washroom to flies to pets to serenity

I think i just saw a red eyed dumpy wing drosophila melanogaster on the mirror in the bathroom.. i was going to crush it but noticed the red eye and then gave it a good examination.  A few things came to me, the first being perhaps i look a little scruffy, the moustache is perhaps a little wild and unkempt, and my eyebrows are rather bushy, my eyes they are all squinty looking at a small fly that i observed and then identified.  There was a time i did genetics experiments with D. Melanogaster, also know as the fruit fly.  I had to get the magnifying glass out and i might be a bit wrong on the dumpy wing call, although it looked pretty dumpy to me... i could grab my fruit fly trap and do some wing comparisons, but these days I'm less in the business of breeding flies to express recessive alleles, and more in the business of fly extermination...  so lets run with that on for a bit.

This is a fruit fly trap:

Mason jar, parchment paper and a chunk of over ripe banana (you can use a glass and an elastic if you don't have a mason jar).  Take a pen and poke a few hols in the parchment paper and that will be full of fruit flies in no time... the old can find their way in but can't find there way out trick.  i have seen a few escape but clearly it is an osmosis type of deal... not really but we have a low concentration of flies passing through a semipermeable membrane (a big fly couldn't get through there) to create a high concentration of flies.

Then you can roll the banana in the jar and take out the flies... or you can get water in there and give it a shake, or i guess you could go outside and let the flies go. i don't hate fruit flies, thy can be annoying when you are being swarmed by them, but that's why all smart people have fruit fly traps.  And they are beneficial to humans believe it or not... they are "decomposers", breaking down organic matter to form useful soil.  They also contain hundreds of genes that are homologous to human genes  that can cause disease making them a fine study of what happens when these genes are defective and how the effects of these genes can be modified.  It kind of opens the door for a sci-fi paranoia induced drug company conspiracy.

If a company could cause a disease that they could cure for a fee, and it could be spread with a fruit fly would they do it for 3 Billion dollars?   Totally hypothetical that i just made that up, but kind of intriguing don't you think... Is there is a human out there who will put on a suit and sign the order to do just that if you pay him or her enough money?  Of course, but I'm not sure fruit flies are a good vector to spread disease to humans, hence the sci-fi paranoia induced conspiracy label for this little absurd diversion.  Mosquitoes would be much better suited seeing that they pierce the skin of humans making them a much more suitable vector.  The real question is why bother infecting humans when you can just prey on their insecurities to separate them from their money.  Create a bogus health pill and put your money into marketing and the suckers will line up and feel what the adds tell them they will feel.

I guess i started in the bathroom, or washroom as they say in America... have i come full circle in this bizarre and pointless exercise?

We all have our moments, some of them better than others.  Maybe there is a song in there... actually i did write a song about the drosophila melanogaster some time ago, i don't even really remember it... i remember it was during the Vancouver Garbage strike that went on all summer, and lets just say it was a bumper year for the fruit fly.  i think i was vacuuming the air in the kitchen just pulling them out of the air and perhaps i went over the edge... i have a feeling the song never really got finished as i probably got distracted... i think we had infant twins that year and a 3 year old.  I know that because we had double diapers for the garbage strike, not that i am happy to announce i used disposable diapers in those years but the facts are the facts.  Our first child we used cloth diapers... lets just say that disposable diapers are a better product in terms of diaper rash frequency, which relates to sleep ability and the whole avalanche that follows.  That year i got into a debate with a "green blog" over diaper choices... the point i will concede is that i only tried one type of cloth diaper, perhaps there are others, but given the start up fees and the uncertainty i was in no mood to experiment.  You are still washing the damn diaper which uses drinking water, and it you like to avoid dry heaving you sign up for a diaper service that burns fossil fuels as well.  Power to the people who stay the course of the most environmentally responsible in the face of fecal matter.  It is interesting however the stats on potty training, in countries where diapers are not very affordable children become potty trained at a much earlier age... when there is a will there is a way.  If you can throw money at a problem you problem will stick around for longer, cause you are not working to solve it, you are just working to manage it.

Fecal matter is the main reason i will always be against pets... there are other reasons of course, but me dealing with fecal matter is the biggest one.  i lived with a crazy loon one time who actually uttered the words "i like to clean a litter box", it was bullshit of course, the kind of thing said in the heat of an argument to counteract good logic.  and in the end of course it was me who had to clean the litter box, because the person who loved to do it kept forgetting for some reason, and there is me dry heaving, suffering horribly, and then being mocked by the litter box loving loon for my weak stomach in dealing with this issue that i was very clear that i never under any circumstances wanted to deal with.   It was a good lesson for me... don't give out trust easily and never agree to live in the same abode as cats.  It is a lesson that has served me well to this day, in fact part of our wedding vows had the statement "and under no circumstances will i ever lose my fucking mind and think we need to get a pet".  I mean i like to visit cats and dogs and if we can live on a farm one day i might reconsider my anti dog policy.. a good squirrel chasing dog could live the good life on my farm, but we shall cross that bridge when we get there.  It would have to be a dog smart enough to go shit in the woods by the farm... we would need woods for spiritual clarity and to support an owl population to help pick off the rodents... but these are obvious points.

Is it weird that i went to the washroom, saw a fruit fly and now we are fantasising about a farm?  Not in my world... why do this?  it's a good question and I'm glad i asked it for you.. not quite sure what the answer is yet but let me wrap the right side of my moustache around my index finger and ponder that point for a while.  I'm going to go with "weird is in the eye of the beholder", i think a lot of things that many people think are normal are weird, but i live in a town now who's motto is "keep Portland weird", and by chance i arrived here, but maybe it wasn't chance... perhaps it was destiny.  In reality I'm not sure i could be in a better spot right now... so many thoughts coming, and i keep checking them.  In some ways i am afraid to tweak and OMEN that is shining brightly upon me, never worry about what people think of you, just continue... Moo say's the cow, in the cow's world.

chronicals

It was the first week of school for all 3 kids, a celebration of sorts, and achieved milestone so to say.  Sure sure, it marks the end of an era, and era that was wonderful, but as a parent who's goal is to raise independent children that leave the nest permanently at the age of 18, it was a good milestone.  Some rue the day, some rejoice in it, different strokes for different folks.

It's fair to say that i overdid it this week... exercise every morning from 9-10am, there was a hockey game Wednesday night, i ran into a concert on Monday night and a late night blog the other night. Overdoing things is my ace up the sleeve, i will not miss out because it was too much.. i will just continue to overdo, it's the way i roll.  Think something is important then get into it, game of cricket, have a hand in it... from the Alien sex Fiend song "get into it"... just to keep our quotes accurate.  The song was a bit of a theme song in 3rd year University... memories  set to music... nothing beats that.  I believe it is also important to show your children to do the stuff that you think is important, and to say "I'm too tired or overwhelmed" is unacceptable.

We signed our kids up for the "hot lunch" program... you eat from the cafeteria rather than pack a lunch... i draw from experience on this one, although i learned a lot this week.  the menu is pre-determined so if it is not what they want i will pack a lunch.

On the first day i threw a small piece of poppy seed cake and an apple into the twins pack in case they got hungry from not enough lunch.  On their introduction i took them into the cafeteria so they could see the process and was told... don't worry everybody is new, we will go through everything.

So when i picked them up from the first day they were faint... i asked how was school... "good but you didn't give us enough food to eat" as Hailie stumbled to the left... WHAT???  No sometimes you don't get the real answers from kids, even though they are naturally honest, so we broke it down... Kaiya got involved (who is in grade 3).  So i went back to the kindergarten teacher and asked if Hailie and Emily ate lunch... the answer i got was well they had some stuff so i thought you thought that was all they needed, and they ate more than some of the kids.  Holy shit i thought, so i mentioned that they had lunch cards and the teacher was glad i pointed that out.  in fairness to the teachers they are overwhelmed and in these situations you tend to notice the kids who are loud and causing issues rather than the kids who are quietly starving and too shy to speak up.  Clearly my error for not showing up... as a former teacher i will never begrudge a teacher or tell them how to treat my children rather i want my children to learn that life is not an easy ride and you need to overcome all obstacles.

Shit happens.. my kids starved on the first day of school... should i freak out or realize that this was the greatest lesson.

On the second day of school i showed up at lunch time 11am for the Kindergarten class... there were Hailie and Emily with their hot lunch trying to open their milk, too shy to ask... i opened the milk and hung out for a bit.  Now because of education funding cuts lunch is only 15 minutes, which is crazy cause it took me 45 minutes to feed my kids at home.. focus on your food, sit properly, don't worry about that... you know if you know.  But the thing is the class is dismissed from lunch but if you want to stay and eat you can so i told them... you girls stay and finish your food if you are not done in the 15 minutes... you don't want to be hungry at school.  They looked very seriously at me and said 'no we don't want to be hungry at school"...  so they stayed and ate.  i showed up every day, after the first day, for lunch to reinforce the message and to go over opening the milk technique.  They can open their milk now and are solid in the idea that they want to eat their whole lunch.  just a note, you can always turn a negative into a positive.

On my end the school secretary saw me coming in every day to get a "guest pass" to get into the cafeteria to make sure everything was OK, and pitched the idea that i could help out doing recess monitoring, because of course they are underfunded and desperately need volunteers (go war go).

