GRAEME MCRANOR
WORD HUSTLING SINCE 1970
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A Baby Is Made, a Father Is Born … or Something
April 5, 2011 — 3 Comments
Two-and-a-half years ago, quite unplanned, I became a dad.
My girlfriend Tina’s pregnancy was the shocker. But, after nine months of heated dialogue on the questionable reliability of Mexican condoms, a little light reading on how to be a parent, plenty of obsessive worrying and a summer-long pub-crawl, I finally felt ready for parenthood.
On August 29, 2008, Tina gave birth to our beautiful son, London.
He resembled Yoda: bald with pickled purplish skin that looked, well, as if it had been marinating in amniotic fluid for nearly a year.
I was coddling this blotchy raisin when he opened his eyes for the first time. So the first thing he looked upon in this world was my smiling face, a genuine expression but one that belied the loudest of a million thoughts roaring through my mind: I am not ready for parenthood.
No matter. My son returned the smile and we were one, a bubble almost immediately burst by the realization that it was actually a wince signaling the inaugural dropping of the deuce.
Times have changed faster than that first diaper.
But the panic passed. Then I lost my job. Then Tina and I broke up.
A friend once told me that having a dog is “good training” for having a kid. Well, I’ve had a dog and, while trailing behind an incontinent puppy in the middle of a frigid winter night isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time, his days consisted mostly of sleep with short bursts of taking it easy.
The truth is, being a parent is hard. And being a single parent is twice as difficult. Mathematically, it’s the same amount of work divided by one less person.
Shared custody, however, has some benefits. I like having the flexibility to pursue other things that I’m passionate about. Like work. Freelance writing also provides some latitude and, occasionally, even enough money to live.
The hardest thing about being a parent is avoiding other parents. Especially the ones whose kids are the smartest, most attractive, athletic humans to ever grace the planet, certainly direct descendents of superior bloodlines and beneficiaries of an enlightened parenting technique taught by an Indian yogi during a first-trimester Lamaze expedition to the Himalayas.
They’re everywhere.
Nothing can teach you how to be a good dad. Not even the Internet. Although access to that certainly helps when trying to establish if it’s fatal to ingest a colony of ants.
Demonstrably, some take to it more gracefully than others. (This can actually be said for parenting, accessing the Internet and ingesting ants.) I’ve been told that I’m a good dad. Usually, this comes from people who don’t have children. I always insist it’s because I once had a dog.
I’m not perfect. Once, some seemingly harmless horseplay came to an apoplectic halt after my son landed awkwardly on the bed, burst into tears then fainted in my arms. Misdiagnosing him as dead, I instinctively applied an ad hoc version of the after-school cardiopulmonary-resuscitation protocol taught to me in the fall of 1983. Happily, he woke up. So the situation was arguably well in hand by the time eight firefighters and two paramedics burst into my apartment several minutes later.
Perhaps not surprisingly, London’s first two words were “Oh no!” He utters it out of genuine concern, like after his gravity defying vomit arcs over the table and somehow finds its way into my mouth.
He’s not a big talker, though his choice words are nuanced. Various intonations of “Dada”, for example, can mean pick me up, get me some milk, pick up that thing I dropped, put on a DVD, hurry up, and, his greatest hit, this is going to mean trouble.
He’s incredibly literal: a train is a “choo choo”. He got a Thomas & Friends table train set for Christmas that features more than 100 pieces. For the record, that’s more than 100 reasons not to buy one for your own child. A fire engine – or anything with a siren – is a “woo woo”. So when he sees an ambulance racing down the street he simply does the math: “Woo woo! Dada! Oh no!”
He is the best-looking boy-genius of his generation.
This may have gone to his head. He does not appreciate getting his blond hair brushed or cut and until recently resembled a professional yodeler.
He’s an inconsiderate roommate: loud, moody, demanding, prone to tantrums and never forthcoming when it comes to bucking up for rent.
