Category Archives: Journal

Adapt or die

Journal, , , ,

Brutal, Darwinian. Natural. Around the dinner table last night my family and I discussed life in the 21st century, digital native Junior marveling at how much technology has changed in his 15 years on the planet. An island boy, he doesn’t text yet but understands the appeal of the iPad. Me too. I’m getting tired of lugging my laptop around but it wasn’t so long ago that my iBook provided mobility as compared to my desktop-personal computer. We want it all!

A self-taught code warrior since the age of 14, Josef mentioned there are now laptops available for a few hundred dollars, but right away, Junior dismissed the idea along with their limited capability and RAM. Josef admitted that a USB port and word processing doesn’t cut it these days. People want to text, Tweet, iTune, email, Facebook, GPS, snap photos, shoot video, read the Globe and Mail and Google on the go. They want power, convenience. What’s so great about having a pound of newsprint delivered to your house so you can read one, or two, maybe even three articles, before running out the door? So wasteful, inefficient, messy and involves an errand- hauling it all down to the recycling depot. The other adaptation we’ve all made in this family is watching television on the Internet. We no longer have the patience to sit through network TV and its oppressive and boring commercials.

I’m slowly learning to text, with both thumbs, motivated in part by Continue reading →

Health care or semantics? Or should I say “wellness?”

Journal,

Whichever phrase I use, I will try to say it politely. Have you noticed there isn’t much flaming on Facebook? Enemies, or the merely tedious, are eliminated much the way the feeble are culled from a herd of wildebeest. The annoying and the toxic as well, get Blocked. Booted off, or out. It seems honest opinions are what you scroll through, consort with. How civilized.

The hot topic today is the historic passage of the US health care reform bill. Many fellow Canadians can’t understand why Americans—the majority of Americans according to the Republican party—wouldn’t want universal health care. I was an expatriate residing in the U.S. for many years, understand it and Americans better but still don’t get it either. Is it Canadian or Utopian to expect a civilized, affluent society to be ready, willing and able to care for its sick and, or elderly? Are we not human? Or are we wildebeest?

Born of revolution, many Americans possess a streak of individualism that borders on libertarianism, self-determination to the point of Darwinism, where only the middle class survive and the rich thrive. The United States has instituted Social Security and Medicare and pride themselves on providing their military with only the best health care. Why is it so difficult to ratchet it up another notch and provide insurance to the estimated 32 million other Americans without coverage? Because that constitutes socialism! Unlike Canadians, who—rightly or wrongly, strongly or weakly—depend on their governments to provide not only health care but infrastructure, education and a guaranteed income, many Americans equate universal health care with socialism, which equates with communism so many years after the Cold War. Perhaps it all comes down to semantics.

Oh and apparently the University of Ottawa, and most Canadians, according to its Vice-President  Francois Houle don’t want to hear American and professional talking head Ann Coulter’s opinion unless she’s not only honest, but also polite. He sent her a message basically warning her to watch her mouth. Bad move, which only backfired. Why recognize such a hate-mongering pundit for now she’s threatening to sue-milk it for all it’s worth-but of  course that’s a whole other can o’ worms, or rather, words.

Gestation leads to frustration

Journal, , , ,

Ah, it’s an artist’s life . . . the only life for me, alas. It appears Roderick (Shoolbraid) and I—AURAL Heather—are stuck. A filmmaker friend said he would help with crucial digital/special effects for our How To Remain video but has disappeared. I said we need to come up with a Plan B, Roddy. Not surprisingly he’s been wrapping his brain around the problem. “It’s old school,” he said of a possible solution. “I think it will work.” Fine by my old school self. Whatever it takes.

Frustrations on another front as well, the Bushwhack front, the book I’m collaborating on with Vancouver photographer Tina Schliessler. We’ve been seeking a publisher for a while and she is starting to second-guess the title and become discouraged. Par for the course Tina. It’s f***ing hard to get published and only getting harder as the medium dies out. Bushwhack is a powerful vision, a provocative book, finding a home for it a huge challenge under any circumstances. We must not weaken. We’ve decided to drum up a videopoem version and a gallery show which should help raise its profile and find a publisher. Ultimately. It took (too many) years to get Three Blocks West of Wonderland published. It sucks but that’s that’s show biz. Long gestation, longer frustration, what we artists are in for.

The importance of being aural

Journal, ,

I’ve been extremely nostalgic lately, iPod blasting out Wire, X, Pylon, Pointed Sticks, Young Canadians, the Germs, Gun Club, PiL, Patti Smith and Joy Division, sharing their tunes with friends, both old school punks and young champions of the genre. I revel in it as much as I ever did and dammit, it’s timeless.

