Oh No! Have I Mutated Into Paris Hilton?

I don't mind Paris Hilton that much. She's very good at being famous for no apparent reason. Aside from the fact she has an amazing amount of filthy lucre, the only thing that really irks me about Paris is the way she totes her damn chihuahua around like a bloody accessory. I'd be surprised if that dog even knows how to walk when it isn't cradled in her arms. I swore that I'd never subject my chihuahua to the indignity of being a spoiled lapdog.

The paperguy insisted that if he saw Grendel wearing a cutesy outfit, he would disavow any knowledge of my existence. Then, he said he'd kick my ass. I might have to watch my back because I've had to go buy some new threads for Grendel.

The little fugger has hit a gargantuan 4.3 kilograms. For you imperial measure folks, that's 9.5 pounds. When you don't have a lot of body mass, the chilly evenings of the Canadian fall means you've got to bundle up if you want to go outside. In the interest of seeing my canine pal have an outdoor life, we went to the local pet shop to find a jacket for him. It's a sharp looking red nylon shell lined with fleece that wraps around his chest and his thorax with velcro fasteners. It has the added bonus of reflective strips for visibility at night. It keeps him warm when the air is cool, and he can still get out for a walk. Not such a bad deal for a short haired Canadian canine.

I was brought up with the standard masculine conceits regarding an acceptable size for a dog, and Grendel doesn't fit the bill. Even Sassinak's cats are bigger. What really sets me off now is how obvious my dog is. He's decked out in bright red, and the jingling of his rabies tag makes sure everyone notices him despite the fact he's only 2 hands tall at the shoulder. It's painfully obvious that I've got to make some mental adjustments now, because I'm on that slippery slope. Despite my better judgement, I'm stuck with a chihuahua and cutesy dog outfits.

I hope the paperguy doesn't keep his word. I promise not to get any hats for Grendel. That should be acceptable middle ground, and defray any tensions that Grendel's couture might cause. At least I'm not famous for nothing. I'm not famous at all, and Grendel still knows how to walk.

Great Music of the Sixties

Those of us who are old enough to remember the sixties can all think fondly of the music scene from those days. I hear lots of people talk about the "magic" of the era, and how they miss the creativity that was so prominent in the music of the day. They also lament the corporatization of the music scene since then. Enough pundits have written about the changing state of music but I'm not going to yap about that.

While I am old enough to remember the sixties, I would be stretching it a bit to say I was a participant in any way. I was on the sidelines, looking in, while others took part in the revolution that was unfolding. My brother Mikhail Stephanovich might be able to make more of a claim, but even he was a little young at the end of the sixties.

Some of the heaviest live music that I ever heard during the sixties was actually performed in my parent's kitchen at their hugely successful and usually raucous St. Patrick's Day parties. Mr. Bignall, and Mr. Hornby used to come over with their accordion and fiddle respectively, and would give a lesson in how to play anything they set their minds to. My brothers and I would be sent upstairs once the party got into full swing. Despite the less than subtle hint that sleeping would be in our best interest, we huddled around the hole in the second floor that used to accommodate a stove pipe and listened. The stovepipe hole was conveniently located above the kitchen, where all Canadian parties are centered. Living rooms don't really get lived in. It's a terrible misnomer. Kitchens are where it's at.

Mr. Bignall was a usually cantankerous old fellow who lived next door to us, and to avoid any acrimony, my dad would invite him to the party. It wasn't a bad thing that he was also an amazing musician who literally had hundreds of tunes under his fingers. Mr. Bignall would take up his perch in the kitchen, ostensibly within reach of the fridge, if my memory serves, and let fly with his squeezebox. Mr. Hornby would be right at his side keeping pace on his fiddle. What a glorious racket they made. To my young ears, it sounded like Zeus throwing lightning bolts from atop Mount Olympus.

What I remember most about the famous, and now defunct St. Paddy's soirees is that these two men could play almost anything requested of them. As my parents and their friends got into the sauce, they would request one tune after another, and it was a rare thing for the two musicians to say they didn't know it. They would usually dive in and do their best to accommodate the revellers with some rendition of the tune. To my young mind, Mr. Bignall and Mr. Hornby were geniuses, and nothing was beyond them. They would play all night, and the record player rarely saw any action if they could help it.

I was in awe. It was the sixties, and it seemed that music was something anyone could play if they set their mind to it. The general impression was that it had nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with passion and enthusiasm. My brother Mike and his pal Rob were infected by that particular sixties disease called Beatlemania, and both took up the guitar with varying degrees of success. Rob is still a happening musician to this day. Even though the majority of what Mr. Bignall and Mr. Hornby played was not rock music, they were still doing their own thing and they made it up as they went along, just like good rock musicians are inclined to do. They were old geezers when I was a little pipsqueak, but even so, they would even try their hand at a rock and roll tune once in a while. I'm sure my exposure to this creativity had something to do with my love of music.

