With all the protests and chants and rallies and car burnings and megaphones and masks and marching and yelling and screaming and shouting and bickering and bullshit at the G20 in Toronto this weekend, has anyone considered the most effective voice is often the quiet one?
About 15 years ago, I wrote a song about some memories of growing up through summers of these dingy midways. I don't have it recorded, but the lyrics are below.
Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what the Astroliner is, a picture that's not exactly like I remember, but still holds many memories is linked below.
Bowler-Capped Cross-Eyed Clown
Took a ride in the devil's hole
Found a grip up the padded blackened walls
Watched the floor disappear Highway to Hell
Distorted through the dingy carnival
Speeds up enclosed gravitronic journey
Felt that corndog revisit the back of my throat
Twenty year-old grease under brown-encrusted mustard
Psychedelic gelatin creates the rainbow glow
Red magnet in the fish pond
Dart-pierced metal star
Led Zeppelin-painted mirrors
Fibreglass bumper cars
Carnival it's a carnival
All my money on 3 ticket rides at the
Carnival it's a carnival
Drop the bucks on pinwheel luck at the
Carnival it's a carnival
Carny people all live in trailers
In suburban strip-mall parking lots
Setting up and tearing down the tents with spots like robots
Astroliner cruise the Astroliner
Grainy film and grating sound
Left and right get tossed around on the
Astroliner cruise the Astroliner
Molded plastic captain's seats
Rockin' to the cosmic beat on the
Astroliner cruise the Astroliner on the...
Took a walk through the haunted house
Flourescent-painted Dracula and severed heads
Was I scared at what moved 'cross the floor
Or that I might fall through instead
Shrunken basketball hoops
Watergun horseraces
Skeeball Skeeball Skeeball
Candy floss-filled faces
Carnival it's a carnival
All my money on 3 ticket rides at the
Carnival it's a carnival
Drop the bucks on pinwheel luck at the
Carnival it's a carnival
Some additional reminiscences on people who lined up for the iPhone 4, police who line up for the G20, and my favourite summer dollar store.
Just look at the poor huddled souls waiting in line for the latest luxury gadget. All these businessmen with their suits, overcoats, and fedoras try to be on the cusp of modern technology... oh, wait... this isn't a San Francisco mall!
It's a line up of people waiting hours FOR BREAD so they can feed themselves and their children!
When I see twentysomethings in deck chairs with backpacks full of Clark Bars and Iced Green Tea, I start to wonder about priorities. Does having an iPhone 4 for two days less than someone else really impact your life that much?
I guess it's a matter of priorities. I wonder how many of the people in the lines are living on social assistance or bad credit and consuming the better part of a day or a week to have a phone that will allow them to see their friend when they're chatting to them from their bachelor apt. couch in the middle of a Mantracker marathon.
UPDATE: from @VegasBill on Twitter - Pizza is being served to the iPhone 4 line at the Apple Store at Caesars Palace #Vegas. http://twitpic.com/1zlhzb
A visually stunning combination of light, sound, music, architecture and landscape form to create YEKPARE. The art piece seeks to relay the 8500 year history of Istanbul in a mesmerizing, unforgettable way.
I know I've been heavy into the Vimeo lately, but trust me and go to the original page and zoom this up to full screen while watching it. It becomes a rather effective transformer of one's day.
I love Phish. I'm a total phanboy. I know some of you may love your tech devices and all your gadgets, but having been to over 25 Phish shows in my life, I'm hooked.
Last year I missed Podcasters Across Borders 2009 to attend four Phish shows during their reunion tour, and I wasn't disappointed.
This year I missed three shows I would have gone to, and instead attended PAB2010, and I wasn't disappointed.
I just thought that after sharing so much on lovehatethings from a community of creators I grew to be a part of this past weekend at PAB2010, I'd share some content from my favourite musical creators.
Above is a great version of the song Tweezer from the experimental minds of the band, while below is their show closer of Tweezer Reprise. Both are fantastic recordings from the crowd and look and sound amazing. Thanks to HarpuaFSB for sharing on YouTube.
Maybe My Kinda 80s wasn't the same as your kinda 80s. But I didn't listen to synth-poppy dance bands all that much. I listened to ska, alt-rock, and we likes to call "batcaver" music which has since been appropriated as "goth"... sheesh... goth... what's this world coming to?
While almost everything else on lovehatethings is Creative Commons, this is not, and if the RIAA or any of the artists ask me to take this down, I'll gladly comply. But until then, if you dig it, maybe you'll go and buy it, which will make everyone happy in the end.
Me - the big guy - in action at PAB2010, trying to deliver a concept in five minutes or less.
