A Tale of Two Yoga Mats

           

            I woke up at 5:00 on Saturday, May 21st, despite having gone to bed more than an hour earlier than usual the night before. As I got up I was looking forward to taking an afternoon nap.

            A few days ago I started using the new yoga mat that I’d gotten a few months before at the Salvation Army thrift store. I had been using the old mat for over ten years. I don’t think that they are both of the same material, unless the material goes through major changes over time. The new one is sticky and foamy while the old one allows more sliding, which was good when I did the splits four times every morning. Now I have to get off the new mat and do that exercise on the wooden floor. The old one was getting holes in it though and the edges around those holes were frayed, so I had to make the change.

            That evening I took my bike ride, but it was chilly compared to the day before, so I didn’t wear shorts. I rode to Danforth and Eaton, up to Aldwych and then down Woodcrest. The alley behind Woodcrest had more of that graffiti on garage doors that looks like it was part of a high school art project. Over the entrance to a back yard, a Jolly Roger was hanging. Inside there was the sound of raucous play. One kid was calling out, “I come in peace! I surrender! I surrender!”

On the way west on Danforth I passed a man riding his electric wheelchair on the street. I’d seen people do that before, so it didn’t strike me as that odd. At a traffic light, a guy on an electric bike turned to me and said, “That’s crazy!” I asked, “What’s crazy?” “That guy riding a wheelchair on the road!” he told me. I suggested that sometimes they find it hard to get up onto the curb. “He’s gonna get himself killed!” he argued.

Further along, I followed a motorcycle club before they turned north. The crest on their leather jackets read “Pan Hellenic”. I guess they would have gotten their asses kicked if they’d called themselves the “Hellenic Angels”. I looked them up and found that Pan Hellenic was started in 2014 in Toronto and they have expanded into southern Quebec and northern Indiana. They are not a gang.

I saw one of the best names ever for a restaurant: “Bite Me!”

            On the way down Yonge Street, I came upon a stopped taxi with a cyclist standing in front, taking down his license number. The taxi driver was very polite and he was also the first white taxi driver I’ve seen in years. He told the guy, “I’m sorry! I didn’t see you in my mirror!”

            There was a big crowd at Yonge and Dundas and the air was full of barbecue smoke.

            Going west on Queen, I had to deal with another one of those inconsiderate cyclists who jumps ahead at the red light and then drives really slow, holding me back. He did this for several lights in a row, even though I kept passing him.

            I was waiting for the light to change at Augusta when a loud woman in her seventies with a New York accent said to me as she was walking by,  “You’re taking your life in your hands riding without a helmet! The way they drive in this city?” She must have been very attracted to me to feel compelled to groom me like that.

Peckinpah

           

            On the morning of Friday, May 20th, Amarillo went outside for the first time in weeks. I worry about him though, because he’s limping and not in great shape otherwise either.

This was the third week in a row of no students coming to my yoga class. I had seen Anna and Michelle a couple of days earlier while I was riding on Queen. Anna called “Hi” to me but I was on my way to the food bank, so I didn’t stop to chat. I don’t think that PARC is that conducive to yoga. They apparently get a big turnout for the Mindfulness sessions but I think that’s mostly talking with a little meditation thrown in at the end. People like to talk because, unlike yoga, it’s not work.

            In the Healing Centre where I hold my classes there is an old, long, wooden church pew. I stretched out on that for half an hour while waiting for students. I know I dozed a bit because a snore woke me up twice. I left at 15:00, and would have just gone for my bike ride if hadn’t been so hot and sunny. I wanted to change into my shorts for the first time this year, but once I was home I decided that I could decrease my chances of getting sunburn if I slept for a while and went at around 17:30. I tried to sleep but I didn’t feel tired anymore after dozing at PARC.

            I was riding east on Bloor near Dovercourt when I heard a siren. An ambulance was coming in my direction and one could hear it for quite a while. Nonetheless, when it was about to cross Dovercourt, someone carrying a pink yoga mat caused it to stop when she stepped out in front of it to cross the street.

            I had to thread through traffic on the Danforth because it was tied up by having to go around cars stopped on the right side, I suppose while someone or everyone from them ran into stores with quick intentions.

            I rode up Pape to Mortimer and then down Woodcrest. On the way west along Danforth, I stopped at a light behind two other cyclists, when another guy on a bike pulled up to the front beside the first rider. Then he jumped the light just enough to get ahead but then rode so slow that no one could get past. I finally found an opening and passed him, but he tried to do the very same thing at the next light. I was about to pass him again when, without looking back, he started to veer out towards me to get around some parked cars. I had to shout out “Passing!” to get his attention. Fortunately I stayed ahead of him from that point on.

            I only had one pen left and so I stopped at the bank to get some money and then went to Staples to buy a pack of Strata fine point gel pens.

            University Avenue was fragrant with blossoming trees.

            I’m down to just a few more episodes of the first season of Gunsmoke. A handful of the stories were written by Sam Peckinpah, and those all stand apart from the rest as being a little bit quirky. The Peckinpah screenplay I watched on Friday night was called “The Guitar”. A Texas yokel named Weed wanders into Dodge and is befriended by two other Texans until they find out that in the Civil War, Weed fought for the Union army. They decide to hang Weed while Matt Dillon is out of town. Chester stops them. When they hear Weed play his guitar (though one can tell the actor isn’t really playing) the saloon falls in love with him. When Weed goes outside to water his burro though, the same two men smash his guitar. Matt kicks them out of Dodge but they wait for Weed to leave town and then ambush him. The men of Dodge though, unbeknownst to Matt, stop Weed’s hanging and hang the two men instead. Earlier when Matt asked Weed why a Texan would have joined the Union army, he answered, “One army’s pretty much the same as another.”

            Amarillo came home around the time I was getting ready for bed.

What's Socrates's Favourite Restaurant?

           

         

            On the morning of Thursday, May 19th I rode up to Social Services to deliver my income report because I’d forgotten to mail it on May 15^th. I also needed to buy kitty litter, which I always get at No Frills because it’s cheaper there, but since their box isn’t easy to carry, I brought my empty bucket along so I could transfer the clay to it and hang it from my right handle bar.
            I took a bike ride at around 17:30. There were big chunky clouds in the sun with heavy dark parts for drama. At Bloor Street a guy was walking his big dog, when halfway across Brock Avenue it stopped and took a crap. In the Annex, a woman with long red hair and blonde roots was wearing a long, green velvet dress. As I travelled east along Bloor Street the clouds were too big to be beautiful until I was crossing over the Don Valley Parkway where the clouds to the north were like upside down mesas. I rode up Pape Avenue to Aldwych and then down Muriel. As I rode west along Danforth I noticed that there are a lot of Greek Restaurants in that area. It occurred to me that they should consider that stretch a Greek community and maybe even organize some kind of annual festival featuring Greek cuisine. I wonder which restaurant on the Danforth Socrates hangs out at.

The Masonry of Not Listening At Fat Albert's Open Stage

            On Wednesday May 18^th I arrived at Fat Albert’s at same time as I have every night that I’ve come there for the last three years. This year though more people have gotten there before me by that time, and the list is longer earlier. I have ended up playing after the feature two weeks in a row, and I find the mood of the audience is different after already having sat there for more than an hour and a half.

