Scream "All Aboard!" If I Could

I, like most adults, think about death. I wouldn't say that it always on mind or anything (my two watches of Six Feet Under and the time around Ecotone notwithstanding) , but over the course of my adolescence and adulthood, I've thought about it a lot. When I'll go. How I want to go. What "going" means. Is there dignity in death? Is it even sad?

I'm a little bit of an anomaly among my social group because all of my grandparents died when I was very young. My paternal grandfather well before I was born, both my grandmothers when I was too young to remember the circumstance, and my maternal grandfather when I was around 12 years old. I find that with most friends, a grandparent's death is the first time they come to terms with the fact that death is an inevitability that everyone faces and how they start to work through dealing with. I skipped that and instead my initial introductions to death as a concept were when my mom was going through cancer treatment in high school, when a friend's mother died around the same time, and when my dog Jack died last year. None of these felt like "proper" introductions of death into my life, but maybe that's the way it is for everyone.

I started thinking about this post because throughout my life I've thought of the song that I would like to have as the soundtrack to my funeral. That may sound morbid, but I soundtrack every single part of my life, so of course my own death must be included in that, right?

While I was a teenager and going a deep and intense hair metal phase, I decided that the song I would like to have played when my casket came out during my funeral was "Kickstart My Heart" by Mötley Crüe. This was mostly because I was also heavy into 80's coming-of-age and actions movies at the time (that phase didn't end like the hair metal one did), and I thought the over-the-topness of scoring scenes with cock rock was hilarious. I also thought a song about being brought back to life playing at a funeral would be pretty rich.



I also thought it would be essential to have a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon at my funeral to ensure that my funeral would be a celebration and party instead of a sombre wake. I was happy when I saw that Jeff Rosenstock echoed this in a great Bomb the Music Industry! song. I think this view of death was made possible by the fact that I hadn't had to deal with it yet. I saw death as a party not because I was nihilistic, but because I was stupid and young and had barely any life experience yet.

Inside that rosy view of my funeral was also some insecurity. I desperately hoped that my funeral would be well-attended. I hoped that everyone there would have liked me enough to fill up a cup and happy toast my memory. I wanted to be remembered as a fun person.

I started thinking about this a couple of months ago when Rebecca and I were driving back from Ottawa and listening to The Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me along an empty stretch of the 416 highway. When it got to the last track, "Can't Hardly Wait", one of my very favourite songs, I mentioned in the spur of the moment that I would like this song to be played at my funeral. Not the Pleased to Meet Me version though, the Tim electric b-side, though both are equally great.



I think the difference in the two songs illustrates the difference in my outlook on life and death now and also how much I've grown up since I was watching the Power Hour on MuchMoreMusic. "Can't Hardly Wait" is an irreverent, realistic look at facing death (in this case, suicide) straight on. As hard as you try, death is something you do by yourself and I think there's some real beauty in that. The more I think about it, the more relevant the song seems to the circumstance, beyond any lyrical or musical parallels. It just feels right and I'm sure that the song's enduring presence in my listening has something to do with that.

I also like the fact that it's from the Tim sessions would be a joke for the occasion too. I guess that hasn't changed.

I Just Can't Believe that I'm Smoking PCP

What a fuckin' song.

I discovered Tony Molina's old band Ovens after a guy on an old messageboard I posted on gushed about them. He circulated a triple LP of theirs that was 44 songs, with most being under a minute and a half. It was a lot to take in at first. I didn't listen to it much, but I also rarely delete things from my music library, so the album just in there for a couple of years.

I eventually got really into the album while I lived by myself in Guelph during the summer of 2015 writing my thesis. I have no idea why, but suddenly their ultra minimalist and lo-fi approach to power-pop really took hold of me and was go-to listening while I skateboarded around the city. One memory of the album that stands out in particular was listening to it on the bus ride home from the Bookshelf theatre downtown, where I had just gone to see Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, which was the first time I went to a movie alone. I was mostly by myself that summer and the Ovens seemed like a good soundtrack to the modest amount of self-discovery I did during that time.

Also during that summer I went to go see Ceremony and Pity Sex play in Toronto. I've always liked Ceremony okay and was very excited to Pity Sex. Tony Molina was supposed to open that show, but ended up not being able to get over the border. I had no idea that he was the frontman of Ovens, which I found out after the show, and I was bummed to miss it.

After I found this out, I started to dig into his solo material and found that I enjoyed it even more than Ovens. The short songs, huge hooks, and guitar solos were still there, but the package was more focused. Rather than a sprawling 44-song collection, the pieces were delivered in short, tight packages anywhere from 6 to 14 songs. Before you know it, the song is over and you just want to put it on again.

Molina's music has been one of my favourite things to listen to over the last 3-ish years especially. He put a new album called Kill the Lights last week and I highly recommend that you give it listen.

