Owen Gets Booted From St Louis Hotel!

I’m not a morning person.

In fact, when Hudson – who’s 5 - asked what ‘nocturnal’ meant when he was learning about raccoons, Karla explained by way of saying “It’s like Daddy; he stays up all night.”

So it was with grey mood that I creaked out of bed at 5:00 the morning after Halloween to catch an 8:00 AM flight to St Louis. I was supposed to be in St Louis by 8:00 AM on Nov 1st, but I refused to miss trick or treating with Hudson and Harding, and inexplicably, the midnight Oct 31st flight out of Edmonton was booked solid.

This was one of the twice yearly marketing conferences put on by Dan Kennedy, who’s one of those famous people that nobody’s ever heard of. Among many things too numerous to list here, he’s written a dozen books, he’s the brains behind Anthony Robbins first infomercials, and I believe, launching Guthy-Renker’s ProActive zit crème campaigns.

As an aside, and as Dan is now a revered Pencilneck Platinum Member; Dan, you’ll be pleased to know that your campaigns work splendidly. This past Sunday afternoon I came downstairs and Hudson asked if we had $19.95.

“Um…ask Mom” I said. “”why?”

“So we can get the Refining Mask” he said.

“Eh?”

“It prevents future breakouts; a little dab is all you need…” He’d seen the new ProActive zit-a-way ad.

There was a hiccup concerning my room at a hotel who's name you'd recognize in the heart of downtown. When I’d made reservations, they explained that the hotel was full for the Fri and Sat nights, but I “shouldn’t worry”, come down for Thurs, there’s usually cancelations.

Heading to the room, the elevator doors opened and out bounced Eric.

Eric has an affected manner and is the last man in the whole wide world sporting a home perm (I hope). In Chicago, Eric adhered himself to me and spent the weekend as a sort of cheerleader, gushing on and on about ‘how great’ my art was, and ‘how funny’ I was, and ‘how lucky’ my wife was. I sensed a theme developing so I ditched him, but here he was again in St Louis.

“Er…hey Eric.” I said.

“Hi! Have we met?” he beamed.

Huh? “Owen Garratt. Artist? We met in Chicago?” I said, and nearly added “and you made yourself a complete pain-in-the-ass?”

Eric looked blank. “Sorry. I don’t remember. I must be getting old; I’m almost 35.”

Whatever. I called it a night.

On Friday, I had lunch with new Pencilneck ® Platinum VIP member Dan Kennedy and presented him with his new original drawing, ‘Preparation’, and after lunch, I met up with my buddies Troy White, a copywriter from Calgary, and David Rachford, a CPA consultant from Santa Barbara, and we became a sort of Irresistible Force for the remainder of the weekend.

That evening we wandered through downtown in “The U.S.’s Most Dangerous City” to see The Arch and later tracked down steaks and booze, but throughout the day, I’d checked in with the front desk to see if I could stay in my room for the next two nights –the answer was to ‘check back at 1:00’, then ‘check back at 6:00’. No cancellations, but no notices to pull out either. At 6:00 PM, she said’ check back at 11:00 PM’.

“I fully plan on being asleep by 11:00” I said, which may have been a spot of misdirection on my part.By 10:00 PM, I reasoned that even if there’re no cancellations, all the cleaning staff has long since gone home, so how could they even prep the room if I had to push out? Obviously, they must’ve found room.

When the hotel lounge closed, we hopscotched over the 2:00 AM panhandlers and charged down to a perfectly seedy Irish Pub and shut that place down too.

The first event on Saturday was a breakfast seminar at 6:00 AM, so I can’t report with any certainty what it was about. All I know is that I was awful thirsty, and the wiggly eggs didn’t seem too appealing.

I checked in about cancellations, and got the standard response: ‘check back in a couple of hours.’ So I checked back at 8:00AM, 10:30AM, 11:30AM, 12:30PM, and 2:00PM, after which I went up to my room to absorb some more hangover medicine.

*BOOM BOOM BOOM* “HOTEL SECURITY!”

I thought it was Troy and David, but no, upon opening the door there were a couple of dark suited chaps cracking their knuckles. One looked like Samuel L Jackson’s twin like Danny DeVito looked like Arnold’s twin and the other looked like Jarrod the Subway guy after he’d taken that Charles Atlas sand kicking course.

“My name’s Donald” said the little dude, “I’m the Assistant Daytime Hotel Front Desk Manager.”

There’s an overriding opinion in my family that I squandered my 20’s by choosing to be a road musician, but nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to helping me forge a Liver of Iron, by the time I was 25 I was more than adept at dealing with drunks, fending off cougars (well…for the most part), negotiating bar fights, and dealing with: barfers, bouncers, bar owners who wouldn’t pay, cuckolded husbands with poor facts, private detectives, con-men, enforcers, cads, loan officers, cutpurses, blackguards, cattle thieves, brigands, cardsharps, collection agencies, pilferers, rogues, bounders, mortgage brokers, and law enforcement from all levels – international, federal, provincial, municipal and private.

