June 18, 1995: I was angry and so I sang better

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was Fathers Day and Nancy dropped my daughter off at the Golden Griddle on Lakeshore so she and I could have the Father’s Day brunch together. After eating we walked along the beach to Parkdale. It was the second day of the second annual Parkdale Art Festival. I performed poetry at the Rhino. Later I danced to one of the bands with my daughter in my arms. William Baker was there watching us and he later wrote a poem about it: 

Street Dance 

Strollers drawn by terpischoric rhythms 

summer sounds on summer streets 

Rebellious feet move in helpless syncopation 

The air is bouncing

vibrating

Crowds fill the empty spaces 

heads and shoulders shift and shake 

Two dancers take to centre stage 

and in a crude bolero 

jump and thump and dive and dart and twirl and spin 

inventing choreography 

oblivious to the smiling crowd 

Onlookers even sense they should avert their gaze 

to not intrude upon this much too seldom moment 

This pirouetting father and his wriggling giggling child 

with silk-tossed hair and bubble-gum cheeks 

laughter and shrieks 

the tiny frame 

adoring eyes 

and gripping never slipping arms

whirling gyroscopically on stomping feet 

            My band Christian and the Lions performed but Full Circle the group that played before us left early and so we couldn’t use their drum kit. Barzin and I got some plastic buckets from a restaurant that he used for drumming. But Mark Critoph refused to play bass because we didn’t have a proper drum kit. That made me angry, which helped me sing better and I gave a great performance. Bob Cooke played some lead guitar for us. A couple of people complimented me afterwards. We didn’t win a prize but the prize judging was a joke that year.