The moral of today’s video: kick the shit out of winter, before winter kicks the shit out of you.

swordfight-icebreaker.mov [1.7 MBQuickTime]

I got my car back and I’m just about to blast off out of Halifax. Thanks to everyone who made me feel at home and showed me a lovely week.

I paid the mechanic with 1600 packages of ramen noodles. As I stacked up the last box, he leaned in with this leer on his face like he was going to try to kiss me. Gross, don’t you hate that?

I just dropped into the welding shop. Here is a picture of the underside of my car:

All that Iron Man shit along the bottom is the part that’s being rebuilt.

Markblack and I ate lunch at Bach’s Cafe. It was delicious. Blizzard coming tonight. I was hoping my car would be done so I could hit the road before the storm. Looks like I might have to stay another night in Halifax. Gee.

I walked into the garage and went right in under the car and started taking pictures without saying anything. I wanted to make the mechanic nervous. He has a limp handshake and doesn’t make eye contact so he comes across as a bit shifty. I’m sure he knows his shit but I’m worried that his favourite way of dealing with customers is to bend them over and aim for penetration.

He started saying, “Yeah I don’t know, might not be done til tomorrow morning.”

Little did he know, I had been carrying around this mouthful of soy sauce and as soon as he started talking I spat it all over him. Kikkoman soy sauce all dripping down his face.

Then I said “Hurry up and fix my car… fucker.”

The mechanic took off his welding glasses and wiped them on his filthy coveralls and stared at me.

My car is in bad shape. Expensive shape. The frame is rusted away where the track arm attaches the wheel to the body. I’ll need a welding job. Soonest I can get it done is Wednesday.

So I’m stranded in Halifax, with no choice but to spend time with my friends and eat good food. Could be worse. I’m grateful to the lovely folks at Willow Street for letting me set up a little homebase here.

Tonight I’m going down to Reflections. A/V is going to perform at this “rockin’ for dollars” open mic thing in the hopes of spinning the magic wheel and winning cash for a car repair so I can blast off outta here.

Went for Robie Foods the other night, my favourite Chinese restaurant. Present were Mike and Francesca Willow, Jim North Street, Paul & Greg Sharp Like Knives, Mark Swordfight and Stephanie Stolen Mink. I called you but they told me you weren’t home.

swordfight-robiefood.mov [2.8MB QuickTimer for ya]

I just soundchecked. I drove all the way from New Brunswick in a car with a busted axle or something. One of the guys was checking it out as I drove across the parking lot. Apparently my right rear tire is flopping all around. Whaddayagonnado. My car is sitting in the Pavilion parking lot right now.

Hello, Halifax!

I’m coming to Halifax again this weekend. Playing the Pavilion on Friday evening. Here’s the gig:

You like that? Ones and zeroes? That’s what the inside of my brain is like. I just downloaded an mp3 called “Factions” by The Establishment and I love it. They’ve got that modern sound, but it’s not so math-y that it loses the groove, looses the grove, nahm sayin, it’s as they say “dope.”

I’m a little out of the Halifax loop so I’m not familiar with the two bands with the Choose Your Own Adventure names but I just hope I don’t wind up getting eaten by a shark on page 31.

I am declaring a moritorium on the word “interesting.” I’ve heard this word five times in the past two days. The word “interesting” has no meaning. It is a placeholder. You should say what you mean, and say it mean if you have to. People won’t hate you for it. You don’t hate me now, do you?

This afternoon I saw a beaver in my backyard so I started videotaping it through the window. I went outside for a closer look, and that’s when I saw the long skinny tail… Holy shit. That’s not a rat, is it? What is that thing? It’s huge. It looks like it could eat my cat.

swordfight-winterrodent.mov [1.8MB QuickTime]

soundtrack: i’m dicking around with a flanger

The swordfight forum has a bold new look, in case you don’t get enough internet shit-talking in the course of an average day.

I’ve been teaching my grandmother how to use a computer. She wants to be able to take pictures of her great-grandkids and email them all around.

It’s funny how we take certain computer things for granted. A simple phrase like “double-click on the icon” that you or I wouldn’t think twice about. Meanwhile my grandmother is lifting the mouse up off the table, twisting and turning it around in the air trying to figure out how to make it go.

One thing I’m not going to teach her is how to use Google. Ha. My grandmother is Pentecostal and it probably wouldn’t do her health any good to learn that her grandson worships Satan.

We had a bit of a January thaw in Gaspereau Forks. Enough to shrink the snowbanks. I miss the snowbanks. I don’t have decent tires on my car and I’ve been whipping up and down country roads, slipping and sliding, 180s all over the place, and it’s reassuring when you know that all you’re going to run into is a nice soft fluffy snowbank.

Remind me not to dream and drive.

swordfight-dreamdrive.mov [2.4MB QuickTime]

This is my final word on the toilet seat issue: I believe it should be left up to the individual.

2005 will be remembered as the year in which everything everyone said to me was “hot [something] action.” Usually accompanied by that knowing smirk. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if my mom had looked at me at Xmas dinner and said, “Would you care for some hot gravy action with that turkey?”

A/V played Fredericton last Friday night. I drove an hour into town through a messy snowstorm, set up my gear, played a couple of notes through the PA, and then my sequencer crashed and erased the memory of all my songs.

