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Hey it's Bandcamp Friday, a good day to support your favourite musical artist(s) because this is the one day a month when Bandcamp forgoes their commission on all sales. You can download my new album "I'm Not Fifty Anymore" and you can pre-order the physical CD, which is not quite ready to be shipped. Go to www.brianblain.bandcamp.com. I've finally signed off on the CD artwork so it's safe to say your CD will be in the mail…..shall we say, before Christmas?? Sorry for the delay but my mantra for 2020 has been "What's the rush?"
I woke up the morning after Halloween to the sound of ice being scraped off windshields and when I looked out there was snow on the ground (it's gone now!) The best part of the day was looking at my bedside clock-radio and knowing for the first time in six months, the time is correct. That's how lazy I've been! I didn't even bother to switch from Daylight Savings Time because, well…."what's the rush?" You wait long enough and eventually it will say the right time. Every other timepiece in my universe adjusts itself.
This Blainletter was intended to promote my big Halloween Blaincast, my return to the streamnet after a bit of a break. I was getting a little stressed out trying to pull something together every Sunday at 2pm and I thought this might be my last chance to get a little traction on my Trump Trilogy, as well as my old Halloween favourite, "The Ghost of Clinton's Tavern." I even fired up the Ableton Live on my new computer (a hand-me-up from my son the DJ) and threw in some synth sounds. You can view it on YouTube < https://youtu.be/fXI0C9E8KpI >
And if you didn't watch the album launch…you might get a kick out of it: https://youtu.be/pPrzSbCcBXY
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MapleBlues Awards Voting is Open
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On Guns and Mental Illness
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Somebody on TV was just referring to the "ranks of the insane" and it got me thinking that we are all suffering from some degree of mental illness, just as no one gets through life without some degree of physical illness, I think just about everybody might have an occasional bout of some kind of minor mental illness. I even found a name for my low-level mental affliction: Trichotillomania (you can look it up if you want).
I'm thinking almost all the evil-doing that happens could be tagged as some form of insanity. That fellow who beheaded the teacher in the name of Islam…I count him insane. He's a religious zealot of course but in addition to that he suffers from some mental instability and even though he's committing crimes, he's still best treated as a mental case. In other words, all criminals are criminally insane.
I could even suggest that bullying and the love of guns and shooting things might be a symptom of a less than balanced mind. There was a time when a man needed a gun to defend himself, but now we live in a society where you don't need to walk around with a gun. There is definitely something intoxicating about holding a beautifully engineered handgun and as a kid I had quite the introduction.
I grew up in a house with a lot of guns. And I was thinking, how is it that I can remember exactly the order they were placed in that gun cabinet (which I had figured how to open at a very early age). On the top shelf was a flintlock "pirate pistol" and a small .22 six-shooter. Going down the side was a tiny Walther (more of a decorative gun for SS officers), a full-size Walther, a US Army issue .45, a Canadian Army issue .44, a German Luger, a .38, a Colt .45 and maybe a couple of others. Then there was a row of long guns including my favourite, a Winchester '73 repeating rifle, "The Gun that Won the West." Then there were a couple of drawers of assorted ammo and German pins and badges and other war souvenirs.
How do I remember that? I can't remember the row of toys or model airplanes that decorated my bedroom. Or what the kitchen looked like. It's because there is a special feeling you get when you hold a gun. Even if it's not loaded. They are a marvel of engineering and craftsmanship and sometimes even artwork when you look at those intricately carved handles. It occurs to me that in the same way that the space race lit a fire under the semi-conductor industry, the demand for better firearms fueled the industrial age and manufacturing methods (just a theory).
That feeling you get holding a gun is especially appealing to a child (maybe also any adult who is not fully developed mentally or emotionally). I used to take them out of the gun cabinet just to hold them. Then I eventually got into the ammo drawer and started loading them and rearranging the drawer so the old man wouldn't see that some was missing. I would choose a pistol and take it out into the woods behind the house and shoot at trees.
Then came the last day I ever touched those guns. I was maybe 12 and charged with babysitting my sister and her friend. The little girls came to me yelling they saw a prowler outside their window. I immediately went into "alpha-male" protector mode, snapped open the gun cabinet, grabbed the .45, loaded it up and cocked it, and just as I walked around the corner to the bedroom, I placed my finger against the trigger and the gun fired with a big recoil. I had never fired this one and it had much more of a "hair-trigger" than the others. I looked up to see these two little girls staring at the floor where I had just put a bullet directly between two little slippered feet. I managed to camouflage the bullet hole in the tile floor, the girls never said a word and I never touched a gun again except one summer when I was a cadet in the militia (but that's a whole other story).
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Happy American Thanksgiving
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Besides all this music stuff, it's American Thanksgiving this month and I always like to pull out my song about Alice Brock (yes, the Alice from Alice's Restaurant). Arlo Guthrie's song about Alice is the unofficial anthem of American Thanksgiving. All the more poignant because Arlo has just announced his retirement from performing and Alice herself has been going through some hard times, too.
Alice has been a great booster of mine and was the first person to contribute to my GoFundMe campaign when I started this recording project and who has now fallen onto hard times herself. Here's an early Blaincast (2013) when I had a little chat with Alice. If Alice holds a special place in your heart, here's your chance to chip in and make sure she can keep her head above water down there in Provincetown. Here's the link to her GoFundMe page |
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Thanks for reading this far. Feel free to forward this to any friend you think might enjoy my occasional ramblings (and maybe my music, too). These clips and more are always available on my blog, www.torontobluesdiary.com.
See you out there, eventually...
BrianB, aka Butch, Nappy, Shaker, Two-Lane Blain, Colorblind Brian, Stringbuster, Buddha of the Blues
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