CSN:AFU Week 15 In Review

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Gabriel

The Spoons: Canadian

“Romantic Traffic”; ‘Tell No Lies’ EP (1984)

Sandy Horne is the hottest bass player ever…

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CSN:AFU Week Fifteen

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This Weeks New Posts:

Greatest Hits: Essential Canadian Writers — ‘George Bowering’
Everybody should have a favourite poet,aboot I have four and George Bowering is at the top of my list. George, who spent two years as Canada’s official Poet Laureate, pronounces it “aboot” and he does so proudly.
…this one was a pain in the ass to format. At the end of the post I wanted to leave one of his poems, otherwise why bother, right? But George uses the entire page, which meant using html and WordPress hates any html it thinks is weird. It took me aboot two hours to research and write the piece and another two hours just to get the poem laid out. But I got it done, and it’s exactly the way it looks in the book…

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Short Cuts: A Handy And Timely Guide To Four Of Buffalo’s Golfing Destinations
Four Golf Courses For When… You Know: 1) Beaver Island: Grand Island, New York; 2) Hickory Ridge: Holley, New York; 3) Arrowhead Golf Club: Akron, New York; 4) South Park Golf Course: Buffalo, New York
This one was a little obscure. If you didn’t know the NHL was in Playoff Mode, and that the Ottawa Senators were beating the Buffalo Sabres in one of those Seven Game Playoffs, then you probably thought “mmmm… maybe he golfs and he’s going to Buffalo.” Nope. I don’t golf and the chances of my getting across the border are pretty slim. Hockey players, in the off season, golf. A lot. I was being kind and offering the Buffalo Sabres and their Fans a guide for their fast approaching regrouping season. I’m Canadian, we’re thoughtful like that.

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The Lists:

Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU

5) notable achievements of benito mussolini
4) tickled while wearing knee-socks
3) uncle tom’s cavern
2) the concept of the evil seed
1) smoking weed on lithium

Honourable Mention: eigteen focking

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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts Since Last Friday:

1) A Handy And Timely Guide To Four Of Buffalo’s Golfing Destinations
2) Essential Canadian Writers — ‘George Bowering’
3) Canadian Inventions — ‘Instant Replay’
4) How Global Warming Will Affect The National Hockey League
5) redacted.

Honourable Mention: Canadians Invented Hollywood: What You Need To Know Aboot Canada’s Movie Industry — Part Two: A New Hope

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The Five Blogs I Visited Most This Week

1) The Bitter Guy
2) East Village Idiot
3) Queen Minx (now on hiatus)
4) Nita Writer
5) Sex In Canada

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This Week In General:

My week started with me moving 12 tonnes… of stone out of a field. Six tonnes into the tractor’s bucket and six tonnes from the trailer to the spot my step-father and I are building a wall. He was there in the field with me as well, but his back dropped out of alignment aboot ten minutes into the job. There was a farmer driving the tractor, but the first rule of construction and farming is: The Operator Never Lifts Stuff. So on Saturday morning, roughly 8am, I was in a field prying rocks out of the ground… actually fuck that: “mini-boulders”, the larger of these things were easily over 200lbs. It only took a couple of hours… actually, picking stones out of fields was my first job back when I was thirteen. The good farmers would hook a wagon to his tractor then drive, slowly, though the field while myself and some other sucker walked behind the wagon picking up rocks — mostly anything larger than a golf ball — and tossed them on the wagon (rocks get pushed up when the frost melts… then they get stuck in the farm machinery). The serious donkey fucker farmers would park a wagon in the middle of a field and the other sucker and myself would have to walk the rocks to the wagon. $2.50/hour. Good times. Surprisingly not the worst job on the farm, however.