Martin Owen was there already and he’d brought another one of his paintings to show everyone. He said that he could be a professional art teacher but the world could end in two weeks. I asked him why he thought that was going to happen and his answer was because there is “so much catastrophe”. I told him that people have always seen the world like that, but if you look back at civilization a few centuries ago the crime rate was sky high. If one were to compare it to today it would be like holding a ten-story building up to the CN Tower. People are much better behaved than they used to be.

Many years ago, Martin had been a student at the Ontario College of Art. He says he got kicked out when he had just a few courses to go. He confessed to me that he’s never been a morning person, but a lot of his classes had been early, and he would freak out after a cup of coffee.

I helped Glen hook up all of the microphone cables.

Michelle Lecce’s wife, Alicia, told me that I had a feather on my pants. It was actually a bit of white cat fur from one of my cats. She and I had a conversation about the beasts and she seemed quite nice.

The open stage started on time. The first performer, as usual, was Charles Winder, whose face looked like it’d gotten sunburn, since the previous week.

Charles began with a type of flamenco guitar piece known as a “taranta”.

I couldn’t really tell the difference between the first flamenco number Charles played and the second.

Glen then introduced Brian Rosen, but since there was no response from the audience, Glen told us, “I say, Brian Rosen, and then you applaud.”

Brian chose this time to sing without the help of his guitar. He told us that he would be doing three short songs about farming.

The first was Connie Kaldor’s “Spring On the Prairies” – “Spring on the Prairies comes like a surprise, one minute there’s snow on the ground, the next there’s sun in your eyes …”

The second song was a traditional farmers song called “Country Life” – “I like to rise when the sun she rises early in the morning … We go rambling through the new mown hay …”

Everyone is only supposed to get two songs but when Brian was finished and Glen walked up to thank him, Brian told him he was going to do one more, but that it would be short. It didn’t seem any shorter than the others. It was another traditional song and it had the title, “The Industrious Farmer” – “Come all ye lads and lasses … with the reaping hook and sickle … it’s in the time of haying our partners we do take …”

Next up was Martin Owen, who Mary Milne arrived just in time to introduce. Martin sings in a wavering bleat similar to that of a sheep. I’ve been listening to the Marc Bolan discography and he sometimes gave his voice that same effect. I’ve never heard Martin sing in any other way though, so I wonder if it’s his natural voice or just an affectation to which he’s attached himself.

Martin started with Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” – “ … I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky turning into butterflies above our nation. We are stardust, billion year old carbon …” Halfway through the song, Martin began to make sound effects with his voice, perhaps in imitation of the lead guitar solo in the middle of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young version – “didadidadidadidadida woow!!!

Martin had brought another of his paintings with him. He told us that it was the painting of a wedding that never happened between him and a girl he couldn’t marry because they were both too unstable.

His second song was Kris Kristoffersen’s “Me and Bobby McGee”, which he claimed that Kristoffersen had written about Janis Joplin. I’d never heard that before, and I didn’t think it was likely, but I give everyone the benefit of the doubt until I’ve done the research. According to the songwriter, it was not inspired in any way by Janis Joplin.

Martin told us his painting is not for sale. I asked how much it’s not for sale for.

Before introducing Dark Cloud, Glen sang, “One of these days and it won’t be long …” Then he asked, “Who sang that? Does anybody know?” Someone said they did. There was a pause and then Glen said impatiently, “Well … how much do you want for the information?” I don’t know if he ever got an answer. I think a lot of songs have that phrase, but I think he was talking about “I Believe To My Soul” by Ray Charles.

When Dark Cloud sat down on stage he told us that he’d been doing a lot of musical homework and organizing. Then he told Alicia, “This is your song.”

The song was one I’d heard him do recently at the Tranzac open stage. In each verse he lists several things he’s lost, while in the chorus he declares that nothing can be taken from him if it’s free already.

Dark Cloud told us that he’d written his second song for the late Levon Helm, and suggested that maybe he would be listening. He said of Helm, “He was a gentleman, a proud southerner and he loved his choo-choo trains …”

At this point, Glen interrupted and told Dark Cloud to play the song.

“Train man where you rolling … humming Dixie, shooting steam … Sing me fighting songs … passing rebel burial grounds … Lincoln’s got it wrong … fix your bayonets, man … Lee’s horse is running strong …”

Then came Bob Allen, with Tom Hamilton on violin and Glen Garry on piano. Bob began with one of his own songs, but didn’t drop the title – “I’m dreaming of Elizabeth … Never thought I’d feel this way, meeting someone new … hope she feels the same about me … it’s been a long time since I seen her kind …” He gave Glen a solo, halfway through.

For Bob’s second song, he covered “The Singing Waterfall” by Hank Williams. The song talks of a waterfall where the narrator used to meet his love, where he still visits her grave and where he still has dreams about meeting her there. Bob gave Tom a solo and he took a pretty fancy one in which he threw in some sliding and picking.

Following Bob was Mark Russell, who began with a Jimmy Rankin song called “Followed Her Around” – “ … I was quite naïve … I wore my heart upon my sleeve … despite the stories I’ve been told, now I don’t go into town, since I followed her around. I stood and watched in disbelief from the shadows of my grief, she wore lipstick black as coal and her boots up to her knees … all the boys were making time … oh how that girl could work a bar … All my kids have come and gone, all except my youngest son … I think he follows her around …”

Tom Hamilton’s fiddle playing is quite versatile. He never plays quite the same for every song.

Mark’s second offering was Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road” – “ … Granddaddy … only came to town about twice a year, he’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line, everybody knew that he made moonshine. Now the revenue man wanted granddaddy bad, he headed up the holler with everything he had … He never came back from Copperhead Road. Now daddy ran the whiskey in a big black Dodge … I volunteered for the army on my birthday, they draft the white trash first, around here anyway … I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico and plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road … I learned a thing or two from old Charlie don’t you know, so you’d better stay away from Copperhead Road.”

Tom’s playing was totally in sync with the changes of the song. Either he’s incredibly sensitive or he and Mark rehearsed this song together beforehand.

When Mark was finished it was time for the feature performer, Michelle Lecce, and she was joined on stage by Tom Hamilton and his violin. She started sitting at centre stage with a guitar. Michelle said that it had been a while since she’d been at Fat Albert’s because she’s recently had problems with her health. She told us that she would be doing three originals and three covers.

The first of her own songs was “Fly” – “I can’t take it anymore, why can’t I just close the door … I can do so much more than dance … Someone special in my life makes me want to be the wife … love has come and built the bridge that leads me to the other side …” Tom had a nice violin solo in the middle.

Michelle moved to the piano for her second song and Ruth Jenkins came up on stage to stand behind a microphone. The song was called “Travelling From Nowhere” and she informed us that it was co-written by Michelle’s wife, Alicia. – “ … I’ve seen many walls, seen many sleepless nights, the sky is my best friend …” Ruth sang a back-up vocal.

