* Stonehenge sketchpad which appears large but is actually small, red cover, watercolor paper
* Air mail stickers, some small, some medium
* Small envelope with small photograph of small people
* (beginnings of) a letter, or memo at least, to someone named Emma, “Dear Emma” // never finished, never even started. It’s all a mystery to me. If you remember who Emma is, please remind me. Dear dear Emma.
* Leatherman multi-tool with locking blades, all steel, no plastic (sorry RS)
* Spectacles (green, progressive bifocal, transition tint) no longer operational/current prescription – seen with Chums brand eyeglass retainer (from Hurricane, Utah)
More outings to Stanley Park for picnics with pals and explorations including Earth Day excursions, aquarium visit, and horse carriage circumnavigation – after a few topsy turvy days – plus eats back at HQ with Ryoko, Ichiro, and free radical visitors before seaplane escape to Vancouver Island.
We <3 Stanley – #BCinvasion, part 3
Exceptional humans who followed our cryptic geo-coordinate dispatches to various willow tree hobbit camps included:
* Rebecca B, on Stanley Park Eco committee
* Mikala F, of Backstage Rider fame, etc.
* Jess and Stewart M, ”the Antlers” #KBO
* Simon, Barb and Roland – creatives all, coming by bicycle with cake in Tupperware carrier
* Jon, Michy with son A – we’ll see these brilliant folks again
* Marcus with wife K and son O – yet another kid from the same era as our Ichiro… I’m hoping they all start an international club/band
* John and Elena– with commemorative meta-mug
* Vanessa T – with Weblos medicine
* Kei B – with New Town Bakery boxes
* Jess W & daughter L. – joining us on a horse carriage commentary circumnavigation
* Jason S. and Višnja M. – adorable brilliant newlyweds (among other qualities)
* Finlay – young poet, emerging hockey-ist and possible future pilot (son of Monique and James, met previously)
* David D. – modern classical composer
* Betty-Ann and daughter P. – from back in the olden Surrey days
BC Invasion, part 3, We <3 Stanley (and Harbour Air Seaplanes)
Unsurprisingly, impossible to provide adequate commentary on each of the wonderful folks who took the time to commune with us, and my apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to find us or otherwise missed a snapshot in this dispatch. I’m doing my best, we did our best.
Topics & places, amongst others, include:
Food – so much gifted (thanks!), ordered, prepared etc & all savoured at 1234 Hornby HQ with flowers and sometimes hockey
Commemorative postcards preview
Earth Day excursions
Horse-drawn carriage ride with “plenty of commentary” about smallpox and horses
Reminisces of childhood birthday, teenage hi-jinks and adult sojourns
Sulphur pile (giant and unwavering in size) and floating gas stations
Glimpses of Rose Garden, Robbie Burns statue, Lumberman’s Arch, and other scenes before…
Glorious Totem Poles, a homecoming of sorts
Japanese WW1 cenotaph, an important place of remembrance
Zoo grottoes (abandoned & i wanna make a music video or concert here)
Vancouver Aquarium sidequests
Olympic torch assortment dealio
Postboxes and shoelaces, as usual
And a riff about places we didn’t go: Gastown, Railtown, Chinatown, Seabus, as well as Vancouver’s bewildering lack of public restrooms & note to myself about “its about the future!” and reminder of theme “Family, Friends, Parks and Gardens” plus a special dedication to the memory of Darren Barefoot.
Finally cappuccinos and a flight via the wonderful Harbour Air from Downtown Vancouver to Downtown Victoria with the glorious Gulf islands and Cascadia scenes flashing below the pontoons – with water taxis, Legislature building and Seattle Clipper in the inner harbour awaiting us on the sunny docks.
Moving north across the Fraser river to downtown/West End, Vancouver, settling into a kitchenette hotel for several days, enjoying tea ceremonies, hotel picnics, coffee times and pleasant times with friends, plus our initial foray into Stanley Park.
