Kicks are for trids

Life's transitional moments

When the news came, I remember just feeling cold.

I was at my desk, and popped over to Facebook for a few minutes. I noticed that my friend Tim's page had several condolence notices on it. Tim was in the movie business, and had seen several of his friends and colleagues die, sometimes in workplace accidents (he was a special effects expert) or in other, equally unfortunate circumstances.

As I read on, though, I started to panic. Then I felt dizzy. Then... I don't remember.

It was Tim who had died. He was 48 - exactly a month shy of his 49th birthday. In fact, the last time we'd seen each other was on my 50th birthday in March.

I called his partner, Janet. It wasn't true. It couldn't be Tim. They'd just bought a house together. We were neighbours again, for the first time in 25 years.

He died at home, enjoying a quiet backyard barbecue with Janet. A massive coronary, and he was gone before he hit the ground.

My head was spinning. I didn't feel angry at first. I felt confused, bewildered, just sort of... cold and numb.

I realize now what my reaction was: I was in shock. I've never had that reaction before, but now I know what it feels like. I hate it.

I wandered out of my office, sought out two colleagues (one of them a university classmate of Janet's), and began sobbing. I couldn't reach my wife immediately, which made it much, much worse.

The next few days are a blur. I cried more than at any other time in my life. My parents are still very much alive, for which I'm grateful. We all secretly (or not so secretly) expect to bury our parents and grandparents. Although all of my grandparents are gone, I've been relatively lucky in this regard.

Until now.

I've been checking my Facebook page even more obsessively than usual. I suppose some small part of me hopes that someone, somehow, will be able to prove that none of this really happened.

I don't want to eulogize Tim here. There's a lovely obituary, penned by his sister, that does that here.

What I want to say is that I suddenly feel older. I'm not ready for this stage of life - the stage when you have to consider who's left.

Yes, some good came of it. I got to know Tim's amazing family better. And I felt supported by my wife, our kids, my extended family and my other closest friends. I'm incredibly lucky to have them in my life.

But my life now seems... diminished. It seems suddenly shorter, and feels like I have less reason to laugh.

I'm not ready for this.

My music list

My wife recently set me an interesting task. She asked me - as part of a mysterious birthday event she's apparently planning - to give her the names of two of my favourite songs from each decade since my birth. The choices were difficult, and I can't ever be sure that the list is final. But I had to choose something. To that end, I now offer:

 

 

• Sunshine of Your Love (Cream, 1967)
• Get Back (Beatles, 1969)
• Sweet Thing (Goddo, 1978)
• Message To You, Rudy (The Specials, 1979)
• Pride and Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1983)
• Dancing in the Streets (Bowie and Jagger, 1985)
• All Apologies (Nirvana Live at MTV, 1993)
• Song 2 (Blur, 1997)
• Imagine (Neil Young, 2001)
• Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day, 2004)
• Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, 2010)
• Lonely Boy (Black Keys, 2011) [Also, seriously, one of the most infectious videos I've seen in years)

Have at it, boys and girls.

Sobering thoughts

Music matters to me. I listen to it all day when I'm at work. My kids know that if we're in the car on Sundays, we're listening to this. As I write, I'm listening to this. I like music with drive and energy. Music with words that matter, with focus, crafted with care and forethought.

I have my go-to music. My desert island list would include:

• Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
• Secret Policeman's Other Ball (on which, miraculously, Slowhand also appears)
• Goddo's Who Cares
• Rust Never Sleeps
• Plus a handful of songs that give me energy: like this one, for instance, and this one and a few others, like this and this and this and this and this and... well, you get the picture
• And, I'm not ashamed to admit, A Farewell to Kings.

Yes, there's an older, classic rock bent to those choices. But I'm also a huge fan of The Black Keys. If you haven't already seen the video for the first single from the new album, Lonely Boy, go watch it now. You're welcome. The song and the dance sequence have been stuck in my head for weeks.

I also have huge respect for Jay-Z and will.i.am, both of whom have done truly remarkable things to make music better for everyone in recent years. I think they might both be a little bit brilliant.

And this sketch persuaded me that Justin Timberlake - whose music I had always dismissed as irrelevant - may actually be a true renaissance man.

Why am I sharing all of this? Well, it's a new year, and I've been celebrating in the way I often do, by buying some new music and ploughing through my own back catalogue.

It's especially poignant for me this year. First, I'm turning 50 in a few weeks. Yes, I'm putting it out there. I'm good with it. I live by my grandfather's words, that getting older is better than the alternative. 

Plus a colleague is struggling with an 8-year-old daughter whose cancer has returned. She's receiving treatment at the moment, but it's been a tough haul.

