Monthly Archives: March 2003

The word of the day

The word of the day is “firefight.” Open up my head right now and you would just hear this sound looping over and over.


~ tramen.mp3

(I think animated GIFs are the coolest thing in the world right now.)

I’m playing downstairs at the Marquee on Wednesday night, doing a live set of some rough jungle. I need it, god knows how the set will come together though. A client came into the studio on Friday freaking out… turns out her project has to be done by Wednesday. The last deadline she’d told us was May.

So a couple days of frantic work, followed by a sonic explosion and meltdown of my brain at midnight on Wednesday.

We were supposed to be

We were supposed to be opening our art gallery tomorrow at 2pm, but it isn’t going to happen because Annette has to work.

We might have a little get-together in the evening though. We’re going to be calling it the Fire Point Gallery.

  

[today at soundcheck–marquee club]

The grand opening of the

The grand opening of the Bloomfield Gallery takes place this weekend.


The first show at the gallery will feature works by the Bloomfield House residents–me, Geoffrey and Annette. The reception takes place Sunday, March 30 from 2-4PM. Wine and cheese will be served. The public is welcome to attend.

The Bloomfield Gallery is located at 5554 Bloomfield Street, back door, in the North End of Halifax.

We’ll be having openings every two weeks. Next up will be Jon Hut on April 13, followed by Niki Mulder on the 27th. I think Nicholas Macmillan will be doing a show in May. We’re all very excited.

There’s going to be a rock’n’roll show at the house next week… watch this space for details.


That’s Annette and Geoffrey, and me and Vickers.

I took that picture of myself in the meat department at Sobey’s. It’s a self-porkrait.

2003 hasn’t been such a

2003 hasn’t been such a productive year for my various musical projects or anything. I work quite a bit and use up most of my spare time satisfying various basic drives.

Last night at about 9pm, I got home from the audio class I teach. I’d been looking forward to a couple hours of free time with a borrowed DV camera.

I got the camera all ready and thought, “So what should I record?” and then my brain went “blunk” and I couldn’t think of anything to videotape.

I’m starting to suspect that working too much is bad for my creativity. I wound up shooting a bunch of stop-motion animation of a rubber chicken crawling across the kitchen table. Then I fell asleep on the couch. Bok bok bok?

~ I have a screen name now, for those of you who use AIM or iChat. Send me a message because I’ve never used it before and don’t know what’s up. My screen name is philip9volt.

An American, a Canadian, a

An American, a Canadian, a beautiful young blonde woman and a little old lady are travelling on a train together.

At one point, the train passes through a tunnel and the compartment is temporarily plunged into total darkness.

In the darkness, a loud sharp smack is heard. When the train comes out the other side of the tunnel, the American is holding his hand to the side of his face.

The four passengers sit and look at each other. The old lady thinks, “That American must have made a play for that beautiful young blonde woman, and she let him have it.”

The young blonde woman thinks, “That American must have made a play for me and he grabbed the little old lady by mistake, and she let him have it.”

The American thinks, “That Canadian must have made a play for the blonde woman, and she slapped me by mistake.”

And the Canadian thinks, “Boy, I sure hope we go through another tunnel so I can have another crack at that guy.”

I was recording John Dunsworth

I was recording John Dunsworth in the studio today. You might have seen him on Trailer Park Boys (that’s him on the left, with the shades). He had lots of insider film gossip (Cybill Shepherd, hmm) as well as some good jokes:

The Devil is making his rounds through Hell, touring through the burning circles of the tormented and the suffering. Presently he comes about two gentleman who are just sitting around and grinning.

“What’s going on here?” says the Devil. “Don’t you realize you are in Hell?”

“Ah, we love it,” say the two guys. “We’re from Canada. Nice and warm here! This is great.”

“Hmmph,” thinks the Devil. He goes over to the thermostat and turns it up quite a few notches.

The next day the Devil returns. The caverns of Hell echo with screams of pain, but the two Canadians are looking even happier than before. “Ahh, yes b’ye!” they say. “Lovely down here. Bring it on.”

Hmmmph,” thinks the Devil. He goes over to the thermostat and cranks it up full blast until everything is in the red.

The next day the Devil returns. The voices of the damned rise in a chorus of agony as their bodies roast to a blackened crisp. Meanwhile, the Canadians are sitting back in their shorts and t-shirts.

“Ahh, this is just beautiful!” they say. “We’re from Canada. We love this!”

“Well, I’ll show them!” thinks the Devil. He goes over to the thermostat and turns it all the way down.

The next day the Devil returns. The core temperature of Hell has plunged to minus forty degrees Celsius. The entire inferno is covered over with a thick sheet of ice.

The Devil finds the two Canadians whooping and dancing a jig, arm-in-arm.

“What the Hell is going on here!” he shouts.

“Don’t you see!” says one of the Canadians. “The NDP must have won the election!”

March 18 is my birthday.

