First Entry Found, pt. 1

(includes "Just For Fun, pt.1" and the famed expose on modern living "In Times Like These All One Needs Is a Good, Firm Shake. I'll Take Vanilla.")

3/1/07
In between thoughts of deviant sex with pastries i've been thinking about Gopher Sounds a lot today. It was this great independent record store in Flagstaff which, i'm guessing, is now officially closed- another casualty of that blasted in-ter-net.
A few weeks ago I learned from my friend Lee that the store would be shut down, victim to diminishing sales which, as the industry tells us, is a result of Kevin Shields refusing to make up with Belinda, grab his pedals and slip back into the studio to cut a new My Bloody Valentine record. Smug bastard.
Lee "does" the weather in Flagstaff at the tv station where i was employed as an opinionless man-shaped bucket earlier this millennium. While not being shoveled shit through the top of my head by the management of KNAZ , Lee entertained me with tales of high pressure and of drugs, of impending storms of kind bud coming in from the North. And he was always enthusiastic and he was always right.
So when Lee called and told me about Gopher Sounds closing down it didn't really affect me too much at the time. I mean, I've given up hope about a lot of Flagstaff- the bark beetles which had been ravaging the trees now found their dastardly way into the town's heart. And like the pine forest all the town really just needed a nice rain. For like, three and a half years straight.

I used to tease Lee about the way he told the weather but that was because I was bored and didn't know what I was talking about and frankly also because he is short and wore a suit, a combo that always makes me a little giddy. Lee was so good at the job that during his 3 minutes in that suit and in front of the chroma key pointing at some animated storm system that would inevitably not find it's way into bark beetle territory, we, the entire bucket-headed ragamuffin-production staff, we'd sit contently in that fart-drenched production room and go over tapes and tell jokes and do imitations of each other in our headsets, knowing that Lee still had one minute and twenty eight seconds to go and that it was all going to be easier from now until the end of the half hour on our live television news program. "One minute." We're going to make it, even with beetles eating through the rest of our ancient cameras and equipment, with the antenna barely transmitting and the sports segmant still up in the air, we are going to make it. "That's 15 seconds."
And I guess that they say that you always do, you make it. "That's 10. . ." You just make it though boys, ya make it. The towers fell but we made it. She had that stomach virus on the cruise but we made it. He slept with another woman but we're going to make it. But fuck that you know- Pompeii? The Anasazi? The '03 Cubs? Gopher Sounds? "That's 5. . ."
One time we were cruising through the weather segmant- someone hit a button and the next thing you know Lee's standing in front of a furniture commercial. You don't make it and it's okay, really it is and we're going to have to get used to it because, well- don't you see that storm coming? "1. . ."

I think that main reason I was fired from Gopher Sounds back in the spring of Ok Computer was that i was too obsessed with not making it. Us, me, you, them- everyone not making it.

Plus, there was the issue of my scent. Living in the desert on 80 acres of land with 6 or so other people all surviving on the patented "coffee and hope diet", smoking Drum in a house with a corrugated roof that was supposed to collect rain water in a place that never rained wasn't good for body upkeep. I was unwashed because the act of washing in a house so devoid of water would be the worst kind of selfish. "You showered!" the dark evil daggers would shoot from my passive aggressive housemates, "doncha know we needed that water for our coffee!"
So because we never could collect enough water from the clouds and down the roof and into the tank and through the filters and down the pipes, we all knew that whatever water we did have would never find it's way out that shower head. And if anyone even hinted at the need for a nice quick shower and shave of the legs well then, up against the wall and out came the daggers.

No, the act of showering was relegated to the houses of our friends in town; town- that damnable place where water ran freely and electricity stayed on for an entire cycle of toasting bread.
Our beloved friends, the saints, swinging open their shower doors as we slinked in on a wave of stench once or twice every week; even allowing us to fill plastic gallons and jugs with water that we could use to drink coffee back home on the ranch. But why? Why did they let us do this, why did we get away with leaving that horrid black ring around each tub? Because we demanded it with our dusty swagger and harried eyes, that desert gaze cut with hawk and black sands was too much for them- the saints could not say no, and if they did, we might kill 'em or curse 'em or even worse, make them like us. We knew this, we knew that in the end we were all going down together. So what's a few gallons of your water anyways.

