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Lake Laziness

I almost didn’t go on this recent camping trip, but I fought my nature, listened to the appeals of my better angels and made the getaway a priority over the work. Winter is not far off and I need to put as much positive fuel in the tank while I can, before the dark and dreary cold season starts burning it away.

So, I let my newspapers know I’d be gone, gave them almost double the usual cartoons last week to keep them covered, and headed off Sunday morning to go camping with old friends. Three of us drove together in a little convoy to a regular meeting spot on Highway 95 between Radium and Golden. There we met up with another old friend who traveled from the other direction and we headed up into the hills. Three trucks, two trailers and my car.

It’s a dirt and gravel road for most of the way, some years better or worse than others, with the last 2km stretch resembling a goat track. That last bit requires driving in 1st gear, maneuvering back and forth from one side of the road to the other to avoid large potholes and big rocks. My buddy Al described it best when he said the road was particularly ‘bony’ this year, making it especially tricky for the two trucks pulling small Boler trailers.

There are three BC Forestry campsites on the entire lake, all spaced evenly apart, so even when it’s full, the neighbours are quite far away. We have our favorite spot and while we might not always get it, we lucked out once again this time. It’s a big site, with plenty of room to spread out our two trailers and two tents.

British Columbia is incredibly dry right now, experiencing one of the worst wildfire seasons ever recorded. There has been a fire ban on for nearly two months. With an abundance of dead-fall in the area, firewood is usually never an issue, but with no chance of the ban being lifted, we brought a propane fire bowl instead.  It provides some warmth when evening falls and is quite safe when handled properly. Most importantly, it’s legal during a fire ban.

With temperatures above 30C every day, we took extra measures like lining the inside of our coolers with Reflectix, laying soaking wet towels over the coolers during the day and keeping them in the shade.  My measure of success was going to be if I still had ice for a rum and coke on the third night and cold milk for coffee on the last morning.

I still had ice in the cooler when I got home.

I’ve been friends with two of these guys for more than twenty years, and the third for not much less. I’ve been coming to this lake since the mid-nineties the year I got married, but my buddy Jim started going there the year I graduated high school. Most of my friends are older than I am. Our buddy Babe (his real name) is in his early seventies, but he’s still hauling his little trailer up the road with the rest of us.

As we didn’t have to cut, haul and chop wood this time, it was pretty much four days of laziness. We all woke at different times, only stayed up past midnight once, ate and cooked our own food, read books, listened to music, insulted each other non-stop, napped in our chairs, went swimming in the lake quite often, ate food, drank beer and other spirits, with no agenda.
I also tried my hand at wood carving for the first time. While the result was a pitiful embarrassment and reminds me of a grade school art project, I did enjoy the process and will try again soon. I must remind myself that I used to be quite bad at drawing and painting, too. You’ve got to start somewhere.

Many assume that when four guys head to a lake in the mountains, they must be fishing, but none of us do. It just sounds like work to us. There aren’t many fish in this lake anyway.
When it comes to his canoe, Jim has one rule. Anybody can use it whenever they like, with the exception of dusk. That’s when he heads out on the lake each night and paddles around by himself for an hour or so as it gets dark. This works well for me since I was the only other person who used the canoe and my favorite time to be out on the lake is first thing in the morning as the sun’s coming up, camera and coffee in hand.

The forest ranger came by every couple of days doing his rounds, making sure nobody was violating the fire ban and we enjoyed chatting with him. He said there weren’t many campers in the area, but all he encountered were being responsible, which was nice to hear.

There were some other campers on the lake the first night and some day-fishermen one day, but for the most part, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was so quiet. It was clear most of the time, but on the last evening, the smoke from one of the many BC forest fires rolled in and by morning, the trees across the lake were blurred of their definition, lost in the haze.
There were plenty of dragonflies on the lake, normal for this time of year. We’d sit on the dock while swimming and they’d occasionally land on our shoulders or legs, an enjoyable experience. While canoeing around in the morning, I’d come across one struggling in the water and dip the paddle in to rescue it, something I learned from Jim years ago. After a few minutes drying off, it would eventually fly away. I think I rescued three or four of them. Might seem like a small thing, but I imagine it mattered to the dragonfly.

I’m used to seeing a lot of ducks on this lake in the spring. Though I heard a couple one evening this trip, I only saw one solitary loon one morning, letting out his lonely call. It’s one of my favorite sounds in the world, especially when I’m out in a canoe.
The best surprise of the whole weekend was watching an Osprey one morning and I managed to get close enough to take some photos. On the last morning, after I’d already packed up my tent and most of the car, Babe was looking out at the lake and said, “There’s your Osprey over there.”

I grabbed the camera, paddled across the lake and got a few more shots before we left, a nice way to end the trip.

This might be the last camping trip of the year, but given that it has been exceptionally warm this summer, there still might be another before the snow flies. If the opportunity comes up, I will probably grab it.
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Transition of Power



(Yesterday, one of my newspapers asked me to write a few lines to accompany the editorial cartoon video you see here, ‘Transition of Power.’ I sent them a short paragraph, but realized I had more to say on the matter.)

In the 1980s, my father was stationed in Lahr, West Germany with the Canadian Armed Forces. Growing up overseas was a privilege, but during the Cold War, there was no doubt as to why we were there. Our Canadian schools ensured we got the most out of our time in Europe. We were able to see a lot of it, were exposed to different cultures and we learned its history.

A school visit to Dachau concentration camp had a profound impact on me as did visits to other World War II sites. The history of that era is something I’ve read about a great deal in the more than three decades since.

