Kris Demeanor

A Welcome From Kris Demeanor

When most kids went to the Calgary Stampede as cowboys

and cowgirls, I went as a pioneer merchant/pharmacist,

in black and white dress clothes and a ribbon tie, and

headed straight for the quilting display.

After the grade three class went to the zoo, I drafted

a lengthy tirade about inadequate cages for the large

cats.

I wanted more than anything else to live in a world of

gnomes.

During an anti nuke march with Youth Action For Peace

in Grade 11, I withstood taunts of Get a job from

yokels in trucks and sang Where Have All Flowers

Gone at the downtown rally only to realize the peace

sign I had painted on my placard was actually a

Mercedes Benz logo and no one had the heart to tell

me.

I am by nature a contrarian, and also a coward, in so

far as I have never let sanctimony get in the way of

being well liked. Calgary breeds such divided souls.



My parents are artists, atheists and socialists. They

have been the only NDP sign and the only unpaved

driveway in the riding of Preston Manning and Stephen

Harper. My sister Monika and I were raised with all

the comforts and distractions a city suburb affords,

and were instilled with a first hand love of the

natural world, an awareness of the importance of

travel, social justice, laughter, sport, ritual,

Esperanto, and fine food.



Early poetry and songwriting revealed an obsession

with social gratification and romantic conquest, all

the more pointless because physically I was about as

developed as a sea monkey until I was 20. After

busking and drinking through Europe and the Middle

East for a couple of years, I realized that other

peoples lives and other countries provided better

fodder for songs and stories than my own, and adjusted

my writing accordingly. I have since found that there

is plenty to write about right here in Calgary, at the

crossroads of guilt and shame.



I have had the same friends since elementary school,

and it has been good to go from raiding gardens in our

pajamas to doing bottle hoots to Rastaman Vibration to

sitting at the reservoir listening to the Springsteen

Live box set talking about being famous by 21 to

carving ANARCHY into our forearms with dull pins to

playing Fishermans Blues at the harbour market in Old

Jaffa to seeing each others joy and contentment

levels heightened through finding life partners and

having offspring.



Playing my own music in bars and at festivals around

the world has been a gift, as has meeting and engaging

with a great number of fiercely talented artists who I

have come to adore and envy. They constantly inspire.



I have learnt very little that sticks. Everything is

true. Boxing is a sport of elegance and barbarism.

Magpies will be disdained for their incessant chatter

and admired for their wits and resourcefulness. Cities

are places of vibrancy and culture and they are zoos

of misery. Humans are spiritual and romantic

creatures who crave love and acceptance. They are

ignorant and mean and mired in addiction and unhealthy

sex obsession. I don't know if some people are evil

or just confused. I don't know if I should hate or

pity them. It's certainly more satisfying to hate

them.



The artist entertains. The artist distracts,

illuminates, creates atmospheres of engagement and

common interest, chronicles the Great Demise. The

artist is hooked on the promise of the next ego

stroke, and dreams of a low interest mortgage and a

games room with a bar.



I am pleased to be part of this great web of other

people, musicians and lovers of music. We can share,

and screw with our identities, and comfortably adjust

the amount of intimacy and anonymity. Welcome!



Kris