Blue Rodeo musican meets me in person!

I'm tired as I write this but I want to post the news that tonight I met - all too briefly - my favorite musician. In the whole world. There were 5,000 people at the Blue Rodeo concert and yet here I am with maestro Greg Keelor.

LESS-TIRED-UPDATE: Shout Out to Ben-Bob who asked where I saw this concert. In fact it was right here in snowy Ottawa. It was my 21st Blue Rodeo show, which pales in comparison to Dianne's tally of over 350. I thank Dianne for getting the meet-and-greet passes that enabled us to catch up with the boys. Jim Cuddy told me he had seen me dancing crazily beside Dianne and was quite confused because he knows her husband Dan is not normally so demented. Of course the reference site for my Blue Rodeo fandom is on my website here.

FURTHER UPDATE: I have just been sent this pre-concert picture. My sign features Dianne in a Burqa (she is labeled 'Dianne of Afghanistan') thinking "I hope they play Floating".



The references are to the fact that Blue Rodeo will be entertaining the Canadian troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan in March and to Floating, my favorite Blue Rodeo song, which I have been requesting hopefully but without success for twenty years.

Additional notes: yes, the 'guy' from Blue Rodeo is 'old' (51 in fact). This is not boy-band - not was it even when I first saw them in, I think, 1987. A young woman sitting in front of us at the show (while we and everybody else was standing) was texting someone "I'm bored as shit. Everyone here is 40". In fact, at 45, I think I was on the young end of the Blue Rodeo Bell Curve.

Lame-o Five

Have you heard of the newest fad in the blogosphere? Listing the five things you do, did or like that some may consider “totally lame,” but that you are totally proud of.

I'm on to this raging fad because of El Beño.

Not to be left behind...

FIRST: I never buy or watch pirated DVDs and I do not own pirated music. This self-righteousness has not made me new friends but I will not dither. As an artist who has made very very very little money from art I sympathise with those who need to protect their work. I heartily approve of artists who give their work free, who encourage sharing knowing that they will benefit in the end, and those who offer their work for any price (yeah, Radiohead) but I also strive to protect those who put their work up for sale and do not expect to be robbed. I am not swayed by arguments that "that [artist's name] is already so rich". The problem with this is that some friends stare at me strangely and necessarily don't invite me to their movie nights. And I have to pay a lot more in the short run.

SECOND: I am a rabid Greg Keelor fan. Greg is one of the singer/songwriters in Blue Rodeo and my favorite musician. I have a story about Greg stopping a song to ask me if I'd told him to shut up. He was starting to sing something a cappella (was it 'Diamond Mine'?) in Philadelphia and some drunk Canadian women in the audience would not stop talking. I yelled 'Shut up' at THEM and Greg stopped and said "Did you tell me to shut up?" He understood and was joking but I was devastated. Later I managed to say "I didn't mean you" and he grinned and said he knew. Special note to Jim Cuddy fans: Jim is awesome too and I'm not interested in arguments about who is better. Greg is only my favorite musician in the world but I admire Jim very much. (And he's a lot friendlier with strangers like me than Greg is. Only Jim would have noticed that I was following Blue Rodeo around the British Isles and dedicated a song to me half way through the tour.)

THIRD: I like railway (/railroad) locomotives, rolling stock (but not long German four-wheelers), tracks (especially), signals, couplers (but not buffers), schedules, crews, maps, history, pioneers, museums, stations, yards, tunnels, bridges, crossings, legends, models, games, fiction, archeology, policy, advocacy, politics, passengers and TRAVEL.

FOURTH: I buy and wear used clothing whenever possible.

FIFTH: I declared all my earnings when I was a restaurant server in Montreal. More self-righteousness. I get very impatient with members of the artist / bohemian crowd (who made up the staff where I worked) who demand government services (especially to artists and bohemians) but who do not pay their share of taxes. I wonder if this was an indirect cause of my sacking - the stated reason was shabby dress (see #4 above?). Restaurant serving was the job I think I've done best in my whole life and which I've enjoyed the most.

2005 wrap up

Kitchen department, Liberian Government Hospital, Buchanan, Liberia

December 31, 2005

Best wishes for a wonderful 2006 to any readers out there.

I'm writing this at 10:13pm on New Year's Eve and I think I'll be too tired to stay awake until midnight.

What an amazing year I've had. In these 12 seemingly brief months I took a mere 60 flights, visiting eight new countries (Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Ireland, India, Nepal and Liberia, bringing my official country total to 40), riding overnight trains in India, Canada and the US, and setting foot on five continents. I finished one job (working for the Survey Action Center in Afghanistan), started and finished another (with Oxfam in Afghanistan) and begun a third (with Merlin in Liberia).

