The Cell Phone Girl & Barack Obama’s Prayer

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I have been trying to find a good reason to write here again, but after rustling through the dry and withered collection of used-up motivations, I have been unable to find or create even one new one. The thrill of publishing online was effectively vaporized by the thrill of traditional analog publishing. The challenge of documenting the interesting bits of my life was also met when my book was completed. The ever-present call to creativity can be as easily answered off-line, and every intelligent bone in my body tells me if I do write something, it should rhyme.

Two events from today inform this post - if only in the very most oblique way.

I was in the hotel restaurant, here in Bathurst, New Brunswick, waiting for my all-day breakfast when an attractive girl, talking and laughing into her cell phone, and an equally attractive guy appeared at the entrance. The girl continued her casual phone conversation as they were led to their table. She was still talking as their menus were delivered. Her male friend stared into space. At about the point in time when I would have expected him to snatch the phone from her hand and throw it across the room, she laughed charmingly and said to the person on the other end of the call:

“So … how are you?”

A few minutes later - still on the phone - she reached over and stroked her restaurant friend on the cheek and pouted, as if to remind him that she required his attention as well.

After breakfast and back in my room, I read a story online about the prayer that Barack Obama had left in the Western Wall in Jerusalem - one of the holiest locations in Judaism - this morning.

Notes containing prayers are left, by people from all over the world, in the cracks of the wall, and are usually collected and buried at another sacred site. Obama’s note had been removed and given to the press.

The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall was angry.

“The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them,” the rabbi said.

Obama’s appropriated private prayer (which by now is all over the internet, if you want to read it) asks the Lord to help him guard against pride and despair. It’s a very succinct, simple, eloquent and beautiful prayer. Between a man and his maker.

It was after reading it that I was moved to finally write about why I can’t seem to write.

“Just write what you’d want to read” She said …

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The thing looked like a designer kitchen utensil - like half an egg-beater sporting additional mysterious appendages and missing a handle. Although clearly made of metal, glinting as it did in the afternoon sun, the circle of thin graceful flame-shaped blades at one end appeared to float in the polaroid blue sky - the tops seemingly too thin to otherwise successfully support themselves. It was beautiful in a streamlined yet asymmetrical way. It was both magical and clearly mechanical. The four star-like projections under the metal flames were supported by two sets of delicate bracing arms, suggesting that without them the craft might fold in on itself and fall from the sky. There were clear and detailed markings under the long flat body. One of the shots was a close up. Neatly centered and laid out like a copyright notice on a Henkel knife - the unreadable characters were accompanied by small crests. Or were they vents? The four photos were astonishingly clear but their subject was too baffling to allow interpretation of the finely captured details.

“Charlie”, who had sent the photos to a national radio show but wished to remain anonymous, said he just wanted to know what the craft was. He was worried that the humming noise it made - “like” he said, “when you’re near very large power lines” - was detrimental to the health of his wife and their unborn baby. He would only say that he lived in Northern California.

In ten minutes I’d found a perfect CGI video recreation of the craft, moving around on a makeshift background - ostensibly proving that fakery was probable. Five more minutes took me to a website where a collection of disparate photos of the “Dragonfly Drones”, as they were now calling them, had been assembled - all slightly or significantly different from one another and all from supposedly unrelated sources. One set of photos depicted a craft of such confusing complexity that I grinned with delight. Why would anyone, terrestrial or otherwise, create such a byzantine mass of tangled airborne technology and what possible purpose could it serve? I flipped from my browser to check my mail.

Of course, it didn’t need to serve any other purpose than the garnering and sustaining of attention. The whole idea of the dragonfly drones had held mine for over half an hour. I downloaded the mysterious “CARET documents” that appeared to tie-in with the under-body hieroglyphics. They were beautifully drafted and intelligently presented. The diagrams were high-tech art - marred only by two penciled question marks and a few roughly drawn circles and arrows. I opened Photoshop and removed anything that appeared to be of human origin. I printed the five pages and stood them up against the wall at the side of my desk and then wondered what I would do with them.

