RECORD STORE TALES #1193: Do you believe in Car-ma?
For a couple years now, the neighbour across the hall has been messing with my side view mirror. As if to make a statement about parking too close to his car, he likes to push my side view mirror inwards. Sometimes I would be driving to work in the morning, not realizing I didn’t have the use of my passenger side view mirror. It was infuriating. In our Condo Facebook group, I kindly and then more aggressively requested that whoever was messing with my car, to stop.
There’s a cardinal rule I was raised with and stayed true though adulthood: you don’t touch somebody else’s car. You just don’t.
I’ve never seen this guy actually flip my mirror in, but I have seen him touch my car on purpose before. There is a general consensus that he’s the guy doing it, since he parks on that side of my car.
I’ve considered being vindictive before, and fucking with his side view mirrors right back, but that wouldn’t be winning, would it? It would be hypocritical as to the cardinal rule of not touching other people’s cars.
Fortunately, karma was in my corner. This was the hood of his car on June 10 2025. Nature took its course for me! Sometimes you gotta chalk it up as a win.
RECORD STORE TALES #1192: Close Encounter of the Stinky Kind!
It has been the Spring of Unseasonal Cold! Unable to catch a break this year, Jen and I have spent most of our cottage time indoors with the heat cranked. What a change from years past. The water levels are low, and we have not seen much wildlife. Well, except for a recent close encounter.
We left for the lake on Thursday night, to the soundtrack of Frehley’s Comet. Friday was a day off, and it was spent cooking exotic meat on the barbecue (more on that in a bit). It was also spent flying my new drone. A step up from the Potensic, I now have in my arsenal a Ruko U11MINI 4k. Unfortunately, due to the wind and cold, I only had one flight with it. You can see from the video footage that the camera is far superior. The images and videos are clearer, and level with the horizon. I will be posting a full review soon, and more videos, as I work with the drone and gain more experience.
We ran out propane on Friday night, just after my lamb chops were cooked to a perfect medium rare. The last gasps of flame puffed to an end as the lamb was finished. Of course, with two big beautiful steaks on deck for Saturday night, we had to get more propane. Friday was the day for exotic meat – scallops, moose sausage, and lamb chops. Each one of them turned out perfect. My scallops had an abundance of butter to soak up, seasoned with garlic oil and chunks. The moose sausage was strong but not game-y, and the lamb of course was the highlight. I did those with butter, garlic, oregano and fresh parsley. But Saturday was steak day, the “big” day. We had a porterhouse and a ribeye to grill! Propane would be purchased on Saturday morning.
I woke Jen up around 7:00 AM. Nobody likes hitting the Kincardine McGas bar during the breakfast rush, so we aimed to be there before that. I started warming up the family truckster, Jen got in, and I noticed that I left a Tim’s coffee cup in the car. I grabbed it and quickly ran over to my fireplace to toss it out. It was a cool but beautiful morning, still dim as we waited for the sun to penetrate the clouds.
Just as I approached the fireplace from behind, preparing my aim to launch my cup, I saw movement!
Black and white movement!
I skidded to a halt and aborted the launch of my coffee cup. It landed meters away from the target — which was a blessed thing! Inside the fireplace, nosing around looking for scraps, was a large black and white skunk. I shrieked like a baby and ran. “There’s a skunk in there!!” I shouted to Jen who had no idea why I was running.
I was literally a second away from being sprayed. If I had not halted when I did, that coffee cup would have launched right into the fireplace, hitting and startling the skunk, and thus ruining my weekend and probably the week after.
Close call! They say close only counts in horseshoes? It also counts when barely missing a skunk at 7:00 AM!
RECORD STORE TALES #1191: Top Five Cool Things You May Not Know About Alan Niven
A couple weeks ago, I was asked by John Snow of 2Loud2OldMusic to co-host a big big interview he was offered.
“How would you like to interview Alan Niven with me?” he asked. John hadn’t done a solo interview before, and wouldn’t have minded a backup.
“Alan Niven? The Alan Niven? Yes!” How could I say no? The guy who managed Guns N’ Roses during their peak? The guy who co-wrote some amazing Great White songs, drawing out their best qualities? The guy who has a new book coming out called Sound N’ Fury? Of course!
