Thank you for friends from Scotland and mooncake from Hong Kong.
Thank you for guests and hosts and holidays.
Thank you for friends like Lisa and Flight of the Concords.
Thank you for healthy kitties.
Thank you for moving baselines and dubstep wobbles.
Thank you for locally grown beef and signature sauces.
Thank you for inspirations and front row seats.
Thank you for British sitcoms, old and new.
Thank you for cheeks and daydreams.
Thank you for new friends and Magic nights.
and that means you’d get a big bear hug the next time I see you, but they say you’ve shattered your rib cage, lost a pile of teeth, and broken every bone on the right side of your body, save the arm.
I’ve been there man. You know that. That’s why you know I’ll never judge you for what happened. You told me we could always talk cause you were once on the edge of the same blade, so you should have known the same, but you didn’t pick up when he said maybe there was a better chance you’d listen to me. All I could do was sit there, trying to keep calm, but expecting the next call to be about a body.
I should be angry. Not cause you didn’t call me to say goodbye before you took off, but because you hurt yourself and you’re my brother, and that means you hurt my family.
I can’t stay mad cause you’re conscious now, your vitals are stable, there’s no brain damage, and relief has surpassed anger. They say it’s mainly injuries to the bones and that bones heal, long as it may take.
Will I recognize you the next time I see you? Will I cry? Will you ever understand how scared I was? I can’t call cause the nurse needs to be by your side, and I can’t visit yet cause only immediate family are allowed for now. Otherwise, I’d be in a car, driving down there with a case of Blue ready for you when you’re out.
I don’t want to worry anymore. I want to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. I want you drunk at my wedding with your cap on backwards, screaming your ass off when I walk down the aisle. I want you at every New Year’s party, cause you’re one of the only reasons I go anymore. I want you to teach my kids how put someone in a proper choke-hold cause they should know how to take care of themselves, and you’re smart in all the ways I’m not.
We all need you as much as I do. That’s why you’re still alive, and that’s what I’m going to make you understand one day.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of filming Geneviève and Jamie on their wedding day. It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony in the country with only about 50 people, and a vegan dinner for the reception.
One of the interesting things I got to see was the sock dance, an old French-Canadian tradition where the eldest unmarried sibling has to don a pair of ugly socks (symbolizing their cold feet) and do a silly dance. People throw money at him or her, which is then collected for the newly married couple.
I decided to keep the grading natural cause there are so many vibrant colours in each scene — from tattoos, hair dye, clothes, foliage, and decorations — that I wanted to bring out for a lighthearted, playful mood. Goddammit I love grading; it’s become my favourite part of the process. You can set so many kinds of tones with colour alone.
The colours also led me to decide on using Beirut’s “Postcards from Italy” for the song, as the ukulele and horns emphasize that festive feeling wonderfully.
I also got to work with Liz, a photographer who’s as fantastic1 as she is considerate. So far, she’s been the only one to say to me, “Tell me if I get in your way”, before I could say it to her. Guess who I’m referring if anyone asks me for a wedding photographer recommendation.
Sometimes I study the films of videographers I admire, and I’m inspired by their style but it never feels right when I try to achieve the same for my films. They rely on editing to make their films interesting, and the films end up looking posed or unnatural. I’ve realized that I have to follow my own style — telling a story by capturing the beauty in the simplicity — because that’s what I’ve been trying to do in words and photos my whole life.
on the path of least resistance, you discover:
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Everything is balancing itself out. I’ve stopped trying to predict or control my cycles of introversion and extroversion, productivity and procrastination. As Oscar Wilde once said: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it”. By doing what I want when I feel like it, every need is met in turn.
Life doesn’t get more comfortable than this. It’s been a great summer.
Now on mashed solids. Ruby at 11 months.
I’m glad I got here by myself, without the help of a friend, or lover, or windfall. It was something I had to do on my own, so I’ll always know I’m strong enough to pick myself up and continue growing.
The only thing that’s really missing now is another cat (or two), but I already blew my kitty budget on Leonard’s vet bills. I’m not at the right place for a new adoption anyway, and I’ve decided to wait until my major projects are finished (hopefully some time around the end of the year) before I take on another life.
It’s official; Kyden has the softest, pinchiest cheeks ever at eight months.
I’ve been back from my trip for about a month and a half, but it feels more like a year. I’m so different now from the person I was before I left. I was dying then, but I’m living now.
The only way I can tell how quickly time is truly passing is in the faces of my friends’ babies. Each time I see them they’re making new sounds, saying new words, more conscious and coherent. I used to envy the carefree innocence they have when running about naked, the single-mindedness they possess when engrossed with a new toy, but now I feel like one of them.
