Dudgee's World

I've Moved....

2005-11-25T19:53:00.000-05:00

I have disbanded this blog and moved to where all the cool people are. Actually, I moved because MySpace is far more useful for the aspiring band.

Ian Dudgeon & SoulStir on MySpace

Coming Soon: A CD by Me

2005-04-25T14:35:00.000-04:00

So it has been decided - my future holds a full-length album as the next step towards something happening in music.

I spent a few hours this weekend catching up with a very well respected music producer whom I've known for about ten years now. Having not seen each other for about 3-4 years, we reconneced via email and got together to talk music and just catch up on what's been happening in life.

It was an incredibly encouraging meeting for me not only for the advice (and a bit of an ass kicking on some excuses I use to justify my procrsatination!) but the fact he put in the time and is so willing to help me out. As you've read below, it can be really tough to find people who are willing to give you advice and follow through with promises.

So, to make a long story short he listened to my stuff and got pretty exicted at least about 3-4 of the songs, saying they had "a great deal of potential". Boo yah!

So the next step is to raise the money to get this beast recorded and produced properly. My god would I love nothing more than to step into a studio armed with the right players, a producer to help me get the most out of the songs and to be able to spend the right amount of time to work on each and every song without cramming it into some silly weekend spot.

This would truly be a dream come true... now if anyone out there feels like donating to the project, I'm about $19,950.00 short. :)

I Discovered Who I Am!

2005-04-19T14:00:00.000-04:00

I took a test, now I know. Click the picture and you can find out who you are.

I like my new mask:

Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Bye Bye Mr. Pope

2005-04-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

As I type this the Pope is on his death bed. Thank goodness. Let him go. The man needs to rest. He deserves his eternal rest and reward for being an incredibly faithful servant. Although I'm not Catholic, many relatives on my mother's side are and it is pretty amazing what impact this one man (not just the role but the actual person in it) has had on so many people.

I really wonder if people like him doing a job until death is really fair. I guess you accept the job with that part built in but man, no such thing as retirement when you're a pope.

Record or not to record...Everyone else is doing it.

2005-04-01T14:43:00.000-05:00

I received more encouragement to get my butt into a studio and record. Peter and Heather Jackson visited MCC on Sunday and it was pretty kewl.

In their travels they are carting around a few CD's recently completed by a few artists I know. "That's nice", I thought, but since they kind of appeared to have that typical Christian "yeah I got an album too" look to them, I didn't pay much attention.

It sure does seem that everyone has an album these days. Like your grandparents, your little cousin Jimmy, your sister, and everyone who goes to your local chuch.

I had a long chat with Heather about the whole thing and stated my reasons for not doing one yet. First being time, second money and thirdly that I don't want to do what just about every other person I know does ... go into a stuido, bang away 7-8 tunes, scramble to get it done within a puny budget and pump out a very average product with nobody around to buy it.

Plus if I do, what am I recording? What songs and why? Is this a band? a solo thing? a worship album? Chinese new year songs?

blah... me think more later.

Top 10 Things to Do During the NHL Lockout

2005-03-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

this was written by a good message board poster pal of mine known as "Scotty Bowman" who should be a professional.... Scotty, beauty eh! Nice job ya hoser!

10. Go up on your roof and shoot apples at seagulls. Each time you miss yell I'm Brett Hull in the 2004 Playoffs baby! I need my illegal sticks!

9. When watching a show with your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, sock puppet...pretend that all the characters are NHL players. That 70's Show could be made to be Habs players like Dryden, Laflaeur, Shutt, Lemaire, Robinson, etc. Trailor Park Boys can star Bryan McCabe, Ed Belfour and Derian Hatcher.

8. Go join a local road hockey game and explain to the kids THE TRAP, the LW LOCK, and obstruction. Being hit by a car doesn't count. Make the fat kid play goal and call himself Giguere. Make the tall kid throw the worst dman around like a rag doll and call himself Chara. The grubbiest kid can be Pronger.

7. Go to the museum and make fun of all the naked paintings. Call naked fat woman #1 Bruce Garrioch. Naked fat woman #2 Ken Hitchcock. Naked fat woman #3 Ted Leonsis.

6. Implement new rule changes around your house. Things like...No touching the icing on your mom's cake on Sunday. No obstruction between you and your 50 inch High Definition Plasma TV. You are allowed to make 2 line passes at your wife, girlfriend, sock puppet after 10 pm.