Now you have to see things from my perspective... after 8 years i finally have a moment away from kids.. i love my kids, and would try to move the world for them... actually i wouldn't cause i know it is an impossible task, but the sentiment is there. But this is a week i have been waiting for for a long time... so to be suddenly hit with the concept of 1) peak sun (my arch nemesis) and 2) a field of screaming kids (my other arch nemesis) i went from free falling  in a state of bliss to stuck in a gel that had a gravitational pull... you see our family's motto is to always help and volunteer whenever possible.. it's a good place to be, a path to a rich life for sure.  But if i were to go to therapy, which is not my style i believe my therapist would recommend staying away from kids.  In fact a perfect job for me would be a teachers assistant.. i would work the same hours as my kids, but the reason it wouldn't work is that once i got off work I would be burned out of kid duty and my own children would suffer.

So there i was in the office. pressed with the volunteer plea... my brain frozen.  there was a vision of me trying to kick start my brain for an excuse like a person might try to start a dirt bike, and i came up with "i have something on the stove", which was total bullshit of course, and i slipped the noose.

The the deli ma came... i need to go in to make sure the kids are OK at lunch, cause they are too shy to ask for help in a room full of chaos, but to do that i need a pass, which means i need an excuse to not volunteer for recess duty... so i have to show up in a welding mask one day, cause I'm in the middle of welding a child safe device, and a clown costume the next day cause i have a gig entertaining children, and a lab coat the next day because I'm working on a cure for some childhood disease... just to make sure my kids get enough to eat and too see what is actually happening, and to remind them that they are allowed to stay past the 15 minutes to finish their food.

This is where the starving on day one payed off big time... they know one thing, they don't want to go hungry so they stay together and finish their lunch, a thing my 8 year old has yet to learn, because when everyone is leaving to play in the playground the pull is irresistible, unless you know real hunger.

How did I do? free time flies quickly, and there are many things that need to be done, one needs to be organized and have a plan. Floors to wash, bathrooms to clean, food to prepare, gardens to tend, neighbours to loiter with, exercise,  bogus excuses, music gear shops patron, food to purchase, Internet to distract, rugs to wash, projects to finish, songs to write, books to read, photographs to organize... there is never nothing to do, and that's a good thing... life is excellent and i wouldn't trade mine for anybodies.

Time keeps on slipping into the future (Steve Miller of course)... King Hell drums on that track played by Gary Mallaber  who is a Los Angeles session drummer the Internet tells me.   I think good drummers need more respect, trust me without a good drummer you are fucked.  You are watching the singer or the guitar player thinking it is all happening, but if the drums aren't happening nothing is.

There was a free water aerobics class this week... me and a bunch of female senior citizens making like washing machines in the pool, it would have made for a fine reality television show... i think I'm not really a television person although i believe my children could use the help of the sesame street character "Count", as our homework is to help our kids learn to count... one of the negatives of a no TV household... of course there are too many positives to enter a serious debate about the issue... if a cable company could provide me with something that didn't load up on the hoarse shit perhaps we could have a conversation, but that's not the way.  Any system that treats the common citizen like some rube sucker can lick a shit as far as i am concerned.

I will not buy, will not believe, i will not see what they tell me to see.

Never think your kids are falling behind on some week to week basis... you just run the chance to instill a prospect of failure that is unnecessary.  My oldest daughter was late to read but now reads constantly... she was never told anything.  i was late to read and was told i hated reading and only liked hockey and so i bought into that, which is why i suffer such  obvious illiteracy.   In school you learn how to learn, sometimes it takes longer for other kids, do me a favour... don't bring the hammer down on a kid, they are just a kid, everybody develops at their own rate... talk to me in grade 11 when some are solving more complex math problems than others, but perhaps those not solving math problems are excelling in other areas.  Don't be a fool and pin your hopes on your kid. they might have a talent that is outside your "hope" range.  Don't rob them of the chance to explore that one, they want to please... park your ego and let them be.

Irony is everything

I love hearing from disgruntled "musicians" who are angry cause they can't seem to make a buck playing their original numbers, and they take to social media to vent their misguided misgivings.

It's really not a lucrative field to get into in the first place, which is the real comedy.  You could almost turn it further and say "hey man i don't like working for bosses cause people suck, and doing my own thing is what i need".  It's just that things are the way they are, and it's not really related to what an individual weights their worth.  If you can sell your music, or tickets to your show, then excellent, good for you, and you probably realize how much work it took outside the "strumming your instrument and singing your words"

Of course there is always the lottery hope that one day you could really make a lot of money from your "art".  I remember being asked by a friend from my home town after i released my first record (CD for that matter), "are you rich yet?"... cause that's a big motivation for a lot of people whether they can admit it or not.  Fortune and Fame, the greatest bait and switch known to mankind...  and it's the fault of all the non supporting people out there that you haven't arrived.

My father went to his grave wondering why his son would put effort into something that he made no money from.  It's the old school mentality, life isn't for embracing, it's for getting ahead, and to his credit he died with a surplus of money... much better than the alternative.  If you are going to make music, than you better be able to sell  it.

A friend of mine put it this way...  recorded music hasn't really been around for that long in the grand scheme of humans association with music, so the fact that it's all free now (or can be), just marks the end of an era where commerce was derived from it, and if you could look at the graph of who made what money, you might find that the artists never really got too much in the first place.  The idea being that, people that played music, did it and survived to do it before it was available to sell, and now in the era where you can stream almost anything for free (find a song on you tube... easier than taping it off the radio which i did as a kid), the game has perhaps eroded.

If anything, and independent artist can get the loins share of the money now...  if they do it properly of course.  Whining about it is not the route of course, which helps with the comedy if you know what i mean.

Another friend once equated why you want to be the musician... in the old days people would be doing labor and to help them slave away somebody might be playing an instrument, i believe it  was a flute in the example given, and the question is: Do you want to be the guy playing the flute all day or one of the grunts digging with a shovel?  I say the flute is a better job.

I would even argue that it is all the "musician" folk with money in their mind, rather than soul in their heart, that have ruined the "playing live music in bars" scene.  There are just too many shitty "bands" out there that it is no longer worth taking a chance to go and pay for something randomly... and they are too fucking loud. Loud can be excellent in the right situation of course, but the folks i am talking about its more like...  What they lack in talent, originality and creativity they make up for in volume, and it is somehow the audience's fault.  It has gotten so bad that people go to shows and talk all the way through them... you went there for some reason, too be seen, too show support and then you talk through a whole set, and that's just normal in some places.  I really believe the root cause of that is that people go to shows for other reasons than to actually catch the show, because the industry is heavy on the numbers game, and the bar needs people to come and drink... if you just show up that's all that matters, the band will get another show cause people came and the bar made money.  It's rarely the love of music that fills the bar.  Not saying it doesn't happen, cause it does, and when it does, you can always count on people wanting to be there cause it's happening and then just take their "talk through the whole set" mentality and bring it there.  Some might even be having a conversation while holding up an iPhone recording the set to prove that they were there.  It's a crazy disease, and to break through that culture takes balls of steel.  Imagine if everybody who ever wrote a song had something important to say in that song, with a killer melody and a king hell groove...  I'd like to live in that world.  Nothing better than listening to a live act and getting something out of a song, but nothing worse than suffering a high decibel, cliche, shittier carbon copy of a successful band, but that's what happens, cause people are trying to make money.  And sheeple are sheeple, they will baa with the heard in the most insane circumstances.

Think about how many clearly criminal and pure anti human politicians get elected because they run adds showing themselves as strong leaders... utter nonsense but if it gets you 51% for the 40% of people who bother to vote then it is worth whatever you spent, or even 36% of the 40% of people who bothered to vote if there are more than 2 candidates, which is even more insane when you think about it.

In music you vote with your concert ticket dollars and everybody wants to be on the winning team.. i don't begrudge anybody who makes a living playing music, way to go i say.

Why don't people talk through shitty movies?   Doesn't seem to happen, they might just leave, some bizarre cultural thing.

I also wonder if the way music has been marketed to sheeple has had an effect on this whole game.  the idea of getting sheeple  to identify with a style of music so that they can be marketed to more directly.  For example there was some "gangster rap" that i quite liked, a lot of it was horrible offensive shit, but as a genera it was very successful, many loved it and many hated it... there were people who i believed were offended that i liked some of it and wouldn't even listen to a track (honestly listen), that i thought was great, because they were predisposed to not like it... the equal and opposite force of those who loved it.  Many sheeple will identify with a style of music and stay in that box, cause it's a safe and comfortable place to be, music has been marketed as an accessory to ones personality.  Musicians are trained to find a unified popular sound to tap into this, which is why you had people who played in hair bands later playing in grunge bands... clearly you are not living you message i say.

As a failure i think i am expert to speak in terms of some of my failed history.  One of the common criticisms i have had over the years was that my albums were far too diverse.  The band Roadbed had a jazz sound, a metal sound and a quirky indie sound and you never knew what you were going to get hit with next.  i liked that, but then I'm kind of a multiple personality kind of guy.  On the short ep Autopilot we went with a rock sound cause all kinds of bands were releasing short rocking eps in the town we were in, and it got us no where, and perhaps irritated our small fan base because we strayed from our formula (and it was too short).

