THANK YOU

D.I.Y

 

 These concepts excite me. The thought of D.I.Y. gives the same excitement as when I was in grade 5, and would tape songs off the radio and distribute them to my class mates as top 5's, I had this weird Norwegian kid named Trigve who helped me. 

 My girlfriend, who unfortunately lives on the other side of the country, is apart of a community which revolves around local social capital. She belongs to a group of women who are all entrepreneurs, they are using this concept to remain separate from the recession as it is affecting Edmonton's oil based economy greatly. These women all run small businesses and try to only buy from each other. Karen makes women's clothing and sells it at the meetings, in turn she buys her feminine products or anything the group provides through their circle. If she wanted to open up a store there the group would put up the money for it, they all pitch in a thousand dollars twice a year and it goes into an investment, twice a year she receives seven times the amount she put in to the investment. Not a bad racket. While the caucasian families who have been in Edmonton for several generations are wallowing in stress, the immigrants are sticking together and getting richer. 

 Part of me cackles like some evil villain boiling a child in a cauldron when I think of all those jerk off rig pigs. Jobless. With lease payments for their ski-doo's and pick up trucks bashing there swollen testicles into reality. My girlfriend is moving here in august, thankfully, hopefully we can find a similar community or create one here in Montreal. If it can happen in Edmonton it can happen anywhewre. 

EDIBLE EXCESS.

Despite all my travels I still have troubles shaking the disturbing scenes of an Albertan shopping mall, lifeless slugs, screaming brats, trophy wives, blindly following their consumer instincts through those horrible labyrinth's of food courts, outlet stores and junk kiosks. Its Fear and Loathing In West Edmonton, bare witness Eddy Bernay's successful massacre of the human spirit.

Wednesdays field trip gave me some hope, for many reasons. Not only for the actions being taken by people to thwart the beast, but also because the upper echelon of the art world is looking at some counter cultural youth movements as important catalysts for change.

Seeing Steve Alba's name at the Canadian Centre For Architecture really took me by surprise. As a teen I idolized the whole Californian skate movement, the music as well. My shit poor garage band mainly covered T.S.O.L. tunes and of course the Circle Jerks and Black Flag. I loved the whole energy, and nothing topped it all off like seeing Salba, Gator etc... shred pools that werent theirs!! I tried to mimic this lifestyle the best I could living in Airdrie, unfortunately prairie bedroom communities dont have too many pools.

The most inspiring part of the exhibit was reading about the contemporary actions being taken by people in North America and Europe. Urban Gardens in London that actually produce vegetables, Turin using sheep to mow grass, Edible Excess stickers and the fascinating protest of new development in San Bernardo, Seville Spain. Its so good to know that people are getting active, smart people, people with money, hopefully if there is enough of us we can create our own beast. The energy is here in Montreal, it just needs to be harnessed. Two sundays ago Craig and I witnessed it first hand, as we watched through the lenses of our cameras, mobs of angry youth hurl rocks and bottles at riot police. The act of documentation is apparently grounds for arrest now, and found us detained for several hours, still well worth the footage.

What we witnessed was a display of wild youthful disobedience, with no brains behind it. It looks bad but it will come in handy, and it isn't as poorly received as one would think. A french buisnessman with grey hair passed me on the sidewalk and asked me why these kids were breaking windows and throwing rocks at the police, i replied "because they hate them" he smiled and said "they should". People of all ages and class know the world is getting fucked over, and their unhappy about it. Some fight it by not showering and being pissed off all the time, some are starting to fight it with organization and logic. Both are needed. The owner of the Indian import store down the street put it best when describing the goddess Kali to me.

"my friend, the forces of evil cannot always be beaten with kind words and soft prayer, sometime you need kick a little ass"

Thanks Raj.

I really appreciated the variety of ideas being displayed at the CCA, however, there was alot of stuff to go through without much visual stimulation. The overall display was overcrowded with only a couple pieces that really stood out visually, the photos of downtown Detroit for example. My Brain is also completely fried from three months of Rap and the accessibility of good hash in this city, so take my criticism with a grain of salt.

Since Jan 1 2009 I Have Only Listened To Rap Music

 

First Things First. 

 Bierut is right when he says the designers which took part in the manifesto 'have specialized in [designing] extraordinarily beautiful things for the cultural elite, not the denizens of your local 7-eleven.'  Though this is one of my main beefs with art/design in general, I don't think it is entirely wrong. Before real change is to happen, the people calling the shots need to be converted, their the ones who own all the "space". That age old issue of space, who's space? It's definitely not mine, and its rarely owned by someone with a soul. Thats what a lot of this boils down to. space.

The Designers.

 This is why First Things First didn't start the revolution it intended, the designers, the "play it safe's" of the art world. Most designers I meet are in design because it is one of the few ways to earn a steady paycheck as an artist, its sad but its true. A majority graphic designers are nestled deep in the bosom of materialism, settling to be art slaves, held captive by the life they think they must sustain. My generation is no different, its made obvious by their work, that's why classes like this are so valuable, especially at this time. I hope after this course some of them will want more out of life than to design brochures and be comfortable. 

Average Joe.

Is in need of rescue, thats what this is all about. His brain has been fried from too many flashy advertisements. I thank CBC because I can watch the Oilers without some computer effects exploding in the top left corner to tell me the score. I don't think anyone realizes what this does to our brains, how much space this takes up. ZAPPED. Go to a Wal-Mart in West Edmonton, the situation is grim.

