BUSKING: IT AIN'T LIKE IT USED TO BE!

 

A VERY LONELY BUSK LAST SUNDAY

Oftentimes this season, when I am busking at SHOPPERS, I am very soon accompanied by one of a couple of panners.  In street argot, panners is short for panhandlers. 

Factoid:  At the best of times the buskerhood etiquette in Regina is boorish.  Regina especially, of all the places I have busked, has little value, or notice for busker etiquette.  In ALL places I have busked elsewhere, there is an unwritten (and sometimes even written where the busking is regulated) that buskers perform a reasonable distance of at least one block away from other buskers.  In unregulated busking Regina though, buskers will often situate themselves within a few feet of other buskers, even at the supposedly “regulated” Farmer’s Markets.

The last couple times I have set up in front of SHOPPERS ON BROAD, to strum with my 12-string and blow my blues harp, within minutes a  panhandler from the 7-Eleven across the street, has meandered over and plunked himself within 10 feet of my playing.  When this happens, I am competing with someone who is uncouth and unkempt and unnerved; I am competing with someone who sits with outstretched hand and outstretched legs partially blocking the main customer entrance of the store, begging for money.

I should also mention, too, that these 7-Eleven panners have significantly changed their behaviors in recent years.  Only a couple of seasons ago, they stood with cap-in-hand and asked for, “Spare change?” from every passer-by.  Now it seems, at least on my watch and in my space, they just plop themselves down on their butts and utter ne’er a word.  These particular panners, with whom I am familiar, just sit puppy-eyed in their grubbiness.

I am unflattering toward these panners because I am annoyed and apoplectic as I write about them.  I shall describe, with disgust, two of these marching-in-my-parade panners, Mutt and Jeff.  Before doing so, dear readers, that I know these panners likely have issues directly related to mental health and addiction that impede them from having a regular middle-class existence, complete with middle-class behaviors and protocols.  Still, I write in anger from a personal busking perspective.

I shall begin with Mutt.  Mutt has been a regular panner who has been sitting and sitting and sitting for the past few years.  Cap-a-pie, he has a shock of unkempt thick and curly hair.  He is always unshaven, and sports a big, brush moustache. Big-bellied Mutt has a very chunky thorax and continually walks with shoulders hunched, daily from the 7-Eleven to the Tim Hortons a couple blocks down the street, and then back again to the 7-Eleven. And at each of these two vendors, both of which I am a daily consumer, he sits for hours at a time, with his legs stretched across the sidewalk entrances.  When not snoozing, he is looking puppy-eyed every passer-by.  But nowadays when I start to strum at Shoppers, and if he happens to be at the 7-Eleven, he inevitably comes over to me.  I am thinking he is not attracted to the esthetics of my musicianship, rather he is attracted by the number of consumers he imagines my musicianship may draw.

His palms-out-panner-mate, Jeff, not as adventurous as Mutt, used to park himself only at the 7-Eleven.  That is, until I start strumming at Shoppers, and then he invariably wanders over.  Like Mutt, he says ne’er a word, but unlike Mutt, he stands and leans against the front glass, mouth shut and legs crossed and and palm out.  Unlike Mutt, Jeff is scare-crow gaunt, but like Jeff, silent and grubby and very intrusive into my buskspot.  And regarding Jeff in the same way I regard Mutt, I just unsling my guitar, pack up, and leave.  I have never and nor will I ever, initiate a conversation with either of them.  I know Mutt and Jeff to be fellow terrestrials, but I welcome neither interloper when they are nearing my strumming sandbox.

I do not engage with either of them because both guys are wild cards.  I imagine both to have the potential to be volatile and perhaps verbally and even physically abusive toward me.  I imagine this because a situation like the Mutt-Jeff situation happened to me at VALUE VILLAGE a couple years ago.  There at the main doors, I was busking with my guitar and harpoon when a very noticeable character sat right beside where I stood strumming, and put out a pail to catch consumer coins, my coins!  Not-so-strangely, Shawn, the mall manager, happened to be near, saw what happened, and asked my intrusive uninvited sidekick to leave, which he did.  As he rose to leave, he made a phone call.  Within minutes of this phone call, a couple of heavy-set buffoons pulled up in a battered van and parked right in front of me.  And then they hit the radio, blasting it as high in volume as possible.  I stopped busking.  People walked by shaking their heads, some even gesturing to me in an appeal to what was going on.  Again, the mall manager stepped in.  I am not sure what he said to them (the music was too loud) but when they did turn the noise down to respond I did hear: 

“So why are you letting him stay [pointing to me]?  You don’t like fags?” yelled the driver.  (I must mention that the panner who was sent away by Shawn, was wearing a dress, and had flowers in his dyed-pink hair.) 

“No! I just don’t like fags like you!” was Shawn’s response.  Finally, when Shawn threatened to call the police, they were gone.

