Between The Rock And A Hard Place: Newfoundland, Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle, And Even Russell Crowe

"Suspended On Air" - 'Who's Making Love To You?': To Do & Do Again, Words To Live By, And More Westhampton Beach

2009-11-09T02:18:49-08:00

ETA: It's 4 am and I just finished packing. As zipped my bag closed, there it was again - that same familiar feeling of eager anticipation that always comes right about now. After all these years, after so many shows, no matter what else is also going on...that feeling is still as powerful and as exciting as it has always been. As it it will apparently always be. I can't wait. And I am running ust about as late as always too. Some things forever remain the same.

As with so many of the sweetest aspects of this beautiful life, Doing and Doing Again is the chief pleasure of continuing to learn how best to use my photoediting program. Similar pleasure to be enjoyed in Sharing and Sharing Again.

What can I say? Well, probably quite a lot, as per usual...but at the end of the day, all I really need to say is that I am very fond of that sweet face. Have been, am, and always will be. All the rest that goes with the sweet face is quite dear too, in the fullness of that word's meaning.

Now back to the "plenty more" (another version of Do and Do Again, as it were)...

Several years ago - it was either 2006 or 2007, as best I can recall - one of my intermittent "Save money on travel" resolutions led to my winding up in what can only be - even somewhat charitably be - described as a dive hotel near Montreal's Station Centrale d'Autobus (aka the bus terminal, for all my fellow monolinguists). It was walkable from the terminal, thus no taxi fares; it was walkable to and from the venue (more or less...actually, more) that Great Big Sea was playing that night, even more savings on taxi fares. The weather was quite warm - it was late spring or full summer - so no worries about ice or snow or bitter cold while doing all that walking to and fro and saving money on taxi fares. It seemed like the perfect plan, even after lugging my bags up three flights of stairs and making my way into the tiny, airless room, and even after realising the sole miniscule window in that tiny airless room was apparently more decorative that functional since it would not open a single inch.

What odds, I shrugged - it was only for one night. I was off to the show in a few minutes after getting in, and I'd be out the next morning on an early bus; how much room did I need for such a short time? I knew I had to come directly back after the show to finish a writing project whose deadline was that same day; I was already past deadline, but I couldn't send the work off till I got back to the bus terminal in the morning anyway, which gave me the entire post-show evening to finish the writing work. The room had an outlet to plug the laptop into, a chair to sit in, light to write by, functional plumbing, and an ice machine right outside my door to help keep cool. What more does a person really need?

I'd walked the neighbourhoods nearby this bus terminal often enough before to know that my hotel was in a mildly sketchy area, but nothing I haven't been around before, and often much worse. I've no objections to being around people in search of whatever gives then the greatest pleasure, quite the contrary; so long as providers and procurers of such pleasures are all of like mind in the transactions, it's all good to me. The show that night was also good, and after a brief linger afterwards, I set a lesiurely, ambling pace back to my little dive hotel, revelling all the way in the sensual warmth of a balmy Montreal night, more than a bit reluctant to come inside out of it. But I knew I had to get back to wrap up that already-late writing job.

When I opened the door to my room, the evening's warmth felt appreciably less revelatory, a bit of a shock since it hadn't felt nearly so sweltering when I came up the stairs onto the landing. But the landing had a window that was clearly for more than decoration, I had noticed, since it had been left wide open, allowing the sweetly scented breeze to waft lazily in. I briefly considered leaving the door of my room equally wide open so that sweet breeze could waft my way too, but that didn't seem particularly safe or sensible at the time; instead I fetched the ice bucket and filled it to the brim with ice from the machine then went back into my little room to write. Between multiple glasses of ice water and liberal direct applications of ice - this done after a fairly thorough dispensing of clothing - the heat wasn't too terribly distracting.

The heat inside my room wasn't too terribly distracting, that is. The heat in the room next door, the room only one paper-thin wall away from where I was sitting...that was a different story altogether. Quite a lovely story as well, as best I could tell.

As soon as I'd returned to my little room, I could clearly hear that the pursuit of greatest pleasure had been a successful one that evening for someone in the adjoining room; what had at first begun as soft delighted cries progressed slowly but surely to deep, rumbling groans; the creaking of the bedsprings increased in answering tempo. I head a sharp intake of breath, followed by a shuddering gasp and a long, low moan that sent shivers up and down my own spine. At that point, I stopped even pretending that I was still writing; the temperature in my little room felt as if it had just soared to a sizzle.

By now, the cries of unabashed pleasure were loud and fervent and intense...and they were also now a duet, two male voices singing the oldest song in human existence, shouting out the final chorus together. Giddy laughter and then muffled voices followed thereafter, then all grew peacefully quiet. In the sudden hush, I felt as breathless as the still air surrounding me. I needed more ice, badly needed more ice, and threw on enough clothes to be able to go about getting it decently. I grabbed the bucket again, opened my door and stepped out onto the landing.

There were only four rooms on this floor, so chances were excellent that the shirtless, shorts-clad fellow standing in front of the open window was one of my two next-door neighbours, smoking a post-coital cigarette. I looked up at him and smiled, a silly smile most likely; as I said before, I like people who seek out and and enjoy pleasure to its fullest and I suspect that approval showed quite clearly in my silly smile. He smiled back at me in response, a slow and easy smile, a knowing smile that was as generous and kind as it was self-assured and confident.

We stood there by the window on the landing, that sweet, warm breeze flowing between us and around us, and made harmless small talk - the weather, the Habs, where I was from, what he did for a living. All the customary introductory topics. I said something that made him laugh, long and hard and with conviction. And when his laughter had run its course, that was when he asked me if I would like to join him and his lover.

