Synchronicity one more time

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There are moments in life and music when the events collide to form moments of synchronicity. Last night at Baba’s was one where Ryan, Alex and I played away on five songs and caught the groove.

Only habit can explain why I went last night. I was exhausted from a day of promoting the message of Hope for Islanders with disabilities. I got home at 8 pm and began to practice. I wanted to perform Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom, a poetic but long song from 1964.
Andrea was back in the Host’s seat at Baba’s, albeit only as replacement for Nancy who is the new permanent host. We talked about her road trip and the summer of music that approaches.

By the time I got up to perform Ryan and Alex arrived so we repeated our trio act from the week before. I’ve been playing with Ryan for a few years but only 3 or 4 times with Ryan. Kerrie introduced us. We never practice, a strategy of chaos looking for a Muse.

The stage lights were out so I couldn’t see squat of the lyrics. We got a moderate groove going but I just could not see the song sheet. I probably know 80% of the words but that is not enough. I quit after 3 of 7 verses. It was a bar clearing performance.

OK boys lets kick it up. We did two fast original blues numbers and the sound caught the groove. Alex was laying down a solid and imaginative bass line to my left. Ryan was alternatively noodling and soaring on acoustic lead to the right.

We did Rainy Day Women (aka Everyone Must Get Stoned) but something didn’t click with the crowd. We liked it but they seemed indifferent.
Andrea asked for a 5th song, so off we went into It Ain’t Me Babe. Forget what you know about that chestnut. This is a funky bass driven blues number than drones between Em+g and C+g. I’ve done it by myself with the synth guitar plus organ, which is cool. This was the first time with bass, which this arrangement needs. The song grabbed the groove and held it. The audience was caught up in it, the moody bluesy insistent groove. It really worked.

That’s why I play, for those transcendent moments when the music catches and pulls you upward and away from the earth. It happens often enough to keep me hooked

I have arrived, Hallelujah!

When one toils away in relative obscurity there is a feeling of…well you know relative obscurity. I have been working away for months trying to shine some light on the Disability Support Scandal – taking money from people in wheelchairs, where did the money go, etc.

So I got some media coverage, like TV stories and letters to the editor, and stories in the Graphic, Guardian and Journal. It’s great to be written up but I also know what they mean – tomorrow’s garbage wrap.

But as a lonely person desperately seeking notoriety, I fall back the next day to my miserable existence. I blog alot but only a few thousand people read them and do they love me or hate me? Who can tell.

The signs have been building for a month or more that I might be making a geek breakthrough, real intense hatred by people with no real lives and little intelligence. Yeah that would be making it.

I got a cyberstalker. That’s the first sign you are moving into the weird zone. Cyberstalker’s usually know you and, having no lives of their own, try to suck some life out of you. Mine has a bona-fide disability but the belief the whole world revolves around his/her problems.

On PEI Talks I got a real flame going a month or so. There were some friends but a real ignorant type called BD kept coming at me. I was on the ropes. I bounced back but he was hopeless. The man was unremitting in his ignorance. I kept telling him, it’s not about me: it’s about wheelchairs stupid. OK so I held off on the stupid comment.

Then last week the dam burst. A story in the Guardian got me the drive-by-slur in the comments section. There were 40 comments – I was in heaven. Old BD was there with his friends. I had reached down to the lowest level of irrationality on PEI. What could be better?

I got three posts on the worst political blog of all time. The true cowards award for not identifying yourself, not allowing comments, and drive-by-slamming everyone in the Liberal party goes to PEI Political Home Page.

The amazing thing is: I like it. I mean they are talking about me for awhile. Someday they might talk about you but this week they are talking about me. And its all old new like how I grew my business and got government grants (oh shock oh horror of horrors on PEI), and how Gilbert Clements might be my friend.

If I have a relative who’s Tory or NDP what does that make me? My son was in a TV story with Susan Labchuck’s daughter: does that make me Green? One of my clients in that horrible business world was the President of the PC Riding Association. Was he a mole or was I a mole or were we double-agents? Can I have a medium black with two double-double agents please?

What other dark secrets will they expose. I lived on a farm and like Jersey cows. He’s an apologist for the agriculture sector and hates Holsteins.

I know my moment of glory will pass. Soon these people will move onto other targets. But there, then, for one shining moment I was in the spotlight of hatred. Infamy is so fleeting.

The Midnight Skulker is dead

It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit – but none to be offended by them.

—The Midnight Skulker (B.C. 6/26/2000)

B.C. (Johnny Hart) died April 7, 2007

Once when we were young and the Sunday papers came with colored comics, we cut them out and rubber glued them to the walls of our apartment. B.C. was the most popular probably because it was cynical, satirical very witty. I still remember the punch lines today.

B.C. is calling the baseball game, leaning on a rock. Peter is the color commentator, leaning on a second rock.

B.C. “There’s a high pop fly into the …

Peter “…yellow sun.”

ALBANY, N.Y. – Cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning “B.C.” comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, died at his home on Saturday. He was 76.

“He had a stroke,” Hart’s wife, Bobby, said on Sunday. “He died at his storyboard.”

“B.C.,” populated by prehistoric cavemen and dinosaurs, was launched in 1958 and eventually appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers with an audience of 100 million, according to Creators Syndicate, Inc., which distributes it.

After he graduated from Union-Endicott High School, Hart met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist who became a prime influence and co-creator with Hart of the “Wizard of Id” comic strip.

Hart enlisted in the Air Force and began producing cartoons for Pacific Stars and Stripes. He sold his first freelance cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post after his discharge from the military in 1954.

Later in his career, some of Hart’s cartoons had religious themes, a reflection of his own Christian faith. That sometimes led to controversy.

A strip published on Easter Sunday in 2001 drew protests from Jewish groups and led several newspapers to drop the strip. The cartoon depicted a menorah transforming into a cross, with accompanying text quoting some of Jesus Christ’s dying words. Critics said it implied that Christianity supersedes Judaism.

Hart said he intended it as a tribute to both faiths.

“He had such an emphasis on kindness, generosity, and patience,” said Richard Newcombe, founder and president of Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles.

Newcombe said Hart was the first cartoonist to sign on when the syndicate was created 20 years ago. “Traditionally, comic strips were owned by syndicates,” Newcombe said. “We were different because we allowed cartoonists to own their own work. It was because of Johnny’s commitment to this idea that made us a success.”

Besides his wife, Hart is survived by two daughters, Patti and Perri. He was a native of Endicott, about 135 miles northwest of New York City, and drew his comic strip at a studio in his home there until the day he died.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

Born in 1948

A friend sent me an internet page with important facts about the year you were born.

I was born in 1948, a quiet event that was destined to shape my destiny and the destiny of the planet for decades to come.

I was a boomer, an early one. I saw TV arrive in the Maritimes and watched Leave It To Beaver and Gunsmoke. I listened to Elvis on 45’s and witnessed his passing. I fell head over heals for the Beatles.

A child of the 60’s, I protested the War in Vietnam and Racial Equality. I fell for Bob Dylan as a folk, protest and rock singer. Learned to play guitar, harmonica and drums. Watched Kennedy get assassinated on TV along with King and Bobby.

I went back to the land in the 70’s, got serious about business in the 80’s, raised five children, and retired in the 90’s.

I’m back to Dylan, protest and Make Love Not War.

I am one of millions and we are still defining the age we live in.