GOOD NIGHT MISS PANDA

Good night, Miss Panda. It's time for you to rest. It's OK to be tired now. In the five years since you've come into our lives, you've lived a lifetime

A life time of chasing balls, relentless and ferocious and so totally border-collie like in your pursuit. Never giving up and never letting anyone, no matter who they were, walk away without that one last toss

A lifetime of finding trails, nose to the ground like some scent dog, perhaps missing the scent of the prey but never missing an opportunity to look over your shoulder to tell me "C'mon Dad, it's this way." Whatever "this" was

A lifetime of being a good sister to Terra, even if reluctantly, As much as you tried to remain aloof, you followed her, you trusted her, shared your bed with her and in moments of uncertainty, permitted that rare contact, knowing that she would always protect you

A lifetime of eating cookies. No, just eating; loving, adoring, taking whatever Terra left behind .. even if she didn't know that she left it behind. Those brown eyes, that little smile, that sleek little head against your leg, all of it perfectly presented so that no cookie would pass you by

A lifetime of taking care of your family but seducing us into taking care of you. Yeh, that's a border collie thing. Must have been exhausting being so cute, so lovable, so completely manipulative. Yeh, we knew all that but still, how could we resist

No one ever believed that you were an old girl. "How old is she???" they would ask when we told them you were 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ... That spirit in you was so strong, your love for life so powerful, no one saw, at first, the grey fur on your muzzle.

You were never supposed to spend that life with us. You were just a project, a border collie rescued and waiting for a new life. We did not know that that life would be with us. But you did. You knew it all along

It's OK to rest now Little One. You're tired. You earned it. Good night Miss Panda. Dream of squirrels, while we dream of you

HAIRY EDGE: IS THERE ANYBODY HOME?

Hello?

Is there anybody out there?

No, I'm not singing Pink Floyd although that is one of my favorite songs

If you are, indeed, out there my question should be to you: Is the Hairy Edge still out there?

Well yes, but in a different form

I am a man of many skills, I can walk and chew gum at the same time .. er ok, maybe just the one skill

This blog was a way to express my writer but I'm also a video dude, principally an editor, so I like to express that as well

Contemporary technology, social media, gives me a platform to express that

So, while I still may revisit this space for time to time it's time to put up this sign:

THE HAIRY EDGE HAS MOVED

To Youtube, at least for a while

Come knock on the door if so inclined. And bring donuts. If you don't want to actually com in, that's fine. Just leave the donuts

SAYING GOODBYE TO A FIGHTER

Sometimes I have the greatest job in the world. Sometimes I have the worst job in the world.

When people ask me what I do, I don't say that I walk with dogs, I say that I play with dogs. And that's the truth. I am not one of those dog walkers you see tied to the end of a bunch of dogs, marching down the street looking totally miserable. I pick the dogs up, take them to a park and we play. That's it, really. Dogs are happy, I'm happy, their families are happy

It's a pretty good thing

In the course of all this, the dogs and I get to know me pretty well. With dogs it's all about trust. Properly trained dogs may respond to your commands but if they don't trust you, they're going to give that eye that says "You realize that if aren't totally chill, this behaviour won't last for long"

Playing with dogs is one of the best ways to build a bond, to gain trust. Play with them, show them the boundaries, remain consistent with everything, show them that you want them to have a good time and that trust will build You build a relationship with them

Sometimes that relationships ends. Dogs move away, or their owners change their situations or they can no longer handle the cost. So in that sense I've lost dogs.

But last week, I lost one in another way.

This is Ollie. I've been walking Ollie for a couple years now. He is thirteen, diabetic, losing his eyesight but he's my little scrapper. He's a fun loving little guy but if you have the misfortune to bump into you or he bumps into you (with his poor eye sight he doesn't often know the difference) oh brother, it's on

He always amazed me in the way that dogs do; he didn't let his health issues slow him down, little man just got on with business. I took him to fenced in parks and once in I let him go on his way, he would make his way through every inch of the place, sniffing and marking and backing down the big boys

But tough as he is,  eventually every fighter has to hang them up. I only walk Ollie twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. That Friday I got a text: Ollie's kidneys were shutting down. He was not going to survive. At that point he was pain free and his family had made the decision to not let him suffer, they were going to point him down.

The doctor wanted to do it on the Thursday but they said Hold off, we want him to go one last walk with Victor. Truly, I feel privileged. I gave him the best walk that I could; kept him safe, guided him out of danger, and let him sniff and pee his little heart out.

