It’s been exactly a week since Father’s Day has come and passed and, of course, I’m just getting around to posting about it now, meaning that this belated post then is actually right on time so, yeah …

GO ME!

Anyway, take a look at this amazing wooden silhouette made courtesy of the Stevensville Pallet Project (whom you might remember gave me an assist not long ago – click HERE) as the behest of my girls for the big day:

How awesome is that?

In fact, here’s time-lapse video of it being made:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=476&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FStevensvillePalletProject%20%2Fvideos%2F1879189612254480%2F&show_text=false&width=267&t=0

It was made from one of my favourite parenting moments and pictures I have of Hailey and together in the early days; I even posted about it once HERE nearly nine years ago.

In case you forgot (or too lazy to click on the link I thoughtfully provided above), here’s that original photo again:

“You go first!”

This picture was taken at a time when I was just beginning to dig my toes into being a “present” step-father, and providing her with as many opportunities to do stuff as possible. It’s largely the foundation that has built up our friendship over these past nine difficult, challenging, exhausting, but thoroughly fun and therefore worth it years.

I remember being absolutely amazed that anyone would ever entrust this little inquisitive creature to my care, much let me take them out in the open water with the toe-nibbling fishes and scary deep-water canal monsters. And while she may not have adopted that same love of the open water that I did, using the same philosophy we managed to accomplish lots of other fun things in those first few years including my third Frank & Friends 10k Swim for Strong Kids together, the Tour de Ridgeway as well as numerous autumn “Daddy-Daughter Rides” over the years.

My own dad was always the “busy” dad; games of road hockey outside the house after work, long hikes on the weekend, baseball games and practices through the week, you could say that my father was absolutely the involved parent and I always promised that I would be the same with Hailey … flesh and blood, or not.

This photo, and now this wood silhouette will remind me of that promise for years to come and, yeah, she’s now a teenager so that initial promise might be a bit harder to keep, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Preach!

God help me.

Now that the majority of Canadians have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccines (76% of people 12 years and over) I am left to wondering: what the fuck is everyone else waiting for? I mean, seriously, I’m no fan of injecting myself with new and strange drugs and shit but, a) I figure it’s no worse than what I’ve already willingly consumed and put in my body over the years and, b) how cool is it be when your head swells up like a water balloon when you contract “mumps” at fifty after inadvertently sharing a water bottle with a buddy in the locker room after squash?

The answer?

It’s not … like, at all.

Apparently though, as I am learning anyway, there is a growing number of wack jobs, err, people that believe that the whole COVID pandemic was just some elaborate ruse to inject us with tiny robots for some grand and nefarious purpose. What that purpose is exactly still remains totally unclear, regardless, there are those who still maintain than this is the conspiracy to end all conspiracies; something to make Chris Carter green with envy.

This new fear arises from the growing advancements in the field of what’s known as “Nanorobotics”, and the development of what’s being now regarded to as “Smart Vaccines”. Basically, it’s the invention of super small robots at the atomic and molecular level (5-10 nm) that would make the delivery of medical vaccines more effective in that the minuscule “nanobots” would be pre-programmed to deliver their ‘payloads’ specifically to the targeted area of the body and thereby speeding up the whole healing and recovery process after injection.

Honestly, that’s some pretty cool shit if you ask me although it does tend to bring to mind those creepy ‘squiddy’ machines from The Matrix …

… and, of course, nobody wants scary spider-looking things running amok in their bloodstreams now do they?

But I digress as evil machines patrolling ancient sewers and passageways of dead human cities in search of human-controlled probes aren’t really a thing.

Just sayin’ …

Now I suppose the ultimate question would be ‘Why?’