Another great review of Connor McGuire's ‘Different After Dawn’

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My buddy, L.A. musician and songwriter (and artist on Guitar Hero III) Davidicus Schacher, sent me some comments on Connor’s CD that he’s given me permission to share with you:

“i was under the impression it was close to folk, (not sure why), but i think of it as acoustic pop now. lyrically authentic, i’m jealous. the melodies aren’t as bombastic as what i usually listen to, but it’s a very sophisticated album that deepens over time. the performances are skillfully played and beautifully polished. the arrangements are perfectly refined and drive the album forward. i’m particularly fond of Whenever I Talk and Easy (great choice with the mandolin). a very honest and mature collection. i’m very glad to have a copy.”

The Shadow of the Wind

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I just finished a great book. So great, I feel like reading it again right away. It’s a combination of Umberto Eco’s “Name of the Rose”, Wilkie Collins’ “Women in White” and a fifties mystery/adventure/horror movie filmed in Barcelona, Spain.

Maybe I loved it more because I was just in Barcelona, but I don’t think so. “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a complete and immensely satisfying entertainment. It’s exciting, magical, complex and thought provoking. In many ways the book is about reading and the power of the writer’s art. Here’s a quote I love from near the end of the book:

“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.”

Connor McGuire Review - White Rock Sun

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A review from Connor’s show at the Wired Monk last Saturday:

 

There’s been so much else to talk about, I haven’t mentioned some of the fine musical adventures I’ve had over the last few weeks. I must start with my dropping in on Connor McGuire at the Wired Monk in Crescent Beach. (By the way, this fully licensed coffee bistro is warm, cozy, intimate, and a perfect spot as an acoustic venue.) As usual when Connor performs, people of all ages were there, on this occasion flowing out the door, and as always, lots of love in the room. Rarely have I known a performer who has such an intimate connection with his audience as he interacts with them between and sometimes during his songs. Each time I’ve seen Connor perform, the audience becomes part of the show, and before the night is done he has everyone singing along. Connor was joined by his friend Kieran Mercer to sing an original song they wrote together called “On my way”. Connor sings both covers that he makes his own and his own songs: “Sweetly Goodnight”, “You Don’t Know” and “Easy” …

For me, the way I know when someone has had a big impact on me is when I can’t get a song out of my head, and this was the case this evening as the lyrics, which he had us all singing along with him “It seems to me that either way, you’re surrounded by the people surrounding you today…” kept playing in my head for days afterwards. A unique sound, strong songs with big hooks and powerful lyrics, the audience in the palm of his hand, and a warmth that invites you in and makes you a part of a night you want to go on and on, it’s always a treat to catch a performance by this fine young singer / songwriter.

~ Doug LaChance

Touring with Trooper, These Days

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I miss meeting at the van every morning in some gravel parking lot and waiting my turn to hoist my big Tumi suitcase into the back. I miss making the passenger seat my home for hour after mindless hour. I miss the quiet van talk and the willfully obscure in-jokes that get funnier and funnier from repetition, week after week. I miss the casual camaraderie that comes from spending so much time together. I’m not crazy about taking planes to every gig. Airports are boring. The drivers who meet us in each new city are nice, but it’s not ‘our’ van, it’s not one of us driving. And we only go a few miles to the hotel.

I miss rowdy bars and small town shows where the haying schedule could easily blow out the Trooper gig. I like walking around in new places. I don’t seem to have time for that anymore. I miss it.

White Rock BC - This morning

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I’m watching a concert video of Prince from the 2004 musicology tour. I saw him on the New Power Generation tour, in the 90’s. Every vid I see of him he’s changed everything. The guy honestly must never sleep. His talent and energy are beyond belief. I’m simultaneously scoping t-shirt styles. Hmmmm. Hanes versus American Apparel. Spaghetti strap versus wider strap that hides the bra. You can see why I’m also watching the Prince vid.

New t-shirt design negotiated. New MacBook Pro ordered (after weeks of waiting impatiently for the announcement of the Penryn/multitouch upgrade), Time Capsule ordered (ships today, they say). Walking the boardwalk soon. Gentlemen of Leisure meet for lunch @ 1:00. Going into Vancouver with Connor tonight to see Jordan Carrier (Cozy Bones singer) at the Railway Club.

A Change is Gonna Come

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I started writing online in 1996. Those initial years helped to get my confidence up.

The next installment of my online adventure led me into the 2000’s and eventually attracted the interest of a real-world brick and mortar publisher who ultimately helped me create and release the book I’d often dreamed of but never for a moment expected.