#BCInvasion, part 2 / Downtown Vancouver & Stanley Park
Part 2 of this mixed-media montage series includes:
* Construction site across the street from “1234 hotel”
* Friendly Maple Leaf deli reunion and picnic stash
* Crow attacks and rainstorms on 4/20 at Stanley Park
* Excursion to Kafka coffee shop for pal hang-out, hugs & tasty snacks
* Several waves of tea ceremonies at hotel with generational bowls & significant rattle
* Special thanks to book and record “mule” from OlyWa + waffles
* Rooftop tea at coliseum-inspired library ceremony with books
* Parallel-life experience with a fella with a vintage Volkswagen bus, selling Japanese inspired stickers and patches by Vancouver Art Gallery
* Coffee catch-up with punk rawk radio/photog/cat enthusiast
* Staring down dramatic demons at St Paul’s (and marking how far I’ve come)
* Scenes of life, building, trees, gardens and sidewalks strolling and observing
* Plus hotel picnics, Cherry Garcia ice cream, Whitewood Cider, bits of dispatches, flashes of hockey games with hidden messages, silk robe lobby lounging, Mae Maes on teevee
Special greetings to all who tracked us down – including, in this wave:
* Roland (by bicycle, by bicycle) * Lance from OlyWa (with books & vinyl) * Wayne (in midst of a move) * James (with real talk) * Monique (let’s enjoy tea!) * Danielle and beautiful daughter * Mark, community wrangler * Chris, sundancer & deadhead * Eric Flexyourhead (rawk, etc) * Kemp (popping in here and there)
thanks for alllll your planning / logistical help and friendship Monique
Starting from our adorable local “Momotaro” airport in Okayama Japan, me (Dave) and my darlings Ryoko and Ichiro head to my former hometown of Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada aboard ANA (we’re shareholders but no big deal :)).
come on along with part 1 of our #BCInvasion
Part 1 mixed-media montage includes:
* first night in Richmond hotel with giant coffees and croissants
* off to “south of Fraser” for family times in Langley
* spontaneous barbecue with pals in Cloverdale and other variety of foods, more food and setting up a Japanese food corner
* making special packets of commemorative postcards with nieces and nephews
* White Rock beach for fish and chips and sunset
* Amtrak Cascades train chooglin’ through
* Surrey Eagles playoff hockey game with Zamboni
* mission to Mission for sight of Kamel Gill’s last stand with his brother Charlie (in which many mysteries are revealed)
* more food, presents, relaxing times with Grammy & brother/cousins/etc.
* plants, trees, nurseries, landscaping equipment, & spaces to run around
* stop for donairs while heading onto next “checkpoint” which is downtown Vancouver/West End for Stanley Park etc.
* finally, arriving at hotel with the sight of a construction site across the street to Ichiro’s amusement
Next chapter: exploring Vancouver downtown scenes and lots of meet up with friends – and variety of weather – in Stanley Park and spontaneous tea ceremony at hotel
Gist: My occasional co-conspirator, CBC dude and fellow mixed-media storymaker Grant Lawrence is reading his stellar book “Dirty Windshields – the best and worst of the Smuggler’s Tour Diaries” as a rock n roll enhanced *pod-idio book* (which is a dude who spends a lot of time stuck in bed, is a format i totally dig).
Grant and I at a CBC open house, *yeeeeears ago”
I spread the word about recent segment which chronicles their misadventures in Japan in the chapter called “Sushi and Squats” or is it called “Lost in Japan” or “Bishy Bishy”…? I’m so confused
“More tales from highways & alleys of Japan ~ mayhem and good times with @GrantLawrence & @ItsTheSmugglers / still getting lost but because of a lousy tour manager driver but fun with Supersnazz makes up for it / plus a special hello for “ole pal Dave Olson, from Vancouver, living in Japan”
and no, i am not the Canadian Dave who got lost in the previous story
And about all the Japan oddities:
It’s so hilarious!
The whole slipper routine is still a constant source of confusion for newcomers to Japan. And even folks have been around a while, will accidentally wear the toilet slippers out into the “other room” or heaven forbid wear any kind of slippers into tatami room. #shock!
