five deadly everythings...

Pamplemousse

My girlfriend will be gone for a month, jumping around with the frogs in France. We had a "date" yesterday, and it felt just like old times. Dinner, movie, my place. Okay, not so much different from what we do on any other day, but the evening had a certain weight to it.

It sounds twisted and I hope you don't read this wrong, but I'm glad to see her go. Finally getting up off the ground and travelling, experiencing the world, this is everything Christianne should be doing. This sets her on the path to her future, and it's with great admiration that I wave her off.

I don't even know what to say. Yesterday I talked to Brohan and I told him the story about how we got together (my story, the real story, not the funny one about us making out in Cindy's driveway). I thought about blogging that but it doesn't feel right. I don't think I wanna blog anything. Ima just sit outside and reminisce. Wish I had a smoke because it would be appropriate.

I love you.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 9:46:00 a.m. | Permalink

The Northern Touch

So the phone rang and some lady was like, "Can I talk to Kareem?" I have no idea who Kareem is, but there's a dude smoking outside so I open the door and I'm like, "Are you Kareem?" He's like, "Uhhh, Choclair?"

Oh. Right. Stupid of me. So I go to the studio and tell the Chiznocca his wife is on the phone. He gets on the line beside my desk and the phone convo is two seconds long. "Yeah. Sorry about that," he says. Then hangs up the phone.

The management team is at some meeting so I'm at the office holding things down by myself. Which sounds more impressive than it really is, because there's nothing to hold down. I'm sitting here running out of internet sites to surf, blogging, namedropping Choclair in an attempt to sound like I'm important.

I tried to listen to music but my CD was making the computer cough and hiccup. Now I'm just listening to Choclair in the studio, playing the same hook over and over again (for the past hour) as he adlibs his little "uh-huh"s and "whatever man"s. It's a cool beat, soulful and thick.

Kev came down on the weekend for a meeting. We blocked some scenes in my backyard, using the picnic table as a model for the apartment shoot. Went out for Bubble Tea with Rohan in tow; Kev wanted to see the Asian hangouts in Mississauga. Lots of stupidness, then went back to Ro's crib to check out footage and chill. More stupidness and Rohan's sister was drunk. We found pics of Victor on the internet, animated. Unhealthy eating, despite the promises of my last post. Ugh.

I started reading From Hell on the weekend and Alan Moore is just a freaking genius. He's the Hitchcock of comic books, the way his work embodies the medium. Hitch's films *are* cinema, and Moore's work *is* comic books. I don't know how else to put it.

Dan came up to me last week and asked me to work on a graphic novel with him. I'm pretty hyped about this project, I hear his comics work is better than his paintings. I've been waiting so long to try my hand at comic writing, and after the project with Gerard kinda fell through I didn't know who else to turn to for illustrations. I'm glad Dan came to me with this.

Anyways. Four days till Christianne leaves for France.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 11:20:00 a.m. | Permalink

Starting Right NOW

I'm eating right again. I'm working out again. I'm meditating. I'm turning off the idiot box and I'm taking the time to read more. And I'm getting busy again, no summer break, I'm gonna continue making moves.

Slogan for the Summer: Get Right or Get LEFT.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 11:48:00 a.m. | Permalink

Dear Jessica Alba

You know I love you. And not like the rest of them cats, you actually seem cool to me. You're endearingly earnest, and I liked your commentary about being the poor ethnic chick on 90210 who needs the white kids to come rescue her. I've never seen you with Paris Hilton and that's awesome, and word, you wear dunks and listen to Wu Tang. I have the boxset of Dark Angel Season 1, and not even to stare at you like I front with my friends, I actually like that show. But yo. Stop talking about how fat your ass is. It hasn't been fat in years. I miss the fat ass. If you wanna keep talking about it, please get it back first. Nothing on you is fat. You're fucking with little girls, man. Anyways. Call me.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 11:04:00 a.m. | Permalink

The Face of Victory



peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 7:37:00 p.m. | Permalink

Life and Death

I was walking home from work and my shoulder hurt and I saw a dead squirrel. Its carcass was fresh and whole, no blood. It just fell over and died. It's hands were frozen in a clutch. I wanted to take pictures of it but figured then I would be one of those morbid guys who take pictures of dead squirrels.

At the bus stops today I looked up at the metal awning used to shelter people from the rain. At the top there was a plant of some sort sprouting out of a crevice. Maybe this is a vision of things to come. One day we wake up from our comfortable sleep and walk outside to find ourselves buried under shrubs and trees. Massive vegetation grown overnight and on top of our skyscrapers and cityscapes. Us, relegated to a subterranean society just as we thought we had finally reached the skies.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 6:41:00 p.m. | Permalink

The Feminine Side of Things

My sister has a fat face that I remember soaked in the slime
of tears and snot as she tried to swallow the pills
which was the only time I ever told her I loved her and
she woke up the next morning with her stomach pumped
telling me to answer the fucking phone she had a headache.

