Anticonformist Everything

Toronto buses.

The older buses sometimes leak fumes from the diesel they use into the rear half of the bus, which is where I’m often seated. The natural rejection from my lungs and a mild sense of panic means I don’t need a scientific PPM measurement to prove that the fumes aren’t healthy.

Recently on my usual route I said to myself, “I can’t take this any more, I’m going to complain to the driver.” As I exited the bus, I kindly reported the problem to him. The look in the driver’s eyes and the sound in his voice said, “I will do nothing about this.” I walked away in disappointment.

Later that week, I reported it a second time, on the same bus and route, to the same driver. But he got defensive and again left me with an impression of inaction.

So a few days ago, on another bus route, I was breathing the fumes again. They were so strong that I nearly gagged. But I had already been walking around downtown, irked by fumes and garbage smells on the street. Exhausted from my work day, knocked-down by the environment, I decided to remain where I was.

I breathed deeply, and embraced the fumes as they entered me. I was the city’s victim, relieved in some sad way to give in.

Fought for 2 days trying to upgrade this blog from Wordpress 1.5.2 to 2.1.2. It was an extremely exciting process.

I started getting reams of junk comments/e-mails here a few days ago, and solving the issue isn’t my priority with the dwindling traffic. This blog is just going DOWNHILL, man! I’ve disabled comments until I care to figure it out.

Hmm, while I’m here, what’s new? I upgraded my aging G4 Mac with a new processor, that was fun. I was actually responsible and backed up a whopping 160 GB of data before I swapped processors in case something went wrong. WHY did I get a new processor when everything technically runs fine on Mac OS 10.3.9 (which I must continue using because of my old soundcard)? I’m winding up to do a new record and need to get compatibile with some new plug-ins.

Good golly, I cannot believe that I haven’t written here since February this year, and this only became apparent when a co-worker quoted me the date. Interesting that February of this year is when I received a promotion at work. I have indeed complained about not having as much time for my music since being promoted, and the interval is the proof!
I’ve spent most of my last months writing new stuff, and putting video-songs together for some of my tunes. I spent *some* of that time on the computer assembling the new songs, but it’s not going toward a new album or anything official yet. The way I look at it, I should just be playing more shows, with focus on new material and the video-songs. But in the last couple of weeks a new excitement rose in me, probably brought on by the orders that have been rolling in for my Christmas song. Speaking of which, just what am I supposed to do with the 1,200 blank CD-Rs I still have left for that darn project? At this point selling them in bulk (with custom screenprint on them further de-valuing them) would be a financial faux-pas, so I suppose at this rate I’ll have only 6 years to get through all the discs at current sell-through.
I wonder if we will we still have CDs in 6 years…

Up until today, not playing shows has made me feel somewhat restricted from being an activist. This is because many of my songs have activist angles to them, and I believe people can potentially begin thinking about new things when they see/hear the songs.
But recently, I’ve had some micro-results in the mega-corporation office I work in — which has given me some solace. A guy I work with today told me he purchased his first organic produce — oranges. “It was tastier!” he exclaimed. I know his purchase took place in part thanks to my blabbering about the benefits of eating organic food. We discussed the topic a little more after he told me.
When I conveyed this phenomenon to an organic-eating friend of mine she said, “I try to tell people things like that, but they frown or want to discontinue the conversation.”
I replied with sympathy, since I used to receive the same responses as well (and still might), but I’ve been learning how to “work somebody up” to my heaviest thoughts over a period of time.
At work, I have had some other micro-successes, including having our shoes people consider buying non-leather shoes for our stores (we are a retail department store chain) after my mention of it.

Here’s how I suggest trying to micro-influence others positively in the workplace.

