Gas Gouging

In the last day or so, many gas stations yanked up their prices, hiking them by far, far more than the price of crude oil itself has gone up.

What's highly curious about these developments is the fact that the gas that the fuel industry is selling has already been purchased, refined, and taken to market. Their cost did not mysteriously go up overnight - its all paid for. It would take weeks for the slowdown in refining capacity and oil drilling to have an actual impact on fuel wholesalers and retailers.

That's what they always say when the prices don't go back down right away. Isn't it?

They wouldn't be taking advantage of a tragedy, would they?

Scientific American article from four years ago

The scope of what has happened the last few days was a scenario that this article foresaw about four years ago. If only they had been listened to.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Drowning New Orleans

The Restoration of New Orleans

New Orleans, as well as many other communities in Louisiana and Missouri, has been rendered uninhabitable. Some other communities are completely destroyed. But New Orleans faces particular dangers not all the coastal cities face. It has been staring at this fate for a long time. Engineers and scientists for as long as I can remember had given New Orleans a shelf life of only a century or so.

New Orleans has an unfortunate and complex convergence of several flaws, some natural, some man-made. The city is below sea level, which obviously nothing can be done about. Human beings have added to the problem however. The Mississippi river has been altered over the years, in order to be made more passable to seafareing vessels. The coastal marshlands were a powerful and effective natural barrier against the sea, but governments, who have always treated marshland as a useless waste of land, have permitted industry to cut canals and passages out of the marshlands for shipping, and drain them for agriculture. The levees built to keep water out of New Orleans also cause the city to sink every year, as the levees also prevent new silt from shoring up the terrain.

After the emergency, New Orleans will probably have to be rethought. This time, the city will have to be rebuilt in a way that lets nature do its job - the marshlands will have to be treated as a valuable defense, and not as an irritant to be drained. The levees may have to be rethought in a way that allows silt to pass into the city. Even the route of the Mississippi will have to be considered, as will be the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. A much stronger city is possible, as long as we learn to admit that nature already knew what it was doing...

Blessings Renewed

I tell her that morning to meet me at Billings Bridge.

I watch the clock, and leave work at precisely 5:00 pm. I bike the long way down Riverside, until it approaches Bank Street, and pull off into Billings Bridge Plaza. I have half an hour. A half hour gives me just enough time.
Later, we are picnicking besides the Rideau River, beside a small island. Black swans and ducks are swimming nearby, as we sit on the rocks eating hummus. She tells me what she is giving me for our anniversary - we will finally convalidate our marriage in the Catholic Church by renewing our vows.

I resisted this for a long time. After all, I was a protestant, and a minister from my denomination married us. Shouldnt that count? After all, couples marry each other - priests and ministers are only witnesses.
But I went through RCIA and converted. We both realize what it is that this means. We are effectively getting married a second time, in a church that does not recognize divorce, and only begrudgingly grants annulments. And no catholic tribunal will grant an annulment now, not when we so clearly demonstrate our full intention. We are joined forever now.

We promised decades ago that we would love, honour, and cherish one another. In two Sundays, we will put the seal on that promise. Our fates are bound up together, our lives interwound so completely that we can no longer tell entirely where one of us begins and the other ends.

What a gift I've been given. I am far luckier a man than I have any right to be.

God and the Weather

Whenever I hear about the devastation caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, and other weather patterns, I think back to the one time I saw a tropical storm hit the shores of Lake Ontario. My parents have fifteen feet rock cliffs fifteen feet back from a rock beach. And when we arrived that night, the waves crossed the beach, smashed into the cliff, breaching it and lapping up onto the grass. It was frightening, but I knew also it was only a shadow of what the storm had originally been like when it smashed into the Gulf days earlier. I also remember the Ice Storm, when I heard trees cracking and falling every minute, some of them smacking into power lines and sparking as cars drove by underneath.

One thing I seldom ask though is, "Why did God let this happen?" Its a funny sort of hypocrisy I suppose - since I do often ask that about more personal events, or even stupid little things far too trivial to think about in that way.

