Halloween nightmare memory for Neil

[treeduck]

Mosquitoes, stalkers, Stephen Harper bedevil Canadian musicians

 

CASSANDRA SZKLARSKI

 

 

TORONTO (CP) - The fear of being watched, hauntings by mosquitoes, crying in the rain and the spectre of Stephen Harper are among the phobias and childhood traumas that bedevil Canadian musicians as Halloween approaches next week.

 

Spooky season aside, hip-hop maestro k-os says he's often overcome by the sensation of following eyes. It's an unexplainable anxiety that haunts him no matter the time or place.

 

"I think someone is watching me all the time, like that Rockwell song," says k-os, referring to the catchy 1984 hit "Somebody's Watching Me".

 

"I'm just so self-aware sometimes it ends up making me delusional about myself and my position. I'll be walking to the corner store and, like, be thinking someone's following me."

 

"I'm kind of paranoid," admits the dread-locked rapper, who will be performing in Toronto on Halloween night.

 

Montreal DJ Kid Koala says mosquitoes are what get under his skin.

 

The accomplished turntable artist is invariably attacked whenever the buzzing nuisance comes 'round.

 

"I think they have a penchant for me," says the musician, who is turning his pest paranoia into a 3-D picture book starring a jazz-playing mosquito.

 

"I'm actually the best mosquito repellent for anyone in my company.... I don't know what it is, maybe they like DJs."

 

It took a while for the Tragically Hip's front man to come up with an answer when asked if he had any phobias or irrational fears.

 

"First of all, none of my fears are irrational," Gord Downie deadpans before offering up a political candidate for creepiest character.

 

"I have a fear of (Prime Minister) Stephen Harper. Not irrational. And not him as a person, more just his commitment to Canada and our environment."

 

It would seem that B.C. songstress Sarah McLachlan is the brave one in the bunch, claiming to have never felt queasy about anything.

 

She's fine with enclosed spaces, doesn't mind flying and is OK with heights, but doesn't particularly like "real heights."

 

"I have no problem with creepy crawlies," McLachlan adds by phone from Vancouver.

 

"I'm the one that has to rescue the spiders and put them back outside in our house. I try really hard not to be wound up about anything because of (my four-year-old daughter) Indy. You know, they feed off all that and I don't want her to be hysterical. She loves spiders. She picks them up and plays with them."

 

Halloween is a big deal in the McLachlan household, where even the adults get into the spirit with elaborate costumes.

 

"I swear, I'm more into it than she is!" McLachlan exclaims.

 

"I usually create some sort of weird hybrid. I just like doing ridiculous makeup and putting on wings.... I think I'm going to be some sort of ethereal fairy princess or something this year."

 

Downie says the band's tour schedule has been arranged to accommodate the creepy holiday, giving him time to jet from Calgary to Toronto on the 31st to trick-or-treat with his family.

 

"I'll fly home for less than 18 hours and fly back and rejoin the tour," he says.

 

"And that is only because I have to take Darth Vader on a round of the neighbourhoods looking for candy. You'd think the chief of the evil empire would be able to do it on his own, but no."

 

Rush drummer Neil Peart might have benefited from such close supervision. The rock icon says he's haunted to this day by a sad childhood Halloween memory.

 

"I probably was about six or seven, dressing as Zorro, with a mask on and it was pouring rain," Peart says recently from his home in Los Angeles.

 

"And the rain was under my mask and I stabbed myself in the eye with my plastic sword. I was walking down the street crying my eyes out."

 

Toronto's k-os suggests musicians and artists may be particularly vulnerable to sad and creepy notions. He says that a creative mind can be a gift and a curse, offering fantastic inspiration one moment, but wild suggestions of impending doom the next.

 

"You can think of so many great ideas within the parameters of your art form but that doesn't mean it's going to be turned off when you're walking down the street or at a bar or something," he says.

 

http://www.canadaeast.com/cp/entertainment...articleID=59553

[Maddy]

Ouchie...

 

I dressed up at the fourth Doctor (Who) a few years ago. Nearly killed myself with the 12+ foot scarf I'd crocheted for the occasion...

[YYZ Working Man]

[treeduck]

QUOTE (Maddy @ Oct 27 2006, 07:32 PM)

Ouchie... I dressed up at the fourth Doctor (Who) a few years ago. Nearly killed myself with the 12+ foot scarf I'd crocheted for the occasion...

The fourth doctor (Tom Baker) was the best doctor...

[Ya_Big_Tree]

Hey for all you non-Canadians, having a lunatic like Stephen Harper in charge is a wide awake nightmare on a planet that is best not visited.

I wish he was swarmed by and angry mob of 'skeeters..that would totally "Kick ass"

 

woah yeah that doctor should keep a look out for Isadora's scarf in the future.

[Maddy]

QUOTE (treeduck @ Oct 27 2006, 09:50 PM)

QUOTE (Maddy @ Oct 27 2006, 07:32 PM) Ouchie... I dressed up at the fourth Doctor (Who) a few years ago. Nearly killed myself with the 12+ foot scarf I'd crocheted for the occasion... The fourth doctor (Tom Baker) was the best doctor... You didn't happen to hang out in a Doctor Who chatroom back around 1998 or so, did you? You remind me (in a good way) of someone I used to talk to a lot.

[tangy]