COWBOYS AND INDIANS

"the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun
is a good guy with a gun"

(Wayne LaPierre, NRA - National Rifle Association/USA)



there's a storm on the horizon

it's been brewing for some time now

becoming more and more visible

it's getting closer

and closer

it was a game we boys played as kids
in Woodstock Ontario back in the 60's
people of colour only on television
in black and white

one dressed as a cowboy and another as an indian
the cowboy is a good guy, the indian is bad
(obviously and in keeping with the script)

harmless fun really, stuff we saw on our 14" monochrome TVs
Daniel Boone and F-Troop - shows like that after school

1965
twenty years before MTV
thirty years before the internet 
forty years before the iPhone
fifty years before Donald Trump
what-ever

spreading peanut butter 
on my bleached white wonder bread
in a world bereft of imagination; dimension
my afternoon treat with grape jelly sometimes

in Ontario Canada - normal stuff that meant nothing

just eating - chewing - swallowing

oh right ... commercials
the price we pay to watch television
"wrongful death" and "dog bites"
my personal faves

 

oK, I really got it later on in life

visiting Ybor City Florida - near Tampa in late December 2004
New Year's eve actually - BIG football game - parade
it's still early, drifting towards the midnight hour
it's warm here - tropic thunder in the distance
most men packin' a concealed firearm
just in case someone
needs an adjustment

stepping off the plane in Fort Lauderdale a week earlier
leaving a brutal cold winter in Toronto
thinking - wow - this is paradise
palm trees - warm weather here
realizing something different
in a few short days

right, like everyone's obese here.  ok - half
transexual transformation billboards - personal injury law firms
super-sized families at Denny's whipped cream emporium
gorging on the American dream - scrambled eggs
and steak or sausages, pancakes
home fried taters and gravy
texas toast and jam 
pie and ice cream

all you can eat
git-ter while she's hot

ordering way more than they need
because they can wrap it up and take it home
to munch on later and later 
heated up in the
microwave

really getting the hypocrisy in American culture
all that "land of the free - home of the brave", bullshit

but mostly really seeing it for the first time
how white Americans think they're better
and entitled to more than anyone else

my mom had recently passed and I was going through 
a caustic catharsis culminating

introspection, trying to find something - anything
real - meaningful - awake

why am I in this place?

it's dead here

nothing but anger and sadness
pretending to be proud
boner - I mean bonus

free parking on the outskirts of the city
where the colored folk live on the dark periphery
having been pushed out of the inner core years earlier

no street lights here - garbage strewn everywhere
a parasite infested mongrel pissing on a crooked hydro pole
that familiar disturbing look up whilst
echoing off the cracked pavement
a winter wonderland 
turned tropical

paradise

colored's not welcomed

ok, the odd Cuban - maybe Mexican (a stretch)
but they look out of place here
nervously trying to fit in
but really not

everyone is really intoxicated

because that is what's on the agenda

pretentious paleface - the narcissism rampant/abundant

football jocks and grimey girls in skimpy slippery sexy
teasing the boys - cause that's what's real now
no apologies, no regrets and all OK - cause

"got my hands up, they're playing my song"

It's a party in the U.S.A.

I'm stunned and numb
   
looking out and over at the passing parade
guy's holding his beer up and yelling at them
"hey baby - right here - right here"
grabbing his crotch

maybe all this?  is just a bad dream

don't get me wrong
I see the world as a good place
where change can still happen

where we can co-exist painlessly
but it's still important, to actually look
at what's really happening
because millions
minions

onion dipper

so hey dude - fuck-nuts
just who do you think you are 
anyways?

 

excuse me sir
I've had a little too much to drink

but I would like to shake your hand
you are an inspiration to me
and I'd like to thank you
for that



 

COWBOYS AND INDIANS

staying awake

I will embrace everyone equally
because I and millions like ME
don't subscribe to this narrow point of view

diversity vs division
it's a no brainer
so why?

maybe it's a glitch in the system
a rogue app - I can install Malware
and fix this - ok gimme a sec
  in the meantime?

