Leads to Somewhere I Don't Know

Bro, shirtless Vinnie with star tattoos, counting in "Gainesville Rock City" with a dart is my everything.

Focused Vision, a Life of Your Own and It's Worth Living

I promised a playlist on Monday last week and am posting it today. Never say Timmy doesn't love you.

Some real homesickness is starting to set in over here. It was easy to not miss Toronto when it was bright and sunny in the summer, and we were regularly going back. Now that some of my yearly traditions that were tied to Toronto, like my annual baseball game with my mom or Thanksgiving, are starting to come around, I'm feeling a lot more aware of the distance between my friends and family and I.

Boo school.

Boo rain.

Boo watching former Blue Jays succeed on playoff teams.

School is starting to ramp up, and while I'm doing a decent job of balancing my work (and do need to remind myself of that), it feels like I'm running through a restaurant with a tray of filled water glasses. One of them has to spill soon, right?

To do a very "me" thing and use a horribly over-used cliche, this is all a marathon and not a sprint. I can't rush through work hoping that there won't be more waiting for me next week, because that will never happen. What's more important to diligently wade through things, trying somehow to pick out ideas and books that relate to my research when they come up, and hope somehow that I'm still standing in December.

I Guess That's Just the Way Life Goes, Ya Know?

Montreal is starting to feel like home now. I find that places and routes come to me automatically now that they've been built into my routine. I still hesitate a little bit while asking questions in French and feel self-conscious about butchering the official language that everyone speaks, but that's slowly improving and eventually that doubt will shrink into a recess of my mind where I don't notice it so much.

It's weird, I thought I had above-average French, but realized quickly that I had above-average Ontario French, which is not the same thing as speaking it well. That was a tough thing to realize when we moved hear and I had to come to terms with the fact that rather than being bilingual, like so many people told me throughout my life, I would need to put serious work into learning it and getting to a point where I can adequately speak it. That's a long way off, but hopefully I will get there before long.

EV, and Faubourg Tower and Grey Nuns have turned into my academic homes and without even thinking about it, they've become the places I rely on to spend time in. It's funny to think about that sort of place, where you can count on it hosting you and not having to worry about a time limit or spending money or being welcome. On one hand, I need those places to have a spot to work, but it's also nice to know I can relax and do nothing if I need to. Not that I ever really get a chance to do that with the demands of a PhD, but it feels good to know I can if I really want to.

I've been reading a dense and esoteric-ass Michel Foucault text for the last two weeks and it seems like that is influencing how I'm writing at the moment.

NO!

Maybe the path to getting back to my actual writing voice is to talk about something a little more lowbrow.

This past weekend, Rebecca went to go visit a friend and help them prepare for their wedding. While Two things that she generally doesn't want to watch? Extremely bad movies and things about skateboarding. I covered both bases by watching the 2009 movie Street Dreams.



It was the exact type of bad that I love to watch: Horrible acting with equally terrible writing and a plot that is just linear enough to not make it a slog to get through.

Maybe it will only be funny for skateboarders, but there's at least one thing in every scene that made me howl. "There are 10 million street skaters in the United States. This is their story." as the title card. P-Rod is heinous as a leading man. Rob Dyrdek's character saying "I heard about this unreal spot in Ohio" and it cutting to the public skatepark he had just built at the time. Dyrdek and Terry Kennedy playing 24 (?) year-olds. P-Rod talking about his white whale trick "The Knack" and him landing it in a sequence but the movie not acknowledging that.

I could watch things like this endless. My brain is bad.

I've found a lot of good music lately, so I'll compile that and post it on Monday. Capiche?

I Swear I'm Hearin' It, How He Laughs

You may ask yourself, while the friendly lime glow if IMU reflects on you, how I could have the audacity to not write anything of substance for a month or so, and expect you all to be content with two posts that aren't much more than an embedding of some music.

Well friends, school is hard and all that reading has to get done some time. While I finish up the last of this current mountain of work, before heading onto the next mountain, and hopefully start to think about something I want to say here, join me in listening to Berryland by The Berries and thinking about everything in the world (mostly semiotics) (but, in many ways semiotics kind of are everything in the world) (weird that even the bibimbap I just ate was a sign).

Reflected on Your T-Shirt

New achievement:

Now able to listen to Paul Baribeau in public without crying.

Liberties, Vol 17

I started making this one with the goal of included upbeat riffy songs from 2019. It's raining today, so listening to Sheer Mag was a funny juxtaposition with the wet grey outside. Maybe that's why we turn morose near the end. Either way, these ones all make me throw up a thumbs up like my boy Drago on the over for one reason or another.

There Will Be No Pulling Out of Rug Beneath Your Feet

While in a strange Twitter hole, I saw someone who used to be in a band I like recommend Slaughter Beach, Dog's new record Safe and Also No Fear.

It's great thoughtful indie rock in which the world of the songs seems super lived-in. Afterwords, I found out that this is a project by one of the members of Modern Baseball, which surprised me, as this, in my opinion, absolutely pisses on everything that band did.

While listening, the delivery of the songs, especially the vocals, reminded me so much of something, but I couldn't place it. Putting the record on while I worked through OSAP forms today (FUN!), I realized that what I was searching for was Sean Bonette's Skateboarding's Greatest Hits, which I've touched on here a couple of times in the past. Knowing that now, of course I liked this record, as that EP is one of my favourite little oddities, and if we're being serious, one of my favourite things ever.

