Going Back to Barrhead #

For many years I thought that I gave up on my dream and the vision that I had so many years ago of where I wanted to take my career in Music. In many ways I even thought it was my Dad that crushed my dreams but after months and months of therapy I really got the answer of what was going on with me. My Dad was not my dream crusher but my saviour and saved me from a whole lot of loss that I felt all coming down on me at once.

I have long had a reputation of one who knew how to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and start again. A project failed, we learned from it what was good, what wasn’t so good and moved on to the next one. It would be surprising to all those people I had surrounded myself with that I had given up. I didn’t entirely but I was desperate for a change because I felt a defeat like never before. If it was just one thing I think I would have recovered rather quickly but this was all failing on all ends. Let’s start from the the beginning of this story.

My good friend Gary who was the friend that I took night classes together in Graphic Arts before I landed the job at Fast Flow Printing and he was also the friend that took pictures for me of one of the first professional recording sessions that I put together after the breakup of CornerStone (or rather I left, but then the band never really picked up after that). He was getting married (Gary was) and of course I was invited to the wedding. I remember that I had something like three things going on that particular Saturday night and of course Gary’s wedding was the highest priority. It was an unusual wedding in that right after the ceremony they had the reception and the whole thing was over by 5:00 - 6:00 pm. So, that freed me up to attend one of the other things going on that night. My friend and partner in these recording sessions was playing drums for a blues band so I went down to go and check it out. I have no idea what the third thing could have been but I went to see Richard play in this hall in the Riverdale area.

During the break I stepped outside to get some air and this girl with two lit cigarettes asked me if I wanted one. I said no, because I don’t smoke so she threw one of them down on the ground and stomped it out. That was weird and led me to asking her about that in which she replied that she came out here with someone for a smoke but now she doesn’t know where they went. We kept on talking and I learned that her name was Sharon and I probably introduced her to Richard but in the end I think we went out for coffee and maybe something to eat. She kept telling me about her sister. I don’t know what all we talked about but there must have been something that must have touched on that brought this up. Her words were, you are really going to like my sister Connie.

The very next weekend I heard from Sharon and her sister Connie was in town so we went out to a Disco club downtown called Lucifers. BTW, young Brian Adams was playing at this club, he had just released some Disco based song that was getting some air play. This is long before Brian ever got famous, at this time in history he was just an act that was playing in a small dance club. I spent most of the time on the dance floor teaching Connie all the Disco moves that I learned from my old girlfriend Tracy who was a dance instructor before she landed at FastFlow where I met her. Anyway, Connie and I spent most of our time in a corner of the dance club going over the steps and just having a really good time. Sharon was absolutely right, there was a real genuine connection that I made with her sister. Later that night we all went out to get something to eat and Sharon brought along her dance partner, someone she met at the club. The other guy could not believe that Connie and I had just met because we seemed so well connected.

Connie was living in Drumheller and was in the midst of a divorce and in the process of moving to Edmonton. She did tell me that once the divorce was final she would be leaving Edmonton and going back to B.C. to be with someone she called Gary. I think this was a warning to me that I was just a fling and nothing lasting or real would come from this, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I don’t know how long this went on for as I learnt a lot of things from Connie. I was being treated for my acne by a Chiropractor from the Church of Scientology. There are a couple of things I would like to mention here, you might be wondering why is a Chiropractor treating my acne? I read somewhere that Thomas Edison has said that the Doctors of the Future were going to be Chiropractors. If you think about this, in order for a Chiropractor treatment to really take hold you need to eat the right foods and balance out the nutrients that you body is missing. This was also where I was introduced to muscle testing. He would have me hold a bottle of certain vitamins and minerals and resist him pushing down on my arm. If I could not, I was lacking in that item, if I could I was fine with that item. It is amazing how that works.

I was on a fairly regiment of vitamins and minerals but before that I think I was on some sort of fast for a number of days. It might have been just juice and water, no coffee and finish this all off with an enima and steamed fish for lunch. Okay, I am a guy in his 20’s not sure what this enima is or how to steam fish, so I called my girlfriend Connie who was now living in Project Housing in Edmonton and she told me what I needed to know, even had the things I needed to work with and introduced me to the Wok. That was how I would steam my fish. That Christmas I got my Mom a Wok and she started really getting creative in her Chinese dishes, before that it was Chop Suey from a can.