I also turned off my gas stove this week, it usually supplies most of the heat to my apartment. Very easy to turn off, very difficult to turn back on which sucks because the weather took a turn for winter this week. I think the warmest it got all week was “Where’s My Scrotum?”. In order to turn the stove back on I’d have to move one of my bookcases, which means emptying it, then moving an end-table and my EZ Chair, then I’d have to bend over and reach behind the stove (it’s an enclosed fireplace really)… none of which, after moving twelve tonnes of stone, is possible. So I’ve got the electric baseboard in my bedroom set on “Climate Change” and I’ve strategically placed fans to circulate the heat… sweet, sweet, precious heat. It’s not that moving the stone has made it impossible for me to move stuff, I actually feel pretty good. It’s just that I’ve moved enough stuff this week.

Today my friends had the ribbon cutting for their Craft Brewery. “Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company” is now, officially, in business. Their first product, Beau’s Beer, won last years “Golden Tap Award” for Best Beer at the prestigious Toronto Beer Festival. It’s my friend Steve, his brother Phil and their dad Tim who own the thing. Then Jamie is the Guy In Charge of Ottawa Sales. Last spring they had five bars selling their beer, now they have fifty with another whole lot offering it later this spring. The local mayor was there, so was the mayor from Hawkesbury, the closest city. The provincial member of Parliament for the area was there, as was the federal MP. This weekend Beau’s is busing 1000 people from the Ottawa region to their brewery for taste testing and roast animals.

I’ve tried to help out with the brewery when and if I can, but it’s still very hard to get out and interact with human beings, even when there’s beer involved. Last summer we painted a huge mural for the outside of their warehouse, and moved the brewing equipment into the factory. Last week I kind of hung around and occasionally hammered a board, then today I took photos of the event… which would be the first time in a year I’ve used the Real Camera… yikes. I think that’s it…

Oh yeah on Friday of last week my landlord handed me almost $500 in bills. I thought something was wrong… then, as he was handing them to me, I realized… he hadn’t given me an electric or gas bill since Christmas. Which would explain all the extra food in my cupboards. Good times.

Last thing… two friends, both from long ago, found me recently through this blog… but that may have been last week.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Weekly Review, Hockey, Punk | Leave a comment

Essential Canadian Writers — George Bowering

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Gabriel

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Anik Jean: Canadian

“Tendre Sorciere“; ‘Le Trashy Saloon’ (2005)

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Essential Canadian Writers:

George Bowering

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Everybody should have a favourite poet, I have four* and George Bowering is at the top of my list. George, who spent two years as Canada’s official Poet Laureate, pronounces it “aboot” and he does so proudly. He doesn’t write aboot the mysteries of Canada — although sometimes he does, George doesn’t write aboot the majesty that is Canadian landscapes — although sometimes he did, he writes aboot what he believes Canada should be like, what this country should be pissed off aboot and what this country means and has meant to him.

I first discovered George‘s writing in 1991. I was living in Ottawa and still pretending to be a poet when I found a press copy / reviewers copy of 1989’s “Sticks & Stones” in a tiny bookstore on Osgoode Street — it was a reprint of his legendary Rattlesnake Press (sort of) published 1962 book. Everything in the book Just Made Sense. That is so rare. Most poetry seems to have been written specifically to get a woman to take her clothes off. You read the words and they seem important because they’re on a page, and that page is laid out from left to right from top to bottom, and those pages are bound and the cover has a pleasant image on it, so obviously those bound, properly laid out pages must be important… otherwise, why would so many people have bothered to put so much work into producing the book? Those books seem to have been written and published so as to elicit a reaction of: “yup, you’re right. That sure is a book of poetry alright.” I think this is what my book of poems would have been like.

But George’s book of poetry — the one I was holding in my hand and reading while sitting at “Fathers & Sons” restaurant across the street from the University of Ottawa, and just down the street from my Sandy Hill apartment, in the Spring of 1991 — wasn’t like that. Everything had meaning and that meaning was scattered across each page deliberately. Reading poetry is aboot using your mind, not just reading the words. Writing poetry is aboot forcing the reader to use their mind by using your words as their guide. “The best poetry,” George said, “is written in fear… When it has a good reader, the best poetry is read in fear.”

