Paradise and Lunch - Obituary for Dave McConnell

Several months ago – maybe even close to a year ago? – I came across a facebook post announcing the death of Dave McConnell, who is someone I used to know very well during a big and formative part of my life. I queried the person who’d made this post – a friendly acquaintance from many years ago but not someone I was ever super close with. He was short on details but had heard through someone connected to the building Dave had lived in that Dave had had a heart attack. Over the next couple of weeks I made repeated Google searches with the terms “Dave McConnell,” “Halifax,” “obituary.” Nothing. I monitored the facebook pages of a couple of people I’d known had been close to him. Also, nothing. I thought about reaching out to them but didn’t want to mention it in case the information was incorrect and especially as I know one of these people was going through some serious personal struggles himself. I thought, though, that surely they would know, and would have made this evident in their facebook newsfeeds. So for a while I just kind of sat in a state of limbo, wondering if it might just be a piece of confused misinformation. But thinking, probably, that my old friend had died. Many months later I finally did see a discussion between the two people I knew about Dave’s death. I thought about jumping in and sharing my own sadness and reminiscences, but it felt awkward, delayed, and somehow out of time. Because I don’t know them anymore either, really.

Last year was intense. I felt overworked at my day job and I was planning a wedding. But Dave came into my consciousness all the time. I told Andy about him.

I met Dave McConnell when I was 21 and he hired me to work at United Bookstore. I’d just moved to Halifax from Toronto. He was, legitimately, the coolest person I had ever met.  As someone who was (and truthfully still is, but much less intensely) way too concerned with being liked, he was remarkably unconcerned. I found it so amazing and refreshing, especially because he was actually so talented and he had the best taste in everything. He didn’t care who knew it.

Dave was in his 30s when I met him. He was himself an Ontario transplant who had moved to Nova Scotia to attend Acadia University in Wolfville before finding himself in Halifax. He had a father who still lived in Ontario and a brother who worked for Seagull guitars. He used to date one of Alice Munro’s daughters. I am not sure which one. This was of course decades before the nation learned of Alice Munro’s awful treatment of one of her daughters. Alice Munro was my favourite author, then, and I was thrilled and relieved when he described her as the kind of person who listened to you like you were the most important person in the room. These are my memories of what Dave told me about his life before Halifax, and I wish I had asked and retained more.

He was not a happy person. I’m not sure what kind of life he’d dreamed of having but it was not managing a bookstore/convenience store that sold pornography, romance novels, and cigarettes. In addition to purchasing and then selling the items most of his clientele came into the store for, he was always eager to purchase good literature and VHS collections. His favourite author was Cormac McCarthy.

Dave had a one-year-old son, Duncan, when I met him. He joked about Duncan being the result of a first date that came with more repercussions than he’d expected. He also told me that he thought he’d been in love before but had never really understood love until he had his son – it was a whole other level. Whatever life he’d anticipated previously, it was clear he was living this one for his son, above all.

He lived above the bookstore in a large apartment with a massive kitchen, with his partner Bridget (Duncan’s mother) and Bridget’s two kids from a previous relationship, Zach and Sophie. All the kids were frequent visitors to the store and I was a frequent visitor to their apartment. I felt a kinship with Zach, an awkward pre-teen whose struggles at that age reminded me of similar ones I’d had. What an awful age. Bridget was a baker, who used the giant kitchen to bake treats for deliveries throughout the city. Dave was the first person I ever knew who had an Espresso machine. His kitchen smelled of baking and coffee and felt messy and lived in. As a 21-year old who spent most of my time with peers in bars and living rooms in shared flats I loved being in their presence, perhaps because I missed and was so far from my own family. In the living room, brightened by the sun streaming through the large windows overlooking Barrington street, I’d sip coffee and chat with Dave and sometimes even hear him play his slide guitar. My first Christmas away from home, I was invited to join them for a meal. At some point, Dave and Bridget separated, and the apartment’s enormity was properly revealed. When Duncan wasn’t there we sat close to the window smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee or occasionally whisky. Dave probably drank too much, but so did I, then, and it wouldn’t have set off alarm bells. He certainly never drank at work.

Dave introduced me to so much great music, played over the soundsystem in the bookstore – Bill Frisell, Ry Cooder, Joseph Spence, and Halifax’s own Al Tuck. At Christmas time, Bruce Cockburn’s Christmas played on repeat.  

I wasn’t the best employee, and I didn’t love working there. I didn’t know how to change a lightbulb and he never let me live that down. Dave also wasn’t the best boss. He could be surly and sarcastic and just a poor communicator. But I loved Dave. He felt like family. I remember knowing that I needed to quit so that we could save our friendship. And I did, when I went back to school. I recommended my good friend Rachel, and she began working there. My good friend Ken also worked there, prior to Rachel. He’d known Ken through me, while we’d been romantically involved, and in fact Dave was a support through the kind of heartbreak that can feel like it’s going to destroy you when you’re in your early twenties. He also hired my friend Keith, who ended up working there for years. I thought Keith was great, but I really didn’t know him as well as Rachel or Ken, and when Dave asked me if I’d recommend him I think I said as much, as my loyalty there was to Dave. Basically, “He’s a great, fun guy, but I have no idea what he’d be like as an employee.” Dave hired him and I am pretty sure I pissed Keith off with what he perceived as my lukewarm recommendation.

The last time I saw Dave was on a brief visit to Halifax a couple of years after I’d moved back to Toronto. Of course I wanted to drop in and say hello, and I was shocked to see that United Bookstore was closing that week. Dave was behind the counter and he spoke to me tersely without any of the enthusiasm I’d anticipated (goodness knows why, as enthusiasm was certainly not one of Dave’s typical character traits.) I left, actually crying, and ran into Keith on the street, who gave me a realistic and welcome perspective. “Of course he’s unhappy. The store’s closing, his life is upside down. Give it some time until this settles.” But I returned to Toronto and I never saw Dave again. I thought about him on later visits to Halifax but didn’t know how to get in touch. I should have tried harder. I would have enjoyed sharing another cup of coffee with him. I would have loved to introduce him to my husband Andy. I’m confident they’d like each other.

I’m saddened that there’s been so obituary, that there is no record of this life that impacted mine so significantly. So I’m sharing what I know, what I remember, from the time I knew him, decades ago. Maybe he’d hate this, but I hope a part of him would be happy to hear it. I want something to come up for those who Google “Dave McConnell,” “Halifax,” “obituary.” If you knew him, please share your stories in the comments.  

Dave McConnell was a masterful slide guitar player and loving father to Duncan. He was a very cool person. He lived a life free from pretention and appreciated all the finer things – music, literature, a great cup of coffee. He didn’t care what you thought. He was a good friend to the people he valued. He died in 2025 and is fondly remembered.

Geoffrey Ashton Brooks, February 11, 1948 - September 26, 2019

My mother married Geoffrey Brooks when I was 22. I stood at their ceremony as my mom's maid of honour. I wore a dress that my then-roomate had made for me. I took the train across the country, from my home in Halifax, to be there with them.

After the ceremony, braver people and people who knew the two of them together much better than I did stood up to make toasts and speeches and I gathered all of my nerve to express a very simple thought that was probably exactly this (at least in spirit): "I don't know Geoff very well, but what I do know is that he loves my mom and he makes her happy."

One day, a couple of years later, we were having a stupid argument. We had so few of those and I wish I could remember more of the context. Probably, I was drunk. It came out that he had been hurt by what I'd said at their wedding, that he'd understood I was saying I didn't know him. Well, I didn't. Of course I didn't - I lived three provinces away! It wasn't the point though. I couldn't understand how he could have so grossly misinterpreted me but I think I do now.

