Since I was up north canoeing, I’ve had the late great Wade Hemsworth’s songs jumping around in my head. I’ve shared this one before. It’s Murray McLauchlan with the McGarrigles performing The Shining Birch Tree with Mr. Hemsworth sitting on stage taking it in. I could listen to this 100 times in a row.
Wade Hemsworth…
Julia Plumb and Baron Collins-Hill.
The new episode of The Agency Podcast is now available. Listen here or find it at all the good podcast places.
After stacking up U-Hauls the agents need a little Hennesey to chill and listen to Certified Lover Boy, Donda, The Courier, fiddle Youtube channels, Bob Ross and catch up with each other. Please join us.
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Come on, let’s go – just down the street to Colonel Sam Smith Park. It’s a super-interesting place named after a soldier and land baron who settled into 1000 acres in Etobicoke. It’s ever-changing and each walk through it is unique.
Gaston Nolet on button accordion. Wow!
Vincent Neil Emerson (from Western AF)…
We’re back from the woods after an 80 km, 12 portage canoe trip in a non-operating park north of Atikokan called Turtle River Provincial Park. We put in at the Turtle River bridge on 622 and canoed to the strange log castle built by eccentric woodsman Jimmy McOuatt in the early 1900s, and then back. We also visited the remains of a POW logging camp located just north of the castle.
We had a bug-free trip, which was a real treat, and just 2 nights and a morning of rain. The trip alternated between river and lake stretches, including parts of Smirch Lake, Dibble Lake and big White Otter Lake. Fishing was great for bass, including some really big ones. Here’s a selection of snapshots I took along the way.
I rolled back into town yesterday afternoon after a week in the woods, and this morning, we recorded a new episode of The Agency. Listen right here or find it at all the good podcast places. I went canoeing in NW Ontario, while Candy visited Iowa, checked out street graffiti and lost something important.
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The 7th and final volume of the Squeeze Box Man graphic novel is now available. To those who subscribed to the whole set, I’ll be mailing yours out this week.
If you want a copy of Volume 7 or any of the others, email me your request. Payment will be by interact e-transfer for Canadian customers. If you live in the USA or anywhere else outside of Canada, payment method is Paypal. Individual issues are $12 + $3 postage to anywhere. If you order the whole set at once, buy 6 and the 7th is free. Postage on mailing a full set will be whatever the Post Office charges me. There is no handling fee.
I had never imagined writing a graphic novel. I had written The Lazy Allen stories, which is still available on Amazon and I thought that was as far as I would take this project. Then Jacob Yerex suggested my stories were well-suited to becoming a graphic novel, and suggested he would like be the illustrator. Jacob has brought my characters to life so wonderfully, there have been moments in which I have been moved to tears. I rewrote all my original stories to adapt them to the graphic novel format plus I wrote additional stories to bring the whole thing together as a graphic novel.
Squeeze Box Man is a comic for adults. The characters are potty-mouthed. They have all sorts of adult problems and some of them struggle with human weaknesses like alcohol, tobacco and drug addiction. I’d like to think there is also a lot of compassion, empathy and humour going on, along with a passionate love for making music. Some of the stories come from events I witnessed along the way and others I made up. If you read the original stories followed by the graphic novel you will quickly learn the characters have developed over time and Jacob’s contribution to that development can’t be over-emphasized. We very much worked together on the direction of the stories and on the character development. I could not have had a better, more empathetic collaborator
I would like to thank Steph, my barber at the Nite Owl here in Long Branch for allowing us to fictionalize her into Lazy’s barber back in 1982. As well I’d like to thank the fabulous Toronto painter, Andy Fabo, for allowing us to bring his 1982 persona to life as we saw fit.
We tried to represent Toronto back in the early 80s as best we could within the confines of the stories. Readers who live here will recognize many of the places where the stories took place.
Squeeze Box Man would be nothing without all the historic musicians I am passionate about, without Li’l Wally and Scrubby and the Dynatones, without the Clown Prince of Polka, Walt Solek, without Il Parche, Esteban “Steve” Jordan, without the Pogues and Ian Dury & the Blockheads, without Handsome Ned, without all the Toronto punk bands I saw back in the day and without the “hardest working man in show business”, James Brown.
For a number of years I worked in an industrial environment (those who know me well know just where) and my experience making ends meet on both sides of the union/management spectrum was at the heart of The Bottle & Can. However, I will add that should you think you recognize yourself in the stories, you would be wrong. All the characters and events depicted are purely fictional.
27th Street 