Michael Gravel Edmonton Writer

New Wheels

There comes a time in every bus rider’s life when they wish ardently for a set of wheels; their own vehicle to escape the unforgiving, inconvenient, and time-consuming edge of the bus schedule. A new vehicle has been in the mail for the past year or so and the time is finally right. I bought a 1991 Buick Century Sedan. I purchased it from my mother, who has owned it since it was new. I actually drove this vehicle for a few months as a young man before I got my own set of wheels, so it’s a “homecoming” of sorts. It’s been immaculately cared for. The interior is in mint condition, and I have a maintenance record back to 1999. I also have the original owner’s manual, the original box and remote for the Astro Start, and even the original keychain from the dealership. Here’s the best part of all, and I swear I’m not making this up: 99,000 km on the odometer. Ninety-nine thousand. Can you believe it? The sucker should have over three times that.

The only thing I have to do is throw in a new deck. The ‘ol factory auto reverse cassette deck, as charmingly ancient as it is with Dolby B and all, just doesn’t cut it these days. It’s very tempting to do this rig up right with a deck, an amp or two, a pair of tens and some separates. Back in the old days I spent a shitload of money on car audio gear: Electronic crossover, CD changer, two amps, 10” subs, gold wiring, and even a 1 farad 20V capacitor (truly gratuitous and unnecessary, but I was young with money to burn). Installed it mostly myself and it worked amazingly. These days, I can’t imagine spending that kind of time and money or a car stereo. For the new Buick, I bought a modest Sony head unit with iPod control. $250.00, all in.

In a way it’s tough to say goodbye to my transit commute. I spent six years on the scows. My daily journeys were fodder for some of my writing, not the least of which was Streetrag.com, a writing project I am very proud of and one that would not have existed had I not been a bus rider. Poems were birthed while riding the rigs, and I maintain that public transit is the key to seeing how people truly live and operate in this city. Although my commute approached 90 minutes on each end, I rarely felt the time was wasted. While riding I often pulled out my notebook and wrote, and I got in many hours of listening time. All of that aside, it’s awfully nice to be able to go somewhere without having to leave an hour ahead of time. And it’s nice to get home from work in a half hour. With an increasingly busy home life, time is the reason I am now a driver. Owning a car is a bit of a mixed blessing. While obviously nice for getting around, there are the added headaches of traffic and parking. There is added expense as well, but the increase in auto insurance premiums is offset nicely by not needing a bus pass (a $74.00 monthly touch). Gas is a factor, an extra $200.00 per month. And there’s a niggle in the back of my head about being a two-car family.

After spending six years years on the buses, I have to say that it would be very difficult to rely on Edmonton Transit as one’s sole mode of transportation. Of course, this conclusion is contingent upon one’s geography and situation. If you are lucky enough to live on a bus route that takes you directly to work, that’s awesome. That is not the case for the majority of riders, I expect. The city has grown much and transit / basic roadway infrastructure has struggled to keep up. Add to that the headaches and delays of winter weather and a short road construction season, and you’ve got a public system more frustrating than effective. A comprehensive, far-reaching LRT system is what is really required to get the public excited about transit, and to use it willingly. Optimistic boosterism and hyperbolic predictions of future service aside, a truly inclusive and usable train system is probably a good fifty years away.

Riding the bus has a romantic edge if you look at it the right way, but cars are (or were) the romantic accoutrement. The open road tugs mightily at our hearts and identities. Attitudes towards cars have shifted considerably in the past twenty years, maybe for the better. Despite recent happenings – an economic meltdown and the decline of The Big Three; a general trend towards fuel efficiency – the automobile retains its romantic appeal, albeit with an asterisk. Slowly but surely, it has become socially despicable to drive large, gas-guzzling vehicles. There’s even a website that features people giving Hummer H2 SUVs the finger (here it is, called FUH2.com). Along with other titanic SUV’s, The Hummer is an easy target. But it’s not far off to apply the same tactics to other, less acknowledged gas-guzzlers: Minivans, Jeeps, and big sedans like the Chrysler 300 and anything from Cadillac. There’s also a new crop of super-sexy retro-muscle machines: The Challenger, the Camaro, and the Mustang. All of them look super hot, and who wouldn’t want to buy one and immediately embark on a coast to coast road trip, but no matter how you wrap them and spin the fuel economy specs they’re all gas guzzlers with only two doors. With automakers trying to weather the biggest shitstorm of their lives, this latest crop of retro inspired vehicles feels like a last-ditch attempt to capture the romance, edge, and credibility of days past. Time will tell if they do, but the future isn’t bright for vehicles like this.

