Over yesterday and today I went through another re-read of many past entries on this blog and was immediately stricken by how different I can be while still remaining roughly the same person. Every time I read any post on this blog it immediately takes me back to the time in my life when I wrote it, which is pretty cool. More and more this thing is becoming a time capsule for my life and I kinda like that.
As I was reading through yesterday, I realized that there is one part that shows how dated this is more than anything else and that is the links sidebar. Many of the links are bands who are broken up, blogs that are now neglected, or.....well actually everything fits pretty nicely into those two categories. I'm to clean up that area in a little bit but figured it would be great to call attention to it.
"Beat Noir Are Sexy Motherfuckers"
This one is probably funniest because it is the band that I am currently in. I added that link (obviously) before I joined. I would like to state for the record that Colin, Duff and Mark are all sexy motherfuckers.
"Bomb The Music Industry!"
Still one of my favourite parts of being alive, but have stopped making music. If this was two years ago I would have written a very lengthy piece describing the bands importance to me, but now I barely write in this thing at all and the "break-up" happened long enough ago that writing about it now would seem stupid. Kind of shows how much my attitude about talking about music has changed in the last little while. Fortunately for me there is no shortage of posts about how much that band means to me on here.
"Brenden Kelly"
First and foremost, I misspelled his name and only just noticed that. I used to read his blog every day and definitely tried to emulate his style of writing a lot during part of this blog. Except now that's a link to a blog that hasn't been updated in two years since it moved urls.
"Chef Blog!"
This was a blog that my friend used to document his experiences while attending chef school and honing his practices. Now it takes you over to his tumblr.
"Dino Comix"
One of the few links that is still active! Dinosaur Comics remains amazing and is definitely my favourite web-comic ever (sorry Mitch Clem). I strongly urge you to get into it.
"Fireworks"
I like the band Fireworks. Back when I put the links up on the side there weren't many bands that updated blogs regularly and Fireworks was one of them.
"Fuck Yeah Sharks"
This was the original "Fuck Yeah" blog on tumblr, which has since become a huge trend. Also, this blog really made laugh during its hayday. It hasn't been updated in forever and is pretty much done, like many of the other links.
"Lemuria"
Another link that magically still works. Also, shouts out to Lemuria for sticking with blogger after all these years. Like me!
"Make Do And Mend"
I was pretty into Bodies of Water. I don't listen to this band much anymore.
"My Tumblr (I barely use it)"
The funny part of this is that I used to be kind of opposed to tumblr a few years ago and wanted to show that I wasn't that into it. I'm pretty into it now.
"Nic Cage As Everyone"
This blog (while being a one-trick pony) is pretty hilarious. It more or less done though.
"Nick "Eazy" East"
The blog of my wonderful friend Nicholas East. It also hasn't been updated in forever and seems to be done.
"On My Scraper Bike"
This was a mixtape blog that I started with my friends Ken and Tanner. We were really excited about it when we first started it, but fell off it pretty much right away. Fuckin' way she goes, right?
"Paper And Plastick Rekerds"
I thought Paper And Plastick was the best label in the world for a while. Then a lot of bands left their roster, rumours of bands not getting everything they were promised and some records I ordered never came. They did make a lot of cool records though!
"SNAKECHARMA"
While their blogger isn't active anymore, they are still trucking over on tumblr. They are some great buds and make even greater tunes. Get heavy bruh.
"Bad New Bad Blog"
This was my brother's blog for a while. It has fallen by the wayside since then.
"We Are The Union"
I loved the hell out of this band, but unfortunately they broke up earlier this year. Feels bad man.
I guess something cool that I've realized because of this is that this blog has outlasted most other things people start on the internet.
Go me, I guess.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
I, Musical Genius
I swear I have posts with some actual content to them in progress right now. Hold tight all 0 of you who remember that this blog actually exists.
In the meantime, here's a video of one of the bests nights of my life. And hey, on top of that it's the song that this blog is named after. If you keep an eye for a kid in a white and blue baseball tee on the stage-left side of the crowd, that's me.
ASOB's music always takes me back to a time in my life when I was bummed about some things, but everything was still easy to deal with. Three Cheers For Disappointment is a big part of why I'm the person I am today. I still can't hear "Nowhere" without having my fist clenched and screaming "It's gonna rain tonight, but it's gotta stop eventually. Let's anticipate the sun and warmth and raise our fists and say "Everything is always falling apart but I can't."".
They make me so happy
In the meantime, here's a video of one of the bests nights of my life. And hey, on top of that it's the song that this blog is named after. If you keep an eye for a kid in a white and blue baseball tee on the stage-left side of the crowd, that's me.
ASOB's music always takes me back to a time in my life when I was bummed about some things, but everything was still easy to deal with. Three Cheers For Disappointment is a big part of why I'm the person I am today. I still can't hear "Nowhere" without having my fist clenched and screaming "It's gonna rain tonight, but it's gotta stop eventually. Let's anticipate the sun and warmth and raise our fists and say "Everything is always falling apart but I can't."".
They make me so happy
Thursday, March 21, 2013
279 Cole Road
I like to think that I am not a very vain person, but that is just not true at all. I'm aware that I neglect this blog far more than I should. I used to write in it more and really found a way to properly express myself through writing for a little while, but I just don't have that type of motivation for it anymore and I have no explanation for that. It's not that I don't want to write anymore because I absolutely do, it's just that whereas I used to sit down with an empty screen and ooze out an entire passably coherent entry, now I cannot. I can't explain it. But then again I'm doing that right now, aren't I. Fuck bruh, I'm so meta it hurts.
Anyway, I'm sure you are wondering where the hell that non-sequitur paragraph came from, so I'll indulge you. Whenever I do log back onto this blog to write an entry there is a 0% chance that I don't read back through a ton of my entries. It happens without fail every time. SEE THAT IS WHAT THE FIRST SENTENCE REGARDING ME BEING VAIN HAS TO DO WITH THIS!
Okay, so here's the rub: While there are many entries that I am still very proud of, there are a ton of older ones that are THE MOST EMBARRASSING. Like most people my first inclination would be to delete these posts because the first thought into my head is "Dammit Tim, is there actually a single person in the world who wants to read about how much you liked Bayside 4 years ago?".But shortly after that I consider the following question: What is going to give me more peace of mind; deleting old posts and maybe making it seem like I never had an awkward and uninformed stage of my life or leaving all the old posts up for everyone to see and not acting like I'm too cool to admit I've had some bad moments? The answer to this is always the latter.
So while there are certainly some heinous posts in the nether-regions of this blog, it makes me feel better to say "Yeah, so what?" and leave them there. I guess it's the same as when some people delete really old pictures of themselves on Facebook so they won't be seen. I think it's pretty uncool to be embarrassed about the person you used to be and it's a good idea to try and accept it.
But my life is generally a mess anyways, so what do I know?
Also, please stay away from old posts lololololololololololololol.
Anyway, I'm sure you are wondering where the hell that non-sequitur paragraph came from, so I'll indulge you. Whenever I do log back onto this blog to write an entry there is a 0% chance that I don't read back through a ton of my entries. It happens without fail every time. SEE THAT IS WHAT THE FIRST SENTENCE REGARDING ME BEING VAIN HAS TO DO WITH THIS!
Okay, so here's the rub: While there are many entries that I am still very proud of, there are a ton of older ones that are THE MOST EMBARRASSING. Like most people my first inclination would be to delete these posts because the first thought into my head is "Dammit Tim, is there actually a single person in the world who wants to read about how much you liked Bayside 4 years ago?".But shortly after that I consider the following question: What is going to give me more peace of mind; deleting old posts and maybe making it seem like I never had an awkward and uninformed stage of my life or leaving all the old posts up for everyone to see and not acting like I'm too cool to admit I've had some bad moments? The answer to this is always the latter.
So while there are certainly some heinous posts in the nether-regions of this blog, it makes me feel better to say "Yeah, so what?" and leave them there. I guess it's the same as when some people delete really old pictures of themselves on Facebook so they won't be seen. I think it's pretty uncool to be embarrassed about the person you used to be and it's a good idea to try and accept it.
But my life is generally a mess anyways, so what do I know?
Also, please stay away from old posts lololololololololololololol.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
The Hotel Year- It Never Goes Out
This album is really good. It is also free. I think it'd be a great idea for you to download it:
http://thehotelyear.bandcamp.com/
http://thehotelyear.bandcamp.com/
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Vacation Was Better Than Any Album That Came Out This Year
Well, it's that time of year again. I'm sure all of you are clamoring over each other to try to get to my blog and be the first to read my "Year-End" music bullshit. Once again I decided to forgo ranking each album because, like I said last year, I found it to be an exercise in futility trying to decide where albums that I loved more or less equally should be ranked near the top of the list. So fuck it! A lot of rambling and then I decide what number 1 should be because let's get real, that's the only that matters.
3. Classics of Love- Classics Of Love
When I was first getting into punk, one of the first bands I got into was Rancid. While I was listening to Rancid my brother said I should listen to their older band Operation Ivy and showed me a few songs. I instantly realized how much better Op Ivy were than Rancid and how awesome the band was and they immediately entered regular rotation in my discman and haven't left since. They really are one of my favourite bands. Keeping this in mind, think about how happy a record of Jesse Michaels singing fast 80's hardcore (WITH TWO SKA SONGS) would make me. That is exactly how I feel. I lagged a little bit on getting into this (like a week bruh), but as soon as I heard the first track my jaw dropped. The sound of Jesse yelping socio-political lyrics over blisteringly fast hardcore-punk makes me feel more fuzzy than you can imagine. I can tell that this one is going to be something that I'll be going back to a bunch for years.
