Latest Thorvald Podcast Episodes
“Personal Archeology” – Postcard #88 (+ via audio &/or video)
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - December 10, 2022 08:22 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsRiffs about the glory of journals, diaries, notebooks full of musings and importance of turning off inner-critic and not overthinking while savoring the process of transcription, curation and further creative wonderment from Kura barn in provincial Japan. With evidence with my own process. Plus s...
Nepal Stupa Choruses – Postcard #87
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 23, 2022 08:10 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsWashing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn. Don’t climb the mountain: Nepal Stupa Choruses – ...
Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 09, 2022 07:53 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsLet’s not lose each other amidst the table cloth being pulled out from under glasses and dishes. Meaning: some technical jibber-jabber about claiming feeds sparks a history of these sporadic, occasional (yet somehow charming, right?) literary dispatches from hand-written XML to various blogs and ...
Lost the Plot (Finding Home) – Postcard #85
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 10, 2021 05:26 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsThinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away from home via freeverse poetry, read directly from scribbled travel scrapbooks and backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, by a weary fella in an olden barn in provincial Japan. Fondly ho...
Tokyo’s “Lonely” Olympics and the Mess Left Behind on theBreaker.news podcast
Olympic Outsider podcast - August 08, 2021 03:53Olympics are over if you want it. Pod’d some thoughts with Vancouver journalist Bob Mackin a few days ago about the lay of the land here in Japan and the cognitive dissonance between Tokyo2020 Olympics on TV and for the people hosting/ paying for it. As such, i call it “The Lonely Olympics”.
Countdown to Tokyo 202x Olympics with “Scene Report” on CKNW Radio, Vancouver
Olympic Outsider podcast - July 13, 2021 02:00Get your ears on and listen to Tokyo Olympics “scene report” chat with Jody Vance on Vancouver news/talk radio 980AM from July 12th afternoon PST, July 13th 9-ish AM JST. A few notes to go with: Covered a lot of ground but so much more. Looking forward to keeping you up-to-date from regular folk...
Tokyo Olympics (+ Beijing) and IOC Hubris on theBreaker.news podcast
Olympic Outsider podcast - June 02, 2021 01:55theBreaker.news Podcast: Five-ring circus controversy in Japan and China I talked about the Tokyo Olympics with Bob Mackin – who I first connected with leading up to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics when he did an article featuring Kris Krüg and I talking about citizen documentation campaign which eve...
Talking Tokyo Olympic conundrums on CKNW Radio, Vancouver
Olympic Outsider podcast - May 27, 2021 03:20Oh listen… i talked about Tokyo Olympics and various conundrums with Jody Vance on CKNW AM Radio in Vancouver. Wanted to share the feelings of deceit and frustration the the residents of Japan are feeling with IOC’s demands for “sacrifice”, more doctors, volunteers and threats of penalties if can...
Simon, Stolen, Shame – Postcard #84
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - March 12, 2019 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsA heart-wrenching poem about an abducted boy called Simon – who lived nearby, was my age and sorta looked like me – in Surrey, BC 1982 – by the “Beast of BC” Clifford Robert Olson (NO relation). Recorded and contributed to Dark Poutine Canadian True Crime podcast – shared here for posterity etc. ...
Upon the Varley Trail – Postcard #83
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 26, 2019 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsAlong his namesake trail on banks of Lynn Creek comes story of Group of 7 bohemian painter Frederick Varley’s 10 wild years in Vancouver teaching and founding art schools, developing new aesthetics and shacking up in an $8 mountain home with mistress. Bring your own brushes: Upon the Varley Trail...
What Love Might Be… – Postcard #82
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 04, 2019 11:29 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsLove in (most) all forms – from self to romance to heartbreak – explored through poems including: mis-quote from (probably not) Jack Kerouac, Khalil Gibran advising his son, Mary Oliver reminding to trust, (Angela) Anaïs (Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira) Nin’s recklessness, Leonard Cohen recalling f...
Transient Cultural Riffs – Postcard #81
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - December 25, 2018 10:51 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFull of mis-spoken words, forgotten names and other sloppiness comes annotated thoughts (squished through time and space) for shut-ins, drifters and sufferers amidst erstwhile festive melancholy times of disruption and tumult, including poems – read alongside mosquito and rooster sounds – by: Soh...
Sensei Larry’s Wisdom – Postcard #80
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 18, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsUpon turning 70 years old, Dave’s dear sensei (since a teenage Utah community college stint), Larry Harper (among various monikers) curated 70 items of advice (at request of Annie Dandelion). As such, between licks by Grateful Dead and master potter Marty Kendall, he riffs the list – ranging from...
A Circumnavigation of Sorts – Postcard #79
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - July 20, 2018 07:18 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFloat to Istanbul, Muscat and elsewhere, and check in with Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Francis Drake, Shah of Persia, Adam, Cain, Abel, Lawrence, Ataturk, Czars Nicholas and Alexander, Matt Harding, Russia oligarchs, well-fed stray cats, unidentified shortwave broadcasts, Abraham, Norman, Matt Hardin...
Disappearing for Invigoration – Postcard #78
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - June 09, 2018 05:32 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsDisappearing, invisibility, loneliness, depression, anxiety, being lost, trying to not be found, trying to find white space to invigorate… Sometimes these weave together, other times (perhaps) each remain exclusive. Gord Downie, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and me all try to figure out the nuan...
