Saturday

8am - Wake up with a throbbing headache.

10am - Get the stitches taken out. Glass will continue expelling from my arms and legs for months.

noon - Hit up Starving Artist with m' main squeeze. Everyone in sight eats waffles. Anything that can absorb and deliver sirop d'erable.

1:30pm - Walk over to the park. Steal someone's dog.

2pm - Bicycle ride over to the lakefront.

4pm - Head on home to change into my finest tuxedo t-shirt.

5pm - Meet up with Giuseppe and get krunked (term hereby coined). Give dog away to beautiful family.

7pm - Attend the local cricket match. Get krunkter (term hereby coined). See Renee!

10pm - Go to the local entertainment establishment. Dance 'the robot' for four hours.

4am - Meander home to find it ablaze.

4:30am - Realize I'm at the wrong house. Wipe away my tears.

5am - Fall asleep soundly, like a beautiful krunken angel.

Mutiny in the Woods

A quick note of praise for a band completely new to me.

Everything Everything

They sound like: Johnny Clegg, Incubus and The Cure. On top of that, they are my new MGMT (which will drop out of regular rotation with their forthcoming album).

My favorite song of so far is My Keys, Your Boyfriend. The song is like the recollection of a rough night on the beautiful morning after. You hope the weekend is coming quickly while you're listening to it. Happy Friday. It also has great beat patterns (give the drummer sum) and the chord progression is dubious in a good way. It's got 8bit sounds and everything. Shucks...I like it.

I'm a sucker for anything that's got a dance-able beat and is fun. Not saying I don't love all genres and styles of music, but I have a serious crush on those bands that can make my feet scream "I gotta move".  Any good leads, please let me know.

Ramk out.

I'll do what I want.

Things I want to do:

1. Look at some lots of graffiti.
2. Start a MF band.
3. Get a new job.

These obviously represent my short, medium and long term goals, respectively.

I want to find a time in the next week to swing by Queen West and Spadina to look at some of the amazing shit people put on those original brick buildings. It's one of my favorite hoods in the T-dot. It's prolly the most vibrant place in the world (anyplace I've been at least). I used to work in 401 Richmond. Had an average of 36.3sph (shoes per hour) in that beautiful studio office.

Start a MF band. Obviously speaks for itself. I'm not strong in the whole 'finding the time for it' neighbourhood. I've been trying to set up a freestyle music night with my friend Jimmy, but the days never line up. When he's free, I'm usually busy washing my hair. When I'm free, he usually has a date with a goat or other farm animal.

You can believe the press. Fox Network had it right. I am tired of being a cobbler. So, I applied for a position at the Laotian Embassy. If I get it, I'll be their Policy Guru of Canadian Affairs or something along those lines. The first policy that I unilaterally declare will increase tensions between Canada and Laos substantially.

I would really like to accomplish these goals. I can't handle any goals that go farther into the future. I am but one man.

If anyone out their can help me accomplish these goals, please step forward and tell me your name and postal code. That's all I will need to find you, once I have the Lao People's Democratic Republic on my side.

They should call it the Lao People's MF Democratic Republic.

Peace.

You have been indoctrinarted

Washing dishes makes me feel like the proletariat.

My natural... nay... instinctual tendency towards socialism fits very nicely with my attraction to art.

Especially art made by humans. We humans are great at influencing each other*.

I love propaganda because it is one of the most sincere forms of art. It doesn't pretend to hide what it is. It isn't a metaphor for anything else. It just tells you what it wants to tell you.

Uncle Sam wants YOU to sell crack to minorities.

Vietnam and Cuba are tied for the places I've been with the most indoctrinart, but I hear that Ireland's murals could be the mother load.

Many of these countries have found great ways of commercializing the unique artform. One of the best places to buy good quality prints of classic Vietnamese indoctrinart is Dogma Vietnam.

Song of the day: mashup of Rihanna and RATM!

*Buy a Big Mak from MickDonalds today!

Yo te enseño Lola

My wife and I went to Cuba last week with four of our best friends.  Cuba is a great place.  The people are swell, the sun is hot, the cities are chill and the beach is fine. The week went by in a beautiful haze of laughter, sun, music and beer.

Clothes are a waste of precious earthen material that should be used to continue cleaning the air we breathe. Instead they're stuck covering our bodies from supposedly harsh environments. That's the best thing about the south, clothing optional.

My feet are raw from barefootedness (word?). I feel my most Alpha-male when I have not worn shoes for any longer than a day. My veins course with testosterone and omega 3 oils (which my naturopathic doctor tells me to take every day).

