The Invasion of the Red-Eyed Freaks

The South has been invaded once again. Unlike the War of Northern Aggression, there are no muskets pointed nor saber rattling nor cannons ablaze, no flags waving nor sides to choose. This invasion comes with waves of sound from the trees, like billions of insane children with hand clickers, a curiosity in the distance but up close, a riotous cacophony that is as relentless, maddening and inescapable as fate.

Every 13 years, cicadas, or as I’ve heard them referred to in these parts, red eyed freaks, rise from their underground burrows, swarm their way into the trees, molt, sing their fingernails-on-a-chalkboard songs, find mates, do the deed, lay their eggs and perish. Other than their continual, communal, other-worldly mating calls and the occasional collision with your face, they are relatively harmless.

You don’t have to be outside, you can hear them from bedroom to bathroom. There is no hiding from the red eyed freaks. Oh well, time will prevail as it always does. By July, they will be dead and I will dance on their freaky, little graves. Until their children return from exile in another 13 years.

Memorial Day here, the American version of our Remembrance Day and who turned on the heat? After a tumultuous spring, temperatures have reached the 90s F (30s C). So hot even the squirrels are passing out. It will probably remain that way through August. God bless AC. Goodbye to you, outside world. I will enjoy you again in the Fall.

More stone shattering is in my near future - June 30. I managed to produce 9 brand new kidney stones in the 2 years since my last lithotripsy. The dubious honor of setting a record was achieved by a Canadian - Don Winfield from Ontario, who passed 6,504 stones by the age of 60, ranging in size from a grain of sand to a dried pea. Pictured is that heavily medicated Don with his stone collection. Peeing into a net to catch those stones must provide no end of entertainment. Hey baby, want to come back to my pad and see my stone collection? Can someone say aiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!?

So the other day I was laying on a steel bed staring at the hospital ceiling while they injected dye and took pictures of the kidney family Stones, chuckling to myself. I remember laying in a hospital bed in my late 20s after having my right kidney’s ureter replaced with a piece of plastic tubing, thinking, “OK, when I get out of here, I’m going to try try try to not see a doctor unless it is absolutely necessary for the next 20 years. If I die, fine, at least I won’t have to endure these indignities”

Well, those 20 years have come and gone and I kept my word to myself. I was purely lucky. But there comes a time when you have to surrender yourself to it all. So, as I lay there with the mighty 55 looming on my horizon, I laughed, winced a just little, and surrendered.

There are conditions to my surrender. I plan to minimize this nonsense.

Through the bugs and heat and tornados and stones, I’m still smiling like a big ole fool. I hope this spring finds you smiling too.

Peace, love, and light.

Oh Swell, a Zombie Pandemic

So far so good for the Spring of 2011. The tornados have missed us. Lots of rain. Plenty big green around here. Turtles in the pond. Frogs a’croakin. Canadian goslings running around with their goofy dinosaur gait. Allergies making the inside of my head itch. How do you scratch that anyhow?

There are creative projects galore these days. Here are a couple of examples...

The 93-year-old lady holding the dolls below is Polly Page, the Dollmaker. She has been carving dolls for 70-80 years, has taught the likes of Jane Fonda (according to Polly, Jane didn’t learn a darn thing) and Dolly Parton. She is well known for carving Aunt Jenny and Uncle Pink, based on real pioneers that settled in this area and started a community called Brownstown. You see, Pink's last name was Brown. Judging by his moniker, his parents were laugh riots.

I took her picture for a book project and for the local university archives.

The DVD jacket is for a local documentary about John’s Place, a little dive that has played a significant role in integration for this area.

Elisabeth has been digging into her heritage through Ancestry.com. Amazingly, she has traced her ancestors back to the 1200s. It made me curious and I tried to trace my Dad’s side of the family. So far, I can only get to 1898 and Plum Creek Manitoba where my grandfather was born. My Dad doesn’t know anything about his grandparents other than they were Mennonites.

