Groovy Baby

I wheeled into the gravel parking lot of the Cavendish Boardwalk shopping complex and was delighted to find a parking spot next to a massive Hummer. I love parking next to Hummers, because it's always better to park in the shade on a hot summer's day. The Hummer cut an impressive shadow, blotting out the sky and much of PEI. I still remember seeing my first Hummer years ago...I was in awe of such a Gulf War behemoth. Now I think, who would drive such a beast? Why would anyone other than a SWAT team drive such a leviathan?

I walked away from my car and the neighbouring Hummer, then proceeded to shop for a set of fiery red Anne of Green Gables pigtails. I was thwarted in my pursuit of a hairpiece, but my 'day at the mall' was not for naught. I spotted my dream vehicle in the parking lot, and I took a slew of pictures, one of which I've included above. There was much to love about this vehicle.

The paint job caught my attention. It was almost a perfect reproduction of the stylized wave motif that I painted on the interior of my boathouse walls. Warm yellow sand and Cayman Island blue. Bang on! The pile of fire wood on the roof was endearing, in the manner that an 'I Love My Grandma' bumper sticker makes me feel. What sealed the deal, though, was the 'What Would Scooby Doo' window sticker. I was smitten. I want a personalized VW Camper van with a WWSD window sticker. I want one! I want one! I want one!

Clearly he wants one.

If this Volkswagon Camper isn't the ultimate leisurologistmobile, then I don't know what is. I was ready to swap my 2007 Kiwi Green Ford Focus wagon and two kilos of Scooby snacks for that most groovy of vehicles. I never did see the owners of the van, but I imagine that they were shaggy and unkempt, but unbelievably friendly and affable.

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Almost everyone on PEI has been ridiculously friendly, and sincere. I can think of a few businesses, one in particular, in my Cambridge-Narrows neighbourhood that could prosper by being friendly to their customers. Everyone knows who I'm talking about in particular. It's a painful exercise in retail letdown every time I darken their doorstep. I don't actually darken the doorstep, because there's already a grey cloud hanging over the business. I just walk through the dreary fog. It's a showcase, the showcase, in how not to build loyal customers, let alone rabid fans.

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Yesterday I pulled up to a gas station and had a pleasant chat with the sixty year old female gas attendant. We spoke of surfing, the Magdalen Islands, windsurfing and much more, all during the course of a fill-up. She was smiling the entire time, and genuinely interested in me. I'll gas up at her Shell station again, because she made me feel welcome.

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I was listening to conversations all over PEI yesterday. People here are happy...it's been a real treat to share some red soil, or golden sand, with them. They really know the importance of customer service in Anne's land. Perhaps some New Brunswick business owners should come here and look around, take notes, pay attention.

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I don't know what Scooby would do, but I'd be happy to load up my happy van and drive them here.

Prince Edward Island...Look Out Anne!

It's only a matter of time until I don a set of red pig tails and have my picture taken, I just know it. I'm on Anne's island, but not on her case, at least not yet. I just arrived last night and I haven't had any opportunity to absorb the local culture, or do any meaningful photography.

I'm staying at the Stanley Bridge Resort and Spa. It's a spa because they have a hot tub, though I haven't found it yet. I like public hot tubs because, when I'm in them, I feel like I'm a tanned carrot in a boiling pot of vegetable stranger soup. Most people in the pot are potatoes or parsnips, though once in a while a turnip will turn up. Most people look like beets when they leave. I'm always nervous when parents bring their kids into the tub, in case they have a leek or two.

I once came up with an idea for a book that would turn Prince Edward Island on its ear. Its title... Annie of Groin Fables. It would be about an aged cherry-headed prostitute living and working along the desperate docks of Wood Islands. Wood Islands is the last remaining port where a mainland ferry docks on Prince Edward Island. There are daily passages between spruce-coved Caribou, Nova Scotia and spud-laden PEI. I'd highly recommend the trip, just be on the lookout for a one woman welcome wagon called Annie.

Of course I'd never write a book about the seedy underbelly of PEI tourism...I like PEI too much and I respect the legend of Anne and Loosely Bawd Montgomery. But, my god, I could make a fortune in t-shirt sales and ice cream. Two scoops anyone?

