After 350 years as a corporation, the Hudson Bay Company is dead. They raced to the bottom with their goods becoming worse by the year, until they were as cheaply made as goods from Walmart; but Wally World endures, basically a Chinese Factory Outlet. Far be it for me to explain how the economy works, when the “leader of the free world” has no clue! All I can do is write a song about it.
Polar bear hunting on the ice of Hudson Bay (photo B. Inaglory)
The Hudson Bay Company began in 1670 after Sieur des Grosselliers convinced Prince Rupert of England that he could get rich by trading into Hudson Bay and the great hinterland of the Canadian Shield, which was rich beyond dreams with fur bearing creatures just waiting to be skinned and made into hats.
Better yet, watch this amazing film about building a replica of the Nonsuch, in England, in 1968 for the 300th anniversary of the founding of the company.
In March 1925, one hundred years ago this month, the Victoria Cougars hockey team won the Stanley Cup, beating the Montreal Canadiens in 4 games. I wrote a song about that, and made a video to go with it. Link is at the bottom, but please read on before viewing!
Hockey is, of course, the national sport of Canada and we love it so much that what happened a century ago is still important to us. I expect that has a lot to do with the fact that hockey is not only the fastest game, but also the roughest and hardest to master – requiring one to know how to skate and handle a puck at the end of a long stick, while moving on ice at high speed, and avoiding being clobbered by others moving equally fast.
Typical Canadian winter day
So we have a natural advantage here, winter, that provides us with ample opportunity to learn how to skate as children playing outside on ice will do. Victoria doesn’t have winter anymore, at least with outdoor ice, but we still have lots of arenas and skaters. One hundred years ago the climate was colder here, and even the west coast had frozen lakes and ponds. The first indoor artificial ice arena in the world was built right here in Victoria BC! The song tells the story of the battle for the Stanley Cup, which was epic even then.
The Stanley Cup is the oldest sports trophy in the world, and was donated by Lord Stanley, Governor General of Canada. Now it belongs to the NHL, not by law but by dint of the fact that possession is ownership, or as they say, 9 tenths of the law. But the Cup will be returning here to Victoria soon, to celebrate the historic victory of the Cougars a century ago, before the Cup became the sole property of the NHL.
1993 Montreal Canadiens – last team from Canada to win the Stanley Cup
Of course the fact that the Cup has not been won by a Canadian based team since the Montreal Canadiens last won it a generation ago remains a sore point for Canadians, since we all consider the Cup to be our national property. Thus we remember when two great Canadian teams battled for it long ago.
Howie Morenz – the first hockey star
A word about one of the players, Howie Morenz, the first “star” of pro hockey, in the day before stardom was as degenerated as it is now. He was known as the Stratford Streak, the fastest, highest scorer of his day. He inspired two pro teams in fact, the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers, after their respective founders saw him in action and decided that they would bring pro hockey to their own cities. Morenz is today considered the 15th greatest player of all time. Quite the accolade!
In truth, the main interest I have in Morenz is the fact that my father, born in Montreal March 18, 1918, exactly 107 years ago today, caddied for Howie Morenz at a golf course one day as a teenager. So my Dad met the great Morenz, making me only 2 degrees removed from greatness…
And now, hockey fans, here is the soon-to-be-greatest hockey song of all time, “One Hundred Years Tonight”.
Last year I wrote this song for my son who was going off to New York on business. His business took him to the Trump Tower on Wall Street, although he said the office there was small and mostly used for the prestige. He didn’t mention the heavily armed guards at the doors. Is that for show, I wonder? Recent events led me to record the song properly, and somehow it seemed to say a lot about how Canadians are feeling, although I never intended it that way. Was I prescient? Well, I never thought they would elect you know who twice! To all my American friends – Canada will endure this, as you will. Don’t despair, it could get worse, and you’ll always have Putin on your side if we invade!
If you’re wondering what has happened to this blog, fear not, I have been hard at work writing and recording songs of late, among other things. The typewriter collection is down to a mere 57 machines as I slowly sell them off to new enthusiasts just beginning their their typing odysseys. Selling typewriters is a great way to meet interesting people! However, I am no longer buying typewriters for the moment, although that may change when there are only a few left! I need only one with which to write the current novel on, but that is also stalled due to the switch to songwriting. My typewriter is right here beside me though, and whenever I get going again I will complete this book. Here is a musical excerpt from the book, where the hero goes to see the gypsy Madame Zora for the 2nd time.
