crows to burnaby

Well, I don't know how many of you are still checking in here after that lengthy hiatus, but I seem to be back, in some way or another anyway. I was doing some pretty heavy-duty blogging over on ARCTIC's site. If you'd like to read that, here's a sort of table of contents:

1. Vancouver tour launch
2. Kelowna
3. Regina
4. Winnipeg and Thunder Bay
5. Sault Ste Marie
6. A few days off
7. Guelph
8. Toronto
9. Montreal and Waterloo
10. Hamilton
11. Peterborough
12. Ottawa and Oshawa
13. Windsor
14. Northern Ontario wanderings
15. Thunder Bay return
16. Calgary
17. On supporting local businesses
18. Kelowna and home

I'm back in Vancouver now and adjusting to normal life. I'm in danger of acquiring what I like to call Post-Ecstatic Stress Syndrome - the big crash that comes after a highly anticipated, fun and exciting event. I'm already heavily into booking the next tour, so hopefully that'll help ease me down. Plus I can enjoy the little things about being back, like having a greater selection of clothing to wear, and not having to dig them out from the bottom of a suitcase in the trunk of a car.

I really had a great time on the road. I never would have thought, years ago, that I'd do so well being constantly in transit, with interrupted sleep and naps in the front passenger seat of a car, and so on. And I guess it'll be a little harder in the fall and winter, when the weather is harsh (though the weather seemed to be pretty miserable everywhere we went this time anyway) and there are more colds going around. But it was a pretty comfortable thing, and I'm ready for more.

I also had the most awesome reunion with Dexter (the best dog in the world) today. He was staying with some friends who absolutely love him and have been doting on him non-stop, and I half expected him to be disappointed to have me come and take him home. But when he saw me he launched himself at me with sheer wholehearted joy, and proceed to race up and down the hallway, running at me full tilt and leaping into my arms, then taking off down the hallway and flying at me again. It was the most dizzying display of giddiness and happiness and it made me feel really great to be his person.

So that's where I'm at.

You'll be pleased to know that in May I'll be blogging reliably... just not here. May 10 is the start of our tour, with a kickoff here in Vancouver, and I'll be writing updates from the road (time and internet access permitting, of course) over on ARCTIC's tour blog.

So where are we going, anyway? Here's the current list:

May 10: Wired Monk, Vancouver, BC
May 13: The Gaslight, Regina, SK
May 14: Mondragon, Winnipeg, MB
May 15: The Apollo, Thunder Bay, ON
May 16: Loplop’s, Sault Ste Marie, ON
May 17: Tranzac, Toronto, ON (Marcus Martin solo)
May 20: Albion Hotel, Guelph, ON
May 21: The Boat, Toronto, ON
May 22: Bar St. Laurent 2, Montreal, QC
May 25: Circus Room, Kitchener, ON
May 26: The Casbah, Hamilton, ON
May 28: The Spill, Peterborough, ON
May 29: Black Sheep Inn, Wakefield (near Ottawa), QC
May 30: The Atria, Oshawa, ON
May 31: Phog Lounge, Windsor, ON
Jun 4: The Cavern, Winnipeg, MB
Jun 6: The Stetson, Calgary, AB
Jun 7: Grateful Fed, Kelowna, BC

That's 18 shows, plus we're playing live on CiTR on May 1 (you can listen online at 10 PM PST) and on CKMS (Waterloo) on May 19 (3 PM EST).

See what I've been distracted now?

Hard to believe it's just a few weeks away now. I'm pretty much done with show booking, but still have to finish making new t-shirts, posters, and submitting the shows to event listings here & there. At least I can relax knowing that I will probably not be called upon to a) drive, or b) cook during our time on the road, mostly because neither of the guys entirely trust me with either task.

If you're on Facebook and this trip interests you at all, or if you think you can make it to a show, please join our Facebook event page. I'd like that.

Also, if you have friends in some of these cities who you think would enjoy the band, please please drop them a line or blog about us. At this stage, you really can't underestimate what it still means to catch the ear of a few more people. And it's just more fun for us and then it's better for everybody.

I'm really, really, really excited. This is what I want to be doing, after all.

I wasn't that sorry to see the back end of 2007. It had some nice highlights - travel to Tunisia and elsewhere, the release of the ARCTIC album, playing some of my own shows. But heaviness dominated the year, as I started to notice several months ago. By the close of this year, my grandmother had died, my friend's mother had died, and slowly but surely, my marriage ended. Now so many things I'm used to, so many things I've only known one way, so many things are going to change completely.