One of the other services that was provided at this Chiropractor’s office was removing black heads on my back and shoulders that I would not be able to get at. The person who was popping out these black heads was Susan Whalen. I was familiar with who Susan Whalen was as she was part of a two piece duo called “Just Friends”. I think her partner was her husband at the time when I saw them perform. I mention this all now because later on in this story I did some early prep work with Susan in some music project we were trying to put together.

This whole scenario was going on after the recording of “Hot Java/Need to Feel” and I don’t remember doing a whole lot of music or projects in this period. I was living in the basement of my Uncle Fred’s Dad and Mom. There were three rooms and one suite. The suite had its own sitting room and kitchen. The other three rooms had to share a stove and fridge in a common area. I moved twice with in that place, from under the staircase (very tiny), to a single room that shared an outside exit with the Suite and then finally the basement suite. I do remember hearing my record on the radio, I was living in the suite. When I was working on the recording project I was living in the room that shared the separate exit. When I met Sharon and her sister Connie I was initially living in the single room that shared the separate exit and I moved to the suite within that time that I spent with Connie and I learned how to use the Wok in my own kitchen, not the common area.

I was the one that was in the industry, but there were so many things that I learned or was exposed to through Connie. I had never heard of Leonard Cohen before and she exposed me to his poetry and his music. She also exposed me to Long John Baldry and he was coming to Edmonton and playing in something like 3 or 4 days so I headed out to see if I could get tickets. This is late 70’s or early 80’s and the way you got tickets was you had to go to where they were selling tickets and stand in line. I went to this smoke shop called Mikes, in downtown Edmonton to see if I could still get tickets for Long John Baldry and I sure did and they were incredible tickets. No more than 5 or 6 rows from the front over to the right with isle seats. It was great, and I still remember what Long John was wearing cause it was ridiculous. He was wearing tight black spandex pants and a bright red shirt. Long John is not with long legs, they are actually really short, but a super long body. One look at him and all I could see was a rooster. Who ever dressed him did not do so to flatter his body type.

Connie lived for many years in a common community, sort of hippy like in that they shared in the work and the food in British Columbia. She was also of the Bahai faith, which I had never heard of before. They believe that he was the manifestation of God in the form of the Father. There is a lot of interesting things about this that I did find interesting and it further peaked my spiritual journey where I was looking for answers because if you follow the Christian principal, you will find that what may have started off as a clear and understanding of how man should live and none of this is new to any of us because those words and principals are part of our DNA. I have found that every other spiritual belief around the world has the same principals so how is it that the Christians believe that they need to conquer the world for Christ and the Muslims believe they are the only ones going to heaven. They are both very, very, wrong and I got the bigger picture from Connie as she lent me a book called “A Thief in the Night”.

What is special about this book is that it was written by a Christian Theologist as he did his research on the Bahi Faith. He did something that I had never really thought about and when you look at the whole picture you really start to make sense of everything. Now I grew up in a Christian home and as a family we were very much involved in our local church. I have not lost my way, nore has my faith wavered. I think I am more connected to God and consider myself being spiritual. I will say though that I am and have always been quite anti religious. Religion is not of God, it is a tool of man that has been used to justify wars, and fighting and controlling the masses in ways that they do not realize that they are being controlled and manipulated. There is so much more power in guilt then trying to punish you. With guilt you will do that to yourself automatically. Now here is a statement that I am going to make and if this doesn’t make you stop and think for a minute then my next paragraphs are going to be lost on you. Do you honestly believe that when God called upon Abraham that he was going to make out of this blood line a special protected nation, that this was the first time after thousand and thousands of years of man running around on the earth that this was the first time that God talked to man?

Now if you don’t come to the same light bulb idea in your head as you thought about that question, I have some interesting facts right from the bible that also make my point. Here’s a good one for you. Remember Adam and Eve, well they were not Jewish, yea, how could they? They were there first creatures God put on the earth in his likeness, really it means we were given the gift of choice and the intelligence to make up our own minds. We are the only creatures that are truly free, all the other animals and insects all operate by instincts, they follow a path that they must follow, not truly free. Any way, Job was also not Jewish and he talked to God. Then we have the flood that wiped out all of mankind save, the animals and Noah’s family in the Ark, not Jewish. So really all of mankind was really populated from Noah’s bloodline.

