I am older now and things have changed. I noticed that on the back deck of our home a couple of evenings ago. It was nice and warm, and the sun was dipping below the tree line. 

Not a cloud in the sky. I had a Jameson Whiskey (note the spelling) on the go. Everything should have been wonderful and right with the world because we are back to normal, aren’t we?

Do I feel safe? 

Somewhere in my soul though was the gnawing feeling that everything was not quite right. We have been through much during the past couple of years with COVID and we want things to be the same as before all this started, but I know that saying it does not make it so. 

Two people who are close to me have tested positive for COVID in the last week alone. I myself now have had no less than four vaccinations. Do I feel safe? No, I do not.

Given my advanced years I must be careful and I surely am. Now I know that things are opening again, but I also know that in the decision to go back to normal there are political and economic considerations. There are those considerations in everything in the universe. 

What have I learned in the past couple of years? Well for one thing COVID and the crisis has changed my life fundamentally. For instance, social contact has changed. There are people I have not seen in years, and they have not seen me.

Altered time-line?

There has been a time warp. The normal processes of a life lived have been altered. My contact with other people has absolutely changed. I go to shops and restaurants much less. The floor of my car might provide a clue. There are old take-out boxes and wrappers. Subway, Mickey Dees, The Colonel and all the rest.  

I ran into someone I know well the other day. It was on the street walking.  I had my mask on and my friend had hers on. We did lower the masks to speak. We did still recognize each other.

Do you know what struck me? She had aged. She was older than I remember her. Well of course she was!!!!! By a couple of years. Then came the realization that I guess that I have aged as well. 

My friend sees me as older than I was. I hope she was not too disappointed. Unfortunately, not being out in society is not a free pass for anyone against aging. 

There’s a phrase from the far east that appears appropriate; “The dogs bark and the caravans roll on.” 

NTV’s Jim Furlong can be reached by emailing: jfurlong@ntv.ca

At long last, the sixth annual St. John’s Tattoo Convention returns amidst multiple pandemic delays this July 1-3 at the RE/MAX Centre in St. John’s.

Rising out of North America’s oldest city and hosted by renowned local tattoo authority Trouble Bound Studio, the convention will host 75 brilliant tattooists from across the globe over three days that celebrate a mutual love of art that literally goes skin deep.

For convention founder and Trouble Bound Studio owner and long-time tattooist Dave Munro, the ebb and flow of the tattoo industry, and indeed the gradual growth not only worldwide but here on the island, has been something to behold. 

“My industry has changed dramatically in the time period in the life-cycle of me being here,” shared Munro in a sit-down at Trouble Bound in downtown St. John’s. “I started visiting in ‘99 and I moved here in 2000.”

Munro, an Ontario born and bred student of the game who opened Trouble Bound in the summer of 2003, was long-aware of the opportunity to grow the market for tattooing on an island where the medium has often been appreciated far more readily than abroad.

“If you take Newfoundland versus the rest of Canada, where tattooing was linked to many of the trade bases of small communities or just the communities in general here, there’s always been a higher rate of people with tattoos in Newfoundland than there has been throughout the rest of Canada,” Munro shared. 

Changing the stigma

“As it has become far more acceptable you’re sort of seeing that number being one in four or dropping to one or two people between certain age gaps that have tattoos and then accessibility is a huge thing as well, and comfort to it. Television and shows and social media provides a certain comfort level. You have elements of tattooing that will still be sort of a renegade version of these things, but they’re going to be things that cross the line … So a lot of it comes down to, not just necessarily how socially acceptable it becomes, but understandable. If someone doesn’t feel threatened by a visual, they’re not likely to react in the same sort of way.”

A far cry from what Munro described as a “homespun backyard industry,” tattooing has emerged as a global phenomena, no longer reserved for punk musicians or sailors. No, everyone from your grandma to businessman is ‘tatted up.’ 

The now annual and much in-demand St. John’s Tattoo Convention capitalizing on that very fact, began modestly and by near word of mouth.

“When I started coming out here, part of the reason that I was approached on it was a large volume of, say, more custom based tattooing which I was doing, didn’t exist here. It was a very traditional shop,” Munro explained. 

