Sunday 20 July 2014

Waterbowling for Weirdos - a Wetrospective

As the world descends into a mayhem and murder of all things that make us worthy of earth, there must be a way out.  A vehicle that sounds of hope and deliverance. A beacon in a sea of broken dreams. Don't jump out of the air plane my sweet weirdos. Listen to the sound of the music right in front of you. Rising from the well to our quivering lips lapping. Let us be lebrile lyricists, let us place faces in bowls and become single engine motors of change.

Let us be Waterbowl.

WHO? WHO will bring us on this journey of change and seduction of senses. Could there be a raft in this bowl of diminishing water called life?

WHY YES, WEIRDOS, THERE IS. AND HIS NAME HENCEFORTH WILL BE KNOWN AS JOHNNY MACRAE!

Currently he is sprawled all legs and arms, this maestro of maelstrom on my couch. This divine son, this miracle of non-monotony.

He has been spreading the word of waterbowl from B.C. to Georgia with his straight husband Shayne Avec I Grec in their movement, "The Anthropocalypse," (humanity's self-destruction). They are "2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac."

When asked about waterbowling. this is what Johnny has to say.

"Waterbowling is the traditional music of the Cadillac Mountains, handed down from uncle to nephew. My uncle Robert was the last fully trained waterbowler, before me.  He disappeared before he could complete my training.  No one's certain where he went, though many suspected he had returned to his life as a touring musician with Canadian folk music hero, Crofton Harmac. After he disappeared, and our home was destroyed in the War on Drugs, my training was completed with an old friend of his, and shaggy wise-person: the Grateful Yeti.

"The instrument was created shortly after Francois d'Cadillac had led people into the Cadillacs to escape the Anthropocalypse. He was one of the first people to predict its coming. When they arrived no one had any musical instruments, not even a drum, and no knowledge of how to build and instrument."

"Francois recognized this as problem and he was the one who influenced the first waterbowler, Farquhar, who was always drumming on things, and hummin.  Francois gave Farquhar a bowl of water and told him it was the music of the lakes and oceans. The wisdom of Francois that was passed down through the years was the following. The world of the Anthropocalypse was still out there, and the Cadillac people may one day be made to face it.  'Yet,' he said, 'the music of water might cleanse the world of this darkness.'"

Key figures:

Francois d'Cadillac, "Through the music of water might we might cleanse humanity of this darkness."
Robert the Waterbowler, my uncle, last great waterbowler before me
Crofton Harmac, Canadian folk legend, Robert toured with him, in the late '70s and early '80s.
Farquhar MacRae, first in the line of waterbowlers.  MacRae became the given surname of all waterbowlers, though most were known merely as The Waterbowler or Waterbowler.

Crofton Harmac, with Johnny MacRae: "Murals of Chemainus" at Campbell Bay Music Festival: http://youtu.be/LOeui8WhH1s?t=7m42s

2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac with Peter Mynett: "(This is Not) A Revolutionary Poem" at Campbell Bay Music Festival: http://youtu.be/LOeui8WhH1s?t=17m15s


I cannot tell you of the feelings I get watching this man stick his face into a bowl of water and blow and hum. It's like having to go to the washroom, but more like how I feel when I swim really quickly. Weirdos, let's swim really quickly together. Click on the above links to change music into a full philosophical movement.


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