It was evident that this was an Officious Blighter: one who lives to impose their authority on the rest of us. Government is rife with them– especially the post office, customs and tax, but they’re also found in certain unions, the hallowed halls of academia, and apparently, in ‘Assistant Daytime Hotel Front Desk Managers’.

I was fine with checking out- that’s the way it goes, but I wasn’t about to be cast as the villain, and I didn’t care for their insinuation that I was trying to get away with something, I didn’t care to have these two standing guard as I packed, and I sure as hell didn’t care to have my peers watch as those two tried to frog march me out of the hotel.

Time for what an old Road Warrior guitar player named Stan used to call Mental Judo. I think he meant Aikido, but I got the point.

I struck a ‘Hai-YA’ pose in my mind and waded in.

“Hi Don!” I said.

“Donald” he said.

“C’mon in! I wasn’t expecting company, but I was just enjoying a nice glass of water and some Aspirins, can I get you some?” I asked.

Donald stabbed at me with his finger. “I’m the daytime desk manager and we need you to check out. We allowed you to stay here last night as a courtesy!”

‘Well thank you!” I grabbed his hand and started pumping vigorously. “But I can’t allow that; I insist on paying.”

Donald blinked. “Uh, yes you will be paying. We allowed you stay last night as a courtesy, a-“

“No no no, I insist on paying for the night. It’s only fair. I appreciate you gentlemen coming up here to comp me for the night, but it’s completely unnecessary. I like it here!” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“We’re not comping you, you have to pay!” Donald said.

“I should say so – no more of this rot about giving it to me as a courtesy. It’s very kind, but you gentlemen are running a business.” I said.

Donald harrumphed and blinked some more. “Sir, we need you to check out of this room!”

“Really? That’s too bad…why didn’t somebody say so earlier?”

“That’s what we’re here for” Donald said, gesturing to Jarrod, who was fiddling with one of those ear pieces you see in secret service movies. It seemed to be too big for his ear hole, which was all red and itchy looking. Yuck.

I explained about checking with the front desk through the last two days - even after the cleaning staff had long gone.

“Now to be fair, she did say to check back after 11:00 PM and I didn’t, as I needed my rest for a 6:00AM business breakfast.” I said in a conciliatory tone.

Jarrod cleared his throat and winced as he replaced the ear piece that had tried to escape. “Security cameras recorded you and two other gentlemen returning in an advanced state of intoxication at 2:27 this morning. We have you on tape singing in a raucous manner and we registered two separate complaints.” He plumbed his ear.

“Ah, yes, we were out late,” I confessed, “and what you say is on camera probably does look like me singing. But a closer look will show that the actual singer was off camera and was a guy with a badly permed hairdo named Eric who is attending the same conference. I may have had one or two past my limit and was mocking his performance with some gestures, so it’s a perfectly honest mistake to think that I was the vocalist - no need to apologize; anyone would make the same mistake. He may be a dynamite singer, but yes, it was completely uncalled for at that hour. I’d search him out and hold him accountable.”

And not bad either!

I placed a patronly arm around Jarrod’s shoulder.

“But, as you’ve brought it up, those cameras will also how many times I stopped by the front desk to check on my status as a guest, and you also have phone records to indicate how many times I’ve phoned, as well…you should maybe clean that ear thingy – try some alcohol.” I said.

Jarrod grimaced and tried to ease the earpiece back into his skull. Then he tried to compensate by shoving it in extra far, but I could’ve told the ass that it was a bad idea.

“Still, sir, we need this room.” Donald said, and he’d introduced The Apologetic Tone.

“You know what I think should’ve happened?” I hunched in and said in a secretive tone. “I think the gals should’ve had me check out and then they could’ve stored my bags for me. Then, if a room opened up, I could’ve checked back in, or I would have been all set to find a room elsewhere.”

“Yes sir, that’s what they should’ve told you.” Donald said, straitening his tie.

I raised two definitive eyebrows and nodded meaningfully.

“And now look what’s happened; you have to take time out of your busy day to come all the way up here when they could’ve just told me anytime over the last two days. Well, don’t be too hard on the gals, they’re doing a great job otherwise…but I have to ask, why didn’t anyone say anything yesterday?”

“We had to upgrade someone last night to a suite because you hadn’t checked out.” Donald said.

“You mean, because nobody asked me to check out.” I said, waggling a finger.

“Ahem. Uh, yes, it seems that way…um, since this room was ‘unavailable’, we gave the new guests an available suite.” Donald said.

“Now, I would never ask for an upgrade for myself you understand, but why not just do the same thing with tonight’s check in? Why leave a room empty? You run such a terrific hotel that it just seems a shame for me to have to go to the competition…”

“Sir, we really, really need this room tonight” Donald was wringing his hands.

“Don Don Don...” I said.

“Donald” he peeped.

“Question: If Brad and Angelina stopped in, would you turn them away, or would you somehow find them a room?”

My next move was to suggest putting me in that room, but Donald jumped a good 20 inches.

‘Why?! Are they coming?!?!” Donald gulped.

“Well, anything’s possible” I said, evenly.

Donald did a dashed good impersonation of a goldfish, then pleaded “We need this room!!!”Obviously, there were larger forces behind them.

“Okay guys, no problem. I can be up and packed in 10 minutes, will that work?”

