Bala-trolling

 I've never identified as a "gamer". I absolutely play my share of video games but I don't have a desk chair that looks like it belongs in a Formula 1 car or a headset with a mic built in. I just play the same dozen games all the time. 

This is why it's worth noting that I bought a brand-new game this week. Not a sequel to something I've played since college like the new Civilization XXIICDDERP. Like a whole new IP, game style and everything. Maybe you've heard of it. 

I present to you Balatro! 

Balatro is described as a "poker-like, rogue-lite game." I think that describes it pretty well. Hey, I knew what those things meant! Maybe I am a gamer. Basically, you play poker hands and there are collectable bonus cards you can draw to increase your score, get more cash or make other fun plays. 

Beyond seeing it being played by several gamers on YouTube and learning it was the PC Gamer 2024 Game of the Year, I heard that the secretive maker, LocalThunk, is from right here in Saskatchewan. Heck for all I know it could be The Navigator. Probably not tho, he's really busy at work. 

A lot of the media focus on the game has been around the Jokers. There are something like 150 unique jokers you can obtain and collect to help boost your score or make play easier. They're at the core of the branding in the game and they really are the most charming part of it. The way that Jokers multiply your hand is reminiscent of cribbage and how you can count the same cards multiple times if you play them right. It's like they took crib, poker, collectable card games like Magic the Gathering and card collecting and jammed them all together. 

But for me, my favourite part is building out this insane card deck full of multipliers, bonuses and cheats. By the time you get to the end of a run, you have a card deck that is chaotic, powerful and maybe just a little bit gross. 

Getting new cards and bonuses is executed as opening a card pack like you would have with hockey cards (or Pokemon cards for those of us under 100 years old). This part is also a lot of fun and scratches a gambling itch without spending any money (beyond the $15 I spent buying the game).

Which brings me to a quick tangent - gambling and games. LocalThunk talks a bit on his socials about how Balatro has pulled an 18+ rating for depicting gambling in games. And I think he makes a very good point. The issue isn't so much that a game with poker at its core is rated so high but that EA sports games (and others) with microtransactions and pay-to-win loot boxes aren't. That's REAL gambling and it goes unchecked. I have not spent a dollar more than my initial spend on Balatro and I don't expect I'll be asked to. There are no microtransactions, no pay-to-win. It's just buy the game and play it. Refreshing.

I've gone out of my way to avoid "How to Play" or "You need to know this first" type stuff in playing the game, allowing myself to discover the intricacies of the game myself. I have gone and looked up explanations of some of the mechanics like Tags and Seals because I think I missed them when they were presented at the start. But otherwise, it's been discovery as much as it's been risk. I love finding my own strategies and combinations to try. And furious when I make a bad choice, or worse an error. 

Of course, as a rogue-like, if you fail to meet the blind, your game run ends immediately. No extra lives (unless you have that Joker "Mr. Bones" but it's expensive and rare), your deck is reset and all of your Jokers are destroyed. Back to zero. 

But at least you get to go back and do it all again! 

Not sure how long this game will hold my interest, but it's the fun I'm having right now. I had expected it to be a bit of a faster game - something on the scale of a poop break. But I've taken a whole evening to get through a run so it can be a medium-length play once you really dig in.

All of this goes to show how good a game can be when it's made by a gamer who understands games and just wants to deliver something fun and be part of the fun. The Balatro experience has been great, it actually reminds me of the early Minecraft days before Notch went mad and sold the thing to Microsoft. 

What's your favourite indie game? Why do I ask for suggestions then never go play the games myself? Will they ever release Kerbal Space 2? 

Not like us

I never got a tattoo.

I think my original hesitation of not wanting a permanent work of art on my ever-changing identity has been far overshadowed by my paralyzing fear of needles. 

Back when Truth and Reconciliation was hitting full swing I started to understand the darkness and negativity that were actually associated with being Canadian. It wasn't all maple syrup and apologies. Canadians have done brutal things to others in the name of the country. Which is why I've always been glad I never got the one tattoo I've ever considered - a maple leaf.  

But at the same time, I've turned my back on the positives of being Canadian. The fact that our parliamentary style of government and multi-party system has allowed us to avoid the political debacles we're watching unfold in the US. Our logical approach to freedom, wide open spaces and unique identity. 

