From TORONTO,
DECEMBER 31st, 2006
My dear smushy sweet wonderful people......I have so much useless information for you, it boggles the mind. Where could one possibly begin? By giving you each an electronic holiday hug? By sending on Joy and Peace and crap like that? By telling you all about New York.....or the rest of the run of the show.....or my peaceful yet weird and unpredictable life of the moment? By absolving those of you who only ever get this far into one of my emails and then give up and go pick your noses and watch reruns of The Simpsons? By cursing those people who never even open them and just say "Oh, fucking Norton again."? Yeah. Let's start there. Screw those people. They suck anyway. I hope their 2007 is GARBAGE.
As for you.....well, enough about you. I mean, who am I kidding? As for ME, it all began in a shady New Orleans neighbourhood, where as a child I went from house to house selling coal to prostitutes in the red light district. Oh wait, that's Louis Armstrong. Sometimes I get us confused. (Useless Norton fact number one: I'm on part nine of Ken Burns' Jazz Miniseries. If I start talking about my gigs at Birdland and my heroin addiction - okay, well that part's true.) Who knows what lies I might tell you tonight? The other day I was so worn out from Christmas shopping and lack of sleep that I very nearly told the cashier at National Sports that I needed artichokes, Kalamata olives and a chicken. If only life were that easy.
Last we communed across the web of the wide world, I was telling you all about my (first ever) trip to Vancouver. I ran out of time, and energy, and the will to live in general - hey, it happens - and left you with a month-long cliffhanger. Stop salivating already. Cease the letter campaign. Leave my agents alone. Here, at long last, is the eagerly awaited sequel.
I came back to the T dot O dot et cetera dot in mid-October, and promptly began the run of Of Mice and Men at Canstage's prestigious yet perhaps-seen-better-days Bluma Appel theatre. (Sorry, Bluma: the 80s chandeliers are not lookin' so state o' the art these days.) One or two days of tech and the rehearsing in of a new dog and we were ready to go.
This, of course, would be our fourth official dog on the production. Dog number one, who so convincingly captured the energy of the old, sick, blind animal Steinbeck describes in the novel - wait for it - dropped dead before rehearsals even began. The Calgary Herald, which had shown an almost freakish obsession with our dog casting from the beginning, ran a front-page obit in which the dog's owners said that his ashes would reside next to the family hamster's cage so that the two animals could "talk to one another". Hm.
In a clear backlash against that experience, the replacement dog was Pookie, a spry, happy young thing who, in his scant two previews, was every bit as excited to meet the audience as they were to see him. Thank you Pookie, we have your resume on file.
Our third dog, Maggie, who apparently wowed 'em on the casting couch, was slow, partially deaf, had cataracts and a bad hip, and weighed at least two hundred pounds completely dry. I loved her. She had to be coaxed onto the stage and was just gonna sit wherever she was gonna sit. She might make it all the way to her mark.....or she might barely get onstage and decide it was time for a nap. By the end of the run, though, she knew her cues better than some of the human actors and, according to her owner, was showing signs of a new lease on life. Having a job had given her a sense of purpose, and approaching show-time, even on the day off, she would go out to the car, wagging her tail and eager to go perform. I fear old Maggie didn't deal too well with the closing. Following a brief appearance in Nunsense 3 at Stagewest, she found it hard to get acting work. She's now flipping burgers at a Calgary McDonalds and drinking heavily. But we've all been there, Mags. I mean, at least to buy a Happy Meal or something.
That brings us to Watson, our Toronto dog.....who was one of those hardcore method acting dogs who thought it necessary to live every detail of his character, particularly his oft-mentioned deathly stink, completely fully. I'm not sure how he did it, but MAN did that dog smell. I stopped petting him when I realized it was affecting my social life. Talk about taking "the method" too far! I mean, I may have given the occasional handjob in my dressing room to get inside the mind of a character that everyone calls a tramp.....but I was getting paid extra for that! Jeez.
Dogstink aside, the Toronto run went well. Our entire time at the Bluma coincided exactly with the construction of a three thousand story condo tower on the adjoining property, but by all accounts, the constant bone-rattling pounding of jackhammers only served to add to the growing sense of unease in the play. It certainly added something.....every performance, as my character's inevitable demise approached, all I could think was "kill me now." Of course, we only had to put up with the construction during matinees - three times a week. And the screaming and innapropriate laughter of the student audiences was almost enough to drown out the pounding.....especially on Special Scarborough Matinees, when there would be a curtain speech welcoming and thanking members of the Future Residents of the Don Jail Club. Only six shootings the entire run - a Club record!
WARNING: ANGRY PARAGRAPH APPROACHING
I made the mistake of once again reading the reviews. I always do; I'm too nosey not to. In my particular case, the critics were split a pretty even fifty-fifty. Depending on whom you read, I was either the weakest link or one of the strongest. Which is so confusing! How am I supposed to know what to think of myself?! Oh well....guess I'll just go back to my default opinion that I AM FUCKING AWESOME. Some dickhead in the Sun, I think it was, said that the design was flawless and then in his paragraph-long diatribe against me, blamed me for the shoes I wore, of which he didn't approve. How did he know that they had made the actors stay up nights in Calgary, designing and cobbling our own shoes? Weird. The reviews that were harshest on the production were tempered by the fact that John Steinbeck himself didn't even escape the bile. Kamal Al SuckMyAss, of the Globe and Mail, said that while the novel is a beautiful and enduring classic, the play is a sentimental old chestnut that doesn't bear remounting. Strange, considering Steinbeck wrote them both and that they're almost word for word the same. Anyway, I felt in good company indeed.
Thought I'd be clever and wear the sexy green dress that I wore to the wedding in Vancouver to Canstage Opening Night. After all, it had gotten great reviews in Vancouver - strangers on the street calling out "Where did you get that dress?", gorgeous, fat burlesque dancers climbing all over me at the reception...... Who wouldn't want to repeat that? And besides, no one in Toronto had seen it. But then some stupid Ontario friends who went to the wedding just had to come to opening in Toronto, and be all supportive and stuff. Courtenay Stephens is now under the impression that I own one dress. You can't know, dear readers, how hard that is for me. ME, of all people! I actually have the biggest evening gown grow-op in Ontario. The smell of taffeta in the hallway is starting to make my neighbours suspicious.
It was a little sad to see the ol' Steinbeck go, though we had a good long run at it. Just a great gang, both on and off stage. Too bad I've forgotten all of their names. I was hoping what's his name might hire me for something some time. Oh well.
To hold the unemployment demons (albeit not the bill collectors) at bay, my mom, the lovely Lolita, suggested a mini-vacation to New York just after closing.
I think I ought to travel more in general. First of all, I love being away and broadening my horizons, if only so that I will have new and more numerous things to make fun of. And that's important. Secondly, I'm having a lot of fun, in this era of hyper-security, in seeing how much I can get away with at airports. At first, I would honestly forget I'd packed a nail clipper or a pair of tweezers or something. At the Calgary airport, I accidentally went through the scanny beepy thing (yes, that IS the technical term) with a pocket full of change - and no scanny beepiness! On my most recent flight I got through U.S. security with two lighters, several packs of matches and a dazzling assortment of undeclared liquids and gels. Next time I'm bringing a hunting knife, with which, after boarding the plane, I will pick my teeth while staring at fellow passengers in a menacing way. I'm not quite sure if there's a non menacing way to pick one's teeth with a knife while on an airplane..... If there is, I'll avoid it.
