"We All Put the Yeast In"

This beer is made just down the street, and it's exceptionally cheap (six bucks for six beers)! The three empties in the box from last night, however, have nothing to do with my calling in sick to work today.


Any bottle cap collectors out there?

Be Thankful

Most of us get lonely from time to time, especially in blogland. Go to this fellow's blog and leave a comment about what you are thankful for, before he commits internet suicide in a fit of solipsitic emo dispair!

Sick Day

I called in sick at the temp agency today. Tomorrow is my last day at the skid factory, so today is my last chance to take the day off. I love that vicarious feeling of freedom when you throw off the yoke. I do have some sort of sinus blockage, and the sawdust can really do a number on your nasal cavities. For the kind of heavy work they demand of you there, they should at least pay a living wage.

I suppose I will miss the camaraderie of the oppressed, and the lunch breaks amidst the skids, and the zing of the saw, and the owner swearing and screaming at people for leaving litter around the picnic tables. Honestly, I don't understand some people. But I have to go back tomorrow to drop off a Buck 65 CD to a co-worker. I'm on a mission to spread the word.

Hey National Geographic!

My dad takes great nature photos.


Wheee! All the other fish look like ants!


Help me! I'm stuck inside this plastic bubble!


If it looks like cheeze, and smells like cheeze....

Happy Belated Birthday Dad-ee-o!

Skate Stencil Part Two: The Application

So, you have your official Pope of Fakiegrind Skateboard Stencil. Now it's time to apply it to your slab!


First, bust your ass in a skid factory all week to earn enough money to buy a new deck, wheels and bearings.


In the North End we like to do it ourselves, and we like to do it cheap. The dollar store was all out of spray paint, so I bought some metallic blue hallowe'en hairspray instead. I can use if for my costume, thus killing two vultures with one load of buckshot.


I added some words from one of the Pope's best songs.


Spray that sucker! Thanks to Matthew, my trusted assistant, for posing while I took this photo.



Cosmic eh? Fakie Agent Kill-Joy has notified me that grip-tape art is all the rage on the west coast, so I decided to leave the gnarley momento mori skull graphic on the bottom of my board intact and decorate, instead, the top of the deck.


I was a little disappointed with the blurry image, but I applied it several more times, so the Solitary Man would have clones of himself for company.


Long live the Pope!

Religion is Too Important to Take Seriously

Casual readers of Fakiegrind might take a look at the blog on any given day and get the idea that I'm some sort of blasphemous heathen, apocalyptic, pagan, Zen, Christian, nary-do-well, skateboarding, homeless drifter. And they would be right. I believe in all sorts of various and sundried, tomatoee things. What I don't believe in, though, is waiting around for some endtime rapture festival of the self-righteous; that's the Endtime Adjuster's territory. And we only put up with him because, like Golem in the Lord of the Rings, he might yet have a part to play in the unfolding salvation of this wayward blog project.

Life is full of apocalypses and revelations; each new day is a miracle of opportunity for growth and change, even if it just seems like the same old thing. In Buddhism it's called "working on your karmic roots"--those intangible strands of fate and experience that we generate for ourselves from the unconscious regions of our personality. When enlightenment suddenly comes, it's only because an individual has laboured long and hard, often for very little immediate return.

I don't believe that any life is ever wasted, no matter how aimless, lost or tragic it might appear. I don't believe in sitting around, waiting for some miracle of transformation, but I do believe that we are all moving towards a marvelous destiny. And when we finally make it to that mountaintop, and look out see where we have been traveling all this time, we might realize that the City of God has been our dwelling place all along.

I'm only saying this because I feel like I've made, and continue to make, all kinds of mistakes. But yesterday I was standing there, cutting wood for skids when I realized that all of my "mistakes" were anticipated, pre-planned for, if you will, by whatever that inscrutable, deeper, wiser power called God might be. Yes, I screw up allot, but God sees it coming from miles away (it would be hard for the architect of human nature to be surprised by anything we do), and God is steering me home, even if it takes innumerable lifetimes.

Atomic Christ

This interesting book describes how the attention of the entire universe is focused on earth, where a spiritual battle between God and Satan is being waged with hapless human beings caught in the crossfire! I see it as a last-ditch attempt by small, fearful minds to put the earth back in the centre of the universe, rather than accepting the fact that, in the larger scope of things, our blue-green gem of a home is, as Douglas Adams said, "mostly harmless".

