BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID (BUT WHY?)

Fear is real. There are many levels of fear, from the little bugaboo in the back of your mind, to the overwhelming physical reaction that makes your palms sweat and your lungs ache

Collette has a terrible fear of heights. Its a real thing, a physical thing that literally paralyzes her. I have a fear of confined spaces. I've been stuck in elevators and been ok but dark, tight places with pressure above me, makes me feel that I'm going to suffocate. We know we have these fears, we know what triggers them, but we can't control them. That's what phobia's are.

Cynophobia is the fear of dogs. Its a phobia, like Collette's fear of heights and my fear of confinement/suffocating. It's a real physical fear that you can't control. People have cynophobia and I suppose people suffer from it in my city and I suppose that I have have encountered them, when out with my girls. I strive hard to make my girls good canine "citizens". They're never walked offleash on the streets and even when offleash, they've been trained very well to be under my control. When I see situations that I know will challenge that training (like little kids running around, they look like sheep) I keep my dogs out of it. But if you have a phobia, it doesn't matter, you're just scared, you can't help it, I understand that.

Then you have a fear of dogs that isn't a phobia per se, but is still very real. People who have been attacked by dogs, no matter how long ago, have a fear of dogs that can sometimes never be conquered. A friend of mine, a client, who's name is Bill, always had a hesitant reaction to Hayley and when we got Terra, I could see he was even more leery. He told me that as a teenager, he had been attacked and badly bitten by a friend's dog, a dog whom Bill trusted. He always did very well with my dogs, he never made a big deal of it, but he was afraid.

I know I've encountered people out there with similar stories. They're strangers, not friends. They owe me nothing Even if my dogs do nothing, these people are afraid of them and they probably wish there were no dogs. I understand that. It's fear, a real fear and its often out of their control.

Where this is all coming from is the reactions I have when I'm out with the dogs. My dogs are trained, they're under control, in the streets they're always on their leads yet we encounter everything from people screaming, to freezing, to snarling at me. So a small percentage have a phobia. A slightly larger percentage have a fear based upon a past attack. But what about the rest of them? I mean, these are very common reactions. Yes, the girls bring me many compliments but I get more negative reactions. Why?

I've heard that people have grown up in cultures that have a very different views of domestic dogs. Dogs in north america, generally, especially pets (as opposed to real working/hunting dogs) are very indulged, and certainly overindulged. When we were in Costa Rica and Belize, dogs were just roaming the streets, sleeping on the beaches etc. We were told that not all these dogs are strays, they were pets but they didn't stay in the house, they weren't walked, they were maybe put in a yard at night, to offer protection. Most of these dogs were not fearful or aggressive like feral dogs, they were domesticated, but not in the way I'm used to

Then you have cultures where there are no pets, just strictly working dogs. Or countries where some people's only experience with dogs are with guard or attack dogs. I could see you would be afraid of those dogs, but that's something learned and what is learned, can be re-learned. My border collies are not a danger to you .. unless you're a tennis ball.

If you live in a new place, you have to learn the new way. I mean, really, don't you?

When you talk about culture you often have to talk about religion too, as oft time both are intermingled. I know some orthodox religions have strict guidelines about humans interacting with dogs, probably stemming from ancient concerns about safety and even hygiene but let's face it, we don't live in those times anymore. Be that as it may, that's still not a true fear of dogs. You just don't like them, as your religion decrees, and hey, you don't have to own a dog, but don't jump off the sidewalk and call me a rude name because I have one. You aren't afraid. You're brainwashed. Get over it.

You saw the rant coming, didn't you? I guess my point is this: Collette and I have worked really really hard to make our dogs disciplined and good public "citizens" We work very hard to make sure that people aren't inconvenienced by our dogs. In the street we leash them, in the parks we keep them away from situations that we know will bother people, like playgrounds, picnic areas, soccer games etc. They have manners, they're obedient, but it still isn't enough for a lot of people.

If you're afraid, truly afraid, then I do feel for you, and I know your reactions are not always under your control. But I also think that the percentage of people with a real uncontrollable fear is pretty small. For the rest of you ... I respect you, show me respect at all. You don't have to love my dogs, but we're here, we have the right to be here, and just cut us a bit of slack. And hey, you know, if you kind of drop the veil and see my girls as they really are, you're gonna love em.

I mean, who couldn't?

DON'T WORRY, WE HAVE YOUR EMOTIONS PRE-PACKAGED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE

Toronto has Olympic fever. The torch is making its way through the city today, on its way to Vancouver. Watching the coverage has made my skin a little twitchy.

People are lined up on the sidewalks, in this burning cold, tears sticking to their faces, clutching their hearts ... why? Some of the quotes: "This is the greatest moment of my life" "I'm so glad my kids are able to witness this (isn't this a school day?)" And the torch bearers themselves are so emotional they're practically orgasmic

"I've been defined" said one torch bearer. Another: "I will remember this as long as I live"

Again: Why? People, you aren't really thinking about all this, are you

More quotes "The torch represents peace and hope" OK, well the murder of Israeli athletes and the Atlanta bombing kind of squashes that whole peace thing

"The torch is for unity among the world's peoples" Really now? With nations boycotting the games at various times, tons of official protests and the games being held in China, a non democratic country where people have no rights to govern themselves and where human rights violations are a daily occurrence

"The torch represents the beauty of competition" This one's too easy: Corrupt figure skating judges, Ben Johnson, human growth hormone, professional athletes.

