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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Time for a Big Bang; the old band days; and the life of a dinosaur……

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

You know, ideologically, I’m often branded a liberal or even a dreaded socialist and I joke that I’m a communist. But in reality, I’m sort of a conservative. As I grow older and continue to work in the media and watch the various levels of government, I am awestruck by the sheer amount of waste at our senior levels of government. I realize that we need big government these days to protect us from big business, but government really has gotten ridiculously large over the last 30-40 years, and as it has gotten progressively bigger, it has also gotten less efficient and less responsive to the people. It’s the way it goes in a democratic society – we’re sort of like one big organism and we just keep growing and growing – until we sort of explode and cut off the rich people’s heads. We’re building up to one of those explosions at the moment. A lot of ordinary people are feeling disadvantaged and disenfranchised by the current system. It’s why voter turnout keeps going down with each successive election. As government has grown larger and less responsive, people have been made to feel powerless, so they don’t bother to vote. Whole thing is just to incredibly large…..very inefficient…..very wasteful. I was telling someone the other day that if I was made king of Ontario for a week, I could likely cut taxes by 50-75%. I could make this the cheapest jurisdiction in the world to live. As government has grown and developed over the years, it has gotten intertwined in a voracious fashion in every tiny area of our lives. Governments today have no business being involved in most of the areas they are. As much as it hurts, we seem to need one of those societal explosions from time to time to bring the whole thing back to ground zero. Anyway, just one guy’s opinion….

I am in love with my guitar these days. It has been my constant companion for the last 37 years since I bought it at Long and McQuades back in 1973. It is a Fender Precision bass guitar and I play it through a 1969 Traynor Bassmaster, which I like a lot, but don’t love. I bought it at Harry’s House of Music in Owen Sound in 1969. As a musician, I am not what you call a “gear guy”. I know almost nothing about different types of guitars and amps and PAs and pedals and this and that and the other thing. I found a “rig” back in the old days that works well for me – and I’ve stuck with it. And it is really remarkable how many other musicians come up after a gig to tell me how great my “rig” sounds. And I sorta didn’t plan it that way – it just sorta happened by accident. I have been playing in bands, I think, for 44 years this year. Started out with my friend, Glen Pupich, in his room at the Queen’s Hotel. Had played clarinet in the town band since I was four, but not much future for the clarinet in rock music, so switched to the bass guitar and started out on a three string Silvertone guitar with my friend Glen playing drums on ice cream cartons and somebody wailing away on guitar – can’t remember who was first. First singer was a guy, Brian Devlin – did my first real gig with Brian on vocals and can remember he did a mean L’il Red Riding Hood – especially the howl at the beginning – I think that’s why we got him in the band. Man, that was all so innocent back then. You know, we used to pack five guys, plus a driver, and all our gear in an old Valiant station wagon. Don’t know how we did it. For a while, later on, when we got better and really had to travel, the guy whose Dad owned the town lunch truck service became our driver. That was weird – riding around to gigs in a lunch truck. Anyway, have certainly had my share of adventures playing my guitar. And it’s mostly been fun and I am greatful I can play just well enough to have kept doing it for all these years. It’s been a big part of my life….

You know you’re getting old when…….when you don’t know anyone under 70 in the celebrity birthday section of the newspaper. It is so incredibly hard to believe that the 1960’s were over 40 years ago. When I was a young guy growing up in the Sixties, the Great Depression was a mere 30 years in the past, and the Second World War was just 20 years behind us. But in those days, those two events seemed like ancient history….which can only mean that the Sixties are even ancienter history and I’m a dinosaur. It’s odd…when I was a young guy, all I did was hang out with friends who I did everything with. But we had no money, nowhere much to hang out, no cars, no good stereos, just really nothing much to have fun with, except of course each other. Now I’m an old guy, I’ve got a killer stereo, a great “man cave” to hang out in, I’m up to my ears in great music – and videos. And I’m usually left to enjoy most of this stuff by myself – which is strange. If anybody would have told me when I was 18 that I’d go to bed on a Friday night at 10:00 p.m., I’d have told them they were crazy. But that’s the way life is….strange, but true.

Out of time for another week and longwinded this week. Hope you’re continuing to enjoy cktimes.ca…..likely the world’s only self proclaimed good news newspaper…take care and remember….”Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.