AT THE CURE My blog title today is my new mid-section mantra:  Seven pounds until summer:  sumer is icumen in with six-pack abs. This “Sumer is icumen in” is from my university English Medieval Literature days: The Cuckoo Song (W. de Wycombe, 1261). Note, dear reader, that I am not stating the obvious pun of Middle Ages and my mid-section because I am no longer middle-aged, and therefore no longer burdened with a middle-aged mid-section. Alas, and certainly not by my design, I have become a senior citizen with a noticeably bulging mid-section.  (I only mentioned ..read more

  BARON AND SELF AT THE CURE I am getting old enough to know that age is not just a number.  Oh sure, I still run and swim and box and downhill ski and ride my bike, but I am not delusional about my aging.  I know that my life is finite, and my personal aging I have classified as a classic YIN and YANG life scenario.  I live until I die.  Or to put it into a more universal perspective: WE LIVE until WE DIE. Existential dread?  Hmmm … maybe.  Methinks if such thoughts were continuously tormenting me, then this would be existential dread.  Howeve ..read more

  ‘Tis the HALLWE’EN season and seems the perfect time to offer an annotated version of a folk song I wrote many, many (blood) moons ago.  Not-so-strangely, my song,BLOOD MOON, was inspired by a local WICCAN one evening during an actual Autumntime blood moon. Firstly, I should explain that most songs that I write are by my definition considered to be folk songs. Folk songs in my mind are those songs written about a group of people and performed for the people. The folk style for such songs typically means having a stanza form (usually three poetic verses), complete with a refrain ..read more

  SELF AND MOHAMMAD BUSKING IN MARRAKESH SELF-ACTUALIZATION, in my circles, is always about Abraham Maslow’s HIERARCHY OF NEEDS, a theory of human motivation.  Maslow, an American psychologist, presented a pyramid of needs for personal growth, the foundation being the physiological need of shelter, food, and water, and the peak being the self-actualized achievement of self-fulfillment.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theoretical psychological assessment tool to measure what motivates human behavior.  But this is a blog about the psychology of busking, and therefo ..read more

MY BOYS AND I SWIMMING IN OKANAGAN LAKE LEFT - RIGHT AGES 47, 38, 71, 41 AGEISM.  That prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age. Factoid: 82% of Americans 50 years and older say they have experienced prejudice, discrimination, or stereotyping based on ageism (University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, July 2020). Factoid: “One thing Americans agree on?  Our politicians are too old” (Chris Cillizza, CNN).  American president, Joe Biden, is 79.  Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is 82.  Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer is 71.  Mitc ..read more

AN EVENING BUSK For me, busking season is in full strum!  I have slung my guitar to my favorite haunts at least a dozen times since the munificent weather began. For me, there is no better way to practice my guitar skills than to go on a busk.  When busking, I get paid to practice!  In my reality, busking is always a mercenary adventure.  However, every time I run or walk by the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, and I do so every day, I have a yen to portrait busk.  Such a perfect setting for drawing a person’s visage and having that Legislative Building ..read more

  PRACTICING MY NEW BUSKING SON SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855), FRIEDRICH NIETZCHE (1844-1900), MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976), JEAN-PAUL SARTE (1905-1980), SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908-1986), ALBERT CAMUS (1913-1960).  All famous -- All existentialists. Kierkegaard, the founder of Christian existentialism, was famous for his analysis of such key concepts as absurdity, anguish, authenticity, and the weight of responsibility we bear for our choices. Nietzsche, who announced the death of God, sought to create value rather than to seek value for the meaning of life. Heidegger, a big f ..read more

  DREW CALLANDER -- NHL PLAYER DREW CALLANDER -- PHILADELPHIA FLYERS CHERYL -- MANAGER AT THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB CHERYL SERVING "CHERYL'S BLONDE ALE" BUSKING. OPEN MICS. GIGS.  All three venues are on a boustrophedon entertainment continuum that begins and ends with BUSKING, OPEN-MICS and GIGS intermittently noted somewhere in between. BUSKING, OPEN-MICS, and GIGS should always be a win-win-win scenario for the performer, the patron, and the proprietor, and certainly will be provided these four simple rules of business are practiced:  BE P ..read more

Ya ya ya.  Zen is good.  Ya ya ya.  Zen is harmony.  Every pseudo-academic, every tree hugger, and every hippy that ever was and still is knows that Zen is the best ya ya ya strategy for self-help therapy.  But how do you get there?  How do you get to Zen? Do you get there by reading Zen-to-go books, until you find your Zen moment when being chased by tigers whilst at the same time discovering the deliciousness of just one strawberry while you are on the edge of death hanging onto to a cliff for dear life. Or do you get there by reading and reading and reading a ..read more

                                               [BRAD HORNUNG HOCKEY CARD] Usually I write about only what I know.  Knowing the Hornung family practically my entire life and attending Regina Pat games with Brad for, literally, twenty plus years, I am right now writing with authority.  I have got the creds, as Brad would say. HORNUNG and HOCKEY are synonymous. Yes.  Brad loved hockey. Having played the game, having scouted the game, and having blogged about the ..read more