It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since my much needed vacation on Outlaw Cruise West, Nov. 3-7.

“ I’m going to take you back to your childhood, and mine,” chuckled Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom on the last night of the cruise as he lead his trio plus Social Distortion guitarist Josh into rousing renditions of  Stray Cats ’80s hits “Stray Cat Strut,” and followed by “Rock this Town, which Slim Jim introduced by saying “Let‘s rock this boat.”

That pretty much summed up the first Outlaw Cruise West, which left Los Angeles. Nov. 2 , stopped by Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada and back in time to catch a plane to Great Falls in time for the last of the snowstorm I missed while away.

The annual Outlaw Cruise is my annual treat to myself, to spend five or six days as part of a floating music festival, mostly featuring acts who rarely or seldom make it up to Alberta. I wouldn’t cruise any other way. I spent a lot of time communing with a cadre of transplanted Canadians also on the cruise, and it got pretty drunk out. So while my memory is a little hazy, I remember having a really good time.

 It was to be expected, but I missed a lot of great shows while I was away including Barney Bentall’s  Cariboo Express returning to the Geomatic Attic at Southminster United Church and Bryan Adams, and jumped right into a busy November, almost immediately after returning home.

It was fun to just escape from the world for five days, running all over the Norwegian Jewel trying to catch as many shows, live interviews, autograph sessions  on six different stages and even a little bit of sunshine. The cruise’s sponsor, Outlaw Country on Sirius XM is just starting to play some of the interviews and live sessions during Steve Earle and Elizabeth Cook’s shows.

 This time Outlaw Country on Sirius XM, which sponsors the Outlaw Cruise, decided to branch out and have a west coast cruise, featuring headliners Los Lobos and some of California’s more popular alt country, cow-punk and country acts, with of course, the usual cast of Outlaw Country characters like Mojo Nixon and Elizabeth Cook and Steve Earle and usual performers like Lucinda Williams.

 I loved the idea of having a cruise “closer” to me as the  Outlaw Cruise usually leaves from Florida and I could not pass up a chance to see punk legends Social Distortion again. I haven’t seen them since they played one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen at MacEwan Hall at the University of Calgary back in 1990 something. Plus three of four members of L.A’s punk icons X.

I also couldn’t pass up the chance to take part in Steve Earle’s Club Copperwood, an  abbreviated version of the course he teaches in New York. A small group of us got to spend a couple hours talking about songs as literature and songwriting in general with Steve Earle. He mostly talked about himself and his love for Bob Dylan, but offered some different ideas. He assigned us homework of writing a haiku to get us thinking in syllables and rhythm (five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables and reflecting a season in  without naming it), which he promised to critique in the next session. He also offered up  an interesting tip of putting a capo on the second fret of the guitar, and all strings except the low E, noting  that forms an A chord. He also noted a lot of his melodies come from just finger-picking.  he even  critiqued ab couple of the  participants homes— those with the foresight to bring a computer with a recording of their song on it.

Los Lobos opened the cruise on the pool deck and closed it in the Stardust Theatre on the last night. 

 All of the acts I wanted to see played the first of several shows  throughout the trip, on the first night. Dave Alvin stole the show from an impressive lineup. Alvin, who came to prominence in the early ’80s with original cow punk roots rocker the Blasters, lead his band through a few  Blasters songs, solo tracks and classic country delivered  with his soothing baritone while tearing out scorching, swampy blues fuelled solos.

It’s good to be back but it was better to be away for the past week on Outlaw Country Cruise 6 for  a good week of stories, live music and the occasional bouts of weirdness.

It was a shock to return to Alberta where everyone seems to be in more of a hurry, more stressed out and angrier than usual, after a week of a self-imposed news and social media blackout, drunk on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean, where peace, love happiness, camaraderie and communing over great music is the general order of the day.

It was just nice to take a break from Covid, convoys and the Ukraine and people bellyaching about all of that and more on social media. Though the stateroom televisions had three news stations available, I made a point of avoiding them, in between shows, tuning in to repeats of Jack Black’s “Nacho Libre” and a couple documentaries about Mojo Nixon, the Beat Farmers and Asleep at the Wheel and a really cool film Grand Theft Parsons, a highly fictionalized account of  road manager Phil Kaufman stealing and cremating his best friend Gram Parsons body in the desert. Steve Earle interviewed Kaufman himself with the Emmylou Harris hot band a little later in the cruise.

