AGEISM -- IT JUST NEVER GETS OLD

MY BOYS AND I SWIMMING IN OKANAGAN LAKE
LEFT - RIGHT AGES 47, 38, 71, 41

AGEISM.  That prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age.

Factoid: 82% of Americans 50 years and older say they have experienced prejudice, discrimination, or stereotyping based on ageism (University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, July 2020).

Factoid: “One thing Americans agree on?  Our politicians are too old” (Chris Cillizza, CNN).  American president, Joe Biden, is 79.  Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is 82.  Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer is 71.  Mitch McConnell is 80.  Donald Trump is 76.  And how about across the sea? Queen Elizabeth just died at 96.  Her son, King Charles III is 73.

Factoid:  We are all suffering from ageism because all of us are aging.  And regarding prejudice, I experience ageism all the time, never toward me, but instead self-inflicted and self-professed by my aged peers toward themselves!

Well you know, Neil, now I’m getting on my aches and pains just don’t ever go away … (a 74-year-old relative who now blames her senior age on everything that goes awry in her life).

No band needs a 70-year-old bass player … (an 81-year-old former bandmate who still wants to gig but has burnt just too many musical bridges, not as a senior, but as a middle-ager).

When you’re old you become invisible … (a very disgruntled 80-something former colleague, a superannuated English Literature teacher who was never effervescent not even in his youth, at least not in the years I worked alongside him).

I could go on and on but then I would be behaving like that stereotypical old person who simply repeats himself repeats himself repeats himself.

B.F. Skinner (American psychologist) said that for a person to get old, that person just must act old. To get old then, a person can simply be someone who always is complaining about an ache or pain, someone who always is wanting assistance or is always needing help in some physical regard (entering and exiting a vehicle for example).  Yes, acting old will get you old.  I shall point out that Skinner was a behavior psychologist.

Another news feed I just read yesterday stated that 73% of our population holds biased attitudes towards older people. Really? DUH. Of course, they do.  Typically, there are lots of older people who are literally slowing up those who are striving to thrive on zoom-time.  Just check out the queue of old people on any senior shopping day, holding up the customer lines by arguing over product prices, or buying exorbitant amounts of lottery tickets, by counting their coins one-by-one as they delicately retrieve them from their purses or pockets.  Stereotypically, these same fogies in the store are those who drive to the store, the whole trip having their left turn-signal blinking and blinking and blinking.

But I am not writing this to demean or defeat old age, I am writing this only to defy ageism on personal terms.  I know such a mission cannot be accomplished by reflecting on my past through the lens of romantic nostalgia.  Yes, yes, yes, when I was a young man, I was a social magnet and great fun to be around.  I was 6’1” and 185 pounds of muscle with sun-bleached hair and a California-baked body.  And blah blah blah I was Adonis! 

“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you,” said the baseball great, Leroy Satchel Paige.  I know that wallowing in reminiscence can only take me backward, providing too easy an opportunity to live out my days in the wrong direction. Even just talking about the good ol’ days is a stereotypical trait assigned to old people.  I do not want to be that old guy who tells stories about the high snowbanks and endless summers in the much better but much harder times of yesteryear.  Acting old is getting old.  Nope. I am not there yet.

Hmmm.  But I am on my way.

As I age, I am suffering the conventional maladies.  I have a bad memory for people’s names.  To compensate or accommodate myself in this regard I always resort to mnemonics.  For example, if I meet a “Rose” I try to encrypt an image of “Rose” doing something with her “nose.”  This mnemonic something could range to anything from Rose scratching to blowing or even picking her nose.

My eyesight is failing.  In my middle-age I became far-sighted, literally, not necessarily metaphorically.  Due to my farsightedness, my optometrist recommended mono-vision, the employment of just one contact (reading) lens placed upon my dominant left eye.  To describe this I explain that if one were to purchase a pair of reading glasses from a drugstore or anywhere actually, and then just punch out the right lens before placing them on the face, this is the look that I live on a dailies basis (pun intended).

Oftentimes I suffer mental fatigue.  This is likely because I am always in thought, and one of my recurring thoughts being existential dread.  And I am convinced this is prompted not by my age, but by my philosophical woolgathering of other things, including the meaning of life (who does not want to know if a passion can become a source of money), the purpose of religion (who wants this life to be is that all there is), and the reasons for my going to the gym (unless one is an athlete whose job depends upon strength, flexibility, and fitness, all others go to the gym simply to look good). Note to self and to everyone: Evolutionary Psychology suggests our only purpose for being is to procreate and continue the species; therefore, going to the gym to look good is an innate drive to attract a mate.

And oftentimes I suffer physical fatigue.  Factoid:  Though I now pound fewer miles on the road than I used to -- In the ‘80s I ran ten miles a day; in the ‘90s I ran five miles a day; now I am a fair weather runner, running just three miles or so three times a week and only in summertime.  However, the rest of my fitness regime I have not reduced.  I still lift weights five days a week, and I take private martial arts lessons (Muay Thai) one day per week.  A couple times a week I am on the street busking with my guitar, and I try to gig once every couple of months at one of the local bars.  Right now, expressing all this recreational activity brings on an epiphany -- no wonder I feel, at times, physically drained!

