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My girlfriend is an art teacher at the new 4Cats Arts Studio for kids. The other night she invited some friends into the studio to create some splatter paint art to be hung on the wall. We flung paint off brushes, squeezed it out of syringes, and popped balloons full of the stuff. It was a beautiful mess.

On another note, here’s a painting I did in the studio…it’s my first time painting on a canvas.

23 November 2011

I’ve recently become very intrigued by spoken word poetry, specifically slam poetry. The passion inspires me, mostly, I think, because I lack that passion and love seeing it in other people. I love the play on words, the rhythm, and the emotion. I took a stab at it myself. I’m not entirely sure I got the cadence right. At some point I’d like to give a shot at reading and recording it (which, I suppose, would actually make it “spoken word.”)

Before the poem, though, here are a couple sweet performances to get you in the rhythm.

Adam Gottlieb. This kid’s 17. Wow.

Canadian, Shane Koyczan.

What will it take?

What it will take
Is a resistance to the system that we’ve come to embrace
For no other reason than just because it is
For resistance is to question what we’ve been led to believe
Not necessarily lies, but stories
Stories that have become truths in the synapses of our minds
Bonds so tight that even though we recognize them we still
Can’t break free.

But recognition is where it all begins
When questions and childlike innocence form the stem that grows up and out
Piercing through convention and unimagination
Like the roots of a tree busting through concrete sidewalks and building foundations
The story has an end, like all stories do
But this story ain’t a fairytale
The princess doesn’t get the prince
The frog stays a frog
The witch eats the kids
And this is OK because coming right behind it is something new
Truth, love, honesty, connection, vulnerability
Words that have lost meaning amidst
The six o’clock news, Facebook, and pornography.

These words are on the lips of a new generation
As well as an old generation
Because wisdom has no age limitations
The awakened spirit is not exclusive to an esoteric crowd jockeying for position
They’re on the lips of teachers, doctors, and bus drivers
Construction workers, soldiers, and the unemployed
Those who get scowled at to, “Get a job, hippie!”
And, even if they don’t know it yet, they’re on the lips of
Those who do the scowling.

Because there is no “us” and “them”
Imagine:
Lakes vs. clouds
Flowers vs. mountains
The moon vs. the earth
The separation is causing annihilation
We must reconvene on the scene
Where community is the top priority
And where we stare in each others’ eyes
With understanding and compassion
And fashion for ourselves
A new reality.

19 November 2011

Last week I was part of a band that performed five songs in front of a packed house. The space may have been relatively small, but it was packed nonetheless. All the seats sat in; people standing in the back. I’d guess there were around 80 people or so. For sure it was the most amount of people I’ve ever performed in front of.

The group was put together by a local singer…we (myself, Shannon, and Tami) were singing students of Aspen and for 10 weeks or so we gathered once a week to practice a song that each of us picked out as well as a couple of others. Unfortunately, the two songs that I sang lead on (Josh Ritter’s “Good Mad” and the Wailin’ Jennys “One Voice”) didn’t get recorded due to a button mishap, but I’m glad that these two were.

The above video is a cover of Mumford & Sons’ “White Blank Page”, on which Shannon and Aspen share lead vocals and I play guitar on and sing harmonies. The below video is Shannon singing her chosen song, Pink’s “Sober”. Enjoy! I know I did.

Photo: bernat...

15 November 2011

Wow. It’s been a long time since my last post here. There is not one single post from October, and November is now half over. Oh well. Such is life.

The other night I was at my girlfriend’s place and we decided to have some creative fun. We Googled creative writing games and the one we chose to do involved two words and 10 minutes. We each picked a word (mine was “seashell”, hers was “necklace”) and set the timer. It was go time.

I hadn’t written fiction is ages — it was something I wanted to try again. I was pretty happy with what came out; I feel it hits on multiple levels, has a nice tie-in at the end, and is vague enough to make it interesting. Of course, that’s just my opinion. You be the judge.

It was not long ago that Sandra had all her hair. She couldn’t recall, though, how it felt when the breeze blew through it. These days she wore lots of hats. Big hat, little hats, pointy hats, hats with floppy brims.

She liked the shape of her head, how her ears stuck out at just the right angle. Just the right angle for her to hear the old couple screaming at each other in the apartment above her. Sometimes they stomped around so much it shook her favourite seashell off the shelf.