Navigating our apartment – now a minefield of trucks, tapes and talking books – is perilous, once-prized hardwood barely visible beneath the toys.
Want to go out? Welcome to the Sherpa years. Suddenly, it takes an hour’s prep and expedition-sized baggage just to bivouac at a local restaurant. Once base camp is established, the forecast might call for some drooling, sobbing and even a slight chance of puke. Count on at least one tossed sippy cup and a couple of dirty looks, too. Much like babysitting a drunk, you just need to hold on until they pass out.
Of course, you just can’t pop a kid in a cab and hope for the best. Especially when the contents of your wallet
were stuffed through the protective grate of a desk fan several hours earlier without your knowledge. “Dada,” my son said after we’d retreated home to retrieve it. “Sawrry.”
A new word!
“Becoming a father is easy enough, but being one can be very rough,” poet Wilhelm Busch observed.” It’s not unlike golf. People who don’t play will never understand its allure; those who do can’t fathom life before it, even though it occasionally frustrates the hell out of them. Nobody’s perfect. Even pros slice the ball off the fairway, once in a while. Don’t take a stroke. Just remember how great 18 holes can look when recounted over cocktails in the clubhouse.
Make mine a screwdriver, good sir.
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Original essay by Graeme McRanor appeared in the Globe and Mail.
Bolton to B.C. with a Blueprint for the Blues
February 21, 2011
Connely Farr went to Alabama to study architecture and ended up learning the blues.
Now 33-years-old and based in Vancouver, he considers himself a musician by choice and an idealist by design, craft and calling coming together like a tongue-and-groove joint.
More curious, however, is how they met.
Farr grew up across from a cotton gin in tiny Bolton, Miss., a no-stoplight speck of a town once home to Bo Carter and his influential blues band, the Mississippi Sheiks. But Farr only recently discovered that the Sheiks hailed from his hometown – surprising, since the Hinds County Economic Development District lists Bolton’s current population as 687.
And at one time, the blues were news to Farr. “I just rode a skateboard, listened to KISS, Guns N’ Roses, played football,” he says with a slight southern drawl.
He didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 20 years old. “Then I picked up Neil Young’s Decade album and just fell in love with acoustic guitar.”
Then came what he terms the obligatory brush with local law enforcement. “I was just having fun,” he pleads. “It’s different down there. I got pulled over and I had a joint in my car and they’re like, ‘You’re going to jail’.”
“That probably wouldn’t happen up here.”
It didn’t take long for Farr, who’d already taken some art classes at the local college and whose grandfather had been an architect, to see the drawing on the wall. So he applied to Auburn University, got accepted and headed for Alabama to study architecture.
“I didn’t really know what I was getting into,” he says. “I mean, I didn’t even know what architecture was. I knew it was creative, I knew I liked that process, and I knew it was going to be challenging.”
What he didn’t know was that Auburn had a world-renowned design-build school called Rural Studio, a non-profit organization mandated to improve the living conditions in some of the poorest communities in rural Alabama while imparting practical experience to architecture students. Money and materials are raised, houses designed, built and given away. Larger community projects are undertaken as well.
Hale County Animal Shelter (photo by Timothy Hursley)
Farr got involved with the program in his second year and was a member of the team that designed and built the Hale County Animal Shelter, a project that received an honorable mention at the 2008 World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, Spain. He also worked on a house for Jimmie Lee Matthews, an impoverished man from Greensboro known around the community as “Music Man” because of his obsessive passion for soul music.
“It was an amazing experience,” he says.
Dissolve to a summer montage featuring Farr whiling away long humid nights on Music Man’s back porch, drinking hooch and learning the blues.
Well, not exactly.
“Once I graduated, we were still working on the animal shelter out at Rural Studio, so we weren’t being paid,” Farr explains. “So we had these little side jobs and every Thursday night I basically covered songs for three hours in this Mexican bar.”
For 30 bucks and a “damned good meal” Farr covered artists like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Ryan Adams, Nirvana, Metallica and … “Who sings I Will Survive?”
