Dr. 14

I wrote this for the paranormal evening that I performed at last week. Here it is for you to read, yes, personal state of mind peers into the frame.

There I was with the renowned ghost hunter Dr. 14. They call him Dr. 14 because he goes one better than 13. Ever go to the 14th floor of an elevator? The people on that floor have a mix of smugness and dread. They’re not 13 but they are. One better.
Dr. 14 and I were on a mission on his floor. He runs all the 14th floors. Not a spiritual advisor. A doctor. A PhD in BOO! Stethoscope to the astral plane. He’s rational.
In fact, when I said, “Look up ahead, Doctor! Follow my nose, it always knows! …Why, I see floating just yonder, yes, it’s ectoplasm! I just know it is!”
He replied, “Dearrrrr boy, that is most certainly not ectoplasm. It’s snot.”
“Snot? Then do you know what that means, Dr. 14? This entire floor is operating as an open system of decongestant! The 14th floor is a sense of release! This is a perfect opportunity to get something off my chest! I have a ghost story that I have been meaning to discuss with you, Dr. 14, but it’s not of the kind you might think. I mean, oh sure, I thought I saw ghosts in the past. I’ve had visions of witch burnings while at a Christian camp. The counselor with the wooden cross necklace even purified the cabin in the name of Jesus Christ for me. I was 13? 14? Ha ha.
But this one’s not like that.”
“No?”
“No. Nor is it about how around the same period while lying in my bed at home I saw a visage pass by my door. A nurse visage dressed in a classic nurse uniform- not like the kind of uniform that my graveyard shift working Mom wore. My mother was a nurse. My Aunt Molly was very religious. She died. We inherited her collectible plate of the Last Supper. The plate broke days before I saw the ghostly night nurse. Midnight nurse. 2 hours later. 14 O’Clock. Was the nurse a sign? What to do? Don’t throw out the broken pieces of the Last supper plate. Put them in a box and save them forever or a long time. That way nothing bad will happen.
No, my ghost story’s not about that.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t want to tell you those kinds of ghost stories, Dr. 14. I want to tell you a personal ghost story. I mean, a story about personal ghosts. Like, how when my love calls me and she’s all happy to talk to me, missing and loving me so much. And I feel so sad and distant. Not like when we were together. But now we’re not. In the here and now, we’re not. She’s a ghost now, she’s not tangible. And she tells me about the job she just landed and her plans with the job for the next eight years on the other side of the country, it’s a big country, vast. I know it’s over. Truly over. I’m supposed to be happy for her landing that job. But she’s gone. A ghost. She moved away from the city we moved to. We discovered the city together and now I am alone in it. Luckily we never lived together because then she'd be more of a ghost in the home. She stayed over a lot and now I wake up alone. Like a ghost in reverse: her side of the bed is no longer sunken in. But I get reminders of places and details: ghosts. I didn’t think this would happen, She’s my greatest love. It’s out of our hands. She’s a ghost. And I have to let go. I guess. Do I? I don’t want to. But it’s painful. This ghost hurts. What should I do, Doc?”
“Those aren’t the kinds of ghosts I hunt, dear boy. You’re on your own. Hand me that flashlight. I need illumination.”
“Uhhh, you’re already holding it, Doc.”
“Right, right.”

Since memory held no weight in Dr. 14’s rule books, we found absolutely nothing that mission.

POSTER I MADE FOR THE BON

The Bon asked me to make a poster for their Monday nite rock show, yayyyy! Contains a member of The Leather Uppers, a duo that wears scarves. I'm in a duo that wears scarves-Canned Hamm the Big half of which-Big Hamm- also plays in The Evaporators who did a split single with Andrew WK who covers a Leather Uppers song for it: tiny world.
And The Bon have a new single:
http://boppadodown.blogspot.com/

FEELINGS plays all Scott Walker

A friend was surprised that I was playing all Scott Walker this Sunday because he knew I was not in a good state. He's right. I'm not. I am pouring coffee down my gullet hoping it will help. Weekends are the worst because I am more alone than ever with less distractions. Right now, this very moment, is awful, maybe it'll pass, maybe my emotional state is running tandem with the allergies. Has the sadness drifted into depression? Shouldn't I have found a way to not let this happen, to be resilient? I keep asking myself, "What's the use of it all?" Yet there's a part of me that's causing me to go on this blog to promote an event this Sunday. Is survival part of the human virus? The same thing that makes me know this feeling will pass soon, maybe even later today, the same thing that makes me think I need pills again, like the kind I took some years ago? Lots of people take pills. Anyways.
Lots of people listen to Scott Walker. And it can be heavy, but people all sitting in a nice establishment listening to Scott Walker together is a nice thing. Because being alone with one's thoughts can really suck sometimes.

