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?

It Comes Down to Me in the End

One morning, I got on the southbound subway at Spadina Station, as I do every morning on my way to work.. I got on the car at about 8:40 AM, the peak of rush hour. The subway was crowded, with no seats available and many people standing. A thin older black man in a fedora was walking down the middle of the car in my direction and speaking loudly to everyone around me. Having lived in a big city for most of my life, I am used to meeting people like this on public transit regularly.

As me got closer, I realized that the man was preaching to anybody near him. A few of the commuters were visibly uncomfortable, but the man wasn't getting particularly close to any person. He was loud, to be sure, but he also wasn't stopping to talk to anyone in particular. In situations like these, I recognize that nothing I do or say can stop this person from doing what they are doing, so I try to take them in as passively as I can. Around this time, the subway stalled in the tunnel.

As the preacher passed by me spreading the word of God, a young man spoke up and said "Nobody here wants to hear this." The man looked like a caricature of internet-obsessed nerd atheists. The preacher took the man's criticisms in stride and was more than game to engage in a debate, retorting with things like "It's okay my brother, I will pray for you." The young man didn't want to give it up though, saying "Nobody wants to hear this, especially from a shlep like you."

That last response almost made me laugh out loud. A man is confident and shame-free enough to walk through a crowded, confined space speaking to strangers and your gameplan is to come at him with "shlep"? Bro, you gotta rethink your strategy.

The young man was visibly upset with the preacher and they got into a brief argument with each other. The preacher was steadfast in his position that he would pray for the man and would keep spreading his beliefs, while the young man wouldn't budge on telling the guy to shut up. It never got to the point where I thought there would be a confrontation, but it was a little awkward.

The next point is entirely speculation, so please do not take it as fact,but I got the vibe that the young man's attitude was racially motivated. Would he have approached the situation the same if it was an elderly white guy doing this? Given that the rise of the alt-right has been explicitly linked to men just like this guy, I was wagering the answer would be no.

At the height of the argument, the man said that faith would find the young man eventually. A Jamaican woman spoke up saying "Born again! Wash in the blood of Jesus!"

The subway pulled in St. George Station and the young man stormed off to change lines while the old man continued down the car.

Shortly after leaving St. George, the car stopped again and the voice over the P.A. informed riders that there had been a trespasser at track level.

This news made me wonder which of the two people in that argument would care that a person committed suicide that morning. Neckbeard, from my brief impression of him, was probably more concerned about his commute being interrupted. I'm sure the preacher said a prayer for the person. Both actions are empty, but at least one is considerate.

That being said, we're not required to feel empathy when a person we don't know dies. It's nice if we do, but it doesn't solve anything. Really, it makes us feel better about ourselves more than anything else. Is putting yourself first in that scenario selfish? I don't know.

This whole situation was brief, but it's stuck with me since then. It kind of reminds me of the Party Down episode where they cater a Young Republicans party. The other person may be an asshole in some ways, but it's also easy to turn yourself into an even bigger asshole pretty quickly. Just try hard to understand people and context, I guess. That's not easy, but I think it's important.

Sometimes It's Just You and Me, Getting High in Your Car

Allow to begin this post by saying that it's been a year and a half since this album was released and the whole thing (but especially this song) (but also especially all of the songs) manages to transform into a floating smile for as long as it's on. No matter what.





More importantly (SIREN EMOJI, SIREN EMOJI), The Yunahon Mixtape is being re-released by Oso Oso''s new label Triple Crown Records soon and to commemorate the release, the band put out a new single. It's been a while since a band has captured my interest like this, where every move they make induces pure joy and it's nice to return to that state of excitement. Let me tell ya folks, THE SONG BANGS. LORD DOES IT BANG!




That's all! Just really excited about this band and the big stupid smile that spreads across my face as soon as I press play.

Give Everybody Eat!

Last night was the Ontario general election. Much more so than in recent years, the provincial election was given a significant amount of attention in the press due to Doug Ford representing the closest that Canadian politics has come to Trumpism since the latter's election in the United States (this ignores Doug's moran brother's mayoral term). People my age were very scared of a possible Progressive Conservative government, especially with the Liberal party wilting in the dying days of Kathleen Wynne's time as Premier. Young people turned their support in mass to the traditionally tertiary New Democratic Party hoping that a dramatic shift towards a more left wing platform would be enough to strike down the Ford family's latest power grad.

