In 1994, long before Facebook or Instagram would flood our timelines with RIP's for lost celebrities, John Candy died unexpectedly. I was inconsolable; in fact, I was shocked by just how emotional I was. I called my best friend Woody to talk to him about it. We'd grown up on John Candy; first in SCTV and later in movies like The Blues Brothers, Stripes and Splash. As we chatted and laughed about those cinematic mile markers in our life, I began to understand my response to his loss. John Candy had been with us - a buddy of sorts - through a very transitional time between those awkward teenaged years and our early adulthood. He made us laugh and cry, and laugh and think, and laugh and get mad. His death was the first real evidence that life was fragile.
Today, some 30 years after the world lost John Candy, I'm remembering that phone call with Woody. Tuesday, April 30th marks what would have been his 61st birthday. He's been gone for 8 years and I miss him every day. This blog was inspired by him and the acknowledgement that death is unpredictable and life doesn't come with any guarantees.

We wander through this world, unwinding the days with work and family and friends. Sometimes we do a great job of balancing all three and sometimes we fail, but we do what we can.
And time goes by.
We create families of our own and we work through the idea of what it means to be a good parent or a good partner or a good colleague. We buy things. Waccumulate stuff.
And time goes by
Families grow or move or change. In my case I tunnelled out from under depression and into another life by necessity. I honestly think if I'd continued down the road I was on 16 years ago, I wouldn't be here writing about this now. Unfortunately, that decision cost me a connection to my grown children. I've tried to reconnect with them over the years but so far, my attempts have been met with silence or anger. Truthfully, I think I failed them in a haze of sadness and despair. Their silence and absence are my karma, or maybe that's too harsh. It could be either, or both.
And time goes by.
Throughout most of my life I've been lucky to have other family members at my side. My mom outlived the 10-year lifespan of her 1990 bypass surgery by two decades. My dad has had serious medical issues but he still lives in my childhood home, golfs three times a week and, although he misses my mom intensely, he has a pretty good life. My sisters are healthy and happy and contribute significantly to the communities they live in. My wife is an amazing woman who has an all-encompassing heart. In the 16 years since I met her, life has been better than I could have hoped for.
And time goes by.
I've learned a few things as all that time has passed and I keep trying to learn more but one recurring lesson has become impossible to ignore; we're not guaranteed anything.
I've never subscribed to the concept of a supreme being but I do believe we all are part of something much larger. My comfort - my faith - comes from the backbeat, the power chord, the pocket, and the groove. It comes from Rock and Roll. Time moves more slowly when I'm immersed in a song or a concert or a performance, but it still moves.
And time goes by.
Each time Woody's birthday rolls around on the calendar, I'm reminded of the lesson I learned from John Candy. We're brought into the world and after that. all bets are off. If we're lucky we live a long life surrounded by a loving family and the friends we've collected along the way. We assume those friends and family will always be with us; until they're not. And when they're not, we often look back and wonder, "Did I do enough?" "Did they know I loved them?"
Once in a while the universe gives us a not-so-gentle nudge in the right direction: John Candy, Matthew Perry, David Bowie, Prince. We share collective memories of their art and its effect on us, but the connection isn't substantial. We didn't hold their hand at a wedding or sit with them when a child was sick. The loss of a cultural or artistic icon will subside but if you're open to it, you can take that momentary celebrity loss and use it to affect the people you are connected to. You don't have to be married to someone to let them know you love them. I have so many friends through music and hockey and just plain living, and I have love for all of them. Some make me laugh every time I see them. Some make me feel stronger. Some just surround and infuse me with an incredible level of contentment. All of them make my life better and I'm pledging right here that if you do, if you did, if you might, I'll let you know. And here's a little unsolicited advice; you should do the same. You never want to be standing beside a friend at the end of their life wondering if you said or did enough to let them know that their life made your life great.
Ultimately, you can only control what you say and what you do to let others know you love them. The one thing you can't control is.....
Time goes by.

I don't remember exactly when I discovered "Backstreets", the Bruce Springsteen fan magazine, but I can say that whenever that was, my reaction was simple and direct; somebody gets me.

