Bob's Journeys

Why I (don’t) Write

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:09:00 GMT

Despite its outwardly moribund appearance, this blog is not yet completely dead. However, I have to confess that after many attempts, reinvigorating this space has proved a little painful.

During its incarnation as an exploration of music and memory it managed to hold my attention fairly persistently. However, the experience of writing and publishing a book taught me something - while writing a blog was a useful rehearsal for a larger work, it is not the same thing. No matter how profound your writing, putting it on-line for free is a fast track to critical irrelevance.

Having embarked upon a second book, one more about St. John's and the weird hold it has on so many imaginations, (not least, my own), it seems nuts to spoil the dinner by putting the material out in a free snack tray. Also, many of the pieces for that book have been or are in the process of being published in the Newfoundland Quarterly. While that magazine has a limited circulation, and is rarely seen outside Newfoundland itself, it does have the virtue of existing in tangible written form. While those at Slate and elsewhere would argue the point, I have found that it makes a difference.

'What about the regular travel stuff, then', one might ask. Where are the rapturous odes to Paris, the penetrating explorations of Brantford, or snide remarks about Orlando? Well, to be honest, since the summer, I have not really gone anywhere that interesting. I have been to Toronto a few times, but it would take a more creative mind then mine to make something out of those trips - neither one was for more then 24 hours, and in neither case did my journey extend more then a few kilometers from my downtown hotel. I saw no interesting museums, ate at hotel restaurants renowned for nothing except convenience, bought nothing more interesting then a new briefcase, and talked to no one outside my immediate circle. From such encounters are very boring books written. I was in Halifax a couple of times as well, again, for less then 12 hours on both occasions. I didn't hear so much as a fiddle tune on either trip, and other then to speculate on why I am repeatedly subjected to fourth level searches in YHZ security, I could not think of a thing to say about them. I was also in Moncton for 8 hours a few weeks ago, but that trip was also accomplished in less then a day, and the only incident of even remote interest was an annoying highway detour that added two hours to the drive. Summer trips could have been interesting, but circumstances just led me in circles. Late gigs and travel snafus meant that I was in Lisbon for two days, which was just plain ridiculous. Our band trip to the Colorado Rockies offered a few possibilities, but it was instead punctuated by me somehow acquiring altitude sickness. Hard to make profound observations while lying on a hotel bed barking like a seal and nursing a brutal headache. While personal illnesses are pretty consuming in the moment, they are hardly the stuff of exhilarating literature...

Perhaps the whole blog thing in general is in trouble; a survey of my browsers' links recently led me to this conclusion. A few years ago I regularly followed a dozen good blogs, but these days most of them have drained away, or been reduced to photo and link postings. Facebook has become unbearably dull, and google+ way too much trouble for anyone either employed or older then 17. For news, shameless self-promotion and general verbiage, Twitter makes a worthy vehicle. 'To everything there is a season', as Ecclesiastics would say, and the day of the blog may have ended.

A new vehicle may have to pull into the creative driveway. Maybe it is indeed finally time to really get to work on that narrative poem linking the seal hunt, black rum, Joey Smallwood and my Grade 11 class.

Meanwhile...

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:53:00 GMT

Many people have asked me what I said to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

I liken the moment to the sort of thing you might experience when going to a wedding as a date, one where you do not actually know any of the principals, but are nonetheless obligated to join the reception line at the back of the church and greet the couple. Such an occasion is important for everyone else in the church, but one you yourself could really care less about. Even so, politeness and mutual interest is required. Hopefully you say something clever. Usually, you don't.

The Prince has been doing this sort of thing his whole life, and knows how to work a line up of strangers. His wife hasn't. And doesn't.

The only clever thing I thought of was to offer her a sandwich, as it looked as if she could use one. That seemed like a bad idea, and I would have had to go back to catering anyway to find one, so I didn't mention it. Instead we thanked each other, for what I don’t know. And then she was talking to Alan.

More amusing was my encounter with the prime minister, a man for whom I have the greatest ambivalence. I am pretty apolitical, politicians generally make me nervous, too much forced gaiety and insincerity. Mr. Harper is renowned for his serious demeanor, and it was plain that being a royal chaperone was no more his idea of a good time than mine. Our encounter was even more awkward. The procession froze for some reason, and he was forced to stand and chat with me for a few minutes. Plainly, we were uninterested in each other. It was worse then a wedding reception line, more like a similar event at the funeral of a business acquaintance’s relative, where one has to make uncomfortable small talk about someone you didn't really know. We discussed how hot it was for some time. Then he said there would be fewer people at his party that night. I found this a little odd, and could think of nothing sensible to say other than then “oh."

Mrs. Harper must have sensed panic, because she broke in with a bright “he has a band too!" "You have a band?", I said. I was a little surprised by this, he doesn't seem like the type. Maybe I had misheard, because he looked at me with some confusion.

"Your band...?" I enquired again, and then the conversation died away altogether. We stared at each other.

Suddenly the line lurched forward.

"Congratulations," he said to me, almost running away. Now I was even more confused. For what, pray tell? I guess he just says that a lot, it’s better than nothing. He looked relieved when he got away from me. I could hardly blame him. My senate appointment has yet to arrive.

Spring Mailbag

Wed, 04 May 2011 17:14:00 GMT

Two years or so into this new blog, it occurs to me that I have never commented at all on the responses to the entries. No time like the present, I say. Also, the only place I have been lately is Florida, and really, what am I going to say about that? The lines at Disney were really long? Kids sure do love farting around on the beach? How come I never eat ice cram anywhere else in the world? Nothing very profound to be found there, I am afraid. I also wonder if things have gotten a bit heavy on the blog; judging by the overall tone of the comments, I am overdue something lighter. On the other hand, pleasant interactions and happy days don’t make for the most interesting reading experiences. I am a huge fan of the travel writing of Paul Theroux, who has made a great living travelling around the world in a snit. He shall be my guide.

Going back a year and change, lots of people liked my essay about the Waterford Hospital, aka ‘the mental’. Townies are still very intimidated by the place. Even though the hospital has the same blood collection and other minor clinics as the other local hospitals, they are often lightly attended. I always go to the Waterford for such things, as there is never a line-up, and there’s always somewhere to park. Most half-sensible people are either afraid to go there, due to their discomfort with the mentally ill, or out of fear that someone they know will see them coming out the door, and assume they are in for some treatment. It is a bit perverse of me, but I rather enjoy both experiences. Life is supposed to be an adventure, isn’t it?

My Irish anecdotes were much liked, but generated little in the way of controversy; someone did write in, however, to complain about slow shipping from the merch store. While the personal appeal was touching, and I am sympathetic, allow me to say here and now, for anyone else experiencing such problems, addressing merchandise complaints to the comments section of my blog is probably not the way to go about it.

Several people seemed to doubt whether skateboarding Prescott Street was in fact possible. Having witnessed a couple of likely lads attempt it in a shopping cart recently, I can attest to the fact that it’s entirely possible. Advisable – well, that’s another thing. Mind you, I have never tried it myself, although once I did roll backwards down a good chunk of Prescott on a winter’s evening, when my effort to shift gears in an aging Honda failed spectacularly. But that’s another story….

My stab at irony, with regards to the unfriendly environs of Canada’s parliament, pretty much missed the mark, I am afraid. I was aware that generally people are allowed to sit on the grass on Parliament Hill; I just thought my mock protest would be funnier. All I got for my trouble was a ringing defense of Ottawa Parks and Recreation policy. Which explains yet again why millions of people watch Jay Leno, and I am not a famous comedy writer.

I was quite happy with the piece about Kent, Ohio. GBS days are often rather aimless, and I was attempting to convey what that feels like. A lot of people get a little disoriented when they travel, when the comfort of routine is left behind. Almost all our days are like that, which is really the point I was trying to make. The way to combat travel fatigue it is to get out and find something interesting, to justify the journey as being about more than the sound-check and the gig. Otherwise, I might as well just stay home and play at Erin’s.

My essay about the different characteristics of Canadians vs. Americans drew a lot of responses from both camps. It was interesting that a lot of Americans saw my essay as critical of the USA, while Canadians were defending me from imagined American attacks. From my perspective – (Newfoundland, which is both betwixt and between) – this was a perfect example of both national tendencies. The Americans were thoughtful and tenaciously patriotic in their defense, the Canadians a little churlish and nit-picky and over-sensitive. Which is pretty much the way I see the whole relationship. To quote my friend Frank, “aaah, if only more people were like me, you’d all be so much better off”.

My most recent blogs were both round-ups of touring activities. Just to be clear, I do not dislike Seattle. If anything, I like it more than half the places we go. It just seemed to me that on a rainy Saturday morning, crazy street people were overwhelming the place. Honestly, I do not have any solutions to this problem either. On a hot day, downtown St. John’s can be a nutbar parade. And that sucks no matter where you are.

And, in conclusion, for those who asked: (1) while I might indeed be burnt to a crisp, am not done travelling by a long shot; (2) the St. John’s book is slowly coming together; (3) we are not playing the Toronto Molson Ampheatre this summer; (4) I will never write about municipal development again; (5) a cook book is definitely not in the works; (6) and it is true, while my writing for the NL Quarterly is probably my best work ever, it is pretty much impossible to find the magazine outside St. John’s and Halifax. Oh well, as with getting blood tests surrounded by crazy people, arguing with hobos in Seattle, wearing black suits in the blazing sunshine, and going to Disneyworld on the busiest weekend of the year, the perversity of swimming upstream like that just appeals to me. Once a rebel, always a rebel.

Touring thoughts...

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:42:00 GMT

Profound thoughts have been thin on the ground these days. With a very lengthy tour behind us, and an indefinite break in front of us, it often felt like the last days of a very long summer. In extended tours the challenge is to make every night different and exciting, even when ennui has set in elsewhere. Calls come to change the set list, make the songs harder, the show longer, whatever it takes. For me, I just need to get outside, walk around, and feel the place. I was optimistic about this trip, after a couple of weeks in Newfoundland I crave sunlight like a potted plant. I am not gonna get much sympathy here, but for me, anyway, the cruise was not enough to fill the tanks.

