This Sunday, June 28th - (tomorrow) - at the outdoor hockey rink in Scadding Court/Alexandria Park/Bathurst and Dundas, a whole whack of people from different cities along the eastern seaboard (mostly) will be getting together to drink beers all day and play something called 'Bicycle Polo.'
It's a tournament! I'm playing in it! Though it will be competitive to some degree - so is the nature of sports - it is primarily about the good time.
...SO COME OUT!!
There is a good chance you will see blood and injury, eat free pizza and bear witness to my total sucking at something you've never seen me totally suck at before. I may even belly-flop on concrete (happened twice today!) if you ask really really nice...
It's 11am and I'm waiting and pacing under a great big tree in the middle of town, as it dangles it's great big branches over top of things.. A staircase. A garden. A church with an oddly shaped roof that oddly enough, has a whole fruit and veggie market spilling out of it.. There's a boulangerie next to a cafe where I had a small coffee and croissant at (while waiting an hour and a half earlier), and a bunch of French people on their various ways to work.
And tour groups. Lots of tour groups.
I'm waiting because my friends Mark and Adrienne have mixed-up where it was we were supposed to meet - there was a lot of tired confusion at the time, all of us a little delusional from 13hrs of travel/beers/sleepiness - and so I've been waiting f-o-r-e-v-e-r... but it's okay because it's a really pretty spot and it's given me time to stave off a nasty hangover from getting too grossly, and the voices in my head from getting too 'Godly'.
(Just kidding, I'm not really crazy!) But she is...
She was burnt to a crispy-dead on this very spot in 1431! Her name is Joan of Arc, and she's your punk rock dream come true.
With her Anna Karina haircut and lithe frame to combat a ball-busting bravado charged full of chivalric purpose and pent up sexuality (she was liberating France for her imaginary man after all!); Joan is that special lady who - whether you mean to or not - will have you 'fucking off' your talents, justbecause..
I would take Joan despite the sporadic bouts of psycho-hormonal bloodlust that could ruin a dinner out with friends. I would learn to love the shit out of those nights of sobbing, panicked mania - when all you wanna do is catch up on some sleep - by kissing her pretty head, and pulling her into me so that all my t-shirts can be ruined in eyeliner.
Having to skirt past the whole chastity thing would be super annoying however... Though I have never dry-humped armor before, I imagine afterward makes for a pretty sore dick!
..But I would respect her goals.
For those one or two afternoons she could pull herself away from the campaign, we'd use her clout to round up all the region's cider and lay ourselves down by the Seine. We'd talk about weird stuff all day..
Her.. about supernatural-religious stuff mostly, with a Middle Ages' peasant spin on things that would normally send me into diatribes about heliocentrism and the folly of living life to some ancient and oppressive book when she doesn't even know how to read - if she wasn't so funny in her telling of it.
Sometimes she would talk about really gross shit, like pulling Burgundian arrows outta her 'soulja boys' (..cough!) infected wounds - getting really detailed about the pus and colours and sticking her fingers in there - until I want to vomit fancy cheeses in her dirty-pretty mouth to make it stop.
Me.. I'd impress her with fantastical tales that I'd swear I made up; of painting while cooking and exercising, 1/2 price wing nights, pterodactyl pornos and Michael Jackson.
..If only I spoke French.
But it doesn't matter because with Joan, it's not meant to last. She's a martyr and I'm on vacation. Aside from the momentary eye-fuck, I haven't got a chance.
When Mark and Adrienne finally do arrive, it's relief. The playful flirtation Joan and I had been shooting back-and-forth is now something awkward. I'm feeling self-conscious that my haggardness has started to show and maybe why she's looking up in the air like that: spaced out and entirely someplace else.
I'm ready to go. I put out my cigarette and we walk away.
There will be other French girls this weekend, but I don't care about that. I'm set with wandering Rouen's beautiful old streets without romance. I'll enjoy all the 'colombage' and gothic churches in the easy company of friends instead.
But after so many solitary trips this year, I'd really not have it any other way.
[to be continued..]
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>>This post has been long delayed and sitting as rough in my notebook since from when I was away (a month ago).. due mostly to horrible events that happened (not to me) which left me without a sense of humour for awhile. Sorry to the 3 people who may have been waiting and/or putting their lives on hold..