Geoff had a hard time with in-betweens, and it's a bridge that I struggled to cross. Because for him - of course he knew me! We were family! Just like that. Just like forever. Of course.

Before I was Geoff's stepdaughter I was the daughter of his old friends from university and a close friend of his son's. I spent so many evenings and weekends at his house on Bywood. The first time I ever got drunk was on his homemade wine (unbeknownst to him!) Adam was a really good friend. I had a huge crush on him at the beginning of high school in fact, and he was kind and delicate in his rejection. We acted in plays together and drove around the suburbs in his k-car and were part of a group of friends who were sad and happy and honest and angsty together during those torturous, formative years. Adam's father always greeted me - and all of Adam's friends - warmly and with a familiarity that most grown-ups didn't show. He was respectful enough (and knowing him as I do now, probably also busy enough) to keep his distance, but he didn't fade into the background like some friends' parents did. He made an impression, because he was kind, and remembered your name, and asked you questions, and listened to what you said.

The story of Cheryl and Geoff is the best story I know. Geoff has told me I get some of it wrong, but he's also told me he likes my version better, so here goes: Geoff and my father, John, were roommates in co-op housing when they went to U of T. They lived on Amelia street [or perhaps my father lived there when he was in that commune], which is where I got my name. My brother is also a Geoffrey with a G, the spelling inspired by Geoffrey Brooks' spelling [or perhaps from some other source]. They all lost touch until I started high school and began talking about my friend Adam Brooks. My parents were quick to make the connection and were able to reconnect. After high school, after my first failed attempt at university, after my parents' divorce, I called Adam to let him know I was moving to Halifax, and to see if he wanted to grab a coffee or a beer as it had been a while. He wasn't home, so I spoke with his father who asked how my mother was doing; he knew my parents had separated. She had just walked into the room and I told him so and they talked and the rest is history. I think the parts in square brackets are the parts that are embellished and I'm sure there are a couple of people around who could set the record straight, but I'd rather keep telling Geoff's favourite version. In any case, clearly, it was meant to be.

I loved Geoff, initially, because of how well he loved my favourite people. He embraced not only my mother, but my two brothers as well. He has shown so much support not only for his own two sons, but for his two stepsons as well. There are particular stories that are for them to share that got cemented into my perception of him, warmed my still somewhat reserved heart.

I really got to know Geoff in my thirties, when I moved back to Toronto - into his home, in fact, on and off, for a significant part of that decade. He did not just let me move in but welcomed me, offerimg so much support and warmth.

Geoff was kind of the opposite of me. He was the kind of person who bargained with people. He always got a good deal but I thought he was pretty abrasive. (I, of course, never got a good deal). When he saw something that needed doing he got up and did it immediately, usually enlisting those of us in his vicinity. I probably could have finished another couple of chapters of my book, but I would have never gotten that dock in the water or that battery filled without him. I have a dad whom I love very much, but he's never been the kind of dad to buy me a toolkit or teach me how to cook a steak or how to store my scooter over the winter. These are lifeskills I desperately lacked, needed, and am eternally grateful for.

Words feel like not enough. This is how I show people I care but the actions are the things.

I hope I am a less judgemental person because of Geoff. I hope that I am a more assertive person because of Geoff. I hope I am more present for my family, which is bigger than it was before, because of Geoff.

I wasn't ready for him to go. I think maybe he was, and it's okay, but I wish I'd said all the stuff. I hope he knows. I absolutely, totally know.

Thank you, Geoff, for loving my mother the way you did. She deserved a good man and you were so worthy of her love. Thank you for taking her on adventures and listening to her and sharing experiences and thoughts with her. Thank you for being yourself with her and thank you for letting her be her wonderful self. Love and happiness are still the best reasons to commit to anyone, you know.

And now that I know you, I couldn't be more pleased that you were the person who loved my mom and made her so happy.

Cover Me Up

For three years now, I have shared my life with Andy. It's the happiest I have ever been, and I had no idea it could be like this.

I was single for a very long time before I met Andy, and I was sort of resigned to it. I mean, I wanted to meet somebody, but I also felt okay with the idea that it might not work out that way. I even appreciated the adventures I had as things that would be harder to do if I had a partner to consider. And I was lucky and grateful to have truly close friendships and a very supportive family including very awesome nieces. Really, my life was not bad.

I always knew that if I were to meet someone, it would be imperative that he be smart, interesting, and have great taste in the things that matter to me, especially in music. He had to also, of course, share the same kind of values and not be a misogynist homophobe or something, and he had to treat people with decency. But I guess I thought most of the other things were negotiable. Mostly, I imagined ending up with someone who was kind of sullen, or reserved, or hated being out embracing the world and the people that I love in it. Or a dog person. Because who gets everything, right?

ME! I DO!

I'm not saying Andy's perfect, but he truly is perfect for me. After maybe three tentative dates we were both all in. He's felt familiar and it has been easy almost from the beginning.

Whenever we are together, Andy makes me feel beautiful and valued. He always let me know how glad he is to be in my company, how enriched his life is because I'm in it. We laugh together and talk closely and there is never anything I hold back. We love to spend time alone together and we also love to spend time together with the other people we love. We love to drive to little towns in Ontario and find out where the best breakfasts and butter tarts are. We love to explore neighbourhoods within the city we call home and trails on the outskirts of towns we've never heard of. But really, anything we do together is fun because we are doing it together. I hope I never take for granted how lucky I am, how good and kind and loving and wonderful this man I get to be with is.

Sometimes we talk about how we met at exactly the right time in our lives. How if I had met Andy before, he would have seemed bitter and angry with the world. And if he had known me in my drinking days I would have been sloppy and annoying and aimless. It is hard for either of us to imagine the other like that.

Andy and I discovered Jason Isbell's album together one Sunday afternoon during our first year together. It all resonates with me - such a great recovery album.

"Cover Me Up" always reminds me of Andy - how vulnerable and loving he is and makes me and how this is the brilliant and unexpected reward for putting in that time and effort to grow and become the people we know each other to be.

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Andy. You are the love of my life. Every day I am so grateful I get to share this life with you. These little words don't do us justice of course, but you know what I mean.

 Cover Me Up - Jason Isbell

A heart on the run keeps a hand on the gun

You can't trust anyone
I was so sure what I needed was more
Tried to shoot out the sun
Days when we raged, we flew off the page
Such damage was done
But I made it through, 'cause somebody knew
I was meant for someone

So girl, leave your boots by the bed
We ain't leaving this room
Till someone needs medical help
Or the magnolias bloom
It's cold in this house and I ain't going out to chop wood
So cover me up and know you're enough
To use me for good

 

Put your faith to the test when I tore off your dress
In Richmond on high
But I sobered up and I swore off that stuff
Forever this time
And the old lover's sing
“I thought it'd be me who helped him get home”
But home was a dream
One I'd never seen till you came along

 

So girl hang your dress up to dry 

We ain't leavin' this room

Til Percy Priest breaks open wide
And the river runs through

Carries this house on the stones like a piece of drift wood

Cover me up and know you're enough to use me for good

Wheat Kings

It seems every Canadian is writing about The Tragically Hip this month, and of course, because this ubiquitous Canadian band has been especially ubiquitous this summer. They are playing their very last shows, and it's sad, and admirable, and even those of us who aren't really fans are, as Canadians, so tied to this event.