Kelowna – My initial impression of Kelowna in 2011 was blurred by a serious case of jet lag. You would think that by now the hundreds of flights I have taken would have granted me some immunity, but this is not the case. Taking a late flight from Toronto that took eons didn’t help, nor did the endless overnight bus trip up and down the mountains. There is no cure for jet lag, but I have got better at recognizing the symptoms. For example, one develops a sort of second-person narrative to the events going on around you: “Aahh yes,” you might think, “while it is indeed irrational for one to burst into tears over this story about the lost puppy, it is in fact complete exhaustion that has driven you to this mental state, not any accurate reflection of your emotional equilibrium.”

Still, despite wild mood swings, I managed to get out and walk around town for a bit. If I had any conclusion, it’s that Kelowna is getting better. The first time I went there I thought it was one of the most disappointing places in Canada, a town with no real center, just a string of suburbs and malls built around a lake. Over the years, it has developed a real downtown, with the sort of density that separates cities from dormitory town aimlessness. Interesting to watch an urban space come into being. If the city is lucky, Kelowna will skip the soul-stealing mistakes of 70s era planners, and skip right ahead to half decent. Certainly it has everything going for it.

Seattle – I am never sure about this city. Seattle has always been very kind to us, but sometimes it seems like Vancouver’s richer and darker twin. They share similar weather and geography and architecture, and are so close as to represent a little micro-urban world of their own. However, Vancouver’s population has seen a huge influx of Asian immirgants, which has really changed the city’s look and feel at a street level. It is also a very young and liberal city, a place almost European in its politics and cultural values. On the other hand, Seattle has the sort of deep-rooted prosperity that makes it ever edgy and exciting. The city has a confidence lacking in Vancouver, which often gets infected by Canada’s national sport of navel gazing. One thing both places have in common is an unhealthy portion of their respective nation’s indigents. I guess a mild climate and their position at the end of the continental roads means those who have run out of other options end up there by default. Our early morning arrival in Seattle meant I shared my walk with one of the largest conflagrations of homeless people I have seen anywhere. Every alley seemed to sprout a little hobo jungle, and every doorway featured a wingnut shouting warnings or insisting on donations. I never know what to do in those situations. Once you give your change away, then what? While there is an argument for granting these people some dignity by acknowledging them and talking to them, more than once this has resulted in me being chased down the road by someone way beyond any rational conversation. Instead I just do what everyone else does – hand out money for a while, and then stare straight ahead and pretend I don’t see them. After ten minutes of that I just hate myself. There has to be a better way.

Carmel-by-the-sea – There are places in Newfoundland that have a raw and pristine beauty that takes your breath away. I have been to lots of other places that were so nice I wanted to stop passer-byes and start composing poems. There are places I have been that made me want to be an impressionist painter, so I could somehow capture their effervescence in a way that a photograph never can. None of them were as nice as Carmel-by-the-sea. Yeah, I know it has turned into a preserve for the ultra-rich, but at least there is no wall of condos down the beach, and there is both parking and bathrooms for those who can only dream of living in such beauty. When I finally finish that hit novel about biblical prophecies lost in the Brigus barrens, or pirate treasure buried under St. John’s city hall, I shall buy one of those two bedroom fairy-tale cottages with a view of the pacific and move to Carmel-by-the-sea.

Arroyo Grande – When we woke up on the bus, I discovered that we were parked literally right in the middle of a high school -the local theatre is part of the same complex. We were literally inches from the school’s band room, where a series of ensembles and individuals went for their music lessons. I hated high school with a passion, but I loved the school band. How odd it was to hear those same sounds again, a generation later. It was a soundtrack long forgotten, but as evocative as the smell of wood smoke in the fall. The farting horns, out-of-time drums and shrill woodwinds have improved little since my day, but so what? I wished those students well. While I left the Beaconsfield High School concert band with little interest in (or aptitude for) the baritone saxophone, it did stir a life-long passion for playing music with other people. The kids of Arroyo Grande should be so lucky.

Arizona – The greater-Phoenix area always amazes me. It is unmatched, at least in my travels, for sprawling wealth. Tucson is not as shimmering or modern, and much of it is downright rough and ready, but it somehow feels a little more real. Phoenix is like the rich cousin who has a job working for a hedge fund, the one with the mansion, the pool and the four cars, while Tucson is the blue collar relative who still lives out around the bay, making the best of it and getting by through effort and ingenuity. Both places stand as a monument to human possibility. Their existence alone, in the midst of a desert, never ceases to amaze me. However, as a Canadian with a passing interest in sports, it still makes me wonder who thought it would make a good spot for NHL hockey.

Durango – This was a beautiful setting for just about anything, not to mention a concert, but it is a bit of a drag that the campus theatre we played is so far out of town. Fort Lewis College is located on a mountain overlooking Durango, and it requires either an auto or a mountain goat to make the trip into town. I don’t get planners who put campuses out in the middle of nowhere. My favourite college towns are those where the school is in the middle of the town and everything flows around it. From a student point of view, it’s the best of both worlds. The town gets all that youthful energy, and the campus gets to keep its feet firmly on the ground. Otherwise, where will rambunctious boys get their illicit beer and pot, and when will shy girls mingle at dodgy downtown clubs with charming and false-hearted townies? Who will sell the youth of tomorrow crap pizza, wings, pot noodles and wieners? Where will naive students learn how to deal with rapacious landlords, or acquire dubious part-time jobs? College teaches many things besides calculus and communication. Not the least is surviving on your own in a strange town. But first, you need a town…

Travel Is Good For The Mind

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:29:00 GMT

A few thoughts from the past round of concerts. We have done a weird variety of gigs over the past week. Speaking for myself, I prefer it that way. While a steady run of theatres or rinks is easier for the cast and crew, it tends to get a bit workmanlike after a while. Variety is the spice of life.

Somewhat optimistically, I brought a ton of work with me on the cruise, expecting to get all sorts of things done. Unfortunately I spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the waves going by. Ca va, as we might say in more francophone parts of Canada, which in this context roughly translates as ‘I am no better off, but neither am I worse off’. Looking at the ocean rolling past can still in fact be useful. If nothing else, it lowers the blood pressure, and the sea air is good for the lungs.

I did stir myself a little, besides the various gigs and appearances we did, to make a few random observations.

Huh? - One thing that struck me was an occasional disconnect between what we were doing and our audience’s expectations. While this is nothing new, a lot of people we played for in the past little while either see us very infrequently, or not at all. This can make a show frustrating for all concerned. Now and again we feel a little like guys putting on a Disney movie, who are faced with complaints that there weren’t enough nude scenes.

For example, as I was leaving my book reading on the ship I had a weird encounter. Now, I am not complaining about the event itself, it was well attended and a lot of fun. In fact, it went so well I am considering ditching music all together and just sitting there talking about myself. But anyway, I am going down the hall afterwards, and I heard a woman behind me sniff ‘well, that was ok, but I thought the others would be there with guitars’. I almost stopped and said, ‘Really? At a book reading? Where it was advertised that I would be there by myself, reading my own book’? I wondered if she was serious, and I actually turned around, with thoughts of pointing out the inherent problem in her disappointment. She stopped me in my tracks with the sort of disapproving look my mother would have used after I had scratched the family car, or forgotten to pick up my sister after school. Plainly, I had failed.

Something similar happened at our ‘Songs Unsung’ event. We were pretty clear about what we were doing, digging deep into our collective catalogue in search of the forgotten and neglected. We even said it again at the top of the show. And no sooner were we sitting down then someone was shouting for ‘Lukey’. I felt like launching into a diatribe – ‘look, missus, we have described exactly what we are doing here on the web site, in the ads, even onstage. There are lots of songs we probably don’t play enough. There are lots of songs we should play more. There are lots of songs we have perhaps unfairly neglected. ‘Lukey’, by any possible definition, is none of them’.

Airport Hotels – I hit a few of these in the past month. You have got to wonder, is there any place on earth with more anxieties? Does anyone actually enjoy staying in these? I have seen dental surgeries where people were calmer. I am done with the species. Who can relax while the entire ambience of the place requires you to spend every moment looking at your watch, lest you miss a flight or something? You might as well spend the night walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the check-in counter.

Costa Maya – To quote dramaturge Jill Kielly, (entirely out of context, I might add): yuck, b’y.

Miami –I walked through a bunch of residential neighbourhoods, out by the airport and elsewhere. Everyone I encountered, no matter what his or her place on the economic ladder, spoke Spanish. I stopped into a Kmart to buy some socks, which I forgot to pack. All the important signage was in Spanish, as were for example, the entirety of the magazine selection. I talked to as many people as I could just to see what would happen. It was like Montreal, where everyone says ‘hello, what do you want’ in French, and then switches to English when they hear your accent. Everyone started off speaking to me in Spanish, and there is not a guy in that store who looked less Latino than me. Most of these people were not recent immigrants - when they spoke English it was unaccented and free of the sort of construction mistakes that everyone makes when they are speaking a second language.

I have travelled a lot; when English is not anyone’s first linguistic choice, it is usually a good sign that you are not in an English speaking country, or at least, a place where it just doesn’t matter that much. Welcome to Miami. I wonder if those who speak of a uni-cultural America know that there is a huge Latin city in the middle of Florida? What do people like the ranters on FOX news and MSNBC actually see when they walk down the street? Like a lot of Newfoundlanders, I love Florida, and I spend a lot of time there. Time and time again I have noticed that outside professional circles, the vast bulk of the people actually doing the tough jobs there are Latino, and are conducting most of their lives in Spanish. When the supposed first language of the place has ceased to matter in everyday life it is a sure sign that the society is changing big time. I await events there with interest.

The Norwegian Dawn – Cruise ships sure are a lot nicer when the weather is good.

