Sometimes it feels like a family, sometimes it don't.

[John Watt]

Good day, and that's for fellow Magle.dk members, people I share postings with.
My online presence has changed so much this last few days I'm a different man online.
My main domain about the criminal and political in Welland is offline.
When I was paying for the annual registration for "gigsters.ca", going to be about music,
the billing employee said she "accidentally" hit a key that deleted it.
And she couldn't get it back, sending me a "ticket number".

This has led to a great many exchanges of messages with another ticket number, but nothing has changed.
A British Columbia friend sent an email with a "bookmarked link" to one of my pages,
and that works. I can find my domain and all the "buttons" for the pages work,
just not for the "Title Page" which is the link to find my domain.
My domain wasn't just deleted, the code for the "home page" link was changed.

My provider also said the transfer code to get "gigsters.ca" back isn't functional.
I just got off the phone with a new email showing a new code, but I'm going to wait.

My political and criminal domain was interfered with on election day in Ontario.
You can imagine how that made me feel, waking up the next day thinking about it.
I telephoned C.I.R.A., the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, where I am a voting member,
and heard them say "if you are having difficulty with your provider why not change?"
They also described an easy way to do it.
When I called my previous hosting provider about the disfunctional transfer code,
he looked at the information for my domain and commented on the interference.
He also said he would send another email with a new transfer code.

That's like a world of online hurt out there, when Magle.dk is so symphonic with its' functions,
feeling more like "home" than my own "home page".
I don't take my membership for granted here,
truly, if not deeply, appreciating this opportunity to be part of these forums.

yeah... I'm going to riff off the lyrics to the third verse of "Castles Made of Sand".

There once was a man whose online got him down,
'cause he was paying for something that wasn't around,
until one day, he decided to try,
so he took his domain to another provider,
and to his current IP address he said you won't deny me no more.
But suddenly, a new host he had never seen before,
made his fingers start to type again,
and these rates were even annual, and it wasn't as much to spend.
And so hassles made of send slip into being seen, eventually.

Thank you, thank you very much, the as-yet-untitled Frederik Magle,
for being such a good online friend.
I hope the thought of my putting up a video of me jamming along with one of yours,
isn't keeping you up at night,
or making Krummhorn a little uneasy, if not jealous.

 

[John Watt]

It's been a very contentious and demanding time for me online,
getting into it with my hosting providers, Easy Hosting, with tech in New Brunswick.
Losing my domain took me out of my domain build account,
where the previous build device, "Easy Wizard Professional" had been discontinued.
It was linked to me so I could keep using it as a special account.
Talking with tech tonight after johnwatt.ca was republished and active,
the tech said he would get his friend to re-establish this link so I could keep building.
That happened while I watched.
This tech also started talking with his New Brunswick accent and slung the slang,
something I really like and get into, even if it's against normal company policy.
He described the various employees I had been involved with during these problems,
their employment histories, how he worked with some at another tech center,
so I feel more of an Easy Hosting customer than ever before.
I didn't think that was possible.
They activated a character that isn't allowed for email passwords,
so I feel that's as secure as can be, not changing that for almost seven years.
They also removed my domain management password from their screens,
so no-one can see it even if it still works, even more security for me.

Yes, I was saying I was a new online man after losing my domain presence,
but that's over.
Now I'm saying I'm a new member in the sense that I'll be activating gigsters.ca,
a new domain name for music in my life, my inventive guitar, and best of all,
oh yeah... embedded YouTube videos about me, including Frederik Magle and onacarom.
For sure I want them to be at my musical party, and I hope they show up to see themselves,
if no-one else. I can only hope to treat them appropriately and with the admiration they deserve.

Krummhorn! Krummhorn! Izzat you looking, wishing your happy feet and flying fingers were there?
You'd have to put up a video I can use before than can happen,
and it will, if you can call my name, and send me your missing links.
If we ever started a band I'd call it "Sir Prized" because I'm sure we would be.
Our album "First Prize" would surely be a winner.

