The Dog Ate our Fob

When she was a puppy, our newest family member, Sniffy, used one of the key fobs from our car to strengthen her teeth. We found it in several pieces.

We spent the last year with one key fob, biting our nails each time it was dropped, misplaced, or left inside the car. It survived and last week, we finally had time to take the car to a dealership where a new key fob was purchased and programmed.

We sighed with relief when they put the second key fob in our hands. 

Then, we gasped in dismay when they put the $500 bill in our hands.

 

Of course, after spending this nerve-wracking pandemic year with one car key, we were willing to pay the bill.

 

Our first Australian labradoodle, Bear, ate a bunch of stuff before he finally came to his senses. You can read about the “Bear ingestion chronicles” in these blogs, “Spotless Insanity” (May 21, 2015) and “Celebrating the Bear Facts” (October 21, 2015).

 

As she sits in the backyard in -22 degree cold, amusing herself by tossing a frozen poop nugget up in the air, Sniffy’s senses would seem far too distant to hope she will be coming to them anytime soon.

 

We, on the other hand, have come to our senses by making sure the car keys are kept up high, on hooks.

Put COVID Cops on the Case

A curfew? Seriously? That’s the best you can do? 

 

That’s the key step you’ve decided will move us forward? Are you so dense as decision-makers?

 

The problem is the widespread louts who could care less about protocols. You think keeping them in their homes at night will fix the problem? Fat chance. You’d have to keep protocol flaunters in their homes night and day to fix the problem. 

 

They’re not hard to find. Stand at the arrivals gate for the next few weeks as flights from vacation destinations return.

 

It’s not the shopkeepers and restaurant owners who should suffer because our inept governments can’t keep people safe. Admittedly, there were shopkeepers and restaurant owners who were not enforcing protocols, but then, really, that should not be their job.

 

Many shops and restaurants bent over backward to continue operating while respecting pandemic protocols. For all their sincere, survival-motivated efforts and creativity, they get shut down because of covidiots?

 

That’s not right.

 

I know exactly what I’m supposed to do in the grocery store to be as safe as possible, except that oblivious, or grossly ignorant people - clerks, cashiers and customers - are constantly walking, or standing right beside me. 

 

Things at the grocery store were much safer during the first wave, with people forced to wait outside and clearly indicated lines and signs inside the stores that were closely monitored by employees. Ah, the good ol’ days.

Keep stores open, but put stringent limits on the number of people in those stores along with individuals who have the power to enforce protocols and fine the covidiots who ignore rules. Set up longer store hours and provide more money for grocery store employees!

 

Hire people who are out of work, train them and pay them well, as COVID cops,

to monitor customer numbers and behavior in stores, restaurants and shops.

 

That means jobs for people trained to enforce protocols and it means business for store owners. Once covidiots are identified and fined, it’s fine by me if you fit them with ankle bracelets and curfews.

 

Please hurry and get COVID cops on the case because I am willing to bet big bucks the selfish people coming back from sunny Cancun will not quarantine in their homes when they realize they’re low on coffee and pancakes. They will be out there with the rest of we, untanned, going the wrong way down one-way grocery aisles.

 

Don’t fret over late night flights coming back from vacation destinations. I’m sure they will be given exceptions to the curfew that the rest of we, untanned, are obeying.

 

Bitter much? You bet. 

 

What government in its right mind allows people to fly off to sunny vacations in foreign countries in the middle of an uncontrolled pandemic? 

 

The answer? Governments whose ministers do it themselves.

 

I am about as disconnected from our clueless governments as I am from the Tampa Raptors.

 

Quebec had some so-called “educational success expert” by the name of Dr. Egide Royer on a television commercial saying the most important thing for our children is to go to school. I disagree. The most important thing for our children is to be physically healthy. Children in elementary and high schools, whether they get two masks a day or not, will touch surfaces touched by everyone else and touch their faces and bring whatever they touch, home, to spread to siblings, parents and grandparents who may, or may not, be in their bubble.

 

Quebec should provide parents with the option to keep their children home for remote learning instead of forcing them to put their children and families at risk of COVID.