Never do what people tell you... they don't know... we had a great little band that was guitar guitar and drums, and fools kept telling us we needed bass... after a year setback we both got bass/ guitar double necks... we lost a lot of creative time fucking with nonsense to appear more like a regular successful band... the good news was that we became more alien as a result.  It  was not in us to appear normal, take the path, do the math and you end up as a different version of the oddity that you are. Sometimes we were horrible and other times we were king hell, but we were never accused of trying to be something that had been done before.

Do i want to make money from my art?  Sure, that's why i still own all the rights... will it happen? Not sure, but that's OK... you see i already have all the things people would buy if they made money with their music.  Well if one of my songs became a hit, i probably would buy a farm... dare to dream eh. Just being honest.

Shitty bands are like plastic in the ocean of life, clogging up the opportunities for the appreciation of good original music. And the people in the shitty bands are the ones doing all of the complaining about what's wrong... i just see a connection to the problem here.

Zen smashing

So i go for a little walk down the road, and it appears that the place "float on" is expanding... their business is sensory deprivation tanks that help you achieve a Zen like state, if you will.  4 dudes are knocking out a wall with carpenter hammers and dust masks, chipping away little holes in the drywall... i take it they are expanding.  A horrible excuse for a smashing exercise if i ever saw one... i could donkey kick those walls down faster in my birkenstocks... and then there is my 16lb sledgehammer... i could putt those studs out of there in no time achieving a zen state of calmness that no sensory deprivation tank could ever hope to.  I really wanted to step in there and straighten those children out... if your are going to smash out things @ 1am then go for it and feel the power of a good smashing... smashing is fun, make no mistake about it.  It was paining me to see a good demolition go so feebily, but maybe they were saving it up, on some other trip, poking little holes, making dust... i guess it is their gig, and they will get it done. 

The question is do i go back there @ 1:15 am with my sledgehammer and show them how it's done?  Could somebody get injured?  Probably, but smashing is a blood sport and an injury is like a trophy on the mantle... I came, i saw, i smashed.  With my luck i might show up and give a speech on the fine art of smashing and in my first blow take out a live outlet that some fool forgot to trip the breaker on causing all manor of chaos... after all i do have beer and words here.

But smashing is so fun... a nice destructive blow to something that once was... sound, violence, danger.  The bad part about smashing is cleaning up the mess after the smashing is complete... that's when i slip away, perhaps into a tank to bask in the glow of a fine smashing.  All quiet and warm the blood pumping through the ear canal.

I will go and lie in one of those tanks one day and see what i have to say to myself when i'm all alone in the sensory world... hopefully the vision of a woefully disorganized and muted demolition job doesn't enter my conscience at that time.  Pretty sure i can overcome it with the power of music... my next song will be about Cesar Estrada Chavez... there is a street in Portland named after the guy and the way i see it if a Mexican can get a street named after him in the U.S.A. then he must be one king hell individual, not like the swine Harvey Scott, who i thought my first Portland song would be about, but then upon further research had to change course.  It's all good, a song about Mt. Tabor was the way to go, and if Mr. Scott helped bring that to fruition then maybe he did something good after all.

Perhaps a song about a demolition job on Hawthorne could be in order... somebody once said "don't let the facts get in the way of a good story"... smashing on Hawthorne could have wings.

Ground control to major Robertson

I was playing Space odyssey by David Bowie on my banjo on the porch tonight, so i went with this title... probably best to title something after you have written it to get a better summary but that's not the way we roll around here.

One of my daughters suckered me into a talk about the solar system, which sort of started when i almost bumped over the Venus flytrap giving her ice water so she could sleep (totally bogus of course), so i opened the window to get moonlight to guide my way, and she asked about the dark side of the moon.  A critical moment, do we go into a lesson on Pink Floyd, perhaps break out the vinyl, or do we go into a lesson on the basic layout of the solar system.  A perfect example of one of those forks in the road of life... you can go either way, just commit to it.  In honour of my father i stuck to the solar system model which needed spotlights and rotating objects... Dad was a schoolteacher and missed rock and roll completely knowing only that band names carved into school desks in the 70's must be completely unacceptable.  Think like this... to carve into a school desk is just absolutely unacceptable, so if something inspires a carving into a school desk, then it too is completely unacceptable.

Ironic that Pink Floyd would go on later to release the Wall with the iconic song "another brick in the wall", which had the lyric "hey teacher, leave them kids alone"... the poor grammar in "them kids" and the idea of a telling a teacher to not bother the students was just too much for my father to digest.  We don't need no education... well it certainly sounds like you do, that's terrible" he would say.  It was a small victory for me at the dinner table... a cannon shot at the strict authoritarian discipline style that at times alienated me.  Truth be told i had never listened to Pink Floyd but the fact that my father was reciting lyrics, probably from a staffroom discussion, scored one for the home team.

I'm all for learning, cause learning is fun... i was a great ornithologist when i was in grade 5 cause i loved to do it, but i almost failed grade 5, due to some bizarre school intimidation factor i have had to live with my whole life.  I know my parents loved me and meant to do well, it's just that i was from a different stock, and i seemed to take the fear based intimidation motivation as a sign of pure doom, rather than a rally call to buckle down.

Don't fear learning, learning is what the mind wants to do, in my opinion you don't need fear just opportunity to let those questions percolate.   When i was a kid i couldn't sleep at night trying to answer the question "when did time begin"... it's a real mind fuck of a question... i would think well if time started then then what was before it?  If it is continuous  there really isn't an answer... but i never went to the comfort of a deity where this is this and that is that and just recite and don't question anything.

And when the sun swallows the earth after the humans have killed it for the love of money, time will still go on, and what's after that... it doesn't end.  Infinity, not just a brand of car, but the idea of something without a limit... good selling feature for a car by the way.  Because a car will take you where you need to go... good not to put a limit on that feature in the showroom.

Where the hell was I... hot damn, i went on a diversion that landed me in a car dealership... let me guess, some dude is running a leaf blower on the sidewalk outside the car dealership, just to complete the nightmare.

I'm now confused, what is the answer, and how did we get here? Damn questions and the lack of answers.  Maybe i should read the bible, and present my take of it, even though a few good women have warned me against the idea telling me it is a boring load of crap, and that my interpretation of it would just inspire more hate mail, and perhaps death threats.  You see i was going to start a new blog... me reading the bible and giving my take on what i got from it... who know maybe i might find reason, but I'm told i won't.  Can you read the bible and get reason, or do you need to have the reason pointed out to you?  That was my question that sparked the idea... Apparently my perceived interpretation should ruffle the feathers of the converted... surly there must be something, but i am told by others it will be a "no dice" situation.  Given how my beliefs are so stark in contrast to those who live by the Bible's verse, there might be something there, but at the same time perhaps i am the chosen one who can interpret this one properly to bring world peace... it is possible i am the chosen one, and just don't know it yet... like a fine lottery, me being the chosen one to bringing truth to mankind.  At this moment in time i am actually serious about this... what if i could read the bible, being somebody who had no previous inclinations to what it actually entails, could I actually bring an unbiased view of what the message is?

Time is the hunter, and it will show the truth... another song lyric from a song that has yet to be recorded... it might never make the cut, but i just used it anyway... who needs a song when you have a late night blog.

It really should be a garden blog...

After all the garden is producing a shower of gifts on a daily basis... how to salt them tomatoes,  how to garlic fry them beans, and how to preserve the garlic line to keep the Bold Point lineage alive and well.

Lets, just to settle the score present A brief defense of texting, sent in by one of our stalwart Internet friends:

--texting is not meant to substitute for real life communication.
--texting is for making appointments and asking "where are you".
--when asking (or responding to) "where are you", it takes way less time/effort to text than to call.
--if one is seated at a restaurant, or sitting on a train running late to meet a friend at a restaurant, texting provides a way to have the "where are you" conversation without disturbing the strangers around you.
-- People talking on phones are disruptive.
--people texting are generally not disruptive.
--as long as they stand away from footpaths.
--and are not driving.
--it is never OK to answer "where are you" texts when driving
-- if you believe your friend may be driving, it is also not polite to send "where are you" texts
--it is however OK in that case to send "buy milk on your way home" texts as long as the recipient is your significant other who knows to check texts quickly at the stop sign near the grocery store but never while actually driving.
--it is good to know where the people close to you are. Especially if you have reservations or tickets or are staging any sort of heist.
--appointment making is another great use of texts.
--your hairstylist or Pilate's instructor will be disturbed by a ribgibg of a phone call.
--plus, everyone hates listening to voicemail.
--send a text!
--any apps available this sat after 2pm--Jim Johnson
--can't do class Thurs -is the asstastic class on for sun? Room 4 me?--Jim Johnson
--try calling it "messaging" instead of texting and see if that helps.
--if you don't want to hear incoming texts beep, set phone to vibrate.
--ooh, vibrate.
--that way one doesn't even know a text was sent until they are ready.
--when they are ready, there it is. At least it's not a voicemail!
--"my thumbs are too big for the keys" is poor excuse. Be able-bodied. Use your index finger.


so there we have it...  I still say i have beer in the fridge, food in the garden and a shotgun in the drawer.  Actually i don't have a shotgun... these crazy wives are against shotguns.