Are people really thinking about this? Or are they just blithely following a pre packaged emotional construct. Who doesn't think that the Olympics are all about money and corporate greed? Who doesn't understand the subtext of national pride verging on racism? Who doesn't get that the upcoming Olympics in Rio will make a few people a ton of money but will do nothing to help the hundreds of thousands of those who live there in poverty and will, in all likelihood, make their lives even worse. What happened to all the poor people in Beijing? Do you think their lives got any better? I doubt it

Feel free to enjoy some of the athletic performances at the Olympics. Most of that leaves me cold, for a lot of these athletes, who train for monthly, yearly events of more importance, this is an artificial event, that happens every four years under a huge media spotlight and viewed by a lot of people who probably understand nothing about their sport. And its political. Way, way political, from what country hosts, to which athletes compete, to who carries a flag; you have to know it has nothing to do with individual achievement.

Can any adult with access to any kind of media not really get this? Yet here I'm watching all these people, completely overcome with emotion. Even if you can ignore all the incredible bullshit associated with the Olympics, unless you know someone involved, is it really this big a deal? At the most, its an athletic competition. But I hear all these vapid platitudes: World changing, hopefully, fulfilling, life altering ... oh people, give your head a shake

I think not enough people are thinking about this. Not enough people are thinking, period, They sit there in their living rooms and they let the SMPTE corrected colour images wash over them, soaking in this pre packaged propaganda that has nothing to do with reality but has everything to do with TV ratings and product placement .. oh, oh yeh, excuse me, the Olympics aren't about money ... cough cough.

Let's talk about the torch bearers themselves. Yes there was a school teacher, a retired athlete, but there was also an awful lot of "TV personalities" from CTV the network that is hosting (no, not hosting, but paid millions of the dollars) the games on Cdn television. Were they all there to promote amateur sports and the beauty of competition or national pride?

What really bothers me is how so many of these people are emoting and speaking as if they're following a script. They've given up their emotions to the spin doctors, and given it up easily. No wonder we can't see to be able to make critical, viable decisions when it comes to how we want to be governed. We're too fucking passive, we're too bludgeoned by marketing and politics to NOT think, to NOT be critical, to just spread our legs and take, and later, pay for the privileged.

Maybe we should use that torch to help keep warm some to the people sleeping on sewer grates in this city tonight

THE SIMPLE THINGS 2: THE REAL SNOW DOGS

Anyone remember the Disney movie Snow Dogs, starring (and helping with the career downfall of) Cuba Gooding Jr? If you don't remember that's probably a good thing, as its pretty much a piece of dreck. However, a friend gave it to us a few years back. The story involves a border collie who wants to be lead dog of an Alaskan sled dog team. Well, I briefly worked with sled dogs in northern Manitoba and we own a border collie (just the one at that time) so there are moments in the movie that I enjoyed.

But now I have my own snow dogs. One of whom, Terra, got to experience the very first snow day of her life.

Needless to say, Terra seemed to enjoy the cool air and all that frozen water. Because as I've documented in other posts, for Terra, water is border collie crack.

Of course, Miss Hayley is our original snow dog and she too, was happy to quietly express her genteel pleasure on the first snowfall of the season

Border collies love the snow. They are all weather dogs but with those big coats and high energy, they do enjoy the cooler temps. They like to run on/through it as well, I assume it feels good on their pads. And of course, a layer of snow makes them into pirates, sniffing and digging for treasure, even it said snow is covering ground they sniffed only hours before. Hey, its snow, you never know what could be hidden under there.

Above, is rookie treasure hunter Terra, making her first forays into digging. Below, is old pro Miss Hayley, going for a full fledged excavation.

Of course, the one thing snow dogs like to do even more than dig for treasure, is to run ...

Terra really needs very little motivation to run, and Miss Hayley just needs a puppy to chase but Terra is a ball dog and we had some fun with that in the snow. Usually she has launched herself to warp speed before I can even get the ball airborne, so her back is to me as the ball is flying. She usually finds it by sound but in the snow, the impact is muffled. It took her a while to figure out that the ball was on the ground, covered by a layer of snow, sometimes right under her nose. Well, border collies aren't known to be scent dogs. But eventually she got her nose working and learned how to find her ball.

And if you do lose your ball, don't fret, nature is always happy to provide you with a stick ..

And the lovely thing about sticks, they often leave you with little souvenirs you can take home

All Miss Hayley thinks is: Puppy, I don't care what you chase, just get on with it, I need something to herd

So that was our first day in the snow. A simple thing. Just two girls romping around in the white stuff. But yeh, the simple things are good. And I'll keep this post simple as well, and let my girls tell you, that this is the end ..

WOMEN'S BLUES REVIEW 2009

Last month Collette and I saw a terrific blues concert featuring the Downchild Blues Band A great show featuring Downchild, Colin James, Colin Linden, the amazing James Cotton, but it was definitely a testosterone fuelled event. Blues is often associated with men; Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, BB King, et al. But the first superstars of the blues were actually women, like Bessie Smith and Guitar Minnie. And one of favorite annual events in Toronto is The Women's Blues Review.

I love this show because you are always bound to see some familiar performers and get to discover some new women, which was certainly the case this year. You also get to see the Women's Blues Review Band, a group of incredibly talented performers like Suzie Vinnick, Madeline Stowe, Lilly Sass, who only come together for this event. Some of these women have been playing this event for 20 years and it shows. Suzie Vinnick is a fave of ours as an individual performer and she is also showcased in the show.

Other familiar faces included Diana Braithwaite. Diana is awesome, as close to a Canadian Etta James as you're going to get. Many of the women in the show don't make their living singing the blues and Diana is incredibly well rounded but she has a real understanding of the Blue Note sort of blues sound, even to the point of writing original songs that have a truly authentic air to them.

Saidah Baga Talibah is another performer we've seen before in this show. A Toronto local, she's a true professional, performing blues, jazz, show tunes, hip hop, all with a true flair for capturing the audience. I have a small personal connection to this girl. She's the daughter of legendary Toronto performer Salome Bey. Many years ago, I helped Saidah and her mother stage a performance of their original musical Rainbow World as part of a program I ran in Brampton, training youth to do video production. Saidah was just a little girl then. It was great to see her at the show, tall and powerful and confident; but the the bootie shorts were something I didn't want to equate with that little girl back in the day.