1. Don’t mention heavy-heavy things in a topic the first time a topic comes up. In my white-collar environment where people usually only talk about the weather, offering a strong set of beliefs to anybody usually gets received poorly.
2. Make stereotyping your advantage. I am quickly stereotyped when I give somebody even relatively harmless info on a touchy subject like meat eating. I don’t begin with, “Meat is bad!” or, “You know animals suffer needlessly everywhere, right?” Such strong statements upset people and shut them down. Instead, I approach people with something like, “I enjoy being vegetarian.” Such discourse is very non-chalant, very downplayed. I might even try to steer the conversation AWAY from the topic thereafter and return to the exciting topic of weather.
3. Give your co-worker heavier info (but friendly) at the next comfortable encounter. People will often without my encouragement ask me more about the topic I had opened. This is thanks to the “friendly” stereotype of me they created. And by empathizing with the person, I can determine just how little I should say, and ALWAYS favour saying less over more.
4. Give your deepest thoughts on a topic by the 3rd or 4th encounter. Only do this if it feels right. There may of course never be such an opportunity, and some people will reject your information no matter what. But more often, people by now have an open mind and do not reject the information. Things that are unusual can be intriguing to others, and your activist perspective is unusual, right? Put yourself in a curious person’s mind and approach them with this awareness in your own mind.

Convincing somebody to buy organic oranges for the first time may not be a big deal to some people, but I’m trying to feel good about succeeding small where I think it will help the planet.

(back-dated to night of show)
I was surprised and pleased that the Rhino Bar & Grill donated a large upstairs space to the Green Party cause, specifically for Canadian Federal Green Party hopeful Mark O’Brien. In addition to being a good speaker, he danced, he sang, and he played live Andean folk music as well! His band of 7 was decent and musically honest. The massive pan pipes blew me away — no pun intended.
As for my own performance, I performed a new grand total of 6 slide-show songs. They went on basically without a hitch. I noticed several people puzzled with my unorthodox presentation, including Provincial Green Frank de Jong, who was a very pleasant fellow and conveyed the usual good qualities of a leader.
I chatted with various other people there, including Alex, Andrew, Sam, Gary, and others. There were quite a few South Americans at this show, definitely due to Mark O’Brien’s ties to the band and his family. Those of us Canadian-born would not have hit the dancefloor were it not for their easy dancing, especially this wee little fellow (Mark’s son I think) whose bundled energy kept him running and dancing around all night. Pretty cute.
Anyway — good show, good times — good luck to the Greens on Canada’s Jan 23 election.

Erm, I’ll be upgrading this blog page over the next little while, so if it looks a little too “standard” or like crap, it’s because I’m trying to figure out how to re-write the code to make it look the way I want.

The title of today’s entry was something a teacher once said to me and other students, asking us not to remove “Christ” from “Christmas” by writing “Xmas”. It is a fair and interesting comment.
Right now I’m getting about 20 unique visitors to this blog page every day. I find this surprising. And people rarely comment. I must be boring. Actually, I must definitely be boring. I mean, I talk passively about my basement-only music career and my sick cat. La, la, la. Perhaps I should talk about racier things like “anal sex porn lovers”? (Hmm, now that I’ve typed that, I’ll have to see how many more visitors show up here on the statistics page.)
But now since you want to hear the exciting music news, you’ll be thrilled to know that I have continued to work on my synchronized video collages for my songs. It’s been slow-going, but a lot of fun. I just finished a collage for my song, “People are Porn” (”Porn” again! I didn’t mean it!) — which comments on our sexuality and how human nature and the media influences it. But the images I’ve assembled are non-pornographic — I’ve used medical diagrams and things like Budweiser ads to explain things. The Pope even makes a photo appearance!
However, I might find myself in Copyright Hell with my video fun. Will I end up selling DVDs of my cute little collages and then get sued to death like legendary copyright deviants Negativland?
I figure I’ll have some time after Christmas during my one week off to complete maybe 2 more video collages if I’m committed. I’m pretty revved-up for the eventual new live performance format I’ll have with all these collages. I’m technically creating a crappy music video for every song, which is some sort of bonus.
Oh, back to Xmas Christmas — if you need a gift quickly, you MUST check out my PERSONALIZED CHRISTMAS SONG. It’s pretty darn cute. I can e-mail you a copy in a jiffy to give to your loved one.
Hmm, having typed the words, “Christ”, “Pope”, “Catholic”, “Hell”, “anal”, “sex”, and “porn” in the same entry could get me in trouble, too.

