"Icky Thump" by Da White Stripes

Lyric of the day:

"Well Americans want nothing better to do
Why don't you kick yourself out you're an immigrant too
Who's using who? What should we do?
Well you can't be a pimp and a prostitute too."

I know you listen to music, but do you REALLY listen???

So not so long ago I was in Toronto hanging out with Mark, eating some good, but not great, Ben & Jerry's ice cream to which we decided to write a letter to them suggesting how they could improve the exciting taste of their Iced Cream.

Mark suggested that we throw on D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film Don't Look Back which follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 British tour. While watching the film I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Everytime a song came on there wasn't the overlapping sound of my dad's voice singing along to the lyrics.

So I says to Mark I says, "You know what's what Mark? And he's all like 'What the fuck is what Tristan?" So I says back to Mark I says, "When I watched No Direction Home with my Dad he would be singing along to all the songs. He knew all the words. He came from a generation that used to spend a lot of time listening to records. They used to fire up the turntable, get out a sweet pair of headphones and just let go and did some SERIOUS listening."

There have been times where I've walked into the living room and seen my dad sprawled out like a star on the floor, eyes closed and headphones on. I mean this must be a serious spiritual experience. And who better to listen to than Dylan. You'll never really understand where the boomer generation came from if you've never done just what my dad did, or even just sat and read the entire lyrics of "It's ok Ma, I'm only Bleeding."

So Mark and I came to the conclusion that this generation of spiritual headphone listeners needs a revival. We all need to really listen to records we really like and to listen to the records that our parents spent so much of their leisure time enjoying.

I recently broke my headphones and I am a bit of a hypocrite for already not having bought some new ones and leading this movement towards the spiritual listening movement. But that doesn't mean you (who owns headphones) can't lead the way. Try it sometime. And if you like it, tell others about it and to do it. Just give it a try is all I'm sayin'

Douglas Coupland IS a “Souvenir of Canada”

So this is the film review I did for my Canadian Film class...