Donald and Jarrod both whooshed relief, and more importantly, they left.

“Yes sir, thank you. Please come aga- I mean, thanks for…um…have a good trip home…” said Donald.

“Oh, I’m not going home fellas! I’ll be floating around here for another whole day! We should have lunch! Hey, I can get you a great deal on a course about how to make millions by coaching sub-prime mortgage lenders!”

Donald begged off, and then they shuffled off with the air of just having been caught in an Abbott and Costello skit.

I cabbed over to the other hotel that I’d shrewdly booked as a back up and made it back for the next speaker.

True: I had to check out, and I didn’t get comped or put in a suite like I did in Chicago, but I managed to avoid open warfare and/or the embarrassment of getting tossed out on my arse by an officious blighter who gets off on that kind of thing.

Misspent youth my foot…

www.pencilneck.com

Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck ®, and is a bestselling, award winning, partially color blind, full time pencil artist.

Rememberance Day...

We just got notification from the U.S. Dept of Commerce that Pencilneck is now a registered U.S. trademark, and I now have the legal right and obligation to use the ® symbol whenever I use the word Pencilneck ®.

And on Remembrance Day, had you been at the Spruce Grove Tri-Leisure Center, you would have seen said Pencilneck ® swathed in a kilt which a tenor drum perched upon his gut, as the new Drum Sergeant of the Spruce Grove Firefighter’s Pipe and Drum Band!

3 pipers and I lead the procession into the arena. Things went well, except for when we paraded out at the end of the service and I felt something ‘let go’. It could’ve been any number of things: my kilt, belt, sporran, drum harness, or underwear (I’m not that tough: kilts are itchy)

As we marched out of the arena, I experimented with pushing my gut further out and sucking it back in to try and find a way to avert disaster, but the movement in and out only sped the process. It kind of held together until we got out of the arena, then things started to slide and I had to drum one-handed while I bundled and hefted with my other hand. I alternated hands by way of trying to make it look showy, maybe even part of the ceremony, but I don’t think the crowd was fooled.

Somehow I managed to keep the cadence in time, but I got all out of step, so I started sort of a Chuck Berry one-legged skipping hop, which helped to keep things aloft a little longer too. By the time we got to the mustering area out in the parking lot, my belt had been discarded, my kilt had become a floor-length gown, and I was carrying one stick under my armpit.

The strip show notwithstanding, it was a powerful event.

To be honest, I hadn’t been to a service since I was a kid, and was proudly surprised to realize that not only the Legionnaires and current military personnel, but every branch of service was represented, all religious denominations, as well as all available members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, municipal police, fire, ambulance, and some I couldn’t even place. There were hundreds of uniforms, and the bleachers were filled to capacity.

I was honoured and humbled by it, and I’m especially proud that 6 year old Hudson was there, standing proudly at attention in his uniform as a junior forest warden, and his 3 year old brother Harding looking at him with awe and pride.

My only regret is how ‘dusty’ it was in there…it made your eyes water….

www.pencilneck.com


Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck ®, and is a best selling, award winning, partially colour blind, full time pencil artist.

The Feline Horror of Mortgage Manor!!!

“Dad? Can we get a kitty?” Hudson, who’s 5, asked a few days ago.

“YEAH! A KITTY!” Harding, our 2 ½ year old thundered.

I don’t know what kind of parent you are, but I’m a pushover.

“Nope.” I said. One likes to pretend one is capable of resistance, but we all know where this story is heading. I looked at Karla and could see that we were smack dab in the middle of a ‘family meeting.’

I’m currently enjoying the first real stretch since I was drumming on The Road where I wasn’t festooned with cats. In olden times when Karla pinned me to the mat and asked if we were going to move in together and I said “Huh? What? Oh, right…uh…I s’pose”, she came complete with three of the blighters. I do like cats, but enough’s enough.

Several months ago our 35 lb orange tabby, Simba, caught diabetes somewhere and handed in his food dish. Hudson understood, and took it rather well, but the next week we got the news that Karla’s dad has diabetes, so we had some more fancy explaining to do to say that grandpa’s going to be fine because they have medicine that kitty’s don’t have. (ahem)

Now I loved Simba, but I also love not having to rummage through a litter box, or not vacuuming rooms 3 times a week that nobody uses but the cat, or not stepping in the water dish in sock feet, or not collecting oranges all over the main floor that he’d shoveled out of the fruit bowl, and I sure as hell don’t miss hoarse feline impersonations of The Towne Crier at 3:00 A.M. declaring that ‘ALL’S WELL!!!”

“It sounds rash” I said pouring a cup of my scientifically prepared Twinning’s Earl Grey. “I travel as much as ever, I enjoy no pet hair or littler box, and let’s face it, Harding can be a little….’proactive’”. I looked over to see him attempting to suplex his older brother. He actually did it once.

I’ll spare the gory details of the next few minutes, but suffice to say that I was vetoed.

“Hudson and I want to get a rag doll” she said.

I’m told that a rag doll is a big, fluffy, Siamese-y looking thing that goes limp when he’s picked up. We’ll see how long that lasts with Harding.