In the fall of 1994 I moved to Sudbury to attend Laurentian University, and I lived in residence. It was a strange experience for me. My last year of high school had been spent at an alternative school where the status quo was constantly being questioned, and where I was surrounded by artists and musicians and weirdos. Laurentian, in contrast - and especially, residence - was a very different world. I found people I liked, and even (a very few) people I connected with, but I mostly felt out of place and out of sorts there. The drinking and late nights I could keep up with, but not the loudness that accompanied them. There was a testosterone-fueled, jocky atmosphere I recognized from American movies about American high schools, but I never had that kind of high school experience until I went to university.

I don't believe The Tragically Hip are those kinds of people, but when I think about them, I think about that kind of crowd, and I imagine the band lost amid a sea of keggers, where they are both encouraging and separate. I don't know what band Sloan is referring to with the line, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans," but it has always made me think of The Tragically Hip.

But my fondest memory of their music is of sitting in the stairwell between the ninth and tenth floors of University College residence and singing along to "Wheat Kings" in a quiet moment of respite from the loudness, the falling-down-drunk of it all. It's the sitting-down-drunk, and the sharing of songs. Even though I am not really a fan, I really love that song, and we all knew all the words and in that moment of sharing I felt okay - even good - about the place I was in.

My other favourite Hip song is Courage. I read Hugh MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night in my Canadian Literature class at Laurentian, and it was one of my favourite books for many years. It was the version sung by Sarah Polley, in one of my favourite films, The Sweet Hereafter, though, that really made me love it.

Mostly, I have always thought The Tragically Hip were kind of boring musically. Always, though, I would follow that opinion up, quickly, with, "but I really respect them." It's undeniable that the lyrics are good. It's also undeniable that the spirit of the band is good. Gord Downie and his band have tapped into something that unifies every Canadian, and not just because so many of their songs are about Canada but sure, and of course, partly because of that. Downie is a storyteller, and he is not a blind nationalist, but someone who is curious and manages to light up dark corners and show them to people who might not otherwise listen or know where to look.

I'm going to be at a folk festival in Peterborough the night of the Hip's last show, which is being broadcast across Canada, but I think I will try to steal away for a bit, to find a television set in a nearby bar that is broadcasting it (I don't think this will be difficult).

When I feel like I don't fit in, it's not usually because I don't want to, but because I don't know how. And I love it that The Tragically Hip can tear down those walls. Gord Downie is such a strange and original frontperson for a straight up rock band and that alone lets you know it's not, actually, just a straight up rock band. And what I felt, sitting in that stairwell and singing "Wheat Kings" with those other voices, was connection and inclusion.

Canada loves you, Gord Downie, and I love that.

Twenty-Five Miles

Some friendships feel so natural right from the start and with some, I have found myself surprised to discover that I'm just suddenly in the midst of one, after years of getting to know and showing up for one another. One of my most surprising and rewarding friendships is with Jackie, and today, on the eve of my week-end trip to Cleveland, I'm thinking about the first rust belt city road trip I took, with Jackie, a couple of years ago, to Detroit.

Jackie and I met as Cultural Studies students at Mount Saint Vincent University. I returned to university as a mature student, and being ten years older than most of my classmates, Jackie included, I didn't really expect to make friends there. And I definitely didn't expect to make friends with Jackie, even despite the age difference, because she seemed so serious and, well, not a drunk. I was still drinking very much then, and although I didn't show up to class drunk, I was certainly typically hungover, and certainly always aware, by that point, that it was a problem. I was guarded, secretive, ashamed of, and committed to my drinking, and there really wasn't room in my life for people who didn't drink similarly. Until that one time we got wasted together at our professor's barbeque I actually thought that Jackie actively disliked me.

There is something to be said for the power of alcohol as a social lubricant, and I have fond memories of drinking with Jackie. That first night of confessional "I thought you disliked me!" could have been shelved as a fond memory of a person I really quite like, a friendship-that-almost-was. I have so many of those. But instead, it marked the beginning of an actual friendship that has now lasted for nearly a decade.

I think that Jackie, though she likes people, is primarily an introvert, and she can be hard to read.  People like that have a tendency to freak me out. Happy and sad are so easy for me, but the stuff in between often gets transformed into "[she] hates me." We started hanging out. She'd come to rock shows with me, and hang out at the Granite brewery with me, and then, when I gave up the booze, our friendship transitioned, more easily than many, into one that didn't revolve around alcohol. Because, really, it never had. We were school friends.

A few years ago, Jackie and I both found ourselves in southern Ontario. In different cities for most of the time, but in ones that were close enough for week-end visits. I don't know that I thought, consciously, that our friendship would just fade away, but I don't think I thought it would sustain itself the way it has, that she would turn out to be one of the closest friends I have.

Jackie lives her life in such a respectable, true-to-herself, and interesting way. When I think about how, when I first met her, I'd determined that my chaotic, alcohol-and-rock-and-roll fueled life was so separate from her peaceful, suburban, (and, yes, boring) life I have to also reflect that neither of us were, then, living the lives that we wanted for ourselves, in such opposite but equal ways.

Those of you who know me - and I'm quite sure that includes all of my readership - know that I had been trying to get to Detroit for years. When I moved from Halifax back to Toronto, proximity to Detroit was one of the things I was most excited about, and I thought I'd be taking a trip there during the first month I was back in town. But it didn't happen for another two and a half years. It was difficult to convince people to drive there with me, and I don't drive, and the Motor City could not really be done without a car.

Canadians are just crazy about the United States. Watching our much larger, aggressive, flashy, broken neighbour to the south can make us feel superior and it can also make us feel lacking. There's some very interesting stuff going on in Canada, but the United States always seems more interesting. There's some terrible stuff going on in Canada, but the United States always seems worse. I would never give up the security of living in a relatively safe country; having access to universal healthcare and knowing that my neighbours aren't all armed are two things I value very much. But I also believe there's something so romantic about living in a very fucked up situation and trying to make it better on your own or with your community, on a smaller scale. There are so many American cities that are in rough shape because of systemic racism, economic disparity, lack of access to social programs and health care, easy access to firearms, etc., etc., and Detroit is, of course, the most fucked up - and also the most heart-warmingly hopeful - American city of all.

It turns out that Jackie and I share a lot of the same values, and foremost among those is an interest in community-building. So, of course, Jackie would be the best person with whom to travel to Detroit. Inspired by my enthusiasm and her own equal sense of adventure, we finally found a week-end that worked for both of us, at the end of February 2014, in the midst of the coldest winter any of us Ontarioians can remember.

Via roads that appeared not to have been serviced for decades, we found ourselves in small businesses run by and packed with Detroit-enthusiasts, past homes that were caving in on themselves, and to a market filled with produce that was grown locally on repurposed, abandoned land. We listened to The White Stripes, and Motown compilations, and, especially, over and over, Edwin Starr singing about how far he had gone and the increasingly short distance that remained. 

A couple of week-ends ago, I spent time with Jackie at her beautiful home in Hamilton, where I met her friends and ate the delicious breakfast she prepared from food grown on the farm she works on and from neighbouring farms. We talked about the sad and happy things in our lives but I was reminded, again, of how our friendship is not just about the things that we tell one another, but about the things that we do. We keep on showing up, glad to see one other, year after year.

Tomorrow I'm going to Cleveland just to see what it's all about, with a couple of people I'm just getting to know, to see what they're all about. I've made an Ohio mixed cd. I'm hopeful and excited. People and cities and music are pretty much my favourite things, in that order.

Comfortably Numb

Katherine and I both share the memory of the first time we laid eyes on one another, with our parents and a number of other grade eight students, in Mr. Kirkwood's English classroom at Martingrove Collegiate. Some months later, in grade nine, and actually students in his English class, we discussed that day, and how we had been drawn to one another. In typical Amelia fashion, my thoughts had been, "She looks so cool. She'll never want to be my friend." In fact, she did want to be my friend, and in fact, she was not particulary "cool," despite what I and several of her young suitors initially believed.