With all the recent talk coming out of the US (and one orange man in particular) about annexing Canada or otherwise seeing us join the US has me contemplating where I want to sit with all of this. 

On one hand, I see nationalism as a tool to control people, just like religion. But sometimes we all need to gather together under a single banner and when you've got a pseudo-autocrat knocking at your south door, it's time to assemble under the flag. 

There's maybe a lot of us who would say "well, let's just join the US". It would certainly make travelling the continent easier, they're very similar culturally and maybe it would make things better. 

Then I remember how much I like free healthcare. I remember how I like walking in my terrifying neighbourhood without that much concern that everyone has a gun. I remember that while Canada has a dark history, so do most countries - the difference is we've decided to reckon with that past and move beyond it. That's something to be proud of and to rally behind. 

And then there's the anti-vax truckers. Remember them? That group of people who hijacked being Canadian to mean "be an asshole and do whatever you can to only think of yourself." I swore I was done with the maple leaf the moment I saw a jacked up diesel covered in WalMart flags. 

So what of it all? Why we blogging about it? 

I really don't know for sure. I know that being Canadian comes with some reckoning and maybe that's the rub. Things have been bad and bad things happened to get us where we are. But I also think that the time might come very soon where all of us - Indigenous people, anti-vax truckers and wishy washy lib-tards like me will need to come together to tell Mr. Trump and the US to leave us the heck alone. Because Drake may have lost the rap battle, but you don't want to mess with Canada. 

I'm a FAWMling (apparantly)

 After much anticipation, I've dived into my first February Album Writing Month challenge. FAWM is an annual challenge to write and demo an album worth of material (14 songs) in one month (28 days). It sounds like a daunting challenge but an achievable one too. 

I've been looking around a bit over the last few days to see if I've spoken about it on this blog or one of my social networks, but I've been aware of FAWM for a long time. Like, 15+ years. Plenty has been in the way, family, work and a lack of musical outlets were all excuses I've used. But I think the biggest barrier has been how limited my songwriting experience is. I often joke that I wrote every bridge on The Criminal Kid album "These Blue Skies are Faking Freedom." It's an exaggeration, but speaks to my songwriting history - often contributing, rarely leading. 

Of course, my adventures of the last year have given my songwriting muscle a lot of exercise this year and I rolled into February feeling trained up and strong. I figured I'd be able to hit the 14 songs, but maybe I'll need to take a few days off work to focus on songwriting. 

I don't feel like I need to take time off to write anymore.

I wrote SIX songs this weekend, plus one more on Friday night I'm not counting towards my total because it was still January. Just my warmup. At this pace, I'll be done by Valentine's. If not by next Sunday. 

That pace is staggering to me - and I'm the one doing it. On Saturday afternoon, shortly after finishing the writing on my second song, I took a bathroom break. As I stood there returning all of the water I'd drank that day, I remembered that the last time I wrote two songs in a day, a third one came to me almost without effort. That song has been one of my most popular so far, "Beef Dylan". AS I WAS THINKING THIS - my third song of the day just came to me, almost whole. I finished washing my hands and ran downstairs to get a scratch demo down. I finished that, went out to the kitchen to make supper and as I stood there listening to the "tik tok" of the timer on the air fryer, I wrote my fourth song of the day. I actually forced myself to figure it out on ukelele (an instrument I don't really play) just to slow my ass down a bit. 

It's a bit shocking. I even commented to Rhonda on Sunday night that I sort of regret not throwing myself into songwriting earlier. But almost in the same breath, I said, "but I didn't, and now I have and I'm enjoying it and celebrating it." Imagine my shock when I heard the eternally wise Katt Williams repeat almost the same assurance/advice to Theo Von on Theo's podcast "This Past Weekend". "You have to be in the position you are in now to make some of these things happen." I couldn't make this happen 10 years ago so I didn't. Today I can - and I am. It's a blessing - as Katt would say. 

