my life has slowed down even more CANCER has returned

Whoever said FREEDOM 55 obviously never had a life before 55 - growing old is no fun for the highly active person who lives life not only fully but often dangerously by the standards of anyone who's says his life begins at 55... anyway, we all have our way of interpreting and understanding our lives and the lives of those who have history and those who have almost non.

Cancer has overtaken my life again after being told i was clear of cancer a couple years ago now i'm told that it has returned and so i'm waiting for surgery to remove the larger tumours and then 42 days of radiation to remove the smaller tumours - meanwhile i'm carrying on like someone who has and believes in the future.

I've returned to volunteering at a local Soup Kitchen after having done cooking/running soup kitchens in Toronto for almost a decade off and on and then easing off to return to renovating, doc. making, book making, curating, and travelling.

my partner and I have a rather full life going from one creative enterprise/event to another over the past years - hard work, hard thinking has as it usually does , paid off so we've advanced our lives and our future by tackling all sorts of creative work.

ok that's an update and now ... while waiting for my surgery dates , i've completed a short doc using that to upgrade my skills in FCPro7 - u can view it on youtube and soon on Vimeo ...

THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND

yeah i never thought they would ever end when i was in the thick of it but all things end eventually some last longer than others but i had far more than my 15 minutes - i recall the time i drove to New York to meet up with Andy Warhol at The Factory for a movie I was hoping to make called something like ANDY WARHOL LIVES HERE but these were film days not video days and that meant a ton of heavy cameras and gear in my Pristine Ford van crossing the border when it was normal and easy and fun and driving non stop to N.Y. into lower Manhattan and getting into The Factory but not really meeting ANDY since no one really met him ... he was too too famous

TIFF tiff tiff.... and so it goes

well sad as it is to reveal TIFF is not my thing - from the early years of excitment/energy to the present holywoody commercial BS that causes people to rush around trying to become somebody or something instead of creative creators is rather disapointing and tiresome - too bad - i'm glad i knew it, felt it,saw it, heard it when it was wonderful way back ....

LET ME BABBLE A BIT LIKE A HORSE WITH A BIT

I ONCE again see the CBC teetering on the brink of a steep cliff as long as the Harper and his harpies are at the helm of the Canada BOAT - THAT benchmark of Canadian CULTURE is fat and needs some trimming but with the harpies at the helm it'll be more than trimming it'll be the wrecking ball - once again the Conservative lie their way to success like that last election with robo calls now no longer is the voter able to counter the cheats with Harper's new laws hell lie and cheat his way back into his dictatorship unless we consider our CULTURE important and our peaceKEEPING views from our past that is B.H. ( before Harper ) important enough to get rid of tyrants like Harper and return to excepitionally peaceful leaders after all 'a proof is a proof when it's a proof. ' isn't it JEAN ? He was a good LIBERAL who kept us outta IRAQ's fiasco .... WMDestruction what bullshit?

Things take time - ROBERTS book done draft hard copy today HUMAN ANIMALS thinking feeling like humans

Been working away on the ROBERTS' book selecting a few of his animal stories that will best represent his huge outpouring of such content. Few Cdn writers can equal his vast contribution to Canada's literary history. This book called HUMAN ANIMALS focussed on his animal stories. He and Ernest Thompson SETON originated stories that treat animals with brains and feelings not unlike ours. Since Roberts was raised in the vast, wild Tantramar marsh of N.B. he aquired a studied and deep knowledge of animal life which he drew upon to write his stories which became enormously popular during his lifetime. As a boy i read most of these stories and many linger in some memory cells so to return to them was a pleasure ... i had forgotten how well written they were, how philosophic and honest they were. Roberts sees nature as it is rather than as many armchair humans imagine it to be.

WHEN THINGS FALL APART ... so slowly so surely so endlessly

Came across another fighter the other day - not in WaawaaHarperLAND but in BigCIty - he's also a man who's gone thru a lot; lost a lot; and is trying to get some of that 'lot' back ... not easy when u're well into or past middles age and when things u know have fallen apart - newspapers are not the same, getting press coverage isn't the same, promoting shit isn't the same so the learning curve always climbs upward - people flock like ants on the hill to view the latest Apple event which is really nothing more than more shit for people to buy stuff they usually don't need but somehow they have been convinced they do need it ... what happened to common sense, purpose, individualism and stuff like that? Rather sad how we all gather wool ... and baaaa baaa baaaa but today and for a long time life has been just fine, thank ya'll... as BOB says, 'Don't worry be happy; cause everythings gonna be alright.'

PETER EVANCHUCK and 'then there were none' views on views

Winter is always a time many Canadians view the white world from cozy places others just view it as being Canadian ... for the homeless and the homed who have experienced 'living the streets' its a hard time, a desperate time, but the living of it gives them a remarkable view from the inside out. I've had some modest experiences of it, have living 'rough' but not for prolonged periods of time and there's the rub... ROBERT PAYNE recently got 'homed' after 8 hard winters/years living rough and his 'new life' of having a room without a view' but a room in a cozy warm basement apartment, secure and worry free has got to be an exceptional new experience for him that should be documented.

Toronto's Queen west was and perhaps still is the homeless capital of Canada. The street that used to provide a home for dozens of poor, ill, survivors of life is now being gentrified. The condos are replacing everything and what was great about it as a living working creative artist is almost all gone. Even ROB's former alley home has been fenced, gated, locked and barred from his use. That life style in that area seems to be getting more and more to be history of the past as the homeless, poor and ill will have to find their new home with a view or without a view but a home that's no longer in familiar surroundings of Queen West but pushed further and further away .... sad in many ways that our old neighbourhoods that we cared for so much are now almost all gone and replaced by condoWORLD.