Mood Surgery

Fuck fucking motherfucking FUCK!

FUCKING RAINED-OUT.

TMWSD was supposedta play the third and final of the bafflingly-named "Tumbleweed" all-day outdoor shows today, but it started raining like a fucking hour before our slot. The fucked-up thing is that, us being new, and total nobodies in the scene (or so I'd thought), we somehow managed to snag a sweet 7:30 timeslot, instead of like 11:30 in the morning or something, which I'd have naturally assumed woulda been the case. So here I was all psyched to play this nice high-profile timeslot, to a way bigger crowd than would normally come out to see us, when it turns out we'd have been better off playing for twenty random kids at noon. Fuck! And, as it turns out, a lot of people were really psyched to see us. I guess Toby, who'd been there since 1:30 in the afternoon, had been getting approached all day by people intrigued about the band. Even for the twenty minutes or so I hung around cursing and chainsmoking after finding out it was cancelled, a fair amount of people came up expressing interest in us, and this was after the crowd had already thinned out quite a bit. A few people even said we were the band they were there to see. It would seem we're generating something of a buzz. I'm also told the last few bands were sucking hard, and I'm so incredibly fucking pissed that we didn't get to capitalize on that, and just fucking forcibly yank the crowd outta their bored stupor. Anyway, Toby is co-hosting an all-night radio show at CKDU later tonight (ckdu.dal.ca - check it out. I might show up drunk at four in the morning or something), and we tried, to no avail, to convince Will to play the radio show, since we were all dressed up with nowhere to go, so to speak, but he didn't want to move his drums around in the rain. I understand, but I'm really fucking jonesing to play right now. This shit is worse than blueballs. FUCK!
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To the editor,

After having been contemptuous of every imaginable aspect of high school, and avoiding my ten-year reunion this past June like testicular cancer, imagine my dismay as I skimmed through last week's Gazette ( Toronto's Finest Grind, 136:03), only to find out that I was, in fact, still a high school student!

To Ms. Pendergast's credit, my maturity level is roughly similar to that of a poo-flinging chimpanzee, so I suppose hers was a natural assumption to make, but, given that the theme of the week was knowing what yr talking about before you say something, this self-same level of maturity wasn't gonna let such a lack of basic journalism slide. Two of us are Dal students, and I'm so old it'd probably be illegal for me to shake hands with you in a suggestive manner. We're pretty easy to talk to, and would have been tickled pink to answer any questions you may have had (or should have asked) after the show. However inaccurate though, the words were kind, and we thank you sincerely for that.

On a side note, I'm not sure what Mi Amore you saw, but check out http://punk.hfxns.org for some, well, slightly different opinions on the band than you were left with.

Anyway, thanks again for the kind mythology.

-Eb
This Message Will Self-Destruct
This message will self-destruct
This message will self-destruct
This message will - - -


The Dal Gazette called TMWSD a "young and passionate high school group." Heh. That was my letter in response. I wonder if they'll print it. Let's hope this Pendergast chick has a sense of humour.

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Neima, the tape is being made tonight. Sorry 'bout the wait.

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Ella, my heart goes out to you for yr loss. Please be ok, ok? I feel so powerless to help, but I'm here for you in spirit.
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Once upon a time, my grandfather, owner of a construction company that he built from the ground up in different times, was supervising one of his employees making repairs on one of his bulldozers. His attention strayed for a moment, and before he had a chance to get back to the situation, the fellow had gotten into the 'dozer to see if it was now running properly, and proceeded to back over the toolbox he'd just been working from. Probably over a grand worth of specialty tools, flattened into a giant metal pancake. I was maybe eight years old at the time, and I knew howta drive the thing better than that. It was at this point that my grandfather remarked, famously, "And people ask me why I drink."

Cheers Grampy, wherever you are. I'm not sure if I've become you or the idiot. Right now I just feel like the giant expensive metal pancake.

Anyway, my foray into self-serving emo vanity journalism ends here. There's an awful lot of shit on my mind that I could wax longwinded and acerbically in here about, but some things should remain personal. Back to run-of-the-mill vanity journalism it is.

So there's talk of TMWSD doing a 12" on coloured vinyl instead of just a 7". I'm not sure what I think of this yet. I was thinking of the 7" as a simple promotional tool, and a coloured LP seems a bit extravagant for this purpose. It is coloured vinyl though...

