Saturday, December 30, 2006
Once upon a time I used to post every day...
perhaps there are a few old habits worth getting back into.
I told my friend Mary yesterday that I felt like escaping from my life, taking off to LA for a couple of weeks, or to Montreal, or England, or Holland, or New York. Anyplace but here, anyplace where I have real friends who will be there for me when I need them. A change of scenery, if you will.
Her response?
"Well, there's always drugs."
I stared at her, open-mouthed. "This is your sage advice??" I asked. "No," she answered, "but wanting to escape is a reason people take drugs."
"Sure," I said, "but I have no plans to start shooting heroin anytime soon."
That doesn't mean I don't occasionally have these sorts of crazy ideas when I'm feeling particularly low. Go figure. Everyone else thinks of self-help books, meditation, cooking classes, and exercise. I think of heroin, briefly. Then I remember the dead baby crawling across the ceiling in Trainspotting, and the dirty expanse of the hallways of the Dominion Hotel (yes, I've stayed there. It's a long story you probably don't want to hear), and I reconsider. Chemicals were never really my style. Even pot is something I rarely do alone. But boy would it be nice to escape somewhere, anywhere, for a while. Of course now that I have all the trappings of an adult life -- an apartment, a job, even a bloody hydro bill, I am really and truly tied down. I'd rather be tied down by a person. But I suppose that's why they call them trappings -- they trap you.
Anyway, on to lighter topics.
My new musical obsessions:
The Sounds -- Awesome, underrated Swedish New Wave band. They make me feel better when just about nothing else can.
CPI - A most excellent, somewhat alternative DJ called Caitlyn from Ottawa. Her mixes are to die for. I love Rock Out With Your Cock Out (haha) and the Venus Envy Mixtape. Yeah, the punning is there for a reason, but it doesn't really matter because her mixes are sublime. You can find them all at Theta States.
K-Os -- His new album is Atlantis: Hymns for Disco, and I love it. It's his usual hip-hop, rock, dance, critics-be-damned fusion, plus he does a duet with Buck 65. Lovely.
Gwen Stefani -- Her new album, The Sweet Escape, is even crazier and more gratuitous than the last, and so of course I love it.
There's more of course, as usual, but I'd better get going.
Happy New Year, everyone.
-N