It was my turn to smile back at him, a smile I am sure was nowhere near as self-assured and confident as his, but one I hope matched his in kindness and generosity. I thanked him for such a tempting invitation, then said even though I knew from past experience how pleasurable such interactions could be, I no longer indulged in... And here I hesitated, searching for a proper description of what had just been offered; "one night stands' seemed totally inadequate to the occasion, and it would have never even occurred to me to try to stretch the boundaries of "harmless flirtation" quite that far. The charming fellow came to my rescue with articulate alacrity; with a wicked smile and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he suggested the perfect description: Liasions of opportunity.

We both laughed at that, congenial and conspiratorial laughter. I looked up into those mischievous eyes again and told him directly that I make love only with those I care about deeply. His smile depeened and he nodded; in agreement; he reached out and patted me on the shoulder with a large, gentle hand. To make love, he said, was the beauty of life. Fucking was good and fucking hard was better, but making love was the best of all. Still nodding his approval, he said that making love could solve most of the problems of all the unhappy souls in this world and that whenever he encountered sad or angry people, he always wondered one thing about them: Who's making love to you? He said he firmly believed that everyone should have someone making love to them, that if you have someone making love to you, no way you could ever again be so miserable.

Maybe it was all a line. If so, it was very nearly a damned effective one. But not quite, though my knees were a bit weak and my heart was skipping beats as we smiled at each other one last time, said our Good Evenings, and returned to our separate rooms. I shut the door behind me, leaned against it a few moments to steady those wobbly knees. Then I sat back down in my chair and stared blankly at the laptop screen, listening as the telltale sounds of lovemaking began again on the other side of the paper wall. Roused, aroused and deeply thoughtful, the part of my brain that still had enough blood flow to think was pondering his theory of human happiness, and the lack thereof.

The lovemaking next door continued on and off, off and on, for the rest of the night. The writing job got finished and was sent off to the client from the bus terminal at daybreak. The bus was caught and the travels continued and the next show was seen, miles and shows and faces one after another. And now and again, on what has gradually become a regular basis, when I have encountered sadness or anger in some of those faces - quiet, resigned unhappiness or barbed, embittered misery - I recall standing on a dimly lit landing while a soft, sweet breeze blew gentle caresses across my arms and legs and face, and the words spoken there come insistently to thoughtful mind and compassionate heart: Who's making love to you?

That charming Montreal fellow gave me the gift of a new way of seeing and understanding others, some of whom I want most dearly to see and understand. Not that I had this all figured out on the spot, of course. It takes time, sometimes an embarrassingly long time, to figure out these things, to get it all thought through to the point where it finally begins to make sense, longest of all when wounded desires - "hushed and humbled longings" - get in the way of understanding. Not too long ago, someone said something in response that caught me completely off guard and then crushed me with a single totally unexpected word, in large part because self-doubt caused me to take that word in the worst possible way. After weeks spent aching over not being able to understand why that word was used, I finally came to the conclusion that since I was going to keep right on caring even if I never understood, there wasn't much sense in continuing to torment myself for that failure to understand. Even if it really was as bad as first interpretation and all the self-doubt in the world might make it out to be, nothing was worse than being so damaged by it that the hurt overwhelmed the love - that was the most miserable of all and it was past time for it to end.

And so it did end, much to glad relief and affection's sweet and unimpeded return. Still no understanding, still a pile of self-doubt and disappointed desires, but that was now more a matter of shrugging and accepting, caring and carrying on. And then out of the blue the one night a child makes a chance comment about a completely unrelated matter, about how a friend gave him a ticket to an expensive event he'd had a wonderful time at, which in turn makes me think how thoughtful a gift that was since the child's financially struggling family surely couldn't afford to pay for that high-priced ticket and how kind it was that the friend had provided the ticket instead of just blithely and heedlessly inviting the child to come along to something he would not have been able to do - a growing-up-poor frustration I can still remember quite well from my own childhood days.

And along with those memories, at long last comes the first few glimmers of possible understanding, something that makes sense beyond blatant hypocrisy and willful cruelty, something far more consistent with a person as known and loved - leaving me wishing for the umpteenth time that it wouldn't always take me so frigging long to (maybe) understand. Yes, better late than never, but sooner is best of all. Then again, I still might not understand a bit of it; maybe it really is as bad as nagging self-doubt and humbled hope want to make it out to be; I am not yet sure about that. But what I am sure as can be about is that no matter which is true, at the end of the day it changes nothing that matters the most. Understood or not, it really sucks when something interferes with caring, and if it isn't going to suck in the good way, then it needs to be sent packing.

I've got one more batch of edited photos from the Westhampton Beach Great Big Sea show to put up here. I didn't come close to finishing them - only got through the first three songs of the second set - and now have no clue when that will be; the next month or so is going to be hectic. Not as hectic as tomorrow is going to be though, since I have a daunting pile of things that must get done before an early flight out Tuesday morning. Early and weird - St. John's to Ottawa to Washington DC to San Diego has to be one of the stranger routes I've ever wound up on; as always, there's good reason why some flights are cheap. But if I make all my connections, I'll be basking in the forever-familiar California sunshine by Tuesday afternoon, a full day ahead of Christina, who has to play the grownup and work all day before heading out on her own odd itinerary Tuesday evening. Right now, with so so many things still undone, I am envying her slightly the extra time. But only slightly. I am looking forward to that sunshine. I'm looking forward even more to the next evening. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Westhampton then, and then off to bed.

GBS opened the second set the same way they opened all of the two-set "Evening With Great Big Sea" shows this past tour - with the trad (mostly) instrumental numbers played while sitting on the drum riser, starting out with just Alan and Bob, then joined by Sean, after that by Kris and Murray. Whoever came up with this idea deserves a pat on the back for it; it's one of the most creative, fresh, and daring moves I've ever seen GBS make in their live performance. The pace change was fascinating. To first get the crowd roused to a fever pitch with (most nights) the Singalongs and then Run, Runaway, then to send them off on a long break filled with noisy socialising and liberal imbibing, following that with such an initially understated second-set opener - Alan and Bob walking out unobtrusively onto a still-dark stage, sitting down casually back on the drum riser and starting in with simple and straightforward playing...was quite possibly their bravest stage move ever.