But it never broke, that trusty souvenir she picked up on a vacation to Mexico three years ago. She had hair then, she recalled, although she’d just had it cut. She cut it for Shane because he once said he thought the blonde girl from Wilson Philips was pretty. Sandra didn’t have blonde hair, but she wasn’t about to dye her red hair. That’s where she drew the line.

He bought her a necklace on that trip. He haggled the poor beach vendor down to four pesos. The overtanned Mexican said it cost him four pesos. But she didn’t believe him. She didn’t trust very many people. Not even Shane. He cheated on her once, once when she had long hair.

A little while back we also had a night of drawing. I used to sketch a little back in the day. I took art class in highschool but I was never really good at drawing things from my mind. I was pseudo-OK when I looked at something and drew it. Since it was my first time drawing in quite a while, and because it was fall, I chose a pumpkin. This is what came out:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Oh, and if you want to check me out playing a little geetar, here I am with my roomie, covering Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box”…

Since I’m not doing much traveling these days, I hope to use this space more for creative endeavours. It’s still travel, just a different kind.

Climbing in Slocan

29 August 2011

It was only my third day of rock climbing. I’d proved to myself already that I could reach the top of climbs graded 5.8* and lower. We were climbing in Slocan, a wall Carrie told me was “fun” and a good confidence builder. After failing to reach the top of 5.10 climbs the previous two climbing days, I needed to build some confidence.

Click for larger image

I’d never climbed a wall so high. The routes used almost all of the 60 meter ropes, meaning the climbs were around 30 meters. I started on a couple 5.8s (doing one twice) and had a reasonably easy time reaching the top. I tackled a 5.9, which presented a bit more of a challenge, but got to the top without too much drama. Four climbs, all successful. I was pretty stoked.

The great thing about climbing in Slocan is that the wall is right at the lake. We dove in to cool off then played on the floating logs, trying to do yoga poses without falling in (I felt crow pose was my crowning achievement). We had time to do one more climb before leaving. Robert, who’s been climbing for many years, led a 5.10b. Carrie climbed it second while I watched on, taking mental notes. The crux of the climb (the most difficult part), was this small section in the middle that didn’t have much for holds and was in a corner.

Carrie struggled briefly at the crux, but got through it. Her struggling concerned me a little as she is an experienced climber, but I was keen to try it. I was brimming with confidence. When it came my turn I easily reached the crux, then hit the wall. I think knowing less can be better sometimes, because you end up doing what you need to do, without worrying if it’s the “right” or “wrong” thing to do. In this case, I was doing whatever it took to get through this.

I got stuck for long periods of time, feeling around above me for cracks to hold on to. My forearms were tiring, my toes getting sore from all the pressure of standing on tiny ledges. I yelled, I grunted, I swore at the wall. I fell. Of course, Carrie had me so I hung there for a few minutes, gathering myself and resting my muscles. I grabbed the wall again. I was still getting nowhere. At this point I kissed the wall, deciding to make peace with it instead of fighting it.

I slowly made progress again. As I neared the top of the crux I had a couple more moves to get over it, a lateral move that would get me to the other side of the rock where better holds were. I fell again. I gathered myself again. With a couple more grunts I got over it, and from there it was straight forward to the top. When I reached the top, I spread my arms wide and gave the wall a big bear hug, chest and cheek pressed right up against it. In that moment, I had nothing but love for that wall.

In the car, I reflected on the climb. It occurred to me that at no point during that climb did I ever have doubts about reaching the top. During my previous attempts at 5.10 climbs there always came a point where my mind said, “that’s it, you can’t do it, time to give up.” On this climb, that thought never occurred to me. My mind was always on “you’re getting to the top of this no matter what it takes” mode.

The four successful climbs earlier that day were a huge part, building up my confidence and making me feel like I could do anything. We stopped at the Cedar Creek Cafe in Winlaw on the way home for dinner. I deserved those fries.

*Rock climbing grades each route dependent on difficulty and danger. Class 5 means vertical or near-vertical. The 8 in 5.8 identifies the difficulty within class 5 grades. After 5.10 letters (a,b,c,d) are added as sub-grades (5.10 used to be the most difficult). According to Wikipedia, the most difficult climb is currently 5.15b.

28 August 2011

[Note: This post was written after a press trip to Thailand in July 2010 and was originally published at Nerd's Eye View. (Hi Pam!)]

47B. That’s me. Aisle seat. On a 17-hour flight, I made sure to take an aisle seat.

