Paul Ashwell, Jazz Musician

Below is a note that my friend Paul Ashwell posted on his Facebook page. It deals with his return to the music business and some of the perceptions and predjudices he's had to fight because he lives with bi-polar disorder. Paul and I have know each other for almost 30 years since his dad and my dad worked together in the Salvation Army Correctional Services Department here in Winnipeg. On March 16th, Paul, along with some of Winnipeg's biggest names in the Jazz field, will be doing a show here as part of the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre's Mardi Jazz Series.

Paul's an incredibly talented musician and it seems hard to believe that we played together at one time in the junior band at Winnipeg Citadel, although proper accuracy would suggest that I say that Paul played in the junior band while I merely filled a chair, (the baritone part with its 487 consecutive offbeats on G# never quite captured my imagination). So I would encourage you to read his story below and then come out to 340 Provencher Avenue, on the 16th of March, 8:30-11:30 p.m. to hear him play, not because of what you've read, but because the man can flat out play.

Paul Ashwell - The challenges of my return to the music business

Shortly after I joined Facebook and announced I was returning to the music industry full time, a few old friends asked me to post a blog about the experience. They thought it would interesting to read about my perceptions of how the industry has changed in the two and a half years I have been away from it.

For the most part, things have been going well. I've been able to aquire work in Winnipeg and Vancouver for later in the year, I've secured a venue for my CD release at the Humber Theater in September (thanks very much to Denny Christianson), I'm in the process of putting together a fantastic band here in Calgary which I believe has a real chance of commercial success. The response to the advertising has been great, and we'll probably be turning people away at the door at our first performance on the 19th of February.

In the meantime, like everyone else, I need income. So I reconnected with a company here in Calgary called the Clinic Line. This company sends out clinicians to almost all of the junior and senior high schools, both public and seperate, in Calgary and the surrounding area. I have worked for this company, on and off, for about five years now. It's been a wonderful steady source of income for many musicians in Calgary for many years. Recently there was a change in ownership, and it appears that the company is been run much differently now.

Most of my musician friends in canada know about my struggles with Bi-Polar disorder over the the past twelve years or so. It's no big secret. Apparently the current ownership of this company feels that because of this medical history, I'm something of a risk to show up for work and my reliability has been called into question, even though I have showed up on time to every clinic I've been booked on since my return (except one because of a Calgary Transit issue which was beyond my control).

Yesterday I was informed that I had been removed from the clinician list for a clinic this week because it started at 8:00 am and was in a location which is far away from my home. I guess the owner felt that it was too much of a risk of me showing up late and decided to take me off the clinic. I just finished managing a shoe store where I had to be at work at 8 am five to six days a week and I was never late for work once.

In my opinion, there's no difference between this and the owner saying "I'm taking you off the clinic because you may show up late because you're black." It's discriminatory, it's insulting, and it's against the law, Mr. Allan Repp. Perhaps you should have done a little more research on just what you are and aren't allowed to do as a business owner before you took over this company.

Obviously with this kind of predjudice, it's going to make my return to the music world a lot more challenging than it would be for the average person. But don't think for one minute than I'm going to let this discourage me or slow me down in any way. If anything it's strengthened my resolve to succeed, and from now on I'm going to work twice as hard as I have been. Sooner or later the closed minded idiots who think they can get away with stuff like this are going to figure out that when I'm mistreated and have my Human Rights violated in this manner, all it does is piss me off and make me work harder.

Thanks for the support and words of encouragement from my many friends and colleagues around the country. I still plan to travel to all of the places I've scheduled to this point, and to continue adding more tour dates over the next coming weeks. If that means having to go out and find a simple day job at $15 perhour to make ends meet over the next few months, then I will do that and whatever else it takes to get my musical goals accomplished this year.

Paul Ashwell

Jam session in Barcelona - May 2007

Lenten Series

This is the poster for our noon-hour Lenten series at Holy Trinity.

Promoted to Glory

Major William Stuart McKenzie, Salvation Army (retired)
October 1, 1929 - November 16, 2009

My hero.

