shagging carpets while dreaming of hailing baudrillard's taxi in paris--part one-

flew into ft. lauderdale airport after being crammed into an early morning flight with a plethora of families cradling young children on their laps, correction, terrified babies--all wailing at the top of their newly discovered lungs--great time for my c.d. player to run out of batteries, humpff.

arrived sometime after the dawn and took a shuttle service to my friend aunt's condo, befitted with original 70's shag carpeting! the shuttle driver was entertaining. sporting a phd in world politics, it was enlightening to engage in early morning rhetoric with him. he made an odd statement. he claimed that 80 percent of the people who drive taxicabs in paris have phd's. now i don't know the accuracy of this statement but if that were the case, i think i would be hopping the cabs in paris instead of the bars, for some enlightening conversations...

'uh, huh...that is interesting what you say about derrida but would you mind dropping me off on the next corner, i need to hail baudrillard's cab...'

and as i slip into the back seat, i hear him say with a soft french accent:

'imagine the amazing good fortune of the generation that gets to see the end of the world. this is as marvelous as being there at the beginning. how could one not wish for that with all one's heart?...to have been there at the beginning would have been fantastic...only the end remains. let us therefore apply ourselves to seeing things--values, concepts, institutions--perish, seeing them disappear. this is the only issue worth fighting for." (fragments: cool memories 111)

'oh yeah, that's great jean but don't you think you should slow down while going through this tunnel up ahead...?'

but i digress, back to the shag carpeting--the clash between european and american kulture-- since canada is a unique combination of these two worlds, they are both included in this posting.

time to hit the beach. glorious white crunched shelled sands and warm sunshine. test the water. eeek. cold. but i am stoically from the north so plunging into the water is um, refreshing. invigorating!

afterwards, my friend and i walk to the grocery store to pick up some grub. on the way home we slip into a 'dive' bar to enjoy a bit of the 'happy hour'. the bartender keeps ringing a bell sporadically throughout the evening. 'why do you keep ringing that bell?' my friend inquires.

'because i have been treated well' he says barely cracking a smile. and it's called happy hour because why exactly...? apparently every time someone 'tips' the bartender he clangs the bell. i am confused by this 'happy' hour and the tee vees in every corner of the bar are bumming me out. does this happen all over the states or is it just done in the sunshine state?

a few people comment on our groceries. perhaps we are too 'coronation street' for these people--

blowing off that popsicle stand, we head back to the smoky mirrored condo to make our plans for the following day...

joycean wild abandon and a musing molly bloom--

some days you feel like you are opening so many doors only to find them shut in your face--other days you might find that there is someone standing there holding the door open for you and you trip on your way in because it is so wonderful to fall...fall...fall through space.

some days you feel like you have both feet firmly planted on the ground. immovable. other days you are literally swept off your feet and find yourself flying with your head in the clouds.

some days you feel like doing something completely different but priorities cause you to stay put. other days there is someone offering you a get-away car or a train or private plane and you hop on board 'cause you want to see what it feels like to move...move...move through space.

some days you wish someone would see a window into you but they are blinded by their own reflections in the mirror. other days someone notices something about you, say your love of candy and effortlessly, they offer you some twizzlers or spicy olives as a snack.

some days you wish life could be as imaginative as your dreams. some days are beyond your wildest imaginations.

some days you would like to say 'yes' but all that comes out of your mouth is no. other days you give over and give in to reckless abandon and begin to live again. (like molly bloom's speech at the end of ulysses)

some days are not comparable to others they need to be highlighted and turned into postage stamps so they can be innocently waiting in mailboxes across the land.

some days you wax nostalgic for the past and other days you hope for a brighter future and then there are those days you wish time would stop... so you can stay in that place forever.

so hard to live in the moment. to be so present tense.

some people really live their lives with wild abandon and others submit, like drones, citing that they have no other choice.

