back on boogie street

that's leonard cohen. he's drinking tequila with cranberry juice, i believe.

the temptation now is to put a chunk of money from each paycheck from now until april away in an envelope and simply take a month off. read a lot. ride my bicycle across town. cook dinner on our barbeque, soon to be retrieved from the ashes of fort awesome. spend time finding a better job.

today:
bruce cockburn, joy will find a way (1975)
alpha, the impossible thrill (2001)
kate bush, aerial (2005)
lots and lots of 70's hits, incl. james taylor
richard and linda thompson, pour down like silver (1975)
scott walker, scott 4 (1969)
a girl called eddy, s/t (2004)

i'll be up a little while longer, but not to waste time. i am reading the soviet experiment: russia, the u.s.s.r., and the successor states for class. i have to get to pg 213 by feb. 9 and am now at pg 67. i'll go to bed when i start nodding off.

articles that i have read so far this semester:
boris i. kolonitskii, antibourgeois propaganda and anti-'burzhui' consciousness in 1917 (1994)
peter holquist, information is the alpha and omega of our work: bolshevik surveillance in its pan-european context (1997)
terry martin, an affirmative action empire: the emergence of the soviet nationalities policy (2003)

for several years, i've saved every article that i've had to read for class. i need to file them, because they are now piled at the bottom of my bookshelf.

information is the alpha and omega of our work. that line has been in my head for about a week now.

control

almost everyone i know, and would consider even a somewhat close friend, i have met through my work in politics. it is a surprise to most of these people that perhaps my most cherished trait is my taste in music. yes, i play guitar and i have somewhere over 700 albums, a carefully constructed collection that is a surer reflection of me than my library ever will be.

i am listening to scott walker now. my collection will NEVER be complete! that is an exciting thought. constant self improvement. there is always more out there to find.

i got drunk tonight. we did a lot of laundry; almost all of our clothes are clean now. then we watched a movie. there was no need to drink heavily, but i drank a whole bottle, 750 ml of wine anyhow. i know my tolerance is higher than ever, because i feel as if i've only had 2/3 of a bottle. i am only 22. how long can i coast through my life on promise? a long, long time, if the last several years are any indication. so long as i can outperform my contemporaries, my future will be secure. the lesson to learn is that i should always surround myself with idiots! no, the lesson to learn is that i need merely work to defeat my latent self-destructive streak, andi will do alright.

what will i do next year? it is a peculiar concern of the elected representative to have a fixed end date to a job, which can be extended only by many weeks of campaigning which may or may not have anything to do with the job at hand. whether the job is renewed may or may not have anything at all to do with the job performed to date. the people best equipped to judge my performance have absolutely no influence over whether i will continue to do it. these are all reasons why i would like to move on with my life. a 50% plus voter turnout affords an elected representative with some certainty. there is a base of voters, and campaigns can be structured with some certainty as to who will be voting and what their interests are. a 5%-15% turnout, however, is fraught with peril, particularily amongst a demographic with incredibly high turnover and next to no collective political consciousness or partisan loyalty. as i learn the methods of machine campaigns, i am less inclined to place my sense of self-worth in the hands of a constituency whose vote-determining issues will forever be a mystery. then again, i'm incredibly curious to test my record and plans against anyone who is not intimately acquainted with the language.

in recent memory, i have not felt healthier than i after sunday morning bikerides across town.
i KNOW that i will feel better through the day if i get a long sleep and get up early. i handicap myself, for fear that if i am at peak perfomance, i won't be as good as i'd like to think i could be. with a self-imposed handicap, i can always blame myself for being slow off the mark.

no matter, i picked up three new albums today
-charlie haden and quartet west, haunted heart (1992)
-richard hawley, coles corner (2005)
-richard and linda thompson, pour down like silver (1975)
each have made me tremendously happy. this scott walker album(#4, for those keeping score) is good too, but i was unable to find a copy when downtown today.

i'll get a lot of reading done tomorrow, i hope.

the best summer vacation ever

atlas shrugged is taking over my life. i read it first in grade 11. reading it now is wonderful; i reference it conversation on nearly a daily basis.

my election predictions were almost spot on. i'm proud to have pegged west van-sunshine coast correctly. i'm really fascinated by blair wilson, and am interested to see where he goes. i wonder if he will run for the liberal leadership and hang on until the last ballot, john turner-style. he's got the looks.

