This isn't really a top anything list

So I had surgery today, and now I can't sleep. After coming up here to write this post, I realized due to discomfort, that I won't be able to make it really long. My nose keeps bleeding or oozing or yuck right? Anyway here are some songs that are kind of about surgery, well not really all of them, or maybe some are. who knows. It's kinda hard to tell right? I dunno, I may or may not be under the effect of painkillers. I'm not in a suitable state to confirm or deny that so I'll let you decide. Does that make sense? I feel like it may have been clever, but I can't tell. All I really know is that I can't sleep. Anyway here are the songs. It's hard to find songs about surgery. If you know of any post them, that'll be a fun way to get involved. 1. Tommy got his tonsils out - the Replacements 2. Sister morphine - the Rolling Stones 3. Lady Godiva's operation - the Velvet Underground 4. Dear doctor - the rolling stones That's pretty much all I got. Also, my surgeon was really nice. And also, Google if you read this you should make blogger better. this whole "I don't recognize returns so if you embed videos between text it looks awful" thing is really not cool. I noticed you've been working on it, so while you're at it why not sort that out too. Thanks!

Because it's Tuesday

A few Hearts are broken a few strings are busted.

Song of the Week

I decided to start adding something new to my blog. Now one a week I'm going to embed a song as the song of the week. Next week I'm planing on talking a little bit about Punk Rock so today the song of the week is:

Hot Burrito?

There was a time when country music was cooler than everything else. Some people might have a hard time believing that, but it's true. It happened just about every time Gram Parsons walked on stage. He was an epic badass.

I've talked about him before, but I've never really talked to much about his history. I'm going to go into too much detail. If anyone's really interested, they could probably get a bunch more information here. I'll just give a quick over view. From 1966 to 1973 he was in several different bands usually only putting out one album with each. He became pretty well known, but his records didn't sell particularly well. He died of a drug over dose in 1973. He was 26. The same age as Otis Redding and Paul Kossoff were when they died.



He's really good. Here's a list.
A Song For You
Miller's Cave
Hot Burrito #2
Luxury Liner

My Sweet George

I missed a blog post a week or two ago, so I'm trying to catch up, and posting an extra one. A few days ago I was thinking to myself about I got long and longer between discovering new songs, that get me really excited about finding a new song. I feel like I've just listened to so much of what is out there (at least in terms of the kinds of music I like to listen to). A large part of this is probably due to the fact that I don't get much of a chance to look around for new music or by music on different media. That being said, this week I discovered a song that I'm really excited about.

last weekend I watched a documentary on George Harrison. I am already a huge Beatles fan, I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before. The documentary talked about Harrison's song My Sweet Lord, which I believe I have heard before in passing, but had never given it much thought. Actually I never gave Harrison's solo career that much thought. It's not that I don't like George, I do, that's just how it played out. Since the weekend I haven't been able to stop listening to My Sweet Lord. I'm not sure what it is about it, it's just so catchy and soothing. It's been my soundtrack all week. I thinking finding it now was perfect timing, because I just seem to be in a place in my life where the song really speaks to me. Anyway, here it is.

The Faces

A couple of weeks ago, I did a presentation in one of my classes on the Faces. So I thought I could do a blog post on them today. I think the Faces are a pretty sweet band. They are pretty comparable to the Rolling Stones in quite a lot of ways. Ron Wood the Faces guitarist even joined the Stones in the late 70s after the Faces broke up.

The Faces formed from the ruins of two other bands, the Jeff Beck group and the Small Faces. Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones Ian Mclagan from the Small Faces and , Rod Stewart and Ron Wood from the Jeff Beck Group.



I don't want to spend too much time talking about the Faces break up, but it had a lot to do with Rod Stewart's additional contract with Mercury records, this led to him having separate billing. At shows the band was billed as Rod Stewart and the Faces, which created some animosity between band members.

Here are some of my favourite songs by the Faces.



this one was a Ronnie Lane solo, but I used this video, because it's the best one.

Four totally badass songs you might not have heard

Everyone has heard their fair of badass songs. They're pretty much a dime a dozen. There are all sorts of them, that touch on different subject matters. One thing they all usually have in common is the singer is talking about how he's a badass or how the someone else is. Here are four songs that I didn't know about until I found out about them. Maybe you've heard of them, and if not, you have now.

1. Stevie Wonder - You've met your match


2. ZZ Top - Jesus Just Left Chicago


3. O.V. Wright - Ace Of Spades


4. Bob Dylan - Motorpsycho Nitemare

I know you're dying baby, and I know you know it too.

The other day I was driving in my car, listening to my iPhone. I had my in-car stereo turned off, along with my lights and heater fan, because I was trying to conserve gas. That's why I had my iPhone playing. I wasn't using headphones, just the built in speaker. I had it on shuffle, one of the songs that came up on the play list was Slim Slow Slider by Van Morrison. It got me thinking about my dog Freckles. It was one of the songs that I listened to the day that she died. it got me thinking about some other songs that make me think about her. I used to think that her favourite song was Ruby Tuesday by the Rolling Stones. What led me to believe that it was her favourite, was that every time that song way playing she seemed to really react to the "still I'm gonna miss you." it always happened so in my mind I just accepted the idea that Ruby Tuesday was her favourite. Another song I listened to the day she died, which was January 12, 2010, was Shine a Light by the Rolling Stones.