It worked better some nights than others, dependent partly on the receptivity - at times, the sobriety - of the audience, partly on the passions of the players, partly on such pure pragmatics as how far back from the audience the stage dimensions required the drum riser to be, partly on the effectiveness (sometimes the lack thereof) of the lighting. When all elements conspired together to bring it off at its best, it was an awesome performance moment; even when they did not, it was always a bold attempt, one that matched up especially well with the equal boldness of the encores that so clearly demonstrated the breadth of their performance prowess - from the sheer force of Straight To Hell or Gallows Pole to the tender beauty of Old Brown's Daughter. The second sets of those Evening With... shows were some of the best I've ever seen from GBS, and each and every one of them began with Tunes. On most of those nights, most definitely including Westhampton Beach, Tunes told a story all its own.

Only a pair of photos from Lukey, each of a charming fellow I really do need to pay a whole lot more attention to at shows. Maximum Murray on all frequencies.

Night after night, show after show, Alan put on spectacular performances of The Chemical Worker's Song (Process Man), yet another frequent highlight of that deadly second set. And each time he put on his spectacular performance, he looked absolutely gorgeous doing it.

I am always going to love the sight of him with his head back and his arms held high in the air; that position suits him so well. It makes for an excellent place to stop and hold the thought with pleasure until next time. From somewhere in California, assuming I get this pile of stuff done on Monday. Later today, that is. And I am for sure not going to forget to bring that one illuminating and revealing question along with me to the California sunshine...

Who's making love to you?

Because somebody should be.

"What Are You Waiting For?" - Matters Of Choice & More Westhampton Beach

2009-11-02T07:15:06-08:00

Every time I get myself halfway convinced that it's time to put away the camera for good, a moment like this one happens - a moment so sweet and endearing, so moving and revealing, that I am grateful for having seen it and glad to be able to share it with others.

And then there are those other kind of moments, perhaps somewhat less sweet and endearing, but even more revealing. And always moving.

The counterargument then reasserts itself with a reminder of Truth's tenuous welcome and scant reward in this particular Here and Now. The logical decision then seems clear enough. But the camera's demise is stopped and stayed by one fundamental, inescapable, irresistible, necessarily embraceable element of that Truth: Beauty.

And so the choice is made, again.

The concept of Choice has been coming up again and again recently, like orchestral variations on the same theme: How we find the courage needed to make our own choices, how we find the even-more-courage needed to accept the choices of others, how we find the most-courage-of-all needed for the choices we must make in response to those choices of others, especially those we care about the most.

The recent whatever-you-want-to-call-it that took place on the OKP is a good example of the troubles that can come from a persistent refusal on the part of some to accept someone else's choice - in this case, the "someone else" being the Great Big Sea band members and the pertinent choice being GBS's decision to hire Official Community to manage the band's website - and the abiding reluctance of those same folks to choose their own effective and sensible response to that decision. Admittedly, this is not the best example I can come up with of how difficult many such matters of Choice can at times be, but it is the easiest example - easiest because, quite literally, my heart is not in it - and I am hoping that writing about this first will strengthen shaky courage and help me to follow through with the nearer and dearer example.

As best as I can tell from secondhand accounts, the latest OKProblem followed a well-worn course. A few fans started a thread that a few other fans found inapproopriate and/or distasteful. Their stated disapproval in turn provoked its own measure of censure, and the ensuing debate quickly turned into one about what should or should not be permitted on the official site, as well as about what was or was not in GBS's best interests. Not long after it began, the entire thread rather predictably disappeared, courtesy of site moderators/admins. Same as it ever was. Apologies if this brief summary does an injustice to any expressed concerns or stated opinions, but I tend to suspect it's a fairly accurate summary nonetheless. As such, it is certainly consistent with all that's gone before, many times before.

I've gotten a handful of messages from people perturbed by this latest episode, comments along the lines of "It's a violation of our rights to free speech," "It's bad for the band because it disgusts people and drives them away," "It's not like who the guys are in real life and if they knew this shit was going on they'd put a stop to it because they care about their fans!" And so on. Despite my genuine sympathy - empathy, actually, since at some point in time I think I've said (and sincerely meant) all these same things - I'm sorry, but I am going to have to thoroughly disagree.

The website belongs to the band, and there is no presumption of rights by anyone other than those owners. If the owners permit full freedom of speech on their site, that is their choice, not anyone's right. And if the owners decide speech will be limited on their site, then that too is their choice. You can dislike the choice, disagree with it, be absolutely sure that it sucks (not in the good way) and is doing dire and lasting damage to the choosers...but it is still their choice. Who owns the band? The band does.

The argument that the band members might put a stop to how the management company goes about running their official site, "if only they knew" was once a perfectly valid argument - immediately after that management company took over the site. But it has now been more than four years since GBS handed their site over to OCC to manage; if the band members did not know by now the specifics of how their site is being run, then that could only be because they did not choose to know, which is merely an indirect way of approving of those specifics. Four years with the same management company is as clear enough of an expression of approval as is needed to make the point.

The official site is what they (and every time I say "they" in regard to GBS, the reference is to the collective entity and the decisions made by that entity) have chosen for it to be, perhaps the best option they felt they was available for them to choose, both for their own benefit and for the welfare of the largest possible number of their fans. And if that benefit and welfare should happen to come at the expense of a few others....well, since when has so-called Real Life ever worked in any other way?

With the exception of the newest fans - who are the recipients of the lion's share of my own sympathy - it's hard not to believe that most everyone already knows by now that the official site is being managed in a way that meets with the band members' approval, regardless of whether that approval is direct or tacit. Approval, nontheless. The site is what the band has chosen it will be. Which means that the anger and the hurt and the continuing stubborn efforts to fight against how it is occur because of a refusal to accept the choice made by only people entitled to make it.