5. Create your very own NHL uniform. You must include the worst colour you have ever seen such as Nashville's baby crap yellow turd...some stupid looking animal like figure which no one can tell what the hell it is. Plus an emblem which has nothing to do with anything whatsoever. You must then sell this to as many people as you can find who will pay you $200 for it.

4. At your work place, give your boss a "good game" by slapping him on the ass. Pour water all over your face, spit it on the photocopier and swear at the guy/girl in the cubicle next to you with verbal taunts about his mother, sexual orientation and lack of genitals.

3. Have as many people as you can find interview you and pretend to be an NHL player. Say things like "I'm just taking things 1 day at a time. You make your own breaks. I just have to get on a roll and see where things go from there. And I'm going to keep working hard and good things will come to me." After that blame Gary Bettman for everything that is wrong with the world which includes the depletion of the Ozone Layer.

2. Pick 2 of your best buddies, put on Charleston Chiefs jerseys and go to your local arena when the tykes are playing. Clothesline all the kids and scream at them LET ME KNOW YER THERE! Take all their damn quarters, put on the foil and beat up their parents. After the practice take em all to the Massage Parlour and put out a bounty on Al Strachan.

1. Ride around in your car around the block 10 times like a zamboni. Play Stompin Tom Connors' "Good ol Hockey Game" full blast, turn off all your neighbours tv's declaring tv timeouts and give atomic wedgies to any old guy saying that your coach told you to do it.

Imagine the NHL in one year

2005-03-02T13:49:00.000-05:00

from my brain...

NHL Hockey Back and Better Than Ever.
March 1, 2006

Just over a year after the cancellation of the 2004-2005 NHL season, Gary Bettman and his group of owners have managed to revive hockey and through what seemed to be impossible odds have pulled together one of the most amazing revivals in the history of sport. The pattern of events has been eerily similar to what the National Football League went through in 1983. Players bet that fans would never watch replacment players. They bet on the wrong horse.

A year ago, hockey was on life support. The season had been cancelled, talks between the NHL and NHLPA were more bitter than ever and showing no end in sight, sponsors were cutting or threatening to cut their affiliation with a dying sport all together.

In September, 2005, the two sides were no closer to an agreement. Negotiations had officially reached an impasse. The NHLPA continued to outright refuse a deal that included linkage to revenue. The NHL’s said there was no way they could go into a season after missing one completely and expect to afford what the players were demanding. The NHLPA continued to offer a hard cap at $47 million and were only offering to tinker with luxury tax rates and thresholds below that figure to make it more appealing. The league maintained that they could not use a hard number when revenues were completely unknown.

The NHL, having spent the last five months promoting the game with new rules, new attitude and competitiveness amongst all teams unilaterally implemented their offer and opened the doors to the players. In response, the NHLPA went on strike and said they would challenge the decision in court citing unfair labor practices were about to take place.

Replacement players were brought in from all corners of the earth, filling every team with 23 players. Many names from the past had returned to clubs once known for their prowess as NHL elite. Even a few recently inducted hall of fame players had the nerve to dress for games and play again. Very few NHLPA members crossed the picket lines at the beginning. Mario Lemieux was the one and only star player in the league at the beginning. The NHL was un-phased and determined that the show must go on.

Fans were offered significant discounts to come see the new-look NHL teams. Tickets were slashed by 25% across the board for the entire season with many teams slashing prices even further. All of the major markets had little trouble luring fans back but did offer deals on seats and free food vouchers as well as big one-time discounts to season ticket holders.

The PA failed to reach an injunction for the immediate end to using replacement players in several cities. After several short court battles, it was ruled that the players were contracted, not hired as employees and therefore could not stop the use of replacement workers. The PA’s only recourse was to prove that the NHL did not negotiate in good faith. The NHL countered that it was the PA who did not negotiate in good faith. The battle in court went on while the game on the ice continued.

Small market teams, along with NHL marketing gurus, saw the replacement player concept as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to promote the game to new audiences by offering heavily discounted tickets to families and businesses and all sorts of bells and whistles to put new fans in seats. It worked well in many cases as families could suddenly afford to watch a pro sport they had always heard about but never wanted to spend $300 to go and see for themselves.

