fake shark really understands me

i have a hard time leaving my house. i don't know if this is because of crippling social anxiety problems, my busy life, fear of running into people i've offended on the internet, or some unholy combination of the three, but it is becoming a real problem. i'm late to everything - months ago i showed up at seylynn hall at 10 thinking i was really early but missed curtis santiago, this weekend i couldn't get out on friday or saturday until 1:40am.

usually this isn't that big a deal because i only go to bars and, i, like everybody else, only go out to have my picture taken by anyone with a camera, disguise my drug and alcohol dependencies as a purely social behaviour, and get laid, so i can do that all by appearing at the last minute, saying hi to the right people, and then swooping off with the drunkest girl i can find. but it makes going to shows nearly impossible because they usually finish before i can get my pants on.


the last time i can remember actually being on time for a show was patrick wolf last year and that was only because i hadn't planned on going, it was kind of an impulse decision. i'm not exactly sure how i managed to be dressed and downtown before the show started, i might have just stayed out the night before. anyways, this is kind of a problem for me because sometimes bands i actually like come to town and it always makes me sad when i miss them as a result of my inability to get out of my house in time. i cried when i missed afrika bambaataa the other week and i swear it will never happen again. missing afrika bambaataa, that is, i'll probably cry lots more before i go to bed tonight.


this is why i was so happy when i found out that fake shark real zombie would be playing their cd release party at midnight, a much more reasonable hour than 7 or 8. i somehow made it there by 11, and so did everyone else i know who has the same problem, which was basically a mini-miracle bigger than the mighty ducks beating iceland but smaller than jesus, so we all got to watch the fashion show and everything. i even got to hear the band tune up which was like beautiful tuneless music. i was a little dissapointed that nothing got broken, but i guess there wasn't really much to break so it isn't very fair to complain. anyways, the show was lots of fun and if anybody wanted to know what 1/2 alive sounds like in a small room not on friday the answer is pretty good.

some people were upset that the party was on easter sunday, they claimed to have families or jobs or something, which is total bullshit. the only thing people should be talking about is that i finally made it somewhere on time, and so did lots of other people.

go be fat somewhere else

i have devoted my life to fighting injustice in all its forms and i must admit that i have met with very limited success. some days i believe that this world is too corrupt to ever be redeemed by a single person, no matter how handsome he is, but deep down inside i know that i must do what i can. while i get great pleasure from this, do not think that i do it for personal reasons, sure i prank call telus operators from pay phones to get back at them for their horrible cell phone service, but i am also concerned about larger problems, infact, the problem i am most concerned about could be the single greatest injustice in the entire universe: ugly people who somehow manage to convince attractive people to have sex with them. this is so perverse that many would say it doesn't really need any explanation, but it persists to this day so i feel it is important to discuss why this is so wrong.


the real problem which must be overcome is people calling me shallow for saying this. it has often been the case that when i see a situation where an ugly dude has an attractive girlfriend i will mention it and whoever i am with will say, "he's probably a really nice guy. there is more to people than looks!" first of all, sometimes i'm not sure of that, and secondly, what proof do you have that the douche bag isn't some kind of reptile who only got her because he somehow tricked her using black magic or insulted her so much that her self esteem collapsed in on itself and she was willing to take whatever was offered? you don't. the assumption that people who are unnatractive have better personalities than people who are is ridiculous and unamerican, it might seem like the pretty girl who turned you down is a dumb bitch compared to her hambeast friend who really wants to comfort you, but this isn't science, it's just sad; so the argument that "they're together because she sees past his hideous face and big gut" is totally based on speculation, whereas my argument that he is ugly is pure fact.


and the whole notion of inner beauty is ridiculous: i could tell all sorts of lies about the sort of person i am and even behave in a certain way when i know people will find out about it, and how would anybody know i wasn't being honest? on the other hand, no one could possibly get away with telling people that they were really attractive if it wasn't true. an individual looking for certainty and honesty in his or her life really has no option but to simply choose someone based on looks and just hope for the best personality-wise because at least you're certain to be happy with half of the package.

futhermore, people change their minds all the time, people stop being communists or wiccans or mac users and decide to become something totally different and useful to society, so what will happen to a relationship based on mutual interests? compared to liking someone for how they look, which is far less likely to change, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. additionally, a personality is a pretty big thing, so how much of it will you really be able to say you like? if you're interested in someone for their sense of humour, kindness, and loyalty, that is only three things (which might not even exist in reality), whereas i can think of 5 or 6 things i really like about jude law's appearance. who's shallow now?


