When My Baby Smiles At Me I Go To The Rio

I was playing at a little restaurant on Alberni Street one night when this guy walks up to me and says,
“Hey man you sound really good. What are you doing for the next month?” I slowly looked at the ceiling as I wondered where this was going. “Nothing,” I said. “What do you have in mind?” He then proceeded to explain the scenario: They needed a third member of a trio that had been performing at a little bar in Cabo San Lucas called the Rio Bar & Grille. There was a keyboard player, a drummer/bass player and they needed someone to front the band. The more he explained the situation, the more I wanted to go to Mexico as I was long overdue for a trip somewhere and this sounded perfect. The only problem was that I had to leave in two days and understandably there were a few things I had to cancel and defer.

My passport was still in order as I ran around and packed my suitcase, and got everything else taken care of. I was quite nervous on the day before my flight, as I was supposed to pay for one way down there and would be reimbursed when I arrived. This was something I almost never did, as not having plane fare covered was often a sign of things to come. I threw caution to the wind and before I knew it, I was on my way to Cabo with my harmonicas, a guitar and a bass. I was asked to bring along a bass because the_bass player didn’t have one down there.

When I arrived at the airport I was met by the drummer of the band, a New Zealander. What I didn’t know at the time was that the keyboard player couldn’t find the money to come down, and I was now doing a duo with a drummer that was learning the bass out of necessity and had only just begun the journey. As soon as we loaded my bags into the van he owned to do his carpet installation business, we headed straight to a gig at a private estate on the road to San Jose. It was a windy and treacherous ride along the shoreline. Our estate was a trailer home that had been fashioned out of a summer cottage trailer and slowly turned into a small mansion by adding section-by-section and continuing to improve the grounds. In this country, labour is cheap and wonderful grounds evolve from the feeling of obligation to keep locals employed.

We acquired a Mexican drummer from somewhere and before long the three of us were set up in front of the ocean and were playing between two palm trees. I will never forget how strange it was to unexpectedly leave the rain of a Vancouver winter and find myself standing in front of huge beer coolers of ice brimming with 8-inch mini-bottles of Corona and Pacifica beer. I called many of my easier songs not knowing the rest of the players and noticed that everything started to sound the same. The drummer was a one trick pony and the bass player seemed to be running after a train. This turned out to be something I was never very comfortable with as I am used to _a very high caliber of musician. We played for the party and the people loved the music and generally enjoyed themselves.

We drove back to Cabo San Lucas and went to the Rio Bar & Grille where I would spend the next five weeks performing every happy hour and evening under the stars as there was no roof. _Without the keyboard player or drummer in Cabo, I had to try and figure out how to access the drums that existed somewhere inside the keyboard. There was no manual, so I spent many hours poking buttons and trying to figure out the architecture of this Japanese equivalent to the Rubik’s Cube. I finally was able to get the monster to play three simple beats and I revised all my songs to fit into one of the three. I had one more sound that was the thump of the bass drum only, which funny enough, was used more often than not. We called ourselves Dos Heuvos, which means “two eggs” in Spanish.

The accommodations were in a round hut high on the hill overlooking the whole town. The bass player had his own house where he lived with his girlfriend, and I had the tiny apartment to myself with a half-circle of windows offering a view of the whole town. There was a bed and a writing table and a great porch where I spent a lot of time practicing my guitar. The people next door to me had been hired to look after a boat owned by a rich businessman from San Diego. His marlin fishing boat sat waiting in Cabo for his occasional trip down with clients and friends.

My neighbors were the crew/caretakers of the boat and although I never got to go on it, over the five weeks that I was there, I sampled almost every kind of local fish that was available, as they always shared the spoils of their day’s catch. We had some great fish fries on the deck between our two buildings. Because I had to perform the happy hour and then return again to play well into the night, I could never stay too long.

Many people come to Cabo, San Lucas to enjoy a brief holiday with friends. They lie on the beach by day and visit the clubs and restaurants by night. As the weeks passed I started noticing that some of the locals had stories in their past that would make Desperate Housewives look like Bambi. The one rule about the place that you learned quickly was not to ask where people came from or how they ended up in Cabo. I saw more than one local get up and walk away from too many questions being asked in a conversation. There were many that could never go back home and after a while, I heard stories about some of the most seasoned characters the frequented the Rio Bar & Grille.

We had a 2-for-1 happy hour every day, and before the band started every afternoon we would clink our gold tequila glasses together and toast another day in paradise and down a shot of some very smooth tequila kept behind the bar for us. As the weeks went by we built up the business so that soon we were the happening happy hour in town, which made our bosses happy. Our bosses, by the way, were five girls from Boston, who after much cajoling to mom and dad, opened a bar in Cabo with the help of their Mexican boyfriends.

Nothing is accomplished without the help of locals that know the lay of the land in matters of permits and such. One Saturday, all the staff decided to take a boat trip out on the ocean. I was there working on some gear problem when a man walked in carrying a clipboard and a briefcase. He spoke English and demanded to see the manager and owner. I told him that I didn’t know where they were but assumed they would be back soon. He said that the restaurant hadn’t paid their business license and he was going to shut the restaurant down if the license was not produced. He then proceeded to take a strong wide tape out of his briefcase tape up all the beer fridges so they could not be opened for Saturday night, the busiest night of the week. After a while one of the sisters showed up and tried to reason with the inspector. He stood firm and would not budge and by this time all the coolers had been sealed. She took him into the back room where some kind of deal was agreed upon. After paying the man off with an undisclosed amount, he took all the locks off the coolers and proceeded on his way.

When the gang got back from the boat trip, the story was relayed to the manager who went into the office and produced all the permits fully paid and up-to-date. A call made to the city permit office revealed that the inspector had never worked for the city permit department and the whole thing was a scam. Perhaps it might have been overheard in conversation that everyone was leaving for the day. The inspector may have offered with $40 or $50 for his trouble but that would have been more than a week’s wages for most people there.

One afternoon as we got off the stage we were invited to sit with a man sitting alone, who introduced himself as Dean and bought us a drink. We sat down and had a friendly conversation where Dean explained that he was down on a holiday from San Diego doing some marlin fishing on his boat, and that his wife would rather read a book on the beach than go out on the boat with all those crazies out there. I didn’t have a clue what his wife was referring to but we were soon to find out as the man invited us to go fishing on his boat the next morning.

For those of us who had never experienced marlin fishing, I will try to describe the phenomena: First off, everything about it is expensive. The reels used to hold the hundreds of yards of line are huge and can cost $5000 a piece. This particular boat was 36 feet long with a high deck for scanning the horizon. On the rear of the boat in the center of the main deck sat a massive white padded chair, similar to an old fashioned barber’s chair. It had big footrests to push against when the person playing the marlin has his fish on. First however, one has to find the marlin and so we stopped the engines and waited in silence, scanning the horizon in all directions with binoculars. On a typical day, twenty miles or so off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, will sit 50 to 100 boats spread over a square ten miles by ten miles. All the boats watch each other waiting for the right moment. The moment comes when whoever spots the marlin school takes off like a maniac as fast as they can go and starts to chase the school. What the other boats are patiently waiting for is the telltale puff of black smoke that comes from a boat engine being gunned to the max. As soon as the smoke is noticed, the entire group of boats race towards it and the madness begins.

We were fortunate in being quite close to the sighting boat and we tore after it as fast as we could. On the way to the fishing grounds, Dean had briefed us in advance what to do next so we readied ourselves for the hunt. On the end of two attractor rods that we attached to each side of the stern of the boat, was a wooden plug that looked like six inches of carved salami with two huge eyes on it painted red and yellow, with plastic tassels along the sides. It had a huge hook at the back of it and I was told that one plug cold cost around $90. The front contour of this monster lure was designed in a way that the plug would dive deep under the water and then return to the surface, only to grab air bubbles from the surface and carry them down under water mimicking a school of fish. The boats would be trolling very fast towing these plugs.

Very soon there were 30 or so boats doing the same fast troll in a close area around the school. I think a good deal of the appeal of the sport is the excitement of the evasive driving with these huge fast boats during the trolling. After about 20 minutes the marlin school disappeared without a strike. We wound in our lines, and motored off to another quiet spot on the sea to watch.

On the next smoke sighting we had more luck and soon after our plugs were in the water we had a hit. Now the beak of a marlin is almost all bone so even after hitting a plug in the water, the hook will easily break free and the marlin will escape. This is when the live bait is used and the bait carp are hooked through the front of the nose and quickly thrown overboard one on each side. We continued to troll with the baitfish skimming the top of the water and then WHAM! The bait line got a hit from a marlin and I was instructed to sit in the chair to be strapped in. Dean handed me the huge rod and reel and I heard the “vzzzzzzzzzzz” as the line left the boat to follow the escaping fish. I was instructed to let it go and not try to reel in until the fish had had a chance to leave the area around our boat and settle down a bit. I was only to keep constant tension on the fish.