I'm going to make it my mission to explore the oyland. They don't say island here, they say 'oy-land', not a Jewish reference because everyone knows the Japanese own this place. It's strictly a phoneticism.

I'm going to do my best to stay on the hundred mile diet while on vacation.

Vacation...from what? Since when does a leisurologist need a vacation?

I'll be eating potatoes, fish and rotation crops (barley, rye, wheat and alfalfa if I'm lucky). Last night I had fish cakes and baked beans, a reasonable hundred mile compromise given my options. I washed it down with some of PEI's Rossignol wine. I had the wine in my hotel room, after supper, since I'm too Scottish to pay $35 for a bottle in a restaurant. I drank it from a tumbler, since my spa didn't provide wine glasses in the room. Wine tastes differently when it's enjoyed from a glass...I think that I might do that more often. Wendy says that I shouldn't drink wine straight from the bottle, though it's hard to break old habits established twenty seven years ago at Agricultural College. At least it's wine now, and not rum.

Now I'm off to explore PEI! Look out Anne!!

I'm Turning Into Oprah...For One Day

Yesterday I briefly brushed up against issues of misplaced ego. Today I've posted four images of myself on my blog, to emphasize the point. I can do this because, like Oprah, Martha and (the) Donald, I'm a billionaire who calls the shots.

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Have you noticed that Oprah is on the cover of her magazine every month? Of course you have. Even if you're someone like me who has never bought or read Oprah's magazine, you can't have escaped it while waiting to pay for your groceries. It was a pleasant shock to see Michelle Obama on the cover while buying my April groceries. She was the first person, other than the big O herself, to grace the cover in the magazine's nine year history. Even Martha Stewart gives us a break from her smiling mug once in a while. I suppose arranging photoshoots in a corrections institution made life difficult for the editors at Martha Stewart Living, as you might imagine...

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Shucks, pinstripes again! Martha, have you got anything else you can wear? What about that pumpkin jumpsuit with the platinum cuffs?

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It seems odd to think that Martha spent time in jail. I mean, she was hardly a threat to the public. It's not that she was likely to go after the judge or jury with anything more menacing than a double-barreled glue gun.

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Donald Trump has made three unsuccessful attempts to have his own magazine. His last foray into self-aggrandized publishing was a magazine called, not surprisingly, Trump. It lasted two years, if that. Sales were not brisk.

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Donald, you're fired.

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When I start 'L', the leisurologist's magazine, I expect to be on the cover every month. Who better than me? Like Tigger, I'm think that I'm the only one. Surely there must be other leisurologists out there, but I've not met any in my sorry Maytag repairman life. Can you think of any other leisurologists? If you can, then please let me know. Remember, a leisurologist is someone who survives, prospers and frolicks without employment. Don't bother submitting the names of retirees or Ken Apppleby, they've been disqualified for sins in a former life.

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Sins, eh? I'll apologize upfront for the sinful windsurfing butt cleavage image. I've been eating a lot of eggs on the hundred mile diet, so the egg marketing board's 'get cracking' message seems to have taken hold. I'm not the only adherent...I saw the San Andreas Fault spilling out of the backside of someone's monstrous shorts at the motocross races on Sunday. I think that guy was on his own version of the hundred mile diet...eating everything within a hundred miles.

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I love public displays of crack, they can turn a boring trip to the mall into a joyous occasion. The coveted butt crack, with thong soaring high above, is the holy grail for cracktologists. I saw one at the Regent Mall a few years ago. I thought it was a bra strap with a rat tail, at first, because it was so high up, but it was a thong/crack combo that still, to this day, is indelibly burned into my mind.

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I'm not the lone cracktologist...there's even a web site devoted to butt cracks. (note: I found it while doing research for this blog and, I assure you, it was not something bookmarked on my computer from my adolescent phase...which I'm still enjoying very much). This web site, along with a leisurologist's blog and a failed Trump enterprise, are all sure signs of the pending apocalypse. Or at least the collapse of western society.

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Oprah, Martha and Donald get a lot of media coverage to fuel their western society egos. I don't crave that kind of coverage as I'm more into uncoverage. The can be no buts about it.

The Counterclockwise Lifestyle

You can't hire me most of the time, though I'm happy to give me services away for free, some of the time. Ah yes, the enigmatic, non-committal leisurologist. I like to do things on my time, not yours...that's why my watch spins counterclockwise.

