Micro con artist. Penny ante grifter. The gray zone is coated with grease. Project a sense of entitlement when presenting upgrade certificates to the ticket attendant. The rules can change at any moment and there is at least a 60% chance that they are invalid for this flight. The airline world is liquid. Greed and status play a big role in how things go from the check-in kiosk in one city to the baggage carousel in the next. Experience is a plus. I have figured out the secret power structure. The airline concierge is a position created for those who ride this gray area to the wider seat and the free booze. All you need are a few full fare tickets bought each year. The carrot is dangled under the nose of the buyer. If someone is willing to pay $3000 to get to Toronto on short notice then there is a chance this will happen again. If their luggage is 50 lb. overweight then that is the price the airline must pay. It must not feel like “the mark” is paying a price.
Try to travel with the people labeled as “marks”. Just when you thought you might miss your flight, or receive the seat that doesn’t recline and smells of old diesel melding with the lavatory waft from right behind, a magical man or woman in some sort of cravat and blazer steps forward with a walkie talkie and says, “Its OK Carol. I’ll take care of this”. Follow the magician to the inner sanctum of the executive lounge and wait for all things to get better. This is one of your 5 lucky days allotted for the year. In 200 hundred days of travel you are allowed 5 “get out of jail cards” . The secret concierge overlords enter your 5 chits into the separate concierge closed circuit system. When traveling with a legitimate “mark” (a prestigious flyer with dozens of full business class fares a year) you are flagged for H.S. or “honoured sidekick” status. At that point the concierge overlords bank 5 chits in your account. The desk staff have a nickname for you -- “extra baggage”. They are watching to see how many cheese slices. melba toast packs or cappuccinos you consume and tallying it up in their collateral damage register. Extra baggage always consumes more free goods. If a musician is in the lounge on an “HS waiver” then they keep a separate roster for booze. They try to limit musician’s times in the lounge to the breakfast hour to cut their losses but sometimes even this does not guarantee that a sizable quantity of spirits will not disappear in short order. Every few years I enter the pantheon of “the mark”. This is a glorious time. It almost makes you want to arrive early to the airport. This places me in the “HS” category with an “alumni floating bonus” or “AFB”. First name basis procedures are enacted with the concierge under the knowledge that my “HS” status may be upgraded in short order. In real life I ride the rails with everybody else so when the perks come my way I can rest easily in the well padded guilty chair. Believe me when I say I have taken enough hair raising and horrible flights and paid enough money to warrant my 5 chits. I’m milking one right now. I am projecting a sense of entitlement.
Important announcement. I've had to go home early from this road trip in order to deal with some family matters. This means I won't be on the Bluebird North tour dates in Montreal, Kingston, and Ottawa. I'm going to try and make it back for Guelph & Toronto but there is no way of telling right now.
My great friend Tom Wilson has jumped into the fray and is taking my place for these shows. Please go to the shows and enjoy yourselves. They will be really cool events and I am sad to miss the fun.
From moral distress to moral courage. A bible belt rallying cry. Who cares? Weakness is a slippery slope. I say lets ride it. Moral collapse seems to provide far more entertainment. Sin is fun. I’m not even sure which are the moral choices. I have chosen an amoral dimension. Humour is possible here. Lets adventure in my amoral principality. The roadhouse is open at the dinner hour. Ethics are hanging around the bar and getting a lot of attention but morality has gone home with its mom. The band hits its first squall of intentional feedback. I pass on the frontage road shirtless riding a spanish dirt bike. I am smoking for effect. The thin ruby stripes in the Wallace tartan kilt bring out the red in my eyes. The paintball pistol tucked loosely under my sporran is warm down its barrel. The falcon on my shoulder is trained to hang on without breaking the skin. Johnny Depp follows behind in the battered taxi he has chartered three cities away for I am the holy grail of swashbuckling character studies. Making all the right wrong choices. I wear Maori tattoos and a golden crucifix around the neck just to drive home the point that my definition of a spiritual course is completely unique and darkly conflicted. Supermodels dining at the street side table of a cafe are left breathless as I snatch a fillet of seared tuna from their plate at full clip. I carry it in my teeth as I catwalk the Bultaco through the outdoor market. The falcon is unfazed and only narrows its gaze on the prize. Her wing brushes my cheek as she launches upward above the bell tower of the old city hall and is caught in silhouette against a smoggy scrim of tired twilight sky. She disappears into an upstairs window then returns to my shoulder as I shift up, twist the throttle and hit the outskirts of town. In her talons is the rodent pelt of the mayor’s toupee. I smile slowly, squint, draw the paintball gun from my belt and fire backward hitting the windshield of the pursuing cop car with a lime green explosion. He veers left, veers back, cuts right hard then the brindle brown and dark ghost car jumps the ditch into a cornfield. The stick-on rotating red light falls from the roof and disappears into the cloud of dust. Nobody gets hurt. Ethics takes a drink back at the bar as the band packs up its cigarette signs and endorsement swag. I will return tomorrow and the falcon will snap the mother superior’s bra strap. Banzai in the amoral dimension. What could be more important than a laugh?