“Leo has one.” She said.

“Leo? Web guy Leo?” I asked, a little fogged. Leo has been consulting us on fixing The Gong Show that our web site got into this summer.

“Leo’s wife emailed us pictures of their cat, and the breeder they got him from. The breeder didn’t have any more, but referred an excellent breeder in Regina, who has two that’ll be ready in a month and she’ll fly one out to us.” Karla said, with a horrifying nonchalance.

I stirred a trembling packet of Splenda into my tea. Did you catch the word ‘breeder’? We seemed to have left the realm of the affordable.

“How much?” I asked.

“Only $1000” Karla said.

She had to wait for my reply, as I was taking a sip when she said the price and I shot hot tea out of both nostrils.

‘How is a cat worth $1000!!!?” I said, blinking away tears, and it wasn’t just the 2nd degree burns in my sinus cavities.

“It’s a show cat!” She said, haughtily.

“Are you planning to show it?” I asked.

“No, but you pay for the pedigree” she sniffed.

“Are you planning to breed it?”

“No, we have to get him fixed”. She looked at me like I was a simpleton.

“Wait: we pay for pedigree, but we’re never going to breed him?” Am I the only one seeing the flaw here?

Of course people get attached to their pets, me too, but it boggles me how much cold hard cash people are willing to spend for the privilege. With apologies to animal lovers everywhere: I just don’t get it. I grew up on farms in small town Saskatchewan, and the attitude towards cats was similar to light bulbs, batteries and Bic pens: disposable, if you get me. You always took good care of them (the cats, not the pens), you fed them, took them to the vet’s and so on, but there’s an understanding that things only go so far. If the dollars start flying out the door, you make excuses to the younger members of the family and a few days later, another cat steps right in.

When I was a teenager in Wawota, at dad’s farm, animals knew better than to get sick. They were terrified to get so much as the sniffles.

“*A-hem*”

“What was that!?” Dad leapt.

“Nothing, dad, the cat just cleared its throat…”

“*Sigh* Oh well, better get the shotgun…”

Oddly enough, Karla is from a farm too; I can’t tell you how many cats my mother in law has had in the last decade…it’s almost as high of a turnover as McDonald’s.

Far be it from me to dissuade someone from handing over the bullion for the sake of a beloved pet, it’s just that my personal threshold is biased towards the economical. My Scottish ancestors would roll over in their peat bogs at the thought of spending large on a pet.

A few years ago, Karla signed us up for a Halloween fundraiser that raised money for pets with cancer.

We decided that we’d take Hudson and Harding, who were 3 and 6 months respectively, and we’d make an evening out of it. We were just about the only ones who didn’t dress up; even the pets were dressed up…elaborately. On closer inspection, we could see that virtually all of these poor animals were either scarred horribly or were missing bits and pieces; an eye here, a leg there. I couldn’t find a complete animal in the bunch. No disrespect intended, but it was kind of creepy, especially with them all dressed up.

We found our seats and discovered that some madman in the kitchen had spread the love of animals to the menu and we were to be served vegetarian fare. Hudson asked why I was crying.

After dinner, they had a pet costume pageant and contest (!) and then they put on a PowerPoint presentation of sick animals.

"Poor Roofus got cancer of the thymus. He was such a trooper after the surgery, the chemo, the other drugs, the ointments, the doggy diapers, and the tofu and mung sprout diet, but unfortunately, he lost his brave struggle. He was only 18 years old."

I’ll be perfectly frank: I'm listening to this and thinking "If Roofus was 18 and needed surgery, chemo, other drugs, ointments, doggy diapers and a tofu and mung sprout diet, I'm afraid ol Roofus'd better have his affairs in order."

Then Hudson started asking the tough questions...

“Dad! What’s wrong with that doggy?”

“Um…I think he got turned inside out, Son.”

“Can we teach kitty Simba to go inside out?”

“Not a bad idea, Son”

“Daddy, why does that doggy have a tube in his nose?”

“Uh…I think he’s doing tricks”

Apparently this gave The Boy the wrong idea.

The audience was full of very emotional Middle aged pet lovers who were quietly sobbing, dabbing tears, holding hands and offering comfort to each other...and our Son was standing on his chair cheering and applauding each new horror “YAYYY!!! More! More!”

Karla and I quietly tried to discourage him, but we were convulsing too hard. It was so damn cute, and, like a fart in church, disproportionately funny due to the circumstances.

As soon as it was over, and with absolutely no warning, I got called up to ‘say a few words’.

Oh oh…this was bad; in light of Hudson’s ‘appreciation’ for their pet’s suffering we weren’t exactly feeling the love in the room.

Four hundred furious eyes, desperate for meat, swiveled to our table.

Showing great presence of mind, I scooped up baby Harding and lugged him up on stage, to tremendous ‘oohs, and aahhs’ from the crowd.

And in what was the highlight of the evening, a withered old biddy down front, who looked like an ostrich crossed with a Sergeant Major, hollered to the person on her left “Oh Gawd…I hate ventriloquist acts!”

And now at home, Karla was looking at me with her jaw set in that sideways manner of hers that always reminds me of boxers slamming their gloves together as the ring announcer introduces them.

