My Pudgy Prowler

  

  

 

 

He came in the back door. The screen door was closed but he was low and determined. And hungry. A little push and nudge of the nose got him under the screen and led him to the enticing odour of the cat food. I’d like to give him forgiveness for the need, a starvation so deep it overrode all fear of two-footers, but he was a well-fed pig of a raccoon. And hungry. He could have been there 2 minutes or twenty. He could have watched for my every evening journey to the man cave and waited for me to pass or he was just there, then, with hunger and opportunity and nothing but a screen door in his way. 

It’s not that I don’t like raccoons, it’s just...they scare me. And I hate what scares me: bosses, racists, bullies. I don’t like rats, they totally gross me out, but they run when they see me. Raccoons get on their hind legs. 

So, I’m in my hallowed place. My Fortress of Solitude. My Cone of Silence. My Mancave. I’m chilling with a glass of wine and doing what a person does with darts, drums and time to kill. It’s after dinner and before TV so in these post-children days it’s uninterrupted time with me. There’s a computer out here so I check email, cruise YouTube and get the personalized newsfeed. It’s the bomb. But a look at the clock says She’s waiting so I stand to stretch and get ready for this night’s entertainment. 

The studio stands on the same footprint as the former garage and is separated from the house by a few Escher-esque decks and stairs. I pull myself up and along and arrive at the screen door. I hit a button and it slides open with a whoosh that alerts the pudgy guy chowing down in the pantry. He bolts for the door that’s now only blocked by me. I jumped (and probably squealed a little) and landed on him. He wasn’t hurt but spun on the spot so throwing the last of the wine in my glass at him seemed like the most appropriate action. The wine and stomp were discombobulating enough for him to spin further and dash for the safety of the interior of my home. FUCK. 

Trees are green. So are my curtains. So when Pudgy retreated he sped through the kitchen, across the living room and up the curtains for refuge. I stood frozen in the doorway processing what just happened. Looking straight ahead I could see to the far end of the living room. To the couch and curtains. And I saw this raccoon slowly poke his head from behind the curtain to assess the situation. He sees me and waits,  silently saying, “Your move”. 

I have a gun. It looks like those machine guns you see in action movies and does indeed fire plastic pellets at 500 feet per second. Enough to sting but not break the skin of a raccoon. In this moment I’m not debating the wisdom of buying it for my 15-year-old son (something about teaching responsibility) but ecstatic that it’s on the counter in the pantry. 

Giving myself courage with a growl, I grab the gun from the pantry and go out another exit from the kitchen; the one that leads to the hallway and another entrance to the living room. I see him from the hallway and he sees me. If I go into the living room, I can get to the front door and give him an escape route but I have to get closer to him. I’m almost out of courage but other than locking myself in the basement for the night, I’m also out of options. I draw up the gun and put him in the sights and growl like a really mean dog with the first step. He’s motionless, maybe amused. I move sideways towards the door, shifting the gun to my left hand like I do this every day and open the front door. 

Back in the safety of the hallway I stared him down and waited... for a few seconds. I was a lot more courageous in retreat, so I retreated further to the kitchen. I regained my sightline from the backdoor to his hiding place and where I had my own escape route but I also blocked the way he came in. I just thought of that now. Probably not my best move.  

I yelled and fired and he just looked at me. “Holy fuck”, I thought, he’s a tough son of a bitch. I yelled and shot again with a similar result and if he could he would have given me the finger. I had practiced a few days earlier (hence its ready-to-go state on the counter) with a paper target to determine the accuracy of the sights and where best to line them up. I decided I would try the sights cuz yelling and firing from the hip wasn’t working. I lined him up, fired and he jumped. Who knew raccoons could widen their eyes and looked surprised?  His glare at me was both shock and anger and revenge was on his mind but he could smell the night air from the front door to his left. He leapt in that direction tearing branches from the jade plant and leaving bewilderment in his absence. 

I’m still bewildered. That was my first combat and it's been playing like a movie trailer in my head. I think I won but She called the pest control company. Three days later he was in a cage waiting for pickup and relocation and I’m pretty sure it took him three days to come back because he was so scared of me. Maybe not, but now he’s chilling on a farm in Langley and I’m reading up on symptoms of PTSD. 

                                                       

Culture Shift

He was minding his own business. And his business at the moment was to finish smoking a ridiculously small joint he’d constructed from an emptied cigarette tube. Dolores was in their room scanning possible Netflix shows as he went to put himself into a movie-viewing frame of mind.

