BE A LIVE WIRE! REWIRE!

 

I received this book as a Christmas gift, and it is awesome!  It is awesome because I can project all the meaningful contents Eagleman presents to how I function!

Midway through his book, Eagleman states that “Reward is a powerful way to rewire the brain, but happily your brain doesn’t require cookies or cash for each modification. More generally, change is tied to anything that is relevant to your goals.”  In short, whatever your goals, your brain will devote its resources accordingly.

In my young adulthood I decided one day that I would love to be a swimming instructor.  Being a university student (English Literature major) at the time of this game-changing decision, I simply added three swimming classes to my university subject load, Physical Education 110 (Learning to Swim), Physical Education 210 (Bronze Medallion), and Physical Education 310 (Instructor Level Swimming).  English Literature was my major, Phys Ed was now my minor.

At the time I was a decent swimmer; after all, I was a scuba diver, member of the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) with at least 50 dives under my weight-belt. I thought I was a decent swimmer! Participating in these three swimming classes was a humbling experience, to say the least! To keep up and to stay in the same current with my other class members who all happened to be Physical Education majors, I had to rewire my brain!

And in so wiring, each morning at 7 o’clock I dove into the university pool swimming lanes for my one mile individual medleys of Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle until I finished by degree. For the first semester it was grueling, for the second semester it was refreshing, and by the final semester it was perfunctory. During which time I also joined the university dive team!

Swimming enhanced my life! After graduating university I taught swimming all year long at the YMCA for a dozen years. In summer I taught swimming and diving at the outdoor pools, in winter I taught swimming and diving indoors at the main pool.

Somewhere during my professional swimming years, I decided to become a long-distance runner. After all, at the time I was decently fit, I thought!  Being water-fit is not the same as being road-fit. I studied The Complete Book of Running by James Fixx and started to run Long-Slow-Distance (LSD) every day. As it happened, I met a fellow runner, Burt, and we ran together for over twenty years.  By together I mean we ran 13 half-marathons at The Echo Lake Road Race and a couple of complete marathons in affiliation with The Saskatchewan Marathon.

Running, too, enhanced my life! As a high-school counsellor, for one of my extra-curricular duties I coached long-distance running. And then later in my career as an educator, I was asked to introduce a running curriculum for incarcerated young offenders, of which I was a participant-observer for seven years. I even based my master’s degree thesis, ONE HUNDRED DAYS AT THE HOUSE OF CONCORD, on this running program. At this point I must pay tribute to the American educator, JIM DEATHERAGE and his Reading, Writing, and Running class! (I phoned Jim to discuss his class and he encouraged me to replicate his concept for my classes up here in Canada! Jim, I owe you many, many miles of fitness and economic bliss!)

As it happened during my master’s study years, one of my Psychology professors insisted I submit one of my graduate papers to a publisher – he thought it was that good!  And apparently it was! My book, A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY was published by the University of Toronto Guidance Centre in 1985, the royalties of which long since got and spent.

And so, then I knew that being a published author was relatively a simple chore, was easy-peasy so to speak. At the time, this is what I thought! I was so very wrong! I wrote a sequel to my Wishbone, but that was rejected. Or rather, it needed lots of revision.  It needed lots of revision for which I had neither the time nor energy to deliver. Not until this year, 2023, did I finally rewire my brain, did I gather the time and energy to complete QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH and was rewarded by WOOD DRAGON BOOKS with my second published book!  (My brain is still on rewire and I’ve written two more drafts for two new books to be completed in 2024.)

Swimming. Running. Writing. These are three of my brain-rewire examples to date for which I have received many a reward. I wanted to be a swimming instructor – I swam every day until I became a swimming instructor. I wanted to be long-distance runner – Rain or shine, sleet or heat, I stuck to my running regimen every day for years until I became a marathoner. I wanted to be a writer – As of late, I wrote at least a page every day until I became a published book author once again. And now, after my Xmas vacation skiing at Big White near Kelowna, British Columbia, I want to be a down-hill ski instructor! (On January 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th, of this year I am registered in the Canadian Ski Instructors’ Alliance Level 1 Certification to be held at the Mission Ridge Ski Resort near Regina.) I know that to be a certified ski instructor I will have to ski, ski, ski, just like I had to swim, swim, swim, and just like I had to run, run, run, and write, write, write. Live wire action repeated, repeated, repeated is the key to one's brain rewire. *Read Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory in his book OUTLIERS (2008). 

One of my at-arm's-length colleagues asked if I were now thinking of retiring to become a professional ski bum. Nope. I AM NOT RETIRING – I AM REWIRING! But to be a bona fide and certified ski bum, I need to rewire my brain yet again!