I'm in Dieppe, France - a place famous for having some 907 Canadian soldiers slaughtered on its beaches during a failed World War II Allied raid to seize the port from German occupation. The plan was to landon the town's pebble beaches and charge 500m or so towards these tall white cliffs in the distance while their enemy sprayed machine gun fire down on them from above. Despite having tanks and air support (edit: my mom tells me my grandpa flew a plane in this) and British naval vessels to help out, the operation was doomed from the start. I mean, there was just no way they were getting up those fucking cliffs!
The 20 of us who were gathering there this afternoon, had a much better plan in mind... We would land on the beach from the train station. Those with bikes (everyone but me), would ride north to the beach and set up camp, then forming smaller search-and-rescue parties to ride back into town to help locate large quantities of beer, wine and all the baguettes and fancy cheeses one could safely carry... while a handful of persons stand guard of all of our shit until my arrive.
I was to lay on the beach with a 40 of Kronenbourg 1664 and smoke endlessly when I got there; letting the cool ocean breeze and most perfect weather ever lull me into a calm and contemplative state for the few hours before we had to catch a ferry back to the U.K. The plan turned out to be a great success!
A couple hours in, after stuffing my face and drinking more beers, I really had to pee. So I left our party to wander towards a public toilet setup along the boardwalk, next to the jumping castle, and a half dozen ice cream and souvenir shops. Along the way I stumbled upon three boys who were sitting on a small 2-ft wall next to the road and dressed in Canadian Cadet uniforms, so I decided to partake in Patriotism for a change and say hello...
Me: 'Hey dudes, where you from?'
Them: 'Canada.' Not looking me in the eyes.
Me: 'Yeah, me too. But where are you FROM?'
Them: 'Milton.' Still not impressed.
Me: 'Cool. I'm from Toronto, but I've lived in Wasaga Beach, Scarborough, Pickering... What are you guys here for?'
Them: 'Our regimen is on a trip. We're training.'
Me: Pointing to the cliffs. 'Really... so are they making you climb those ridiculous cliffs over there?' (...hahaha!)
Them: 'No...' Not wanting to appease my playful comradery.
Me: 'Alright dudes... well, I've gotta pee. Have a good time!' Then leaving to go pee.
Them: 'Sure. Bye!'
I was thinking after the exchange, 'What the fuck kids?!' The one time I outstretch a Nationalistic-hand these little 11-year old meat heads have the nerve to shoot me down because they''re all too cool for school?! Never again!
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It took me until later that night before I realized just how odd I must have seemed to them - some random moustachioed drunk in sunglasses, coming up to them with a tallboy and cigarette in his hands, drinking, smoking, and wanting to hangout. In hindsight (and in their coddled defense), I must have looked like a giant fucking creepo!!
..But I'm flying out to London today. And later Berlin for a week. And then back to London for a few days. I'll be back on the 20th. Miss me.. tenderly!
There should be many highlights to post about over the coming couple of weeks, as both of these places are AMAZING and fodder for much more interesting 'typity-type' than my past few weeks' day-to-day of getting smacked in the head by 16-yr old Autistic students (who laugh and shout out the most perverted and mind-boggling shit you will ever hear about lady-parts), and alternately, drinking in-and-around Ossington every single night. ..Ick!
When I get back, I'm making my very first (2nd? 3rd?) music video.. for Buck Starball's 'Our Last Year;' and putting together some kind of Kitchen Art Show for mid-to-end May, featuring thisguy..
- Greg Miller-
(..and probably some others?). Greg is painting a mural on our kitchen wall this month that, judging from his previous wonderful work, will probably involve some combination of penis-arms, psychedelia and portraits of Star Trek: TNG alumni in a crazy-amazing detail that should delight the cans of chickpeas in my cupboard to animated life. Paired with some oddities, knick knacks and random things sized humbly enough to fit inside this wunder-cabinet type thing we have, some film projection on the back deck perhaps, and whatever else can be done to mess up the space for a couple days.. this could be a really good event!
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edit
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Ummm... so yeah?! London and Berlin. See you in two weeks!!
I posted a film I made for school a couple years ago onto my other blog thingy - (Everything is Not a Big Deal/Vimeo) - after finally caving on my snobbery and archaic notion of what constitutes as ‘Cinema,’ or the movie watching experience.
