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The Open Mike
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1827
I'm in desperate need of some entertainment, head into town to take in the "Open Mike", a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It could be good, there must be an abundance of unsung talent here...
Saturday night, $5.00 "suggested" cover, only coffee to drink, the "theatre", think small room, halfway-well decorated, with a stage, piano, and filled with chairs, standing room only, a pretty supportive turnout, all things considered, easily close to 70 people, this town, it supports it's own, in Calgary an Open Mike only would draw in about 20 people who didn't know better...
They go around with a list, register the performers, and begin...
The first, bad, he looks like he should be better, butchers his three songs, forgets a couple of poems and is done.
The next, young Bob-Dylan looking twenty year old with beat up guitar, he confesses he wasn't aware Leonard Cohen had died...It doesn't matter, he's going to try anyways, but a verse into "Bird on the Wire" breaks off to play us his own compositions, one on his guitar, another on the piano, good, but irrelevant.
More poems, singers, a brother and sister sing a duet that's uncomfortably cozy, with all sorts of innuendo and eye contact, I'm hoping they're not really brother and sister...
Another out-of-towner, an expensive electric guitar, maybe 60-something or so, headband, he starts by addressing the people in the back who are whispering to themselves ..."Are You Ready NELSON?", and when they shut up he begins, a bit of a primadonna, he can't play the guitar, can't sing, like so many here he's seriously overestimated his talent, only he doesn't use humility, doesn't understand how far he is from even remedial competence...
Next act there's a girl, she's glommed onto a guitarist, she's decided to accompany him, only she doesn't really know Leonard Cohen but has liner notes from a CD for a prompt, he sings quietly, she, not knowing the lyrics or the melodies, harmonizes, singing a couple of bars after him "bird...", then hums a bit, then "Suzanne", hums a bit more, breaks off, tries humming again, it's a train wreck, there's no looking away, watch in fascinated horror...
...after the second song he apologizes, doesn't want to hog the stage, if the audience wants them to leave...I want them to leave, bloody hell, but it would be rude of me to say, and so they do one more number, urged on by polite applause, him playing on the guitar, quietly singing, her intermittent humming to accompany him whenever she feels she's got the tune...
It's wrapping up, there's a competent singer and pianist, his voice, not in Cohen's deep register, but he can carry a tune, and he plays the piano with that one-two vaudevillian sort of rhythm, the best so far...
...and then the French- Canadians gather on stage, 2 families with their children, reminding you for all the world of Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band Solution, only bigger, and they all play and sing along to unrecognizable Cohen tunes...
The nights over, all in all, a half dozen poems, 3 versions of "Bird on a Wire", 4 of "Suzanne", 2 of "So Long Marianne", the one competent pianist, he begins again on the piano, now free to sing whatever he wants, starts with "I'm a creep, I'm a loser...." by Radiohead,...
I've a new favorite hangout...could it get any better than this?
Mine under house, Garnets
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 2308
A few pictures:
An old silver mine under someone's front yard, found this while out looking for ... anyways, interesting.
A well encrusted lichen covered treefall...
And some of the hundreds of garnets I picked up from a nearby roadcut. The biggest is about a centimeter, the irregular shapes are the garnet still embedded in the schist. Buckets to be had, only need the time to pick them up off the ground...good training for my eyes. Now if only there was a way to monetize this...
Musashi Miyamoto
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1717
I remembered the first film, the seaweed waving in the river, the parting on the bridge, like a film I'd seen a long, long time ago and didn't remember...it made me sad.
Maybe I didn't. Maybe I hadn't seen it all. The next two in the series, they're on their own, I've no recollection whatsoever.
It's Cambell's "The Hero's Journey", but in Japanese and some decades before he wrote it. It's "El Topo" without the Acid. It's genius, and in countless tiny things brilliant and without peer, it's that rare film (trilogy) - that hired a proper writer and director, and the results are clear...
Trout Lake
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1904
The New Italian Waiter, the one that walked out after I left, friend of the Nephews, when he found out I was moving to BC had told me that "Trout Lake" was where it was at. By which he meant it was, according to all the drunken conversations he'd had with friends, the perfect place to ride out the Armageddon.
I hummed and hawed, "Sure" I agreed, and promised to remember it for future reference.
Turns out the place would be cemented in my memory for different reasons:
Link: http://www.revelstokereview.com/news/395025051.html
Note that these are "preliminary" results, and - remember Bre-X, anyone? Anyways, it pays to take these things with a pinch of salt. But I've been up around there, panned a few flakes, it's not hopeless...
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