Robertson Notes

Kids refusing to sleep and screaming incessantly... last night took the locking doorknob off of the bathroom and put it on the Twins door... tonight CT took the bulbs out of the light. Thee old battle. Kids get old enough to do something (crawl out of bed, turn the lights on, have a party, come downstairs...) and then parents have to enforce the boundaries... most of the people i have talked to end up spending hours outside the kid's room... I like locks, i always have liked locks. Locks remind people that they shouldn't be doing what they are trying to do. I could go into great detail about locks and security but to post that online would be a serious breach.

Earlier today when i was walking around in my underwear @ The Bay, our crew had to breach security. In the end the lady was really nice about it, and since we did end up buying SR 2 pair of new Jeans, it was all good. I have been going around with a hole in my jeans for some time now, that has me exposed from time to time at some of the more formal occasions a man of my stature ends up attending. I find if you just stand at the Buffet with your knee's facing the table you are usually OK... anyhoo it was Bay Day which means big savings apparently, it was also Sunday it was raining the kids were crabby and we had to go to a Birthday party in a few hours, so why not go down to Oakridge mall and get some Jeans with three kids... there are many reasons not to to this, but that's what happened. CT is a business operator when it comes to buying SR clothes... go to the jeans grab a bunch of different sizes and go try them on, so in the first round we get my size... in a few minutes CT has a small collection of possible jeans, but there is a lady by the change rooms who's job it is is to see how many items each "customer" has and then they put a hanger on the doorknob that has the number 1, 2,3,4 or 5. Five being the Key number, because under the protocol you can only take 5 in with you... our normal way is say a pile of a dozen and then a yes pile and a no pile... the poor lady. she has probably been to many "company meetings" where she is told she is responsible to enforce the rules or face punitive damages... which is kind of why i felt it OK to do a little lap in my underwear servicing the different piles.... i figured it would 1. clear out the area a bit and 2. if caught on camera it would help make the nice lady look good. this woman dealt with a rule breaking family of five who showed no regard for showing "skin" in a consumer environment but yet managed to sell 2 pair of pants in about 5 minutes.

Then i went to the gym and caught the canucks game and when i was in the shower some guy came up to me and asked to use some of my soap... and he had an erection. I guess what comes around goes around... what do you say to that? i gave him some soap and tried to ignore the "member", but in some ways i think once you are dealing with erections the game changes a bit. Like it's not like you wouldn't know you have an erection, and sure erection's happen from time to time... but in those times you might want to curb your nude interactions.

I remember when i was a kid, i think like grade 9 and i was on the swim team who practiced at 7:00AM before school... sometimes after practice in the shower my body would do what young boys bodies do and haul off and pop a boner for no good reason, but you can be sure as hell i was out of there like a lightning bolt to sit down in the change room with a towel and then get dressed and off to school to await my next erection which usually happened in English class, for some reason. i had my share of "naked moments" in high school... Ok, i set a record if we are counting... but erections would never be part of the game. It's about comedy,and perhaps challenging a rigid society... but i guess by that ruler a naked erection is more funny and far more challenging.

Nakedness is what you are, erect is what you want.

like you could say... "hey could i have a squirt or your soap, oh yea, don't worry about that it's just a little problem with my penile dorsal vein valve"... no problem man have a few squirts... go crazy.

Ginger beer was a total failure... go back to thee old Robertson Logic. NEVER USE CITRUS PEELS FOR ANYTHING. Ok we knew that, but we lost our fucking minds, just for a quick moment, but it turned out to be that moment that counted the most. That is how life goes... you lose your fucking mind because you think you know what you are doing but the truth is you don't. A classic case of one step forward and 4 steps backwards, as my father would say... well he would say 3 steps, but since i bottled the fucker in a vain attempt to say like "it will be OK", now i have to re-clean those bottles. And then there is the fact that the beer operation feedback loop took a big 1 week hit.

Robertson brewing rule #1... Brew what you know, and then vary that in slight increments.

I had other things to muse upon as the Wart chills, but the rage in my obvious failure is killing me.

Now failure is a term i use from time to time, i believe i have even written a song titled such and it is at this time i would like to differentiate on the kinds of failure our hero finds acceptable.

I am a failure and i know it- with respect to myself as the sole proprietor of a Canadian record company that has 10 releases... yes i am a failure. Having played a show every week this year and having sold next to zero cd's and less than $100 in digital downloads, i believe failure is the term. Ohh don't be so hard on yourself i can hear people say... i say who ever said that stating facts is hard on people... well it is, on most people, but it shouldn't be. Imagine if i was on Dragon's Den... that show where you pitch your business to cut-throat executives... i'd be laughed out of the room... as i should, and as i would want to be. My plan would be that of a failure... and that's what i mean by that.

My ginger beer was a failure- completely unacceptable! This it the kind of failure that is grossly irresponsible and cannot happen. Besides the irony of me being able to accept my body of artistic work a failure, and at the same time see 23 liters of soiled alcoholic beverages a mind numbing failure, there is real logic in the game plan.

summary- if you are going to do something do it right if its black and white, and if it's art then do it on your own terms.

do i want to be a success? I don't know... i kind of like the comfort of failure

will i be mad if the beer i brewed tonight goes bad? livid.

best part of home brew- not having to deal with the bottle return now that the stores only allow you to return a dozen, or is it 2 dozen bottles at a time. having bought all my beers at the store and paying a deposit on the bottles, and being busy with 3 kids and a failing business venture i certainly don't need a lecture from some clown on why i can't return all of my bottles that are clean and neatly packaged together.

the biggest losers- liquor tax agency, and the bottle collectors in my back alley.

shit is it 1:30 am... brew nights... is there a song in there.

OK

remember never use citrus peels... bullshit. I remember some people who tried to push citrus peel muffins on me. Citrus peels are not for human consumption... remember "NORM and the ORANGE PEELS"... I guess Norm lived with an old friend of mine named Chris, and Norm ate acid one night and as he was tripping he decided he had a hankering for some apples, and he found some, so he thought. The next day Chris saw 7 Orange "cores" on the kitchen table. Norm ate 7 oranges as if they were apples... and the reason that is hilarious, so hilarious n fact that a musical project named "Norm and the Orange Cores" had to be started, is the plain fast that Orange peels are completely unpalatable... but that's the kind of failure i can get behind.

OK

Well i made ginger beer tonight... time will be the hunter on that one.

I also mixed down the drums and guitar "song skeleton" that i have to work on lyrics for... and i was in the zone, but what i ended up doing instead is trying to figure out how to get and MP3 from a garage band mix to itunes to slam on my ipod and sort the lyrics after a nice long walk.

I'm not convinced that you even can do that,but i can't believe that, or more annoyingly it's not very obvious and when yout take the normal routes in solving problems like that you are met with minimal options that may not even allow you to operate under such situations.

I mean i hate to be the guy, who is swearing at a computer when his wife comes home from a gala ball... and he still hasn't solved the problem... that apparently an art friendly computer and program should deem a fundamental priority.

OK i do now have a 54 mb version of the scratch song on my ipod, which is the route i should have gone hours ago, and the lesson is there... but it's often hard to imagine that the things i want to do are so far out of the average consumer's orbit that the mere idea of catering to that key function has become economically irrelevant.

King Fire-Man came up huge on the beer bottle front the other day... I now have a stellar collection of green and brown grolsch bottles with the easy pop tops. The multiple colours are key to identify the batch. For example the last batch of pale ale is aging in brown bottles and the ginger beer will occupy the green bottles.

I'll explain how to brew one day when i get a bit better with respect to a total understanding of all of the "actions' and "reactions"... which reminds me of the old university days... i would wright reaction as rxn in a frantic effort to catch up to the professor.

I was at a great show last night.. it was a COPPERSPINE showcase... they have some serious talent in that crew... you should really make an effort to catch Leah Abramson some day soon... last night there was a perfect balance of awesome talent and confidence.

the word is spelled confidence not confidance... it's not a dance it's a dence.

if i was a tweeter that would be my speed... and there is no such word as spelt

after the show last night, i got into a discussion with a few people over the nature of twits and tweets... my point was that, sure the concept is annoying as hell, but there has got to be somebody out there who, in their own way is funny as hell, and of course you would never find that person through the mess of fools and celebrity hucksters.

I should make shirts up... twidder the lazyman's blog.

but then the other idea is that distillation is key to quality. If you can take less words to say the same thing that is a benefit... it's just that great poets may ruminate for a long period of time to phrase a concept with all things considered, while a tweeter feels the need to tell you where they are standing in an effort to stay connected to a "network".

well since we still need to wait a bit for the wart temperature to come down to the point where we can pitch the yeast... and since we have strolled way off topic on this little blogaroo we called OK, or i guess i called it OK... and now i am remembering the MP3 episode and the rage is coming on like a heard of caribou... stop... calm... think... turn it around... perhaps this will help... i remembered my point.

SR's tweet a day for a week

Monday- I simple man, simple life, want peace, why does garage band and itunes want to work against me

tuesday- melons are good for you... remember that. Musk melons aka cantaloupe are high in beta carotene

wednesday- Entertainment and supper option.. free show tonight @ the railway 7:30-8:30

thursday- the ice cube maker makes intermittent noises, this is to be expected, so it's really a none issue

friday- Friday is a good day to rest up for your early morning Saturday gardening session... don't forget that

Saturday- SR is out of the office

Sunday- Sunday is a religious day, a day to remember... never forget Gord Harding is a fucking ass hole.

