Tha Big Four-Oh

New Song

I'm really too busy lately to've been working on this... But whatever. I'm trying to get enough recorded material together to put an album-length collection up on Bandcamp. Should be able to do it pretty soon, I think!

Last week we got to see our friend Jenny and her still pretty new little boy, Percy. They were in town on their way from Toronto to PEI. We got salads and soup from Pete's Frootique and took them to the park, because the sun was actually out and you could sit down for awhile without shivering. Very nice.

Also had a brunch on Saturday with our Dartmouth friends Ron & Kristina. It was back to rainy and miserable that day, but the brunch was still also very nice.

I've been finishing off some logo work for a couple of new clients, and I think I'll show you some of it when it's done. I'd like to do a little post about the process of logo creation, 'cause I think it's kind of interesting to see all the stages of stuff that gets discarded and/or refined along the way.

Anyway, blah blah blah... I gotta get some sleep now because the tunnel that is my visual field is quickly getting smaller. Zzzzz!

Summer...

... as of 2:16 p.m. ADT! Time for cottages and sitting outside!

Entertaining the Masses

My friend Matt sent me a couple of photos from the solo set I did at Local Jo a couple of weeks ago. Apparently there's some video footage too, which I haven't seen yet.

Interesting detail: the occupied chair in the first picture is empty in the second...

Happy Birthday, Sweet Beet!

Hope your day is filled with wonderful things.

Great Weekend

I guess I neglected to mention it, but the solo show I did on Friday went pretty well. No real technical problems to speak of, despite the fact that earlier in the day it had looked like pretty much everything that could possibly go wrong was going to. I'd recorded drum and keyboard parts and put them on my iPod to play along with on electric guitar, which was supposed to be a way of making myself feel like I wasn't alone up there. But of course that adds a whole new set of potential glitches, such as the iPod skipping the first couple of beats of each song for some ridiculous reason. Then my "amp" (actually just a reel-to-reel tape recorder from the sixties) wouldn't turn on, the mixes didn't sound right, I couldn't seem to sing loud enough without a microphone, etc., etc. It was looking bleak for awhile there during the day, but everything worked out just fine at the coffee shop. The audience was small but kind, Matt played a great set, and the whole evening was just overall pleasant.

Then, as you know, there was the record fair the next day. And Saturday night I went to a "Northern Soul Dance Night" at this weird little club that's a Chinese restaurant in the daytime. A bunch of scooter-loving, mod-clothing-wearing guys (including my old friend Henri) who know their stuff when it comes to 60's soul and British culture spun records, while about 15 faces had a great time shaking a slim-fit-trousered leg. Fun!

And yesterday was the second Sunday of the softball season. Another great day for it, and we won again, which means we haven't lost a game yet. This without having our usual stellar shortstop, Vinny, who's out with an accidentally messed-up eye and impending fatherhood.

Finally, birthday wishes to our sweet li'l nephew Bennett, who turns six today. You'll be getting a little something in the mail soon, pending decent postal service.

Record Fair!

Today there was a big record fair at the Forum. Lots of music nerds with huge collections of vinyl sold their wares to lots of other music nerds with huge collections of vinyl. Very nice music nerds, on both sides of the bins. It was a lot of fun, and of course we spent too much money. But I managed to get, among everything else, these two really fantastic records that are pretty hard to find, at least around here. The Coltrane one I've actually been looking for for over 20 years now, since the first time I heard it on New Year's Eve day, 1989, and it completely blew my mind. Crazy and cerebral and spiritual in the purest sense of the word. Alice Coltrane plays harp all over it and conducts a string orchestra. Also featuring Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Charlie Haden, and Elvin Jones. I know, right? Why is this stuff so hard to come by? Below is a sample — one of the four long tracks that comprise the album.