Michelle told us that when you’re battling cancer you want every day to be special. Of her third song, called “Give Me Faith”, she said she wrote it a couple of months ago after leaving Sunnybrook Hospital – “Hope spring connection is what I see these days … Once I danced to Bowie, now I’m left with his songs … Where will I be in a month or a year from now … Give me hope, give me connection …” She left a space in the song for Tom and Ruth to play a violin and harmonica duet.

It had been Michelle’s intention to do three covers next, but she was both surprised and disappointed when she was told that she only had time for one more song. She chose Mark Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis” – “ … I saw the ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue, I followed him up to the gates of Graceland and then I watched him walk right through … They’ve got catfish on the table … She said are you a Christian, child, and I said ma’am I am tonight …”

Michelle Lecce is a good musician but her songs are somewhat middle of the road. Though her lyrics convey strong emotions, she doesn’t really say what hasn’t been said better by thousands of others.

The first performer after the feature was Glen Hornblast, who started off with a song that he told us he’d just recorded with Tom Hamilton (What a busy beaver that Tom Hamilton is! I wonder if he follows the whole Fat Albert’s family around with his fiddle and even plays the soundtrack to their most mundane activities.) The song was “When Will I Get Over You?” which could easily be considered Glen Hornblast’s signature song – “I remember your sweet caress when you wore my favourite dress … Love can keep us alive, it can lift us to the skies … When the love affair is through it can break your heart in two … Just like a red, red rose our love started getting old …”

Glen told us that his next song was one that he’d recently written. It had the feel of a country swing tune – “ … That dimple in your chin, the way you flash that silly grin … The way you pour a cup of tea, the way you fold my laundry …” When Glen was done, Tom commented that he would be humming that melody all the way home.

After Glen came Bridget, who I think said that this was her first time at Fat Albert’s and that she would be singing two new original songs.

The first was called “Cherokee Man” – “Well I can tell you a story bout a wise old Cherokee man … roaming the hills of Tennessee … led a band of warriors to the top of the highest hill … tales of battle and bravery, dancing the river birch tree, triumph over our enemy etched in the stones of history …”

Bridget’s second song was “Carry Me Away” – “There you are again looking at me looking at you … Drawing me in, wearing me thin, I can see that you can see right through me.

Then it was time for Ruth Jenkins’s set with Glen Garry on piano, Tom on violin and Wayne Leon on flute. As Ruth was getting set up, Tom was, for some reason, singing the theme song from the old TV show, “Mister Ed” – “A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is of course unless that horse is the famous Mister Ed …”

Glen asks somebody to give them some balance, so Glen Hornblast goes to the soundboard. Ruth agrees and complains, “I can’t hear my guitar against these psychos!”

Ruth’s first song was “Orphan Girl” by Gillian Welch. Glen joked that she was Raquel Welch’s sister and that they made great grape juice together. From the song – “I am an orphan on god’s highway… I have no father, no mother, no sister, no brother …” Then Ruth called out “Save me Tom!” While Tom was doing a solo on mic two, microphone one suddenly dropped in height, by itself. After the next verse, Glen got a solo.

Then Ruth sang Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me”, with harmony by Tom and vocal by Glen. Every instrument on stage got a solo.

I was next. There were no people at all sitting in the first two rows and a smattering in the rest. Most everyone was sitting along the back wall. Because of that I decided not to go on stage, but to stand on the floor, just in front of the middle aisle between the seats. I started with “Hang Up A Ham and a Fiddle In Your Window”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Un Violon, Un Jambon”. I didn’t play it too badly, and I noticed that Mark Russell was tapping his foot to the beat of my song, but it didn’t look like very many members of the audience were paying attention. In fact, there were two or three people standing with their backs to me and having conversations. Maybe some people were on their way out. Maybe the energy was low because it was already 22:00 by the time I’d gotten up. Maybe people had been distracted all night and I hadn’t noticed because when I come I sit and listen until it’s my turn and when I’m done I sit and listen again. Whenever I have something to say to someone I either do it between songs or between performers.

My second song was “Paranoiac Utopia” – “ … Whoever doesn’t share our hell must be the devil, they believe, each greeting is a curse and kind words are an even greater evil. Queen Street West is slippery with ice in summer weather and amidst all this blindness I feel I can see forever …” Playing to so many people that obviously weren’t listening was distracting and so my already precarious command of the chords to this song was slipping on the ice of the audience’s inattention. If the group had been listening, I would have been disappointed in myself for screwing up the chords, but as it was I was disappointed in them and with Fat Albert’s in general. When I sat down, I went back to paying attention, but I was also stewing in anger and depression for the rest of the night.

Isaac Bonk followed me, with the help of Tom.

He did a song I’d heard him do a couple of times before about a girl who’d been abused by her father – “Poor girl … her father the beast … Too small to run … At eight years old her father was too strong, and insists to this day that he did nothing wrong …” Then the song describes the girl’s life after she grew up – “ … She was standing in a doorway exposing her flesh and letting strange men look beneath her mesh …”

Isaac’s second song also told a story from the same sort of dark world. I’d heard him do this one before as well, from the point of view of a man that had fathered a son with a beautiful woman only to have her abandon them both. When the boy turned twenty-one his father gave his son a gun with which after he tracked down his mother he killed her in the middle of the street.

It was Glen Garry’s turn, with the accompaniment of Tom, Ruth and Wayne. As they were getting set up, Glen was reciting some lines from Jim Morrison’s “Soul Kitchen” – “ … Your fingers weave quick minarets, speak in secret alphabet … learn to forget …”

Glen’s first song was “Mystery Train” by Herbert Parker and Sam Philips, with slightly altered lyrics – “ … I watch the train coming round the bend, I don’t have no friends except for Ruthy!” which was Ruth’s cue to take a solo. Then later, Glen called out, “Come on Wayne, knock a hole in this thing!”

Glen finished with “Stormy Monday” by Aaron “T Bone” Walker. Everyone, of course got a solo.

After Mary Milne introduced Peter James, on her way back to her seat she approached Isaac and invited him to do a feature next year at Fat Albert’s. Overhearing this just added insult to injury for me. This was Isaac’s second time at Fat’s while I have been coming for three years and haven’t been offered a spot at all. Back in the 1990s, at the Bloor Street location, I did at least three features at Fat Albert’s between 1994 and 1997, and the first time I didn’t even play an instrument. The second time I sang with a band behind me and the third time I had just started playing guitar.

Peter James played the piano and sang – “I can see, I can feel, round and round we go, in a circle we grow … Sand and sea, you and me … when the prayer of man is written in the sand, we’re all alone inside …”

Peter’s second offering was an instrumental.

Then came Wayne Leon, with Tom, Glen and Ruth. Wayne had put down his flute for this set, and picked up a guitar. Tom described Wayne’s singing voice as a type of sonic chocolate.

From Wayne’s first song, which I assume was an original – “One Sunday I went with Miranda … we dropped into on the way home for some bagels … our fingers entwined in a knot … make love on the big sheepskin rug … made some hot toddies with rum …”. Ruth and Glen had solos at different points in the song.

Wayne’s second choice was the roaring twenties hit ”Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” which a lot of people claimed to have written. Ruth sang back-up vocals.