What followed was an exciting but often overwhelming concentration of attention on me and my personal life that has only just lately died down. Marginally shaken, I have nonetheless continued writing online - but the spectre of an imagined second book appears to have squatted unceremoniously on my weakling creative impulse and choked its out-take valve.

A change is in order - but I don’t know what to do next. Evolution is important to me. If I work at this unselfconsciously I think it can become something of value, but I need to flail for a while in hopes that a clear path will reveal itself. Whatever I do should be different in some, as yet undefined, way.

So, valued readers, take this as a warning. And … wish me luck.

Connor McGuire Review on Synthesis Blog

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Connor’s new album was reviewed on the Synthesis Magazine blog the other day:

Synthesis Band You’ve Never Heard Of Band of The Day: Connor McGuire Author: spencer

8 Feb

Connor McGuire

I sifted through a few submissions today and declined about four or five groups based mostly on their lyrical content, or lack thereof, rather. As a songwriter, the difference between hiding behind poorly-constructed metaphors and creating phrases that strike from the bone and come right from the heart is like night and day. There’s poetry in the day to day and honest simplicity will always trump complicated purple prose. That’s why Connor McGuire is our Band You’ve Never Heard of Band of the Day.

British Columbia singer/songwriter Connor McGuire’s songs take a road traveled by the likes of Mason Jennings and Jason Collett , built around acoustic instruments, peppered with non-obtrusive arrangements of mandolins, strings, horns, organs and electric guitar. His lyrical couplets follow ideas to their full conclusion (see “The End of the Line”), blending axioms and blunt moments into a seamless earnestness. You can purchase his album Different After Dawn here.

Dad’s Birthday

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It’s my Dad’s birthday today. He would have been 88. Here’s the first two paragraphs of the life story that he wrote longhand (and which my Mom painstakingly transcribed):

I was born on January 3, 1920, in a dirt-floored cabin, on a homestead in northern Alberta near Mellowdale … a town that I don’t believe exists now. It was seventy miles above Edmonton. But try as I may, I can’t remember that day. I have to go on what my Mother told me.

The only memory I have of this time is riding in a horse-drawn sleigh with “sleigh bells ringing”, all bundled up under a heavy fur, and seeing lights from a window of a house down a snowy hill to the left. It was dark … blue dark. The house had heavy snow on the roof, and icicles, and it was still snowing, and I could hear music. The fur we were under was a buffalo hide, my Dad told me years later. He never remembered that particular time, but said it was probably Eligh DeGuire’s place. I recall, vaguely, being placed on a bed with other little sleeping kids and complaining bitterly. I also remember crying because the music was so beautiful, and my Mother sang so beautifully.

My Christmas Letter

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Ok, here’s the latest plan. Think Springsteen’s “Nebraska” record, only with drums, or at least a groove of some kind. Maybe some occasional strings. Not traditional strings but rough strings. Gravelly strings. Like the ones I used on the demo of Cold Water. Just simple songs framed frugally.

This may be yet another promising but overly gaudy float in an annoyingly unrewarding parade of potentially do-able creative blueprints that has been taunting me all year. This one sounds good to me - but I’m in a positive frame of mind. It’s Christmas.

The complex and frankly threatening idea of song writing often floats to the top of my consciousness on those few occasions when, because other less controllable thought has subsided slightly, I could be pursuing the elusive relaxation that I claim to want so badly. As I began, on this quiet and calm day after Christmas, to formulate a tentative year-end list of 2007 events and milestones, I was not surprised to see songwriting once again stepping to the foreground, grinning accusingly. I will plow on regardless, on the premise that those things that did happen in 2007 are more significant than those that didn’t.

Right now, I feel as though the whole year tired me out, but more than likely it’s that Christmas thing - or at least that Christmas thing that we do here. We try very hard to do Christmas as Ebenezer was said to have done it after returning from his visits with the three phantoms. We try to do it well.

