One Week Later...

Christmas has come and gone now, and Alison and I are preparing to leave the unabashedly selfish hedonism and never-ending, hideous expansion of Toronto behind in favour of the ignorant reverse snobbery of doing-everything-it-can-to-be-every-bit-as-hideous-despite-geographic-constraint li'l Halifax. We've had a really nice time visiting with our families and are now completely wiped out. Heavier, too. My dad's out of the hospital and toodling around the house like nothing happened. My sisters' families are sweet and fun and everything great. We had a nice long walk in the Markham Ravine, a hilarious games night, and many awesome meals, culminating in a full family delayed Christmas dinner last night (i.e., Thursday, today being Friday, Dec. 29, even though the date at the top of the post says otherwise). I even got to read A Visit from Saint Nicholas to the St. Louis kids on real Christmas Eve.






Alison spent (actual) Christmas night at her friend Alicia's family's house in Waterloo, as has become a tradition. Alicia's daughter, Meghan, has gotten really grown up, but not too grown up for a Baby Alive doll that makes digital farting noises and says, "Uh oh! I made a stinky!" Or so I'm told; unfortunately I didn't get to experience that first-hand.



I also read enough of my dad's brand new copy of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion to know that I now have to buy it, even though I'm pretty sure of the ending (Dawkins wins by a forfeit). Tonight we're at Alison's parents's downtown watching some dumb tube before we meet our good friend Jeff tomorrow for lunch and then hop on a plane. And now, apparently, Saddam Hussein has been executed. So happy new year, everybody!

- Andrew

It Only Gets Brighter from Here

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year, and it both did and didn't feel like it. It definitely seemed like something strange was up. I had to go into work very early and stay late to get a bunch of high priority, super rush jobs done. That, combined with the stress I've maybe been denying a little of this annual annoyance called Christmas, meant that when I got home my head was reeling. It felt like I'd been wearing a hat that was too small all day and when I took it off there was a throbbing ring of dizzy pain left over.

I went to bed early. Alison had to wait because she was colouring her hair with henna, and couldn't sleep with a plastic bag on her head. That was fine with me, but then every time I started to drift off, the phone would ring. Like, four or five times, and no one was answering it. And each time, I would bolt awake, wondering where I was and what that noise meant, and cursing loudly. Finally, the fifth time it happened, I jumped out of bed, threw some things around angrily, stomped down the stairs naked, and kicked the bedroom door open to see what was going on. Alison was nowhere to be seen, but I found all her clothes, including underwear, hanging up on the back of the bathroom door.

Completely freaked out, the only thing I could think of to do was start making a weird keening noise that I wasn't even sure was coming from me. Luckily, the phone interrupted me by ringing again. This time I answered it, and it was my mom, as it had been all along, just wanting to talk about the awesome Christmas present my dad gave us all by being in much better health than we'd thought for awhile. Describing my ridiculous situation semi-incoherently to her made me see the humour in it, and after getting off the phone I found out that Ali was just upstairs visiting the K's in her pyjamas. Today I feel much better: I'm ready to raise a glass of soy nog and belt out some carols. (Hmm... has anyone ever considered the possibility that Scrooge was just overtired, and that the real redemption of the story came when his nightmares finally allowed him some much needed sleep?) So happy Christmas, and god bless us, every one.

- Andrew

Those Crazy Kids

I played another "show" with Al Tuck on Wednesday night, this one at Tribeca and drumless. I thought it would be a nice, intimate evening of folk like the old days when Al played there every Wednesday. However, as we arrived with our scrappy gear, a young woman named "Krista D" (pictured) started coming in with her full rock band plus supporting band and entourage, all done up in some kind of goth/saucy schoolgirl outfit, and setting up mannequin stage props and a large wooden rack displaying the CDs she had for sale. I guess they accidentally double-booked the night. The guy who'd booked Al couldn't find the email confirming the date, and Al said he would take fifty bucks to walk. But the guy thought we should at least play a little for fifty bucks, so we went up and did three songs while the other bands got set up. It was a little humiliating, since some friends of mine had come specifically to see us play, but I have to admit that I was a little relieved too, as I'd just gotten some pretty bad news that night about a good friend's health, and wasn't as focused as I could be.



And speaking of good friends, Matt and Laura are in town from Toronto on a surprise extra long Christmas break, so we're going to get lots of quality hanging out time in with them. They were downtown last night with Laura's sister and a few of her friends, so I got to meet up with them after my staff Christmas dinner. Unfortunately the dinner had given Ali a stomachache, so I sent her home in a cab before heading over to Tribeca again to yell back and forth over the very loud music with a somewhat drunken and very high-spirited M & L. It was really fun, but I ended up staying out until 4:00 am! I never do that anymore. Maybe I felt like competing a little with the obnoxiously young crowd that wreaked minor havoc on, and then closed the bar. I think mostly, though, I was just having a really good time and didn't want it to end. Yoga this morning was exactly what I needed after that.

- Andrew

It Is a Sad and Beautiful World

My jingle isn't going to be used after all, I found out today. I'm pretty bummed about it. My boss decided it's not aggressive enough for the client's image and he bought some other piece of stock music from Toronto with no lyrics instead, probably for a lot less money than what I was going to charge. He says it doesn't mean we won't use it for something else, but I don't really see how that's possible, since it's a jingle about O'Regan's Chevrolet-Cadillac. So, since it'll never be on the radio (boo!), I guess I can let you hear it (yay!). Enjoy.


You will never hear this song on your way to the beach.

