First job post paper routes, was sandwich making at the small lunch counter inside the Osbourne street waterbed store, Floating Ecstasy. Dino’s Deli was named after the owner of these wave induced horizontal sleep contraptions. I liked stacking the glass bottled pop drinks in the cooler and fighting gravity to push them further and further up the slope. When no boss was in sight I helped myself to a Tahiti Treat. The ham was kept in a yellow circular Tupperware container. It was the stinkiest of the sandwich choices, though I don’t know for certain if this is an objective fact, because I came from a kosher house and had never been around the smell of ham before. Fortunately, the carrot cake compensated me. Some musicians came in time to time who knew Ronnie, my older brother who played in the blues band circuit of 70s Winnipeg. One of them, Dave McLean, would rib me and pretend to be overly demanding. I understood he was pulling my leg because I was Ronnie’s brother which meant in a way I was in the band. I liked feeling that I was granted entry into this league of players. When you’re a teenager it’s easy to think people barely into their twenties are decades older than you. The other musician who often came in was genius harmonica player Gord Kidder. I have friends who challenge themselves rock climbing or finishing major triathlons but I can’t imagine a higher feat than sounding equal to Little Walter, which Gord did. Two or three decades later, after other incarnations had come and gone, this space became a performance club and I was booked to play there during a tour of Western Canada. David Herschfield showed up just before the show. A great surprise, most of my friends from childhood did not attend my shows as an adult. He came just before starting time and in those few minutes of smalltalk I told him about the song on my new CD about him. It wasn’t exactly complimentary, it was on my observations about his depression and how we lost touch over time, but I could see the synapses behind his eyes, he was very flattered that he was in a song. Three years later he died but that night I enjoyed the storm of surrealism. Standing on a stage in a former waterbed store, where I had my first job, where my old friend was enjoying the songs, in the city where I used to live, in front of the tables where Dave McLean or Gord Kidder sat. How none of it existed any more except in my mind and even then it’s just because I’m telling myself about it. How elusive it is to remember the fact that your own mind is wired up to constantly forget that nothing, including you, is actually real. Easier to recall the stinky ham than to look in the mirror and know that’s an illusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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