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Early today I bought the annual music issue of The Believer magazine. It's the only copy of the magazine I buy all year. It tends to be filled with tons of well thought out articles and interviews, and comes with a themed CD.
The first article I read in this year's issue was a lengthy piece on US Black Metal. As I read the article and listened to some "USBM" it reminded of what I was reading/listening to just over a year ago.
In June of last year I was reading through "Lords of Chaos", a book chronicling the rise of Black Metal, focusing mainly on the controversial events of some pioneering Norwegian Black Metal bands in the early 90's. Various band members of the relatively small scene were eventually found guilty of burning down churches, as well as a few acts of completely senseless violence. On the spookier side the lead singer of one early Black Metal band killed himself with a shotgun, to which his band mates responded by making a necklace from pieces of his skull. Towards the end of this period, one of the most prominent figures in the scene killed the other most prominent member of the scene (a former band mate and friend of his)for apparently not being "evil" enough. These were guys who were making evil sounding music while simultaneously trying to (and some succeeding in) actually being evil.*
I actually enjoyed some of the music since it shared some similarities with other things I listened to, and tried to look past the heinous actions of the artists making it(to my credit, I did not cause any of these artists to profit in case you're wondering). Despite all of this, I still felt some risk in listening to and reading about it. I'm sure it stemmed from my upbringing in the church. Even though I haven't been to church, or religious in any way since I was around 15 or 16, growing up in it left me with a set of deeply buried, god-anxieties that surface and fly in the face of my own common sense. Unfortunately this time, they happened to coincide with a sudden set of negative circumstances for my family.
In the span of just a few days, both of my parents ended up in the hospital. Obviously this was very stressful for me, and in the midst of all that I felt a brief moment of guilt for what I had been reading/listening to at the time of their hospitalization. I fully realized that it was irrational, and completely outside of my own personal sense of logic to believe that something that innocuous could have real world consequences, or any consequences at all for that matter. But I still briefly felt that way, which I think speaks volumes about the kind of religious guilt that was instilled in me as a kid. Some of it no doubt came from my anxiety and OCD problems, but the religious stuff wasn't exactly helping.
It's a year later and I'm glad to say my parents seem to be both doing much better. As for me I am somewhat less stressed, but slowly getting there. I have a variety of money and job related woes, but have plenty to be happy about to. I've just had the one year anniversaries of two projects I've put a lot of work into (Wunna Weeks and The High), as well as a number of new opportunities for hosting and performing in new shows connected to those things. I'm hoping it all keeps getting better. But maybe I should listen to "Walkin' On Sunshine" just to help it along.
*It's important to mention that, besides this brief period in Norway, and a small handful of other incidents, there haven't really been any other Black Metal related violence or crime to speak of. Most people are just making the music, not living a life style.
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Day 8
Woke up to that sort of weak hangover feeling. Walked down to “Friendly Nest Eatery” where I’ve had bagels the last few mornings. There was a group of very loud mentally handicapped people inside. The headphones helped drown that out.
I returned back to The Hostel and turned down an enticing offer to play Frisbee in order to head over to Josh Dean’s parents’ house. Josh grilled some tasty steaks and some other delicious food was had. Josh’s mom seemed to keep trying to get me to have a beer.
After lunch it was straight over to The High workshop/rehearsal. The ride there was when we started to deal with what would end up being two pieces of bullshitty news from home. First was for Matt, and then I got mine during the workshop. It was very frustrating and stupid, casting a negative shadow over what was being mostly a positive experience. Blah.
Anyhow, the rehearsal went very well. It was exciting to be performing with our past guests (Josh, Belinda, and Mark) as well as getting to see people create new characters for the show. I look forward to the new characters the coming auditions will bring.
We performed in the first show that night. I think it ended dup being the best set of those we’ve done here. We played against The Crumbs, who two very talented guys. We helped out in one of their scenes and played one giant hamburger that ate o0ne of them.
The post show party stayed at theater for the night, ending in some late night pizza courtesy of the theater.
Day 9
Woke up getting the least amount of sleep I’ve gotten since being here. I received what will hopefully be the last email on a frustrating subject, and then headed off to breakfast at Barb & Ernie’s. The food was a little too rich and too much to eat, but the place was bonkers in the best way. First of all, there is constantly video playing of Barb & Ernie’s various vacations across the world. Ernie visited our table quite a few times, often to rib the guys at the table or deliver a joke that only half made sense. These jokes made our table of improvisers laugh very hard.
Right after breakfast we rushed over to the theater to be part of the kid’s show. I got to be part of the puppet improv troupe: “The Mixed Nuts”. The show was what these kind of things should be: fun, spontaneous, and full of puppets.
Almost immediately after that we did a full run through of “Bannigan Academy” as we were calling it for the show that night. It went well and ironed out kinks that may have come up in the show that night.
I spent the rest of the afternoon/early evening walking around an antique mall with Robyn, Aaron, and Alenka. Aaron played an old guitar for almost the entire time we were their, which I could hear all over the store. It was surprising/gratifying that no one ever stopped him. I went back to The Hostel and headed back to theater for that night’s shows.
Our performance was the second half of the first show and it couldn’t have gone better, especially considering most of the people onstage had only rehearsed twice for it. I ended up in a storyline with Celeyna(Sp?), Josh’s wife, as well as Belinda (wife of Mark). I was in the market for wives. The audience seemed to really enjoy the show and we got a lot of positive feedback from other people at the fest.
