A few weeks ago I got up at an open mic night to play a few songs on guitar and have a bit of a sing.
I have been playing guitar for about 16 years and began writing songs and singing covers about ten years ago.
I can play guitar, but I’m a tone deaf motherfucker so I’m a truly average singer.
And that’s not just self-deprecation; for my 21st birthday a couple of friends bought me a harmonica and my Mum’s first words when she heard were “Oh, good. That’ll stop him singing.”
Not that it did stop me, the open mic I sang at recently was one of several instances across British Columbia I’ve forced audiences to endure my wailing.
A cover of Damien Rice’s Coconut Skins in Revelstoke; an original about Australia’s deep-seeded racism at Big White Ski Resort; my poor man’s version of an instrumental akin to John Butler’s Ocean I should probably call Puddle at Jacks’ Pub in Tofino.
Even though I know my performances are sub par, and the strength of it in parts in no way makes up for the many weaknesses, I can’t get over the feeling of the microphone against my mouth.
It is narcissistic self-indulgence, and I love it.
I’ll close my eyes as I attempt to croon through the second verse of We Used to Vacation.
And when I open them again, and there are a few in the crowd actually paying attention to what I’m doing, as my lips drag over the cross-stitch metal of the microphone head, vocals wildly off-key, my sense of self-confidence and importance is renewed.

I think that might be what Donald Trump is currently feeling.
He’s the one on stage making noise and appearing to be at the helm of whatever clusterfuck is currently being blasted over the PA.
And sure, there are a few people with vested interests paying attention and feeding off the reflective limelight, but off stage, in the shadows, there is an entire audience of people much more qualified to be making noise.
And they are starting to make an enormous goddamn racket.
They are the park rangers defying gag orders and spreading information about the very real and damaging effects of climate change.
They are the lawyers working pro-bono from airport fast food restaurants to ensure people who pose a much lesser threat to the USA than Donald Trump have their legal right to enter the country granted.
They are the US veterans who have seen the worst of their country’s involvement in Iraq and choose instead to attempt to humanise their situation.

There is a menacing hatred brewing across the world and it is being spurred on by The Donald’s newfound ability to act upon the rhetoric that sewed such fear among America’s uneducated masses.
But if Trump’s vision for America is a 21st century arms race, then maybe the revolution will be one of education and intellectualism.
George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 has been selling in record numbers while people laugh uneasily about the phrase ‘alternative facts’ being said in earnest on an international news broadcast.
The concept of ‘fake news’ has begun to be regarded a real and serious threat to an informed public, and in my own personal social feeds I’ve seen a dramatic drop in the amount of bullshit being unthinkingly shared.

The idea that a well informed public is a danger to fascism is not new.
Nor is the much quoted Winston Churchill quip about the best argument against democracy being a conversation with the average voter.
But if a Trump presidency could lead to the average voter being a danger to his maniacal power hold, then maybe the precipice we currently peer over is one to willingly jump from.