Music and improvisation are in my blood, as I have since discovered, and I have done my best to emulate Mr. Bignall and Mr. Hornby. I certainly don't play the same tunes they did, but their sense of play and lack of fear have rubbed off on me. There's no point worrying too much about the shine on the finished product when the solid framework will suffice. I've never been too shy to try almost anything when I've got my horn in hand, and that's the way it should be.

Mr. Bignall, and Mr. Hornby are no longer with us, but their legacy lives on. A whole new generation of musicians have taken their place and it's a grand thing. We're doing exactly what they did in my mum and dad's kitchen: we stand our ground and show no fear. When you've got a musical instrument in your hands, that's how it's done.

Rock and Roll will never die. It will just need some glucosamine sulfate, and
some high fibre snacks.

Late Response to a blog tag

Here's a list of Blog Tag that Sassinak fired at me a few weeks back. It's overdue, but at least I've mustered the courage to finish it up and bare my soul. I tag Handsome Jack, and if Jollyreid ever starts a blog, she's tagged too.

1. Things that scare me.

Cancer
Unchecked pollution
neoconservatives

2. People who make me laugh.

The Paperguy
Hubris
in fact, most of my friends
neoconservatives

3. Things I hate most.

litterbugs
Bitchy People (especially when I'm one of them)
neoconservatives

4. Things I don't understand.

Suicide Bombers
Depleted Uranium based weapons
neoconservatives (I detect a theme)

5. Things I'm doing right now.

Listening to some music
Playing with Grendel
Laundry

6. Things I want to do before I die.

Lead my own band
Hike the entire Bruce Trail
Drive across Canada
Stop being mildly paranoid
Learn to be more patient

7. Things I can do.

Play saxophone
Fix computers
Breathe

8. Ways to describe my personality.

Alternately quiet and introspective to gregarious and outgoing. Manic

9. Things I can't do. (yet)

Write a novel
Brain Surgery
Tolerate ignorance

10. Things I think you should listen to.

JS Bach's Mass in B Minor
Deer Wan by Kenny Wheeler
Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman
Your own heart

11. Things you should never listen to.

Britney Whatshername
Paris Hilton
Kenny G
neoconservatives

12. Things I'd like to learn.

How to play piano
Live off the land

13. Favorite foods.

Sushi
Eggs Benedict
Korean BBQ

14. Beverages I drink regularly.

Coffee/Tea
Beer
Whiskey
Water

15. Shows I watched as a kid.

The Tommy Hunter Show (Canada's Country Gentleman)
Get Smart
Hockey Night in Canada
The Friendly Giant
The FBI

***

2 moments in your life you'd like to erase

Only two? Getting married and getting arrested. Not sure which was worse, but I think it was getting arrested. Jane Rat wasn't that bad.

4 moments you'd like to relive:

I'm content having lived most moments once. There are some things I'd like to do again, but reliving previous things is a little redundant if your memory is intact. The memory might be better than the original event.

2 places you wouldn't want to go to/go to again:

Riyadh
Calgary

4 places you can't wait to visit/visit again

Jeez... only four....
Dublin
Iqaluit
Ottawa
New Orleans

2 foods you can't stand:

Fried Liver
Overcooked beef

4 foods you love:

If there are only four I can mention here goes:
Sushi
Rare Filet Mignon
Baked Ham
Pollo Relleno

2 current songs that make you change the station:

What's current? I don't listen to radio because it's either annoying or banal.
I'm in agreement with Sassinak on this one.

4 records you play over and over:

Cassandra Wilson's new CD
Discipline by King Crimson
Brandenburg Concerto #5 (especially the version by Musica Antiqua Koln)
Uninvisible by Medeski Martin and Wood

2 books you'd never finish/read again:

I once read a book by Rush Lumbaugh. What an asshole!
Worlds in Collision by Velikovsky. What an asshole!

4 books you have read more than once, and/or will read again:

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
100 Years of Solitude by Marquez
The Beginners Guide to Constructing the Universe
The Creators by Daniel Boorstin

How did that get there ?

I know what you're thinking. Another pretty sunset taken with a fuzzy camera. Big fargin' deal you say. I have reason to disagree, and here's why:

PJ took this picture on the shores of the Irish Sea, near Douglas, on the Isle of Man with his cell phone camera. From there, he sent the picture to the Manx cell phone network, which likely connects with the much larger network in either England or Scotland. From there, the image probably got funneled onto a satellite, and sent across the Atlantic to another satellite closer to Toronto. It eventually wound it's way onto the Fido network here in Canada, where it finally landed in my back pocket. It tickled.