Five Minute Blog Break

Sooooo busy over here. Trying to prepare for this show coming up on Friday, and birthdays, plus working out crazy relationship issues, planning trips, scrounging for money... But everything's OK. I started feeling bad about that last post being the most recent thing on here, like I'm still just sitting here fuming at mysterious, unknown people and their abstract problems. Played the first softball games of the season on Sunday, against a brand new team, and won both of them after being down 5-0 by the third inning. And I've got some new clients. And the leaves are all out and yesterday was sunny and warm for the first time in I don't know how long. If I can just remember to sleep sometimes, everything'll be great.

OK, back to work!

Please Stop

Why are so many people I know so self-destructive? I often joke around about how the world is one big insane asylum, and we're all both staff and patients, but really it's not funny at all. What's with all the shooting of ourselves in the feet and intentional crushing of our own dreams and spirits?

Do we believe that we're doomed to failure anyway, so the best course of action is to cause the failure ourselves, thereby gaining at least some sense of self-determination? Is it just a symptom of contemporary culture, which encourages us to indulge our unhealthiest desires and then has nothing useful to say about how to deal with the problem of addiction? Is it just human nature (assuming that phrase even means anything) to want to be "bad" in order to make ourselves feel good? Are the Christians in some horrible sense right about original sin, with the twist that in our post-theistic world where moral values are no longer handed down to us from on high, we actually feel the need to act against our own self-created ideas of right and wrong? Do most of us go around so full of self-loathing all the time that we need to constantly punish ourselves, and then hide our motives by pretending that the punishment is actually a reward? Are we that sick, as a species?

And what am I supposed to do when I see the people I love acting in these terrible ways? I'm talking to you now — what can I do to set you straight? I've never developed any kind of good strategy for this, and sometimes it really makes me pull my hair out (speaking of self-destructive behaviour!) in frustration. Addressing it directly, either by bringing it up in a forgiving way or taking a more chastising, "tough love," approach, always just seems to feed the shame that fuels your addictive self-hatred. On the other hand, if I just act like it's your own cross to bear and doesn't bother me, you take that to mean that you needn't worry about it and keep doing it. Yes, taking the reins of one's own life can be hard. But I feel like watching helplessly as others refuse to take those reins can be even harder. Should I try to remove you from my life because it's all just too painful to bear? That's hardly a less painful act than playing passive spectator to your tragedy, and I'm sure no more helpful to you. What can I do to make you love yourself as much as I love you? Sometimes I wish I didn't love you so much.

Photo Dump!

On the long weekend we got to go to the South Shore with our friend Johanna and stay overnight at her parents' cottage with our other friends Krista and Jesse. The weather wasn't ideal and we couldn't get the water to work for some reason, but it was still really nice to get out of town. The next afternoon we took a hike around Gaff Point, just off Hirtle's Beach. It's a very scenic walk, with only a few semi-terrifying cliffs. Here are some purdy pitchers Alison took of the outing.

Nu Toonage

Here's one of the songs I'll be playing on June 3. It's a fairly new one. I'd already made a drum machine pattern for it from the last show I played, but I recorded it last night as a way of making up a keyboard part for Alison to learn. Think it turned out pretty neat.

Incidentally, I was out of town in a giant military bomb shelter yesterday evening, where our friend Mitchell has been living and making art since February. He was showing his and some other people's incredible work before he moves out and leaves for Brooklyn. The whole experience was quite eerie and mind-blowing. But so Alison and I were both underground, surrounded by an electromagnetic forcefield when the Rapture was supposed to happen at 6:00, and I haven't heard the news: Did it happen? Did anyone witness any smugly pious people rising into the air? Am I now addressing only my fellow unchosen, damned to walk the earth in unbearable torment for five months before it's destroyed by fire? Is this what unbearable torment feels like? It's good to have a sense of these things...

Oh Yeah, and Happy Rapture, Everyone

Meet y'all in the lake of fire. Last one in's a rotten egg!

Another Little Solo Project Show

Here's a poster Matt Reid and I collaborated on for an upcoming show at our local coffee shop. "Our Igloo" may be me and Alison, or it may just be me — still to be determined. Either way should be fun, though I'm definitely pushing for the former. I'm gonna play a slightly different set from the last solo show, on electric guitar this time. Alison, if part of it, will be on keyboard. If not, she might be replaced by an iPod. We'll see...

