Friday, October 24, 2008

"Thank you for trying Audiocorder..."

Ionas the Baron: Archive Series #1

I recorded this song years ago, but it's still my favourite.








MP3: Ionas The Baron - La-la-love You (Mini-Blues avec Kazoo, Take 2)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Strange Things Happening Every Day

Last night after walking around town all day in the freezing, canvasing shops with flyers for our zombie film premiere, I ended up at my friend Amanda's house. Our friend Steve came over and we spent a few hours chatting, drinking beer and wine. When it gets to about 12:45am, we decided to go our separate ways, and I hop on the subway to go home. When I get off the subway, it's a ten minute walk to get home, and usually a nice bit of fresh air to straighten out after some drinking. So I'm hauling my drunkness up the street in the semi-dark of night, when I come across my favourite car on the street. Every time I pass this car, I admire it. It's a vintage (70's or 80's I reckon) Benz of a dark slate blue with blacked out windows. I mean secret service black. I once had mentioned to my girlfriend about how if I were an African dictator, I would be driven around in just such a car! There was something African and authoritative about it, I can't really explain.

This time, the owner of the car is out on his lawn, waving goodbye to someone who has just driven off. He is a short and lean older black man wearing a perfectly tailored black pinstripe suit, shiny black shoes, pink shirt with matching tie, handlebar moustache, glasses, and a wide-brim pimp fedora. This man is clearly larger than life, and I decide that I must talk to him. I say hey man, is that your car? He turns and looks, and says yes. I have a thing where I really like to grill a person when I take a liking to them, I wanna know it all. I ask him where he's from. He says he's Canadian but he was born in the US. With that accent and those clothes there is no way to me that this man is Canadian. I introduce myself and tell him where I live, he says I'm Professor C_____ (I blank this because anyone smart will get the punchline right away, but I was clueless at this point, so ride with me). I'm a professor of law, he says, and I defend the innocent.

This dude is becoming more and more interesting by the minute, but I feel intrusive, so I take a step to go. I'm carrying a backpack full of promotional materials I've been dispensing throughout the day, and something makes me stop. I'm going to tell him about the movie. I turn to him and say, actually do you mind if I show you something real quick? He says sure, come in out out of the cold, and invites me into his enclosed porch as I take off my bag, rifling thorugh to produce one of our black and white street posters for the premiere and give it to him. I give him the lowdown in as short a time as I can, no-budget, four-years, childhood friends, blah blah blah. He starts to smile as he studies the poster and goes yeah... yeah this looks different, I'm interested in this, I could go see this. Next Thursday you say? I'll try and clear my schedule and I'll come down with my assistant.

Wow, this guy rules! I don't know how I get to my next line, but somewhere in things I say - don't worry I'll recognize YOU there... He suddenly stops dead. And why's that? In my head I realize that he must be thinking I'm being racist, like yeah I'll recognize your black ass type of thing. I pause and consider and say, well because you're such a distinctive looking man! And I pat him on the shoulder as he busts out in laughing, shaking his head. He says come inside for a minute, I want to show you something.

I didn't think we could go to another level here, but we are, so I follow him into his living room dropping my bag by the door. He takes me to the fireplace and gestures to a large photo on the mantle. My drunk ass doesn't know where he's going with all this. Do you recognize anyone here? It's a picture of a dude shaking hands with Nelson Mandela. I go, sure that's Mandela. The man takes me around the room, black and white action photos of boxing matches. Do you recognize anyone here, again. I'm a dunderhead. I apologize, I'm sorry man, I'm really not up on my boxing history. He says, you're a filmmaker, right? I say sure. Have you seen The Hurricane with Denzel Washington? I say sure, still a blank headed moron standing in this man's living room. He locks eyes with me. That's me! Still locking eyes. My jaw drops and I get a funny feeling. You dont believe me, he says. No, I say, I can see... I can see that it's true... I need to sit down a minute. So I sit down for a few seconds on one of his chairs and shortly bolt up standing again trying sort through the cobwebs in my shattered brain. Standing in the Hurricane's living room at 1:00 am for no reason at all.

He starts to usher me to the door. In a daze I continue to talk about movie making. I say that I think a lot of people in this town are asleep, and we're just trying to do something real. By now we're at his door and he looks at me, smiles and shakes his head. You know what, he says, it's funny you say that because I just finished my new book and it's called Rubin: something-smething with the word 'eyes' in it. It's about how people are asleep and they need to be woken up. I reintroduce my self and shake his hand. Hope to see you next Thursday, a real pleasure man, I say, trotting down his porch steps out into dark. Have a good night, he says.

I go straight home blathering on the cell to my better half. I go on the internet to see a current picture of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter. And there he is. That's a thousand percent him. I get no sleep at all that night, wheels are spinning, tangents are happening. I go for breakfast at 8:00am, go back home and then drop dead, sleeping until four in the afternoon.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Cabbagehead

I am the cabbagehead.

My head is not made up of cabbages, but it is a cabbage itself.

If you ingest the contents of my head

you will get gas,

and I'll get good laugh out of it.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Ionas The Baron singles series #1: "Nr. A1YG"


This is the first raggedy-ass Baron single, entitled "Nr. A1YG". Feel free to download, share, slice, dice, remix, etc. All I ask is that credit is given and anything you take from this blog is not used for a political agenda. That's all for now.

-The Baron








MP3: Ionas The Baron - Nr. A1YG