Musings

News Flash #1 - After long last, I have photos up on this little project. My Pentium (now known as the potted plant, because it's got as much processing power as an African Violet and I have to sweet talk it just to get it to open both Microsoft Word and WinAmp at the sametime) has graciously decided to take a two-week hiatus from stalling at the first opportunity. So beneath are some of my comrades, with a bit of scenery to boot.

News Flash #2 - I should be back in Saskatoon around the 15th of December.

Random Anecdote #1 - Ever been invited to a party where everyone knows each other except you? And you show up and have to use the washroom, but would feel it impolite to do so without first asking the host where it is? And because everyone's best of chums, old pals, comrades of the highest order, they're in this state of perpetual wackiness and randomness and the host refuses to tell you where it is? And instead engages you in this little improv game where she says her house never came with a toilet and you have to suggest comical places where you could pee in lieu of something made of porcelain?

This happens to me, like, 85% of the time. It usually goes something like this:

Me: "Excuse me, where's the washroom?"
Host: "We don't have one. You'll have to go out back. There's a shed out there."
Me (peering out into the dark): "That one? By the fence?"
Host: "That's the one. You could also go in a bottle."
Me: "It looks cold out there. How about the sink? It's closer and inside."
Host: "Look, how about you just go in the corner? That'd probably be okay."
Me: "Hey, that sounds good." (Reaches for zipper.)
Host: "Umm, actually, the bathroom's just through the kitchen, by the stairs."
Me: "Thanks."

It's very demeaning to have to threaten indecent exposure just to find a freaking bathroom. But if I were concerned about petty things like my dignity, I probably wouldn't be a journalism student.

Random Anecdote #2 - Got on the bus on Saturday, with my microphone in one hand and this satchel-like bag with my recording equipment inside slung over my shoulder. Minutes earlier, I'd been doing "streeters" - interviews with random Londoners about their opinions on an impending by-law to ban pit bulls. I actually felt like a real, honest-to-god reporter. It was a nice change from writing reports based on fact sheets.

Anyways, I get on this bus, show the driver my pass, and he turns to me, chuckles, and says "Hey, buddy, what have you been up to, a little portable karaoke?" Ha. Ha. Yes, I'm paying eight thousand dollars worth of tuition, and living in a city where the daily responsiblity of the weather forecaster is to brainstorm 365 synonyms for "bleak and depressing," just to bring Neil Diamond's "Sweet Adeline" into the comfort of your home. Ha. Ha. So I began to open my zipper, and that was that.

Annoyance #1 - This radio lab is 27 degrees celsius. Now I know why Peter Mansbridge doesn't wear pants when he hosts The National.

-T.

That's my building - North Campus. The NCB, if you're with it and hip. Screwing up my shot of its pristine, angular beauty is Rob - Winnipeg native, Exclaim! writer, and fashion trendsetter. 

One of the few saving graces of London is that, if you dig for them, you can find some pretty amazing used book stores. This is the outcome of one Saturday afternoon journey with a couple of friends from the library science program. From left to right: an amazing Mediterranean food stand (the remains of a chicken shwarma pita is Exhibit A, front and center), Ella from Halifax, and Sabina from Middle of Nowhere, Alberta. 

Hey, Ella, it says here that journalists really DO have souls! They're just smaller and more pathetic than our own. 

October - National Sarcasm Month

Apparently, it is. I guess it would be appropriate to make a blog entry before the month passes me by like the memories of yesteryear, no?

Big news first - I'm going to Winnipeg in January! Now, before you send me sympathy cards, I should inform you that, yes, this is actually part of Trevor's overall plan to conquer the universe. Winnipeg, aside from being the stab-you-in-the-back-alley-with-a-rusted-butter-knife capital of Canada, is also the home of Definitely Not the Opera - the CBC radio show that "explores the nooks and crannies of pop culture," according to their website. This week there's tips on avoiding zombie attacks and a review of the new Alexander Payne movie, Sideways. (Payne's the guy who made Election and About Schmidt, if you didn't know.) Anyways, it's on Saturday afternoons, from one to three on Radio One, so unless you have a Delorean and a flux capacitor you likely missed this week's show. But tune in. Because I'll be rocking the joint.

