It's coming up on a year and a half that the family and I relocated From Vancouver B.C. Canada to Portland Oregon U.S.A. and i am often asked about it. Now I'm not really a believer in decisions so to say, I'm more of a reactor to circumstance, and i believe circumstance has done me well this time.
It was a hard thing to do, we have many good friends in Vancouver, and we were doing pretty good there by all accounts, but i have to say that it took less than a second to decide on the chance to escape my situation. It was King hell exciting to get a new lease on my identity and for that matter daily ritual.
I got out of walking up at 6 in the morning to race to work to try to deliver a mail route in time to pick up my eldest daughter from school and then do something fun with her before picking up the twins and then making dinner for the family, all while running some elements of the family household. I got the opportunity to sift my failing songwriting career to the background, and all of the ruesome conversations that come with that.
On January 9, 2012 i became a man with a normal name living in an awesome house in a fantastic neighbourhood a few blocks from my kids school. On the walks to school i met the neighbourhood... of course I'm a bit weirder than most, but remember this is the City who's motto is "keep it weird"... what was the Vancouver one... "world class city". Don't get we wrong, I love Vancouver, and I am Canadian on and on, those that know me and know my work would not disagree. The thing is that here in Portland the neighbourhood is filled with single family homes, people like us with kids like us... sure we are all patriots but i see very little difference between the key things our family views as important than the local families view as important. Ultimately the same thing in Vancouver, but the big difference is a by product of real estate prices... I believe there were 13 houses on our block in Vancouver and many of them were suited... there are probably 20 houses on our block in Portland and i bet you more people by far lived on our street in Vancouver. I know most of the people on our block here in Portland, i can't say the same in Vancouver, and remember i was the Mailman for that street.
So i move in and become (again) a stay home dad, and wouldn't you know it that there are more stay home dad's than squirrels in this hood. Everywhere you start swinging a dead squirrel you hit a stay home dad... most of them ain't to crazy about being walloped with a dead squirrel, but hey... never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I stayed home with the kids for 3 years in Vancouver and as i thought about writing a book about it the working title was going to be "me the grandmothers and the Nanny's". Truth be told there were a few stay home dads, but one moved to Europe, and the other had another Kid which put him back into the infant caring stage, which cut into our 3 year old's hanging out together easily without urgent incident.
I think i am a migrator, i move on without serious emotional feelings to claw me back to the pond i began in. I have noticed this as a pattern in my life.. i went to camp made great friends and left with wet eyes and moved on, i worked as a Jr. ranger and a tree planter... same deal tight knight group separate and move on, i moved across the country from family and never really considered moving back, but that's another novel.
The good part about moving away is that you find out who it is that really wants to keep in touch with you... when effort and money is involved the power of the heart comes through.
Truth be told however when i look at it now that the dust is settled, escaping my career (for the meantime) as a Mailman, cannot be under looked. Why am i all cheery and happy? A pound of abstinence is worth an ounce of cure... I mean i loved my job and i was real good at it for what it is worth, but working full time and caring for 3 kids, and dealing with my stubborn insanity about keeping a record company alive by doing a free show every week by being that "wacky guy" is quite a spot to be in... so if there was a way to get out of it nice and clean like i would take it in a second, and i did.
America is America and Canada is Canada, they are both run by the same corporations with the Governments bowing to the same corporate economic ideals. You could argue the the people running Canada are more in the pocket of big industry that destroys the planet, but it would be an ugly futile argument. They both are, and the smart citizens of both countries are outraged by this... the rich are concerned about their personal wealth, and the religious are decoyed by defined insanities. We are essentially a global community now... that's why we have to co-operate on a pipeline to ship oil from one place to another to process it and sell it, even though all logic dictates otherwise.
Sometimes i wish i could write a blog without slipping into this, but it always seems to happen... any tangent you take has a lead into this fiasco. I guess i t might be important, in the end we are survivalists, and nobody can survive on poisoned air and poisoned water no matter what the corporations tell us... the ads are slick, but they are hollow.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
In defense of Phil Kessel
This is a hockey post, so to bring non hockey people up to speed here is a little background. In 2009 the Boston Bruins traded goal scored Phil Kessel to the Toronto maple leafs for 3 high draft picks (2 first rounds and a second round). The Toronto Maple leafs tanked big time in those years and the draft picks ended up yielding some pretty good hockey players. If you knew who you would have got, perhaps you don't make that deal, but all in all Kessel has played very well for the Toronto Maple Leafs essentially being a point per game player during his tenure.