A keen sense of irony was sharpened early on. My mother’s sense of optimism precipitated the cycle. We had a budgie named “Perky”. It didn’t last long. After a year or so Perky began to sulk in the bottom corner of the cage with his head hung low. There isn’t a lot you can do to help a budgie with terminal depression. The door was open in hopes that the bonds of captivity could be taken out of the equation. He didn’t feel like flying. It took a week and he had passed. We mourned for an appropriate length of time and the empty cage made its heavy statement. One parent brought home a new budgie to fill the void and eat the leftover seed. We named him Perky in tribute to our fallen squab. Sooner than the last Perky he was tits up in the cage. So began a run of ill fated “Perkys”. I don’t know who to blame. I believe we followed every directive in the budgie manual. The christmas after Perky IV hit hard onto the shredded newspaper my auntie arrived bearing a Mandarin orange crate. It made a strange whimpering noise. Out popped a seven week old lab/shepherd cross. Through hybrid vigour and with a trademark twinkle of mischief in his eye he lasted almost 14 years. He was “Thor” dog of thunder and turned out to be a strong mofo who took absolutely no shit -- had a heart of gold. My mom had named him appropriately and thus had broken the curse. Four budgies died for my sense of irony.
Crystalline crosshatches stretch across the convex glass of the mini van rear quarter window. This type of ice signals the onset of temperatures at twenty below or lower. Add to that the wind chill created by a metal pod fighting aerodynamic drag under a cloak of snowflakes. Dormant hogweed and long tan strands of grass hold the snow to the shoulder of the highway. Gray white sky and white farms dotted on their edges by bone bare willows move backward at a steady crawl. Foreground fast. Background slow. The continuity is accentuated by the low square woven wire fence expected to cut down on road kill. Rabbits, deer, anything near the size of a bread box. Road grime gradually builds up on the window to provide a softer and softer filter. The light gets lower but always evenly diffused. Its warm in here. Car heater warm. That is its own claustrophobic type of warmth. It doesn’t have the longer throw of house warmth. It comes on faster and leaves even more quickly. The illusion is that the white world closing in on you from outside is also warm. The soundtrack is reminiscent of a Tourettes support group meeting over old coffee. Mindless pornographic babble in counterpoint to microchip cluster ring tones and a radio on too low to be noticed. The anesthetic effect of the outside world has unhinged the connection between language and thought. How many hours and days have I spent in this world? Desperation peaks just as you arrive at your destination. Somewhere before that you have tried to sleep just because its something to do. There is a gauzy cloth wrapped over your brain. Carbohydrates and caffeine curl into each other in rolling I Ching symbol teardrops. They congeal in your vascular system.This viscous cocktail pulls down hard on your motivation. You see extra time to achieve goals during all these drives and hotel recumbence and the only thing you can do is turn the TV on and off. The environment itself has reduced your expectations. Bob Evans is always across from a Red Roof Inn and on to one lamp on each side of the bed, the seven hundredth Tim Hortons, Rush Limbaugh and his pain killers, mall oxygen, escalators up to a level that is no different than the level below, a clock radio, dial 7 for room to room, 9 for local, a night of fashion success at the Golden Globes, sleeping sitting up, key card right back pocket, seven days of underwear, the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB ticker at the bottom of your screen and a consistent low grade hangover. Suspended animation. This may be why musicians age more slowly. They arrive home with no personal development after a lot of living in the moment. The looming future is neutered. I have written myself from dread all the way to appreciation. I thought sacrifice for the cause would come with a stinging pain rather than a low 60 cycle hum and a numbing fluorescent grunge. I ride the road down through the movie studio lot facade of North America. It doesn’t matter whether there are staples in Staples or an actual Harvey eating in a Harveys. We only need the facade to assure us we are moving past. Temperature no longer matters. I do not know who made this van. It isn’t important to know but I might look next time I get out. It will become a Dodge or Ford when we get to the next multi-food franchise retail pit stop. There may be cock rings and cologne available in the toilet of this rest and refuel haven. Will there be brown paper towels or hand dryers? Will metal strapping hold the lid on the toilet tank. Some urinals now smell of vanilla. How much water will be on the floor. My expectations have doped up to meet the situation. Foreground fast. Background slow. A steady crawl.