Okay, now that I have your attention, I want to tell you what I learned in the book “A Thief in the Night”. When you put all these other spiritual leaders in a timeline you can start to see a pattern. It probably starts with the Chinese as they had the earliest writings of such things through the writings of Confucius. I don’t know the order but in each major spiritual timeline there is another, like Buda, Hari Krishna, Abraham, Jesus, Mohamad, Buhi and many others. Then there were the things that were happening with all the indigenous people around the world. It makes me so angry to know that somewhere in the belief system that I grew up with did the most horrible thing imaginable when they took native american children from their homes in the hopes to Christianize them. I am sorry, folks but they were already much more advanced then we ever were and still are. They had a clear understanding of how we are all connected together not just as human beings but to the earth and all beings, animals and plants. Did you know that we share common DNA with the trees and it is a pretty big percentage, I don’t know what it is off hand?

Something else that really made me stop and think, in this book he mentions how Jesus said that the comforter will come. There are many interpretations about that and I grew up in a local church that believes this was the Holy Spirit, now I ask, hum is this correct? Maybe, or maybe not. Muhammad was known as the comforter to the Christians. Then why are these two groups constantly at war with each other? Good question but there was a most unholy massacre that killed Muhammad and his entire family by the regiment at the time. The teachings and writings of Muhammad were taken over by some powerful beings that use it to control the people. Again, spiritual connection with God, good. Religion, bad and a clear step toward hell. If you think that was bad for the followers of Muslim , do you really want me to tell you what happened in Rome somewhere around this time? I will let you think about that for a minute.

In the meantime, my boss at C.W. Boone had left that division and was promoted to some important position within the parent company “Horne & Pitfield”. I was stuck in the vending division and had a couple of opportunities to move into a mechanics position because I knew these machines so well by this time but the problem was that I could not get a new driver trained and stay with the route. It was one of the more difficult routes and they just could not handle it, quite and I would have my route back again because it was an important route that could not be ignored. It looked like the only way I would be able to move beyond this position was to apply for a position outside of C.W. Boone.

That opportunity showed up one day on the employee bulletin board which hung in the lunch room. It was a position with the parent company as a liaison person for the director of advertising specifically targeting the Red Rooster convenience stores. I was perfect for this position with my music, printing, and media background. My interview was glorious, I got along so well with the director and felt like we understood each other. I also have a bit of a funny story that goes along with preparing for this interview. I had just bought a brand new suit and it comes with a special matching tie. I never learned how to tie a tie and trying to follow my Dad’s steps just felt weird and I could not get it. I just picked up the suit that week and what usually happens when I get a new tie is my Dad would tie it and I would leave it tied and loosen up the end stick it over my head and tighten back up. However, I wanted to wear the new suit with the tie but I needed to get it tied. Just down the road from where my interview was, my friend Joe Fritz sold pianos and he always wore a suit and tie so maybe he could help me out. I went to the piano store and asked Joe and he said NO, I can’t do that but I can show you how. Joe showed me the steps to tie my tie and we practised it several times until I felt confident that I could do it. I have never forgotten that lesson and can still tie a tie any time I wear one. I wear them so rarely these days but the skill is still there.

Time went on and I never got the call that I got the job. I saw that it was given to an employee from one of these Red Rooster stores, which did not make sense to me. I found out much later that I was the first pick but my current boss over at C.W. Boone would not release me so they were forced to go with their second choice. I was just desperate to get out from under this new director that we had that I started applying for any openings that showed up even for things I didn’t really want. I could not get any movement there at all.

Then I get a call from my Dad, and his opening remarks were, before you say no, think this through as when they hired this young account they thought he would stay for the long haul but he was leaving. Accounting was the only position over there that I would have considered and it was now available to me. I was feeling defeated on a lot of fronts here. I could not get any traction to move out of the job position I was in, I was heartbroken from above situation and I had and lost a recording studio as I just couldn’t seem to get it to work out to where I felt I could achieve the things I wanted to achieve and make enough money to at least support myself. I told my Dad right off, that I will probably accept your offer and in the end I did. My Uncle Dave told me that if they bring me in I had to be willing to stay for at least two years. Which I did, in fact I stayed there for five years.