Twenty years ago I was married with a one year old and a four year old, living in Quesnel working as a courier. I would get up at 4:30 am and head down to the warehouse where we would meet the line-haul driver who brought our freight from south. If he was late there would be a little freight that he will have dropped off the night before on his way south. My last duty of the day was to drive to Hixon at 5 pm to meet a driver from Prince George and pass off the document based air freight. I drank three to four pots of coffee per day and six Jolt Cola. I was thirty four and felt like I had the world by the tail.
I had been out of restaurants for a few years at that point. I burned out of that industry after about a dozen years, I got tired of going home smelling like a pizza oven, grill and deep fryer. It was work I enjoyed when I was younger but the lustre had faded and the time came to get out. That transition came courtesy of a 40 of vodka but that's a story for another time.
Thirty four year old me thought that marriage was a destination and when I arrived, I stopped working for it. Instead I lounged in (misguided) bliss . . . As you might expect, the whole thing fell down around me a few years later. After deep soul-searching I now take my share of the blame for that. Back then I thought it was all on her but time and reflection has shown me a more balanced version of the truth.
Anyway, the thought of living in Vancouver working in a restaurant in twenty years was the last thing on my mind back then. And yet, here I am.
It's a little hard to get the voices out of my head sometimes. And I've noticed that my inner dialog has gotten louder and is starting to push itself into the world. Working at a restaurant reminds me of why I don't like working in restaurants. I mean I am mostly enjoying it now but for the first month it was a difficult re-education about the drama that always exists in that environment. There are a lot of egos in this work and it drew me back in for a little while. I started expressing my displeasure with the state of things and how people were leaving their work for me and this should be this way or that way and it drew me back in. I found myself at home, sitting and thinking about how to resolve the "thing" at work.
But there's more important work to be done here and I've come back to that realization. A daily fifteen minute meditation after work now helps draw a line between that and this so I can work on the important things in the evenings at home.
Speaking of the important things . . .
I'm honoured and happy to have been selected to play at the Canada Winter Games Coldsnap Festival in Prince George on February 28. Please check out the whole lineup at: http://www.canadagames2015.ca/artists/artists
I'm calling this number one in the list of festivals I will perform at this year. By the end of the year 2015 I intend for that number to be at least seventeen. That kind of success doesn't come without a lot of hard work. Festival applications went in starting n November. There are a few more and festivals sometimes pop up late but most of the initial work is done.
I got a new tool last week in the form of a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeller. This is the delay pedal that Reggie Watts uses and I love a whole bunch of the stuff that it does. I've been sitting in my room getting to know it and can't wait to get out there and perform with it. I'm also getting a little MIDI keyboard controller next week. I've had an M-Audio Axiom-25 for a while, I use it to control music creation apps on my iPad. I have not used it much live mostly because of its size. The new one is really small and should fit in my case.
I'm going to have some CDs reproduced. My dear friend Samantha Scott put me onto a really reasonable place that does nice work. I'm also going to be working on recording a new CD in the coming months. My head has been pushing out little bursts of song tidbits and ideas and at some point fairly soon I want to make songs that can be reproduced with actual words instead of invented language. I know they're in there . . . Just have to get them out.
I love living in Vancouver . . . I wake up every morning and thank the universe for another day. The work is enjoyable, I work with some nice people. I know it's not what I'm doing forever, it's just what I'm doing right now. And when the summer returns I know I will be on the road. I am grateful for everything I have and all the kind, beautiful people who support me in this work. I know that this is the path I was meant to be on and it fills my heart with joy to have you along on the ride. Thank you!
With love and gratitude.
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Doug