What is it about your average middle-class schmuck such as myself that there would be some big subvert interest in constantly tracking my whereabouts? Is anyone really interested in knowing how many trips to Subway I’ve made in the past year in direct violation of the (then) current ‘stay at home’ order? Or are they more interested in the number of laps I make around the house in the morning before work to feed the birds? Perhaps it’s more a focus on my consumer habits, like how many beers I drink in the garage sifting through my junk looking for a “project” in the evenings because I’m bored to death. Or maybe these bastards are using this information to analyze the state of my mental well-being by tracking the proportional number of Jellybeans I consume in a day.

Or maybe it’s nothing at all and people are total asshats.

Regardless, thousands of people are turning their noses up at modern science and instead obsessing over these paranoid notions that someone wants to ‘track’ and ‘monitor’ them, whether it be the government, some evil global cabal, aliens, or fucking Bigfoot himself.

Shit, maybe Elvis is behind the whole thing, who knows?

Point is, are these people serious or what?

Think of it this way, the government has recently more or less openly admitted to the existence of “UFO’s” and, well, nobody gives a shit. Umpteen years of shitty Reality-based “mockumentaries” about Roswell on the A&E Channel and now, suddenly, no one is interested.  After all, we’ve all been down that path once before I suppose on the X-Files, so it’s no longer of any interest to us; public interest is fickle at the end of the day.

Collectively we’ve now moved onto evil nanobots being injected into our arms and controlled by God knows who.

Good times.

Personally, none of this scares me at all as no one in their right mind would give two shits about what I do through my normal day and I sincerely doubt that anybody is interested in anyone else in my neighbourhood either – at least not enough to institute a global conspiracy of epic proportions to find out.

In other words, as far as super secret underground agencies go: “they’re just not that into you”.

(Get it?)

However, the popular theory now among the “Tinfoil Brigade” is that Big Brother, Bill Gates, or whoever it is, is attempting to track people by implanting them with “nanochips” delivered by the COVID-19 vaccinations. Such is the ultimate lunacy now that police departments are putting such informational tidbits out there into the Twittersphere as:

Despite what you might have heard, COVID-19 vaccines will not change your personality, make you grow a third eye, or alter your DNA. They are microchip free.

Can you imagine being so deep down the rabbit hole on this crazy shit that your local authorities feel it’s necessary to inform you that you don’t actually live in the Matrix, there is no blue pill, and maybe you should just get your shit together.

Seriously …

Smarten up!

The aliens are here.

Anyway, now that I’ve received my second dose (“Go Team Pfizer!”) I don’t expect life to change any. My body is not going to suddenly get Wifi or start to fuck with the cable signal; start communicating with Siri and report back to the nefarious powers-that-be about the inordinate amount of time I spend in the bathroom crying. Whatever or whoever it is, I hope they’re keenly aware of the amount of time that I lay around napping and listening to records.

GO COVID!

So, yeah, I’m not about to get sized for any tin foil hat just yet.

God help me.

So after a few days of basking in the warm glow of my initial DIY success, I eventually shifted my focus to Phase Two of the plan: the stool’s badly rusted out and worn metal frame.

As I described before, the stool’s original mechanism that allowed the seat to raise and lower had all fused itself together with rust over the years, meaning that the seat was now affixed in the same height permanently which, truthfully, is no skin off my nose. However, miraculously, that same rusted out raising and lowering mechanism still somehow allowed the base to swivel just as well as the day it was made; only adding of course, to the stool’s eminent “cool factor” considering the rather rough environs from which it had been rescued.

Let’s just hope I don’t completely fuck this up.

If I was out of my depth at first with the broken segmented seat (click HERE), then I was absolutely adrift in uncharted waters without a life vest, bail bucket, or signal flare with this absolutely roached out metal frame. After all, it looked like it had been retrieved from the bottom of a lake for all the layers of flaky rust coating it. I knew it was in a desperate need of sandblasting, but after a few inquiries I learned that a) it would be hard to find someone actually able to do that, and b) it would likely be very expensive – at least more than I would ever invest in a broken stool I had fished out of a garbage pile.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely opposed to spending money on the its ultimate restoration – wood glue, wood filler, spar urethane, et al – but I’m not spending sandblasting kind of money.

