Back in the last century, I was actually in a band. We had an awful lot of fun, AND an awful lot of un-fun, doing things our own way. I guess what made us popular, also ultimately undid our carreers.

We sure were stubborn bastards…….. 

Ben, who was the bass player in The Phantoms sent me a couple of vids that he posted to youtube.

Here's Heavenly Girl from our first cd. Hmmmmmm……… Nice headband Joe……

Target features Jerome's awesome skateboarding technique, as well as my Angus Young shorts!

We did a track with the late great Dutch Mason. Who Do You Love? Yeah Baby!

Hell, the CBC even did a mini documentary on us.

Here's a video of One Way Street. All I remember about this one was freezing my balls off in some goddamned auto scrapyard in the middle of the night.

Ugghh… This one brought back old memories of playing it live on the 'Dini Petty Show', which was an afternoon talk show back then. I remember looking up and seeing a room full of blue haired old ladies. Definately NOT what you'd call our target audience. The Things I've Been.

In the early seventies, Canada officially converted to the metric system, in effect pulling the rug out from under all of us school kids who were just coming to grips with 16oz. in a pound, or 16 liquid oz. in a quart.

We were convinced that the metric system was much more 'user friendly' (a term that, to my knowledge, didn't exist back then) and that it was the way of the future. It would simplify all of our units of measurement, thus, showing the world that Canada was a forward looking, and progressive country.

Charts, and conversion guides were hastily drawn up so that we could compare, and convert the old to the new. Conversion formula were printed in newspapers, so that we could supposedly speak and understand the new language.

Here's a real beaut, to show just how simple our lives could be:

Let's try converting 68 degrees Farenheit to celsius 5/9(68-32)

Step 1: 68 less 32 is 36
Step 2: 5 divided by 9 is 0.5555555555555
Step 3: multiply the repeating decimal by 36
Step 4: your solution is 20

Easy, huh?

To put it bluntly, and mildly, we were fucked over.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm a staunch supporter of the metric system -it is a better method- the problem lies not with the system itself, but how it's been (non)implemented.

O.k., I know how much a litre is (thanks to beer) and I've got a pretty good idea of how much a gram is- (nevermind)

But that's pretty much it. No matter how I try, I still convert K's to miles in my head, and I still think in terms of feet and inches. I'm 6 foot 3 and-a-half inches tall, but I can't tell you how tall I am in centimetres.

Part of the problem is that when we (supposedly) converted, to save costs, manufacturers just converted to the system without changing sizes. A great example of this is the pop can.

I don't know about you, but I'd be having a hard time remembering that Mom told me to pick up a  four-hundred-and-seventy-three ml bottle of 'Big Mouse' whiskey on my way back from my therapy session………

That's like saying that it's only 5,760 feet (one mile) to the hobby shop. (liquor store)

What The Fuck???

Then, there's the 'forgotten' units. Where the hell is the decimetre when you need it? Where's the decilitre, the decametre, the hectagram, the mamogram, the telegram?

The system is base ten, and as such, we were told that we could use it much easier just by looking at our fingers, (unless, of course, you're Hound Dog Taylor) or moving a decimal point over one or two places.

Unfortunately, like most things in life that are supposed to make our lives simpler, we end up making things much more difficult.

To this day, I still see units of measurement in the newspapers that are old English. Or even better (or worse, as the case may be) metric units followed by the old English translation.

The best though, has got to be the yanks, -who don't even officially use the metric system- changing the spellings so that instead of metre', we get 'meter'; from 'litre', comes 'liter', and from mosquito, we get 'skeeter………'

Shall I say it again? Sure, why not……..

'What the Fuck?!?'

I couldn't wait 'till next year when it was a nice round number 30.

In 1978 I was a sixteen year old teenage loser. I really was a mess. I was frightened by life and the world around me, and terrified at the prospects of facing the big 'WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIFE' question.

In short, I was just like millions of other teenage wrecks around the world trying to come to grips with raging hormones, acne vulgaris that could have made medical textbooks, and the difficult questions like how one actually asked a woman to give you a blowjob.

Yikes. It certainly wasn't easy. I wouldn't revisit my youth for all the riches that were in Fort Knox before America went off the Gold Standard……..

For whatever reasons, I bought the latest Rolling Stones record 'Some Girls.'

Now, I knew all about the Rolling Stones at that time. I recall dancing to 'Brown Sugar' at my very first school dance when I was much younger. I also seem to recall that my older sister had a 45 of 'Honky Tonk Women.'

Beyond that, I was familiar with a lot of their '60s radio hits, although to this day, I still don't know how. Maybe there was something subliminal in their songs that made them stick in my head after only hearing them once, accidentally on the radio.

