Never mind the homework, here's the Vegan Teacher

Holy smoke, we get to open for Mudhoney a couple times in January!

In other news, I think I’ve come down with the Swine Flu which sucks because I have a bunch of work lined up as well as this Sabbath show to play on the weekend. I hope I can shake it in a couple days.

The prairie tour went well. We played some venues I’ve never played before with previous bands, people came out and we didn’t lose any money, always a bonus. I was/am super broke until I get paid at the end of the month so I relied on book sales to feed myself while we were out. We met some new friends who put us up after the shows; aging dudes with kids, still involved with music. It’s been this way for years and it never ceases to amaze: the consistency of kindness and people doing the best they can to give you a break on tour. No matter where you go, there is always someone more than willing to put you up or make sure you have some food in your belly. I’ve experienced this all across North America and it’s something I truely cherish about touring in a band.

The shows went well too and I got off the road with some nice calluses on my fingers. Another thing I like to geek out about is the history of who has played whichever venue before us. You can usually tell this by backstage band graffitti or glossy promo-photos often left hanging around. I know it doesn’t mean much, bands are just people after all, but it’s still neat to think about how 15 years ago Radiohead played the same club to 200 people. In Saskatoon we played a small club that hosted a few bands of note in the 90’s: Pavement, the Jesus Lizard, the Hip, the Dirty Three and Heff Healy. When I was getting ready to play, I couldn’t help but think about how David Yow was likely once hanging from the rafters above me. But I digress.

When I arrived home, I slept for about 45 minutes before Mike was over to pick me up for the Propagandhi show. Fighting the urgent need to continue sleeping, I made my way down there with him where I was guestlisted and made a measly attempt to sell the advance ticket I’d bought a couple months ago. The show was great; their second night in town. The set was interesting as a result and they played a couple of songs I’ve never seen them preform live before. I love it when bands pull out the rarities, in this case the tunes were Showdown and Anti-Manifesto. Shot the breeze with the guys afterwards and was home shortly after midnight.

Slept for 5 hours and was off to a middle school the next morning. The kids here were great, some of my favorites in the district. Then I came home to make something to bring to a dinner for a bunch of friends, who came over until I had Black Sabbath practice. This lasted until about 11; when my body was too tired to continue drumming. Home, then up at 4:30 to take a friend to the airport. Slept for a couple more hours then went out to an assignment at an elementary school, then home again.

So I’m taking tonight off.

I’m going to lie in bed, watch some youtube videos, wikipedia a few dumb things and then I’m going to go to sleep.

I have about 10 minutes and then we’re off to play a few shows around the prairies. It’s not enough time to fairly comment on my day teaching and I won’t have a moment for a couple days. Between now and then, the memories will fade into different shades of pleasantness and the frustrating bits will no doubt be lost. But I enjoyed my Jr. High English class today, it was at one of my favorite schools. I hadn’t been there for a few months and the kids were all in higher grades since the last time I saw them. Most of them remembered me, and I remembered some of them. Very interesting was it to find myself thinking about the first time I was in that school a year ago and the things that have changed in me as a substitute and the things that have remained the same.

I try to pick up on this when I get back. I have to go buy some drumsticks and leave this town. Have a good weekend.

Inner city jr. high kids with behavioral issues today….

Let’s just say I’m looking forward to going out, grabbing a couple of beers and playing some Sabbath jams.

The band shot some live video last night in a studio at the best weekly in town and I went home afterwards to share a box of Tofutti cuties with my roommate.

Today I was called out to another elementary today, grade 2. The school was in a very multicultural suburb and the kids were pretty great. It took about 30 minutes for me to figure out how to get the right response out of them. Every kid responds differently and some things work better than others. It also took me a minute to figure out that two boys who kept asking to go to the bathroom were using the opportunity to screw around in the hallway. I was informed of this by a pissed off janitor who caught them and the boys lost their bathroom privileges for the rest of the day. After getting called on this they were attentive and respectful for the rest of the day. We made some more fall observations, the kids drew me many pictures of things they like to do this season and we followed that with some math. It was a good one, I liked those little guys I had today.

I got called into a grade 1 class in a higher SES neighborhood at 9:30, so I rushed out the door after a shower and quick bowl of oatmeal. I bumped into the lady I was covering for in the school’s parking lot, she basically told me that she left a sketch of a lesson plan on her desk and to just kind of giv’er. I walked into the class as the principal was taking them through a matching exercise. I took over and we went over some words with ‘ow’ sounds in them, then the class read a poem out loud. Not too bad, but then the principal left. A minute later a girl was crying, two boys were having a swordfight and two other kids were taking off their shirts. I settled the class by giving them a drawing task and rode it out until lunch recess.

After recess the girl who was crying before lunch proved to be quite the little drama queen; crying when she didn’t get to do this, crying after falling when running up the stairs, crying when she couldn’t figure out her assignment and crying when she didn’t want to toss a ball around, then crying when the ball hit her fingers. I asked her if I should call an ambulance, she cried louder and coughed on my face. I told her to take some breaths and got the secretary, a wonderful lady who put a wet paper towel on the crying girls hand. The miraculous healing powers of the wet paper towel calmed her down and gave me a chance to deal with two boys who were crying as a result of horsing around.

Total number of kids who’d cried by 3:30:

14.

I spent the weekend up in the Yukon with the family and it was a good one. I always enjoy walking the streets I spent so much time growing up on. I go by the place I lived in 15 years ago, down to the pond where I would spend summer days and by other significant personal landmarks; where I played my first show, where I used to buy records and the river. Sometimes when I walk around, the streets seem to smell the same way they did before I left. This often evokes a song or a person I haven’t thought about in ages. Sometimes I think about what I would’ve done if I’d never left, or what I would do if I moved back. Those things don’t stick around that long, there’s not much up there for me right now but it’s interesting to see what my mind comes up with when I let it get carried away.

