woody woody woody woody

(sung to the tune of "kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly," from woody on cheers.)

so last night, woody harrelson showed up at the theatre (he's directing this torrid tale told by beautiful people). and it was so perfectly set up, too!

we, the volunteers, were sitting around talking shit. no - not quite shit... fluff. talking fluff, and the girl from the play crashed into the space. the foh-guy (front of house manager) smiled "she'd like to buy a coke," she giggled. she's so... what is it.. there's an unmistakable sexiness there, just peeking out from the folds of her cotton-candy glee.

foh-guy asks if woody will be coming to the closing, on saturday. "oh yea, in fact he's already in town - he called me." ker-plissshht, she tears into her cola. "he said he was going to come to a show without telling us, see what we've been up to while the cat was away.." she giggles and bobs away. she's pretty. i saw her recently, in a movie with callum keith rennie. boy, i wish he'd been the one buying the coke.. alas. she was also in ginger snaps, but somehow i never did get around to seeing that one...

so then, as if on cue, the stage manager emerges from another door. she walks over to foh-guy "woody will be coming tonight, after 8 of course." "no problem" he suavely replies, but you can feel the giddiness, it has instantly surged through us all. even me, yes deep down i am an unabashed star fucker. there is a moment of excited laughter and then eyes fall on me. i'd been trying to ditch early, but i decide to stick around.. there's a talk-back after the show, and i joke about saying "wow man, kingpin changed my life, really opened my eyes!" everyone laughs.

but there's no fucking way i'm seeing the show again. i guess it's not that bad, but... well anyway. so at curtain, i toss on my hoodie, grab my book and a cigarette and sit in the courtyard to pollute my lungs and set my mind free. mmmm, scribble scribble. the silence is briefly interrupted: a car pulls right into the courtyard and wispy curtains of pot smoke hang off emerging woody, clinging to him like phantasmal groupies. he's shorter than foh-guy, i note with a shrug.

at intermission, i realize he's with those guys, those drunk guys. two had arrived, soaked in drunkenness, oozing rowdiness, ensuring me a third would be coming. "big, handsome guy." "right, no problem," i assure them, and watch the boys race to the bar. don't want to waste any precious drinking time. i recognize the third when he arrives, partially because he's big, and yes he is handsome. but mostly cuz he looks like he's ready for a party, not a play. "ah: big handsome guy... yea, go ahead" i say when he steps in. he beams, "you just made my day!" the first drunk guy comes over "see?" he asks me playfully. "yep," i reply, "he's exactly as you described him." there are smiles, but blessedly the bar beckons. and they're off.

at the end of intermission, foh-guy peeks out to see if anyone remains in the courtyard, and whispers conspiratorially "somebody's smoking weed!"

..you think?
(i hope i did in fact resist rolling my eyes)

seconds later the posse enters, only just in time for the second act. unfortunately they are delayed by a giddy girl asking for an autograph, so they actually end up stumbling into their seats after the play has started. one of the babboons is sniffling, another is doing the cocaine-gum-rub. woody sneaks in a bottle of heinekken. anyone else and i'd think what assholes. ok.. i think they're assholes anyway.

after the show, woody et al. rush out so i decide to not linger for the talk back. i'm tempted to stay and ask the sex-in-the-city hottie (jason something, i keep saying alexander, but i know that's wrong) why he wanted to do theatre, since he doesn't seem to have a talent for it at all. i think better of it, not wanting to be shived in the parking lot by the hordes of girls who have come just to drool at his feet. instead i shuffle over to my bike, ready the walkman (i'm currently revisiting old tapes - last night was william s. burroughs, spare ass annie), the lighter, the joint, turn on the flickering red light and prepare to flee. the badasses are still there, talking shit and blocking the pathway, so that i have to creep past them to exit. i wonder what it was that caught woody's eye. the flower-laden basket? the joint dangling from my lips? my devastating good looks? "hello" he says as i inch by. i hesitate..

i want to tell him to smack his lead upside the head, and help him find a way of expressing mania, panic and loss of control in a way other than raising his voice an octave and slurring his script at break-neck speed, thereby killing any merits of the dialogue which i have a sneaking suspicion is actually quite good.

i want to tell him "you should direct my play next" and might have had i had a script handy, why the fuck not.

instead i toss a glance back as i keep walking. "hello.." and i pedal off, lighting my joint. i can feel them watching me ride off into the sunset.

i wonder though, should i have stuck around, tried to engage the monkeys in conversation? why? it's not like i'm fabulously blown away by his directorial skills. and while natural born killers blew my mind, it's not like he's really what i'd call a distinguished actor. and yet that smile. what a great fucking smile and i gotta saying - having that woody smile flashed at me felt pretty nice. mmm, nice nice woody smile...

