Sewer Adventures

We just stayed in Listowel, Ontario, which is a cute little town a couple hours outside of Toronto. Two nights ago we went on a walk and discovered a canal, with super high concrete walls. This canal disappears into a tunnel, which our friend Tyler told us went underneath the entire town. It's usually a river, but the lack of rain had pretty much dried the river up.

So we decided that the next day we would explore this tunnel. The next evening we went out. We brought a canoe to see if we could put it in further upstream and canoe down, but the river was too dried up, so we walked down the riverbank towards the tunnel/canal. Tyler had a headlamp on and rope slung over his shoulder. Finn had a police-style flashlight. On the way to the tunnel we passed the hospital, which had some construction happening, and i found a solid metal pipe. The guys didn't like me carrying it around, cause the tunnel was right by the police station, and they figured it looked suspicious. I thought we looked suspicious enough anyways and I wasn't about to part with my pipe. There's nothing like getting up to no good with a bunch of guys in a small town, and carrying a metal pipe. It makes me feel hilarious and macho at the same time.

So we found a place to scale down the canal wall, there was some sort of thing on the wall that made it easy to climb. We walked down into the darkness of the tunnel and it was awesome. I love that feeling of excitement as you go into something dark and unknown. We explored all the way to the end, threw rocks around, and checked out the little sewer things that fed into the tunnel. The echoes in there were amazing. We did some nice accapella harmonies with hand claps and metal pipe percussion. That combined with the scattered reflections of the flashlights off the water made a very spooky effect.

The tunnel wasn't as long as we were expecting, and when we finally climbed out of the canal, we were invigorated and still looking for excitement. With my metal pipe still in hand, we bandied around some ideas, ranging from climbing the police station to petty vandalism, but we soon started playing with the pipe and the rope. Jer had the idea that we could make a zip line out of it; you could hold onto the pipe while it slides down the rope. To me this sounded like an amazing idea that was obviously too crazy and unsafe to actually attempt, but I was underestimating the company i was with. Finn immediately volunteered.

We first rigged the rope up from one side of the canal to the middle of a bridge over it. The bridge was higher than at the side, enough that we didn't think Finn would get stuck in the middle or anything. But it was high up. It was over a river, but remember this river was not deep enough to canoe in. With rocks. And the sides were completely dry. With rocks. I was concerned about how safe this was. Luckily, once we had rigged the rope up, we realized that a slight curve in my pipe meant that it didn't slide freely along the rope when the rope was taut, it was too tight. Me and Jordan went back to the hospital construction site to find a better pipe. We ended up having to actually climb the fence into the site, which of course we did with as much stealth as we could muster. The best thing we could find was a solid, heavy, lead pipe.

By the time we got out of the site the other guys had followed us upstream, where there was no longer a canal, just the mostly dry river bank. We decided to try the zip line here first, where we could test it out under somewhat safer conditions. A foot bridge and a tree at the side of the river offered perfect anchor points, and here the drop was only 15 feet, onto grass that sloped quickly but gently into the river. It seemed much safer than the canal.

When the rope was strung up and Finn almost ready to take off, the other guys held onto his pants so he could position himself properly on the edge of the foot bridge. I headed off the bridge and down the slope so I could spot him underneath, just in case the unthinkable happened. But what could happen? Tyler guaranteed his knots with his life, the rope was strong although a little thin, and the lead pipe was solid enough.

Well as I headed down the slope I saw Finn launch off onto the zip line, except instead of following the direct path of the rope from the bridge to the side of the river bank, he followed a curvy path that was more in line with the forces of gravity. He didn't really look like he had been on a zip line at all, he basically fell sideways 15 feet to the riverbank below, where he landed directly on his side and rolled down the bank, making noises that were something in between grunting and screaming. The general idea he was conveying to me was pain. As I rushed down the bank after him he came to a stop with his leg and arm bent behind him. I thought he had broken something for sure, and wondered what we were gonna do for a bass player. The good news was that we were right by the hospital!

In the end, Finn was OK. The whole thing winded him a lot, and he was in a great deal of pain. We waited at the hospital with him, and saw him get wheeled away on a bed for x-rays. Nothing was damaged. He was happy about a hot nurse taking care of him. Today he went back to give them a urine sample, and they found some blood in it, but every thing seems OK. We were pretty lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt. Apparently the lead pipe, which must have weighed at least 25 pounds, landed inches from his head.

