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Saturday, December 23, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
the late night buskers
Gabriel
I was sitting in the woods one day with the idea in mind of writing up a little something. Perhaps something like a story, a narrative of sorts. The sky was a deep dark hue fading from the slowly lowering Sun, full of small wisps of cloud dancing over the cover of starlight just breaking through. It was a mild evening in June. At the beginning of a long journey, and I was content. The thing is though, I don’t write in a very linear fashion. I tend to be all over the place,. But I didn’t care. It was just for fun anyway. And hey if it’s not fun why do it right? As soon as I moved my hand over the page I thought of a million reasons to do something that isn’t fun. This is the story that came to me on that hot day for freedom. “Complicated isn’t it”, I thought .“This thing “life…”.
Anyway, lets get to it. The deal is there is this thing in my head. Some might call it a “character”. But the thing has no name that I know of so it is strange to label it as such. The thing is more of an idea. Yes An idea, as are all things nothing but ideas. Consider the soplopist’s argument that nothing but the self exists. There may be a world separate from the self but it is irrelevant. Our only knowledge of the outside world is gained through the senses, so blah blah blah blah blah and so on and so on and so forth etc etc etc. yakidee yak, don’t talk back right? Of course that would mean that all this shit your reading is actually in your head to begin with and what you’re doing now is making one of your own ideas manifest itself in the world (your world) in such a way that you can approach it objectively, like reading it on a page.. are you certain your not dreaming right now?… Anyway the point is, a world inside your head is just as valid, if not more so, than the world outside your head. And a character is an idea that helps to make up that inner world. For the moment you may consider this character I speak of to be called “Gabriel”. Why Gabriel? Because I like that name and I believe that it suits the nature of the idea., Angelic., Pure. It is in and of itself perfect.
Gabriel was a young boy of about nine or ten years. He had long dark brown hair tied back and somewhat knotted together. His eyes a dark piercing blue, that either saw straight into your soul or straight through you. I saw him in my mind’s eye looking at me, his face wondering but at the same time knowing. The boy has inherent wisdom revealed through the eyes to the keen observer. He’s a handsome boy with a wild look about him, but a steady gaze. He will grow to be a sorcerer, one who strives for the “source”. Many will call him the Magician of the Mountain. I got the impression that he had a gift with what many call “magic” from an early age.
It has been said that despite all evidence to the contrary, the universe is composed of entirely two substances: magic and bullshit. That is to say that from the perspective of the individual, any process sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Since at root all things and all processes are infinitely advanced and complex, all things are therefor for all tense and purposes, magic.
Gabriel had another interesting quality. He seamed to have in him a vivid “memory” of things that seamed to have happened years before his birth. The nuns at the orphanage attributed it to an over active imagination. But sometimes his imagination was difficult to explain , considering his lack of worldly experience. He could describe real existing landscapes on the far side of the world with staggering detail. He seemed to know about historical figures before ever hearing about them, claiming to know them personally as he would a close friend or playmate.
The nuns at the orphanage first encountered Gabriel in the year 1995, he had been with them now for 3 years yet he looked exactly the same age as when he had first arived.
My apartment in Camrose was on 10th street, a five minute walk from downtown, next to the park. I often wandered up and down the paths of the giant open park smoking weed. I never went to the local tavern to get drunk. I drank at home. The locals wanted no part of me. I was always a bit of a loner., by my own design. I just don’t gel with most people. A bit too much of a different beat going on in my head.
I can remember the first time I smoked the sweet grass. Its was September 2000, my first year of college. I was heading our to the local dance bar in a desperate attempt to meet people. On the way I bumped into a guy I had just met by the name of Jason Hewitt. A tall lanky looking fella, a northern hick at first account. But he played the guitar, about as well as me, which wasn’t very well at all. We hit it off right away. Anyway, on the way to this bar we ran into each other. He asked me if I smoked, I said I didn’t. “no no” he said “do you smoke the ganj?” I said I did even though I never had before although was up to it. We walked behind the bar and sparked up the joint, at the same time sealing what would prove to be a long friendship. Both loners,. outcasts of sorts. People thought we we’re cool for some reason even though we both new we weren’t..
I had just moved to Camrose from my home town of Wetaskiwin, 30 minutes to the west. Believe me, it was a step up in the world. Wetaskiwin is a godforsaken hole no denying it. Camrose by comparison was like Venice Italy. The streets were clean, you didn’t feel as though you had to look over your shoulder every thirty seconds for fear of being randomly lynched by some crazy drunk gang.. No no, Camrose was a college town. Civilised, or at least innocent. That was what I thought when I first moved there, fresh from the nest.. I was there in the fall after graduating from high school. Lacking, as so many others did, any ambition of my own. Nothing to live or die for, no religion too. We had become the ironic fulfillment of the prophecy of our times. So I decided to stick with my spoon fed way of. life. I went to college! A year later some friends and I are moving into what will become known as “the house”.