George studied at the University of British Columbia, where his masters thesis advisor was American poet Robert Creeley. As a young man he met and hung out and drank with and learned from Creeley and the other Black Mountain Poets, such as Robert Duncan and Charles Olson, all of whom influenced Bowering and his friends and fellow UofBC poets and writers either directly or through their work. George and the Black Mountain Poets were the writers who lived the way writers are supposed to live, if only because that’s the way we want writers to live… how we want to live. Every cliché, every tired representation of a poet in every piece of Hollywood-style trash, every image we receive from another garbage Top-40 song aboot how a writer and poet is supposed to look has, at its base, the life lived by George Bowering. When people tell you they are a “writer” what they are really saying to you is “I desperately want to be George Bowering, even if just for a stanza.”

In 1961 George co-founded and edited Tish (a renowned literary magazine) with Frank Davey establishing a post-modernist, avant-garde movement in British Columbia. George Bowering is an historian, a professor, he has written more than 60 books of poetry and both fiction and non-fiction novels and he was Canada’s Poet Laureate from 2002 until 2004. George won the Governor General’s Award twice in 1969 for two books of poetry — “Gangs Of Kosmos” and “Rocky Mountain Foot”, and again in 1980 for his novel “Burning Water“. George has also been an Officer of the Order of Canada since 2002. He was born in Penticton, B.C on December 1, 1935, to Ewart Bowering and Pearl Brinson Bowering and he has proudly said “aboot” his entire life.

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Excerpt From An Interview: “I can’t think of anything that is like writing prose. But I do know that I feel the way that a fisherman feels, maybe, when there’s something on the line. It can be wonderful to feel something is aboot to come visible, and when it does, it moves so nicely. I like the move.”

Excerpt From An Interview: “[…] I got into trouble for my principles. For example I was expelled for the last month of grade twelve because of my campaign against the recognition of the English monarch in Canada. Now I am her poet, or something. Well, in the meantime I have learned that the real campaign should be against the US takeover of our country and the minds of our young, who now seem to say, for example, Mawm instead of Mum.”

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Metaphor 1 (from “Sticks & Stones”, 1962)

(My speech obsessed by language
the very riding thru me of the
meta-phor
……………….thru me & away on a trip
past the margins of the mind)
A tree
an oak tree
an oak with a tree house
nailed between its branches
……………………………………stands
……………………………………in the field
……………………………………of my mind,
……………………………………growing, or
……………………………………staying grown
until I invest it with birds
brocading its limbs of reach,
sending back skippidy hop
patterns

…………………………….STOP
…………………………………..it off
……………………………it is enough
……………………………it is in the moment
……………………………it is for ever

……………………………:done
……………………………&
……………………………:there

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*In no particular order the other three would be: Gary Geddes, Colin Morton and William Blake.

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Posted in Canada, Canadian Authors, Canadian Books, CSN:AFU Greatest Hits, Ottawa, Poetry, Punk | Tagged | 5 Comments

Short Cuts: A Handy And Timely Guide To Four Of Buffalo’s Golfing Destinations

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Gabriel

The Big Dirty Band*: Canadian

“I Fought The Law”; ‘Trailer Park Boys Movie Soundtrack‘ (2006)
*TBDB Are: Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee (Rush), Ian Thornley (Big Wreck), Adam Gontier (Three Days Grace), Jeff Burrows (The Tea Party) and Care Failure (Die Mannequin)

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Eastern Conference Finals:
Ottawa Senators vs. Buffalo Sabres

Game One: Ottawa 5, Buffalo 2
Game Two: Ottawa 4, Buffalo 3 (OT)

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Four Golf Courses For When… You Know.

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Beaver Island: Grand Island, New York
Public 18 hole course with driving range, Pro Shop and putting green. A snack bar is open during course hours. Beaver’s signature hole (4th, Par Five) “presents an opportunity for eagle if played properly. The lake comes into play along the left perimeter of the hole, following it from tee to green. Woods on the right prevent a bail-out. The second shot is played toward a green whose fairway widens slightly toward the target. Nothing prevents a straight ball on either shot [except maybe the tears of defeat getting in the eyes of the defeated], so miss to the front of the green if necessary.”