 The Outlaw Country Cruise has become my one big annual escape and treat to myself. And as usual, the music  is what makes everything worthwhile from the Covid tests to the hassles of travelling by plane in the twenty-first century. I’m officially off duty, it is still an adjustment to not have to cover shows, though I end up writing about  them anyway.

 It’s a chance to see bands who barely ever make it to Canada, let alone Alberta, and in some cases the last chance to see them at all.

Since Outlaw Cruise 5, headliner Kris Kristofferson, the Georgia Satellites’ Dan Baird and The Bottle Rockets’ Brian Henneman all decided to retire from the business. Their shows on the last boat were their last official performances.

 This year, UNBEPA or Unlimited Beverages packages were included in the price of the cruise, so it got pretty drunk out so I made a point of leaving my camera in my stateroom while I gained my sea legs.

 After we went though the extensive boarding procedure including Covid tests in Miami, and everybody got settled in, found their sea legs and communed with old cruising buddies, the first night was off the hook. As usual Steve Earle  kicked everything off on the pool deck in the first big bash of the boat. He’s released three  albums in as many years including a tribute to his son Justin Townes Earle, and was wearing a Justin Townes Earle T-shirt, but  he kept his first show  to a greatest  hits show, so we heard all the classics, from “Guitar Town” to Copperhead Road,” after which I had to eat, luckily right around the corner from the pool deck.

 These cruises have always been fanatical about cleanliness. I usually get a kick out of the entrance to the dining room  where a girl with a sanitizer bottle is always stationed, laughing “Washy, washy, happy happy,” but they weren’t doing that this year. The staff seemed to be on edge a little more than usual, still insisting we sanitize before entering the dining room and grabbing a piece of pizza or burger to go or sitting down for a cornucopia of delicious food.

 While there was no “washy, washy, happy happy,” the staff gleefully added coffee themed lyrics as they sang popular hits while pouring slightly hungover outlaws their morning coffee.

 Though we were all required to be vaccinated and take a negative covid test before boarding, masks were supposed to be worn throughout the cruise, but few were, though one of the gifts we all received was a cool luchador style mask to go with this year’s luchador theme.

That aside it was all about the music.

 Almost every band I signed up to see were playing on the same night, usually competing with each other, but I jumped between the upper level of the pool deck where American Aquarium were playing  their laid back mid-tempo country rock music, mostly from their new CD “Lamentations, and the Spinnaker theatre, where Asleep At the Wheel were holding court for their first show of the week.

 Asleep at the Wheel were fantastic as I expected, so the theatre was packed. It was tough to  get a sight line around all the dancers and drinkers. Ray Benson is the consummate frontman. He grinned as he juggled during a few of his band members’ solos on a variety of western swing hits including lots of Bob Wills

 They had a relentless rhythm and an unstoppable horns section.

 Shinyribs  had their first show in the Stardust, the main theatre on the first night. That was one show where I really missed having my camera. Frontman Kevin Russell did a fine soft shoe, belting out soulful country and jazz tinged music with a mile  wide smile.

San Diego alt country band Beat Farmers also played their first show of the cruise in the atrium on the first night. They played a tight set, had fantastic multi-part vocal harmonies and even had a few sweet harmonized guitar solos as they played a lot of the songs from  their “Pursuit of Happiness album.”

The next day had a lot of highlights. One I was really looking forward to was a Salute to Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, one of the first cosmic country/ hippy country bands to emerge in the late ’60s, lead by Bill Kirchen who was everywhere, playing his own own shows, or leading a  jam on Bakersfield country music or just popping up on stage to jam with pretty much everybody else on the boat. I lost track of how many times I heard “Seeds and Stems,” but the “outlaws” on board enjoyed it.

The Commander Cody Tribute was many of several shows featuring guest appearances form the other performers on the boat and showcased Kirchen’s prodigious skill on the Telecaster. He played his spectacular jam on  “Hot Rod Lincoln” which  incorporates pretty much every well known guitar hook from  the mid twentieth century from Johnny Cash to the Sex Pistols. I got to hear him play that numerous times and was left with my jaw on the floor every time.

Exhibition Park is postponing three major events for a few weeks due to Covid 19 restrictions.

The Southern Alberta RV Expo has been rescheduled to Feb. 25 – March 6, 2021 from the original date of Feb. 4-14.
AG-Expo and Northern American Seed Fair has been postponed to March 17-19, 2021 from the original date of Feb. 24 – 26.
 And the Southern Alberta Home & Garden Show will now take place April 7-10, 2021 from the original date of  March 17-20.