2 computers = multitasking

listening to the song "the Little's" as performed by myself and JLS last week at the SRSS, and of course writing this blog... both of questionable merit but hey "buy the ticket take the ride"

The show went better than i thought it did when it went down, although i think, or at least i know that i was disappointed in myself for a number of reasons, and the main one has to do with my spirit of attacking the SRSS in terms of my preparation and ability to stand on my own head. It would be a long dog to try and explain that one but lets just say that I'm a bit different than your average guy that plays a weekly show and for some reason writes about it.

perhaps i should just write about my experiences raising children and fuck this whole music bull shit, but i think the real problem with that is that it could have a negative effect on the children. As we know our hero becomes obsessive when he gets his teeth into something and he is liable to lead his crew into danger for the sake of the story. and then there is the benefit of being a failure but yet sticking to your guns... or a more positive way to put that would be to have an interest and desire to do something for life enhancing reasons and to work that activity into your life without compromise. By compromise i mean not to end up as some pudgy coffee sucking parent on a bench complaining about how his kids robbed him of his chance to pursue what was "important" to him.


Good version of "dead by the side of the road" except i bombed a few lyrics... that's why god invented Genny Trigo.

Good comedy in the schoolyard the other day... Kaiya goes 1/2 day to Kindergarten so the twins and I pick her up and eat lunch in the park and play with the kids at the lunch hour... so the kids were making a giant leaf pile and then a game broke out where you throw leaves in the face of others... Of course the twins love that game as it is a variation of the "throw wood chips on each other" game. so you see two little two year olds hanging tough with the big kids, mixing it up... and then a boy took a pile of leaves and shoved them in kaiya's face, and that spooked her back a bit, and Hailie saw that and took a handful of leaves and went over to the boy and shoved some leaves in his face and stood there and puffed out her chest and gave him the stink eye.
I was killing myself laughing and then one of the "security folks" came over and started laying on the whistle.

The early morning workouts seem to be going well... i'll just try to do a few times a week although i missed Monday so i did Tuesday... now my problem is SRSS is wed night and Thursday night is late night hockey, so if i don't go tomorrow one of those will be a painful one... but you can never let yourself off the hook with some bullshit "tired" excuse, because that nonsense perpetuates itself. The good thing is that my back has been doing well lately, although i could really use a few nights of yoga and less drinking... perhaps is time for beer yoga at the SRSS... light beer.

Well the SRSS is over now... soon the twins will be up and we will rock another day.

Hey its the last day of Summer

listen to "summertime will end when it's over" by 21 tandem repeats today

Politics

Not this i think it will happen over this particular issue, but lets make the point anyway...

There was talk of bringing down the government over a "home tax renovation" a while back, and while i have no respect for the party in power, this is insane.

On what level however? To me the whole thing is crazy... you live in a house that has working function, and while we are in the middle of a "recession" and a total environmental collapse idiot people and idiot politicians, or i guess smart politicians, seeing that this is a thing people deem important, are bickering about a tax incentive program the encourages impulse and "style me" type of consumerism... I mean i do hate to be a negative ass, but isn't the obvious lesson of the current multiple fiasco's of mankind to avoid these types of ventures.

just saying

I eneded up finding an alley

Now for some good advice urinate on your tomatoes... of course you probably just want to get the urine to the roots, but it got me thinking along the lines of public urination... not that i think that people should be pissing all over the place, but then again. Like for example, today i was in the park with the kids and i had been up early @ the gym sucking back the water and then home hitting the coffee, and then in the park after picking my eldest up from school... the three kids wanted to play in the park, which was a good idea, but i had to piss like an owl with 2 dicks. this put me in a very uncomfortable position for a very long period of time... packing up everybody to go piss was a half hour job and we were in the playground beside my child's new school with various parents and teachers around, and the last thing we need of course is to carry around the curse of the "naked Robertson" for another decade in a new group, but at the same time i couldn't help think that the best thing i could do for some of those trees is give them a good shot of fixed nitrogen... but that would be wrong and obscene of course. It got me thinking about the whole problem however. Humans in first world countries are required by law to piss into a receptacle of treated drinking water to be flushed into a sewer system for treatment. while i do agree that as a general population we are to stupid, lazy and self centered to handle a proper piss program in the community, but let's digress anyway.

It's always the far away hidden corners that take the heavy pissing and are more inclined to smell like urine, which would be the #1 point of attack for a brilliant plan like the one i'm about to lay down.

Trees in the park should have near by an affixed abacus type apparatus that the good citizens could keep track of the "piss frequency"... a simple solution could be 10 beads on a string and after a piss at the base of the tree one could move a bead over... also note that one should piss on the ground and not on the side of the tree... that way by working together we could make sure the trees and source of fixed nitrogen get a "fair shake". this could be a great boon to the trees as they are suffering from the fact that their leaves always get removed so they loose that opportunity to regenerate that source of nutrients.

Now I'm sure you would have groups of smart asses moving beads in an effort to deceive the community and perhaps the odd jackass that might loos his fucking mind and drop a #2 in the park, although given the amount of dog shit around here it might actually go unnoticed.

I know i know, it's not the kind of thinking that your regular pencil necked paranoid stiff would be comfortable with, but it makes sense on a number of levels.

long time no blagaroo,

so i started my "new" regiment today... up @ 6:00am and off to the gym. I'll try that like every other day for a while to see if i can stave off old age, sloth and gluttony... it could open the evenings for more creative ventures... roughly translated to swearing at a computer trying to make music... or something like that.

it's time for "the ocean is life part 2", if you know what i mean.

What happened this summer worth a blogaroo? Well there was that cottage we rented that smelled like death and we had to spend the first day prying the drip pan from below the refrigerator to clean the decaying food from it, that started a bad vibe between ourselves and the owners of the cottage that is now at the point where they are avoiding us... why? well of course they kept our $500 security deposit on the basis that we did so much damage to the place... which is bullshit of course, but it's their word against ours and we live in Vancouver... I'll start a major blog on this at a later date.

what else happened. played in Toronto:



Oldest daughter started Kindergarten the other day and the twins are pretty hilarious in their own right.

I have been eating orange beets from the garden... speaking of garden it's not kindergarden it kindergarten.

It comes from the German words "kind" and "garden" and is defined as a program or class that serves as an introduction to school.

sounds like the twins are up... and this blogaroo is over

SR

How did i end up in that booth singing that corporate jingle for the chance to win some "vacation certificates"

And then i guess the next question is why did i post it on my facebook page... the whole thing is very disturbing indeed.

Well it all started out with me making like old mother Hubbard looking in the cupboard and seeing nothing tasty there so i packed up the twins (2 years old each) and headed to the large "BOX" store... that i don't feel like naming as it would further give props to another corporation, and seeing that this blogaroo is being powered by the shame of the reality of what happened a few days ago, lets just keep it at that.

So there I was walking into the store with my cart and my bags and one kid on my back and on in front so they can't fight and i see and hear booth for a company that makes products that you might store in your bathroom and they are pulling people out of the parking lot to sing their jingle as part of a "talent search", but clearly the marketing of the plan is through the Internet. You sing the company jingle they post it you get all your friends and relatives to vote you up so you have a chance to win $8000 dollars worth of "vacation certificates" and in the end the company gets a large population of people to hear their jingle and it puts the product in their head.

So as i pass the damn thing i think to myself "what kind of a fucking idiot is going to do that shit" and then i go into the store to by food for the family for the next week with 2 2year old's. Now the kids are fine and we know the routine but perhaps we stayed a little too long... but they were blowing out decadent ice cream deserts at half price so i picked up like 6 boxes...

The line ups at the checkout were long so i had to let the kids down to run around as they were starting to loose it, but as solid Robertson's they were a great help loading the groceries on to the belt... it was at the checkout things began to go fowl. I guess the checkout lady thought that obviously a man couldn't handle 2 kids and bagging his own groceries so a gross incompetent was called in to help me. She got in the way, dropped stuff, got bags filled with the bananas and apples on the bottom, put chocolate on ground beef and it punctured through and she got one bag misplaced on the belt that belonged on the adjacent checkout and then she bumped over Emily and all the while she was complaining to me about how hard life was... i finally sent her away but she had damaged most of my stuff by then and i was suddenly in a very bad mood. So I was leaving mumbling to myself about how that is the stupidest thing i have ever seen when suddenly some crazy guy leaps out at me with a blue tie a white shirt and says "OK YOU GUYS ARE UP YOU READY TO SING THE JINGLE"... i was eyeballed him for a few seconds and then was left with no choice but to scream "OK man we are doing it!". Then a girl came at me with a lyric sheet, so i started trying to back out as anger and comedy impulses faded and sanity started to take over, but then the guy came back... this guy was a good salesman and then i remembered about the six boxes of ice cream treats in the hot parking lot and really at that time my duty to the family was to secure those cold treats into our quality freezer ASAP.... it then occurred to me the quickest route home is through the recording booth.

