Breakfast At Dani’s

But she’ll tell you you’re not so good for her

She wouldn’t be there if it could be that you were

- Nick Drake

Breakfast At Dani’s

(Cebuliak)

All you’ve got now are those memories

Little bits of paper that you can’t believe

You’ll still find yourself searching for the one

She said would shine as bright as the sun

 

 

The scent of candles on your skin, the sound of music from within

Things I would have loved to find if only I had seen the line

But instead I made excuses for my past abuses

I couldn’t whisper the words in time for us to rhyme

 

 

So when the night

Closes in real tight

You don’t have to make it right

If you believe in

 

 

Breakfast at Dani’s, in spite of everything

Knowing that you’d lost her gave you somethin’ bittersweet to sing

And even through the heartache, Sunday mornin’ never felt so good, so

Breakfast at Dani’s, gave you somethin’ you never knew it could

 

 

So many months have passed since then

So many other hearts have been lost since then

And even though I’ll never really know who she spoke of

I think if I had my chance again, you’d be the one I’d love

 

 

But now the verses that I wrote mean more than the autumn in your coat

Or the way the raindrops rippled in your eyes

So while time wore down your disguise

You’re still the answer I’d like the questions to

 

 

So when the night

Closes in real tight

You don’t have to make it right

If you believe in

 

 

Breakfast at Dani’s, in spite of everything

Knowing that you’d lost her gave you somethin’ bittersweet to sing

And even through the heartache, Sunday mornin’ never felt so good, so

Breakfast at Dani’s, gave you somethin’ you never knew it could

 

 

Romance?

Okay so I don’t really know where this is going to end up going but something inside me is telling me to write. So I apologize in advance if my grammar and spelling gets ridiculous when I get carried away. I am basically in a state of limbo; not that I’m fiercely trying to beat it away but rather curiously eying these feelings and emotions with ambivalence.

So let’s begin at the beginning. I’ll try and probably fall short of fully explaining and organizing my thoughts, but I accept that.

I think this has to do with a couple of big things. First, the concepts of love and the certainty of love in another seem to be recurring themes in my life. I’m seeing it all around me, and finding that I can’t really make or get the time to question the events and situations that are flying by because I’m constantly struggling to just keep up with everyday life. Nevertheless, I am at least noticing it. I guess that’s some consolation. I see it in my friends and their relationships, their battles won and wars lost. I see it in the eyes of middle aged women with beautiful flashes of grey in their hair. They’re alone, but I always wonder, and the older they look the more I think about it: what flights of passion have they watched fly by, like little children glued to the window of a train? They try to reach out at the countryside but hit only cold glass. I think about this in a split of a second and have to keep myself from crying as I take their order…And then have to hold it back again when I find out what it usually is with these women: Decaf skinny single lattes. Can you live a little? Or are you sick of trying to grab at it, only to touch frost and your own reflection?

I’m getting carried away, and I’ve only just begun. Damnit.

I guess in my own roundabout way I’m expressing my fear that I will end up like one of these women, alone in coffee shops abounded with couples and groups of couples, laughing and holding hands and playing footsies. I’m afraid of showing my romantic side. Of wearing my heart on my chest. I can see thats what these people are enduring, a life so devoid of the exhilaration of romance, the cliche but nevertheless real string that links the eye to the mind to the heart, resulting in the feeling that it just got rolled off a thousand mile high cliff inside of you. They’ve never had that, or, if they have, the only documentation of it is a battered sepiatone buried away in a dusty sunday morning Inglewood basement. If it ever happened (again), they’d probably have a heart attack. It’s like that quote from R & G that Cassandra likes:

“All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it’s like being ambushed by a grotesque.”

I don’t want to be that.

And when everyone is writing about it or lamenting about it, its hard not to jump on the bandwagon. Where have all the soulmates gone?

I truly believe that while movies like the Notebook are cliche, love like that is possible. Inspiration for these kind of ideas doesn’t come from nowhere. Although one may argue that it comes from ultimate wanting and therefore, fantastical allegory is really the full extent of it, I would say that’s lazy thinking. You get out what you put in.

This feeling is something I can’t just put off ’till later. It has a sense of urgency around it that screams at me to wake up to the opportunities. But I’m stuck in some sort of weird dream that keeps perpetuating itself, and as a result everything I originally believe is an opportunity for romance and innocent love, I end up second guessing and making up excuses for myself so that I don’t have to jump, at least not off that certain cliff.

And we all know what happens after that. Pain. Gloom. Doom. We get together and write songs about it. It gives us a temporary reprieve, as our grief is replaced with a sense, however small, of achievement. We got it out. But imagine living our entire lives like that. Someone or something comes up, we feel it, and then we do all we can to invalidate our initial experience, and even label our discursive thoughts as our intuition. “I just have a gut feeling that her and I wouldn’t work out.” Even worse, we don’t investigate it at all. We just let it pass us by, and we probably don’t even reach out at the glass. And then we cry and write and have long conversation with our close ones about how ultimately intangible and unworkable this whole love thing is. Destiny tries again and again to throw us a lifeline, but just ends up beating its beautiful head against the wall.

Again, I don’t want to be like that. There must be some choice involved somewhere that I’ve set on autopilot.

Okay so, assuming I’m just writing on instinct here, a guess I have, about the whole love thing, is that we might do well from just flowing along a little more, and to stop pretending like we have so much to lose. Hell, we usually walk around like we’re carrying the Persian empire in our back pocket and we can’t hug anyone for fear that they’ll look over our shoulder and see it. Because, in reality, in the now, what do we have to lose? We are afraid of relationships because of what has happened in the past. But as our elastic bands of time continue to stretch out towards the inevitable snap, the distance between the bad breakups and what she did to me and the rest of the sad story, and the now, is also continually growing. By now it must be astronomical. I’ve seen all my ex- girlfriends in the past month and I honestly had a hard time recreating the pain and the drama all over again in my mind. They were just other people, really. I even went so far with one of them to notice a feeling inside me of disbelief, that I had held on to her so fervently long ago, because in present times I could never consider that with her. We had thought we would get married. C’est La Vie.

The problem with this kind of guess is that it’s not something I feel I can act upon, and this is where the other thing in the “couple of big things” up there comes into play. I’m leaving in little under a month, and I don’t know when I’m coming back. Now, I know that the whole trip is only just a concept in my mind at this point, and it will, as things often do, end up almost completely different from what I had imagined. So with that in mind, I’m trying my best to stay open to this thing, and in a broader sense, to life. Easier said than done, yeah yeah yeah. But the fact is, I will soon no longer be immersed in everything I have come to accept and view as homey and familiar, and will be deposited into an environment that offers the possibility of exactly the opposite. The chances that I have now, consciously and unconsciously, will soon evaporate. So I feel that I can’t really move on these things, as, what’s the point? I know I have an easy way out, and I’m taking it.

But is this going to set a dangerous precedent for the chances I’ll have in the future? Who knows who I’ll meet on my travels, and who knows what kind of excuses I’ll conjure up to convince myself she wouldn’t be worth it? It’s just sad. It’s slapping destiny in the face in my sleep.

So does this mean I should jump for every opportunity? I don’t know if I can answer that, so instead I’ll say that I really must pay more attention to the unconscious movements away from the unknown and the potentially dangerous, and also the hidden and equal potential for holding hands in a Parisian midsummer night. It’s just ridiculous how we expect that we know everything about a situation that hasn’t even happened yet. And also that we insist we have a whole empire to lose, and that it’s teetering on the edge of a ginormous cliff, and that she could be the one to tip the balance and make it all fall. Who knows…maybe, and not to be dramatic or anything, that’s just what I need. The beautiful romances that I’ve had have always been unplanned, off the cuff, and totally absent of any expectation. It’s odd that this is all coming together only just now, but I guess better late than never. I think it may be time to grow a set of balls, so to speak, learn to trust my first impressions, and then let her tip my heart off the cliff. After all, the alternative hasn’t exactly been working recently, so again, what have I got to lose? Famous last words, perhaps. But, in my opinion, honorable ones.

We Are All Made Of Stars

We Are All Made Of Stars

(Cebuliak/Colville)

 

The trees hold so many secrets

They know all of mine for sure

They’ll open up to no-one

No matter what they have to endure

 

We’ve had some discussion

About what it is to be free

And it seems my guitar is the only one

Who can stick beside me

 

Through the night

 

For the first time in as long as I can remember

I don’t have a bag on my head

But I’m still in love with

All those words she’d said

 

It’s funny how time can change what you want

But not what you are

And I’ve come to the sudden conclusion now

We are all made of stars

 

We’ve been up, we’ve been down, we’ve been spun around

But still here we stand

Travel near, travel far, all alone in a foreign land

Keep the blinds down low, keep your fists up high

And keep this close to your heart:

We are all made of stars

 

We’ve been up, we’ve been down, we’ve been spun around

But still here we stand

Travel near, travel far, all alone in a foreign land

Keep the blinds down low, keep your fists up high

And keep this close to your heart:

We are all made of stars

 

 

 

 

Smithereens

Smithereens

(Cebuliak)

 

To think that all this time

You didn’t know

Oh, it really only goes to show

That life is blind

And so unkind

To those that try to love you so

 

This is what I said

When I saw you’d led

Me into deeper water

Now when your eyes I see

It’s plain to me

You never held the key

 

But this ghost town heart

Set you apart

From what I would’ve liked

To believe in

So now you can’t decide

Who’s right and what’s wrong

But can I say I feel

Like I’ve been strung along?

 

And even though you were right there

It was a situation between Sun & Moon

Through miles and miles and miles

Of outer space

The shadows in your face

With you, draft dodging my heart

Not seeing you’d torn me apart

 

So blow me to

Smithereens

I’d rather have the truth

With a sky of blue

And fields of greens

 

And whites, those lights

Might give me just one question:

“Did you ever, really never

Know?”

 

So blow me to

Smithereens

I’d rather have the truth

With a sky of blue

All Of The Above

All Of The Above

(Cebuliak) December 30^th, 2007

One year ago, to the day

I’d made up my mind, I’d said “Okay”

The quintessential denial of The Silence

In search of some temporary alliance

 

When what you have isn’t what you want

Only what you need

You’re inclined to believe in

Almost any lead

 

For what you have in your heart

Is only just a part

Of something you once had for another

With some other heart

 

And if you’d said “Give us exactly one year”

I think now, yes, I would agree

‘Cause ain’t it funny how time

Turns me into you and you into me

 

So please don’t believe me

When I say “No really, its okay,

I’m doin’ fine”

‘Cause I’m just readin’ off my lines

 

And I’d like to fall into The Universe

On the first day of the year

When tears for fears

Of faith and love

May penetrate

Into all of the above

 

And if you’d said “Give us exactly one year”

I think now, yes, I would agree

‘Cause ain’t it funny how time

Turns me into you and you into me

 

‘Cause ain’t it funny how time

Turns me into you and you into me

 

Goosebumps

I could run circles around myself in an attempt to explain just exactly what Goosebumps actually are, but I’m afraid I’ll steal the magic. Because for me, when I get that spreading chill feeling, closely followed by an aftermath of little ripples along my skin, it’s never random. That is to say, I don’t expect it; however, I know that there are certain things that I encounter from time to time in my life that will pull that trigger. It’s difficult to describe and explain(probably why I’m trying) because what sets it all off is decidedly not tangible: feelings. The actual cause and effect on a physical level is what I’m going to try to ignore here. Sure, its probably mildly interesting, but what about the actual, real motivation for it all, the raw emotion of awe, often accompanied by the strong desire to bawl or bounce around the room playing air guitar, or just simply to bob the head and beam? There’s something important here, I know it. All my life I’ve always gotten goosebumps from one thing. I’ve always been able to count on it. Always. And then I think, “How is it possible for this single medium to cause so much astonishment and, ultimately, joy?” Another question that isn’t really necessarily answerable. Again, I think I’ll stick to the “what”, the actual moment in which the floodgates open and emotion pours through my skin.