While nervous, reading Alan’s book left us with loads and loads of questions to ask him. Without spoiling the interview, which will debut next week on The Collection on YouTube, here are the Top Five Cool Things You May Not Know About Alan Niven that I discovered in this interview process.
5. He had the “stones” to demand $1,000,000 from Mick Jagger, for Guns to open for the Rolling Stones on four dates at the Hollywood Bowl. Guns were originally offered half that.
4. He had to physically pull up Jack Russell’s pants, more than once, to keep him from being arrested.
3. He is well read and well spoken. He opens Sound N’ Fury with a quote from Macbeth.
2. There is an absolutely brilliant story about a music video director that later became a mega-smash-hit movie director, and the way Niven unfolded the story and dropped the name was pure epic storytelling. Read the book to get the name.
1. “Nobody died on my watch.” Indeed, of all the self-destructive personalities in the bands he managed, nobody died under his guidance. That is indeed an accomplishment, and to me, the most powerful quote in the book.
Pick up Sound N’ Fury by Alan Niven, wherever fine books are sold.
SOONER [Noun]: “Sooners” is how my dad refers to the people who show up to go to the beach for the day. I wondered what “Sooners” meant so I looked it up. He must have got it from one of his cowboy movies. Sooner: “a person settling on land in the early West before its official opening to settlement in order to gain the prior claim allowed by law to the first settler after official opening.”
RECORD STORE TALES #1190: Return of the Sooners
I like to do something new every time I go to the lake, if possible. This time, I didn’t have anything planned. I had two shows to do, but otherwise I wanted to enjoy my time and the surroundings without too much goal-setting.
This time, however, plans took a turn of their own. Allow me to explain.
John Snow invited me to co-host an interview with a big, big name. That interview was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, the 22nd of May. I had planned to go to the cottage on Friday afternoon. However, the big interview got re-scheduled at the last minute, to Monday the 26th. Frustrated, I decided to cheer myself up by going to the lake on Thursday night instead, and working from there on Friday morning. Something unthinkable just five years ago.
The wifi is better at the lake and I have more space. We left town Thursday night and I dutifully worked a cold, rainy Friday morning from the cottage. I wanted to work from the porch, but the cold and rain made this impossible. It is rarely so cold in May, but here we are. We have not had one nice weekend at the lake yet this season!
Even so, working from the lake was awesome: making my bacon mere inches away from my laptop, or being able to step outside and enjoy the (cold) fresh air! But best of all, when the day was over we didn’t have to drive anywhere. We were already there! The bonus time spent at the lake was a game changer.
Friday afternoon was booked off. We went into town to buy some treats, and came back to a Friday afternoon all our own. There was nobody around. Not one cottage on our stretch was occupied that weekend. The peace and quiet was unusual! The last time up, I was worried that the guy across the road was going to blow leaves all through my Friday show. This time there was nobody across the street.
Mid-afternoon, sitting in my armchair, I saw a car across the road. I saw him stop, look out the door, and pull into the neighbour’s driveway.
“Ah crap,” I murmured to myself. “Looks like we won’t be alone after all this weekend.”
A few moments later, I noticed five people standing and sitting around our bench at the beach.
“That wouldn’t be the neighbours,” I said to myself. “They have their own property on the beach. They have never used ours. Who are these people?”
I allowed them a few minutes to take pictures or do whatever they were doing, but they didn’t move on.
Sooners. Goddamn sooners! They were back after a long absence. I hadn’t seen any sooners in two years. I decided to make sure they knew they were on private property, and using my bench!
I put on my hoodie and walked down to the beach. I saw them turn and watch me approach. Five guys. They looked like students to me.
I nodded as I approached my bench. I was curt with them.
“Hey, just going to use my bench. This is my property.” I paused. “See ya.”
They began moving on, but back through the neighbour’s property.
“You can’t go that way,” I alerted them. “That’s private property. You have to use the public walkway.” I pointed to it, a few feet to their left.
“Do you know where there is parking around here?” one of them asked.
“There isn’t any. This is a private road. You have to go park up the side road.”
I watched them leave. After a while, I walked up to the side road to see where they parked. They were nowhere to be found. They had left the subdivision completely. I guess I scared them off.
In the Battle of the Sooners in 2025, the score is now 1-0 for me!
