WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFIE? AN ESSAY ON BITS AND PIECES

I’m just back from my British Columbia buskation ...  and, dear reader, I do apologize for such a delayed entry.

This week I want to explore life as I've thought about it whilst driving west along the Trans Canada Highway sipping frappaccinos -- between the brown corrals and silver sagebrush of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan and the lemon- lime velvet hills and blue feather fields of Medicine Hat, Alberta.

This long, lazy stretch of highway is the last chance to daydream for the driving part of the buskation from Regina to Kamloops and back again.  Because of the congested traffic and countless mountain horizontal and vertical curves on the rest of the way, one needs to stay alert!  

Just what’s it all about, Alfie?  (It, refers to life, and all its bits and pieces.) 

Is it just for the moment we live? (Burt Bacharach).  If so, this would be Existentialism, the notion of which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual.  To acquiesce to Existentialism does seem to make life simpler than the conventional faiths that have passed through the ages.  In Existentialism, the idea of church, for example could be the dance floor, the jogging path, the study hall.

Or is all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, each having their exits and their entrances? (William Shakespeare).  If this is so, then the entire world is an ambuscade, each of us living a life of concealed persons of the future, who lie in wait to attack us by surprise.  This could very well be true.  According to Mike Tyson, Everybody’s got plans … until they get hit.

Or is it that the Cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be? (Carl Sagan).  And if this is so, then life is just an Annie Oakley – it costs nothing to get here, to stay here, to leave here.  Life is transitory, ephemeral.  We are in transit.

Allow me to ramble in bits and pieces.  Life for some (especially in the West), compared to the Augean Stables elsewhere on the planet is a palace.  When I write West, I am referring to the ‘60’s land of milk and honey connotation, of Coca Cola and Rock ‘n Roll and all that.  I must mention that the zeitgeist for 20012 in Canada (and seemingly in other Western nations) is that our promisticians are moving mildly to the right of centre, pulling along the popular and disparate, the shiny and dank, the perverts and prudes.

To our world promisticians (those politicians at any level, civic, district, or national), we are but a claque, a group of people hired to applaud.

Life for some is a Bildungsroman, about the psychological moral growth within each of us, no matter our place of habitation.  After all, we are all of us chameleons, subject to change frequently, in place, in idea, in character, in costume.

I’ve written before about Carpe Diem (seize the day, grasp the day, enjoy the day), the idea to pluck each and every day, for each day ought to be a ripe one.  For each day life is full.  This is true for solitudinarians, for gadflies, for sun worshippers, mooniacs, and troglodytes.  On this planet for the plucking, there is something ripe for everyone.

Enough.  As evident of this Cook’s tour of the meaning of life, what do I know?  On a scale of 1 to 10 the answer is … ZEROTH.

Here is what I do know.  Any fool can create life – I am proof of that.  But let’s face it – We are finite.  Everybody dies.  All of our stories about birth and death and beyond death do serve us;  these stories seem to give some sense of meaning to our lives.  But death is.  For each of us there doth cometh a time when there is no more time on the clock, no more innings, no more at bats. 

Both in Canada and the United States the longevity for men is 78 years and for women it is 82.  Now these are just baseball stats, mind you. (I’m fielding the baseball metaphor as presented in the King James version of the Holy Bible, In the big inning …)  Accordingly then, I’ve just seventeen more trips to the plate, before my last bat, my last bunt, foul, strike, or home run.  Whatever befalls on my last swing, it shall be my personal fini.

My characters who have marched by in the Chaucerian Parade these past couple weeks:

• Sherona.  I was Sherona’s high school English teacher.  Now at forty years of age she squirrels pop cans and plastic water bottles from the public trash deposits in the Scarth Street Mall.  She is among the main three constants who go ‘round and ‘round checking all the trash bins.  These three are most certainly not a team, but their similar behaviors could indicate that they were somewhat collectively mobilized.  And their standard scruffiness in attire give hints of the same team costume.  I wonder what happened in her life  -- as she likely wonders what happened in mine.  Hello, Mr. Child, she cheerfully says as I busk my own blues away.

• Sponge Bob.  Bob is a bum and looks the part.  He’s unshaven, dressed shabbily, dons a very dirty New York Yankees baseball cap. Bob always needs just two bucks more to get a bite to eat. That’s what you said last time I gave you money, I reply.  Oh, good day to you then, he always says and moves on. And I always keep right on busking during our phatic chats.

