A SHAGGY-DOG BLOG: AN OVATION BEING MY PUNCH-LINE

MY PUNCH-LINE

First, my snappy title is in reference to a shaggy-dog conversation being a long-winded oneversation of unrelated and irrelevant anecdotes, terminated by a pointless punch-line.  I’m thinking this expression originates from The Shaggy Dog, a 50’s Hollywood flick of monochrome interest and import.  My pointless punch-line for my shaggy-dog essay is a picture of my latest dream-about purchase, an Ovation double-neck acoustic guitar, $2000.00 and change.

A shaggy-dog blog entry gives me an opportunity to write in addlepated fashion about anything I want, any ideas that gruntle me in these morning moments.  (In my woolgathering ways I’ve always a plethora of thoughts to express into space and make available to my readers.)

This morning I’m writing about my play, my work, my private practice, my rituals, and my yearnings.

  

• Play

Every year I contract four gigs at the BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB, one gig for each season.  For these gigs I solicit a few singer-songwriters to join me on stage to strum and sing original folk songs. 

These gigs bring out my delusional self.  I am 66 years of age.  My guitar-slinger stage mates performing at these gigs (Regan, Tommy, Devon, Jay, Mark, John, Brandon, Dustin, Katie, and Trent) are in their late 20’s or early 30’s.  Only Darren, I think, is in his 40’s.  At least one time each season, summer and spring and autumn and winter, I gather with my guitar-slinger mates and imbibe craft beers and collectively share in cheery fashion our latest original songs.      

JAY GREENMAN (DRUMS) AND SELF AT BUSHWAKKERS LAST WEDNESDAY

• Work

Since September 2017, two social workers, a corrections officer, and myself, are on an eight-agency shared services contract to work with the highest level risk (level five) young offenders that are currently in custody or just recently released to the community with a series of conditions.  Our mandate is to prepare them for registration into a regular high school.  This preparation is measured in terms of behavior and academic placement.

I was the perfect choice for such a venture.  For seven years I was assigned to an open-custody young offender facility, to design and deliver an academic program for young offenders.  Factoid:  I wrote my Master’s thesis in Educational Psychology on this very topic (ONE HUNDRED DAYS AT THE HOUSE OF CONCORD:  An Ethnographic Study of Young Offenders in an Exercise Programme, 1994).

  

• Private Practice

HYPNOTHERAPY is still my therapy of choice.  I would like to have more clients; a half dozen per week would suffice.  I SUCK at marketing.

• Rituals

POSTED AT AN OUTDOOR RINK IN AMSTERDAM

(I just had to post this picture!)

These past few winters I have come to love outdoor hockey -- I refer to this as pond hockey.  I have played hockey most my life, from six to sixty-six years of age.  Though I’ve shot the puck in minus 30 degree weather, this winter I’ve decided that minus 20 degrees is my cut-off.  I’ll not lace up the skates when the temperature drops below this.

MY TEA OF CHOICE IN AMSTERDAM

Every day in Canada I drink a medium steeped tea, with two creams and one honey from TIM HORTON'S.  Holland has no such franchise.

• Yearnings

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

This is my latest project.  Onstage at my next BUSHWAKKERS gig at, my plan to play my guitar while droning my didge.  With practice, practice, practice I will get there.

Another of my yearnings is to own an Ovation double-neck acoustic guitar (pictured atop this blog entry).  And then I’d have an instrument stack of a couple of didgeridoos, a Seagull twelve-string, and a Gold Tone Cripple Creek six-string banjo.  Having that Ovation my life would be complete.   

(Ovation is my punchline for this blog entry; any lines following will be anticlimactic.)

Of course my long term dream to be a planetary busker is ever-present on my mind.  My sketching and thrumming and droning skills are authoritative to busk anywhere, honed enough to provide me Annie Oakley tickets to wherever I am daring to travel.

These busking skills are cause enough for my humble-bragging --
I truly deserve an OVATION!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week is my close friend, Jack, a former colleague and current artist.  Jack specializes in charcoal portraits and acrylic landscapes.