And it's not just being too busy that slowed me down. It wasn't just being lazy. I had to get past some hurdles and misconceptions. Feelings that I couldn't do this, lack of belief in myself and even a lack of understanding of myself. I've long struggled to see the value in the things I produce. I was always second fiddle and it calcified into my brain that I'd always need someone else, someone more motivated and talented to help me make this thing happen. I've almost overcompensated at this point and I'm having trouble working with others and finding patience for them to work at their pace. 

And the quick pace isn't without help. Rhonda and the family have been very generous in giving me the space and time to work on this. I don't think I'm going to be allowed that in the long term, but I'll take it for now. 

The FAWM community is very helpful too. Two of the songs I wrote were part of "Skirmishes", a timed challenge where you're given a prompt and one hour to come up with a song. In fact, I'd say that my two favourites so far came out of skirmishes. A third was inspired by a song someone else wrote - she used handclaps as her percussion and was self-conscious about it. I felt inspired by them and immediately went to work to write a song featuring some hand claps. 

Another unexpected benefit of FAWM has been the feedback and insight into what I'm doing and how people perceive it. So many of my songs are weeks if not months old before I perform them live. I've drained what fun is in them out and even then I only get in front of an audience every couple of weeks. I'm learning a lot about what other musicians I sound like and write like. I'm learning that there are a lot of people who enjoy my humour too. It's uplifting. 

And I'm just enjoying seeing and hearing other people's work. It inspires me, it helps me see some things that I'm maybe missing or could try. It's just been a fantastic growth tool. I don't know where the remaining 24 days of this challenge will take me, but I know I'll grow through it and feel really strong in my voice and my image. 

If you'd like to hear the demos I've posted or want to follow along, head over to my FAWM profile. I finally figured out how to make it public. If you're a fellow FAWMer, follow along and I'll do so in turn. Really enjoying building a little bit of community in all of this. 

A Kazoo to you!

Today's blog is special. It's cross-posted on the blog over on the website for my music project Jeremy and his Kazoo. If you want to read the exact same thing but with a different page design, head on over there! I'm also taking today to launch the website since it's National Kazoo Day. So be sure to stop by the website and check out some videos and other info! 

Happy National Kazoo Day! 

I'm dropping a few fun things today to celebrate including a kazoo instrumental on my social media channels and officially launching my website! 

One of my goals with the website and the blog attached is to talk a bit more about my journey as a musician, share some of the things I'm learning about kazoo and just generally be a bit funny and connected. In time, I'd genuinely like the website to become a community hub. 

So to that end, today I'd like to talk about my motivation to include the kazoo as a feature instrument in this project and maybe some of my early impressions of playing the instrument. 

Jeremy and his Kazoo had its inception in mid-July 2024. I was mid-vacation, finally getting some distance from a stressful workplace and pondering what I'd like to start doing with all the spare time I had now that I was done with school, radio and several other "side hustles." I'd already identified that I wanted to play guitar and sing with people a lot more last year but playing covers of old John Denver songs just wasn't giving me quite what I wanted. I needed a creative outlet. 

I quickly realized that I could connect comedy and music and start performing funny stuff for people. Music and laughter are amazing ways to connect and I knew I was up to that challenge. Maybe the biggest impediment for me was my abilities as a guitar player -especially in the solo space. I can play reasonable rhythm guitar but my talents aren't deep and trying to play leads and rhythm was going to be hard. But I found just acoustic and vocal to be a bit two-dimensional. 

I considered a few instruments that could fit the bill. Harmonica is nice and something I've played in the past. But it's not that funny and it starts becoming very Bob Dylan. That's a problem for me. 

I looked at other, funnier instruments like slide whistle or kids toys. But those required the use of my hands. 

It's when I landed on kazoo. It's really perfect when you think about it. It's ridiculous, it sounds ridiculous, I can play it hands-free (with the help of my old harmonica holder) and it fills the hole of being a lead instrument, a texture and cheap and available. Plus, I clearly remember having a tin kazoo as a kid and playing it on occasion. This wasn't new, it was rediscovery. 

FUN FACT: I had an early theory that I may have invented using a kazoo with a harmonica harness. Nope, Jim Croce beat me by at least a few decades. And who knows if even he was the first?!

I made buying a kazoo one of my souvenir goals on my trip to Toronto in September. I came home with two Schylling tin kazoos that are my favourites to this day (despite a pretty deep dive into the options out there). I immediately started integrating little lead lines into my songs using the kazoo. 