I know a good number of other people who also dislike and/or disapprove of how the GBS site is managed, people who at the same time acknowledge that this management meets with the approval of the band members and accept that it reflects the choices of the band members. Some of those people choose not to participate at all on the site anymore, some choose to avoid only the OKP, some choose to find enough remaining good to justify continuing to take a full and active part. Whatever course of action winds up being taken, what matters is that they have accepted the band members' right to choose what they think best for their own site and have also accepted the actual choice made, regardless of their own opinion of that choice and regardless of how that choice might impact their own actions. And then they have made their own choices in response.

It is long past time for those who linger in the combat zone, those who try to deny the undeniable, to follow that lead. Refusing to do so - refusing to accept a choice made by someone who's got every right to make it and refusing to make your own choices in response - really has next to nothing to do with debating any issues or arguing for any principles...it's much more about not letting go of the anger you feel because you simply do not like the choice that was made. To quote an excellent Songwriter, Let It Go. That too, is a choice, quite often the wisest choice of all.

Letting go of anger leads straight to the next variation on the Choice Theme, still not the near and dear one, but a few steps closer. Tentative steps. I'm not sure how wise it is to write about this one, given how everyone says you're supposed to react when harassed online, but it is interesting and important and pertinent, so what the frig. Maybe if I can get this one written, the one that matters will be in reach.

As I said before, for the past few weeks I've been the recipient of an onslaught of messages - first in blog comments, and then when I disabled the comment function here the messages began coming to my email - from a person whose intentions have gradually become a bit more clear to me. Initially, I thought it was all about trying to cause pain simply for cruelty's sake; all of the messages relayed in specific and explicit detail things Alan has purportedly done and comments he has allegedly made, each recounting clearly intended to be hurtful and damaging. Which they were, at least partly because I was so stunned as to assume I was the primary source of and target for such unrelenting animosity. After all this tine around GBSLand, I have no excuse at all for making such a foolish assumption - it's not as if I don't know full well by now that not very many here do much of anything that is not primarily about themselves.

The more messages that have come, the clearer it's becoming that the sender's real hostility is likely aimed more toward Alan, as best I can tell because of some choice he made that has not set at all well with the Angry Person, some choice that has infuriated and/or disappointed her. (Yes, I'm assuming gender, I know, but the odds are sure on my side.) My own chief transgression appears to be the commission of the Sin Of Continuing Affection; if I am reading correctly between the lines, Angry Person is mightily pissed at me largely because I most decidedly do not share her negative opinion of him. Thus the determined effort to persuade me of the rightness of that opinion, I suppose. Cracked? Well, yes. No arguments there. But this particular manifestation of crackedness seems to be the result of outright refusal to accept some sort of choice Alan made and an even more stubborn refusal to make any kind of healthy or effective responding choice to what he chose.

What's fascinated me about this Angry Person, what has always fascinated me about such people, is the ability to hold fast to anger over extended periods of time. I know it's not an ability I should be envying, but I have to confess that sometimes I do, even against all reason and sense. I can't ever seem to stay angry for more than a short time, regardless of how pissed I might have initially been. And no matter how hard I might try to hold onto the anger for as long as I can - for the simple reason that it's safer, way the hell less vulnerable than the hurt that's invariably lurking right below it, waiting for anger's protective coating to dissipate - it always slips away. And then hurt takes it own sweet time at centre stage, lingering in the spotlight. Not that I'm wishing that kind of hurt on anyone, not even on Angry Person, but I will admit to a hope that this particular AP finds her own way to letting go of all that anger soon.

I think I'm ready to write about that final variation on Choice's Theme.

Recently someone rather near and dear to me chose to buddy up with a few people who've been trashing me for several years - seriously hateful stuff, way more than garden-variety bitchdom. Near & Dear thinks it's all harmless association and that there's no problem with any of it; I tend to think otherwise, which apparently makes me judgemental. Matters of pure pragmatics followed hard on the heels of the first wounded (and admittedly foolish) overreaction of total betrayal: Wouldn't N&D's choice of buddy-time with someone who's been going on for ages about how horrible I am and how I need to be gotten rid of likely (and quite understandably) be seen by that same someone as N&D's agreement with and validation of such negative opinions? And how the hell were situations when everyone was present at the same place at the same time supposed to be handled? Again, N&D isn't particularly concerned with specifics.

I believe in choice, believe in it with passion and conviction. I believe in it for myself and I believe in it for the people I care about. It didn't take too terribly long to get to the point of acknowledging N&D's right to companionship of choice, though there was a brief (and, again, rather foolish) period when every time I looked at N&D, the only thought my mind seemed capable of was one painfully indignant and pitifully inarticulate two-word phrase of summation: You chose. Along with wondering that if it's true that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then does that mean the friend of my enemy has to be my enemy too? That miserable reaction didn't last very long though, thank God. Maybe I don't envy those who relentlessly hold onto their anger. Anger really does suck, totally not in the good way.

Admittedly, it did take somewhat longer to accept the actual choice made. When I finally did, that was when the last of the anger completely dissipated. The plot for the rest of the show was all about choosing what to do in response to N&D's choice. I thought about packing it in, considered giving up and making a discreet (as well as a discrete) exit away from this person. But everything that I love about N&D does not cease to exist as the result of this one choice; everything that I love about N&D would not cease to exist as the result of a thousand similar choices. Like it or not, agree with it or not, this choice is - those choices would be - a part of who this person I say I care about truly and honestly is. If you're going to say you care about someone for who and what they truly are, then you're going to need to put your money - and, more ot the point, your heart - where your mouth is.