No, sir!

Fuck that.

So what then?

Remembering that I don’t know shit from Shinola, I called another “handy” friend of mine, Carson, for some advise as I do like to give Danny, the “Pharaoh of Fixer-up”, the day off from time to time as it must be exhausting answering all my random questions and requests (pleas) for assistance. Anyway, Carson had already taken on another “project” of mind in the past involving some other basic metal clean-up (future blog maybe?) so I figured he’d be a good resource to start with.

He was.

In fact, Carson proved to be another wealth of handy DIY information, not to mention being another one of those positively encouraging types who adamantly assured me that I wasn’t getting too far in over my head, or so it felt at the time anyway. In lieu of sandblasting, he suggested that I use a “wire wheel” and a “flap disc” for the job instead – both completely new things to me – and even loaned me the proper tool for the job, a small angle grinder.

(Not that I knew what that was.)

Now if there’s anything that I have less affiliation for then “Old World” technology, it’s “New World” technology, and that includes your basic power tool. You see, I have learned about myself that I have an inherent fear of power tools – especially the loud, sparky kinds. I suppose that’s a good thing to have too, particularly if you’re keen to keep all your limbs intact n all but still, it’s hard to also look “manly” at 50 years of age when you’re wearing fuzzy ear muffs while working in your garage.

Just sayin’ …

Let’s just say that it was with a lot of anxiety and about a dozen hours worth of on-line YouTube tutorials, as well as a healthy dose of motivational self-positivity videos for good measure, before I could even bring myself to plug the grinder in.

Finally I made contact with the electrical socket and I was ready to go …

Kinda.

As anticipated, it was loud and scary.

FML.

However, prior to actually handing the grinder over to me, Carson was careful to strongly advise me to wear the proper protective clothing and eye protection, which I am extremely thankful that I listened to because the second that wire wheel touched the stool’s metal frame, the disc exploded into billions of little wire bristles all over the garage with a sickening pop, as if someone had dropped a small fire cracker.

Needless to say, I practically shat my pants.

After quickly powering down and counting all my digits, I quickly went through the mental process of trying to calm myself down and settle my nerves; “smell the flowers” (breathe in), “cool the soup” (breathe out) as  it were.

Okay, time to take stock and assess what went wrong …

DANNY!!

That’s right folks, I pretty much ran across the street as fast as my chubby legs could carry me with my tail between my legs.

(I’m not proud.)

Thankfully, Danny quickly assessed that I hadn’t done anything wrong per se, and the wire wheel was either just worn or faulty from the get-go and “blow outs” aren’t all that uncommon which is why we wear the appropriate PPE’s.

Being the great guy he is, Danny soon hooked me up with another wire wheel before I had even had time to consider how I was going to break the news to Carson that I had completely fucked his.  Danny then demonstrated how to change out the defunct one for the new one, before turning me back to the business of making some serious sparkage.

Once more the grinder roared to life and I was off and running once again and, yup, sure enough sparks began to fly just as soon as the wheel touched the frame. It was terrifying, but not an altogether unpleasant experience. I won’t deny that it was even quite intoxicating grinding away decades of wear and neglect like some master metalsmith, standing amidst a cascade of hot sparks; the sound of the grinder filling my ear drums. It was like something right out of Forged in Fire, and those guys are pretty bad ass so, yeah … I won’t say that I completely hated it.

But it was still scary!

After a half hour or so of very nerve-wracking buffing, grinding, and intense wire-wheeling, the layers of rust began to wear away to reveal this beautifully smooth, reddish metallic sheen.

Check this shit out:

Look at me fucking go!

Once I was happy that I had removed as much of the rust as possible, I coated it with a protective polyurethane spray and man, this fucking stool was starting to look pretty damn slick; eons from the dilapidated state it had been in when I had originally acquired it.

Night and day actually.