What is a Canadian?” This has been debated and left people dumbfounded for so long that it has essentially become a complex philosophical debate. Some of us define ourselves as Canadians by what we are not (ie. Americans!). Some of us define ourselves as hockey playing, beer drinking, Bob and Doug McKenzie type folk. We try to define ourselves as a bi-lingual country, but the average Canadian is definitely not. So who out there can solve this mystery? Should we really be concerned? Well… perhaps we should. It couldn’t hurt right? And who better for the job than…(drum-roll please)… Douglas Coupland! Now you may be saying to yourself, “Who is Douglas Coupland?” Or… you may be saying to yourself, “He’s Canadian?” Or just plain and simply, “Why him? Didn’t he write that Generation X book based in Palm Springs?” Well, yes he is Canadian and yes he has written many books based outside of Canada, and yes, he has lived outside of the country for some time. But in his own words, ‘after being in dozens of other places, now I only want to be here.”
Douglas Coupland has two visually spectacular books called Souvenir of Canada and Souvenir of Canada II and this film is titled and based on those visual art books of lost and current Canadiana. Being born in 1961, he was a child who grew up in a Canada that was trying to get to know itself. In 1967 Douglas was 7 years old and this was a time when, in his words, “Canada went nation crazy!” Montreal hosted Expo ’67 that year which showcased to the world who Canada is to the rest of the world. This time also saw the invention of Ookpik, which are ambiguously native owls made of seal skin. It was “native and new and bi-cultural too” as the song in the background says. Canada also tried to create its own greeting for hello. That word was “Chimo.” Douglas said he himself even used the word. It lasted about three weeks in 1970.
Coupland refers to several things that link us together. The first example he gives are the National Film Board films that used to be shown in every school across the nation. He refers to it as “30 minutes of Soviet-style torture.” These films were used to educate people about the country in an attempt to help us gain a vision of our home and native land. He also refers to being asked to draw the Canadian flag in school and how impossible it was to draw the maple leaf. These are the kind of childhood memories we all share as Canadians and a nostalgia we can all relish in. Perhaps the most distinct icon of our past that Coupland discusses is Terry Fox. Coupland says “he is exceptional, in that he is only Canadian that all Canadians agree on.”
There is one part of Coupland’s which he appears to feel little connection to himself personally but could not avoid is hockey. He starts by saying how we as “Canadian’s think of ourselves as decent, gentle people… but then there is a flip-side to all of us… Hockey!” “It’s in the water.” Nothing excites Douglas’ brother more than a collection of great hockey fights. Coupland jokes to the fact that there is nothing else like hockey fights where you can get away with such barbaric behavior saying, “The internet will pick up the slack, it’s hard for this stuff to compete with beheadings on Al-Jazeera.”
Coupland’s major project in the film is his building of Canada house. He chooses a CMHC home in Vancouver. CMHC (Central Mortgage Housing Corporation) homes were designed by the Canadian government after World War II and the blueprints were given to developers and were built all over the country. Once chosen, he plans to paint the whole house white and fill it with Canadian artifacts, such as those shown in his books. You’ll notice him early on banging the walls, testing it out, because he claims, “I want to get used to the notion that I can treat it like an art supply instead of being really precious about it.” He fills the house with pictures of Terry Fox’s prosthetic leg side-by-side with the Canadarm. He includes wooden couches with flannel coverings, power lines in the garage, Canada geese littering the house, a pin-up of #99, and several pictures from his books framed on the walls.
Perhaps the most interesting and Canadian element of the film is Coupland talking about his family and his upbringing and his own experiences. Part of being a Canadian is not having the same experiences as everyone else. We are so large geographically and there are so many different climates and views from our backyards that we cannot possibly feel a complete connection with someone who lives 2000 kilometres away from us. An important part of being a Canadian is being different from your neighbour and that there is a lifetime of things to see in our vast country alone. There is so much land uninhabited and it is often the goal of many Canadians to make time to drive across the country. Unfortunately it is not easy and takes a lot of time. We are not Holland. We cannot ride a bike across the country in a day.
Coupland remembers his own journey across the country and his connections with nature while hunting with his father and brothers. Coupland gives a glimpse of his relationship with his parents and the struggles he had growing up because his dad did not approve of his choices.
There is not a lot of music in the film, but if you’re at all a fan of recent Canadian indie-rock you will recognize in the opening the delightful sounds of Broken Social Scene. Throughout the movie there are sprinkles of Vancouver’s New Pornographers and original music by New Pornographer and solo artist A.C. Newman.
Coupland never actually gives his audience the answers they are looking for. At the end of his art show he claims to be feeling a pre-mature nostalgia. He knows he is going to be nostalgic about the house and his family and people in his life. It is this feeling that makes us all want to know who we are as Canadians. We want something to look back on and to have felt a part of. The things that bring us together and the things that separate us are what makes us who we are as Canadians but also as individuals. Coupland’s last message is very powerful and heartfelt. “We are the land and the land is us. And that is our closest link. O’Canada.” So now do you think Douglas Coupland is the right person to tackle this infinitely debatable question?

Theatre of Shame

So my avant-guard theatre professor gave us a take-home midterm that asked us to write a manifesto based on where we thought avant-guard theatre should go. So this is what I came up with.


