BUSKING AND WRITING, GIGGING AND MUAY THAI: THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

MY FATHER'S NAVY BAG (WORLD WAR TWO)

Busking.  Writing.  Gigging.  Muay Thai.  These are a few of my favorite things and, like a tourbillion; these favorite things are constantly swirling in my thoughts and behaviors.  I shall explain.

When it comes to busking I’m a projected wild-west waddy, a westward wayfarer on sixty-day summer buskations.  I’ve strummed on more than a few sidewalks in British Columbia major cities, Victoria, Kamloops, Salmon Arm, and Fernie for some examples.  And I’ve been on buskation in The Netherlands and Ireland.  I LOVE BUSKING!

As for my bread and butter jobs, I’ve always in functionary positions, stints teaching high school English, a side-career of teaching university Psychology, and private contract writing treatment reports for clients.  But ... since grade school, I’ve always fancied myself as a writer.  Writing has been my life.   Factoid:  I was an English major for my undergraduate degree.  (My graduate degree is in Psychology.)  Another factoid:  I am unfettered on my keyboard having had a couple of books published: A Wishbone Epistolary (Toronto University Press), The Creek (Amazon).  I contribute to my blog on a weekly basis (you’re reading it), and I’m always writing songs for public performance (pun intended because … I tend to do perform bar gigs … sometimes.

BOOK COVER

Most of my gigging is at the BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB in my home city.  These are my werewolf evenings, out howling until one or two o’clock in the morning, scheduled at the Bushwakker Brewpub four times or five times a year.  Sometimes I perform gigs at other venues … just sometimes though.  And I must state that the only reason I book gigs is too acquire that angst about being on a stage with other band mates, full of compromise over stage time, song choices, practice times, and money contracts.  Busking is so much easier because there is no compromise.

And I would be remiss not mentioning THE GRAND TRUNK TROUBADOURS (the GTT), our community service cover band that has been on the road for thirteen years playing at hospitals and retirement communities for audiences shut-in.

TOMMY, JAY, AND SELF ON THE BUSHWAKKER STAGE

Muay Thai is more than Muay Thai.  To get to Muay Thai has taken, literally, an adult lifetime of long-distance and trail running, a life-time of regimented weight training, a life-time of playing hockey (from pee-wee to midget to juvenile to senior to recreation league to pond), a life of intermittent martial arts (Karate and Muay Thai).  Without this (extensive) exercise background, I doubt, at my present age of 65, I could muster Muay Thai classes.  And I must apologize right now ... I am presenting myself as some Muay Thai master -- I'm not.

MY FIRST READ ON MUAY THAI

Muay Thai definitely helps keep me unflappable, though … I’m still flappable … I still rant on occasion.

Though I grok the benefits of busking, writing, gigging, and Muay Thai, I also have glozed the reality of each of them.  Busking is an endurance test, physically hard, hard work standing and walking while all the time slinging a guitar; good writing is re-writing, re-writing, re-writing; gigging is complicated and frustrating to organize, dealing with guitar slingers such as myself; Muay Thai is both physical and mental practice, practice, practice.  Busking; writing; gigging; Muay Thai; all roll-up-the-sleeves type of work, all filled with scratch-the-head mental angst and rehearsal.

Busking, writing, gigging, and Muay Thai are, not-so-strangely, all about rapport and harmonious relationships.  I, personally and professionally, strive to develop a rapport with everyone I meet.  I mean, really, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS are EVERYTHING.   Anyone who believes otherwise is a dull-wit.  Factoid:  Corporate America is based on the rapport of interpersonal relationships which is harmony amongst humans.  There is no harmony amongst abstracts.

