200 year old native fishing trail crossroads along the Skeena River.

I was walking along this trail down to the Skeena with a friend singing, “Mud stuck deep in the treads of my boots with an old friend as my guide/ as the sun wrapped round my head that day to embrace the parting sky/ oh,oh hey Mr. Mountain hey Mr. Mountain/ I don’t know where I’ve been/ somewhere lost in the city’s lights/ but here I’m home again. . .” on August 1st during a much needed 5 day break.
I’ve never forgotten the laughs and days of band-aid boy and the bass player with the uncanny ferry karma.

He remains in my mind as the amazing gifted artist the I had the pleasure/injury to work and laugh with.

I’ll be saying a prayer tonight. Thank you for passing along the word.

My long-ago friend, Darrin Eck, known to many as Dill, passed away this week in his sleep. Dill and I spent years playing together as Dill and the Big Cheese Band — a severely kick-butt children’s band, based out of Nanaimo. We played all over BC, and even did a brief tour in Newfoundland. We started playing together when I was a young scrogg of 18, were business partners for two years after I moved to Ontario, and continued to play together until the year Gareth was born, almost eight years later. Dill even performed at our wedding along with the mega-talented Shelley Chase.

Those who knew us both, knew that our relationship (as well as Dill’s path through life) was — well, complicated, to be concise. We had a lot of good times, and a lot of not-as-good times. I cannot, however, ever, ever be more emphatic in saying that the world has lost a truly gifted musician and songwriter. I’m attaching a few of his pieces here for you to experience his kick-assery, which I was lucky enough to record backing vocals, harmonica and bass guitar on.

RIP Dill. Too many thoughts words pass through my head to write down. Know that you’ll be greatly missed.

Everybody Wins

Soul Purpose

Three Good Rises

Because my dad was able to score not just tickets, but courtside tickets, both my brother and I wound up being part of the show on at least a few occasions. One of my strongest memories of the Globetrotters was being hauled up by Curly Neal, and then having him take an entire tray of ice cream treats from an aisle-walking hawker, and giving them to me — which I promptly shared with all the folks around me at the game.

On one occasion, apparently my dad got the tickets from Red Fisher, a very talented writer from Montreal (as an aside, who knew there was an International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame?). We also apparently went with Dick Irvin, another revered Montreal sports journalist. My dad sent this to me a few weeks ago, after he dug it out of some old paperwork. It sounds ghost-written, but I think it’s still a fairly accurate representation of the evening:

(By the way, fark you, Wordpress and your stupid-ass permissions issues. Now I have to manually upload this pic.)

I edited an intro to the DVD for our parents which turned out pretty well. I’m offering it up for your viewing pleasure:

Oh, and along that line, if you’re available, we need help building the spray park this weekend. Email me for more info, or just show up Friday or Saturday at 9AM with a shovel, a rake and a hammer.