Entertainment, Cozumel Style – It’s not very ‘cool’, but I like it Cozumel a lot. Obviously it lives and dies by tourist dollars, but still has somehow managed to retain a little of its dignity. The cleverness of the street vendors there astonishes me. Even though it is a cruise port, and such is mobbed everyday by a seething horde, the place never feels cynical. For example, if you actually look people in the eye, they will actually smile at you in return, a smile that says ‘it is a pity that we are both forced into this situation, of me bugging you, and you avoiding me, but hey, that’s the way it goes, right, so there is no need to be offended or take this personally.’ If you are even moderately polite, people will give you useful directions, warn you away from obvious mis-steps and even joke around a bit. In a tourist port, this is no small thing. They can be very quick-witted as well. While the touts and salespeople might be annoying, they are also a marvelous source of free entertainment.

For an example, I overheard this pitch to a very elderly couple, hobbling along in front of me: “Are you on your honeymoon sir? You should buy something for your pretty new wife…” One guy, bowing graciously, ushered me in to his stall with this inspiring enticement: “I have the best useless junk and tourist crap on the Island…” Seeing his competitor fail, the guy next door told me: “Do you have children senor? If you really loved them you would buy something here as a gift.” While passing a bar, the waiter suggested that I “come in, sir, and join these other sad alcoholics here for a drink…”

One ambitious cabbie followed me for 30 feet, trying to persuade me to take a ride. Finally I stopped and used my standard line on such occasions: ‘I can’t take a taxi, I am too fat, I need to walk’. While this may or may not be true, it is the last thing they are expecting, and it has gotten me a laugh or two all over the world. Not this guy. His replay was instant – ‘Then you should carry this shopping home to my wife for me, senor, the exercise will be good for you’. Uhh, fair enough then.

On the way into town I passed a dozen souvenir stands right near the center. The proprietors were a couple of kilometers from the cruise ship docks, and thus had been forced to become more resourceful. All of them were very persistent. I had to say ‘no thank-you’ to each one individually while offering apologies and encouraging sounds, and actually shake hands with three different guys. Not five minutes later, after a loop of the town square, I was on my way back past the same market. I feared a repeat performance of my tedious promenade, but instead they upped the ante considerably. Each stallholder in turn jumped out and greeted me as an old friend.

“Welcome back, welcome back, amigo…”
“Ah, I have awaited so long for your return…”
“Senor, I knew you would visit me again one day…”
“It is so good to see you once again, I have missed you terribly….”

And so on. Absolute genius. I bought the sombreros

A Year of Travel

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:07:00 GMT

For many reasons, some professional, some personal, I travelled more this year than I have any other year of my life. I was on a plane on January 3rd, 2010, and my last flight of the year was on Dec. 30, twelve months later. There was not one chunk of two weeks in between without a flight, over 100 for the year. And this does not count thousands of miles by bus & van, and the odd train trip for good measure. I travelled so much it utterly ceased to become remarkable. Somehow all this motion became normal. I have been home for two weekends in a row this Xmas, and that in itself seems strange. And though I should be exhausted and sick of it all, I am not. Instead I am plotting more escape. I am beginning to think there is something wrong with me.

I have been to so many different places it seems hard to believe. The band started the year in New Orleans. This turned into an odd experience at a bunch of levels. We went there to find new inspiration, only to discover that we had already been inspired before we left, and really, we might not have bothered for all we achieved there. The city was freezing cold, something for which we were ill prepared, and the time passed slowly. It is all like a dream now, wandering home late at night along Magazine Street after aimless recording sessions, drinking wine in a huge old house while listening to the wood creak, waiting in the rain for non-existent cabs, walking lonely Garden District streets that seemed to have been forgotten even by their residents. The music became secondary to the experience, but that is often the way. Travel is never exactly what you think it will be, a lesson I have learned over and over again this year. New Orleans was supposed to teach me something, although I am still sure exactly what.

Before I could get my head around all that, we were off to Vancouver for the Olympics, a whirlwind of flights and shows and interviews. It has not often that we have been bit-players in a larger - a much larger drama, and it was a good experience. I have never liked Vancouver itself much; the dichotomy between the beautiful geographic setting and the often depressing streetscape has always bothered me. However, the city transformed itself for the Olympics, becoming the sort of lively and exciting place it always should have been. It felt like Montreal in the summer, or Florence on a good day, and it was wonderful and hopeful and proud of itself. I have been back a few times since, and the glow has not yet worn off. I hope it doesn’t, Canada needs Vancouver to be itself. Vancouver should be a beacon of greenery and youthfulness and playfulness and optimism, and for a while it was.

And then there was the tour, the endless tour, which started in March and continued on and off until Xmas. All the provinces and most of the States were touched this year, so many that it felt like a merry-go-round, one which flung us on and off at increasingly random points. More than once I woke somewhere in parking lot, and peered blearily out a bus window, and had to pause for a long moment and think ‘where am I?’ The answer was always the same really, ‘here, where we are going to do a show tonight’. And for those who came to see us play, that was usually enough.

In between, I walked around enough cities to actually wear out two pairs of shoes. Besides St. John’s, Paris, Helsinki, New York, Orlando, Puerto Morales, Cavendish PEI, and Toronto were all long-term stops. I only wrote something sensible about Paris, but all of them taught me something. I am sure there is more, but right off the cuff, I can think of three things. One is that there is always something to see, even if it is just the end of your own driveway. I have often been a little disappointed this year, but not often bored.

Second, I have pretty much completely ceased to care about my stuff. This year, due to tight airplanes, cramped buses, hurried hotel exits and general stupidity, I have blithely lost or abandoned half my wardrobe, a small library, an octave’s worth of harmonicas and tin whistles, several pairs of sandals, my iPod shuffle, a pair of sun glasses that I was very fond of, three cell phone cables, and more toiletries than any heterosexual man should own. Whatever constant travel did to create this zen like attitude was cemented by the Hurricane Igor, which washed away all our studio gear and a good chunk of my instrument collection. Insurance will replace the investment, but I am finding it really hard to care about the stuff itself. I have been having a recurring mental conversation that starts with, ‘oh shit, I just lost my _____’, and ends with something along the lines of: ‘Actually, I still have two fiddles – do I really need more? And who needs their own blow dryer anyway? Or, really, when am I going to read that Steven King novel again?’ Time to stop collecting.

And, third, Niagara Falls is just Blackpool or Brighton with a waterfall instead of a slimy beach. Once you realize that it makes a whole lot more sense.

There is a school of thought in India that says when a man reached a certain age, when he has taken care of his family, and fulfilled his obligations to those around him, he should take a bowl and a dhoti and head out on the road, to spend the rest of his days as a wanderer, finding succor and enlightenment wherever he may. Twenty years ago this seemed absurd to me, and I am still a very long way from that point in life. Still, it is starting to make a whole lot more sense. As my favourite writer said, ‘further in, and further up’.

The rising sun beckons.

On Re-fighting the War of 1812

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:03:00 GMT

After guff about kitchen parties, one of the most common questions interviewers pose to us is about Canada vs. the USA. Somewhat surprisingly it is a question we only get asked in Canada – are audiences in the USA different?

The fact that we only get asked this question in Canada tells you almost everything you need to know about the difference. At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, English Canadians tend to have a fierce inferiority complex when it comes to the US. In Toronto and other centers close to the border, it is a conversation that never ends.

All this has been in my mind lately, during a tour that has crossed and re-crossed the border countless times over the past year. We used to make a huge distinction about playing in the USA and Canada, but as time goes by, and audiences south of the border have grown, it made less and less sense to draw a line between US and Canadian legs of a tour.

To answer the uber question, however, there are differences, sometimes big ones. They are just not the ones the interviewers are expecting. Some differences are obvious, some not so much, some so subtle you really have to think hard. For example, in the paragraph above I used the phrase ‘south of the border’ to describe America; this is a common Canadian expression, understood by everyone. There is no real equivalent in the American lexicon. In the unlikely event that someone needs to discuss Canada, they just say ‘Canada’. Our country registers so little on American culture that it has never even been necessary to invent some linguistic nickname. I titled this piece ‘Re-fighting the War of 1812’. In America that was a minor conflict, pretty much forgotten by the history books. To Canadians it was a defining moment, the subject of libraries and monuments nationwide.

This is where the real differences lie – while both countries share similar language, economic systems and racial make-up, cultural history makes people think along very different lines. Canadian history is all about the easy transformation from colony to country, a state built on compromise. This has lead to a very relaxed attitude about social practices and cultural expressions. There is just no equivalent to the American culture wars. To offer an example, Newfoundland is a religious and conservative place by Canadian standards, at least on the face of things. At the same time it is socially liberal in a way that would be unthinkable in most of modern America. A few years ago a law was passed making gay marriage legal in Newfoundland. The attitude of the government was that ‘really, who cares anyway’. All parties supported the motion, and it caused barely a ripple in the public eye. In America this is a serious public issue, with political lives and millions of dollars devoted to fighting this battle. In Newfoundland it was a massive collective yawn.

On the other hand Newfoundlanders, and many Canadians look on America’s energy and pride with stark envy. Canadians are cautious and self-effacing, qualities useful in your banker, not so much in the arts and business worlds. A messianic figure like Obama would never arise in Canada – not because of racism, but because characters that dynamic just do not enter politics in English Canada.

A few recent events put this all in my mind. Walking around Windsor, Ontario, gives you a tangible physical divide to compare to the mental one. You can taste and touch America from Windsor, as Detroit looms right across the water. And the cities could not be more different. Windsor is a pretty typical small Canadian city, very multi-cultural, clean and prosperous, with a bustling downtown and a fairly diverse economy. Detroit feels a little like a war zone these days, buffeted by economic forces beyond its control, a city turning into something very different altogether. It can be a scary place, but also one where you feel something fascinating and amazing might emerge. It is a city that spawned both Motown and Eminem. I cannot see such figures coming from our side of the river. Windsor feels a hell of a lot safer; and believe me, this is a good thing. But it also, like Canada in general, it may lack the edge from which great ideas spring forth.

