i'm kurious...

...i'm kurious how many people actually read this shit. so, can you do me a favor, if you read this, leave a quick comment. you don't have to register or fill anything out. just type, click, and you're done. two seconds. or not. whatever, it's not that i really super care, just a bit of a curiosity...



just got back from the mall. flatmate alanna was driving there, and she just got her porsche back from her dad for a week, so i had to take a ride in it. wow, my ass was like three inches from the ground. anyway, we hit the dollar store and bought six pairs of binoculars. tomorrow night we're holding the first meeting of our new club, the london birdwatching society. there will be photos, yes, there will be photos.





(photo from allen cordell)

i'm off, recording some demos tonight,
lasers,
ryan

rehab week - day 5...

had another crazy dream last night, but i woke up, didn't write it down, and fell back asleep, so now i can't remember it. for some reason i have this picture in my head of being in a restaurant, and all the booths were carved out of wood, the backs of the chairs towered over my head, and were intricately carved, as if they were antiques, or from the middle ages or something...

here's another one from a few days ago... i'm in an asian food market, going from market stand to stand, looking for a magazine, but i can't find one i want to buy. then i'm in a mall. i don't work there, but a friend runs a shoe store and has asked me to fill in for somebody for the night. the mall is almost empty, and most of the stores are already closed or in the process of closing. i'm going up an escalator, and i see, a little ways off, going down another escalator, a ups or fedex guy, who waves at me. apparently i know him, i wave back. i get to the shoe store, and the sliding doors are almost closed, saved for a foot or two to walk through. i go in. i see my friend, who is opening boxes, stocking shelves. (i think it's this woman i used to work with over ten years ago, at a jean store, who i haven't talked to since. i can't remember her name.) i hand her a magazine i bought for her. it's a gift. it's a big, thick magazine, like a vogue type of thing, but it's from japan. the magazine comes with a cd, a compilation of japanese bands. now there are a couple of other people in the store with us. i think we know them. my friend likes the gift. she says "let's listen to some japanese rock!" and puts on the cd.

speaking of japanese rock, i just heard zoobombs were in toronto again recently. i wish i knew about it, i would have gone up. killer, killer, band...



lasers,
ryan

rehab week - day 4...

lately, i keep going through things that remind me of the lyrics on my album. it's strange, almost as if, if some way, the things i wrote were foreshadowing the things i was going to go through. i don't know if that makes any sense, but it's just how it feels right now.

"i've made it this far,
i feel better about feeling bad,
i'll sit at the bar,
clarity is a mushroom cloud..."

day four. feeling pretty good.

fuck. it's 12:27am, and i should be in montreal right now...



(photo from prefix mag)

i'll have to settle for reading about the show on matt's blog.

so, today was a good day. woke up from another strange, vivid dream. i'll tell you about it in a bit. ate some chicken, worked on some lyrics for a while. then, got a call from my sis-in-law, my computer came in the mail. wicked. went over to pick it up, hung out with my li'l nephew for a bit (he truly, truly is, the most amazing human being i've ever met), then went to an audition for a film, which was a bit of fun. i don't know if i'll get the part, but i had fun doing it. then, band practice, and holy shit, the boys cooked up another heater. fuck, i have to come hard with some lyrics on this shit... somehow, i managed to make it through band practice without any beers or, uh, well, you know... just sipping water and gatorade. now back at home, chilling, going to fuck around on the new computer and see if i can hook my video camera up to it so i can start making some porn movies to fund our studio sessions...



check out the nextra crew here.

