Me - from 1965 to 2007
Kitchener Blues Festival - August 2009
Returning from Los Angeles - June/July 2008
- Las Vegas and Salt Lake City
- Yellowstone National Park, mostly in WY
- The Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer's Last Stand), in MT
- Mt. Rushmore, in SD
- The Mitchell (SD) Corn Palace (!)
- then back south at Sioux Falls, SD —Yes, south! Yellowstone and northern Wyoming, all of Montana and North Dakota, most of South Dakota, all of Washington, half of Oregon and Idaho, nearly all of Minnesota, most of Wisconsin, half of Michigan, parts of upstate New York, half of Vermont and New Hampshire, and nearly all of Maine are all further north than Toronto and much of the rest of Southwestern Ontario, Canada. (I am NOT making this up!)
Portsmouth and Southampton (UK) - June 2008
Niagara Falls - May 2008
Joshua Tree National Park - May 2008
Los Angeles - September 2007
- the Getty Villa, the Getty Center
- Long Beach, Venice Beach, Malibu
- the Huntington Library and Museum
- from Mullholland above the Hollywood Bowl
- the San Fernando Mission
- Downtown
Going to Los Angeles - August 2007
- Day 1 - Cleveland
- Day 2 - St. Louis
- Day 3 - Oklahoma City
- Day 4 - North Texas, Santa Fe
- Day 5 - Meteor Crater, Flagstaff
- Day 6 - Sedona, Palm Springs
- a few days later: Tijuana
Monty & DB
Monty (cat) - Peacefully passed away, after a courageous battle with congestive heart failure and renal failure, at North Waterloo Veterinary Hospital in Elmira, Ontario on Tuesday, 28 October 2008, at the age of 13 years. In the passenger’s seat of Durrell Bowman’s white pickup truck, Monty travelled 24,000 kilometres throughout North America, from his birthplace in Los Angeles to the Kitchener-Waterloo area, from there to Edmonton and back to Elora, from Toronto to Halifax and back, and return trips to Los Angeles and back to Ontario. As a youngster, Monty enjoyed playing ping-pong-ball soccer, but he had recurring urinary tract problems (resulting in surgery in 2001) and his eyesight also began to weaken, which contributed to his later, more sedentary, lifestyle. In his last several years, he also got used to the sensation of some of his medications being administered transdermally, via the hairless areas inside his ears. Monty was gentle and affectionate to the end, and he will be sorely missed.
Who is Nash the Slash?
It’s pretty clear that Jeff Plewman (b. Toronto, 1948) is the eccentric, Canadian, rock/etc. electric violinist, songwriter, and composer Nash the Slash. There are a tiny number of Nash recording copyrights registered under that name, and Nash can’t be Ben Mink (who replaced him for several FM records; hence the rumour), because apparently those two have actually been on stage together! I couldn’t find a photo of that, however. The only photo I could find on the internet of someone named Jeff Plewman was a fairly recent one (post-2000, presumably) on the website of none other than prominent Toronto music promoter Richard Flohil, which pretty much clinched it for me! Also, check out the shape of the two chins, as well as other facial/head similarities, between the two photos. The unbandaged photo is also at http://richardflohil.homestead.com/gallery.html. (Blame Flohil, not me!) In interviews, Nash the Slash (who always appears in costume in public) refuses to confirm his identity, and in the past he has made up humorous fake names.