Tag: Me and Mine

Hall Of Fame

The other day when I did rock, I stood for a moment before the tour t-shirts and decided that, no, I would not buy one for 40 bucks even though there was a brown one with orange printing displaying the large Queen crest on the front. It was not that I would not have occassion to wear it or that I could not find the 40 bucks in the wallet. It was that I could not foresee it entering the hall of fame, that particular pile of t-shirts, soccer jerseys, ballcaps and hoodies that are retired from active use to be pulled out at the right moment years from now seemingly unworn yet displaying information from a point decades past.

There are not enough in the Hall of Fame as I was not as careful in the past as I might have been but that is no reason to judge unwisely and presume. That the 1988 Bill Bragg T is too thin now is testimony to its beauty. That the 1970s “Radio Sweden: Keep In Touch” T from high school is now appropriated by others does not mean its place on the shelf should now be filled by another. Yet entropy is and, despite best efforts, the temptation to wear causes wear and tear and, like ourselves, these things do fade. But for the decade, the brown Queen tour T with the orange ink may well have deserved the place in the pile.

Hello Computer

Which is worse during bachelor week? Talking to the cats or the computer. At
least the computer does not run away when it sees you. But being cats they make
you do things through the power of staring…like making you think it is Friday
and making you want to post stories in bullet format.

  • Update: this
    story on NCPR     on the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan from the point
    of view of a US solder was very interesting.

  • As a public service announcement, this Thursdsay’s rocking out with brothers
    at the Queen concert in Toronto will likely pre-empt Friday chat-fest. It is an
    odd thing going to Queen in a way as for years I entirely rejected the band but,
    in 1986 when working in Holland in a wholesale cut flower packing auction house,
    I heard a top 100 of all time and #1 was Bohemian Rhapsody. This was
    pre-Wayne’s World but it was my first experience of the post-punk
    restoration of Freddy and the lads to classic rock status. Question: ought I buy
    a lighter for waving at certain moments? I know I have to buy ear plugs. I like
    the music but I sure don’t like the racket.

  • You know, Ian is a daily read but – even after years – the other worldliness
    of his experience sometimes strikes me. Today he recounts the dramatic passing
    of an ’80s game show host.

  • I think Hans is going to win the NCAA pool even though there is a whole day
    to get the picks in. Why? I am simple stunned at anyone actually taking the time
    to think about these pool questions. Ooops. I just realized I forgot the cricket
    bonus points. Maybe 25 points for a short compare and contrast essay on the
    relative impact of cricket on the West Indies and Gerry McNamara on Syracuse.
    While Deadspin has an incredible amount of detail on the NCAA first round, I don’t think you will
    find a cheat sheet on that particular question.

  • There is something goofy about PM Steven Harper that I am starting to like.
    True, he is sort of pudgy and mid-40-ish like me but there is that smile of a
    ten year old with a new box full of Hot Wheels cars that seems to be without
    pretense. I think his trip
    to Afghanistan     was a very good idea and while it is not the sort of thing
    that is going to sway my vote on this one point I am much more with him than
    Jack!, though I do admire the moustacheoed one for sticking to unpopular stances
    against
    the flow     when an easier path is available.

  • The Commonwealth
    Games     are starting soon. Who knew? I still hold the hope of taking off as a
    lawn bowler in about ten years to take Gold for Canada in 2030, singing the
    national anthem teary eyed in natty white slacks.

Well there you go.
The cats are staring at me so I now have to make some changes to my bank
accounts. I must. Then, I am off to buy new larger cat carriers. Cat treats,
too. I obey.

String Fever

The Rukster has reminded me of my early steps into bluegrass. I wrote a brief summary of my place in my pickin’ and grinnin’ edjification:

I am following a similar path in bluegrass discovery, Peter, and I can heartily recommend String Fever on NCPR Thursdays 4 to 6 your time. It’s a local show on my local NPR station with an excellent name which it has inspired me to declare 2006 the year of the mandolin, but only if I learn ten licks on the guitar. All very diddly-diddly. Perhaps you now need to pick yourself a bluegrass name like “Slim” or “Del” if only to keep it private in your own thoughts.

I daydream now of mandolins and imagine myself like these folk in a future I am not certain can be attained. The other day I learned of the existence of the mandocellos and other points on the mandolin sliding scale. I have bought books of tablature with titles like Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar. I have a plan. I will go to Old Forge on the way home from Easter in Portland. I will pick up a mandolin and play a lick and say “that is one sweet mandolin” and I will buy it. How better to welcome my 43rd year later that week.

