Journal: News & Comment

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All is quiet...

As a working musician and a parent of two preschoolers, I haven't been to a New Year's Eve party in some time. Even as 2000 arrived a couple of years ago, the family and I were at home with a friend, watching our neighbours' fireworks and regretting that we couldn't watch the usual Seattle Space Needle fireworks on TV that year because of a terrorist threat (which seemed a tad silly at the time, sad as that is to say now).

Twelve years before that, it was at a 1987-88 New Year's house party in Lions Bay, just north of Vancouver, when I discovered that I could play the drums. At a beat-up drum kit in the basement, I tried to play the distinctive intro to U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" -- and I could do it. I'd never sat down at a drum kit before. Despite four years of classical guitar training during elementary school, I hadn't been very good at that, but drums seemed to be something worth pursuing.

My roommate and I soon made a deal that he would buy a guitar and I would buy a drum kit. I think we each spent about $80. Tonight, he and I join our two current bandmates (who've been musicians far longer than us) to play a New Year's Eve show at the Arbutus Club in Vancouver. I didn't think music would become a career, but I was certainly right about the drums.

If my first song had been U2's "New Year's Day," it would have been a perfect sort of movie moment, but alas, it was not to be.

Bring the boot

I still own and wear every pair of Doc Martens shoes I've ever had -- my first pair, from 1994, remains in good shape. But this week I bought something new, which may rival Docs for comfort and longevity: a pair of Blundstone 510 boots from Australia (Tasmania, even).

With my wide feet, finding shoes so comfortable before they're even broken in is quite a revelation. We'll see how the "Blunnys" survive the rest of the Canadian winter.

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