But carrying a job, working at a record store like Gopher Sounds was a different story. I, in my 9 to 5'er lack of charisma was enslaved into worrying about how i smelled for a fucking job. Here, where girls break up with boys and where flowers which once rose from impossible desert soil now too are dead. Here where none of us will make it i hafta worry about smelling nice to sell Fugazi cd's?

I first saw the eyes of the jobless beast the day that my boss Steve had me go to the hotel and pay a dollar to shower. We both knew that this couldn't go on as it had, that the aromatherapeutic oils couldn't mask the truth of me whenever the sun would hit hard against the window behind the register- that now no amount of shrink wrapping would make amends. My knowledge of the Factory label would not be needed soon enough.

Another reason to fire me was that i was often late to work. This too could be easily linked to the no one here get's out alive theory of not making it but i just won't bother. Instead let's link that trip to work to the one i took today, just for fun, (because fun is most fun when revising not so fun things with a fun new spark) ((please someone stop me if another sentence like that one belches out ever again))-
Today i left for work at the last possible minute that i could to avoid being late for work. Unfortunately, as i locked the door, i realized that i had forgotten to pick out a cd to listen to during the 8 minute drive. So by entering back into my apartment i was officially leaving past the last possible minute that i could to avoid being late for work. Glad i did it though as the music will be new.
Now anyone who has had the pleasure of joining me in my garage can just relax during this next bit, come now dear friend, just sit back in your chair and go through a short self guided meditation with me. We're walking down the stairs to the garage. We take the side stairs as somehow I feel that they are lucky when leaving but not when returning. It's cool here on this staircase, the turns are close and comforting. For a moment we smell the recycling, paper and the reside of tin cans. Our shoulders brush together as we descend. At the bottom of we approach a heavy gray door. A box is embedded in the wall to the left of the door, a small light bulb there glows green. The color of entering. We breathe together and, almost touching the door now you see me push a button. The light is red. The Sacred Garage Space has been activated. We may enter. . .
The noise in here is deafening, a terrible beep that pounds through ear and into chest, eating away the lining of your stomach, a Lou Reed moment of self hate. BEEP BEEP BEEP We scramble towards the car, fumbling keys and jagged toe step. You ask me about the noise and i try to explain that it is the sound of the alarm deactivated, that it is off now and that, were the alarm actually going off, that, well- that's a sound even worse than this. BEEP BEEP BEEP I've been here a year and i still don't understand this.
One quick and easy 12 point turn later and we're out of the garage. The alarm is activated, or silenced once again and i have a choice. I can A. Cut through traffic and risk being smashed by many cars or B. Don't do that. I've gotta admit that B. has been my choice lately.
Now the rest of my drive to work is pretty stale- a lot of stop and starts and turns- you know, driving-type stuff. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
After about 8 minutes i parallel park between two cars that do not have the space for flossing between them and get out, grab a coat and walk to work. That's it. That's the journey.

Ok, great. That was Just for Fun, pt. 1. Now I'd like to contrast that trip with the one that i would take to work at Gopher Sounds ten years ago but i can hardly remember what it was. Or rather which mode i would take to get to that job. I think there were three-

1. The Erin and Blue Escort
Erin and Blue were the youngest folks to live at the ranch. As a couple they were as on and off as our electricity- the state of their love was as randomly dependent on the placement of the sun as the amount of wind that blew through the propeller each day. I remember that Blue was the one who would siphon petrol from the tank of Erin's car whenever we would run out of natural energy and had to use the gas powered electric generator. I guess part of my job was to convince him to do it as i most certainly was not. We'd go out together into the dark with a hose, a gas can and a bottle of drinking water. He'd kneel down into the black sand while I would do my best to make him laugh knowing that it might make the taste less poisoned.
Eventually we'd pull the rope chain over and over, blistering hands, coyote scream- fuck! The desert is a cruel place! Nothing is easy here- bread cannot be toasted for risk of shorting the power! Bugs crawl in mouth! Rattler's in house! The pull cord for the gas powered generator is an unyielding asp, it's bite is the sliver of rope in palm pulling over and over for nothing but sputter!