“As I would travel to other conventions, which I used to do two or three Canadian and one international a year for years, it would be ‘I’ve always wanted to see this place’ (Newfoundland). And in particular with the first one, almost everybody that was coming to Newfoundland had family ties, whether they were one generation removed or six. 

“They needed to come home or see the place that their family generated from that had really no frame of reference other than nostalgic stories from their folks. So there was a really big sort of aspect of that for the first convention with the tattooists wanting to be here, wanting to sort of experience Newfoundland to a certain extent, get in touch with family.”

Morphing today into a well-attended event with over seven dozen tattooists from Canada, the U.S. and U.K., Munro describes the convention as having “a festival atmosphere,” and that, when you head through those doors, the odds of acquiring new ink rise exponentially.

‘Festival atmosphere’

“It has a sort of festival atmosphere to it like, ‘There’s a bunch of stuff all in one room and I need to see it all.’ I would say most of the people that come through the door get tattooed. A very, very large amount of people who come through the door get tattooed. Just by our average weekend numbers, one in three get tattooed. It could be something big, it could be something small. A very large amount of people coming in, that’s their intent from the get go.”

What can the inexperienced convention layperson expect? Munro smiles.

“The first encounter will be walking into a room with probably 75 tattoo machines going. So there’s a buzz. It’s in between like a swarm of bees and a small propeller going on a boat. It’s quite dramatic,” he laughs. 

“Coming into that room, there’s already this tension that you can almost feel because of the noise. As you sort of move through it, if you’re unfamiliar with, I guess, tattooists, you’re slowly getting embraced into that reality. 

“There’s a fever pitch that hits,” he adds. “There’s a number of people who come to the convention that I’ve literally watched get seven or eight tattoos over a weekend, just happily bouncing from booth to booth … it’s just not unusual. It happens a lot. So the room in itself becomes a generation point. A lot of the genesis to the process is built out of that particular environment and ambiance.”

Weekend passes are available online only for $30 at brownpapertickets.com/event/5412985. Day passes will be sold at the door daily for $15. For more info call 709-754-5590 or visit www.stjohnstattooconvention.com or troubleboundtattoos.com

Who are we? What is our purpose? What do we do when that purpose is gone?

Those were looming questions Catherine Allan and Andrew James O’Brien – aka award-winning duo Fortunate Ones – wrestled in recent years wrought with massive shifts and changes both personally and professionally.

For O’Brien, that change began in 2019, where a procedure on his hand led to him unable to play guitar in any meaningful way for the short-term.

“At the time it just felt like a physical inconvenience, I think, in a lot of ways. We were headed toward and already feeling kind of professional burnout in some ways. We had toured so relentlessly for many years without any real stopping. It just felt like that’s what you do,” O’Brien shared in a stidown with The Herald. 

“So at the time when I had my finger operated on, I wasn’t really thinking about it in the grander sense of life. It was more of an inconvenience. But I started working at The Inn by Mallard Cottage, and it was this job that I took just to do something in the downtime. And I really kind of got into it.

“Once my hand healed I was playing guitar for fun, which is something that I hadn’t done for years. I felt burnt on the instrument. I felt like I had hit a ceiling in my playing. I didn’t feel creative. And then all of a sudden, with this slowdown, it started to creep back in naturally, this kind of creativity and the need to explore or kind of mentally debrief after years of constantly grinding. And then COVID happened, and it was like the ultimate universal reaffirmation that the slowdown was necessary.”

Time to breathe

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic may have served as a grim and uncertain cloud for many in the music industry, but for Allan and O’Brien, it was a respite from tireless years of performance-based burnout.

With O’Brien becoming sober in February 2020, and the duo still re-charging from their tireless schedule for the past five years, the global shutdown became almost therapeutic for a pair in need of time to breathe.

“I had actually gotten sober in February 2020. Didn’t know what COVID was at the time. And so coincidentally, it was basically like the universe was telling me I needed to recalibrate. So the pandemic was this ultimate kind of audit of life. And then when I got down to it, we were able to focus on important life changes and just rest and self-care, getting back to each other. And that was the catalyst for all this kind of creative, almost like a personal, creative renaissance,” O’Brien shared candidly.

