Free Music Monday 2: Electric Boogaloo

So, funny story. Back in my first year of university, I had this really cool English professor named David Gooblar. Gooblar was a young guy (it was his first year teaching), but he gave great lectures and was generally awesome all around. But it wouldn’t last long; after first term, David Gooblar left the school.

David Gooblar left to play in a rock band.

The band, also called Gooblar, played a few shows around London in 2007/2008; tragically, I never got a chance to see them. But that doesn’t mean I had to miss out on Gooblar’s music forever; the band also cut an album, Don’t You Want Me, Gooblar?, most of which is available for free on the internet.

Tragically, the band doesn’t seem to be active anymore. But the music lives on forever; you can reach Gooblar’s website here in order to snag their songs. Of the four, here’s two stand-outs:

Twentieth Century, from Don’t You Want Me, Gooblar?
The real stand-out from the album. It’s a lot of fun and oddly upbeat for a song with lines about “genocide and ethnic cleansing”.

Uh-Oh, from Don’t You Want Me, Gooblar?
This song, on the other hand, is very, very angry.

I’ve tried using Google to see what David Gooblar’s been up to lately, but haven’t had any luck. Wherever you are, Gooblar, keep rocking out.

It’s Always Snowing in Nova Scotia: Gay Porn

I’m dreaming about Mega Man. More specifically, I’m dreaming about the original NES game; the whole thing is even in 8-Bit. It’s fun, and I’m reluctant to wake up even after Danielle starts talking to me and asking questions.

“So you’ll do it? Awesome”

“Wha…” I say. “Huh?”

I come back to full consciousness, covered in cats. Danielle is on the phone. I’ve apparently just agreed to take part in a LARP.

*****

Danielle has a history of trying to talk me into strange things. There was a period where she decided it would be best for me if I was gay, and tried her best to gently nudge me in that direction. For the most part it was just little things, like saying “girls are too much trouble” and telling me that if I were gay, she would support me. One time, though, we were trading reading recommendations when Danielle suggested I give a certain comic book I try. I looked it up.

“Dani”, I said, “this is gay porn”.

After that Danielle’s efforts sort of faltered. I think she came to terms with my sexuality.

Needless to say, things with me and Dani have always been pretty weird. Even so, she’s pretty much my best friend. For awhile she was my only friend; when I moved from Amherst to Winnipeg I had a hard time meeting people, and Dani was the only person I got to talk to regularly. When I went to England and the timezone difference made communication difficult I would stay up until 3AM just to get a chance to talk to her. More than anyone else in the world, Danielle has always been there for me. We trust each other unconditionally, respect each other immensely, care about each other infinitely.

So I’m understandably worried I’ll break her heart when I tell her I’ll never see her again.

*****

I let Dani know I don’t feel up to LARPing and she starts making calls to get me out of it. Eventually the whole thing gets canceled anyway, making the point moot, and the two of us spend the rest of the morning watching videos on the internet.

From here the the conversation turns to internet fandom. Dani tells me about weird piece of video game fandom she found; Kingdom Hearts II characters drawn as Pokemon, then changed back to humans, who then have Pokemon children that later turn into humans. Someone went through the effort to create this. Then, someone else drew fanart of it.

“Wow,” I say. “I think that’s one step removed from total entropy.” In return, I tell her about Dragon Ball Z/Diary of Anne Frank crossover fan fiction I once saw.

It’s taken me three years to get back to Amherst, and so far I’ve wasted most of my time talking about comic books and things on the internet. This may be my last visit, too; because of the cost, distance, and the life I’m building, I’m not sure I’ll ever come back. I’ve got to stop wasting time. I’ve got to get serious, have an adult conversation. I have to break the news.

I turn to Danielle. “You realize I’m probably never coming back, right?”

To my surprise, her reply is nonchalant. “We didn’t expect you to come back this time.”

*****

Dani goes to shower, and not knowing what else to do I get on the computer. It’s been two days since I’ve checked my e-mail, and I have about a million messages. At first I’m not sure why, until I remember that yesterday was my birthday. Beth even sent me a birthday haiku:

“You don’t want people
to remember your birthday
so I fucked your mom”

Thanks, Beth.

Free Music Monday

Do you like free things? The RIAA got you down? Looking for impossible levels of hipster cred? Then good news; the internet is full of indie groups for you.

