Wow how time flies!  I can’t believe it is September tomorrow.  The sun is still shining here in beautiful BC and hopefully we will see an extended summer well into September.

 

The tail end of my summer has definitely been the better half (not that the first half wasn’t great too).  Just the past couple of weeks have been really fun.  My plan at the beginning of the summer was to have a lot of fun and to visit a lot of places around BC, and I have been doing both.

 

This past week I left BC and went to Vancouver, WA to meet up with my friends and partners the Fillers.  Starting this year I am no longer going to be booking myself in school outside of BC.  Cara and Jason are hooking me up and I couldn’t be more stoked.

 

I am a part of a select team of speakers that will be touring North America with hopes of reaching one million students during this calendar school year.  The tour is called The Drive to Save Lives Tour.  If you want to learn more about it or to be a part of the tour please follow the link.  The speakers so far are me, Cara and another great speaker named Kupa who is based out of Boston.  I have not yet met Kupa but have heard a ton of positive things about him from Cara.  Cara is just great, and I’m sure many people who have seen me speak likley have seen her as well because we both speak a ton across Canada… Cara is an international speaker, which is my future plan as well.

 

Cara has been speaking in schools way longer than I have and has a knack for remembering people’s names and what I would call making friends everywhere she goes.  She is very well known and respected and I am so looking forward to all of the opportunities that lay ahead through my meeting and partnering with her and Jason.

 

My partners (my team) have already booked me three US conferences.  I did one in March of last year.  It was the Washington State SADD Conference – a conference I had been wanting to do for years.  They also have me booked to do the Arizona State SADD Conference and to be a keynote speaker in the Ohio Lights for Life Campaign this fall.  I am extremely excited to be speaking in the USA this year!

 

Besides getting down to business, I had a great visit with Cara, Jason and their son Jaxson.  It is really awesome that beyond our working relationship I quite like my new friends and partners.  I was very taken with Vancouver, WA as well.  It is a beautiful city.  I found driving out to their place that Washington gets prettier and prettier as you head south…  maybe it’s just because it got warmer and warmer too because I love the heat!

 

On my way home I stopped in Centralia, WA.  They have a Volcom outlet store there and that is my own personal kid in a toy store dream.  The store was very well stocked with sick clothes which meant I spent well over an hour in there and a couple hundred dollars.  Volcom is definitely my favourite brand.  With shopping and rush hour factored in on a Friday, my commute home took quite a while.  I was pretty tired by the time I finally reached the border. 

 

The signs approaching the border said 5 minute waits, so that was good news.  I accidentally went to the Peace Arch Crossing instead of the Truck Crossing and the line up looked a lot longer than 5 minutes.  I could see police lights ahead of the big line of cars I was waiting in but thought nothing of it really.

 

As I moved further up the line I could see that the police were checking vehicles before they got to the actual border.  I figured maybe someone was trying to flee the country or they had some tip off about a big drug smuggling operation and just assumed being by myself I would be let right through.

 

As I approached the police line, I watched them wave vehicle after vehicle straight through, so I figured for sure I was good.  All of a sudden it’s my turn to go by and a cop says in a very serious not messing around about way “Vehicle off and hand me your keys.”

 

I obliged.  Even though I was innocent and not doing anything unsavoury, I felt pretty nervous.  He asked me for my ID and I tried passing him my KM Log book thinking it was my passport (they are the same colour and size).  He said he didn’t want that.  He wanted my ID.  Around the same time my passenger door was opened and two cops started to rifle through all of my stuff while another searched the outside of the vehicle.  Again I tried to pass the first cop my KM Log book as I was distracted and kind of freaked out.  He again told me he didn’t want that and started to tear into me about my ID.  Thankfully I noticed my mistake (blonde moment) and gave him my passport.  About this time the female cop noticed my wheelchair in the back behind the passenger seat and asked what it was.  I said it was a wheelchair.  She said “oh you’re in a wheelchair?” and all of a sudden it was like I was had diplomatic immunity…  the searching ended, the first officer handed me my ID and off I went.

 

I couldn’t help but wonder why my wheelchair instantly turned me from suspect to innocent.  I wondered if it was just a distraction.  Or maybe they were looking for someone in particular that drove a truck similar to mine.  I bet if so he wasn’t in a chair and these four wheels saved me from some serious hassles and interrogation. 

 

It is not the first time something like this has happened at the border either because on the way over to Vancouver, WA something totally similar happened with the border guard.  He was looking around my vehicle suspiciously and then spotted the chair and asked what it was.  I told him it was a wheelchair.  He said “oh you’re in a wheelchair” then “nice truck” then let me go through.

 

Some stereotypes suck!  But I have no problems with any special treatment my wheelchair get me.  In fact, I seriously hope that there is never some high profile bad ass person who uses a wheelchair.  It seems to me like the four wheels are a great way of letting the world know I am not a threat. So I really do hope that some jerk doesn’t screw it up for the rest of us innocent wheelchair users!

 

Kevin

Hello again…

Well a lot has happened since my crazy Warped Tour day I wrote about in my last blog.  But first…  speaking of the Warped Tour, Wheelchair Willie got a mention in the Georgia Straight. 

I had an awesome few days in the Okanagan last week.  Allison and Jeff were up there with their boat and my mom and Hayley were up there too.  I drove up on Tuesday.  It was a warm sunny day and the drive seemed to go rather quickly.  It gave me lots of time to think and reflect, and my brain was in over drive.

The next day was an amazing day.  I spent it boating with Allison, Jeff, my mom, Hayley, and some of our mutual friends.  Probably the funnest part of the day was going on a three-man tube with Hayley and Allison and then Hayley and my mom.  I also got to watch Hayley climb a rocky hill like a champ and cliff jump with no fear.  I was proud of my little sister.  I could see how we are very much alike in the fact that we are adventurous souls with a bit of a wild side.  There were tons of smiles and laughs on this day.  It was one of those days that I just felt so lucky to be alive.  I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did when Jeff, our buddy Goos and I all went on the tube.  Words cannot describe the hilarity that went down, but I can say that there were three big boys giggling like three little girls for a good half an hour on that tube.

It was a scorcher the next day.  I met up with Allison and Jeff on Kalmalka Lake.  This is one beautiful lake and I had one amazing day.  We all did.  We were in the water for most of it because it was in the mid 30s all day.  We boated until the sun went down and then I made my way out of town and for home. 

I had a lot on my mind as I drove home.  I reflected on the great couple of days I had just had.  I reflected on life and on love… 

I have learned over and over again that timing is everything in life.  So often it’s like we are trying to have everything and to have it now.  But sometimes we have to wait, especially for those things that mean and matter the most.  Ironically, as much as we might have to wait sometimes we also have to put ourselves out there and take safe risks that ensure people know what it is we desire and who it is we care for.  There are no guarantees in life.  Destiny is within our reach but out of our grasps.  Destiny isn’t tangible.  We chase it our entire lives or until ones passion for life ceases to exist.  This chase motivates us to wake up each day.  It’s what allows us to bask in the great days and helps us to overcome the tough ones.  We need to have faith and follow our hearts and be true to ourselves and our plans and can only hope that our dreams will come true one day.  We need to have constantly evolving dreams and to steadily challenge ourselves.  Sometimes the most important things in life come with sacrifice. 

Love I believe is the most powerful and amazing feeling we humans can feel.  Love exists but can never be forced.  It just has to happen.  Love needs to grow.  Sometimes it grows quickly, sometimes slowly.  Some loves last a lifetime, some seem to not last long enough, and of course some might last too long, but any love that feels like it has lasted too long is not true love in my books.  Love has given me some of my best memories of my life – many in the past couple of years.  Love has also made me cry more tears than anything else in my life, but I still believe in it and hope for it and await the next journey it will take me on.  Maybe my next love will be with a girl named Awesome.  Maybe it won’t.  I do know that the experience of knowing a girl named Awesome has taught me some valuable lessons that I won’t soon forget.  I know how I feel and I know how she feels.  For now that is good enough…  I’ll let the stars decide the rest…

 

Wow I know it has definitely been a while since I have posted anything on here, so this may be a BIG posting today.  Where to begin?

 

…So yesterday was about one of the best days I have ever had! 

 

I have skipped the last couple years of the Warped Tour.  I think one even skipped Vancouver.  Regardless I was pretty well all but worn out of the entire festival vibe that is the Vans Warped Tour.

 

For starters I am really not interested in being patted down and searched upon entry like I am going to visit my uncle in prison.  I don’t actually have an uncle in prison, but if I did TV has taught me that the process would be much like the way I feel when I enter Warped.  Also the lack of healthy good food, water, organization, shelter and many other basic freedoms we are blessed with living in a free country seem to not apply at Warped Tour (at least not in Vancouver).

 

Yesterday I went almost entirely because I wanted to see a band called Streetlight Manifesto.  They are a ska band that I started listening to a couple of years back.  I remember the first day I heard them.  I was shopping in Seattle at Zoomies and this sick music was playing overhead.  When I asked the gal at the counter who it was she told me Streetlight Manifesto.  She was a huge fan.  The band was sick, but more than anything I was wondering how this sick band could have flown under my punk rock / ska radar for however many years it took them to put out three albums.  The next stop was Best Buy where I bought all three of their albums to no disappointment.  I have been a huge fan ever since.

 

I went to Warped with my buddy Taeben.  He is one of my old school friends who I still see on occasion, mostly at shows.  We had most recently seen Social Distortion together (ironically around the same time I made my last posting on here).  I had bought the tix to Social D, so Taeben picked up the tix to Warped.

 

When I woke up yesterday to a dreary, cloudy, rainy day I wasn’t much feeling like going to Warped.  I contacted my friend Jessica on the inside to get the scoop on who was playing when.  I wanted to plan my entry and exit to coordinate with the few bands I wanted to see.  Beyond Streetlight there were two of the pioneering godfathers of the music I know as punk rock called NOFX and Bad Religion also playing.  All combined, definitely not a bad line-up.

 

I picked Taeben up around 2pm and we slowly made our way to UBC’s Thunderbird Stadium.  Quite honestly I wasn’t feeling in the best of moods.  My mood was about as dreary as the weather yesterday, and hence forth to enhance this great mood I drove to Taeben’s listening to death metal… might as well throw gas on the fire right?  I warned him about the death metal.  Being a good buddy he was down.  As we crossed the bridge over the mighty (polluted) Fraser River, past the sewage plant and into Richmond we could see sunny skies in the horizon in the direction of our destination.  It was also at this time I switched the overly positive album Slaughter of the Soul by At The Gates to Streetlight Manifesto and mysteriously my mood brightened like the weather.

 

Sure enough when we got to Warped it was a pretty sunny day.  I parked my truck and Taeben and I tried to find our best way to get into Thunderbird.  It has been so long since I have been to Warped that the entire surrounding area at Thunderbird has changed significantly.  I have vivid memories of one Jack Johnson concert at said venue last summer where I was trudging through mud and hills in my wheelchair in attempts to gain entry.  (Awwwe Jack Johnson…  I fell in love to your music once but now I think I would prefer a fork in the eye than to listen to your cutesy love songs…)

 

At the gates (no not your new favourite death metal band I just introduced you to a couple paragraphs ago) but at the actual gates of the show we met my friend Jessica.  She is always my friend on the inside, and I was hoping she could hook us up with an easier more accessible and less violating entry than the main gates.  Sure enough she could…  Jess rules!  She hooks me up all the time.

 

Just as we were about to do a side entry into the back stage area we met a dude driving a Gator named Aiden.  Aiden obviously worked for the festival and unlike the ten billion cops everywhere, seemed to be looking to hook a couple of dudes up with a great experience at Warped 2009.  We were escorted by this friendly gent to the back of the main stage where I saw many familiar faces from the punk rock world.  I saw members and family of Bad Religion and also most of the NOFX backstage team including Kent (the manager) and Jay and Limo (the roadies).  I was stoked!

 

Taeben and I set up shop stage left.  We were right up front for Bad Religion; and they absolutely killed it, as they always do.  I have seen Bad Religion about once every year for the past ten years and I never get sick of them and am never ever, ever disappointed.  So once again, yesterday’s set was so rad!  We sang along to the fast songs and crooned to the classic slow BR songs like 21^st Century Digital Boy.  We weren’t the only ones singing.  We were sitting and singing along side a couple of cute Island gals I met in the pit.  The day just kept getting better.

 

There was a bit of a problem though…  Bad Religion’s set overlapped with Streetlight Manifesto’s set.  It was also on the opposite end of the grounds and definitely an obstacle for wheelie Willie (my new nickname that I will explain in chapter 10, 000 of this already very long blog).  Also Streetlight Manifesto’s set was going to run right up until NOFX’s start time, and NOFX were playing back at the main stage where Bad Religion was playing and making my life complete better than Tom Cruise ever could.  I bet you had to read that a few times for it to make sense.

 

I figured I would miss Streetlight Manifesto because there was NO WAY I was going to miss NOFX again.  I spoke at the CYAID Conference this past May instead of seeing NOFX.  I have no regrets on the decision, but man I would’ve loved to see them because I heard it was amazing.  So here was my chance to see them.  Only I was in a bit of a bind because I really wanted to see Streetlight Manifesto too.  My decision was sealed when I started thinking that there was no way a likely 8 – 10 piece band like Streetlight Manifesto could even remotely compare in sound and tightness live to their actual albums.

 

Just as I was letting go of my Streetlight aspirations (the entire reason I came to Warped Tour I remind you) out of nowhere appears our new friend Aiden.  We get chatting and he also wants to see this Streetlight band.  I explain the logistic issues and he says “No problem.  Hop in my Gator and I’ll get you guys up there.” – Umm SICK!

 

So Aiden and Taeben help me into the Gator for my first Gator ride, Gator, Gator, Gator and we get chatting.  Aiden is about the nicest dude.  He wants to help a dude in a chair have a great day.  Heck he has a buddy in a chair too.  You know sometimes being crippled ain’t all bad.

 

Aiden rips us up to Streetlight’s stage where they are killing it.  He drives around to the side of the stage and parks perfectly so I can see everything.  And guess what the band that I figured could never be as tight live as they are recorded proved me dead wrong!  They were killing it!  Things were going great.  And what’s even greater (Gator) is that they got even better.  Since Aiden worked for Warped he knew other people with power and before we knew it we were on stage with Streetlight Manifesto.  I could almost touch the drummer… and did I mention they were killing it!!!???  I felt a huge grin curve from ear to ear as I rocked out to one of my favourite bands…  Then as I looked out into the pit I saw my fellow punk show loyalists: cousin-Alina, her bf Sharpee and her friend Laura.  They were waving at me looking quite stoked that I was in such a prime location.

 

My day was seriously made then and there.  I could’ve not even seen NOFX and went home pretty darn happy, but that wouldn’t make for one of the best days ever now would it?

 

As soon as Streetlight finished, we piled back onto and around the Gator and made our way back down to the main stage.  We were cutting it close, but it was going to work out because NOFX wasn’t starting for 5minutes.  You could feel the energy backstage as old Danzig blasted from a small stereo in prep for NOFX’s show..  Yep they listen to Danzig before they go on stage.  There was a growing crowd looking to get onstage where me and Taeben also really wanted to be.  He told me after that he didn’t think it was going to happen.  I on the other hand was thinking positive and of course that usually leads to good things.  All of sudden Taeben nudges me and there they are NOFX.  NOFX lead by a very drunken Fat Mike (singer, bass player and Fat Records founder and owner).

 

Now some people want to meet the Pope; some people want to meet Barrack Obama or Oprah…  Me… I have always wanted to meet Mr. Fat Mike.  From everything I have seen of him he is about the funniest and funnest guys alive.  He is a punk rock legend responsible for signing a good chunk of my favourite bands and producing more sick albums than I can even name.  He has written and sang some of the best songs I know.  He started freakin Fat Wreck Chords - my most frequently visited website is www.fatwreck.com. 

 

All of a sudden Fat Mike is beside me, and I just kind of wave in a holy crap you rule fashion.  Fat Mike slurs in my direction “he man you wanna to get on stage, umm lots of people are going up on up stage.”

 

He was pretty trashed.  I was beyond stoked!  I turned around and looked at Taeben with a look that said we did it again my friend.  This was going to be SICK!  We waited for the proper pecking order to the cattle drive on stage until it was our turn.  Then up the ramp we went.

 

Now I can’t say this was my first time on stage with NOFX.  But it was my first sober trip on stage with NOFX and that was pretty rad.  I was not going to forget any of this.

 

We had pretty rad seats in the back, Taeben and I.  We were like kids in a candy store.  We were pretty close to NOFX’s drummer, Stinky.  We could see the guitarist Eric Melvin pretty good and Fat Mike and El Hefe were in and out of our line of sight.  We sat among VIP’s from other bands like Bad Religion and waited for the show to start.  As soon as NOFX started bantering with the audience being complete A-holes for the most part it was obvious this was going to be the show of a lifetime.  NOFX’s live banter is as good if not better than their music at times because they will take shots at anyone from themselves, to the audience, to the president of the USA… they don’t care and the more offensive they are the better.  Some people find this entertaining.  I am on of these people.

 

We could see the set list, which was cool.  It was a great mix of old and new with some seriously sneaky surprises (Grade 10 English – That’s called alliteration isn’t it?)  NOFX sounded great and they were making us laugh our butts off backstage.  I was taking pictures and sending bragging text messages to people who didn’t go to the Warped Tour this year.  Then all of a sudden Fat Mike announces to the audience that they have a guy in a wheelchair on stage.  He is obviously referring to me.  He starts to poke fun at handicaps which I found quite amusing and then told the audience he preferred to call them lazy.  I was just lazy.  Then he says “Where is that guy?  Get out here wheelchair guy!”

 

Are you f’n kidding me?

 

So I roll out towards the front of the stage and park kind of back a bit from the band.  Nope.  Fat Mike wants me up front and centre.  He continues on with his rant, as I think wow that is a lot of people staring at me right now.  Thank God I speak to huge crowds and am not terrified of the thousands of people watching me get heckled.  Hey I am good sport.  Fat Mike decides he is going to call me Wheelie or Willie… and there is my new nickname.  Then he dedicates the next song to me and blasts out F the Kids.  As he is playing he is pretty well putting the neck of his bass guitar in my eye and just having the best of times… ummm yeah me too!!!

 

The song ends and I have just had pretty well the sickest moment ever at a punk show.  I realize that they likely want their stage back so I turn around to return to my original seat.  Nope.  Fat Mike comes running out mid song and says “No, no, no…get out here.”

 

He plants me right between him and Eric Melvin where I will sit for the remainder of their show!  Did I mention yesterday was one of the best days of my life?!

 

I sat on stage looking at one of my favourite bands rocking out and cracking some of the funniest jokes and commentaries I have ever heard.  They blew me away with songs like The Man I Killed; Radio, Radio, Radio (Rancid cover) and Linoleum.  Heck, they blew me away on every level, but those three songs stoked me the most.  Quite honestly at times it was a little awkward being right up front on stage with NOFX, having thousands of people looking at me or in my direction.  What do you do?  I mean I am used to entertaining an audience, but now I was a member from the outside, on the inside, looking out.  I decided to just rock out, swing, dance, sing, play air guitar and even chat a bit with Eric Melvin between songs.  Eric Melvin by the way is the nicest down to earth dude.

 

When the show ended I was all smiles.  I mean how can that be topped?  The only way would be if I turned on the news last night and heard they found a cure to spinal chord injuries.  That would be pretty sick!  I think I’d have to keep the wheelchair though so I could have great VIP days like yesterday.  Somehow I don’t think all of that fun stuff would have happened if I was walking.  How ironic.

 

Taeben and I hung around back stage for a while.  I wanted to thank Fat Mike and get a picture or two.  We ended up chatting with Fatty for a while from all sorts of topics ranging from punk rock, to offensive humour to the bruises on his butt from the dominatrix he flew in from Toronto that he had waiting for him on his tour bus.  Fat Mike told us he had to piss and before he left I got a picture with him basically sitting in my lap.  Cool!

 

Taeben and I then chatted with Eric Melvin and Greg Hetson from Bad Religion for a little while.  It was pretty cool to just be hanging out with these idols of ours we have looked up to for over a decade.  We were all equals.  That is why I love punk rock.  I love it for its attitude.  Sure it started as a way to say F the system and in many ways it still does.  But the attitude stops there.  We are all equal.  Every one of us.  So why treat one person different than the next?  NOFX’s motto, much like that of Family Guy, is make fun of everyone equally so nobody can come back and crap on you. 

 

I never thought I’d meet Fat Mike when I left my place yesterday in a crappy mood.  I never thought I’d have one of the best days of my life.  I never thought that meeting NOFX would be translated into a blog with some sort of moral commentary.  I almost didn’t go yesterday.  I am glad that I did. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

PS.  I took up guitar and have been playing a lot and practising.  So a lot of my free time that was once dedicated to writing this blog is now dedicated to playing music.

 

PPS.  I started work on my book with my cousin as co-author.  We don’t have an exact ETA but hopefully in the next year or so I will have a book for those who enjoy reading my writing.

 

~: )

 

Kevin