A little over a year ago my mother moved from the 1800 square foot house in Langley where she’d lived alone since Dad died, to a 600 square foot apartment here in White Rock. We helped her dismantle a home bursting with a lifetime’s treasures. We helped her with impossible decisions about what could be kept and what had to go. This was unimaginably difficult for my mom, and possibly equally as painful for the rest of her family. We all put on our brave faces, but it was no fun. Weeks of hard work saw us cleaning out the house, moving into the brand new apartment and setting up Mom for her new life. As 2007 began, she put the Langley house up for sale - it was sold by February 2nd.

By then we had already begun preparations for Connor’s first album. The recording of “Different After Dawn”, a brilliant collection of passionately performed acoustic-based original songs, was a culmination of so many things for Connor - and for his three-piece family. The recording sessions were fun, difficult, and massively rewarding. The finished CD will remain a triumph for Connor as he moves forward into his music. Connor and I co-produced the album and, for the most part, found the perfect balance point. When that wasn’t possible we struggled for the right thing. In all respects, the music won. Debbie didn’t get production credits, but should have. It was a real team effort.

Recording was often interrupted by shows. Trooper was, as always, the strong and consistent thread that ties my years together. In 2007 we performed sixty-seven shows at festivals, casinos, concerts, theatres and clubs from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland and as far north as Inuvik and Chisasibi. We spent more time in airports than any other year of our career. Over the past two or three years we have spent far less time huddled in rented vans driving for hours on end. I miss that.

In the spring I signed on as a ‘judge’ for the CBC’s Seven Wonders of Canada project. By June that supposedly modest project had attracted national attention. I devoted a surprising amount of time and brain-space to the suddenly necessary task of knowing Canada more fully and deeply. By the time the two “National News” TV news segments had aired - featuring the three judges narrowing 52 nominations down to 7 winners - I was more than ready to step back out of the public eye. The upshot downside is that I received equal amounts of kudos and hate mail, neither of which I read. The upside was that I came to know Canada more fully and deeply - and that I met and kicked around with Roy MacGregor - a fellow SWofC judge, a great Canadian and a great guy.

By July we were finishing up the mixes for Connor’s record. Boxes of CDs arrived in August. A few weeks later, in mid September, Connor and Debbie and I were in Barcelona Spain drinking San Miguel beer in Gaudi’s beautiful Parc Guell. After Trooper’s gig in Barcelona, the three of us toured that amazing country for three fun-filled weeks. It was a great adventure in a beautiful and passionate country. In November Debbie flew to Toronto and joined me, mid-tour, for a week of big-time downtown fun while I played a few shows in the area. We ended the week with our very first Grey Cup game.

In 2007 I also went to Nanaimo to sing on S. George Brown’s first CD, wrote a heartbroken song with my friend John Pippus, went to Warped Tour with Connor, went to see George Martin (the Beatles’ producer) with Connor and Debbie, went to see Ratatat with Connor, did a father-son TV interview with Red Robinson, held my breath while my friends Monty and Jon miraculously beat Heart Disease and Cancer respectively, welcomed Paul Cloutier back to the band as Tour Manager, stayed in close contact with our accountant as Trooper was audited by the tax department, attended Tuesday morning meetings of the Gentlemen of Leisure, Spent eight months successfully convincing (and then helping) Universal Music to post ALL of their Trooper recordings on iTunes, and, finally, burned up a great deal of time taking care of all those disparate chores that fall under the general heading of “Trooper business”.

I’ve managed to devote more time to my family. It’s been an ongoing goal and I’m proud of my few successes in 2007. The three of us working together on Connor’s record was the unforgettable milestone of the year. Debbie and I huddled happily in our new favourite Queen Street italian restaurant (Terroni) on a cold and wet Toronto afternoon runs a close second.

Connor scored a great job as an assistant editor at a local film company when we returned from Spain, and just attended the company Christmas party last week. His record has received great reviews and he’s playing lots of successful shows. Debbie is sewing and creating again and happy to see a hopeful horizon looming in the distance. Her Mom has remained in her White Rock home since Alex passed away and seems content and reasonably healthy, and I do not recall my mother ever being happier and more full of life than she is at this very moment in time.

For myself, I’m unsure about what happens next. I can say, though, that on these final grey days of 2007, it seems like anything’s possible.

Seven Wonders of Canada 2 - The Upshot

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The initial infrastructure for the show was quickly humbled by the country’s enthusiastic response to the idea of picking seven favourite Canadian wonders. The 7WC website underwent several hasty renovations and the online voting system strained and choked under the weight of it’s sudden popularity. My job, as a judge, slowly began to seem just a tiny bit more … complicated.