I Wish I Wasn't So Cobain

Dedicated IMU readers may have noticed that there has been a significant drop off in baseball-related writing this year (in addition to the massive drop off in general). That is because the Jays are once again bad. Josh Donaldson has barely played and the general mood of the season can be described by the fact that I've gone from hating Kendrys Morales because he was one of the principle factors in halting the team's success (and had replaced a lovable slugger who is flabbergasted by toilets) to loving him because he wears transition lenses sometimes and I just don't care anymore.

The Jays are by no means a cellar dweller in the American League, but they're not anywhere near contention due to both the Red Sox and Yankees returning to form in the same year. Hello 1996-2013! Since the Jays are well out of the playoff race and have a plethora of veterans on their roster, we've gotten back to what was once the most exciting part of being a Jays fan during the dark ages: The Non-Waiver Trade Deadline. Three players have already been shipped off, with Toronto sports fans chiming in that the trades were terrible, like clockwork, and there are several more to go still. When you are looking forward to the future of the team, rather than the present, as the Jays are now, this time is the most exciting because it represents an influx of hope with new young players and a way to ignore the truly forgettable baseball being played by *checks notes* Justin Smoak and Jaime Garcia?!. Most will not work out, but some might!

For many years as fan, this was mostly what I had to look forward to. It was always that if we could send off either Troy Glaus or Bengie Molina or even sadly Scott Rolen to get someone to pair with Lunchbox, Arencibia, and Mr. Intensity, we'd be sure to be in the playoffs in no time. We're back to that now and just like watching them start to lose again last year, it sucks, but is also a little sweet and comfortable.

People romanticize being a die-hard fan of a losing team a lot, but that's mostly done when that team eventually starts winning. You can easily smile while looking back on the harder times because you can now see what it all led to. It's easy to forget that it's mostly just bad baseball played by middling players while you wait for trades and the future.

I still wouldn't have it any other way though.

In other news: Music!

I came across Buddy's new album Harlan and Alondra by way of an excellent article on The Ringer. They describe it as "a sweltering piece of R&B that beads on the skin and paints a necessarily unfinished picture of Buddy and the city he’s from." That works! The whole album is great and is for sure my favourite rap album of the year so far. I think that I could get real deep into more stuff with this vibe.



Also getting pumped regularly is Marshall Crenshaw's self-titled first album. Duff suggested it to me because he knows that I will blare any and all power-pop and also that I love 80's-style production. Those two things combine flawlessly here and as soon as the bassline on "There She Goes Again" took off, I knew I would be super into this for the rest of the summer. Big hooks and perfectly corny longing lyrics that I flip for every time.



We now move on to the third section of the blog post: Books!

I'm currently reading The Great American Novel™️ for the first time, as I had designated it my "challenge" book of the year. It also wound up being a primary influence on the current show of the gallery, so I'm really going all-in on our summer programming. Given the book's high standing, length, and the fact that it was written in 1851, I thought it would be a tough read, but I've found it really easy going so far. The story is one of those that you immediately recognize as archetypal as soon as you start it and there are multiple long stretches of explaining that whales are fish because The Bible says so. It's also surprisingly anti-racist.

Initially, I was fretting about needing to write a post, but having no inspiration to write anything. I then rationalized that I could just start with baseball, music, and books and see where we got from there. Those three things make up a pretty big part of my identity, so why not ruminate on those? Way better than working through two or three "I have nothing to write about" paragraphs before getting to the point, right?

No Mercy

Last week, I finished a two-year contract at work. This position was a good get for me, was the first thing I did out of grad school, and will surely lead to more things down the road, but for now, I have time to myself.

Leading up to the end of the contract was a very busy time, we had to get our new exhibition in order, as well as all of the programs that went with it. Artists were hard to deal with and poets even more so and then before I knew it I was training my replacement. It was kind of a whirlwind month in which I experienced everything I loved about the job, everything that made it worthwhile, and everything I hated in rapid-fire succession, with each change not lasting long but making up for that in intensity. People said goodbye and thanked me and the machine of the gallery kept moving on at its usual boulder falling down a mountain pace.

Now I'm working part-time at that same gallery, but in a reduced role and with much more say over what and when I do things. I'm taking a bunch of time off for myself so that I can, hopefully, for fuck sakes, finally finish my second zine (which is in the final stages of editing) and then move on to the third one I'm currently planning.

I'm still figuring what I want to say and where I'll send up saying it. Here? In a zine? In a story? Hopefully all of them.

I don't have much else to say, so I thought I would leave you with two albums I really enjoyed listening to this morning.

First up is Dan P and the Bricks' second record When We Were Fearless. I adored the first one and played the shit out if it, so I was shocked to find out that I missed the release of this one this past February. Almost all ska that has come out this decade has been either a lazy effort from a washed up old band or a similarly lazy effort from a new band aping an old band. I say almost, because every now and then a record like this one comes out and reminds exactly why I love this genre so much. A huge band that gives the songs a trad feel without really dipping into that category and really great songwriting by Dan. Asian Man Records is lowkey in the pantheon of best ever labels. Love this one.



Secondly, I revisited Young Guv's album from 2015 Ripe 4 Luv and it holds up so damn well. So dreamy and dancy, with great guitar hooks too. Imagine if all dreampop was this good?