IT'S IN THE BAG -- I'VE GOT THIS!

It’s in the bag and I’ve got this!  I’ve got lots of this.  I’ve a bag for every occasion!  And not just the bags under my eyes. Yes, I am a bagman, but not in the illicit or political sense.  Nonetheless, I do have a lot of bags! 

Great minds discuss ideas.  Average minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people.  I discuss bags. Yes. Rambling and roundabout minds as mine discuss bags.  And sports bags shall be my treatise for today. 

It is snowing heavily today and so it seems fitting to begin with my wintertime bags.  I’ve got a bag for skates.  And my skates are not just any skates.  Years ago, professional hockey player, Colby Williams, who is currently with the Admiral Vladivostok of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in Russia, used to play for the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League (WHL). When he was the captain of the Pats, Colby gave me a pair of CCM Crazy Lights, the Pats standard skate issue at the time.  A few years later when Colby was drafted by the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL), he gave me a pair of CMM NHL Tacks, the standard issue of the Capitals at that time.  These are the skates I tote in my skate bag.

When there is ice, I skate at least once a week.  Sometimes I free skate on the open ice in Wascana Park (no pucks and sticks allowed), and sometimes I play a game of pick-up hockey at the outdoor rink just a few minutes from where I live.  Factoid:  Whenever I skate, I am in my $1200 (tax not included) CCM NHL Tacks, given to me by Colby!

I love downhill skiing.  My very first-time skiing downhill was in 1972 at White Track Ski Resort, just north of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. During my undergrad university years I also skied at other Saskatchewan resorts, Ochapowace near Broadview and Mission Ridge at Fort Qu’Appelle.  Over the years I have skied beyond the borders of my home province, at Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Castle mountains in Alberta, at Fernie, Sun Peaks, Harper, Whitewater, Big White, Silver Star, and Whistler in British Columbia, and Mount Alta in Utah, USA.

Over Christmas I plan to ski Sun Peaks at Kamloops and Big White at Kelowna.  This week I’m hoping to get out to Mission Ridge Ski Resort, at Fort Qu’Appelle, only a forty-minute drive east of my city.  "Where you are is where it's at" is my motto!

Typically, into my ski bag I pack my ski parka, my ski pants, my ski mitts and gloves, and my ski toque and ski goggles.  However, come the first frosty air, I unpack my parka and pants for the threefold employ of skiing, skating, and running.  I wore my ski jackets and pants for a three-mile run around Wascana Lake just yesterday, as a matter of fact.

 

Lately I’ve re-discovered snorkeling, and, of course, now I’ve got a bag for that.

In the ‘70s I used to be a scuba diver with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI).  To get certified in scuba, one had to get first certified in snorkeling.

Snorkeling, compared to scuba diving, is far less clunky.  Since I’ve abandoned scuba and become, exclusively, a snorkeler, no more do I have to lug around air tanks and other heavy duty paraphernalia.  Diving, without scuba, is cleaner and quicker and simpler.

In my snorkel bag I pack a light wetsuit for summertime dives, a mask, a snorkel, and fins.  Also, I pack a portable diver-down flag, which I float on the water during every dive.  When compared to my scuba diving years, this bag is small.  Back in the scuba days I’d pack everything currently in my snorkel bag, plus a buoyancy compensator, a regulator, and some weights.

In my adolescence I played lots of baseball.  In my adulthood I've a long history of being the player-coach of the Cochrane Swingers, a slo-pitch team.  Nowadays, I only play catch and only on occasion.  On a sunny and windless day in a city park, there is nothing finer than a game of catch.  And, of course, I’ve got a bag for that.

Lately, I’ve learned to love disc golf.  Last summer, as practically every summer, we drove to British Columbia for some mountain hiking.  This last summer most of the hiking trails were closed due to the myriad forest fires throughout the entire province.  However, the disc golf courses were open!  It so happened that the disc golf courses offered the same or similar terrain as the parks, and practically the same or similar amounts of exercise required to navigate either.  Also, embarking on a disc golf course costs the same as hiking --- zeroth.  And so, began my love for disc golf.  In Kamloops I bought three sets of discs from a used sporting goods store.  Back in my home city, Regina, I bought two more sets of discs, and played lots of rounds on a course right in the heart of Wascana Park.

