Nothing Much

Nothing much has happened over the last while that's very entertaining to write about. There's now an official tour blog you can check out on the link to the right. The other night we played BaseBee, which is a lot like baseball but with a frisbee, and you get way more exercise cause we only play with four or five people. Which is good, cause when it comes to getting exercise, plain baseball is akin to golf as a sport. And shuffleboard.

Saturday night we played at a hardcore show, which is always fun. We played first, and then two bands that sucked, but then a super nuts band called Snic came on. Those guys are so fun to watch, and don't take themselves too seriously, which is a good idea in that genre I think.

I guess I'm becoming accustomed to life on tour. The days meld into one, a lot of good times are had, some boring times, some good music is played, some not so good, and at the end of the day i'm usually rolling out a bed in a new place.

strip frisbee

Thanks to the positive comments Tom and Rebeks, I guess I'll just continue journalling until i get the sense no one's reading.

Yesterday us guys went out to play frisbee in an open field late at night. We of course had to have a competition, and had races to catch a frisbee thrown by one guy, kind of a hopped up version of 500. This evolved into us standing in a circle that we widened regularly by stepping backwards, trying to make as many successive completions as possible. This inevitably evolved into... that's right, strip frisbee. The two people involved in a dropped throw had to remove an article of clothing. This ended with us all in our skivvies racing through some sprinklers that had just turned on. It was fun. In an extremely masculine and heterosexual way.

Today was a travel day, and not very fun for me. I felt gross from the minute I woke up, it was so hot in our tent. Put on shorts and t-shirt, but still felt gross for the entire trip, and then when we got into Alberta all of a sudden it was snowing! So then I was freezing. So yeah, the whole day I just wasn't enjoying myself. Moody. I did read a really good book by Margaret Atwood called Lady Oracle. We picked up a couple of hitchhikers on the way to banff, they were francophones from quebec. Ended up going for sushi with them and then randomly played at an open mic next door. That's where i am now. This place really digs jeremy's and sheree's stuff.

The Canadian Tour Adventure

This blog may take on journal like elements from now on, because I want to journal and record this tour so i can look back on it later and remember. So sorry if it gets boring. I like to write entertainingly, which journalling isn't always, so this may be a short lived online journal.

The first day was really rough. It started out rough and just got worse, for me anyways. After waking up roughly and realizing I had a lot to do yet i kind of pulled it together and got it done, in time for the van to arrive. But they were running late and were a bit ticked that they had to pick me up, since I had been unable to get a ride to their place. There had been a bit of friction during the last week because I was really busy taking care of stuff I should have done earlier and working at my stupid job while they were all practicing and preparing and stuff. So this was a rough start, and then Jer told me we couldn't take my recording stuff, which was a huge blow. I really wanted to take that stuff so we could record shows or albums along the way, and then drop the gear off in winnipeg so i'd have less stuff to worry about once I start thinking about actually moving. So I spent the whole day with that in my head on top of other things.

We played a show at a Christian music festival nearby (on the same bill as STARFIELD!!!) which went poorly and had poor attendance because we were slotted during registration. Then we headed out into the mountains, when I started talking to Jer about having the recording stuff along. He either saw that it was really important to me and decided to pacify me, or he legitimately wanted it along as well, cause we turned around and drove a good 45 minutes back to Abbotsford to get it. That was when things started looking up. We had a nice drive to Kelowna and set up at a friend's place there.

Yesterday was a pretty slow day until mid afternoon when we went to set up for the show. Our show was at an evening church service. We decided to record it so I spent a lot of time setting up the computer and mics and hooking everything up and testing it. In the end we got a decent sound out of the whole thing so I was happy with that. I almost forgot the suitcase with all my mics in it, so that would have sucked.

Today was the third day of our tour, which we again spent in Kelowna. It was a nice warm day and we got invited to a very nice mansion-like house with a pool, foosball table, pool table, etc. We spent the afternoon there, which was fun. We had a BBQ for supper, and I ate too much. We then piled in the van and headed down the mountain to get to our show, and i got pretty sick. We played a very stripped down set in a coffee shop, which was relaxed. I lounged on a couch with a glockenspiel on my lap, playing it like a slob, but still playing pretty well. Then we went for ice cream and a walk by the lakefront. I went to a public bathroom in the park, and was just standing at the urinal when a cleaning lady walks in behind me and starts wiping down the sink! I finished up quickly and tried to get in there to wash my hands, but I felt so awkward about it, and she was taking up so much room with her cleaning that I just walked out of there. Then we climbed Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty big and I'm a very bad climber, so I needed some help.

On another note, tour has been a definite change of pace in my life. For one, living as a community with 5 other people is an immediate change. I've determined to try to work as hard as I can at everything we do so nobody ever feels like I'm not pulling my weight and I never worry about them feeling like that. I've had mild success so far, as things continue I'll need to do that more. It's a bit of a shift because I usually try to get by with the least amount of energy as possible. Some might call it laziness. I can also be a little idiosyncratic with needing to do something mindless before going to bed, and not wanting to talk to anybody when I wake up, so these are things I am needing to try to moderate and control a bit.