This is North American content to help orient Ella Beck to my predicament.
When it came to making up a name for a new band and new music domain,
I thought of gigster and gigsters, based on the slang word gig as a job for musicians.
That's such an old jazz word I thought for sure some big band guy from the 30's or 40's,
would have used that for a song or book title or for his back-up orchestra.
But no, it went through every registration as a new and unused word, nice for me.
I wasn't in a band, my guitar had been vandalized and couldn't be played,
so I deleted that domain, but I kept registering the name to keep it.

gigsters might sound generic, a gig being a gig,
but look what beat and Beatles did for them.
And as an old professional who has seen many band names lit up in lights,
I know it's best to have an easy one-word name for a band,
if nothing else, to make it easy to use for signs.
gigsters to me means a band of pro players who are there to do the gig,
getting everyone up on the dance floor and jamming out the soundtracks of our lives.
Yes, we won't be doing any "Scottish laments" because I don't play funerals.
Actually, I'd avoid Scottish events.
All the clan activity in my family, weddings and funerals, are very serious.
We don't eat anything, unless a grandmother dotes on her grandchildren,
whipping up a dozen or so maple tarts, mincemeat tarts or butter tarts in the kitchen.
Everyone sits around and plans things out for our families, before we disperse.
The next time around, I might even say I want to move to Denmark and become Danish.
Is there such a thing as a maple walnut with maple syrup Danish.
That's all it would take.
What would Frederik Magle do if he saw me with a Strat and portable feed-backing amp,
busking by his office building door? Especially if TINKICKER was jamming me up?
fretting fingers want to know...

 

[John Watt]

Oh! I forgot.

http://www.johnwatt.ca

 

[John Watt]

Webmail has just been received that says the domain name "gigsters.ca" has been successfully transferred.
That's a real big development for me, and that will make me a new online presence.
Sometimes something makes me feel like a new member here, sometimes it doesn't.

I'm painting an apartment where meth-heads were evicted. There was a lot of graffiti on the wall.
This one got to me.
"If someone is being friendly with you, they are casing your soul".

 

[John Watt]

What's not new for me is break and enter activity where I'm living.
Everything from poison and drugs in my food, to stupid "get into my head" thefts,
with stuff being moved around or symbolic items being left on my bed.
That also includes sexual email and others about buying guns and needing one for my protection.

Here's a note that was left on my door from someone who works for the crime family I complain about.
He got out of jail and moved in with a sad woman upstairs.
He doesn't pay rent and isn't on the lease.
I've been complaining about him right from the start but police aren't doing anything.
He started leaving notes taped to the storefront door and this is his latest one.

This is more insidious than you might think.
His activity as "property manager" is calling police, fire, safety and health offices,
complaining about me, trying to get me evicted.
He knows my name but calls me "John Hendricks" here,
when so far, nothing has been stolen or vandalized with my musical equipment.

Being the new me involves trying to get into more computer activity.
I was able to use "Office Libre" to crop the center note, being part of a note collage,
but it's an "odp" file that doesn't work here. I'll have to try again.
It looks like I can do anything I want with this scan with Office Libre,
from art applications to text blocks, so some usable "save" must be possible.
I clicked "help" but it said this page wasn't available.

"Rent Intent Tenant", a new urban song from "gigsters".

 

[John Watt]

It's not a weight, it's not like the walls are closing in,
it's more of a deep awareness, of where I am, of what I can do,
but I have to wait. This is new for me, and it's not just a seniors thing.
When I dropped out of high school, walking away from a university art scholarship,
at the University of Toronto, and a bursary from Sheridan College, open the first year,
that was about getting a steel factory job to buy a Stratocaster and Marshall with effects.
I didn't even know barre chords and had never been in a band or jammed with bass and drums.
That surprised everyone who knew me, hearing me say I wanted to be a lead guitarist.
That was fun, compared to how I feel now.
Other musicians, playing in Welland and the Niagara Peninsula, would phone and ask to visit,
so they could try a Stratocaster and Marshall and use the effects,
and some of those visits were very good guitar lessons for me,
band players showing me parts to songs that I would want to play.
That was my reputation, having this equipment and playing like Jimi Hendrix.
A Burlington band playing in Niagara Falls phoned me one day, asking if it was me.
The agent said their guitar player broke his arm riding his bicycle, yeah, another 10-speed accident,
when those first came out, having to hold your arms down and be looking down most of the time.
He asked if I could fill in, practicing during the day, and off I was playing six-nighters around Ontario.
That was fun, compared to how I feel now.
And that got me out of Welland when criminals had already confined and drug-overdosed me.

If that's all that was affecting me now, if my environment was just about music and art,
it still would be just fun... an adventure, experimenting with new supplies and ideas.
It's the social and legal responsibility I feel that occupies me inside, what only I can do,
where only I am within the legal system, that compels my new activity.
Another summer has gone by, all those festivals, all those invitations to show up and play,
when that never happened.
I could say Magle.dk is an outlet, a musical diversion, even a font caprice, but it's not.
It really does feel like a home away from home more than any hotel or venue room ever did.
And in my life, back then, I wasn't trying to avoid people or places, always acting like a friend,
not a rock star or entertainer, but now, here in Welland, where it involves truly depraved murder,
rape, confinement and drug-overdosing, theft and constant harassment,
yeah... that's now how I want to live, if you can call this living.