So all of this has got me thinking that I need to make time for what matters most to me. Yes, I put my family and friends at the top of the list. And by friends - sorry, distant Facebook acquaintances - I mean the small handful of people who stand by me when I'm right, and call me out when I'm wrong, and bring something meaningful to the bargain.

Music is refuge. It is depth. It provides context to life and shape to meaning. I have tried my hand at creating music, and found it more frustrating than creative. I prefer to enjoy the work of others. I have even told my wife that, if it were culturally appropriate and permitted, my choice would be to have a New Orleans-style funeral when my time comes.

But that's a while off. For now I plan to continue enjoying, and listening, and learning, and exploring. 

Memories of my grandfather

Tomorrow, Oct. 24, is the 101st anniversary of paternal grandfather's birth.

I spent the week in a program that caused me a lot of introspection. And it got me thinking.

Here's some of his legacy in my life:

-A love of big band music, and Gershwin show tunes. I was fortunate enough, in high school, to have a music teacher who reinforced this love. It's stuck with me ever since.

-A human connection to New York City, which can often be bigger than life and a little overwhelming. My brother and I tried to arrange a visit back there with him a couple of years before he died. It never happened, but it's on my list to find his childhood haunts.

-Memories of the shvitz, or the Executive Club as it was more accurately known, at Bathurst and Lawrence. Many was the Sunday morning we would spend there, talking, relaxing and just being.

-Meeting him and my grandmother at the old terminal (when it was the only one) at the Toronto airport, when they would come to visit from Ottawa.

-Driving home from the chicken farm in Hamilton. It wasn't until I was older that I connected the farm with the food at the Chicken Roost. It might explain why I became a vegetarian.

-The time we spent together at lunch and in other moments at Agincourt Mall. He helped get me my first part-time job, selling helium balloons at Woolco.

-Walking home from Bagel King on Eglinton, when we would sleep over at their apartment on Shallmar, smelling the fresh, warm bagels and struggling not to attack the bag.

He's been gone 21 years. I still miss him, and all my grandparents.

On fear

My children were young - one and four years old, respectively - when the attacks took place. I remember the overwhelming feeling that I wanted to go home with my wife, gather our children, and flee Toronto. It wasn't New York, but who knew? I just wanted to get my family as far away as possible from anything that might be a target.

Our younger daughter was simply not equipped to understand. The elder - then in grade 2 - went to school with girls who wore hijab (one of whom abandoned it briefly afterwards). We told her the buildings had been attacked, and left it at that. She didn't have many more questions, at least until a couple of years later, when her class was planting a peace garden to commemorate the victims. She asked why the buildings had been attacked, so we explained that sometimes people do evil things. Note: not that there were evil people in the world. We wanted to focus on why, not who. The who was still too complicated.

Two years later, in the summer of 2003, we went on a family vacation to New York City. By then 3 and  6 1/2, our daughters still hadn't shown much more curiosity about those horrifying events. We skimmed the perimeter of what was then still a giant crater in the earth, pointed it out, and carried on with our holiday.

Then we decided to go back to the city again this summer. Our daughters expressed interest in visiting Ground Zero. The time had come.

We planned a half-day in lower  Manhattan, visiting the temporary exhibit of photos, artifacts and other memorabilia pulled from the wreckage. It was the week before the tenth anniversary, and the formal memorial had not yet opened to the public.

They were moved, as were we. They asked again what happened. So we carefully explained: the people who did this unspeakable evil claimed they were motivated by their faith. However, we said, we believed that their real motivation was not religious, but political: they wanted to destroy their enemies.

All their lives, our kids have been exposed to people from a wide swath of humanity. We live in a richly diverse community, and we value that experience. Among our closest friends we count a Muslim family, who have always shown themselves to be rational, peace-loving people who just want to get on with their lives. We've encouraged the girls to talk to all of our friends openly about beliefs, about religion, and about values. Diversity works best when exposed to the air.

Following our visit to New York this year, and after watching and listening to and reading thousands of stories about the 9/11 anniversary, I've been giving all of this a great deal of thought. And I've come to see that the real product of terrorism is not destruction, but fear born of uncertainty.

What the 9/11 attacks have achieved is a fundamental change in the way the world sees itself, relationships among its inhabitants, a shifting of its very foundations. And people who feel uncertain, or nervous, or uncomfortable n their surroundings are more likely to behave in irrational ways - say, by seeking out phantom weapons of mass destruction.

Peggy Noonan, one of the greatest political writers currently working in the US, published a piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which she argued that the need to turn the anniversary into a triumph of heroism really misses the point. She wrote, in part:

And it changed everything. It marked a psychic shift in our town between "safe" and "not safe." It marked the end of impregnable America and began an age of vulnerability. It marked the end of "we are protected" and the beginning of something else.