My Muay Thai bag is the last I’ll describe.

I have been in and out of martial arts since high school.  Sporadically through adolescence and emergent adulthood, I took Karate.  Middle-aged, I took Tai Chi.  Now I take Muay Thai.  My current place for my training is at Ascendant Martial Arts, and I do so every Wednesday.

In every sport I partake, my gear is in the bag.  But for the record and as mentioned in the opening of this blog entry, I am not a BAGMAN.  A bagman connotes that I am a purveyor of illicit activity, and I am not that.

And I am not a BAG GENTLEMAN.  A homeless woman who carries her possessions in shopping bags is referred to as a BAG LADY.  Logically, according to that definition, I can rule out being a bag gentleman.  Through the process of elimination, I shall refer to myself as a BAG GUY.

I am a sports aficionado who carries a bag of accoutrements for every sports occasion.  Being a bag guy offers me the ability to plunge, pitch, or punch into each of my activities with alacrity. Having a bag for each sport helps me grok and appreciate the health benefits of sport. For each of my sports I try to be Spartan in personal toughness, but certainly not with regard for equipment.  I buy the best I can afford – always. 

And what has all this to do with busking?  

BUSKING IS A PERFORMING ART! 

KEEPING FIT MAKES ME A BETTER BUSKER!  

 

BOO! SCARY BUSKING!

Busking is scary.  Not scary, scary, but scary as in intimidating, unnerving, sort of creepy, sometimes hairy, and for a beginner busker, having tyro feelings filled with fear or dread.

A REGULAR HALLOWE'EN WORKDAY

While busking in the middle of a grocery store parking lot, Extra Foods, an older gentleman, after distributing his groceries into the back seat of his car, huffing and puffing, hobbled over to me pushing his shopping cart aiming it right at me.  “Plug this in and get the quarter back,” he said as he left the cart an inch away from my mid-section.

Then there was this other guy, in the same parking lot on the same day, who got into my face and stated I should mow his lawn for a couple bucks.  In one of my songs I have written about a bag lady in Victoria, British Columbia, who always would come up close and talk with her beer breath right into my nostrils.  This guy’s breath was way worse than hers.  “No thanks,” I replied, “I don’t do lawns.” He grimaced, shook his head, and walked away. 

While busking at Shoppers-On-Broad one sunny afternoon a panner stormed passed me and started banging on the store front window.  (A panner is street argot for a person who pans people for coin.)  When a couple of staff members came running out to make sense of the commotion, the panner pointed to me and yelled to them, “Why is he allowed here and I’m not!”

An early morning busk at Shoppers-On-Broad, another panner arrived and sat right next to my guitar case, which I always leave open on the ground behind me.  Rather than just keep an eye out because I judged him ready to steal my busk money, I packed up and left.  A potential for fisticuffs for sure if I stayed.  (Yes, I can be that shallow and territorial at times.)

One afternoon another time guitar-busking at Shoppers-On-Broad, this scruffy twenty-something man, started screaming in my face about why I was there begging busy people for money.  He kept this up until the manager came out and rescued me.

Another time in front of Shoppers-On-Broad this chic girl of emergent adulthood age, drives up onto the wide storefront patio where I am standing, revving the engine in her bigger than big half-ton truck.  First, she smiled and then she yelled.  “If any of my brothers brought their guitars here and played like you, they’d be put in jail,” she said. What?  Yikes?  Hmmm. (And she looked soooo sweet.)

I was busking in Victoria Park, central to downtown Regina, when this elder lady who was dressed to the nines asked me, “What right do you have to be allowed here.  Who gave you permission?”

Years ago, at the Regina Farmers’ Market this guy stations himself right beside me and starts shredding his guitar, which is, of course, plugged into his high-volume amp.

“Really?” I turned and said directly to his face.

“Well where should I go then?” he asked with a smirk on his face.

“Anywhere but here,” I replied.  Strangely, he immediately packed up and left.

Once there was this four-member band who set up next to me at the same Farmers’ Market.  As I glared by design at the closest member, their fiddle player, the manager of the market came over and sternly addressed them, threatening to charge a fee for each band member.  They left.

My friend, Trent, and I were busking with our banjos down in the Scarth Street Plaza when a bespectacled middle-aged chubby man dressed in a too-tight soiled suit, started pounding on his amplified Moog synthesizer within 40 feet of us, drowning out our banjos.  Trent and I changed locations.