But alas, we shall see.  I am still at that age that I am more than willing to work as hard as I can for as long as I can.  Factoid:  Calculating my longevity factor through the actuarial sciences, I am now beyond middle age, unless of course, I live another seventy-one years!

At least now I no longer wonder what I will look like when I get old. Other men of my ilk are either balding or pot-bellied or both.  My genetics has certainly favored me in the male-pattern baldness department and my exercise regimen will keep my belly flat.

Here are some personal facts:  I know I will be six feet tall (I have lost an inch somewhere).  I know I will weigh 160 pounds (I have lost 25 pounds somewhere).  I know I will have a shock of platinum hair (I have lost my brown hair), and I know I will not be dining at Swiss Chalet (I have not lost my taste in downtown fine dining).  I know that I will not be quantum fit, but most certainly be close to super fit (I will have a fitness addiction).  I know that I will place above the 95^th percentile range within my age group (I measure my body fat percentage on a regular basis).  With authority, too, I can state that my mental and physical fitness when measured against the age groups below me, still have me hovering above the 90^th percentile (I am full of bluster such as this).

“Let’s hang on to what we’ve got” sang The Four Seasons.  Well, I want to hold on to what I have got.  I want to continue doing the things I love to do.  Some of my closest friends who are retirees continually ask me when I plan to retire.  But I still love going to work every day and hanging out with my colleagues and clients, while at the same I still love leaving work every day to get to the gym or the park.  B.F. Skinner (my favorite American psychologist) thought that it was a mistake for people to retire at all! I tend to agree with him specifically about me, but never about others.  What others think, what others do, is others’ business. 

I never shall deign to that middle-class misadventure called retirement.  The world is still my demesne.  I will do as I like for as long as I live. 

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

While out busking I met Luthier EMERSON, who just recently to Regina from Gravelbourg, SK.

BARON IN THE BELL TOWER

SELF IN THE BELL TOWER

Baron and I were (somewhat) solicited to ring the bell at the KNOX METROPOLITAN CHURCH in downtown Regina. The bell rang for 9 hours and 30 minutes, 25,301 times! Each ring represented one day of reign for QUEEN ELIZABETH II. 

*Please note that we were not ringing that bell to celebrate the British legacies of colonialism in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.  We were prompted only by Quasimodo curiosity and the pleasurable tintinnabulation.      

 

 

GUITAR BUSKING OR PORTRAIT BUSKING: DECISIONS DECISIONS.

AN EVENING BUSK

For me, busking season is in full strum!  I have slung my guitar to my favorite haunts at least a dozen times since the munificent prairie weather began. For me, there is no better way to practice my guitar skills than to go on a busk.  When busking, I get paid to practice!  In my reality, busking is always a mercenary adventure. 

However, every time I run or walk by the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, and I do so every day, I have a yen to portrait busk.  Such a perfect setting for drawing a person’s visage and having that Legislative Building as the backdrop!

SASKATCHEWAN LEGISLATIVE BUILDING

And now my good fortune: To busk with my guitar, or to busk with my pencil.  Decisions, decisions.

Such a situation should be simple to solve, especially if I really think about it and break it up into these qualitative categories: technical skills, tactical skills, time economy, and social acceptance.

• Technical Skills 

Prerequisite skills are necessary for both busking endeavors.  For guitar busking being able to strum some chords, along with singing and/or harping, is a must for making big money.  Those busking with a guitar but without these technical skills are just beggars with guitars.  Saying this, people will toss coin, out of pity, to a beggar with a guitar, but people will toss more coin to an obviously talented street musician.

Factoid:  Learning a few cowboy chords, C-G-D-Em-Am-F, on the guitar is a rather simple process (practice, practice, practice) and from just these, one can thrum and sing or hum a hundred songs.

Now having the skill to draw a person’s face and have that drawing closely resemble the person does take skill, and a tremendous skill at that (if I do say so myself).  Such a talent does not come easy.  I know a slew of visual artists who either draw or paint landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes, but cannot draw portraits.  Portrait busking is a high technical skill, especially on the street.

Factoid:  Drawing a person’s likeness is challenging at the best of times, never mind when a self-imposed ten-minute time limit is attached.

• Tactical Skills

Guitar buskers need high traffic to make money.  And so, guitar buskers should know where and when the best buskspots are for the highest pedestrian traffic.  Oftentimes, this is determined by the type of community.  If one is busking in a tourist hot spot, anywhere and anytime downtown will fit the bill.  If one is not in a tourist community, noon hours and supper hours are the best, provided the buskspot is in front of a grocery store or liquor store or drug mart.  If the buskspot is at a mall entrance, then anytime is fine.

Factoid: Liquor stores, drug marts, corner grocers are perfect settings for buskers during the noon and supper hours.  Of these buskspot choices, liquor stores by far, provide the most profit for the guitar busker.

Portrait busking needs the high traffic but not the same setting as the guitar busker.  The portrait busker needs a slow setting, a park or somewhere similar.  Noon hours are good, but supper hours not so much.  The portrait busker needs the pedestrian high traffic but not the pedestrian urgent pace.

Factoid:  None of these places where a guitar busker typically sets up would be very profitable for a portrait artist.  These places are just too zippy, people arriving to purchase and then leaving.  And setting up a drawing space would be clunky and cluttering and intrusive.  Better to be drawing in a park, a more relaxed non-bustle buskspot.