Meanwhile back at the ranch and on this same ain’t-like-it-used-to-be-theme …

In my city last Saturday was the Cathedral Village Street Arts Festival.  For 10 consecutive years I joined the festival as a regulated busker, and rotated buskspots, as did every other busker, every two hours accordingly.  In the first few years I took my banjo.  The next few years I took my didgeridoo.  And in the latter years I thrummed my 12-string while blowing out songs on my harpoon.

This year, being only a consumer and not a busker, as I walked the strip, I noticed a significant difference about the behavior of the buskers now as compared to those here in years past. All the buskers, save for one, was plugged in, amped up and mic’d with the volume up, and selling CDs.  Being the ever purist and unplugged busker that I am, I was very surprised.

And the last thing I will write about continuing this ain’t-like-it-used-to-be theme, is that the consumers now seem not as generous as in years past.  Hmmm.  This could be because of the subsequent hardships because of COVID 19, but I am only hypothesizing.  All I know for sure is that my guitar case has fewer bills and coins than before, this based upon my empirical busker point of view.  Chatting with other buskers, these low takes are not unique to me.

All this complaining that I have expressed in writing means that I really must decide on the future of my busking with a guitar and harp.  Not that I would ever completely abandon this – after all, I do need to practice my songs for any upcoming gigs!

A GIG AT THE CURE

Alas, the rather hazed romantic nostalgia of busking on the street corners with my guitar and harp is rapidly waning. With happenings beyond my control, the trend to plug-in and sell CDs, combined with the generally reduced generosity of the current consumers, and the unwitting and psychological prompting of random parasitical provocateurs, namely Mutt and Jeff et al, I am seriously contemplating that instead of my usual practice of splitting my busking time 50-50 between strumming and drawing, my pencil and sketchpad are falling quite into favor.  For me to cash in the summertime, munificent busking days ahead, I need to change my ways.   

YEP. BUSKING. IT AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE. 

TIME TO PARK MY GUITAR AND SHARPEN MY PENCIL 

(BEGINNING TODAY)

MY BUDDY AND HIS BABY GIRL

 

BUSKER, KNOW THYSELF: THE EXISTENTIAL TOURIST

 

MY HARLEY BIKER FRIEND AT THE LEGISLATIVE LANDING

Know thyself.  And what of this ancient Greek aphorism?  Who, among us, know themselves?  Not-so-strangely, even though I exist as a singular being, I have been many selves so far in my life.  As a professed existentialist, believing that I was born without purpose into a world that makes no sense, along with everyone else wittingly or unwittingly, I have had to create many selves to survive. Furthermore, as an existentialist, I know that I am personally responsible for creating my own purpose in life.  I also know that my life purpose has not been assigned by my parents, has not been assigned by my teachers, has not been assigned by government, and has not be assigned by God.  Everything I do has been assigned by me, me, me, me.

Factoid:  I am not a dull wit; nor am I a blank slate. Despite my preamble, I know I was not born into a social vacuum.  I am deeply and continually influenced by social structures and norms.

Factoid:  Humans create structures and norms because we need something in our world to make sense.  The structures and norms we create provide us a sense of security and predictability, offering a delusional sense of control.

Familiarizing myself and being attracted to certain of these structures and norms, I can be whoever I want to be.  I am not stating that the extension of my potential is limitless, but I am stating that, for the most part, the only barrier to my succeeding in most things is me.  Yes, the only barrier to my success is me, myself, and I.

A couple of disclaimers are appropriate.  Firstly, I am 6’1” tall.  I was never destined to play in the NBA.  No matter how strong my passion for doing so, the odds of me being drafted into the NBA are zero.  Secondly, truly I am of above average intelligence.  Even so, I was never destined to be a nuclear scientist.  I have never had a passion for numbers; in academia, I have had only passions for English literature or Psychology.  There was never a moment when I imagined myself as a nuclear scientist.  My odds of being a professional in any numerical regard, including even a mathematics teacher, is the same as those for me being drafted into the NBA – zero.  These are rather simple examples that disproves that I can be anything I set my mind to.  Life choices have limits, sometimes due to physicality, sometimes due to mental ability, but always due to desirability.

As I stated a couple paragraphs ago, my potential is certainly not limitless.  But nothing so far has stopped me from being a busker.  For this I have the wherewithal.  For my physical presence, I can stand on a street corner and play guitar while blowing a harmonica.  In doing so, I project that I am tall, silver, Hollywood handsome, and in my cap-a-pie costume of messy shock of hair, white and tight-fitted t-shirts, faded jeans, and shiny black work boots.  For my psycho-social presence, along with my musicianship .. I can sit on a park bench or in some booth at a farmer’s market with my pencil and sketchpad and draw striking likeness to any person’s face.  Both making music and drawing faces are mercenary adventures with predictably lucrative returns. Having an extroverted and witty conversationalist (phatic chat being my raison d’etre), I have and continue to succeed as a busker.