I was busking at Value Village when this panner plunked himself down right beside me.  Within seconds the mall manager came out and gave him the boot.  “Why not him?” he asks while gesturing toward me.  “Because he was here first and he’s not just sitting and begging for money,” the manager retorted.

Shortly after this exchange, it got worse.  A guy pulls up in a van, a friend of this panner who just got booted.  This friend of his parks right beside me and cranks up the radio tunes.  Again, the manager comes out, this time his mouth fully loaded as he laced profanity toward guy in the van with the turned-up tunes.  The manager’s tirade lasted a few minutes, ending only when he threatened to call the police.

One time there was a guy who grabbed the set of bongos I had set in the grass beside me.  “I bought these as a gift to my brother,” he lied.  “I’m calling the cops right now,” I replied.  I was not lying.

A couple of guys in an American lux car roared up beside me while I was busking at a shopping mall parking lot.  It was one of those cars so big it could have had either an inboard or an outboard for a motor.  The passenger jumped out.  With his fists clenched he ran at me, and took a swing at my head.  I ducked. He missed.  I remember thinking to myself, the next swing he takes I’m gonna clock him with my guitar.  He didn’t attempt a second swing.  Instead he jumped back into the car.  And then they just drove away.

There is certainly a tinge of humor when reflecting on these scary busking moments.  Introspectively, this last anecdote I shall deliver is the funniest of all. 

I was thrumming my wares in one of my usual haunts, the parking lot at Extra Foods.  A rather scruffy young man galloped past me, and in pursuit of him, a male police officer.  However, almost immediately after passing me, the police officer stops in his tracks, turns, and runs back to me.  Pointing his finger at me, he states, “You’d better have a permit to be here and I’m coming back to check.”   And then he turned and continued his chase.

Hmmm.  Of course, I never challenged him.  I did not because he was gone before I could even respond. Factoid:  In the city of Regina there is no such process for attaining a busking permit.  Busking in Regina is totally unregulated.  If that police officer had returned like he threatened he would, I would simply have informed him that I had the store manager’s permission to be there.  Enough said.

To unwrap (an apt Hallowe’en metaphor, methinks), busking, like ghosts, can affright.  This is especially true for those who are new to the trade.  For guys like me, every busk is pretty much same ol’ same ol’.  I know, though, that for me to be complacent in any busking regard, could result in deleterious effects.  I know, that when busking, my head needs always to be on a swivel stick.  Busking can be Lotus land; busking can be Hell.

BUSKING, for me, began as a TRIAL OF TRICK OR TREAT, and now has become a ...  

QUEST FOR ADVENTURE!

HAPPY HALLOWE’EN, EVERYONE!

TWINS TODAY

 

 

SO NOW I WANT TO BE A FAMOUS WRITER. REALLY.

WARNING: The contents of this blog entry may appear to be a not-so-subtle and yet subliminal advertisement for my latest book, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH.  :)

On this very crisp Autumn day it is too cold for me to go outdoors and busk.  Instead, I am going to stay indoors and write about writing.

Throughout my adolescence I wanted to be a writer.  As an emerging adult in university I still wanted to be a writer.  As a matter of fact, I fancied myself as being quite the bard when I switched from the Engineering Faculty to the English Faculty.  But those days, the writing fates were not exceedingly kind.  After a hundred poetry submissions and nary a poem ever published, upon graduating with my English degree, I did the next best thing – I taught.  

Those who can’t do, teach.  Right?  For five years I taught English in a local high school. Then, having graduated with a master’s degree in Psychology, for 23 years I taught Psychology at our local university. But alas, my teaching career is another ship to sail in another blog entry.

And now after having joined the teachers' club and bought-the-hat, I am settling in to become not just a writer, but a famous writer.  I shall explain. 

During those years when I was stacking up the poetry rejection letters, I was still being a writer.  Not a great writer, but nonetheless, I was a writer.  I am still a writer, and I have the creds to prove it.

My book, “A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY,” was published in 1985 by the University of Toronto Guidance Centre; the royalties of which long since gotten and gone.