Once it had all dried, I managed to reattach the seat rather easily and, low and behold, it fit like a glove into it’s original position. Well, a slightly wonky glove maybe, but nothing that anyone was ever going to notice – especially considering how long the pieces had been separated from one another – so needless to say I was absolutely chuffed. There was only one real thing left to do with the stool, the ultimate test per say, to actually sit on it and hope to God that it doesn’t crumble under the weight of my fat ass.

Call it “Trial by Ass” if you will.

Thankfully, it didn’t collapse under me nor did the seat snap apart back into it’s original bits and I will not have to attend any Weight Watchers meetings in the near future as a result. In fact, nothing on the stool even so much as groaned or complained in any way and, yes … I totally gave myself a little spin on it too.

It was sweet.

Inside, I was all like …

So anyway, here’s the finished product:

Not bad, eh?

I gotta say, I’m pretty proud of myself for actually seeing this project through. 

Of course, I had a lot of help along the way.

So what am I going to do with it you ask?

Well, I have absolutely no idea if I’m being honest. I will likely just put it in a corner somewhere, maybe on my back porch, somewhere where I can stare at it lovingly and revel in my ultimate success, perhaps throw a fern on it or some shit, who knows … but damn that stool looks good!

God help me.

It’s not often I get to share any real successes, especially those of the “crafty” kind, but fortunately I have one just such success to share with you. Of course I can’t take all the credit as you will soon learn, but I still take pride in having accomplished the lions share of the work – work that included tools I might add.

Yeah … tools.

Real tools.

But let’s not just jump into the story all willy-nilly shall we?

Let me tease you first with a little background first.

Over a year or so ago, I acquired a turn of the century metal stool which may or may not have had a bomb dropped on it along it’s way. I figured it would make a good COVID project to work at over the winter in the garage. It was in poor shape and some point had raised and lowered but now, only the seat spun freely which, honestly, was kind of a miracle in and of itself given the amount of rust and feces that had built up on it over the decades. The wooden seat itself ad been separated from the frame and had been broken into three separate pieces, all of which had been eaten by some unknown wood boring creature and caked in layers of mouse piss; all baked nice and hard by the hot, dry environs of the unprotected shed from which it was salvaged.

The frame was still sturdy and sound, but absolutely covered in so much rust that you might otherwise assume that it had been retrieved from an underwater wreck site. In fact, it was in such rough condition when I wrenched it free from the garage pile in which it was ensconced, that I also automatically assumed that I was in over my head as well … a sentiment that was soon proven correct judging by the expression on Kelly’s face when she first saw it.

And I don’t blame her as I often fall in love with things solely based on what I image it’s history might have been like. Personally, I see the stool being used by a local pharmacist or perhaps a medical examiner; something they sat on used while they gave out typhus shots, performed electric shock treatments, drilled holes into peoples skulls to exorcise evil spirits, or whatever else it was that Old World physicians did back then. Lord only knows how it came to be in such poor condition though. Trying to resuscitate life back into this once beautiful object was certainly going to be a challenge unlike anything I’d attempted before. (Lest we forget the Frankenbench). However there just something mystifying and alluring about it that that I just couldn’t leave it behind; like there was some unseen force gently guiding me, telling me that while it was going to be a difficult field to hoe, I was absolutely the right hoe for the job.

I decided then that I’d have a go at it and threw it in the car.

WTF.

But honestly, I just tucked it away in a corner and never looked at it again until nearly a year later.

So anyway, fast-forward that 12 months and there I was looking at it once more in the garage and deciding what to do with it. I figured it would make sense to tackle the restoration in two phases, dealing with the gnarly seat first, before tackling the train wreck of a frame second. The metal frame was certainly going to prove to be the more difficult undertaking and therefore require more “planning”, so dealing with the seat made sense.