It’s music, as I hope the kind of people who read this will have gotten already. Either the lyrics, or the actual instrumentation, or if I’m lucky, the combination of both. In any case, its most often a certain moment within a certain recording that will set it all off like a wildfire. I want to reach out and grab it, make the feeling mine for just a little bit longer than usual, but unfortunately, it happens to be in the same category as high school memories and déjà vu. I guess I should just be thankful for when it comes along, and allow whatever it is to decide for how long.

But getting back to the actual moments…I’m trying to find out what it is that is behind the reaction to a certain part of a song. For example, in Manu Chao’s “Mentira”, which incidentally is a song entirely about lies, there are 3 (or more) guitar samples looping throughout the song. One is a clean electric guitar riff in the “F” scale, another is a jangly spanish guitar strum, and the final is a faint acoustic picking. This last one is what does the trick. There’s something about it that I feel I could fall into and get nestled in. Like waking up in the middle of a 3:11 AM thunderstorm and hearing the rain pounding the roof. The flashes and cracks roll outside the window, yet moments like those are ones where I feel the most secure, soft and cozy in the yin and yang of darkness and light. And I get all this from just one chord change in one random song? What does this suggest? Madness? Or something else? I’m trying to understand, but something keeps telling me I don’t need to. It’s like shooting stars. We know that they’re just bits of spacejunk burning up in our atmosphere, but who wants to think of that when we’re making a wish?

What I got from that song up there was a garnered vision; that is to say, when I first listened to the song and got goosebumps, I wasn’t channeling that image of being in a thunderstorm. I just had a “safe” feeling from the sound, and so I when I was writing here I looked for an appropriate analogy. Okay, sure, fine. But other times the vision actually does come through already concieved. I think this may be because of my experiences in the past; for example, where I heard the song the first time, and if it was an “important” time, or perhaps just how the lyrics conveniently relate to my life. So this would explain the emotion, as I’m clinging or groping at the past, as we often do, and goosebumps are my body’s way of dealing with it, of somehow ejecting out of me. In that sense, I suppose it’s rather healthy.

The beginning of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ “Last Dance With Mary Jane” is a good example of this. Every time I hear it, I think back to what I consider as probably the best night of my entire life. And I know that sounds dangerous, I mean, how can one possibly define a single night as more extraordinary as the rest of them? What about that time, or that? Yes, its true. But if someone ever asked, “Noah, what, where and when was the best night of your life?”, I’m afraid I would say this was it. July 27th, 2005. WHERE WERE YOU? No, really, think about it. I’d be curious to know.

It was LD Banquet at Camp. We had finished a fabulous meal in celebration of 3 and a half weeks of absolute madness out on the sea, lakes and trail(I can proclaim that it was the best month of my life, but thats a different story.) Andrew Poirrer, affectionately known as “Popo”, and probably the best guitarist in the entire camp, had arranged to perform a few songs in the banquet hall for us all, along with Nash, one of my fellow cabin mates, on rhythm, and Evan, another dude from Staff, on drums. They played a bunch of covers, all equally amazing, including Cream’s “White Room”, Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”, but when he twanged out the opening lines to the last dance, I lost it. You know when something is so amazing that you can’t even really understand whats going on, or even if it really is that amazing? That was it. I can’t explain it. It would take something away from it, like when you attempt to describe an amazing dream to a friend. Words always fall just short.

Another example of the whole vision thing: The other night I was listening to music as I fell asleep, and one of my all time “guaranteed goosebumps” favorites shuffled in, Billy Bragg & Wilco’s “One By One”. Now, I know I’ve talked about this song before in that concert fantasy down there, but thats exactly what I was thinking about when it started fading in. I remembered how I had picked Alex Lee as our guest keyboard for the vision, and I how had initially wondered why. After all, there are closer people to me who could probably have nailed the song, (hypothetically of course, as this was all in my imagination) but something had prevented me from changing my mind. When I imagined looking back at the organs and piano, placed at 90 degree angles so as to allow for a different hand to play each, I had always seen Alex leaning over them with firm movements and that cliche look that rockstars tend to have when engaged in concentrated ecstacy. So when that song sidled in, the goosebumps I normally got just from the sounds of the organ and piano and slide guitar mingling together were amplified by the affirmation that Alex definitely did belong in the picture. Maybe it was the almost absurd thought of casting his personal character in such a bold position as a guest star, and the fact that it just seemed to work. It was beautiful; as the song went on and I lay there, I wanted nothing more than to be on that stage and to turn around after a verse to see him pinning it all out for us.

Another one…

The beginning of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Peach Tree”. How do you come out of the count in to the song(1,2 1,2,3,4..) that tightly? Usually when a song is recorded live, like all those old rhythm and blues tracks were, it gets better as the musicians become more relaxed. But if you listen to the recording, the beginning bars are just dynamite. Its almost as if they were all laughing and smiling and bending their knees and winking at each other, like “These mother fuckers better watch out, we know exactly what the hell we’re doing.” Its another song where I wish I was one of the guys stomping it out. It wouldn’t matter what instrument it was, although usually when I imagine myself its the electric guitar or piano or even stand up bass(illogically). And so my goosebumps come out of two things at once: the longing to have played in the song; and the profound awe for how beautifully the parts all fall into place.

