Fumbling Through Ecstasy

I went swimming at the Aquarena this morning. When I got home, my wife asked, "Was it fun?"

"I hurt all over."

"But did you enjoy it?"

Enjoyment had nothing to do with it, I told her. I haven't been swimming since Jesus was a baby (not that that was my reason for doing it back then; the two events are completely unrelated), but I've been meaning to.

When I was a kid, I spent my summers in water. I'd swim in the ocean day after day. I knew the tides better than I knew my friends' habits. There was this huge rock at Sandy Cove I used to stand on and use as a diving platform. When the tide was in, only the very top of that boulder--which was really about the size of a small shed--protruded from the salty brine, making it a perfect launching pad. I'd do somersaults, back flips, and jackknife dives into the North Atlantic, eyes wide open as I explored the seabed filled with rocks and sand, seaweed, starfish, shellfish, jellyfish, and whatever else the ocean had to offer. The last time I did that I was seventeen years old and the rush just never got old--that feeling of exhiliration from doing something forbidden and even potentially dangerous, especially since I swam alone a lot. I'd go there with friends too, but, as with skating (also on the ocean) it was my habit to get up early most days and enjoy it in solitude. Nothing but me and nature. Sometimes, I'd get out of the water and just sit there, not even breathing heavy, and just listen to the birds, the tide, and the wind.

Sounds pretty idyllic. Of course, we also had a community outdoor swimming pool just down the hill from our house, and it was open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It would kill me to have to wait until 9 a.m., to be honest. Most days, I'd be there at the door, rushing to be first in line, with my money in hand. I'd stay there all day if I could, though most days I had enough money for only two or three hours. I'd swim pretty much all day. Up and down, deep end or shallow end, teasing the girls of course, diving off the board, though none too pretty. It was a swimmapalooza, all summer long. I hated when the pool would shut down for the day and I had to wait all night and early the next morning for it to open again. It wasn't that I had no life; it's just that, when I was young, this pretty much was my life. If I wasn't reading a book, I was playing some kind of sports. It wasn't that I had to choose swimming over softball, basketball, or hockey. I'd do those things too, often all in the same day.

Well, things have changed. I still run a few miles several days of the week and play badminton occasionally, putting the same amount of effort in that I always did. But it's been YEARS, actually decades, since I've been swimming, except for the occasional dip over the years at Butterpot Park (once about fifteen years ago) or glacier fed (thus, extremely cold in August) Harrison Lake in British Columbia's lower mainland.

I made up my mind I was going to get back to it--been meaning to for years. Well, this morning, I finally did. It's a little unnerving to don the swim trunks again after so many years. Back in the day, I didn't worry about how I looked; I just went. Now it's in the back of your mind, after years of hearing things in the media about how you're supposed to wear the right things to the beach and be in shape for summer, and all the rest of it, that you can't help it. You just know you're being assessed by everyone in the pool, lifeguards and all.

Then there's the fact that I never really was a very strong swimmer. Sure, I could do it. But I never learned the techniques you're supposed to learn. So I wondered: could I really do it after all these years?

Turns out I can, but there's a price to be paid. First of all, forget about how I look in swim shorts. Everyone at the pool, except for the twenty-year-old lifeguards who looked like they wouldn't put me out if I was on fire, let alone rescue me from drowning on their watch, was at least a little overweight. I was easily the smallest and (I thought) most fit person there.

So I went there, got in the water, didn't think about it, just dove in. Figured that was the best way. Well, it seems that somewhere along the way the muscles that one normally uses for swimming had decided to retire without telling me. Swimming is like giving birth (or so I've been told): no one tells you that, if you've never done it before, it's FREAKIN' HARD! Michael Phelps is a god. No two ways about it. But the thing is, he practices. He swims five hours a day. He eats, sleeps, breathes, and dreams about swimming. And so do most of those other aquine Olympians.

I swam thirty metres out, and I thought I was gonna die. Honestly. My heart was pounding. My arms were already sore, and my legs were like jelly. I only thought I was physically fit. I mean, sure I am fit for the most part, but nothing had prepared me for that burning sensation of my limbs and lungs.

But I stuck it out. I stayed for about forty minutes, forcing myself to swim though I felt like quitting. I knew that the only way I was going to get better and stronger at this was to practice. And it's not going to happen overnight. Just like when I start running after a long absence, I'll have to start slowly (in this case, excruciatingly slow) and work my way up to it. Maybe in a month or so I can do an entire 100 metre lap. That's the goal for now. It's not easy to do these things when so many people are watching. The Aquarena is a very public space, with eyes on you everywhere you turn, including the two lifeguards, who looked so bored and disgusted with my feeble efforts. I mean, it was obvious I'm no swimmer or that I haven't done it in a very long time. So give me a break.

