Today, I was one of the lucky few who made it to the Hawksley Workman "Intimate & Interactive" at MusiquePlus. (I know, they have a French name but it escapes me. Sorry). I attended with trusted friend Dusk and we made it just as the crew member was announcing "three minutes until we're live" (trans. from French, of course). Hawksley made his way onto the stage decked out in a puffy retro pink shirt and green-black army pants. Dusk approved but shook her head in disdain when she saw his pointy strange boots. The old adage not to judge a book proved 100 percent true because Hawksley & his band put on one hell of a show.

He began with "We Still Need a Song", an ode to the healing power of music and it's influence on our lives. I think that Hawksley Workman is like a Van Morrison for our generation, one raised on the Ramones and U2 and The Clash. He is brash and a real showman, raising his arms like a preacher and opening his palms towards the ceiling. Hawksley's voice yelps, croons, sings, and sometimes leaps into a falsetto (not the irritating kind, the judiciously employed kind). He seemed confident in front of the crowd of 50 or so and his band was keeping pace quite well. His bass player sang on several songs including "Anger as Beauty" and "Smoke".(That may not be the right song title. Don't bother searching for this stuff on Kazaa...his record company put copy protection in the disks and all the songs have sections of backwards Hawksley intermittently ruining great songs).

The whole show focused on his new album, except for a momentary cover of the Police's "Roxanne" during the commercial break. He channelled Sting quite well and Dusk was most enthusiastic towards the performer. He was forced to cease by the MusiquePlus staff because we were going back to the show.

During the interview section of the hour-long show, they innundated him with a barrage of questions. Some of them were quite interesting, such as "Who is your favourite author?" He first said the Sears Catalogue but then mentioned Ernest Hemingway as one of his faves. He just returned from Paris so reading "A Moveable Feast" was interesting to him, "being a young artist reading about another young artist."

He excelled on "Anger as Beauty". I have the song locked in my consciousness like a mantra that never ceases, "Anger as Beauty, Anger as Beauty, Anger as beauty..." He was sweating under the bright lights but didn't hold back, belting his way through the set as if it was a stroll on a cool, windy day. One of the MusiquePlus hosts commented that the album had really touched him, and that it was a very good Autumn record. I think that after hearing this set, I must soundly agree.

He said the artist he was listening to the most was Jay-Z. He is really inspired by the language and lyrical skill Jay-Z brings to the table, and that is probably why he decided to put a singing/rapping female vocalist (the Beautiful Lady from Black Corners) on his track "Smoke". He also mentioned Daniel Lanois and a greatest hits compilation CD from the 1980's. When he's on tour, his time away from the clubs and the stage is usually "quiet time", but when he needs good music, it is a soothing voice that brings serenity (Ed. Note--sorry for that ultra-new-age-sounding line).

He wrote a book of poetry, "Hawksley Burns for Isadora" last year (?) and he was asked if he planned on continuing with his literary craft. He said if the inspiration came to him, he would definately put himself totally into writing again. He also joked that he might write a cookbook because he is an avid chef. It "brings him back down to the soil" after the revelry and "bad habits" of a tour. I think he mentioned that music is the best drug, but the only drug he seemed to be on during the show was Red Wine--a "Good French wine is a good French wine," he said.

Buried deep within the lyrics of "Smoke" is a line about "Cocaine in Montreal / then back up on the plane Baby" and this pleased the crowd to no end. His ode to hedonism was not only well written but performed with a great enthusiasm, and everyone could sense the tingle in the air we were breathing, in the sounds we were hearing, and Hawksley was loving the attention.

During most of the show, the crowd was mostly subdued. Aside from the "Smoke" song, they didn't really participate but they cheered very loudly for Mr. Workman in and out of every commercial break, cued by a MusiquePlus worker who did the countdown "And trois deux un on Roll!". Many of the folks in the crowd probably wanted to hear his older material, such as "Jealous of your Cigarette" or "Bullet Bouncing off my Helmet" from his first LP "For Him and the Girls". He kept to newer stuff and this was a slight misfortune but not the end of existence.