Katherine was and is unusual, smart, wise about people in a way few people are, and unwise about certain social conventions in a way few people are, a dreamer, a writer, a loyal friend, and a truly remarkable human being. But "cool" is not even in Katherine's vocabulary.

Katherine-isms include an unbelievably poor sense of direction, especially when one lives in a city as sensibly laid out as Toronto (Had we grown up in Halifax, I am sure she would still be trying to find her way home),  long-winded voicemail messages, and, still astonishing to me is this last one - the bizzaro, opposite world ability to come across as a snob.

There is not a snobby bone in Katherine's body, which is no small feat for someone with such refined taste in literature. She is one of the least judgemental people I have ever met in my life. Yet throughout highschool, I repeatedly heard her referred to as a snob. Friends and I would sometimes refer to her as a "little grown-up," because she was uncommonly articulate and used multi-sylabic words and, having grown up without cable television and with a steady diet of classical music, was completely unaware of the popular culture touchstones that united our peers. I made fun of her a lot, about all of that stuff, and, I presume, because we are still best friends 25 years later, that she took it all in jest or, just as often, completely missed it. She talked smart and she was often lost in her own thoughts, seemingly distant, and these things, I guess, made her appear snobby. But really, I never saw how people saw that; I only knew that they did because they told me.

Katherine was also very cute and small and all of the boys were in love with her. I mean, it was crazy the boys that were in love with her - the jock boys, the nerd boys, the weird boys, even the right-wing conservative boys. Several of my crushes developed crushes on her. Perpetually single in high school, I often felt like a third wheel, and I sometimes resented it, but my resentment felt less like "Why do they like her?" and more like, "They don't even like her." Because, for the most part, Katherine dated nice, unremarkable boys. I do think they saw something special in her but I don't think they had any idea what it was.

Katherine's favourite song for a very long time, when we were in high school, was Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." While it was I who introdued Katherine to many cultural touchstones, it was Katherine who introduced me to Pink Floyd, by way, I presume, of her older brother Tony (who also introduced her, and then I, to Billy Bragg!)

Because it was her favourite song, she carried it into her earliest relationships, and for two consecutive ones, it became "their" song. Two! Consecutive relationships! "Comfortably Numb"! As inappropriate as that might seem, it isn't hard to see how that song could have resonated with someone who felt so outside of the whole high school experience that her peers - myself and her boyfriends included - were such active participants in: "You are only coming through in waves / Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying."

It is hard to paint a picture of Katherine because she isn't a type. I have never met anyone who reminded me of Katherine. And that's part of the pleasure of knowing Katherine.

Most of the pleasure of knowing Katherine involves words. It has been getting to read her writing throughout the years - she is one of the best writers I know. And it has been lengthy discussions about people - their behaviours and oddities and particular reactions to particular situations. And when I talk to her about myself and my life, I am always reminded of how she really knows me and how I am in the world, better than almost anyone.

When I have teased Katherine about certain aspects of her behaviour, she has retorted that some of these traits are Amelia traits as well, and I do see a small amount of Katherine lite in some of my behaviour. Something I like and believe about myself is that I am someone who is difficult to pigeon-hole; that I am full of contradictions. And she was and is certainly like that in the very biggest way - so concurrently wise and unwise.

Katherine has been married for several years now to a man, Andrew, who makes sense for her, and who I'm enormously happy to see her with and to get to have in my life as well. He is strange and thoughtful and smart and kind in ways that are not quite like Katherine's ways but that are complimentary. And he really sees her, which is what I have always hoped for for Katherine.

A couple of weeks ago I attended Katherine's son's 16th birthday party with Katherine and Andrew. It had been years since I had seen him and he has become, so seemingly suddenly, a teenager, with friends and enthusiasm and a passion for weird art projects. He looks like her, and I could not help recalling Katherine and I at that age. How difficult and devastating and exciting and new everything is when you're 16, and how lucky Katherine and I were to have had one another.

Sun in an Empty Room

I always think about moving away from Hunter street when I think: Moving Day. I didn't live there for very long - just 16 months, I believe - and I had about ten roommates during my time there so it felt too transient to ever feel like home. But I think it was significant. I think I lost and learned and changed a lot during that time. I made some very significant choices that might have been the wrong ones.

In the year 2001, after spending a few months travelling across Canada, I moved back to Halifax because that was where my heart lived. My boyfriend Sean joined me there a couple of months later, because it was lucky that we both wanted to leave Toronto for the East Coast. Or we remained together in Toronto because we both knew we were going to leave, together. I don't know. I loved him, but not like I loved Halifax. I had known immediately, intuitively, that Halifax was my soulmate.

I wasn't conscious of what building a life really meant when I moved to Halifax, either the first time, in 1997, or the second time, in 2001. I experienced Halifax as authentic and freeing and creative and wild and beautiful and kind and these were the things that mattered to me when I was in my early- to mid-twenties.

Luke and Claudia had found the apartment. I had lived with them for a year on Moran street, in 1998, and they had been great roommates and friends. Sean and I had decided to live with other people to save some money and because it was initially unclear when he would actually be arriving. It was a large 4 bedroom apartment on the top floor of a house in a beautiful part of the city. They were a couple, as well, and so we had all kinds of extra space. It was nice before Sean arrived, but it was awful after.

I don't remember all the details anymore, but I will accept the responsibility for the deterioration of that living situation. I think I felt like I was trying to be a peacemaker and felt pulled in a couple of different directions. But I knew how stubborn Sean was and I knew in my gut as soon as I got back to Halifax and was reunited with my old friends, that Sean would not be a good fit despite Luke and Claudia being super easy to get along with. Luke and Claudia gave up the apartment a few months later, found a place of their own, and for the next year, Sean and I lived with a succesion of temporary roommates.

Dan was the best because he was hardly ever there. He spent most of his time in a cabin up north or at his girlfriend's house. I think he just wanted to maintain his own address and a place to store his stuff. He had band practice there in the kitchen, and his band was great, and he also made wine there.

Dimitris became fast friends with both Sean and I. He was always on and hilarious and kept up with (or at least put up with) our drinking. But the friendship was brief, one of those crush friendships, where everything's exciting and new and fun for a couple of months but starts to fade just as quickly. When Andrea and Margaret moved in, his friendship affections shifted to Margaret, and I think Sean and I both felt a little jilted. We liked Margaret a lot too, though. She and Andrea were a couple that seemed close to ending; Margaret spent way more time with us than with her girlfriend, and that felt kind of weird.

But the people, the timeline, the details, everything is hazy. It was a big turning point in my drinking career.

Sean was into a concoction he called "green death" that year, made out if some kind of green pop and probably rum but possibly gin. On his days off, he would start drinking as soon as he got up, and I remember knowing that this was going too far. He was my barometer then. If I worried about my own drinking I would rationalize that I didn't start drinking as soon as I woke up.

I remember setting limits for myself then. I was doing homecare work at the time, and I saw one of my clients at 9 am on weekdays, and I knew I couldn't be drunk while I was doing this, so midnight became my week night cut-off time. I was always drunk by midnight. I was always hungover at work.

I used to siphen off some of Dan's wine when no one was home and the fridge was empty.

Before too long I stopped doing homecare work and I got a job working at Propeller, a small local brewery, on the bottling line. An enormous perk was that our fridge was always filled with free beer. Rationalizing that I didn't have to be on my game the same way to work at Propeller, I got rid of the stupid cut-off time rule.