The “American Idol” series of postings have been brought to you by my playful and dark sense of irony and satire. They in no way depict real situations or real song lyrics. If I were to go on the record I have no sympathy for Saddam Hussein or any other homicidally deranged tyrant. Adolph Hitler is right out as well. My comments in no way reflect the views I may hold ten minutes after I write them. This program paints a clear picture of a mind unhinged from certain obligations and responsibilities. I do oppose media exploitation of sadness and humiliation within the human condition. The reader must keep in mind that I have not had cable television for six years so I am more easily effected by the glimpses I catch of modern reali-T&A-infotainment. I will now return you to your irregular programming.
Well! I can’t believe I’m taking heat for my American Idol posting. Wait til you hear what I think of that bad man Saddam Hussein. I hope they catch him one day. That would make for great TV as well! I think they should humiliate him just like they do with the auditions on American Idol. They should get that Simon guy to tell him that he looks weird and that moustaches are out of style. That will teach him. CNN Idol.
I can hardly wait for them to do a Canadian version of the show called “Canadian Idol”. I think they should get an ex-Prime Minister’s son to be the host and then do everything the same but a little bit worse. Like Prime Ministers do. Make sure the PM was a Tory or it won’t make any sense. It will be just like all our other franchise industries that aren’t quite American but try to be. We will take great pride in pointing out which aspect of our Idols make them uniquely Canadian in order to make up for the fact that, despite our constant efforts, we haven’t quite figured out how to imitate Americans perfectly yet. In the end all I can pray for is a chance to write the hit song for the final karaoke champion. After the stylists and record company geniuses are finished working their magic I will lay out the words that tie the whole thing together. Saddam Hussein will sing my beautiful words:
Shining Hands
you and I are holding on
our hands are tied so tight
baby I’ve been buying time
its adds up to tonight
so take another look at me
see what I have to give
hold your hands up to the sky’
and let your spirit live
because
we are living
holding up our hands
we are giving
see what our hands can share
its a new day of giving hands
and sharing what we are
lift yourself up baby
and touch a shining star
with your hands
hold on and touch my hands
hold on to hands
hands to hold onto
shining in the night
my shining touching hands of love
... I am crying. I have to go.
Have you heard about this show American Idol? They turn on a karaoke machine and play Phil Collins and Michael Bolton songs and little le Chateau shoppers pretend to be “in the moment”. Its sort of like Anson Williams as Potsie Webber singing “Hound Dog” on “Happy Days” only more late 90’s. One of the judges is Randy Jackson. He just lost 100 pounds. Apparently they are using his fat in milkshakes in an upcoming “Fear Factor” episode. If you can drink the whole thing you get to be on “American Idol”. I think that’s how it works. There are already 12,125 applicants lined up beside the mall wearing numbers on their foreheads and “Subway” T-shirts. The commercials on American Idol feature Jared and his Subway diet success. This inspirational story is being milked for a third TV season while the Nike weight loss campaign attempts to go head to head. Nike will feature children on its Malaysian assembly line sweating off the pounds by cranking up the pace on a run of “Kobe Bryant court case” model shoes. The children will eat only the crumbs left in Jerod’s sandwich wrappers. They will smile. Kobe will be a guest judge on American Idol in episode IV and the new “Court Case Advance” model will be worn by all contestants. As a further cross promotion the children from the Nike factory will be flown in to appear in episode VII as the backing choir in a rousing pre-recorded version of “Wind Beneath My Wings” featuring each Idol contestant singing three words each. The children will shed tears of joy onto their velvet Baptist gospel choir robes during the last chorus.
