It’s the second time in my life I’ve been scared as all hell, yet excited for the future when it came to my career. The first time was in late October 2009. I was working at Primus Telecom where I was totally kicking butt in their tech support department. On one overcast late September evening I met an old colleague [Jessica] for a drink to “catch up”. As our second drink came to the table, as too did a man that looked as if he’d be a shoe-in for a role as “nightclub security”, only instead of “SECURITY” on his shirt, it read “RUN BGP”. Truthfully, it could have also read “RTFM ID10T” as both would have been predictable should you know Scott Silzer.

Jessica introduced Scott as her colleague, as he sat down and said “So Paul, do you like your job?”… “uhh, ya, why?”… “Well, you see.. would you like to talk about a new job?”… “umm.. not really”. Scott gets up and talks to Purdy (the _best_ bartender in the world, I’ll add) “get him another one”. A fresh beer arrives. “Paul, now that you have another beer, let’s talk about your new job”. This wasn’t a question, it was a demand. From an intimidating man. The kind of man you just hand your ID to without question. “Ok, what about it?”. This started something…..

“NO!!!!!!” they cried. A whole 4 people cared, and I’m most certainly being generous with that number. I’m not sure anyone would care, and if they do, why? The thing is, I see myself as someone who took a lot of pleasure and joy out of playing music; getting the chance to do that in front of a crowd was just that pleasure on an elevated level. I’m a 39 year old dude who’s been doing this DJ thing for some 26 odd years of my life, and I’m not even “over the hill”. DJing is engrained into my very being as a person and has shaped a considerable part of my life, despite the fact I always saw it as a hobby. There was a time when I was being flown into the USA on a regular basis to play shows to progressively bigger and more insane crowds. Any DJ who’s been there will attest there’s a certain magic felt when you tear down a room of 3500 to pieces ever so meticulously; a crowd like that shall never be wasted. And, there was a time where I’d be on the lineup where absolutely nobody cared (not even me). Funny how everything comes full circle. But, my time is done and that’s OK.

Maybe you’ve been there, I certainly have. For a couple years in my early 20’s I had my credit cards maxed out, a couple bucks in the bank, and a shitty job that was paying me $1000/month base + extra as we did gigs. We were doing well for a while, until the owner decided his affair was more important than the business, and suddenly the “extras” dried up. The $1000/mo was something I’d have to beg him for in the last hours of the 30th of the month so I could pay the minimums on my credit cards. Debt piled up within a few months and suddenly I was poor. I managed to find myself a new job paying $30k/year, but it was a 2.5 hour commute each way by public transit – the only thing I could afford as my car was broken and I literally had nothing left. I was living on little more than ramen and what my mom would leave for me as leftovers.

I hated her at the time for not lending me money just to buy a bus pass promising I’d pay her as soon as I got my first cheque. Instead she made me sell one of the only things I owed that had any value to scrape together literally the last few bucks to get myself to work. That was a really shitty 2 weeks until I had just enough to buy myself some lunch. The thing was – I had it easy compared to most. Oh, the lesson that she taught me. Hated her then, SO grateful for her lessons now.

It was some 25 years ago when I was just some kid in my early teens. I got hooked on electronic music and as I got to know more about it, would marvel at some the DJs. I hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on, but did I ever want to be in control of the music. I didn’t know any DJ names, and buying records wasn’t exactly a task where I could just beg my parents to drive me to the mall so I could pick them up. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue where I’d even go about buying a record as opposed to a CD. That is until my 16th birthday.

That year I came to Toronto with my then girlfriend. She knew even less about this mythical rave scene than I did, and my knowledge was juvenile at best. It was at Numb clothing that I saw my first records, a small little rack with maybe 80 or so on them – a very meager selection, but I gazed. I believe they ended up giving us the names of a few other places to check out for more selection and remember walking aimlessly around the city streets looking for these places. We left the city later that evening, and I was proudly carrying 3 records I’d bought. I was hooked.

For Christmas in 2020 I was given an Ancestry DNA kit from my mother. It was a very thoughtful gift from a parent who has always given me very thoughtful gifts my entire life. However, almost all of my mother’s digital life – from her home automation, to the last 3 laptops she’s owned, to her on-site NAS, to most things she owns that have a plug & screen are things I’ve given to her. I’m her tech-wizz son so it’s pretty suiting and I enjoy it. Unsurprisingly she’s not exactly “up-and-up” on technology – however she’s pretty damn keen on a lot of other things. She’s a smart cookie – just not with tech.

It’s for that reason I thanked her for the really thoughtful gift but explained that I wouldn’t be willing to use it for privacy reasons. She seemed perplexed as there’s a lot of mystery surrounding my father’s side of the family (no, he didn’t run off in the middle of the night to get a pack of smokes and never return). There’s basically nothing known about anyone prior to my grandfather, and there’s also another much more relevant question that pertains to me a lot closer which I’ll (very likely) never know the answer to. She was giving me the gift of curing curiosity. Am I curious – absolutely! But, I’m not willing to pay the price of admission.

Before I get into this, I want to make it perfectly clear. I am 100% pro-vaccine, pro-mask, pro-lockdown, and this post is in no way trying to downplay the effects or severity of getting COVID. It’s no joke, and if you need any sort of proof of this, feel free to head over to the COVID-19 Darwin Awards at https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

Of as writing this – Jan 12th 2022 – It’s been 2 years since this virus landed in Canada, depending who you ask. Many think COVID started in March 2020, but the first COVID case in Canada on record is Jan 25 2020. My mother caught something the first week of Jan 2020 that basically took her out for the better part of 6 weeks. Nobody could tell her what she’d caught and for the first time ever I genuinely feared for her health with how she was describing her symptoms and the very slow rate of recovery. She wasn’t alone – there were a lot of cases of this mysterious long lasting flu going around during that time – was it COVID, we’ll never know.

So, despite spending the past 2 years being responsible, social distancing, keeping my bubble very small (and at times not seeing people for weeks on end), getting my vaccines as soon as they were available to me, and being diligent with my mask, I caught COVID. I can’t know for sure, but it was just before Christmas. I suspect the Omicron strain.