“We sort of retreated,” adds Allan. “And we could see a lot of our peers really panicking, which is really unfortunate, racing to see what are we going to do during this time and doing the online shows and whatever they could to keep their ship going, whereas we completely retreated because we had no idea. We thought okay, we need to really reset here and maybe the best use of our time for now is to keep writing, keep making and relax into that.”

Relaxation and mediation would come in the form of a house sitting gig in rural Newfoundland, where the in-and-out-of-music couple would take to a salt box house in English Harbour.

“Honest to God, I thought so many times when I was out there, like this is saving me,” Allan admits. “Just the quiet, looking at the ocean, trying not to get swept up in the panic of the moment, which was really hard for all of us. And we all had our freak out moments. But rural Newfoundland really gave back to us over these last couple of years.”

The pandemic downtime proved fertile creative ground, with O’Brien and Allan communicating with their producer Joshua Van Tassel remotely, setting to work on their third studio album That Was You and Me. 

With production for the album originally scheduled for the spring of 2020, the duo worked remotely with Van Tassel, working on demos in their home before heading to Toronto to record in October of 2020.

Therapeutic distraction

“One thing about having that extra time, because the majority of the songs were written pre-pandemic, we really got to like live inside them when we actually demoed them ourselves and bounce ideas back and forth with Josh,” explained Allan. “We really got to live them and it was such a good distraction and sort of therapeutic to really get inside those songs.”

The promising upstarts that burst on a national stage with their debut album The Bliss in 2015 and the seasoned and battle-tested professionals before us in 2022 – distanced by time and life lessons – couldn’t be more different artists and indeed people.

Desires, dreams and realities change. For O’Brien, realizing there’s indeed life after music, was a strong catalyst in his own road to personal growth and healing.

“Ever since I was 18, I in some way wanted to be an artist or a performer. At first it was an actor for a brief time and very quickly became, no matter what it takes I’m going to be a musician. I’m going to be a songwriter. I’ll do absolutely everything it takes,” he shared. 

‘An honest way’

“And then when you realize you put all this work in and then all of what you’ve built gets taken away so abruptly and kind of profoundly, coupled with the pandemic and me kind of happily working at this inn in Quidi Vidi, writing and playing for fun again for the first time in years, I realized that I wasn’t interested in dying on the hill of music as my sole career or sole identity or sole pursuit. 

“And I think once I actually reckoned with that and kind of came to a place of peace with that, it opened me wide up creatively. I felt the pressure was gone. I felt like it didn’t matter to me how what I was creating was received. It just felt good to be doing it in an honest way again. And I realized that I can play guitar and sing and write songs for fun and do other things for money if I have to and if I want to.”

A beautiful new album, new management team and publishing deal, and the future shines bright for two of our province’s finest musicians, and warmly welcoming humans.

For now though the final word goes to Allan, who channels the good words from the bands’ deeply personal, emotive and all-together from the heart record.

“I’m going to quote a lyric from that new record. ‘All the moments you had, both the good and the bad are just a part of your story.’ It feels like we’re on steady ground for the first time in a couple of years and everything was worth it leading up to now.”

For more information on Fortunate Ones and That Was You And Me visit fortunateones.ca

Composed in a time of true change both career-wise and globally, That Was You And Me finds the chemistry of the duo in full force, with raw and honest songwriting meeting a stripped down vulnerability and unquestioned talent.

“The pandemic was this ultimate kind of audit of life,” shared O’Brien in a sitdown with The Herald. “And then when I got down to it, we were able to focus on important life changes and just rest and self-care, getting back to each other. And that was the catalyst for all this kind of creative, almost like a personal, creative renaissance.”

Adds Allan, “One thing about having that extra time, because the majority of the songs were written pre-pandemic, we really got to like live inside them when we actually demoed them ourselves and bounce ideas back and forth with Josh (Van Tassel, producer). We really got to live them and it was such a good distraction and sort of therapeutic to really get inside those songs.”

‘That Was You And Me’ arrives on June 3rd. For more information on the album and touring information visit fortunateones.ca. Stay tuned to The Herald for our full-length sit-down with Fortunate Ones. 

The subject is COVID. There had been a promise to myself to not write about it anymore because people had heard enough from me on most aspects of it. A visit to a local restaurant showed me “everything ain’t been said.”