I have been very busy between my day job and the time spent on an adopted cat who became very sick after I adopted her. I’m spending 2 hours per day force-feeding her through a tube that goes to her stomach. But hopefully she will be tube-free within a couple of weeks.
In music news, I did indeed have my first show using synchronized video. It worked out rather well! It definitely added to the show’s entertainment value. I saw people pointing at the screen, giggling, all sorts of interesting reactions. My plan is to perfect these first 4 slide-show songs and then do some more for about 10 slide-show songs in total. I dumped money into a small screen, a projector, and a portable dvd player. I believe that this will also influence my future songwriting since there isn’t a lot of meaningful visual stuff that can go along with general love songs and the like (unless I want meaningless images or MTV-style productions). My “opinionated” songs are much more appropriate to make use of visual assistance.
I also realized that I have a LOT of equipment to lug around now, and it will take me at least 30 minutes to set up. These will be serious considerations for future gigs.
In any case, I am looking forward to what will come…

These are the days of less music. My day job has intensified following a promotion. I come home, I’m pretty darn tired, and I avoid spending even more time than I did at work in front of a computer for the recording, website maintenance, show booking, or promotional activities that musicians are obligated to take care of. And let’s not talk about songwriting or rehearsing! But the few songs I have been writing have become even slightly weirder than my usual fare. I saw myself twice on video and thought I was a bit dull, so as a solo artist I think I have to make my songs weirder to keep an audience’s attention. I have definitely been influenced by quirky Hamilton musician Wax Mannequin, an excellent and unusual solo artist.
After the two shows I have next week, I’ll take a break, see what happens energy-wise, and feel where I should go. Creatively, I am very interested in focusing on creating simple video to accompany me while I play. This would also add to making my shows more interesting. It would be a heck of a lot of work and a costly investment in equipment, but that’s what feels right.

(back-dated to evening of performance)
Mid-week I got a call from Toronto Animal Rights Society head honcho Adam Wilson to play their bi-weekly potluck again. It’s a great local group — about 45 people attended this time with veg*n food to share and veg*n minds to confer. The feature of the evening was vegan writer Erik Marcus, who drove through the terrible weather from Boston to speak about his new book Meat Market. He spoke well and must have unloaded at least 30 copies of his book. He spoke of a “4th Movement” (in addition to health, environment, and ethics) for veg*ns to focus on in order to make real changes in the world. Specifically, the activist focus should be on dismantling the animal farming industry rather than taking other approaches. Animal farming is where the vast majority of all animal exploitation takes place, and the arguments against the practice are strong and compelling. You should order his book if you want the full scoop. I made sure to grab a copy. Apparently he also has podcasts on Vegan.com each week which I plan to check out.
As for my own performance, I went on late and therefore only got through about 6 songs. I am starting to make some of my songs a bit weirder so my show is more entertaining. And as I’ve noticed before, some people love it and some people think I belong on the Gong Show. Yee-har!
I am planning to have some simple video text footage accompany me in the near future for additional impact, and I wanted to try the idea out for the very first time at this gig — but I was unable to solve all the technical issues in time. No matter, it will happen soon methinks.
I saw quite a few people I knew at the show. I greeted Kera, Taunya from the Toronto Vegetarian Association and her boyfriend, Holly and her sister Brooke, Patrick, William, Paul, John, and a few others. I sold a handful of cd’s and hopefully made some new friends through my e-mail list. I will now endlessly spam Jenny, Angie, Somal, Rosemary, James, Isabelle, Gideon, and Nitasha. Welcome to Planet Dyniss!
In conclusion, it was an enjoyable evening as usual with the TARS gang.