{Important to note that if your feet are bigger than I like size 5, you can really only jam two or three toes into the slippers and you waddle around like a penguin.}
And the mistaken word for that ‘bowel conundrum’ does have a pleasant rhyming repetitive feel but it’s definitely a different word.
Aside: Now that Japan’s borders opened up for several months, (they were hard closed) for several years, a barrage of “legacy” western artists are back on the tour circuit from Bob Dylan to Sting to Jackson Browne to Howard Jones (yup)… All finding great receptive audiences despite almost no promotion that I ever see.
And like you talked about in the Tokyo show when the audiences are singing along to every word, there ain’t no fans like Japanese fans which is why so many bands record their live albums here.
Also noticed Wilco are coming but only playing two shows… I’m no promoter but it seems like the cost of the logistics of flying across the vast Pacific to play only two shows in a country with three times the population of Canada and a highly efficient transportation networks and super eager audiences and loads of venues is a bit wrongheaded but what do I know… I’m just a guy who folds laundry and writes postcards in a minor provincial capital that no one’s heard of (but has a great jazz, reggae, etc. music scene).
PS thanks for the kind name check in the last episode. Makes my virtual friends in Japan think I’m somehow relevant ????
Long and stumbling Road:
The book spends lots of time in Vancouver of course but also another one of my “hometowns” of Olympia Washington (especially for the international Pop underground event in 1991) as well as European tours (which reminds me of my time tagging along with the Bad Yodelers in Germany).
As such, pals on both sides of the Pacific (and maybe some across Indian and Atlantic oceans) will dug it big time. Hooray!
Coffee and dirty windshields, appropriately about to catch a ferry
Also: there is apparently a DIY documentary called “The Smugglers at Japan” floating around on VHS… trying to get my mitts on a copy – which might require buying a VHS deck at (splendidly named used goods store chain) Hard Off, but I need to get one anyway… (I’ve got projects, you know)
ya know I've read book 2x and listened to the pod in my fog, even better now i know some of the characters better. I have so many details and annotations about Japan then and now to share. Maybe I already did? Anyhow, where do I see the "Smugglers at Japan" video? I have a VHS.
Not the Rosie part but the Matinee part and of course there’s Grant but there’s also me tucked in there
During the trip in a late night dining car sign-a-long, my pals from The Matinée pulled out “Rosie” – probably the closest The Smugglers ever had to a hit I’m not sure – and encouraged Grant to sing… When he said, “but I don’t remember the words” they even had a lyric sheet ready for him.
My “story board” from the tracks on track train trip
There is always a reunion tour: the events on the train possibly subsequentlykind of sparked a resurgence of the band in part and anyway Grant who was on a roll with his stories from desolation sound book and another one about his life in hockey, then rocked out this great dirty windshield and then did ‘reunion shows’.
“Lonely end of the rink” on a bookshelf made from an old canoe on a tiny island near Bali Indonesia
First at a Lookout Records (tip: read Larry Livermore’s “how to ruin a record label” book) event in Berkeley, another at Amigos in Saskatoon (coincidentally where I was born), and an event – which doubled as a book release party iirc – at the Commodore Ballroom with Chixdiggit and The Muffs (might’ve been their very last show, RIP, Kim).
I was there, groggy from just arriving from Nepal or Sri Lanka, or Istanbul or something. Anyway, click the things above and dig the stories and the garage rock and “colorful” to say the least characters met along the way.
Coming, Eventually:
Gosh, if I can ever manage to get out of bed to edit, shot a stream of consciousness video figuring out how our paths missed each other from Vancouver to New York to Germany to Japan to etc … Kind of a storytime told in records and flyers / eventually
So funny figuring out how we were constantly crossing paths around the world but slightly different years… I was in Japan in the early 90s but by the time you were there on tour, I was in Guam then Olympia (where I became the Internet provider guy for K records, Kill Rockstars, Subpop, Ladyfest, yo-yo a go go, Sunnyside music fest, Capitol theater, Tropicana > Metropolis, east side club, and well… Every other music going on
We crisscrossed CBGB’s (which was past its prime and I spent most of my time at Wetlands with emerging “jam bands” in 1989), later in Europe where I was a “roadie” (freeloader who didn’t do anything) for the Bad Yodelers on a similar circuit as you all – plus seeing Gwar and staying at punk rock squats extolling stories of DOA, No Means No, SNFU who were all legends in Germany.
