Day: March 25, 2008

I was just reading the blog of Natalia Yanchak who is the keyboardist/member of The Dears and I marvelled at how absorbed I became in her thought process and how she just spoke her mind of whatever she was thinking at the time.

I’ve realized that in the past, I think I’ve done that from time to time but have put that to the backburner on this site so that I can focus on creating a snapshot of my actual life at its present state so that future generations can take a look and say “So that’s what they did back then.”  Let me also say that I think it would be great if I get in the habit of taking a picture of my face every day and over the years constructing a flipbook with the images.  While I realize that this would take a lot of dedication, it would make for a very neat book to give away at Christmas in about ten years time.  😉

So here you have it…maybe it’s the mood I’m in and the fact that it’s the calm before the storm; the period in between midterm examinations and final exams.  All is calm in the world and I’ve been listening to Counting Crows and now The Dears.  If you have not listened to No Cities Left then I encourage you to go pick it up.  It’s a Palmer guarantee that you will find something to like about it.

I’ve been carrying around a little notebook with me everywhere which is an extension of the voice recorder that Vero gave me a few years ago.  The voice recorder helps me record tunes in my head whereas the notebook lets me write out the thoughts.  I just came across this entry:

no one likes to sing anymore or dance.  Why are they embarrassed?

I think this thought process started from the new Sam Roberts Band tune Them Kids which talks about how the kids don’t dance to rock n’ roll anymore.

It’s…so true!  Then I started thinking of years gone when people sang in the car before radio came along…I read about that particularly in Terrence West’s novel “Run of the Town” which has short stories of growing up in the North.  He talks about how everyone in the car would sing church hymns.

So that’s a start.  It looks like years ago people sang church hymns in a car.  Ok.  So what happened?

I can imagine that probably in the sixties people loved to sing along to their records and music was available in car radios…but after that, did people lose interest?  When did it become uncool to sing out loud?

I take playing guitar and singing as an example of people not singing out loud.  Countless times have I been the only singer in the room.  Is it because I overpower those in the room with my loud voice?  Perhaps.  But sometimes I lower it to see if people want to join in…and it just doesn’t happen.  Sure, I understand that an entertainer should not bother himself with these things, but it is quite strange when you’re ripping into Yellow Submarine and people can’t get the nerve to sing along (of course, I’m just generalizing here…there are those who are great at singing along).

So when did it become uncool to sing?  Is it this new world we live in where everything needs to be…perfect?  Your looks, your clothing, your voice, your demeanor?   I am amused while watching old films because I see actors who in this day and age would be deemed ugly and probably wouldn’t end up in a film.  Watch any film nowadays and tell me if you can find a mediocre looking person who isn’t mediocre looking for a reason (like being the sidekick to the main man).  Has this picture perfect world created this beast where no one wants to sing anymore?

Sometimes it’s hard to get people up to the karaoke machine!  But I hear the Japanese (and I don’t know about other cultures) LOVE karaoke.  Have they found the secret to life and that you should not look at yourselves too seriously and belt out “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer while up on stage with your friends?  Let’s not forget the excellent Rob Zombie imitators at Wave’s Biker Bar in Toronto.  😉

I haven’t found the answer yet as to why people don’t like to sing anymore.  I don’t know why people are…embarrassed.  I think it has to do with the idea that you can’t do anything unless you are perfect at it.  I guess the same goes for dancing.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into it and in the end, high school dances were the same back in the day as they were in my day.  The guys hanging out around the wall and trying to survive the night.  Maybe it really isn’t like all the films you see where everything is choreographed.  Ha ha.

Musings for the night.  I suppose I’ll try this as an experiment on this site…split the time up between documenting entries for the grandkids (Hey Kids!  Gramps here!) and exploring my thoughts a little more.  I find it helps me flesh out ideas for songs.  I think I’m really onto the songwriting kick lately.  A lot of people are saying they are liking the 705 song I wrote.  I think I’ve finally opened Pandora’s Box.

iplaying: We Can Have It – The Dears (No Cities Left) 

I just picked up the new Counting Crows album today.  It was a surprise that it was coming out…I lost track of when it would be out.  The concept is one half of the album are those songs that represent the Saturday Night when you want to rock…you want to lose yourself into the world…

Sunday Mornings (as we all know too well) are those mornings where everything is quiet and you recollect things that happened the night before and all is…calm.

I haven’t listened to Counting Crows in a long time and they were a big part of me…I’m looking for my old bootlegs and rare tracks and…they’re all gone somewhere else.  Good thing the Internet is around but that’s a whole lot of downloading going on.

I suppose I’ll give a full review later on but after three full listens tonight I realize two things:

1) I miss the days where I would have enough time to myself to hole myself up in a room and listen to an album completely.

2) Counting Crows do not disappoint.

iplaying: On Almost Any Sunday Morning – Counting Crows (Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings)

The weekend has become a giant blur for me…I really don’t know where to begin with what happened so I suppose I’ll just recap some main points:

The Breaking of the Dam: At the Foo Fighters concert, Mike had explained to me all about weeping tiles and the water that absorbs into the ground around your house and if the storm drain is blocked up, then it could potentially come through the concrete. While I admit that I am fairly smart in some things, there are other aspects of life in which I had no idea…for example, all this talk of ‘spring flooding’…I thought they just meant through my basement windows and that I should keep the area around my window clear of snow!