If you walk around Toronto, you will see that the city is inundated with corporate advertising. The ads are big, colourful, and are everywhere but our public parks. (And did you know that advertising in our public parks is now being discussed?)
I was utterly dismayed when I heard of Toronto City Council’s recent decision to outlaw postering on 98% of public utility poles. If you think postering is just an eyesore, think of this: There are no other good ways for important community messages to be shown in public. No more music or art show announcements, piano lessons, babysitting, community get-togethers or celebrations. Toronto now says that if you can’t pay, you can’t be seen.
This is a great prejudice against community in general. The streets of Toronto now only show corporate advertisements for the public to look at when they leave their homes.
Toronto the very bad.
See where the war was being fought through this website.

(back-dated to night of performance)
This was my first show at the Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto near the CN Tower. Neat place, right downtown. I was playing a benefit for Zoocheck, an animal rights organization. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I was rather impressed to hear that it was their 20th anniversary. Organizer Mel had enthusiasm and seemed to be great with the PR, and I met the Zoocheck founder Rob, who was well-spoken and clearly had been dealing with animal rights issues for a long time. I drilled him for more info on the organization which he gave without hesitation. It was neat to discover that he was straight-edge like me.
As for entertainment that night, there was a big drum troupe, human acrobats, a fire-breather/dancer, and musicians. Quebecois musician Julie Crochetiere had a lovely voice and some jazz-influenced songs. She was backed by a guitarist and a violinist (Alex), who I chatted with for a bit and found out he quit mechanical (?) engineering to play music. Friendly DJ Hali did double-duty as the live sound guy. He cobbled together and ran the sound system for the night.
I pre-mixed myself (vocal, guitar, and iPod) through my spankin’ new Roland AC-60 amplifier. I know the amp will be a future life-saver when I won’t be able to count on a good sound person, which happens often.
It was my first night out of the house after being in bed for a week with a fever. I had a decent performance, although my runny nose ran and my cracking voice cracked. People were having a good time, and I estimated at least 120 people in attendance.
I saw some of my veg*n friends like Kira, Paul, and Holly, and my friend Laura hung out with us.
The best moment of the night however had to be watching one particular attendee dance. A young fellow in a wheelchair, obviously living without the use of his legs, hit the dance floor with two young women. He looked happy, they looked happy, and they all danced enthusiastically. The guy just swung his head to the beats (quite well, I might add). It was beautiful, and I wish I saw this sort of thing all the time.
DJ Hali spun some good funky stuff to close the evening, but feeling a bit ill meant I had to go before it was all over.

(Back-dated to date of performance)
The El Mocambo upstairs was WAY nicer than the last time I was there (we’re talking several years ago), with mirrored walls, nice ceiling lights and speakers, and a stage at one end instead of the centered (but awkward) location it used to be at. Actually, mirrors are usually the worst thing you can put in a live music club for sound, but the trade-off here was the gain of artificial space.
I found out that the organizers had to pay $100 just to use the space, which is cheap as far as renting anywhere in Toronto goes. But many live venues are also in fact free to play at. The clubs really just want you to bring people out. Sadly, the rental fee didn’t include a house sound guy, which was evident through some occasional feedback and troubled mixes. But this was totally DIY, so a big fat “A” must go out to whoever was at the controls.
Supreme Organizer Jay Cleary added me to the list of acts for his first of hopefully many future evenings of the Acoustic Syndicate. I went on 2nd. I played 4 songs and gave out a free cd to the fellow who correctly identified the Green Party as the “best” Canadian political party (whatever “best” means) before I sang The Green Anthem. Do you think I’m politically biased? Naw!
I was feeling rushed to play my songs quickly, so I ran out of breath a wee bit while singing during my set. Must… learn… …to… …relax…
My performance of my slightly-silly song Seekers didn’t really go over all funny-like with the crowd like I had hoped, making me think that I should have whipped out only my delicate singer-songwriter tunes instead. But nay.
I stayed for about a half-dozen more performers. Some were “green” in terms of stage experience, some were decent. “Fin” followed me, along with some names I remember like Ben (somebody) and Little Girl. Todd from Trucks Leaving was on before me. It was a common mix for a singer-songwriter evening. Actually, I think I was the oldest dude there, next to a dad who came in to see his daughter play and who promptly left after her performance (along with the daughter).
The crowd appeared to be content and were attentive. The mood was good, the vibe was good. People were enjoying their drinky-drinks, and there seemed to be a fair number of couples hanging out. It was great to be back at the Elmo, where I’d played many times before in other bands as a drummer.
(Feel free to comment on this show, especially if you were there…)

