Autograph Story

Monday, August 30th, 1999.

• There was a book launch for Leonard Peltier's book Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance at Ted's Wrecking Yard (Barcode), 549 College Street. I was there, with my younger sister, Logan. Greg Keelor was there and performed music and Kim Deschamps also performed. Greg sang the songs "Lost Together", "Hasn't Hit Me Yet", "Cynthia", "Moon & Tree" and "Home" among others. I didn't recognize any of the songs Kim sang, because I haven't heard his album yet, but they sounded good too. It was really cool to see them perform, even though it wasn't together, another thing for me was that this was the very first time I had seen any members of Blue Rodeo perform live, so I was really excited. Another cool thing was that Cleave Anderson, Blue Rodeo's first drummer, was there. He didn't perform or anything, Greg Keelor hung out with him and a red-haired woman between his two performances and after. I got all three of their autographs. Here is what happened exactly. I was sorta scared to go up and ask for their autographs, cause I'm shy, so anyways, I wanted to go and get Cleave's autograph first because he was the closest, but I wasn't totally sure it was him. So me and my sister went to talk to this guy who was selling Leonard Peltier stuff, cause I noticed him singing along to "Moon & Tree" and was hoping if he would know definitely whether that was Cleave Anderson or not. So we asked him and he said he didn't know cause he didn't look at the liner notes of the albums. So then he motioned a woman over, who seemed like she was in charge, and we asked her if it was Cleave. She said "It sure is" and I mentioned something to the fact that we wanted to go get his autograph, and she said "Go ahead, that would be nice, he loves it when people recognize him" So me and Logan went over there and asked him, and he was so nice, he smiled and said sure. Then while he was signing Greg leaned over and said to me and my sister, "Oh you girls must have the wrong guy", sorta laughing and teasing Cleave, then Cleave said "No they don't, they know I'm Cleave Anderson!", so then he asked our names, and signed "To Toby + Logan, Cleave Anderson. Then we went and asked Greg (who was sitting one chair over from Cleave, the red-haired lady was between them)and he said "sure" and signed his name and I blurted out that I really like Blue Rodeo, and he said something to the effect of "Oh, that's nice" or something. Then the only one left was Kim, and he was talking to some men at a table so I didn't want to interrupt him, but I did, because who knows if I'll ever get a chance like this again, so I said something like excuse me, sort of interrupting, and he looked up and said "yes" or something and I asked him for his autograph and he took our paper and signed and I said thank you and he sort of nodded his head looking puzzled. Then me and Logan left because it was after 12 midnight and we had promised our parents we'd be home soon, and we sort of went laughing down the street looking, I'm sure, like we were high on something, and it was the best experience of my life so far. I would rate Cleave as being the nicest, cause he asked our names and signed his name "To Toby + Logan, Cleave Anderson" and his is the most legible. In my books, Cleave is still pretty special even though he's not with Blue Rodeo anymore. Greg would be second nicest cause he signed his with a heart and his writing is mostly legible. Kim would be third nicest cause you can't read his handwriting, you can barely make out the "Kim" and the "Deschamps" is a scrawl. I think we were bothering him. Addendum: I got an e-mail from Kim recently and he told me that he remembered me! : ) .