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Far away from dry land and its bitter memories

I wrote a book.  It wasn’t always going to be this way. One day I just decided to run. I packed two bags of my belongings, left the Yukon, landed in Toronto. Stayed in the spare room in a loft next to a pretty good coffee shop in the

Punk Pinocchios gotta go, gotta go

There’s a lot to be said about saying fuck it and grasping for all your desires when everything feels like it’s falling apart at a rapid clip.

Memory of the last loan shark

It was a stupid fucking costume. A last minute costume for a last minute party that I didn’t really want to go to at all. It was a party that I had wanted, that we had all wanted and asked for. Begged for, almost. When you have a friend

In praise of In Defense of Ska

Halloween is the worst holiday for DJs. Outside the very narrow margins around the Monster Mash there are very few good danceable Halloween songs. Maybe Halloween just isn't the season for dancing, despite what all the skeletons who play their own bones as instruments will have you believe.

Shadows wandering off somewhere

I can’t say this for certain, but I believe part of preparing to release a book is psyching yourself up for people you’ve never met to hate you for the rest of your life. This is where I’m at in the process, or at the very least

Roll With It

I didn’t get Oasis tickets.  I couldn’t really afford Oasis tickets, but I wanted to believe I could afford them, and what is being alive if not believing you can afford all the things that might ruin you? I got my little special presale code in my inbox

Swing it, sway, everything will be alright

Lysh and I went to see PJ Harvey here in Toronto. On the east end of town, which if you live in Toronto and you live in the west end you’ll know can feel like driving to the moon. It has to be worth it, even though it’s not really that far, but far is relative, and distance means nothing.

200g of Sliced Turkey

I watched Will & Harper, the documentary road trip movie starring trans comedy writer Harper Steele and her long standing comedic partner Will Ferrell, almost by accident.

A wristwatch that's a compass and a cell phone

Legally, I’m already behind on my responsibility to write about the new MJ Lenderman record, Manning Fireworks. I write about music, I’m a culture critic to some, a journalist when it matters, a writer who often writes about music when I tell people what my job is. Music

All wild things are shy

I have told you this story before, and for reasons that will be made clear it’s important that I tell it again. It opens years ago, in St Johns, Newfoundland on a Sunday morning with a half-blue sky, crisp and just cold enough to feel barely warm enough for

The promise of oxygen

“I’m a random bitch, and you’re a random bitch, just think about that for a second”. I’ve been thinking about this line a lot this week, delivered by Chappel Roan into the front-facing camera sitting comfortably in front of an off-white wall. It’s the tail end

I've got my spine, I've got my Orange Crush

The true promise of transition and sobriety and all big changes is asking to remember all the things I have worked to forget and carelessly put away.

The potential hiding in space

When I was a kid, I had a wallpaper trim creating a border in the centre of the otherwise blue walls of my bedroom. I’m sure there’s a proper term for this kind of wallpaper division, and if there is please tell me as I’m clearly just

Playlist of desire

Every time I write the intro to an essay lately I feel I am at my most John Wick, all tired and hunched over. Saying yeah, I’m thinking I’m back in my most charming monotone. I submitted the revisions on my book, and this is what has made