several points
-very few rookies in the last parliament were defeated this time. partly, that is because the last election was a prelude, in theme, to this one. also, it points to the power of incumbency. even a short term in office means a lot. people are unwilling to renege on candidates that they so recently supported. incumbency is a powerful thing!
-social conservatism is a death knell in the GVRD. i underestimated what a role that would play, and erred in calling north van for the conservatives.
-i clipped out 'THE WEST IN IN' fron the 24hrs and pinned it up in my office. this is the most interesting aspect to the election. how long will it take for people, including stephen harper who founded the goddam beast, to completely forget that the reform party won over 60 seats in 1997? it will be considered an abberation in a long continuum, i imagine, which is unfortunate. reform ads in 1993 said 'DON'T TRUST POLITICIANS? NEITHER DO WE!'. where are we now?
-all the noise being made today about the rural-urban divide in canada in this election's wake is troubling, because it isn't that accurate. while there are no tory seats in vancouver, toronto, or montreal, they swept every seat in edmonton and calgary, which are two of canada's fastest growing cities.
-more later.

here's an incredible image!

the aristocracy of pull

con. 124
lib 92
bloc 58
NDP 34

con 36%
lib 31%
bloc 12%
ndp 18%

and in bc:

• Abbotsford - CON*
  
• British Columbia Southern Interior - NDP*
  
• Burnaby-Douglas - NDP
  
• Burnaby-New Westminster - NDP
  
• Cariboo-Prince George - CON
  
• Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon - CON*
  
• Delta-Richmond East - CON
  
• Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca - NDP
  
• Fleetwood-Port Kells - CON
  
• Kamloops–Thompson–Cariboo - CON*
  
• Kelowna–Lake Country - CON*
  
• Kootenay-Columbia - CON*
  
• Langley - CON*
  
• Nanaimo-Alberni - CON
  
• Nanaimo-Cowichan - NDP*
  
• Newton-North Delta - NDP
  
• New Westminster-Coquitlam - NDP
  
• North Vancouver - CON
  
• Okanagan-Coquihalla - CON*
  
• Okanagan–Shuswap - CON*
  
• Pitt Meadows–Maple Ridge–Mission - CON
  
• Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam - CON*
  
• Prince George-Peace River - CON*
  
• Richmond - LIB
  
• Saanich-Gulf Islands - CON
  
• Skeena-Bulkley Valley - NDP
  
• South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale - CON
  
• Surrey North - NDP
  
• Vancouver Centre - LIB
  
• Vancouver East - NDP*
  
• Vancouver Island North - NDP
  
• Vancouver Kingsway - NDP
  
• Vancouver Quadra - LIB
  
• Vancouver South - LIB
  
• Victoria - NDP
  
• West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country - LIB
  

the close ones are nanaimo-alberni and pitt meadows-maple ridge-mission. they are quite similar; if the LIB vote goes to the NDP, they'll win. if not, they stay CON. vancouver centre is the weirdest. the LIBs won't win in surrey; they never have, and won't start now. if they did win, it would be in south surrey-white rock-cloverdale. i think that a lot will come down to vote splits. i have put an asterix next to the seats that will be won with absolute majorities.

we will be at the main on main tomorrow night; just kingsway, no central bash.

the facts don't count

watch this: ajax-pickering conservative candidate rondo thomas. it is PARTY TIME. he might win, and sit as a member of parliament! i'm naming my next dog RONDO.

i just read my john turner and bill vander zalm books. along with my joe clark book they've got me feeling down. i also read a book called parties, candidates, and constituency campaigns in canadian elections. i learned that the only real factor that matters in bc federal politics is the VOTE SPLIT. if we were smart, we'd be sending unmarked bills tokanman wong.

see, when i am old, i can look back and be proud for who i have voted for and worked on behalf of. find me one person who is proud to vote for paul martin today. everyone voted for mulroney in '88 and felt hungover for the next four years. godDAMMIT people: martin is one of the worst prime minister's we've ever had. he's risen to his level of incompetence. imagine if john turner had won a minority in '84 and gone to the polls 16 months later. that is the situation we are in today. turner v. mulroney. the ridiculousness of it all is emphasized by everone's reaction to peter newman's mulroney book last year. 'oh gosh, mulroney sucked!'. that's right, mulroney totally sucked! he was awful! in that context, this election is shaping up as very stupid indeed.

for the record, i was saying often in 2003, when all predictions had the liberals at 55% nationally and winning 250+ seats in the next election that paul martin was merely the second coming of john turner. i am being proven right on a daily basis, and am glad for the vindication. i hate paul martin, but even more, i hate the slash-and-burn method he used to win the leadership of the liberal party. do you know what will be left when he leaves? FRAT BOYS. plump frat boys, dazzled with power and international relations. oh, and lobbyists. a lot of unemployed lobbyists.

further, for the record, in the ndp leadership race of 2003 i voted for bill blaikie.

the stress of thinking about these things and being able to affect so little is trying on me. i know at least the top two, if not top three candidates in every BC constituency. i know what seats are relatively new, and which have existed for eons. i know who has held each seat, party and MP, since at least 1993, if not longer. one day i will find an outlet for this hobby.

in 1993, a huge proportion of rookie MPs were elected. i will find that statistic and commit it to memory within the next several days. a number are still in parliament. we speak so much of these people, these members of parliament. they are all individual people. each candidate is both a name on a ballot and an individual person. the translation from individual person to member of parliament fascinates me.

four categories of citizens are able to vote in ridings in which they do not reside:

• students
  
• military personnel
  
• inmates
  
• MPs and those that live with them.
  