We also quite enjoyed the airport staff. Except for one dink at the Montreal airport (where we had a stopover en route to NY) who made fun of my French the second I opened my mouth and said it was "worser dan" his English, and then called me a "pretty lass"......everyone was great. A security chick at Pearson actually handed me back my I.D. saying "You're awesome". Chubby, nerdy U.S. customs officer Dansby happily chatted with us, taught us some interesting trivia, and called out "Ciao, Bella" when we walked away.
And what can I say about New York, really? First of all, I have no idea what to say because I can't remember it. It was so long ago now that I've forgotten all the details, and this as much a lesson in how old and senile I'm getting as anything else. Vague memories of tall buildings.... aggressive drivers...noise...Jon Voigt lookin' stupid...Diane Keaton in a shirt and tie...Dustin Hoffman in a dress.... Pretty good celebrity spottings, huh?
Speaking of celebrity spottings, we probably had the lamest ones of all time. We saw, not necessarily in order of unimportance: 1) The guy who plays Larry's agent, Jeff, on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe. I only saw the back of his head. 2) Some celebrity chef from some assy chef show in which he shouts at people on TV. Mom recognized him but couldn't remember his name, and if she had any feeling about him, it was a mild desire to kick him in the shins. And 3) Some Guy sitting near us in a pizzeria who I thought might be on a reality show or something but maybe not maybe he just looks like someone I knew once in school or something.
The most important person we met was probably this round and funny teenaged rapper who chatted us up and tried to get us to buy his homemade CD (after leaping out at us from behind and yelling in my ear, making me jump seven feet into the air). He said he was related to some "famous" hip hop artist I'd never heard of, and promised us he would make it big soon, too. Someday I'll see his big fat face on MTV and I'll regret not having had my picture taken with him. Or just going to bed with him, which was his other, very generous offer. He actually used the line "Once you go black you'll never go back." Look, I've had back-and-forth privileges since high-school, baby. Don't tell me where I can't go.
We did see Jon Stewart, but he wasn't within hugging - or shin-kicking - range. Mom and I are both huge fans, and this being her belated birthday vacation, I thought I'd surprise her by booking tickets to a taping of the Daily Show. Yes, free tickets, big spender that I am.....but we all know it's not about the money - or didn't you watch your Christmas specials this season, boys and girls? Of course, you can't just book tickets and show up; they routinely overbook the show by half, so you have to get there early to ensure a seat. An odd birthday present, really: Surprise! You get to sit on urine-smelling pavement for three hours waiting to see something we could have watched on TV later tonight! But we did get to see Jon in person. And he comes out between the warmup dude and the taping to field questions from the audience. I sat there petrified with fear that either Lolita would say something mortifying, or that I would be unable to stop myself from blurting out the only question I could think of, which was "WILL YOU EVER LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU?!" Not cool.
After the Daily Show we went for a fantastic dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, the name of which I of course don't remember. (See? Old.) New York - or I should say Manhattan, which was all we had time for - was a pretty great gourmet-on-a-reasonable-budget experience. Between wandering around and trusting serendipity to do its bit, which it always seems to, and an emailed Cheap Eats guide courtesy of Derrick Chua, we just went around happily stuffing our faces for four days straight. At first when deciding, we'd say, "Oh look, this place is Zagat rated"....until we noticed that every fricking restaurant in the city is in the Zagat Survey. The street meat vendors have been reviewed for God's sake. Breast-feeding babies get shoved aside by food critics: "Move it, kid; we haven't reviewed these boobs yet." "What do you have to do to get a good table at this rack?" "We gave her crotch a great rating last year - you'd think she'd be grateful for all the business we've gotten her."
My favourite may have been an adorable and delicious joint on 10th Ave called Empanada Mama. Great food, cool decor and a cute waitress with a funny accent. We thought at first of limiting our trip to Matriarchal experiences, like Don't Tell Mama piano bar, the MOMA, Empanada Mama, Mamma Mia, etc. Fortunately, we're not morons. One fun meal was at Mara's Homemade (almost a Mama name) in the East Village, a personal recommendation from Derrick, who drops in whenever he's in town. It's a Cajun/southern comfort food place, run by a cool chick from Texas who you'd swear was a born-and-raised New York Jew. We feasted on oysters and barbeque ribs and catfish and collard greens and crawfish etoufee and sucked back hurricanes all night.
When Mama Lo was in the washroom having her wash, I secretly ordered a chocolate souffle, and when it came, I, timid Canadian, coaxed a bunch of New Yorkers into singing her Happy Birthday. Dessert was warm and gorgeous and gooey, and I was feeling the same way at this point, so I decided then to be all generous and make this a Big Birthday Meal On Me. Of course, I was doing the math through a haze of rum and chocolate......so it didn't turn out quite as smooth and cool as intended. "Happy Birthday! Um.....do you have a twenty on you?" And then we walked out into a crazy wind and rainstorm. Hey, better than the pee-covered sidewalk.
Our hotel was The Paramount on 46th Street, a block from Times Square and right across from the half-price ticket booth. It's a pretty groovy boutique hotel where everything is designed by Philippe Starck, and where they pay good looking people to hang about the lobby being cool. Shaun Smyth later told me there's a line in Patrick Marber's play Closer about the Paramount Hotel being staffed entirely by hookers. So you can get a little more than a mint on your pillow if you know what I mean. If only I'd known. Come on, people, you need to give me useful travel tips before I go somewhere.
The rooms, according to the Paramount website, feature "the now legendary gilt-framed headboards, most depicting images from famous Vermeer paintings". Ours were blank. Blank canvasses. Legendary my ass. Mama Lolita suggested we fill them in with our sharpies. I was thinking feces. You know, I like to live on the edge. Plus I like to mention poo in my emails whenever possible.
Speaking of legendary art/poo (check this segueway, people!), we spent most of one day at the MOMA, which was fantastic. Had the classic "I could have made that" vs. "Yeah but you didn't" argument, which is unresolvable but fun.
Did Central Park, too, of course. I'd convinced La Lolita to add one pair of non-pointy, un-high-heely shoes to her collection - and that was a struggle; we kept the staff at Discount Shoe Warehouse up waaay past their bedtimes, while she tried on every shoe in the place....including all the pointy black leather high-heeled boots. Anyway, I had to teach her how to walk in flat shoes, and she did crawl a lot of the way, but we had a lovely time, and Central Park was amazingly beautiful and still autumnal, by which I mean lots of purty leaves on the trees.
Have I mentioned the weather? Aside from that windy rainstorm - which was a lot of fun to walk in, actually, and strangely pretty in its spectacle of abandoned broken umbrellas everywhere like the corpses of crows - the weather was amazing. Mostly grey, but so beautifully warm that we were walking around in T-shirts half the time. We're talking mid-November here. We'd walk out of our hotel, take off our coats....and Al Gore would come running across the street with a blanket, crying "Cover yourselves up for Chrissake! Don't encourage it!" Poor Al. If only he could learn to love Global Warming, like the rest of us.