Because of the cold and rain, we didn’t get a lot of outdoors stuff done to report on. However, the weekend was not over, and we did get some drone time and some photos taken, so there will be more to come.
Growing up in an Italian family, we ate a lot of pasta. Usually it was the tried and true spaghetti and meatballs. Even though she’s not Italian, my mom makes a mean lasagna. These were always treats and delights to have for dinner, but as far as pasta went, nothing topped my Aunt Maria’s aglio e olio.
It’s very simple yet requires knowledge and the perfect touch. Aglio e olio is simply spaghetti in olive oil and garlic. It’s usually served with chili flakes and parsley or other herbs. As simple as it gets; no red sauce and no meat. If you do add meat, I recommend medium rare steak or garlic shrimp. It’s up to you; my sister Dr. Kathryn likes hers with mushrooms.
We looked forward to aglio with Aunt every time there was a special occasion. My aunt would often make a meal for the rest of the family, such as a ham, but also make a batch of aglio special for me. We had it for birthdays and we had it for visits. Try as we might, we never could quite get the recipe right at home. The recipe had been passed down from her mother, and she made it better than most restaurants. There were tricks to it, as it turns out, that I had completely missed.
Aunt never added meat to her aglio. She never had to. The garlic was always soft and golden, and the overall gestault of the pasta gave an aura of umami even without meat. You could add kalamata olives if you wanted to keep it vegan but add even more saltiness.
I attempted many variations of this at home, all failures. I tried cheating and using garlic olive oil, or enhancing the pasta with garlic powder. Awful! I added vegetables and cheeses in the effort to bring in more flavour, never matching my aunt’s perfection. I would phone them at their home in Stratford and ask for tips. Obviously something was getting lost in translation, because it always came out bland.
And they said it was the simplest one! Indeed, look at an Italian restaurant’s menu and aglio e olio is always the cheapest of the spaghettis. There’s hardly anything to it.
I thought the secret was to make sure you added some hot, starchy pasta water to the oily mixture of garlic and extra virgin olive oil. Simple enough. What I didn’t really understand until Saturday, May 18 2025 was that I was doing everything right, just not enough.
I was determined to get it right this time. I asked Jen to pick up a nice steak and some spaghetti and I was going to get aglio e olio right for a change. For the first time.
Dutifully she came home with a beautiful strip loin with a nice cap of fat, at 50% off because she knows exactly when during the week the meat goes on sale. I rubbed it with olive coil, sea salt, ground pepper, and a little Montreal steak spice for Jen. She likes it; I can do without except in light moderation. I chopped up a whole bulb of garlic into different sized chunks, for a variety of flavours and textures as you found them on your fork. I smooshed some. It varied.
Using my cast iron pan, I seared that steak on medium high on all four sides, and then let it cook a little longer after turning the heat down. I chopped some parsley and let the steak rest. It was a perfect medium rare, as I’d discover at the end when I finally sliced it. It was also perfectly seasoned.
I set a pot to boil, adding a little olive oil to the water (I understand this helps keep the spaghetti from sticking), and a lot of table salt. Not sea salt; table salt. I didn’t measure, but it was a lot.
“Aglio can’t be too salty;” I reasoned. Every time I made it in the past, I sought ways to up the saltiness, be it with meat or olives. Salting it at the table didn’t work. What I learned was, you have to salt the pasta by salting the water, generously. This is what will give the aglio its flavour later on, enhancing the garlic and finally making its presence known.
Once the water is at a vigorous boil, I throw in a whole package of spaghetti. I cracked the noodles in half and dumped them in the water. I put the lid on and they cooked quickly.
I already had a saucepan full of olive oil going at medium heat. Exactly three minutes after I put the spaghetti in the water, I dumped all my garlic in the olive oil, stirring frequently and ensuring it didn’t burn.
Always taste your spaghetti frequently to make sure it’s not going to be overcooked. That’s the worst. Instead, take the spaghetti out of the water about a minute before it’ll be at the perfect done-ness for you. As soon as I took my first taste of the not-yet-cooked noodles, I knew I was close. I hadn’t tasted that since my aunt made aglio at the cottage. It was so familiar. When the spaghetti was done, I drained it immediately. Key here is to save at least 1/2 cup of that salty, starchy pasta water, because you’re going to immediately transfer all the pasta into the saucepan with the garlic oil. Pour in the 1/2 cup of water and mix everything together in the saucepan, ensuring you coat every strand of spaghetti with that starchy garlic oil. Throw in some chili flakes and parsley. Add Parmesan cheese at the table to taste.