Hawksley Workman is from Toronto and after the show, I approached a lady who had been singing and rapping beside Hawksley during the song "Smoke". She told me that her band was called "Black Corner" and to check out their website. I've been unable to find the site as of Press Time but I shall continue & hopefully add it to this blah in the near future.

I told the young lady that because of their innate talent and great music, I have been forced to take back half of the bad things I've ever said about Toronto (only half, don't think I'm selling out!) :)

To sum up quite ungracefully, Hawksley Rocked and he is a World Class Musical Genius. I think that he'll circle the globe and spread his music like magic lessons everywhere. He is a poet, a musician, a producer, a writer, and something of an eccentric, with his constant fibbing and self-analysing. I can't wait to hear his album without the backwards-playing Hawksley voice!

Anyhow, I must be off to call my one and only, Kate, so fare thee well and may a blessing of luck be cast upon your house. Rock on, my peeps.

I've developed a new habit and I'm quite proud of it. I believe you regular folks call it "sobriety". I try to stick to the "middle path" (I kind of stole it from the Buddhists. Sorry, Mr. Lama et al.) and it's working wonders for my psyche. Instead of drinking or smoking dope every night like in my Glory Days (my one fateful year at Concordia U. & my 3 years of inebriated consciousness at Gaspé CEGEP), I keep my hedonism to the weekends.

Up here in MTL, we can score a 20-bag (about 2 grams, give or take) for $20, although if you have the right connections, you can sometimes pick it for as low as $15. I used to smoke roughly one 20-bag per day, and if you calculate what I was spending on my smoke, you'll see that I could have put a down payment on a house or at least paid off my student loans in full ($20 CAD X 365 Days X 3 years=$21,900). This is a sickening concept and part of my reasoning behind cutting back on the reefer.

Booze is another matter. I've spend thousands of dollars on drinking but it is harder to quantify, especially since I don't usually have any recollection of how much I spent the next day. For awhile back in the summer of 2000, I was drinking enough to satiate the thirst of a Platoon of British commandos. I once even had a streak going of being drunk (or close to it) every night for 2 months straight.

You might call this a rookie Alcoholics whining, or a testament to the power and endurance of the human spirit. All I'm trying to say is that being sober is fun, especially when you start to get your memory back & you're in love with a beautiful woman & she's coming to visit in 2 days! (Actually, Kate is coming to town tomorrow, so Shady & I have planned a cleaning frenzy for the apartment.)

I forgot to tell you about my car accident the other day. I'll get to that later, perhaps? Anyhow, if you're watching MusiquePlus in the near future, keep your eyes open for the live Hawksley Workman performance. I will be in the audience, clapping until my hands bleed red.

Rock on, y'all!

Last night, I banged on my guitar for hours, exploring the myriad shapes and tones that can originate from a piece of wood with magnetic coils in its center. Playing guitar can be dangerous to my health, not only because of its ability to make a Milwaukee's Best or Alexander Keith's appear in my hand. I've been electrocuted several times in the past couple of weeks, including one jarring shock that occurred when I tried to wet my hair while having the guitar slung over my shoulder. One hand was touching the strings when the other turned the tap and **********zap*********** I was leaping backwards and screaming. 110 Volts is apparently not very much of a charge. I have a friend who's done some work in electrical systems and he claims to be able to stand 220/230 Volts without dropping his coffee.

Our tap never ceases to drip. It is like Chinese Water Torture, listening to it plop plop plop in our bathroom. I close the door but then you feel like you can still hear it, only quieter.

