parkdale interiors

interstellar space

(civil society)

Ok, explain Temperance.

The explanation was that it was for civil society. Because who would farm if you could drink? 'We gave you the land to make a country.' Etc. And what would the women and kids do?

Exactly. A drunk husband. All I’m saying is the other argument is, you know, don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need your help. I’m straight.

I know. But you’ll make a case for anything.

Well, suicide then. I mean... Altho, there are the failed suicides. Is it really just a cry for help? Legislate against incompetence, a hedge against expense?

I knew a failed suicide.

Yeah?

At the hospital when I worked on the elevator.

Oh yeah. Who?

She was 18, she jumped off a building

how many floors?

Not high enough. 8th floor.

8 isn’t enough?

Ha. Apparently not. There was this other guy who shot himself. Permanent wheelchair, para. He’d offer to let me touch the entrance and exit holes, little soft spots on his head.

Wow. What caliber was the gun?

Why?

Small bullets’ll spin around inside your skull and pop out the other side.

That’s what he said.

So, would he say he was more inclined than ever? “In the mouth next time” ?

You’d think. No, I asked him once, ‘what do you think now?’ And he said, ‘Well, now I think I was a fucking idiot.’

Like, ‘I’ve got to get my shit together.’?

That’s what he was like. There were others. The ones who were speeding and crashed.

Right, they’re like, why me?

This one guy was driving his sports car and he was leaning out the side window to talk to someone and he hit his head.

Oh my god.

Quadriplegic. He was angry everyday.

ultimate ensemble

parsimony
stiegl
bix
cecil taylor
ego
WoW
txting
method
milch
middle school
facebook
gallic wars
gemmell
chandler (raymond)
acid western
weight
lob wedges
lies
rotary telephones
big pushes for disaster
the incredulous stare
elric
tegmark

specials

i don't know butchie instead

half off nothing

seriously, let's congratulate ourselves on our snack food innovation. the choices are endless and ever evolving. it's wonderful. honestly, all snack food wants is for you to love it. it could be chips, or maybe flavoured jerky or some traditional confectionary product. is pop a snack? maybe you like blueberries. it doesn't matter. we have snacks covered.

wow. what an awesome evaluation. is that just the beginning of what you learned tonight?

fuck you.

typical. that's exactly the response half the world would have typed.

yeah? half the whole world, or half the english typing world?

whatever you fucking idiot.

yeah. you say.

ok i'm getting the air.

i'll come.

fine.

...

...

downhill is downtown

regrettin' the early hour

fold your thumb

deus ex machina

in 1998, when most of my friends weren't yet separated and i had a career trajectory, my distant teenaged cousin came to toronto to visit. things were really happening then. albums were coming out, novels were being published. we had invitations to events. sometimes, we were featured. then and now, i can't remember what it was like to be 18. how heavy it was.

anyway, my distant cousin comes to visit. she's on a pass from an institution in guelph, but she glosses over this. i abdicate any adult evaluation; fronting it's cool to let them be. kids. you want so bad to be on their side; but they are insane and unafraid. anyway, we got a pulse. the next day, as she boarded the bus back to the institute, she cheerfully hoped to avoid the urine test.

just the other day, she found me again. we hadn't communicated since that weekend. but i have thought of it often. i got a letter from her. she included a couple photos. in one, she's standing next to a Triumph, in a gravel parking lot full of motorcycles. she's got goggles up on her army helmet and she's giving a look to the camera that registers right on with me. i recognized her immediately. she's my side of the family.

tell him something pretty

bella union

keeps me young

after cecil

...booze and pills and powders

brings a gun to the temple

broke neck hoople

"i am not the fine man you take me for, no no.
i come in april to sell a string of horses
and try my luck in the stream.
what i got for the stock
i lost at the wheel,
and the flake i washed up
i drank the fuck away.
i sold my boots
and owe nine dollars to a whore.
i don't know if i'll make it home at all."

all in good time

way past ornette

i don't look.

every guy looks.

i don't look.

...

i don't.

product placement

paint

pedal tone

aim for a new tomorrow

bachman maximum overdrive

rock bottom reminders

pilot

there was this show on the radio about this religious guy who died...

yeah.

supposedly he did good things. he built schools. he asked people to fund different things. christian values.

yeah, christian values.

he made comments after september 11 that people who were gay or different, they'd have to calm themselves. like this was god's retribution.

...

anyway... working man blues.

it's next.

great.

you win again

mudlark

socialized

no thanks. the world already moves too fast for me.

you're so antediluvian.

...

ok, fuck. i get it.

that's all i'm saying. who has the energy for that?

we used to. you used to.

yeah, we used to. but we're wiser now. number two, it's incredibly expensive.

the problem with today is this fucked up career infrastructure.

exactly.

work your fucking ass off.

what?

work your ass off. that's how it works.

don't feel like you have to. that's all i'm saying.

why can't we get more *novelty?

exactly. what happened to the flea circus? or death by quicksand?

ha. ask ricky jay. ask gilligan.

did you hear that alec baldwin called his daughter a thoughtless little pig?

that's awesome. you really dont' realize until you become an adult that adults have no idea.

exactly. but they fucking exploit it.

getting up on a daily basis and fucking making things work with other people...

yeah.

fucking tax evasion is the last frontier.

milch.

yep.

it's a ploy these days, outrage.