• Time Economy

When guitar busking people simply toss their coins into my guitar case as they pass by.  Some passers-by-consumers may stop to chat, but only for a minute or two at most.  Never have I drawn a crowd busking in front of a vendor’s entrance.  And only sometimes have I drawn a crowd busking in a park, Victoria Park close to my condo, and on non-busking occasions while thrumming on a bench in Wascana Park.  Whenever I guitar busk I stay 60 – 90 minutes only at any particular buskspot. 

Factoid: Though I am there for 90 minutes max, it takes just seconds for even my most generous consumers to throw coin or bills my way.  Guitar busking, take is usually $40 - $60 dollars per 90 minutes.

My consumers for portrait busking, on the other hand, take longer.  Drawing anyone takes me 10 – 15 minutes!  This is an eternity when I compare to the time economy of guitar busking.  This means 10 – 15 minutes to be paid.  Mathematically, from a point of profit, say I take 15 minutes per portrait. 

Factoid: If I am busy, and there is usually a line-up, that means four portraits per hour which translates to 60 dollars an hour, like my take playing my guitar and harp.

• Weather 

As a hiker I abide by the expression, “there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad dress.”  As a busker I know there is a simple formula.  When the weather is clement, windless, and sunny, my consumers are munificent – when the weather is inclement, my consumers are miserly.  I believe this inclement-weather stinginess is the result of people wanting, not to linger, spent as little time as possible in miserable weather conditions.  In rainy weather I cannot busk.  Period.  In cold weather, temperatures as low as 10 degrees, I can guitar busk, but I cannot portrait busk.  In windy weather I can (with adjustment) guitar busk, but I cannot portrait busk.

Factoid:  I have attempted to fancy myself as a brutto-tempo busker.  To become this, in the past I have traded my guitar for a didgeridoo and droned while wearing my mittens.  Actually this worked out very well, not really sure why I have been reluctant to replicate such a busking behavior.

Factoid:  I cannot stand being out in the cold (two puns intended).  Dressing comfortably while at the same time looking cool is a high skillset.  Over the years I have evolved to accomplish this.  There is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad dress.  Busking, I have no bad dress.  I dress always (and always in fashion too) for the weather.

• Social Value

Among the hoi polloi, there is vertically measured social strata hierarchy. Moving from left to right on this social appreciation street continuum, first there are the perceived dregs, a group nobody seems to appreciate.  These are the unkempt who stagger and stumble and mumble and bump into people.  Toward the right of the dregs are the beggars who stagger and orally solicit for food or coffee money.  Vertically more to the right are the panners (panhandlers), who stand or sit cap-in-hand hoping for coins.  And farthest to the right on this continuum are the street buskers.

Just yesterday, as I packed up my guitar, finishing my one-hour busk, a couple of middle-aged men approached and informed me that they were going to busk.  Within minutes both were sprawled along the sidewalk, their legs stretched almost blocking the entrance, and their backs leaning against the store glass.  One of them was blowing cacophony out of his harmonica.  Not to besmirch these two, too much, but yikes.  

The collective social prestige of all the above mentioned is somewhat low but rising the farther right they are plotted on the social strata continuum. All these groups can be quite entertaining, and sadistically, this would include the dregs, the lowest group, as indicated which I have plotted on the far left.  The buskers, on the other hand, are meant to be entertaining from any social point of view.

Factoid:  Guitar buskers are often referred to as beggars with guitars.  Always, I am attempting to dispel this notion, not in the general sense, but only selfishly in the brackets-around-me personal sense.

Factoid:  As a portrait busker, I sense of higher public appreciation for me when compared to my guitar-busker self.

And after having this empirical evidence in my busking brain for over a couple of decades, my being recognized as a portrait busker is regarded in a much higher esteem than my being recognized as a guitar busker.  However, for me, portrait busking is also a much higher challenge than my lissom guitar busking. 

Portrait busking is moil and toil, whereas guitar busking is as effortless as the perfunctory nods I offer those with whomever I have eye contact. Though ofttimes tempting because of the recognized social value of being a portrait (street) artist, but being the rather lazy person that I fundamentally am, and ever abiding by my mea culpa of minimum effort for the maximum return, I doubt that I will ever completely jettison guitar busking in trade for portrait busking.

I do confess though, there is much, much joy in handing a consumer a likeness that I have drawn.  And after drawing over a thousand faces I love to brag over and over again that "My pencil never lies!"

A PORTRAIT BUSK FROM OVER TEN YEARS AGO

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this past week is just moi, performing at a couple of gigs. 

                            

GOING SOLO AT A RETIREMENT RECEPTION

WITH MY BUSKMATE, BARON, AT OUR REGINA FLORAL CONSERVATORY GIG 

NIETZSCHE IS PIETZSCHE BUT SARTRE IS SMARTRE: THE MEANING OF BUSKING IN A MEANINGLESS LIFE

 

PRACTICING MY NEW BUSKING SONG

SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855), FRIEDRICH NIETZCHE (1844-1900), MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976), JEAN-PAUL SARTE (1905-1980), SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908-1986), ALBERT CAMUS (1913-1960).  All are famous -- All are existentialists.