Sass Jordan was of course familiar to me. And yes, I knew about her even before Canadian Idol, though I've never before seen her perform live. Sass doesn't sing the blues but she has ballsy, tough, Janis-like voice that still sounds damn good. And the woman can hold your attention.

Now to the to new faces. Terra Hazelton is a local jazz singer who used to work with Jeff Healy and his Jazz Wizards. There is an undeniable connection between jazz (original jazz that is) and the blues. Terra sang two Bessie Smith songs and she carried them off beautifully. Her album art is all dark and moody but in person she was really delightful and had Massey Hall rocking.

Rachelle van Zanten is a Calgary girl who doesn't really do the blues but she absolutely impressed Collette and I. She has a full rich voice and a really unique song writing perspective but what really caught my attention was her powerful, controlled, lyrical slide guitar playing She grew up playing traditional country and toured with the female rock band Painting Daisies but I'd say she has a real solo career in front of her. Women are strong, no question, but this woman's guitar playing was tough, while still being lyrical.

The final performer was Shakura S'Aida. We've seen Shakura before and as a singer, she is power personified. Physically imposing, she prowls the stage in her 6 inch heels, her voice coming from someplace deep inside her, this woman is a force of nature. This year Shakura brought someone special with her. Donna Grantis is a very young woman who came on stage in her gold lame dress, her little open toed gold heels and her sparkly purple guitar .. and proceeded to blow the roof off of Massey Hall. Then Jimi, think Stevie (if you have to ask who Jimi and Stevie are, you're reading the wrong blog) pouring out of this young lady. A ton of technical skill and a ton of confidence. You have to have confidence to play along side Shakura and the two of them complimented each other will, trading Donna's searing electric guitar with Shakura's earth moving natural instrument.

Blues is tough music. These were strong women. It made for a powerful night.

THE SIMPLE THINGS

It's definitely the simple things that are important. The little moments, perhaps unnoticed at the time, but those that linger in the memory for long afterwards. The memory is nice but you wish you had paid more attention at that time, at the moment it occurred, but sometimes its easy to let them pass without proper notice.

Today, I was lucky enough to take note. I had taken the girls for their customary morning walk .. or I should say run. Border collies, be they 10 months old like Terra, or 10 years old like Hayley, would always rather run than walk. This morning we did it in the park, in the cold pouring rain and in the mud. Which means we all came home drenched and mud spattered, some of us happier than the others.

After a quick wipe down of the dogs (yes, my house smells like wet dog, yes my car smells of wet dog, but it also smells of wet hippie, I've learned to lived with it all) they both were happy to take a nap. Terra wipes down easily. She still doesn't have her full adult coat and her short, fluffy puppy fur dries quickly. Miss Hayley is a different story. That is a lot of fur. Even by the standards of border collies, my girl has a massive coat, and in the rain it becomes just an endless mess of curls. Plus, her old bones feel the cold a bit more than the puppy.

So up on the couch Hayley goes and I wrap her up in a blanket. Hey, don't you roll your eyes at me. This is the best method of drying her off and anyway, you look into those beautiful, wise brown eyes and not spoil her rotten. So, I'm a suck. A manly suck, but a suck nonetheless.

I went into my studio to work and came out into the living room hours later. And there it was, that lovely little simple moment of pleasure. My two dogs, my two girls, each in their own space, snoozing happily, satisfied from their morning play, warm and dry and content, both of them now at an age where they are content to relax all on their own.

Come on. Don't be a tough guy. You know you want to say "Awwww"

.

How can you not just feel better looking at these two? Wet-dog-smelly .. yes. Cute-as-shit .. absolutely.

Two sleepy dogs, wrapped in their blankets, just as simple as that ...

... sometimes simple works.

THE "YOU AIN'T EVER TOO OLD TO HAVE THE BLUES" BLUES

Can you to be too old to rock n roll? Rod Stewart, with his failed lounge lizard act says Yes, you can be too old to rock n roll. Mick Jagger, who can still put on an effective live show, says No, you can't be too old to rock and roll ... but you may need oxygen.


Now, can you be too old to make the blues? B.B. King is in his eighties and every time I've seen him, the man amazes me. He may sit on a chair to the do the show, he sometimes loses the lyrics, but when Lucille sings, she still puts the shivers down my spine. Buddy Guy is in his 70's. These days Buddy tends to lose focus during his shows and he tends to gab a bit more but his voice is still powerful and he still plays one of the hardest, meanest, scariest electric guitars I've ever heard.


What inspired this line of thinking was a concert that Collette and I attended this past Saturday night. It was the 40th anniversary of the Downchild Blues Band, held at Massey Hall. Forty years of grinding it out in bars, mostly, a hardcore party band, touring the world, spitting out always enjoyable recordings but making their living on a stage, usually in some place reeking of beer and desperation. The inspiration for the Blues Brothers, according to Dan Akroyd. And for a band with that kind of longevity, a surprisingly cohesive unit.


Founder Donnie Walsh was there, and singer Chuck Jackson, who still has an impressive set of pipes and who has been with the band for 20 years. The "newest" member of the band was the drummer, who has been with the outfit for 17 years. This current version of the band has been touring together for 15 years. As Jackson put it, "We've been through 1,900 band members and two thousand wives. We still keep in touch with the band members"

Blues is certainly a musical form infused with tradition. Its history is well documented by non musical white guys (like me) but more importantly, it's a music aware of its own traditions and it respects them. Blues is a musical form that has survived, from the cotton fields and juke joints of the Delta to the hard urban streets of Chicago and Memphis, to the the stages of England and Europe during the revival of the sixties. Blues is a live music; I don't know how many blues CDs I have, too many to count and I love listening to them but the blues is a living art form and it lives on a stage near you.