Here's a story

Okay, so here's a story: at some point last spring I went to Into the Music and ended up buying a few records. To be honest, it's not that unusual, I think there were actually a couple of occasions this happened last spring; however, I am thinking of a specific trip to Into the Music. On this specific occasion I am thinking of I happened to buy two Byrds records. I believe one of them was the Notorious Byrd Brothers, and other one was a first edition copy of the 5th Dimension. I have never heard either of the albums, even now that I own them. I don't have a record player in my house in the city. It's at my family cottage, so I keep all my records there. It becomes a problem because I never have time to go out there anymore. Last summer I only went for one trip. I forgot to bring the records. I know right. I have like a dozen sitting on a shelf in the city. Anyway, I really just told this whole story cause I want to do a blog post on the Byrds. I mean they're pretty epic. They have like 12 albums, and they've gone through a ton of members. That makes for an interesting history. I really wanted to make this blog post longer but I can't find enough time in the day. so I'm gonna keep it shorter and list off a few essential songs. I'll feel a whole lot better, Set you free this time, Eight Miles High, Have you seen her face, Nothing was Delivered (this one's by Bob Dylan). Check them out they're sweet I swear.

Shake Some Action.

I have plans to write a longer post next week or the week after. I haven't got around to it, because I've just been spending a lot of time with a large pile of homework. When I was thinking of something to post here The Flaming Groovies just came to mind. So I figured I'd link to a couple of their songs. There's an unconfirmed report, that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards said that their album Teenage Head was better than, Sticky Fingers. I don't know if it's better, but it's pretty good.

Meet the new boss

I just got back from voting. It was pretty swell. Once I had cast my ballot and walked out of the elementary school where voting was being held, and started playing music on my iPhone again. Randomly The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again began playing. I thought it was pretty sweet.

Good Golly

This week I'm a little bit busy, so to express some of that chaos here is some Little Richard.



Little Richard is awesome.

Born in a Little Tent

Today, I decided I'd like to just talk about three songs I've been listening to lately. The first of the three is a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change is Going to Come". The cover is by Otis Redding. I don't really think either version is better, they're both good in their own right. Otis's version has this gritty undertone, that really makes it feel like he's having a tough time. It's a little bit hard to explain, but the way his voice hits each note, it really brings across a sense of need. It's a very emotional performance.




The other two songs I wanted to talk about are both by Bruce Springsteen, and they are both off of his first album "Greetings From Asbury Park N.J." Neither of these songs are my favorite off of the album, that spot is reserved for "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City," and I would even go so far as to say that when I first got the album (two or three years ago), that I didn't even really like these two songs that much. I always found myself skipping them. "They're too slow and sad," I'd say, and I'd hit next.

In recent weeks, I've found myself listening to Greeting from Asbury Park More and more often. It's probably getting more rotation than any of my other CD's currently. During that time the two songs, which I have still neglected to name have really started to grow on me. I find that they are both extremely powerful despite how slow they are, and the lyrics are fantastically poetic.

The first of the two songs is called "Mary Queen of Arkansas":




The second of the two is called "The Angel":

How many Links is Too many Links?

The other day I was looking though my music collection, and I started thinking about how I have been neglecting many of my albums. Some of my CD's have gone years without being played. I think a big part of it has to do with my changing tastes. When I was in my late teens early twenties for example, I really got into the punk scene, so all have a bunch of albums by bands like the Damned, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Wire, Gang of Four, and some stuff that came from a bit later, like the Wipers, and the Replacements. These bands are all awesome, I just never really feel like listening to them anymore. If I heard a song by one of them randomly I'd probably note that it was cool that they were being played, I just never take the albums of the shelf anymore. And, it's not just punk there are a lot of other bands collecting dust. I'm not even sure why I've been making the choices I have been. I listened to this band called Urge Overkill the the other day, and I hadn't in forever. I guess that's a problem inherent to collecting things, at one point or another, the collection starts to get too big to manage.

Mobile Application Appreciation

Today mobile apps are common place, if you have a smart phone you have an app, or at least you do it you know how to use your smart phone. I use several on a daily basis, apps for social media, apps for looking up information, even apps for reading internet articles. Most apps are easy to use and in most cases faster than using a website.

Today in our PR class we were asked to blog about a specific app that we use on a regular basis, think was well made, and generally like. The app that I'm choosing to write about is my CIBC banking app. It literally revolutionized how I do my banking.

I used to find online banking a bit of a pain. You have to find a computer, then you have to get out your bank card, but wait I forgot my wallet down stairs. Opps, well now I have to go get it. well I guess your home computer can remember you bank card number. Okay, well, it's probably not that bad, but if you have your wallet and you're out you still have to open your wallet and take out the card. And maybe I'm just lazy, but I'd much rather take out my phone tap my CIBC app, oh and look, it remembered my card number. That little bit of convenience makes the world of a difference to me.