* Colin Nairne was the inspiration behind the fat milkshake with a nod to West Van's own Doug Coupland.
There was a problem with the e-mail gatekeeper and several responses to "the Other Mailman" were deleted with the reams of spam. If you wrote me a letter about that last posting, and received no response, could you please send it again? Sorry about that.
Some of you noted that I edited myself later in the day. I started to squirm about what I had written and if the piece wasn't "feel good" enough already it just seemed too sappy and self absorbed . . .even for me. Generally I don't even proofread more than to make sure there are capitals at the beginnings of most sentences. Lately I've been lying on my back staring at the ceiling for a lot of the day and that has stirred my second guessing ions.
CORNER GAS debuts tonight at 8pm PST on CTV. Listen for my shimmering songs at the beginning and end. I believe the opening credit sequence to be the first Northey Valenzuela collaboration to hit any airwaves since "Something Good". The closing theme reveals my inner shirtless Mark Farner.
I can’t believe it sometimes. I attribute some of the blank and hostile expressions to my mumbling. Shouldn’t the fact that I am smiling take the edge off? I don’t plan it but the rendezvous has been pretty regular. If I leave my house with the dog, walk up the street and turn left just after I get the kids off to school I will meet him. He will be picking up the mail from the drop box on the corner and preparing to do Canada Post’s business down the next street. Not on my street. He’s not my letter carrier. He is “the other mailman”. Jane is my letter carrier. She flies through the yard in her hiking boots and shorts at just about the same time I am meeting him. If we are home she says hi to the dog (by name) and you can hear the doppler effect of her singing or whistling as she bounds out through the trees and onto the neighbour’s stoop. Dusty hair flying around her miniature yellow earphones. I don’t know what she listens to. She loves our dog. She makes me want her job. Some people can do that. She makes it seem like such a perfect existence. NHL player, wine taster, Solid Gold Dancer, letter carrier. I’m sure her life hasn’t been easy but she makes it looks like a dream come to life. I don’t know anything about her but its more fun just to know the part that makes my life better.
“The other mailman” is a different story. I want to know more because he has “issues”. This morning was my third or fourth concerned and stern look. I smile and say “hi” and the dog bounces up and down on her lead wagging her tail furiously. She, in fact, wags her whole body. She IS wagging. My kids call in “boinging”. That is the act of wagging and repeatedly bouncing vertically about three feet. She is on a leash and is at least fifteen feet away from him. He says nothing to me. He will not take his eyes off the dog until the dog has passed. His eyes are small and black and his gray receded hair and moustache seem slightly yellowed and almost glued on. He is tall and very thin and wears the standard blue with red pinstripes of the Postes Canada mountain equipment type fleece outerwear. Soiled. His face says it all. I have been attacked and I will not let it happen again. I sense zero job satisfaction. He has lost his sensitivity to context and is painting every day with the same brush. The brush is oily and dirty and smells of old turpentine. A fearful and poorly trained dog, a product of the suspect intelligence of its handlers, has torn a chunk out of this man at some time. Perhaps many dogs have followed in that dog’s footsteps after sensing that he is already emotionally injured. Now he cannot open himself to the unconditional love that 95% of this species has to offer him. He is undoubtedly armed with double barreled mace canisters and holds a rolled up newspaper in his heart.
Maybe “the other mailman” needs me to help him get back on the bike? I will win his confidence. I will intentionally walk the same route until I get him to smile back at me. The dog will eventually sit quietly at my side and I will engage him in pleasantries. I will not mumble. I will do my small part to help the romance of his day return to him.