"I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes" (Joyce 783).

is this the kind of day are you having? did you say yes?

music: elliot smith--say yes...

slam-dancing and erratic trips toward closed caskets...

it started out so wonderfully. i met up with some friends and we went to an art opening at the MOCCA; (museum of contempary canadian art) big beautiful motorcycles, with sparkling glitter paint all over them. they spun magnificiently under the disco balls.

and then the party afterwards in kensington market--french new wave bordello film party. everyone was tarted up and the guests all found a warm mouth (or two, three etc.) to engage in sword play with. i guess this is the result of having harper as our fearless leader, now there will be mass balling in our streets!!! (my theory: the more conservative the leadership the more decadence in the populus) though i did exit the party, stage left, four fellows slipped in to examine my molars before my departure and i glided through the angry streets of dawn, accompanied by 'two gentlemen of toronto'.

so, flash forward to the next day, i am attending the tragic funeral of an old school punk rocker; steve banks (www.stevebanks.net) who died in the hospital WAITING ROOM of a torn aorta--so so sad, he checked himself into emergency 'cause he wasn't feeling well--46 years old...and i saw the terribly grief-striken mother, her head hung low with the weight of gravity's sadness--who has to unjustly put her own son into the ground--the place was packed with people spilling out onto the streets...local musicians sang and played his music. it was tender. he had touched so many of us with his fiercely intransigent style.

here are ten things you should know about 'the ministry of love' (by lynn crosbie)

I. They once had a drummer who left the band for another who “like my snappy style.” The guitarist, Dave the Cat, would play Closer to the Heart's power chord when vexed; the bass player, a sepulchral German named Chris who, so I hear, screamed “Ride it!” in bed; Steve, mon amour, the singer, who was passed a note by a cute blonde (bitch) at Larry’s Hideaway that said i want to fuck you so bad im going to explode.

II. One of their best songs was a beautiful ballad based on the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

III. They jammed at the Ministry of Love, a tinderbox loft on Queen and Clairemont, where William New lived, and where disgusting acts of sexual and narcotic misconduct occurred in the kitchen.

IV. In the washroom, someone wrote: HOPE FOR ME I HOPE FOR YOU. They loved cough syrup and Jacques Brel, other cruel intimacies.

V. Their songs are impossible to find or forget, shards .Keeping me silent, outside, silent, outside, keeping me silent.

VI. Steve Banks. He wore draped pants and two-tone shoes, a red velvet blazer, stunning. He’s like fuckin Jim Morrison, I once heard some girl say. He sings like that.

VII. The sea of bodies, surfing. Jumping. Jamming into the hallway with Neon Rome, Echo Papa: “I thought you had the dope?” Something is on fire.

VIII. The last show. Chris is breaking his guitar into splinters. Dave’s hair in the lights, a rising flare.

IX. And Steve was slithering on the stage like a snake, you missed it?

X. We did so many pills then. It felt like it was happening underwater; like a reflection there of a beautiful ruin. I did not know I would never see them again; that I would spend the rest of my life feeling this stab or that: and somehow you asked me to stay/but not to ask why. No, not to ask why.

Steve Banks went on to form "Trans-love Airways; "The Ministry of Love ended when Steve Banks left the band. The rest of the band, except for drummeer Kevin Hunter,who had joined Breeding Ground, went on to play a few shows as "Prayer Tower" with another singer.

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now, flashback to the horror-- two of my friends, after leaving the love nest bordello party, walking home, are jumped and beaten up. one is rushed to the hospital since his head was smashed on the pavement. when i arrive at the hospital, one of them is in intensive care due to internal bleeding in his head.

thankfully they let me in, all though i am not immediate family and he has the biggest shiner i have ever seen. we speak gently and he expresses regret over missing the funeral. i am shaken. too much despair for one day. after soaring to unprecedented heights the night before, this day has me crashing back down to earth.

both are out of intensive care now and cannot remember much of what happened to them, so it will be difficult to press charges or to find the fellows who did this to my friends @#$!!

this year of the dog is a bit rough thus far.

as father larry said at the service: go out and make peace with the people you need to, do it now, while you still have the chance.

music--jim carroll: 'people who died'.

silvery dragonfly--

'

'I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.'
--e. e. cummings

biting the bullet--

new blog creation by ex-pat nervie blogger.

the act of writing, publishing, mooning, and reflexive reflections...

testing the webby waters.

how's it feel so far?