It was a brave tough thing that his family did. Not a very easy decision. Not easy for me either but I surely cannot compare. But that last day was a good one for the little man. Got bumped into by German Shephard cross and the scrapper backed him down

Good job Ollie. Leave your gloves in the ring

THE YEAR TO COME THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS

Well then, how the hell are ya?

Been a while hasn't it. How's the wife? The husband? The husband-wife? The wife-husband? That weird figure dressed all in rubber hanging over there in the corner, the one you call Fritz? All good?

Awesome

It has indeed been a while. This is, in fact, my first post of 2017. That's a weird thing to post. Not the fact that I haven't posted in a while, that's really not so surprising as I'm lazy and easily distracted and ... oooooh shiny

Um. Where was I.

Oh yeah. 2017. That's weird, for me, to type. The fact that I am alive and living in the year 2017. I'm a dude who was born in the year 1957. The year that Sputnik was launched. Truly, the beginning of the space race and the space age.

Probably not surprising that I became a fan of science fiction. I couldn't yet read in 1957 but sic fi novels from that time were looking forward to the far fabulous future of 1970 When I was a teenager there was a truly horrible TV series called Space 1999. That was the future. I think they resisted from calling it Space 2000 because people simply would not be able to wrap their head around that

Those dates, those numbers are funny things. In the year 1969 two guys called Zager and Evans released a song called In the Year 2525. That seemed a long, long time away from us and it was difficult to think what could be possible. A lot of people living in 1969 had seen monumental changes in their lifetimes; world wars, technology, massive social change. What could 2525 hold?

Back then I could have done the math. Not likely that I would see 2525. Here in 2017, at age 60, I know that I will never see 2525, it's hundreds of years away but being in the 2000's, it somehow doesn't seem so far away

What's the threshold for some date, some future, just being inconceivable? The year 10,000, that seems difficult to think of. That would be a time where I can imagine not much left on Earth, a lot of emptiness, humans dying off. In 1930's sic fi, the date would have been Year 2,000

So here we all are, living in our future. That far flung sic fi future. We can say, hey where's the flying car and the robot butler and the robot? Well, no flying car but the other two, here if not widespread. Damn, we're looking at self driving cars as a thing. We've been to the moon. And maybe, just maybe, to Mars in my life time

Everyone can play that game I suppose Maybe people born in this year, 40 years into the future will be telling their kids "Yeh back in my day we could go outside without oxygen and body armour and the world wasn't ruled by the Celebrity TV Stars Collective ..."

Future Shock, as the book suggested. Funny, isn't it, that that book is now part of the past

You can't escape the past, the future it keeps on coming, and the numbers will keep climbing. Strap in kids, it's going to be a bumpy ride

LEONARD COHEN: A SHINING ARTIFACT OF THE PAST

Sad day. Leonard Cohen has passed Poet, novelist, singer, songwriter and one of the five strongest influences on whatever kind of art that it is I do. 

When I first heard The Songs of Leonard Cohen I was in my early teens. It was not just a revelation to me, it was like a gunshot to the temple. He was one of those artists who opened my mind to possibilities. His words spoke of worlds and experiences entirely new to me but in the way that only poetry and music can, made me instantly part of. 

There was also that beautiful turn of phrase.

"Oh I want you I want you I want you, on a chair with a dead magazine, in the cave on the tip of the lilly, in some hallway where love's never been, on a bed where the moon has been sweating, in a cry filled with footsteps and sand"

Anyone who suffered through the poetry I wrote in my 20's will see the clear connection there.

Collette and I got to see Leonard a couple of times. Most recently was just a few years ago, he had just turned 80 Honestly, one of the best concerts I've ever seen. You could joke that his voice had faded but how could you tell ... But the passion he had for his music was powerful as was his passion to share it with us. Self effacing and with a wit sharper than any knife I've ever owned, his performance was about giving where so many artists today seemed focussed on receiving

Bob Dylan was the first songwriter to receive a Nobel Prize. I'm not going to quibble about that But I told someone that Leonard should be next; who else in music could combine the profane with the spiritual, the street with the cathedral, love with sex, history with the present, memory with calculation

"Ah we're drinking and we're dancing, and the band is really happening, and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high, and my very sweet companion, she's the angel of compassion, she's rubbing half the world against her thigh"

He just released a new recording. I know that in recent years he's been hurting financially due to the actions of an untrustworthy accountant. That last concert we saw was, admitted by Leonard, a way to pay the rent. Perhaps this recording is as well. Well, I'm happy to be the landlord

"Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone, they were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on, and they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song"

Go on now Leonard. The Sisters of Mercy are waiting for you. They're singing Hallelujah.