Gloria Gayner?
“Yeah, Gloria Gayner! Any time I’d hear a song I’d be like, ‘I wanna learn how to play that song.’ And so I’d learn how to play it.”
And the blues?
“The first blues song I ever wrote was Going Down,” says Farr. “I didn’t know how to write a blues song so I YouTubed ‘how to write a blues song’ and this guy showed me how … I was like, ‘Okay, I like those chords.’ So I hit pause and wrote the song.
“Then we recorded the song and I’m thinking there wasn’t enough put into it, it needs to be more complex, or it needs to have more depth. But then you get to reading about these blues musicians and what they were playing … there’s a spiritual aspect to it that comes out in the music.
“Listen to early Muddy Waters,” he adds. “It’s so organic.”
Listen to Going Down:
Farr’s music has that too. Effortlessly evocative, his songs amble across many genres, but their roots remain firmly planted in the Mississippi delta’s fertile soil.
His feet never were. Disillusioned by what he terms America’s infatuation with violence, Farr considered relocating to Italy or Spain before heading north to visit a friend in Vancouver in 2008.
“It was just a happy accident that I ended up in Canada,” he says. “I fell in love with Vancouver the minute I was standing out on Kits Beach. I said, ‘This is where I want to live.’ And I’ve never had that feeling before.”
He landed a job at an architectural firm, cut an eponymous debut album under the moniker Mississippi Live and independently released it in spring of last year. A week after that he returned to the studio with respected local musicians Jay B. Johnson, Jon Wood and Ben Yardley.
Mississippi Live & the Dirty Dirty released Way Down Here this past December.
For Farr, songwriting and architecture share the same creative spirit. “I think that the creative process is inherently the same,” he says. “You come up with something, and nothing’s ever set in stone. Songs can change over time. And I like this idea of coming up with something, walking away from it and revisiting it… Life begins to shape what comes out.”
Currently an intern architect, Farr one day sees himself volunteering with Architecture for Humanity, a worldwide non-profit organization founded in 1999 to promote architecture and design that seeks solutions to global social and humanitarian crisis.
“They went out to Africa to build a school to educate kids about AIDS and STDs,” he says. “That’s what architecture is for me. They said how are we going to best educate these kids? And so what they did is they built an athletic facility then hired doctors to be the coaches.
“And you kind of interweave these things. It’s about education. It’s about edification. Bringing people up rather than pushing them down.”
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Original story by Graeme McRanor appeared in the Vancouver Sun.
Giving It Up for Lent
February 12, 2011
Passion charged the room. The purple, silk-covered duvet shimmered. Clasping my hands delicately, she drew them to her bosom, leveled sincere eyes with mine and whispered: “I want to give up sex for Lent.”
Suddenly, her hot hand felt like a chilled haddock. I let it go.
Lent. Purple bedding. I had been led into temptation and repulsed in a bedside conversion.
“Lent is a season for soul-searching and repentance; a time for sacrifice,” she said. “It’s just something I feel like I have to do and, if you love me, you’ll understand.”
Of course I understand, I’m Catholic: Jesus died for our sins, now I have to pay for hers.
Having just attended a rambling Ash Wednesday mass with her (my first service in almost 20 years; the anticipated bolt of lightning failing to strike: apparently heaven can wait), I thought my Catholic (and supportive-boyfriend) duties, were done. Now I felt purgatorial. What the hell is Lent, anyway?
“Maybe you should find out,” she challenged. “Lord knows, you’ll have the time.”
Lent, I found, is a Teutonic word symbolizing the 40-days’ fast preceding Easter on the Christian calendar. It is an Anglo-Saxon translation (meaning spring) of the more significant Latin term quadragesima, meaning the “forty days” or, more literally, the “fortieth day.” And with origins arguably dating back to the apostolic era, observation was universal in the ancient church.
Today, Lent remains a time when devout Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodist, Lutheran and Anglican denominations, as well as Eastern Orthodox Churches (with subtle differences) rededicate themselves by marking the 40-day withdrawal into the wilderness by Jesus.