Kierkegaard, the founder of Christian existentialism, was famous for his analysis of such key concepts as absurdity, anguish, authenticity, and the weight of responsibility we bear for our choices. Nietzsche, who announced the death of God, sought to create value rather than to seek value for the meaning of life. Heidegger, a big fan of Phenomenology, must be my favorite existentialist. Sartre, also a famous playwright, presented there is no fixed design for how a human should be, and there is no God to give any human a particular purpose.  De Beauvoir was an existential feminist who asserted, of course, that women were as capable of choice as men.  And Camus, noted for being a handsome woman magnet, presented that death was the greatest injustice, and he, ironically, died at 47 years young.

In a line, EXISTENTIALISM is the heterodox belief that we inhabit an absurd and illogical world, upon which we have the complete freedom to define ourselves, each of us being solely responsible for creating any meaning in our lives.

Existentialism has three core principles:  PHENOMENOLOGY, FREEDOM, AUTHENTICITY.

Phenomenology is the philosophical movement that examines the consciousness and experience, with an emphasis on the first-person perspective in understanding ourselves and the world around us.  (I once wrote a graduate paper stating that Phenomenology, Existentialism, and Zen were synonymous, all one and the same.  If I were to write that paper today I could include Mindfulness in the mix.)

Freedom is the founding value of Existentialism.  Decisions with the regard to who we are and who we want to be are singularly ours make. Our world and the entire universe are devoid of direction.  (Could it then be that this “condemned” freedom is the source of all our anxieties? The source of our inner chaos?)

Authenticity is necessary for us to overcome all our anxieties, which in turn is caused when we have recognized that we have total freedom.  Factoid:  We are mortals who will one day die.  (Knowing this, in keeping genuine, do we need never to be bowing down to anything that compromises our personal freedom? Or that compromises our authenticity?)

Now to busking.

With direct regard to phenomenology, freedom, and authenticity, a busker is the quintessential existentialist.  I repeat:  A busker is the quintessential existentialist. I am referring not to the beggar-with-a-guitar ones, and not the strictly mercenary strum-never-smile ones.  I am referring to buskers like me.  YIKES.  In my typical autobiographical writing fashion, I AM REFERRING TO ME!

Nobody is a better student of phenomenology than a busker. Clients in my hypnotherapy practice always experience time-condensation, their sessions feeling much faster than their actual time spent.  This time-condensation concept is the same for busking.  Whenever I busk, time flies.  It flies because I focus, focus, focus on my performing and focus, too, on my passers-by should they stop and chat. My foci PEOPLE FIRST – PERFORMANCE SECOND also happens my busking motto. 

Nobody represents freedom better than a busker.  When I am thrumming away and when people come up to me and chat, they always ask me where I am from and how long have I been doing this.  I sense that I do represent for them, that stranger-comes-to-town motif.  I am the personification of travel and adventure.  I represent their yen, their romantic notion for the person they long to be.

Nobody doing business displays more authenticity than a real busker.  Think about it.  A busker standing alone in a public space and throwing it all out there, for anyone to see, for anyone to demean.  It takes a lot of jam to be a busker.  Anytime I hit the street I am setting myself up for absolute bliss peppered with times of torment.  While out guitar busking, I have had people applaud -- I have had people take a punch at me.  Such is the yin-yang life of a genuine busker.

Here is my umpteenth draft of my newest song, “A STRANGER COMES TO TOWN.”

"A Stranger Comes to Town"

The stranger in the song, of course, is me.  (Oftentimes I am the protagonist in my works, this blog and this stranger song included.)  The stranger in this song arrives with the rising sun, with his weathered guitar and Dylan harmonica.  When his work is finished, the stranger leaves in the in the setting sun.  As in all my songs, in the last verse is there is a twist. The listener will realize that I, the singer, am the stranger, and that every morning when I wake, I strive to be that perfect stranger in my alterity.  

Without repine, in this meaningless and acephalous life, I have created meaning for myself by being a hiker, a writer, a hypnotherapist, a planetary busker.  

AND WHENEVER I AM BUSKING, I TRY TO BE THAT PERFECT STRANGER!

BUSKING, OPEN MICS, GIGS: THE UNWRITTEN CODES

 

DREW CALLANDER -- MY LONGTIME HOCKEY BUDDY

ROOKIE DREW CALLANDER -- NHL PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

CHERYL -- LONGTIME MANAGER AT THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB

CHERYL SERVING "CHERYL'S BLONDE ALE"

BUSKING. OPEN MICS. GIGS.  All three venues are on a boustrophedon entertainment continuum that begins and ends with BUSKING, and with the OPEN-MICS and GIGS intermittently noted somewhere in between.

BUSKING, OPEN-MICS, and GIGS should always be a win-win-win scenario for the performer, the patron, and the proprietor, provided these following simple rules of business are practiced: 

• BE PUNCTUAL  

Punctuality matters.

When you decide to go BUSKING, it is you alone who runs the clock.  One of the main reasons I love busking is that I, alone, control the time.  I can go for five minutes or five hours; it is only up to me to decide.  Nobody will care. 

