Snow Day

"Welcome to Canada", my housemate exclaimed yesterday morn as I emerged from my room. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the backyard was blanketed in a thick covering of snow. It's been snowing consistently for two days now and it's very cold and blustery outside. It's probably around -10 out there on this Sunday morning. It was interesting coming home last night from a party because somehow the moonlight reflecting off the snow makes the sky seem somewhat bright.

I'm settling in well to the group house. There are four of us - two guys and two girls. There's a musician, a draftsperson/yoga enthusiast, a bar worker from the USA and me, the lonesome traveller. It's such a lo-fi house with no TV, no microwave, acoustic guitars laying around and plenty of books. We seem to get along pretty well and the house is large enough for us all to be doing our own thing. We're eating well. There's no junk food in sight. It's a welcome respite from the dodgy Greyhound Bus diet I was on (I'll never forget how rotten I felt standing in line next to my sorry looking bus driver, at a roadhouse in Northern Indiana, USA, 'round 4:00am one morning, eyes glazed, staring at the menu.) My housemate made me his patented 'Best Thing in the World' this morning: eggs poached in his mom's special homemade tomato sauce.

I've accepted a job canvasing for one of the major charities. Its frontline work, approaching people in the streets with a clipboard, asking them to donate to a plan. I think i'm constitutionally incapable of sitting in an office 9-5 right now so this job is probably what I should be doing. I'll develop oral communcation skills that's for sure. It'll be good to actually live by my ideals for a change and actively participate in something instead of moaning in the abstract about the ills of the world. The lady who hired me was impressed with my resume and said I've got a good chance of moving up the organisation into some sort of coordinator or team leader role quite quickly if I apply myself. There are offices all over Canada so it could work perfectly for me because I'd like to head back east and perhaps settle in Toronto and pursue further study.

I kinda like the idea of 'fighting' for something. Being part of a team, in the trenches so to speak. I know there are all sorts of issues about how much of this raised money actually gets to the people who need it, but I'm not going to think too much about that and just do what I have to do. With the booming Alberta economy, surely the masses have piles of disposable income and can be gently convinced to divert some of it to foreign aid.

I'm also chatting to a fellow Aussie about doing some construction work (inside I hope!). Like most construction companies, his employer is desperate for people and I'm keen to learn some practical skills.

I'm really looking forward to earning an income again, no matter how modest it will be in the short term. I've got a third option for work. I'm tagging along with my housemate tonight as he sells subscriptions to the local newspaper door-to-door. I will try the job because I imagine it will be similar to the canvasing job I'll be doing for the charity. I'm going to have to develop these hassling people skills whether I like it or not. My housemate loves the job because he only works 3hrs per day and makes a surprising a amount of money and has the rest of the day to work on his music.

I really hope I can handle this sort of canvasing work. The extroversion required will be draining.

MG

Quote

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
- Edgar Allan Poe

God I love Canada

Canadians are wonderful people. Two examples:

i) When I was in Halifax a couple of months ago I decided to go to the gym at the local uni. I knocked on the door of the office to enquire how much it would cost for a one-off visit. The gym guy, who was lazily peering out the window, said "hey, don't worry about it. Here take my card. It'll get you in. Just slide it under the door if I'm not here when you finish."

ii) My house mate held a room for me in this group house for two months when I was away. He had no solid guarantee i'd even make it all the way back here. I expressed profound gratitude for his act of kindness because there is an almost zero vacancy rate in this city. He could have easily got rent from somebody else in my absence to ease his burden. He just doesn't seem to care.

Nuff said

MG

Back in the Great White North

Edmonton, Alberta. I decided to settle here for the next couple of months at least to rest, work again and save some money. Just before I left in September a friend of a friend agreed to hold a room for me here in his share house. It was a stroke of luck considering the almost zero vacancy rate in rentals in this city. It's a great location too on 82nd ave.

I reluctantly left my new friends in Chicago a couple of days ago. I've well and truely had my share of shitty Greyhound trips so I shelled out for a plane right back to Alberta. After a tortourous 4 hour stopover in Vegas I arrived in Calgary at 3am. I stayed over night with my cousin Geri. It was wonderful to see her after the ups and downs of my cross-Canada trip. It did get lonely in parts. Geri, who is trained in special education, was looking after a young girl who is partially autistic. It was fun hanging out with them both.