Do i need a rehearsal, hell no i know this jungle like the back of my hand, and then i looked at the back of my hand and made a face like i had just observed a foreign object... the joke went unrecognized... people were to busy explaining how to use a microphone... and then there was a music stand with like 500 copies of the words, and i said don't worry about it, lets hit it... well in my first take i missed a key product line so we had to do it again, and the kids were having fun so we hit it again and then i started going into a dream sequence about how you could do take after take for hours on end like you might do if you were in a band making "the ultimate" recording with a bunch of "experts" who want to quibble about each syllable.

after 2 takes we had to split but i toyed with the idea of telling him that perhaps if he edited the first part of the second one with the last part of the first one it could be gold... he was a good guy an i was walking away with some great "if this was a reality show" comedy ideas. And then we got those ice creams home and then i washed the ground beef off of the chocolate and the hate came back.

When the company emailed me with my version of the song there was a convenient "post to facebook" button, a good idea for their "get their jungle in every body's head" plan and so i hit it. On the plus side our relatives got to see a video with the twins and CT and I had one hell of a laugh over my representation of the b part of the jingle that perhaps it was worth something.

He who blogs a bit today blogs again today

I expect only Mule and perhaps a few others will understand that title, but i think it is high time to bring the chronicles back to some more abstract musing. Well i just did a dictionary check on the word "musing" and i believe i have used the word properly, which keeps my percentage around that of the save percentage of any Toronto maple leafs goaltender over the past few years, which in turn reminds me of an email i failed to respond to today. Damn and i thought my real problem was something else all together. Alcoholism is a manageable problem i say... why not say that... the world is full of many perfectly functioning alcoholics. Hell i read in the news today that one of the drug companies... i won't mention their name because i don't need an email from a representative that is paid to monitor a "google alert" with that company's name with respect to what it is i am about to write... which i might add i don't know what i am going to write next. Where was i.. i doesn't matter... actually it does matter. the point of the news story was that they were going to offer free Viagra to people who lost their jobs and are unemployed in this recession. NEWS STORY HERE.

I wonder what Viagra is all about... i should take some as an experiment. i remember i knew a girl in University and her story was if she smoked pot she became horny and wanted to have sex... unfortunately i never took advantage of that fact... so obviously Viagra is marketed (on Hockey night in Canada) as a sexual stimulant but what else does it do... didn't they call acid the love drug at one time, before it became illegal... or possibly after.

well i just did another search for the affects of viagra and i got these beauties * bleeding of the eye
* convulsions (seizures)
* decreased or double vision or in extreme cases blindness
* a blue tint to your vision
* prolonged, painful, or inappropriate erection of penis
* redness, burning, or swelling of the eye
* anxiety

I can deal with anxiety... now mind you these are rare*... or at least classified as rare... I won't be doing a Viagra experiment.

The whole perception of drugs is very bizarre in our world... drug company good... naturally occurring plant bad.

There seems to be a stronger movement these days to legalize marijuana... something that is long overdue in my humble opinion. i have read a lot of arguments pros and cons but the one thing that never gets touched on is the fact that it's classification as an illegal drug, in my opinion, is detrimental to people's understanding of what a bad drug can do to you.

Let me try to explain. So you are told "all illegal drugs are bad for you because if you use them you life will lead to ruin" which is essentially what i believed until i went away to University. So you then get somebody who tries some pot, or grass or marijuana for that matter, has a bunch of laughs with their friends and wakes up the next day all fine. they try it again later and have some perception changing moments that make them a better human more in tune with the world around them... and they cry bull shit on the voices that tried to ban them from meeting this "herbal remedy"... The real danger is here... that person may think what they heard about cocaine, or heroin, or pcb or crack is bullshit as well... which it is not... those drugs will most likely ruin you life... but because you were lied to all those years you don't know what to believe at the moment of truth.

safety first

Of course there is a company called "safety first" that makes the most annoying useless products that are made of cheap disposable plastic and are destined for the dump.

They sell infant products, thus the name playing on the common fear of safety we have as a serious disorder in our society.

I want to start a rival company and call it "function first", but i fear there is not enough intelligent folk left to keep me in business. The latest outrage was these cupboard cabinet lockers that i challenge an adult to solve... except there is nothing to solve... they are just made so shitty you just have to pry and force the fuckers... and then you get a smashed thumb.

our old one broke after about 4 years of good service, and there really isn't much variety in you big department stores... a statement that is full of errors i know, but shit happens and on some days you end up shopping and you hate yourself so much you just want to buy what you need and escape back to your home where you find out you are once again the victim of some useless product that was made to throw away... i think we bought 3 of them so it is like a $10 loss... but on principle we might try and return them as that is what should happen to send the message that shit products like this won't be just absorbed anymore. It's always amazing to me when a product like that makes it to the market... like that piece of shit plastic sled Kaiya and I ran into this year at the time of the great winter snowfall... HOW DOES THE PRODUCTS TOTAL USELESSNESS NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE TESTING PERIOD BEFORE IT IS MASS PRODUCED !

I mean i have had one that was a good design and worked and now i have 3 that are useless and are a general hazzard to my health on account that i risk having a stoke every time i see one of them going off on a "how does this happen" rage.

For the purposes of this blog i should go down and film myself trying to open the bastard and post it on youtube and then embed it in this site... yea... that's when you know you have lost your mind.

everyone has an opinion so here goes...

A promising Vancouver Canucks gets bounced in the playoffs... what went wrong?

On paper 7-5 suggests poor goaltending, but in reality that was not the case... there wasn't a soft goal in the lot... there were some ridiculously good shots and some good bounces.

Was it the poor offence of the "Sweden" contingent, I don't think so... point per game for all three is not a problem. The twins made things happen, and Sundin made a lot of great plays and was getting stronger. Perhaps the "Ovechkin factor" is at work here... If a guy is not skating through everybody, all while firing rocket shots at an "off the charts" pace, then he is not doing anything.

Was Chicago that good? Perhaps.


Was the defence weak? Not really... but there was a total inability to control and get the puck out of their own end for the final 5 periods of the series?

Did the team just get out coached? I have been leaning towards this... Joel Quinnville's team changed its game, exposed a weakness, planted fear and used that fear to create chaos.

The last 5 periods of that series the Canucks defense would try to put the puck up the boards to a crowd of red Jersey's that wanted the puck more than they did. You have to wonder if they could have pulled off a stretch pass down the middle it might have changed the game a bit... Not that one should take stretch passes up the middle lightly... but it seemed to me that Chicago had the answer for Vancouver's game plan... Vancouver stuck with that plan until the end. I'm sure it would be good to have a guy like Brian Campbell who can skate the puck out of the zone at will...
but they didn't have that guy... Chicago did.

Putting the puck up the boards is almost always a good hockey play... but when everybody is lined up on the boards perhaps up the middle will do... a risky play still and if you fuck it up the mental loss would be almost unbearable... but if you can pull it off you can get the other team thinking and adjusting and feeling less invincible.

Perhaps there was a good reason Chicago made that coaching change about 10 games into the season.

should read "how dumb are you"

Not all good ideas carry weight with the betterment of technology

The band i played in when i move out to Vancouver B.C. like 16 years ago was called Knockin' Dog. We released 2 CD's the first one titled "Simplex" and the second "Chicken EP". Well our first CD got into the Jukebox at the Cambie Hotel and received a fair amount of play, so of course, always thinking, we decided to put a track on the Chicken EP called Super Knockin' Dog Jukebox pick... and it contained the whole CD on one track.

Now that the Chicken EP is on Itunes and other digital music download stores i have noticed that people are taking advantage of this setup... you can buy the whole damn EP for 99¢. I think it's great, the point is, or was, to get the music out there... and that's done and there is a deal to be had... although i have to be honest and say that the Chicken EP is the one body of work i am least proud of. I think there is some good stuff there but we totally lost our fucking minds on parts of it. It was my first experience trying to do live jam outs on a studio recording. I think you need to be on stage in purple fleece pants playing a double neck guitar and doing leg kicks to get the whole thing. When you are in a studio analyzing things it is never good.

I should do that with all of my albums... put a track at then end with all the songs on it. In the end trying to make money from music can take away from one's enjoyment of life... maybe i'll write a book about it one day.

I guess we should post something.. for some reason... writing exercise

But yet if it was a writing exercise then why would I be about to tell the legions of "super robertson Chronicles" readers about my attempt to understand the 100.5 peak performance Project application agreements. Don't get me wrong this radio station is a great station... coming from a guy who's kid fucked the CD player in the car so therefore i am stuck with local radio... so if CBC isn't working for me i tune into the Peak and the twins start rocking.

If you enter into this project... which would essentially help you gain traction as a legitimate artist (a good thing). But there is something about reading a long legal document that really gets the paranoia flowing... i mean i understand that somebody is pouring a lot of money into this machine, and so they need that machine to produce what they built it for.

It could make a good reality TV series... Super Robertson and aging failure leaves his wife and family of 3 small girls to attend a week long rock and roll boot camp to be trained in the areas of stage performance, songwriting, online and traditional publicity, promotion and marketing, tour planning, introduction to music law and business, funding, media training and other development topics. But then we all think that our lives would make good copy... why not EH!

