UnderSTAND it's NewfoundLAND

The correct pronounciantion of this province is NewfoundLAND. I'd been pronouncing it with the accent on the the NEW...because coming from New England it would sound very strange to say new engLAND. But that's the way it's said here. And only here did I realize that Labrador is pronounced laBRADOR...which means "Laborer" or "Lavrador" in Portugese.

The above is a Groundhog I met on the Schooner Trail in L'Anse Au Loup. This was the fellow who inspired me to speak up in his defense. His nobility should not be challenged. There was a folk festival at the cove of the wolf which involved a country themed dance (o.k. covers of CCR songs and one horrible cover of Comfortably Numb) and drinking of beer. It was here that my full assessment of my finances left me envying the grounhog for his simple living. The rationing has begun and I have learned what those extra holes are for toward the middle of my belt.

This is Point Amour Lighthouse where I tried to recreate the perfectly sepia toned quality of the 1904 era. The Holloways were a family of photographers who took all the iconic pics of Battle Harbour during this whole era. They were fine photographers and had an exhibit at the lighthouse.

This harp seal gave me some good footage that is on the video camera. It was a lonely looking seal out there on the ice. It only appeared after the berg it was on split in two and it had to find a smaller bit to float on. I think it chose poorly because it struggled non-stop to stay on that piece of ice when many other options were nearby. It also acted like its left flipper was injured. It's a hard world for harp seals.

Here is my film production crew hard at work waiting for a berg to split in half. It's even more difficult than spotting whales because the event will happen in five seconds only every few hours. Unpredictable and violent, the berg will break at some critical spot and then the density division will change and the berg will flip sideways causing other parts to break with a deafening roar. And you have two seconds to get the camera rolling to catch it. It's as hard to see one with your own eyes let alone have your camera rolling as it happens unless you sit there with five batteries and roll the camera all day long. Then you will be guaranteed to capture the moment of collapse and floundering.


Example: This perfect enclosed swimming pool iceberg was waiting near St. Anthony's fisherman's point and I watched it for hours as I hiked up and down a hill and around a point and had lunch and said, "IT's something else, ain't it?" to other gape-mouthed tourists from Texas and Vancouver who urged their teenage kids from the RV and into the wild. Then, after hours of watching this berg, I was picking my way around the beach and happened to go out of sight for maybe 8 seconds and within three seconds I heard two huge explosions. So I started to run and by the 7th second I had my camera out and was taking video as the berg was floundering. It pained me that I had missed the crucial event by seconds after being almost close enough to touch it. So I spent the rest of the day and the rest of the next day waiting for a repeat only to be taunted and teased like a rich old man at a Mexican stripjoint. I could not and did not capture anything close to this. Note how different the before and after pictures are. One was an enclosed swimming pool and the after is a shapeless hump. These two icebergs are the same one. There is a lesson here about patience and resignation but I won't go into that.

This polar bear in the St. Anthony municipal building (Where Oggy has gone for internet usage and to wash his hands of seaweed) stands head and shoulders above Oggy.

L'Anse Au Clair

Nearing the end of the trail through Labrador. I am nearly out of funds and envision playing guitar on the streets of St. Anthony and Cape Breton for gas money. Peanuts and Mr. Noodle are combining for a dinner. Guitar scales all through the night as my eyeball slowly improves. There is no pain anymore when I look at the light clouds but I can not focus through the haze of bacteria. The flies have been villainous, hellish and hateful. Several attacks on my face have raised red welts and bleeding sores. I stumble into restaurants and the hostess recoils in horror at my disfigured allotment.
Rain is falling here for real. No travel today. L'Anse Au Cotard means is built on a field of clover, and is uninhabited as the stone houses crumbled before the elements. Barnacles and groundhogs dominate the landscape and my feeling is that Steve Jobs ought not disturb or molest any groundhog habitat in his path of destruction seeking rare earth metals. NOT ONE GROUNDHOG SHOULD BE BOTHERED or MISTREATED. That's where I draw the line. And the wolffish is also endangered but seeing one of those involves going onto the ocean. Why is our digital interconnectivity more important than the wolffish? Answer me that? Why should a groundhog be molested without justification?
Please ponder this for the afternoon.

