Rainy days seem to amplify the pain and nauseating twinges one gets after a night of heavy indulgence. My head has since cleared from last night and the realization of things I did push through and I just kind of say…”that’s a shame”. I really need to watch myself sometimes…making a fool of yourself and overspending isn’t such a fond sentiment to wake up to, but it always seems like a fabulous idea at the time. On top of the world but really just under the influence. Go figure.

On a slightly more positive note, Friday night went really well and something kind of magical happened. It was a good friend’s birthday and we all made the hike to Pub 101 for a night of drinkery and good times. Upstairs was a funny sight…the floor above “upstairs” was packed as that holds the dancefloor and DJ, but the middle floor we were on was quite empty save a few dark tables and a 2 man band. One fellow playing a very quirky guitar and the other on a jazz kit. They were playing really great recent rock songs as well as the classics. 2 men yet so much sound. We all sat down while eyeing these men weirdly resting on the fact that with a group this size there was nowhere else to sit down. More songs played and more drinks were served, and the birthday boy was content.

When they launched into a blink 182 song I decided to take my roommates girlfriend for a spin on the dancefloor and we enjoyed some high paced ballroom waltzing and LOTS of spins.

We were dancing to rock and roll.

Suddenly, others from our soiree group were up and moving, smiling and laughing at how ridiculous it was to be dancing to this music instead of steady bass beats leading to a “drop”, or whatever. But we were all having so much fun, and that’s all there really was to it. People from the floor above us would walk down from the “real” dancefloor and realize this was the place to be! Where the fun was. Where it wasn’t about eyeing a hot number and seeing how much of her you could touch while “dancing”.

Before I knew it our whole crew was pushing chairs and tables aside and grooving out. When we needed a break we’d sit but sing out our lungs’ fill.

Sam Roberts wrote “the kids don’t know how to dance to rock and roll” but that’s just it. There are no “moves”..you just…move. You feel it and roll with it, you can dance with your friends’ girlfriends and you won’t get scrutinized because the only thing your touching are her back and hands…with only your hands. It’s the music that won’t die because there’s no learning curve, it just explains who you are and what you feel. It’s lasted a long time and just…flows.

It’s the music that was playing when your parents were falling in love.

Keep the memories in your bones, and thanks for a grand weekend. My coffee is kicking in and this action movie is letting out some aggression that I’m feeling towards myself for acting such a fool.

That’s what a Friday night should be like. 

 
Hey guys, been a while with the long weekend and all. I'm sitting in demarais before my class and just got off work...went to bed at 1am and somehow woke up seconds before my alarm went off at 5am and felt..quite refreshed. freaks me right out. 

I had an alright long weekend, hope you did too. worked a little as my family is out of town but we never really made a big deal about thanksgiving in the first place, but i get it's a lovely time to spend with those you love so i hope that's what you ended up doing! 

i'm first going to retort to the latest post of the Tales of Taco and say that i have recently become very fond of urban cycling, as Ottawa is made really well for it. i can pedal to class/work in about 5 minutes as opposed to a 15+ minute walk. the only downside is i can't walk and listen to my tunes, but sometimes i make the time for just that. hell no, i do not have earphones in while cycling. that's when you become a douche cyclist like the ones Taco discusses. I cannot stand cyclists who act as this "pedestrian/vehicle" hybrid species. either you are on the street, or you're walking. you don't ride on the sidewalk. when you ride on the sidewalk, and when half the douches don't even have a bell on their bike (which by law you do, for the rec.) you run the risk of hurting someone walking. it's not fair to use a space deliberately made for people to safely walk on and zip around on it. unless it's the uOttawa walkway. that shit is wide and i'll ride on that when i please. when cyclists run reds, it's fine. they can throw themselves in danger all they want. I stop at stop signs and reds. they are there for a reason. i don't see them as a hindrance to my momentum but more a "you should probably make sure you're not about to become a paraplegic" type of thing.

Ride safe. you've got every right to be on the road, but that means...you're on the road. 

(Taco the cyclists probably don't see you, but carry on) 

What I'd like to talk about is how one acts in the workplace. i work at the second cup on laurier right across from the university. it's busy as shit, all the time, really. this can and does wear me down as do most of all retail positions. sometimes you see a customer and generally want to say "fuck off, please" but obviously this is a no no. the thing about retail is that everyone knows it's one of the biggest lies we throw up. the employees aren't happy to be there nor do they want to put in the time for the money but a job's a job. i get that. i have good shifts and bad shifts but no doubt there is something i'd rather be doing that working. you get that. the thing i cannot stand that sometimes happens at my work is one of us will somehow make it seem like the customer fucked up. e.g. i go to make one drink and the customer says "oh sorry, i said two of those."..who am i to say "no you didn't" when in reality i probably did hear them wrong. there's no point in me going UGH like the customer is super annoying and rude when all they did was order. i guess whenever you really don't want to do your job you need to visualize from the customer's end. i get i'm just some person making your coffee and you don't really care about my well being or health, but then again i don't really care for the customer's, i just smile and nod and feel a slight twinge of hope in my heart that their day is going well so far, even though their face will be forgotten in about 5 minutes (except those tall ladies that come in. please come back, like often.). so yeah, just imagine being a customer and having to be confronted by a total dickhead behind the counter. that's not fair. you represent a service, so just give 'er for the time you've been slotted. leave all the bullshit going on at the door because no one who is asking for a coffee or new pair of shoes cares, unfortunately. you don't have to act like their friend, they have friends. you need to be nice and do your job. because nothing about your job makes you a big deal. not to your co workers or a customer. also..

you didn't get a job to make money.
you got a job because you ran out of it. 

anyways. that's a rant. what's up with me? two big things really...on the 19th i'm shipping out on an adventure to Namibia in southern Africa. my dad and sis are there and we're basically renting a 4x4 and driving around dunes and desert. i am beyond excited. lots of videos! 22 hours of flight time however..

