Born Under Beer: An Excerpt

For a creative writing class at the U of W I wrote a short story that was conceived when nostalgia got drunk and seduced a parallel universe. This is an excerpt from that story...

7:13 AM

The fire was no longer crackling.  The sun was beginning to scatter a bright, kaleidoscopic orange across the snowy trees.  Owen’s mind was wrapped in a wet sock.  It rolled lazily behind curtains constructed from winter fleece and glasses of beer.  Yet, just as the sun remembers the landscape which it abandons to darkness, Owen recalled the events of the prior night.  He lurched off the sofa, looked out the window and, upon discovering the driveway void of any Jeep or any friends, dashed to the door and spewed vomit onto the alabastrine snow.  Before he had recovered from the vile discharge, Owen was putting on his boots and starting down the winding block road in search of the lost boys.

He moved as quickly as his tormented and tired body could, trotting down long stretches of icy road and labouring up hill after icy hill.  He moved like syrup over the cold highway, every stuttering step drawing him towards the Knotty Girl motor hotel.  It might have been 15 kilometres from the cabin, but it was the only place that sold alcohol out here.  Owen prayed to Jesus and Buddha that he would find his friends there. 

However, before he had slipped halfway to the unlikely asylum, Owen was diverted from his course by a foreboding beacon.  Through rum-soaked eyes he spied a single, deep tire rut that ran for fifteen feet alongside a branching road.  The detour had no sensible explanation, yet, obeying a “hangover hunch,” Owen turned down the road.  He was unfamiliar with the area, but was sure that this new path was cutting back behind the cabins and funneling down towards the lake. 

After weaving through the sparkling woods, the thin road blossomed into a large, open expanse.  Owen was blinded.  When his eyes adjusted to the unexpected blaze he saw that he was standing at the crest of an inoperative boat-launch.  He could see the tracks clearly now.  His mind paralyzed, he drifted down the gentle slope until he was standing, once more, on the vast, frozen lake.  Looking out, he could see the tire marks going and going and going and going.  Then, with the ambition of astral pioneers, they shot through the heart of the rising sun and were gone forever.

The Reawakening of a Mummified Sports Fan

I have watched a frightening amount of sports these past few days. I received a free ticket to the Tampa Bay Lightning/Chicago Blackhawks exhibition game on Wednesday, and then of course there was the Blue Bomber game last night.

Attending these events must have snapped something in my frontal lobe. How else can you explain my sudden desire to watch the Professional Golf Association’s Tour Championship before I went to work today? (Furyk is looking strong out front, but Goosen’s big 66 today could give him the momentum he needs to win it all tomorrow). And boxing? Why do I care that Sugar Shane Mosley was robbed of a victory last week when he fought Sergio “The Latin Snake” Mora? I don’t know, but I was pretty upset watching a rerun of the fight tonight, I’ll tell you.

Now this could be a slippery slope. Hockey, football, golf, and boxing are alright, but what if I start watching poker? Or bowling? Or darts? It is a scary thought.



Sorry all you Wayne Mardle fanatics, but that looks terrible.

Anyways, as long as I’m on this athletic high I figure I’d better share my opinions on a few sports matters in the city…

The NHL in Winnipeg:

Going to the NHL pre-season game on Wednesday got me thinking of what it would be like to see top-level hockey in the city again. When the Jets left for the desert I was too young to really care. All I cared about was the guys with fun names like Teemu Selanne and Tie Domi. However, listening to the crowd on Wednesday it was hard not to imagine how great it would be to see all those fans cheering for a team of their own. Verdict: The talk of getting a team increases almost daily it seems, but things still look uncertain. I'll be optimistic and say that the hockey gods will show pity on us.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers:

I really don’t know what to say after last night’s game. The Bombers have 331 points for and 334 against…and they’re 3-9. They’re a better team than last season in almost every aspect, yet they have a worse record. At this point it seems like someone on the team must have angered a higher power. We’re not getting any breaks and with the Lions playing better the possibility of a crossover spot in the playoffs is getting slimmer. So things, like, seriously suck man.

Dancing Gabe:

Saw him at both the Blackhawks game and the Bomber game. An underappreciated legend. I gave him a high-five.


I guess that’s it. Hopefully next week I’ll be back to watching Jersey Shore like a normal human being.

I Couldn't Beat the Tweet...

After a long, brave battle against the website on September 16, 2010 Dylan Hughes' privacy finally succumbed to Twitter.  Dylan's privacy had been in critical condition following the creation of his blogspot account and was very weak when twitter came along and crushed it forever.  Donations are being accepted by MANS (Manitoba Anti-Networking Society).

Here, There and Everywhere - My Life with the Beatles: The Conclusion

That first experience with The White Album marked the moment when the Beatles became an inescapable fixture in my life.  The following year, grade five, I did a biography project on John Lennon.  And I quote (my 10 year old self)…

“John Lennon created the Beatles with Paul, Ringo and George, they made great music together. He was a person that cared for other people and expressed himself by making different political statements.  His songs will live forever in all our hearts and minds.”

Cute right?

Wrong! That project was the earliest manifestation of a dark obsession that would haunt my musical world for the years to come.  From that point onward it was the Beatles.  The band monopolized my listening.  It was a Beatles dictatorship.  I couldn’t get away.  It was Beatles, Beatles, Beatles here, there, and everywhere.