(Back-dated to date of performance)
Going up the stairs via the understated door on 300 College Street brought me into Rancho Relaxo around 8:30pm. Things were barely set up for the other two bands, so I went downstairs to the restaurant and got an herbal tea. Without question, a hot herbal tea before a gig really helps vocals!
People were coming in at a steady pace and filling up the room even before I was on, but there was no doorperson. I later announced on stage to the audience that the musicians would be oh-so-happy if the cover charge got paid, and I’m pretty sure that a bunch of people paid.
There was no time for me to soundcheck, so when I hit the stage I started playing right away.
The crowd was smiley, upbeat, and attentive. I tried my song Do You Want to Love Iguanas? for the very first time in front of an audience, and methinks it was a success with some woo-hooing in mid-song that followed my baboon impression. However, I forgot some words in my song I Lost It, which is about ignoring homeless people. Oh well. The scary part on stage for me during the set was when I played The Green Anthem, when I thought I had broken a guitar string. I thought, “CRAP! I didn’t bring a backup guitar! I knew it, I KNEW it!” But I hadn’t broken any strings — I had simply hallucinated from pressing too hard on the guitar neck.
My friend Loran was kindly videotaping me at the back of the club. I snickered when he showed me some footage afterward — I had this weird rock pose going on at one point.
The Blueberry Trees followed me. I chit-chatted with Marc from the band for a bit, he seems to be a drummer gone songwriter with a pretty straight attitude. I talked with his brother who bought a CD and told me about his DJ-ing, and spoke with his girlfriend. All very positive folks. The other bandmembers should all also be added to the “nice guy” list. The band’s sound was sort of Barenaked Ladies meets R.E.M. — it had a nice and happy vibe overall.
The Fortunates closed the evening with an hour-plus set. It was the first time I had seen or heard them without me playing with them, and my absence was irrelevant, as they put on a good performance of original tunes plus one Beatles song. The crowd really perked up for the Beatles song, which goes to show how much people will respond to songs they already know!
I must mention the soundperson “Spock”, who kept my curiosity peaked while he played flute on and off at the soundboard while he was doing sound. I can’t say that I’ve seen that before. He had a bit of a fight throughout the evening, since a pesky hum just wouldn’t disappear from the speakers and monitors when the bands were on.
And The Fortunates had their friend Ian Gibbons whom Mike had spoken highly of many times taping their show on both video and audio. He appeared to be very attentive to technical considerations and well-prepared.
It was good to see my old bandmates again: Mike, Jay, Darren, and Anthony — and their significant others: Alex, Christine, and Laura. Jay and Christine are getting married in 5 weeks, zowie! Darren and I shot the s**t for awhile.
Loran and I were almost the last folks to leave the club, having thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
(Comment on this show by clicking below right)

(Back-dated to date of performance)
This show was the TARS (Toronto Animal Rights Society) bi-weekly get-together — my fave animal rights association. There was a decent turnout (60+ people) — I thought there would be low attendance with the snow and cold outside. I told a woman afterward that I didn’t eat before playing because I would have burped while singing — certainly not conducive to superior vocals…
I naturally began with my song My Guinea Pig. During my set, people were pretty chatty, but I was happy that my fellow animal rights friends were in such good spirits.
I met some new people like Pat, Suzanne and Cheryl(?). Saw folks I knew from before like Adam, Jill Binder, Holly, Paul (I met his kids who seemed pretty cool), Erik, William, Vishal, Alan, Kirti and others.
I had rented a 100-watt Yorkville combo amp that handles acoustic guitar and vocals, but I don’t think I’ll buy it — it’s lacking in a few features that I want, like eq for the vocal channel.
The documentary we watched after my performance had an excellent explanation of one animal rights lawyer’s take on the “legal wall” separating non-human animals from humans. He had a very realistic opinion of when the first inroad might be made giving animals rights : 10 to 15 years for maybe a chimpanzee. And the right would be very basic.
The realistic downer of the documentary was one woman’s comment saying that by the time we get some real non-human animal rights in effect, it may be too late to help any of them. Creatures such as chimps and whales are considered more “intelligent” than other animals, so they are the likely first recipients of any rights given to non-human animals. The problem is that by the time we give them any rights, they may be extinct.