Saturday night Downchild kept the blues alive with the their traditional, rollicking, brand of basement blues; two harmonica players, three horns, Donnie's gutsy slide guitar. A comfortable yet thoroughly entertaining middle ground. Forty years, damnit, they have to be doing something right

If Downchild is middle aged, two other ends of the spectrum were well documented. Colin Linden opened the show; you may not know Colin but you should. Besides his own albums, Colin has produced and/or appeared as a sideman on about 300 others and his original tunes have been covered by an awful lot of people. I love Colin's voice, I love his kind of goofy exuberance but man, when he plays that Dobro guitar with a steel slide, it sends shivers up your spine. Colin has been around, not for 40 years, so not quite middle aged.

Downchild brought some players up on stage to jam with them. One of them was a young rock singer called Jonas who had a hell of voice and rocked out with the old men like someone who really appreciated this music. Collin James always showed up and traded licks with Donnie. He didn't sing and I love his voice but this is another guitar that gets the nerve ends tingling. So some blues teenagers in the house, if you get my point.

There was one very special player up on that stage as well, and he represents the blues tradition as well as anyone alive. If I have to put my thumb on a single album that kick started my love affair with the blues, it may be a Muddy Waters album from the 70's called Hard Again. That album featured Johnny Winters and a harmonica player named James Cotton. Cotton is in his eighties, the last living member of Muddy's band and one of the last flesh and blood links back to the Delta. There he was, perched atop his chair, chugging away at his harp, a huge smile on his face. Every person who came up on that stage to play made a point of going to him, shaking his hand or just touching his shoulder. The living blues. No shit.

The other special guest of the evening was Dan Akroyd. He was the emcee, he came on to dance and grunt and play his harp. I have to love Akroyd in this context. I have to. Cuz Akroyd is me. A white guy of no real discernible talent, with a huge passion for this music, who gets to jam with James Cotton. Shit, he may be like my personal deity. And, oh, by the way, as part of the Blues Brothers, also managed to sell a few million dollars. I am so not worthy.

So a great night, one of a kind, blues played in many of its flavours but played hard and soft and sweet and dirty but played to make us stand up and dance and played to help all the men on stage feel connected to that dark, sweet pulse of the Delta

Yes, they were all men but coming up .. the Women's Blues Review.

STATE OF DISUNION

Do we get the system we deserve? Or maybe we rise (or descend) to the level of gov't that we can handle.


To wit: This week I had to take Collette to the emergency dept at North York Gen. Monday she had so much pain she could barely work and it had gotten much worse by Tuesday. She had phoned her doctor, but it was too late to see her, so she suggested we go to the hospital.


When we got to the ER it was moderately busy. Lots of kids. Everyone running around with masks, fearing N1H1 lurking in the vending machines. A little disconcerting actually, all the nurses with the masks on, some even with goggles, like a scene from a B movie where some manufactured plague is about to turn us all into zombies ..


The triage nurse saw Collette pretty quickly and she was officially registered. That was a set up, really, perhaps the hospital's cruel way of toying with us. Because that speed was definitely a misnomer. To cut the story short (OK, I know, that's not like me, but I currently have a cold, and yeh, I should have worn the fucking mask) we sat there for 7 hours. Seven hours, in an ER that wasn't busy and barely had an ambulance come in.


Looking around and overhearing some of the other patients I did get kind of miffed that there were people there who perhaps didn't need to be in an ER. A very loud couple was sitting by us, reeking of booze and the guy's basic complaint sounded a lot like heartburn. Eventually they left, before being seen, after creating a bit of scene. They were inspired to do so by a mother who screamed and wailed because her child was not being attended to in a timely fashion. I don't blame her but it did open the floodgates of people going up to the nurse and yelling. That really didn't work. It only inspired one doctor to tell Security to keep the patients away from him.


Yeh, we wouldn't want that, would we. Doctors interacting with patients. Ewww.


Part of the problem is that after 11 pm, the ER loses one doctor. Yeh, a big hospital in one of the more densely populated areas of Toronto, gosh we won't have any patients after 11 ............ will we?


We all know that Ontario cut back medical services. The same gov't that allowed shop owners to steal millions of dollars of gov't sponsored lottery money and, as an alternative to brick and mortar medical funding, set up online services and the like, like E-health ... which basically turned out to be some kind of pork barrel swindle that wasted billions of dollars of tax payer money. Oh yeh, the same gov't that gave themselves a 23 thousand dollar raise, to improve our quality of service. And we sat our ass for 7 hours in an emerg, before anyone saw us.

When Collette finally saw the doctor, she was out in about 15 minutes with a diagnosis of a kidney infection and a prescription for antibiotics. So we were out there ... too bad the diagnosis was wrong. So not only do we wait for 7 hours, we don't even get the service we needed.

We ended back in the ER the next night. It was even less busy than the night before. Another 6 hrs before being seen by a doctor. At least this time he got the diagnosis right, Collette had a bowel infection. They kept her overnight and sent her home with better drugs. She's doing better now but had to take the week off work.

I'm pretty much pissed about all this. I'm sorry, but I find the quality of service we got verging on shitty. I know I'm not alone in that, and I know, I know, many many people have it way worse. Yet we put up with it. We whine and we bitch and we know its fucked up but we keep getting these inept immoral govts who seem designed to only serve themselves. Like, we'll give ourselves the biggest raise in the history of provincial gov'ts by you all will have to do with fewer doctors.

What?

A recent ombudsman report basically stated that our government's are slow, unresponsive, inept and disenfranchised from their voters and that this has been building for some time. And we built it folks, no doubt about that. We let them lie and bamboozle us and when they fuck up we let them get away with it.