I cannot tell you about government policy. I can only tell you about me and my personal experiences. Last Tuesday I was in a downtown eatery with a friend of mine. It is the first time I have dined out in two years. I am careful in things like that because I am 75.  If you get a flu when you are that old, it can be fatal. COVID absolutely is not the place to be. 

Easing of restrictions

I do not need to name the restaurant because what they did was not illegal. They were just trying to get by. Now I had forgotten my KN95 mask so as soon as I entered, I asked the greeter if they had a spare mask.

The nice woman said I did not need one. She was rejoicing in the easing of restrictions. She did not know I was looking for a mask because I wanted one not because of the law.  I was escorted to my table and sat with a maskless  friend.

We were distanced from the only two other occupied tables. The lady who escorted us to our table was maskless. The waitress who took and delivered our order was also maskless. I said nothing. 

An early life lesson I learned from working as a waiter in the diner on the Newfie Bullet is that it isn’t prudent to start arguments with those that handle your food. Important information. 

Maskless patrons

Now a quick look at the bar apart from the restaurant that day showed to be five or six people sitting there for a drink or trying their luck at the VLTs. They were all maskless. As a matter of fact, in this restaurant/bar there were NO masks.  

Now I did not come into town on a load of turnips. I understand that in the decision to reopen everything under the sun there is politics involved plus an economic imperative that is quite compelling. 

Everybody cannot just stay home out of it. Money must exchange hands. People must work. So it is that doors swing wide, and toes start tapping again in the restaurant and bar business. Do not mistake that for the COVID crisis being over with. It is not. We are just forced to pretend it is. The number of deaths is up. The number of hospitalizations is up.  

What do I do? There is only one course of action for a seventy-five-year-old. That is prudence. Wear your mask and do not go to maskless places. It is my plan. Good luck with yours. 

NTV’s Jim Furlong can be reached by emailing: jfurlong@ntv.ca

By: Russell Bowers

Over the last two years, the pandemic has disrupted daily lives and rituals that many never thought possible. Most have been deprived – sometimes by mandate, sometimes by choice – the simple act of gathering together as neighbours, friends and families.

One institution that has seen restrictions affect its practices is the Church. Regardless of faith or denomination, places of worship have seen a diminished ability to comfort others and provide solitude for reflection. 

However, as restrictions created obstacles, for some congregations, it has opened their eyes to new possibilities.

Reverend Amanda Taylor at St. Mark’s Anglican Church has noticed changes in how some demographics want to interact with her worship group.

‘Connection to Church’

“I don’t want to be too exclusive when I say this,” she begins, “but in a general sense, for our younger population, online is where it is for them. For my generation, we’re sort of in between and most times, there is no replacement for ‘in person.’ However, I spoke with one young person, probably 30-ish, and she made the comment, (COVID restrictions) ‘have been awesome for me because online is where I want to live.’”

Captain Sheldon Bungay of the Salvation Army has also noticed changes for his congregants.

“People’s entire connection to church, in general, has been impacted and changed,” he notes. 

“What COVID has done is speed up the inevitable. We were already moving away from thinking that church only happens within the four walls of a building. That we need to get outside and make an impact on our community, and be participants in the fight for justice and all those things. (The Pandemic) really pushed us ahead. So for me, that is putting volunteers and staff in place so we can increase our online presence. We’ve moved significantly to online at the St. John’s Temple.”

For many churches, online has meant broadcasting services via Facebook and other social platforms, as well as ecclesial websites. Yet, in the case of Reverend Oliver Dingwell, the timing has been serendipitous. His congregation at Cowan Heights United is his first since his ordination as a minister.

“The Seminary did not train me for this at all!” he laughs. “I graduated with my Master of Divinity, and the last three weeks of my degree studies were completely online.

“I think an advantage I had was that I wasn’t bogged down by things having to be done a certain way. So when it came to working together and troubleshooting to find creative solutions, I didn’t have too much baggage. Cowan Heights had been without a minister for two years, so they were willing to think outside the box as we navigated the initial stages of the pandemic. We were all open to trying new things, see what was going to work, and I was so grateful for them to take those kinds of risks.”

Tentative Nature

Reverends Taylor and Dingwell, as well as Capt Bungay are all relatively new in their roles at their respective churches. None knew what their parishioners were like or expected in the days before COVID. When restrictions in the province lifted on March 14, all noticed a tentative nature to the first Sunday that followed.

