Can You Hear Me Now?

Otherwise known as Woooooooo hoooooooo did I ever have a fun weekend!!!

I haven’t drank this much two nights in a row in… oh, I dunno… since I lived in Toronto maybe, back in the party days of the late 80’s? I’m going to blame Jason. Just… because I can.

Saturday evening I headed out to see Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards, and I met up with friends Jason and Sheldon of the Polyjesters, their manager Tim, and a couple other friends of theirs. Okay, so here’s the thing. Jason and Sheldon are, as I’m sure I’ve said before, two of the funniest, craziest, whacked guys you could ever meet, that are also two of the sweetest, most generous, kind and huggable guys you could ever meet. There is no way you can not have fun with them, and have fun we did. The rounds of wine and “back up beer” kept coming and the laughter was pretty consistent at our table.

Sillan & Young opened the show and their set was much too short. It made me regret not making plans to go to their show the following evening at the Ironwood, which would be so much better! Lead singer Johanna was sitting with us for a bit and I mentioned that and she said “oh, please come!” and Jason said he might, so I said I’d go if he did. Yeah.

Now, I remember going to see the Jeff Healey Band a lot when I lived in Toronto. The band I worked for back then used to open for him all the time and we have a lot of the same people in common. Even when he came to Calgary about 10 years ago I partied with his drummer and bass player at the King Eddie because their road manager was an old friend of mine. I know I’ve been around Jeff a lot but don’t remember actually meeting him. I decided before I left the house Saturday to toss my 3 Jeff Healey band tapes and the one CD I have in my purse, maybe I’d meet him later and get them signed.

While watching the show, Tim reached over to have a look at my old tapes (dated as far back as 1988, his first one) and he asked me if I brought them to get signed, and I said that was the plan. He opened the first one up and said “uh… Donna…?” and showed me it was already autographed by the whole band. Oh. So then he opened the second one, and then the third one, and we were laughing because I already had all three of those tape covers signed by Jeff and his band with things like “love and peace in you Donna”. Ahahaha I’m such a groupie I don’t even remember who I’ve already been a groupie for! So, fine, whatever. I totally don’t recall meeting Jeff Healey before. His band, yes, but not him. I’m thinking my friend Jerome may have got Jeff to sign those for me back in the day, him and Jerome are good buddies and go way back. Anyway, I still had one unsigned CD!!

After the (fatastically amazing) show we were all hanging out backstage but I found myself talking more with the people I already know than looking for Jeff to sign my CD. Jason and Sheldon share an agency with the Jazz Wizards, so they planned to use that as an ice breaker and had a CD to give Jeff. We found Jeff at the back of the room and huddled around him like a bunch of doofuses trying to start a conversation. I got my CD signed, fumbled over my words and probably dropped Jerome’s name 200 million times. Jay and Shel’s mention of their agency wasn’t met with much enthusiasm (turns out Jeff recently switched agencies) and they totally forgot to give him their CD. It didn’t go very well, I get the feeling Jeff isn’t very comfortable in these situations, but is probably a great guy to talk to when he’s relaxed and seated around a table or something. Read the rest of this entry »

Current song I am obsessed with: Business Time. Please right click and “save target as” to download, you won’t regret it. Parental Guidance suggested.

Guess who I saw yesterday?? My Hot Access Calgary driver, after what… six plus weeks since I last saw him? Geez. I was starting to think Access had hit the “blacklist this driver” button instead of the “wonderful review” button after I called in last time to compliment him. Anyway, I had decided that the next time I saw him I would coyly slip him my number and suggest meeting for a coffee sometime, but it turns out I didn’t need to. It came up that our birthdays just happen to be on the same day (he is exactly one year younger than me) and he said “well, I’m not much of a drinker, but I think we need to go drink and celebrate that!” so we’re going out! Woo hoo! I also found out he tried to email me about a month ago or so, but I must have deleted it among all my spam or something… he said the subject was “test” and his “from” name is something silly and not his own, so I very well could have overlooked it. Oops. That won’t be happening again.