While I say goodbye to public transit and embrace vehicle ownership once again, it isn’t without a bit of hedging. Increased expense is one thing, but increased footprint is another. We’re now a two car family, something that we wanted to avoid but now it seems inevitable. Like I said, it all comes down to time. With a vehicle, I’m saving a couple hours a day and increasing my mobility by a large factor. I’ve come to the conclusion that the savings in time is worth more than anything. Time is short, and there’s much to do.

Entry #109 · July 1, 2009 in Family, Personal · Comment (2)

Nice things from the Net

We hear a lot of negative things about the internet and some of them are true. The signal to noise ratio, in a very broad way, almost certainly tilts more to the noise. However, there are many bright spots and occasionally something happens that reaffirms my belief that most people in this world are thoughtful and of excellent character.

A few years back, I registered the domain michaelandkerry.com. I was planning to ask my then girlfriend Kerry Mulholland to marry me. My intention (if she said yes) was to build a wedding website to help out the guests, take song requests, etc. She accepted my proposal and were wed on September 8, 2007. It was one of the best days of my life. Not only did I become a husband, I became a step-father to a wonderful young woman. I love that day.

After the wedding, I left the site online as a sort of reminder. It gave me comfort to have it out there on the web, available for perusal at any time. A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I received an email from a guy named Michael. He was planning a wedding with his bride-to-be, Kerry. He had the same idea – build a wedding website at michaelandkerry.com. He asked if I would transfer the domain to him and I did so with no hesitation. No money changed hands…it seemed like the right way to do it (opportunistic domain owners are a peeve of mine). No big for me, I simply archived michaelandkerry.com at a different location so I’d always have access to it. A few days after the domain transfer went through, I came home to find a large fruit basket from Edible Arrangements on my kitchen table. If you haven’t seen one of these things, you have to order one. Seriously. It’s a fruit basket that looks like a flower arrangement, complete with corrugated melon and chocolate dipped pineapple. The arrangements are beautiful and completely delicious (not exactly cheap, however). At first I was perplexed. I hadn’t been that nice to anyone lately to warrant such a great gift. I opened the card to discover that it was sent by the other Michael, as a thank you for the domain. He got my address from the whois data attached to the domain. Awesome! And completely unexpected. It was a gesture that many wouldn’t have bothered with.

The internet is a weird and wonderful place sometimes. Cheers, Michael. All the best.

Entry #108 · June 27, 2009 in Kerry, Personal · Comment (1)

Under the Knife ... Again

For the past 2 years or so, I’ve had this lingering issue with my stomach (at least my docs and I thought it was a stomach issue). Whenever I eat overly greasy foods, which isn’t that often these days, I get a crippling pain below my ribs. The sensation is somewhere between a meathook drub and that “swallowed a paint can” feeling after a night at the bottom of a bottle. In severe cases I get nauseated (vomiting, etc) and can’t function for two days. My doc’s first diagnosis was acid reflux, a common ailment of the stomach for which he put me on meds. As well, I had to completely cut out all those old comfort foods – burgers, fries, pizza, fatty sweets, and anything else with an artery-blocking level of saturated fat. I’d been curbing my diet against those foods anyways (and lost 40 pounds in the process), so it wasn’t really a big leap. In my past life, those foods were standard fare. It pains me to admit this, seeing as how I’ve come so far, but three years ago my average meal was two cheeseburgers, two super-sized fries, and a jug of iced tea. Horrible snacking between meals was normal. I never cooked for myself. Never. My diet was an atrocity, and I estimate that I took in well over 4000 calories on a daily basis (over twice what is required), almost all of that in super fatty foods. To be so utterly disconnected from and ignorant of one’s source of power and energy is deadly in the long run (and the short run).