• Milo.  B and I are busking next to one of the many outdoor patios along Victoria Street in the very beautiful downtown summertime city of Kamloops, British Columbia.  Milo is a paraplegic who states that we’ve taken his spot but … since he only busks at night, It’ll be okay.  With our sardonic smiles, both B and myself thank him kindly.

• Marshall Tucker band member.  My favorite fan of the week is a summer Santa figurine fellow from the Weald of Braylorne, British Columbia.  I play in the Marshall Tucker Band, he says after standing and listening to us for twenty or so minutes, on the sidewalk at Victoria and 3rd in Kamloops.  I like you guys, he said.  I live just sixty miles from Whistler, a little place called Braylorne, oh my f&%$#)@! god, we don’t have girls like that in Braylorne! he says whenever a young lady walks past. (I googled the Marshall Tucker Band and this long-haired hibearded fellow very much looks the part, though he does not appear in their band picture on the header of this blog.)  We constantly write new material but our fans just want to hear the old stuff, he says.  I’m guessing it is the same with you, guys, he says matter-of-factly. 

And I’ve a couple of kudos for a couple readers of this blog!

*The first is a BIG CONGRATULATIONS, BRAD HORNUNG!  Brad has just recently joined the scouting staff of Central Scouting in the National Hockey League (NHL).  Brad used to play for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League, and afterwhich scouted for the Chicago Black Hawks of the NHL.  (For you non-Canadian readers, you must realize that hockey in Canada is not only a sport – Hockey here is a religion.)

On one of my earlier buskations I had to register a name for myself for the busking license.  I chose the name, SEAHORSE, and along with the name I added the logo:  SAVE THE SEAHORSE – SAVE THE SEA.

**This leads into my second kudo for MEIKA JENSEN, a member of the Design Team @ Mastersdegree.net.  Check out MEIKA and her message (and awesome graphic) at http:www.mastersdegree.
net/ocean-garbage/

(Hey, Meika, as soon as my blog techies, Guy and Hollis, are back at work, I’ll have your graphic posted permanently on my blog.)

And that‘s what it’s all about, Alfie!

EAST OF EDEN: AN ESSAY ON BUSKING WEST

EDEN MAGDALENE JOEY DENNIS. 
‘TSA-AH-TO-KIS.’

Eden is my granddaughter, daughter of my daughter, Natika, and her love, Robert Dennis Jr. of the HUU-AY-AHT First Nation.

Eden began in the garden of Huu-ay-aht, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.  Huu-ay-aht is an efflorescent of bald eagles, black bears, sea lions, grey whales, and orcas.  Huu-ay-aht is the rainforest along rocky shores and sandy beaches and ocean swells; Huuy-ay-aht is where rivers hug and kiss the Pacific Ocean.

It is summer and Baron and I, well, we've a wanderlust for a buskation west. Very soon each morning we shall be rising at the cockcrow and driving (not in the hammer-lane) westward along the Trans-Canada Highway toward Eden.

Our first stop shall be Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. home to the NATO flight training school and to the Snowbirds, Canada’s military aerobatic air show flight demonstration team. Moose Jaw is situated where the Moose Jaw River is shaped like the jaw of a moose.  Busking is pretty loose in Moose Jaw, as there are no bylaws relating directly to busking.

From there we shall continue to Swift Current, named by the fur traders for the little brown creek, of which the headwater is in the Cyprus Hills, the highest elevation east of the Rockies.  Swift Current is a flat dry land of gophers and eagles.  As long as we busk downtown at the Market Square, we do not need to pay a performance fee.

Next we’ll be busking in Canada’s sunniest city, Medicine Hat, Alberta.  Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Hat was a gathering place for the Blackfoot, Cree, and Assiniboine Nations for hundreds of years.   Medicine Hat was so named for the Blackfoot eagle feathers headdress worn by the Medicine Men.  Medicine Hat is a land of rolling hills, a raging South Saskatchewan River, and rattlesnakes.  The City of Medicine Hat does not license busking.

Then comes Calgary, situated along the Bow River, in the foothills just east of the Rockies.  Calgary is named for the Old Norse words Kald (cold) gart (garden). This is cowboy country and home to the world famous Calgary Stampede.  (In the dirty thirties, 1931 to be exact, my Aunt Georgie and my father, Jack, aged 14 and 10 respectively, hitch-hiked 350 miles from Vanguard, Saskatchewan to the Calgary Stampede.)  In Calgary we are invited to show off our busking skills at certain locations, provided we have busking ID’s (at no charge).

Fifty miles west of Calgary is Canmore, on the Bow River amidst the Rockies and near Banff National Park.  Every Thursday we can busk for free at the Canmore Mountain Market.