Lets remember Toronto traded away the right to draft Scott Niedermayer for Tom Kurvers, traded Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft... actually you could write a book on players Toronto traded for players that amounted to nothing... did i mention that Kessel finished 8th in the league in scoring this year... but all we hear about is the trade and his apparent one dimensional play.
OK
So the Leafs are about to meet the Bruins in the first round of the Stanley cup playoffs so the media needs to dwell on this story because they need to "sell the game"... because it is "the game with in the game".
Kessel who is a shy and educated man is charged with being aloof with the local press, and apparently slipped out the back door after practice the other day rather than answering the same questions he has been asked for the past 4 years. Certain curmudgeon reporters are calling for heads to roll over this insult insisting that it is the players duty to meet the press to "sell the game". Yes sell the game don't play it... weren't these the same reporters warning of the danger of the lockout to future revenue when they had no hockey to write about but still filed stories on and eternal stagnent stalemate of a labour dispute?
Why don't they just file a story on what they think Phil Kessel might say when he is asked "did it bother you to be out of the playoffs for 4 years", which happened to be a question he faced today. Holy shit, what do you think? You have a highly competitive athelete not playing hockey when it matters most and you want to ask them if it mattered. Like asking Claude Noel (coach of the Winnipeg Jets) after losing a game that put them out of the playoffs, how did it feel losing that game?
Are we fucking serious... i'd say it feel like his heart was ripped out by gremlins and stomped on by an elephant. Is that selling the game? I guess it is because it it creates a clip of somebody going off the rails and everybody likes to see a good freak out, right.
I mean i don't buy the game, I watch it for free, it's true. I am a rabid fan of my teams but i would never part with the kind of money they want for a ticket or a sweater for that matter... some can justify it, i cannot, i have 3 kids.
When i was a kid my dad and i would go see 5 games a year at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, i believe it cost my dad 22 bucks for the two of us, plus an ice cream bar each. When i was in high school i scalped tickets to pay my way to see a few playoff games. I believe it was 22 bucks a game, and with the money i earned as a dishwasher i bought 5 tickets per game and scalped them for like 60 each and paid my way into the barn... i did take some heat on night for being on another scalpers turf, but i survived.
Now to think that somebody would spend $200 plus on a single ticket is just insane to me, so the idea of "selling the game" carries no weight in my world... i'm priced out. The thing is i don't need to be sold... i don't need a sweater or a ticket to live and die by the game... i find a way.
As my daughter said a few weeks ago to my wife as she settled into bed.... "ahh me and daddy basking in the glow of a leafs victory"... and then later in the week as we watched our donated feed (thanks JK)... "how's the game going kaiya" i said... "well so far there have been 3 holy mackinaw's one for a goal, one for a save, and one for a big hit".
You see it's the game we love, we also love Joe Bowen's excitement... actually we watched the Rangers Carolina game in the hopes that Winnipeg would get in the Playoffs and my daughter, an astute observer of passion noticed how boring the announcers were.
Boring, that's right, just like the press, so focused on selling something to prove their jobs, that the fact is if you love hockey no sales pitch is needed. I was on my driveway shooting pucks into the top corner as a kid before leaf playoff games... i use to think if i could put 12 shots in a row off the post and in than it would affect the hockey gods to tilt the game in the Leafs favor... i would be out there for a while, but i wouldn't come in until it was done, and that's the hockey spirit.
I don't give a rat's ass what some player has to say about some insane question structured to buy into some "sell the game byline". As they say in sports "that's why they play the game"... I don't care what Phil Kessel has to say to some obvious question crafted to barb him... i care if the Leafs win, as i assume he does, and if they do then the media will have a fucking job to do... make it entertaining and park your ego media... less analysis, and more colourful word smithing on the action of the game.