My watch is a $20 Timex. Yours might be a $4000 Rolex. What time is it right now? We'd both say 7:26 a.m. My watch tells you that I'm sporty, thrifty and I like to know what time it is. Your Rolex tells me that you have too much money, or you don't know how to manage what you've got. It also tells me that you don't really care what time it is, because if you did, you'd own a watch like mine.

So what is a Rolex? It's a status symbol which tells the world that you've made it (in your own mind). What exactly have you made? A bad decision? A frivolous purchase? It's all relative...I know where I stand. If you stand before me and tell me that your Rolex is jewelry, then I'll drop to the ground and kiss your feet, but if you tell me it's a watch then I'll call you a liar. A Rolex has never been a watch.

The same goes for $250 jeans. They're no longer pants at that price...they're status symbols, or art. Levis are jeans.

I like quality and aesthetics, don't get me wrong, but we do tend to be easily lead down the garden path by material consumerism. A Rolex is a spectacular showcase of craftsmanship and design, but at the end of the day, the Timex keeps on ticking too.

The image that I chose today was of a door on a large truck, the type that tows a fifty-three foot trailer. I loved the fact that this truck clearly told the world that both the truck and the owner were 'not for hire'. That truck was 'an island'. It said that it couldn't be bought, or influenced in any way.

I wish that more of our politicians were like that truck, because I feel that our political system is deeply flawed, in that politicians are bought and sold every day. Why do individuals and corporations give money to political parties? Predominantly, though not exclusively, because they want something in return. What they want is not always in society's best interest, and that's why we have politicians in the first place, to bring the greatest good to the greatest number.

Why wear a Rolex? Because you want something in return. Why drive a chrome-rimmed Hummer? It makes no sense...you must want something in return. Why drive an 80mph offshore speedboat on a narrow little freshwater lake? Why put stickers on your car (I plead guilty, your Honour). Because you are in need of something. You need attention. You want to get noticed. Why do you need to get noticed?

That's a question worth pondering.

Why is Donald Trump like Donald Trump? Why the ego? Why the bravado? It's true that the world would be a boring place if we all drove stickerless Ford Focus station wagons and wore non gem-encrusted $20 Timex watches, so it's a bit of a novelty to watch someone unlike ourselves. So what makes people like Donald Trump tick? Is it a heart, or simply a Rolex?

Knobby Tires or Stilettos...What's A Girl To Wear?

Well, it wasn't the Starbucks crowd in which I found myself surrounded yesterday afternoon, though it was a bit like a trip to the mall. The girls all looked like Avril Lavigne clones, the types you see selling jewelry in mall kiosks. The boys looked like those you'd find hanging outside of mall entrances, skulking in their baggy jeans, underwear showing. and spitting frequently enough to make you wonder what they'd do once the moat had been built.

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Yesterday I attended the Monster Energy Motocross Nationals in Riverglade, New Brunswick. For those of you not current with the slew of energy drinks, Monster is emerging as a monster in the industry. They've got a gothically ghoulish logo in black n' lime and, as the major sponsor, I found myself tripping over their logo at every turn.

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I wasn't the only one tripping. If you've never been to a motocross event before, then you've not lived a life full and prosperous. The track itself resembles a forty foot wide dirt roller coaster. It undulates, bends, crests and plummets. It's a sandbox for twentysomething thrill seekers. To keep dust to a minimum, an irrigation system sprinkled water onto the track between races. Inevitably some water made it's way into the spectator's area, creating muddy foot paths and wildebeest-worthy watering holes.

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As entertaining as it was watching the motocross races, I derived a greater thrill from watching the 'juice' girls, trying to negotiate the mud in their high heels. It was like watching Daisy Duke walk around the barnyard, except Daisy had the good sense to keep herself out of the mud by donning appropriate attire...cowboy boots and a push-up bra.

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The 'juice' girls, surprisingly not given this name by me, were dressed in tiny black skirts, except for one breakaway, free-thinking rebel who had a tiny jean skirt (probably the product of Pentecostal parents). Their revealing Daisyesque tops were in keeping with Monster Energy's slogan...Unleash The Beast(s).