Most recently, I’ve read the Third Reich trilogy by British historian Richard J. Evans, which details the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. It was a bit of a slog to get through it, but well worth the effort. While there are many differences between the world of the 1930s and today, the similarities to today’s climate in the U.S. can’t be ignored.

There is a well-known internet adage called Godwin’s Law. It states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1.”

It’s true. We tend to be cavalier with the assertion and most often, it’s unwarranted. The mere mention of Hitler in the same sentence as a current leader is looked upon with derision, along with accusations of lazy logic. Some might say that to compare the current U.S. President to the leader of the Third Reich is irresponsible and inappropriate, largely because it amounts to placing a living human being in the same company as a man who is considered to be the worst mass murderer the world has ever known.

So why is this different?

Today, we have the benefit of hindsight, to see what was allowed to happen in Europe of the late 30s and early 40s once the invasion of other countries began. While world politicians talked, worried about polls, votes and public perception, the ball continued to roll toward what we now know as the worst genocide in human history.

And by the time enough people noticed, it was too late.

We can pretend that what’s going in America is politics as usual, that things will settle down soon and he’ll mellow into the job, despite there being no sign of this happening. It has become cliché to say that we ignore our history at our own peril, and yet we continue to do so time and again.

Hitler surrounded himself with men who supported his views, some who entertained demons far worse than his own. These were men he tasked with carrying out his orders, but also whose appointment gave tacit approval to come up with orders of their own. And they did.

Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler, Eichmann, Mengele, and more. Without Hitler, these men might never have been put in positions that allowed them to achieve their full, horrific potential.

So it isn’t just one man being compared to another, it’s what that one man represents. It’s what he allows simply by his presence.

We forget that Hitler didn’t start by building concentration camps. He started by promising to build a better Germany for Germans, swore to return the Fatherland to its former greatness, and he pointed fingers at minorities and said they were to blame for all that was wrong in the world, then he compared them to vermin.

Yes, the blame rests largely on his shoulders. Hitler wrote the tune and he conducted the orchestra, but he wasn’t the one playing the instruments.

The score was performed by the German people of the time, a shame they later had to live with. Had they known what they were allowing in the 1930s when they failed to speak up, had they a glimpse into the future to see the legacy of their misplaced rage, would they have changed course?

We can never know. How could they possibly have imagined the nightmare to come?

But that is what it means to learn from history, to see the same patterns repeating and to make different choices. Unlike the German people, we know too well what is possible when bad men are given power.

If we allow men like Donald Trump and those he enables to flourish, to explore the full potential of the seemingly limitless power they are currently testing and exploiting, the shame will rest on all of our shoulders.

Will Donald Trump and his inner circle become as monstrous as Hitler and his followers?

I doubt it.

But how far down that road is far enough? A quarter of the way? Half the way?

What are we willing to give up in order to find out?

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B.C. Road Trip

This post began in a motel room on Saturday night, just off the Coquihalla Highway in Merritt, British Columbia. That’s somewhere I never expected to be writing on my iPad, let alone in January.

Despite the fact that I’m in my mid-forties and have lived in Alberta for most of my adult life, I have never driven farther west than Kelowna. I’ve been on Vancouver Island a number of times, but we’ve always flown into Comox, rented a car and toured around that way. It’s a short flight from Calgary and I’ve never been a fan of long road trips. I’m a destination type of guy, with little interest in the journey.

The metaphor is not lost on me.

Regular readers will know that I’ve been going through a tough time lately and though I’m getting help, it would appear that it will be some time before I get back to normal, whatever that is. As I told a friend yesterday, it’s been months since I’ve felt like myself. With our home renovations finally finished late last week, I felt a desperate need to get out of the house. I figured my wife could use a couple of days break from my drama, too.

Completely out of character, I decided to take a road trip. Half a road trip, if you want to get technical about it.
My buddy Darrel has been one of my closest friends for more than twenty-five years, and he’d driven out to Vancouver Island from Red Deer to see his parents last week. Shonna and I always stay with his folks for a night on our trips to the Island as they’ve been family friends most of my life.

So, on Friday evening, I flew into Comox, had dinner with Darrel and his folks at their house and early Saturday morning, Darrel and I hit the road for the drive back.

I’ve got friends in the Comox/Courtenay area and family near Nanaimo, and if any of you are reading this, my apologies for not getting in touch. Adding more to my schedule right now is not what I need. I was also tagging along on somebody else’s trip, so not my place to add anything to his itinerary, either.

Darrel is easy company, we get along well and neither of us was in a big hurry to get home. I sent out a couple of extra cartoons last week and told my papers not to expect anything Monday. That, too, is completely out of character. But hey, clearly the usual isn’t working for me lately.
Although routine experiences for many, there were quite a few firsts for me this weekend. First time on a B.C. ferry, first time in Vancouver, first time on the Coquihalla highway, first time in the Fraser Valley.

I know that a lot of people love Vancouver, and I was only there for less than two hours, but I couldn’t wait to leave. I’m not a fan of big cities and that one didn’t appeal to me at all. We detoured and drove through Stanley Park, which was pretty enough, then got shunted out to drive through downtown which was frustrating stop and go traffic for about an hour. Can’t imagine what it’s like on a Monday morning commute.

While I’ve seen stories on the news and pictures in the media, I was unprepared for Downtown East Hastings Street. The homeless and drug situation was heartbreaking, seeing so many broken lives. It was overwhelming and while no doubt a consequence of the depression and anxiety issues I’ve been dealing with, that’s what I’ll remember of Vancouver. That’s not a fair judgement to pass from such a short drive through, but those images will stick with me for quite some time and I was relieved to put the urban sprawl of the Lower Mainland in the rear view mirror.

