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? 

Manipulation

Over the last 3 or 4 years I've focused a lot of attention on the concept of manipulation. Obviously in our - shall we say "spicy" - political and social landscape, the concept of manipulation comes up a lot. That's part of what has my attention but there's quite a bit more to it. 

I completed my diploma in public relations from the University of Victoria last winter and while the industry would like to hide behind other words, boiled down the work we do is manipulation. We hope to manipulate your behaviour or opinions to the whims of the people we work for. Thankfully, we did a LOT of work on ethics and ensuring that the power you're yielding is used for good. Lord knows the oil, tobacco and weapons industry have a different approach to manipulation. 

Sometimes I see manipulation or detect that someone is trying to manipulate me and I'm frankly ok with it. Maybe it's letting a gym ad manipulate you into going for a workout or a restaurant manipulating you into treating yourself to the super-size. I know that when I play Pokemon Go, I'm being manipulated into their microtransactions. But I also know that it manipulates me into getting out for a walk, maybe being social with someone. I'm willing to accept that manipulation. 

Other times I know I'm being manipulated and it's damn near impossible for me to step away from it. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts do this to me. And I know for my Tik Tok consuming friends it's even worse. I'll waste countless time just scrolling up on the most useless junk. I'm working hard against this manipulation - I try to tell myself that my focus on music was meant to offset the time I spend scrolling. To some extent, it has. But I still scroll. And if I'm tired, depressed, anxious or just generally avoiding life - scroll city baby. 

It was a shock to me last week when my counsellor brought up manipulation. Maybe she picked up on some of the language I use or something, but we both shared a moment recognizing that the work we do is manipulation. Even if saying that word can have a strongly negative response. 

And I think that discussing manipulation in the context of a counselling session is very dangerous. Which is why I'm shocked it came up. Because this wasn't "be careful of being manipulated." No. It was more like, "Sometimes you need to manipulate the people around you to do the right thing." I know what she's talking about and I've got enough of an ethical foundation that I can use this for good. But my God if she'd said that to a sociopath, someone without a strong ethical base or just someone who is struggling with relationships - that could be awful. 

We live in an environment today where some industries and groups are forced to identify their manipulation. You can't watch a YouTube video that has an advertisement without someone pointing out the ad. That's great. I know that someone is getting paid to convince me to buy a thing. Do we owe our loved ones and coworkers the same warning? Should I tell Rhonda "Hey, I need to manipulate you into making me macaroni and cheese for supper?" Or can I stick with the usual, "Imagine yourself making the most delectable pasta, covered in copious amounts of cheap cheddar and sprinkled with the spiciest of dried mustard." (Note: that's not the actual manipulating we discussed but people deserve privacy. And I deserve mac n' cheese). 

I've grown up under the instruction to question authority. Well into my 40's, I'm recognizing a need to question EVERYONE and EVERYTHING. It's exhausting but in the "Age of Persuasion", I don't know that there's any other way to approach things. And maybe sometimes you just need to let your guard down and be manipulated. 

Moulting

I just went through one of those wonderful moments that happens when you play a lot of guitar. My callouses moulted. It's been coming for a week or two, I took a day off of playing and they started loosening immediately. I got through my performance at the office Christmas party on Thursday and just sweet delicious peel. An evening of playing some bass and everything was nicely sanded and I was back to 100%.

It was +1°C on Sunday afternoon as Rhonda left for her dance class. She remarked, "It's so nice out, I should have worn a lighter coat! Is it spring?"

"No!" I shouted back. "Don't lose that callous yet! The cold will be back and you need that. Stay tense!"

Just like with my guitar fingers, sometimes you gotta keep that callous in place to protect you from something you have coming up. You can rebuild a nicer callous when conditions are better - when you don't need it to survive. 

I've been working with a councillor for the past few months, and part of that has involved reading Brene Brown's book Rising Strong. I'm not maybe blown away by her writing or presentation style but the advice is at least solid. One of the concepts she talks about is how you need to go through a hard time to rebuild yourself better. She doesn't use my - admittedly gross - callous metaphor but I think it fits.