Life, including recording and performing music, was so much simpler then, hence the nostalgia, even melancholy. Just do it was precisely how we did it. These days it seems there is so much more crap to surmount! Why does it have to be so bloody hard to get together to jam, write, rehearse, record, perform? I miss singing, though singing lyrics—singing the way I used to with my previous bands—is not quite what I do with Roderick Shoolbraid and our AURAL Heather duo. My throat slings (spoken) word along with, and in and out of, melody. I described AURAL Heather in our press release as a sublime fusion of music and poetry and dubbed our material spoken word song. Though our logistics are daunting and AURAL Heather is currently simmering on a back burner—as we work to complete our How To Remain video—our sound, once described as “Lynchian,” keeps right on cooking.

Recently, I found myself getting defensive when a friend complained that Roderick’s guitar drowns out my vocals. I sighed. It’s difficult to explain our aural challenges, that what we’re attempting to pull off is a delicate balancing act. Maybe I sighed so loudly because Continue reading →

Birthday Girl

Journal, , ,

Birthday today, March 8. I’m not going to discuss ambivalent feelings—nobody’s getting younger—but rather focus on the lovely greetings I received from so many people around the world, a veritable deluge and then the boys took me out for dinner at Miksa. I got to eat a cheeseburger and more than one French fry.

I’ve been working on my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, actually writing the damn thing so long now it’s celebrating birthdays too. I’m going to make one more serious stab at it, revise it and in the process decide if I’m cut out to be a novelist. I’ve worked in many genres but perhaps I should stick to verse. I cannot recall whether some scenes are based on actual incidents or if I’ve fictionalized them. Like being at the Smilin’ Buddha with her mother. I can’t remember if my mom came to see me play or not. I think she did. I’d ask my surviving sister but we’re estranged. I think that comes out in the story or maybe that should go in another book. Or poem. I have to decide. After all this time I’m still trying to figure this stuff out. Pretty sad.

Preparing to attend the aforementioned Live Video Retrospective and screening Lenore Herb/Doreen Gray’s footage of a Rock Against Prisons benefit from 1979 which includes AKA, Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Subhumans and my first band, the all-girl Zellots. Bill Scherk is making swag which is what the Double H image is about. It’s a fundraiser so I’m going to donate some Heather Haley merch. See you there perhaps? It should be interesting. I’m bringing a bodyguard.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
7:00pm – 11:55pm
Little Mountain Gallery
195 east 26th Ave
Vancouver, BC

Here’s Bill’s description: On March 9th, the social forces will be mounting an assault on the staid and the bland. From a Punk Rock Swap Meet to a Celebrity Auction, from an ‘umplugged’ stage to a Grand Slam Poetry Karaoke by some of the big stars of 1979, we are getting the Old Gang Together. We review the fabulous footage by doreen grey from the seminal 1979 gig and plan out the 2010 resurgence of the Vancouver Explosion.

Come on out and celebrate Vancouver’s living heritage with those who made it happen: Rabid, Female Hands, Devices, Zellots, Tunnel Canary, AKA, Subhumans. Special appearances. Door Prizes. Live Webcast and Kissing Booth. Fishnet stockings. Oodles of prime shwag and fixins. Your every 1979 Punk nightmare come beautifully true.

In mourning this lovely morning, missing my dearly departed

Journal, ,

There are so many things I cannot say in this blog, nor in polite company, which is why I write poetry and keep a journal, sometimes on paper, sometimes on my MacBook. Tonight, I set out to write a poem about my beloved friend Peter (Haskell). It’s been two years since he died and that’s about how long it takes for me to assimilate anything but especially death. Even more difficult to assimilate is how he died. A violent death, his family and friends believing he was murdered, the LAPD and the DA’s office calling it self-defense and in any case, tragic would be an understatement. In fact there are no words and I felt frustrated all night, trying to convey not just how I felt about Peter but how to authentically portray him.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, I had expressed my condolences to the family of our mutual friend Jhim Pattison who died last summer. I managed to contact his sister Marsha at last, to tell her how much he meant to me, that it was a privilege to be his friend, which naturally made me think of Byron and Peter, so intertwined were our lives. I had sent along a Continue reading →

Hangover City-Fractured Old School-Shmorgs guitarist Peter Draper

Journal, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The party’s over. Here we sit, post-Olympics, talk of legacy raging as the provincial government returns to the capital for further belt tightening, dickering with The Budget. It was a glorious party and I, to my surprise, swept up. Well, I had to watch the hockey, it’s in my DNA, being a Béliveau.  I do regret missing the revelry downtown after the Team Canada victory last night. It was an incredible game, with an astonishing sudden death goal by the Kid, Sidney Crosby, decidedly a once-in-a-lifetime event. No next time. Boo hoo. I once passed up a free ticket to see Nirvana, to attend the premiere of Tombstone. Gawd. How can I admit such a thing? My only excuse, I’m a serious film buff and by that point, had witnessed enough wasted, wailing rockers for two lifetimes.  “A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.” – Orson Welles. Hmm, I can’t remember who directed Tombstone, and see, I’m not even going to bother to Google it, but he, or she, was no poet. Oh, I have another excuse for screwing up; I just remembered I was pregnant, hormone-addled. I mean, more than usual.

