The candy treat with the emotive centre.

cowpuncherband — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:41:48 +0000

I remember the first real encounter where I felt that the universe had shifted me into a new gear with music, I was sitting in a bunk in kananaskis country ; on a youth retreat for peer support – a school run program for students to help other students with their personal problems. A friend handed me his walkman and told me to listen to this, it was the B side of Nirvana’s Nevermind record, the song was Territorial Pissings. I remember that moment to this day, in the exact way that it happened. I bet that my friend has no recollection of the event at all, how was he to know that he had set into play a monumental moment for another human being? There I was in those wood bunks, the stain on the wood was dark and the mattresses smelled faintly of urine and cleaner, the sheer shock of the emotion; the clear and utter belief in what they were singing, the true and natural primal screams, it was everything that I was feeling inside but I did not understand it. I was in my friend’s bunk and all I got to listen to was the one song, he did not want to where out the batteries, all I wanted in the world was to sit there and listen to that music for the rest of my life. Oh the shitty sleeping bags, the pubescent wreak of unwashed testicles and armpits, and a moment that shapes a life in some cabin in the middle of the mountains.

That emotion, that same raw power, is what I have been trying to capture ever since that moment. I want to stir in people the same thing that the moment of listening to that Nirvana record did to me. I have trained and worked to achieve some sort of academic level of knowledge because I think that it assists my ability to convey that emotion, I am not ignorant of what the inner workings of music are, nor do I let my cognitive processes get in the way of pure instinct. I have finally found the balance; and that balance is precarious (for a lack of a better word).

Before the album comes out, and it is a short ways away, I want to let you understand the reasons that I play – I am not sure why I need to do this, I just do. I play because of the emotion of playing, I play for that moment of sheer joy and exultation. At the same time I understand that it was my study that brought me to the moment that I am at. I have plans to study more, not in an institute like I have in the past, but rather, I am going to study with the people that I admire – I no longer have a fear of anyone. I play the guitar because it is my outlet for releasing all of my rage and frustration in life, people why I go nuts on stage and why I am quiet and nice in life, one of the reasons is that I can release those things on the stage. There have been moments that I think that I am dying, I don’t know why, but I harness that into my playing - I see death and I think “these are the last notes, make them unbelievable.” I play the guitar because I love so many people, I have to show them love, I have to make the world a better place with my music (both by teaching and performing); teaching heals the young, playing heals the old.

I am not sure I can go on with this for now, it is getting a little to deep into who I am and for whatever reason I feel like I have to stop…. I will continue this at another time when I am ready to share more.

I love you,

Tynan

The small town life….

cowpuncherband — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:11:48 +0000

So, Tynan here again, just with my ramblings of whatever this blog is. I am going to tell you about the small town life, one that seems like a reincarnation. I was raised in small towns, Cowpuncher is a small town – there are seven of us, returning to this life seems like a rebirth. Every time that we, as cowpuncher, hit up the small town shows it is like a rebirth – do you remember the branding party? I am sure that you don’t remember the branding party if you were there, do you remember the british soldiers that regaled us with stories of their training, laughing at your buddies head exploding – and they were just ‘mechanics’. If you want to be reborn move to a small town listen to the trains as they pass, smile at everyone, start a conversation with a stranger, get stung by stinging nettles, watch a buck escape the CPR, listen to the crows in the abandoned tipple.

I am here now. There is nothing that can move me. I fear nothing. I thought the mountains would surround me and close me in, they are my brothers. The mountains constantly speak to me, telling me of their conquest and their aspirations of triumph, I want to hold them in my arms as they sing me songs. As I write this I am watching the sky turn red with the impending storm, the clouds and weather move North to South here, sometimes Northwest to Southeast – but who is counting.I can see the stars. I watch them. I can see the north star in all of its un-glorious glory, always staying north and telling me which way to go.

Why is the small town thing important to Cowpuncher? One, because thats where our hearts are. Two, because when the second record comes out that record will be recorded in a small town somewhere, in a church. Did that just leak? Yes, yes it did. Now that the first album is pretty much on its way out of the womb and into your loving hands we have made plans to work on the second installment of the Cowpunching collective collaboration! There are a ton of songs that we play live constantly that are great that did not make it onto this first album and now this will be our chance to go ahead and do it!