Our next busk west shall be in Golden, British Columbia, nestled in the Rocky Mountain Trench at the confluence of the Columbia and Kicking Horse rivers.  To busk in Golden we just need to fill out the forms.

Further along our buskation we’ll be in Revelstoke, British Columbia, on the Columbia River, then heading west from there through Eagle Pass and the Monashee Mountains. I do not yet know the rules of busking in Revelstoke.

Halfway between Calgary and Vancouver, and on the shores of the Shuswap Lake is Salmon Arm, home of the largest wooden wharf in North America – we’ll be busking there for sure!  And there are no licensing requirements!

And then, Kamloops!  Kamloops (the anglicised version of the Shuswap word meaning meeting of the waters) is situated at the confluence of the North and South Thompson rivers.

Kamloops is a countryside filled with tall Ponderosa Pines, Big Sagebrush, prickly Pear Cacti, rattatatting Red-headed woodpeckers, Black Widow spiders, and Northern Pacific rattlesnakes. In Kamloops we’ll be busking at the Farmers’ Market.

I spent a few seasons in Kamloops, working on the green chains at the Weyerhauser sawmills, and on the end of the survey chains of McWilliam, Whyte, Goble, & Associates, contracting for West Coast Transmissions, Trans Mountain Pipelines, and Noranda Mines.

When I think of Kamloops I think of my mom and Brian, who still reside there, and of the zenith at our buskation end, Eden. Eden will be celebrating her first birthday in Kamloops, in her new regalia, her new dance, and her new song!

Because of the constant rainy days, the characters marching in my Chaucerian Parade this week are but one precious pair, Kayleigh and Syrah.  As I was busking with my 12-string and brand new Blues Harp in the Scarth Street Mall, right next to me were these sweet anthophilous hippy maidens, spinning and weaving sage, and selling and chatting and laughing with consumers the whole while. These darling Saskatchewan sylphs were the only sparkle in my drizzmal week of downtown busking -- I do hope the fates are kind and I meet up with Kayleigh and Syrah again!

TAKE THIS JOB AND LOVE IT: AN ESSAY ON WORK PERFORMANCE

I am fortunate to have four jobs that I love: full-time high school guidance counselor, part-time university professor, psychology consultant, and fair weather busker.  And I shall describe these jobs in descending order according to income and time commitment.

From September through June each year I play the perfect role of high school guidance counselor. Career usually connotes a focus on the ladder of success, social standing, and prestige; however, for me it is an opportunity help adolescents in crisis approximately 200 days each year.  Having such a career keeps me connected to the adolescent world of whim and fancy, of trend and argot, and in not a strange way, keeps me young at heart.  I shall not succumb to the apex of the Peter Principle – I long to climb no more rungs on the public school ladder.  I have found my niche. 

As a university professor I am committed to just 80 hours, 25 days each year.  In my Adolescent Psychology classes I am dealing mostly with adultescents (emerging adults).  I am thinking this would be a job, since the contracts are quick and thick, and do not interfere with my personal life.  Teaching at the university keeps me ever present in academia, a place, I daresay, sparsely populated in the public school system.

In my private practice as a Psychology Consultant I quite enjoy the complexities, ethics, and methodological interactions between client and consultant.  My private practice weakness is a simple one: I have little patience for those sky-is-falling clients who are not willing to help themselves.  To separate the serious client from one who is scattered, I charge a minimum of $100 per session.

Among these jobs there are obvious ties.  All of these jobs relate to dealing with people.  All my jobs require me to acquiesce to a common sense code of dress and ethics (both of which are continually abused among the brothers and sisters of the buskerhood, by the way). 

At school I have considerable freedoms within my job description.  Though I mostly deal with crisis situations during individual sessions, I can, on a whim, incorporate group counseling for specific client needs.  At school I am a company man, keeping the essence of public education, the municipal school board policies, and the school needs in constant mind.

At the university my leash is definitely shorter, mainly due to instructor evaluations and student grades.  My job description is specific:  Deliver and inform to the students, current theories and pragmatic notions of Adolescent Psychology. The skinny of my duty is to measure the students’ ability to do research and to write about that research.

In private practice I am paid to help clients in any regard they so choose.  If they like me (personally or professionally) they return for more.  If the opposite is true (they do not like me) they end the sessions.  No matter what happens, I go only four to six sessions with my clients.

As a novice, all four of my jobs began with seemingly Antaean performance tasks.  Teaching at a school is talking before a live audience (spectators, rather) of restless adolescents, where one has to wear a duck costume to get any attention.  I am told teaching at junior high is even harder.