Why is this so? Our apartment is not at the top of the list of priorities, for our Bourgeois Landlord. He wears a top hat and those long coats, just like the dude from Parker Brothers. (What's his name? Bill Gates?) Seriously, we live in a Triplex and our landlord is a Great Man, one far too preoccupied with making his living to bother to take an interest in our lodgings. Our screen door is hanging like a scab on the back of the house, the tap drips, we pay electricity bills in excess of $200 CAD per month because there's no insulation (We'd be better in a snowbank, if you ask me). Etc.

To be fair, we're often late with the rent, so why should he really give a shit? We don't follow our social pact with him, so why should he return the favour? (Jeremy, you're not helping your case).

Now, I'm off to the tam-tams. Like Toucan Sam would say, "Follow your nose to the dope you fiend!".

I was just on Plastic.com and I found a link to an online test that was quite amusing. It has a series of multiple choice questions that can help you to determine your political outlook in relation to America's place in the world. I'm sure you'll find it just as interesting as I did! It turns out that I'm a (drumroll...) Liberal, not in the Canadian Gov't sense, but in the American sense of the word. I'm quite happy with that, really.

Everyone has a right to their opinion (even the Deluded or the Brainwashed) and the freedom to disagree is something that we should cherish above all. Even if you want to drill in the middle of a National Park to fill up the tank of the Gas Guzzling S.U.V. you wash every day, I still think you should have the opportunity to let your voice be heard. Just be forewarned that there are more liberals like me, and we're going to vote for people who want to change the world for the better. You Right-Wingers can goose-step yourselves right into a deficit, for all I care. Give me my weed and my True North Strong and Free. :)

Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm just feeling slightly bitter these days. After all, look what the Republicans are doing to the U.S. right now? They're planting lots of little terrorism seeds all around the globe. Don't you think all those Afghani orphans are going to come looking for us in 20 or so years? We need to make peace if we are to survive. You can't fight a war on terror -- it's like trying to fight a war on gravity, or a war against the weather.

Hello all. Today I awoke with a dull throbbing in the back-alleys of my brain, a hangover, if you will. Yesterday was a day and a half.

I'm so desparate to be in school that I went to Dawson and attended class with one of my friends. It was a Philosophy course and the teacher doesn't take attendance. I sat in the back of the room and tried my best not to arouse suspicion.(sp?)

It was a really interesting course & I hope to attend another in the future. The prof was a white-haired old genius of the tweed & gin variety (tweed on his back, gin in his gullet). He spoke about where the word inspiration came from. Apparently, Pythagoras didn't just rob the Egyptians of their Geometry--he also invented a religion that mixes mathematics with faith, including a rule that one must never eat beans because they have souls. Their souls try to escape from your ass in the form of flatulence. For this reason, it was forbidden to consume the bean.

According to the prof, Socrates was a follower of the Pythagorean faith and wasn't a Monist (they believe that we're all made of one element, such as air, water, or fire. Anaximander was a smart cookie because he thought we were a mix of all four. Present day scientists know that there are over a hundred elements but all matter came from Hydrogen, originally.) So I guess Socrates didn't eat beans, either.

Needless to say that it was a great class. (If it's needless to say something, why bother saying it? I'm breaking literary rules for you all, and I hope you appreciate that). At one point, I was forced to speak up because he mentioned how some people believe (including one of my faves, Noam Chomsky) that we are born with a certain predetermination to achieve or err in life, an idea that runs contrary to the standard politically-correct belief that we're all clean slates (tabla raza, as he put it).

I raised my skinny arm and spoke. "Doesn't that raise the nasty specter of eugenics?" He nodded visciously (sp?) and said "Yes, the Nazis would have loved to spread this theory but I don't believe it, myself." Then he went on to reveal that the precursor to the Canadian Alliance, the Right Wing Looneys from back West, once sterilized all the Disabled (Retarded, in modern lingo) people in the 1930's. I'll never vote for a party that has such little regard for human existence.