I checked the time. Nine-thirty. I got in my car, drove all the way back to Gaspereau Forks through a messy snowstorm, loaded up the sequencer memory from a backup copy (that I normally travel with), drove all the way back to Fredericton through some hot snowstorm action, and walked through the door of The Capital a little after midnight, just in time to perform.

Let it not be said that I am not tr00 to the cause.

My sequencer, an Alesis MMT-8, did crash once before. In August 1999 I was supposed to play an electronic set at this big outdoor rave. I was preparing for my set in the days before the event and the Alesis cacked out on me and I had to stay up for 24 hours straight reprogramming all my tracks. By the time I got to the party I wasn’t doing so hot.

I was scheduled to take the stage at 7am and I spent most of the night shivering under a blanket. Finally I went on and five minutes into my set a soldered connection let go in the MIDI jack of one of my synths. A horrible drone blasted through the PA. “RRRRRRRRRR.” All the ravers, well they might have noticed. I looked around desperately until DJ Nick Nonsense took over and start spinning some vinyl. Then I went home and collapsed with a fever of 104. I was delirious for an entire week with some hot pneumonia action.

Last Friday, as I slipped and slid all over Route 10, I was thinking “yeah this all sucks but it could have been way worse.”

I might have lost a few newish tracks that I hadn’t got around to backing up. Possibly “Sweater On A Dog” is lost which would effectively bring to a close that whole dirty chapter of my life.

And now a few words from “Bullet-Tooth Tony,” as played by Vinnie Jones in the movie Snatch.

“There are two types of balls. There are big brave balls. And there are little mincey faggot balls.”

Think about that for a minute.

On the weekend we watched Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Vinnie is in that movie as well, playing a similar type of character so of course the film became known as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Little Mincey Faggot Balls.”

Tony, you’re my friend so I’m gonna be straight up with you, you probably shouldn’t be throwing the word “faggot” around like that. Only God is allowed to hate fags.

…Fags and Canadians that is: www.godhatescanada.com.

Check out this quote. “On April 28, 2004, Canada hoisted a filthy fag finger in the Face of God.” Now that’s fuckin’ poetic… Anyway I can’t wait until the election so I can exercise my democratic right to take part in some hot homo-fascist-state action.

So over the weekend we tried our best to refrain from using the phrase “mincey little faggot balls” every two seconds and we mostly succeeded although at one time or another everyone in the crew was nicknamed “Mincey” or “Mincey-Balls” or “Mincey-Fresh.”

Now I want to tell you about my friend John and his drum show in Fredericton on Friday night. John has been in on a bunch of videos on Swordfight, like Full Throttle and Here Comes Trouble. He’s got some kind of drum-art performance planned and I don’t even know what the hell he’s going to do but I know it’s going to be good.

Born To Reincarnate
Friday, Jan. 13, 2006
Memorial Hall, UNB, Fredericton
Doors 8:30 – $5.

I’m hoping it will snow again on the drive into town tomorrow, a LOT. Boy could I use some hot snow-tire action.

Here’s some footage I shot of John back in November. Since then he’s shaved his head, started working out every day and playing the drums five hours a day for eight straight weeks to get ready for his mincey little show. I saw him on the weekend and he looks like a superhero.

swordfight-bornbeats.mov [6MB QuickTime]

So after all the hot drumming action we’re going to head downtown for some hot Holy Fuck action, after which I will probably call it a little mincey night and go enjoy some hot crashing-out-on-John’s-couch action.

P.S. Apologies if I’ve offended anyone with this post. I don’t even know what “mincey” means.

I am pleased to announce that Friday, January 6 is National Take Up Two Spaces When You Park Day. It’s an attempt to destabilize the world’s economy.

Tomorrow is also the big new-wave show in Fredericton. A/V, Gary Flanagan, The Trick.

Dance party. Pants under skirt. Poncho on a poodle. And so on.

I bought a few CDs during the week after Xmas. I bought New Order, Elastica, Skinny Puppy. Sweet Jesus, don’t I like any music from the 21st century…? I bought Out Hud.

I was in Halifax on the weekend and holy moly, beard-mania has swept over that city. I was out with a lady friend and we were just looking around in awe at the sea of hairy faces. She said, “I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”

Fellas. I gotta say it. New year. Fresh start. Clean shave, and all that. I’m telling ya, it’s for your own good. Nothing says “Let’s just be friends” like a guy with a beard. You’re busy looking at her with evil intent and she’s thinking “You want to do what? You remind me of my uncle.”

On the topic of facial hair… women at the Marquee Club continue to rip the shit out of their eyebrows. Nothing wrong with a little grooming but it gets bad when you can see the little white bald patches. Although that permanent supercilious expression can be inadvertently entertaining:

On the topic of shaved heads are hot… Hold on, let’s just savour that topic for a moment.

OK. Can anyone identify this androgynous scene-stealer for me?

She isn’t even listed in the credits. She’s too sassy for that. “All… bets… are… OFF.”

And finally, on the topic of omg BONERZZzzz:

So now I’m back in the country. I have heat but no water. Pump’s broken. All right. Water’s overrated anyway. There’s a broken-down outhouse behind the broken-down shed. It’s a two-holer. Apparently folks were more sociable back in the day.