March 18 is my birthday. In case you didn’t see the invitations, there’s going to be a little party at Bloomfield House tonight.

I was thinking it might be an early evening thing, but who knows what will happen. On the invites I wrote that things start at 7pm. All that means is that at 7 o’clock, I will be sitting at the kitchen table and mixing myself a Bloomfield Special.

The Bloomfield Special
Ice cubes
1 oz. Bombay gin
Squirt of Realemon lime juice
Fill glass with 1/2 tonic water, 1/2 unsweetened grapefruit juice

The Bloomfield Classic
Ice cubes
1 oz. Bombay gin
Squirt of Realemon lime juice
Fill glass with tonic water
Add a couple of frozen strawberries

Delicious either way.

I’m sure tonight will involve many renditions of the “Bloomfield Salute.” I want to make sure everyone knows the proper way to execute a Bloomfield Salute:

1) Someone has to play the music on a guitar (for best results, make sure it is slightly out of tune)
2) Everyone else gets themselves an alcoholic beverage
At the appropriate place in the song:
3) Hold beverage up in the air and wave it back and forth like a pirate
4) Sing the words to the Bloomfield Salute. (These are the words to the Bloomfield Salute: “Yo-ho yo-ho, yo-ho yo-ho. Yo-ho yo-ho, yo-ho yo-ho. Yo-ho yo-ho, yo-ho yo-ho. Yo-ho!”)
5) Take a big swig matey… Arrrrr.

I’m turning thirty-two. Thirty-one was dirty-fun and I imagine thirty-two will be dirty-too. I hope to start the year off right with drinking, dancing, mayhem and debauchery.

If you don’t know about Bloomfield House you better axe somebody.

Saturday night I did sound

Saturday night I did sound for Tony Smith and the Soul Machine. Tony was so happy with the sound that he tipped me. I wish more bands would do that. You bet Tony gets the VIP treatment from me from now on.

Fifty bucks, that’s a tip-and-a-half. After the band was over I was showing people the money and joking around, saying that a woman had given me fifty bucks to make out with her. Then the idea came up that I should go up to a random woman and offer her the fifty bucks if she’d make out with me.

Well, you know what happens when you’ve had a couple drinks. I started off asking women I already knew. “No way!” said one. “You’d need at least a hundred!”

The whole thing started getting silly and then I was introduced to a woman and she said, “Hi, my name is

A few months ago, Bloomfield

A few months ago, Bloomfield House was an all-bachelor domain (including me, Geoffrey, Gerry and Keith).

Given the nature of the household, there was a certain type of conversation that would occasionally take place. Such as this one, when I gathered everyone around the kitchen table:

“Fellas,” I said, “we’ve got to come to a consensus about the dryer lint. Either we’ve all got to put it on top of the dryer, or we’ve all got to throw it away, or something. Right now we’ve just got lint going all over the place.”

And at that moment, the idea was hatched for the “Burning Of The Lint.”

We opened up the calendar to a random date (March 4, 2003, as it turned out) and declared that this date would be set aside for the Burning of the Lint.

Until this time, each member of the household would dutifully add his lint to the pile on top of the dryer.

Months went by. Changes took place within the house. Soon there were only three of us: me, Geoffrey and newcomer Annette (and Vickers the cat, of course).

But through all the changes, one thing remained constant, and that was the piling of the lint on top of the dryer in anticipation of the Burning of the Lint.

Last night, Geoffrey said, “Hey, isn’t it almost time for the Burning of the Lint?”

“It’s tonight,” I said. “It’s right now. I’m going to burn the lint right now.”

“Well, hold on a minute,” said Geoffrey. “Shouldn’t Annette be here for this?”

“She definitely should,” I said. “Annette!”

“Annette!” shouted Geoffrey.

“Hey Annette!”

Annette appeared around the corner. “What’s going on?”

“You’re just in time for the Burning of the Lint,” I said. I walked over to the back door, where the dryer is. “Mmm mmm. Look at all that lint.”

The dryer had a pile of lint on it that represented several months worth of hard-core lint-collecting. The pile of lint was starting to resemble one of those mountain sculptures from “Close Encounters Of the Third Kind.”

I took a piece of lint down off the dryer and looked at it. Then I held it up for everyone to see.

“The Burning of the Lint!” I said, in my most dramatic voice.

“You’re going to burn the lint right now?” said Geoffrey.

“Yes! Right now!”

“Hmm,” said Geoffrey. “Where are you going to do it?”

“Right there in the backyard.”

“But it’s minus fifteen out there.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to burn the lint. You can watch through the window.”

“I don’t think you should burn the lint today,” said Geoffrey.

“What! But today is the Burning of the Lint!”

“I think you should wait,” said Geoffrey. “Why don’t you wait. Wait until the summer to burn the lint.”

“But we have this huge pile of lint,” I said. “The whole point of it was that today was the Burning of the Lint.”

