last summer, revisited

In the cast iron pan the grease jumped up and down while the steak burgers popped and sizzled. Months of a regimented cafeteria diet had dulled the enjoyment I usually detract from eating a meal, which is unfortunate because every meal has the potential to be stimulating in both taste and social regards. At a residence dining hall eating is mutated into a daily function of routine, fulfilling no other purpose than filling the stomach. Being back has let me soak in the comfort one receives from homes small amenities, and on this evening the ability to cook my own food was such an amenity.

My mom was adjacent to me in the kitchen, cutting vegetables on the cutting-board in preparation for a Greek salad. We had spent the afternoon completing the requisite banalities one must tend to after being away for a while. ICBC, in predictable form, found a new way to empty both my wallet and hope for humanity.

The smoke being expelled from the cast iron pan spiraled up into the stoves fan, bearing a resemblance to the human made, education-based tornado Steve and I examined at Science World. Conversation had lulled and mother and son were going about their specific culinary tasks in content silence. Suddenly a thought perks up, there’s something she has forgotten to give me. Oh, mail, nothing exciting. T4 slips to remind me of how much money I once had and bank statements to remind me of how little money I now have. My mom is considerate and respectful of privacy - she left each envelope untouched, the security licking a transparent strip of glue provides remained intact.

But terseness could be sensed in her words and I have the feeling I am about to be prompted with the unexpected.

“I received a bill for an ambulance”

The events of late last summer taint and dilute the assured relaxation cooking food brings. I’m not sure why my mother chose to open that particular letter. It could’ve been the suspect sender coupled with my name. That would be enough to incite a combination of both worry and curiosity in her. She asks me if it had to do with drugs and I say no, which is the truth, but it feels like a lie.

I give her the Coles notes version and tell her that I have no long-term nuances as a result of getting hit by a car. For me the anecdote has become tiresome and I don’t think of it too often. She mentions that she neglected to inform my father and after I thank her we return to making dinner. The subject is dropped, probably for good.

homecoming

The last days, weeks even, were a slog. Months of slacking and fucking around only manage to cultivate a desperate final campaign: academically, socially and mentally. Friendships are distilled when you’re all about to leave each other. Do you really give a fuck about them? That’s when you find out.

Are you concerned about grades? It all comes crashing down when you decide to glance at the syllabus and realize that assignment you “forgot” to hand in was worth 40%. Is this autobiographical? I’m trying to be general; the ailments outlined could plague any university student at this time of year. But I’ll concede and admit, yes, this is about me.

I had the hearts again too. I moped around some, smiled some, got some. The pursuit, the engagement of a romantic affair is distracting and taxing.

Let’s stop this.

It’s all behind me now, geographically speaking. I flew home yesterday and my parents picked me up, hugged me and promptly dropped me off at 4th and Commercial. Alex then collected me, hugged me and handed me a Hot Chip ticket. They opened with “Shake A Fist” into “Boy From School”. It was a great show.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

A year ago today something happened. Nothing significant, nothing earth shattering, nothing that would change your whole perspective on shit, but something that may or may not have changed your weekly blog checking habits. Yes! You know what's coming.

A year ago today I thought that an anecdote about getting chased by a junkie in the DTES merited a spot on the internet stage. I read that first post again today and was semi underwhelmed. But we felt we had something to say; the things we were doing, the situations we were in, the girls, the boys, the houses, all of them observations as filtered through the eyes of two young men. Hotclique was a place to tell the story, to twist the nights events into a worthy narrative. 100 or so posts and a year later we're still here. To anyone who has ever given us a compliment, high five, or an insult, thank you. At least you took the time to read what we have to say. That's good enough for me.

