Dyniss

(Back-dated to date of performance)
This show was the TARS (Toronto Animal Rights Society) bi-weekly get-together — my fave animal rights association. There was a decent turnout (60+ people) — I thought there would be low attendance with the snow and cold outside. I told a woman afterward that I didn’t eat before playing because I would have burped while singing — certainly not conducive to superior vocals…
I naturally began with my song My Guinea Pig. During my set, people were pretty chatty, but I was happy that my fellow animal rights friends were in such good spirits.
I met some new people like Pat, Suzanne and Cheryl(?). Saw folks I knew from before like Adam, Jill Binder, Holly, Paul (I met his kids who seemed pretty cool), Erik, William, Vishal, Alan, Kirti and others.
I had rented a 100-watt Yorkville combo amp that handles acoustic guitar and vocals, but I don’t think I’ll buy it — it’s lacking in a few features that I want, like eq for the vocal channel.
The documentary we watched after my performance had an excellent explanation of one animal rights lawyer’s take on the “legal wall” separating non-human animals from humans. He had a very realistic opinion of when the first inroad might be made giving animals rights : 10 to 15 years for maybe a chimpanzee. And the right would be very basic.
The realistic downer of the documentary was one woman’s comment saying that by the time we get some real non-human animal rights in effect, it may be too late to help any of them. Creatures such as chimps and whales are considered more “intelligent” than other animals, so they are the likely first recipients of any rights given to non-human animals. The problem is that by the time we give them any rights, they may be extinct.