Do you have a song that defines your relationship? I have two.
Growing up my two favorite bands were Canadian. Rush was the undisputed leader, but I also liked Triumph. More specifically, I liked the lead singer / lead guitarist Rik Emmett. The drummer for Triumph also sang some, but I hated his voice and when the band broke up and they got a new guitarist but not a new singer and the drummer did all the singing on the final post-Rik Triumph album I was all fuck that garbage and never listened to any of it.
Rik is not only a great singer, but an amazing guitar player. I only got to see Triumph in concert once, for the Thunder Seven tour in 1985. But my wife and I have seen Rik in concert twice. The first time it was an acoustic show; we were in the front row. Our daughter was two months away from being born and she was booting up a storm through the entire performance. I doubt it had any magical effects, as both her aunt and grandfather are great singers so there are genetics at play, but our daughter also has one helluva voice. She took singing lessons for many years but eventually had to drop it because it was conflicting with being an internationally competitive karate badass as well as being a straight-A student. She still sings around the house though.
Fucking tangents. I’m bad for that. I’ll get to the point. My next point. There is another to follow. Rik’s first solo album came out in 1990, the year after I met my wife. On it is a song called “Saved by Love”, which wasn’t any kind of huge hit, but it was in the movie Problem Child 2.
The lyrics are pretty basic, but it was more about Rik was my guy and the timing was great and the year after I met her that really was the way I felt: saved by love. Over thirty-one years later, I still feel the same way. Dammit. Getting misty here. Hang on a minute.
In the ensuing decades, a second song, from way back in 1978, crept into to define the rest of our years together. It’s “Right Down the Line” by Gerry Rafferty. I cannot hear those lyrics without thinking about her. Both songs are on my running / cycling playlist. It always makes me happy when then come up in rotation.
All that was preamble. Almost 400 words of lede burying. The segue is to another popular Gerry Rafferty song, also from 1978, teased in the title: Baker Street. Foo Fighters did a decent cover of it in 1998, but Gerry’s original hit #2 on Billboard and stayed there for six weeks. It was a major international hit as well.
Little known fact: the 1973 hit “Stuck in the Middle with You”, which a lot people said was trying too hard to sound like Bob Dylan, was sung by Rafferty when he was with his first band, Stealers Wheel.
Bake to Backer Street. Fuck. Back to Baker Street. I actually typed “Bake” as the first word and said fuck it and kept going. Anyway, this part:
You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin', you're tryin' now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin' now
2019 seemed pretty fucking easy compared to some of the shit since then, and it’s not over yet. Yeah, Trump is out and largely silenced, but the entire toxic election process and all the bullshit claims of cheating followed by an actual fucking insurrection left their share of emotional scars. We have been through some shit, and there is still more to come. Trump may have lost but those 74 million people who voted for him are still around. Most of us aren’t vaccinated yet, and the anti-mask / anti-vaccine fuckwaffles means variants are spreading and we don’t know if this round of vaccines will do the trick. It will likely be well into 2022 before this shit is under any semblance of control, and even that’s uncertain.
Just one more year and then you’ll be happy.
How many times have I said that to myself? Just get through this first year of jr. high. Just get through this last year of jr. high. Last year of high school. Last year of MBA. Last year.
And now, this fucking year.
No one in my immediate family is vaccinated yet, despite my wife being a family physician. And Alberta has the highest rate of infections in the country because we are full of fucking rightwing hillbilly dumbfucks. Albertans are the reason I want to leave Alberta and move to the coast of British Columbia.
There is also a lot of work I have to do in the next year, and I’m tired.
On April 18 of last year, I found my true writing passion, and in the ensuing nine months I wrote more than I did in the previous three years combined. It was awesome, it launched a new and very successful career, and now I’m going to do it all again.
I’m writing a year 2 of the “Shit Went Down” column because people want it, and it makes good business sense. This train just got rolling and I need to keep it going. The next year is going to be just as busy as the last one was. And, as I said, I am tired. But I will do it, because it has to be done. However, I will do it a little slower.
For year 1 I finished the first draft (which meant writing up until April 17) on December 9, and then jumped right into editing to have the book ready for the one-year anniversary. That is not happening with year 2. I have a month in the queue right now, and I’m trying to keep it that way, but if I write my final “On This Day in History, Shit Went Down” post the night before it’s to be published on April 17, 2022, I’ll call it a win. Then I’ll take my time with editing and it will be published the following fall, in time for Christmas.
Also, I’m not at my usual level of fitness. That’s more work to do.
One more year and then I’ll be happy.
But, it’s like, about the journey man.
Fuck this journey. I’ve had enough hard journeys. And I’ve had enough of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” as well. I want off this one. I want to skip the next year and just have it done.
I don’t want to seem bitter. I’m not at all, about the writing, at least. I do love writing these daily history posts, but you have to admit that having to do one every single fucking day is a lot, and that will make two years without a break. I’m looking forward to being able to catch my breath and do some writing that isn’t limited to 480 words.
And my fitness is coming back. I’ve done aerobic exercise 10 of the last 12 days. Yesterday I did a 46km bike ride, which is a decent distance. My running isn’t getting further yet, but it is getting faster. The one good thing about losing a lot of my fitness in the past year is that I always knew it was temporary. This is the worst derailment I’ve suffered since I began exercising in 1993, but not the only derailment. I’ve always known that, barring some major trauma, either physical or mental, that fitness would be a thing I did for the rest of my days. And while I’d like this belly to be gone, I can’t wish it away. I’ll have to sweat it off, and with the conditioning coming back I’m starting to like working out again. Yesterday was good ride.
I would like to jump past the rest of this fucking pandemic though.
We are all fellow time travelers, moving into the future together at a rate of one second per second. As much as some of us would like to skip the next year, we can’t. That journey, as much as it may suck, is mandatory. You can’t Daylight saving that shit and just jump ahead. What’s more, trying to wish away the present can bring its own problems. Baker Street was prophetic for Rafferty. He self-destructed and drank himself to death.
So, I’ll get through it, and try to focus on being happy now, in anticipation of being even happier later.
Speaking of that Daylight saving bullshit, I think you’ll get a kick out of the entry I have planned for April 30.
Song #3 by Stone Sour is basically the audio account of my current relationship, and the 180 degree turn my life has taken for the better after divorce.
As an aside, Corey MF (not too hard to guess what THAT stands for) Taylor is a beast of a rock frontman. In addition to fronting Stone Sour, he has a solo career, and is best known for being the long time frontman for Slipknot.