re: blogging........can be a pain in the ass these days........no one does it?!?!

hello friends, fans, foe and family,

a new rant/non-fiction/story for your consideration, expect more while i am still above the ground!

hugs and love,


CB


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Blogging:

It’s a pain in the ass. Why do I do it? I’m not sure. In 2008 I started this blog and keep it going, I guess it’s because it’s a sort of tangible record of my time here and what has happened in the past ten years. Looking back I remember starting my blog at a coffee shop downtown T’kemlups called “Zacks Tea and Coffee.” I was lost and how no idea to get to where I am now. I had had a book deal with an aboriginal publisher that had folded and lost my final edited version of my manuscript in the chaos and shuffle of going under. My editor, famous aboriginal author Richard Van Camp didn’t have one either and it all really sucked. He had helped me get the book deal in the first place, which I am thankful for, because he plucked me out of obscurity and got me gigs and published in literary magazines and was a fine mentor. Then he separated from his wife, sadly, and then moved to the big city and I was on my own after that, which really sucked as well.

Never underestimate the power, no the value of a mentor. Someone who has been there, done it, seen it all and lived to tell about it. We don’t have nearly enough mentors in NDN country. Nor enough father role models either. I believe it’s because of the damn residential school system. For over a century it divided families, killed languages and nearly destroyed an entire nation of Aboriginal people. I grew up in a wildly different world than my kids. It was violent. Chaotic and I saw my mother get abused many, many times. Both her and my father went to residential school, the same one in fact, St. George’s in Lytton, BC. Right near the heart of Nlaka’pamux territory, across from the Stein Valley, our centre of the universe. Richard was a good mentor, a fine one who helped me navigate the complicated world of contracts, deals and publishing. This is something I hope to do one day as well with an author. To never forget my roots and beginnings in this crazy creative world I live in and now watch my kids following in my steps.

In many ways, my relationship with my parents is complicated. I feel sad for them. Angry. Frustrated. And for many years, I was lost. I had no direction, no guidance from them, because they were lost in their pain and suffering as well. My mother entered residential school at 5 or 6 and didn’t leave until she was 16 when she was pregnant with me. Haha, and I laugh now because I think I was conceived at a residential school. Years later, I met a famous blackfoot aboriginal artist named Adrian and he too was conceived at a residential school and we laughed about it. The irony of it all right? Now as a parent, with children becoming little entities or rather tall entities on their own paths, I do my best to help them. I never really had parents. I said it. I’m sure if my mother reads this it will hurt, but it’s true.

She was taken to residential school, forcibly, so young and had so little contact with her own parents, my grandparents, that when she had me, she wasn’t ready or equipped for it. She was angry. For a decade in that hellish nightmare of physical pain and sexual abuse called St. George’s residential school she lost her language and family. She had older siblings at the school, but children were forbidden to talk to one another, as well as speak their own language. The few times she saw my grandparents was during the one or two times a year they were allowed to visit and it was in the gymnasium, surrounded by hundreds of other parents and weeping children who just wanted to go home. Fuck you Canada. That’s what you did.

So now I am a parent, and I am adrift in a world and not sure where I am going or what I am doing for a living. I guess I tell stories for a living. I make films and art that tell a story as well. I also write songs too, that are very cinematic and instrumental. The unifying them I would say is sadness and anger. Even as I near fifty years old, one half of a century, the fire burns bright and with fury. Sometimes I let alcohol dull the blade and flame, because it drives me mad, and it tempers the rage. Other times I stoke the flames and let it out creatively. Either way, I have to keep going and try to be a good dad, reclaim my language and culture and try to find time to mentor others on their path as well. Only now am I figuring things out, time, pressure and experience has forged the path I am on now and I hope I never lose it.

re: new-ish, art!

Hey friends, fans, foe and lovers,

here are some new-ish pieces of art, getting back into it!!!

hope you dig it, lots of news to come!!!

cb

Cobra Ramone, check her band out! 

Vancouver, BC rockers!

Amber Sarah, awesome model,

need to do some more shoots with her!

Marissa, what can i say? 

goddess.

re: Valentine's day. lol

Hello friends, family, foe and lovers,

it's Valentine's Day and being forever single with no plans to ever get back into a relationship, nearly ten years "single and sassy" now, I couldn't be happier or ever thing about it again, so here are some laughs!

cheers and will be posting again soon!!!


