I had just got back from Donnie's visitation with Nancy Brown and I went out back for a smoke. The squirrels have been watching me feed the chipmunks nuts, so now they think they can just waltz in and take part... But the squirrels over the chipmunks are so destructive, they run off the chipmunks, steal the peanuts, take over the bird feeder... Pain in the ass the tree rats are... Anyhow.. I was looking at my phone between yelling at the tree rats, when I felt something tapping my sneaker... I looked down and there's 'Buddy', tapping my foot with it's little tail.. Was so cute. I didn't have any peanuts on me, so I popped inside and came out to give it to it, her, he.. Whatever the chipmunk is.. That cheered me up a bit.
Were a lot of people at Donnie's visitation. So sad. Way too young, all of them. My heart and soul goes out to all the families, friends and children.
Still hard to wrap your head around all this. Can't imagine what it's like for those closest.
Everyone is still reeling from yesterdays horrible nay devastating incident on Brookside Dr.
I've talked to friends and family from coast to coast about it.
When Dreamkick first started playing shows, we decided instead of just throwing ourselves into the bar scene, we'd play a few all ages shows, just to tighten the unit up, get the bugs out and have some fun.
We first played the Oromocto Rec Center and the second show we played was at the Oromocto Jr. High School (Harold Peterson).
At that show there was a throng of young Rockin' dudes right up front going crazy for us and one of them was a kid named Donnie Robichaud.
From then on, Donnie was a Dreamkick 'fan', along with the Murphy brothers, Sean Callahan, Chris Polchies and many others were frequently hanging and partying with the band. We even snuck Donnie in a few bars shows (though he was 19 yet) and he accompanied us on a few trips.
When I lived in Vancouver, Donnie had got in touch with me about his band 'Awake By Sunday', he actually sent me out one of their shirts, which I've been wearing today. He said he was having a blast
In 2009 I had come home for a visit and it was like January. Chris Galbraith and I went to 'Mama's' Pub on the city's Northside to see Donnie playing with 'Awake by Sunday', as you'll tell by the video below, the guys smoked songs out. Certainly would make all the guys in Dreamkick proud to see one of our young fans growing up and kickin' ass.
While at this gig, I had this crazy feeling overwhelm me. I'd been to all kinds of concerts out West, big small, wild, tame. But the feeling in this bar was so warm, like you were among family and that's true if you go to any local show, with any genre band. There's a warmth and feeling of family in every small town where a young (or old) band is rockin' the night away.
When the Wasteland Zombies were starting to get our reunion geared up, our original bassist couldn't join us, so we had asked Donnie if he'd dig out his bass to play with us, but he had had an accident some years previous and I believe he'd broken pretty much every bone in his hand, so he just couldn't do it.
Donnie was a really good soul. We kept on running into each other at Greco donair just up the street from me. The last time we say each other he said, "We ALWAYS see you here!!" I just laughed but later I thought, 'wait a second, you're always here too!'
He was an awesome guy, a fantastic musician and a caring father to his children.
He'll be greatly missed and so will Bobbie.
Bobbie I knew through my long, long time friend Jennifer Wright. Jen and Bobbi were like Siamese twins when they were together, inseparable and unstoppable.
Bobbie was charming, bright and bubbly, I know they will both be missed. As will the two officers who gave their lives to protect the city.
Here's Donnie playing bass with his old band 'Awake By Sunday'
He also played in a Fredericton Metal band called 'Awakened', they were formed after I left Fredericton, but I hear people talk about them to this day.
Though it'd be nice to dedicate a Dreamkick song to Donnie as well.
Everyone woke up to shocking, frightening news that the Brookside area was under police lockdown and that two police officers and two citizens were dead after a gunman opened fire from an apartment building.
Information is still coming out. But at this point the gunman is in hospital as are several citizens that were injured in the shooting. They haven't said how many were injured. They are not too sure if there is more than one suspect, but it's looking like there was only one.
News agencies in the area, or at least Canadian ones have been saying that "This doesn't happen in Fredericton"... This is truly misleading... It doesn't happen often, but it has happened... From a sniper years ago on the train bridge to murders and other acts of violence. Again, it doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen and will most likely happen again at some point. In my opinion, reporting that crimes like this do not happen in this city is misleading at best. To people planning to move here, to tell them that this doesn't happen is flat out wrong. Beit, Moncton, Saint John or small towns up North, gun violence is no stranger here as it's no stranger anywhere else on the planet.
Now, this might piss some people off and I'm not trying to deflect this tragedy, but FUCK CBC news....
There was an interview with an RCMP officer who was sent in to help with the unfolding incident. Not many know, but the Fredericton city police are severely understaffed. Several officers are currently under suspension for various crimes...
But, back to the RCMP officer and the reporters.
This officer explained that as this was a fluid situation and he asked, almost pleaded with the press that they NOT report what witness' were saying until the police interviewed people, as witness' perspectives MAY not be accurate. The officer then asked that they not show him on TV, they immediately switched back to the main desk at CBC where the anchor woman said, "He said not to show him on television, but we're going to anyhow".... Like what the fuck ??? Really? That little respect for someone's wishes, let alone a police officer, trying to help the situation by asking to ensure that misleading and inaccurate reporting not be sent out to the World and the World IS watching, BBC, CNN, AP, NBC, CBS and all kinds of other World news agencies were reporting on it.
As a bit of humor, the CBC reporter who was reporting from the scene said, "This all happened not far from a very popular mall"..... The Brookside mall hasn't been "popular" since it opened....
