Jackfish Lake

And yet another residual Miguel gig…

This one was for a lakefront party at Jackfish Lake (40 min. west of the city) and seems to be a fundraiser of sorts for the residents surrounding the lake.  It was a nice party, complete with great food, a ski jumping show, houseboat contests and a fireworks display when night fell - but I’ll have to take the residents word on this as we left just before it got dark.  We did some of the old Miguel Neri classics along with Marco’s cuban stuff - and we had a bonus conga player with us who was visiting from his home country of Mexico, called Edgar.

He’s a good conga player, and I found out he’s in the band Panteon Rococo.  They’re going to Europe later this summer, and they do a ska/reggae thing …lots of players too - and it looks like fun.  And it’s gotta be fun though, cause when the band gets big you typically find the ’shares’ getting smaller.  It’s just the math of a paycheck, that’s all.  Finance in music is not geared to the individual as much as it is to the band as a group …so when you have a club paying a flat fee for entertainment, obviously a small band (that does the same job) will get paid more per person than a larger band will.  That’s why it’s so hard for larger bands to play as much as smaller groups …it’s just economics.

As I was about to mention, playing in a big band is fun.  Musically it’s more of a challenge to get everything happening correctly, but when it does - the larger group takes on a life of its own.  That’s my experience though.  The dynamics are just different from the smaller.  It’s not a ‘better or worse’ thing …it’s just different.

And different is kinda fun sometimes

(L-R) Miguel, Edgar, Marco, John and Victor.

tunes…

The calm before the storm. Sort of.

The next few weeks are shaping up to be fairly hectic. There’s family stuff and work stuff. There’s gigs of course, and then there’s rehearsals. One of the gigs is with a trio called Leaving Elliot. We used to do a lot of small club/pub/bar stuff for many years - had a ‘house’ gig at a few different spots, and over that time put together a lot of different tunes. Amber and myself were kinda the mainstays, then Pat would do the guitar thing. Craig once in a while, Lane for a bit - and even Ben for a bit less. Mostly Pat though. Guitar, bass and vocals …and a mix of tunes that was pretty much across the board.

Anyway, we haven’t done squat for the last few years …and as luck would have it, we’ve got two sets of material we need to whip into shape for an ‘event’ next week. It’s pretty low key as far as gigs go - but it does mean we need to ‘remember’ some of that stuff that we used to do blind-folded. My mind works in strange ways though …I’m sure some of it will come back pretty fast - others though, may be like relearning the song all over again. I hate it when that happens.

Here’s a sampling…

stay - lisa loeb
there she goes - sixpence none the richer
have a heart - bonnie raitt
nobody’s girl - bonnie raitt
everywhere - bran van 3000
5 days in may - blue rodeo
the hideout - sarah harmer
dont get your back up - sarah harmer
secret heart - ron sexsmith
spin the bottle - julianna hatfield
kiss me - sixpence none the richer
why does it always rain on me - travis
hello - oasis
walking on the moon - police
message in a bottle - police
be my baby - ronettes
rocky racoon - beatles
wildwood flower - june carter cash
brass in pocket - the pretenders
dont dream its over - crowded house
salsbury hill - peter gabriel
strong enough - sheryl crow
chuckies in love - ricky lee jones

communication brkdwn

I recently heard the comment from a news anchor person that her daughter, who is fourteen, has never used a pay-phone before. Wow!

Really, I think that’s incredible. But then at the same time, I suppose it’s just part of the changing ‘communication scene’. A few months ago I was at a local movie theatre deciding what show I wanted to see. My friend was coming to meet me and I thought I’d get the ticket early seeing as I was there already. The problem was, I didn’t know what he wanted to see. Since he was still at home, I could just call him to ask - problem solved. Not really. The mall theatre didn’t have a pay-phone. So I scoured the place (Edmonton Centre) and still couldn’t find one. The entrance ways, the eatery, the near-by street corners. Nothing. It appeared that Telus removed their pay-phones from the area. Twenty five minutes/three missed movie choices later (and after a bunch of running around), I was no further along. So what gives?

I suppose Telus decided that their pay-phones weren’t in high demand. Perhaps vandalized more often than used constructively. I suppose everyone has cell phone nowadays too, so what’s the point of putting up and maintaining a seldom-used land line? And they would have a point.