Then it occurred to me that if what N&D really wants is to buddy up with these people - if they truly are the companionship of choice, regardless of the surrounding circumstances, the "context," as it were - that might very well mean that I've got nothing of any real value to offer, nothing that's genuinely wanted or needed or desired. That seemed like the best reason of all to take my leave, and, to be honest, it's still a continuing self-doubt...but it is also at the same time an inarguable fact that deciding what N&D wants or needs or desires - or values - isn't up to me. That's not my choice to make. It's an attempt to evade the choice that really is my own to make. And from that point on, there's really nowhere left to run and hide, no excuses left to justify waiting any longer.

And so the choice is made, again.

Time to put away the personal stuff and go back to Westhampton Beach.

Time is ours to steal.

Appropriately to the rest of this blog entry, and perhaps to that evening as well, a soulful Let It Go.

Just two stage-edge photos from the first-set-closer Run, Runaway, the first showing a fierce Alan challenging the crowd to put as much into the song as those on stage were, the second a gratified smile when the crowd gave him exactly what he'd just demanded.

I'd originally intended to include the full series of photos from Tunes, the second-set opener at this show, in this entry (partly because those photos are of everyone in the band instead just Alan), but I think there are so many photos in that series that it could make this entry very slow to open for some folks if added to all the photos already here. Probably better to wait till next time for Tunes and add on photos from a few of the songs that came after.

I've got a few good videos from local performances I might put up as well, a couple of Military Road, Kalem Mahoney's latest band - two of his Monday Nights bandmates just began a national tour in their alternate identities as Novaks, thus a need for a brand new (and really quite good) band - playing Erin's on what was a hilarious Halloween night, and a few more from the latest Bluebird North Songwriters' Circle, - one of Colleen Power performing her Townie Man, a nice tune done my Mr. and Mrs, Sherry Ryan, and a few more from Ian Foster, who's one of the better songwriters practicing his craft in St. John's of late. Over the past six months or so, I've been assured by at least a dozen locals that I would think highly of his tunes once I heard them, and it's taken me this long to do just that. Those assurances were right on the money - very impressive songwriting, especially the story-songs. Next up is trying to catch a full live show - maybe here, maybe elsewhere.

I just took a deep breath and forced myself to read back through all of this and am now fighting the urge to delete most of the personal stuff and stick with the Usual Topics. But I think I'm going to find the resolve to leave it as it is, the courage to choose honesty. Life is just too inevitably short and too potentially sweet to waste time choosing otherwise. Or, to put it another way...This road ain't long enough to miss a single turn.

"This Is Here, This Is Now" - Happy Halloweening & Deserving Dads (With Context)

2009-10-31T10:59:38-07:00

ETA: Thanks so much to the ever-helpful soul for the update about how the rest of Halloween played out on Great Big Sea Day 2008. Context is everything. Too bad you can't get your head wrapped around the admittedly dizzying fact that both are, and all is, True.

The decent weather has held here in St. John's for Halloween 2009, a very good thing for all the little ones and all the big ones alike. The rush seems to have ended, or at the very least slowed, so we're settling in for a late supper and the Habs game (and it is so the Habs game, not otherwise), with plans for a jaunt down to Erin's a bit later on to catch Kalem's latest band. It's been a nice Halloween - much better than last year's, when I was sitting here on serious post-surgical pain meds, as I can just barely recall. I hope this Halloween is more of what Alan was longing for last year, substantially more of what he desires in the here and now. I hope it's every good thing he deserves.

Bit of a day filled with mixed emotions, really. Beautiful weather, lovely city, effectively a sold out show on GBS Day, and I was dying to go home. I’ve had my share of tinges of homesickness but I can honestly say, for the first time in my professional career, I would have cancelled a big show to fly home yesterday to join the Halloweening.

Spent the whole day Skyping home and receiving emailed photos of my son Henry and all the neighbourhood kids in full regalia. They were having a ball and I wanted to be there so bad that it actually hurt.

By late afternoon, I decided to go for a run to clear my head and get myself in the right frame of mind to do the concert justice. Mistake. I ended up getting lost and by dusk I found myself in a residential area where dozens of Dad’s led their little Thomas the Tank Engines and Pirates and such around by hand as they Trick or Treated up and down the perfect fall Vermont streets. Jaysus, it was depressing. I ran to the end of one perfect Halloween scene and in an effort to discretely get away, I smacked right into some post on the corner. To make a bad situation worse, I look up to see what has clobbered me, and it was a sign that read “Henry St.”

Wow, I should be home. - Alan Doyle, November 1, 2008 journal entry

Welcome - and well come - home this All Hallow's Eve, dear man. May your treats be abundant and generously shared with love and laughter and delight. Last October 31st was 'Great Big Sea Day,' but today can be your 'Alan Doyle Family Day.' Now that's a Happy Halloween.

Alan has beautiful weather again for this Home Halloween, bright and clear and sunny today and supposed to stay nice late enough to give all this year's little Thomas the Tank Engines and Pirates (and their Dads, one Grateful Dad in particular) excellent trick-or-treating conditions. It's so gorgeous out there that I'm hoping to get myself out for a walk before time to come back and share the treat-handing-out duties. There's been lots of talk around town that Flu Fears might put a damper on this year's festivities; I hope not, for the sake of all the little ones, most of all for the sake of one very sweet Dad who missed out on all the fun last year and thus deserves a double portion this year.

I've worked on more of the Westhampton show photos off and on over the past few days, and there's a good-sized batch more or less ready to put up here. And after thinking and thinking and thinking about it, I'm going to respond to a pile of outraged emails I've gotten about the most recent verse of The OKP Blues, probably not an expected response, maybe not even an appreciated response. But an honest one, for as much as that's worth.