They’d been in Mexico a little over a week and everything had gone as hoped. No hassle at the airport, the room clean, cheap and close to the beach. The weather had been exactly what they came for. It was so trouble free it felt like it would go on forever, much like when his hockey team wins a stretch of games then loses. The disappointment is surprising. A few losses in a row and a new norm sets in until he’s pleasantly surprised when they win.

The current norm in Mexico was that the culture of marijuana had shifted. Nathan knew people who’d spent time in a Mexican prison back in the ‘70’s and had to be bailed out by their parents. They were charged with possession though their story was they’d picked up a hitchhiker that had some pot. It was a finger-wagging story the parents of the parish told their children to warn them of the evil called marijuana.

But Nathan loved smoking pot. He had since grade 11 and it became a pretty constant companion by grade 12. It had been a part of most social situations and he tended to gravitate towards people that shared his love. He was aware it made him quiet and self-conscious but he was normally a gregarious, fast-talking guy so he decided this was a good balance.

He’d stayed in Mexico the year before with an airbnb host who left an open bag on the coffee table and encouraged him to roll for the both of them. The host told him a story about being pulled over by the police, as gringos often are, and the officer grabbed his hand and sniffed his fingers. The officer declared that he had been smoking pot and it was jail time. The hero of his story said “No way, but here’s 500 pesos. Have a nice day”.

On this trip, Nathan had seen people on the beach smoking pot. Vendors of pipes and paraphernalia quietly offered to sell something to go with it and he smiled as he declined, the childhood stories still lingered. He wasn’t surprised when an itinerant vendor stopped at his beachspot selling pipes and more but surprised himself when he started thinking “Why not?”. When he asked “Do you have any papers?” the deal was done and a few grams of green were in his possession. No papers came with it but the fellow tourist on the recliner next to him said, “It’s ok, I already got one rolled” and sparked it.

Two things happened when Nathan smoked pot and in spite of 50 years of indulging he was always surprised. The first was that in a secure environment it was dry eyes and a bumbling buzz but in a strange environment it was paranoia. Keep your head facing forwards, just move your eyes, they’ll know you’re onto them if they see you move your head. Scratch your right ear when walking past that next doorway to block the camera. That kind of stuff.

The second was that he got cold. He felt like his core heat was extinguished and even cool air made him shake. Thoughts of hypothermia and a youngish death made him turn inside, ball up and breath out into his shirt to savour all that life-saving warm air.

And here he was, in a most unsecure place -  the place his parents had warned him about - and the next part of today’s tour was snorkeling. But the afternoon was delightfully uneventful. The water was Mexican warm and the core fire stayed lit. No police boats came by to smell people’s fingers and there were no dogs sniffing gringos as they got off the boat. The new norm had taken hold.

In the cab it was decided that after a vigorous day of snorkeling and tanning an evening of Netflix and chill would crown the day. “I don’t have a paper”, said Nathan. “Ask someone for a cigarette and hollow it out”, said Dolores. Nathan had trouble with that. He didn’t like to ask people for stuff, like ever. He figured if he was still a smoker he’d have smokes and it was his distaste for bumming smokes that helped him quit. Dolores rolled her eyes and asked the first smoker she saw if she could bum a smoke… and then gave it to Nathan right in front of the guy. It wasn’t the worst part of his night.

A few minutes back in the room yielded a few puffs concealed in paper and Nathan went for a walk. Nathan liked his neighbourhood; a block and a half to the beach, less to the stores and restaurants, clean and safe - while the sun shone. When the restaurants closed and the stores pulled down their metal defenses the few streetlights sparkled on the discarded bottles and threw deep shadows beyond that sidewalk-busting tree.

“Once around the block”, he told himself and set off. He turned left and a few meters past the motel he pulled it out. He lit it as he walked and glanced to his left as he stepped around the tree that forced him off the sidewalk. Behind it stood a young man in silence, intent on making eye contact as he walked by. Nathan’s head snapped forward and his arm dropped to his side as he feigned nonchalance and cupped his puff.

Ten more meters and a glance over the shoulder was appropriate. There was no gang ready to pounce so he re-lit and turned the corner. There was more light here though the 24-hour store on the next corner was closed. Just ahead two vehicles were nose-to-nose with hoods up in the traditional gimme-a-jump pose. Nathan glanced at the men staring at their engines as he passed and smoked.

