Happy New Year

Happy New Year Where does the time go? In May it will be three years since I started this blog. It began humbly as a chronicle of our celebrated first UK-Ireland tour since 1981. Friends and relatives were on a mailing list for the messages and updates I sent out every two or three days. I enjoyed writing…

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Dating Game 3

If you’ve been following the blog you might recall that I did a couple of posts about online dating. Two girls named Sue, one a cousin, the other a cousin in law, encouraged me to have a look at some dating sites after I suddenly became single at the beginning of my seventh decade. One of the Sues…

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Belfast 1981

Hello everybody  I promised a while ago to continue the story of our trip in 1981 to an embattled, torn and weary Ireland. Let’s go there.  Dublin          Republic of Ireland         May 13  1981 It was the day after the riot. We did a show at the Boxing Arena in…

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Loch Morrison

The Family Dynamic Let me make a brash general statement. Everything interesting in life involves the attempt to resolve conflict, to find harmony in dissonance, to bring order to chaos…….. generally to find balance or stasis. All the temporal arts, music, poetry, literature etc. use this push and pull, this tease of fulfillment, as a way to provide narrative and…

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Cottage Life

Mikey Goes On Vacation I’m heading north to a special lake in the famous Muskoka area of central Ontario. Muskoka is Toronto’s traditional summer getaway being only 140 kms from the city limits. I’ll be spending a week in a rented cottage with my family which consists of two sisters, a brother, two nieces and two nephews. Also staying with…

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The Pipes Are Calling Ye

The Riot In Dublin The “Troubles​” began in the early 1900’s with Irish defiance of British colonialism. Over the years protests, assassinations and rioting would be very intense for a period of time. Then there would be something akin to a cease-fire and the problem would fade out of the World’s consciousness for months, even years on end.…

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Trump Vs Trudeau…..what started it all

Trump Has Held A Grudge Since This Incident  President Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February of 2017 in what was  hailed as a significant tightening and reaffirmation of the historical bonds of friendship and economic cooperation across the world’s longest undefended border. A “diplomatic success on all counts” was how mainstream Canadian…

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Fickle Finger Of Fate

“Chance” in a positive sense comes in two species: Fortune and the avoidance of Misfortune. True story: This dude, charicatured here as a sort of hapless loser, survived an astonishing series of deadly situations. A train derailment into a river drowning 17, an airplane crash that killed everyone else on board, three serious (and bizarre) car accidents and after all that, hit…

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The Best Shows Ever Gave

Barry Keane and I have come up with some interesting “Themed” tours. A Surreal Evening of Tibetan Twang                                                                 Dolly Parton Salvador Dali Dalai Lama The…

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Left At Albuquerque

As part of this trip we’re currently on, we had to fly from El Paso TX to Scottsdale AZ. We passed over Albuquerque NM at 40,000 feet and I was reminded  of an emergency landing we made there just last year. We were heading back to Toronto from Scottsdale and at around 1:00 am MST…

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