As someone who likes having a large library of music but generally doesn’t go in for illegal downloading shenanigans, internet indie performers and bands have been a boon for me. They’re a great source of good (or at least good-ish) music, provided you can find them. With that in mind, I’m here to tell you about an indie performer I’ve found recently who’s music is pretty damn good.

Kupek is a band consisting of one man, Bryan Lee O’Malley (whom you might recognize as the genius behind to Scott Pilgrim series). Besides supplying the world with one of the best comic book series of modern times, O’Malley also records music and gives it away just because it’s fun. I hear he does live shows, too.

Kupek’s 5.5 albums (one is a collab) can be found and downloaded here. But just so you don’t have to trudge through all 83 tracks (wow, that’s a lot), here’s some of the highlights:

Don’t Bother, from the album Tries Again.
Fun Fact: This was used in the soundtrack of the film One Week, which I had a chance to see for free and then didn’t. Oops.

Donut Lagoon, from the album Tries Again.
Wherein O’Malley establishes his nerd cred by causally referencing Raccoon Tail power-ups in a song.

Are You Ready to Go, from the album Awkward Songs.
One of the many mostly-acoustic numbers from Kupek. I really dig the long pauses between certain lines.

Cough Drops, from the album B is for Bupek.
Considering the summer I’ve been having, I identify pretty strongly with this one. See if you can tell why!

She’s an Invalid, from the album B is for Bupek.
Parts of the song (particularly the repeated stuttering) are kinda hokey, but as a whole I like the tempo and structure of this one.

I had a really had time narrowing that down to just five songs, and an even harder time spreading those five out between several albums. Just so you know? Pretty much all of “B is for Bupek” is ace. You should probably listen to the whole thing.

Happy listening, guys.

It’s Always Snowing in Nova Scotia: It Burned Down Last Year

We’re deep into French country, and Stephen and Jon are going to get our asses killed.

“Oui oui! I would like some french toast!”

Both of them are wearing their berets, both are speaking in terrible French accents. An ominous draft blows through the restaurant.

“You can’t do that here! This is Aulac!” It’s possible nobody every said this directly, but the sentiment was certainly implied. We can’t afford to get ourselves killed at such an early juncture; there’s still so much to do.

We are eating at the Big Stop, for what may be the last time.

*****

Danger doesn’t manage to find us, and we pass the time talking about comic books and tv shows. It’s what we talked about on the car ride here. It’s what we talked about during the day. It’s what we talk about nearly all the time. Even our attempts at serious conversation tend to end up couched in comic book terms.

Somehow we dredge ourselves out of our conversational sinkhole, and I start fielding questions about people I know out west. They’re perplexed by the fact that so many people out there smell me, like I was a flower or glass of wine. I find it perplexing, too.

Danielle’s mom happens to be eating here too, with her friends. She says hi and gives me a hug. Danielle spends the whole dinner taking pictures and photos, barely touching her food. But then, Dani is such a picky eater that she barely touches any food. My dinner is disappointing, but the milkshake is nice.

On our way back Jon takes the wrong turnoff. We’re heading to Sackville. Stephen shouts at him.

“How could you take the wrong turn-off, Jon?!”
“I always take that turn when I’m going for classes! It’s instinct!”
“What are we going to do in Sackville, Jon?!”

Benji, of course, has the answer. “The liquor stores are still open in New Brunswick.”

*****

Though Amherst has all my friends, Sackville is the town where I grew up. My dad got a job at the university there when I was three, and we stayed until I was somewhere around Grade Six. It’s a tiny place, the kind where you only have one of everything; one grocery store, one barber shop, one pharmacy. Yet despite the frugality elsewhere, you can still find at least six pizza places; it’s how you know it’s a college town.

We drive one of the two streets making up the downtown. Everything is exactly how I remember it, even though I haven’t lived here in nearly a decade. The cinema (one screen), Mel’s Tearoom (which doubled as my first comic shop), and….

We turn off Bridge Street onto Main Street. The building on the corner is wrapped in plastic and covered in scaffolding. “What happened here?” I ask.

“Oh, that.” says Jon. “Most of Main Street burned down last year.”

*****

We get to the liquor store, and Stephen and Jon take the opportunity to clown around in their berets with the French wine. It turns out no one is all that interested in getting anything, with the obvious exception of Benji; he’ll spend the rest of the night trying to get me drunk. We drive back to Dani’s; they sing happy birthday again, this time with a birthday cake and pie. We spend the night devouring them while watching movies and playing about a million rounds of Super Smash Bros.