Know thyself. In this blog entry I shall express to the reader that my current self is that of a busker, and how being in this role relates to existentialism.  In cheeseparing fashion, I shall parse the three fundamental tenets of existentialism, Phenomenology, Freedom, and Authenticity, connecting them to my guitar busking on the street or my pencil busking in the park.

PHENOMENOLOGY means to me, the ability to make sense of coincidence, by describing coincidence from a personal perspective.  I just happened to be hiking around Nelson, British Columbia when I noticed for the first time, guitar and accordion buskers performing on Baker Street.  After that ah hah moment, watching and listening to these performers, I knew I had the musical skills, too, to be a guitar busker.  And traveling Europe one summer, I took quite an interest in the street portrait artists, who were all in a line, drawing the tourists of Amsterdam.  In this eureka moment, I realized that any portraits I drew could easily compare with those of these Netherlands street artists.   

FREEDOM is just another word for nothing left to lose, according to singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson. Maybe this is true.  As I age with certain regrets, I am more and more realizing I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with consequence, but not necessarily regret.  Being a busker with my guitar and harpoon or with my pencil and sketchpad is the perfect example of me doing what I want.

AUTHENTICITY is to blend one’s personal narrative into behaving according to one’s imagined sense of freedom.  Authenticity is the knowing who we or who we want to be in any given moment.  Such awareness is Zen-like.  I love to tell stories.  Anyone who knows me and especially those who have ever taken one of my Psychology classes at the university (over the last 23 years) will vouch for me on this. And I love to write.  Anyone who has followed this blog over the last 20 years, I am sure, will vouch for me on this.

A person who lives only in a personal world is insane.  You know the people I am referring to.  Just yesterday walking home from work I could not help but notice a craggy and hirsute individual sitting cross-legged on the curb yelling to himself while waving his trigger finger in his own face.  He was certainly living for those moments in his personal world, and during those moments I would certainly dub him to be insane. The more people who inhabit a collectively created world, the saner it seems and the saner one becomes.  Now had there been a few more people sitting alongside him doing the same thing, I probably would have thought something else, something a little more normal to be happening.  

We attempt to make sense in response to the social reality we inhabit.  For example,  I know what it is like to live in the suburbs where the white picket fences all kind of look the same, the backyard trampolines all kind of look the same, and even the parents and kids in the neighborhood kind of all look the same.  When I lived in the suburbs, I was living in accordance to most of my middle-class ilk at the time, during that time in my life when our kids were young and in school and in sports and in … and in … and in …

But now I inhabit a world of local buskers and even more so, congregate in a world of local singer-songwriters.  Granted, I am likely double the age of most members in this strummer-thrummer world, and as delusional as this may seem, I consider myself to be a popular member.  Socially, I imagine myself to be very close to these couple dozen guitar-slingers, who not by happenchance, are oftentimes, gig-mates of mine at THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB and THE CURE, both bars situated right downtown in Regina.

Yes. I am the kinetic protagonist of my own story.  In the moments where I am actually out there on the street as a busker, projecting to my consumers and others, I am this authentic and free spirit, cap-a-pie costumed in whatever I want, drifting hither and thither to wherever I want for as long as I want.    

I KNOW I AM NOT PERFECT --

BUT IN THESE BUSKING MOMENTS I AM CREATING THE PERFECT ME!

 

 

72

72.

SELF PORTRAIT

72.  For me this number is significant.  This month I will be 72 years of age -- I was born May 31^st, 1951. 

72.  Yikes!  Where did the time go!  Where did my life go!  My past now seems but a fillip, my future, too, soon to be a fillip!  Aging positively, I know, has a commercial spin rife with platitudes – yikes again!  Here are just a few of those platitudes along with some personal thumbnail annotations.  I'll begin with:

“Age is just a number."

Factoid:  Age is a number.  The average life expectancy for Canadian males is number 79.4. Seventy-two is on the continuum to 79.4.  (Drat.)

“You’re not getting older; you’re getting better.” 

With glee I am very happy to report there could be some truth to this.  As I gruntle along in this blog entry, I do want readers to know that over the years I have managed and still do, to treat my body with the highest of gravitas.  I was a daily Individual Medley swimmer in the ‘70s, swimming a mile every morning.  Then throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s I was employed as a swimming and diving instructor.  Also, in the ‘80s I started to run long-distance, completing over a dozen half-marathons and two full-marathons.  Certified by the YMCA, I was also free-weight trainer and aerobics instructor.  Filled with bluster I can certainly ramble on but suffice to state I am still running and weightlifting, and have added these last 15 years, martial arts training, specifically in Muay Thai.  Not-so-strangely, this past winter I discovered a love for winter cycling and keeping with winter, as soon as the ski hills open, my plan is to become a certified downhill ski instructor.  As for not-getting-older-getting-better reference, I may not be getting better, but I am maintaining.  Factoid: I’m really no worse for wear than I was when I was a young man. I’ve not lost my strength and I’ve still spring in my step.

