As long as I know how to play air guitar, I know I will survive.

I can't honestly claim to have a vast number of useful skills, in fact I am often overly forthcoming about my deficient abilities in life. But for my smorgasbord of physical and mental shortcomings, there's one thing that I really take pride in and that's my astonishing grace on the air guitar. My roots with the instrument are deeply embedded in my experience as a 1st and 2nd grader back in 1986-87 when I was just another slack-jawed onlooker, fanning the young egos of the 5th and 6th graders skilled enough in the art of cool to play in real-live air bands at recess.

In the rural hills of Vancouver Island, we were just a little sheltered from the electric society of the 80's just to our South. With just 2 channels on our television, my early years were limited to a thin assortment of programs, primarily consisting of hockey, Canadian news, the occasional cop drama ("In the Heat of the Night" for example), ancient repeats of The Wonderful World of Disney, and a weekly recap of popular American music known as Video Hits; which I believe later morphed into today's VH1. I fondly remember in profound detail watching with my Dad and brother Geoff, the half hour of heavy metal and love songs each week. The hair was wild, everybody wore make-up, and those neon colors were vivid even through the flat airwaves of the area and through our hand-me-down television.

My experience with the guitar has been futile at best, full of excessive purchases and minimal results. There are no true musicians in my immediate family, and aside from a former-rockstar uncle in Ottawa, my un-immediate family is rather unmusical. My fascination and appreciation for music of all types began in the crowd around those air bands. For 15 magical minutes we would watch the coolest of the older kids bang out mad rhythms with pencils on a text book, dance with broomstick microphones, and graciously dance their fingers across the make-believe frets of a meter stick. The music; something in the tempo of Van Halen blaring from a ghetto blaster, was a secondary attraction to the visual magnificence of the act. I’ll never forget the day my brother (who usually hovered around the 80th percentile of cool kids) kept tempo on a text book for one of the new bands. It was that very instant, which I clearly revive when need be, that I realized the musical spice might just be pulsing through these Braden veins after all.

Just 19 short years later, here I sit listening to my proud iTunes collection, belting out one hell of a guitar solo to Cake’s interpretation of the classic “I Will Survive”, reaching deep into the very nerves of my youth and appreciation of music to pour grace into every note and chord of this gorgeous song. Wow! What a gift!

Mudd and Vanity

The seasons are fighting each other for dominance once again. Just like the fall dries out the humid summer with its cool and dry breath, and how the even chillier winter winds tug any resilient leaves from their beloved branches, the spring rain is busy chiseling away at the snow and ice which coat this corner of the Earth. Much of the ground has been freed of the deep freeze which crept deeper and deeper into the soil through the bitter weeks of this harsh winter, but most of the ground is still cemented in frost and ice. This rain and relative warmth has left the ground a little like a semi-defrosted steak.

This evening, Tia and I fumbled once again with the logistics of dropping off and picking up cars as we inched towards Portland to pick up our new car! A 1997 Volvo Wagon 850 (all of which makes total sense to me except for the 850 part) now sits in our sloppy driveway with a waterlogged temporary plate drooping from its tail. The vessel marks a new chapter in our lives; excessive debt in the name of vanity. Sure it's not the H2 Hummer I've had my eye on, but we paid more for this vehicle than we did for our last 4 vehicles combined! Seemingly gone are the days of buying $2500 buckets with funky odors and even funkier sounds.

The purchase came with a price which can't be contained by a number. We spent that freedom of haphazardly strapping a canoe or Christmas tree to the roof, staining the exterior with blue paint and pine sap. No more plowing the driveway with my out-of-shape Dodge, no more "storing" recyclables under the seats and trash on the floor. It could be said that this car is a tangible right of passage. It was this very thought that had me staring into the future as we pondered the purchase just the other day, trying desperately for the necessary clairvoyance to see our yet-to-be-born children strapped into the backseat and the inevitable stains of time ingrained in the fibers of the cabin.

Where will that first ketchup-drenched French-fry mark the car's graduation from a shiny new ride to just another one of life's tools? This very question was answered soon after we scared the dogs by pulling the alien vehicle into the driveway this evening. As they danced their "Mommy's Home!"-dance in that muddy mess outside, their typically dry and clean little paws quickly became caked in a coarse and rich mud. The fact of their filth was disguised by a poorly lit driveway (damn those 60 watt bulbs!), until they jumped casually into the wagon for a prance around the backseat. Wretched little mutts! If they weren't so cute, they'd be washing that car themselves!

Tribesmen in Nike Shorts (The Diner on the Hill part 2)

My last few blogs might leave someone who didn't know me with the false impression that I am in some way anti-technology. I shovel my driveway, I got pissed off at a local diner for offering wireless internet, I harass NASA about their plans in space, and I hate popular new music for the most part. As I began thinking about his post, I realized that here I am again bad mouthing the spread of technology. Here goes:

Have you ever watched a really amazing documentary on some Brazilian tribe who hunts monkeys and drinks hallucinogenic frog oils for their religious rituals, only to become really disgusted with the world when the camera grazes some clay-lipped native wearing a pair of neon Nike biking shorts? This has happened to me on several occasions, and it always leaves me with a bitter sense that maybe the world has been tamed by technology such as spandex and telecommunications. This was very much my discomfort with the recent addition of WiFi at a local diner which needs no such technology to thrive in the community.

This evening, after a lengthy debate on the subject of dinner, Tia sent me to the little store up the road for some sandwiches. The store (which I will leave un-named), is quintessential Maine convenience. Beer, smokes, gas, snacks, ice, and night crawlers. They offer a selection of nearly a dozen beef jerky’s, and on any given day the friendly owner will chat your ear off about any local or international subject.