“There are hundreds of perfectly good cats for nothing, let’s get one of them” I said, feeling like Bob Barker.

“We don’t want just any cat, we want a Ragdoll” Karla said evenly. She had introduced the plural.

“YEAH!!” yelled Harding.

“Well let’s get a Ragdoll from the SPCA” I offered.

“We’ve already picked one out!” said Hudson.

Oh oh.

“His name is Wrinkles!” said Hudson.

“We haven’t picked a name” Karla said.

“I want to name him Wrinkles.”

“You can’t see any Wrinkles; it doesn’t make sense” said Karla.

“But Wrinkles is a good name!” insisted Hudson.

“It’ll sound dumb when you’re older” said Karla.

Hudson crossed his arms and frowned. “Fine. Then I won’t call him anything at all I’ll just call him kitty.”

“Look, I don’t want to be the poopy-pants here, but I just can’t see spending that kind of bread on a cat.” I said, pleading for sanity.

“Not a cat Daddy, a kitty!” said Harding.

Karla raised a superior eyebrow. “How much is you doll collection worth?”

“Barbie is a doll. G.I. Joe is an action figure.” I said, and the steel had entered my voice.

“Sure it is. How much have you sunk into your collection of action dolls?”

“ACTION FIGURES!” I said.

“ACTION FINGERS!” yelled Harding.

“It’s not the same thing at all!” I protested. “My G.I. Joe collection is a carefully planned out series of acquisitions of vintage collectibles from the 60’s and 70’s and is worth at least three times what I’ve invested so far.”

Oops. That ‘so far’ quip was going to cost me…

“How much?” she asked.

“I suspect that you’ve already got that figure in hand.” I said, dryly.

She produced a print-out from her black cloak and thumbed through it to find the total.

Okay, so the total she gave was a fair bit more than I’d estimated, and she’d even included some stuff I thought I’d snuck in under the radar.

Again, modesty forbids me to name the figure, and if you knew that number you’d shoot hot drink out your nose too, but the important point I’m clinging to is that my cherished collection was worth a multiple of what I’d sunk into it.

“So, if you’re concerned about the price we paid for the kitty you can always sell your…” she referred to her sheet, “’boxed Man of Action with Kung-Foo grip and life-like hair’ or your ‘Adventure Team Training Center’ to cover it.”

Damn.

I think I need to have a talk with Leo.

www.pencilneck.com

Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck TM, and is a bestselling, award winning, partially colour blind, full time pencil artist.

Owen and Hudson survive frozen night on mountain!

It makes a good headline I suppose, but the reality wasn’t very sexy…or fun.

Hudson had been asking about going to the mountains all summer, and after being wracked with guilt over not managing it, I finally cleared a weekend for him and off we went.

Karla was unable to go, and we both thought that Harding would be too much for a fumbler like me to handle, so it was just Hudson and myself. As it was, we had only two days to prep for it. I decided to keep it simple; a small tent, minimal pack, etc.

When I’m asked about my wife, several adjectives spring to mind, but a safe one that fits the bill is thorough…my wife is thorough. And when one is taking one’s Son away from the nest, the Mother Hen’s instincts aren’t suddenly capped off…apparently we have contingencies to deal with. It starts with thoughts of comfort. A thoughtful air mattress, some favorite cookies in the cooler....

Then it turns to extras sweatshirts. And coats. And gloves. And toques. A gallon of drinking water isn’t enough, I’m issued 5. I was informed that we need those complicated wiener sticks that have a cranking handle.

When I off-handedly tried to say that I didn’t need a coffee pot as we’re going in light and lean commando style and we’d just have our meals in the town, I was verbally clapped on the ear and told that Hudson might like a hot chocolate before bed, and why don’t I leave the packing to someone who knows what the hell they’re doing?

Oooooookay. I grabbed my day pack and my ‘kit’ and was ready in less than a minute. (To be fair, this stuff is never really ‘unpacked’), and the majority of my contribution was pulling the rear seats out of the van. Karla went to the wee hours packing our minivan for an apparent trek across the Mongolian Plain. She had provisions and gear spilled out across the driveway and onto the lawn, and lit the scene with 5 of the 7 lights she meant for us to take.

“Dad? How long are we going to be gone?!?” asked a concerned Hudson as he headed up to bed.

I’m convinced that the only thing that stopped the infestation enough for me to be able to close the van doors was the fact that it began raining, and stuff was getting wet.

And in what I thought was an odd accusation, Karla spent the remainder of the evening being chapped at me for ‘conning her into spending her whole night out there packing for a trip she isn’t even going on!’

We left Spruce Grove for Jasper about 4 pm – a little lateish, but Hudson had gymnastics camp and I had scheduled calls with 2 new Platinum members. The last time we’d been to Jasper was when I did my first night scuba dive, and then the campgrounds were first-come, first serve: no reservations taken, and we’d been fine getting there between 8 and 9.

So naturally, the first thing the parks chap said was ‘do you have a reservation?’, and naturally, I said “uh…no, you guys don’t take them’, and naturally he said, “yes, we started taking them a year or so back, and if you don’t have one, then I’ll have to ask you to move along.”