I was miserable at Propeller. It was a really physically exhausting job, and I was always doing it hungover. I started socializing less with people outside of my home becasue I was always so exhausted.

I still said I was a social drinker because I was, you know, socilaizing with my boyfriend every night. And Dimitris. And our friend Kelly was usually there, too. But I knew, then, that I had turned the wrong corner.

Something happened to the dynamics of my relationship with Sean during that time, too. I felt like, before, and especially when I was travelling, I was in control, and I was choosing. But it started to feel like Sean was in control, like he was choosing. I didn't want to leave him but I knew then that I didn't have the power to make him stay. And I certainly didn't have the gumption to turn our little world on its head. I opted for a less dramatic living situation and just the two of us. But very little changed when we moved to Allan street.

On moving day, Sean and I got stuck with the brunt of the cleaning. He let me sleep while he did much (probably most) of the work, and woke me up at dawn on moving day to finish the job while he got a few hours of sleep. He'd just gotten the new Norah Jones album, Come Away With Me, and he set it up for me before he retired. I cleaned the front room with that on repeat, the only soul awake, considering the past 16 months and the future, and I felt alone but a remarkable sense of peace.

We'd stay together for a couple more years, and when I moved out of Allan street it was drawn out and devastating. The break-up is a scene I remember but the moving day is not. The Hunter street move was far more dramatic and certainly a sign of things to come. Although it's Norah Jones that ruled that morning, it's The Weakerthans' "Sun in an Empty Room" that I'm choosing in hindsight.

Sun in an Empty Room - The Weakerthans

Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home
With dishes in last week's paper -
Rumors and elections, crosswords, an unending wars -
That blacken our fingers, smear their prints on every door pulled shut

Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit,
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)
If we meant it, if we tried (sun in an empty room)
Or felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)
From things that accidentally touched (sun in an empty room)

Hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified

Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)
Have been said already anyway (sun in an empty room)
By parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)
On walls that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)

Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room

Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)
And watch a shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)
We don't live here anymore (sun in an empty room)

This post is not inspired by a song, but by that former CBC radio host.

I want to share a story about something that happened to me. It doesn’t sound like it’s something that happened to me because the worst of it happened to and because of people who are not me. But I don’t know what they were thinking or are currently thinking about this event. I don’t know the background or the aftermath and that isn’t my story.

I used to be a regular at a bar in Halifax, as many of you know, as many of you were there. I was (and still am, just no longer actively) an alcoholic. I did some regrettable, embarrassing things during my tenure there, of course, and I watched regrettable, embarrassing things happen around me. But I never felt unsafe. On the contrary, I felt so safe, surrounded by good friends with kind hearts. And the people who ran and tended the bar, I felt, were looking out for us.

There was a couple who hung out there a fair bit and with whom I was friendly. They were drinking buds of mine. Not really friends, but potential friends I thought at one time, and people I really liked. I knew the man better than I knew the woman, because he’d spent more time at the bar and we’d had more conversations. He never seemed sketchy or unsafe, and this is maybe what gets me the most. I always thought I was a good judge of character.

One night, after last call, the three of us decided to continue drinking at a bar down the street called Reflections, which had a cabaret license that allowed it to continue serving alcohol until 3:30 am. Then I went back to their place where we continued drinking for god knows how long. Probably not that long, given the timeline. We were lost in conversation and having an excellent time and we didn’t want the party to end. This was not a particularly strange thing for me to be doing at that time in my life. I was a partier, and a drunk.

I crashed on their couch. Also, not notably unusual behaviour.

At some point, when it was light out, I woke up because I heard banging coming from upstairs, where the couple’s bedroom was. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I was disoriented because I was not in my own bed and because I was drunk. Within a few seconds I remembered where I was and how I had gotten there. The banging continued. This, I didn’t understand. I don’t remember hearing any yelling, but I may have. I remember that the impression I had was that someone was being thrown against a wall. It sounded forceful, violent, and scary. I think I must have heard voices but I don’t remember anymore. It was a long time ago. I remember yelling up the stairs, somewhat meekly, “Are you okay?” The sounds stopped for a moment, and then filled the silence again. I got the hell out of there.

I was pretty sure this was going on: He was beating the shit out of her.

Here, I know, I did exactly the right thing. I left the presumably violent situation and I called the police as soon as I could locate a payphone.

I looked at their street address and repeated it over and over in my head so I wouldn’t forget it. I walked up towards Gottingen street, which wasn’t very far away but felt like miles. I was drunk and sleep deprived and I was suddenly in the midst of people rushing to work like it was a regular day. I think I was in shock. I had been fortunate enough to never have experienced that kind of violence first-hand, and it really stunned me. I searched for a payphone. These were few and far between because most people had cell phones by then. I finally  found one and I called 911 and I told them the address and that I thought there was a domestic situation.

I got home in a daze and I told my roommate about it and I must have slept, but I don’t know how the rest of that day went.

That night there was a music event at “my” bar, and I was working the door, as I frequently did, in exchange for free beer.

I told people what happened. I told my friends, who knew him too. They believed me and they were shocked too.

Some time over the next few days a friend of the abuser came into the bar and relayed that the abused had been taken to the hospital after the police were called, and the she had been badly beaten. I overheard him telling this to the bartender. I didn’t say anything and I don’t know why. I hated the way he said it though, like he was just relaying some gossip, like it was interesting rather than horrifying. This friend of the abuser still hung out with the abuser, which I knew because I saw them both sitting at the bar together way too soon after the incident. The bartender served them both, like nothing had happened. This went on at the downstairs bar while I was sitting at the door in the upstairs bar, and someone came upstairs to let me know he was there.

I wish I’d been louder about this part of my story because this part really hurt me. I don’t know what they were actually thinking but I know that the men who worked at that bar continued to serve the abuser even though they knew he had beaten the shit out of his girlfriend and scared the shit out of me. I don’t think they disbelieved me but I don’t know how they could do that.

The abuser wasn’t a regular anymore, and I think he mostly tried to avoid me, but I know he still popped in on occasion, and once, when I was sitting at a table by the window, he walked by and banged on the glass right in front of me, intentionally intimidating.

I had a disappointing conversation with the abused in the aftermath. I’d been worried about her, and had wanted to get in touch but hadn’t known how. We spoke outside the bar once. She asked me if I’d been the one to call the police. She said she assumed I had been but wasn’t sure. She told me it had been really good for their relationship, that it had straightened him out, and that they were much healthier now. That he used to abuse her regularly but didn’t anymore. It broke my heart.

Should I be saying his name? I know his name. I know some of you facebook friends of mine know his name, too. Maybe he has changed, has gotten help and is truly a better and remorseful person. If I say his name though it’s like saying her name and her story is not mine to tell. She can tell it if, when, and how she wants to.

I wish I’d been louder about how betrayed I felt by some of the people at that bar. I felt like it wasn’t my right because it wasn’t my bar and maybe that’s true, except it is my right to talk about how I feel. And when I saw him in there with mutual acquaintances, I wish I’d said, “How could you? Don’t you care about what this man has done? Don’t you care that he makes this place unsafe? How can you sit there with him?”

I don’t know what anyone except for me believes about what happened, and may continue to happen, for all I know. I have never heard his side, and I imagine his friends have.

But I think I should talk about it because this is one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this week, and I think it’s an example of how our culture makes it easy for people to get away with abusive behaviour. Everybody knew, and everybody was still nice to him. He got away with it. I don’t even know how complicit I was and am in this myself.