With mountains on all sides, and a wide flat valley of farmland, however, I think I’d like to visit the Fraser Valley again. Perhaps in the spring or summer, though unlikely this year. It was one of the more pleasant surprises of this trip.
It was dark by the time we got to Merritt, and the following morning we opted for the Okanagan Connector Hwy, rather than continue on the Coquihalla. Plenty of snow at that elevation and before we got to Kelowna, we had an hour or so of icy roads, poor visibility and slow going. January in the mountains, so not like it was unexpected. Weather wise, we did pretty well, all things considered.
I hadn’t been to the Okanagan in over twenty years, but it might as well have been the first time as there was little that seemed familiar. We could have pushed through to Canmore on Sunday, but that would have made for a very long day, especially since Darrel drove the whole way home, despite my offer to share the duty. So, rather than spend the night in Revelstoke or Golden, we took Highway 95 to Invermere. As my buddy Jim said via text, quite the detour from Highway 1.
Turned out to be worth it, however, as we got to have a schnitzel dinner at the Black Forest Restaurant, which was better than the Subway we’d eaten the night before. Darrel and I both spent years in Germany as kids, so a traditional German meal was a nice treat. If you’re ever in that area, I highly recommend it.

Monday morning, we headed up Highway 93 for the final scenic drive home. I’ve camped in the Columbia Valley many times over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever made the drive in winter and it was very pretty.
As is my nature, I have a bad habit of trying to quantify experiences. Was it worth my time? Did I get enough out of it? What was the point? For too long, I’ve been asking those questions about life in general, and the answers have been unsatisfying. Life doesn’t work on a spreadsheet, a lesson I’ve yet to learn.

I’ll have to be content with the fact that I did something completely out of my ordinary, spent a few days with a good friend and experienced a change of scenery. Perhaps the benefits will be cumulative or maybe it will make trying something new a little easier next time.

Who knows?

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Demons and Dark Corners

When we returned from Germany when I was fifteen, my parents sent my sister and I to the Catholic school rather than the larger generic version across the street because we were used to small schools and I think there were less than 400 in the one I ended up at. Memory is weird, so I can’t say for certain. High School wasn’t so tough for me, although I was a horrible student. I just had no interest in it.

Anyway, good call on their part. Even though I never really fit in throughout my three years there, I never had any problems with bullies or fights or feeling ostracized. Sure there was the odd asshole, but that was the exception, not the rule.

No, those first couple of years, my friends were mostly on the military base, that’s where the majority of my life was. At first, it was just like fitting in anywhere else, but military kids do that well.  I was an awkward teenager. Hey, in one form or another, weren’t we all?

My parents were still dragging me to church and while I was an altar boy in Germany and at the beginning in Penhold, I ended up playing the organ for mass, too.

Organ. In church. Here come the pedophile priest jokes.

Funny thing, because we had one of those and he set his sights on me, although I didn’t know it at the time. It felt like a big brother kind of thing. He took me skiing at Canyon ski hill, bike riding, etc. No alarm bells went off or anything, proving we aren’t the same people as teenagers that we are as adults, because all of the clues were right in front of me.

I even remember him making the comment once that I had ‘big hips.’ Tell me that’s not a red alert right there, but I was naïve and stupid. Nothing ever happened that I can recall, however, but my parents later told me that he wanted to take me camping once and they said, “No,” because by then, THEY were seeing the signs and got me away from him.

My parents told me that when they told me No, I was really mad and we had a big fight about it. I don’t remember any of this.

But it turns out he took a couple of other boys camping later on and ended up in jail for it in Ontario. I still wonder, though, because I have a visceral reaction when the subject of child sexual abuse comes up. It triggers my OCD like you wouldn’t believe. Last month, I watched the documentary ‘Call Me Lucky` about Barry Crimmins and his dealing with abuse and it set me off. I spent days in a deep dark funk, some tears, angry and bitter, but no specific memories. It’s still bothering me a month later.

Having spent way too much time researching child sexual abuse over the past couple of weeks, (that’s what my  OCD does), I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a clouded memory in there somewhere as many years of my childhood memories are just snapshots and I have some of the symptoms often associated with adult survivors of that shit. The fact that I have long dealt with anxiety disorders, depression, and am quick to anger could be indicators. I don’t like being touched much. When somebody touches my arm or leg, it creeps me out and I startle quite easily.

Although oddly enough, I’m a hugger. Man or woman, I would prefer to hug somebody than shake their hand.

My folks are adamant there wasn’t any indication of ever having been molested, but busy people with busy lives with the best of intentions can’t be everywhere. I hope they’re right. I suspect they’re not. Just a gut feeling.

What much of the research says is that you shouldn’t go looking for an incident if you can’t remember it, because the mind is a funny thing and my overactive imagination might fill in the gaps. Who knows what shit I could dig up and how much of it would be real? Everybody’s got problems and the root of my craziness could be any number of things, from a genetic cocktail gone wrong to too many Stephen King novels at a young age.

So I stopped going to church shortly after, but it actually had nothing to do with the creepy clergyman. When I’d just turned 16, going to church was a chore, especially since I had no real faith in it and am an atheist now. My parents still went but they didn’t fight me on it and I got on with the business of being a teenager and growing up.

It’s been thirty years, pedophile priest dude is dead now and I’m pretty sure he never got his hooks into me. But he sure as hell was grooming me for it, no doubt in my mind about that now.

And at least he didn’t ruin camping for me.