I don’t have a cell phone. I guess I’m an anomaly of sorts. I use one at work, but only because I have to - but I hate talking on it …and it gets used maybe once every few days on average. I’d rather talk to someone face to face, or in all honestly - not talk to anyone at all. But I digress

Talking is important, and the ways of communicating are varied and evolving with technology constantly. The land-phone was great …and still is of course - but the cell phone is even handier. Right? Video conferencing/chat takes things up a notch, paving the way for the eventual ‘instant’ communicator that is probably just around the corner. You know the kind …a mix between a Star Trek badge and an ‘in your brain’ Matrix hook-up. Who knows …ear-pieces might just be the start.

My point though, is that we always seems to be pulled into the idea of being connected. If we’re not within reach of our friends, family or anyone else who we needs to contact us, then perhaps there’s something wrong. Perhaps we’ve fallen off the face of the earth? Maybe we’ve fallen and we can’t get up - lol. Maybe we’re ‘disconnected’ - but secretly wishing we weren’t …and that all the people in our lives were in earshot and able to interact instantly!

Maybe though, we should be left alone for a while. Is that too novel an idea?

Maybe being alone and having to sort through things for ourselves might do us some good. Maybe being connected in so many ways (facebook, IM/email, cell phone etc.) means we’re also disconnecting in other ways …other more natural ways. Maybe our language is devolving with our increase in convenience (sms/lolcat for example) and our thoughts and ideas too are becoming truncated …less expressive and perhaps short in worth. Short in content. Maybe our lives exist as headlines? Sound-bites. Maybe we’re losing the ability to express ourselves completely - and the result is a failure to communicate (ironic!). Maybe how we absorb information changes that information itself, and as Nietzsche remarked (this quote is taken from an interesting article by Nicholas Carr) …“our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Or maybe we no longer need the natural world as we once did, and we’ve grown apart from it and the silence it provides.

Communication shouldn’t necessarily be necessary simply because technology allows it, and when the first images of a new-born or the news of an old friend’s death arrive electronically - are we truly richer for it? We do have choices in the matter of course, and certainly we only take from each experience that which we need - but perhaps what we need isn’t always obvious …at least considering what we’re told we need most of the time.

And so we just go with the flow. The informational flow. We convince ourselves that our lives are richer through technology and the interconnectedness it brings. But at the same time, I can’t help to suspect that a part of us lags somewhat behind. Maybe in certain tactile experiences that add to that experience itself…

Like fumbling around in your pockets during inclement weather looking for that extra dime.

sperm donors

While channel surfing the other day I happened to stumble upon Oprah …her topic - Sperm Donors.

I don’t stumble upon Oprah too much (just so you know) but I did watch parts of the show. Why? Well, let’s just say the thought of being a sperm donor did cross my mind no so long ago, but more importantly, I wanted to see just who these donors were. One guy had made three trips a week to the sperm bank (at $40 a pop!) for four years …while another did it for more altruistic reasons. Whatever the compelling force though, the result is a bunch of kids running around the world that happen to look like the donor. Well - they don’t know that for sure …but the odds are there - it is a possibility. It was like the ultimate gene reproduction experiment, and any male parent who is impressed by their measly 2, 3 or 4 kid ‘output’ would have to be floored at the possibility of potentially fathering dozens if not hundreds of kids. Wow …gene pool success!

But then I realized how warped that actually is. How warped is the idea that a guy can have that many offspring …and more importantly, why would you want to! Why would a woman want to conceive a child with another man’s sperm knowing he could possibly be the genetic donor to hundreds of other children? So much for individuality.

There was a meeting on the show between a boy and girl who had the same donor …and they almost looked as twins! Now imagine, if there were 30 other kids who also looked similar - you’d have a huge family of people that not only looked alike, but shared many of the same genetic traits. Isn’t that freaky? Isn’t knowing that there are dozens of other people who look just like you - maybe sharing some of your mannerisms, really strange? *shudder*

Take it a little further now and consider if a celebrity decided to donate his/her sperm/egg in the same manner, and you had thousands of little ‘half Brad Pitt’ or ‘half Halle Berrys’ running around. Sure, it’s a great idea if there’s only one or two …maybe a few I suppose - but to have THOUSANDS of little Pitt/Berrys’ in this world would be - well…

Boring.

