The Long Weekend

"Ok, Bill, I will have all the clothing and snorkeling gear packed by, say, around noon," the wife says to her husband over the phone. "We'll leave the house at three and wait outside your office for 3:30. But don't be late, ok, I don't want to have to park the Cherokee and come to find you. Because I'll have the dog in the back too. She's been throwing up again."

"Ok, need anything else?"

"I have a change of clothes for you in the car. You can change on the way up. Don't be late. I don't want to be taking 5 hours just to get to Barrie on the 400. People are already leaving now to make it up. The neighbours just left--- I told you to take the day off. I hope we make it up there by dinner at least. There's construction. I know it..."

"Ok I willl be waiting. I promise."

"We need to hurry."

"I will, I will,"

"Did you cancel the paper?"

"No, I'll call now. If not I get someone to pick it up for us."

Ah, the summer long weekend has come to Toronto again. Out my window, I can hear the cars idling on Yonge Street, moving like steel snails to the highway onramp. The occational angry horn blares.

This is a Toronto tradition: every white, upper-middle class person evacuates the city this weekend, the cars are laden with coolers and clothes, roofs shouldering canoes and kayaks. The kids are in the back watching DVDs.

They're all heading to the cottage, the bastion of freedom and relaxation, there to laugh at the suckers in the city with the heat and pollution. The streets are packed now. Bumper to bumper all the way up. And on Monday, depressed and sunburned and freckled with bites, they will do the same on the return journey. Have fun!

Fortunately, the city will soon be quiet. Gone are the SUVs and cars and teenagers. They've gone up to rip around on speed boats and sea-doos. The neighbour's air conditioner has been switched off. My neighbourhood is so peaceful, with its tall trees and parks, it seems like a cottage.

People of the city, the city is ours this weekend!

The Woods, Kerouac Style

The Niagra Escarpment, near the Beaver Valley [Click to Enlarge]

Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road, was best known as being the "founder" of the Beat Generation. He never liked that association too much. Now that Francis Ford Coppola has finally exercised his rights to the book for an upcoming feature film, the world will soon hear much more about old "Ti-Jean" in 2006. After he wrote On the Road, Kerouac became entered more solitude, often retreating to the woods as a mountain ranger for months at a time alone. During that time he was able to best describe the feeling you can get by sitting at the base of some very old trees by yourself. This passage is from The Dharma Bums:

"...it seemed that I had seen the ancient afternoon of that trail, from meadow rocks and lupine posies, to sudden revisits with the roaring stream with its splashed snag bridges and undersea greennesses, there was something inexpressibly broken in my heart as though I'd lived before and walked this trail, under similar circum­stances with a fellow friend, but maybe on a more important journey; I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drift­ing across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstasy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass." -- 1958

No Design in the Forest

(Click to enlarge)

On Sunday, I sat down in the forest and just watched for a while. No cars, no wires, music or computers. Nothing here is designed or planned. Everything falls where it may. The wind moved the branches like bird wings, with the sound of the ocean. The light would flicker through the green canopy and perform puppet shadow shows on the forest floor. Bees and mosquitos do their work. When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Absolutely, yes.

Warriors Write Letters Instead

This weekend, Canada's defense minister visited the high arctic. Unlike most politicians on the move, he was not there to shake hands and charm votes from the handful of residents who live in thousands of square kilometers of uninhabitable land. No, he was there to defend Canada’s sovereignty. Not from the Chinese Red Army, not from the Russians, no not even the Americans. Grahams was protecting Canada's sovereignty from -- wait for it -- Denmark. Since 1973, Canada and Denmark have disputed a few islands that separate Greenland from Canada's high arctic. One of these, called Hans Island, is where Graham set foot and planted a Canadian flag. The Danish were not impressed. Only years before, they had placed their on flag on its barren 1.3 square kilometer patch of rock. Denmark, with a navy larger than Canada, and a Viking heritage -- shot back with one of the most powerful weapons in modern warfare. Demark says it will send -- wait for it -- "a protest letter" to Canada over the incident. Perhaps the paper is dipped in poison. A deadly paper cut!

Chicago: Design in the City

A photo of the roof of the Rookery in downtown Chicago.

