I’ve had this particular issue of Mojo Magazine for the past 28 years and it still gets handled regularly, more than any of the other books and periodicals that I’ve ever seen fit to hang onto over the years. The edges are dog-eared and frayed from decades of referencing and it’s spine is bound together with clear packing tape. It’s cover is dry and cracked but the collage of iconic rock and roll images—intended to be a clever spin on the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album cover layout—are still clearly visible.

At the time I would take my lunch down by the Thames with a spicy vegetable samosa that I would purchase from the Pakistani news agent at the Monument tube station and relax with a full view of London Bridge, the Tower of London, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Once the majesty of this scenic splendour eventually wore off (and it did eventually), I did what most Londoners do and sought out a discarded newspaper from another nearby bench.

I was living on a pretty fixed income at the time, enough to pay rent, five days’ worth of lunchtime samosas, and a beer at the end of most work nights if someone had not already purchased one for me, so needless to say that my life was not extravagant by any means and I didn’t take lightly to spending extra money on anything, much less a daily newspaper. However, on this particular day at the Pakistani news agent, I simply could not avoid spending the extra £2.35 on this particular feature magazine headline:

“THE 100 GREATEST ALBUMS EVER MADE!”

As a young and budding music aficionado, how could I resist?

Flipping through quickly there in the stand, I saw that the article featured albums by all the standard big heavies in the music world—the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, etc—pretty vanilla stuff really, but there were enough modern and interesting inclusions that I thought it might be worth the gamble anyway. And so for the next few sunny afternoons, in the shadow of the weird high-tech architecture of the Lloyd’s of London building, at one of the world’s most historic vantage points, I got blissfully lost in history’s Pantheon of Rock and Roll albums.

Of course it was 1995 and my musical diet at time consisted mainly of Blur, Oasis, and whatever other pop pablum was being pushed down my throat by the British music press. (Spice Girls anyone?) In particular I was hooked on A Northern Soul by Verve which was also released that summer. (Great album!)

In other words: I was eons away from most of the albums mentioned in this article.

And even where I had heard of the album before, I was not still not very well versed in it.

Instead I snubbed them for being “old”.

Others albums by Can, Donald Fagan and Gram Parsons were complete mysteries to me; totally outside my normal musical radar.

With few exceptions, I dismissed them all.

I was still young and looking for the next “big thing”, not looking to go backwards in time.

How naive I was.

But for whatever reason, maybe it was the hot summer’s heat radiating off the Monument to the Great Fire of London, on this particular day I decided to purchase a magazine with my lunchtime samosa that I would end up holding onto—with great care mind you—for the better part of 30 years.

Even then, it wasn’t until months later when I had another frivolous moment and dropped another £6.00 on a vinyl copy of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks at a vendor’s stall in the Portobello Market. There is a good chance that it might have been the three pints of Old Speckled Hen in my system on this specific sunny day, but when I found this album it was nothing short of divine intervention, for this album happened to be ranked at #2 according to my magazine*.

Not the greatest album mind you, but the second greatest album.

Good enough I suppose.

Why this seemed so poignant at the time—God only knows—but I thanked the good Lord above for revealing it to me anyway and dropped the money quicker than Michael J. Fox feeding change into a parking meter (what?). Unfortunately, it would then sit on a shelf in the bedroom of my cold water flat in West Ealing for the next two years.

I didn’t even own a record player.

My bad.

Blame it on the Old Speckled Hen.

In fact, it wouldn’t be for another four or five years after that before I would ever get around to playing it. I had by then migrated back to Canada into my first downtown bachelor apartment and I thought that this record would make an excellent bohemian-like token to hang on my wall. I primarily listened to jam-based hippie rock at the time, bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish, so I had little time for musical antiquities other than for decorative purposes.

It did look cool on my wall.

The odd visitor might comment on what a great album it was and I would just nod approvingly, never having listened to the record even once. Aside from what I had read back in London nearly a decade previous, I had no more familiarity with the record than I did, say, the topography of Lithuania.

I was living a lie.

This secret shame was only remedied later still by yet another three-beer impulse purchase, this time at a local church bizarre. On this occasion however, I brought home an ancient and well-worn turntable for a mere ten dollars**.

Finally!

A chance to right a grievous wrong.

An opportunity to redeem myself.

I took down the record off my wall and put it on my archaic turntable to see what I had been missing out on all these years.

I was immediately transported to a different, magical place; blown away by the avaunt-guard marriage of rock, jazz, gospel, blues and folk, all swirling together into a vivid psychedelic tapestry.

To say that ‘the world had changed for me’ would be the understatement of the century.

What other albums had I missed out on?

So began a new quest to discover these the rest of these tired, out-dated albums with the August, 1995 edition of Mojo Magazine as my Magna Carta.

My next revelation was the Kink’s Village Green Preservation Society (#91).

In that precise moment, it was the single greatest thing I had ever heard.

That was quickly followed by equally impressive listens to the Zombies Odyssey & Oracle (#97), Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, A True Star (#93), Hot Rats by Frank Zappa (#89), Marque Moon by Television (#77) and Raw Power by Iggy & the Stooges (#98).

In each case I found something unique and oddly beautiful.

My musical landscape was shifting—growing.

I started re-listening to the albums that I already knew but had grown apart from, albums like Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love (#60), R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People (#37), Massive Attack’s Blue Lines (#68), Joy Divisions’ Closer (#53), and the Smiths eponymous debut album (#94). I even checked out the real moldy goldies of which I was particularly skeptical—the likes of Elvis Costello, Dusty Springfield and Joni Mitchell—with a fresh ear and was not disappointed in the slightest.

