GRAND CONCERT

I haven't gone to many concerts for a while now. I find the tickets expensive, good seats hard to come by and I have seen some really lame opening acts. But recently when I was searching the Web, I found that one of my favourite groups when I was growing up, Chad & Jeremy, formed up again and were touring small towns across the U.S.

I found that they were playing in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts whose claim to fame is being the hometown of the alleged axe murderess Lizzie Borden. (Ms. Borden was acquitted in court of killing her step-mother and father).

I did a mapquest of the driving directions and learned that Fall River is about a one-hour drive south of Boston. Then when I found that Porter Airlines now flies to Boston daily from Toronto Island Airport, I was sold. I booked the entire trip using expedia.ca.

Flying from the Island airport is really slick. There are few crowds and no interminable wait in a queue for take-off. I was amazed after landing is Boston that there was no one in line at U.S. Customs and I was practically waved through.

I was given a nice car from the rental agency, but there is one thing that bothers me about today's automobiles. I remember a time when all the controls - turn signals, lights, heating etc. were all in the same place and worked the same way. Not any more. Every make and model is different and it takes a coon's age to get familiar. When I reached into the glove compartment to locate an owner's manual, there wasn't one.

I had no trouble navigating by myself from Logan International Airport to Fall River. I had a reservation at the Super 8 Motel across the Taunton River in Somerset. I had dinner before the concert at a very nice cafe right beside the concert hall. At one point, a man walked into the cafe who looked a lot like Jeremy. When he spoke to the waitress in an English accent, I knew it was him. He said he hadn't brought his reading glasses with him, so I proffered my own specs which he graciously borrowed. Soon after, Chad walked in and they had dinner at the table right next to me. I forced myself to just mind my own business and not disturb them.

I can't remember when I enjoyed a concert as much as this one. It was a small and cozy hall and I had a table and chair all to myself right in front of the stage. There were no more than 200 people in the audience but they were enthusiastic. Chad and Jeremy sounded just like they did 45 years ago, even though they are both in the late 60s. After the concert, they met with the fans and they signed three album jackets that I brought with me. I chatted with them about the guitars they use. This concert alone was worth the trip, but I now had arranged a 3-night stay in Boston before flying back home.

A Modern Re-Telling of a Classic Parable

Those who told me I shouldst have become a preacher may now have second thoughts:

For the economy is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

Then he that had received the five talents went and traded in chariot manufacturing stocks and moreover short sold them. And behold, the chariot manufacturing industry fell, and great was the fall of it.

And likewise he that had received two, invested with the bankers, such that his lord might have his own with usury. But the bank did fall, and great was the fall of it.

But he that had received one went and hid his lord’s money under a mattress.

After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

And so he that had received five talents came saying, “Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I short sold chariot manufacturing stock. Thy money is gone and thou art further indebted an hundred talents.”

His lord answered and said unto him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant, Thou oughtest not to have put my money into the stock market, for it is as gambling.”

He also that had received two talents came and said, “Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I invested with the bankers but they did collapse and lo, thy money is gone.”

His lord answered and said unto him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant, Thou oughtest not to have put my money to the bankers, for the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.”

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, “Lord, I knew these were hard times and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent under a mattress: lo, there thou hast that is thine.”

His lord saith unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

And cast ye the unprofitable servants into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Harper's Bizarre or How a Scheming Politician Puts the Rogue in Prorogue

Stephen Harper came ominously close to winning a majority in the last October's federal election and he has just demonstrated why Canadians have never, and must never, give him one. He simply cannot be trusted to put his extreme right-wing ideals on the back burner and govern the country fair-mindedly.

Harper's scheming has forced a Parliamentary showdown and precipitated a constitutional crossroads the like of which Ottawa has never seen. Calculating that the measures in his "economic update" would crush the opposition, Harper instead faced a united front which threatened to take his minority government down.

Political observers have been comparing Harper's misreading of the opposition's resolve to Joe Clark's blunder of 1979 which resulted in him being voted out of office. Now Harper is pulling out all the stops to avoid facing a confidence motion in the House of Commons. First he delayed the vote by over a week, now he asked, and received, permission from the Governor General of Canada to prorogue, or dissolve, Parliament until the end of January.