Watching a woman of any age trying to negotiate mud in high heels is a sick pleasure. Heels, like ties, should die a quick death. I never saw a juice girl go down in the Riverglade mire, though only through judicious planning of each and every step.

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When I'm in Manhattan, I like to watch geriatric dolled up n'york women prancing down the sidewalk in their leopard skin skirts, Patrick Roying their way across the numerous sidewalk fissures. It must be hell for them, though having ogling men admiring their shapely gams must make it all worthwhile. Clearly I'm out of my league on this pointed issue.

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Perhaps a reader could answer the question....why do women wear heels? Is it for the statuesque legs? A sense of towering tallness (can't blame them...it does feel great!). Or is it the bum wiggle that only heels can deliver? Really, someone let me know. Truth be told, I'm less into legs and more into heels, being one myself.

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Well, all of this motocross talk has me feeling a bit peckish...time for breakfast. I'm in the mood for some hundred mile bacon. Spending all that time in the mud has left me inspired. After all, you are what you eat.

Toys For Wee Men

There were a lot of adolescent boys in the mid to late 1980s who watched the television show Miami Vice during its five year run. It was an immensely popular show among the MTV crowd, likely due to the subject matter: high living (literally), fast cars, Teflon-coated Billy blast-off blazers, smoking women (again, literally) with bad hairdos, and insanely fast, off-shore racing boats. Most of us sold our shiny suits after the Miami Vice era came to an end. Thanks be to grunge for ending Sonny and Rico's reign of terror. Some adolescent boys, however, still lead lives full of Vice.

Some deal in drugs. Some frequent prostitutes. Some wear t-shirts under their Armani blazers (arguably the bigger crime). And one drives a cigarette boat on Washademoak Lake (the jury is deliberating).

These high speed, offshore racing boats were given the name 'cigarette boat' because they were used to smuggle cigarettes into Canada. Under the cover of night, these water rockets would avoid detection and deliver their contraband. Rather than sending an empty boat back to the U.S., the always polite Canadians would load the boats with a few hundred thousand in unmarked bills, and a bag or two of fiddleheads, as our uniquely Canadian way of saying 'thanks for the heroin shipment, my friend'. The name 'cigarette boat' was later used as a corporate handle, thus giving berth to Cigarette Boats at marinas all over the world. The Cigarette offshore racing team did very well among the mindless, let's burn up the world's non-renewable fossil fuels as fast as we can, jet-setters.

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Even as we are experiencing the reality of peak oil, we continue to live with the blinders on. Future generations, trust me, will look back at our generation and shake their heads in disgust. We are living in the age of excess, but put your life jackets on, people, things are going to change drastically as oil begins its terminal decline. At the expense of sounding optimistic, cigarette boats, will be very popular as museum displays (right next to the Hummer display, and General Motors' tombstone). On the downside, no one will be able to afford to drive to the museum.

Often powered by twin 500hp engines, these bad boys could outrun anything else on the water, particularly the police, DEA or Theodore Tugboat. Their deep vee hulls were designed to cut through ocean chop, the type you would find off the coast of Florida. They are the Ferraris of the ocean, so to have one on a small, narrow, populated freshwater lake is akin to killing a mosquito with a Howitzer....at a family picnic! There's going to be collateral damage.

Did I mention that these boats are deafening? When this particular cigarette boat, which I believe is a 36 foot Baja SST, goes past my property, I have to stop talking, playing my guitar, listening to music, or thinking for about thirty seconds. Well, I don't actually stop thinking, I just turn my thoughts to things like torpedoes, mines and the hunt for Red October.

This particular boat, and it's owner, are generating a lot of buzz in the Village of Cambridge-Narrows. Just yesterday, two watermen were talking:

Waterman 1: "Hey, have you heard that cigarette boat on the lake?"

Waterman 2: "Yeah, that guy must have an incredibly small penis."

Waterman 1: "That's what my wife said!"

This is a true conversation. I was there! But it's not a new or startling dialogue as men have been half-laughing at these boats for a long, long time. Women are chuckling too. There's not much to laugh about, really. Boats like this say two things, not counting issues of male inadequacy:

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1) I don't care about about our planet.

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2) I don't care about the enjoyment of others.