Our road trip passed through Chicago. Known as the Second City because of its rivalry with New York. Chicago, from what I saw in four hours, has the urbaneness of New York minus the massive, sweltering frenetic energy. For me, I've always known it as the birthplace as modern architecture. This is where they built the world's first sky-scraper (a point of pride over New York.) Now that sky scrapers dominate the landscape in cities all over the world, it is interesting to see its humble beginnings, usually pressed-brick structures that you'd likely pass by if you did not know their significance. From here, the modern principals of designer came to life through architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. Thankfully, they have saved theses buildings, including the Rookery (see photo above). Even with their dust and rust, they put today's modern, tacky sky scrapers to shame.

Today, Chicago still reins in urban design. The new Millennium Park, designed by Frank Gery, is an inspiring, risk taking, urban project that brings life to their waterfront. As our companion Shahid said: "when the Americans do public projects they either get it very right, or they get it very wrong. Here they got it right." Rick says, "they would never have this in canada. After such a project went to the committee, it would be a Chicago copy and then watered down to make is safe."


The giant silver bean in Millennium park. A mysterious, but interactive public art project.

Edna/Olga Bites The Dust

Eight kilometers outside of Winnipeg, we pull out of the PetroCan station onto the TransCanada hightway. We can see the buildings of downtown in the near distance.

"Uh....um," says Rick. "Somethings up here."
"What?"
"The gears aren't working."
"Huh?"
"Look..."

He pops the gear into 4th, the car starts to sputter and lurch. He puts on the hazard lights and pulls off onto the shoulder. He turns of the engine. I roll down the window, letting in the pleasent sound of crickets and wind in the grass. The sun is hot. We know nothing about mechanics -- two journalism students decide that it must be a clutch or a transmission problem. Rick calls CAA to buy a membership, but is denied. We are referred to a towing service called Dr. Hook. The dispatcher says we'll have to wait an hour. The sun begins to set. We roll down more windows -- only to be greeted by Winnipeg's most notorious residents: big, hungry mosquitos.

"Did we pack any bug repellent?" asks Rick.

Road Kill, Northern Style

Canadian Shield

Rick and I drive the Volvo further north along the Trans-Canada Highway, past Sault Ste. Marie. The 2-lane stretch of road winds around The Canadian Shield: round hills dotted with patches of pencil-thin pine trees and stands of poplar; ink-blue lakes with smooth shores of pink granite; mini-canyons blasted away into rough shards and blocks to make the road smoother and straighter. Two-gas-pump towns dot the long unbroken expanses of water and wood.

But one thing we do not see: road kill. Every drive on a Canadian highway involves the unpleasant sight of dead wildlife. But not up here.

"Rick, I wonder why we haven't seen much road kill."
"The kind of road kill they have up here is the kind that kills you," he replies.

He switches on the high beams.

Prairies

There is nothing to say about the prairies -- not becaues it is boring. The enormous sky, the samness of green, brown, and carry your thoughts away.

Michigan Pit Stop

The United States can ban our beef, but they'll never ban our Royal Canadian Mounted Worms.

Volvo take me home

On the road again with my friend Rick.

We're driving from Toronto to Winnipeg and back. We're driving in a 23-year-old Volvo station wagon with 256,000 KM. It's an experienced beast. It's been accross the country a handful of times. It's burgandy paint has faded and chipped -- the spots of rust along the doors look like bleeding bullet wounds. It takes 10 seconds to start, and rumbles like an unbalanced washing machine when it runs. Inside the, the squeaking windshield wipers scrape over the cracked windshield. We have a CD changer hooked up, but only on speaker works. The seats are worn, and sunken, like an old couch in your grandparents basement. The taillights are gone - which a mechanic hotwired for us in Sault Saint Marie. There is no air conditioning, the vents spew out air like a hair dryer. We have to shout to make simple conversation. The shifter gets unusually hot in fouth gear. But we love this car. Rick calls her Edna, I prefer something Sweedish. I call her Olga.

Thunder Bay next.

Vacation

Mikerophone is out of Commission until mid july.

Check out my buddy Andrew's blog in the meantime.