 

In pandemic proportions, the stupidity continues.

 

 

Inner DJ Busts Free & Running Rampant

We had a portable cassette player in our house when I was a child and I would use it to chat with people and record songs off the radio. We would act out excerpts of books we were reading and we would do comedy shows, telling jokes into the tape recorder. I had hours of fun with that thing!

 

In CEGEP, I joined the radio station, hosting a jazz show I called, “The 4/4 Show”. When I was a student there, McGill’s radio station, called CFRM, only broadcast to campus buildings. Once a week, I hosted a morning show, playing whatever tracks I wanted and reading the spots that station administration left for me.

 

Outside of school, I would rent a mixing board from a downtown store and act as DJ for parties and graduations.

 

Great fun and, I suppose, very basic training for what was to come in my broadcasting career.

 

I have released my inner DJ once again, hosting a podcast called RixPix. It highlights songs that have been among my favorites for decades. Truth be told, I am having oodles of fun doing it!

I have just posted my twelfth episode of RixPix.

 

I have to thank anchor.fm for making this platform available to people. What’s even more unbelievable, is that it is all free. I was having technical problems when I first tried uploading RixPix 1 and the support staff at anchor were on top of it, attentive and helpful.

 

It’s also pretty cool that anchor.fm provides podcast analytics.

 

For example, I know nearly a quarter of my audience is based in the United States, with nearly three quarters in Canada. I have a smattering of listeners in Germany, Singapore and Mexico.

 

Nearly half of listeners use Apple Podcasts and about a quarter find RixPix through Spotify.

 

Nearly half of listeners are between the ages of 28-34 and nearly a quarter between 45-59. Nearly three quarters of RixPix listeners are male.

 

All of that is great information to keep in mind as I attempt to grow my audience. Anchor.fm even allows listeners to offer feedback. Feel free to get in touch!

 

I am grateful to be able to add podcaster to my list of hobbies. I hope you’ll give RixPix a listen and get back to me with your feedback.

 

Music lights the way.

 

 

The Templeman Biography

After binge reading Jack Reacher, Longmire and Will Trent books, I just finished reading a biography about Ted Templeman that I had been given for my birthday. I had seen his name on many of the record albums I loved, so I had a feeling the book would be interesting.

He started as an artist in a group that I really don't remember. They had hits. At one point, his group performs for the first anniversary of Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow's wedding. He describes what that was like. 

Among many other things, he talks about meeting Elvis and watching him record, his favorite guitar riff by any guitarist, working with Van Halen and watching them come undone, the David Lee Roth song he considers a highlight of his career, going to AA with the Aerosmith guys, Warner management and he includes an apology to Van Morrison.

As he talks about songs and recording them, I often went on music sites to listen to what he was talking about. I bought some songs because I read about them. I didn't know, for example, that Carly Simon had recorded a version of the Doobie Brothers song, "It Keeps Me Running". I bought her version.

He tells a pretty hilarious story about accordionist Spooner Oldham. He also recounts being caught up in a hijacking that changed his life.

He obviously made a ton of money.

Ted Templeman is pretty frank about the music superstars and executives he's worked with, so you learn a lot of interesting things about the people.

As a musician who loves going into the recording studio but can't always afford it, overall, I really enjoyed this book.

Spare Me the Spandex

My wife purchased two pairs of jeans for me. I got one pair as a Christmas gift and, a few months later, she bought me a second pair.

I remember pulling on the pair I got for Christmas and complaining with equal parts disdain and mortification, “Why are they stretchy?”

She calmly told me they had spandex in them. Most indignant, I blurted, “Well, that’s swell, but why is it in my jeans?”

She insisted that is how jeans are made now. No way that’s right, I thought to myself, you’re just going to the wrong stores! I have not gone shopping for jeans in a while, but I cannot imagine good old fashioned, non-stretchy, 100 percent cotton denim has been rendered obsolete.

Are cowboys riding the range in stretchy jeans? Whoa, podner, I think not! Are construction workers on job sites sporting spandex? Fat chance!