“Seventy is the new 50.” 

This, too, could be true.  In my adolescence growing up in Vanguard, Saskatchewan, anyone over 60 was considered an old-timer.  I remember old-timers in my town being grey of hair, physically frail, feeble of mind.  These rather shallow and stereotypical descriptors are based only upon my personal and empirical evidence.  Factoid:  Sometimes in addlepated fashion when I gaze into the mirror, mirror on the wall, I see a rugged Hollywood-handsome type guy.  Never do I see the narcissistic fool.

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

“Those aren’t wrinkles; they’re lines of wisdom.” 

Be it years or months or days or even moments ago, there is no doubt that I am socially smarter than before the present.  For example, better than before, I can read a room and can empathize better with the characters in the room.  Factoid:  This could be because I am more inclusive of different sorts of people, which in turn could be due to the confidence I’ve gained over the years.   

“You’re only as old as you feel.” 

I feel great.  I’m not on any prescribed medications and my physical mobility is superb.  However, from my perspective, I can only speak for me.  I guess I must feel like 72 because the only mind with which I feel is mine.  I do hear lots of my peers complain of their physical ailments with about as much frequency as they complain about the weather.  And whenever I hear such whining I always think of B.F. Skinner who stated that to get old fast, just act old, have people open doors for you and make sure you are known for complaining of your physical ailments.  Factoid:  I have no physical ailments.  NONE.

“It’s better than the alternative.” 

This platitude prompts me to write about one of my favorite themes:  Existential dread.  I know that my body is finite and that my death is inevitable.   Though not yet apparent, I know, too, that at 70 years my body must be breaking down.  Trite to say that I strive to make each day count for something.  Whether it be reading, writing or running, I am very conscious about my reluctance to squander even a moment, never mind a whole day.  Better than the alternative suggests better than being dead, and I am not yet ready for that.  Factoid:  It all comes down to my mental and physical health.

If I can keep my wit up and my weight down, 

I should last until 79.4

  

SUMMER IN THE CITY: A BUSKER'S RHAPSODY

 

MYSELF AND AMAR

Finally, Sumer is icumen in! This 13^th Century Medieval phrase translates to “Summer has come in” and about my busking season, it too, has come in.  This week my buskspot was SHOPPERS ON BROAD, Regina SK Canada, where I spent as much time chatting with staff as I did with my passer-by consumers.  Pictured above is Amar, one of the many staffers who came out to chat.  And pictured below is my ACURA RDX, same location.  For self-psychoanalysis, my excuses for including my vehicle are to either show it off or to present that I am a very middle-class busker, not just a clochard with a guitar, or perhaps to admit that I am a faux busker.  (Hmmm.  A faux busker does not really busk, just pretends to busk.  I do go out and busk and so that excuse cannot be a valid one.)  As far as showing it off, just parking my RDX anywhere is showing it off!  I am and have always been an egocentric middle-class busker and I’ve the wheel toys to prove it!

BUSKING BESIDE MY ACURA RDX

Factoid:  Yes, I am a middle-class busker, but I fancy myself also to be a planetary busker.  Apart from Canada, I have busked with guitar and harp and/or pencil and sketchpad in The Netherlands, in Ireland, and in Morocco.  My long-range plan is to busk in as many countries as my paycheck will allow!   

Today I am going to present my latest song, about my very first buskation so many years ago in VICTORIA BC.  Here is my annotated, “A BUSKER’S RHAPSODY”:

A BUSKER’S RHAPSODY

[INSTRUMENTAL INTRO]

[CHORUS]

C   Am   F   G … (X3)                    C

Tramping all around this town these streets sometimes just get me down (X2)

Exhausting my capacity, searching endlessly for rhapsody

[On summer in July, slinging my 12-string and my son, Baron, packing his djembe, we tramped the streets busking in downtown VICTORIA BC.]

C  Em  F  G … (X3)                       C

Up the block is Devon

Who thinks he’s Bobby Dylan

Ever plunking his guitar

While bending out his blues harp

*[On this Victoria buskation, Baron and I established a daily ritual.  Every morning we lifted weights at a downtown gym, The Phoenix, and then we would go to Starbucks for breakfast.  En-route it seemed we always greeted the same buskers in the same order, who then became familiar strangers, so-to-speak.  The ever-friendly curly-headed Devon was the one we always greeted first.]

DEVON TODAY

 [INSTRUMENTAL]

Down the block is Christian

Who thinks he’s Ravi Shankar

Chain-smoking in a doorway

Ever plunking his sitar

*[Christian was a Quebecois, seated cross-legged in some doorway and smoking cigarettes, always commenting on the busker politics/gossip of the day.]