I was admittedly hesitant to share it publicly at first. It is a pretty derided instrument in some circles and some even argue that it's not an instrument. I can see that and in fact, I conceptualize the kazoo more as an effect than as an instrument since it's your voice making the sound. The kazoo just changes it. It's like a distortion pedal. And that kinda played into the use case I'd made for the instrument. I wanted to capture a bit of a Neil Young feel. 

My first performance assuaged all my fears. I played the song Beef Dylan at The Cure and the feedback was immediate and positive. And it has been ever since. I think I've found the right balance of using kazoo in my music that adds to both the humour and musicality of the choice. 

Not only that but it's something that's going to help me separate from the pack. There are lots of musicians around here. Lots of comedians. There might be a handful of us on the prairies doing music/comedy. But I think I stand alone in the arena of music/comedy/kazoo players. 

That's when I decided to lean in and update the project from just "Jeremy" to "Jeremy and his Kazoo". It has a flow, it's interesting and eye-catching. It's good PR and frankly silly as hell. 

And leaning into learning kazoo has been rewarding too. I'm having fun playing and trying lots of different types of kazoo - they cost a few bucks each. So even my seeming obsession with new kazoos is still only around a $50 investment to date. And if everyone thinks I'm crazy for it, it's succeeded as an attention-getter! 

I've figured out a few new techniques and styles that I equate to more effects in my arsenal. I'm totally aware of the electric kazoos out there but my act is acoustic and I think I've got a lot of territory to explore before I start dropping big money on electric pipes and plugging them into my pedals. Although I admit to being curious about wah-kazoo. Maybe after my second album. 

I'm excited to start sharing tips, tricks, effects and other discoveries I've made in the kazooinverse. I want to do some reviews of different types of kazoos so that others getting into it have somewhere to gather information. And I want to have fun connecting with other funny, musical people who want to engage in this crazy fun little project of mine. 

Fix it up

"The toilet isn't flushing right."

It's one of those vague but concerning things that I often hear when I walk in the door. I'm often criticized when I say that I'm not allowed out of the house. But then when I do leave, I come back to a disaster statement like this. 

Well on this particular Sunday, indeed the toilet was having some issues. And in fixing those, I created another - the shut-off valve started leaking. Oh good. 

I'm not a person that's too interested in home improvement and I can't say that I've ever been bitten that hard by the renovation bug. It's just that I'm poor as dirt, live in crap houses and I gotta fix it because I can't afford to pay others to do it. And that plays to my benefit on days like this past Sunday when things start to leak and it's going to be at least 12 hours before I can get a plumber in. 

Happily, I was able to fix the problem - if only temporarily - with a crescent wrench and about 2 minutes of work. But I know a lot of people - really smart people - who would not have been able to fix the issue. 

It's a paradox for me. On one hand, I don't enjoy doing it and have about 100 things I'd rather do than renovate the bathroom or replace my roof. On the other hand, I'm glad some sense of Mr. Fix-it was instilled in me when I was young so I can take care of the little things when they happen. 

But it creates another problem - namely that I don't have a lot of experience working with tradespeople and I don't even really know what it costs. Our house is starting to have some foundation issues and we have a chimney that's on the verge of collapse. I need to hire a contractor but I don't even know who to call, let alone how much this mess is gonna cost to fix. Maybe I'll just buy some concrete and try to patch it up myself. (NO PILOT DON'T DO THAT)

Anyway. I stopped the toilet leaking and wanted to write a blog post that wasn't just me bitching about my life again. 

And I failed. Maybe next week I should talk about Zelda. 

What's your favourite emergency home repair? Got any good plumbing stories?

SILENCE!

In yesterday's blog post, I alluded to the concept of silence and how that was an important concept I was going to look at this year. The post got a bit long so I committed to posting again this week. 

I should have stayed silent. 

Social media algorithms are a strange thing. You know they're predicting something about you, but sometimes it's hard to see what the root of that prediction is. I've been getting a lot of self-help philosophy-type videos sent to me on YouTube lately. I don't know if it's just the larger societal New Year resolution phase or if it's cluing in that I'm working on myself a bit. But boy oh boy does YouTube know I'm 40 and going through it.