It's a party in the U.S.A.
let's RAWK
the Britney song is on
YUM - hot - fuk this shit


distract me, make it
all go away

FROGS

F R O G S

Spearmint Lake - 1991


In May 1991, I received an OAC/Ontario Arts Council grant to fly out to Spearmint Lake (60 km northeast of Chapleau), a remote lake only accessible by air - to record an album of music celebrating northern Ontario.  Rented van w/gear, driving up alone that early August and flying out, I set up a make-shift studio in the large tent, powered by a generator buried back in the woods and recorded sounds from the lake/woods (exterior) and integrated those sounds into an ambient mix of layered music synthesizers and samplers all inspired by the location.

When I returned to Toronto and began mixing it, I realized that I was 10 minutes short of having a full album, so I wrote 2 more pieces, Gone Forever and Frogs in my home studio in Parkdale that autumn in memory of my time at Spearmint months earlier.  My wife Jody Terio had gathered some early morning frogs on a pond at her Aunt Joyce's out in the country (Uxbridge), through a binaural/ambisonic microphone onto a portable digital audio tape recorder and I integrated them with what I had laid down at home and Frogs was born.  This piece sounds best under a good pair of headphones and in a darkened room.


I recently gathered HD images from the internet that reminded me of Spearmint and assembled this in Final Cut in a few hours.  It was a magical 10 days alone in the wilderness, surrounded by wildlife, the aurora and a black bear which was spooky scary but exhilarating.


More pictures and stories about my time at Spearmint Lake in my blog below entitled 'NOCTURNE'



http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/2015/08/nocturne.html
http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/2015/12/gone-forever.html
http://jimlamarche.blogspot.ca/

. 

USER FRIENDLY

reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle drugs

Robin Williams   

we watch with sad eyes

as the seagulls fly above us

and the once wicked waves waver 
then flat-line in quiet introspection

the storm has ended - over

but the clouds still linger lofty
grey sheets passing passively
in a dying day

it's this feeling - a memory
and an impulse that returns

alone

she gave up long ago

believed there was no hope

that no one could save her

that no one cared

but weather can be deceiving
sometimes hard to predict - unfair

because when we can't see very far
there remains no signage
no signals

nowhere

and we miss that sliver of sunlight
in the shifting tide




U S E R  F R I E N D L Y

 

 

GETHSEMANE

when I can't write
I feel like a block of stone
dreaming alone of nothing

a boat without eyes
for the oars
and no horizon



G E T H S E M A N E
 

 

nothing to lose

music evokes pictures

pictures provoke feelings

one thing leads to another and ...
here we go - always at 5 am
  
a deaf woman sitting alone

looking out a window

an all American boy filling his face
at a hot dog eating contest 
champion eater - 3 years in a row
51 dogs - 10 minutes

a beggar in the garden
of Gethsemane holding up
an empty cup
staring into the night
no one listening
his last night
on earth

caroling crickets

a mother calling out her son's name

only to realize he's gone
in anguish; "Aadish come" again
no words left behind
no trace

hearing it - now seeing it

years passing
a trailer park just out of town
in Cabot Arkansas
 
she's been alone for days
big bag of Lays and another beer
at 1pm

ashtray is full and the place is a mess
staring blankly at the TV (fuming)

plus size house-coat

eating and screaming at Springer

because that f*cking bitch
needs to die

they're bleeping the sound but we know
what they're saying - filling in the blanks
reading their lips
 

turn them on each other

it's something my Dad taught me
watching you through my sterile scope
analysing - improvising

curious - cautious

me with money - you not

common and yet ironic

because I can see you

but you can't see me
because I am your


micro-manager

something still not right 
looking over my shoulder

you see - it's supposed to be
the other way around
it's ass backwards

confused

I'm bathing in bubbles

surveilling the dark shadows 24/7
and still there's this haunting feeling in that

you're not afraid

but I am

TEMPLE

i'm not afraid of your suffering

i'm not afraid of your joy

i'm not afraid of your hunger 
your desire

i'm not afraid of your rage

i'm not afraid of your love

i'm not afraid of your lies 
or your truth

i see you

i feel you

i need you

i love you

 T E M P L E

tragic trajectory
tempestuous

It's a message to you alien creatures:
translated into English - my language

It's what you see, entering our atmosphere
A blue ball with brown blotches and bolts of lightning
You could probably land on the blue or the brown - preferably
but stay away from the dark parts that light up
because they are dangerous