We had to wait 7 hours to see a doctor, but if someone parks the wrong way on my street, they get a ticket in five minutes ...

Yup, we get the gov't we want.

CITY DECORATES OUR HOUSE WITH YELLOW ..

As of this writing, the front of my house is wreathed with yellow crime scene tape, there are three police cars with their flashers on and my lawn is littered with car parts ..

No, I didn't finally lose it after watching Michael Jackson get called a "genius" just because he's dead, and going postal. Earlier today, I'm working here at home and I hear this loud crash, the windows rattle and it causes Terra to jump out of the window where she likes to nap. My first thought was the propane explosion last year that likewise rattled the windows.

What it was, was a car crash, that was actually something more. Our next door neighbour was turning into his driveway and was clipped by another SUV barrelling down the road at a high rate of speed. That car mounted the sidewalk, ripped across my front lawn, hit the street and skidded to a broadside stop, its rear tires blown and the entire passenger side smashed in. Three young guys got out and proceeded to fuck off down through the yards of the neighbourhood.

Luckily, my neighbour is fine but I don't really know how. Both vehicles are pretty wrecked and there literally are bits of cars all over my lawn. The speeding truck missed my nephew Jeff's parked car by inches; after he had the body repaired from being dinged up by a hail storm.

Cops were called of course and we learned that the SUV had actually hit a kid, a teenager, about a block away, by Glencarin subway station. I'm not sure of the status of the young person, but it doesn't sound good. But there is more to the story. These guys were running because they had pulled an armed robbery on a Money Mart. So they're running around my neighbourhood, with guns. The police suggested I not take the dogs down to the local park. Duh.

We seem to be hearing, now, that there may have been a string of robberies, and they have part of the nearby Allen Expressway shut off. They're still investigating the mess out in front of the house. Both vehicles are still out there and I was reprimanded for "stepping on evidence" which turned out to be a tire skid mark.

It makes me angry. All this chaos. For what. I'm no stranger to crime, I'm no stranger to criminals. I understand some of the motivations that put people in these situations. I've committed crimes myself (more than the torture of grammar I submit my readers to here) but I never indulged in crimes of violence. A kid is seriously hurt, maybe dead, my neighbour could have easily been seriously hurt, my street looks like a bomb went off there .. for what? How much fucking money did these guys get? I just hope that they don't create anymore chaos as they run around out there with guns.

So here we are, perfectly safe in our house. Well, not really safe. Instead of the girls getting their customary 90 minutes of exercise in the park, they got 40 minutes of me kicking the soccer ball (under helicopter spotlights) in the yard. So I have a pair of under exercised border collies.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

YOUTUBE ATE MY ZOMBIES: A RANT

I don't use Youtube to host the videos that I post in this blog. I use Vimeo I have used Youtube in the past but I was never satisfied with the quality I got, no matter how I compressed the video. Vimeo allows me to use the Apple H.264 codec and get a very good quality video. The only downside to Vimeo is that using the free version as I do, I'm limited to how much I can upload in a week. Not usually a huge issue, but it can be inconvenient. The other "downside" to Vimeo is that it is not nearly as popular as Youtube.

The video of the Zombie Crawl in the previous post is hosted on Vimeo. But judging by the number (and variety) of motion cams I saw a the zombie crawl, I knew there must be a lot of video out there, probably on Youtube. Collette suggested I post the video on Youtube, so more people could see it.

So I did, and I got a couple of surprises. Firstly, I was pretty shocked at the quality of the video. I uploaded the same 315 mb H.264 file I used on Vimeo and the Youtube quality was good. Really really good. I was very happy with that, in that Youtube doesn't limit the number of vids you can upload and you can load very long vids too. My main purpose for hosting vids is to put them on this blog but it is nice to think that the vid will be hosted on a site accessible to so many people.

But my bliss was quickly demolished by a cold hard reality (isn't that always the way?) Now, I make these vids for fun, I don't use this blog to promote my business or showcase my commercial videos. It's just for entertainment. But i do have a certain standard I like to maintain so I spend some time creating the soundtracks; selecting the music, mixing it with the ambient sound from the video, making a nice mix between different songs, etc. Well, Youtube doesn't give a shit about that. I was totally shocked to find that Youtube had completely removed the audio from my video. All of the audio

The reasoning was copyright violations. Yes, I used commercial music, three songs I think. And yes, I do get the whole creative licence thing. I have had my own work pilfered by other studios and used as their promo, it's not good. But that's business. I'm certainly not making money off this blog or any of the videos on it and it would not be difficult for anyone to take them and use them as their own. I don't like that idea, but I can live with it.

And I get the legal ramifications. And I understand that sharing communities like Youtube are being spanked by entirely greed based entities like the recording industry (and if you think that this kind of legal action actually puts more money in the pockets of the artists, may I visit your planet some day?) So, OK, Youtube scorched my goofy little vid to protect themselves ... I've hosted vids on Google and they do the same thing. Though I have to say I have vids there whose soundtrack Youtube didn't remove and one video they removed entirely for copyright infringements... and since it was home video of Hayley, I'm wondering who's being protected here ...

So, now, what to do. I thought I could always go back and re edit the video using only the natural ambient sound. Creatively, this doesn't appeal to me and it was more work than I was willing to do. Then I find was looks like a solution, a Youtube feature called Audio Swap. They have a library of music that you are allowed to use. It's a pretty good library, with recognizable songs and artists. So although I had put a lot of thought into my original music choices I was willing to live with what the choices with which I was provided. But of course, there is always a rub ...

The problem with Audioswap is that it replaces your entire soundtrack, not just the music. So all the ambient sound was gone as well. So I wondered, was there a way I could download this song from Youtube and use it as my music bed, still maintaining that ambient sound? The answer was yes ... if I was willing to buy the song from iTunes.