When you were in Olympia for the international Pop underground, i split two weeks before (after getting sent to attend evergreen college which turns out got put on hold for a decade or so) & had split for Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead show in California – but earlier that same year I was watching Beat Happening in Salt Lake City (as well as Nirvana opening for Dinosaur Jr at a converted church) – maybe was that the same run of shows you promoted the Nirvana show with Screaming Trees etc.?
Even back in the 80s in Vancouver, ‘you can cross one river/inlet but crossing two is quite literally ‘a transit bridge too far” – so I was also sneaking in to Commodore and Town Pump (never could get into the Buddha) but reveling in the all ages shows at the York theater / so many!… but getting up to the SeyLynn hall for shows was a literal transit impossibility from Whalley (though I saw Fugazi around that same time you were promoting them but in Washington DC – on a meandering road trip in yup, a VW bus, which took me from Harvard to Sun studios and all points in between).
Anyway, I made a long rambling video that kind of talks about these weird connections pulling out all kinds of artifacts, handbills, records, ephemera in a freeform stream of consciousness riff and maybe I’ll eventually edit it and put it out into the world cause the connections are kinda hilarious.
We were however, in the same gymnasium at those Mudhoney shows at UBC but strangely I have no recollection of the Smugglers (definitely my fault, not yours I was probably in the parking lot having a safety break).
This is just a long way of saying “I’m really enjoying the podcast, (especially as I am laid out with that “popular public health conundrum plague”) and seems like lots of my pals in Japan are getting a good kick out of it too”.
Rock on etc
Me, elsewhere
Includes rare/vintage/random ephemera from Nirvana, Beat Happening, Spot, Mudhoney, Mike Watt … as usual probably doesn't make a lot of sense to most (my usual mad scientist connecting the dots riff) but there's a blackboard, inaccuracies and tax accountant tips pic.twitter.com/PrQwwFrqEw
Related to above: two distinguished gentlemen tending to very important business — between 2 of us, an incalculable number of trips between Olympia #OlyWa and Vancouver (Canada) & possibly $1 million spent on spectacles pic.twitter.com/y8E9VGOhgj
BC Invasion videos round-up: After a few days home, Hearing from some folks saying things like “I wish you would’ve let me know you were coming to Vancouver/Victoria” so I guess the 23+ videos and what-i-thought were abundant updates didn’t make it through the gate keepers.
Did/doing my best, etc. etc. sigh
Anyhow, the videos are now in a playlist, so you can follow along at home with what you missed or something. Ya know, just archiving.
All the videos in reverse chronological order with loquacious descriptions
{yes, I really want to thank each person personally for gifts, rides, beds, meals, hugs, etc. but we’ll get to that another time. Right now there is laundry, medication, mosquito nets, sortganizing and so forth}
So, first I’m very grateful for everyone’s participation & interest and for simply remembering me after i disappeared with illness and other life conundrums.
Keeping Expectations Balanced with Priorities
Next, extending a warm invitation to come meet us at various parks and gardens where we’ll be with a picnic blanket and a thermos of coffee at checkpoints in:
Langley/Surrey: current til April 19
West End / DT Vancouver: April 19 ~ 25
Metchosin: April 25 ~ 29
Victoria / Oak Bay: April 29 ~ May 3
Pender Isle (Woods & Sparrow): May 3 ~ 10
Fairview / Kits: May 10 ~ 12
North Van / Lynn Valley: May 12 ~ 17
Langley / Surrey: May 17 ~ 25
Home to Tsuchida Cottage: May 25/26
“Main point” of the trip is for my darling wife and adorable son to meet family as well as to reconnect with hugs and gifts with so many of you wonders.