But perhaps I've seen too many space pictures, in which storms rage across the surface of Earth, Jupiter, or Saturn. The most famous storm in the solar system is a hurricane system raging on Jupiter (called the red eye.) It has been blowing for hundreds of years. It will not peter out for hundreds more. This storm is so big it is twice the size of our entire planet! But even on Jupiter, a storm is a natural, local, and planetary phenomenon. To us, it seems like this huge violent thing, but in actual fact it is a small and localized event, playing a part in that planet's climatic development.

Earthly storms certainly aren't an expression of God's anger - if God wanted to show cosmic power, that would come from Quasars and black holes - phenomena of such cosmic power that not only can we not comprehend it, we are not even capable of comprehending it. A Quasar is a black hole so powerful it could eat half a galaxy. THAT is power.

The weather around us is part of a complex system that nurtures life - gives it moisture, scatters its seed, moves it into new ecological environments where life can spread. Violent weather systems are a part of that complex chain as well. It is tragic and even devastating when the weather or our planet gets violent. It is tempting even to try and ascribe theological meaning to that violence, as our ancestors surely did. But rather than rushing to make monstrous conclusions about God's nature, we should consider instead how much we have benefitted from weather. It is frightening to think that the very air that blows around us and which we breathe can be a danger to us, but consider also that we can drown in the brook we drink from, or be cut down by our own scythe as we gather the grain with which we make our bread.

Perhaps the one thing the weather can teach us is humility. In this day and age, we tend to deny God's effect. I've recalled before the wrongheaded idea of "Invictus," the author boldly claiming to be be the captain of his own soul. Our heads cannot remain unbowed, even in the face of such a comparatively small and localized display of power in the very air that feeds our lungs. We are nothing. All we can do is flee, and call on God for solace.

For it is only with gentle hands that God himself ever touches us, when we call on him. No galaxy eating quasars. Only love.

CTV.ca | Netanyahu launches bid to replace Sharon

There's an old saying - "It takes Nixon to go to China," a reference to the fact that hawks and cold warriors often make better peacemakers than do doves, surprising as it may seem.

Ariel Sharon seems to be that kind of a leader. Once thought of by the opposing side as little short of the devil himself, Ariel Sharon has made more concrete gestures towards peaceful coexistence than any Israeli leader of the last thirty years. The Gaza disengagement is the boldest and most courageous move in the Middle East in decades. Its astonishing the Likud party members want to make him pay a price for this - are they not pragmatists?

CTV.ca | Netanyahu launches bid to replace Sharon

What Would Jesus Shoot?

I will not call Pat Robertson "reverend." I think it is fairly clear that any individual advocating assassinations as a foreign policy is primarily concerned with the kingdom of Caesar, and not the Kingdom of God. Nobody in this day and age with a genuine calling to ordained ministry would make such unacceptable and unchristian comments, and then not apologize for them!

I am disappointed in many Christian leaders for their kid glove treatments of Robertson. They'll say his remarks were 'inappropriate' and preface their comments with an admission of how nasty Hugo Chavez is (entirely besides the point.)

Christians are called to a higher standard than John Wayne diplomacy.

You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two." (Matthew 5:38-41)

Listening to Whales

Tonight I read Alexandra Morton's book, "Listening to Whales," a book I expected to be mostly about her discoveries related to Orca speciation and the effects of fish farming. I was delighted to find that her book is autobiographical in tone. So many of the people I met in the Broughton archipelago are in the book. Through her words, I got to meet younger versions of them, and she writes so vividly, I can practically hear Billy Proctor's exclamations in his own voice, and listen to the kids run up to the Echo Bay schoolhouse.

What amazes me about her story is how quickly she discovered the harm done by fish farms, how the Canadian experience quickly began to emulate the fishstock-depleting experiences of the Scandanavian fisheries, and how unwilling Canadian governments are to even acknowledge there might be a bit of an issue here. The greedy rush to do things bigger, better, faster, more profitably may result in the loss of several native species of salmon. Then there's the folly of farming a foreign species, the Atlantic salmon, in Pacific waters, and how the government refused to admit they would escape (they did), breed (they did), or thrive (they have.)