I feel many things here. I don’t feel a million souls scrambling around me, I can not feel the evil here. The ancient ghost has passed from this little valley and only the wonderful light beams through, the tipple sits silent and yet the trains roar past. I watch the decay of a by-gone era, one that I can never comprehend, nor do I wish to. The suffering that mining involved, today we think going beneath the Earth sucks, think of the potash mines just outside of Saskatoon, now think when a time when a horse was worth more than a man. I know that I live on the precipice of civilization here, and yet not two hundred and fifty kilometers away is one million plus people, all wanting something from me, they want my body, my skill, my eyes, or my teeth – how does a garden grow?

I am glad that the madness has passed and I am left here, without the madness. I see the lakes of my youth clearly in my mind again, the smell of the dirty two stroke. When Slave lake disappears from my mind I know that the world has gone wrong…..

I love you.

WePunchCowtown Stampede

cowpuncherband — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:59:12 +0000

Hey. Here’s a list of shows we’re doing for Stampede! Come on down and join the party!

Monday 12th
20:00 – Ironwood

Tuesday 13th
20:00 – King Henry VIII

Wednesday 14th
18:00 – The Palomino (6-10)

Friday 16th
12:00 The Palomino (noon-5)
… & …
20:00 FATS Bar & Grill

Saturday 17th
11:00 The Palomino Rock&Roll Rodeo (3pm)

Sunday 18th
22:00 – To be announced

Friday 23rd
21:00 The Palomino — opening for Fred Eaglesmith!

Creative Exercises

cowpuncherband — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:10:16 +0000

I teach guitar, that is what I do mostly for a living. In my journey I have found that so many of my students are focused on goals, like learning a tune, or being able to play like someone else; which is beautiful, but, I think that it misses the mark a little bit as far finding one’s own way into the music. Over the years I have found that by giving my students creative exercises it helps them to open their own potential and find their own unique voice. I am going to share some of them with you, and I hope that no matter what sort of vocation or job you are in you can apply them to what you’re doing.

Exercise 1 – Try to mock a song – take a tune that you already know and create a parody of it; this can be done through a variety of methods. Play the song, then omit notes from it, start with the first note and see what the thing sounds like, just randomly omit parts or motives from the song. Augment, or through diminuation, try to alter the rhythm of the song. Also retrograde is another way that allows you you create a new ‘version’

Exercise 2 – Go for a walk or a bike ride (or whatever physical activity you do that does not require you to think), come back from the activity and sit down and just start doing, play, play, play. Don’t try to play a song though, just sit and play – take note of things that you like and things that you don’t like – if you remember any of it, that is great, if there is no recollection, well, that makes no difference.

Exercise 3 – Go to an art exhibit, or even just look at a book of art (if you don’t want to leave the house) soak up all the things that are there, focus on any piece that draws you, looking at this art is the only opportunity that day that you might have the chance of looking through someone else’s eyes. Now, sit down and play. Try and capture the mood of the art that you observed. Was the art sad? Was the painting isolated, bleak, beautiful, charming, bland? Try and capture the mood of that in your playing, doing this is not hard, it might feel like faking for a while but just give up the need for the world to make sense – it never really has.

Exercise 4 – Pick random numbers, 4 5 7. Now build a 4 note motif using some sort of rhythm, now build the 5, and the 7; join all the ideas together. Don’t think about a key either, just let the intervals join themselves together – even if its a leap of a minor 9th or a minor 13th or something of that nature, just accept them. Leave the idea for a day, or a month, or a year, and come back and see that it just was – and that is wonderful.

Exercise 5 – Try to find mathematical principles that are reflected in music. This one takes some digging, but one example is like an equation and the notion of retrograde, the two sides of the equation have to be the same, so does the original melody line and the retrograde one. I love using the fibernachi series in music, the lines just make so much sense.

Exercise 6 – Use 12 tone rows to create a melody, then try to fit a chord structure over top of the 12 row and then get rid of the row and leave the chords and see what has happened to your sense of harmony.

I am sure that is enough for now, try one. I like the walking one the best, calms the soul so much.

Love ya,
Tynan (this is my sharing circle)

Where the wind takes us.

cowpuncherband — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:49:26 +0000

Hmmmmmmmmmm, I know what to write! I don’t know if I should. Should I? Tell me if I should, right this second. Yell, in my face.

I am leaving. Not Cowpuncher, I will die or get my ass kicked out first, but I will never leave. I am leaving this city. Why? I have kids. I am not connected with what I eat. I am not connected with the neighborhood that I live in. I am a leech. I am nothing. I scorn the stupid shits that are hooked on meth/ sex/ heroin/ booze that ask me for change; I never know their names. The only people that care that I am leaving are reading this right this second and I am not leaving them.

