let the hustlers play

wow. what a night. 3:48 am. yeah, the usual. sitting at the bar. it's quiet. listening to steady b's let the hustler's play. dope shit.

woke up this morning (well, my morning) just after 2pm. got out of bed, walked to the bathroom, took a piss, washed my face, walked out of the bathroom, and my flatmate hands me the phone. hello. hey. what's up. got an issue at work. what's up? so and so's back is fucked up, can you come in? when? uh, now? uh, no. give me an hour, hour and a half, i literally just woke up. i need coffee, plus some triple s (shit, shower, shave). okay.

so yeah, i basically had no day. a quick coffee and some chicken salad, then off to work. got in, ran the patio for a bit, pretty chill. some fundraiser dinner thing, plus an art show, plus our usual tuesday goodness later on.

hot as shit. i smell bad. we bought water guns today at the bar. best idea ever. every time i walked in the kitchen the boys would ambush me with the spray. loved it. cooling off. so hot. walk outside, take an order, walk inside, wash my face, make drinks, take them outside, take another order, walk inside, wash my face, make drinks, take 'em outside, take another order, walk inside, wash face... neverending sweat... thank god for shower in a can, you can get pretty stanky working an 11-hour day in this heat.

so yeah.

i got one of the biggest compliments in my life tonight. one of the dudes who's art is up in the bar right now, his parents came in for their show. now, i'm good friends with this dude's older brother, and their dad was one of my high school teachers. one of my favorites, actually. intelligent guy, i enjoyed his classes. so he's at the bar, i say hello.

me: not sure if you remember me, i'm ryan, i'm friends with mike, and you were my teacher at central.
mr. j: yes, hello, how are you?
me: good, you?
mr. j: good. you still writing?
me: yup.
mr. j: you know, out of 5,000 students i taught over the years, there are two who's writing i remember, and you're one of them.

serious. wow. what a fucking thing to say.

sure made me feel good.

wow.

kinda makes me wonder what i've been doing for the last ten years of my life.

but still, when i think about it, i'm just getting started. i had a conversation about this shit a couple of weeks ago. i can't remember who i was talking to, but the thing is, i could have written a ton of shit when i was in my late teens/early 20's, but really, what the fuck do you know about anything then? answer: nothing. nada. nathan. zilch. zip. zero. stingy with deniro. might light ya wrist, but that about it. might buy ya crys', but that about it. fuck it i might wife you, and buy you nice whips...

i have to say though, those were some inspiring words.

it's one of those strange things too, something i do, often, too much, is not write. not do anything. so fucking scared all the time. so critical of my own shit. it's weird. like, with music, there are songs i love, that when i read the lyrics, i think to myself "this is garbage, if i wrote this, i'd throw it out, i'd never record it..." but shit, i STILL love the song. why is that? i don't know. i've always been so scared of my own shit. my own creations. i've never written a song i like. i've never recorded a song i like. i've never written a story i've liked. any drawing, painting, sketch... all i can see are the flaws. the times i've seen myself acting on screen, all i can ever see is what i'm doing wrong. or, more correctly, what i'm NOT doing right. it blows me away constantly when people react to my art. when somebody tells me "child in rhyme" is one of their favorite songs i'm completely humbled. when somebody reads a script i wrote in an hour, that i was about to throw in the garbage, and tells me they love it. when i do a show and come off stage and people come up to me and tell me they were blown away, hypnotized, by my performance. humbled. that's how i feel. but i can never understand it. it's never good enough. it's quite right. there is always something wrong. i could have said this one line better, just put the emphasis on a different word. or rewritten that paragraph of dialog. or the shading on this face is just not quite right. but the truth is, nothing will ever be perfect, and it's not about perfection, it's simply about the act of DOING, about CREATING. that is it's own perfection, not the outcome, not the PRODUCT. fuck, tim and i just dropped a shitload of cash to press CDs and the truth is, i'm not completely happy with the album. i never have been. but on the other hand, you know what, i am COMPLETELY happy with it, simply in the fact that we DID IT. we MADE IT. we wrote it, we recorded it, and we pressed it. and fuck it, it represents who we were at that time in our lives, and you know what? we weren't perfect, so why should our music be perfect? sure, i would still like to change a few lyrics here and there, re-record a few parts where i'm not entirely happy with my delivery, but the truth is, i could go in the vocal booth and re-record a damn song 50 fucking times, and i'd still never be happy with it. so fuck it, instead of wasting my time recording one song 50 times that i will never fully come to terms with, why not record 50 different songs, once each, and just love them unconditionally like the rebellious, bad-ass children they are?

yeah, that sounds like a better plan.

okay, my battery's about to die, and i forgot to bring my power cord, so i gotta wrap this up. one more smoke and i'm outta here.

i'm sick of everybody asking me about all this shit, so, here's the breakdown of what's going on with my crap....

OK Cobra: album is coming out on july 4th, across canada. tim and i are pressing it ourselves, distributed by urbnet.
video: it's shot, i haven't seen the footage yet. sean is super busy finishing his movie, so hopefully i'll get to see the footage this weekend, and we should have it done by the end of month. muchmusic probably won't play it (fuck 'em), but i'll have it up on youtube and myspace.
tour: we're booking lots of dates. i'll have the shows updated in the next couple of days on our myspace page. i can't wait.
book: back and forth with emma, getting the edits done. we're almost there. it'll be out this summer, hopefully in time for my tour. i'll be sure to let you know when.
film: my movie is shot, editing soon, but really, i have no fucking idea when this will be finished.
doc: yeah, shit, i've been sleeping on this, i need to get back on top of this.

so much to do, so little time, but so much fucking fun.

fuck, it feels good to feel good for a fucking minute. i'll take all the lows if i can have the highs. fuck your drugs man, i don't need 'em doc, i can deal with the madness. at least for now. things might change, but for today, i'm chilling. i'll handle it. i'll try. or i'll die trying.

i went through a super depressing moment earlier today. was standing on my porch, drinking coffee, lit up a cigarette, and just felt the total nothingness of it all, all at once, all condensed, all encompassing... seriously, when you actually get to the point where you can see the pure truthful meaninglessness of everything... you're left with only two choices... give up on everything and simply die, or give up on everything and simply live. if you can do both at once, you're a fucking star. not a fucking star, but a fucking star. seriously. a star. an actual fucking star. i'm a fucking star. a star fucking fucking star. fucking stars, man...

okay, my computer just fave me the "fuck off, battery is about to die warning," so i'm gonna finish my smoke and go home. jesus.