Ottawa->NYC->Johannesburg->Windhoek, Namibia.

that reminds me i need to get a big ass memory card...

in other news...NEW GUITAR. Taylor GS Mini Mahogany topped and left handed. it is bloody gorgeous and her name is BabyTay LeJames. deal with it. it's a small bodied guitar but a relatively average scale (length). sounds very bright and has a mellow low end for nice round chords. sounds a lot like what dallas green plays, but less expensive. i'm hoping to play a lot of open mics starting next week, also i had this silly idea of an open mic tour where i go to other campus towns and steal the hearts of all the women and then wake up and realize none of that actually happened. been writing more often too...haven't been in a long time. i tend to write more when i find new music to get inspired from. currently listening to a lot of Lumineers and Fake Problems. what i have NOT been listening to is the Mumford record. i dunno why i'm just going to let the hype die the hell down and then actually go into it with the love i had for the first album. not really a fan of that "i will wait" song, or whatever it's called. but i'm sure there are pure gems on it. please don't bombard me with "omg listen to thiiiis"..yes the lyrics talk about heads and hearts and making love roam i'm sure your life is in shambles and this music is saving it. only my best friend Kyle is allowed to throw music in my face, because it tends to be amazing stuff. 

but all of you should listen to the Gaslight Anthem. everyday. 

I'm really thankful for people who know how to be real and cut the bullshit when they can. it's way more insulting to pretend to care than to just not even letting certain topics come up. just don't pretend to be someone's friend. no one is asking you to. if you want to be my friend, chances are that you already are. i'm not saying the "you're not my friend i don't have to be nice to you" view is what i'm rooting for here, hell naw. it's important to start as kind to everyone. if you can't even start out being kind...you're lost, man. you've just lost it.


keep the memories in your bones

M
 
let's talk about it, right? the weekend.
i'm half drunk now, i battered myself friday and  saturday, so when my african family who is currently living in the house i grew up in decided to throw an impromptu soiree i had drinks again. i haven't had a weekend like this in..well a week, probably. i actually don't get that ridiculously drunk that often... that was so last year..when monday through friday was when i'd party and the weekend was serious time. when i made incredibly great choices with life and women...nawt. i don't regret a lot, i promise, but we can all agree i was not the smartest fellow on templeton street. 


last night my roommate (and co host of this podcast) and i crashed at a family owned property near the market. after a night of decimating shots and eyeing ladies to no avail, we went the hell to bed. in the morning we decided to go to Mello's on dalhousie for breakfast.

Mello's has been around literally as long as ottawa has...well as long as i've been around in ottawa. There's so much to it, yet at the same time there's nothing to it. it's an old school diner. you walk in, there's the main bar lined with stools and then there are some private booths for the families and the lovers. 

i've been going here to eat since my dad took me here many years ago after a good long ski in the gatineau hills. all it is, is feeling like you're in the movie "Grease" and a damn good breakfast. 

there's the owner of the place..i knew her name at one point. a few years ago my girlfriend at the time and i would go there literally every sunday morning and she'd recognize us no problem. i would, and still do, recognize her easily. she's uh..a big lady. it ain't over until she sings. she's the classic diner waitress. calling you "doll" and "sweetheart" and calling out orders in some ridiculous vocabulary you can't recognize and saying how much she loves the maple leafs. she's nuts and gets the job done with incredible efficiency and precision. "hold the ketchup" and all that jazz. 

the folks who go there are also what make it so special to me. you've got the retired (honourably or dishonourably) sailors with the rapier tattoo'd on their forearms, but the kind of tattoo that was done with such vile ink that their skin tried its hardest to reject it, and now looks like it could be brushed off. you've got the people who have been coming their for a hell of a lot longer than i have...silver haired ladies and gentlemen who do their crosswords and kill off easily a few hours sipping on 5 cups of coffee. you've got older burly men with Harley Davidson merchandise who talk about when they used to ride their metal steeds down these streets but got too preoccupied with families or a chronic heart problem. 

and then you've got kids like me...giving off a desired aura of innocence and honesty that we may or may not actually have. with last nights smoke filled hair tucked into a toque (i don't smoke, but the rest of the world does, apparently), a plain white t-shirt with a stain from a drink I don't remember wrecking the New Jersey appeal i strive to accomplish, and scuffed shoes. i sit there with a good friend and i eat my breakfast. 3 slices of french toast with legitimate maple syrup served up with a duo of breakfast sausages and finally a slice of true ham. 10 bucks with my cup of coffee that is so god awful but there's no other coffee i feel i deserved in that current state. that coffee that tastes like no hell but that's just want you need. the heat and the caffeine to try and jump start your mind in a lacklustre fashion. 

it's a morning ritual i really take in and enjoy. Graeme and i didn't really talk much during breakfast...no doubt because we felt like bollocks and were decimating our brekky's, but also because my eyes were scanning every brick, every stainless steel top being sprayed down and every word that big lady would bark out.

i don't know, it's just a magical place to me. brings me back to an era that i wasn't even close to living in. don't you ever feel that? that retro feeling in your soul but in a way where it's like you were there, or you sure as hell would have loved to be? just for a while? 

i find there's a poetry that goes about this town, and i find the introduction can be found at Mello's. 

Check it out on Dalhousie street. huge sign. truly can't miss it, and nor should you.

Keep the memories in your bones.

-M