Another year

How the hell do I forget every year what a shitstorm Back To School is?

Borq borq borq

So when I was growing up, kids TV was AWESOME (even though at times politically incorrect and wildly inappropriate for kids). I am longing for a time when life was simpler and this was my solution . . . After spending yesterday evening watching classic Muppet Show clips of the Swedish Chef, at 11:45 pm as I was singing along with the 'borq borq borq' part of his theme song, I decided that I was cut off and should call it a night.










Saved the best for last:

FYI

Since this is my blog, I reserve the right to delete moronic comments on my posts. A blog is by nature, generally an opinion expressed by the author in written form. I have a major issue with people misunderstanding the definition of the word opinion. Growing up in my house, my opinion was always different from everyone else – and therefore perceived as wrong. By its very nature and definition an opinion CANNOT be wrong – it can only be yours or mine.

If you have a problem with my opinions, might I suggest you stop reading them. Do not make stupid comments on my blog, I guarantee you the only result will be that I will swiftly remove them. I quite enjoy hearing the opinions of others, so if you have one to share in a calm and rational manner with appropriate language, I would be happy to read it and invite you to leave a comment – if you cannot follow those rather basic rules of common courtesy, I have no time for your bullshit.

This ends my public service announcement.

Moving

Rarely would I say a commercial is art, but I make this exception. What a magnificent representation of all of the magic that goes on behind those doors.

I guess this means it's time to grow up now huh?

Fellow Toronto music lovers and radio listeners have been dealt a swift blow today after learning of the death of Martin Streek yesterday. A veteran host at CFNY (yes, I refuse to call it the EDGE . . . I'm old skool) and a huge cultural significance to myself - his live to air shows from various Toronto clubs over the course of his tenure were the last remaining bright spot on an otherwise fairly abysmal local radio scene. He was my last and final reason to tune in to what was once a cutting edge (pardon the pun) media outlet, in recent years turned centrist, pandering, commercial enterprise. Martin was fired a few months ago after 20 years as one of the 4 (the other 3 being Strombo, Alan Cross and Booky) driving forces behind Toronto's local music scene receiving it's due airplay before all the Can-Con quotas. They truly made a lasting impression on the musical fabric of this city as well as on my personal musical existence.
Sadly, yesterday afternoon after posting what now seems ominously to have been his 'farewell' to the world on his Facebook page "So … I guess that's it … thanks everyone … I'm sorry to those I should be sorry to, I love you to those that I love, and I will see you all again soon (not too soon though) … Let the stories begin," , Streek ended his own life. He truly had one of the most distinctive voices in radio history, not just in Toronto and I have been hearing his voice echoing in my head all day - spooky. The one thing that keeps popping up in my mind is back in the day when Strombo still worked at CFNY and was the junior member of the team, Martin always referred to him as George Sloppydroopypants - silly, but I keep hearing him say it in my head and it makes me laugh every time.

I remember the first time I met and chatted with Martin in the mid 90's at a Live to Air show at the Phoenix - he was a force in any room. I have since run into him all over the city at various events, shows and clubs and he always had a smile and in most recent years even remembered me each time. I feel like my adolescence has just disappeared, time to grow up I guess. Cheers to ya Marty, listening to NIN and The Clash in your honour tonight brother. You will be missed.

**EDIT - new update:

So I have had to ‘justify’ my sadness over Martin’s passing to a few people over the past couple of days so I thought I would share here why I have felt so saddened by his passing.
I spent 2 years lying in a hospital bed when I was 17 years old. While my sister and friends were using fake ID to get into Martin’s Live to Air shows at the Phoenix on Saturday Nights, I spent 2 years of Saturday nights talking to a friend on the phone (he didn’t go to the Phoenix because I couldn’t go – never really thanked him properly for that . . .), both of us listening to Martin live from the Phoenix. Martin was the voice who made me feel, if only for a couple of nights a week, that I was not missing my ENTIRE adolescence. I met Marty the first time a couple of years after that and thanked him for keeping me up to date and being the voice of my sanity for those years, he was gracious to say the least. I have been running into him all over the city for over 15 years since then and he always had a smile and a wink. In the past 5 years or so he always sought me out when he saw me, and stopped to chat. So to those who have questioned why, I say – I get to feel sad about this because I just do – so there. I will be sure to give a smile and wink at the booth this Saturday. Cheers Marty.

