Dear Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama comes to Vancouver September 9th

He's not a real god he's just better than us 'cause he's worked at it

The Dalai Lama arrives in Vancouver to discuss various ideas, such as Happiness and Stress as Determinants of Mental Health, Connecting for Change: Corporate and Social Leaders in Dialogue, and a public talk at GM Place.

The Princess and I saw His Highness a few years ago when he was in Vancouver at the Pacific Colliseum and he is a sweet and gentle man but unless you've been living in a military barrack or are one of the founders of the ex-gay movement or are in a maximum security prison the message in his public talk was not that startling. Yeah, yeah, be the change you wish to see in the world. Cultivate happiness, etc.

Nevertheless, Tibetan Buddhism has a lot to offer this world and the Dalai Lama is worth seeing and happiness worth cultivating and bettering your inner landscape to change the outer landscape an excellent strategy. So, if you've never seen him before or are only lately embarking on a spiritual journey make your way, on September 9th, to GM place and see His Highness.

M

The Last Days of Summer

Autumn cold and golden leaves and morning frost just a few weeks away

I wake up in the morning too early and find myself behind a computer or hassled by an insistent telephone or in the middle of one logistical crisis after another by 9AM. Before work there is no quiet morning read, no puttering with the patio plants whose latin names I've forgotten but whose nicknames seem more apt (Yellow belly, Agnes, Larry the Creeper, and Brother of Larry), no coaxing them to grow or muttering encouragement as I groom them.There is no walk along the water, no 'hail fellow well met' to the start of day.

The alarm clock rings and the day is started with a cup of coffee that lately turns my stomach sour and a quick shave, if I remember, and I trot to the bus to catch one of three that run along Hastings on my way to the Burnaby Campus. I can barely finish a paragraph before I'm disgorged from the belly of one public transit whale into the belly of another like some unwanted Jonah and then as soon as I walk in the door and unlock my office the world begins to roar and rattle my windows until I can't take it anymore.

I've been trying to read the 1978 novel by Larry Kramer, Faggots, between bus rides and meetings and meetings and bus rides. I opted out of seeing Tomi Swick (I'm sorry Tomi) to sit in a downtown cafe to drink red wine and eat a Cobb salad and not answer any telephone or listen to anything. I read and eventually stopped reading and just sat.

Yesterday, I telephoned the Princess. She didn't answer. I called her from the street corner where she lives. I put my Treo away, went home, crawled into bed and slept until dawn.

I am so fucking tired I could die.

Who invented this working for a living? Who invented this life? Who the fuck cares whether Adobe or Canadian Tire access their market or whether the school's demographic are properly served by its corporate sponsors?

Does anyone?

Wouldn't we all rather drink a bottle of wine and and talk about Roland Barthe?

M

Everything I know about the sitar I learned from Anoushka's father

"Raga's are precise melody forms"

So begins the CD An Introduction to Indian Music, by Ravi Shankar. This introduction didn't make me an expert on sitar form or style but it did help me understand the performance by Ravi's daughter, sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar,during her recent appearance at the Chan Centre during Festival Vancouver.

Presumably Anoushka also learned much from her father and also apparently has added her own flavours and tastes to this classic Indian instrument and melody form.

She appeared on stage with a seven other musicians playing a combination of Indian and Western instruments, including a G5 Mac Powerbook, piano, an Indian wind instrument, tablas and voice.

It's hard to describe the extent to which she blends European influences into the Indian form since I'm really just a chump with a thing for Indian music but the effect was a wonderful mixture of melodic runs up and down the sitar with its bended notes and resonating symapathetic strings, the tap-tunk of the tablas drum, the beauty of a chanting human voice and the soundscape from the G5.

It was a very relaxed and easy-going performance with Shankar clearly happy being on stage and apparently surrounded by friends (she had a mimed conversation with someone in the wings during a lull in the music, "Hello. Great to see you! No, come around the side and sit in the front. No, no, there are people you know there", etc)

Now, after a night of Anoushka, I feel a little old-skool for still listening to her father's CDs and LP vinyl.

