Tag: blog

the do-gooders

The conversation around authenticity and being ‘self-made’ is always an interesting one to me, and the impetus for this thought today is from 2 very important events that I think we’re probably all tuned in to, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Nobody is self-made. Every last one of us has been shaped by experience and mentorship – some of those experiences are wonderful, and some of them are absolute shit.
Those of us who find ourselves in some of the crappiest situations we can imagine are there because of poor decision making, almost exclusively related to advice we’ve received, and trauma.
Similarly, many of the most successful of us have found ourselves there because of advice we’ve received, and trauma.

But whichever the case, we are guided and manipulated; like a shiny silver pinball being batted around a tilted table until we inevitably glide past our own limited control, and the game is over. Nobody wins at pinball… you just take longer to die than someone else, and then a bunch of people gather in a room and – metaphorically speaking – take a look at your scoreboard. Some people hold all-time records…

One of the highest scores of all time is Dolly Parton… despite a tragic upbringing and constant mocking and criticism at every turn in her life, managed to amass wealth to a degree that most of us will never reach, and did so by putting love and understanding ahead of her personal feelings.

Forbes estimates her value around $500,000,000.00 at a point where she’d purchased and donated 3.5 million books for parents to read to their children, countless fortunes given through charities, and created jobs for an innumerable quantity of people who; incidentally, she’d offered to pay for their college tuition and books for anyone who wanted to further their education. She; herself, never went to college.

She quite literally couldn’t give her money away fast enough to truly rid herself of it.

She’s an outlier in times of a Donald Trump presidency, who’s waged a trade war on Canada, which is an ongoing event that you don’t need to learn of from me when you can consult actual, credible news outlet… so all I will say is that he; too, has received trauma and followed bad advice in his life.

She’s an outlier in times of Elon Musk, a man who’s intent on colonizing Mars in an effort to get away from his family trauma and bad advisors.

I’ll end that list there, because I am not interested in discussing the motives of billionaires, other than to say that Dolly Parton would have been a billionaire if she hadn’t spent so much time giving money away, though a decent amount of her time was also spent writing, as she has more than 3000 songs with her name on them currently… which is probably a bit light, since copyright laws around creative works has a long, storied history of being shady.

I’m reminded of Fred Rogers in this moment, when he recounted an experience of about seeing calamity on the news and becoming visibly upset. His mother consoled him and said “Look for the helpers. any time something bad happens, you will always find people helping.“

To say that Dolly was a helper is a massive understatement, and there are obviously many accolades I’ve left out – but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who had something bad to say about her.

It’s easy to say that these are dark times, but I maintain that if you are looking for darkness, you will find it. So be sure to take a minute and “look for the helpers…“

Maybe even be a helper.
Seems we’re short on those.

As an aside, I received an amazing number of text messages and direct messages through social media within the first 10 minutes of the announcement that Dolly Parton had passed.

I didn’t know what to do with that information when I recieved it… and in retrospect, neither did any of the people who reached out to me. We all just needed to make sure that everyone knew that
The Queen is Dead. Long Live The Queen.

For the record, I was never a superfan of her music.
It was great, and authentic, and inspired generations of people to take the world on their own terms.

Personally, I just have a couple of her records, and a lot of respect.

trials and tribulations

Every time I leave to play shows, I know there’s a certain amount of danger and uncertainty that goes with that. We don’t talk about it – but it’s there… and what is essentially a stroke of bad luck feels all-encompassing, endless, and impossible.

There’s a long list of things to be grateful for in the midst of those circumstances, but that evades us when the bill comes. The bill in this case came in the form of a transmission shop invoices totalling several thousand dollars, and was accompanied by 2 tow-truck bills and a couple extra nights in a hotel 6 hours from home.

There’s a checklist though, and it needs to be acknowledged – and in spite of the fact that there are a million little things that are frustrating, there is ONE BIG ONE:
– nobody got hurt
Really… that’s good enough, but the checklist goes on, and the next 2 concerns are:
– the payment went through
– we didn’t miss any shows

The bummer count is pretty minimal:
– I got a new nephew I had to put off meeting
– shit’s expensive

Ultimately, that’s a successful trip by many metrics. Even more successful when you account for the fact that in 30 years of doing this, I’ve never been stranded anywhere. We’re all happy & healthy as far as it goes.

My time stranded in Lethbridge, AB furnished me with a decent hotel and the ability to get some work done, I was able to get a prescription renewed, I had a guitar with me, it was probably the best weather conditions that town has had for most of the summer, and everything I needed was within walking distance except for the transmission shop where my whip was parked, and being there a couple times only cost me one cab ride. Otherwise I was chauffeured.