Here's the info:

The Ossington (61 Ossington, Toronto)
Sunday, November 8, 2009- 9 PM Sharp it starts!
With D.J. Body Beautiful and a midnight candlelight night recitation by Robert Dayton, Junior


We here at FEELINGS once heard tell long ago of a magical bar in Frisco that only played Scott Walker. It sounded like heaven to us.
Can't think of a better thing to listen to on a Sunday than Scott. Scott 2. Scott 3. Scott 4. Scott more as we listen in chronological order to this literate acid laced crooner covering Brel and singing of the cinema moving up through the decades to his more recent and challenging work. Listen as his voice actually gets higher as he ages! Why, that's inhuman. No no, it's very human: it's Scott. Tilt your head and drift to the voice of The Electrician as the band comes in. What will this musical climate be? Of Hunter.
Sunday Nov. 8th

Bask in them....
FEELINGS is a special night that happens each and every Sunday where we spin music that you probably won’t normally hear.

IS ANOTHER WORLD WATCHING?

I'll be telling a non-spooky ghost story amidst people's real-life and intense stories but hey! Like my piece at the Halloween show, my story will be more about real-life sad ghosts....

Thursday, November 5, 2009
7:00pm - 9:00pm
good blood bad blood
13 kensington
Toronto, ON

IN A WORLD WHERE ALL MEN ARE GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN DEAD, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN....

Yuula Benivolski
Hannah Enkel
Jon McCurly
Marc Lalonde
Vanessa Rieger
Anna May Henry
Robert Dayton
Paul Manhas
and David Hanes


SHARE THEIR UNEXPLAINED EXPERIENCES WITH OTHERWORDLY HAPPENINGS.
OOOOooooOOOOO oooooOOOOOOOOOooooo
oooooooOOOOOooh
ya

ok
ALSO there will be music
By:
Maylee Todd
Paul Linklater
Paul Julien-Tanti
and sounds by Alex Mackenzie and Thomas Del Balso


AND we will have BEER and WINE and SNACKS

**there will be a $2 admission fee to help us keep the store going and events happening**

GHOST HOLE

GHOST HOLE
at the White House...
I have a sad piece in GHOST HOLE tonite, mass Halloween art party installation/performance spooky wild. This piece is a small part but I try to turn ghosts and the metaphysical into the real and emotional. It's orange and black.
I like being part of something at the White House. My oldest brother Frank used to live at a legendary house called The White House in Vancouver when I just moved there from Northern BC. I'd often be put up there to help me get on my feet. It was quite formative. A house of veteran original punk and metal scene people living with guys who designed immaculate costumes for strippers along with Emperors of Gay Pride (they both had tonnes of sequins and boas) and more. Fun parties and a good community. What a house that was, I am still in contact with some of them. This is a different White House but the name makes me happy and they are very spirited doing their own thing as well.

Saturday, Oct. 31, 8 to very late
377 Lansdowne Ave.

The WHITE HOUSE presents:
(((GHOST HOLE)))

From dusk to the witching hour,
a portal will be opened at the white house
for all ghosts and ghouls to investigate.

There will be a battle with demons, a zombie shootout,
a magical doorway, ghost stories, and a horrific sunset. JUST SAYIN

SLIM TWIG
BROKEN TREE FORT
+various performances TBA

NEW Free Drawings #6 will be unleashed!
NEW Halo Halo tape will be released from its mortal coil!

Contributing Artists:
Nicole Torok
Ariel Adele Glenesk
Jonny Wheeldon
Brette Gabel
Katie Bowes
Laura Curley
dAeve Fellows
Brandon Dalmer
Jesjit Gill
Yuula Benivolski
Xenia Benivolski
Vanessa Rieger
Adam Cowan
David Hanes
Julia Dickens
Robert Dayton
Eric Jackson
Laura McCoy
Tarp Ghost
MIDDLESCHOOL
+ more!