[INSTRUMENTAL]

Here comes Angelina

Who thinks she’s Ginger Rogers

Bopping ‘round her Safeway cart

Her beer breath on my folk songs

*[Without fail, at least twice a day Angelina, always smelling of beer, would stop by and dance while we played.  She was a bag-lady, having her shopping cart filled with lots and lots of rags, a bed for her German Shepherd, who (strangely) stayed put in the cart.  In the beginning, I was worried and embarrassed that any potential customers would think that we, Baron and Angelina and self, were a trio.  After several days of this same ol’ same ol’, I simply gave up and went with the flow.]

[INSTRUMENTAL]

Devon and Christian and Angelina

Such street folk are to me … my busker’s rhapsody (X2)

[INSTRUMENTAL OUTRO]

*[Meanwhile … busking in my home city of Regina a couple months later, Devon tossed some coins into my guitar case!  What a surprise!  The whole time we spent as familiar busking strangers chatting in the mornings in Victoria, it never came up that we were both from Regina!  Devon was 18 years old at the time.  Now he is in his ‘30s, a teacher, and married with two kids.  We have become quite close over the years and have done several bar gigs together.

Christian was a traveling busker.  We were only in Victoria for a couple of weeks, when he made a point of coming by our buskspot, bringing coffees, and saying good-bye to Baron and me, before he hopped on a bus for Toronto.

Angelina.  Before Baron and I departed Victoria, we made sure we connected again with Angelina, not just to say good-bye, but also to give her all the coin we made while busking.  We had kept all the coin in a big glass jar, and when we found Angelina, we gave her the big glass jar filled with coin.

A literary analyst could suggest that Devon, Christian, and Angelina are symbolic of the Devil (Devon), Christ (Christian), and an Angel (Angelina).  Rather than a "Disclaimer" I shall offer an ACKNOWLEDGMENT:  This is a work of non-fiction, and any similarities to persons living or dead, or actual events is purely intentional. I shall add that only one name has been changed.  Angelina's real name was Christina.  This writer thought that having both Christian and Christina was, in a literary sense, trite, and therefore changed that name, and that name only. 

These three especially, in that fugacious yet fruitful Victorian summer, are very representative of what busking continues to be for me – A RHAPSODY!]

[CHORUS]

DEAR READER,

THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH FOR READING MY BLOG!

Oftentimes I google "the ten best busking blogs" and this seems always the result!

A GOOGLE SEARCH HELPS ONE DISCOVER THE VERY BEST BUSKING BLOG -- MINE!

 

 

MOMENTS TO REMEMBER

 

BARON AND SELF AT THE CURE

Lately these past couple decades suffering through my existential dread, I have really come to realize that my existence is but a moment in time.  I could write that “Our existence is but a moment in time,” but I certainly do not want, too, to suffer deductive reasoning to the point of bracketing everyone along with me and my thoughts.  For if I did, then you, too, (the collective you) would unnecessarily be suffering that same existential dread as I.

Years ago, a colleague of mine stated at the lunch table in a high school staff room that life was just an odd collection of moments.  At the time I thought something of that line, and still today, I think of that line.  Yes.  Life is, indeed, a collection of moments, and now I know that every moment is precious (the cliché of all clichés) and that practically anything can happen in practically any moment.  Such moments play regularly in my head.   Not all moments, but I do have some recurring moments that have prompted this blog entry.  Some of these moments are of life and death themes, while others are more narcissistically glorious, but could be delusional and more fitting for my romantic nostalgic personality profile.  Hmmm …

When I was 13 years old, I was riding a horse on a bridge over Notekeu Creek, a mile south of Vanguard, Saskatchewan.  My friend, David, was with me, but he was riding my bike.  Moments earlier we had traded saddles, he was sitting on the saddle of my brand-new bicycle, while I was sitting on his old saddle of his old Clydesdale farm horse.  We were riding south to his place, a spread another mile south of the bridge.  On that bridge I halted the horse while David rode on.  I halted that horse to chat with some buddies below, who were out shooting frogs and birds along the creek.  Dwight and Mike and Philip were in a rowboat, the “Snail,” rowing and smoking and shooting with their 22 rifles.  This was back in the summer of 1964 when every boy in our town owned a 22 rifle, and every boy would be shooting something, gophers or birds or frogs or even tin cans were frequent targets.  On this summer day, while the boys in the boat were chatting with me while I was still riding high above them on my horse, Philip decided to take a couple pot shots my direction, simply to scare me or maybe scare the horse to bucking me off.  Whatever the reason, the boat rocked, the gun tipped, and I got a bullet in my right shoulder.  It went through my shoulder blade and lodged midway to my chest. Another couple inches to the right or left or up or down I would have been dead.  Seeing the blood, the boys clambered from the boat to the bank to assist me as I jumped off the horse in fright.  Dwight was supposed to be delivering groceries for his dad’s store and his delivery vehicle, and old paddy-wagon was near.  They loaded me into the paddy-wagon and drove me to the hospital.