In the picture on the cover, nuclear missiles are coursing toward North America. One of them appears to be trained upon Winnipeg, while the other is headed for the States. Can Jesus stop the missiles in time, thus saving one of Canada's most under-celebrated cities? You will have to track down your own copy of Planet in Rebellion to find out.

Ye Olde Skateboard Stencil

I've been meaning to make a stencil celebrating the Pope of Fakiegrind for some time now. Last Saturday morning, the Fakie astrologers decreed that the planets were in proper alignment to enact the sacred ritual. This is how it was done:

Step 1: Purchase an official Pope of Fakiegrind likeness by sending $5000 (EU) to: Fakiegrind, c/o: The Internet.



Step 2: Trace the Immaculate Visage of His Most Holy Exaltedness onto a piece of thick paper.



Step 3: Cut out all the areas you want to show up as paint on your image. Don't skimp on the eyebrows!



Make a healthy breakfast before moving on to the next step.



Don't forget the mayo!

Stay tuned for the second How-to installment, where we will apply the stencil to an actual skateboard!

Demons are Real

It's a blustery fall evening tonight--the first of the year. So I hopped on my bike and headed downtown to catch a flick. The Exorcism of Emily Rose was a scary movie, and I liked Campbell "the lumpy-bumpy part of town outside of town" Scott as the diabolical persecution lawyer.

Emily was filmed in Vancouver, where they took full advantage of the indigenous rainy weather. The court room plot made you think a little, and I was enjoying the whole experience except for the fact that I couldn't stop wondering about whoever the real Emily Rose might have been.

All of us have demons inside of us, and some people are more dramatic about it than others. I couldn't help thinking, by the end of the film, that the real Emily must have been a tortured soul who had been failed by both science and religion.

If I ever come down with a case of satanic possession, please don't call in any holy water-sprinkling, crucifix brandishing, Latin mumbling priests; they would only make things worse. Instead, crank some Metallica, pop a skate video in the VCR, and bring some Burger King take-out. Demons need their exercise as well!

Life is Tough

I can't take much more of this. Working is hellish, but at least the factory noise drowns out all distractions and gives me time to think. When I get home, my chronically depressed housemate is always watching television. I can't work for eight hours then come home to a shithole with commercials blaring. If I complain, she doesn't care. She just watches television and mopes. I try to be nice, but everything is so fucked up I really can't find a reason to go on with it all any more. Dr. Phil.Oprah. Maury Pauvich. Real life surgery stories. true crime. Friends. Death to all televisions!

Walking to Work

One thing about my job: it gets me out of bed at an early hour.
On Friday, I was almost late for work because I stopped for photos.


7 am. Days are getting shorter.


Tiger, my bodyguard, shadows me for several blocks.


This factory emits a stench like unto roasted soyabeans.


It's a new day!


The beer store is not yet open at this hour.


Golden rod is killing my nose these days.


The halflife of an abandoned skid: about two weeks.


Startling blue flowers.


Here comes the sun!


Sometimes I'm tempted to just go fishing.


7:25 am. I dream about sailing away on this ship.

Return of Slug

A couple nights ago, the slug that ate my house returned. This time, it had a peace offering in the form of a handfull of ectoplasm.

YABBA DABBA DOO!

It's Friday!

Work. Sleep. Consume.

When I get home from a hard day's work, it seems that I can't stay awake without slugging back one or two beers. The beer inhibits my capacity to think too deeply about my lot, and how I've just spent the last eight hours doing nothing. Television is so much more entertaining under the influence of alcohol, as well.

In the lunch room at work is a hazy, bluish painting of waves rolling up on a beach. In the centre of the picture, the sun is obscured by a large, black cloud, but some light radiates from out the edges of the mass, and illuminates the fringe of the waves. It's a calming picture, in a way. If I could smuggle my camera into work without it being stolen, I would take a picture of the thing.

Tomorrow is payday, and, if I can make it through without quitting, that will be one full week as a working stiff. Each day I show up with the intention of making my intentions (to quit) known, but then a strange voice calls out to me from behind the little black cloud in the painting, saying, "Don't awake The Sleeper."

Born to Love Volcanoes

My favourite part of the rapture index is #36: Volcanoes. Freud thought that Yahweh started out as a tribal volcano god, so these majestic lava spewers might be a fitting index of Biblical prophecy after all. But, if people are going to use natural phenomena as a measure of how close we are to the apocalypse, why not choose butterflies or spawning salmon? Why stop at volcanoes?