OPEN MICS are stricter.  When the MC calls your name, you must rise for the occasion.  If your name is called from the hat but you are not in your seat, then it is sayonara for you.  And the person whose name is called next is up. 

GIGS are more rigid than open mics.  If you are scheduled to hit the stage at 8:00 P.M., then your sound check needs to be at least 15 minutes ahead of that.  And to be really prepared, one should arrive at least a half hour earlier to check the stage for sound or chairs or whatever else that could go awry without a pre-gig inspection.

• MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION

Looks matter.

When I go BUSKING I always dress the part.  When busking I present my perfect-stranger alterity to that slew of passers-by who just happen to be, really, perfect strangers.  Expressing that alterity my busking costume is rather crisp.  Always hatless, I don the shades, the white t-shirt, the faded blue-jeans and the leather work boots.

At OPEN MICS it is best to look sharp.  There is no tolerance for being grimy or grubby on the stage.  However, at open mics, generally, the audience members will tolerate you no matter what, but if being discovered is your goal, if you look like a dreg, you’ll be only discovered as a performer not to pursue. 

Making a good first impression at your GIG is a stage priority.  When gigging you are representing more than yourself, you are also representing the establishment for which you are signed on the contract.  Impress both your audience and the establishment. If you are a good ambassador and deliver a quality product, you will be asked back.  If not, then you will be saying good-bye to any other gigs at this venue. 

• ALWAYS BE POLITE

Respect everyone.

When BUSKING attempt to look every passer-by in the eye, even if just for a moment.  This does not mean to disconcertedly stare.  Whether you are recognized as a wandering minstrel or perceived to be the lowly busker, acknowledging another person’s existence is of the utmost importance.  Treating others with respect is treating yourself with respect.  This is projective psychology relating to BUSKING, OPEN MICS, and GIGGING.

At OPEN MICS it is very, very important to show respect for both the MC and the sound person.  Factoid:  You really need them more than they need you.  For sure the open mic personnel need the collective you, but they certainly do not need the individual jerk you.  I have a couple examples of jerk-you behaviors.  I have witnessed open mic performers publicly on the microphone complain about the physical aspect of the stage, too many chairs, too many cords, too low the sound.  And I have witnessed the arrogance of many open mic performers appealing to the audience, rather than the MC, in their feeble and disgusting attempt as they lobby for more than their allotted stage time.  For example, the best-by-far open mic in my city is every Monday night at THE CURE (downtown Regina).  Stand-ups are allowed a maximum of five minutes stage time, and musicians limited to two songs.  Oftentimes, the stand-ups exceed their five minutes by adding maybe a couple minutes at most.  Musicians, on the other hand, oftentimes deliver anthem-length songs, and some musicians, even, appeal to the audience to whether to add yet another (third) song.  An open mic is certainly a place to be somewhat capricious, but to act socially irresponsible on a whim in this manner, is downright narcissism.

At GIGS one needs to exude respect toward the audience, the venue staff, the sound person, and your gig mates.  Sincerely thanking all the above right at the beginning and again at the end of your show is an essential gesture of social and professional etiquette.  I say “professional” because anyone gigging is under a paid contract and therefore acting in a professional capacity.

•          BE MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU SAY

 Words matter.

While BUSKING there is always someone approaching me, even baiting me wittingly or unwittingly, what I think of this or what I think of that.  Lately the baiting has included the topics of Covid vaccinations, the patriotism of truckers, and, of course, Trumpism in America.  I must, too, the discussions of missing Indigenous women and buried Indigenous children.  Showing empathy and expression compassion is certainly appropriate, however, to actual engage and take sides in banters about politics or religion or sexuality is a no-no, at least for me.  If you do mention certain topics even in humorous fashion, you are asking for socially awkward and embarrassing shout-outs.

Expressing any of the above-mentioned topics while on the OPEN MIC stage is, too, a no-no.  If you dare to, you will for sure be offending somebody.  Everybody in your audience counts.  Never attempt to please or impress the imagined majority by making fun of the few.

I remember a specific incident long ago, while some friends of mine were GIGGING at a local bar. I was an audience member, but only as a support for these guys, who were former bandmates of mine and of each other, and who had just created a new cover band.  This was their first gig, and introducing one of their songs, the lead guitarist mentioned that this Elton John song, “was on top of the charts when Elton was married to a female.”  Yikes.  Right his stock dropped; his social capital compromised.

And just a couple things to remember before I close. 

Do not pump your audience!  “Are you ready to rock!” is an expression that ought to be used only by real rock stars.  Over the years I have seen people modify this expression to their own personalized cliché introduction.  This phrase, or any phrase similar, shouted out to the audience right away reduces my expectations of any performer at an OPEN MIC or GIG.

Do not promote other venues!

While at OPEN MICS or GIGS, some performers feel compelled to promote other venues.  This may seem a harmless gesture, but it is very disrespectful toward the establishment upon whose stage such a proclamation is made.  Just lately, while gigging at a local bar, one of my gig-mates announced to the bar patrons that they ought to consider attending a Monday night open-mic at such-and-such venue! Can you imagine?  At a paid gig, a performer on contract announcing to the crowd to attend a show, and to eat and drink and watch other artists elsewhere?

Yikes.