This all, however, may go off the rails as I learned last evening that I am going to see Queen in Toronto in three weeks with the brothers to renew our periodic rocking out as with Elvis Costello in July 2003 and the Pixies in November 2004.

Day Fifty-Six: Election Day

I think there was a mistake made by someone when the election date was picked. We were given too much time to think and too much time to talk. And what did we talk about over Christmas and New Years? The season of giving to the good and to the needy passed in semi-silence politically speaking but the polls show it was then that the fates of the candidates changed. We all have our thoughts but I think it was less about the news and more about the lull. Perhaps to create revisionist comforting unhistory in the mind. Perhaps to be angry…or likely just angrier than usual. Perhaps to be open to change.

Today we vote. Only today. I like to vote and I would vote more often if given half a chance. My vote will not elect a Member of Parliament. It never has. It will express my view, however, and that is more important. I feel badly for those who vote to pick a winner but not whose view aligns with those who will take their seats.

Update: Interesting to note that SES polling results for Sunday, the final day of SES polling in their last 3 day rolling poll [Warning PDF!] announced last night at 7:45 pm before the deadline (therefore not infringing s.328 to repeat by me here), shows a weird shift away from the Tories:

All voters

Tories – 33.2%
Liberals – 30.4%
NDP – 22.2%
Bloc – 9.4%
Green – 4.8%

Likely voters

Tories – 32.7%
Liberals – 31.0%
NDP – 23.3%
Bloc – 9.0%
Green – 4.0%

If there turns out to be a weekend collapse of Tory support, has SES seen it? If there is not, who was SES calling? All very slim information to be sure but as a NDP voter one has to grasp at straws.

Upperdate: I just noticed the best report from a all-candidates meeting over at Chris Taylor’s blog. Check out the scoring methodology.

Bored Election Blogging

Would it surprise you to find out that if I really thought about it, all this daily election blogging I am doing is getting to be dull. I have done a daily post over at the CBC roundtable and maybe half as many again here. That is something like 75 posts on one topic. It is getting dull out there.

Why is it dull? Because I have become aware of what is really happening. It is sort of like watching a movie in a cinema. People all reacting in a group emotional event together, having a moment of shared swing syndrome. Sooner or later you realize this at the movies and it suddenly feels like a sort of techno-evangelical church praising Lord Pictures-on-the-wall.

This is not like me. Usually my gut reaction to “where two or three are gathered” is an urge to be elsewhere. Something happens to people when there are few ideas and lots of expectations and an election is the worst example for a couple of reasons. First, it is not about the details or what will really happening. As soon as the platforms were all finally released last week, they dropped off the radar. Second, it is too much like a bunch of branding consultants talking. If there is one thing worse than listening to a branding consultant talk about what your brand should be, it is a group of branding consultants talk about branding theory. And as branding is making something without certain characteristics appear to be something with those characteristics…well, you get the point.

Will I learn to blog again after all this is done? I worry about that more and more. I wonder what will fill the hours when I can’t jerk my knee to the last poll or the last gaffe.

Yuletide

I am convinced there is a third or maybe fourth thread running through this time of year. The first is the birth of Christ which, for better or worse, has receded in terms of importance for most people. The second is the bacchanal of spending – the fear that you have spent too much or not enough or that the toys or pants will not suit the child or will be mocked in the playground. To my mine there is a cure for the first: get some religion of not. Either you will take to the story or you will not but make the call. For the second, all I can say is get some spine. We buy less for the kids than others but it has always been so. There is a small theme of austerity in all the largess in a Scots family Christmas, the time of excess coming later at Hogmanay just after New Years Eve has passed. The third may be the sadness and badness that happens at times like this of social pressure – if the wheels are going to come off, you can bet this is when it will come to pass. What can be done for that?

After all these, however, there is Yule. The winterfest. The longest night. Yesterday marching the seven year old through downtown shops with a list, past the new outdoor skating rinks, a Victorian choir singing carols and even a trumpeter on Princess Street, me handing her loonies to put in those outstretched hands and also treats for her own, it was about the merry – the merriness of a shared holiday. Summer holidays are the slackest time, when laying down in public space is an activity to be planned. But Yule is collective as, even if you are not gifting or not remembering, you are at half speed except in retail. My family was in retail and fifteen years ago this day I would be pushing the poinsettias, flogging packets of holly but even at that all minds on the back side of the counter were aiming towards the days of nothing when naps and sherry sips and, yes, one more small sideplate of that would be nice. All a big reward for something or other never needing being quite defined.