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With the exception of a few drooling adolescent boys, it seems that this boat and its owner pisses off a lot of people. I'm not one who like a lots of rules, prohibitions or fatwas (okay, I love fatwas), so I'm not suggesting that these types of boats be outlawed on our lake. Rather, I'd like to see the owners take responsibility for their actions and behave a little more thoughtfully toward others (i.e. sell the boat to someone who likes to harass whales, run drugs or impress teenage boys).

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I'd like the owner to sit in my yard and try to have a conversation when his boat goes past. You can't do it, unless you're into sign language. I'm pretty sure this boat generates a lot of sign language, and it's not often two thumbs up.

The Village People

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They say no man is an island. They live on the mainland, for I am an island unto myself, and you may be too.

Of all the things that I have been blessed with (Tom Green 'good' looks, Barry Gibb fly away hair, George Burns spine, Celine legs, Jamie Farr nose), I'm most grateful for my imagination which Ironmans its way though each and every day. It's a rare day that sees me thinking vanilla thoughts, and though my body may be a gnarled isthmus, my mind is a tropical island. Sure, there are a few mosquitoes buzzing around my island, but all in all, it's a good place to hang my straw hat.

The quote 'no man is is an island' came from a British dude who done called himself John Donne. He penned, likely quilled, the 'no man...' quote in 1624, just eight years after Bill Shakespeare stopped breathing. John also gave us 'for whom the bell tolls'. Here's the passage where those immortal words live...

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne done well, though I feel badly for the dumb clod who be washed away by the sea. I'll bet he was a tourist at Peggy's Cove.

As much as I'm relatively certain that my mind is an island, albeit one with a user friendly dock and small grass airstrip for incoming dialogue, my body is fed by a village. The village people, those pictured above, have helped to keep me alive during these past thirty-one days.

Today is August the first, and that means that the hundred mile diet is over. As sure as I'm typing these words, I'm alive. In many ways I'm more alive than I was when I started the hundred mile diet. I feel healthier. I look healthier, in a less Tom Green, more Kevin Costner kind of way. I could dance with wolves, or salsa with Shelties, the way I'm feeling.

This, of course, creates a dilemma. My plan was to do the hundred mile diet for one month. It's over, but it isn't. Truth be told, I love the hundred mile diet so much that I'm going to carry it forward for the foreseeable future. There will be some changes, for example when I go to Sussex or Fredericton or, god forbid, Minto, I'll eat whatever I can find for lunch, though I'll make my choices wisely. I expect never to set foot in a Tim Horton's again in my life (may I be crushed by a two ton Timbit if I darken their doorstep).

I've learned so much during the past month. I now know where my food comes from. I understand that a free range, organic chicken tastes more tender than a a cooped up, doped up, nutless capon. Seriously, it's nice knowing that my chicken isn't neurotic or my steak isn't pumped full of bovine growth hormones, antibiotics or Oil of Olay.

I like buying directly from the people that raise the livestock or grow the produce. I feel more in touch with my world. It would be easy to hop up on a soap box and start preaching right now, but I won't. The hundred mile diet is working for me, enough said.

My trips to the local vegetable stands were supplemented by the overwhelming generosity of the village people. Ken Appleby dropped off some turnip greens, mustard greens and onions from his garden. David and Sonia, of Motts Landing Vineyard, provided green beans, cucumber, rhubarb and their wonderful MLV wine to keep me lubricated and nourished. Colin Moore, Jackie and Allan Straight's grandson, delivered fresh and leafy lettuce from Jackie's garden. Shena Hornell very thoughtfully gave me some gorgeous yellow zucchinis, which I may have to photograph before I eat. Howard and Marilyn Erb supplied us with herbs to make herb butter, garlic scapes to put some punch in our meals, and salad greens that make a store bought iceberg lettuce look and taste like Wonder Bread. Beyond that, Howard and Marilyn assisted my son to start his own garden. We've been enjoying sugar snap peas and we're looking forward to much more in August.

The hundred mile diet has been most rewarding within a ten mile radius of the micro-peninsula on which I live. I thought this lifestyle shift was about the food but, in fact, it's every bit as much about the people. Both farmers and friends. When these people ring the dinner bell, I know for whom the bell tolls. It's me....welcome to my island.