There is bright-line between teaching adolescents in the rough and shiny university adultescents.  Teaching university students is to express philosophies and ideas not at all akin to the know-how of the pedestrian masses.  One has to be immersed in academic studies to appreciate academic settings.

Success to counseling/consulting in a private practice is to last at least as long as your client, the first rule of thumb being that sometimes the presenting problem is the problem.

And busking!  Busking is to bare your soul, your talent or lack there-of for all the world to see and hear and ... expect a monetary appreciation from an endless parade of total strangers.

Furtherance to my role of being a social entrepreneur, my artist friend, Chris, created a octagonal red and white Buskologist & Free Counselling sign to put on display while busking (scroll left for a look at it).  If I were to measure its value according to the number of disclosures from the consumers in my Chaucerian Parade this week, the sign has certainly paid for itself (pun intended).   

• I spent a dozen years playing the steel for Waylon Jennings.  We’re presently trying to put another show on the road.  It’s in the works as I speak, said a Waylon Wannabee.  He seemed unaware of Waylon passing a dozen or so years ago.

• Hey, brother, you’re welcome to my spot over there, offered Miles pointing to the liquor store. Miles is a local guitar busker who plays just long enough each day to buy a pack of smokes.

• Basically I was blind-sided.  Everything was going fine (I thought) and then she left me. This young man dressed in a sports jacket handed me a twenty dollar bill.

• You might say we were unofficially married.  Even though I spent just seven and a half years volunteering and helping her out (at the Wascana Rehabilitation Hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan), she gave me more happiness than 17 years of marriage with my ex.  We were actually going to marry, but she died last May, stated by a volunteer who, himself, was stricken with a brain tumor.  His bride-to-never-be suffered from Multiple Sclerosis.

• We’re not from here, we’re from Nigeria, stated a thankful father whose four year old ran outside to stand beside me.  When the family had entered the mall, the father had stopped to chat and tossed some coin into my guitar case.  Twenty minutes later, his little boys in tears ran outside and stood beside me, crying the entire time I attempted to figure what was happening.  Of course he was lost and, of course, I didn’t know he didn’t speak English. Beyond his parents, I was his only connection for that anxious moment.

• My teacher died last night, said Emma, my best friend at the Value Village Mall (her father, Shawn, is the mall manager, and her mother, Chrysta, owns the island food court).  Emma’s teacher, whom she adored, was thirty years old with a wife and two children.  And Emma, who is only in grade four, was preparing tributes and goodies for the funeral.

• A lady tosses some coin into my guitar case, and then she squeezes her business card into my palm.  It reads: Dixie Delivers!

I would call my fair weather busking a calling, rather than a career or a job.  Though I busk only in sunny and windless weather, slinging my guitar and banjitar on the sidewalk has evolved to be an integral part of my life and identity.  Such a calling allows for unlimited self-expression and unparalleled personal fulfillment.  Being a people person in all of my jobs, busking, more than any of the others, because of the random face-to-face connections, keeps me in tune to what is really happening in the marketplace.  I know busking to be a calling because … I’m not working my performance skills to get to a bigger stage.  I am not out thrumming guitar and humming my harmonica in the hope of one day being discovered. 

Each busk is another chapter for my bildungsroman autobiography -- for on each and every busk I do so discover more about myself!

'TIS TIME FOR ME TO TASTE THE TIN SANDWICH: AN ESSAY ON MY NEW HARPOON

Mouth organ. Blues Harp. Harpoon. Pocket Piano. Mississippi Saxophone. Tin Sandwich. 

Yes.  I’ve just purchased a HOHNER BLUESBAND INTERNATIONAL HARMONICA for just $6.99. My new tin sandwich is silver, four and a quarter inches in length, has 10 blow holes, and I love it.  Also, it’s easy to play, (sort of).   

The day of my purchase, my buskmate, Trent (TRENT’S GUITAR STUDIO), joined me to learn some simple sandwich techniques.  Here is the skinny of what we discovered:

My blues harp is in the key of C.  As long as Trent played his guitar in the key of G, my windy bellows seemed to fit.  We performed before a couple of music connoisseurs, Judy (my best-friend forever, band mate), and Melissa (a songbird whom I adore). Trent played his guitar in G, and I huffed and puffed into my pocket piano.  

  

Awesome, said Judy; Lovely, said Melissa.  

