SUMMER'S ALMOST GONE, YES WINTER'S COMIN' ON: AND I FEEL LIKE I GOTTA GET MY DIDGE

SELF ON A DIDGERIDOO

Seasons change and so doo I (as I bastardize this line from No Time, The Guess Who).  And, dear reader, you’ll understand the doo as a pun intended. 

The first time I ever went busking was in summertime.  I really knew nothing about busking except that it looked like it could be fun.  Romantically agog I went terribly over prepared, having accoutrements galore.  I had my guitar and my music stand and my music sheets blowin’ in the wind.  It wasn’t the answer, my friend.  It was clunky.

Since then I’ve managed to crispen my act to simple, simple.  I just take a simple stroll to any Annie Oakley sidewalk, take out my twelve-string, sow the seeds of bills and coin into the hard case, then stand and strum.  It works every time.  And when I tire of strumming my twelve-string, I bring out my banjitar.  And when I tire of the downtown sidewalks, I stroll to a sward in the park or to a place on the beach.  Like I said, it’s simple, simple.

When I first started busking I was in the giddy-up guise as a cowboy.  Cap-a-pie I donned the wide-brimmed white good-guy cowboy hat, a red and white neckerchief, a bright western shirt, a pair of boot-cut jeans cinched with a wide western belt with a big shiny buckle, and of course, cowboy boots.

These days I busk as an Americana Bobby Dylan, complete with messy hair, black shades, tight white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and black work boots (or sandals).  This is my garb for my summertime strumming, the way busking was meant to be (for me).

But … Summer’s almost gone, yes winter’s comin’ on (Gotta Travel On by Billy Grammer).

But I like winter. 

Fact:  I love winter.  Winter for me means HOCKEY (our Canadian national religion).  I love going to Western Hockey League (WHL) games with my son, Baron, and favorite National Hockey League (NHL) scout, Brad Hornung.

Factoid:  And I have always loved to play hockey. I played organized wee-wee and pee-wee and and bantam and midget and senior for the NHL (Notukeu Hockey League) VANGUARD EAGLES.   I continued to play senior hockey as a SWIFT CURRENT INDIAN and then later in the recreational leagues with the REGINA ICEMEN.

Alas, organized team hockey no longer fits my fancy -- I’ve now decided that pond hockey is the best for me, pond being a metaphor for outdoor rink.

CANADIAN MOUNTIE PLAYING POND HOCKEY

As I start to sharpen my CCM Crazy Light hockey skates

 

MY CCM CRAZY LIGHTS

(see my blog posting, COLBY SAVES CHRISTMAS: THE SILVER SKATES, December 21, 2014) … I must also sharpen my didge skills.   

Yes, I am going to didge busk this coming winter season.  Granted, my winter buskspots will be only hebdomadal, and will only include parking lots or sidewalks (no more plages, no more swards).

   

While all the other guitar buskers have packed up their axes, I will stand tall on any street corner in my winter toque, my winter parka, and my winter mittens, and drone dulcet winter tones through my didgeridoo.

I am not a maladroit didgeridoo player. I’ve been didge busking before, but only in summer.  Not only can I burp and blurt and yawt, and deliver a decent drone; in inchmeal fashion I’m finally learning to circular breathe!  (Every morning as I walk to work I practice circular breathing blowing into my didge.  One hundred more walks and I’ll have it!)

DIDGE BUSKER IN AMSTERDAM

See my previous posts on didge busking:  JUST DIDGERIDOO IT:  AN ESSAY ON FEARLESS CHANGE, OCTOBER 2^ND, 2012, and DOIN’ STAND-UP: ANOTHER ESSAY ON DIDGE BUSKING, NOVEMBER 4^TH, 2012.

I am so looking to being that brutto tempo bandersnatch didge blowing busker!

I am so looking forward to winter!  

To conclude in poetaster fashion ...

WOO HOO ... WINTER DIDGERIDOO!