What a wonderful world...

You have to look at the world and laugh, really. With all that's happening in our world - a brand new Pope that people are griping about, Stephen Harper (the oversized weasel) lazily reading his teleprompter and using the words 'clouds' and 'scandal' and 'hepatitis c' a great deal (is he telling us something?) and women defending polygamy in BC (maybe they should talk with Harper about gay marriage, I'm sure they'd have a lot to talk about!) I read the 'headlines' on the news page of the internet. And I laugh my fucking ass off.


British motorist injured by flying frozen sausage
18/04/2005 6:50:00 PM
LONDON (AP) - A British motorist, driving home from work with his car window wound down, had his nose broken by a flying frozen sausage, an official said Monday.

The 46-year-old man was driving near his home in South Woodham Ferrers, Essex, east of London, when the sausage came through the window and hit him on the nose, a spokesman for the Essex Ambulance Service said on condition of anonymity.

"The man said he was making his way home after work and had the window down because it was such a nice afternoon," the ambulance spokesman said.

"He said he saw a car coming the other way and felt a searing pain in his nose."

"His nose was undoubtedly fractured and he had lost quite a lot of blood."

"It must have been an incredibly lucky, or unlucky, shot to get the sausage through a moving car window. I have never seen or heard of anything like this before."

Essex police said they were investigating the incident.


Wow. Welcome back. Other top stories included elephants (YES, ELEPHANTS!!!) storming into a restaurant in South Korea, Paris Hilton's fight with Nicole Ritchie (apparently they're not friends anymore) and Ryan Seacrest's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Who the hell is Ryan Seacrest? Oh, no, wait. I remember now. He's the guy who was in a terrible television series in 1995 called Reality Check. And since then he's been dazzling audiences in such gripping roles as "Paula Abdul: The E! Hollywood True story" and "The Disco Ball: a 30 Year Presentation." Clearly a great number of people who decide what a 'star' is have found some incredibly groovy drugs and are taking very liberal use of them (can they pass some on to Stephen Harper?) How does this guy (Ryan) deserve the same honour as Marlon Brando or Johnny Carson or Clint Eastwood? Don't get me wrong, his work in the Paula Abdul project was STUNNING, but so was Elizabeth Berkley's turn in 'Showgirls'. However, she's been passed over time and time again. Clearly they're just giving stars away now and I look forward to tomorrow's news when I'm sure that the monkey that was in 'Friends' has his day. I can see him now, pressing his little paws in the cement just beside Ryan's. Who needs nitrous-oxide when the world is so full of clowns? Keep sending them in, I say!

I walk the line...

Clearly not as well as Johnny Cash did, but I'm learning. As so much of life is, it's a question of finding balance.

We played a show at the Horseshoe last night. We tried some new things. I thought they were good ideas and I committed to the changes and jumped in with all the gusto I could muster. After the show, I asked some very close friends for criticism. I need to hear what's wrong so I can improve, right? Right. Well, the words 'pretentious', 'no fun' and 'let the music speak' were bandied about a great deal. And boy, it pissed me off. Not because my friends gave me honest and necessary criticism, but because I HATE arrogance and pretentiousness. And to think that I was so wrapped up in putting on 'a show' that I lost sight of those unforgivable sins makes me very, very angry with myself.

I dream big. There's no question of that. And I got caught snoozing in the field of dreams. Thank God for my friends who always throw just enough stones to sting me without doing any serious damage. It's so easy to have these big dreams and forget about reality. But it's living passionately in reality that will make the dreams actually come true. And boy, did I lose sight of that. Man, I love my friends. Did I mention that?

So. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to be simple; to enjoy my life, my friends and the gift of getting to play music for 20 or 50 or 1000 people. If people can't see how much joy it brings me to share the music we make, then I'm doing something wrong. And fuck that. I want to do it right.

And you know what else I want to do? I want to be less serious. That will be trickier for me. It's so hard not to care enough for everyone in my life. I want to believe I have that capacity. I want to lift them all out of the gutter and I want to infect them with joy when I have it to give. But it's gotta be simple. Simple.

Alex & Mick and I talked about all this last night. We need to be big stars. Not for us. But for everyone. Because we have plans. We need to finish that strange, giant slide thing that sits on that hospital near Bathurst & Dundas and stick a big-assed crash mat at the bottom. We need to host an annual Rock & Roll Mini-Golf/Road Hockey weekend with great Canadian bands and fans and give every penny to cancer research or the humane society. And we need to spread joy. And boy, do we (Alex, Mick & I) know how to do that:

My first promise to you - friends, fans, strangers, loved ones - is to track down the right to the old 'Mother's Pizza' franchise. If you love pizza and you love your mother, it stands to reason you'll like this. It's 4 to 12 slices of heaven with some sauce and cheese on top. Without question, it's the best pizza I've ever eaten (and I've eaten a LOT of pizza - ask anyone!) If you've never had the pleasure, you deserve it. We all do. We - The Free Press - are going to revive Mother's Pizza!!! We will find the recipe, we will buy the rights and we'll bake them in my kitchen until we can buy that fantastic, palatial greenhouse-type building at Dupont & Lansdowne and make a Mother's restaurant with lots of rock and roll lights in it! It's going to be SO good. Stick with us, kids. We're going places and we want you to come with us and eat pizza.