And cut

Above is a picture of two of my closest girl friends, Lizzie and Natalie. They are my British birds. Two of the most beautiful women I know. We hadn't hung out together in a while, cause well Natalie is busy raising two beautiful children (she just gave birth a few months ago) and Lizzie is busy studying to be an animal doctor and I'm busy living like a 22-year-old. Anyhow, they make me happy.

I wrote this for Vice about two talented young fellas. Actually, they're really talented and I feel bad I didn't get a chance to stress that more in the article. But visit their website or check out their shows to see for yourself. I really love writing for Vice because they give me full creative feedom and let me write whatever I want and my editor believes in me and pushes me and I usually end up exposing way more of myself than I want but I'm a slave to my craft. In a good way. I always feel really weird and exposed after an article is published because so much is left to be interpreted. I mean, I'm writing satire and a lot of it is juiced up for entertainment but at the same time, my name is attached to it and a lot of people don't get it. Like my dad. I recently did an interview with this up and coming animator (actually I wrote about him for Vice a while back) who worked on children's animation for a long time and then did this thing for Spike and Mike. I asked if that's affected his career in any way. He said his reputation is built on professionalism and work ethic more then content. I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

My interview fell through tonight so the podcast won't be out for a little while. I spent a lot of time in Richmond today, shopping for my apartment, so at least I'm being productive.

The Master

So my dear friend Matthew Finlason came over last night and did what he does best: Rearranged things in a way that looks nice, while making me feel better about myself...eventually. He's fucking ruthless and makes you feel like a piece of shit during the whole process but it's all for the greater good. As a sceptical journalist type, I question everything he does, especially since I know he makes it up as he goes along. He Twitted about the whole process:


@noneandonly lives like a pig refusing ever to evolve her stale attitudes that manifest themselves in stagnant decor and ignorant energy

@noneandonly to her credit she does allow me to manipulate object to increase the perception of space but not without a fight. She's single

@noneandonly is learning that a woman's clean space and cookies will keep a man because a tight little body only gets him home from the bar

You get the picture.

Anyhow, my place is coming together slowly. I hate living in disarray. Here's some of my favourite parts of my new apartment:


He decided to put my most adorable Red Bean photo above my bed. Something about inspiring harmony and companionship. Or something. I love that print. It was taken by the very talented and posi-core Toby Bannister during an adventure in Japan.


I really like what he did here. He took my ex-boyfriend's skateboard and made it into a shelf. You can't see but one of those books is the Kama Sutra. I used to have it on my coffee table, which weirded people out. Boys picked it up more often then girls did. It really wasn't for shock value...I just really like the binding. When it becomes winter and I need to use this heater, I'll have to put up an actual shelf.

This used to be the central piece in my old place. I love it but now I find it a bit sad, especially since there's some heavy history behind it. Sonja Ahlers painted it. I think it works here. I think. Still getting used to it.

Not loving where the Neko Case poster is...it needs to be lowered. I spent a lot of time making a wall of pictures, with all my animal pictures and paintings, above my couch but Matt didn't like it. I guess it's a work in progress.



One of my most prized possession is my pink elephant lamp. Matt moved it into my kitchen, which was a pretty empty, boring space before. I guess I can dig it.

What does this have to do with the People's Program Project? Not much. Well, actually, Matthew is featured in one of my podcast episodes. Can you guess which one?

I guess this is starting to merge into a personal blog, which I was struggling with but now I think I'm okay with.

Well, I'll tease future episodes: a story about trying to explain an embarrassing ailment to a pharmacist in a foreign land, a chat with the very popular man-about-town and host of Talent Time Paul Anthony, maybe something from Bronx Cheer (if I have the courage to re listen to an interview I did with them for Vice that went horribly wrong. One of my personal worst experiences interviewing ever. Nothing to do with them though...they're very lovely and talented boys), a collab with Jeff Hamada from BOOOOOOOM and an interview and new material from songstress extrodinare, Lisa Joyce Parry.

Vice outtake

The fabulous Niki Kendall and I spent a hellish day driving around the Lower Mainland looking for pawn shop people to talk to for Vice. What we learned was that people in pawn shops don't want to talk, much less have a photo taken, much less have to sign a release form. Our hard work and efforts are printed in the latest issue of Vice. I thought I'd post what I thought was a brilliant interview that didn't get published 'cause the fellow wouldn't let us take his photo. But imagine a large grumpy Russian guy...

Grumpy Russian guy who works at pawn shop who also didn’t want to give his name. He said he wasn’t the owner but another Russian guy from another pawn shop said he was lying to us and was in fact the owner.

Russian Guy: I have accent. I no want to talk.

Vice: I understand accents very well. So has there ever been people who come in that seem weird and you didn’t want to buy their stuff?

There’s lots of stuff we no buy because we can’t resell.

Like what?

Electronics. You buy today computer four times as much, after two months the computer in store cost two thousand dollar.

Right, uh ok. What’s the most popular item people are buying right now?

What they buying? They no buying nothing. People have no money to buy nothing.

So no one’s buying anything?

You see people in the store?

How many people come in a day?

You see people in the store? I think I give good information.

I’ve never been in a pawn shop before so I’m trying to understand how they work.

Well now you’ve been in pawn shop.

Yeah it’s exciting! It’s exciting! You’ve worked here for 15 years, why did you want to work here?

Where I have to work? I’m a very old guy to work different place.

What’s your dream job?

No dream.

You have no dreams?

I dream to go home.

Back to Russian?

To go home.

Today?

Yeah.

And what do you have at home?

To see my wife. That what I want to do. (Smiles for the first time in the conversation. Then a customer came in.)

Episode 12 - The Bogus Tokus Experience

To listen to Episode 12, click here To read the coinciding Vice article, click here.

WARNING: I'm not trying to alienate my audience who doesn't enjoy thrash or skateboarding. Just listen to this episode the whole way through. These guys are great storytellers.

So, people in East Vancouver tend to enjoy thrash, I think it's safe to say. One band that's really getting people excited these days is Bogus Tokus. To those unfamiliar with them, it's made up of members of Adelaide, STREETS and Pride Tiger, Heavy Feather and Lord Beginner, Featherwolf and some other ones. I sat down with Mapee and Colin McKill one warm afternoon in my kitchen to discuss a variety things including, but not limited to...

- Ambition.
- CMJ mascara bands.
- Stealing Jokes.
- The first Lolapalloza
- A dub band inspired by Minor Threat called Minor Spliff.
- The new Children skateboards put out by Bummer High (if anyone has a picture of these fuckers, please send one my way: noneandonly@gmail.com)
- This movie:


- Homemade stunts.

- One of the worst night of my life...
- ...which involved my ex trying to land Gassy Jack and eating shit:


- The concept for the new Bison t-shirts.

Big hugs to Mapee and Colin for giving a great interview. Mad love. Those boys are funny.

It will be a while till the next podcast 'cause I'm living out of boxes and such while I move to my new mature, adult home. Can't wait till that's over and done with.