In the past five years, since 9/11 approximately, our relationship with other human beings and our Earth has changed drastically. We have known about global warming for some time now, in the range of thirty years, and have slowly been making some environmental changes but none too drastic. Things like the Kioto Accord to lower CO and CO2 emissions, and the preservation of natural habitats have failed to launch. We are now approaching a critical time where we will be facing irreversible changes to our Earth that will lead to diminished water resources, diminished land mass and innumerable species of animals and humans alike will dies as a result. Some have claimed that water will become the new oil as a result of these effects. All of these realizations are being hidden away by the media and governments who are far more focused on telling us the current terror level we are at via cell-phone updates, what can cause cancer, and what virus is going to kill you even though you have a better chance of falling off the ladder you’re standing on than getting Sars.
The other realization we have to face is that oil is about to reach its peak in production which means that once that occurs our supply can only go downhill. This means increased political tension and the potential for a nuclear winter goes up. I think now more than ever we have to look to the future and I think this is where Avant-Guard theatre needs to start exploring. I am calling for a Theatre of Shame. What theatre needs to teach us is that we should be ashamed of ourselves as humans. We need to show just how despicable humans can be. There are no heroes in this theatre, everyone in the play represents a piece of human waste. The greatest thing these characters could do for the Earth is die. Audiences need to walk out of the theatre feeling terrible about themselves, because then and only then will people face a critical question: Do you want to see the continuation of the human race or would you prefer to give up and let us destroy the planet and ourselves at the same time. You can be your own personal anti-christ, or you can call for action and play God.
The Earth is a pot that is warming up and getting ready to eventually boil, and we need to decide if we want a future, or if we will just continue watching American Idol and pretend that the world is a wonderful place where an ordinary Sally Smith or Joe Kool can become America’s Next Top Model. Right now we live in a fantasy. People are too busy trying to feel good about their own lives popping Xanax to aid them through life because daddy has a new girlfriend who is your age. No one wants to look at the big picture. No wants to realize that genocide goes on everyday. The rainforests are becoming a massive woodchip pile, and people are dying for a natural resource that should have been replaced by now but isn’t because the people in charge own shares in oil and would go broke otherwise. So the American shells out billions of dollars to fight a war over oil instead of redirecting that money into finding alternate fuel sources. At the same time this is happening, the average western citizen gets upset at the guy who feels aids in Africa isn’t so bad because it keeps the population numbers down. Yet we vote for the guy who puts the leaders in charge of these countries who keep such epidemics going because they support western ideals and interests. We are all hypocrites who deserve nothing more than to see the horrible species that we are from characters on a stage who represent who we have become.
In the past avant-guard theatre has tried to issue manifestos that present new ways of looking at life and changing political structures for the better. However, the majority of people don’t listen. Only a small group of people buy into this life-changing idealism while the majority looks at them like a bunch of crazy people who get naked onstage. Most people in the 21st century laugh when they think about the orgies hippies used to have and the drugs they experimented with. Many of these hippies were once people who wanted revolution, and now they formed the institution (the following sentence was a lyric by Ben Folds in the song, ‘The Ascent of Stan’). The only way people are going to realize their downfall as human beings is to see themselves as the shameful, life-sucking individuals they are who are contributing in many ways to the problem. For example, Canadians are one of the worst countries in the world for wasting energy, we drive SUV’s because it suits our ‘lifestyle’. We also make very bad voting decision and allow our governments to be run by corporate scum. Theatre of Shame is meant to make Americans see why they shouldn’t have voted George W. Bush into the white house and why Canadians shouldn’t have voted Stephen Harper into parliament.
The Theatre of Shame will show people in present situations in which they indulge in media dramatizations and mindless TV, and absorb all the wasteful materials Western culture has for us to splurge on. It will show our hedonistic attitude toward life in which we care only for ourselves and our own personal lives. It will display horrible things that are going on around the world that our media and government hide from us. It will prove that we are the hypocrites that we refuse to see ourselves as.
The theatre of Shame will show future scenarios in which men and women are sent off to war to fight for the oil that makes their tanks move and heats their soup during ground warfare. It will show men and women going off to war to fight for the remaining fresh water resource the Earth has to offer. It will show a world without electricity and fast and convenient modes transportation in which people are forced to live in squander where first world countries become third world nightmares in which biker gangs and mafia control the remaining resources.
Every argument is two-sided. For example, God exists and God doesn’t exist. We can debate this for an infinite amount of time. The theatre of Shame is meant to shake the sheets. Avant-guard theatre has tried so hard to change the world, but perhaps we shouldn’t try and do that anymore. What we need to do is present people with a critical question. How much do they value their lives? Are they willing to change in order to maintain their lives? Is changing the world really worth it?
Suppose humans are just an evolutionary prototype. Perhaps we are a decent model but we are just a prototype and we have not achieved perfection and we are doomed to fail much the way the dinosaurs did. Suppose we are faced with the fact that the tragedy of mankind is the fact that we know we are not what we should be and that we do not deserve a place in the universe that created us. Perhaps it is a tragedy for us to be able to understand our own demise, unlike the dinosaurs whose brains were the size of peanuts.
Perhaps humans are the chosen race. Perhaps we will keep evolving and become better versions of ourselves. Perhaps our competitive nature will allow us to conquer the universe and gain control of it. Perhaps our abilities as nurturers will allow us to aid the universe and keep it beautiful. Perhaps we are eventually doomed, but what better do we have to do with our lives than to ensure that the world is a better place when we leave is than when we were brought into it. Perhaps maintaining life on Earth would be meaningless and a lot of work that we don’t want to do because it would be too much work.
It seems now more than ever that it is clear that the world is not a better place now than the day that I was born. Perhaps there is the occasional thing that has gotten better but it seems that the negatives are outweighing the positives. A history book only presents how we have gotten to where we are today, and usually with a bias towards the positive things we have achieved. We want to be able to pat ourselves on the back, this is our hedonistic nature. But suppose we don’t deserve a pat on the back, and I don’t think we do. Perhaps it will be a relief to people like me when the world blows up and all the ignorant people get their just desserts. Because right now it doesn’t seem like we deserve to continue our way of life. Our way of life is going to be challenged in the near future and no one seems to be prepared for it. No one at our current rate will be prepared for the future.
So I propose that the best way for us to be prepared to face the future is to be presented with scenarios we may have to face. Why is now not the right time to make things right? Why does it take a major crisis for someone to say something? What are we waiting for? Perhaps we just don’t care. And the theatre of shame challenges us to consider what we want out of life. It has taken too long. It is time to get informed. It is time to make your decision. Do you care? Are you willing to change? Choose now: Are you a destructionist or a constructionist?