The CBC news has been sliding downhill for years, their reporters are shoddy, their switching and interviews are shoddy, even switching from commercials to and from the news desk is often screwed up. Interviews are dropped... Horrible, horrible news reporting.
So I'm done with CBC as a 'news source' and I hope others will follow suit.
Ok, venting done... I hope everyone else is safe, my heart goes out to those who lost their loved ones today. Very sad incident.
Just to add some levity to this situation, check out this cover of Weezer's hit single 'Hashpipe'... The band felt they owed it to Weezer as the band had done great covers of 'Africa' and 'Rosanna'
In other news, today was the most comfortable day outside we've had in weeks. A great 40K wind and a temperature of only around 25C... Was a nice change, a nice change that after running some errands that I wasn't drenched in sweat when I got home. My back is a tad better today, but I'm taking it easy as I can feel that one wrong movement is going to bring me to my knees... It would seem, even with the weather getting more agreeable, my back isn't taking part.
As I whined about yesterday, the weather's done fukin' havoc to my back... With the inclement weather that's settled in, last night, this morning was brutal.. So I slept as long as I could.
Waking up, I felt my back didn't feel too bad. I wasn't going to shower, but since after my shower yesterday and being out to run an errand or two, I was sweaty and I decided my back didn't feel 'too bad'... Famous last words...
Into the shower I went, after the shower, I was toweling off and you know, when you're drying yourself, you got to bend and twist and move to get dry, it was in one of these bends that it hit, like a jagged, electrical bolt of lightning from my ribcage, up my spine to my brain, telling the brain to release a howl out of my mouth, the shock of pain also made its way to my legs and my knees buckled, if the kids next door were in their driveway at the time they might have wondered what I was up to, the howl of pain, the long string of expletives that followed... Now, my back's the worst it's been... But hey, at least I'm clean...
Well, my back has given up on me... Walked out the door it did... My X-ray for my rib-cage/back is next week, this, if you don't recall is attempt no#2. As the first time there was some miscommunication and they didn't x-ray my rib-cage, but just my back and spine... My 'stand in' nurse/practitioner had told me the x-ray would encompass all of it... She was wrong. So, I'm still in the dark about what's causing me so much discomfort and pain... With this near relentless humidity it's been getting worse and worse each day. Now instead of just starting to flare up around mid afternoon, it's going round the clock....
BUT! Today, my Behemoth 'Messe Noise' autograph bundle I ordered arrived! By tracking, up until late last night it was destined to reach me next Monday, then all of a sudden, BAM! There it was at Canada Post in Fredericton awaiting delivery today! So I'm about to dive into that! It has the entire 'The Satanist' album live from the band's hometown in Progresja, Warsaw, Poland. it also has a live show from the 'Brutal Assault' Festival in 2016 from Jaroměř, Czech Republic. PLUS! All of the videos they released from the album AND! A live CD of 'The Satanist' concert (audio from the DVD/BlueRay)
The package came with 3 signature/autographed guitar picks, a patch and the booklet for the DVD/BlueRay is autographed by Nergal, Inferno and Orion... The autograph is an actual autograph, the picks are done by the gajillions, but the guys actually signed the DVD cover, you can feel the autograph stands out from the package material.
Check it out!
Much thanks to the gang at the Behemoth Official band store. They were kind enough to send me the last remaining copy of the autographed batch of DVD's by the band.
AND! On the way home from Sobeys today, I ran into a Monarch butterfly! According to a July 14th CBC New Brunswick article this beautiful butterfly species has been in decline due to people cutting down milkweed, the rising amounts of hurricanes and cold weather.... Though it ain't cold now!!
The 'lil bugger didn't stay still long so these ain't the best pics, but matching up the colors with pics online, I'm pretty sure this was a Monarch.
It's amazing how much just a couple of degrees can make, as it's a little more bearable today. Tomorrow the daytime high is only supposed to be around +25 with the humidity around 31-35... But as I posted before, according to some scientist at Environment Canada, these hot humid temps will stick around until the end of August.
I also realized the other day that I totally screwed up. I had planned to go down to stay with Terry and Joanne Daly again this Summer and Joanne had said that the "August long weekend would be good".. Well, being the non working huemahn being I am, I figured this meant like the END of August, like the long weekend then, but Terry posted or rather 'shared' my profile photo on Facebook, which is a photo of the lake in their backyard... This made me realize they had meant THIS weekend past... So, I'm sure I'm still welcome to go down, but I had wanted to go down when Terry and Joanne were off work so I could spend time with them... I sometimes don't realize that holidays are coming up until like the Friday of the 'long weekends'.... So I don't know if I'll be heading down or not because I have a swatch of appointments right up until months end, all spread out over the coming weeks... I need to keep these appointments because my health has not been great and I'm wanting to know what's going on, as well as hopefully getting on some medicines to help me....
So, that's a bit of a bummer, as I probably won't see them until Christmas time now.
kraaaakow!!! BOOOOM!!!! Then the sky bled! Like tears of blood the rain fell, causing anyone that touched it to scream in agony as the acid ate away at their flesh!!!
Ok, ok, over active imagination..... Here's what really happened...
Was short by sweet. Next storm, I promise I'll use my DSLR so i'll maybe get some much better footage... There was some amazing fork lightning. Huge thunderclaps and of course my power was out for about 2 hours or so.
MAY be more tonight... Forecast says more on the way in the next two days!
And always remember... Stop, Drop and Roll.... Except for with killer bees, with that, you just want to breath as heavy as you can at them... They HATE oxygen, it really pisses them off... So be sure to breath as much as you can at them... Even if you pass out or they get in your mouth and your throat swells...