With new rules opening up the ice and lesser quality players in a game all about mistakes, the entertainment value had skyrocketed, even if the best players in the world were not part of it. Ten goal games were the norm. “Come and see the hardest working players in pro sport” was the catch phrase that sold it for many new fans. The Blue Collar worker was especially attracted to that concept as well as the lowered price tag. The sport was again available to the average joe.

By mid-November , nearly 200 NHLPA members had crossed the line. Most were players at the tail end of their careers, lower-end players who needed the money and couldn’t get jobs in Europe and AHL players who saw an opportunity to make better money.

Attendance levels were understandably down from previous years’, however the hit was nowhere near as great as many had expected. Overall, the league’s average attendance had dropped by 25%, a mere blip on the radar compared to the 75% Bob Goodenow had predicted back in late September. “they will never survive” he was quoted as saying. Quite the contrary. Large market teams were breaking even, some middle market teams were struggling but most were surviving and many small market teams had actually seen a steady increase in attendance over the first three months.

Just after Christmas, a group of twenty star players crossed the line and resumed playing for their respective clubs. This group had grown tired of waiting for Goodenow to hammer out a “fair deal” and it was obvious the NHL was doing well enough that it was in no rush to cave to the PA’s demands. Fan support grew even stronger as the appeal of watching these star players skate circles around everyone else was just too much for fans to pass up.
It wasn’t long after that even when the masses started to cross the line. By mid-February, nearly 400 NHLPA members were back with their respective clubs. It was now only a matter of time until Goodenow finally caved and signed a CBA with the NHL which contained more-or-less all the items the league had put in place, plus a few revenue sharing clauses to help the players save face.

That deal was signed three days ago.

The remaining holdouts have now crossed the line… well, most have. Some players appear so bitter from the process and angry with how their leadership had failed miserably, remain in Europe and appear to be content to play out their days and not return. “You will never see me in the NHL again,” Marcus Naslund was quoted last week as saying. “I have no interest in playing in that league again”.

Bob Goodenow formally resigned yesterday with a successor yet to be named. Sources say the players want a much more league-friendly person who can work together with the league and not attempt any more hard-line stances unless absolutely necessary.

It took one full year but a sport put out for dead has been fully revived and now appears to be on the path to returning as a legit top four sport in North America and could surpass basketball based on how things are going in that league.

Meanwhile, the NBA continues to struggle in its battle with the union over many significant portions of their CBA including a hard cap, contract term restrictions and heavy restrictions on contract buyouts. Their season was cancelled on January 7th.

Replacement Players in the NHL? Giddyup.

2005-03-02T09:34:00.000-05:00

It was confirmed by just about every GM and Governor who was interviewed last night that in no certain terms, the NHL will start up in October with or without the NHLPA players. If they use replacements, so be it.

I love it. Good for the owners.

Until yesterday I felt that replacements was a weak attempt to try and push the players into returning. While from that angle it still is, I see the concept of going ahead with or without the PA as one that will start pushing the process forward. I wasn't overly excited about watching it either but now after comments from both sides yesterday, I have decided I will watch, cheer and pay for tickets (but they better be cheaper.. geez).

Everything I heard from the players makes me support the idea of replacement players more and more. Their rhetoric just pisseed me off and then I hear Healy on TSN spout moronic comments like "the players next paycheque isn't until October. They are in no rush to get a deal done" and I realize that they have ZERO, I repeat, ZERO interest in the fans and preserving the game of hockey at the NHL level.The logic they use to explain their position is not logic at all.

It's blind stupidity. It's all about fighting a fight, not coming to an agreement. It's all about showmanship, pointing the finger and blaming it all on your opponent. Weak actions from guys who are supposed to be all about sucking it up and not using excuses to explain your loss.

They are all morons and I hope they all go bankrupt and all 700 have to move into Shayne Corson's cottage and watch him chase their wives around the house on a tricycle all day long.

If the NHL is willing to put everything on the line by going with repacements, I think they have the game in mind more than money. Not a LOT more but a bit more. If they were putting money first they would get a deal done with the players and give up whatever to do it, like they did 10 years ago.

I will watch and I will attend repacement player games. I am a fan of the Maple Leafs first, not the players who happen to be on the team, and I support what the owners are standing up for.

Up yours NHLPA.