This latest tussle - as much as I know about it, that is, which is all secondhand, since I (rather gladly, I must confess) missed seeing any of it firsthand before it all was predicatbly deleted - connects rather neatly to something personal I've been struggling to get worked out and it even gives a bit of perspective on the determined commenter who still has ample animosity to spew (in email now, since comments remain disabled here). After doing that thinking and thinking and thinking, it has occurred to me that all these things originate in one fundamental issue: How we deal with the choices others make that we wish - for whatever reasons, with varying intensities - they had not made. And how we in turn choose to respond to those choices.

In the amount of time it's taken me to write this, interrupted by two fairly short phone calls, the clouds have started to roll in and the wind is getting stiffer. Still excellent Halloween weather by Newfoundland standards (it's not snowing, after all), and still excellent walking weather too; I think I am going to get out while the getting is still good and do just that, saving the photos and responses for later and keeping my hopes high and my fingers crossed that the weather holds this way long enough for all of those little Tank Engines and Pirates to have themselves a grand time Halloweening. And that goes double for one very Deserving Dad.

"I've Got A Secret..." - H1N1 PSA, Words That Heal, Promises To Keep, And More Westhampton Beach GBS Show Photos

2009-10-27T04:30:48-07:00

Beginning with a sincere and serious PSA...This comes straight from someone who spends a whole lot of time in a Pediatric ICU: If you have the opportunity to be vaccinated against H1N1, please do it. It's not only your own health and life that could be at stake - this one is killing children. Do it for them too.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming...

Dream Out Loud (Doyle/Lamb)

I've got a secret
That I'm too afraid to tell.
It's the same old story,
I've come to know it all too well.
I tiptoe down the hallway
Where the deepest hopes reside;
I quietly conceal them all the while

They're the moments you can picture
But we oh so seldom see;
They're the dreams so dear
That we can barely let ourselves believe
That all that we desire
Could be all that we deserve.
But these quiet dreams
So often go unheard.

Y'ou know that wishes can't be whispered
O'er the roaring of the crowd,
So break the silence
And dream out loud.

Amongst a million faces
It's so hard to find a smile,
A line that you can cling to
And hold fast for the night.
And down here among the wreckage
Is no place for the faint of heart,
Where hushed and humbled longings fall apart.

No, wishes can't be whispered
O'er the roaring of the crowd,
So break the silence
And dream out loud.

Where did all the courage go
When I needed it the most?
And the prayer I barely spoke,
It counts for nothing, I suppose.
I should have known...

That wishes can't be whispered
O'er the roaring of the crowd,
So break the silence
And dream...
No, wishes can't be whispered
O'er the roaring of the crowd,
So you break the silence
And dream - you dream out loud.
Oh, dream out loud.

I love this song; I love it with passion and respect, with admiration and pride. If this were the very first song of Alan's I had just stumbled across on some present-day Songwriters' Circle, then everything I thought I was hearing in his songs and all that I believed was true about him back in 2001 would be so much less a matter of thinking and believing and so much more a matter of knowing for sure.

It's been a tumultuous and eventful time recently, so much so that it's still difficult to write around it or through it or even about it. Not that this will stop me from trying.

I found the courage to do something I've longed with all my heart to do for years...twice. It didn't go at all the way I had hoped it would...twice. Though what happened the first time was a walk in the park compared to the result the second time.

I wrestled with and chose between scary medical options - not that it's anything all that huge; I tend to scare easily. Slipping into Lemur Mode again.

I got hurt, bad, the dogged and determined kind of hurt that keeps on coming back at you every time you think you've chased it away for good; just as you get one aspect of it worked through and accepted, another aspect rises up and sinks its teeth into you and the process begins all over again.

I was struck by a lightning-bolt realisation that there actually is a way to write what I want to write without causing a bit of grief to anyone else - liked or loved, disliked or dismissed - a daunting dilemma I've been struggling fruitlessly to resolve for the past five frigging years. It is a brilliant solution that came into crystal-clear focus literally between one footfall and the next, right outside the old CBC Building on a rainy afternoon's walk in St. John's - coming so bloody suddenly and wiildly unexpectedly that I was terrified I'd lose the idea if I went back inside and so I walked and walked and walked in the rain until I got the details sorted out (and got soaking wet too).

I said "I understand" to several different people when they went through their individual variations of "I really like you but I can't act like I do when I'm with the friends who've told me they won't let me be part of The Group (whichever of a number of groups it is they see as being The Group...though I suspect the Established Members of each Group are even more convinced that the adjectival article is theirs and theirs alone, that being the rule by which nearly all such Groups operate...not to be judgemental, of course, or rude) if I'm friendly with you and then I'll lose my chance to 'hang with the guys'". Wondering each time with somewhat ironic bemusement why it is so many people unhesitatingly equate "understand" with such substantially different concepts as "agree," "approve," "accept," or "respect." But what else am I supposed to say? I do understand, all too well, sometimes better than they do. It makes me sad and I feel sorry for them, but I also understand.

Oh yes, and I made a decision, a big one. More than a decision, actually, if still somewhat less than a vow. I don't do vows, not really; I believe far too much in free and continuing choice - yet another manifestation of the reciprocity of magic, as far as I am concerned - to be much of a vower or a vowee. So let's call it a promise, then, though I also do not make promises lightly; I don't make them unless I intend to keep them. True for this one as well - it is not made one bit lightly. I have a promise to keep.

Definitely a tumultuous and eventful past month or so. And from the first moment I heard it - at just about midpoint of both tumult and event - Dream Out Loud has been the soundtrack for this time of my life, but not in the accustomed sense of that expression. Usually, we call a piece of music a Life Soundtrack when it makes us think about all that is happening in our own lives as it plays. Not this time, not for me.

I've been playing Dream Out Loud regularly, at the darkest times, the most thoughtful times, the times that have hurt the most - and each of those times I hear it, it makes me think about the Songwriter. Which means I'm not thinking about my own aches and pains. There are times - tumultuous and eventful times, likely as not - when what's best for your own bruised heart, what has the greatest chance of healing your own hurts, is to be thinking about - and sending non-whispered wishes for out-loud dreams to - somebody else instead of yourself.