And the app can do all my banking. All of it. Well, almost all of it, but I'll get to that in a minute. I can check my balances, pay my bills, transfer money between accounts and even send money to other people via, email bank transfers. It's so sweet. so back to the think I can't do, and it might just be because I have yet to figure it out. If you set up automatic transfers, like a monthly one from a chequings to a savings account, you can't edit or end those transfers with the app. And, as nice as it would be to be able to do that, it's not that bad that you can't. who knows maybe they'll fix it in an update.

anyway that's the app I like the most. Also, check out songify, that one is pretty fun too.

Back to School - Back to blogging - Sorry no zombies

Well, I'm back, and I'm blogging again. And no, it's not just because I'm back in school, and my grades depend on it. I totally had all sorts of idea's for my blog over the summer - I just didn't follow through with any of them. Don't start judging me yet, I was busy I swear. I won't talk about what I was busy doing, cause that's super boring. Trust me, you don't want to hear about it. However, I will tell you all about one of my ideas for my blog that never came to be.

Okay, do this was my idea, it came to me about a month and a half after school ended. I had other ideas before that time, but those ideas we're along the same vein as all of my previous posts. Mainly just talking about music I like or am listening to and what not. What made my other idea different was that it was like a mock-reality-fiction-action-adventure-zombie apocalypse-super-journal-blog. I know what you're thinking. "That's pretty much the greatest idea ever AJ. Why didn't you do it?"

Well, I'll tell you. I couldn't find a way to make a smooth transition from my previous posts to the new zombie powered ones. Each time I tried to plan it out I felt like I couldn't put the pieces of my over all idea together in a way that I felt happy with.

You're probably asking why I didn't just start a new blog. Well, basically it sort of contradicted what I wanted to do. If I just started a new zombie apocalypse blog, about a zombie apocalypse, it wouldn't have the surprise and realism that I was going for. Cause you know, Zombies are super realistic. I mean it, keep laughing, but I bet you and your friends have an emergency zombie's are coming plan. I know mine do. Anyway, I wanted it to seem like I wasn't expecting the zombie apocalypse. I thought having a blog with a lot of unrelated posts going back for sometime would add the necessary realism required for a blog about a zombie horde.

So, when I first came up with the idea, I kind of wanted to start off slowly, and talk about how I had been working nights and that I caught the flu or something and had to miss some work in stay in bed. That would explain how I wasn't aware of the growing horde of zombies. The problem was that's where the idea fell apart. I couldn't come up with a way to make that transition work the way I wanted. I couldn't become aware of the zombies right away, at first things would just need to seem strange. for example, "there was an odd man on my street tonight, He was stumbling around, and moaning like he was in pain, when I asked if he was okay, he just swung his head around, looking right at me and started charging toward me. It was weird. I ran back inside before he got too close, but the just stood there banging on my door for the next two hours. it was creepy." That's sort of what I would have been going for, but isn't that a little too obvious? I dunno, I thought it was a cool idea, but I wasn't able to get it off the ground. Maybe, I'll just a chance to refine the idea, maybe I'll even start a new blog for it. I've decided to keep this one as it is anyway.

I'm going to try to keep this one updated pretty regularly, my goal is to update more than I did before the summer.

Anyway, speaking of this blog's usual content. Gram Parsons's is awesome. I know a lot of people don't like country music, but what country music was and what it is today, might as well be two different genres. I don't really have any prepared points to help me support that argument, so here's a song by Gram Parsons. Give it a listen. if it doesn't convince you, then I'm afraid there's a good chance that your condition is terminal.

Last Day Of School

Today is the last day of school, or should I was was the last day of school. Cause it's already over! Ha. I'm still here though, toiling away, giving you what you need, blog posts from me.

I don't even really, know what to talk about. I just got out of an exam, and my brain is all mushy.

how about, I do a top 5 songs about the summer right off the top of my head. these are in no particular order. It's right off the top of my head! Whoa.

1. Sly and the Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summer time
2. Good Day Sunshine - The Beatles
3. Backstreets - Bruce Springsteen
4. The Faces - On the Beach (youtube doesn't have this one)
5. And summer time Blues - Ummmmm, I'll use the Beach Boy's version.

The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven ... Blatz?

Okay, I don't really have any intro planed out for this one, so I'm just going to get into it. The other night, Tuesday night, I attended a play put on by Theatre Projects Manitoba, and written by a former CreComm instructor, Armin Wiebe. The play was called was called The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz. So you're probably thinking what I was thinking when I first heard the title. "What's that about?" Well, it's about Mennonites, but it's not what you might think. The play breaks away from traditional Mennonite stereotypes, while still using some. I can't really come up with a better way to explain what I mean by that, and I don't want to go into too much detail, simply because I don't want to ruin the surprise of the play. So, if you don't understand what I mean, then you have to go see the play. And it's good, so don't worry.

Because I don't want to leave any of you completely empty handed I'll throw in a few main themes of the play. Poison Ivy: it's a bummer, especially if you get it between your legs. There's a piano, and you better believe it's broken. There's a Russian, and he sure speaks German. And, there's a bit of conflict, like any good play should have. Now I don't really want to give too much more than I had going into the play, but I will, add just one more thing that I didn't know going into it. There's a love square. That's like a love triangle, but it's got an extra corner.