1. Jeff Rosenstock- I Look Like Shit
Pretty much as soon as I heard that a new Jeff Rosenstock album came out I knew that it would be my album of the year before I even heard it. I guessed right! I've touched on this album already, so no need to review. Get on Jeff's level, world.
IT'S FREE TOO
EPs
Shook Ones- Merriweather Post Pavillion
Shook Ones are a band that need to come back to playing full-time more than pretty much anyone else. They're really good. So while I can't see them live or anything, I guess that this EP is a decent substitute for the time being. They haven't missed a beat. I think the title track might be the song of the year.
M'ÉCOUTEZ S'IL VOUS PLAIT.
The Sidekicks- Awkward Breeds
The Sidekicks are another one of those bands I should have gotten into a long time ago. I knew that Punknews had named them the "album of the year" a few years ago but, as is usually the case, I just never got around to checking them out. Then I saw them open for Bomb The Music Industry! in 2011 and was absolutely floored by their performance. Seriously, they are easily one of the five best live bands on the planet, no question and no room for discussion. Weight of Air was really my jam, so while I was really stoked for them to put out new material, I was also apprehensive as I was almost positive that it wouldn't live up to their previous release. But of course I was being a jackass and forgot this vital piece of information: THE SIDEKICKS ARE ONE OF THE BEST BANDS IN THE WORLD. This album is fucking great. It's rockier and little less groovy than Weight of Air (in my opinion), but I like that the band is moving towards a little more of a power-pop direction (in the Weezer sense of the term "power-pop"). The vocals are amazing because Steve is uncannily good at singing, there's some great guitar stuff, the basslines aren't over-the-top but fit the songs great and their drummer just pounds the shit out of his kit. Great job all around on this release, it really shows on of the most interesting, nicest and talented bands around at the top of their game. Let's smoke weed together one day guys.
Cheap Girls- Giant Orange
Some of my friends weren't as into this release as My Roaring 20's because this album didn't vary tracks enough and they thought it kind of ran together. I wholeheartedly disagree. While it's obvious there isn't as much change between tracks, I really like that the album is just front-to-back poppy alt-rock songs that get stuck in your head for days. The album totally has a bunch of Cheap Girls' best tracks, because if you deny the awesomeness of "Mercy Go-Round", "Gone All Summer" or "Ruby", then you wrong son.
Some of my friends weren't as into this release as My Roaring 20's because this album didn't vary tracks enough and they thought it kind of ran together. I wholeheartedly disagree. While it's obvious there isn't as much change between tracks, I really like that the album is just front-to-back poppy alt-rock songs that get stuck in your head for days. The album totally has a bunch of Cheap Girls' best tracks, because if you deny the awesomeness of "Mercy Go-Round", "Gone All Summer" or "Ruby", then you wrong son.
Gaslight Anthem- Handwritten
I like Gaslight Anthem, but not as much as most people like Gaslight Anthem. I always thought they would be amazing as a rough, punky rock-pop band, which is I guess what they did on this album. Sounds great to me. "45" is the best Gaslight song, shouts out to my haters.
I like Gaslight Anthem, but not as much as most people like Gaslight Anthem. I always thought they would be amazing as a rough, punky rock-pop band, which is I guess what they did on this album. Sounds great to me. "45" is the best Gaslight song, shouts out to my haters.
Title Fight- Floral Green
For some reason a lot of people I know lump in Title Fight with Four Year Strong/Story So Far/etc even though they sound absolutely nothing like that. I also think that are a victim of the hype machine and people really want to not like them only because of how excited people get about their music. They are all dummys because Title Fight is basically the best 90's emo band right now. Shed was a huge step forward for them and Floral Green is an even bigger one. I was skeptical about them putting out another album so fast (as usual) but that skepticism was entirely unwarranted (as usual). The band is getting way better at writing cohesive songs and is gettin' real good at melody. Get sad fuckers.
Mindset- Leave No Doubt.i.
I guess it's kind of weird considering how often I indulge in things, but straightedge Youth Crew hardcore is my favourite type of hardcore. While I appreciate when bands really try to expand their boundaries and add new elements to a genre that can became real stale real quick when not done right, there's still nothing that gets me going like some fast, simple, pseudo-metaly riffs and shouts. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme SHELTER.
PUMP IT.
Less Than Jake- Greetings and Salutations
For some reason a lot of people I know lump in Title Fight with Four Year Strong/Story So Far/etc even though they sound absolutely nothing like that. I also think that are a victim of the hype machine and people really want to not like them only because of how excited people get about their music. They are all dummys because Title Fight is basically the best 90's emo band right now. Shed was a huge step forward for them and Floral Green is an even bigger one. I was skeptical about them putting out another album so fast (as usual) but that skepticism was entirely unwarranted (as usual). The band is getting way better at writing cohesive songs and is gettin' real good at melody. Get sad fuckers.
Mindset- Leave No Doubt.i.
I guess it's kind of weird considering how often I indulge in things, but straightedge Youth Crew hardcore is my favourite type of hardcore. While I appreciate when bands really try to expand their boundaries and add new elements to a genre that can became real stale real quick when not done right, there's still nothing that gets me going like some fast, simple, pseudo-metaly riffs and shouts. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme SHELTER.
PUMP IT.
Less Than Jake- Greetings and Salutations
The thing about Less Than Jake is that they are my favourite band, so it's hard for me to not like anything they do. I mean, I even listen to In With The Crowd with some regularity for Christ's sake. So even when they are compiling two EPS, adding two songs and calling it an album and the songs all kind of sound like the most generic LTJ material and the album as a whole is pretty close to the bottom of my Less Than Jake discography, I still have to love it because there's nothing I can do about it. Holy fuck do I love me some Less Than Jake bruh.
And honestly, there's no band that brings a smile to my face as often as LTJ does. That's why I lub 'em so much. They'll be my faves foreva!
And honestly, there's no band that brings a smile to my face as often as LTJ does. That's why I lub 'em so much. They'll be my faves foreva!
Hostage Calm- Please Remain Calm
Like I said for the Mindset album, Youth Crew worship (or just Youth Crew in general) is my favourite type of hardcore, so I obvi loved Lens a whole lot. And while I loved gettin' mah breakdown on their old stuff, I really liked how crazy and innovative and fresh their self-titled album was. Since they went in such a different direction for their second record, I was eager to see how they would change for this one. The description the gave for the record was a coming-of-age, our-love-against-the-world type story set in our time, I got really excited because I love John Hughes movies and to me, that sounded like Hostage Calm was trying to write their version of an 80's John Hughes movie. So that was the attitude I went into the album with . Worked for me. I think it's a really great sounding pop record and the choruses are way too catchy to care about anything.
Stream. It's also only 5 bones.
Like I said for the Mindset album, Youth Crew worship (or just Youth Crew in general) is my favourite type of hardcore, so I obvi loved Lens a whole lot. And while I loved gettin' mah breakdown on their old stuff, I really liked how crazy and innovative and fresh their self-titled album was. Since they went in such a different direction for their second record, I was eager to see how they would change for this one. The description the gave for the record was a coming-of-age, our-love-against-the-world type story set in our time, I got really excited because I love John Hughes movies and to me, that sounded like Hostage Calm was trying to write their version of an 80's John Hughes movie. So that was the attitude I went into the album with . Worked for me. I think it's a really great sounding pop record and the choruses are way too catchy to care about anything.
Stream. It's also only 5 bones.
Such Gold- Misadventures
Such Gold are another band who I think gets lumped in with the wrong crowd. While the first EP was for sure a pop-punk/hardcoreish effort, I thought the second one sounded like a poppier/more melodic Snapcase in the best way (RIFFS). I was really stoked for this one because of how much I jammed Pedestals and was pretty satisfied. It's a lot faster and shreddier than their previous album and I'm cool with that. They're a great band who tours a lot and works hard and deserves everything they get.
Such Gold are another band who I think gets lumped in with the wrong crowd. While the first EP was for sure a pop-punk/hardcoreish effort, I thought the second one sounded like a poppier/more melodic Snapcase in the best way (RIFFS). I was really stoked for this one because of how much I jammed Pedestals and was pretty satisfied. It's a lot faster and shreddier than their previous album and I'm cool with that. They're a great band who tours a lot and works hard and deserves everything they get.
The Nix86- Evil Empurr
The thing about the 90's most people don't realize is that along with the amazingly shitty parts of the ska explosion in the 90's (Sublime, pretty much all No Doubt, Save Ferris) a lot of really good independent bands were around but didn't get noticed, like The Hippos or The Impossibles. An area that was especially rich with these types of bands was Long Island. That scene has carried on for a long time (I was astonished at how awesome the crowd was when I saw a ska show in New York last year) and produced a lot of awesome bands who would always blow me away when they toured to Canada. They were always older and cooler and played better-written songs than pretty much every Toronto band (At least we had the Makeshift Heroes). The Nix86 is comprised of members from those bands and sounds like those bands. For people who feel nostalgia towards poppy ska-punk and are far above their h8erz to still listen to it, this album is a must. Easily one of the best ska bands making music right now.
