Category: Deaths & Obits

Lovely email

I sang Careless at the housefilk and Carly asked me for the tabs.  I may turn into a musician at this rate.  A lot of people love John’s songlist.

I can now sing, or sing and play When you’se a viper, Careless, That godforsaken Hellhole, Long Black Veil, 2&20 Blues, A Christmas Carol (Tom Lehrer), A Fierce Unrest (Don Marquis and Ananias Davisson),  Absolutely Bonkers (Brenda Sutton Three Weird Sisters), Acts of Creation (Cat Faber), Ain’t No Cure For Love (Leonard Cohen), Anna Marie, Cats in the Dawn (Heather Rose Jones), Clem’s Song (Just Call me Clem, Allegra Sloman), Columbus Stockade Blues (actually I got John singing that!),  Demon Java (Steve Key/David Goldfinger), Dirty Movie (Steve Sajich), Don’t Go Looking For Trouble (Steve Goodman), History is Made By Stupid People (The Arrogant Worms), Honky Tonkin’ (Hank Williams), I Can’t Get Over You… (Nate Bucklin), I Pop Pills (Nate Bucklin), I Will Not Sing Along (Actually it’s called the Anti-Singalong Song), I’ll Fly Away, I’ve Been All Around This World (and GOSH did I like Creede Lambard’s version at the housefilk), Jack Frost, Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon, Let’s Go Down to the Water (Willie P Bennett), Livejournal Shanty (Brooke Lunderville), Lost Highway (Hank Williams), Mind Your Own Business (Hank Williams), Nessie, Come Up (Dr Jane A Robinson, the singing paleontologist, who is now James as of 2004), Never Set the Cat On Fire (Frank “You Scum” Hayes), No High Ground (Leslie Fish), One Meatball, One Time Only (Tom Paxton) which I also think that I encouraged John to learn… and nautilus3 and Loki will remember it well, Paint me A picture (David Essig), Paradise (John Prine), Pornographic Pictures of Queen Victoria, Ramboing, Rastus Brown, Show Us The Length (Bob Bossin), Some Other Planet (Joe Hall), Tapioca Song (Allegra Sloman), That Godforsaken Hellhole I Call Home (Austin Lounge Lizards), The 20th Century Is Almost Over  (Steve Goodman), The Jig of the One-Celled Organisms – anon, but John and Paul taught it to me, We Didn’t Know – Tom Paxton, The Word of God (Catherine Faber), Horizontal – Original Sloth Band was who he learned it from (Ken Whitely) but no idea who wrote it.

And I keep updating the songlist, because man o man he knew a lot of tunes.

Sad and dreadful news

John Caspell, Paul’s younger brother, known on this blog as Dr. Filk, died today in hospital.  Lady Miss B was in the room when they called the code.  She called us to the hospital – where we had been planning to visit him this afternoon – but it was too late when we got there.  We said our goodbyes.

All of us here are numb.  Lady Miss B’s husband is about to pick her up and take her back to Vancouver; Paul and I and Keith have one more piece of business to attend to and then we’ll be going back on the 9 o’clock.

I am still giving the homily at church tomorrow but I think I will make room for people to say a few words about John, who was, after all, one of the more interesting, colourful and intelligent people most of us will ever have the chance to meet.  It was a privilege to know him.

pr0n night in Canada

In honour of Marilyn Chamber’s  untimely death, I watched Behind the Green Door for the first time last night.

Yanno, that was not a bad movie at all – I have to admit I like the old fashioned stuff way better than the new.  I watched with the sound off while there was any dialogue, and when the dialogue quit I turned the sound up and learned that the soundtrack (yes, I mean the music) is awesome.  Who knew?  Anyway, she will always be my favourite pr0n star, and I hope she lives forever on celluloid.  I could go on at great length about the costume Johnny Keyes is wearing (O…. My….Flying Spaghetti Monster), the variety of body types in the audience (unbelievable, by contemporary standards), and various other things about the film, but the thing that really got me is how damned CHEERFUL it was.  Srsly.