Upon such praise, I returned to the music store and purchased a rack (harmonica holder).  It cost $8.99 (total investment so far rounded off to $16.00).  By 5 o’clock that afternoon I was busking in front of SHOPPERS ON BROAD, blowing sad while thrumming my twelve-string.  By 6 o’clock I had made $24.00.  In just sixty minutes of busking I had covered the cost of the harmonica and rack, with $8.00 and change to spare.

Busking, however, is more than melody; busking is duende.  When busking with my banjo, cap-a-pie, I always don a derby or tam, a white shirt, blue jeans, and black work boots.  Busking with my twelve-string I’m always under my black stetson MHT, or my olive BRIXTON TILLER RANCH HAT, or my white CHARLIE HORSE RIDER, while wearing a western shirt, and Tom stompin' in my Rocky green leather cowboy boots.  

But now, whenever I take my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana, I’m gonna be a Bobby Dylan wannabe. I’ll wear whatever I want, be-hatted or bare headed, maybe don the shades, sport any kind of shirt, and stand even in sandals.

This Bluesband Mississippi saxophone has truly given me a silver wing with which to flap whilst busking! Though I cannot blow out any familiar tunes, at least not any anyone could identify, I can huff some harmony into my original G tunes on guitar.  This is so, so strange but very, very true.  Alas, I am thinking that this is an example of the truism my Carling Beer representative friend, Pat Casey, used to spout … In the land of the blind, one eye is king!

At noon today I’ve decided to go hatless, wear a pressed long-sleeved white shirt, faded blue jeans, and polished black boots.  I might even wear my sunglasses, which is usually considered a no-no while busking!

'Tis time to mention some of those consumers marching in my Chaucerian Parade this past week:

• Gus, of course!  This was the first time the retired farmer, cockalorum, octogenarian did not want to strum my guitar.

 I’m going out to shoot and trap beavers, he said.  They’re just getting in the way.

I thought you were retired, I replied.  Oh but I’m just going to help out, he said.

• My girl, Sarah, can now play C, G, and D on the guitar, stated a familiar consumer from Fort Qu’Appelle. This is the same gentleman that mentioned his uncle had learned to play fiddle and guitar while in a Residential School.  I asked Sarah if she wanted to play something on my guitar.  She shyly shook her head in a No thank-you.

• What is PSYCHOLOGYBUSKING?  asked a customer who had just tossed a fin into my banjitar case.  

I’m a social entrepreneur, and that’s my blog, I replied.

• You play banjo; I pick bottles, matter-of-factly stated a scruffy hibeard jumping off his bicycle and onto my banjitar case.  These F****ing C***suckers just throw ‘em away and I am happy to pick ‘em up! said this big-faced, big-mouthed pedaling tramp as he chained his bike wheels to the very lamppost that I was leaning against while busking at SAFEWAY ON 13^TH  AVENUE.  It is a good thing that only a few of my consumers are public carpers.

• I could stand here all day and listen, said a bespectacled middle-aged lady in a long plaid dress.  I used to play guitar, she continued, but not one with so many strings as yours.

At lunch today I’m going with the tin sandwich, and I’ll share it with my consumers.  I do hope they find the sound bites to be delectable!

Epilogue:  (I'm just back from my tin sandwich lunch.)

• Rock on, brother! said a tall middle-aged man with a grey pony-tail, as he passed and gave me a thumbs-up. 

•  You got some sweet sounds goin' there, said one of my favorite frequent consumers, Hank's Potatoes, as he stops for a smoke and a visit. Hank still plays a mean guitar, and has even played a few riffs on mine (when I've been on a break).

GOIN' FISHIN': AN ESSAY ON PSYCHIC READINGS

The morning sky was damask and the air sticky.  Wearing a t-shirt and jeans and slinging my guitar, I strolled eastward bound on a Victoria Avenue sidewalk in Regina, Saskatchewan.  The vehicular traffic was thin, the pedestrian traffic thinner, and the merchants along the way were just opening their shops.  I passed confectionaries, laundries, coffee shops, and lube stations.  The farther east I strolled, the more industrialized and grayer the signs of the neighborhood became.   And this is why the lawn sign, Psychic Readings by Mrs. Johnson, stopped me in my tracks.

Psychic Readings by Mrs. Johnson also brightly shone in neon through the front bay residential window. By Mrs. Johnson, I thought seemed somewhat vanilla, even milquetoast, especially when accustomed to the more gimrack monikers such as the Psychic Readings by Ms. Moon or Madame Star, Ms. Gabriella or even Madame Zoradamus.