“There will be a whole lot more lint by summer,” Annette pointed out.

“Yeah… that’s true,” I said. I stroked my chin and looked down at the ball of lint in my hand.

“Here,” said Geoffrey. “Look.” He started flipping pages on the kitchen calendar. “June the 24th. We could burn the lint then. It’s a Tuesday.”

“A Tuesday,” I said.

“It’s my birthday,” he said.

“Ah!” I said. “A Burning of the Lint Birthday Party!”

“Exactly,” said Geoffrey. “And it will even be nice out, hopefully.”

“Well…” I said. “But technically, today is still the Burning of the Lint. Maybe I should just burn this little piece of lint, so we’ve actually observed the Burning of the Lint.”

“There’s an idea,” said Annette.

“I could do it indoors,” I said. “Why don’t I just burn this little piece of lint in the kitchen sink, and we’ll call it the Burning of the Lint. It is pretty cold out there.”

“Here,” said Geoffrey and gave me his lighter.

So we all gathered around the kitchen sink for the Burning of the Lint.

I perched the piece of lint on the divider between the two kitchen sinks and sparked it up with Geoffrey’s lighter.

“The Burning of the Lint!” I said.

I don’t know how, but sometime over the past few months I’d gotten the idea that lint was highly inflammable. I’d always pictured a flame touching a pile of lint–foosh!–and the whole thing going up in one beautiful glorious instant.

This wasn’t really the case. Instead, the outside of the lint struggled to catch fire. An orange flame took hold and crawled around the outside of the lint ball for a while. Then it went out.

“Ugh!” said Annette. “It stinks!”

“Peee-yooo,” said Geoffrey.

“I guess a lint ball probably has a lot of hair in it,” I said. “That’s probably why it smells like burning hair.”

I turned on the tap and doused the blackened lint ball with water. Shook it off and threw it in the garbage.

“Gross,” said Annette.

I think we may have come up with a new Bloomfield House holiday. “The Throwing Out of the Lint!”

~ Last week was a

~ Last week was a hectic week, maybe a little too hectic. The Khyber Club’s fire relief page has information about Tuesday’s benefit show and gives the number for a bank account where you can make donations.

There’s also a benefit show upstairs at the Marquee this Thursday. It’s a bunch of bands doing Police covers. I’ll be performing, doing a Spinoza set. I’m not saying what songs I’ll be covering… but my set is going to take the biscuit.

I’m starting an organization called the “Burnt-Out Charity Case Society,” BOCCS for short. Our motto is: “You need a place to live. You need a BOCCS.”

~ Last Thursday night after I got off work at the Marquee I headed down to Reflections for the second Hissy Fit show. Hissy Fit involves a bunch of Halifax rock bands performing while dressed up as ladies.

It’s quite a big deal. Half-a-dozen bands play, and all kinds of people show up. It’s cool because Reflections is usually a gay dance bar, so there were a few real drag queens present, hanging out and showing everyone how it should be done.

I would say that Mark Colavecchia from North Of America gets my award for hottest outfit. He was dressed up as a naughty nurse, with a foxy little blonde wig. I’m excited about nurses since I shagged one a few days ago. The guys from Contrived were also looking cute in their little dresses. They were probably just drunk enough to be easily taken advantage of, ha ha.

Saw Gerry the next morning and he looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Nah, just beaten senseless with a knife held to his throat.

~ My hair grows quickly. Every two or three months I get out the clippers and shave it all off with the Number One guard. I like my skull fuzzy.

Last week I had a lover who almost thought she could pull my hair. I don’t want to lose my unfair advantage. So–off it comes.

Also, the act of shaving your head has symbolic value. It’s psychologically representative of cutting away stress and the cares of the world. Shaving my head always leaves me feeling refreshed and confident.

Friday afternoon, I covered the bathroom sink with an old copy of The Coast, oiled the clippers, fired them up and started hacking away at my head.

A couple minutes in I started to realize something was wrong. I was having a hard time of it. The blades were pulling hard at my hair, and the clippers didn’t seem to be cutting very well.

Then the motor on the clippers seized up.

I thought that maybe some hair had gotten caught in the blades and caused them to jam, but that wasn’t it. I unplugged the clippers and plugged them back in; tried adding more oil to the blades. No go. All I could get out of the machine was a sick-sounding growl.

I was only halfway done the job. In the mirror, I looked like I had some kind of disease that had caused patches of my hair to fall out.

I stood in the bathroom for a while, turning the clippers off and on, listening to the motor whine and struggle.

Then the phone rang. I dropped the clippers into the wastebasket–clunk. Went into my bedroom to pick up the phone. “Hello.”

“Hi Philip, are you almost ready to head up to the new studio?” It was Terry, the studio boss. “I can come and pick you up right away.”

“Okay,” I said.

I put on my pants, pulled up my hood and wandered out onto Bloomfield Street with half a haircut.