Also, over the years, I have had several book reviews published in the local REGINA LEADER POST.  I have had a couple of magazine articles published (WESTERN SPORTSMAN, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1985, SKIER MAGAZINE, 2006 VOLUME FIVE, ISSUE ONE), and, of course, I am writing this blog (my first entry posted March 20^th, 2010).

MY BLOG POSITION IN THE GOOGLE UNIVERSE IS ALWAYS AT THE TOP 

To continue this bluster, this past month, my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH was published by Wood Dragon Books.  I will know more about the sales of this come Christmastime.

Sure, I am a writer.  But how do I become a famous writer?  To be, or not to be, that is the question.

My QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is a very quiet science fiction book for adolescents.  I say quiet because to compare the sales of some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, J.K. Rowling (over 600 million), or Stephen King (over 400 million), or J.R.R. Tolkien (over 350 million), or Anne Rice (136 million), or CS Lewis (120 million), or Edgar Rice Burroughs (over 100 million), to my sales, I am very, very, very quiet.

Factoid:  In truth, my writing ability, my book sales, whatever my fame, CANNOT be compared to any of these aforementioned authors!  I am delusional, but not that delusional! 

Factoid: There are 600,000 to one million books published every year in the United States.  The chances of becoming a bestselling writer, according to the New York Post, is one in 62,986.

The chances of winning the Powerball, playing just one set of numbers, are one in 292,201,338.  So, the skinny of this is simple: If you never buy you never win.  If you never write, you never sell.

I never buy lottery tickets so my chances of winning the lottery are zeroth. Hmmm.  I do write so my chances of producing a bestseller are but a smidge above zeroth. To become a good writer one must write, write, write, and to get published, never mind become a bestselling author, then one must write, write, write even more.

Over the years, I have read lots about the craft of writing.  Here is what I know that all good writers have in common:  They pay attention to detail, they exercise self-discipline, and they have a strong vocabulary.

• They pay attention to detail …

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass” (Anton Chekhov).

In academia, qualitative researchers are known for what is called, thick description.  Thick description refers to a focus on detail.  As a graduate student I was a qualitative researcher.  My thesis was packed with thick description. I still write thick, but not Dostoevsky thick.

When I write I tend to hunch over my laptop, having always to my left a cup of scalding hot chocolate, a mixture of two tablespoons of 2% partly skimmed milk, two heaping tablespoons of no name hot chocolate (“made with real cocoa”), with boiling water added and stirred with a white plastic spoon. I love sipping this writing brew even though I need to continually scrape and re-stir into the liquid mixture the sticky chocolate that gathers on the inside of my brown ceramic cup with an uppercase “N” embossed on the side (an Xmas gift from my work colleague).

And oftentimes between the written words I dally, staring outside my ground office window at the people arriving to and fro next door, a dilapidated house that has been transmogrified into a pawn shop.

• They exercise self-discipline …

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter (James Michener).

Edits and re-writes, more edits, and re-writes, and dedicate either a daily block of time or a minimum word-quota to write. Much to the chagrin of my faculty advisors after giving me the green light that my thesis was polished enough for my oral defense, I re-wrote it another twelve times!  

Factoid:  And note, dear reader, that right now you are reading the sixth edit of this blog discourse.

• They have a strong vocabulary …

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice (Seth Godin).

There is no argot among writers, other than all the good ones share the trait of having a strong vocabulary.  Every time I write a song, a report, a blog entry, or a book, I scan and glean from Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary to add efflorescence to any of my literary endeavors.  Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary is my creation and name’s sake, a still book in progress, for the sole purpose of enriching my vocabulary.

Here is the sample introduction page of my NEIL'S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY:

                                                 *    *    *    *    *    *    

NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY: A THOUSAND WORDS -- 

A THOUSAND PICTURES

 INTRODUCTION

 NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY is for readers seeking to enhance their vocabulary. Most everyone believes the better the vocabulary one has, the better the impression one gives.  Whether your vocabulary interest is for personal or professional usage, I can promise you that this book will improve your life in both regards.

 And just what is a mnemonic?  

 A MNEMONIC is a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists us in remembering something.  Here are some examples:

 ‘ROY G. BIV” is a mnemonic to remember the order for the colors in order of a rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

 HOMES is a mnemonic that helps us to memorize the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). 

Another mnemonic is the poem, “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November.  All the rest have thirty-one, save for February with twenty-eight days clear and twenty-nine in each leap year.” This rhyme helps us to remember how many days there are in each month.

