I’m lying in bed listening to Tony Bourdain’s book. He’s talking about career trajectory. Comparing his own to another new York cook he thinks very highly of. This got me thinking and applying it to my own predilections.

This town has a very dense and very talented music scene. Even the people at it’s fringes are pretty talented. Some I’m honored to consider friends. Some I know by reputation. Some I openly dislike and some I lust after. There’s a lot of talent and there’s a lot of diverse talent. There’s certainly a “scene” here. Tho I doubt it’ll be one of note, like say, The seattle grunge boom of the late eighties/early nineties.

There’s a scene here and I surely don’t feel part of it, despite a social connection. I haven’t earned part in it. I can still count on one hand the number of shows I’ve played. That’s fine. What I’ve come to realize lying here listening to this book is that I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to be one of many. I want to be the one. That can happen in many ways. I’m not really interested in fame or riches at the expense of artistry. Then thinking about the local scene I realize nobody is doing what I’m doing here. Singer-songwriters are a dime a dozen here but they’re all doing modern, current versions of that ideal. The pop diva, the hushed acoustic thoughtful stuff, the experimental rock, hard straight punk, experimental stuff, or just good old fun rock songs. I’m coming at things from a totally different angle. Not purposefully, it’s simply driven by my tastes: simple, rustic, resonate songs that stick. My music is a bowl of soup and bread to others molecular gastronomy. Most of my influences began their careers forty plus years ago. Some going back even farther. Cutting out the generations of artists they influenced and going right to the source myself. What I’ve come up with on my first recordings, and continuing to shape in my second volume of song writing is something that nobody is doing. Not anymore. Not here at least. Please, don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t an assessment of quality. My skills are far far from where they need to be. Even if my playing impresses other players I know where it lacks. And my singing needs to be stronger. Or rather, i need to be more comfortable and confident in the voice i know is there. That said, no one is doing what I’m doing in terms of style and attitude. That makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I’m on to something and that my artistic instincts are finely honed even if my skills are not.

Now I’m going to continue to try to sleep despite feeling like Ive been pepper sprayed.

So it always is when you stop to observe the strings of your own nature. A constant disquiet of an energy not completely unwelcome.

Just now I got a spam message out of the blue. My response was swift and unmerciful public excoriation.

this is the message I got that drew my rage.. followed by his response to my response.

Now… if it was not meant as spam, why did it come from nowhere and why is that the only message they tweet. Not spam, right…

I hate twitter sometimes.

This new me feels much like the old me. I ache and scream and love what I can’t have. A newly formed impossible mix of incredible black chaos and soft selfless peace. 

Birth is traumatic but now that it’s been survived it’s time to focus on walking. 

Ours is not a memorable struggle. There will be no great songs sung about us, no footnotes in the great stories of history. Just a small group out on the edge. A small group pitted against an incredibly stubborn, corrupt, and deceitful foe. For them scorched earth seems the tactic of choice. There may be no company to work for after this is over. 

Here we stand at the end of the fifth week. This has lasted far longer than any of us thought. We still stand strong as we are sickened by the elements, heckled and supported by the Victoria public, and thinned by the rationing of food. 

Our group, as raggedy as we might now be, shall not be moved. Shall not be intimidated by the idle threats of self proclaimed “authorities;” and raise our fists in defiance of an employer who’s motto is “do as I say, not as I do.”

Brother, can you spare a dime?…

Jason Walsh
From the line. September 20th, 2009. 16:20    

I’ve wrote about Heather and I ad nauseam before. I won’t rehash the story. It’s enough to say I am, and always will be, in love with that girl. Needless to say her initiating contact with me for the first time in that length of time was confusing to say the least. It’s not unusual for her to be back visiting from her adopted home in England. This particular visit was for her friend Jessica’s wedding. Another wedding. I’m seeing a pattern. Why in the midst of this wedding prep she thought of me enough to reach out and try and meet up is a question left for her. Trying to reason it out has only left me sickly, depressed and longing for her.