I've made some other conscious decisions in my personal life, effective as of the beginning of tour. All of these changes to my life as of three days ago have had a weird mix of effects on me. It's not often in life that you wake up every morning with that feeling of "something is very different today." You know, like that first time you got a girlfriend and you woke up the next morning remembering "I have a girlfriend today! Yesterday morning I didn't, but today I do!" And then you randomly remember it repeatedly during the day and perk yourself up. It's really quite exhilirating. And conversely when she breaks up with you, it's weird to wake up the next morning remembering that, feeling the weight and the hopelessness that doesn't seem to leave. But either way it's a unique and rare experience. It's life at its deepest and richest. In this case it's hard and sad, empty sometimes, but not hopeless. I'm dealing and will continue to, and it feels good to do that.

Whew I almost lost this post cause I navigated away and it disappeared. Thank you Blogger for auto saving now.

Adventures in the Bahamas Part 3

Well I'm about to embark on another adventure, touring Canada, but I just had to tell this quick story. I think it was my first day in the Bahamas when I was exploring. I spent some time just hanging out by a market on the ocean, close to where all the cruise ships dock. I was sitting on this wall type thing with the ocean to my left and the market to my right. Lots of people were around, and this guy on my right started talking to me. We chatted a bit and he pointed out the cruise ship that he worked on. The conversation went on pretty long for total strangers, at least by my standards. But the guy was really friendly and the conversation was interesting so it was cool. Then he seemed to see somebody he knew by the market and started walking over there, pausing to motion at me that he would be right back and i should hold on.

Well that was a little weird to me since we were total strangers, he had no obligation to me, but I thought it was funny and nice that I had made a friend. He seemed to want to talk to somebody that was in a taxi or something. I looked away back at the ocean and then looked back. GONE! He was gone. Nowhere in sight. But what did I care, he was just a stranger. Except for some reason my mind and hand immediately went to my pocket. My wallet was gone too.

In a flash the entire scenario played out in my mind. I was wearing my shorts which don't have a proper back pocket so i carry my wallet in the front right pocket, which is awkward so I randomly take it out without thinking sometimes. When I sat down by the ocean I unthinkingly placed the wallet beside me on the right. This guy made conversation with me, moved closer, befriended me, stole my heart, etc. He pointed to the ship where he "worked," on my left, and while I looked over he pilfered my wallet! Then he began to make his escape but to avoid suspicion he made it seem like he wasn't really leaving until the right moment where disappeared completely.

You can't imagine the heartbreak and loss of trust I experienced. This guy was so friendly and nice, I couldn't believe that the whole purpose of our friendship was so that he could do harm to me and steal my wallet. It really shook my faith in humanity. I was heartbroken.

Another possible scenario came to mind though, in which I had forgotten my wallet back at the hotel. So I went back to check, and that was the case. Phew. He was just a nice guy after all.

I'll be blogging intermittently while on tour. Check in regularly.

The Bahamas Adventures Part Two

The next day it was decided that we would go on a snorkelling boat tour thing. I had booked it the day before, and they told me a bus would pick us up at the nearby Hilton at 12:15. So we walked down to the Hilton just before noon. Early, right? Except a hotel guy told us that the bus had already left, and we were supposed to take a taxi instead. He assured us that the company would pay for the taxi. I wanted to go back to the room to get the pamphlet for this snorkelling thing, maybe give them a call to confirm this, but before i knew it hotel guy had hustled us into a taxi and told the driver where to go. He seemed to know what he was doing.

We drove over a bridge that goes to Paradise Island, a really ritzy place. The driver asked us for a dollar to pay the toll for this bridge. Well as I mentioned already, I didn't have US or Bahamian money with me, I was covering credit card purchases while my friend was covering payments that required cash. Except on this particular day she had left the cash at home. Now I had been a little worried about this business with having to get this company to pay for a taxi, but this is the point where I got really worried. Same with the taxi driver. He did not like this business at all. But he paid the toll and drove us the rest of the way. That drive was pretty tense for me as I contemplated how we didn't have any cash on us, we didn't know where we were going, we couldn't remember the name of the company that we were snorkelling with, and were just blindly trusting that we could find them and make them pay for this taxi.

We pulled up at the entrance to some ritzy place, and it became immediately apparent that we were in the wrong place. Luckily the people there wanted to help us out, but I felt like a useless idiot trying to explain to them that we didn't know where we should be or the name of anything. They called a few snorkelling places for us and NOBODY had my name on their files. Finally the lady had the idea to let me look through some brochures. I found the one that i had booked with, but they called there, and again they said there was no record of us. The guy at the hotel desk who made that call for me was really pushing this other company on me the whole time, kept on telling me how it was their preferred diving company. I asked to make the call myself and this time they knew who I was, thankfully. The lady I talked to was suitably shocked about where I was, especially since our destination was on the other side of the island. I actually really enjoyed her reaction. She told me to hurry on down there, so I fled with the pamphlet in hand. Hotel desk guy looked a little hurt.

