Sosoetry: “Jah Rocco Jalapeño” or “The Epic of Jarkkowulf”

My pal Michelle and I are helping Jarkko finally establish some kind of internet presence. She asked me to write something about him. While I wrote a safe and boring bio, I also wrote this over about 4 days. I’ve known him for 30 years or more, and he’s a colourful character, so it was pretty easy.

A lad most affable
Talents admirable
Instantly disarming
Thoroughly charming
The essence of manly class
He’s beloved of many a lass
Canoe maker
Booty shaker
Hypnotic turn tablist
Nordic tale fablist
Carving axe sharpener
Starving artist carpenter
Dermagraphic enhancer
Funky acrobatic dancer
Early Lake Huron surfer
Frequent visitor at Caution Point
Assured cabinetry kerfer
Making many a fine dovetail joint
Totally devoted father
To his son & daughter
Even when not doing tattoos
He’s always foregone brews
Collector of many objects
Obsessed with all subjects
He sometimes tilts at windmills
Hates those turbines on the hills
Is runoff from Bruce nuclear power
Possibly a creativity endower?
That an invisible miasma atomic
Leaves imagination polychromic?
I’m almost certain he’s from another planet
Stranded when his spacecraft crash landed
Maybe that explains the affiliation
With Justin and Alien Visitation
He will answer to the name Bill
And seeks out any kind of thrill
Teenage punk rocker
Premier disc jockey
Chooses the beats
Eschews all meats
Rasta knotting dreads
Has ’em nodding heads
Laying down tasty rhythms
Playing with crazy precision
Sounds that heal herbally
Senses you feel verbally
A whirling dervish Finnish sensei
Gave birth to Scandinadian reggae
Slow speed dubbing
Best kind of clubbing
Collaborating with PostContemporary
Creating some tunes most extraordinary
Exclusive dubplates dropping
Spadina basement hopping
Spinning a gronky remix
There’s nothing he can’t fix
Locates gems in a huge record collection
His style is mellow bass and pulsing drum
Establishes quite an audience connection
Plays sexy beats that make the gals cum
No affinity for woodsy harmonica
Leans more to groovy electronica
Voluminous tinker
Prodigious thinker
Thought words verbose
Verbs carefully chose
Dispensing viking wisdom pearls
Theories that set the mind awhirl
The lad goes off rambling
Should really go camping
Capably piloting ships
Ably navigating trips
Finely honed crafts
Highly toned drafts
Contemplating designs
Conceptually quite fine
Able with tools powered or handheld
Can do many varied sorts of welds
Hammering steel in the forge
Whittling birch on the porch
Transforming a slab of oak
Transfixed in a lab by smoke
Fabricating truck frames metal
Skillfully crafting a wooden hull
Bends aluminum by the meter
Carves a canoe from red cedar
Vanquishes hardwood
Varnishes very good
Raised with arcane old world skills
Learned from fellas at the sawmill
Brush script hand letterer
Always strives to be better
Late nights at the Lettering Shop
Consuming way too much pop
When he pinstripes and signpaints
His creativity knows few constraints
He’s rarely not smiling and cheerful
Get ’em talking you’ll get an earful
He’s sometimes a bit hyper active
Always nervous about cyber practice
Computer wise he’s in the dark ages
Prefers moving pencil across pages
Cooking away at the Sugar Shack
Laying in lines curvy and black
Maybe he’ll get to my tattoo
Before we leave decade two
He’s not always so good at staying in touch
But when we do connect we discuss much
Comes across a bit awkward
Professes to be timid and shy
He’s really quite straightforward
Before long the words they fly
He’s always his humble self
Meekly denies he’s part elf
I’m convinced he’s a tundra gnome
Now calling Kincardine his home
Maybe his being a recluse
Is why he’s able to produce
Doesn’t always eat so well
Choices a dietitian’s hell
When Finland loses to Sweden
It’s a slice of crow pie he’s eatin’
Very capable in many a field
Save making healthy meals
A walking DIY encyclopedia
But a Luddite at social media
At making anything he’s a wizard
Thinks the self promo biz is hard
Rarely photographed
Piloting his soulcraft
Jumps on his skateboard
Gets right into his groove
Barely says eight words
Rides black lines smooth
Many trips winter motorbiking
Doesn’t matter if it’s just snowed
Like a crazed berserker viking
He loves roaring down dirt roads
Tearing through a valley
Driving a private car rally
Jarkko feels very much alive
Bombing around in 4W drive
He’s the purveyor of fire
Not much gives him a fright
Save surveying from a spire
Doesn’t like being at a height
Diehard child of the Bruce
Returned for sunset views
Decades of rooty dub dreads
Intertwined with a drum head
Kincardine hair farmer
Cardigan of plait armour
I suspect his folks still haven’t a clue
That he’s got more than one tattoo
He keeps his sleeves rolled down
To prevent his mom’s cold frown
Cheekbones finely hewn
Make all the ladies swoon
Despite the scruffy beard & girlish hips
Women all want to kiss him on the lips
Always looking natty & Snug
Never acting crassly or smug
Sets sights on modern makes
On nights by far Northern lakes
When in urbanity he’s always cordial
But he’s happiest in regions Boreal
Words tumble like an avalanche
Birds nesting on a pine branch
Words burst out like a flood
Wolf paw prints in the mud
Words flow out like a cascade
Deer in a sun dappled glade
Words gush out like a wave
Lapping at the edge of a lake
Words come forth in a torrent
Listen to sounds of the forest

