NO WORK

I CANT FIND WORK, I CANT FIND WORK, I CANT FIND WORK, I CANT FIND WOOORRRRKKKKKKK!!

SO I WILL WATCH SEASON 7 OF TOP CHEF AND FEEL HUNGRY.

Fireworks and 1000 lakes

Hey guys!
Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile, but we broke down in Vegas got stuck for two days and then drove from Vegas to Lawrence, Kansas (which is a 21 hour drive). But it was worth it as Lawrence, Kansas and the Replay lounge ruled it! It wasn't what I expected from the midwest.
The next night we were in Liberty Missouri at the Retro lanes bowling alley. Now this was exactly what i expected from the mid-west!! The show was put on by an old fellow named August, he used to be a pretty famous sound man, doing sound for Sly and the family stone and many more.
Now he's kind of a sad, washed up, lonely guy. He really loves Purple Rhinestone Eagle and he did a great job of the sound. Next time though I think we will go to Kansas city proper as we caught word that there were a bunch of kids that wanted to see the girls but couldn't get to Liberty...
On the way through Iowa there were signs for giant fireworks box stores. So i whined a bit about really wanting to go into one because of my affinity for explosives and the fact that Canada sucks and we can only get them for one week around halloween. Ashley was kind enough to stop and I basically turned into a five year old kid in a candy shop! I bought a giant firework shaped like a beer! SERIOUSLY!!
Next on the tour was a Minneapolis house show and that's where I am now. There were tornado warnings in place yesterday as we drove into Minnesota (another thing i love, drastic weather).
This had to be hands down the hottest basement show I have ever been too!! It was out of control hot. But the girls killed it as usual, Ashley stripped down to a bra it was so hot. After their set was finished we all proceeded to get really drunk really fast! I couldn't keep up with my thirst so for one reason or another I stripped off my clothes and jumped into a gross kids pool that was on the front lawn of the house. It was awesome and the next thing you know everyone else is stripping down and jumping in. Then the sky opened up and lightning and thunder ripped through drenching the streets with rain. Corrie from Kitten forever suggested we go night swimming. There's nothing like a skinny dip in a thunder storm on a hot summer night.

Were off to Madison Wisconsin today and I'm letting the girls sleep in a bit as the drive is only four hours.

Still in Vegas

The Van's power steering pump was shot.
Were still in Vegas! Bye, bye money.

Vegas baby! Ugh.....

So In S.F. the tour van didn't start right before we were about to load to leave for Oakland. Morgan got on the horn with AAA and as I like to put it AA, as in when shit like that happens i feel like i need to call my sponsor! So her and I were waiting around for AAA/AA and I had a brain fart that goes back 4 years when Eli and I went to see a Canucks game and we got one of those deals where to eat an Monks and you get tickets and they drive you in a shuttle bus to the game. So her and I were in the shuttle bus with all these gray hairs and rich folk, when the bus wouldn't start and the guy was trying and trying, basically he flooded the engine. So Eli was like, "Give it a minuet and it'll start right up." So he did and low and behold it did, so we were off to the game (Oilers VS Canucks).
That's what I thought of in that moment and said to Morgan maybe just give it another try it might have just been flooded? And that fucking DIO it was and it fired right up!!! So we loaded and headed to Oakland. Pins of light fucking RULE! Jake is a total bro. Also Genesis climber and Flood were great as well.
We crashed with amazing girls from the Bay area booking collective and in the morning they fed us delicious bacon with fresh eggs from their chickens in the yard.

Unfortunately things have gotten a little more difficult today (last night was Santa Cruz and it was fine) we missed an exit and got a bit lost on the way to Nevada so it was a long drive. We're at an econo lodge right now and as we pulled in the power steering died in the van???????!!!!
So were up tomorrow trouble shooting the problem and then off to Denver which is 12 hours away.
I feel insecure today, it sucks. It's also hot as hell.

No sleep to brooklyn

Thursday in Portland went pretty well but it was nothing compared to Friday in San Fransisco!!!
The kids in SF love to rock n' roll. Crowd surfing, surging the stage and knocking out Morgans pedals. Ton's of FUN!!
Tonight were in Oakland with Pins of light (Jake from Hightowers other project) It'll be a different crowd from last night, more of my style of booking, a little more riff-centric support acts.
I went from Wednesday to Friday to 2:30am without sleep and other than my mouth having words come out in the wrong order it really wasn't that bad.
Today Ashley and I are going to go visit Sam Adato's drum shop and talk Vista Lights with him... and metal hair cuts.

Parenthitically a douche bag?

I jumped into Bob's (Ashley Spungin's beau) psychic feline, van, last night and headed down to their show at Holocene in PDX. They were playing with Parenthetical girls (pdx) I liked their first album when I was still down with pretentious, whiny, queer, art, music. Not so down anymore!!!