Maybe I'll get a plan for my cell phone... is there an app that reminds yourself to punch yourself in the face if you turn into some cellphone punching jackass every second you have downtime, which of course removes the possibility of downtime?  I just don't like the bad with the good.  And then to pay for the bad is equally annoying, on principle of course.  Principle is everything, if there is no principle there is no path,  like religion but more sane like.

Know yourself, know what you can handle and what you can't.  I have never commuted by car to work since i was 23 teaching Chemistry and Physics in a high school in Toronto.  I will never commute by car to work again, it's just not in me.  Many people do it, and many are happy to do it, i would be a cloud of rage... i would hate myself for allowing myself to be in that position.  I believe i am responsible for everything that happens to me.

i might rethink my television aversion...  You see we went camping with a pack of fine families and i happened to lead a bunch of old classic campfire songs which sent the kids into a frenzy, perhaps causing some adults some pain in the regurgitation of a few certain songs over and over again, but in the end i made a few new friends... some kids, and one of the kids knew a lot about nature and the shit he knew was right.  i asked him where he learned all that stuff and he told me it was nature TV shows... he knew his stuff, when he called a call it was on the money.  I have kept my kids from television because of all of the obvious over the top bullshit it entails.  But there is a tool there provided the right direction is enforced.  I kind of have a bit more of a hands off parenting style, and my kids do art all day and write stories and make up games, but perhaps and hour of nature television programming might be good for them... the question is can i ward off the bullshit princess programming that runs insipid in our society?  Hey be a pretty girl with a nice dress and then maybe someday a prince will complete you and you will live happily ever after.

Be smart, live right and form a good team with your partner cause life ain't going to get any easier.  We are on the downward curve of the human cycle... just listen to the nonsense the people in charge of society are spewing, it's bat shit crazy!

why even title this? Don't judge a blog by it's tilte

I guess on one hand it's good to have people reading blogs, for good or Ill, but i happened to take numerous complaints about the last little blogaroo... people can get real touchy about their cell phone use, even if it's framed within the context of my lack of cell phone use.  They are suppose to be rock and roll people, but when you say the wrong word they get real touchy like they got a big stick in their ass...  Quoting Smash talking to Carl Fatman.

Having a bank of readied quotes is a fine game in my life... like cover songs by artists that nobody knew existed.  I was a Monty Python quoter in high school.. that was our era... only cause i didn't have my own material at that time... and i was a fucking idiot.  Meh, water under the bridge, acid off a ducks back... i mean water, water off a ducks back... yes we quote "the far side" too.  Actually my first band "The Van Gophers" had a song  that just ran punchlines from the far side in between musical interludes... the band had other problems, although we did get on the radio with a song that generated a great deal of notoriety.  As we have pointed out..  Notoriety, can really hurt you when you want to be pro... from the song Saskatchewan, which is set in a car in the middle of Canada, with another member of the Van Gophers, on our way to be Knockin' Dog.  For the record, knockin' Dog is a Trinidadian expression, meaning laying around doing nothing.   Dr. Ken Rodney walked into the house, looked down and saw a big mess of shoes and other items and said "Look at all this stuff here, my money, knockin' dog!"  Clearly it's a winner, i won't even take arguments on that one...  It would be ideal if i could dig into the tapes and find some of the Rehearsal tapes from Undertones...  there is a pretty killer version of Chicken in there... the studio version, despite admirable efforts... actually now that i think of it there is that 2 plus minute "Stairway to Chicken".. fucking unbelievable.  If you are ever in a band with somebody and they start trying to tell you that samples and studio gimmicks will save the day, do yourself a favour and punch that person out!  Seems a little violent for sure, but don't be fooled, you would be doing a service to anybody in witness range to smarten the fuck up.  But in reality, if your strengths are lyric writing and song melodies, and being one king hell weirdo who speaks the truth with authority... then don be a jackass thinking you can learn to twist knobs real cool like. (hybrid quoting the drumheller boogie)

I think i remember what i was writing about in the last paragraph, but i just took a big music break.. played a bunch of tunes... one of them was a Bruce Cockburn number.  Not sure i want to revisit the tangent i was on.  why write and then post it then?.. think of it as a big text to Mule, who happens to be reading this in his underwear for all i can imagine a certain line of therapy might suggest.  For the record i was referring to the idea that one way to overcome stage freight, so they say, is to imagine the audience in their underwear.  Personally i don't suffer from stage freight, although it would do me good if i had some of that in me... i suffer from stage indifference which is highlighted by sniffing on a different trail..  A little stage freight would keep you on your toes... although in reality I'm rarely on a stage that people actually want me on... I'm usually this disturbance in the other side of the room interrupting conversations and text messages... gives you a bit more of a stage loathing than stage freight... freight is good is Adrenalin... Adrenalin is a fine drug... might even be banned one day... Sir now we are going to have to remove your adrenal gland... we don't want anybody getting excited in this society for obvious safety concerns... but officer what will then regulate my heart rate , blood pressure and air passage diameters...  Have no fear son her are some vouchers that will get you %15 off ePROphine™ at participating pharmacies...

Another deep end... i just googled "ePROphine™"... looks like it can still be trademarked... might be a good dollar for the person who nabs that one now.

There was some recent controversy on Gay Marriage last week... some rich hypocrite hiding behind the Lords message that has been twisted to suit his needs came out in support of traditional marriage only, perhaps to boost sales in his fast food business, or perhaps he believes he is more right and more holy than other citizens that he has prejudged without knowing at all... apparently there are many traditional marriages in the bible,   some allow the woman to be stoned if they don't act right... i am told.  Interpretations of the bible are everything of course, so some people believe that it is imperative that this union only be allowed between a man and a woman in a society, where marriage provides great privilege, but yet is taxed on a person to person basis.   Am i for gay Marriage?  I'm more of an anti-Marriage person myself... i just see it as an industry than lands good people in hot venues in wool suits to listen to a pile of garbage, while people go broke throwing a party that they can't even enjoy because it is innately trained into them that it HAS TO GO PERFECT...  My advise... simple wedding and put the money into a down payment and start living that blessed life with your love.

I have been to a few good weddings for sure, and i missed a fine on up on a mountain where there was a skating rink and some good rock and roll... actually going to a good one next weekend where it said "we want you to wear something comfortable cause we want you to play games"... I'll have fun... but most people don't roll that way.  The thing that kills me about this anti gay marriage crusade...  is to take the right of others in a society to have the privilege of being able to produce a marriage certificate to receive societal gains... and that's what its about... It should be about children if you ask me... the children are the future of our society the will be left to "drive our economy"... it's the child's benefit to help make their life better, to help make society better... who cares about the sexual orientation of the parents. I'm pretty much agnostic, if i were to define my religion, it would be that... although i am working on my own religion... for the record i will be the only follower... I don't believe or disbelieve in any deity, but yet people are more than happy to marry me to my wife under the eyes of a deity, apparently, if i pay the fee, and in the end if i ever have any immigration issues, a quick flash of my marriage certificate calms all officials.  Now i know a few gay parents with children, my children have played with their children, i can be very sure in saying that i have met far far far worse heterosexual parents... probably due to simple math, knowing a greater sample size... i have met heterosexual parents where i just shake my head and feel so sorry for the child being delivered this warped sense of love and values.  But on paper when you draw lines like that you make terrible mistakes.  Denying certain families the opportunity to show that piece of paper when it comes to claiming societal benefits is just downright mean and nasty.  And doing it in the name of God for the good of a clearly corrupt society is just beyond comprehension in my view.

Many men are different, and few do see, that it's not what we represent, but it's who we may be.
"frustrated man"

should probably just delete this, but it's what i thought

Just not a texting kind of guy

So far the working title has improved, and that's a good thing.

There is no doubt that being able to send and receive messages instantly, could put one at a great advantage from time to time.  For sure, but when have humans ever not lost their minds and overdone things like this so that in the end the net benefit comes out a bit behind to the net negative?

Like what if you are walking down the street, or a path for that matter... having a great day, wondering what the world might bring you, with your receptors open for something you might run into and change the way you think about something important... and just then your pocket buzzes and some jackass texts you with some ass brained plan and you find yourself drawn into something for good or ill, and then there is another text before you are ready to respond... fiasco.

It happened years ago to me with a cell phone, a beautiful night giddy with the possibilities, loving life and the stars, and some loon phoned me up trying to pile some of their shit on my wagon... cause their wagon's axle was under stress if you know what i mean.

I guess i don't see why being in "touch" is so important... i fail to see much sanity in most of society so i guess the less i can be involved the better.  Don't get me wrong, I'm highly social, i just think sometimes tools like this give the fools more power to fuck with the doers.  Rather than make a plan to be some where at some time it's a "well I'll text you and see how it's going on my end".

I remember a few times running a music night and having people fuck around and then after the fact try to justify their end cause they tried to text me 15 minutes before show time to let me know what was happening on their "end".  It was as if some magical text could explain everything and reroute the spinning of the earth, to slow down the day to just make a little time man... On my end we start playing music here, and we end there... like we do every week.  Some how a human forgot that reality can't be changed with a text message, but it won't stop them from trying.