The engines of our boat now stopped and Dean ran a fish on a flag up the flagpole. When the other boats around us saw this flag hoisted they courteously moved out our area to let us have enough room to play our fish. It was now quiet around us except for the sound of the marlin breaking the surface and becoming airborne 200 yards off the stern of the boat—an amazing sight! The adrenalin was rushing through my body as I now started the long process of reeling in the fish. Heaving the rod towards me with all my might and then quickly winding as I dipped the heavy rod down towards the water again would sometimes only yield one or two turns of the highly geared reel.

Sometimes the line would disappear into the water to my left and I would watch this spot, only to see the marlin breach the water far in the distance to my right. After about an hour, I managed to wind the marlin to within about 20 yards of the boat. With one look at the boat, vzzzzzzz, my rod started to whine with all my carefully wound line flying out again. It took an hour and 45 minutes to finally land the beautiful thing before I could say anything. Dean’s wooden club ended the life of this beautiful animal. At that time it was the custom of the local fishing guides to donate the catch of the day to the locals of the village if it was not taken home or stuffed.

On the return to shore I kept looking at the fish and feeling sadness in the pit of my stomach. The joy of the day had been tarnished. After having my tourist photo taken with my 127 pound marlin, the fish was given up to be shared with the poor. I felt a bit better about this. I have since heard that you cannot keep any marlin in the area of Cabo San Lucas. I hope this law was instigated before the depletion of the species in the area.

That night I could hardly hold up my arms to play the guitar. Like a prizefighter that had just boxed 15 rounds there was trouble even lift them. One of the sisters Maria, who had been travelling with her boyfriend arrived back at the restaurant and decided to do some spring-cleaning of the storeroom, which had become appallingly cluttered in her absence. She did this on a whim late at night when no one was in the place.

The next day at 4:30 when we arrived to collect our box of paraphernalia that we stored nightly in the storage room, we couldn’t find it anywhere. We tore the room apart and before long everyone was helping to look and noticing that everything have been moved around in the room. When Maria was located she proudly announced that all the junk in the room had been cleaned out and taken to the dump to be burned. Tires squealed in the parking lot as the manager and his girlfriend raced off to try and find our equipment. When they returned the manager held up my microphone that had melted in the fire and looked liked an ice cream cone with the ice cream ball melted half way down the cone. We lost everything: cords, mics, harmonicas, tuners, picks, everything. So there I was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with two weeks to go before I cold fly home on my return ticket.

We scoured the town for any kind of microphone from a ghetto blaster or old fashioned tape recorder that we could jerry rig to work for us. The closest music store was in La Pas many hours away. The days that followed were a bit of an anti climax as it is always frustrating for a cook of any discipline to try and conduct his or her business without the proper tools to do the job. We ended up with one microphone salvaged from an old plane with the talk button taped down. We had to revamp almost all the songs with harmonica to the key of G as I only had one harmonica left and used modified swizzle sticks for guitar picks.

It was hard to get used to this new equipment but we dutifully finished the two weeks said our goodbyes and before I knew it I was sitting on a plane heading back to a rainy winter day in Vancouver. I looked out the window and couldn’t stop shaking my head and smiling at the rampant abandon that constitutes the norm in Mexico.

Viva Dos Heavos!

The Birthday Present

Often times when I am teaching throughout the year I am asked to make gift certificates for people that are bought by friends or relatives. It is funny how often those recipients don't claim there presents. I often never hear from them. I am sure there are myriad of reasons that I have never even heard of as to why they couldn't use their gift certificate. Perhaps bought by the lover who is now an ex and it goes without saying the last thing you would be caught using is a present from your ex partner. Some people are too shy to call you for their lessons. In many cases they were given lessons to encourage them out of their shell and music is an accepted way of doing that and is much cheaper than a therapist.

I received a call from a lady whose husband was just turning 50 and she thought it would be good for him to experience music before he died. To possibly relieve some of the stress of being a high level businessman along the way. She ask me how much the lessons were and asked if she could pick up a gift certificate to give him on his birthday the following weekend. I generally use quite informal wording in my gift certificates to lighten them up; 'Because you are a good boy
and will continue to be a good boy an elf has granted you a ______lesson at Keith Bennett studios.' She left with the present printed on the best paper I had. The day after his birthday the birthday boy called to arrange a time for his lessons. She had bought him 2- one hour lessons and he was eager to get started.

He knocked on the door, I introduced myself and we got down to business. I showed him what I call the " entry level" lesson. History of the harmonica, some simple rhythm playing and the 12 bar blues explained and then explained according to the harmonica player and what he or she would play in it. He was fast learner and very keen; nodding his head after each important idea that he understood. He left quite excited and I closed the door after him thinking that times like these make me feel that it was a good thing to get into teaching after all. Helping someone to find a voice. The next week he came back at the same time for part 2 of his gift certificate and I noticed he now had 3 harmonicas with him and a book. I asked him what harmonicas he had bought he showed me and I noticed that they were all in the same key.
It customary to buy different keys of harmonica of which there are 12 but no one had told him that and he
wanted some more so now he had 3 in the key of C. I suggested that if he was going to purchase additional harmonicas he might consider the key of A followed by the key of D or G. He wanted to continue his lessons and on the following week he showed up with 3 C's, an A , a D , and a G harp, 3 books and 8 blues CDs.

Each week his collection grew and he carried everything in a plastic shopping bag. I finally decided to get him a present for his next lesson. I stopped by the Salvation Army store to buy one of those 1950's ladies overnight cases with the little elastic pouches on the inside and the mirror in the lid. I thought it would be better than a plastic bag - somewhere to put his harps and paraphernalia.

He was outwardly thankful when I gave it to him but didn't say much after I think it had something to do with the fact that it was pink. The very next week he arrived with the most expensive soft pouch camera case I have ever seen. He demonstrated it to me with all it's hidden pouches and zippers and padding. Each and every pouch was filled with either a harmonica
or a microphone or a cord or a book or a CD. He even bought a mini sequencer which he had spent some big money on. I was starting to get the idea that the store manager of the music store he went to must know his name and have instructed all his staff learn it. When I started to play I waited months for my next harmonica and it took me years to amass such a horde of harmonica stuff.

There are those that do and those that collect things. It didn't take me too long to see that his heart was really in possession of the accoutrements and not so much in the practicing of the instrument. We plugged along and month after month he would show up at my door with his collection. He did start to show marked improvement after I suggested he play in his car while driving and before too long was playing through the songs I had given him.

He told me that recently he had been on his way to a very important board meeting about 70K away on the freeway. He was having a great old time playing blues harp along with some backing tracks I had made for him. He drove right past the exit for his meeting and kept going down the freeway in the wrong direction. When he finally noticed, he realized that the next place he could turn around was 8K away so he was very late for the meeting. When he finally arrived to a large board room table filled with people waiting for him he turned to the president of the company and came clean. "I'm sorry I'm late I have to tell you that I was playing harmonica in my car and drove right by the turn off". The president, who up to this point wore a scowl demanded " You play harmonica? I play harmonica too. What kind of harps do you use?....... Needless to say the meeting was a success and another musical bond was formed that day.

About a year into teaching him I had to make a schedule change so I could record on a Doug and the Slugs CD so I called him up to change the time. His wife answered the phone. "Hi it's Keith. I need to change the lesson time this week so I can.." "It's you! She interrupted. He's driving me crazy! He plays harmonica in the morning, he plays harmonica at night, he plays harmonica in the car, he plays harmonica in the bathroom, he's driving me nuts with that thing!"
Then there was a silence. After about 5 seconds she said calmly:
"Can you teach me to yodel" I really want to learn to yodel."

I thought about it for a few seconds and as I always do before I properly think things through. I said: "Sure I can do that, it's just like singing” I lied. "When can I come in" she said and I found her a spot on another day from her husband and hung up the phone.

The next week she arrived for a yodeling lesson and her husband appeared later for his weekly harmonica lesson. I had to do some quick research at the library on the art of yodeling and was surprised to find out exactly how difficult it really is.

Can’t you just picture those two lovebirds at a campsite in the summer sitting around the campfire. He plays his harmonica and she yodels and every so often they look into each others eyes and sigh and look back at the fire. It would be very quiet there as they would no doubt be surrounded by deserted campsites.

I Crack Me Up!

New Years is the musician’s goldmine. It is the one night of the year that
a band can command up to twice what it would normally charge.
Not having a gig on New Years would be like a girl not being asked to the prom.
In the months that lead up to the big night there is a flurry of phone activity with most musicians asking each other “Are you booked for New Years”?