  
  

hamilton mountain

notes:
-i don't want to sleep, because we have no bed. since our old bed was discarded in BIOHAZARD bags two months ago, we've been sleeping on an inflatable camping mattress. last night it deflated as we tried to sleep, and by the morning we were sleeping on the floor. we went to ikea this afternoon and found a new one with a metal frame; see, bedbugs can't live in/on metal, and don't like to walk on it. if we put it in the middle of the bedroom, taking care to keep all of the sheets from touching the floor or any walls and place the feet in dishes of soapy water, we should be ok. however, we can't fit the bed in out car and my dad's van will not be avaliable until tomorrow afternoon. tonight, i'll be trying to sleep curled up on our old loveseat. jan is using an small old foam mattress. by tomorrow night i will be barely functional.

-i have failed in my efforts to have jan take an intro canadian history course, even after promising that i'd effectively write her papers for her. here's my quick guide to thesis statements in intro canadian history:

• 'the arrival of europeans in north america led to conflict with first nations people' = C = you grasp the basic result of colonialism, but have barely expanded your knowledge beyond heritage moments.
  
• 'european settlers in north america always exploited first nations people' = B = you know how to challenge the traditional history, and are well on your way towards being an insufferably smug and rebellious second-year-university-student
  
• 'the relationship between european settlers and first nations people has always been complex, and interactions have often been very dependant on specific situations' = A = hooray, you've understood the point of intro history, which is that there is never one answer, as a counter-example can be found to almost any statement. you have some grasp of how subjective history is, and are willing to engage in revisionism. for an intro course, you win!
  

my fucking ten!
1. an undeveloped roll of film from several years ago. anything could be on it!
2. kate bush, aerial!
3. working for a candidate who is consistently validating both me and my partner!
4. dusty in memphis, by warren zanes. a 114 pg. book all about dusty springfield's dusty in memphis album, written by a guy who really likes the album. my dad, who lent it to me, was unhappy that the second half talks less about the record and more about cultural appropriation, so i pointed out that the author has a doctorate in cultural studies. there's a whole series, called '33 1/3', each a short book about one specific album. incredible!
5. a long argument with sam about whether barbara ehrenreich's nickel and dimed is morally reprehensible!
6. last plane to jakarta, written by john darnielle of the mountain goats! especially good are the old archives, where the format is half the fun.
7. MORRISSEY!
8. LEONARD COHEN!
9. so many books to read!
10. no papers to write for my HIST 335 course, just midterms!

sapperton station

i love the title of that last post. i can feel the thunder in my heart.

the first 10 songs of my playlist!
1. leo sayer, thunder in my heart
2. candlewick green, who do you think you are
3. fleetwood mac, silver springs
4. the sundays, gone
5. leonard cohen, be for real
6. swing out sister, breakout
7. bob james, angela(the theme from taxi)
8. looking glass, brandy(you're a fine girl)
9. tony rice, night flyer
10. rush, subdivisions

other highlights:
the decemberists, the sporting life
the raspberries, go all the way
lionel ritchie, all night long
the smiths, there is a light that never goes out
brian eno, the big ship
mark kozelek, around and around

i spent a while trying to make my itunes library perfect, so that i could simply hit shuffle and sit back. then i realized that i could simply make a playlist with a bunch of my favourite songs, so i did that... 56 songs: 3hrs and 36 minutes of stuff that i won't have to worry about skipping if it's awful or jarring. excellent!

i have come to hate indie rock! i read this just now, and got so unhappy. kate bush got 5 votes for 'miss indie rock'! oh christ, grow up! there is a point when people grow out of indie-anything, be it rock or pop or zines or all that stuff. i did it in the spring of 2003. just chill out, kids, get down with post-modernism! love it all!

here's a song: looking glass, brandy (you're a fine girl)
it's only 3 minutes, and there's no penalty for deleting it if you don't like it.

i can feel the thunder in my heart

i didn't do a lot of reading today, and rather worked for a few hours on the globe and mail holiday crossword(between 1000-1400 clues! it's a full two pages of broadsheet newsprint) before spending some time tracking down a bunch of 70's pop songs. now i'll read some atlas shrugged before sleeping. i'm tired.