Being a fan of Bruce Springsteen always felt bigger somehow. It wasn't just an obsession with a look or a sound. It was discovering an artist who knew me, knew my friends and knew the things that gave us joy or caused us pain. Realizing that a man like Charles R. Cross, the original editor of Backstreets, was willing to dedicate his effort, his money and his time to this single subject gave validation to my passion for all things Bruce. To so many of us, Springsteen wasn't just a musician with a dedicated following like the Grateful Dead or The Beatles or Neil Diamond. He was a reason to believe. As a teenager, his stories of fathers and sons resonated with truth, anguish and understanding. As a young man stumbling through the hardness of this world, he seemed to understand the monotony of working to live and the realities we faced as husbands, fathers, and friends. What's more; Backstreets knew it too. Charles Cross and later Chris Phillips, the editor that took over for Charles, gave a voice to that connection. They were the mayors of a community that offered safe harbour to all who connected to Springsteen's music in the same way.

My subscription started sometime after my first show in July of 1984. Of course, that was long before the space-age immediacy of today's information consumption and I distinctly remember waiting impatiently for each magazine to arrive in my mail box. Those glossy pages were full of sweat-drenched photos and stories of mythical performances. They fed into my own personal land of hope and dreams while I worked nights in a factory and stole time on the beach during the day. Each month when Backstreets arrived, I poured over every word. I marvelled at the tales of Bruce showing up at local clubs in New Jersey and I was amazed at the details of shows that included setlists, running times and a passionate recitation of the live performances as well as reviews of the records. As much as Backstreets was a fan magazine, it was well-written, professional and never failed to turn a critical eye if one was required.

In 1989, when Charles Cross decided to publish a book called "Backstreets - Springsteen, the Man and His Music," I was first online to buy it. Like the magazines that were still arriving in the mail, I took in every word and photo with exhilaration akin to an actual Springsteen show. In 1995, that book became a road atlas of sorts as my buddy Tim and I took the seven-hour drive from Southeastern Ontario to the Jersey Shore. We had tickets to see Clarence Clemons at the Stone Pony and that matte-black, hardcover book was going to be our tour guide to Springsteen's roots. The book had a place of honour and importance between the two front seats of Tim's 1990 Miata, as we drove south through Syracuse, Binghamton, the Poconos, across the Delaware Water Gap, and into Northern Jersey. We went straight to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park to grab our tickets to see The Big Man, only to discover that the show had been cancelled. We were devastated to lose the opportunity to see Clarence and just maybe, a chance to see Bruce make one of his legendary impromptu bar appearances. The person running the Pony box office that day could see our disappointment and they went above and beyond; calling the Tradewinds Club in Sea Bright to reserve us two tickets to see some guy named Joe Grushecky the next night. "Bruce produced his new album," he told us. "You never know, he just might show up."

Of course, Springsteen DID show up to play with his buddy Grushecky we had the night of our young lives. We also toured through Freehold, Rumson, Long Branch and Asbury Park - all with the help of that hardcover book.

When I read Chris Phillips editorial - his final editorial that tells the story of why he's decided to shutdown Backstreets for good - I immediately reached for that book. It still has the hand-written notes and phone numbers from that momentous weekend. Etched into the bottom of the acknowledgments page are numbers for Backstreets headquarters, the Stone Pony box office and a number for Light of Day founder Bob Benjamin. Deeper into the pages I discovered even more. Charles Cross had gone to the painstaking detail of gathering and corroborating setlists for every Springsteen performance from those very early days up to and including the Human Rights Now tour in 1988. I had gone to the slightly less painstaking detail of highlighting any of those shows that I'd seen or that lived within the bootleg recordings of my record collection. Last night, I must've spent an hour just pouring over the pages of that book and remembering my journey from then to now. It's a journey that includes booking sellout Light of Day Canada shows in my hometown of Kingston, volunteering for Light of Day in Jersey, managing my friend Joe D'Urso, being in the "We Take Care of Our Own" video and getting my own Bruce nickname from the man himself. I've told many of those stories on these pages and I'll continue to tell them as long as people will listen but each time I do, I harken back to that connection with Backstreets and I wonder if any of it would've happened if I hadn't discovered my own community within its pages.

It's no wonder then, that after reading Chris's well-written and thought-provoking treatise on his own feelings and his decision, I was emotional. In the wake of this loss, I'm left with two distinct sentiments. The first and most prevalent is an overwhelming sense of sadness - as if a good friend had just shared his terminal diagnosis. The second recalls that response from nearly 40 years ago when I discovered Backstreets - somebody still gets me.
All the best to Chris, Charles, the current and former staff of Backstreets, and to all those who like me, feel as if they've lost a good friend. See you down the road apiece.