I don't sit here and stare at this screen and listen to Frederik Magles' music as much as you might think,
but when I do, it's the only music that pulls me through, seeing one man make so much sound,
looking through him into the world of symphonic music and instruments,
knowing one day, if I ever get a new band together, that's how I want to be.

 

[John Watt]

The weather is a little unusual for the Niagara Peninsula, it snowed and froze and stayed on the ground.
That's unusual for global warming weather, not for the winter that was winter when I was younger.

Considering the outside stresses on my life as surviving in the city of Welland,
being able to find Magle.dk, seeing the word "forums" light up in yellow and logging in,
is like realizing the key to the lock and deadbolt on the door is working and I'm going to get in,
to the warmth and comfort of my apartment and see my guitars and amplifiers.

If a home is where I take off my toque, that's true,
because I've never bought a hat to hang to say that's my home.
I have another home where I can comment and click "Post Quick Reply",
or even "Go advanced", to feel even more alive.
Does this mean I have homies? Or am I homing in stereo?
Fretting, not fret-less, fingers want to know.

 

[John Watt]

zippety-do-dah, zippety-ay, what a wonderful morning, it's coming my way.
zippety-do-dah, zippety-ay, what a glorious feeling, lots of sunshine today.

she's been gone a long long time, my musical life has been denied me for far too long,
so many people I grew up with and worked with have died or are incapacitated,
there are no bands playing in my city... and more of my life is just becoming more electricity...
but I live in the land of the new rising sun that sends its' rays for everyone.
I had a dream last night, not a long, traveling dream that can be all afternoon or evening,
just a short one, as if I was sitting at our dinner table with my father.
He leaned sideways, down toward the table, and his face became bigger, his eye larger,
as he looked at me, as if he was seeing me for who I am and was trying to understand,
why I was living as I am, making it feel it was over.
I have seen my father in other dreams, never talking, but doing things symbolic for me.
In this dream, it was as if he was looking at me through the dream,
letting me see myself as part of him and seeing him as looking into me,
a wonderful way to wake up, as if a new form of life was inside me.
And just as amazing, I knew my mother was sitting across the table,
even if I couldn't see her. I didn't have to. I felt her love and peaceful nature.
They knew I needed that, as they know me, and they always show me the way.

This might not be a new me, but I certainly feel a very deep refreshing.
I'm looking around now, thinking where am I going to take this.
May All Peace Be Upon You, my Magle.dk brothers and sisters... and admins.

 

[John Watt]

Talking about what feels like a home for me, a big part of only feeling it is B.C., British Columbia.
Three of my high school friends moved there after high school and never came back.
I get visits when they come home to see relatives in Welland, so I'm staying in touch.
Another Welland boy who moved to B.C. is not only my email pen-pal, but a business associate.

I've always wanted to go to B.C., the mountains, the forests, the ocean, and just as much,
spending time in a Haida village, getting into their buildings, seeing my favorite native artwork.
I'm getting invitations to visit all the time, being invited to stay with friends,
but it's not only a long way away, for me, going there would be leaving my life here behind.
That might happen.

I just bought a big old book of Canadian western history, featuring a compilation of artwork.
It has photos of the first train to arrive in Vancouver and the first boat built on those shores.
I'm going to download this video and put the disc inside the book, a really nice post-dated up-date.
This eight minute video is over 100 years old, a camera on a tram-ride through downtown Vancouver.
You can see an incredible view into our past as big city people, and it's only real.

 

[elderpiano]

Fascinating! Do they still have street cars in Vancouver and indeed Toronto where I used to live?

 

[John Watt]

elderpiano! I have some Toronto street-car trivia from 1970, when I first moved there.
Every day, sometimes twice, someone was killed waiting for a bus, street-car, or walking across an intersection.
The City of Toronto decided to pass a by-law so that all buses and street-cars had to have their headlights on,
all the time, and that reduced deaths by over one-third.

Looking at this YouTube video has shown me more suggested videos like this.
I'll see if Toronto comes around.
I might look at YouTube for hours, but I'm not guessing video titles or typing subjects,
just following what's new and recommended for little journeys through different topics.
Looking back at last year, I almost feel like I've been to India, with South America a close second.

When I talk with people who have been to Toronto, they all say there's too many people.
I was feeling like that before 1990. $1,400 for a single bedroom apartment that isn't nice.