I was flying from LA to Bangkok and was seated next to a short 50-ish Indian man wearing bright yellow Bermuda shorts. His eyes sparkled behind big gold-rimmed specs and his moustache stretched across his face as he smiled.

We didn’t introduce ourselves but we exchanged our stories. He was a business man working in the textiles industry in Southern India and was returning to Asia after some business meetings in Mexico and the States. I was a travel writer (although he insisted on calling me a journalist) on my way to Bangkok as a guest of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

“There are others of me on this flight, but I’m not even sure who they are. I’ve never met them,” I told him.

“You know, I’m a business man, but I’m very creative. I write poetry,” he said to me. Unsure what to do with this information, I smiled, nodded politely, and said something like, “Really? That’s great,” before pressing play on my headrest movie.

We cut in and out of conversation, enjoying each others company as much as we enjoyed our own solitude. He was rude to the flight attendants, always making very particular requests as if we were in first class (“No, I said no ice.”). He also made a noise like a cow every once in a while, which I later realized was him burping. Once, while I was waiting patiently for the bathroom, he came over and rapped on the door. When the lady came out and sat back in her seat, I embarrassingly whispered to her, “just so you know, that wasn’t me who knocked.”

At some point — time means nothing when flying across fourteen time zones — I noticed him writing. I looked without trying to look like I was looking. At the top of the page was scribbled For Honey Bee. Words and sentences followed but, respecting his privacy, I turned back to the movie.

Earlier, he’d told me that his wife died three years ago; this poem must be about her, I thought. I re-focused on my movie, Green Zone. While Matt Damon was yelling orders to his men at a weapons-of-mass-destruction site, I noticed my new friend had stopped writing and was wiping his eyes with a tissue. Through the sound of gunfire in my earphones I could hear him sobbing. I kept watching.

Later, while Greg Kinnear was sending his Pentagon thugs to kill the Iraqi army general, my seatmate again paused in his writing, looked out the window and wiped away tears. His sniffling made it through the noise of a car chase. The movie was reaching its climax.

Somewhere over an ocean, sometime between meals and restless napping, he put his pen down, picked up the paper, and turned to me. “My sister-in-law, my wife’s elder sister…she died last week. While I was away on business.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was a gas explosion. She must have forgotten to turn off the gas at night, and when she went to light the stove the next morning…”

He told me her husband smelled something and was trying to tell her when she lit the match. It was like a scene from a movie. In my head, Matt Damon was playing the husband.

“She was like my elder sister. She helped and supported me when my wife died. She was always there for me.”

He pushed the paper into my hands and asked me to read his poem. It started on the right half of the page, had some things crossed out, arrows to change the sequence of some lines, then it continued on the left half of the page.

“Honeybee. That’s what I called her.”

I was moved. Not only because he chose to share such a personal thing with me, but because of the pain and suffering he has gone through, first with his wife, now with this. I felt compassion. My personal relationship issues suddenly seemed so unimportant. Other than the moments of sobbing, he was remarkably happy. I saw him as a testament to how resilient we can be in the face of tragedy.

“It’s beautiful,” I told him as I handed it back. He smiled that moustache-stretching smile and then turned to look out the window.

I put my earphones back in and selected another movie.

[Feature photo by Roydy]

24 August 2011

If you don’t know, MatadorU is our online writing and photography school. We have students signing up on a daily basis, many of them using it to launch their career in these worlds (check out some of our students’ success stories). But I won’t bore you too much writing about it. Watch this video:

One of the best things about the course, in my opinion, is the workshopping with editors every week. It’s a chance for students to present drafts of articles for Matador editors to give feedback on. I’ve been involved in many and from the comments I see coming back from the students, it’s an invaluable part of the U.

We’ve also recently launched a series of interviews with the editorial staff from National Geographic Traveler (Keith Bellows, Amy Alipio, Norie Quintos, Marilyn Terrell, Kathie Gartrell, and Dan Westergren). Each of the interviews focuses on different topics like: how to craft a story, how to pitch NatGo Traveler, secrets to great travel photography, and how to get discovered on Flickr. (Side note: I had a photo discovered on Flickr by a book publishing company. They paid me $300 for the use of it as a book cover. So it does happen.) Below is the teaser for the series. The actual interviews are only available to MatadorU students.