Stream dat. Also only 5 bux.
The thing about the 90's most people don't realize is that along with the amazingly shitty parts of the ska explosion in the 90's (Sublime, pretty much all No Doubt, Save Ferris) a lot of really good independent bands were around but didn't get noticed, like The Hippos or The Impossibles. An area that was especially rich with these types of bands was Long Island. That scene has carried on for a long time (I was astonished at how awesome the crowd was when I saw a ska show in New York last year) and produced a lot of awesome bands who would always blow me away when they toured to Canada. They were always older and cooler and played better-written songs than pretty much every Toronto band (At least we had the Makeshift Heroes). The Nix86 is comprised of members from those bands and sounds like those bands. For people who feel nostalgia towards poppy ska-punk and are far above their h8erz to still listen to it, this album is a must. Easily one of the best ska bands making music right now.
Stream dat. Also only 5 bux.
Municipal Waste- The Fatal Feast
By this point you know what you are getting from the Waste as they're a crossover band that's put out five records. That's not to say this is a bad thing though, as The Fatal Feast is probably the best that the band has ever sounded. They moved away a little from hardcore/thrash crossover and a lot more towards straight-up 80's style thrash metal, but they do the style extremely well so there's nothing wrong with that. There's plenty of A+ Megadeth-style chug riffs and much more shredding than previous albums. Basically, it sounds like each member sat down and practiced playing Peace Sells... songs a whole bunch. Less songs about drinking and smoking weed, more about eating each other while in space. They're the best thrash band around right now. Into it bruh.
John K. Sampson- Provincial
If you are in a band you need to have a level of self-confidence in order to play your songs and show them to people. You need to think your songs are good enough that people who you don't know will enjoy them. You need to have enough self-confidence to record your ideas when you come up with them. Keeping all this in mind, if you are in a band and write songs, you also need to know that you are not better at writing songs than John K Samson. He's kind of the bench mark. I could say something about this record, but if you really have no idea what it could sound like you are either stupid or extremely stupid for not listening to The Weakerthans. A whole whack of heartfelt stories about life in The Prairies. Getcha cry on dawg.
Feel all the feels.
If you are in a band you need to have a level of self-confidence in order to play your songs and show them to people. You need to think your songs are good enough that people who you don't know will enjoy them. You need to have enough self-confidence to record your ideas when you come up with them. Keeping all this in mind, if you are in a band and write songs, you also need to know that you are not better at writing songs than John K Samson. He's kind of the bench mark. I could say something about this record, but if you really have no idea what it could sound like you are either stupid or extremely stupid for not listening to The Weakerthans. A whole whack of heartfelt stories about life in The Prairies. Getcha cry on dawg.
Feel all the feels.
Ma Jolie- ...Compared To Giants
Ma Jolie is kind of rough, but also poppy in the same way that Iron Chic or Samiam are. They are real good and I think going to be the next big thing on the ol' 'org. Great album, "Era and the Metric System" is especially my jam.
Ma Jolie is kind of rough, but also poppy in the same way that Iron Chic or Samiam are. They are real good and I think going to be the next big thing on the ol' 'org. Great album, "Era and the Metric System" is especially my jam.
3. Classics of Love- Classics Of Love
When I was first getting into punk, one of the first bands I got into was Rancid. While I was listening to Rancid my brother said I should listen to their older band Operation Ivy and showed me a few songs. I instantly realized how much better Op Ivy were than Rancid and how awesome the band was and they immediately entered regular rotation in my discman and haven't left since. They really are one of my favourite bands. Keeping this in mind, think about how happy a record of Jesse Michaels singing fast 80's hardcore (WITH TWO SKA SONGS) would make me. That is exactly how I feel. I lagged a little bit on getting into this (like a week bruh), but as soon as I heard the first track my jaw dropped. The sound of Jesse yelping socio-political lyrics over blisteringly fast hardcore-punk makes me feel more fuzzy than you can imagine. I can tell that this one is going to be something that I'll be going back to a bunch for years.
2. The Menzingers- On The Impossible Past
I'll admit that I was a little late to the party on The Menzingers. Most of my punk friends were head over heels for them after the release of Chamberlain Waits, but I held off on listening to that because I am dumb and sometimes it takes me forever to get around to things. Then I saw them live and they absolutely slayed and that made me listen to their tunes with a fresh perspective and I began to love them. I was pretty eager to hear On The Impossible Past after "The Obituaries" and "Gates" were released to hype it up. The worst thing that can happen with an album is that the best few songs off of it get released as teasers and then the rest of it seems drab. However that's not a problem here as the entire thing is amazing. The Menzingers are really maturing in their sound and starting incorporate more pop/rock elements, which I am totally for. The quality of the songwriting has also been dramatically stepped up on this effort, with both Greg and Tom hitting it out of the park on every song. While I wouldn't call this a concept album, there's enough of a central idea that it helps to make it more cohesive and adds to the experience of listening to it. The whole thing is sad in the best way and makes me want to yell along to every word. This probably would have been my album of the year if it wasn't for...
1. Jeff Rosenstock- I Look Like Shit
Pretty much as soon as I heard that a new Jeff Rosenstock album came out I knew that it would be my album of the year before I even heard it. I guessed right! I've touched on this album already, so no need to review. Get on Jeff's level, world.
IT'S FREE TOO
EPs
Shook Ones- Merriweather Post Pavillion
Shook Ones are a band that need to come back to playing full-time more than pretty much anyone else. They're really good. So while I can't see them live or anything, I guess that this EP is a decent substitute for the time being. They haven't missed a beat. I think the title track might be the song of the year.
M'ÉCOUTEZ S'IL VOUS PLAIT.
Topanga- Oceans
Let's get this out of the way real quick: Yes, their name is a great reference to a great TV show. That's for sure going to be the first thing most people remark about them, but they also have the tunes to keep you there after coming for their name. Topanga play poppy indie rock music and play it real well. It's way to catchy to hate it. I always bounce around while listening to this.
FREEFREEFREE
Snake Charmer- Demo
Think about what the heaviest band you know is. They are not as heavy as Snake Charmer. Not even close.
Let's get this out of the way real quick: Yes, their name is a great reference to a great TV show. That's for sure going to be the first thing most people remark about them, but they also have the tunes to keep you there after coming for their name. Topanga play poppy indie rock music and play it real well. It's way to catchy to hate it. I always bounce around while listening to this.
FREEFREEFREE
Snake Charmer- Demo
Think about what the heaviest band you know is. They are not as heavy as Snake Charmer. Not even close.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
When Morning Comes I'm Just A Fool Who Repeats His Mistakes
Since it's almost that time of year again I figured that I would throw up a post that had all of my thoughts on Christmas.
This post is going to seem hilarious and jaded and hypocritical because a few years ago I wrote a post for this blog about how much I enjoyed Christmas and how it brings out the best in people. Since then I've completely changed my outlook on it. It's not that I don't enjoy Christmas, it's just that I'm indifferent to it. I still get to drink with some cousins I don't get to see enough and eat what is probably the best meal of the year, but it's just one day.
Obviously the reason most people go bananas for X-Mas is because they receive gifts. You can't really knock people for this, I mean who doesn't like receiving gifts. They're tokens of appreciation and usually things that you will really enjoy. What goes along with this is that most people also enjoy giving gifts because you get a great feeling when someone who you care about becomes happy as a result of something you've done. It's all pretty simple.
So while giving and receiving gifts is great, get over it. Haha. I guess that's all I really have to say about it. I mean does anyone really care that much? Be a nice and good person and do things for people the rest of the year instead of just late December?
What an anti-climax!
Nah, just kidding. Christmas is alright but people get way too worked up about it.
Later, gonna nurse this hangover and watch a trillion episodes of Farscape.
This post is going to seem hilarious and jaded and hypocritical because a few years ago I wrote a post for this blog about how much I enjoyed Christmas and how it brings out the best in people. Since then I've completely changed my outlook on it. It's not that I don't enjoy Christmas, it's just that I'm indifferent to it. I still get to drink with some cousins I don't get to see enough and eat what is probably the best meal of the year, but it's just one day.
Obviously the reason most people go bananas for X-Mas is because they receive gifts. You can't really knock people for this, I mean who doesn't like receiving gifts. They're tokens of appreciation and usually things that you will really enjoy. What goes along with this is that most people also enjoy giving gifts because you get a great feeling when someone who you care about becomes happy as a result of something you've done. It's all pretty simple.
So while giving and receiving gifts is great, get over it. Haha. I guess that's all I really have to say about it. I mean does anyone really care that much? Be a nice and good person and do things for people the rest of the year instead of just late December?
What an anti-climax!
Nah, just kidding. Christmas is alright but people get way too worked up about it.
Later, gonna nurse this hangover and watch a trillion episodes of Farscape.
Monday, December 3, 2012
You'd Drink The Ocean And Ask For More, So Chalk It Up To Poor Judgment, And I Misjudged You
From Thursday to Saturday morning proved to be two of the weirdest days of my life. So much so that I really feel like I need to write it down here because I feel like it is a sort of hilarious anecdote and also so that I can get it all down in a place so that I won't forget because man was it odd.