This is unprecedented for a couple of reasons. The new session of Parliament following the election just barely opened. Also, each time Parliament has been prorogued in the past, the Prime Minister has had the confidence of the House. Harper does not.

Still, a Governor General almost never denies a request from the Prime Minister. So what happens now? Harper will continue to concoct new schemes. A Stephen Harper who does not scheme is like a cat who doesn't scratch or a newborn baby who doesn't cry. Look for the Conservatives to go on and on about how a coalition government is unconstitutional (even though it's fine when they propose it) and to play Quebec separatist fear-mongering to the hilt.

Meanwhile, the thick-headed Liberal party: oh will they ever learn? The voters massively rejected Stephane Dion and made it clear they don't want him as Prime Minister. Yet they propose Dion as leader of a coalition government? Don't they want the idea of a coalition to be even a tad acceptable to Canadians?

I believe with every fibre of my being that Stephen Harper and his band of right-wing extremists have got to go. So if the coalition holds together, it must choose someone else to lead. To do otherwise would be a slap in the face to the voting public.

Why I'm a Math Junkie

I love math. It was my strongest subject all throughout school and I love it to this day. Recently I saw a brain teaser in the daily paper which reads as follows:

The product of two numbers is 161. The difference between them is 16. What are the two numbers?

Alright, the game is on! You can express the situation like this -
let the 2 numbers be x and y and here are the relations

  x y = 161

    also

x - y = 16

As long as you have 2 equations with 2 variables, you're cool. You just use substitution.

x - y = 16

-y = 16 -x

-(-y) = -(16 - x)

y = x - 16

So,

x y  = 161

x (x - 16) = 161

x**2 - 16x = 161      ( x**2 is computer-ese for x squared, since you can't show the little raised 2 with plain text)

Okay, now I was stuck. Usually these contain just a plain x with no squares. I wracked my brain until I came up with - quadratic equation!! I barely remembered these from school, let alone how to solve them. Time to call in the cheats. Hello Web! One simple search on quadratic equations yielded the answer.

The formula for a quadratic equation is a x**2 + b x + c = 0

So re-arranging the above, you get

x**2 - 16x -161 = 0

where a =1  b = -16 and c = -161

There is a formula for calculating this which I have long forgotten but you can find it on the Web. But just to prove that today's students have it made in the shade, there is a tool that prompts you to just fill in the values of a, b and c and it provides the values of the first x and the second x. I filled in the values a =1 , b = -16 and c= -161 and the two numbers came up as 23 and 7. Here is the sight where I found the answer

http://www.arachnoid.com/quadsolver/index.html

QED

Like the First Time, Only Better

I can't remember the last time I was so excited about something. Way back when I was in grade 10 at high school, I found a guitar in the attic of the house. It was my mother's and it was a little beaten up and missing most of the strings. My Mom said I could have it; she tried learning it as a youngster but couldn't get the hang of it.

I put new strings on it and bought a 50-cent booklet called "EZ Method for the Guitar." Before too long I was strumming chords and learning Bob Dylan songs. In those days, part of the daily opening exercises at school was to stand and sing God Save the Queen. (The other was to recite the Lord's Prayer). A girl named Diane had the desk to the right of me and I noticed what a lovely voice she had. I thought it would be neat if we got together as a group and sang. It took me two years to get up the nerve to ask, but when I finally did run it by her she said yes.

We put together a repertoire and did a circuit of concerts at various schools. The pinnacle of our career was during the summer of 1969 when we we hired by a coffee shop in Bala, Ontario. It was right next door to the famous Kee to Bala. It was a large two-storey house made into a restaurant with a small stage. The operator, in a fit of creativity, had named it The Iron Tadpole.

We were asked to give our group a name, something we hadn't even thought about. We were always just Denis & Diane. We tried toying with names, but they were either taken or just didn't sound right. (The Soul Seekers was particularly lame). So it stayed as Denis & Diane.