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A long time ago…

falconDespite a recent declaration that between now and January, I don’t set foot in a shopping mall, I realized I was a hypocrite on Saturday when I found myself standing in Chinook Centre in Calgary.

Shonna and I wanted to see the new movie Arrival (highly recommend it) on the big screen, she needed to buy a few things and I realized I could use something new to wear for her upcoming office Christmas party. After we bought a few shirts for me, Shonna went off to shop and I wandered the mall, dealing with my agoraphobia, which in my case is not so much a phobia as it is an aversion to other humans.

While leaving The Bay, however, I came across a small display of Star Wars toys, specifically the new Air Hogs remote control Millennium Falcon, X-Wing and Tie-Fighters. I paused and looked at the boxes while my inner child tugged hard at my jacket asking, “Can we get one, can we get one, can we get one?”

Walking out of the store, I remembered one of my best Christmases, back when I still liked the holiday. We were living in West Germany at the time, it would have been ’81 or ’82, I think. I had the Star Wars figures, the X-Wing Fighter, the land-speeder and some weird pod-like craft that I have never seen in the movies, but the marketing team at Kenner somehow convinced my parents to buy for me.

I played with them all. The lightsabres that slid out from the arms were missing, as were the capes and the little guns, the paint was scarred and scratched from all of the battles I put these poor action figures through. They would fight on the blanket planet, the dresser plant, the under the bed cave, the forest planet out back (a coniferous bush of some sort), the sandbox planet. Those toys really got around and rarely had any time for a drink in the cantina.

The X-Wing Fighter wouldn’t X anymore, because I broke the wings and my Dad had to glue them back together in the closed position. The cockpit lid would come off on a regular basis as would the guns. A battery had broken open inside the compartment, rendering that useless, so it wouldn’t make any noise anymore. And I didn’t care. I still had fun with it.

But the best toy I ever got for Christmas was The Millennium Falcon. It was the original, the one that came in that first printed cardboard box. I never got the tie fighter or the Death Star playset or the carrying case for the figures, but the Millennium Falcon was the prize, that was the best toy in the whole collection.

This was back before everybody had a credit card, so I remember going to the Canex department store with my Mom. She would often head to the back of the store to the little office kiosk, tell me to wait over by a corner so I was out of earshot and couldn’t see anything. All I knew was that she was making a layaway payment, whatever that meant.

Yes Virginia, there once was a time where you had to budget for Christmas, make deposits ahead of time with real money and you didn’t get your stuff until it was paid for.

I loved that toy, and I beat the hell out of it.

By the time I had outgrown those Star Wars toys, the Falcon’s lid had been cracked and glued more than once, the hidden floor compartment cover was missing, as was the little light-sabre training ball, the cockpit hatch regularly came off, none of the electronics worked and it didn’t even stand up straight as one of the legs wouldn’t fully extend.

A number of years ago, my parents opened a box in the basement, found a bunch of that stuff and asked me if they could get rid of it in a garage sale. I told them sure as I had no use for it. I’m not a collector of anything and while I’ll still watch the Star Wars movies, you’ll never find me lining up to see one or dressing up as a character at Comic-Con, but I also don’t judge anyone who does. If you’re having fun and not hurting anybody, do your thing.

Over the years, whenever I see articles or hear people talking about how much those old Star Wars toys are worth, especially if they’ve never been opened, I just shake my head.

When I was looking at the new versions of those toys on Saturday, the ones that actually FLY now, I wasn’t thinking of the investment potential, what they’d be worth in thirty-five years or where I could store them.

I just wanted to play with them.

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This one time, at Drum camp…

drumcamping04My buddy Darrel has been my oldest and closest friend for more than twenty-five years. We both went to school in Germany around the same time and he now lives in Red Deer, which is where I went to high school and college. Our parents have been friends for so long, that his Mom and my Dad went to school together as kids in France when they were base brats. We have a lot of shared history.

Darrel and I don’t get together as often as we’d like, but when we do, it’s often camping for a few days.

Ask a bunch of Albertans where they love to go camping, most will answer, “the mountains.” Who can blame them? I live in the mountains and the views are spectacular. But every summer, especially on weekends, it fills up with tourists. When everybody else is coming here, we’re most often looking to get out. Or we go into hiding.

Darrel and I have gone camping in a few different places in Alberta, but more often than not, we end up at a small campground in the Badlands, northwest of Drumheller. It’s a different landscape, provides us each with a change of scenery, and amounts to about the same drive time for both of us.

Alberta weather hasn’t been great this summer, but this late in the season, camping is always a gamble. With kids back in school, it means a lot less people, however, so it’s often worth the risk.

drumcamping01Arriving on Thursday within a half hour of each other, we had the whole campground to ourselves. Though raining steady when we got there, we hung out in the cook shelter for a couple of hours, a couple of beers and some BBQ’d munchies, until the rain stopped and we were able to set up camp.

When my wife Shonna and I first bought our camping gear, she wanted a tent in which she could stand up. After initially dealing with leaking air mattresses and soggy foam pads, we then bought sturdy cots, something I highly recommend. Over the years, Shonna got tired of camping, as happens to a lot of people, but I still enjoy going out with the guys a few times a year. Not so many trips to make it worth investing in a trailer or camper, but enough to keep my gear in good order.
drumcamping06 In July, Darrel and I were in Drum for a camping weekend before he got married and we not only experienced a steady rain for about ten hours one night, but some of the hardest torrential rain I’ve ever experienced anywhere. Darrel sleeps in a camper van, but I like sleeping in the tent. After that much rain, I was pleasantly surprised that my thirteen year old tent hadn’t leaked. So while I have a smaller popup tent now that just fits the cot, if there is even a chance of rain, I bring the large one, even though it’s pretty big for one person.

