A Museum After Dark Mission Statement
Museum Entrance Search by Song Search by Reference Lyrics & Backing Vocals Unreleased Song Info Exhibit Hall Hipstories		Hello fellow Hip Head, Welcome to A Museum After Dark located at hipmuseum.com. First, a little about myself. My name is Stephen Dame. I was born and raised in Georgetown, Ontario. I lived in Ottawa for 15 years and now reside in Toronto. In the past, I've worked as a journalist, photographer and political organizer. I'm currently a teacher of English and History. My love of The Tragically Hip started early and never waned. You can read a laboriously long and pretentious bit about that here in the introduction to this site. That intro, and most of this project, began as a book that I was pitching to publishers in the fall of 2005. When that effort failed, "sorry, this would only sell in Canada," I went out and bought a book called "HTML for Dummies." I taught myself how to build a site. This imperfect yet substantive presentation is the result. A Museum After Dark is dedicated to the people, places and poetry found in the music of The Tragically Hip. You will find listed here all of the references that make The Hip's music so entertaining and enriching. This is a celebration of rock 'n roll with depth. I found that a deeper understanding of the lyrics greatly added to my enjoyment of the music. This is something I wanted to share. At no point will you see definite "song meanings" or guaranteed interpretations. Gord Downie's lyrics are poetic and mean many different things to many different people. Gord himself said of his lyrics, "they are user friendly. Here they are: you deal with them." So, information is provided here about the people, places and things mentioned in the music or credited with its inspiration. Whenever possible, primary sources are listed. When rumour or speculation enters the mix, this too is clearly noted. At all times, your input, information or differing opinions are welcome at stephendame@gmail.com. Since this site first went live fifteen years ago, I have been fortunate enough to speak about it on television, appear in two award winning documentaries, plug the site on radio, see it mentioned in national newspapers and read countless, appreciative e-mails from folks like you. So, thank you. Thank you for coming by, for spreading the word and enjoying my work. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A very nice web piece from CBC Music about this site and yours truly: Another CBC story which hilariously (and rightly) downgraded my headline status: A radio interview I did at the Toronto CBC HQ for Ottawa during the Man Machine Poem Tour: A radio game I played in my kids room for CBC Thunder Bay during the Man Machine Poem Tour: George's show was kind enough to give me a mention after their incredible Hip 30 broadcast: A Juno Award winning documentary about The Tragically Hip, featuring a bumbling and incoherent me! Check it out before my people call your people: I did some research stuff for this amazing project. They were even kind enough to put my name in the credits: Radio-Canada? Pour les Canadiens en autre pays? Bien sure: Whoa boy... an oldie. And a goodie? A 2007 tv doc about Hip tribute bands. The band, show and production people were great. I'm there too: I got to proof read this and I'm quoted in there for some reason. It's highly recommended: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This is also me, looking haggard for a good cause: And this too. Some of my unrelated baseball scribblings were accepted into the Library and Archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. I presented these two research papers on the subject of baseball and Canada's World Wars at the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research Conferences in 2017 and 2018: Two different pieces of mine, on the subject of Canadian prime ministers and baseball, were also published in the Society for American Baseball Research Journal: