Paul Artson

Polka Dot Door and Prospect Avenue

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:54:22 -0300

In my tireless quest to have my life mimic the lyrics from the Polka Dot Door theme song as closely as possible ("With songs and stories and so much more..."), I've added a story to the "Extras" section of this website. The story is called Prospect Avenue. I wrote it last fall and have been going through it over the past couple of days in an attempt to tidy it up a bit. I'm just going to post the first section of the story. If you're interested in reading more, come back in a couple of days. I'll be posting a new section every couple of days for the next week or so. Then I'll post it all together in one document.

Download: Prospect Avenue - Part 1

Return of the ... well, me.

Fri, 2 May 2008 18:06:47 -0300

Hello, hello. How's it going? How am I, you ask? My, how kind of you to inquire. You know, they always said you were the jerk in the family, and although I used to find you rude and conceited I must say that since that run in with the law you've been much more personable. One might even call you friendly, but I should probably exercise discretion and hold off on going too far with the flattery for fear of puffing you back up to the windbag, blowhard, horn-tooter that you were before that time in the tank. Remember that thing with your neighbour, the squirrel, and that bottle of mustard? Man, you sure were an ass back then. But, I'm getting off topic. Here we are talking about you again when you were so decent as to ask me how I'm doing.

I'm well, thanks. I got back about a week ago from Ecuador and had an excellent time. It was hot, and although I thought I might crumple up like a pathetic, wilting Canadian daisy laid out to dry on a hot slab of cement, in actuality I didn't find the heat all that bad. Oh sure I was sweating most of the time like I had just pulled a flatbed of zebras across two deserts (TWO!) but, you know, after a while you kind of get used to it. Bethany is much better at describing the lust for showering that develops in Guayaquil, so if you'd like a more nuanced and better-written description of the quest for cold water please visit: groundhogwash.blogspot.com.

To get back to your question, we did lots of fun things and I was introduced to many a nice person, most of whom I did not understand due to my poor, poor, poor Spanish. But most were smiling, and even if they were calling me a stupid gringo bastard, which they would have been completely justified in doing, at least they looked friendly while doing it.

So, what did we do, you ask? Well, lots of stuff and lots of nothing, all of which was exceedingly enjoyable and irrefutable proof that even the most mundane activities can be enjoyable when in the right company and environment. I've considered going into great detail about what we did but, truth be told, I don't really feel like it. It's not that I don't like you. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yes, there was that whole thing with the goose feathers and the stain remover, but you apologized and in the end I'm sure we can both agree that those months in the monastery did you a lot of good. So although I'm still a little sore about the whole thing, to prove that there are no hard feelings I thought I'd just go ahead and show you a bunch of pictures that you can feel free to interpret as you wish:

Pretty nice, huh? We stayed across this crazy highway from a place called Bastion, Block 6. Though all of the places we went were nice, I really liked Bastion a lot. It was a very cool community of people, though my not speaking the language was particularly a drag there as Bethany has lots of friends who live there that I would have liked very much to talk with.

I got back to Halifax last Thursday and have since then been trying to get enough songs together so that I can go out busking soon. I've also been looking for other work. What a drag that whole quest is. Man, there aren't too many things I dislike more. Who'd have thought you could get a degree in history and not be able to find work? Oh yeah, everyone thought that. Damn you all for you insight!

So, between reading job posting upon job posting, none of which I'm qualified for or interested in, I've been learning some new songs and in doing so have been forced to acknowledge that I am really very shitty at memorizing lyrics. So, if you see me out busking on the streets of Halifax please don't laugh and point when you hear me mumbling my way through a train wreck cover of some song.

In other news, I forgot for a time that I had originally intended to put some of my poetry and short stories on this site. Now that I have remembered this original intention, I have begun thumbing through some old writing of mine and will post it in the Extras section of this site once I clean some of it up. Maybe you, my imaginary internet listeners / readers can read some of these things and tell me if you think they're any good. The reason I make this request is that I'm thinking about doing a masters degree in creative writing and should probably let some people read some of my stuff, since I'll have to do it all the time in that program.

Making up songs, recording them in my bedroom and then showing them to an imaginary internet audience has hardly turned out to be the wild, money-making endeavour I had anticipated it would be (insert sarcasm here), and it doesn't even come close to paying for my drug habits and various other assorted addictions. Luckily, I got accepted by the University of British Columbia in December to study in an MFA program in creative writing. At first I thought, "Shit, more school?" But then after a while I got to thinking and found myself saying, "Shoot, more school." More time passed and I said "Ohhh man, more school?" Until finally more recently I've found myself standing outside naked most evenings yelling, "Shit, more school!" So, interpret that however you see fit.

Some people have encouraged me to think of it as an accomplishment of some sort, being accepted into this program that is, but then I remember the haste with which I threw together a portfolio and in making this recollection also recollect that I included a tidy sum of bribe money with my application. I figured that the post office would notice that I had included two bars of gold in my envelope and would take them out, but based on the fact that I was accepted into the program I can only assume that the folks at Canada Post were drinking on the job again. Completely understandable, Canada Post, completely understandable and various members of my family thank you for facilitating the opening of this new academic door. Excuse me as I throw up on the threshold.

So, to summarize, if you're inclined to read short stories and poetry, please read mine. Maybe you could tell me what you think, too.

Well, this post is all over the place and is getting long. Maybe those creative writing folks can teach me about concision and good endings. Right now all I've got is: See you later.