The advice isn't simply mental self-help. There's a lot coming at me about how to be more creative or how to enhance my creativity. And that's where the concept of silence has entered the chat.

And it's not entirely new in this ongoing conversation. The Navigator and I have talked about meditation in recent blogs. 

So here's the gist. Our world is too loud. And not just in terms of sound volume. More in terms of noise. Gone are the days of doing a single task in silence. We fill the background with music or podcasts, spend our downtime scrolling through endless reels and generally feel compelled to fill every waking moment creating or consuming. 

Sometimes I need to watch my dogs or cat to remind me that always being busy isn't the natural way of things. They can look out the window for hours, take a nap when they're tired. Nature doesn't want us to work an 8-hour day then spend 6 on a side hustle and everything else keeping it together. It's too much. It's overloading our brains. 

In a recent discussion with a coworker, we talked about how you can waste a morning scrolling videos and not feel at all rested. The brain processed hundreds, maybe thousands of ideas in that time. We surmise that this is probably at the core of why we're all always so tired and burnt out. I even offered that the looming TikTok ban could actually do society a lot of good. If only in the short term. 

And it's not just the effect it's having on our brain. I think we're missing out on some things too. Harrison Ford recently released a video called "Listening to the Quiet" where he argues we need to listen to nature and to the natural world to begin understanding what we lost. He talks about hearing ants and caterpillars. My first reaction was, "You can't hear a caterpillar." Until I realized - yes you can and I have. Just not recently. Because I haven't stopped to listen. 

From a creative point of view the argument is generally, that as a consumer of content, you've probably consumed all you'll ever need to be creative. And if you need something else, you'll find it when you need it. But it's time to shut off consuming content and start creating. 

For me, this looks like writing songs or writing text. Or finally getting a start on that Doomsday Device. For others, it might mean finally redecorating, cleaning the car or planting a garden. It's not a strictly artistic exercise - it's about building and creating. 

And it doesn't need to be like sitting in a dark room with no sound or input. It just means cutting back on how much we consume. So, don't bring your iPod on the walk with the dog, don't put on a podcast while folding laundry. Shut the phone off and sit at the table for supper. Engage in a conversation. 

I'm just at the start of this journey of silence. I'm doing well in finding places to quiet things down and doing very well at recognizing when I'm on social media when I could be doing other things or when I have far too many stimuli happening around me and I need to shut some stuff down. 

I can't say that I've felt the effects yet, I'm still tired and extremely grumpy. But I'm going to give this a few weeks. And hopefully, the act of slowing things down and focusing a bit more will start to lift the fog of modern life a bit so I can start thriving in 2025. 

How about that? This whole blog set was really about New Year's resolutions!

Time to take stock

mmmm. 

Stock. 

It's been a tumultuous few weeks, with the usual holiday chaos, the passing of a loved one and some good work done getting my music in front of some new audiences last month. I'd considered talking about resolutions and some new thoughts for the year but I feel like I'm a bit late to the party on that. And to be frank, none of it is that original or that interesting. 

But coming out of those busy weeks, I've spent the last weekend really feeling like I'd lost sight of some of the goals in my music project I'm pursuing and some of the activities that I'd taken on to try and improve my mental health. 

And as of noon yesterday (Monday), I realized I wasn't that far off the path and that my wandering wouldn't take much to correct. 

Let's start with the mental health bit. My counsellor and I have spent a lot of time talking about journalling and the benefits it could provide. I was journalling a quick and dirty entry daily for a few weeks but intentionally stopped over Xmas. I felt like I needed to be silent for a moment - not spit it all out but just sit with the silence (more on sitting with silence in a moment). So I stopped for a bit. Fast forward to the weekend and it's been over a month and time to start journalling again. So I started again.

I'm going to reconsider when I journal. I've chosen to do it when I'm on my morning bus ride, but it doesn't feel great and the entries have been overwhelmingly negative. Mostly because I've just woken up, gone out in the cold to get on a stinky bus. I might do the journal before I catch the bus or later in the day. Again - a pin for a bit later, but I need to replace some old bad habits in the next few months and I think journalling could be a good contributor there. 