This time of year, it’s quite chilly at night, but with multi-layered sleeping bags and blankets, I’m usually pretty comfortable.
drumcamping10Darrel’s parents gave up camping a while ago, and from them he inherited an 11’ X 11’ dining tent. This one piece of kit has more than once been the linchpin of our camping trips. With mesh sides and nylon fold down flaps, it keeps the bugs out and makes a great shelter from rain and wind. Add to that my folding camp table, a couple of lawn chairs and our drink coolers, and we can sit in there for hours. When the mosquitoes are bad, as they were at times this weekend, it’s the height of camping comfort.
drumcamping03Now, I don’t want to pretend we’re roughing it when we camp in Drumheller. We drive into town every day, go have a shower at the pool, have lunch at a pub, stop at 7-eleven on the way back. Hell, we even went to Wal-Mart on Saturday because I needed a new belt. While not quite fifth-wheel trailer glamping, we’re not living off the land. We just pretend we are.

This weekend, we dealt with rain and wind on the first night and then two days of warm weather with plenty of sunshine. On the third night however, as expected in the forecast, the weather turned downright nasty.
drumcamping07We saw the storm coming up the valley and with the forecast of 30-50 km/h wind gusts seeming to be accurate; the dining tent began to collapse under the force of it. For a good fifteen minutes, Darrel and I held up the tent from the inside as the leading edge of the storm arrived and overtook us. When it finally subsided enough, we set to work adding more guy-wires to the dining tent and it held.
drumcamping09By the time we turned in, the weather hadn’t improved much, the temperature dropped and it was too windy for a fire. As expected, however, not a drop of water in my tent, so I still had a good night’s sleep. Despite little improvement in the weather by morning, we still managed to be in good spirits as we put our wet tents into black garbage bags for the trip home. Just took mine down from drying in the garage and packed it away until next year.

We all want perfect weather to go camping and when it happens, it’s very relaxing, a nice break and a welcome recharge of the batteries. But something that occurred to me on the drive home Sunday, those perfect trips aren’t the ones I remember most.

When weather turns bad, strange shit happens, the annoying neighbours run their generator for four hours, there’s car trouble, or unexpected challenges pop up, that’s where the stories are. Those are the trips you talk about later.

Years from now, Darrel and I will still be talking about the weekend of torrential rain this past July, when it fell so hard and fast that the dirt under our feet in the dining tent suddenly turned into a small river. We couldn’t even play Scrabble because water was leaking through the roof onto the table. It’s the rain with which we will compare all future rain.

“Could be worse. Remember that rain in 2016?”

There was our trip to Nordegg years ago when not only did we have to drive back 45 minutes to Rocky Mountain House because I forgot the propane, but we cut the trip short a day when it snowed. The trip Shonna and I talk about most is the one to Kananaskis where we were so cold we bought new sleeping bags the week after. And while it was a pain in the ass at the time, right before we got to the lake in BC for the first camping trip of the season last year, I had to make a three hour round trip back to Invermere to get a flat tire repaired, while the guys carried on to claim our site. Those events, however, now define those weekends.

So we didn’t have perfect weather for the last camping trip of the year, but we had fun. And most important, it was memorable.

drumcamping08

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Hearing Voices

Books

There was a small video crew here this morning to interview me, some footage for a piece they’re doing on the upcoming 15th anniversary of the little paper that could, The Rocky Mountain Outlook. Lots of people said it would fail when it first began in 2001, an empty curse that is often in the first paragraph of many success stories.

I have been the cartoonist for the Outlook since the first time it hit the stands and one of my cartoons has been in every issue. My connection to what has become the newspaper of record ‘round here is something I’m proud of, because it was a dream built by tough people who then passed it on to another generation and they’re taking good care of it.

I’m a big softie when it comes to nostalgia. I reminisce often and usually put an overly romantic spin on the memories when I do. Despite my misanthropic outlook, I’ve known a lot of good people in my time, many of whom have helped me get to where I am today, often with gentle nudges but sometimes with the use of high voltage cattle prods placed in uncomfortable places.

The interview this morning got me thinking about the road from there to here. Next year will be the 20th anniversary of my first editorial cartoon, a poorly drawn black and white scrawl for The Banff Crag and Canyon. I look up at the Coyote Totem hanging on my wall, with his knowing grin and I can’t help but marvel in hindsight at all of the dots that had to connect to finally become good enough to paint him. Had I missed just one of those dots, it might have all gone away.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, an outlet that has ebbed and flowed throughout my life, ever since I was a kid.

At my last Photoshop World, the subject of storytelling kept popping up. One of the instructors was talking about doing that with photos, but the other two mentions seemed entirely random. And yet, I picked up on it. Since then, the theme has been ever-present.

When my publisher Alex and I began talking about my upcoming book of my animal artwork, he was adamant that the writing in it should focus on telling the stories surrounding the paintings. When I dropped off a print to a valued client in Red Deer the other day, she told me how much she liked the stories behind the work. And one of my followers on Facebook commented this week that “One day you will also be an award winning author if you aren’t already.”

I don’t know if that last one is true, but I appreciated the thought. This common theme of writing has resurfaced in recent years, often to the point of distraction. I have editorial cartoons and painting to do, but I made time to write this instead.