It wasn't. Shit sucks. Here are a few disjointed thoughts:

Do not blame voter turn out for the result of this election. A small amount of radicals does not change the fact that the Conservatives won the popular vote and marched through every riding outside of Toronto and Northern Ontario. A platform such as Ford's should not have nearly this much appeal. That people are either ignorant enough to not recognize the problems in their agenda or bad enough to agree with them is the real problem. Instead of turning around and blaming the people agreeing with you, unite in the face of this move towards your values. More people voting in Toronto does not change the fact that so many ridings in the rest of the province flopped.

The real problem in Canada is liberals. Mid-to-upper class white people outside of the urban core are separated enough from what is affected most by the PCs (social program funding, transit funding, arts funding) that it is of no consequence to them. They infatuated with the idea of Trudeau/Chrétien Liberalism and when the option of going red is taken away from them, the majority would rather vote PC than NDP. This is who is fucking Canada on the whole and who is impeding any progress. Socialism is the logical next step from a capitalist democracy to ensure that not all of society is being dominated by a small upper class which controls all wealth. They are opportunists who jump at any chance to seem progressive when it is presented by an affable white guy with a majority government, but shrink away from responsibility when it actually falls to them. It is disgusting.

Sounding off on social media doesn't do anything. Posting on any of the platforms does not equate to activism. It's an echo chamber where you often releasing your opinions to people that already agree with you. I understand that it is fulfilling to hear others agree with you and the immediate release of typing and posting is tempting (the irony, I know) is hard to resist. Don't allow your posts on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram to occupy all of your political discussion. Do not regurgitate information you read on someone else's status. Read and think critically.

Getting news like last night is defeating. Incorporate resistance into your life is easier ways. Read critical books, even if they aren't political theory. Listen to critical records. Linger on those thoughts, discuss them with those you care about and work them into your life in a regular way. Here a couple of works I've enjoyed recently and find comforting today. Don't get scared by ideas, good or bad. Process them and be logical and critical about them. Then you can come back stronger.

 

 

In a very "Timmy" move, Becks and I were at the Jays game last night. Oddly enough, getting the election news coincided with John Axford turning into a pitching machine. Unlike the Ontario electoral body, The Toronto Blue Jays surged back, scoring 3 in the 9th and 1 in the 10th to win. A come-from-behind, walk-off win does wonders to raise your spirits. Staying at home and brooding over a live ticker doesn't do shit to the results. Go out and do something.

At My Teenage Worst

IMU often helps me stretch my brain a little bit and improve my ability to write other things. But if I focus on those other things instead of IMU, does the quality taper off? What about if I focus on another project, ostensibly because it is tangible and "more important", but that leads to me putting this, my main writing output, to the side? Am I still producing if I have nothing to show for it here? What if work through things in a notebook instead of a computer screen?

This is all very confusing to me (and you, I'm sure), so the only sensible thing to do is a short post about some new music I'm into.

As always, around April I was worried that I wasn't putting enough effort into finding new music and was entering the dreaded first stage of "becoming out of touch". Nothing terrifies white males more than potentially not knowing things about pop music. As always, once the warm weather started, releases I like slowly started to creep in. It's almost as if record labels release things during the summer on purpose.




I'm really into the new Sidekicks album Happiness Hours. I absolutely adored Weight of Air and Awkward Breeds, but was underwhelmed by Runners in the Nerved World. I was ready to write the band off and exclusively celebrate their early material, but then they pulled the ultimate feat and came back with a huge return to form. It's way different from the albums I loved, but heavy on melody, choruses, and riffs that are great without being technical. I tried to think of other times that bands have come back with a big bounce-back after something I didn't like and the first example I thought of was the Swellers album Good For Me. The two bands couldn't be more different, but they are the same in this way. That's neat.




After the sublime full length Tired of Tomorrow, Nothing just released the lead single for their next album Dance on the Blacktop. I'm mostly over the shoegaze trend in punk and find that most bands just end up putting out boring album that lack hooks, but Nothing bucks that the hardest a band can. They manage to find the overlap between gaze, hardcore, grunge, and britpop that most bands think they do. Excited for this one.




Guys, you had me at "New Heart Crew, Midwest Straight Edge".

Gotta Do What You Can Just to Keep Your Love Alive

It's funny the way that a song can be to resonate with you, seemingly out of nowhere and in a new way. You've heard the song upwards of a hundred times in your mom's car, in your own head phones, in the shitty computer speakers you had in your room four years ago, but all of a sudden it comes out in a new way.

Sometimes the subject matter doesn't even pertain to you and a song about living as a touring musician somehow sums up your feelings about a completely different thing. There's an area in between subjects where we all live and it feels like I'm reveling in that now. For some reason the space between "riding a tour bus in the 1970's" and "ending my job" feels particularly relevant right now.

P.S. The ad-libbed "Ooooo-ooh!" in the second verse!

