New Video – Frozen Warnings Taxi Mix

Reid Dickie

A blast from the past! Alternate take of “Frozen Warnings,” a Nico classic covered by beautiful Linda and myself somewhere in the early 1980s. (Find our original version here.) This time, join us on a taxi ride from near River and Osborne to Winnipeg’s North End via the Arlington Street Bridge. Alfred Avenue between Battery and Artillery is where Linda grew up.  The Winnipeg taxi dispatcher works hard to keep the customer satisfied while we Dick Tool around, intoning a freakish duet. Local landmarks arise, Homer’s Restaurant on Ellice, the Windmill Restaurant on Selkirk and who remembers the Rickshaw Restaurant at 875 Portage? Rancid Randy, a feisty obese raccoon who frequented area backyards, can be heard pounding on a toy baby grand piano we set up near our trash can and tricked him into playing. That coon plays a nasty yano!

Despite the full moon and the deep background the places contain, things aren’t quite right. Aren’t they? Click the pic to find out.

Sordid Amok (because we’re all just kids in a closet)

Reid Dickie

After an exhaustive, year-long dig working under harsh and inhospitable conditions, a crew of experienced archies has unearthed something rare. Resurrected and dusted for carbon dating, this video relic from the distant past resonates even today in our post-communicative world. 

Decades ago, in the pre-digital Dark Age, Linda and I created a strange but topical promo video for a new fashion trend called Sordid Amok. With the help of several brave friends, we demonstrated the absolute relevance of Sordid Amok, which involves some skin, many forms of plastic, giant crocheted ice cream treats and plenty of office supplies.

As Linda tells you in the script, Sordid Amok shows you “new ways to create envy, infiltrate envy, thwart envy, develop rage, soothe rage” and just in time. Sordid Amok will help you get through life’s “wilderness of mirrors.”  

Since there still are people walking around committing crimes of fashion with no dash in last year’s brown, Sordid Amok’s time has come. “I want a hat with cherries!” Click on any picture to play the short video.

Finding My Audience – ReadReidRead.com First Anniversary

Reid Dickie

It’s hard to believe a year has passed since I started this blog. A year ago I had several intentions for ReadReidRead: as an ongoing celebration of beautiful Linda, as an outlet to share my enthusiasm for local heritage in its many forms; as a canvas for my personal cultural interests, as a platform for my spiritual experiences, as an inspiration for others and as a way of finding my audience. Today I can humbly and gratefully say I have fulfilled those intents to a degree I never anticipated.

Linda’s presence on the blog is always very strong and loving.  There are numerous pictures of her scattered throughout my posts. Search in the Linda Category for my many tributes over the past year. In the Gallery you will find some adorable pictures of Linda from her childhood.

I’ve written extensively about local heritage over the past ten years and enjoy using the blog to share my pictures and thoughts on heritage buildings and events. I have a personal collection of over 1000 pictures of heritage sites that I will be drawing from for future posts. Creating videos has added a whole new dimension to my heritage reporting. Check out Churches, Houses and MB Heritage pages for dozens of heritage examples.

Culturally, everyone from Salvador Dali to Ralph Eugene Meatyard (maybe not that big a step), Bjork to Wm Burroughs (ditto), Fellini to DickTool Co have been homaged on my blog this year. Personal experiences like hearing Eleanor Rigby for the first time in 1966 and seeing Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band in Toronto in 1969 to more recent encounters with various art forms have been vented on the blog. For a chronology, examples and links to the art Linda and I made when we first united, check out the DTC Art page.   

Practicing shamanism and incorporating its wisdom into my life has guided me to share my experiences via the blog, not with an agenda to convert you or change your mind about anything (I have nothing to sell) but to simply tell my story, share my glimpses into the hidden places, into other possibilities and report what happens. There are dozens of posts and pages relating directly to my shamanic experiences on the blog. Numerous Categories apply. Check out About, Sacred Places and FAQ pages for detailed reports.

Because of the blog, many readers have contacted me this year, most often about heritage related matters. I have connected people with places and with each other, found knowledgable people to answer obscure questions and given specific directions to heritage and spiritual sites on the prairies. Inspiring people to seek Spirit on the Canadian plains has created enormous opportunities for personal gratitude. One of the most satisfying and humbling experiences in my blogging life was when my friend Chris Scholl said I inspired him to create his thoughtful, thought-provoking personal blog, Love Art and Fear. I inspired myself to create another blog devoted entirely to the history of my hometown, Shoal Lake, MB. The DickToolCo channel on YouTube and two hundred pictures on Flickr are more outlets for creative fun!