A better illustration of this whole difference thing might be found in our shows themselves. When introducing ‘Hemethead’, Alan sometimes does a funny bit about the Vancouver Olympics, when the Canadian hockey teams defeated their American counterparts for the gold medals. The subtext of this joke works entirely differently depending on what side of the border we are on. In Canada, this was a major national triumph, the Superbowl and World Cup all rolled into one, the sports story of the decade. In America, where hockey is a minor sport with zero cultural resonance, no one even noticed. The joke is secondary in Canada, where doing the bit reminds our audience of that great outpouring of pride and patriotism, and everyone collectively basks in the glow for a few minutes. In America, people laugh more at the gag itself, while seemingly a little bemused that we are attaching so much weight to an event that barely made it onto their radar.

Introducing ‘Yankee Sailor’ every night has also revealed a few truths. Myself and Alan and Joel and Paul talked and thought a lot about this song while we were writing it. We were trying to tell a simple story, one man’s heartbreak and redemption, and through that make a statement about the bittersweet history of Newfoundland. It can feel like a very different song, depending on where we play it. Our American audiences feel bad for the guy, but also appreciate the song on another level – they also see the celebration of America that is the songs subtext. They see the girl’s embrace of the American dream as logical and admirable, even if a little painful for those left behind. Canadians seem to take the opposite tack. They feel really bad for the guy, and are irritated at the girl who left him to go to America. While it was not our intention, the song actually feeds on Canadians fear of the other, their insecurity about living next to (and largely ignored by) the most powerful country in the world. (It is also quite possible that I am imaging all this; you have a lot of time to think when you are just standing there with a low whistle, waiting for a chorus).

Now that I think about it, this whole essay really makes no sense in American terms. To be Canadian is to worry about this sort of thing - we are a nation of navel gazers and second guessers. Americans just forge ahead, confident in theirs and their country’s future. And as someone who works in both countries, I am fine with that. It’s what makes it fun.

In Defense of Aimlessness – A Rambling Essay

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:27:00 GMT

I walked the streets of Kent, Ohio a few days ago. It is a pleasant spot, a little run down, but with enough university student energy to keep it alive. Its industrial past seems largely behind it, but the inhabitants have not completely abandoned their downtown, and the attempts to spruce up the river are admirable.

What I could not find was any tangible trace of its past as a historical flashpoint. The 1970 student protest and subsequent massacre at Kent State University was a pivotal point in United States history, the place where society realized that student protest and government suppression had gone way too far. An awful tragedy, it was a place where America came to the brink, and somehow pulled itself back. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings)

I realize most of the events took place at the university, but tension between the working class town and the more worldly students was no small ingredient in that tragedy. Nowadays Kent is a quiet place, where students seem more worried about grades and parties and work-terms than anything more serious. Fair enough, they will not be young forever, and a few carefree years will do them no harm. Meanwhile, the blue-collar industries are long gone from the downtown, and with them the culture they fostered. Kent’s time as the center of a small-scale civil war has receded into the past.

I walked for a couple of hours, along the river, though calm residential streets, past schools and tattoo parlours, tanning salons and used CD stores. Increasingly, however, I cannot wander around these towns without being conscious of my status as the ‘other’. Newfoundland, for all its other unhealthy habits, is an Island full of walkers. I live part-time in rural Newfoundland, and it is nothing to be miles from anywhere on some dirt road in the barrens, only to encounter a couple of matrons chatting away like magpies as they march past. Such types are rare in towns like Kent. Other than kids on their way from school and Latino nannies, pedestrians are an unusual site in much of Middle America. As a lone male I get self-conscious. People watch me suspiciously, as if I was a robber casing potential jobs, or a remittance man looking for a car to repossess. Strolling aimlessly just does not feel like a legitimate reason to be out and about. The sub-text from a dozen dubious glares seems to be ‘if you are serious about getting somewhere, drive like everyone else, or put on a pair of sweat pants and some runners and get some real exercise’.

No doubt I am being a bit paranoid, but I might be onto something here too. The aimless hike, a legitimate part of literature and culture elsewhere, seems to have fallen entirely out of favour in our modern world. The wanderer has become potentially threatening.

This dichotomy is an undercurrent of many of the bemused encounters we have on the road. People are just fascinated with those who do not feel bound by their own address. I think a lot of musicians are like me. They just like to be on the move. After a while the ‘where’ or ‘how’ doesn’t matter. It is the going that is the essence of the activity. Of course, with young children in our lives, homesickness can be a fierce burden, and heaven knows what important life events we have missed. And yet when we meet our peers, or friends like the Young Dubliners and Blue Rodeo, talk soon turns to the road, its thrills and disappointments, and inevitably, its almost magnetic attraction.

I have been reading a lot lately about the Travellers of Ireland, sometimes disparagingly called Tinkers, more often these days ‘Pavees’, an Irish Gaelic word which means ‘walkers’. They are an enigmatic people. They are not related to the people known as Roma or Gypsies, a race descended from Indians driven from the sub-continent a thousand years ago. They do, however, share a strong urge to nomadism, a desire to live on the move. Most historians agree that the Pavees are of Celtic stock, but other than that no one agrees on anything, and their secretive culture has kept away census takers and anthropologists alike.

They live apart in Ireland, dismissed as poor and of no-account by many people. And yet while their nomadic lifestyle is considered an anachronism and a nuisance, it is not in itself dishonourable. In traditional Celtic culture there is a recognition that some people are compelled to wander, that they will never be satisfied if forced to settle in one place. While having such a tribe camp at the end of your driveway is considered a pain in the arse, no one denies that what the Travellers do is a legitimate way of life.

While knitting together the odds and ends that became my book, it struck me how many pieces were about travelling and wanderlust. Not so much about anywhere specific, as much as they are about the strange joy that comes with being a stranger, wandering around, aimlessly observing, someone who has no specific role in the life of a different place. Many of the interviews I did were about this same topic, although few have stated it so explicitly. Even when the band is doing media, whatever topic we are supposedly discussing, one question always comes up: “you must get tired of the travel…?”

Most journalists take the majority view – to them, and most of the world, it is rather inconceivable that anyone would deliberately choose shiftlessness over the safety of home, even if you are being compensated by quasi-rock stardom. Every so often, however, you hear a different note in the reporters’ voice: envy. You know they have been listening to the siren sound of the wind since they were children, waiting for a circus in which to run away, for a tribe of passing Pavee to come calling, that they are secretly dreaming of the day they will walk away from hearth and home, face to the breeze, all good sense abandoned. Whether they know it or not, it is a desire as old as mankind. In modern North America such people don’t have a tribe or label, and the Pavee and Roma who still roam our roads are not seeking new recruits.

Instead, aspiring nomads join bands, and spend their days walking around towns like Kent.

Dreaming of Paris

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:06:00 GMT

My regular readers (!?!) might wonder why I have not written about Paris, particularly after talking about it so much on twitter and facebook. I do not have a good explanation, and in fact I struggled a little with this. The purpose of the blog is to describe the places I have been. A recent trip to Paris would seem a natural.

And yet, for me at least Paris tends to defeat superlatives. It has been written about so much, often to a ridiculous degree. Every calendar and print shop is full of iconic images of the city, so much that even a complete agoraphobic must feel that they know the city well. Writers like Adam Gopnik and have romanticized the place so much that anyone else just comes across as a latecomer to a very long parade. And yet I truly love the city. I have been there easily a dozen times, and more than once I have stayed there for weeks at a time. The novelty of it has never worn off.

First time visitors to Europe often ask my advice about where to go or stay on the continent, frequently revealing complex itineraries that suggest visiting 13 cities in 11 days, and some such. My consul is to forget all that, and rent a little apartment in Paris for a couple of weeks. Do it right, and you will get Europe in a way you never will from the window of a tourist bus. There are many reasons to visit this city. Some you should discover for yourself, others are so obvious they require no guidebook. Here are a few of mine:

The bulk of Paris was built in an age where beauty and functionality somehow came together. As a result, it has a homogenous balance, one that seems perfectly human scaled, while still suited to the demands of a modern age. It is, for lack of a better word, attractive. And unlike so many places I have been, Paris looks the way you think it should. All those black and white prints and Atget images and posters and puzzles do not lie. The Eifel Tower, the Louvre, the Boulevard Hausmann, Saint Germaine – they have changed a little, but generally for the better. The Paris of Madeleine, Picasso and Hemmingway is wonderfully intact, easily rediscovered by the inquisitive.

While the French are perhaps not quite as adept as the Italians at living well, they come pretty close. Paris is blessed with thousands of cafes, bistros, brasseries, charcutiers, bakers, bars and tiny shops that sell food of all varieties, at all price ranges. And almost every bite of it is fresher, healthier, and prepared with more care and consideration than 90% of what passes for good food in North America. Combine that with an even climate, and a culture that forbids eating in cars or while walking, and you have a culinary city unmatched in its effort to beguile its inhabitants. Eat a fresh croissant from the shittiest bakery in Paris, and you will never even consider the Tom Horton’s equivalent again.

Unlike a lot of centres in North America, huge swathes of the city’s population live in its downtown core. This means that even in the busiest neighbourhood you find families, parks, schools, supermarkets, plumbers, flower shops, movie theatres, and all the other hallmarks of life. Dogs and cats are everywhere, and all sorts of accommodations exist for locals and visitors alike. As a result, Paris does not close at 5:00 pm, or empty after work to some distant suburb. It is relatively compact, safe to walk around, yet with enough geography to be interesting.

It is full of children, and such is a tremendously lively place. The great parks are not just monuments to another age – instead they are filled with playgrounds, carousels and ice-cream sellers. For example, the monumental fountain ponds of parks like the Tuilleries and the Jardin de Luxembourg contain more than algae and bored swans. Instead, they are the preserve of little boys, who rent toy sailboats that are raced with loquacious vigour between the monuments and statues. Things like that remind me how well the city succeeds at providing pleasures that are both great and small, and that the spirit of the place is not denied to the tourist who can only afford curiosity and good walking shoes.