MASH UPZ

I have three hours of class time a week that are devoted solely to things Bob Dylan. I love university. Between the hours of listening and analyzing Bob Dylan songs, my mind often wanders. This is what it produces:

"Subterranean Ghetto Blues"

Johnny’s in the basement
Cooking up a new batch
I’m on the street
Thinking about the beat
The pig posted up
Steel flashed, no cash
Wants to get a new stash
Look out son
It’s something you done
Lord knows when
But you’re playing me again
You better rush back to the stuy
Looking for a new buy
Fiend in the dirty chucks
Wants two hits
But doesn’t have enough bucks

My bitch hustles back, mad fear
Face full of tears, something’s wrong
Saying that the heats on
Packed up the crack but
The phones tapped anyway
World’s coming down in early may
Snitch hooked up to the D.A.
Look out son
Don’t matter what you done
Walk on your tip toes
Better stay away from those
That claim they got a lot of dough
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need an accountant
To know how my cash flows

Get rich, get paid
Stay in the crib and get laid
The page beeps, hard to tell
If this birds gonna sell
Blast hits, your pissed
Fuck the ER and try to run far
Get grabbed, put upstate
Trust was your first mistake
Look out son
You might be the one
Boys on the block
Been rats since day one
Hoe at the spot in the tub
Looking for a back rub
Don’t trip
Shoulda watched your shit

Ah back up, furs warm
ROCA pants, romance, homies don’t dance
Stay fly, stay blessed
Keep your game a success
Fuck her, fuck him, cap them
No further education
And they put you in the burger pen
Look out son
They keep it all wrapped
Better push past and
Flip them flaps
Stay outta scandals
On the beach with Gucci sandals
Now you thought you won
But the cake ain’t coming
‘Cause the spics trying to pull shit

Original lyrics to "Subterranean Homesick Blues" HERE.

twin goofs

words to go with the pictures

Here is my piece on Steve Aoki from last weeks Gazette. My degree of wastedness is well evidence by the composition; some slight rejigging on the part of my editor was apparently needed to make it formidable for the student masses. Rather lukewarm stuff. But I didn't have to pay cover. Which is exactly why I got so loaded and ended up writing a shitty piece.

ouch

back back to hali

Headaches, airport hangovers and a slight time change. Then an inevitably procrastinated assignment due. The epiphany? This time I did it.

Jogging is like communism: it’s a good idea but it never works out well. The track is elevated and encircles a multitude of activities; boxer-cise, basketball, badminton and then the beefcakes. Yeah they’re there, sequestered to a pen of free weights and shameless chest puffing. I like being the underdog though, limping around and watching the robotic act of fitness scored to the random selection of my iPod.

I’ve got nothing to lose and kudos to gain! Not to mention countless justifications for my now toned down drinking and smoking habits. Fuck resolutions, I’m broke. But the leaf of 2007 has been flipped over and on the back 2008 reads SUCCESS. GO FOR THE GOLD AND REACH FOR THE STARS!

YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Some mp3 blog I was reading the other day made the interesting observation that you can rate an acts magnitude by their stock in the remix economy. Justice, Klaxons, and Chromeo all prove the point. By that logic I think we all know who owned 2007.

The unapologetically infectious "crank that" spawned rug rat, lion king, spiderman, spongebob and aquaman spinoffs among others. That's just the kitschy shit too. Panda Toes has a big list of legit remixes right HERE.

Oh, happy holidays.

hotclique home for the holidays

They don’t have smoking lounges here in the Toronto airport. Actually, I don’t think they have them in any Canadian airport, but I guess that’s beside the point because right now I am in Toronto and right now I want a smoke.

I was supposed to be in Vancouver hours ago. I was supposed to be in Montreal hours ago but that didn’t turn out. And now I’m waiting in Toronto.

At airports they don’t seem to give a shit about you. They do seem to give a shit about being bitched at and you can’t really blame them. I’ll smile as genuinely as I can and tell them I appreciate how hard they’re working considering the hectic situation. But really, as I’m breaking a sweat doing wind sprints back and forth between check in and baggage check and security check, I don’t feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for me.

I – AM TRYING – TO GET HOME – TO MY SON

Not my son. But cold beer, missed friends, and tacos are just as comforting. I guess I have to wax nostalgic about my cherished holiday movies. It’s a coping mechanism. Too bad I’m not fortunate to be rescued by John Candy and a bunch of “polka guys”.

The bank account suffered a drought approximately a day and a half ago. I just ate five ketchup packets mixed with a couple hot sauce packets. A throwback to the summer I spent as a pseudo climbing bum in Squamish.

LIVE UPDATE! aka not live update because wireless internet costs $9.95 at this airport. No facebook and no smoking. This is suffering. Oh, the update is that my flight into Vancouver just got delayed another two hours.