What a day!

Awake at 5:20 am, poked around the net for a while, then got up and cleaned some pots and next thing I knew I was late for the bus. All quite normal.  Late for work because both the 145 bus and the Skytrain were delayed, who knows why.  At least I didn’t kill myself by falling down that slope – I’ve posted pictures of it, just imagine it covered with a glossy slick of compressed slush.

At 9 the town hall meeting with our new squid overlords.  THEY CAN HAS SWAG!!!  They gave out jackets, and mine is very nice and will probably fit me better in a year.  But I like it. The meeting was full of my coworkers conspicuously signalling to me to get off my ass and ask the new squid overlords some pointy questions like I used to do, but I glued said same ass to my chair.  Besides, I was wearing my “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” t-shirt and I just didn’t look corporate enough.

At work today, Mike McG gamely attempted over three meetings (Patricia was also there) to a) jam Ohm’s law into my tiny pea brain; b) jam info about PV string sizing into my tiny pea brain and c) get my advice/input/loud and unfeigned praise on a totally HAWT Salesforce customization.  This will mean nothing to most of you but when I think of how much time and keystrokes that man plans to save the company I tremble in my granny panties, lemme tell you…

At lunch, Jeff the Queasy (an easily grossed out cowirker) said, “What the hell was with 206, somebody drew Ohm’s law all over the whiteboard?” and Patricia and I are thinking, “Hm, should we tell him?”

Anyway, I didn’t work much because I was in meetings or lunching for like 5 hours.  It was like being an executive, and Tanya took the worst call of the day, honestly, the customer was a jerk to her, and then of course was nice as pie to me.

OH MY STARS.  I have to tell this story, even if it gets me fired.  The marketing department, whom I have been convinced wants to either kill me or slap me into an insane asylum for at least a decade now, put my name on a document….. associated with a phone number which comes to my desk …. and a toll free number that, alas, was one digit out from being correct.  Care to guess what my name was associated with?  A front for a phone sex line. I can die happy now.  All my Dilbert dreams/nightmares have come true.  By all the gods I don’t believe in, this story is absolutely true and I can call witnesses.  And besides, the marketing department has already fixed it.

Our new HR overlord is from Suth Cahlina, and she said You All twice during the town hall.  Not Y’all, that’s trashy, but You All, that’s cute.

Much thanks to Sandy P for the hilarious email about the mighty huntin’ dogs she has, I laughed like a drain.

Then a call from Paul – I’d been expecting to take the bus to his place preparatory for a swim, but he decided to pick me up, and then when I got there it was me, Keith, Kate, Paul and Daxus, and Dan T. dropped by for some soup, and I arranged to spend most of Saturday with Katie, and she plucked my eyebrows (they were raggedy). Katie and Daxus were playing chess when I arrived – Daxus was shellacking Katie. I saw the board and went, Concede, you fool! but they played it out.  After dinner Keith and Paul and I went to the pool and swam and soaked, and then Paul drove me home.  I drove home, but it’s Paul’s car.  You know what I mean.

It was so good to see everybody.  Dan T. said, “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I ate somebody’s dog, and it tasted like a pear, but I didn’t really like it all that much so I had two bites and threw it away, and then the owners were saying, “Where’s Fluffy?”  I cried laughing, he was so matter-of-fact about it.  I light a candle for his dad, who died recently.  I only met him the once, when I gave a homily at the Comox Valley Fellowship, but I was very impressed with him indeed.  He will be missed.

In passing

Unca Dave is expected here this afternoon.

Scarlett Johannson got married – in Canada no less – & Paul Newman died.