i'm out,
ryan

oh yeah, i was going to tell you about my dream. it's pretty short. i'm standing on a hill with a bunch of people i know, and there are some other cats there with some type of military uniforms on. not all fatigues and stuff, but like, more formal, officers type uniforms. there's a woman in uniform talking to us. it feels sort of like a red dawn situation, where i think they're an invading force or something, and we're some type of rebels, and we've been captured or something. the woman in uniform is talking to us, basically telling us we're surrounded and there's no escape and we're going to be captured. the thing is, now it's just her, and a whole group of us. i think what happened is we just had a little battle with some of her troops, and we took them out, and she's the only one left. she's claming that there is back-up on the way, and that we'll be captured/killed for sure. and we're trying to decide if she's bluffing or what. should we kill her? should we surrender? should we run for it? i'm talking to her and asking her questions and everyone in my group keeps looking at each other, trying to decide what to do. i look down the hill and there are some cars parked there. one of those old school volkswagen hippie-vans pulls up. next thing i know, my friend ***** and these two girls i know, ***** and ***** are leaving in the van, and i'm saying goodbye to them. they're asking me to go with them, but i've decided to stay and fight. there are helicopters approaching. they pull off in the van, down the hill. it's a bit later, and my friend ***** comes running back up the hill. i'm all like "i thought you left with them," and he's like "yeah, but i couldn't leave you guys here to fight alone, so i got them to let me out, and i ran back," and then he tells me that ***** was crying in the van because i didn't go with them. next thing i know, in the dream i'm tied up and have a bag over my head. i'm struggling to try to get the bag off of my head, and this is when i wake up, and my sheet is over my head and my hands are behind my back. weird, eh?



(photo from veer munshi)

rehab week - day 3...

three days. no booze. well, it's day three now, i haven't made it through the day yet. we'll see how i feel at last call, if i can make it through the night without a little gin & tonic to settle the shakes, calm the nerves, and help me to sleep...

haven't written in a bit, got lots of stuff to tell you i suppose...

had two shows this weekend. friday night at call the office, with aceyalone, bukue one, toolshed, and me. then sunday night at the embassy, with josh martinez, me, and thesis. i'll tell you about both of them. but first, some pictures of my show on friday, courtesy of jamie totten...




















in the photos, are my flatmate alanna, and homies lance and don, dancing on stage with me. i should have some photos of acey, bukue, and toolshed going up soon.

what a rough weekend. thursday night, band practice, get super fucked up and hit the bar after, stay up 'til the wee hours, and wake up feeling like ass. friday night, have a few beers before the show, get to the bar, and just sink so far into the bar immediately, i had no idea what was going on. great crowd, lots of people, i had a great time on stage. i sold a gang of cds, which is cool. going to have to re-up on those soon. kicked it for a while, chatting with folks, then hit another bar for last call, and again, back at the crib for some party action. got up saturday, another band practice, you should have seen the five of us... barely able to stand. i should have gone home, but somehow, decided to go out, hit some house party, another bar, back to the party, then back home again to stay up on the porch. sunday, show at the embassy. at this point, i really had no business being alive, but what can you do? got to the bar, it was rainy and cold and people just did not want to show up. the ceiling in the stage was leaking, what the fuck? there's nothing like performing while surrounded by buckets collecting brown rain water dripping through the roof all around you. not a huge crowd, but they were into it. sold a few more cds. it was fun. saw josh's show, which was cool.

so yeah, after that craziness, i decided to take a break for a while.

what else?

dreams, yes, dreams...



last week i had a weird one. i was in my room, and this squirrel kept coming into my room and trying to get into my closet. i kept kicking it out, was swinging a chair at it and everything, knocking it out of my room, but it kept coming back in, again and again, i have no idea what it was after. that squirrel took a beating, but just wouldn't quit. then this mystery person came into the apartment. not sure who he was, but in my dream i knew him. he was all beaten up, looked like he'd been in a bad fight. he started telling me how he'd just killed atmosphere. i'm like "huh? who?" and he's like "atmosphere, the guys from atmosphere, i just killed him!," talking about slug. i told him that he just made slug the kurt kobain of indie rap. weird shit.



i had another crazy one last night, i wrote it down somewhere this morning, i'll tell you about it tomorrow. whenever i quit drinking, i always have crazy, vivid dreams for a few days. and after i've quit drinking, when i start again, i always have crazy, vivid dreams for a few days. i should just go on a binge / quit cycle every other week, just for the dreams, that would totally be worth it...

okay, uh, i gotta go...



talk soon i hope,
ryan

ps. happy b-day to click...

i'm a graet speller...