More photos from the Westhampton Beach Great Big Sea show, these from the latter part of the first set. Again, these aren't the best pictures from this tour leg, but this show was important to me, for all sorts of dogged and determined reasons that don't need to be gone into here.

Starting off with Sean's Mermaid Song ("A sad, sad song" as he has been introducing it of late). I'm going to have to hand Sean the victory here - I have a whole slew of awfully blurry "Mermaid Dance" photos because Sean dances faster than I or my camera can keep up, especially on such a dark stage; if I want to catch what Sean's doing during The Mermaid, I have to resort to video., which I did not do this time. Next time, perhaps. Until then, here are a few photos that did come out fairly well during this persistent crowd-pleaser of a song.

One more note about Sean: He was a real charmer at this show in that spiffy sweater and with the windswept-hairstyle; he looked like the one really sweet guy over at the frat house, the cute fellow all the girls are carrying a torch for, and then he goes and marries some gorgeous, independent-minded gal from another country.

"When I was a lad in a fishing town..."

"I did not like the tail."

Dances With Fish.

"Cause that's how I get my tail."

In many ways, River Driver is the perfect trad song for GBS: The song is solidly rooted iin the tradition of their home, its West-Central-logging-camps origin exposes Mainlanders to a breadth of of Newfoundland folk music beyond songs of the sea, the a cappella nature of the song plays perfectly into the strength and power of GBS's vocal harmonies, and the inclusion of this "rare Newfoundland love song" is a welcome one in a band set list where the presence of such love songs tends to be equally rare . But most of all, River Driver suits them so beautifully because River Driver is them - apt metaphor for their own wandering ways and poignant analogy for their own wistful freedoms. The facts of the lives may differ, but the Truth of River Driver lives on in those who perform it so well.

Featurimg a first view of the most-welcome return of the Beautiful (and much-missed) Belly.

I like ending here, with "Messianic Alan" holding that last note of "Home" as long as he possibly can, Murray's bass rumbling along, the rest of the harmonies rising up on high like a heartfelt benediction, Kris solemnly beating the drum. It's a good place to stop for now. Stop writing, that is. I've every intention of listening to Dream Out Loud again before I head out into today. Such stuff as dreams so dear are made on.

"I'll Give You Every Reason Why" Part Two - Provocative Audiences & The Reciprocity Of Magic (Westhampton Beach, Photos)

2009-10-24T13:40:59-07:00

ETA: Midnight, on the cusp between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Watching HNIC as the "Battle Of Alberta" begins. Rooting for Edmonton, rather casually so, neither malice toward nor offence intended to Calgary. Hoping my only-half-suppressed victory shriek when the Habs won their own game a few minutes ago did not awaken Christina, who is on call and needs all the sleep she can get. Sipping a Black Horse and eating a Jam Jam, ruefully acknowledging the likely need to start abstaining from both if that nifty little clearance-rack sundress I bought for a song at the mall in the Soo is going to fit properly when we hit the California sunshine next month. And that's when the realisation comes, quietly and with no fanfare: It doesn't hurt like hell anymore. Pain no longer has the upper hand.

This is a very good thing. Likely good enough to make up for the impending lack of Black Horse and Jam Jams.

To celebrate the defeat of pain's ascendancy (yeah, I know...it's only one skirmish won in the continuing battle - and an incomplete win at that since it still hurts, though nowhere near as badly as it did - but I'll take the small victory, gladly and gratefully), here is yet another utterly lovely bit of proof of the sheer foolishness of the "Too Soon Fallacy" (this makes no sense unless you keep reading, and perhaps not even then).

Dreaming Out Loud In Black & White

True Magic.

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Wishes can't be whispered
O'er the roaring of the crowd
So break the silence
And dream out loud ( Dream Out Loud, Alan Doyle & Paul Lamb)

Alan Doyle, gorgeous and glorious during Excursion - shouting out at the perfect time, not one moment too soon.

Usually when it takes me forever to write about a show, when I keep saying over and over again that I'm going to do it but it keeps not happening, it's because I'm trying to decide if all of what I want to say should be written; it's rarely a matter of what, much more often one of how much. I'm not particularly accustomed to struggles with What; if this difficulty lives on to forge a partnership with perennial travelling companion How Much, I fear my "journalistic impulse" may have sufferered a thoroughly non-harmless blow. But the real reason for writing remains intact, and that is, as ever, the heart of the matter. The matter of the heart.

Westhampton Beach, then. With love...and with kisses and bruises too.

The Great Big Sea show at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Centre was not the best show of this past tour leg - of the shows I saw on this past tour leg, that is...I did not see Sarnia, Joplin or the PERL Benefit shows, so no comparisons are possible with those - not by my own (highly subjective) standards of determining "Best Show". The players were weary - travel-weary, battle-weary, conscience-weary, appeasement-weary - and all understandably so. They were more than ready to be heading back to home and family on Thanksgiving Weekend, and they brought that weariness and readiness, along with yesterday's and today's "celebratory" effects, out onto the stage with them at the start of the show. Out onto the stage of a venue that was already so packed with subtext that you couldn't move a step forward or backward or to either side without stubbing your toe or banging you shins against its cut-to-the-bone edges or without tripping and slipping over those edges into the murky depths below. And that's just the subtext I knew about...I am never so arrogant as to presume I'm aware of all the turbulence that's swirling beneath the surface sparkle on deep waters. Sufficient unto the evening was the subtext of which I was cognizant - more than sufficient, thanks much.

Put quite simply, Westhampton Beach was heading straight down the rails toward being a mess of a show. Westhampton Beach should have been a mess of a show, given the attendant circumstances. But it wasn't that, not at all...given the attendant circumstances.