End Pt. 1~

Over the next few weeks we plan to bring you entries which were found encased in individual fortune cookies collected by customers and staff at an unnamed Mandarin buffet ($10.99 lunch/$17.99 dinner) in southern Ontario over a 4 month period.

Well over 6,000 single-lined fortunes were assembled by Edith Felene, a former airline hostess and longtime member of the Hamilton Book Club, who lists item #117 The Honey Garlic Beef as her personal favorite dish.
We would like to thank Ms. Felene for her months of toilsome work in bringing to us these entries. One cannot imagine sifting through all of those tiny scraps of paper and assembling them from random piles into the (sometimes) cohesive works that we have now. Without her efforts, these statements- however frustrating and ultimately unimportant they might be- would have been discarded in heaps of chow mien, napkins and grease.
Our hopes and prayers are with Edith as she continues to recover in Hamilton General Hospital. Please send flowers and chocolates but refrain from any get well cards with text smaller than 16pt., no run-on sentences or cookies and please- no poetic phrasing .


Soon after the first week of February (not coincidently during the same period that this blog went silent ) mysterious "non-fortunes" were the disappointing end to what had been "a very fine meal until this point thank you, but now you've scared the kids and what the hell kind of fortune is 'Each pack of Red Vines have approximately 20 pieces in them !'. (Quote taken from surveillance footage captured 3.18.07, 1:23 pm lunch rush- Cormier Family table, seat 3, westside Butterfield Ave. view.)

After numerous customer complaints the owners chose to contact the Taiwanese-based Happy-Sun Fortune Cookie Company who replied by fax with the following- "You may love the small ones but win the big ones. / Lucky Numbers 3, 18, 21, 26, 33". This message, though later used to play Lottery Canada, was ultimately of no help.

The Fortune Cookie Mystery which, like any good mystery, is always proceed by an utterance of 'why'. For example- 'why', after enjoying a nice plate of Mu Shu Chicken, 'why' was Mr. Hendricks given a fortune cookie which, when cracked open, revealed the completely useless phrase "behind a brick wall and cross through traffic". Why? Were these specific directions that Mr. Hendricks was being asked to follow? Like, that brick wall over there? (Suffice to say that Bill Hendricks did follow, only to find himself standing in front of a vacuum cleaner repair store on the other side of the traffic.)((Which actually turned out pretty well as Bill remembered Mrs. Hendricks request to purchase a new filter.))(((Which he did.)))((((But 'why'?))))
Mysteries like these need an answer and though the Chinese prophets has been known to be obtuse, sentences like "impending storms of kind bud" just didn't translate well as fortunes in southern Ontario. Something wasn't right and The Happy-Sun Fortune Cookie Company, for all of it's optimism and numerological compliments, just weren't helping.

So Ms. Felene, because of her literary ties, was asked by the restaurant owners to attempt to understand these strange fortunes. And Edith soon discovered that the disjointed phrases and non-committal assumptions that had been frustrating the prophetic hopes of diners for weeks we're not "nonsense" but rather part of "a larger scheme", a "complete thought". Which she believed to be "hardly coherent" and "never a winsome phrase as ' you will enjoy good health and financial independence' " Edith never less believed these thoughts "had something to say" but "what, oh what" and "why, oh why do I keep seeing those little red spots" for are "the little red spot people the cause of the burning burning inside of my head!". (Quotes are from Edith Felene's personal diary.)