We only hit one play while in town. I figure we watch so much theatre at home that we didn't need to spend our entire vacation sitting inside in the dark. I mean it's not like we're from Moosenee and only get to see the local seniors put on Dreamgirls once a year. Our pick was The Drowsy Chaperone, good little Canadians that we are. I had seen the Toronto Fringe production in '99, and it was great to see it all expanded and so successful.
Our only other dark theatre experience was seeing Babel at the fifty-something screen Empire Theater on 42nd Street, and we only did that because some passerby, hearing us discuss whether we were too tired for it, fairly forced us to go inside. The man felt so strongly about us seeing this movie, I thought he'd cry if we chose not to. I now suspect he works there. When we left, he was in tears telling some tourists how moved he was by Jackass 2.
All in all, New York was fucking fantastic. I found myself, while looking down from a revolving restaurant high above the city, thinking "How do I get to live here?" And wondering how long it would take until I did. This was on my very first day. People who know me even a little have always told me I would love New York. They were definitely not wrong.
Since coming home, I've been living the unemployed life, catching up with friends and my apartment, celebrating Christmas with my family, doing the occasional audition. Don't think life is all just one big lazefest for me, though: I've decided to devote myself quite seriously to the art of masturbation. I mean, there are just too many armchair masturbators out there who do it as a hobby, and not enough people really putting in the time and dedication it takes to further it as an art form. I proudly consider myself a professional. For tips on how to join our ranks, go to www.wanking/whyjustahobby.ca .
Another industrious move is my taking baby steps toward getting my driver's license at long last. I'm doing Young Drivers of Canada, and my Dad's joke that I should be at Middle-aged Drivers was confirmed when I walked into a YD classroom full of sixteen year-olds. The in-class portion of the training was all this week at Bloor and Islington, with a bunch of rich Etobicoke kids who can't wait to get their hands on Daddy's SUV. I mean, teenagers have always wanted Hummers, but that used to mean something different. Something much more innocent.
At first I was disheartened by how reticent these kids were. They were so concerned with being cool, so worried about looking stupid, that they wouldn't answer anything, let alone ask any questions. For instance, there were the Sarahs, two blond high school hotties and obvious BFFs (that's Best Frendz 4Evah, oldie). The Sarahs sat at the back and didn't talk to anyone except each other and their cell phones. If the instructor asked one of them a question, they'd look at one another and giggle and say "I dun-noOOoo". If anyone else spoke to them, you'd hear a faint beeping and a tiny voice calling "Intruder Alert. Intruder alert. Outsider attempting entry to Sarahtown." Yeah. It was weird. Lucky for you, if they ever manage to get licensed they will outfit their matching Escalades with vanity plates that say I'MDUM and YAY. Wow... Should I have put an anger warning on this paragragh, too? You'd think cute blond girls were mean to me in high school. When in fact it was the Chinese.
Over the week, a few of the students did come out of the cool shell, which is nice. My favourite was The Doomsayer, who seemed to have a morbid example for everything the instructor brought up. Like "Yeah, you have to be careful? Cuz my cousin was driving, right? And this guy threw down a bucket of acid from an overpass? And it like burned through her windshield and melted her face." Or "I read in the paper one time about how with hatchbacks, sometimes all four tires just, like, fly of off all of a sudden. And then you get raped."
The holidays have been great except for the complete lack of snow. For those of you not in Toronto, we didn't have a single flake of snow for Christmas. Well, there was one......but he looked around, said "What the hell....I thought there was supposed to be a party down here tonight," and went straight back up. Al Gore ran after him, screaming "Come back!!! Come back!!!! Bring your friends! Pleeeeeeeaaaase!!!!!"
Tonight is New Year's Eve and I'm exhausted, since Tracy Dawson and I went out last night determined to go dancing the night before New Years Eve, and I was up till five. I hate going out on the 31st and being surrounded by drunken assholes. I'm drunken asshole enough for me, thank you very much. I don't need any other morons stealing my thunder. Shortly I shall rent some stupid movies and head over to Bunker's to hang about and try to feel the year change.
I do encourage you all to make at least one New Year's Resolution, the Lisa Norton way, which is......pick something easy! Really....choose one or more totally attainable goals and don't worry about the big ones like "Quit Smoking" and "Stop the Killing Spree". You will never win with those. A couple of years ago, I chose "Take the Stairs", and I have scarcely ridden an escalator since. Last year? Stop complaining about the weather. And my great big resolution this year: Don't Swallow Your Gum. This one I started early, and it's proving SO DAMN EASY that I may have to add another. Of course I have been swallowing gum for twenty years or more, so I may have a relapse at some point. If I show up at your house at three a.m. begging for Hubba Bubba, well.... give me some. But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make sure I throw it out when I'm done. Anyway, regarding my next resolution, I'm open to suggestions. As long as you take mine. You shall begin by wearing less underwear. And drinking eight to ten glasses of brine per day. Nothing like it for the kidneys. Send ideas to: http://www.youhavetoomuchtimeonyourhandsnortonyouidiot@loser.net/
Stay tuned for tips on how to live like a tourist in your own hometown, a fool-proof method for making your children behave, and instructions for building an eight foot christmas tree out of pipe cleaners and icing sugar. Oh, who am I fooling? I already told you that all I do is play with myself.
Keep hope alive (unless it signed something saying it didn't want to be on life support),
Your coolest friend,
Lisa
the skeptical tourist vs. santa claus
vanewyorkouver....and sweet home
From TORONTO
DECEMBER 4th, 2006
I've just read one of those emails that people forward you all the time with you know, ADVICE ABOUT LIFE. This one was very nice, full of sound advice from the Dalai Lama (that he will supposedly be very upset if you don't forward to, like, eighty-nine people by the end of the day). Apparently it's a list of his tips for the year to come.....but I'm pretty sure I've read some of them before. No Usesies Againsies, Dalai! I want fresh maxims, every year! No more of this "Be good to others" shit. I mean, that one's even in the bloody Ten Commandments! And "Spend some time alone every day"? You used that back in '97. Jeez.
Anyway....one of his Holy Baldness' pieces of advice, which I quite like, is "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before". Well, Mister Lama - and dear friends - have I got you trumped! In the past two months alone, I have finally hit both Vancouver and New York City, two places I've been meaning to visit since I was, like, born. And my experiences of which are as follows:
I had, as you may remember, just three days between performing Of Mice and Men in Calgary and in Toronto into which to squeeze a jaunt (how jaunty!) to Vancouver to attend the nuptials of my pals Mike Wasko and Jenny Paterson - who I still think spells her name wrong, by the way. Was supposed to head to Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall's folks' place on arrival, but due to a combination of closing a show and packing and drinking, not sleeping and running around, and Shaughnessy having dropped off the face of the earth......I hadn't spoken with him and had no idea where they lived. I sat on my bags in the Vancouver airport wondering where to go and what to do.
