speed by the people in them always wave, and you wave back, and everybody likes eachother, all nice and smiling. but they're probably the same people who, an hour earlier on the highway journey, gave you the finger and were yelling "fuck you" through their closed car window.

posted by b g m 1:45 PM

Wednesday, December 20, 2000

back home in toronto.
lots of snow.
it's christmas here.
christmasy. not just way too many lights on your house in a hot climate.
shovelled the sidewalk and taught olivia how to make a snow angel.
also taught her what yellow snow is. and not to eat it.
posted by b g m 12:31 AM

Saturday, December 16, 2000

i think i'm doing a short film soundtrack when i get home.
apparently, a "kung fu fairy tale."
posted by b g m 1:19 AM

went to san francisco for the third and final time before we go home.
just parked and walked around, beautiful day. mostly around haight-ashbury.
strange neighbourhood. amazing victorian houses. but it's that usual thing that
happens to formerly cool neighbourhoods. now at the intersection of haight-ashbury
there is a gap and a ben and jerry's. but it's a weird mix of stuff...all the old '60's
places are now hip clothing places or tacky tye-die incense souvenir traps. and
mixed with all the pricey stores and bad nic-nacs are quite a few homeless people,
some really stoned looking scary people and drug dealers. watched several tiny
packages exchange hands while i sat eating ice cream at ben and jerry's with
my 2 kids. and then you've got all the rich people who've bought all the former
crash-pads and fixed them all up but they have to put extra locks on their garages
full of passats and they are really bitter about all the creepy people who think they
are hippies staring into their windows all the time. "this isn't jerry garcia's house!"
i walked by the greatful dead house, also the charles manson one. nice houses.

we are leaving day after tomorrow.
back to several feet of snow.
posted by b g m 12:59 AM

Friday, December 15, 2000

today was a shitty, grey day.
went to a crappy mall. against my better judgement, went into the toy store that olivia begged me to go into. small little place crowded with people and aisles full of boxes and me with a huge double stroller and 2 kids. after i couldn't bear it any longer, i gave o. the required 5 minute warning that we were leaving, then we attempted to leave, but each aisle was full and obstructed. i finally just chose one and a woman had to contort her body so i could get by, but then another woman was in front of her, and she and a stack of boxes were preventing our pass. she was a fat, nasty looking white trash american woman. sorry to all offended groups. she basically refused to move and said "those things aren't allowed in here," with a snarl, referring to the stroller. just wanting to get the fuck out of there, i said "thanks for the tip," and tried to get past her girth. then she said, "and kids don't belong in here either". i kind of laughed, but i could feel myself starting to shake, anger brewing, and said, "oh, kids aren't supposed to be in a toy store? that's a great point" and it was getting very tense, and people were trying to get past, and there was no way i was getting past this bitchy woman, so i started backing up the aisle, and said, "come on guys, we can't get out this way," and of course olivia asked why (like she does with everything these days), so i replied, in the woman's direction, "because this way is blocked by boxes and a grouchy lady." then we turned around to go the other way but before leaving i said, loudly, "no olivia, don't touch those toys, they're only for grown ups." i saw the guy behind me laugh. at this point i was so mad, really wanting to say something else to this creepy woman, but i kept thinking i can't, i have the kids with me and this is california and she probably has a sawed-off shotgun in her purse. i wanted to ask her if she had any kids and comment on what a fun mom she must be for them, back in their fucking trailer, no toys allowed. *merry christmas!*
then olivia of course found another toy and didn't want to leave and had a fit 'cause i put my foot down, urgently feeling the need to escape this horrible mall and made her and she was sad and i felt like a shitty dad again.