This particular year, my band had been asked to play for New Years Eve by a promoter I had not heard of before. It is fairly common practice for promoters with little experience to suddenly appear on the scene a month or two before New Years Eve. They will book a venue, hire a band, a caterer and then charge $75-$125 a ticket with the hopes of
walking away with a large chunk of money for one night.
On two occasions in the past I have witnessed the best intentions crumble
at the last minute due to poor advertising and just bad planning.
I learned my lesson and made sure I got a hefty deposit.
The venue he had chosen was the Old Holiday Inn off Robson
with a revolving restaurant on top.

The load in was one of the worst the band had ever experienced.
We had to load our gear into a tiny service elevator around the back
of the building and ride up to the 19th floor. We then had to take everything out of the
elevator and walk it down a cluttered hallway to load it all again into
another tiny elevator that would take us to the roof.
In a revolving restaurant there is a ring about 25 feet wide that
moves 360 degrees in about an hour. The bandstand was luckily in
front of the elevator when we arrived on top and we quickly loaded
our gear before it escaped too far. Set up was quite difficult
with such a narrow stage; behind us rose a 20 foot high window
that was engineered so that the top of the window was pushed out
at least 6 feet farther than the bottom. This gave a very panoramic
view of the surrounding city.
In setting up a band, however, one gets used to the world of 90 degree
angles and walls to lean things against. Setting up on this night was like setting up in a china shop. We finally got everything set just right and I noticed two people were
missing -- the promoter and our bass player.
“Downbeat,” as it is called was for 7 PM and we were now at 6:45 and
still no sign of either. It was 7:05 when the bass player lugged his amp and his bass towards the stage. I just wanted to do a good job and ignored the excuses and
just said, " let’s get started." He had not brought an extension cord
to help his bass amp reach to the closest power source which is often
longer than the amp cord. So in desperation, I decided to plug him
into the power bar located behind my guitar amp. I was using a
Roland JC-120 guitar amp at the time. I liked the great sound it produced and the convenience of the built-in wheels to help it roll around
with. On top of my guitar amp sat my Pevey 6 channel PA head for the
microphones.

I reached behind the amp to plug in the bass amp cord when the whole
amp swayed slowly backward on it wheels and crashed into the revolving window.
This was no ordinary window. The crack started at the bottom from the
impact from the corner of the amp head hitting it. To my horror it
grew like a convoluted spider web until every corner from floor to ceiling was joined by tiny cracks. I pulled the amp back onto the stage and stood watching dumb-struck
with my mouth wide open feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me.

I looked at the band members and saw various degrees of shock on
their faces. I pictured a thought entering their collective minds: "Sucks to
be you man ….Ouch! "

I had to tell someone. I had no time to waste as people were arriving,
the lights were dimming and we had yet to tune up. I went downstairs hoping to find the promoter but I found only someone whom he had hired to take the money at the door.
This was the early days of cellphones when they were still the size of bricks
and I didn’t have his number to call him.

I went downstairs to find someone in management but could only find
the catering staff. When I returned to the bandstand the lights had
dimmed and the shattered window was leaving the scene of the crime.
I decided we should start playing and we did the first set. It was
very hard to concentrate knowing that any moment the window could
break and shower the busy street 30 floors below with thousands of shards of falling glass.

During the third song of the second set, the promoter finally arrived with
two of the managers. They stood pointing at me and waving their arms
in the air. The head honcho of the hotel shook his head stormed off.
I had a bad feeling about this and dreaded the rest of the night having to
deal with the promoter and management. I had visions of not being paid
and having to be on the hook for the band's wages.

And so we reached the end of an otherwise uneventful New Year’s Eve party. After the last song of the night, I went to find the promoter, received our wages and paid out the band members. I made it clear to each one of them as I paid them that the band would be on the hook for half the cost of the window replacement. Not one of them offered to help with the cost of the window even though they were receiving three times what they would normally make on a gig throughout the year. They all took their money and fled into the night.
I packed the sound system and my guitar gear by myself and
threaded it downstairs to my van.

As it turned out, the cost of the window was shared three ways by the hotel, the promoter and myself. The hotel decided it didn’t want to increase the insurance deductible by claiming the window so in the end my share was $800.
I asked for an invoice from the glass company they were using which was faxed to me and I decided in the end to pay the cost. I could have complained and
tried to make a stink even taking it to small claims court. It has been my experience however, that the stress endured in situations like that more than outweighs the cost
one might save even if you win. I was the contractor, I broke the window so I paid the $800 out of my own pocket and wished myself a Happy New Year.

I have since changed my concept regarding the traditional term “band” and the so-called loyalties assumed therein. From that day forward I use only Union musicians as a farmer would hire hands to help harvest ripe fruit. I now phone around to see who’s available when I need them. Now I know where they got the term “Hired Gun”

"Space"

The 1 mile square of high-rises called the West End in Vancouver BC, hosts one of the most densely populated areas in North America. There is a hotel in the base of one of the many towers with a pub called Shampers. I call it the living room of the studios as most of the clientele live in the high-rise towers and tend to call bars such as this their watering holes.

One weekend I was performing in the pub with a keyboard player and a drummer.
During the second set I could see a strange man standing by the doorway of the bar wearing a long raincoat and
carrying a garbage bag under his arm. I was in the middle of singing and I noticed him by the door.
He stood by the entrance and listened to the band for a while. He had long straggly hair and hadn’t shaved.
We were doing some mellow early evening songs as there were few customers at that point in the evening.
Shampers was the kind of room that allowed me the flexibility to pick the songs that I thought the regulars would want to hear. Our friend at the door waited for me to finish a song, ambled towards me and asked in a soft low voice
" Mind if I sit in?” “Sure man, what do you play?” I answered. “Well,… I play…. this!”
He said as he slowly pulled a plastic saxophone out of his paper shopping bag. It was smaller than a real saxophone and had a kazoo instead of a normal mouthpiece. The keyboard player and myself exchanged uncomfortable glances and I surveyed the ten or so people in the room, most of whom were playing pool.
What the heck I thought “How about a blues in Bb – ‘Route 66’ ” I asked. Our new band member just nodded his head as I started to sing the first verse. After the second verse I turned to him indicating that his was the first solo.
Now I haven’t heard a lot of kazoo players in my time but this guy could make that plastic sax sound like Mckoy Tynor one of the masters. He looked like his fingers were actually playing the little plastic keys while his voice hummed the sounds of the sax; he had amazing talent. It sounded so good that I rolled my first finger in a forward circle indicating that he should keep soloing while the rest of the band smiled at each other.
After his solos I sang the chorus, repeated the first verse and ended the song. He carefully put the little plastic sax back in his bag and was walking slowly towards the door. “Hey man, what’s your name? I called after him.
He slowly turned around and softly said: “Space” before walking out the door.
After he left I said into the microphone in a low voice:

“Ladies and Gentlemen: “Space”.

Cookies Anyone?

For 11 years I had a teaching studio on the River in North Vancouver.
I had a full teaching schedule at my studio by the river in I preferred to teach over few days and stack my students in less days to free up time to compose later in the week.
At my studio one day, I was visited by an ex-student of mine Steve, who stopped in to say hello and drop off some cookies he had baked for me.
Steve had gone on to be a talented songwriter that was working hard on his performing career. He supported himself by working as a cook in a restaurant with a quite good reputation. There was an up and coming concert in the works and he wanted to let me know about it in the hopes that I might entice a few of my students to come to the concert. When he arrived, I was preoccupied in preparing for the days teaching and still had some preparation to do before my first student arrived. I told him I would tell my students about his concert and excused myself for not being able to have a proper visit.

Soon after he left my first student of the day arrived and I taught for an hour. I then had a one hour break before the major part of my teaching day began which would take me till 9:00 PM. I walked by the small bag of cookies and decided that I was hungry so I took one out and started to munch on it as I went to the filing cabinet to find a piece of sheet music for a student. Once I found the music I was looking for, I noticed one cookie hadn’t filled me up and had another one on my way back. (When you work alone restraint if difficult with no one to answer to.)

I had a few things to do and before my next student came I decided to visit the washroom as it would be more difficult later on when I was teaching. While I was sitting there, I noticed the room tilt slightly for a second. I looked around puzzled. What was that? I thought there was an earth quake. It happened again and this time I shook my head like someone trying to stay awake. When tried to stand up I knew something very strange was happening to me. I stumbled out of the washroom and headed strait for the telephone.

Pulling out my student telephone book, I furiously started dialing the parents of students informing them that I had contracted stomach flu and had to go home. They were all very gracious but as the calls continued, I sensed some puzzled responses from some of the parents. As I hung up the phone canceling my last student, I noticed colors fluttering in my periphery vision.