I have attracted a blog audience that far surpasses my wildest expectations when I started typing away at this a year ago. Almost 88,000 hits in the year equates to about 240 hits a day. I seem to have found an audience and I thank you, every one of you who has landed at readreidread.com for whatever reason, I thank you; everyone who subscribes to my scribblings and guff, I thank you; all the befuddled and wild-eyed who suddenly find themselves in Reidland, I thank you (be brave); everyone who finds out shamanism isn’t what they think it is by reading my blog, I thank you.

Besides simply giving me something to do almost every day, my blog has provided an outlet for my diverse interests, improved and expanded my computer skills and offered satisfactions I never dreamed possible.

What’s in the future for ReadReidRead? Carrying on the festive tradition that Linda and I began six years ago, I’ll be posting a daily feature to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas. This year I have selected 12 Manitoba churches, which begin Wednesday, December 14. My year-end review is in the works and will be posted December 31. All the original intents of the blog still apply and I can assure you my diversity and curiosity will continue to be fully represented. Is blogging still fun? It’s a blast! Even after 565 posts!

Thank you for visiting my blog this year. Be happy. Reid

DickToolCo Art Page Expanded

The year-by-year history of the art Linda and I created when we first got together now covers seven years. On DTC Art page, you can find our art actions from 1977 until 1983 with plenty of links to the videos we made and other DTC art attractions. Collage, performance, video, audio, fashion, design, public art – DickTool Co used multi-media to probe the world and its all documented. This picture is from June 1985 when Linda and I were married and is a screen shot from a short video of the casual reception. We were happy kids!

Zeal Cutlets – DickTool Co Video History on YouTube

       More historic DickTool Co video art from the 1970s and 80s is now on YouTube. Zeal Cutlets documents seven years of DickToolery in 4 minutes and 26 seconds. Edited at the National Film Board, Zeal Cutlets compacts the years 1976 to 82 into 89 images. Besides video and film images, handmade slides, collages, photography and performance are included. The music is Raising the Count by Cabaret Voltaire bracketed with Reveen trying to trance you out. Click pitcher to get your cutlets.

Lifeguard – More DickTool Co Video Now on YouTube

Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard  13:38  1981  b/w

click pic to play video 

       In a mythical place at a specific time, beauty is obliterated and ghosts are all that remain. Haunted by memory, pain and utter loss, an inner voice commands and deceives to maintain some warped balance where none is possible. Here a lifeguard strives to find normalcy, simple actions fail under extreme duress, ultimate sorrow ensues. 

            In no way related to the pop song of the same name (Diane Ray, #31 1963)  our video Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard or, simply Lifeguard, evolved during its production. At the time, Linda had opened IF… to which she devoted her days, evenings and energy so her involvement with this was limited. The basic idea was mine and grew out of Post Nuclear Primitivism. It was shot in three different environments, all of them under the aegis of Plug-In.

            First we selected a lifeguard by placing a small ad in the classifieds. Of the three men who auditioned, we selected Bruce Mitchell for the role. At the time, Bruce was a student of the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, extremely photogenic and had an unusual presence. His charisma is evident but I wasn’t completely successful capturing Bruce’s mystique. Bruce became a professional dancer and choreographer, moved toToronto and died in the early 1990s. The Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers offer a bursary program in Bruce’s name. 

            Artist Terry Hays had an installation at Plug-In at the time in which he built a room inside the gallery and covered its interior completely with fabric. The floor, walls, pillars and ceiling were tufted, wrapped and spread with various coloured fabrics. One reviewer said it felt as if he’d “been deposited inside a huge Charlie Brown sweater.” An elegant wooden path lined with chaser lights ran through his room. It felt like a perfect environment to shoot some of Lifeguard so with Terry’s permission, I went ahead and used his wild “set.” 

            Other scenes were shot outside Terry’s installation in the white gallery space and the final sections were shot at Plug-In’s new location across Main Street on McDermot Avenue. This was before the gallery was set up and just as it appeared when rented with stacks of wood and rubbish all around, a perfect location for the conclusion of Lifeguard. 

             The DickTool Co All-Night Show premiered Lifeguard. Its first gallery showing was at Plug-In Gallery Dec 9 to 13, 1981 then at Metro Media Vancouver June 25, 1982.