Today, Sunday, May 26th, Maddisun returns to The Heatley in Vancouver. Here’s a link to a preview of “Once Upon A Time In The West”, a story I wrote on September 14th, 2023 that took place at Maddisun’s show at The Heatley with Clara MacLeod and Rahael. At the end of the preview, there is a link to the rest of the story exclusively on Maddisun’s Patreon.
There’s still time to join if you want an exclusive listen to Maddisun’s new single “Feelin’ It Again”, which comes out June 7th. If you’d like to pre-save the song, Click Here
Thank you all so much for reading. =j
Previously on A Maddisun Tale…
Kimberly, British Columbia, 1923
Ziggy’s Stardust Saloon.
Running Wolf and Maddisun sit at a poker table in the back while Maddisun’s song “Running” plays on the phonograph.
Running Wolf eyes the whiskey bottle. “While we play this hand, I’ll give you some advice. We’ll play 5 Card Draw. Familiar?” -Running Wolf, grabbing a deck of cards on the table and shuffling them.
“Of course, but, let’s use my cards. I wasn’t sure why I bought these, except for the dreams of your game with Coyote The Trickster.” -Maddisun, who pours a shot for Running Wolf, then herself, and then reaches into her shoulder bag, grabs a black playing card box, and sets it on the table.
“May I bum a smoke?” -Running Wolf
While Maddisun dug a pack of Camels out of her pocket, Running Wolf patted herself down looking for a light.
Maddisun pulled a pack of matches she’d gotten at the diner out of the pocket of her dark brown suede vest and set it on the table. Running Wolf lit the cigarette, opened the box, shuffled the deck, and placed it in front of Maddisun who cut it.
Running Wolf took a small stack of poker chips, giving half to Maddisun and placing the other half by her shot glass.
Running Wolf and Maddisun each anted in one chip, and then Running Wolf dealt 5 cards a piece
Maddisun’s cards didn’t leave much room for hope.
Maddisun kept the clubs and drew two cards
Running Wolf’s draw wasn’t much better.
Running Wolf kept the spades and drew three
Each of them threw another chip in the pot to test the waters.
Running Wolf set down her cards. “So about that advice.” Maddisun looked up from her cards and smiled, then set her cards down as well.
Running Wolf motioned to the phonograph. “Would you mind winding that up again and playing the next song?”
Maddisun laughed as she got up and wound the crank on the phonograph. “Penny calls the jukebox Bumblebee. Does this one have a name?”
“Cranky.” -Running Wolf, starting to chuckle.
Once the phonograph was wound and the platter was spinning, Maddisun set the needle of the tonearm down on an old unmarked 78 RPM record. “Can’t read the selections here either?”
“Everybody gotta have a thing.” -Running Wolf
“Oh…” Maddisun remembered when the jukebox played “Rooms on Fire” and how the Diner transformed, and then looked around Ziggy’s Stardust Saloon. She was about to ask Running Wolf a question but remembered what Charlie had told her earlier:
“I don’t ask questions anymore. I don’t need to know, and why take yourself out of the moment? This place is an extension of each of us, giving our lives a little spiritual assistance. I’d hate to waste it’s time looking for answers when I have…” Charlie waved out from the log bench at the art walk's west end towards the diner. “This amazing life to live.”
Maddisun sat down and poured another shot for each of them as the song began to play.
Running Wolf began:
“So I’m gonna channel Charlie Jones a little here, Maddisun. When you get back to the diner, ask Isabella about cumbia. Cumbia is a traditional Columbian dance. It’s a tribal rhythm that developed during the once-a-year celebrations Spanish conquerors allowed African slaves in the 16th century. It has become the national dance of Columbia representing the people's resilience. It’s become their voice. Cumbia is the sound of the people, their land, and their culture. Cumbian music is the language of their soul.
Long ago, our creator told us “You need to know your language. You need to speak your language. When I shake this earth, you will need it to survive.
Music is your language, and whether it’s the sound of your mountains or that cute little red Chevette of yours at home, the sound of the urban sprawl of Toronto, maybe the harmony of joyous voices at Chez Mallo or Kensington Market, or the sound of the train you are riding to downtown, remember those sounds, those rhythms, and those beats. Those are the sounds of your land.”
In her mind, while Running Wolf talked, the sounds of a chorus came, but Maddisun couldn’t make it out yet, so she kept listening to Running Wolf hoping she’d get a clue.
“Here’s something to think about. Skip a stone in the sea from the West in Vancouver, create a ripple, and then watch it come ashore in the East after it crosses the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, down the St. Lawrence River, through Montreal and into Lake Ontario where you’ll watch it reach the shores of Toronto. Think about the journey of that ripple…”
The lyrics came so abruptly, that Maddisun was singing them before she even realized it.
“Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me"
“Ah! Yes. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if much of what I say is just rhetorical confirmation. What I want to say next, well, someone said it better earlier this year. I’m going to share something Amanda said to Jenny and Jessie out at Green Point Campground on Vancouver Island while Mouse and Penny were searching for my journal with Luna.”
Her cigarette had gone out, so she relit it, took a drag, and dropped a Brett Michaels-level sigh.
“Grab my hand, I’ll show you.” Running Wolf held her hand out over the table, and Maddisun took it. She wasn’t looking through her eyes, and everything was black and white. She was looking through a treeline out onto a beach where Amanda, Jessie, and Jenny sat around a fire.
Amanda was holding a Campfire.
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. “Do your worst, for I will do mine!” Then the fates will know you as we know you.” -Amanda, quoting Dumas’ Edmund Dantes, threw everyone, including Maddisun, but she wasn’t done.
“But this ain’t a man’s world we’re in right now girls. I’ve only got one piece of advice. Be the storm.”
Running Wolf let go of Maddisun’s hand. They were back in the Saloon.
“Who’s eyes were those?” -Maddisun
“A sea wolf, he’s Luna’s mate these days. Oh, I forgot to tell Penny. Charlie needs to come to Vancouver Island. Luna has…what?” -Running Wolf, noticing Maddisun was going to brave a question.
“Luna, Larry, Lucy, they’re all part of the Veil? Are Charlie and Samantha getting another kid, hahaha! Please tell me it’s a problem child.” -Maddisun
“She’s too human.” -Running Wolf.
“I’ll let Charlie know! Is Larry God?” -Maddisun
Running Wolf rolled her eyes and quoted Gnarls Barkley.
“Probably, probably…” Then she continued:
"Your journey will get harder the further you get. You’ll have to get louder to be heard, be stronger to keep pace, and believe in yourself more than you ever have.
Trust your instincts.
Become a primal scream of brutal, honest, unmercifully violent, raw emotions. Fucking growl. Howl at the damn moon.”
“Okay, Lester Bangs.” -Maddisun
Running Wolf looked down at her cards, picked them up, moved one, then set them down again and continued:
“At some point, you’ll feel that call of the wild growing in you. Anything you’re still dragging along like Buck the sled dog from Jack London’s book that can’t carry its weight on its own will have to go. I’ve met that Ghost Dog. He’s pretty cool, but there’s no place for Buttercups and no Namby Pamby Land for them to run off to in this line of work. It will feel like a tug of war between what you’re reaching for and what’s holding you back by not letting go.
Something that might help you through this is finding your primal flow. That’s something that Jacob taught Jessie, to help her discover her fighting style. Don’t be hesitant to reach out to the gang, but you already know you don’t need them. You are The Kootenay Kid, after all. Mostly I just wanted to meet my current incarnation, and I want to thank you for coming. One last piece of my mind then, before we call.
When you let go of unnecessary commitments, and discard any negative untruths that people may have gotten you to believe about yourself along the way, you’ll find your pack of wolves to run with, just like Buck did eventually, but I’m not necessarily talking about the girls.”
Running Wolf stopped talking and picked up her cards, so Maddisun poured them another shot. They silently toasted, clinked shot glasses, and drank. Then Maddisun smiled and said:
“There’s that feeling again.”
Maddisun got up and walked over to wind up Cranky, placed the needle of the tone arm in the groove, sat back down, and pushed in all her chips as her song “All or Nothing” began to play on the phonograph.
That’s when Running Wolf folded.
After saying goodbye, Maddisun walked out of the Saloon into the night. She took in the sounds of Kimberly, British Columbia in 1923, then closed her eyes and felt for the groove of the Veil.
Back in the Saloon, Running Wolf wound up Cranky and placed the needle on the groove of the old vinyl 78 just as Maddisun stepped out of the Veil.
It was a little past Midnight. As Maddisun walked towards the diner, a text came in. “We’re in the barn, upstairs, can’t wait to hear your new song, get up here! =P”
When she nears the diner, Maddisun sees Charlie and Samantha walking towards the barn and catches up with them.
“So Samantha filled me in on the girl’s adventure, but I’ll let her tell it…” -Charlie
“Panties, I mean Penny, oh god never mind, hi Maddisun.” -Samantha
“So what did Running Wolf have to say?” -Charlie, lobbing Maddisun a softball.
Maddisun sang her response while Running Wolf sang along in Ziggy’s Stardust Saloon.
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
Just a small note. I shuffled, cut, and dealt the cards just as shown. That was a real hand. I thought it would be fun to make myself write around it.
I borrowed part of what Running Wolf says to Maddisun from this story on the Ktunxa’s unique language.