fabulous, fabulous, fabulous

i had the best fucking weekend, on the heels of a lovely, loungey thursday night (trivia, entertainment, blah blah blahing with matt). friday brought me to the buddies in bad times theatre (my first but very definitely not last time there) to see snowman, which i really really liked. most of all, i loved the playwright's style (he being Greg MacArthur) - i could recognize his accent you might say. mmm, nice brain yum.

saturday afternoon i went to see another play with a colleague. in addition to it being the first time i saw a soulpepper production, it was - i realized with a laugh - also my first time seeing hamlet live. although i know snippets of the play by heart, i'd only ever known it from books and movies! well, it was every bit as spectacular as it should be. although Albert Schulz's hamlet was a little more passionate than i might have wanted (or as lisa said "oh, he was a mel-gibson-hamlet" as opposed, i guess, to the melancholy-ethan-hawke-hamlet i seem to prefer), it was still amazing - quite the actor that one. and i appreciated some of the clever ways of delivering lines - always impressive when something that you've seen countless times can be fresh. although i hate using the word fresh when talking about theatre, it sounds flaky in a snooty way. and speaking of snooty, after the play my colleague and i sat on a chi-chi patio on the waterfront talking about decidedly unsnooty stuff - really interesting stuff actually. gawd i love when that shit happens. truly interesting stuff... yea!

saturday night i went to lisa and mark's for games and more interesting words, thoughts, ideas. it wasn't all great though: i got my ass kicked at scrabble. : ( but oh the interesting words tossed about in that lazily-lit living room... after the games and brain massaging, i moseyed a few blocks over to lee's palace/dance cave, but never actually made it in. just stood around outside smoking and talking with strangers. i'm tempted to think it's weird, going to a bar but never making it in, but ... meh. (shrug)

and then sunday! did i mention it was beautiful this weekend? oh, well it was. anyway, started the day off in queen's park for a little word on the street (although i guess technically it's word in the park now. again, i am left shrugging...) saw a couple of amusing readings, subscribed to an indie mag - nice. then rolled over to the distillery to sit and catch up with alana while jason and Tabarruk filled our eardrums and souls with their stylish vibes. mmm. in the sun with a good friend, great music: an exceptional way to spend an afternoon.

and then last night, i huffed and puffed up an endless slope, all the way up to the yellow griffin (a pub from my old 'hood) for a free comedy night in which lisa was performing. she's so fucking hilarious, i'm glad i finally got to see her perform. i usually laugh when she just speaks and she always hesitates.. "why are you laughing?" "i don't know lisa, you're just fucking hilarious!" the gto's (hope i'm remembering that right) were great too. so was lisa's friend, what was his name? he was hot...

and now it's monday - a whole new week of adventures and discoveries awaits...

fabulous 49er

robbing thoughts from yesterday, yestermonth from the infamous scribble book...
___

vasectomating
reflectomating
as my head sways along to the jerky streetcar's swan song

i wear my numb eyelids lightly,
hoping i look like marilyn monroe
but probably looking like a half-assed narcoleptic

and thinking about him, stupid him:
my fabulous 49er...

tucked away under your helmet
dusted with golden dreams
and the blood of a thousand shattered hearts
(most of them yours)

remember never days,
stolen nights, hidden afternoons
and that booty call
– who was more surprised,
the horny youngster
or the acquiescing old man?

exceptional, inconceivable, delicious
oh the fabulous fucking we’ve shared
but now a toast;
red wine in golden goblets for my 49er,
always and nevermore,
fitful flailing friendship for the friendless…

like finding nemo, only better

i've been found!
the generous purveyor of the comment to the last post is the finder.
i am the gleeful findee.
big deal, you say? well as a matter of fact, it sort of is.

i've been on the move since before i started speaking. a quick count (meaning surely i've forgotten one or two) reveals that in my 30 years of existence, i have lived in 35 homes in 9 cities (11 if you count port arthur, fort william and the reserve of glorious thunder bay as separate - i've lived in 'em all). 25 of those since leaving the homestead at 19. 18? 18. whatever.

my first "big move" happened when i was 13. we moved from ritzy, wealthy, anglo beaconsfield (on the beautiful island of montreal) to working class, down-home-cooking, franco south shore (of same island). i kept in touch with no one. 3 years later, we moved to thunder bay. i don't wanna talk about it. suffice it to say i disappeared again. well, i kept in touch with one girl who proceeded to lose her fucking sense of reality and perspective. i don't wanna talk about it. let's just say that connection died suddenly, rapidly, and irrevocably. she broke my heart. blech whatever. same story with all the other cities. oh sure, a few half-assed attempts, the odd letter, the random awkward phone call, but basically, i just evaporated from friends' and family's lives.

it is only this last time, when i moved to toronto, that i've managed to maintain some sort of connection - thanks to email. but even that's been a bit tenuous...

i'm not sure exactly why i keep disappearing. you'd think that as a writer it would be easy for me to maintain contact, but it isn't. it's likely this whole unsure-of-myself shit has something to do with it. perhaps i'd pick up the pen and paper and think ah fuck, they won't remember me. they don't care. i'm gone, gone. out of sight, out of mind.

but then, someone i haven't seen nor spoken to in ..how long has it been Colin? found me! (and as a side note, i'd love to know how. i did a google search on my name, and while it filled me with a desire to travel to thailand, and taught me more about anime gaming than i ever thought i'd know, i couldn't find me, lil ol' me...) when Miranda told me he'd found me, i found myself lounging somewhere between perplexed (for reasons just mentioned) and content. content as in breathe deeply, relax, soak it in baby - like a spring sunbeam.

i'm trying to put my finger on it...
i think it's just that knowing i can be found makes me feel less lost.

k-a-e-n

here's a drunken scrawl written late late one night, riding home after a strangers' party... (on a side note, i was so drunk i had to write most of this with one eye closed cuz the double vision was too challenging. ah, the memories)

so many empty conversations tonight. wearing the bright tight smile as they energetically tell me about something i'd forget about instantly. how many times did i spell my name tonight? how many hollow smiles, waiting for the appropriate pause in conversation so i can make an excuse as ridiculous as their attempts just to get the fuck out of there.

it's like.. before a first meeting with someone, you should consider this: in my case, as an example, i've been on this planet 30 years. i've lived a range of beautiful, tragic, funny, poignant, silly and meaningful experiences that have brought me wisdom, deep and trite. i have perhaps 5 minutes to impart some of that wisdom - something, anything meaningful. and the best they can come up with is "how do you spell your name"??

i'm outta here.

morose

what is it about a man pushing past his mid-life with downturned head and downcast eyes that breaks my heart so? nobody in particular, just a general thing: if i see a man in his 50s, late 40s who seems.... alone. quiet, shy, plain, ever so delicately sad.... it just grips my heart. i want to reach out and hold him, to love him, to make it all better.
and yet how is their sadness or loneliness more pertinent than mine?
and what's with the ridiculous leap of logic?
i mean what, so a plain man in his 50s looking beaten into submission has likely never been loved, but a shiny girl smiling away tears and fears is filled with fulfillement?
ridiculous.
for all i know he's known love more deep, more beautiful, more rewarding than anything i may ever experience.

maybe it's just the clouds. or the fatigue.
or maybe i'm just a tiny bit lonely, despite my gruelling unwillingness (just now?) to invite anyone in...

meh

they're not mine, but they're good

words from a book i'm reading:
Red Dyed Hair, by Kostas Mourselas

Louis' one great weakness was events. He lusted after events.
"Kostas, my boy, dream up something. Don't let time pass while you just sit there. Get on the phone, meet people, go out onto the streets, knock on doors. You never know, maybe you'll flush out a hare. Sit on your rear end and you start to go under; you start to think about the vanity of life, about death, you dry up. Better take a nap then... But if you're not asleep, put your tongue to work, your feet, your hands, your brains."



(although sometimes philosophising on the vanity of life can be good too...)

summer yet sizzles

silly students, thinking the seasons revolve around them!! there's a whole (well, mostly whole) month of summer left ya know. 21st, equinox, all that stuff? and yet people talking like summer's over... well it ain't, i say. and man, what a gorgeous summer weekend this was! wow.

saturday i hung out with my visiting friend ken - mellow, a few drinks, some brunch, lotsa chit chat. highlight of the day was perusing a box of crappy, dusty cd's outside one of the antique shops and finding "Boogazm" by the Look People - a cd i have been semi-dilligently hunting down since it was stolen from me 7 years ago. small-time canadian funk band; i could not have been happier. a fellow chatting with the antique owner became curious by my glee and concured that (although he didn't know the band, he knew the lead guy) it was indeed a killer catch, and how could he have missed it? nyah nyah.