Being shot, never mind being shot off a horse became my notoriety; anybody around Vanguard at that time stills chat about it today.  Now that was a moment.

Another near-death experience moment was when I was hydroplaning on Highway #43 between Vanguard and Gravelbourg, which was 36 miles straight east.  I was enroute from Vanguard via Gravelbourg and Moose Jaw to Regina; I was a university student.  I was cruising in my 1968 Ambassador, a lit cigarette in my mouth, and pouring rain over the countryside, without my seatbelt fastened.  The car began to drift toward the right and I vividly recall deciding if I should let go the steering wheel to fasten my seatbelt, imagining the car would very soon hit the shoulder of the highway then roll once or twice or thrice in the ditch.  Time stood still, or at the very least I was experiencing a time expansion moment.  I did nothing because instead of hitting the shoulder, the car kept spinning, rear wheels to the left lane then continuing counter-clockwise into the right lane until I was actually speeding down the highway in reverse, the car heading straight east in the right lane, and me, facing west still directly behind the steering wheel.  And then the car slowed and stopped.  I righted the car, drove slowly down the highway until I pulled over at an approach, stopped the car, got out, and smoked a couple of cigarettes.  I could barely get them lit because my hands were shaking so badly.  I have never exceeded the posted speed limit since that date, and I always adjust my driving speed according to the weather. 

And I’ve had moments of glory.  All my life I loved to skate, and I loved playing hockey.  Seventeen years old I was playing in a hockey tournament in Neville, Saskatchewan.  Neville is 16 miles on #43 Highway practically straight west from Vanguard, the same highway on which I was hydroplaning last paragraph.  Those years I played defense for the Vanguard Eagles of the Notekeu Hockey League, or as I still refer to it today, the NHL.  Well in that one game, it was not the final game but one in the preliminary round, I scored four goals.  And I remember especially my last goal in that game, carrying the puck around the back of our net, then stickhandling past Melvin (a friend and player of the Neville team), going coast to coast and deking the goalie for a score.  That game and that moment I was Bobby Orr.  

In 1985 I had my book, A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY, published by the Guidance Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto.  A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY was a series of letters ostensibly from one Jereboam Smiley, soon-to-be-superannuated Guidance Counsellor at Wishbone High, to his successor, Neil Child.  The letters were fictional, Jereboam Smiley was fictional, and Neil Child (moi) was a newly appointed guidance counsellor at Balfour Collegiate, here in Regina.  Sales for this book were not brisk, so nor were my royalties.  I did make some money, more like a pittance, but my social status and social capital amongst my peers in the counselling community rose to the status of those of thin and wispy in the sky stratus clouds.  They (stratus) are the lowest-lying cloud type, but I was in heaven.

And my last moment to describe was 17 years ago when Baron (my busk-mate son) and Craig (owner of Crave Kitchen Bar in Regina) and I were loading the van to go on my very first buskation.  We were headed to Victoria, British Columbia, where we had rented a small house very close to the downtown, my plan was to busk there for the summer.  Once there, every morning Baron and I would lift weights at Club Phoenix, a gym in downtown Victoria, afterwards followed by breakfast, and then a look at the ship schedules, what times the ships carrying upwards of 2000 passengers, would be unloading these potential consumers onto the streets of downtown Victoria.  This was our daily routine.  This is when and where I learned how to guitar busk on the street.  This experience was glorious.  Every moment of this entire buskation experience was priceless.  Since that summer, I have been busking in The Netherlands, in Ireland, and in Morocco, with both my guitar and my sketchpad. And therefore, I fancy myself as a wannabee planetary busker.

I would advise anyone who is reading this to make every moment count.  But I am not an advisor and as a hypnotherapist, I NEVER GIVE ADVICE.  However, as a hypnotherapist I can certainly suggest to anyone and everyone, to at least think of every action you are doing in any given moment.  Offering such a suggestion is in the spirit of Zen … or Mindfulness … or even Carpe Diem, which translates to grasp, seize, and enjoy the day!

Ah yes.  As per usual, this essay is ALL ABOUT ME.  Always am I filled with bluster and oftentimes I offer myself the opportunity to bloviate in my blog.  My empirical self-manded lessons in all of this are becoming a constant, a kind of empirical educentrism – translated by me to keep moving and keep learning.  Now that I am 71, soon to be 72 years of age, I know I suffer existential dread as I’ve previously confessed at the start of this blog entry, because I am so aware that life is both fun and fugacious. 

My senior existential epiphany:  

I ACHE FOR MOMENTS OF FUN UNTIL I AM FINIS ...