Now for a healthy dose of propaganda:

This is Compay Segundo's Chan Chan, performed by Buena Vista Social Club.

Although my friend Adam and I are decidedly not musical soulmates, we share a deep appreciation of Cuban music. We realized it when I showed him the album by pianist Ruben Gonzalez I bought on our second day there.

I first fell for Ruben Gonzalez in India. I bought an album in China and dragged it on my back for two months and four countries before listening to it thoroughly. Those are two months of my life I will never get back.

Cuba's air smells like music. In fact, you end up associating everything there with a song. For example, the heat of the sun or the feeling of your buddy Dave driving home a high five after he's had over fifteen "Tigers con ron". For some reason he insisted on giving me a high five when he finished fifteen drinks of any kind. My hand is sore.

If you want a quick rundown of classical Cuban music, listen to any 10 songs performed by the Buena Vista Social Club. BVSC is similar to Broken Social Scene, both all-star lineups of some of their country's greatest musical performers. Sadly, the dream ended in 2009.

The only drawback to the trip was being there with my friend Mark. He was always staggering about with a beer or rum in his hand, swearing at all the children.

The guy is so white that I would stand beside him for the extra sun rays reflecting off his skin.

The above video is extra appropriate as my next post will give you the lowdown on 'indoctrinart' (term hereby coined).

Until next time, keep it classy Havana.

Foreign affairs.

The title of a harlequin romance?
Possibly.

Right now, it is more of tragedy.

Going away on vacations with five of my favorite people in the world, but because I do not own an ipod or any fancy gizmos like that, I won't have access to my favorite music. It might seem strange that a successful cobbler in the fast-paced fashion industry of Toronto doesn't have a simple working mp3 player. Actually, I don't own much of anything (especially socks).

What do you do when music isn't available?


Peeps keep telling me Havana is the shizzle. But ain't no Pitchfork in Havana, at least not for me. I'm expected to enjoy the architecture, lie around in the sun, play volleyball and get yelled at by the lifeguard for getting sand in her hair, without Empire of the Sun. It's not humane.

It's lucky that Cuba has some of the best music in the world (in a week and a half, I will have the best Cuban music post for all of y'all).

I will miss all three of you, my readers. Try to make it without me. Day by day. Hour by hour.

Also, be careful about those diets. Last time I did a detox, my body was craving red meat so badly that I sleepwalked (sp? word?) into the living room at night and ate my pet hamster.

At least I ate him raw. That's something specialty diet related, right?

Until next week, peace.

Faux Birthday!

So. Very interesting day today.

Everyone was nice to me. That is... almost everyone.

Got into the office particularly perkily (word?). Had a very productive morning. Got twenty three pairs of newly crafted shoes out the door.

I only remembered what day it was when I smelled the melting wax.

My faux birthday! My second favorite day of the year! Oh....how wondrous.

My friend Renee baked me cupcakes! The ultimate in icing delivery systems! She actually had to get me off the phone with my leather supplier because she said her hand was burning. The sparkling candles were pouring over her arms.

We shared the cupcakes. Just the two of us. All 18 of them.

Suddenly (two hours later) my main man Brett came in with the new tUnE-yArDs album for me! What a guy. Happy faux birthday to me.

On top of everything, all my best workmates throw me a party at a restaurant after work. Gosh, the day was going great.

But then, my friend Bernita comes.

Shit.

Be warned. Above is an example of how I plug friends.

A little boy named Ramk.

Blast!

A brand new blog and nothing to talk about.

Well, a little about me then:

I awoke just before dawn. It was a full moon, just like me. Other than that, my early childhood is fuzzy to me. Probably too young to remember.

Once, when I was about 17 and working for a china and crystal retailer, I backed a large cube truck into the outside of the company warehouse. No one ever found out. Please do not tell them.

My current address ends in Toronto, ON (postal code). I make my living working for the people. I tell people that I'm the combined spirits of Kant, Marx and Lenin all reborn in a Canadian guy, but no one believes me.

Other things about me:

• I like to beat box.
• Microwaves scare me.
• I used to dislike tea, but now I like tea.
• I play a wide variety of real and made up instruments.

What this blog will provide:

• Light reading, especially for after those hard days of toiling in the fields.
• A good opportunity to laugh at someone instead of with someone.
• My opinions on everything you don't really care about. Primarily those things will include Toronto stuff, art, music and my always zany "story-time".
• Me plugging all of my friends.
• Many lists.
• Other cool MF stuff.

Enough of this nonsense.

Follow this blog. Do it NOW.

Take off your shoes before you come in.

Welcome to my blog.

Rules:
- No strong colognes
- No being dastardly
- Abide by all rules