(I will mention that when I am BUSKING, I often promote my favorite guitar shop, B Sharp in Regina, SK)

In summary:

I regard BUSKING as an easy venue where I get paid to practice.  

Any OPEN MIC is the perfect place to polish one’s stage presence and to test new songs.  

For paid GIGS ... 

NOTHING is de minimis – 

EVERYTHING, including every gesture and every word, is significant.

MY PERSONALITY IS MY SOCIAL CONSTRUCT: SO FAR SO COOL

 

ADAM HICKS -- SOUTHLAND BUSKER BOSS

In this essay I am purporting that one’s personality is simply an interpretation (by others) of one’s collective behaviors.  This is hardly a unique notion, and yet not one necessarily embraced, never mind thought about, by the pedestrian collective.  This notion about what constitutes a personality will be of interest only to those who enjoy reading about psychology, those of you reading this blog entry for example.

While there seems no generally agreed upon definition of personality, most theories focus on motivation and psychological interactions as being the major influences. Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.) suggested humans had a ‘persona.’  Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the Father of Psychology, drew a clear distinction between the human body and the human personality.  Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), founder of Psychoanalysis, suggested our behaviors (and personality) were prompted by our innate exigencies (water, food, shelter, and so on).  Carl Jung (1875-1961), one of Freud’s disciples, insisted that innate exigencies are all part of the collective unconscious of all humans both present and past.  Well, whatever drives us certainly helps others to define our personality.

Whether the consequence of genes or environment or both, PERSONALITY is one’s signature set of behaviors and the social meaning attached to these behaviors. Personality is a social construct, a shared idea that has no inherent meaning, but exists only because people in a group or society have decided this to be the descriptor for somebody’s behavior.  (Other social constructs in my world have included the developmental years of pink for girls and blue for boys, girls playing with dolls and boys playing with trucks; the age of consent for emergent adulthood at 18 years of age; the ritual of marriage; the practice of religion; the notion of time.  Synonyms for social construct include “acceptable practice,” “cultural norm,” “societal norm,” even “tradition.”)

I should add that one’s personality is what determines one’s likeableness, and likeableness, too, is a social trait.  Being friendly, being a good listener, not taking oneself too seriously, and being of open mind, are common traits of likeable people.  On the flip side, unlikeable people do not really listen, take themselves too seriously, and are of closed mind. Likeable people are genuine, unlikeable people disingenuous.  Likeable people are positive and present a friendly face, unlikeable people are negative and smile only when forced.

I am purporting that if we can change our behaviors, we can change our personalities.  Simple changes such as practicing being a better listener or even offering an unwarranted smile will certainly parlay into a more positively perceived personality.   

However, some personal behavioral changes are not so simple to accomplish, in fact very difficult actually, especially if the behaviors have resulted in the deterioration of one’s physical and psychological well being. Excessive drugging and gambling are two such examples.  Oftentimes, for changes in personal and socially detrimental behaviors, one needs the resort of professional counselling, for which, I might add, the success of which is directly related to the client’s desire for change. 

Many psychologists and others in the social service industries believe that human personalities can be measured through quantitative constructions, such as the MYERS-BRIGGS, a personality test that will clunkily and confusedly label us in combinations of extraverts/introverts, sensors/intuitives, thinkers/feelers, and judgers/perceivers.  However, more qualitative junkies such as I, exercise far more faith in the projective type tests including my favorites, the GOODENOUGH DRAW-A-PERSON, DRAW-A-HOUSE, DRAW-A-TREE, and of course, the most famous of all, the RORSCHACH INKBLOT.

Be they charismatic or farouche, if personalities are social constructs, then personality disorders, too, are social constructs.  People suffering personality disorders noticeably have trouble when it comes to relating to situations and people, and this is especially apparent when their behaviors over time continually deviate from main-stream cultural expectations.  Ah, but personality disorders are another ship that I can sail another time.

Hmmm … If I were to enquire about my own personality, I wonder how others would describe me. Quirky or crazy?  Stoic or stupid?   Quaint or cool?

Hmmm ... I will go with cool.  I will take a risk and publicly hypothecate that I am cool.  Yes, cool is admittedly socially and individually subjective, and because I believe that personality is simply a collection of subjective behaviors being judged by others, I shall ask just a few questions to help prove my thesis: Is playing guitar at bar gigs cool?  Is being a Bobby Dylan wannabee, busking with a guitar and harmonica cool?  Or how about the highbrow portrait busking with my pencil and sketchpad?  Is that cool?  Is my job contract working with convicted murderers a cool occupation?  Is being a hypnotherapist, rather than an everyday eclectic counsellor, cool?  Is being a published author, one that has collected significant amounts of royalty dollars, cool?  If the answer to most of these, admittedly autobiographical questions, is a resounding YES, then I am, indeed, a COOL guy, and then COOL quite describes my personality.

Speaking of COOL, there were two cool guys marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

There was ADAM HICKS, pictured above, organizer of the BUSKERFEST on Saturdays at the SOUTHLAND MALL in Regina SK, and there was my friend, ROQUES ANDRES, pictured below, chatting with me while I am busking at the FARMERS MARKET here in REGINA, and chatting with me several years earlier while I was busking at the DAM MARKET in AMSTERDAM!