We can read and watch lots of info covering the recent Asian tsunami disaster. It happens to be mixed up with a lot of other “virtual” negativity around — from the Iraqi war to local killers. I say “virtual” because it’s not like most of us can see these things for ourselves — we are disconnected and discover them through the same box that gives us comedies and action movies.
That’s why I was kind of numb to the tsunami disaster — all this negative information insulated me from reacting with any oompf. However, my own local exposure to two events inspired me to donate to the Red Cross:
1. My friend Michael Moon, who falls under the “working musician” category, said he personally donated $50 to relief.
2. While renting some gear at my fave Toronto music store Long & McQuade, one of their employees was going around getting personal donations from other employees there.
It struck me that people around here were really taking the disaster seriously. They weren’t as disconnected as I was. May I say that I was pleasantly surprised and happy about this?
I’ve since seen many more additional inspiring charitable efforts.
Of course, our own money is given in addition to the money we are already donating through our taxes ($80 million currently allocated from Canada). Since we don’t actually see the taxes physically coming out of our pockets and going to Southeast Asia, we feel comfortable making further personal donations.
My wish of course is to take the same attitude with our local homeless and displaced (or anybody’s local homeless and displaced), and pay attention to other problems that don’t get the hype that the tsunami crisis did.
Hype is everything.
Did you know about the Rwanda genocide 10 years ago? TWICE as many people died. But the event didn’t get any major press, I couldn’t find out how our goverment donated (I spent a half-hour searching on the ‘net), and I don’t recall anybody else donating anything at the time. It follows that I didn’t donate. Was it just the media’s lack of influence? A friend of mine suggested that the current tsunami disaster is getting more coverage than the Rwanda genocide did “because you can’t blame anybody for a tsunami”. I thought that was interesting.
See some FAQ’s on the Rwanda genocide here.
And if you haven’t heard of Darfur, you hopefully will. More than 30,000 black Sudanese in the province of Darfur (Sudan, Africa) are believed to have been murdered or starved by Arab militias in the past year, and thousands more have been raped or tortured. Nearly a million refugees have fled to outside camps. The U.N. currently officially estimates that if significant aid does not arrive soon, the death toll may quickly jump to 300,000.
Read about the Darfur genocide situation here.
It goes to show that high human death counts will not necessarily get international attention like the Asian tsunami disaster is.

A last-minute invite brought me to the One Sixty Lounge above Metropolis Records in Toronto. The hosts were KA’rina and Gaspare, two local New Age gurus whose parties I had attended before.
However, I was a bit freaked-out upon arrival. Going up the dark empty stairs to the gig, I heard loud and mildly distorting choir music. The choir seemed to be repeating itself with an unpleasant tune. At first I didn’t know if it was real, and mixed in with it was some other droning music. But as I reached the door at the top of the steps, I realized my musician friend Michael Moon was in fact playing on the stage inside. The blend of his music and the stairwell’s pre-recorded music was an unnerving mix. Scary!
No matter — I came in and joined the small crowd. The place was decked-out with a variety of New Age paraphenalia: an altar covered with nik-naks, video displays, a computer display, candles, incense, a bed with all sorts of things attached to it, geometric structures, some groovy lights, and paper angels.
I barely sat down before KA’rina on stage invited everybody in the place to join hands in a circle. I wanted to opt out, but I quickly realized that I would be the only person abstaining. I didn’t want to be that anti-conformist.
If you wanted to stereotype what we looked like, you might say that it was some kind of Satanic ritual. Our hand-in-hand circle surrounded an altar. There were some “Omms”, some “Ahhs”, and some deep breathing with eyes closed. Once in the circle, I went through the usual thoughts of, “Is my hand sweaty to the next person?” and so on. By the time it was over I felt pretty good — I had been a bit grumpy before. We had concentrated on our heart flames and such things. It wasn’t my usual world, but I often try to drop my prejudices and accept everything with a positive open mind, and it was a positive experience indeed.
Shortly thereafter, I set myself up on stage, fighting a bit with the line mixer to get things happening.
I got the name of the woman closest to me in the audience (Johanna) and sang my Christmas song to her. She was really taken by it, coming right up on stage and hugging me quite genuinely. I think I blushed a wee bit.
Anyhoo, I did 3 more songs and that was it. I had chosen mellow ones to go with the mellow evening.
I chatted with magician Loran, a friendly Quebecois acquaintance of mine. He subsequently did some entertaining magic on stage. I said goodbye to Laura Nashman, my excellent flutist friend who was also there hanging out. Met some dude named Alex.
I said my farewells early, I had things to do that night.

