s h ! n d ! d

I have the urge.
I have the urge to hear my ribs crack.
To feel the hot slap of a stranger’s hand on my face
And to lick off the blood of my newly split lip.

I want to be shaken violently by a human being.
I want fire.
I want scars.
I want better reason to fight back.

Even to me.

—-

Continuing from the subject matter from last night’s post; I wrote this on the back of my bus ticket last night. Unedited. I was going to call it An Ode to Holden Caulfield, but it technically isn’t an “ode”… Hungry now.

So this is what it feels like. I’ve been traveling the world since the end of May and finally I have started to settle down in one spot for more than two weeks (a record). But I’m feeling completely displaced. I have no phone, no internet (net cafes are a rare and expensive commodity), no television, no radio, read no newspapers because all free papers are tabloids and I don’t trust them. I feel so disconnected. Pure in some ways, and definitley less cluttered; but still.

I started work at an art house cinema this week. It’s what I wanted, and I’m glad I have it, but I now remember that I’ve probably moved on from it. Kinda gone back three steps in my career. I think I will have to work my arse off for the next couple months and then find something more creative and challenging. In the mean time I want to make some side projects. Looking very forward to finally doing it. Hope I am in the mood to do them, whan I’m ready. You have to be in the mood to do some of those things.

The other thing about where I work (aside from all the butter and oil) are the kids I work with. They’re pretty cool (but then I think kids today know too much about being cool, bring back the awkward teen years, I say) but they are almost TEN whole years younger than me. It makes me feel so old. One today mentioned how she was like 9 when the Backstreet Boys were big. Boy, did that make me feel old. I was nearly double that age at the same time! I also found out the Spice Girls are finally having a reunion tour?! What the?! When did that happen? I want to go! That brings me to my next point of displacement.

I have no friends here, yet. I know, poor little ole me moving to a new country and doing what I want and I complain about the people I left behind. Boo Hoo. But it is hard. Imagine spending the last 20 odd years – all the years of your life, having a place you belong to and then trying to recreate that almost overnight. That’s what it’s like. I can’t even afford to be a social creature at the moment.

Can you hear some The Catcher in the Rye in this post? Yep, I just finished reading it. I’ve had more patience and desire to read of late. I think I can attribute a lot of my moods and thoughts at a particular time (almost like a mirror image) by the book I reading at that time. Catcher left me a little upset and depressed. With subtle moments where I find the world beautiful and good. But mostly I am feeling the emo punch. I even have that crazy imagination; but I haven’t quite got to a stage where I hold my gut as I limp through city streets… just yet. I’m now reading And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave. This will be an interesting ride. One chapter as a foul-mouthed poor country mute who remembers his own stinkin’ birth and the death/parting of his twin brother and the next, descriptions of a purist christian faith. God, I love Nick Cave.

I think after this I will go back to romantic fantasies and myths. I had nicer dreams then. They are even largely responsible for the new works I want to make. I’m attempting to recreate some vivid dreams, you see. And that is all.

Found a home, jobs galore, seen some great things, eaten good food, had free/cheap stuff given to me and now my tax return is on the way. Great freakin’ week. Personal life… well that’s personal.

Tomorrow is officially a week since I’ve been in Vancouver. I move into my new place… how bizarre… first house out of home. First share house. Ohhhh…

I’m being cheap and finding freebie furniture online and making people deliver them too.

I start work in the upcoming week.

I’ve cut soft drinks and TV out of my life, for now. Being more productive that way.

I might just have to make some art this year. I think I owe to my new changes.

I’m gonna have some 2 minute noodles now.

Well, after three long nights and four days on a train (non-stop) from Toronto to Vancouver; I arrived in Vancouver yesterday morning. And incredibly, so much of what people have told me turns out to be true.

1. “It’s a lot like Sydney.”
The city’s architecture and multicultural mini cities/burbs are so much like Sydney.
During down times when I lose sight and faith in finidng a place to live and work (I know it’s only been two days, but it feels like an eternity!), I wonder why I’m bothering to move to a city that’s almost exactly like home, without the comforts of home. But then that’s the point innit? Make the most it.

2. “There’s lots of Asians.”
Have to say, Asian is EVERYWHERE! I’m staying at the West End downtown atm, not only is it the gay man’s Vancouver Mecca (complete with hot pink bus shelters and bins), it’s also the unofficial Koreatown! Even further downtown there are lots of pan-asian eateries. I dare say Canadians have a fetish for sushi!
I think they have more Asians than we do in Sydney!