He gave us directions to a campsite 18 kms out that ‘should still have some room’. We were able to get one right across from some bathrooms, and with a four year old in tow I counted ourselves lucky.

Hudson commented that he could see his breath, and as the parks gal was handing us the bear warning pamphlets, she mentioned that it was 4 degrees right now, but should stay above zero.

That's great...

Hudson and I agreed that because it was getting late and it had been raining all day, we’d have our campout in the back of the van instead of pitching the tent in the mud. It also gave us the option of running the van if we needed some extra heat.

Now I don’t know if your spouse loves you as thoroughly as mine loves me, but if so, you’ll have had the experience of being thoroughly loved right in between a rock and a hard spot. I went to pull out some rain gear, but the back of the van was so cram-packed with junk that it shuddered and creaked like an armed catapult. I plunged an arm in and managed to pull a windbreaker out for Hudson, but it was more trouble than it was worth to reach mine.

The first step was to get a roaring fire going, not just for warmth, but also for cooking something from our wagon train’s worth of provisions. And while he wouldn’t say anything, I could tell Hudson was a little nervous about the dripping sounds coming out of the trees in the darkness.

Even though I rarely ever get to use them anymore, I have always prided myself on my outdoors and survival skills; I’m an excellent shot, I can dress a rabbit with my bare hands, I have a good knowledge of edible plants, I can trap small animals, I can build an igloo, and since I was not much older than Hudson, I’d always prided myself on being in the ‘one match- one fire’ club, and for well over half my life, I’d NEVER used more than one match to light any fire I was privy to. In fact, I’ve won considerable bets because I can light a fire without matches 4 different ways – including using a flashlight battery and a piece of steel wool.

But this damn rain…

As I tried to split away the wet to expose the dry core wood, it squished water out like juice out of a breakfast grapefruit, and I couldn’t very well haul my 4 year old a half mile in the dark, in bear country, to find some dry tinder.

Also, the wood provided was logs 6 to 8 inches across, which is difficult to light even when dry, and all the small stuff was soaked through. I had to split the logs as small as possible and build a steady blaze that would generate enough heat to light the big stuff…but all I had was a small hand axe. Being from Saskatchewan, I had an instinct to douse everything with gas, but there was nothing to siphon with, besides, I don’t want my kids knowing that until they’re older.

Much, much older.

I cut down to some wood that was merely soaked, and I peeled long strips of my empty drink cup and Hudson’s chocolate milk carton we’d had from our pit stop at the Wendy’s in Edson. I rolled the wax-coated cup-paper strip into a sort of candle and applied my match. It caught and burned nice and slow, and even though it was helped by the Wendy’s take out bag and French fry boxes, the sodden tinder just wouldn’t catch.

I had to go a second match. And a third. And a fourth.

“C’mon Dad! You can do it!!!”

Ouch. It was the most emasculated I’d felt since grade 11 when a 100 lb Lydia Henrion beat me in an arm-wrestling match in front of my friends as I prepared to compete in shot put at Provincials.

I tried for nearly an hour, but my limited supply of small fuel just couldn’t get the big wet stuff to light.

So, supper was cold wieners and graham crackers in the van and I began putting the crap from the back into the front seats. It didn’t fit. I tried to blow up the air mattress and it became apparent that my young lady wife packed the double mattress, not the single. The double mattress doesn’t fit in the back…and where the hell was the foot pump?

I finally huffed it up and wedged it in at about a 45 degree angle, so Hudson spent most of the night tumbled down on top of me. I also couldn’t stretch out, because even though I’d filled the front seats with crap, there was still too much for me to stretch out.

It was like sleeping in the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.

It was still raining, so I couldn’t set stuff outside – and wouldn’t you know it, The Colonel forgot to pack a tarp.

Now I was soaked to the skin, and I was also sweating pretty hard from splitting wood and from fighting with the gear. Funny, I had enough gear to save The Donner Party, but now I’m at risk for hypothermia, and the crap that was supposed to make this trip more comfortable was making me miserable.

Then, I got a draft in my sleeping bag - and right around my feet too. And there was so much junk piled in the front seats and around us that I couldn’t get to the driver’ seat to start the van to get some heat!

I froze my miserable arse off and got about 3 hours of sleep, grabbed in 10 and 12 minute increments, and as soon as a refreshed and cheerful Hudson woke up the next morning, I scraped the frost from the windows and we high-tailed into Jasper and got a room at the place with a hot tub.

Once I got my core temperature into double digits the weekend was fine: we swam in the pool, we did the gondola ride and hiked around the top, we ate junk food, we went on a fantastic river rafting tour and we saw lots of elk, deer and mountain goats.

The only other snag was the photo radar ticket I got coming home. Karla and Hudson got pulled over 6 months ago, and ever since then, Hudson’s been calling out every single speed limit sign to make sure she’s not going to get another ticket.

I figure I’ll just quietly pay mine and not bring it up…

www.pencilneck.com

Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck TM, and is a bestselling, award winning, partially color blind, full time pencil artist.

The Pencilneck wins $10,000 and 1st Prize at the LATV Festival!!!