I suppose this sort of starts on Wednesday of this past week. I had just worked at an Irish pub the weekend before as extra staff during the zaniness that was the Argo's winning the Grey Cup while it was held in Toronto. While the work was very tiring and busy, it was a good way to make money and I figured that working in a bar would be the best way to make a large sum of money fast enough to move away come January. I perused craigslist for service jobs and eventually got a call-back for a busser/bar-back position at a bar at College and Bathurst. I also had to rush out to Waterloo that day because Beat Noir is in the process of recording an EP and I am obviously part of that process.
The bar told me to come the next day to interview and drop off a resume between 2 and 5pm. I went downtown for 2 and got to the bar without a problem. I went in for the interview and the bar seemed like a bit of a run-of-the-mill hipster bar that is pretty common (and great) for the Bathurst and College area, though a little more high class. I definitely figured that this would be the type of spot that I would love working at and also have a load of fun being in that area pretty often. The interview went pretty well and the manager told me that the position would be for "upstairs" and involve "being there late" (This is important for later). I was pretty stoked, but had to rush out because I had a ticket for the 3pm Greyhound to Waterloo and it was already 2:30.
The next series of events can be described as this: College streetcar>walk down Bay>board Greyhound>Great Gatsby>get off bus>eat tacos and watch Buffy at Duff's>Mark records guitars>sleep.
The next morning I woke up and Duff and I watched 13 episodes of Parks and Recreation in a row. Near the end of it I got a phone call from the manager of the bar asking me if I could work that night. He had asked me this the day before but I had figured it was just a way to weed out lazy or unreliable people. Anyways, he says "Can you come in for 4?" I say no, because it is 2:15 and I am in Waterloo. He says seven then and I go and buy my ticket and get on a bus back to Toronto elated that I finally have a job and it is at a bar that seems like a pretty hip place at arguable the hippest intersection of the city.
Unfortunately the GTA (Greater Toronto Area for my apparently modestly sized Russian readership) got its first snowfall that morning. It is unfortunate because the first time it snows everybody suddenly drives like it's that scene at the beginning of the first X Men movie where Wolverine and Rogue get attacked by Sabertooth in Alberta and Cyke, Storm and Jeannie come to save them (Fuck that movie). So the bus that is supposed to take about an hour and a half ended up taking 3 1/2 and I got into Toronto at 7pm. Naturally I was pretty stressed out about being late on my first day of this job. Fortunately several episodes of the How Did This Get Made? podcast (Do you love watching really bad movies? I sure do.) made me laugh hard enough that I was able to forget about this awful traffic for most of the trip. So as soon as the bus got in I rushed off, ran into the Eaton Centre Old Navy to buy a black shirt for the shift, ran up Bloor to College and got on the streetcar.
I rushed into the bar, saw the manager and apologized profusely for being late on my first shift. I explained the predicament of the bus and he seemed like he understood. My mood about working at the bar at this point could be described as "Okay, work hard to make him forget you were late." He took me downstairs to show me where to put my things during the shift and said "Like, don't leave your money." (That is what I should've recognized as an "indicator") I went upstairs and began sweeping up all the staircases free of debris. The first thing I realized was that the upstairs was very far from what I thought it would be. There was a huge open area for dancing and a bunch of booths that were obviously going to be used for bottle service. The bar was also having some type of one year anniversary for some house music blog. My mood about working at the bar at this point was "Well, just see how everything turns out." I spent the next half-hour sweeping up a bunch of random staircases in the back of the bar.
I feel like I should explain the layout of the building to give a better understanding of the story. There are three levels to the building. The main floor is the bar I was interviewed in. There is a pretty large bar, a nice and well-maintained kitchen a huge dining area where the tables are made out of front doors (You can see where I got the hipster vibe from right?) and a pretty large stage which the manager says he tries to get cover bands and the like to play. It's a pretty big bar and could probably seat 200-ish people. Then there is the upstairs. I know many people probably won't understand this reference unless they went to the University of Guelph (or grew up in Guelph I suppose) but it is a larger, slightly higher-class (not really, just a little nicer and probably more expensive) version of Apartment 58 or Tabu. There is a basement where coat-check is done, the office is and a bunch of random shit is kept.
So, after all that sweeping I went upstairs and the bartender told the other bar-backs and I that we need to go downstairs to get all the 24's of beer and bring them up. I thought this sounded like a reasonable request at first until realized that it was like 40 24's we had to walk up three flights of stairs. There is an elevator that is broken in this bar. Does the management not realize that fixing this elevator could easily save them 2 1/2 hours in set up time? We spent 2 1/2 hours walking up and down stairs with cases of beer and then filling up wells with beer and ice behind the bar. If the elevator worked this could have easily been done in 30 minutes. Also, it was around this time that I realized that the bar had no draughts upstairs. It was only bottles of Corona, Heineken, Alexander Keith's and tall cans of Stiegl put into metal wells behind the bar that were then filled up with ice. So you only serve bottles in this bar and have the only beer fridge in the basement. And you have not thought of either fixing the elevator or building a beer fridge upstairs? Again, all you serve is bottles. You may need to re-think a few things about how you run your business.
We also to clear an enormous amount of shit out of the top floor of the building, carry it downstairs (because again, NO ELEVATOR. THE RESTAURANT I WORKED AT BEFORE HAD AN ELEVATOR FOR THIS REASON AND IT WAS TWO FUCKING STORIES) and then put it where they kept the rest of their garbage which was of course behind a big white curtain in the coat-check room. Where else would it have gone right? Something I noticed this night was that there were little to no garbage cans in this building. Like two behind one of the bars used for Red Bull cans and water bottles but no actually garbage cans and no dumpster anywhere for the bar. Is it just me or it that really weird? I started to get the impression that the top floor of this bar had been opened like the fucking day before or something, because we were clearing some really random shit out of this place.
Around this time I found out that the other two bar-backs who were working with me were also on their first day and also interviewed for the job the day before. I realized around this point that the position was pretty bullshit and they obviously have an extremely high turnover rate for bar-backs because it doesn't take people long to realize how bullshit it is to pointlessly haul all that beer around. My feelings on the job at this point were "I don't think that I am going to come back. Let's just get through this night." The bartender who was showing us around and telling us the things we had to do before opening initially seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I realized after a while that he bartends in a club and is very good at putting on a facade and has a way of speaking about the position that makes it seem far more reasonable than it actually is. Having some experience in the service industry (albeit very brief) I could see through this and just tried to finish as quickly as I could. I realized most of the people I worked with fucking sucked (minus the three bar-backs I was working with) and were probably on cocaine. For example:
Bartender: Okay, put another layer of bottles in the wells and top them up with ice.
Me: Okay. *Go about doing exactly that*
Bartender: I thought I told you top them up?! Did you hear me?!
Me: They are full
Bartender: *Looks in the wells* Oh.
First I thought this was going to be a Bathurst and College Toronto hipster bar like downstairs. Then I thought it would be something like Dance Cave. Then I realized that it was a club in the most awful way and there were going to be house and EDM (According to Wikipedia: Electronic Dance Music is electronic music produced primarily for use in a nightclub setting. Fuck that shit so much. I won't even get into how much I hate and how little I respect this type of music.) playing. Fan-fucking-tastic. Around this point I kept muttering "This place sucks" to myself and realized that there was no way in hell I was coming back the next day. We were told that at 2:30 we have to go out and bus everything in order to get all alcohol off the floor by the legal hour. We would then have to clean up and the bartender told us that we'd be lucky to get out by five, but it could be as late (early?) as 6 or 7. I'd pretty much had enough.
One of the other new guys and I were charged with bussing the main dance floor area for the duration of the night. He was a little younger than me and was a really nice guy, but this was his first ever job in the service industry so he didn't realize how outrageously bullshit this job was and figured it was just the way it went. Around 10:30 a few people started to filter in, but it wasn't so busy. I mainly shot the shit with the other bar-back for a while a bussed a few things. By this point I knew there was no way in hell I was coming back again and hated the bar with a fiery passion. The music being played, the type of people coming to the bar and the general atmosphere of the environment is the entire reason I got into punk rock in the first place. I hate these dicks who come to flash their money and try to hook up with whatever girl is drunk enough to go home with them, all to the worst fucking music I've ever heard in my life. I;m so happy my music scene is (at least mostly) free of these pretentious and arrogant assholes. I was extremely tired as I hadn't eaten since about 2, had gotten on a bus for three and half hours and then come right to the bar and not gotten any type of break. I was running on a bowl of Reese Puffs and half a bag of Ringolos and having one of the worst times of my life.
Then at about 12:30 the crowd start to really fill in. The bar got packed (despite the bartenders constantly telling it was "such a chill night") and the crowd looked more or less like this. My job consisted of walking through an extremely crowded dance floor filled with these losers and picking up empty beer bottles and glasses and taking them to the bar. I didn't even get a bin to put them into; I just walked around and picked them up. It was awful. I really started not giving a shit at all at this point; I would bump into people on purpose and if they gave me any trouble I would just say "Fuck off", I would routinely pick up drinks that weren't even close to finished and had my phone out for a good portion of the night. It really takes a lot to get me actually pissed off. I'm usually a pretty meek and mellow individual and things don't really get to me and roll off my back pretty easily. So with that in mind, consider this: I was actively trying to make everyone's night there worse. I was so pissed about the bullshit job I had been given under false pretenses that I was working with no energy (FUCKING NO BREAK. GOT OFF THE BUS, WENT STRAIGHT TO THE BAR, AND COULDN'T EAT AND WORKED FROM 7 UNTIL 5) that I just didn't give a shit at all. Everyone there was an asshole and condescending and seemed like the type of person that I would enjoy punching in the face. At one point I took a drink and some 'roided up, badly-tattooed asshole told me he wasn't done with it so I stuck my hand (covered in bar grime) in it and gave it back to him. I really didn't care at all. There were two scenarios if something happened: Either he does something and gets immediately tackled and thrown out by security or I get fired. And I really actively wanted them to fire me. I put a lot of thought into maybe just bailing out on the night because it was so terribly shitty, but came to the conclusion that if I was going to go through a night this awful then I was going to get paid for it. I also felt bad for the other bar-back I was working with because it was his first service job and him having to cover all my bullshit responsibilities as well would have just killed him.