I spend a lot of the night cracking jokes at Jon’s expense, and then feel really bad about it. Jon seems to think something entirely different is going on, though. “Every time you say ‘just throwing this out there’”, he says, “I think you’re about to hit on me”. To dispell this notion I spend the rest of the evening trying to hook up Stephen and Jon; though they claim to resist my efforts, they end up leaving together.

Tomorrow is February 14th, Valentine’s day. I try to discreetly ask Danielle if I should clear off so she and Benji can spend some time together. But their relationship has always been somewhat non-traditional, and they explain that won’t be necessary. Somehow in the midst of this Danielle and I agree to find time to sit down for tea and discuss life.

Everyone goes off to bed, and it’s just me trying to sleep while the cats crash around the living room, chasing each other and desperately trying to climb on the bed. Danielle mentioned that Shuck hasn’t been neutered, and I’m worried if I fall asleep they’ll try to have sex on top of me. But eventually the noise subsides, and I’m off to sleep again.

We Will Return After a Word from Our Sponsor…

Since I haven’t updated in forever, I now give you a brief recap of my summer thus far:

Slightly more regular blogging will hopefully resume soon.

It’s Always Snowing in Nova Scotia: “Rattlesnakes”

I wake up to cats puking.

“Shit!” Danielle yells, grabbing the cat and sprinting away from the rug. The cat lets out another burst of vomit and it barely misses my open suitcase.

It looks to be to opening of a fantastic day.

*****

Things are pretty quiet until Stephen Lawless arrives. Stephen Lawless. It’s a name that deserves to be said in full. A name that calls to mind some sort of dashing rogue or noble highwayman, plundering riches and evading justice through the sheer force of overwhelming charisma.

The truth is not far off.

For awhile I took to telling my friends in Vancouver “Stephen Lawless Stories”, tales in the vein of Chuck Norris Facts detailing Stephen’s legendary feats and prowess. The thing was, many of these stories were actually true, like the time he organized a football game with me as the ball (and was gracious enough not to spike after the touchdown), or the time he tried to combine us all into a giant fighting robot. Yet the true stories were so bizarre that they seemed no different than the fake ones.

Stephen Lawless was always a man who could convince you that a bad idea was good. A renowned layabout, he once skipped forty days of school in a single term. During his long stretches of unemployment he would bum money from his friends. But what would have been annoying or outright contemptible in other people was mostly forgiven with Stephen; he was just too damn charming for you to care.

Or at least, that’s how I remembered him. Since I left Amherst Stephen had gotten a job and settled into a serious and committed relationship. He was getting ready to join the Navy and planned to send his girlfriend part of his paycheck while he was gone. Once he even listened to me talk about my problems, and then gave good advice.

This was not the Stephen Lawless I knew.

Needless to say, I was somewhat apprehensive about seeing Stephen. Of all my friends, he seemed to have changed the most. It was going to be strange, the clash between my expectations of him and how he was now. I wasn’t sure how I’d react.

Of course, Stephen turned out to be pretty much the same.

*****

I break the news. “I’ve been telling my friends stories about you. Not true ones. More like those Chuck Norris memes”.
“Yeah?” Stephen asks. “Like what?”
“I told them that one time you used a rattlesnake as a condom, because it was the only thing you could find that was long enough.”
Stephen just looks at me, and without a second’s pause puts me in my place;
“You forgot one thing. When I was done, the rattlesnake came.”

*****

Stephen brings us team shirts, to celebrate the reunion of the League of Something Dammit. Apparently Danielle designed them, and he took care of getting them printed. The League is an old joke of ours; Benji, who wasn’t in the League at the time, swears to become our supervillain.

Stephen tells me about all the stuff he’s been doing to get ready for the Navy. He got his GED (a necessity due to his legendary high school truancy), had surgery to fix his eyesight (Stephen Lawless was carved by lasers), quit work at McDonalds, got a job at a call center, and is now just waiting to be called up. Despite being just as witty, charismatic and crude as ever, Stephen has somehow grown up and gotten more responsible. He’s not different, like I expected… he’s just got his shit together.

Later Jon gets off school and comes over. He talk about where to go for my birthday dinner; I suggest Cinders, a local steakhouse I used to really enjoy. It would be nice to get a good steak for my birthday, especially since the year before I had gone to a vegetarian restaurant simply because so many of my friends didn’t eat meat. It just seemed easier that way.