Meanwhile I was still in a funk over the fiasco of my set. I was thinking about how I sit paying attention all night, no matter how boring other people’s lyrics happen to be. Nobody has to like my songs but they could at least shut the fuck up while I’m trying to play them.

The penultimate performer of the night was Elizabeth Knowlton, with the assistance of Tom. As she was doing her sound check she complained that the monitor sounded like there was “tinsel on the edge of everything”.

Elizabeth didn’t give a title for her first song – “I don’t know what love is, but I know what it’s not. It’s not attraction or even satisfaction … I don’t know what I’m doing here …” Glen was sitting in the front row with his camera, recording Elizabeth’s performance. While continuing to play, she said, “I just completely lost what I was doing! If you point a camera at me I fall apart!”

She finished the song and then Glen gave her some advice: “Just keep playing! Don’t let on that you’ve made a mistake!”

Before starting her second song, Elizabeth commented, “We’re lucky to have Tom to make us all sound like angels!”

From her second song – “If my helplessness bothers you please turn your face away … I’m paying for this fear of the dark … I must be Jesus, my hands are sore, I have been forsaken, I can’t take it anymore … This wilderness is wide enough for my soul.”

I say that Elizabeth was the second last performer, but while she was playing we all thought she was the last. It was at the last minute that Mama D came in and asked if she could do something. I think that there should be some kind of rule in place that if someone is too late to listen to the last three performers then one shouldn’t get to play. An open stage should also be about listening.

From Mama D’s first song – “ … If they take us in the morning, it’s not quietly I’ll go …”

From her final song – “Somewhere, sometime long ago, it started with a beat … Papa taught me how to dance … I learned my alphabet and dreamed of being free … Teach me how to spin a tale … Every child’s a blessing and should not learn how to fight …”

I did not help to put Fat Albert’s to bed. I had already helped it out of bed, and I would have stayed if I hadn’t been so pissed off.

As I rode west on Cecil Street, a cold moon was shining through broken clouds. I could relate.

At Queen and Ossington, someone had set fire to the cardboard and paper set outside of Starbucks for recycling. The flames had already caught hold of one of the two wheeled plastic bins and they were three meters high. I guess I was too down to really think about it until I’d passed it by, but I stopped about ten doors west and dug out my camera. I started walking back towards the fire, shooting video as the fire truck wailed its way to a stop at the corner. I walked about five doors from the flames but one of the firemen turned and looked at me, so I figured I was as close as they wanted me to be. It took them about five seconds to put out the fire, but I got some good footage of the little inferno and its reflection in the shop windows.

            There was something about the fire, like the moon, that also reflected my mood. Just as the moon was breaking through obscurity, the fire had dealt with other people’s garbage.

Expiration Dates at the Food Bank

           

            I was in the line-up to get a number at the food bank on Wednesday, May 18th when a woman stepped in line behind me and started making small talk. I noticed that she had something semi-liquid and golden brown on her lower lip. I didn’t know for sure if I should mention it to her because it might have been some internal problem, but I told her anyway, “You’ve got something on your mouth.” She wiped it off and said, “Oh! Peanut butter!”

            A tall young man behind her, in black, with a face full of piercings was talking to an older man and describing a landscape. At first I thought he was speaking about ecology but then it sounded like archaeology until I realized that he was describing a video game that was perhaps of his own design.

            I got number 19 and went home.

            Someone had left a box of fabric at the food bank. It consisted of several large pieces of cloth with the same pattern. They were giving it away to whoever wanted it. A lot of people looked, but I didn’t notice any takers. The pattern was kind of ugly and large, with dark shades of red and orange mixed with black.

            Since the numbers they’d called were from 16 to 20, the wait was slightly longer for me once I was inside. Bruce asked woman who’d been behind me if she was number 19, but I got up and walked towards him. He said “Hello Mister Nineteen!” Then he said “Hey Nineteen … Steely Dan? Not a Steely Dan fan?” I said that I know the band but not the song. He told me that it was one of their biggest songs. I looked it up later and listened to it. It definitely sounds like a Steely Dan song, but I’d never heard it before. It doesn’t stand out as anything more than self –derivative.

            On the top of the first shelf there was nothing extremely interesting, so I just took some more of that spray on olive oil. I figure I can use it when I run out of canola oil. One level down there was a choice between butter cookies and Triscuits, so I took the flavoured horse feed. I took a box of those “Chock Full o’ Nuts” coffee pods. I’ve discovered that inside is just real ground coffee, so I can open them up and pour the contents into my French Press.

From the second shelf I still didn’t want any pasta, rice or sauce but I noticed that there was only one can of sauce anyway. At the bottom there was a choice between fruit juice gummy treats with some corn syrup in them and some relatively healthy looking candy bars called “Feast”. I took the bars, but later when I ate one I got that fuzzy feeling in my head that I get when I eat anything that’s artificially sweetened. I read the ingredients, but didn’t see any artificial sweeteners that I was familiar with on the list. I thought that maybe I’d been mistaken, so I ate another one and got the same feeling. I looked at the ingredients again and found two names that I didn’t recognize. I looked up “inulin” and found that it’s usually extracted from chicory and though it can be used to replace sugar, it’s only ten percent as sweet. Then I searched “stevia” and bingo! It’s 150 times sweeter than sugar and so I’m sure that’s what gave me the headache.

On top of the third shelf I selected one of Campbell’s gourmet butternut squash soups. I noticed when I got home though that the division of Campbell’s that made the soup was called “Gardennay”, while another Campbell’s gourmet butternut squash soup that I’d previously picked up, with identical ingredients, had the name “Every Day Gourmet” but up in the corner of the box it said, “formerly Gardennay”. This led me to check the best-before dates on both boxes. The Every Day Gourmet soup expires this fall, whereas the Gardennay expired a year and a half ago.

Another soup I took was a package of dehydrated vegetables from a Polish company named Kucharek. It still had a price tag of $2.09 from the Polka European Delicatessen in Scarborough.

I also took a can of chunky chilli.

At the bottom there were more of those Nature’s Child squeezable containers of applesauce. After I said I liked those, Bruce gave me four of them.

On top of the last shelf, in packaging that made them look more like potato chips than breakfast food, were bags of Cheerios Plus Honey Almond cereal. I took one of those.

The young woman who was replacing Sue that day in distributing the refrigerated food offered me some flavoured zero fat yogourt, but I knew automatically that it would have to be artificially sweetened, so I turned it down. I also passed on a Blue Menu quinoa chicken frozen dinner, as I already had one exactly like it in the freezer at home, and not a lot of room to store any extras. I did though take a bag of homemade fruit flavoured granola. There was no meat or substantial dairy this time around. In the bread section I got a loaf of raisin bread and then three not very crisp apples from the vegetable lady.