I light a candle for Cindy, who said, “You amuse me,” on the phone last night in a tone of voice completely free of sarcasm, when I explained something to her about the way my mind works. (I was also being the world’s largest wuss, but she was okay with that too.)  We discussed how she and a bunch of other fans got into Bridge Studios the day Atlantis died and she has pics of herself standing in the gate.  Happy swoon.  I’ve been in Bridge Studios, back in ’05. Given what’s happened since, some of the comments I made in October 05 are pretty funny.   (Like, the comment about how Katie loves to fix hair???)

I also get to think about what I’m going to say at the panel on Friday night.  Yes, I’m going to a con, Vcon to be precise, and I’m going to be on a media filk panel.  Should I tell them that my secret to writing media filk is to go to the internet, download every scripted reference to the character and then find likely rhymes?  Seems kinda mechanical, but that’s how I wrote Clem, full title Just Call me Clem.  (Clem being a demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

For breakfast – BLTs.  I don’t know why, except we had all the ingredaments in the house at one time.  For dinner – roast beast with veg.  Why?  It’s Sunday, and a family elder is coming by.  There’s chicken soup on the stove and I’m thinking of making refrigerator cookies.

Watched Starter for 10.  It’s a very good hearted movie, and if you love 80’s Britpop/late new wave you’ll drool on the soundtrack.  The movie is well shot, well-scripted and laugh out loud funny in spots.  Also, Dominic Cooper is bloody gorgeous.. and he’s in Keira Knightley’s new movie the Duchess, which makes me want to see it more.

My watch working again is making me happy.  Being registered to vote makes me happy (I had completely dropped off the rolls, which is perplexing).  And now, I’m going to practice my mandolin, do some paperwork, pay some bills, laundrify, and get another song written down…. and see if we can get to the end of season five of NCIS.  Yes, we’ve been watching rather a lot of it, and I’m really liking Michael Weatherly’s take on DiNozzo more and more.  He kinda grows on you.

It’s a beautiful day…. Mike was going to take me to the Wreck, as it’s supposed to be beachy today, but Unca Dave is coming. I am in a really good mood.  I assume it’s the weather, nothing else has changed.

Love and loss

I’d like to light a candle for mOm.  She’s lost a lot of relatives, mostly to cancer, in the last little while.  That and the fall will tend to make you thoughtful, and sad.

Here’s another candle for my cousin Marianne.  I never met her, I only met her brother Rawd, but he was a sweetie, and Marianne was less than ten years older than me when she died.  She was also a really good person…. a mensch.  I’m going to ask mOm for permission to repost her obit.

Here’s one last candle to all those whose love has become loss.

A death in the family / a dream

Carrie reports that her doggie Mabel has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  In response, all I could do was forward a copy of a Hallmark card poem that was on a card Lois (Paul’s youngest sister, a woman of uncommon charm, wit and sensitivity) sent me when Bounce died.  If I had any clue who to credit this to, I would, but it’s copyright Hallmark Cards, card S81-4, and I post it because out of all the things you can say to a person whose animal just died, this poem does it the best I know of so far:

They will not go quietly,
the pets who’ve shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still can make us
think we hear them at the door
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
and, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them….
and always will.

Last night I dreamed I was supposed to meet up with some people, and I trusted somebody else to get my bag.  We got off the train (not the Skytrain, the subway in Toronto) and poof, no bag and everybody looking hangdog.  I said, **** this noise, got back on the next train, figured out where to cross sides so I got on the train I’d just gotten off, and at the end of the car there was a big pile of unattended gym bags, and the first one I opened had my bag in it.  There are a lot of messages in this dream, and on the whole I’m pleased with it.

Up at 4 – it’s now almost six and I’m about to pull cheese scones out of the oven.  The aroma is now well-nigh overpowering.  I put the last of the fresh basil in them.  Sigh.  It’s winter in Vancouver.  The overcast has started, and it won’t lighten up until April.  Time to hunker down and do some healthy baking.  I found a recipe for home made power bars the other week and I should dig it out and start making them.  And as for unhealthy baking, maybe this is the year I commercialize my biscotti?  I’ve had lots of people tell me they’d pay for them.