After my class watched the play, we were fortunate enough to have the playwright, Armin, speak to us afterward, and then again, this morning. Having him answer our questions about the play really helped give a clearer understanding of the characters and some of the more subtle parts of the play. One of these parts involves an instrument called the brum tup. I'm not sure if that is the correct spelling, when I looked it up, that's the only way I could find it. There is a scene in the play, where the brum tup is being played at new years, by a woman dressed as a man. It seemingly had very little to do with the play, and I was greatly confused during that part of the play. Armin explained during our seminar that the brum tup had for quite sometime been an ingrained part of Mennonite New Years tradition. Young men would go door to door with the brum tup and sing Ode to Joy. I think that's right. I'm pretty sure it was Ode to Joy.

Anyway, the play was great. There was even mention of the story behind Ludwig Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Go see it, and stop complaining about how there's nothing to do in Winnipeg.

Video Montage

I’m going to be filming my video montage this weekend, I’m pretty sure it’s all figured out at this point. I’ve gone through a few different concept ideas.

My first concept was a video set to ZZ Top’s song Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. The basic concept was that I would film some children, most likely my niece and nephew riding on their bikes around.

My second concept was going to be set to the Al Green song Love And Happiness. For that I wanted to film different couples going though the range of emotion that can come from a relationship. Things like flirting or acting in love, or fighting. I still really like the idea, but I couldn’t find anyone willing to act in it. So the idea fell though.

My third concept is sort of still a work in progress, as far as the footage goes I’m going to be going out of town to do the filming. Probably to the cottage or my mom’s place. The basic plan is to get shots of things happening in nature, like animals or ice breaking up on a creek. If I go with the more generic idea, I’ll use the song Sweet Thing by Van Morrison. But I might focus on trees and get shots of different trees young and old and if I do that I’ll probably set it to The Beach Boys’ song A Day In The Life Of A Tree. Whichever way it goes will probably be determined in the editing stage.

The Cloud Nine Mix CD

It’s Friday, which is pretty good. I’d like to say I’m looking forward to a few days off, but sadly, I’ve got a little bit of homework, maybe it’s more of a lotta bit, either way, I’m sure that’ll take up the entire weekend, at least it should if I’m doing it right.
Yesterday was a pretty cool day. It was the RRC Magazine Trade Fair, which was awesome. I think it was some of the most fun I’ve had in school ever, except that part where I had to spend 40 minutes untangling string. Once again I’m sorry Bean and Leaf group for losing your string spool thinger on the ledge in the atrium, if it makes you feel any better we lost a pen too.
I made a mix CD for our (Cloud Nine’s) table at the trade fair. I was pretty proud of it, and I’m still pretty sure that it was the best of all the Mix CDs at were available at the fair. Anyway, here’s the track list.

1. Astral Weeks – Van Morrison
2. An Occasional Dream – David Bowie
3. I’m Only Sleeping – The Beatles
4. That’s Not Me – The Beach Boys
5. Blue Moon – Big Star
6. Tired Of Being Alone – Al Green
7. All I Wanna Do – The Beach Boys
8. Dream Lover – Big Star
9. Sweet Thing – Van Morrison
10. Memory Of A Free Festival – David Bowie
11. Tomorrow Never Knows – The Beatles

The Concept of our Magazine, Cloud Nine, was sleep health and wellness, so I tried to go with a sleepy kinda theme for the mix. I hope that came across.

And this is kinda cool...

The iTunes Store?

Well, well, well, I've finally got around to updating my blog. To me it feels like it's been a really long time since I posted anything, but I have still been making my weekly updates. I think, well, I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any.

A few weeks ago I won a gift card to the iTunes store. It was worth 25 dollars, which I thought was pretty cool, and because I never win anything ever, well hardly ever, I was pretty pleased. Thank you Coca-cola, and you're welcome for all the soda's I've bought through the years.

The prize gift card spent the inital part of it's life in my care living in my inside coat pocket, but once I had a little more free time. I decided to try out my card on the iTunes store. I had never used iTunes to buy music prior to this so it was a new experince for me.

After I scratched the number cover thingy off the card, and inputted the card number, I was ready to start shopping. I found the process easy and user friendly. Sometimes I found that the search gave some results that I wasn't looking for, but over all that wasn't really a big deal.

The only part that I had a hard time with was just that I didn't get any kind of solid object to go with my purchase. I understand that that's not how it works, but a big part of buying music for me is getting the CD or record, so to download a digital copy of an album was new to me. Overall, I think it was a good experince, and I'd probably do it again, the next time I win and iTunes gift card.

So I suppose you might be wondering what I bought. Well, I'm gonna tell you.
I bought Al Green: Greatest Hits, and The Rolling Stones Out of Our Heads. Both of which are good albums. Check them out.

Need a Reason to Celebrate?

How about the Magazine project is done. Cloud Nine was sent to the printer this afternoon. I think this is how Charlie Sheen feels, when he's uh, being Charlie Sheen.

Anyway, in celebration of this momentous occasion:

My Music Collection.

