Archive | March, 2010

Critical Mass – Cadence Weapon

Mar. 3rd | Posted by Nicky 1 comments

Something just for fun!

I was thrilled to hear that a young 22 year old rapper had been named Edmonton’s Poet Lauriate last year. I lived several years in that city, and honestly, have never lived anywhere with as strong of a cultural scene. It’s just great. Anyway, I really like this guy’s music, and his poetry is pretty good too.

You can listen to him present his first poem to City Council here… of course, it’s a bonus it’s on an environmental theme! (He says it’s about a cyclist, truck driver and a pedestrian.)

Critical Mass

ONE

The long and winding road
That skirts the river valley
Indicates a message to me

That though the people
Pray they can ride
It may never truly be free

That love and hate
Divide a narrow straight
‘cross which I make my way

The path that I know
I rarely go
Teleport the wooded highway

I was reared in the urban
By the street with the bourbon
And my learning curve was steep

Critical mass
Should not be a blast
It depends on where you sleep

I bashed a hood
In Bonnie Doon
You know he had it coming t’ him

No signal and
City chimes
He cut me off at dinner time

He caterwauled,
“Identity crisis!”
He must not know it’s in my license

To be three
For the price of one
Is to star in the game of violence
——

TWO

Get out of my way
What else can I say?
Intelligent malign works the energy mines

The spoils on the off-week
The path is off-beat
The kicks we provide and the kicks that I find

The city star
Did you know how far
You can go with hundreds of dragging horses?

Indentured slavery
In the name of chicanery
We reside above the forces

He thinks he’s a car
But he’s surely not
Do they not have a place for this kind of thing?

Do they not see
It’s unnecessary
The blockages and the lines they bring

The painted corners
And sustained borders
For the wheel bladers and the skateboarders

The sign holders
In front of your gate
Are among your spoked, aligned soldiers

Do they know
Whose city it is?
I need it to pick up my kids

To put production
In my fridge
With no regard for our missing ridge

——

THREE

It’s called sidewalk, not sidebike!
What kind of community can’t get home right?

And with my teeth jutting
My boot heels cutting
I march towards Normandy and look how I’m pointing!

I would never admit
The extent of my tumult
Outside of the classic route of the Catholics

Flower bedfellows
I splice blue and yellow
For the New Velodromantics

I stop as Disney
I cautionary tale
I world of wonder in the jaws of life

I look he in the eyes
So one don’t forget
We are sometimes homologous

The thrush is instant and circumspect
Rough, crashing, absolute in its rend
Road warriors embrace as friend
And all because three came to an end
On gravel in the West End
By the high school of my first girlfriend
In the city where the seasons don’t begin
Apart from the places with the hands to lend

In the end

We all dissipate
Never regenerate
Wondering if we could make it
To work on time

Rolland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon)’s website. You can buy his latest album. The girls like it!

Ciao February

Mar. 1st | Posted by Nicky 5 comments

I know it’s a short month, but it just seemed to fly by. There wasn’t enough time in the day for anything – many of the committments I had got bumped for others. I’m sort of doing a half-job of almost everything.

When’s the last time I baked bread? Last week? I usually bake bread ever day or two. (I know, I know; play my little violin.)

But March is here and slowly stuff is being ticked off the to-do list. One part of one of my contracts (a big milestone) is done. The other contract is centred around March, so when this month blows by, I’ll pick up all the other pieces. In the meanwhile, the girls are doing well and going with the flow, as usual. Jrock and I haven’t seen as much of each other, but they’ve got more face-time with him, two-on-one, which is showing in their relationship. (A bad example, but when I pinched Sugar’s chin in her bike helmet strap yesterday, she started crying for Daddy immediately. Poor little tyke. She had a little blood blister to show for it.)

One thing I’ve learned in the last couple of years is that I (now) do better with a slower pace – time for biking and baking and puttering. Deep breath – next month I’ll get my balance back. And we will take a weekend away later this coming month, which will be our first vacation as a family. Totally looking forward to that!

Some residual non-posted tid-bits from February. Enjoy! [click the pic 2x to see it bigger and bigger]