Bands start at 10pm.

>BRING YOUR FLASHLIGHT<



This show is also called "DEAD ON THE INSIDE".

"THE UNVEILING"

"THE UNVEILING"

Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, 10pm (don't be late as we are rarely very tardy)
The Ossington (61 Ossington Street, Toronto)
Free admission

"Unveiling #1"
Hosts Robert Dayton, Junior and William A. Davison dramatically unveil the latest and never-before-seen (until this very eve) creation of artist and musician Drue Langlois!

Then they will be auctioning off this masterpiece with minimum bid starting at just 50 dollars !!! A low price for this amazing work by this important artist...

This will be followed by a soiree/party
ONE-NIGHT-ONLY! So if you want to bid and possibly attain this never-before-seen stunning curiousity, you best attend! Even if you are broke like us, you do not want to miss this opportunity of UNVEILING (and we-as the only eyes besides the artist that have seen this work- guarantee that this work is amazing....)



"The Unveiling" is a new series of one-night-only soirees/exhibitions, held monthly (more or less) in the back room of The Ossington Bar, which playfully reinvent a romantic and antiquated concept - that of a single artist "unveiling" their latest creation for a gathering of colleagues, collectors, critics, and cultural elite. The series is organized and hosted by local artists/curators William A. Davison and Robert Dayton.

The series kicks off on Oct. 26th as "Unveiling #1" presents the latest soft sculpture/doll creation of artist, comics creator, animator, musician and former Royal Art Lodge member Drue Langlois. Please note that the artist will not be present at this unveiling. However, Mr. Langlois has given the organizers explicit instructions on how to present his work, which Messrs. Dayton and Davison will execute in their own inimitable style.

DRUE LANGLOIS ARTIST STATEMENT:
"Compare an early drawing of Goofy (from "Lonesome Ghosts" let’s say) to the dog from "Family Guy". Do you believe that Brian Griffin is a living creature or do you imagine, like I do, a bored person drawing a flat, uninspired drawing on a computer and someone recording dialogue in a sound booth? Since the style is so unconvincing, I wouldn't feel anything if the character was suddenly stabbed by someone. In Lonesome Ghosts, the forms and environments are vividly convincing, so that by the time Goofy sees his rear end and, thinking it is a ghost, shoves a nail into it, you can really feel that he is in a lot of pain.

Pre-70's Disney animation was my first exposure to art at an early age. Goofy's complicated snout (with two chiclet teeth) intrigued me and I worked hard to learn how to draw it. Although not clearly defined in my own mind at the time, I could see that this company's principles on character design (and how important they considered structure to be) were superior to the flat design techniques of other cartoon companies from the 70's onwards.

I have studied the application of form for many years and it makes its’ way into my illustrations and dolls. I am surprised that I do not see it being used by people more often. Flat, decorative character styles in artwork and toy design are stale, like wallpaper. Personally, my eye just passes right over this style, no matter how garish they make the colours.

A love for structural principles is not necessarily a witless nostalgia for a certain time period, they just happened to have been applied more in the past. Realistically sculptured designs and an understanding of perspective appeal to the parts of your mind that want to feel how the parts fit together, or that help you imagine being in the character's environment. These things can be applied to new projects to make people really feel the nail in the ass."


DRUE LANGLOIS BIO:

"I have been making artwork since I was very young, being inspired by pre-70's Disney animation. The cartoons led me to an interest in comic books. Starting off with Disney comics and "Harvey" books like "Spooky, the tuff little ghost", I was eventually drawn more and more toward detail and human characters.

My first art-related job was making cartoons for a local paper when I was 12. Between 1987 and 1995, I started drawing human super-hero stories that were rigid and cluttered at first eventually becoming more graceful. This was soon followed by enrollment in a Fine Arts course at the University of Manitoba (1992-1996). My brother Myles Langlois was experimenting with video during this time period and I started working on those with him.

1995 was the beginning of my musical collaborations with Myles and then, later in the year, with Michael Dumontier. This early lo-fi music, mostly acoustic guitar and singing, was recorded on a dual cassette recorder that could be used to overlap layers of sound.

In early 1996, some University of Manitoba Fine Arts students and I formed a drawing group called the "Royal Art Lodge". We also made a lot of music: Avignon, Albatross, No Pirates, and Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine (later, Double Greeting) were some of the Royal Art Lodge bands that I was involved in.

Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine (my band with Michael Dumontier) started playing shows in 1997 and we wanted to have some attractive band merchandise so we sold our homemade dolls under the band's name. These dolls were based on one that I had made for Michael as a gift in 1994.

The assembly-line style of making Royal Art Lodge drawings helped me to become prolific but the structure of my drawings began to suffer. So, semi-consciously, to ensure that I didn't become too lazy about my principles in form, I started to work on small comic books again in 1999, and independently distributing them under the banner of "Samuel Appleface Comics".

The Samuel Appleface comics, in conjunction with RAL art and music shows in Vancouver, led me to a deep involvement in zine culture for a number of years. Marc Bell, Amy Lockhart, Jason McLean, Broken Pencil Magazine, Robert Dayton, and Dame Darcy were a few of the people I worked with during those years.

Around the same time, I was becoming more successful with my solo art career and was represented by Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. Also, the dolls that Michael and I had been making were selling really well and our band started playing music shows at art gallery openings more often than bars. I switched representation to Katharine Mulherin of Toronto and have had regular shows since then.

In 2003, The Royal Art Lodge had a touring exhibit called "Ask the Dust" that went to New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Middleburg Netherlands, and Seoul Korea. I became more interested in my solo career and left the group around this time, as did Hollie Dzama and Myles Langlois. Simultaneously, Michael and I decided to stop making the "Eyeball Hurt" dolls.

In 2003-04, I continued to have solo exhibitions in Germany, Italy and Canada and I illustrated the comic book miniseries, "Captain Canuck: Unholy War". I had a show at Zeihersmith gallery in New York where I exhibited solo dolls and since then I have been making small batches of them every few months.

In 2005, I formed a new band (after moving to Montreal) called "Bold Saber" and started playing and practicing music more than ever before. In that same year, Riel Langlois and I formed the "Hot Hail Productions" company publishing a compilation of my Protoprize comics. This was followed in 2007 by "Overachiever" and a concluding chapter to the Captain Canuck miniseries.

In 2008 I holed up in Brandon, MB, working at a greenhouse, and studying animation- illustrating webisodes of the animated space opera, "Superspace" for Hot Hail. I moved to Toronto that fall and put on a few Bold Saber shows, as well as one in Chicago to coincide with a large showing of dolls at the "Home gallery".

As of 2009, Hot Hail presents weekly web comics. My newest one is "Pools of Zara", which is an ongoing story presented in a weekly punchline format.


For further information, feel free to contact The Unveiling's hosts William A. Davison and Robert Dayton.

William - davison@recordism.com
Robert - moustachedpainless@yahoo.com

Many thanks to Jubal Brown/Intervention Mondays and The Ossington!

POST-SICK WET DIRT HALLOW SOUNDS

Hi pals,
Suffered a mild bout of bum-out and cabin fever due to a real bad cold/possible flu. These things always make me see life in more unpleasant tones. I thought that it had led to another sinus infection, luckily my Doc told me to wait-and-see 48 hours before cashing in my scrip of antibiotics, I'm glad he did as I feel lots better today! Yer the best, doc! (too bad he can't cure the sad, it ain't really gone away)
In the midsts of this, WET DIRT recorded an album at 6 Nassau, my voice held out and we were super quick without sacrificing in the performance or production departments: what a studio! It really is a great place in the Market and James is real good engineer! I am loving the sounds of those drums! It sounds wild!
Now if only we could have played a show before Robin jets to Germany indefinitely on November 1st. Sigh....yeah, he's leaving (I love that guy) but the band will continue, trust us...


This Sunday at FEELINGS, Lorenz Peter is my guest, he's the talented cartoonist who also makes sounds for National treasure Corpusse, he also has amazing records! I first met him in the early half of the 90s when he was palling around with the now-deceased singer of The Ugly and that gal from Return To Oz. Me, I am spinning all my Halloween records and I didn't realise that I had so many, besides the usual suspects like The Shaggs and Staked Plain, I'll be spinning a ghost story type LP with strange synth sounds by Gershon Kingsley. As well as some records by Wade Denning, this guy makes the best Halloween-themed long plays as he has the best and most creative effects and production techniques...some records may bleed over into the following week, Nov 1st.
Sunday, Oct. 26, 9 PM, the Ossington (61 Ossington), no cover....