Here's a picture from the Truro show, with no one from the band but Toby in it.



I'm on the other side of the smirking guy on the bottom left. The longhaired person is playing with my wierd yo-yo ball thingy. I wish I knew who took those bathroom pictures.

Our Tumbleweed set is gonna rule.

Toby, work yr magic, and get us on the Death From Above show.
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Joy Division makes me want to do acid.

Chink, clunk, scree. Erase. Back to square one. I don't fucking care.
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Slender fungus was a disk of shiny concrete
Slender fungus was a disk, a shiny ball of meat
Slender fungus kissed a fish inside a stolen jeep
Slender fungus eats...

Ok, so I'm feeling better today. Writing in here can be incredibly therapeutic, and after getting all the negativity and doubt outta my system with yesterday's rant, I'm now able to look back fondly at the events of the last few days. Things certainly remain that I wish I'd said and done differently, but isn't life always like that? Mine is, anyway. All other things aside, what really matters to me is that we got to spend time together, finally knowing each others' feelings. I suppose it's only natural, with such a clouded history between us, for that first step to be a little awkward (well, most of the awkwardness being mine...). It weren't no fairytale weekend, but there lies a certain romance in the way it transpired, and it's not like we didn't have some fun. Maybe it's for the best that she caught some of the worst of me. It won't keep my heart from hurting any less if she forms the logical conclusion that I'm a reject, but I guess it's better for people to see the best and worst of each other before becoming close anyway, instead of forming opinions based on fronts. At least then you don't run the risk of becoming friends or lovers with a sham, an act. Lord knows she's seen the worst of me.

The world around me is in turmoil. I'm cool with that.

Trial and error. That's life, baby.
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Friday morning. I get home from work, write in here a little, surf the local messageboards until the internet craps out, watch a movie, and go to bed around noon. Telephone rings.

"Hello?"
"Hi, it's me. Did you get my e-mail?"
"Nah, sorry, stupid internet broke on me again. Guy's coming to fix it later today."
"Oh. Well, uh, I have a drive there for the weekend. I can be there in seven hours, and leave on sunday... should I come?"
"Uh, er (half awake and stunned), do you want to come?"
"Well, yeah (probably rolling her eyes at my dimwittedness), should I?"

I look around me, at the repulsive state of my apartment, at the cockroaches scurrying across the walls, at the carpet stained with dog puke, at the mound of smelly, unwashed dishes on the kitchen counter. I don't want her to see me like this.

I want to see her.

"Yes. Come. Please."

Butterflies...

So I try to calculate some kind of balance between getting just enough sleep that I won't be some kind of zombie when she arrives, and doing just enough cleaning that she won't think I'm some kind of filthy disgusting freak. Working 40+ hours a week on the back shift doesn't lend itself to getting much done around the house. Anyway, thanks to the internet repair guy, I get very little of either accomplished. She arrives just as I'm getting out of the shower, and my guerilla cleaning operation does not happen. I want to kiss her the moment I see her, but even knowing how she feels, I still fear rejection, and I hesitate. Dumbass. If there is a next time, I will kiss her for all the times I wanted to, but didn't.

She gives me a hard time about the place, and, like always it seems, I'm no good at reading when she's just kidding around. She takes to killing the cockroaches in a game-like way, and my heart twists three shades of purple that she shrugs it off like that. We go out for dinner (breakfast, for me), and talk like I wish we could every day, and then out to catch Horseface doing Elvis Costello covers. I'd planned on keeping the drinking to a minimum, but we both end up having a few. Some interesting coincidences happen, and we have fun, even though I'm too much of a chickenshit to ask her to dance. We go back to my place, talk for a bit, and are just about to go to bed when dingdingdingdingding goes the doorbell, and Drock shows up. I love the man like a brother, but I should have ignored the doorbell. I'm incapable of not drinking with the bastard. Quality time went out the window, and we ended up staying up, drinking, till eight am or so. I'm an idiot, and I contributed little to the world of female orgasms that night.