i just read over my last entry, and shit, so much bad spelling and misplaced words. i fucked up a there/their, which is one of my pet peeves, and drives me nuts when other people do it. oh well, i'm not going to change it, fuck who cares. it's a damn blog, it's just stream-of-consciousness, and who gives a shit?

if ya wanna go...

and take a ride with me...

i need to get to montreal next weekend...



i had a bit of a crazy dream last night. i was at this house i used to live in, like 20 years ago, in london. in the drive way beside/behind the house, was a table, with a young couple sitting there. it was like a restaurant patio. very strange. i was their waiter. i don't know why this house had one table in the driveway, and was operation a restaurant for only two people, but you know how dreams are. so, the couple order food from me, and have drinks, and i come back out... they're waiting for their food, but the mood changes, they're not talking to each other, they're having some sort of argument. i'm standing at the table, the girl is on my left, the guy is on my right. now there's an older man sitting at the table, in the middle, across from me. he's the girl's father, but for some reason, he's sitting closer to the guy. he's talking to them about things, they're engaged, perhaps they're calling it off, he says he only wants his daughter to be happy. i think she's calling off the wedding. the young man is visibly upset, and for some reason he's leaning his face into the older mans chest/shoulder, crying. i don't understand why the older man is comforting his daughter's future ex, but i think perhaps he's not sure what to do. i tell them their food is ready, and woman says she wants her food to go. she wants to leave. now, the older man decides he wants food as well. he's going to leave with his daughter, but he orders a pizza to go. i don't understand why, when his daughter is upset, and wants to leave, he would order food, thus forcing them to wait another 20 minutes to leave. he says something to the effect of, since they're there already, he might as well get some food. this is all happening in my driveway, which i find very strange. next thing i know, i'm in a bar. i'm bartending. it's basically the same bar that i work in now, as far as the structure of the bar, but it's in a very different location. feels like perhaps the southern states, or central america or something. it's a warm, dry climate. i think i own the bar, and i'm also some sort of priest/minister, and i'm also a musician. their is a marriage taking place in the bar. i don't see them, but i'm sure it's the same couple from before. i'm the one who's going to be marrying them. there are lots of people there, everybody is happy. i see the older man. he's happy. this guy ian is there (who i saw last night in real life, at work, he's a sound guy, works at the embassy hotel, where i'll be playing on sunday night). he's walking around the room, playing guitar. there are other musicians there as well. people are dancing. i think this is after the marriage, and people are celebrating. i'm now out from behind the bar, the couple are dancing in the middle of the room, surrounded by people, with ian playing guitar and singing to them. i now have this small guitar in my hand, i'm standing at a table with a few people, trying to play along with the other musicians, but i don't know how to play the guitar. ian starts telling out the notes to me, A-E-B-E... (i don't read music, so i have no idea what this means), and i yell back at him that i don't know notes. he tells me to look at the guitar, and on the fret board, the notes are taped on, so i'm able to find them, and play along. the guitar has no strap, so it's a bit of a struggle not to drop it, but i do okay, now that i know the notes, i'm playing along and dancing and singing with the other musicians. this is the end of the dream...

don't forget, i got two shows this weekend for all my london peoples...

friday...



and sunday...

josh martinez,
sleep,
fritz tha cat (ok cobra),
thesis,
dj dubble.

@ the embassy hotel.

(i don't have a flyer for this one.)

all right, i'm out, got some lyrics to work on, jamming tonight...

later alligators,
ryan

insearchof...divine styler magazine...

anyone remember the old rap magazine i published a few years back? well, i've got something in the works that you might be interested in. a book? hmm, yes, a book. it's not 100% for sure yet, but i'm talking to a small, indie publisher, about doing a divine styler magazine book... including a bunch of the old articles, the story of the magazine, and bunch of other random things. any ideas? hit me up.





here's a photo from the summer of 1997, the one year anniversary party of the magazine, when divine styler came up to toronto to play our party. in the photo, clockwise from the top left: mindbender, bilal bashir, divine styler, gerald, takbir (styles of beyond), druncnes monster, me, buck 65, marc costanzo (len), governor bolts, ryu (styles of beyond), tachichi, and sixtoo. simpler times.

