I couldn’t wait to get my drone in the air when I got to the cottage. We made it up in good time, all to the soundtrack of the Beaches. I managed to pick up their first two EPs in Toronto with Aaron the week prior (paying through the teeth). With very little traffic to deal with, we ran through The Beaches, Heights, and Blame My Ex before arrival. Then it was time to fly!
We only had two good days for flying, Thursday and Friday. It started to get rainy on Saturday which made it the proverbial “indoor day“. Still, we celebrated our three day weekend with great food and excitement. It was a brilliant weekend for nature sightings. We spotted plenty of the usual chipmunks and squirrels, but we were treated to a rafter of wild turkeys, who lingered long enough to be filmed. There was even a curious seagull who swooped in to check out my drone. We also spotted our unafraid fox, Eric, who strolled directly past us twice without fear or hurry. I was unable to get my camera out either time, which is a shame. He was mere feet away.
My Amazon delivery this time was a new landing pad for my drone. I discovered that landing in the grass was difficult, so the landing pad gives me a flat square anywhere I go. Amazon showed up during my interview with author Angie Moon on Grab A Stack of Rock, which was funny to me. Until recently, if you wanted something like that you’d have to wait until you got home to the city. Now, Amazon can be there next day. Unbelievable! For most of my young life there, we didn’t have phones or cable TV. Now we have wi-fi and Amazon delivering priority parcels in the afternoon. I cannot say that I mind. One thing that I used to miss during my teenage cottage weekends was access to my friends and record stores. Now they’re all there at a touch of a button.
The drone footage was exceptional, and made up the bulk of the video for the trip. And why not? It’s my new toy and I love it. It’s so easy and intuitive to use. It has given me more options for being creative. I simply could not wait to get home and start editing my new video.
RECORD STORE TALES #1131: Foxes & Fireworks Five New Things This Weekend at the Lake
After 52 years, it’s not always easy coming up with new experiences to have at the lake. Sometimes it’s a fortuitous mixture of planning and luck. I am always conscious that every second at the lake counts. Unfortunately, my energy isn’t what it was. I don’t remember having so many naps back in those days. I just remember going, and going, and going! Gosh, when Peter Cavan used to come up to the cottage for a weekend, we’d go from one activity to another without taking a break. We’d go from badminton to throwing around a football, to playing a video game to making a stir fry for dinner. Then we’d be in the car to buy some fireworks. We like it easier these days.
New thing #1: Road tunes
Our weekend began on Thursday evening for the first spin of Arkells’ new album Disco Loadout Volume One on the road. It was a singalong success from start to finish, but it only took us as far as Listowel. For the rest of the trip, we played the Moody Blues Long Distance Voyager. Another success. It is always a pleasure to try new tunes for the road. I am happy to report that both albums did very well, and voices were raised.
We settled in quickly for a quiet weekend. Well, quiet for the moment. I inaugurated the weekend with some Deep Purple on the porch. This was done to celebrate Rock Daydream Nation’s excellent Deep Purple Stormbringer episode, which I was a part of. The episode was well received and I had a blast doing it. Of course, Friday night was Grab A Stack of Rock which I always love doing from the lake. There’s only one issue with doing anything on the porch involving a computer.
As another hallmark of my increasing age, my back hurts plenty after a day of rocking out and a night of live streaming from the porch. Writing? Extremely difficult. The deck chairs are very comfortable there, but only for leaning back. For working with a keyboard and a screen, they are not so practical. Not to mention, we just have these small glass deck tables to put my laptop on. I’ve used a number of laptop stands, but none offered the height, position and stability that I needed to easy my aching back. There must be a solution. Enter: Amazon.
New thing #2: Amazon calling
I heard through the grapevine that Amazon were now delivering to the cottage, though sometimes they have problems finding the addresses. Some of these places are not on GPS. However, let’s give it a shot. I picked a new desk that I thought would work on my front porch, and had it delivered straight to the cottage.
Much to my surprise, it worked! The delivery truck backed into the driveway at 3:00 in the afternoon, and I went outside to find a cardboard box on the deck, waiting for me!
The game has changed. With Amazon now offering next-day delivery to the cottage, imagine what things I will waste my money on when I’m bored! When we were kids staving off boredom, we were limited to whatever toys and cassette tapes the local stores had to offer. Not anymore!