In my early teens I took accordion lessons, and I still remember the bass clef notations:  Good Boys Do Fine Always on the lines, and All Cows Eat Grass in the spaces.  Also, I remember the bass buttons: 

Fredrick Child Gets Drunk At Every Bar!  (I like this reference to self – my middle name is Fredrick.)

 Now here are my favorite how-to-spell-a-word examples:

 “M … I … crooked letter crooked letter I …

crooked letter crooked letter ... I … PP … I.”

This mnemonic was recited many, many times by my American grandmother when she was teaching me how to spell Mississippi.

 “Chi hoowah hoowah” is a mnemonic I heard years ago while watching The Tonight Show.  One of Johnny Carson’s guests was teaching him how to spell Chihuahua.

                                                        *    *    *    *    *    *

I do write a lot, this blog being my most perfect example.  All told, including this one to date, I have published 399 posts.  My very first post was “TIME: AN ESSAY ON THE PERCEPTION OF TIME” published March 20^th, 2010.  It seems like just yesterday when my colleague, Rick, suggested the topic!  Time.  Yes, it flies, and yes, time is just a fillip.

Speaking more about my blog, I must mention that sometimes in emotional moments of weakness, I do use this blog as a bully pulpit.  Without even looking back, I just know, for example, that on occasion I have expressed my disdain for Trump and his Republican sycophants, and the odd other gripe I might have had.

Also, speaking of my blog, I do try to offer the reading some gnomic lines now and then.  For example, in this blog entry I have presented at least three: Those who can’t do, teach (borrowed from George Bernard Shaw), To be, or not to be, that is the question (borrowed from William Shakespeare), and my very own, If you never write, you never sell.

According to Stephen King, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot.” I do like to read a lot. Coincidentally, I have just finished “On Writing” by Stephen King.  And I do like to write a lot.  Currently, I am working on my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH (working title: QUEST FOR GHOST CANYON) and editing my soon-be-completed horror fiction novella, THE VAMPIRE CLUB.

As a foreshadowing for both my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, and forthcoming, THE VAMPIRE CLUB, and in a corny tribute to horror-fiction writer, Stephen King, I shall close with this promo pic:

 

 

 

A BUSKER'S RHAPSODY

A PROMO FOR MY LATEST BOOK (TO ORDER: CLICK ON MARGIN TO THE RIGHT)

From my guitar-slinger perspective, nobody looked better on stage with a guitar than Kris Kristofferson, especially when he strummed along with Johnny and Waylon and Willie of The Highwaymen. Kris exuded cool.

Factoid: My busking style is fashioned after the Kristofferson attire of a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots.  Kris had the look and that look was cool.  Whenever I go busking, I model my look after Kris.  But to look as cool as Kris takes considerable labour.  To look cool ain’t easy!

First, to start I kinda look the part.  My 6’1” body type is somewhere between ectomorph and mesomorph. But to keep this look takes a strict adherence to diet and exercise.  Early every morning I weigh myself.  Saying this is not to brag -- this is psychological issue with which I am seemingly cursed.  But I digress.  When I hit the scale and it shows above 167 pounds, I freak out.  Over course of the day (pun intended), I eat nothing.  And I continue to eat nothing until my weight is at 167 or less.  This is a fool's effort, but it works.  It works to keep me as an ectomorph.

Moving purposely toward mesomorphism, I adhere to weight training on my daily regimen.  In the summertime busking season, for me it has got to be “sun’s out, guns out.”  Ever narcissistic, my physical look is very, very necessary for looking good.  This may sound shallow, but I base my obsession on a debatable fact of the human condition.

KRIS IN CONCERT

MY KRIS-COPY SELF IN CONCERT

Being an existentialist, I believe that our only purpose for being is to procreate and continue the species.  And being narcissistic, I blame my thinking on evolutionary psychology.  To continue the species, we biologically need to mate, and to attract a mate, it helps to look good.  I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily for improvement of my physical health.  I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily because I believe I need to be fit.  I go to the gym fives times a week and lift weights for the principal purpose of looking good. Even though I know this sounds socially shallow, this is selfishly true.  (I must stress to anyone reading this that I do not apply any form of inductive reasoning to assume my reasons for going to the gym are for those same reasons as others’.  My reason belongs only to me, me, me, and I attribute this reason to no one other than me, me, me.)