My fascination lasted from the final years of elementary school clear through the strange adolescent days of junior high and on into high school.  It was a magical and sinister period.

Finally, however, the day came when I was prepared to stop worshipping at the alter of Lennon.  New prophets had made themselves apparent and I was more than happy to follow them into the wilderness.  So I threw my proverbial Jumanji board into the river and walked away……but I didn’t get very far. 

Here are some photos from my trip to Europe this summer…

So I had a relapse. Whatever.  Maybe I’ll never kick the habit.

I’ll leave you with the closing lines to 10-year old Dylan’s project…

“The Beatles can not and will never be replaced by anybody.  Let’s just Give Peace a Chance and work together to a great and much better world.”

Smart kid.

Here, There and Everywhere – My Life with the Beatles: Part 1

It was the year 2000.  The future had finally arrived and unfathomable change was imminent…

Well, I was 9 years old and couldn’t have cared less.  My life revolved around 3 things: Hockey, Pokemon, and Jolly Ranchers.  I cared more about N64 than Y2K.

However, despite my childish ignorance, the magical transformative power of the new millennium found me just the same…

The change occurred on a rainy spring day out at the cabin.  I had been stuck inside all day and was bored out of my tiny 9-year old skull when my father, probably in a last ditch effort to amuse me, brought out his compact cassette collection.

Now these were the days when Destiny’s Child ruled the airwaves and All-Star by Smash Mouth was widely considered the greatest song ever recorded (well…at least I thought it was).  I knew good music.  Dad’s tunes could stay in the sixties.  This was the year 2000 after all.

But I’d humour him.  He pulled a tape out and put it in the cassette player.  This thing looked boring.  The cover was almost entirely white and it simply said “The Beatles” in black lettering along the top.

What the @!*#  did I ever see in Limp Bizkit?  By the time the second track, Dear Prudence, was finished I had already (whether I knew it at the time or not) altered my perception of music forever.  To quote the late Dennis Hopper, it had “enlarged my mind.” 

Yeah man, like, totally man...

Raising Musical Awareness – Radio-Activity

I’ve always found it strange how things become popular.  There are certain people, movies, photographs etc that somehow manage to bury themselves deep within our cultural fabric.  Well, at least our pop cultural fabric.  They become iconic.

However, for every Pierre Trudeau there is a Joe Clark.  For every John Lennon, a Ringo Starr (I do love Ringo, but you get the point).  The same goes for music albums.

In this feature (hey - maybe I’ll make a little series depending on how much fun I have writing this one) I won’t be talking about Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, OK Computer, or Thriller.  This is for the Ringos…

Now Kraftwerk is by no means an unsuccessful, unpopular band.  They were electronic pioneers.  Don’t believe me?  They released an entire album dedicated to computers in 1981.  Now that is forward thinking.  It even has a song about pocket calculators!

But Radio-Activity is Kraftwerk’s forgotten baby.  It’s like Pepsi Blue - nobody talks about it anymore, but it’s still awesome.  However, upon listening to the album it is easy to understand why it doesn’t get the same love that other Kraftwerk releases do.  It’s weird.  And for something to be weird by Kraftwerk standards it has to be pretty weird.

The album revolves around the double-meaning behind the word Radio-Activity.  Is it activity on the radio, or is it ionized particles melting your torso?  I don’t think the band even knows. 

But wordplay isn’t the main attraction here.  The reason for listening to this album is its sound.  It is otherworldly.  This is the band at the pinnacle of their experimentation with melody and song form.  Hell, five or six of the “songs” on this album could hardly be classified as songs at all.  Take the album’s sixth track, News, for example.  Is it a song?  Maybe not.  But is it interesting, hypnotizing, and slightly unnerving?  I’d say so.

And that’s the way it is with this album.  Not everything is great, but everything is interesting.  There are certain tracks that are downright unpleasant to listen to, yet they are all rescued by a sense of invention and avant-garde challenge.  Radio-Activity is in the air for you and me…

Listening Recommendations: At night, through a pair of headphones, before imminent nuclear holocaust.

(Tom) Waiting for a Good Ad...

It became apparent while working on my first CreComm advertising assignment, "Good Ad, Bad Ad," that poor, mediocre, lifeless ads greatly outnumbered their better counterparts. But Mr. Waits, like any good preacher, showed me the light...

The advertisement in question (pictured above) is for HMV and appeared in the July, 2010 issue of MOJO magazine.  There were a number of aspects of the ad that attracted me to it originally, yet another, more subtle factor made itself apparent during my in-class presentation of the piece - it taps into that intellectual, artistic snobbery that is the defining characteristic of any good music lover.

Now before I offend any raging Captain Beefheart fans I want to confess that I myself often fall into the category of the pompous music listener.  And this ad compliments that.  The Dylan Thomas quote in particular gives the ad a level of sophistication (real or otherwise) that many may not associate with the relatively "big box" image of HMV.  A bit of high brow literature for those music fans who may have a bit of a high opinion of their musical taste (or themselves).  Ah, nothing like exploiting the artistic ego...

A Man and His Blog

My name is Dylan and I am a man.  I am a man of many passions.  I will discuss those passions...RIGHT HERE!