My mother has creases around her eyes that they call crow's feet
that bunched up and puckered inward as she told me that
I should live with my dad if ever they got divorced
that way she woulnd't have to cook for me anymore.

My ex-girlfriend had big lips and big breasts and something
they used to call child-bearing hips and I could feel the
weight of all this flesh as she bore down on me and told me
that we were meant to be. When she kissed me for the last
time she felt cold and soft and it took months for me to
push that baggage off of me.

We sit in circles and read poetry at each other's eyes and
we all think this is something beautiful and quaint
and intimate. It's this intricate game of distance
where the rules are as blurred as the lines. We all
sit on fences and shoot sideways glances. We resist the
persistence of words as they attempt penetration, we
take faith in late registration.

I am looking for my feminine side. The moon is glaring behind
my back and all I see is shadows. These shadows are mine,
like a coat you wear for years until the fabric frays. I'm
waiting for my shadow to loosen and unravel. I'm waiting for
the infinite to age and for the laws of physics to confuse
themselves into happiness. I catch glimpses and they are soft.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 6:37:00 p.m. | Permalink

New Shit! Exclusive!

Reading my friend's blog has reminded me of how I've lost focus. There was a time when politics and philosophy and all that were a big part of my life. I used to write a lot on those subjects here on this blog. But somewhere along the line I got too caught up in trying to write proper paragraphs, in trying to make my boring life sound pretty and interesting. And then I got a digicam and it all went to hell.

Anyways, I started up a new blog over at the Guerilla News Network. Why a separate blog, you ask? For clarity's sake, mostly. That blog will be specifically about my thoughts on the beautiful struggle, so to speak. You'll get all my boring thoughts on activism, politics, and my journey in trying improve myself and this world in tandem. I'll keep this space here as my ranter, my photo album, my playground for words.

Sandra came into the store today and I realized how much I miss the old crew. She touched my face and told me I lost weight. I laughed and showed her my walrus neck and receding hairline. She's in New York and I'm jealous. One day. Marites has been listening to Common and she's quoting her in her msn name. "Cuz three hundred and fifteen dollars ain't worth your soul..." Shit, that song hurts *me*, I can't imagine what it does to her. I'm glad people are reaching out and discovering Lonnie Lynn.

I'm boring myself. Kwasi, I got your meme. Ima post up soon enough.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 11:04:00 p.m. | Permalink

Be

I spend too much time staring at my own blog. Does anyone else do this? It's vanity, I suppose, but it's really just an extension of all the self-reflection I do in real life. (I do a lot.) It's a lot easier to have something concrete in front of you to reflect on, and really, I'm not one for mirrors so the blog is a perfect choice.

Sometimes I take a break from blogging and when I come back I don't know how to do it anymore. All this means is that I'm not being myself. I've been holding a pose and once I let the muscles relax I can't recreate it anymore. This page has seen so many voices. I deleted the archives just because it felt weird to have them around.

I read some old emails the other day that I had sent to Christianne around the time we first started dating. They don't even sound like me anymore.

Yesterday Chris asked me if I believe in soulmates and I said I don't believe in souls.

But then, why do I spend so much time thinking about myself? There's a contradiction here that people tend to point out. But it's a contradiction that doesn't bother me at all. Contradictions are truth. Absolute truths are lies.

This makes everything confusing, for sure, but stuff is only confusing when you think about it too much. Sometimes you just gotta back off and it makes sense again. A lot of it is school and essay writing, which teaches us that if we can't explain something with words then it's probably false. This is another contradiction coming from a wannabe writer. Then again, maybe this is why I love comics and film and poetry.

I bought a suit yesterday. I can't believe I've gotten this far in life without ever owning my own suit and tie. After I tucked my shirt into my pants the tailor pulled on my belt and clicked his tongue at me. "These aren't jeans, sir." He pushed fabric into fabric and pulled at my pants, and I got a glimpse of something I never want to see again. This tongue-clicking and propriety, shiny black leather, and ugh. I wish I could have bought the cool brown suit I was looking at.

There are some social functions where it's just wrong to "do you", and I hate it. But it's much easier to play your role than step on people's toes for no reason. Hanging onto your sense of self in all situations is, well, selfish.

We were sitting in Swiss Chalet and the storm sat above us. Chris and I watched as sky bruised and this dark swelling spread out over our heads. The wind whipped around the trees and Chris thought about her house flying away. She frowned and cupped her cheeks, and said "Why don't people ever listen to the scientists??"