Calgary, I love you. I love the memory of you.

I loved it when there weren’t men and women coming in you that wanted only to make the quick dollar and leave. I loved when you used to be hated by the world and not needed by it – now I am afraid you’re both. I remember when you a whisper on the map, now you crowd, with sharp little elbows, all of your neighbors. Now, you have a million minions at your biding. You are the new heart of the west. And that heart has turned black. I still believe in you so much, it almost pains me inside to know how great you can be.

This is not why I leave though. I want to be a part of your reclamation, your re-birth, your renaissance.

I have watched as you have made the living of the artist into a farce, oh Calgary you wonder why you can’t hold artists here. I will tell you. The artist’s voice is not heard here. With your old lady PTA politics you don’t allow the music heard along your streets, although you give free license, you give no license to be heard. You push the poor out of the core so that the suburbanites don’t have to deal with those dirty rag-tag hordes, but those hordes move themselves to the suburbs to be viewed at the leisure of soccer moms in Signal Hill or Cranston, there is no solution, only movement. Thank God for places like Cantos that stand as a testament to what you can be.

I leave Calgary because I want my kids to know how to cut a tree, how to plant one, and how to start a fire. I want my kids to know how to raise an animal with dignity, and then be able to dispatch that animal with the same dignity that it was raised. There is no outlet for that here. My children, hopefully, will be able to play a Bach suite and then fire a 12 gauge and have the same sense of confidence in both actions. There is no outlet for that here.

I am sorry. I did my best. I tried, but I failed you Calgary. My earnest vanity and naivety drove me to think I could change you, I am a battered women that needs to heal – escape and gain strength and come back to face the one, the one who committed the atrocity. I have watched you, watch you with my binoculars and I have seen who you spend your time with. The one that think that the music scene has gotten better because of external forces, join a band and see how much that ‘Saddle’ gets for you. A tear in a bucket.

I am not going to be such an asshole that I offer criticism without reprieve or solution, so here is what I think:

1) Allow your artists, creative types, and so on and so forth, to play freely among your streets and parking lots and parks and other public places. Let them breath without fear of retribution.

2) Make some spaces for us. Places that are cheap, not a hand out, but accessible to the fiscal terms of an artist. There are schools sitting doing nothing, just collecting dust that can be used for sculptors, painters, composers, etc…

3) Money is not everything. How much did it cost to make the statue of David? I am sure that does not matter, what matters is that the object was completed and now humanity has that as a testimony to what can be achieved. The bottom line really is the bottom.

4) Let people raise their food. Dedicate land in parks to people who live in apartments that want to grow lettuce and potatoes. Let the chickens into backyards. What does this have to do with art? I am going to answer that question with another question: how does one feed another’s soul when they can’t feed their own.

I don’t want this to be negative, I want this to be a great positive thing.

Well, what does this have to do with Cowpuncher? Quite a lot, I am moving and that means that things will change a little, not a lot, but a little; it would be foolish to think that they won’t a little. But, Cowpuncher is as it always will be – a movement.

I love you,
Tynan

The world as a stage.

cowpuncherband — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:31:50 +0000

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

This one is gonna hurt a little, not a lot, just a little and at the end it will feel good like a sliver that has sat for a few days festering to be pinned out with a poof of yellow puss, the wooden sliver releasing, and a tiny tear. That quote is an old idea, obviously, but it still runs true with the ‘stage’ applying to many facets in life. I remember my high school english teacher, his balding head, his fondness for the female students, the corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows – I recall those dead brown eyes, dead after years of life’s abuses in the penal system known as public education; I don’t judge him, I feel his pain of life that should have been one thing and was another. The pain that I don’t understand is trying to teach concepts beyond the grasp of syntax and cultural context, but here I am doing the same thing. However, the stage of Shakespeare’s time is our stage, it yours, its mine, its Cowpunchers. Maybe you are some small town girl moved to some big city, intimidated by the size, working for some corporation anywhere, looking at your superiors thinking that some favours will produce reciprocation from the management – its always the same story, the answer is no. Maybe your the young guy at the company with a masters and Phd in whatever, maybe you know a lot, but you don’t know don’t know as much as Gord who has worked there twenty years and just wants to hit retirement with some sort of dignity in tact; there are two roles, the young go getter, the old coot, the disparity of age and Gord is gonna get it without a severance thanks to your accounting technique. There is nothing wrong with this, it is the way that it is, the way that it always will be. A band is full of actors. I am an actor. The literal concert stage is our stage where upon we act out roles out in the view of whatever audience we have.

