The annual Reg the Cat birthday column is hereby postponed until next week. In its place, I present the following.
I have been in an abyss of grief since my Dear Lois passed last month. I would never have believed that such pain as I am feeling was even possible. But in darkness there is Light, in the midst of despair there is Hope.
The overwhelming rush of good wishes and condolences has been, well, overwhelming. Let me just mention some examples.
While my main interest in music is “indie music”, I also like some mainstream music (even I had a copy of “Zeppelin II”), and have attended various concerts which apparently qualify me to say that. I do not pretend to be in the “Sharon Vernon triple figure concert attendance superfan category”, although the most recent “Trews” show she went to eerily included “Fortunate Losers” on the bill, a band which has been mentioned in my column before.
1969 or maybe early 1970.A darkened Montreal rec room, outside sound dulled by faux wood paneling and shag carpeting, with the ubiquitous mirrored bar off to the side. My girlfriend, Colleen, and I slink into the room, prepared to be kicked out by her big brother Bill, the music maven of her family, if we giggled too much.If we behaved, we’d be allowed to listen, at least for a while, to the new record Bill had brought home to enjoy with some of his cooler (and older, so therefore hotter) friends. We crept into the darkness, wide eyed.
Deadlines. I don’t think I’d get anything done if it weren’t for deadlines….artificial or otherwise. I’m one of those that have a tendency to back one’s self into a corner which forces said person to address shit and just DO IT! Tuesday afternoon and already my head is swimming with so much information, events and “stuff”….past, present and future.
You would have had to be living under a rock to miss the run up to Diane Sawyer’s two hour interview with Bruce Jenner on Friday, April 23. Jenner was dubbed the “world’s greatest athlete” after winning the Olympic Gold Decathlon in 1976, and has been the object of snide insinuations and ridiculing photos in the yellower media (and even the New York Times) for the last several months as he appeared to be transitioning from male to female before our prying eyes.
I am a Torontonian. I was born in East York at East General Hospital 50 years ago this coming Tuesday and raised in Scarborough – both originally neighbouring boroughs of Toronto. I’ve always considered these places suburbs of Toronto anyway and it was made official when they were amalgamated into the new City of Toronto in 1998. I worked for the City of Scarborough for 12 years leading up to the annexing of all the Metropolitan Toronto territories (which also 
included North York, York, and Etobicoke). 44 out of my 50 years have been spent living here. I’ve lived in the shadows both Yorkdale and Cedarbrae malls, on the eastern leg of The Danforth, and in the belly of Malvern when it was still radioactive but before it became a hideout for drug gangs and a haven for grow-ops. I’ve communed at the wolf den on the outskirts of the Metro Toronto Zoo and gone swimming in Lake Ontario at the foot of the Rouge River.
It has been quite a rock’n’roll week. With TIFF taking over the city (and bars on extended 4 AM hours) there are far too many events to attend. Last Wednesday night I attended the sonaBLAST! Records Canada (http://www.sonablast.ca/) annual TIFF kick-off party at The Brant House.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 