sunday i woke up at 5:30 am!!! it was very weird seeing the sunrise from the other side of the coin, shall we say. i volunteered all damned day at the dragon boat festival and what a great day it was! the morning was a little on the ho-hum side, but in the afternoon i got moved to "held start" duty. if you've never seen a dragon boat race (i hadn't, hence my desire to volunteer: after years of contemplating and flaking on the event, i figured this was the only way i would actually go) a dragon boat is, like, a long thin canoe that sits up to 20 rowers, a person sitting at the front facing them with a big drum between hir legs, roaring them on and someone standing behing them, steering them, often also roaring them on. at the start line, they have their ornate tails held until the start gun sounds: and they're off!

so i spent the afternoon enjoying the sun and breeze, bobbing away on this little dinghy/raft thing, laying back to drink it in or sitting up to hold pretty boats. and the occasional giggle with a yummy oarsperson. it was lovely, lovely, lovely. oh, and a moment of excitement too! the races were "paused" while we waited for a cruiser to emerge from its den in the marina to the big blue lake. it decided to head up sort of the middle of the track, right up my lane. i shouted over to the fella on the dinghy to my right "wow, it's kind of intimidating!" being charged by this big fucking yacht. and it kept charging. 30 feet. 20 feet. 10 feet! holy fuck, should i like.. jump? what the..? i sat there ready to plunge into the lake as it charged, charged toward me. at the last minute it angled to my left, oh so narrowly missing my raft (i could have reached out to touch it, oh for a set of keys just then) and scooting along. the organizers yelled "you trying to kill somebody!??" as the boaters laughed away but i gotta tell you, i had to laugh too. i didn't know them big boats could manoeuvre so delicately, precisely and tightly. very impressive indeed. even if they are fucking burnout yuppies who get their jollies out of frightening volunteers. (rolling my eyes)

and voila, here we are on a beautiful monday morning. as you can tell, an extraordinarily busy day... well anyway, i wasn't feeling clever enough for anything vaguely poetic, so hopefully the standard-style journal entry will sate you.

draggin' the days

good morning, happy thursday, blah blah blah.

last night i went to an irish pub to listen to some fiddlers make the strings and lassies dance - fabulous. tucked in with the leek pie and cider were laughs and interesting conversations with a coworker, fred. and then it happened. out of nowhere she (yes, fred's a she) asked me if i know finney.
finney?
yea, finney. mahones...?

weird.

i'd felt like this once before. high on ecstasy in tokyo, dancing in a corner of a wee speakeasy a bartender walked by and said "you're not at luvafair." luvafair happens to be the name of the club i regularly thrashed about in, back in vancouver. quick head shake: where am i again!? time/space warp man, whoa. heh.

that's how that question felt.

finney sings for this band that i guess still exists - every now and then. i don't actually know finney, but i have met him several times. in three different provinces.

i first saw the mahones play at the republik in calgary. the friend i was driving with from thunder bay (NOT where i'm "from" incidentally, merely somewhere i was subjected to for a few adolescent years) to vancouver was a celtic punk afficianado. he knew - no, he loved the mahones so we made sure our drive ushered us into calgary the night before they played. that's the first time i met the mahones, lingering casually behind as he gushed all over them. (ick)

a few days later, we pulled into vancouver, again one day ahead of the mahones. whom we of course went to see. again, he did the post-show shimmy, oozing compliments all over them. again, i stood a few paces back, the reluctant but patient friend.

three days later, after they'd been and returned from whistler... you guessed it. we went to see them again. this time they kidnapped us, dragging us back to someone's place after the show for drinks, stories, laughs, improvised music: good times.

a little over a year later, i found myself back in thunder bay. i don't wanna talk about it. what is pertinent is that one night, i steered myself to crocks and rolls for some good old fashioned celtic punk. that's right kids, the mahones were in town. to my utter shock and stupefaction (is that a word?), he remembered not only me and my unique little name, but also my friend (still back in vancouver, lucky bastard) and his humdrum little personality. how sweet.

i thought this would be the last time. i was wrong!

about 3 years later, back in vancouver, imagine my delighted surprise when i saw a poster: the mahones were playing at richard's on richards (or dick's on dicks if that titillates you)! how could i not go!? by then i was a woman steeped in my own scandalous sexuality. tight little body with appropriately devastating curves squeezed into pvc pants. the poor lolling-tongued boys couldn't even begin to recognize me. nothing a little nudge in the right direction didn't cure (to my impressed amusement) and they even remembered my geek friend from those days of yonder. considering how many people these fellas meet over inumerable drinks, i still feel a little awed. really, that's fucking impressive! we shared a few drinks and talked a bit of shit up the street at the railway club. that was about 5 years ago (?), and that's the last time i saw them.

or am i wrong again?
i have to say, the thought of seeing them in yet another city does amuse me...