JACK CLAIMS THAT I DREW HIM TOO FAT -- I TOLD HIM THE PENCIL NEVER LIES

IN THE LAND OF THE GIANTS JUST FOLLOW THE TRAM: A PHOTO MEMENTO

DOCTOR TRAVERS BARCLAY CHILD

I went to Amsterdam not on buskation, but on kindred adhesion.  My youngest son, Trav, was defending his doctoral thesis on political economy (specifically the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) at the University of Amsterdam.  The panel “opponents” (we would refer to these scholars as “external examiners” in North America) were flown in from The Hague, University of Palestine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and from the University of Oxford.  I must confess I was immersed and impressed by their academic grandiloquence the entire defence.

Dressed in the finest tux and footwear from a local Dutch haberdasher, student Trav was anointed, Doctor Travers Barclay Child.

This blog title:  In the Land of Giants because the tallest men on the planet are Dutch (and the women of Holland are tall, too); Just Follow the Tram was a line of advise from our hotel clerk, the secret to finding places and not getting lost in Amsterdam; and Photo Memento is today's blog format.

No matter where you go, there you are (Rolf Potts).  Well here we were (Carol and I) back in Amsterdam, joining Trav and his Turkish girlfriend, Sila.  (Sila has been in my blogs before, especially when we are mountain hiking, the last time being in SKETCHES OF MARRAKECH, April 2017, hiking the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.)

ALWAYS, except for this one trip, whenever traveling abroad, we hike and I make time to busk.  This trip, however, was different.  We stayed in a hotel in downtown Amsterdam, had coffee and a waffle every morning at the bakery next door, took the Tram several times by day, and dined at night on ethnic cuisines.  I did not thrum.  I did not draw.  We stayed put in Amsterdam the whole time.

And so now with a chuckle I’m thinking of what Underground Garage radio host (Sirius radio) stated about going outside of any city.

“I prefer garbage cans and gun shots.  Nature connotes eight-legged creatures and serial killers.  Nature, being a slaughterhouse, is Exhibit A for Existentialism.”  

Of course I’m not in agreement with his preference for city over nature; but I do certainly agree on Nature being Exhibit A for Existentialism.  (Exhibits B and C could certainly be human beings in their natural competitive habitats, war being just one example.) 

THE VIEW FROM OUR HOTEL ROOM WINDOW

A DR. T-SHIRT GIFT FOR DR. TRAVERS CHILD

THE VIEW FROM THE ROOF-TOP PARTY (THE DAM SQUARE IS UP AND TO THE LEFT)

VIETNAMESE CUISINE INCLUDING A QUAIL EGG

BICYCLES EVERYWHERE

TYPICAL AMSTERDAM LEGO DESIGN

NOT MOROCCAN TEA BUT CLOSE

A SPANISH EVENING

MY FAVORITE SPORT EVEN IN AMSTERDAM

TURKISH DELIGHT

THE COLDEST DAY IN AMSTERDAM WOULD BE THE WARMEST WINTER DAY IN REGINA

Pictured here is Sila, Travers, and Carol.  This picture depicts a typical winter day in Amsterdam.

Where you are is where it’s at.  We stayed in Amsterdam because that was where it (what we’d come to see) was at.  We saw our son's academic defence of his doctoral thesis and ... we made a point of ethnic dining every evening. 

Those marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

JORDAN, A PRACTICUM SOCIAL WORKER COLLEAGUE

 

SID, ANOTHER COLLEAGUE AND FORMER UNIVERSITY STUDENT OF MINE

LIFE COULD BE A DREAM: A PHOTO ESSAY FROM A PLANETARY BUSKER

QUINTESSENTIAL CANADIAN BUSKERS 

Last summer, Baron and I stopped to busk at every TIM HORTONS betwixt Fernie, British Columbia and Regina, Saskatchewan.  We really are quintessential Canadian buskers!

Busking is a constant theme of mine.  My delusional self fancies that I am plodding along as a planetary busker, and that my guitar and didge and mechanical pencil can only lead to a life of happiness and prosperity.  

As a writer there are story lines always racing in my brain.  What theme shall I choose for my blog?  What song do I need to compose? What do I really want to be when I grow up?  As I toil today with tireless pen, my thoughts are set in Amsterdam, my destination in just two more sleeps.

Preparing for Amsterdam, I'm dreaming of other places I've been.  Because so, I've decided to post some pictures of my past other-country busking experiences.  And as I post I am thinking my planetary busker dreams are not so delusional!     

