Chastized By A Fish

Good morning (afternoon) my fellow happy-malcontents. Burns Bog is on fire and the smoke is blowing all the way over to the island which made my moto-ride today a little eerie as the sun fought to shine through the brownish haze and I tried to breathe as shallowly as possible having no idea whether it was helping or not. I woke up very pensive this morning and I shall try to sort my thoughts out here without being too verbose.

By the way, I'm listening to a Cesaria Evora CD that I borrowed from my sister. So far so good. It took awhile to figure out what language she was singing in, but I have determined from a little research, it is a Creole-Portuguese mixture. It is very soulful and melancholy (which is good when you can't understand what she is saying but have a sense of what she is "feeling." I think if you like Chavela Vargas you will also like Cesaria Evora.

On last week's radio show to no fault of DJ Superchow I played a song by P. Diddy (Bad Boy's For Life) in honour of the fact that while the West Coast Warrior Society may have gone the way of the dodo, the individuals involved were still indeed committed Indigenous freedom fighters. Well all in good fun but the absentee DJ CrazyFish e-mailed me later to say that he was dissapointed in my choice of tunes and went on to point out P. Diddy's record of using sweatshops that employ mostly poor Indigenous folks for his clothing line. After my ego healed a bit (I don't like being chastized by anyone, human or fish), I had to agree.

Goin' Coastal is about the revolution, Indigenous empowerment, the underground, conscientious musical artists, social and political engagement and resurgence, NOT the corporate-consumerist-mocking bling-bling culture so often prevalent in the poorer neighbourhoods of America. In fact, P. Diddy epitomizes almost everything we are against - greedy, selfish, individual elitism feeding on the consumer-addicted poor. So, to our loyal fans, I apologize. Even though I may dig the sounds, we are about making conscious decisions, promoting a healthy (in all aspects) lifestyle and getting to the meaning behind the messages. Fish, thanks for the reminder brother.

I was going to talk about more but I figure that is enough for one post...although I will say I have been thinking about the appropriateness of various foreign religions in Indigenous communities. For now, I will eat some more "upsqwii" (dried salmon) and get back to work!

cuu,