She does this sometimes, morphs into a cute though brilliant twelve year old. Like those characters in movies that are always played by Dakota Fanning or Jonathan Lipnicky or whoever else people think is cute and smart.

We watched the midnight premiere of Batman Begins, which was great but I kept sleeping through. Julie was right about me at work, I *am* sleep-deprived. I most definitely want to watch it again with a clearer vision. We saw Rohan and his siblings in the crowd. Rohan's sister is beautiful and composed, and his brother is smart and bounding with energy. Together, they remind me of Amidala and Anakin in Episode One, except less annoying and with far better dialogue.

As anyone seen my Be CD? I can't find it, and I've really got the urge to listen to "Real People" right now.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 12:43:00 p.m. | Permalink

From the Movie Blog:

My blogging has been sometimey, I know. This is one of those things that I'm gonna look back on one day and wish I took the time to do right. I haven't been here in a long minute. I missed blogging about a lot of things. About rehearsals, about the first meetings, everything. I didn't even blog about finishing the screenplay.

Anways. We had our first shoot this past weekend. I'll refrain from a general recap, seeing as Kev has already done that. I will say though, holy shit, filmmaking is something else. I talked to Lynn today (starbux customer who is a screenwriter/producer) about what happened on the weekend and she was like yeah, filmmaking is messed up. She said that it never gets easier either, that every shoot for every film will have an infinite number of unforseen problems and frustrations. But like she says. It's a high.



Here's some general barf:

Rohan somehow turned out to be a living Drew/Anton. I was glad to have him, he held the shoot together with stupid one-liners and jokes about mamas. Even Pauline commented on this. I'd like to say for the record, none of these characters are based on Rohan. I don't even know Rohan. Dude just showed up in my basement one weekend with his naked girlfriend (long, true story.)

There was a general pattern to the humour on set, and it went like this:

-man, it's hot in here!
-your FACE is hot in here!
-your MOM's hot in here!
-you MOM's hot in your face!
-*movie quote*
-*Rohan says something that makes no sense*
-*everybody quotes Family Guy*

And so on.

I smoked like a bastard, and so did the rest of the cast/crew. I don't even think half these people smoke. Just Kev and Steve. Anyways. Smoking on movie sets is cool. It makes me feel smarter. I'm joking. Clearly, the smartest people on the set were April and Maddie. One day, I promise to be smarter than a 15 year old girl.

Next day we traded the girls for James, who is pretty much the same as a 15 year old girl, but much prettier. We stuck him in the bedroom and melted him with spotlights. At one point he was running with sweat, mic cords wrapped around his forearms, and he looked like torture footage off of CNN. He turned on a fan but then Kev was like "James, turn that fan off." Kev, you ass.

It was b-a-n-a-n-a-s (Arlene! I did it!) once the entire cast was there. That suite heats up fast. We were all drenched in sweat. Even if we did have someone there to do makeup, I don't know what they could have done. That shit would have caked up in seconds.

I was doing a grip of rewrites on the spot, and I apologize to the cast for that. But yall are too good of actors to be saying such shite dialogue. Why does everyone have such cool sounding voices? I was listening to the audioplayback and everyone has this nice quality to the their voice. This is coming from a guy who sounds like a gay robot. Voices, I can appreciate.

Shawn and Victor's scene was hilarious. I don't even know if I'm laughing at it or with it. Shawn's face at the end is priceless. It was worth being yelled at by 6 year old girls. "Hey banana! Hey gangsta!"

Forreal. I have still more writing to do on this thing. Anton's piece. Morgan's stuff. I can't wait but it has too. I really wanna flesh this out. I know we're already shooting but I really wanna take my time on these two things because they are key. Good thing they are two of the last things we'll probably have to shoot. I've got plenty of time.



Arlene and Steve are soldiers. I can't even believe you guys went for as long as you did. We stretched Steve's shirt over a pillow and I think we fucked it up. Steve, I'm sorry. If it doesn't de-stretch I'll buy you a new one. Tracy is ARLENE's sister.

We drank so much water. We ate so much junk food. And yet, I lost 2 pounds. izzo.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 5:24:00 p.m. | Permalink

Digable

The Digable Planets show was crazy. Even thought they came on stupid late (12:20!), they played a long set and got everyone in the crowd hyped. There's headphone music, there's music for the ride, and then there's acts like Digable -- music that just needs to be heard live. I didn't even know how good these songs really were until I heard them live. And Ladybug. Holy hotness.

Saw five people walking the streets with broken arms, and there was a man marching down the sidewalk yelling "I WILL SHOW YOU HORRO! YOU WILL SEE HIM!"