            Backtracking a few minutes, Bruce had asked me if I wanted microwave oatmeal, but I told him I didn’t have a microwave anymore. I had gotten one when my daughter had been old enough to be left on her own but still too young to use the stove. Coincidentally mine broke down shortly after Astrid moved out but I didn’t feel any particular need to replace it. Bruce said he’d gotten a microwave to heat things up too, but he doesn’t think they are safe. I don’t think there’s any evidence that microwaves are unsafe if they haven’t been damaged, but there was no time to argue that point. He added that he prefers to cook the old fashioned way. The young woman in the cold section across the aisle, having only heard part of the conversation, asked Bruce, “Did you just say that microwaves are old fashioned?”

Freedom of the Press

           

             Tuesday, May 17^th was my daughter, Astrid’s birthday. The day before that I finally hooked up the Canon scanner that Nick Cushing gave me a few months ago. It took me quite a while to find a driver for it though. I went through some old photos of Astrid from when she was two and scanned it. There were scratches on the picture though, so I opened it up in paint and enlarged the image, then copied and pasted pixels until the scratches were filled in. It took two or three hours. On Tuesday, I decided to see if I could find the journal entry to match the day I took the picture. I figured it would be in my 1993 journal and based on the way I had dressed Astrid to be outdoors it had to have been sometime from May of that year on. I found it in about ten minutes.

            On Tuesday evening went for my bike ride. There was a young man preaching with a portable microphone and an amplifier at the corner of Dufferin and Bloor. I’d never seen anyone dealing religion in that area before.

            East of Sherbourne, a cyclist in logoed spandex whizzed past me, then a shaved headed guy in black with a wallet chain also barrelled by. The bald guy made a valiant effort and was almost able to pass the spandexed rider, but he fell behind. Was he faster than me? Ultimately, no, because I passed him where he had stopped, out of breath, just before Castle Frank.

            A jogger wearing a hot pink t-shirt had a face that was almost the same colour. At first I thought that she had sunburn but I think the sun was reflecting off of her breasts and into her face.

            I went north on Broadview, and about halfway to Mortimer I stopped to look at some stuff that had been thrown out in two big open boxes. There was a Pyrex French press, which I took, even though I have a working one already. Considering how long I went without a French press after the last one broke, I think it’s a good idea to have a back up. There was a wooden honey dipper, which I took even though I rarely buy honey. I took three sizes and colours of Tupperware bowls with covers, a skillet and a large wooden salad bowl with wooden tongs. There were a lot of books, mostly romantic novels, but the one book I took contained ten French stories by Voltaire, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Claudel, Gide, Mauriac, Ayme and Camus. Not only that, but the stories are presented in both English and French, which I think will be useful as I continue to try to learn the language.

Between the Rain and the Christie Mist: the Tranzac Open Stage

           

            On the night of Monday, May 16^th, it was raining around the time I would normally get ready to go to the Tranzac. I checked the weather forecast online and saw that it was predicted that it would rain from 21:00 to 23:00. I decided that I really didn’t want to get wet on the way there, even if it wouldn’t be raining on the way home at midnight. I tried to call Cad to let him know that I wasn’t going, but I didn’t feel like leaving a message. I figured he’d notice that I’d called and call me back anyway. At about 21:20 the rain stopped. I was all dressed to go and my guitar was packed anyway. It looked like the sky had filled its quota early, so I headed out.

            Cad was outside the Tranzac chatting with No MSG. I went inside to sign up and then sat with Andrea Hatala. Erik Sedore was at the next table. Sara Greene was the host for the night, but she arrived late, saying that she’d had a “bad headache”. I said, “As opposed to a good headache.” Then I went into a shtick about pleasurable maladies. “I’m really enjoying this backache! I’m ecstatic over my ulcer!” Andrea added, “What about your pain in the ass?” I answered, “Cad’s just outside!”

            I asked Erik about his job and whether he was saving money. I found out that his goal is to buy a house in Thunder Bay and to try to find employment there for only three days a week.

            Cad came in with the intention of sitting at my table, but first of all he had to change chairs. All the chairs in the Southern Cross bar are of the same design, but some have a shallow cushion attached. He went to get one of the cushioned chairs and explained that, “the other one is …” I finished his sentence, “anti-Semitic?” “Yeah!” he confirmed.

            Cad was wearing a sweatshirt with black and white horizontal stripes. I told him that he looked like he’d escaped from jail.

            The open stage started about half an hour late, and because of that Sara didn’t sing an opening number.

            We started with Dark Cloud, who sang one of his own with the title, “Made In Canada”. He started singing and playing but the guitar was way too loud, so Sara turned it down. The song lists several things that have been taken from him – “ … I’ve lost most everything that was most dear to me … but never did I lose my love for rock and roll …” dark Cloud told us that he wrote the song in Leamington, Ontario. Someone said, “Heinz Ketchup!” Andrea added, “French’s now!” Dark Cloud declared, “Things have changed!”

            In setting up his second song, Dark Cloud talked about walking on Bleaker and the other streets of New York where he told us he’s been many times. One day while walking he thought he heard someone calling his name, so later in his hotel room he wrote this song. He said it was called “He Said” and then he informed us, “This is a poem.” That seemed like an odd thing to say, since all song lyrics are by definition poetry because they are compositions in verse. “I love this poem and I have to sing it the way I wrote it.” From the song – “ … I kissed a big oak tree … I was laughing … I was rambling on a train through Ohio, I asked the engineer where we all go from here, he said don’t worry, next town we all disappear … I found America and nothing is free … I was skipping rope on 42^nd Avenue (I assume he meant 42^nd Street, as I don’t think there’s a 42^nd Avenue in New York City) … This city aint the same when the sun stops shining … I was viewing the big silver screen at Times Square … joints passed around, silence was the sound … He said New York City is a celebration …”

            After Dark Cloud was Robert Labell. Robert said, “I’m just gonna mic the guitar.” Sara responded, “I think it sounds better that way!”

            I noticed that Tom, the sombre looking bartender, who I’ve heard is a comedian, was back, and the pretty bartender was gone.

            Robert’s first offering was “William Powell” by Leo Kottke.

            As usual, Robert had a video camera mounted on a front table to capture his performance. He explained that he does this to coach himself and that it’s an amazing education to watch one’s own performance in order to see what needs to be improved upon or what worked.

            Robert’s second cover was another Leo Kottke composition, which he’s done before there, called “Mona Ray”.

            Then came Andrea Hatala, who went to the piano. She moved the piano bench, which Robert had been using at centre stage, back to the piano, and said that the Tranzac has a really nice piano bench. “It does?” asked Sara. Andrea said that it was nice because it was cushioned. I said to Cad, “Their piano bench isn’t anti-Semitic either!”

            Andrea sang – “Walking on the bridge over Cedarvale Valley … I wish you could be here with me …”

            Her second song was “The Bridge”, which was about bridging the communication gaps caused by fear and doubt in a relationship.

            Following Andrea was Steven Lewis, and his first song was entitled “One”- “ …like dust on a memory … in a heartbeat you can change my life …”

            Steven’s last song was “Cold Cold Heart” – “ … I sing a song for you that would last forever … a summer’s dance before that cold came through …”

            Next was John P., who told us that he’d always wanted to write a hurtin’ song, so he wrote one while standing in the car license line up – “Well they say you hurt the one you love, so you must love me a lot … You tried to make me bleed … but you bled first … I don’t have a script for a life I forgot to rehearse … I really hate to leave you and I don’t know why, I guess I hate to see you fight with any other guy …”

            From John’s second song – “ … Flirting’s not a crime, but would it be so bad if you told them your mind.