With this newfound knowledge and the fact that I found that our driveway had become a swimming pool, I decided it was due to time to break up the ice in the street to make a path to the storm drain a few houses down. I started with a shovel which didn’t really help matters. I then found my trusty crowbar and started chipping away at the ice trying to make a stream towards the drain. This was (partially) working but I knew I would be in it for the long haul. It was such a nice day out though so I figured it was better than staying inside. My neighbour ended up dropping by and giving me a giant steel rod that could be used to chip ice. This helped out a lot more as I didn’t have to bend over and chip away at the ice. It was heavy and tall enough for me to just lift it up and hammer the ice with it.

Seeing that this was the first time I had ever remotely attempted anything like this, I didn’t realize that the key to chipping the ice is to find a spot that you can chip away from…it’s not about making a little stream in the ice, but it’s more of the matter of getting rid of the ice completely from the street. I found this out after hitting one piece of ice and it broke away clean from the pavement. I thought “Hmm…this will make for a better channel for the water to run through!”. There were literally three driveways full of water that had to run into the drain so the bigger the channel, the better! Two hours later there was a river rushing through our street. Another neighbour came out and couldn’t believe the amount of water coming down the street. It was a thing of beauty actually. My hard work had paid off and now there was no more water in our driveways and I could rest easy that my basement would not flood (for now at least).

The Breaking of My Abs: I ended up going over to Vero’s on Thursday night and we made some dinner and watched Hot Fuzz (which is an EXCELLENT film by the way…quite funny). I ended up spying her pilates ball(s) in the corner and asked if we could try them out. She popped in the fifteen minute video and away we went! I must admit that shoes are needed if you are going to try pilates over a hardwood surface. My socks were flying all over the place! Some exercises were mediocre but some of them were quite hard to do which intrigued me. I would definitely try the ball out again as it’s a good workout. However, in hindsight, while I was sore in some spots, I definitely think I got a better stomach workout just using my regular old sit-up bench.

The Meeting of the Minds: I had to meet up with my school project team to finish up a Quantitative Methods project. We present to the class this coming Friday and I think we are cutting it a little short. It was good to get together as we hadn’t done so too much over the past few months. I must admit that I am not a fan of group work for this reason: I cannot go at my own pace. For example, I think if I would have had a project to work on, I probably would have went home for Easter weekend and either finished the project before or during that trip. But because of it being a group project, I had to stay in town. I’m definitely not knocking my group members…they are a fine bunch. I’m just saying it’s a lot easier sometimes to work on your own on a project, especially if you are one of those people who want to ensure everything is perfect with the report.

The Building of the Bench: Mom and Dad had bought me a workbench to use out in the garage so now that the weather was cooperating a little, it was due time to open the garage door, let some air and construct the bench. We had a few mishaps due to the instruction manual not being very forthcoming with good diagrams (for example we were building it upside down at one point) but we got on track quickly and it ended up being a decent workbench. It’s actually a real nice workbench to use to work on electronics I would think…like when you have to tear apart your computer or something. I think it will also be useful for other projects…I should create something. Any ideas out there?

The Birth of the BBQ: After bonding over the creation of the workbench, Mike and I realized that what called our name was the BBQ hidden under the snow in the backyard. With the sun in my face and the hunger pangs of steak on the BBQ, I took the shovel to the backyard towards the BBQ. Now, at first I thought this may be an easy task but the wind was quite chilling and the snow was quite hard. It’s like it froze somewhere in the middle. Groan. So I chipped away at it little by little until I made my way to the front of the BBQ. Success! I don’t think it took me that long…probably 45 minutes to cut a path and to scoop out the area around the propane tank. Mike joined me as we lit the BBQ and we marvelled at the smell arising from this great steel oven. Seeing that it was a beautiful day (well, the wind was quite cold, but it sure was nice in the sun) Mike grabbed us a few beer and we set up some lawn chairs in the snow in the backyard. It was quite comforting to imagine the summer upon us, but after 20 minutes we realized that it was indeed, freaking cold and we headed inside to watch some episodes of Alias (which Mike had just discovered and I hadn’t seen in quite some time).

We had an amazing feast of steak and potatoes for supper and the next night we also had some pork chops on the BBQ. The season is upon us!

A New Hope Arises: Now, we all know that Vero does not want to watch Star Wars and we found out over the years that the reason why is because she does not care for robots. I don’t know what they did to her personally, but she doesn’t like them. But years ago, she gave me a Christmas gift in the form of coupons that I could redeem to have her watch Star Wars with me. I ended up misplacing the coupons but decided to look for them anyhow and finally found them tucked in a cabinet somewhere. We called up Eric and he joined us in watching Star Wars with Vero. I don’t think she minded it too much although she did cringe whenever a droid would come by the screen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I find Star Wars to be a little boring to watch. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen it a few times…but I definitely prefer the more intriguing storyline of Empire or Return over the first film.

And that’s that. It was a fairly lackluster weekend but I’m sure after reading about my adventures you may wonder why I say that. I suppose it’s due to the fact that there was no fanfare concerning Easter per say, other than the fact that Vero and I built an Easter gingerbread house (!!!), or I combined some scrambled eggs and chocolate to make…chocolate easter eggs (get it?) which Vero couldn’t really stomach. I did think of our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for us but other than that, there wasn’t anything overly special about this weekend.

Perhaps I am succumbing to the everlasting winter! Let there be no snow!

I hope you all enjoyed your Easter long weekend.