LOOKING GOOD: EVOLUTION FITNESS AND EVOLUNTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY, MARTIAL ARTS AND MANTIC ART

Currently, I am a member of two gyms, EVOLUTION FITNESS DOWNTOWN for strength and conditioning and ASCENDANT MARTIAL ARTS for Muay Thai kickboxing.

FACTOID:  I have been a gym member practically all my adult life.  I started out my weight training at the University of Regina gym, then joined the Regina YMCA gym, then Gold’s, then Evolution.  I began my martial arts training on a high school mat at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School, then joined Ross Wilkinson Karate in Regina, then Siam Kickboxing (Regina), and now Ascendant Martial Arts.

But why!  Why do I go to the gym?  Why does anyone go to the gym?

In survey after survey when gym members are asked why they go to the gym, they answer with the same recurring reasons: to lose weight, to build or tone muscle, and to socialize.  And perhaps to be more precise, losing weight and gaining muscle could really mean striving for peachy behinds and toned arms or big biceps and steel abs, whereas, the socializing could really mean to be looking for love in all the right places, rather than cruising the nightclubs or dating websites. 

Evolutionary psychologists continually seek to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations – those functional products of natural selection or sexual selection in human evolution.  Staying in this evolutionary mindset, our sole (soul) purpose in life on this planet is simply to seek a mate and continue the species, and when we go to the gym we go only to look good to assist in our pursuit of a mate.

This essay shall focus on this continuing-the-species argument for going to the gym.  And too, without any slight to any member of any sexual community, this essay is about attracting partners for heterosexual couplings, in order to procreate for an evolutionary purpose.   

Okay then.  My reason for going to the gym is based upon LOOKISM.  Yes LOOKISM.  Lots of us suffer from Lookism, that discriminatory practice or prejudice against someone based solely upon looks.  Such judgements are based upon how well or poorly they meet our (imagined) standard of beauty.  Factoid:  Actually, I calculate my daily regimen of going to the gym to be a combination of Lookism (I believe that people are judging me for my look) and Narcissism (my rather obsessive interest in my own physical appearance).

Though most gyms lose 50% of their new members within the first six months of their membership starting, going to the gym to look good is still a BIG industry.  I cannot help but notice the two gyms of which I have a membership are starting to get packed again after the Covid restrictions have been relaxed.  And I cannot help but inductively reason that most of these returning members are returning in their attempt to look good.

From the evolutionary perspective, to continue the species, it is important to attract a mate. And it is not coincidence that human mating is of a special interest to evolutionary psychologists who aim to investigate our evolved mechanisms to attract and secure mates. 

Now back to the gym perspective, the first thing to increase one’s magnetism for such a mate attraction is to look good.  Striving to build muscle, to get ripped, or to become svelte are certainly worthy goals when one wants to look good in a physical sense.

As shallow as I may seem while expressing this from the skinny of an evolutionary perspective, it really is not a stretch to believe that humans judge one another, first, by their appearance (lookism), and therefore project how they judge others by logically thinking this is the way they, too, are judged by others.  Thus, anyone going to the gym with the goal of looking good could be like me in their suffering smacks of self-concept (narcissism).

Whether this be a purely evolutionary genetic trait, or a Jungian archetypical trait, everyone knows that along the attraction and mating continuum for procreation is to express in metonymy fashion, it is face first, then holding hands, then touching toes.  Intellectual (like-minded) and spiritual (kindred soul) connections come second and third, respectively.

Yes, for all the above reasons I go to the gym.  Going to the gym is a retreat to a conclave of familiar strangers to socialize, while at the same time the mantic art to stave off my impending infirmity.  All that I seem to need right now in narcissistic fashion is to lose eight pounds and have my abs of steel and my guns (biceps) registered and ready for a summer of busking in tight white t-shirts.

SUN’S OUT, GUNS OUT! 

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week, are my friends, MORGAN, the British Columbian mountain-lover, and JOANNE, owner of BOOMTOWN DRUMS in Regina.

ZEN-TO-GO MOMENTS: AN APPRECIATION OF PRECIOUS TIMES

Ya ya ya.  Zen is good.  Ya ya ya.  Zen is harmony.  Every pseudo-academic, every tree hugger, and every hippy that ever was and still is knows that Zen is the best ya ya ya strategy for self-help therapy.  But how do you get there?  How do you get to Zen?

Do you get there by reading Zen-to-go books, until you find your Zen moment when being chased by tigers whilst at the same time discovering the deliciousness of just one strawberry while you are on the edge of death hanging onto a cliff for dear life?

Or do you get there by reading and reading and reading and reading even more Zen-to-go books only to painfully conclude that to live is to suffer is the skinny of Zen?  Or do you just try to literally grasp certain moments attempting to enact a seize-the-day carpe diem personal philosophy.

Ya ya ya.  Transcendental Meditation.  Mindfulness.  And now, Mindfulness Meditation.  In my mind when I really think about it (pun intended), these are all the same.  Every one of these has the same purpose and same technique to get there, wherever there is.  I am not certain about any of this, but I do have moments when I feel I am there.  For me, these are feelings of Zen.  Just to be clear (pun intended), a Zen lifestyle is one of clarity and so, for the purposes of this essay, I shall define a Zen moment as a moment of clarity.