The thing I often think about is, when you guys are in your thirties and forties, are you still going to be stretching yourself athletically and in other ways? Are you still going to be daring yourself to try new things or things that scare you a little? Are you going to be willing to teach yourself something slowly, painstakingly slowly, until you at least become good enough at it that you can enjoy it?

I can honestly say I've lived my life that way. Every now and then I do something to shake things up. So I take up a new sport or creative pursuit. I remember once, in my early twenties, I woke up one morning and went downtown with my guitar to busk for a day. It was a horrible experience in some ways, but exhilirating in other ways. Thing is, I wanted to know how it felt just so I could empathize with those who did it, but also because it was such a scary, public thing to do--I mean, singing for strangers on a street corner, most of them looking at you like you were a freak or a hobo. I didn't want money. I wanted self-respect: knowing that I could do such a thing meant that I had nothing to be afraid of in life.

The experience of taking up swimming this morning was just like that. You just take the thing that scares you the most in life and dive right in.

The next step, of course, is to take some lessons. I need them, just to get my technique down. After that: practice, practice, practice. It's not just how you get to Carnegie Hall. It's how you get the most out of life.

No Country For Old Men

I was reading an article a few days ago that suggested John McCain should not be allowed to become president of the United States because he is old. I've also heard that Mats Sundin should no longer be a Maple Leaf because he's in his thirties and, therefore, too old to be of use to the team anymore. I've seen dancers and figure skaters, tennis players and actors contemplating retirement because they've reached their late twenties and can hear the clock ticking. We live in a time when a new artist of any sort--singer, writer, actor--has to be a teenager (preferably between 13 and 17, as 18 is getting a little long in the tooth) in order to warrant any kind of attention.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Even older people are trying to look younger and will do whatever it takes, including (gasp!) exercise and eating right. Of course, more people are figuring out early that you have to start doing those things when you're young, say in your early twenties, so that your face doesn't look like a road map by the time you're in your forties. If they've cheated all along and eaten all the wrong foods, stayed up every night till dawn, partied with the wrong drugs and people, and avoided exercise like it was a deadly form of torture, then there's always the nip-and-tuck version of youth and beauty.

I've got to ask though: what's wrong with having a wrinkled face or a few gray hairs? I won't even go so far as to say that they are signs of anything except getting older. But that's my point: what's wrong with getting older? It happens to all of us, and yet we treat aging as if it should be a source of shame. Well, shame on us all if that's how we feel because the fact is we are all getting older, every second, every minute, every day. It's one of those things that unites us as a race of human beings.

Recently, I've had arguments with people about the idea of mandatory retirement. It seems some people think as soon as a person (say a university professor, which was the profession under discussion) reaches an age when they can get a pension, they should just bow out gracefully and go out to pasture, go live in an old folks' home or something like that. But isn't it when a person gets into their sixties and seventies that they have accumulate the most wisdom they have ever had? We need the old to teach the young, and we need the young to be interested enough to listen and to act. Of course, the young will still make the mistakes of the young, and the old will still shake their heads. But it's another thing altogether for either group to dismiss the other as being too rebellious or irrelevant. To say an entire group of people is irrelevant because of their age (whether old or young) is a sort psychological genocide, where an entire sector of the population is wiped out and invisible. And don't tell me it doesn't compare to real genocide because, although it doesn't involve physical death, it does involve a moral, spiritual, and philosophical death. If you tell someone they don't matter because they are old, you are effectively cutting them off from your life and the lives of others who your own age. You are also sentencing yourself, and others, to an inevitable, hoary old age--one in which you don't matter, ultimately, because you only matter when you are young and shiny, new and relevant.

Mick Jagger turned 65 yesterday. I wish people would stop criticizing him for still rocking when he's a grandfather and start applauding him, unanimously for keeping the dream alive, for ignoring what he himself probably believed when he was young. The Who once sang, "Hope I die before I get old." That pretty much sums it up.

I think a lot of us would like to die before we get old. Look at how we revered John Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger. All great talents who never grew old. Forever young, and all that. Even Jesus H. Christ didn't have the audacity to age before our very eyes. He died in his early thirties, before he started to not look like the portraits we all have of him in our heads. But how many people have I heard say that they won't go see Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, or Elton John in concert because, "Dude, they're old." Fine. These singers are predominately of an earlier generation. But it seems that they still have a lot to say while a lot have people have tuned out. That's no way to treat your grandfather, your mother, yourself, or your own children. Can you look at your new-born child, niece, or nephew and say, "I like you now, but when you get old, people should stop paying attention to you"? That seems wrong, and yet it's what we do to OTHER people's children. No wonder Tom Waits sang, "I don't wanna grow up." Not much fun in that.