posted by b g m 12:44 AM

Monday, December 11, 2000

thanks dave for the tag.
mp3.com has me on this syndicated radio show thing now. it's kinda goofy, but i guess it's good.
(go to mp3.com/bgm and click on the big red button). i'm in a strange mix.
i'm in one of those what's the point of recording music moods.
which is odd, because i'm totally missing my guitar.
but what's the point of recording it, instead of just playing it.
it seems sort of presumptious, like you think other people are gonna want to hear it.
ask me tomorrow and i'll think something different.
went to monterey yesterday.
nice enough place, by the sea.
but all of these places are a little disappointing. i mean, the scenery is awe-inspiring, for sure,
but the actual towns are strange. i don't know what i expected in monterey....like i would see
mama cass walking around with brian jones...but these towns all seem so dead.
it's like they're very pretty, but not real.
all of the old buildings got new paintjobs and are now occupied by quaint stores that your mom would like.
it's all about the paint jobs.
san jose is the strangest. it is lifeless here. there is one "cool" area, first street, which is the obligatory run-down-neighbourhood-which-now-is-trendy, but all it has is a few nice restaurants and a cybercafe type deal and some clubs. for the life of me, i cannot find any stores on the streets.
food and a few bad art galleries.
but no stores.
sue even asked the girl at the desk about stores, and she said "i think there's a mall over on..."
you think? well where do you go? don't you have to buy stuff?
it's all flat and spread out and downtown is just for tourists.
one week til we come home. then we have 6 days to buy presents and everything. it will be nuts.
not to mention that it will be freezing and snowy and our house is a mess with piles of laundry and the cats have probably pissed all over it by now.

posted by b g m 7:54 PM

Friday, December 08, 2000

i want to learn how to play drums.
i keep hearing all these rhythms in my head, and have no outlet.
i’m sick of drum machines and fucking shaky egg things and tambourines.
but i guess drums cost a few thousand dollars.
i think i could soundproof a room in the basement.
drums drums drums.
posted by b g m 9:05 PM

watching ‘planet of the apes’ on bad hotel tv.
went to santa cruz a day before yesterday. nice beach and pier with one of those huge old beachside buildings from the ‘20’s, with a big amusement park, but apparently it’s a summer thing, ‘cause the place was absolutely deserted. everything was shut down and quiet. felt like westworld. but we played on the beach, it was really hot, then walked down the pier and saw a whole bunch of sea lions swimming and lying around. fun.
today we drove to woodside, close to where neil young lives. drove up the mountain, beautiful drive, 2 lane road extra curvy. then lily barfed in the car but i couldn’t do anything ‘cause there’s nowhere to stop on those roads. finally got to a little side part of the road and wiped her off…covered with puke and pine needles at the side of the roads in the shade of the pines and redwoods on top of a mountain. windows open wide for the rest of the drive.
found ‘the mountain house’, tiny restaurant and neil hang-out, (featured in ‘harvest moon’ video). it was closed. we are going there for dinner on saturday night.
the one thing i have noticed is that everyone is very friendly here.
but they drive like maniacs and the roads are shit.
i hear it’s –17 in toronto and snowy.

posted by b g m 12:15 AM

Tuesday, December 05, 2000

yesterday we went to san francisco.
it is amazing, i would live there for sure. really beautiful, very distinctive.
so, we had just turned left after going down lombard st. (the crookedest street in the world!) when bam! somebody backing up gunned it and smashed right into the right front of our rental. crashed in the whole front by the wheel. yay. we had been in s.f. for about 6 minutes. olivia was freaking out, screaming her head off, but only because her juice spilled on impact. everyone was okay. so we deal with all the details, sue calls the rental place (thank god for cel phones this time) and we exchange info with the culprit who smashed us (who was actually nice) and arrange for another car with avis, who tell us where the closest office is in s.f. we get back in the car and drive up and down these crazy hills looking for this office, and finally find it. everyone’s great, we have insurance so we just get a brand new car (the one mechanic guy came up to me and said ‘aren’t rentals great? you fuck one up and they just give you another!). just as we’re about to leave another guy comes up to me and says that we are lucky we came right to the renal office and didn’t drive anymore. i asked why and he took me over to our old car which was sitting there with the right front wheel OFF. they had just moved the car, turned the wheel once and the wheel just snapped off. one more turn and we would have been in a serious accident. i don’t know if you know san Francisco, but those are some serious street, the hills are at a 60 degree angle, it’s insane. and we drove around for quite a few minutes trying to find this place. i showed sue the car and took a picture of the whole family standing in front of this wheel-less wreck, it was funny, but we could have been in bad bad shape. everyone kept telling us how lucky we were.
the rest of the day was great, went to fisherman’s wharf, ghirardelli chocolate factory for ice cream, drove across the golden gate bridge…typical stuff but very fun. we will go back a couple times for sure, there’s too much to do there.
today olivia peed in the car. she just couldn’t wait any longer.

posted by b g m 1:56 AM

Monday, December 04, 2000

this post is actually from november 30, on the airplane, but i couldn't get online until now.