“We have vulnerable people in our community; seniors, the immunocompromised, we have children, and we wanted to make sure that everyone could feel safe,” remembers Rev. Dingwall.

“We still encourage physical distancing. We’re still asking people to wear masks as they move around the building. They can remove their masks if they are comfortable once they’re seated, but this past Sunday, of the 70 people in church, only two people took their masks off.”

At the Salvation Army Temple, Capt. Bungay noticed simple acts that were once commonplace took on new meaning for the 140 people attending services on March 20. 

“People were no longer offering their hand for a handshake, they were still keeping their distance a little bit,” he concedes. “In my pastoral role, showing up for people at their time of need is one of the most significant things we can do. Before, we would very quickly show up at a hospital bedside or in a person’s home. We no longer have that luxury and so a lot of our pastoral services have pivoted to online or through phone calls, distanced visits on a patio or front lawn.

“But,” he adds, “that’s key. Still showing up.”

Very Humbling

For most Christian denominations, Good Friday and Easter Sunday occupies a special place in the liturgical calendar and as those services come closer, all three officiants anticipate the possibility of different experiences. For Rev. Taylor, Easter Sunday will be her first sermon at St. Mark’s. Plus, it will be broadcast on NTV.

“When you’re in front of a congregation, you can read the body language to know when you’re resonating with people. But if they’re reading the bulletin or counting the tiles, then you can pivot. You say to yourself, ‘I got to shake it up.’ But when you’re looking at a webcam, you don’t get that, so it’s very humbling, because all you can do is go on to Facebook and we’d look up the numbers and say, ‘Oh, look, we’ve reached, a thousand people.’”

“COVID has forced us to rethink what should the Church be doing in 2022,” adds Capt. Bungay of the Salvation Army. 

“I think the days of sitting in a church expecting people to show up on our doorstep are very quickly moving beyond us. Now we need to be asking what does the Church do beyond its walls?

“And it’s not necessarily standing on a street corner with a bullhorn telling people about Christian values and what they should be doing with their lives. It’s simply coming alongside people, offering them help and hope. We need to get into the community, to remind people that they are loved – that they have their own gifts and talents and all those things are valued and loved and supported.” Ultimately, when it comes to the symbolism of Easter, much of what the world has been through is not lost on Rev. Dingwell.

See the Hope

“The Gospel of John says while it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb.  That’s kind of where we are – entering this season of joy, while it’s still dark. Just because the restrictions are gone, there is still this cold around us, a heaviness, an anxiety,” Rev. Dingwell explains.

“But we can see the light before us. And we can see the hope. In theological terms, we can see the hope in resurrection, of new life, new possibilities.

“Mary in the Gospel of John, doesn’t recognize Jesus after his resurrection and so, the Church is different coming out of COVID. Unless something like the pandemic happened to force us to think in new and creative ways, we just wouldn’t be doing them. There’s some real hope here for the kind of possibilities that lie ahead.”

For more visit: ntv.ca/category/programs/sunday-services/

Stephanie O’Brien, the brilliant and charming co-host of OZFM’S Morning Jam, has had quite the year. Daughter Charlie is in Kindergarten now and at the same time she was homeschooling due to COVID shutdowns, O’Brien was often live on air with her morning show co-host Randy Snow. Then, ‘the COVID’ struck.

“Yes, the good old COVID came calling,” she opened with a what-can-you-do grin. 

“A week before Christmas and we’re trying to live our best lives under all the pandemic protocols and then we get a phone call from a friend.”

A baby of a friend in their bubble had tested positive for COVID. Charlie tested positive immediately, though she wasn’t sick, while Stephanie and husband Drew tested negative. At least at first. Before long, the entire house had it, but the only one with symptoms was Stephanie.

“The child I gave birth to tormented me all day long while I was in bed. Every time I tried to rest my child would pull up my eyelids. ‘Mama. Do you need anything? Can I get you water? Look at this game, mama?’

“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to drive me!’”

So much activity

There’s always so much activity, she added, even in a ‘sick house.’ “There was a lot going on and I always try to find a way of putting it in perspective. And I thought about people that I know that have more than one child. Homes where everybody got sick at a different time and they ended up isolating for like two months. So, you know, it could have been worse,” she said.

