Bulletin Board
A bag of items
Big day! Two albums going on sale today. Let’s start with North American Adonis.
Finally - after 25 years - the North American Adonis album featuring doseone, Jel and myself is unleashed! Order your physical copy on your chosen format(s) on the Handsmade website. Digitally, you can get yours on doseone’s Bandcamp page - here.
While you’re on the Handsmade website, why not place an order for a physical copy of Punk Rock B-Boy! Now available on vinyl, CD and cassette! Do it. Quantities are limited which means they’ll go fast and they’ll be worth money someday soon. Invest in dopeness.
What else is going on in the world?
I had tickets to see KISS in concert the other night but it didn’t happen because they cancelled the show a few hours before the lights were supposed to go down. Major bummer. That was a lifelong bucket list item that will have to go unchecked.
The other day I was thinking about the funniest thing I ever saw. Probably around 20 years ago or so, I actually saw a guy slip on a banana peel. For real! And it was just like in the cartoons. His his legs went kicking out in front of him and he landed on his ass. I didn’t know the guy. It was just a random stranger on the street. There were probably five or six other pedestrians who saw it and we all doubled over laughing. Pretty sure I remember the guy who slipped laughing too. He had a look on his face that said, “WTF? I just slipped on a banana peel, for real”. This happened in Halifax as I was walking past the old library at Spring Garden Road and Grafton Street. Late 90s or early 2000s. Hand to my heart.
As perhaps you surmised from my last post, I’m not exactly on the Andre-3000-flute-album bandwagon. Artistic considerations aside, I’m bothered by a lot of the narrative around the album. Some of what I’ve been reading reinforces a notion that I’ve never been able to understand or abide - that no one should be rapping after the age of 30 or 35 or 40 or whatever. The motivation for the work I’ve done in the last two years stands in stark opposition to that notion. Getting older isn’t the real issue. It’s time to retire or move onto something else when you’ve lost touch or lost the spark. That’s it. I won’t be waving the white flag any time soon.
There’s also been a lot of discussion lately about Lauren Hill and her habit of staring concerts late. I’m not going to weigh in on Lauren Hill but I will say that I’m one of those people that’s ALWAYS early. For everything. I don’t remember being taught this by anyone but being respectful of other people’s time is a code I’ve always lived by. And one of the things that irritates me the most is my time being wasted. I can remember being late for shows a few times in the past due to delayed fights, trains or buses and being in a complete panic because of it. A fateful show in Eugene, Oregon a long time ago comes to mind right away.
On the topic of being respectful of other people, there seems to a post on Reddit every week (the title of which is always worded slightly differently) that gives people a chance to vent about their pet peeves. And I always get the sense that one of the things people hate in today’s world more than anything is subscriptions - the fact that so many things have been set up as subscription services. Everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to scam you out of $5/month or $50/year or some shit. That’s why I still haven’t set up a paid subscription thing for Vertices despite the fact that a bunch of people have already pledged support for the idea. I’m really having trouble bringing myself to do it even though I have ideas for it and I’m always looking out for a chance to make a few extra bucks. I don’t know if it will ever happen.
Money. I’m still haunted by a bad dream I had a few months ago. I dreamed I lost my job and my life was thrown into chaos. I woke up feeling panicked. I have a really good job and I’m so grateful to have it. But the dream did get me thinking about what I’d do if I ever lost it. Sometimes I find myself thinking, “maybe I should go to night school”. I feel like I’d be willing to do the training for just about anything, if it came down to it. I wonder if I know anyone who could give me a job. Could you? I hope I never need to ask for real.
Here’s another thing I’ve been thinking about lately - what’s going on with all this alien shit? And how come it’s not a bigger news story? There are space aliens everywhere, apparently.
What else?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about having a kidney stone. Jesus, what a nightmare that was. I’m determined to never go through that again and they say the key is to drink lots and lots of water. To make sure I’m drinking as much as I should, I bought one of those big-ass jugs - 3000 ml/105 oz. I take it with me everywhere I go now. And you know what? I’m starting to see other health benefits. How do I put this subtly? My trips to the bathroom are much more frequent and much more… easy. Put it this way - the more water you drink, the more you’ll save on the cost of toilet paper. The #2’s are so smooth! Also, my skin has been looking really good and I feel great. You should get yourself a giant water jug. They’re like, twenty bucks.
Alright. That’s it for now, I guess. If you feel so inclined and you have a few bucks to play with, go get your copies of North American Adonis and Punk Rock B-Boy. The support means so much and helps more than you know.
Talk soon.