These are the easily explainable goosebumps. There are more I’m sure I could find some interpretation of, but I also want to acknowledge the more random moments where things just unexplainably fall into place, or where something strikes me as absolute genius. I could talk about “What Is There To Say?” here, but I think that it would warrant a 20 page essay in which I ramble on about the utter brilliance of the entire performance. So I think I’ll just leave well alone and simply say that Bill Evan’s “What Is There To Say?” falls inexplicably and absolutely into this category. It’s just insane. Listen to it, and if you don’t agree, we’re not friends. Game Over.

(As a side note, Red Garland & John Coltrane also do a pretty decent version of “What Is There To Say?”, although the magic is considerably less prevalent. The thing to watch for in this version is the very beginning, where the double bassist plays the most unpredictable and beautiful line I’ve probably ever heard. Another 3 seconds I could listen to over and over again.)

This half of the goosebumps includes subtle movements that others often miss. That’s not to say I’m better than them in the least; it just demonstrates that I often pay attention to random things in music, and as a result, I expect I often initially miss the general point of the song. Give and Take. But these are the things that I find such joy in hearing that it ultimately doesn’t matter to me what I miss.

For example, The Everly Brothers’ “Cathy’s Clown” is about a guy who is being strung along by some popular girl. Same old 50’s story, different tune, no big deal. But the magic isn’t in the lyrics, its in the Everly’s harmonies. From the first “Don’t want your love anymore…” its evident, to me at least, that these boys were a match made in heaven, espescially when they get to the word “anymore”. It’s like stepping close to a blistering woodstove in the dead of winter and getting hit by that wall of comforting warmth. Their voices on that one word just glow. Listen to the song, okay? You’ll know what I mean(If you listen close, that is.)

Alot of these particular moments come from the oldies(40’s,50’s,60’s). I remember listening to my parents vinyl of The Beatles “Rubber Soul” over and over again just so I could get to “Girl”. At first it was the way the chorus chord changes went. The song was in stereo, so I used to hold just the left earphone on to catch the unadulterated guitar track. I couldn’t get enough of that; I would hum it over and over until my parents took the record away. Eventually I moved on. But recently I discovered the song again after buying “The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook”. When I came across “Girl(Lennon/McCartney)”, I immediately picked up my guitar and went for the chorus(Capo 8th fret; G Bm Am D7). Of course, knowing the method behind the magic caused a bit of disillusionment,(its not a song I regularly play) but it also helped me find something I couldn’t remember consciously appreciating. Now, this is going to sound absurd, and probably trite, but it was this barely audible tinkling in the midst of the chorus nearer the end of the song that caught my ear and held it. What instrument is it??!!? To this day my best guess is a piano, but I’m still unsure. For all you people that care, and if you’ve made it this far I expect you to, it’s at approximately 1:53, after the first “Girl….” And again, I have no idea why it gives me the goosebumps. It just seems so perfectly unplanned and thus a brilliant twist of fate. I have wondered whether whoever mixed and mastered the album noticed it at all, and if they did, purposely left it in. I’d like to hope.

Well, I think I’ve strung this out farther than most would have liked, but I’d like to conclude(if for no-one’s sake, then for mine) by noting a few more songs and their moments. None of this(the preceding and the following list) is exhaustive; that is to say, I could go on for hours. But if you’ve gotten this far and you haven’t scoffed yet, maybe you can see if you can hear what I’m hearing. But don’t worry if you can’t sense my goosebumps. I have a funny feeling it has to do with being an individual.

Included in these songs are ones I can explain and ones I cannot explain the goosebumps. Here Goes:

The chord change from F#m to A in Mark Knophler’s “Wanderlust” at 0:49
The live whistles and the Synthesizer solo in “Sound of the Taurus”, by The Turner Brothers The beginning of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”

The String parts in Roy Orbison’s “Hurtin”

From the end of the solo to “…like we’ve discussed”(2:13-2:33) in Wilco’s “Please Be Patient With Me”
The beginning of Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet”, especially the descending chimes

The part where someone yells “Wooo!!” in obvious ecstasy(1:10) on The Beatles’ “Cry For A Shadow”(not to be mistaken for the other yelling bits)

The Chorus harmonies in Woodpigeon’s “Home as a romanticized concept where everyone loves you always and forever”
The way that Conny Francis and her backing vocal work together in “Don’t Break The Heart That Loves You”

The Line “When streams are ripe and swelled with rain…” on Simon & Garfunkel’s “April come she will” I have to stop myself from crying
The release in CunninLynguist’s “Rain” (2:30-chorus/end)
The beginning of Elvis Presley’s “Fame & Fortune”
The backing upstroke guitar licks, the Jordanaires backing vocals and ESPESCIALLY from “Well she’s gone gone gone…”(2:19) to the end of Elvis Presley’s “Such a Night”

The tinkle of Paul Posnak’s piano in his version of Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose”(1:10)
The Lines “Hardly anyone would see/The wind would hide our tracks/Clouds would fill our shoes/Don’t be afraid” in Oysterband’s “We Could Leave Right Now”(around 1:19)
The bassline in the quiet part(1:21) of Charlie Feathers’ “That Certain Female”

The live ambience of Fats Domino’s “When The Saints Go Marching In” Those whistles and claps and screams and shouts get me every time.