It seemed like a movie was going on either side of me just out of view. When I turned my head to try to watch it the movie would move with me just out of reach.. It was a scary feeling and was steadily getting more intense by the minute. Concentration was now proving difficult as I turned the pages of the phone book trying to look up the number of the local taxi company. I dialed the number and gave the address of the studio to the dispatch operator. I hung up and crumpled into my chair in relief. All I had to do now was to close up the studio and get in a taxi.
The colors were now like a halo around my field of vision. My eyes felt like I had been swimming in a chlorine pool for hours, and everything had that misty look to it.
The ride home was uneventful as sitting in the back seat, I mumbled the address over the seat to the driver. I looked out the window at the rain soaked streets and wondered how on earth l I had ended up in this predicament. The cookies my friend had left for me were laced with something and thanks to him, I was passing through the threshold of lousing control. One of the worst feelings imaginable.

When I got home I paid the driver and stumbled inside.
I did a b-line for the bed tossed off my shoes and lay on my back looking at the ceiling as a symphony of colors and sounds painted the ceiling in an ever changing collage. When my wife came home she helped me get undressed and I lay there frozen, eyes open for the rest of that day. Every time I tried to close my eyes I got the ‘dreaded whirlys’ and had to open my eyes again. It was all that night and into the next morning before I could finally fall asleep. I slept most of the next day and when I finally woke up I was furious.

Who knows what could have happened from this irresponsible act. I could have given one of those pot-laced cookies to one of my young students or my own child. I could have had to drive somewhere and not noticed until I was on the road behind the wheel somewhere across town. I could have lost it and done something irrational to myself or someone else.

I called my friend Steve and took to him like a school of piranha fish welcoming a stray goat. I called him everything I could think of that resembled the word irresponsible. His excuse was that as I was a musician, he assumed that I would “get it” when he said he made some “cookies” for me. I’m sure most of his friends smoke pot on a daily basis so someone like myself who is “out of the loop” would be a rarity. Because I played a musical instrument I was whitewashed with the same brush as all those “groovy cats that lived to get high, play music and float across the tops of cities contemplating jazz.

I continued to let him have it as I thought he needed to know what catastrophe he might have put into motion. When I calmed down, I informed him that he would be paying me, in full for my lost wages for the whole day’s teaching including the taxi fare home. If he didn’t I would go to the police and make a complaint against him. I think he got off easy and I hope he thinks twice in the future before offering anyone drugs as a gift.

Too Many Notes—Not Enough Seats

I met Massa in my twenties when I used to hang out as guest in a Bohemian household occupied by classical musicians in Lynn Valley, North Vancouver. Massa was from Osaka Japan and at one time he played with the Osaka Symphony.

I never did hear the reason he decided to settle in Canada. He was very tall for a Japanese man and spoke French and some English. Another tenant of the house was a concert pianist from Nice, France. They loved to talk for hours in the kitchen and if I were present the conversation would politely start in English but would invariably end up in French. A typical conversation would take place around the kitchen table with a bottle of good scotch, lots of filled ashtrays, foreign cigarette boxes and lighters strewn across the table. The room would have a smoky haze and talking would usually last well into the night. In those days I couldn’t get enough of the sound of Parisian French
and would sit quietly and listen by the hour gleaning what little I could from the animated tête-à-tête with a pair of world-class musicians.

I first heard Massa play from inside a locked room where he would practice his clarinet. I had never heard anything like it and got a chair to sit and listen. He could articulate notes up and down the clarinet so fast that I was dumbfounded. He had exquisite tone and would fly through any key with lighting speed. Major, minor, whole tone, diminished, augmented and altered all came streaming effortlessly out of the room. At the end of his scales and arpeggios sessions he would move on to a stirring rendition of wonderful classical solo clarinet pieces. He didn’t know I was outside listening and when he ended his practice I would quietly move away from the door as I heard him packing up his instrument. Here was a master and I didn’t even have a clue as to the realms of music he must know.

Over the next years we became friends and talked for hours usually around the kitchen table with a good bottle of scotch. He told me that he had tried to audition for many symphonies since he came to Canada. One audition story comes to mind:

It was in Chicago for the Chicago symphony where there was one opening offered for third clarinet. There were 240 applicants from all over North America that descended upon Chicago for their chance for this one position. Massa practiced six to seven hours a day for the two weeks leading up to the audition: scales, arpeggios, long tones, and a number of very intricate pieces. And then there was the reed selection. He told me that in a typical box of 12 Rico clarinet reeds he would be very lucky to find one or maybe two that would be good enough to perform at his level of playing. So as he neared the date of departure he opened box after box of reeds and examined them carefully to finally end up with 4 reeds that he could trust for this very special audition.

On the day of the audition, Massa took a taxi to the airport, picked up the ticket he had paid for in advance, and sat on the plane with his clarinet case on his lap and his reeds in his breast pocket—he at last was ready and on his way. With eyes closed he practiced various pieces with his fingers playing an imaginary clarinet in mid air: a common exercise of traveling concert musicians.

When he arrived in Chicago he went straight to his hotel and checked into his room to try and do a quick warm-up before the audition that started an hour and a half later. He opened his reed case and un-clipped one of the special reeds he had carefully chosen, placed it on the mouthpiece and slid the custom ligature he had had made in Paris over the reed. Adjusting the placement of the reed with tiny screws placed it exactly in the right position to obtain the response needed. He placed the mouthpiece to his lips and squeak! He adjusted his lower lip against the bottom of the mouthpiece. Squeak! Not a single note would come out of one of the finest instruments money could buy. He tried another reed. Squeak! And another squeak!

Suddenly Massa’s world began to crash around him like thundering waves. Not one reed would work! It was now 35 minutes before his audition time. He hurriedly packed his clarinet case and ran to the taxi stand and caught the first taxi to audition hall. The drive took almost all the remaining time he had left and he stumbled into the audition room with minutes to spare. Massa has a very thick accent and he had some trouble explaining that his reeds had been selected in Vancouver but the humidity was completely different in Chicago and the reeds wouldn’t work at all. He finally begged a fellow clarinetist for a reed and when his number was called he walked into the audition hall still adjusting the reed as he walked. He was allowed to play for exactly two minutes and then heard “Thank You” coming from the judging table.

He bowed slightly turned and left the room pausing in the hallway to thank the person who had lent him the reed. He returned to the hotel, packed his things and went to the airport to wait for the plane home. When he returned to Vancouver he had to go straight to work as soon as he got back. This trip had been expensive as were all the others
before it. All paid for with his own money to try to get a job doing what he loved to do.

Massa had more qualifications and had paid more for his education than most doctors or lawyers. He had taken expensive private lessons since early childhood, studied with world masters, attended expensive music retreats and sought after and bought the best clarinets money could buy. He was, in my opinion, one of the elite of the classical music world. Perhaps it was his age or his thick Japanese accent or perhaps there are just too many really good musicians at that level and not enough jobs for them all. Massa returned to his regular job as a short order cook at a greasy spoon called Franky’s at the bottom of Lonsdale Avenue and never picked up the clarinet again.

This sad story reminds me of my last visit to London when I saw a lineup of well over 500 people, the longest I have ever seen stretching all the way around a city block. I was curious as to what it was for so I walked over and asked one of the people in the endless cue what they were waiting for. One of the tired hopefuls explained to me, “It’s a dance audition for two parts in the The Lion King”

Vive l’artiste!

Light The Darkness

In 1995 our family lived in a co-op housing complex in North Vancouver. We lived in one of about 60 condos that were built by the Lions Club. Our kids had a ball in those years, constantly surrounded by so many friends to play with just outside our doors. In the years we were at Bowron Court we were young families and shared each other’s lives by the close proximity that we co-existed. We probably knew more about each other than necessary but that’s how it goes.

A few units down from us lived a single mother with two children. She had a daughter age 10 and a son age 12. Our children often played with them. One afternoon the mother’s ex-husband came home for his daughter’s birthday and proceeded to attack
the two children with an axe. Her daughter was murdered and the son was eventually reduced to a wheelchair for life.