It’s strange to feel like I’m ready for a relationship at only this point in my life. It didn’t seem right that anyone should love me if I didn’t love myself, and that didn’t really start until recently.
It also took a good round of therapy to figure out that I was sabotaging my relationships so no one could have the chance to hurt me. If I consider which ones would have worked out had that not been an issue that caused me to break up with my girlfriends in order to protect myself, I can only think of one. But that was a long time ago, and while we may have worked then, it’s no guarantee for the people we’ve become, as I’m sure there’s been a lot of growth on both our ends. It’s only now that I feel like my personal evolution has reached a peak, a place where I’m satisfied with who I am, and there won’t likely be any more drastic changes that may affect the dynamics of a relationship.
I’ve been able to recognize that the risk of getting hurt is inseparable from the trust we place in the people we love, and that risk is always worth it. I’ve left behind my baggage, something no one else should have to deal with, and I’ve had enough experience to know exactly what I’m looking for in a relationship and what kind of people work with me.
Took me 30 years to figure it all out, but everybody’s gotta learn sometime.
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Don’t have much to say lately. Sometimes I get stuck at the title.
I’ve been holding off on starting various classes cause I’m not quite into my regular pace of life. I’m still riding the crests of over-stimulation from my trip, not yet ready to be routinely seeing people. Consequently, this means I lose sense of time, weekly classes once being my anchor points for certain days of the week.
I always look forward to grey and dreary days, when it’s the perfect excuse to stay inside and just tinker on the guitar.
I never feel lonely anymore. I’m too comfy in the house, too occupied with this sense of hedonism, too busy pouring myself into my projects, too spoiled by life I’m living, too blessed by the cards I was dealt. Sometimes I end up parking my car at a strange angle one could never hope to replicate, and I’m sure this is how my neighbours can tell I haven’t been out in more than a week.
The Hintonburger: a six ounce handmade local beef patty with bacon, cheese, signature barbeque sauce, and fuck yeah.
All I ever wanted was a little bit of peace. Now that I’ve found it, I’ve stopped thinking about the future. Right now is good enough.
So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
On a sleepless night in Paris, I came upon the sudden realization that the last thing I should be thinking of was a person I hadn’t spoken to in more than half a year.
It brought to mind something Jason told me once, about a policy his life-coach has for his sessions (which are very forward-focused): if you bring up something negative from the past three times, the life-coach would end the working relationship cause it’s in indication that you’re holding on to something that keeps you from moving forward.
So there’s three things you can do:
For so long, hope meant that I’d been trying to change the situation. And when I finally, finally, finally understood the futility of it all, I knew I had to change myself, and come to terms with what I didn’t seem capable of accepting. Being in another country, surrounded by an indulgent, hedonistic culture and filled to the brim with happiness, was exactly what I needed to galvanize myself into that change, and end things on my terms.
I’ve been settling back into my regular life, and I don’t feel much of anything now, except free. Like I’m finally in control, above water, instead of treading it.
We left for home the next morning after a heavy meal at the bed and breakfast, where everything was deep fried, including my toast. Our route was circuitous, planned carefully by Dennis so I could see as much of the country as possible.
The thing that strikes me most about the Scottish landscape is that you don’t need to be on top of a mountain to get a good view. There’s breathtaking beauty all around, never obscured by skyscrapers or treelines. The air is also some of the most pure and fresh you’ll ever get to breathe, yet neutral; it doesn’t smell particularly like flowers or foliage, it just smells clean.
You’d like it here.
Maybe that’s why it feels like you’re missing from every meal, every seat I’ve taken at a bistro with the sun on my face, every corner I’ve rounded with a new experience just beyond.
Wish you were here.
To be honest, I’d never heard of Spanish Romance until this year. Once I found out it was a classical standard, I started seeing it on all these CDs by respected guitarists and compilation albums of “classical greats”. It seems like anyone learning classical guitar will try to tackle it at some point, seduced by such an elegant melody. I have no classical aspirations, and even I fell for it.
I figure I’d record this before I cut off my nails cause I’ve been growing them for about two months1 and I’m completely sick of them. They clack on my keyboard and iPad, and I always have to be annoyingly careful about not breaking them. Unfortunately, this song also sounds way better with some brightness to it when it’s not played with actual nylon strings; I’m still using a set of Silk and Steel, and there’s a certain fatness to the sound when you really dig into them.