My arrival yesterday afternoon was not terribly auspicious. After dumping my things in my room I mumbled something about going to Safeway across the road. Sure enough, when I returned, my housemates had departed and the house was locked. So I was left stranded outside, arms ladened with groceries and the temperature plummeting. I discovered a bar across the road, ordered a pizza, read the steet press and nursed a beer for a long time, feeling sorry for my self.

So, I'm anticipating from now until xmas, lots of work (I'll probably pick up two jobs), lots of reading, learn guitar from my housemate and meet new people. I also have this urge to go somewhere really remote out in the snow with a few cool people and just get away from everything. Ice-fishing or something like that. This'll be my first frigid Western Canadian winter and I'm actually looking forward to it.

Here's one interesting thing. My old boss from ACT Health in Canberra is in Canada on a research trip for a Churchill Scholarship. He got in touch and I offered my services as a research assistant. He's keen so I'm looking forward to re-igniting the old brain and working with him when he gets to Edmonton in a week or so.

MG

Ballet

I wonder if I'm the first guy to ever post a review of a punk gig and then a ballet performance the next post...?

I had the pleasure of accompanying a beautiful woman to a ballet performance of Cinderella at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago a couple of days ago. The performance was by the Joffrey Ballet company and it was first performed in 1948.

I've always been one for stripped-back creativity. The smell-of-an-oily-rag-sort of pursuits like Fringe Theatre and punk rock. There's a rawness to those art forms that appeals to my yearning for authenticity.

However, viewing a world class performance of ballet was truely a mesmerising experience. I was astounded by the complexity of the operation. I can't comprehend how difficult it would be to get that many people to interact on stage without it all falling apart. I probably should know the story of Cinderella but I chose to zone out and let the performance wash over me. It was cool to focus in on one of the performers for awhile and watch intently how they manouvered around the stage as an independant unit, but totally insynch with the web of dancers.

Unfortunately we arrived a little late and we had to watch the first act from a TV in the foyer. I didn't mind because it gave me the chance to explore the magestic theatre where the performance was being held. Our seats ended being way up in the 'nose-bleed' section but that was ok. To be much closer could have set us back up to $130! Ballet for 'the people' I say!

I'm reminded of a old housemate of mine who was a ballet dancer. He had movie star looks, the perfect body, a black sports car, job in IT...He was constantly surrounded by women. He was actually a friendly guy too. Last I heard he'd decided to leave his life in Australia and move to England to become a nurse.

MG

Hard-Ons

Holy crap! Australian thrash-punk legends the Hard-Ons played in Chicago tonight, this Friday the 13th, and I went along! I've seen them countless times in Canberra over the years as well as their awesome side project Nunchukka Superfly.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, the Hard-Ons are from Punchbowl in Western Sydney. They burst onto the scence around 1984 and went on to record 17 consecutive #1 singles on the alternative chart. They're regarded as gods in Europe. In my mind they've always been a perfect mix of heavy as f**k guitar with brilliant bubblegum pop melodies. Their lyrics are nothing to write home about though. If you want poetics, listen to Morrisey or something

The show was typically hard-hitting and contained a mix of old and new. Some for the tracks they played were 'Don't want to see you cry', 'Bubble Bath,' 'What would Stiv Bators Do', 'Sunny', 'There goes one of the creeps who hassled my girlfriend.'

I chatted to the guys. It was great to hear Australian accents again after all this time. Guitarist Blackie said he remembered chatting to me once before in Canberra. Chicago was their last stop on a mammoth USA tour. We agreed that collectively, America has a lot of problems but individual Americans we've met are really cool people.

I can't believe they were 2nd on the bill, supporting some derivative SoCal punk band. The Hard-Ons teared the place apart but their songs just seemed to go over the heads of most of the punters who were there to chant away at the headliner's songs. Well I had an unreal time and scored a $10 tshirt too.

666

MG

Gimme Shelter (the photos)

Gimme Shelter

Chicago, Illinois - a city that I'll always have fond memories of thanks the last week of adventure. I took a Greyhound bus from Toronto to Chicago, via Niagra Falls over a week ago now. I only planned to stay one day and head on through to Minneapolis, but an unexpected turn of events led me to stay for much longer than I'd intended.