After we got home from class (we walked all the way from Atwater metro downtown back home in NDG), I cooked the spaghetti sauce that was festering in the bottom of our fridge & talked to my one and only on the phone. Kate is everything I've ever wanted in a woman--she's intelligent and beautiful AND opinionated. Plus, she has a way with words that makes me feel inspired. (Again, back to the ancient Greeks. They believed that a babys first breath was when he gained all of his ideas and an old mans final exhalation was his ideas escaping back into the air, from whence all ideas come.) Everything Kate says to me gives me ideas (some not appropriate for younger audiences!) and that's why I feel really comfortable with her. I hope we can make this last forever.

After supper, Shady & I walked up to the gas station on Sherbrooke where I used my Visa to buy a case of Molson High Dry (it was either that or Black Label, and Carling makes you black out, hence the name). We went home and I burned a hip-hop CD for commercial breaks during the bizarre reality TV show Cupid.

When midnight rolled around, Shady got a crazy look in his eyes. We went outside and took a stroll. Upon waking up this morning, I realized last night's folly. We stole a couple of street signs (I'm sure we'll have some explaining to do next time the cops visit) but I think that this time, we've gone too far. You just don't take a one-way sign. It's plain wrong.

Anyhow, I'm off to boil some water to add to instant oatmeal. I'll try and give you folks something to read tomorrow. Rock on, everyone, and remember to breathe deeply. Some of the grandest ideas have arisen from deep gasps of air (or weed smoke, whichever you prefer!). Peace.

Hello World. I know that you've probably heard it all, so I'll spare the cliches (I know, I'm missing the accent aigu) and tell it like it is, Pilgrim. I'm a Montrealer with way too much time on his hands but I have lots of stories to tell, so gather round and let me whisper sweet, sweet nothings into your collective ear.

I was formerly employed by the Deluded Informer, before that bastard Philip Shearing (Yes, that is his real name) fired me and replaced me with a paperweight. He doesn't realize how hard I worked for him and his gang of Loonies at the Deluded Informer but I know that one day, he'll learn his lesson. You can't keep a brother down forever, right?

Now, I'm looking for a new place to work (and a new place to rest my head). Hydro Quebec is only days away from cutting our electricity and it is damned hard to use a computer to write freelance without power to make the thing work. I thought about working on a mechanical device that could replace those enormous Hydro-Electric dams (Manic 3 et al.) but I realize that it would probably require more effort than finding a day job.

Do I want a day job? Why should I slog away at some menial task day in and day out? If I can eat and live without the burden of regular work, why should I do anything otherwise? (I suppose that a hard-working, ethical person would say "Do you want to live on the bare minimum? What are you, some sort of self-righteous mendicant who smokes like there's no tomorrow?" To this guy, I would say, "It appears to be so.)

On another note, I'm madly in love with a girl from Rochester. Yes, I love an American! It's hard to believe, especially since the U.S. would probably love to drop a sweet little Cruise Missile on my house. Yes, my views on U.S. Foreign Policy have long been known. I'm not as extreme as a friend of my former editor. He used to suggest mad, maniacal acts and we would often argue the pros and cons. Then again, he said that the two biggest let-downs of the spring were Saddam losing in Iraq, and the Montreal Canadiens missing the playoffs! He's mostly a nut-job, but I'm getting off the topic.

Kate is smart and beautiful and funny and a whole list of other things that make me smile and want to jump her in a dark alley. (That sounds a bit perverted but she has said similar things to me, meaning my obsession is warranted). I'm going to do my best to keep her attention. We've spent a lot of time together in the past month and I feel that she might be The One. Do we all have a Soulmate, wandering the earth like some sort of wraith, waiting for us to meet and fulfill each other's every desire? Odds are, if we all had a perfect match, most people's would be in China or India, mathematically speaking! Just the same, I think that Kate is awesome and you'll not convince me otherwise.

Now, I'm going to head up on top of Mount Royal to wait for the sunset. I'll talk to y'all tomorrow. Peace.