Bad brakes

I didn't make it out of the parkinglot without dealing with my first two problems. One is my shoes which have lost all relevance in the world of shoes. My screws put in last fall having fallen out and the water pouring in freely.
The second was locked emergency brake after a month of leaving it engaged in the rain. foolish. This took some time to free and the problem probably isn't over yet. Will I ever get out of Mary's Harbour? The skipper said I should buy a house and wait for spring. What's stopping me? A need for master's degree in advanced jazz guitar from Madrid university? Or mexico city? Or Guatemala where my fabled utopian farm community awaits where cucumbers grow like wolf flowers in the desert?
Or is the problem that the government doesn't trust me in Canada or USA and I resent the decade long war for oil THAT DOES NOT AID OUR PROSPERITY BUT ENABLES OUR SLOTH...so David fucking Mamet can drive in circles in Santa Monica feeling proud about his pathetic stageplays. For that we slaughter Iraqi peasants. Repulsive.
My feeling is that Steve Jobs is like Joseph Goebbels and anyone who disagrees is like those who thought Hitler was a benign leader in 1936. It's so obvious to me that the ecological holocaust is being sold to America like fruit loops enriched with 12 vitamins and minerals.
But I'm just a hippy fixing his van in the rain and bugs in a parking lot in Labrador. What do I know?

The sun also rises

The Labrador Straits folk festival begins today in L'anse Au Loup. I don't think it is a coincidence that the name means "cove of the wolf"
So that is where I'm going. If anyone knows about the arctic wolf then it will be the residents of L'anse Au Loup.
When I get time I will post my illustrated mishap with a rip saw. I didn't lose any fingers but it taught me some tough lessons about machinery.
Reminds me of the story about a guy who worked 40 years heavy equipment and then was called back after retirement and changed a water hose that was under pressure and took a fitting in the head and died. Fragile is thy head and body.

Blindness and Rain

I've used all my wood keeping the van warm these past nights so must prowl the edges of the Harbour looking for drifting planks off houses and boats from shipwrecks long ago. OR start using the wharf as firewood. It's like 45 F here. This is preferable to the 103 F that Boston is suffering through right now.
I'm reluctant to drive again after a few weeks without the van moving. Who knows what will go wrong with it. But there is no option.

Last night I visited Harbourview Manor, the local elderly home since I saw a flier looking for
entertainment. I brought my guitar and played all the songs I've been playing over in the restaurant on the island. Bound Down For Newfoundland, Now I'm 64, Petty Harbour Bait Skiff. And others. A man seated near me kept saying, "How much does a guitar like that cost?" Right in the middle of my song.
"$300" I'd say and mess up the melody.
"How much does a guitar like that cost?" he repeated...
And he asked that about 20 times.
"Sounds real good." he would say randomly. "And how much does..."
I was patient. Maybe he didn't remember my answer or if he had asked. Short term memory had vanished. Pretty soon I had forgotten if he had asked.
"$300." I said again.
"He'll just keep asking..." said the nurse.
I nodded.
"I'm from New Hampshire. Anyone know where that is?"
"Sounds real good..."
It was like doing a standup routine in a mortuary.
"OK. Here's a song called 'Rubber Boots." I announced and began to play an Irish waltz.
"How much a guitar like that cost?"

Then I butchered the toy keyboard trying to play Joe Cocker and Barry Manilow.
"Last Night, we said goodbye, now it seems years...," I sang out of tune until a resident turned up his radio so I could only hear accordion tunes down the hall. That was my cue to leave but the nurse served me tea biscuits and a piece of banana bread with two fellas from Cartwright.
"What's this?" said one, poking his fork at a green thing on his plate.
"That's a Kiwi," I said. "They're good. From New Zealand, I think. Mmmmmm." I bit my Kiwi.
He poked it again and tasted it. His taste buds were dull. He was indifferent.
"How much that guitar cost?" yelled the man from his easy chair.


A white haired woman pushed on a door that had a sign "STOP" on it. I remembered passing the Edgewood center in Portsmouth on my way to PHS and a similar woman (now dead) was scratching at the door and pointing at it like, "Let me out. I'll pay you with candy corn."

One day, if you're careful, you'll end up here at Harbourview Manor, picking weeds from the memory garden and listening to strangers play tunes you vaguely remember.
"Sounds real good."
"Thank you. My pleasure."
"How much does a guitar like that cost?"

I finished my bread and tea. The television turned back on and a glossy show came on with tight editing and makeup. A man with slippers on shuffled by using a walker. His eyebrows fell over his eyes.

I bussed my table and a pretty Labrador nurse was in the kitchen cleaning the stainless steel. Was she wearing a wedding ring? My eye was too blinded by bacteria to tell.
I said hello and packed up my stuff and walked into the rain falling on the Memory Garden.
"How much does that...?" called the man through the door as it closed.

If I could live on Kiwi and tea biscuits I think I could make a good career out of playing the old age home circuit. Eventually, I'll have my own room overlooking the memory garden.