Who Is This For, Even?

I want people to like me, I think that's the crux of the whole thing. Possibly because I'm a middle child...

I don't remember childhood all that well, and high school was a fairly pleasant blur where I had enough cool friends to also feel cool. University was fine, and I had some friends. But I always felt like I was just on the periphery of things, experiencing them but not really. Kind of in on the joke but there was something I was missing.

It wasn't until I started as a singer songwriter that I felt the true appeal of mass appeal. I sang at my brother's stag and doe party, and it was the first time I'd had the mic for more than just one song (I was never the lead the singer in my high school bands). The crowd ate my shit up, and could not stop telling me how great my show was afterwards. I was instantly hooked on the attention, and spent the next 15 years chasing the "trying to make strangers like me" dragon.

I plunged headlong into singer songwritering, hit the local open mic circuit, and when I felt confident enough in my act I sought out gigs. I was lucky enough to have been taken under the arm of a local legend, who helped me get gigs at his regular spot and I played there a bunch of times. I put a backing band together, we recorded a $100 demo and shopped it around to local bars for gigs. 

I was very good at self-promotion, I figured out the trick to make the local newspaper write about your show: give the show a theme, even if the theme was bullshit. Just give them something to write about.

We built a mild local following, started seeing a lot more strangers than friends at our shows, started playing on the road a bit, tried and failed to organize a cross country tour. People really dug this band because we were different, in the sense that I was (in retrospect) playing country music wrong. Think "shitty acoustic guitar run through a shitty amp, with heavy metal drums"... but it seemed to work. We put out an album and pushed it really hard for a year or two, but I eventually broke up the band due to what became the theme of all my future bands: I felt like I was doing all the work and therefore didn't like it when my ideas were challenged by the band-mates who weren't pulling their weight. I know this is more of a "me" problem now...

Anyway, my next band was also a hit, with good local draws and a great live show. I had also started an indie festival/showcase that ran for 8 or 9 years all told. Between the two I was in the newspaper a lot, I was on TV a couple of times, I was DJing a show on college radio, people knew who was I was around town, it was great. 

This was around the time when Internet 2.0 was just getting off the ground, and I thought "Hey this is my ticket out of just being local-famous". I couldn't figure out how to YouTube (still can't) so I took writing for a spin. "I'm so witty, my blog will be famous!"

It was not. I mean duh, no one's blog was famous, but this was the first time I could put hardcore numbers to my output and it was bleak. Why is no one reading my blog? Why is no one sharing my amazing blog posts on social media? It was kind of breaking me. 

Around the same time, my band's draw was getting smaller and smaller at every show, including a couple where we barely had enough to pay the sound guy and opener. My festival was getting less popular, based on how often I struggled to pay the bands what I thought they deserved. I had a stroke of "luck" because I accidentally shot my mouth off on my blog and got sued by a very childish person. The lawsuit was settled for literally 1% of what he initially sued for, but in the meantime I got a huge bump in the press and on the socials... I was in the spotlight again! Me me me! But the rush didn't last and I ended up folding the festival because I just couldn't anymore.

Not long after I was singing in my third band, and we were having fun and playing loud and fast and it was great. We played a few road shows, got some good feedback, but at this point I was wholly obsessed with turnout. Why are the numbers getting so small so quickly? Why does no one like this band? It came to a head right before our last gig ever. We were booked to headline the local cool club for the first time, and I was overcome with anxiety for weeks leading up to the show, all I could think about was that it would be dead like our previous show was, and we'd have blown our chance at ever getting re-booked. It was dreadful.

The show came and went and it was actually a great turnout, but I wouldn't allow myself any credit because one of openers, from Toronto, had lots of friends and family in the area, so fully half the crowd was there for them. 

The realization that I was back to playing for friends and family was accompanied by the fact that my friends and family were old and didn't want to go out anymore. Heck, I didn't want to go out anymore. I was tired all the time. Then my drummer fell off a ladder and we had to take a 3 month break while he healed. It was during that time that I made up my mind that I was going to break up the band. The relief of not having to deal with the stress was my new addiction. So I told them the band news and that was that. It was a shitty thing to do but I couldn't band-lead anymore. I had hit my wall and I was done. 

