The Gum Thief

I guess I keep hoping for the best whenever I pick up a Douglas Coupland novel.  I liked the early stuff, such as Generation X and Shampoo Planet, but then I hated most of the other stuff.  Microserfs is the worst book I have ever read, and probably the worst book ever written.  It perplexes me when I note that someone has awarded it 5 stars on Amazon.

I read Eleanor Rigby when it came out.  I got an advance copy directly from Mr. Coupland.  He signed it for me too.  I hated it.  I hate The Gum Thief too.

The book has no plot.  There is a vague story with lots of his quirky pop culture references, but the book has little to keep one reading, except for the bizarre Glove Pond novel-within-a-novel sections.  To me, this is the most interesting part of the book, and it goes nowhere after its dusty beginning, except for a meandering ending.

The only real plot event is one that is telegraphed early in the book, and it follows a clichéd trip to Europe device that is disappointing and not terribly interesting.

Of course, those of you love DC will love it.  I will probably avoid Mr. Coupland from now on, but I still plan to finally visit Canoe Landing Park this summer.

A Look at my CD Collection, Part 9: Daniel Ash (and David J)

Got distracted by various things.  Life is busy, and I have been neglecting my blog. I took an extra long weekend last week and have another long weekend this weekend.  Every weekend ought to be long, if you ask me.  Anyway, because I have nothing better to write about and because blogging expectations have rarely been lower, I continue with a series of self-indulgent posts.

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Bauhaus disintegrated into several subsequent (and less interesting) parts starting in 1983, when the band first broke up.  Bauhaus reformed many years later, but I have no idea what is happening now.  I will save my discussion of Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, Love and Rockets, and Tones on Tail for later.  But now, I have to talk about Daniel Ash and a little bit about David J, both of whom were members of Bauhaus.

I would describe Daniel Ash's first solo record, Coming Down (1991) as a mediocre affair.  I got this CD free from CFNY.  I got lots of freebies from CFNY over the years.  I was never comfortable with calling this station The Edge.  To me, this station died when it stopped being The Spirit of Radio.  Sadly, it is now owned by Corus, and has been reduced to a crappy radio station, just like all of the others.

Coming Down isn't terrible but it isn't great either.  A highlight for me is the title track.  I also like the guitar lick in Daniel Ash's This Love too.  The sad truth is that I haven't played this CD in probably 15 years, which says a lot.  Perhaps I should sell it.  Not surprisingly, I have no other CDs from Mr. Ash.

Having said that, I was less impressed with David J's solo work. I picked up the Candy on the Cross EP and was quite interested to learn that he covered one of my favourite John Cale songs, Antarctica Starts Here.  This track did nothing for me, and I think that the sad experience of listening to that EP scarred me and prevented me from buying any more of his music.  Maybe that's unfair, and I guess I ought to investigate his other music.

The truth seems to be that Love and Rockets and Tones on Tail are better than Daniel Ash of David J on their own.  The same is true of Bauhaus, a band that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Trip Recap, Part 6

Still in Zurich...

It's funny how some individuals have problems with certain things.  Maybe you are squeamish about small birds; maybe you are scared of heights; maybe you are unable to use a cork screw; maybe you have problems opening and closing locks...well, European locks at any rate.

Imagine having meandered around Zurich, stopping here and there, checking out the scene, withdrawing funds from Swiss bank accounts, when suddenly, deep within the Zurich University Botanical Gardens, an urge to micturate overcomes you.  Naturally, you would seek out the facilities, which, in our lucky case, happened to be dead ahead of us.

So, my traveling companion heads straight for the small building which appeared to house toilets.  There were three doors.  Suddenly, I had flashbacks to Monty Hall's Let's Make Deal.  Will she take door number one, door number two, or door number three?

First, she heads of door number one and either pushes it or pulls it, but the door doesn't move.  She moves on to door number two and either pushes it or pulls it, but the door doesn't move.  Note that she either pushed or pulled, rather than attempting both directions.  I was standing back, admiring the view of the city, as the gardens are raised and one got a rather good view of Zurich.  The third door had a set of keys dangling provocatively in the lock. I hadn't noticed this until I turned to see C. turning the key in the lock, back and forth, round and round.

Of course, I had seen these lock manoeuvrings during our stay in Paris, at the impossibly small apartment.  I neglected to mention that the door to that apartment had three locks.  My companion, I realized, is European-lock-challenged.  North American locks seem to pose no problems.  It's the turn-left-two-and-a-quarter-turn type of lock that seems most confounding.

Suddenly, we hear banging and clanging and panicked screams from the inside.  Within a few short seconds, she had managed to lock a workman in his office and was unable to unlock the door.  I imagined that the Swiss gentleman must have been worrying that we were locking him in so that we could make off with various botanical samples, or worse.

I hurried over the scene, and freed the man, who looked completely stunned after having been confined to his office by two strange Canadians.  His expression suggested that he needed an explanation, and my companion tried to comply, but then he looked decidedly non-impressed.  I suppressed the urge to tell him that this is what happens when you leave you keys in the lock, but I was afraid of being expelled from Switzerland.  He removed the keys from the lock and went back into his office.  I hope he learned his lesson.

After rescuing the man, I wandered over and pushed or pulled on the door (you know, like tried both directions) of what appeared to be the female can and it opened.  With her bladder empty, we were able to continue on through the foliage.

A look at my CD collection, part 8: Anjani - Blue Alert

Finally, changing topics...

Q: What kind of a 76 year-old-man dates a 51 year-old-woman?

A: Leonard Cohen

I kind of hate Leonard Cohen, with his constant cadre of women and his perfect songs.  Damn him all to hell.  Blue Alert is what happens when you pair the best song-writer of the 20th Century with a good voice.  It's a jazzy affair, but I think the lyrics are stronger than the music.  There is something not quite right with the musical direction on the album, but I can't put my finger on it.  Maybe it's that the mellowness overwhelms the lyrics to such an extent as to make the songs anemic.  But, I am not a jazz expert by any means.

Sometimes, Doctors are Wrong

Soon after visiting my brother in the hospital, he developed a fever.  This turn of events seemed to strengthen the belief that the doctor had been quite correct.  Everyone thought that this would be the thing to end it all, but then something almost miraculous happened.

After ten days of unconsciousness, he "woke up."  This is amazing, unexpected news, but it is not exactly as good as is sounds.  He cannot speak.  He can only open his eyes for a few seconds at a time.  His is so weak on the right side, that he cannot really move his right arm.  He cannot swallow, meaning that they have to keep a tube in his throat.  He cannot eat because his stomach will not function properly and nothing is kept down.  He is on oxygen.  Of course, since he cannot speak, it is unclear if he is suffering from any brain damage, aside from the obvious speech issue.  He did manage to shake his head in reply to some questions.

What lies ahead, should he continue to come out of this, is months of rehabilitation and a long, slow recovery.  I am not sure that recovery is the correct word since he will most likely have limited mobility and a poor quality of life.  The doctor emphasized that my brother remains in grave condition and that he is very ill.  The doctor is uncertain what lies ahead.  In fact, his original prognosis might still hold true.

So, again, we wait.

I Have two Brothers but I am Brotherless

My brother is going to die.

It's almost impossible to describe the overwhelming sense of sadness in that hospital room.  With my sister, step-mom, my brother's step-daughter, and her child, we stood around trying to make sense of it all.  Five days after his hemorrhagic stroke, he is still unresponsive.  The doctor described two possible outcomes. The less likely is that he will surface and, in the best possible scenario, will de disabled and have massive brain damage.  The other - more likely scenario - is that he will slip into a coma and die of something else, like an infection, perhaps pneumonia.  So certain is he of this outcome, that we all agreed with a "do not resuscitate" plan.  In short, my brother is going to die, but we don't know exactly when.  It could take hours or days or weeks or longer.  But, the timing is irrelevant: my brother is already gone.