But Morton, the whale version of Jane Goodall, meets the chimpanzee version, Jane herself. And near the end of her tale, Goodall injects a note of optimism, a belief and hope that the human race can save itself from some of its gross mistakes tampering with nature...

Considering the Intellectual Arts

Empirical reasoning is one of the pinnacle achievements of evolution. Derived from the problem solving skills that permit a rat to figure out a maze or that permit a dolphin to cap her nose with a sponge, logic has evolved in human beings such that some of our members have unlocked the very secrets to how the most fundamental parts of the universe work.

But as I've hinted above, reasoning is not a uniquely human skill. Rather it is a refined art for our species, something we've simply become better at than rats or whales.

This leads me to to theme for tonight's musing - is deductive reasoning of value for its own sake, or because it is useful to us? Is reasoning of more value than musing, myth-making, speculation, or spirituality? Can it be a replacement for any of these things?

As it seems to be suggested on the cave walls of France and Spain, there areother mental abilities which we have developed for which there is no analogue in the animal kingdom. There are some animals in captivity that can make some basic splotches on canvas with a paintbrush. But I was looking at a National Geographic story regarding a 33,000 year old cave wall. As I looked at the representations of horses and lions, I could not help but note how well the paleolithic artist treated the form, poise, and shading of a horse - the strong flare of muscle on a horses jaw, the spring-loaded thigh muscles of the hind legs. Then there is the Neandertal flute - a bone with holes carved out in a way reminiscent of a fifth grader's recorder.

In fact, as long as we can remember, we've had all the critical elements of dramatic story-telling (or perhaps re-telling.) Music to convey the subtleties that the words can't. Imagery to provide the context.

It is perhaps no small coincidence that religious services incorporate all of these classic elements of drama, and add a few of their own: incense and fragrances to add solemnity, rubrics and gestures to toss in timelessness.

Now reasoning adds demonstrably to our survival skills. Look at the productivity benefits brought by the ability of our ancestors to figure out that planting, tending, and irrigation could significantly improve our food supply.

But of what use are our artistic, poetic, and spiritual mental abilities? We do know that people who exercise these things do tend to live longer. On the other hand, it appears obvious that the rest of the animal kingdom seems to get along fine without them.

Perhaps these are the mental abilities that truly have value in and of themselves. Painting a picture may be a distraction from food gathering, eating, mating, socializing or other survival oriented tasks. But it stands a good likelihood of being the favourite activity of the painter himself or herself.

I think at this point in my life, it would be difficult to exist without a "theosophy" and a sense of ordered purpose. Our artistic inclinations reach beyond reason and the survival prerogative and allow us to stretch out our hand, like Michaelangelo's Adam. Perhaps art is our closest and longest reach out to God, the one who stands closest to being revealed whenever nature inspires art.

Science can't be a replacement for drama and mythmaking, but it can be a companion to them. Consider the thrilling moment when Neil Armstrong said, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." On the shoulders of tremendous and hard-won scientific achievement, he capped the moment with an almost poetic utterance. What we discover with science can be beautiful. But it takes the soul of the artist to recognize that.

Taize

Brother Roger, the founder of the Taize movement, was stabbed at a prayer service by a Romanian woman for reasons that are not clear at this time.

This is a sad thing. Brother Roger was a Swiss protestant monk who started a wonderful devotional technique using simple chants, chants that are quite beautiful. The technique has been embraced by both protestants and catholics, and it was called "the little springtime" by Pope John XXIII.

Here's a sample (mp3 format) of what Taize sounds like:

http://direct.crossrhythms.co.uk/cd.php?cd=411

TIME.com: Pope Benedict and Islam

This is an interesting article that contrasts John Paul's efforts against communism a quarter century ago with Benedict's new straight shooting on the obligation of Muslim clerics to teach the faith in a way that precludes terror.

I was very proud of my pope for the direct way he faced muslim leaders on this issue - not blaming the entire religion, but still insisting that clerics have a special responsibility to weed out the problematic fanaticism. To hear a Pope speak against religious fanaticism so eloquently is a wonderful thing, and as the world's most prominent religious leader he had a special duty to do so.