Funny thing, at the time I was pumping out some of my best work. My now-soon-to-be-wife was my biggest fan, whenever I came up with a new song I'd sing it for her and she'd hang off my every word and then I'd catch her singing the song the next day and she'd curse me out for getting the song stuck in her head. I realized that, while it's nice to have a room full of strangers screaming for more, I was happy to settle for an audience of one very appreciative superfan. 

I've struck a happy medium now, I'm back to open mic night, which is a very low-pressure "gig" - show up, sing my three songs, receive applause and handshakes, rinse repeat. I dig it. I'd like to play full sets at a concert again, don't get me wrong, but I kinda only want to do it as an opener. There's still some pressure to fill seats, but it's not nearly as high, hence the shitty pay.

So who is the blog for? Sorry for the abrupt about-face, imaginary reader who I hope doesn't exist... I started writing again for me, to help unscramble my brain. I don't know if journaling is exactly write for me, but I did always enjoy writing my blog back in the day, so after several years away I'm back. This time I'm not sharing the blog on socials, and I do not give a single shit if anyone reads it. I don't want anyone to read it. I'm still publishing it, and I don't know why. Whatever.

I'm reading a book. You should try books, they're fun.

I used to be a voracious reader. As a kid, it was escaping into fantasyland, blah blah blah. As an adult it was more about smoke breaks, of which I had a lot - I was up to 2 packs a day when I quit.

My jam has always been old-school sci-fi and mysteries. Jules Verne, HG Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Shelley... Also Stephen King, but everyone reads Stephen King. Later I got turned on to Kurt Vonnegut Jr and fell in love. It was the first time an author truly spoke my language, aka "weird".

When I got my first smartphone, books almost immediately went out the window. I had other things to read! Current things! Written by living people! All of a sudden my dusty used book collection started collecting even more dust. Every once in a while I'd pick up a book and re-read it. Rarely did I try something new. Now they just sit there, moving from apartment to apartment to house, put on display for no one to care about.

Fast forward to the first of several pandemic lockdowns. I was bored out of my mind and decided to pick up a book I hadn't read yet: Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World". It was... fine. I mean it was good, but didn't age well with its gentle racism. But there was a phrase that stuck with me, it was part of the narrative describing the tribal drums being played by the natives as the explorers drifted along the river... the drums beat the message over and over: "We kill you if we can... we will kill you if we can...". At the time, I was reading this, people the world over were super pissed about racism, and I was seeing a lot of angry white people with golf shirts and tiki torches yelling and screaming about... family values? Anyway it got me thinking about Homo sapiens' inherently protective mean streak and the phrase "We will kill you if we can..." began playing in a loop inside my head. It was literally making me crazy. So I grabbed my guitar and went out in the woods and wrote a kickass song called, wait for it, "We Will Kill You If We Can". At least now there was a melody to the chant inside my head... and there you go, reading a book was great! It kickstarted a stalled songwriting "career", filled me with fuel and helped me explore a new songwriting voice. Now, in addition to my usual novelty songs, I have an equal amount of songs about death and killing and destruction and the end of the world. A nice balance, I think.

I didn't read another book until this week, aka 3 lockdowns later. This time the circumstances were different. It was partially to escape boredom but more to escape anything that might trigger a negativity landslide inside my head. The pandemic really got to me, and now I'm kinda fragile as shit. I also have to give credit to my daily cannabis use, which has the delightful side of effect of exacerbating depression and anxiety. I was too scared to stop smoking it because weed was (so I thought) the only thing keeping me sane, but it kind of ended up being the thing that made me insane.

I love weed, don't get me wrong, but it's common knowledge that you can't smoke it all the time or the high stops being "fun" and starts being "normal" and every sucks without it . I willed myself to take a January break, and stick to beer and whisky (responsibly). The effects were almost immediate - I was so full of piss and vinegar I didn't know what to do with myself. But at the same time I started getting tired of my go-to time killer - playing dumb games on my phone (Candy Crush and the like) was really starting to annoy me. I would get mad every time the game cheated,  every time I fucked up, every time I encountered a level that was just too dang hard... I know it seems silly but that would be enough to trigger me into a rotten mood that would spiral quickly out of control. Normally when I'm in a rotten mood I can just go smoke some weed and it's magically gone.  Now that's not an option, and I didn't know what to do. Reading the news makes me sad, playing stupid video games makes me mad, and then  I remembered "Hey! Books exist". I went downstairs where my books are hiding, with the intention of re-reading something again, but nothing jumped out at me. 