I wear a mask sometimes. I grow mullets. I have no tattoos. I study music constantly in preparation for musical problems that may or may not come to fruition; then I play on stage, and, the culmination of all those things create my part. It is as if all my little bit parts lead to that one moment where all the stage stars come into line to create that one moment, an engagement, a gig. Even as I write this I am playing a part, I am living out an actor’s role. You are too, right at this moment reading this, your part in this drama is being lived out. How the hell does this apply to music? Well, the role of each of the band is a casted piece that creates a puzzle, that then forms the picture of the whole. Just like in a play without one of the characters when one of our characters is missing the whole story does not live out fully. I am not going to go into the specifics of each persons roll in the band and how I see each person; I think that you need to see about five or six shows and then piece it together for yourself, get to know us a little and say hello.

All around us are actors, there are two kinds of the worst kind of actors, the first are the ‘users’, those people in our life that use us as stepping stools to advance their own careers, social standing, or whatever they use us for. I have found they are the ones that have the most promises, too many big words to hide meaning in language, and then can’t live up to their talk, maybe I am one, I sure as hell hope not. There are none of those types in Cowpuncher. There are no promises in this band, which is beautiful, there is only action – do and do not, no in between.

So the question comes to mind: what is that send type of ‘worst actors’? In my opinion (uhhh how post modern) I would surmise that the second worst type of actor are those that over-act their part, they have stupid looks on the camera, or in the play; extra shit on the bun when all that was needed was some beef. You know the girl or the guy that is always trying to make themselves the king or queen of it all. I fall into that category at times, I overact my part. I am not saying that I am a bad player of my chosen instrument, it is just that I go overboard sometimes and for that I am guilty, guilty, guilty. Sometimes I just can not help it, the exuberance of the situation draws a character from my mind that seems frightening and fiendish, but loving and caressing all at the same time. I am not playing the part, the part is playing me and I can not help it; but, it is that lack of control that astounds me and leads me to this self-deprecating conclusion.

Why do we do anything that we do? Why did you take a shit in the urinal at the Denny’s? I don’t know, you were playing out a part. Why do I where a mask and trudge around? I am not really sure yet. I guess the greatest part about life as a stage is that at the end, upon reflection, we can look back and laugh at the many roles that we got to play and then with wrinkled old hands we turn our pillow and embrace our last curtain.

I love you,
Tynan

Succulent Secrets

cowpuncherband — Fri, 21 May 2010 05:53:50 +0000

Shhhhh, I am going to whisper gently into your ear, you can feel my breath on the lobe and in the inner workings of your aural senses. Stop. No, keep going. What am I saying? I am telling you secrets; secrets about the guitar. What is a guitar? Really, what is it? It is wood that has been, most likely, carelessly harvested from some place that you will never visit because the stench of the massacre lies heavy in the air. The nickel for the strings is mined from some place that has the same ring as the wood did, the muscled sweating bodies of foreign men lean with the burden of their work. Bare breasted women, skin like satin, dripping with their own sugar-like thoughts of the better life for their suckling child. Real tortoise shell doesn’t exist anymore. Ivory is illegal. Guitar is a dinosaur, a lute that is losing its ground, a violin with a horn on it, a mastodon, a dodo.

How does someone play the guitar? As much as possible, that is the only answer. When is the best time to start? Yesterday or twenty years ago is the answer.

The guitar lumbers under its own weight of lofty legends and bullshit conjured up by record labels aimed at selling you, the consumer, more and more product. Here is a guitar and what it means, here is what rock and roll music means – love and community. There is only one secret to killing the dragon that was sickened upon the poor innocent little thing that the guitar is, and that secret is loving people. There is nothing worse than a guitarist. Does that make sense? A guitarist cares nothing for music. They care about the guitar, about themselves, about everything else except the things that are important. People. The guitar is only a medium in which to speak, the same way that Babe Ruth spoke through his bat, the same way that Kids in the Hall spoke to my identity, the same way that a Tom Thompson painting is like looking through his eyes at that moment in time, the way that Salvidor Dali is like looking at the world through the lens of genius, the way that reading a Bukowski or T.S Eliot poem speaks.

I sound jaded ( at least to myself). I am not. I feel the same way as I did when I was young about the guitar, it is a means to connect with other people, the guitar is my means of communication with a world that I cannot possibly understand. I am consoled by the fact that I am not in control of anything and I am reminded of that fact by how little I know about my craft. I loved that line from Nirvana, and it still rings true for me today, “ I am worst at what I do best.”