The average hospital bed is not up to the task of containing a 475+ pound man.  By some estimates, he is over 500 pounds, but that won't last, not in a hospital bed, especially since his stomach no longer functions: the food forced into him by a tube is regurgitated immediately.  My brother fills the bed completely, like a child lying in a bed made for a toy doll.  Cables and tubes connect him to an array of medical instruments:  a heart rate monitor, a blood pressure cuff, two IVs, and a respirator with its long tube running down his throat.

Throughout the day, I experienced a deep sense of guilt and anger.  My brother is such an asshole.  It's difficult to write that about a family member, one who is on the verge of death, but he is an asshole and it has always pissed me off.  I was supposed to be his friend.  I was supposed to be close to him for my entire life.  We were both supposed to have kids who would play with each other and come over at Christmas.  We were supposed to go to the beach together.  Or, he was just supposed to be around, to be an unconditional friend, to a part of my life.  Instead, he bailed on his entire family, after being a jerk when he was an adolescent.

His three kids (the first of whom came when he was only 16) were sexually abused; the mother and step-father were sent off to prison, the kids being distributed to various foster homes, never to be seen again, though we are looking for them.  Sure, he paid some child support, but only after court orders, and then that dried up when he went on a disability pension.  He made no effort to find them.  He didn't try to obtain custody after the trial when their step-father was found guilty of sexual assault and the mother found guilty of permitting it to happen.

I am angry with my brother for ruining so much of my childhood.  From his violent behaviour toward me to the theft of family possessions, he was a complete bastard.  What can you say about someone who would steal from his own family? At least my other brother, the one who left home when I was 4 years old, never stole from us.  He sold drugs and paid the price, and then I never really saw him again. He disappeared and I have seen in a handful of times, and only twice in the past 25 years, maybe 5 times since I was four years old.  It's like he was never my brother.  He is a mystery to me and I can't even say that I know him.

In the hospital, staring at him in the bed, I was inexplicably on the verge of tears, for a man I never liked, for a man that failed to be a brother, who was a terrible son, a lousy human being, and a disinterested father.  He spent his life barely able to survive, finally ending up a on disability pension because he was too obese to work.  He has sleep apnea, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, troubles with blood clots, and a weak heart. By all accounts he ate massive amounts of unhealthy food and had an immense passion for smoking.  I still insist that this is the outcome he wanted: he wanted to be pitied, to be the village freak, and he did it.  In the end, I might compare him with Ignatius J. Reilly, but without the creativity, or maybe Homer Simpson, but a Homer without any sense of responsibility or love for anyone other than himself.

You may think this uncharitable, but it's true.  The way he spoke clearly indicated that he loved attention.   If he was sick, everyone knew about it.  Everyone knew how many pills he had to take each day because he displayed them in his apartment for some sort of pitying effect.

After a conversation with the doctor, we went to have lunch, and then drove to his apartment.  It's difficult to think about him as being dead, when his is still alive and breathing, but we were forced to investigate the bills, to pay the landlord the overdue rent, to plan for the emptying of the apartment.

The floor around his bed is scarred with burns from cigarettes that fell through his hands as he drifted off to sleep.  Miraculously, there was never a fire.  He gave up smoking six months ago when he needed oxygen.  The bedroom has six oxygen tanks; he has a night-time breathing apparatus.  Another oxygen machine sits in the living room.  I looked around the dismal place and was stunned to see a shelf of family photographs.

I didn't speak to him over the past 25 years, maybe once or twice.  I was angry with him and could never understand how my father could have forgiven him so easily.  My mother too.  But, I guess that's what parents do.  Standing there, staring at the photographs, I began to feel angry with myself for being the holdout, especially when my sister said she had been speaking with him recently.  And then, I saw two photos of me and my two kids (whom he has never met) on a shelf along with recent photos of my sister.  My sister had sent him photos and he ran out to buy frames so he could display them.

I felt like such an idiot.  In the back of my mind, I always assumed that our paths would cross, that we would speak again, that we could forget all of the garbage of the past, but now that's impossible.  He is dying in a hospital, and I am pissed off, but I am not sure if I am angry about him dying or for him failing to be a brother.  How is it that I ended up with two brothers who walked away from their family and never tried to keep in contact with any of us?