Charlie was her main concern, and even though she wasn’t sick, Stephanie was. Thankfully, Charlie’s symptoms “were not that bad.” “Drew and I had had all our shots and honestly, it could have been a lot worse. I’m grateful just for the bonding time,” she said laughing.

During that bonding time, the antics of Stephanie and Charlie became pretty well-known. From “On Air” to “On TikTok,” their interactions have been fun to tune into.

“One of the things that I promised I would always be – which I’ve been my whole life – was to really stay true to who I am and be my best self. I think that’s how people relate to you, if it’s not an act,” she adds.

“When I see something that’s funny happening, or that I know would make somebody smile, capturing it might take five seconds out of my day, I’ll do it because I’ll laugh at it too,” she says of her posts.

Stephanie always seems to embrace life, seeing the humour in things even when they go wrong. “That’s pretty accurate. But I will say  there’s always the flip side of everything.

“There’s a real moment where you come home and I just want to be very quiet, but I feel like my husband and my child don’t always get the best me. I’m entertaining on air and I try to be authentic, but when I get home I like my downtime and I don’t want to play, or I don’t want to be laughing and joking.

“My husband’s super funny. My child is always entertaining. But on some days I want quiet. However, even that’s hard because there’s always something funny happening, so I get pulled in,” she laughs.

And what about her husband, Drew? He’s becoming quite the funnyman too, and Stephanie laughs again. “There’s a showman deep down inside that lumberjack. Let me tell you, when he comes home, it’s crazy.

“There’s a side of his family that are serious, very caring, loyal and quiet. And then he has another side of his family that are musicians and entertainers. He’s got a little bit of both. He’s learning to go with it.

“Now that we have grown as a family, and Charlie has grown up in the public eye, he just has embraced it over time,” she said.

O’brien family apples

Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and so we ask about growing up and the relationship with her own mother.

“My mom always went out – full out – for everything. There was an Easter tree and she always made sure that the Easter Bunny knew what kind of stuff we liked, and so the Easter Bunny was always very good to us. She will have the place decorated, from the napkins to the dish towels. It’s like visiting a museum every holiday.”

O’Brien doesn’t mind sharing her love for things onair, like her passion for Hawkins cheezies or mint icy squares. She does insist on setting the record straight, however.

“It’s weird that people still send me pictures of where they find (mint icy squares). But here’s the truth. I ate so many of those things, and I got heartburn so bad, that I’m medicated now. I cannot eat mint anymore! I can’t chew gum. Even the thought of brushing my teeth with mint kills me now. Oh, it’s true. It’s actually true!”

“It’s because I didn’t do it in moderation. I’d sit down and literally finish an entire container, so that wasn’t healthy,” she says.

“People have said Charlie is just like me. My mother even said it! ‘What’s it like raising yourself?’ It’s hard. It’s really hard.

“I see now why my husband loves me even though I can drive him at the same time. Sometimes when I do a video, I will look at it and go, ‘Oh my God, that’s Charlie.’ I will actually see my own daughter in my actions and that’s crazy.”

Charlie is now in Kindergarten and is growing up quickly and Stephanie is noticing all those changes and her antics.

“What I find now is she’s starting to want to be a little bit more mature, but she’s still a kid. I don’t know if you heard this on the radio, but the other night she was in the bathroom washing her hands and I could smell the strong smell of soap, a cheery soap, and it was too much for just washing your hands. I knew she’s into something so I called out to her.

“’What are you doing?’”

“Nothing,” her daughter replied.

“You were washing your hands, I can smell a lot of soap.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie replies.

“I said, ‘I think you do.’”

And five-year old Charlie says, “Girl, I think you have a symptom. I think you’ve lost your mind” and she walked away. “I have a symptom?!” Stephanie can barely believe her ears. “Come on!, she exclaims, “’Girl?!’

“Now you tell me that’s not repeating something I’d say. She’s a chip off the old block, for sure.”

Later on in conversation with Drew, she ponders Charlie’s future.

Jail or president?

“‘Drew,’” I said. ‘“I think we just have to survive raising her and then she’ll take over the world. We just have to get through this bit because I honestly think that she’s either going to end up in jail or be president. I don’t know which, but it’s going to be extreme either way.’”

