For reasons I am sure I will write on here at some point, I haven’t been making the most of this blog. Seems to be becoming time for that.
April has been one of the ugliest months of the rainy season here in coastal BC. The other day I walked by a house I lived at in 2010 when I first moved to the west coast. So my mind went back to those times.
Very depressed times for me.
I moved from Halifax to Vancouver with a slow meander across the country arriving just before the Winter Olympics. This time was quite fun, but the post olympic winter blues, being broke after gradually moving across the country, waiting until spring to start a job, not knowing anyone in this town, the pieces of me I had left behind. It all added up not so sweetly. Not saying walking by the house triggered some sort of fall into an abyss, more just memories of those days and some amazement of the journey since.
Since 2010 I haven’t spent much time in Vancouver itself, just a within a 4/5 hour radius in every direction but due south and north. That is until one of my sisters started living here a couple years ago. For most of those years I was in smaller towns, in the nature, the quiet so when I came to the city I was overwhelmed. Since all this time in the last while in Europe, I have been wondering sometimes where all the people are? Perspective diversified.
When I walked by my old house, saw the window of my old room in the loft, a series of memories flashed by, but the one I told my sister, who I was walking with was of the roommate who turned out to be a killer.
I always knew he was a strange dude. You would come home at night and he would be sitting in the dark, sitting facing the wall. You could maybe give him some sort of meditation pass for this, but combined with other things, you knew something wasn’t quite right. He would talk about how he would go running and enjoy sneaking up on, startling woman pushing strollers. He wasn’t pleasant to be around or talk to, but he never was too aggressive with me, but after two new roommates moving in and out in successive months the landlord kicked him out.
A few years later, I was in Kamloops with some friends having a bbq and the Canucks were on the television, in a playoff game. When the game ended the news came on and the first story was to watch out for this guy going around the Lower Mainland shooting people he held grudges with. Old bosses, landlords, coworkers, roommates. And boom, there is my old roomate.
Not long after it was said he had been shot and killed in a shoot out with police. They found he had notebooks full of information of his targets schedules, maps of the surrounding areas of their places, with getaway routes, and all this methodically organized.
It was quite chilling.
Thankfully they got him when they did, so I didn’t have to worry to long about him coming after me.
We didn’t really like each other as roommates, but I remember he did have some sort of respect for me.
That might of saved me from his list.
Anyway,
Not really the warmest introduction, fit for this video; but during this time I was listening to a lot of M Ward. Definitely a musical influence on me.
The roommate that replaced this guy after the landlord kicked him out was cool enough. He actually inspired me to play more guitar.
One day I came home from work and he asked, “Do you want to go to this show? The woman I was supposed to go with bailed on me.”
I asked, “What is it?”
He said, “It is this guy and girl, called she and him at the Vogue Theatre.”
I said, “Sure I’ll go.”
When the guitar started playing, I thought, huh sounds a lot like M Ward. When he started singing, I knew. But asked my friend, “Thats M Ward?”
He said, “ya.”
I tried to learn this song back then, but didn’t know how to play in open D yet. So in the last few days after all these thoughts triggered, I put some M Ward on for the first time in a long time. When this song, “Chinese Translation” came on I could hear why I could never teach myself a cover of this song before. But now I can. Its still super raw. I was just videoing myself to listen back and learn. Had the thought, why not share. Kind of fun that way.
Of course if you know the album, “Post War”, you know you can’t play “Chinese Translation” without playing “eyes on the prize” as well.
See you soon.