Rhonda and I have been moulting some personal issues that kinda come with being together for the better part of two decades. Fights and friction come and go in any long-term relationship and we're going through a fairly gentle down right now. This moment really feels like we're moulting emotionally. And I know we're going to build up better and stronger - able to weather the next one. 

I think we often say that humans don't moult because we don't do it like a snake, lobster, insect or lizard moults. But we do. We can shed layers of skin like a callous or in flakes and hairs constantly. There's that old adage that everything in us is replaced every 7 years. I wish it made me feel 7 years old instead of 43. Shitty system. 

What are some other ways that people, animals or anything else moults? As we come up on the most famous social and behavioural moulting season, the new year, do you have any good moulting planned for 2025? Is changing the oil on your car a form of moulting? Or is that more like taking a dump? 

Let's (not) Get Pissed!

I've struggled on and off with gout over the past decade. I've worked with doctors to get medication that works but it's of course an ailment that's also helped along by what I eat. I'm not the best at controlling my diet but I really have cut out a lot of red meat - meat in general and other foods to try and stem the limp.

One of the choices I made last year was to stop drinking. I figured it's something that does harm to all parts of the body and in my work, I get to see some of the awful side effects of liquor. It really wasn't a hard decision to make. Although I do miss going to have a nice amber ale at Rebellion. 

The most difficult part is the social aspect. It's no secret that celebrations typically include alcohol around here and all the fun things seem to happen at bars. Lucky for me, many establishments have developed high-quality non-alcoholic beverage options. And non-alc beer is becoming drinkable. But I have friends and co-workers who cannot accept this choice. A manager I work with insists every time I'm around her and alcohol that I should be drinking, why am I not drinking, here's a DRINK DRINK DRINK. 

Sorry. It's frustrating. 

Most people are cool and go the extra mile to help me find options or to be curious and understanding. I went to a gala a couple of months ago and it was a real relief when one of our hosts pointed out where the non-alc beverages were. And they had an AMAZING non-alc feature cocktail. If you ask me - this is how we stop the impaired driving problem.

I still use cannabis - and in fact, that's my next hurdle to jump. I use it too much and it's as harmful as the alcohol. I could be better, and do more if I had the strength to eliminate that. I go through a quitting cycle every 12-18 months but it just never seems to stick. I think I need some more research and maybe some actual support to get through that one. In time I hope! 

On Friday night I went to the holiday party for one of the teams I work alongside, the Brand and Advertising team. They wanted me to come hang out and also to sing some songs. I joyfully complied. 

Now, no one tried to make me drink and in fact, the Director offered me some 0% Coronas. All good. But it was amazing how everyone seemed to need to come to me one-by-one to tell me why they drink, how they used to drink more, how alcohol had an effect on their family etc. It was this weird holding court kind of feel and everyone needed to come and kiss my ring, and tell me about booze. 

And none of it stopped being constantly offered nicotine and cannabis vapes. I drove and had committed to driving a couple of people home so I was committed to staying sober. But again, there seemed to be a committed need to see me get wasted. I know one of the managers is quite concerned that she's never seen me "throw down." But like, why do you need to see that? Says a lot more about you than it says about me.

Maybe more expected was that end-of-the-night moment when the social fabric was starting to fall apart. People were asking stupid questions and unable to finish sentences. I took that moment to make my exit. It was already an hour later than I'd planned to stay. I'm told it got kinda messy after we did leave. No regrets. 

I'm glad to see that at least on the macro scale, things are changing. Options are becoming more common and I really do think I'm having an easier time of this than I would have 10 years ago. But I also wonder if our move to boutique alcohol and legal cannabis hasn't made a more dangerous situation occur. When I was in college a party typically involved your choice of Molsons' or Coors and going outside for an "acoustic" cigarette or joint. The sheer number of options from vapes to gummies to micro-brewed liquor was dizzying at this party. I think one could become an alcoholic just trying to keep up with the Joneses. 

Inebriation is a strange part of the human condition. I've heard it argued that we get high and drunk more than any other people in history. I question that conclusion, especially when it comes to alcohol. But I do wonder if we're trying to numb a greater pain and making life worse for our bodies and minds while we do it?

Time will tell.