Last week, especially the weekend, was a bit busier than I'm comfortable with, but a lot of it was pretty fun stuff. Johanna's first ever solo painting exhibit opened at the Argyle Fine Art Gallery on Friday night, so we went to that and out to a bar afterwards with her. It's a really great show and if anyone's reading this who actually has the option of going to check it out, I can tell you it's definitely worthwhile. All the paintings, which she completed over the last year, are of the area in the LaHave Islands where her parents have had a cottage for decades, and they're all done in large, abstract brush strokes and a beautifully muted palette of greens and greys. Some of them sit absolutely still and others are full of movement and gesture, but they all express — or maybe "exude" is more accurate — a deep, almost mystical love of nature that remains defiantly level-headed in the face of blinding rapture.

Saturday was full of yoga, errands, and a fun rock show at the One World Café, followed by some more hanging out with Johanna. Then yesterday we spent all afternoon Christmas shopping in the Mic Mac Mall. Ugh. We just got Sunday shopping here a few weeks ago, and now everyone seems to actually wait until Sunday, as it's such a treat. I think we handled the relentless crowds pretty well, but were definitely tired by dinner time. Ron and Kristina, a couple of friends of ours out with whom we hadn't really hung before, had invited us to their house in Dartmouth for dinner, so we went straight there and had a really nice time listening to music and shooting the poop and appreciating their 3-year-old puppy, Seymour. They had to make us some special pasta sauce after we rudely refused the meat one they'd been simmering for awhile, and it was of course great. I hope we'll be seeing more of them, and I may even play some music with Ron if all goes according to plan.

Lastly, this has nothing to do with anything, but I find it very interesting. Beside the corner store that we regularly frequent, between it and what used to be a pizza place until it went out of business about a year ago, is a corner store/pizza place called "Rassy's". Or rather, was. Rassy's boldly plopped itself between Joe Thomeh's Convenience and Toulaney's Pizza Factory years ago and began to directly compete with both of its snug neighbours by putting pizza ovens in the back of a slightly less convenient store, and a rotating multi-pizza rack at the front. The Factory eventually couldn't compete and was sold, becoming Big Italy Pizza and almost immediately folding. So Rassy's earned itself a local monopoly on inedibly large slices of pizza. But I guess it wasn't enough because the other day it was suddenly boarded up. No warning, no signs, no explanation. Even Joe doesn't know what happened. "One night, he just go," Thomeh is reported to have shrugged. Alison and I went to check it out a couple of nights after the closure, and were still discussing it, bewildered, as we rounded the next corner and stopped short in front of a brand new establishment called "Razzy's," in the lit window of which sat two young men trying to finish their enormous pizza slices.

In conclusion, weird.

- Andrew

Winter = Time for Brain Volleyball

First snow! It got very wintry very fast this afternoon as a moderate rain turned into huge psychedelic snowflakes that freaked everyone out by covering first their heads and then the roads. Visibility was near zero and traction somewhere in the negatives around the time people got off work. Buses were stopped in lines along the side of the road. The food court in the mall couldn't contain all the folks who'd thought they'd just grab a quick bite while they waited out the worst of it. Of course, then it started to rain and the streets REALLY turned into a slushy mess. Alison documented the high key splendour out the back window, while Buster settled in for an evening in the scarf and mitten bench.





I played a show with the legendary Al Tuck at Gus' Pub on Friday night, and it went very well thank you, despite the fact that I'd never learned about half the songs he chose to play. Maybe that should be "because of," come to think of it. There's something pretty satisfying about learning a song onstage and getting through it all right while maintaining a certain sensitivity to what the other guitar and percussion are doing. I'm sure my own excitement about that and intense concentration came across in the overall performance. Too bad some lady was talking loudly on her cell phone through most of the show.

Gus' was completely non-smoking that night, as it will be I guess from now on. They've just passed a law here, effective December 1, that there's no smoking in ANY public place, which includes out on a sidewalk if you're within like 40m of a commercial doorway. As I think I said before, that's some pretty tough love, aka paternalism. If you know Gus' at all, or if you've ever been in any old man hardcore beer hall that has only recently become a place where indie rock kids can enjoy the irony of seeing their favourite bands there, then you know how strange it was to look into the VLT room/smoquarium and actually see the people sitting around in there, empty-handed, watching the show through the glass, not to mention breathe comfortably. Of course, people were going outside and back in so much that the front door was left open the entire first night in Gus' history that it would have been preferable to keep it closed. It was right comical.

And speaking of people trying to control the addictive behaviour of other people, my dad and I have been debating long and windily about that very subject while ostensibly playing an email chess match. It started with what I thought to be only a mildly provocative remark about the evils of advertising (my chosen pact with the devil), and has escalated, via the related subject of people sometimes not knowing what they want or wanting what they don't want to want, into a full-scale polemic on free will, responsibility, and the nature of the individual. Doesn't everything. The major sticking point seems to be about how much of a person's behaviour we should count as choice, which is why I selected the particular piece of music I did for this post, although honestly besides the "choose to choose" stuff I really have no idea what the hell Lou Reed's talking about in it. But it sure is cool. Goes nicely with the snow, too.

Anyway, this debate definitely has an air of My Dinner with Andre about it, with yours truly taking the titular role (i.e. Andre Gregory) as the interesting but probably a little too kooky idealist, and my dad as a less lisping but just as bemused and possibly not entirely comprehending "me" (i.e. Wallace Shawn). My Email with Andrew, as I'm therefore referring to the whole belligerent mess, is making for a very slow chess game. At least from my end.

Finally, we saw Borat on the weekend. It was worth the wait. Unbelievably funny and gutsy and really probably too over the top. I'd say almost definitely, actually. But hilarious. My favourite part was when he sings the phony Kazakhi national anthem to the tune of the American one at a rodeo in the south. Check it out if you hate political correctness and believe poop and naked men wrestling will always be appropriate comic fodder. And really, who doesn't?

- Andrew