I left several messages, talked to strangers, beat some noisy children, rode the baggage carousel until that got boring (and believe me, that takes a while), and eventually got in touch with the then soon-to-be groom, Michael Jack Wasko, who instructed me to make my way to the happy couple's home in Kitsilano, where I would find not only Mike and Jenny, but our dear friend Thom Payne, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for laid-backness eight years running, all the way from his oppositely coastal home in Nova Scotia. Actually, all three deserve a gold medal in cool. Here I am thinking, I shouldn't be bugging Jenny and Mike, they're getting married tomorrow for God's sake. Surely they have things to do, responsibilities, people to shout at for no particular reason.... But no, after a lovely cab ride there - with a great driver, indeed one of the most interesting people I've ever met, through sunny blueness with the windows down - I found them sprawled about, just emerging from the haze of the "rehearsal dinner", which from what I gather was basically a rehearsal for getting loaded. Complete with a never-ending flow of champagne cocktails courtesy of Mike's little mama, Penny. Seems everyone really threw themselves into the spirit of the thing.
Hung about yawning and smoking and catching up, was shown a series of truly odd bachelor party photographs, and then we all headed out for a walk to Jericho beach. The weather was just amazing, as it would continue to be for my entire time in the city. Shaughnessy would later tell me that the weather in Vancouver is always beautiful, and that all that stuff about rain and fog and drizzle is a myth that people from the east have made up and tell themselves as consolation for living in places that suck. This, of course, comes from his entirely unbiased objective journalist's point of view.
So yes, after we'd dragged our sweet asses (taking our sweet-ass time) back to the apartment, and talked and smoked some more and fritatta'd our way to happiness - thanks Jenny! - Shaughnessy BS did finally appear. Seems he'd been off having ADVENTURES WITH BRIDESMAIDS, which is exactly the type of thing one expects and trusts Shaughnessy to do. I love it when people live up to their expectations; it's so comforting.
He and I then took off to install me in the empty basement apartment at his parents' house, only stopping along the way to buy champagne. "Champagne!", he would shout all weekend, "We must have more champagne!" I happily concurred, each and every time. Between that and all the turkey, it's a wonder I'm not paralyzed. Did I mention it was Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving Dinner at the Bishop-Stalls, after a nap in a darkened basement: Who could ask for anything more? The Bishop-Stalls: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Jacqui and Old Whatshisface (I may have taken some liberty with their names), not to mention my friend Young BS, are, as had been promised by Wasko, the loveliest family you could hope to spend time with. The gang was all there, along with two dogs, three cats (one is retarded and lives in a three-story cage so that he won't eat spatulas and things like that) and a few good-looking special guests. Perhaps that is the house guest-list criteria: no ugly people shall darken this door. Ug-ism being the only prejudice I wholeheartedly support, I have no problem with that. I, of course, was right at home, though happily out-beautified by Shaughnessy's gorgeous mother and sisters; and definitely out-weirded by Bob Stall, the funny little patriarch. I love that however brilliant a man may be, and in Bob's case I gather that is quite a lot (he is an accomplished and award-winning journalist), there is a law of nature saying that once he reaches fatherhood he must make the same lame and often incomprehensible jokes as dads the world over. And that he can't compose full sentences while the hockey game is on.
(A Speaking-of-hockey-side-note: Buses and billboards in Vancouver sport ads with splashy colourful images from Vancouver Canucks games and the phrase WE ARE ALL CANUCKS. Bloody brilliant. What could Toronto do to compete with that? WE ALL...HAVE LEAFS. IN OUR YARDS. IF YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE A YARD. UM. AND IF "LEAFS" WAS A REAL WORD. SHIT.)
Anyway, Thanksgiving Dinner was a great mixture of the entirely silly and the stunningly erudite. And as the wine flowed we just got cleverer and cleverer and cleverer.....though it is questionable how many of us could have pronounced the word "cleverer" by the end of the evening. I, for one, never talked so much shit in my life (and y'all know how I can talk shit). I woke the next morning with a distinct feeling of remorse.....and then got in an argument with BS over things he swears I was spouting at the end of the night and which I was sure he'd dreamt.
Thank God for that cozy dark basement apartment - where, incidentally, I kept finding condoms. Unopened, don't worry. I don't know if that's a traditional West Coast Welcome, hiding condoms all over the guest's room for her convenience.....or if the basement is just the traditional place for Bishop-Stall kids to sneak their partners off for rendezvous. Either way, I've decided that my fifth novel shall be named Condoms in the Basement.....and will be a tribute the Flowers in the Attic series. Thank you, Bishop-Stalls. God Bless You, every one.
No doubt you've heard of Triptophan. It's the hormone in turkey that knocks you on your ass, and which is the original date-rape drug. It went out of style when Rohypnol appeared on the scene; frat boys who'd been sneaking turkey drumsticks into cocktails for years were relieved to discover something less conspicuous. Well... you'd expect a lot of clever people, who know ALL ABOUT triptophan, and in fact made EIGHT-THOUSAND stupid jokes about it over dinner, to not spend an entire wedding weekend gorging themselves on leftover turkey sandwiches. That, of course, is exactly what we did. By the time the wedding rolled around, my blood was seventy percent turkey and I could barely walk. It didn't help that another twenty percent was champagne.
Day of the wedding, and almost everything is closed for Thanksgiving, which throws a temporary wrench (OW!) in my plan of buying a sassy new number for the wedding. The BS siblings, however, spring into action and drop me off near two of the best (and most not-closed) shops on Main Street - right near Heritage hall, where the wedding is taking place. Grocery bag full of black accessories in hand, I do some power shopping, finding a perfect dress and bag with an hour to spare - which I then use up cabbing back to the house and running around because the new dress is green and brown and my black friggin' boa just ain't gonna cut it. Brown accessory emergency! Just the type of life-and-death pressure I thrive under. Doctors Without Borders, sign me up.
The wedding was sweet and dreamy. First of all, I love these guys. Second of all, and probably slightly more important, they love each other. Another second of all, this is a couple that has already been through thick and thin, hell and highwater, et cetera et cetera. They've even managed to get over the fact that neither of them is very nice, or interesting, or charming. (What dumb, ugly losers Mike and Jenny are, really. They make me sick.) So everyone there had complete faith that they will continue on together happily for the rest of their lives. Which made for a totally relaxed, loving vibe......but an unfortunate lack of bitter speeches and nasty whispers. The highest drama of the evening came when one of the guests swallowed a hunk of glass that was in the bottom of a faulty Perrier bottle. But she happens to have grown up with severe allergies, and was used to keeping entirely calm in emergencies, so even she didn't freak out. Fucking pothead Vancouverites! What does it take to get a tantrum out of one of you! Even when I started sobbing loudly throughout the vows and moaning "ME!!!! She said she loved Me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!!!!", I couldn't seem to get a rise out of them. They just laughed and passed me the joint that that was going around.
Seriously, the wedding was gorgeous. Jenny wore an awesome gown made out of the wings of real-life fairies, which she and her sister have captured and de-winged themselves since childhood. The couple got through their vows with only a tasteful amount of giggling, and those of you who know Mike will be happy (or devastated) to know that he wore pants, though there was a piper. I didn't really moan and sob, nor did anybody else, except for the usual isn't-this-so-sweet sniffling and retching. Shaughnessy did an admirable job as MC, and there were some hilarious and touching speeches, and a proliferation of songs containing lyrics about what a big jerk Mike used to be. Awesome food! Great company! And Wasko-Paterson soundtrack CDs for all the guests! Dancing in the hall......and dancing our way down the street to the after party at Sarah's place and partying as much as the turkey sandwich coma allowed us.