I threw some beautiful steak slices on top and served. My aunt’s recipe had been saved.
You see, my aunt has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for many years now. She can’t cook and wouldn’t be able to tell us the recipe anymore. It would have been lost. I saved it today. Let it be known, that on May 18 2025, I saved the Maria Ladano (Festoso) recipe for aglio e olio. It lives again.
I know that my aunt doesn’t understand what is happening to her right now, but I hope that her spirit would be gladdened to know that I have saved this classic recipe for all time. Here it is. I just wrote it down. It can never go away now.
Thank you Aunt Maria. For all the toy trucks, GI Joes and Transformers and CDs and tapes, the spaghetti was the best gift.
RECORD STORE TALES #1188: I Wanna Be A Lifeguard: Long Weekend at the Lake – May 2025
Jen and I were fortunate enough to spend a long weekend at the cottage, arriving Thursday night (May 8). As has been my goal for several seasons now, I try to do new things each time, when possible. This time, it was something out of the box.
Having become more comfortable working from home thanks to the pandemic, I asked my bosses if I could work from home Thursday afternoon, saving me 30 minutes of commute time and accumulating traffic, and getting to the lake that much faster.
“That’s a great idea, you should do that,” came the first response.
“Why don’t you just work the whole day from home?” came the second.
I was pleased to receive so much support. With that plan in motion, we hit the road at 4:30 sharp.
Unfortunately traffic was slow, and it took over two hours to get there, but imagine if we didn’t have that extra time. Music on the way up included Sing the Sorrow by AFI, to prepare for that Saturday’s show with D’Arcy Briggs, an album in review. Once we arrived, I hit the porch and rocked out to “I Wanna Be A Lifeguard” by Blotto. I delighted in emailing Broadway Blotto the video footage.
With coffee and snacks in hand, we were well prepared for a great weekend. Though cold, I did manage to spend a lot of time outdoors, with hoodie protecting me from the bitter breeze. All the snow was gone now, though only recently.
The next morning I went for a fly down to the river with my drone, and captured some wonderful footage.
Music: Blue Rodeo – “Dragging On”
At 8:15 AM, we headed out to get the best choices of steaks at the Beef Way. We chose two T-bones, some fry-pies, and for me, lake trout and duck legs. The duck legs made for a tasty lunch that afternoon. I wanted to do some kind of potato in duck fat, so I boiled two potatoes in hot water until they were soft, but still solid. I then got a grooved aluminium tray, and laid slices of potato in the grooves. I placed the seasoned legs on top and seasoned everything. When the duck fat started to render, the potatoes fried in it, making them so crispy with a pleasant accent to the flavour. In short, the best fries I ever made. And the duck legs weren’t bad either.
Sometimes at the cottage when it’s cold, you have to force yourself to be outside, so I pulled out some old Transformers toys (some vintage, some reissues) and did some fun photos on the front porch. I even experimented with filming one of the big ones from the air with my drone.
I had more changes to fly on the weekend, capturing incredible images of Lorne Beach, on the western coast of Lake Huron. The footage was some of the nicest I’ve managed to take.
Music: Bruce Cockburn – “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”
It is always fun editing these drone videos to music. This time it was all Canadian content and nothing too hard. There’s a line in “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” that has long resonated with me:
“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.”
Playing the song on the front porch that afternoon, I dedicated the song to a couple of friends who are dealing with health struggles. Raise your goblet and send some love to these friends.
I watched a lot of Doctor Who, ate too much meat, and had a great time feeling like a kid again. There was one eerie moment of déjà vu, and I absolutely love when these moments come. Usually the come when music was the trigger, but this time it was Doctor Who. I was watching some classic Tom Baker era episodes on Tubi, on my laptop on the front porch. As a kid, I always associated Doctor Who with Sunday nights. There would be a few episodes to watch (either Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker) before bed time, and back to school the next morning. As the day grew late and I started working on dinner, it felt like a Sunday night again. Family dinner as the sun was getting low. It was actually Friday, but the feeling of Sunday was uncanny. Do you ever get the Sunday blues? It was like that, but warmer because it was Friday and just a memory of happy childhood.