I'm sure it would be a good time, when i was a kid went to camp and in high school I was given the opportunity to go to leadership camp and then i was a camp counsellor as a young adult. Camps give you the rare opportunity of a community isolated... you eat together, you do activities together and then at night you are together... this all happens for a period of time and you develop a special camaraderie with the crew.

I was also a Junior Ranger for one summer and i remember our foreman "Douglas Semour Telford Coleman", when he picked us up from the train station in Cochraine Ontario said "yea you see a lot of shy faces at the beginning but you don't see any dry eyes at the end". I wonder how Doug is? it was a long time ago... One of the great tragedies of life in Canada was the cancellation of the Junior Ranger program... all those 17 year old's without that opportunity... well at least we have the Olympics coming to our world class city.

S Robertoan Strikes back

That's right the good time train is running through the station tonight, and what i could really use is a smokey wooden horn to blast a few good honks of pure blogaroo wisdom. Wisdom is a burr of a word, wouldn't you say.. it's like it needs an "e" on the end of it to give it the soft feel of truth.... I remember logging in... now I'm angry... not really, just disappointed in the lack of discipline... and then there is the word discipline which i know is "dis-cip-line" and not "dis-clip-line" but when you are in "dis-clip-line" and your self correcting blogger spell check gives you no options... well at least i forgot about that "I remember logging in" bull-shit i was quacking on... now i feel the hate again!

the idea is to stay in your element

My new element could be "Chatting"... i think, or at least to see clearly that my original idea behind email was what might have better been suited to the concept of chatting. Email has just too much natural authority that when it comes across an ill thought out violent threatening email... i know i know what you are all thinking out there in blogland, you fucking ass holes.. that was a joke... i know i really shouldn't swear... i should just delete and rethink... but i think we need to remember these moments in order to truly correct them. lets go back... i know i know what you are all thinking out there in blogland, you time wasting sissy snakes... son of a bitch i have forgotten the original train of thought... fucking fuck. I remember my man Jerry A'Hearn once told me about the sentance The fucking fridge is fucking fucked! Fuck gets a noun an adjective and a verb.

I had some interesting "chats" tonight, emails seem so permanent.

Imagine if you were in a band, and a band member sent out an alarming Email on the eve of a key gig, and that email exposed a gaping differential between the basic concept of "why the band even exists". Now perhaps if it was a chat you could just reply "OK sparkey you keep working on that one, but for tomorrow night, we will just do the stock set we had written on that paper that i have safely tucked away on our trusty duplication machine... you're a crazy guy but i love you."... then you would be wise to log out of your chat program.

I should go over some songs...

obvious

In doing my things that a man in my position does... i happened to be pacing the house in a fine waffle over something that really doesn't matter looking at the ground and all when i saw a spider walk across the floor... and i thought, well the natural response would be to kill it, but yet the obvious response would be to see if this guy, or girl for that matter can make a go of it in this environment. if the spider can stay healthy then i believe the proper wording would be... "the spider and i live in symbiosis". The rogue translation of that would be that if the spider is eating well then perhaps the spider is doing me a service in decreasing the population of other small invertebrates.

I have been writing a lot of songs lately... using deadlines to hammer myself with a tidal wave of failure. Sometimes i feel like wile-e-cyote (sp?) pulling an umbrella out as protection from a large boulder falling from a very high cliff.

Now I'm not an entomologist but yet i have a pretty high degree of certainty that this particular spider is not poisonous.

Of course if it was a wasp (and insect that also eats insects) i would definitely not be relaxed right about now. I believe i have made my case for that over the years.

going over lyrics i remembered this quote from Brian Burke

on speaking about an NHL rule that restricts a team's "legality" to call up only 4 players from the minors after the trade deadline.

"It is a ridiculous, archaic, stupid rule that the Players Association, for some reason, refuses to change... but that's just my view."

I like Ron Wilson's press conferences to... i never miss them.

Morning everlasting light
you look good when you fight
Morning favurite coffee bean
things aren't quite what they seem
early on a young school day
i love you you will say
is there an everlasting fire?
bell rings beneath the sprier
warning everlasting warm
the bees begin to swarm
good morning everlasting song
the children get along

you are Blogging all your simple thoughts in set's of rhyming lines
pace around the kitchen a couple hundred times
try to write a song live in your fort
I say poetry is a jack ass sport

Boring Never ending game
the outcome is the same
the weird guy has the name of ron
he has a pet python
summer and a bbq
the foot fits in the show
baby and its time to sleep
she won't make a peep
a list of faults the came before
there is less and there is more


He has tagged and lived to regret it.

It's always depressing reading news of one of the many "Bailout" situations that seems to be running like a bad virus through our human important systems.

To me it's a simple thing... if something is fucked and unsustainable then it will fail and to pump what little resources we have left to maintain the appearance of "normal" cannot make sense. All the laws of physics, Karma, Biology, Chemistry, fate and evolution bring a resolution, but yet we are so into wrong thinking... "the economy is the only important thing.... we need more profit for the shareholders".

I think of it like a teeter totter. Imagine a massive cement block on one end and a porous plate on the other.. and sugar was gold so you put sugar on the plate to balance the teeter totter, but the rain comes down and washes the sugar through the plate so you have to put more sugar on the plate to keep the balance... and so you do again and again rather that chipping away the hard cement block be cause you are so use to seeing it that it would look unnatural for a teeter totter to not have a massive cement block on one end.

because that's all you know... you know what i mean?

a good omen

I think a bone in my wrist is broken or cracked or sprained... perhaps i will get a chance to get to the hospital in the next few days.... Why is this a good omen you might say? have no fear old sports and omen is an omen and nothing smells like a good one. You see i have been in this major creative spell the last little bit hammering out some songs with Genny Trigo as star vocalist... and when i look back on my creative history most of the great moments have me with a broken hand, or thumb or something. let's face it only a sissy would stop playing with a little broken hand.

the Van Gophers... broken thumb
Jackass has haybreath... hand in cast
Roadbed 4 track session that spawned "with a broken Hand"
now this fortuitous snap


babies are up now... so i gotta go. also being a chicken pecker on the typewriter is another "Robertson built in safety measure"... i spent their nap fixing songs and perhaps that was done on the power of a damaged hand.

One thing that really has me enraged at this moment, and it is not the fact that some forest company has enlisted Bob Renny to sell land they own on the island (probably purchased under a sweetheart deal) for development... Ok that got the old blood boiling too... but it's a win win for everybody right.

I have to come down hard on Mac computers... sure i love Mac if only because PC's are useless pieces of shit for my purposes. But as Mac increases in its dominance of the market share it's products are less likely to serve the artist, and more likely geared to the average hammerhead who wants to shit things together. My first computer and Mac was a G4 tower that still to this day serves me well... this squirrelly I mac i have now is a fine machine sure but i find the options on the programs enraging. i was trying to grab some audio of a digital video camera.. something i do often, but for some reason a glitch occurred where when importing the song (a freshly written song) the video became "split" if that is the term. So to extract the audio i get 2 files that i can't put together to send to the vocalist who is singing the song and i have to spend hours in vain trying to do a simple procedure. I did try to reload the whole dam thing 20 minutes into this fiasco but the same glitch happened. Sure i am no computer genius but when you go through the options... or the toolbar you get all kinds of nonsense options for non creative people... can't i just render the 2 clips as 1 and fucking move on with my day rather than having to turn a 20 minute task into a fucking insane marathon... i now know that if you import the fucker into garage band you can fucking do what you need to do... but if you stay in i movie you are fucking fucked with options of importing photos and text with various fonts and other bullshit "cute" asshole items that you might use if you were to send your retarded cousin a movie for their birthday

Oddly enough my Wife had to go in to work tonight because the tiff files she made for a talk she has to give on cancer research wouldn't transfer from Mac to PC so she is at work at midnight on Friday night trying to sort it out. I find it the model of Humanity to have this technology rendered useless because of the forces of business or money making. I say as i have always said... the economy is a lie... and consumers are morons.

Rage Barber

You see i was out with a few of the other fathers in the neighbourhood, at an event that was put together by one of the more gregarious guys in an attempt to get to know each other... and i guess get out. I had been out ever night that week, which is oddly not unusual for me, a father of 3 kids... there was a show and a supper show and then a hockey game and then this night. Shortly after this night i became deathly ill and put out of commission for a week and counting. Anyhoo, I'm getting way off topic here... The guys are swell fellows who have a similar outlook on the state of our city as i do. We are all parents and homeowners, and will be ill affected by bad decisions for a long time as we see Vancouver as our home. There was talk of the Olympics and the insane rhetoric that the various Yahoo's are yelping and then we got on to the new "Mount Pleasant Community center" and the planned demolition of the old one and of course the well used outdoor swimming pool that works very well thank you very much... again another story.

Aparently at the new center that they have been building for the last decade, or so it seems, they put the brick up... but apparently it was the wrong brick so they chipped it down and are starting again... not really out of the ordinary... but the real nugget of information i got was that one of the guys goes to the barber on main between 7th and 8th and apparently this barber gets really wound up about these events... and apparently if you ask him about the local coffee shops he really gets going.

This is great news... i mean i always cut my own hair but i think i might have to go for a trim and a nice dose of rage... which is a bit odd... most people probably would try to not help induce rage in their barber as they are getting their hair cut, but yet me... that is why i will be there.