But I've found the answer. See, I'm getting older. Surprise! (The real kicker is, so are you.) But I find that I often forget how old I am, unless I'm forced to answer the question for some government census or something like that. I've gone entire years thinking I was older than I am so that when my birthday came, I was pleasantly surprised to get to live that year of my life over again. A do-over!

But the real trick is to not fall into the trap of allowing yourself to feel old and act old, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of trying to be younger than you are. I don't pay much attention to birthdays, but at the same time, I've always been somewhat athletic in my own way, always keeping on the move, running, weightlifting, sports, and that sort of thing. I take care of my mind too by reading books, playing chess and Scrabble, engaging in political discussion, paying attention to what's going on in the world, engaging with the lives going on around me. When it comes to your mind, you either use it or lose it, and that doesn't start when your fifty or sixty-five. It starts when you're young.

There's a forty-one-year old swimmer from the United States in the upcoming Olympics and she wasn't expected to make the team. I'll be cheering for her when the Games begin in August. Just the same as I'll be cheering for the youngest athletes who are there for the first time. In spite of all this, my point really is that I don't care about age. I can learn something from someone of any age. When I teach university courses, I love teaching first-year because I learn from their vitality, their ability to look at everything with fresh eyes, to question everything. But I also learn that just because you're young doesn't mean you do all these things naturally. Sometimes you need to be taught, and that comes from your peers, to some extent, and from your (gulp) elders, to a larger extent. Sometimes the young are afraid, and that's okay. Sometimes they are bold and brash, and they'll break your heart by either trying too hard or not trying hard enough. Either way, they know things, and I can learn from them.

Which brings me back to where I started. Sometimes a country or a sports team needs an old warrior to bring some wisdom and dignity to the proceedings. They've been there before and they've learned some things that might be used as weapons, either offensively or defensively. Don't cast them aside, but let them fall on their own swords at their own time and place of choice. Don't force them to go gentle into that good night because, if they're smart, they won't go--not without a fight. And neither should you.

But then, you've got lots of time, right? And when you're old, you're someone else.

Right.

Oh, and I actually wouldn't vote for John McCain if I were American, but that's just a matter of politics. I don't really care if his heart's in good condition, as long as it's in the right place. I wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he's relatively young, as long as he's relatively smart, compassionate and strategic.

The whole age debate is stupid and pointless. It's hard enough getting older without feeling like the whole world's against you. But I swear some days, it is.

I feel young today, but I can see the day coming when my words will fall on deaf ears because my hair is mostly white, my muscles aren't toned, and my voice is shaky. Heck, I already need to wear glasses more often and often have to ask people to repeat what they said. The signs are there, and they all say, "Yield!" Well, I won't be yielding any time soon. I'll need to be knocked out of the way or hauled off the stage when the time comes. Anything else is a contradiction of what I've stood for since the day I was born. Why would you work hard all your life to become something just so you can give it over to someone younger than you, who will inevitably do the same thing when their time comes? That's what we teach the young: it's all over at a certain age, so if you haven't succeeded by the time you're thirty (or forty, at most), then you should just stop trying. And if you are successful by then, well, move over because the kids want to sit in your chair.

The time is now. No matter what your age, your time is now. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. Sometimes the young are too young to know, and sometimes the old are too old to care. The former I can forgive--it's okay not to know, but it's not okay to remain intentionally ignorant. The latter I can forgive, too. They've had a lifetime of people telling them what's on the road up ahead.

Nothing but road kill.

Dark Seeds, Dead Ends, and The Happy Fisherman

Been working on my short story sequence lately (Moonlight Sketches), and it’s been an exhausting, exhilarating process.

I started out with a few stories that have already been published and a few more that have won literary awards but have not necessarily been published. I definitely don’t send my stories out to publishers enough, which is probably the main reason why those award-winning stories haven’t sold yet. I’d rather just write and write, submit occasionally but if a story gets rejected, I tend, subconsciously at least, to say, “Well, that’s that.”

But that isn’t that. I have to admit the few stories I’ve published were all accepted the first time out. I’m not sure I’ve ever published a story that got rejected once, and that’s just not right. Rejection is such a normal part of the publication process that it’s just understood, when you send something out, chances are it will come back to you with a note—a form letter if they’re too busy and unimpressed to be bothered with you or a handwritten bit of encouragement if they liked your writing style but the story itself wasn’t quite what they usually publish, or it was flawed or whatever. Most of mine have been of the latter variety. Fifteen years ago, an editor at Random House in New York wrote me a note a silly novel I’d written, saying “Please don’t give up. You write very well.” The same year, Redbook rejected a story of mine that in no way, shape or form was right for their magazine (I can see that now): “Very nice. Try us again” the editor said.

Well, I didn’t try either one of them again. Not intentionally. I just went in a different direction. Perhaps even a foolhardy direction, but different nonetheless.

I’m beginning to see a trend.

