Ron James - All Over the Map: Rambles and Ruminations from the Canadian Road

Go ahead, chase fame. See what that does to your soul.

Billy Connolly

Follow your bliss.

Joseph Campbell

Look here

Youve never seen this country

its not the way you thought it was

Look again

Al Purdy

All Over the Map is a travelogue through time; a road trip between one comedians ears, taking pit stops in the past and present, that embraces the mysteries of people and place.

That comedian is me, by the way, and I wouldnt be writing the book were I not oneId be busy in the lab with other nuclear physicists, playing with boron.

Thats a lie. You need good marks in math to be a nuclear physicist, and I repeatedly flunked that subject in school, because Id rather talk than think. Id also rather hit the road, looking for laughs, than deal with a nuclear meltdown in a cooling tower any dayso theres that, too.

By the way, when I write mysteries of people and place, I dont mean the run-of-the-mill mysteries, like Are sasquatches real, and if so, why does the only existing film footage of them look like a neighbour running through a backyard in a hair suit they sewed in their man cave? Or Was the last recorded sighting of the serpent Ogopogowhich legend says swims in British Columbias Lake Okanaganauthentic, or the result of the claimant enjoying a magic mushroominduced afternoon? (Perfectly plausible. I certainly saw my fair share of giant lizards after scarfing a mittful of shrooms at a folk festival or two back in the day. Believe me, a trio of seven-foot salamanders singing backup for Valdy in 1978 was a vision a twenty-year-old kid could have done without.)

Perhaps the most enduring of Canadian mysteries is: How many mosquitoes, over what period of time, does it take to drain you dry of blood while youre attempting to fill your bucket with the blueberries youre picking north of Temiskaming? (Actually, its 729,623, in under five minutes. How about that? Maybe I am good at math.)

At the risk of pushing the envelope into hypothetical realms of the fantastical, the mystery Im referring to is the tactile connection of spirit to place. Its the soul note that connects you to the authentic. I heard it ringing Sunday-morning clear when touring cities, towns and whistle stops along 7,821 kilometres of our nations connective tissue: the Trans-Canada Highway. The hidden boons accrued in a call to adventure answered, occurred when I crossed paths with fellow pilgrims who, unprompted, shared their stories that in the telling, delivered a currency far greater than a paydays treasure.

Whether in coffee shops, hotels, planes, street corners, food courts or bars, when these strangers started talking, Id just listen. When they were done and disappeared to where theyd come from, I wrote it all down so I wouldnt forget. Im glad I did, because those conversations took place well before we were forced to close off the real world we actually walked through in exchange for the digital one we dont. They happened before everything changed. They happened before a worldwide pandemic shifted our psychic paradigm, dramatically altering daily life, crippling economies, gutting government infrastructure and, at this writing, leaving 3.6 million global casualties in its wake.

The performing arts suffered a particularly devastating blow. Throughout the global village, those places where practitioners of the myriad disciplines that comprise the profession once plied our tradestheatres, stadiums, bars, clubs, concert hallswere shuttered to protect audiences and performers alike from an invisible enemy ten times more contagious than the common flu. This killing of authentic social contact made social medias inauthentic contact a mandatory lifeline. What for me had once been a live audience seated in theatres, suddenly became an unseen audience, seated somewhere in cyberspace. With everyone housebound, Zoom became cyberworlds ubiquitous delivery system. Where Id once stood onstage hearing laughter, I now stood in my living roomhearing, wellnothing at all! (Given the contemptibly quiet crowds Id weathered in my first few years in stand-up, the irony wasnt lost on me. You gotta love it when life comes full circle, eh?)

Streaming gigs live from my living room certainly kept my mojo workin and threw a few bucks in my kitty, yet every performance felt as if I was delivering my set to fellow earthlings from a space capsule orbiting the Nebulon galaxy. Authentic connection is not the mediums strong suit.

My Covid-enforced dependence on technology cant be entirely blamed on the virus, though. Id already become prisoner to the dopamine release that a smart phones ping delivers to the neocortex. With each one, the brains receptors experience such an orgasmic hit of adrenalin its a wonder theres not a discharge of fluids! The thing about receiving a dose of dopamine, though, is that in less than an hour, youll be wanting another one. Its buzz is fleeting. Ephemeral. Empty calories. A soul note, on the other hand, is not just a passing sensation, but one of permanence. It echoes through time, by setting its anchor way down deep to where spirit abides. Its what those fellow pilgrims I chatted with felt compelled to share and I felt privileged to hear. That makes this their book as much as it does mine.