P.P.S. It always gets me when they kick into the main riff for the outro. Goddamn.

Cobra Noir

Whenever I am having trouble thinking of something worthwhile to write, I go to one of two wells. 1) An anecdote I still think about. 2) A draft on my blogger dashboard. This happens to be both.

Since the age of 12, the only thing I've thought about has been being in a band. First came the daydreams of me playing Urethra Chronicles II-style pranks with my friends, then came the red Squire P-Bass starter pack, then came learning "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Then the Chinese Fingertraps, then the Pragmatics. I had a gap in bands where the desire to play was stronger than ever, until Mark asked me to join the "new" version of Beat Noir. We played together for a couple of years and it was really fun until it wasn't.

I still think about Beat Noir a fair amount. I try to be careful to not veer into embarrassing wistful nostalgia about playing in an unsuccessful punk band for five years, but at the same time the band was a big part of my life and it's hard to not think about it. I remember a friend of Colin's reminiscing on their old hardcore band and talking about it like they were paradigm-shifting. I don't want to be that. I'm aware that we were just a fairly run-of-the-mill band and that's okay.

Along the way, we had a couple of experiences that I think are part of a larger, shared experience of "being in a band". There's the corny, well-worn examples of sitting together and getting the first copies of your first album or getting your first van, but I think it's the shittier times that do more to bond you to your bandmates and others you meet. Those shit circumstances are also a lot funnier in hindsight and more entertaining to others, even if it doesn't seem that way when it's happening.

With all this being said, I'm going to dive into a story from Beat Noir. I don't mean to glamorize our existence or try to make it sound like we were super cool. Just the opposite, we were pretty pathetic most of the time and it was amazing how much money we threw away in this endeavor. I think most musicians will agree that being in a band is frustrating most of the time 

When Duff and I talk about the band, the consensus worst time we ever had in it was a show we played in Hamilton.

During one summer, we were particularly hard up for shows. Our first album was almost a year old and we were finding that it was getting hard to convince people to listen to us and even harder to find good shows to play. We had played with a couple of great bands around the release of Ecotone, but that pool dried up quickly and all of a sudden we were playing parties in Burlington. People always preach that you "just need to keep grinding", but that's hard you're not getting paid and a crowd of people are even giving you the "standing about 10 feet away from the stage" courtesy. Out of everyone in the band, I leaned most towards "I'll play anywhere", but that has its limits too.

A friend of ours told us that a friend of theirs was putting together a show in Hamilton with the band Brutal Youth, who we came up with in Kitchener and who we liked a lot and two others, Dry Socket and Dirty Kills. On top of that, the show was at The Doors Pub, which is a great rock bar where we had played one of our best shows earlier in the year. Thinking that this would be a good way to interrupt our run of terrible shows, I convinced the rest of the guys to go along with it. Then Brutal Youth dropped off the show. We in a shitty position where we all didn't want to play the show anymore, since the only band we liked and knew wasn't doing it anymore, but were also desperate to play and didn't want to look like we were unreliable. We decided we would stick with it, just because. It was at The Doors, so even if it was a shit show, it would be fine.

On the way to the venue, we stopped to get food. Colin brought a pack of cigarillos and for some reason he, Mark, and I smoked one on the way to a burrito place. It was grape flavour.

We got to the venue about a half hour before doors and were surprised to find that the only people there were the other opener, Dry Socket. We weren't familiar with the band, but were happy to find out that it was made up of acquaintances and friends-of-friends. They said that the promoter hadn't been at the venue at all and nobody at the venue knew what was going on. Both of us talked about giving up on the show and bailing, but ultimately decided that we would just both play and see what happened. While I figured that the show would turn out fine, I also wasn't surprised to see something stupid like this happen.

While we were loading our gear in, my stomach started to feel upset. I laid my bass down in the back room of The Doors (it has a pool table, a full bookcase, a high-back chair, and an Ozzy Osbourne poster) and then rushed downstairs to the washroom. The washroom walls were covered with old Marvel comics covers from floor to ceiling. I had the worst diarrhea that I've ever had in my life. Liquid was streaming out of me. The guy who made my burrito must have cooked the meat on a radiator it was so bad. I eventually had to go back down a couple of other times to fully clear myself out.

Just as Dry Socket were set up and were getting ready to start, Dirty Kills and the promoter, who was friend of theirs, showed up. To my immense surprise, the promoter who decided to go incognito and not show up until after doors was a crusty. Predictably, pretty much no one had come to the show. The rest of the band and I were incensed that this promoter was being so lazy about the show and the fact that it was the capper on a terrible summer as a band was the cherry on the sundae. We decided that we would finish our set and then get the fuck out of Hamilton. Out of solidarity, we all made sure to watch Dry Socket's set at the front.