Anyway, this summer, I’ve been writing my damn head off, trying to stockpile manuscripts so that I can just send them all out at the end of summer and hope for the best. Like scattering seeds to the wind. Maybe some of them will take root.

I received an arts grant to write my short story collection, and so I’ve already written quite a few. It was quite a challenge, and very intense, as I wrote them all in a two-week span. Of course, they’re not perfect, but I have the rest of the summer to fluff them up and make them look nice. I still have two or three stories to write in order to finish the series, but I am very pleased with it. It’s amazing the stuff that comes out of your head when you work intensely like that. I can see now why some of the best Gothic and horror novels get written in a short period of time. You’re just in a different head space, and the intensity of writing, writing, writing produces a sort of vortex in your mind. Imagine Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in The Shining, sitting at his typewriter in that big hotel, writing page after page of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” I imagine the original novel was written by Stephen King in pretty much the same way—though that scene doesn’t appear in the book. That was all Kubrick.

But, yes, it’s been a spiraling vortex of energy all around me, and what came out was dark. Very dark. I’m exploring the worst side of humanity and, conversely, the best side of humanity, if only for contrast’s sake. I find that I let my mind go where it wants to go. And we live in such dark times. Really. Bodies getting chopped up and left in suitcases for children to find in the back yard. People getting beaten and robbed in broad daylight. A serial rapist who’s never been caught by city police. And then there’s all the stuff happening in the bigger world, with global catastrophes greeting us on the news every day, along with the rising prices of oil, causing an enormous strain on public and private economies, among other things. All of this has a human cost.

Which is where I come in. As a writer, I don’t necessarily feel the need to comment on any of this stuff. After all, tomorrow it might be all different again, and I’m not about to start trying to catch any waves. That’s a dead end.

But what happens is that all of this stuff comes swirling down the pipe and into my brain, coursing through my veins like that dark sludgy stuff that transformed Spider-man last summer and what oozes out is, well, dark sludgy stuff that somehow unintentionally catches the vibe of the twenty-first century. The characters are darker, the places descending into madness, and the plots strive for something hopeful to cling to. But sometimes, I don’t follow the road toward the light; sometimes, it’s the darker road that beckons the loudest.

So that’s where my head is at. So then the phone rings and some telemarketer wants me to answer questions very politely. I don’t even try, to be honest. They’ve got jobs to do, and if I was to call them at their work place and ask them to answer some questions about the state of the world, they’d probably hang up on me. So when I’ve spent three hours in my proverbial basement, mining the dark depths of my mind and dwelling in the land of nightmares, I just don’t feel like being cordial for a while.

The collection is called “Moonlight Sketches,” but I’m leaving it for a little while to simmer on the back burner while I think of a few more stories that need telling.

I’ve turned my attention to a re-write of my novel, Finton Moon, which I’d left off in order to do the short stories. But FM is nearly done now. Another couple of weeks should do it, and then I’ll be finishing that darkest of stories, The Ghost of Emily Dickinson. The title of that one’s going to have to change, of course. But I like it for now. That one’s about two characters, a man and a woman, who find each other and fall in love, but don’t know much about one another. It’s really all about the way in which St. John’s, and Newfoundland, is changing from this ridiculous “happy fishermen” idea to an oil-driven, economic powerhouse that takes a massive toll on those who aren’t slurping from the gravy train. It’s hard, hard times. And the more they change, the more they stay the same.

Now there’s a pleasant thought for the day.

Anyway, I have to get some stories in the mail. Maybe there’ll be a happy ending to that, at least.

It's been more than a week since that amazing Leonard Cohen concert at Holy Heart, and my feeling that it was a spiritual experience is borne out by the fact that I still can't get the show, those songs, or His incredible presence out of my head. I keep playing the CD in the background whenever I'm doing anything--it's the only music I find fit to listen to these days.

BUT, having said that, I was at the annual arts and letters gala Saturday night and saw another wicked show. As usual, the entertainment was fantastic, especially from the younger winners. It wasn't Cohen or Dylan, but I enjoyed every second of it. With all of the writing, music, and visual arts talent we have here, it's just a feast for the sense whenever you get that many artistic souls and their work together in one spot. I did pick up my third consecutive award for fiction, this time for my short story "Hold Out". Earlier in the week, I was lucky enough to receive a much-coveted arts grant for the writing of my short story collection called Moonlight Sketches--the title being a sort of backhanded homage to perhaps the most famous short story collection in Canadian history, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock. So I'm hard at work writing the remaining stories in that collection while I put my novel(s) on hold for a little while. There's a lot to get done over the summer, that's for sure. I wrote a new story today called "The Darkness and Darcy Knight," which is easily one of the darkest stories I've ever written. I think it's a keeper. Once that one was done, I immediately started work on another new story. My goal is to write at least three complete stories by the weekend--for me that's a lot. I've never written more than one in an entire month before, although when they come, they usually only take a day or two to put them together. I like to write fast when I'm channelling a short story. It's just the way my brain works. Poe said that the short story had to be able to be read in one sitting. Well, the best way to accomplish that as a writer is to compose the whole thing in one sitting, more or less.