Mundane. Over-used. Cliche.  It’s like having the newest gadget, and then after everybody got one …it suddenly becomes a passing fad. Isn’t that what selecting off-spring would be like …eventually. Isn’t the personal selection of your sperm/egg tantamount to selecting your favorite color of car? Your favorite mp3 player? Sure, if the donor remained anonymous then you’d bypass the selection process, BUT - by allowing a sperm donor to donate thousands of times (creating the possibility of fathering hundreds or thousands of children) doesn’t that amount to the same thing? Aren’t you in effect creating an over-abundance of similar people? Isn’t this bad? At some point wouldn’t his be bad?  Wouldn’t that play havoc on a child’s self worth? Imagine a 20 year old girl searching for her ‘father’, finding she has a sister, and then finding she has 50 other genetically similar siblings!?  It’s more than weird.

Individuality and self-esteem, I think, would suffer. Of course the parenting mothers would offer other genetic information, and combined with genetic transfer by other means, you’d end up with a bunch of kids who of course wouldn’t be entirely the same …but they’d be pretty darn close. Too close, as far as I’m concerned.

But maybe I’m out of the loop in a way though. Maybe being adopted and not knowing who my biological parents are makes me look at things differently. Maybe I have a different perception of what an individual is. Maybe not being similar to others (as far as I know that is) affords me a different concept of uniqueness. A different idea of individuality. Maybe I’m wrong though …maybe people would be happy being like a bunch of other people. Maybe they’d think it’s great that they’d have hundreds of half-brothers and sisters scattered around the continent.

Maybe.
But I doubt it.

Images from the Internet Movie Database

comedy and swastikas

Did you know the swastika is an ancient symbol that existed as early as 3000-1500 BC and meant well-being and/or good luck?

You can check-up/source the history of it yourself, but the thing I wanted to bring your attention to was that there existed an Edmonton woman’s hockey team from 1916 called the ‘Swastikas’. I came across this while browsing some photos in Flickr, and it made me chuckle. Why? Obviously because I associated the swastika with Germany’s Nazi Party, and when seeing it portrayed on the shirts of a local hockey team from 1916 - it was funny.

Was it right to laugh? I think so. I had known the swastika to have been an old eastern symbol, but seeing it on a hockey team (which is a western creation) and portrayed so close in history to the integration of the symbol by the Nazi party …well, it was funny. Perhaps sadly funny in a way, but still funny. Maybe unfortunately funny might be a better statement.

But that’s one nature of comedy I suppose - exemplifying the misfortunes of others so that you can laugh at your own. There’s a recipe for comedy that I was reminded of a few times, that being ‘tragedy + time = comedy’ (quoting either Carol Burnett, Lenny Bruce of Woody Allen?). In the case of the swastika, the amount of ‘time’ in this formula is generally still insufficient …for most Western people that is. I’m assuming of course too. I remember spreading some 9-11 jokes a week or so after the event, and it was then that I was introduced to the formula from my buddy Pat. It made sense …and I waited. And waited.  And waited…

But I wonder how long you have to wait. I guess it would all depend on the crowd you’re with. Whether they’re closely tied to that tragic event or whether they’re distantly removed and might see some humor in it. Perhaps that variable should be incorporated into the formula somehow, along with a notion of the unexpected and the absurd. Maybe comedy has to incorporate some degree of ‘respect’ (thanks Pank). Maybe comedy isn’t as simple as tragedy plus time. Maybe it’s intensely complicated and factors in many types of emotions and perceptions. Maybe it’s almost beyond accurate description.

Who would of thought a man getting hit in the groin with a football could be so complicated …or a swastika for that matter.

Photo courtesy of 'Birthplace of Ice Hockey'

Grrrrr…

My body seems to be falling apart as I speak …or type that is.

Yesterday I had a small twinge in my knee early in the morning, and by the end of the day it was kinda stiff.  When I awoke this morning, it was swollen and almost unbendable.  The knee that is ;-)  Anyway (potty humor aside) - the rest of the day didn’t bring anything better for it, so now it’s ice-packs and elevation for the next few days(?)  It’s my first ever knee issue - and seeing as it wasn’t caused directly by anything sport related, I’m really hoping that it goes away.  Hoping.

So fast forward to the Baritone Doctors’ work environment.  We’re all standing around fixing things when Robin (Scott’s 10 year old son) makes the comment “Do you ever have your ears ring?”  I of course go into the whole ear-plug/protection thing that the typical musician knows well enough about, and then I find out that his ears are ringing at that very moment.  Strange I say.  Then Rachel pipes in with “I’m hearing a high pitched noise right now.”  Ian says the same thing.  Then Vanessa.  They wander about and converge on the battery charger in the corner of the room …ahhh, that’s making the noise!  Eureka.  Problem solved …kinda.