S.o.t.D. - Calling Elan – Watershell vs Incarnate

Calling Elan – Watershell vs Incarnate

Fond memories of hanging out at Jay and Jarkko’s as this track was crafted, and hearing dub plates of this.

Typeface Design – Ωhm

I had a scrap of paper that had this logo done by my pal Jarkko. I always liked it and years back I mentioned that he should turn it into a full typeface. Mainly cause I wanted to use it myself.

Going through some files recently I came across it and again mentioned to him that he should try turning it into a complete typeface. 

I was inspired last night, so I tried my hand at carrying the core idea through. I can see that more noodling and doodling will be necessary, but I like it so far. 

S.o.t.D. – Boof ’n’ Baff ‘n’ Biff – Black Uhuru (Fila Brazilia Remix)

Boof ’n’ Baff ’n’ Biff – Black Uhuru (Fila Brazilia Remix)

Wonderful memories of hearing Jarkko play this out.

Typeface Design – Jarkko

Another one of my, sadly abandoned, typefaces. It’s rather remarkable how something I used to love with an all consuming passion, I then turned my back on and haven’t really gone near in many years. I keep entertaining the idea that I should revisit both the practice and some of these unfinished typefaces and pick up where I left off.

This one I loosely based on old sign painter lettering. I named it after my pal Jarkko who really is a sign painter (in addition to being a very talented practitioner of many other skills).

6° of PostContemporarity

I went to a Clan of Xymox concert in Toronto in 1989.

After the show, my friend Len introduces me to two guys that he went to college with.

Obviously twins, but trying hard not to look like twins.

We start to talk and it turns out that they were the people behind a record that I had bought recently, Empirical Sleeping Consort.

One of them mentions that he would like to go back stage and say hi to the band.

“Yeah me too. They’re from Holland and so am I and I think it would be neat to say hello.”

“Hey my brother’s girlfriend is from Holland too.”

We start to chat, in Dutch and she asks me where in Holland I’m from.

“Amsterdam.”

“Yes me too. Where abouts in Amsterdam?”

“In the new south district, the river borough (all the streets were named after rivers in Holland)”

“I don’t know the neighbourhood I’m from, but I was born in and lived in the KrommeMijdrecht Straat.”

Music was playing in the club, so I wasn’t certain I had heard her right. But I got a funny tingle down my spine. “What did you say?” I asked incredulously.

“The KrommeMijdrecht Straat.”

I must have had the most stunned look on my face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“This is really going to freak you out, but I was born in the KrommeMijdrecht Straat!”

“Whaaat!”

(Now this is not a street that ran the length and breadth of the city, but a one block street!)

When we explained to the English speakers around us what had just transpired, they were equally amazed.

“Do you remember the number you lived at? What year were you born in?” I asked.

“I can’t remember the street number, and I was born in 1967.”

Same year I was born in.

“What school did you go to?”

“We moved to a different city when I was three.”

We continued to talk for a while longer and exchanged addresses (which much to my chagrin, I lost shortly there after.)

About five years later I walked into my friend Jarkko’s house, and there are two twins trying hard not to look like twins sitting on his couch.

“I know you two.”

They were looking at me with one of those I remember you, but why looks. “You do?”

“Yeah. Your girlfriend was born on the same street as me!”

“I remember you!!” They both shouted in unison.

And we’ve remained friends ever since.