Anyway, tomorrow's my birthday, about the same time as last year, in fact. I'll be taking some time off, though I'll probably be working a few hours. Not feeling older and not necessarily any wiser. If I was, maybe I wouldn't be working so much on my birthday.

Peace out.

One For the Money, Two For the Show

Well, here it is the morning after the biggest concert weekend St. John’s has ever seen, and it feels like it was all a dream. Two full-length shows by two contrasting giants of the music world—in fact, it was two nights of Bob Dylan, followed by three nights of Leonard Cohen. I enjoyed the Dylan show, but I’ve got to say that the Cohen show was the best concert I’ve ever seen.

It occurs to me that some so-called performers could take a lesson from LC. It was a rare treat to see Bob Dylan in concert and I was thrilled just to be in the audience. In fact, I felt privileged that he would come back here not only for the second time, but also on his birthday, which was the night I saw him. When he and his band took the stage, all wearing dark hats and suits, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out which one was him. We had fantastic seats, but Dylan didn’t do anything to distinguish himself. He stood at his keyboard the entire night, with his back turned to half the stadium, including us. He sang a couple of songs that most people knew (bluesy versions of “Shelter From the Storm” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”), a few more lesser knowns that I recognized, but the rest were relatively obscure. That’s all fine and good, but I couldn’t really tell if he was enjoying himself or not. I did sense a restlessness from the crowd, though, and that speaks volumes for Dylan’s performance skills, which are pretty much nil.

Don’t get me wrong. He’s a pretty good musician, with a unique voice, and a gift for lyrics. He can write strong melodies too, but he didn’t showcase many of those when I saw him. The audience was extremely appreciative of his meager efforts and coaxed him into an encore, though I sensed (much like Ron Hynes whom I saw a couple of weeks ago) that he just wasn’t all that interested in audience reaction or staying any longer than he had to. That’s his prerogative and, again, I enjoyed just being there. I mean, it’s freakin’ Bob Dylan deigning to come to St. John’s, Newfoundland. We should be grateful. And we were. Problem is, he acted as if we should be grateful too.

I understand all about Dylan’s reputation as an artist. And just like “Manny being Manny” in baseball, when Dylan hides under a hat and refuses to play guitar, sing popular hits, or acknowledge the audience in any way, that’s just Dylan being Dylan. We love him for it, but almost in spite of his behaviour. His greatness as a songwriter and pop culture icon is beyond dispute. I just don’t feel like I really SAW Bob Dylan. Or maybe what I saw really was Bob Dylan, who’s a bit of a ghost at the best of times. Either way, I’m glad I went, glad he came, but his show didn’t even compare to Leonard Cohen’s.

Leonard was warm, entertaining, intelligent, witty, self-effacing and appreciative of an audience who adored his every word, lyric, or tip of the cap on stage. From the opening song, “Dance Me to the End of Time” to the 11 or 12-song encore (there were several encores), he was fully engaged with the people who’d paid 80 bucks a ticket to sit in his presence. There were a few songs I would have liked to have heard, but he sang so many of his best tunes that it’s impossible to fault him. “I’m Your Man.” “Take This Waltz.” “Tower of Song.” “Democracy”.” “The Future.” “Suzanne.” And my personal favorite “Hallelujah”. There were so many great songs, and he executed them to perfection, sounding far better than his recordings. Leonard’s voice has just gotten better, deeper, and more resonant as he’s aged. He’s 74 and makes a few jokes at his own expense, but on stage he dances and moves more gracefully than most grandfathers, I assure you.

The audience just hung on his every word. The air was electric, a standing ovation occurring at the end of at least half (if not two-thirds) of the songs. The backup band was absolutely amazing, with everything from a harp and harmonica to a saxophone, keyboards, drums, various stringed instruments that I didn’t even recognize—each played expertly. Leonard kept making sure his band and backup singers were well-recognized, and they were. I could go on for half an hour just about how good Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters were, but suffice to say they added strength and substance to an already magnificent show. In all, he played for three hours and ten minutes, including a short break, and I’m sure the audience would have stayed for two more hours at least. I, for one, just didn’t want to leave.

So what’s the difference? I think there’s an arrogance that accumulates in the soul of certain performers after they’ve had a measure of success. I mean, Cohen has just as much reason to be full of himself and “artistic” as Dylan, but I’ve always gotten the feeling that Dylan disdains his audience, despises “having” to perform in order to be heard or to make a living. He’d probably be much happier just writing songs and singing them for himself, but it’s hard to sell CDs that way. So he puts up with us and takes our hard-earned money away with it. I don’t mind that I am grateful for having seen him in concert, but I mind that he takes me and you for granted.