I was overjoyed to be able to be there, to see some old faces, and to put faces to other people I've heard about for years. And to see my friends so happy.
There must be something in the air right now out West. In Calgary, I had a fantastic reunion with my old college chum, Jacquie - excuse me, Jacqueline....though she lets her new redneck friends call her Jadie - and she nearly electrocuted me with happiness, she is at such a brave and happy and exciting moment in her life.
Also in Calgary, I met up with Dean Carter (another pal from the James Brown years) and his wife Luka Symons, and their sweet little girl, who nearly didn't survive infancy. They are so grateful to have her, all fun and full of joy, and also madly in love with their jobs. Luka has her own radio show on CKUA, that station I plugged in my last email (pure coincidence) and Dean is a teacher at the Waldorf School , which is the coolest institution on Earth.
At the wedding I got to catch up with Jody Marklew, who was in my class in first year and then went to Studio 58 with Mike and Jenny. She recently went through a divorce and a year of hellish health problems, which doctors couldn't diagnose after ten billion tests for everything under the sun. She was just about to start a regimen of drugs for MS, which hadn't been ruled out, when she figured out that it was MERCURY POISONING. From an old filling that had fallen apart. She is now healthy, amazing, as gorgeous as ever, starting to act again, and dating an awesome new guy. I wonder if I were to continue across the country, finding all the people I've lost touch with, they'd all be this happy. It was really something, all these joyous people. If I made them shed just one tear each, my travels have been worth it.
One more day - sleeping, a farewell turkey sandwich, post-wedding lunch, goodbyes, dinner with Young BS, a mad dash to the airport singing G n' R at the top of our lungs - I and my new green dress took our bags and reluctantly left green Vancouver. It's so green! Why did nobody tell me it would be so green? Everyone talks about the mountains - but the trees! So many trees! Or was I just seeing them through fresh-from-the-prairie-eyes, and not used to seeing green again? Six of one?
On the redeye back to Toronto, I was politely holding in three days of champagne gas, and eventually went to the washroom for just long enough for an old lady on the plane to have a heart attack. She was between the washroom and my seat, so I couldn't go anywhere and was stuck at the back of the plane with a very boring person who is too tall to sit comfortably in airplane seats and so spends his flights at the back of the plane annoying flight attendants. I heard all about his (boring) trip, his (boring) job, his (boring) wife and his (boring) allergies, until I was wishing for a heart attack myself. Watched all the drama unfold from back there: the calls to the pilot, the appeals for a doctor, the five doctors on the plane all getting in each others' way, the defibrillator coming out, the defibrillator going back in......eventually she came around, and they arranged for paramedics to meet us at Pearson. I never did get a wink of sleep on that overnighter. I just couldn't rest easy knowing that my farting in the bathroom was enough to stop someone's heart. What if I fell asleep and let one go? It could be the pilot next time.
And on that elevated note, dear friends........it's 2:45 am. New York will have to wait a day or two. But hell, I waited thirty years for it.
Off to dreams of places i've never been before,
Lisa
where's the beef?
CALGARY, ALBERTA
October 7th, 2006
So here I sit at the end of two months in Cowtown, bracing myself for the giant email I owe you. Brace yourself, too. We'll get through this together.
I'm living in a week that includes eight shows over five days, many of them for evil callous teenagers, drinking too much with old friends, a Brazilian wax (the pain of which cannot be expressed in writing), a horrible lack of sleep, packing to go home......and if I can make it through all that...(OhPoorMeMyLifeIsHardIWishIWasInKazhakstan.)
You'll be happy to know I just took a moment to put some pants on. Love you as I may, it just felt too weird writing one of these letters without pants. You may take yours off if you like.
So....CALGARY THE UNKNOWABLE. Don't know if I've got any kind of a handle on the place. And I'm not sure who does. Locals seem to ask "What do you think of Calgary?" in a puzzled tone that suggests they're not quite sure what to make of it themselves. As if they're hoping that an outsider will be able to suddenly make it all clear to them. However, my experience of the place has been mostly the actor-hanging-with-lots-of-other-actors and working a lot and sleeping experience. I haven't had much time to mingle with the little people. Or the BIG people, I should say, what with their ten gallon hats and their high-heeled boots and their spurs and the raw meat hanging out of their mouths. (Just kidding, they apparently only dress that way during Stampede time.....and I think I dreamt the part about the meat.)
The theatre community is happily thriving. Seems new things are popping up all the time; new small companies, a good buzz in the air, a very supportive vibe in the community. I'm happy for them and hope it will continue. And that Ordinary Joe Calgary will put down his raw meat (and his Blackberry) for a minute and join in, so it's not just a self-contained thing with theatre people taking turns going around looking at each other. I fear that everywhere.
I do think it's an odd time to be here, what with the big BOOM and all. No one quite trusts it will last (and of course it can't, not the way it is now) and the town seems to be scrambling to get what it can, while it can. And to catch up with itself. It's great to have jobs flying around like confetti, sure, but if there's nowhere to house and school and take care of the sick among all these people...... There are folks with good jobs living in tents here. And winter's coming. Very strange days.
The cab drivers have no idea where anything is. If it stops pissing you off, it starts to become hilarious. They, of course, cleverly came to town from other cities and countries to cash in.....but they are so hopelessly lost out there that they seem slightly terrified all the time, poor buggers. The combination of a passenger new to town and a driver who got here last week can be ridiculous. And expensive. Luckily the meter rates are WAY lower than in T.O. On my birthday (September 15th - it rained and then snowed), which was also opening night, I decided to splurge and just take a cab everywhere while I ran all my opening night gift shopping errands and went to rehearsal. I felt so cosmpolitan actually getting a cabbie to wait for me as I ran in and out of places. But I can afford that here. Even when he got lost and we ended up in Jersey, it wasn't too bad. And New Jersey is quite the detour from Alberta. You'd think I would have noticed.
Yeah. Snow on my birthday. Unheard of. The weather in this place is out of its mind. Two days before the snow, it was thirty degrees celsius outside. And two days after, it was again. We're expecting locusts on Sunday, but it's so hard to predict, really. I've hired a dresser to follow me around in the streets with a suitcase. We stop and do quick-changes in phone booths whenever the weather shifts. Just another little luxury I've allowed myself - hell, I am in my thirties now.
Nobody jaywalks in this town. Not only that, but if you do, people look at you as if you're stabbing babies. Okay, so I did once jaywalk and stab a baby at the same time. But that was only once......and that kid was already dead. There are signs around saying "Caution. Do Not Jaywalk. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC." Well....in that case. I mean, I could make it across one lane, but if there are cars in both directions???! Wow, that's complicated.
White as Calgary is (by grew-up-in-Scarborough-live in-Toronto standards it's like some weird Caucasian planet), there is enough immigration to provide interesting places to eat. I've seen a few Ethiopian places, been to a Thai place or two, lots of Indian and Sushi around. It's taken being in Calgary to get me hooked on Lebanese takeout. And no, "Lebanese Takeout" is not a euphemism for "picking up chicks". Though there's always room for chicks.....like Jell-O!