I'm not generally one to fuss much about holidays, but New Year's is one of the only ones that has much symbolic significance to me. I like markers for time. I like watching the clock change over from 11:59 to 12:00 on any day, really, noon or midnight; there's something about the evenness of the numbers that is pleasing. I like dates that have patterns, like 9/9/99 (I have no idea what I was doing then, though). And I like New Year's to represent in some way what I want for the rest of the year. And I want this year to be better than last year.

So New Year's Eve had some importance to me, but it was also complicated. I wasn't sure I wanted to be at a party - I haven't been feeling all that social lately, or when I do, it might only be for half an evening and then I'm just done, I want to get away. But I also didn't want to sit at home feeling sorry for myself. What I ended up doing was making a reservation at the Wynken Blynken Nod hostel in Gibsons, BC, which is just a 45-minute ferry ride from North Vancouver, up the Sunshine Coast. It's right on the water, and that seemed important to me; I wanted to be outside at midnight, looking at the water.

It turned out to be exactly what I needed, even better than I had hoped, actually. The private rooms at the hostel were all booked, so I'd booked a bed in the shared room. But I was the only one, so effectively I had the equivalent of a cabin by the water all to myself - a big bedroom, kitchen, common room, and bathroom - all for $23. I got some food & drink in town, brought some books and music, some paper to write on, and settled in for the night. When I realized I had more time than I knew what to do with, I loaded up the hostel's VCR with Metropolis, which I'd never seen.

It was quite cold last night, so I didn't spend as much time outside in the evening as I'd intended. The hostel is heated by a most wonderful woodstove. It's been so long since I've used a woodstove, I'd forgotten how magical they are. I loved tending the fire, prodding it and adding logs and being rewarded with cuddly warmth. I wished I'd had something to cook on top of it; I have wonderful memories of warm slow-cooked oatmeal on cold Newfoundland mornings.

Several minutes before midnight I bundled up and sat on a driftwood bench by the water and listened to the waves. I didn't look at the clock; I knew I'd figure it out somehow. And before long, I heard the long deep honk of a ferry horn and distant whoops and cheers echoing across the water. Directly across Howe Sound from me, someone set off some very nice fireworks, which seemed like a personal display just for me. Up the coast a little, multicoloured flares fired into the water. My phone beeped a happy new year text from a friend. It was a wonderful, completely unique and new experience for me - and what made it great was the realization that I'm going to have so many more unique and new experiences like this, starting this year. Maybe they won't all be so joyous, but they'll all be new to me, and I'm very excited about that.

Happy new year.

It'll probably be a bit before I travel anywhere quite as exotic as Tunisia again, but Darren Barefoot and his wife Julie Szabo have just moved to Malta and he is updating with observations from their new home. There's photos, too. Check it all out if you've still got a travel bug.

• The weather was just fantastic. It was warmer in Milan than in Hammamet, I suppose because Hammamet is right on the water and Milan is inland. The temperature in Milan was just about perfect for wandering around in a short-sleeved shirt, and still reasonably warm into the evening. I couldn't have asked for better, though I have to say if it's that warm in April, I'm not sure I'd want to be there in August.
• One thing I like about Milan, which is common to many European cities, is how within the buildings there's often a beautifully landscaped courtyard and driveway. So the facades along the street may be very similar to each other, but if you keep an eye out as you pass by the driveways you can see some lovely spaces with decorative gates and grills and fountains.
• I was surprised by how much graffiti there is in Milan. It seems to be everywhere, in every part of town - I didn't see anything I would have considered a bad neighbourhood - and it doesn't matter what type of building it is, someone will tag it.
• The orange juice in Italy is practically red, and SO good. Also, the two meals I've had on Alitalia have both been delicious (smoked salmon salad!!!) Air Canada, who won't even cough up a free handful of peanuts any more, could learn a thing or two from them.
• I don't drink much coffee, but figured if I'm in Italy I should give it a whirl. I ordered an Americano at a restaurant called "White Bear" (it sounded like a good ARCTIC experience) and it arrived with water, rather than milk, and sugar. That's not how they're served in Canada, is it? New experience for me.
• I saw horsemeat on the menu in one restaurant - "cavallo" is one word of Italian I DO know - and felt nauseous. I wanted to take my business elsewhere, but knew that it would probably be at other restaurants too, and I had no way of explaining in Italian why I'd be leaving. I ordered vegetarian.
• The parking was highly entertaining, and seemed to be pretty much a free-for-all, with cars up on sidewalks, at diagonals along corners (blocking wheelchair curb-cuts, I might add), and in the case of little Smartcars, perpendicular to the curb rather than parallel.