lasers,
ryan

p.s. i think tomorrow, i'm going to call the local cancer center, and see about going to one of those support groups, and talk to other people who are dealing with relatives and friends with cancer. i have to talk to somebody about this shit. i'm freaking out a little bit here and there. it's a bit scary, when i was 14 and watched my father melt away from this shit...

because ryan is complicated enough...

first up, i'm not usually one to spread links to dumb internet things (okay, yeah, i guess...) but uh, this shit is kind of funny. the advertising slogan generator. type your name into it. i got the title of today's entry.



just got home from the bar. pretty chill night. the band cancelled, so it was a good thing i'd just spent 3 days downloading neptunes songs. i made a little 'best of the neptunes' mp3 cd and brought it to work. have you ever listening to nothing but neptunes music for 5 hours straight? no, you haven't. now, i have, and i have to say, i'm a changed person. well, not really, but whatever. most of their shit sounds exactly the same, it's uncanny. i still love it though, what can you do? i don't mind when there's barely anybody in the bar, if i'm sipping a little bit of st. ambroise oatmeal stout in a coffee cup and listening to kelis.



didn't make much money tonight, but whatever.

i ran into an old friend tonight (which tends to happen often when you move back to your hometown after ten years and get a job in a bar, nothing strange there). everybody say hi to kristin sweetland. we went to elementary school together, and high school too. haven't seen her in years.

hello to my friend elise. thanks for the book, and the card. very thoughtful of you.

sometimes it's weird when you randomly see people you know on television. yesterday i was flipping channels and there's this girl emily, who i used to go to school with at harris institute, and she's on one of those stupid dating shows. she's getting a breast assessment and going out with some idiot wanker from england who was a total asshole, completely rude and insulting. emily, you're way cooler than that ponce, and you should have no problem doing a thousand times better than his limey ass.



oh yeah, the bar i work at has a website up now. peep it.

okay, now i must sleep...

ryan

glaciers of ice...

thanks to everyone who's sent me messages and advice and offers to help and pray and other good thoughts. it is all appreciated, and i will respond to each of you. i had to get away from the computer for a couple of days. you know how that goes.



so i haven't written an article for a magazine in a couple of years, but i think i'm doing a story on raekwon for this skate mag. i'm supposed to get on the phone with the chef this week i think... any questions y'all want me to ask him?



so much stuff to write to you about, but it's 4:37am and i'm tired and i just bought the new issue of xxl with suge knight on the cover. i never buy rap magazines anymore, but addi told me this was a good interview, and i need to read something to put me to sleep. on my bedside table (read: the floor beside my futon) right now is some collection of existentialist writings that i borrowed from rich (i'd never read any of this shit before, had no idea what it was all about, but i'm reading and i'm like "oh, this is pretty much what i've always thought, i didn't know it had a name," kind of like how i felt when i discovered taoism in my teens), a comic book bible (which is quite entertaining, i'll write more about it later, as i have lots of questions), and the latest issue of men's health (yeah, i'm going to flatten my gut in six weeks and learn how to not get cancer!).



g'night,
ryan

???...

so there i was a week or two ago, basically complaining about how life was too perfect, and what the fuck, i'm all like "yeah, i want something shitty to happen," but i meant happen to me, not my mom, what the fuck?

johnny kick a hole in the sky...

so i just got off the phone with my mom a little while ago, and fuck, they found more cancer, and jesus, what the fuck... i'm just kind of freaked right now. i mean, i don't know, it's scary, right? i'm just trying not to be too scared when i talk to her. like, i'm on the phone all holding it together and all boring and clinical and then i'm off the phone and my eyes are tearing up and i want to punch a hole in the sky and what do i do? i go outside and smoke a bunch of cigarettes and that's really doing everyone a lot of good. i don't know. fuck. she's going to beat this.

attack of the piranha bees...

