I have little to report of late which seems odd. I mean, sometimes when I take stock of my life I am like “Wow, who woulda thought that some day I would be a high-powered, jet-setting secret agent of repute?” shortly before realizing that that is actually only in my fanfic where Andre the Giant and the Justice League need my help to defeat Cobra Commander in a Street Fighter II tournament. All jokes aside, I think my life is pretty exciting! I get to do the stuff I love, with good folks, living in a city which I adore. Sometimes I forget that I get to DJ at two well-established and notorious alternative parties, that I have a job which is totally interesting and where I learn a lot and a fantastic girlfriend who is the bee’s knees! Stuff is so good in fact that I need to resurrect slang from the thirties to express it. You could say that I’m really “cookin’ with gas”, while “ridin’ the trolley” and “dying of drought due to soil erosion because I did not rotate my crops”!

Here is some upcoming business!

-  Star Trek advance screening tonight. Thanks to the generous and extremely tolerant Tabatha! I am wearing my Star Fleet Command shirt. The movie looks good, and I am not so much of a stickler for continuity in Trek. I certainly will not be using my Blackberry to Twitter how indignant I am about the changes to the established timeline from the theater while updating JJ Abrams’ Wikipedia article with the words “rapist” and “dream-killer”. That’d be crazy.

- Festival Kinetik in vielle Montreal la semaine prochaine! Everything is finally sorted away for the trip, which I have been looking forward to since last year. I will be part of a large West Coast posse including 4/5 of RRIAT House, a strong Edmonton contingent and plenty of various other Industrial Soldiaz. Bonus for this year is that bands are starting at 6 p.m. in most cases affording us plenty of time to shop for records, go to see sites and generally enjoy one another’s company without some german guy in a latex suit yelling at us through a microphone. Question: what is the best neightbourhood for record shopping in Montreal? Also, here is a ludicrous rundown on the line-ups for every night of the festival with my largely unfounded expectations for each act. BEHIND A CUT, SUCKA.

Phew! Being an opinionated dick is thirsty work! 

-  DJing main room at Sin City this weekend. Medical themed party. Been awhile since I mainlined it at Vancouver's longest running fetish event, and the Medical party always brings some fine costumes. Will I drink way too much of my new summer cocktail (Jager and Soda) and sing Robert Palmer’s “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)” over the mic? Show up to find out!

- On May 18h local hobo and Star Wars enthusiest Rheanna Fancypants is releasing a limited run print of her piece "Vive La Mort". You should purchase one! Here are the details!  If you like lowbrow art, you should totally get one, seriously, this is so lowbrow that it is god damn Cro-Magnon.

Thanks to my baby, I now own a REALLY nice pair of shoes. I’m talking super fancy, the kind of shoes that the Great Gatsby would put on when he had to put the smooth on some dime in the thirties by singing her a song in a rowboat or some shit. At least I assume this is what the Great Gatsby did when he ran a game on a girl, I never finished reading that book. But I digress. Behold:

SLAYER SHOES.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Slayer, allow me to explain. Slayer are a group of four grown men who are united by two universal truths:

1)       Satan is radical.

2)       Playing your instruments slow is for pussies.  

They may also be united by the belief that Dave Mustaine should just shut up already (because seriously the statute of limitations for respecting him for writing Four Horseman expired like a million years ago) but it might only be Kerry King who thinks that. Slayer should not ever be confused with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who is also pretty cool, but who did not ever write a song about cutting someones face off and wearing it as a mask. Actually I do not know for a fact that she didn’t, but if she did they did not ever show it on TV and therefore it is not germane to this discussion. When listening to Slayer it is traditional to drink the kind of beer that homeless people look at and go “No thanks, I still have some Listerine back at the refrigerator box.” Although it is no longer always observed, it is considered good form to always pronounce the name of the band as “SLAAAAAAAAAYER!” at the top of your lungs while your friend carves their name into your arm with an exacto knife.  

I heard from a friend who is a doctor that this one time, a kid was born with a tattoo of a goat head in a pentagram on his neck because his parents were totally rocking out to Seasons in the Abyss on the stereo when he was conceived.

Pure….squee?

Listen here you dimwits. I don’t know what passes for fandom where you come from, but this isn’t some retarded anime drivel or gaylord vampire bullshit for feeble teenage imbeciles. This is god damn Watchmen. This means something. It is a from a culture of fans older and more profound then anything you contemptible schnooks could ever hope to plumb the depths of. There is a mighty pillar, an obelisk older than time that stands in the center of my world holding up the vault of the sky, and carved into the base, right next to the words “Jack Kirby is King” are the fucking words “Alan Moore” and  “Watchmen”.  I’d sooner pour acid on my nethers while chowing down on a bowl of Frosted-Tin-Foil-Flakes then see it reduced to the level of whatever stunted rubbish for social defectives and mental pygmies normally elicits the use of the word “squee”. Learn some respect.

Wandering down Granville street, killing time before meeting up with Rheanna. Walking past the Golden Age, I pause to look at the enormous Watchmen display in their front window. It’s been weird for me, seeing bus stop ads, street posters and copies of the book for sale at the supermarket. I was 16 the first time I read Watchmen, a battered copy of the trade paperback that cost me $8. I’m 30 next week, which means that it’s been with me for almost half my life, forming my opinions and feelings on the medium. Looking through that window, seeing action figures, statues and replica props (Rorschach’s mask and grappling gun if you can believe it) the thought occurred to me: What if everything that ever meant anything to me growing up is destined to be commodified and sold off as tacky merchandise? I considered the idea for a moment, and discarded it. I don’t want to be culturally possessive, and much as I love it and have invested parts of myself in it, Watchmen doesn’t belong to me. And if the movie or the action figure or whatever gets some kid to buy the comic, well hell then, who am I to complain?

As I walked a few doors down, I looked in the window of the Urban Outfitters store. One of the mannequins in their window display was wearing a Joy Division t-shirt.  

The future is a very confusing place.