Uh, Levon Helm in Allman Bros.? Really?
Topic: Live Music

Maybe it was the moment...

I finally had a chance to see Collingwood's Drew Wright on Canadian Idol; tonight he performed David Bowie's Five Years sitting behind the drum kit.

There were mixed reviews from the judges, some liked the drum schtick, some didn't. Sass Jordan then said, "Too bad it wasn't the Allman Bros.", to which Drew replied, "Yeah, yeah, Levon Helm..."

Hmmm...

OK, as far as I can tell, the Allman Bros. drummer Butch Truck has never led vocals on any Allman Bros. tune, and I'm trying to figure out if Drew's response was based on a thought that Helm - drummer and sometime lead vocalis for The Band - was in Allman Bros.

Was Sass confused? Was Drew? Maybe Drew was trying to correct Sass...

Personally, though, I don't understand or appreciate the whole Idol thing; I don't understand or appreciate why Ben Mulroney is the host. Maybe they should hold a competition to host the show...

Me and MRI...
Topic: Facing 4-0

I had my first taste of magnetic resonance imaging today.

Well, let's start at the beginning...

For the last four years, I've had issues with my right shoulder - the side on which I paddle. In the first year (my second year with the dragon boat and canoe club), it wasn't that big a deal, just a bit of moderate discomfort.

Two years ago, the pain was enough that I sought treatment; I had several sessions with my friendly neighbourhood acupuncturist (who is also a member of the club), and her wonderful work got me through another season of competitive dragon boat paddling.

I also ended up laying off some of the paddling, and headed to the back of the boat for steering duties during practices.

So last year, just as the season got started, I headed back in for acupuncture as a preventive measure. It worked... but not the same as the previous year. It was pretty obvious that the shoulder was getting worse, not better. It meant more time steering, and far less time paddling, and as a result, my level of fitness decreased.

My last race of the season, and the one that drove home the need for something a little more aggressive; in the one race I paddled in Toronto, I came off the water with a numb forearm and the tips of my fingers turning blue.

Two weeks later, I was off to see my doctor. An x-ray proved negative, but my athletic therapist noted otherwise. After six months of work, and some great direction, my therapist referred me to a local specialist, Dr. John Bowman, who got me in for an MRI at the Grey Bruce Regional Health Centre.

Fast-forward to today...

Well, first up was the arthrogram; if you're not inclined to follow the link, this basically involved the doctor injecting a 'contrast agent' into my shoulder prior to the MRI. Dr. Bowman had given me a heads up, and I was girded for this ranking up there with my Second-Most-Uncomfortable Medical Procedure™ (last year's bursa sac draining...). However, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, and with only a few brief seconds of discomfort (the needle was in pretty deep at that point).

Then, off to the MRI.

One of the questions you're asked prior to going into the machine was if you have claustrophobia, and I can see why; the machine takes you into a narrow tube. One of the technicians gave me a button to press in case of panic, but I don't need it - almost. I was asked if I wanted to listen to music, and I asked for classic rock and the first music to come through the headphones was country... shudder...

However, the music soon changed, and I was listening to the tail end of a Supertramp song.

Next up was AC/DC's Thunderstruck, the hammering of the giant magnet keeping time with the song and gently massaging my back..

A couple of Boston tunes, followed by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and suddenly I have a problem: you have to keep perfectly still, and I'm fighting an urge to pull off an air guitar solo.

Fortunately it was only 20 minutes of keeping still. Results in another week-and-a-half...

The many paths of Glory...
Topic: Site Update
I just did a little stroll along the main street today to check out what was happening with the town's Canada Day celebrations; my main interest was the Ontario Town Crier competition, and how they would interpret Glory... I wasn't to be disappointed...

When the going gets tough...
Topic: Paddlin'

... the tough get, um, wet...

 The Sidelaunchers headed up to Parry Sound on Saturday for the Rotary Club's dragon boat festival; it's the first time the local team has competed in this particular event, and it was the team's first event of the season.

Since I'm on the injury list (heading for an MRI in July), I've been spending my time on the helm. Usually I'm pretty good at it, but the wind, waves, and motor boats passing the course threw a wrench into that final race.

The team had practiced a couple of starts prior to the final (we were racing for the 'A' Consolation), and the boat was humming pretty good. Lining up however, things took a dramatic turn.

We had a good start, and we're just heading into the second build when a massive wake from a passing motor boat came through the course. It threw us off course a bit, and with it difficult to find the lanes in the first place, the two boats on either side of us started to draw closer. I yelled at the one boat at starboard to get in its own lane, and attempted to distance myself from it. Of course, that just drew us closer to the boat to port (dragon boats are wonderful things; as soon as they get within any distance of one another, they just start to suck in towards each other.

By this point now, I'm fighting the helm, as I have to get away from the boat to port. The boat carved itself through the water, coming within a couple of feet of its neighbour. It started to head into the direction I wanted, but then it began heading to the other boat; fighting the oar every foot of the way to get the boat straightened and heading down the course (rather than across it), I eventually lost my grip and went tumbling into the Sound.

The water in Parry Sound is surprisingly warm at this time of year; or at least, warmer than Collingwood harbour.

We ended up DQed, which meant no 2000-metre race, and we shuffled off to the beer tent - me, feeling like crap all the way...

Veritably Vinyl: Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Music Reviews
Artist: Arlo GuthrieAlbum: Alice’s Restaurant

I only bring this up now because 10 minutes ago, I found out that Arlo Guthrie is coming to Collingwood. And as of five minutes ago, I now have two tickets for myself and Mrs. Scoop...

I don’t know if I could recall how I felt the first time I listened to Alice’s Restaurant; I would have been 12 or 13 at the time, foraging through what remained of my parents’ album collection.I can say the album got played, and played, and, perhaps, played some more. I played it to the point I could recite the entire Alice’s Restaurant ‘massacree’, as it were, by heart.“This song is called Alice’s Restaurant; it’s about Alice, and the restaurant…”Let’s back up a bit.Arlo Gutherie, at the time, was the 20-year-old son of folk-singing legend Woody Gutherie, and he was attempting to follow those big folkie footsteps. At the time, he was working as an office boy for his father’s manager when he made his fateful trip to Stockbridge, Mass. during Thanksgiving in 1965.Suddenly a legend was created.Of course, the song was more than just Alice’s Restaurant and how Guthrie was arrested for littering. It also because an anthem against the Viet Nam draft, Guthrie working in the part of how he was called up for draft and declared ‘unfit’ for service because of his arrest for littering (though the real ‘record’ casts doubt on this; in spite of his dubious criminal record and he being a potential carrier for the genetically-inherited Huntington’s disease, he was in fact declared fit for service, but his draft-lottery number did not come up).And that is how Guthrie’s career really took off; he performed the ‘massacree’ at the Newport Folk Festival to two very appreciative audiences.In all that playing of Side 1, it seemed to totally escape me that there was a Side 2. Or at least, I rarely played it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; I wouldn’t have been old enough to appreciate it.The songs are short (the longest at 3:12) flights of fancy, a mix of breezy folk and ballads. Probably the best known from that album is The Motorcycle Song, a tune that sounds like Arlo learned it while sitting at the feet of his famous father.However, Side 2 is overshadowed by Side 1; and a successful 40-year career in folk is built on a $25 fine for littering.