I got back in the rental car and headed back to Toronto, feeling a profound sense of loss for a brother I hardly knew.

Brother

My estranged brother has had a stroke.  This is both odd and not odd.  It is odd because he is young, only 17 months older than me.  On the other hand, he is morbidly obese and he leads a very unhealthy lifestyle.  (You can read more about my brother here and here).

He remains unresponsive in a hospital bed, about to be shifted to a different hospital where a neurologist can examine him.  Initially, we were told that the prognosis is grave.  Currently, I have no idea and am just waiting to get the updates.

The Olympics, a few words...

In the spirit of athleticism, I spent most of the last four days on the couch watching the Olympics.  Too bad I had to go back to work.  Well, there was a break long enough for a trip to the theatre to see Up in the Air.

Thank God we got a gold medal.  I was sick of hearing that we had never won on home soil.  It was as if that was all the reporters could find to talk about.  The media kind of sucks, when you think about it.  The media pumps up medal hopes to a point of hysteria.  How is that fair to the athletes?  You would have thought that gold in the men's downhill and men's 500m speed skating were guaranteed.  Give it a rest.

And, a word to Brian Williams about math.  He suggested that Canada has gone 33 years (or so) without winning a gold.  That is stupid.  The Olympics have not been running continuously in Canada since 1976.

What else?  Dale Begg-Smith is a loser, a loser who made a fortune creating malware that might have infected your computer.  I have never seen someone so upset with a silver medal.  What a suck.  Stay in Australia.

More later.

Olympics: Opening Ceremonies

Boring, boring, boring.

Olympics: Opening Ceremonies

I wonder if Ashley MacIsaac is wearing underwear.

Olympics: Opening Ceremonies

The song sung by Nellie & Bryan is lame!  It sucks.

Olympics: Opening Ceremony: Anthem

Who the hell came up with this arrangement for the National Anthem?  I think it sucks.

Trip Recap, Part 5

Skipping ahead to Zurich, here's something you would never see in Toronto: a bar under a freeway.  It worked.  It's really difficult to explain why this worked and I am not sure how such a thing would be received in Toronto. I tried to imagine such a place under the  Gardiner, and I couldn't.

A Look at my CD Collection, part 7: Aidan Baker, including ARC

Several years ago, I picked up a copy of ARC's Feral and was really impressed.  Later, I made sure that I checked them out when they played at C'est What? (on August 19th, 2003).  My CD collection contains:

ARC/Aidan Baker  -  Repercussion (Piehead Records 2002 Series – Volume 1) 

ARC  -  Feral

Aidan Baker  -  Concretion

Aidan Baker  -  Cicatrice

Aidan Baker  -  Within the Final Circle

Aidan Baker  -  Ichneumon

Aidan Baker  -  Tense Surfaces

Aidan Baker  -  Dance of Lonely Molecules

A couple of these were free downloads.  It's Thursday, but it really feels like Friday because I am taking tomorrow off and Monday is Family Day, so I am looking ahead to a four day weekend.  What I am trying to say is that I have not the energy to try to describe the music.  Also, I just got back from an hour of lunchtime yoga, and I feel all bendy and relaxed.  My fingers are not responding well to the task of typing.  But, here is a good review of Feral.

Baker likes to use looping techniques on various instruments, notably the guitar, but also the flute, for example.  If you like this kind of treatment, you might like it, but this is not the kind of music you would sing along to or dance around the bedroom to while putting away laundry.  It's more complex than that.

Oddly, everyone I spoke to at the Ambient Ping that evening assumed that I was a musician.  I am not sure why.  Perhaps ARC is musicians' music or perhaps it's that musicians seem to have more of an open mind when it comes to music than your average iTunes shopper.  It really kills me, as I have often said, that people only want to buy a song or two from a CD.  I have always been an album man.  If there are only one or two good songs on an album, I wouldn't buy it.  I still listen to albums, rather than songs, but I do occasionally put the iPod on shuffle to see what kind of magic might happen.