MARCHING MOMENTS in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

LARRY AND BRENT

A LONG TIME AGO

I'VE DISCOVERED WINTER BIKING

FINN, MY BUDDY'S PUP

HALEY, ANOTHER BUDDY'S GIRLFRIEND

SEVEN POUNDS UNTIL SUMMER: SUMER IS ICUMEN IN WITH SIX-PACK ABS

 

AT THE CURE

My blog title today is my new mid-section mantra:  Seven pounds until summer:  sumer is icumen in with six-pack abs. This “Sumer is icumen in” is from my university English Medieval Literature days: The Cuckoo Song (W. de Wycombe, 1261).

Note, dear reader, that I am not stating the obvious pun of Middle Ages and my mid-section because I am no longer middle-aged, and therefore no longer burdened with a middle-aged mid-section. Alas, and certainly not by my design, I have become a senior citizen with a noticeably bulging mid-section.  (I only mentioned my mid-section along with Middle Ages as my tactical employment of “apophasis,” that literary device that allows me the pleasure of mentioning something by saying I will not mention it. For example, dear readers, I will not remind you that I am a very gifted busker both with my pencil and guitar.  Such bragging is not endearing to anyone in my reading audience.)  So, saying this, “seven pounds until summer, and sumer is icumen in with six-pack abs” shall begrudgingly suffice.  Busking outside in the sunshine wearing blue jeans and white t-shirt, looking good (physically) becomes my signature costume.  Enacting this alterity becomes my busking persona.

BUSKING IN 2016

Summer is, indeed, coming in and I think, too, so are my imaginary thorax six-pack abs soon becoming my reality.  I claim to be neither an authority on food nor fitness.  Nope.  I am not a nutritionist – I am a foodie; I am not a fitness trainer – I am a fitness freak.  Being quite into fitness since the early ‘70s, I know for me that weight loss can be accomplished through better eating habits than by better fitness habits.

You need to burn 3500 calories to lose one pound of weight.  To burn 3500 calories demands physical and psychological exercise. Here is the skinny on calories and weight loss. For example:  Ten thousand steps will burn 500 calories.  Ten thousand steps per day for one week (500 calories X 7 = 3500 calories) will burn one pound of body weight.  That is a lot of walking!

*A disclaimer at this point is necessary:  Not that an exercise regimen should not be included in any weight loss, I am just stating that weight loss by design ought to begin with a change-up of eating behaviors.

I shall repeat: Weight loss can be accomplished through better eating habits than by better fitness habits. Deciding to count and document my daily calories should curb my enthusiasm for gormandizing.  I am convinced that the skinny of weight loss is to adopt better eating habits, and that means consuming fewer calories until gaining the desired weight loss. The Harvard Health Guide (Harvard University) offers a trick to measure the necessary daily caloric intake to maintain a person’s body weight: 

Simply multiply your body weight by 15. 

For me then, 172 pounds X 15 = 2580 calories per day. 

I am dangerously determining that weight loss can easily be calculated by likening my body to a bank, and then monitoring a caloric bank-body account, so to speak.  To keep my weight as is, I need to consume 2580 calories per day.  Depositing more than 2580 calories daily into my body account will result in a weight gain, whereas, depositing fewer calories into my body account will result in a weight loss.  I guess we shall soon see!

MARCH 21^ST

On this first full day of spring, upon wakening at 5:30 A.M. I carried on my morning coffee ritual. I sipped an Americano coffee (15 cal) and then a cappuccino (55 cal) while reading the latest news (CNN, Huffington Post, Al Jazzera, NBC, ABC, and even FOX) on my iPhone.  Typically, I after following the newsfeeds, I ten-minute a bout of French with Duolingo, a scroll through my Instagram, and I close with the today obituaries.   At 10:30ish I drank two glasses of water and one cup of hot chocolate (200 cal) and chomped two bananas (200 cal).  Lunchtime I consumed one bowl of lettuce salad (20 cal) and three very small barbequed chicken breasts (300 cal).  Suppertime, I devoured two bowls of hamburger stew (200 cal), along with two thinly buttered dinner buns, and an hour later followed by a Tim Hortons London Fog (150 cal).  I had a protein shake (110 cal) for a nightcap.

Total calories = 1435

Weight today: 172.0 pounds

MARCH 22^ND

5:30 A.M. I read the blah blah Trump news on my iPhone while sipping two cups of Americano coffee (30 cal).  At 8:00 A.M. I drank a Tim Hortons medium size hot chocolate (200 cal) and at 10:00 A.M. had a banana (100 cal).  Lunchtime I helped myself to two slices of French toast poured over with a thimbleful of syrup (500 cal).    Suppertime I had two slices of hamburger pizza (600 cal), washed down with a fruit smoothie (150 cal).  An hour later I gulped down a London Fog (150 cal), and just before bed I munched two bowls of plain nachos smothered in salsa (600 cal) while watching Ted Lasso on the telly.

Total calories = 2330

Weight today: 170.0 pounds

(So far so good!)