The United States of Amuurika!!!

So as you may or may not know I was M.I.A. for the days of Sept. 3 until Sept. 9. During this time, my lovely girlfriend Jessica took me on a very special road trip. The only concrete plans we had were to spend two nights in NYC.

We had no trouble crossing the border as two white people witht he last names Burley and Bradley. New York State was extremely broing to drive through. There were no rest stops with healthy eating alternatives. We ended up trying very hard to be healthy eating at a Sbarro's Pizza joint. It was ok. We were both sceptical about how they cooked the food though.

We got to Keene, New Hampshire at a reasonable time, right before the local liquor barn closed. In New Hampshire you have to buy your Liquor and wine at L.C.B.O. type places, but you can get beer in every grocery store and convenience store. Jess' cell didn't work in New Hampshire because no one uses Bell there (another good reason not to sign up with Bell). So we quickly discovered that the U.S. has next to no pay phones. I eventually met up with Mike outside the Target where I called him from. He had been in Price Chopper buying us some Longhorn beer which is a micro-brewery in Vermont. He was treating me since he usually drinks cheap stong beer, PBR, or malt liquor 40's. Mike was my best friend when we were growing up and it was very exciting to see him again. It was a special moment when we hugged outside that Target.

So we went to a party in Keene that night and played a game called Beirut. It is basically beer pong. You set up 10 beer cups in a triangular formation and disperse 2 beers as evenly between them as you can on either side of a table about 8 feet apart. You could use 3 beers probably if you like. There are two members on each team and two ping pong balls. Each team member throws one ball and tried to get it in the cup. I think you get the gist now. Mike suggested that it is called Beirut because the country has been bombed so many times in the past.

The next day Mike showed us around town and his school, Keene State. The town is very well groomed, much like my genitals. They also filmed Jumanji there. You could not film Jumanji on my genitals though. We also went to the local Wal-mart to find me a very pro American shirt, like something with an eagle and an american flag that says, "These colours don't bleed!" but we had no luck. Mike suggested it was because support for the Iraq war has diminished so much. Mike also took us to his hipster workplace, Armadillo's for a delicious burrito, on the house!! He made mine with steak and chicken! I would have to say I liked it more than Burrito Boys, with a but of bias since I had a personal connection with the burrito Mike made me.

That night we headed to Bentley College in the outskirts of Boston. We stayed with Mike's cousin Matt, whom he knows "wicked well." It was a little weird staying in dorm again but Matt was really accomodating. The only shitty part was watching college football on TV. The next morning we had a very stressful drive to downtown Boston. So many fucking round-a-bouts! Finally we made it to the Mass Pike and were on our way to the prudential centre parking lot. I never realized that so many schools are in that area. Bentley, Boston U.,Boston College, Harvard, M.I.T., and several others. Unfuckingbelievable! Boston is a beautiful city. Definitely world-class. We went on a famous tour there called the Duck tours. They are World War II vehicles that were designed to go on land and water. Originally they were called D.U.K.H.'s I think. We had a really cool guide who was like being with your funny grandpa. The one major highlight was went some crusty old punk walked out into the street to cross during a green light. He stopped, looked at us and while pointing said, "Go back to fucking Canada!" Wow, could you ask for anything better?!?