My wife and i have 3 kids, work, do activities and neither of us have a cell phone... OHHH is that even safe?  How do we do it? people ask us... same way we always have is the answer.  Put the cable tv and the cell phone budget into the mortgage and talk to me next decade.

I am the cake and the cake stands alone... Quoting Mule Hughes songs now.  I believe that one should never give humans more options... i know it sounds like free enterprise and freedom in general but it is actually a lie... rather than answering the question you are just charging them to enter the club and in the club they actually lose freedom, and information and communication becomes more diluted.  So you get the odd important nugget of info but you may have to suffer many unfortunate thoughts in between.  I do facebook and get some good  and Ill communication there, i check email many times a day i answer my phone... just to say, I'm not completely isolated.  By the way, do they have text ads?... for sure they do... they must... the next domain.  What if i got a cell phone with texting and Safeway texted me cause they gouged my number on their totally dishonest "give me your information or we will totally soak you" pricing schemes?    If i got a text from Safeway alerting me of some super saver moment i would be furious with myself having let my guard down and allowed such a ridiculous thing to happen... and the thing is you need a text plan... when i did have a cell phone, last time, and one of the reasons i got rid of it was that i started getting texts, that i could never successfully respond to, and i had to pay for.  An unwelcome diversion that cost me money... probably 2 of the worst things you could do to a person of my nature.

On another but the same point, i always have a lot of food in my house so if you come by, I'd be happy to feed you... just saying that I'm not a complete shyster that hates people, which if read with a small mind, one might determine from the last sentence like thing, in that last paragraph like thing.

The truth is, for the most part, many people "connected' spend all their time (even while socializing with real humans) punching at a small screen forgetting somehow that the world is out there, the one that they are breathing in.  You finally get together with somebody and you spend your night staring at your phone... sure not everybody does that, but it's really becoming the norm.  I'm sure many fools texted each other outraged over BC Hydro's decision to install  smart meters worrying about radiation from the meter meanwhile the phone in their hand is emitting more.

I realize texting has great purpose for many people, and it adds to some lives in many positive ways, but it ain't for me, i know that... I'll be here on my path doing my thing and if you want to come and say hi please do, but i just can't join this train at this time there is too much to lose and too little to gain.

If i could make money with a texting phone, that required communication of that sort with co-workers or bosses, i'm sure i would change my tune... I had a small issue with my last job where they tried to tell me i should have a cell phone... of course my point was that if they think i should have a phone then they should pay for it and not just take advantage of the idea that every unimportant fool thinks they should have a cell phone.  For the most part I am an unimportant fool that knows i don't need one, even though one would come in handy every once in a while, it's not a need.

titles can be so akward when you don't know what the post will contain

But none the less follow the procedure my man, the only question left us why?  This exact question was posed to me years ago as Carl Fatman and John "the blueberry butler" left artworks to go see the string cheese incident.  Could have just gone to the show but then Carl and King Dinosaur wouldn't have had that conversation that went to tape, only to be snatched by security later in the evening... i blame a bad back and a dwindling decline in the passion for the job at hand.  My fault, one should never get beaten by security as a matter of principle.. always stay ahead of the game, or don't play it.

Clearly i hadn't fully thought through the "why" portion of the evening... i was in more than most people would have been, but not to the level i come to expect of myself.

I wake up and make the calls on what i do in my life, every failure is on me.  And in the end it's all just memories, many kinds.  Who knows where my path will lead... sometimes i have dreams...

Dreams are a weird thing... sometimes you could call them anchors... you hold so tight to every single one of them you are never open to the possibility of something great that comes along.  My dream is to be happy, and i hit it most of the time... i should note that as a rage hero i can be happy in a rage... you just need to be on the right side of a rage.  You need to ride the rage like a pro surfer and not be knocked over pulled underwater thrust and turned around.   Like playing hockey angry.. some times you play better... if you can find the line.  Funny i just zapped into a sequence in last nights game where i got into it with an opposing defense man... i took a savage jab on the back of the legs and gave one back... my intention was to hurt at the time.   We both got penalties... it's not my style to take penalties like that... i was on the wrong side of a rage.  Should have let him take the penalty and then used my rage to score on the power play.  the only thing i really fee bad about is missing on my shot to injure his leg... he did it again to another teammate late in the game and was ejected from the game.

But back to dreams... dreams are like trees in the forest, you can't hold on to all of them all of the time if you want to live in the forest.  Sometimes you have to pass them a thousand times before you are ready to climb them.  Perhaps dreams give purpose, a mission, or even more dangerous... an identity.

I remember tree planting, and i had a good friend Holgate, who was involved in a few moments that changed my perspective in life.  Anyhoo at the time i told him my dream was to live in a warehouse and play in a rock and roll band with the gear set up by my bed...  Later i had achieved that and actually forgot that i had stated  that earlier in life.  At the time i was stewing with the probelms associated with living in a warehouse that doubled as a common live space and music studio, but i ran into Holgate and he was overjoyed that i was living my dream.. i just forgot that it was my dream.  Fickle we humans are... it is what it is.  Luckily i learned another lesson... have dreams but don't make them all inclusive.  I remember dreaming of having a CD out... it would be a CD i made and it would sit with my collection of commercial CD's... well i think i have 13 out now, and who gives a shit.  In the end it's about the process, making things happen, and thinking you are doing something... feeling good with progress.

Since i moved here i have really being enjoying seeing music played live.  i haven't played live here, I'm involved in no "music scene", and i think that's the trick.  When i go to a show, i'm looking for something good, and i can usually find it... perhaps something lost on me in my old town.  Watching a show with a bunch of other used car salesman waiting for their chance to pitch their product... maybe talk up some people, perhaps during the show... the ironies are heavy.  I wouldn't say that one town is better than the other, but perhaps my mindset in this town is more structured to the life i lead now rather than the life i lead for a long time in the other town that grew like a vine, snaking all over the place.

For sure I'm a bit different,  one of the hallmarks of my existence id that i fail to see eye to eye with the people in the same boat as me.  Think of the failed postal strikes, or the "there is no place to play music in this no fun city" rant... the whiny parents throwing their kids in front of the TV so they can have some "time".... I never fit in.

When i tell postal workers you will get killed if you strike, they get hostile with me... my info comes from being on strike and then being ordered back to work at a worse contract than what was offered in the first place... we end up in arguments and i come off as the corporate lackee when my point is that in this day and age when you go on strike against a company owned by the government who has the power to force you back to work then yes you are fucked... not meaning to be an asshole, just a fact realizer.  It's not a right or wrong thing... it's a game plan thing. There are of course other ways to fight but one would need a coordinated effort, and not just arguments of fair and unfair.  The world ain't fair... fight to win.

When musicians complain about not being able to make money, i think of farmers... they are actually providing something we need and they can't break even.  Don't get me wrong, we need music but there is tonnes of shit out there and you know the person complaing about not bing able to make money has it in their head that they will become a "rock star".  They have rock star camps for kids... ask me that's a horrible idea... don't learn to love music, learn to become a self important demigod as a carbon cutout of what has become promoted as successful.

Put your kids in font of the TV... yea maybe my daughters can learn to become princesses... if only they are beautiful enough then one day a prince will come along and marry them, completing them and they can live happily ever after.

Alien sex fiend has a great song called Smells like shit well, they have a lot of great songs.

i smell the roses now

I fucking hate fireworks

The best time i ever had watching fireworks was up at the cottage on the may 24 weekend... long time ago.  It was at my parents first cottage @ 15 Balsam road, Woodland beach Ontario.  We were all heading to the corner store, Whitfield's pharmacy, for ice cream when we stopped to see a pathetic display of fireworks on some lawn, and some yahoo in a really lame voice kept saying a long protracted "WOW" after each poping display.  My sister and I, being hyper critical people, had a big laugh over how "gay" (that was the word used at the time and it meant, in this instance... weak, feeble and lame) this dude sounded with respect to this event.  I feel weird using that word now, but that's the way it was... hey we were raised in Scarborough and right or wrong that's the way things rolled.

Anyway it was the most fun i ever had with fireworks... making fun of some feeble chump's celebration.  Actually come to think of it there was other fun with fireworks...  Going down to the park where the kids made out in cars with roman candles on the end of hockey sticks and firebombing steamy parked automobiles.  As each flare hit the windshield a shocked couple scrambled and perhaps if you were lucky you could see a girls naked breasts.  It was the closest i could ever get to seeing naked breasts, and being a fan of surprise chaos... it hit the spot.

Then there was the firebombing of a good friends house that begat this song. And than i guess there was the time there was that scavenger  hunt in high school where i somehow accidentally let off a bakers dozen roman candle in Vern's parents car.  It was a rather innocent event to start with... you see we were going down the 401 and i needed to try to get the rival car away from the exit they needed to take to win the scavenger hunt so i thought a little firebombing might prune them back a bit... but old butterfingers me dropped the silly thing and next thing you know hot embers were flying all over the place.

I don't know if they were good memories, but they were strong ones for sure and if i could touch a button and erase fireworks from the conscience of humanity i would hit it in a second... even if it cost me a song.