The flights were fine though, a few things always get stuck in my craw when it comes to air travel: the 150 ml beverage with two ice cubes and useless napkin always top the list. This is followed by the time people spend standing in the isles between the point when the seat belt sign is turned off, and the opening of the cabin door. But air travel is magnificent nonetheless.

I returned home late last night and was booked in for a jr. high math assignment this afternoon. The classes were rough. I had a headache and wasn’t into dealing with alot of their monkeyshines. It’s the way things go though, directly before and after holidays kids are more prone to losing it. You can never take it personally. I bumped into someone in my old Ed class at the school who took over for someone on maternity leave. I asked her what she’s teaching there and she told me gym. She asked me if I’d like to fill in for her. I was careful to not give out my number in order to avoid another gym assignment. I will sub for almost every class but jr. high gym class. I cannot think of any worse punishment for a person than to spend an hour trying to control 30 kids who want nothing but to nail you in the face with a dodgeball by accident. Not for me.

At any rate, I’m stoked to be back and am going to try to get work every day from now until xmas. It shouldn’t be hard being that it’s swine flu season and all.

We got asked to open for the Trail of Dead this friday then we’re doing a short prairie tour next week. These things break up my life enough so that I always run short on downtime, which I like. When I don’t have much to do, I’m prone to being slothful and start coming down on myself. Being busy means I’m being productive and somehow worth my weight in salt. But I digress. Time to eat and practice some Sabbath with the lads.

In a grade 4 behavior class all day yesterday with one of the gassiest kids I’ve ever met and I spent most of the time wondering if his butt had medical problems.

… and I’m outta here for Thanksgiving!

Super busy yesterday. I was called in for a high school Art assignment. These classes are always a complete gong show as half of the class is always disinterested in something. When I arrived at the school, I found no lesson plan. Thankfully I had a prep first period to get it together and it turns out the lady I was covering for was just too sick to hit the send button in her email account. The morning class was all IB students and we made some pottery. They were stoked on their projects and I had little to do other than make sure things were clean when they left.

I took the lunch hour to figure out what I was going to read for the book launch. I picked about 10 entries and tried to sneak in a nap before the bell rang.

The afternoon was tricky. 10’s in first and they were a wiley bunch. There were over 30 kids in that class too which made keeping them on track drawing objects on their desk somewhat difficult. I ended up sitting near the back where a few were being super loud when one of them asked if he could draw me. He did that while I attempted to draw him drawing me. The rest of the class was easily managed as a reslt of everyone’s attention being focused on this.

The last class… oh the last class really got stuck in my craw. I saw on a previous sub plan some notes about boys that were being jerks the day before so I knew who to watch out for. Sure enough, those three managed to do nothing all class. Not only did they do nothing, but one of them stated right from the get-go how he liked to drive subs crazy. I didn’t pay much mind to this, after 5-10 minutes of shooting the breeze he was pretty much under control, until another sub on his spare came in. An older guy, nice enough but with attributes that attracted the attention of the three heathens. I told him that I was ok, but he insisted on staying thus beginning a huge power struggle between him and the obnoxious. Every time the kid would say something like “don’t touch me, that’s assault!” the other sub would counter with something that would make the situation worse, to the point where the kid was completely out of my control. Unfortunately, this particular school doesn’t have that great of sub support either when it comes to students being jerks so we just kind of toughed it out. It sucked and I left with a headache.

When I arrived home, a friend of mine (who had offered to help me work the launch) came over with a couple beers. This chill out time was exactly what I needed before the reading since I’d been building it up all day. We went down to the venue, set up, soundchecked and settled in. It was a fun time! I think somewhere around 40 people showed up, my friends played and I sold a few books! I didn’t make enough to pay rent but I’m selling the scooter tomorrow so it’s alright. She had a good run but with the impending snowfall and no storage space, seems silly to hold on to it.

Alright, one more day to go then I head home for Thanksgiving.

I went in on Friday afternoon and subbed for a 5/6 split class. The school was on the outskirts of town on a range road and it seemed like the students were mostly farm kids. One of them had the same name as me (a rare occurrence) and I kept getting confused when the girls would yell at him for messing around in the back of the class. This was a result of the moment I signed in; two of the kids were helping out the secretary and heard me mention my first name. By the time class started, they all knew it and refused to call me anything else. It was a pretty relaxed afternoon. Some socials, some science, some gym… it’s funny how you can give kids a bunch of balls and they’re more than happy to just spend 30 minutes wailing them at each other. I went straight to the restaurant afterwards, was dog tired by the end of the night and ended up in bed by 11.

Tonight the band works on some more Sabbath, tomorrow I see if anyone will come out to the book launch.

Yesterday I was called in for an English assignment. Once again, I found when I arrived at the school that I would not be teaching English at all, but rather a cooking class. I led 3 in total. Two Jr. High and one Senior class. The options were to make cookies or chicken stir-fry. Thankfully (for me) the students all voted on baking cookies. One of the grade 8’s was not stoked, told me that they’ve baked cookies 17 times and that his Mom was starting to get mad.

It was a fairly easy day. I spent a lot of my time shooting the breeze with the kids in their kitchens as they put the ingredients together. The more occupied I kept them, the less likely they were to throw things or chase each other around with wet tea towels. Actually, it was really fun now that I think of it. I had the 11’s for a double block and had to give them some paper work to keep them occupied for the first period. Then we did the same thing. It was a good one.

Some exciting new on the band front yesterday as well: we received our records and album covers! They look fantastic and we’re excited to have them available soon. We’re also rehearsing a Black Sabbath set for Halloween. Turns out their bassist, Geezer Butler, has been vegan since age 8. How about that.