During the period after this event there were candlelight vigils and other grieving sessions for the family, neighbors and friends. I thought it would be nice to write a song for the family to help them try to make sense of their shattered world. I recorded the song and gave them 15 copies of the lyrics with a cassette of the song:



We Just Want You to Know We’ll Be Here

There are times throughout this life of ours
When we feel we are standing alone
The chips they fall for no reason at all
And we’re left in the dark on our own

Now you’re going to grieve and you have to believe
That there’s one more thing you can do
Just look around and hear the sound
There’s love and it’s calling to you

CHORUS:
Anyone can help a heart fly higher
Anyone can help a soul to heal
Anytime you need someone
To guide you through the night,
We just want you to know we’ll be here
There’s a friend just around the corner
Caring friends from across this land
United together to lend a hand
We just want you to know we’ll be here

Sometimes it takes trouble to bring us together
From the heroes and villains alike
Sometimes we forget all that matters
Is the love we all share in our hearts
You know you are missed and we’re going to try
To get you back home once again
Just look around there’s a lot to be found
There’s love and it’s calling to you

CHORUS

BRIDGE:
When all you see is tragedy
You’re left out on your own
You can’t see past the doors
That lie in front of you
We can help you make the steps
To get you back on the road
Just give us this chance
To lend a helping hand

CHORUS



Years later I was doing a concert on Saltspring Island and I happened to run into our friend from up the street. She immediately asked if I would go with her to see her son. They now lived in a school bus that had been converted into a very nice living space, sparse but comfortable.

When I was reintroduced to her son as the man that wrote the song, he burst into tears and gave me the warmest handshake I think I’ve ever had. I don’t think he remembered me so much as he remembered the song and I believe it was a bittersweet flashback for him to a terrible time when he was surrounded with love and understanding. I assume few people were told of how his life had gone after the incident. After he had spent a long time in the hospital, mother and son had chosen to move to a smaller town where they would be left alone by the press and would not be recognized.

We talked for a quite a while, carefully avoiding any sensitive topics. We talked about his interests and dreams. Just like any other teenager his age he liked high school and was learning how to program computers.

I had to leave and prepare for the evening’s performance. We said our goodbyes and on the way back his mother told me how much the song had helped him get through it all.

Every once in a while you may be lucky enough to receive a small glimpse of the
positive good that can result from an act of kindness we may have done. This
experience made me realize that you can do wonders if you give unconditionally.
If we can creatively find ways to help make changes for the good, I’m pretty
sure that one’s good will continues to sprout long after you have forgotten what
you did.

A single candle can lighten the darkness.

From Bad Things can come Good Things

My oldest friend, Ed Mohoric, came by my studio one day.
“What are you up to, Ed?” I asked.
“I'm going to the music store to sell my guitar,” he said.
“Really,” I answered. Over the years I have slowly come to the realization that I am the music store he refers to.
At this point I have owned many of Ed’s cast offs. “Lemmie have a look.” I said.
He went to his car and brought in a steel string acoustic guitar in an old case that was supposedly hand-made in San Diego, California by an amateur guitar builder.
It had 5 different kinds of exotic woods including birds eye, maple, Hawaiian koa, spruce, flaming maple and ebony for the fret board. The shape of the top was noticeably imperfect which I thought added to its charm. The guitar had a ‘Fishman’ electronic pickup installed, and I knew the pickup alone was worth over $400 new.
“How much were you thinking of asking for it?” I asked, casually, as I checked for buzzing at the highest frets up the neck.
“I just want to get what I paid for it,” he said.
I handed the guitar to him as all potential buyers of instruments anywhere will do when they really want to hear what it sounds like. “Play something for me.”
Now my friend Ed could make a cigar box with one wire string sound great and
before he handed it back to me to try for myself, he recognized, like any good salesman would, that
my mind was already made up. I played it for a few minutes and as I tried a few chords he casually inserted; “I'd probably take 500 for it, as that's what I paid for it.”
I slowly nodded my head and pursed my lips together knowingly then walked over and picked up my chequebook.
“You'll be happy with it,” he said. “I just don't like it any more”.
“ Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said as I handed him the cheque.
This is an old ritual and like two old chess players in the park we had played
this gambit many times before. As my collection of ‘hand me down guitars’ has grown over the years I can thank my friend Ed for most of them. My favourite part of this game is that sooner or later Ed forgets how good a guitar he has sold me actually is. He will visit again years later, pick one up and play it for a while. I will take on a “oh that old thing” attitude and smile as his eyes light up while he dances with an old friend. He will sometimes say, “If you ever sell this guitar let me know. I’ll buy it off of you.”
To this day I have, on principle, never sold a guitar back to Ed.
I am afraid to. He would invariably get sick of it again and sell it to someone else.
He is constantly looking for that perfect guitar; the musical equivalent to the play: ‘Waiting for Gadot’ and in all the time I have known him, he has owned over a hundred guitars, amps and pedals.
After some months of playing my new instrument I noticed that there was some
buzzing now appearing near the 12th fret and concluded that the guitar needed a fret dressing to smooth all the frets to the same height. I contacted a guitar technician highly recommended by another friend of mine and asked him if he could do the work. He suggested that I get a fret replacement as some of the frets had worn down quite low. It is a standard procedure where the old frets are carefully taken out and replaced, much like the replacement of the break shoes of a car. Even guitars can wear out and usually this would cost around $250 and take a couple of weeks to complete. I agreed to the quote and dropped off the guitar at his workshop, noting that I would be doing a tour of Sweden in a couple of months and would definitely need it before then. He said that would be no problem and would call me when it was ready.
Now I can't remember exactly how many phone calls transpired in the months that followed but I can tell you that there were many. The first call was to tell me that the technician had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that the fret job was completed and it turned out fine. “What's the bad news?” I asked.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I had a bit of an accident on my workbench.
I had a wrench lying there and it marked your guitar.”
There was a long silence and I then asked how bad it was. “Well, it's quite obvious but I think I can take some wood from under the bridge and, as it is the same wood grain, I should be able to patch it in a way that you won't see it,” he said.
I was worried. “I think I'll come over and have a look at it,” I said. I drove over to his shop and he showed me my guitar. The gouge in the top was not as bad as I had imagined it to be. It was a gouge, however, and it was his fault so I listened calmly to what he had in mind to rectify the situation. He suggested that I take the guitar and use it on the tour and bring it back when I returned home. I agreed to this and when I returned from Europe I went back to his workshop with the guitar. He told me again how bad he felt and how he would fix the mark and re-varnish the body for me. I was excited about getting the guitar re-finished so I said, “make it so” like John Luke Pickard and I left the guitar with him again.
Some months went by before my next inquiry and when I called I was told that
the guitar was coming along nicely but the spray booth he was going to use to spray the guitar was not set up yet and that he had to wait to set up the room for it.
“No problem,” I said in my most reassuring voice. I didn't want to seem at all
impatient. I wanted him to do a good job so I told him that whenever he could get around to it was fine with me.
In retrospect I may have been a tad relaxed in this attitude but I did hear from
him again in 2 months. He called to tell me that he had another problem with the top sheet. When he had tried to sand it down, the rosette design around the sound hole had rubbed off rendering the whole top sheet unusable. “I'll have to replace the top sheet. I hope you don't mind but it will take a little longer.”
“No problem,” I said again. “As long as it gets done right.”
The next call regarded the struts of my guitar and how many of them would have to be replaced, as the original maker of the guitar was, as he put it, “inexperienced.”
“Fine,” I said “Whatever it takes, you do it.”
By the next call, the guitar tech was excited as the guitar was nearing completion. This time he informed me that the body of the guitar was ready but now the neck finish was wearing out in many places and would not match the newly varnished body so it would have to be sanded and varnished as well.
The reader has probably guessed my answer but there was a new urgency now detectable in my voice as I was soon to be teaching at the Hornby Island Blues Festival and needed the guitar for the workshop.
At last the day arrived when, low and behold, almost one year after I had given him the guitar to do a 2-week fret job, my guitar was ready. When I arrived to pick it up my friend was lovingly putting on the new set of strings I left with him. He looked like a true craftsman as he explained all the things he did to my guitar. The new top sheet and binding he had used were perfect and completely flawless. He had filled the small cracks in the back and the finish was like glass. He played the guitar for a while and for the first time I detected a hint of melancholy. I suspect he felt much as one would after preparing a favorite puppy from a new litter to be picked up by new owners.
The guitar was gorgeous and sounded so bright and clear that it was like owning a brand new instrument. In a way I couldn't help but feel bad. I’d written him a cheque for the fret job and now I took out a 100 dollar bill and handed it to him. “For the top sheet wood,” I said. “It's the least I can do.”
When I put the guitar back in its case it smelled of my friend’s little workshop. “Are you going to make any more guitars soon?” I said.
“That was my last one for a while,” he answered. “I think I'm going to switch to violins.”
To this day that guitar smells of that workshop and remains my favorite one.
As an epilogue, one only has to imagine the look on Ed’s face when I opened up the case and showed him the completely refurbished guitar that he had pulled out of his car over a year before. He was flabbergasted to put it mildly, and no, I didn’t sell it back to him.

Stay out of Hospitals - a person could get sick there!

Stay out of Hospitals: A Person Could Get Sick There!