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Hickory Ridge: Holley, New York
“The 17th is the hole golfers most talk about. It is a sharp dogleg left over a pond to an dramatically elevated green which has acquired the nickname of Heart Break Ridge. The Adirondack style Clubhouse offers a quaint setting of knotty pine walls and hardwood floors. A deck off of the clubhouse over looks the 9th and 18th greens offer a relaxing place for a drink or snack after your round. The dining hall in the clubhouse has a beautiful large stone fireplace with scenic views of the 9th and 18th hole. The clubhouse with a seating capacity up to 150 is also available for private parties, meetings, banquets or other functions. Our Partyhouse can seat up to 400 people for those big tournies [or an early-end-of-the-season wrap up party]. We also have outdoor outings under our tent.”

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Arrowhead Golf Club: Akron, New York
“Arrowhead Golf Club (20 miles east of Buffalo) has been built from the ground up in the classic Scottish links style. Western New York’s premier upscale golf course was created to accommodate discerning golfers. The Club is a public facility that has 18 holes of championship golf and has been rated as one of the top courses in New York State and in the Northeast [much like the Northeast Division Champions, the Buffalo Sabres].”

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South Park Golf Course: Buffalo, New York
Club Rental, Driving Range, Pull Cart Rental, Putting Green, Water Hazards, No Dress Code and Guests Allowed. “This course is well maintained and great for beginners. The fairways are wide open, and water hazards (ponds) come into play on a couple of holes. There are no slope or course ratings for either of the tees shown; ladies tee off from the same set of tees as the men [Which is perfect for Briere…].”

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

It’s Aboot Fucking Time…

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Posted in CSN:AFU Short Cuts, Hockey, Humor, Humour, Ottawa, Punk | 4 Comments

CSN:AFU Week 14 In Review

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Gabriel

The Golden Dogs: Canadian

“Never Meant Any Harm“; ‘Big Eye Little Eye’ (2006)

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CSN:AFU Week Fourteen

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New Page:

Photo Evidence
Photos of “Friends, Family And Me…” it’s still a rough Beta Version, but I’ve decided I like the look and feel of this page since I woke up from the two days of sleep I was owed… kind of. I’ll be updating it regularly. Kind of.

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New Posts:

Short Cuts: I Wanna Destroy, Possibly? OR Taking A Holiday In Cambodia
Activists have always warned aboot how humanity will be held accountable by The Children Of Tomorrow, but no generation ever holds the previous one to account. No one is ever held accountable, therefore everyone is both blamed and blameless. There must be consequences, we must start penalizing retroactively. We must start beating the elderly more often and with more gusto. Bats. We should all have bats.

“Short Cuts” are something I came up with to fill in space while I looked after my grandfather this past week, but I like them a lot so I’m going to try to have a couple of them a week.

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Short Cuts: There Is No Blue Sky OR Why Justin Trudeau Only Comes Out In The Daytime
All of life’s illusions are concentrated during the daylight hours. There is no sky, it is an illusion of light refracting across our atmosphere. There is no blue sky. Thinking, believing, there is a blue sky is mankinds first religion. This could explain some of “Trudeaumania” (1969-2000)… and maybe even its recent parody “Trudeausuperfluous” (2007-2007).

I should have incorporated an explanation as to who the Trudeau’s are… basically, think of Pierre Trudeau (mania) as John Kennedy. Kind of. Pierre’s son has decided, now that he’s in his 30’s, that he too wants to be a politician (superfluous).

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Canada: Crazy Americans Fear Canada… Twice OR Two $0.25 Stories In A $0.93 Newspaper
Two stories featured in Canadian news this week will create Urban Legends that are going to need to be explained away by our Grandchildren’s Grandchildren to their Grandchildren unless we stop them here and now:
1) Canada is not the worlds leader in Pirated Movies — camcorder or otherwise — the MPAA statistics ‘proving’ we are were first discredited three years ago and several times since.
2) the American Defence Department never believed the Canadian “Poppy Quarter” was a tracking device.