so, you are a fool for entering into a relationship with someone less attractive than you because the intangible qualities you claim to be attracted to could just be an elaborate lie, like in there's something about mary, and even if they are real at the time, people change their minds so often that it seems the pinnacle of shallowness to be attracted to someone for a view they might hold for a week and then change. nope, the only way to avoid being lied to or entering into a relationship for a reason which might dissapear days later is to go for good looks. they can't be faked and, barring a car accident or crocodile attack, they are much more long lived than personality traits or opinions. so be "shallow" and happy and for the love of god, please stop having sex with ugly people.

i came here to hate and chew bubble gum, and i'm all out of bubble gum

i have been accused of everything from aggravated sexual assault to being unfunny and boring, but one thing i have never been called is a hater. infact, i devote a depressingly large amount of my copius spare time to denouncing haters of all shapes and sizes (although i prefer it when they are fat because that makes it easier to discredit them). i have seen many haters and been hated on myself more than enough times to know that the worst kind of hater is the kind who goes out specifically to have a bad time.

i have been guilty of this in the past: i was tricked into going to alexisonfire and i stood there scowling with my arms crossed the entire time, breaking my frown every few minutes to ask if the redhead was alex and that was why they said he was on fire (none of them have red hair). i believe that history will forgive me because alexisonfire is terrible and i was in a bad mood, but on friday i went and saw dandi wind and my night was made slightly less pleasant than it could have been by these assholes behind me who kept saying stupid shit to each other in their outside voices about how much they didn't like the show because they thought it was weird and they did not enjoy the way particular people in the audience were dressed or dancing or some bullshit like that.


seriously, who the fuck gets dressed up like an urban outfitters mannequin (plus a bandana around the neck for good luck) and pays $12 to go to a show which will obviously be full of people dressed in varying degrees of ridiculousness and having a good, noisy time and then complains about the whole thing? i went there to have fun and be screamed at by a crazy 105lb woodland nymph dressed like a zombie, not to hear how "totally weirded out" by the thundering squall the fat guy behind me is or how his idiot girlfriend thinks it is lame that people are (at the request of the band) dancing on a speaker. why did you come out to be mean? it's almost as bad as a grown man insulting a teenager on the internet; the only purpose people like this have is to make me wait 20 extra minutes in line at the walk-in clinic when i'm in desperate need of getting the tingle in my dingle checked on.

i mean, i guess it's cool that they paid their money and everything so they're basically entitled to behave however they want, but can't haters who stand around in clumps busily gossiping to each other, pausing only to look up at the crowd for a few seconds (without making eye contact with anybody) to gather new information about how relatively uncool everything is, particularly the people who are dancing, look exactly like social misfits at a highschool dance who have talked each other up about how they're soooo going to get laid tonight but then lack the confidence to talk to anyone but themselves and end up just brainstorming excuses for why they're unable to have a good time and going home alone, extremely unlaid?

if your social anxiety prevents you from having fun and not being a little bitch, maybe you should just stay home instead of breathing down my neck and driving me nuts with your stupid high pitched nervous laugh. unless you're there to blog about it you should at least pretend to enjoy yourself.

i apologise for the terrible picture, larry took it

also, dandi wind was awesome and girl who was wearing the blue and white dress, i thought you looked nice so forgive them, they know not what they do.

i'm so over this town

there aren't very many young girls in this city who haven't at some time said, "i'm so sick of vancouver i really want a change so i'm going to move," or something else equally ridiculous and attention whoring, and i always have to ask myself why this person is so unhappy with the city. it is unfortunate that these remarks usually follow a statement like, "i've been going out since i was 14 and i'm 15 and a half now and i'm so done with going out, i just want to stay in forever," because it causes many people to dismiss the concerns of these girls offhand with no real attempt to understand them. i, however, believe that it is important to understand all sides of the argument and even if i didn't, i've been in the hospital and haven't updated for a while and can't think of any other ideas except barack obama so i'd probably do it anyways. so i ask: what's the deal with vancouver? is it really that different than anywhere else? i'll try to make a list of everything that is wrong with the city.