All Saint’s Day/The Gypsy
As if that ain’t enough, here is my Christmas song for 2024. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
I recently wrote a song entitled “What Were You Thinkin?” about a stolen Lincoln. The best picture I could find on line was this:
Internet search result
I wanted something closer to what I imagined the stolen Lincoln would look like, so I consulted Microsoft Co-Pilot, and it generated this montage, complete with the lawn and a trailer home; much closer to what I was thinkin! So far I haven’t asked for Co-Pilot to put a baseball team inside the car, but that might be interesting…
Microsoft AI generated image
Here is a clip of the first verse and chorus from my demo, recorded on a cell phone. I was using the camera to record video when I did this one, but I have switched to using Dolby On, a free app that produces surprisingly good quality audio recordings.
(G) It gets 3 miles a (E7) gallon and the (A7) steering (D7) sucks (G) But the trunk is as (E7) big as a (A7) pickup (D7) truck It (C) corners worse than a (G) Greyhound (E7) bus Takes (A7) premium gas and it’s (D7) riddled with rust The (C) seats are torn and they’re (G) growing (E7) mould It’s a (A7) colour combination of (D7) brown and gold You can (C) fit a baseball (G) team (E7) inside It’s the (Am) same old (D7) heap in which (G) Kennedy died
(G) What were you (C) thinkin’ (C) When you stole my (G) Lincoln (G) Last night it was (A7) parked on the lawn (A7) But this (D7) morning it was gone (D7) What were you (C) thinkin’ (D7) When you stole my (G) Lincoln
Lately I’m into songwriting. I know I should have started earlier if I want to be rich and famous but I was busy. Better late than never, right? Yesterday I was fiddling around on the guitar as usual, waiting for an idea or the beginning of an idea, while putting together various chords. This is how it seems to work for me, messing with chord progressions and imagining a tune to go with them. Sometimes I get ideas for lyrics first and work with that, but this was just some chords. I wrote 16 bars, a common verse length and then waited for further instruction from the subconscious. Somehow this reminded me of a sea song, you know them, lyrical and all about waves and sailors and puking etc. Then it struck me that Charles Darwin spent 5 years at sea on the Beagle, and the poor guy suffered from sea sickness!
So, out came The Ballad of Charles Darwin from nowhere, or so it seemed. With all the ballads about heroes and villains and sad cases, I had never heard of a song about Charles Darwin, so it seemed to be a reasonable idea. After all, the man started a revolution with a book! The odd coincidence happened today, when I found out that today is “Evolution Day”, in recognition of the date of publication of Darwin’s earth shaking book, On The Origin of Species, on November 24, 1859 (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection).
As of this minute, I’m still working on the song, getting the melody down and messing with various chord substitutions, trying to make it good and also original. But as Mies van der Rohe was said to say: it is better to be good than original. So I try to not be so original that the tune sucks. This applies to architecture and music alike, in my opinion. Of course, to be original and be good is to have the best of everything, a challenging task. I wish I had started writing songs when I was 11, as by now I might have some really good ones. However, I now have the advantage of 60 years of practice on the guitar, as well as a lifetime of experiences to draw on, which is helpful when you want to tell a story.
49 years ago I bought the guitar of my dreams, a brand new Martin D35. In those days I was in love with Gordon Lightfoot songs, the Beatles of course, and all that music that sounded great on a big flat top guitar.
My late friend Bob Wylie strumming my D35 c. 1977
But the years passed and so did my taste in music, so 24 years ago I sold the D35 and moved on to jazz. However, the circle of life comes around like the seasons and so I recently decided it was high time I had a big “folk” guitar again. The Martin dreadnought, or D type guitar is the most copied guitar in the world, because it is like a battle ship that fears no man or woman. But it is big, a bit too big for me now that my shoulder and arm can’t take long hours of being draped over a huge guitar. I checked around and found the next best thing – a Taylor Grand Auditorium. This guitar has a narrow waist that allows it to sit lower and thus is less painful on the strumming arm. It was designed to compete with the Dreadnoughts, and by and large it can, although it’s a little smaller. The D size guitars are very large and in the opinion of many guitarists the 000 Martin is the acme of flat tops. While I tend to agree, I had already built one of those many years ago, and I wanted something different. Hence the latest guitar – my version of a Taylor Grand Auditorium, complete with the “all new, improved V bracing”.