My colleague’s comment was not at all abstruse, for I am dangerously assuming that my colleague who thought I was about to retire was suffering a tad of ageism toward me when he said this. Hmmm. And he knows that I am only 72 years old! 😊

In my defense, many say that age is just a number, and there are always people proving this notion to be true. I am not oblivious about my age. I am 72, but I am not moribund! I shall now offer up such people in their areas of expertise (and my areas of interest) where, indeed, age is just a number.

I loved playing hockey -- Now I love shinny!  Professional hockey player, Gordie Howe played his final game in a rink of the National Hockey league when his was 52 years of age. I love boxing. Boxer, Steve Ward, had his final round of professional fisticuffs in the ring when he was 61 years old. I love being a singer-songwriter. Singer-songwriters, Bobby Dylan and Kris Kristofferson are respectively aged 80 and 87. I love being a hypnotherapist. Psychologists, William Glasser and Carl Jung and Carl Rogers celebrated their retirements at their own funerals, respectively at the ages of 88, 85, and 85.

SHINNY AT BIG WHITE SKI RESORT

Granted, these comparisons are somewhat skewed in an apple-to-oranges sense that I am presenting athleticism as being measured on the same longevity ruler as academia, and too, that my personal athletic and academic triumphs are in the same league as the aforementioned hockey heroes and world renown psychologists! For the common-sense record, these measures cannot be compared. But with regard to thematic, they must be! Instructor level down-hill skiing relies heavily on athleticism, lightly on academics. To earn my reward of a certified instructor ticket, I must be able to perform both physically (on the hill) and academically (on written exam).

As mentioned at the front of this blog entry, “Reward is a powerful way to rewire the brain, but happily your brain doesn’t require cookies or cash for each modification. More generally, change is tied to anything that is relevant to your goals” (David Eagleman).  In short, my brain will devote its resources accordingly to accommodate my immediate goal in 2024 to be a certified ski instructor.

And perhaps, just perhaps, I will spend my final years, rewired and retired on the slopes in the crazed plummy role of a ski-bum!

HEADING FOR THE SLOPES

HAPPY NEW YEAR, YOU LIVE WIRES! 

MAY ALL YOUR RESOLUTIONS BE REWIRES! 

 

 

 

MERRY KRISKRINGLEMAS -- YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST (fill in the blank)!

CHRISTMASTIME OPEN MIC AT THE CURE

Cliché after cliché states that you are only as good as your last performance, or you are only as good as your last bat, or you are only as good as your last press release.  I will add a few more that are closer to home for me: You are only as good as your last song, or you are only as good as your last book, or you are only as good as your last blog entry.

And if you are lucky, sometimes your last bat or last song or last book offers a certain notoriety, at least temporarily. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes” (so sayeth Andy Warhol).  For fifteen minutes.  Yes.  Just fifteen minutes.  And after that if you want another fifteen minutes of fame, you will need to enact or replicate a performance that is popular among your critical masses yet again.

I do know that fifteen-minutes-of-fame feeling. When I was a grad student one of my professors suggested I expand a psychology paper that I had written into a book.  I took heed, sent it to a publisher, and voila!  A Wishbone Epistolary was published by the Guidance Centre, University of Toronto in 1985!  And when my Wishbone book was included in a mail-out packet sent to every member of the Canadian Guidance Counselling Association, I received a load of royalties, some fan letters, and my first real fifteen minutes of fame!

Shortly A Wishbone Epistolary was published, I defended my thesis and was awarded my master’s degree.  And right after that, I was assigned as a high school guidance counsellor in a local high school.  At my new posting, my reputation preceded me.  Not only did many staff members know that I was a published author, I was also the only one in the school who had a graduate degree. That was then, and this is now.  Back then, I was the only Edison bulb lighting the building.  Nowadays, I am but another lambency among the dozens of 40 or 60-watt bulbs enlightening the minds of the students in the myriad of educational spaces of my employer.

Several years after that guidance counsellor assignment, I joined with some fellow staffers to form a ‘60s cover band, resulting again in another fifteen minutes of fame experience.  In my city every Christmas is the Annual Carol Festival at the Knox Metropolitan Church.  Choirs from all over, take their turn on the stage to put on a festive show that packs the house. In the very year we formed our band, Sharie and the Shades, we were asked to be the key performance for the festival.  (Sharie and the Shades was named for the music teacher in the high school of our employ, and adhering to our snappy band name, we all wore shades as we performed ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll, shades from the past, so to sing.) Of course, we jumped at the chance, hopped onto the stage, and performed as requested. We arrived and set up early, played an hour-long set for a front row of local dignitaries, the premier of the province, the mayor of the city, et al, and the entire hour-long performance was televised!  This performance had my bandmates and self brightly shining in the public light throughout the rest of the Christmas season.