Art – much of the world’s supply of masterpieces can be seen there, in a myriad of forms. Yeah, the Louvre is crowded and massive, but who cares? Skip the Mona Lisa if you want, because just across the hall are two huge Da Vincis, completely ignored by the herds. Spend an hour or two there and marvel at what human creativity is capable of. Then go to the D’Orsay for a lesson in colour, or the Orangerie to see artistic vision captured, or the Pomidou to see how an urban space can be reinvented every day.

Finally, it is a city where human interaction is prized. Besides New York City, St. John’s is one of the few places on the continent where urban inhabitants are expected to talk to each other. I have never ceased to be amused by the way men who I have never met before in St. John’s call me ‘my buddy’, and inquire about the health of relatives neither of us actually know. In NYC, a healthy dialogue is encouraged amongst its residents, probably because tight quarters require them to spend much of their lives among their fellows, and thus are forced to remember the art of polite conversation. When I leave those places, I am often dismayed at how elusive such contacts are. In Paris it would be unthinkable to enter a store without saying ‘good morning’, or finish a transaction without a ‘thank-you, and good-bye’. This is not insincere, hail-fellow-well-met bullshit, either. Parisians take politeness for granted. I am always a little surprised when North Americans return from France commenting on how rude everyone is. I have always found it to be the opposite. You just have to understand going in the door that every personal interaction requires at least a minimal level of polite conversation before any business can be started. Poor French pronunciation will be forgiven – poor form will not. What a lot of North Americans see as rudeness is in fact a sort of bounce-back effect, as Parisians react to having their everyday discourse ignored.

And anyway – the citizens of Paris have funded and maintained this incredible city for hundreds of years, and have worked hard to make it available to all comers. I am grateful for it. The least I can do by way of repayment is to memorize a few polite phrases.

St. John’s and the Vieux Carré

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:30:00 GMT

I loved New Orleans the first time I went there. The French Quarter was a carnival, a Caribbean-French hybrid that seemed like somewhere entirely out of place in America. It had a third-world sense of chaotic energy, something astonishing in a modern United States. We returned several times, and I always enjoyed wandering the Quarter for all hours, just drinking in the beauty.

And like so many visitors, wondered 'why can't all places be like this?'

Can't city planners and municipal councilors and developers surely see how much better a place like this is? They have to live in these places too. Why do they allow so much ugliness and banality in our cities and towns? Why is so much modern architecture just black boxes, and square warehouses. Who likes this stuff, anyway? Does anyone really say 'why, I would sure like to live in a concrete box with a view of a highway', 'or, boy, I sure wish this city felt more like Leningrad'? As soon as people have money, they buy pretty Victorian looking houses that look nothing like anything modern. I live downtown, in the historic center of St. John's. My neighborhood, which was pretty sad when I moved into it, has become so popular that real estate agents bang on my door every day begging me to consider selling. Yet why does everything new in my own, and most other cities, look so ugly?

St. John's has much colder and dramatic geography than New Orleans, and yet we share certain similarities. As any tourist who has ventured beyond the Vieux Carré quickly discovers, much of the rest of New Orleans is not that pretty or atmospheric. The Garden district is nice, but the further away you walk, the less interesting it gets. Most of the suburbs are as faceless and characterless and as dehumanized as anywhere else on the planet. Bits and pieces of the city's character crop up, but a lot of it has been crushed by modern development. Hurricane Katrina damaged a lot of what was left. Every piece of tourist literature you ever see about New Orleans focuses on the French Quarter, ignoring the great mass of elsewhere, which is honestly not that interesting. St. John's too has a reputation for historic colour, but it really only extends a couple of square kilometers around the harbour. The rest of the city has lots of interesting characters, to be sure, and some dramatic views, but otherwise you could be in Poughkeepsie.

I realize municipal development isn't the most exciting topic in the world. But you have to wonder, every brochure you see of St. John's, New Orleans, Sante Fe, San Francisco, and pretty much every city in Europe, shows the same thing - crowded historic downtowns, filled with busy streets and active looking people. You never see a picture of a glass tower block, a brown-brick wahrehouse with dull landscaping, a faceless downtown high-rise canyon, or a two-car garage suburb. Yet that's all the real estate developers of the world want to bring forward. And that's what the vast majority of places really look like these days. Anywhere different is touted far and wide. And yet both developers and city planners chip away at these oases everywhere.

All this is in my mind today, as St. John's is in the midst of a small-scale war over a new office development downtown. Most of the proposals seem to call for glass boxes which are laughably out of place on a human scaled street like Water Street. It would be as bad as putting a Walmart in the middle of Decataur Street in the French Quarter. And yet there is a good chance that these developments will happen - the promise of jobs, new development, etc., will all take precedent over good sense. On another front, the city's councilors, most of whom live nowhere near downtown, are calling for a move to make George Street more family friendly. George Street is a higgly piggly drunken mess - and that's what people like about it. It is a little dangerous, to be sure, very grungy, and not entirely in control. And that's the whole point. People come there because it is something different, a place truly a little wild, in a very button-downed Canada. It might be a dump, but it is also a success.

Character, authenticity - all these things are vital in a world which gets a little more bland each day. People pay good money to come to St. John's in search of something different. We, and the citizens of New Orleans are lucky enough to live in places that still are different. I hope we can be smart enough to remember that.

If I Were Prime Minister…

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:20:00 GMT

We were in Ottawa for Bluesfest last week, a big gig, one of the biggest of the year. It was also a busy media day, so there wasn't much time to walk around. No matter, I have been there hundreds of times, I know the city pretty well anyway.

For the most part I like Ottawa. I realize that mocking the capital is a sport in any country, but compared to many Canadian and American cities, Ottawa generally gets it right. The downtown is as pedestrian friendly as any city on the continent, and better than most. The Byward market is a great urban space, the Rideau Canal beautiful at any time of the year. The downtown streets host a good mix of retail, entertainment and business, and neither really overwhelms. The river is a bit hidden away, but the city is perched on a high cliff, so you can't have everything. All the good stuff is within an easy walk, and cars have not been allowed to take over the whole inner city. The result is a downtown that actually feels like somewhere you want to work and play, rather than a place abandoned by those who actually live there.

I only had an hour off the whole day to go for a walk, so I decided to walk around Parliament Hill, the center of Canada's government. It is an imposing piece of architecture, all colonial Victorian grandeur. The site, with its sweeping views of the Ottawa River, is amazing. I wandered around for a while, watching the tourists photographing the few Mounties. Canadians like to think of themselves as safe, so unlike so many government edifices around the world you don't see a lot of soldiers and cops. You can pretty much go wherever you like, at least outside the buildings themselves - or rather almost everywhere.

There are two negative impressions that stand out, and make me wonder what I would do if given some political power for a day, (apart from world piece, ending poverty and whatnot).

There is just something wrong about the view from Parliament Hill itself, looking towards the city. Instead of some grand boulevard or sweeping urban vista, there is a wall of dull office blocks, a mixed bag of ages and styles that screams one message to the world: "we are boring and unimaginative". Therefore, my first prime ministerial decree would be as follows: Knock that dull and boring building block down! Canadians deserve to see something better from their parliament than a lot of ugly old offices. Create some sort of piazza! Fountains, archways and maple trees! Pave it with sandstone from Quebec; freeze it in the winter and hold curling and shinny games. In the summer it can host horse races or sack races or some kind of crazy horse races, like the crowd in Sienna. Anything is better than a wall of grey offices.

Sorted.

Then onto the parliament grounds itself. I rarely express political views of any kind, pretty much agreeing and disagreeing with all parties in turn, but the situation on the broad lawns before the building offended me. As I walked by the massive lawns that surround the buildings, I thought how nice it would be to sit on the lovely green grass. Many people agreed with me, as every step and curb were covered with bodies. Unfortunately the lawns themselves were denied to us, being chained off, preserved for the eyes of our betters, to be unsullied by the feet of the lumpen proletariat and all. Now I realize framing this in a Marxist dialectic is a bit much, but still I pay my taxes - on time and without rancour, I might add. So, I suspect, do most of the Canadian tourists hanging about, who were also being denied their patch of government grass. I mean, really, I was not asking to use the Speaker of the House's washroom or park in the Leader of the Oppositions' spot. I just wanted to take my shoes off and sit on some bloody lawn.

I asked a security guard why we couldn't sit on the grass. "You are not allowed," was his curt response. Uhh, ok. So then, on the day I take the PM's office, my second decree shall be as follows: Cut the chains! Free the people! Open the lawns to all tired sitters, aimless toddlers, loitering teenagers, useless bongo players, frisbeeists, dog chasers and picnickers. They paid for it, let them sit on the grass and admire the fruits of their government. This is a rich country, if we can't afford a few bags of fucking Turf Builder, why bother?

So there. Donations for this and other unlikely causes can be made courtesy of the webmasters.

The Hidden Face of St. John’s

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:21:00 GMT

It never ceases to amaze me how much of this city’s geography has been obscured by buildings and roads. Even though the land is dramatic here, it is often too easy to ignore the sweep of the landscape when so many spend so much time in cars.

Put in a bit of time hiking in the woods in Newfoundland – you cannot walk ten feet without encountering a giant boulder, a bottomless bog, a rippling stream or small cliff. The woods around St. John’s are full of such features, and yet the city seems relatively tame – where did all that stuff go? The answer is fairly obvious – the natural Newfoundland geography didn’t go anywhere. It is all still here, if you take time to lift the urban veil.

Like a lot of old cities, St. John’s was never meant to be dominated by the automobile. Even horses were a luxury here; prior to the advent of the car most people just walked everywhere, or pulled their stuff with sturdy ponies and big dogs. (The big black and wooly Newfoundland dog did not develop here as a cuddly pet – he was supposed to be a useful and indestructible beast of burden). No vehicles meant no straight lines were required in old St. John’s. Anyway, roads were built out of necessity, as the city spread out from the harbour. They pretty much followed whatever was the path of least resistance. Rocks and ridges, now long hidden, were avoided by odd curves and strange dips and lurches. Well-used paths became laneways. Rivers and streams were covered, and became wandering alleys. All these features are hidden now, but can easily be discerned if you just change the way you think about it.