MY CHAUCERIAN PARADE OF YESTERWEEK …

A true confession:  Sometimes during a Pats hockey game when it’s exceedingly lopsided with the home team winning, and therefore boring, we laugh at Donald Trumpet not having any real friends.  Hmmm …  we shouldn’t laugh, we should feel sorry for him right … but then we’d have to feel sorry for his buddy, Vladimir who thinks he’s a real hockey player (yikes!).  Hmmm … TRUMPET and PUTIN … those two, in their private lives, should hook up and hang out forever.  TRUMPET PUTIN … the international bromance, Two Amigos love so to speak.  Donald Trumpet, don’t you just hate this Hispanic referenceJ … I’m hoping to be the brunt of your latest tweet … this is my blog marketing strategy after reading your revenge rant a couple mornings ago about Vanity Fair, after the magazine gave one of your restaurants a bad review … actually consistent with your revenge rants about Alec Baldwin’s Trump portrayals on Saturday Night Live … you are so hilarious … are you really going to be the next president of the United States of America … Dear reader, as stated above, I still rant on occasion.    

TYLER LEWINGTON AND COLBY WILLIAMS ROLLIN' IN 20, 662 TEDDIES (HERSHEY BEARS)

GATHERING 2600 TEDDIES (REGINA PATS)

SILVER SKATES

(SEE COLBY SAVES CHRISTMAS: THE SILVER SKATES posted December 21, 2014)

CATHY (MY COLLEAGUE AND GRAMMAR EXPERT) AT CHRISTMASTIME

SCARTH STREET AT CHRISTMASTIME

ON SCARTH STREET

 

SCARTH STREET

Meanwhile back on the ice .. the TEDDY BEAR TOSS at hockey games is for a very good cause.  The TEDDY BEAR TOSS is the one Christmastime game in which fans are encouraged to bring teddy bears and toss them onto the ice when their home team scores its first goal.  The teddies are gathered and donated as Xmas presents to children in hospitals and those children who are reliant on charities ...  

JUST ANOTHER REASON 
WHY HOCKEY IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!

THE MEDICINE SHOW: FOOD, SWEAT, AND FEARS

MUAY THAI GLOVES

 Medicine by my adulterated definition is the preparation used for the prevention of disease.  And Disease can be defined as a particular habit regarded as adversely affecting a person.  My essay today is about three medicines for life:  eating, exercising, and angst.  Hence my snappy title:  THE MEDICINE SHOW:  FOOD, SWEAT, AND FEARS. 

  

• FOOD

It is too easy to become addlepated when it comes to deciding what food is good for you.  Milk makes you fat -- milk makes you skinny.  Butter is bad -- butter is good.  Swiss chard is the new kale. Oftentimes food that is considered hot turns out to be not.  Here is the one tried and tasted rule:   

IF IT'S ACRID DON'T EAT IT; IF IT SMELLS FINE IT'S OKAY TO DINE. 
 (Neil Child 2016) 

If you consider food as medicine, then everything you eat will be either good medicine or bad medicine.  What you put into your mouth is always (usually always) your choice.

  

 Here are the latest best five foods that are hot, hot, hot for your well-being:

-Fish (salmon and sardines)

-Grains (barley and beans)

-Protein (chicken and eggs … doesn’t matter which one you eat first, pun intended)

-Greens (Popeye spinach and broccoli)

-Yogurt

NEVER EAT ANYTHING BIGGER THAN YOUR HEAD. (Kliban, 1976)

• SWEAT

All medicos agree that exercise is very, very healthy.  Even mugwumps will agree that exercise is good body medicine.

Weight training is great but if that’s all you do for fitness, you are really a Cadillac with no engine.  And your engine needs to sweat through some kind of aerobic activity (running for example).

 

Aerobic activity

-reduces blood pressure

-reduces body fat

-strengthens bones

-builds muscle

-improves sex life

 SWEAT EVERY DAY!

AEROBIC EXERCISE IS MIRACLE-GRO FOR THE BRAIN.

(Christopher Bergland “The Athlete’s Way”).

• FEAR

What are YOU afraid of?  Are you afraid of the dark? Or are you afraid of the light?  Are you afraid of the things you don’t know or afraid of the things you do know?  Whatever fears you have, to rid any of them, you must first embrace them, and then simply work right through them.

Factoid:  Fear makes things bigger than what they really are.