What’s more – the crazy situation that brought about our bass player’s wife’s gut feeling that something was amiss. She was attending an event relatively close by, decided to wander up to an area with cell reception, and worked out a plan to get us back on the road for the last show of the trip with their vehicle… it wasn’t without it’s logistical challenges, but ultimately a miraculous set of circumstances once you take a step back.

Beyond all of THAT… the ability to pay comes straight out of a strange set of circumstances around a sum of money that we received. Still not without it’s frustration and emotional turmoil… and repayment, of course – but it was possible.

Miraculous.

30 years on, and there’s still signs in the sky that we’re supposed to be doing this.

Where are we this playing week? Castle Mountain, near Pincher Creek… about an hour away from where I was stranded a few days ago.

If you see me grinnin’ (you won’t, but if you do…) it’s because I have a lucky horseshoe supplanted somewhere.

back in the black

There are seasons to everything. Except Edmonton weather, I guess. Edmonton weather has been a carnival ride with varying vomit-inducing speeds, but I guess I’ll save that line of complaining for another day.

The fall; historically speaking, ahs been the ‘back to basics’ time for me. Summer comes to an end, and the loathing associated with the malady of late nights and lazy afternoons comes into view. This is when I find myself growing weary of half-assed workouts and lazy sundays, and my thirst for personal discipline and productivity are in play.

It’s happening now.
It’s a couple weeks early, actually.

I’ve found my macro balance and am staring down my meal plans, and am formulating my workout plan for the winter, to commence Monday. There’s a lot of things I wish I had gotten to this summer, but my resentments are mostly based around the summertime and the fact that my favorite mountain bike trail has been continually washed out week after week, and I can’t complain too much as I prepare to launch my side-hustle business that I may have an artistic collaborator on. Who could be upset about that?

I’ve learned a lot this year so far, particularly pertaining to my mental health and to the mental health of the people around me. There are a lot of things that I thought about myself that are not true, and in retrospect, I was trying to convince myself were true. You can sell yourself on just about anything, for a while. Maybe forever, if you stop searching – but who wants to stop searching?

Not this cowboy.

I’m back in black in all the ways.
I’m on top.
Even making that assertion feels good. Right. Strong.
I’ve been mourning and issuing sympathy to my younger self, and as important as that is, I am now seeing that I can give grace to my younger self without letting my current self wander off-leash.
That kid needs grace… but this man needs to kick his own ass into gear.

It’s time to run miles and write songs and build circuits and lift weights.
… now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been doing those things all along – just not to the intense degree that I love. I realize that my regimen is still more disciplined and intense than most people, but this isn’t about most people. It’s about me.

Even the nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter.
It’s cooling off.
It’s go-time.

I know I have a tendency to let things slip when I’m needed… and I don’t regret that at all. That’s part of being human, and part of community. I just wish I could return to discipline in a more effective and efficient way.

This summer has been fraught with crazy event after crazy event, but a (more) disciplined morning plan would have helped me.

As well, I only just realized that I’ve been receiving messages from this blog and just stumbled upon how to check and respond to them. There’s an embarrassing amount of correspondence over the past few years and to those who have reached out and gotten nothing back, I apologize.

Hopefully it’s not too late for the collaborations and re-posts that have been pitched to me. If you sent me a message once upon a time, and you’re still reading this blog, I’m sorry. I’ve begun replying to these incredibly overdue messages.

If you’re in Grande Prairie this weekend, I’m playing guitar at The Great Northern with Robin Kelly’s Elvis Tribute “Long Live The King” and I’ll be at Sterling Skull getting my leg colored on by Chris Rhyason, the damn coyote himself.

Stop in at the vegan bakery across the street on your way in 😉

bereaved

We’ve been diverted from our regularly scheduled program.
Bereavement does that.

Time just keeps on ticking by, though, doesn’t it. It’s interesting to me how death is a part of life, and everyone gets to witness it, and everyone gets to experience it eventually. Cultures have developed intense and methodical storylines to explain what blissful series of events may happen beyond the event that our earthly bodies must eventually undergo, while also giving believers a list guidelines to follow beforehand – then these storylines become the justification for taking the lives of those who worship a different sky-dad.

*** If that sounds callous or offensive,
feel free to take it up with your religious leaders.

Yet here, in the first world, despite our common painful experience as witnesses to the inevitable, it can feel like nobody cares.