Ahh the house. Probably the single greatest tangible testament to our time in Camrose. It was the closest house to the college. Literally one minute away. It was built in the forties, war time architecture. Two levels, the main floor and the basement. It had three bedrooms, one upstairs and two downstairs. I lived
I live in a detached world for the most part, I’m only really connected to one other person, Ashley. How did this happen? I can remember feeling attached or connected to lots of things, too many things. Things I loathed. Now as I grow closer to only one, the rest of the world fades, And I love it.
Steve lived in a basement under his buddy’s mom’s house. He had two pitbulls, one male and one female. Mates. Fine dogs, an intimidating sight, the two of them together. Each was on the end of a big long chainlink leash, and we’re talkin heavy chain. The male leash had a bitting collar, in that it drove nail like spikes into the neck of the creature, should it get hard to handle. I first met Steve the dealer through Jason Metcalf, An old An old old old friend of mine. I mean we were friends in fuckin kindergarten. And we maintained a friendship through the years. Even after I left my first school for some dumb reason. I moved through a fair number of schools in my youth. Hell, I’m still going through schools. It may in fact turn out to be one of the defining aspects of my life. You see I’m a Philosopher by trade. Teaching is my occupation, my “professional life”.
Anyway, back to Steve and his dogs. It was may 13 2002.. We were at the local Air cadets Annual Inspection. I had been an ex-cadet, or ex-pigeon, for just short of a year. Hell I was even still an air cadet in first year college. Even then the only thing I was still in it for was because I wanted to teach. Flying, Aeronautics, Navigation, Principles of Flight, Meteorology, and whatever other flying related courses I could dream up.
January 19th 2004 3:45am Golden BC
Here I am walking around on this strange night. Memories of home, eerie memories of home. Things done, things for good things forgotten Jason is the one who comes to mind. I remember specifically our easy friendship. It was always an easy friendship. It was a real friendship. There’s nothing that’ll happen or can happen that’ll really change that I don’t think. It’s a basic belief that once was, what once was, is eternal. Essentially every moment stretches into infinity.. our memory is our living manifestation of the past, in our minds where it counts the most.. where it influences what we’ve done. Its as though our experience, our total experiences is translated into a form that we can reflect upon into eternity. Since each moment is wandering
July 31st, 2003
Victoria British Columbia
The Late Night Buskers
I was sitting in the woods one day with the idea in mind of writing up a little something. Perhaps something like a story, a narrative of sorts. The sky was a deep dark hue fading from the slowly lowering Sun, full of small wisps of cloud dancing over the cover of starlight just breaking through. It was a mild evening in June. At the beginning of a long journey, and I was content. The thing is though, I don’t write in a very linear fashion. I tend to be all over the place,. But I didn’t care. It was just for fun anyway. And hey if it’s not fun why do it right? As soon as I moved my hand over the page I thought of a million reasons to do something that isn’t fun. This is the story that came to me on that hot day for freedom. “Complicated isn’t it”, I thought .“This thing “life…”.
Anyway, lets get to it. The deal is there is this thing in my head. Some might call it a “character”. But the thing has no name that I know of so it is strange to label it as such. The thing is more of an idea. Yes An idea, as are all things nothing but ideas. Consider the soplopist’s argument that nothing but the self exists. There may be a world separate from the self but it is irrelevant. Our only knowledge of the outside world is gained through the senses, so blah blah blah blah blah and so on and so on and so forth etc etc etc. yakidee yak, don’t talk back right? Of course that would mean that all this shit your reading is actually in your head to begin with and what you’re doing now is making one of your own ideas manifest itself in the world (your world) in such a way that you can approach it objectively, like reading it on a page.. are you certain your not dreaming right now?… Anyway the point is, a world inside your head is just as valid, if not more so, than the world outside your head. And a character is an idea that helps to make up that inner world. For the moment you may consider this character I speak of to be called “Gabriel”. Why Gabriel? Because I like that name and I believe that it suits the nature of the idea., Angelic., Pure. It is in and of itself perfect.
Gabriel was a young boy of about nine or ten years. He had long dark brown hair tied back and somewhat knotted together. His eyes a dark piercing blue, that either saw straight into your soul or straight through you. I saw him in my mind’s eye looking at me, his face wondering but at the same time knowing. The boy has inherent wisdom revealed through the eyes to the keen observer. He’s a handsome boy with a wild look about him, but a steady gaze. He will grow to be a sorcerer, one who strives for the “source”. Many will call him the Magician of the Mountain. I got the impression that he had a gift with what many call “magic” from an early age.
It has been said that despite all evidence to the contrary, the universe is composed of entirely two substances: magic and bullshit. That is to say that from the perspective of the individual, any process sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Since at root all things and all processes are infinitely advanced and complex, all things are therefor for all tense and purposes, magic.