In fact, it was all strangely fresh and exciting.

Locating each of the hundred records listed in this magazine has become something of an idée fixe, for had it not been for that original impulse purchase I might not have discovered the punky brilliance of Pere Ubu (The Modern Dance, #22), been regaled by the unique story-telling and character development of Randy Newman (Good Old Boys, #84), developed a new-found appreciation for Steely Dan (Gaucho, #90, Can’t Buy a Thrill, #73), Countdown to Ecstasy, #13), or realized that they must be playing Talk Talk’s exquisite Spirit of Eden (#87) in Heaven’s waiting room.

Largely thanks to this magazine I have learned an appreciation for Jazz (Miles Davis), Blues (Muddy Waters), Prog Rock (Kraftwerk, Can, Roxy Music), and Funk and Soul (James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone) and I have shared them all with my family now.

Sometimes ad nauseum I’m afraid.

(Too bad suckers)

Regardless, all of these were alien landscapes to me before given my limited purview.

Doors had been opened; horizons had been expanded.

That Mojo Magazine from the summer of 1995 has since become my personal musical “Bible”, and the Astral Weeks record the catalyst for a lifelong obsession.

Sure I still have a penchant for new and modern music, but I also now have a better breadth of appreciation for the styles of music that I would have otherwise scoffed at, and my world is absolutely a better place for it.

P.S.> If anyone is in possession of on original pressing of Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom album (#100) and are willing to part with it, please do not hesitate to contact me.

* Behind only the Beach Boys Pet Sounds at #1 and beating the Beatles Revolver at #3.

** My drunken impulse spending has gotten proportionately more lucrative over the years. A sure sign that I am well on my way to establishing great success.

P.S.S. (if such a thing exists)> you can find the aforementioned list HERE. (You’re welcome)

It has been approximately three years (since the outbreak of COVID) that I have even remotely considered myself something as a regular “gym-goer”. I mean, I’ve gone once or twice since the pandemic restrictions have loosened, but I’ve never really been able to reestablish the old regular habit of spending any serious time at the gym lifting weights, spinning, getting sweaty and getting fit.

Nope.

I ate a lot of jellybeans, collected stools (click HERE) and on-line shopped for stupid shit.

Lest we forget (click HERE).

Go me!

I remember those glory days of doing push-up challenges on medicine balls, ridiculously long spins, “mental toughness” sessions, the weekly “Brick Run”; not to mention the regular weekend ‘Friday He-man Night’ with the heavy iron for 60 minutes of hot “me on me” action in the mirror with my guns out and a-blazing for all to behold and admire while I’m getting myself all jacked and SWOL n’ shit. 

Ya feel me, brah?

(That’s exactly how I remember it, by the way.)

I even had “Commandments”, dammit! (click HERE)

However, now that I have only recently reestablished something of a regular morning routine once more, I have noticed that many things—ie. the “gym culture” as I remember it—has changed, well, rather significantly I suppose. Especially in that I am no longer what you might consider to be the “cool guy” that everybody knows and likes—but rather the creepy, old dude in the corner instead that everyone avoids—and, somehow, I’ve managed this incredible fall from fitness grace in only a matter of three years.

WTF?

This past January I had hoped going back to the gym would be something like this:

–

But it wasn’t.

Far from actually.

More like this:

–

Personally, I blame the Millennial’s.

I mean, why not?

It’s not like they haven’t practically ruined everything by this point already right?

Now I don’t want to say specifically that the culture has been ruined per se, just that things have definitely changed—and maybe not for the better.

For starters, unless you’re starting a Lynyrd Skynyrd revival band, no one wears paisley print ‘doo rags’ on their head anymore. I guess it’s not considered a typical ‘tough guy’ look anymore and judging by the weird the looks the Millennial’s were flashing me, they either thought I was pretending to be a pirate, or I was about to break into the chorus for Sweet Home Alabama—which to them, probably means Kid Rock—but, still, it all boils down to the same thing:

HANDKERCHIEFS ARE OUT.

Also, I would hazard to you that the most popular piece of gym equipment now isn’t a specific weight or fancy new cardio machine, or anything else that you might actually work out with, but the little shelf by the entrance of the gym where the sole ‘charging station’ happens to be instead; a spaghetti of wires snaking out to attach and recharge every piece of digital equipment you could ever hope to connect, unless you’re me of course—the guy with the dead technology—made immediately obvious by the two wires dangling out of my ears that attach the “earbuds” in my ears to my own device, which I then rather awkwardly tuck into the waistband of my Under Armour compression shorts.

Pretty fancy, eh?

No ‘air pods’, ‘Bluetooth’, or anything!

My technology is basically operating on witchcraft now.

This means then that this same small shelf with charging station is more or less the hub around which 99.9% of the gym activity is centred, and from which there is a constant ebb and flow of gym-goers who flow back and forth between their phones and workout stations like a human tide. If you ever want to get anywhere near the drinking fountain that’s also inconveniently located in this same vicinity, you will have to time your visit perfectly to successfully coincide with this constantly moving sea of people, lest you get caught up in and swamped by a group of panicking, sweaty gym-goers all desperate to get back to their phones having been away forty-five seconds too long—it’s an end too grisly to contemplate. This leaves everyone then to wander around the gym between stations and equipment like mindless pod people completely tuned into their own little world, ever-powered by the little smart device sitting on the shelf at the back of the room …

It’s weird.