The birds act stranger still. The dog bolted up to all fours from a dead sleep and threw out one of those deep barks. It was a bark that said, “I’m serious and we have to act fast”. Generally I ignore most of her barks because if I paid attention to more than 5% of them I would do nothing else. I stood up from my studio chair and looked through the blinds to my narrow view of the lawn, the cherry tree and the columns of cedars that run up the other side of the yard. They were blanketed by spotty and undulating brown masses. It must have been a thousand starlings. Madly pecking at the lawn while others waited their turn in the trees. The drone of ceaseless rain had ceased so their cumulative squeaking could be heard through the double paned glass. Whenever I see these massive clouds of birds I wonder what bountiful food could be close by. At this second my lawn must be a Lion’s Club Pancake Breakfast of worms. Worms had come to Mecca and the street rats of all birds had followed. Starlings with their ruddy indistinct markings, tiny black bead eyes and sharp, slightly too long yellow beaks hacked away at the mucky turf. I did what any good dog owner would do. I silently opened the studio door and crouched with her behind the door to the outside. We were but two feet from the bubbling carpet of frenzied feathered gluttons. I whispered in her ear, “have fun girlie” and popped the door open. She almost went completely vertical with excitement but forward just enough to land in the centre of the thickest patch of birds. This 60 lb black hairy dog with long legs and plenty of hybrid vigour can easily jump high enough for her head to clear the top of my own head. The birds spread out into the air in a controlled explosion. It was as if a dump truck had been dropped in a lake filled with hockey pucks. Brown aerodynamic ovals shot up as if in a wave of displaced water. Like schools of fish this flock managed to remain equidistant each from each despite conditions that would precipitate high speed collisions in slower species. Oh...and the sound. The sound was as if one pair of 200 foot wings had thrust downward in one desperate push. After that one big whoosh of air the trailers of tiny individual efforts could be heard. The tidal wave and then the trickles of water tracing their own paths down through the rubble of the seaside town. I turned my eyes back down to see the dogs breath in the humid air and her rib cage moving in and out over that adrenaline soaked heart. She ran a fast lap, head up, around the yard hoping that she might get the chance again somewhere else nearby. She returned to sit beside me and look up at the same patch of sky the birds seemed to still occupy. When something is gone so fast your eyes can almost still see it. The instance of its presence hasn’t had time to leave yet and become memory. Its the pleasant side of shock. Nobody gets hurt and we get to see the beauty of natural action. Maybe there is more tranquility possible in the vacuum that follows frenzy than in any other situation. The worms are free to worship in safety. The starlings gorge somewhere down the block.
I believe the fateful words were, "my back is sore so I’ll just ride three runs and call it a day". On the fifth run I took a weird spill and thanks to Robaxacet and old fashioned Scottish anesthetic elixirs I made it through the three sets of the second night on Mt. Washington. Snowboarding 101. Don't push it.
In my humble opinion I thought the two Craig Northey shows were some of the loosest and most guitar happy of the “Giddy Up” era. We had no extra technical candy, in-ear monitors or acoustic guitars so it was full-on simplicity and unbridled riffage. We felt like we rode the “flow”. No song surprises. We did all of the “Giddy Up” CD and a dusting of Odds favourites.
“the Vipers” hit the stage after the CN show each night for their debut run. This "musical club" includes Pat Steward, Doug Elliott, Colin James & myself. I think the phrase “Rock n’ Roll Party All Night” would have been fitting. Colin had been talking about this idea of a band that was half record club and half nonstop garage R&B machine. We wanted to dig out the more offbeat R&B & roots records from record bins and old friends collections and rock them up with a furious garage approach. Its sort of like Oprah’s book club only different. To get into the mood we tore into our initial repertoire of “Rockpile”, Dave Edmunds , “the Sonics”, Ike Turner, George Jones, Freddie King, Otis, “the Miracles”, Irma Thomas, Etta James and kept going. It came as little surprise that if you fuel up and pound out those tunes at a decent pace then people will dance, drink and go crazy. What an obvious and beautiful formula. The songs weren’t familiar to the audience but the vibe was a surefire hit. So on we will go combing for weird and funky songs that seem like the right fit for this treatment. Maybe we’ll change our name for every gig. Oh geez my back hurts. We were hosted so well by Rob Robertson and the people on the mountain that we wish to send out a big “thank you”. I would personally like to thank the ski patrol for taking a risk and chaperoning me onto the downloading chair thus honouring my request to not go down on the toboggan and risk public humiliation. I’m feeling much better now and hope to have this back back on the ice by Thursday . . .hmm. Don't push it?