My guitar and song-writing skills are adequate for every year to garner five paid gigs at a local bar, BUSHWAKKERS, and a few other charitable gigs every year at another bar, THE CURE. All these contract gigs follow the same format. I solicit other singer-songwriters from my guitar-slinging community, and we take turns on stage performing our original songs to audiences of regular imbibers, dipsomaniacs, and folk genre followers. Being the self-appointed host for all these shows, I amass consequential moments of fame whilst introducing tyro to virtuoso gig-mates.  Also, for the stage finale on all these shows, I close with my fifteen-minute set. (Such an action is not prompted by my vanity; rather, I am the closing performer on every show because I am the only person who is obligated to stay and sign-off at the end.)

Because I have been busking across the pond, in The Netherlands, in Ireland, and in Morocco, I fancy myself as being a planetary busker. Such a self-described nomenclature has offered me fifteen minutes of fame on many an occasion, especially in conversations among the guitar-slingers and buskers that I meet in those countries during my travels, and those I meet back at home after my travels.   

Exploring these same adventitious places, I, oftentimes bring out my pencil, which also effects many minutes of fame.

MY PAL'S POOCH

ANOTHER FRIEND, ANOTHER PET

Take, for example, these pooch portraits Fido and Rex and Lassie et al that I have drawn for friends just this past week.  For each of these drawings, from each of these family members who own these pets, upon my presenting the final product, I am pretty much guaranteed more than my usual fifteen minutes of pedestrian pet fame!

Of course, too, this blog that you are reading offers me fifteen minutes of fame time and time again. For example, not only is my blog continually rated as being among the top ten busking blogs, PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING A LA WORDSWORDS is listed at the top of the top ten!

FROM A GOOGLE SEARCH TODAY

And how about my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH. My fifteen minutes of fame for my latest book, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, published just a couple of months ago, is already cooling. My publisher is nominating me for a book writer award in 2024, so that may heat up my social salability a degree or two, and if I happen to take home a prize, my books sales could explode!

AHOY, MATEYS! SHIVER ME TIMBERS! QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH IS A GOOD READ!

FACTOID:  If a million readers click on the margin to the right and purchase my book, I will make a million dollars!

But alas, dear reader, we should know that fame and fortune may not be so worthy of pursuit, especially if at the expense of personal health. My point, dear reader, is this. Chasing rainbows for pots of gold takes the same energy as chasing popular exercise regimens for optimum health.  To attain either, one cannot afford to be complacent. The fat of the former and skinny of the latter is this: ONE NEEDS TO KEEP MOVING.

Take heed to what I say, not to what I do. If I were to practice what I preach there would certainly not be a 38-year gap between book publications!

If I were to practice what I preach, every gig I give would be an Orphic experience for the audience, rather than just another folk-show facsimile of the one I gave previous. 

Also, if I were to practice what I preach, I would be more Promethean in every endeavor. I would be more innovative in my song writing, and I would be more rebellious in my personal fitness. Right now, in real time, I am working on both. I am attempting some punk strumming patterns for a couple of new songs I am writing, and I have just registered for a ski-instructor course this coming January 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th at MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT, SK.

HANGIN' AT MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT

FACTOID: My plan in three years (when I am 75 years old in 2026) is to be a full-time author and a certified ski-bum!

MERRY KRIS KRINGLE MAS, EVERYONE!

Here is my annual prototype XMAS CARD for 2023 in the making😊

 

WHAT KIND OF FOOL AM I?

 

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH -- IT IS OUT OF THIS WORLD!

CHRISTMASTIME.  And QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is the PERFECT STOCKING STUFFER for the adolescent science fiction aficionado.  Filled with sinister robots, gruesome beasts, and reprehensible humans, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH has it all! QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is futuristic tale of two brothers on their quest of survival, decapitating robots and fighting all sorts of creatures and beasts that go bump in the night along the way.

It is the year 2113 and a series of brightblasts has resulted in four remnant groups vying for survival: the robotia, the roktillia, the pterosauria, and the humanoids.

The robotia represent what is left of the mechanical world.  These robots have an incredibly high artificial intelligence and adhere to the codes of conduct as designed in their individual and collective programming.

The roktillia are a mutated blend of mammal and reptile, with unique traits to help them survive both on land and in water.

The pterosauria are large featherless creatures that have the ability to fly.

Most of the humanoids have established themselves in closed communities along the waterways, while other humanoids have become alienated and are ruthless hunters and scavengers.