That's pretty nifty if you ask me. What's even more amazing about this sort of transaction is that we take it for granted. You have to devote a bit of thought to the underlying complexity of taking a picture thousands of miles away and sending it home to really appreciate it. Otherwise, it's just another pretty sunset.

Yep. That's me in my skivvies jumping into the water. As I said earlier, the water was inviting even though the air was cool. I eventually retreated from here because the bottom had too much rhubarb, but I did take a walk along Sue's pier. The sweet waters of Georgian Bay, my favourite lake to swim in. You can take the boy out of Collingworld, but you can't take Collingworld out of the boy.  

Puffballs in the forest.  

A pretty little moss patch that I found on the hike last weekend. The perspective here is a little weird because the darker green plants are only a few cm high, and the light green moss is carpeting the ground. It looks like a vast expanse because the camera was held at the top of the moss.  

Greetings from Ontario, The Land of Sparkling Water. This is the last shot I took before my batteries died while we were boating with Joe among the thirty thousand islands. I regret to inform you that I didn't get any pictures of Sass on the waterskis, because she was grinning like an idiot every inch of the way.  

A jewel flower at the roadside.  

Here's a portrait of me and the drum crew. We went for a lovely hike last weekend. I took lots of plant porn pictures and managed to jump in the lake twice. The air was cool, but the water was still inviting.  

Yours truly holding the six string nation geetar. This instrument was made using wood from dozens of important Canadian landmarks. You can get more information about it from sixstringnation.com 

Sassinak peeking out from her tent. It's a grey drizzly day, but it's all good because we're not watching the clock, and the only thing on the agenda is lazing around the campsite. Anyone for an Apple Juice? 

This is our four legged friend from the adjacent campsite. Sadie enjoyed a few brief visits, but my friendship was really solidified when I took her slobbery rubber ball and hurled it for her. She is a great enthusiast for a game of fetch.  

Damp and Happy. Another cuppa herbal tea to keep me cosy under the unrelenting green tarp.  

This particular maple had the loveliest pink hue while all the others were still quite green. It was one of the few trees that had turned already. It stood out amongst the rest of the trees in the campground because it had changed colours so soon. Fall is on the way, and it's only Labour Day.  

Big fungi growing at the base of a maple tree in the Guelph Lake conservation area. The largest of these is about 20cm across. They weren't there a month ago during the Hillside Festival. Not only are they quite large, but they grow pretty quickly too.  

Our view from under the tarp. We're looking at the west shore of Guelph Lake, past the willows and the cattails on our side. Not a bad vista, after a day and a half of looking at the polypropylene tarp material and horizontal rain.  

Damp Campers

Greetings everyone. Sass and I survived our foray this past weekend. Hurricane Ernesto didn't amount to a whole lot after all. We had gusts of wind, but my tenure as a boy scout held me in good stead. The shelters were rock solid, and the only thing that got dampened was our spirits when we realized that we weren't going for a swim.

We rolled into the conservation area about 6:30 pm on Friday, and we got our tents and shelter setup promptly. At that point we dived into our massive cache of food, and "ahem" apple juice. There was an alcohol ban in the campground, so we deemed our supplies Irish apple juice, Scottish apple juice, and French apple juice.

We found that a lot of folks either cancelled their plans to camp on account of the wet weather, or the park is largely empty at this point in the season. For whatever reason, we were quite isolated except for the pair of Hillsiders and their two dogs Bear and Sadie in the next campsite. Otherwise, there was no one around to disturb our tranquility. Sadie came by to visit a few times, and despite the fact she's a bitch, she proved to be quite friendly.

It was nice. I put my watch away on Friday, and didn't have to care what time it was until this morning when we had to break camp and leave. I enjoyed just sitting around, reading, drinking my "apple juice" and going for a few casual strolls through the park. It was about time.

Rocks in our heads

I need my head examined. I can't speak for Sassinak, but I think she is as loony as I am. Sassinak and I are off and running to Guelph Lake for a weekend of relaxation and .... Hurricane Ernesto.

After my previous diatribe about NOT getting away, I have decided that I'm camping no matter what this weekend. Instead of an idyllic laze in the sun, with a few swims thrown in for good measure, it appears that Ernesto has other plans. The storm has made it's way north on the east coast of North America, and now it's Canada's turn for a good soaking.

All I can say is, there won't be any mosquitoes or flies to bother us if we do get the torrential rains. I've been to the market for food, and the cooler is already loaded with ice, so there's no way I'm canceling on account of a powerful but waning tropical storm.

I am sure to have an adventure story for you upon my return. Time to dust off the rainsuit.