Well, he says it to a couple of hundred other people, too, because there we all are at the Vancouver Celtic Festival‘s free concert he gave on Sunday on the Granville pedestrian Mall which has, for once, actually been made off-limits to traffic so you can have things like, say, pedestrians on it and even some pretty nifty concerts, and we are: there we all are, pedestrianating away madly and concerting in a disconcerting manner and all.
Cuz that’s how we roll.
And there he is onstage, Cape Breton‘s greatest living fiddler and that’s saying something, for Cape Breton fiddlers get stalked by degreed Irish musicologists with great notebooks full of stuff about Celtic cultural survivals in exotic lands like, say, Canada.
Now, the lad is a bit of a character, to say the least and, as a Canadian, one would always be tending to say the least, at least until someone had bought you a few stiff drinks, so we shall leave it more or less at that…
And he’s about to launch into another song when he comes over all full-body spasm and spins around like an impaired Tasmanian Devil who can’t afford the whole whirlwind or maybe just has commitment issues and prefers to be a one-twirl Devil, and we think for a moment that he’s having the bloody brain lightning right there onstage, but lo, we are mistaken and mighty guilty-feeling we all are, for yea, the man’s working hard and looking pretty clean for a brain-lightning candidate lately.
Well, relatively speaking.
And he says to us, he says:
“Now, I have to tell you one more story.” And cheers erupt, for he is not half bad at that, either. Multi-talented, that’s our boy. And he says, “I was going into my house in Toronto [and at this point we gasp as we realize how low he’s fallen, to be forced to live in the big T-zero] and I saw this guy outside on my lawn. He had a ballcap on backwards, like this,” he says, helpfully demonstrating, although I doubt the lawn-lurker’s hat is decked out in a big scripty letter A all in bling, “and he had a hoodie with the hood pulled up and he was looking, well, he was looking like he was having a rough day, so I said good day to him and gave him a cigarette and took out my keys and went inside.”
“And,” he says, says he, “a couple of months later I was going in to my house in Toronto and there was the same guy, sitting there, and he looks at me and I look at him and he says, ‘I KNOW YOU!‘ and I think maybe he does, but then he says, ‘and do you know who I am?’ and I say no…”
“And he says, ‘I’m the World Champion Irish Fiddler from Saskatchewan.’” Laughter erupts at this point, wide, deep and long. I mean, have you been to Saskatchewan?
“And I said ‘All right, prove it!’ and I took out my fiddle and my bow and I handed them to the guy. And let me tell you, he was better than I am on most days. So let that tell you…something.”














what’s the story with the hair spikes? he’s one very weird dude.
He is indeed one very weird dude. I think that was from back when he was smoking crack. He still looks a bit…uh…neurasthenic and tense, but he was not observed yelling racist remarks, throwing up onstage, passing out in public, or much of anything scandalous, although he was rather red-eyed on Sunday. That’s only to be expected after a solid week of gigs and the day after St. Patrick’s Day.
I’m more concerned in tracking down his guitarist: the guy was hot, and he winked at me!
I always enjoyed reminding Nova Scotians (and Capers) that their most visible icon aside from General Sir John Cabot Trail is a fiddling gay crack addict racist(?) pervo whose stated goal in life is to become “weirder than Jackson” (he got off to a great start with Andrew MacIsaac né Stokes).
Of course, coming from a province whose most visible light is the gold-medal-winning pot smoker, I feel I have a right to say that …
Whatever MacIsaac does, he seems to have loads of fun with it. Sadly I can no longer describe him as above–Marriage seems to have increased his stability quotient no end.
Still, he remains true to himself to the exclusion of all others.
Well, I thought this would bring out the nutters.
The gods are definitely not begnign. They spell better than that.
You mean you read that?
I suppose that’s one of the benefits of unemployment. Was it a Scientology troll or what?
I have no idea. I just hit Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, Page Down, and then wrote a comment. You can see that word right above the comment box, so I picked it. I wasn’t going to scroll up to where the fellow from Loopystan put in his name and spelled things wrong. Too much work.
You know, I don’t rule out the possibility that was the man himself. He does give the impression of manic potential.
“Don’t ignore long hair or other behavioural disturbances”. Mothers–shave yer daughters now!
Or by “other disturbances” does it mean “posting unintelligible gibberish for several pages in the comment section”?
One wonders how he is at hotlinking, and if he’s responsible for why half my pictures are down.
At the risk of sound like a wet blanket there is no posting party up for that maniacal diatribe and your photos are disappearing so I advise: spam the sucker ASAP
I think it’s funny, but I’m definitely changing the image hosts. Spamming him won’t bring my pictures back.
no..I’m not manic enough ti write that comment..but was manic enough to read1/64th if ut to get the gist in a scan and to have found your blog all these years later in the first place..but to wonder if it was actually me proves your deep personal manic..isms..have infecres your beluef in ebeeytging u read or hear about a pwrson..ie..celebrety like myaelf..may indeed not betrue…….think about it raincoaster
So…back on the heroin then?