Mane of Discovery

This is what I would look like were I a lion. Mostly likely a rouge male cast away from the rest of the pride left forge for myself and much better for it. We skinny lions, we'll be the death of you.
I haven't been blogging and I apologize. Between researching travel destinations, and downloading as much music as I can find on to the SIAST network drive, I haven't had much time for my thoughts. My thoughts as always are about the news and music I'm listening to.
first, the news.
it will sure be great if the federal buget is passed. Jack Layton has finally done something. I thought he was dead, he hadn't been mentioned in so long. This is a real stepping stone for the NDP. The money that's now going to social programs and foreign aid is very refreshing. I'm sure Bono will be happy after his choice word to the prime minister the other day. All in all I'm pretty impressed by the political system in Canada right now. It all seems to be working out, except of course for Stephen Harper. If he manages to shoot down this buget then everything is back to square one. I'm glad they no longer call themselves progressive conservatives. Really I just hate Stephen harpers smarmy confidence. Referring to the NDP/liberal talks as a "death bed conversation". If that guy ever becomes prime minister even in a minority government, I'm moving to Singapore until it all blows over.
now on to the music.
April and May are always huge for new music and I've been doing the best I can to hear it all. The problem is that being born in 1983 has left be pretty behind on a lot of music so I'm always working my way through it all. For the new stuff I'm listening now I'm really into the new British sea power's open season. Its not as much fun as a lot of the tracks on the decline off..., however its really catchy and easy to listen to. The brit pop certainly shines through a lot more these days. Other new ones like the decemberits picturesque are gaining popularity. its also very great but at the moment is failing to compare to her majesty, the decemberists. There's also the new mountain goats, the sunset tree which delivers but is undoubtedly different from his other works. Not better or worse, but different. I like none the less. Then of course the new Bonnie 'prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney with superwolf. Best of his since I see a darkness I think.
other great stuff I've been listening to is Black mountain's self titled. Took a while to get into that one but fuck is it good. I can listen to any song on there over and over again and no get tired of it. Going back a few years I recently picked up forever changes by Love. 60's pych-folk at its finest. Listening to the zombies a bit as well.
there's a lot of other stuff that I haven't passed judgment on yet as well like magnolia electric co, the go! Team, Joanna newsom, nick drake, and about 3 million other I cant be bothered to list right now.
also threes some new singles out there from the more popular band I tend to like. There's feel good inc by Gorillaz, which is actually really great. They tend to squeeze too many styles into one song and this is no exception, but I like it anyway. Blue orchid by the white stripes, which also is pretty great I think. After the first listen I wasn't convinced. I wasn't even sure that it was them. Now that I have it on the playlist, it shows up occasionally and I'm very happy when it does.
then we come to the new Weezer single. Yeah.......
is it really fair to criticize a formerly great band for their latter day sins?
either way the single "Beverly hills" is unquestionably the worst thing I've ever heard from weezer and all I can do is wait for the album and hope it doesn't all sound like that. Teen summer movie soundtrack garbage.
well that's that for me for now.

Jon

No satisfaction

black mountain. i'll talk about this more a litte later.

A Jedi Craves Not These Things

I think if you have the time you should e-mail the actual Jonathan discovery. Its really boring here. I can find things to occupy my time but I keep getting kicked out of the computer labs because of something dumb like the new media people have a class about some website crap. So now I'm in the library lab which has no programs, it doesn't even have win XP. I mean who has a computer with a like 15in LCD monitor, and window 2000. fuck 200, its 2005 beatch!
my sense of humor is coming back, I must be feeling better.
I've become greatly concerned about the status in darfur. For some reason I feel like I need to go there and do something to help. I dunno, be an aid worker or something. Its fucking awful. It sickens me to be so far away and all I can do is pledge $20 and say "that's awful" and then just go on eating my fancy dinner while several people are probably being held at gunpoint for no good reason. I wish I were a jedi. I actually do. I want to be obi wan and jump from a ship with my light saber defending what is good in the world. Sadly the jedi are all but extinct. Even kit feisto.
you should watch hotel Rwanda. Isn't it strange how genocide can go unnoticed but some right whitey who will never come out of a coma being put to rest is international news for 2 weeks. These rants are for my lack of blogging lately. Infect this might end up in the blog. So what else is there to say. anything I say will make me feel too much like part of the problem. Basically I'm trying to download the new gorillaz album because the single is fucking awesome. Feel good Inc. Also the new mountain goats both yet to be released. Yes I down load, but I also buy. Who else out there has a 300+ at the age of 21? That's right.
you should read john darnielle's blog. He reviews music. http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/