Well we didn't miss our boat, and the whole thing was worth it. We snorkelled out at a reef and were given some fish food to draw the fishes to us. I was surrounded by swarms of tropical fishes. I had to make sure the black and blue ones got some food, cause the white and yellow ones were way more aggressive. We went to another spot where I guess a plane had crashed in the water; it was pretty cool to see the ruins or whatever you call it. I couldn't get down to it cause the pressure hurt my ears too much, but one girl did. I was jealous. Then we went out to a reef ledge where sharks hang out. Apparently the reef sharks there don't really attack humans cause there's enough food to keep them full. So we went swimming with them. One swam within arms reach of my friend. I was jealous.

The Bahamas Adventures Part One

The problem with going to the Bahamas is that you then have to leave the Bahamas at some point. I had an amazing trip, and I really need to blog it out. I'm real tired, so I'm gonna start with the first couple days.

First off, I ended up going with a friend of mine who I don't hang out with much anymore. I had been anticipating a trip all on my own so this was a bit different, a bit of a blessing and a bit of the opposite. We'll leave it at that.

Let's go back in time to Monday evening. Our flight leaves at 8, which means flying through the night to Calgary and then Toronto, spending a few hours there and then flying on to Nassau, Bahamas. This is not exactly fun, except the plane going to Nassau is very empty. This means that I get a whole row to myself, enough to stretch out on and watch tv in style. So that's actually quite enjoyable. Then we approach the islands of the Bahamas, collared in sky blue waters. Gorgeous.

The first thing I notice about the Bahamas... everybody is black! I'm not sure what I was expecting, I just hadn't thought about it I guess. Of course there's tons of tourists as well, mostly white. The locals give the flavour for the island though. The customs agent insists on helping me secure a hotel room before he lets me through. All I brought with me was a phone number of a hostel which it turns out doesn't exist anymore.

We hop in a taxi, and the driver's first act in the cab is to honk his horn and pull in front of a bus. We quickly learn that honking the horn in the Bahamas as akin to breathing in North America. You do it partly to confirm your presence to the world, partly just to keep from dying. So the taxi takes us down this sketchy back alley to a narrow stairway that says "Mignon Guest House." We walk up the stairs to a gate and ring the bell. An old man turns up and mutters something about his wife, but he lets us in to this place, which is basically a hallway with a desk and a fridge in it, attached to another hallway with six bedrooms, and two shared bathrooms. There's also a microwave and a water dispenser with a handwritten sign that says "If you want to dring the water, please use only a dringing glass." This exact sign is plastered on the wall on either side of the dispenser, as well as on the machine itself, on either side of the water spout. So four times in total.

The man's wife is a very friendly, very short, and very greek lady who really speaks her mind. 5 minutes after arriving we're already being chastised for foolishness. Shortly after that a european couple walk in from the beach and she's severely scolding them about using the room towels on the beach. They seem to get the point and walk on to their room, while she shakes her head at me and mouths the word "swedish."

"SWEDISH!" she hollers after them. "YOU UNDERSTAND?"

I love the fact that her nickname for them is "swedish."

It's already late afternoon, so we walk down to hit the beach, which is gorgeous of course. Then I go exploring. It doesn't take long to realize that on the streets here everybody yells. There's constant conversation going on, and it's always in yelling form, whether or not the conversations is taking place over several feet or several blocks. It's really hard to know when people are actually talking to you specifically, and not somebody way down the street, especially cause I have a hard time understanding what's being said through those thick Caribbean accents. I may have had a group of angry Bahamians after me, but I'm really not sure.

I walked down to the docks, where there's 3 or 4 gigantic cruise liners and a "straw market." Here there's much more yelling. People are trying to sell you things, and it's crowded. The people here are VERY good at selling things. A gigantic lady calls me over and slips a couple bracelets on my wrist. Some orphans made them or something, and they just ask for a donation in return. I explain that I only have Canadian, I don't have any US or Bahamian cash, which are the accepted currencies here.

"Canadian?" she tries to fit this word into her mouth. I pull out a $5 bill and hand it to her, explaining that it's worth about four bucks. "Canadian," she ponders again while staring at the bill with the kind of pure joy and wonderment that you only expect to see on a 5 year old child at christmastime. And probably only in the movies. She actually says "ooooh" while holding this expression. When she tells me that it looks funny, I tell her our tens are kind of purply red, which she has problems believing.

I get tired of exploring at around seven. Having eaten nothing but carrot sticks, airline cookies, and a crappy airport muffin since leaving BC, I head back to my room in hopes of drumming up some healthy-food-ish prospects. Having slept for only a couple hours, I fall asleep and wake up at four in the morning with nothing to do but read tourism pamphlets, and nothing to eat but carrot sticks.

Tomorrow, swimming with sharks and being the most pathetic tourist ever

wappo!

I finished Wappo the other day. Those of you who know what I'm talking about will know what I'm talking about.