One of the primary duties of any parent is to help chidren feel safe - to protect them, yes, but to show them how to make choices that will sustain their safety and well-being as they grow and evolve and move through their lives. To an extent, and a much greater degree of significance, what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was much like wide-spread food contamination outbreaks: what is supposed keep us safe suddenly doesn't do the job any more, and worse, might actually kill us.

That inversion of values, that primal sense of fear and discomfort, is what has truly changed in us. You can never go back any more. 

On leadership in times of national crisis

“I have a message to the person who attacked us and the people who are behind it: You’re not going to destroy us,” Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference shortly after the attacks. “You’re not destroying our democracy and our work for a better world. We’re a small country but a very proud country. No one can bomb us to be quiet. No one can shoot us to be quiet. No one can ever scare us from being Norway.”

From the Globe and Mail (http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/what-did-norway-do-to-deserve-devastating-attacks/article2107346/?service=mobile)

Crowd sourcing Canada Day

Please add the top five things that make you proud to be Canadian, then update you status and share with your friends. Let's see what ends up being #144.

One rule: no comparison or contrasts to our neighbours to the south. Be positive, and celebrate our uniqueness, eh?

1) The fact that I started this meme with "please." Myth or not, our fabled politesse is key to our national self identity.

2) Canada Day coincides, at least this year, with Pride Week. There's always room for improvement, but we've come a long way, baby.

3) The diversity in our communities, and increasingly, among our elected representatives.

4) Being a parliamentary democracy.

5) We continue to sell out game after game, year after year, even though the Leafs last won a Stanley Cup when the country was just a youthful centenarian.

Random Vegas observations

What happened there this time will live in infamy on the Internet.

This was our second trip in as many years. Increasingly, Vegas seems more and more like a Hollywood replica of itself. The glitz and glamor of the strip masks a burgeoning economic disaster - really the only word for it - unimaginable a decade ago.

Much has been written about the utter collapse of the US housing market. Less well known, at least to me, is what's happened to commercial real estate.

Vegas is absolutely littered with partially completed construction projects. Entire buildings have begun construction, and then been literally abandoned when the owners presumably either ran out of money or decided it was cheaper to walk away than to finish. These shells have no walls or windows, and in many cases, metal cables flapping in the breeze like ghostly weathervanes.

A long ride with a cabbie who knew all the back stories proved fascinating. We would pass by one of these costly investments gone bad, and he would say, "See that one? A billion dollars. Then the owner was forced to sell, and somebody bought it auction for $150 million." He also claimed that most hotel staff are now on call, meaning no job security, no benefits, and presumably - since this is the US - no health care coverage.

Everyone talks about when the good times will roll again. Perhaps they will. The small crowds at our hotel, especially early in the week, suggest that it could be a while.

Of course we did our part to stimulate the economy, one $20 bill and slot machine at a time. I had a nice-sized win on our last night. But the trip still cost us money. That is as it should be, I suppose.

We also rented a beautiful car - a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible - online for about a third the published price. We used it for forays into desert - north to Summerlin and south to the Hoover Dam. For city dwellers like us, the powerful majesty of these expansive swaths of land is truly awe inspiring.

Of course we also used it to get around in town. Driving down the strip at night, with the lid off, was again one of the highlights of the trip.

One thing that doesn't stay for very long in Vegas is the rain. I gather Toronto had its share during our absence. Our inclement weather involved a little wind and nighttime lows in the 60s Fahrenheit. I'll take that gamble any time.

Old friends, new futures

Way back when this whole process started, I'd promised to update this space with news of my Ryerson graduating class's 25th anniversary reunion. Well, the day has come and gone, and as with most things blog, I've been delinquent, o my brothers and sisters.

That said, we had a great time.

A high school friend told me recently that the older he gets, the more value he puts on relationships from his past. I get this, and my reunion has cemented the point. People with whom you share history bring depth and dimension to your life in a way that newer friends - however important a force they may be in your world - never can. My Ryerson classmates and I lived, laughed, cried and worked together for two years, day in and day out. Those connections were largely broken over the years, with certain exceptions, but now at least some of them have been restored.

In fact, one classmate who was unable to attend - she's now with a major newspaper and was assigned to cover the royal wedding the same weekend - described our group as the core of her life. I was wowed by this statement. I never thought it that way. But I believe she's right.

The evening began on a somewhat hesitant note. One friend and I arrived early, since I had made the reservation and felt obligated to ensure its success. We discovered that the restaurant had put us at two separate tables, divided by a staircase. I had expressed our need to be seated together, given the nature of the event, and been assured that we could be accommodated. This didn't feel very accommodating to me at all.