OK, take a long pause here. Let's think about this. Youtube removed my audio because it contained music to which I did not have publishing rights, for a video from which I have no expectation of making money. Their solution: Pay them to use a song in my non profit hobby video.

You have to love greed, don't ya?

So the video is living there at the moment with a song from Audioswap, looking dorky because there are moments in the video where people are speaking and even singing but you can no longer here. It's too bad, cuz something has changed at Youtube and I'm finally able to get the quality of video I like, and I like the fact I could post much bigger files and more files there. But you know, I just don't think I can deal with this kind of bullshit. A file sharing site should be about people expressing their creativity to other people, it shouldn't be about said site imposing their concept of economic correctness on to you.

So let's all love Vimeo. Great quality uploads, freedom of expression and a real sense of community.

As for Youtube, clearly, the zombies ate its brain

TORONTO ZOMBIE CRAWL: "BRAINS! WITH A SIDE OF CHEESE"

I don't have much time. I think they're near. I can hear them, their feet shuffling in the hall, and the drone of their moans and groans, that makes my nerves go on edge. And I can smell them, a rancid combination of rotting flesh and freshly consumed brains ...

Zombies! Toronto has been taken over by zombies! Thousands of them, lurching through he street, eating flesh and screaming "Brains! Brains!"

I stumbled upon them quite by accident, gathered at a downtown park not far from the Ontario Art Gallery. Hmmm, is there some correlation between gov't sponsored culture and a lack of brains?

At any rate, there were thousands of zombies, being trained for their assault on the city.

I'm not sure where they come from but apparently this happens every year around this time, perhaps it's connected to some arcane astronomical event or perhaps an ancient redundant curse. It doesn't really matter. All that counts is that my city has been inundated with the shuffling undead. They're leader, a seemingly charming young lady who must secretly be some kind of Voodoo High Priestess, gave her minions their marching orders or, rather, their lurching orders. A route through the city was laid out for them. I noticed they bypassed City Hall and Queen's Park. Clearly, not enough brains to satiate their hunger.

I noticed a police presence. Hooray I thought. We're going to vanquish the undead horde! Alas, that was not to be. Apparently the Metro Police have fallen under Zombie Queen's spell, they were assisting the zombies! Perhaps it's voodoo. More likely it's time and a half.

The zombies began their crawl through the city, nibbling on each other and slurping down the liquid sustenance that supports them .. apparently this is Tim Horton's coffee.

I managed to sneak in among the horde and although several of them made hideous attacks on me, nobody ate my brain ............................. I won't ponder on this for long. But I was able to observe and record the horrible assault on tape. It's a good thing zombies aren't very observant. They missed my Canon XL1 , and the mid range HD cams and the broadcast cams and the super 8 cams and the 16 mm cam and ... there were a lot of cams, that's what I'm saying.

Strangely enough most of the citizens seemed to welcome the brain eating throng; hey it's a parade! Torontonians are so easy.

Finally the zombies ended their crawl at a place where they could kick back, relax and enjoy themselves in all their mindless glory. They went to watch horror movies.

Toronto Zombie Walk from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THANKSGIVING 2: TURKEY IN THE BUSH

OK I'm going to let you on a secret, held so dear that after I reveal it, I may have to go into Witness Protection. I'm going to tell you how they do Thanksgiving up on the Georgian Bay. Every year, the hearty plaid-coated males camo paint their faces and wrap their Canadian Ale neck ties around their heads, Rambo-style. They arm themselves with combat knives and cans of ale and go out in search of the rare Northern Ontario wild turkey ... but since there are no wild turkeys in Ontario, they slink on their bellies down the aisles of the nearest Sobey's Supermarket. Once the elusive prey is caught, they bring it to their hearty women who forthwith build massive bonfires and toss the birds into the flames as they scour the countryside in search of stuffing and potatoes and Bailey's Irish Cream ...

OK, none of that is true. But a Georgian Bay Thanksgiving is still attractive.

Normally we don't do much for Thanksgiving, we stay at home, I cook a turkey, we invite anyone else who isn't going home .. but this year we went up to Springhaven Lode, owned by Collette's family.

Collette's sister in law Karen was serving her usual delicious dinner at the lodge, but her brother Dennis was organizing a boat ride out on to the bay. He does this every year. Takes out his big work boat and we go to an island where he is building one of his cottages for his clients. There we have a lunch and play games but the weather this year was pretty bad, our niece Billie Marie had her newborn, David in tow and Dennis' daughter Jen was expecting .. as a matter of fact she had her son the following Tuesday.

But Dennis is a resourceful guy not so easily defeated. On the road that leads from Dennis' house to the lodge, there is a little clearing marked by some of the high, heavy rounded rocks typical of the Canadian Shield.

If you follow the rocks back, it opens into a small clearing, where Dennis set up a lean to, picnic tables and had a fire going, where we would have our lunch.

If you walked past the fire, the clearing opened up onto this enormous wetland, or swamp depending on point of view, that went on for miles. There were several beaver dams, the ominpresent rocks, tons of pine and birch trees.

Down at the lodge, less than a mile away it was cold, grey and blustery but here it was mild and mostly sunny. As you'll see in the video, it was a perfect day to bask on the rock over looking the swamp ..er .. wetland.

And a perfect day for grandads to connect with granddaughters ...

... and for grand nephews to enjoy some quiet time with a snack in an Adirondack chair ..

After a lovely day out in the bush, we went back to the lodge for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. One of the guests of honour, you could say, was our niece's Billie-Marie's newborn, Mr David Hunter.

But as beautiful as Mr David is, as far as his sister Addison is concerned, nothing beats the attractive power of cake ...

Particularly when the cake looked like this. Addison decided that all the little people on the cake were the tastiest parts

So it was a fun Thanksgiving in the bush ... even if we didn't have to catch the bird with our hands ... Here's the video of our lovely picnic in the bush.