Turns out my doc’s acid reflux diagnosis was wrong, or at least partially wrong. I had an abdominal ultrasound a month ago and the results were unambiguous: Gall stones. That explained my violent episodes. Very soon, I go under the knife to have the fucker removed. This will be my second surgery in two years, although on the scale of surgical procedures a gall bladder removal (Cholecystectomy) is nowhere near what I went through in December 2007. It’s a day surgery followed by a week of recovery at home. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I don’t have to spend a night in the joint.

My abdomen is gonna look like mottled ass. In addition to the 12” twizzler from my open heart surgery, I have three scars from tubes that look like they were made by a 9mm, and I have a 10” gash on my side from a childhood kidney surgery. Add to that the four incisions made in this little procedure, and I’ve got a pretty good assortment of scars. And I’m well aware that scars and damage have a shelf life. Scars themselves are not medals. The expectation of the human spirit is that wounds will heal and the wounded will live to forget and fight again. So says Springsteen:

Finding your identity in your wounds, the places you’ve been beat up, is a very dangerous thing to do. We all wear the things we’ve survived with some honour. But the honour is in wearing those things, and also transcending them.

Here here. I guess I’m still trying to live up to that. Maybe that’s the lifework of everyone.

I’ll let you know how the procedure goes. I’m going to try and get my gall bladder preserved in a jar…keep it on my mantle like some sort of demented trophy. Either that, or feed it to the dogs.

Entry #107 · June 11, 2009 in Personal · Comments (6)

Shoe Soles to the West

Out in the downtown around sundown, power lines draped elegantly across the road, bit of twinkle left in the old yellow rugburn as she makes her way to the hellish confines of the west end, guy crossing the street in tattered clothes – runs against the light and a barreling Caprice nearly mows him down. Across the way a store is still open, past nine, how and why, nothing is open down here only the corner standers and the floozy floopjacks. Guys walking from opposite directions stop each other on the street – do I know you? Yeah, I think you do bro. Did we choke a spliff or something? Yeah, something like that. Say, you want to take a walk, I got something you might be interested in. Yeah sure, let’s take it outta here, though. Guy’s cellphone goes off and they’re gone around the corner, I catch a fleeting snippet of the conversation, yeah I’ll be there in a minute, bro.

The cafe in the square is closing its doors and the bums are setting up for the night. The orange hue of the bus route placards – comforting on nights like this – cut through and make their way to places where people live and its sad that not many live down here, but many still do; there’s still a bit of life around here. Trying to find it though…not so easy. You can find a bit over there and maybe some over here, but there’s no real pulse, no beating in the neck. You might get a faint pulse in some other places, but that beat may be tempered by raw blood or stupidity. I’d like a coffee but the cafe’s chairlegs are all skyward. What harm would it do to stay open for a few minutes longer? Glance at my watch…nearly ten. Time to beat it. Tap my pencil to my notebook…shoe soles to the west.

Entry #106 · April 17, 2009 in Vignettes  

The Olive on Tuesday

Christ, I’m so behind on shit. You know those days that evaporate in a wave of activity and yet you feel like you haven’t done anything? A few of those lately. This is a note to let you know that I’m reading at the Olive tomorrow night along with my colleague Trisia Eddy. Here’s the event deets:

The Olive Collective presents
Michael Gravel and Trisia Eddy
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Hulbert’s Cafe
7601 – 115 Street
Edmonton
7:00pm

A joint chapbook featuring the work of myself and Trisia will be available. This kicks finishes off the Olive series this year. It’s guaranteed to be a grand time – these guys know how to throw a poetry party, and they’re damn cool to jam with. I’m looking forward to it.