I think the other fathers became concerned when i became so excited at the opportunity to get buzzed by a "rage barber"... "but watch out he likes the clippers" was the last thing i heard as i drifted into my rage barber dream sequence. I have never been one to give a rats ass about my appearance with regards to fashionable haircuts... i think it stems from a "never judge a book by it's cover" philosophy even though the rational person inside of me knows that it never works to be obviously weird. I have always thought of paying for a haircut is a waste of money... but a person in a controlled rage is like a small private play, more real than any fringe festival piece that might attempt a re-creation of sorts.

I am hoping it will be as good as my favourite "rage taxi driver" from years ago when i had walk 86 at the post office. This guy was no George Bush fan, that's for sure and he wasn't about to be force fed any of that horse shit that was being shoveled through the mainstream media back in 2002. Often times he would get going so hard he would have to pull over... "when i was in India we drove to a gas station and waited 2 days for the petrol truck to show up"... he would say pointing at me "that is a gas shortage!... this is not a gas shortage!"

One haircut coming up.






to be a rage barber
with scizzors and clips
looking out at the harbour
at the sinking ships

First rage of the new year

First off i have to say the 2008 was pretty good... no doubt i worked like a bastard but we got some things done and there were many good days. Even the collapsing of the economy and the housing market was like a vindication of sorts... Are people really insane... yep. Also i don't know how you could be a decent person and not feel good that that chimp of a president, the self proclaimed king of the world is in his last year in his role as a power abuser.

Well I guess the first rage of the year occurred when Emily and Hailie
screamed their fucking heads off all morning... But tonight we were going to do something fun, yep we were going to Willingdon Avenue to go to Eileen Davey Pool because there is a really fun water slide. Luckily for Kaiya, who was a large child we could lie about her age and she has been riding that slide (with me) for a few years now.

But no more... you see the B.C Safety Authority (1 800 566-7233) has come in and deemed that the slide is not safe for tandem riding = some some incompetent klutz took their whinny brat down the slide and caused an incident, and now we all can't do anything anymore.
If it was me and just our family was there i would have no hesitation to go down it with the twins who are 18 months old... one at a time. You can imagine Kaiya's disappointment after we got there and excitedly got up to the top of the tower and were turned around and had to walk back down... her favourite slide that we have ridden hundreds of times over the past 2 years... no worries in 4 years she will be able to ride it again "safely". Where to start... in all seriousness. Perhaps we should call our province Wimp Columbia.

Safety- the most dangerous thing you can do is get in your car and go driving on the street (getting to the pool)... Pure percentages folks. Does anybody have any ideas on what country i should move to? i can't even sign a consent form so that we can use the facilities properly. I guess my suggestion of getting a bar in the pool won't be considered too seriously.

I have nothing else to say
again i am disappointed in humanity
Safety... my new most hated word

and i was going to start this year off with a nice positive blogaroo about the few thing i was going to work on (slowly) to make myself a better person this year. i guess i need to get on the safety council and start reversing some decisions... i can see a Province cover story... "Risky Robertson threatens the lives of the average consumer".

check out these Mike Palmateer saves

also note the winner gets $5000 and a Panasonic treat.

A goalie making saves like that wouldn't get out of bed for that much now.



also i like how the goalie has to clear the pucks???

Now in a shootout they send the zambonie out to re-clear the ice on occasion.

Different game

201st post... good comedy Snow in Vancouver.

I was reading in the news today that some guy did some major damage to his house trying to clear the snow off his wooden deck with a flame thrower. Which was oddly an idea i had just the other day... well substitute wood house with intersection at Glen and 10th. As i thought through my plan i did think of the paint jobs on the cars nearby. The few people i told my plan to laughed at me... none the less it was Keith who came out and said "OK you have finally guilted me into it" and I who shoveled the street. Some people scoffed and said "our tax dollars should do that"... i said "spend my portion on more trees, or community programs". I mean i have the 3 young kids at home for days getting restless and needing an adventure... we were getting out for sure!

Later when i was shoveling out the drains on the street somebody did call me "the street hero". to me it was fun, "man versus nature" is always better than "man bitching to man about nature or the city services"... save that shit for the CBC news comments.

200 blogaroo's

i guess this would be the 200th post on the super robertson chronicles II. Wonder how many there were in the Super Robertson Chronicles... that old Dreamweaver site doesn't have a counter on it so it would be a dog of a job. I guess 200 is some sort of a milestone... you know how computers can correct grammar and all (not in this case)... well i was just thinking as i often do when i'm in mid blogaroo... well first i was thinking that it is a bit hot in this here kitchen , so i opened the window. Where was i... oh yea 3 dots and then a new random thought. OK so what if a computer could read a blogaroo and then judge it and then further classify it on some sort of scale and then give the Blogger some form of constructive breakdown in their statistics.

would computers judge art better than humans or is the mere question irrelevant on the basis of judging art and also insinuating the the Super Robertson Chronicles series is in fact art? For the record i don't think it is art... i think its a record of thoughts some of them misguided but yet present and dated.

I just went back to check my response to september 11, 2001... it hurts too much to think about that event that provoked a reaction that took our continent on the absolute wrong path. As they say hindsight is 20/20, but foresight shouldn't be blind... i remember thinking for a few days "this could have a silver lining" perhaps we will move away from oil dependence, and then Jim from work looked at me like i was an alien... "he's not going to do that, he is an oil man"... now i'm in a fowl fucking mood.

I actually feel like i should be able to sue the world leaders for causing me undue stress for the fool policies i have had to witness being implemented, which means of course the bad sales job on the public... and then the failure of the policy while all of the common sense sayers are villanized... and then the "who could have known" B.S. years later after all the money is gone. luckily for them there is a whole generation of trained consumers waiting to "buy Now"

man am i ever furious now... better listen to CBC radio 3 and try to calm down a bit.

oh yea i found out that it was September 17 2001 when i had that dream that became the song On frozen Pond

"September 17, 2001

Had a song dream today, the rare and illusive song dream, to remember and capture is next to impossible. But hey and old pro like super robertson doesn't wake for nothing...." Edmonton it's the same as its ever been and I hope the pond will freeze over" It was this reoccurring birthday song lead by some folky woman strumming a clock like an autoharp. We must have sang it 3 separate times... everybody sang in unison except on the third time she was early and i couldn't quite understand why .... then i woke up ..... it was a little boy's birthday and the song seemed to celebrate outdoor ice hockey rather than a birthday, but we all innately knew the lyrics. The only other noteworthy thing i can recall is that i became more of an observer, and my perspective moved gradually to the back of the room."

I have this other blog now called S Robertson's man parenting column, it would be about my experience as a dad of 3 little girls. When i write in that blog which i haven't lately i am more careful about what i write... to me the chronicles will all be about learning to articulate things. i do have this weird fear about writing about my kids as it is not their choice... if i make an ass of myself the it's just another day... but they still have a chance, a clean slate, a chance to make something of their own.

think ill go back to the party next door as the kids seem to be sleeping now

He's the famous Mailman on our street
On his porch he's creaming his feet
and the famous Blogger on the net
losing his temper wouldn't you bet

remains a mystery
to the people who see
and he plays for free

just like the famous actor on TV
things aren't what they seem to be
and the famous birdman on the wall
done by Gforce et al

remains a mystery
to the people who see
and he plays for free

Famous person
Famous Person
Famous Person
Pull the curtain

bitch and you shall recieve

or i guess it could be that you should watch what you write because people will see even though you thought nobody was listening... that's OK this whole thing is a science experiment right. kind of makes me wonder though some guy in Vernon is being sued for defamation for saying shit to a private investigator who was leading him to say that stuff NEWS STORY HERE. So the question becomes how does "the leech and gold medal spam champion" sit with respect to that nonsense. Clearly i could never run for public office now that you start thinking about the bigger picture here... well it got me off the email list.. or so they say... i imagine it did as i received what should be my last email from the company Sonicbids. Who knows perhaps it is a good company for some people... it is quite possible that my music sucks turtle cocks and hence is rendered useless...

Perhaps when you think about the history of things it will probably be sometime in the future that the only way to get a gig will be through that company and there will be a little pile of text beside my name... just like that time the phone company screwed me when we moved houses and i talked to the lady and said i am closing the bank account where you withdraw my internet account so can you put it on my phone bill (as it is the same company)... Oh sure Mr Robertson... and you are going to high speed... then you get 3 months free... OK... Later phone bill... no internet charge.. me thinking (stupidly) perhaps this is my first free month... a few months later i get billed for 3 months and 3 bounced payments (at $40 per payment) because my account was closed... so the phone conversation happened and the women pulled out a letter that i had written the company after i had spent a week trying to configure my email account on their website that was FUCKING BROKEN!!! ( TELUS TELUS TELUS) <--- what i did there that was funny


anyhoo... now we know how to get off an email list.

Thanks Sonicbids you are alright

SR

well i guess i have to write something

so much to say... who am i talking to? and why?

Just got an email and it wasn't from SONICBIDS, the leech and gold medal spam champion.