It seems the only people in the shop who can hear the noise all happen to be under 30 years old.  The other guys (41, 45 and 50) can’t hear a thing - even when standing beside it!  As you may know, I’m the 41 year old (for a little while longer at least) and I actually pride myself on my ‘preserved’ hearing …at least considering the amount of noise I’ve been exposed to during the past 20 years of my life.  But it seems it’s just a natural occurrence for your higher pitches to diminish with age.  Who would of thunk it.

Thanks old age.  My knee and ears are eternally grateful.

KM @ OTR

Well, the King Muskafa ‘phase change’ is underway.

John is doing drum stuff and Audrey is doing bone stuff …at least for the next few months - give or take a bit. Some little kinks need to work themselves out, but there’s no reason to not think that everything will be peachy keen in pretty quick time. Of course, me having wine on little sleep and almost littler food is not a good thing. On the trombone I think it works …not so much on the bass though. But the set rocked more or less - and I’m looking forward to the cavalcade of funness

Me and Marge and glass #1.

hot-heads

Venus won. Cool.

I got up this morning and caught the start of the match but then had to go to work. Serena was dominating and I feared it would go wrong for Venus …but it turned out alright. I’ve always liked Venus over Serena because she isn’t as ’sketchy’ in her play. She’s more consistent and seems less prone to emotional outbursts. She just goes about her business - she just does it. Calm and cool.

I was never a fan of McEnroe when he was playing Borg …ditto goes for Connors. I hate ‘hot-heads’. Sure, it’s what get them into their game at times, but then maybe I could argue that they should be in their game before it starts. That what I like about Federer and the others who keep their cool when down. I don’t especially like his ’style’, that is - it’s more exciting for me watching the guys who come to the net more …the guys who take chances more often. Pete was like that at times. What I like about Federer is his level-headedness. When he’s up - it’s not ‘in your face’, and when he’s down - he’s not crying to the crowd.

Arm pumping Nadal can lose in straight sets and I’d be happy.

Picture from Associated Press ....Photo/Glyn Kirk

need new glasses

I think I’m having problems with lighting.

I took a bunch of photos on my trip to Sask. and while looking back on them, a lot are typically ‘blanched’ out - just not expressive color-wise. I hate doctoring things up in Photoshop too much, but more specifically I suppose I’ll have to pay more attention to the actual conditions themselves. I mean, that’s what photography is all about in the first place …light management. It’s happened on many other photos as well. Compositionally I think I have some neat things/ideas - but that gets lost when there’s no color.

Something I should pay more attention to none the less.

two types

There seems to be two types of death; the one you expect and the one you don’t. The one you expect is typically drawn out, preceded by prolonged illness and visits/stays in the hospital. The one you don’t expect …well, that one is unexpected.

A few weeks ago Miguel ‘bailed’ on a gig he booked. He could of done it, but he complained about it being hard to breathe at times …which of course would impact his singing. He got Victor as a replacement and the gig went ahead as usual. He showed up at the function just to check in on us - he felt that he let us down by not being there, wanted to make sure things were alright and wanted to be a part of something that was all his doing.

Last weekend he did the same thing. He was going to go into the hospital for a few tests and some minor surgery …but small complications arose and he had to get Marco to sub for him. He still wanted to be involved of course, calling us from the hospital to make sure things would go smoothly …his wife Monica taking care of the traveling details, giving me pre-made cheques to pass out to the guys, giving me the appropriate wardrobe and sound equipment that we needed to get the job done. I called her after we finished the gig, which she had asked me to do, but I strangely only received her answering machine. I had expected someone to be home. I left a joyful message about how fine the gig went, how everyone was happy and how I’d give her a call next week after my trip to arrange a time to drop off Miguel’s stuff.

I’ve got a bunch of gigs and some rehearsals booked with Miguel throughout July and August. He also was wanting to work in a new trumpet player. I’m sure there were other things he had in mind too.

Not anymore though. I got a short email from someone saying that he had died in the hospital at 4 am a few nights ago. I haven’t talked to Monica since I left the message on their machine. I still have to get home from Saskatchewan. I still have to drop off a load of sombreros, mexican jackets and percussion toys.

His death was one unexpected.