Hee! I think he likes me! Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I went to the Ironwood to see Andy Stochansky. I went with my friends Michelle, Chris, Jay and Katrina and a couple friends of Chris’ joined us too, so we had a nice full table right in front of the stage (it pays to get there early and have dinner first!) Michelle and I were early enough to catch several songs during the sound check, which only added to my excitement of how great this show would be. It also gave me a chance to approach Andy when it was quiet and he wasn’t surrounded by other people and fans, give him a Polyjesters CD (because everyone needs Ka-Chunk!) which he totally appreciated, and warn him that I had lots of CDs for him to sign later. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, a break! As I await a client to drop off some work, I figured I’d make a quick update. My “to do” list (and not just the one on the right!) is a mile long, but updating my blog is probably on it, so why not?!

I went to see my doctor last week, and he told me he will be retiring in about a year. I wanted to cry right then and there. I’ve got the best doctor, and for me to say that when you know my feelings about the whole medical paradigm, really means something. I don’t know if there is another doctor out there like him! I found him when I was 21 and had just moved back from Toronto and was living downtown. I wanted to find a doctor right nearby, so I flipped open the yellow pages and made an appointment with the first downtown doctor that was accepting new patients. 15 years later he wouldn’t accept a new patient if it was his neighbour, and I am lucky as hell to have found him. He actually listens to me, spends time answering questions and cares about my well-being in every way. He supports whatever therapies I want to try and will sign off on any blood or whatever test I want to take. He knows I research a lot of alternative things and he doesn’t try to talk me out of it. He has never tried to push a drug or medication on me and won’t even suggest any unless I specifically ask. He encourages vitamin supplements, meditation, recommends books by Caroline Myss and Eckhart Tolle, and wears a Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelet. He RAWKS and I don’t want to lose him!!! Waaaaaaaah!! Read the rest of this entry »

Oh I know yesterday I acted like I wasn’t going to update for, like, a month. As if.

Today was such a great day after I got home from work because I opened my mailbox and inside was all kinds of Andy Stochansky stuff!!! I got his brand new CD “100″ that was just released last week, and comes with a bonus live CD which I am thrilled about; I got his “Shine” EP as well; and I received a whole bunch of posters and postcards promoting the “100″ CD. There’s a spot on the posters with “Appearing…” on them and I’ll be filling that in (Ironwood, April 16!) and my friend Michelle and I are meeting downtown later this week to plaster them everywhere. I pulled my staple gun out of the depths of my desk drawer and will once again be putting it to good use. It’s probably been 13 years since I last used that thing, stapling posters to poles and walls when I worked with the “freaks” from Carnival Diablo. Heh. Thems were the days…

Then I decided to head over to the mall because I wanted to get my PolyPics developed. That roll of film also had the pictures I took the night we saw Billy Klippert at Coyote’s on March 4. Unfortunately, none of those turned out at all… just this one of Billy:

Billy signing autographs at Coyote’s

Any pictures I got of friends would kill me if I put them up here (not really good, ladies!), and the live ones are just black grainy nothing. No zoom lens, you know. We can’t always be seated right in front like we were for the Polyjesters:

Polyjesters live at the Moose Lodge in Medicine Hat, Alberta

Read the rest of this entry »

I got home last night from the most fabulous weekend in Medicine Hat! My friend Kim lives there and since the Polyjesters were doing a show for the Medicine Hat Folk Club on Friday night, I took that as the perfect opportunity to see them along with Kim and hang out with her for a couple days. When Kim and I were discussing the show and my coming out there a few weeks ago, she told me she’d cook if the guys wanted to come for dinner. Score! It was perfect, because it was also Jason’s birthday on Saturday so I billed it as his pre-birthday dinner, tempted them with talk of homemade lasagna, caesar salad, garlic bread and red wine, and made some birthday brownies. Read the rest of this entry »