Especially eager to meet kids for Ichiro to hang with at wonderful playground. Also, so grateful for recent friends coming to visit and participating in our life.
My big concern is “crashing” with this illness which puts me out of action for days/weeks. Good news is: doing the best i have in years thanks to some recent treatment protocols and modalities.
I’m doing my best but/and if we can’t meet, no big deal – its complicated and folks have lives/jobs etc, please come to Japan! A safe, efficient, interesting, amusing, and somewhat affordable destination where we will be happy to welcome you with tea and goats.
Preamble: While planning for this trip to Vancouver & Victoria I’ve noticed that yes, obviously, a lot has changed (duh) & a lot of the places (cafés, neighborhoods, parks) I want to visit are definitely tied to nostalgia and memories (and facing ghosts from past life)
nostalgia is a heck of drug
{aside: finding nostalgia for Vancouver past is more potent than thoughts and plans for Vancouver present – neighbourhoods once loved now “not recommended (esp with a toddler who like to pick things up off sidewalk”), no more dim sum carts, hotels with endless extra taxes and fees, restaurants are expensive + tipping, complicated transit zones schemes persist, old haunts gone, so we go one}
Dear Diary:
10:45 in bed eating granola and medications, wife outside running woodchipper, grateful for noise-cancelling headphones.
Today’s “must-do” is organizing 70 days of meds in fishing tackle box.
Ok bye
Anyway, in the meanwhile… I’ve got out of bed, put on the clothes, now going to fold some laundry, rock the dishwasher, and organize some meds before he comes… (Actually looking at the clock I will do 1.5 of those tasks)
37% of me wants to go back to bed, another 15% of me wants to make a video to remind folks about my limitations for BC trip (i.e.: “I/we can’t meet you at *fancy place* at 7 PM for dinner but hey, we’re on a picnic blanket at a park from 11AM till 2PM with a thermos of coffee”)
Otherwise: So now, this is the last week of Ichiro school / the school year begins and ends in March in Japan so there was just graduations and he moved up to the next class which he will only be in for about two weeks total.
We pull him out and then stretch run for getting a whole ton of stuff ready for Canada… Not just the suitcase of medications, the suitcase of gifts (possibly two suitcases), various clothes for rainy weather but also doing all the stuff to get the house in “stand-by mode“ which includes standing up mattresses and fumigations (we’re going into the season of the bugs), having mosquito nets ready for when we come back, packing up the futons and the bags with the “bugs don’t eat me” devices inside plus… Of course the wife needs to renew her drivers license (her birthday is while we are in Canada) and…
We’re hosting a little pizza party as a post show celebration for the bands concert two weeks ago (because yes, we need something else to do), plus a retirement for another pal and “safe pregnancy” for another and i guess “bon voyage” for us. First time to have more than a few folks over, including several kids.
As such, finding a new school for Ichiro to start in September (looking into two or three days a week more nature and fun and free play-based environment… yesterday wife investigated a YMCA program which looked really good except it’s about a 40 minute drive away which is kind of a drag to do but I was able to tell her about the importance of the YMCA in my Dad’s life… Child of a poor single mother in Regina Saskatchewan, that was his hang out and finally charted his career path and his first job out of university was a program Director at YMCA, of course I have the business card).
There’s also the saga of the piano player from our wedding whose husband died recently suddenly (my age, a heart attack) and we’re going tomorrow with the little dump truck to help haul some stuff away… Specifically including a stone specially made for pounding rice in the mochi / no, you can’t make this up. But, we have a dump truck and my wife is endlessly supportive, creative and nothing is impossible so… I just ride along and pretend to help.
So, were less than two weeks out and have too many tasks but what gets done gets done… Yesterday I organized medications and labeled everything, today I am going to try to bang out a little profile for open medicine foundation (you know this group/organization right?) for awareness and *yikes* share my story just as i hit 10 years since “sick day”.