The End Of Inspiration...Like Empire

I t was painfully apparent that after the show last weekend that this was something new. There would be a new world. The whole event was like the end of a movie, just perfect. What possibly could be more anti-climactic than moving back to Prince Albert, not to return for 3 weeks. I feel like an unimportant bobby Fischer. Instead of being the perfect ending like high fidelity, it becomes the ominous ending of the empire strikes back. In any event I shouldn't be in this town. Only a month to go.
but what happens in the summer? Will I get my inspiration back? Is that even possible at this point? Do I go to the Yukon or stay here and save up to go somewhere better?
so what's in the news? Maybe I could offer some commentary...Nope
all I can say is go out and rent hotel Rwanda on Tuesday. That's my pick for the week. Also if you haven't already, check out the corporation, the yes men and what the bleep do we know. Those are my picks. The only reason I suggest them now is because if I suggested them at work, people would return to give me a good old fashioned PA hippie beating.
it just seems imperative to me that you know the name of the prime minister of your won country. I swear, when people talk about politics or religion in this town, I really have to hold back. Is there a nice way to tell someone the world is not flat?
the culprit I learned is the apathetic high school history teacher. Despite the fact that I was usually high for grade 12 history and ended up with a %50 , I still feel I have a good generally knowledge of the creation of my country and its history. Whereas people in this town left their history classes on the honor roll and have no idea that this small town was the constituency for 3 of Canada's prime ministers. Nor could they name any of them. Does it seem to anyone else that this should be required knowledge? And I'm pretty sure it is, but then how is the education system so unbalanced? I'll have to talk to my mother about that. I have a feeling her grade 2's know more about Canada than some of the residents of prince Albert.

The 4th Age

What a week it has been. Wonderful and trying. Spring has finally come and left the cities caked in mud. Jonathan Discovery, the musician played his first show ever. Jon and Maegan have parted in the traditional sense. The pope is dead. I am now addicted to myspace.com
why more could April possibly have in store? Its hard to say but for the moment I feel wonderful.
so wonderful that I'm not going to bitch about the news the pope, or ever the Junos. I'll say fuck the junos, but that's all.
try and find me when I;'m in a worse mood. It wont take long im sure. I'll be back. Until then try out www.myspace.com/jonathandiscovery

April Fucking Fools

April fools

you just lost the great big entry you just wrote. Way to waste your time. Folks, for the saftley of you and your kin, don't blog though photobucket. blog your photos and edit the post. Otherwise it shuts down on you when you try to send and proceeds to kick you in the birth canal.

Vancouver/Victoria

Last weekend I took a leisurely drive to the coast. By leisurely of course I mean long, seeing as I live in Saskatchewan. Brendan and Greg Reese joined me on this expedition, or rather I joined them. What time it was. So warm and rainy and green. As we drove through the Fraser valley it was approaching dusk and the sky was stained pink behind the green mountains. The song on the stereo was "I can feel it" by Sloan. The whole time I had my cigarette out the window and was thinking the was a good chance I might see some pegusi, or perhaps a wyvern. At the very least a rainbow.
the point is at that moment I felt better than I have felt in a really really long time. I suggest trying it. Good will come, I promise. The trip its self was great. Stowing away on the ferry to Victoria was a good time. Also it was nice to see all the Saskatoon people out there. The problem with it is, it seems like anywhere I go to visit Saskatoon friends, there is just a huge group of us. No one really hangs out with Vancouver people. Prairie folk stick to their own. Its astrange thing. Happens in a lot of places I go.
you can see more pictures of my trip if you go to my website which is listed on the side. Speaking of the west coast, it seems I have a new plan yet again. This one is perhaps less exciting, but it might just happen. Seeing as how I love the west coast I have recently been searching for some audio engineering programs out there and I found a great one right in Vancouver. The problem is that its $15000. Also I still want to travel before I'm an old man (25) so the question posed to me was, do I travel first and then rack up a huge student debt? Or do I rack up a huge
debt, pay it back and then travel.
as proposed to me by Travis major I take the latter. The key point in his proposal is I pay off the debt by teaching English in Asia. Thereby killing two birds with one stone. We'll see how the whole thing works. I'd still prefer some around the world action. Hardcore Madagascar.
I play my first show ever on Saturday night. Opening for the likes of the Fjords and maybe Smith is pretty nerve racking, but I guarantee a good show. At least 2 thirds of a good show anyway. If you're in the area come on by. Maybe I'll give you a Jeff Pederson t-shirt (patent pending).
lastly, I want to state that the whole Terri Shiavo thing is not news. While I was away this weekend, if I turned on a television I was bombarded from all sides by people commenting on this "issue". A moral delimena/argument between some people in Florida is no only no one else's business, but I know for a fact that there is something much more important going on somewhere else in the world. Maybe they should spend every waking hour on the genocide in dafur. Doesn't anyone even know about that? Where is Sudan? Isn't that whole thing over? Millions dying is much more important than weither or not a person in a coma lives or dies. Unless of course that person is in your immediate family. This whole this is just another excuse to have a knock down drag about fight between the "leftists" and the "conservatives" or other wise knows as the religious right and the socialist goddamn hippies.
I've been wanting to say this all week. The whole thing seems to me like some bad soap opera script somehow got onto the news desk at CNN as a joke and somehow became serious international news.
I'd also like to say for the record that Stephen Harper is a douche bag. That man is so homophobic he eats his hotdogs sideways.