Second, I choose my costume according to what I believe are the accoutrements to my looking good.  Cap-a-pie I am usually hatless, but wear the shades and a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar if the sky is without clouds and the sun is shiny, shiny, and hot and if it is noonish between eleven o’clock and one o’clock.

(Since my bout with skin cancer a decade ago, I never overexpose my skin to the sun – I have become the shadow man over the noon hour.  When I was younger, I always worked on road crews or pipelines and in summer was always shirtless.  As a young adult I taught swimming for close to 20 years, most of the time at outdoor pools.  Teaching swimming, I was both shirtless and trouserless, garbed in just  swimming trunks and having a beach towel for a body wrap.)

Before and after those noon hours, early mornings, or early evenings, I doff the long sleeve and don a tight white T-shirt. For pants I prefer Levi 501 jeans (size 32-32), and for footwear, black or brown leather work boots.

Third, I need the skill sets for playing and presenting.  I need the technical skill set to play my guitar with enough proficiency to busk, and I need social skill set to present to potential consumers that I am a chatty and sociable kind of guy.

Strumming and singing with a guitar on a downtown public sidewalk or on a speaker’s corner in a public park takes practice, practice, practice.  And to thrum those guitar strings whilst blowing a blues harp takes even more practice.

Fortunately, I am a wordsmith and I have had the good fortune, too, of sharing many a stage with a huge assortment of fellow singer-songwriters.  Having a resume of over a hundred bar gigs, I can self-reflect upon my performance ability.  I know that my cowboy-chord guitar skills fall somewhere between that of a virtuoso and a tyro, but more towards tyro to be truthful. And as an extrovert, I know that my modus operandi has always been the ability to engage in phatic chat with anyone at anytime, extemporaneous verbal exchanges especially with those within my buskspot proximity.  Factoid:  Thus, my finger and mouth motor skills are a gift for my busker guitar strumming and gabbing. 

Busking with my twelve-string throughout redbrick communities in western Canada continues to be the nidus for my love of busking. And over the years I have also plied my art of busking outside of Canada, namely at The Dam in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), on the streets of Limerick (Ireland), in the Temple Bar in Dublin (Ireland), and also on the Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakech (Morocco). Proclaiming these faraway busking adventures with éclat, I fancy myself as really being a planetary busker!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are my memories of fellow buskers, Devon and Christian, and my favorite bag lady, Angelina, all of whom being familiar strangers back in my busking days one summer on the streets of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  

Here is the song that I wrote about my memories of these folk during that wonderful, wonderful summer!  ENJOY!

SONG A BUSKER’S RHAPSODY

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS      C   Am   F   G … (X3)                    C

VERSE 1             C  Em  F  G        C

Up the street is Devon

Who thinks he’s Bobby Dylan

Noodling on his guitar

While blowing out his blues harp

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 2             C Em F G            C

Down the street is Christian

Who thinks he’s Ravi Shankar

Chain-smoking on the corner

Plucking on his sitar

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 3             C Em F G            C

Here comes Angelina

Who thinks she’s Ginger Rogers

Dancing ‘round her Safeway cart

Her beer breath on my folk art

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 4             C Em F G            C

Devon and Christian and Angelina

These folks are to me … my busker’s rhapsody (X2)

Um hummm

 

 

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH: TINTINNABULATION!

TINTINNABULATION!  Because in my world the bells are ringing!  Starting September 10^th in this very year, my novella for adolescents, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, has been a-go-go on the market!  And before I write on, my first order of business is a BIG THANK-YOU TO 

JEANNE MARTINSON OF WOOD DRAGON BOOKS!

*(For more information on access and price, just click on 

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH pictured in the side-bar to the right of this blog entry.)

Here is a thumbnail sketch of QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH:

It is the year 2113 and a series of brightblasts has resulted in four remnant groups vying for survival: the robotia, the roktillia, the pterosauria, and the humanoids.

The robotia represent what is left of the mechanical world. These robots have an incredibly high artificial intelligence and adhere to the codes of conduct as designed in their individual and collective programming. The roktillia are a mutated blend of mammal and reptile, with unique traits to help them survive both on land and in water. The pterosauria are large featherless creatures that can fly. Most of the humanoids have established themselves in close communities along the waterways. Other humanoids have become alienated and are ruthless hunters and scavengers.

