A couple of weeks ago the handsome, kind and gentle man on the left, suffered a catastrophic stroke. As he had wished, no heroic measures were taken, and this morning, my Dad, Horace Herbert Crowston slipped from the planets' grasp.
This photo was taken on my wedding day, some 15 years ago, to my loving and supportive partner, 

Shelley McGaw

. Dad stands with his wife of almost 70 years, Beverly Rose Crowston and my lovely sister K.C. Lawrence, both of whom have passed.
My Dad was a 'depression b...
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Yes, I'm Listening

They weren’t trendy, although they had trendy things, and they weren’t artsy, although they had art. They both worked in creative industries, but they didn’t consider themselves particularly creative and they weren’t wealthy although they had most of the things they might need. One of those things was a little personal assistant - it was connected. Back then, everyone had one. They were everywhere, but mostly in people's kitchens. Our partners called their's Adam Al...

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Down the Street, But Not Too Far

The moving van exploded into a thousand little pieces of things that a family once owned. There were the easy things; those two things were table legs and what was a wicker laundry hamper lid. But there were confusing things too, just a bunch of stuff; there was stuff everywhere, all over the street. It was a really big mess. 

Mary Kinder was the first one on the to get near the van. She was six. As dust settled, and smoke dissipated, Mary, who had only been a h...

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Let's start with a confession: I am afraid of a few things. Things like rats, snakes and I'm really, really afraid of the Dentist. That's funny 'cause I wake up next to a gal who trundles off to a Dentist's Office every morning and worse, discusses her day with me at days end. I shiver and quake through most of these chats and clearly see her subtle disfavour of my cowardice. To add insult to injury, a whole cast of her McGaw clan work in the field and LOVE to 'talk shop' at any and every fam...

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Vinyl. Impossible to spell. As a matter of fact, even spelling bee winners cringe at the thought of the word, but it's not just hard to spell, it's hard to kill.

There's been dozens of music delivery formats put out there - 78's and 45's and reel to reel and 8 track, cassettes and MD discs, CD's and MP3's... plus a whole mess of other attempts to get us to buy music. Did you know that Miles Davis's 'Kind of Blue' has been released in every single delivery format that has ever been pushed on...

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This past summer I had the great and grand pleasure to work with a small, dedicated group of young people from the Wachiay Friendship Centre on a message driven creation sponsored by Island Health. The result of those efforts was a little film called 'The Test". It's an HIV awareness video. It was conceived, after many hours of intense debate, written, story-boarded, filmed (on cell phones!) and edited by the group themselves. This is their first effort, and, considering that these people had...
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August 24 2015

Just in case, I'm Rob Crowston, K.C.'s big brother.

James Taylor sings:

“The secret of life 

Is enjoying the passage of time.”

We're all here today because my sister, our sister, our daughter, our mother, our wife and our friend Kerry Catherine Lawrence knew, despite everything that was going on with her body, knew better than most, how to enjoy the passage of time.

When K.C. First appeared on my landscape she pretty much ruined everything. 'Til then,...

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The other night I was at a schmooz for a new media company. They were
launching an internet product that they hoped might be the next big thing. Cool
technology, big dollars, forward thinking – all the hype, all the right buzz words.
Lots of people milling about, some old friends in the biz, some newbies and the
usual hangers on and wanna bees you always seem to find at these things.
 
At one point I found myself standing in line, engaged in conversation with a small
group and one of the fel...
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My words, my noise from the Celebration of Life for my friend Martin Borycki...

I wrote these notes a few days ago in hope that I'd have something prepared  for today. I guess we'll find out together if that has become so.

It happened that it was Jack Kerouac's birthday.
Like our friend, Kerouac was a poet, a painter, a writer, an American take on a Zen Buddhist with attitude and quite probably certifiably insane.

My friend, our friend, Martin, was all those things and so much more.... he was ...
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13 years is a long time. A child can become a woman, a man may re-find love.

I cannot stop speeding trains, nor leap to untold heights, but it would seem that I am capable of living long enough to have something precious return to my life and in its happening, move me to my core.

The phone rang, and naturally enough, I answered. At first I thought it was a student, but no, it was someone much closer; much, much closer, and we hadn't spoken for thirteen years.

She called me. I was thrille...

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Craigslist Ad:

We are a small & casual restaurant in downtown Vancouver and we are looking for solo musicians to play in our restaurant to promote their work and sell their CD. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get positive response. More Jazz, Rock, & smooth type music, around the world and mixed cultural music. Are you interested to promote your work? Please reply back ASAP.

A Musician's Reply:

Happy New Year! I am a mus...

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My friend Jonathan Stanley works with a group of people that develop entertaining content in combination with amazing technology for the tourism trade. They build systems that enable visitors of major tourist attractions to experience the attraction through GPS driven technology and dynamic story telling . Better still, they offer their entertainment in as many languages as the operator might like to service.

The other day, Jonathan turned me on to a video that had impressed him with its compe...
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When I was a little boy and got into trouble, my Dad would work the ‘discussion’ regarding my latest less than brilliant move, around to a point where invariably I would have to say ” I didn’t think…” hoping to add something like “…the window would be in the way”, or that “…the sink would overflow”, or “…the deck would catch fire”, but he of course wo...

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Has it really been so long? So long since I had anything to say, to pass on, to contribute? Sadly, thus is so. Perhaps I might might kick start my sorry ass with these fine words I encountered just a few moments ago:

Dr. King once said:

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve from all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggres...
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