Also, none of these guys ever finish their drinks. They just buy bottles of Corona and Heineken (Don't you know? Those are the two best beers in the world bro.), drink them about 4/5 of the way and then leave them once they get warm. Remember, with these assholes it's all about being seen with a beer, not actually drinking it.
Since last call was at 2:00 am, at 2:30 all the bar-backs had to go out on to the floor and take away EVERY DRINK so that the bar wouldn't get in trouble for having alcohol on the floor at an illegal time.
Yes, that was actually something that they required us to do.
It was around this time that I started to think "If they really want everybody to put down their drinks and clear out, why don't they just stop the music? I'm sure if the DJ stopped the crowd would clear out pretty quickly." So I thought this at 2:30. And then I thought this at 3:00. And then 3:30. By this point the job of all the bar-backs consisted of carrying all the cases of empty bottles from that night back down all the stairs and then afterward doing the same with about a dozen cases of beer that weren't even used. So for the record my job consisted of walking a very large quantity of beer up three stories, shoving my way through MDMA-powered clubrats for four hours and then walking that same amount of beer back down all the stairs. I already knew the whole deal was bullshit and that I was done with it, but this was really the icing on the cake. On top of this I eventually saw a schedule for the night and the last DJ played from 1 to 5 am. 1 to 5! Fortunately for the owner of the club, at this point I could not possibly give less of a shit and do a worse job than I was already doing. I just really didn't care about anything!
Towards the end of the night the owner asked if I was good to work the next night at 7 again and I told him no, obviously. He said it was fine and that it happens pretty often. Of course it does, fuck. They must hire these bar-backs every week or two, have them work for a night, or a week tops, and then start the process again. It sucks that they take advantage of people who need jobs like that, but they've clearly figured out a way to run their business without taking care of the lower-level employees and exploit it. Fuck you guys too.
The shift finally came to a close at around 5:30. The owner asked me if I could come back the next day at 8 pm to pick up my wage and tips. It was kind of ridiculous that he was still making me work my schedule around this stupid bullshit establishment, but fortunately for him I was already planning to go see Such Gold at Sneaky Dee's, so I would be in the area and able to come grab it.
So I walked out of the club for the first time since 7 onto College street at 5:30 am with no thought in my mind except "Fuck the world. I'm smoking a bowl and getting balls deep in McGridles." And that's exactly what I did while in the company of several homeless people who had passed out in the dining room. I proceeded to catch the first eastbound subway home. One of the few funny and positive parts of the night happened on that ride. There were two guys around my age who looked like they were finishing up a lengthy night on the town. I had music playing and was working that day's crossword but was stuck on one of the longer clues. He asked "What's the clue?", solved it for me, handed me a condom, winked and then walked away. This is the type of smile-inducing event that is necessary in you keeping your sanity after that shitty of night. Not everybody sucks, you know.
I ran into my Dad, as he had just woken up and was taking our dogs for a walk, while I was walking up our street. After giving him the gist of the situation he told me to get inside and get some sleep. I shot myself a quick glance before hitting the sack and I looked worse than I ever had in my life. I had stayed up entire nights during university in order to finish assignments, but had never had this type of combination of lack of sleep, exhaustion, broken spirits and anger. My nerves were shot, my legs felt like spaghetti but also ached in all the worst places, my throat was sore and my mind didn't even know what it was doing. I looked like I had shiners under both eyes, they were so black and both eyeballs were about as pink as they could get.
I had figured that by this point I could put the whole affair behind and all that was left to do was quickly pick up the money owed to me and then go and cleanse my Axe-body spray/awful electronic music-drenched palate by seeing a fantastic punk band and remind myself that there are good things in my life.
But instead it just didn't end. I walked into the bar at about 8:05 and ask the owner if I could get paid. He says "You're early." I say "No, I'm not. You told me to come in for 8." He proceeded to tell me that the owner who has all the tips and money from the night before isn't in yet and then asked "Do you live in the area, can you come back in an hour?" I said I don't but again, fortunately for him I had plans in the area. I came back an hour later, waited for 10 minutes and then was taken downstairs where a group of people who looked exactly like this were counting up the tills from the night before and told me that it would take 20 minutes for them to do. I gave them a stare of disbelief and said "20 minutes?" while snorting with raised eyebrows and said I wouldn't wait that long for them to count about $200 dollars in fives and divide that number by five to determine tips. I walked out 5 minutes later with all the money owed to me, happy that I could wash my hands of the situation and then take some of that money given to me by them and buy a t-shirt from a band, who works very hard and deserves far more than what they receive, with it.
All in all it really was one of the worst nights of my life. Very easily in the top 5.
But at least I got a sort of funny story out of it, right?
I suppose this sort of starts on Wednesday of this past week. I had just worked at an Irish pub the weekend before as extra staff during the zaniness that was the Argo's winning the Grey Cup while it was held in Toronto. While the work was very tiring and busy, it was a good way to make money and I figured that working in a bar would be the best way to make a large sum of money fast enough to move away come January. I perused craigslist for service jobs and eventually got a call-back for a busser/bar-back position at a bar at College and Bathurst. I also had to rush out to Waterloo that day because Beat Noir is in the process of recording an EP and I am obviously part of that process.
The bar told me to come the next day to interview and drop off a resume between 2 and 5pm. I went downtown for 2 and got to the bar without a problem. I went in for the interview and the bar seemed like a bit of a run-of-the-mill hipster bar that is pretty common (and great) for the Bathurst and College area, though a little more high class. I definitely figured that this would be the type of spot that I would love working at and also have a load of fun being in that area pretty often. The interview went pretty well and the manager told me that the position would be for "upstairs" and involve "being there late" (This is important for later). I was pretty stoked, but had to rush out because I had a ticket for the 3pm Greyhound to Waterloo and it was already 2:30.
The next series of events can be described as this: College streetcar>walk down Bay>board Greyhound>Great Gatsby>get off bus>eat tacos and watch Buffy at Duff's>Mark records guitars>sleep.
The next morning I woke up and Duff and I watched 13 episodes of Parks and Recreation in a row. Near the end of it I got a phone call from the manager of the bar asking me if I could work that night. He had asked me this the day before but I had figured it was just a way to weed out lazy or unreliable people. Anyways, he says "Can you come in for 4?" I say no, because it is 2:15 and I am in Waterloo. He says seven then and I go and buy my ticket and get on a bus back to Toronto elated that I finally have a job and it is at a bar that seems like a pretty hip place at arguable the hippest intersection of the city.
Unfortunately the GTA (Greater Toronto Area for my apparently modestly sized Russian readership) got its first snowfall that morning. It is unfortunate because the first time it snows everybody suddenly drives like it's that scene at the beginning of the first X Men movie where Wolverine and Rogue get attacked by Sabertooth in Alberta and Cyke, Storm and Jeannie come to save them (Fuck that movie). So the bus that is supposed to take about an hour and a half ended up taking 3 1/2 and I got into Toronto at 7pm. Naturally I was pretty stressed out about being late on my first day of this job. Fortunately several episodes of the How Did This Get Made? podcast (Do you love watching really bad movies? I sure do.) made me laugh hard enough that I was able to forget about this awful traffic for most of the trip. So as soon as the bus got in I rushed off, ran into the Eaton Centre Old Navy to buy a black shirt for the shift, ran up Bloor to College and got on the streetcar.
I rushed into the bar, saw the manager and apologized profusely for being late on my first shift. I explained the predicament of the bus and he seemed like he understood. My mood about working at the bar at this point could be described as "Okay, work hard to make him forget you were late." He took me downstairs to show me where to put my things during the shift and said "Like, don't leave your money." (That is what I should've recognized as an "indicator") I went upstairs and began sweeping up all the staircases free of debris. The first thing I realized was that the upstairs was very far from what I thought it would be. There was a huge open area for dancing and a bunch of booths that were obviously going to be used for bottle service. The bar was also having some type of one year anniversary for some house music blog. My mood about working at the bar at this point was "Well, just see how everything turns out." I spent the next half-hour sweeping up a bunch of random staircases in the back of the bar.
I feel like I should explain the layout of the building to give a better understanding of the story. There are three levels to the building. The main floor is the bar I was interviewed in. There is a pretty large bar, a nice and well-maintained kitchen a huge dining area where the tables are made out of front doors (You can see where I got the hipster vibe from right?) and a pretty large stage which the manager says he tries to get cover bands and the like to play. It's a pretty big bar and could probably seat 200-ish people. Then there is the upstairs. I know many people probably won't understand this reference unless they went to the University of Guelph (or grew up in Guelph I suppose) but it is a larger, slightly higher-class (not really, just a little nicer and probably more expensive) version of Apartment 58 or Tabu. There is a basement where coat-check is done, the office is and a bunch of random shit is kept.