Water Street still follows the slow and uneven contours of the original harbour. A generation ago, the Harbour Drive which sweeps along the current oceanfront did not even exist. Instead, the backs of the buildings along the south side of Water Street were all loading doors and docks. Ships docked right behind their owners’ offices, to easily facilitate the trade that was then the reason for the place. Water Street was exactly that – the street by the Water. Now you can hardly even see the water from the street itself, but the name remains, to remind us why we are here in the first place. In between Water Street and the Harbour Drive are a series of oddly named little streets, Beck’s Cove, Baird’s Cove, and the like. A hundred years ago these little inlets still exited, although all that now remain are their names. The harbour itself is much smaller than it was 200 years ago. This is not because the land rose or the sea got lower; instead, after each of the great fires that leveled the city, the survivors dumped the resulting debris into the harbour itself. A few rounds of that, and they had pushed the very shore itself out twenty or thirty feet.

Like layers on a wedding cake, the rest of the city rises up the hills. The better addresses are all on streets that parallel the harbour-front – Duckworth, Gower, Bond, and then finally, Military Road, the corniche that crowns the oldest parts of the city. You can see the logic when you think about it - easier to build on something relatively flat, and besides, you have a nice view out the back. Sewage and everything else undesirable just rolled down the hill.

In between these ‘grand’ boulevards are dozens of roads and alleys. Most make no sense in a modern place, but make for great wandering. Some of them are so steep they are ridiculous; too difficult for construction in the pre-concrete days, they became roadways. Barter’s Hill, which runs past the Delta Hotel is almost vertical. It has actually improved in the past decades, as new construction required an easier curve. Historically it was known as ‘Burst-heart Hill’, no doubt due to the pounding chest which any pedestrian feels after a brisk walk upwards. Flower Hill is pleasantly misnamed, with not a bloom in site. It is unbelievably dangerous however, with its precipitous pitch. If there is a steeper street in San Francisco, I have never been down it. ‘Check Your Handbrakes Lane’ would be a better moniker.

Driving can be a trial in this city where cars are so unwelcome. Narrow roads, lots of hills, endless stop signs, and lights, in can take longer to drive across than cities three times its size. One of the few ‘straight’ roads in St. John’s is Empire Avenue. Despite its grand name, it is a dull boulevard which divides the old, pre-WWI city from the post-war suburbs. Bike riders love it because it is flat and relatively traffic free, and for walkers and drivers alike it can be a dandy shortcut. Few stop to wonder why this handy road exists, so free of the congestion which stymies other routes. By St. John’s road standards it came late to the table – at the turn of the century it was the railway’s route into the city. Later on the trains moved south, but before they departed, they left a nicely graded short cut across town.

I could go on. The summer will see this city over-run by tourists of all stripes. Most will come for the colour and vibrancy of the place, and stay for the quirky nature of discourse here. Unfortunately, most holidays do not allow one to wander the way I have for decades, but the real St. John’s is not hard to find. It is literally under your feet.

BETHEL WOODS, NY

Tue, 18 May 2010 18:26:00 GMT

I have often told people that one of the reasons I like Paris so much is that it actually looks the way you think it should. So many places don’t. Instead, you arrive at historic or exciting destination (a), only to discover that the colour is wrong, there is an oil refinery next door, the famous statue is tiny, and all the locals are ill tempered and avaricious.

Examples from my own personal travel file abound. Although London is an exciting and enervating place, it looks nothing like the London of Sherlock Holmes or Scrooge you are somehow expecting to find. Elvis’s Honolulu is buried under a series of garish malls, while the beach itself sucks, and to get to Niagara Falls you have to fight your way through kilometers of dreck. If you travel enough, after a while everything is smaller, dirtier and more crowded than you hoped.

Recently the band played at the Bethel Woods Concert Center in upstate New York, better known as the site of the original Woodstock rock festival, which was held there in August of 1969. My expectations for this trip were low. It wasn’t the gig which was at issue - that was held at an absolutely pristine concert environment which defies superlatives. Rather, I expected to be disappointed by the concert site itself. To discover the opposite was true was a rare pleasure.

I spent a rather carefree day hanging about the site, wandering through the surrounding fields and laneways. It has taken a while for me to figure out why I liked it so much. The answer, in retrospect, is pretty obvious – the foundation that owns the space and its accompanying concert venue and museum have pretty much left the place alone. All the new info-structure they created is a short distance away, out of site of the original Woodstock site. The huge sloping meadow which farmer Max Yasgur rented to the original organizers looks pretty much the way it did in the spring of 1969, a couple of months before the hordes descended upon it. The laughably narrow country road snakes around it, the muddy farm pond down behind the stage (now skinny-dipper free), the same woods you see in the movie – all of it is there, looking completely untouched and unhurried.

I read a bit about it afterwards, and it seems the site’s pristine qualities are more the result of conservative hippie-hating farmers than any great preservationist impulse. Whatever, the private foundation who own the meadows now are to be commended for leaving it so untouched. The modern mania for restoration and replicas has ruined many a historic site. There is nothing to see at the Woodstock concert site other than an enormous field – and because of that the imagination can run free. There is a bit of a bare patch where the stage was, but otherwise you have to figure it out for yourself.

I was an infant when the 1969 concert took place. The cultural revolution that spawned the Woodstock festival pretty much passed Newfoundland by. It is a bit of a generalization, but on the whole people here just didn’t get hippies. Not so much because of their political stance, long hair, dope smoking and whatnot. Newfoundlanders are pretty tolerant of eccentricity, and in that respect hippies were just sort of amusing. It is just that the whole back to the land, do it yourself, free love thing held little sway with people who were themselves struggling very hard to modernize. When you are a half-generation off the land yourself, and associate rural living with bad food, DIY dentistry, cold houses, nonexistent plumbing, and backbreaking labour, it is hard to get excited about getting ‘back to the garden’. My grandmother would have sniffed in disgust at talk of the ‘good old days’, having herself grown up in the middle of nowhere amidst fishing and farming people who worked like dogs. She loved television, central heating, polyester clothes and frozen food, and thought people who willingly embraced itchy wool, kerosene lamps, and a diet of salt fish, boiled potatoes and seal flippers were nuts.

For me, I sit somewhere in between. The recession-wracked Newfoundland of my youth was too far removed from prosperous America for the guilessness of the Woodstock generation to really resonate. And yet, as a teenager I watched that movie a dozen times, fascinated by the freshness of the music, the open-eyed commentary, and the soft hope of the participants. They were as exotic and otherworldly to me as the denizens of Star Wars. Later on, as a veteran of big outdoor concerts I marveled at the hubris of the organizers, who just set the whole thing in motion with barely a thought to how it would all work. But still I envy them all, both the earnest hippies who sat in the mud for three days just to say they were there, and the organizers who could dream such a thing up. How marvelous indeed to be, even for a day or two, so wonderfully naïve.

Pete Fornitale is NY writer who has written extensively about the event. He argues convincingly that as far as the concert itself goes, “the myth became more important than the reality.” I am fine with that. The reality is too complicated and too common. No doubt for those who attended the original concert the sound was shit, the toilets vile, and the neighbours smelly. But like everything worth experiencing, if you focus on the hassle, you would never have bothered anyway. Better just to lie in the sun on that meadow, and wonder what is what was like to be there in August if 1969, and hear Sly Stone urge the crowd to go ‘higher’.

On Friday May 7 I was alone with my imagination on that sweeping meadow, and neither billboard, nor tour bus, nor audio guide, nor revisionist commentary nor signpost ruined the view. And for that I am grateful.

Prescott Street St. John’s

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:20:00 GMT

Prescott Street might not be the steepest street in St. John's, (there are a lot of contenders), but it often feels like it. Going down it reminds me of hitting that last snake in a game of Snakes and Ladders, number 99, the big long one everyone hates, the one that sends you weeping with frustration all the way back to the first square. Children hate landing on that square, they take it personally, and the game ends in sulking and tears. So it is with the street itself. Going down it is a little scary, the destination at the bottom disappointing, and climbing to the top a lot of effort for a meager reward.

The road goes right from the top of the old city to the bottom, in a long dramatic curve, and ends right on the edge of the wharf. If you were of a melancholy nature, it would indeed present an inviting prospect. One can imagine the last few moments of a suicidal drive, flying through intersections, dogs and old ladies leaping out of the way, with a spectacular 'Thelma and Louise' flight into the drink at the end. Prescott Street is so steep it hurts your legs when you walk down it - you have to lean backwards, like a some sort of Dr. Seuss character, your head back, your arms swinging, a St. John's cartoon. In the winter it's so dangerous it's the first street the salt trucks attack; new drivers approach it with trepidation, afraid even a soft touch of the accelerator will send them plunging into the muddy harbour. Driving up the hill can be a challenge. The first time I ever went through there on a standard transmission I popped the clutch, and rolled backwards for thirty feet. Only the hand-brake saved me from disaster. As a very young child, I often watched my father marching down the hill with the CLB band, (a local paramilitary group). There was an apocalyptic tale about the bass drummer dropping his instrument at the top of the hill, whereupon it bounded out of control down to the docks, scattering bandsmen and cadets in front of it. While probably fiction, it was a great image, and I secretly hoped at every Armistice Day parade I hope to see it repeated.

Walking up the hill is even worse. No matter what the pace, you are puffing and blowing like a whale, and even the healthiest pedestrian can feel their heart pounding dangerously by the time they get to the very top. More often than not it's a dreary hike, with the wind in your face, and the cold mist poking under your coat, and whipping at your legs, biting at your ears

I'm inclined to stop at Number 62, just at the corner of Bond Street, more than halfway up the hill. There used to be a store just across the street, when I lived nearby I would often pop in for beer and smokes. The girls who worked there seemed to have been hired based on their skanky appearance and sullen attitudes, and they were unbelievably rude. All they sold was beer, stale potato chips, Players smokes and lottery tickets, and yet they treated their clients with an air of contempt that would not have been out of place on the Rue Saint-Honore in Paris. Dripping in makeup, they were always particularly mean to the adolescent boys who came in to buy candy and snoop through the Playboys. Whenever I went in there I would always attempt a bit of repartee, just to get them them sneer and sniff back at me. From such small moments is entertainment born.