Westhampton Beach wound up being a really good show - silly for sure, but enjoyable and engaging and fun, certainly for those off-stage and I believe for those on-stage as well, probably more than a bit to their own surprise. First credit for what the Westhampton Beach show became, what it became against all reasonable and sensible odds, goes to the WBPAC crowd, which did come darn close to being the Best Audience of this past tour leg (again, highly subjective standards). There is apparently a great deal of appreciation - genuine appreciation, not the gimme-gimme faux shit - for Great Big Sea on Long Island, and for many it goes back a long and loyal way. When the weary players came out on stage, they were showered in that genuine and generous appreciation, and the chief pleasure for me of this show became watching the healing, invigorating, and ultimately provocative power of that appreciation on those players as they first basked in it and then began to return it doublefold. Which caused it to rebound back to them again, triplefold. After that, the synergy could be measured only on a logarithmic scale.

If first credit is due to the Westhampton Beach crowd - who really were the initial Full Participants in this show - then second, and equally impressive, credit is owned by the band members. It's all well and good (very good, I would think) to let yourself be admired and adored and appreciated, to wallow in being in the spotlight and having all eyes fixed upon you as idol, prize, trophy, object of desire...Artist, Rock Star, Pope, Coolest Guys In The Room. Not a bad job if you can get it, though the hours are very long and the costs are sky high. But to permit that love to provoke the response to return something back to those who offer it up, to allow it to inspire the desire to give back as good as has been given - that's where true magic happens.

That magic happened in Westhampton Beach, on a night when and where logic and sense and pragmatism would have joined in dour chorus to insist it could never happen. But still it happened. The more open-hearted appreciation that determined crowd showered on the band, the more the band responded and gave their own appreciation right back to the crowd. Who then sent it right back up to them. Magic. Totally unlooked for and completely unexpected...as true magic should always be.

Throughout it all, subtext's brutal cutting edges and murky deep waters lurked right behind the evening's delight. All you had to do was glance back over your shoulder, and there it was. Magic has no power to make such troublesome aspects of reality disappear; all it can do is help us to find our own way toward perspective and acceptance and the courage to continue. It can touch our hearts and remind us of what it is we are really here for. And at its most potently true, it can provoke us to into responding with hearts that have felt its touch. The Reciprocity of Magic is the loudest dream I know.

I had a good eye at Westhampton Beach, but a somewhat shaky hand. Not the best show pictures of this past tour leg either, I am sorry to say. But because this show wound up being important to me personally, so too are these photos. Sometimes I take a pile of photos at a show, and it's only in a few that I find what I was looking for...one or two moments that distill the essence of what I saw as being the Truth of that particular show: Yes, that's what it was all about. Every now and then, it's the photos themselves that help me find my own stumbling way to a Truth I was too weary, too distracted, too confused, too unsure, or too wounded to see as it took place before my eyes in a present moment: Oh, that's what really was going on. Westhampton Beach was a bit of both of these for me, and perhaps that accounts at least partly for the shaky camera hand.

I'm thinking of eventually putting them all up, along with the much-larger pile of other show photos, over on Flickr, but for now, some of the photos I like best from what I've gotten done so far really do belong here, with more to come as I finish editing them. I'm approaching the halfway point of that process - I just started in on the Let It Go photos this morning, and that was the penultimate song of the first set - and it's taking me all the (admittedly scant) discipline I possess to edit and post photos in set-list order when what I really want to do is head straight for the utterly gorgeous Excursion photos. My own version of a persistent inclination toward shouting out too soon, I suppose, though I still and will always say there's no such thing as "too soon," not when you can just go ahead and do it again.

Come to think of it, I do believe I will toss scant discipline directly over the side and go back to edit in a few of those most gorgeous of photos at the beginning here; then I will simply put them up again "in order" later, thereby proving the fallacy of "too soon" once and for all. That sure works for me.

No pictures from the first few songs - Donkey Riding and Captain Kidd - for a whole host of good reasons. My camera started clicking away with the dramatic curtain drop as the first chord of Love Me Tonight is struck with commanding grace.

My Paddy Murphy photos all sucked (sadly and as ever not in the good way) as they so often do whenever the motion of the crowd jumping up and down winds up making the floor beneath all of our feet follow suit. But When I'm Up is quite a different story, quite a different result as well. When I'm Up was where that responsive crowd really let itself be known as such; at one point, Alan backed off during the verse and watched and listened while the song's momentum was carried on without a missed beat or syllable by several hundred voices. That was where the Reciprocal Magic stole the show from circumstance and gave it as a gift to all hands and voices and hearts present. From that point on, Alan never looked back, and neither did I.

The Fountain Of Affection.

If ever there were a man who deserved all all that he desired, with never a hushed and humbled longing to endure, with never a whispered wish left unheard...this would be that man.

Appropriately, the next song to follow after was the one about a Newfoundland Super Hero. Before plunging into Jack Hinks, Alan took time to gree his crowd and also to tell Murray how sexy he looked in that green shirt he was wearing.

Irresistible face meets oh-so-movable object.

I didn't take a single picture during Charlie Horse; I spent the entire song enjoying watching the crowd get "whipped into a frenzy" and grinning each time Alan sang one of the lyric lines that have proved so pliable and willing in the hands of a Master Double Entendre-ist. Pulls the logs more faster, indeed. I did take quite a few of the next song, Sean's masterpiece England, trying (with only fair-to-middling success) to capture the way in which the song's mood is depicted so well in the simple subtlety of the lighting, something they really could use more of in this area of their staging.

That's probably a good place to close for now. There's pea soup cooking on the stove - the smell of suppertime if ever there was one. I'll keep working on the photos and put up the next batch, probably from The Mermaid through the Run, Runaway to close out the first set, fairly soon. I might be willing to re-enable comments by then too. Not so much because I believe the shit and the hurt and the disappointment will stop coming, but because I may have - I hope - found my way to a place where they loses the power to interfere with what's important. That might be magic too.