As I write I am listening to a fantastic radio station called CKUA, somehow based in Calgary and Edmonton. Go to http://www.ckua.com/ and click "Live On Air" to listen to it right now. It's the country's oldest public broadcaster, founded in 1927 on the U of A campus. Hour by hour you never know what genre you're going to get, depending on who's hosting, but a lot of it is wonderful. Go there. I'm also hooked on CBC Radio 3 lately, which you can get on your itunes sattelite radio listings under "public". All Canadian indie stuff. Pretty great. But I digress...... You now have permission to skip a random paragraph. Or just read every other one from here on in. Though you may miss the bit that contains the meaning of life. And you'll just never know.
A couple of weeks ago, at one of our (ten million) student matinees, a teenager tried to get up at intermission and felt something in his back go terribly, terribly wrong. He couldn't move and paramedics were called, who eventually put him on a morphine drip, right in the house, to try and loosen up his seized muscles so that they could move him. I imagine that may be the trippiest theatre experience you can have: being high on an Opiate in an audience while seven hundred people stare at you and whisper. Our intermission lasted an hour and thirteen minutes, during which we sat in the green room and placed bets as to whether the show would continue. It did, but only for about fifty students -the others all had to catch their buses back to school - and of course the kid with the back problem, who remains in the house to this day, and holds the record for most consecutive performances attended at the Max Bell Theatre. He is covered head-to-toe with gum and urine (mostly his), but still seems to be enjoying the production. He is considering a career as a theatre critic when he graduates. (By correspondence.) Poor kid. I hope he is okay. The back thing, I mean, not as a critic.
I spent my first month here billeting with a family up north of Kensington. I was meant to stay in an apartment hotel, but the place I chose (from the Theatre Calgary list) turned out to be a disaster. A rude, bitchy, falsely advertised disaster. $1750 a month for a one-bedroom with no phone, no internet access, no maid service, broken sauna...... Culminated in a conversation that ended thus:
ME: And you know the carpet in there stinks.
HOTEL BROAD: Yeah, well, a wet carpet will do that.
ME: You know, maybe you shouldn't move somebody into a room with a wet carpet. That's just bad service.
HOTEL BITCH: It's not bad service - it's called same-day turnover.
ME: Haven't you ever thought you shouldn't have same-day turnover into a room with a smelly wet carpet?:
WHOREY AWFUL HOTEL WOMAN: Well, I guess we've learned.
ME (trying to be tough and play hardball when they wouldn't give me back my FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR SECURITY DEPOSIT AFTER I HAD SPENT FIFTEEN MINUTES THERE): I'll tell you this - Theatre Calgary isn't going to be happy. They won't be sending any more business your way.
SKANKY HOTEL TROLL: I don't care about Theatre Calgary. I'll call them right now and tell them not to send me anybody else.
ME: Uh........
After much cajoling and badgering ("I know it's not you, but boy is your boss's policy unfair"...) they agreed to give me part of the deposit back ( I had to go back the next day to get it, and brought big tough Ashley Wright with me as goon backup.) I basically paid two hundred dollars to get out of there. Turns out Dennis Garnhum (TC Artistic Director) once had a strikingly similar experience there. I believe The Birkenshaw has since been removed from the housing list.
Anywaaay.....I ended up living with Tim and Alyson Culbert, this fantastic couple with whom I have become friends, and their three beautiful shy little girls, and their dog and cat and daycare. Became the sort of person who takes little kids to the Zoo on her day off, and thinks putting silly things on her head is the funniest joke in the world. Which it is, of course. I was also, though, the type of person who crawls in at two a.m., and spends mornings during tech week with a pillow on her head moaning "Shuuuuuut uuuuuup" as the dayhome kids arrive for a day of screaming and jumping. The Culbert kids (Sonya, Abigail, and Mikka - named after, no word of a lie, hockey fans, Miikka Kiprusoff, Calgary Flames goalie) were fantastic. At first they were very shy and suspicious of me, but I knew I was in when Sonya (the eldest and most painfully, sweetly shy) took me to her room to show me her glass collection. Her favourite is a unicorn. Glass Menagerie, anyone? Abigail is four, and wild, and Tim is sure it's only a matter of time 'til she is riding off with rough guys on motorcycles. I told him it was surely sweet shy Sonya who would go that way. He is terrified.
Day before opening I left my double life and moved into The Regency Suites, the place where every visiting artist in his right mind stays. Incidentally, Shanna Miller is here while she runs Ronnie Burkett's latest show at ATP; Chris Newton, David Boechler, Maria Vacratsis and Dixie Seatle the next TC show; Randy Hughson, Colombe Demers, probably Chris Abraham and Daniel Brooks, who are doing Insomnia ...... It's conveniently next to hooker Mac's, though I've only had one hooker encounter at the Regency, and that was with a very nice crack whore who thought her umbrella was attacking her. Unfortunately this did take place on the elevator, which is rather close quarters for an actor, a crack ho, a dealer or pimp or john or pal or whatever he was, and an active, flying umbrella. As the umbrella victim got off the elevator, she did warn me, while nearly poking me in the eye, "You gotta be careful.....the spokes'll getcha." One of the lonely maids seems to be slightly obsessed with me, but other from that the good ol' Reege is just peachy.
Another odd downtown Hot Dog Stand name: The Yodelling Sausage. I don't know about you, but if my sausage yodels at me, I'm suing. Or at least I want my money back.
Accidentally discovered Devonian Gardens the other day......This is a huge greenhouse that takes up the top floor of one of the malls downtown (TD Centre, I think). A great and relaxing way to spend a lunch hour, and a lovely surprise when you're not expecting it. Fish pools, fountains. Greeeeen-ness, which is fairly rare out here. Ahhhh. Of course I am spending far too much time at the mall, feeding my addictions (Shoppers Drug Mart, HMV, et cetera.)
Incidentally, don't you think when a skin care line is billed as "Non-Comedogenic", it should mean that it doesn't make you laugh? I want to put out a Comedogenic line. Active ingredient: Peyote.
I've had odd luck with objects here in Calgary. With interesting results. Allan Stichbury, our cavern-voiced designer (dogs can't hear him) refusing to carry home my pink gift bag that I left at the Auburn. Tough ol' John Wright happily wearing my lost feather boa back to the theatre after it dropped off me at the Opening Night party. Leaving a photo and resume that I promised to forward for someone in the cast at a corner store. Going back and getting it and then meeting the gang for dinner, after which I realize that I don't know where my bank card is (and that I have no cash). Returning home at three a.m. to a steamy tropical hotel room, made thus by a dishwasher that has been running for fifteen hours (and melting plastic things inside) since the cleaning staff turned it on that day. Dropping my cell phone (a replacement for the phone that I poured water all over in Toronto) in the street, where it gets run over by a (or several) cars. My subletter at home has broken my toaster, a wine glass and two tumblers. Somehow, he says my plants are still alive. Okay, most of those weren't technically due to bad luck - mostly they were me being stupid or forgetful. But the dishwasher? I mean, come on!
Two new glorious objects in my life, to make up for all the lost and broken ones. I gave in and bought a stupid cowgirl hat (orange straw, and I look fucking hot in it), and the most wonderful pair of cowboy boots I have ever seen, or touched, or smelled, in my life. Not that I go around smelling cowboy boots. Okay.......you got me!