As for Randy Snow, or Uncle Randy? She admits that there’s real admiration and affection for one another and for each other’s family.

“I can’t believe it’s almost been three years. I think there’s definitely been a lot of growth, but it also was very natural and organic from the beginning.”

Even on the radio, she and Randy chat about their on-air and off-air relationship.

“I actually noticed the other morning how we just get each other now. We just go with whatever is said and we always find a way to find humour even in the worst scenarios.

“I’m just so happy that I work with Randy and that we have the chemistry we do because that is something you can’t fake. We’re just very lucky.”

Stephanie and Drew’s home with Charlie when the cameras and microphones are off, she reveals, is pretty much what you see – and hear – is what you get.

“We’re going around in our hoodies and comfy clothes. Charlie’s dancing or has her headphones on, and Drew’s literally doing the dishes and rolling his eyes.

“And Oz and Percy (the family’s fluffy cats) are somewhere looking cute and adorable. That’s the dynamic all the time.”

What is my question to the members of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that held Ottawa and some other places hostage recently. 

You said you were a trucker convoy, but you became something else and that was a very dark entity. It started honestly enough when a group wanted government to end restrictions imposed in the middle of the COVID epidemic. That is fair.

The right of people to petition government on various matters is CENTRAL to our democracy. It started out as a group representing truckers, but most major trucking organizations were not part of it. As so often happens in protests the idea morphed into something else. That happens a lot.

A ticket to govern?

In the end the group was overtaken by a radical fringe. One faction wanted the government to resign and have the group from the convoy run the country. Like that was going to happen. The expertise the group had was blowing horns and blocking streets. That isn’t much of a calling card or a ticket to govern.

What the group did ultimately was to alienate people. The uprising lost support almost from day one. Nobody ever won over a population to a way of thinking by blowing horns and keeping people up all night or by blocking streets and disrupting the way of life of those people. That’s not how successful revolutions work. 

The Ottawa protest in particular had no “command and control” and that “command and control” is a virtue in any uprising, getting people on the same page. Instead, some people were out of control as in elements that went urinating on the grave of Canada’s Unknown Soldier; someone else flew a Nazi flag; and another group wanted free food from one of Ottawa’s homeless shelters.

The Smell of Trump

Now to me one of the most disturbing images was that of a Donald Trump supporter on horseback waving a flag. That was disturbing because in the end this wasn’t a protest of truckers. It was a group of people that believed government to be the root of all their troubles.  It was a group that included right-wing extremists and in the air was the unmistakable smell of Donald Trump and that which he stands for.

I think the protesters by and large were manipulated. They were a destabilizing force funded in part at least from afar. 

The good news is that Canada is a great nation. It was discovered early on that this wasn’t a trucker’s protest, it was something else. Their high-water mark was getting coffee and sandwiches for their group. They will go home now and will not have learned anything. Meanwhile we ordinary law-abiding citizens did. We who know that there’s more to defeating a pandemic that blowing your horn all night will carry on. 

I expect it’s like that for a lot of us. Surely to God there must be more to life than waiting around for the afternoon COVID numbers to come out and to hear the list of people lined up from one interest group or another to complain.

I know where I am on the issue. Get vaccinated, follow the science, and shut the hell up. Nice words from me, but it’s not much of a life to be living these days. 

There’s not a lot to it. My life has been reduced to an occasional but rare trip to the market at eight in the morning and a once-a-week Sunday dinner with my immediate family. There were no Christmas visitors this year either except for that same small family group.

‘Oh me Nerves’

Now these days in the morning I go out to the mailbox and get the paper, which is thinner than it used to be. I have a coffee and sit in the window and read as I look out over the forest which hasn’t changed since yesterday.

Even my wife, who I dearly love, is starting to get under my skin. Not in that “oh me nerves” bull crap you see on those hideous Newfoundland aprons you get on your way up to Cambridge, Ontario and points west.

My angst springs from the sound of a spoon on a cup of tea that wife stirs perhaps a couple of hundred times. I know in my heart she does it to annoy me, but I can’t prove it. It’s like the sound of dumping ice cubes loudly from the tray in the freezer into a container just as I’m taking a nap in the living room. IT IS A PLOT!!!