After half an hour of intense negotiation, the manager agreed to move us to a different area of the restaurant. We were still at two tables (our group was about 17 or 18 people total), but at least they were within hailing distance of each other. Plus we had the space pretty much to ourselves, other than the servers, which gave it a certain intimacy.

The food was good, if unmemorable. But we weren't there to eat. We were there to drink in each others' life experience over the ensuing quarter century. And the evening flew by at light speed.

Three and a half hours after it began, dinner ended. We'd agreed in advance to repair to a nearby bar, the same one we'd frequented as students. In fact, my selection of a dinner location was based largely on that premise. As we were leaving the restaurant, two servers literally chased us out into the street and accused me of not having paid my bill. I should have been moritified - they were completely mistaken - but in the glow of the moment, I simply said, you've got it wrong. And then we moved on.

The following morning the server who had looked after my table got my mobile number from her manager and called me to apologize for what had happened. And then a few days later, I got another call from a different manager who wanted to know what he could do to make things right. I said the apology was more than sufficient, and made particular note of the server whose apology had preceded his.

I won't be going back to that restaurant any time soon. But it doesn't matter.

Even the reunion itself wasn't about going back. It was about catching up. Tony Soprano once said, "Remember when is the lowest form of conversation." And interestingly, we spent precious little time reliving what was past. We were much more interested - or at least I was - in finding out who people had become, where they'd gone in their lives, their successes and missteps, their families, all of it.

We were - and some of us still are - journalists. So we all know how to tell stories, how to impart information in a wry, pithy way that gets to the heart quickly. And we know how to ask questions to draw out other people's stories. 

Some people had families; others didn't. Quite a few had ended up, as I have, in public service. Interestingly, of those in government, a few had ended up on political staff, albeit not permanently - hardly a surprise.

There was some discussion of those not present. Of a class of 30 people, it's a little shocking that we've only lost one person to illness or disease over the years. Others were either not as easy to find, or else didn't wish to be included. Either way, their absence was felt.

There was a flurry of activity in the few days after the event, as people posted pictures, swapped messages and made plans for future get-togethers. Maybe these events will happen; maybe they won't. I will do my part to ensure they do, as will others, I have no doubt.

I'm just grateful to have had this experience.

New year's resolutions: redux

Last year, right around this time, I posted a list of my top 10 new year's resolutions. As a believer in full transparency, forthwith, my report card - and attendant excuses, explanations and rationalizations:

 

1. Blog more: I updated this here site about half a dozen times last year, which is slightly more than in 2009. Score: 6/10
2. Listen to more music: Notice, I didn't say more different music. I have indeed added many new titles to my music library, and allowed myself more latitude for what I would consider "pop" music. For example, after enjoying their show at this year's Cisco Ottawa Blues Fest, I downloaded a bunch of songs by Metric. I've also acquired a new iPod, which allows me to download music wirelessly. Nice touch. Score: 8/10
3. Share more of myself with my friends and family: Better, but still more room for improvement. I booked off the last two weeks of December to spend with my wife and daughters. We made the most of the time. I even allowed them to take me to Disneyworld in August. That counts, right? Score: 7/10
4. Get my wife on Facebook: As my 10-year-old would say, "Epic fail." Still no dice, and losing ground fast. Score: 0
5. Eat better and get more exercise: I was going to give myself grief over this one too. But I did bike to work more, and it appears I've lost a small amount of weight between my not-quite-annual physicals. Score: 6/10
6. See more good movies: Another work in progress. Two movies and counting so far this holiday - the watchable Tron Legacy, and the superb King's Speech. Later tonight we're off to see The Fighter, and tomorrow - perhaps - The Social Network. Score: 8/10
   
7. Read more, and watch less tv: When I included this one last year, I'd suggested that it was books that were on my mind, and they were. But I did read more online - a lot more - especially longer pieces from magazine web sites. And then 24 ended its run, and Boardwalk Empire showed up. And I find myself quoting Modern Family. A lot. Score: 6/10
8. Use my fireplace more: Done and done. We're well into our first box of fire logs for the season, and the cat approves. Score: 9/10
9. Not be one of "those people" whose pets, or children for that matter, become the topic of every conversation: Um, yeah. See # 8. Le sigh. Score: 6/10
10. Find more ways to relax, both those that do and do not involve alcohol: I've discovered Angry Bird, and rediscovered Tetris. Both qualify. So shoot me. I'm also busy planning a get-away next year with a friend to celebrate our milestone birthdays on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Although it involves alcohol, I'm scoring this one a win for trip planning. Score: 9/10

Total: 65/100. It appears I really I am a tough marker.