The Rideau Canal and our Parliament (I think...)

When friends heard that my wife and I were going to split a weekend between California and Ontario, a lot of people thought we were nuts. But it really wasn’t that bad. Sure, it was sunny and hot when we left LA, and it was cold and snowing when we eventually landed in Ottawa, but when we woke up on Saturday morning, it was just as sunny and gorgeous as LA, just with a 30 degree temperature plunge.

Ottawa was alive and festive in the -6 degree sunshine, everyone enjoying the Winterlude Festival and skating the Rideau Canal, back dropped by the stunning Canadian parliament buildings.

The reason we were in Ottawa was to attend the wedding of CBC colleague Alan Neal (host of All in a Day, the regional Ottawa afternoon show) and singer-songwriter and ballerina Jill Zmud. The ceremony was at the National Arts Centre of Canada, which was a trip, since the last time I set foot in that building was in 1992 when my old band The Smugglers won a YTV Achievement Award (Alan Thicke was the host, Right Said Fred and the Crash Test Dummies performed, and the Pursuit of Happiness gave us the trophy and several thousand bucks).

Alan and Jill’s wedding was lovely, featuring live music by Rolf Klausener (the Acorn), Oh Susanna, and Kellylee Evans. Other musicians in attendance included Andrew Vincent, Chris Page, and Dave Draves, as well as many other CBC folks, such as our dear friend Amanda Putz and her husband Tim. (It was especially heartwarming to see singer Andrew Vincent and his producer Dave Draves dance with each other to “Bahamas”, one of Vincent’s own songs that Draves produced!)

One of the ‘threads’ of the wedding was Alan and Jill’s love of television, so they challenged each of the tables at the reception to stand up and sing a television theme song if we wanted to see them kiss. I’m pretty sure our table Gleeked it top shelf, with a “FUSE” of the themes to Diff’rent Strokes (I know every word off by heart so I took lead on that) and The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (I’ve never seen that show ever so I didn’t have a clue how that went so I just hip-hop danced) then we brought it back around to the Diff’rent Strokes chorus. Pretty acapella awesome.

Early the next morning, my wife and I rode the rails southbound to the snowy fields of Prince Edward County for a book event at a fantastic bookstore in Picton called Books and Company. Lots of great folks from far and near decided to spend their Sunday afternoon with us, including Jill’s parents, Toronto author Sarah Selecky, people from as far away as New Zealand and Newfoundland and… Belleville, and our good friend Virginia Clark, director of the amazing Wolfe Island Music Festival.

Thanks to all who showed us a wonderful time in Los Angeles, Ottawa, and Picton, and congratulations to the Arcade Fire for EARNING the Grammy for Best Album! (Possibly also with the good luck charms of poutine?!)

My next book event is this Friday evening at the Whistler Public Library. Hope to see you there!

Me 'n' David Fransen, the Canadian Consul General.

Hello from Hollywood! My wife and I just spent three very jam-packed and fun-filled days down here in gorgeous Los Angeles, daily temperature 25 degrees Celsius without a cloud in the sky.

We stayed at a kooky little boutique hotel on Fairfax Avenue called Farmer’s Daughter, so named because it was across the street from LA’s famous Farmer’s Market. It was an old 1950s style motel renovated to modern LA-chique, farm girl style. Pretty cool place, thanks to Tim “MusicSoop” Aarons for the suggestion.

On our first night, Jill and I strolled up Fairfax and had dinner at a swank restaurant called ANIMAL, no sign or anything, just a few doors up from Canter’s Deli. Excellent restaurant with, as could be guessed, mostly meat on the menu. One of the few “vegetarian” selections was actually poutine, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when I looked to our left and saw the Arcade Fire sitting one table over. We had a nice chat with them and congratulated them on their three massive Grammy nominations.

The following morning, I had brunch with my ol’ pal Ronnie Barnett, bass player of the Muffs, an LA band celebrating their 20^th anniversary this year. A great guy and a great band.