These last few years while (Zen) suffering existential dread, I have attempted on a regular basis to experience Zen moments.  And such moments begin with my morning coffee.  Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. I have my morning coffee, one Americano pod pressed from a Tassimo coffee maker, into which I stir one dab of Mark’s Wildflower Honey (given to me by my oftentimes gig-mate, Mark, who is a beekeeper) and a couple glugs of milk, unstirred.  And then for approximately 15 minutes I sip my coffee in solitude, in freedom before my daily read of CNN news, Al Jazeera news, ABC news, NBC news, Donald Trump news on Politico, Regina news, Regina obits, my Instagram, and as of late, Duolingo (I am learning French).

Walking to work after my coffee has to be next to experiencing Zen.  No matter the weather (remember there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad dress), I take the same route past a corner coffee shop and through Victoria Park.  Ah, Victoria Park!  The oldest park in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  Two beautiful square blocks of kept grass and pollarded trees surrounding a cenotaph at the centre and a glockenspiel at the edge.  I walk alongside twin glass towers that are situated in the downtown plaza which borders the park.  I walk. I breathe.  I take in the sights.

Upon my arrival at work is my exit of Zen.  But then Zen is experienced again at the end of my workday while on my walk home.  Between my morning Zen and afternoon Zen walks, all my actions and performances are perfunctory.  This does not mean that I view my profession as thoughtless, it just means that my workday is not Zen-like.

Later every evening I have a London Fog with my son, Baron, on the shore of Wascana Lake, in Wascana Park.  Ah Wascana Park!  The second largest urban park in North America!  And it is right here in the heart of Regina!

I say London Fogs but really, we have a London Fog and a London Forest, both purchased for a total of $5.97 at the Tim Hortons on the corner of 12^th Avenue and Broad Street.  Baron has the London Fog and I have the London Forest.  (A London Forest is like a London Fog, but with the substitution of green tea for black tea, and so called because of the green connotation.)

Moments as these, having evening teas with Baron, are peaceful but finite.  I know this because I have had such moments with Baron all his life.  Riding on the back of my bicycle, skateboarding alongside me while I ran long-distance, kicking soccer balls in the back yard are all moments gone, and so, too, shall these moments of London Fogs and Forests be lost in time, but not in mind.

Whilst sipping these teas we chat a bit and see lots, mostly pedestrians walking their dogs or pushing their babies in strollers along the Devonian pathway through the park.  In the 70’s, I had somewhat similar observations, except then it was with university mates watching the passers-by on the downtown streets. Back then, we referred to it as “people freaking.” Most times we would people freak while sipping coffees at outdoor café patios.  Such behavior then was hardly Zen-like; sadly, it was more like university elitism.

Nowadays for me playing chess with an equal opponent is always Zen-like.  In these games of chess, I always get lost in the frame of Time Condensation.  (Factoid:  Time Condensation is the feeling that time flies, like when you are with someone you are fond of and the hours seem like minutes.  Per contra, there is Time Expansion, like when you are late for work and waiting for a bus and the minutes seem like hours.  Time Condensation - Time Expansion  can be expressed in cliché: Time flies when you're having fun; patience is a virtue when you're not.)  Another factoid:  Both concepts, Time Condensation and Time Expansion, are prevalent and fundamental devices in my private hypnotherapy practice.) Playing opponents with weaker or stronger abilities moves my mind from a mode of chillax, to one of sympathy for the moves of the opposing weaker player or having to always second guess regarding the moves of the opposing stronger player.

Experiencing Zen moments also occurs for me when I listen to certain songs.  Take for example any Dave Clark Five song from the ‘60s.  Whenever any of their songs pop on the radio, I literally go back in time in my mind, mesmerized for the three or four minutes of dulcet and soothing song. 

Another song that stops me is the Glen Hansard/Mick Christopher street-busking version of You Ain’t Going Nowhere.  This song is my busking mantra anytime I hit the street with my guitar and harpoon. 

I have written lots of songs, but my Crescent Beach especially moves me.  Audience members who have listened to Crescent Beach during any of my stage performances have often commented on the ‘70s feel to this song.  (Admittedly, I was strongly influenced by the song, Tom’s Diner sung by Suzanne Vega when I wrote it.)  I have performed this song hundreds of time and still get lost in (my own) space every time I sing it.

I also have Zen moments when I play my didgeridoo.  When the circular breathing is going, going, going time certainly takes a wing.  Breathing, breathing, breathing.  Inhaling slowly.  Exhaling slowly.  Loose lips vibrating to create a continued raspberry lip buzzing.  Didge time is condensation time.  Didge moments are Zen moments.

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week is Bonita. (See picture atop this blog entry.)  Every Monday is OPEN MIC NIGHT at THE CURE, on 11^th Avenue in downtown Regina.  This past Monday night I decided to sing on stage, “SUMMER WINE,” the ‘60s hit featuring Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra.  Bonita, sitting on a bar stool right beneath the stage and among a rather roisterous crowd, volunteered to come up and sing the Nancy Sinatra parts.  Not only did she take “my silver spurs, a dollar and a dime,” she also took my cowboy hat! 

Performing on stage is hectic!

But looking at this picture right now is a ZEN moment.

Ya ya ya.  Uh hmmm.