Had to crash at Suzanne's place because I missed the last transit ride up. Suzanne put a Qtip in her eye, and Jessica swore she was just about to say everything that I said.




peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 5:12:00 p.m. | Permalink

Mr and Mrs Sith



peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 3:31:00 p.m. | Permalink

Create New Post

The city's a fucking oven. Stubbornly sticking to my workout regiment no matter what, I went to the old schoolyard track to run wind-sprints. Aften nine reps (my goal was ten) I collapsed on the floor. I think I suffered some heatstroke, because I lay there giggling to myself, tickled by the thought of not being able to make it home and having some neighbourhood kids finding my charred, stringy carcass.

I'm not scared of death but I'm scared of skin cancer. I stay covering myself in paba and putting towels or spare shirts over my head when walking to work. Summer turns me into a freak. I'm shy enough already, but with the summer heat I become lethargic and unresponsive to outside stimuli. So if you're talking to me, don't be surprised if I just roll my head around and make sleepy eyes. I'm fucking melting, that's all. I get migraines in the heat.

I'm going to see the reuinion tour of Digable Planets tonight. Free shows kick ass hard like Mirko Crocop. Lots of good live music goin down this summer. Little Brother. K-OS with John Legend and Sauks. COMMON. And that's just the first wave. Summer just started and I'm sure there's more dope shows to be announced.

Okay, so we start shooting on Friday. I don't even know what I'm thinking about this. I'm nervous, yet obviously more chill than Kev (understandably). I'm meeting up with our two principle characters tomorrow for rehearsals. I'm glad me and Kev finally ran through the entire script together. Fuck, I'm still not sure how we're gonna get down there. We got four people on the production side of things, and not one of us with access to a a vehicle.

My girlfriend is way too busy. I'm putting a bounty on her head. Someone bring her to me alive and breathing. I'll pay you twenty bucks and unlimited lattes.

I've been reading Kwasi's blog because we share a lot of the same interests and perspectives on things. Anyways...he's making me miss martial arts. I know I try to stay in things by watching UFC and I've been doing my best to get back in shape. But nothing beats actually training. And nothing's worse when Sifu comes into the store and I feel like shit because the only time I see him is when I'm making him hot chocolates.

New things coming for Halfway Magazine:
-a piece on Zen and Revenge of the Sith and why Anakin is such a bitch
-a review of Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin
-a review of Alice Wu's Saving Face
-a piece on Psylocke and Jubliee from X-Men lore

I kind of half-assed my way through the first two issues, especially the second. As filming commences and my role reduces from screenwriter to just general crew, I'm gonna redirect a lot of my focus towards the magazine. Look for better written, longer, smarter pieces. Hopefully.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 2:39:00 p.m. | Permalink

Book Review



peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 7:10:00 a.m. | Permalink

I'm Trynna Be Optimistic

But I'm feeling some Ides of March shit in the back of my head. The front too. Basically, my whole head is throbbing with bottled up anxiety and there's no room left for rationality. I'm not sure what's what anymore so I'm just trynna stop thinking about shit. But that's probably the last thing I should do. I should be thinking about shit until shit needs a restraining order. Or maybe not. I don't know. The fuck.

Went jogging today and these little girls from the French immersion school started heckling me and Mike, cooing, "Hey there sexy boys!" It's a strange feeling to be sexually harassed by little girls. They then got louder and more disturbing, yelling, "Wanna look at my ass? Don't you wanna see it?" We tried to ignore them, but eventually Mike turned around and saw that the little girls were lifting up their skirts and flashing us. Leave it to the French (immersion). I think I'm traumatized for life.

I had to take profile pics of Christianne for the pageant today. While pageants in general are needlessly ceremonial, and for the matter, next to useless, it's nice that Chris is doing this for her Lola. Lola's get kicks out of shit like pageants. Aside from that, though, I now have a good chance of getting myself on the front cover of Balita magazine, which in turn, I will turn into a t-shirt. Of myself. On the cover of Balita magazine.

Soliguin came down from Cambridge the other day and we, along with Mike, ate some animals and walked around the mall. It was just like back in the day, except with more expensive food and deeper voices. Met up with the gfs later and we all watched The Interpreter, which was about six days too long. There are exactly two sequences within this film that don't involve heavy-handed symbolic dialogue and pensive staring contests, exactly two sequences which could be described as action sequences, only two sequences that didn't drag and drawl like Sean Penn's face, and exactly both sequences were ruined in their entirety by the film's previews. The movie was three hours of "alright-ness." It starts off alright, then continues along this pace forever. The ending was alright, too.

Soliguin had a grip of new CDs and it's got me itching to pick up some new music. I copped The Perceptionists' disc a week or two back. Not bad at all. "Breathe in the Sun" has become my soundtrack lately. Or at least I'm trying to make it that way. I'm trying to be optimistic, yunno.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 11:25:00 p.m. | Permalink