My folks certainly weren't fans -they sure as hell weren't exposing me to the likes of those greasy English kids.

Never the less, the Rolling Stones always sounded familiar to me.

So, as I was saying, I went out and bought 'Some Girls' when it first came out.

I didn't stand a chance.

Here was Disco: 'Miss You'  (which, as a suburban kid, I was supposed to hate)

Country music: 'Far Away Eyes' (also, as a suburban kid I was supposed to hate)

R&B: 'Just My Imagination', 'Beast Of Burden' (which, as a suburban kid, I was supposed to hate)

Punkish Rock: 'Respectable', 'Lies' (which, as a suburban kid I was supposed to hate) 

……Hell, just thinking about it, I guess I wasn't supposed to like anything short of Led Zeppelin, and Led Zeppelin.

For the record (again) I never liked Led Zeppelin………..

So, here was 'Some Girls' with all this diversity on it, in heavy rotation on my $50. record player. It took me years to realize just how much it snuck up on me, and altered my perception of what a band can, and can not do.

Eventually, I realized that it didn't matter what you played, as long as you played it well. It taught me that format, style, genre, et al, were pretty much useless ideas. What really mattered is that you played from the heart.

Unfortunately, what it didn't do was clear up my acne, or get me laid!

Here's us playing 'Porkchops' from our cd, in jail. Actually, it was the CBC soundstage here in Toronto.

As I approach the competent level on the banjo, I'm reminded of how I felt when I was playing guitar.

I recall reaching a point of competence on the guitar where I could play things fairly decently without trying too hard. I had put in enough time and effort to make it seem as though things were coming to me naturally, even though they most certainly hadn't.

One day, while playing, I had this terrifying flash of horror. That little fucking demon in my sub-conscious mind managed to get out of his cage and pelt me with questions like 'what's the point?' or 'suppose you do get to be as proficient as you've always wanted to be. Then what?'

I guess that's why Munch painted 'The scream.'

Sometimes I feel as though I've got a devil on one shoulder……………….. and a devil on the other.

It took me a long time to get past that one……….. Well, o.k., we don't ever completely overcome that one, but we can learn to deal with it.

I've learned to accept things for what they are and to apprerciate that things are just what they are -nothing more, nothing less.

Am I sounding like a buddhist here? I hope not. I resent the fact that those fuckers are getting so much credit for unanswerable ideas, or what we refer to as thought experiments.

So, as I approach a comfortable level of achievement on my banjo, I begin to wonder whether I'm gonna get hit with that fucking angst again.

I doubt it.

Life is pretty good.

All I really want to do is sit around and play my banjo, and watch old westerns.

Alright, that's not entirely true. All I really want to do is sit around and play my banjo, watch old westerns, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, take photographs, travel, read books, tell everyone to kiss my ass, and maybe some day, visit the centre of a black hole to see if Stephen Hawking knew what the hell he was talking about.

Now, that's not too much to ask for, is it?

Here's a fun quiz for you to take. Supposedly, it gives you a fair estimation of your life expectancy, and what your current age actually is, with regards to your lifestyle.

I got a life expectancy of 71 years, which I think is quite a bit on the high side.

However, I got a 'current' age of 48 -three years older than I really am.

Leads me to believe that the results should have a + or - percentage of about 30 points.

Kinda like most election predictions. 

I had just written this monumental post, but just before hitting the 'publish' button, I decided to do a little checking on my site. -Yes, I'm easily distracted.

Seems I had already written about the same thing.

I seem to have completely forgotten writing about what I was about to post….

Normally, you would think that committing such a redundancy would be somewhat alarming.

Well, not really. I look at it thusly: I'm happily moving into middle age, and eventually I hope to forget all kinds of shit. Hell, I might even make it to the point where my stories/anecdotes/diatribes have absolutely no point at all!

What do I win for surviving this long?!?!

I've been a hobby photographer for years now. I really enjoy just grabbing my camera as an excuse to get out of the house, and go for a walk.

My Pop was a professional photographer so you might say that it's in my blood. Then again, you might say that that's why I've never pursued it beyond the 'serious hobby' level.

I've had some stuff published over the years, done a few album covers, etc., but I've never had the desire to attempt to make a living at it.

Actually, i'm very selfish about it. It's something I do just for myself. People automatically assume that if you do something creative, you should at least try and make a living at it.

Not me. That would spoil everything. 