I later googled Psychic Readings by Mrs. Johnson, and surprisingly discovered it to be not an uncommon business title; it may even be a franchise.  And reflecting on this, of course it could be and why wouldn’t it be; after all, communicating with the spirit realm is big business.

A psychic is one who professes to have extrasensory perception (ESP), an ability to perceive information that is hidden from the ken of normal senses.  It is commonplace for a psychic to express aloud to an audience something like: I am receiving a J, the name Jack … Jake … James … Jamie … Jeremy or I am hearing a loved one who has just recently passed by the name of Helen … Ellen … Eleanor …or Lenore.  Psychics refer to this as a cold reading.   Critics call it fishing.

It is always the case that psychics need assistance from their audience members and clients for clarification and interpretation of who these senders from the spirit realm may be, and why they want to momentarily cross over, given to suggest that either psychics are hard of hearing or, heaven forbid, when attempting to communicate with the quick, the dead can only mumble.

In years previous I taught high school Psychology.  You do know why I teach Psychology, I would say to them, because I am psychic!  Predictably every Friday a certain few would be stunned by my proffering some general adolescent behaviors:

• One of you swore at your parent this week, and even slammed the door when you left your house.
• One of you were just recently dumped by your girlfriend.
• One of you has serious boyfriend issues.
• And one of you, sitting in this classroom right here, right now, is very, very sad.

All such soothsayers, clairvoyants, astrologers, graphologists, tea leaf readers, new-age healers, and mooniacs have similar speils.  Here are some made-up examples:

• You are most certainly not what you seem. There is this shadow within you that longs to defiantly spring forth during the sunshine of day.

• Something is troubling you and I am getting that it is work related.  You are feeling that you are not appreciated for what you do and are wishing to move elsewhere, move on to where there is recognition and opportunity.

• Not all of your family members make you happy. Remember you need to treat yourself as number one, for you deserve it.

• I am getting thoughts you are having about your significant other.  Sometimes keeping the harmony is difficult.  Even though talk is cheap, it is time for you to speak up.

• Right now you are having grave concerns about your personal health and well-being.  You must stay positive, treat yourself to an apple a day, so to speak, and the world will spin your way.

And some more just made-up examples:

• Sometimes your dreams seem unrealistic to others that are close to you, and to keep the peace, you simply agree.

• Outwardly even people who are close perceive you as being in control, though inwardly you have angst.

• Your honestly, as of late, has been detrimental to your sociability.

• You wish you could be candid with your comments, but your social conscience prevents you from doing so.

• You are infatuated with someone … a situation that is either untenable or socially taboo or morally wrong.

The psychics provide the words, banking on their clients' inclinations to find and provide the meanings.  We, as humans, tend to find meaning in just about anything (e.g., Jay Leno’s image on a potato, e.g., the Virgin Mary’s image in a water stain), and oftentimes sideload these discoveries to the tramontane of trumpery (and to the psychics).  In short, tell people what they want to hear and they’ll always come back for more.

I am writing this essay to neither debunk nor investigate psychics and their readings.  I am writing only to express that it is both mysterious and magical to think that when people pass on, they continue to live beyond our memories. For consumers, the words of a psychic may be full of wonder or full of folly.

Speaking of wonder and folly, the members marching in my Chaucerian Parade this week:

• Hey man, can I borrow a couple bucks to buy some strings for my guitar? asks Brian, a busker who is wailing in front of the liquor store next to me in the Extra Foods parking lot.  Brian refers to himself as a musical performer – he hates the word, busker.

• I love that hat! expresses a consumer greeting me as I strum in front of Shoppers on Broad.  He is referring to my brand new Brixton Tiller Ranch Hat, a gift from my nephew, Brad, purchased at the Chinook Mall in Calgary.

• You know what you should do, states a fellow dressed in suit.  You should rent a big hall, play just like you’re playing, and charge admission.  You’d make a lot more money!

• You know about the effects the residential schools had on our people, states a fortyish fellow walking with two children.  Well, it wasn’t all bad … Some good, too, came out of those schools.  My uncle learned to play the fiddle and the guitar while in one of those schools.  You should hear him play!

•  A young man wearing a derby hat shows me a fifty dollar bill by holding it in both his hands up close to my face.  He then pretends to toss it into my guitar case. But he keeps the fifty in his fist and laughs.

 Goodnight, Mrs. Johnson, wherever you are!