I feel good about getting this back on track and making a habit of it. But besides this, I realize that I journal as part of my daily life a LOT already. I've kept a notebook at work since 2014 and use it religiously - a form of journaling. I'm blogging here weekly - journalling. I write songs - journalling. You get the point. Writing down my thoughts and feelings isn't absent in my life, I just need to be a bit more mindful of journalling for the benefit of my mental and physical health. 

Musically, things have also been excellent. Things have moved faster than the goals I've set throughout this project and I'd say that it continues to move at an impressive pace. I managed to play my tunes at three parties over the holidays, launched my website and social presence, solidified the name for the project (Jeremy and his Kazoo) and ordered my first batch of stickers. I'm now in excellent condition going into the new year. 

But I still haven't managed to book that first real gig - not an open mic or someone's pity at a party but a genuine show at a venue with admission and everything. I've also significantly slowed my writing from 2-3 songs a week to 2-3 a month. 

In terms of booking the gigs - that's coming. I started reaching out to venues, and talking to people and I've set out a list of venues and dates that I want to apply to them. Sooner or later, one of these bad boys is gonna stick! 

I feel silly feeling bad about the writing slow-down. Like with the journalling, it's been a busy season and 2-3 songs a month is still 2-3 songs more than most people write in a month. The reason I feel bad is that much of the slowdown is me pushing it off. I've set participating in FAWM as one of my goals and I'm finding myself writing a riff or a line and then putting it into the archive to use in February instead of chasing the idea down. I sat down to organize those little tidbits on Friday and found I have about 4x more material than I need to meet my goals next month. 

So no more putting off writing. We're getting back into it now- in fact finished one song on Friday and started a new one on Sunday. I think more important than having a backpack full of song ideas next month will be actually practicing at writing and having those skills honed. 14 songs in 28 days is gonna be tight, I need to be in shape! 

PHEW.

Well if you've read to here, you're a stronger person than I am. Clearly since I can't even quit a non-addictive substance. Yeesh. Overall, I know that life is good but I think I'm just feeling the lack of vitamin D and the hangover from the holidays. It doesn't hurt to make sure I'm still on track and to look for a way to feel better about myself. 
 
I'm not looking at any of this as a New Year's resolution. Most of it was happening before Jan 1 and the smoking bit is just something I need to try at every 8 months or so.

Oh man and I didn't even get into the silence bit I foreshadowed earlier. Well I don't know how to go back and edit that out so I guess I'll just promise to do a supplementary blog this week? It'll be my journal for that day! 

Until then - keep your stick on the ice. 

Bye Grandma

A sad post for today. As The Navigator spoke about late last week, our grandmother, Irene Pilon, passed away last Thursday. 

When someone is able to leave peacefully on her own terms after an amazing 99 years of making the world a better place, it's selfish to be anything but grateful and celebratory. Which isn't to say I'm not feeling a bit selfish and sad this week. I am, but I'm more happy and relieved.

Of course, there has been plenty of remembering and story-sharing. I shared some on the Navigator's post and I've been talking with a few cousins about some of my memories and maybe some general themes we could use in a tribute to her. Innovation, kindness, firm love, generosity, charity - all of these things come up over and over again in describing her. She gave to her community and lifted up those around her. 

One of the fun moments that Grandma and I shared was an ongoing disagreement about Elvis Presley. He was her favourite singer and I really don't have much admiration for him at all. I always loved teasing her about it and she was always unapologetic about her love of his music. Frankly, I think children shouldn't be exposed to that kind of gesticulation. 

I went out to Yorkton with Dad on Sunday to help clean up a few things at her apartment. Shortly after leaving Regina, Dad switched the radio over to Jack 94 and I shit you not, the Sunday Morning Oldie Show was doing an Elvis special. It was his 90th birthday (actually tomorrow, but they were celebrating Sunday).

Grandma got the last laugh. 

We listened to Elvis all the way there. 

Speaking of suddenly coming into possession of a bunch of things that you need to find space for, the visit was full of "hey do you need one of these?" or "you should take this, we don't know what to do with it." I'm not in need of anything and I'm happy to see that some of my cousins and other relations are going to get some much-needed things to help kit out their homes or save a few bucks.