The media's typical "well you have to answer these inane questions" routine feeds the problem, much like telling taxpayers they have to bail out the banks that swindled their money. Right is right and wrong is wrong, don't be the problem, be the solution.
Lets remember Toronto traded away the right to draft Scott Niedermayer for Tom Kurvers, traded Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft... actually you could write a book on players Toronto traded for players that amounted to nothing... did i mention that Kessel finished 8th in the league in scoring this year... but all we hear about is the trade and his apparent one dimensional play.
OK
So the Leafs are about to meet the Bruins in the first round of the Stanley cup playoffs so the media needs to dwell on this story because they need to "sell the game"... because it is "the game with in the game".
Kessel who is a shy and educated man is charged with being aloof with the local press, and apparently slipped out the back door after practice the other day rather than answering the same questions he has been asked for the past 4 years. Certain curmudgeon reporters are calling for heads to roll over this insult insisting that it is the players duty to meet the press to "sell the game". Yes sell the game don't play it... weren't these the same reporters warning of the danger of the lockout to future revenue when they had no hockey to write about but still filed stories on and eternal stagnent stalemate of a labour dispute?
Why don't they just file a story on what they think Phil Kessel might say when he is asked "did it bother you to be out of the playoffs for 4 years", which happened to be a question he faced today. Holy shit, what do you think? You have a highly competitive athelete not playing hockey when it matters most and you want to ask them if it mattered. Like asking Claude Noel (coach of the Winnipeg Jets) after losing a game that put them out of the playoffs, how did it feel losing that game?
Are we fucking serious... i'd say it feel like his heart was ripped out by gremlins and stomped on by an elephant. Is that selling the game? I guess it is because it it creates a clip of somebody going off the rails and everybody likes to see a good freak out, right.
I mean i don't buy the game, I watch it for free, it's true. I am a rabid fan of my teams but i would never part with the kind of money they want for a ticket or a sweater for that matter... some can justify it, i cannot, i have 3 kids.
When i was a kid my dad and i would go see 5 games a year at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, i believe it cost my dad 22 bucks for the two of us, plus an ice cream bar each. When i was in high school i scalped tickets to pay my way to see a few playoff games. I believe it was 22 bucks a game, and with the money i earned as a dishwasher i bought 5 tickets per game and scalped them for like 60 each and paid my way into the barn... i did take some heat on night for being on another scalpers turf, but i survived.
Now to think that somebody would spend $200 plus on a single ticket is just insane to me, so the idea of "selling the game" carries no weight in my world... i'm priced out. The thing is i don't need to be sold... i don't need a sweater or a ticket to live and die by the game... i find a way.
As my daughter said a few weeks ago to my wife as she settled into bed.... "ahh me and daddy basking in the glow of a leafs victory"... and then later in the week as we watched our donated feed (thanks JK)... "how's the game going kaiya" i said... "well so far there have been 3 holy mackinaw's one for a goal, one for a save, and one for a big hit".
You see it's the game we love, we also love Joe Bowen's excitement... actually we watched the Rangers Carolina game in the hopes that Winnipeg would get in the Playoffs and my daughter, an astute observer of passion noticed how boring the announcers were.
Boring, that's right, just like the press, so focused on selling something to prove their jobs, that the fact is if you love hockey no sales pitch is needed. I was on my driveway shooting pucks into the top corner as a kid before leaf playoff games... i use to think if i could put 12 shots in a row off the post and in than it would affect the hockey gods to tilt the game in the Leafs favor... i would be out there for a while, but i wouldn't come in until it was done, and that's the hockey spirit.
I don't give a rat's ass what some player has to say about some insane question structured to buy into some "sell the game byline". As they say in sports "that's why they play the game"... I don't care what Phil Kessel has to say to some obvious question crafted to barb him... i care if the Leafs win, as i assume he does, and if they do then the media will have a fucking job to do... make it entertaining and park your ego media... less analysis, and more colourful word smithing on the action of the game.
The media's typical "well you have to answer these inane questions" routine feeds the problem, much like telling taxpayers they have to bail out the banks that swindled their money. Right is right and wrong is wrong, don't be the problem, be the solution.
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