Fortunately I have a friend Adam, the proprietor of Stevensville Pallet Project in Stevensville, Ontario, who happens to have an entire home wood shop in his driveway. My original idea was to bring him the segmented seat and have him cut me an entirely new equal-sized seat to replace the old, hand him a sawbuck and shake his hand and, Bob’s your uncle … I’m good to go.

Ah yeah … no.

Adam looked at the three dilapidated three pieces of dilapidated wood in my hand and said, “why don’t you just glue them?”

Huh.

Okay, I suppose I could do that.

After all, I once made a killer Popsicle stick cabin back in Grade 3 so how hard could it be? So I brought it back home again with me to try my luck at gluing it back together myself … if only I knew how to do that.

Fortunately I have a “guy” for just these kinds of situations, my awesome and accommodating neighbour across the street Danny – “Master of Machines”; a man who makes Mike Holmes look like Stan Laurel.

(Do your own Googling kids)

Danny assured me that this was something that I could in fact do, and that a simply “wood glue” would suffice for the job.

Wood glue … huh.

What a strange and wondrous time we live in.

But seriously, I’m sure glad he mentioned it as I would have likely come home with a pail of the white Elmer’s paste (the edible kind of course) from the hobby store. And I’m not kidding either, I haven’t exactly glued much since Grade 3 let me tell you!

Danny also gave me a hand-held clamping vice to use in order to hold it all in place once I had somehow managed to fit and glue the three pieces together. Once again I was very happy for this advise as I hadn’t even considered that part, and my brain would have likely short-circuited trying to figure it out in the absence of Danny’s special squeezy-clampy thingee.

(Sorry to be all ‘technical’ there)

I then enlisted the assistance of my wife to hold the pieces together while I applied the glue and fixed them together with the squeezy-clampy thingee. After much cursing, swearing, and the threat of divorce, “we” managed to successfully get it all together in one piece and left in one the work bench overnight to dry.

Come next morning, you’d think it was Christmas and I was eight-years-old again as I hopped out of bed at first light in order to see what Santa had left me under the tree. In this case however, I was running out to the garage in order to find out if I was a complete and inept schmuck or not.

Thankfully, it had successfully held together nice and firm and I am not a total schmuck.

In fact, so far I’m killing this DIY shit.

So now I had an entire whole seat to work with, time to deal with the gunge. I gave it a good power-washing and I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty fucking stoked when the seat didn’t disintegrate into pieces again under the pressure of the water.

Killing. It.

“I wonder if there’s any way to get rid of these holes” I thought to myself, and after trucking across the street to consult with Danny, the “Titan of Tools”, I was off to the hardware store for some “wood filler”.

Again, who knew?

Fortunately, I already owned a putty knife – two in fact.

Now I have absolutely zero idea why I have them or how they come to end up in my toolbox, but there they were. Mostly, I was mostly just stoked that I even knew what a putty knife was.  So I squirted this wood filler into all the cracks and crevices and bore holes, and paved it all down nice and smooth with my putty knife and, once again, left it all to set on the work bench overnight. In the morning, either I was visited by wood-working elves or my once sad ass stool seat was now starting to look somewhat whole and presentable.

Even better, having been here once before in the past I already knew what the next appropriate step was at this point: Call Bob.

Bob is another “go to” guy of mine, specially for all things “smooth”. You see, Bob once loaned me an orbital sander for another project after hearing (ie. bitching) about my struggles hand-sanding an old wheelbarrow last summer and, believe me, I have no interest in revisiting those blisters so, yup … I gave Bob a call and asked to borrow it again being the delicate, Lilly-livered pussy I am.

Bob of course, was only too happy to help out.

So I sanded it all down nice and smooth for a half hour or so (I’m a bit obsessive about my sanding), stained it with some wood finish that I had left over from the wheelbarrow, and then I coated it in a protective layer of spar urethane; three times actually, in order to give it that extra special polished sheen as well as make super water resistant (I’m obsessive about my water resistency as well).

A few days later, and here’s the end result:

Not bad, amiright?