Loud, annoying, polluting, stupid, non participatory, expensive and bone head drawing.  Apparently it drives dogs insane... if it does the same for squirrels i guess i can call that a positive, but it's can't be good for birds at night in their state of torpor.

Swimming in English bay in Vancouver after a million dollar fireworks celebration one is swamped with discarded firework garbage, and living in a human society where we are always crying poor when it comes to having money for the right things, it just seems insane to blow up all this money on some momentary culturally created celebration of noise and light. I guess i could say it brings people together, like religion, to a common focus, but really is it that exciting? Give me some good music and a buffet, and perhaps a water cannon and see the smiles on the faces of the people.

In a country where we can't even afford to send our children, the future of out nation, to full day kindergarden, we find the money to explode things all night long, a great cost, shipped from a communist nation overseas, to celebrate independence?

Dad

There is a song that never got finished, back in the old Knockin' Dog days, It started "sooner or later we all turn into our fathers", maybe it just needed to be an instrumental piece with that as a title, or maybe one day down the road it will roll, who knows, hopefully it rocks.

I guess it's in our nature to emulate the people who raised us; I know I think I had the best father ever. I think everybody should think that about his or her father, it means they loved you and it came through.  I'm glad I can't understand any other way, and I hope when my time comes my children think the same for me.

I guess that's why we have to become our fathers... perhaps the paranoia gets translated in other ways, or the systems applied on other grids, but the root values manage to find a way through.

Dad was my gardening guru... somewhere there is a photograph of me knee high to a grasshopper standing in the garden with dad working a rake.  He was what I might call a "method" or "production" gardener... if he produced 87 squash he might gleefully announce "Darn right, you go to the store and start pricing squash you will see".  At the time I was more horrified at the concept that we had enough squash to eat every night until next years harvest.  Did I mention putting butter, brown sugar or salt on squash was a non starter?  The experts claimed butter was bad for the heart, sugar would bring on diabetes, and salt would raise your blood pressure and stress your kidneys?  Dad would always be very liberal in pointing that out, every night, as a matter of routine, and he is correct... plain baked squash is better for your body than squash soaked in flavour enhancers.  It wasn't until much later in life that I realized that most families didn't have an overzealous health conscious roll model to analyze every decision with regard to what is better for your long-term health.  Truth be told, I don't always take the correct path when given the choice but having this encyclopedia of food health knowledge as part of my being, I at least know what I'm doing right or wrong.

I was pushing for a peach tree, but at that time Toronto didn't have the climate for peaches, and the two old apple trees didn't really produce eating apples but were more wasp attractants, I'm sure those facts had dad waffling over whether or not to get another fruit tree. He liked cherry trees but was worried about fighting birds for the cherries.  I get it now... now that I have become him...  he was so focused on all of these other factors he went and bought a Damson plum rather than the Italian prune plum tree his heart desired.  I don't really know what happened that day at the nursery... maybe they were out of Italian prune plum's but he was all geared up to plant a plum tree... he had a head of steam... this was going to happen.  So he bought the Damson tree and we went home and put it in the ground. Next thing you know we stood around it all proud... a fine family moment of positive unity.  It was good… perhaps it was too good!  This is how it works... you feel great, you have something great, then the paranoia kicks in. whoa this is so good somebody might want it... want it so bad they might steal it... and then he notices we are all standing around glowing at this tree, so he says under his breath "we should stop staring at it, we are going to draw attention to it, and I don't want somebody back here stealing plums".  For the next decade the bloody tree barely produced an eating plum until finally dad "cut the damn thing down", cursing the fact that he didn't put in an Italian prune plum tree.  He gave up fruit farming after that, claiming it wasn't worth the effort... if you are stressing it, then no it's not worth the effort, well played.

Nothing was better than getting dad laughing:

I remember those as two of his favourite cartoons, there were others, the Herman series really hit home with dad, he really liked the expressions on the characters in light of the situations.  Sometimes I would pull out a Herman book and ask dad if he wanted to read it with me rather than study. He was a strict authoritarian always study hard school teacher but once you got dad going it was all gasping, tears and repeating punch lines...  Soon the glasses would come off and the tears would need to be wiped, sometimes we would even need to take a break, so dad could rest up for the next round.  Laughter is the best medicine, readers digest says, it's always worked for me. 

I think one of the greatest attributes of my father was that he did what he did because he thought it was right... it wasn't because other people were doing it or it was cool it was because he thought it was right.  The 60's movement missed dad, I think it did anyway... he was doing his thing and it wasn't at Woodstock if you know what I mean.

Dad was composting in the 60's, his focus being "free organic soil".  My whole life it was unconscionable to put table scraps into the garbage... that was free fertilizer, and there were systems to deal with any garden pest that wanted to try and get some.  The system, for the record, was cinder blocks on an old wire gate with the compost just dug in a hole in the ground... in the end it would be a mound... a squash mound... a very productive squash mound.

Dad was ruing bird habitat loss in the 70's, he liked bird watching, he liked science and nature, and he liked to be out in it walking, breathing fresh air, and observing what was there.  He actually kept bee's up the street when it was just a field, but as the highway 401 expended he felt his bees were getting slaughtered crossing the highway, and it was at that time people were against bees, because they stung... only 4 decades later are progressive cities now trying to encourage beekeeping for obvious reasons. 

In the 80's he became a master of selective hearing... probably a child rearing issue.  My sister and I were in high school in the 80's. You could ask him a question at point blank range and get nothing, but yet if you were whispering upstairs his hawk ear would pick it off and dismantle the effort.  Clearly if you were whispering it was important... I see that now, when it grows quiet you know you might have problems.

In the 90's he was retired and thus started a new era of the laid back dad... he never missed working that's for sure, there was a short time he had a part time job but once he found out that gas company's are swindlers he lost his appetite for work altogether, which is good.  He always lived within his means, perhaps a few notches under for safe keeping... who needs more things and more money when you are actually happy?

We had lots of good times visiting a couple of times per year, as I had moved out west around 93.  I mentioned Dad missed Woodstock but he did catch Knockin' Dog at Localpolluza at the Samoo pub, Roadbed at the Railway club and the Cottage Bistro, and he even made it to a couple of Super Robertson Supper Shows... just saying he had some indie credibility.

Now my father is gone, but he lives in me, the good he had, I have taken and tried to make my own.  Always the same, just be that guy and people will learn how to deal with you.  Be interesting, and be interested in what others are doing, after all they might be on to something.  Learning how to do things better is better than doing things the same.  Get out and walk, probably the best habit I inherited from dad, exercise and a chance to think and mumble to oneself.  Eat well, love nature, grow food, laugh, be honest, care, respect and enjoy your life while you can.

Dad, you did that for me, thanks

Bruce Gordon Robertson 1933-2012

Open letter to Adele

Greetings Adele,

Now i imagine that a person in your position probably has every jackass and his brother trying to pitch songs to you by the truckload.  I think the words "no unsolicited material accepted" make a good point. And of course you seem to be coming up with some pretty good material so "why fix what isn't broken"?

Well songs are songs, and i have this song called "Never wanted to be anyone".  I started writing it years ago when i got into music and we were all sitting around and the discussion was "Who do you want to be?", as in "Do you want to be the next Keith Richards, or the next Robert Plant...?".  My answer was that i wanted to be the first me, i didn't want to spend my life trying to fit into somebodies image of what i should be.

It appears that you are doing that, under what i can only imagine, would be incredible pressure... Well done!  From my vantage point you are the best singer going and would surly kill the song.  In fact driving back from the beach today one of your songs came on the radio and as we were grooving one of my daughters suggested i get you to sing... i mentioned you might be a bit busy, but hey, if you never ask you will never receive... so they say.

So here is the song, if it can't speak for itself then this whole conversation is for nothing.

Never Wanted to Be Anyone

These are the best years of our life
You got to live them while you can
While your a young woman
you got to live good
you got to sing good
you got to feel good

I never wanted to be anyone
Just want to be like myself

These are the strange and significant years
And I'm not shedding tears
You got to get what you can, while you can
you got to live good
you got to sing good
you got to be good

I never wanted to be anyone
Just want to be like myself

My first open letter, let the mocking begin.

sincerely,

Super Robertson

Clarification... and blurring the lines

I was hoping to clarify a few points i had made earlier, but it's hard to find the time when you are so busy having fun... it's a hard life but somebody has to live it.  For the record it is about perspective and not luck, luck is a fork in the road, and the ones who took the wrong turn yell at the others that they are lucky.  In reality i am lucky i wasn't born in some part of the world where some other lunatic decided that my town needed to be bombed for the greater good of mankind.  I don't even mean that as a joke, but more a serious reflection of reality.  The country i was born in has a lot of natural resources, but the governments have always been very free to give unlimited access to international corporations and hence are a friendly nation, thus classified.

my point was more.. well when i started... i was thinking of of trying to work the one armed lunatic who was forcibly removed from the bus the other night in a totally bizarre sequence... no no no, sorry it was about the hockey post.  yes indeed, that was it.

Since i tarred and feathered our team leadership and perhaps made it appear that they deployed me improperly, i think i should mention  this rather excellent turn of events. 