TIME.com: Pope Benedict and Islam

CNN.com - Synthesizer innovator Moog dies at 71 - Aug 22, 2005

Sad news from the music biz.

The Moog synthesizer was that thing that made the weeeeeoooo weeeeoooo sound in so many seventies recordings. Think the weird sounds in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and Steve Miller's "Joker." Other synthesizers came along decades later to oust the Moog from its preeminent slot, but the Moog was doing it long before those guys...

CNN.com - Synthesizer innovator Moog dies at 71 - Aug 22, 2005

And then....

"Creepy? No," my wife smirked at breakfast yesterday, "Annoying!"

I'm a little past my wounded "inner child" (so to speak) today. Getting called creepy by people involved in an enterprise as spine-chillingly disturbing as that metablog is really not something to take that seriously. I mean these folks photoshop fake magazine covers regarding the blog they until recently secretly lurked in. One post refered (perhaps facetiously) to an 'ethics committee' that their metablog has. Its pretty chilling to think that this is their reined-in behaviour. At any rate, I've delisted the blog from my RSS, which is quite sad, since I've enjoyed that blog for a year or so. But I'm done dwelling on it, and that's all that need be said on the topic.

On a lighter note, a gospel group I am involved in is having a story written about it in the local paper (the Citizen.) The reporter and photographer came to listen to us yesterday, and I think the Good Lord was making us work a bit harder than usual to make a good impression. Our slide projector broke, and since the story kind of involves how the congregation sings along, we couldn't do without this projector, because without the words nobody will sing. So the parish custodian, who is my wife's best friend, rounded up an old projector from the basement. Then during the singing of the psalm, our leader busted a guitar string. I whispered to him, "I don't have my small tuner!" So during the homily he scraped about for a string and batteries for his own tuner.

But we ended up sounding at or near our best, so it all worked out well. We posed for photos on the church step, and the Citizen photographer kept rearranging us in various positions to the point where it was distracting. I hope I remembered to smile. :-)

Still scruffy, but rested... and relaxed

I slept in this morning - the one gift jet-lag gives me, since I don't otherwise sleep in usually. A good night's sleep makes a bit of difference in my outlook. I think it comes down to what everyone knows about the Internet - be careful. If a cadre of quasi-stalkers put a site, its author, and even comment-posters under the microscope, I simply should not comment there.

As to posting my written travelogue, nah. For starters, I wrote it by hand. I really don't want to retype all of that. Secondly, it is mostly about other people, what happened at the wedding, the visit to my sister in law. I always try to be a little circumspect regarding writing down the lives of the people I know - after all, they haven't consented to being written about. Even with their names obscured, it would invade their privacy to say too much, so I won't.

But mostly the reason I can't post it is that every day is a new day. Reading it over, each day in the journal is not today. Whose outlook doesn't change, even slightly, day by day? I remember once finding a 5-1/4" floppy with a diary I'd written in 1984. While interesting in a "hmm, I don't remember that" kind of way, none of it seemed like anything I'd write - even the style was hard to recognize as mine. I suppose that would make me a poor writer, as rewriting older material is a lot of what you do. My poor Father spent about five times longer re-writing his book than he did initially writing it.

At any rate, I know I'm rambling. The trip? It was a wonderful visit. The wedding was very enjoyable, the weather for an outdoor wedding was perfect, and we enjoyed Comox's park immensely. Especially the Tea House, a quaint little outdoor cafe that is nestled at the base of the park and which is built with cedar timbers and thatching.

Then we went by float plane to visit my sister in law in the Broughton archipelago (a place chronicled in depth in the book "Bill Procter's Raincoast.") We stayed on her and her husband's boat and float in one of the area's marinas. Behind the marina are ancient pictographs painted by the Kwakiutl. While there we saw orcas, a young black bear, several eagles, porpoises, and not a few seals. My wife and daughter helped my sister in law with her craft work, and we met many very interesting people who carve myriad ways of living out of a place with no roads, no electricity, and no phones.