When I was in the sixth grade in Lahr, West Germany, I had a teacher named Tom Muise. He was one of those teachers you hear about, who just happened to say the right thing at the right time and probably didn’t even know he was doing it. Handing me back an essay one day, he paused with it just out of reach, so I had to look up at him. When I did, he said, “Someday, you’re going to be a writer.”

I have never forgotten that. I still think about it often. In the late nineties, I was halfway through writing a novel and once again heard his voice in my head. He talked about it often, so remembering that he was from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, I found a number online for a Tom Muise and called him. He didn’t remember me, which wasn’t surprising, but I told him I wanted to thank him for the inspiration and that his kind words had not been forgotten.

Tom Muise died of cancer in 2008. I’m so glad I called.

I finished that novel and only sent it out once. One rejection is all it took for me to put it back in a drawer. Had I known then what I know now about no reward without risk, I would have kept at it and started collecting the pile of rejection letters that every published author holds dear. I still think about the story often and twenty years later, I’ve got pages of notes for a rewrite, hopefully with a more experienced voice. Shonna thinks I was holding back when I wrote it the first time and I know she’s right.

There was another novel after that, and both are printed and held together with cerlox binding, sitting on a shelf where I can see them as I write this. Last year, I bought three moleskin notebooks and keep them close at hand most of the time. I take them camping, on vacation, and on road trips. One is for the rewrite of the first novel, the second is for notes about the art book, and the third is for a new novel with the working title ‘The Dark,’ which will work well enough until something better comes along.

And yet, despite that the fact that I am not a writer, Mr. Muise’s words came to me and helped with my artwork over the years, too. Because what he was really saying was that I could do whatever I wanted to.

In every creative life, there are critical voices. They might come from family, friends, or simply in the form of drive-by posts on Facebook or shouts from the cheap seats through cupped hands. But the worst one is internal. It asks, “What makes your story so special? What an ego to think anything you have to say is worth anybody else’s time. What arrogance. Who do you think you are?

That toxic voice keeps a lot of people from realizing their potential. It’s loud, obnoxious, and provides innumerable excuses for failing to try. Every creative I know fights with that voice on a regular basis. It just told me to delete this self-indulgent post before I embarrass myself.

That’s the voice that made me stop sending out the book after one rejection. Today, it’s not as big and scary as it used to be. Having made my living as an artist for more than a decade, I’m very comfortable with rejection. It’s simply a part of the gig. Its life’s way of asking, “How bad do you really want it?”

There is a parable of a grandfather telling his grandson about two wolves that live inside each of us, constantly battling with each other. One is evil, the other is good. When the grandson asks which one wins, the grandfather says, “the one you feed.”

We each have that choice.

Editorial cartooning will be over someday, of that I have no doubt. Painting will likely be a large part of me as long as I draw breath. This recent urge to write more, however, is a mystery. It might be short-lived, simply dropping by for a little while as it has before. Or perhaps it’s just finally the right time.

What is clear to me is that to ignore the impulse would be a disservice to whatever other has granted me the ability.

So I’ll write, and see what happens.

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Space and Time

A third of the way into 2016 and I’m starting to see posts about upcoming events and excursions that used to interest me, but no longer do.

Despite the fact that I broke away from the norm and became a self-employed cartoonist and painter, it might surprise you that I’ve always been somewhat of a people pleaser, or at least that’s my instinct. I’ll usually go along with the general consensus of a group rather than create a conflict for no reason.

Last weekend, with the kids and spouses home to celebrate my parent’s 50th anniversary, my folks and I were talking about how I’m very much like my Mom. That’s a compliment. She’s a class act. But while I’ve inherited many of her skills and talents (that’s where the art comes from), the people pleasing also comes from her. She struggles with it, too.

The irony is that when you do that long enough, it eventually gets old and you start lashing out a little, or get a chip on your shoulder because you’re not getting the respect you think you deserve from friends and colleagues when they take advantage of that character trait. The truth, however, is that people treat you how you teach them to treat you and if you show them long enough that you’re not going to rock the boat, why would they expect anything different?

When those scales begin to tip, however, they can go a little too far the other way before your ship rights itself. I’ve gone along with things I didn’t want to far too often and have also been very militant about not doing anything I don’t want to during this uncomfortable realization.

Early in my career, I was part of a group called the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, NAPP for short. It was a great community full of photographers, graphic designers, illustrators and other creatives. There was a vibrant busy online forum of regulars and I became friends with many of them.

After a few years, I was making enough money to afford to go to my first Photoshop World event in Las Vegas, a conference that was part of that community. The second year I went, one of my images won the Illustration Guru Award and the Best in Show. In successive years, I ended up doing painting demos at the Wacom booth, got to know some of those folks with that company and have made some friends there, too. My last year at Photoshop World was 2014 and I again won the Best in Show Award for my painting ‘One in Every Family.’

It was a good year to end on and say, “Goodbye.”

I know some wonderful people today that I would not have ever met had it not been for that organization and those five trips to Vegas. My career moved forward in great leaps from being a part of that community, from the support I got from the members, instructors and affiliates to the immense treasure trove of knowledge I gained that contributed to doing what I love to do. It was incredibly inspiring, being around so many people who enjoy their work and watching them become better artists as well.

But things have changed. NAPP no longer exists and the organization became Kelby Media. It’s now focused so much on photography that while there are things I could learn, it’s just not enough to justify the expense. Many of those people I looked forward to seeing there each year just don’t go anymore. The whole feel of the experience isn’t what it used to be. The event has changed, and so have I. But, I have so many great memories and it was well worth my time, which is one of the best compliments I can pay.