Now, time to set up the desk!
New thing #3: I have a desk on the front deck now
The desk was easy enough to assemble, though the included tools were no match for my dad’s ratcheting screwdriver. It would have taken me an hour or more if I used the wimpy little screwdriver that came in the box. Soon, I had my desk set up, and adjusted for maximum comfort. The game has been changed.
I could spent all day typing now. It was like I had my own little porch nook, surrounded by coffee, lego, potato chips and CDs.
With this new desk, I should be able to do more writing and more video editing than ever before. If I want to! That’s the key to remember. The cottage is for relaxing. I must remember to do what feels right, instead of pressuring myself to “produce”. That said, it was great broadcasting Grab A Stack of Rock with such comfort.
I did want to produce a video short this weekend, and that was semi-successful.
New thing #4: Slow-motion fireworks
My mom and dad left us some Roman candles from the May 24 long weekend. Though not as practical as fountains, they would do for my attempt to get some slow motion video of fireworks.
The first one didn’t give me any footage. The problem is the firework is mostly pauses between bursts of colour. It’s hard to hit record at the exact right time to capture anything, and even at super slow-mo, it’s hard to get more than five seconds of footage. Next time we’ll try a fountain, but for this experiment, I was able to get two videos up on Youtube.
I love it when a plan comes together!
The last new thing that happened was complete serendipity.
On the Saturday night, Jen and I went down to the beach after finishing our delicious ribeye steak dinner. It was after sunset, but the glow of the sun lingers for hours, and you don’t need a flashlight at the beach during twilight. I got up to have a pee in the bushes, and after doing my business, I sang a little song and turned around. That’s what I saw him.
The fox was heading straight towards me. He had a gait unlike a dog. He was unmistakable. With absolutely no fear of humans, he walked with intent right past both of us, and on down the beach.
New thing #5: I finally captured the fox on camera
I’ve been trying for four years now, and I finally got him. The pictures don’t do him justice, but you’re never expecting the fox until he’s right there in front of you. I named this one Eric Caravello.
We didn’t even get into the Lego, the steaks, the fish fry! That will eventually make it into the cottage video.
A wonderful weekend of firsts. Maybe the next weekend will just be old favourites!
Last summer was different. I felt like I had something to prove. I lost the co-host that was responsible for the lion’s share of my views, and I wanted to pivot back to music. Grab A Stack of Rock was envisioned as an “easy” show, where I didn’t have to do any prep or homework. I was ready to work hard again and I think we did that. We brought back lists and deep dives and the show was so much better for it.
This year is a little different in another way, which is my old co-hosts are occupied. Harrison is busy focusing on his health. Other co-hosts have their own shows now. Others still are focusing on family. I can’t blame them for that. In a way, my show has been a bit like the Alice Cooper backing band. Just as he launched the careers of Kip Winger and many more, my show has launched others into the Youtube-sphere. That show out of Thunder Bay Ontario wouldn’t exist without my rocket boosters. With that in mind, I think this summer will be something of a slowdown.
This week we’re back at the cottage with John Clauser and Metal Roger. It’ll be their first cottage show.
What will the summer bring? Fewer shows perhaps, but Grab A Stack of Rock will still continue, perhaps with a few different faces that we didn’t have last summer. Some familiar ones as well. Grant from the Rock Warehaus wants to hang out on the front porch again this summer. I’m also thinking of doing a midnight outdoors show. We’ll see what the summer has in store, but one thing I don’t need to do is prove anything to anyone. We did that last year and we’re better off for it.
RECORD STORE TALES #1127: Walter – An Uncle Paul story
My Uncle Paul loved his “spot”. It was a comfy armchair at the cottage, right next to the patio screen door, and right in front of the TV. The phone was on an end table right next to it, and fridge was never far, with a fresh supply of cold beer. It was cool, shaded, comfortable, and perfect. On many days he’d prefer to sit there than come down to the beach, or playing cards. Who could blame him? Though we were often elsewhere while Uncle Paul did his thing, he was never alone.
He had Walter.