We visited some old friends on saturday, and that was great (playing with Sophie's kid was particularly fun. I usually hate children, but I connected with Caine right away. I think he sensed that I was the other child there), but I knew I'd already blown my alone time with her. I wanted to hold hands and steal kisses every moment we were alone, but I felt like I'd be smothering her, or out of line or something. Even when we were being intimate, I couldn't seem to come out and say everything I wanted to. I'd make some stupid smartass remark instead. I feel like such a fucking tool. When she left, we kissed like friends. As she stood in the doorway, leaving, I wanted to call her back, but I couldn't talk.

I'm fucking lame. I feel like I blew it.
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She's gone, and I am overcome by an immense wave of anxiety.

Did I do anything right?

I am so horribly insecure.
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The sunday show was a lot of fun. We've still got a ways to go before we're as tight live as we're capable of, but tightness in a live setting is secondary to going with the moment, and a crowd can tell reckless abandon from lazy sloppiness. Ross's performances have transformed, seemingly overnight, from tentative to audience-tackling. I think we have Vickyfest to thank for that. He and Toby bring a confrontational element to our shows that sums up the music nicely, and, I think, assists people in getting what we're doing better than any verbal explanation could. Thankfully, that leaves room for me to be the "aloof" one, but I think I wanna get in on some of this dance action, once I find a Bubbles strap to keep my glasses in place.

We went on around 7, not even knowing if and when the headliners were gonna show up. We played, and a bunch of people seem to have dug it, and I think a bunch more just didn't know what the hell to think of us. The other bands showed up at pretty much the precise moment we finished. Mi Amore went on, and bored the fuck outta pretty much everybody. The Cursed headlined, and certainly had their shit together, for a generic cheese-core band. They were tight, and the singer talked a lot. He gave god the finger. He bugged some random reluctant kid in the front row about giving the countdown to their next song, until I got fed up and just yelled "onetwothreefour!" myself. Dude, just shut up and play.

Anyway, I enjoyed their show. I didn't exactly buy any albums, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty awful band etiquette on their part to show up late, and not even inquire into, let alone mention, who the opening band was though. They played for an audience that we primed, not to mention that a good portion of the audience would most likely have given up on them and left if we hadn't gone on when we did. It was funny when people started coming up to me afterward to say that they thought we were the best band on the bill. I guess a couple of the Cursed guys were standing within earshot when some girl was saying as much to me, and were not very pleased. Yr loss, fuckers. Try showing up on time next time.

Going to work after the show sucked. A purty lady was kind enough to give me a lift home (thanks pukey!) after the show, but I was home for all of three minutes when I realized I'd left my bag at the venue. At this point I had maybe fifteen minutes to get to work on time, but my boxcutter was in my bag, so it was a non-issue. I called a cab, and made a round trip from the Ceilidh to work, spending ten of my last twenty dollars in the process. Kinda rendered the lift home moot.

Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about the response this band is getting. I really wasn't sure how this sort of music would be recieved around here, but even people I never pictured digging it are singing our praises. I can't wait to get this 7" out there, and I hope this tour happens.

I'm gonna go sport my new haircut at the bar now.

Edit- I wrote this rant like twelve hours ago, but this thing wouldn't let me publish it until now. The bar sucked.
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Ever kill a bug and then feel guilty? No? Me neither... well, not usually, anyway. Before leaving work this morning, I went upstairs to take a leak, and there was a male mosquito (those big fuckers that you almost never see, and always thought looked like giant clumsy mosquitos, but that never tried to bite you? You were half right- they're the males) dumbly clinging to the inside surface of the urinal. Of course I pissed on it- what man, born with the option of aiming his extrusions wherever he pleases (I'm sure there's more psychology here than I care to delve into), would choose not to pee on the interesting thing? But bloody hell if the thing didn't die the most dramatic, drawn-out death though, flailing around, losing big unwieldy male-mosquito limbs and what-have-you. I immediately felt a wave of guilt, and tried to come up with rationalizations. "Urine is completely sterile and antiseptic" I told myself (it's true, y'know), "so it's not like my piss killed the poor bastard." But it did. Regardless of its makeup, the sheer force of my urination rent the bugger limb from stupid urinal-clinging limb, and that was pretty much my fault and no one else's. So the best, and most-redeeming justification I came up with, and eventually settled on, was that the fuckin' thing was willingly hanging around on the inside wall of a men's urinal, and I probably saved him from a life of similar dumbfuckery. Good enough fer me.