How Can The NBA Allow This Crap?

2005-03-02T08:04:00.000-05:00

The Toronto Raptors traded Vince Carter (thank God) in December and one of the players they got in return was Alonzo Mourning. The bizarre twist was that bascially the Raps knew in advance that 'Zo was never going to play for them and his desire was to return to Miami to play with Shaq.

Well that's lovely. Maybe the Raps can trade him so they get something back. Oh no? What's that you say? They are buying him out of his contract???!!!! What in the name of all that is holy is going on here?

The Raptors paid Mourning $10 million dollars so he could go and play for the team he wanted to play for all along! What is wrong with this picture? They PAID him so he could do what he wanted!!! This is the most screwed up thing I've ever heard.

At what point in any line of work or any other pro sport for that matter do you pay an employee a huge chunk of his contract to not work for you and work for your competition instead?

Why was he not suspended by the Raps? Why was this the weaker option? If this were the NHL he would sit on his ass until he decided to play. Ask Alexi Yashin what happens when you welch on a contract.

Now I hear Gary Payton, who was traded by Boston to Atlanta at the deadline, has asked the Hawks to buy him out so he can re-sign with the Celtics.

This is sooooo wrong. The NBA is not the model league everyone thinks it is.

Lesson Learned: People Don't Care Unless They Get Something out of it

2005-02-07T14:52:00.000-05:00

It's funny but true. You know who your real friends are by how they react when you need a little help from them.

I've spent the last few years working hard to get my music together to make a go of it as a career... I don't care about being famous (anymore) I just would love to make a living at it.

So I spend hours upon hours over the the last year working hard on writing and recording songs. Once to the point of being respectable at least the songwriting side, I decided to contact a few people I knew from days ago at TACF who are in the business. One was the president of a music distribution company, the other a former full-time worhip leader there.

This worship leader brought me in for two live recordings plus umpteen nights of playing in his band. I did not get paid. I didn't care about that. I can't count how many nights, plus conferences which would have been playing 2-3 times /day in some cases. The worship leader has a home studio and I think he lives off his royalties plus occasional travel and ministry stuff.

I sent him my demo in September - he has yet to listen to it.

The president was a family friend we had known since I can remember. My mother ran a bookstore that was his best customer for a number of years.

What was his response to my demo? Well he was nice enough to actually listen to it. Step one. His feedback? "You need to re-record it with better musicians". Ouch. And the response to my question about the quality of the songs so that I could decide if spending the money and time to re-record would be a wise decision or not? No response.

So either these people are showing their true colours of being the type of people who are too busy to care, not getting anything out of it so why bother or too embarassed to tell me the truth about my music.

It's hard to convince yourself that it's not the 3rd option... but thankfully I have had two experienced people in the industry comment on the quality of the songs and in one case, the musicianship - yeah the same thing this other industry president said wasn't good enough.

So to Rob and Steve, you've shown your true colours. Can't wait until you need a favour again.

New hope for NHL Season

2005-02-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

Finally some backup for my dumbass optimism over hockey returning this year. I've had the shit kicked out of me everywhere for having faith that the almighty dollar would prevail over gumption and dignity and the two stupid idiots that run our game (Gary "Betty" Bettman and Bob Goodfornothing) would stop acting cool and agree to play hockey again.

Last night on TSN, Brian Burke was strongly optimistic that the season would be saved. Although he didn't come out and divulge where he got the info, he reported on a deal or proposed deal that both sides are apparently working hard on and are about ready to finalize.

You can check out the video at www.tsn.ca/NHL/
(scroll down to the video section. Their site is too stupid to link directly to the video. Sorry.)

Here are some of the details he reported are in the proposal (thanks to "S" at tmlfans - I borrowed these from his post)

-50/50 profit sharing with the PA provided the league makes a minimum profit of ~$4 million per team. Burke called this "unprecedented in pro sport".

-a "joint audit committee" with stiff penalties: 1st time $1 million + 1st-round pick, 2nd time $5 million + THREE 1st-round picks (ouch!). This means if teams like about their reveues and get caught, they are in doo doo. Hello Blackhawks..

-Arbitration remains, with no cap on the raise a player can receive, but teams and players have equal rights to demand arbitration. This is fine since the hard cap prevails. it almost doesn't matter what you have as long as you have a hard cap. All this will do is cause more player movement but that's life in today's pro sports.