3. “Canada’s cold, and Vancouver rains a lot.”
Yup. I thought I was getting frostbite in my THIGHS last night! The cold itself wouldn’t be so bad if only it weren’t for the icy rain too. Vancouverites have had practice with this though, cos they get to wear big waterproof coats, remarkably dry shoes AND everybody’s pants are at the perfect hem length! True! Nobody but me has wet dragging bits on the bottom of their jeans.

4. “Watch out for all the homeless people.”
Downtown’s pretty bad. I’ve been told by almost every local not to go to certain parts (and there are a lot of them). West Hastings near Chinatown’s pretty scary. I was there catching a bus today, and unfortunately felt very precious. Drugs ruin, kids!
There’s just so many of them in the West!
Toronto is pretty bad too, many are young. I saw a young guy in the morning sleeping above the subway’s ventilation to keep warm. Ingenious.

5. “The city is incredible”
Built near so many bays, parks, wilflife and at the foot of MOUNTAINS! Crazy to look up midcity and there above you are massive rocky mountains with the peaks behind mist and clouds! Surreal.

I checked out many neighbourhoods in the last couple days. Lots of walking.
I really like the South Main area. Mt. Pleasant… cafes and vintage stores! So many! I did some retail therapy today. Spent about $70CAN on a whole new wardrobe – including weatherproof shoes! I would have spent that much JUST on the shoes normally. I want to move there.
Commercial Drive is a bit like SoMa, but little more lefty and green. Yes, hippies. I’d like to take up some African drumming classes there at some point tho.
Kitsiliano – just saw it tonight. Kinda like the nice part of Paddo.

Ok, net place closing. G’nite.

How cute, Yoko Ono has a myspace. I had a dream about Sean Lennon the other night.

I’ve been remembering lots of my dreams of late.

My jaw clicks every time I try to chew. It’s irritating, but not painful.

Considering taking this year out to make “art”. Is that wasteful?

My feet are still trying to thaw from the icy wetness that is the beginning of Vancouver’s cold season. That was written the other night, my feet are now the warmest tosies in Vancouver thanks to cheap op shop shoes! Bliss!

I love music at Internet Cafes – Tina Turner is on now. Such an eclectic mix of yesteryear’s hits.

Does anyone still use MySpace? I fear not.

Doing the job search thing and falling into the same pressures I always do; go with salary in FT job or bounce a couple of PT jobs and do my own thing in between? Cash or Fun? So many arts bodies in Vancouver… argh… so much! Too much pressure!

Got bored one day and started to get agitated by everything in the city. This is the creative, coffee and cold-filled result (needs more editing) – hideously inspired by slam poetry:

Is this Emo?
(aka Toronto and other Cities)

Lines tangle my vision of the night sky.
They are the veins of cable cars and city trams.
They breathe life to the mechanical worms and make them fly-by.
They’re silver veins pulsating with sparks, acting as electric webs ready to taze incase I reach my mark…

Above I see:
The moon and the stars; God’s monocle and age spots twinkling back down at me.
Beyond the tangle,
I still cannot lift my heart -
“Lift my heart up to the Lord”.
Metal trees and glass sculptures rise higher and higher,
Futuristic tetris blocks close in to dwarf,
Dizzy spells awash and my attempts to gaze the night… retire.
I try another tactic to return to my creators;
I put my ear to the ground for tremours of Mother Earth’s breath.
Instead, I’m met with eratic vibrations of deafening drills excavating her flesh,
and rickety subway systems boaring her to death…

Wait!

I feel her exhale,
She gently blows warm steam at my face – no.
That’s steam from the underground…
and I can feel the mutating microbes engineering new civilizations in my pores.

I turn to break free,
Thinking I’ll run into my saviours;
The eyes I do see,
Could have been mine some twenty years earlier.
He jingle-jangles his dirty black cap at me,
and I’m ashamed of my own behaviour…
I look away and just say… “No”.

My Mother, your Mother – has no more tears to cry.
We made sure of that,
The rivers and lakes of her face have nearly all dried up,
Revealing dusty wrinkles that show her untimely age.

Yet we keep on pounding, pumping and sucking at her black blooded arteries,
Does she mind if we are so unkind?
Unloving? Unforgiving?

Or does she taste revenge everytime we spill our own red blood in squimish sibling rivalries?
——-

Not to be taken too seriously, I guess. Just needed to get something out. Same day I created a comic series on my Freudian ego and id. That, shall never see the light of day.