Two young sailors, Kllay and Buzz, row an old wooden boat, The Snail, along a creek to the sea sanctuary of Black Beach.  Along with their companion, Westminster, a member of the robotia, the battle against hostile humanoids, roktillia, pterosauria, and other robotia on their quest to reach Black Beach and reunite with their family. 

TO ORDER:  GO TO TOP-RIGHT MARGIN OF THIS BLOG AND CLICK:)

I WAS A YOUNG BUSKER (MANY YEARS AGO)

In the meanwhile, back to busking. I shall explain my snappy title, which has a play on the word, “fool.”

FOOL, as a noun, is a silly person; whereas, FOOL, as a verb, is to trick or deceive.  In this blog title, I am referring to the kind of fool that fools or tricks or deceives people.  And this is exactly the kind of fool I have delivered with success more than a few times during my adult life to date.

During my teaching internship I was fool enough to be offered an actual teaching position – this was before I had completed my teaching degree! As a university student I was an English Literature major, training to be a high school English teacher.  But then I was offered an elementary school teaching position during my internship, and I jumped at the opportunity! Degreeless, I started teaching English, Art, and Physical Education to grades seven and eight.  Factoid: Physically, I had not been in an elementary school since adolescence. In that first teaching assignment, I was a fool indeed!

My teaching of English and Art classes was adequate, whereas, my Physical Education (PE) teaching was horrible.  Teaching PE I totally sucked.  My curriculum was limited to “Murder Ball” and “Hockey.”  Murder Ball was the grittier modified game of dodgeball we played in the school gymnasium -- the kids loved it!  And hockey was just hockey. There was an outdoor rink complete with a warming shack right next to the school.  During my PE classes, I would march the entire class over to the rink.  For those who could skate, we played shinny.  While those who could not skate either watched the game or sat in the shack.  Reflecting on this, I should have been fired.  But I was not.

Factoid: Instead, I was offered a position of full-time high school English teacher. Yet, I still did not have my teaching degree – I was a real fool for sure!

(As it happened, my employer paid for me to return to university for the following two summers to complete all the classes necessary for my degree and teaching certificate.  That same employer, later paid for all my graduate classes leading to my master’s degree, which in turn allowed me the opportunity to teach Psychology at the University of Regina for 23 years running!)

So too, I was the perfect fool when I began to guitar busk.  I began as a drummer and singer in a ‘60s cover band, Sharie and the Shades.  During my time with Sharie and the Shades I started learning to play guitar.  And here is that story.

A concert to showcase amateur and local talent just happened to be booked at the local high school of my employ.  I convinced one of my bandmates, Judy, another singer from Sharie and the Shades, to join me in song at this concert.  I practiced and practiced and practiced playing guitar for just this one song, Summer Wine.  Come the night of the concert, Judy and I covered the Nancy Sinatra – Lee Hazelwood rendition of Summer Wine for the audience of 400 people seated in front of us.  Little did anyone in the crowd know that Summer Wine was the only song I could strum!

That was a springtime concert.  Come summertime, my son, Baron, and I loaded our gear and headed to Victoria, British Columbia for my very first buskation.  While we were busking on the mean streets in Victoria, I was agog and the adequate fool, learning to strum and thrum a few other songs on my guitar.  Since then, I have filled my pockets of pelf from guitar and portrait busking throughout Western Canada and countries elsewhere, namely, The Netherlands and Ireland and Morocco!

And now I am a bona fide guitar and portrait street busker, of which this blog is the written proof.  Of course, I jape, but for sooth, this blog is most certainly drubbing the competition.  If anyone Googles to find the “top ten busking blogs,” this blog, PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING A LA WORDSWORDS is always atop the list! In this regard, I AM NOT A FOOL😊

*(And I shall be posthaste publishing this blog entry!)

JUST GOOGLED THIS A MOMENT AGO!

 

IT'S IN THE BAG -- I'VE GOT THIS!

It’s in the bag and I’ve got this!  I’ve got lots of this.  I’ve a bag for every occasion!  And not just the bags under my eyes. Yes, I am a bagman, but not in the illicit or political sense.  Nonetheless, I do have a lot of bags! 

Great minds discuss ideas.  Average minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people.  I discuss bags. Yes. Rambling and roundabout minds as mine discuss bags.  And sports bags shall be my treatise for today. 

It is snowing heavily today and so it seems fitting to begin with my wintertime bags.  I’ve got a bag for skates.  And my skates are not just any skates.  Years ago, professional hockey player, Colby Williams, who is currently with the Admiral Vladivostok of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in Russia, used to play for the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League (WHL). When he was the captain of the Pats, Colby gave me a pair of CCM Crazy Lights, the Pats standard skate issue at the time.  A few years later when Colby was drafted by the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL), he gave me a pair of CMM NHL Tacks, the standard issue of the Capitals at that time.  These are the skates I tote in my skate bag.

