A la Onion.

Aquarius: The nation is stunned by Amelia Earhart’s miraculous return, especially when she knees you in the groin and shouts, “Thanks for nothing.”

Oh, I went there…

Photo by Raymi, via Matt’s Flickr.

I wonder who dresses him…

Gavin Rossdale - Love Remains The Same

I’ve taken a lot of ribbing over the past eleven or twelve years as to my love of the handful of albums released by Bush and my idolizing singer/guitarist Gavin Rossdale.

Looking back on it, I know that there have been many times that I’ve sounded like a complete moron while describing the man and his music (”so amazingly awesometastic!”), and taken on web and design projects for him - anyone remember any of that work I did back in 2005 that never even wound up published? I know I wrote about it a fair bit.

But in all honesty, I can still remember that day in 1997, late in the Spring, being fifteen and depressed and turning on the television in time to catch Bush’s video for Cold Contagious; I can remember it being the perfect mixture of substance and setting, and having felt a relation to a song that I couldn’t access in any way (because, of course, Youtube and the like were still years away…).

Anyway, I borrowed the music, learned about the band - and Gavin Rossdale specifically - and felt real relation to his youth and his troubles. The music that he wrote and released (especially the band’s Razorblade Suitcase record) was raw and emotive and lit the way for me, creatively. Now it’s twelve years on and I still play guitar and write and cling to strong artistic albums for support and strength.

And now, Gavin is on the eve of releasing his first ever solo record, called Wanderlust. In addition to the record’s release next week, Gavin has just finished a video for the first single and has recorded an EP for upcoming release on iTunes that he personally describes as “an acoustic EP with some tripped out guitar, and some atmospherics, a pretty chilled out selection.” I’m looking forward to every second.

Exposed.

“I think most people blog to share their thoughts and observations. In the process, they will almost inevitably reveal themselves. Such self-revelation is organic and interesting.”

I’ve been reading Laura Hurwitz’s blog frequently of late; I’ve found there to be something of interest (be it an anecdote or old catalogue clipping) published on her page every day. A couple of days ago, she wrote this piece about blogging that I agree with wholeheartedly.

I think about the things I write, the insights I attempt, and I think in a lot of ways it’s for the exact reason she’s so eloquently perceived. In truth, I suppose there is some small part of me that hopes that as people come across my page amongst their wanderings, they’ll find something they relate to, something they agree with or like.

But generally speaking, it’s done entirely for selfish reasons. I have never tagged a single article, and couldn’t care less to facilitate the process of others finding the things I post. Enough of you seem to find it to keep it interesting, and it’s honestly nice to have something honest and current to reflect upon, a sort of history of my thoughts, random though they may be.

Thanks for reading, I suppose - I’m writing it for me, but I like that you’re here.

Here we go again.

I’d somehow forgotten how much work is involved in preparing to move, in finding that place to spend the next few years of your life. But here we go again; it sometimes surprises me that I’m but a few days off of hitting that milestone - I’ve been in London for one full year.

Anyway, come August it’ll be time to call a new place home, one that I can share with Nicole and have proper room for my daughter to visit. And while I’m scouring all the listings I can think of (from newspapers to the same old sites) and even seeing apartments already, I was wondering if anyone out there knows of a good rental listings website or two…?

Anything to help with broadening the search a little bit, thank you. Here goes nothing…

A cunning linguist.

I spent the evening with my dear gay friend Kevin, at his home downtown London. He actually drove me to get my prescription filled, which I appreciate tremendously, and afterwards we had a fantastic meal with his boyfriend and watched the night come on while sitting out on his deck, listening to music from my iPod stream out of a nearby speaker disguised as a rock.

We had this debate as to the definition of a double entendre, while stripping those little helicopter-leaf things from his neighbour’s tree and bouncing them off of his dog’s head. I was laughing cos I’d toss one and his dog would try to watch it, but it would fall through a crack in the deck. Eventually, Kevin did it as well.

“I see what you mean, my thing went in the hole.”

I laughed. “Now that’s a double entendre.”

Kevin smirked and tried to play innocent a bit. “What do you mean? How could that mean anything else?”

“I don’t know, just… like, if you had a thing, any thing on hand, right? And there was some hole there you could put it in.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Like, you know… if this thing that you had could like, go into a hole. A hole that like, I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t ordinarily find a thing like that in.”

“Like a foreign object?”

“Well,” I pondered. “Maybe not extremely foreign, no… like, it could be made out of the same sort of stuff, just, you know… if you were to happen by such a hole, and perchance to look inside it, you might not be like, ‘hey, there’s one of those things.’”

“I think I see, sure.”

We both nodded, and a brief moment of silence passed.

“Or like, if you were to have sex in the bum.”

How we do.

“I am contemplating recording the upcoming Massey Hall show, which would then be released as a live record. Nothing has been finalized yet, mind you, but if I do decide to do it, given that this is a new band that only has a finite number of songs under its belt, I wanted to ensure that we had somewhat mastered a regimented and fluid set prior to that performance, which is three shows away…”

Via Matthew Good.

Riddle me this: what has two thumbs and is going to that show on Thursday night?

Figures.

(Via my older, Michigan-dwelling sister’s Facebook wall.)

I hate you, Red Wings, for making me look like an idiot tonight… figures the Penguins would choke the first game and give up so much room, particularly when it comes to not manning up to you along the boards. Touché.

Watch for a huge improvement in Game 2.

POTS.

It astounds me how exhausted I can become simply talking on the phone doing customer service and tech support for those 10 hours a day. I don’t suppose it’s too hard to understand, don’t get me wrong - it takes a lot of focus and concentration to help people fix a problem they can neither understand or adequately describe to you.

But the truth is I don’t like talking on the telephone. I don’t much like being tethered to the thing, and rarely ever use my own phone at home. Even my family has gotten used to the idea, and pretty much all have Facebook now to keep in touch with me. The only two exceptions to the rule are calling my daughter and my girlfriend.

Anyway, I’m so insanely wiped from being on the phones all day, I had real trouble tonight staying awake after 8:30 pm. I fell asleep for a couple of hours just to get up and get ready to go to bed… c’est la. Anyway, I have one more day of this to rest up for and then I’ll be able to recoup until Wednesday. Goodnight, all.

Of dreams.

I had the strangest dream last night… it involved a mystery of the most complex kind, I don’t remember if it was a murder mystery or something, but I had full-on amnesia and was being asked to weigh so many weird things…

It involved me being told I was behaving in a specific way completely unlike me, being in places I would never ever go, like alleys and rural towns in the States somewhere… I remember something about foreign cigarettes, putting money in other people’s pockets, a leather Florida football jacket… so perplexing…

I honestly remembered next to nothing about it, even hours later, I typed what I could into a msg right after I awoke. All I remember is this really unsettling, anxious feeling when I woke up. I think the meds might be causing me to sleep really deeply…