At the end of the day we went to Fairfield, Connecticut since NYC's metro North goes out there and we could commute from Fairfield. So we entered New York at Grand Central Station and I swear I saw future H.O.F.'er Tom Glavine while Jess was in the washroom. This was my only celebrity siting which was very unfortunate. When we got onto the street we had some culture shock cause we didn't know where the fuck we were. Somehow we made it to our discount hotel which was nice and turned out to be in a wicked location. We then went to Times fucking square which was interesting, we had some kosher delight. We then went to the wax museum and the empire state building. I think we did a good job of raping Manhattan on out trip but were too scared to even get off the subway when we attempted to go to the Bronx Zoo. We spent some time in the lower East Side which the only place in New York that the Vice guide to the city talks about. We did some discount shopping and ate at the best fucking vegetarian restaurant ever! I had the Karin's burger and it was like having an orgasm for the duration of eating it.

Jess and I conqured the subway too. We never took a cab anywhere. We kinda failed at the nightlife though. We spent one night walking broadway cause everything is open till like 2am. We had tried to go to Dangerfield's comedy club but they had a comedy central taping going on and we didn't have tickets to it so that didn't happen. The next night we went to Gatsby's in Soho, which was ok but we left early to try another bar but there was nothing else in the area. We did stumble into china town a bit though. I had a wicked pint at Gatsby's though. It was Magic Hat #9 and it they make it in Vermont too. Fuck I wish I oculd get it here. I also noticed that the only Canadian beer they seem to have down there is La Fin du Monde for some reason. Go figure.

On our last day we went to the Guggenheim which was sweet, there was a Zaha Hadid exhibit going on, I recommend you google her name. We went to Central Park Zoo, Bloomingdale's, and Rockefeller Centre, which had some grass laid out and a huge screen TV showing the U.S. open Tennis Tournament. We ended our trip at a sushi restaurant which made far too big of pieces for people to be able to fit into their mouth in one bite, but it was still damn good.

One thing I am glad for on the trip was now I know areas of New York and can visualize what places described in Vice and any other literature about New York. I also felt very priviledged to have gotten to do something so awesome to end my summer which I owe entirely to Jess.

So that was my trip. I recommend that you too visit the places I went to. They are so fucking worth seeing.

Tristan's All-Time Top Ten Albums to Date

1. The Stills - Logic Will Break Your Heart
2. Weezer - Pinkerton
3. The Shout Out Louds - Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
4. Brendan Benson - Lapalco
5. Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs
6. Counting Crows - Hard Candy
7. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
8. Ryan Adams - Gold
9. Stars - Set Youself On Fire
10. Cadence Weapon - Cadence Weapon

This was a hard list to make. One of the major factors was whether I owned the CD or not. These are also artists who have put out albums in my lifetime.

Great Albums I own that didn't make the cut:
Jay-Z - Black Album
Saves the Day - Stay What You Are
The rest of Ben Folds' albums
New Amsterdams - Worse for the Wear
Nada Surf - Let Go
Postal Service - Give Up
The White Stripes (all albums)
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Blur - Think Tank
Badly Drawn Boy - Have You Fed the Fish Lately?
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

NanaNanaNanaNana BATMAN!

So the next Batman needs a Joker.

Who do you think should play the character?

Jack Nicholson as Joker makes it really intimidating for anyone else to attempt.

I think Steve Carrell would make a good Joker. He has the laugh, the nose, and the slick hair. He also could be very creepy if he wanted to. I think it would stretch him out of his typical roles and I think he would be up to the villain-y challenge.

Remarks? Feedback? Suggestion?

Readers? Where are you?

Nose Neighbours

Tristan: Hey Mark, do you think the #1 thing preventing the returned popularity of the moustache is that the overwhelming majority of women don't like them? Cause they are cool, just there is a strong resistance from the opposite sex. It has the great power of irony. It makes you looke more manly, but it makes most men look utterly ridiclulous, and that deserves a comeback.

Mark: No, I think the #1 thing holding back the comeback of the moustache is the futher continuation of cunnilingus.

Mark decides to get specific...

Tristan: Yeah that's true. Cause we now live in the age of pubic grooming. Back in the '70s when the moustache was last popular, women were still mostly au naturel. So when when a guy was going down on a woman she couldn't tell the difference between his 'stache and her muff.

So there you have folks. The 'stache just isn't ready for a comeback. It may never get another moment in the sun.