Our sun is a star yes - a man
Our moon is just a rock - a woman
They sustain and heal us, so that we may live
In our shelters - homes or houses
and give birth to smaller humans
who carry on after we die or
cease to exist

Our children

Light skin and dark skin
continually presents problems here
Ok we don't always get along 

We fight a lot

We humans are really not so bad
Under-developed but basically good natured - really

We have our moments when we love others

Then we have others when we fear
 

 Especially you - an intrusion

We pray to Gods - different ones depending 

on what part of this world we live in

Religion serves and protects us
Even though many of us aren't religious

It's something we've designed/made up 

to appease the fear and suffering

ongoing and unrelenting

That strips us of our humility - our ability

to empathize with others

Despite our worship

Most will fear you - mostly because you're different

Because you pose a very real threat to our survival

Even though I know - you come in peace, and

That you care about all living things too

. 

 

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

Marketing manipulates.  I am grappling with the concept of political ideology in a broken world, and in what separates liberal left wing and conservative right wing thinking.  

At 10pm on October 31st, 1966, she left him.  After dark with a truck pulling up - some furniture and us in tow while he’s at his new job as a radio dispatcher starting his night shift at Overland Express in Woodstock Ontario.  After years of broken promises, she had had enough; sick and tired of his lies and his absence and most importantly, his impotence.  Hardly around and when he was, he was mean most of the time, and it was common with many married men there who thought they deserved more, taking their anger and frustrations out on their wives.

 


Liberal and Conservative Canadians lived seamlessly together and it didn't really matter what side of the fence you were on.  

I am fascinated by all this, especially now in May 2017, 105 days after Donald Trump has been elected President stateside and am truly baffled at our caustic counter-productive bi-polarity.  That said, I am extremely curious about why he has appealed to so many people’s fundamental values - framed in a turbulent tradition, despite appearances in an obvious capsizing of moral judgement, enabled in reaction and empty of response.  I am in awe of the human tragedy, in it’s absence of reasoning - stubborn and stupid, defaulting to numbness.  Like a saucy scrap on Jerry Springer followed by a punch in the face while everyone in the audience chants and cheers while she placidly does her toenails in front of the TV - sipping wine and giggling.  Newsflash.  The differentiation between church and state is now dissolving after his newest EO/Executive Order and the dismantling of regulated systems (designed to protect us from greed) proliferate.  The gloves have come off and we are officially at war with ourselves and what’s worse, is that the manipulation is metastasizing, even in Canada. 

All this takes me back to a time when nothing mattered; a time when politics was just a thin particle board sign on a spring fed manicured front lawn every few years. Ah small town Ontario in the 60’s; tulips and daffodils.  Our local candidates always had that predictable family man smiling face and a kind pose for the camera that said ‘trust me’, only back then, if their face was on a voting sign in Woodstock Ontario, they probably were trustworthy. 

Now entering my twilight years - fast-forward, in what feels like a relatively fulfilling life, I am left to ponder;  reflecting on how I came to be and what it all means.

 

 
Canadians were basically on the same page and there really was no right or left (like there is now).  

My parents weren’t overly political, although I later discovered that Dad was very much an alt-right foot soldier (as were most of his so-called friends).  Mom wasn’t interested in politics and had no position in it.  Like most of her girl-friends (wives and Moms), it just wasn’t something that women thought about back then, because well - they weren’t supposed to.  The husband decided and the wife just followed along.  Growing up in Oxford County felt more like growing up in an incubator more than an open patch of land in southwestern Ontario.  

Everyone knew each other.  I would sometimes accompany Mom to our weekly grocery shop at the local Dominion and remember her always stopping to talk to another woman … “hi Pat! - oh hi Mary - how are you?”  Here we go.  "How's Don and the boys?  Ah ya know".  I’m always bored listening to them smile and laugh insincerely, almost like what they are saying and thinking are very different.  Innocent and frightened.