Unfortunately, I’m told that Cinders kind of sucks now. We run through some options, and someone tosses out the Big Stop, a nearby truck-stop diner. What follows is inexplicable. Jon, Stephen and Benji just start repeating Big Stop’s name, the tone getting deeper each time; soon they descended to a serious of low, guttural sounds that are either meant to convey manliness or to imitate pirates. This display goes on for several minutes. The idea of Big Stop is clearly very popular.

What the hell. I haven’t eaten at a truck-stop diner in years. Big Stop it is.

It’s Always Snowing in Nova Scotia: The Long Road Home

I turn 20 on the car ride home. Danielle, Benji and Jon break out into song. It’s still snowing hard, and Jon’s dad tries his best to ignore us and keep from careening off the road.

After being gone for so long my greetings with everyone were oddly perfunctory. I said hello, people said hello back. Hugs were exchanged. We stood by the luggage belt in silence while Benji and Danielle argued about whether I needed help with my bags. When the four of us finally do start talking, it’s mostly about stuff they want to show me on the internet.

The car ride back comes off like an unending stream of hotlinks; Stephen’s blog, my blog, webcomics I should be reading, videos I should be watching, songs I should hear. I mentioned the Washington video; Danielle suggests Johnny Wander. When we get back to Danielle’s we will watch Metalocylpse until 3AM rather than talk. Before that happens Danielle mentions the only important thing I’ll hear tonight.

“You’ll have to meet Rachel while you’re here,” Danielle tells me.
“Your friend Rachel? I already know her.”
“Oh,” says Dani. “Well, anyway, she’s pregnant.”

*****

Though I haven’t talked to her in years, I’ve actually known Rachel for longer than I’ve known Danielle, Jon or Stephen. I met her back in my first year of high school, when it was just me and Benji and a school full of enemies. I had moved to Amherst two years before and didn’t have many friends. Many of the people I did hang out with were the kinds of kids who only kept you around so they’d have someone to pick on; the kind who would throw things at you in class and try to pants you in public. It was not a particularly happy time in my life.

Benji was significantly better off; having lived here his whole life he had a large group of friends. But they were mostly skaters, and I never really fell in with them. There was no overlapping interest, and to be frank I found them huge and intimidating. Benji was still roughly my size, and a huge enough geek that we could talk about video games and television shows we both liked. It was the closest thing I had to a niche.

Rachel was another friend of Benji’s; not one of the skaters, just a girl he happened to know. I remember her being short and having some kind of medical issue; a surgical chest scar, or a hearing aid. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Though Rachel was around a lot over the next couple of years I never really got close to her or became friends. I think she was sarcastic a lot of the time. She may have had a good sense of humour. And now she was pregnant.

I try to figure out what I’ll say if I see her; “I see you’ve made some bad decisions.” “So, what have you been up to, besides getting pregnant?”. I ask Danielle for advice, and she tells me to act as if I don’t notice anything unusual.

*****

We’ve made it to the house now, and there’s still a few minutes left between when we walk in the door and when we start watching TV because we have nothing to say. Danielle gives me two and a half years worth of birthday and Christmas presents; plastic dinosaurs, sticker books, mix tapes, a DVD copy of “Once Upon a Time in the West”, and three bags of BBQ chips. I give her comics, a ring and a rock I found for her at Stonehenge. Jon gets a beret; Stephen will be getting one too, when he arrives. The two barely take them off over the course of my visit.

At 3AM, when we’re done watching TV, Jon goes home while Danielle and Benji go to bed. I’ll be sleeping on the spare bed they have set up in the living room. Danielle and Benji have an apartment next to a tattoo parlour, and the ceiling leaks in at least five different places. An intricate array of pots and garbage bags keep the floor dry, but the water pours down all night. There’s constant splashing from all corners of the house, in every part of the room.

It’s like sleeping behind a waterfall.

It’s Always Snowing in Nova Scotia: Prologue

“Have you every heard of the Wordsworth trail?”

I’m overcome by intense revulsion. Every nerve in my body shudders in disgust and dehydration. I don’t reply, hoping he takes the hint, but it’s to no avail.

“I’m hoping to get out to England next summer to walk it. Either there or South America.”

My fellow passenger Dave launches into a long monologue about the hiking he does, the trails he’s been on, the ones he wants to visit, and how old age is slowing him down. He’s been at this for while now; he spent nearly an hour asking questions about me and my film major. I spent that same hour downing glass after glass of water in an attempt to forestall a hangover, desperately wishing he’d leave me alone. Now it’s his turn to talk about himself.

I am very worried that this man might be hitting on me.

