Friends of friends wrote a song about Alberta. It feels perfect… in it’s hills, it’s valleys, it’s spaces, it’s ghosts, it’s flaws, it’s everything.
There is a frantic chase. Running through the jungles, barefoot over tree roots, and fronds and vines are scrapping at faces. Shielding eyes with arms and blindly charging, pursuing, escaping. Screaming at shadows as corners are turned and grinning as the sun shines through the leaves and sparkles on bloody knuckles. There is a frantic chase, for something. For the joy of breaking through dense claustrophobia into the wide open air, on beaches, and in meadows. For laughing in harmony with all the friends and strangers that have ever been met, laughing with dirty grubby faces, and wide eyes. Royal Canoe sings for it. For that moment when it stops being about escape and becomes a party where nobody cares about anything except for the fact that they’re having the best time of their lives.
They will be here soon.
I used to live in Melbourne. I used to walk around the city with my hands in my pockets. Past the Botanic Gardens, across the Yarra and into downtown. Listening to drummers on the sidewalks, buying records and reading up on the races. I almost started smoking in Melbourne. It just seemed like it might be a great place to start.
That city changed everything for me.
Noble Oak reminds me of it.
She was the foremost of noble ladies. Builder of temples, powerful in her reign. She traded with the Punt and brought myrrh to Egypt. She ruled with a peaceful grace, and died at middle age.
All she wanted was a swimming pool.
The lights flicker due to bad wiring. There are shotgun shells on the floor alongside stained rugs. Cold smoke from cheap cigarettes hangs in the air and ashburns cover the hardwood. This place has almost been abandoned. Faint ghost notes from the record player drone from the bedroom. There sits Smokey. Scratching, and groaning with the ghost notes. Enter those eyes and you’ll be lost. Driven into a cold winter, deeper than even Edmonton could muster.
Listen to those howls, that crunch. Feel the whiskey warm your belly.
Forbidden love. Out of reach and untrappable. There is heartbreak, and percussion. You can feel the stab wounds. Every methodical and intentional thrust. It borders on discomfort. That percussion. That steady roll of thunder on the horizon line. Bones are rattling underground with it, with all that love.
Raleigh are from Calgary. They are methodical and intentional and wonderful, and an orchestral three-piece. It is truly beautiful music, set with their hearts on their fingertips. They are fighting it out in a big city, and rolling in the leaves.
Unfortunately I am not the most reliable, not the most scheduled, or the most reasonable. So it happens to have been a while since the last post here on ‘Our Douglas Fur’. It is okay though, for I’m back with a nugget.
Saskatoon is good for many things. Youthful towns usually are. You find spirit there, and hope. Comradeship, brother/sisterhood, community, and general isolation. In the middle of the blue sky you will find little to look at except the sun. Everyone will look together and with eyes closed, it’s not so bad.
Fisticuffs are a good band, with good hearts, and good things to talk about.
One hundred times I’ve woken up with black eyes and a quiet heart. Noticing the way the sun shone through the curtains and softly landed on the blank walls. Feeling alone, and feeling warm. One hundred times I’ve thought about how I’ll sit on the very top of a house and smoke a cigarette. A one way script, and one hundred ideas of how it will be. From there I’d go back and shake my friend’s hand. Firm, meaningful, proud. Realistically. I’d walk on sidewalk cracks and kick stones. I’d swing over rivers and laugh at great jokes. I’d build a fire out of dry wood and stare at everything. One hundred times I’ve fallen asleep and dream about life. Other dimensions explaining that I’m exactly where I should be.
You’re exactly where you should be.
You’re firm, meaningful, proud.
Frantic as we all are, it seems we all have a little something to worry about. At least most of us do. There are moments in life when we don’t. Moments when we can sit back and even if just for 5 minutes think of… nothing. Nothing at all. How important those moments are. For the stability of the mind, those times are vital. We couldn’t function without them. They are the most inspiring, the most cataclysmic, the most defining. It is like completely blacking out and waking up 12 hours later having written a manuscript solving all of Alberta’s transportation problems (zeppelins!!!).
When you grow up in the ‘mountain paradise’ of Calgary and make music that sounds like the ‘beaches’ of California, when you grind your teeth into a paste and mix it with rock salt, when you surf through concrete playgrounds and pour out of grates. You might just be having one of those ‘moments’ they, I, you, talk about.
please contact me at: ourdouglasfur@gmail.com if you have music to submit, or are the copyright holder of posted material and would like it removed.