Introduced to life’s ongoing hypocrisy early on.  Always hidden behind a curtain of courtesy and good manners but fundamentally well intended.  When Mom quietly left Dad in 1966, I was 10 and it was a shock but I adapted out of necessity.  Having a younger brother made it all tolerable.  I knew for some time that Mom and Dad were unhappy and later figured out that they both had been unfaithful.  Mom was a mess but at least she expressed it.  Dad was a train wreck emotionally but concealed it; having been introduced to life in 1925 in Woodstock too, only growing up repressed during the great depression in the early ’30’s - second oldest in a large family; talking about it years later, after his 7th beer in Stoney Point where we lived with Agnes (her 8th); one of Dad’s early acquisitions.  Apparently she was a fling he had early in his marriage to Mom.  Ag was married too, having left her husband Earl and their kids, to be with Dad because well, marriage (and parenting) wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and this felt like a fresh new start … right?  Wrong. Shit-show. 




 

I myself, didn’t think about political correction until I got into my late 30’s, having moved to Toronto and started a family.  I kind of knew I was a Liberal thinker (compared to others), but it just wasn’t important to me.  I had become immersed in my passion and my ongoing muse - music, and well … Canada was doing just fine anyway and me voting one way or the other was almost irrelevant.

Canadians were basically on the same page and there really was no right or left (like there is now).  Leaning left was in my DNA and I think that it may have been originally realized in a previous life because all the signals were without any grounding in my immediate history here and now.  

Politics wasn’t something that very many people north of the 49th thought about very much (at least in my circle) and that was just fine with me because I had more important things to think about.  Liberal and Conservative Canadians lived seamlessly together and it didn't really matter what side of the fence you were on.  

It was later (summer ’96), when I first consciously realized how different I was from Dad.  Having previously lived with him against my will for 6 years in isolation 25 years earlier, I remember asking him back then at 15 what was going to happen to me/us (my brother and I), living in Stoney Point because I could see no future there and high-school was finishing soon.   His answer was something like … “You could get a job picking tomatoes; good money in that.  Find a good woman and settle down here - your own house - kids”.  Right.  Dad had zero interest in sending us to college (let alone university), because of the expense of it so this is what’s on the menu.  Lots of ripe red.  The Heinz plant was in Leamington and thousands of locals had become pickers or processors and lived comfortably on their hourly in some shack in rural Essex County - collecting an unemployment check or welfare during the off months.

Men came home late, drunk while their wives chain-smoked cigarettes and watched a fuzzy TV; their kids out vandalizing mailboxes.  One of Dad’s big regrets was that he wasn’t able to get into a good union and wanted that for me, quietly confessing. In March 1973, I realized that getting out of Stoney Point was essential to my sanity and being 16 allowed me to move back to Woodstock with Mom and my step-father without my brother who I left behind alone.  Dad always resented me for doing that - away again.  Slipping out when he was at his new job, sitting on a bar stool at the Cooper Court Hotel in Belle River at 2pm, abandoned YET again.  That resentment continued until he died in September 2002.  I found out in 2005.

I think back to our yearly visits a lot.  I’m still learning from my Dad.  I’m sure he had no idea how important he was to me and I miss him.   I’m thinking that the lessons he meant to leave with me are much different than he intended and I still feel his pain.

 

It really hit me how different our political views were - our outlook on life - perspectives, visiting him in 1996 especially.  After a one sided discussion on racism south of the border and in his incremental inebriation, he sarcastically laughed out loud.  "You're a bleeding heart liberal”, he said scathingly and that flattened me thinking, what the hell is that?  It was then that I realized that there was 2 opposite sides of the nickel (heads and tails) and was then formally introduced to the idea of conflicting ideologies.  It was also when I realized that Dad was essentially a hard right thinker and I now know that if he were still alive, that he would be an ardent and loyal Trump supporter for all the obvious reasons.  I also now understand that quietly leaving him that windy early summer afternoon in ’73 was because our beliefs were diametrically opposed only I was still unaware of that then in Stoney Point. 

M A K E  A M E R I C A  G R E A T  A G A I N

What’s most fascinating to me now (looking back), is that I could have easily subscribed to Dad’s vernacular viewpoint, like the few friends I had there did - staying behind and carrying out the tradition that their fathers were proud of.  I could still be there, perhaps having worked myself up to foreman at the plant ... that union job that he always wanted for me.  

Carrying his legacy forward to the next generation. Thanks Mom. 

"you can control your children
through threats and punishments

and they will learn to fear

or you can love and guide

without controlling or interfering

and they will learn to trust themselves"

William Martin - The Parent's Tao Te Ching