Two young sailors, Kllay and Buzz, rowing an old wooden boat, The Snail, along a creek to the sea sanctuary of Black Beach. Along with their companion, Westminster, a member of the robotia, they battle against hostile humanoids, roktillia, pterosauria, and other robotia on their quest to reach Black Beach and reunite with their family.

I love this story, and even more so now as a published book!

I suppose an early cheesy marketing strategy would be for me to solicit my family and my friends and my colleagues for praise and profit. However, this is more of a strategy to dampen friends and damage the respect of colleagues. Such a strategy encourages only sycophant praise with nickel-and-penny profit.  Despite this truth, this has been my tactic to date.  (Really, I should be letting my publisher take the reins on all of this --- but I so want others within and without to recognize how literary I am, damnit! For whatever shallow reasons I suffer psychologically, I seem to crave the celebrity.)  Currently, I am creating my claque for this soon-to-be, hope-to-be money maker!  For my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH to be a BESTSELLER, the book must have olla podrida appeal.  Hmmm … a hodgepodge readership of a million teenagers would do it! 

Ah, of course in my dreams now ... 

I see myself cavorting along the Mediterranean beaches on sunny days, 

and toiling with tireless pen in a garret, cold and dark and drear, 

in moonlit evenings.  Thank you, Robert Service, 

for this Unforgotten inspirational line!

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is not my first book to be published. In 1985, while in graduate studies, I wrote A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY. Back then, 38 years ago, I got my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of basking in a delusional fame when my WISHBONE was distributed to every member of the CANADIAN GUIDANCE COUNSELLORS ASSOCIATION. But that was then, this is now. Alas, all those past WISHBONE readers are either retired or dead, none of whom being potential QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH consumers.  For another 15 minutes of fame, I really do need that hodgepodge of a million teenagers mentioned above.

ONE OF MY FEW COPIES LEFT

Publisher: Guidance Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto (1985)

FACTOID:  I began writing QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH immediately after A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY was published.  QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH has been on my brain for a long, long time.

More FACTOIDS: Thirty-eight years from A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY I am still hale and hardy.  Since the time of that publication, I have kept writing mostly for fun and sometimes for profit.  For profit, I have written book reviews for the local newspaper; for profit, I have written a few magazine articles (I especially loved “VALLEY OF GHOSTS” – a scuba expedition a friend and I took); for fun and profit, I have written close to a hundred songs (I am a singer-songwriter for bar gigs and busking); and for fun I have written more than a couple hundred blog entries, the one you are reading right now being the latest sample.

MY ONLY COPY

Anyway, I have lasted this long as a writer and now at long last I am again, a contemporary published author.  And I shall resume my novel writing (for profit) with chutzpah!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

BUSKING AT THE CONEXUS ARTS CENTRE

BARON AND SELF BUSKING AT THE QUEEN CITY MARATHON

 

SETO'S CAFE: WELCOME TO THE WONDER YEARS OF MUDVILLE, SASKATCHEWAN

 

A YOUNG GUY SETO ON A TYPICAL VANGUARD DAY CIRCA 1965

WELCOME TO MUDVILLE.

In antediluvian times, forty years prior to the nationally famous flood of July 3^rd, 2000, where 14 inches of rain fell upon the village of Vanguard, the sign “WELCOME TO MUDVILLE” (in reference to "Casey At The Bat") was the greeting.  It was hand-written in mud o’er top the original sign, “WELCOME TO THE VILLAGE OF VANGUARD, the mudified magnus opus by the larrikins, Butch Stokes, Glenn Heebner, and Randy Cochrane.  At least that was the rumor.

In the years before the pavement, after even a regular rain pour, the village became so muddy that people, literally, could not drive their cars on the streets.  WELCOME TO MUDVILLE was apt.

Mingling and then seated, and then more mingling at the GUY SETO MEMORIAL in Vanguard this past summer, my mind was filled with Vanguard memories, most of which hazed, I know, by romantic nostalgia, and all of which offering sempiternal youth for all in attendance.