Don't know i you have ever tried to get your band gigs, but if you have you know discouragement that leads into desperation, which is where a company like sonicbids takes advantage. Hey it's a great idea and i wish it was my company. Essentially they make it easy for you to apply for "opportunities" that cost you from $5-$30 on average per application. Basically you have an electronic press kit that remains active so long as you pay the monthly fee... which is comparable to a website monthly fee.

The dead giveaway is the fact that you get 3-4 emails per day letting you know about the exciting opportunities in your area and across the globe. there is a simple note on the end of the email on how to unsubscribe, but unsubscribing is essentially impossible.

Anyhoo they did get a bunch of my money but that was a while ago.

The email was for a show by the great outdoors on December 6. I like that band so i can take an email on that.

Nov 20 @ the Railway Club

Nov 20- Railway Club 10:00 PM
Nov 21- The Dancing Bean (Chemainus B.C) 8:00 PM
Nov 22- The Cambie (Nanaimo) 10:00 PM
Nov 23- Logan's (Victoria) 4:00 PM

Goat

Goat has always been a favourite word of mine, used in so many phrases like... "could you pass me another curie goat roti", or "What the fuck is GOAT doing out there on the ice in the dying minutes of a tie game".

Later when Goat was very unhappy about his name, even though he weighed 110 lbs and couldn't skate and had a very suspect understanding of the game of hockey despite the fact that he fancied himself a huge fan of the game... you get the picture, he was the goat. Anyway it was late one night an he was lobbying to have his nickname changed, which is a very dangerous game when you are dealing with a smart team of 2 vicious assholes. his point was that he was a finicky eater so he should be called the CAT... because after all Cats are known to be finicky eaters.

i remember it like this:

Goat- "so i should be called CAT"
RDB- "cat... kit kat"
SR- "Rowntree"
RDB- "Lowney"
SR and RDB- "LOWNEY GOAT"
Lowney Goat- "FUCK YOU GUYS YOU FUCKING ASS HOLES"

Everybody loved the Lowney Goat handle and it stuck like none other.

It was a CBC story that gave me the inspiration for the words to the song Disappear... can't find the story now but the idea was that when the alpha predator (the wolf) is gone from a region you see an explosion in the deer population and then all the deer eat all of the sapling trees so trees essentially stop growing and then there are no trees which then puts stress on the songbird population.

The latest story i am kind of loving is this here one about GOATS. you can tell by the comments that it is a bit too much for some of the more "cultured" individuals of our fine society. I really think that these are the kinds of solutions we need... the only real problem is the goat shit but seeing as my neighbour's dog makes a habit of shitting on my lawn it would be better to have something that would taste good putting on the pounds eating the weeds. Another problem might be the temptation to Cougars. the Cougars would be lured into town for some easy prey and any confrontation between a wild animal and a Man's property always ends up in the loss column for the wild animal.

But this idea of using nature... i believe it is called Symbiosis to help us live better and free of noxious chemicals or gas powered noise machines is a good one. Like that crazy idea of using trees to absorb the sun's energy and hence cooling the earth, or that old fashioned concept of letting insects live so they can pollinate the plants that give us masters food.

Disappear from the original SUPERSIMIAN release.

not to get all negative again

I guess it is natural to hate yourself for what you did or didn't do if you are a self respecting perfectionist. Now calling me a perfectionist would be a far cry from the truth but in this particular case i think i deserve a Hammerhead award. I ended up getting interviewed today by the CBC live on air. The theme of the show was patience... i had plenty of time to think about my angles... perhaps too much time because i had it all figured and even had a few points written down... but the truth is i was like a god damn clucking chicken. It has been a long time since i have felt "stage freight" (i feel "stage shame" all the time). They knew i had young twin girls and a 4 year old... talking about patience should have been a slam dunk... all i had to do was to relive the events of last Friday when i was home alone with 3 sick kids for the day... but no, Robertson chokes like a victim in a horror movie an then tries to make a point about the virtue of impatience failing to connect the dots on how impatience can be a driving force in getting things done... next thing you know I'm talking about gardening.

I think next time this happens i need them to call Willingdon Black or i need somebody standing beside me with a taser ready to give me a little shot when i start losing my fucking mind.

I wonder if the batteries in a standard taser would last a 10 minute SR interview.

In the end I'm sure it's all good.. cant be worse than that time I __________.

I'm afraid this might become a night of bad bitching

#1




WHO IS FALLING FOR THAT SHIT?

I'm sorry, truly unbelievable... that is like Bugs Bunny talking Yo Samity Sam into taking another beating in a trap that Yo Samity Sam set himself (remember the exploding piano).

This one works too...


Speaking of American Politics... who would have thought that "Batman" would foreshadow 2008 all those years ago.



Now lets shift over to Hockey, in particular, my favourite show CBC's Hockey Night in Canada.

As we all know there is an new "anthem" for Hockey night in Canada and with that comes some sore losers like this guy... who specifically asks to send this to everybody in the world.

"....I've just heard them. I've just heard all of the five semifinalist's hockey songs.
And they ALL...SUCK!! I've been jobbed by some useless dude named Bob Rock.
But am I bitter? Hell no. "F" you...Bob Rock. CBC has done it again. CBC sucks too.
My song was...and is...the Best. Thank you CBC...for ruining my life.
Yours truly, Lloyd H. Manuel
PS: Please FORWARD this to everyone in the World."

Poor Lloyd... at this point we can only hope that he is fictional. If you are real old buddy don't feel too bad because your in the Super Robertson Chronicles... a place where rage gets the better of one's judgement from time to time. I mean surly your life can't be ruined by the CBC... If they had just paid the 3 million for the old song then you never would have had the chance old Lloyd boy.

I think the real error that CBC has made (and i think the song chosen will be fine) is hiring Mike Milbury, who just wrote a piece called The Vancouver Canucks: Contenders or Pretenders
... in the first line of the article he actually has the gall to point out his article title is clever!

Good grief, as Charlie Brown would say... Mike Milbury could be the worst GM ever! He is a man with the ability to set an entire organization back for a decade. The man that traded Chara and the draft pick that became Jason Spezza for Yashin. He also traded Wade Redden, Eric Brewer, Bryan McCabe, Roberto Luongo, Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, Raffi Torres, Taylor Pyatt and Tim Connolly among others. A well known mad man of a GM who is now paid by the CBC to write opinions on other GM's. As one Islander fan said "Mention his name to me and you get an eye twitch and my blood pressure rises to an uncomfortable level".

Not only that but they have inserted him into a segment with Kelly Hrudy and Ron Maclean. I'll admit that at first i didn't like Kelly Hrudy... he seemed too slick but after watching him for the last few years he has proven to be a man of keen insights and integrity. It almost seems like Milbury is there as the obnoxious "shoot from the hip", confrontational character that some yahoo decided might work for ratings... and i guess it might. Many of these sports shows have guys that don't see eye to eye and the viewer is treated to the spectacle of the annoyance. I mean, sure, it's hilarious when Don Cherry moves Ron Maclean's hand away from the imaginary line that says "this is your side and this is my side". Apparently 2 of the guy's on sportsnet hate each other (i don't have cable tv) but i know people who watch the show to see those guys fight.

A friend of mine who got into Hockey a few years back credits Hrudy for teaching him things about the game... and that was one of the advantages CBC use to have... that and the song.

I guess i should add that i think Marc Crawford is a good addition to the CBC hockey Night in Canada Staff.

disrespect

I finally got to see Def Leppard's idiot singer Joe Elliot put the Stanley cup upside down. it was on TSN.com and the video was about how Chris Chellios was not too impressed with that kind of deliberate insult. He wanted to make sure that people knew that it was not a Detroit Red Wings event but rather an NHL event.

too bad it didn't go like this...

Joe Elliot goes and puts the Stanley Cup upside down on a hockey net and then Bob Probert with a Red Wings Classic Jearsy comes on stage and begins laying a series of haymakers on old Joe's head until it is a mess of red. Then a giant Gatorade bottle rolls on stage crushing the rest of the band and bursting open the members of the tragically hip would start in with "fifty mission cap".

be rightous in your wrongness

I had this idea an i think it has merit.

It's how the global warming deniers dominated for years and still remain to this day.

I just hate selling... the idea enrages me.

smart people should make their own decisions based on rational needs and contained desires. That's the way it has to be... perhaps it would be better to be a debt ridden mindless consumer, perhaps you probably wouldn't care, and so there wouldn't be the constant disappointment. Maybe there is another culture on earth... but still the earth has a limited biosphere so once you know we are fucked can you ever lose that. Perhaps i need to volunteer somewhere and make a difference and see that difference and then begin to believe in some change some where.

i went to the park with the twins the other day and it reeked like solvents. they happened to be working on an OLYMPIC ice rink at trout lake park... you know the one where they spent all of the citizens money on the Olympic rink and now there is no money left for the community center and the perfectly good rink that was there before has been closed for 2 years so there is no local hockey or skating for the community. Another interesting point now that i am frothing into another patented rage. The new UBC rink is open and i talked to a guy who was offered a chance to play some drop in FOR $28. 28 bucks to play hockey... usually it is 15 bucks per person. Do i smell a rat... if that is the case WHO THE FUCK CAN USE THE FACILITY? to be honest i'm not too sure what the whole deal is but neither of us had ever heard of 28 dollar drop in hockey before.