Of course, I didn't buy the boots and hat until after I'd been horseback riding. Went to Rafter Six Ranch in Exshaw (Kananaskis country, halfway between here and Banff) with a few cast and crewmates for a trail ride in the woods. If Exshaw sounds familiar, it's where holocaust denier Ernst Zundel lived before he got deported. But this was not, I repeat NOT, a Nazi Ranch. My horse was named Himmler, but I think that's a very common name for mares. The ride was great, though it was a cold and misty day, so the backround view of mountains was not happenin'. Lovely though, and we hit the Banff hot springs after. Just like sitting in a big pool with a bunch of strangers. But it's a hot pool. Outdoors. With an amazing view. Pretty perfect after freezing cold horseriding.
So, yeah, I've become a social convenor in this cast. Yes, I, Lisa Norton, (happily) confessed LAZIEST PERSON YOU KNOW (c) have been arranging horseback rides, hiring the band for opening night, planning future potlucks..... Which tells you one of two things: A) Even the laziest woman you know is more industrious than your average nine males. Or, B) That I am super-industrious when I am out of town: witness all the soup kitchens I've started and all the Habitat for Humanity projects I've worked on. Okay, screw you all for knowing that I've only drunk booze and hung around flirting with strangers. But I did invent pomegranate raspberry pancakes....and how many of you can say that for yourselves? Hmmm? Thank you. Let's move on.
What else? Seen some plays, some movies (cultural highlight: Snakes on a Plane. Shudder), some old friends......Had an amazing time out with old George Brown pal Jacqueline Day the other night, who sends her love and hopes to see the gang at Christmas......breakfast tomorrow, I think, with Dean Carter, also from GB, who is now a teacher and married to Luka, with a seventeen-month old daughter, Eliza.
Guess I'm afraid of winter coming. And a long gig coming to an eventual end, leaving me high and dry again, waiting for the phone to ring. I had a dream the other night in which I found out that my friends Jeff and Rachel were storing nuts in their house. I broke in while they were out, searching frantically for their hoard so I could steal their nuts and hide them for myself.
Off on Sunday for my first trip ever to B.C., where I am lucky enough to be able to attend my pals Mike Wasko and Jenny Paterson's nuptials, and jet around Vancouver a little bit. And then back to Toronto to do Of Mice and Men at Canstage like crazy. Two or three nine-show weeks, designed to help Canstage out of financial trouble. If it works out, this will be the second time I've bailed out Canstage, since it's all the money I made them as a telemarketer back in the day that has kept them afloat until now. I was a disturbingly persuasive telemarketer, definitely a dubious distinction. Dread the day I turn my powers to real evil.
Hope you are grand and that I hear from you soon. Now for God's sake, put your pants back on.
Leese
the norton stampede
CALGARY, ALBERTA
September 6th, 2006
THINGS I'VE SEEN:
The airplane view of the prairies. I don't know what I was expecting. One great boring field of homogenous yellow wheat? Yes, perhaps, since my previous experience of the landscape was car passenging through with my grandparents at age eight, which I definitely remember as a wake-me-when-I'm-there (and when the puking and the earaches stop) type experience. So I promptly and purposely went to sleep shortly after the West Jet safety dance, and woke somewhere over Saskatchewan, my head pressed against the window, and looking down upon the most glorious! surprising! wonderful! view. Those perfect squares of green and brown and beige and gold....I had no idea. All I could think was how it was as if someone - someone really BIG - had gone to Home Depot and then run around slapping down ceramic tile as far as the eye could see. That might sound like I'm reducing it to something puny and nonmajestic, but believe me, I'm thinking of really really nice ceramic tile. I guess I'm just not used to seeing any one thing as far as the eye can see, and that was astounding in and of itself.
My sassy new show haircut. New, improved, sexier than ever Lisa Norton! What's that you say? Impossible? Apparently not.
Mountains. (A day off in Banff and Lake Louise.) Again: Holy Fucking Christ. (I have no words big enough except for curses.)
An airline poster on the way up in a mountainside gondola saying: Now wouldn't this ride be better with seatback TV? Four words: Boy. Cott. West. Jet.
Some oustanding roadside signs. On a hill near where I'm staying (North of Kensington), a Red Cross appeal for donors as rearranged by bored Calgary youth: RAVE LIVES! TITS NEEDED! IS SUMMER. DRESS SOC (Figure it out. I did.)
On a going-out-of-business barbershop: BIG HAIRY DEAL! And, my favourite hot dog stand sign ever anywhere: SAUSAGE PARTY! (Which is also, incidentally, how I'm trying to get Theatre Calgary to advertise Of Mice and Men.)
Oh, and Help Wanted Signs. Everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. They've become pretty pointless; you can pretty much assume that everyone is hiring. The cop cars have NOW HIRING bumper stickers. They're all over the buses. Billboards. Foreheads. If you've got an IQ of 5, one arm, no legs, a drug habit and a bad attitude: there's a job for you in Calgary! Heart of the New West!
And Money! Money everyplace! Falling from the sky! Gushing up out of the ground! Overflowing from construction sites, bursting office towers at the seams. Hundreds of homeless men chasing after it, only to see it hop in a Mercedes and tear away.
On our first rehearsal day, our cast and the entire staff of Theatre Calgary standing in a circle like all the Whos in Whoville. (Welcome, welcome, ba-whoos, ba-whoos, Welcome, welcome, da-whoos, da-whoos). And Dennis Garnhum's heart grew THREE sizes that day....
Shaun Smyth with a moustache. Move over, Magnum. Go fuck yourself, Burt Reynolds.
A T-Shirt bearing the words "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner". Do you want yours in pink or blue, Christine?
Jesse who runs the Auburn Tavern (the Calgary Theatre Bar I've been hearing about all these years). Nothing quite like a handsome man who leans across the bar, takes your hands in his, looks deep into your eyes and softly asks you what you want. And, if that wasn't good enough, he brings you booze, too! Long Live the Auburn!
The Calgary Zoo. Coool.
Today: two of those cyclists who are terrified to let their feet touch the ground at a red light and wobble around the whole time like a couple of morons. Off-topic, I know, but really, what the hell?
THINGS I'VE HEARD:
Rob Ursel and the Billionaires Club, Wednesday nights at Vern's, an excellent live music bar on 8th Ave. As if John Steinbeck had writtten songs. Tear your heart out. If this guy gets you reminiscing about the wrong person (or even the right one), you're screwed. At the very least, you'll come away with a generically broken heart. (And a tapping foot or two.) And, because he reminds me of Steinbeck, when I stay out till the last note well after closing time, I'm not partying.....I'm doing research.
The sadass off-key prerecorded "bells" that fart out of the Calgary Tower all day long. Oh, Calgary Tower. Must you have nothing going for you at all?
Christina Aguilera's new Album. That's right, you gonna make sumthin' of it?
But not the Sunparlour Players, not since I left home. (Can't find the album in Calgary.) Will someone mail me a copy?
Ashley Wright's farts. Every day.
THINGS I'VE SMELLED:
No Name Brand Fabric Softening Dryer Sheets in Mountain Fresh Scent....only two days after visiting Banff and Lake Louise and being surrounded by real-life mountains! Dude. Your dryer sheets smell nothing like mountains. Back to the drawing board on that one. Can't put nuthin' over on me, No Name.