In short, I had a chance meeting with 3 young people from different parts of the US who had landed at the hostel at the same time. All three had moved to Chicago to start new lives (not unlike myself leaving Australia) - G a social worker, M a nurse and D a wizz-kid computer tech guy. None of us had jobs or much money so the week following our meeting was a wild ride up and down the 'hierachy of needs' i.e food, shelter, etc. That is, finding ways to meet the basic units of life, with the clock ticking. It was such a grounding, here and now experience, shared with decent, genuine people who worked well together.

I pretty much came along for the ride, knowing that I can't live and work in the US. The instant chemistry between the four of us made it seem so natural. It was a wild week. It would have made a great reality TV show if someone had followed us around with a camera. Putting it into words is a little difficult 'cause you had to be there I guess. It's cool to document this for myself anyway.

It all started when we met at the hostel. Extroverted G was the alchemist who got this eclectic group of people together and pumped about getting out of the hostel and into a decent apartment asap. Jobs would have to be priority number 2.

The first day we spent tracking down possible places to live and long train rides out to the burbs to find them. We eventually came upon a interesting option - an old house owned by a dentist and his attorney daughter. It was this great cavernous house and a real 'renovators dream'. We were salivating about all the creative things we could get up to in that place. Rent was incredibly cheap too. It turned out though that the owners were intending to demolish the place in a couple of years and hence weren't interested in spending much money on it.

After looking at the house again late in the day, we realised that is really was run down. Then the attorney let slip that it was pretty-much a crack house not too long ago with 15 people crammed in who were eventually evicted. So, with the sun setting and no reservations in any hostels, we realised it was going to be tough to get a roof over our heads that night without spending heaps on a hotel.

(What I found disturbing is how 'nice' the attorney was with us, especially after she found out I was a trained lawyer, while she was outright rude to the disadvantaged-looking immigrant family who arrived on the door step to look at the place. It made me realise that yes, even though none of the four of us were in a particularly favourable position, we're still middle-class kids. What's the worse that could happen? I wonder where that family is now, with winter approaching and Chicago's first snow hitting yesterday.)

G embarked on a search for accomodation and came through with a deal at a decent hotel down town. So we all piled into this room for the night, enjoyed a bottle of vodka, and got to know eachother better. The next morning, the ever-perceptive M realised there was something odd about the hotel. We eventually asked the front desk guy what was going on and it turns out the hotel has 80% repeat customers who are all gay! M said it was something about the decor, short haircuts and small number of women that tipped her off. Needless to say, this impressionble young backpacker avoided eye-contact with a some of the punters strolling around the corridors after that...

Day two and while three of us were still lounging about the hotel, G landed an unbelievably good and affordable apartment in Licoln Park, very close to beautiful Lake Michegan. The skills he picked up during his pevious job as a property manager must have come in handy. The day was spent negotiating details for signing contracts and moving in. By late afternoon we were exhausted and enjoyed a quiet stroll along the shore of Lake Michegan.

That evening while eating dinner, M and I made a snap decision to see if we could get into see Nina Hagen play a gig at a near-by club. Nina Hagen is a 50-something year-old German singer who came to prominance as a provocative post-punk artist. We ran at top speed to make it in time and ended up getting in for free because the gig was almost over. We still got to see a handful of songs. Nina seriously impressed with her classicly trained voice, sexy stage moves and just plain cool songs. I'm determined to track down some of her stuff.

The next day we moved into the apartment. That evening Chicago was hit by the strongest thunder storm in 9 years! M and I got caught and were completely soaked. It was very intense.

Well, it probably doesn't sound as epic as it seemed in real life, but like I said above, you had to be there. It's funny, I had such a great time even though technically is was stressful and I barely knew these people. Maybe that's a good idea for a tour business - instead of showing people sites, just land them in a hostel with a bunch of strangers and give them a set time to succeed at set, real-world challenges! It sure beats wandering around on your own with a Lonely Planet.

I moved on a few days later for Minneapolis but I came back. I just wanted to come back and hang with my new friends a little more. I'd sure like to be moving in myself. Chicago is a great city and while massive, it's seems kind of like a more sedate version of New York. I'll stay a couple more days and then fly out for Western Canada where I'll look for work and settle for the winter.

MG

Quote

"A man is born into this world with his own pair of eyes, and he is not responsible for his vision - he is merely responsible for his quality of personal honesty"

- Stephen Crane (American novelist, 1871-1900)