I live very close to Clinton’s, so it was a very short bus ride to this gig. Clinton’s has some historical meaning for me — it’s where I used to hang out in my university days. Many evenings were spent there when I should have been studying.
I was added to the roster last minute, having e-mailed friendly Trevor of Solstice, the headlining folk/roots local act.
A Christmas benefit! I thought. I could play my Christmas song…
And that is what I did. The benefit was for the Daily Bread Food Bank. I donated two vegetarian organic items: one can and one carton of soup.
As is usual for most indie gigs, things were running late. I chilled out and watched the performers before me, including Canadian folk treasure Bob Snider. I chatted it up with my old friend James, my ex-girlfriend Simonee, her mom Neusa, and the soundman Fletch of Sex Without Souls fame (I had recorded that band some years earlier). Neusa told me while we were chatting that she had been laid-off from Kodak only a few hours earlier. Tough day for her.
I hit the stage. I mentioned that my Christmas song was kind of related to the night’s benefit. Christmas is so commercialized while people go hungry! (But you already knew that.)
I spent a full minute trying to get the attention of the girl nearest to the stage. Although I was loud and obnoxious trying to get her attention, she was the only person in the club not looking at me. Finally, I got her attention and her name (Judy), and sang my song to her. She was quite a good sport while I repented my love for her repeatedly in the song (I think she was on a date with some guy — sorry dude).
I got an encore from the audience (after 1 song? *stunned* — must have been friends), so I played a 2nd song, Generaligion.
Other acts followed me, including Virginia Dimoglou, whose Patsy Klein-esqe purity of voice just blew me away. I chatted with old friend Cathy, wife to James. Solstice finished the evening with some funky folky country twangy tunes. James joined them on a few tunes with banjo. They need a drummer to really complete the band IMHO, but I shouldn’t talk — I was playing solo.

I really enjoyed the 100th Toronto Santa Claus Parade this past weekend. Floats rolled by and marching bands strutted their stuff. The energy was excellent and some of the bands were pretty good (the all-black marching band I saw near the end of the parade really kicked some a**). It felt good to stand near the bands and feel the music in my chest. Kids and adults watched with glee.
But what left the strongest impression in my mind is what the parade left behind.
Santa Claus himself is always the last thing the public sees in the parade — standing on top of a float, waving and wishing “Merry Christmas” to everybody. I thought, “Hmm, I wonder will be behind him after his float passes?”
A few support ambulances and vehicles followed, and then then I walked into the instantly crowded street. I looked in the distance and witnessed an approaching army of garbage trucks and garbagemen.
Obviously, organizers knew better than I just what a parade like this leaves behind: tons and tons and tons of GARBAGE. There was so much crap lying around! Most of it was recyclable coffee cups and bottles and cans. RECYCLABLES, people! At least they were cleaning it up right away.
I shook my head in disbelief. Am I one of only a few geeks who actually bothers to carry the empty cans or bottles I drank from with me until I find a good place to recycle them?
As I followed the parade as it progressed, the waste remained thick. We’re talking about being unable to walk anywhere without stepping on something.
I thought Santa was supposed to leave toys behind.