             

MY CHAUCERIAN PARADE: AN ESSAY ON FACES, PHYSIQUES, AND PHATIC CHATS

 Each week I meet a callithump of characters while busking. Some of these characters spark interest enough for me to first etch them into my mind, then later type them into my blog, to march in my Chaucerian Parade so to speak.  As I’m sitting with my laptop determining which of these passers-by to be worthy of publication, I’m also pondering the sidewalk laws of attraction that makes them so indelible.  As a buskologist, I’ve come to comprehend the criteria for which I choose to march certain characters in print across my page.  Those chosen have piqued my interest by their face, physique, or phatic chat.

Face:

Peoples’ faces represent their first line of communication. Besides those symmetrical visages of Hollywood cover girls and chiseled Marlboro men, funny and strange faces that are chubby, patchy, and pimpled, too, are notable.  Talking to consumers I notice whether they have a countenance that is square, oval, triangular, or stoned. When I’m talking to folks I am actually with faces that are fronting big heads, little heads, empty heads, and talking heads.

Physique:

Physique refers to the degree to which a person’s physical traits are regarded as aesthetically pleasing or not.  Men, generally, are attracted to women who have a youthful appearance, and exhibit a symmetrical face, full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio. And women, generally, are attracted to men who have broad shoulders, narrow waists, and v-shaped torsos.  However, to march in my Chaucerian Parade, none of these attractive descriptors are necessary.  Besides, most women and men do not possess such porn presenting bods. Most people are not pretty, or dainty, or delicate, or brawny, strapping, or handsome.  More people are gawky, or homely, scrawny or rotund.

Phatic Chat:

Phatic chat is the rather insincere small talk that simply impresses or not, a deeper sense of sociability.  How’s it goin’, Have a good day, Nice weather, are just three examples.  There are consumers who want to express further their day-to-day themes of discontent, presenting discourse on politics, religion, and their personal state of affairs.  Such consumers, especially, make discursive fodder for my blog.

This week in my Chaucerian Parade:

• Gus, the 88 year old returns to chat.  How was your birthday? I ask.  Do you feel any older? Actually, it wasn’t really my birthday, he confesses.  My birthday was in March.  (I am wondering why Gus would fib about his birthday!)

• And Hank’s Potatoes, too, returns for a chat.  His is sipping a Big Gulp.  I’ve seven bags left to sell, he says, I'll just open the back gate and they'll sell like hot cakes!

• There is a little boy and girl who keep peeking out the glass door while I play.  They look to be eight and five, respectively.  Do you have a home? asks the little boy.  Moments later he asks, Do you have a family?  

• Leo, the mad hatter stops for a chat. Leo shops at Value Village only to buy cowboy hats. Fourteen dollars is the most I ever paid, he states.  Come summer at Native Days I sell them at my reserve for around a hundred bucks apiece. 

• I'm clean now, says Christie the pan-handler, and I've got a good man!

• You should be playing at the Fainting Goat, states a sixty something guy in a suit and Yankees baseball cap. 

• You should be playing at the Fainting Goat for sure, states his female companion as she slips a fin into my shirt pocket whilst the Yankee has his back turned.

• You know what the best thing about busking is, states a beer breath fellow who claims to be a busker from Ontario.  Watchin' the babes! he responds to his own question. 

I must confess, that most of my consumers are quite unlike my self.  Most consumers are unpretentious; they come as they are, forthright in their grace or their grossness, exposing their wisdom or their folly for the world to read.  I remind the reader that my stand-and-deliver performance is all pretend, not the guitar-slinging cowboy my consumers think me to be.

Some factoids on a social theory of human attraction: There are times our conscious selves are drawn to those people having the positive qualities we yearn for, and there are times that our unconscious selves are drawn to those people having the qualities that will wound us. Given this, still it is uncommon and exceptional for any of us to be lustily attracted to someone we deem physically unappealing.

From a buskologist perspective, there is but one factoid of human attraction  ...
All the world’s a consumer parade, of which its marching members unwittingly display their chevrons of face, physique, and phatic chat. 

MIGHT IS RIGHT: AN ESSAY ON TOUGH GUYS

The first tough guy I ever met was Rodney Wedge.  When I was six years old Rodney Wedge wrestled me to the ground, straddled me face up, and spit in my face.  Nobody I knew liked Rodney.

Over the years, of course, I met more tough guys, and looking back, three especially come to mind: Reg, Larry, and Johnny.  All three of these guys were hockey players with the Vanguard Eagles of the NHL (Notekeu Hockey League) and unlike Rodney, everybody I knew loved them.