What about the Mount Pleasant Community center in Vancouver? They are building a NEW ONE on a triangular piece of property by one of the more insane intersections in Vancouver... the building is mostly apartments but there is a small area for a community center (also a library and a child care center with a 5 year wait list... better get on it now in case you meet that special someone and have a child in the future)... no pool of course... wouldn't want that for a community.

Apparently they are going to tear down the old building and just go with "green space"... unless the plan gets altered of course.

Why tear down the building? first answer i'm sure starts with "can't afford". It's a great big building with a few gymnasiums with old school hardwood floors and all... surly we the community could use that space.

why is Kaiya crying.. i need sleep

one more thing

I thought i should go on record on my thoughts on the Toronto Maple leafs this year as the pre season opens tomorrow.

I really like the way the new coach (Ron Wilson) is talking. I hope to see a departure in the poor defensive play that has been part of the Leafs culture for as long as i have been alive.

Talking about goalie workloads he mentioned that in San Jose last year the team gave up 23 shots on net per game and then noted that the Toronto goalie faced significantly more.

this is the kind of logic i like to hear rather than the old "we are going to be tough to play against with our aggressive work ethic"... and of course to motivate that work ethic we have signed many players to lucrative long term deals with no trade clauses.

said one leafs fan to the other "you never know"
and the reply was "yea you know... it the Leafs"

might this be the end of the classic "leaf collapse" (where they play good for a period and a half and then give up 4 goals in 3 minutes and never recover)

speaking of shameless promotion

were we speaking of that?

oh right we don't speak.. i write and you shake your head at the stunning lack of grammar understanding i display.



This recording kicks some serious ass. i always view it as a disaster as the making of it punctured the first hole in the Roadbed armor. During the mixing of that album very strange things happened one being the saga that became "deep fried" and "deep fried reprise" which essentially ruined that song for me forever and left me with a bad lump somewhere.

Anyhoo, one of my favourtie local parents and i started talking music at the park while the kids played today until an upper body injury took out one of the kids. in the end i ended up sliding him a few Roadbed CD's... and then i got all paraniod so i took a listen.

Knockout hits is a fantastic CD, humorous, original, real and rocking.

My wife just came down and asked me what i was laughing at and it happened to be "territorial lynx" and the words to "Willingdon Junction".

I skipped Deep fried... hearing OK sung the wrong way still kills me.

Knockout Hits

actually fuck it... just listened to "Chimp on the ropes" and all the rage came back.

all copies of this CD should be destroyed... wow. no lyrics on the first chorus... i remember that one now... i think i am remembering the reasons i can't listen to this record. i end up in a series of why questions.

the economy

My main point in the song Mr Greenie is the whole idea about this nonsense we keep hearing about how the economy is so important.

If there was no more economy, would food not still grow on the earth? Would there be no air or water (of course poisoned by the byproducts of "the economy"). it's so weird people vote for people on the words "strong economy" and "low taxes"... how one could fall for that bull shit i don't quite know. Apparently if the economy is good we can work 80 hours a week and be just able to afford all of the new consumer products we need to keep our selves "in style" and "happy". One of my main goals in life is to go and live off the land and the grid.

Explain to me now how a government who is apparently all about a free market system, allows hype machines to make people believe bad loans are good loans all the while fleecing the average citizen, home deed owner and consumer. Then when the shit hits the fan as many smart people have been saying for years then the government covers the money that has now apparently disappeared with taxpayer money. So the government is not going to regulate it they are just going to cover the loss.

wouldn't the free market dictate that if that company made a bunch of dumb moves then they should pay the price. What is the price? Can the economy fail? Can you prop up a flawed giant... wont it fall sooner or later if it is really fucked.

Me, i don't really know much about economics. i know i don't like debt so i avoid it at all costs... i work hard and i do without, and as i do without i miss nothing of any significance. i know people who lost a lot on money on Nortel and some who lost on Bri-ex... i have long been predicting the end of this insane real estate climb. and i have feared for people who have no fear... the ones who don't care what it costs because it's the life they want. Does anybody really know what they want?

you think i would be a commune kind of guy with all of this talk, but a commune would never work for me because there would always be a few lazy jackasses who have no shortage of words to explain and re-explain their own predicaments that it would drive me to have an immediate and massive stroke.

I just shake my head that this economy, which is the root of the problem destroying the live ability of the planet (pollution, loss of bio-diversity, global warming...), is so important that after it fleeces the fools who drive it those people pay again to keep it going... and that's all cool.

we define insanity

Super Robertson for Prime Minister

I'll take this country back to the stone ages... back when a rock was a rock.

Just going over a few of the more obvious things

I realise you are all in your homes thinking the same thing...

as they say in the years to come there will be wars over water, because water will be the most precious commodity on earth. they also talk about how northern locations will have a more temperate climate with this "Global warming" thing.

A place like northern Alberta could be very well suited for this "NEW GLOBAL ECONOMY" what with it's vast networks of freshwater lakes... unless of course all of those lakes became toxic holding tanks that need air cannons going off all the time just so that ducks don't land in them as they will face sure death if they were to land in that unsolvable environmental fiasco. If that happened one might hear some fool say "if only we had known" and "who would have ever predicted", and perhaps, "did we save any of that tar sands money or is it all gone".

It would cause a lot of financial hardship if they were to shut down the operations, but what is the future price? I guess the answer is who cares, we need new stuff now and people will be out of office drawing golden government pensions when that shit hits the fan.

Apparently the price of oil is down yet the price of gas is up... i just paid $1.47 a liter... I'm not complaining i think it is still way to cheap when you think about the actual cost.

wasn't i on some "how to" kick

It's always hard with these blogs reading backwards... if you know what i mean.

last time i believe i had my little head up my big ass and i was whining about having trouble booking shows in other Canadian cities. Just do it you chump.

I guess i got all of my stuff into the publicist so i all i have to do is pay him and people will know about this CD. And that is the real goal here... nothing, for me, is more frustrating than trying in vain to get your music heard. it's true that i am a horrible salesman, and i take that as a matter of pride. if you ask me a question i will do my best to give you the answer that is best for you. I just think that that is how people should be.

Let face it humans are insane. The only thing that matters is "money" and "the economy" and north americans are about to suffer through the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars to convince people to make last minute knee jerk reactions and vote for some fool. Imagine if all of that money could be put into some renewable energy project and all the candidates just had a web page with there philosophy and people could read and understand and make a consciences decision. i also believe that anybody who believes in the theory of "intelligent design" should be striped of their right to vote as they have proven that they are unable to think for themselves.

as humans we have to think like the beehive

Do bee's shit in their hive? Does one bee come in and give a dance to tell the hive the location of a prime field of sunflowers are and then another bee does a better dance and tells the bee's to fly in the other direction to en empty field with a few wilted lilies... but the field happens to be owned by a buddy of the fine dancing bee.

the bee's would sting the shit out of the liar bee don't you think.

Bee's don't have garbage day.

If we are to survive on this planet... and i doubt it, i think we will need to take lessons from organisms that live within their environments. the word freedom comes up but i think the freedom we need is free time... which apparently we have less and less of... so perhaps the economy is not the main dog that it is cracked up to be. i guess there are a few generations of humans out there who have been heavily programmed to spend and want.

you ever had a kid who started to walk and then had people tell you "now you have got problems". you should be allowed to sock people in the jaw for that kind of fool talk. One jackass parent told me the other day that now that their kid is mobile they can't control her. Have we all lost out fucking minds? Is the goal to raise capable competent thinking active and adventurous humans that have a sense of belief in themselves. god help them for the shithole disaster industrial wasteland of a planet that they will inherit. might not even bee any bees left by then

It's has been a bit of a rough period and i hold myself completely responsible for losing focus lately. I need a new list. Most of the stuff is done that was on the master list, but what i need is my own list to do things i can do to help make things appear, as sim might say "Bigger that they really are".

I have been trying to book a tour, with some success but now it has become a series of emails that may go somewhere but most likely will go nowhere. I think the real trick here is to hire somebody to book a tour for the band 21 Tandem Repeats because the work falls into the kind of fuckery that leaves me uninspired and to prone to being on the computer following silly political coverage which then remindes me how WAY OFF BASE the human way of life is with respect to maintaining a supply of clean life essentials.

I guess what i could do is to write some news stories on the 21 tandem Repeats, and canada Lynx Records websites. I should probably just stick to the raw facts or should i, just fore once, make up some elaborate story that has little relavance to to truth as it is defined in the Oxford dictionary?

Way's not to create a "stir"

1) get naked at the supper show
2) jump under peoples tables and force a puppet show on them
3) mentioning human sewage

Things to do for Robertson.

Feed and take care of twins and family
should write and not be on internet.
Exercise
work on vocals

Was at the Gym tonight and CNN happened to be on the television and it was all the talk of John McCain's VP choice, Sarah Palin.

As far as women politicians go she is far more beautiful than you could ever hope for. Even i forgot for a moment that a senile rage prone war mongerer was standing beside her. I would call this pick an incredibly wise call... there are a few smart people running the world and they got that one right. She is for drilling for oil in the Alaska wildlife refuge, a completely insane and foolish position to have for the good of the earth... see global warming, if you believe in that... maybe GOD will come down one day and snap his fingers and clean up our mess... but i doubt it. It is a good political point to argue because either side could win given the gross ignorance of human voting populations. And She is inexperienced... the thing that they are trying to label the competition (Barack Obama)thus setting a "back-fire" trap. And you start thinking about that and you remember that you have spent a few minutes thinking about American Politics and you weren't wondering why certain members of the current administration are not in Jail serving multiple life sentences.