When the pain of an advanced herniated disk compounds with the pain of the constipation produced from shut down of normal bodily functions caused by the drugs given to fight the back problem leading to a shutdown of urinary function to the point where you don’t feel you have to urinate but contain 1.5 liters of urine in the bladder… start swearing as loud as you can and call an ambulance! It’s going to be a long night!

After the operation I woke up in a strange planet… I looked up and the ceiling of the recovery room—a vast landing area for alien space ships. I was the only person in this huge room that normally housed 20 ships. They were gone at the moment, probably off to some space war with the landing pads looking all the same. I wanted to leave and join them to do my duty but someone was holding me down with a huge arm on my throat so I couldn’t leave to fight with them. I twist and struggle to free myself and I… I… wake up! A sudden breath of air like a swimmer from being 60 seconds underwater.

I had sleep apnea and every time I woke up conscious again with a new breath of air to regain my bearings in the room, another completely different dream would begin to pull me down, down again into the depths of countless dream worlds and I was defenseless to resist. I remained in this bizarre state for many hours longer than normal. The attending nurse could do little to help me except augmenting my air supply with fresh oxygen piped in through my nostrils.

When I was delivered to my room after the post operation period, I discovered I was connected to three plastic pipes and was being asked every 15 minutes: “On a scale of 1 to 10 how is your pain level?” This one sentence would always bring me back from whatever dream planet I had drifted to, as I had to think for the answer. I started with an 8 out of 10 and thankfully over the next few days I was able to lower the number to around the 3-4 level where it remains as I write this. I didn’t notice for a day or two that I no view and could see nothing of the sunny days or mountains out the windows.

Privacy is very important in a hospital as the rooms now are filled on an as needed basis and there were two ladies and two men in my room when I got there. It is interesting to see the stress fractures in the system we have known and been used to for many years.

Beside me was the classic “grumpy old man” whom grumbling and complaining were second nature to. He found nothing he liked in food, service, doctors, specialists or anything else that went on day or night. He treated the nurses like servants that should come often and stay long and put up with whatever he dished out. I was amazed at how patient he was.

He did however suddenly turn into a totally articulate angel when family arrived. After a cordial visit he would revert to his old grumpy self, calling the nurse to continue to make a fuss. He had his radio turned on full blast through his earphones 24 hours a day and this irritated me to no end. It was rather like hearing a mosquito in the tent when you’re camping that you can’t see while trying to sleep. To save money our government decided to hire the lowest bidder for cleaners on contract with the hospital. I had heard about this but only after seeing feces on a wall above the toilet paper rack of our bathroom, did I understand. After seeing it there for three days I quietly mentioned it to a nurse and she ended up cleaning it herself quoting the old phrase as she left: “If you want something done….”

When I was 15, I had a serious appendix operation and found myself on the same 7th floor where there was no one my age in the whole floor. After a week or so I started to find creative ways to occupy my time. I remember hating the food I was given with a passion. By this time I knew every inch of the east wing and decided to play a little trick on the kitchen staff in the basement. I made a make shift sign from surgical tape and on it I wrote: “PLEASE CANCEL ALL FOOD TO THE 7TH FLOOR—IT SUCKS” I placed the make-shift sign the inside of the dumb waiter that brings the trays to each floor and raced back to my room. That afternoon I sat in bed wondering if my prank had been discovered. The nurses didn’t say a thing so I knew I was in the clear.

At dinner time the cart with the trays came to my room and my tray plunked before me by someone in a kitchen outfit. Under the heating lid on the dinner plate, was my sign, complete with knife and fork, salt and pepper and a napkin.

I remembered this story when I looked at the dumb waiter on one of my walks and chuckled to myself as I walked by. All these years later it still hasn’t improved a bit. You can’t get comfortable and can’t move. The hours ahead become a time of contemplation. One of the nights after getting very sore from constant lying on my back, I was determined to roll over onto my left side un-assisted. I grabbed the rail on my left with my right arm and like a snail I proceeded to roll the to my left side in a smooth and not jerking way. It took over 15 minutes to finally get on my left side. With my arm stretched over the side of the rest to hold me in place I lay enjoying this new feeling and drifted off…

I woke up with a start—two hours later. It was 6:00 am and I was still holding on tight with my right arm to keep the position.

The Vancouver Canucks hadn’t made the playoffs in three years and it was the first game of the playoffs. At the end of the game the score was tied 4-4. The game went into overtime and I hung on like a loyal fan. The game went on to four periods of overtime with Vancouver winning 5-4 sometime the next morning.

A visit from friends and family was a special thing to look forward to. It was a link from this twilight zone of inactivity and little choices. It was such a relief to talk to someone you knew even for a short while. There was a limit though and after a while I would hit the wall so to speak and the conversation would start to get tiresome and the visitor always expertly perceived this and soon a polite exit would ensue. Having the back problem prevented me from doing a studio session that I was offered at studio downtown. The replacement I suggested was an old friend of mine and upon hearing of my situation took the time to stop by and announced himself by entering the room playing the harmonica! We caught up on each other’s lives and he thanked me for the studio session.

Lower the bed down at the legs up at the back arms together now… roll and sit up. Put feet into slippers and I’m up. I was walking again and it felt so strange! I had lain on my back for three weeks and I was weak and had lost the motor skills to navigate. Before the operation I looked like a pretzel. From that point on I walked and walked stopping to read the paperback in my pocket for a break.

When I finally could walk regularly and hobbled around with the allotted walker from physio, I would pass a room with one resident who played classical music constantly that put a smile on my face every time I walked by. I didn’t make a habit of making eye contact as I roamed the halls as I was concentrating on my lessons but it was nice to hear on each lap around the ward.

My opinion of doctors has swayed in the last years as I was reminded again of my previous incident in my youth when my doctor came into see me at the hospital after he had been paged from being on call. He had obviously been to a party of some kind because I could smell scotch on his breath and he slurred his vowels.

I later learned he had not done the operation so some great relief I can tell you. For this latest back problem, my doctor arrived at the hospital two days after the operation and asked when I was scheduled to go in. In all fairness, the specialist of whose care I was in at this point actually directly under did visit often, and was very good about all aspects of the post operation. He told me I could go home as soon as I could go up and down a flight of stairs and the next day after completing this task with the physiotherapist, I packed up my things and was immaturely asked if I would vacate my room for an incoming surgery patient. I was planning to get a ride home from Brenda who was at work until 4:00 pm and it was only 11:00 am. I said “no problem” and asked if I could take my plastic to the nurse’s station and ambled off slowly towards the day room where I rested in between laps of the ward in my stroller…

I’m back home now and I’m thinking of this experience and remembering those four days at the hospital that will someday soon allow me to walk again. I will remember the nurses who worked like a team and from my perspective did a great job of providing care and attention to everyone. I never saw one of them lose their cool. No matter what time of day or night they could be depended upon to help with even the simplest requests such as helping with rolling over in bed to get comfortable. In my opinion they are the angels of our time. They have chosen a life of helping to ease pain and suffering. In my opinion they should be honored and respected for their work and be told often that they change people’s lives on a daily basis in a positive way. The rest of us should strive to be so lucky.

I’m sitting on the couch reading a book on deep divers when there is a knock on the door and a large man walks in the kitchen with a huge bundle of helium balloons that float towards the ceiling. I am amazed and delighted as I laugh at the size of them and the funny captions on the sides. One of them even plays the song “Don’t Worry be Happy” when you tap it. Suddenly all the thoughts of the past slip away and I forget about the last few days. I now close the door to this ‘bump in the road’ I’ve encountered to face the future.

From this moment on I’m going to be optimistic in the surprises that the future will bring.

Walk on walk on…

About 10 days after the operation I started to feel pain in my leg again. My sciatic nerve was acting up again in much the same places that it did the first time. As the days went by, it worsened and it hurt to put weight on my leg. The limp returned. I couldn’t sleep and I guessed that I had been too active and had re-injured it.

I called the specialist to set up an appointment to see him and thankfully his receptionist heard the pain in my voice, and scheduled me in for that afternoon. In his office I couldn’t sit down for more than one minute before having to stand up and move from the intense pain. When I saw him, he did some tests on me and suggested that I check myself into Emergency, as I needed additional testing so he could see what was wrong with me.

The specialist ordered another CT scan and MRI so he could tell what was going on. Checking into emergency was not as easy as it sounded as I arrived to find 38 people in the ER and a long line waiting to see the Triage nurse. We stood silent, in pain, waiting for her to process one by one the sad lot that stood before her. The procedure to admit each person took 5 minutes just to key in the personal information into the computer before then proceeding to ask the problem. The problem would now be hand written on another form to be dropped off at the emergency door.

