Moncton parking metre. Photo by David Myles.

THE GOOD STUFF:

Whoa! I had an amazing time in New Brunswick, first in Fredericton (Freddy Beach!) for the inaugural Shivering Songs Festival, hosted by the Olympic Symphonium, and unbelievably good band. In fact, I saw so much good music in such a short time that I was left fully impressed and blown away by the strength and quality of the New Brunswick music community. And I LOVED being storyteller on the Songwriters and Storytellers Circle at the gorgeous Wilmot Church! And I got to check out the Capitol Bar! Thanks so much to Kyle and the Olympic Symphonium for having me.

On Sunday afternoon, after a wonderful Bluegrass Breakfast at the Snooty Fox in Freddy, my good friend and talented musician David Myles and I hit the road to Moncton, a town that was one of the world hot-spots for The Smugglers; wild shows would always ensue. The book event was held at Marky’s Laundromat and Espresso Bar, a fantastic little hangout run by one of the legendary Leger brothers, one of the coolest rock n roll-loving families in Canada.

In both cities I met a tonne of fantastic people from all over the place. Cheers to my old pal Ken Kelley for bringing me back to Moncton, to Marky for hosting, to David Myles for performing his perfect songs to compliment the stories, Martin and Moe for making the trip from Charlottetown, to Adam for making the trek from Freddy for a double-dose in Moncton, to Ray from Saint John for all the Moosehead Brewery loot. Back in Freddy, thanks to Zach and Fergus at the Capitol Bar for treating me like a king, to all the very kind musicians, Westminster Books in Fredericton and Chapter’s in Moncton, and to all the local publications in both towns for the great ink! Much appreciated, see you again!

Next up: Picton, Ontario in Prince Edward County in two weeks!

THE BAD STUFF:

Well I guess you could say all the scooting around Canada in winter finally caught up to me. After  an eight province, 30 city national book tour over the past four months, through remarkably smooth travel conditions, I finally got torched by the Canadian winter, and one of our fabulous airlines.

It all came crashing down on Sunday night, after a fantastic couple of New Brunswick book and music events in Fredericton and Moncton. First, I found out my flight out of snowy Moncton was delayed by two hours (eventually it would be close to four hours) which meant I missed my connection in Toronto to get me home to Vancouver. Major bummer, but merde happens, and I figured I could spend the night with my “in-laws” in downtown Toronto.

As I stumbled from the plane at 1:30am in Toronto, I was greeted by a friendly airline agent who joyfully apologized for my “interrupted trip” and informed me that a free hotel room had been reserved for me in my name, right beside the airport, along with a breakfast and dinner voucher, and shuttle service, no need to travel to and from Toronto.

Great, I thought, easy for me! Little did I know the hell in store… the shuttle didn’t come around the airport to pick me up until about 2:30am, and then led me 20 minutes from the airport, through industrial wastelands, to a seedy, shoddy, fleabug crackden of a hotel. The lobby was filled with reprobates, drug dealers, and douche bags, the halls littered with trash, random doors of rooms open ajar or wide, displaying deplorable rooms.

My room was over-the-top disgusting, with food remnants on the floor, dirty sheets, threadbare towels, hair in the sink and tub. But it was now 3:00am, what choice did I have? I was also frightened to go back in the hallway as I could hear screaming, fighting, and breaking glass. I’m not sure when I actually fell asleep, but it was to the hellish rhythm of random obscenities shouted in the hallway and weird creatures biting my entire body.

When I went down to the lobby in the morning to catch my shuttle, I was informed that I had arrived too late to cash in the dinner voucher and was leaving too early to cash in the breakfast voucher. No worries, as the breakfast buffet looked like ground zero for swine flu.

SO… um… have the airlines been reading my tweets?!? If so… touché. You certainly stuck to me on this night!

"Smart Water"? More like PEI Fire Water!

I just returned home from presenting Adventures in Solitude to an Alberta audience for the first time; what a weekend! Thanks to Pages Books in Calgary for hosting the event on Friday night, and to everyone who came out to a make it one of the most crowded readings I’ve done yet! To those who had to remain standing, I hope it wasn’t too painful…

It was a thrill and an honour to have my old pal KJ Jansen, lead singer of Chixdiggit, perform three songs acoustically in between my readings and ramblings. Also in attendance were lots of members from the Barber side of the family, many musicians the Smugglers used to play with, and Calgary’s CBC Radio 3 faithful out in force, for which I am forever grateful.

Thanks very much to Doctor Bryce “Sunshine” Adamson who organized an after-reading drink at Molly Malone’s Pub next door… where a friendly fellow named James (pictured above), who was at the reading, presented me with a very special gift. Now, at many of these book events across the country I have been delighted to accept various gifts of BEER. I love beer! James decided to raise the booze bar several notches, and alcohol percentage points, when he presented me with a plastic bottle of bootlegged MOONSHINE from his hometown on Prince Edward Island! There are plenty of tales of moonshine in my book, and unbeknownst to me, PEI still rocks the moonshine stills in this century! I promised James I would bring this Atlantic Canadian moonshine to Desolation Sound on the Pacific coast, to complete its contraband cross-country journey.

On Saturday morning I conducted my Making Friends with the Media seminar for Alberta Music at the Cantos Music Foundation for a great group of musicians of various ages and stages, and afterwards, thanks to Cantos teacher Chris Maric, had a tour of the OUTSTANDING, mind-blowing, world-class piano and keyboard collection upstairs. A really spectacular array of instruments. Michael Bernard Fitzgerald then took me out to a great lunch joint, UNA, for pizza and beer.

On Sunday I made the trek to Canmore for the first time, a little village tucked just inside the glorious and ragged peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The approach from Calgary’s rolling foothills to the sudden astounding mountain range is one of my favourite drives in the country.

I arrived to a jam-packed Communitea Cafe, filled with Canmore’s sporty, youthful, healthy, spritely population and immediately wondered if they would pipe down for a book reading. Not to worry… owner Marnie Dansereau has incredible energy and had everything under control. Not only was she cooking for everybody in the restaurant, but she was also looking after me, setting up the stage for the book reading, and taking care of Craig Cardiff, for his sold-out show that evening. The book reading was a lot of fun, it was great to meet some of the Rocky Mountain faithful, thanks to Craig Cardiff for performing and Cafe Books for selling Adventures in Solitude. One more thing: Communitea Cafe has totally delicious food! And I got to check out the legendary Canmore Hotel! And see a crazy old German guy wipe out in his jeep on the snowy median! (not Bernard the German, different crazy old German guy).

Up next: New Brunswick this weekend! Fredericton and the Shivering Songs Festival on Saturday, Moncton on Sunday, both with David Myles.

You asked for it, you have it! For the many people who have tweeted, texted, facebooked and emailed me the question “is there and ebook version?” the answer is YES. We are happy to announce that as of NOW the ebook edition of Adventures in Solitude is available for sale on Amazon.

The book can now be read and enjoyed on:

* Kindle Latest Generation
* Kindle DX
* Kindle 2nd Generation
* Kindle 1st Generation

As well as these Kindle Mobile Apps:

* Windows Phone
* iPad, iPhone & iPod
* Android
* Blackberry

…And Kindle for PCs and Macs. I’m honoured that Adventures in Solitude is the very first ebook in the storied 37-year history of Harbour Publishing. Cheers to everyone at Harbour for taking a leap of faith with me and this book.