This book is reminding me of why I love the Hip, and Gord Downie in particular, and why my heroes went from being rebels who gave everyone the finger, to nice people who weren’t afraid of hard truths and dark places.
Loudmouth boors be damned.
Give me a soft-spoken purveyor of real things, dark and light, any day.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 1407 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v6 4-7
Music: Without You I'm Nothing, PlaceboOf just how bad you are at art.
How on another plane artists like Gord Downie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen are.
How other people understand that.
How you’re a fucking peon and a boor, a shitpile no-talent with no future and no gravitas.
But hey, I wrote a book about the monster under the bed, and a guy getting humped by a dog, so there’s that.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 687 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike v2 2, Youngblood v6 1-3
Music: Without A Sound, Dinosaur Jr.It’s the Fourth of Novem… wait.
Is that a day? Is that a thing?
Maybe it ought to be.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 1329 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Quiet: The Power Of Introverts, Susan Cain
Comics: Badrock/Wolverine 1, Youngblood v2 9-10, Youngblood/X-Force 1
Music: Wild Honey, The Beach BoysI’m torn between Edith Piaf songs. Mon Dieu or Le Vieux Piano?
Which has cachet?
Which is a starter?
Which would you use on opening credits, for a book about fighting and dichotomies, and things that could never end well, because militancy rarely does?
Moderation in everything, save freedom, which is inevitable anyway.
We are all free, always.
Target: 1400 words
Written: 1324 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
Comics: Brigade v2 15, Badrock And Company 5, Extreme Sacrifice 1, Supreme 23
Music: Who Are You, The WhoI don’t know why it’s stuck in my head, but it is.
We hope.
That you choke.
That you chooooOOOOoooke.
Something like that, right?
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1051 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Memories Of The Future, Vol. 1, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Brigade 4, Brigade v2 1-2, Youngblood 5
Music: Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?, Harvey Danger (one of my youthful favourites)Where does it go? Does it happen for other people?
Sorry, it’s really distracting to try and write while exhausted and while Sabrina Carpenter is signing about another woman tasting her pussy on her boyfriend’s lips.
I mean, I know she means it in a mean-spirited way, haha, motherfucker, your man goes down on not you, you get the leftovers, but still.
I guess this is the modern equivalent of lipstick on a collar or the scent of someone else’s perfume on your shirt?
Pussy mouth?
This is a wonderful world, isn’t it?
Target: 1300 words
Written: 907 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 30-32, Tomb Raider: Epiphany 1
Music: The Weirdness, The Stooges (yikes, downhill, guys)I mean, I had fun, but I wanted it to be so much better. The others were going on about how great the guy was, but I found the band super loose, and the singer was mucking up lyrics (and moving around entire verses) wholesale.
I’m not sure the hangover is worth that.
Sorry, dude, Gord Downie, you ain’t.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1127 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Magician: Apprentice, Raymond Feist
Comics: Napalm Lullaby 5-6, The Sacrificers 10, Grommets 3
Music: Wayne's World Soundtrack, Various ArtistsIt happens all the time (there’s a bathroom on the right, anyone?)
The worst one I can think, for myself, was my confusion (and when it comes on the radio I still hear it) over Poker Face by Lady Gaga.
I mean, I know, ostensibly, that she’s saying P-P-P-Poker Face, but no matter how many times it comes on, or how hard I listen, it still sounds like F-F-F-Fuck Her Face.
And that’s not a slight, even though I think Lady Gaga is vastly overrated. It’s just how it comes across, every time.
No matter how much I try, how I tell myself what it actually is, it still sounds the same.
We hear what we want to hear, I guess?
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1146 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing (it's keeping my interest, but man, so bleak)
Comics: Seven To Eternity 8-9, Low 19, Deadly Class 30
Music: Eye Of The Tiger, SurvivorHeeeyyy baaaby,,, it’s the ffifth of jullllyyyyyyyy!
Something about Mexican children and fireworks.
Thanks, X.
Target: 1200 words
Written: 1095 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Agent To The Stars, John Scalzi
Comics: Deadly Class 13-14, Black Science 15, Low 7
Music: Evil Empire, Rage Against The MachineAnd now, Brian Wilson?
Goddamnit.
Sly Stone I could take because I don’t have a lot of connection there, but I’ve been listening to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys as long as I can remember (fuck Mike Love). We even saw them in concert when they (meaning Mike Love and a bunch of randoms) came to play at the bandstand in Tecumseh Park.
It was nice.
The innocence of it all hiding the troubled mind in behind… wouldn’t it be better if Brian had sang what he wanted? If he’d sang about his pain.
Wouldn’t it be nice?
For Brian Wilson to be still alive.
Target: 1200 words
Written: 798 words, novel: Bad Neighbours
Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Comics: Aspen Universe: Decimation 0, Fathom v6 5-7
Music: The Essential, Bruce Springsteen (fuck you, you probably don't know what Born In The USA is even about, you nationalistic prick)