So I grabbed a book from my wife's shelf. It's great! I mean the book itself is great too, but I mean the act of reading is great! I'm enjoying just sitting on the couch, drinking a coffee and reading in silence. The world has gotten very loud, and the quiet of reading is speaking to me right now. I look forward to reading more, this time for real I think.

Free at last (of guilt) (I hope)

Today I sign my divorce papers. It's a weird mixture of excitement and dread. In late 2019 I asked my wife of 15 years for a divorce. It was out of the blue for her, but not for me. I had spent several years trying to convince myself that I didn't want a divorce, and it slowly ate away at my sanity until I couldn't take it anymore. 

I have been overwhelmed with guilt the entire time, and have taken all of her subsequent misfortunes on my shoulders, as if I am to blame for everything wrong that ever happens to her. That's not fair to me, I've known that the whole time, but YOU try telling a feeling to go fuck itself... those things are harder to get out than chewing gum in a carpet.

I'm so lucky that the separation has been amicable. Right from the get-go we have tried to remain friends, as hard as it can be. No kids, thankfully, and not a lot of assets to fight over. The delay has been thanks to our old friend COVID-19, which hit 6 months after we split up. 6 months after I left her, more precisely. I avoid saying things like that because it helps assuage my guilt, but the fact is that I left her, and she has felt jilted ever since. 

If not for the pandemic we would have wrapped this divorce up sooner, but I'm not so sure it would've gone as amicably as it did, because time heals all wounds yadda yadda. Since everything was shit during the pandemic, we both agreed without even saying it out loud that we were in no rush to finalize the divorce. Why invite more worry? I'm happy that we waited. She's moved on somewhat, and that makes me feel happy and less guilty. Once these papers are signed I look forward to more days of less guilt. I'll always feel somewhat guilty for not trying harder to save the marriage, or for not leaving sooner, but hopefully that wound will heal over now I've stoppeded picking the scab.

An Open Letter To Jeff From Season 2 Episode 17 of Doogie Howser M.D.

Dear Jeff,

You were hired to paint an inspirational mural in the hospital alongside a bunch of children. Doogie's best friend Vinnie was enlisted to document the entire process on video.

Early in the episode, you admitted to having AIDS.  Despite having been fired from the mural project over parental concerns, you took the high road and taught Doogie that instead of getting even with those who scorned you, he should use the opportunity to educate.  You also taught Doogie's parents to live for the moment, which they took to heart by cancelling their yearly Hawaiian vacation so they could go white water rafting in Colorado. You taught Vinnie's girlfriend that she shouldn't let indecision prevent her from having a future, and that it's ok to take chances when you're young. Doogie put it best in his diary entry:

Funny how a guy who's dealing with death showed us all how to live.

Jeff, you are an amazing person and your strength in the face of adversity is an inspiration to us all. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for predicting that the story would play out with Vinnie busting in on you to capture a candid moment, only to discover you molesting one of the children.

MIND BLOWN. LIGHT. WHY?

My mind was blown today. Thought I'd share.

I was trying really hard not to stare at the sun this morning. It was especially bright, making driving hard but making the walk in the cold a bit more pleasant with its warm radiant glow. I started thinking about how neat it is that life on Earth exists only because we're just the right distance from this gigantic perpetual explosion so fierce that light takes 8 minutes to travel here, yet we can still feel its warmth and not burn up and die. We're on the luckiest rock in the loneliest place, to quote a song by Hollerado.

Then I started thinking about light. Light comes in many forms on Earth, but the only naturally occurring source of regular light is the sun. Before fuckin' flashlights and stuff, we used the light of the sun (be it direct or bouncing off the moon) to make our way through this world. It's pretty neat that higher life forms have adapted eyesight as a way to passively observe our surroundings, as opposed to actively like bats using sonar to "see". Light is already there and we just take advantage of it.

Then I started thinking about the nature of light. It's made of photons, we all know that. Photons zip through the universe at the speed of light, and when they bounce off of things and into our eyes, our brains recognize the stimulus of incoming photons and, depending on the wavelength, interpret them as different colours or shades. The ability to distinguish between different colours and shades is what allows us to see this stuff.