She would then do blood pressure, temperature and respiration checks as well. The patient would then be sent to the in patient teller to make sure payment streams were in order and then sent back to the main waiting area to sit and wait to be called. It took me almost 2 hours standing in line, afraid to loose my place knowing I should have been sitting down from the pain. After an hour in line I had tears in my eyes and couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t have a take a number system similar to various offices where many people cue on a regular basis. What primitive minded organizer was put in charge of setting up this Triage check-in. The one nurse being on her own was totally stressed out having to try to decide who’s next while a line of disheveled upset people couldn’t take their eyes off of her in fear of being overlooked. In my opinion I think there should be a minimum of two nurses in reception: One for handling the groups, and one for the individual checking in. One to focus on the input of information needed and the other to be like a liaison and be highly trained in people skills. I kept my cool and instead downed a couple of the Tylenols I had in my pocket without water.

Hospital Kit: painkillers, water, change

(you don’t want to lose your place in line to go to the machine and get water and if you do, you better have change. Don’t take more than $5, as theft in hospitals is rampant. On my first visit someone had a walkman stolen)

When I finally got to the front of the cue, the nurse said, “Oh, Mr. Bennett, we have your fax right here with directions from your specialist.” Now, if one had just been in hospital for 4 days the week before and received a major operation, you would think that the record of one’s stay would be on file. Especially in this day and age of mega storage capability. But no, I had to waste a lot of time giving all the information again from scratch, have my blood tested, and re-explain where my pain was coming from, as if it was the very first time I was in there. I gave all of my details and was then sent to the cashier’s check in and then sent to sit in the holding area with many of the others who were waiting to be called. At no time had I been offered any kind of painkiller for my pain so I had a couple more Tylonol and sat.

An orderly finally called out my name and I requested a wheelchair, as it was a long way to walk. We went to the doctor’s area and I was given a bed to sit on hoping to get a painkiller for the pain but was immediately taken to get the CT scan. I was wheeled down the corridors of the hospital into a large room and asked to hop onto on a movable padded plank that slowly inched me through what looked like a small “Star gate” threshold that had a spinning mechanism within like someone doing the hoola-hoop around me. After about 5 minutes back and forth, I was given an injection of die though an intravenous needle and filled with a chemical that made me feel like I was having a bath and going to the bathroom in it at the same time. Another pass in the scanner and I was finished asked to hop back to my gurney and left in the hallway against a wall to be picked up. After a time I was transported back to my original room on the 7th floor and placed in the bed of the “Grumpy Old Man”, who had since changed locations. I immediately asked for a private room as it was partially covered on my medical plan. I was told there was one available but it needed to be cleaned and I would be moved as soon as the room became available. I checked in and was finally given a painkiller and relaxed for the first time all day. I didn’t even notice the series of proddings that I received over the next few hours from the nurses and student nurses. I was just relieved the pain was finally gone. I settled into the room and waited to be scheduled for the MRI test. I dozed off and woke up in the middle of the night in a room with three storing people surrounding me so I got up to see if I could change to my private room.

I explained to the first nurse I found that I had booked a private room paid for it with credit card and even left written instructions for TV to be transferred to it when it became available. “Oh we don’t have any private rooms on this floor. I’m sorry.”

I tried to feebly to complain but was too tired and instead asked for earplugs, pain killers and took my walker back to my room. The next morning I was taken for the MRI test. This machine was much larger than the first. This time the movable plank had a headrest that secured the head from movement. I climbed on, put some earplugs in my ears had my head strapped in with velcro straps and prepared for the loudest most claustrophobic hour I have yet endured. Once on the movable platform, I entered a narrow humming tube the full length of my body with little room to spare. It was much easier with my eyes closed but when the test started, it sounded like an organ made of different pitched jackhammers. The machine pounded out its strange symphony as it scanned my body in various combinations: half the tests without the dye and half of them with. When it was over, I was exhausted and found myself again in the hallway to be picked up by another orderly and taken back to my new room. It wasn’t the one I was shown when I arrived but the “rubber room” that had hooks on the walls to hold up thick padding for clients that could endanger themselves. It had no air conditioning and the windows had been locked shut. For the $195 additional price that I was paying for the room I was not impressed but kept my opinion to myself happy for the quiet, its one benefit.

As the windows were locked, and there was no air I asked the maintenance department to open one of them for me when he was replacing a blood pressure tester in my room. He said he would return later and open it for me but he never did. I called my son and asked him to bring a set of screwdrivers to the hospital.

Hospital Kit: painkillers, water, change, earplugs, multidriver

My specialist came in that night and told me that he had looked at the CT and MRI and a further operation would be needed. He said he could do it on Thursday and that that I didn’t have to make up mind right away, he would be back in the morning. It was interesting that he never once suggested that I go ahead with the operation but instead gave me the pros and cons with no opinion whatsoever. It was totally up to me. I thought about my alternatives and being in pain was not one of them. I could wait until the pain in my back might settle down on its own but then in 3 months from now I might end up at the same crossroads that I face now. I decided to go through with it and signed the papers the next morning. The second operation was set for Thursday at 7:30AM and the night before I lay in bed and the more I thought about it the more I became worried. Going under general anesthetic twice in two weeks can’t be good for you. When they came for me in the morning, I wasn’t the bubbly “give me your best shot” self but quite nervous and subdued. When `I got to the operating room I felt like someone who is about to parachute out of a plane for the second time. It’s a different mindset as you know what it’s going to feel like and you know the risks involved.
I had been experiencing a pain in my right ear and had been telling the nurses since I got there to no avail. Believe it or not it is actually not as easy to find a doctor in hospital as one might think. As I was given the general injection, I told the anesthetist that was having an ear problem and he said not to worry about it, as I wouldn’t feel a thing ‘til I woke up anyway…

Hospital Kit: painkillers, water, change, earplugs, multidriver, eardrops

When I awoke it was with one eye and I looked around the room and could see others recovering and knew I would be OK.

Back to my room, back to the narcotics for the pain back to the constipation that goes with it. I mentioned the fact that I needed some laxatives if I was taking Morphine and it was another request that never materialized.

Hospital Kit: painkillers, water, change, earplugs, multidriver, eardrops, laxatives

Visitors were so nice to see in the days after the operation. They are the lifelines to reality and I appreciated every one that visited. It’s funny how everyone has a relative or a friend that has had a back problem. There are a lot of people that have had back operations walking around; they’re perfectly fine now and I feel a little closer to them all now. Like the first operation I was encouraged to walk as soon as I could and on one of my early walks I grabbed the mobile intravenous machine that was dripping saline into me and started to walk to the bathroom. As it was plugged into the wall I called for a nurse to unplug it so I cold walk with it. In slow motion I looked down to see a mouse crawl up my slipper and try to climb my leg before it hopped off and scurried away. I was then on my way down from having screamed, jumping a foot yanking the intravenous tube out of my arm. The nurse was horrified and helped me to get the tube back in my arm and settle me down. I had to get out of there and sit in the hallway as they tried to find the critter in the room. There was no sign of him and they offered me a room in a ward with 3 others if I wanted to move. I didn’t feel like changing rooms as I was getting used to being able to sleep at night. I went for a walk to the day room and sat and read a magazine to settle down. I went back to the room and went to sleep.

Hospital Kit: painkillers, water, change, earplugs, multidriver, eardrops, laxatives, mousetraps

The next morning I was greeted by one of the nurses with a thick Belfast accent: “Mr. Bennett, I understand that you have been keeping a pet in your room. I needn’t remind you that this is against hospital policy.”

Humour can work wonders and with this comment we had a good laugh and I released a lot of the stress that had building like a dark cloud. I felt really refreshed and the mouse incident quickly lost its importance. Later the head of the house-cleaning department came to my room to apologize and tell me that the exterminators would be up to the 7th floor shortly. Later that day I was told stories of mice being in the hospital for years and getting worse. They had been known to fall from the air vents above and resided in the staffroom where the lunches brought from home were kept. One of the nurses informed me that she had spent a fortune eating at all the surrounding restaurants because of the presence of mice in the staff room.

Later that day there was a code yellow in the hospital, which meant that there was a serious accident with incoming patients. I found out later that a speeding car leaving the road had hit three girls from New Zealand who had been waiting at a bus stop in Lynn Valley. They had been brought to the hospital and were in intensive care. It made me think how lucky I was to be getting out of hospital soon.

My specialist came in to check on me and gave me the final OK to go home and a prescription for painkillers when I got home and said he finally rounded up an ear examination tool, which he used. “I don’t really do ears,” he said. “You will have to go and see your doctor when you get home or go to a clinic if it gets too bad.”

A nurse soon approached me and explained that Vancouver General was having an outbreak of Norwalk virus, and that they would be shipping patients to other hospitals soon. She said if I would consider leaving early, they could sure use my bed. This was the day after my operation.