Once in awhile, this sort of microscopic moment will trigger a bout of macroscopic self-analysis in me, and my walk home was replete. I've always been a heavily ethical person, as anyone who knows me well will attest to, and it's never been an affectation or a front. Morality, for me, has always been more intuitive than intellectual. I'd be an awful philosopher. Anyway, I got to thinking, not so much about my moral relativism, but about how it ties in, and occasionally contradicts, with my emotions.

I was an extremely emotional child (although my m0m says I never cried as an infant, to the point where it worried her), and it took me until just recently to figure out that I was often not experiencing the "correct" emotion for the situation. Love, hate, fear, guilt, elation... these were things that I only later learned required precedents in other people. I didn't know I was the only one feeling them randomly. What I felt as random guilt as a child later translated into what they now call "anxiety attacks", and I still have those on a daily basis; I've just learned to suck it up and deal. I didn't deal with it very well as a kid, and laughing or crying in the wrong circumstances pretty much always resulted in getting beat up, made fun of, or both. Usually, it was both. I eventually learned to fight, but that's another story. What I'm concerned with, and what the bug incedent got me thinking about, is the amorality of childhood. As a kid, I harboured no ill will for anyone, but once in awhile I'd go on a destructive rampage. I'd kick down happy snowmen, or dismantle elaborate childhood treehouses with utter dispassion. I really had nothing to say when caught. It wasn't malicious anyway. It just felt like those things, having been thoughtfully constructed, demanded thoughtless deconstruction. I think, in retrospect, that these moments of sheer deconstructive dispassion were some kind of necessary outlet for whatever part of my mind responsible for (or subject to) my extreme emotional palpitations.

Thank fuck I have rock 'n roll. I can love and deconstruct it at the same time, and I never feel dispassionate.
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Melissa T, you are the best girl ever.

Bed.
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Summore shit before I go to bed.

I missed my m0m's birthday on sunday. Fucking jerk. As far as I'm concerned, she's my only family, along with maybe my grandmother. Everyone else is purely peripheral. I guess that's what comes of being an only child of a single m0m. We've always been the black sheep of the family, and I learned how to cope with, and occasionally thrive at, being an outsider from her. When I was a kid, it really was us against the world, and that disparity created a bond that I don't know the words to describe. I may be all grown-up (well, technically, anyway) and far-away nowadays, but that attitude will never leave me. Yeah, I'm a momma's boy.

So she and my grandmother just got back from visiting a terminally-ill relative somewhere outside of TO, with whom Grammy is really close, and she forwarded a bunch of pictures of the gathering, which, in the typical style of my family, come across more like a party than a summit to mourn someone's imminent death.

Fuck. My original point was to post one of the aforementioned pictures, what with my m0m looking all cooler-than-you, but whatever site is hosting 'em won't let me. I need to get an image host one of these days.

Fuck it. Happy belated, m0m.
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Ok, after much confusion and e-scrambling, the saturday show has been cancelled (which sucks, 'cause I really wanted to see ZAAT), and TMWSD is now playing sunday with the Cursed (which, I'm told, doesn't suck). Somebody should send me some songs by them. I don't fucking know from bands.

Stopped in at VD on my way to work last night to pick up a pack of smokes, and, since it was payday, I decided to put another ten-dollar installment on my gargantuan late-fee tab. Dude took one look at what I owed, and made the worst "Ouch!" face I've ever seen, blurting out an emphatic "holy fuck!" in front of all the customers. Mildly funny. Anyway, after he gathered himself, he was like "well, I see that you've already made one payment. Tell you what: gimme twenty bucks right now, and I'll put it in the system that you payed the whole thing." I owed $75. Woo-fucking-hoo! I've seen exactly five films thus far this year. I've got some major catching up to do, now that I can rent again. I need suggestions, people, especially some skinny on the best mindfuck movies of the past year or so. Is Cronenberg's last flick out on DVD yet?

I need a haircut. And a shave. It sucks that barbers don't do both anymore. Thanks a lot, AIDS. I think I'm gonna cut the rest, and grow my bangs freakishly long, in what my mother has dubbed the "anti-mullet". No sir, no moustache irony for me. I'll leave that to Johnny Horseface.