Edith began by laying out the scraps of paper collected from frustrated diners across the carpet in her central Hamilton condo. One can picture her then, alone; glasses perched on tip of nose, that cup of peppermint cooling off in the Niagara Falls mug atop a coaster, the late winter light barely penetrating the window and Edith trying to make sense of all of those tiny greasy sheets. You cannot be envious. But Edith, in need of a project and always good at the Sunday puzzles, was fit for the task and approached it with a passion seldom seen around the Chateau Royale Condominiums (save for when Hank Jenkins cashed in his bi-weekly check from the tool company and ordered in a whore).
But for all of the shuffling, head scratching, note taking, note tearing and all-out research, it- like many brave discoveries- it was a happy accident that provided Edith the breakthrough she needed to solve the mystery.


The bottom of a cat's paw is a special thing. Some Native Tribes of Real America consider paws to be spots that are focus points of energy. Much like a vortex a cat's paw captures energy and holds it in- like a well during the rainy season it is refilled while never fully drying up. It is believed that cat's paws are firmly rooted to the center of the earth while the rest of the cat (it's mind, heart and soul) travels interdimensionally. Hence the energy held in a single paw encapsulates the power of this world and any other the cat chooses to travel within. Much like a pillow. (Which is also considered to be an energy hotspot in some cultures.)

But 'why' do these things happen? What makes one piece of paper stick to one paw and another to one more? How do these things fall together? Why do phrases coincide and, in turn, exist with one another as if they had never been apart before? Is it at this Native Intersection that all things meet? Is it here at this place that our natural instincts entwine- that one half of one phrase meets the other, that lovers become lovers, peanut butter and jelly? The spot where twins are born and an entire nation finds it's common purpose, dug into the ground, found under the stars, one paw touching the next? Who the fuck knows. . . What is true is that one small fortune was moist enough, had just the right amount of grease on it to stick to Beatrice's paw and another the same and that both of these phrases, when they were dislodged from the paws, both of them coincided, met at the core, one small punctuation bleeding into the next, one wound of word onto another- that these things embraced and become one complete thought, obscure yes and quite possibly built from the things that madness is made of- but enough of a Natural Conjunction of Things that Edith Felene recognized it as One Complete Thought and, because of those sacred paws, was able to ascertain that these elusive fortunes meant something when put together after all. Eureka! and God Bless! "Now all I have are thousands of little scraps of paper that need to be assembled (somehow!) so that (finally!) I may make sense of all of this!". Good luck Ms. Felene, good fucking luck~

And so, in continuance of this mystery, we must now reshape the big 'why'- clean it up, scrub it down with a new approach to questioning. We must squeeze it out and pat it down until it is reshaped as a fresh and squeaky little 'how'; as in- how did this happen? How did the contents of this blog somehow transplant into the ink that decorated little scraps of white paper that were then inserted inside of sleepy looking fetal shaped cookies being baked and individually wrapped inside of a factory in Taiwan only to be shipped from that place, across land and sea and end up in one single restaurant in Southern Ontario which just happens to be 114km from the place where the author was born- how did this happen?

I mean, he really can't even stand a buffet! -

How and why- well, whatever. We won't and we simply cannot, but yes, you may try. We're done with it though. And Ms. Feline, on that hospital bed- well we can only hope that her pillow is a vortex. That would be nice for her, as she deserves to skate across time and space in a volley of truth and answers and damn fine looking multi-colored nebula for all of her hard work. She will meet cats there, cats that have lived in those distant places since time began; puzzle-making cats who will challenge her skills with the finest puzzles collected over each fantastic millennium , across each fantastic dimension and Edith will sit there, on the tip of some celestial object, her glasses pushed up on her nose, and she will sit there and solve each one of those cat's tricky puzzles until one day, pressured by growing hospital bills, Edith Feline will miraculously rise from that stale hospital bed with the vortex pillow and head back to work. Only then will she remember that this is Canada and the medical bills were taken care of.