The Lines “And you don’t care where you’re going/Say that I was foolish/Say that I was blind/But never say that I was left behind” on Oysterband’s “Granite Years”

The verse breaks in The Sound Provider’s “Night to remember”
When the full sample hits on Brother Ali’s “Uncle Sam Goddamn” (0:44)
The entire melody of Steve Dawson’s “Patches”, espescially starting at 1:15
The beginning of Roy Orbison’s “Blue Angel”                                                    That little riff at 0:18 of The Beatles’”I Will”
The Chorus of Randy Travis’ “Down at The Old Corral”
The loud part in Coldplay’s “Fix You” from 3:00 onward…god I could cry
The Lines “I would like to salute the ashes of American Flags/And all the fallen leaves, filling up shopping bags” in Wilco’s “Ashes of American Flags” (3:15)
The beginning lines of Ricky Nelson’s version of “Fools Rush In”
The beginning of Feist’s “Honey Honey”
The beginning melody of The Chimes’ “Once In A While” The guitar riff from The Del Viking’s “Whispering Bells”
The Chorus of The Beatles’ “Please Mr Postman”
The climax of Apocalyptica’s “Nothing Else Matters”
The Chorus line “Infamous Angel come on home/to someone who loves you, and knows you needed to roam” on Iris Dement’s “Infamous Angel”
The beginning of Madeleine Peyroux’s “Half The Perfect World”
When the second piano part comes in on Sufjan Steven’s “Flint” (2:04)
The weird voices in the background of Sufjan Steven’s “Redford”
That weird chord in Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Tight Rope”
The end of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” when the piano goes nuts
The strange shimmer sounds in the background of Paul Simon’s “Take me to the mardi gras” (2:00)

The chord progression of Fats Domino’s “My Blue Heaven”

The Rink

I had been asking Bob all week when the ice would be ready. He’d reply with the patience of an old dog amidst a new litter, motioning out the window and smiling about how it needed to snow just a mite more and mabye, if this cold held out, we might just be skating this time next. I remember hanging off his words. “Say it’s ready, already!!”

So I went away for a few days to a place where fresh ice means multiple car pileups. I forgot, momentarily. But as my father turned his freezing steering wheel into the village, long dead at 10 PM on a Sunday(my birthday, nonetheless), I found myself straightening up in my back seat to hopefully catch a glimpse of those familiar lights. I was rewarded, not only in my field of vision, but also by a shiver of goosebumps that extended through my hands. I felt the sweat in my palms, the ice on my big toes. Shinny season was here again.

So I got out there as soon as I could. Tuesday night, I bent over the same frigid wheel and craned my head to the right, out the window, over the pines and deserted parking lot of the shopping centre, searching for that gleam, reflecting off the stiff night air. I found it and jumped up and down in my seat. That corner, this corner, I skidded into the parking lot and let out an audible “CHYA” to myself as the illuminated crystal of the rink glared back up at those telltale lights. Oh, those lights. How much history had they seen? How many dekes, saucer passes to the shins, blocked shots? How much of my own glory and bitter defeat had they bore witness to? I parked my car and sat, remembering.

I started with the defeats. It was more climatic that way. There was my first and only fight, and with a girl, at that. I couldn’t even remember what we were fighting about. Just that I pushed at her and she knocked me down. Words were exchanged. Parents slipped and slid across to break it up. I had that crushing feeling above my eyes, right in the center of my forehead.

Then there was when I had disgraced my family and team by arguing with the ref about a call he had made…this was way back in my Outdoor League Days (which, as I would later find out, still runs right along, 9 seasons later.) He had to pick me up and throw me off the ice. I sat in the dressing room with my father, as I untied my own skates and sulked, listening to the cacophony of the continuing game outside. We drove home in silence, the same feeling above my eyes.

Those were the big ones. Then I thought about all the turnovers and shots to the shins I had taken, with those lights wincing down at me with each one. I remember leaning my stick across my knees and gliding around, bent over in agony, or disappointment, or both. Every play mattered. Who you played didn’t. It could be a pack of ten year olds and their dads, or the older boys from high school. Either way, if you didn’t play it right, and play your best, you’d find yourself leaning your stick on your knees, spitting a mixture of blood and phlegm on the chipped ivory below.

Speaking of that, there was the time when Matt and I went to the rink on an extra cool Friday night, and, finding it deserted, proceeded to entertain ourselves with a little one-on-one. Pig. Hog. Whatever. Then the boys started rolling up. They piled out of pickups and low Mazda’s and into our room. I remember being scared for the things I’d left in my bag. Puck stealing was prevalent back then. It was a big deal.

We waited in anticipation, flipping the puck back and forth and scraping slowly about. I wasn’t about to go retrieving my stuff, anyway. It’s hilarious to think about it now, actually. But they eventually started streaming out and jumping on the ice. Some of them were smoking, some had bottles in hand. I was even more scared. Were we about to play with these gangsters?

Sticks in the middle. Matt and I got separated by the primordial sorting mechanism, and we exchanged those best-friend “We’re fucked now, buddy.” glances. After the first 15 seconds, it became clear that we were vastly outstripped. They may have been smoking boozers, but they were still somehow more quick and agile than we. I don’t think they even noticed us. I banged my stick on the ice time and time again in an effort to get my hands on the puck for just a couple seconds, but I honestly can’t remember ever getting it. They were just too fast.

Finally, one of the goalies called for a smoke break. We all obliged, but Matt and I for different reasons. While they drew and puffed and swung Hennessey bottles, we expressed our awe by coughing up more blood on the other side of the rink. Turns out they were from Okotoks. When their own rink had melted, they’d driven out to Bragg Creek for some solace. Not that we minded. We were just amazed, on more than one level.

Then I noticed that one of the goalies was back, and taking some shots from the less inebriated. I asked Matt if we should join them for some more kicks, and he nodded as we limped over. They were all lined up on the blue line, blasting them in, mostly wide, but blistering, nonetheless. Everything about these guys was fast. Big and strong. Even their pucks were on fire. I found myself a place on the right point and waited my turn. When it came, I acted on impulse and stepped into a blind slapshot. I looked up in time to see it peek behind his flailing catcher, sneaking perfectly under the top-corner of the crossbar.

I felt them all look around at me. Some of them rapped their sticks on the ice in approval. The guy next to me held out his glove to tap mine and grinned. “Nice shot, man.” I stood in disbelief. Matt looked like I’d just killed a cougar with a toothpick.