AT DAM SQUARE WITH ROQUE ANDRES

A great story:  I was guitar busking at DAM SQUARE in Amsterdam and ROQUE ANDRES comes along.  This was Roque's first ever trip to Europe.  This was Roque's first ever step into Amsterdam.  Roque said he left the train station and walked straight over to the Dam.  I happened to be the first person he saw.  I happened to be his grade 10 English Literature teacher years ago in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada!

ALINA

Busking at Dam Square I had borrowed a guitar from ALINA, a singer-songwriter from Russia.  In return for her generosity I drew her portrait!

BUSKING AT THE MILK MARKET IN LIMERICK, IRELAND

MICHAEL PAYNE, THE MOST FAMOUS HYPNOTHERAPIST

I borrowed Michael's guitar for a few days busking in Limerick Ireland.  Michael is renowned hypnotherapist in Limerick.  In return for offering me his guitar and giving me invaluable advice on my private hypnotherapy practice, I drew his portrait, of course!

TEMPLE BAR IN DUBLIN

IVICKA AND PETER, SLOVAKIAN BUSKERS IN IRELAND

Busking at the TEMPLE BAR in Dublin I borrowed Peter's guitar and amplifier.  He and Ivicka were being shoo'ed away by one of the vendors and it happened that I asked to borrow his guitar at this perfect time.  "As long as you take care of my amp, too," he said.

Peter and Ivicka, the Slovakian duo, were really a popular band, GREMMY, from Slovakia.  Ivicka and Peter stayed a couple years, after this photo, to keep busking in Ireland.  At present they are back in Slovakia, newly married, and with a bouncing newborn baby boy, Steven.

AT THE ITALIAN STAR DELI IN REGINA, SK

One of my favorite buskspots, THE ITALIAN STAR DELI, is but a three minute walk from where I live.  On this particular Saturday, CARLO, owner and manager, asked me to busk whilst free barbequed ITALIAN STAR SIRLOIN BEEF BURGERS  were offered to every customer coming into the store.

REVELSTOKE, BC

Once upon a time on a ROCKY MOUNTAIN vacation, I was busking in Revelstoke, British Columbia.  It just so happened that the entire main street was blocked off for a folk concert.  And it just so happened that the organizers of this folk concert asked me to come on stage and perform one set of songs, which I did, for a couple hundred people seated in the audience!

WASCANA PARK

Baron, my favorite drummer-busker, often joins me didge busking.  Here we are on a hot summer day, blowing our didgeridoos along the walking path in WASCANA PARK, REGINA SK.

BRUTTO TEMPO BUSKERS

Baron and I have set up in rather extreme cold conditions.  This busking day at the VALUE VILLAGE MALL was one of those days.  Baron is a trooper.  And like I stated at the top of this blog, I believe we really are quintessential Canadian buskers!

MARRAKESH SQUARE

Busking in Marrakesh Square with a guitar and amplifier I borrowed from Mohammad, an African busker who was passing through Morocco. 

MOHAMMAD

I gladly drew MOHAMMAD'S portrait for lending me his busking equipment!

My recurring dream is to actually be a planetary busker.  I've all the accoutrements and attitude to strum and thrum with a guitar, or drone with a didge, or draw portraits with a pencil and sketch pad.  (After my inchmeal progression of practices and performances for more than a decade, I have become busker proficient in all of the above.)

Whenever I return from buskation, be it from the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, the green and rolling hills of Ireland, the rugged Alps in France, or the deserts of Morocco, I find myself basking in the abendrot of just being there, wherever there happened to be.

At 66 years of age I am often of thought that this planetary busking has to begin before my inevitable slimsy and infirmity set in.  I do not want the remainder of my years spent in melancholia, especially when I know that even a middling street performance of busking on my part, with any of the above mentioned instruments, will suffice for my mensurable happiness.

At 66 years of age I have learned, finally, that life in general is operose.  

At 66 years of age I have also learned that all events and things in life are transitory. 

At 66 years of age I have learned that life experiences can range from treacly to tart, and that only by particular self-design, can there be stirring and stunning flavors in between!

I've just one person marching (pedaling rather) in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week, Carol, my wife of 38 years. 

CAROL BIKING THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LEGACY TRAIL

This is a picture when Carol and I biked and hiked the Rocky Mountain Legacy Trail from Canmore to Banff and back to Canmore.  Carol loves biking and hiking.  Actually, Carol and I have hiked several mountains in and out of Canada.  Hiking with Carol is one non-busking example of those self-designed stirring and stunning flavors that add spice to my life.