Sunday, February 26, 2006

No money, no food, no gas! AGAIN!

Dude so more developments: yes the plot thickens. After spending 6 weeks or so living in Toronto, we were off to Windsor to travel to a really big store to try and make some money to put us ahead. Our job is kind of crazy, but it demaded that we learn to speak confidently in front of a crowd and we believe that as a result we have gained a lot of confidence to perform our poetry and music in front of a crowd. Of corse we have quickly learned to despise our new job for many other reasons.

Well as it turns out Windsor is a real drag. Good news is that we wrote a multitude of new songs in our little green hotel room. We are so super excited about them! Also just as our situation here has reached a newly undesirable apex, our friends in West Virginia have called and given us news that makes want to drop what we are doing even more! Turns out they bought a whole building in the town that neighbors their house on the mountain.They are starting a music venue / art gallery / etc etc. They are placing their beautiful house for sale and building a number of apartments within the building they bought. They want us to move there with them and do this whole thing. Sounds fantastic! There will be 6 of us total living and working in the building- kind of an artist colony/ ashram/ commune. Sounds kinda like what we had in mind the first time we were going to move in with them. Evidentally the building is super large with many floors and rooms (including a ballroom). In my mind the whole thing loosly parallels happenings of the big brother and the holding co.’s mountain home and the family dog commune’s avalon ballroom in SF in the early to mid 60’s.

Anyway, the stores in Windsor are not really hoppin, probably because it is february and the slowest time of year for retail sales. Reguardless, we are satisfied with the money that we are making. Unfortunately, we won’t see that money until we return to Toronto! Now we haven’t had a day off in over a week, and we’ve got about a week to go. We’re pretty tired but worst of all, yes we are broke again! With all the working how could we be broke? The problem is that WE are paying for the hotel, gas, and precooked food (ie pizza, takeout because there we only have microwave in hotel room) and it adds up qiuckly. We stayed one week in the hotel we intially booked, but downgraded to an unlisted, cheaper alternative for our second week. Our lovely stationwagon Abner is ready for retirement and has developed a gas leak in addition to the many other leaks he has. Therefore we are also spending more on gas than expected.

That brings us up to speed. We have about $1.50 in canadian quarters, 1 bottle of water, 2 guitars, 2 laptops, an amp, 2 suitcases, and some books. Oh also I found a mostly empty packet of sunflower nuts that have been in the car for nearly a year. We are in a small motel room that by my estimate is 8’x12’ and we haven’t eaten since 5 oclock. We are both pretty hungry that “meal” 6 hours ago was just a veggie burger for each of us. No fries, no potato, no salad. Just sandwich and water. Now I know 6 hours without food is easy, but what happens tomorrow? We wake up and go to work hungry and work our 12 hour day without food? We have made plans to buy a loaf of bread or something similar which we will consume to keep us from passing out. We kind of feel like slaves or prisoners. We are pretty fed up with the way things are going here and we are feeling ripped off: we are doing all the work and paying for all the expenses required just to do that work! To be fair, when we make it back to Toronto we will be showered our pay, but that doesn’t really help us now. I have put in a call to our boss to western union us some of our pay that we would have gotten last Friday but I’m not sure she will because I don’t think she was very receptive to the urgency of our situation. Probably because to her ‘have no money’ means only have maybe $100 or $200 left. That and she is a terrible listener.

Well now that I’ve complained about our situation suffice it to say that I’m not really complaining. We’ve definitely been in worse, and besides, it’s all a learning experience. Poverty spawns art. We have already written a half an albums worth of songs. Even if the whole thing turns out to be a flop, the crazy experience will have been worth it. Besides it may have been a necessary step to push us back toward Lori and Robert.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Valentines Day

So we went on a long Valentines Day walk through Toronto. We ate lunch at the Pulp Kitchen on east queen st. Great food there. Wheatgrass smoothies too. Then we continued on downtown and eventually crossed yonge st. to find the ice skating rink being prepped by the zamboni. Everyone sat on the surrounding benches with skates on in anticipation It was very romantic.

We’re people watchers, so we sat on the bench in our shoes watching all the couples skating or trying their best to skate. A young couple stopped in front of us on the ice. They waited for their friends to circle by for a picture. They were both dressed alternatively and had various piercings – they were adorable – quite punky. We sat for a little while longer oberving the beautiful event before we continued onto west queen st. This was our newfound favorite spot of town: kind of punky young cool crowd around. Some head shops, small music venues, and alt. clothing stores. The houses and buildings in the area are older and much prettier than on the far east side past greektown. Victorian houses, ornate designs, probably from the late 1800’s, I would guess. Colourful apartments in the 2nd floors and attics, various storefronts on the 1st floors of them.

Walking about, several hours later we passed the young alternative couple from the skating rink in the area. All around the streets were people holding hands, kissing, carrying flowers. Someone had even painted and chalked hearts up and down the sidewalks of all the streets west of downtown. On the subway couples holding onto each other in anticipation of getting home, perhaps. I know we were. Every station we passed seemed to display at least one couple on the platform about to catch the next train in leiu of their own distractions. Toronto may have been cold on Valentines Day but to a pair of moniless bohemian kids in love it was warm and cozy.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Open Stages

So we've been doing the open mics
on tuesdays its poetry /spokenword /music
and on thursday its accoustic music.
There is also one on wednesday night that we havent been able to make it to yet,
but we starting to get involved with the whole scene and the artists.

Last Tuesday night we did the spoken word open mic and a guy had Amber go on his radio show after with a bunch of live booked artists to do some spoken word and an interview. So she was on the radio! It was awesome. The featured band for hte radio show was called Lucy (formerly Chykweed). They were awesome.

So we've been writing more songs up here. We have also picked up a couple more covers. Our sudden decision to sign up for these open stages twice a week has forced us to realize that we needed to spend more time writing and playing and practicing. It's great!

We've also had the opprotunity to do quite a bit more reading because we have cut television completely out. I'm actually reading a biography about Janis Joplin written by her sister Laura.

We now must get ready to head out into the cold snow to go to another open stage tonight. Amber has a poem about our homelessness last autumn that is crazy with magic!