Oh, and where before it was practically unthinkable to cut between someone and, say, the mirror while their workout was in session, I have learned that it’s now even more grievous to come between someone and their charging phone mid-workout.  The other day I unwittingly managed to do exactly this by sheer accident, where I inadvertently came between someone and their charging iPhone on my way to return a weight to it’s proper position on the rack.  The reaction was nothing short of Invasion of the Body Snatchers …

That shit is likely to get you killed!

Also different this time around, well, particular to this gym anyway, is that there’s a television in the corner which, for some strange reason, is almost always tuned to the Home & Garden network.

Now even this might be considered somewhat tolerable, if only for the seemingly endless commercials for women’s incontinence that I also have to endure. Seriously, I’ve seen so many adverts for the new Always Radiant ‘Flex-Foam’ maxi-pads that it’s become like some slow, twisted form of Chinese water torture every time I step on a cardio machine, knowing full well what I’m inevitably going to have to watch on the TV screen in front of me. It’s inevitable. Before I used to try and not stare at the fit, perfectly pear-shaped rear ends on all the young gym bunnies working out around me, now I’m practically begging for anything that moves to stare at aside from the large, flex-foam cushioned derriere’s on the screen before me.

Shit, I’d happily stare at another man’s sweaty junk given the opportunity!

(Okay, maybe not …but still!)

Where I’ve always been an advocate for ‘mental toughness’ training, but this is taking it to new and unprecedented—not to mention scary—levels.  So I can either be the creepy old dude checking everybody and everything else out or, say, become the next Richard Simmons, risking per-mature male sterility after one too many forced viewings of the Always Radiant commercial.

Now doo rag or not, neither is a particularly good look at ‘50’ if you ask me.

Truthfully, I’d rather stare at the rack of tools in my garage (click HERE) as my nuts freeze, turn blue and fall off.

God help me.

Lately, I have been getting a lot of photographs from a retired drinking buddy Nurse Mike, err “GARN” (of the “Big Box of Records” fame—click HERE) , who is currently south on what looks to be a relaxing bicycle trip into Pasco County along the Coastal Anclote Trail, which runs along the Anclote River from somewhere near Tarpon Springs in Florida, westward towards the Gulf of Mexico. By all accounts and pictures that he’s sent so far, the trip looks very scenic, warm and lovely—the exact antithesis of how my own rides look these days.

GARN’s photos, of course, display nice rolling vistas and scenic vantage points, as well as all the inviting brew pubs and restaurants that they’re inevitably stopping off at along the way.

Sounds glorious, right? 

Lovely even.

Yeah, well, here’s what I have to say about that GARN ‘ol buddy:

Honestly, I’m spinning my balls off in -6° temperatures at 6:00am in the bloody morning in the middle of January.

How excited do you think I am to see your pictures of cactus, manicured parks and fucking eagle nests?

Umm, how about FUCK NO!

DING!  DING!  DING! 

We have a winner!

So just for shit’s and giggles, I’d thought I’d share with you some of the amazing highlights from my own bike ride this morning.

Now if you recall, here is my current view from the saddle each morning:

Which is quite an improvement considering that this used to be the old view:

That shit was like slowly boring holes into your own eye sockets with a dull drill bit.

However, the new view is still pretty darn tedious too given the obvious, flagrant and inexcusable abomination that’s staring me directly in the face for the entire 45 minute workout.

You don’t see it? 

How about now?

Ghastly, isn’t it?

For the entire spin this morning all I could think of was: “how long before I can get off this damn bike and fix that shit?!”

No OCD going on here!

Of course, there’s also this big, glowing orange ball of heat to stare into as well:

That’s fun too, amiright?

Not exactly glamorous of course, but it does serve two very important purposes: 1) it stops me from becoming hypothermic, and 2) if you stare directly into it for long enough you can almost use it to successfully hypnotize yourself into believing that what you’re doing is actually beneficial.

(Disclaimer: it isn’t)

From the saddle to my right there’s the other essentials to my morning spins: a pair of pliers, my nearly defunct Garmin, a bottle of water, and a steaming hot cup of coffee:

Oooooo. Aaaaaaaa.

It’s hardly National Geographic worthy, is it?

And beyond that, there’s my corner cabinet of odd collections including clothesline pulley’s, a bucket of wooden spoons, some extension cords and gas cans, a ladder and a few buckets of random iron and scrap metal crap. Oh, and then there’s my big bucket of plastic bait station keys and an old glass jar full of used swim goggles:

I bet you didn’t see those along the Anclote Trail, did ya buddy?

HELL’S NO!

Looks southward behind me, there’s the garage recycling station:

Not to mention my snowblower, a large roll of burlap, and an old Subway menu board that I’m going to refinish into something else—eventually—and ash bucket full of birdseed, a bait station and overhead, two other bikes that I am not currently riding and have conveniently stored away for the winter:

Instead of dropping off at local pubs and restaurants, here is my current refuelling station:

Sadly, there is no ‘bike-side’ service at this dump either.

God help me.

I’ve been thinking lately that maybe it’s time—time to get back on my bicycle.

It’s true.

However, I now have the rather non fortuitous circumstance of having allowed my YMCA membership subside (conflicting gym hours made getting there difficult) so instead of going there regularly, I am instead now visiting a local gym thirty seconds from my front door which I can visit in the early mornings prior having to go to work. Unfortunately though, they do not have a spin bike , meaning of course, that I am now left to my own devices as far as ‘spinning’ is concerned.

You know what that means then—two words: PAIN CAVE.