Leonard Cohen has always struck me as a man of passion—a spiritual, sensual soul who genuinely loves life and everything it has to offer. He can be sarcastic and funny, of course, quite cutting in fact. But it’s different from Dylan’s hard-edged dislike for the world (or so it seems). I came away from the Dylan show just glad to have seen a legend, but wondering if maybe he could have done more to win me over. That’s what a performer is. I came away from the Cohen show with a huge smile on my face, my wife and I chattering happily about how it was the best show we’ve ever seen. This morning, there’s almost a sense of loss. I wish I could see him again tonight, but alas, the show is all sold out long ago.

It’s like St. John’s made a friend last night that we’ll never see again. Bob Dylan is a passing acquaintance whose like is rarely seen in these parts, while Leonard Cohen leaves you with a song in your heart and a glimpse into the soul of a man who’s always had an aura of mystery around him, much as Dylan has. And it’s not just because Leonard sang songs that most of his audience knew; even the ones I didn’t know (there were at least a couple) were sung with the intent of an offering, a piece of the songwriter going out to a carefully listening audience. We were being sung to and not merely being sung at.

Not to be too harsh, but while Dylan might appropriately claim “I’m Not There,” Cohen winningly suggests, “I’m Your Man.” Dylan’s not the first performer I’ve seen with that kind of arrogance, merely the best. At least he’s earned the right, sort of. But Leonard Cohen’s earned it too, but chooses instead to include us in the celebration of his talent and success, as well as of life and good music. It just doesn’t get any better.

I have had a religious experience that I won’t be forgetting any time soon.

Full of Gravy

Is it just me, or have we all gone insane?

The latest piece of chickenpoop we've put up with (and there's so much of it) has to do with Mary Brown's fried chicken. They were going to start advertising their product with the slogan "Hail Mary!"

You KNOW what comes next.

A clergyman in St. John's caught a whiff of what was cookin' and lodged a complaint that maybe the the company had gone too far, suggesting that there was something sacreligious about using those words to sell poultry. After all, Mary the virgin mother-to-be of Jesus, saviour of all mankind (including women, I'd presume, or hope) was greeted with the very same phrase "Hail Mary!" (you know the rest) when the archangel informed her she was with child.

It's not right, the church thinks, to be comparing chicken to the mother of Jesus. And perhaps that priest was right. I dunno. But the whole "Hail Mary!" thing was meant as a bit of a joke (by Mary Brown's, I mean, not by the archangel, who I presume had no sense of humour; otherwise, the church might have one as well). Meant to make people smile in an otherwise dreary world, or a run past the chicken store. Otherwise known as the chicken run.

We live in a time when every time somebody gets upset with something, they yell at somebody or complain really loud until somebody changes it. I don't mind that they complain. But I DO definitely mind that the company always says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone." Maybe they did intend offense, but I doubt it. Maybe they're just thoughtless. Or maybe (and this is my personal favorite) they're just irreverent. 'Cause nobody's allowed to be irreverent anymore, or else you'll have the Thought Police or the Politically Correct Party (who really does know what's best for everyone) telling on you and you're really gonna get it if you don't change what you said. You don't have to change what you think, I suppose, as long as you don't say what you mean. We got rules against that. We can't handle the truth, and we know it, so don't you dare say it unless you don't mean it.

I first saw this item on the news yesterday evening, and just as they were finished reporting it on CBC, I thought the journalist should have finished by saying, "Mary Brown's unveiled their new slogan today: 'Jesus, this chicken is good!'"

I guess that would be offensive too, though I doubt Jesus would care too much, what with world hunger, war, and pestilence to worry about. The thing is, what that pastor was saying was that he personally was offended by the message from Mary Brown's. Problem is, that pastor has a flock. And that flock listens to that pastor and supposedly believes whatever that pastor tells him is right or wrong, left or right, up or down. He's a man of God, unlike a mere chicken friar, who supposedly isn't a man of God, but is perhaps a man of poultry instead. I don't for a second believe Mary Brown's is the new evil empire. We have enough of those (Starbucks, Wal-mart, the New York Yankees, and the Montreal Canadiens).

Sometimes I just wish that those who have nothing to say wouldn't go around saying it. Live and let live. Let sleeping chickens lie. And don't watch football for fear of catching sight of a "Hail Mary" pass. God doesn't like the hail mary pass or people who use them. Maybe that's why they never work.

Amen.

Diggin' Some Dylan!

Bummer. I just spent forty-five minutes telling you why Bob Dylan is the coolest thing ever and, yes, I'm going to his concert on May 24. But Blogger decided to delete my blog post before publishing it. That's time and words I can never have back. Sigh.