Chris Bose.

re: poem/song!!!

Hello friends, fans, foe and lovers,

revisiting some old projects and stumbled across these songs, and poems, check them out!!!


https://soundcloud.com/chris-bose/words-are-the-devil

enjoy,

CB

re: new poem !!!!

Dealing with a new life:

Being sober is a much

Needed change

In many ways it

Is like a getting a new car

I traded in my rez rocket

For new dreams

New goals

My life is like a new car

A new war pony

For the journey ahead

I am still walking

Around

Kicking the tires

Wondering what to get

Out of this life

Shaking this hopeless

Feeling off

Hasn't been easy

The loss of my kids

The loss of my relationship

Because

I didn't know how to be in one

All residential school

Hangovers

That I had to stop

From infecting

My kids

Rusted over

Creativity has broken

Loose

And is free now

I reclaim my languages

Secwepemc and Nlaka pamux

I pore over books

Of history

Learning about how our

World changed in 1810

When the first fur trading post

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Went up in Secwepemc territory

the greedy bastards

have never stopped wanting.

re: more new poems

The party is over:

It hurts where I used to play

I’ve become invisible

To women of a variety

Of ages

As I let myself go

Here and there

Spilling out of my shirt

And sides

My orgasm sounds have become

My pissing sounds

Whereas a few years ago

I was enjoying the field

Now I enjoy watching

Marathon episodes

Of new comedies or

Action thriller series

I no longer think

About relationships

Or maybe “this one will work”

Or anything like that

I watch friends

Try and try again relationships

Meh

I don’t want to share my time

With anyone anymore

Time is precious

I don’t want to learn to deal

with idiosyncrasies

Or live with anyone

Or listen to their bullshit

Or neurosis

No I’m content to putter

About my home

Make art

Play guitar

And parent my children

As I prepare

To enter the third quarter of my life

I’m cool with it.

The road:

I’m tired of it

Tired of being on it

It no longer is fun

Anymore

I loathe hotels

Airports

And bus terminals

The smell of an airplane

As you get on

Dry and fake

The fart smell of a bus

The air conditioning

Wheezing away

I’ve noticed

That people no longer

Talk to one another on buses

I think because everyone

Is exhausted and overwhelmed

And overloaded

By life

That and they’re endlessly

On smart phones, tablets

And other technology

Whereas people on planes

Still chat each other up

Probably because of some

Base fear of dying alone

In a plane crash

I do like being in fancy hotels

And looking like I don’t belong

Sitting there in my paint covered

Clothes

Tired, grubby looking

And worn out

Sometimes I’ll get asked if I’m staying

There to which I’ll reply

“No, but can I just stay in the lobby

like five more hours?”

and security is called

and then I produce my key card

and identification which is verified

at the front desk

and the person or person who complained

look all confused and angry

All while I smile and laugh

savouring that feeling

like I’ve created a new way

to hurt someone’s feelings

nom nom nom nom

it feeds me

being able to be in a confrontation

where I know I’m totally right

and there’s nothing they can do

about it.

re: newer poem~!

Over a month ago:

I decided to quit

Drinking

It was about the third

Time this year

But this time it took

And I enjoy

Waking up

In the morning

Without a crushing hangover

A dry pasty mouth

Reeling from a blackout

Worried about what I said

The night before

Online while drunk

Reacting emotionally

And wondering why no one

Had invented a breathalyzer

For computers

Before posting stupid things

On the inter-webs

Nope

It has been over a month

And I noticed

Something different

This time around

The improvement

Of my overall

Well being mentally

And physically

Just feeling so much

Better instead

Of so much bitter

Has been an incredible

Boost for my mind

And spirit

I realized

I was hitting

The bottle out of sadness

Loneliness

Anger and self-pity

And had been for a long time

Most of my life

Has been about

Dealing with loss

Loss of home

Of family life

Of language

Of culture

Of various anchor

Points in my life

Like my grandfather

My grandmother

Both were

Storytellers

Both knew our land

And language so well

They were intertwined

My parents

Had both been through

Residential schools

And were in many ways

Broken

So trying to raise a child

In that broken

Was never easy or

Even possible

Perhaps?

Anyway

I quit drinking

And feel all the better

For it

I knew its time had come.