Mass Observation

Who Are You?: Michael
Where Are You?: In Vancouver, BC, Canada; in my apartment; at my desk (an altogether too frequent scenario, owing to my profession and, on this particular night, nothing much else to do).
What Are You?: I've yet to precisely determine, but I suspect a disorderly jumble of everything good and bad.
What do you make?: People deserving and undeserving feel that I care for them unconditionally. Not enough money.
What do you love?: My family and friends, the invincible beauty of music and those who create it for admirable reasons, the notion that hope and good will always be rewarded.
What do you hate?: The failure of self-belief that causes people to subscribe to organized religions, bigotry, the knowledge that fear has prevented me from experiencing some wonderful things.
What do you listen to?: Too damned many people for my own good. Musically: Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys, Stereolab, The High Llamas, The Association, Broadcast, The Fifth Dimension, Joyce, Talk Talk....
What do you watch?: The extraordinary grace and beauty of random people in the street, my step, "The Family Guy" (an exceptionally rude and brilliant American cartoon).
What do you drink?: Comical quantities of water (following a kidney stone), fancy-ass cofee drinks, red wine, Jack & Coke, carrot & apple juice.
What do you smoke?: I live in Vancouver.
What do you take?: Heart (when my will allows).
What do you believe in?: That it isn't impossible that I might eventually fall in love, and be fallen in love with.

When We Were 16

Where were you?: Brantford, Ontario, Canada
What were you?: A disaster.
What did you wear?: An awkward combination of the aesthetics of virtually every musician I idolized at the time (Bobby Gillespie, Julian Cope, Tracey Thorn, Ian McCulloch, Billy Bragg...).
What did you listen to?: "NME C86," Billy Bragg, The Jazz Butcher, The Go-Betweens, Lloyd Cole, Everything But The Girl, Elvis Costello, The Smiths....
What did you watch?: Then as now, with the exception of The Family Guy.
What did you love?: The melodic, hyper-literate British pop music I believed was made by the only people in the world who understood me.
What did you hate?: My city, my lack of mobility, my confusion.
What did you drink?: Coke and, I think, fuck-all else.
What did you smoke?: Nothing.
What did you take?: A lot of unnecessary bullshit.
What did you want to be?: Known and loved by everybody.
Who did you fight?: Only ever myself.
Who/What did you believe in?: The clandestine pop musicians I listened to/The idea that all I needed to irreversibly change my life for the better was to leave home.
Where did you go?: The perpetually open-house basement of a delinquent friend, my bedroom, record stores, the deepest recesses of my imagination.
What did you learn?: The survivalist art of diplomacy.

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