If you get a chance to see Anoushka, take it.

xoxo

M

We Found Old Man River

The Tractor Grease Festival Sept 16

A few telephone calls, some groping about blindly through Google (sorry, ma'am) and a fortuitous brain flash surrendered the contact information for Earles by the River Campground, the site for the September 16th music festival in Chilliwack.

It's apparently about a kilometre down Chilliwack Lake Road on the left hand side (not the river side) and it's a welcoming place.

Or you can find it here.

We'll see the Seams, Ridley Bent, The Dirt and many more. We'll drink some beer or something stronger and warmer. We'll burn wood and cuss. We'll become lifelong friends.

xoxo

M

And why haven't they asked us to govern the world?

We have opposable thumbs too!

Liar, Liar, pants on fire

If everyone experiences life differently and there are many truths, as post-modernism postulates, then is there any such thing as lying? Or if truth is relative to point of view or other truths, what is a lie? If a door is different for you than it is for me is there really such a thing as a door?

Lying is defined, right now, as stating an untruth or misrepresenting reality to another with the intent to decieve.

BadMark and I are working on redefining lying and repositioning it so that it becomes a respectable tool in the post-modernist kit.

So far, we have: lying is stating an unrealized truth. Also: lying is simply an expression of an alternate truth. Also: lying is a disimilar or contested truth.

We're on to something, baby! We're heading down to the patent offices or where ever it is one goes to protect intellectual property. May your pants never be on fire again!

xo

M

You've got exactly 86,400 minutes to catch this performance

Lounge by Tonya Marquardt until August 12

July 25 - August 12, 2006
8pm Tuesday - Saturday
Vibes Lounge
555 Davie
(604) 688-5559

Tickets available starting July 1st
@Little Sisters Bookstore
1238 Davie Street
Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6E 1N3
phone: 1-800-567-1662

And I'm sure you can find tix at the door but call first to confirm.

xo

M

Don't Trademark Pride

The sign says it all

You may not be able to read the sign on the blue pick up truck (my Treo has its limitations) but it says, "Don't TM Pride". This is a community response to the efforts by the Vancouver Pride Society to trademark the name 'Pride' in an effort to control the types and number of events that occur during Pride Week in Vancouver, including the nearly middle-aged Pride Parade. I believe the quote was, "somebody is going to control the name Pride and we want the community to own it" (but don't 'quote' me on that 'cause I'm going from memory).

There was also some sort of reference to 'unscrupulous' persons putting on events and exploiting Pride.

How any public event could be unscrupulously using the name 'Pride', duping unwitting participants, is baffling to me as is the belief that trademarking the name will prevent this. And the argument that 'somebody' will eventually own the name 'Pride' is contentious and open to argument.

Leave things as is, I say, and let the community throw good or bad parties, events, or fundraisers to the level of their skill or care. The nice ones will throw nice parties, the nasties will throw parties in which feelings get hurt but so be it. The nice people will find their way amongst their own and the slim-witted and innocent will find themselves tossed about in good and bad seas as is usual for them.

I agree: DON'T TM PRIDE.

I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?

xoxo

M

They can stay up late 'cause they don't have jobs

It's music to my ears but a grind on my body

I'll be at the following shows:

Nikki Hurst at the Roxy Aug 8
The Heartfelt Apologies at the Backstage Lounge Aug 9 or Lounge at 555 Davie St. or both should the adrenal glands fire up (without chemical prompting).
Anoushka Shankar at the Chan Aug 10
The Kitchen at the Fairview Aug 12
The Art of Dying at the Backstage Lounge Aug 13 (possibly)
The Welsh Bros. at the Backstage Lounge Aug 16
Tomi Swick at the Red Room Aug 17
Mother at the Railway Aug 19

Stop watching TV, getting enough sleep, taking care of your health or whatever it is you're doing and come out to see them with me. They start late, end late but we all have to get up early.

xoxo

M

Anyone heard of a guy named Earl?

The Tractor Grease Festival September 16th



So, if you go to this website (click here) you'll see that a handful of local artists have self-organized a music festival of camping and song on Saturday September 16th. The number of confirmed acts has climbed from nine (when I heard about Tractor Grease) to eleven, the last posted number.