Sure it’s interesting that spandex is made of a long chain polymer called polyurethane and that it is produced as a result of a complex chemical process where a polyester reacts with a diisocyanate.

But why is it in my jeans?

When it was first introduced by Du Pont in 1960, spandex was used in bras and girdles. In the 70’s, it was used in women’s underwear and swimsuits, then in biking shorts, leotards and women’s hosiery.

Why is it in my jeans?

An article in lifestyle magazine, The Atlantic, suggests, “…elastane fibers give jeans a softer feel and help ease the adversarial relationship between the durable rugged textile and tender bits of the human body.”

Pfffft. I’ve got news for you, none of the bits on this human body are that tender and I would prefer they stay that way.

The fashion universe may be unfolding as it should, but my jeans are not.

I will definitely have to purchase my next pair of jeans myself and my first, emphatic, question to the sales clerk will be, “None of my bits are tender so, please, where are the jeans that don’t stretch?”

I’ll straighten this out.

Women may have embraced softer, form-fitting, spandex-laced skinny jeans from the beginning, but I am not there.

My wife may have been under the impression I prefer being on the cusp of fashion trends, but, by now, she has most certainly realized that’s a bit of a stretch.

Not Totally Crazy

It was one of the coolest places I visited as feature reporter for the morning show. La Papeterie Saint-Armand produced the most amazing handmade paper – out of the most amazing stuff! The Montreal company by the Lachine Canal transformed linen, flax, denim and shredded cash. Co-owner Denise Lapointe was fun to interview, knowledgeable, with a sense of humour.

Their website says they are open to the public three days a week. If you appreciate paper or industrial history, La Papeterie is definitely worth a visit, once this pandemic is past. They have an amazing assortment of papers and impressive machines from a bygone era.

Since I had seen paper made out of blue jeans, I imagined that blue jeans could very well be made out of paper. There are companies that make polar fleece from plastic bottles!

I got a pair of jeans for Christmas. The tag attached to the jeans advertised, “100% Recycled Paper”. For several minutes, I believed the jeans I had been given were made out of recycled paper. People thought I was nuts! I blame La Papeterie Saint-Armand. It may have been 15 years ago, but with my own eyes, I saw paper made from blue jeans, so my imagination allowed for the possibility jeans could be made from paper.

So what is the tag in the photo referring to – the tag itself? I guess that’s the only possible conclusion. Hardly as exciting as mine.

In my own defense, there is a Swedish denim company that incorporates paper in its jeans. I’m not totally crazy.

When CHOM was Home - Skating with The Great One

I was opening up the newsroom mail when I came across an invitation with my name on it from Coca-Cola to attend its Future Stars hockey camp in Val-Belair. According to the invite, I would have an opportunity to skate with Wayne Gretzky and other NHL stars.

Whaaaaat?

Incredulous, dumbfounded and dazed, I slapped my face to regain my senses and hurried to my boss’s office to ask whether I could attend. It was June 17, 1993, and my Program Director, Ian McLean, said, “go for it and get some interviews”!

On June 28, 1993, I hopped into a company vehicle with my hockey equipment and a company tape deck and drove to Val-Belair. We were two entire dressing rooms crammed full of star struck journalists. Organizers gave us a quick speech about being careful not to injure the NHL stars and then we were out on the ice. Granted, ice time was limited because of the large number of journalists, but I got out there four or five times.

Denis Savard, Rob Niedermayer and a pile of fellow journalists were on my team, playing against Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr and more fellow journalists. After the match, there was a reception where I interviewed Wayne Gretzky and Denis Savard. Jagr told me he did not feel comfortable enough to do an interview in English, but he very kindly signed an autograph for me.

I remember being amazed at how gracious The Great One was in the face of a ludicrous tornado of attention sucking up every second of his time. He was gracious during our interview and while posing with me for a quick photo.

I still have the jersey Coca-Cola gave us for the scrimmage, not to mention the memories and the thrill of meeting Wayne Gretzky. He was the real thing.

Yeah, I played hockey with Wayne Gretzky; that’s just the kind of crazy stuff that would happen when CHOM was home.