If you have ME in your life, it’ll almost definitely feel that way. I’m an emotionally dysregulated neurodivergent 40-something man who’s processing speed with things like this is akin to the spinning beachball that your antiquated computer with show you at the first sign of trying to do 2 things at once. I can apologize for that but I probably won’t; because to my mind, an apology needs to come with a changed behaviour and I’m not sure there are any upgrades to my processing speed at this point.

We had a family member pass away. I say ‘we’ because it wasn’t anyone in my immediate family, but an in-law. And… I’ll save the details out of respect, because I am not part of the narrative that the man’s children are setting. I am a supporter on the inner circle, and I did have a relationship with the man.

He was a very thoughtful conversationalist. A curious mind who loved to know the ins & outs of everything from politics to business. Always respectful, and had a very keen sense of justice. I will miss talking to him and helping him out with the odd task here & there.

A week ago, as I was on the verge of an ‘Irish-Goodbye’ at a family function, I was nudged to let him know I was leaving, so I did. He stood up, and shook my hand, and thanked me for coming. If I was going to have a final encounter with someone like him, I’m glad it was exactly that.

Are we judged by our deeds in the time we spend on earth? I don’t know and I really don’t care. Every last one of us is flawed, and although I am more than willing to have the conversation about whether or not we have free will on a normal day, this is not a normal day. Our existence must be more nuanced than that, but if that is indeed how it’s done then I’d be a lot more concerned if I had a religious belief system that I was betraying in the shadows like a hypocrite, than the flawed and (mostly) transparent man slouched behind his laptop on a mid-week holiday afternoon, typing all of this.

He had his flaws and his traumas like the rest of us, but he walked upright in the light, and he did the very best he could for his family and they; or rather, WE will miss him dearly. The lessons he imparted during his time with us will live on in the lives of his children and his grandchildren – and that’s about as immortal as any of us get to be.

I’ll grieve more outwardly when I’m ready. For now, I have hurting people around me and I don’t really know how to process that beyond recalling my own past trauma and cracking absurd jokes that; FORTUNATELY, I have learned to keep to myself.

In closing; I fight the urge to say what we everyone says when they’re experiencing this…
Give time to your elders.
Hug your homies.
Call your dad.
All of those hashtag-like sayings.

You might not actually do it.
I have a hard time with those things.
But I think the people I love who love me back know that the one time I gave them a hug… years ago… I meant it forever.

event fatigue

What a week… or two.

The past 11 days has been all over the place to the point that I struggle to know where to begin. Last tuesday, my child (who I struggle to say ‘no’ to) asked for some help with a project.

That project involved dismantling, cutting, and re-assembling, and adding some structure and a veneer to a wooden box that would house the Edmonton Fire Cadet Class 12 legacy gift, a project my daughter was almost solely responsible for. What was assumed to be an evening project ended up being very involved.

While I was doing that, the kid was preparing a short length of fire hose to be painted – but not just painted – it was to have the Fire Cadet Class 12 crest, which she designed, across 3 stacked sections of hose before being discretely mounted inside the aforementioned frame.

I rebuilt the box Tuesday evening, while the kid made a plan for the ultimate display.

Wednesday morning, I dealt with the failing of our provincial mental health support system, as an assessment I was looking rather forward to getting done… that had already been delayed… was rebooked without my knowledge. There are a number of ways this miscommunication can appear to be my fault, but upon sharing the details with a couple people this past week, none of them were surprised. I lodged a complaint with AHS and received 4 separate, VERY apologetic phone calls from AHS and put on the top of a cancellation list… which is a strange move for a large underfunded organization who apparently did no wrong.

In the evening, we went shopping for supplies in a torrential storm (since we couldn’t work outdoors anyway). Thursday evening, while I was otherwise occupied (rehearsing for a show I had on Friday, HA!) she sanded and stained the box and frame during a brief few hours of tolerable weather, and friday morning I added the newly stained veneer to the newly stained box, and mounted the 3 lengths of hose inside roughly 45 minutes before my soundcheck on Friday. The gift was signed by all the cadets at their graduation ceremony at City Hall, where it was presented.

It was all very high-pressure for the kid, and she handled it all very well, and got the job done. The ceremony was incredible, and my daughter was singled out for a monetary prize from the Cadet Corp’s major sponsor.

The next day was father’s day, which meant very little for me as there was a bit of a family reunion happening. I attended and was overwhelmed. I forgot to call my own dad… and still haven’t done so 6 days later… sorry dad.