The Tedium of Life

Sometime to relive the tedium of life I’ll make a very early morning run to a discount store. Dressed in a special mask that looks like it might have been part of some HAZMAT suit I’ll buy more soup noodles or spaghetti sauce or discounted chocolate Santas left over from the Christmas trade. 

Even the store patrons in the early morning get on my nerves because they are generally older like me and have time on their hands and are looking to chat.

Myself, having been essentially isolated for a couple of years, am still not driven to small talk with strangers. I am just getting a break from home. 

I’ll go home now and get a break from here. 

NTV’s Jim Furlong can be reached by emailing: jfurlong@ntv.ca

Placentia, a town nestled in the rolling hills and curving coastline of the NL coast, is home to an abundance of archaeological sites, museums, and national historic sites. Castle Hill National Historic site is a link to British and French colonial heritage from the 17th and 18th centuries. 

One of Placentia’s key architectural landmarks stands in Town Square, the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, but culture and heritage isn’t only shown through historic sites. Often portrayed through music, Placentia has no shortage of musical talent. Singer-songwriter Damian Follett and Larry Foley of The Punters are two great talents hailing from the serene coastal town, but they’re certainly not the only ones. 

As a child, Angie Coffey performed on stage with a solo spot in school concerts, community concerts and was a member of the church youth choir. Angie Coffey is proud to be from the town of Placentia, she carries a strong bond with her roots and followed her dreams with a little help from the local support. In 2000, she began playing in cover bands around town and the surrounding areas, performing country, rock and traditional music. 

“I had many great supporters throughout my music journey, but two stand out – one being my music teacher in school, Yvonne Milley,” Coffey shared with The Newfoundland Herald. 

“My biggest supporter was my grandmother, Jean Green. She was a musician herself, she had a beautiful voice and was an incredible performer. She gave me my passion for music, and to say she was proud would be an understatement.” 

Dream Come True

Coffey grew up with musical influences like Dolly Parton, Patty Loveless and Kenny Rogers, so it comes as no surprise that she has a passion for country music. She began writing her own original music a decade ago, songs reflecting the personal issues she was navigating.

“My original songs always came from a deep place about what I was feeling or going through. 10 years ago I had written about eight songs when I was going through some personal things and felt it was the only way I could express it, but never shared them because they were too personal to me,” Coffey explained.

“I put them away and never listened to them again until 2020. When I let my manager, John Saunders, hear them, he thought they were great and encouraged me to let the world hear. He helped me find the confidence in myself and my songs that I never had.” 

In fall of 2020 her original song True Love, which was recently featured on Eastlink TV’s Discover NL, was released through Front Porch Entertainment. The track involved Grammy Award winning engineer Robert Hadley, who has technical credits with artists like Ray Charles, Tim McGraw, and Fleetwood Mac. 

“It really was a dream come true for someone like to me, to have one of my own songs now out there in the world, it is really a wonderful thing.” 

Going Live

March 2020, a time we’ll never forget, when lockdowns and restrictions began flooding across Canada as a result of the pandemic. Musicians and performers across the province took a massive hit, with shows and concerts being put on hold. Many used their creative abilities to get by. Coffey took it to social media. 

With access to millions of people, social media can be used efficiently as a platform to market yourself, and in Coffey’s case, original music. In the summer of 2020, she began performing live via Facebook every Saturday night, acquiring a large following.

“It was simply amazing, the fan base that started to follow me and have been supporting me ever since. The last year of performing online has been the best experience of my music career, really,” she shared. “I would’ve never had the opportunities I got this last year without doing the live Facebook performances. I am finally now doing all the things I have dreamt of doing with my music.”

Coffey has already begun a list of accomplishments, including a recent performance at the international music showcase Live At Heart, performing an Arts and Culture Centre tour as part of the Due South Opry, and a new single set to be released this fall. 

“I want to keep pushing myself to let my music out, and I hope to perform more and more as the years go by. I think it’s the passion that Newfoundlanders have for music, it’s everywhere here, every corner you turn. It’s the people and the music that gives our province such life and as a musician, it just pulls you in and you can’t let go.”

For more visit Angie Coffey Music on Facebook or watch live performances via Front Porch Entertainment on YouTube.