I digress. The houses across the street have gentrified a bit in the past couple of years. Until the 1930s number 62 was the home of one Johnny Burke, a man locally canonized as the 'Bard of Prescott Street'. His descendants don't live there anymore - Burke was a lifelong bachelor, and shared the house with his spinster sister - so there is no point knocking on the door. It's a nice place though, a restored Victorian, with a dandy view of the narrows out the back, I daresay. This whole neighbourhood is pretty calm today. Too bad, in Burke's days this was a happening spot. A musician, poet, playwright, theatrical producer, occasional office clerk, and all around townie character, Burke is best remembered for his songs. Like other popular balladeers of the day, he had them published on a sheet or two of paper, and then hired young corner-boys to peddle them on the streets for a few cents a copy. In an era when musical entertainment was something you provided yourself, new material was a valuable commodity. Burke had a way with words, and while he was no composer, the common tunes he chose for his songs were very complimentary. A lot of his songs went into the oral tradition and stayed there. This is no small victory. Just think - how many songs do you know all the words to? After 'Happy Birthday' and a few Xmas carols, most people's repertoire gets pretty thin. Burke wrote so well dozen of his songs are still alive in Newfoundland today, eighty years after they were first performed, and dozens more went into oral circulation, at least for a while. Songs have to be really good for people to remember them for their own sake.

He wrote a lot of sentimental stuff, but he also had a great ear for comedy and satire. The Kelligrew's Soiree (or swar-AA, as it is pronounced hereabouts) is about a party, one full of the high and mighty of his day, complete with egos ripe for Burke's sharp satirical pen. Unfortunately, the song has appeared in too many children's classroom song books, tarnishing its poetry a little, but if you listen to it you can reclaim a little of his cynical tone. Excursion Around the Bay has been a GBS staple for a decade and a half, and has largely been reduced to its chorus, but when you read the words you can capture a bit of his bite. Burke was poking fun at the popular townie tradition of the day trip into the rural hinterland, and everyone of his listeners would have gotten the joke. In a town where sharp wit has always been highly prized, Burke was a standout.

For a man who wrote dozens of songs, several plays, countless poems, and no doubt uttered thousands of memorable witticisms, we know surprisingly little about Mr. Burke. His life covered a good 70 years, and his work is still widely regarded; yet we hardly even know what he looked like. His words have been his memorial, but they make a fine one at that.

Whatever, his street is much the same. The climb up from the harbour was no easier in 1920 than it is today. And no doubt Burke enjoyed sitting by the window in his parlor on an icy February day, when all and sundry slipped and slid up and down its treacherous length. Such indignities would have provided rich fodder for his sharp pen. And in a time when history is so far away, all you have to do to recreate his experience is walk down Prescott Street. The view has changed, but St. John's has no shortage of characters and egos awaiting satirical puncture.

Or if you really want to have a 'Snakes and Ladders' experience, make the trip in the manner of the bravest and the boldest among the current St. John's generation of corner-boys - do it on a skateboard.

Bad Trips and Other Misadventures

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:44:00 GMT

As soon as a plane lands, a bus stops, or I get off a train, my first impulse is always to go for a walk. Most cities, at least the older ones, were designed that way anyway. Only by walking do you see the place the way its designers did - human scaled. It also forces you to see people. Driving around in a car makes you feel powerful, but it is too hermetic for my tastes. I would rather feel and smell and see something real.

This can be self-defeating, particularly in some of the continent's newer cities, or those particularly scarred by city planners. Huge chunks of our downtowns are inhabited by nothing more than offices. After five p.m. these places are wastelands. There is no one around, and as such they feel sterile, and ultimately more dangerous than the most teeming third-world slum. My desire to keep it real can have other consequences as well. For every time I met someone amazing, encountered some wonder or happened upon a treasure, I have spent hours wondering past hideous strip malls, bored senseless in some dull suburb. At least I got some fresh air. Once in a while though, my efforts to get real just go spectacularly wrong. You don't learn much then, other then 'why didn't I stay home'.

I have written before about Ireland's propensity for disappointment. Like Newfoundlanders, the Irish have a bred a very broad sense of humour, which combined with a general disregard for specificity, and a keen sense of schadenfreude, can both amuse and infuriate. A few years back, myself and my wife were attempting to take a bus from Galway City to Ennis, County Clare, a journey literally of a couple of dozen kilometers. It was to be the start of an expedition into the more musical corners of Clare. Information from the tourist office was spotty, but also wildly optimistic. I should have known better, as it seemed buses were dispatched to Ennis with great frequency, and all we had to do was show up at the central train & bus depot and a luxury coach would be waiting, along with a ballad-singing driver and a buxom stewardess bearing champagne and oysters.

Of course, this was nonsense. When we arrived at the bus station after a leisurely lunch of Beamish and salad, we discovered that the place was a madhouse. Hundreds of teenagers from all over Europe filled every inch of the station, dashing about bent double with their knapsacks, trying to find their camp leaders, cute boys and sandwiches, all shouting across the hall at the top of their lungs. Like Mediterranean people everywhere, they were immune to the concept of a line-up, and it took some time to jostle our way to the ticket window. There we discovered that their was only one bus to Ennis that day, and we had better look sharp as it was leaving any second. We grabbed our over-priced tickets and dashed outside.

In a narrow and crowded parking lot, (also filled with shouting Euro teens), stood six buses, none marked in any way whatsoever. It looked like a scene from a disaster movie, as everyone fought to get their bags and themselves onto one of the buses, shouting and yelling and fighting over the few spaces available. There was a guy with a conductor's hat and vest on directing traffic, so I pushed my way to him and enquired which bus was the one for Ennis.

"It be that far one, yay, that one yonder," he shouted back, gesturing expansively at a big new coach a few spots away. I could hardly understand him, his accent was that thick, and his choice of words seemed a bit Shakespearean for the location, but there was no time to enquire further. I grabbed our bags and literally fought my way through the crowd, shoving all and sundry out of the way. The bus's hold was already filled to the gunnels, and I spent a good five minutes shifting and wiggling heavy bags until I finally made room for ours. I was soaked in sweat, covered in bus grease, my fingers well-mashed, and I looked like I had been in a fight, but we were finally on our way. We climbed on the bus, and as my wife made her way to the back I asked an impatient looking driver how many stops there were to Ennis.

"Ennis? I am not going to Ennis, I am going to Clifden." (Note - the opposite direction entirely). He looked at me as if I was a complete idiot for asking such a question.

"Then which is the bus for Ennis," I asked with some exasperation. He waved at one at the other end of the row.

"Why did that guy tell me to put my bags on this one," I said, already knowing the answer would infuriate, and drawing his attention to the man with the conductor's uniform.

"Him? Sure he doesn't work here, he just hangs about, like. A big child he is." His grim mien broke into an amused smile. "Sent you to the wrong bus, has he? Ho, ho, ho."

While I was sorely tempted to have a debate with him then and there about the difference between his attitude and the merry characters from the 'Ireland of the Welcomes' advertisements, there was no time to waste. Shouting at my wife to stop the Ennis bus, which was looking to pull away, I beat my way back through the crowd around the luggage bay. In the 30 seconds that had elapsed since I put my bags into the hold, they had become thoroughly wedged in the rear of a Rubik's cube of knapsacks. It took much swearing and grunting to extricate them. An insulted tribe of earnest German hippies shouted at me as I dumped their stuff on the pavement, but I was well beyond caring now. Finally I pulled our bags free and sprinted for the bus. No luxury coach this, it was old and tattered, and we had to squeeze down the aisle with our bags and shove them up onto already full overhead wracks, much to the chagrin of the elderly locals we elbowed and battered along the way. Room was made for my wife amongst a flock of old Irishwomen, but me and all the other latecomers had to stand in the aisle, gripping seat backs and each other whenever we braked or went flying around a turn. Thus began an interminable trip down every backroad, boreen and driveway in the west of Ireland. A few minutes into the ride a small lad who had over-enjoyed a sweet tea with his granny began to barf copiously into the center aisle, a process that continued at regular intervals for the whole trip. A Frenchman pressed against me managed to pop open the emergency escape hatch, and despite threats from the driver, we took turns catching a breath by sticking our heads out the roof. The oysters and champagne also failed to arrive. By the time we finally got to Ennis, we had utterly lost interest in that town, going any further, and in fact Ireland itself.

I love that TV show, 'The Amazing Race'. It is in such moments as the above that such races are won or lost. Get on the wrong bus, take the wrong train, or just walk the wrong way. It all adds up, and then you are marooned somewhere hideous, arguing over who's fault it was. During the first Bare Naked Ladies cruise, we decided to walk into Ochos Rios during the boat's brief stop in Jamaica. We had never been there before, and a simple walk seemed more interesting than a hurried tour of some dubious 'attraction'. Wrong call. Exiting the boat was an immediate tangle, we should have turned around then and there. After a very cursory passport check set up at then end of a parking lot, we were dumped into a horde of touts, cabbies and tour operators. By third world standards it was pretty typical, but these people were really aggressive, and good will evaporated quickly. After finally shoving our way through the crowd, we booted it up a sidewalk, a small flock of annoying tourist operators chasing after us. One particularly persistent tout followed us for a good 300 yards. Finally I stopped and yelled at him to go away, at which point he said sheepishly that we were walking in the wrong direction, and that the port was behind us. I apologized for yelling at him, but me and Jamaica were off to a bad start.