My brother in law took us out on excursions during the day, as my sister in law was working. Some of the stuff we did:

- hiking up an old logging road (not a car road, but a path used by a Steam Donkey.)
- Visiting a logging camp.
- Boating through the bays looking for three humpbacks that had been sighted
- Went to a potluck dinner with no less than five salmon dishes (the local inhabitants all catch them.)
- Met some survivalists who specialize in paleolithic tool making.
- Flew over Sointulla and an Alaskan cruise ship at low altitude.
- Met some quasi-famous people.
- Listened to a bag piper serenade the sunset on a floating barge.
- Saw a fish farm (an object of the locals' ire.)

I prefer the kind of vacation that takes you completely out of range of email, answering machines, the newspaper, but it is good to be back home now. I took a few good shots, and I'll try to get those posted. Of course, there was just no way to capture the full aura of the place - the filling solitude of a place with few people and bursting life. And I didn't capture the height of the mountains and cliffs. But what I did get, I'll post. :-)

We are back... and, why oh why did I log on?

We are back. I am sure that, on the flight home, we frightened the flight attendants - dirty, disheveled, lost Clampett family members. It isn't that the Broughton archipelago is uncivilized, necessarily - but its definitely more difficult to keep clothing and self in clean condition. We were happy to see my older daughter again, and I wish she could have come. I meant to go to bed, but realized that I'm really not tired at all. I'm on BC time.

I wrote in a written journal while we were out there. I was going to post it, but now I'm not so sure. Sometimes things really creep you out. What specifically? Well - I read my followed blogs. (And as an irrelevent aside I won't remember to do later, Phillip, one of your honourable mentions is one of my favourites as well - Godspell. I'm far less savvy than you, but I'd rate the Buffy musical as my favourite. It is, as most Joss Whedon things are, ridiculously clever, funny, and yet reverential regarding the characters - it is not a a self-parody. I love it.)

Any way, on to what creeped me out. What really spooked me was to discover one of my read blogs is basically... well, I'd consider it that anyway - stalked. A metablog was started about that blog, in which people discussed without any awareness by the part of the blog's author until she stumbled across it I gather. Now I suppose if something is popular enough to be cultural, then perhaps an analytical journal or even a topical coffee clutch is a more legitimate activity than my first impression of the thing. But some of these people have parsed the details and figured out who the blogger is in real life, and that leaves a bit of a slug trail as I see it (slugs are aplenty in BC forests.)

In fact, I can't be entirely sure my discomfit from seeing this is in any way objective. You see, the site in question goes over everything - including those who post comments. And while I'm not the most frequent leaver of comments, I do leave them - poorly written (admittedly) positive sing-songy things, which I'm sad to say is what I like to leave wherever I go a-commenting (other than Loose Canon at beliefnet.com because CH sometimes drives me crazy with medeival strains of Catholicism that are no more Catholic than is the Rev. Paisley!) I can't say I've ever stopped to wonder what impression that leaves people with, but apparently it comes down to 'creepy' from a passing comment made in one post I read.

Creepy. It is what it is - there's no right or wrong way to interpret what someone writes. Any impression someone takes away from my words is a valid impression, if only his or her own. When you weigh that basic truth with another - that the pen is mightier than the sword - I find that I am hurt, but I'm just not sure how badly. After all, it is easy to conflate any impression at all with general Internet surliness.

But I find I am not hurt so much because I failed to leave a good impression as that I ran under the assumption I have left no impression. Why should a blog comment even be a factor? The likelihood that these folk have probably profile-clicked, read my blog, and had it confirm their feelings is where I feel it.

I've poured a fair bit of what I live like inside into these pages. I know I do not do it as well as many, but for anyone who does it at all, 'creepy' is the worst reaction of all. You would feel better about virtually any other emotion - I could outrage, upset, amuse, or bore someone and be mostly undisturbed by it. I even expect to sometimes do these things.

But that I might actually disturb people? I suppose I've always feared that (I've learned that anyone as bullied as I was in childhood carries this fear - born in trying to find what fault in yourself causes the bullying. Read the words to Vega's Luka if you doubt.)