Under and in.
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Ok, The Bad Thing didn't come back to bite me in the ass, and has, in fact, turned out to be something of a Good Thing. I guess I shouldn't be so quick to regret my actions. Nonetheless, I won't be doing that again anytime soon.

What a night, er, day, er... past 24 hours or so. Whatever. Jumped outta bed around 7 pm and went straight to Will's place to jam with TMWSD. It was fairly productive, and we had a new song written by the time I hopped in a cab to head home, shower, take Java out for a dump, and hightail it down to the Marquee. Due to my work situation, I was kinda hoping the show would be just getting underway, but it would turn out to be another half hour or so before the New Breed took to the stage at maybe a quarter of midnight. Tried really hard to nurse my drink, with some success. Once the New Breed started their set, I couldn't help but get a little into the spirit(s) of things. They put on a good show, despite multiple technical difficulties. After their set, I remembered that I was s'posedta be taking things easy, so I headed down to Hell and sat around with Drock's pal Anna Banana for a bit, sipping confoundedly on a ginless tonic. Caught the first few songs of the Heelwalkers' set, and was pleased to see that they've added a batch of new songs to their bag of dirty tricks.

Into the 'Walkers third or fourth song, I decided to take a stroll upstairs to see what the situation was with the Toasters, and I couldn't have had better timing. I walked up towards the stage to get the skinny on how soon they were gonna start, and I still had ten paces to go when the fancy lights came on. Man, all I can say is that if more ska bands were like that... well, I'd listen to more ska bands. Saw some familiar faces, who all seemed to have novel ways of saying "hello" to me (grinding heels into my toes, swiftly kicking me in the hip, grinding disgusting Scott Maracle asses into my crotch... wouldn't it be novel if just once the guys beat up on me, while the girls did the crotch grinding... my life is so strange) and all seemed to be having a great time. I never dance, but if I hadn't had work nibbling away at the back of my mind, this woulda been a throw-caution/dignity-to-the-wind kinda show. Good thing Skye wasn't there, or I'd have been a dancing disaster.

So anyway, I was scheduled to work at ten pm. I told the guys I'd be a little late, but I ended up leaving the show sometime around quarter to two, with I'm-not-even-sure-how-many drinks under my belt. The band, with impeccable timing, went into their encore as I walked down the steps into the street. I had a hard time leaving, but I managed ok until I ran into my impossibly beautiful and charming new upstairs neighbour, who was just on her way back to the bar to find her lost wallet. We talked for a few minutes, and flirted in that tentative way that I don't really know how to describe, and she tried her best to convince me to head back to the show with her. My heart may lie elsewhere, but the rest of me is still pretty intact. Even my fucking boss ridiculed me for choosing work over pleasure in this instance. Thanks Dave, I'll know better next time.

So I went to work, more than a little drunk, and ready to hump a box of Cheerios. I did eight hours of work in a little over three. What can I say? I rule at shitty unskilled labour. Anyway, not having eaten yet this waking-period, I stumbled up to the Ardmore after work for "breakfast." Quinpool right before sunrise is an interesting walk. That hadta be the most strung-out breakfast I've had in years.

So now I'm home, and Bad has become Good. I'm going to bed before something changes.
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Pussy on the wall
Pussy on the wall
Pussy on the wall
IT WILL GET YOU!

So buddy didn't have his mp3 player at work tonight. Which one of you do-gooders is tipping off my coworkers?

The Toasters are playing here tonight, and I'm scheduled to work. I'm not much of a ska fan- hell, the only ska album I own is by the Planet Smashers, and that probably has something to do with my being friends with the bass player (eh Gablack?)- but by all accounts this is a band not to be missed. My boss, upon overhearing me bemoan this predicament, chimes in "well shit, go, and just come in to work when it's over... just don't show up too tanked." Well zoinks, I guess working the deviant shift has its perks after all. He even made sure the order for my aisle was small. Cheers to that!

Also, there seems to be some confusion about the comment box on this here thingy. Some people are e-mailing me with commentary, which is cool, considering I haven't corresponded with some of you in what seems like several millenia, but I spent an obscene amount of time, and permafried more than a few synaptic relays, finding and adding the comment box program to the template for this page, so please don't hesitate to use it. "Nip or Tuck?", in retrospect, is seeming more and more of an unfortunate name to me, so expect that to change once my brain has established new synaptic pathways to replace the ones I frazzled the last time around.