Slightly less gargantuan news second - Della and I went to Pontiac, Michigan to see Death Cab for Cutie play two weekends ago. Pontiac may ring a bell to those Saskatonians who had cable and watched the bloody, over-the-top Detroit news stations when they were younger (which likely resulted in a phobia of leaving one's house after, say, three in the afternoon), because it's one of the Motor City's many suburbs. Death Cab were great, playing a bunch of stuff off their new album and apologizing to all the Canadians in the crowd that they couldn't make it up to Toronto on this tour. The opening act was Travis Morrison (former lead singer of the Dismemberment Plan) and, let's be honest, he has more funk than any white boy can rightfully claim to possess. Awesome, awesome show put on by both.

In conclusion, here are some tips for surviving Detroit:

• Try not to trip and skin your knees on the acres of grey, soul-destroying concrete.
• Greyhound workers in Detroit coined the term "sass." Approach with caution. Avoid wasting their time with ridiculously vapid questions like "Can I buy a ticket to Pontiac?"
• The bus to Pontiac drops you off in the middle of nowhere. If you walk left, you end up downtown in civilization. If you walk right, you end up in a sea of body shops and carwashes where crack-addled deviants run stop signs and take aim at hapless Canadians with their Sunfires. Guess which way we walked.
• If you're extra friendly to the Subway guy two blocks south of the Detroit station, he'll give you his surplus tuna for your sandwich.
• Don't fidget in your pockets while at customs or they will deport you to Syria.

That's all. Happy Hallowe'en. Remember, a darkened house means more candy for you to eat and less for the undeserving brats.

T.

Roadkill Flu

For the one or two of you that may be wondering where I've been for the past week, here's the scoop. I'm sick.

Sick, sick, sick. Sick like a dog. Sick like Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France for the 94th year in a row. Sick like, well, those people that leak phlegm and goo out of every bodily orifice and can't stand up without a small symphony booming out the 1812 Overture, in stereo, all through their cranial cavity.

But this is no common cold. No, I am patient zero for what will undoubtably become one of the most devastating pandemics ever known to humankind - Roadkill Flu.

See, about three weeks ago I encountered a bloody, flattened hunk of what vaguely resembled a raccoon on my daily walk home. Aside from the momentary shock of having my tranquil fall vista disturbed by what I can only guess was raccoon spleen, I really wasn't too put out. I mean, likely the roadkill authorities or McDonalds or whatever municipal department was responsible for disposing of rotting animal flesh would be along in the middle of the night to sweep him or her up. The whole bloody mess would be gone by morning.

My, how charmingly naive I was back then. The next day, the dead raccoon was still there, a little flatter and a little worse-for-wear (were those peck marks, I wondered?) but still quite unabashedly dead. Same thing the day after that. By the fourth day, I had taken to crossing the street lest I be accidentally clipped by the swooping buzzards that would congregate around the poor little guy. And on and on, with no end in sight.

(As a brief aside, stranger and stranger things have started showing up on my road - a dismantled shopping cart, the plumbing from a bathroom sink, and a pair of black boxers. As a shout-out to you literary types, I feel like I'm in a Thomas Pynchon novel.)

Anyhoo, by week two, Pancake and I (that's what I've started to affectionately name him - well, with about as much affection as one can safely show a decomposing hunk of fur and meat) had started to bond. His or her unmoving presence was the only constant for me in this turbulent, ever-changing world. I would routinely shout a jovial "Hello, Pancake!" as I walked to school, kicking away buzzards and vultures and ravens as I walked. When I came home on day thirteen and one of Pancakes paws had somehow become detached, I held a small vigil.

Had I only known then that delirium was the first symptom of Roadkill Flu, I would have sought prompt medical attention. But no, I persisted. Now, for the past two weeks I've been racked with the following symptoms - runny nose, sore sinuses, occasional headaches, fatigue, baggy eyes, sore throat in the morning, perpetual whininess, a relentless and violent need for MORE. CHICKEN. SOUP. NOW!, and a voice that sounds like Eddie Vedder trimmed his vocal chords with rusty barbed wire.

I fear I have only days, nay, hours left in this world. Please remember me. Compose a sonnet, preferable Petrarchian, in my memory. And when I am gone, scatter my ashes over the Irish Sea, where the bonny breezes will always blow.