Now don’t get too excited as there is certainly nothing hi-tech nor fancy about this pain cave, as the most ‘painful’ thing about it (cold temps aside) is the super uber-boredom of spinning in one’s garage—trust me.

Take a look:

As you can see, it’s certainly not glamorous (or warm) but as far as “pain caves” go this is about as ‘torturous’ as it gets.

Where others have fancy manicured pain caves or some other specially dedicated workout spaces that have been kitted out with all the necessary and creature accoutrements, I have a space heater, a 2×4 to place it on and a whole lot of …

Mind you though, that ‘get er done’ attitude has been coming across a whole lot more like “but do I hafta?” instead these days.  Regardless, instead of free weights, kettle bells, medicine balls and other assorted workout paraphernalia and electronic gadgetry, in my pain cave I am surrounded by hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, extension cords and (for God knows what reason) a bucket full of used wooden spoons.

Yeah.

What can I say?

Dare I remind you (click HERE).

To say that my garage set-up is pretty Spartan would the understatement of the century.  Personally, I prefer to think of it as more like the training montage in Rocky 4 (click HERE).  If there’s anything more tedious than staring at a rack of old, rusty tools for sixty minutes as you spin your ass off in a meat locker, I haven’t found it. In truth, I don’t wake up so much deciding what kind of workout I’m going to do or how long I’m going to ride, I wake up thinking to myself: “I wonder where I can put that gasket wrench I haven’t used in eight years”

Stupid, right?

Whatever it is, it represents a (very) small positive step back towards reclaiming my old healthy self and something resembling my former cycling prowess so that …

… instead of the guy riding at the back this year (not that there’s any problem with that!), I’d like to once again make a return to being the reliable, hard-driving machine riding at the front like I was in the past and I know I can be again.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Christmas so far this year has been a total wash. Beginning mid-day Friday “Snowmageddon 2022” (a weather phenomena known as a ‘weather bomb’) was officially upon us, which immediately set forth in motion a chain of most unfortunate events that would play out over the next three days, all culminating with the same tragic and very unfestive outcome: Christmas is fucked.

However, rather than bore you with the endless minutiae of detail that at times reads like a genuine comedy of errors, here are but a few snippets from my journal over those fateful 72 hours:

Friday, Dec.23rd (1:26pm) – Made it home through near white out conditions from St. Catharines. Lucky to be alive.

Friday, Dec.23rd (3:34pm) – Power is now out already but thankfully the generator has kicked in and we are warm and safe. Cable/Internet are out however, so there’s good chance the girls might not make it to see Christmas morning.

Saturday, Dec.24th (1:11am) – Generator is out. FML.

Saturday, Dec.24th (6:37am) – Good lord is it fucking shitty outside. I’m pretty sure a witch in a parka just flew by on a broomstick. Hot coffee and tea was graciously provided this morning by our thoughtful neighbour across the street (Heather, “the Protectress of Charlotte Street”) and thankfully Danny, “Master of Machines” was also able to get us back up and running again, and with the assistance of an extra extension cord we can even listen to our Christmas records. HUZZAH!

Saturday, Dec.24th (10:17am) – Generator is out again. FMLx2.

Saturday, Dec.24th (11:44am) – We are temporarily without power as the combined mechanical expertise of our entire neighbourhood (myself excluded of course) cannot fix the generator currently, especially given the extreme conditions outside (it’s still shitty). I’m also pretty sure I left a frozen finger in the generator outside. Hailey continues to soldier on without her TikTok. (I’m sure the Chinese are getting suspicious at Hailey’s absence from social media by now)

Saturday, Dec.24th (6:24pm) – Christmas dinner consists of a bowl of Chicago Mix and a lime Bubly.

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:40am) – Slept for nearly 12 hours because, what else is there to do? Hailey is alive but largely unresponsive in the absence of seven second videos about kitty cats and teen fashion trends. Thankfully there’s more hot coffee from our thoughtful neighbours and the hope that now that the storm has finally broken, we can get a good enough look at the generator and get it going until our services are properly restored.

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:53am) – It’s working!

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:54am) – No it’s not.

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:55am) – Yes it is! Hallelujah!

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:56am) – Nope. It’s not.

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:57am) – It’s wor…

Sunday, Dec.25th (7:58am) – Cancel that. We’re fucked. And in other news, a portion of our brand new vinyl fence is now likely blowing around somewhere over James Bay.

Sunday, Dec.25th (9:54am) – And now we can add bailing ice cold water out of our basement sump pit to the daily roster of fun holiday things to do. Shoot me. Breakfast is a packet of Dad’s oatmeal cookies.

Monday, Dec.26th (2:12am) – More bailing. Water beginning to seep up through basement floor. Good times.

Monday, Dec.26th (7:41am) – Danny has miraculously hooked up with a gas generator (and Heather with more hot coffee) so that we can at least power our sump pump once more and prepare the first hot meal we’ve had in three days. Grilled cheese with bacon and eggs? Why not.

Monday, Dec.26th (3:13pm) – Enjoyed first hot shower in 72 hours. Glorious. Going across the street to Heather and Danny’s for drinks and a decent holiday meal. Feeling very thankful.

Sounds like good times, amiright?

(I mean, that last part is okay, sure, but the rest definitely sucks balls)

What it all ultimately boils down to is that this wasn’t exactly the holiday season we were looking forward to. In the news, this recent winter storm is being hailed as the “Storm of the Century”, with comparisons already being made to the ‘White Death of ‘77’ which struck this area in, well, 1977.

Duh.