It’s not that I have a problem being hit on by men; indeed, it’s something I’ve dealt with before. But this guy has to be in his mid 40s, and it’s creepy as hell. How do you politely tell someone decades older than you ‘no’? I’m 19 now, just a day shy of 20, so what he’s doing isn’t actually illegal; it’s just a clear violation of the half-plus-seven rule.

He mentions that he teaches high school. I worry for his students. I flag down a passing stewardess.

“More water, please.”

*****

The water is more of a precaution than a necessity. I’m not hung over now, but I fear that at any second I could be. A few of my friends threw a small farewell party last night. It’s the closest I’ll get to a birthday party on this side of the continent. Not coincidentally, it’s also as close as I want to get to one.

“I booked my flight for tomorrow because I was incredibly bitter. I didn’t to be here for my birthday.”

This is true but in retrospect kind of cruel, the kind of thing you don’t tell your friends. 2008 was a very bad year for me, a year in which I was at points starving, disease-stricken, seriously depressed or just an abject failure. When I got to the end I decided I just wanted to be anywhere else, so I booked a plane ticket to see my friends back east. I even told my roommate Alyssa that I might never come back.

And then, things got better.

Running away from your problems is much more difficult when you don’t have any.

*****

Dave has stopped talking, but what he’s doing now is even worse. He’s broken out a packed lunch and eating his vegetable dip with his fingers, licking it straight off the flesh. Whenever a stewardess walks by he asks them for floss. I can’t help but hope this is all the licking he plans to do in the future.

As the plane lands my brain goes into high gear. What am I going to do if he propositions me for bathroom sex? Can I just lose him in the terminal? Will there be a confrontation? Will security be called?

After we touch down Dave grabs his bags and walks away. He doesn’t even say bye.

*****

It’s Toronto to Moncton now, and the going is rough. The sky is thick with snow, and out the window I can see the wind bouncing the wings up and down. It’s like the plane, in a desperate attempt to stay aloft, has decided to flap like a bird.

We touch down, and the plane skids on a patch of ice. For split second I’m sure we’re all going to die, and I’m ecstatic. It’s not that I want to die; I’ve just always suspected I’d go out in a plane crash. It would be nice to be right about something for once.

Instead the plane’s wheels find their grip. We slow to a crawl and inch our way to the terminal. When I finally get out I can see my friends waiting, one of them holding a sign reading, oddly enough, “McNeil”. They’ve come to get me. I’m home.

Family Hour

As most of you are aware, I’m currently on the opposite side of the continent visiting my ancestral homeland in the east. Full details of my trip will emerge shortly (or longly. Most likely it will take awhile). In the meantime, I will talk about my family.

My family is pretty big. On my mom’s side I have eight cousins, all of whom are at least eight years younger than me. Whenever we manage to get that side of the family together, the result is chaos; you have a tonne of little kids running around, jumping, shouting and demanding attention.

Today the family decided to throw me a birthday party. Today, there was chaos.

No less than three people under the age of eight jumped on my back. I was blindfolded and led on a circuitous route through the house, forced to bump into furniture again and again. I was made to spin in circles for three solid minutes. I picked kids up more times than I can count.

Damn, these kids are tiring. Fun, but tiring.

I also met my cousin Jolene for the first time, who is 19 months old and walking, but not talking. She’s almost got the hang of it, babbling in a bizarre mix of baby talk and something that could almost be French, if you don’t think about it too hard (much of my family on this side speaks French). One of my other cousins, Vanessa, drew me a birthday card and taught me to play new card games. At no point did she try to jump on my back. She is now my favourite cousin.

Later her brother Nicholas, the oldest of the group, jammed on the guitar for awhile. He’s pretty good at it, despite being so young. He’s on my very exclusive list of “kids with potential”.

Also, there was cake. Those kids can eat a lot of cake.

All said, it was nice seeing everyone. I haven’t been here in nearly three years now, and it was nice to see that I was both (a) missed, and (b) remembered by everyone, even the smallest of my cousins. As insane as it can get it’s nice having the entire clan around for family time; it’s an experience I that won’t be possible in a few more years, once they’re grown up more.

This concludes today’s awkwardly sentimental post. Tune in later for even more awkward and bizarre posts about my trip to the east.

Metablogging

What the shit? My hits randomly spiked to 81 the other day, rather than my usual of 20. Considering I haven’t updated in awhile, that’s odd.

Even odder, someone got here using the search term “Giraffapus”.