Christie Blatchford

For those who read the Globe and Mail....

Is it me or do you have a love hate relationship with The Globe's Christie Blachford. I hate that she is the amabassador of drama, from Bernardo to bombs in London. But her straightforward writing does, thankfully, cut through the typical journalism-speak that most reporters learn in journalism school.

London, July 8

"Yeah whatever. You just got to get on with it, really."


Ya ya, whatever.

Summer Reading

Here are my top books so far this year that make for good reading. It can take me up to 3 weeks of deciding and considering before I actually read them. So these are the top picks:

1) Natasha by David Bezmozgis - A brilliant, funny collection of short stories about a young kid and his immigrant Latvian parents trying to carve a life out for themselves in the Jane and Finch area in Toronto. Some stories have appeared in the New Yorker and Harper's. The writing it tight, crisp, and cracking with wit and dark cynicism.

2) North of South by Shiva Naipaul - In 1975, Shiva Naipaul, a Trinidadian, West-Indian writer went to East Africa to take the pulse of three countries nearly a decade after independence. His accounts of his travels read like novel, with funny scenes that are mainly cynicism, but much praise for the beauty of the surroundings. Not too political, not too descriptive.

3) Simpatico by Sam Shepherd - Most people don't like reading plays. But Sam Shepherd plays are like reading a good Jack Kerouac novel, set in the past, they are always gritty witty. This one is part mystery, part tryst.

Killer Tasting Coffee

Sick of hearing about Karla Homolka? Well, in her CBC interivew, which is now playing on an interminable loop on television, she says:

"This will sound stupid. I'd like to have an iced cappuccino. An iced cappuccino from Tim Hortons, that's what I'd like to do."

The media coverage has become so gross, The Globe and Mail dedicated an entire article to this very statement. Tim Horton's, sensing its pristine all-Canadian image was on the verge of melting, has officially distanced itself from the comments:

"We know customers can differentiate what Tim Hortons stands for as a good community company and that there's no association between us and her," spokesman Greg Skinner said.

Gee. Really? Are you sure you are not in cahoots with other's behind bars?

At least she didn't say she wanted to go to Disneyland.

Moka Only Interview

Moka Only is one of the members of The Swollen Members, a Vancouver-based hip hop trio. This interview was conducted in the Beaches in Toronto. He's a very cool, genuine person. After the interview, I hitched a ride with Rick Campanelli who drove me to the subway in the MuchMusic van. It was my brush with fame....

Inside a dim Vancouver Bingo hall, a 22-year-old frizzy-haired waiter named Daniel Denton delivers coffees on a tray to weathered seniors hunched over numbered cards and coloured markers. Each time, he walks away without a tip. Every 9-to-5 shift he witnesses the same depressing scene: down-and-out people in a torn-down neighbourhood hoping for their numbers to line up right.

One day, the waiter’s favourite hip hop group The Pharcyde comes to town. He asks for the night off. The boss refuses. However, a few hours later, the waiter is in the audience waiting for The Pharcyde to take the stage. Meanwhile, the Bingo boss is waiting for his waiter to show up for work. But the waiter never appears. Ever again.

“It was the most terrible job I ever had. I hated it. It was 1994. I said no more. It’s just going to be music. I don’t care what I have to do,” recalls Denton. “It was like an awakening.”

That waiter is now known today as Moka Only—one of the most distinguishable names in Canadian hip hop. For five years he has been a key member of Vancouver’s Swollen Members.

Now, as he recalls his past life as a Joe-jobber, Moka sits comfortably on the set for a video shoot for his latest solo album, The Desired Effect. Ladies serve him gummy bears and chocolate on trays. Inside the set, two pretty ladies in underwear and dancing for the camera. Three television reporters are waiting patiently to interview him next.

But the move from being Daniel Denton to Moka Only, now age 32, was a long, hard-fought battle.

After pledging never to work a 9-to-5 job again, Moka Only focused on his music as a writer and producer. Using any studio space he could find, he would record on a 4-track machine and sell his homemade albums for cash on the streets of Vancouver in order eat. He also admits to selling other “unmentionables” to top up his pockets.