I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I relay this story, because it’s not really something that happened to me. But the actual waking up in their house and calling the police and walking home part of the story, this is one of - if not the most - traumatic things that has ever happened to me. I really did feel in a state of shock. And I think about her, and all of the other people I know who have actually been victims of violence, and I feel so goddamned lucky. How fucked up is it that I feel lucky, and exceptional, to have never been a victim of violence?

Thunder Road

Following Bruce Springsteen's phenomenal 3 and a half hour performance last week-end, I sat in a backyard in southern Etobicoke, with somebody who has surprisingly become--remained?--one of my closest friends. Richard nursed a beer and I, a cola. We smoked cigarettes in the dark and enjoyed the refreshingly cool summer night while his wife and son slept soundly inside.

I enjoy these evenings, immeasurably. We talk closely about things and people we miss, have known, about the ways we've grown and how we have or haven't managed to achieve what we thought we would when we imagined our lives from a 20-years-ago vantage point, when we sat in another (more central) Etobicoke backyard as another summer neared its end.

We used to be louder. And much, much drunker. Richard refers to the guys occupying the house on the other side of the fence as "the bros.," because they are up until 2 am and speaking in inapropriately loud voices, like he doesn't remember the shed he and Kevin created in Kevin's backyard to be a neighbourhood hang-out, to always be filled with Jack Daniels and Marlboro's and merriment.

One of the things we talked about last week-end was our longing for intensity, how we missed the drama and the abandon we used to get from and share with our friends. About how we are all so much more careful now, about how we share ourselves reservedly, smartly, more occasionally. We both attribute this to maturity; to having experienced the pitfalls of too much openness, the betrayals and bad decisions and the knowledge that people change. But I also mourn drinking a little bit, here. For most of the close conversations in the dark and shoulders I have cried on, there was a lot of alcohol involved.

Seeing Bruce Springsteen was a dream come true, but as I purchased the tickets for his date at the Skydome (the Rogers Centre) it was with no small amount of resignation. I didn't want to see him in Toronto. I wanted to see him in Moncton. And I absolutely would have, if only it had been one year earlier, if only I still lived in Halifax.

The best concert I have ever seen was Paul McCartney, when he played the Halifax Common. Unlike Springsteen, whom I had to come to in my own way, McCartney has forever been a part of my life. I saw him with the person who likely knows me better than anybody in the world, and also with a community of people of all different ages and all different experiences, in a city that I am head-over-heals in love with. A city, too, that rarely gets to experience such an event. McCartney probably swings through Toronto on every tour, but he'd never been to Halifax. All those people, raised on The Beatles, raising their voices to sing along to songs they had known forever, by one of the remaining, living members, of the best band in history. A chance that so many of us never thought we'd get. It was unbelievable, thrilling, unforgettable, and, I suspect, unsurpassable.

But Springsteen, perhaps, would be the next best thing to a Beatle, and every year rumours abounded. With every summer that passed without a formal announcement of an Atlantic Canadian date, Springsteen fans seemed more and more disheartened.

I almost went to see him in Boston, during his tour for We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. And when I say "almost," I mean that I put a lot of thought into the acknowledged fantasy of seeing him in Boston. I was broke, but my friend Jen and I spent so many evenings at the Granite Brewery, trying to come up with a scheme to get us there. A driver, a vehicle, and perhaps a sponsorship. We did not go to Boston. We sat in the bar and enjoyed his music on vinyl night.

In 2001 I had a roommate, Luke, who had a copy of Nebraska, and that was my in. I never thought much about Springsteen before then. Or when I did, it was with a bit of derision for the anthemic "Born in the U.S.A." that muscled its way into memories of my childhood. I hated the saxophones. I have always hated that instrument; still do.

Nebraska, of course, is a different creature, and surely the best point of entry for someone like myself. The sparse instrumentation and fascinating naratives sucked me in, and I figured out what I'd been missing. I started from the beginning. On those early albums his songs about youth and redemption and love still make me feel possibility. I can appreciate Born in the U.S.A. now, though I don't love the album in its entirety. I do, however, love every last second of Born to Run, including the sax. How could that album be what it is without it? It's probably my favourite Springsteen album, and I still hate the sax.


It's been my experience that music, honest and gritty words, crazy passionate inexplicable love, and being on the road to some place new are four of the five best things this world has to offer, and these things are what the Boss is all about. 
The other best thing is community, and this is what he fosters.

Richard and I sat three rows from the very back of the Skydome, and we got to see the entire crowd. It was only thanks to a giant screen that we could see Springsteen step out into the audience, accepting requests from fans; he was otherwise a tiny dot moving rapidly back and forth. He sweated and smiled and engaged with his audience throughout it all. No way that man's faking it, and after so many years, and so much fortune, we all know he doesn't have to do it.

So if I'd seen that in Moncton, a short drive from Halifax, with all of those people he'd never played for before, in a wide open field, McCartney would have some serious competition.

My good friend Russell got Candice to play "Thunder Road" as the very last song on the very last vinyl night on the very last night the Granite Brewery was open. I'd been sober for only a few months then, and that night was not so far removed from many others that involved a copious amount of alcohol, camaraderie, sometimes tears, and plenty of talk that sure, might have been bullshit, but was also true, too. "Thunder Road" felt like a theme song there, something that united so many of us.

The best thing about the Granite Brewery was that community just happened, because people liked the look and the feel of the place, and they liked the beer, and they could stop there after work and be welcomed and known. A lot of us had very little in common with one another. The range of ages and experience was remarkable, and when that song came on, we all raised our glasses, and we belted out the words.

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore,
Show a little faith! there's magic in the night.

I can't think of that song without thinking of this place, that now only exists as something imaginary, from before. I know how lucky I am to have been there.

I didn't think I'd see Bruce Springsteen at the Skydome with Richard. For a very long time I never imagined myself becoming a Springsteen fan. And I don't know that I imagined Richard and I would stay in touch after high school, as we have, that he'd stay one of my closest friends. On the surface, we really don't have that much in common. But in fact, we have decades in common. And listening to Springsteen over pints, after last call, in a bar on Barrington street is not all that different from listening to him in a suburban backyard, four years sober, looking up at stars and distracted by the bros. In mourning, in recalling, that lost intensity and closeness, it manages to find its way back to us.

Dust

I was first introduced to The Sorrys' music during the course of what was ultimately a summer fling. I dated Aaron for a month or two, and it was the kind of quick, exciting relationship I used to have when I was younger. It was fun, and I felt young and happy while I was in the midst of it. I even chose to believe in its future, a boldly optimistic decision I hadn't made since I was in my very early twenties. But it did feel like a decision, as opposed to the outlook I'd brought into my much earlier relationships. Before I chose, I felt the nagging doubts natural to an experienced thirty-something year-old, particularly in Aaron's refusal to discuss the long and significant relationship he'd recently been in, or how that might still be affecting him. When it ended, as, duh, of course it did, I spent about a week feeling angry and sad, but I got over it. I didn't even miss Aaron, and I didn't want to be his friend. It was significant, though, but its significance was virtually unrelated to Aaron, and all about me. I felt possibility. I remembered that I was worthy; that I could be seen the way Aaron saw me, however briefly. And I knew that I didn't want light. And the two of us were definitely light. I wanted brutal honesty, but I wanted that to come with faith. I had always imagined these things in opposition to one another. I had been so doubtful of every romantic relationship I'd approached since I was 22, aside from this one, and including the one that lasted for four years. I decided, post-Aaron, that I would rather get hurt than enter everything with so much cynicism, despite the odds. 'Cause it's hardly possible to beat the odds if you go into everything so certain that they're stacked against you. And besides, however things ended up, I had a really fun summer.