Between Friday, January 28th and February 1st 1977, 50 mile per hour winds blew the heavy snow atop Lake Erie wildly around the region, coating the surrounding 16,000 square kilometres – including my little community of Merritton located on the southern outskirts of St. Catharines. The snow accumulated into enormous drifts as it blew, burying everything from cars to bus stops in 20 to 40 foot mounds of snow. This was more than your average “snow day.”

This was the ‘Great Blizzard of 1977’ – not that my mom gave two shits, of course.

I remember on the Monday, after three days of being completely house bound and inevitably driving our poor mother crazy, our little asses were going to school. It didn’t matter that buses still weren’t running, that the snow drifts were more than three times the size of our little five years old bodies, or that the school was located at the very tippy top of the formidable Niagara Escarpment, approximately a three kilometre march uphill from our homes …

Get moving!

We fought against the towering drifts, scaled mountains of snow, at times nearly being buried ourselves after attempting to tunnel our way through snowdrifts the size of pyramids.

The struggle was real.

By the time we arrived at the front steps of the school, our snow suits had become %100 saturated and drenched with snow, our boots were sloshing, our fingers and toes numb; snot was frozen to our cheeks in large green icicles. We also arrived just in time for school to end, only to be turned away and have to make our way back home again through the very same pathway we had been tunnelling for the past five hours.

When we ultimately made it home just in time for bedtime, my mother had all but called out the National Guard.*

I would like to say that I fared much better this time around, especially seeing as how I’ve seen The Day After Tomorrow at least a hundred times by now, but it was largely only in thanks to my amazing neighbours as there were definitely times here when it felt very, shall we say ‘overwhelming’ – clearly I am no Jack Hall, celebrated paleoclimatologist. Are the pipes going to freeze? Will we be warm enough tonight? Is anyone getting our messages? Will the power come back on today? I wonder how everyone else is faring? Surely the Chinese will send help soon, won’t they?

Bring on Easter as far as I’m concerned.

God help me.

*I suspect the only reason that she didn’t was because they inevitably might have wanted to know why we were ever sent out in the first place.

Do you remember the “Worst Allotment of Records EVER!”? (click HERE)

You probably thought at the time ‘Well Terry, how are you ever going to outdo yourself on this one dude?’ 

I mean, a bargain is a still bargain but still, one has to have some standards.

Well, no fear.

In fact, BEHOLD!!

I give you the “Worst allotment of leftover flea market shit EVER!”

TA DAAAAA!

That’s correct folks, one empty strawberry flat as well as one big recycled box of kitty litter chalked full (FULL!) of treasures.

Remember a year ago when the planet was being ravaged by the COVID-19 virus and instead of doing what the rest of the healthy planet was doing productive with their time, Kelly and I were scouring various marketplaces on the Interwebs and collecting lots of, well, crap. Stuff for our “future home”, stuff for crafty projects, and sometimes just because it dead fucking cool (click HERE). Sure it’s always been a slippery slope with me (I give you Exhibit A: click HERE), but in the absence of being able to go anywhere or do anything, we took to the online auction sites and at that time it preserved some of our mental sanity. Of course we now have to also explaining our now owning three dozen crystal dinner “frogs”, but that’s a blog post for another time.

Point is, we have amassed a lot of stuff in this time.

Couple this with the fact that we’ve also been playing “should we stay, or should we go” in our regards to moving from our home here in Ridgeway, that we also felt an urge and begin purging in the event of such a near future event.  So we decided to have a big yard sale. In fact, we held two garage sales over the course of the summer so far and these two boxes contain the priceless shit that nobody else seemed to see the value in, being the obvious rubes they are.

Just look at some of this great gently-used booty:

Still having anxiety about being outdoors and among people? How about three more 2000 piece puzzles to while to completely bore yourself silly with?  Includes such vivid and alluring landscapes such as River Walk, Cape Cod Beach Party, and Solvang, which I assume has something to do with either vampires or werewolves.

How about a wooden CD holder? Everybody still has their Compact Disc’s right?

Anyway, this was a Grade 9 shop class project for Hailey a few years back and obviously, she got really super high marks on it as it’s a stellar example of fine, durable, Canadian craftsmanship … or not.

Also to note: it burns well.

How about an incomplete set of kitchen knives?

Guaranteed to be as dull as possible, and likely couldn’t slice their way out of a wet paper bag.

Because that’s not weird.

He’s looking at you …

An empty bottle of Dickinson’s Witch Hazel anyone?

A single martini bell glass. 

Perfect for all you Billy Joel piano types to collect your tips in the next time you play the cocktail lounge at the Belmont in Port Colborne.

And seriously, why do we even have a single fence post topper? 

I tried to throw this out years and years ago but Kelly refused to let it go, insisting it was some valuable commodity.  For all her attachment to it, you’d think it was a freaking Fabergé egg or something.  Regardless, it’s finally going away now.

How about a rusty old metal pie plate that I’ve used for years now to feed the squirrels?

Or maybe a Wonder Woman plate is more up your alley.

Anyway, it’s all out at the curb at the moment begging for new homes.  Baring that, it will all be lovingly carted off to a dumpster somewhere to begin it’s new life at it’s new forever home at the local landfill.

“Something not weird”.

I hear this about three thousand times a week in response to my constant inquiries of “what do you feel like listening to?” It absolutely galls me no end, that given how much we listen to music around the house, that I can never solicit any helpful assistance from the peanut gallery per se, should I ever attempt to include them in this important decision making process.

You’d think I was trying to extract secret information or something, seeing as how tight-lipped they get whenever I ask the question – seriously, there are Cold War spies out there that would offer more useful information than my girls.