I got dressed, packed up my belongings and left the window open for the next poor soul. As I was wheeled passed the nurse’s station I waved goodbye to my nurse but she couldn’t see me. She was having a serious conversation on the phone with the police as it turned out. While escaping for lunch at the Bread Garden, she had had her wallet stolen and the perpetrators had already gone to London Drugs for a buying spree on her credit card.

Walk on walk on…

Queen Charlotte Islands Tour

Performers: Keith Bennett & Ed Mohoric

Day One

The flight from the Vancouver airport was fantastic as we followed the Sunshine Coast past Desolation Sound and beyond. We were on a small Dash 8 carrying around forty people and the trip took 90 minutes. We landed in Sandspit, were met by Pat from the arts council and were ushered to a waiting school bus for a 23km ride to the ferry that would take us to Charlotte City.

The coastline here is etched from stone and seems to have a weathered pine or two on every rock. There are so many shallow islands that navigating here without good charts would be the peril of any boater. The last time I was in the Charlottes it rained the whole time and to now see this coast in the afternoon sun was breathtaking.

On the 20-minute ferry to Charlotte City we saw a fishing barge being towed by a tugboat. It is a complete floating hotel for fisherman with rooms and a huge dining room, kitchen and bar. They were probably towing it towards quieter waters in Prince Rupert for the winter. The bus dropped us off at the post office where our contact for the tour works.

Day Two

Using a car that was loaned to us for the day, I picked up Ed from where he was staying. We headed off towards the town of Tlell. The first stop on our National Geographic adventure was Ernie Burnett’s woodworking shop where we were given a tour of his studio. He did fine freehand carving on boxes and fine furniture. In the Charlottes the quality of wood available to wood carvers and builders is amazing. As I do a little wood turning myself as a hobby, I am aware of the fine-grained wood preferred by woodworkers. I asked Ernie if he might have a scrap of this excellent yellow cedar that I could buy off of him to try on my little lathe at home. He walked me to a shed stacked to the roof with it and handed me a gorgeous clear plank, 3" thick by 14" wide by 12" long and said, “Will this do?” My mouth dropped and I said "Wow! This is beautiful. How much do you want for it?” He said “Oh, you can just have it. This is my fire wood pile.”

We then stopped at the shore and took a walk on an amazing beach that drew your eyes beyond the waves to the horizon. It is one of the vastest beaches I can remember seeing and the warm October sun brightened the already colorful rocks. There is a major problem with erosion here, with the winter storms eating away at the sandy coastline. Many stretches of road have had to be diverted and re-paved farther inland as the sea eats into the shores. In the winter there are many power shortages from the sea-loosened trees being blown back into the land by the powerful storm winds, and then falling onto the power lines.

Our next stop was to take a hike along Anvil trail. This is by far the most magical moss-covered trail I have ever seen. It is so infrequently used that you are indeed walking in the moss. It was a soft, meandering thread through many different and changing forest environments, from dense underbrush that you couldn’t see through to Robin Hood-like wide-open moss and fern-filled meadows. It is well marked and leads to a walk along the Tlell river with salmon jumping and splashing every 10 seconds.

Back on the highway we stop at the famous Funk It! Shop for a quick look. I found a great little book entitled “How to Mow a Lawn” which I thought I would give to my son as a mild hint. Ed and I began talking to Dawn, the owner, and told her why we were in the islands and that we were performing on the weekend. “Can you teach me to play the stand up bass?” she asked. “Sure,” I said. “No problem. I’ll trade you a lesson for that little “How to Mow the Lawn” book. Five minutes later Ed and I were doing a tandem lesson on the 12 bar blues for stand up bass. Her instrument was upstairs above the shop in their living room, which had, in my mind, one of the finest million-dollar views I had ever seen. We gave her some ideas on what to do to play the notes for the blues and then wrote them out for her to practice along with later. She was delighted to practice what she’d learned. We said our goodbyes and headed off again.

The next stop was Spirit Lake Walk, which looked innocent enough and was touted to be wheelchair accessible. It took us about 1 km on this trail to begin wondering what kind of all-terrain wheelchairs they must make here. It went straight up a mountain for about 25 minutes!

Just before we got to the top, the only people we were to see on either of the trails were two women jogging, and they ran past us like we were standing still. We asked them about which way we should go when we reached the top and they told us that the trail went around the lake and either direction would work. The last thing they said, with a grin, was “watch out for the bears.”

It was another nice walk around a lake that was snarled with mossy snags and had many islands of rotting trees and sun bleached wood. Around the back of the lake there were some long boardwalks that had been built above the marshes.

Our next stop along the highway was the famous balancing rock, untouched by the winter storms. We took some photos and headed back as the afternoon sun lowered in the sky, making the rolling surf look like cotton candy as waves broke far out to sea and rolled slowly into the shore.

We got back to the house and were treated to a fantastic meal of smoked salmon, baked salmon, halibut and rockfish. After dinner I drove Ed to his billet’s home and was asked to record two songs for a cd by Wendy Watts, a very talented local singer and songwriter.

The first concert was in Masset, and driving there I stopped counting grazing deer when I reached 50. We performed two sets; the first was original pieces from our Tin Sandwich cd, and the second half was a mixture of classic blues songs that I played guitar and sang to as well. We had a great reception there and were told that the turnout was good.

The next night we performed in Skedegate and received an equally good reception. There were close to 60 people there and compared to the population, that was a great turnout. There is a special energy in the Charlottes and the audience, and I think the performance itself reflected that.

The next day we finished packing and said our goodbyes to all the great people that had helped with our stay. We were truly blessed to have been able to visit such a spectacular place and meet such wonderful people. When we left we thought only one thing: When is next time…?

The Streaking Gorilla

George Harrison and Ravi Shankar were booked to perform in Vancouver. The crowd had arrived and sat quietly in the seats of the Pacific Coliseum, a room famous for hockey and bad-sounding concerts. I’m sure the organizers had hoped this one would be different.

Half an hour after the advertised start time, after relentless clapping and chants of “why are we waiting” from the restless crowd, it was announced that the concert had been cancelled. This must be the most dreaded announcement by every promoter. Frustrated people were milling around on the concrete floor of the Coliseum. Everyone was disappointed and most filed out in silence after the announcement.

For many years, on many different stages and on many different occasions, I have played harmonica on the breaks for bands. I would typically ask the band beforehand if I could ‘sit in’ with them and occasionally they would let me. Most often, though, they would decline the offer. Harmonica players have a reputation for being ‘song wreckers’ because so many of them do not bother to learn even the bare essentials of the instrument they play. They do, however, have the craving to perform with a band and many are not shy to try.

On many occasions a frustrated band member, after hearing the harmonica player floundering in the wrong key, will lean over and yell the correct key that should be used. This doesn’t always work either and I have witnessed many who are told to get off the stage in mid-song. In order to avoid such prejudice by a band, I perfected my own ‘gorilla’ tactic. When the band left the stage on a break, I would jump up on the stage without permission, test the microphone to see if it was still on and ‘rip’ into a harmonica solo hoping that everyone liked my playing before I was thrown off the stage. Often the crowd reaction saved me from being unplugged by the outraged soundman. I used this gorilla tactic many times when I was growing up and eventually, when I was spotted at a function, I would be asked if I was going to get up there with the band. I suppose one could say that jumping up on the stage like this was the musical equivalent of ‘streaking’, and I loved the adrenalin rush it gave me. I studied and practiced the harmonica constantly and was rarely thrown off the stage. On a few occasions the band would even join in and play along with me in the background to start their next set.

On this night of the cancelled performance I decided to employ my gorilla streaking tactic again. With my heart pounding, I jumped up and rushed to the microphone at front center of the huge Coliseum stage and started playing wildly into the microphone. I played a train rhythm that I hoped would get everyone going and clapping along. When the crowd heard the sound of harmonica they turned on mass and started making their way back towards the stage. Before long there were hundreds of dancers doing a creative 70s ‘rampant abandon’ dance in front of me. The disappointment from the cancelled concert was dissipated for the 10 minutes or so that I played. I closed my eyes and felt as if I was flying out across the crowd. Few experiences have compared to this short performance on that night.

When I felt the time was right I ended the solo, took a little bow and hopped off the stage. Within seconds I was integrated back into the crowd, threading my way unnoticed out through the turnstiles at the gate. I was again just one of the many disappointed fans that never got to see the concert and I quickly forgot the whole episode. Little did I know that a friend from my high school was in the audience that night and over 25 years later I bumped into her at a party and listened as she recounted the whole incident in great detail to the people gathered around us. I was overwhelmed that she had remembered that performance so well after all these years.

One never knows the impact of one’s actions on other’s lives.