The Birds Sure Know What Season It Is

Vanity of Vanities; All Is Vanity*

So I go to get my hair cut yesterday by our friend Krista, and I can see that the vees in my receding hairline have increased in depth since the last time I was in. We now have to resort to strategic, Bieberesque trickery to keep them from showing up as large holes of nakedness on an otherwise covered scalp. I asked Krista what we're going to do when they get too big to cover up, and she said, "Shave it off." She was being flippant, but very short hair is kind of the only way to pull off male pattern baldness.

It's not at that point yet, but the inevitability is freaking me out a little. I can't do really short hair. Have you seen my ears? No, it looks like a wig will be the only solution...

And by the way, I don't mind these symptoms of aging when they're gradual. Noticing that I have less hair than I did five years ago? No problem — it's to be expected. But less hair than I had last time I got a haircut is going too far. Come on!

*Yes, I realize that pride in one's appearance is not the meaning of "vanity" in this quote. The other meaning suits the post just as well, though, don't you think?

Haiku for You

This week has been incredibly busy, as well as an emotional roller coaster, which I don't even want to get into here. But so hence the blog break. I've been rereading some haiku by Issa as a way of trying to stay calm, and I thought I'd put some of my new favourites on here. These are from a different collection, translated by Robert Hass, from the Blyth translations I posted last year, so they have a slightly more modern flavour. I love the sweet, matter-of-fact way Issa has of expressing that the world is actually a pretty painful place.

Fleas in my hut,
it's my fault
you look so skinny.

Evening moon—
they visit the graves
and cool off.

What good luck!
Bitten by
this year's mosquitoes too.

Hey, sparrow!
out of the way,
Horse is coming.

Mother I never knew,
every time I see the ocean,
every time—

That last one puts a hand grenade in my mind and backs away slowly. Here's one I wrote on waking up to yet another grey and cold May morning:

Elm out the window
Going nowhere in the wind,
Its leaves little sails

More Brief Tunage

Here's another crack at a piano recording, this time with the microphone actually turned on. This little tune was driving me crazy until I tried putting it into a 5/8 time signature, which seemed to solve all the problems I was having with it.

And the Long & McQuade jingle contest site seems to be working now. They've changed the voting system from a 0-5-star rating to a thumbs-up-or-down mechanism, which makes me think previous votes probably don't count anymore. Here's the link to The Lodge's entry again, in case you didn't save it in your favourites. And also MacKenzie's classic rock entry, because how could you have heard that one enough times?

Happy Mother's Day

... from one stylish lad to his equally stylish mum. I hope you're having a really nice day, wherever you are over there across the pond, Mom. And I hope all the other moms I know are getting all the love, respect, and R&R they deserve today too. You ladies are keeping this species going, and we need you more than ever. Love and hugs to all of ya!

The Last Spoke

Today was a pretty nice day, so we went for a long bike ride on a trail that used to be a railway line. They've ripped up the tracks and put gravel down so people can walk, bike, and cross-country ski on it. It's paved in some parts too. Easy riding with very shallow ups and downs and lots of great views of lakes, industrial wasteland, and people's backyards full of junk.

Rumour has it you can take the thing all the way from west end Halifax down the south shore to Yarmouth! I know it also goes at least to Lawrencetown in the other direction, starting in Eastern Passage. We didn't get too far today, as it was our first real outing of the season. Just to Timberlea, where the path crosses the old #3 highway. But still, it was about a 25 km ride there and back (not including the first leg we did in the wrong direction along an actual working railway line, complete with a train full of bemused passengers). Our legs are kind of rubbery now, and our faces reddish from the sun. Fun times!

Show Poster

Here's the poster for the Lodge show next Saturday. Gonna be a good time. We're even planning on writing some lyrics for the newer songs. Tonight's the Gillian Austin show. Maybe we'll see you there.