I still have the first email from the CBC producer. It refers to the “feedback that we hope to get from listeners”. Over 20,000 pitches and more than a million votes later, I was shuffling my tour schedule to accommodate the three and a half hour “Judgement Day” television and radio segment at the CBC’s Toronto studios.

Conference calls hammered together a complicated, but hopefully fair, procedure by which we would proceed. The judges painstakingly filled out spreadsheets listing all fifty-two short listed nominations and the criteria that had been determined at the outset. The online voting would be factored in, but not relied upon completely, because many worthy nominations lacked the population base to generate the kind of pride-driven community voting that characterized some of the more seemingly popular wonders. One of my hopeless favourites, for instance, - a seventy kilometer in diameter impact crater - blasted into the Canadian Shield 200 million years ago and still looking like a fresh bullet wound - probably received very few votes beyond that of Canadian astronaut, Marc Garneau, who had photographed it from space and pitched it on one of the first ‘Sound Like Canada’ Seven Wonders shows.

Despite the fact that I’ve visited two thirds of the 52 nominated wonders, I felt obligated to take the time to study them all - confirming and adding to what I knew, and learning about those places I’ve never been. I spent hours discussing potential nominations with family and friends - quickly learning that no two seven wonders lists are the same. It was an enriching, rewarding and, yes, fun experience.

I’m proud of the list of seven that Roberta, Roy and I ultimately settled on. It was borne of compromise and will be seen by many as flawed, but I hope those people who cared about the outcome will understand that we did our very best to represent them. From the looks of things, the Seven Wonders of Canada program was just the beginning of the CBC’s celebration of a country that boasts hundreds of wonders - not just seven. Check out the 7WC website to see the much larger and - much more important - picture that they present there.

Finally, and even though nobody’s asked me, here’s my *personal* seven wonders of Canada:

Niagara Falls The Rockies Haida Gwaii The Ice Road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk The Manicouagan Crater The Thousand Islands The Lobster Pound in Hall’s Harbour NS

Now YOU try to get your list down to just seven!

UPDATE - “One thing’s for sure, the Sleeping Giant is awake now” - Roy MacGregor - Globe and Mail UPDATE 2 - “Geographical correctness run amok” - Christie Blatchford - Globe and Mail UPDATE 3 - “More on the Seven Wonders of Canada” Jonathan Whitten & Cathy Simon - The National - Blog

Seven Wonders of Canada 1 - Judgement Day

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There were moments, on the CBC’s Seven Wonders of Canada set, where the three of us fell totally silent and simply stared at one another hopelessly. Staff from ‘The National’ and ‘Sounds Like Canada’ and a large crew of technicians looked on, cameras rolling, as the complete impossibility of our task began to sink in.

We had been chosen by the CBC to be judges. I believe they made excellent choices. Roberta L. Jamieson is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. She was the first Canadian aboriginal woman to earn a law degree, the first woman to serve as the chief of the Six Nations and the first woman appointed as Ombudsman for the Province of Ontario - a position she held for ten years. We arm-wrestled on the set.

Roy MacGregor has been covering the Stanley Cup Finals for the Globe and Mail recently. We hung out backstage together at game four in Ottawa. His books have been short-listed for the Governor General’s Award and include both fiction and non-fiction. He wrote the acclaimed “Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey”, the popular Screech Owls Mystery series for young readers and has recently released “Canadian” in which he attempts to explain us to ourselves. If Google is to be trusted, he’s an Order of Canada recipient. He’s also a helluva guy.

None of our credentials could have prepared us for the surreal showdown we were facing. Starting with a “short list” of fifty-two truly inspiring Canadian “wonders”, we were given just over three hours to discard fourty-five of them. Our every deliberation was being filmed for TV and recorded for radio, and would be presented in an edited form, right across the country, four days later.

To be continued …

Link to streaming video of Part One

Link to streaming video of Part Two

UPDATE - “Seven Wonders of Canada” - Jonathan Whitten Executive Producer of the National - CBC Inside Media UPDATE 2 - “What is more wonderfully Canadian than a snowflake?” - Roy MacGregor Globe and Mail