So, after all that sweeping I went upstairs and the bartender told the other bar-backs and I that we need to go downstairs to get all the 24's of beer and bring them up. I thought this sounded like a reasonable request at first until realized that it was like 40 24's we had to walk up three flights of stairs. There is an elevator that is broken in this bar. Does the management not realize that fixing this elevator could easily save them 2 1/2 hours in set up time? We spent 2 1/2 hours walking up and down stairs with cases of beer and then filling up wells with beer and ice behind the bar. If the elevator worked this could have easily been done in 30 minutes. Also, it was around this time that I realized that the bar had no draughts upstairs. It was only bottles of Corona, Heineken, Alexander Keith's and tall cans of Stiegl put into metal wells behind the bar that were then filled up with ice. So you only serve bottles in this bar and have the only beer fridge in the basement. And you have not thought of either fixing the elevator or building a beer fridge upstairs? Again, all you serve is bottles. You may need to re-think a few things about how you run your business.
We also to clear an enormous amount of shit out of the top floor of the building, carry it downstairs (because again, NO ELEVATOR. THE RESTAURANT I WORKED AT BEFORE HAD AN ELEVATOR FOR THIS REASON AND IT WAS TWO FUCKING STORIES) and then put it where they kept the rest of their garbage which was of course behind a big white curtain in the coat-check room. Where else would it have gone right? Something I noticed this night was that there were little to no garbage cans in this building. Like two behind one of the bars used for Red Bull cans and water bottles but no actually garbage cans and no dumpster anywhere for the bar. Is it just me or it that really weird? I started to get the impression that the top floor of this bar had been opened like the fucking day before or something, because we were clearing some really random shit out of this place.
Around this time I found out that the other two bar-backs who were working with me were also on their first day and also interviewed for the job the day before. I realized around this point that the position was pretty bullshit and they obviously have an extremely high turnover rate for bar-backs because it doesn't take people long to realize how bullshit it is to pointlessly haul all that beer around. My feelings on the job at this point were "I don't think that I am going to come back. Let's just get through this night." The bartender who was showing us around and telling us the things we had to do before opening initially seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I realized after a while that he bartends in a club and is very good at putting on a facade and has a way of speaking about the position that makes it seem far more reasonable than it actually is. Having some experience in the service industry (albeit very brief) I could see through this and just tried to finish as quickly as I could. I realized most of the people I worked with fucking sucked (minus the three bar-backs I was working with) and were probably on cocaine. For example:
Bartender: Okay, put another layer of bottles in the wells and top them up with ice.
Me: Okay. *Go about doing exactly that*
Bartender: I thought I told you top them up?! Did you hear me?!
Me: They are full
Bartender: *Looks in the wells* Oh.
First I thought this was going to be a Bathurst and College Toronto hipster bar like downstairs. Then I thought it would be something like Dance Cave. Then I realized that it was a club in the most awful way and there were going to be house and EDM (According to Wikipedia: Electronic Dance Music is electronic music produced primarily for use in a nightclub setting. Fuck that shit so much. I won't even get into how much I hate and how little I respect this type of music.) playing. Fan-fucking-tastic. Around this point I kept muttering "This place sucks" to myself and realized that there was no way in hell I was coming back the next day. We were told that at 2:30 we have to go out and bus everything in order to get all alcohol off the floor by the legal hour. We would then have to clean up and the bartender told us that we'd be lucky to get out by five, but it could be as late (early?) as 6 or 7. I'd pretty much had enough.
One of the other new guys and I were charged with bussing the main dance floor area for the duration of the night. He was a little younger than me and was a really nice guy, but this was his first ever job in the service industry so he didn't realize how outrageously bullshit this job was and figured it was just the way it went. Around 10:30 a few people started to filter in, but it wasn't so busy. I mainly shot the shit with the other bar-back for a while a bussed a few things. By this point I knew there was no way in hell I was coming back again and hated the bar with a fiery passion. The music being played, the type of people coming to the bar and the general atmosphere of the environment is the entire reason I got into punk rock in the first place. I hate these dicks who come to flash their money and try to hook up with whatever girl is drunk enough to go home with them, all to the worst fucking music I've ever heard in my life. I;m so happy my music scene is (at least mostly) free of these pretentious and arrogant assholes. I was extremely tired as I hadn't eaten since about 2, had gotten on a bus for three and half hours and then come right to the bar and not gotten any type of break. I was running on a bowl of Reese Puffs and half a bag of Ringolos and having one of the worst times of my life.
Then at about 12:30 the crowd start to really fill in. The bar got packed (despite the bartenders constantly telling it was "such a chill night") and the crowd looked more or less like this. My job consisted of walking through an extremely crowded dance floor filled with these losers and picking up empty beer bottles and glasses and taking them to the bar. I didn't even get a bin to put them into; I just walked around and picked them up. It was awful. I really started not giving a shit at all at this point; I would bump into people on purpose and if they gave me any trouble I would just say "Fuck off", I would routinely pick up drinks that weren't even close to finished and had my phone out for a good portion of the night. It really takes a lot to get me actually pissed off. I'm usually a pretty meek and mellow individual and things don't really get to me and roll off my back pretty easily. So with that in mind, consider this: I was actively trying to make everyone's night there worse. I was so pissed about the bullshit job I had been given under false pretenses that I was working with no energy (FUCKING NO BREAK. GOT OFF THE BUS, WENT STRAIGHT TO THE BAR, AND COULDN'T EAT AND WORKED FROM 7 UNTIL 5) that I just didn't give a shit at all. Everyone there was an asshole and condescending and seemed like the type of person that I would enjoy punching in the face. At one point I took a drink and some 'roided up, badly-tattooed asshole told me he wasn't done with it so I stuck my hand (covered in bar grime) in it and gave it back to him. I really didn't care at all. There were two scenarios if something happened: Either he does something and gets immediately tackled and thrown out by security or I get fired. And I really actively wanted them to fire me. I put a lot of thought into maybe just bailing out on the night because it was so terribly shitty, but came to the conclusion that if I was going to go through a night this awful then I was going to get paid for it. I also felt bad for the other bar-back I was working with because it was his first service job and him having to cover all my bullshit responsibilities as well would have just killed him.
Also, none of these guys ever finish their drinks. They just buy bottles of Corona and Heineken (Don't you know? Those are the two best beers in the world bro.), drink them about 4/5 of the way and then leave them once they get warm. Remember, with these assholes it's all about being seen with a beer, not actually drinking it.
Since last call was at 2:00 am, at 2:30 all the bar-backs had to go out on to the floor and take away EVERY DRINK so that the bar wouldn't get in trouble for having alcohol on the floor at an illegal time.
Yes, that was actually something that they required us to do.
It was around this time that I started to think "If they really want everybody to put down their drinks and clear out, why don't they just stop the music? I'm sure if the DJ stopped the crowd would clear out pretty quickly." So I thought this at 2:30. And then I thought this at 3:00. And then 3:30. By this point the job of all the bar-backs consisted of carrying all the cases of empty bottles from that night back down all the stairs and then afterward doing the same with about a dozen cases of beer that weren't even used. So for the record my job consisted of walking a very large quantity of beer up three stories, shoving my way through MDMA-powered clubrats for four hours and then walking that same amount of beer back down all the stairs. I already knew the whole deal was bullshit and that I was done with it, but this was really the icing on the cake. On top of this I eventually saw a schedule for the night and the last DJ played from 1 to 5 am. 1 to 5! Fortunately for the owner of the club, at this point I could not possibly give less of a shit and do a worse job than I was already doing. I just really didn't care about anything!
Towards the end of the night the owner asked if I was good to work the next night at 7 again and I told him no, obviously. He said it was fine and that it happens pretty often. Of course it does, fuck. They must hire these bar-backs every week or two, have them work for a night, or a week tops, and then start the process again. It sucks that they take advantage of people who need jobs like that, but they've clearly figured out a way to run their business without taking care of the lower-level employees and exploit it. Fuck you guys too.
The shift finally came to a close at around 5:30. The owner asked me if I could come back the next day at 8 pm to pick up my wage and tips. It was kind of ridiculous that he was still making me work my schedule around this stupid bullshit establishment, but fortunately for him I was already planning to go see Such Gold at Sneaky Dee's, so I would be in the area and able to come grab it.
So I walked out of the club for the first time since 7 onto College street at 5:30 am with no thought in my mind except "Fuck the world. I'm smoking a bowl and getting balls deep in McGridles." And that's exactly what I did while in the company of several homeless people who had passed out in the dining room. I proceeded to catch the first eastbound subway home. One of the few funny and positive parts of the night happened on that ride. There were two guys around my age who looked like they were finishing up a lengthy night on the town. I had music playing and was working that day's crossword but was stuck on one of the longer clues. He asked "What's the clue?", solved it for me, handed me a condom, winked and then walked away. This is the type of smile-inducing event that is necessary in you keeping your sanity after that shitty of night. Not everybody sucks, you know.