It’s that time of year again: The Los Angeles TV festival is fast approaching, where the industry gets together and pats each other on the back for all the good work they do in creating high quality TV programming (Har!).

In case you hadn’t heard, last year I lobbed in a last minute entry to the Los Angeles TV festival...and won!!!

Part of the festival was the NextGen contest, where they’re looking for the next big thing in television, and MSN was sponsoring a $10,000 prize – as millions of us are watching more TV on the internet than on real TV, they want some content…and out of the hundreds of entries, they picked us!

As easy as it is to convince myself that I'm a new breed of rock star, judging by the crappy quality of the other entries, it's more of a "in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king" kind of idea, but like more than a few of my romantic liaisons, I'm perfectly happy with a sigh and a shrug and a "well, we might as well give it to this poor chump"

So off I went (again). After spending $60 on a cab, I checked in to The Grafton on Sunset. The jelly beans in the mini bar were $9, and for $15 the rube, er, 'guest' could pop the lid on a little hairspray sized can and huff down some canned O2 to refresh themselves. P.T. Barnum would’ve been proud.

I called my old agent Ray to get caught up and to get an insider's knowledge of some supper. A $20 cab ride later, I met him at some hep place or other and we had a visit and catch up, and I even scammed a ride back to my hotel. Sucker. All I had to do was pick up a $90 supper tab and he was putty in my hands!

The next day was another $50 cab ride to a club called The Highlands which was right next to the Kodak Theatre, where Taylor Hicks wowed everyone on American Idol. Matt Damon was getting a star on the walk of fame, and a klatch of fans was being held behind barriers in anticipation of the event.

I thought it was a little odd that MSN was going to shove ten large at me and hadn't even emailed me yet so, I asked about the evening’s festivities, where they were going to show my video along with the 5 finalists I’d trounced and presumably, shower me with praise and more importantly, the cheque for $10,000. At the reception I played the schmoozing game. Lubrication is essential for this, so I slid to the bar and soaked up a few Coronas - no lime, thank you.

I'd sat with a chap during one of the seminars, and he came over and we started chit chatting when he mentioned that he was an agent, and that he was originally from Windsor, Ont. As we chatted, he looked behind us and said "Hey, there's _________!" She's an actress whom you’d know who’s currently on couple of NBC shows, and she looked ghastly! I don't think she's 30 yet, but she looked a rough 50. I turned to Joe and said "Y'know, I was kind of hoping to snag a couple of pics with me and a celeb or two, but you know what? I'm good."

Just then a waitress came around with a pepperoni and balsamic vinegar pizza (!) and Joe the Agent started schmoozing her. I saw a TV camera trained on us, so I turned to the waitress and said, "C'mon, pile it up! Give him another! Another! Another!" I motioned for the camera to stay put and said to Joe The Agent. "Hey, I bet you can't get a whole piece of pizza in your mouth in one bite"

And what do you know? He tried!!!! I burst a gasket laughing and pointed to the camera as he had chipmunk cheeks full of vinegar pizza! HAR!!!

I should caution you youngsters out there not to try this at home: I'm a trained professional, and playing practical jokes on potentially powerful Hollywood chaps that you've only know for 5 or 6 minutes can backfire - and frequently does, but in this case, I'd either 1) guessed my target correctly, or 2) soaked up just about enough Coronas.

Either way, Joe laughed harder than he'd laughed in a long time, he said, and asked me for all of my bumf (dvd, catalogues, cards, etc) and said he'd pass it along.

Eventually, I met the gal from MSN, and we talked shop and until we got word that the awards presentation was off for vague reasons.

Eh? ...wasn't I supposed to get a big oversized cheque for $10,000 and have to squint against the din of media flashbulbs?

Ms MSN had to run, but she praised me to no end, and said we'd be 'in touch' and was off.

I took another $50 cab ride back to the hotel to find that the restaurant, Boa, wouldn't seat me because it was booked, and the terrace was full, but I could “sit in the lounge and eat”.

The lounge was too dark to read, and since the tables were those real low shin bashers that're impossible to eat at without dribbling everything down your shirt, I sat up at the bar. Those Coronas must’ve still been exerting their magic, because I'd never have been able to order a $40 steak in my right mind.

The bar had lots of those tea-light candles stung about so I grabbed a bunch to read my book. The bar babe asked if I was reading the new Harry Potter.

"Uh...it's a book about sharks"

"You mean, like 'Jaws'?"

"Er...no...Its nonfiction. It's really about sharks."

She sort of gaped for a moment and then introduced herself.

"What's your sign?" she asked, pushing over another Corona.

"Asparagus" I said.

She didn't get it. And it's too bad, because I'd been saving that one for close to ten years.

The steak was dynamite, and they served it with a baked Mac n cheese that had smoked Gouda in it. I guess if you've got the crust to charge $40 for a steak and dish it up with Mac n cheese, it’d better be special...

As the night wore on and the place filled up, patrons thought it was odd to have this dashed charming old duff (me) sitting at the corner of the bar reading a book, but the staff took to me as a sort of elder statesman and kept me liberally supplied with the necessary ingredients.