A few years ago, my cousin Kendall sent me old photos from my mother’s side of the family. This wonderful shot shows my grandmother Elsie sitting on her mother’s knee in the early 1900s.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate my roots more. Or maybe it is just living down here. I love the stuff my Dad tells me about when he was growing up. We have wonderful phone conversations these days.

And now, just for fun...

Did you know that May is Zombie Awareness Month? I kid you not. The Zombie Research Society has made it official. May brings with it “a sense of renewal and hopefulness,” which the society says makes May “the perfect month to emphasize continued vigilance in the face of the coming Zombie Pandemic.”

You too can become a member of the Zombie Research Society.

“As a member, you will be on the cutting edge of knowledge gathering about the undead and the threat they represent to the survival of the human race.”

You know, it might be worth it just for the t-shirt. I wonder if that's a zombie modeling it?

Lassoing Fish

Spring cold. Brains scrambled. Coughing. Sneezing. Will speak in short sentences, eh? Woke up yelling last night. Ghosts were coming up through the floor. Ain't cold meds grand?

As some of you know, I resigned from the TV station and went full time with my own Moose Creek Media. I'm writing, editing, designing, shooting a few photos. My high profile position at the station helped me with exposure so when I broke free, I was lucky - there was not a lot of down time. I also had the help of a friend who is well connected and has been pointing clients in my direction.

I'm still doing much of the marketing for the PBS station, including the magazine (which is due on Monday so there's my weekend), and I have been creating brochures and ads and posters and workshop calendars and logos and what have you for a number of other clients.

Worth Publishers out of New York City hired me as a market development manager for psychology textbooks. It is a long term assignment - I'm hoping 20 years or so - and I start on April 25th for 20 hours/week. I can do most of it remotely (with the occasional trip to NYC), which will allow me to continue to work with my local clients.

This last week I was asked to be the Director of Photography on a short film. The pay sucks but the crew is fun and there should be some laughs so why the heck not?

Elisabeth is well, although she has her own version of this cold too. She changed schools in December and is now working with kids that have behavioral problems. She enjoys it immensely, likes her colleagues and feels she is making a difference in the lives of these kids. I am proud of her.

When I moved to the States, I had to become acquainted with some Tennessee laws. I wouldn't care to be thrown into a Southern jail. Or any jail. So for all you visitors, here is a top 14 list of laws still in the books, delivered David Letterman style.

14) Keep your skunks at home. They may not be carried into the state. Sorry Stan.

13) It is illegal to drive while you are asleep. Man, they really know how to take the fun out of driving!

12) Stealing a horse is punishable by hanging. Just like Alberta.

11) In Memphis, all pie must be eaten on the premises. It is illegal to take an unfinished pie home. They take their pie very seriously.

10) It is illegal to lasso a fish. This was a big disappointment to me. As a westerner, I like to lasso everything.

9) Here is a law for all of you frogs... it is illegal in Memphis for a frog to croak after 11pm. Those frogs in noncompliance will be caught and their legs served with cheese grits.

8) No eating an ice cream cone on the sidewalks of Lexington TN. You also can't carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. Heaven help you if your ice cream cone is on top of a pie in your pocket.

7) No property shall have more than 5 inoperable cars on it at the same time. That means 4 is OK.

6) You cannot shoot any game from a moving car. The exception are whales. Beware Tennessee whales... you HAVE been warned.

5) It is illegal to sell hollow logs (apparently men were having sex with them and ending up with splinters - no, really).

4) It is illegal for more than 8 women to reside in the same house - that constitutes a brothel. Of course it does.

3) It is illegal to gather and consume roadkill. Yeah right, tell that to the chef at the Roadside Possum Grill.

2) In Oneida, TN, an ordinance forbids anyone to sing the song, "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'." I don't think they're crazy about Celine Dion either.

1) In Memphis, women are forbidden from driving unless a man is either running or walking in front of the vehicle waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. I think I'll leave that one alone.

My Friend DJ

My good friend Dennis died. I met Dennis in 1976 at a shared accommodation house in Silver Springs in Calgary when I was attending the U of C. He and I were like brothers for a lot of years. I could not have picked a better friend. He helped shape much of what I am today.