And please, someone, for the love of god nuke the bloody municipal authorities who have no fucking clue what they're doing in this plague-infested hellhole. Love,

-T.

The Stills

Last night, a small group of us journalism students went to see Broken Social Scene guitarist Jason Collett and Montreal art-rock band The Stills play a little pub downtown named Call the Office.

It was a pretty good evening - Jason Collett's got this Tom Petty/Don Henley thing going on, plus he wears an awesome fedora. ("Ten bucks for the hat!" I shouted at one point, but I don't think he heard.) The Stills were more confident than the last time I saw them, opening for BSS at Louis' back in the City of Bridges - which makes sense as they're now the headliners. Kicking off with "Lola Stars and Stripes," the opener from their full-length Logic Will Break Your Heart, they had the crowd going in one of those cheesy guitar-laden sing-alongs ("Looooollllllaaaa! Loooooollllaaaa!") before pulling out some wicked and completely unexpected four-on-the-floor disco beats for the last chorus. "Angels and Insects" showed off the band's more ambient side, expunging the discordant guitar stabs of the album version in favor of droning bass and swirling keyboards. And first single as well as show-closer "Still In Love Song" simply rocked, during which lead singer Tim Fletcher encouraged everyone to "Do the Turtle!" and then seconds later clarified, "I don't know what that is either!"

Oh, as an amusing side note - having lost my photo ID sometime last week, the show's bouncer had to mark the backs of my hands with monstrous black 'x's, using those old-school toxic markers that have been scientifically proven to cause children to be born with three eyes and motor neuron disorders. So no demon drink for me that evening - but on the other hand, the fumes were mildly hallucinogenic. (Getting wasted "Winnipeg-style," quipped my Manitoban friend and sometimes-Exclaim! writer Rob.)

No hangover, plus no tinnitus (being the cranky old fart that I'm swiftly becoming I wore neon orange earplugs), equals a surprisingly decent night out on the town in L-dot. I give The Stills w/ Jason Collett 8.5 dancing turtles out of 10.

Now, a forty-eight hour hibernation as it's homecoming weekend. I'll leave my basement when the city returns to what passes around here for normal.

-T.

We have liftoff!

Ah, my first post on my first blog. Sort of like losing my virginity, except without the restraining order. Welcome, all, to what will be less an insightful journey into the day-to-day life of a small-town prairie boy trying to make it big in Southern Ontario (the "armpit" of Canada) than a cathartic release of the vitriolic hatred I feel for my new home. With lots of ten-dollar words thrown in.

So, let's begin.

Though commonly known as Ontario's "Forest City", London is no mere provincial backwater. It possesses celebrity and mystique, aura and fantasy, stifling humidity and foot-long houseflies. Known for its skanky undergraduates, its epic basement floods, and a complete dearth of anything remotely approaching culture or nightlife, London, Ontario will serve as my personal hell-on-earth for the next eight months, two days, and five hours.

Not that I'm counting.

I'll admit, London does have its upside. For one, the campus is quite nice, even if the omnipresence of purple does get a bit much at times. The city's urban design has been so planned that no resident is ever more than three-point-seven metres from a Tim Horton's; Londoners have been known to order double-doubles simply by bellowing for one while sitting on the john. And, as far as I can tell, the city has gone at least six whole years without being attacked by giant radioactive three-headed locusts.

Perhaps I'll take some photos of this urban paradise in the near future, at which you may all recoil in horror. Or perhaps I'll just let your imaginations run amok, though you have to promise that they won't run into rush-hour traffic without first looking both ways. Either way, trust me when I say this - if you're planning a holiday in the near future, consider strongly the one on the other side of the Atlantic. I hear it's got a queen and a giant clock and WCs and the world's most ancient monument, Keith Richards.

(Ho ho, jokes about Keith Richards' age are so edgy! Next up, Michael Jackson's surgically-reconstructed face! And then a few witticisms about the Boer War! I kill me.)

Anyways, enjoy the trip, don't drag mud across my nice new Persian carpets, you young whippersnapper (I just had them cleaned) and drop me a line or emergency rations - ginger snaps work exceedingly well - when you can.

Oh, and here's a stylish and sexy photo of me, so you can all drool agonizingly over that which you can no longer have. ;)

-T.