Blog: A Bulldozer With A Wrecking Ball Attached

I watched North By Northwest , the Hitchcock version, recently and was reminded how I love traveling by train. So me and the four-year-old packed up a gunny sack, strapped on our bindles and tramped on down to the U.S. of A. to visit my newlywed brother. It wasn't all stealing pies off windowsills, but, man, there's something about America by rail that dusts off all those Tom Waits/Jack Kerouac fantasies from adolescence. Those tin roof shacks with neon signs, redbrick buildings half torn down, "Bikini Expresso" stands just off the highway. Pure Americana. I'll [...]

Hi again John; or whoever writes your emails for you, Randy Newman is an American singer-songwriter best known these days for his work in film. You may have seen such work parodied on Family Guy . Previously he was known for his 1977 hit single "Short People". I also highly recommend the short documentary, I Am, Unfortunately, Randy Newman , by Jon Ronson. You called me an "angry, sad little man". Which, I guess proves that you read my letter. I [...]

Hi John, It's been a while. I know, I promised to write more regularly, but to be honest, you'd pretty much fallen off my radar lately. No particular reason, just the inevitable erosion of my connection to Saskatchewan. I'm sure you understand. Then I saw the adoring write-up you got in the QC magazine. That must have been thrilling for you. Probably didn't hurt your speaking fee, either. To me, it was kind of weird that a guy who regularly advocates vigilante violence, makes fun of people for having cancer and undermines democracy would get a [...]

...selected as they have appeared on my shuffled playlist. Crooked Piece of Time Call Out the Lions That's How Things Get Done Ambulance Across the Street Sorry You're Sick Forensic Shimmy Blue Eyes I Know What I Know Second Hand News Small Thief The Banana Question Aw C'Mon/No You C'Mon (album title, not a song) Lifetime Piling [...]

Just once, I want to name a novel after a rap lyric. — Owen Laukkanen (@owenlaukkanen) March 7, 2013 Laukkanen, whose debut novel The Professionals was blurbed by no less than former Simon & Simon writer and author of the comic (as in comedy, not the other kind) crime classic Metzger's Dog Thomas Perry , might be on to something. I dunno. What I do know, though, is that I like crime novels named after pop songs. And I'm using pop in [...]

People have been writing for no money for as long as there's been no money to write for. Here are a few reasons I will sometimes write for free. I like and/or believe in the outlet I'm writing for free for There are fringe benefits to writing the story, eg: motorcycle pants, cruise tickets, lunch Writing the piece will open a door previously closed to me, eg: Poland I owe someone a favour I want someone to like me It's fun [...]

I wrote this for prairie dog in 2001: When last I spoke with Richard Meltzer, rock crit's anti-hero, author of some really great books like, THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK, A WHORE JUST LIKE THE REST, and HOLES: A BOOK NOT ENTIRELY ABOUT GOLF, he asked me about Stompin' Tom Connors. It seems that while Meltzer-who now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he writes mostly about getting older-lived in New York during the early 70s, he made frequent trips to nearby Montreal just to see Dr Stompin' Tom (in 1996, Connors received an honourary Doctorate of Laws [...]

People who write crime fiction: stop telling us that cop work or P.I. work or coffee-serving work isn't as glamorous and action-packed as it is in the movies. "Oh, it's not as exciting as James Garner makes it look on TV," said the character in the book that is on the verge of getting slammed shut and never opened again. "All I need is a pair of sunglasses, and I'd be a real David Caruso." The worst, though, is when some jackass writer makes this big deal in the first or second chapter about how his cop character isn't some [...]

"No, don't be the lobster...what does that even--Why would you be the lobster?" "I thought you were trying to make a point, Ace, that we're all just little lobsters crawling around at the bottom of the sea. We don't think French Immersion schools have anything to do with our crustacean existence but before we know it we're in a pot of boiling, turning red. Right?" "I don't know, Al. I guess that probably makes as much sense as what I was saying." "No, no, no. I get it. You've got a lot on your mind. You don't have to make [...]

"'Sup, 'Sop? You see this?" "See what? When would I see anything? I'm walking around like my head is underwater when I'm not half-asleep, which is as close as I get to being all the way asleep lately." "Um, okay. So you didn't see this ?" "Wait, that's not... that's the new Superman movie? Is that here? Where is that? I saw some pictures of Lois Lane outside the Empress, but I don't know...is that downtown downtown? I don't even recognize, wait, he's riding a bike? Why would Superman ride a bike?" "Looklooklook, [...]