That afternoon, Jill and I accepted an invitation to attend a Grammy Songwriting Circle being hosted by HBO, so we cabbed it over to Santa Monica to huge HBO headquarters, the grounds of which contain private tennis courts, an outdoor gym, running track and pool! Those True Blood actors have to stay ripped, after all! It was fairly thrilling to stand amongst the HBO executives, producers, music supervisors and writers, the same people that have created some of my all time favourite shows (Deadwood, Curb Your Enthusiam, Oz, Carnivale, The Wire, Eastbound and Down, Big Love, etc) while watching four Grammy nominated country artists sing their tunes acoustically in HBO’s lounge. The jewel of the circle was the gritty Lucinda Williams, who these days looks like a cross between Leather Tuscadero and Keith Richards. She sounded awesome.

The reason we made the trip was for the annual Canadian Grammy celebration at the Canadian Consul General’s mansion in Hollywood, a gorgeous, classic LA location for a poolside party. It would have been very difficult to top last year’s live performances of K’Naan, Hey Rosetta, Dan Mangan, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois and Leonard Cohen, but the folks at Canadian Blast did their best, with showcases from a Grammy-nominated cello quartet, a band from Toronto called Young Empires, and the star of the night, Little Scream, an experimental Montreal singer-songwriter who was raised on hard rock but sounds more like a cross between Cat Power and Owen Pallet. Richard Reed Parry, bassist from the Arcade Fire, joined Little Scream on drums for several songs. It was fun once again to co-host the night with the charming, friendly, and ever-youthful Rick Campanelli, and the Consul General from LA, David Fransen, is an awesome guy.

We capped off the night with a dinner at a packed and fancy Mexican restaurant called Red O on Melrose with singer-songwriter Adrienne Pierce (an old high school friend of mine) and my LA connection Tim Aarons. Pretty great food but the atmosphere was almost too over-the-top LA.

It’s another spectacular day in the City of Angels this morning, but alas, our short stay in the La-La Land is over, as today Jill and I board a flight to Ottawa for a friend’s wedding.

On Sunday we’ll both be at Books and Company in Picton Ontario for my next book event! Hope to see you there if you’re in the area!

KJ Jansen performing at the Calgary book launch in January.

I would be an empty shell without music. Over the course of my zig-zaggin’ national book tour, I have had the absolute honour of being joined by some of my favourite musicians and singer-songwriters who have complimented my stories with live acoustic performances of their songs.

Since October, over a dozen musicians have joined me on the “book tour stage”. So far, they are…

• Said The Whale (in Vancouver and Kelowna; nominated for their first Juno Award for Best New Group)
• Ben Bouchard (in Lund; Ben’s the end of the road troubadour)
• Michael Bernard Fitzgerald (in Kelowna)
• Aidan Knight (in Victoria; winner of 2010 Most Canadian Song at our CBC Radio 3 Bucky Awards)
• Anthony McMorran (in Powell River)
• Matthew Barber (in Toronto; my brother-in-law!)
• Andy Swan (in Ottawa)
• Jim Bryson (in Halifax)
• Belle Plaine (in Regina)
• Del Barber (in Winnipeg; nominated for his first Juno Award for Best Roots and Traditional Solo [no relation FYI])
• Tailor Island (in Sechelt)
• KJ Jansen (in Calgary; new Chixdiggit album Safeways Here We Come out on Feb 15)
• Craig Cardiff (in Canmore)
• Snailhouse (in Fredericton)
• Tim Walker (in Fredericton)
• Gianna Lauren (in Fredericton)
• David Myles (in Fredericton and Moncton; nominated for FIVE East Coast Music Awards)
• and last but never least…
• Jill Barber (my lovely wife, who has graciously played events with me all over the country and continues to do so without complaint! xo)

I love all these musicians and truly appreciate all of them bringing these events alive with their songs.