At Home in Hespeler

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

A couple of weeks ago I went digging through some old boxes and emerged with my 1976 Kiss Army package: five 8×10 colour glossy pictures; Kiss Army sticker; Kiss Army iron on t-shirt transfer; Kiss tattoos; Kiss Bicentennial drum and fife poster. A years worth of quarterly newsletters, invariably designed to sell you product, were also in the envelope. This is to say, when Kiss first created a fan club called the Kiss Army, and I was in. When Kiss re-released their first three albums as The Originals, I bought my first box set. When Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over came out, I was a release day buyer and I saw them on the Destroyer tour. I was, in short, a big Kiss fan.

I still listen to them once in a while, Alive, mostly, simply because it’s heads and shoulders above everything else they’ve done. They’re live DVD set, Kissology Volume 1 (1974-1977) sits in my home gym, getting the occasional play while I’m working out. Of the time, Kiss is a hungry, hard working band with some decent, pop oriented rock songs, performed by a group of serviceable musicians. they were, in short, a decent band. But a Hall of Fame band?

The Rock and Roll Hall of fame rules allow a group or artist to be inducted 25-years after the release of their first record. Kiss was then eligible in 1999. Fans of the band spent the next 15-years complaining that if anybody belonged in, Kiss did. Based on some of the selections that were made, they had a point. But the nominating committee was unmoved. “Kiss is a circus, not a top tier rock and roll act,” was the attitude. “Call us when your the latter.” This year, fans became eligible to vote and the Kiss Army got out the vote. Kiss then spent the time leading up to the induction proving the Rock-Hall right: they were a circus.

The vote for Kiss was so much higher than the next artist, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had no choice but to induct them. However, they caveated, original members only. “If that blogger from Hespeler doesn’t have an album with you on it in his basement,” Hall President Terry Stewart might have told Kiss’ publicity department, “you’re not in.” A quick check of my records and congratulation Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. The rest of you? Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John and Bruce Kulick? so sorry; Eric Carr? A tragedy, but no. Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer? The band won’t let you go onstage as yourselves, so why should we? No, said the Hall, new rule: original members only.

Paul Stanley then spent the next month putting to rest any reputation he might have had as a nice guy. He would, to paraphrase an old George Carlin joke, play with guys who look like Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, but he would not be seen on stage with them. He detonated a devastating blow to irony meters around the world, complaining the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is some private, capitalist organization run by private individuals. (Kiss, on the other hand, apparently is all about their altruism and artistic integrity.)

And so, two weeks ago, The Originals stood on stage, thanked Bill Acoin, the other members, Neil Bogart and various others who helped Kiss through the years. Then they walked off stage, not a note of music to be played by any member of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band. By the time the E-Street Band had finished thanking half the population of the continental United States, and went onstage to play, the circus had left town.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Kiss, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Playoffs are on, and, like every other year, my team, the Maple Leafs, are out. Although, it must be said, the Leafs left the playoffs in the most spectacular fashion, providing lots of entertainment, if not entertaining hockey, along the way. Hey, if you’re going down anyway, go down in a fiery crash I say: or as Neil Young put it, better to burn out than fade away.

But frankly, the way the Leafs treated the one goalie who has gotten them into the playoffs in my now 16-year old sons memory, the moronic bait and switch of hiring Brendan Shanahan and pronouncing problem solved, just the overall uselessness of the organization, have me rethinking my life-long affection.

But then, who to cheer for? I’ll tell you who it won’t be, it won’t be “the only Canadian team in the playoffs,” as I’m regularly told it must be. To set the record straight, I will cheer for the Taliban before I cheer for the Montreal Canadiens.

Boston wouldn’t be high on my list either. It wouldn’t, at least, until this winter.

My son’s senior football team, the Jacob Hespeler Hawks, had their best season ever this year, winning the WCSSAA championship, after losing that game the two years previous. They came within’ a game of the all Ontario Championship (CWOSSA final).

The team is coached by teachers Greg White and Mark Hatt. Mr. Hatt is also one of my son’s teachers and a good one. In chats with him through the years, both formal and informal, he is obviously one of the good ones. And now, he’s sick.

Mr. Hatt had a bad cough in February – well, who doesn’t. After a couple of days off work, he went to the doctor to have it checked. Precautionary stuff, maybe get a script, that sort of thing. By the end of the day he had a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer which had metastasized to the lining of the heart. It was not good.

The school rallied around. A “Hatter Strong” campaign was organized and one of the students had the idea to make supportive t-shirts and sell them to raise some needed cash for treatments &tc. The shirts were to be black and yellow in the colour of Hatt’s favourite team, the Boston Bruins (he is a known Bruins fanatic). They created a logo based on the Bruins with a stylized “H” where the Bruins “B” would normally be. T-shirts sold out in a day. Then someone contacted a friend who knew a guy within’ the Boston Bruins organization. The Bruins responded.

Last month Mr. Hatt and his family were guests of the Bruins at a Maple Leaf game vs. Boston at the Air Canada Centre. He has had regular phone contact with their captain, Zdeno Chara, whom I have previously rather not liked, and has also had regular phone calls from Bobby Orr, his childhood idol. Paul Henderson, who has been fighting his own cancer battle, has been in daily contact.

So this year, and maybe future years, will be easy. The Boston Bruins and their big, hard hitting captain, reached out to a good, very sick man. If it was Leafs vs. Bruins this year, as last, I might just cheer for the Bruins. Boston and Detroit start their first round play-off series tonight, and I’m all in for Boston.

As for Mr. Hatt, his cancer had a “ALK mutation.” There is a 2%-5% chance the cancer will have this mutation, and it is very good news. Chemotherapy can now be given orally (which is much milder) and his prognosis improves considerably. Along with his wife and two young sons, Mr. Hatt, Hatter as absolutely everybody calls him, they were thrilled by the news, calling it “a gift from God.”

Hockey Bobby Orr, Boston, Bruins, Hockey, NHL, Playoffs, Zdeno Chara