terminator 2 is quite possibly the greatest film of all time for far too many reasons than the poverty of language allows me to express in this blog, but one thing which should not go unmentioned, because it is relevant to vancouver's problems, is the setting: the los angeles of the late 80's and early 90's. while not quite the hive of scum and villainy that new york was at the same time, los angeles had the benefit of having large areas which were nearly abandoned and allowed a young john connor to piggy back on his mulleted friend's motorbike and go to the arcade instead of school. and isn't that the ultimate city? a place where you can just say fuck school, i'm going to the arcade and i'll get there by speeding down this abandoned drainage canal and no parent will say shit to me because they won't even know and my mom is in the insane asylum so they can't call her? sort of like having your very own private city.


vancouver is absolutely nothing like this, there aren't really any neighbourhoods without high rise condo towers with a starbucks in the bottom where you could get away with something like that. infact, there are fewer and fewer places where a guy can take a leak in a dark corner without some yuppy prick tapping him on the shoulder and being all, "excuse me, young man, but you are urinating on my petunias." seriously, it is a sign of a sickness in our community when a man can't even take a piss on a public street without some latté swilling jerk web designer giving him a hard time about it.


actually, that's probably the only thing i don't like about vancouver: that it isn't like los angeles from the late 80's and it is full of rich jerks who come home just as i'm peeing on the porch of their yaletown condo. otherwise it's pretty nice: we've got the ocean, mountains, the public transit is alright, and lots of bands come here on tour. i don't know what the fuck is wrong with those stupid spoiled bitches. case closed.

sex attack ends in strategic retreat

quote of the night: Lindsay (the non twiggy one) "this was a shitty, shitty night."

anyone who follows politics is probably used to being lied to by now, how many times have we had our expectations raised only to have them come crashing down like something that crashes down and takes our hopes and dreams with it? it happens to us every day - the promised play station 2 with sonic heroes and capcom vs snk does not arrive but the money has already been diverted from paypal to the first bank of nigeria and there is nothing you can do to get your it back.

last night a very similar thing happened to me - i had been promised a wonderful night with a group of djs i'd heard such good things about, but it was a bigger let down than the cloverfield monster!

seriously, for the past 4 months i've heard nothing but sex attack! sex attack! sex attack! and so i finally gave in and went to my first sex attack rave at no tofu.

i just don't understand why people would say nice things about these idiots, all of my friends were raving about them and telling me i absolutely had to hear them and my friends are not idiots about this stuff, at least not usually, but after last night i don't know if i'll ever be able to trust them again.

first of all, they're a bunch of effeminate pretty boys who spend more time flexing their muscles and smiling at mirrors than actually playing music; which brings me to the music: terrible. also, they had these fucking homemade cardboard cutouts of themselves which were way more entertaining than the actual djs.

seriously, stop the hype! if any of my friends try to tell me about how great sex attack is ever again i'm going to flip out and scream, "sex attack plays crappy rave music because they don't care what comes out of the speakers, they obviously just want to be able to tell girls they're djs!"

sorry, there isn't a wii at the end of this line

the decision to spend money which can just be earned back whenever we want is a much less important decision than the one to spend time which will never be seen again, and yet i know i am much more generous with my time than my money, and, judging from the cheapness and idleness of my dearest friends, i am not alone in this. indeed, spending time is probably the most popular activity in the world, everyone does it and you can do it however you want, you could criticise leggings (and their wearers by extension) on the internet, write mean-spirited but reasonably accurate letters of complaint to los angeles based clothing companies regarding local outlets, or build a time machine so you could go to the newly renovated biltmore cabaret on saturday the 2nd for a night of vaguely gypsy themed wallpaper, fancy lamps, deer heads and daft punk related madness. there are possibly too many ways in which we can spend the fleeting hours and minutes of our lives, so how is it that a single event, like saturday at the biltmore, could draw so many people that 400 too many unfortunate souls waited more than an hour in a lineup on a freezing cold february evening outside of what used to be a very scary hotel bar?