So, I've got a pocket of money, a tank full of gas, some beer, someone to take care of my cats, a laptop computer (battery fully charged), my trusty Treo 600 (for notes, terrible pictures, and interviews), and the thrill of a road trip coarsing through my veins.

What's missing?

Oh, yeah. Where the f'ah is Earl's By the River Campground ?!

Sure, I've checked out the search engines and, while I turned up the guy who owns it (Earl Commodore), I didn't turn up a location or a contact email or number.

Now, I'll have to telephone Cameron Latimer or Brian Fowler.

Here's a little something from ~*~'s blog

take me

Take me
like milk in your tea
turning
the liquid smoke dance
of two
spun one.

Dervish-cum-atheist, this time.

Copyright retained by author, natch.

xoxo

M

Vancouver Pride Weekend Tentative Itinerary

Apparently, I can be found thusly:

a) Friday night - TBD

b) Saturday night - Burlesque at the Lamplighter (till midnight or so)

c) Saturday night - 4Play at Storyeum (after midnight or so)

d) Sunday morning - Brunch at the Davie Village Cafe

e) Sunday noon - Pride Parade till 2PM

f) Sunday afternoon - Oasis beer garden (Tentative)

g) Sunday evening - Angels in America Part I

h) Sunday evening - Climax with the Princess

i) Monday morning - Ah f'ah! It'll be back to work for me, hangover notwithstanding.

If I can bump into you at one, or several, of these events then we're golden.

Cheers,

M

Mon Dieu! Quelle Horreur!

This is why I need a gaggle of doppelgangers who report directly to me



So, the horror of an overly scheduled Pride Weekend is still unfolding with sharp and dastardly prickly consequences. Now, upon closer inspection the Odd Ball is actually on Sunday which means that I need to choose between Angels in America Part I and a dance party for queers, breeders, sexual outlaws and pirates. I've already been accused of 'losing my edge' for sleeping on the couch last night. And since I will likely miss both the Cirque de Sade and the Odd Ball I will have to do something spectacular in order to quash those rumours. I'm not losing my edge, by the way, I'm just sophisticated in my approach. Yeah, that's it.

Tsk tsk tsk. I'll have to have a hand in organizing this Pride thing 'cause obviously we all need to make sure my needs are taken into account first.

The good news is that Friday I'm no longer working but the bad news is that I'm working on Monday with a hang-over.

Rupaul is coming to Vancouver

And when were you planning on telling me?




Great! But now, I have other plans for that weekend! With promises made and arrangements in order! The loop people...it's not a loop if you don't include others.

Well, you'll just have to head over to Celebrities and catch the midnight show on September 15th, dance all night and make out like a bandit for me and then tell me all about it over strong coffee or a mimosa at the Davie Village Cafe.

xoxo

M

Heaven must be missing an angel because you are...um...how does that go again?

Anoushka Shankar on August 10 at the Chan Centre



I have tickets and a companion for Anoushka Shankar's performance on August 10. Shankar is the daughter of Ravi Shankar, the past-master of sitar music, and an accomplished player and composer in her own right.

And the Chan Centre, on the UBC Endowment Lands, is the perfect venue for her. It'll be sweet.

Check out the event here.

Namaskar!

"I bow to God in you; I love you and I respect you, as there is no one like you."

M

It's one long joyous occasion and we'll miss you if you're not there

If you can't get laid during Pride week, let's sit and talk 'cause that ain't normal

Click on this link here for the Vancouver Pride Society's Pocket Guide to Pride 2006.

There's lots happening and for all types and tastes. Make sure you check out 4Play at Storyeum (and if you leave before 3AM, we're starting rumours about ya!). You can drop in after you go to the Odd Ball, the dance party for Vancouver's Queers, Breeders, Freaks and Pirates. It's at the WISE Hall and they close at midnight, leaving 5.5 hours to kill before dawn.

Watch for the the YouthCO AIDS Society volunteers marching in the parade. They've grown little angel wings 'cause they're marching with Hoarse Raven Theatre.

Also, Angels in America (see posting below) on Sunday August 6th.

It'll be a long action-packed weekend but I know you can burn the candle at both ends. And if you can't I have two words for you, 'Red Bull'.