Gabriel had another interesting quality. He seamed to have in him a vivid “memory” of things that seamed to have happened years before his birth. The nuns at the orphanage attributed it to an over active imagination. But sometimes his imagination was difficult to explain , considering his lack of worldly experience. He could describe real existing landscapes on the far side of the world with staggering detail. He seemed to know about historical figures before ever hearing about them, claiming to know them personally as he would a close friend or playmate.
The nuns at the orphanage first encountered Gabriel in the year 1995, he had been with them now for 3 years yet he looked exactly the same age as when he had first arived.
My apartment in Camrose was on 10th street, a five minute walk from downtown, next to the park. I often wandered up and down the paths of the giant open park smoking weed. I never went to the local tavern to get drunk. I drank at home. The locals wanted no part of me. I was always a bit of a loner., by my own design. I just don’t gel with most people. A bit too much of a different beat going on in my head.
I can remember the first time I smoked the sweet grass. Its was September 2000, my first year of college. I was heading our to the local dance bar in a desperate attempt to meet people. On the way I bumped into a guy I had just met by the name of Jason Hewitt. A tall lanky looking fella, a northern hick at first account. But he played the guitar, about as well as me, which wasn’t very well at all. We hit it off right away. Anyway, on the way to this bar we ran into each other. He asked me if I smoked, I said I didn’t. “no no” he said “do you smoke the ganj?” I said I did even though I never had before although was up to it. We walked behind the bar and sparked up the joint, at the same time sealing what would prove to be a long friendship. Both loners,. outcasts of sorts. People thought we we’re cool for some reason even though we both new we weren’t..
I had just moved to Camrose from my home town of Wetaskiwin, 30 minutes to the west. Believe me, it was a step up in the world. Wetaskiwin is a godforsaken hole no denying it. Camrose by comparison was like Venice Italy. The streets were clean, you didn’t feel as though you had to look over your shoulder every thirty seconds for fear of being randomly lynched by some crazy drunk gang.. No no, Camrose was a college town. Civilised, or at least innocent. That was what I thought when I first moved there, fresh from the nest.. I was there in the fall after graduating from high school. Lacking, as so many others did, any ambition of my own. Nothing to live or die for, no religion too. We had become the ironic fulfillment of the prophecy of our times. So I decided to stick with my spoon fed way of. life. I went to college! A year later some friends and I are moving into what will become known as “the house”.
Ahh the house. Probably the single greatest tangible testament to our time in Camrose. It was the closest house to the college. Literally one minute away. It was built in the forties, war time architecture. Two levels, the main floor and the basement. It had three bedrooms, one upstairs and two downstairs. I lived
I live in a detached world for the most part, I’m only really connected to one other person, Ashley. How did this happen? I can remember feeling attached or connected to lots of things, too many things. Things I loathed. Now as I grow closer to only one, the rest of the world fades, And I love it.
Steve lived in a basement under his buddy’s mom’s house. He had two pitbulls, one male and one female. Mates. Fine dogs, an intimidating sight, the two of them together. Each was on the end of a big long chainlink leash, and we’re talkin heavy chain. The male leash had a bitting collar, in that it drove nail like spikes into the neck of the creature, should it get hard to handle. I first met Steve the dealer through Jason Metcalf, An old An old old old friend of mine. I mean we were friends in fuckin kindergarten. And we maintained a friendship through the years. Even after I left my first school for some dumb reason. I moved through a fair number of schools in my youth. Hell, I’m still going through schools. It may in fact turn out to be one of the defining aspects of my life. You see I’m a Philosopher by trade. Teaching is my occupation, my “professional life”.
Anyway, back to Steve and his dogs. It was may 13 2002.. We were at the local Air cadets Annual Inspection. I had been an ex-cadet, or ex-pigeon, for just short of a year. Hell I was even still an air cadet in first year college. Even then the only thing I was still in it for was because I wanted to teach. Flying, Aeronautics, Navigation, Principles of Flight, Meteorology, and whatever other flying related courses I could dream up.
January 19th 2004 3:45am Golden BC
Here I am walking around on this strange night. Memories of home, eerie memories of home. Things done, things for good things forgotten Jason is the one who comes to mind. I remember specifically our easy friendship. It was always an easy friendship. It was a real friendship. There’s nothing that’ll happen or can happen that’ll really change that I don’t think. It’s a basic belief that once was, what once was, is eternal. Essentially every moment stretches into infinity.. our memory is our living manifestation of the past, in our minds where it counts the most.. where it influences what we’ve done. Its as though our experience, our total experiences is translated into a form that we can reflect upon into eternity. Since each moment is wandering
July 31st, 2003
Victoria British Columbia
The Late Night Buskers
Rousseau's Platonic Point...
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