Back in the car, I found myself smiling. That was definitely one of “those” moments. Impossible to foresee. Pure, accidental grace. All that, and I hadn’t even stepped on the ice yet. But I wanted to reminisce a little bit more.

I thought of the better parts of the Outdoor Hockey League. If my memory serves me correct, I scored a total of 3 goals in my best season, with two of them coming at home. Hardly Wayne Gretzky, who apparently netted 378 in his best, at 10 years of age. But, as my father said, at least I scored at all. True, I suppose.

I remembered Coach Al Dale screaming at me from the old benches, trying to get my lumbering frame to hustle on the idling puck:

“GET ON THE JETS!! GET ON THE JETS!!”

Even to this day, that phrase has stuck. I’ll be racing some retired engineer for the corner in an amiable, Mid-March Sunday shinny game, and his voice is still there, overwhelming the sounds of our skates and dangling sticks. I always try to skate faster for Al. I wish I could meet him now, and shake his hand, tell him all about that. I’d love to see his face light up just once more.

I keep going. When I was 11 or 12, I used to read this series of teen thrillers based around an Ontario Midget A team, written by a guy who’d played with Bobby Orr when he was growing up. The protagonist was of a certain belief that if you hit the crossbar with a slapshot during practice, it was good luck. I took that to heart, seeing as when I was at the rink, it was always practice. I link all the flashes of memory together, like in a multi-angled movie-trailer reel, so that I see puck after puck peel off into the night. First, the satisfaction of a pounding slap-shot and then, looking up in time to see the puck pin it, and hear the bone-chilling song of the bar. It’s always over so quickly. I take it a step further, saying to myself, “If the puck loops up and over the fence above the end boards and into the embankment beyond, its extra good luck.” I never find those ones. But then again, I never go looking.

Sometimes, it’s more simple. I’ve always stood by the belief that the best feeling in the universe is stepping out to fresh, outdoor ice. First tracks. On those exceedingly rare occasions were I’ve arrived first after a midnight flood, I carve and twirl the whole 180 feet all by myself, in utter ecstasy. Nobody knows the trouble you’ve seen? Try leaving that behind. I usually stay all day, until enough people come and the radiance has been skated all away. It’s okay though. All things must pass. I leave in gratitude, saying a silent prayer to the rink.

I think of when we play posts. There’s all the ones I miss. But there’s also the ones I hit. Like playing Battleship. And then there’s the ones were I’ve had the puck on a string and dangled a couple of kids almost accidentally before remembering I’m playing with other people, passing it off to a stumbling 7 year old on the left wing, who promptly passes it back. I don’t have a choice but to try a weak backhand. But when I get it, me and that 7 year old are Gods. I pump my hand in the air as I congratulate him and pretend I’m Jarri Kurri, him Gretzky. The dad in the Blackhawks jersey laughs. But those are the lighter posts of my career. Some of them have really counted. We haven’t scored yet; they’ve got a pile, and they keep coming. I grab the puck and forget to think. When I wake up, I’ve somehow gotten by those guys who were in the way and the ding of the post is my alarm clock. Yeah, take that, Space Coyotes. But it’s gritty, and selfish too. And you don’t always get ‘em. But when you do…oh God.

I figure it’s time to get out there. But when I do, I find out there’s a practice going on. It’s the Novice kids, and they’re from, guess who? The Outdoor League. I chuckle at the irony. It appears my dreams of skating solo on a frozen, jeweled platter are shattered. But then, in the room, the coach shakes my hand and asks me if I’d like to help out. I look at the other dejected kids in the opposite corner, obviously a pair of new grade 9’s. And then it flows out of my mouth: “Sure. Why not? I haven’t skated for 5 months anyhow!” He grins, saying “See you out there” and leaves me to tie my skates, which have hardened up with disuse. I grab my gloves; the same, rough stiffness greets my digits. During the winter, my equipment is always soft with the previous days’ sweat, and slipping on and tying up is familiar and easy. Not tonight. I had forgotten, apparently. As I struggle with the rigid tongue of my left skate, the kids in the corner ask me whether I could “booze for them.” At first I don’t understand and they have to explain it to me. I feel old. And the automatic responses continue, as I find myself saying “Absolutely not. Ask your mother.” They sneer and I push the heavy door open to the cold. It all comes flooding back. But it’s a little different now. I’m that kid I used to be afraid of. I’m that kid who I looked up at and thought could do whatever they wanted. Which I guess could have included buying alcohol for grade 9’s. Crazy.

I spend the next 40 minutes contemplating frostbitten toes and patting little kids on the back. It’s very humbling. But they leave early and that gives me some time to myself before the next practice starts, and I use it well. The ice is still relatively fresh; not the insane, crack-of-dawn stuff, but better than usual. I dip and glide, starting at one end and opening up the jets down to the other. It feels amazing, and I can feel my cheeks getting red. The first few shots are weak, but I expected that, and before the Atom parents’ cars start rolling up, I’m ripping them like I used to. I’m no Cullen Colville or Ryan Moir, but I can still do my thing. And I do it well, until the next coach motions me off quietly. I oblige smilingly, grateful for the space that was, and bounce into the dressing room. My toes burn as I pry off my wings, and there’s ice on the big ones. My lungs feel expanded beyond recognition by the icicled oxygen, and God, is it ever good.

As I drive home, toes still burning on the clutch, I see that my rink experiences have always been a prime example of the beauty of simple things in life. If not always pleasurable, they have taught me some serious lessons over the years, and that has resulted in a healthy relationship between us. When I go, I would like to hope that I hold little or no expectation, apart from assuming there will be ice to play on. The rink expects nothing more from me than my playing upon it. I see how when expectations are allowed to fall away, like tonight, beautiful experiences can result. I say a grateful prayer to the rink I’m lucky to have. I sleep well.