The Gravediggaz

Six Feet Deep. 1994. I have listened to this album weekly since I re-discovered it this January. It was a side project of The Rza's before he released the first Wu-Tang album. Prince Paul on the beats, and aided by Poetic and Frukwan, the Gravediggaz were a group of young drug dealers on the verge of making it big, and intent on making it out of the ghetto. The album sparked a small sub-genre of rap called horror-core, as all the lyrics were derived from horror films. After reading some interviews and listening to the album over twenty-times in the last two months, my mushed brain finally realized that this album was a metaphor for the dead soul of a ghetto dweller. They commonly refer to "resurrecting the mental dead" from the "graveyard"(the ghetto). "Long has the ghetto dweller been caught in a death trap".  The same can be said for the suburb dweller, though it is a different kind of death trap. The ghetto dweller is held down by the strong arm of the man, the suburb dweller is held down by the strong arm of lease payments.  

"another day another ducat"

 

 

Flash In A Pan

 Ok, time to step out of my roll as contrarian and tell you how I really feel about technology and its relation to our current condition, despite my emotionally loaded statements.  

 Too be honest I don't have much faith in humanity's ability to fix this mess, the problems are too deep and unfortunately far too big. Now regardless of the probable outcome, I believe it is our duty to try as hard as we can to fix the problems, and live as if it were possible. World peace and equality don't exist, but the idea does, and the idea becomes more real with more effort, somewhere.  

 

 The production of affordable technology has been one of the main causes of the Earths crisis, especially as most of it is unnecessary and developed to serve only the most basic entertainment needs. However, the technological advances discussed in this article are an indicator of technology finding its way home. Expression opposed to distraction. 

 I believe that every thing on this planet comes from one source, and the entire earths evolution is an energy developing the most sophisticated way to express itself. Human beings are the latest model, the most specialized. A dog can express itself by barking, a human being can do much much more, how we do this is what separates one from another. 

 Recent technological advancements have given us even better forms of expression, this is something to cherish. 40 years ago I would've had to choose, musician or painter, writer or photographer. I think I utilized all these mediums just last week, turning abstract thought into many different types of physical materials, that another human being can enjoy and interpret. Expression is now made accessible to everyone, we can feel exactly what someone else was feeling 20 years ago when we listen to their music. I get goose bumps when I listen to Fela Kuti's "Coffin For Head Of State" written shortly after his elderly mother was killed by Nigerian military. The bass tones have obtained immortality. 

 The age of the remix has made this kind of expression accessible and easy to so many. At the present, this isn't happening, why do something meaningful when I can remix a popular electro tune and sniff my ego to divinity. I think this stage we are in is some kind of weird post analog fall out, where things have been too good for us to realize the potential of the tools we have in front of us, everything is still so fun and so instant. No one values substance, right down to the drugs we do. Most party kids will spend $40 bucks on a gram of heavily cut cocaine so they can make their hearts beat faster for an hour, instead of spending ten dollars on a hit of acid and embarking on an adventure for the next 14 hours. The conservatives are so right, moral standards have slipped. 

 Hopefully the recession will encourage people to really think about what they choose to create, I have been inspired to hopefully design for Subway instead of McDonald's.  

CHARLIE DONT SURF

As We May Think.

 Bush's optimistic hopes for the direction of science were most likely shared by many others in his field. Its too bad the war wasn't over, more weapons needed to be developed, chemical weapons, agent orange, napalm. Thankfully science was able to contribute once again, or else the Viet Cong would've tunneled their way to Washington and punji sticked Kennedy on the White House lawn. 

 

 I can see why Bush would be so optimistic, so many amazing developments and possibilities. The possibility of producing "cheap complex devices of great reliability", sorry buds, that was about as likely as world peace. However, one device was produced to be reliable and cheap. One of the most reliable designs of the 20'th century. It is so reliable that Mozambique put it in their coat of arms, as did Zimbabwe and East Timor. The AK-47, the antithesis to designed obsolescence, used against U.S. soldiers in at least 3 major conflicts and many smaller ones, I wish the designers of my Samsung cell phone were operating under the same mantra. 

 I'm very pleased to say that my Technics 1200 turntable was built to last, the design has barely changed since the late seventies, and they still beat out any other turntable on the market. I apologize in advance, I'm going to talk about music and DJ'ing again, its the only way I can keep myself from talking about wizards and seances. Back to the turntable, the Tech 12, which somehow isn't a dying breed, despite being technology dating back to before Bush wrote his article. Its a vital instrument in the enjoyment of a musical catalogue, even in this digital age. The serato program allows DJ's to play MP3's as if they are records, unfortunately, most DJ's have awful taste, and this allows any party ego to take his shirt off and play terrible electro remixes. I love vinyl and I love turntables, I love vinyl because its physical, because if its taken care of it can last forever. My "catalogue" of vinyl may be cumbersome, but I value it, its music you cant find on the internet, its music I chose to move across the country with me, and its music that had its own journey before I owned it. The bad music I purchased I got rid of, the good stuff stayed, I cant say the same for the music on my Ipod that was lost when it crashed this fall. 

 Bush predicted the future path of technology so closely its spooky, and as he is so correct in our need to "mechanize" our records, I think he would be saddened by the devaluation of important information worth keeping and the obsession with the instant.  There are so many positives and negatives to discuss on the subject of technology that I feel I have to take one position, this doesn't mean that I don't value the other side. However, due to my generations massive hard on for technology and any fan-dangled bullshit thats fed to them, I have to fall into my predictable roll as curmudgeon, and say that I will embrace technology grudgingly, fighting it every step of the way.