...

[later on, there's this terrible panic. i mean, unbelievably terrible.]



*money

not how i want it

i plead with my old lady to put down the gun. i say, sweet pea, if you don't kill me, which a twenty-two will not do, i am going to fuck you up. But she is steady. when a woman decides she's going to kill you, she likes it when you beg. She wants you to beg. Women sometimes say that they love a strong man who can cry. But they are lying. They want a man that will get them money. That's why I'm pleading. Because i'm like any other mutherfucker. I just want my shit to be cool. I want it tight. So when this old lady licks her loose lips and demands new shoes and baseboards and babies i automatically swing around for the exit. But she's saying all this crazy shit with this single action sprouting and it hits me, 'she's telling you she loves you!" but i've never been right about anything. she squeezes the trigger and of everything she's fucked up in our three glorious, soaked weeks of romance, killing me isn't one of them.

hot wings over america

rotate past

tonight's the night

saloon

Tonight your bunker
of spirits and compliments,
might just do the trick

georgia

long-time girlfriends can
visit empty handed and
argumentative.

vercingetorix (seven sagres)

rides

rommel

i wanted to win
your ego sabotaged us.
now the tanks are gone

as the red fades

just to hit glass

hey.

jesus. it's 4am.

i can't do this without you.

i hate you. don't you remember?

yeah, but how am i supposed to make my living?

can't you hate yourself?

felt

indie rock deserves
a fucking punch to the face
or a velvet touch.

lady in the lake

come on, you say hot phrases but you're just gonna leave me sick.

-doubting potential is the only advantage we have left.

even if i could say yes, i couldn't agree.

-i know.

so we're impossible.

-your ideas are.

better angels

Once a dog bites you
you look at them diff'rently.
dogs don't know better

The Rare Bird

[we're sorry, this video is no longer available]

calgon take me away

cups and balls

is this it?

I’m surprised when she answers. It’s late but she sounds wide awake and like she was expecting someone to call. There’s no way I can represent myself, but she says she likes it. It takes six months for this to become ironic.

those hilton sisters

really it's out if it's in

flashback: labour day monday. sometime between 1998 and 2003, noon. "backstage" a polyester clad cocaine addict spills backwards over the sectional, cutting her head open on a clay pot. ten minutes later, screaming blood, the band hits the deck and there's this terrific silver sparkling flash. The pantsuited singer has not been grounded. The first chorded croon on the microphone completes the circuit, everything pops, and she's vanished. no one's seen her since, but there's a local claim of a front tooth found in her marshall.

anyway, i got the tooth and i made a necklace out of it and gave it to my girlfriend. she's like: "what the fuck's this? a tooth? is it yours?" and so i tell her the legend and she throws it at me and says, "you gave me some other chicks tooth?"

i hate you.

some guys find gold in the river.

i think that's a little simplistic.

don't sweat it.

i'm not sweating it.

whatever.

senorita i'm in trouble again

are mathematicians fools? they all go crazy trying to figure out how to get home. they're worse than lovers. we go so long around to find the thinnest things. And then we find they're not even there.

see through windows

cutting winter wind
screens much as curtains, hides my
coffee pot sunday

all that strict of a christian

-...but I can’t juggle like the smothers brothers.
who are the smother brothers?
-Oh they were these jugglers.
shit I just dropped my orange on the ground. It's dusty!
-...
...
-do you think if you ate a human, is there more nutrients in the skin or the meat?

old flame

she left a message
today, about old pictures.
'B, we look so young'

clever hans

all around nodders
abound like cunt, supplicants
mimicking a mind

come on

don't blame me because we aren't friends anymore. i don't know what happened either. it just became so zero sum. you hate me so much but only because i had to choose first. you never understood; it's easy to be second. i loved you.

fuckin radio listener

why are you always so negative?

i don't think you're in any position to fucking comment. fuckin radio listener.

get out of there, right now

dispute the reason for rules
as laid down by motherfuckers,
that's just plain bold.

(i'm doing time here without you)

orange you glad?

that alien growth
inside navel oranges reminds me
of our love affair

flammable vs. strunk and white

"Unless you are [...] concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable."

(where) did you go?

Nebuchadnezzar

as a fucking point of learning, don't i question myself now when i'm sure of something? fucking right. if there is question, there is no question.

i don't get it. so you're like some constant questioner?

exactly.

that's idiotic. you're idiotic. i'm done. fuck you solipsists. i'm going home. give me my iPod back.

don't make any fucking mistake. i'm not young. you don't want expectations.

so how do you go from that to hating the radio? you can't hate everything. you can't fight all the time! i don't understand how come

that's because you keep looking at pictures.

you make me hate everybody. that's not a healthy dynamic.

wouldn't want you out there uneducated.

i hate it when you do that.

do i tell you everything's going to be ok? you'd rather have a fucking job?