Monday, the kid collected her diploma from high school… which should be exciting – and was, don’t get me wrong – but really most of us were most excited about the cadet grad two days prior, and ultimately relieved at the success of that.

By Tuesday, I was ready to hide in the waves of sound that can only be made by my rock & roll band, and the boys didn’t disappoint. That was a great jam, and we’re very excited about our upcoming shows.

On Wednesday, I received copies of our latest record and solidified some release party plans for a few months from now (but we will be bringing these records with us for the summer shows, of course!)

I’m suitably ready to collapse.
To give you an idea of how it all feels, I go to work to relax now.
But I am reminded of the depressive feeling that comes with finishing a long race, or coming home from a tour with nothing ‘spectacular’ on the horizon to look forward to. It’s a funny feeling that I am very aware of, and doing my best t handle

The kid? Still going… she’s been to a couple of friends’ graduations and narrowly avoided repelling off a 7 story building as a final cadet gathering. She hurt her wrist a while back and really didn’t trust it, but I’m proud of her for going up in the first place.

She turns 18 in 6 weeks.
A couple weeks later, I become an uncle again.
Shit’s bonkers, I tell you. BONKERS!

All in all, I am plagued with the infamous Ferris Bueller quote at every turn.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Since all of that; and I’ll save the details because it’s really not my place to comment or update people about this sort of stuff, but this house has 2 parental family members in the hospital for some pretty serious stuff, and some of the commentary from the staff and volunteers there is pretty ominous.

We’re hoping for the best and preparing for some life-changing stuff here, just in case.

not my story to tell

I don’t post about it a whole lot, but I’m a dad. I know I’ve mentioned my daughter in this blog before, but I have a reputation as a bit of a public figure, for lack of a better term, and as my profile was starting to raise within the community and my band started to gain a profile, I made a conscious decision to not post about my kid.

Lots of other people do that…no shade… but I wanted for her to be her own person and generate her own online persona IF she even wanted to do that at all.

She has.
Terrific.

I ultimately wanted for her to be recognized as an individual, rather than “Fat Dave’s kid” or “Davey’s daughter” or whatever, and if the price of that is that I get recognized every so often as ‘someone’s dad’ then not only is it a small price to pay, it’s proof that it worked. At this point, I’d rather be the one with a certain level of anonymity, but hey – we carry the chains we forge.

I’m very proud.
She’s done amazing things.
Not the least of which is finish high school (very) recently… she just finished the last of her exams. She’s maintained honours throughout high school up until this semester… but since she got accepted to University back in January, she’s kinda on to the next thing, and understandably so. I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.

Next week, she’ll also graduate from The Edmonton Firefighter Cadets program, and it’s quite likely she’ll receive a scholarship upon doing so. It’ll help her get through a very cool program she’s already enrolled in and been accepted to. That program has welcomed her into a very small demographic of people who’ve seen some specific types of fires, and have lived to talk about it.
I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.

She’s been a certified yoga instructor for 2 years. She got certified to teach shortly after she turned 16, and may have been the youngest certified yoga instructor in Canada for a while, but she’s been doing it for a while and is less young, so that crown has been claimed by someone in Calgary. At any rate, she’s been leading classes and picking up subbing shifts for a couple years.
I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.

She artistic, and musical, and caring.
She’s an entire human, and she feels like one because we’ve made a point of treating her like one. There’s a long way to go yet, of course, but later this summer I will get to be a father to a LEGAL adult JUST as a new baby arrives in our extended family.

You wouldn’t know the difference to look at her, though, since my under-aged kid has multiple tattoos and carries herself like a confident adult. Restaurants mistakenly seat us in the lounge sections on occasion and it’s of no consequence, in spite of some potential legal repercussions. Her mother and I are onboard with tattoos, and for a kid who’s seen adversity, anger, and sadness and still managed to come out the other side of her adolescence while still being a good – no, GREAT person, a tattoo or three is an easy thing to say yes to.
I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.

There have been stones in her passway, and she’s maneuvered them – occasionally stumbling, sometimes pretty hard – but has dusted herself off and kept going, like a boss. She’ll continue to do so.
I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.

At any rate, she’s a goddamn dynamo. She’s staggeringly funny, and an absolute trailblazer, much like her namesake. She’s carving her own path through this life. I’m proud to be in her corner for absolutely anything, no questions asked, and I’m happy that I’ve found occasion to tell her that. And, even though both of us hold our cards pretty close to our chests…

… I’m sure she’d tell you all about it.