My point being you could argue her points and save John McCain from being exposed... after all he is an honourble guy who served his country.... yada yada.


Wasn't i to give a lecture about turning in your Band Bio on schedule?

I guess the bare bones are "just do it"... can i use that or does Nike one that phrase?

Excuses are a cancer to the cure. Probably the best advice would be to go and read the bio's of the success full bands in your genre and plagiarize. I Know that sounds negative but i remember reading a book about "how to write a hit song" and it basically said the same thing. I think the Music industry has it's waves and the idea is to be on your board paddling hard just before it breaks and then ride that fucker!

I didn't do that of course because for some reason it doesn't excite me. I turned in a bio and a one sheet... the bio is for the band and the one sheet is for the CD. I think the key thing is brevity.

What are these sheets of paper with words on them doing for you?

If you can get the CD into the hands of a person who has the power to expose your music to a larger audience (the ultimate goal of an artist... i would say) then the sheet of paper is there to intrigue that person into taking a listen.

That is why turning in a bag winded dog of a bio is pure suicide. If they want to know then they will ask and that is probably only if they listen to, and like your music... in which case the bio did it's job. A few strong points, or a quote to have within easy access so that if your song were to be played on the radio the dj could say "21 Tandem Repeats has been called one of the most important and successful bands in Vancouver and here is their latest hit "Robertson's Dream Orchard".

I owe the Mule a big thanks for being the Mule he is. Mule helps me look like less of an idiot than i am by reading over and "tweaking" things. I guess the real lesson there is "Be a good person and be forthright and honest and work hard and try to treat people right... that way when you need a bit of help it's not a big deal". By the way Mule i heard that A ghost to Kill again is playing next Thurdsay at the plaza... good chance A Ghost to Kill Again (a stellar 5 star band) won't get around to telling anybody.

so... Pick your day and get your bio's photographs, album cover JPegs in order. And what ever you do make sure your CD's will be pressed on time... you never know what will happen.

The Super Robertson Chronicles started out as Robertson writing things so that there would be new things on the Roadbed website to lure people to come back to the site and expose those people with the band.

This is of course back in the day... and still to this day the Roadbed web site has no streaming audio... and there was no youtube... and i wasn't on the CD baby train either.

In fact the logic went that the site was so irrelevant for it's lack of audio... it being a band site that i sat in an office, in a "business meeting" knowing full well thet the people who were trying to sell me a "webservice" were borderline retarded and incompetent yet i still gave them several hundred dollars because i couldn't stand the problem being on me any longer.

Remember MP3.com?

All the cat's had mp3.com sites and you could hear music. The CBC'c Newmusiccanada site and the CBC's ZED site were my main links but apparently some people had problems getting the stuff to play... I didn't.

What the hell... this anit going to be some corn fed walk down band website lane... leave that to a real writer.

What i was hoping to say before i felt the rich pull of that history is that i feel i should get back on track with the chronicling of the great "man in band vs world" conflict and perhaps i could give some advice on raising young girls from time to time.

I guess the problem is that a website chronicle reads backwards... and no you can't change it now... the line has been cast.


21 Tandem Repeats answers the bell and steps into the ring for round # 3. NO JUNK MAIL PLEASE is the CD's title “We chose this title so that we could include a sticker that, once applied to your mailbox, would cease the delivery of admail,” says front man Super Robertson.

come to think of it.. this is completely retarded. Wasn't the whole reason i was going to stop playing music a few years ago because of this inane bull shit.

Imagine being some fucking ass hole in a band talking about what kind of tea he is drinking while servicing his shit eating "web blog" trying to promote his band that highlight S. Robertson's poignant melodies with rustic orchestral accompaniments to assemble simply beautiful results.

Never underestimate the power of negativity. I think the real problem with negativity is the negative part... it turns people off and makes then feel "not good", and so they see nothing and they want to get away back to their own blanket of blindness.

A constant positive outlook is for suckers... unless you can afford to live away from humans without fighting mammals for berries and grubs.

all right I'll write the dog up.

81 days until we officially release the latest offering from Canada Lynx Records.

I am working with a professional publicist and that is a good amount of time to do it right. And since i have done i wrong for so many years, this may en up being a good resource for young fools like i was (and still am. it never would have worked for me though because i never would have read it... i would be too busy trying to put 1000 posters up all by myself to promote a show as if that herculean effort was in some way making a difference.

I think in the end it is about letting people know.. and that can be a very hard thing because when you are trying to "chum" somebody up you usually en up chumming too hard and showing your jack ass.

Next post: what you will need
due by saturday.

(always have deadlines and hold yourself to them... better to be somewhat there than nowhere)

we come from different places
and we are going in different directions
and i can be a bugger too
like, if you were a balloon, i could take a pin and pop you

sad sad swan song
long gone
i still feel the ilk of your presence
might i add... you fucking son of a bitch!
or would that be rude and give you a reason to get you back up
and start one of your completely insane dialogues that just goes on like a nightmare
let me sleep and don't wake me up anymore

and the 4 year old girl high on juice is in her room at the cottage and decides that she will have anther glass of juice.. how will she sell it to her juice hating parents?

"Just a titch of juice, and then i will go to bed".. all the while holding up her fingers in a pinching manner as if to measure the amount she will have. "Yes, i will have a titch of juice, just a titch of juice and then i will go to bed" Her mother is in the kitchen and the small girl who is now absolutely confident in her plan to get another small serving of juice walks up to her holding up her fingers to show the volume and then again... "i will have a titch of juice, yes, just a titch of juice and then i will go to bed" The Mother looks down in disbelief... the child noticing she has the full attention of the mother reiterates ""just a titch of juice, i will have..." and then perhaps recognizes the incredulous look on her mothers face. Count about four steamboats and then you hear "OH, MILK, YES I would like a nice cold glass of Milk

Sooner or later we all turn into our fathers

I locked my wife out to the house the other day. She failed to see that it was actually a problem on her end... leaving the house without keys. Apparently standing on the front steps does not in some cultures mean that you have left the house. I was on my way to the gym when i got the call. I thought it was Rilcof a friend who i was to meet at the gym so i started in on one of my patented abuse to motivated talks... about three minutes into it i hear this familiar woman's voice "M.R you locked me out of the house". Later on that night AFTER THE BBQ and the beers and when the people had gone home i was outside putting a few things away and she slyly tried to lock me out saying do you have your key... Of course i do i said proudly and i appreciate you testing me like that... now do you want to go out and double check that the garage is locked or should i... it was me.

21 Tandem Repeats version of the song "On Frozen Pond" to win the hundred thousand big ones.

culling poems for the supper show

came across this one from the original Chronicles

January 28, 2003

A notice from the strata counsel.. " a shady looking man in a very large suit and reeking badly was terrorizing guests at an Art opening at the Artworks Gallery.. The man spoke in a low broken voice.. And called himself a distinguished journalist... after several loud outbursts from visitors the man disappeared over the back balcony.. This man was using a video camera and filming Nudes by Robert Title.. Anybody with any information on who this man is please contact..."

i wonder why?

It was recently reported that the Department of Homeland Security has expressed interest in a "safety bracelet" for air travelers that would include personal information and would not only track the wearer but also be capable of remotely delivering a taser-like shock.

show

I play Music at 10:00 PM at the Greedy Pig (307 west Cordova) in Vancouver on Friday July 11... which i guess is today... i should go to bed.

I mention this mostly in an effort to do something that i don't quite understand.

and example:

There is a bartender at the club where i play a weekly gig who keeps asking me to bring in some of my CD's because he loves the music... and i keep forgetting to bring them in. WHY? Simple friend, because i am a bad business man. Apparently you have to let people know about things and then corner them and ram your product down their throat.

so to lessen my guilt that i place upon myself for being a bad business man and self-promoter i'll nip a last minute plug in this here blogaroo for this show... although there is no real reason to come to the show as i play for free every week and this dog will cost you 5 bones.

Another bad business move for thee old Robertson.

words not video

so i have been getting involved with a few "Blog Debates" using the "comments" as a posting board of some blogs. The good part about hockey blogs is that there is always lots of lunatic posters full of wild speculation that is completely outrageous in it's entirety.

The one thing you don't want to do, let me tell you, is to go posting on a feminist blog with that kind of rapport. If you were to say, using one example, try to say conclusively that you are right and anybody who See's it another way is a fool who deserves their incompetence... well then there may be a backlash.

my whole concept of "Blog being raw thought" is not a good one on many levels. it's like the blog always finds it's way back into negative, no use, bitching.

Must work to correct that

but a baby is up and this session is over

i remember this one from the old childhood... who really needs TV anymore

And for some reason, the day after that one aired i ended up in front of my class re-enacting that one. i remember the "I have a list!" part, but i didn't full understand the comedy of that at the time. To me at the time it was just a way to get into the joke of somebody reading themselves as an endangered species, and not a clear barb at the distracting policies of political profiling.