But you want to hear about the upcoming photography workshops, right? MatadorU faculty member, Alex Robinson, will be leading these three courses held in London, Sao Paulo, and Bangkok. Alex has been published as a writer and photographer in the NY Times, National Geographic, Songlines, Wanderlust, and has authored several guide books. Here are the details (click the city name for more information):

London, England

What: Introduction to DSLR (6 hours)
Dates: September 10, September 11, September 17, or September 18
Cost: $350 US

Sao Paulo, Brazil

What: Introduction to DSLR (6 hours)
Dates: September 3
Cost: $320 US

Bangkok, Thailand

What: City photography (6 hours)
Dates: Please email Julie at julie [at] matadornetwork [dot] com for upcoming dates. Cost: $320 US

Lead faculty member Julie Schwietert-Collazo is also running a workshop in New York City called Ways of Seeing to help students develop their skills of observation and description. The 4-hour workshop costs $160 US and there are still a couple of spots available for September 3.

Night view out the kitchen window.

20 July 2011

When I brush my teeth I walk around the house. It’s kinda boring staring at myself in the mirror (although there could be worse things to look at). Tonight I walked into a dark kitchen and looked out the window over the sink. The window looks onto Cedar where there’s a streetlamp. A streetlamp illuminating a silent road with its yellowish glow always flashes me back to a childhood memory.

I was living in an area of Langley, BC called Walnut Grove. Back in the 80s it was nowhere near as developed as it is now. It used to be full of open fields. There were horses. There was no McDonald’s. There was a convenience store from where I used to steal my hockey stickers, and a video rental shop where I used to play arcade games with change I got from scrounging the ditches for pop bottles. I spent a lot of time earning levels in Bubble Bobble and Elevator Action.

One Christmas I was in my bedroom. I heard some whooping coming from outside. I went to the window. A streetlamp illuminated a snow-covered cul-de-sac with its yellowish glow. Snowflakes were being lit up as they fell past the lamp, accentuating the pattern of the light. In the illumination I saw my friend and his older brother, both riding in circles on brand new, shiny silver Diamondback BMXes. They were showing them off.

They left tire trails behind them that criss-crossed each other like tight figure-8s. Those two were spoiled. They used to get everything. I think I put up with my “friend” bullying me around because I liked playing his Commodore 64 and shooting his toy guns (I was never allowed toy guns).

Later on I would get my own BMX. It was not a shiny silver Diamondback though. It was a red and white Apollo Kuwahara “E.T.” bike, a low-end model of the professional Factory Kuwahara BMX. I didn’t care though. I rode the shit out of that thing, taking it to the dirt track and racing around like I was in the movie RAD.

I wonder what ever happened to that bike.

19 July 2011

It’s more than halfway through July and I still don’t feel like summer’s really kicked in here in Nelson. We’ve had some pretty hot days (30+ Celsius) but there hasn’t been much for consistency. It’s pissing rain and I’m guessing it’s below 20 right now. Part of climate change? Who knows, sure seems like it though.

I’m looking out my bedroom window at the garden. Some of the tomato plants are wilting under the barrage of rain drops and my open windows are letting in a cool breeze. Things are growing in varying degrees of success. As it’s my first attempt at a garden I’m pleased that anything is growing. I’ve already eaten some raspberries, a carrot, and beet leaves. There’s more on the way, to be sure.

*          *          *

I was at the hardware store a few weeks ago, looking for tools for weeding the garden. A staff member asked if I needed help. I told him what I was looking for. He showed me some handheld tools then, pointing to a long pole with spikes on the end, said, “or, you can use these. I like them because you don’t have to get down on the ground.”

I like getting down on the ground. It’s one of my favourite parts of this gardening business. I find it meditative. Digging in the dirt, feeling the earth on my hands (well, through thin cotton gloves, that is). I went with the handheld tools.

*          *          *

Here’s a status update of things we planted:

• carrots – looking very good. Pulled one out prematurely yesterday. It was pretty stunted but tasted good.
• scallions – nowhere to be seen.
• zucchini – these are starting to grow now and have become my favourite plants. It’s fun watching them grow.
• red peppers – they’re there but don’t seem to be doing much.
• beans – no evidence.
• peas – nope.
• tomatoes – only two of the plants are starting to fruit, but evidence of fruiting on the others now. They’re still growing in size.
• lettuce – lost all the original seeds, but i bought three more packs and sowed them five days ago. They’re starting to sprout now.
• chives – a few remain but don’t seem to be growing well.
• cucumbers – only two and they’re hurting. Although one is growing a cucumber. Looks like its last gasp.
• basil – one teeny, tiny one that doesn’t seem to want to give up.
• onions – not doing fabulous, but we’ll see.
• potatoes – looking pretty good.