well, here we are on the plane. It’s apparently around 10:30pm, so we’ve been flying for around 3 hours. it’s black black black outside, but very clear…can see city grids and layouts from the lights. I think we just flew over denver. there’s one of those fancy-shmancy graphics on the screen that shows you where you are over the continent, and we were just over mt. rushmore a while ago, and rapid city, which is funny because I just watched north by northwest on saturday and they are always talkin’ bout ‘rapid city’ as they’re climbing around on that really cool frank lloyd wright-ish house that I would love to live in, right on top of the presidents’ heads.
olivia and lily are finally asleep. they’ve been pretty good, actually, only mild screaming on the plane, much to the chagrin of the gentleman in front of lily, i’m sure. i could see his grouchy ear throught the crack in the seats, about 3 inches from lily’s curled, shrieking mouth. back at the airport in toronto, olivia, for some reason, decided to run around saying “pantyhose.” she went to the middle of everyone in the waiting area, sat on the ground, and yelled it. then she would go up to people, right in their face, and just say “pantyhose.” it was kind of funny but a little disturbing and i’m sure people were wondering what kind of environment we raise her in.
lord knows who is going to read these boring rambles, but it’s giving me something to do.
i was surfing around last night and found that neil young’s ranch is in woodside, california. turns out that this is 22 miles from where we are staying in san jose. i just may take a drive out that way, just for the hell of it. see where he lives, anyway, where the music comes from, so to speak.
i hope our rental has a cd player in it, i brought around 20 cds.
i am currently loving the new patti smith-esque pj harvey record. very, very good.
also the new teenage fanclub record called ‘howdy’. at first I thought it was just ‘songs from northern britain’ again, which i loved, but it’s actually really good. very poppy.
then there’s this cd by broadcast, a band I saw at lee’s palace, who opened for the sea and cake. the show was okay, they are one of those bands that has strange kooky scenes projected behind them onstage, which i find really gimmicky and tired. very annoying, it’s sort of like, ‘we’re really boring, so here’s this to watch’. the only benefit is that you can look back at the projector and see how much film is left on the reel, thereby estimated when the band will wrap up, just like i would do during those really boring biology films in junior high. the drummer was great though. anyway, the live show was so-so, they are sort of a cross between stereolab and combustible edison, with a bit of air thrown in…breathy nico-ish female singer over analog synth and harpsichordy moody stuff..you know the recipe. but i’ve really taken to the album, it doesn’t seem to be trying to be as artsy as they were, it’s really good…kind of a john barry-era bond film vibe.
the cartoon plane says we are over some places called ‘eureka’, ‘mt. wilson’, ‘currant mountain’….i think we are somewhere near nevada. about an hour away.
i think that i’m really boring.

posted by b g m 8:59 PM

Saturday, December 02, 2000

hey there.
i'm in some cybercafe-type deal in san jose. 10 minutes free internet if i order something so i got a latte since they don't have beer. haven't posted because yahoo screwed up sue's password thingy and she can't log on without it, and now they are closed until monday. so we've been dialing up over and over and getting a really fun error message that we love a lot now. anyway, it's pretty good here so far, we are staying in one of those airport-type places, the asshole of the area i'm sure, nice enough room but not very inspiring. lily and i are both sick, so that's fun. but we drove up a mountain today and i finally started to feel like we are somewhere different. tomorrow we go to san francisco for the day. yay.
ummm....pressure pressure...i am walking around town waiting for our fish to be ready from this fancy restaurant that i got take out from, then i bring it back to the ladies at the hotel. we got sick of hotel food so i came here. plus i needed to get out.
i wish i could just stay out here and go to a bar, see a band or something, it's all energetic nightime hopping atmosphere now. but instead i will go back and watch stuart little on hbo.
will post more on monday i suppose, if yahoo gets sue online.
it is nice here.
but i fear we will tire of mexican food.
also everything is new. not a surplus of old buildings with character.
we saw one of those cars that hops up and down. don't see a lot of those in canada.

later.
posted by b g m 10:17 PM

Thursday, November 30, 2000

okay.
about 3 hrs until we have to go.
just trying to set this thing up before sue gets home and wonders why the f i'm on the computer when we have one million things to do. i've dealt with cat shit and fish tanks and dirty laundry and now it's time for a break.
i am dreading 5 hrs on a plane with 2 screaming kids. especially lily. we are that family that you really, really hate sitting near on the plane.
more later.
posted by b g m 11:34 AM