            The sixth performer was John’s friend Chas with his electric steel guitar. I didn’t recognize Chas at first because he was wearing a fedora. Last year it was always John wearing the fedora but now John had on a black toque.

            Chas took a moment to tell us that there was, “something about this room that has a really good vibe tonight!”

            Chas’s plan was to improvise, but he offered us a possibility that what he did would “maybe be a gospel medley, or something else”.

            He began with a slow slide that did have a blues or gospel feel to it. Then he distinctly started playing “Amazing Grace.”

            For his second piece, Chas asked John to precisely time him for two minutes and 47 seconds. He put heavy reverb on his instrument and played it with both hands picking at the centre, creating an effect that was both scratchy and spacey, like one might imagine an extraterrestrial language. John gave him a five second warning and he finished.

            I offered Chas a name for the piece: “Alpha Centaurian Love Music”. He said he’d take it.

            Andrea had already excused herself and left, then just as Eric Sedore was taking the stage.

            To introduce his song, Erik felt the need to read us an excerpt from the autobiography of Rick James – “When I got on stage I saw Prince watching me … A week later … that Prince cat is copying all your licks … Prince was emulating my Funk moves like a motherfucker … His band was a bunch of snobs … We had a Come To Jesus meeting … I figured I’d be the mature one … You’re stealing my shit … He said his band was preoccupied … I left without shaking hands …”

Erik told us that the first song he would do, which he’d written just the day before, was from the perspective of Rick James, and its name was “The Funk Sign” – “I was backstage at the concert when Prince flashed my Funk sign …What’s mine is mine … We had a meeting at his hotel … I told him quit or I’d make him cry like doves cry … But he was stealing my moves again the very next night … It’s hard to watch the next generation pass you by … I’m not myself sometimes … At a party with my mother, she asked for his autograph … He said he’d pass … I wanted to kick his little ass.”

When Erik had finished the song, I asked him, “What is the funk sign?” He said he didn’t know, though he’s been Googling like crazy to find out.

When I got home I did a search as well. What I tried is to type the words “Rick James hand gesture” and then to look in Google Images. Of all the images that came up, the most frequent gesture I saw Rick James making was the sign of the horns with the hand facing forward, the thumb and middle fingers folded and the index and pinkie fingers extended. There was no text to confirm that that was what he considered the “Funk sign” to be, but he sure used it a lot.

Erik told us that his second number was a generic folk song about labour rights with the title, “Space Monsters from Jupiter” – “They only gave me one job on the space station … Swarms of monsters … They lay their eggs in your chest … There was a big reward for who ever got one first … I put on my spacesuit … I got lost in the dark .. They caught me and brought me to see the queen, she spoke to me telepathically … We had more in common than I thought. We both hated my boss. She gave me an egg and told me to get lost … It attached itself to his face, and I said, is it a bad time to ask for a raise?”

Next, it was my turn. I began with “Hang Up a Ham and a Fiddle in Your Window”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Un Violon, Un Jambon”. That didn’t go over disastrously.

My second effort was my song “Paranoiac Utopia” – “ … I tap politely on the barrier gate, but am riddled with accusations, as the writhing, blinded beast defends itself from the mirror of my patience …” I screwed up the chords horribly, especially on the last verse, which I excused myself and repeated halfway through. I have found that I can’t seem to get much volume out of my voice while singing that song, perhaps because the lyrics of each verse are all one phrase and so I don’t have time to catch my breath. I was disappointed in my performance, but as I left the stage, John P. gave me a positive response. I decided that I would definitely do the same song next week so I could give myself a chance to get it right.

The final musician of the night was instrumental guitarist, Ian. He was wearing a black toque just like the one John was wearing. I wanted to ask them if they worked on the same dock, but I didn’t find an opportunity.

Ian started with a classical type piece that he said was recently written, entitled “A Deeper Fullness”.

Ian’s final composition, and the last performance of the night, was called “The Ancient Architects Rejoice”. It was a slower number, played with lots of harmonics.

It was almost half an hour after midnight. Cad had already left so he could catch the last bus. Erik and I walked to Bathurst and Bloor together, discussing comedy. I told him that he could easily take some of his songs to the open mic at a comedy club. I asked him if he’d ever heard of Steven Wright. He said that I wasn’t the first person to compare him to Steven Wright. I told him that I didn’t think his writing was like Wright’s, but just that I thought he might like him. Because Erik is young enough to be my son, we don’t share the same cultural references, but I told him about another comedian named Emo Philips and recited one of his jokes – “My girlfriend complained that I never opened the car door for her. It’s true. I just opened my side and swam to the surface.” Erik liked that one.

We said goodnight.

There was a thick mist rising from the Christie Pits as I rod e past. It was a Christie mist.

Wasteful Packaging

           

            On the morning of Sunday, May 15th, since I had forgotten to buy coffee the last three times I’d gone to the supermarket, I had to open up a bunch of those single cup coffee “pods” that I got from the food bank. It was a tedious process, cutting each one open and pouring the contents into my coffee can, and then putting four scoops of it into my French press. All that packaging around one serving of coffee grounds seems like a ridiculous waste, but I imagine that’s how they make their money. The coffee was just like any other medium ground coffee and actually pretty good.

I had planned on taking an early bike ride but I took a longer siesta than I’d expected. It was extremely windy, especially around Bloor and Bay, and chilly too. I was glad I had on my motorcycle jacket and my leather gloves. I rode to Ferrier and Danforth, singing part of “Why I Drink”, which will be my English version of Boris Vian’s “Je Bois”, over and over again, and making changes to the lyrics as I went along. It’s a fun, big band type number that I’m looking forward to learning how to play. I rode up Ferrier to Browning and then down Carlaw.

I stopped at Freshco and finally remembered to buy coffee. It’s probably a good thing that I’d forgotten all those times because I found dark roast Maxwell House on sale this week. I had also brought a No Frills flyer with me. They are selling watermelon for $2.95, so with a price match I got three dollars off the Freshco price. I tried to price match a half kilogram tube of ground beef and pork because Freshco was selling it quite a bit cheaper, but since the No Frills price was by weight, they wouldn’t recognize it as a match.

I had planned on buying a can of Creemore on the way home but I forgot that it was Sunday. I still had some Budweiser in the fridge though and so I drank that with a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich and French fries for dinner. 

Straw Cowboy: a review of the Yellow Door Open Stage for May 14th

           

            On Saturday I checked the University of Toronto student website and found that my Continental Philosophy mark had been posted. I was satisfied to see that I’d received a B for the course. By my calculations I think that that means I got 66% on the exam and that my ass was saved by going to and participating in all of the tutorials, which were worth 25% of our mark. Since I only missed one tutorial out of ten, I assume that, at most I lost 2.5%, which would give me a quarter of 90% to add to my overall mark. So I’ve earned my one and a half credits for another year. In a month or so I’ll have to start thinking about what courses to enrol in for September.