Anyways I'm walking out of the bar and who do I run into but STEVE LOUIE!! BOOSH! He was down for the night to shoot the show and we get to talking and it looks like he's going to be in Cali when P.R.E. is so we exchanged numbers and fingers crossed he can come shoot one of their bay area shows. Steve is a fantastic photographer!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevelouie/

The Purple rhinestone eagle record release is tonight at Backspace if your in town call me at 503-804-1890.

Now back to doing my laundry.

Burning

Day 3
I'm just burning and stamping disc's. Three minuet burn, stamp and repeat.
The tour kicks off in Portland tomorrow. We have a band meeting tonight, I have yet to meet the merch girl Sonrisa. Were stuffing albums as well, that'll be fun eh?! (Not)
I bought two bra's at Fred Meyers and the sales lady didn't take the security tag off of them so now I have to go back to Fred Meyers. Booooo!
A review came out in the Mercury and some other paper here in PDX of The Great Return.
They were good!

Tour diary, my dad made me do it!

DAY1: My dad is living vicariously through me. He really wanted me to do a tour diary, so i considered it and thought, "well fuck why the hell not?"
I arrived in Portland today via the Greyhound bus. I made it across the border without even a second glance in my direction which is kinda annoying since i was prepared for trouble!

The Seattle Greyhound station is disgusting!! Sorry kids but it's really gross. Try pissing with all your luggage in that washroom, not good.

But I made it safely 8 hours later and right on time for Ashley Spungin to pick me up. Ashley is the drummer for Purple Rhinestone Eagle, "Amazing drummer" I should say! Her and I have spent three months communicating via email and one skype session only. So it was a bit strange to actually chat face to face for me at first. I guess i felt nervous? I don't really know? I have been working with musicians for so long that these sorts of things don't normally make me feel nervous, but i guess because i really care about these guys..... I had shaky hands for the first five minuets.
Anyways tomorrow i get to burn C.D's and follow up on some show loose ends.

Oh ya! TWO DOLLAR TALL CANS!! And it was Morgan's B-day. Also Jenk came down and met me for a drink and gave me an American cell phone. BOOSH!

SUMMER TOUR PARTY!!

So i fell in love with Portland band, Purple rhinestone eagle last summer. I stayed in touch with them and went to Portland a few times and partied. Andrea, Morgan and Ashley are the nicest people you will meet! They also fucking shred! The listen to all the music i love, even obscure shit that i thought i only knew about. They also play the best fucking rock/psych/garage shit you'll hear!
I brought them up last weekend for two show's here in Vancouver. They killed it, everyone went nuts and had their minds blown.

I got an email on Tuesday from Andrea officially offering me the position as their Tour manager and booking agent for a month long tour in August!
I KNOW RIGHT!!???!
I'm so stoked and excited, I'm finally going to get to see New York city and everywhere in between.
Good things do happen to those who wait.

Check this shit out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZQz-Tr5myM

Goodbye Budgies Burrito's

Budgies Burrito's 2006-2010
R.I.P
You've been a ride and i have no regrets!
Thank you Macey

Police state of mind

I don't do well with authority, not even a little bit! Well unless they are female cops and they're hitting on me (crab park last summer that actually happened) but i mean how often are you going to run into female police officers that don't have a huge chip on their shoulders? Not often!

The Olympics have brought our city a police and military presence so large that it has only been surpassed by World War two.
i don't feel safer, in fact i may start building my immunity to pepper spray by rubbing jalapeno's in my eyes at work this week.
Cool eh! Go Canada Go!

Belated Xmas

I had the pleasure of getting the swine flu over Christmas, the real deal too! Not just some shitty doctor being all like, "oh yeah take this anti viral medicine." (cha ching) No it was the whole bad enchilada.
I was supposed to fly out to Toronto and Montreal to see friends and family. Of Course my moral code of social conduct was working in overdrive the entire time, so i pretty much acted like a leper, and the world treated me like a leper, not even Milo the dog was around.
Because i missed Xmas i received my presents from my family today (Jan 25th).
I'm so glad i didn't have to sit in a present opening circle and have to pretend to love my brand new 2010 Olympic hoodie!
No seriously...

New bed linens

I was at Winners today buying new bed linens when i remembered i had a blog!!
Sorry for the lack of blogging internet world. Do people still blog these days? Is anyone gonna read this?
I guess the lack of rambling, personal information about myself came out of my recent break up.
Eli and i split in September (again) but this time it's permanent.
There's not much one can really say about these sorts of things? I lost a lover a best friend a family a dog and somewhere around November my mind! What i gained though was a different perspective of myself, i was really not taking care of myself in the latter years of the relationship.
I was trying too hard to make my partner happy and have her needs met, when i was allowing my own needs and wants and desires to be put away in a box, thinking one day she would open the box up and go through it. That would never happen.
So i guess it was the simple act of buying new bed sheets today that made me realize that I've turned a corner. I'm coming out of the dark, heart broken moments of self doubt and insecurity.
There's nothing like clean, sexy, sheets to inspire a person to have passionate, hot sex with someone new! Come over for the sex but stay for the sheets....and more sex (obvie)

Here's a toast to being single! It's really not so bad, i mean i have my days. But when those feeling's creep over me I turn to my bro's and we play some nerd games, watch some hockey and talk about girls.
Perfect!

