And now for something completely different.

Famously Interrupted

PLEASE PLEASE! Do not panic. I am okay, but I have had a run-in with someone famous. At least, he is the most famous person I have ever personally talked to. May be some day I will be famous.

Since I have moved to Calgary I have been working for Green Drop. So, I go from lawn-to-lawn fertilizing and driving in a small Ford Ranger. The truck has a CD player, so I burnt a couple CDs and have listened to them over and over again and I got bored of them and have felt too lazy to burn more. So, then I started listening to the radio. And I have been craving CBC, but I had searched the dials a bunch of times and I couldn’t find it. I was coming to my witts end listening to the stupid DJs. They talk so much that I can never hear myself think. Then one day, scrolling the FM thinking perhaps I missed CBC some how and FINALLY I find CBC Radio 2 on FM.

Now, I am not really into classical music and I have never really listened to Radio 2 before. But, I remember enough from my Music 100 class to know the names and the periods of music. The radio hosts are either very excited about the music, pretentious or ignorable. Which are all fine by me. Plus, I can tune in and out of the music without feeling to bothered by it and my ear isn’t good enough that it’s not like when they play Beethoven for the second time that I can really notice the similarities. Plus, I really like it when I pull up to a house and the client most likely has a stereotypical idea about what a landscaper would be like (all my fellow employees) and I have Haydn blasting in the truck. I feel as though it may be a small enough challenge for them to change their stereotype.

Anyways, getting to the good part. This one morning, I push the radio to CBC Radio 2 and I hear this guy talking and he doesn’t sound anything like the other radio hosts. He was talking about his hockey team and giving away free pucks and some other stuff which sounded highly atypical of what I had come to expect from CBC Radio 2. So he talks about giving away his free hockey puck and then introduces Vivaldi (or someone). I have to say, it was love at first… hearing. The juxtaposition between the music and his subject matter was/is awesome. I learned that I was listening to Tom Allen, Music & Company. I have continued to listen every morning that I have been working and hate to miss his show when it rains and I sleep in (but I do like sleeping in). In fact, I was so impressed I did something unprecidented in my life–I went to the website and emailed him and he just responded! I hope he doesn’t mind if I share, because it was very inspiring:

Subject: rockstarpoet!

Hi Rhett -
Thanks for a very inspiring letter. I’m delighted you’ve found our show.
Congrats are due on the following fronts:
1) starting life with an English degree - Don’t listen to anyone who says it won’t get you a job. It’ll be giving you much, much more than that in just a few years.
2) Going to Calgary - you gotta follow the money, and it’s there. The prairies will wait for you - they’re not going anywhere.
3) Taking the initiative to write our show and having the scheming pluck to mention the hockey puck. I’d like to send you one (see? Your degree is already paying off). What’s your mailing address?
Thanks for getting in touch and I hope you’ll stay with us. I’ll try to get some prairie music in soon.
Tom Allen

Thanks Tom. You made my day.

Acceptance and Rejection

Let me explain my current epiphany with the bad news. Recently, I have received two rejection letters. One from Grain (*shakes fist at Gerry*) and one from… Antogonish Review? I think. I am not at home and I am sick and I can’t remember anything. In any case, Antogonish is fun to say. Who knows if I am even spelling it right? Certainly not me.

I was really hoping Gerry would publish me. One because we are friends, but I know Gerry wouldn’t publish me for that. Two he was my prof and I did well in his classes, but I know Gerry wouldn’t publish me for that. The third, and possibly most convinces–other than my amazingly gifted writing…–is that I wrote him a reccomendation letter for him to get rehired at the University. But no, he rejected me. And I am okay with that. Really. I knew that he would and he was right to. Here comes the epiphany…

I know that I have been drifting in my writing. That is to say that I have been very… generic… without any real voice… without really making any decisions. That’s not to say that I don’t think I am moving forward or growing as a writer. But I really haven’t made it my highest priority and I think that it shows in my writing. I have accomplished a few things, but they seem… I don’t know some how a bit lessoned.

In any case, now this is the epiphany, I have learned and decided that I do need to make decisions, big ones. Life decisions, if that’s not too cliche. In regards to writing, it’s time to make decisions, like continuing with the Soveran poems and exploring them and really exploring all the ideas that I have. Not just going from poem to poem like a hobo poet. I am a rockstar poet!

The other acceptance. I decided to make another decision. I am engaged and getting married in September to Leah Johnson. I guess I should say more but right now she wants me to help her with the invitation list. I have to go see who’s naughty and who’s nice. Tracy is definitely naughty.