No news yet on The Bad Thing.
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Oh, bad bad bad bad. Very bad.

I did a bad thing. The kind that can't be taken back. Of the sort that even I've never done before.

Change of topic.

One of the guys I work with brings a fancy-pants mp3 player with him to work, and, nice guy that he is, he has fucking nightmarish taste in music. This is really no big deal in and of itself, 'cause I hate just about everybody's taste in music, but the thing is, we all just switched aisles, and I now work in the one next to his. The thing of it is that the intercom is still churning out oldies (which I happen to like, thankyouverymuch), so I'll be boogying to Little Richard or Buddy Holly, forgetting momentarily that I'm not stocking shelves for a pittance in the wee hours of the morning, and this guy will saunter up to a corresponding spot in his aisle, and all of a sudden I'm listening to equal parts the Standells and Bon Jovi. It's driving me slowly insane. The galling thing is that he's trying to drown out this stuff with what he (I can only assume) consideres superior music. I get a kick outta this attitude I often encounter among people my age, where real golden age rock and roll is somehow considered "pussy" music, to be promptly drowned out with some fucking spandex poodlehead schlock that's about as rebellious as Bob Saget in a minivan. Once in awhile he'll throw on AC/DC, or something else I dig, and I'll start getting into it, and four bars in it turns out to be some ungodly fucking remix version. Drock managed to snag a little ghetto blaster for me, and I'm sorely tempted to start bringing it to work with me, and blare a mix of, say, Discordance Axis, early Jesus and Mary Chain, and Aretha Franklin. I like the guy and all, but I'm just not gonna be able to continue spending 40 hours a week listening to Great White, especially when it's drowning out James Brown.

I'm in love with the Stitches. Thank you Neimo. You should download a bunch of Doug and the Slugs songs and make Mr Brown listen to it.

I'm gonna go hide under my bed now. Wake me up when the coast is clear.
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n00dz plz
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Please don't feel silly. I think we both want the same thing, and had I known that during the time we spent together, I'd have done things differently. I've thought for years that I blew any chance I had of being with you, and had I known that we both still had feelings for each other I'd have acted on those feelings. The only reason I didn't was because I thought you might interpret me as only wanting to fuck you again. Not that I don't, but my feelings for you go deeper than that, and I didn't want to risk driving you away by trying anything funny.

I just wrote that in an e-mail, and I've been staring at it for twenty minutes, and two beer, trying to work up the guts to send it.

The internet broke when I tried to publish my post-bar rant last night, so I feel that it's my duty to go out and get hammered so I'll have something to write about here tonight. Perhaps then I'll have the guts to send the above to my lady friend.
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Only a dancer can dance without moving.

On that note, I'm going to watch some bands play the soundtrack for my alcohol consumption.

Rob a bank.
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Ok, now this thing is almost up to snuff. I'm going to bed for a bit.
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Self-
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Alright goddamnit. I don't know from this electronic shit, so I basically just spent four hours fucking with the "template" for this page in an attempt to make it look comfy. I feel like I just took a crash course in idiocy. The best part is that I somehow managed to delete my first entry proper in the process. Teeth were gnashed. Cigarettes were smoked viciously. I put a lot of mental energy into that speil, and it's everyone's loss that it's gone. It had underground labyrinths, toppling skyscrapers, airplane-crash reconstruction sites, and the mutilated remains of my dog interspersed throughout an assortment of bulk-sized bags of popcorn kernels. There's no way in hell I'm gonna try and rewrite that.

So fuck yesterday. I'm calling this the inaugural Mood Surgery entry, and it's not like I have any shortage of shit to fling into the ether. I'm listening to the Mountain Goats. I'm half drunk. I'm between books and girls, but more on the latter when I have the time and energy. I just got home from nine hours of slave labour. I have a "blog." All the cool kids will be reading it, so hop on the bandwagon before all yr enemies do.

Tomorrow I decide which is more important to really kick this thing off with; past, present or future. Both my immediate past and my near future are filled with scandal and splendour. Sucks that I've done nothing but work in the past week. One way or another, tomorow is gonna kick-start the fuck outta what will then be the present.

Skronk
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Destruct.
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