There were memories of life in Vanguard before GUY SETO came to town. There was JIM MINIFIE’S POOL HALL, where the cigarettes squashed in a jar on the counter sold two for a nickel.  And in the corner by the main street window, Wally the Barber would be cutting hair, bowl cuts, brush cuts, or college cuts, for $2.50

Before Guy came to Vanguard the café was owned and operated by Charlie and Sam.  Charlie was always chuckling at the front counter and silent Sam, forever cooking in the back kitchen.

Those were the days when a small bag of chips cost 5 cents, a large bag 10 cents.  Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola and Kik Cola small pops sold for 8 cents to drink in, 10 cents to take out. The large pops sold for 10 cents drink in, 12 cents to take out, and plugs of black licorice cost 2 cents apiece.

When a young Guy Seto took over the café, his first order of business was to install a counter and stools, which happened to begin 50 years of Guy Seto-Vanguard history.  Those stools!  Every day after school and all day long on weekends those stools were crowded with kids, some of their nicknames being Pretty Boy (Jimmy Burns), Smitty (Brian Smith), Hooker (Wayne Graham), Foot (Brent Hopfner), Race Car (Ross Heebner), Skin (Dennis Dyck), Shane (Dwayne Finlay), O’Toole (Mike O’Neil), and me, Wiggy Baiter Ink.  And while we were all at school, the stools were occupied by the locals, such as the tailor, the town clerk, the banker, and the farmer who happened to be in town.

GUY'S STOOLS BEING AUCTIONED

Sharon Seto was always at the front counter running the till, while her mother, May, was always quietly working in the back.  Her brother, Jimmy, too was always in the back, prepping for meals and cleaning in the kitchen.  I remember the tykes, Paul and Charlie Bay chatting it up with the customers, and I remember Julie toddling around the stools as best she could. Kris was still a baby when I left town.

From outward appearances, judging by the bicycles piled along the sidewalk and in the dirt on the north side of the building, SETO’S CAFÉ  could have been a bicycle repair shop. Later on, as my peer group aged, the cafe could have been perceived as a motorcycle gang hangout, Brent’s 40 cc Suzuki, Kim’s 50 cc Honda, three identical candy red 80 cc Suzukis, belonging to Dennis and Clark and me, and Dale’s 150 cc Honda, parked in front.  And frequently in the summer, SETO’S CAFÉ could have been perceived as a cowboy saloon, when David rode his Clydesdale horse and tethered it next to the café.

When we were not on those counter stools smoking our cigarettes, we were crammed into one or more of the wooden booths, pouring Lik-M-Aids into our 7-ups or Coca Colas, then shaking them up to the climactic releasing of the thumb and spraying the ceiling.

SETO’S CAFÉ was an all-season destination. Summertime, autumn, wintertime, and springtime, sunny days or rainy days or snowy days or stormy days, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ. For the town teenagers, SETO’S CAFÉ was the hangout.  SETO’S CAFÉ was the place to gather in our plans to go elsewhere, and the place to gather after being elsewhere.  Before we ventured to any out-of-town base-ball tournaments, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ.  After a day of swimming down at the creek, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ.

Not-so-strangely, reminiscent of Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day, recurring actions in the café come always to mind. Whenever I think of SETO’S CAFÉ I think of Jimmy Burns purchasing a Coca-Cola and Caramilk bar, and then punching out the song, Nashville Cats, on the jukebox. And I think of farmer, Fred, buying a round of pop for all the teenagers in the house.  I could go on and on and on.

To close, I must state that our town had always a few good citizens.  Always, there were responsible adults who were committed to enhance our community.  When I think of these good citizens, I think mostly of coaches and managers of sports teams.  I think of Emil Hopfner managing our hockey teams.  I think of Hughie Lee, Pete Heinrichs, and Billy Kehoe coaching our hockey teams.  I think of Wally (the barber) Graham coaching our baseball team.  Of all these good citizens, the legacy of GUY SETO’S fifty years of contributing to the good of the community has stood the test of time.  

Before we left Vanguard on that day of the GUY SETO memorial celebration, Brent Hopfner and I drove over to SETO FIELD, our baseball diamond, rightfully and deservedly named in his honor.

On the day of Guy's passing ... THERE WAS NO JOY IN MUDVILLE.

YOU GAVE US A WONDERFUL TEENAGE LIFE, GUY!  REST IN PEACE.

GUY'S LAST STAND

 

 

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