            That evening I took my guitar to 6 St. Joseph Street and arrived at almost exactly 19:30. The host, my old friend Tom Smarda, was there already there, as were quite a few others. In addition to hosting the Yellow Door open stage once a month at 6 St. Joseph, Tom runs a music workshop there on Monday afternoons, which basically takes the form of a song sharing circle. As I was unpacking my guitar, one of the organizers for the centre came to ask Tom if he would change his workshop to Tuesdays because they wanted to minimize activities at the house on Mondays. Tom told her he’d have to think about it.

            Cad arrived and Tom asked him if he wanted to sign up for the open stage. Cad said that he couldn’t sign anything without his lawyer present and that his lawyer was out of town.

            Cad has been taking classes at the Eckankar Centre in Yorkville. He declared that, thanks to them, he’ll be able to know when he dies that his soul will go to heaven. Cad says that he is more conscious since he’s been going there. Judging from the bigotry he spouts, I haven’t noticed.

            Tom started the open stage just after 20:00. He allotted fifteen minutes to each name on the list, and he took the first slot. He began with a song called “Go Thunder Go”, which he’d written for his young friend Yukon’s hockey team. He said that for the five years that Yukon was on the team, Tom had been a rink rat, cheering them on. During that time he’d written the song- “ … shoot the puck up the ice, score another goal … The scoreboard has another point, we’re really happy here …” Janice, whom I’ve heard read poetry at Shab-e She’r, played lead guitar – “ … this is great, the fans can’t wait for you to take another shot … now the game is over and Thunder has to go. This team has just begun to show their skills and sportsmanship, but mostly to have fun …”

            Tom’s second song was about the exploitation of water – “Petroleum refinery needs the water … with jobs you can buy bottled water … But we’re thirsty … The meat industry needs the water … with jobs you can buy bottled water … Why destroy water …” There were lots of shakers, a set of bongos, a small drum and a tambourine available for people to play along, and lots of people were doing just that. One very slim Mexican guy though, wearing a Mexican straw cowboy hat was the most exuberant and animated participant. Sometimes he went out of control and at odd moments shouted enthusiastic praise for the song being played, but it never threw Tom off. He would just find parts of his song for the guy to participate – “ … un-recycled plastic bottles … When you’re out of water you’re out of luck, having to get it from the back of a pickup truck …”

            Tom’s last song was “Good For The Earth” – “If it’s good for us it’s good for the Earth, and if it’s bad for us then it’s bad for the Earth, if it’s bad for the Earth then it’s bad for us and if it’s good for the Earth then it’s good for us …” The joyful straw-hatted man was playing the tambourine and a shaker at the same time, a woman named Carole played her flute, the guy on the other side of my table blew on his harmonica, while Tom’s girlfriend Judy tapped on the little drum. Some were able to keep time and some weren’t, but the energy was certainly high.

            The next performers were Janice and Carole, who chose to play from their table near the entrance, at the opposite end of the room from the usual performance area where the straw-hatted man sat beaming and flashing the peace sign.

Janice stood with her guitar and sang Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon’s song, “Happy Together”, which had been a big hit for The Turtles in 1967. Carole’s flute playing was pretty good. Tom played the bongos.

Janice and Carole’s second choice was the traditional folk song, “Scarborough Fair”. Janice asked Tom to play along on the guitar, so he offered the bongos to anyone else, but someone protested that there are no drums in Scarborough Fair. I questioned the plausibility that in an entire fair there wouldn’t be at least one drum. Tom added some sonic embroidery while Janice played the rhythm guitar and sang the chorus several times.

Their final song was Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”.

After Janice and Carole, Tom introduced me, but I told him that Grant was actually next on the list.

Grant is a weathered, hunched-over poet who sways from side to side when he recites his work. The last time I’d heard him read he had gone by the name of “The Crow”. Grant stood at the back of the room, which usually serves as the stage, but he said he didn’t want anyone behind him while he was performing, so he asked a couple of people, including the guy with the straw hat, to move.

Grant told us that he was going to begin by rolling back to 1976 with “The Inmate’s Last Song” – “I’m lying on a slab of stone … I found a jagged part and I hacked a vein deep in my heart … The inmate died with teardrops in his eyes.”

Then, from three and a half years ago, “The Crow” – “It was four p.m. …On the west side you had your preachers trying to save us all … Along he came, your friend, the Crow … he smoked his salad spliffs … I be the Crow, you see.”

His next poem had been written two months before – “ … the evolution of addiction … I’m jonesing like a mother … so blame the rock.”

Then he sang acapella “Old City Sidewalks, Nickels and Dimes”, the song I’d heard him do last time and which he said was his signature song – “ … I couldn’t find any true peace of mind … from shelter to shelter, from Danforth to Queen …”

Then it was my turn.

I started with “Hang Up A Ham and A Fiddle In Your Window”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Un Violon, Un Jambon”. I noticed that Tom started to play along but stopped. I wonder if it was because he’s vegan and didn’t want to accompany a song that makes reference to ham in a positive light. Then again, he just might have wanted to listen to the lyrics, as when I sang, “ …don’t worry if you are always discarded, you’ve got lots of reasons to laugh…” at that point Tom said “Ha ha ha!” From the rest of the verse – “ … my friend if you can’t have the only one that you love, love the only one that you have …”

My second song was my own “Paranoiac Utopia” – “A painful shedding of skin today as Parkdale’s paranoiac armour has been circumcised, only later to be reattached with the brain tissue solder of airplane glue …” I screwed up some of the chords but the audience seemed to appreciate it, especially Tom.

My last song was one that Tom used to play when he was in my band more than twenty years ago. I had told him that I’d planned on playing “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” that night when I’d talked to him a few weeks earlier. Since then he’d messaged me to get a confirmation that I was going to play it because he wanted to bring his electric guitar to back me. Later though he’d messaged me he couldn’t bring the electric after all. Anyway, I played the song with Tom’s accompaniment and it went over well – “ … Undress the patient and then lay them down just like a sacrifice, to avoid any bruises let no metal touch the skin, that’s my advice, now take a razor and shave the hair around the temples, then rub electrode jelly, put some on the electrodes and we’re soon prepared for shock therapy …”

When I sat down, Cad said, “Who needs real shock therapy when you’ve got that song?”

Following me was Glen, who always sings along with his portable CD player, but he didn’t know how to set it up. As Tom tried to help him, Cad told me how impressed he’d been by The Crow. He went to try to talk to him but he had already gone.

Tom couldn’t get Glen’s CD player working. He asked him how he listens to it at home and he said he uses headphones. Finally it was decided that Glen would listen to the song through his headphones while singing it to us. The song was “Hotline Bling” by Drake, Paul Jefferies and Timmy Thomas. Because of Glen’s condition, which I think is a form of Parkinson’s, his voice is wavering and low in volume, and so most of the lyrics he sang were not discernible, other than the phrase, “Call me on my cellphone.”

The last performer before half time was Ernest Hung, who sang and played three covers.