MARCH 23^RD

5:30 A.M. Caught up on my Instagram while sipping two cappuccinos (110 cal).  At work I quaffed a hot chocolate (150 cal) and skipped the usual banana.  Lunchtime I ate two small bowls of chile (500 cal) washed down with two cups of cold Adam’s Ale.  Instead of supper I had a London Fog from Tim Hortons (150 cal) and later on a bowl of dried apricots (500 cal), two bowls of plain nachos with salsa (600 cal), all of which washed down with a chocolate protein drink (170 cal).

Total calories = 2180

Weight today: 169.0 pounds

(Hmmm. Getting there …)

All of this above is not an Aesopian tale.  This blog entry has no hidden meaning or message. Regarding this food-stand (pun intended), I must proclaim that I am not your pedestrian-thinking mugwamp! (A mugwamp is one who is undecided.  A mugwamp is one who is a fence-sitter, whose mug is on one side and whose wump is on the other!)

The skinny of my seven – pound weight loss proposal is simply this:  In my typical narcissistic fashion, I do not want to ever experience the social stigma of being the old guy with the skinny arms and the paunch. Rather, I do want to be and only want to be (my narcissism exposed) that guy with the six-pack abs!

And based upon my personal empirical evidence, to become that guy with the six-pack abs, I need to cut the junk food. 

NO MORE CHIPS + NO MORE CHOCOLATE

 = SIX-PACK ABS!

 "Sumer Is Icumen In!"

EXISTENTIAL DREAD: 'TIL DEATH DO US PART

 

BARON AND SELF AT THE CURE

I am getting old enough to know that age is not just a number.  Oh sure, I still run and swim and box and downhill ski and ride my bike, but I am not delusional about my aging.  I know that my life is finite, and my personal aging I have classified as a classic YIN and YANG life scenario.  I live until I die.  Or to put it into a more universal perspective: WE LIVE until WE DIE.

Existential dread?  Hmmm … maybe.  Methinks if such thoughts were continuously tormenting me, then this would be existential dread.  However, until such time of torment, I shall simply refer to it as existential awareness.

Looking around, I cannot help but be existentially aware, as I see others of my folk singer-songwriter ilk in age, certainly not in ability, still hitting the stage.  Still thrumming and strumming and singing are American singer-songwriters KRIS KRISTOFFERSON and BOBBY DYLAN, who are 86 and 79 years old, respectively, and Canadian singer-songwriters GORDON LIGHTFOOT, NEIL YOUNG, and ROBBIE ROBERTSON, who are 84, 77, and 79 years old, respectively.

Sadly, my all-time favorite, IAN TYSON, just recently exited stage left when he died at 89.

Please note, dear reader, that I dare compare myself to the likes of Kristofferson, Dylan, Lightfoot, Young, Robertson, and Tyson because we are all plotted along, in linear fashion, the same singer-songwriter continuum, left to right in terms of quality, left to right in terms of my Yin-Yang world of life and death.

In my YIN-YANG world, the live folks are YANG; IAN TYSON is YIN.

IAN TYSON BACK IN THE '60S

Enough of this – ‘Tis time for more yang.  Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

First up is Lily.  Lovely, lovely, Lily.  Lily is a stand-up comedian who frequents several stages in and around Regina.  She is witty; she is funny; she is ever-efficient and effervescent; she is the fast-on-her-feet host of open mics at THE CURE, a bar in downtown REGINA SK.

LILY

And then comes David, another stand-up comedian marching in my parade.  David is funny, funny, funny and his squeaky-clean stage humor appeals to practically every member of his audience.  David, like Lily, is a regular host at my favorite open mic, THE CURE in downtown Regina.

DAVID

Next marching in my parade is Rebecca, who has an office just down the street from my workplace.  Rebecca is academically brilliant.  This I know for sure -- she was a student in one of the Psychology classes when I was a sessional professor at the University of Regina. Currently, she is very well-known and always a very sought after policy analyst for a national organization.  

REBECCA

Of course, in the spirit of this blog title, EXISTENTIAL DREAD: ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART, I just had to draw my publisher’s mom, who just recently parted.

MY PUBLISHER'S MOM

The last marcher is my childhood friend, Larry, the TEENAGE IDOL and HOCKEY LEGEND of our hometown who, too, just recently departed.  Larry was tall, dark, and Hollywood handsome, a super athlete who played in the Western Hockey League (REGINA PATS) when he was just 15 years old.  In every regard, Larry was THE GUY.

LARRY

And here I am, still YANG in lots of ways.  Actively reflecting on this, for whatever reasons my avocations of hypnotherapy and skiing and writing are slowly but surely transforming into my vocations.  Reflecting on this, as my infirm will wax, my bailiwick of blogs and bluster will wane.   Introspectively, I must close by channeling Satchel Paige:

How old would I be if I didn’t know how old I was?  

I should not really be looking back too much because something existentially dreadful might be gaining on me!