-Cap linked to revenues + luxury tax. So a luxury tax that kicks in at $X and then a hard cap that kicks in at $X+Y . Fair enough. Not sure how this fits with the revenue sharing point up top but a lot of money will be moving between teams.

Cool huh?

I would also like to use this chance to point out that I think Glenn Healy is full of goat dung and Bob McKenzie has let me down over this lockout with his "in-depth analysis" that really amounts to him saying "duuuh, I dunno" but taking 2 minutes to do it. At least he's not a union ass-kissing dink like Healy.

Oh and when can Brian Burke take over Bettman's job? the NHL needs someone with the balls to take on the mob, er, I mean Don Goodenow who probably will manage to save his job beacuse nobody else wants it. God I hate Goodenow.

NHL Season Not Done Yet

2005-01-21T09:46:00.000-05:00

After two days of talks between reps from the NHL and NHLPA, discussions broke off at the end of Thursday and the hockey world immediately began to assume the worst.

Mistake.

These are negotiations people. This is how they go. I can't for the life of me figure out why the panic button has been pushed. More got done in the last 48 hours than in the previous 4 months - so why is that a bad thing? We are running out of time, yes, but there is still juuuust enough time left.

There is reason for optimism.

It was reported this morning by a source who would have very strong connections in the PA that Linden was asking some interesting questions yesterday. Questions like, "under your proposal, how do teams like Toronto, Detroit and the Rangers get under the cap line? You're asking them to dump huge amounts of salary right off the bat", and "under a cap, how would clubs keep a young team with rising stars together once those players deserve higher salaries?". To which the NHL reps responded with various solutions to the issues.

Now if these rumored questions are true that means the PA is bending on the no-cap stance or have truly tabled the rumored 6-year proposal of a phased-in cap of some sort. Linden's questions sound to me like they could be in defense of this rumored proposal, saying theirs gives teams time to get their payroll act in gear and gives more room for clubs to keep young stars and not risk having to drop them because they can't fit them under a cap.

Before any of this is dismissed as just an optimists way of giving false hope, ask yourself what they have been talking about for the last 2 days? I don't think they sat there and waited for the other side to cave, do you? "You still want a cap?" "Yup." "How about now?"

Things look a tad grim today but as suggested many times, it was going to look worse before it looked better. The final hardline standoff is on, although it's a mini version of what we've seen before. Based on quotes from Daly and Sakin, the sides have settled a lot of the issues around the cap, just not the cap one. It's the final frontier and both sides know there are major implications both short and long-term if they bend too soon.

The bend will come. Likely this weekend.

Will we see NHL hockey this year?

2005-01-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

I dunno for sure but my heart says yes. Check out Hockey Rumors for some pretty interesting insider info on the lockout. Some people think this guy is full of it but after reading a few posts lately, he appears to have some real inside connections that are telling him what's going to happen before it happens.

Either way, it's nice to hope. False hope is better than no hope at all, IMO.

Alas

2005-01-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

Semi-finalist was as far as I went in the competition.

Oh well.

That's what I get for entering a competition with already published songwriters. Oh right - I acutally had no idea it was open to pros as well as amateurs. Funny how they don't tell you these things.

Back to being part of oblivion I go.

Dudgee a Songwriting Semi Finalist

2005-01-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

Cool.

A song I wrote last year, Holy is the Lord, has made the semi-finalist list for the Gospel/Christian category. You can hear a sample clip of the song here.

This is the my site for all things music.. www.soul-stir.com

In the grand scheme of things it's not huge but it is the first thing that has happened to me in the music world for a long, long time that shows any sign of hope for my dream of writing and getting paid for it to come true.

Check out the semi-finalist list here.

So I'll need support from everyone in a short while as they have a "fan favorite" category where you vote online for your favorite song and the winner of that gets a bunch of cool stuff. The prizes are nice but it's really about the visibility that makes this exciting. Last year's winner of that category got about 2,500 votes to win it. Not a small number but not that big if you think about it. I'll be sure to bother when it's time!

So wish me luck and pray that the other 19 people in my category who all appear to be previously published writers (one guy had a song on Dawson's Creek. Greeaaaat.), aren't as good as I worry they might be.

Oh and this is the first blog post. Yipee - I've finally given into the blog fad.