On the outside: It's show time!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

It's show time!

I'm off to the rodeo!

The astute reader will have noticed a decided increase in the number of postings to my blog. That is because I believe the story about the violinist who stops and asks a New York policeman - "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The reply is the now famous: "Practice, practice, practice"

So I have been practicing, practicing and watching Star Trek re-runs. Hey - I'm not a machine.

I have written ads for wet-dog scented deodorant, movie pitches for horror movies set in Nakusp, blogs about Buddhism, and I have just finish rewriting every song penned since 1957. My songs need a little work however if we are not allowed to make reference to animal guts or anti-social behaviours.

The practicing, for those of you that have just stumbled onto my blog, is for my trip to the Big Smoke and my participating in the Canada Writes 2010 competition. Due to a series of bureaucratic mishaps and a friend of mine hacking the CBC mainframe, I managed to end up on the shortlist of writers competing in Vancouver.

While this competition will obviously not vault one to the dizzying heights of the Canadian Literary world it would, none the less be a great honour to show one's ability to the rest of the world. And it would be really nice to show my fifth grade teacher that yes, you can still make it in the world, even if you can't write within the lines.

Actually, all of my teachers were great. In looking back I can't remember a single bad teacher in the public school system. They were all very dedicated people and for some reason I think they felt the need to take me on as a project - sort of like that one bronc that could never be rode - they all took it as a challenge to try to get some knowledge, no matter how small, to actually stick in my head.

So you won't see a blog entry until I come back Saturday from my trip to the city. If I win you will most likely read nothing else until the finals in Winnipeg. If I lose and don't advance you will probably never read the letters CBC again in my blog. Which will be very hard as I will have to think up whole new spellings for my 24 letter alphabet.

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Please feel free to leave a comment. Ever since old Rebel rolled on me and I've been strapped to this old hospital bed I've enjoyed whatever posts come my way.

Please read the disclaimer

I am a highly trained athlete with years of living in the wilds of northern Canada. I was raised by wolves. I've wrestled Grizzlies with my bare hands - twice I was killed by them and twice I killed them. I rode with Gabriel Dumont. I was lead oarsman when our ship landed at L'anse aux meadows. I poured Sir John A. his last scotch and held the spike at Craigellachie.

In short, I've been around and I would feel real bad if someone with less experience went out on one of my adventures and ended up like, well, like me. If I say it's a tough go, it's a tough go and maybe you should think twice about doing it.

I'll tell the story one day about the ill fated ski trip to Pyramid Lake where I saw a grown man cry at the prospect of death. He didn't believe me when I told him about what was required of a participant in what we liked to call the Cursed Black Trail of All encompassing Evil and Death. Don't you be like that fellow.

But on a lighter note! Please leave a comment, good bad or indifferent as it is the only payment we writers receive. Unless of course you count that big advance royalty cheque that Rocky Mountain Press will be cutting me for my soon to be released book "101 ways to die in the wilds of Canada"