Amongst my adventures were the following (not quite chronologically):

• Leaving Afghanistan on Business class, drinking Turkish coffee in Istanbul - and then finding myself back in Kabul six weeks later;


• Dancing until dawn in Itajuba, Brazil during Carnaval;


• Being spied on by monkeys with Jenny on the Pao De Acucar in Rio de Janeiro;


• Riding an elephant through the jungles of western Thailand after rafting through gorges, jumping off waterfalls, and enjoing welcome serenity in an eco lodge;


• Learning to Scuba diving at Koh Chang, Thailand;


• Taking my most comfortable (yet affordable) overnight train trips ever (Bangkok to Chang Mai) in Thailand;


• Climbing and pondering the incredible monastery at Angkor Wat, Cambodia;


• Swearing yet again that I'd attended my last Formula 1 Grand Prix (this time in Malaysia);


• Gazing up (from valley floors) and down (from tiny aircraft) at the most beautiful country (Afghanistan) I've ever seen;


• Being given an improbably large number of interpretations of whether or not the Holy Koran permits alcohol consumption;


• Being told (before takeoff from Yawkalang airfield above 8'000 feet in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan) that we would make an immediate right-turn because otherwise "if one of the engines fails we'll hit that hill...";


• Being the only person to follow Blue Rodeo around all twelve of their UK tour gigs - and in so doing drinking Guinness with some of them until long after their Bambridge show, being played 'Lost Together' for my personal loyalty in Leeds, and bar hopping with some of them and their most wonderful fans in Dublin;


• Continuing the process of falling in love with Scotland;


• Realizing that the Kings Cross bomb exploded 48 hours to the minute after I'd been there;


• Visiting the incredible Taj Mahal but also the arguably more wonderful nearby Agra Fort;


• Being required by kidnapping threats to ride cars from within and between walled compounds in Kabul;


• Emerging from an ultra-modern cinema in Delhi into a darkened shopping precinct and bumping into a very dark and sacred cow;


• Feeling a gentle swaying of the ground in Kabul - then flying to Delhi before learning that it had been a devastating earthquake in Kashmir;


• Reaching out to hold hands with friends - riding in a separate speeding auto rickshaw weaving in and out of Delhi traffic;


• Discovering truly wonderful restaurants in Delhi that would star even if I hadn't just emerged from Afghanistan;


• Relaxing on a houseboat in Srinagar - then while at 10,050' in Indian-administered Kashmir being hailed by my tour guide from western Thailand;


• Wallowing in the friendliness and extreme comfort of Kathmandu;


• Feasting at American Thanksgiving (with great friends old and new);


• Confirming once and for all that I'm too old to sleep on transcontinental railways without a bed;


• Not sleeping in one bed for more than five consecutive nights between October 8 and December 25 (as I've already moaned);


• Requiring the services of an English <> English translator in Liberia;


• Beginning my potentially most rewarding and meaningful job ever.
  

Above all meeting lots of people in lots of countries, almost all of whom are immeasurably more gentle than their governments, and meeting and revisiting many wonderful and very very special friends (in one or two cases, quite unexpectedly). Almost my only regret in 2005 was that I couldn't go to see all the rest of my friends. You're all welcome to come and visit me in Liberia!!

Happy New Year.

Job interview

Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo playing at the New Roscoe, Leeds, July 2005

OK, let's see if I can get into this blog thing. [....]now I should try to think of some content.

First - how I'm making this. I'm use Macromedia Dreamweaver for all my web site layout. [Now I've switched to on-line compostion with blogspot.] I'm not benefiting here from any cool blogging system. This lets me design it exactly the way I want but it still hasn't inspired any creative writing. Or correct spelling.

Today I had a job interview with at Mission d'Aide au Développement des Economies Rurales (MADERA). I think it went well but they want somebody who can start this month, and I won't be available until after my November holiday. I'm supposed to know whether they'll consider me anyway by about the 25th of this month. I had to assure my line manager at Oxfam that I'm not going to leave this job before my contract ends on October 31.

On Saturday I and some colleagues are going to Delhi for 14 days. The purpose is to be safely away from any problems that might occur during the upcoming Afghan elections. We'll be there for some Oxfam induction and we'll be bringing lots of work but we'll also have one weekend free. We're planning to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

I'll try in the next days to provide more updates about where I am and what I'm doing.