     A number of years ago, I took the plunge and went digital. 'Big deal,' you might think, 'everybody shoots digital nowadays.' Well, you'd be correct to think that, but at the time, digital photography was in it's infancy, and internet arguments (what is it about forums and chat boards that brings out the argumentative side of people? Anonymity? A penchant for stirring up shit?) raged on about which format was better; or if digital photography would ever surpass film, in terms of quality.

For many years, I shot nothing but slides. I had an old Nikon F3, with various and sundry lenses, filters, attachments, etc. I was all set.

I used to set up my projector, (Leitz) open a beer, and enlarge my shots onto my bedroom wall. It was great. The hush of the cooling fan in the old projector, the warm scent of the bulb heating the unit up, along with the regular clicking of advancing the slides along was a very soothing feeling.

Or was it the booze?

Anyway, I eventually went out and bought a little digital point-n-shooter when the quality had reached what I thought to be a satisfactory level. I figured it would just be a toy, or something fun to back up my film SLR.

I hardly ever used my film camera again.

At length, I mustered up my courage, as well as my mastercard, and bought a full bodied digital SLR -an Olympus E1, and have never looked back.

$8500. later, I've bought into a full olympus system. Yes, the original outlay is a lot, but I justified it by saying to myself, "I'll never have to buy film, or pay to have it processed again." I figure if I live to be about a hundred or forty-seven or so, I'll have broke even.

…….. back from a brief attack of mental instability……….

Yesterday, Barry Bonds schwacked his 755th tater over the wall to tie him with Hank Aaron on the all time leaders list.

This really annoyed some people, who feel as though Bonds is a steriod enhanced cheater, and an asshole to boot.

Actually they're right. But that's what I LIKE about Bonds. He is an asshole, and he's currently under investigation for steroid use.

I like the idea that Bonds seemingly goes out of his way to make people hate him. I suspect that he's not only trying to break Aaron's home run record, but he's trying to surmount Ty Cobb's achievements in vile behaviour.

He most certainly will surpass Aaron, but he's got to go a hell of a lot further to beat ol Ty.

Cobb was a bonafide psychopath. His storied career is littered with anecdotes of him attacking fans, extreme racist behaviour, alleged gambling on games, beating his wife, and just about anyone else who stood in his way.

What I find interesting is that over time, all of these grave 'character flaws' have become something of a joke. "Yeah, that 'ol Ty  sure was a mean son-of-a-bitch, but he sure could hit!……… chuckle-chuckle."

Then, there's the beloved Mick -Mickey Mantle. Mantle admitted to regularly playing drunk, and was the proud recipient of a new liver after he blew his own out from years of boozing. Never mind the bullshit about celebrities getting preferential treatment. It's just not true!  -yes, i'm being sarcastic here…….

Again, we see that as the years pass all transgressions are forgiven. Besides -more sarcasm coming- booze is not at all like steroids. It's a different type of drug………. no wait…… I stand corrected……… it's not a drug at all. Our government says so!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: ATHLETES AND CELEBRITIES ARE NOT ROLE MODELS. Secretly I hope that some day Barry Bonds (perhaps on the occasion of giving his hall of fame induction speech) will say as much. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

Announcer: "Ladies and gentleman…………. inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot by the Baseball Writers of America, the all time leading home run king, number 25 for the San Francisco Giants, BARRY BONDS!!!!!!"

Barry Bonds, stepping up to the podium to mixed applause: "Thank you very much fans! Can I hear it a little louder from the folks at the back? Come on people…….. I'm the greatest that ever was, you can do better than that!

First off, I want to extend a big thanks to the Baseball Writers of America for voting me into the Hall of Fame, mind you, they should be thanking me for giving them so much to write about over the years.

I, of course, should have been voted in on the first ballot. It really is quite obvious that a man of my vertiginous talents would be a shoo-in for the Hall.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is something that I would like to address today. Something that I have strived for throughout my entire professional carreer.

I would like to take a moment to briefly talk about how much of an asshole that I was, and continue to be. Further to that, I would like to point out that you are even bigger assholes than I for trying to make a model out of me. heh-heh……… that's like trying to teach your daughters how to be ladies by showing them videos of that old attention whore, Madonna."  

cough-cough………. "Pardon my French."

"In the dark days of my baseball career, I was in jeopardy of becoming too much of a nice guy, who's outbursts and raving tantrums were perceived as just a psychological side-effect of of my enormous talents.

"Fortunately, I was able to overcome this mis-representation with the deliberate use of steroids. Believe me, It hasn't been easy. Only a true champion like myself would be able to withstand the horrors of a banned substance, and then leak to the press that I had actually used them.  

"For that I am to be commended.

"Thank you for your foolish concern and interest over my long and illustrious career. You may approach the podium aafter I have dropped my drawers to kiss my ass!"