After the High, I believed we would not be performing in the second show, so I had some hard alcohol to celebrate our last show at the festival. The late show would be an all troupe versus troupe show, with the first half determining the third and fourth place winners, and the second half determining first and second place. No one except Kevin (the guy running the fest) knew who these teams would be. He announced them at the top of the second show. Turned out that The Birthday Girls (Matt, Josh, and Me) would be competing for either second or first place. This came as a pleasant surprise. We ended up playing against The Crumbs, whom we played the night before. Our half was a lot of fun and there was a lot of interplay between the two teams. We ended up winning, but I think it was actually a tie. Either way, it was an honor to play against those guys and with the guys on my team one more time.
The post show party ran very late and involved some dancing, which the alcohol actually encouraged me to do a bit. At one point I climbed stairs to the stop of a five story tower attached to the theater, but couldn’t brave going out onto it’s roof. The view was pretty intense. As you can imagine there were many good byes and fun was had by all.
I have not slept. It’s 6AM. In twenty five minutes I’ll be picked up and taken to the airport to begin my journey home. This couldn’t have been a better experience.
Listened to:
Alice Coltrane - Journey Into...
Run the Road
Amazing Mix by Renee
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This is officially the drunkest I’ve been while writing an entry on this trip. Here goes…
Woke up to a lot of “almosts”. Went to an internet café were I almost had a bagel, but they were out. We almost went to the water park but then decided against it. Matt and I almost went to a 50’s themed eatery called “Daddy-O‘s”, but ended going with everyone else to a steak place. It was closed. We then went to Daddy-O’s, which was also closed. It is apparently only closed on Wednesdays. We ended up at the Irish pub we ate at yesterday. I had a bison burger, which is not just some cute name for the burger but in fact a burger made from the meat of a mighty bison.
Post lunch was a lot of sitting around in the common room at the hostel. I got some work done for class. Had some fun lounging around with people from the festival.. Eventually (finally) we headed over to the theater for the show.
Beforehand some folks got dinner which I opted out of in favor of watching my spending a little more closely. I am doing a good job (for me anyway) of not stressing out about money here, but I’m starting to need to just be a little more aware of it. This ended up being a pretty good decision since there was quite spread of food at theater. I managed to eat enough to be completely full. I also scored some Advil for my first headache of this trip. It’s pretty shocking I haven’t had more considering I’ve drank every night (and some days!) since I’ve been here.
Speaking of drinking, the show was yet again entertaining and inspiring to watch. I didn’t start drinking until the second half, which made it considerably harder for me to sit on the floor with no back support. I was strongly fighting the urge to lay down and stretch out. This isn’t to say I was bored, just really uncomfortable. In fact one of my favorite quotes came during the featured act in the 2nd half…
“Here’s three plates son. I know Ai won’t be getting the one back so I figured I’d just give you a set”
After the show I had beer number 2 and took a walk over to Mark Meer’s (and Belinda’s) place for a little tour of Mark’s toys. He has a lot of toys. He also has a lot of costume pieces and other awesome weirdness. Here was were beer number 3 entered and exited the picture very quickly because we had to make the walk back to the theater, which included a stop at the liquor store for some Jagermiester.
Back at theater a gaggle of jokesters were playing “Hero Clicks”. I spent most of the time drinking, taking pictures, and hanging out with the three people who weren’t playing. I left with a group of people heading back to the hostel, and for two of them their homes in Edmonton. I ran like a raptor for a while with one of the Edmonton locals named Kiersten. Overall a fun trip home, though not nearly as wild as last night’s.
Tomorrow I think we get free lunch at an Italian place. Awesome.
Listened to…
Joakim Skogsberg - Jola Rota
John Fahey - Sea Changes and Coelacanths: A Young Person’s Guide To John Fahey
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I left the Hostel by myself around 11:30 or 12 to go check out a few more stores before an afternoon workshop. I checked out the third and fourth record stores I’ve visited this week (I was surprised there were two!), as well as a comic store. I ate lunch at A&W, and managed to embarrass myself immediately. Just moments after getting my food I took my burger out of it’s foil package and immediately dropped it on the floor. I managed to “charm” another one out of the staff, but the manager was kinda pissy about it.
I met up with Matt for a while before the workshop and wandered some more. As for the workshop itself, I enjoyed a little more than half of it. The first big chunk was one of those touchy feely/actor-y exercises that involved breathing forever and looking into other people’s eyes. I really do not like those exercises. I’ve done enough o0f them to know they don’t do anything for me. I briefly considered walking out while all of that was happening, but I did the right thing and stuck around to do a couple scenes during the second half.
Afterward a group of us got dinner at an Asian food place where the cooks and cashiers rock out really hard the entire time, even when no one is up at the counter. They were jamming Daft Punk and dancing all over the place. I guess this is their bit. It mostly works.
Rain starting coming down in a pretty serious way right before we were going to walk to the theater for that night’s shows, but luckily Kevin (the artistic director of the improv theater up here) picked some of us up. He told the others he’d be willing to swing back and pick them up, but they decided to brave the rain, which immediately started to come down harder the moment we left.
Another funny show. Someone said “front cunt”…..about their mom.
The post show party ended up at a bar called The Empress a few blocks away. That was a lot of fun, but not nearly as much fun as the long, drunk walk home. The youngest guy here was drunk out of his mind and trying to climb everything, including any male in the group. He also tried to “tackle” a few busses. I’d imagine right now he has quite the headache going. Back at The Hostel we continued to hang out in the outdoor courtyard, being way louder than we should have been. This morning we all got our comeuppance when a group of loud obnoxious hippies started having loud conversations at 9am.
In other news, it looks like Danny and I are doing a sketch show on the main stage at IO. In like two weeks. I’m looking forward to it/a little worried about it.
Listened to...
V/A - The Roots Of Powerpop
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