A Canadian Thanksgiving from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THANKSGIVING 1: THE GIRLS

Been pretty busy with work lately so I'm behind on my posting. So here is the first of two posts on our Thanksgiving earlier this month. We were delighted when Collette's brother Garry invited us up to the family lodge to celebrate the holiday. The entire family would be there including David, our latest nephew of a niece so we were very eager to attend.

Besides seeing Collette's family and being able to enjoy the beauty of the Georgian Bay in Fall, we had another inspiration to go up to Pointe Au Baril; Terra had never been there before.
Hayley has always loved going up to Springhaven Lodge; the water, the bush, the road and this time of year there aren't many guests staying there, so she usually has run of the place. We knew Terra would love it too, this dog is nuts about water. It has an undeniable affect upon her, it's like border collie crack.

She took to it like a duck to water, or a border collie to sheep or .. well, there's a video attached, check it out.

Of course Terra was a fanatic when it came to fetching the ball out of the water. That was a given. But she also got to indulge in one of her favorite sports: Herding ripples. In the video you'll see her pawing at the water but what she is actually doing is using her paws and mouth to make the ripples go where she wants them to go. No, she's not nuts, she's just a border collie.

Besides the water, the new experience for Terra was the bush. Trees. Lots of trees. Terra loves trees, squirrels live in trees and it's Terra duty to chase them out. But here in the Toronto parks you have little groups of trees, say three or four, scattered about. Up there .. well, there's a tree every foot or so. At one point Terra was pretty much spinning in circles, barking her fool head off.

Then there were the smells. Although we live in the middle of Toronto we do have a lot of wildlife around here; squirrels, raccoons, skunks, possums, foxes, rabbits .. there are even coyotes not far from here. But up north there are deer, fishers, moose, bears ... the latter of which almost said "hello" to my plastic car on the drive up. Their smells drove poor Terra crazy. Hayley of course is a good bear dog. I remember the first time she found bear scat. She came up to it, gave it a sniff and started to circle it, till she ended up behind me, pointing in the opposite direction as if she was saying "Dad, let's get the fuck out of here."

And yes, Hayley was still able to enjoy her beloved Springhaven even with an annoying puppy in tow. The old girl has, actually, come to appreciate the puppy; hey damn, I have my very own sheep to herd ..

So water, trees, critters, long walks, fetching, herding .. a very successful weekend for our girls. And us. Next post: Turkey in the bush.

Terra & Hayley Up North from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

NUIT BLANCHE 2009: HAVE YOUR SPECTACLE(S) READY

There is nothing better to make you question your definitions of art than Nuit Blanche. This was our second time attending Toronto's all night downtown arts festival and it has quickly become one of our favorite events.

We love this event but we had fear we may have to miss it this year. Saturday was terrible, every time I took out the dogs it poured. When I had them at the off leash in the afternoon a cloud rolled over us that was so dark and rainy and lighting-filled, I expected Toto to come tumbling down to visit us. But by the time Collette and I got downtown after sunset, it had turned into a dry, slightly cool, very lovely autumn evening.

We tended to stick mostly to the outdoor installations, partly because the weather was indeed so good and it was cool to see "art" in the closed off streets but also because the line ups were usually massive for these interior events. Judging what to see is always a dilemma. There were over 130 exhibits, scattered all around the downtown core and slightly to the east of it. It's a cool thing to wander along and spot one of the tall white Nuit Blanche flags and say "Hey, here's something, let's see what it is" They also provide you with a booklet but sometimes interpreting what an installation may be from these vague descriptions can be a dicey affair.

I don't know if a lot of the exhibits we saw this year were art. I think the more appropriate term may be "spectacle" In the sense of something big and unusual and designed to engage the public. The first installation we saw was entitled Ice Queen, Glacial Retreat Dress Tent.

The book described it as "a towering ice berg dress animated by Butoh-inspired dance and glacial imagery ... global warming ... as well as the dress explores desire, body and land from a female-centered perspective"

But basically, you know, it was a chick in a big white tent.

The next installation definitely qualified as spectacle. A giant, sliver rabbit balloon hanging inside the Eaton Centre may not be art, but spectacle it certainly is

The booklet talks about the giant balloon as being able, through its size and its reflective qualities, to transport us through the looking glass. Sure. Maybe it's not a carrot that the rabbit is holding but something that requires a flame

From the giant bunny we went on to an installation that really does define spectacle. It was called Battle Royal and it took place at the downtown bus terminal. Again, referring to the book, "Occupying a space between literary representation, wrestling spectacle and art performance, Battle Royal is an unscripted event ... manifesting the artist's own personal fear of societal invisibility"

When we got there, the giant cage they had built in the middle of the bus depot was not filled with gladiators. It was filled with volunteers, blind folded, stumbling around, bumping into each other and tossing each other to the ground as a narrator proclaimed "There is no contact during this round"

Art? Spectacle? Audience participation, certainly. Did it meet the aspirations of the book's eloquent description? Not hardly. But we learned that the "real wrestlers" would fight later, so we decided to come back. The nice thing about Nuit Blanche, it runs all night, we had plenty of time.

Back into the crowd, into the night, large stretches of Bay Street closed off, people milling about, searching for the tall white flags and wondering what they would lead us to. Cool. Cool. We passed by a couple of other installations. Pwn the Wall was a kind of electronic graffiti, where people stood in a little tent and used a digital "spray can" to create images on a screen that were projected, in real time, on the giant wall of the Canadian Tire store across the street.

Over at Nathan Phillip square, these giant LED's had been hung between the two towers that make up City Hall. Words were being created by the lights, all of them only four letters in length. And no, we didn't stay long enough to find out if "that" four letter word was among them.