I will always prefer things projected onto bigger screens in darkened rooms filled with strangers.I like the idea of a film (when it’s done right) being like some kind of collective dream you share quietly and anonymously with those in your neighbourhood/community.When it ends, you fuck off to whatever is coming next, carrying these unreal moments, pictures and sounds, back to your colonies for future consideration and distribution - just as you do after seeing something on MegaVideo - but with the visual proof (a la yer fellow moviegoers' smug and satisfied faces) that the wonderful thoughts you're having are being had somewhere else in the culture, simultaneously. (Blah, blah, blah blah blah... )
This is by no means a proper critique or stance on my part, and the film I'm showing y'all is by no means what I would consider as something that can stand up to the qualities that equal amazing. But, I've gone on long enough...
[The laughter continues in a couple of days... stay tuned!!]
This is my first posting, but it’s actually only half/one part of two blogs – the other being 'this'– of which each are meant to play together like some kind of great partnership (think: Martin & Lewis, Molotov Cocktails and angry proletarian uprisings, KFC-Taco Bell, pee and poo, et cetera, et cetera…).So, this isn’t really my first posting at all!?!
The Children Crusades thing I posted on the other side of this one you’re now staring down was written last winter and can also be found, with all its left out words and original form, in Pinnacle 001.
I chose to post it, and post it first because it was the last public offering of my Writerly-Self, before he disappeared off the face of the Earth until just about a month ago (and having been thought missing or dead until then).
It’s a pretty sad thing when this happens to one of your oldest and dearest friends.My Writerly-Self had been with me longer than most selves…
Waaaay longer than NHL ’09 Playing-Self, Special Needs Supporting-Self and Battlestar Galactica Loving-Self put together. Longer than Dancing With Myself-Self or Staying Up ‘Til 5am Fucking Around on the Internet or Watching Foreign and Terrible Movies-Self…even longer than Masturbating-Self (and by an easy 4-5 years… wow!).
We had been hanging out.We were planning novels together.We would meet up and start a script, work on it off and on for a few weeks, get distracted or called away from it for awhile because of schedules and other commitments, and then meet up later on to revise things or start over.I wasn’t trying to neglect our friendship, in fact, I thought it was going pretty well until he just one day up and vanished.
I didn’t think much of it at first, and continued on with some other things; going to work every day, trips overseas, hanging out with friends and other selves.Eventually, I figured something was up.
It took some months (nearly half a year!) before I was able to track him down.
So with a bottle of gin in hand, I stopped by where he’d been hiding out one night, a little desperate, a little heartbroken, and a whole lot drunk and pissed off…
I stood aghast!My Writerly-Self was so filthy and frail.Laying naked, aside from a pair of brown slippers and a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich that smooshed between his left arm and those sunken ribs (which, at the sight of me he jumped up and devoured to bits with his disgusting little goblin fingers, like some kind of maniac), he looked three times his age and with this terrified lost look in his eyes that told me he hadn’t left his bed (let alone his apartment) in weeks.
I dropped to my knees; weeping and swigging and thinking about homicide.
Hours in, when the both of us had calmed down somewhat, I was able to get his take on what happened…
My Writerly-Self swears that ‘they’ have been out to get him.That he was being followed, censored, poisoned (slowly) and made to perform ridiculous one-man plays about twenty-something protagonists who couple down and lose themselves to stay-in dinners and watching the Food Network at all hours of the day.
He claimed that the brutal communist regime of some occupying nation had then stolen all his pants, but that he had learned to welcome this final indignation, and now counts it as the blessing that has allowed him the peace needed to at last let go.
“I can no longer give good reason why I or anyone should be forced to engage with the World, if these are its set terms?”
He tells me he’s been in this current state of paralysis more or less ever since.
I tell him that, “It is not the World that has set these terms, but our scared way within it. “
To which he buries his head in my crotch, bawling.His disgusting goblin arms wrapping firmly around my waist.
“There, there… self.”I assure him, petting his thick, oily hair in a loving rhythm.“Everything is not a big deal.”
To which he unzipped my pants so he could climb in.
[We, err… I, will be writing things on these pages in a semi-regular fashion from now on.So check back soon folks!]
-The photo is ‘Lothar, Berlin 1982’ by Gundala Shulze Eldowy