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Short Cuts: Evangelicals Took Iraq So Atheists Want Afghanistan OR Look Who The Savage’s Are Now
In order to be considered for deployment to Iraq by the American State Department, as a civil servent responsible for the real democracy process, people were judged on their voting patterns and whether they believed abortion is murder. Just as ridiculous as the four year hallucination that has been the hyper-Evangelical American and British desire to build democracy in Iraq, is the Atheistic fantasy of protecting Afghans by removing United Nations authorized and NATO led troops from Afghanistan, then negotiating a settlement with people who see us with the same eyes our ancestors saw Native Peoples and pre-colonial Africans.

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In General:

My week started with my mom and grandmother… telling me my grandfather had another stroke. He had, they told me, lost his ability to recognize numbers (which would be huge, him being an engineer) and was sleeping nearly all the time. So, based on how mom says “you should spend some time with him” I’m thinking the doctors have given him three weeks to live. The first couple of days I was thinking “man… he doesn’t seem that bad.” So Wednesday my grandfather and I went shopping for a bar-fridge, microwave and answering machine so he can upgrade his condo. He was converting millimetres into centimetres and then into inches, then into square feet faster than I could write the numbers down. Then we went out for lunch and he left exactly 20 percent as a tip. We spent the entire day talking aboot his engineering projects, some construction problems Montreal is having, his early days as a surveyer… he remembers his golf scores from last year for Christ’s sake… he played 63 games of golf last year, in 2005 he played 98, and he played his first game of this season yesterday.

So the reports of my grandfathers health had been greatly exaggerated… a good friend of his from back in the construction days died recently and the funeral was last week. So he drove 4.5 hours to Pembroke, stayed overnight and drove back the next day. He’s 86 and spent nine hours on the road because one of the last of his friends from Back In The Day passed away… when he got back he was exhausted, so my grandmother and mother decided he had suffered a stroke. Aaaaargh.

Anyway, I spent most of last week volunteering on three different renovation jobs, updated large portions of this blog, spent for too much time around other people… me being an extreme introvert and all… and trying to write emails to people I haven’t spoken to (but wanted to) in several years. So I’ve been exhausted from living on three or four different schedules, but I think I’m feeling better now.*

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* “In General” contains 12% new material previously not sent in emails explaining why I’ve been hiding.

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Next Week:

Two More Movies, Two Short Cuts And A Poet.

Maybe.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Weekly Review, Punk | Leave a comment

Short Cuts: Evangelicals Took Iraq So Atheists Want Afghanistan OR Look Who The Savage’s Are Now

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Gabriel

The Box: Canadian

“Crying Out Loud For Love”; ‘Closer Together‘ (1987)

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Atheism Is Aboot Humiliation As Much As…

…hyper-Evangelicalism is aboot self-gratification. Not believing in God does not make you an Atheist, to be an Atheist you must have a philosophy of believing faith in any God is wrong.

People speak of “not knowing what we’re fighting for” in Afghanistan as if this were a game of Capture The Flag and the objective must be as visable as a flag on a stick on top of a hill. There are people looking into our societies and judging us based on women voting, our churches being separate from government, our multiculturalism and our lawns. And their judgement is we are weak, decadent and against their God. In the same way our society historically turned Native Peoples, Africans and Asians into dehumanized stereotypes so to have we been turned into inhuman beasts.

The Atheistic fantasy of protecting Afghans by removing United Nations authorized and NATO led troops from Afghanistan, then negotiating a settlement with people who see us with the same eyes our ancestors saw Native Peoples and pre-colonial Africans is as foolhardy, naïve and dangerous as the hyper-Evangelical four year hallucination that has been the American and British desire to build democracy in Iraq by using teams of public servants whose childlike innocence has been only slightly less ridiculous than their required credentials for deployment being a shared religious belief that abortion is murder and having all voted Republican.

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in American Politics, Canadian Politics, CSN:AFU Short Cuts, Middle East Politics, Punk, US Middle East Policy | 2 Comments

Canada: Crazy Americans Fear Canada… Twice OR Two $0.25 Stories In A $0.93 Newspaper

Posted on May 9, 2007 by Gabriel

Peaches: Canadian

“Boys Wanna Be Her“; ‘Impeach My Bush’ (2006)

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Two Stories Featured In Canadian News…

this week will create Urban Legends that are going to need to be explained away by our Grandchildren’s Grandchildren to their Grandchildren unless we stop them here and now.