In reality, there was probably more than one Walter. Chipmunks typically only live two to three years, yet Walter, in one form or another, returned to his screen door year after year, looking for peanuts. There was also a second chipmunk that he named Fang. Doctor Kathryn recalls, “the other chipmunk he fed, he named Fang. Fang had part of his ear missing, and looked really banged up!” He probably ran afoul of a cat or Schnauzer.
We always had loads of chipmunks at the cottage. They’re not a pest, but they’re timid and not very brave by nature. If you left peanuts out (always shelled, unsalted), then you could gradually condition them to come closer and closer. Still, many would cower afar, especially since there were Schnauzers about, and Schnauzers and chipmunks are natural sworn enemies. This rivalry has been documented through history, most notably in the German children’s fable “The Chipmunk that Stole the Schnauzer’s Hat” (“Der Streifenhörnchen, der den Hut des Schnauzers Gestohlen“).
Through patience and time, Uncle Paul had trained little Walter the Chipmunk to come to his screen door and be rewarded with a peanut. The little brown, black and white creature would approach tentatively with caution, grasp a peanut his two front paws, stuff it in his cheeks, and dart off! He scampered across the deck, down to the ground and off into the unknown trees. But he’d be back, minutes later, ready to stuff another peanut in his cheeks. Uncle would always have an ample stash of nuts ready to serve.
This year, Jen and I have been visited by a new chipmunk friend on the front porch. It’s our first summer there since Uncle Paul passed in November. I’ve decided to name him Walter 2, in honour my uncle’s original friend.
“I want to do something new this weekend,” goes the eternal complaint. Even with Lake Huron in front of us, and a lush green paradise all around, sometimes I still moan about doing the same things every weekend.
There is so much you can do, but only a couple days to do it all. It’s easy to fall into comfortable habits and just…relax. However, the cottage is too special to just relax. Surely, I’ve had some of the best sleeps of my life there, but you don’t want to sleep your day away, as easy as it can be.
As always, we started the trip on the front porch. We always like to listen to music on our night of arrival, as the sun sets. This time, we chose Prince’s Purple Rain, which I didn’t own last year. This music was new to the cottage, and it was an absolutely incredible experience. I danced around the porch to “Computer Blue”, but the sun was setting just as Prince began singing about the “Purple Rain”. It was a surreal experience hearing Prince sing “Ooo, ooo, ooo,” as the orange and pink clouds slowly let the sun sink beneath the horizon. It felt like Prince was there in the forest somewhere, just out of sight.
New thing #1 achieved: “Purple Rain” at sunset.
We always like to experiment with food. Believe it or not, we have not made homemade burgers at the lake in decades. Why? My dad used to hate cooking them, as they’d fall to pieces on the grill. Not anymore. Thanks to a tip from my good buddy Thuss, we now are making our own homemade burgers. The secret: Freeze them. Once frozen, those patties stay together and do no break apart. For our first batch, this was our successful blend:
Lean beef (Jen wanted extra lean but I said no)
Ground thick cut bacon
1 egg
Bread Crumbs
Parmesan flakes
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Chili flakes
Minced fresh garlic
Minced fresh onion
Ketchup
Mustard
Olive oil
I don’t know how much of that we could actually taste, but it was fun and the result was juicy and perfect. And then next batch is already in the freezer waiting to be cooked up, with a new set of ingredients including local beef.
New thing #2 achieved: Perfect homemade burgers on the grill.
But wait, there’s more! Thanks to a new, deep cast iron frying pan, we also fried our own french fries. No more oven baked fries, or air fries! Only the real deal. They were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and perfect all around.
New thing #3 achieved: Golden brown french fries.
To quote ZZ Top: I AM your burger man.
“My charcoal’s getting red hot, Put your order in my hand, Won’t you let me show you what I got, Sizzling in the pan.”
I woke up on the Saturday morning as I often do, bright and early. It was damp and cold with not a single human to be seen, myself excluded. It’s a good time to spot wildlife. There have been bears in the area, but I did not see one. Instead, I saw a red canid coming up the path from the beach. A fox? I had not seen our local fox up there in at least a year. This animal had the gait of a fox, but not the bushy red and white tail. This animal had a thin, bony tail, and its frame was larger than a fox.
It was a coyote. My first coyote sighting, ever. I’ve heard them at night, but never seen one in the fur before.