Dangers of Costco

"I bought way too much of this toilet paper that I don't really like."

-my housemate

Salmon Derby

The factory I'm working in was built by Free Masons, and they seem to have aligned the building according to the ancient formulas. So, in the morning, at a certain hour, the sun shines through the bay door beside my saw, all but blinding me. Should I remain employed at my current post for the better part of a year--until the next summer solstice--I've been told that the sun will shine directly upon an otherwise conealed section of the drop ceiling, thus illuminating a spectacular fresco of dancing beavers enacting ancient Masonic rites.

I pray to Heaven that I won't be working there long enough to witness this marvel, but in the mean time, I have a more practical problem in that the blinding morning sun greatly increases the chances of my damadging an appendage in a grisly circular saw mishap.

To help prevent this, I have taken to wearing a fishing cap I found abandoned in a dusty corner of the shop:



I've never been to Whitby or Oshawa, and I have no idea what a Salmon Derby is. Once the sun has moved out of my direct line of vision, I place the hat on the work table beside my saw, and steal glances at it once in a while. I like to pass the seemingly endless hours fantasizing about playfull salmon riding jetskiis across Lake Ontario. Then, I imagine myself dressed in a large salmon costume, swimming upstream to spawn. Indeed, the Salmon should be spawing any day now, and I would rather be a pair of rosey gills, fighting, fighting, fighting the current to find my sweetheart in the lovely upstream spawing beds.

Alas, friends, perhaps in the next life. 'Till then, I think I'm going to hold on to this hat as a keepsake.

Homage to Mammon

I don't want to get all self-righteous about money being the root of all evil, especially now that I have some in my bank account. But an art school student from Virginia is cashing in bigtime with her portraits of Alan Greenspan.

It's evident that this artist has some skill with the brush, but it creeps me out to think of the kind of people who bought these things to hang in their office or home. Is it art, or some kind of weird fetish, or is there even a difference any more? I could really use a working philosophy of aesthetics right now!

Live and Let Die

The last few years have been quite difficult, and not very rewarding. Maybe things will change for the better soon, or maybe they won't. What I know is that I can't go on living like I have been here in Steeltown. I've drunk this cup down to the bitter lees, and all that is left are bits of crud and tea leaves at the bottom. If I were skilled in such things, I might read my fortune in the murk, but I have no such skills. What I know is that it's time to let go and move on.

Way I’m sleepin’, my back and shoulders tired
Way I’m sleepin’, my back and shoulders tired
Come tomorrow, I’ll be satisfied
If I can catch that fast train and ride

Lumberjack

Working the Brewer Saw makes me feel like a lumberjack. Big lifts of two-by-fours are loaded onto the "feeder" outside the bay door beside the saw. The load is pulled along on chains to the mouth of the "scrambler". I cut the bands securing the load, then return to my control panel to tip the load into the scrambler with a certain button. This is the point where I feel like yelling, "Timber!" but I constrain myself.

The "Descrambler" pulls individual boards up and onto a set of rollers which roll the wood inside the factory towards the saw.
This part of the process takes some skill, as one must manipulate the wood with a couple remote hydraulic arms that jostle it into place. The wood coming along the rollers reminds me of logs in a stream.

When the wood has rolled or "floated" across the path of the saw, I lower stopper arms set at the desired length, and when the wood is in place, I hit another lever to bring the big, spinning blade out of its lair. The blade promptly turns a quarter inch swath of board into sawdust, and the two newly cut boards roll along a further set of rollers towards the circular Brewer table. This part of the operation reminds me of logs floating out of the river and into the broader expanse of a lake or bay.

If I have set up the boards correctly, I can get six two-by-fours to stack themselves neatly on the table in two piles of three. I then pull another lever that spins the table, thus making room for the delivery of the next load of cut wood. As well as a lumberjack, I sometimes feel like Fred Flintstone, pulling levers in his little booth on the back of the purple dinosaur in the stone quarry.

When the table is full of wood, I stack it by hand on a skid. When the skid is full, I band it, label it, and a lift comes and takes it away. Like I said earlier, this is a pretty good job; easier than most in the factory. But, like a true temp, I will probably quit after receiving my first paycheque. Since I'm the only one at the factory that knows how to use the saw, I should probably give them a few days warning, so they can train someone else to replace me.