We didn’t see any wildlife, which was disappointing, but there’s always next time.
Seeking to avoid a Monday crash, I tried to place my mind in the right set. We drove home without much talking, but a steady soundtrack of Kiss. Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, and Dynasty. When I really need to feel good, Kiss are usually a good band to go to. Nothing but good memories with Kiss.
As for the cottage, it is always sad saying goodbye, but we came home on Mother’s Day and had a nice visit with the folks, and a dinner on Dad. We’ll be back soon enough. And in fact, when we do return, we’ll be doing our first live episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden from the cottage. Little things like that get me excited. I’ve already started packing.
2008. Jen and I were newlyweds. A few people had told us that it was the best wedding they’d ever been to, including some Record Store party people. I will take partial credit for assembling some killer tunes, but the truth is we did a cool mixture of traditional and unique. We don’t play by the rules and that’s what our wedding was like. For instance, I was told that I had to stand at the front of the church and wait for people to arrive, all serious and stationary. Screw that! I joined the ushers and I greeted people at the church door as they arrived. I mingled, I chatted, and I had fun. I made sure the guests did too. Later on, the reception was off the hook.
The glow lasted weeks. Jen and I were the “new couple” and we basked in it a while. Soon, however, we had to pass the baton on to the next couple. Some old school friends of Jen’s were tying the knot in Toronto that fall. While Jen and I still felt like the gleaming new couple, this time we were just guests. It was kind of a cool feeling. We were dressed up nicely, but since we were just guests, I didn’t bother with a tie, and I felt way more relaxed.
I didn’t know this couple, but they were very nice and made me feel welcome. That was difficult, since the guests were almost entirely old highschool friends that I didn’t know, and they’d all break into inside jokes and stories that left me feeling like a 13th wheel.
There was one guy who was definitely not one of their old schoolmates. Dressed in suit and tie, this man was 10 or 15 years older than us. He had long black hair specked with grey, in a ponytail, and a fancy goatee. He sat in the chapel, in the row in front of us.
“Who’s that guy?” I asked somebody.
“Their weed dealer,” came the surprising answer.
“Cool,” I said. They invited their weed dealer. Nothing more to add.
The bride entered, the ceremony began, and I sat quietly in my seat. Then, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Movement where there should be no movement…in the drug dealer’s hair.
I watched with mouth agape as the tiniest spider crawled up and down a thread of silk in the man’s hair. Up and down, up and down. I could not believe it. I whispered to Jen.
“Jen…look at his hair…”
It took a moment, but when the spider scooted down his silk fireman’s pole, she saw.
“Oh my God!” Jen has a fear of spiders.
I just laughed behind my hand.
We may have had a unique wedding, but we definitely didn’t have any hair spiders. That was something I’ve never seen since. The happy couple is still together today. As for the dealer…I do not know what happened to him, but I pray that Shelob never had a meal of him!
There we were, three men in our 50s, sipping hot drinks as old men do. One of us is bald now. One of us has grey, stringy hair. The third one, perhaps having sampled the powers of longevity from the One Ring itself, had barely aged a day. There he stood, tall and red: the legendary Bob.
“What’s your drink?” I asked, having ordered a large coffee for everyone.
“I only drink tea,” he explained. “I’ve never drank coffee actually.”
“I did not know that,” I replied. You learn something new everyday, even about the guy you grew up with.
And so, Scott Peddle, myself and the legendary Bob gathered over hot beverages to catch up. For Bob and I, it had been only a year and a half since the last funeral at which we reunited. Lately, it has only been funerals. For Scott, it was their first meeting since 1989, when Bob graduated highschool.
We smiled, we reacquainted, and we laughed. It was good to be together again. Our small trio was only a fraction of the old neighbourhood gang. George, of course, is 10 years gone now.
“So I have to know, do you still listen to music? And do you listen to the old stuff?” I asked Bob.
“Not so much; my kids like the current music. One of my sons likes the old rock.” I smiled. Someone was continuing the legacy.
Scott then showed off his magnificent Kiss tattoos. Both of us still love Kiss. Some things have never changed. Bob still has some of his old Iron Maiden picture discs.