Once we were going the right way, we then had to backtrack through the tout horde. Fortunately they were focused on more new arrivals, and we managed to sneak past them unscathed. We could see the port up ahead, a kilometer or two along a winding road. It seemed straightforward enough, there was a decent sidewalk, with about ten or twenty meters of rough bush between the road and the land-wash below. Little did we know - the bush concealed a full blown shantytown, a jerry-built community of peddlers, incomprehensible Rasta-men, free range chickens, and general crazies. It was a stroll to remember. Every few feet another person would emerge from the bush, appearing seemingly from the very trees themselves. They would wave handicrafts at us, beg for change, or offer to sell us some hash. After a few polite 'no thank-yous' they would get annoyed, following us down the road shaking their wares inches from our noses. The lot of them must have had demarcated their territory, as eventually they would stop and let the next guy in line take over, but towards the end of the hike the more persistent just kept going; by the time we got to the port we had collected a half-dozen crazed peddlers, all shouting and dancing around us. I felt like an aging deer surrounded by a pack of coyotes, all waiting to take the first chomp.

Up ahead we saw the 'duty-free' mall, which the ship's pamphlet had described, and we almost ran the last stretch, pursued right to the gates by our entourage. Armed guards protected the mall, which provided a safe and hermetic version of the market scene outside, minus the crazy touts. While we were relieved to make it there, it was the kind of place that any sane tourist hates - segregated from the locals by police and chain-link fences, surrounded by over-priced multi-hued crap, with an invisible dollar sign tattooed on your forehead. "This fucking sucks" was the prevailing sentiment. We wandered about for a bit, un-enticed by the Bob Marley inspired junk. One wonders what that wise and sensitive man would have thought of the utter shit sold in his name. Every so often we glanced at the gates. A couple of dozen eager peddlers waited at the gates, waving at me every time I glanced their way, reminding us of the fate that awaited us for the walk back. Eventually we got fed up with hanging about the mall, and made our way back through the throng.

"Welcome back sir, madam," cried a huge grinning Rasta, who probably would have made great company anywhere else, bowing gallantly as he shoved the others out of our way. "I knew you would return to examine my wares." Indeed, and had I any use for voodoo masks and sea-tortoise shells, he would have been my first stop.

One after the other we revisited the salesman from the outward trip, as each emerged in turn from the bushes. At the mall I had managed to get a handful of Jamaican coins, which I distributed along the way. It seemed a reasonable tax to enjoy the walk in some peace. Even then there were a few surprises left. We were almost back to the ship when the most remarkable dude I have ever seen hopped out of the woods. This unfortunate had somehow lost both legs below the knee. Obviously a resourceful chap, he had somehow carved two wooden legs out of some branches, legs that curved and twisted like something you'd see on one of Tolkien's Ents. He brandished a couple of canes created in a similar vein, which I imagine he hoped we would buy.

"I need money!" he shouted, with a mad grin. It wasn't a threat, really. He could hardly have pursued us if we had run away, but then neither was it the pathetic appeal we had already turned aside thirty times that day. Any man who could carve his own fanciful legs would epitomize the term 'survivor', and was more deserving of our admiration than charity. Still, I gave him the rest of the money I had left in my pocket. Whatever else was true about that walk, that guy surely needed it more than me.

Waterford Bridge and the Mental - Avenues of Despair

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:05:00 GMT

When I went to school in St. John’s, for the first primary years, and then later again in high school, both my institutions were buried in the depths of the Waterford Valley, in the district known as Waterford Bridge. This was at the tightest point in the deep ravine that defines the southern and western approach to St. John’s. Historically, this was settled by Irish farmers, and the local place names - Kilbride, Waterford, the Goulds - still reflect the language they brought with them.

There were two ways to walk home, which pretty much everyone who didn’t live way out in the country still did in those days. Almost everyone in school had to walk westward up the valley. As far as I recall, the kids who lived east of the school went somewhere else. Who knows, that was terra incognita. For me, walking Option A involved a windy hike up Topsail Road, from what is now Hazelwood Crescent to Cowan Avenue, a dreary prospect which ran along a series of parking lots, and ended with a detour through an abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium. I still have nightmares about that place. Even so, I usually walked this way anyway, because the other route could be even weirder.

Option B should have been really pleasant. The Waterford Valley is tree lined, runs past the verdant Bowering Park, and was supposedly much less windy and cold than the plateau above. My usual route involved looping around the somewhat spooky lawn of Corpus Christi church, and then taking a shortcut through the grounds of the Waterford Hospital, a.k.a. the Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases, but better known to the locals under the depressing nickname of ‘the Mental’. The Waterford still has a bit of a grim reputation in St. John’s. Even now only a handful of the city’s populace have ever been inside, and fewer still have had cause to wander the halls the way we did. When I was a kid the hospital was still full of people who in a more enlightened age and place would have been able to live quite productive lives in the outside world. Unfortunately, in those years it was still an asylum in every inch of the word, and almost a thousand people were living there. Most of them were not really victims of the sort of psychiatric diseases that should have required long-term hospitalization. Instead, family circumstances, poverty or general ignorance had seen them deposited to the Waterford. A lot of them were just a little odd or delayed, but had nowhere else to go. Those who were not violent or too impulsive spent their days wandering the grounds, seeking conversation, smokes and reassurance.

As children they were both fascinating and terrifying to us. Long-term residents were dressed in the sort of cast-off and remaindered clothes that only the desperate or indifferent would even consider. A lot of the men had a uniformly terrible haircut, what used to be called a ‘bowl’. Patients who might be in danger of injury would likely be issued with a cheap hockey helmet, along the lines of that sported by Borje Salming. They were not hard to spot. Every walk through there was an adventure. One might be trudging along, swinging your book bag when a heart-wrenching scream would come from an open window, where some poor soul reliving a past terror would be waving furiously. You’d be hearing that again at 2:00 in the morning in your nightmares, I’ll tell you. Another day, me and a couple of other lads were booting a soccer ball along in front of us as we cut through the landscaped grounds. All of a sudden a little old man appeared out of nowhere, and laughing manically, (really), grabbed our ball and took off into one of the buildings many tunnels. We actually had the temerity to complain, to a reasonably normal looking adult who was hanging about nearby. (Tell an adult - that was what you were supposed to do when a nut stole your soccer ball). A minute into our complaint, we realized the hopelessness of that cause. Our interrogator took a great interest in our case, and began questioning us in extreme detail about our ball in a ludicrous British accent. “Shit, he’s a patient too,” a guy named Chrissy whispered, and a minute later we were the ones running away, eventually flinging book bags and ourselves over a chain link fence while our now very agitated Sherlock Holmes shouted lunatic questions behind us. I can still hear his Monty Python voice: “Come back, chaps, we’ll catch that dastardly knave…”

On the other hand, there was a lesson to be learned there too. While the patients sometimes scared me, on the whole I lost my fear of the mentally distressed. Most of the patients we encountered were pretty odd, but so were a lot of the other people in the St. John’s of that era. There were no group homes or assisted living situations here then. People who were sick, mentally disabled, had Alzheimer’s, or suffered from depression and whatnot, who didn’t end up at the Waterford, often just stayed home. Lots of people I knew had weird people sleeping in the basement spare room, or spending their days staring out the window. It was just the way it was. The patients at the Waterford were just more exciting.

And passing by Waterford could sometimes offer moments of great dignity. One winter evening when I was in high school, on one of those very dark nights just before Xmas, I was walking the dog past the hospital. There had been a lot of snow that December, and the plows had pushed a huge snow bank onto the older part of the hospital’s lawn. One young patient had created a small snow fort on the biggest banks peak, and there he was marshalling an imaginary army into battle, defending his fort, rallying his troops. He had fashioned a small flag from a stick and a rag, and he waved it vigorously while shouting orders to advance and retreat, ducking from imagined artillery, encouraging his many troops by name. The general took no notice of me, and I watched him direct the battle until I was too cold to wait any more. An orderly also quietly watched over the scene, and ironically saluted me when I finally walked away. The patients’ caregivers had plainly decided that the general was safe fighting on the snow bank, and that he should be left alone to live in his imaginary world. Unlike so many of the people I passed there, who wore sadness and despair like a cloak, that guy was actually happy and fulfilled. A useful lesson too, about the power of imagination to transform your life.

The Waterford has changed immensely philosophically in the intervening decades, but physically it is much the same. Walk past it some day. Your encounters may not be as exciting as mine, but then you never know where enlightenment waits.

New Journeys

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:35:00 GMT

Regular readers of my blog (ha!) may have noticed that it has been many months since I have posted anything.

One of the main reasons is that I was pretty busy elsewhere - touring, writing and recording for the most part, all worthwhile pursuits, and all probably more important career wise than maintaining a blog.

But to be honest with myself, however, there is another reason - I pretty much ran out of things to write about. For the most part, the songs I loved the most I have already discussed. And connecting music from elsewhere to my semi-autobiographical-comedy-pathos-anecdotes was becoming harder and harder. I spent much of last winter rewriting the best of the blog pieces, and reordering them into a book, which will come out later this year. Having completed that exercise to my own satisfaction, it felt like continuing the blog in its original form was redundant. I had said everything I wanted to say. Reading the last few entries, anyone could see it - analyzing music had become an adjunct to everything else.

That said, I like writing this stuff. If nothing else, it keeps me in the game. I have several books on the go, and blogging is a good way to rehearse and sketch out ideas that may take a different and more elaborate form later. I also wanted to write more about the places we have been, and the place where I live. For me, St. John’s has two realities. At one level there is the real city around me, filled with the trivial activities of life and work. Then there is the other city, the city of our songs, the weird place I grew up, this strange and colourful place at the edge of the world, the city of my dreams.

I ended my last piece with a quote from Thoreau, but it was not the one I wanted. Somewhere along the way, that prophet of contemplation was asked if he ever traveled. He replied that he had traveled widely in Walden. I have long drawn inspiration from these words. Every place is interesting, if you look hard enough, or ask the right questions.

Sometimes, you need to get on an airplane to go somewhere. Sometimes you just have to walk out the front door. From now on, (or, at least until I get bored of it), this blog will do both.