LIVE UPDATE 2! I’m here now. Unfortunately, I missed Steve and Gabe (and the savory tacos they concoct) but I hope that we’ll be able to connect on the other side of the break. The good news is that my mother managed to transfer some cash to me and I was able to lick my wounds with 20oz glasses of beer while waiting, moping.

No school now, fun now, CHRISTMAS NOW!

at-lantic

still D.A.V.E

It has been over a month since I have written anything for HotClique. What have I been doing during this time?

I’ve slowly dripped back to resting on my slacker laurels. I shout “crunch-time baby” at the television, football playing, though I know nothing about the sport. Still I’ll arrange diatribes on Brett Favre and march about the room making grand proclamations. What the fuck is a passing average?

I’ll meticulously apply Franks Red Hot sauce to every morsel I manage to scrounge. Alas I am broke, but that’s not really a worry - my freeloading skills are well honed. Down to my last two toonies I managed to consume half a colt45, half a liter of white wine, three and half beers, one glass of gin and juice, five cigarettes, a couple bong hits, a grilled cheese and a piece of pizza in a single evening. Now that’s crunch-time.

My whining is mostly unfulfilled. I know I’m responsible for my woes and am not looking for anyone to hold my chin up.

As of this writing I have three late papers to complete. They’ve been put off and put off again as has publishing anything for this website. But I know the semesters almost over and I don’t want to regret anything and I’ll want to start fresh next semester and follow through with all the “I’m going to do this differently” promises I’ve inevitably started making already.

dorm days

mini get to know - A/V

A/V is Philip Clark. He's from New Brunswick. Electronic music in the Maritimes? Who woulda thought. A/V rocks the party ensconced in cords, synths, drum machines, pedals, vocoders, and a bunch of other nice toys. Reference point? A Canadian Dan Deacon?

Check out his myspace (duh) for music:
http://www.myspace.com/avhotaction

He also remixes porn: http://destroyhotaction.com
Fun!

A/V played to a mostly empty Tribeca last Wednesday . We had a brief but amicable chat afterwards.

HotClique: So is there a big interest in electronic music in New Brunswick?

A/V: Yeah I don’t know… there’s a few of us out there….

HC: Is that why you decided to just go it alone?

A/V: Yeah it can be hard to find people to start a band so I just did it myself.

HC: Right on. Just coming from the other side of the country I didn’t really expect to see an act like you.

Surprisingly there’s more electronic music in New Brunswick than in the city here [Halifax].

HC: I guess its just my bias/ignorance, I was probably thinking there would be tons of fiddles.

A/V: (laughs) Where are you from?

HC: Vancouver.

A/V: Oh yeah, I played a show there this summer.

HC: Whereabouts did you play?

A/V: Ummm…

HC: Uh.. The Media Club?

A/V: No it was some art space that a bunch of kids set up, they got a couple of them in the city.

HC: Oh the Emily Carr students probably. Was it called the Emergency Room or something?

A/V: Yeah that was it.

HC: How’d it go?

A/V: It was wild! There was a gallery opening first or something and they all showed up drunk on their bicycles. Some were wearing sleeping bags on their heads. They were bouncing off the walls man.

HC: Those crazy art students….

shit

Yeah so I was snappin' hard during the Halifax Pop Explosion this week. A filibuster of a show was going down at The Seahorse tonight... Moist Towelettes were staying cute for the second time this week and Windom Earle lurched the crowd through a "Livin On A Prayer" sing-a-long. Then I lost my camera on the cab ride home. I'm only half drunk but TOTALLY PISSED.

Get it?
----
darn.

i can hear them down the hall

Men must always be proving that they are men. This can be done by a precise UFC prediction. This can be done by a precise UFC reenactment. But how can the less physically astute, less creatine jacked population of young males prove their levels of testosterone?

Pixel on pixel action.

The whirr of the joystick, click-mash of the buttons, slight grunts, innocent vocal jabs and explosion of colors. The battleground of video games. I played them some, when I was younger. I collated and delivered many a North Shore News to buy that sought after n64. Sleepovers in grades 6 and 7 consisted mainly of all night Goldeneye campaigns.