 

[John Watt]

elderpiano! I found this Toronto video right away, but it's not the journey the other one is.
This features streetcars and buses at various Toronto locations, probably a municipal project.

I'm adding a second video, very short, just to add the new Toronto, the one I left behind. Five seconds.
Now the second video is a home film of downtown Toronto, showing much more.

 

[elderpiano]

I don't see the purpose to put up a very short video of Danforth AVe. shooting. Though I enjoyed seeing the other videos.
However, I was there in the 60's , and worked in Canadian School Studios for a while, and a Jewelers in Toronto.
I remember travelling home from work on very crowed Street-Cars.

 

[John Watt]

When I first moved to Toronto in 1970, I was living off savings and didn't have to work.
I was also sharing a room-apartment with another Welland guitarist who moved there first,
a cousin of a friend, so sitting around jamming with him and figuring out songs was a lot of playing.
He had a 1958 Gibson Les Paul sunburst, and I had a 1964 Fender Stratocaster sunburst.
Being able to take a subway and use transfers to keep moving around Toronto was a lot of fun.
I would spend an entire afternoon doing that.

When I last lived in Toronto, being sponsored in a condominium by the York University Electronics Professor,
that was across from the big mall past Jane And Finch. Black Creek Village was behind the back yard,
and they were starting to build Canadas' Wonderland across from Steele Street, seeing the mountain go up.
When I decided to quit playing guitar in bands as a living and move back to Welland,
I started to read about shootings and weekly murders at the Jane and Finch mall.
Drive-by shootings, something I only saw in California MTV music videos, started to happen in Toronto.
It only got worse.

That's why I used the shooter video, rounding out any talk about Toronto.
Don't forget, Mayor Rob Ford was known for doing cocaine while drinking alcohol,
as he got prostitute to visit him in the mayors office at City Hall.
I could have used a video of him and his brother in their car trying to lose people chasing them,
but that's just personalities.

I've never heard of Canadian School Studios, thinking you took photos for yearbooks,
and it must have been interesting working in a jewelers.
You gotta cut me some slack when I talk about my life and what happened along the way.
It always surprised me what could happen when I was playing guitar and singing in a band,
in a new city, that I only watched or waited out while I was there.

Considering that I feel like the Niagara Peninsula is my backyard after all these years of bike-hiking,
sharing some Toronto with you makes me feel back at home in the province.
I hadta type that homey stuff, so no-one else can say I'm off-topic.

 

[elderpiano]

It looks as though you arrived on the Toronto scene a year before I left. However it is very nostalgic looking back, but I never heard of shootings back then. Maybe it things were beginning to change, I found Canadian folks very friendly. Canadian School Studios was taking School photos and I was involved in developing them, we had some fun in the dark rooms. I also worked with Gordon & Gotch magazine distributors. Don't know if they still exist. When I was there , Pierre Trudeau was President, now it is disastrous son.

 

[John Watt]

I'm not sure if you're a Canadian who moved to Toronto or an American or someone else.
Have you ever heard of "The Family Compact", what MacKenzie in Queenston Heights called it?
That was the British of Ontario and the French of Quebec, the wealthy family landowners,
forcing everyone else to live in poverty without any land owning rights, continuing their empires.
You say Justin Trudeau is disastrous, I say the Family Compact is back big time.
Brian Mulroneys' daughter is now the Governor General of Ontario. It's worse than ever.

Gordon and Gotch rings a bell. When I was a sign-painter I might have talked with an employee.

When I say the shootings every weekend at the Jane and Finch mall, 1980, that was the start.
Most people think of Scarborough as being the worst now. You got out when the going was good.

Let me end on a nice note. Being in Toronto for the first time in 1970, I would visit Hyde Park.
The was the first time squirrels would jump on my arm or shoulders and climb up my legs.
I still like that.
Riding around the peninsula on long distance bike-hikes, only the raccoons on top of Queenston Heights do that.