Ten more meters and the sound of running feet behind him set off alarm bells. Paranoia time; don’t look back, swallow the joint. “Senor!” Nathan turned and raised his eyebrows in fake curiosity. He saw a twenty-something in uniform. “Fuck”, he thought. His hockey team was about to lose. The young man came on purposefully and put is hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Senor, ven conmigo”. Nathan didn’t need his high school Spanish to know the language of a man on a mission. He was first being taken back to where the young man thought he’d thrown his joint. He was encouraged to join the officer in the search for the missing roach but being non-existent, it refused to reveal itself. A couple of pre-teens who saw the action sidled close and were enlisted to search as the young officer took his catch back to the senior officer.

As they approached the vehicles, Nathan noticed that the raised hoods had blocked his view of the police lights on top of the pickup. 

"I should have known", he mumbled to himself, "I'm going to die of terminal stupidity".

The senior jumpstarter looked at Nathan and grabbed his right hand. He pulled his fingertips to his nose and shook his head.  “Prohibido”, he said and pulled handcuffs from his hip. Nathan’s balls shrunk. “I don’t have any marijuana!”, he proclaimed. “Some people passed me on the street! They handed me something. I said No thanks and handed it back. That’s why my hand smells like…” “Prison”, said handcuff man and Nathan babbled.

“Es possible a pagar una fina?” Nathan didn’t know the word for ‘fine’ but hoped it would get across the message. Could he pay a fine for his miscreance? The mustachioed officer looked about to ensure the gathering crowd had slipped into the shadows and slapped his hand down on the metal surface of a box in the trunk of his pickup. Nathan wanted to be a model prisoner. He followed the leaders lead. He put his hand on the metal box to demonstrate his willingness to co-operate and show he didn’t need to be handcuffed if his captor was going for a walk. 

The officer looked at him but said nothing. Nathan, now really confused, asked again, “Es possible a pagar una fina?” A moment passed. The officer looked at him, took a slow breath and said “One hundred dollars” and double-tapped the box. “Ahhh!”, thought Nathan and almost missed his back pocket as he dove for his wallet. “No tengo dolares, estoy Canadiense”, he explained for his lack of desirable currency. “Tengo solo pesos. Un mil?”. His offer of a thousand pesos was a hope that it was close enough and the exchange rate would save him about 35 bucks. He was actually negotiating his bribe. A serious nod ended captivity.

He rifled through his wallet, through the tens, twenties and five hundreds and found two, side-by-side. He pulled them and the officer looked away and lightly resumed his double-tap on the box. “Ahh!”, thought Nathan, “I am so fucking thick!” and placed the bills in the pay slot. He looked at the officer. The officer looked back. A heavy second passed followed by the slightest of nods from senior officer.

Nathan quick-stepped to his room, 150 meters back from the near disaster. Dolores, without looking up from her magazine asked, “So you didn’t get arrested, My Love?”.

Why We Play

I played at the Imperial last night. My god that was fun. It’s a 500+ seat venue in the heart of the downtown eastside although I’m sure the figure reflects capacity because few seats were to be had and I needed seats for the peeps that brought out their support and bucked up $50 for this charity event; Battle of the Insurance Bands. It’s sponsored by the Insurance Institute and is an opportunity for people in that industry to hobnob, swap cards and buy a drink for that client you want to keep. The only requirement to be in the battle is to have one band member actually work in the industry and that’s where my niece came in.

“Hey uncle John”

“Hey Jess”

“So there’s this thing…”

Seems she’d always wanted to sing in a band and this was an amazing opportunity and wouldn’t we love to play in a great venue to a sold out crowd? Uh, yeah. Every musician’s goal is to play in front of people, the more the better, right? No. For many excellent musicians the thought of exposing themselves in front of anyone who’s paying attention makes them sweat. Playing in their room or with a few close friends can be transcendent but performing is an anxiety-provoking event on par with public masturbation. And it’s not a bad analogy. To do something that gives you such insane pleasure, in public with optimal results, isn’t easy. You’d either have to work their presence into the process in order to heighten the experience or work really hard at pretending they’re not there.

Me, I dig it. So I said “That sounds great” and we jumped into the river that took us to last night. This was the tenth anniversary so was moved to the larger venue from last year’s Blarney Stone. That too was a great venue for about 300 people and with more actual seats. We competed there against 3 other bands (the winner gets to choose which charity gets the proceeds) and we didn’t win but were so well-received that we were asked to return this year – but not to compete. The format for the 10^th anniversary was to invite the winners of the past 4 years to compete for the bragging rights for best in a decade. But they also wanted a band they liked to open the show…us.