Once they finished, we went and started to bring our gear to the front of the venue when the promoter stopped us halfway and told us that we would be headlining instead. Great. Plans of heading home early were dashed and we would be stuck watching Dirty Kills to boot. Why wait until right before we thought we were playing to tell us?

Mark was over it all and went to use our drink tickets downstairs. Duff and Colin were both straight edge and I didn't feel like drinking because I was mad and my stomach was upset, so Mark got the lot of them.

It all was a very defeating feeling. We were playing a show we didn't want to play to no one and most likely wouldn't be getting paid for it. It wasn't fun to play shows like this. All of us were frustrated and having a bad time. We spent a lot of time loading up and driving to the show and our van was gas guzzler, so we were essentially paying to play it. It was the exact opposite of the way you hope a show goes. And on top of all that I had bad diarrhea.

After showing up like two hours late and changing our set time at the last minute, the promoter hung out in the back of the venue drinking with her friends for the entire show. We were steaming mad and were still entertaining the thought of bailing on the show and just driving home. A couple of us said "I'm down if you are", but we had already driven all the way to Hamilton and figured that we would try to treat it like a band practice in front of 3 people. The four of us were over it and decided that our silly petty way to get back at the promoter would be to play for as long as possible.

A funny, self-defeating thing about Beat Noir was that we always played our best when we were mad. More often than not, this was because we were stuck on a bad show. We'd be so pissed that we were stuck on a bad show doing nothing for ourselves as a band and that, more often than not, we had driven out of town to the show, that the anger would translate into us playing tightly. We would end end up playing great sets on bad shows and sloppier sets on good shows. We were bad at being a band.

We decided to play every song off of our LP that we could play live. We also threw in an older song from our truly terrible EP. Halfway through the set one of us, I can't remember who, suggested that we play a cover of "The Good in Everyone" by Sloan, which we had played live regularly for about a year, but hadn't practiced in about as long. We pulled it off well. Spontaneously whipping an old cover out without practicing it felt like the coolest thing we had done as a band.

"Well, I played that set drunk as fuck." Mark said.

As soon as we finished we tore down and loaded out as quickly as possible. At bare minimum, it was August and warm out. Loading out your gear in the winter is one of the least fun things about being in a band, so I'll never complain about getting roll amps down the sidewalk instead of the snow. The Doors Pub is at the top of Hess Street in Hamilton, which is most of the city's student bars are. Since it was warm out and late, there were many people out drinking. While the four of us stopped to take stock of everything and make sure that we hadn't forgotten anything, three 30-ish drunk bros who looked like they spent a lot of time in Barrie came up to talk to me.

They asked me if the four of us were the band that had just played upstairs, as they had been outside on the patio and heard our surely muffled set from there. They complimented us and said that I in particular was talented. They were drunk and obnoxious and looked like they hung out in Barrie a lot. One of them told me that he sang and played guitar in a band and asked if I like Avenged Sevenfold. He also told me that one day he was going to steal me away from my band to play in his band. He asked what our name was.

"Beat Noir."

He smacked his forehead, smirked and half-turned away.

"You won't believe this." one of his friends said. They were all very excited to tell me.

"What?"

"One of our songs is called 'Cobra Noir'."

This was the point in my night when I crossed the Rubicon and the night became so dumb and annoying that it was funny to me. I had nothing left to do but laugh. All we needed now was the van to break down on us.

I told the bros that we had we to finish loading our gear and get going, went back to the guys and told them what had just happened. They were all at a similar point in their evening to me.

I asked everyone else if we should go and ask the promoter for money. Mark and Colin didn't care and weren't going to do it and I was at a point where I didn't care what happened, so I said I would do it and Duff said he'd come with me.

I asked the promoter if she could give us anything for gas and she said "Sorry, all the door money is going to the touring band." That pissed me off a lot. I had a lot of things that I wanted to say. How is it fair that we drive almost as far as the touring band and don't get anything? How is it fair that there's barely any door money because you did a shit job as a promoter? Don't you have any responsibility in this scenario? Why do you get to spend money drinking at the show instead of saving that for us? Even $10 would have been appreciated. The way that bands are often expected to just play for nothing because it's the "punk" thing to do is stupid. It's really just you taking advantage of us. As a promoter, you should be prepared to pay the bands that are playing your show. If you are uncomfortable being forced to draw a crowd in order to ensure you'll make out okay financially on the gig, don't be a promoter.