When there is ice, I skate at least once a week.  Sometimes I free skate on the open ice in Wascana Park (no pucks and sticks allowed), and sometimes I play a game of pick-up hockey at the outdoor rink just a few minutes from where I live.  Factoid:  Whenever I skate, I am in my $1200 (tax not included) CCM NHL Tacks, given to me by Colby!

I love downhill skiing.  My very first-time skiing downhill was in 1972 at White Track Ski Resort, just north of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. During my undergrad university years I also skied at other Saskatchewan resorts, Ochapowace near Broadview and Mission Ridge at Fort Qu’Appelle.  Over the years I have skied beyond the borders of my home province, at Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Castle mountains in Alberta, at Fernie, Sun Peaks, Harper, Whitewater, Big White, Silver Star, and Whistler in British Columbia, and Mount Alta in Utah, USA.

Over Christmas I plan to ski Sun Peaks at Kamloops and Big White at Kelowna.  This week I’m hoping to get out to Mission Ridge Ski Resort, at Fort Qu’Appelle, only a forty-minute drive east of my city.  "Where you are is where it's at" is my motto!

Typically, into my ski bag I pack my ski parka, my ski pants, my ski mitts and gloves, and my ski toque and ski goggles.  However, come the first frosty air, I unpack my parka and pants for the threefold employ of skiing, skating, and running.  I wore my ski jackets and pants for a three-mile run around Wascana Lake just yesterday, as a matter of fact.

 

Lately I’ve re-discovered snorkeling, and, of course, now I’ve got a bag for that.

In the ‘70s I used to be a scuba diver with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI).  To get certified in scuba, one had to get first certified in snorkeling.

Snorkeling, compared to scuba diving, is far less clunky.  Since I’ve abandoned scuba and become, exclusively, a snorkeler, no more do I have to lug around air tanks and other heavy duty paraphernalia.  Diving, without scuba, is cleaner and quicker and simpler.

In my snorkel bag I pack a light wetsuit for summertime dives, a mask, a snorkel, and fins.  Also, I pack a portable diver-down flag, which I float on the water during every dive.  When compared to my scuba diving years, this bag is small.  Back in the scuba days I’d pack everything currently in my snorkel bag, plus a buoyancy compensator, a regulator, and some weights.

In my adolescence I played lots of baseball.  In my adulthood I've a long history of being the player-coach of the Cochrane Swingers, a slo-pitch team.  Nowadays, I only play catch and only on occasion.  On a sunny and windless day in a city park, there is nothing finer than a game of catch.  And, of course, I’ve got a bag for that.

Lately, I’ve learned to love disc golf.  Last summer, as practically every summer, we drove to British Columbia for some mountain hiking.  This last summer most of the hiking trails were closed due to the myriad forest fires throughout the entire province.  However, the disc golf courses were open!  It so happened that the disc golf courses offered the same or similar terrain as the parks, and practically the same or similar amounts of exercise required to navigate either.  Also, embarking on a disc golf course costs the same as hiking --- zeroth.  And so, began my love for disc golf.  In Kamloops I bought three sets of discs from a used sporting goods store.  Back in my home city, Regina, I bought two more sets of discs, and played lots of rounds on a course right in the heart of Wascana Park.

My Muay Thai bag is the last I’ll describe.

I have been in and out of martial arts since high school.  Sporadically through adolescence and emergent adulthood, I took Karate.  Middle-aged, I took Tai Chi.  Now I take Muay Thai.  My current place for my training is at Ascendant Martial Arts, and I do so every Wednesday.

In every sport I partake, my gear is in the bag.  But for the record and as mentioned in the opening of this blog entry, I am not a BAGMAN.  A bagman connotes that I am a purveyor of illicit activity, and I am not that.

And I am not a BAG GENTLEMAN.  A homeless woman who carries her possessions in shopping bags is referred to as a BAG LADY.  Logically, according to that definition, I can rule out being a bag gentleman.  Through the process of elimination, I shall refer to myself as a BAG GUY.

I am a sports aficionado who carries a bag of accoutrements for every sports occasion.  Being a bag guy offers me the ability to plunge, pitch, or punch into each of my activities with alacrity. Having a bag for each sport helps me grok and appreciate the health benefits of sport. For each of my sports I try to be Spartan in personal toughness, but certainly not with regard for equipment.  I buy the best I can afford – always. 

And what has all this to do with busking?  