I was asked to write the announcement for the paper. It follows.

Dennis Nicholson Johnstone died on March 19, 2011 at the age 60. Born in Calgary on August 27, 1950, “DJ” never had the desire to live anywhere else. As a young man, he was crazy about the mountains - the hiking trails gave him new challenges to conquer and the beauty of his surroundings gave him a sense of peace.

When he was a member of the Calgary Ski Club, DJ meticulously planned each hike and camping trip he led. This same attention to detail, a dedicated work ethic, a strong sense of competitiveness and an agile, analytic mind made him one of the top medical students at the University of Calgary and an award-winning pharmaceutical rep.

To DJ, hospitals were places of hope, and for many years, you could see his smiling face as a volunteer in one of the gift shops at the Peter Lougheed Centre.

DJ was a fiercely loyal, honest, compassionate, charming and generous friend. He made an indelible mark on the lives of those who knew him with his sage guidance, his off-the-wall imagination and sense of humour.

An avid movie buff, he frequently escaped to dinner and the movies with his friends. He loved his friends and his “kids.”

Happy trails DJ. We love you too.

Mooooooooose

Here's a little known fact about Canadians, one that I did not know until I moved to the Southern U.S. of A.

Americans' knowledge of Canucks may be a little sparse but they do know one thing. One indisputable, irrefutable, dyed-in-the-fur, big-nosed, antler-ridden fact.

Canadians love moose.

Of course we do. How could we not? We love moose so much, we even named one of our cities after the jaw of a moose.

As a result of this big, hairy fact, there are now moose all over our hoose. Moose coasters in the den, a wooden moose for the mantel, a big headed silly looking moose for kicks, moose Christmas ornaments, a moose candle holder, a moose holding a basket into which I throw change, a glittery elk which my sweet mother-in-law mistook for a moose - I suppose it could be a moose in drag. There is even a sock monkey moose.

One of my colleagues at the TV station has nicknamed me "Moose" (I call him "Possum"). My American friends, bless their hearts, bestow moose upon me like blessings. Heartfelt signs of affection for which I am both grateful and amused. When in doubt about what to get a Canadian, a moose always makes a great gift.

Everywhere I look, there be moose.

So dear friends, whereas I am surrounded by moose, and whereas everywhere I look, there is a moose, you will understand that when it came to naming my new company, I could not help myself.

No News Is Snow News

Tried to catch the news on the boob tube this morning.

Tried, say I.

When it snows in the South, the local TV stations are obsessed. Between obnoxious car and furniture commercials, there are news reporters driving around with their cameras pointed out the windshield excitedly talking about slippery slidey stuff. Other reporters stand for hours on ramps and bridges, freezing off their Southern butts and risking their lives shooting fishtailing, struggling cars. If nothing is happening, which is most of the time, the station shows the same one or two shots over and over again.

The anchor team stares seriously at the camera reciting the names of schools that are closed - all of them in middle Tennessee are closed today so the list takes a while. There are lots of cutaways to the weatherman who shows us a map and points out how much snow has fallen, helpfully suggesting that we should wear mittens instead of gloves to keep our fingers warm (18 degrees F) and to stay at home if we can. There are cutaways to the very pleasant traffic woman who, no matter how grim the traffic report, smiles sweetly at the camera. You get the feeling that she would project the same professional demeanor if her arm were blown off. At least until she passed out. Maybe even after.

At first I watched these extremely attractive news people out of interest and amusement. The Southern reaction to snow and ice made my Canuck soul chuckle. After the amusement faded, I watched out of sheer stubbornness. I wanted to see if anything else was going on in the world worth reporting. Anything at all.

I watched for an hour.

Well folks, I am delighted to report that on the morning of January 21st, 2011, according to Channel 4 out of Nashville, there is nothing to report except a little snow. No shootings, dirty politics, oil spills, wars or evil doings whatsoever. Just snow.

Yay for the cleansing, healing salvation of the feathery white stuff. I hope it snows everyday and forever.

Front yard, 7 AM-ish.

Back yard, 7 AM-ish.

New Year Gaiman 2011