It makes me want to scream into a pillow.

At the best of times all I get is “something not weird”.

Yeah right!

So says the closet Sun Ra fan (click HERE).

I’m also going to pause here for a moment to mention that I take personal offence that particular non-committal response as a) it is not helpful in the slightest, and b) it applies that certain things that I might play are somehow offensive.  Now don’t get me wrong, I like to play some hugely fucked up shit from time to time – you know, the real strange ‘avant crap’ kind of stuff – but I don’t purposely play something just for the sheer purpose of annoying my family …

… well, much anyway.

(Click HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).

As always, it’s genuinely my never-ending goal to choose something that positively compliments the current mood and atmosphere we are experiencing, not to mention something that we might all enjoy together and bond over in the moment; hence my tendency to play certain records on certain holidays (click HERE and HERE).  In fact, it’s my entire line of reasoning in the first place for even attempting to facilitate some sort usable information from the room regarding where everyone’s head space is at musically, (see what a humanitarian I am?) so “something not weird” generally isn’t much help.

Now having said all this, I know my girls far too well to expect anything to be simply given to me, like “can you put on Tito Puente?”, or maybe “can you play more of that Appalachian fiddle music?” (Yes, I have plenty of both!), and I will genuinely have to work for whatever few scraps of information I’m ever able to elicit from them. Only once have I ever been outright asked to play something specific, and even though I’d rather take a chainsaw to my thigh than listen to the Pet Shop Boys, I did as was requested because, again … I’m a “pleaser”.

That’s just what I do.

(You’re welcome.)

More often then than not though, what I get is something much less specific like “something not weird” and I’m floundering in an endless sea of possibilities. At other times, the girls will try and tickle my mandigula a bit more with other challenging, unhelpful and subjective suggestions as “something that won’t put me in a coma”, “something that doesn’t suck”, “something not as shitty as what you just played”, and my second personal favourite: “something that won’t make me scratch my eyes out”.

Gee thanks!

Once it was even suggested that I choose something “a little less than the Black Keys, but more than Loretta Lynn”.

Another time I was absolutely stymied to hear “how about something funky, but not too funky, and nothing with horns or tubas”.

Umm, okay?

Regardless, what all these responses offer me is absolutely zero help.  At the time, they’re essentially the conversational equivalent of a lit stick of dynamite with shit smeared on it, so that even if it doesn’t immediately blow up in your face you’re still stuck holding a shit-smeared stick.  In other words, most of their responses are an interpretation at best and I’m simply rolling the dice and hoping for the best that it’s not immediately going to be interpreted as “weird”.

God help me.

Where the past two years didn’t exactly start off on solid footing in the midst of a global pandemic and widespread political and social upheaval, 2022 didn’t completely start off as a raging out of control dumpster fire – well, ten days of quarantine not withstanding (click HERE).  Sure we are still in the midst the COVID crisis, be it the Omicron, Delta, or whatever the newest viral haute couture is on third world street corners, but most people have by now more or less settled into their “new normal’s” for the time being … shitty and unacceptable as they may be.

I’m basing this whole assumption on the fact that the biggest newsworthy headline at the beginning of this new year didn’t revolve around some bullshit political election, despicable scandal or violent right-wing protest (in fact, those would come only a short time later), but instead around the global mourning for an African giant pouched rat named Magawa. So while we might be divided on other important issues like, say, the current dilapidated condition of our public health care system, ongoing vaccine mandates and social distancing protocols, and the entire Black Live Matter and Me Too movements, but we can all collectively agree that an eight-year-old bomb sniffing rodent is a hero worthy of global affection and admiration.

That’s positive traction, right?

Regardless, that’s where the collective positivity ends because it’s been a downward slide into February beginning with hundreds of nutso truckers, anti-vaxxer’s and conspiracy theory wackadoo’s with their “Freedom Convoy’s” and now, even the natural world around us is beginning to revolt against each other as the two major opposing tour de force’s in meteorology, Punxsutawny Phil and Wiarton Willie have decided to disagree with each other’s assessment this past Groundhog Day, offering up instead contradicting predictions of our eventual Springtime’s arrival and thereby causing a growing rift among New Age-y meteorologists and groundhog aficionado’s alike.

That’s right, not since the epic political clash between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton in the 2016 US federal election has there been such animosity and divide between two opposing factions.

Great Googly Moogly!

See what we’re teaching these creatures?

As it is every February 2^nd, we disturb the slumber of an innocent, docile underground dwelling rodent by pulling it out of it’s warm bed into the frigid winter’s air to see what his reaction is going to be and, somehow, this reaction is supposed to tell us the approximate arrival time of our pending Spring season …

Anyway, in this case the two renown professionals on the matter, ones Punxsutawny Phil and Wiarton Willie, decided to take the exact polar opposite from one another with Phil predicting a late Spring this year and Willie anticipating its early arrival instead.

Uh oh …

Only one rodent can be telling the actual truth while the other is obviously peddling “fake news”.

So what now then?

Do they fight to the death or something?

Someone call Dana White, I have the ultimate grudge match of the century!

Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as interesting as that, however it is also notwithstanding to note that in the midst of all this controversy, popular third party candidate and potential tie-breaker, New Jersey’s Milltown Mel, was so distraught over having to make such a seemingly difficult decision that he instead decided to go teats up the day before and return to the “Big Burrow in the Sky”, so we’re still faced with this grim forecasting deadlock dilemma.

It’s hell to be a groundhog apparently.