After a short but difficult battle following a heart attack two weeks earlier, William McKenzie, my father, entered into his final rest earlier this morning. The final passing was peaceful with my mother, my brother Cameron, sister-in-law Irma and myself at his bedside on the fifth floor of the Victoria General Hospital, Winnipeg. Thank you to all the staff at the Vic.

The funeral will be at 10:00 a.m. Friday, November 20, 2009
Southlands Community Church
83 Keslar
Winnipeg, MB


For I know that my Redeemer* lives,
and that at the last he* will stand upon the earth;*

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in* my flesh I shall see God,*

whom I shall see on my side,*
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.


Job 19:25-27a

Cracking Walnuts with Anvils

In my ongoing search for employment I frequently find myself at the job centre on York Avenue in downtown Winnipeg. Such was the case today, and while there I needed to make use of the washrooms, located in the basement in the building.

What was notable about this, was that when I went into the stall, I noticed that the toilet paper dispenser (one that is designed to hold two of those large, rolls) was locked. This, in and of itself, wasn't particularly remarkable, what was remarkable is that the dispenser was locked using the original lock that comes as standard equipment, as well as having two, heavy metal padlocks attached to the dispenser by the way of a 1/4" thick metal hinge. This I can say is a new innovation within the last year, since that's the last time I had been in the building and made use of the washrooms.

So it got me thinking, what has changed in the last year. Are they worried about terrorists coming in and hiding bombs in the toilet paper dispensers. Or perhaps they're worried about terrorists breaking into the dispensers and using the contents to TP the offices of Canadian Forces Recruitment which is housed in the same building. Would this qualify as a level brown terror threat? Perhaps they are worried about the newly immigrated and the unemployed breaking off the covers and sneaking out with ill-gotten toilet paper. Although, anyone who is in such a condition that they would willing use such toilet paper anymore than is absolutely necessary, should have any charges dismissed on the compassionate grounds that in this case benefitting from the proceeds of crime is punishment enough.

Whatever the reasons, and I'm sure they make perfect sense in that alternate universe known as Bureaucraworld, the net effect is to give a person the sense that the government continues to waste our money on projects that are little more than using anvils to crack walnuts.

IDENTITY THEFT!!!

When I think of life as a priest and all of the things that go along with it, perhaps the idea of what my pastoral identity is has been the hardest. Identity has always been an important aspect in my life. One of the things that has always frustrated me is the number of people who call me Don rather than Donald. This is particularly frustrating when I introduce my self as Donald and my name is immediately shortened to Don, even when I repeat the fact that my name is Donald. This may seem to some to be a small thing, yet, I have been Donald since my youngest days. Sure I had my family nickname, as did my five other brothers, but as we have grown older we have more or less reverted to speaking to each other by our given names, and mine has always been Donald.

Sure, there is an aspect to this that relates to the fact that I'm a highly private and reserved individual and even a bit prickly. However, to seek to moderate that in me by calling me Don is counter-productive. For immediately, I feel I haven't been heard, or that you haven't been listening. To leave someone feeling ignored is usually not the best way to bring them out of themselves. There's more though, because as I said, this relates to pastoral identity as well.

A few months ago I was talking with a friend about my ordination and she asked me what she should call me once I was ordained. So, I gave her the options and then told her that I would much rather that she just kept calling me Donald. Now, again, part of this is the fact that I'm not much one for titles, etc. However, at another level, my personal identity informs my pastoral identity rather than the other way around.

Donald serves as a reminder of my humanity, that which I share in common with all people. While I grew up in the Salvation Army, where child baptism wasn't practiced, my parents did dedicate me to God as a baby and I was dedicated as Donald. So, almost from the very first, my name formed the background to my introduction to the community of believers. Later, in my adult life when I was baptized, I was baptized as Donald. It is my self-recognition, it is my self-identifying name.

It bothers me very much when people say, I just don't think about it. Or, I have an uncle named Don. Well guess what? I'm not your uncle, I'm the Donald you work with, that you attend church with, that you eat with and watch football with. I know it's easy enough to do, I even do it myself from time to time, but I do try my best to find out what name people like to be called by.