Bottom line: At a time when the mass media, corporate America, and conniving politicans are telling us to ignore the fine print below the headline, a songwriter like Bob Dylan, who's influenced almost as many musicians as the Beatles (including influencing the Beatles themselves), is an enemy of the state. Which means we're going to get along just fine.

Looking forward to the concert, on Bob's birthday. He don't sing pretty, he don't look pretty, and he can be as caustic and sarcastic as hell. But, man, his words have changed the world for the better. He questions the stone wall and expects it to answer. But, more than that, he expects us all to question the wall and bring it down, one brick at a time.

This isn't exactly what I'd said before, but it'll have to do.

Everybody Knows

Everybody knows I have a list of what I consider my Top Five singer-songwriters of all time. I’ve been saying this to people for years and have even mentioned it in my classes a few times. They are as follows:

1. Bob Dylan.
2. Leonard Cohen.
3. John Lennon.
4. Hank Williams.
5. Johnny Cash.

These five men are the best ever, period, as far as I’m concerned. And the last three people on that list are dead and gone. Hey-hey, my-my.

So, yeah, I got me some tickets to see Leonard Cohen at Holy Heart of Mary auditorium. Leonard and I go a long ways back, see. When I was a teenager, Leonard Cohen supposedly was pretty passé already. He was famous for his days as a poet-singer-songwriter in Montreal in the Sixties and world-renowned for his sardonic, wry insights on the human condition—though mostly, I think, they were the Cohen Condition. No one sees the world quite like Leonard. To me, he was never passé. I don’t even care about passé. I don’t believe in it. But the one word that’s always been associated with Leonard Cohen, whether he was twenty or sixty, is “cool”. That’s just what he is.

I had several of his CDs by the time I was in my twenties. Many a-night when I was an undergrad I would sit up in my (or somebody’s) apartment late at night, sitting in the dark with just a candle glowing, drinking or whatever, gabbing about life and philosophy with whoever was with me, and Leonard Cohen provided the soundtrack. Bird On A Wire. Suzanne. The Future. So Long, Marianne. The Chelsea Hotel. The Sisters of Mercy. I could go on and on. Every one of his songs—every word, for that matter—carried more meaning than a thousand words from Kanye or Eminem or Tupac, or any others who followed in his footsteps. And don’t tell me it’s an unfair comparison. What those other strive(d) for was poetry; what came out was rhyme. Cohen is to modern poetry and songwriting what Neil Young is to Grunge rock. All others just pale in comparison.

When I heard that LC was inducted into the rock hall of fame a month or so ago, I said, “Well, it’s about bloody time.” A day later, when it was announced he was going on tour for the first time in sixteen years, I said, “Well, that’s another great show that will never set foot in St. John’s in a million years.” A week after that, it was miraculously announced that Leonard Cohen would, indeed, be coming to St. John’s.

You have to understand—for those who know what he’s about, this is like Jesus coming to Hollywood. It just shouldn’t happen because it’s just too weird and surreal. I’m not into hero worship of any kind, but I know a once-in-a-lifetime event when I see one. And this is one of them. People from Australia to Antarctica are pleading for him to come to their city, but he chose St. John’s, possibly because of the Feast of Cohen show at the LSPU Hall every December, which pays homage to the master’s songs and his vibe.

I’ve decided that I don’t want to just go and think how cool it is to be sitting there, listening to one of the greatest songwriting icons of our time so close up on that stage. It would be so easy to just get caught up in the bigness of the moment that you forget to be in the moment. I want to experience the Leonard Cohen experience. I want to go and listen to what he’s saying when he sings because that’s why he wrote those songs and why he still sings them—because he’s still got something to say that means something to him. And he says it like no one else.

And if that weren’t enough, just a few days later, I found out that Bob Dylan is coming to play on the same weekend.

I mean, freakin’ Bob Dylan! The biggest solo artist, and I do mean artist and poet and songwriter, of our lifetime, is coming to St. John’s.

I’m in heaven. Or at least knockin’ on heaven’s door.

Now if we could only get them both on the same stage, that would be something.

Something to write about

Okay, I admit it. I haven't been blogging because I've essentially been out of commission for a while. About two weeks ago, I had to have minor surgery on my throat, which has kept me from eating very much--which means my energy level was pretty much zero for a while. I also couldn't talk for a spell, which I'm sure was pleasant enough for some people. It's the FIRST time I've ever had any kind of medical procedure done, and I have to admit I don't understand why people volunteer for cosmetic surgeries, given what you have to go through. For the first time ever, I got to see the medical system from the perspective of a patient, and while the system itself is a bit cumbersome, the people who took care of me there were the absolute best. No complaints from me. I was in and out in a few hours, and by noon that day, I was home again, sleeping it off. I never want to have to go through anything like it again, mind you, but it was yet another experience I can write about with some authority now. That's what I usually think when something horrible, but not necessarily life-threatening happens: "Something to write about."