- Paul

Quittin' the City

Wed, 9 Apr 2008 21:30:47 -0300

Hitting the road, then the air, then the road again. Going to South America for a couple of weeks. Adventures are fun. See you all soon.

- Paul

Sea Lion Woman

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:21:10 -0300

Saw Feist perform "Sealion" on the Juno Awards last night. It was a good performance and the couple of reviews that I've read today have been good, too. I wouldn't say I'm the biggest Feist devotee - I've got a couple of her albums and enjoy them both - but what spurred me to read some reviews today of her performance from last night was my desire to see if anyone would correctly credit where this song came from.

No luck.

Everyone seems to credit it to Nina Simone but, in actuality, it's an old song first recorded around World War Two. The first place I heard the song - which was originally nothing more than a little forty-five second rhyme with a melody - was on this great old record called A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings. Maybe Nina Simone picked up the copyright because the song was in the public domain at the time, I don't know. Regardless, I thought it might be interesting to note where the song actually came from, if only to urge folks to go and check out the excellent album on which I originally heard it. I'm no musicologist or expert in traditional folk music of the United States, but this stuff is just damned good and deserves the credit it's due.

If you can get your hands on the album, some songs that I thought were really good were, "Another Man Done Gone" by Vera Hall, "Blood-Strained Brothers" by Jimmie Strothers, "Worried Life Blues" by David Honeyboy Edwards, and "One Morning in May" by Texas Gladden which, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe was on Feist's Let it Die album. That's two albums in a row with a track off of A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings. She's got great taste! Maybe we could put in a request for Woody Guthrie's "Gypsy Davy" on her next album.

In other news, I'm heading to South America on Thursday morning. I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, so the tracking and writing process will be stopping for a bit. When I get back I've got three or four more tunes ready to be recorded and twice that many which need some finishing touches before they'll be ready to record, too. Exciting times. See you all soon!

- Paul

Monkey, Bette Midler, and an RSS Feed

Sat, 5 Apr 2008 20:55:39 -0300

Today I looked into this thing called RSS so that I could use said thing on my website. I started searching around for some kind of other thing to help me make this first thing so that I wouldn't have to learn a bunch of computer things that I didn't really feel like learning. The thing about learning about things and the various computer things associated with them is that although the former thing might be interesting and beneficial and seemingly simple, in actual fact it is often the end product of a group of things that are a confusing mess of numbers and doo-dads and widgets and things and whatnot and things. A real mess of shit and things.

So, a bell rang and a sheep bleated and the skies parted and then I found this thing that I figured would allow me to install an RSS feed on my website. The groundskeeper ate some jelly.

And then there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and it was a monkey holding a poster of Bette Midler.

"What's your name?" asked the monkey.

"Paul," I said. "What's with the poster?"

"Install RSS into your Whatchamagog Folder and parse the doobop."

"What?" I asked.

"Parse it. Then twice past the hiccup put the Bette Midler poster into the XFG directory."

"So, the Bette Midler poster has to do with RSS?"

"Who's RSS?" asked the Bettle Midler poster.

"You can talk?" asked the monkey.

Then from behind me a little - b l I n g p - sound came from my computer. I left the monkey and the Bette Midler poster at the door and went to look. Somehow there appeared on my website a little RSS icon. Weird. All right.

When I went back to the door the monkey was gone and Bette Midler was there holding a poster of a monkey.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"Not what, but whom," she replied. "And, really, not even whom, but where."

Another sound from the computer.

"Hang on, Bette."

"To the poster?" she asked.

"No. Well, yeah, sure. But just wait a second," I said over my shoulder as I walked to the computer.

Betted dropped the poster to the ground.

In the distance a scarecrow cried for her unborn lover. Another victim of the wheat board.

Legs scream at bikes and bikes scream at trucks.
The motorists curse their lousy luck.

XX--**#%M!

You have successfully installed an RSS feed on your website.

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What you have just read is my attempt to convey in writing the confusing mind fuck that was my experience trying to get an RSS feed working on my website. Please subscribe by clicking the little orange RSS button above so that all of this madness was not in vain.

- Paul

They're Gonna Get You

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:55:38 -0300

Another song posted. Please download and share, horde, incinerate, calibrate, un-calibrate, recalibrate, celebrate, hate. Repeat.

Download: Paul Artson - "They're Gonna Get You"

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They're Gonna Get You

Me and Bobbie quit the city by the light of the night.
I said, "Bob, what the hell we done?"
She said, "Made our deal, now the devil's at the wheel,
So we'd damned sure better run."

Hiding in a ditch on a dark, dirt road
Watched Bob burn a mission down.
She said, "God damn 'em all for making me crawl
And for messin' my mind around.

And watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morn'.
They're gonna get you in the morning."

From the mountain and the valley heard the ringing of bells
Trying to rouse the people wise.
Me and Bobbie stole a motorcycle, rode for Caledonia
'Neath the heat of a slow sunrise.

The hangman, he hit the highway for the wolf in the roost
And he ran us good and hard.
Bob said, "How, my friend, can a woman get ahead
When they keep her chained in the yard?"

Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morn'.
They're gonna get you in the morning.

When they caught us in an alley, I said "Let's quit."
Bob was damned sure we should not.
She unloaded wild, took a hit and just smiled.
I got a belly full of buckshot.

Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morning.
Watch out, child, they're gonna get you in the morn'.
They're gonna get you in the morning.
They're gonna get you in the morning.

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- Paul