I’ve also been seeing recent posts about the upcoming Canadian Cartoonists Convention in Toronto. The group was previously the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists but has expanded to allow others to join. I have not been a member for quite some time.

The only convention I’ve gone to was the one I actually hosted in Banff in 2008. It was a lot of work and budget restraints meant I couldn’t do the convention I wanted to, but people came and I did it because I felt I should. Parts of it were interesting as I got to meet some cartoonists I’d only known by their work and reputation.

I remember obsessing over details, working out a schedule, losing sleep many nights trying to make sure I remembered to take care of everything. On the first day of scheduled classes/discussions, we got started twenty minutes late because people just wandered in whenever. One of the older cartoonists told me that this was normal, these guys didn’t really do well with schedules and being anywhere on time.

That was a clarifying moment for me. I remember thinking, “Oh, I really don’t belong here.”

It became clear that my first one was probably my last one. The upcoming convention looks to be a three or four day event of talks, tours, meals and parties and I just don’t see the benefit to me. With limited time off during the year and funds with which to do so, that doesn’t even crack the Top 20 of trips I want to take. Many of these folks are competitors whose business choices have made my life more difficult and some have irreparably damaged industry rates and practices.

I’ve never been a good actor. How do you play nice in that environment, especially when you’re getting nothing out of it?

It occurred to me this morning, that while that convention is going on next month, I will be on my first camping trip of 2016. I’ll be sitting by a lake in British Columbia, relaxing, reading, sketching, taking pictures, enjoying good food and drink with friends I have known for years. That’s where I want to be.

I used to feel I had to apologize for not wanting to be a part of that editorial cartoonist organization, just as I should for no longer wanting to go to Photoshop World. Hell, I wasn’t even going to write some of this stuff down for fear I might offend somebody. See, that people pleaser instinct is tough to keep at bay.

There comes a time when you really do have to look at how many days you might have left (likely less than you think) and ask yourself how you want to spend them. Personally, I’m not going to spend thousands of dollars to attend conferences that deliver no worth to me. I’d rather be working.

The more success you find in anything, the more people will feel free to tell you that you’re doing it wrong, for no other reason than you’re not doing what they want you to do. You can’t change their opinion, and as time passes, you realize you don’t even care to.

Lake

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What I Didn’t Know Then

PatPainting
Last week, I got an email from a fellow in Germany. He complimented me on my work, and asked, “Imagine you had a time machine and could meet the younger version of yourself. What would the number one advice be, in regards to art?”

My wife and I were making dinner at the time and I read the email to her off my phone. While Shonna is not an artist, she’s been on this ride with me since the beginning, and she knows what I know when it comes to this business.

We took turns rattling things off and within minutes came up with twenty or thirty different nuggets of truth and I wrote them all down on a scrap of paper.

Experience will always be the best teacher. If you’re an amateur artist looking for wisdom, you’ve got to earn it. But here is a small sampling from that list, some of the things I’ve learned so far.

1) Don’t work for exposure. When is the last time you saw an image, a logo, a website, design or anything creative and then thought, “I’m going to find that person and hire them.”

That’s what this type of client is promising. They want something for nothing and anybody they refer you to will want the same. I have worked for exposure more than once. I never will again.

2) Don’t work for spec. Spec work is often disguised as a contest, a call for entries or an audition piece. It often means a company asks many people to submit designs and the winner gets prizes or prize money. The company then owns whatever the winner created and gets it at a fraction of a cost they would have had to pay a professional. The company usually owns everything else submitted to the contest as well.

Spec work is for suckers. Work disguised as a contest is for suckers. I have been that sucker, more than once, and it feels dirty.

3) Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Don’t follow trends. Don’t copy someone else’s success. It just won’t work. Unless you have the exact same background as that person, started from the same place, with the same opportunities, jumped the same hurdles, had the same skills, influences, inspirations, environment, training, experiences, talent or luck, you will not duplicate another person’s success. You can still BE a success, but it’ll be YOUR success, not a poor copy. By trying to mimic another artist or ride his coattails, you are depriving yourself of discovering your own niche or voice.

Learn from everybody. Copy nobody.

4) Figure out the difference between trolls, constructive criticism and just plain bad advice. There will always be those who tell you that you’re doing it wrong. Some of them will be competitors who are threatened by you or other artists that are just plain jealous. The view has always been clearest from the cheap seats. People that never try will criticize those who do. Social media often seems to be based entirely on that premise.

Some people are genuinely supportive, want to help you, want to see you succeed and have nothing but the best of intentions. If they aren’t in your business, however, don’t know what’s involved, haven’t got more experience than you, or just don’t know what your goals are, you need to find a way to smile and say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Good people with good intentions can still give bad advice.

5) Do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life.

That is one large steaming pile of manure.

Turning your art into a business may ruin everything you love about art. You can live a satisfying creative life without ever making it your livelihood.

I’ve been self-employed full-time for over a decade now. I haven’t been a struggling artist for many years and I’m making a good living at it. The mortgage gets paid; we’re not living in debt, and have never borrowed money from our parents. And while I take nothing for granted, I haven’t had to worry about getting a real job for years.

But every day I draw something I don’t want to. Sometimes I spend my whole week drawing things I don’t want to. This is not a complaint. This was a choice. I still make my own schedule. I get to go for my hikes in the afternoon, grab some time to take photos at the zoo and myriad other activities and diversions I wouldn’t get to enjoy if I had to report to a desk during specific hours assigned by somebody else. And I’m still drawing every day, which means I’m getting better at it every day.

I work longer hours for myself than I ever did for anybody else, very early mornings, evenings, weekends, statutory holidays and have done so for twenty years. I don’t know how to live any other way now. Art for a living is hard work.