Calling all grrls! Calling all grrls!

Pride is around the corner and Ms. LP has a few things in mind for you

She says:
4PLAY - Saturday, August 5th 9pm-4am
Storyeum: 111 West Cordova St.

Featuring: Spinderella (Salt 'n' Pepa - NYC), The HitGirl Collective (Seattle), DJ T, MC Brigee K. Tix $25 advance/$35 on the day. Available @: Little Sisters (1238 Davie St.), Liquid Amber Tattoo (3475 West 4th Ave), Kokopelli's (2052 Commercial Dr.)

www.gplayproductions.com

CLIMAX - Sunday, August 6th 8pm-3am
Sonar: 66 Water St.

Featuring: Wasabi (Cherry - Seattle), L.A. Kendall (Hot Mess - Seattle), Julie Hererra (Hot Mess - Seattle), Colby B (Hot Mess - Seattle), DJ T (Vancouver), DJ De Lux (Vancouver), MC Brigee K (Vancouver); Performances by: DKUnited and Firebelly. Tix $20 advance/$30 at the door. Available at: Little Sisters, Liquid Amber Tattoo, Kokopelli's.

www.gplayproductions.com

August 6th - You and me, we'll see a play and then celebrate life

Angels in America Parts I & II



In 1992 Tony Kushner wrote an epic play in two parts, Angels in America Parts I & II. Set in New York in the mid-eighties the action centres on a group of men and women in the maelstrom of the AIDS crisis that was just launching, looking for meaning in the face of death, deterioration and disease.

Hoarse Raven Theatre is presenting the full play with performances ending August 19, 2006. HRT is a great local theatre company who earlier presented Headwig and the Angry Inch (bastards made me cry) at the Lotus Sound Lounge (the perfect venue for that piece).

This Sunday, August 6, is your BEST CHANCE TO SEE PART I 'cause it's also a fundraiser for YouthCO AIDS Society. So, pull some money out of your pocket and pick up some tickets. We'll see you there (unless you're going to Cirque de Sade at the Penthouse - but why? The Princess is going to be at Angels in America with me, so what's the point?)

Ciao bella and bello!

M

Do you have a moment?

Is there meaning in everything?



Time has stopped, it is no longer slipping slipping slipping into the future. All the timekeeping devices in my house have either stopped or are keeping irregular hours or are oddly disfunctional. This has all occured within the last three days. Or has it? I can't tell time no more.

Seiko watch from Egypt - not working at all.

Swiss watch - losing five minutes every
hour

Cardinal watch encrusted with faux diamonds (no, mommy, they're real!) - stopped working

Wall clock above my iMac - dead batteries

Treo 600 - the time is automatically set by the wireless network and it's reading 7:52 AM when it's actually 9:23AM (according to my iMac clock automatically set by the network)

The kitchen clock - reads 11 o'clock and I'm guessing that it's losing time but it could be gaining time

Bedroom clock - not working at all

iPod and iMac are in agreement - it's 9:23AM

Aww - f'ah! I was supposed to be at work an hour and a half ago!

M

Derogatory, my ass!

sweet in the pants

adj. effeminate or homosexual. This term is an extended variant of "sweet" with the same meaning. A few citations exist that seem to use sweet in the pants to mean 'cool, good, sexy,' but the usage is uncertain.

Categories: English. Gay. Sex & Sexuality. Derogatory. Slang.

Citations and other information are available at the Double-Tongued Word Wrester web site.

Write! Write! Write!

And a few words more



I've been covering the local music scene and writing reviews for an on-line zine, KE-zine. Should you happen to be interested just click here and you'll be brought to the site by the little hamsters who do all the heavy lifting in the Internet. When you get there check out Music (Live).

And speaking of covering the local music scene - which of us has ticket(s) to the Tractor Grease Festival September 16? Yeah, baby, we're going camping in style with an RV, some beer, eleven bands and artists, and a baaad attitude.

First, we have to find the RV and work on the baaad attitude. And can you lend us some money for drugs? We can't go paar-teh without drugs, can we? No, seriously, I'm not sure.

xoxo

M