Here is the secret to playing guitar, play it. Play it a lot. Don’t give a rat ass what people think, and the reason for that lack of caring is that usually people are just as confused, or more confused, about life than you are. I discovered this this year. I said hello to this group of people, they may of may not have been hipper than me, but they said not one word to me, nothing; I got a glance from the end girl in the line and I realized that I saw fear in her eyes. This whole time I thought they hated me, not hate; fear. So I connect with them with a guitar, to say hello I am here; just like we all need to. Play those spoons. Pick up a paintbrush and become a connection. Pick up a book and read to a kid, become a guitarist. Sing a song to a dying person. Change a diaper. Put yourself in awkward positions, socially – then you’re a guitarist, that’s how the game is played.

I love all of you so much,
Tynan

Prairie Oysters

cowpuncherband — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:29:39 +0000

Melt Canada

cowpuncherband — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:29:50 +0000

We have a show comin’ up Friday the 14th @ Mikey’s Juke Joint. This will be a very rare clothing-neccessary, minimal vulgarity show!

Then Saturday the 15th we’re truckin’ ourselves down to a branding party with cowpokes and cattle outside of Medicine Hat. We’ll be bringin’ our speedos for the slip and slide!

FYI our schedule is frequently updated and can be found here:
myspace.com/CowpuncherBand

There are a lot of other irons in the fire. All of the tracks for the new album have been recorded and we’re in the process of getting everything mix-mastered. Slow and steady, soon it’ll be pretty enough to meet the parents!

Finally, one magic spring afternoon a few weeks back, we teamed up with the Welcome to the West crew and they taped us drinking, laughing, smoking and mucking our way through an acoustic version of “Melt Canada” on Matt’s front porch. Good times!

Cowpuncher – Melt Canada from Welcome To The West on Vimeo.

Life On The Rails – Vancouver: Let’s Talk! (More Rock!)

cowpuncherband — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:57:41 +0000

met a girl; she was kinda quiet

pyramid falls

The weekends are starting to blend together. On Fridays we get home from our day jobs/lives, race to pack our bags, jump into the van and venture onward to towns and cities across the west. The trip to Vancouver a few weeks back was no different except that Matt and I were going to be strumming guitars on a passenger train traveling through the Rocky Mountain pass. An outlaw Miloh and Otis journey! Eventually we’d be meeting up with some of the gang to play a show at the Rickshaw Theatre.

I’ve realized that you gotta pay attention to the omens. While packing and pruning I clipped my mustache at a weird angle and got to the point of fixing it where my trademark beard got wiped clean off my face! I suddenly looked sweet and boyish on the way out to Vancouver, but by the time we got back to Calgary I was old and weak and wanting at least a week of sleep! This trip was one of the most epic I’ve ever taken. Van was the sensei and I was the grasshopper…

The train ride was amazing; it’s by far the civilized man’s way to travel.

train entertainers

We got set up in our bunks, kicked back, were fed like kings and there were actually other young folks onboard. I bet that the snowboarders we met would’ve been our drinking buddies and life long friends had there not been a few French girls for them to feel threatened about. No problem. We’ll play for nine hours and look at the cliffs and waterfalls. Good show.

On Saturday morning we arrived in Vancouver and headed straight for Joey Only’s place. It’s the kind of house where you can play songs at any hour of the day and no one is allowed to get angry at you. Just as long as the music isn’t shitty! (as far as I could tell it never is) Acoustic jam ensues.

Early afternoon we’re prepping to have a BBQ and get word that the show may be cancelled. After some panic and negotiation the show will go on. It’s Joey’s birthday and it’s his CD release and we’re all relieved. We grab some meat from the butcher, nearly light the grill with a poisonous fireplace log, chop bits of wood, drink some beers, pack up and head to East Hastings.

end of the line

East Hastings. The area is over-exaggerated in the news except if you want to talk about the rat-infested alley behind the Rickshaw. I think it’s what Pleasure Island in Pinocchio was based on except you can’t break glass that’s already been broken! Lookin’ for fun? Don’t! You want no part of it. We only joked about playing hackey sack with the scattered needles… Move a dumpster. Piss anywhere. Get your kicks but eventually you’re going to turn into a donkey, man.

The Riskshaw is awesome, though. Big stage, big room, big sound! The line-up consisted of Kent McAlister, Brooke Wylie and the Coyotes, a mish-mash of Cowpuncher (Harley, Jeff, Matt and myself + Guy) and the one and only Joey Only Outlaw Band.

cat father

Maybe it was a mistake to have an ample supply of beer? And where’d I get that lasso from? Either way it got wild! At the end of the night we pack up the gear but there isn’t enough room to fit all the gear and people, so I’m on my own for a bit.