I didn't say any of those things. Instead, I rolled my eyes, exhaled and stormed off. I said "Thanks for nothing" as I walked away, but I'm unsure if she heard it or not.

It was a less than fun drive home. I sat shotgun while Duff drove, with Colin and Mark both passed out in the row behind us. This was our usual set up on the way home. Duff put on You Are Beneath Me by End of a Year. The intro felt great to listen to. We stopped at a gas station about halfway home so that Mark could rock a piss.

While Mark and Colin were inside, Duff confessed that he didn't want to play shows like this anymore. He would rather play no shows than play shows like this, I agreed. For a second it felt like Duff was starting the "We Shouldn't Be a Band Anymore" conversation. He assured me that he still wanted to play together, but we would have to take a different approach to things.

You couldn't fault him for thinking that way.

Sometimes, Every Once in A While

Given how much I write about the Blue Jays on IMU, one would assume that Toronto's baseball team occupies such a huge space in my mind that it takes up all of the brain power I have to give to sports. That is not true though, as I love to spend my winters watching Toronto Raptors basketball. I don't nearly the same relationship with the Raptors that I do with the Jays, but they have been a part of my life since my childhood.

I first became interested with the Raptors during the heyday of Vince Carter and Antonio Davis, as was the case with almost every other basketball fan close to my age, and my earliest memory of watching the team is seeing Vince miss the shot that would have beaten the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2001 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.

Since then, I went all in on the Bosh/Bargnani playoff teams, stuck with them during the ebb of the "just Bargs" after Bosh left to join LeBron, and then my fandom hit a fever pitch with the team's current Lowry/DeRoza incarnation. The team has been superbly run by Masai Ujiri and built into perennial playoff presence. They're young and mostly homegrown, so its been an exciting time to follow the team.

2017/18 has been, to this point, the culmination of the Raptor's building process. They have a great young core and they ended up winning a franchise-high 59 games (!) to pace the Eastern Conference. This season was, without a doubt, the most fun I've had watching the team and I think that most fans would agree with me on that.

The Raptors are also a little maddening to watch sometimes. They're always great in the regular season, but are choke artists, as much as I hate to admit it. They consistently lose to worse teams once the games that actually matter come around and seemingly forget everything they've done and learned along the way. It makes them easy targets for the rest of the NBA and it can be exhausting to defend them and assure everyone that "no, they're actually good".

This year seemed different and a lot of factors that that the Raptors have no control over (LeBron's teammates, injuries to other players) rolled in their favour. They still weren't favoured to win, or even be in the NBA Championship, but this was without a doubt their best opportunity and one like it wouldn't come around again for many years. I had a lot of hope.

Instead, by the second game of their second round match up against the Cleveland Cavaliers, it became apparent that the Raps were definitely going to lose, if not be swept, which is exactly what happened.

In the 4th game of the series, which ended up being the last one, they were getting blown out and it was obvious that there was no way they were going to mount a come back and that their 2018 season would end that night.

I thought about turning the game off, because who really wants to watch their favourite team get meticulously picked apart by one of the greatest players of all-time? It's frustrating and deflating. Then, I had a moment of clarity and decided to instead tick with the team and watch through to the end of the game. I felt pretty that Toronto's best opportunity at playing for the championship had once-again slipped away, but I also realized that it can be good and healthy to sit in that feeling for a little bit. Just because you initially feel sad about what the eventual outcome will be, doesn't mean that there is no beauty in the moment. 2017/18 was by a wide margin the most basketball I had ever watched in my life, so instead of trying to block this Raptors loss out of my mind, I figured that since I had come on this season-long ride with the team, I should stay on the boat and see it through to the end.

Watching the team go through the motions of playing a game, and season, really, that was already decided forced me to be present in the moment. This coloured the sadness with a bit of joy, making for a weird combination of feelings. I was sad and couldn't believe that they had choked yet again, but also felt strangely glad to be in situation.

I'm not sure how to describe the situation anymore or make my point any better. Describing ethereal emotions is hard. Basically, what I want to say is that when things seem annoying, frustrating, or shitty, sometimes it can be fruitful to take a moment and revel in the situation. Being present is hard and it's counter-intuitive, but that doesn't mean it's something we need to work towards.

On the other side of the coin, a similar thing happened at work this week. My workplace can be very frustrating and though I haven't been particularly bummed at work recently, it still wears me down. This week our youth outreach program had their end-of-year show and it never ceases to remind me that art can be very good sometimes. While everyone was making their speeches about how proud they were of the kids for making all that they did, I took a moment to sit in the elation I felt. Even a small inner victory like that can carry you for a couple of days.

It's beautiful, I would say. I wouldn't have it any other way.