You must invoice, keep your books and accounting in order, pay your taxes first and yourself last. You need a website, social media, keep up on industry news and advances. You need to contact clients, sell whatever you produce, figure out what works, what doesn’t, read articles, read books, make phone calls. When an invoice isn’t paid, you have to track it down. When equipment breaks down, you have to pay to fix it, when your internet crashes; you have to call your provider. There is no I.T. department, no human resources, and often no immediate help in a crisis. You must make time for training and improving your skills. I could write a thousand more words without once mentioning creating anything.

All of this is time away from doing the actual work you need to do in order to get paid. I’m writing this post, I’m not getting paid. That’s OK. This sort of thing has become a small part of my brand and I enjoy writing. It is good practice, too, and a little payment forward.

Honestly, I didn’t think much about whether or not I should turn my love of drawing and painting into a business, I just ended up doing it. But we never had kids and my wife told me in no uncertain terms that she could not support us both. Not in Canmore, Alberta where the paradise tax is high. The minute I couldn’t pay my half of the bills, I had to get a job, an ultimatum to which I agreed.

This business was part-time for ten years before it was full-time. Had I tried to do it too early, I might not be doing it today. Most of the things I thought I wanted, I’m glad I didn’t get, like a full-time job with a daily newspaper, which would have meant being laid off by now. Timing matters and that leap of faith is frightening, because you have to burn a lot of security when you jump. While it was pretty tight those first couple of years, I have no regrets and can’t imagine doing anything else.

As for the best advice I would give my younger self if I had the opportunity?

He did just fine without it.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Summing Up Summer

Muse
The Bad

My cat died. Still miss her, still expect to see her, and still think about her a lot, though it doesn’t hurt as much as it did. No guilt, though. She got a ton of love her whole life and in the end, she just got old. It happens. It sucks.

HeraldThe fiasco with the Calgary Zoo and Safari Club International. To recap, I stated publicly that I could not support the zoo if they allowed SCI to hold their fundraising event there. That meant no more visits or selling my prints there, but it was contrary to my core values and I couldn’t get past it. The Calgary Herald read my blog post and asked to reprint it, which led to a lot of support, but plenty of nasty emails and comments as well. It was a jarring experience, one that I took personally and there were some pretty low days afterward. Who keeps feeding the trolls? Why aren’t they dead yet?

Art is a luxury and the Canadian economy has been taken out at the knees this year. When people are losing their jobs, the last thing they prioritize is paintings of funny looking animals. I get that and thankfully, editorial cartooning still pays a lot of the bills and we’re in a federal election. Make hay while the sun shines, even if it’s on the backs of lying, thieving, no good politicians. Hardly going to lose the house, but it’s been a bit of a down year. After so many good ones, I guess I was due.

Midlife crisis, existential angst, whatever you want to call it, this frickin’ thing never seems to end. Meaning of life stuff, what’s the point of it all, does all of this effort really matter in the end? I now know now why this ridiculous cliché exists, because it’s a harsh reality, too. A study out of the UK in 2008 reported that 44 is statistically the lowest year of a person’s life. I’m going to agree with that. Add that to my garden variety OCD and anxiety issues, which everybody says they understand, but really don’t. Trust me, nobody hates being around a downer more than the person who actually IS the downer. Shonna’s riding it out, clearly enduring some of the latter of the ‘better or worse’ contract. Haven’t caught her putting arsenic in my rum yet and I still have a couple of friends left…I think.

But hey, if you believe the stats in that report, it’s an upward swing from here, which means it’s an uphill climb, too. Damn these deep dark holes.

The Good

What, you didn’t think it would be ALL whining, did you? This summer had plenty of bright spots, too.

BearCintiq
I’ve been doing a lot more painting this year, hoping to have twice the content I’ll need for the book deadline in July. Between the writing and artwork, I want it to be the best effort I can muster, so my funny looking animals have been the priority. Despite the economy, I’ve been turning down work that isn’t in line with that goal, focusing on the long game. I’ve wanted to do a book for years, and have no illusions of imaginary riches. With Renegade Arts Entertainment publishing it, it’s no longer a what-if or maybe-someday. It’s put-up-or-shut-up.

OtterCase
A few new shirts coming soon from The Mountain, a new licensing deal with DecalGirl, with more in the works, and I’m trying to get my prints into other venues in Canada. Best of all, just this week, Safari Club International pulled out of their event at the zoo and I received another print order that very day. I plan to go back on Monday to deliver the order and take plenty of pictures. Being able to take a stand and not have to suffer long for it, I feel like I got to have my cake and eat it, too.

Managed to squeeze in a few camping trips this year, which is three more than last year. Each had their high points and I’ll be making the same effort to get away from the desk and tech next year. The weather was all over the place this summer, so I didn’t hike as often as I would have liked, but I got out whenever I could, camera at the ready.

SerenaGriffin
Visiting Discovery Wildlife Park this year was wonderful, especially getting a behind the scenes experience with the lion cubs. The first visit was so enjoyable that I went back and did it again, taking plenty of photos on both visits and I’ve already used some as reference for paintings. I’m planning to go back one more time before they close around the middle of next month.

If you had told me ten years ago that many of my waking hours (and more than a few of my sleeping ones) would be spent preoccupied with wildlife, I would have been surprised. Whether it’s taking pictures, sketching, or painting, these funny looking animals seem to have taken up residence in every corner of my life. There is a feeling of momentum with this work, that rather than cruising, I’m still accelerating. Where it will take me, I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Patrick

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