Some people are smugly saying things like oh where are those pesky protesters now? Well, when I was at W2 for the Real Vancouver Writers Series last week we walked by the Continue reading →

The last Real Vancouver Writers Series reading/Doin’ the Cultural Olympiad our way

Journal, , , , ,

Old school. Punk rock. DIY.

Still harbour a bit of a bad attitude and though I’ve watched a little hockey, have largely dodged the Spring Olympics. Oh, I’m sure there is a ton of fun to be had downtown Vancouver but it’s the type of fun that was vitally important to me as a teenager when the rodeo came to Cloverdale every long Victoria Day weekend. My sisters and I practically lived at the midway, chasing boys, drinking bootlegged beer behind the barns and throwing up, rides or no rides, or games in this case.

At the invitation of the smart, discerning and affable Sean Cranbury of Books On The Radio, I did very happily venture down to the city Feb. 17 to read at an exciting new series called Real Vancouver Writers housed at W2, an exciting new arts and media centre across from the refurbished Woodward’s Building which happens to be a few doors up from our punk rock stomping grounds at the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret. I was ten, I joked. Very appropriately, one of the artists featured in the W2 gallery was Bev Davies with a series of her quintessential DOA shots.

What a fabulous event! I haven’t felt such enthusiasm at a reading since the 90s and the Edgewise, I swear. Talented poet, lovely person Elizabeth Bachinsky graciously hosted the standing room only evening and I had the privilege of seeing all my cool FB peeps/literati in the flesh- Continue reading →

My Three Blocks West of Wonderland interview with S.R. Duncan

Journal, , ,

What are the three themes you explore most in the book?

Well, I depict the domestic front, though as Karen Solie-with whom I had the privilege of working with at Banff Arts Centre said-“the work is not domesticated. It reflects the nature of language as both a domestic product and as wild—impossible to fully manage or control.” I take a lot of risks in my poems, have an instinct for the weirdness of language, the sound and rhythm. I’ve written a suite of island poems, others about relationships and family; my life partner, my mother, my father, nieces, nephews and several inspired by my son. I also describe the battle front you could say, a suite of poems inspired by my travels with many alluding to our post 9-11 guilt and angst here in the *safe zone.* I think we’re collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop, a dread summed up with a flying motif and section titles named Sky Watchers, Wax Wings and Hard Landings. In addition, I’ve addressed the classic man against nature theme in Hot Dogger, My Mountain and Habitat. I’m intrigued by extreme sports enthusiasts, adrenalin junkies. My father was an intrepid hunter and fisherman, I grew up in the great outdoors but we never felt compelled to climb for the sake of climbing, just lived in the woods.

In a brief paragraph describe what you think the book is about (assuming there is a theme)?

I think The Theme is simply prevailing. One of the poems called How To Remain moves beyond mere survival, endurance, but portrays thriving, prevailing. Boldly. With panache. Style, grace and good humour. I hope.

Why did you write this book?

Because Continue reading →

Olympics rant postponed, please read about my reading @ Real Vancouver Writers Series

Journal

Well, I was going to rant about the Olympics descending upon us, from the local (Bowen Island) perspective but I haven’t time at the moment, need to get my kid on track with his new Distance Education program and tackle a long-due to flu-list of tasks. In the meantime, I will invite you to come hear me read at Real Vancouver Writers Series at the W2 Culture and Media House. Located across from the refurbished Woodwards Building in Downtown Vancouver, Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 7:00pm – 10:00pm at 112 E. Hastings, a few doors up from 109 E. Hastings, the Smilin’ Buddha, where my life as an artist was begot.

I swore I wouldn’t leave the island for the duration of the Olympics but Sean Cranbury of Books On The Radio invited me and I’m excited to participate and to be reading that night with Teresa McWhirter, Lee Henderson, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Nikki Reimer, Chris Hutchinson, Dina Del Bucchia, Amber Dawn, Donato Mancini, Sonnet L’Abbe, Jonathon Wilcke and Catherine Owen. In addition, I will be live in ‘The Artist Lounge’ hosted by J Peachy on CJSF 90.1 FM on Tuesday Feb 16th at 7pm. Hope you can tune in. The next day, the day of the reading, Wed. Feb. 17 I will be visiting friends Steve Duncan and RC Weslowki on Wax Poetic @ 2pm (PST) 102.7fm CFRO Co-op Radio. I’ll be back to rant later. This is from Real Vancouver Writers Series press release:

“The Real Vancouver Writers Series consists of 4 weekly events showcasing local Vancouver writers, publishers and creative literary artists at the W2 Community Media Arts Centre located at 112 East Hastings Street. These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city. Countless millions of people will want to know what real Vancouver culture looks like. We are determined to take the opportunity to show the world just how amazing, diverse, talented and fun our literary and publishing culture is!

In conjunction with Books on the Radio and Geist Magazine. “W2 Community Media Arts Society presents W2 Culture + Media House – a 24 hour/day media centre for non-accredited bloggers and journalists to share their perspective on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver with the world.”