“I didn’t want to wait for nobody,” he says. “ ‘cause at that point in time, no major label was looking towards Vancouver, especially for hip hop.”

Without the help of a major label Moka continued to carve out himself a name in Vancouver, booking his own show and tours, and overseeing the production of his constant flow on indie albums. On his records he would sample and record his own beats and play the instruments. To date, he claims he’s recorded over 20.

Moka eventually met fellow Vancouver-based hip hoper Prevail during the mid 1990’s, a future member of the Swollen Members. Together, they shared the stages on the West Coast, including a brief relocation to San Diego, California. But the artistic recognition didn’t mean financial success. At one point, Moka says they called a BFI garbage dumpster “home.”

As he talks, he exposes his two forearms tattooed with the words, “Durable Mammal,” a name he coined for himself during those years living on the street.

Moka Only and Prevail eventually joined forces with another Vancouver lyricist Mad Child. After a now infamous late-night munchie run to a Denny’s, they jokingly agreed to name their posse the “Fat Dicks.” Moka, employing his street savvy, modified the name to Swollen Members. By 1996 they were working in the studio and released their first 12” in 1999 under their own record label named Battle Axe.

Four years later, the Swollen Members released four albums and earned a Juno award for Best Rap Recording. Despite the awards and heavy Canadian rotation, Swollen Members remained underground (or unknown) internationally. By September 2004, Moka Only decided he wanted to return to his solo career.

“With the group it’s good, but no one individual get a focus, and I’m a Scorpio, and I like the focus to be on me I guess,” he says. “I got a lot of stuff that I want to get off my chest that I didn’t get to in the group. Because when you are in a group you all compromise.”

He sees his latest solo project as a “return to form.” That return includes a renewed interest in his hobbies. But indulging in excess chemicals isn’t one of them.

“I used to drink—a lot— smoke weed, and do all the dumb teenager things,” says Moka. “None of that exists anymore. I’m straight edge; I’m just trying to concentrate on my business.”

His “business” includes devoting “as much time as possible” to his other non-musical passion: train spotting. He will go to his favourite bridge outside of Vancouver to watch trains come and go. Moka also boasts a collection of vintage keyboards.

“I’m just a nerd, man, for real,” he says.

As he readies to return to his video shoot, Moka Only says he hopes his new solo efforts will make him money and allow him to tour on his own. Ironically, he is now producing for the former members of the Pharcyde, the group that inspired his break into music 11 years ago.

It seems Moka’s career is part durability, part luck, part Bingo.

Give us the Sun

Reach for the future, Billy. It's hot like the sun.

Another weather related story.

Another heat wave grips Southern Ontario in a deep pall of haze, smog, and humidity. A giant high pressure system has trapped the air in one spot, allowing pollution from the cities and energy plants to accumulate. What's worse, this weather system allows air from the U.S. midwest to gently float up and stay in Ontario like an unwelcome tourist.

How do we solve this problem? Easy. More air conditioning! Crank it to 10.

The result? Ontario set a record for electrical power consumption: 26,000+ Megawatts of energy. Ironically, we had to burn more coal to keep us cooler.

So what we need is more power right?

Last week, ITER , a multi-country scientific collective, announced that their experimental nuclear fusion reactor will be awarded to France. ITER is a mini-power plant that will essentially create a mini-star on the surface of the Earth. Today, every nuclear power station generates energy by breaking atoms apart and harnessing the released energy. ITER does the opposite. It pushes together two hyrogen atoms to make other atoms -- just like the sun has done for the last few billion years. It promises to generate temperatures of up to 100-million degrees celcius and generate 500 Megawatts of power.

The cost? A cool $12-Billion to start. $5 Billion to keep it running. And that is just the experiment. By building ITER reactors we could have nearly unlimited amounts of "clean" power, more efficient than we have now.

But is more power better? It's like eating at an all you can eat buffet. You have the opportunity to eat as much as you can. At first this seems great! You fill your plate up 10 times. But soon you go up for the 11th time. Your belly is full, and you have a half-eaten chicken, an untouched mousse in the bowl, and a glass of juice that will be thrown in the drain. You can only eat so much.