Check out colinjames.com to get the dates for the next little while. We’ll be in Seattle on Friday & Portland on Saturday and then its two dates in Surrey at the Central City Brewing Company -- Jan 22nd with Sharkskin & guest. Jan 23rd with Colin.
Jan 24th we’re in Montreal with Colin, then Buffalo, Detroit, London (with Bryan Adams) on the 28th, and then Parry Sound on the 30th.
I start the Bluebird North Tour in Montreal Feb 1st and work my way to Toronto:
February 1 - MONTREAL - UPSTAIRS JAZZ CLUB
February 2 - OTTAWA (WAKEFIELD) - BLACK SHEEP INN
February 3 - OTTAWA - NAC
February 4 OTTAWA - NAC
February 5 - KINGSTON THE PRINCESS COURT THEATRE
February 6 - GUELPH GUELPH YOUTH MUSIC CENTRE
February 07 - TORONTO - HUGH‚S ROOM
Off to the Island. I hope I'll see a few of you up on Mt.Washington enjoying the riding, skiing, singing and dancing. A reminder that the gig is at Fat Teddy's. The Power Trio will probably hit the stage at about 10pm tonight but I don't know for sure.
I'll be playing in a charity hockey match up Feb 21st in Whistler and Feb 22nd in Vancouver (GM Place). You can check out the details at
seatoskyhockey.com
The dates for the Bluebird North Tour are in and I'll post them in a day or so. Montreal on the 31st of Jan to Toronto on Feb 7th. Towns include Guelph & Kingston.
A reader asked me today whether my last posting was based on something that actually happened. Its a legitimate question that brought me closer to understanding what made this whole journal experience interesting. I had been operating under the assumption that people could tell when my wheels left the road and I started on a tear through the sweet cornfield of embellishment and pure fiction. Yesterday’s story was pure reality. To me these ramblings are pretty literal accounts of events in my day that somehow kick my brain over the high fence and into the weird neighbour’s yard. I might paraphrase something but I try to stay close to what I remember happening. Sometimes its pure fiction. I should have know that the distinction wouldn’t be obvious. The cliché holds true about truth being stranger.
The weird neighbour’s yard is where I always love to hang out. If any of my neighbours are reading this I must say now that this is merely metaphor and I haven’t actually earmarked any of you as weirdoes. That is the last time I will draw a line around truth or fiction. It will et boring if I do that. Everyone is weird. Weird is good. Christ almighty. Here I am at an Odds album title. I loved that title. It came from the idea that we loved all things that were “Good weird”. Someone would say, “that was weird”. The next person would ask, “good weird or bad weird?”. “Good weird” was always the highest compliment. Originality and adventure lie in the good weird world. This is where I like to go when I write. Weird just means there is something you can’t quite understand and something you wouldn’t have expected in an ordered universe. The wrong shoes. An oblique statement. An ugly garden ornament. A Soldier of Fortune magazine in the guidance counselour’s waiting room. No matter how routine a day seems there is always something out of place. Kick at that thing and you might find the entrance to the underground river of actual meaning. You might not understand the meaning but you can feel it do something to you. Maybe tapping into the foreign subtitles below your day can maintain a sense of magic and add another hour or two to the back end of your life. I dunno. I just dunno.
I dug out a Starbucks #6 plastic blister pack clear iced frappacino cup, and a mangled MacDonald’s kid’s pack bag with fragments of a green and black crossword puzzle visibly pierced by the red plastic straw forced outward from inside when this mass was crammed under the passenger seat by a soccer boot or a dog’s snout or the snow chains I placed behind the seat a few days ago. The sliding side door of the pod vehicle is retracted and its time to clear out the detritus of two hundred plus child hauling missions. It was time to put the bones and skeletons to rest and get them into the cycle of decomposition and new life. It took no detective to figure out the Starbucks cup dated back to the summer. Fast food and coffee consumed quickly and remnants thrown aside with cleanup sliding farther and farther down the priority list. The cycle of life has its back eddies, hiccups and belly button lint. There are jet fuel canisters littered below the palm fronds of the war torn airfield. It will take foreign aid and a peaceful decade before the rusty hulks are finally plowed under the new industrial park. Step it up and go.