First of all, i didn't mean to sound like the only good player on the team, in fact there are a few.  I think i was just frustrated with the fact that this thing that occurs on hockey teams happened again.  You show up, play with some people, it goes really well, people assess your value and then decide you are valuable... then they start thinking  now "how to deploy you",  you are then taken out of a role you were successful in and put in a new one with more expectation that you can help save the team but with no chance.

I played on this one team years ago, and i was fast so they put me with this other fast guy, but his main play was to take off for a break away pass every time and if you were able to hit him on this low percentage play he was sure to take a slap shot high and wide... for some reason we didn't put up the numbers that were expected, given our collective speed.

But hey, it's a new season, and i have to give our leadership credit where credit is due... we lost 3 slugs and picked up 3 good players and it's nothing but smiles on the bench.  On hockey teams, bad team players tend to linger, but after our first season, changes have been made and the problems are solved.  A clear cut case of a cancerous dressing room... once insanity and negativity take over the game the leadership is making calls from a distorted perspective.

But the right calls were made, however they were made, i don't know... all i know was that it was all smiles on the bench and it didn't matter where or who you were playing with, cause they did what they were suppose to do, and that's what you need when you are dealing with a team.  As they say, there is no I in team.

internetting

Twitter- trending today is #DefineObamaInOneWord which turns into a really ugly mess of stupid people trying to show how stupid they really are.  Why would you define any human in one word?  We are multi dimensional, i mean I'm all for hate, but make it make sense... and I'm pretty sure it was the President before him that flushed the country down the jimi john.

News- Oil spill in Alberta- accidents happen, as long as it's only simple people and clean lakes and rivers decimated it probably won't hurt the companies.  Did you hear there is a solar and clean energy revolution going on? If you were a politician in the pocket of an oil company you might just look like a mighty jackass in a few short years... hell you might even now.  If it was my land that was ruined i think I'd just walk away, cause fighting it is a guaranteed loss.  I remember seeing a Nature of things episode on a decade after the Exxon Valdez spill... it's a brutal watch, and the lesson is Oil Companies don't pay... and those who fight them end up penny less and insane.  They destroy renewable food resources and deny doing so, destroy people, families and a way of life.

Phoenix Coyotes - They had an owner who was in a shithole lease and was going broke losing millions per year... nobody gave a shit.  It wasn't their money.  So the owner tried to pull a fast one on the NHL ans sell the team to a Billionaire REM mogul who wanted to move the team to Hamilton Canada.  The league went ape shit cause nobody tells the boss what to do, and it all collapsed but it came down to the wire and he was offering millions to all kinds of people who were losing money by the truckload.  Fast forward to now... the league has owned the team for a few years losing a paltry 25 million or so per year, and now they found a "potential buyer" who is getting a sweetheart deal on the leasing and management fees, and things are coming down to the wire again with taxpayer watchdog groups threatening to sue and trying to block votes.  If they only could have given the first guy this lease deal.

Facebook- looks like i was tagged in a "groin photo"... it is what it is.

More riots in  Montreal-  When are these people going to get it?  Don't you know Money calls the shots!  Got to like the spirit, at least they don't roll over like the rest of the stiffs in the country.  That European spirit that says "fuck you we are shutting this one down cause it's bullshit".   So people are getting hit with rubber bullets and pepper spray.  You see students have been protesting for 4 months over tuition increases, and this weekend there is a Grand Prix F1 motorcar race that they are not to happy about.  Some thing about city takeover, noise pollution, the glamorization of fossil fuel waste and the exploitation of the sexualization of women.  When they had the Grand Prix in Vancouver years ago before we kicked it out of town, due largely in part because the land was too valuable to exploit to build overpriced condos of questionable construction quality.  I met some of the workers as a mailman... they would wait by the mailbox to see if a cheque came for them and if it didn't then they would go into work to try to pry an advance from their boss because they worked a few days last week... totally serious.  And they still had a job.  Hey guys you reinforced this concrete right... oh yea man... cause it would be really bad if you just slacked off and threw the rebar back in the pile and poured the concrete anyways because doing rebar is a lot of hard work... no fuck no man we did it.  OK.  Weird tangent.

And this one i like:  A little dose of reality for  a routine ceremony for sure, i think it's great.  And in other news a high school physics teacher has been suspended and might lose his job for giving out zeros to students who failed to hand in assignments and missed exams.  Buy the ticket take the ride.  Did i ever mention i taught Physics and Chemistry in high school in Toronto years ago... it was a private school who were ahead of the curve when it came to doctoring marks to keep the studens paying the fees.  I caught a kid cheating in the final, and the kid knew nothing about chemistry so i failed her, and the school just changed the mark i gave her, no discussion no acknologment... just carry on.  I thought it was funny, never let integrity get in the way of good comedy.  And in the end they offered me the job full time because apparently i was the best science teacher they had had in a long time.  I passed on the job, cause i felt i would have just stayed there and stagnated... i had eyes to come out west and play some music and change the world with rock and roll... well that didn't work out either, but we had some King Hell times.  And here we are.

My website - Speaking of me... no really, enough about me  i really want to know... What do you think of me?  Derailing my points here going for the cheap laughs. But seriously my website came in handy today... a clear victory.  I'm not sure any website of mine has ever come in handy before?  They are usually just a massive pain in the ass for me... a grand waffle between what i think i understand people think i should do, and between what i think i want to do given the various insanities i have caged myself in. You see the twins turn five on June 11, so we are having a party tomorrow for them, so i had to bake 2 cakes, and i needed to fine my mothers chocolate fudge cake recipe which was on a recipe card that had suffered some decay... but then i remembered i put the damn recipe in the recipe section of my website and i saved the day for myself.  i even have to say i distilled it down quite nicely, and in the end i aced it... i baked the cakes to perfection... i was so proud of myself.  Getting them out of the pan in one piece is another game in itself... a game i am batting .333 in.  Not a bad average for a pro baseball hitter i might add in an effort to put some positive into the situation.  Classic science experiment... every time you get over one hurdle and you are there celebrating to yourself how well you did that's when you slam into the next hurdle.  Like a video game, learn all the moves in sequence.

Plastic bags.

The city i live in has banned plastic bags... you get a paper bag.  Believe it or not you can put garbage in a paper bag, easily done when the city will collect all of your food waste in the green yard waste bin. Only question is why do we still create garbage? Kind of a no brainer when you think of it... but who thinks now a days.  Thinking is old fashioned... no, sorry, make that "radical".  Old fashioned is when you have some clearly bigoted opinion on some progressive issue, and rather than see the light you call yourself "old fashioned".  Old fashion people believe what they read in a paper owned by some jackass who has other business interests and when questioned on the clear disparity just claim to be "old Fashioned"... kind of like "born again"... hey I'm "born again" and i oppose you for your radical views and anything i did that was totally fucked is now nullified because i am "born again".

My hometown of Toronto just passed this ... a plastic bag ban coming 2013, and the lunatic mayor calls it a disaster and BLAMES "the people"... are these the people you were elected to serve?  There is this other issue, a little one that some "old fashioned" people perhaps don't believe in...  it's a scientific fact, if you believe in science that is... I'm not talking about the science that makes it possible for steel fighter jets to fly and shoot bombs with great accuracy... cause that's undeniable... Go War Go!... I'm talking about the more debatable science that has shown plastic doesn't break down but will rather stay in our living environment causing all kinds of problems for living organisms.  It might be debatable if humans are living organisms... hell why not, just deny it make the fuckers prove it and when they do just say we don't believe it.. we believe in something else.  We believe in the economy, and oil powers the economy, cause we built it that way, and good old plastic bags are a side industry of oil, so it's all good.

Did i mention that apparently banning plastic bags in B.C is not possible?  I have to ask, How can i live in a city that has banned plastic bags and yet hear it is not possible?  It means some fool is making money and will find some "legal" way to stop it.  Now didn't 7 heads of tobacco companies years ago step up in the grand court of life and plead that, as God ad their witness, they didn't know tobacco was addictive.  And it turned out to be all cool...OK they didn't know, which was odd given the companies had spent all that money on how to make it more addictive and how to lure more people int the vice.  Perhaps they became "born again" and in some grand spiritual awaking forgot and were cleared of all of their misdeeds for their former life.

Write and wrong, legal or illegal, shit sandwich or rose... it's just a series of letters strung together.

There is that Great Pacific Garbage patch the size of... well even that is now being debated.. the size of Texas was the common measuring stick for a few years, but as awareness and that blasted Internet (which we need to control for the safety of the citizens) has increased many studies are coming out that are saying "hey it ain't that bad"... wonder who is funding those studies.

Believe it or not... depending on what your pre-conceived beliefs are... the plastic does break down into tiny pieces that will end up in fish and ultimately humans.  So to all the whiners out there in the comment sections of the news stories saying things like "if they ban plastic bags then I will have to buy them!"... which is really an incredibly selfish and short sighted angle to have on this issue...  hey rather than change my sloth habits i will have to do something that will cost me to buy something that has no chance of ever reintegrating into the planet that's environment supports my life.

It's unbelievable but yet a more popular "old fashioned " belief.

Why we have throw away packaging, and plastic waste is a question i'm sure people will one day just shake their head at.  Hopefully in the future they can invent a time machine and come back and groin kick all the fuckers who stood for quick profit over sustainable development... but that ain't gonna happen.