Down To The Waterline

While recently perusing through the stack of brochures and “informative guides” that I had acquired in the seemingly endless search for a panacea to my post-secondary quest for “the right” university, I came across a photograph of one “Imperial Theatre, St. John, New Brunswick”, hidden in a booklet designed to inspire the average prairie-landlubber to make UNBSJ their choice. It was laying on a full spread of a page, amidst the pastoral scenes of lone kayakers on shadowy sunset bays and the predictably joyous faces of “BA ‘08″ students, and for one reason or another, my habitual flipping of pages was halted. A renaissance-period chandelier dangled pregnantly from a generous, vaulted ceiling, which gave way to a single , new-moon balcony and an additional main floor. While not an extra-ordinary example of efficient seating or use of floorspace, everything seemed to be in its place. The warm, golden light reflected patiently off the crafted seats, and the carpeted aisles reminded me of something older and perhaps more genuine. Probably a result of my relentless fixation with the fifties. The whole place wafted an air of “something else”. Suffice to say, this simple photograph of just another atlantic Canada concert hall triggered something inside of me. The practicing 4-piece quartet in the foreground faded away easily to make way for a vision, driven by the inspiration I was experiencing from Dire Straits’ first album, which had been getting near continuous rotation since the end of camp. I let my imagination roll over me:

I peeked around the thick burgandy curtain that circled the right-hand backstage entrance at the scene beyond Andrew’s drums: The belly of The Imperial, brimming with the chattering mouths of our very best friends, family and loved ones, whose presence packed a punch of adrenaline into my heart. They had all been invited, from their different haunts and habits, to this reunion of 10 or 15 years, in which an evening of good old rock-n-roll music would ensue. (The reasons for them being there seemed less important than the fact that they were there in the first place.) All the guys I used to run with back in 07(which included the Legendary Gay Force and Team Laser Explosion), my very best com padres from Camp, my family, of course, and even some less-expected guests, including acquaintances I had kept only briefly, but whom I had wondered about with occasional sunday night tenderness: “Oh…I wonder how he’s doin’?”

Kirk and Wilson sat near each other with their significant others, whose faces were blurred by the lines of fate. I had to squint to spot Vlad and Randy Boucher nearer the far, right hand corner of the upper balcony. Those from high school of course overwhelmed the numbers of the others, but I felt this was okay; it served to drive home the significance of that period of my life, even to the present day. As I continued around, I recognized some of my band-mates families and their miscellaneous unfamiliars, but I was presently surprised to find that I knew(and loved) the majority of those in attendance. My nervousness lessened as this realization eased into my mind, and I continued my private scanning of the crowd: Kozmo and Faye were there, Matt V sat with his parents, and even Xplicit had made an appearance in plain clothes for the event. Carine, Cassandra and Sarah Hill sat in a troika a few rows back, in the center of the main floor, and the Ciaramellas lined a row closer to the left. My heart did an odd sort of jump as I skipped across a few aisles to the scattered faces of my previous girlfriends. They had come, even after all.

At that moment, I received a tug on my faded “Coming This Summer” tee; it was Cullen, motioning me back for the final seconds before we came on. Faber’s face was comfortably lit by the backstage shadows as he spoke. “Well, you ready boys?” Andrew “yupped” and Cullen nodded as he passed me my guitar, A 1955 Telecaster complete with chrome wammy bar. Light reflected off of it and into Cullen’s eyes. A flicker of a smile passed across his face as he said, “We’re ready. Let’s go get ‘em”.

I felt the lights dim as a wave of hushed excitement flowed through the backstage curtain that Faber was holding open. I tip-toed through, guitar in hand, into the enveloping darkness of the stage. I took my time, in order to make sure I didn’t trip, although I was watching out more for my nerves than for anything on stage.

“We’ve done this before in practice, I know what I’m doing.” They had already queued the opening reverb sounds by the time we had found our spots. I looked out off of the pier into black fog. I felt in a dream; then, a sole spotlight pierced through unto Cullen, right-stage, as he twanged the opening bars. I held my fingers in a silent “G”, making sure. Then, out of nowhere, I heard Faber count us out. We all dropped in perfectly as the stage blazed with light, and I found the crowd laid angled out in front of me. My soul jumped out at my hands to force them into the “Bm” and out to “G” again; I was momentarily entranced as the reality of it bowled me over. Tunnel vision. They really were all here.

Then I remembered I was supposed to be singing. Just in time, as I stepped up and bellowed “Sweet surrender on the quayside”. I had been nervous about that too, the first line; it had went alright though, hook and sinker, and so I relaxed as I found “You remember we used to run and hide” streaming out of my mouth. My hands moved automatically. “Convenient.” I thought, and then after that, it was a blur. Andrew punched it out seamlessly behind us, Cullen’s gold-in-hand tagged all the lynchpin fills and Faber bassed the way through the chorus, which he backed with his signature, but somehow appropriate rasp: “Let’s go down to the waterline…”

We weaved the solo, together. Bending and swaying all over the stage, the pleasure of practice flowing out like a cool mountain stream on a blistering summer day. I felt like a rockstar. Was I? All of a sudden I was back to 2006, Mac Hall, and Wilco. I had identified with them, they were what it was. Nels Cline was a rockstar. I imagined myself as him in his lumberjack shirt and chuckled to myself as we flowed out onto the safety of the lake, the end of the song and a girth of applause. My fingers tingled and my ears tickled. I eased more into the experience. It was real now. Tunnel vision fell away and I picked out some more smiling faces: Teale et al, Nick Kapple, Andrew, Luke and Matt, and….Tom Walker? Shit. I guess I had made it after all.