 

[John Watt]

That wasn't good. It exposed the limit of my anxieties, and that about not being able to post here.
So much has become wireless, or WIFI around here, I was suffering the consequences.
This is like coming home and finding out someone jammed your lock and you can't get in,
only it's WIFI hitting it's limit and my computer isn't able to access the server to log in.
I wanted to log in. I needed to get in, so I could relax.
I was looking forward to seeing how threads and replies were going, and watch and listen.
Unless I get a band happening, being here inside Magle.dk is the main source of music in my life.
I even think of Krummhorn as a man who could be my grandfather. That's not an age thing,
but a knowledge and admin thing. Who's my daddy?
I know who's trying to be my big sister.
And I've got a very nice brother.
Frederik Magle would be like the fancy picture on the wall everyone says is in the family,
but nobody can remember meeting him or prove it, except for a worn-out concert ticket,
with an extensive recording collection, none signed.

yeah... I know this is just all in my mind, nobody is really here.
If they were, someone would say John, it's only been eighteen days since Auld Lang Syne,
and you bought your first two liter bottle of diet cola already. Yes, it's true,
but like a fine whine, those complaints don't understand the gourmet application of all that fizz,
when I'm planning on making perogies for the first time in a year, and look forward to the whizz.
I haven't had a glass of milk since 1970, and sour cream and frying foods is rare for me.
So is frying broccoli, something I like in the mix.
Fried food is carcinogenic, why I try to keep that down.
I'm having a tip of the carbonated water to you right now.
bubble bubble, toil and trouble, let's see how much I burp tonight.
Watt a life!
I really need to start and band and deal with the public. That will calm me down.
So will having to pose for photos.
The longly lamented Corno Dolce once made a comment about the inertia of our lives,
and that was part of my contemplations for Auld Lang Syne.
I wish he was back in the house to continue.

One thing hasn't changed.
This font is brought to you by the pure power generated by Niagara Falls,
the first commercial hydro generation in the entire world, for a long time.
In the summer, I can sit outside on a patio with a table computer,
and watch the water that generated this current rush by,
almost as fast as I can type.... oh yeah....
I hafta use Niagara Falls comparisons,
because the Welland Canal was bypassed and is starting to turn stagnant.

 

[Ella Beck]

I wanted to log in. I needed to get in, so I could relax.
I was looking forward to seeing how threads and replies were going, and watch and listen.
Unless I get a band happening, being here inside Magle.dk is the main source of music in my life.
I even think of Krummhorn as a man who could be my grandfather. That's not an age thing,
but a knowledge and admin thing. Who's my daddy?
I know who's trying to be my big sister.
And I've got a very nice brother.

I would like to make it clear to anybody reading this thread that even though I am just about the only woman posting on MIMF at present, John Watt cannot be referring to me.

The reason I know that is because, as John Watt is aware, I usually avoid posting on his threads or responding directly to his buttonholing.

In fact he suggested to me three months ago that I might like to ignore him, and I thanked him for his wise advice.

However, I felt it necessary in this case to respond directly to a post of his in order to clear up misunderstanding.

I am presuming that he means someone in his life offline who is trying to be his big sister, or else a MIMF poster from the past.

 

[John Watt]

No... this thread is about feeling like Magle.dk is a home fa fa awa from home,
and any references to personalities, or user names, are self-contained here.
I'm not sure what you mean by buttonholing.
I think it means catching someone in person and taking them aside for a more private time.

I'm wondering what "misunderstanding" you are referring to, or who you expect to misunderstand.
Is that as imaginary as your user name?
I can't imagine what that must be like, publishing online with a user name, and the psychology that involves.
I'm only John Watt, easy to be me, and that's part of my birth name.
Hey Sis, you reading this? Are we having strawberry cheesecake for dessert tonight?
Yum! And that's a stereo Yum!
As for a further clarification for Ella Beck, my mother never had any daughters.
Also, saying "big sister" is next to "big brother", both terms viable in terms of George Orwell,
with me growing up in a world where "Uncle Sam" is always pointing at me.
That throws an attitudinal light into dark souls.
Time for some Frederik Magle dark piano.

 

[John Watt]

And here's a stereo no, because this theme will never have served its' purpose,
as there is no bed to lay my head in this thread.

I would like to dedicate this time spent tonight on Magle.dk to "Doctor Seuss", an authors' pseudonym.
As an adult wannabe writer, his publisher challenged him to create a childrens' book using up to 200 words.
He got an American grade one vocabulary list and used it to write "The Cat in the Hat",
still one of the most popular books ever sold.
Online, posting a page about problems with food here in the Niagara Peninsula, American problems,
I was saying the only mammal left in North America that isn't used as food are bats.
A thoughtful and informative narrative became about will your cat eat bat, is a bat under your hat,
but that hasn't happened so far. Poor people eating green eggs and Spam has.
What I said about dried and ground crickets becoming a product is also happening.
For fans of chef shows and gourmet eaters,
the Toronto Star recommended one/third cricket powder and two/thirds wheat flour for a "nutty" flavour.
If I had bat under my hat, I'd be clicking my way around here in more ways than one.
Jiminy Cricket! If he visited here his head would be a trophy on a wall.