Not to be outdone though and despite obvious experience predicting the weather, Eric the Guinea Pig has also now entered the meteorological melee as an independent candidate largely back by the fanatical right-wing constituents at the Toronto Zoo.

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Of course, it was quickly revealed in this recent video that Eric’s decision was largely influenced to the ‘Early’ side of the debate thanks to a handful of lush coniferous vegetables so, clearly, Eric is on the take and not to be trusted.

And seriously, would you ever put serious stock into anything that should pop into this things’ little pea brain:

No …

I don’t think so.

(click HERE for a reminder why)

But let’s face it, truthfully, I couldn’t give two shits in what a large rat has to say about the weather anyway unless it’s also willing to pick up a snow shovel and help clear out my driveway for the umpteenth time this week.

God help me.

If there’s anything that this recent quarantine has taught me, besides the fact that my musical interests are about diverse as the day is long (see previous post), it’s that a running toilet fucking sucks. It’s true, I’ve been forced to both accept and face the fact that I have a running toilet in my basement that I have more or less ignored for, oh, say three years now?

Now please don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that not that my toilet has been running for three years, rather it’s been three years since I’ve been able to take a shit or piss without also having to wait an extra minute or so afterwards while the tank fills itself again so that I can carefully remove the tank’s lid in order to jimmy the big, bulbous floaty thing inside upward to stop the water from running endlessly.

It’s been a total pain in the ass and one that I’ve put off far too long in dealing with. As it is currently, I have completely tarnished the sanctity and therefore ultimate enjoyment of my beloved “Man Lair” (click HERE), more so now than ever that I have had to use it as my sole bathroom in the house for the past ten days. Any idea how damn annoying it is to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night, and then have to stand around groggily to perform all that necessary “lift, jimmy, and replace” bullshit so that I can get back to fucking sleep again?

Take my word for it: it sucks.

I have taken it upon myself then to do something about it … finally.

And no, I don’t mean ‘call Danny’.

Even the “Master of Machine” himself needs a day off, so I YouTube-ed that shit, bitch.

Much to my surprise, it looked almost … doable.

Even for a chimp of my abilities.

And thankfully, it required no power tools whatsoever.

In light of my recent interest in DIY projects (albeit limited), I was almost giddy at the prospect of trying something new. In fact, I haven’t been this excited since my mother allowed me to stay home from church one weekend to watch Tito Santana defend his Intercontinental Championship against George “the Animal” Steele.

Good times.

*sigh*

This kind of felt similar in magnitude, monumental even; something that I would remember for the rest of my life and I immediately resigned myself to what I was committed myself to taking on …

… I was going to plumb!

(Don’t worry everyone, I had Danny on speed dial.)

So once we had successfully completed our recent quarantine and I could venture out into public safely again, I knew what I needed to find.  I had gleaned from the multiple self-help videos I watched that I would need to purchase what’s known as a “Ball Cock Valve”.

I feel dirty just typing that.

Believe me, it was with great trepidation that I entered that into my laptop’s search engine, but thankfully it didn’t explode in a mushroom cloud of pee pee’s and wee wee’s and such.

Okay, there was ONE … but that’s s it!

And I never clicked on it.

Anyway, it turns out there’s nothing particularly depraved about the back of a toilet bowl and that these things were readily available in the ‘Kitchen-Bathroom’ section of any local hardware store, so I drove to the RONA building center optimistic that I could find what I was looking for.

But I have too give pause here for a moment to explain how much I actually hate hardware stores.

I understand that for most men it must be like walking into Valhalla, something on par with entering Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom for the first time as a child, but for me it’s more like walking straight into an Escher painting with smocks … lots of smocks. Suddenly it’s all ‘two by fours’ this, and ‘eight sixteenths’ that … “what kind of torque pressure do you need on your steam hammer, sir?”

People might as well be speaking Bushman for all I’m able to understand.

It’s intimidating.

But I managed to keep my collective shit together and quickly figured out that there is no ‘Kitchen-Bathroom’ section anymore, there’s just a general ‘Plumbing’ section.

Okay, duly noted.

Thanks, Candace.

See? I’m learning shit.

(Shoot me.)

So yeah, once I found the right section I quickly located my kinky-sounding prize pleased I didn’t have to actually engage in conversation about it with anyone as, seriously, I’m not sure that I would have been able to actually ask for it without giggling, and I cashed out at the self checkout aisle for more or less the same reason, I wasn’t sure I could make eye contact with the cashier without blushing.  I practically charged out of the store too.

You’d think I was trying to smuggle a dildo out of a porn shop in the middle of the day.

Not that I know what that feels like.

But regardless, I had my ‘Ball Cock’ thingee in hand, so it was full steam ahead with what would hopefully not end up being my personal ‘Quest for the Holy Fail’, with my basement looking like a set from Waterworld.

But whoa, hold up … first things first.

As limited as my experience in basic home repair is, even I know that it is considered absolutely crucial to the success of the project to do it with your pants off so, yeah, the first order of business then before getting started: remove pants.

CHECK!

Remember that I don’t write the rules folks, I just follow ‘em.

According to the videos, I was going to need the following tools:

And yes, the beer is absolutely to be considered as a “tool”, and a very important one at that.

Having found everything I needed in the garage, the actual first step of the project was to turn off the water to the tank which, truthfully, sure sounded easy enough.  However, for whatever reason, I had always imagined this was a much more difficult thing to accomplish than it actually is and sadly, there is no impressive looking master kill switch that you literally have to put your back into in order to activate; something that resembles those huge levers Obiwan Kenobi was throwing on the Death Star …

… or rather, something an evil villain might look to throw in order to, say, blow up a small island.