There were two songs that we'd rehearsed, both taken from Peter Paul and Mary Albums. One was "And When I Die" by Laura Nyro, the other "Leaving on a Jet Plane" whose composer was listed as H.J Deutschendorf, Jr. (Better known as John Denver). Neither of the songs had been released on the charts, so nobody knew them. We would be asked to sing both songs over and over, sometimes as much as five times in a row. After our gig ended, the songs were released in the fall - Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary followed by And When I Die by David Clayton-Thomas and Blood Sweat & Tears.

Soon after I got phone calls from people who had heard us in Bala saying "you guys' songs made it on radio - aren't you excited?" Apparently many of the audience members thought those songs were written by us. If Diane and I really had written them, both of us would be in different spaces today.

In 1970, we both went to different schools and lost touch with one another. But every so often when I would pick up a guitar or perform a solo gig I would think of Diane and picture us back together again. As the years went by I kept telling myself that I must try to contact Diane but I kept putting it off. When 2008 rolled in I said to myself I'm not going to put it off any longer, I am GOING to try to contact Diane. It was easier than I thought. I got hold of her mother on the first try, and her Mom remembered me.

When I spoke to Diane, it was as if we had never left off. We weren't then, nor are now, romantically linked but it's one of those special friendships that are so few and far between you just have to preserve them. Diane agreed to put our act back together, and we've had a few practice sessions during which I just couldn't contain the smile on my face. And we have a gig! Next June will be the 40th year reunion of Denis & Diane. And you can bet that "Leaving on a Jet Plane" will be one of the featured numbers!

Don't Ask Me Why, Why I'm a Hairy Guy

Actually, you can ask all you want. I just noticed it's 4 months to the day since my last blog entry so I figured I should write something even if it's not earth shattering. I've been growing my hair for a little over a year and a half, but it's still not long enough. And just how long is long enough? Well, to donate it to charity, it has to be at least a 10-inch ponytail.

There are a number of charitable organizations that accept donations of human hair and use it to make wigs for people who lose their hair for medical reasons. The biggie is cancer treatment, but hair loss can also result from burns and a disease called alopecia.The charity I am leaning to is Angel Hair for Kids. They provide wigs free of charge for youth 19 and under who lose their hair for any of the above reasons.

When my hair is long enough, my barber will make it into a ponytail, tie off the other end and snip away. Many of his clients do this as well and he has pre-addressed envelopes to send the hair off in the mail. I think this is one of the neatest things a person can do for charity. Besides, in the meantime I feel like I'm getting away with something.

All together now: "Gimmee a head with hair, long beautiful hair!"

Crocuses and Chambers

When the crocuses finally poke up you can usually breathe a sigh of relief that winter has finally loosened its grip. It's been a little late this year and I even had to shovel some 3 feet of snow off the ground to help them along but here they are. The sad part is that they don't last very long. They're the first spring flowers to bloom and just beautiful to behold.

So what do chambers have to do with anything? In 2004 I was studying full time at the University of Toronto and I took a sociolinguistics course taught by renowned linguist Professor Jack Chambers. The course started in January and it was a very cold and snowy start to the year. The classroom was at University College in an old drafty room poorly heated and it was a fair hike to get to because there was no nearby parking.

The professor was a fabulous lecturer and I would spend each 2 hour class on the edge of my seat taking copious notes. During the first class when we all were shivering, he promised that by the end of the course we would be seeing the crocuses in full bloom and it would be "wonderful." At the last class in early April he told us of the crocuses he'd seen during his walk to the college and how "wonderful" it was. I mentioned the crocuses that had always grown in front of my Mom's house but I had never really noticed or appreciated them.

Later that year a new walkway was put in my Mom's house that plowed over the old crocus bed. I was determined that we'd continue to have crocuses the next spring so that fall I bought some bulbs and planted them on the edge of the front lawn. In the spring of 2005 they bloomed even better that I'd hoped. Alternate blue and yellow ones. The next year I planted white ones, and just last year ones I thought were multi-coloured but they're light yellow and smaller; still they blend in just great.

To this day I am thankful to Professor Chambers for a fabulous course (which I'm proud to say I aced) and for renewing my interest in spring flowers.

Crocuses at their peak on April 10, 2008