I ran into my Dad, as he had just woken up and was taking our dogs for a walk, while I was walking up our street. After giving him the gist of the situation he told me to get inside and get some sleep. I shot myself a quick glance before hitting the sack and I looked worse than I ever had in my life. I had stayed up entire nights during university in order to finish assignments, but had never had this type of combination of lack of sleep, exhaustion, broken spirits and anger. My nerves were shot, my legs felt like spaghetti but also ached in all the worst places, my throat was sore and my mind didn't even know what it was doing. I looked like I had shiners under both eyes, they were so black and both eyeballs were about as pink as they could get.
I had figured that by this point I could put the whole affair behind and all that was left to do was quickly pick up the money owed to me and then go and cleanse my Axe-body spray/awful electronic music-drenched palate by seeing a fantastic punk band and remind myself that there are good things in my life.
But instead it just didn't end. I walked into the bar at about 8:05 and ask the owner if I could get paid. He says "You're early." I say "No, I'm not. You told me to come in for 8." He proceeded to tell me that the owner who has all the tips and money from the night before isn't in yet and then asked "Do you live in the area, can you come back in an hour?" I said I don't but again, fortunately for him I had plans in the area. I came back an hour later, waited for 10 minutes and then was taken downstairs where a group of people who looked exactly like this were counting up the tills from the night before and told me that it would take 20 minutes for them to do. I gave them a stare of disbelief and said "20 minutes?" while snorting with raised eyebrows and said I wouldn't wait that long for them to count about $200 dollars in fives and divide that number by five to determine tips. I walked out 5 minutes later with all the money owed to me, happy that I could wash my hands of the situation and then take some of that money given to me by them and buy a t-shirt from a band, who works very hard and deserves far more than what they receive, with it.
All in all it really was one of the worst nights of my life. Very easily in the top 5.
But at least I got a sort of funny story out of it, right?
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Left Town 'Cause I Thought I Wanted More
Two weeks ago I went to cleveland to visit my sister, who goes to Cleveland State University. My Mom was driving down to watch and help out with her diving meet and while I was excited to see a few friends and also explore a city that I had never been to before. I did a few touristy things (Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, it was pretty underwhelming) but also saw some pretty rad stuff (Happy Dog Saloon was the bee's knees, as was melt), but by far my favourite part of the trip was a (sort of) house show that I went to one night with a few friends.
I was stoked for it for a variety of reasons. One was that it was all local Cleveland/Ohio bands (well one from Philly) with the two headliners being ones that I had heard of before, but never listened to. The idea of seeing bands in their hometown really appeals to me and seems like the best way to take in someone that you haven't heard before. Secondly, I really like house shows. They are the best concerts, hands down. This one wasn't exactly a house show, as it was in a recording studio, but the space was small and intimate enough that it more or less was. An added bonus was that since the show was in a recording studio, the acoustics were amazing and every body sounded top notch, especially in regards to vocals.
So, the lineup was Signals Midwest, Worship This!, Ma Jolie and En Garde. The show was great and it's always amazing to go to a show where you don't know any of the bands playing and not only do none of them suck, but they all absolutely rule. I'm not going to summarize the entire show because I feel like me saying "I hadn't heard this band before and they were really, really good!" four times in a row is pretty fucking pointless, so I'll get to the rub:
Ma Jolie is fucking amazing. Samiam/Iron Chic/etc. WHATEVA! Their singer sounded great, their bass player rules and they were clearly at the top of their game at this show. I've already linked to it in the last sentence, but they have a demo and an album FO FREE. And guess what? Both are fucking great and sure to make an appearance on my "Year End List" bullshit. The band's playing Pouzza Fest this year where I will be sure to catch them and hold beerz up in the air and yell and headbang. I really think that this band is on the verge of breaking out and are destined for bigger things, so if you want ultra scene points you should get hip to them now, so you can be the one telling all of your friends about them and not vice-versa.
For reference, try not to vibe to dis. I dare you.
I mean, that part when he yells "Take a load off baaaabbbbyyyyyyyy", AMIRITE?
I was stoked for it for a variety of reasons. One was that it was all local Cleveland/Ohio bands (well one from Philly) with the two headliners being ones that I had heard of before, but never listened to. The idea of seeing bands in their hometown really appeals to me and seems like the best way to take in someone that you haven't heard before. Secondly, I really like house shows. They are the best concerts, hands down. This one wasn't exactly a house show, as it was in a recording studio, but the space was small and intimate enough that it more or less was. An added bonus was that since the show was in a recording studio, the acoustics were amazing and every body sounded top notch, especially in regards to vocals.
So, the lineup was Signals Midwest, Worship This!, Ma Jolie and En Garde. The show was great and it's always amazing to go to a show where you don't know any of the bands playing and not only do none of them suck, but they all absolutely rule. I'm not going to summarize the entire show because I feel like me saying "I hadn't heard this band before and they were really, really good!" four times in a row is pretty fucking pointless, so I'll get to the rub:
Ma Jolie is fucking amazing. Samiam/Iron Chic/etc. WHATEVA! Their singer sounded great, their bass player rules and they were clearly at the top of their game at this show. I've already linked to it in the last sentence, but they have a demo and an album FO FREE. And guess what? Both are fucking great and sure to make an appearance on my "Year End List" bullshit. The band's playing Pouzza Fest this year where I will be sure to catch them and hold beerz up in the air and yell and headbang. I really think that this band is on the verge of breaking out and are destined for bigger things, so if you want ultra scene points you should get hip to them now, so you can be the one telling all of your friends about them and not vice-versa.
For reference, try not to vibe to dis. I dare you.
I mean, that part when he yells "Take a load off baaaabbbbyyyyyyyy", AMIRITE?
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Sit Down. We Do This Every Fucking Day
Something that my parents instilled in me at a very young age was the importance of reading. Whereas many of my friends in elementary school (let's get real, they're still my friends now) would be getting new Super Nintendo (and then Sega) (and then Nintendo 64) games and bangin' new toys for Christmas and birthdays, I would get a whole lot of books. Though I wasn't the happiest camper when all my friends were jumping on kremlins while I was staring down a stack of literature, I realize now that it was a very good thing. Reading and enjoying a book is immeasurable in the benefits it gives to a person's language and speaking skills and also really develops one's imagination, as their mind creates images to go along with the story it's taking in. Since I got in the habit of reading for pleasure at a young age, it's something that I've continued to pursue since and something that I've noticed people I know do less and less. First TV and now, especially in my generation, video games have more or less taken up all the time that would have originally been occupied by books. Though you'll never catch me bad-mouthing either of those things since I thoroughly enjoy them both, it does really suck that instead of teenage boys getting stoked about all the angst and swearing in Catcher In The Rye, they're getting stoked brain-melting violence. (Again, for the record I would like to state that I really enjoy brain-melting violence.)
Another thing that my parents lovingly forced onto me at a young age (that I briefly touched upon in an earlier blog) was a deep love of baseball. With both my parents being die-hard Toronto Blue Jays fans, I was going to games before I knew how to talk, let alone walk. You know how it's a somewhat common practice for parents to keep a newspaper headline from the day their child was born? My parents cut out and kept the boxscore from the paper that day (A 4-3 walk-off win over the Mariners ending in dramatic fashion with George Bell scoring on a wild pitch after Fred McGriff tied the game with a ground-rule double.). While most of my friends growing were playing hockey and gushing over Mats Sundin, I was going to way more Blue Jays games than they were Leaf's games and worshipping the life-sized cardboard cut-out of Joe Carter on my wall. Eventually I started playing softball and then baseball and began to understand the ebb and flow of a 9 inning game and all the little elements that make it so great. Through my adolescence and now into adulthood I've started to realize the love/hate relationship and stress that comes with loving and supporting a team that is perpetually on the outside looking in when it comes to October. You start to realize after a while that baseball is a constant in your life. Unlike other sports, during the season baseball is there pretty much every day and it's something you get used to; the game starts at 7 (usually) and it's the way you end more or less every day from April 1st until September 30th. After a period of time you develop a kind of fatherly relationship (or about as fatherly as a relationship between a teenaged boy and 25 grown men can be) (welp, that came out wrong) and you invest a whole of emotional energy into wanting to see them succeed on the field.
So, what exactly do these two long-winded, seemingly unrelated paragraphs have in common? Well, I just finished reading Season Ticket by Roger Angell and before that read The Summer Game by the same author and both were amazing reads. Angell is a columnist for the New Yorker and regularly contributes baseball and non-baseball work, but his stuff about the diamond is by far the best. It's completely obvious in his writing that while he's a through and through New York Mets and Boston Red Sox fan, he's a fan of the game first and foremost and a good deal of each book consists of him taking pleasure in seeing the game in all its different forms in different cities. Pretty much every page has at least one great anecdote about baseball, be it from Angell or the ridiculously large amount of players he interviews over the course of each volume. Some personal favourites were Earl Weaver (One of the all-time great managers and characters, managed the great Baltimore Oriole teams from the late 60's and 1970's) sitting in his underwear, drinking a beer and explaining why exactly he likes baseball so much; (a reporter asks him if he thought the Orioles were going to hang on to their lead and win the World Series) "No, that's what you can never do in baseball. You can't sit on a lead, run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." Another was Ted Williams (The best Red Sox hitter of all time? Yes. Without a doubt.) describing the process he would go through in his mind when deciding where to swing on a fastball. It is truly a moment when you have to sit back and think "Well, that is why you are the last man to hit .400 and I only played houseleague."