The Big Smoke

Gotta love Toronto in the summer!!!



This week:
Bell Orchestre
Phoenix
Apostle of Hustle (x3)
Happiness Project
Years
Jason Collett (x2)
The Most Serene Republic
Still Life Still
Zeus
Timber Timbre
BSS

Plus rumoured Feist

And, I'm only working half days this week so I will actually get to sleep in there somewhere!

Anybody know who the 'mystery artists' at Bovine are on Friday night or if By Divine Right is seriously playing Saturday night?

Blah . . .

Most days I really do believe I have the best job in the universe. Then, I go and see something like this and I realize that my job really sucks. I hate the 9 year old me who decided that because she was a girl she would not play the drums - oh how my life would have been different. Who the hell lets 9 year olds make life altering decisions anyway?




EDIT: And now that I have officially finished Stuart's Book (after reading each section about 12 times before moving on to the next section - it's THAT good), I think my life sucks even more. Boo hiss.

Spring is in the air

OK, so best day in a long time. In less than 2 hours I will have in my hot little hands THE book, I am going to see the Hip at Toronto's awesomest venue tonight and - oh yeah, then there's this . . . from JP's Twitter "departing for chicago in 29 hours. bss new record: activate."
Some days someone out there likes me a lot.

R.I.P 1983

Things I did this week:
-made dinner on the bbq 100 ft from the ocean almost every night
-read 2 entire books (both of which made me laugh at least once every 5 pages)
-went whale watching (MUCH more on this later)
-spent a day walking around Boston
-went to the Patriots pre-season opener game (American football fans are absolute lunatics by the way)
-slept in EVERY day (more on this later too)
-spent 7 entire days with my sister (also more on that later)
-discovered that THEY (whoever the hell they are) were right, you really can't go home again

So here is the fabulousness part of the week:
I went on vacation this week to the place where my family used to vacation when I was little. I probably spent at least a month each year on the Cape from the time I was 3 until I was about 15. I went back once after by myself with my grandparents when I was 18. This time, I went with my sister. As we started to cross the Sagmore bridge onto the Cape, the radio switched songs (by the way - Boston has a kick ass radio station - 104.1) and 'Today' by the Smashing Pumpkins came on, so as Billy sang "Today is the greates day I've ever known" I was in fact crossing over into my childhood - perfect. The trip was fabulous in many ways, it has been years since I spent that much time consecutively with my sister, and for that fact alone, the trip was magical. Also, on this trip I went whale watching. I don't think there is any way to explain my love for this activity. It was definitely the best day of my year and will most probably make the top 5 of the decade. There is nothing I find quite as exciting as hanging over the side of a large boat to get a closer look at a humpback whale. They are truly beautiful and majestic creatures and if I were the captain of the vessel, we would have just found a pod and followed them into eternity. Sadly, we did have to turn around and return to the harbour at the end of the afternoon.

I saw the carousel that we rode on Main St. in Hyannis, I saw some of the old stores that are still there, we went to what was our favourite restaurant when we were kids and ate a deliciously gluttonous meal, we slept late every morning (a feat I am completely unable to accomplish at home), we walked around the ridiculously fantastic homes of Hyannisport (including the Kennedy compound), I collected shells on the beach where we used to make sand castles, basically - we had a fantastic week.

Now the not so fabulous parts:
I went to the Cape looking for something. I went in search of my childhood. I naively expected that time would have stopped back around 1983 and that I could just go back and relive those summers spent with my family. I loved walking down Main St. and seeing the Army Surplus store that has been there since I was 3. I loved seeing the bike rental place along the side street that I remember my parents renting bikes for themselves and trikes (!!!) for my sister and I because we were so young, I was excited to see the kite store where we bought a kite each year to fly on the beach with my Dad - a kite that inevitably never made it back to Toronto with us because we invariably got it stuck in a tree or someone let go of the string . . ., then we were standing in front of what should have been the kite store and it was . . . an ice cream parlour. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against ice cream parlours, we even went there and got home made ice cream that was delicious, but I kind of needed it to still be the kite store. As we walked further down Main St. I saw that the grocery store was gone, the restaurant where we ate brunch on our way into town every time before even checking in at the cottage was also gone. Provincetown is an absolute zoo - it is completely touristy and not anything resembling the quaint artists community that it used to be. The beach we used to go to that we would have pretty much to ourselves had a 45 minute line up for parking. Basically - the quiet Cape Cod that not many people knew about in the 1980's is now a booming hotbed of tacky tourism. On the subject of tacky - what the hell was with all of the airbrush tat booths that seemed to be everywhere? Seriously???