I was thinking today about my blog and what my next post, this post, should be about. As I thought about it I sort of realized that I haven’t really talked all that much about my collection of music on this blog, even though my blog is mostly about the music I listen to. So I decided I’d post some pictures of what my collection looks like. I won’t make a list or anything, it would take too long. I don’t have pictures of every one of my records, just some of the ones that have recently added to my collection.

Some of the pictures seem to be rotated incorrectly. Some have the top on the side and some are upside down. I can't really understand why. They all face the correct way on my computer. I kinda feel like blogger has ruined my post. If I knew how to change the rotation I would, but I don't. If anyone knows how please let me know. I don't think I should try to upload them again, because I'm sure the same thing will happen. Shucks.

I was hoping this would be a cool blog post. Oh well, you'll just have to tilt your head or do a handstand. sorry for the inconvenience.

Travel Assignment: Hot Dogs and Burgers and Fishing and Hot Dogs

And I’m back from my Lockport travel-adventure assignment. You could probably say we left there a little early, and you could probably say we got there a little late. And, if you did, you’d probably be right, but while you were saying that, it would probably give me a little bit of time to think. And, if you did that, I’d probably say something like, yeah, but we went everywhere. Because you see, Lockport’s not really that big. We left no stone unturned, and there’s snow. You go find a stone. I dare you.

Okay, but let’s get back on course. We went to the burger places and stuff it was pretty fun, we had lunch, we drove around a bit. They have a museum there. It was closed. We took pictures.

But the best thing that happened was when Tristan, Brendyn, and I were pursuing a Catfish story. Erica was doing a hot dog story. Anyway, we had to walk down this hill thing, or riverbank. I don’t know which describes it better. It was by the river. Okay, so the three of us walk down this slippery embankment.

We got some video of Tristan. It was pretty good.

Tristan on his way down to the river.


Tristan on his way back up to the car.

Then we just talked to fishermen and got our stories.



Tristan wanted to listen to James Brown on the way back, that was pretty cool.

Two For One: Public Relations Social Media Blog Assignment and Top Five List

Alright, so it looks like for two weeks in a row my blog post will be a class assignment. This time, however, instead of a creative writing assignment, this will be a public relations assignment.

So let’s get down to business, and talk about the strategic use of social media.

Well, I’m pretty sure almost everyone I know uses Facebook for social networking, but I’m pretty sure, that outside of school, hardly anyone I know uses twitter. Before CreComm, I don’t think I would have ever considered using twitter, but in hindsight, before CreComm I didn’t really know what twitter was, or what it was for.

I think most people use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and to plan events, I bet there’s a pretty big percentage that use it to pass the time when they’re bored.

I think with twitter there are actually a wider variety of reasons that people use it. I use it mostly to check out links or post my blog dates. I don’t usually say much, but I think I kind of like to keep my internet foot print small or at least I try to. But there are people who post pictures and links and live tweet events and everything thing you can think of. There’s twitter fiction and stuff. It’s nuts!

There’s also Youtube, which is probably my favorite, I don’t really think it’s part of this assignment so I won’t say much about it, just that you can do even more, I think the possibilities for social media are pretty much endless as far as the uses for PR are concerned, as long as you can find your audience there.

So getting back on track, what does that mean for a strategic use of Facebook and twitter for PR?

This is what I think: I think what you should use Twitter and Facebook for in your PR plan really should depend on what message you’re trying to get across. That being said, I think the most important thing is that you’re active. You need to do things that will keep people coming back and get them involved. You want them reading your tweets, following your links, commenting on your Facebook page. The bottom line is you need to get your audience involved. That’s why it’s called social media; it’s a chance to socialize with your audience.

Your Facebook page should have useful information that you want your audience to know, and you should tweet links to that information. If you can include some sort of interactive portion, like what Old Spice did with that smell like a man not a woman man, then it should be done. Another important thing about social media is that you can’t just sit there and churn stuff out. You can’t constantly put out tons of information, and not take any in. It is good to put stuff out but if that’s all you’re doing then you’re missing out on part of it. Listen to what your audience says retweet their comments, comment on your threads on your Facebook page, show your audience you’re listening too, it will make them listen that much more.

I’m trying to stay away from too many specific examples, just because so much depends on whom your audience is and what you’re trying to communicate to them. That’s pretty much all I can think of for now. So I’ll leave the blog post there.

Because I’ve been doing these assignment blog posts, and not really any other regular blog posts I figured I’d make a top five list, to try and keep anyone who actually reads what I post entertained. Also if you are reading, you should totally comment. Trust me, it’ll be fun.

So here it is, My Top 5 guilty Pleasure songs. I don’t really want to admit that I like them, but I do. I like to pretend I only like them because I don’t hear them often.

1. What a fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers.
2. The boys of Summer – Don Henley
3. Neil Diamond – Mr. Bojangles
4. The Georgia Satellites – Keep your hands to yourself
5. And finally the entire Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy Album, well most of it.
So there you have it in no particular order, and if there is anything else that I like but don’t like admitting, I’m still not ready to admit it.

Creative Writing Term II Blog Assignment: It's like a Michael Bay Movie, But With Less Explosions.

