Another Friend Goes Down Hard

My friend of over 30 years Dan Achen has passed away.

Danny passed on Monday while playing hockey in Oakville. He apparently had a heart attack on the ice and the local paramedics were unable to revive him.

I first met him in May of 1977 when he was just out of high school in Regina and looking for a job. The construction company I was working for hired him and Danny came to work with us building the cable TV system. We hit it off right away and even though Dan was a real firecracker and could be a royal pain in the ass he was mostly a ton of fun to hang around with.

Dan was blessed with a great family a good head on his shoulders and wicked sense of humor. He was always enthusiastic about life and especially about the things he loved most.

We shared a common interest in music and motorcycles and Danny always had a good nose for a deal, wherever it might be found. The two of us were always buying and selling cars and trucks and bikes and usually ended up with the other's wheels at some point before they got traded off to some unsuspecting third party. We played pick up hockey on outdoor ice in Regina at 40 below... we hung out in the local clubs and we just had ball being young and single guys.

I helped Danny sort out the first real motorcycle he owned (little dirt bikes don't count). It was a blue 72 Norton Interstate with a soft engine and a ratty seat and paint. We got the thing running half decently and had a ball riding out to Fort Qu'Appelle just to tool around the curvy roads or often to hit parties around the lake. I ended up buying that lump from Danny a couple of years later and revived it with some new parts and paint. It was around that time that Danny bought the famous Suzuki GS1000-S. (Incorrectly remembered by Junkhouse Bandmate Tom Wilson as a Kawi Ninja)

In any case all those old rides we shared are now long gone and we both managed to survive them and ourselves.

The other main interest Danny and I shared was guitars. I remember the first electric he bought back in 77. It was a nice little Les Paul Junior that he found in a classified ad and bought for some ridiculous low dollar amount. I think it came with a clunky little Gibson amp that he should probably have kept.... but traded for a nice Fender Twin Reverb. As I recall ... both the Junior and the amps were subsequently traded for something else along the way, Danny being the young wheeler and dealer that he was.

At this time Danny was still pretty much learning how to play guitar and I didn't have much in the way of finger calluses either. I've still got the Mel Bay guitar method and Chet Atkins chord books books he gave me. There's a beat up Ibanez six string with the hummingbird motif that I've laid to rest from a terminal case of wood fatigue that warped the top into the shape of soup spoon and there is my prized custom Telecaster. I bought that guitar from him and the Toyota Corona his mom had given him .... then Danny used my money to help pay for that infamous Suzuki.

After 1980 when Danny headed out to Ontario and I relocated to Winnipeg we never saw much of each other. We got together a couple times in Ontario to head out to some of the old clubs. We got together a few times when Danny was on the road with the band and passing through Winnipeg.

In the years that I have know Dan Achen I have very few regrets. One of those regrets is that I never got to meet his wife and son. Another is that we never got a chance to play together again.
I regret that we never got together for a fast ride around the back roads of the Niagara Escarpment. I regret that my friend could not have had a long life.

Thanks for everything Danny ..... I'll treasure the Tele and the memory of our good times for as long as I live.

Your pal,

OMMAG

Just When You Think It Couldn't Get More Stupid....

In walks John Kerry ....

'Desperation Time': NYT Promotes 'National Security' Climate Fears - But claims are merely 'a redux of 1970's laughable scares about famines and resource scarcity'

Well .... yes.


The most remarkable thing is that when the USA was attacked by Arab Terrorists .... right in front yard of the Times ...... they could do nothing but undermine the US Government for striking back.

Now with the loony toons Dems ensconced in the halls of power .... it's cheerleading time.... no matter what.

OMMAG

Revisiting The Neo-Conservative Epithet!

Anybody been called a Neo-Con recently?

I hear it crop up among youngish people once in a while and occasionally get the term tossed my way as a pejorative but on the whole I'm not seeing it used in the media or much in public as it was a few years ago. Like last year when I got called that by someone who chose to use the term as an epithet while talking behind my back to a mutual acquaintance ..... they shouldn't have been so worried about it! I'd admit to the fact that in many ways I meet the definition of neo-conservative.

I guess the fact that these people who believe it to be an ultimate sort of slur are too ingrained in their own self righteousness to understand that the foundations of neo-conservatism lie in very real and undistorted understanding of the ultimate futility and falseness of modern Liberalism.

You can see how Wiki Pedia makes the case that the "Neo Conservative" is an aberration in that modern Liberals suddenly decided that they were moving to the right as an act of political will and that all this only began happening in the 1960's and reached some new level in the Regan Era of US politics.
Aside from the US centric view of the contributors to Wiki Pedia I'd say that the problem with this view is that, the real evolution was that socialists began having more influence on the Liberal politicos thus drawing the traditionally liberal parties like the Democrats or the Canadian Liberals much further to the left of center.
Although in Canada we had that "Special" case of PET the avid socialist with a plan who very clearly mapped out and executed the plan for taking the Liberal party into the socialist path.

This left true centrist liberals in a defacto position of being right of center in the political spectrum.

However what went very much the wrong way was that many traditional Liberals or Democrats stuck with their party. Blindly loyal to the name and the brand it was these groups that enabled the hijacking of their parties into the realm of the extremely socialist camp of ideologues.
Witness the intransigent party supporters in their geographic clusters who NEVER change their vote regardless of what the party they are affiliated with morphs into. Witness also the generational fealty in these groups. It's like ingrained cult behaviour and the victims are just plain terrified of the "other" even if the other is often their own former compatriots.

Yep! Go ahead and call me a NEOCON and don't be afraid to say it to my face.

BTW - In order to actually be a "Neo - Conservative" I think I would have had to be a Liberal first and in the early post WWII years of 1945 to 1953 or there about ..... subsequently having an awakening to the reality of the utter fallaciousness of modern liberalism and it's adherents!

As it is the more accurate term would be "Post Neocon" or possibly "Post Modern Conservative" !

In any case it really does not matter because since I am NOT a Liberal in the modern sense I feel absolutely NO need rely on such labels to define myself.

OMMAG

Requiem - Bo Diddly!

Can't Judge a Book Baby ... By Lookin at the Cover!

A video from the past ... "Ho-Down" ....
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Check out the old vids at You Tube .....




Another ... " (Spot the Amy Winehouse lookalike)

Aztec .. played by Bo with a good photo montage !

OMMAG

Now If You Really Want To Get Back To Your Roots!

http://www.kamat.com/database/content/paintings/5181.htm

Because ALL of our ancestors did at one time!
All cultures all ethnicities at one time or another worshiped Stones or Trees!

These days......
Some of us are more enlightened ....... some Not So much!

OMMAG