There’s also a call for submissions for University of Idaho in Boise for mail art collage and… I mean, no one ever asks for this kind of stuff specifically so I really feel like I should make something but, maybe I’ll do that on the 9th, mail it on the 10th and fly out on the 11th… Maybe mail it from the airport as a bonus. I have a dear friend who lives in Boise who will be able to go see it in real life… Maybe take her husband and kids (they are adults now) that would make it kind of fun for me.
Also, 1 more round of injection, 1 more setai treatment, and a haircut for me and Ichiro so we are rolling sharp.
I also remind myself that six months ago or a year ago or two years ago I couldn’t do a quarter of what I’m doing now. I am grateful but so anxious.
{gonna be a lot of picnics in parks and when using hotels, booked rooms with kitchenette / going April May will be better cost than July/ August but still, i’m a medically-retired pensioner so gotta be frugal while still showing wife and kiddo funtimes}
Bonus:
My kid got up in his “moose suit” fleece romper, checked out his new art gallery we hung up yesterday, set out granola and bowls for the family, & tuned the radio to Peter Barakan’s NHK radio show playing Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones’” sung by Warren Zevon (I’m pretty sure) #Parenting
He’s definitely curious, energetic and is developing great taste in music. He spent most of the “public health restriction time” hanging out with adults and that impact is definitely evident.
Briefly: Ichiro, Ryoko and Dave are hopping the jetliner to BC from April 11 – May 25 to introduce Ryoko and Ichiro to family, friends and culture and together enjoy slow adventures and *usual life* with you
Theme: Family, Friends, Parks and Gardens
Locations:
Langley/Surrey: current til April 19
West End / DT Vancouver: April 19 ~ 25
Metchosin: April 25 ~ 29
Victoria / Oak Bay: April 29 ~ May 3
Pender Isle (Woods & Sparrow): May 3 ~ 10
Fairview / Kits: May 10 ~ 12
North Van / Lynn Valley: May 12 ~ 17
Langley / Surrey: May 17 ~ 25
Home to Tsuchida Cottage: May 25/26
Note to Pals *yes you* – get in where you fit in and please be a part of our activities. As such, there is a GDoc to which you can request access with all the deets cause i/we don’t wanna be monitoring all the social comm-channels via pocket-robot while on the ground.
If, for some reason we aren’t able to get together because, I get it, people have lives, and I’m a bit elusive, consider this an invitation to come to Japan, which is safe, efficient, amusing, endlessly interesting, and surprisingly affordable / we will welcome you with enthusiasm and tea.
We want to:
visit parks and gardens (Stanley, Butchart, Bear Creek, Lynn Canyon)
check out White Rock pier, Granville Is market, Lonsdale Shipyards, maybe Steveston & various tea gardens
meet up with pals at the locations above and especially other Ichiro-aged kids (you know who you are)
eat dim sum, perogies, meat pies, fish and chips, etc
hit up low-key museums and chill public spaces
share tea ceremony and awsum gifts (and hugs)
usual things like home centre and grocery stores for Ryoko
BC Invasion trip / energy vs expectations and plans
Memo: we aren’t crossing the USA border for WA, UT, ID, OR etc visits this trip (for various reasons)
Ride hailing service that doesn’t suck (nope, so updated Ubr and Lft)
Are there public restrooms yet? (seems like mostly “no” including at Skytrain, shocking!)
yikes tipping!?!?! and taxes? how does that all work again (yes, onerous, will avoid restaurants to over-stim and thrifty reasons)
Considerations / Disclaimers:
Dave avoiding MECFS “crash” by pacing activities, limiting transportation and exertion [read more about MECFS], by:
avoiding restaurants at busy times / dinners (i.e. hotel breakfasts, picnic lunches etc) to limit over-stim
not getting overwhelmed by planning and details – let’s enjoy time together, not on phone / social planning
of course, realizing albeit sadly, we won’t be able to do everything and meet up with everyone and some things will get canceled… it’s just the way the world works with the illness
& obv, avoiding C19 (makes return to Japan complicated etc etc)