Alright, so the assignment for this blog post is to comment on the relationship between a writer and the publication process. To give everyone reading this who doesn’t have a clue about the relevance of this topic for a blog post to me, let me try to fill you in a little bit. Basically, I’m supposed to imagine that I had just spent two years writing a book, or maybe just a year. I can write fast like that. Maybe my IPP (independent professional project) is a short novella, which it isn’t, but that is beside the point; anyway, I’d have probably done a collection of short stories or poems or something if it were. But, if I did, how would I go about publishing it?

Well, I guess that’s where it gets interesting. I don’t really know, what I’d do. I mean, I think that first off, I’d plan on sending my stories of poems away to magazines. Something like the New Yorker for example. I say this because looking at it form the prospective of not writing for my IPP, I am slow when it comes to creative works. I take a while to come up with an idea, and then it takes me even longer to get my thoughts organized, plus there are all the changes that have to me made to make the story work. I think about the short story I wrote last term when I say this. I basically wrote the entire story around one image, which appeared at the very end of the story and I had to find a way to fit it in. I didn’t even get that far in the first draft, and when I was writing it I felt like I had to force it in, and then go back and change everything to make the entire story work. I also made changes to it would have and ending. In the end I did pretty good on it and received some good feedback.

I was given some suggestions by Winnipeg author David Elias to add more scenes and extend the story some, this was in late November or early December I can’t remember, Ha that rhymed, and I still haven’t got around to touching it. So just based on how slowly I work I think submitting one at a time to a magazine would be the most natural fit to the way I write.

However, at the same time, the idea of having an entire book published is pretty enticing. I think it could be great to have my work published in my very own book. So lets say I could get my act together and get all the work done, I think it would be awesome to have it published.

Now, I have to consider that publishers probably refuse me if I submitted my work. When I was talking to David he mentioned that it can be extremely hard to be published and that often times your work is sent back and either changes are suggested or you are just out right refused. This goes for being published as a book or in a magazine.

I think this would be difficult for me to deal with, just because when write something that I like, I get pretty attached to it. Yet, at the same time I don’t really like the idea of self publishing or uploading to Amazon, because part of the enjoyment of being published would be the good feeling, after knowing my work was accepted by someone else as good enough to be published. That’s pretty vain huh?

I do have “plans” to submit some of my work to publishers or a magazine one-day I think, but I don’t know when that will be or how I will go about it. I feel like I have a lot of time. When I was talking to David about it he said he didn’t start thinking about being a writer until he was a bit older, so I’m not in much of a rush. Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to say about it.

Maybe this wasn’t as much of a Michael Bay blockbuster as I thought it would be. I think I needed more killer robots, bad special effects. Well shucks.

Let me make it up to you with this.

This is the Pulp Fiction of Blog posts

Okay, I’m pretty sure I had something to write about for this blog post, but I think I forgot. It’s not surprising though; I’ve been super sick for the last five days. It’s the worst. I have barely got any homework done at all. I spent the entire weekend resting and trying to get better, but it didn’t work. Yet, despite how sick I am I haven’t missed any school.

I was planning to use this time to work on my screenplay for my creative writing class, but only the Mac lab was free, and I don’t know how to use the Word script template thinger on the Mac version of word. So I decided to do this blog post.

Oh! As a bit of an aside, I’d like to mention that Quiznos’s broccoli cheddar soup is awesome and will kind of make you feel a bit better even if you’re super super sick like I am. I would also like to note that I didn’t really know the correct way to use the Quiznos name as a possessive. It has the s on the end there but they don’t use an apostrophe, and I don’t know if that’s bad grammar or if the name just has an s on the end. So I gave them the benefit of the doubt and just added the apostrophe and the extra s, but than now that I’m thinking about it, what if there’s more then one Quizno and the s just refers to how there’s a whole bunch of them. Maybe I should have just put an apostrophe after the s. I suppose this is a question for greater minds than my own.

Okay, so I’m way more all over the place than usual. It’s like pulp fiction. You’re like “wait, I already saw Vincent die, how is he back again. Ow I think my brain just exploded.”

Okay, so I’m like four paragraphs in and I haven’t really said anything that makes sense. Here’s a thought: Alec Baldwin is the new William Shatner. It’s true; think about it for a bit.

Okay, well I better wrap this up. I’m gonna have way to many long posts like last term and then right at the end of the term I’ll have to do a bunch of short ones, like last term.

Okay, and I finish this post off with this.

Papa's Got a Brand New Ba- "Hey, What Gives The Song Wasn't Even Over."

Saturday Night I attended the birthday party of a good friend of mine. This post doesn’t have much to do with the party, not that the party was uneventful; to the contrary, it was actually chalk full of eventfulness. It’s just that those events will not find a place in this blog post. Except for what I just said.

Once, someone told me my blog was postmodern because, in my posts, I usually acknowledge that I’m making a blog post. Is pointing that out postmodern? Or is it postpostmodern when something that’s postmodern is acknowledging that it is postmodern. I said postmodern six times in this paragraph, and I just lost my entire readership, all four of them.

Anyway, I had better steer this ship back on course, it’ll end up running aground, leaving everyone on board stranded somewhere between Hall and Oates, and Steely Dan.

Okay, I’m starting to run out of time, no more fooling around. Just pretend you skipped from the first paragraph to the one after this one.

