Snow on May 9th!

what the flipping flip is up with the snowflakes flying at this time of the year?  yeesh.  its like the whole world has gone bonkers.  this virus crapola has us pinned down 9 weeks now, going on 10, snow is flying, can’t get home, the walls are moving in closer by the minute.

better put the headphones on for this one…

okay so things haven’t gotten quite that artsy around here but if this snow doesn’t stop, i can’t guarantee you any further stories will be true!  but i can guarantee that they will be stories!

last Sunday morning:  east of Ottawa.  it’s the best we can do for now.  i’d rather be driving the backroads between Tehkummah and Snowville this time of year but we’re a long way from that!

i haven’t picked up a paint brush in 9 weeks.  holy mackinaw!  out where we are: the spirit just isn’t here, to do what is needed.  and so the stack of canvas, canvas boards, jars of paint, brushes too, sit.  waiting…

the mighty raven watches but i’m sure doesn’t wonder.  this boy wonders!  when is the all clear going to be given?

we ran this photo a few weeks ago:  since we have no painting going on we’re switching gears and picking up the guitar.  later today i’m going to give this Garage Band thing a turn.  its the onboard computer home studio and today we’re going to see if we can record the twinravens actual “classic”:  No Smoking.  that song goes back way before there was a twinravens actual!

here are the lyrics:  (i don’t know how to fix the double spacing thing so here it is in one block of text)

no smoking.  no unloading.  of your trash.  on my trash.  in the city: an indian’s day is never done!  if this weren’t the city: there’d be no shoes on my feet.  no ugly sounds in my ears.  no ugly sights in my eyes.  the only ones left: are my brother the raven.  brother raccoon.  andek esban anishnabe…  the three of us shunned (x3).  in a white man’s world.  police aint here to serve and protect.  police are here to racially profile.  guys like me in a white man’s world…

the stupid auto correct always wants to change “esban” to “lesbian”!

so yes those are the mod lyrics to No Smoking.  i wrote and recorded the song at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre back in the summer of 1994, in the youth lounge, using a Fostex 4 track recorder which, ha!, used cassette tapes!  i sat myself down and played track one: acoustic rhythm.  track two and three:  lead guitars.  track four:  vocal.  and in the background, it being the youth lounge over at the FC, you could hear some cats playing billiards and so the pool balls were cracking around in an off timed way which i thought really added to the kookiness of the recording.  we were in the city.  it was a song about urban indio reality.  back then it was true and more so today.  i recently added the bit about the cops.  back then i was innocent and believed in things.  today it is different.

No Smoking, just saying, has only been performed live: 3 times!  (the best reading took place at the Rivoli, Queen St. W., July 1995.)

and so we have an acoustic guitar from the pawn shop, we have this Garage Band program, the flashy microphone, and the afternoon off, with snow flying as i write.  we’ll give it all a spin and see if we can make something of it.  time is noon!  the guitar playing  might wake up my old buddy Jazz, she’s still in the bunk.  her hours have gone strange now that the schools have been closed for 9 weeks and will remain closed for another 3 at the least…  the poor kids.  what a rip off it has been for them.

Jasmine Moon is supposed to be in grade 12, graduation coming up, but will there be a party?  yes these poor kids have been ripped off.

here is some super heavy duty:

my beautiful daughter.  and a proud father i am.  and the empty nest is looming like never before…  she talks about her own apt. and a room mate and being closer to the post secondary institution…  which leaves this old boy, i guess, free to go.

who knows.  maybe by next winter i’ll be back to this, back home on the range, back down by the river, back in the old country, far away from the war.