That was also the first time I quit drinking with real intent. I mean, I had tried to quit drinking in the past, for set periods of time - a week or two that I never made it to. This time I was going to quit drinking for good, for real. It didn't work that time, but it set the stage for several months later when I did, with a lot of help, finally manage to quit drinking for good (hopefully!). It was an incredibly optimistic thing to do, and it came out of my decision to develop a more optimistic outlook, more generally.

The other thing I got out of that summer was my introduction to The Sorrys. And listening to The Sorrys on cd is great and all, but there's nothing like a live performance, something that took me far too long to discover. I was kind of nervous about going to see The Sorrys live, because I didn't want to run into Aaron and all those weird social dynamics. That's just not a way to live your life, though, if you're a music fan and you live in Halifax. This city is small, and your history is everywhere.

Jim, Steven, and Richard are great musicians, and they sound so together, but seeing them live, you also get to see how much they are enjoying playing together. They have so much fun! Even better though, is how they remove that line between performers and audience, inviting the people in attendance to truly participate in the event.

Trevor Millet is the best front-person in Halifax, maybe even in the country. He's entertaining and sometimes slightly offensive. He gets off the stage and wanders around talking to the audience while the rest of his band remains on stage. He drinks his band-mates beers. He is unpredictable, and he doesn't seem to censor his thoughts. He's so much more than that, though, and I feel really lucky to get to know him, however peripherally. He's a really great songwriter, and what makes him such a gifted writer is undoubtedly his genuine interest in the people around him. I get the feeling sometimes that he wishes he could be living parallel lives, that would afford him the time to really get into other people's worlds.

I've been going to watch bands since I was about sixteen, and I've been lucky to have had some favourite bands who have made me feel really appreciated as a fan. Certainly the most notable and constant has been Dave Bidini, of Rheostatics. But there's also, once you get to that level, a degree to which professionalism plays a role in being personable. Not that famous people have to be nice, or remember names, but it certainly makes for better press. When I was in high school, my friends and I used to sneak in through the back doors of Lee's Palace, left ajar by Dallas Good, of Satanatras, or Derek Madison, of Grasshopper,who found us underage fans endearing I think, who got excited by our enthusiasm. They weren't that much older than we were, after all. The way I felt then? That's how I feel when I see The Sorrys play. I love that I can be 35 years old and feel excited about hearing this super amazing band play songs that I love, and then sit down with them after the show and talk like we're friends.

All of that said, I don't feel like The Sorrys are on a different planet of awesome that is far, far away. They're grown-ups, with families and careers and responsibilities. They're grown-ups like the way I should be, could be, would be, if I had made different choices. I write songs myself, and Trevor likes my songs. I mean, he has really listened to and really appreciates them in a way that I don't think many people have or do. It means a lot to me that anybody could be affected by what I write, and especially somebody who writes great lines like, "I have an aversion to disaster, but I like the edges rough." The mutual appreciation makes the audience-performer line even blurrier, and I like that. It's more interesting, and fuller. 

In my quest to live my life, and to experience relationships that are clear-eyed, honest, and built on understanding, while also being fun and exciting, I would like my soundtrack to be reflective of that as well.

*It has just been brought to my attention that the lyrics for "Dust" were actually written by Jessica Russell. I'm going to leave it here though. I almost like that it was a collaborative project even more than when I thought that it wasn't.

 Dust - The Sorrys

The greatest lie that you ever told was in your laughing out loud.

The greatest sins that you did commit were always against yourself.

And in the end we all turn to dust.

Why don't you tell me, what was your rush?

The greatest pain was in your smile. I knew it was a lie.

But I always loved your smile, yes I always loved your smile.

And in the end we all turn to dust.

Why don't you tell me, what was your rush?

I Love You All The Time

I got my first laptop in 2006, a wonderful Christmas/birthday present from my mother and my step-father. It was meant to be - and it was - a useful educational tool. I could bring my homework to the bar, afterall! That made me immediately more productive, for a bit, before things got too hazy.

It wasn't just my first laptop though, it was also the first computer I had that wasn't ancient, and slow, and reliant on a telephone line for access to the internet. I was a pretty late arrival to the internet party, but I jumped on board with a fair amount of gusto.

At the time, I was playing in a folk duo called nate and marcel, and of course we recognised that having some kind of precense on the internet was becoming a practical necessity. Myspace was very big at the time, not only as a site for hosting music, but for networking as well. It was a way to get information about shows and releases out to a larger audience, and was especially helpful for planning tours or out-of-town shows. In my initial attempt to create a myspace for our duo, I accidentally ended up with a personal, non-artist profile instead of the one that I'd been trying to make. But I held onto it, and it ended up being utilised far more than my professional one. I'll get back to that. That's what this entry is about.

And there was also halifaxlocals. The atlantic provinces seem unique, with their collection of related "music and skate talk" messageboards. I have sought out similar forums for other communities when planning tours, but I haven't found anything that compares to halifaxlocals.

When I first began posting on halifaxlocals it was to promote our shows, but it wasn't long after I acquired my laptop that I began reading and eventually contributing to other discussions. Halifaxlocals exists primarily as a tool for promoting local musicians and local performances, but that is certainly not all it's about. Everything gets discussed there, from local politics to favourite diners to cell phone providers. It's a helpful resourse, and most of the regular posters are exceptionally articulate, well-informed, clever, and funny, while also being very considerate. Above all, it is a community. It's a weird mixture of real-life and online community, given its regional focus. Most people seem to choose not to remain anonymous, and there's a lot of back and forth between people who are actually friends. These people actually do see one another in real-life. I have never met many of the posters on halifaxlocals, but I have met many of them, too, and there are a couple who are among my closest friends. These friends, we don't know each other because of halifaxlocals, we have just all found ourselves there because of our common interests. The messageboard seems to somehow both facilitate and maintain community, here in Halifax. It is almost always where I first hear about things I want to hear about.

There is another online community I feel a part of, too, and it is very different from halifaxlocals. It's sloppier, harsher, and much more abstract. And it isn't very useful, especially these days, or even as encouraging of intelligent discussion, but I really like a lot of the few remaining people who spend time there, and somehow, so strangely and slowly and inappropriately, that community has become a large part of my life. I am talking about the Myspace General Music Forum.

I guess I fell into it shortly after creating my band and my personal profiles. Aware, thanks to halifaxlocals, of the possibilty and functionality of online communities, I explored the forums on myspace, and I can't remember what it was, exactly, that pulled me in, but I'm pretty sure it was Beej, and The Chucky Danger Band.

There are few things I enjoy more than geeking out about music, and working in a record store, as I did at the time, I felt fairly knowledgeable about current music, especially Canadian music. Beej was a poster from just outside of Toronto who championed many of the bands I adored, and he was also a total jerk about them. He was a bully. He was unwaveringly devoted to his personal aesthetics and played a very loud and often cruel antagonist to anyone with differing ideas about good music. I think I sort of liked that. At least I found it somewhat refreshing in contrast to the incredibly inclusive atmosphere on halifaxlocals, where nobody is ever critical of local artists, with the notable exception of Bill Kidney.

The Chucky Danger Band had just taken home some awards during the East Coast Music Awards, and I resented this. I thought they were a terrible, completely uninspired band, and that there were so many other Atlantic Canadian artists much more deserving of recognition. The Chucky Danger Band decided to spam the General Music forum, and I sort of laid into them. It's not really like me. But Beej thought it was great. And there was and remains something in me - and I think this is pretty shameful - that really, desperately, just wants to be liked, by those intimidating figures with the confidence to let you know when they don't. It's like winning a prize. And I'll tell you, it hurt, when it seemed like he didn't anymore.