It was tempting to write a "Bucket List" while I was there, just for kicks. But I decided that was too morbid, for now at least. I did have one whole night of lying awake afterwards and my mind got to wandering and started coming up with a list of my 100 best experiences ever. It's like an American Film Institute special, except there are no moments with either Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, or Citizen Kane. There were some moments, however, with Spinal Tap (I was their drummer in another life. Not kidding), Lee Aaron (met her once), and Barney Bentall (jammed with him at the Ship Inn one night; I'm sure he still brags about it too. He's a rock singer from the early Nineties...I think). There was a Michael Ondaatje moment, which actually didn't make the list, but I just remembered it now, and a bunch of famous and infamous people I met while either teaching or working as a teenage cub reporter at The Daily News. There were some favorite places like SpringGarden Road in Halifax and Cathedral Grove in Vancouver. There were some great moments, of which there were thousands--like standing in a chain lightning storm on a balcony in downtown Chilliwack, or watching a hurricane churn up the waters of Lake Ontario in early fall. But most of my moments involved people, including a few former students, and, to be honest, my top thirty or so (at least) all would involve my beautiful wife. I don't mean that to be romantic or anything; it's just true.

So, yeah, my mind's been occupied, just not with the usual stuff. I'm slowly getting back to writing, but it hasn't been easy just waiting for the energy to come back and for the creative juices to return to their pre-surgery days. And even though it wasn't a serious operation, it does make you appreciate the little things in life--like talking to people, eating your favorite foods, and (believe it or not) being able to work. I even missed exercise. Pretty pathetic, I know. I often play my guitar and sing a bit when I need my mind to stop over-thinking, but I wasn't able to do much of that lately. I'm not much of a guitar player (though I did somehow earn a living with it for nearly four years); I'm really more of a strummer and a singer/songwriter in that regard. Not being able to express myself in that way was almost as hard as not writing for a while. You just don't feel whole, somehow.

I don't mean this as compaining. In fact, I mean it as a contemplation on how much I love this life, how much I love doing the things I do every day. I've come out of the whole thing with a new appreciation for my life, a new zest for writing and an enthusiasm for teaching, walking in the snow, standing in the rain, or lying in the sun. I haven't done nearly enough of that last one, by the way. 'Cause life still isn't just about work. Work is good. It can make you feel connected to yourself and give you as sense of purpose in the world. But it's what you do with the times in between work that count the most.

There's a raging snowstorm today. Campus is closed. And, ironically, my follow-up doctor appointment has been cancelled. I'm going to work this morning--got a novel to finish soon (and yes, I'm still waiting to hear back on a manuscript I sent out in November), some stories to write and a play to work on. But this afternoon, I'll be curled up either reading The Sound and The Fury (again) or watching a movie. Although a nap sounds good too. Or maybe a walk in a snowstorm.

So many options.

Love, Love, Love

Valentine's Day. Not a big fan of it.

Sure, I mean, there can never be too much love in the world. So I would never say that a "holiday" designed to celebrate love is a bad thing.

But it's the design itself that the problem. The way we "celebrate" something that pretty much takes care of itself is the problem.

If you love someone, then you don't need a specific day designated by Hallmark or any other commercial entity to tell you, "Come on, show her how you feel." She already knows.

And I do mean "she". The whole day is meant to lay a guilt trip on men, predominantly, so that they will spend their way out of hell or purgatory or whatever their relationship has become.

I'm lucky enough to be married to a beautiful woman who has always felt the same way about this holiday as I do. Our celebration isn't confined to one day, and if there's no card or flowers or chocolate that day, then there might be on any other given day of the year. And it's not a one-sided thing--we watch each other's back every day of the year and have done so for a couple of decades now. We're the happiest couple I know, and we somehow manage to do it without Valentine's Day deciding whether or not we're worthy of each other.

Oh, I've had my years when I've bought chocolate. This year, I even bought flowers. But that's only because I figured it would be surprise, since we never do that. And it was.

Valentine's Day is for the young, or really I should say, those couples who haven't been together more than a few years. It's also for those whose relationship needs an annual reminder to pay some attention to the one you're with. Other than that, I wish Valentine's Day as a so-called celebration--at least the way we celebrate it currently--would just die off. "Keep it in your own way and I'll keep it in mine," as Scrooge says about Christmas.

I like the celebratory, loving, caring, gentle part of Valentine's. I just could do without the "buy, buy, buy, guilt, guilt, guilt" part of it. It's not necessary.

And, as Forrest Gump would say, that's all I have to say about that. Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day. :-)