BUSKING IS A PERFORMING ART! 

KEEPING FIT MAKES ME A BETTER BUSKER!  

 

BOO! SCARY BUSKING!

Busking is scary.  Not scary, scary, but scary as in intimidating, unnerving, sort of creepy, sometimes hairy, and for a beginner busker, having tyro feelings filled with fear or dread.

A REGULAR HALLOWE'EN WORKDAY

While busking in the middle of a grocery store parking lot, Extra Foods, an older gentleman, after distributing his groceries into the back seat of his car, huffing and puffing, hobbled over to me pushing his shopping cart aiming it right at me.  “Plug this in and get the quarter back,” he said as he left the cart an inch away from my mid-section.

Then there was this other guy, in the same parking lot on the same day, who got into my face and stated I should mow his lawn for a couple bucks.  In one of my songs I have written about a bag lady in Victoria, British Columbia, who always would come up close and talk with her beer breath right into my nostrils.  This guy’s breath was way worse than hers.  “No thanks,” I replied, “I don’t do lawns.” He grimaced, shook his head, and walked away. 

While busking at Shoppers-On-Broad one sunny afternoon a panner stormed passed me and started banging on the store front window.  (A panner is street argot for a person who pans people for coin.)  When a couple of staff members came running out to make sense of the commotion, the panner pointed to me and yelled to them, “Why is he allowed here and I’m not!”

An early morning busk at Shoppers-On-Broad, another panner arrived and sat right next to my guitar case, which I always leave open on the ground behind me.  Rather than just keep an eye out because I judged him ready to steal my busk money, I packed up and left.  A potential for fisticuffs for sure if I stayed.  (Yes, I can be that shallow and territorial at times.)

One afternoon another time guitar-busking at Shoppers-On-Broad, this scruffy twenty-something man, started screaming in my face about why I was there begging busy people for money.  He kept this up until the manager came out and rescued me.

Another time in front of Shoppers-On-Broad this chic girl of emergent adulthood age, drives up onto the wide storefront patio where I am standing, revving the engine in her bigger than big half-ton truck.  First, she smiled and then she yelled.  “If any of my brothers brought their guitars here and played like you, they’d be put in jail,” she said. What?  Yikes?  Hmmm. (And she looked soooo sweet.)

I was busking in Victoria Park, central to downtown Regina, when this elder lady who was dressed to the nines asked me, “What right do you have to be allowed here.  Who gave you permission?”

Years ago, at the Regina Farmers’ Market this guy stations himself right beside me and starts shredding his guitar, which is, of course, plugged into his high-volume amp.

“Really?” I turned and said directly to his face.

“Well where should I go then?” he asked with a smirk on his face.

“Anywhere but here,” I replied.  Strangely, he immediately packed up and left.

Once there was this four-member band who set up next to me at the same Farmers’ Market.  As I glared by design at the closest member, their fiddle player, the manager of the market came over and sternly addressed them, threatening to charge a fee for each band member.  They left.

My friend, Trent, and I were busking with our banjos down in the Scarth Street Plaza when a bespectacled middle-aged chubby man dressed in a too-tight soiled suit, started pounding on his amplified Moog synthesizer within 40 feet of us, drowning out our banjos.  Trent and I changed locations.

I was busking at Value Village when this panner plunked himself down right beside me.  Within seconds the mall manager came out and gave him the boot.  “Why not him?” he asks while gesturing toward me.  “Because he was here first and he’s not just sitting and begging for money,” the manager retorted.

Shortly after this exchange, it got worse.  A guy pulls up in a van, a friend of this panner who just got booted.  This friend of his parks right beside me and cranks up the radio tunes.  Again, the manager comes out, this time his mouth fully loaded as he laced profanity toward guy in the van with the turned-up tunes.  The manager’s tirade lasted a few minutes, ending only when he threatened to call the police.

One time there was a guy who grabbed the set of bongos I had set in the grass beside me.  “I bought these as a gift to my brother,” he lied.  “I’m calling the cops right now,” I replied.  I was not lying.

A couple of guys in an American lux car roared up beside me while I was busking at a shopping mall parking lot.  It was one of those cars so big it could have had either an inboard or an outboard for a motor.  The passenger jumped out.  With his fists clenched he ran at me, and took a swing at my head.  I ducked. He missed.  I remember thinking to myself, the next swing he takes I’m gonna clock him with my guitar.  He didn’t attempt a second swing.  Instead he jumped back into the car.  And then they just drove away.

There is certainly a tinge of humor when reflecting on these scary busking moments.  Introspectively, this last anecdote I shall deliver is the funniest of all. 