But I did come home with a lamp, a mirror and of all things - an iPad. I have no idea how I'm going to clean off that iPad so that I can make use of it but they were going to donate it to goodwill and I just didn't trust that her personal info would be handled safely. I was thumbing through it last night to see if there was anything of historical or family value that I should preserve before hitting reset. It's revealing to kinda see what someone who's 99 has going on in their digital life. I didn't dig too deep, her personal conversations, health stuff and banking are none of my business. But it's interesting to see the photos she kept, the emails she cherished and the games she played. And goodness, she was good at ordering food in! They mustn't have made very good food at the home. 

We're having the funeral tomorrow in Melville. It strikes me that I have very few visits to Melville left in my life. The town I was born in but rarely visit. I might visit when some of my family in the area have weddings or funerals but probably, I'll rarely go there again. I hope that the day affords me a few minutes just to drive around, and soak it in a bit.

Rest in peace Grandma. 

You've left a legacy that will continue for generations, not only in your family but in your community and in the world. You've touched lives across Saskatchewan and as far away as Nepal. 

I'm so happy you're with Grandpa again and that you're reunited with your Dad and your Mom who I know you've missed desperately since you were 7 years old. Rest well and save a spot for me. Someday I'm coming to insist that you teach me to play Bridge. No matter how much of a cheater my Dad is. 

Out with the old - because I'm running out of space.

It might have been a pseudo-response to my article about wanting a studio space for myself. It might be that, it might have been purely practical, but over the past few months, I've put a lot of time into moving and organizing the space where I practice, write and make music. I put in a table to put my laptop on, moved my amp close to the table so I can plug everything in, installed some fun lighting and hung some stuff on the walls. 

So it was a pretty incredible frustration to walk in on Friday and find that there was no longer any space to practice in and all that work was now piled with boxes, furniture and gifts. I know it sounds ungrateful, but Christmas rarely brings me much more than family frustrations and several hundred dollars worth of crap that I now need to find a place for and keep nice. 

I'm exploring ways to avoid Christmas entirely, but I haven't found it yet. 

But holiday avoidance notwithstanding, I still had a pile of crap in the office I needed to deal with and Sunday was the day. For the most part, I needed to get some stuff into shoe boxes and onto a shelf somewhere to be ignored forever or until I just throw it out. I came into possession of some real shit this year and it probably would have been wisest to put it in the same bag as the wrapping paper. 

Some of the stuff is really cool, but I don't have a place for it in my life. I got two LED "neon" signs this year. One that says "On Air" and one that's a guitar. They're cool, they look amazing. But I already have piles of crap that needs to be hung on a wall that's never been put up. And these are going on that pile. Like where am I gonna put this stuff? I don't have a "man cave" or a plugin anywhere near where I could put these things. Maybe I'll toss them up in the garage to never be ignited again. I dunno. Rhonda got the "On Air" sign because of when I had the radio show. But I broadcast the last episode (flight?) exactly four years ago today. It's not really useful to me at this point. 

If I'm sounding ungrateful and negative, it's only because I am. 

Christmas is such a burden. From a religious point of view, I haven't walked into a church for anything but a wedding or funeral in 20 years. And even if I was religious, the way we celebrate today would make the baby Jesus very sad. 

And the other face of Christmas is a celebration of consumerism and capitalism - which I have even less patience for than religion. Aside from the wastefulness I outline above, the season has only meant I need to work twice as hard for the same income and no one really understands why I'm so frustrated and exhausted. I can't even IMAGINE working in retail. Those folks deserve a goddamn knighthood. But they won't get it. I mean sure - the CEOs will benefit. People with the billions will get theirs. But the frontline worker will only be pushed harder to do more with less. 

"Boy Pilot is on a pisser today"

YEAH, I AM. It's been a stressful month and if I'm honest, I'm mad at myself. 

I wrote down two things before the holidays, that if I didn't get them for Xmas, I'd buy them. Well, I got them both, and a week later I can see that I have no use for either thing. The first, a guitar player stool is just an extra piece of specialist furniture I have no place for. It's sitting in the middle of the office to be tripped on. And the other - a pocket watch - has no practical use in the modern world and I basically never go anywhere that I'd want to dress up nice and wear it to. So like the neon signs, it's destined for a dark corner to never be used again. 

