At the start of 1998, at the turn of the New Year, I had moved to London and returned to school. This time it was college. Some close friends and family were in this city so it was an easy transition. My mind and heart were still reeling from the breakup that was a good 14 months prior. In London things were much better, because instead of being alone and depressed with no close friends around and few acquaintances, I had plenty around. Plus I made more, including a couple of good ones in college and a couple of good ones who lived next door (one of whom eventually became my brother-in-law). But all this meant was that I had a different friend or group of friends to hit the bar with every night. Three or four times a week, in fact.
I went to school for marketing, but in the summer I found a job as a retail manager and stopped going to class. I showed up for exams and got the credits, because I found it easy. But then I focused on making money, still unsure about what I wanted to do. Only that I wanted to make money and be comfortable. I was heavily in debt ($40 thousand) and thanks to returning to school, it reset the clock as to how quickly I had to pay it back.
In the retail stores we played music, so I was still on top of the latest songs. Not many great ones came out in 1998, though plenty of “not bad” ones. Perhaps it was the rough couple of years I was going through. I did love Fly Away though. It brought me straight back to being a huge Kravitz fan. I thought Uninvited and You Should Come Over were both very underrated songs (and both from Canadian artists). And Pearl Jam Yield came out and the best song on that CD was a song they never released – No Way. The song Money City Maniacs (another Canadian band) will always remind me of GT’s.
In the summer of ’98 I remember being on a rooftop patio when we caught word that the Hip was the ‘secret band’ that would perform in London the next night. We all got up, went home and gathered our things, and we got in line, staying up all night. We got the tickets and I watched the Hip for my second and final time.
The Tragically Hip’s album that summer, Phantom Menace, was the first of what would be a steady string of weak albums for what was an elite band. And Poets was the last of their truly great songs. Everyone loves Bobcaygeon – love love loves it – but it never caught on with me. I bought the Hip’s Live Between Us album after that one, but that would be it for me and buying albums from this band.
Unlike most rankings, I haven’t been simply tossing these up in a numerical order. Because we can all agree that on some days, certain songs kick more ass than other songs – yet other days they do not. It all depends on mood and situation. A song that is ranked 14th today could very well rank 1st tomorrow – if it suddenly comes on the radio during the perfect moment and I start singing along. So I group them instead of presenting a hard-and-fast order:
Awesome
Great
Pretty Good
Not Bad
…with some inter-group splitting.
| 1- Awesome | Uninvited | – | Alanis Morissette |
| 1- Awesome | Fly Away | – | Lenny Kravitz |
| 3 – Awesome | You Should Come Over | – | 54-40 |
| 3 – Awesome | Cowboy | – | Kid Rock |
| 3 – Awesome | No Way | – | Pearl Jam |
| 3 – Awesome | Money City Maniacs | – | Sloan |
| 3 – Awesome | Poets | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 8 – Great | Celebrity Skin | – | Hole |
| 8 – Great | Malibu | – | Hole |
| 8 – Great | All Those Yesterdays | – | Pearl Jam |
| 8 – Great | Meet Virginia | – | Train |
| 12 – Great | Closing Time | – | Semisonic |
| 12 – Great | Slide | – | The Goo Goo Dolls |
| 12 – Great | Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) | – | The Offspring |
| 12 – Great | Thank U | – | Alanis Morissette |
| 12 – Great | That Song | – | Big Wreck |
| 12 – Great | The Way | – | Fastball |
| 12 – Great | Shine | – | Junkhouse |
| 12 – Great | American Woman | – | Lenny Kravitz |
| 12 – Great | Gasoline | – | Moist |
| 12 – Great | In Hiding | – | Pearl Jam |
| 12 – Great | Wishlist | – | Pearl Jam |
| 12 – Great | Pure Morning | – | Placebo |
| 12 – Great | Luv Me, Luv Me | – | Shaggy |
| 12 – Great | My Favorite Mistake | – | Sheryl Crow |
| 12 – Great | Can’t Get Enough of You Baby | – | Smash Mouth |
| 12 – Great | Ava Adore | – | Smashing Pumpkins |
| 12 – Great | Black Balloon | – | The Goo Goo Dolls |
| 12 – Great | Broadway | – | The Goo Goo Dolls |
| 12 – Great | Iris | – | The Goo Goo Dolls |
| 12 – Great | Fireworks | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 32 – Pretty Good | Since When | – | 54-40 |
| 32 – Pretty Good | One Week | – | Barenaked Ladies |
| 32 – Pretty Good | Intergalactic | – | Beastie Boys |
| 32 – Pretty Good | The Oaf | – | Big Wreck |
| 32 – Pretty Good | Never There | – | Cake |
| 32 – Pretty Good | What It’s Like | – | Everlast |
| 32 – Pretty Good | Out Of My Head | – | Fastball |
| 32 – Pretty Good | He Got Game | – | Public Enemy |
| 32 – Pretty Good | Come With Me | – | Puff Daddy |
| 32 – Pretty Good | The Kids Aren’t Alright | – | The Offspring |
| 42 – Pretty Good | I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing | – | Aerosmith |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Spaceman | – | Bif Naked |