the weirdest thing happened to me this morning. i went to bed around 5 am, and at 7am, i woke up with this intense, sharp, pain in my armpit. i jumped out of bed, like, "what the fuck?!," it felt like i had been stabbed or something. i looked at my armpit, and there was a red mark, then i looked down and there was a half-dead bee crawling on my sheets. i flicked it onto the floor, stomped it with a flip-flop, then put it in the garbage. i went to the bathroom to check it out, and it was all red and swollen. i checked the internet for bee sting remedies, was reminded of the old baking soda and water paste, and mixed up a bit of that. i smeared it on, and lay on the couch for a while with this caked up armpit and pain in my arm. i didn't want to go to sleep, as i was a bit paranoid of possibly being allergic. my little brother is allergic, and one time when we were kids, he got stung, and within minutes his entire body swelled up and turned purple. it was intense. luckily we lived only a few blocks from the hospital at the time. he looked like a purple michelin man. i don't have any allergies that i know of, but the thought that i might be allergic too, kind of freaked me out. so, after a while, i went back to my room to go back to sleep, and there's another half-dead bee crawling across my floor. what the fuck? why are there bees in my room? and why are they stinging me while i'm sleeping? this one got the stomp too. i fell back asleep, and woke up early this afternoon. i went to the washroom, and looked in the mirror... no sign of a sting. i felt my armpit, no bump, no soreness. i started to think that maybe i had dreamed the whole thing, but on the counter in the bathroom, there was a bowl of baking soda paste. just to make sure, i went back to my bedroom and looked in my little garbage bag, and yes, there were two dead bees in it. it did really happen. so strange.

i'm just happy they weren't piranha bees, or i'd be dead right now.



Common Name: Piranha Bee
Scientific Name: Serrasalmus Hymenoptera
Size: Length 10cm
Diet: Carnivore
Habitat: All habitable regions
Location: Sector Prime temperate planets
Organization: Hive
Natural Enemies: Dragonette

Description: A swarm of these black metallic insects can
stun and devour an entire fuzzy lummox in seven
seconds. Piranha bee honey is a potent aphrodisiac.

Senses: A piranha bee's eyes are multifaceted, and each is set within a gelatinous ovoid of green bioluminescent material. When prey is sighted, and "tasted," its eyes flash brightly alerting other scouts and sentries nearby, all the way back to the hive. The resulting swarm response is immediate.

Feeding Habits: Each massive hive holds fifty or more scouts and over one thousand hunters. Piranha bee scouts are able to search a ten kilometer range for sources of meat. When suitable prey is located, hundreds of hunters swarm to the feeding site.

A piranha bee uses its four rasped mandibles, which exude a potent anaesthetic, to rip its victim's flesh to shreds. The meat is then forced at a rapid rate down its neck and into its bulb-shaped gullet by spring-like metallic bands.

When sated, the piranha bee detaches from its victim and returns to the hive. Its head, legs and wings are removed by worker bees to be reused on a new hunter. The food bulb is then stored in one of the queen's many larders.

Reproduction: Distinguishing a piranha bee queen from the inner structural stalk of the hive itself is difficult, although the large food intake orifice located near the top of the core is easy enough to identify. Essentially, the queen is the hive, and acts as a single mass production mechanism, constantly renewing every element it needs for survival.

At some point the queen will begin to lose vigor. At this stage, queen bulbs (honey bulbs) filled with royal goo are produced. Workers attach legs, wings and special queenly heads, and drive them away to form new colonies. The hive then dies and rapidly decays into a leathery shoe-shaped husk.

Life Span: Up to 10 years.

live long,
ryan

texas lobotomy...

ok gang, another show.

sunday, sept. 25th, at the embassy.

it's josh martinez,



sleep,




fritz tha cat (ok cobra),



thesis,



dj dubble,



i think it's $10 but i really don't know.

probably more info here...

shit, that reminds me, i have to send luke $20 so he can send me my backpack full of my cds that i left at his house in toronto.

it's 4:44 in the morning, why am i still up? had a great night tonight, but fuck it, i'm tired, so maybe i'll tell you about it tomorrow. or maybe i'll just forget and tell you a bunch of other useless shit. either way, you're pretty much guaranteed at least a couple of minutes of a waste of your time. i've got some other news too, but whatever, it can wait. i'm exhausted.

lasers,
ryan