I believe in fate. I believe that some things are meant to be and carry out as they do. Not from some heavenly power, but from us. There are things we’re drawn to. Things we know in our hearts we will do and see and experience. Those of us stubborn enough to hold on to those feelings know the joys of fate. I’ve also thought Heather and I we’re fated to be together. The very first moment I met her it was “oh there she is..”

I bring up the idea of fate to mostly comfort myself in my aching and longing for her. A feeling I’ve carried every single day for the last 6 years. It show’s no sign of abatement. There’s been other girls. Some I’ve liked more than others. None we’re her, nor did I expect them to be.

One of my best friends, Zeb, has been happily married for a few years now. A lovely wife and two adorable children. They met when they were children. When Zeb was 16 and Alicia was 13 he said “I’m going to marry that girl.” He did. It took ten years but it happened like he said it would.

My grandmother will have her 83rd birthday this month. As I said before she’s recently gotten engaged. The man she’s marrying is a man she’s known for 50 years. They’ve always been interested in each other. It would just never work out. One would be married and the other would be single.. etc etc.

My sister met her boyfriend on eharmony. They hit it off immediately. Spending almost every extra minute together. They’ve only been dating a few months. Now they’re engaged. This has an air of fate to it because he’s not at all the type she usually dates. At all. In fact almost completely opposite in every way. I love my sister and I’m happy for her but it all brings me back to Heather

Those are all sweet stories and they give me hope that Heather and I may still work out. For whatever reason our previous relationship scared her. She backed off and ran into the nearest set of arms she could find. These are her issues. She’s a scared little girl who plays at being grown up in a lot of ways. Tho I reel slightly from saying that as I’m in no different position. Stagnating in a life I hate. In a town that continues to feel more like a prison.

Fate, Stubbornness, or a lie I tell myself so I don’t burst into tears every waking moment? I’m not sure. The only thing I do know is that nothing in my life ever felt right except her and music. Something I also felt “destined” to do almost 10 years before I even learned to play.

Life is strange.
J

Fear not for their fear is our ally.
It nourishes us
Sustains us.
Gives us life.

An indefinate an uncertain future
Is not disheartening.
For the future of the righteous
Is filled with the greatest joys of this world.

I soak up purpose
Through the very pours of the sidewalk.
Sidewalks soaked in the blood
Of those gunned and clubbed
And maimed and hung
So I can wear this sign.

Fear not brothers and sisters.

To me ,you are yellow, something like puss.
I’m talking right now so you just hush.
You can huff & puff, or puff & huff.
I’ve had all I can take of this messy stuff.
I can’t take no more,
I’ve had enough! -Joe Hill

We’re sitting in limbo at the moment. Tuesday we voted unanimously in favour of strike action at work. Now we wait for the paper work to be filed with the proper agencies and shoved into the various nooks and crannies of government.

Tom Petty said waiting is the hardest part. This is true in this situation. I’m waiting with an excited nervousness. Even tho I anticipate things will work out for the best, in life nothing is certain. So we wait till we see if our employers will unpuff their chests and actually give us the offer we want. We aren’t asking for anything unfair. Simply that we make the same as our direct competitors make for doing the same job. Or less work if you count all the incidental personal assistant type bullshit we’re expected to do.

They are helpless without us. They just don’t want to realize that. The day is coming that they will have no choice but to accept that. Three weeks from now I should be walking the line, with guitar and sign, singing songs made famous in the labour struggles of the 20th century. I’ve been reading my Joe Hill and Woody Guthrie, listening to Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, all in preparation for a potentially dirty fight.

More to come Brothers and Sisters. more to come.

I expected to be laughed at. What followed was the best, most intense, three months of my life. Low and behold she had feelings for me as well. If not for the fact she now lives abroad they would have been months spent madly and passionately in love together. But she does. In September that year she would break my heart worse than anything ever had before. It was my own personal apocalypse. Her reasons are her own. I have my theories but they’re just that.

They say the measure of any choice is if knowing how it would all work out would you do it again? Yes. Unequivocally yes. So the day is marked with bittersweet tears and smiles and by the songs I wrote for her.

Miss you Belle.

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