‘Us last year’ no longer existed. The fabulous lead guitar had found greener pastures while I ignored my Vancouver life on an extended European tour. The keys guy was deemed replaceable but if I could just get the lead singer to return my calls I thought we could rekindle this. She finally did and we started to fill in the blanks.

Steve’s friend had seen us play, liked what he heard and was willing to grab his keys and climb on board. Gene’s mostly a rhythm guitar kind of guy (he doesn’t want to make it cry or sing) who also provides some lead vocals. Jessica took the lead on a song to showcase her addition to the band and added backup vocals to support Natasha’s powerhouse vocal range.

And then there’s the rhythm section. I’ve known Steve longer than he’s known himself. I watched him make his appearance in the world and held him moments after he started breathing. While his mom and I split up when he was only 9 years old we’ve managed to stay close. Living nearby means frequent contact, jams and grandkid visits. His bass and amp are in my studio so our rhythmic licks get a regular polish. He’s also an accomplished guitarist and songwriter and when we chose songs it was funtastic to be able to do original material.

Singing someone else’s songs is like repeating a joke you heard; you may still get a chuckle but real laughter comes from original material. But we didn’t have enough of our own so the process of selecting the perfect songs began.

You know on American Idol where they say “Oh Dude, you got a great voice but that song choice…”  We wanted to do what we could do well and then added other criteria. Getting the dance floor filled with danceable tunes was the first. We wanted songs that would be recognizable so people who listen to lyrics could sing along but preferably not tunes that had been overplayed. A little uniqueness would go a long way.

Ten days before “The Gig” we’re informed that they also want us to close the show with a 45-minute set. Until then they were musing other ideas like a jam session with members from all the bands joining in but finally realized the logistics were beyond anyone’s organizing ability. Our first set, like all the other bands was arranged for 30 minutes, 7 songs. Closing meant another 11 songs. Another original? I voted for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts but it didn’t get any traction. Emails and ideas bounced around. We knew the opening crowd would be thin and sober so our bigger set should be number two. The smaller, early crowd meant we could re-play some numbers from the 1^st set in the 2^nd and two were chosen. Nine to go. Other songs were moved from the 1^st set to the second and replaced with songs we’d done at some point in the past. We dug a little deeper and revived songs we’d done long before the current iteration of the band. Two more off the radio were needed and added and we were ready to practice.

Ten days meant we only had one more practice planned after the session where we shared the need for 11 more songs. Fortunately, most were able to squeeze in one more day and decisions about what to play when, where and how were made. Arrangements for every song had to be created and rehearsed; remembering starts, breaks and finishes has long been my Achilles’ heel and I needed to play them over and over again to drive them home, so they happened without me thinking about it.

Everyone in the group did exactly as I hoped, they took their part and practiced the bejesus out of it so when we got together we just had to stitch together the parts. How well those parts are stitched together defines the tightness of a band and two practices wasn’t going to get us super tight. But it could get us loose enough to ride it out.

The day came. Jess and I unloaded the gear left at the studio and we stood in the empty hall. I stared at the ceiling soaring overhead. I peered into the depths of the two-layered balcony and into the faces of the 575 people that weren’t there yet. Hands stuffed deep into my rear pockets, I walked, looked and nodded at what I imagined. This was going to be the biggest gig I’d ever played but my mind returned to the first. An elementary school gymnasium rented by a group of CB radio lovers, the folks that brought us “Breaker 19”, was my first step onto a stage. Those four wooden steps behind the curtain felt like a springboard onto the stage at the Coliseum. Head down, soft sweat all over and two sticks in my right hand tapping against my leg. I’ve been skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping and remember the first time I had sex; none of that beat that night but in trying to outdo it I tried a lot of things I might not have tried.

Doors open at 5:00, show starts at 5:10. I figure I’ll get back there by 4, give me lots of time to set up the drums to my liking and stake out some territory for my peeps. At 4:00 I’m still looking for a parking spot and get a call from Jess,

“Apparently we were supposed to be ready for a sound-check at 3”.

 F#*k! But they were lovely guys, patient and used to working with amateurs. With an undertaker’s dispassionate disposition, they gently got us ready for our big night.

And it was pleasant let down. You can’t do something for the first time twice. But like a junkie trying to recreate that first high I kept trying; bigger bands, bigger venues, bigger songs but no. My cherry’s gone and nothing is going to beat that first time. But in writing this piece,  I've discovered that I've kept on playing not because I wanted it bigger and better but because it’s just fun to play.