The bar babe made a Mohito for one of the thousands of Englishmen who inhabit the city, and the smell of the mint leaves inspired me...a Plymouth Gin Mohito!!! I didn't find out until the end of the night that the bandits were charging $11 for a cocktail. I haven't told Karla what my tab came to, and I'm going to do my best to keep it my little secret. Suffice to say that my $40 steak turned out to be the bargain of the night.

The next day started out with a medley of aspirin, Gravol, Tums, caffeine, Gatorade and a strong aversion to mint. It was more seminars at the House of Blues and at The Comedy Store across the street - where Michael Richards (Kramer) went nuts a couple of months previous. I could’ve stuck around to see The Bangles were play that night, but I felt rotten enough already.

The next morning, I had meetings with three networks and three production companies. The networks got the show and got to back slapping, but the production companies completely missed it.

After the meetings, one of the dudes I was hanging with and I stepped into the House of Blues gift shop and I picked up a pair of souvenir drumsticks, and he said to the cashier, "Hey, I'm going to buy my new friend a set of sticks as a memento."

I thanked him profusely, but I confess that I had a fleeting thought of 'I'd rather have bought the sticks myself and got a ride to the airport instead...', but one has to be gracious.

$60 later I was back to the airport and home and was ecstatic to be with my family, affordable steaks and unaffected people.

And it took 90 days for the $10 000 cheque to clear! And I've never heard a peep from anyone at MSN...why drop ten grand on prize money to do...nothing?

What an industry!

www.pencilneck.com

Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck TM, and is a best selling, award winning, partially colour blind, full time pencil artist.

It Finally Happened! The Police and The Pencilneck

After 27 years of dreaming and 23 years of bitter regretfullness, the impossible happened… I got to see The Police in concert at Commonwealth last July!!!

I nabbed two tickets dead centre, row 16, and my cousin Steve flew in from The Old Country (Regina, Saskatchewan). After buying 4 shirts, the tour jacket, 2 posters, key ring, coffee mug and about 75 beers, I wouldn’t say that I got emotional for the first three songs, but my eyes were certainly moistish once things got underway!

It was a big day. Steve and I had some brief chit chat with the singer from Blue Rodeo, Jim Cuddy (I was in a band that opened for them in 91), and then we spotted Patrick Swayze slinking through the crowd with Chris Kattan. Cuzin Steve sped after them and called out “Bohdi” - a reference to the character he played in ‘Point Break’, and Patrick gave him a big thumbs up and was turning to say ‘hi’ when security jumped on Steve’s neck and bustled Patrick away from the gathering crowd. We also ran into Marty Van Sloun, a honcho from Ducks Unlimited, and a bit later, I got a tap on the back and saw an old carousing high school buddy from Wawota. “How did I know you’d be here?” he said.

I was actually pretty nervous about the show. I had such huge expectations, and Sting has the nasty habit of screwing around with the melody – usually ruining the song – and the guys had said repeatedly that they weren’t just going to dodder through the same old stuff; they were out to prove something.

Oh…great.

Yes, they changed a lot of stuff: the chords, tempos, grooves, arrangements and even the words, but in every case it was an improvement on the original! ‘Walking in Your Footsteps’ is a low key bit of filler on ‘Synchronicity’, and in live footage from 83’ it’s a bit of a snoozer, but here it was one of the highlights of the show!

I’ve probably seen close to 50 hours of live footage of The Police, and have collected at least as much audio, but they played stuff here that I’d never heard before! Sting soloed under Andy’s during a “Voices Inside My Head/When the World is Running Down’ medley that was completely unprecedented…and it was dynamite!

The whole band was red hot, and obviously having a blast. Sting has never sounded better, and nailed all the high parts – something he often chickens out on.

What makes a show like this so great was the complete honesty of it. As opposed to a slick Madonna or Britney Spears show where absolutely every move and note is exactly the same every night, The Police keep it interactive and flowing. Sometimes Andy takes another solo, sometimes Sting sings another tag, and quite often there’re mistakes, but that’s what makes music live and breathe.

It was three guys. No overdubs, no backing singers, no horn sections, no keyboard players...and it sounded HUGE! It wasn’t too loud (none of that post concert underwater sounding thing), and you could hear every note.

I saw Sting in Calgary in 88’ and it was a disaster. He had Manu Katche playing drums, and the guy just has no spark. If Sting ever asks my opinion, I’d point out that every time he uses a drum machine or a dud drummer the album and tour have flopped. It’s when he plays with powerhouse drummers like Stewart Copeland, Omar Hakim and Vinnie Colaitua that his music feels like something. I think he just doesn’t want to admit it…he’s got too much intellectual, tree hugging, yoga posing, tantric whatever to admit to himself that his strength is in making music that feels, not music that you need to use a protractor on.

Fortunately, this reunion feels right, and Sting can’t deny that he hasn’t had this kind of chemistry since he walked away 23 years ago. You could see it plain as anything – they were enjoying it every bit as much as we were.

Please…let there be another album!!!

www.pencilneck.com

Owen Garratt is more widely known as The Pencilneck TM, and is a best selling, award winning, partially colour blind, full time pencil artist.