So I was making my way home from the party, and as I have been often recently I was listening to FAB 94.3. I forgot to mention it in my last post, but I had become more and more concerned that FAB wasn’t playing enough James Brown. And then as if someone from FAB had heard my concern that I had somehow neglected to include in my blog post, they were playing Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag. I reacted by thinking whoa, this is pretty sweet, but my reaction was short lived however. They cut off the end of the song! And it’s not like Brand New Bag loses steam at the end either. I wanted to mention how they always cut the ends off songs in the last post, but forgot. Well, at that moment on Saturday night I was reminded. So please FAB, stop cutting the ends off songs.

They did redeem themselves afterward though, by playing a wicked sweet song that is embeded below.

FAB 94.3: This Is What I Think

For the last few weeks I have been listening to Winnipeg’s new radio station FAB 94.3. I’ve heard a few opinions, good and bad, about the station’s new format, and I have a few opinions of my own.

I’m going to try and be fair balanced about it, but there are a few things I don’t like about FAB. That being said, there are a lot of things I do like about FAB. I’m going to start with the good things about FAB, just because there are a lot of good things; at the very least, FAB has a lot of potential.

They’ve taped into music that isn’t really represented in Winnipeg. It’s basically a top 40 of the 60s and 70s. It’s going to be pretty hard to go wrong there. In Winnipeg the closest comparable stations are 92 CITI and K-ROCK. BOB FM and POWER 97 might over lap with FAB sometimes, but for the most part, I think those two aren’t really that close, as far as what they are playing is concerned. The Stuff that CITI and K-ROCK are playing is still going to be pretty different, mainly because FAB is playing Top 40 stuff so it’s going to play quite a bit more soul, and they even play a little bit of Yacht Rock, while K-ROCK and CITI are pretty much only going to play classic rock.

That slight difference is going to allow FAB to play a lot of really cool stuff you won’t here on any other station in the city. For example, I’ve heard FAB Play Al Green, and I don’t think there is anyway you’ll hear Al Green or Martha and The Vandellas on another Winnipeg station. That’s just one example. I don’t have a list compiled or anything, but they play a lot of other good stuff from Mo-town and Staxx.

As far as the bad things go, well, let’s see. I don’t think they take advantage of their format as much as they should. They play a lot of boring music. Sometimes they’ll play something kick-ass like, Hold On I’m Coming, or Born To Run, but then they follow it up with a snoozer. It’s a total buz kill.

Another thing they’ve fallen into is pretty much the same thing almost all other stations have fallen into, and that’s they don’t play enough variety. I swear I hear Soul Man by Sam and Dave at least once a day. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good song, but Sam and Dave have other ones switch it up, and that goes for pretty much every other artist they play as well.

The third thing that bugs me about FAB is the promos. I think they could be way better. I know I’m not in the demographic FAB is targeting, but I don’t think their Target demographic is as isolated as they think, or as old. I mean, they’re playing some of the coolest music ever recorded, at least they could be. The promos should be cool. I don’t want to hear about how this music created the generation gap, and I’m pretty sure no one else does either. The promos should be about how the music is timeless or it actually has a groove. Why not, “you’re listening to FAB 94.3. We got that groove now,” or “Don’t fight it feel it, FAB 94.3 the hits of the 60s and 70s. You want soul, we got it.” Those are just off the top of my head. I Just think they could try harder to be cooler.

Now to what other people have said, this is something I don’t want to spend too much time on, but I do want to mention one point. I’ve heard a few people saying they liked the old hits of the 90s format. I don’t agree with that, because I think the 90s market is getting played on a lot of stations so it had a lot of competition. I’ve just heard a few people saying that. I wonder how many of those people still listen to FAB, maybe they should consider aiming at that demographic a bit more.

Lucky

Well, it seems my hard times carried on after my last blog post. I started this week with a pretty serious streak of bad luck.

Sunday Afternoon: I arrived home, after spending the night at my second home, at roughly 5 p.m. As I pushed open the back gate and turned towards the door, I was perplexed to see that the back door was propped open with a shovel. In my confusion I made some sort of sarcastic exclamation, and then approached the door.

Then I realized that my renter, Mohammed, was standing in the door way and the house was full of smoke. He explained to me that there was something wrong with the pellet stove and it was filling the house with smoke. He said he had gone down and unplugged it and he had the door open to get the smoke out.

Right away I thought I knew what the problem was, so went down stairs to “take care of it.” Well, it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. From across the room I could see smoke pouring out from around the door to the pellet stove hopper. I thought, “well, that’s not right. That part shouldn’t be on fire,” and went over to take a closer look.

When I opened the lid the amount of smoke coming out must have tripled three or four times. I could see that the pellets in the hopper had been burning. For anyone not familiar with pellet stoves, that is super bad. So bad in fact that I am going to reemphasize it again, and say, that is super super bad.

Fortunately because Mohammed has unplugged the pellet stove, that was some really quick thinking on his part. With the stove unplugged, the fan that feeds air into the stove had turned off, so the fire was not longer getting the air it needed to burn freely, and had probably died down quite a bit.