Then I realized: all these photons were around for billions of years before the first eyeball ever evolved. Before the first light-sensitive cells evolved. So... what in the hell were photons doing before we arrived to observe them? We take for granted that light is there to show us what's up the road, but never to stop to think that if we weren't there to observe the different wavelengths of photons being bounced off that dead cat, the dead cat would still be visible in the sense that photons are bouncing off it at different wavelengths no matter what.

So why are the photons even there? What's the point of the different wavelengths? We observe them daily but this phenomenon wasn't put there for our benefit. We adapted to an already existing system in order to take advantage for evolutionary and survival purposes, but those photons have been bouncing around the universe on their own since forever, for no good reason that I can think of.


If a tree falls in a forest...

Neat side note: have you ever noticed that when you look at a picture of the sun online (or in a magazine, Grandma), you perceive it as extra bright, when in reality it's the exact same shade of white as the background of the Google page (or the paper, Grandma)? Go ahead, scroll up and try it.

For This One Little Thing, Rogers Is An Asshole

First off: I'm kind of a fan of Rogers. I've had various dealings with them over the years and they've always been helpful and whatever. Sure it's a bit more expensive, but their shit is reliable and I'm ok spending what I spend with them.

But I have serious beef with their ridiculous mobile data plan schemes. Like SERIOUS beef. Enough beef to write the very thing you're reading right now.  That's a lot of beef.

Their scheme is this: if you pay for 1GB of data a month and go over your limit, they temporarily upgrade you (for that month only) to the next tier of plan, which has a 2GB limit and costs $15 more a month.

So what happens is, no matter how much you go over, they charge you $15. 1MB too much? $15. 1000MB too many? $15. I recently noticed "Oh shit I'm getting close to my limit, better be careful" and tried really hard to stay under my limit. I failed, to the tune of 5.64MB. That's 3 or 4 photos worth of data. One mp3. $15. For the mathematically challenged, that's 0.6% of the total amount of gigabytes I'm being charged for.


Why am I pissed? Because there's no good reason for Rogers to do this besides "...because we want to".

Rogers has clearly demonstrated that they have the ability to count every single MB of data that I use. I get a text message the minute I hit 75% of my cap, and another the minute I go over, this one telling me "Hey, why don't you upgrade your data plan?". Do they just somehow lose the ability to count individual MB between 1 and 2 GB? Of course fucking not, because if I had the 2GB plan they'd sure as shit count every single MB hoping I go over and they can charge me for 3GB.

Why in the hell can't they just have a flat fee for every MB I go over in a given month? The math is super easy, I'll show you: $15/1000MB = fucking charge me 15 cents for every MB I go over.

Remember in the old days when people actually used their cell phones for telephonic purposes? You'd get 200 minutes a month or whatever, and when you went over, you got charged by the minute for all the extra time. Hell, some telecom companies advertised that they billed by the second, so if you talked for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, you paid for that, not 6 minutes.

Bottom line, Rogers needs to implement this sort of fee structure, anything else is completely unjust.



Imagine if you went to your local Esso and pumped $20.01 worth of gas and they rounded it up to $25. First off, you'd be pissed because that's fucked up. Second, if that was just "the way it is", you'd pump the next $4.99 if you had room in your tank because what the hell, you're paying for it.

But if Rogers is going to charge me $15 for 999.5MB of unused data, what the hell am I supposed to do? Stream porn until I reach the 2GB ? I mean that sounds fun and all, but that's what McDonalds WiFi (Powered by Bell) is for.

An open letter to Mayor Jim Watson, about all this Uber mess

Hi Jim,

I want to talk to you about Uber. I know it's on your mind, I've seen you mention numerous times that the city will be reviewing taxi bylaws in the immediate future, and I can only assume that recent controversy surrounding Uber's presence in Ottawa is a main cause for the review.

When you're reviewing the bylaws, consider this: one of the main arguments against Uber is that it's unregulated and therefore not necessarily safe. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, taxi regulation isn't necessary in the first place.

We're all adults here. We make our decisions about so many adult things every single day, and a lot of these involve strangers that have not taken a background check.

• I can order a pizza and have it delivered to my door by a complete stranger who knows where I live and what valuables I possess, but I can't go home in an Uber car.

• I can get drunk at a bar and get a lift home with a complete stranger who's had a couple of drinks but is under the limit and is going my way, but I can't go home in an Uber car.