Some situations aren’t ideal and this is probably one of them (although I didn’t realize it at the time). I’m alone in the alley late at night waiting for the second batch of rides. A group of folks who were at the show walk by and are on their way to the same after party. They ask if I want to come with them. “No thanks, I’m waiting on a ride.” Five more minutes go by and I decide to maybe catch up with them. My phone is in my guitar case, which is in the car. But I’ll see the whole gang at the party. It will all work out and all be good!

I run and zig-zag for about five blocks without finding anyone familiar. And I start to get worried…

the rickshaw

So now I’m lost with no phone and no idea of where I am or where I should head in the most notorious neighborhood in Canada! But I’ve seen every episode of Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. This should be a piece of cake! Find the high ground, follow the water towards the ocean, eat whatever protein you can find. Um…clearly my strategy will not work here…

A hooker lady approaches me and starts following me. I finally turn to her and ask her to leave me alone. She attempts to lick my mouth (I’d call that the kiss of death). I run like hell far, far away in my cowboy boots and try to recognize a landmark. Maybe that meat shop we were at earlier is around here? I can probably find a way home.

So I try to get directions from a local homeless man and while takin’ a seat for the chat I accidentally leave my leather jacket that has my train ticket home and a bunch of my information (I realize this a half hour later when I notice I’m not carrying anything anymore). Very panicked now I take two cabs while trying to retrace my steps. In one of the only victories of that walk in Hastings I find my jacket on the ground, completely untouched!

darkness

A few more hours of walking up and down the hills and I’m exhausted. I find a tree in someone’s yard and take a nap (classic Cowpuncher move, by the way). I wake up suddenly and realize that this is probably not a good place for a nap. My jacket is a pillow and I find a crumpled paper in it with an address for my buddy Kent in Davies. It takes forever to hail another cab but I’m going to be on a couch soon!

The next day I realized I had Matt’s number on our Cowpuncher business cards. I wish I would’ve figured that out about 12 hours earlier! I call to say I’m alive and safe. (We have a 24 hour rule before anyone’s family is called). I take a long, long shower. I head down to the ocean and it feels great to be alive!

"I dress all of the rockstars in Vancouver"

Matt, Kenan (Joey’s drummer) and I head for breakfast ($3.99!). You can smoke/eat outside and drink beer inside. My hoody gets stolen! Matt and I went thrifting with a few new friends for the day and got dressed up by a gypsy woman. I found a snakeskin belt that matches my boots! We end up doing a show on a roof for a small crowd and eat more BBQ.

Goodbye Vancouver! We get to the train station and sit and wait and sit and wait. Both of us are certain we don’t leave until 10:30 and are there an hour early. But the station seems quiet and empty. Whatever. Around 11PM a VIA employee tells us the train is looooong gone. 20:30 on the ticket actually translates to 8:30 on a 12 hour clock. FUCK!

Matt and I just sit there, stranded. We are very stunned at this point and try to figure out a plan to get back to Calgary. I change out of my puffy shirt because I don’t feel especially jubilant any more. We brainstorm and end up on a really, really, really long greyhound bus journey from Vancouver to Calgary. No more five course dinners and no more comfy bunks. Instead we hit up random truck stop diners with eggs and sausage that taste like they were fried in a pan that was just cleaned by an SOS pad.

sunrise over peachland

One day I’ll learn how to sleep sitting up. Fetal position on a seat for hours on end doesn’t cut it! If I ever ride another bus it’ll be for a ski trip, bachelor party or touring!

And finally, when I’m around strangers and it’s 4 in the morning I will put on my glasses and confirm who I’m talking to before I ask a random stranger:

“Hey where are your parents from?”
– “…Kelowna…….”
“Awesome!!! We might be able to get onto the train when it gets there!!”
– “……uh? …… I think you want your buddy who’s next to me.”

Matt was actually curled into an uncomfortable ball next to this guy and his parents are actually from Kamloops (where the train does go). Our bus would not be in Kamloops or connecting with the train after all and we’d have to try to relax (impossible) on the way to Calgary.

I had a blast in Van – many, many thanks to VIA Rail, to Joey and his crew and all the friends out there we got to meet and see! I’m lookin’ forward to reuniting with everyone this Stampede during the Rock&Roll Rodeo days!

Love,
-RK