New thing #4 achieved: Coyote sighting!
I knew there was no way I’d be able to grab my phone in time. I simply watched the confident, unafraid animal stroll down our little dirt road as if he was the only one in the world.
Of course, all of this would pale in comparison to the Aurora Borealis. I’d never seen the Northern Lights before. I did my best to describe the experience, but words and pictures do not capture the awe. It felts as if we were all under a huge electric dome. It is something I’ll never forget even if I never see it again. It began suddenly and dimly, before the lights were all you could see anywhere, in every direction. The lights reflected off the waters, and created beautiful patterns in the ripples.
New thing #5 achieved: Aurora Borealis
New experiences are not always possible at the lake, nor are they always necessary. Sometimes it’s enough to just sit on the porch and watch the days go by. After 52 years of coming to the exact same location, to have so many new sights, sounds and flavours in one weekend was unexpected.
The cottage is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get!
52 years of coming to the cottage, since my very birth, and there are still new things to see.
I used to think I was too far south to ever see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). Certainly it has never happened before. However, we are heading into a Solar Maximum, which means a high point in the sun’s 11 year cycle of activity. The sun’s magnetic field is a twisty turny-thing, and every 11 years, it gets twisted up into an increasingly excited state, and the sun ejects massive eruptions of particles into the surrounding space. When our Earth eventually collides with the charged particles, they create brilliant shows of light in the sky. There are both northern and southern borealis, and in northern Canada, people can see the lights easily. Where I live in the southern tip, we never see the lights!
May 10, around 10:15 PM, the lights came to visit the shores of Lake Huron.
Jen and I headed down to the beach, as the Boston Bruins were getting mauled by the Florida Panthers. I kept my eyes north, assuming that was where I would see the lights. Disappointed, I shouted back at Jen, “There’s nothing yet.”
I noticed something as I looked back at her. The sky was “hazy”,
“Is that it?” I asked Jen as I looked straight up. There was a cloudy streak across the sky.
Then I looked south and saw the horizon glowing green. The northern lights were not coming from the north! They were all around us, in every direction, like a glowing curtain! It was not at all what I expected to see.
The light show peaked for about 15 minutes, on a very cold night. The lights shifted and changed, ever so slowly, so that you barely noticed. You could stare at a band of green until it faded and was suddenly replaced by swirls of red. The moon was a sharp crescent and it cut a hole through a band of green, as did a handful of bright stars.
Photographs and videos, of course, only tell part of the story, and only insofar as technology can capture. The real colours and the subtle wispy cloudy bands we saw are lost in photos.
Directly overhead appeared to be the center of it all. Radiating out from a central point were bands of cloudy white, like a celestial starfish. Jen and I pondered this and wondered if the solar particles were hitting at that point.
I wish I had been listening to “Purple Rain” at that moment. It did almost look like purple rain at times.
Jen and I had a moment on the previous night, listening to “Purple Rain” during sunset. It was an uplifting, somewhat surreal moment to hear Prince soloing and singing over the sight of the glowing sky. Imagine if we had it playing during the borealis!
The bone-chilling cold of the Kincardine night cut our visit short, but I can now say I’ve seen the Northern Lights.
I never say this, but this time it’s true: Our first weekend at the cottage was absolutely perfect. Without a hitch. Exactly as planned, right down to the last detail. And loaded with new music!
The road trip began at 5:15 on Thursday night, April 25. Traffic was heavy, but not as heavy as the music! (We may need to look for another route out of town next time, as it took us almost half an hour just to escape Kitchener.) I had decided early in the week that the first road album of 2024 had to be Invincible Shield by Judas Priest! I had no doubt it would be one of the best road albums of the year. So confident was I, that I packed up my copy for Friday night’s Grab A Stack of Rock – Top 11 Albums to Play with the Windows Down. And I was right. “Crown of Horns” was the singalong track, though there were no duds. The album comes to a natural close on “Giants in the Sky” which has a classic Priest ending, but it’s not over yet! The bonus tracks give you a little extra road play, with a second ending in “The Lodger”. Brilliant album that kept us energized for the drive.
Priest couldn’t take us the whole way. When the Invincible Shield had ended, we moved onto Bruce Dickinson’s Mandrake Project. I haven’t had the time to absorb it yet, but Jen really enjoyed the album as we pulled down our little dirt road and into the driveway.