If the cadence may be regarded as the cradle of tonality, the ostinato patterns can be considered the playground in which it grew strong and self-confident. - Edward E. Lewinsky A decade and a lifetime ago, I interviewed Dr. Ed Lewis, then the head of the jazz department at the University of Regina. I was just kinda getting into jazz at that point, I think maybe I'd just bought my first Vandermark 5 album, and I'd been getting down with, like, Medeski, Martin & Wood and, I don't know, [...]

Why are we still putting sesame seeds on hamburger buns? It seems like it's just a big waste of time for everyone. Have you ever had a hamburger on a bun without sesame seeds on it? Did you miss the sesame seeds? It's not like the sesame seed doesn't have other, more useful places to be. Like in sesame oil, or tahini. It's not some bullshit vanity grain, like the poppy seed. There's probably just some dude who owns a bakery and has a bunch of sesame trees in his yard. This guy is like, "What am I gonna [...]

Hi John, Happy New Year! This little infographic on the basic rules of rhetoric is making the rounds online this morning. Since you've blocked me on Twitter--after I asked you to apologize for putting my name on an endorsement for your book--I thought I'd make an extra effort to make sure this got in front of your eyes. I don't know if they still teach Rhetoric in Law School, or if they still did when you attended, but it's one of the more practical [...]

I lost my phone, I lost my pen, I spent a fortnight without constant internet access. I should do that more often. My phone, who cares, right? I'm tempted to not replace it. Just forget the whole thing. I didn't have that phone very long. The one before, I'd had since coming out to Vancouver in August, 2006. It was an artifact. All it did was send and receive phonecalls and texts. Its ringtone was " Milkshake ". I had a lot of people's numbers in there. That phone was destroyed two months ago. I couldn't retrieve the numbers. Its [...]

It hits you late at night. You're finishing up the dishes, listening to a BBC4 series on European detective fiction or some old Merle Haggard or Wilf Carter you got hanging around. So you throw it up on Twitter. Detective Fiction is the Country Music of books. — emmet matheson (@emmetmatheson) November 15, 2012 Sounds good, right? Then Edmonton's great crime novelist Wayne Arthurson (he writes the Leo Desroches books) checks in with @ emmetmatheson We have both types of books, murder and mystery. — Wayne Arthurson (@Waynthurson) [...]

I was surprised to see a backlash against Justin Bieber from Canadian conservative (or libertarian, as some of them prefer to imagine themselves) pundits following the Bieb's performance at the Grey Cup. The Bieber Narrative follows the conservative fantasy so closely, I can only imagine their objection to him is because he represents an affront to their Middle Ages concept of masculinity. Justin Bieber, born to an unwed teen mother, pulled himself up by his Youtube bootstraps to become the moment's biggest pop star--all without the help of Big Government handouts like Canadian Content [...]

[insert 3,000 words about the summer/fall of 1998] That was the end of that phase of my life: the part they call the beginning, I guess, but I don't know if I properly enjoyed being young. It seems like I was always just holding out for something better I was sure was right around the next bend. Some wisdom, some experience, some epiphany. But it never came and I blew those years on Kerouac and cheap wine. I didn't believe I'd be around this long. I didn't believe the world would be around this long. I was like that [...]

The first thing you notice is the thickness of this book's jacket. You have never held a trade paperback with such satisfying heft. The cover feels like it's coated with some kind of velvety space-age plastic that makes it durable and pleasant to the touch at the same time. Like it was published by IKEA. But it wasn't published by IKEA. It was published by the Mysterious Press , founded by a guy I took exception to not that long ago. It's also been home to some of my favourite books by people like [...]

Can you imagine if babies could vote? What a nightmare world that would be. First of all, every election campaign would start pandering to babies, because they're easily manipulated. You'd start seeing billboards that read: "Taxes are poopy. Poopy old taxes." or "Who's a good little voter? Want a banana?" or "phbbdhheztt", because babies can't read anyway. The next thing would be that babies would start voting for other babies because--have you met babies? Total chauvinists, as far as other babies go. Babies literally believe that babies' shit doesn't stink. And once you start putting babies in the [...]

"Writers hang out." It's like my mantra. Richard Price said it in, I think, a New York Times profile. Yeah, there it is . My mantra should be "Writers write" but here we are. Life being what it is, I don't get much hang out time lately. I actually write more than I hang out. Which is sad, because I don't write as much as I should. So when events conspire, as they did the other day, I try to make the most of the opportunity and really hang out. I had spent the morning [...]