And I've always been terrified by that specific variety of bullying that plays to this vulnerability. As an adult, I no longer fear being cracked by knuckles, the metal spines of wooden rulers across the back of my head... or just being pushed in the snowbank. I learned long ago that these are empty threats even when carried out, for they rob you of no dignity but the superficial kinds that belong to the surfaces.

But what if the people coming to read everything I've had to pour out read it with malignant intent? Parsing paragraphs to find the things that confirm what they initially hold in contempt about me? People may want to pour meanspiritedness out on the very things that constitute my internal essence, and, oh, they could so easily. I've described my family, the things we've been through, my thinking on everything from cosmology to war. These have not been essays, but typewritten whimsies. I've not critic-proofed (and certainly haven't satire-proofed) anything I've written.

I suppose I've always imagined that what I write is read by no more than three or four people in a circle of folks who all read each other's blogs. And I've further imagined that what I comment isn't in fact read by anyone (including frequently the blogger themselves.)

But it isn't necessarily true, is it? I am not in the vacuum. And while it may well be that only three or four people do ever read here, I am certainly not assured of that. Anyone can get here.

It is not only me that can get hurt. I've tried to be circumspect regarding my family, but they surface here. They would certainly surface if I posted my trip journal in whole or even in part. if contempt is dripped on me, does it also drip on them?

...and I'm left with the worry, do I do this generally? Is there less goodwill out there for me than I imagine there to be? All of the people for whom I have so great an affection in my life, might some of them think of me this way? How wrong do I rub the people I associate with? I admit to the insecurity of a wide-eyed boy whose smile was put out by a ring-lead gang of bullies - that insecurity colours more of my feelings than I'd like. I wish I were tougher. I wish I did not care.

But I do. How do I paint on the cave wall (however inexpertly,) knowing that I'm not the only one who may step back and look, but more importantly, judge? I've made one simple error in judgement - I assumed that if I write from a spirit of good will and spritual generosity, anyone who stumbles across my blog will take it that way. I now realize that nothing binds you, dear reader, to any such covenant at all.

We'll see about the trip journal. I don't know what to think at this point.

Better, better, better

Life is a kind of progress for me. Not a linear progress, just a general trend. There are always valleys and peaks. But like John Lennon, I'd have to admit its getting better, better all the time. For the second time, I am about to fly off to BC. Seven A.M. tomorrow morning our plane takes off.

The first time I went, I was stunned by how beautiful everything was, and I strained to capture it, by forming mental impressions and taking pictures. However, the pictures were a poor imitation of the real thing, and I did not at that time set down with a pen (or keyboard) anything that happened to me. And I should have. The beauty of British Columbia, those peaks and deep waters, the majesty of the giant conifers - they are the things every person who sees them should breathe in, proof of the great glory of God. The last time I was in BC, I saw my sister in law's boat for the first time (one they rebuilt by hand from an old trawler), and I saw my grandmother for the very last time. I met Billy Proctor. There was so much I could have recorded, so much that should be remembered.

In the time since out last visit, I've returned to songwriting, I've begun blogging, and I have started to put genuine care into every photograph I take. So this time I am taking a 160 page journal, three fine tipped pens, and my guitar. If God's glory is made so blindingly manifest, I will try and press it into a book like a leaf in the fall.

Vacation

I am on the second day of a two week vacation. It has not been an eventful vacation thus far, but then, we don't fly to British Columbia until Thursday. My cousin is gretting married on the weekend, and then we will go visit my sister in law on her boat in the Broughton Archipelago. I have it on good authority we'll likely see whales and dolphins up there. The last time we were there, three male orcas swam alongside Billy Proctor's boat while we were in it, as we listened to him confer with the reknowned whale biologist Alexandra Morton.

Right now, there is a fog covering the water that makes it look like the earth vanishes at the end of the lawn. There are a handful of ripples at the end of the green, but really, other than that, I fear one could walk off the end of the world at the steps into the water. I am hoping the anxiety of not being at work looking after my responsibilities will ease soon. A couple of weeks of rest will help me see to them better, and I do realize that. But I do feel... guilty somehow. Can't help it.