As I state, it's fun to wander around, seeking the flags and seeing what you've stumbled upon. At the old Court House, we spotted the Nuit Blanche flag and a huge crowd milling about. Up on the steps, was a bearded guy with this word balloon sign over his head:

This was something pretty cool. It was something very simple. It was a guy called Dave, and his friends, who wanted to connect with people the old fashioned organic way. So while many of the installations employed technology to deliver their message, there would be no cell phones or texting here. You want to talk to Dave, you walk on up and say Hey. Nope, this wasn't art and I'm not sure it was spectacle, but it made me smile and struck a sympathetic nerve. Now, the line up was huge so I didn't actually get to say Hey to Dave, but brother I loved this idea.

From the City Hall area we wandered down Bay St into Toronto's financial district. This was the first time for Nuit Blanche that they blocked this street off. At night, even on the weekend, Bay St is like a ghost town. So it was very cool to see it crowded with people, walking, talking, laughing ... for me, this was spectacle in itself, and maybe even art.

The normally quiet street got even more raucous the further south we went. We stumbled upon a little carnival; rides, cotton candy, hot dogs, all down the middle of the street. But this is Nuit Blanche, and of course it wasn't just a carnival. This was an installation, called Wild Ride.

The rides and concession stands were all manned by financial sector workers who had lost their jobs. The idea seemed to be it's all just a game, played for fun, except the stuffed bunnies are real people and the game represents people's lives.

Just the idea of the carnival on Bay St was enough for me to like it. Isn't Bay St a kind of carnival already? So spectacle, with cotton candy. That's my favorite kind.

At that point we went back up to Yonge & Dundas for dinner and from there, decided to slide back over to the bus station to see what was happening with the Battle Royal. Oh, a spectacle of roman (please note the small "r") proportions. The pro wrestlers were in. A battle royal is an event where they load the cage with wrestlers and they begin to throw each other out. Last man standing, wins.

Well, no blindfolded wrestler was throwing another blindfolded wrestler out of this huge cage. There were ref's but they were your typical pro wrestling refs, apparently as blindfolded as the wrestlers and drunk but I'm assuming they were acknowledging tap outs and tossing out fighters.

This round of the Battle Royal may have come closer to the concept of Roman spectacle. Not so much for the wrestlers themselves, though they were going at it hammer and tong, but more for the audience. Collette found herself surrounded by some die hard wrestling fans. Diehard, because they knew all these guys and trust me, this is the very shallow end of the pro wrestling pool, if you know these guys you are diehard indeed.

I still don't really know what the artist intended here, but this was spectacle, especially as the crowd got into it, chanting and gesticulating, as you'll see in the video. There is no way on earth that you could have thought this was real, but the guys were selling with all their hearts and I don't think the fans cared; they wanted this involvement, they needed this connection. Perhaps there is an art in that.

From the bus station we wandered back down Bay St to Larry Sefton Park to view an installation called Ghost Chorus, Dirge for Dead Slang. The book describes it as: "ghostly apparitions raise their voices to the driving melancholic baseline from the beyond to revifify outmoded slang of the long and recent past"

But what it was, was a bunch of people in sheets reading stuff in voices so low that you couldn't understand what were they were saying even when right next to them. Art? I don't know, but a fail on the spectacle.

From the park we went up to BCE place to see The Witches Cradles. Apparently back in the witch trial days, they would hoist women up in these shrouds to torture them and they were later "reclaimed" by witches. In this exhibit, you could have yourself put in the cradle, blindfolded, ears plugged, like a sensory deprivation chamber. People were hoisted up in these pods and slowly swayed. I'm a bit too claustrophobic for this experience but it's an interesting idea. Not much artistry here, everything was contemporary and functional and from an audience stand point, not much in the way of spectacle.

Down the street, in the Royal Bank Plaza, we found a brightly coloured mini van with furniture on top of it and an animal skull stuck to the hood. It was part of Gone Indian 2009. The performance featured a male dancer in fairly traditional fancy dance and a woman in dungarees who added some kind of dramatic commentary.

The woman had bags of pennies, which she sliced open, dumping on the ground. At one point in his dance, the man kicked the coins, scattering them about. In front of the gigantic Royal Bank building, with its windows that contain real gold, the significance of this act by these First Nations people were not lost on me.

From the plaza we went down to Union Station for the final installation of the evening. It was called Imminent Departure and it became one of our favorite exhibits of the evening.

The Great Hall in Union Station had been transformed. Wreathed in smoke and miss, dark, the big clock seeming to float in limbo. Sounds skirled through the cavernous space. Voices, bits of conversation, the sound of trains, footsteps echoing on the marble. Ghosts. Travellers, their spirits still travelling, as if their bodies had long departed this space but their voices still lingered, forever caught in transit.

At one point one of the ghost trains came into the station, the sound of the wheels rumbling, actually shaking the floor, great gouts of steam spewing across the huge room

We really really liked this piece. It was just filled with emotion and feeling and portent. We could have lingered there for an hour but at this point it was almost 4 a.m. and definitely time to make our way home. We had dogs to walk in a few hours.

All in all a very successful night. Great weather, great crowds and some pretty cool stuff to see. So, was it art? I don't know, Art is probably just some guy. But a lot of it was certainly spectacle: Something unique that attracts audience attention. And ephemeral. Hard to think that in a few hours after we left Union Station the mist and the ghosts would be gone. The carnival would have disappeared from Bay Street. The cage full of sweating men would no longer be in the bus station. The city would return to normal. With only the memory of the ghosts and the spirits and the singing lingering, if only for a while.

So here's the video. It features the exhibits we visited. Music by Sarah Brightman and Enigma. Forgive the grain on the ghostly reading exhibit, it was damn dark in there, but I wanted to give you a sense of the audio, or lack of it. Other than that, I love some of these images, especially the city at night, and all the people wandering through it. Can't wait till next year.

Nuit Blanche 2009 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.