Talk soon focused on the old neighbourhood. The late George was older, and always a bit of a pervert. He had no problem telling us what dirty song lyrics were really about. “Let me ask you something,” I queried Bob. “Did you know what a ‘love gun’ was? Or did you think it was something else? I thought it was like a gun that shot love potion, like in stories and movies.” Bob agreed. It didn’t occur to us that Paul Stanley was singing about his wiener. Our innocent minds interpreted the lyrics innocently.
I remember a conversation with George about the Kiss song “Under the Gun”. I assumed the song was about cars. “Let’s hit the highway doing 69!” sang Paul Stanley.
“That’s not about driving,” said George, but declined to elaborate. He was always the one with the dirty mind.
Coffee with Bob and Scott was probably the fastest two hours I’ve ever spent. We spent just as much time talking about the past as the present. What are you driving? More like, what is your son driving? Remember that time that Mike threw a lawn dart and hit Mrs. Reddecopp’s car? Bob and I agreed to cover for me by blaming it on George. It was the only time George was innocent, but got the blame anyway. Most of the time he was the guilty party. Not always. We reminisced about all sorts of activities that we got into in the 80s. Speaking from my own perspective, I think we felt entitled to own those streets as kids. Cutting through a private parking lot to get to the mall quicker? That was OUR route; we beat that path into the grass with our own feet, week after week. How dare they fence it off! What rebels we were.
Walking to the mall and Short Stop on a Saturday is a memory of something I miss. Short Stop in those days was like a different store. No liquor, but loads of comic books and magazines, candy and kites. When we were young, we’d walk or bike and buy a comic and a candy bar. When we were older, it was a rock magazine and a bag of chips. We were, literally kids in a candy store, but the candy store was way better.
Conversation drifted back and forth from family to vehicles to work, but always circled back to George; the tie that still binds us.
I noticed something interesting. Within the microcosm of our small suburban neighbourhood, there were subdivisions. Scott Peddle was part of the “Secord Gang”, consisting of himself, George, and Sean and Todd Meyer. I was in the Owen Avenue Gang, which featured George, Rob Szabo, Bob and his brother. George’s house was the dividing line, thus he was in both groups. Further down, there was the snootier Halliwell Gang, and so on. These groups didn’t intermingle much, even though they were only meters apart. When you’re a kid, meters may as well have been miles.
Before too long, two hours were behind us, and other duties beckoned. We pledged to reunite again soon. And we will.
Some things are as temporary as morning mist, others last a lifetime. It’s a comforting thing to know.
RECORD STORE TALES #1185: The Worst Weather, and the Best Weekend! April 2025
We had a busy weekend lined up, but we were prepared for the worst – and the best! We got a bit of both, but our spirits have never been higher. Let’s rock this spring 2025!
Preparation is always key. We left town at 8:30 AM, bound for Toronto. It was time for Jen’s annual face-to-face with the neurologist, but traffic was light. Apparently it was quite busy the day before, with Metallica in town playing Thursday for the first of their no-repeat weekend. That was a stroke of luck, but then we hit a second one just as we arrived. Our appointment was for 10:00, and the 9:30 had cancelled at the last minute. That means we got seen early, and we got to the lake early too!
The doctor was happy with Jen’s progress, and is increasing a couple medications that seem to be have a positive effect. Good appointment, and we were back on the road.
The music to Toronto was Live-Loud-Alive by Loudness, and the music to the cottage was the brand-new Dreams On Toast by the Darkness. The Darkness album is easily their best since Last Of Our Kind, and will warrant a lengthy review over its 29 combined tracks.
We had a second pleasantly uneventful drive up, arriving in Kincardine at 2:00 PM. We made our first stop of 2025 at our butcher, the Beefway. There we picked up two beautiful T-bone steaks, some assorted bacon ends (applewood smoked), and some pickerel, pickles & pies. In and out in under 10 minutes.
Friday afternoon was a weird one. It was cold, then it rained, and then got warm and humid. I took a stroll and found the last patch of snow left on the beach. I attempted to make a snowball, but the snow was not good for packing. It was dark all day, and I set up on the front porch to rock the music. The first album of the year was Combo Akimbo by Blotto, since the guys have been so cool to me this year. Always a fun record. Around “Metal Head”, I decided to try flying my drone. Just as I got it in the air, it started raining. No flying on Friday. The rain did not hamper the 100th episode of Grab A Stack of Rock, which broadcast from the porch as planned. Even Broadway Blotto came to check out the festivities.