At this point I realized that I couldn’t just leave the burning pellets in the hopper, or the smoke would never stop. So I went and got a metal bucket from the garage. Then I set out to find something I could use to scoop the pellets out of the hopper. I ended up only being able to find an old empty margarine container. I dumped the nails and drill bits out of it and set off to start digging out the pellets.

Then it hit me. There was a lot of smoke in the basement, and it was getting hard to breathe. So I went looking for a dust mask I had from when I used to work in a mill. That search was short lived though, and once I couldn’t find it I decided to just wet a rag and hold it over my face.
It took me a about four or five minutes to empty the pellets from the hopper. Most of them were charred black, and quite a few had turned into red embers. The entire time I was emptying it I was worried the fire would catch again, not that it was being reintroduced to air, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem. I took the bucket outside and put it in the snow. It sat there all week and melted its way to the ground, and the pellets have now all burned away. Crazy huh? It just smoldered all week in like minus thirty weather.

Anyway, we ended up opening all the windows and doors and got some fans going to get the smoke out. It worked, but the house still smells like smoke. All my things still smell like smoke, and I still smell like smoke.

That’s the main part of that story, but my bad luck doesn’t end there.
Tuesday Afternoon: My brother comes over to take a look at the house and see if everything is okay, while I’m at school. He notices a red spot in the snow in the middle of the drive way, and calls to let me know my transmission is probably leaking tranny fluid.

At first I’m not so sure it’s my car. A contactor had visited the house Monday, and I say it would have been his truck that was leaking. After all, I replaced my transmission no more than five years ago; they have to last longer than that right? So I park in a different place and check the next morning. Sure enough my Transmission is leaking. Well, it a good thing I hadn’t got my student loans yet or I might be able to afford to get that fixed.

So when I finally get the chance, early Thursday morning I got the Great Canadian Oil Change. It turns out that my tranny is leaking in two different places. 1. The tranny filter. 2. The speed sensor. They guys working on my car couldn’t do anything about the sensor but they replaced the filter and that slowed the leak considerably. It should buy me sometime till I can get it looked at again.

They ended up doing some other work as well; I won’t bore you with the details. It ended up costing me $180.00 which I paid for with the help of my trusty over draft.
So there you have it, my unlucky streak.

But, I should be receiving my student loans Tuesday. It looks as if my luck is going to change.

Hard Times Like Ray Charles

Wow, it’s Friday again already, and it looks like I’ll get this posted just in the nick of time. Being on CreComm time is a very crazy feeling for all of you non-CreCommers out there. It’s peculiar because you always know what day it is, and the days go by pretty fast. The thing is though, that it’s a different kind of fast day than you might be used to. The days rocket by, but they seem like they’re way longer than normal days. It’s been just over a week since my last blog post, yet it feels like it’s been weeks since I made the post.

Right now everyone in CreComm has what I like to call "The Magazine project, IPP proposal, PR proposal, and when is the next streeter gonna be blues.” I mean it’s crazy out here. Not that I’m trying to be negative. It’s all very rewarding. But the Stress! The stress comes in pretty high doses. It’s the kind where you just wanna go home and breathe for a few minutes and forget about school work for an hour before you have to put your nose back against the grind stone. The problem is as soon as you stop thinking about school work you start thinking about all the other regular responsibilities of life. Just the simple things like where am I gonna get the money to pay my phone bill or car insurance? You know no big deal.

I’ve been so busy lately I’ve hardly listened to any music. I can never find the time. Anyway, right now I’m gonna post a little slow blues for ya.

A Pseudo-Event Christmas

Pseudo-events are becoming pretty common. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, pseudo-events are organized to help create interest for certain things, usually, for an organization or a product. Probably one of the most well known forms of pseudo-event is the flash mob. A flash mob generally consists of a large group of organized people performing some sort of choreographed act: a line dance, freezing in place, or other similar things.

Everyone is probably familiar with the FabBoy Slim music video, the one of the dance troupe performing in front of a movie theater. That’s the basic idea.

Some student groups and student organizations at The University Of Winnipeg have held flash mobs at the U of W campus and other places around the city.

Even though the holidays are now over I figured I would look at a holiday themed flash mob that took place in Columbia, Maryland. The even was held at the Mall in Columbia on December 22, 2010. I group of several hundred people sang and danced to Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas tree. The goal of the flash mob was to spread holiday cheer.

A group called Hocomojo organized the flash mob. Hocomojo, which stands for Howard County Mobile Journalism, is a group local to Howard County that promotes community engagement, involvement and esteem in Howard County, for Howard County.

The event was pretty successful, generating many links when searched on google.ca. There are some online news stories about the event in online publications. And the video has been posted on many different websites, including several blogs and You Tube. One You Tube video has over 50, 000 views and another nearly 69,000. Because the video has been posted so many times it’s difficult to get an accurate number of the actual total number of views. By judging how often the video comes up and how many stories there are about it I think they may have raised Christmas cheer in a few more places than just Howard County.
Here is the video.

Back To School

Alright, Christmas break is over; today was the first day of school, and what an interesting first day of school it was. Enter the Magazine Project. Anyway now that's school has resumed. Here's something kick ass to get you warmed up. I must have watched this video like fifteen times already.