In many ways, one of the reasons that being called Don bothers me so much is that it is the diminutive form of my name, and I feel diminished when someone uses it to address me. I realize that in many ways I am fighting a losing battle, but its one I will continue to keep fighting.

A Tale of Two Talk shows

I'm not one for watching talk shows. Since I don't have a TV, I'm limited to what I might catch over the internet and the odd live event. This past week I watched two.

One featured second hand furtniture, a guy with a guitar and harmonica, and production values that make one yearn for such far off staples of the Winnipeg public access TV scene as Math with Marty, and Pollock and Pollock, (those readers not from Winnipeg should feel free to substitute their own memories of the ancient days of cable). The other featured expensive sets, a full band and high quality production values.

One featured a host whose wardrobe looked like it came from the Al Borland collection. The other a host with an expensive suit, stylists, make up artists, etc. ad nauseum.

One had local guests who are probably known only within their immediate profession and by a few family members and friends. The other had big name Hollywood guests.

One was witty, intelligent, somewhat unscripted, and unpredictable. The other had a team of writers who churned out material that was indistinguishable from the material 10 years earlier.

One was Live with Kelly Hughes (into Thin Air), the other was the Jay Leno Show.

Full disclosure time, Kelly Hughes is a friend of mine, so I am probably a little biased in this regard.

However, that being said, other than time slot and the lack of a desk, there is nothing in the Jay Leno Show to distinguish it from the Tonight Show. I was at least fortunate to watch it on Wednesday when Robin Williams was one of the guests, Robin Williams still being one of the funniest men alive. Otherwise, the show was exactly the same as it was the last time I watched it, which is probably somewhere in the area of 8-10 years ago, right down to the same lame jokes about Kevin Eubanks dating habits. This for a show that was endlessly hyped, (while I don't have a TV, I do use the internet for watching such things as football games), yet the show could just as easily be called the "Little Earlier Tonight Show," given that someone has already used the title "The Emperor's New Clothes," was already taken. While it has its amusing moments, there is nothing in the show that would qualify it as destination television.

Meanwhile, Live with Kelly Hughes, performed in front of an audience of maybe 30 people carried with it energy and vitality from start to finish. This being the first one that I've been to, I have nothing to compare it to in terms of the opening monologue length, which was quite short. That was fine though, because the real entertainment of the show was in the interviews that were conducted. The show featured interviews with three individuals connected with Thin Air: The Winnipeg International Writers Festival. They were, Margaret Sweatman, T'ai Pu and Charlene Diehl. I would try to describe the evening for you, but instead would suggest you go here and check out the podcast, which should be up within a couple of days. The laughter generated was quite hearty and genuine.

What made the evening successful is that Kelly, while poking and prodding (at times like a child using a stick on a dead frog), actually gives his guests a chance to say what they want to say. So, while Charlene Diehl, who I believe is the executive director of the festival (I'm not much for titles and so forth), took the time to promote the festival, we also got the opportunity to observe her passion for writing and I came away impressed with the fact that she has taken so much time to become familiar with the all of the writers who will be appearing in the festival.

Sure there was the odd lag in the show, sure the technical aspects didn't all run smoothly and perhaps a full two hours is a little lengthy, but I came away from the show feeling refreshed and relaxed something I didn't get watching Leno. And all of this entertainment? Every bit as free as the show on the TV. Not only that, although I didn't do it tonight, you can stop in before the show at EAT! Bistro and enjoy food that is every bit as fresh and original as the show itself.

Live With Kelly Hughes, a great way to spend a Friday night.

NFL

Once again, the NFL season is upon us, and our sixth annual Super Bowl draft has taken place.

1. Carlos - Giants

2. Tim - Eagles

3. Donald - Ravens

4. Paul - Colts

5. Chris - Patriots

6. Kristen - Steelers

7. Brad - Chargers

8. Dallas - Titans

9. Jeremy - Vikings

10. Lyle - Bears

11. Mario - Cardinals

12. Gareth - Saints

13. Kendall - Cowboys

Yes, the Ravens were my first choice. Hopefully they don't lose any receivers.