We were indoors for the rest of the weekend, but the pickerel and steaks were sublime. The sun did finally come out Sunday morning, which enabled me to take the first real flight of 2025. Nothing fancy, but plenty of beauty. I think I need to start flying less as a pilot, and more as a cinematographer. Maybe that will be part of 2025’s goals. Improve the drone videos with better, smoother shots. I may have something in the works there.
I always like to do something every year at the lake that I have never done before. Here are three for this weekend alone:
First time seeing snow at the cottage this late in the season.
First time barbecuing Spam. (Frying pan is better for Spam.)
Took the drone a teeny bit further this time and got a look down the river.
The music home was, of course, Iron Maiden! There is no rest for the wicked, nor for 50 Years of Iron Maiden. Fear of the Dark is next up on the recording schedule.
It was such a packed weekend that I slept for 13 hours on Sunday night.
We’ll be back soon. The April showers will bring the May flowers.
Much as Tolkien was reticent to write a sequel to Lord of the Rings (itself, technically a sequel), I was reluctant to talk about the Legendarium of George any further. I thought I had said as much as was needed about this character and his adventures in 1980s Kitchener Ontario. Upon further reflection, I realized that the story of George was incomplete, even insofar as public information was concerned. If a story is private, it’s private, but if it was common knowledge in the neighbourhood, it’s safe to discuss.
RECORD STORE TALES #1184: The Legendarium of George: Gene Simmonsarillion
My sister and I hid in the garage. We opened up the milkbox/mailbox from the inside, and pried open the mail slot with a stick. Then, we waited. And waited. Some days, nothing would happen. Others would be like pure gold; like finding the hord of Smaug.
If we were patient enough, the bass playing would begin.
It was easy to identify certain basslines, such as “100,000 Years”. George would hit the first two notes – “Dm dmmmmmm…”, pause and hit them again just like Gene Simmons did on Kiss Alive! And then…
“I’M SORRY TO HAVE TAKEN SO LONG, IT MUST HAVE BEEN A BITCH WHILE I WAS GONE…”
George half-yelled, and half-croaked out the lyrics to the song. My sister and I sat there, laughing out loud but unheard by George. He was enveloped in song. If we had X-ray vision, we could have seen him in his room, headband holding his curls in place, wristbands on each arm, and absolutely mangling “100,000 Years”.
George was good entertainment. He’d boast about how great he was, but we got to hear him loud and clear.
Then, suddenly, his mother would shriek from the kitchen below.
“WILLIAM! SUPPER’S READY!”*
“I’ll be down when I’m done this song!” he’d yell back.
“WILLIAM! GET DOWN HERE NOW!”
We never found out why his mother called him “William”. That wasn’t even his middle name! But that was the name she screamed when it was supper time, no matter where he was. Usually he was down the street. Everyone always knew when it was supper time at George’s house.
His mother was a character too. One day she came over our house with a bag full of clothes that didn’t fit her or the kids anymore. Take ’em, she said. My mother threw this gross bag of clothes in the trash. A few days later, George’s mom asked for the bag back. “Oh I’m sorry, I donated it!” lied my mom wisely. Who gives away a bag of clothes and then asks for it back? George’s eccentricities were certainly genetic.
I remember some time around 1986 or 87, George was constantly on the shitlist with his parents. Even if I wasn’t evesdropping, I could always hear them arguing from my bedroom window. One afternoon I overheard his dad saying he was going to kick George out. That was the day I wrote my first ever original song. It was called “George Is Gone”, and it went something like this (to a jazzy rock beat).
“George is gone, Yeah he’s really really gone, George is gone, Yeah he’s really really gone.”
[Repeat]
They never did kick out George, but he was around less and less as we got older. I ran into him once at the Record Store, shopping with his mom. That was the last time I ever saw him in person.
George may be gone, but thanks to the Legendarium of George, he’ll never be gone.
*Some recall that his mother yelled “GEORGIE!” when it was supper time. It was probably both that and “WILLIAM”!
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