Hospital Letters and Flames – Postcard #77
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - May 27, 2018 08:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsIn hospital with sedated Grandpa, Dave reads complete “Letters from Russia” epistolary literature project with frequent interruptions from visitors, nurses and medical apparatus. The letters address issues of class, revolutions, monarchy, war, trade, and love in the context of Napoleon’s foray in...
Forward Momentum to Florida – Postcard #76
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - May 13, 2018 12:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsPuffing along a trail recounting leaving cold, miserable London en route to post-hurricane Florida with flashbacks to working in Rheinplatz grade fields, gathering chestnuts to sell for beer and bread money, strange encampments at Oktoberfest, and hitchhiking to Amsterdam with gaggle of pals. To ...
Thunderstorms in the Crash Years – Postcard #75
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - May 11, 2018 20:00 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsAmidst a thunderstorm at 4AM on a balcony in Chiang Mai, Dave discusses – with excessive frankness and emotion – various medical conundrums (Fibromyalgia and CFS-ME) and details the physical feelings of “crash mode” as well as the mental strain in dealing with self de-identification and inter-p...
Listening to Sea – Postcard #74
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - May 06, 2018 12:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsShip-to-shore transmissions with shortwave broadcasts from elusive listening posts, soundscapes from slow ships, and freeverse poetry about unanswered communiques, transitory conditions, arbitrary citizenships, invented geography, de-identification, and intentional disappearance. Features music: ...
Eyes Towards Europe – Postcard #73
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 30, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsOn a forgotten forest walk, Dave riffs a story about first trip to Europe – starting with trying not to puke over an Amsterdam bridge after a meeting new temporary coffee shop pals – with flashback to Mexican desert trips with Grandpa, LSD trips with VW bus-fixing pals, and family Grateful Dead r...
(Poetic Farewell to) Ole Dead Gramps – Postcard #72
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 16, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsPaying poetic respects to recently deceased Grandpa in a rainforest with Walt Whitman, Charles Baudelaire, Chief Dan George and original works inspired by the globe rambling, oddly charming, big fish – while official funeral happening elsewhere. Originally recorded: May 13, 2006 Sit on a tree by ...
Friendly Dehli Wanders – Postcard #71
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 17, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFirst reflecting on Funiculars, Dave then reads works by poet friends from far-flung points including: Sohaib Ahmed recounting escaped love and lights, Adam Burningham examining towns atop streams, Amber Case on a languid roadtrip, and Robert Scales appreciating a sunrise and oblivion – plus musi...
A Return to Nippon – Postcard #70
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 10, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsReturning to Japan for the first time since working as a mushroom farmer in the Tottori-ken mountains decades previous, Dave rambles on about the circumstance – then and now – while wandering near his pal’s goat farm. Riffs include: arriving in the snow and getting settled, bailing on job, hitch-...
Preserving the Wildflower – Postcard #69
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 03, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsWhat becomes of the seemingly ephemeral creations we leave behind? Especially in the analog-days? Consider these in the context of missing cassette tapes made by a now departed poet/activist/scholar Foster and guitar-ing Mikael, who recorded spontaneous youthful riffs in parent’s basement in Utah...
Changing Transit Routes – Postcard #68
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 27, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsChanging routes to think about the neighbourhoods – this Postcard is about rolling transit, everyplace and anywhere. Evidence comes in a transit route inspired spoken-word song and a smattering of poems including: odes to drivers, forgotten literary neighbourhoods, angry passengers, observed news...
Annapurna’s Holy Donkeys – Postcard #67
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 20, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsAmongst Nepal’s western Himalaya mountains comes poems about donkey trains hauling supplies, buffalos giving milk, porters hauling excess for misguided dreamers, monks with timeless chants, sunrise over mighty peaks, prayer wheels alongside trails to evoke the feeling of clambering along ancient ...
Lonely Cold Water Flat – Postcard #66
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 13, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsLife in hotels, wandering alone and often blue and then the death of friends all converge in a series of poems including a song by Mikael Lewis about waiting for love in a Victorian hotel. Then, from the streets of Rome with a cappuccino comes a series about departed Rod H. Ash, including “Time T...
Dad’s Malibu Super Sport – Postcard #65
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 06, 2018 00:20 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsWhen I was growing up, Dad often spoke of his Chevy Malibu SS – his favourite car. So, while on his death bed, I asked him to tell the story. He speaks about acquiring the vehicle, the budget, the deal, the financing terms and oh, also about the car and how he enjoyed having a...
Leaping Beyond Cynicism – Postcard #64
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - December 29, 2017 04:24 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsIn tumultuous and confusing times, optimism and activism are the powerful antidotes for cynicism and fear. Two Bills share songs to assist in making this point. First B/William Lenker plays a spontaneous Squatters in Zion from his Steamboat Island woodshop, then Dave spiels about courageous – and...
Remembrance Day with Vasco’s Bones – Postcard #63
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 11, 2017 19:11 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFrom an olden church and (otherwise vacant) cenotaph at Fort Cochin, Kerala, India, Dave O – acknowledging an extended medical and death related hiatus – discusses the local history of colonization by Portuguese explorers, Dutch traders, then British Raj in the context of the colonization leading...