Lenore then and now

Lenore then

Lenore now

As you have been everyday, since that fateful day in October 2010, you were on my mind this morning as I awoke.  

So strong and so fresh, like you were in the same room.  And truly, I do believe you were.  

You are with us all, everyday.  

People say that, when close friends are gone.  They say " they are with us", "I can feel her in my heart", "when I close my eyes I see you there".  

And it is true.  Yet is also false and such wishful thinking.   

Because you are not here. 

You are gone.   

You are definitely gone.  

I can imagine the conversations we would be having.  I can almost remember the conversations that we did have.  I have a strong sense of the laugh, the Lenore laugh, somewhere between a chortle and a raised eyebrow.  

You always knew things, things that other people didn't.   And some of what you knew was true and some was just Lenore.  But you knew.   And God help the non-believers.

Were you perfect?  You were perfectly Lenore.  

Were you a dangerous woman?  As dangerous as you could be. 

Were you a mess of contradictions?  You were a mess.  You were contradictions.  You were Lenore.

Were you a raw nerve, a live wire, a divining rod, a reputation that preceded your presence, an idea whose time had not come, a visionary outsider, a royal pain in the ass?   You were all those Lenore, and more.

I remember a time when you were upset with the "punk rock royalty", so I gave you a crown.  And while some would be offended by this sarcastic crowning, you revelled in it.   Of course you knew the crown was given with love, and even though we were laughing at ourselves, we were also mocking this concept of "punk rock royalty" that offended us so.

This morning I awoke and picked up a book "Under the Sign of Saturn" by the brilliant Susan Sontag.  I had been given this book the past weekend, when I went with friends to visit with your beautiful daughter Saphira and Charles at their home in Gibsons.   The book has a drawing by Constance Fogler of a person climbing a ladder against a giant tree, while two men look on and marvel at the climb or the tree.  

The book opens with a quote from Beckett: 

Hamm: I love the old questions.

(With fervour.)

Ah the old questions, the old answers, 

there's nothing like them!

                                              Endgame

 She begins her book with an essay on Paul Goodman, writer of Growing Up Absurd, and many others.

Here is her last paragraph of the essay On Paul Goodman:

"With or without his books, I shall go on being marked by him.  I shall go on grieving that he is no longer alive to talk in new books, and that now we all have to go on in our fumbling attempts to help each other and say what is true and to release what poetry we have and to respect each other's madness and right to be wrong and to cultivate our sense of citizenliness without Paul's hectoring, without Paul's patient meandering explanations of everything, without the grace of Paul's example."

I miss not having you to wake up at 7 in the morning with my crazy phone calls.

I miss your Lenore laugh and those eyes that always twinkled.

I miss your fearlessness in the face of injustice.

I miss smoking a joint and playing with words, and drinking wine, and being with our mutual gang of friends.

I miss your artistry, your vision, your outrageous behavior.

The fact that you were so difficult at times, made you that much more lovable at all the others.  

I will treasure every minute we spent together.

I will mourn every minute we spend apart.

I will remember Lenore.
And more.
Then and now. 

You can change the world in your sleep

Richard Hell said the Blank Generation was not about blank personalities or emptiness or nihilism.


The Blank Generation was a blank slate.  It was a promise.  We each have the ability to fill in the Blanks. 


We can make ourselves into who we want to be; we can surround ourselves with people we like,  we can change the world by changing our own world.   This is the essential DIY message- Do It Yourself.


Going back further, Bowie helped popularized the concept of re-invention of self- i.e. you can be who you want to be. 


 Years later, the US Marines told potential recruits- Be all that you can be- The US Marines.  I'm not sure if being a US Marine would be "all" that I could be.  I am sure that I could never be all that- not at all.  It's just not my nature.

Punk rock for me was an awakening of self.  A re-birth.  A series of dreams and invention.  As I said once, "You can change the world in your sleep."  


High school was a mass experiment in socialization. And while some people fit in,  some didn't.  For many people, high school is still the lens and mirror they see themselves through/in.  And if high school was the best years of your life, time to get a new life, buddy. 


So we made our our own world - a world where we could fit in. 


One of the defining moments of the early punk days in Vancouver was a DOA gig at the Cambrian Hall. 


