The loon and its young

September 14, 2003

The loon and its young one barely move. The wake of the speedboat rocks them up and over its crest. They move imperceptibly as if posing as hunters decoys. Must be clipping along at 35 knots, bow trimmed down nicely and just enough chop to make the occupants feel that they are actually traveling across water. The bird has not known a life without speedboat missiles strafing the surface at random. If it were an hour later into twilight the boaters wouldn’t even feel or see the parent and tot plowed under and coughed up in a skewed feather bouquet appearing in the cleavage of foam behind them. Who looks back?
I am riding in the offending boat on a tour of the Muskoka lake system. Our host is hardly eyes front in the pilot’s chair. He swings sideways and elaborates on the history of the old money cottages and local colour. Hardly cottages. Most of the boathouses are larger than anything real people live in. Commuter getaways for U.S. steel barons, corporate golden parachutists, patent holders, hockey players, and nearly forgotten entertainment magnates. The middle class of today can only move in if by inheritance or precarious debt. The locals see them all as tourists even if the family cottage has been there for over a hundred years ( the locals have the Le Barons on blocks and inhabit the inland roadways). Points, spits and tiny islands sporting old anglo family names unfold endlessly. On them the inhabitants behave according to encrypted private traditions handed down through exclusive genetic membership -- “The MacDonald April 1st canoe race”, “passing grampa Dickerson’s hanky in the family tartan hat “, “last one out of the boat combs the sheepdog”. While money matters divide the family generation by generation their shared leisure time is the last bond.
Extravagant marble, curved glass and imported timber have made their way in the bellies of planes, on the backs of rail cars, in the boxes of trucks from far off reaches and through the deep woods to the waters edge. The harder it is to build the better the story told over a traveling cocktail pulling up in the vintage mahogany jet boat to the mouth of the heated boathouse. These post and beam mansions nose out from the pine boughs at regular intervals along the edges of each finger of this huge water maze. Leisure hours with money are harder to come by in this era. Maybe this is good. Maybe my observations are coloured by envy? I’m not sure. When living in nature it strikes me that economy and adaptation are the key to feeling in tune. Why would you take the excesses of a mechanized and over developed environment into the woods with you? The trappings of modern home life might keep you from achieving the elemental state you need for escape. . ..the elemental state that recharges and enlightens. I can drink myself there if the environment doesn’t allow but I rarely feel recharged. This common course of action can yield an “elemental state” but I take nothing with me when I return to the over complicated world.
I’m in cottage country to rock the weekenders. Here’s a demographic that can buy into the achievements of my renowned writing partner but only in one way. They are not here to enjoy his new directions. They are not here as patrons of artistic expression. They are here for a tried and true musical blast that pushes the buttons of nostalgia. They want to be teleported to the decade when the speedboat was their father’s and they had purloined it for a beer fueled buzz across the lake to meet the rest of their college age summer friends. Here they would meet their future husbands and wives and when the trust fund stoked university degree shoehorned them into positions opened up by gentle nepotism it would be the connections around the lakefront that they would keep coming back to. They would all be connected by a friendly wave from a passing sloop or an Upper Canada lager quaffed long ago while feet dangled off the dock and into the green water. The audience could all remember when each of them had tanned abs and full heads of bleaching hair. When contracts came up or positions came open these memories would provide the swing vote in the awards ceremony. Its not just who you know its if your memory references them to a golden era.
Despite the odd bra thrown onstage or the rodeo howls of the younger set it is clear that the audience at the Kee to Bala is a little let down that they are receiving an inspired debut performance of mostly brand new material. You can feel the real rock n’ roll energy as the band pushes and pulls fresh songs to life. This is my favourite part of the rock cycle -- cresting the first hill and seeing it all lying there before you. Each part of the landscape comes into view as you get closer. You don’t understand it all yet because you haven’t been there. With familiarity comes polish and cocksure showmanship. That phase signals the beginning of the tough tour. It precedes the days where you struggle to reinvent it all or die of boredom/alcohol poisoning. Its back to the woodshed after that. The audience doesn’t want this right now. They want the old stuff. This would provide a perfect soundtrack for their weekend. The soundtrack of their lives before the yoke and shackles were put on. The soundtrack of their lives before all that glitters didn’t give them all they want. All they wanted doesn’t seem like enough anymore so they reach back for the days when the potential seemed unlimited. Somewhere its clear that a connection to natural beauty was never really made. The music is supercharged with natural beauty tonight. It is new and born out of a love for music itself. I want to bathe in the redemption of the moment and everyone else wants to bathe in beer and nostalgia.
Music can be very powerful as a touchstone to the past and I relish that fact . My music has taken its place in many people’s lives and that gives me great joy. It may be my greatest achievement. My own life is marked by the songs I love . . .but why do people want this phenomenon to tread water? Maybe they want their children to inherit carbon copies of their memories so as to shore up their immortality. I dunno. This lake is a place for compounding tradition until it takes on magical properties. One can escape to a whites only party where the status quo of those first 50 years of the twentieth century holds court. In a way its a lot like Disneyland. An ideological museum with Caucasian curators and hispanic cleaning staff. I guess some of my music is on the headphone tour of this museum. Here is the safe haven for those who’s actions have left a definite wake through the communities and natural splendour of generations before them. Their ideals are from a time where there was a lot less guilt about that wake. Here I am enjoying the layers of sunset as the Cadillac inboard power plant rockets us underneath to the cabin the club has put us up in for the night. Its been a beautiful fall day. Due to the recent loss of friends I am stuck in cyclical musings on mortality and immortality. I’m part of somebody else's wake and I’m leaving my own. I see another loon as we tie up at the dock. I hope it won’t remember me.

Who can blame anyone for wanting what feels good?

My thoughts keep going out to the Cash and Zevon families.