Pat Blythe – Airport hell, a grant gathering, CMW, Sam Taylor and a little Side Hustle

Flying the friendly skies…..nope grounded…..

Where to start….where to start. Loads of stuff going on, musically and otherwise.  Let’s roll tape backwards. We’ll start with Air Canada’s GIANT, international debacle on Monday leaving  thousands of people not high, but dry, at Toronto Pearson International Airport (not to mention the thousands across the world). System down…..the entire system…..worldwide. Now, I don’t know all the details, precise timing and the tiny little intricacies but I do know this, I dropped my friends off at the airport, heading south for their pre-wedding honeymoon, and ten hours later I’m picking them up from the same airport, tired, explosively furious and drained.

Pat Blythe – Rights, Nights, and Music

Okay, we’ll kick this off with the weather…..freezing cold, snowing, raining, freezing rain, sunny, cloudy, pluses and minuses all over the map, exploding pipes, sinkholes, warming trends, arctic air masses, blankets on, blankets off…..we’re screwed! Somebody make up their mind!!!! This keeps up I’m whipping out the 3″ summer sandals…..winter be damned!

Pat Blythe – The Chains That Bind plus Bits and Pieces

I’m going to sneak one in this week. I miss writing and Tuesday’s column by fellow writer Frank Gutch Jr. has motivated me. “War stories” of a different type….addiction…”the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity.” (Oxford Dictionary) In this case, I’m referring specifically to “a particular substance”.

Pat Blythe – 2016….Over and finally…..OUT!

Well…..here it is already…..2017! Blink and both Christmas and New Year’s Eve are over, a fait accompli. Phffft….gone! Tout fini! Finito! Done and dusted! ….and here we are…. Has much changed? No, not really. Resolutions? Nope. Heading to the gym? Not on your life!!! The dance floor suits me just fine. Focus? I’m working on it. Oh look, a shiny thing……

Pat Blythe – Much Music, Pics and Other Stories…..

Baby’s got a new camera!!!! Chris’s camera finally bit the dust….shutter is stuck in the closed position, the “motherboard” is cooked. Ahhh….the digital age. ….and yet, his two 31-year-old “analogue” Nikons are in perfect working order. Complete with two motor drives, three lenses and a flash. Pop in a film canister and away we go. Planned obsolescence? Good question. Same goes for cars, major and minor appliances….just about everything we use today is all run by computer, and yes, computers run out of gas. That brain we call the motherboard, well….she just stops firing on all cylinders, or maybe, shoots off the wrong command. Her synapses aren’t synapsing (so to speak). I then found out today (being Tuesday) that digital cameras actually have an internal “odometer”. There are only so many pics that can (or should) be taken, then….sputter, sputter….you’re shooting on a wing and a prayer. Those aforementioned Nikons? Odometer? I think not. There is truly something to be said for analogue, vinyl, cassettes, 45s, my mom’s wash machine, stuff that was made to last a lifetime…..literally.

Pat Blythe – Summertime Blues

We’re back!!!! Tales from the city….clubs, parks and more birthday festivities. Speaking of birthdays, I swear everyone was born between June 1 and September 1. Growing up my birthday was always sort of tagging along at the end….a fall baby. All my friends celebrated anywhere from March through to August but it as especially busy during the summer months.

Roxanne Tellier – Hackers, Bobby Curtola, and TheMonkees

Got an urgent email this morning, informing me that 427 million MySpace passwords had been stolen, and were being offered for sale on an online hacker forum by Russian CyberHacker‘Peace.’ I was shocked. People still use MySpace?

Roxanne Tellier Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights

The Canadian relationship with winter and snow is a lot like marriage; some love it, and look forward to their time together. Others tolerate winter, but spend a lot of time apart during cold patches. Still others grumble, but it’s a loving martyrdom that takes the good (skiing) right along with the bad (shoveling.)