Everything was exactly as I left it back in October.
Taking my speakers out of storage, and making myself comfortable on the cool front deck, I chose the first porch album of the season. I didn’t want something as heavy rocking. Nor did I want something mellow and acoustic. This calls for the Arkells!
“We got gas in the tank to go all night,” sang Max Kerman from my porch. I danced away to this perfect evening. Rally Cry is the album I connected with the least last summer, being more political and less personal. This time it hit all the right spots, scratched all the itches, and began the season on the right note.
Jen noticed that I was joking around and more giddy than usual.
“Because I’m happy,” I said. “I feel alive again. This is what I had been waiting for.”
Friday was forecast as a summery, sunny day. We started early by picking up the first steaks of the season at the Beefway. We chose one porterhouse and one ribeye. This is our place to buy meat. There’s nobody better around. We stocked up on fish, pies, bacon and cooking oil. I had duck for lunch, and hot dogs and hamburgers in the evening.
For now, it was time for the main event: the first Grab A Stack of Rock from the cottage! It was a 3 PM afternoon show, and Jex was on board with his Top 11 Road Songs, in contrast to my album picks. Once again, everything went really well! Though Jex was late with work (the only unscripted thing about it), it will go down as one of my favourite shows ever. The roaring fire in the background was something new. I love playing with my visual setting, on Grab A Stack of Rock, at the cottage. Thank you Jex for an amazing start to the year. I hope we can do more, but even if we can’t, I got to do the fireside show that I had hoped for. Scratch that off the list.
The rain began Saturday, but it only got warmer. Another day on the front porch was in order, but first we went into town to see what was new.
We hit up a thrift store. I keep seeing all these guys on Facebook buying everything they can at thrift stores. I don’t know what they do with the CDs afterwards. Do their play their new Trisha Yearwood albums? Do they try and flip them? I found nothing in the gospel and country that they had, except for one signed CD by an unknown artist. The Facebook people would have bought them all; I chose none. I don’t buy for investment and I don’t really need a lot of music “on spec” when I barely have time to enjoy what I own.
Saturday was a weird day. It’s hard to explain exactly what happened, but as the day went on the feeling got more intense. I was having Deja Vu feelings every few minutes. It wasn’t specific memories, just…overall feelings. They were usually centered around people from my childhood, but I don’t know why. I would be cooking steaks in the back yard, and having Deja Vu feelings from grade school, but I was unable to nail down any specific memories. It was just a weird feeling like, “I have done this before,” but unable to identify a specific memory. I just felt like it was childhood. It intensified at dinner time. Perhaps the aromas of the cooking brought me back to Saturday dinners at the table, with steak and corn. Our steaks were perfect.
I mentioned earlier that everything went down without a hitch. That is not entirely true….
The Toronto Maple Leafs shit the bed. We shall not discuss this. It is not a good subject.
Otherwise, everything went perfect. I was starting to feel sad on Sunday morning, as I did the dishes and packed my bags up. Deciding what to bring back home and what to leave behind, I felt sad.
“Not this time,” I said, and I fought it back.
We played Kiss on the way home. Unmasked, Rock and Roll Over, and Asylum. These albums of childhood happiness drove the sadness away, and I woke up Monday morning feeling good.
This year’s first weekend at the cottage was a diametric contrast to 2023, which ended prematurely when I decided to go home early.
2023’s first weekend began with anxiety, as my former co-host was focused only on her solo show, and did not seem to care at all what I was doing. That weekend was not just supposed to be my return to the lake, but also hers. This is where we met (online) and bonded. I could not wait to return and do it again. She couldn’t seem more disinterested. She began stripping online that weekend, and I knew the friendship was all but over. I knew that was a road I could not follow, and I knew she wanted me to, even though she refused to come right out and say it. The writing was on the wall, that cold and rainy weekend. Within seven days, the friendship had ended, as I knew it would. She would never join me at the cottage again, even though we had spent six months planning it.
Not this time.
2024 is off to the right start. Even if Jex can’t do as many summer shows with me this year, we accomplished what we set out to do. An amazing weekend was had. The music we road tested passed the gauntlet, and we are ready to get on with the summer.
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