 “ So many of these local businesses rely on these shows every year, so we’ve giving them as much opportunity to adjust,” said Mike Warkentin, Chief Operating Officer of Lethbridge & District Exhibition, estimating the postponement will affect approximately 600 local businesses.

This year has been the best year of my life. I was in three plays, had three art shows, went back to school and the Allied Arts Council presented me with the Mayors Award for Individual Excellence, as L.A. Beat celebrated 10 years of supporting and covering Lethbridge’s amazing arts and entertainment scene.

 Wait a minute, that was last year. Thanks to Covid 19, 2020 has been an apocalyptic, puritanical nightmare where there’s no singing, dancing or live music or entertainment allowed, where live music venues, theatres, art galleries, restaurants and bars were forced to close for “ the greater good.”

And just like in the Greek myth of Sisyphus who was forced to push a rock up a mountain  as a punishment for trying to cheat death, only to have it roll back to the bottom and force him to do it all over again for eternity,  just when it looked like things were under control in September and things cautiously started to open up again and it might look like things would get back to normal, the second spike hit and, as predicted, things got a lot worse.

I’m not a medical, epidemiology or virology expert, but every graduate of Facebook university has become one. Perhaps spouting and repeating conspiracy theories helps them cope. We have all been doing our best just to survive a year that has seemed to last forever. Before you share something you saw on Facebook or Youtube, or get after someone who has a different opinion about how to deal with unprecedented times, just remember people have their own agendas. Someone, somewhere is making money off not only your fear but your paranoia. It sure isn’t me. It's been exhausting being inundated by it all.

I knew 2020 was going to be a challenge. I went back to school as planned in January, but had to postpone it to take care of some serious family issues. I continued singing lessons and even had my first audition for New West Theatre’s production of Dear Johnny Deere. I didn’t get the part but it was worth it for the experience.

I missed auditions for Shakespeare’s in the Park’s Merry Wives of Windsor as I went on the Outlaw Country Cruise from Miami to the Florida Keys to Jamaica and back at the end of February. For my live music fix of the year, I saw Steve Earle, the Waco Brothers, the Mavericks, Supersuckers, Bottle Rockets and NRBQ and got back just as everything was shutting down because of Covid. I got to fulfill a long term dream of overcoming my stage fright to play Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Stolen Horses” on stage in front of people in the same venue as Ray Wylie Hubbard, who was on the boat, but wasn’t in the audience as he was preparing for his show right after the jam. He actually got a request for “Stolen Horses,” though he said he couldn’t remember how to play it. And that was the highlight of a year that was a big bag of suck.

 The rest of the year was spent taking care of my dad, taking care of his business, getting him settled into his new place, hiking in the coulees, reading a lot and doing a few much neglected home improvement projects.
 This is where it is most important to count blessings. Covid has been devastating senior’s residences all over the country. Thanks to the efforts of the staff and some strict health precautions, my dad’s residence has thankfully been Covid free, knock on wood. So has my aunt‘s residence. I’ve also been relatively healthy and so have my friends and family.
 A lot of people took the opportunity of forced downtime and CERB payments to re-evaluate their lives and come up with their second acts. I didn’t. I probably should have, but we all cope in our own ways.

 To quote Ray Wylie Hubbard “ The days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days.”

When it looks like the world is falling apart, people turn to art. Just think of all the music you listened to during the lockdown and the TV and movies you binge watched. None of that would have been possible without artists.

Artists are resilient. They have to be at the best of times. This year they were forced to use all their creative muscles and adapt like they never have had to adapt before.
 Local artists like Gabe Thaine opted to do regular online performances throughout the summer. Pop up concerts were popular all over the city when the weather was nice. Michael Bernard  Fitzgerald opened his “Greenbriar” tent  tour in Lethbridge, playing a late announced show at  a farm outside of town, which almost immediately sold out. Country star Gord Bamford had to pivot after cancelling his massive Rednek arena tour. He opted to do a smaller drive-in tour in July , where people could watch he and his band play their many hits from the comfort of their vehicles. The tour was designed to raise money for mental health organizations in all his tour stops. Their Exhibition Park show raised money for Woods Homes and Lethbridge and District Family Services.

 A lot of other artists took advantage of downtime to create new music. Starpainter, Brenna Lowrie, Skinny Dyck, Taylor Ackerman’s Global Acid Reset, Corb Lund and Dark Wrangler were among numerous local bands who released new music during the pandemic. Those were just the ones I heard. Local punk band Berserker also has a new CD out, but I haven’t had a chance to hear it yet.