we also watched two scifi movies. first a new b-movie called secret warnings, kinda starring billy zane and featuring both gratuitous boob shots and gratuitous alien shots. the ending was fantastic and unexpected. most b-movies wrap up tidily, everything done. at the end of this one, evrythign was just starting! fantastic! next we had the thirteenth floor, which reminded me of the island, in the 'everything is better than you think it is!' vs. the matrix's 'everything is much much worse!'. i liked it; it was nicely done, and kept much more compact than many similar films. science fiction on a small scale can be very enjoyable.

i still feel in need of a vacation. i think it's because my sleeping habits are so atrocious. i think that they are so atrocious because of stress, and i think that my job is the source of most, if not all of my stress. it's because the things that i take upon my shoulders will, in every case, rest on mine alone. it's because i wanted this job and persuaded a lot of people(2256 of them!) to let me do it, and i feel a huge responsibility stemming from that. i feel as though got the job because of who i am, and that if i fail in any capacity, however inconsequential, it is a sheerly personal failing. i told everyone that i would do this job better than the other guy. i also told a lot of people that the people on my team would do the job better than a lot of the people who won, and that i now work with. that makes things obviously difficult. i also think that i am doing a better job than most of the people i work with. then again, i WOULD think that, wouldn't i? if i didn't think that i would do the best job, i would not have sought a nomination in the first place. i am told that i am doing a good job, and ultimately need to place more trust in those who tell me that i am doing well.
the fact that i bellyache over these things leads me to think that i am not cut out for elected office. the nature of representation, the machinery, the personal drama, the decision-making factors, the trust placed or misplaced in an elected official fascinates me, and that fascination definitely drives what i do now, both in my job and in myreal life.

what drives me politically, in every capacity, is the cynicism and lack of trust that people hold in regards to public service. the less faith we have in politicians, the less faith we have in what comes out of government, and the less faith we have in the government's ability to do anything.
this is why i hate the liberal party of canada, perhaps more than the conservative party. corruption is a central issue for me, because its presence in the system leads to a slash-and-burn response that jeopardizes so much of what the liberal party of canada is ostensibly fighting for. rather than whine about steven harper, the best thing paul martin could do, if he believes any of what he is saying, is simply stop his party from being so fucking corrupt.

i'll be back at work on tuesday morning; i am both excited and daunted by the number of tasks i have set out. i am also excited to get my copy of kate bush's aerial back from sam. he liked the mountain goats and low. i liked his springsteen album too, esp. atlantic city and state trooper. it's playing with such different archetypes than i usually find that it's throwing me for a loop, which is part of the appeal. it says nothing to me about my life. or, rather, it says different things to me about my life than i hear from, say, kate bush or leonard cohen or cocteau twins or saint etienne or even fucking sloan. that's ok! i love records! i am reaching new heights of 'everything to everyone', or, rather, 'anything to anyone'. i am at the stage where i love (almost) everything. this is my end point of post-modernism. i don't know why i like it, but i do, and that is that. done.

nature's path

i'm still not over leonard cohen yet. today i got death of a ladies' man(1977), often considered his greatest misstep, but i love it. again, his sense of humour is always underestimated. jazzer drop your axe it's jazz police. there are only four albums left. then i'll need a new obsession, i guess. i'm focusing a lot on the lyrics of the future, his 1992 album. democracy is coming to the u.s.a. perhaps i like political songs after all. of course, EVERYTHING is politics! i've seen the future baby; it is murder. i may dive next into dead can dance; i also got spleen and ideal(1985) today.

i purged my itunes library tonight, killing all sorts of things that i usually skip past. i want to build the perfect collection. if i don't like it, i'm not going to waste space on it. on a different note, i still can't find a copy of richard hawley's coles corner anywhere. it's beautiful. here are two songs from it:
- coles corner
- i sleep alone

i have two more full days off, and will use them reading and, maybe hiking. so i hope. i spent my time in surrey playing with lego and watching 'campaign politics' on CPAC. all i read was earth abides, a 1949 sci-fi novel that really affected me. it follows a freak survivor of a species-wide plague for 60 years after the disaster, expanding from a character study to encompass the small unit of survivors he builds into a family unit, all the while full of angst about how to keep an intellectual life alive in a new time where the practical is all that can matter. these books were all marketed as action-thrillers at the time, but a lot of them are incredibly touching and thoughtful. earth abides made me quite sad!

three new books from the salvation army thrift store at 108th and 148th:
-fantasyland: inside the reign of bill vanderzalm, from 1991, i think
-reign of error: the inside story of john turner's troubled leadership, from 1988
-joe clark, a biography from 1978!

surrey is much easier to navigate than people think. i know exactly where 132nd and 87th is, even without knowing the suffixes. surrey goes from 0 ave(south) to 116 ave(north), and from 120 st(west) to just about 200th st(east). easy.