But that was just my in. There were a lot of neat people who posted in the general forum, of all ages and from everywhere around the world. Elias and Paul and Matthew and Amalia were all still in high school I think. I had a soft spot for Elias, who was occasionally sentimental and revealing in the midst of his posts about dark and harsh music. He seemed really innocent, and really vulnerable, and I remember occasions where reading the way he expressed himself would bring me right back to the way I felt when I was in high school. Disco and Bedbeats were the NICEST, most inclusive and mature people ever, without being too saccharine; still able to be clever and funny at nobody's expense. Except perhaps at the expense of the Acoustic forum. That night that Bedbeats, Johnny Rubber Maids, myself and surely some others tore into their "What's your favourite chord?" thread was one of my favourite times on the internet ever. Steve Zissou was incredibly cool, in sensibility and taste and expression. Philip and norm were older than everyone else, and they seemed older too; less concerned with hipness. There were some serious snobs in there, for sure, but almost everyone seemed very genuine.

I found out about a lot of new music through that forum. It was great. It seemed that the biggest band then, the most universally appreciated, was a band called Oh No! Oh My! And I liked them so much that I got in touch with the band and arranged to sell their cds on consignment at Sam the Record Man. I played them for my real life friends and we managed to sell out of the five cds they had sent within a week.

Then I left the forum for a long time. Several years. I guess I got more involved in real life. I was drinking a lot, and I had a very active social life that revolved around my favourite bar. It was probably some perceived sleight, though, or something that made me feel unliked, that mostly did it. I really can't remember, but I know how sensitive I am.

I have been an active participant in this community for several (nine?) months now, much longer even than the first time I stuck around. My participation in halifaxlocals had slowed down a great deal, but it has always been a constant. It's a different beast. It feels like myspace is dying. I mean, anyone could tell you that, but to look at it from the inside, it's a different thing, and I wanted to write about it, while it's fresh, and still something that I engage with.

The Myspace General Music Forum has a history. You still hear talk about what it was like back before the forum split. By this they mean that there used to be one music forum that was just called "General" until one day after logging in they discovered that it had mutated into a number of different subforums that divided genres and people who preferred metal to, say, electronic music. It feels like a mythology, and it always makes me think of that Sonic Youth show at NSCAD, back in the 80's, that comes up on halifaxlocals every so often. Where they played to something like ten people. Nobody was there, but everybody wants to claim it. Of course halifaxlocals has its own history too, its "guest book," sloan.net.

Then facebook came along and social networking moved over there. Then myspace stopped allowing links to outside sites for fear of copyright infringements, so general forum users were unable to share the music they loved. Which was the point. Threads and threads, every day, about brand new music, top ten lists, it used to be a music nerd's paradise.

Now it's like a wasteland; so slow, and much less empassioned.

On the internet, as in life, I am a creature of habit. I like familiarity. I like comfort. I like substance and understatement and honesty and beautiful, affecting, genuine things and people and spaces. I also like being liked. And I have thought many times about writing something about myspace, using oh no! oh my! But now, maybe, it feels like it's close to being time to go, again. Some comment by a poster I really like but never quite know how to take upset me a bit yesterday, and I had to ask myself why, and what I feel like I've invested in this and what I feel my returns are. I feel coolness and reception and I react to kindness and insularity and dismissiveness like in real life. Posters are people even when they're just represented by some words they've typed and words of course aren't the always-all-the-time-truth. It's harder to recognise sarcasm or teasing without gestures and facial expressions. And I err myself on both sides; I find myself overly apologetic or agreeable or else off-handed. And what I really want, everywhere, is a genuine connection, but what I end up striving for is just being liked, even by bullies I don't even like myself.

I have some forum "friends" on facebook now, which is neat. And I'm sending some Christmas cds out to some of them, which is also neat. I like that connections in an online forum can extend into the world at large, because connections, however and wherever you may find them are what it's all about. That and the music. But mostly I feel my time slipping away from me. I would rather be out there than in here if I am not being affected or active.

I thought I'd be much more specific about people and my involvement this time around, but it feels too weird and perhaps rude to be too analytical about other people when it's present. The new format is glitchy they say, I'll see, and so they're making virtual suicide pacts, trying to get banned, and just
falling
away.

I didn't think this entry would trun out to be so depressing.

*Beej wrote a song about the myspace general music forum several years ago.
*Doug Mason has a great song about halifaxlocals called "locals culture."

I Love You All The Time - Oh No Oh My

**I have decided not to type out the lyrics this time because I think they're kind of silly, and not relevant, but it's a really great song! Much loved by the Myspace General Music forum circa 2006

Gorgeous Morning

I feel a little weird writing about Tanya Davis, though this blog entry is something that has been rolling around in my brain for years now, in bits and pieces. I feel weird because I know her – not at all well, only very peripherally – and I find her writing so emotionally and personally affecting that I actually feel sort of strange and bare when I run into her in Halifax. I don’t know of another songwriter who is so vulnerable in her writing, and I don’t know of another songwriter who speaks to me in quite the same way.

I was introduced to Tanya Davis’ music when I worked at Sam the Record Man. She brought in a copy of the recently released cd, “Make a List,” to be sold on consignment there. My friend and co-worker Jonathan suggested I listen to it; he thought I’d like her. “She calls these song-poems,” he said, rolling his eyes, and then he quickly added, “But it’s really good!”

And I couldn’t get enough. On days when I was confined to the third floor I would sit there and replay that cd for hours. I’d never heard anyone speak about loneliness that way. There was hope, too, and constant lists, so many lists, of reasons to do what you do, things you should be doing, ways that people can be known, ways in which they aren’t enough, all of the dark and light little corners of human experience seemed to there, spoken and sung in this fragile, honest little voice. It was truly revolutionary for me. It used to make me think about the excitement with which Jon Landau had famously declared, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” There was that same experience for me and I remembered why I loved music so much, why I felt such a connection to certain artists and songs. Sure, there’s nothing new about what Tanya Davis has to say. What’s new is that she says it with such earnestness, with such a lack of pretension or self-censorship that it feels so remarkably different from anything that anyone else is saying.

Tanya Davis has been getting a lot of attention lately, and this makes me very happy. The Andrea Dorfman-directed video for her poem, “How to be Alone” has been everywhere on the internet, and viewed/heard and enjoyed by bigshots like Roger freakin’ Ebert, even! This is not a sad poem and it is not about being lonely, despite what some critics have seen in it. But a lot of what she writes is about about being lonely, and about being sad, and I believe she does an excellent service for humankind by articulating these experiences so unself-consciously.

It is hard to pick, but I picked gorgeous morning, for “It wasn’t worth those happy breakfasts that I missed.” Truth.



Gorgeous Morning - Tanya Davis

some of the people thought that I was crazy
for leaving all that
but they didn't see me at seven in the morning
in the months before i left

within a few minutes of opening my eyes
there was the dread of the day
sitting by my bed waiting for me to rise
and pretend like everything was okay

and it makes for bad digestion when you are crying onto your toast
and if that's how breakfast goes you know you're in for it
but i had no intentions then, go to work and come back home
my feet heavy and slow every minute of it

i could be a person climbing up the ladder
and checking the right boxes
moving through the brackets higher and higher
with more gains than losses

and i could have a cottage in a pretty spot
and make it there twice a year
all the other months in the city with my job
and my money and my tears

the glory of the morning did fade and dim
where once it was my best love and i was so grateful for it
but those days working with no passion did change all of this
and it wasn't worth the happy breakfasts that i missed

so on one gorgeous morning i told them i was leaving
and it was so relieving to say it out
and i worked hard all afternoon and the weeks before the leaving
until finally one evening was my last walk out