Why, just yesterday as I was walking with the iPod, I heard European Son by the Velvet Underground followed by Bowie's Queen Bitch and then Bauhaus covering Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.  That was quite the playlist.  Sometimes, the shuffle seems to be possessed and every other song is from the same artist, which is odd.

Baker is a poet too, and has published a few volumes.  I am not familiar with his writing.  He has an extensive discography.  Check out his Wikipedia entry for those details.

Happy Friday and have a good weekend.

ZF's Perfect Frittata Recipe

The perfect frittata starts with a chicken.  Oh, and if you don't have any idea what a frittata is, let me enlighten you. It's evidently of Italian origin and normally made with eggs and chopped vegetables or meat.  It's probably best just to look up a few recipes, and then try this one as it is the best one.

So, as I was saying, the perfect frittata recipe commences with a chicken.  So, first you buy a nice chicken and take it home.  You will want a dead chicken, unless you are fond of killing things. Slather some olive oil and sea salt on the chicken and set the bird aside.  (If you have a preferred chicken recipe, please follow it. Alert: don't put potatoes in with your chicken because they don't belong there.  If you really want potatoes, roast them in a separate pan. And, for the love of God, don't put plain white potatoes in the frittata!).

Step two: cut up lots vegetables.  And, by this I mean parsnips (remember to cut out the woody cores), carrots, sweet potatoes (yams), one or two onions, and squash.  Alert: please use butternut squash.  Most other types of squash are inferior.

Put the vegetables in a large roasting pan.  Remember I said to cut up lots of vegetables?  We need extra for part two of the recipe, so cut up lots and use a large roasting pan.  I use a pan large enough for a turkey or a medium penguin.  Throw in the vegetables along with sea salt and olive oil.

I like to give the vegetables a head start, so pop them into the oven for ten minutes or so at 375 and then throw the bird on top and cook until done.  When I was a younger man, I hated recipes that said "cook until done."  How the hell are you supposed to know what that means  if you have never cooked before?  I am so over that now, so I can say things like "cook until done" and laugh at those who have no idea what it means.

Now, eat your chicken and vegetables, but remember that we have to save some for the frittata that you will make the next day.

After dinner, go to bed.  Well, I suppose that you will have to clean up the kitchen first, and put the leftovers in the fridge.  Get out of bed the next day.  Now, you can either have the frittata for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. Yes, it is that versatile.  If you are having it for breakfast or brunch, start making it when you get out of bed.  Otherwise, cook up some bacon and eggs for breakfast and do this later.

OK, so here is the recipe.

Chop up some bacon.  Use half a package or a third of a package.  This all depends on how many leftover vegetables you have and how big of a frittata you plan to make.  Throw the pieces of bacon into a cast iron pan and cook until crisp. Once crisp, remove from pan and place the bacon on a paper towel.

Retain some or all of the bacon grease in the pan and add a sliced onion and garlic.  When these have partially cooked, add a zucchini (cut in rounds) and a red or orange or yellow pepper (cut in slices).  Alert: please do not use green peppers.  This is an inferior pepper.  And, remember a green bell pepper is simply an immature red pepper.  It's like eating a green banana. You want a ripe red bell pepper or its luscious cousins, the yellow or the orange.  Oh, and you could add broccoli, but I only do that if I have no zucchini. It's OK, but I think it's not as good as using a zucchini.  You could also use asparagus.

Once the vegetables are nicely on their way, add the leftover vegetables from the chicken.  Stir it up and  let it all warm through.  Beat some eggs in a bowl.  The size of your pan and the amount of vegetables will determine the number of eggs.  It could be 5, 6, or 7 or more.  Don't include the shells.  Add a bit of milk (soy milk, please) and some pepper.  You won't need any salt.

Pour this over the contents of the pan.  You may find that you will need an extra egg.  If so, beat one up and pour it in.  It's probably best to cover the pan with a lid to help it cook through the middle.  When it looks cooked on top, just stick a knife in to make sure you don't have any gooey egginess inside.