Hey! We talkin' about skateboarding?

I've been diving into Epicly Later'd again lately. The series is unbelievable, but like most things skating, it seems to be doomed to only ever be consumed by skaters. I like that, because it means we get to have something only for us, but I guess I also wish others could see it and then gush about how amazing these people and this crazy subculture are. Recent highlights have been the Girl/Anti Hero tour episode, in which a pre-out Brian Anderson's excessive drinking around his teammates, to the point that he throws up blood, is put in a new light today (also, I could watch Tony Trujillo footage forever), but the big one for me was the series on Josh Kalis, a skater who I never looked into before, but have a new appreciation for now.



Go swimming or something.

God Only Knows Where I'd Be Without You

I meant to write a post, and even had blogger open on my computer, yesterday but forgot to!

:o :o :o

Rebecca and I's summer is getting to a difficult point, where we've both had more time off than we could have imagined and are starting to feel restless and like we should be doing more important things. Being lazy and relaxing starts to feel like a waste of time and we both become convinced that any time in our apartment could be better spent *consults comprehensive mental rolodex* seeing new parts of Montreal and experiencing new things. Since it's now late-August, we'll both turn around in a couple of days and realize that our first two months here were a giant missed opportunity.

I'm aware that the previous paragraph sounds incredibly entitled and that was the point. We're both fortunate to be doing what we're doing now and I think both of us should appreciate the fact we don't have schedules to adhere to. We complain about being overworked all year, and then when we have time off in a beautiful city during a beautiful time of year, we complain about not doing anything. Millennials are we.

I find that there's always an ebb and flow to having time off. At first it's very exciting and you relish it. Then you start to worry about organizing your tasks and fitting them. Then you shut down and default to watching TV. Then things start to come into focus and you can appreciate that everything is okay. At least, that's how it seems to work for me.

The other day, I was having a coffee and reading on our back patio in the morning. It felt nice and I couldn't imagine wanting to do anything else in that moment. I try not to be a hippy, but being present is extremely important and is the key to enjoying things like that. If you can appreciate a small moment in time, it can open up your perspective on many other things.

The end of the summer is a nice time. There's still bright sun every day and we can leave the windows open in the apartment. For whatever reason, I absolutely love the part of the summer where at night you end up still having your shorts on, but put a hoodie over your t-shirt and that's a very sensible outfit. It's only like two weeks at the end of August. Maybe that's my "fall weather".

The reality is that in three months, when we're covered in snow and it takes like 10 friggin' minutes to put on boots and a coat to take the dog out to pee at night and I've just submitted an essay I hate, we'll both think back on our summer without responsibility and how much we miss it. I should try to access that feeling now, rather than putting myself down for doing what I want to. I'll probably never stop beating myself up over small things, but I can try to remember that doing that is pretty selfish and masturbatory and I would be better served to know that I'm doing fine and am not the piece of shit I believe myself to be when I let my mind run around in circles.

Slow Down, Feels Like You're Rushing Away

This finally comes out this week and brother, I am JONESIN' for it.

Bonus extra cut for you on a warm Sunday night in Montreal.

How I'm Never Gonna Fight That

At first, I thought this post would be just an embed of a skate video I watched yesterday, so I have to lead with that right?




Unbelievable stuff. While the direction is slick and amazing, don't let it distract you from how crazy the skating is. The super quick vertical pole jam into 50-50? The fast nose manual/nollie out in the tiny hole. Additionally, it's amazing to see a completely different style of skating from the Asian members of Addidas' team. Everything is precise and their ollies are go vertical and then horizontal in a way I could watch all day. Can't way to see more.

Rebecca and I have been on a trip to Ontario since last Tuesday. We originally planned this trip when we moved and thought that seeing our friends and family would be a needed break from our solitary existence in Montreal. It ended up sneaking up on me and it kind of felt like we were jetting off right as I was starting to get settled in our new home. Part of my head felt like we had more things to do and that staying in Montreal would make us more comfortable in the city. I think that was mostly me being anxious about the trip though and I now recognize that coming home was a good idea. It's not like we had anything concrete to be done. Going on a week-ish long trip where we relax, have fun, don't worry about doing anything and see our friends was good. Crazy, right?

The trip has felt strange, though not in a bad way. It's taken me back to places I used to live and seeing them again has brought a bunch of different feelings in me. Rebecca and I being back in downtown Guelph, which is where we spent the first two years of our relationship and where we fell in love, made us remember why "Guelph" continues to stick in our minds and why living there will always be something we dream on. Coming back to Kitchener-Waterloo always reminds me exactly why I left; growing dissatisfied with the city, having to drive to get to anything worthwhile, and greater professional and academic opportunities existing elsewhere; but also exactly why leaving was so hard; a beautiful group of friends who live together and welcomed me into their scene and city. Sitting with people who I am so close with and just talking for hours in the house I used to live in and being surrounded by like-minded punks is something that I crave at all times. I don't realize how important it is to me and what I'm missing so much until I'm doing it.

In the middle of this trip, it feels like I'm attaining some level of clarity, so I offer the following demandments for myself, shouted into the void to keep me motivated:

1. Put a little more elbow grease into making things, whether they be short stories, blog posts, songs, or zines.

2. Challenge your body and remember that you need that.

3. Get a job Bobo.

4. Eat things that you like.

5. Think a big scheme, no matter what it is.