The first one involves a unique Canadian coin and a mistaken addition to an internal report by an American intelligence service. In 2004 the Canadian Mint, one of the most prestigious in the world, released the first coin to have a painted portrait featured on its face. This involved a new and patented technique. Sometime in 2005 a few American Army contractors, working on projects in Canada, made reports to the Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, claiming the coin — with a highly unusual and distinctive bright red centre, was a tracking device. At least one of the contractors reports made it into a 29-page report which was briefly circulated inside the DSS. Using recently declassified documents the Associated Press wrote a story aboot the coin and how ridiculous the DSS was for believing a Canadian coin could be used to track the whereabouts of Army Contractors.

The problem with the story is that it’s over a year old, this is its third news cycle and the DSS admitted to having made a mistake almost immediately upon the publication of the 29-page report… and then again this past January.

Buried deep in the AP story — which everyone is reprinting or using as their source — was this statement: “The [DSS] never examined the suspicious coins,” spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said. “We know where we made the mistake,” she said. “The information wasn’t properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion [with the contractors], there ultimately was nothing there.”

The timeline goes like this… the first reports of a tracking-coin — and there were only a few — surfaced in 2005 and at least once more early in 2006. They were treated like a UFO sighting (ie: as in not important enough to look at), but at least one accidentally made it into a minor internal report, which the DSS quickly retracted and the 2006 DSS Annual Report — released in January, 2007 — again explained the mistake. Using the news stories written aboot the apology in the Annual Report an access to information request was made by reporters and last week, four months after the last apology, the related documentation is released by US and Canada Intelligence Services. The AP then write their story based on these original documents and — taaa daaa — here we are: Crazy Americans Fear Canadian Coin… Part Three.

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#2: A Failing Industry And A Naive Canadian Reporter…

got together this week to announce Canada is a world leader in the heinous crime of movie piracy. Several years ago the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) started telling whomever would listen that Canada is responsible for 80% of the worlds pirated movies. The statistics have been debunked several times by several organizations, but every six months Canada becomes the Kingpin in a crime on par with dealing heroin to strung out D-List actors.

Michael Geist, one of Canada’s most respected technology lawyers, last wrote aboot this on his blog five months ago: “…the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a U.S. lobby group that includes the MPAA, advised the U.S. government in late September that Canadians were the source for 23 percent of camcorded copies of DVDs.
“In fact, AT&T Labs, which conducted the last major public study on movie piracy in 2003, concluded that 77 percent of pirated movies actually originate from industry insiders and advance screener copies provided to movie reviewers.”

I wrote aboot this on my blog waaay back in February of this year. It was a brilliant piece. Basically revenue from theatre ticket sales has been dropping like Nicolas Cage’s career potential, and the MPAA have been trying to deflect criticism of the movie industry’s inept handling of technology issues.

It is understood that Entertainment Reporters are generally at a loss when it comes to business and technology, but the MPAA Urban Legend goes back three or four years and large dailes, like the Globe And Mail where I found this version, have databases of sources which all of their reporters can access. It’s the same with the Coin Story, which has been reported on during at least two previous news cycles over the past eight months. It would have been very easy to do the Coin Story up front and honest, but the people who picked up the AP Story had “Americans Are Dumbasses” headlines they wanted to use so they buried the pedestrian stuff and put the misleading “Dumbass” comments in the top six paragraphs. At best the Coin Story should have been one of those “funny briefs” newspapers run across the top of a page, and the MPAA story should have been an expose on how Hollywood is blaming the loss of their theatre revenue on Canada.

Remember the link to this page for your ancestors convenience.*

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*Parts of this post were scalped from comments I made on Canuck Attitude and Blevkog. And by “parts” I mean aboot 76.5 percent.

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in Canada, Canadian Inventions, Canadian Movies, Canadian News, Canadian Politics, CSN:AFU Aboot Canada | 5 Comments