I should also quickly describe the house we stayed at in Listowel. When we walked in, I immediately sensed that something was not right, in the sense that the house seemed to be trying to get away from me. It was tilting. It evened out as I walked through, and then tilted back towards me as I got to the other side. It was an old house, and had significantly sunk in the middle. Significantly. The end result was that I kind of felt like I was on a rolling ship the entire time I stayed there, except without the constant motion.

Tour is fun.

blogger is dead

nobody posts anymore. or comments on my posts. boo. i'll post anyways. This week we are staying on a dairy farm in ontario. It's pretty much gorgeous so far. There's cows, a big rolling yard, an old farmhouse that's quite nice and updated, but still definitely a farmhouse, a creek, a dam in the creek, a hammock, beautiful huge trees, two dogs, one very pregnant dog, and last but not least, the smell of a farm. It smells like farm, that's all there is to it. Not sure if I like that yet or not.

In the last week I went to see a lot of shows at the Montreal Jazz Fest, which was pretty cool. I really enjoyed it. One night when Jeremy and Sheree were just playing a duo show I walked down to the fest and stayed there, knowing I would have to take the bus back to our campsite (a church that's not even technically in montreal). The bus was quite an escapade, but the bus drivers in general were helpful and could speak my language, so it worked out. It only took me three hours to get home!

Anyways, there were a lot of free outdoor shows, and many of them were quite good. But nothing compared to Moses Mayes. My cousin's the guitarist so I may be biased, but honestly, nobody gets a crowd moving like Moses Mayes. Dance music that you can actually listen to. My only complaint was that they only played one show, whereas some other bands that were not nearly as interesting were double or triple booked. Not cool.

So by now it seems like word is somewhat becoming public, that I'm in negotiations with my church for a job there. It's exciting to me, but I'm quite apprehensive about it and not sure about my motivation in being interested. Anybody who might actually still be reading blogs and is interested in giving me some insight into what they think is welcome to do so.

quebec

I love quebec. I love having the opportunity to pretend I know french. I love having old men yelling at me in french and being able to say je ne comprends pas. I love the montreal jazz fest. Hopefully i'll be catching more of it next week. We're in quebec city right now, which is gorgeous. I explored the chateau frontenac today. Definitely got into some places I shouldn't have been. But couldn't find the way into the cute little courtyard in the middle.

It's been a long time since i've written and so many things have happened. I must tell about the awful week we had last week. Up until last monday we had been able to mostly stay in people's houses, expect for one night we spent in a starbucks parking lot. They were very hospitable and we went to a rec centre the next day to shower and swim and relax. So that was nice. But last week we were stuck staying at rest stops or truck stops with no showers. The weather was unbelievably hot and humid. We left st. catherines on monday morning, drove eight hours to ottawa, slept in a rest stop on the way back to toronto, drove back to toronto the next day, and then drove back to montreal the next day. That's a lot of driving in horrible weather with no showers. We felt so gross. It was only three days but felt like eternity. And the van kept breaking down on the way to montreal that last day. By the time we got there we were so worn out, and the guy who was putting on the show was just a complete douche bag. He either had no social skills or was just a jackass. He kept on threatening to cancel the show that we had driven all the way to montreal for, with no valid reason. One was because we were late for our 2:30 sound check. The show started at 8:00! Who needs 5 hours to sound check? And our van broke down, what were we supposed to do? Then he hold us we sounded muddy and gross and he couldn't hear a single lyric. This despite the fact that we were playing especially quiet, with the vocals turned up. He went into a explication of how why we needed to turn the bass down so we wouldn't keep adding to our muddy noise. All he had to say was the bass is too loud.

The end of that horrorshow went like this. He wanted all of our addresses and personal information. Originally it was so he could send us recordings that he was gonna make for us, but we were late so that couldn't happen, and he still wanted this info "for his records." Jer asked why he still needed those, and he started into his big jerk routine: "Jeremy, Jeremy, let's just keep this simple." Jer told him we'd keep it really simple, pack up our things and get out of there. So we drove to montreal for nothing. We were all feeling pretty low except for Jer since he at least got to tell Zeke off. But he told his dad about our horrible week, and his dad offered to put us into a hotel for two nights. So that was awesome. We felt so rejuvenated being there, being able to shower. And it was real close to the jazz fest which worked out really well. All in all, it was a nutso week.

While i have time i might as well mention our stay in midland at my aunt and uncle's. It was awesome. When we got there Aunt Loreen pulled out some pork chops and other great foods. The pork chops were declared the best we had ever had. We played at their nursing home and it was super great to play for such a captive audience. Haha. They really did seem to like us and that was cool.

There's too many stories to tell to tell any of them properly. Jeans.