| 42 – Pretty Good | The Scene | – | Big Sugar |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Blown Wide Open | – | Big Wreck |
| 42 – Pretty Good | …Baby One More Time | – | Britney Spears |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Wide Open Spaces | – | Dixie Chicks |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Save Tonight | – | Eagle-Eye Cherry |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Fire Escape | – | Fastball |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Shimmer | – | Fuel |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Heaven Tonight | – | Hole |
| 42 – Pretty Good | The Dope Show | – | Marilyn Manson |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Space Lord | – | Monster Magnet |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Given To Fly | – | Pearl Jam |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Adia | – | Sarah McLachlan |
| 42 – Pretty Good | Lullaby | – | Shawn Mullins |
| 42 – Pretty Good | My Favourite Game | – | The Cardigans |
| 42 – Pretty Good | We Like To Party (The Vengabus) | – | Vengaboys |
| 59 – Not Bad | It’s All Been Done | – | Barenaked Ladies |
| 59 – Not Bad | Forest Fire | – | David Usher |
| 59 – Not Bad | Together Again | – | Janet Jackson |
| 59 – Not Bad | Hands | – | Jewel |
| 59 – Not Bad | Ray Of Light | – | Madonna |
| 59 – Not Bad | Kind & Generous | – | Natalie Merchant |
| 59 – Not Bad | Do The Evolution | – | Pearl Jam |
| 59 – Not Bad | Dragula | – | Rob Zombie |
| 59 – Not Bad | The Spirit of Radio | – | Rush |
| 59 – Not Bad | Bobcaygeon | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 59 – Not Bad | Membership | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 59 – Not Bad | Leaving On a Jet Plan | – | Chantal Kreviazuk |
| 59 – Not Bad | Don’t Drink The Water | – | Dave Matthews Band |
| 59 – Not Bad | I’ll Be | – | Edwin McCain |
| 59 – Not Bad | Perfect | – | Smashing Pumpkins |
| 59 – Not Bad | The Rules | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 75 – Not Bad | The Boy Is Mine | – | Brandy & Monica |
| 75 – Not Bad | This Means War! | – | Busta Rhymes |
| 75 – Not Bad | My Heart Will Go On | – | Celine Dion |
| 75 – Not Bad | You Were Mine | – | Dixie Chicks |
| 75 – Not Bad | Summer Long | – | Emm Gryner |
| 75 – Not Bad | Everything Is Automatic | – | Matthew Good Band |
| 75 – Not Bad | Faithfull | – | Pearl Jam |
| 75 – Not Bad | Pilate | – | Pearl Jam |
| 75 – Not Bad | Something On | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 75 – Not Bad | Thompson Girl | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 75 – Not Bad | Under the Lighthouse | – | Big Wreck |
| 75 – Not Bad | When You’re Gone | – | Bryan Adams |
| 75 – Not Bad | Back to You | – | Bryan Adams |
| 75 – Not Bad | Whippin’ Piccadilly | – | Gomez |
| 75 – Not Bad | It’s the End of the World | – | Great Big Sea |
| 75 – Not Bad | London Rain | – | Heather Nova |
| 75 – Not Bad | Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) | – | Jay-Z |
| 75 – Not Bad | Freak on a Leash | – | Korn |
| 75 – Not Bad | Mountain Hare Krishna | – | Krishna Das |
| 75 – Not Bad | Rico | – | Matthew Good Band |
| 75 – Not Bad | MFC | – | Pearl Jam |
| 75 – Not Bad | In My Head | – | Queens of the Stone Age |
| 75 – Not Bad | You Get What You Give | – | The New Radicals |
| 75 – Not Bad | Graduate | – | Third Eye Blind |
| 75 – Not Bad | Vapour Trails | – | Tragicallly Hip |
| 75 – Not Bad | Any Day Now | – | Watchmen |
| 75 – Not Bad | This Mourning | – | Wide Mouth Mason |
1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
On August 30, 2017, one year ago today, I received stem cells from a world donor who was found to be a perfect match. Finding a perfect match was extremely fortunate as many people have to settle for half-matches or worse, which decreases the likelihood of successful grafting in your body. In May, 2017, I had been diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), which is a cancer of the bone marrow, and after a month of “lighter” chemo treatments it had expedited to AML (leukemia) and I had to be admitted to hospital.
I was back in the hospital on August 24, after a “last dinner” with the wife and kids at a restaurant. Then it was a different chemo per day on the 25th – 28th. After that, on the 29th, was full radiation. This killed everything in my marrow both good and cancerous, and left me with zero immunity. And on August 30 I was reborn. With no immunity to fight these “invading” stem cells, the hope was that it would be accepted into my body and that within two weeks it would become new marrow and start creating healthy blood. This was helped along by different doses of different chemos, just making sure that none of my body’s defenses would fight or hinder the process. I actually maintained a decent appetite, one of the better cases for sure. Although around Day 10 I had sores in my mouth that everyone gets from one of the chemos or the radiation (I forget which) that forced me to eat pretty much through a straw. But this only lasted four days (most people this can last a week to 10 days so again – lucky).