This evening, as I pulled up into the snowy mess of a parking lot, a local snow-mobiler filled his machine at the pump. I walked in and talked with the owner as he pulled the sandwiches from the oven. His conversation unusually tame that time of night, I paid for the goods while casting a dreamy eye over the assortment of beef jerky. As I was walking out, I caught a split second glimpse of his two kids behind the counter. The 5 or 6 year old boys were dressed like Superman, perched blankly over a screen playing that dumb new Disney flick about super heroes... yup, you guessed it! It was a fucking laptop!! With a DVD drive no less! No one is exempt of technology's plan, not the kids, not the hicks, nobody.

The flat-horned rhinos of winter

That grisly old bastard winter is punishing my hopes of spring with every ounce of ice and cold he can muster up in these last weeks of his reign. I believe it was around Christmas or Thanksgiving that I started talking smack at the in-laws about how I wasn't going to spend a dime on snow removal all year, in a wine induced moment sealing my fate of stiff vertebrae, sore hands, cold feet, and all the other ills associated with manual snow removal.

After getting stuck in our 208 foot driveway once again this morning, leaving me to put up with the various taunts of coworkers at my primitive style, and again tonight, I broke down and began the quest of finding a plowman. On any given day when even the lightest flurry is dancing in the wind, I pass nearly a half dozen of the buggers on my way to work, but as I perused the phonebook this evening I realized that they were a more elusive creature than I had bargained for.

Hiring a plowman is based heavily on local tittle-tattle, suggestions from close family, and neighbor recommendations. Listing their seasonal service in the phonebook is out of the question, such reckless vanity is as frivolous as it is dangerous, for such legitimacy might only prompt tax attention in this black art. I know they're out there. I can hear them on cold nights, engines whining as they throw thousands of pounds of snow and ice around in the surrounding rural neighborhoods with the grace of a angry rhinoceros.

By 8 this evening, our cars still parked dangerously in the street, I realized we might have a problem. Finding a plowman on a Wednesday evening is more difficult than scoring a bag of grass at a Church Camp. It took a recommendations from an in-law, two calls to the neighbors, a call to the local gas station, and finally a call to a guy who "might know someone" to finally achieve the services of an old plowman named Dick. His name was too generic and struck me as an alias, but I questioned not his identity as he cut deep into the vintages of snow and ice which have caused so much stress in the past few months.

Even though the service ran a fair $25, it was clear he was enjoying the gig. He reached unheard-of speeds in our driveway only to slam full force into the snow, slip the loose transmission into reverse, back up, and do it again and again and again. I watched him with great amusement for the first 45 minutes or so, but headed back inside to thaw out my feet. He finished up shortly there after and slipped back into the cold darkness; cash in pocket, taxes uncharged, vehicle aged with abuse. I'm in the club.

The Diner on the Hill

After months and months of civilly protesting the seemingly unnecessary charge of registering a vehicle with the State of Maine every year, I finally gave in the other day and paid the town the $98 I apparently “owed” them. My sticker had been up since September, so the way I’m looking at this is that I got 5 solid months of protest in and not a ticket to show for it – sort of like streaking across Main Street with the president’s face painted on my ass for hundreds of hours without being caught. Sure I had some dips in confidence once in a while. Ever since my bright orange “04” sticker became all the more blatant Jan 1, I have avoided certain areas frequented by the cops. The experience was rather enjoyable all in all, and brought back memories of teenage mischief with the ever-looming fear of the dreaded blue lights.

Today being just the second day of my conformity to the law, I felt inclined to venture beyond my limited lunchtime perimeter; smack dab in the middle of Freeport and Yarmouth, where the forces don’t bother patrolling. I decided I’d pay an old diner a visit, which I once frequented long before being “on the lamb”. The diner rests at the top of a hill in Yarmouth, with a sliver-view of the harbor from which many of its patrons arrive. For sometime it has encapsulated the very essence of times past, and has always held a magical place in my imagination. On any given day in any given season you can find fisherman (snow-plowman in the winter months) and a variety of other laborers, sitting around the grill-centric dinning room, enjoying a yappy lunchtime atmosphere. The diner is one of the very few places left in this nation where $5 can buy you a full stomach and a wet palette, with its impressive assortment of Italians, Sheppard pies, burgers, and other easily prepared items.

As I walked into the cozy atmosphere of the diner on this snowy and desolate afternoon, I noticed that the place had seen some major changes since the last time I was in. The walls were painted a modern blue, and the menu board had been replaced with a fancy model and even fancier prices. I ordered a roast beef melt with a highfaluting spread of horseradish cheddar, and took a seat in the nearly empty dining room. It wasn’t a couple of moments before I noticed the diner was under new management and a new name to suit. Gone were the familiar faces I had once admired and voices full of stories I had once cast my attention to. Although I had always worn the persona of a quite outside observer at the diner, it suddenly seemed so lonely and characterless. My sandwich came and I enjoyed the horseradish cheddar more than a bland slab of American cheese, about half way through the meal an astonishing site caught my eye: “Wireless Internet Available”! I couldn’t believe it! It was all so clear! That priceless community pillar had sold its soul and become just another fucking Starbuck’s-esqe café! I nearly choked on my horseradish cheddar roast beef on sourdough as the full realization of what had happened set it. Pathetic! If my appetite doesn’t get the better of me, I will step foot in that cheap slut of an eatery again!