Since pictures tell a thousand words and I’m feeling too lazy to write more, I’ll just show you some photos taken a couple of days ago. Click for larger images.

Carrots and beets and a big rhubarb plant in the back.

Zucchini

Tomatoes

This current bush was already in the garden. Not sure if black or red?

These are looking good. And tasting good!

Learned that when the potato plants get taller you should start piling up soil around them into big mounds. They produce more potatoes. There are onions in this patch too, but they’re not looking too hot.

The apple tree looks sad. The leaves are brown and the bark is really dry, but apples are growing. Many are falling off. I wonder if it’s the last gasp of this tree.

But the pear tree looks very healthy. Gonna be a lot of pears this summer!

We have a grapevine growing beside the patio.

*          *          *

For more posts on the progression of my gardening and other self-sustainable endeavours, click here.

4 July 2011

A FEW MONTHS ago, I was walking in the park with a friend. He told me how he liked to see if he could hop boulder to boulder, to traverse the length of the park without touching the ground. The rocks look like this:

Rock hopping in the park

My friend is 45 years old. I followed his lead. Most gaps were fairly easy to jump across; some took a bit of thought as to how I’d land. I felt like a kid. One of the gaps was pretty big and the landing on the other rock difficult. A long stick lay on the ground. Images from movies popped into my head. I could pole vault over to the other rock. Brilliant. I planted the stick in the ground between the rocks, gathered my courage, and jumped.

The stick held, which was good. My landing was not so good. My foot made it to a vertical part of the boulder, slipped off, and I landed on my left hip on top of the rock. I did, however, manage to hold on and pull myself up. The rest of the way was easy again. I cruised to the other end, bruised hip and all.

I thought about it as I walked home. It had been a long, long while since I spontaneously did something like that. A physical challenge that had some risk built into it, a very real possibility of injuring myself. I took note of the feelings. I felt invigorated; I felt immature; I felt excited. The fall onto my hip was not just a jolt of pain, it was also a jolt of aliveness.

In any given moment, a man’s growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience.

He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does. ~ David Deida in The Way of the Superior Man

Today I went rock climbing with my friend, Hannah. It was my first “real” climbing experience. Hannah taught me how to belay and she talked me through some of the harder sections of the climbs. On my first climb I slipped and swung on the rope. Hannah had me, but I bashed my knee and scraped my upper left arm. There was that jolt of aliveness again.

At the top, when it was time to come down, I felt fear as I prepared myself to be belayed down the rock. It’s an uncomfortable feeling being up there, holding on for dear life, chest pressed against the wall, yet knowing that to come down you must let go. You have to let go, lean back, and trust.

After a few deep breaths and a final exhale, I let go of the rock and sat back in my harness. Hannah had me. The ordeal was much more comfortable the next two climbs, although I couldn’t quite reach the top on either. I haven’t determined if that was due to muscle fatigue or fear. I think probably a bit of both.

*          *          *

I grew up skateboarding in my tweens/early teens and snowboarding in my adult life. Both are activities that lend themselves to high risk of injury. Yet other than a bit of road rash and snow up my jacket and down my pants, I never had a serious injury.

I was very competent at skateboarding and I’d consider myself to be a good snowboarder, and while I don’t think I necessarily needed to injure myself to prove anything, I think the lack of broken bones and sprains is an indication of something.

Me skateboarding at age, oh, 11 or so

An indication of my fear, of holding back because I felt uncomfortable. I found a comfort zone and stayed in it. I got stagnant in my skills in both sports because I feared pushing ahead. A few years ago I gave downhill mountain biking a go. I’d head up Mt. Seymour on Vancouver’s North Shore with my older brother and shudder down the trails.

Twice I flipped over my handlebars. It was two times too many. After the second time, the fear overtook me and I had to walk the bike down the gnarlier bits. It was the last time I rode downhill.

*          *          *

A few last words from David Deida:

“Your fear is the sharpest definition of yourself. You should know it. You should feel it virtually constantly. Fear needs to become your friend, so that you are no longer uncomfortable with it…Own your fear, and lean just beyond it. In every aspect of your life. Starting now.”