I was thrumming my wares in one of my usual haunts, the parking lot at Extra Foods.  A rather scruffy young man galloped past me, and in pursuit of him, a male police officer.  However, almost immediately after passing me, the police officer stops in his tracks, turns, and runs back to me.  Pointing his finger at me, he states, “You’d better have a permit to be here and I’m coming back to check.”   And then he turned and continued his chase.

Hmmm.  Of course, I never challenged him.  I did not because he was gone before I could even respond. Factoid:  In the city of Regina there is no such process for attaining a busking permit.  Busking in Regina is totally unregulated.  If that police officer had returned like he threatened he would, I would simply have informed him that I had the store manager’s permission to be there.  Enough said.

To unwrap (an apt Hallowe’en metaphor, methinks), busking, like ghosts, can affright.  This is especially true for those who are new to the trade.  For guys like me, every busk is pretty much same ol’ same ol’.  I know, though, that for me to be complacent in any busking regard, could result in deleterious effects.  I know, that when busking, my head needs always to be on a swivel stick.  Busking can be Lotus land; busking can be Hell.

BUSKING, for me, began as a TRIAL OF TRICK OR TREAT, and now has become a ...  

QUEST FOR ADVENTURE!

HAPPY HALLOWE’EN, EVERYONE!

TWINS TODAY

 

 

SO NOW I WANT TO BE A FAMOUS WRITER. REALLY.

WARNING: The contents of this blog entry may appear to be a not-so-subtle and yet subliminal advertisement for my latest book, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH.  :)

On this very crisp Autumn day it is too cold for me to go outdoors and busk.  Instead, I am going to stay indoors and write about writing.

Throughout my adolescence I wanted to be a writer.  As an emerging adult in university I still wanted to be a writer.  As a matter of fact, I fancied myself as being quite the bard when I switched from the Engineering Faculty to the English Faculty.  But those days, the writing fates were not exceedingly kind.  After a hundred poetry submissions and nary a poem ever published, upon graduating with my English degree, I did the next best thing – I taught.  

Those who can’t do, teach.  Right?  For five years I taught English in a local high school. Then, having graduated with a master’s degree in Psychology, for 23 years I taught Psychology at our local university. But alas, my teaching career is another ship to sail in another blog entry.

And now after having joined the teachers' club and bought-the-hat, I am settling in to become not just a writer, but a famous writer.  I shall explain. 

During those years when I was stacking up the poetry rejection letters, I was still being a writer.  Not a great writer, but nonetheless, I was a writer.  I am still a writer, and I have the creds to prove it.

My book, “A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY,” was published in 1985 by the University of Toronto Guidance Centre; the royalties of which long since gotten and gone.

Also, over the years, I have had several book reviews published in the local REGINA LEADER POST.  I have had a couple of magazine articles published (WESTERN SPORTSMAN, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1985, SKIER MAGAZINE, 2006 VOLUME FIVE, ISSUE ONE), and, of course, I am writing this blog (my first entry posted March 20^th, 2010).

MY BLOG POSITION IN THE GOOGLE UNIVERSE IS ALWAYS AT THE TOP 

To continue this bluster, this past month, my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH was published by Wood Dragon Books.  I will know more about the sales of this come Christmastime.

Sure, I am a writer.  But how do I become a famous writer?  To be, or not to be, that is the question.

My QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is a very quiet science fiction book for adolescents.  I say quiet because to compare the sales of some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, J.K. Rowling (over 600 million), or Stephen King (over 400 million), or J.R.R. Tolkien (over 350 million), or Anne Rice (136 million), or CS Lewis (120 million), or Edgar Rice Burroughs (over 100 million), to my sales, I am very, very, very quiet.

Factoid:  In truth, my writing ability, my book sales, whatever my fame, CANNOT be compared to any of these aforementioned authors!  I am delusional, but not that delusional! 

Factoid: There are 600,000 to one million books published every year in the United States.  The chances of becoming a bestselling writer, according to the New York Post, is one in 62,986.

The chances of winning the Powerball, playing just one set of numbers, are one in 292,201,338.  So, the skinny of this is simple: If you never buy you never win.  If you never write, you never sell.

I never buy lottery tickets so my chances of winning the lottery are zeroth. Hmmm.  I do write so my chances of producing a bestseller are but a smidge above zeroth. To become a good writer one must write, write, write, and to get published, never mind become a bestselling author, then one must write, write, write even more.

Over the years, I have read lots about the craft of writing.  Here is what I know that all good writers have in common:  They pay attention to detail, they exercise self-discipline, and they have a strong vocabulary.

• They pay attention to detail …

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass” (Anton Chekhov).