Our group of high school misfits had kidnapped a guy in Montana.  OK, I guess that needs some explanation.  Bastard and Goof went travelling to Montana-essentially a cross country beer run, and stopped for gas in a little shit hole in Montana.  
Cowboy Bill came out to pump their gas, and they said wanna blow this popstand and come to Canada?  He filled their car and jumped in, and we had ourselves an American pet.   We brought him on the rollercoaster on the PNE after many beers, just to see how many rides it took to make him puke.  
See, isn't he cute when he pukes?  Crazy American kidnappee.   Anyway, we took him with us to see DOA and the Dishrags at the Cambrian Hall.   The Cambrian Hall was a small community hall run by a Welsh society.  In the early days of punk in  Vancouver, many gigs were at these ethnic halls, (Japanese Hall, Ukrainian Hall, Odd Fellows Hall- a fitting name for a venue).  
The Dishrags opened the show with their punk schoolgirl charms, but things began to get ugly outside.  In those days, a biker contingent seemed intent on crashing these gigs, drawn by the assumption that all the rough and tumble of the mosh pit was an open invitation to crack heads.  
I can't remember if the police had shown up, but the situation was getting tense.  Inside the hall was extremely hot and sweaty.  We were all drinking cheap beer, and absorbing the white noise of the early punk gigs.  The sound was horrible but we didn't care!   This was something new, and we were all there to be a part of this new group of friends.
At some point, DOA took over the stage and told everyone to get inside, they were locking the doors.  This kept the loogers out, a circling of the wagons so to speak.
This action sealed the deal.  It was US against THEM.  We were on the inside and THEY were on the outside.  DOA proceeded to bring a freshly painted banner dripping in red paint that said DOA on the stage.   Red paint was everywhere.
Their set was like so many of their early sets.  Essential one long song of many short songs with the occassional 1,2,3,4 punctuating the start of a new song.  
Chuck Biscuits was and is the greatest punk rock drummer of all time.   You can take that to the bank.  Maybe his brother Dimwit came close, but Chuck was fury, arms and attitude.  Easily the best looking member of DOA- now that is not a hard contest to win- a babyface with a scowl and almost a jazz sense of time.
Randy was.....Randy is....a Randy.  With all that goes with that name.  Old school rock star moves. bass hung low probably hung low himself, who knows?  Well a few people do, but not me.  
And Joey?  Joey was the commander, the leader and he knew it and we knew it.  He is a survivor, a canny businessman, a cartoon and a genuine great guy.  But that night, he was a GOD.
The show was filled with sweaty guys and girls, beer, red paint and buckets of water thrown on the audience from the stage.  The floor of the hall was a disaster, and after the show, the cute little Welsh couple who ran the hall were in tears over what we had done.
And I sort of felt bad for them.   But I also felt a feeling of belonging that I had not felt before.  

Watching the Detectives

“There’s a time for reciting poems and a time for fists. As far as I was concerned, this was the latter.”
— Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives

I went to watch the fights and somebody started a hockey game

"In Canetti’s system, production is nothing but “the modern frenzy of increase.” Since “increase” is a characteristic of crowds, production becomes just another instance, a double one, of the crowd gone wild, for goods and consumers each make up a crowd."


Here we sit broken hearted
Came to sip 
but when the crowd departed
The Cup became glass
Our City lost all its Class
to an Unruly Mob  
who looted Lord Stanley's fob.
They lobbed 
 newspaper boxes 
and looted the Bay of watches and clockses, 
Time stood on its ear
as all watched with horror
The City's aflame,
and now we're the poorer...
For these louts and these goons
Their 15 minutes secure
Like their chums from '94
the hockey game was a blur.


The nimrod natives were restless
fuelled on Booze, and blood on the bongo
And in the flash of a flash grenade
We forgot about  Luongo.


It is a "world class city " til
you get poked in the eye
stabbed in the gut, 
while on-lookers stand by

We watched the game, 

the world watched the fires.  

The Prius, the Hummer, the BMW tires

A Mob Dressed in sportswear of Corporate Colors

A Flash Mob all a Twitter, as the twits turned over cars, burned the Red Carpet, and the portable Shitter.

Finally the Mob burned out their rage                                                                                                                                                                                                                      and in the end, 
who remembers our hockey heroes upstaged?

The Canuck's season is over, 

to the streets we must clean up 

And get ready for football                                                                                                             

The Lions host the Grey Cup.

                                                                                                             

Another Way of Drowning in your own body

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18211068?nclick_check=1

"Leonard Lloyd, of Oakley, is a retired marriage and family psychotherapist and former probation officer who said he is familiar with being helpless in the presence of human tragedy.

"The emphasis on inaction by potential rescuers is misplaced," he said. "Every indication is that this man was determined to end his life just as he did. It is tragic that he had come to the point that he no longer wanted to be alive. People close to him tried to talk him out of it, made extra efforts to get him to return safely home, to no avail.

"But the tragedy is not that rescuers did not stop him, but that all previous efforts, such as mental health care at (a local psychiatric hospital) and presumed aftercare were not sufficient to lift his chronic depression.'' "

The emphasis of this story has been the inaction of the firefighters, as well as the crowd of 70 onlookers to a lesser extent.