Overnight scrimmages of this nature are still very prominent for young males, especially in university dorms. Crowded rooms, chairs pulled up, eyes fixated, shouts, whups and hollers – it’s Halo time. Darker confines, the eerie click of the mouse, insomnia – it’s World of Warcraft time.

The girls walk right by and straight into a soiree of Leafs jerseys and backwards Under Armor hats. Impromptu push-up competition anyone?

of accents and ivy

I navigate the throngs of khaki shorts and long boards slightly jaded, really faded. The quad is tremendous and green and open, footballs are tossed, books are glanced at. My new girlfriend is somewhere around but I won’t talk to her, not in my sobriety at least. These aren’t sordid hipsters brimming with breakthrough like I had fantasized; trust fund princesses from a few provinces over turn the quaint city into a new playground, the kids kicked out of the sandbox filled with visible resentment.

Back to Howe Hall, back to the squalor six flights of stairs up. Lungs soothed from a recent Belmont, one of twenty-five reprieves I pay eleven ninety-five for. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday two cops are placed outside the home I share with nine hundred others. The princesses slur and pose for pictures while the officer soon to be tagged as “cute cop” grins.

There are days where I can’t let go of the city and what they’re doing back on that coast. This makes grasping what I’m doing here even harder.

everday is a new chance

I came out here with nothing. Sitting in the throat drying, eye-stinging confines of the Edmonton airports smokers lounge this thought hit me. I was already in a sufficient amount of emotional entanglement from tearing through Douglas Couplands Hey Nostradamus! and now I had this on the brain. My parents offered to buy me a book so I could occupy myself during the obvious airport waiting periods. I chose a Coupland book; hold on to Vancouver as long as the journey permits. I could’ve selected City of Glass and shown the people here some pretty pictures but I didn’t. I wanted street names.

You can start over. It’s going to be so good for you. I’m really jealous man. All the standard good luck salutations were thrown at me left, right, and, center from relative and friends alike. Now that I’m here I cannot help but wonder if I am living up to these bon voyage banalities. Sure the girls on my floor love me for my O.C. recitation skills and the guys from New Brunswick down the hall are eager to educate me on the merits of Chris Farely. Sure I’ve gotten laid. But am I really doing as well as I should be?

This brand of paralyzing self-doubt is covered territory. Should I have stayed in Vancouver? I had enough friends to accommodate any penchant, be it dive bars or mountain ranges. I had a solid foundation both socially and scholastically. And now I have nothing, clean slate and all.

This is not to say being foundation-less is without benefits. There are fewer commitments to other people, giving me the freedom to wander from Black Sheep viewing to volunteering at the Halifax Pop Explosion as I wish. Still, this type of freedom is a little unsettling. The onus, more than ever, is on me and I am a little frightened by it.

drunk teenagers

Fate! There is such a thing. At least that’s what I thought when I read the Joel Plaskett Emergency would be helping kick off the school year with an outdoor concert on the quad. I had always half joked that “Love This Town” was my sole basis for deciding to switch schools and move to the other side of the country. But as I glanced over the orientation week schedule my semi serious quip became cemented; it seemed that Halifax and Dalhousie were really in the stars for me.

I realize that frosh week does a very formidable job of serving up as many inebriated new friendships as is possible in a few days. However in my mind the Joel Plaskett show was going to be a serious event. After all this was the epoch of my west to east coast defection. So when the only available insight within earshot was a slurred “hey Joel Plaskett, he’s kinda cute dontcha think” I was peeved. The drunken battle cry of “Dalhousie” and “SMU” only furthered my discontent. We’re here for Joel are we not?

Then I turned to my appointed ambassador of the east coast. He was happy to goad on the Dal and SMU rivalry. He was happy giving the bro who had just burped Alexander Keiths in my face some background music to dry hump the closest female in proximity to. Why wasn’t I happy?

About halfway through the Truthfully Truthfully usual suspects¬ – “Mystery and Crime”, “Extraordinary” etc – I started look past the lame crowd surfing attempts and other acts of wasted hooliganism. The inevitable segue way into “Come On Teacher” made me smile. I had stopped taking everything so seriously. From west to east I had come full circle and as I had always believed from the start, Joel Plaskett helped me get there.

lomo roadtrip