Ya know?

Nope … it was just this:

That’s all.

Turn it.

Again … learning shit.

But of course, it wasn’t to be that easy … no sir!

Having likely never been turned in like, ever, it was absolutely 100% fixed in place.  Fortunately, there’s a YouTube video for that too and so with a good deal of WD40, some “forceful but stringent” elbow grease and, get this … a hair drier.

Ya …

Who knew?

After a few minutes of squirting, twisting, wrenching, swearing, sipping and blow-drying, I finally managed to get the damn thing to turn and thereby shutting off the water to the tank successfully. From there on in, it was only going to get more complicated but by now I was all fired up from having successfully turned a dial in a clockwise fashion, so I more than felt up to the task and there was no stopping me now.

Whatever doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger, right?

I’m not going to bore you with the details however, because that would be silly given there’s already numerous videos of much handier people than me doing it, albeit not as cute in their underwear of course.  So I’ll spare you the gory details and simply suffice to say that it was actually pretty easy: just loosen this, unscrew that, stick the thingamabob in the thingaringer, connect the whositnow with the gollywhichit and, Bob’s your uncle, you’re back in business (figuratively and literally).

Sorry if I got too technical there.

I will admit though, it was rather nerve wracking turning the water to the toilet back on again to learn if I had done everything correctly, i.e. it doesn’t a) explode, or b) a tsunami of water doesn’t begin to cascade out and consume my basement.  Thankfully neither happened, buuuuuut the water level didn’t seem to be right as only half the bowl had filled, and Lord knows I’ll need more than that to wash down my handiwork in the morning … if you know what I mean.

It took a little finagling here and there to get the water level just right but again, thankfully, there’s only so many things you can get a wrench around or stick a strew driver into, so it was only with a little stubborn perseverance and figuring out before I was able to coordinate my twists with my turns properly to get the water just right again after only a few test flushes.

GO ME!!

Apparently the Plumbing gods were smiling on me this day.

But now for the real test ….

God help me.

The inevitable worst case scenario has finally overtaken the sanctity of our once sterile and germ-free home: we got the COVID.

Well, the girls actually got the COVID but, regardless, all of us are now bound to quarantine ourselves for the next five days (six nights) independently from each other, as well from the rest of the world.

Oh joy.

Don’t get me wrong though, I have been requisitioned to the basement complete with big screen television, Netflix, a record collection of nearly three thousand albums and a bar fridge within arms reach of my favourite comfy chair, so things could definitely be worse.

Having said that, I still hate being confined downstairs from my family with little else to do all day other than lie on the couch and work on my bedhead which, for the record, turned out to be pretty epic.

I mean, really, remembering my other past follicle disasters (click HERE ), it’s little wonder.

To help pass the time I started keeping a list of all the different albums (records) that I’ve listened to over the past five days of this godawful self-imposed exile, as I was genuinely curious to see how many different musical rabbit holes I would end up exploring, or what particular ‘itches’ I might feel the need to scratch, per se.

Honestly, I’m just obsessive-compulsive and like to make lists, but just go with it will ya?

However, merely listing those albums for you would be no fun whatsoever.

Instead I decided to go all fancy and make one of those pretentious “album flip” videos you see on the internets, to showcase those specific albums in the exact order that they were played from my Quarantine’s beginning to its ultimate end five days later because, yeah … I guess I was a little bored.

What can I say?

I had time on my hands.

So without further ado, here is the video of my complete COVID playlist of records as enjoyed over the past five days of my ass sitting on the couch, bored out of my fucking skull:

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How’s that for an eclectic taste?

(I’m a mad scientist, I know.)

Following up the Hollies early 1967 psychedelic masterpiece with the modern psychedelia of the Flaming Lips on the first evening alone?

That’s crazy!

(But genius)

But then somehow making the leap on the first official full day of quarantine from trucker “road music” (Red Sovine) at some point to big, brassy orchestral fanfares that would later on inspire Hollywood composer John Williams to score his better-known themes to such classic films as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park (Gustav Holst), before arriving at the modern weirdness of Frank Zappa and Brian Eno … madness! 

And who could ever have anticipated Day 2’s ultimate trifecta of albums: Harry Belafonte into Miles Davis into Genesis …

… but somehow, it all magically made sense.

Maybe it was all the Pfizer antibodies coursing through my veins.

Who knows?

Day 3, which also brought about our first true winter storm of the season with over 15″ of accumulated white shit and the need to shovel out our driveway (twice!), seemed to be about flowing through the different styles of jazz (fusion, bossa nova, acid, big band, etc.), with some elements of prog rock, a touch of World music thrown in for culture sake, and a splash of the blues to call it a day.  Day 4 though, for whatever reason, focused more on traditional (and not so traditional) country and western, Americana and outright grungy bar rock and roll.  And then lastly, on my final day of quarantine I leaned further back into exploring the blues that I had begun on the previous’ day with some reggae to cap it all off.

Because why not?

I am a unique and beautiful snowflake if nothing else.

And while our quarantine is now “officially” over as designated by Health Canada (or whoever it is that comes up with these bullshit protocols), we still really can’t go anywhere safely … so yeah, what’s another five lonely days of records?

God help me!

(Edited five days later … )

Perhaps not as plentiful (I found some other stuff to do), but certainly no less robust selection-wise.

–

And seriously, TWO albums featuring a rooster on the cover?

Fuggetaboutit!