Hey!, and that's the cliche Canadian thing to say, but...
I'm here to get the party started, as my day has gone so well already.
So if I'm seeing Krummhorns' name up here in introduce yourself too much,
I'll do a reply for this Canadian musician because I definitely am Canadian,
even Ontarian a little, down to being a Wellander as my most basic citizenship requirement.
As you can see, despite the Americanization of online spelling,
I used Proper English for "Krummhorns'".
Krummhorn's would be "Krummhorn is", while Krummhorns' is Krummhorn having something.
Always being 's is either simply wrong or being too simple.
This isn't a debate about semantics, as in typing Christ Mass instead of Christmas,
what is your own personal choice of approach to this now over holiday season.
Living in Ontario, especially the Niagara Peninsula, is really being in an American undeclared state.
It's been like that, with the English of Ontario and the French of Quebec,
giving it up when the first commercial generation of hydro electricity, the Adam Beck facility,
was shown to work.
That's when Americans, weaponizing electricity with Nicola Tesla, took over,
shutting down Adam Beck.
That said, the musical content I'd like to introduce to this thread,
is the address of my music domain, what might be gone after the end of January, 2018.
My guitar isn't refinished and I'm not in a band, and new costs meant losing this domain cost.
I'm paying the annual registration fee so I don't lose the name,
and I might have to transfer johnwatt.ca to another hosting company,
because my current host is changing their online build device to a more hand-held device friendly build.
You shouldn't be concerned about that, so nuffs e-nuff.
http://www.gigsters.ca
What makes me more Canadian than anything else, here in the Niagara Peninsula,
is not being American.
I don't cross that border, not since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Going to Buffalo to see jazz and r'n'b bands, and Kleinhans' to see Weather Report with Jaco Pastorius,
and the jazz club in Niagara Falls, where I was invited onstage to jam with the band one night,
was the direction of my music career, not going to the bigger cities of Hamilton and Toronto.
But all that changed one day, where these downtowns looked like war zones, and they were.
A third of the storefronts were burned out, most were closed,
and when you stopped at a stop light or stop sign,
people started walking towards you like they were threatening zombies.
I didn't get more than a hundred feet down a main street,
before someone accosted me, trying to drag me into an alley,
showing me watches hanging from the inside of his coat,
with his women standing around, looking like they really wanted me,
just not for anything romantic.
Talking with draft evaders was also very convincing.
But here's some Niagara Falls vacation advice, for the best experience ever.
If you're standing at Table Rock on the Canadian side, looking down where the water falls,
it's not deep at all, maybe ten to twelve inches at night when the most water is diverted.
The river didn't touch the Canadian side, even before any hydro diversions,
and when the Falls was shut off at the beginning of the last century,
Niagara Parks used pneumatic chisels to chip away the rock so the water moved over.
The bottom is rough, like very rough steel factory sandpaper,
with divots the size of half a golf ball, and with lumps the same size.
You can walk fifty feet upriver to where the railing shows the grass and bushes,
beside the river, and climbing over that, you can let yourself down to the water.
My Welland high school friends and I were doing that back in the late sixties,
and it's still something most Niagara Falls people don't talk about.
I did it two summers ago, that last time.
You can walk upriver, behind the bigger bushes along the river,
to get used to being there, because the volume of the falls becomes tremendous,
and having rushing water around your legs increases your own static buildup.
If you wait until after midnight, when the Parks guards stop their shift,
you can walk along the top of the Falls and get close enough to look down,
what I like to do. If you see photos across the top of the Falls,
about 150 feet across, you'll see some white water with a line of white water,
that follows a rock ledge, and I've never tried to step over that, not in the dark.
By the time I'm out there that far, or making it to the island,
my body hair is starting to stand out and I start feeling very, very anxious,
about being there, starting to worry about water-logged wood knocking my legs out,
or a drained Teenage Ninja swimming pool wrapping itself around them, dragging me over.
And the flashes from cameras on both sides of the border become extremely worrisome.
In all my life, I've only been caught twice, and both times,
guards have only yelled "If you don't come back right now, we'll have to call the police".
They can't enter the water, having to call a helicopter rescue if they did.
When I do that, I grab a pop cup that's lying along the bank,
and scoop up change from the fingers of silver that are pointing to the Falls.
I always get between 25 and $30 dollars, with over $25 in American quarters.
Getting to where it's burnt, static buildup, and typing Niagara Falls.
I did get the party started, even if it's not the new political party Canada needs.
and... and... Krummhorn, you can pull out all your stops, as an organist,
even as an admin, but you can't stop me!
Jus'sayin'.
Now its back to season three episodes of "I Zombie", from the public library.
At least that's manufactured in Seattle, where Jimi Hendrix was born.
I'm waiting for an episode to be in the Jimi Hendrix park.
Hey! Even a zombie Jimi Hendrix would be more soul-full than anyone now.
Maybe it's time I started recording.