Now, you will stick the pan under the broiler in your oven.  I put in in for a short time, and then sprinkle the bacon over the top.  Some of you people who are addicted to cheese may want to add  the congealed breast milk of a hairy 2000 pound animal, or even parmesan.  Feel free to ruin it, but I would prefer if you didn't.   Don't burn it.

Cut it and serve it, perhaps with a salad on the side, if this is a lunch menu item.

And, there you have an easy recipe.

By the way, you can use the leftover chicken in any number of ways.  I like to make chicken salad.  Mmmmn, mayo...

Blogger Fail

Well, you know when you have failed as a blogger when you receive email like this:

More importantly, what has happened to your blog? It used to be hip (like the Simpsons) now it's not (like the Simpsons).  Perhaps you can inject some life into it by writing entries under a series of "guest contributers" such as "Lionel the 30-Year Old Bedwetter" or "The Fetus."  Just a suggestion.

I am not sure about writing guest entries myself, but I'd be happy to entertain posts from guest contributors.  Send them on.

Be Careful what you Ask for

The temperature in my office soared to a crazy 80.6 degrees after hovering around 61 degrees for weeks.  This, after it was fixed, and fixed a bit too well, if you ask me.  Still, I'd rather work in the 80s than the 60s.  I couldn't really type with cold hands, but in this heat, I am all limber, but craving a piña colada and wondering where my sandals are.

After leaving my office door open, and permitting some of the heat to flow out, it drops a bit, but it is still a bit too hot.  I'd hate to complain, and be thrust back into the ice age.

On the downside, the high temperatures force me to remember to put my lunch in the fridge, something I normally forgot to do, but with such cool temperatures, it mattered not.

Oh, and I think (as I crack a yawn) that the warm temps are causing me to tire more quickly that when it was cold.  I need to create space under my desk to sleep, like George Costanza.  That would be sweet.

Heat!

Finally, I have heat!  My office has been cold, very cold, as cold as 60 degrees, necessitating the wearing of a fleece.  It was so cold, I had difficulty typing.  I hated coming back to my office, preferring to stay wherever was warmer, like my bed.  But, finally, after some visits from the folks who are supposed to fix things, it is fixed.

The dude climbed into the ceiling and noted that the vent to my office was closed.  He opened it and I can actually feel the heat coming in.  It is so nice.  Of course, if it gets too warm (unlikely in this brutal building), I might need a nap.  Wait, I need a nap anyway, owing to the difficulty I had in sleeping last night.

I am generally a good sleeper, taking no longer than a few minutes to fall asleep.  But, last night, the hours ticked away and nothing.  I hate it when that happens.  So, I am yawning.  In fact, I am yawning while I type this, but at least I am warmer.  No more long underwear in my office!

A Dream

Last night, I had a dream that I was hangin' out with David Bowie.  I am not sure if we were friends, but I was in his house, helping myself to beverages from his fridge, which had doors at both front and back, I gather so that nothing got lost in the recesses of the appliance.  And, the fridge was situated in such as way so that you could approach it from two sides.  Talk about conveniences.

After eying a nice, cool drink, I suddenly was only able to find small cold medicine vials and other things that appeared to be homeopathic substances. I never did find my drink, and then Iman came into the kitchen and I decided to find out where David went.

The end.

WTF?

At lunch, I stood in line behind a youngish-looking university student as she paid for her $1.00 can of pop. I have yet to understand why people drink diet pop (or even regular pop for that mater).

I considered that topic for a moment and was then stunned as I watched her pay for her purchase.  After tax, she was looking at a massive $1.13 bill.  Out came the debit card.

Seriously?  She used a debit card to pay for $1.13!  I never use any kind of plastic if it's under $10.  I bet her transaction fee was 50 cents.  For a brief moment, I considered paying for her drink, but that feeling of chivalry (or whatever it was) passed quickly.

This was on my way back from checking out some lingering sales.  I am in a clothing crisis and really need to add to my wardrobe in a bad way.  I am not done yet, though I picked up two shirts and two pairs of pants.