Reg was a debonair Adonis.  Being Superman tough, Reg was always clean cut and extremely charismatic.  He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and didn’t swear, but he did run two miles to the bridge south of town and back each and every day until he finally landed a right wing spot with the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League -- the same league that Don Cherry has referred to as the toughest in junior hockey! (Reg returned to the Vanguard Eagles when his junior hockey career came to a close.)  

If Reg was Superman tough, then Larry was Batman tough. Larry liked to party and, strangely, liked to fight. No one who knew Larry would dare take him on in a punch-out. As a pugilist, Larry had class, as he had established a bright-line between who he would and would not fight. He never once fought any of his friends, nor anyone from our town, for that matter.  Larry’s prey was mainly strangers who drove into our town, to party hard and flirt with our girls. In the rink, Larry was the Vanguard Eagles’ Paladin, controlling the game with his phenomenal goal scoring ability. Larry never had to run to the bridge and back to create a spot for himself in junior hockey, for in any game at any rink, all scouts recognized him as an uber-player.  At fifteen years of age, Larry was assigned third line left winger for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League.  (When Larry finished his junior hockey, he returned to the NHL (Notekeu Hockey League) and coached the Simmie Senators.

Johnny, unlike Reg and Larry, was Joker tough.  Jocund when sober, and not to besmirch the straw- thatched Johnny too much, after a few beers he would transmogrify into a narcissistic braggadocio. Drinking with Johnny was always risking an ambuscade of fisticuffs. You just never knew when he’d turn on you.  Johnny’s hockey zenith both began and ended on left defense with the Vanguard Eagles.

One of my first tough guy moments came while drinking with Johnny.  One time in my emerging adulthood, the two of us, Johnny and self, were drinking beer in Johnny’s truck.  Getting drunker, Johnny got nasty, so much so that he called on me to take it (the fight) outside, and I complied.  We stood facing each other with our fists up.  Johnny took the first punch, a swing and a miss.  I ducked and returned with my fist to his jaw.  Thrice more he tried, resulting in three jabs to his jaw.  To my surprise, when Johnny tuckered he extended his arm for a handshake.  We shook hands and climbed back into his Fargo for some more beers.  Sad for me to say there were no witnesses to my victory, but so what. I am the hero in my story because I have the power and bravado to write whatever I want.

Since then I’ve made feeble and narcissistic attempts to continue my imaginal tough guy status -- in the cool style of Steve McQueen no less.  I’ve been a student of Karate and Mu-ay Thai.  I’m a long-distant runner and I love lifting weights (Olympic style) on a regular basis.  Alas, I've not fought since my salad days at university, during which I even spent a night in jail because of a barfly night of fighting.  Fact is, now I never fight, and never would unless it was truly a matter of life or death.  And even if that were the scenario, I'm pretty sure that I could outrun any bully about to clobber me.

The idea of might-is -right has been prevalent since our societal ways of hunting and gathering.  There is a rather boorish phase in our archetypal development when each of us believes in the power of might-is-right. Some of us move through this phase; some of us do not.  Assigning this imaginary power into a proper perspective demands a certain maturity.  Clinging to might-is-right is immature and idiotic.

Even so, might-is-right continues to be a significant bully-pulpit of our times. The benighted notion of might-is-right is in practice everywhere on the planet, the Far East, the Middle East, and yes, the West. I've witnessed bully behaviors in workplaces, at recreational facilities, and in peoples' homes. Fortunately, among the enlightened, powers opposite the might-is-right attitude are enacted. The majority of people, being gregarious and community minded, really do want to get along with one another. Most of us employ the power of retreat, the power of speech, the power of turning the other cheek; though expressing such positive powers can be oftentimes very, very tough.

While busking today I had the opportunity to meet two real tough guys, August and Hank, both of whom being octogenarians, and both marching in my Chaucerian Parade at Value Village.

August (Call me Gus) was out and about celebrating his 88th birthday today.  He was shopping at Value Village and stopped to chat. I play guitar, he said, but I've never played a twelve-string.  Is it hard to play?
In a rare moment of generosity, I handed Gus the reins. Fifteen minutes later when his friends arrived to take him for a beer, I finally got my guitar back!  Happy birthday, Gus!

Eighty year old Hank was delivering potatoes. Hank said that he and his friends, one of them a busker, gather at his house once a week, to jam and drink whiskey. Today he was delivering potatoes to over a dozen restaurants and this was his last stop. Hank handed me his Hank Potatoes business card.

Being a blogger, I am obviously of the putative belief that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Hey, Rodney Wedge, I am no longer the victim and I just want you to know that ...

Ya, I write dirty, whaddya gonna do about it!