I believe in the night

Yeah so I'm back or whatever and man, I don't know. Is there any point? My unintentional computer sabbatical has left me wondering, do the kids over at The Only have it right? Is that how they stay so positive and free from the traps of sarcasm and cynicism? Because right now it seems like "news" only happens in the winter. I've spent the last few weeks breaking onto roofs and wandering around aimlessly.

I'm a traveler again. Alone in my city for the first time. I will have my coffee to stay. Take my time. Smear the dirt and the smells of back alleys on my clean clothes, get lost in the mire of moss cracked industry. In Belfast, after the troubles, I was there, and I was lost, and I grew strong and bold, booking beds in hostels, buying books of bus tickets. Or, when the walls opened, and the siege was lifted, and the Apprentice Boys stood aside, I walked the old city of Londonderry, confident and proud among the paint-splattered outposts and martyred walls. Now I drift. I wander to live. I let the city's doors open, I listen to the whispers in the cobblestones, I follow the underground streams to their source, like a sockeye, I've been here before. Only this time, I've grown even bigger, in a spiral outwards, drawing in the detritus of seasons. Count the rings, you'll see, its all circular, Fibonacci was telling the truth. Even in smoke and mirrors there are smoke and mirrors. Mother, please believe me, like you believed in me once before, I will smash them again, these mirrors.

Poetic? Pretentious? All I know is that I feel like I've been stuck behind this blue plasma gaze, my life of icons glowing like cathedrals once glowed. We were beaten badly by the weather this year. I think it had an effect on the collective psyche; It was freezing like 2 weeks ago. "The city we live in is a dark, dark, place/ six months of the year, well all it does is rain/ but November will pass, and those days will return, once more" -d.b.s.

With Music Waste lighting the wick of summer once again, we're in the days of One Night Stands, bonfires and burnt shoulders, Fake Jazz and real jazz. You get that sense walking into a place like ER or the Peanut Gallery that something, albeit shapeless and young, is forming. Frame it. Write it all down; Press record.

Man, walking down water street last week while it was closed off, the Cheaper Show line-up coiling around the old Storyeum building like a cobra, while the jazz below hypnotized it, like a charmer, it was a city alive again. I wish I could have previewed it for you guys, I wish somebody could have (hint). The art ran the spectrum from low brow to fairly high: From the crazy drunk monkey with the surprisingly realistic testes, to the photo-conceptualism of Jeff Otto "I sold five and I only had 3 in the show" O'Brien, to the folk art of Kevin House's Hobeum. Kevin also spent the night chasing people who were chasing crackheads who stole money from the tip jar, which I still don't know whether or not it was a performance piece and I'm too afraid to ask.

Some standouts included Weakhand's installation, Murray Siple's reflections, Aigin Larkin's delicate romance, Peter Taylor's flattened graffiti people, Mark Delong with his ubiquitous comics, Kathy Lo's surprisingly sensitive photorealism, Jesse Savath's use of negative space, and Christian Nicolay's fragile tension in This Plant Will Fall; among so many other great pieces.

With Sled Island and Pemberton Fest filling the collective memory card of hipsters across the Lower Mainland, the Shearing Pinx return triumphantly to what could be a preview of this year's Victory Square Block Party: Ora Corgan, Stamina Mantis, Certain Breeds, the Sorrow and the Pity, Nu Sensae, Taxes, Kellarissa, Basketball, V. Vecker, i/i, Black Mage, Empty Love, Modern Creatures, and Pink Noise. I know, right? Which got me thinking, what would be the best Victory Square line-up? There are just so many rad bands right now they almost need a second stage. Ice Cream, Adjective, Mutators, Sports, Winning, Twin Crystals, White Lung, White Owl, Owl Drugs, Animal Names, Baby Control, No Gold, Bison, China Creeps, Green Hour, and so on and so forth. Maybe some of them will be on tour to make it a little easier on old Dyke Hair.

Everybody's workin for the weekend.

Friday night its probs either Crookers or 1/2 Alive with White Lung. On Saturday there is an art opening: WOUNDS by Randy Grskovic and that SAVE THAT DRAMA FOR YO'MAMA party has moved from Sweatshop to Astoria (Sweatshop is not closing down, relax, they're doing renos or something. And for the geeks there is always the Work Less Party Party. Oh if you and if you're all into getting your fucking ID scanned and picture taken and microchip implanted you could go to The Modern. Um, can you make it more of a pain in the ass to pay money at your establishment?

Anyways, See you out there, in the rotting brick back alleys and tiny spaces that define our lives, in the blackest dusk awash with white noise. I believe in the night. Together, into ether. Under the cobblestones, the beach!