21 Random Facts About Aye Pancakes

I’m still new to Substack, and one of my goals here is to distract from what’s happening on Earth these days. With that in mind, here are some facts about me. I was going to say they were interesting things, but I guess that’s for you to decide.

I’d be grateful if you shared some facts about yourself in the comments. People are interesting. You’re a people. Let’s get to know each other.

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1. I was born in Gibraltar. Not a lot of people can say that. It’s a little spit of land on the southern coast of Spain, at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea; the Straight of Gibraltar. You can see Morocco from there on a clear day. It’s only about 13 kilometres away. You’d think that’d make me Spanish, but Gibraltar is a British territory. There’s a story there, but I’ll save that for another post.

2. I’m an only child. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere. I have always felt, and continue to feel, like an outsider.

3. I will never spell it “mom”. It’s “mum” because that’s how Scots spell it.

4. My doctor told me I don’t have ADHD. He told me I’m curious. Cats are curious too, and you know how that works out for them.

5. My parents emigrated to Canada in 1967. We came on the last trans-Atlantic voyage of the Queen Mary. We got off in New York, took a bus to Toronto, then the train to Vancouver. We arrived in Van on July 1, which was Canada’s centennial. That seems symbolic.

6. When I was 8, we moved to Calgary. With the exception of a few years in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I moved back to Vancouver, I’ve lived my whole life here. Every year, on the first day that winter starts being an asshole, I phone my mum and scold her for not emigrating to New Zealand.

7. I was a smart kid, but I was lazy and disinterested. I graduated from high school as a C student

8. I flunked out of my first year of Journalism at college. On the first day of classes, one of my profs said, “This isn’t like high school. We already have your money so if you don’t want to show up, it’s no skin off our back. So I went drinking and finished the first semester with a 0.25 GPA.

9. I enrolled in Broadcasting the next year. That’s where I should have been in the first place. One of my profs told me I was one of the most intuitive students he’d ever had. I got it. Another prof told me I was one of the most self-destructive people he’d ever met after I submitted what was supposed to be a serious news assignment using the voices of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Maybe I didn’t get it.

10. After I graduated (with honours) from college, I worked in radio broadcasting for a couple of years. I quit broadcasting and moved to Vancouver with the intention of becoming a rock star. It didn’t work out, but I did spend about a decade as a touring musician in the club scene.

11. I have tinnitus, which means if have an 8000Kz squeal in my right ear 24 hours a day. It “sounds” about as loud as normal conversation, but it isn’t actual noise. I can “hear” it more when it’s quiet, which makes getting to sleep a challenge.

12. I spent a couple of years doing improv theatre at Loose Moose Theatre. There was about six months overlap when Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney were also there. They later went on to form The Kids In the Hall. I do not know them, and they do not know me.

13. I spent a year as a DJ at a strip club. It was fun for three days, and then it sucked. I hated spending summer days trapped inside a windowless concrete box full of cigarette smoke and naked girls who thought they were stars.

14. I started a web design company in 1997, not because I saw any real future in it, but because I wanted to work from home so my kids didn’t have to go to daycare.

15. I have a cousin who was a general in the Royal Army. He never struck me as a killer, but I guess you can never really know someone.

16. I taught multimedia at a local college for five years. When my contract was up, I got a job processing payroll for a bank. I also drove a school bus. Other people’s kids are shitty more often than not.

17. I managed a co-location data centre for 12 years. It nearly killed me. I hated the work and my boss was cunt.

18. In 2018, cannabis was fully legalized in Canada. I have no idea how it happened, but I ended up managing a couple of cannabis stores. The early days of legalization was fun. These days, it isn’t. Weed has become a commodity. I might as well have been selling donuts.

19. I’m about two-thirds of the way through my life. I’m currently unemployed and fully freaking out about what my future holds. All my friends that became teachers and health care workers and such have retired. Every single one of them is smarter than me, and while I’m grateful for their friendship I have no idea why they continue to be my friends.

20. All along, all I’ve really wanted to be is a writer. So now I tell people that’s what I am. It’s better than being unemployed but it pays about the same.

21. All that being said; once a day, every day, I wish I was still a musician. That was the one time in my life when I was cool.

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Take care of yourself and somebody else too, if you can.