The real story is not that 70 people and professional life savers failed to help, but as the comment above states, "the tragedy is ....presumed aftercare (was) not sufficient to life his chronic depression."

Chronic depression is a form of drowning in your own body. (One of the highest google searches for this blog is the post I wrote in regards to my father's death from congestive heart failure Like Drowning in Your Own Body)

As anxiety increases to unmanageable levels, we feel a sensation of panic similar to drowning. 

Unfortunately, I can speak of both of these experiences on a personal level.     

Once as a teenager, the morning after a night of drinking, my buddies and I decided to swim across a lake for a lark.

All very well, until I reached the midway point and realized I was exhausted.  I started to sink.  When people speak of a "sinking feeling", I know that feeling.   There is not much like it.  I saw my buddies well ahead of me.  

All around me, water.   Below me, more water.   

Were there boaters out on the lake that could help?  No.  I knew in the split second (minutes) that I had a choice.  To live or not to live.  To be or not to be.  

I wanted to live.  I found the where-with-all to make it to the other side.  And when I got there, I was almost blue.  

I said to my buddies, let's walk back.  

Walk back?  There is nothing but mountains, trees, and bears for miles.  That is not an option. You have to swim back.

And I did, because I am here today.

Flash forward to 2007.  My well documented heart attack.  Once again, near death.  Once again, deals made with God to let me keep on living.   

I said," if you want to take me, take me.  But if you have something more for me to do in this life, please let me live."

And I did, because I am here today. 

5 months after my heart attack, depression overwhelmed me.   Depression was not a stranger, but this time it was different.

This time it was serious, and life threatening.   When you feel that sinking feeling to the point that you cannot even make the decision to sink or swim, to want to swim, to want to go on.....well, that is what depression is.

It is not feeling sad.  It is not having the blues.  

It is overriding panic, anxiety, indecision, and most of all, the feeling that you are not in control of your own body.  Not in control of your own mind.  Not in control.

Another way of drowning in your own body.  

In the words of Samuel Beckett, "I can't go on. I'll go on."

National Donut Day - we bow our heads in silence

 Homer, patron saint of donuts.  D'oh Nuts.  Second cousin married to second cousin Floor Pie.  Closely related to Don't make friends with salads.


Did you know....
14 billion donuts consumed annually in the US.

Did you know...
Top donut consumers are not yellow.

Did you know....
But they do live in the midwest.  What else can you do in winter?  Make babies?
What do you do when you are too fat to make babies?


Relax.  Eat a donut, pal.














Here we see one of the 7 wonders of the world:

The Krispy Kreme Bacon and Eggs Burger.

Seriously, what more is there to say.

Did you know that donuts are the #2 baked good in the United States, second only to bread.

Damn bread.

Is there no justice?

With all the cops eating donuts, you think there might be justice.

Justiced Donuts. Mmmmmmmmm.

HAPPY DONUT DAY!!!!!!!

They attack from so deep inside you, you cannot locate the source of the pain

Brain Shivers

What doesn't cure you, may kill you yet.


Akathisia, or acathisia, is a syndrome characterized by unpleasant sensations of "inner" restlessness that manifests itself with an inability to sit still or remain motionless (hence the word's origin in Ancient Greek: from καθίζειν - kathízein - "to sit" with a privative a as prefix expressing negation or absence; literally meaning inability to sit).


Akathisia may range in intensity from a sense of disquiet or anxiety, to severe discomfort, particularly in the knees. Patients typically pace for hours because the pressure on the knees reduces the discomfort slightly; once their knees become fatigued, they sit or lie down.




High-functioning patients have described the feeling as a sense of inner tension and torment or chemical torture. 

Jack Henry Abbot (1981),a convicted murderer and author, described the effects of akathisia produced by antipsychotic drugs when given without the necessary medication for side effects (e.g. procyclidine) as may occur in prison and even sometimes hospitals:

These drugs, in this family, do not calm or sedate the nerves. They attack. They attack from so deep inside you, you cannot locate the source of the pain ... The muscles of your jawbone go berserk, so that you bite the inside of your mouth and your jaw locks and the pain throbs. For hours every day this will occur. Your spinal column stiffens so that you can hardly move your head or your neck and sometimes your back bends like a bow and you cannot stand up. The pain grinds into your fiber ... You ache with restlessness, so you feel you have to walk, to pace. And then as soon as you start pacing, the opposite occurs to you; you must sit and rest. Back and forth, up and down you go in pain you cannot locate, in such wretched anxiety you are overwhelmed, because you cannot get relief even in breathing.

—Jack Henry Abbot, In the Belly of the Beast (1981/1991). Vintage Books, 35–36. Quoted in Robert Whitaker, Mad in America (2002, ISBN 0-7382-0799-3), 187.