The Last Stand

Where arts and media and writing are concerned, everything feels like a last stand these days - like, "just one more and then I'm never going to do it again," like I'm a bank robber going for one last score, the junkie having one last shot. Maybe I'm deluding myself, that this is all a protracted rationalization for clinging to my old bad habits - but everywhere in my life I look it feels like one last cup of coffee for the road.

It's been feeling like that for awhile, actually, but lately, more than ever.

The concerts I'm seeing, for instance, have to be really, really big, important things to me to justify the time, expense, effort - like I'm saying goodbye to that part of my life and want to see bands and artists that I may never get to see again, bands that I want to have seen at least one (more) time. That's how I felt about Ray Davies, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Kris Kristofferson, Black Sabbath, Roky Erickson - events I couldn't (or in the case of Roky, can't) miss; with one or two exceptions - a couple Funky's shows I caught when I had the opportunity - I think that's pretty much every concert I've caught in 2013. There have been a ton of shows over the last couple of years that I would have loved to see - High on Fire, Channel 3, Om, Melvins, Guitar Wolf - but none that I figured I would have been kicking myself for missing, years later. A few people, familiar with my past incarnations, asked me in really excited terms the other month, "Are you going to go see The Sonics?" But I never even considered it, and when the day came, I wasn't there. I went most of my adult life not troubled that I never saw the Sonics, and I can continue to live that way just fine, despite having now had the chance. I have a short list of bands I couldn't miss if they came through town, but most of that is implausible stuff like the Flesheaters: as if they'd ever regroup and tour Vancouver, or the Dutch art-punk collective The Ex, if they ever came back. But I won't be going to those shows anytime soon...

Records and CDs feel the same way. Unless I come across something in a thrift store (like Nico's Chelsea Girl, which I found for $1.50 the other day!) there aren't many albums I'll buy lately (or download, or whatever - it's not that I'm stealing music; I'm not really acquiring it by any means). I have my old favourites to fall back on and mostly that's what I'm doing. Something like the Roky Erickson reissues happen and I have no choice, but generally, I'm staying out of record stores altogether. I'll make an exception for the new Motorhead album, but there's not much else I'm planning on picking up this year; I don't even want to know about what's new...

Same with DVDs. I want to get Only God Forgives later this month, otherwise - what I find in thrift stores is just fine. I still scan DVD Beaver, to see what new releases are upcoming, but that's just to see if anyone has announced Clearcut, or a restored Phase IV or Sorcerer yet. Scanning the list of titles, mostly I think to myself, "I can live without it."

And it's not just consumption, either. The writing thing seems to be nearing an end, too. I'm very aware that next week marks the 10th anniversary of Alienated In Vancouver. I have definite plans to finish a few articles - I need to get the big Zev Asher memorial interview into the world, in addition to Bugajski, mentioned below - and I have a few other concrete things to get off the books, but the excitement has waned a lot since I started this. The challenges aren't new and the rewards have never been that enormous. I've met most of my musical heroes and a couple from the world of film. Some I've liked, and some I haven't; some have become friends, and some are total strangers (and some I've decided I'm just fine on keeping that way). But none of it feels that important to me, anymore. Too much of my writing has involved subordinating myself to others, making them look good, supporting the causes of artists I admire; it hasn't amounted to much personally, for me, and at this point I'd rather live my own fulfilling life than talk to other people about theirs...

Even my Mom seems like she's on the way out, like these are the last years I'll know her.  I don't see myself in my present role many years longer. Maybe I'm wrong, but...

The thing that's interesting is that the main area where I don't feel this way is my relationship with my girlfriend. That's where I'd *like* to move forward, where there's a sense of there being meaningful challenges, meaningful discoveries, new horizons, places I want to arrive. It seems so much more worthwhile than all this other stuff I've been distracting myself with, so much more important. What was the point of the last ten years of this? What would be the point in continuing? This blog and what I've been doing with music, movies, film... it's been fun, it's been an entertaining hobby, but it's not real life. I feel like I could even walk away from the Internet for awhile. It seems vastly overrated...

That's what I'm thinking about these days...