Robertson logic

So i bought some fire hot sauce the other day and I'm hitting my food with it like a badman.  As a result i have been punching the air and drinking lots of water.  The key is in the water... i don't drink enough of it even though i try to tell myself to do more, so i have done what Robertson logic would allow and come up with this masterful plan.  CT was a bit more negative on the whole issue, claiming i am going to change my stomach pH and run into a whole other mess of problems... but i like my chances.

For those just joining the journey, i would like to point out the nature of "Robertson Logic"... take one segment of life and over analyze it... then work up a mighty paranoia with regard to the issue... then take up a secondary habit that will help lead you in a direction to lessen the paranoia of the initial infraction.

One time, Dad, who is and always will remain the most health conscious person i have ever known, was fixing the tub, and so he had the shower door in the hallway one night, and i guess he got up to use the washroom and slammed his toe into the shower door on the way to the can.  My sister happened to be a "candy stripier" (person who volunteers in the hospital to pad a resume for future medical school consideration), and was working the next day... the same day Dad went to the hospital to have his foot X-Rayed that found a hairline fracture in his toe.  But the killer was that Dad was smoking in the waiting room (you could do that back then) and when my sister saw him he replied "I'm smoking to calm my nerves".  You see Dad has always been very nervous with regard to health related issues, and pain tolerance was not his strong suit, so in that situation, he managed to talk himself into his greatest bad idea Smoking!  Because apparently it calms peoples nerves... I'm not saying it doesn't... it does all kinds of things, many of them are most excellent, and some of them are totally unacceptable.  When you are an extremest it's hard to ride the middle ground.


Me, I'm a hitting the hot sauce for good or ill.  I like the idea of over doing things, it's funny and comedy is king in a world full of idiot voters who would gladly vote for their own death penalty if somebody on a TV add called it a rose.

When Robertson logic becomes absolute, which it is by it's definition you can accomplish some significant things.  It comes in handy in long term lifestyle grooves.. it's a handy force to have against consumer impulses, passing fads and it's good for saving money. I used Robertson logic to avoid taking taxi's for years and years saving me money and of course earning interest on the money i saved.  I would always walk home... good exercise and a chance to sober up before hitting the bed.

Robertson logic can harm you in other ways... you can miss a lot of experiences in life by staying true to some slight tangent in the grand scheme of things.  Often times you are misunderstood because people see an action and think the action is a reaction rather than a reflex as determined under the laws of "Robertson logic".

Mom had some classic Robertson logic the other day... as per usual there was a theft paranoia where she was sure somebody came into her room and stole a bracelet she had, but then when we went over the scenario we noticed that she was wearing the bracelet when she thought the crime had occurred, but she didn't miss a beat... the only question was...  How did they steal it off her wrist without her knowing?  So fixated on the paranoia that any other solution is irrelevant.

One time dad developed a system for vacuuming rugs.  You vacuum the rug then you flip it over and vacuum the bottom side and the bristles that beat the rug knock a fine dust on the floor so you sweep that up and then you flip the rug, and vacuum it again, and then you flip it again and vacuum the back side, and then... you get more fine dust... now you are getting serious.  Around the 9th flipping you need to remind Dad that he is probably personally breathing in a lot of harmful fine dust, and then one of 2 things will happen.  1) we will spend the rest of the day in dust masks vacuuming the rug or 2) we will stop and go outside... once outside you could easily lobby for a nice long healthy walk.

It's the way we roll.

the economy and a fly

I had this nice little point i was going to make but then by the time i had signed out of one account and into another a pesky fly started zooming around my head space and landed on the computer screen.  Apparently you shouldn't kill other things, so i catch them and put them outside.  When i was a kid i would catch grasshoppers and put them in a spider web and then watch the excitement as a spider raced out on the web and rolled up that "cling" as we called them and then bite the fucker causing one final kick of the hind leg.

My Dad thought that was great, he loves biology and hates garden menace insects, and has the common sense to not use poison on vegetables he wanted to eat.  In fact years ago i offered to make a "railway tie" retaining wall for a mound up at the cottage, and after careful consideration he declined because he didn't want the toxic tar from the railway ties to seep into the well water.

How did we get from online shopping to well water?  Serendipity i believe, because the point is about the local economy.  CT bought some shoes online and they arrived in the mail today, they were a real deal but then she mentioned how she was reading how when you buy things online you are "hurting " the local economy.  Now i get that, and on principle i agree, it's just that i disagree with the word "economy", perhaps disagree is the wrong word.  I just don't think economy really works... the word has kind of been ruined, having been used as a fear tool to motivate sheeple, and then collapsed, only to be propped up again by sheeple, and now we need to worry about it again.

So if i buy my shoes down the street the guy can pay his rent to somebody who lives where and then he can have more shoes shipped in from some where far away...  I have had similar arguments with many "working musicians" or "aspiring artists" just to put the ball back in my court.  They say you need to make and sell CD's to survive, and that people should support the buying of CD's.  I mean if anybody wants to buy some CD's i have plenty of sealed pressed cd's i can cut you a deal on... but really when you get to the point where you are justifying making a piece of plastic is your only avenue for survival then you know for sure that you have hit the zone we like to refer to as "INSANE".  I'm insane, i put out a CD last year... i went without the shrink wrap and printed on a recycled cardboard sleeve, but i still produced a plastic CD that is essentially an undesirable piece of crap to most of the population of the neighbourhood.  Is it better for me to set out a stand in front of the house and try to "sell" my plastic to people, or is it better for me to find a better way to be happy stable and sharing music.

The answer is as obvious as it is clouded.  It is not acceptable to buy into a system that creates unnecessary waste, even if that waste could benefit you in the short term.

when the system brings you down
when the system changes how you feel
its is time to change the system
it is time to bring it down
             -"fuck the system" Sons of Freedom

hockey

Time is the weirdest thing, it's apparently eternal but there is never enough of it for all of us self important humans who think we are overwhelmed and lost but yet don't have the spine to collectively stand up and work together to do something about it... is the word spine or intelligence?

Sorry old sport, i was too busy looking at a manufactured screen for multiple hours today  to be able to make a difference... I should note that i did "like" various social media posts that had to do with saving the environment as my personal effort to change the world.

I just got on a weird mind tangent.  Probably be best not to get into it, but i have never been a fan of "what would be best".  What would be best is how we ended up with a thick stack of shit hole cookie cutter popular music songs, and shitty movies that have part 3 in their title.  Hey this will sell,  those fucking idiots will buy it, get it out there.  It was a Hockey thing actually, as are many things in my life... you see our team was defeated in the semi finals the other night by a score of 3-1... i happen to be the leading scorer on the team by a fair margin, and for this game, our fearless, or avant-garde thinking leader decided to put me on defense, much to the horror of my former line mates and the team in general. The problem with hockey teams is that somebody puts them together and then, for some reason, they become the voice of the team, no matter how insane that voice is.  They told me i played very well on defense, i made a few good plays breaking up  some stuff and chasing down a few breakaways, but apparently they needed more offense from me.  Looking at the stats, when i play right wing/center with my 2 regular line mates we are good for about 4-5 points per night... oddly enough i was paired with my regular left winger on defense, and then the wingers were never on the boards for the breakout.  Strange stuff for sure... everybody on the bench whispering to me "why are you on defense?".

Why was i on defense?  cause we have a couple of floaters and a guy who wants lots of ice time, well a number of them actually, but one of the main guys was playing defense and he didn't want to put a floater on defense to rob him of his ice time so he put the hustlers on defense opting to go with 5 defense and 2 complete forward lines.  Have you ever been in a situation where somebody has made some insane call and you just try to make it work against all odds.  That was us in the semi finals, somebody thinking outside the box but stuck in a triangle.

Pretty much anybody i have ever played hockey with would state emphatically that I should play forward.  It's true, I'm getting older and slower and in these coming years i should be evolving my game to transition to that position, and in all honesty i worked hard trying to think the game in that way.  I did play defense for a few years on the pylons back in Vancouver, but that was a division 10 team and i got the roll because i was one of the few that could actually fluently skate backwards.

I hate losing, bottom line, and i hate insanity.. the combo ain't good.

Hopefully the team reacts to the speech i will give at the start of the summer season.  You see it's odd being in my situation... I am the main offense of the team, so they are very keen to have me stay on the team, but yet they are insane giving into singular selfish desires.  Hockey is a strange gamet, nothing better than winning and coming together as a team, but yet everybody wants to play center and score, even if they couldn't win a face off to save their lives.  In hockey there are systems... but a system is useless if everybody isn't doing their part... hockey is a reactionary sport.  Meaning a unique situation just occurred, what do i do? and i have a second to make that decision... some get it better than others.  My basic mentality on that is that you need you wingers on the hash marks for the breakout and if you can't do that then good fucking luck.

Is this insane?  Can't be worse than my "what if all art in the world was destroyed tangent", which had merit, but didn't really apply in the grand scheme of things.

It should also be noted that i had many chances including a late game breakaway in which i managed to Goat up a storm.  I was a braying in the oat field... there were times as a defense man where i was rushing the point... there were times when i was screening the opposition's goalie.  I could have won it, but i failed to do it because my shot failed me... or maybe it was the stick... that cursed stick... with it's omen forever scarred into it's history.