I've never kissed the loves of my life

South park Murders

So i was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago for Helen Reeds film, Twin Twin Peaks. I was staying at my buddy Scouts place and we called him to let him know we were close to pulling into his neighborhood of South Park which is a really cute area that's considered a little Mexico in Seattle.
He sounded a bit concerned on the phone and told us not to freak out if we saw a bunch of police and news vans out in fromt of his house and that he would fill us in what happened when we arrived.
Scouts neighbours a young lesbian couple that lived directly across the street from him were broken into and attacked randomly (or so they say, hate crime?) The one women was stabbed repeatedly and died in her home from wounds to her neck. The other escaped but was hospitalized with life threatening injuries.
Scout and his girlfriend were woken up to a blood curdling scream at 3:30 am, Scout ran out to see his other neighbour calling 911 and the one women bleeding to death. The Police told the community of South Park at an emergency meeting that they responded to the 911 call within 5 mins. Scout and others say it was more like 25 mins and that her life could have been saved.
Others told the Seattle chief of police that when they have called the police for help (various reasons) sometimes the dispatch officer would ask questions like, "Do you have immigration papers?" before responding to the call.
In the time i was a guest at Scouts i had numerous reporters ask me for my opinon and try to get an interview with Scout. We both turned them down, it was really akward, sad and surreal.
They also caught a suspect while i was there too. The Police drove up and down the street announcing into a loud speaker that they got the man! He turned out to be an unstable black male with a history of violence and mental health. Perfect victory for the SPD!
Scout was talking with the head detective and a member of the F.B.I and he said there was enough D.N.A evidence to convict the suspect.
Needless to say that night was a really hard one to sleep through, both Eli and I barely slept. Partially because of the murder but also because Scout had a number of loaded weapons in his house for "protection" and there was some talk of him buying some more hand guns.

We drove home to Vancouver the very next morning.

Shitty couples everywhere!

So just be forewarned this is not a positive blogging in any way whatsoever.
But what the heck is with all my really, smoking hot, lady friends from East Van dating the biggest losers? Or the most boring dudes? Is the dating pool really that small for the straight community around here? That the hottest, most talented, strong women are just settling for some of these local characters just baffles me!
I know what your thinking, "Oh M.J. you just want to fuck all your friends!" That's not even it, i swear it! I just have a hard time grinning through certain hang-outs with certain couples. Take these ladies away from these Peter Van types and they are so outgoing, independent and funny. Then bring in the dude and it's all hehehehe tickles and whispers and everything they say or do is a miracle of epic proportions. BORING PEOPLE!! FUCKING BORING!!
Look i know we all get a little lonely and horny this time of year, but if it means sacrificing what makes you great to cuddle up to some dude, then i say go solo.
A close friend recently responded to my bitching about this very topic with this, "It's just the time of the year for annoying couples MJ, it will pass."
Good god i hope they are right!?
I want my girls back.....
And yes I'm fucking glad I'm Queer, more and more every single day.

Tanning compettion

So the warm weather is finally upon all our Lilly, white, Canadian, bodies. So i thought this would be a good time to talk about sunscreens. Why the hell are they so expensive? Especially since the rate of the ultra violet index is so very, very high. You think "they" would hook us up? All that money spent on anti smoking/cancer prevention campaigns. Hello skin cancer is real people! My mom used to lather herself up with fucking oil and tan all day long. She just had a large chunk of her breast and stomach grafted due to skin cancer. It's hard though because we do look "healthier" with tans, don't we?

I have the best friends in the world.

Whoa! I haven't updated this bad boy in awhile... Mostly cause shit's been pretty crazy latley. I'm running around with my hung over head cut right off.
I'm getting older on Tuesday and my loving friends have been kind enough to throw a party for me at the Cobalt. Macey's band is going to play their first show ever. They are called Needles and Pins and have TonyX and Adam in them too. Shelby is going to DJ under Thrashcan.
So much love! Seriously i get all warm and fuzzy! Legs made the poster and it rules. She's the best!
So fuck lets party, and lets go camping!!
Oh yeah if you come to the Bolt on Tuesday the cover is by donation with all the proceeds going to the GIRLS ROCK CAMP. BOOSH!

BINGO BONGO LUONGO!

GAME 4
Tonight at 5 pm our time. Watch for Luongo to make a quick stop with no rebound at the start of the game, if he does this he will be unbeatable! Trust me i know these things...
GO NUCKS GO!

Why bother?

I'm pretty sure i'm not a good flirt? Seriously! My flirting never gets me anywhere dammit!!
Babes think i'm cute, which is a far cry from sexy or hot. Cute gets girls who only want to cuddle you. Cute is safe. I want to be sexy, smoldering and reckless with your heart.
Summer is coming and there's nothing cute about seeing me in a one piece on the beach. I guess that's not going to help my cause?