I’ve only had Larissa for six months now, but it feels more like six years. There’s so much familiarity in the wood and glossy curves. Even when I’m trying out a guitar several times the price of what she would cost, it never feels as nice.
This was my speech at John’s wedding. It’ll probably remain the most important speech of my life unless I ever get married and have kids of my own, so I’m happy to have nailed it. John’s dad came up to the head table and shook my hand when I was done, and some people even asked me for a transcript.
I’ve wanted to write about John’s hilariously frank and robotic love letters for so long but I never got around to it, so it was great that I was able to surprise him with one of them in the middle of the speech. People were laughing at every single line.
A rare picture of John and I cause I’m usually the one taking the photos.
“…when it comes to matters of the heart he’s like an 11-year-old boy…”
So the iPad 2 is something I bought last week, solely for the purpose of GarageBand. It’s powerful enough to be a sketchpad where you can create musical ideas, and because the instruments are touch-sensitive, it’s really fun to doodle and experiment. I don’t actually have a bass or piano or drums, so the extra instrumentation is pretty handy too.
Over the weekend I made this sketch of Shaded By Your Shadow as I was figuring my way around the software. It’s always been one of my favourite songs by Shane; the title alone evokes this image of lying in the grass on a warm day, with someone’s hair drifting in the haze of their outline above you.
I haven’t lost myself this much in a project (small as it was) in a long time. I had to figure out the roles of instruments I’ve never played before, percussion being a particularly weak point of mine cause I rarely pay attention to it when I’m listening to music. There are a lot of synth instruments included with GarageBand, so I tried to give it an 80s synth-pop sound. Everything was done right on the iPad, including vocals which were recorded using the built-in microphone.
I still have to learn about mixing and production and whatnot (and since I don’t have any monitors, I’m completely blind when setting the various levels), but I was happy as punch just to be able to figure out the software and process. It really is it’s own creative process when making a full band arrangement for a song, a puzzle in it’s own right, because you can start with an idea or motif on any instrument and there are so many directions you can go from there.
I’ve been spending too much time around friends and fallen heroes, staying up too late, running away from my thoughts, punishing my body, killing myself one day at a time. The exhaustion is numbing — exactly what I need — but I know I can’t keep this up forever. I used to lose a day here and there, think it’s Wednesday on a Thursday. Now I lose entire weeks. I’ve decided that it’s all okay as long as shit gets done.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling trapped. I’m too busy to see past things as they are right now, a victim of my own self-distraction, so it feels like I’ll be here forever, stuck in this endless loop of healing and heartbreak.
I’m still trying to find that delicate balance between accepting myself (which risks complacency) and striving to improve (and the constant dissatisfaction). At the very least, I’ve come to the realization that there’s a difference between the things that happen to us and the way we react or deal with them, and since you have no say in the former, all you can do is improve the latter.
Sometimes you have to die a little inside to figure that out.
I’ve always been after a more mellow sound than what I can currently get out my guitar. Madeleine suggested I try D’Addario Silk and Steel strings, so I bought a pack a few days ago and have been playing them since. I asked Steve to demo the strings, as well as my lovely guitar Larissa, cause my abilities aren’t good enough to really show her off.
Sometimes I love them cause they’re so bright and clear, other times I hate them cause the tone comes off as thin and frail; it really depends on what kind of music I’m playing. When Steve plays them they’re shockingly bright and piercing compared to the sound I get; I’m not sure if it’s the difference in our nails or technique (or both).
They’re definitely meant for fingerpicking cause they’re so light1 that even moderate strumming will make them buzz, which severely limits my possible repertoire. On the bright side, it’s much easier to fret barre chords, and certain passages that were a struggle to play cleanly only require a light touch now.
Another advantage is that the tone makes me feel like I’m playing a different guitar. Even though it’s not quite the dry and mellow sound of a classical nylon, it’s somewhat staving off my desire to buy the Taylor I’ve been eying2, but who knows how long that’ll last.
Steve’s the only person I know who lives by the guitar, both literally and figuratively. I’ve seen such brilliant things come out of his fingers. Sometimes in the middle of a song I’m showing him, he’ll pick up the melody and go somewhere completely different with it that’s more beautiful than the original. And even though he’s mainly a jazz guy (after Wes Montgomery), he can play any style from classical to flamenco.
I’ve taken up his belief in not using a pick and sticking with my fingernails. “Just another thing between you and the guitar”, he said to me once. And when I explain how I’m stuck on something he’ll say, “Have you done it three-and-a-half million times?” to remind me that anything’s possible with enough practice. He’s filled with all these tiny yet crucial bits of information that have influenced how I approach the instrument.