I have to say, while it’s not perfect given it was just my first effort, I couldn’t possibly be happier with the end result, meaning a) it was complete and usable once again, b) looked better than it was, and 3) I still have all my fingers.

And that my friends, is the holy trinity of any DIY project right there if you ask me.

Of course, that was only phase one, which now means I had to re-shift my focus to looking at the rusted out metal frame. While the seat had proven a challenge, the frame was going to be a completely kettle of fish as it would most certainly call for the use of tools … real tools.

The scary kind that make sparks n shit.

God help me.

It goes without saying already that I love music – like really love music – and not just some of it, but all of it. And Lord knows that I will listen to some really rando shit for far longer than most people can tolerate. It’s my own special super power: Able to listen to truly unlistenable shit for long periods of time.

Not exactly “cape worthy”, is it?

It’s not really my fault though, seeing as how growing up my mom only listened to nothing but Barry Manilow and the Stealing Home soundtrack, and my dad of course only listened to what my mom listened to, so clearly I didn’t learn much from my parents other than what I didn’t like. For having grown up listening to such shit music, it’s amazing that I like music at all to be perfectly honest with you, but for whatever reason I was fascinated by it … all of it.

And over the years, I haven’t just listened to music either – I’ve studied it. I’ve deep-dived and explored all the different fashionable trends and styles of music over the years, largely on my own, and I have a pretty good idea regarding the “what’s what” of classic albums for most popular genres. I’m just as likely to wax on endlessly about obscure 70’s garage bands as I am to put my favourite Walter Ostanek album on the turntable while doing so.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I am a beautiful and unique snowflake and often, I have even tortured my poor family with my diversity.  (Lest we forget, click HERE.)

Having said all this, much of what I listen to now is just fucking awesome.

My favourite though for many years, was the blues.

Like most middle class white suburban kids, I knew absolutely nothing about “the blues”. I mean, no one in my neighbourhood growing up had a nickname like “Blind Boy”, “Memphis” or “T-Bone”. We did have a “Shakey Jake”, but that’s because he had Parkinson’s disease. (Kids are cruel, sue me) None of us made cigar box guitars to play on street corners, none of us were ever beaten unless we really deserved it, and we sure knew nothing about ‘share-cropping’ unless it in reference to stealing strawberries from the next door neighbour’s garden and, believe me, there was no “sharing” about it.  In other words, I had absolutely zero frame of reference when it came to learning about the tragedy and misery that is the Blues, but there was still something about it’s rustic nature that genuinely appealed to me, or maybe I just dug the whole folklore of ‘meeting the devil at the crossroads’, I dunno exactly, but for a very long time it’s all I ever listened to.

Like any dedicated rookie, I listened to all the greats: Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Lightning Hopkins, Slim Harpo, Leadbelly, and more blind guys than you could shake a white cane at. If they played a guitar, had holes in their shoes and had a sad story to tell, I would listen to it. This is how I discovered another bluesman with whom, I would become quite obsessed for some time.  However, this bluesman did not actually come from this side of the Atlantic at all, but rather from Macclesfield, Cheshire, U.K..  I’m, speaking about John Mayall.

Specifically, it was Mayall’s Jazz Blues Fusion album that drew me in.

But I soon came to seek out many more albums spanning Mayall’s weird and disjointed career: A Hard Road, Blues from Laurel Canyon, Bare Wires, Moving On, The Turning Point, and The Latest Edition. I don’t know why I gravitated towards this rather quirky bluesman at the time, it’s not like he had the same “rootsy” authenticity of the black American blues players, but Mayall’s style and gravitas somehow drew me in and captivated my attention. After all (as I learned), it was largely through Mayall’s legendary band The Blues Breakers, that other notable bluesmen such as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor all passed on their way to establishing lofty careers and achievements of their own in rock legend, so the dude has some clout.

However, in later years there was always the added bonus to John Mayall albums of getting to see the photographs of the band on the back cover.

