Memory’s Inside Passage

I find these inside passages to who I was when I was a kid, half Deja Vu. It’ll be a song or a flash of a color or a smell. It puts me in my kid head, sitting on my bed, looking over the garage roof at the neighbor’s backyard. It’s a nothing moment but it’s real.

That’s what time travel is, suddenly there, but we spend all of our time distracting ourselves with phones and shows and movies, trying to get somewhere, not where we are, and none of that works.

All you need is the trigger, holding a glass or your foot slipping off the edge of the chair, and you’re back as a tiny person realizing this world. We’ve turned those triggers off. We’re charging headfirst into the fucking bots and bits, thinking that that is the way, not thinking, but going ahead like automatons doing our lowest of the low’s bidding.

Old School Reports Tell an Interesting Tale

As I write Fuck Pedagogy, I’ve had to go through my reports from middle and high school, which has had an odd effect on remembering who I was in their eyes.

In Grade 4, I was placed in “the superior range of ability.” In Grade 5, words such as “very good”, “first class” & “hard-working” were prevalent.

In Grades 6 & 7, words such as “disappointing”, “weak” & “carelessness” became the thing. I was sent to a boarding school for Grades 8 & 9, where the language improved again: “very good”, “excellent” & “extremely capable.”

That said, I hated boarding school and returned to Upper Canada, the initial place of my malaise and, while I didn’t start off terribly – “tried hard”, “applied himself” & “prepared & organized” – I quickly spiraled in my last three years to “allowing himself to drift”, “displayed no interest” & “a year of bumps”.

My overall final grade was barely 60% due to the fact that I was forced to take a class – Physics – which wasn’t required for graduation. I rarely attended the classes – opting to skate on the school rink instead – and ended up with a final of 26%.

There was a lot of talk about my attitude for this, but more than anything, it just made me realize how stupid adults really were..

Sarasota Jungle Days: You Can(‘t) Go Back

The memories of Sarasota Jungle Gardens are vivid in my head: a macaw on a little bike, another one on my arm, alligators basking, flamingos silhouetted against the bright water in the sun, marvelous things all around.

I don’t remember how I got there. I don’t remember any of the who’s and what’s. It was just the magic of being there.

And so I went back, many years later, and listened to the ponytailed guy’s well-worn bits about his cranky colorful birds, and watched the children watching him, wowed by the birds meows and cackles.

The show went for 15 minutes, me and the other kids getting restless before it was over, and I walked around the zoo, glancing at the snakes and owls and lemurs before getting back to my car. The magic was no more. I had to call my lawyer and start the lawsuit against them for using my image without permission.

Zooming with Charlie

I zoomed last with the guys in the band. They had decided to see if they could get back together; they looked relaxed, ready to go. Charlie was there too, even though he had only played bangs with them once. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s always there. I made a joke that The Hothouse Flowers were reuniting with The Black Crowes for a gig in London.

The guys all did this gag of rushing to leave, climbing and falling over each other in a massive comic wave. I couldn’t stop laughing. I knew I’d have to write all of that down, and then lost the signal. When I finally got them back, only Charlie was there. He had lost his coat and needed to go find that now.