Our fears keep us from doing things that we might otherwise get pleasure from. Stepping out of our comfort zones and taking chances takes courage.  Conquering fears opens new possibilities.  Overcoming frights frees us to discover things about ourselves.  Waiting for the right time to conquer one’s fear is … well … it is never the right time; so therefore, it is always the right time.

Exposing your fear is no fun, but neither is being imprisoned by your fear fun.  Short-term discomfort is the price one pays for life-long freedom from debilitating anxiety.

Memento to self:

IT IS NEVER THE RIGHT TIME TO CONQUER YOUR FEAR; SO THEREFORE, NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME TO CONQUER YOUR FEAR.

And what is the skinny of all this food, sweat, and fears?  Each of us has the power to re-write our lives at any time.  We cannot change our past but we can certainly change our personal present.

MIND YOUR MENU.  FIT IS PHAT.  FACE YOUR FEAR. 
(Neil Child 2016)

FOOD, SWEAT, and FEARS: These are the medicines that I (and a thousand others) prescribe for a sunny and exciting life!

In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away – (shing xiong)

  

My CHAUCERIAN PARADE THIS WEEK ARE MY NEW FIGHT-MATES IN MUAY THAI -- YES BUSKING IS OVER AND MUAY THAI BEGINS ...

 

SO THERE!

ALPHABET PHILOSOPHY: AN ABECEDARIAN PERSPECTIVE

ANDY AND GINO (ITALIAN STAR DELI)

My writing life is contrived and can be as simple as ABC.  

I am an abecedarian. Gino (pictured left with his eyes closed)  gave me this post title: ALPHABET PHILOSOPHY.  Yes, I tend to compartmentalize my ideas into categories as assigned (by me) in alphabetical order.   

Compartmentalization, in Psychology, is a type of coping strategy, usually assigned with a negative connotation.  But this is not always the case.  

For an extreme example: Soldiers must compartmentalize their battlefield horrors in order to fight on, both on the war front and the home front.

Another example: Much more pedestrian in nature than soldiering, most of us muster the ability to compartmentalize work streams separate from our home life.  One unwritten rule of work is to not bring home strife to the office, and conversely, an unwritten rule of home is to not bring work issues into the living room.  (I know this is easier said than done, but such rules are essential for one to focus on the tasks at work and also to the unrelated tasks at home.

Yes, I am a abecedarian, certainly a misnomer because I am not among as the Christian defined 16^th – Century Anabaptists who disdained human knowledge unless delivered by God, but more simply defined, I am one who tends to compartmentalize ideas into alphabetical order.  I do this because it’s the perfect lazy design for a short-cut guy as myself, who doesn’t have to think and think and think to figure a better structure to present unrelated (yet seemingly related because of the alphabet) for my random weekly blog ideas.

This blog entry, specifically, will demonstrate my abecedarianistic reflective writing nature.  This ABC compartmentalizing allows me to self-aggrandize rather shaggy-dog stories as being empirically significant.   

And here I go!

• A ... It began with an Accordion (see this blog, February 27th, 2011).

•  B … And now I am a Busker.

• C … a Cool busker

(MAYBE NOT THAT COOL)

Or I could begin with Andy and Gino Again.

ANDY'S TURN ... EYES CLOSED

This could be followed by my Busksign/Buskpot:

And now here is the latest picture of my best friend, Colby Williams.

 And then … D

DIDGERIDOO DUO

Then ... E

EMIL AND DAN AT OPEN MIC (SOUTH SK INDEPENDENT LIVING CENTRE)

Then F … as I strive to get from 10.8 percent body fat to 9 percent!

FOOD CHART

(Yes I have body image issues!)

Some inanimate CHAUCERIAN PARADE marchers were tossed into my guitar case this week:

 

A LITTLE GIRL'S SUNSHINE SKETCH

 

A TIM CARD ... STEEPED TEA!

A SUGGESTIVE EMOJI:)

Factoid:  My being a blogger means really being a wordmonger, having poetic license to extemporize and link together my selected topics extraneously without much regard for substance, shine without shoe so to speak.  (Such self-abasement is necessary from time to time.)

My writing life is contrived and can be as simple as ABC -- 
My non-writing life is geniune and never simple.