I have no idea what dark forces might be at play here, but only John Mayall could manage to attract these kinds of yahoos (circa 1974):

Seriously, I don’t picture a lot girls hanging around back stage after one of their shows

I also like this era (circa 1979):

Nice suit, Clark.

Regardless, for whatever reason I loved the guy.

Well, his music anyway … the man?

Not so much.

I have seen John Mayall twice, once just across the border in Buffalo, New York at the legendary Tralf Music Hall where I even had the opportunity to meet the man in person.

It didn’t end up going very well though.

I had borrowed my dads car and had crossed over the border to see the show by myself.  The concert itself was pretty cool and I felt privileged to have seen one of my (then) idols play a mere few feet away.  I was definitely feeling pretty stoked.  After the encore, John came out to sit at his merchandise table to sign autographs and whatnot.

Graciously (or so I thought at the time), John was signing newly purchased CD’s, posters, t-shirts, or whatever else people wanted to shell out their money on while still basking in the after glow of John’s performance. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any vinyl records on him as I would have surely considered those for purchase, but as it was I already owned the sole CD available for sale, the shirts were ugly as all get out and really, who buys posters?

Besides, I only had $20 left for enough cheap American gasoline to get home, with enough left over to pay the tolls at the Peace Bridge on my way back into Canada; I was living quite frugally back then and I had splurged on the ticket as it was. However, I came prepared for just such a contingency and had the good foresight to bring along my Jazz Blues Fusion album for him to sign instead. Afterwards, I might attempt to shake his hand, thank him for a good show, and perhaps express an interest for him to come back soon, before I would relinquish his attention and considerately move along in line with my prize to promptly exit the building in an expedient manner like the good, decent, rule-abiding, concert-going sheep I am; the perfect memento from the perfect evening with a music icon and blues legend.

What could be simpler?

Now, I’ve met a few famous people in my lifetime so I’m not really the kind of guy that goes all ga-ga over celebrity types, but in this case I was absolutely starstruck and nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I patiently shuffled obediently along in line, all the while eavesdropping on the conversations up ahead between John and the other concert-goers and to me, from what snippets I could make out, John didn’t seem very, shall we say – talkative. In fact, from my vantage point he seemed downright surly.

I also became very conscientious that I was the only one in line already holding an album, as evidently, everyone here was for the “signature/CD/t-shirt/poster” combo.

My anxiety started to spike …

Surely, he’s just tired and therefore being quiet I consoled myself.  He’ll be happy to sign my silly record and perhaps even let me gush over him a little bit, before he casts that knowing look to the security that both signals and says ‘please have this fawning twit removed now’.

Sadly, it didn’t go that way.

As I had already picked up on, John was in a foul mood. God knows what his reasons were or whether he’s just genuinely a gruff person by nature, but by the time my broke ass with my beat up copy of Jazz Blues Fusion showed up at his table, he was having none of it.

Being practically scared to death by this point, I wordlessly held out my album to him to sign and – I swear – he never so much as even looked down at it. In fact, he never broke eye contact with me the entire time and a very awkward silence began to lapse between us; his eyes shot white hot laser beams that bore directly into my skull …

This was an intense man.

Finally, I mustered a little courage to speak and while I don’t remember exactly what it was that I said, it was likely something along the lines of “Hey, I’m a really big fan and I was really hoping you’d sign this for me please.” Sadly, it was probably one big run-on sentence that I managed to spit out between feverish pants and gasps for air, more like: “IMMABIGFANCANYOUSIGNTHIS?”

Obviously not my suavest of moments, but hey …

Anyway, he just looked at me and if I’m not mistaken, there might have been a tad of contempt in eye, before he outright says to me, “You gotta buy something first”.

I was stunned and a bit mortified.

“I already own that CD, it’s awesome”, I said hoping to save a little face. “I was hoping you could sign this instead”, I added still holding out my record.  Again, it was more like:  “IGOTTHATALREADYCANYOUSIGNTHISINSTEAD?”