Well....

I never did say how the camping went. Well, it all went fine, really. There was an undercurrent of sadness, of course. And there was one moment of real sadness. We were singing around the campfire and my niece asked me to play the song from the funeral. I was reluctant, but I did. As before there were both laughter and tears.

It is actually this weekend that marks the anniversary of when it happened. The same five of us are here at the cottage, but last year we were six. Everyone is fine this morning. I don't know why I would think otherwise, why I would be superstitious about that. But the drive up was so similar, even the colours in the sky, the fiery orange sheet of afterglow over the hills of Lanark was the same. But it is the same time of year, so I can't expect it to be that different. I have no idea how this weekend will go.

I am actually off on two weeks vacation right now. We're going on a trip to British Columbia next week, Vancouver Island to be specific. My cousin is getting married, and then we're off to see my sister in law on her boat/float house. You rarely see such beauty flaunted so brazenly as you do on Vancouver Island, or anywhere on coastal BC for that matter. You could weep at the sight of it; there really is that much spectacular scenery to behold. I am supposed to be singing for this wedding. I'd better get practicing!

Badfinger

At some point in 1981, I was listening to a local radio program called "The Source", and the host had been doing a bit of a radio documentary on the British invasion (of music, that is.) He then played four songs, three of which made a bigger impression on me than anything ever has before or since, even moreso than the Beatles.

Those songs were "No Matter What," "Day After Day," and "Baby Blue." They were so well performed. So well recorded. So melodically written. "Day After Day" particularly seemed like an old and dusty memory, something I vaguely remembered being blasted out of the transistor radio at the beach or something, when I was young. After the songs played, the host mentioned that the band's primary songwriter had committed suicide in 1975. I couldn't believe it. The songs I had just heard were so full of life - what could drive a man who wrote with such zest for life to give up on life entirely?

I chased down every record I could find, even the exceedingly rare "Wish You Were Here," an album that had been pulled from the shelves a week after being issued. I have a vinyl collection of Badfinger that is probably worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars - original Apple records. I found a record store owner who was big on seventies music, and had seen every show by every band that blew through town in the early seventies. And he told me a little about Badfinger's passing through town in 1974 or so, and his impressions of that. A co-worker where I volunteered at the Children's Hospital had also seen them play, and I hounded him about the details for that too. I'm sure I annoyed him.

The mystery continues for me to this day. Although I have all of Badfinger's published albums, an enormous amount of archival material remained, and interest in the band combined with the Internet's ability to get rare music sold has made this material marketable. In late 1974, the band's corrupt management ordered the band to produce a CD in two weeks. In frustration, the band went into the recording studio and knocked off 33 minutes of music to try and get fed (the band members were literally starving as their management embezzled all their funds - these difficulties were the reason for Pete Ham's April, 1975 suicide.)

The album was titled "Head First" and the tapes were sent to Warners for listening. Warners knew what was going on, of course. They were well aware that the band's management was using the band to try and force recording advances out of the record company. They rejected the tapes, and the album was never released. The master tapes were lost. Decades later, as interest in the band revived, it turned out that the keyboard player had mixed down versions of the recordings, and "Head First" was released by Rykodisk.

As I listened to the first track the other day, I had the same reaction as I had when I first heard Badfinger all those years ago. Pete Ham, who could bear to live only another five months, was singing a song called "Lay Me Down," a song filled with a soaring hope and a sheer joy of being alive, even though the song made clear that he now saw moments of joy as a fleeting refuge from the troubles - "Take and give take and live all the love that we have found and just send all our problems away," he sings.

It is profoundly sad when we allow the world to scrape all the joy off of our being until the last shimmering veneer of it is barely holding off the blackness. Suicide is a shattering, devastating thing - families never recover from it. That this young man, so far from suicidal in his joyful songs, would have all his hope drawn out of him in five months is a sad and sobering reality. We must always be mindful of those around us, watching carefully that nobody is ever so fully robbed of their joy that they have none left to carry on with.