After that, an extra funky “Settin’ Me Up”. Cullen jingled and I jangled with Andrew’s crisp hats and Faber’s grounding lines. My favorite part? How we nailed that bit at the end with the Johnny Cash-country solo phrase. We bounced up and down and fell to the ground as Cullen dangled the crowd from a thread, Andrew boosting it out all the while. Faber had his trademark grinding smile working full-throttle. I shook and revealed stage tricks like Jimmy.

We played only the best. Mostly covers, but with a few notable exceptions, including a war-torn version of “Kathleen”, a bumping “She Drives Me Wild” and of course, the all-but-forgotten tribute to the bass man, “Here’s To You.” We joked too. Andrew, leaning into his drum mic: “Hey guys! When’s the intermission?” Cullen: “Forget it! We’re just plowin’ through!”

We stomped out “Green River”, JJ Cale’s “Lies” and SRV’s “Tightrope.” I gave myself goosebumps on “Last Dance With Mary Jane” and an Andrew Poirier inspired “Moondance”. We dashed and danced through a “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” reminiscent of Carniegraw. We even revisited “Freebird”. That had taken some coaxing of Cullen, but this time his monitor was bang on, and he demolished it. Brilliance, if I ever saw it.

A highlight of the night was when Special Guest Alex Lee joined us on keys and organ, and slid us through a heartfelt “One by One”. Alex reminded me of when I had seen B.B. and I had sat in the very last row of the old Jubilee. I was so far back that I couldn’t really see anything exciting, except for the guy surrounded by organ and piano keys. One hand on the piano, the other at a 90 degree angle, on the organ, he was all over the place and it sounded great. Like in “The Last Waltz”, Alex 1-2-3′d us in and out like he was cradling a baby. He strode off to passionate applause, still as wonderful as ever.

We closed out with track 7, 8 and 9 from the same album we’d opened with. Zipping and zapping by “In The Gallery” and into the quietly bolstering “Wild West End” , our finale crept up behind us all. By the time we got into “Lions”, I could see everyone could tell. This was it. The lights dimmed to black as we faded into a space-jam of A chord reverb and walked pointedly off in the dark, still playing. Andrew brought it flooding back at the last second with a massive flurry of sticks, at which we all jumped back on for the final blaze of light, and the last punch. Then we fell back into darkness and ringing ears. We waited behind the curtain, sitting precariously on the applause. We had planned it that way; Faber, who knew all about encores, would nod when the teeter-totter of time was balanced. Not too hasty, not too tardy a return. Just right.
Finally, he tipped his head and stepped out. We flew after him. The crowd burned with anticipation as we took our familiar places and waited. Cullen on my right, Faber on my left, Andrew directly behind. Like in the old Beatles movies.

Faber counted out again and we dropped in just like yesterhour, to the tune of…what else but… Sultans of Swing.

It was a far cry from the old basement sessions; no-one dropped their pick or had to read off of power-tab, that was certain. From the first note, the crowd was up and clapping on time. Faber and I sang harmony all through, with Cullen joining us at “….Sultan’s of Swing” and ripping the solo with his eyes closed and knees bent. We played the honky-tonk like anything, and everyone got it. They twisted and bounced and twirled. I was a ball of goosebumps, and before I knew, I was singing through those rare, soft tears. We kept it tight though, and swung through to our genuine finale, crashing and banging all the way to a thunder of applause that rocked us backstage.

We all looked at each other like we had just broken several laws. Then we broke out into laughter, and those wonderful, sharp high-fives. “Chya!” And then Faber said: “Good job boys…bonus marks for everyone! Just don’t open any chocolate bars.”

We laughed some more and then made our way out towards the real reunion in the glimmering foyer. Cullen and I dropped back before going through. The door trembled with what the other side of it offered. They were waiting. I looked at Cullen, my tears dry, my bandana sweaty. I tore it off and ran my fingers through my hair. “We did good, I think..” He looked at me, glowing. “Noah,” he said, “If we had been any more perfect, we would have been lip syncing.”

Get It Out

Get it out, get it out

Just allow yourself to shout about

The moments that might have been

The sights you could have seen

 

Well let’s not get ourselves stressed, too excited, or depressed

Cause it’s not what it seems

There’s someone in between

 

And everybody claims to know

But I won’t believe it ’till you say so

You’re not the one

We’re just like that settin’ sun

 

So get it out, get it out

Just allow yourself to shout about

The stars, and what did they mean?

And the leaves, how they were green

 

Well it seems I won the battle, but I lost the war

Seems that I don’t matter, now that love’s a chore

Seems I won the battle, but I lost the war

Seems that you don’t matter, now that hearts are sore

 

So get it out, get it out

Just allow yourself to shout about

The moments I was too keen

And the dream that I had seen

 

So what if we could say what we mean,

And everything, we could mean to say?

Oh, with my heart you play

But I expected that anyway

 

Well it seems I won the battle, but I lost the war

Seems that I don’t matter, now that love’s a chore

Seems I won the battle, but I lost the war

Seems that you don’t matter, now that hearts are sore

 

 

 

Something New From The Colville/Cebuliak Duo

Seventeen, and I left home
Tryin to find what I was lookin for
Wandered away, one cotton day
Straight into a pair of eyes
So bright they cleared up the skies

California holds no bounds
So we upped and drove on down
Sunday nights, She’d read my mind
bout what the future holds
Turns out I didn’t live that old

Though we didn’t know it then
We both wanted to be more than friends
And that night we danced
We both missed our chance

2 weeks with her watchin’ waves
Oh god, I wish I could be that brave
And tell her how I feel, make it all so real
No more hiding beneath the sheets,
I wanted that more than anything

Though we didn’t know it then
We both wanted to be more than friends
And that night we danced
We both missed our chance
Now I don’t see her much
But oh how I miss her touch
And that night we danced
we both missed our chance

And I’ll always remember her
Those nights when I held the world
but theres no such thing as a second chance