I get this way every year, I suppose it's just this year that I've been blogging again and I have somewhere to spew this negativity. I really would like to take some time away from work and home to go write some music and take a break. I can't afford that though and no one got me that for Xmas so I'll have to settle for taking a few days off in Feb or something and making it happen that way. 

Oh and I cannot say enough how grateful I am to be in possession of nearly $200 in gift cards to alcohol establishments. 

Ok. I'm going to try and turn this around a little bit before the end. But I think that for anyone with more than 2 Christmas trees in their house, this will end as negative as it started. 

I managed to co-opt Christmas for my own use a bit this year. 

I've been looking for low-risk places to play my new tunes. Open mics are great but most of the time you get a song or two then you're sent on your way. But with Christmas parties in full swing, I devised a way to make the parties more tolerable for myself while taking advantage of a captive audience to try my material out on. 

So I took my guitar along to three of my Xmas parties and played some of my songs. I outright refused to play Christmas carols. The one vaguely Christmasey song I did have was "A Problem" a violent tale told in an 8-minute-long epic that includes three kazoo solos. I enjoyed it at least. 

I learned a lot playing for people this month and I think it's really solidified how I take this project forward for the next 6 months or so. I have a month's worth of goals and schedules I still need to hit. Beyond that, I think I'll sit down again, set a new set of goals and go from there. And just maybe, I'll schedule in that break I was talking about. 

Christmas is nearly here...

 ...so naturally I wanna talk about pocket knives. 

I've always been a guy who carries a pocket knife. I've had a Victorinox Spartan in my pocket since junior high. There's something about always having a little tool handy to do small jobs that just makes life go easier and makes you look like the most useful person ever to the people around you. And in one case - I guess crazy? One coworker was very vocal about my knife and her opinion of it. 

Last year, I went on a deep dive into knives and bought a little collection of new and vintage Victorinox blades. Some I like, some I don't. I got a little one that's very rare called the "Executive" I love. It stays at my desk at work at all times. It has an ORANGE PEELER on it. Come on. 

I also bought the Victorinox Soldier's knife. Cool in that it's a one-hand open and closed but a bit big - especially for office life. And the blade is serrated. It's been relegated to the car for emergencies. 

When I graduated from U Vic last year I bought myself what I thought would be a fancy knife, the Limited Edition Alox Pioneer. It has scissors and looks like the kind of knife you bring to your daughter's wedding. That is to say, it's gunmetal gray. A cool-looking knife and a good package but it's very stiff and I find that it needs a lot of maintenance and furnishing for a tool I spent $100 on. 

All this to say, this week, I've drifted back to my classic, $45 Spartan. It doesn't have an orange peeler or a pair of scissors. But it has a knife that's easy to fold out and a blade driver and you quickly realize, that's 90% of what you need in a knife. That said, I've only ever used the corkscrew maybe 3 times. 

Of course, Victorinox isn't exactly the only knife maker in town. And over the last couple of years, they've come under some criticism for a lack of innovation and use of outdated tool steels. Benchmade is a brand that I find interesting but I'm not sure if the opening mechanism is legal in Canada and they're just a straight-up knife - no other tools. Leatherman tools are cool and useful but far too big for the daily office carry I'm looking for. But my GOD what I'd do for a set of small pliers in my pocket! 

Hacksmith Industries is launching a new knife in the new year that I find compelling. I'm going to get my name on a "Founder's Edition" blade so I can say I have a Canadian-made knife. Plus then I can get one of their lightsabers. They tease pliers in the video but all the pictures I've seen don't feature pliers. 

I even did a small project in school where I started an imaginary knife manufacturing company called "The Reborn Edge" where we made pocket knives in Saskatchewan out of recycled materials. Kind of a fun idea but I doubt it would be successful. And I don't know anything about tool making. 

All this has come to mind as I'm hunting for a case to put my growing kazoo collection into for bringing to gigs and stuff. The knowledge gained in the pocket knife rabbit hole led me to a knife collection case to put my kazoos in. Full circle baby. 

What's in your everyday carry? Do you have a favourite pocket knife I should try? Should I seek professional help for this love of knives? Why is my house being surrounded by police?