The first snowfall has quieted the ‘hood. Uncharacteristically low on the pink noise curve for being so close to the highway and a metre or two too high up the hill to benefit from the fifteen foot terra cotta noise barrier. Rain town is never prepared for this. Why is it always a surprise? Insurance companies should pay for driver’s education courses padded with swag -- free coffee, outdoor wear, bonus cell phone minutes and mountain discounts. Take the course and reap the benefits of west coast living. Learn to drive even when the road might be slippery. There is no snow component to current education. The school of hard knocks can be avoided.
The littlest one scrapes away gleefully below the front window with a shovel longer than he is tall. Helping us all out with his contribution to a cause he doesn’t see as a losing one at all. Snow keeps falling. He keeps shoveling. Perfect. I am across and up the yard with my feet on the sidewalk and my body bent into the mini van searching out more garbage bag treasures. There is a dull thump and a shudder of hard materials recovering quicky from impact. He cries out, “Dad! Guess what. A bird just fell off the roof. Come and see”. I can see a gray mass in front of him. Shovel blade up and handle in his right hand just like how he usually holds a hockey stick when standing at rest. He has overheated and has tossed his tuque in favour of a dusting of snow and steam on his crazy blond curls. He’s down to a T-shirt. I reply, “what do you mean?” and move toward him mini van sludge clutched to my chest.
The bird has not fallen from the roof. More detective work is unnecessary. If the front window had not been there this beautiful big thrush would have made it clear through the living room, then the dining room, and maybe met its demise against the inside of the back sliding glass door. If it had been summer he might have made it all the way. No. It was a plan that was foiled by snow. The untouched blanket of snow on the front lawn has taken away any identifying reflected images that might have indicated a glass wall was in the way. High up in the middle of the large centre pane is a yellowed smudge where the crest feathers of the bird have somehow left traces of their glorious hue. If crushed then brightly coloured feathers must give up their essence. Maybe ancient cultures employed this technique to make dyes and paints. This impact point is at head height for me. Flying low and in search of shelter this bird just did it all wrong. Typical west coast snow surprise. Mother thrush provide no instructions on either migration or local navigation. I guess nobody around here has the skills.
My boy is fascinated and sad as he notices the blood pooling outward in a bright claret circle around the bird’s head. Its beak is bent down to its breast unnaturally and its face is pressed into the cool anesthetic snow. The ruby syrup diffuses slowly from snowflake to snowflake giving its perimeter a soft fade from dark wine into bright white. It is both sickening and strangely captivating. Its last blast of adrenaline must be floating outward through the air as a vapour. You can almost taste it on your tongue. We can feel its little soul in transition form one plane to another. Its so quiet and the form the bird has taken emphasizes the stillness. It is as still as it has ever been. When you freeze a body so radically designed for extreme aerial motion and flexibility it can seem more inert than inert -- blackish gray bird with yellow stripes lying still on a bright white cold cotton canvas, its head emanating a bright red glowing corona.
Then came the unsavoury funerial duties. I always took on this job as a kid in order to guarantee that the job was handled with respect and decency. I thought my dad would probably just huck any poor animal in with the garbage or down the toilet. This just didn’t seem right. I was a middle child. My middle child’s first words, upon being third to the scene, were, “whatever you do Dad don’t throw it in the garbage.That would be wrong”. I asked him to hold the bag as I gingerly cradled the bird on the flat blade of the spade and slid it slowly inside. I told him he didn’t have to look. There was no place in the yard that the dog couldn’t find freshly tilled soil and start to dig. A trip out to the woods was in order. A proper burial. A tree will grow there. A thrush will light in the tree once in a while. A proper burial keeps the story simple. It completes the cycle in the young mind. Order to accident to order once again. The cycle of the Starbuck’s plastic cup I have not been able to figure out in the same simple way.That is on a longer curve. That one is a long shot.