But by far my favourite part of the two books was Angell describing seeing the expansion New York Mets for the first time in 1962 (the worst baseball team of all time), through to seeing them win the Series for the first time in '69 and then edging out the Sox in '86. Since the Blue Jays were an expansion team, joining the Majors in '77), they suffered though the usual fate for new teams in sports: many years of mediocrity. I've been to Blue Jays playoff games and got to witness them win two World Series, but unfortunately that happened when I was 3 and 4 years old, so I don't remember that happening (save for this of course, I'll never forget that.), so basically I've watched the Jays struggle to stay afloat (often fail at doing so) for 19 seasons. After a while you get used to the losing and learn to love the team despite their lack of success. Angell gives these long descriptions of going to Mets games and having an absolute blast at the games with the rest of the Mets fans, despite them being absolutely awful on the field that I immediately drew parallels with. It's especially great with the Mets because they came out of nowhere to win the World Series in an upset in 1969.
Angell was there from the beginning and then got to watch his boys win it all and get the ultimate gratification in the end and this is something I can relate to now. So far in the off-season the Blue Jays have pulled off a major trade and signed a few key free agents to greatly improve our chances in the American League East and in some cases become the favourite to win the division. I know that our club's certain betterment on the field will inevitably bring in hordes of band-wagon jumpers who will be a little annoying, but it sure as hell won't make the giant shit-eating grin that will be covering my face while I watch this new and improved version of the Blue Birds on the field any less enjoyable.
Even if you don't have any interest in baseball, reading either of these Roger Angell books (or any of his others, I'm sure) will make you look at the months of November through February with great disdain and make the news of pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training seem like the second coming of Christ. The guy is the Mark Twain of the old game and his absolute love of every thing that goes along with it is completely contagious.
Oh, and uh GO JAYS GO!
Another thing that my parents lovingly forced onto me at a young age (that I briefly touched upon in an earlier blog) was a deep love of baseball. With both my parents being die-hard Toronto Blue Jays fans, I was going to games before I knew how to talk, let alone walk. You know how it's a somewhat common practice for parents to keep a newspaper headline from the day their child was born? My parents cut out and kept the boxscore from the paper that day (A 4-3 walk-off win over the Mariners ending in dramatic fashion with George Bell scoring on a wild pitch after Fred McGriff tied the game with a ground-rule double.). While most of my friends growing were playing hockey and gushing over Mats Sundin, I was going to way more Blue Jays games than they were Leaf's games and worshipping the life-sized cardboard cut-out of Joe Carter on my wall. Eventually I started playing softball and then baseball and began to understand the ebb and flow of a 9 inning game and all the little elements that make it so great. Through my adolescence and now into adulthood I've started to realize the love/hate relationship and stress that comes with loving and supporting a team that is perpetually on the outside looking in when it comes to October. You start to realize after a while that baseball is a constant in your life. Unlike other sports, during the season baseball is there pretty much every day and it's something you get used to; the game starts at 7 (usually) and it's the way you end more or less every day from April 1st until September 30th. After a period of time you develop a kind of fatherly relationship (or about as fatherly as a relationship between a teenaged boy and 25 grown men can be) (welp, that came out wrong) and you invest a whole of emotional energy into wanting to see them succeed on the field.
So, what exactly do these two long-winded, seemingly unrelated paragraphs have in common? Well, I just finished reading Season Ticket by Roger Angell and before that read The Summer Game by the same author and both were amazing reads. Angell is a columnist for the New Yorker and regularly contributes baseball and non-baseball work, but his stuff about the diamond is by far the best. It's completely obvious in his writing that while he's a through and through New York Mets and Boston Red Sox fan, he's a fan of the game first and foremost and a good deal of each book consists of him taking pleasure in seeing the game in all its different forms in different cities. Pretty much every page has at least one great anecdote about baseball, be it from Angell or the ridiculously large amount of players he interviews over the course of each volume. Some personal favourites were Earl Weaver (One of the all-time great managers and characters, managed the great Baltimore Oriole teams from the late 60's and 1970's) sitting in his underwear, drinking a beer and explaining why exactly he likes baseball so much; (a reporter asks him if he thought the Orioles were going to hang on to their lead and win the World Series) "No, that's what you can never do in baseball. You can't sit on a lead, run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." Another was Ted Williams (The best Red Sox hitter of all time? Yes. Without a doubt.) describing the process he would go through in his mind when deciding where to swing on a fastball. It is truly a moment when you have to sit back and think "Well, that is why you are the last man to hit .400 and I only played houseleague."
But by far my favourite part of the two books was Angell describing seeing the expansion New York Mets for the first time in 1962 (the worst baseball team of all time), through to seeing them win the Series for the first time in '69 and then edging out the Sox in '86. Since the Blue Jays were an expansion team, joining the Majors in '77), they suffered though the usual fate for new teams in sports: many years of mediocrity. I've been to Blue Jays playoff games and got to witness them win two World Series, but unfortunately that happened when I was 3 and 4 years old, so I don't remember that happening (save for this of course, I'll never forget that.), so basically I've watched the Jays struggle to stay afloat (often fail at doing so) for 19 seasons. After a while you get used to the losing and learn to love the team despite their lack of success. Angell gives these long descriptions of going to Mets games and having an absolute blast at the games with the rest of the Mets fans, despite them being absolutely awful on the field that I immediately drew parallels with. It's especially great with the Mets because they came out of nowhere to win the World Series in an upset in 1969.
Angell was there from the beginning and then got to watch his boys win it all and get the ultimate gratification in the end and this is something I can relate to now. So far in the off-season the Blue Jays have pulled off a major trade and signed a few key free agents to greatly improve our chances in the American League East and in some cases become the favourite to win the division. I know that our club's certain betterment on the field will inevitably bring in hordes of band-wagon jumpers who will be a little annoying, but it sure as hell won't make the giant shit-eating grin that will be covering my face while I watch this new and improved version of the Blue Birds on the field any less enjoyable.
Even if you don't have any interest in baseball, reading either of these Roger Angell books (or any of his others, I'm sure) will make you look at the months of November through February with great disdain and make the news of pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training seem like the second coming of Christ. The guy is the Mark Twain of the old game and his absolute love of every thing that goes along with it is completely contagious.
Oh, and uh GO JAYS GO!
Monday, November 12, 2012
All You Seem To Say Is Baby "How Could It Be You?"
So today I was listening to the Jonsi song "Sticks and Stones", which most people know because it plays during the credits of the most excellent movie How To Train Your Dragon (and man, it's an aweosme song), and when it ended my itunes went right into Joyce Manor. Like I said in my last post, I've been re-discovering a bunch of music that I haven't really listened to in the last few months and this is certainly an example of that. But while Lemuria gave me more of a "Wow! This band is so poppy and cute and makes me feel great! I can't believe I ignored them!" feeling, this was more of a "Hey Tim! Feel like getting ridiculously sad? Remember all those pent-up feelings from last fall? Well, here they are whether you like it or not!"
All their releases up this point sure are great though. Between an EP, a full-length and another full-length that is so short some people consider it an EP even though it's nine songs, there's not much filler and a whole lotta angst. I highly recommend checking them out.
Also, speaking of How To Train Your Dragon, I heard a lot of people rave about that movie when it came out but only ended up watching it yesterday. Holy shit a company that's not Pixar actually made an endearing, fun, touching and inspiring animated kids movie! (Siq use of adjectives brah) I really enjoyed watching it.
I've mentioned it a few times on here, but I joined a band with whack of my favourite homies in the world. We're called Beat Noir and are in the process of recording a whole bunch of music and we have a show in Toronto coming up in December! I'm excited for a number of reasons. 1: I haven't played a show in Toronto since my high school ska band The Pragmatics (Oh, you know I still have that ASOB shirt I'm rockin' in that video) broke up on stage in grade 12. 2: The show is with Like Pacific, who I am pretty good friends with, are A+ dudes all around, just put out a new EP called Homebound and are what one could consider "on their grind".
I really think you should think about attending this show, so if you would like the info it can be found right here.
In hindsight I maybe should have not linked that Pragmatics video. It's really embarrassing man! That hair was such a bad idea!
I suppose I'll leave you with this because I want it so bad and it makes me smile:
All their releases up this point sure are great though. Between an EP, a full-length and another full-length that is so short some people consider it an EP even though it's nine songs, there's not much filler and a whole lotta angst. I highly recommend checking them out.
Also, speaking of How To Train Your Dragon, I heard a lot of people rave about that movie when it came out but only ended up watching it yesterday. Holy shit a company that's not Pixar actually made an endearing, fun, touching and inspiring animated kids movie! (Siq use of adjectives brah) I really enjoyed watching it.
I've mentioned it a few times on here, but I joined a band with whack of my favourite homies in the world. We're called Beat Noir and are in the process of recording a whole bunch of music and we have a show in Toronto coming up in December! I'm excited for a number of reasons. 1: I haven't played a show in Toronto since my high school ska band The Pragmatics (Oh, you know I still have that ASOB shirt I'm rockin' in that video) broke up on stage in grade 12. 2: The show is with Like Pacific, who I am pretty good friends with, are A+ dudes all around, just put out a new EP called Homebound and are what one could consider "on their grind".
I really think you should think about attending this show, so if you would like the info it can be found right here.
In hindsight I maybe should have not linked that Pragmatics video. It's really embarrassing man! That hair was such a bad idea!
I suppose I'll leave you with this because I want it so bad and it makes me smile:
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