the line outside of the biltmore on saturday represented an absolutely ridiculous amount of free time being spent with very little immediate gain except for cold fingers and the warming hope of an awesome party. arriving at 8:40 didn't even guarantee a place at the front of the line and arriving much past 10:30 pretty well negated any chance of getting in until after 1 when the crowd started to slow down, and yet people were willing to wait in a long line stretching almost up to the street and be treated like cattle by the meaty jerks at the door who were so drunk on power that they were willing to work with an honour system for the guest list line (too bad not many people knew this). while i had a great time there (A++ seller, item exactly as described, would buy from again) i spent quite a bit of time wondering how so many people could be convinced that waiting in a long line in bad weather with little hope of success was a good use of their time and this graph is the closest i have come to understanding.


people are certainly not entirely rational about how they spend their free time, the proliferation of presumably unread blogs in vancouver is evidence of this, so the above graph is not entirely accurate but it was kind of a lot of work to make because i just got the new microsoft office and it is totally different from the 2004 edition and i couldn't find anything in that stupid menu thing at the top so i'm not about to make a better one. fortunately, everyone knows a good time is rated on a 15 point scale which includes the number of your friends who will be there, the number of attractive stranges expected to be present, the dj's reputation, the weather outside, the cost, and the existence of other, more fun, alternatives. m!g!h! and hana have been throwing parties long enough to know this and saturday night they nailed all of them in people's minds, but i'm certain they were still pleasantly surprised by the number of people willing to wait in line to see them (even though they can be seen with relatively little wasted time every friday and wednesday respectively, not that i'm complaining, jus' sayin' is all).

anyways, the host isn't in charge of much more than their reputation and the cover charge, everything else that would make a person wait in line is in the hands of the people doing the waiting, the dj's probably didn't invite all of your friends or convince you that there was nothing else worth doing that night; additionally, people presumably found out about the event through facebook and knew that nearly 1200 people had selected the legally binding "attending" option and so they made a choice to show up with full knowledge that there would be much waiting, but they expected the party to be worth it so they came anyways, which is why i was kind of puzzled to see all of the negative comments on facebook complaining about the line as if it was the fault of the hosts that people were FORCED to wait, and not a conscious decision on the part of the guest, but then i realised that this is the internet and people are entitled to complain about anything and expect an apology.

walking on sunshine at the ukraine hall and richards

last night, after all the excitement of fake shark real zombie and you say party! we say die! at the ukraine hall and bend sinister at 1/2 alive, i found myself separted from my friends and led, as if in a dream, to a secret grotto of hedonistic pleasure on the top floor of some large residential tower. my next memory is waking up, entirely naked, stomach deep in a hot mud bath with my arms spread out luxuriously upon the warmed marble tile into which the tub was set.

looking down, a girl i recognised as katrina leskanich of katrina and the waves was gently massaging my feet, stopping occasionally to suck on my big toe when she had a mouthful of iced dom perignon to tickle me with. we were soon joined by the rest of the band who were all very eager to hear about my night.

"well," i began, "you guys are probably huge fans of my blog so i don't need to tell you how much i love all ages shows, and not just because of the little girls," i winked and katrina giggled while rolling my big toe in her mouth, "i'd never heard of the first band, i/i or something, but they did their best to break the spirit of the dancing teenagers by playing a noise rock set that would not end and at one point, in a bizarre homage to spinal tap, playing a bass guitar with the mic stand, i half expected him to try to tune the mic stand before continuing."

"and the audience was willing to sit through all that?" asked vince in honest amazement.
"yes, the teenagers in the audience even managed to dance to the wall of wailing guitars and feedback."
"fucking incredible!" shouted an exceedingly drunk alex.
"fake shark played a really energetic set, except at one point some dickwad in the audience hit the drummer in the face with a football. kids."
"and then you say party played? how were they? they're huge back in england! did they play the gap?" asked vince again with as much excitement as last time. before i could answer i let loose a fit of giggles as katrina began licking in between my toes with champagne bubbles on her tongue.
"actually, i didn't stay for their entire set, i went to bend sinister at richard's on richards so i don't know if they played the gap or not." i sheepishly admitted.
"are they a band?" hiccuped alex who could barely keep his balance on the poolside.
"yeah, they're from vancouver and awesome and very similar to les savy fav in that their singer is a hairy fat guy who screams his guts out, except he smashes a keyboard with his powerful hands as well." alex and vince nodded at eachother, wished me a good night and left the room. when they were gone, shy kimberly who hadn't said a word the entire time undressed quickly and slipped into the tub, sliding up beside me she said, "you sure do a lot of talking for a guy with your reputation." i laughed, put my arm around her, and drew katrina up to my side.