(sorry for the short notice…)

Entry #105 · April 13, 2009 in Performance  

Five Ago

Funny what half a decade will do to a guy. Quit drinking and a life changes. Many things become not only possible, but maybe even easy. Five years ago this week I kicked the bottle to the curb. I hesitate to call myself an alcoholic – I know many, and their plights dwarf mine. Nonetheless, I had a problem. I spent my late teens and nearly all my twenties intoxicated. Not unusual, I realize. It was fun some of the time, maybe even most of the time. Sometimes I hate myself for romanticizing those times. Guilty of it all the time in my writing. Like most men, when I hit 30 drinking and partying became less fun. Aging and a changing metabolism have their way with everyone. The good nights became fewer and further between. My tolerance was down but I kept packing them in like I was a kid. Eight bottles of wine a week, most of them consumed while I was alone, and nearly every Saturday night ended badly. Worst part of it was, I couldn’t finish a night of hosting The Raving Poets. My good friend Kozub had to take over for me in the second half of the night. Those nights were five pint minimums, and I’m not proud of some of them. A few are so hazy I can hardly remember them.

Before I quit the sauce, I was enamored with the idea of the artist as drunkard. Bukowski, Kerouac, and all those idiots. What they forget to tell you in pisstank artist school is that Kerouac died alone and miserable in his mother’s basement, and Bukowski lied through his teeth just to spite the wake of wannabes that he himself spawned. Pissing on your followers, embellishment, and building your legend are long-established literary traditions. In my opinion, nobody should look up to those legends. The tidbits we have aren’t the whole story, and I have no doubt that the real stories are either more boring or far uglier than the history-winning versions we now refer to. If at all possible, enjoy the best of their art and fuck the rest.

In April 2004 I started writing like a mad fuck. Different than before. The floodgates crashed open and I couldn’t keep my mind tied to anything. I pulled all-nighters regularly and I filled coil notebooks in weeks. Reading that stuff now, some of it’s damn inspired, some of it’s shit, and much of it is just there. Not much of it saw the light of day. I started on the web in August 2004 and started many projects – Dirtpuppy (RIP, and I still have the last DB backup from the site…who knows, maybe one day I’ll put it somewhere, some of that shit was good), StreetRag and Daily Haiku (now beautifully and brilliantly managed by Patrick Pilarski and Nicole Pakan) being the best examples. I started a few organizations in meatspace: The Rasp and the Wine with CT Staples and then Patrick Pilarski as partners, and co-founding The Roar with my longtime pals in the Raving Poets. Both those endeavors are now defunct, but I’m glad I did them and I learned a shitload about organization and what it takes to pull an event together (lots of work, in case you were wondering). Through all of this, and until ’07, I lived with my brother Stuart. His role in my growth was one of stability and support. His steadying presence and unwavering support was a gift, perhaps even greater than the one of living with, knowing, and appreciating him as an adult.

Along the way to now I started my own web business, toured Europe, got married to a killer woman and became a stepdad to a wonderful girl, nearly died from a pulmonary embolism, had a poem about asparagus published by a lifestyle magazine in Michigan, started doing the writers conference circuit, honed my event hosting skills to the level I always wanted them to be at, redesigned my personal website a dozen times, changed my eating habits and lost 35 pounds, read my poetry on television, published a chapbook, bought a Jeep Liberty, and started hitting the gym with a vengeance – running six clicks a day. I didn’t list all that shit to boast. It all became possible because I stopped drinking and I’m goddamn proud of that. Sometimes I feel like I’m paying for something. Paying for my life. All the time I spent wasted. The extension I was granted back in December ’07. You know what the best feeling in the world is? The feeling that nearly anything is possible. That one considered nudge can make it happen…that you can change your history; that you don’t have to play small any more. And maybe most of all, that you don’t have to do it alone.

Five years of evolution. Thanks for being a witness.

Entry #104 · April 7, 2009 in Personal · Comments (10)