I walk the line...

Clearly not as well as Johnny Cash did, but I'm learning. As so much of life is, it's a question of finding balance.

We played a show at the Horseshoe last night. We tried some new things. I thought they were good ideas and I committed to the changes and jumped in with all the gusto I could muster. After the show, I asked some very close friends for criticism. I need to hear what's wrong so I can improve, right? Right. Well, the words 'pretentious', 'no fun' and 'let the music speak' were bandied about a great deal. And boy, it pissed me off. Not because my friends gave me honest and necessary criticism, but because I HATE arrogance and pretentiousness. And to think that I was so wrapped up in putting on 'a show' that I lost sight of those unforgivable sins makes me very, very angry with myself.

I dream big. There's no question of that. And I got caught snoozing in the field of dreams. Thank God for my friends who always throw just enough stones to sting me without doing any serious damage. It's so easy to have these big dreams and forget about reality. But it's living passionately in reality that will make the dreams actually come true. And boy, did I lose sight of that. Man, I love my friends. Did I mention that?

So. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to be simple; to enjoy my life, my friends and the gift of getting to play music for 20 or 50 or 1000 people. If people can't see how much joy it brings me to share the music we make, then I'm doing something wrong. And fuck that. I want to do it right.

And you know what else I want to do? I want to be less serious. That will be trickier for me. It's so hard not to care enough for everyone in my life. I want to believe I have that capacity. I want to lift them all out of the gutter and I want to infect them with joy when I have it to give. But it's gotta be simple. Simple.

Alex & Mick and I talked about all this last night. We need to be big stars. Not for us. But for everyone. Because we have plans. We need to finish that strange, giant slide thing that sits on that hospital near Bathurst & Dundas and stick a big-assed crash mat at the bottom. We need to host an annual Rock & Roll Mini-Golf/Road Hockey weekend with great Canadian bands and fans and give every penny to cancer research or the humane society. And we need to spread joy. And boy, do we (Alex, Mick & I) know how to do that:

My first promise to you - friends, fans, strangers, loved ones - is to track down the right to the old 'Mother's Pizza' franchise. If you love pizza and you love your mother, it stands to reason you'll like this. It's 4 to 12 slices of heaven with some sauce and cheese on top. Without question, it's the best pizza I've ever eaten (and I've eaten a LOT of pizza - ask anyone!) If you've never had the pleasure, you deserve it. We all do. We - The Free Press - are going to revive Mother's Pizza!!! We will find the recipe, we will buy the rights and we'll bake them in my kitchen until we can buy that fantastic, palatial greenhouse-type building at Dupont & Lansdowne and make a Mother's restaurant with lots of rock and roll lights in it! It's going to be SO good. Stick with us, kids. We're going places and we want you to come with us and eat pizza.