In biblical terms, the number 40 represents probation or trial. The Israelites wandered (and wondered) for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5); Moses bivouacked on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights (Exodus 24:18); ditto for rain-lashed Noah’s Ark (Genesis 7:12); and Jonah’s 40-day proclamation to Nineveh probably spared the locals getting knocked six-ways-to-Sunday by the wrath of God (Jonah 3:4). Would my obligatory suspension generate similar absolution? More importantly, would it get published?
Revelation! Further research establishes that the six Sundays in Lent are omitted in the 40-day count. Sundays, the day of the Resurrection, remain celebratory; a weekly respite from Lenten self-denial and the weighty lessons taught by the rest of the season.
Had I stumbled upon new evidence in my dusty attic? A loophole of biblical proportions? Like a witness to Moses’ parting of the Red Sea, epiphany reigned! Surely this was a sign, if not from Heaven, then an Old Testament indication of indulgence tolerated.
My exodus seemingly overturned, I thumped my chest and prepared to return to the Promised Land.
First Sunday: Armed with knowledge, asbestos-filled lungs and primped to chase the chaste but discover only an apologetic epistle tacked to her door: “Sorry, babe. Have to work Sundays now . . . I think there’s fruit . . . Help yourself!”
By the time the sole piece of fruit in the place can be sniffed out (a ripe peach), hunger pangs have reduced my libidinous roar to a whimper. The peach satisfies neither appetite.
In many countries, the Tuesday before Lent signals last call for the indulgent to, well, indulge: Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), Shrove Tuesday or Fasching festivities are all synonymous with masks, music and madness and, occasionally, licentiousness. But for centuries, the looming fast meant abstaining from meat, which is why some refer to the festival as carnival, Latin for “farewell to meat.”
But not just meat. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church prescribed the Lenten daily menu, and Lent meant additional prohibition. Milk, butter, cheese and eggs were also bid adieu, reflective Christians subsisting on bread, porridge or gruel made of grain, peas or beans, salted or dried vegetables, apples, nuts and fish. Yes, fish! (A fishy explanation of this is that during the biblical Flood — a flood intended to punish all mankind — the fish survived. Clearly, fish swim without sin.)
Like the fit of jeans, present-day fasting regulations have been relaxed (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday remain fast days, with one fully meatless meal, and possible two smaller meatless meals allowed, depending on needs), with emphasis shifting from church mandate to individual responsibility. Thus, fasting’s strictly epicurean roots have grown to include abstinence from television, video games and … sex.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” my father often laments. Maybe not, but they can still pray (coincidentally, another Lenten discipline).
So with penance and patience in the heart, I’ve soul-searched, repented and am prepared to sacrifice.
But next year, I pray my girlfriend gives up Lent. If she loves me, she’ll know why.
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Original story by Graeme McRanor appeared in the Globe and Mail.
Green Shenanigans and Pagan Snakes
February 11, 2011
Saint Patrick. Even the name sounds like a chortle. When we think of him it is not of piety and penance but of boisterous Irish and found-in wannabes celebrating the wearing of the green and slurring through frothy lips: “Mind yer hats goin’ in!”
A year ago, I was propped amid the oak and uproar of a heaving Irish pub on Toronto’s Yonge Street. There were yells of “Fine girl y’are,” and, on a mini-stage, someone was squeezing shrill notes from pipes pumped by his elbow and played from his lap; another laid into a bodhran drum. Flute, mandolin, harp and fiddle were in the mix.
It was the stuff of insurrection, cannon fire and rousing exploits. But around me in the bar was the Canadian rainbow coalition: black, white, brown, turbans, suits, a sari and at least one Stetson. All revelling in memory of an all-star saint.