I was hoping to relive all of my childhood memories with my sister. It turns out, my sister does not share my memories. She does not remember the day when we were walking up Sea St. and she fell and skinned her knee and the man who owned the general store came out and cleaned her up, the apartments at Main and Sea St. where we said we were going to live when we grew up, and that we always stayed in cottage 6A. I on the other hand, remember all of it - every last detail, which is kind of a double edged sword for a couple of reasons. The last time I was there was with my grandparents - both of whom are no longer with us, which made it hard to think about memories of that visit. Also, all of my memories of the Cape are so tied to my parents, whom my sister and I have not spoken with in years, making all of the memories somewhat bittersweet. And as we were taxiing on the runway preparing to take off from Logan airport in Boston to return home, I had my iPod on shuffle - which I rarely do because I always know exactly what I want to listen to, and Fleetwood Mac's 'Don't Stop' came on, it almost made me cry.

So the short version of this tale is the following: you CAN go home again, but when you get there, you will find that your home is no longer a kite store, it is an ice cream parlour. I have decided that I shall not return to the Cape ever again, because in as much as there were some things that were disappointing, it was a fabulous week and I would not trade a single second of it, enough things were the same that I was OK. But I feel that if I went back and even 1 more thing were different, it would break me. So I said my goodbyes to my childhood and all the memories that go with it as we drove towards Boston over the bridge on the way off the Cape - coincidentally - the Smashing Pumpkins 'Today' was also playing this time we crossed the bridge.

Oh - and after being delayed in Montreal for our connecting flight home to Toronto because of shitty weather here and once we finally took off 2 hours late, we circled Pearson Airport in the sky for 35 minutes waiting for a runway to land. So just as I was ready to be all "Home sweet blah, I just packed my childhood in a box and waved goodbye to it for the last time so fuck off people", we finally touched down and got in a car to come home - were there not 2 rainbows crossing the highway like arches? Mother Nature man - she's fucking awesome.

I did not mean for this post to be so long, but I needed to get some things out into the ether.

A side note - if you like any kind of music at all - you should read everything that Chuck Klosterman has ever written, he is fantastic and provided much comic relief over the course of the week.

Mental health weekend

So why does it always seem at this time in the school year that time speeds up and the amount of 'stuff' I have to do in a day multiplies exponentially? Somehow, magically, we are once again poised at the precipice of the end of yet another school year and I am yet again, wishing that this time of year didn't fly by so quickly (between being bogged down with report cards, staff evals, admin to close out this year and start a new year . . .) so that I could really appreciate how far we have really come since back in September. I was struck today as I stepped out of my office into the yard with the children and watched as their relationships and interactions unfolded around me - such different people than the ones I met just 9 months ago. When and why is it that we stop learning and growing at such an alarming speed? It really is remarkable to watch - and on a side note, I was also reminded why I much prefer children to adults as I saw a 3 year old go and slide on our 'old' slide (much smaller and far less exciting than our 'new' slide) because she thought it looked sad and lonely. Nine times out of ten I would rather talk to a 3 year old than anyone else on the planet. The simple facts are; they are smarter than all of us combined, they are nicer than most of us, they are happier than - well, let's face it - all of us, and they are far more honest than any of us have been since we stopped measuring how old we are in half or three-quarter years.
Who tells little girls it’s not OK to pull their dress up over their head anymore? Who tells little boys to stop jumping on the spot for fun? If anyone out there knows who the person is who makes children stop being children – send them my way, we're gonna throw down.
So on the heels of my afternoon observations and the disturbing fact that this year and these children have once again whizzed by me at warp speed, I bid a fond farewell to the Big Smoke for the weekend to head for the Big Apple. Hey, I'm a girl and I love shoes. I have a feeling that poor Roy (our once and former tour guide soon to reprise his role) will immediately run screaming into the street and retire once he sees that we are back and this time there are not 7 of us, but there are 42 of us. Yup, now I get to go make someone else feel slammed at work the way I am poised to be for the next 4 weeks. Hey - gotta balance it out.

On the previous journey to the Big Apple, I found The Band to be the perfect soundtrack to driving through upstate New York on a sunny day, so . . .






P.S. Levon is the man.