The first was John Prine’s “Dear Abby”, with help from Tom on the harmonica – “ … Bewildered, Bewildered, you have no complaint, you are what you are and you ain what you aint, so listen up buster and listen up good, stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood …”

Then he sang Kerry Livgren’s “Dust In the Wind” – “ …  don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky…”

Ernest’s final cover was Bruce Cockburn’s “Going to the Country” – “ … Farm house, silver roof, flashing by, tractor trailer truck says goodbye with a sigh … get it when I get there is what I’ll do, if I get enough I’ll give some to you …”

There was a fifteen-minute break, during which Cad told me more about his classes at Eckinkar and his newfound spirituality. He said that he went to hear a rabbi speak on reincarnation. I didn’t think that Jews believed in past lives, but Cad claimed that the Kabala talks about reincarnation. I looked it up later, and yes, it is a type of reincarnation, but not one through which the whole consciousnesses of individuals survive in another body. As far as I can tell, the Kabala seems to be saying that a person’s soul could be made from the parts of several previously existing souls.

I questioned the proven existence of a soul or someone’s consciousness surviving this life. Cad said, “You don’t have to have any brains to have a soul.” Despite his straight line being one of the most comically flammable ones I’d ever hear, I didn’t respond. He means anyway that even a rock has a soul.

Cad was talking about homosexuality being an offence in the eyes of “god”. I asked him how he knows that angels don’t come and stick their dicks in his mouth while he’s sleeping. He insisted that angels don’t have dicks. I argued that the archangels are supposed to be male.

Returning to Eckankar, Cad says that he learned that we work out our bad karma in our dreams, such as if one dreams of having a car accident. I expressed the opinion that being able to do that in one’s sleep is very convenient.

After the break, the first performer was Terrel, who played two original songs on the piano.

The first was called “She Never Grows Old”. He told us that he wrote it eighteen years ago and dedicated it to the daughter he has not seen in that much time – “ Everything she did went between right and wrong …”

Terrel’s second had the title, “Paybacks Are A Bitch My Dear”. It was very difficult to make out his lyrics. The piano is a loud instrument and it drowns out the voice. On top of that, anyone playing the piano in that room has their back to the audience. When I first started coming to the Yellow Door a few years ago there were some microphones and an amplifier. Tom said people ripped the equipment off and it hasn’t been replaced. It would be pretty easy to steal things from 6 St Joseph. Earlier that night I saw someone about to pick up Tom’s guitar, and when Tom walked up he explained that he’d thought it was his own, even though he hadn’t come with a guitar.

After Terrel was Jim, who was sitting across the table from me, and stayed there for his performance. He had two recorders and a harmonica, with which he played various instrumental covers.

The first, played on harmonica was George Gershwin’s “Summertime”.

Then on his larger recorder he played Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl From Ipanema”.

Returning to the harmonica, Jim played a song, the title of which he said he didn’t know. I told Jim that if you don’t know the name of a song before you play it, you’re a slut. He didn’t really appreciate what I’d said, perhaps because I didn’t explain the analogy that had occurred to me while he’d been playing. I thought that playing a song is like making love to someone and so if you don’t know the song’s name when you play it, that makes you a slut. Carole recognized the tune and told Jim that he’d been playing, “Wonderland By Night” by Bert Kaempfert.

Another selection was “Satin Doll”, which he said was by Count Basie. Of course I wouldn’t know this without looking it up, but it was actually written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

Jim’s final instrumental was “Smile”. When Jim was done, Carole said to everybody, “Do you know who wrote that? Charlie Chaplin!” I said that he actually didn’t write it but rather adapted it. Jim declared affirmatively, “Oh, he wrote it!” I argued that he hadn’t and that it was inspired by Puccini’s “Tosca”. Jim was not very well disposed towards me because of my earlier comment, so he shook his head in disgust. The fact is that if most people were asked to sing that song, the melodic part they’d most easily remember, which makes up the first half of each verse, is lifted right out of Puccini’s “Tosca”.

The last person on the list was a guy whose name I didn’t catch and whose signature on the sheet I couldn’t make out. He had been there before the open stage started talking about a movie that was going to use his song and pay him $50,000 for it. The song was an original gospel number called “I Didn’t Hear Nobody Pray”. It was a jumpy number that had Tom and lots of other people jamming along. When it was done, he mentioned again that the song has made him $50,000 and possibly 5% of the film. I don’t think that he’s received any money yet; I’m sceptical of him getting any money at all, and certainly not 5% of the film. Anything’s possible, but most things aren’t likely.

He sang another self-written though derivative gospel song about going down to the river to pray and washing his sins away. He was wearing a t-shirt with the words “God is love” on it.

He declared that he was in a gospel mood and so for his last selection he sang the traditional song, “May the Circle Be Unbroken”. An enthusiastic circle of people were standing and playing along.

While up until a couple of years ago, the Yellow Door open stage ran sometimes until after midnight on the second Saturday of every month, the new policy at the centre is to be done by 23:00. With the list finished and still half an hour left, Tom invited me to get up and do another song.

I sang “Bad Girls and Naughty Boys”, my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Villaine Filles, Mauvais Garcons”- “ … There is no one else alive but you who can make me glow. If your parents found a way to wipe your mind, I would teach you all the things that you already know …” When I was finished, Tom thought that it had been a pretty short song, so he asked me to do another.

I did “Judy” another translation – “ … if I tire of the fight, my love on that fateful night, Judy, before that night is through, I’ll kill you.”

Tom then led a jam with the song, “This Little Light of Mine” by Avis Christiansen and Harry Loes. Terrel was playing along on the piano, Ernest and Janice on guitar, Jim on harmonica, Carole on flute and someone playing the bongos.

When that was finished, someone new came forward to play some songs. His name was Gary, and he was a small, older man with advanced osteoporosis. Cad said that he recognized him from the subway, where he plays guitar. He borrowed a guitar and then told us that he hoped he hadn’t interrupted verses thirty-seven and thirty-eight of that last song.

He said that since someone had asked him to play something, he’d play “Something” by George Harrison. When that was done he quipped, “Now that I’ve got your attention I’ll do an original.” But first of all he turned to our enthusiastic straw-hatted friend and asked him not to play the tambourine, at least for the first couple of verses.

The song was called “In My Mind” and he played it well. It’s about being far away from the one you care about and wanting to be back with them.

Gary finished with a song by one of his favourite songwriters of all time: Jackson Browne. The song was “Fountain of Sorrow” – “ … I was taken by a photograph of you … While the future’s there for anyone to change … it seems it would be easier sometimes to change the past …”

Tom finished the night with a song for everyone to sing and play along. I watched his fingers and followed along on my guitar. The song sounded like a traditional gospel song and was called “Peace Like A River”, with repetitions of having peace like a river, love like an ocean and other nice things that are like other natural things “in my soul”. 

As Cad and I were leaving we saw Gary exiting with a walker. I held the door while someone else helped him down the stairs.

Cad and I walked down Yonge to College, talking about how much the street at its southern end has or hasn’t changed. We remembered when there was a body rub studio or two or three on every block.

            As I rode home through the chilly night, I passed many heroic women dressed to kill in short skirts and dresses, braving the cold to fulfill their role in the mating dance at the mating dance clubs along Queen West.