My last post was in February, and Good and Lovely as it was, the life of a blog post should probably not reach three months. I know this, but haven't acted on it. Today, I act.
I just spent a lovely long weekend in Ottawa. I like to get to Ottawa at least once a year. I don't go there to play shows, or do any heavy business. I go there to recharge my batteries, to eat great food, to have great conversation, to reminisce, to be inspired, to love, and to feel loved. I accomplished all of that again this weekend thanks to two wonderful people I am very fortunate to have in my life.
I have a few of those. Check that, I have a lot of those. I'm lucky. Wonderful people seem to be around me all the time, and always have been. As I was listening to Michael J. Fox's "Always Looking Up" audiobook on my way home this weekend, I heard his memory of September 11, 2001, which made me think back to that time in my own life, and of one of those wonderful people. She's a public figure now, so I won't hesitate to name her in this post.
Kristin Ireland now writes a wonderful blog called "Mondays with Mac," but in September of 2001, as I remember it, she was the Charity Officer for our university residence council. After the events of September 11th that year, Kristin wanted (and wanted our residence) to help, and came up with an event called "Haircuts to Help America". The concept was simple. A number of us long hairs (yes, I once had more hair, and it was long-ish...and blond) were asked to volunteer to have our locks cut through a fundraising effort. Residents were asked to donate towards one of us to have our hair cut. It was the residents' choice, and whoever received the most in donations would have his hair cut.
As might be expected, further fundraising efforts during the event ensured that all of us had new haircuts, and a good amount of money was donated to the Red Cross. I would say, for pre-social media 2001 standards, it was an incredible success, and I hope Kristin was as proud of her efforts as I was at the time. She engaged and encouraged a group of students, who generally cared more about having pub money than food money, to give their time and money to a worthwhile cause.
As I sat in my car, I remembered that event, thinking that we were doing some cool things in our residence, breathing life onto that campus without people really knowing about it. It made me smile a little bit, because I feel kind of the same way today. I get to do some pretty cool things these days, hopefully breathing something positive into the music industry. And due perhaps, in part, to living in a time when everybody has the ability to share their every moment with the world, even if I were to broadcast loud and proud my every movement in the industry, many people wouldn't know much of what I was up to, and I'm okay with that. There will always be worthwhile causes to encourage people to give their money to, but if I can help engage more people to value the arts, not only will our industry thrive, but survive.
I included the word "thrive" before "survive" on purpose, even though it may sound backwards. I think I'll save that explanation for another post. For now, thanks for your patience for these three months. I'm making a promise to myself to post more often. Hopefully you'll keep reading.