My head, a spinning match for the traditional high-steppers dancing on straw strewn for the occasion, tried to make sense of it. I am of Scottish extraction, but only after 1846. Before that, my forebears were buried in Irish sod. I surveyed my friends in the bar: One Italian, another Saudi and a third Austrian-Filipino. I posed the question: What exactly are we celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day? They stared, shrugged and merrily resumed drinking. Leaving no pint unturned, I simply asked the bartender.
“It’s a celebration of Irish patriotism, he said, “but you don’t have to be Irish to celebrate. You just have to love the Irish.”
God loves the Irish. Anyone from there will tell you that. St. Patrick, of course, is the patron saint of the place and, as such, is clasped not only to the hearts of Erin but beloved worldwide. All but the most intransigent of Ulster loyalists would agree that St. Patrick is not reviled in Belfast’s Protestant strongholds. (This may be because, while he made his name in Ireland, many say he was born in Scotland). And there are those who will not be dissuaded that, while he may not have picked the team, his blessed hand was at work in the modern miracle of Ulster’s inter-denominational rugby team.
We know much from his autobiographical writing; that he was born probably at Kilpatrick in central Scotland toward the end of the fourth century. In his early teens, he was abducted into slavery by Irish marauders. He was also imprisoned for six years, for what we do not know.
He wrote that God spoke to him in a dream and urged him to flee to the coast, where he was picked up by fishermen and, on being given his liberty, was subsequently ordained a priest. On becoming a bishop, an angel told him to return to Ireland as a missionary. At the time, Ireland was largely populated by Druids and pagans.
Familiar with the language and local customs, his unite-and-convert strategy was simple. First, it’s said he made an impression by befriending a local chieftain who suddenly regained use of a long-immobilized arm and was soon two-handing tankards of porter. He incorporated pagan ritual: the locals honoured their gods with fire, so he used bonfires to celebrate Easter. He superimposed the sun, a powerful symbol, on to the Christian cross, an adaptation acceptable to the Irish and the prototype for the Celtic cross.
Ah, but what about those snakes? Did he not banish them from all of Ireland simply by flourishing his staff? Unlikely. Irish culture, though, is thick with oral legend and myth. Perhaps what he cast from Ireland was pagan idolatry. Within two centuries of his arrival, Ireland’s conversion was complete and the story is this: death and the passage of time notwithstanding, St. Patrick personally baptized each one.
March 17 marks the anniversary of his death and the religious feast day. The Catholic Church makes no big deal of it but the Irish have been celebrating it as a religious holiday for centuries, no-meat Lenten prohibitions being suspended for a day of frolic, drink and traditional fare of potato, bacon and cabbage. The inaugural St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York in 1762, however, was an improvised affair. It began when, suitably fortified, Irish soldiers serving in the English military reconnected with their Irish roots and exiled countrymen, re-igniting Irish patriotism among American immigrants.
The potato famine of the mid-1800s, combined with the opportunistic land-clearing schemes of absentee aristocracy, drove shiploads of impoverished Irish to America. There, as in their homeland, they encountered bigotry and disdain from the ascendant Protestant majority. They were caricatured as shillelagh-wielding drunks and louts.
But in numbers lies strength and the Irish were quick to organize. The “green machine” became politically relevant and the annual marches symbolized Hibernian strength and unity. Today, millions of people, eager for a glimpse of the procession, bleed green through the streets of New York. Marching, walking, watching or imbibing, much of the rest of the world also hails the day.
The Irish claim that wisdom comes eventually and the best place to wait is in a bar. So I hail our shamrock-sporting bartender and order a round of Guinness, secure in the knowledge that the Irish do cradle the world on St. Patrick’s Day. The shenanigans embrace goodwill and the best of patriotism, heritage and storied tradition. It is a party of brother and sisterhood, mirth and tolerance, an occasion when all eyes are Irish and smiling.
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Original story by Graeme McRanor originally appeared in the Globe and Mail.
London Falling (asleep)
January 26, 2011
I took this photo of London and his mommy in an alley. I’m not joking. They’re sitting next to a dumpster. That has no bearing on how I feel about them. (Winter, 2010/11)