THE NAME THAT YOU HAVE MAY NOT BE YOUR OWN

So a Canadian Native activist and architect is going to court today to prevent the Cleveland Indians from using that name and their logo when they play the Jays tonight. Normally this sort of thing would go through Canada's Human Rights Commission where it would actually have a high degree of potential success. But that takes time. And it would not make headlines in the US. So it seems he is doing this to bring awareness to his concern: That this baseball team's name and logo (and god it's a horrible carcature) are offensive to Native peoples Well, one cannot argue against that. And awareness is always a good thing, understanding a different perspective is how we learn and educate ourselves and how we learn about others. So the publicity is not a bad thing

But what if he's successful? What if, suddenly, the Cleveland Indians, a privately owned and controlled company, is told that they cannot use any of their trademark items. Apparently they do have uniforms free of these logos. If they heard the concern of Canadian people and decided to wear those uniforms during this series that would go a long way to building good will

But if they are forced to do it? And what if they resent the legal system of another country trying to tell them how to run their business. What the affect be on this series, for which thousands of fans are waiting to participate

Educating me, showing me a different perspective, letting me know how you are affected by something, that is incredibly positive and how we evolve as culture. But making these decisions for me, using a legal system to tell how to think about something, well that is Political Correctness. When you try to take away my choices, my choices about how I feel about and view anything, well sir, even if I agree with your point of view (and in this case I do) you are impinging on my freedom of thought And is that a road any of us want to go down

UPDATE

The above was posted to my Facebook account a couple of days ago, the morning the legal action was going to be introduced

It failed. I don't think anyone, including the claimant, expected it to succeed. What he wanted, I'm assuming, is to create dialogue. And that he did. People were talking about it. But they weren't talking about objectification and racism and marginalising an entire people in the name of sport, they were angry. Angry that someone wanted to use the legal system to impose their perspective upon everyone else

To force that perspective. And no matter the perspective, that pisses people off That is the danger of Political Correctness

You want to engage people, to educate them, to let them see your point of view. I may never share that point of view but if I hear about it in a reasoned and rational manner, I can at least respect it. But if you try to impose it on me, if you take away my choice to even disagree, well we are gunna have issues

This is a real issue. For people of my generation we grew up with the term Indians referring to Native North Americans. Of course it's wrong, it's a mis representation. But for us old folks it's subtle. That Indians logo though, you don't need to be particularly Culturally Sensitive to just want to cringe

Seriously, why on earth would this time fight to hang on to that thing? Perhaps with the name you could argue about legacy etc etc but that thing? Give your ignorant heads a shake

Other US sports teams seem to have gotten the message. The Chicago Blackhawks for instance. Without a court injunction from a foreign country The Natives in their area objected to the team's logo

Compared to the Indians logo I find this as progressive as Andy Warhol but it's not my perspective is it. I'm not the one who may feel objectified or disrespected. Do I need to totally understand that perspective? Probably not, perhaps that's impossible, but I can respect it. But I won't respect it if I feel something is forced upon me

At any rate, the Blackhawks engaged in the dialogue and had a Native artist come up with a new version of the logo

This version makes me see how insulting that old logo may have been. And damn, it's just pretty

The Florida Seminoles college football team went through a similar transformation

So there is a precedent and I'm not sure why Cleveland is not jumping in. But that is their business. And it is the business, or concern of Native people to try to change that perspective. I hope that they do. Someone wants me to sign some kind of petition beseeching the Cleveland Indians to move into the 21st century? I'll sign up

But ask me. Don't force me. Forcing people to change their cultural perspective was wrong when white Europeans did it to the Natives and its wrong now

THANKSGIVING AND GIVING THANKS

We give our Thanks

We give our Thanks for huge bright skies and deep dark water and humpback trees swaying in the wind

We give Thanks for water still as glass wreathed with early morning mist that dances to a tune you can early hear when you are very still and you close your eyes and you let the wind stir in your hair

We are Thankful for bright cool mornings and water spraying over a bow and friends and family uniting to come together

Thanks for this opportunity to meet and greet and eat and just enjoy the sun and water and each other

We our Thankful for an excuse to come together, for which we really need no excuse but sometimes require impetus. The motivation becomes irrelevant as we share food and drink and smiles as bright as the day

The wind changes, feathering the deep dark water, the sky darkens and the sun catches on the sharp barbs of the electric green trees Home we go across the water As the day ends we remain thankful, we carry the day and the smiles in our memory We carry the memories in our heart

For all of this we are Thankful. For this day and all others that follow

Thanksgiving Georgian Bay from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.