“Buy a t-shirt or a poster then”, he said rather pointedly in his thick English accent.

I couldn’t believe what a dick he was being, and I’m pretty sure my heart actually exploded while my brain imploded simultaneously together as by this point, he had forced a ‘put up or shut up’ type situation, and as I really needed the gas and toll money to get home again, then was nothing left to do but stalk off from the table in shame with my still unautographed record under my arm like a chump.

Oh, and hey John …

Thanks for nothing, you douche.

Truthfully, it was a long time before I could listen to John Mayall again, believe me.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve bought a John Mayall album since – used or otherwise – and while I still love me some Jazz Blues Fusion and still play it from time to time, however it’s not without also remembering that awkward encounter and that cantankerous old fart.

This blog was never intended as an outlet to comment on or vent about any current socio-political issues*; more so about the on-going transition – a “journey” if you will – from my being a single, independent dipshit bachelor, to that of a responsible “family guy” …

Holy shit!

Has it almost been TEN friggin’ years already?

Err, sorry …

Anyway, sometimes a new story breaks that is so utterly stupid that it’s simply impossible to not take a little paw swipe at it. I mean, seriously, we’re living in a time when people are embedding $24 million dollar diamonds in their foreheads, how can I resist not letting out my “inner asshole” out to play every once and a while? In this case, it’s the story of the Italian artist Salvatore Garau who just auctioned off one of his sculptures for $18,000 or 15,000 euros at Art-Rite, an Italian art house.

The thing is … it’s absolutely %100 invisible.

That’s right, folks.

This ‘immaterial’ piece of sculpture art, titled Lo Sono, which means I am, literally does not exist! The only material proof of this artwork that the buyer, who has not been identified yet, will receive is a certificate of authentication, signed and stamped by Salvatore Garau himself as proof of its originality.

According to him, the non-existent sculpt is not actually intangible, because it has the power to activate the imagination of those who watch it, an ability that each and every individual has. In other words, it could potentially be whatever you want it to be.

It could be this:

It maybe this:

Or it’s this:

Not the actual artist

Personally, I’m going with something closer to the latter.

Per his statement with the Italian outlet Diario AS, he visualized this sculpture as void. “The vacuum is nothing more than a space full of energy, and even if we empty it and there is nothing left, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that ‘nothing’ has a weight … therefore, it has an energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us”, he said.

In case you’re wondering, that’s fancy “science speak” for complete and utter bullshit.

Seriously, how much of a rich and pretentious twit do you have to be to drop 18 G’s on, well … air?

What’s more, there are even specific instructions as to how you can display this ethereal artwork! As per the artist, the exhibit must be set out in a private home, in an area about 5 ft. long and 5 ft. wide. The display zone should be obstruction-free, but since the piece does not really exist, there are no definite lighting or climate prerequisites. 

Well that’s plenty relieving I’m sure, because after splurging 18 thousand on, well, nothing, one wouldn’t also want to have the burden of also having to preserve that nothing at an additional expense.

By now you’re probably thinking this whole this is rather dumb, right?  And I guess I kinda do, but I also completely respect Mr. Garau and absolutely applaud his efforts and marketing prowess.  After all, you know you can sell snow to an Eskimo** when, after locking yourself into your studio for days and weeks on end, doing nothing but secretly smoking copious amounts of pot and binge watching Gilmore Girls, you emerge again with an empty plinth and reveal to the greater Art world, your new invisible masterpiece.

It’s just so, so, so … 2021.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I risked life and limb throughout this last year of isolation just trying to make fucking bird feeders, mostly as a way of keeping myself from going insane, and this fucking guy walks out with absolutely nothing, calls it “art” and makes a cool $18,000.

I see now what a fool I’ve been. 

God help me.

*(Okay, maybe once: click HERE)

**Sorry, but that’s just how the expression goes.