In academia, qualitative researchers are known for what is called, thick description.  Thick description refers to a focus on detail.  As a graduate student I was a qualitative researcher.  My thesis was packed with thick description. I still write thick, but not Dostoevsky thick.

When I write I tend to hunch over my laptop, having always to my left a cup of scalding hot chocolate, a mixture of two tablespoons of 2% partly skimmed milk, two heaping tablespoons of no name hot chocolate (“made with real cocoa”), with boiling water added and stirred with a white plastic spoon. I love sipping this writing brew even though I need to continually scrape and re-stir into the liquid mixture the sticky chocolate that gathers on the inside of my brown ceramic cup with an uppercase “N” embossed on the side (an Xmas gift from my work colleague).

And oftentimes between the written words I dally, staring outside my ground office window at the people arriving to and fro next door, a dilapidated house that has been transmogrified into a pawn shop.

• They exercise self-discipline …

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter (James Michener).

Edits and re-writes, more edits, and re-writes, and dedicate either a daily block of time or a minimum word-quota to write. Much to the chagrin of my faculty advisors after giving me the green light that my thesis was polished enough for my oral defense, I re-wrote it another twelve times!  

Factoid:  And note, dear reader, that right now you are reading the sixth edit of this blog discourse.

• They have a strong vocabulary …

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice (Seth Godin).

There is no argot among writers, other than all the good ones share the trait of having a strong vocabulary.  Every time I write a song, a report, a blog entry, or a book, I scan and glean from Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary to add efflorescence to any of my literary endeavors.  Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary is my creation and name’s sake, a still book in progress, for the sole purpose of enriching my vocabulary.

Here is the sample introduction page of my NEIL'S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY:

                                                 *    *    *    *    *    *    

NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY: A THOUSAND WORDS -- 

A THOUSAND PICTURES

 INTRODUCTION

 NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY is for readers seeking to enhance their vocabulary. Most everyone believes the better the vocabulary one has, the better the impression one gives.  Whether your vocabulary interest is for personal or professional usage, I can promise you that this book will improve your life in both regards.

 And just what is a mnemonic?  

 A MNEMONIC is a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists us in remembering something.  Here are some examples:

 ‘ROY G. BIV” is a mnemonic to remember the order for the colors in order of a rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

 HOMES is a mnemonic that helps us to memorize the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). 

Another mnemonic is the poem, “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November.  All the rest have thirty-one, save for February with twenty-eight days clear and twenty-nine in each leap year.” This rhyme helps us to remember how many days there are in each month.

In my early teens I took accordion lessons, and I still remember the bass clef notations:  Good Boys Do Fine Always on the lines, and All Cows Eat Grass in the spaces.  Also, I remember the bass buttons: 

Fredrick Child Gets Drunk At Every Bar!  (I like this reference to self – my middle name is Fredrick.)

 Now here are my favorite how-to-spell-a-word examples:

 “M … I … crooked letter crooked letter I …

crooked letter crooked letter ... I … PP … I.”

This mnemonic was recited many, many times by my American grandmother when she was teaching me how to spell Mississippi.

 “Chi hoowah hoowah” is a mnemonic I heard years ago while watching The Tonight Show.  One of Johnny Carson’s guests was teaching him how to spell Chihuahua.

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I do write a lot, this blog being my most perfect example.  All told, including this one to date, I have published 399 posts.  My very first post was “TIME: AN ESSAY ON THE PERCEPTION OF TIME” published March 20^th, 2010.  It seems like just yesterday when my colleague, Rick, suggested the topic!  Time.  Yes, it flies, and yes, time is just a fillip.

Speaking more about my blog, I must mention that sometimes in emotional moments of weakness, I do use this blog as a bully pulpit.  Without even looking back, I just know, for example, that on occasion I have expressed my disdain for Trump and his Republican sycophants, and the odd other gripe I might have had.

Also, speaking of my blog, I do try to offer the reading some gnomic lines now and then.  For example, in this blog entry I have presented at least three: Those who can’t do, teach (borrowed from George Bernard Shaw), To be, or not to be, that is the question (borrowed from William Shakespeare), and my very own, If you never write, you never sell.

According to Stephen King, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot.” I do like to read a lot. Coincidentally, I have just finished “On Writing” by Stephen King.  And I do like to write a lot.  Currently, I am working on my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH (working title: QUEST FOR GHOST CANYON) and editing my soon-be-completed horror fiction novella, THE VAMPIRE CLUB.

As a foreshadowing for both my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, and forthcoming, THE VAMPIRE CLUB, and in a corny tribute to horror-fiction writer, Stephen King, I shall close with this promo pic: