One thing I am constantly struck by in the podcasting and social media community is the honesty and courage shown by so many people, as they share the hardships they face, and how they deal with these issues.

I have decided therefore that it is time for me to open up about something:

My name is John Meadows, and I am dealing with clinical depression, kept more or less under control through daily medication.

Up until now, I have kept this side of me very quiet. Outside of family, there were only two people who knew, although I am guessing some people might have had their suspicions, especially in the last few weeks. The last few weeks have been rough, leading to such actions as deleting my Twitter account (bye-bye mbrane) but I think things are turning around, and by refusing to hide any more I am feeling empowered.

Doing this is not without risk, of course. There is still stigma and misinformation about depression (and mental illness in general), but I see enough people publically acknowledging what they are dealing with that I felt compelled to join their number in being open and honest.

The die is cast.

Tags: Depression

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Some time ago, my good friend Keith Burtis suggested I listen to a music podcast called Acoustic Long Island, a podcast devoted to acoustic music, performed live. He also recommended that I listen in particular to an episode featuring a singer-songwriter named Liz Longley. I listened, and was amazed by the depth of emotion I heard in her voice: there were elements of both fragility and strength coming through, woven together in an intense honesty.

I heard that she had a CD for sale, so I bought it on cdbaby.com, and have enjoyed listening to it many times.

End of story? Not quite.

The other day I received an emal from Liz, thanking me for my purchase. And this certainly did not appear to be an auto-responder message.

Its nice to see yet another artist who values the connection with her audience. And isn’t that connection what music’s all about?

Tags: Liz Longely, Music

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According to this story, Charles Darwin is to get an apology from the Church of England for its initial rejection of the theory of evolution.

What I found interesting though, was one of the comments on reddit, where I found the story link. The comment said “Hopefully some of their followers will get the message.” This is spite of the fact that the Church of England (Anglicans in Canada) has no prolem with the Theory of Evolution.

It is sadly obvious that in the U.S. at least, when people think of the Christian church, the socially conservative, right wing fundamentalists are the folks who come to mind. And while in the U.S. this brand of Christianity has an inordinate amount of power and influence, this not the case everywhere else.

It is possible to be Christian and believe in the theory of evolution (not to mention social justice, universal healthcare, same sex marriage etc.).

At least north of the border.
Tags: Evolution, Christianity, Darwin, Anglican

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Recently, I’ve been going on a bit of a Garageband instrument binge; I’ve bought a couple of Jam packs off of eBay, as well as finding instruments elsewhere. I’ve always wanted to find good oboe and cello sounds; I love these instruments, especially the oboe; to me, this instrument is a conduit to emotion in such a direct and intense manner. It is an intensely human instrument.

Last week I found this site, where I found some great sounding software instruments, includng cello and oboe, and between Friday morning at 5:30 am (when I hurredly recorded a few notes to capture the basic idea), and then finished the piece on Friday evening. It’s about 3 and a half minutes long. The piece is called Sepia, and comments/feedback would be most appreciated.

Download Song

Tags: Music

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Thursday and Friday of this week I was at a training session on conducting business across borders with people of many cultures, countries and backgrounds. Before the class began on Thursday morning, the instructor handed out the manual, and a book he had written on the subject. I decided to flip through the book first.

To understand what I write next, you must remember that I am a Canadian living in Toronto: the book was written from a completely American point of view, based on what I saw in the table of contents. I then decided to check out the index at the back of the book to see where Canada had been mentioned; there were three entries, and I looked them up; in each case, the mention of Canada had just been in passing, in a single sentence.

We are the largest trading partner of the U.S. (a fact which comes as a surprise to many, if not most Americans), and yet the author, who presents himself as an expert on cultural sensitivity,  shows himself as yet another example of a U.S. resident who feels there is no difference between Americans and Canadians. Thus, his credibility was destroyed, even before he started the class.

Does one laugh, cry or scream?

 Tags: Canada, USA

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In a lot of ways, my life has been a collection of unfinished songs — so many things started and not finished; opportunities wasted, etc. That’s why it was a nice change to actually finish writing and recording a song, and sharing it with others. And for this, I owe thanks to Stevie Z of The Sieve! podcast, who has started a monthly song writing challenge, involving a genre, topic and word/phrase. For August, the genre was Country, the topic summer, and word “bridge.”

I have never tried writing a country song before, but something resonated, a chord progression came together, and the song Friends Again was written. It is one of three songs featured on the latest episode of The Sieve. The two other songs were written by Mark Blevis and Bob Goyetche. I enjoyed listening to their songs, and it was interesting to see how totally different the three songs were.

For September, the song challenge is:

Genre: Punk

Topic: Star Trek

Word: Bowling

Can a pudgy 46 year old male with no tattoos, piercings or blue hair write a punk song? I guess we’ll find out!

And if you’re a songwriter, come join the fun!!

And Stevie Z, thanks again for getting the ball rolling!!

Tags: Stevie Z, Bob Goyetche, Mark Blevis, Music, Country

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My good friend Keith Burtis sent me this link tonight — we both thought it reminded us of how Dr. Seuss might design a drainage system, fun, needlessly complex and impractical, and it got me thinking — we need a new holiday called Impractical Day.

On Impractical Day, just in time delivery would be made illegal; clocks would be turned off, discussions of efficiency would be banned, and maybe, just maybe, we could collectively unwind just a bit, and release the knot of tension we all seem to feel between our shoulders and/or at the base of our necks. A collective mental health day for the world. A chance to regain some perspective and figure out what’s important, and what we lose in the endless, merciless quest for ever greater efficiency.

Were we not supposed to have sixteen hour work weeks by now? (Along with personal jet cars and vacations on the moon).

Somehow, the latter seems more likely.

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In a posting on ars technica from August 31st, 2008, author Matthew Lasar looks at the popularity of listening to podcasts, broken gender, and notes the large drop-off over the age of fifty, and ends with the following line:

“So enjoy podcasting while you can, kids. Because twenty years from now, after you’ve gotten through the first and second shift, you won’t have a lot of mental energy for much more than the car receiver dial, the remote, and the couch.”

One point caught my eye here, regarding the car receiver dial; I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that the car will be the primary mode of transport; one hopes that as more people take the issue of environmental damage seriously (or more prosaically just can’t afford the gas), they will use mass transit.

One huge advantage of mass transit is of course the fact that someone else is doing the driving, freeing up the commuter to read, sleep, or listen and watch audio and video podcasts; for me this is a great way to pass the time on my 60 minutes plus commute to and from work each day, and I think new commuters will find this to be the case as well; I can only see usage going up in this scenario.

It’s interesting how the high price of gas could be one of the best things to ever happen to Social Media

Tags: Podcasting, Mass Transit

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On of the things I really must do this fall is get back to blogging on a regular basis, so what better place to start then getting the long overdue 6 Random Things About Me Post done!!

Here are the rules:

Random rules (hat tip to ):
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
I was tagged by (in no particular order):

Sean McGaughey

Mark Blevis

Rob Lee

Keith Burtis

Danielle Rossi

Katherine Matthews

Bob Goyetche

Wow. What a list of amazing people!! If I missed anyone, my sincere apologies!!
Anyway, here is my list of random things about me:

1. Among my wide variety of musical tastes, I like loud organ Tocattas and Renaissance choral music.

2. I can’t ice skate to save my life. (Don’t turn me in – I could lose my Canadian Citizenship over that offence!)

3. During my life, I have lived in three different provinces, two countries, and have called about 16 or 17 different addresses home. The next time I move, I will be in the box!

4. I used to be a chain-smoker (two packs a day) up until 1990, when I quit cold turkey, and joined the ranks of sanctimonious ex-smokers. (Marrying a singer with asthma and a tobacco allergy made it easy to stay clean!)

5. I have been a user of the Linux Operating system (on and off but recently mostly on) since 1996 (Slackware 2.x was the first version I ever tried, for those who are curious).

6. I remember Gopher with fondness.

Now at this point I am supposed to tag six more people, so:

SuzeMuze

David Fisher (aka Tibbon)

Colin McKay
but I think I will leave it there though.

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