Here is my latest guitar, #37, successor to my long gone D35, which I expect is still out in the world being strummed somewhere.
The famous C chord, beloved of folkies everywhere!
Taylor is converting their guitars to this v shaped bracing system, away from traditional x braced tops. They claim to have invented it, but it’s been around a long time in one form or another. I just copied their design however, figuring they had already done all the testing for me. I played a few examples and while they were no better than some of their x braced guitars, it seemed like an adventure to try a new design. I already made several ukuleles with v braces and I knew they sounded really good, better than the fan braced ones I had made before.
The guitar sounds great for folk music, no good at all for jazz, which is how it should be. I already have a dozen jazz guitars!
V braced top, a la Taylor. They patented this. Didn’t stop me.
For the record: cypress top, cypress braces, African mahogany body and neck, rosewood fingerboard, ebony bridge. Tuners are Gotoh 510, 1:21, the smoothest damn tuners on earth and worth every cent of the hundred bucks they cost. Strings are D’Addario EJ15 phosphor bronze, extra light. Even with extra light strings this thing is loud. I might up the gauge when I change strings, but the trade off is more volume for more work, and I have lazy old fingers.
Body is 16″ x 20″ x 4 5/8″ deep, same as Martin D. The nut is 1 11/16″, exactly the same as my old D35, as is the bridge. Scale length 25.5″, just a tad longer than Martin’s 25.4″ scale, so it feels like a D35 in my hands. Now to go practice “Did She Mention My Name”. Today’s pop music is so banal and crappy it’s not worth listening to, so thank heavens we have Gordon Lightfoot, who is still alive! He should have got the Nobel Prize, not Bob Zimmerman… the worst performer I have ever seen. But BZ wrote some good songs. I may play one of those later.
I just added another old Eaton’s phonograph to the collection, the Eaton’s “Roamer’ (model 50-26), made by Dominion Electrohome Industries, the company that I assume later became simply Electrohome. A previous post covered the Eaton’s 703. Presumably you could roam about with this neat little unit in hand, taking it over to a friend’s apartment to listen to the latest music:
It’s hard to determine the date it was made, but my guess is the 1940’s, before the advent of the LP, since this machine is made to play 78’s. It was on the shelf with the electronics at the thrift shop, where I spotted it immediately from the old style box and handle. The power cord was cut off so there was no way to test it, but for twenty bucks I decided it was worth a gamble. I saw from peeking into the underside that there were two vacuum tubes, so I figure that if it didn’t work I could convert it into a 5 watt guitar amp. However, after I soldered on a new power cord it did indeed work. The tubes began to glow and a loud hum was heard from the speaker. I put some silicone lube on the platter spindle and the platter began to turn very fast.
Looking at the pickup I noted an offset stylus with some sort of dark point, that I assumed to be the sapphire, or some such thing. The pickup itself was made by Shure. With it humming and the platter spinning around quickly I reached for the nearest 78 album, and grabbed the first disc in the set – Xavier Cugat’s Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra playing Begin the Beguine.
How appropriate – my parents spent their honeymoon at the Waldorf Astoria in 1947. Maybe they even danced in the ballroom while Cugat’s orchestra played this song. Compared to my much older windup 78 phonograph, this one is high fidelity. It certainly does explain how those recording engineers managed to get decent quality edits from old recordings that exist only on 78’s from that era. They manufactured these discs with the highest technology of the time, as explained here:
Yesterday we gave away 15 cubic feet of vinyl LP’s which we rarely ever listen to. One of them was the unmemorable last work of John Lennon’s, Double Fantasy, featuring the amazingly talented genius of Yoko Ono,
SHE’S THE GENIUS ON THE LEFT
which I only purchased because John had been murdered. I might have kept this but for the fact that I get disgusted by any reminder of You Know Oh-No. To cleanse my heart we listened to side 2 of Abbey Road, and thought wistfully of what they might have come up with next, but for their tragic demise. So we mourned the Beatles all over again, but were grateful that at 50 years old, this now ancient LP still has the magic. Among the treasures we discovered while sorting through the collection was another LP, which shall go down in history alongside the opening scenes of the TV show Mission Impossible. From 1973, I give you:
Hear How to TOUCH TYPE
I should mention that just like many Beatles albums, this LP came with bonus goodies, in this case a free Webster XL747 typewriter!
the Webster Guarantee
Now that was almost as good as the poster than came inside the White Album!
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