• I can get my neighbour's cousin Gary to come fix my washing machine for $20, but I can't go home in an Uber car.

• I can meet and fall in love with a man named Steve, only to find out that Steve is living a double life and has a family on the side and his name is actually Gord, but I can't go home in an Uber.

Uber drivers and taxi drivers all have the same motivation: to make a living.  Sure there are the odd story here and there about Uber drivers misbehaving, but you can find just as many stories about licensed taxi drivers misbehaving.

I did an informal poll amongst my female friends about any unpleasantness they've experienced in licensed, regulated Ottawa taxis equipped with cameras:

Sheri: Almost every single cab I've been in over the past 20 yrs has made me uncomfortable by hitting on me. I had a really scary experience with DJ's cabs yrs ago where I was at the Makenzie st bridge by the mission when my cab driver got out and beat the shit out of a homeless kid trying to wash his windows.

Renee: There's one particular driver who always calls me, "Sweets": "Yes Sweets."; "Okay Sweets"; "Are you going to see your boyfriend Sweets?". It totally makes me feel uncomfortable. 

Julie: I had a driver hitting on me once as I was on my way to a party. Made me feel uncomfortable because I couldn't exactly walk away... 

Alex: At the end of the night I took a taxi home by myself. When the taxi arrived, the man driving took many opportunities to dis-empower me by consistently calling me Girl. He kept saying things like: “Hey Girl, it’s okay, trust me Girl, I’ll take care of you Girl”. At one point he called me sweetheart while he was asking some pretty invasive questions. I felt so dis-empowered and vulnerable that I was kinda afraid to tell him to stop calling me Girl and I was afraid of not answering his questions. 

Ashlee: The cabbie turned his whole body around when I got in and gave me the el creepo once over, spending a good amount of time on my tits while I tried to tell him where I was going. Then he told me how nice I smelled. He kept his hand on the back of the passenger seat in front of me the whole time, occasionally coming close to my knee as I tried desperately to keep distance between us.  When we finally stopped he told me the total $$ and slid his hand down the seat further while I looked through my wallet, staring at me the whole time. I put a ten in his hand trying to avoid touching his skin but he folded his fingers upward to make contact with my hand. Then said "Oh....so you're paying me with money?" and gave me the most uncomfortable wink. 

Allison: He got out to walk me to my door uninvited, after asking too many personal questions about boyfriends and who I was with that night and scorned for talking about other men or that I had a date. "Oh, a beautiful girl like you, out there with all those men all the time tsk tsk tsk"

For the most part, these are cases of soft harassment, where the act isn't exactly egregious enough to report. Most people aren't going to call Blue Line and say "You know, my driver was being kind of inappropriate. No, he didn't touch me or threaten me but I felt kinda gross when I got out of the car."

On the other hand, Uber lets riders directly rate their driver (and vice versa) meaning that bad drivers and bad riders get their access to the app revoked if they misbehave. On top of that, Uber is VERY concerned with protecting their reputation. They know that the world is watching them closely and won't risk their reputation by not terminating any potential creeps at the first sign of trouble.

Every Uber user I've spoken to about Uber has nothing by nice things to say about it. They all prefer Uber over taxis. Cleaner, faster, cheaper, safer, more pleasant in general. Not to mention the added benefits of:

-no cash transactions;

-knowing exactly who your driver is because the entire trip is logged (as opposed to the all-too-real scenario where someone is tipsy, hails a cab, the cabbie harasses them and then when the whole thing is done, they don't remember the driver number or even which company it was, and the company has no official record of the ride because the cab was hailed);

-the assurance that the driver is using the fastest possible route to get you there (both driver and rider have access to Google maps to map out the trip);

-no tipping required;

-no refusal of short or inconvenient rides;

-no excessive service charge just to use a credit or debit card instead of cash; and

-no spending the entire trip listening to the driver yell into a Bluetooth headset at one of their friends (I've heard this complaint a lot).

So when the time comes to review the bylaws, it's really important that you ask the people of Ottawa whether they prefer Uber over taxis, and take their concerns very seriously. Give them the choice, as adults, to ride in a regulated taxi if they wish, or an unregulated but in my opinion equally safe Uber car. You don't need to hold our hands on our way home from the bar. We've got this.