Ashley Wright's farts. Every Goddamn day.
THINGS I'VE TASTED:
The genius of John Steinbeck.
Followed closely by:
The genius of a good perogie platter when you've been drinking for ten hours.
Ashley Wright's farts. Morning, noon and night.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED:
The street system in Calgary. Way too proud of myself on this one.
If you're the only chick in an otherwise all-male cast, you get to be the all-purpose date. Ben would have just felt too gay going to the mountains with another guy. And John Kirkpatrick couldn't very well have hairy male arm candy accompany him to the Betty Awards; he was a presenter after all. Somebody better take me to Vegas next day off - the bar has been raised, boys.
Oh - while at the Bettys, avoid saying things like "Yeah, I'm here with John. He's thinking of moving to Toronto, too, and, you know, getting a real agent." or "OH! I get it! So the Bettys are like the Doras, except they're just for Calgary. How nice that you guys get your own little theatre awards!" and, consequently, "The face! Ow! Not the face!" Just kidding.....I learned those all from a cautionary dream the night before. These gorgeous cheekbones are unharmed, dear reader.
You can hop on the C-Train in the free zone and then continue to ride it all the way home without paying and not get caught. But you will feel guilty for at least a day or two.
If you try to be funny and play tricks on your friends, it may backfire. Like, for instance, if you're at the bar with Sterling and Ben and decide that it will be really hilarious to set the hungry Cougar in the skin-tight denim vest and spray-on jeans with the waist-length hair (name of Chevy, "like the car, vroom vroom") after Ben as a funny joke, so you claim (married) Sterling is your boyfriend and leave Ben to defend himself, and keep dropping hints about how interesting and single Ben is and how he would LOVE to play pool with her, but then it becomes clear that she was interested in Sterling all along, not Ben, and that she now hates you for A) being his girl and B) being a jealous territorial bitch, and then you spend the rest of the evening wondering whether you're going to show up at rehearsal the next day with one of her Lee Press-On Nails (TM) embedded in your eye..... Yeah. Like that. Don't try that kind of thing in Calgary.
Don't smoke too much BC weed. (See above.)
Don't stand next to Ashley Wright right after he's been rehearsing the scene in which he eats three cans of beans.
THINGS I FEAR:
That some of you, glancing throught this email, and not realizing that it's one of my missives from away, may think it is a suicide note. (Things I've Seen, Learned, Tasted....) That being the case, that you may not know that I am safe and sound, and loving you from here. That I will grow old and lonely, never having achieved any great success, and that my body will have been rotting in my apartment for weeks and weeks before somebody realizes that the smell must be coming from that sad old lady's place. Et cetera.
Nothing matters,
Lisa
pegleg
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
Sunday, February 26, 2006
My God it's been a while. I apologize to all those who have written and whom I promptly...... ignored. Apparently Winnipeg has everything I need. But I do love you all dearly and will try to get back on top of the whole staying in touch individually thing. In the meantime....take a deep breath and dive in.
Firstly, many of you are surely drawing a relieved-type breath to find that I and my castmates did survive the election results. As a minority government, the Tories weren't sure thay could carry off the mass artist execution without someone calling them on it.
And yes, I have been surviving the cold in fine and uncomplaining style. (Fifty-seven days into 2006 and the Resolution is holding strong.) It helps that it was so unseasonably warm for so long, but when the cold did hit, everyone had been talking it up so much that it didn't seem so bad. Overrated. It did hit eight-thousand degrees below zero for several days (not a complaint, just a statement of fact) but there was a whole contingent of us Toronto people who refused to skulk along in the underground and walked outside instead. I think we mind it less because we're tourists - hell, this is just the kind of thing we're here to experience. Some places you get to ride a camel; here you get to be cold. "Cold tourism" is in keeping with Tourism Manitoba's campaign Winnipeg: There are Worse Places, which contrasts photos of freezing but smiling Winnipeggers with pictures of a Ugandan child soldier, a Vietnamese landmine victim and a suicide bomber in Baghdad. Odd campaign, but hey, whatever works.
There was a funny story on the news one night about a group here trying to get people out to an outdoor fundraiser to raise awareness for Global Warming.....on a day when it was fifty below with the windchill. Poor bastards. "We're not making this up, I swear! Did you feel that? Definite hot flash for a second there."
So the sightings have started. In case you haven't seen it yet, there is a GIANT PICTURE OF MY ASS on the outside of the Royal Alex Theatre in Toronto, which, of course, people keep calling to tell me about while laughing their heads off. Really, go look at it, I don't mind. After all, it's not every day there's a GIANT PICTURE OF MY ASS on display in public. My friend Tim Mooney called me while standing in front of it and stopping passersby to say "Hey you! See that ass? I'm talking to the girl whose ass that is!" My Mom left me a message telling me about it as if I had been drunk and wouldn't remember these photos having been taken ("You're wearing a bikini, it's blue and white, there's some furniture, Kevin is there...."). She and my Uncle, who were passing by on their way to see Lord of the Rings, took pictures of themselves with my ass, which is weird enough, but also didn't mind telling me that while they were doing this, a bunch of drunk guys walked past, put their hands on the picture and did "something obscene". Dear Mom: Thing I Do Not Need To Know, Number 278. At least I don't know what the "something" was. Maybe they barfed. Anyway, if my butt can help lure even one theatre-goer away from Lord of the Rings and over to The Innocent Eye Test, I'm happy. I'll show you One Ring to Rule Them All!
I have been feeling much more secure about being the bikini-clad hot hottie in a show, actually, ever since a postshow talkback the other day when a high school kid asked, in these very words, "What's it like to kiss Lisa Norton?". I said I found it awkward but nice. No, really, I wasn't there....the two guys who do smooch me in the show were perfect gentlemen and gave me a big thumbs down. The kid asking was apparently an incredibly good-looking young man with a sexy British accent. Maybe he'll grow up to be a handsome young millionaire who will come find me and whisk me around the world. WHISK me?! What the hell am I talking about?
A thing about Winnipeg no one ever tells you: there's an abbatoir, or a meat rendering plant, or some such sweet-smelling thing, near the theatre. So on rushing out to meet one's adoring (possibly sexy, possibly rich and British) fans, the first impulse may be to puke on them. If the wind is blowing the right way.
Was crazy for the Olympics......right from the Opening Ceremony, which I always love for its trippy-ass shit (and Italy seems to do trippy-ass shit better than anyone; it's like a whole country of Cirque du Soleil rejects)....and for its proliferation of silly hats. I think the parade of Athletes is a bunch of designers' revenge on all the jocks who beat them up in high school. "OH YEAH???!!! Two words: EAR FLAPS!!! TAKE THAT, BIATCH!" It is also, quite possibly, the best thing about the Olympics: getting to watch people stronger, faster, and more admired than ourselves forced to walk around in ridiculous clothing. In fact, whenever I want to feel like a champion, I put on a stupid hat and parade around my living room. The world is watching.
As for my actual Athletic aspirations, Thank God for the Skeleton guy. (Duff Gibson, THIRTY NINE.) I was beginning to think that, at age thirty, my hopes of a medal had slipped away. I had always thought that Curling would wait for me. I'd start at, like, fifty, and bring my Gold back to the old folks' home.....but now, what, twenty-five year olds are winning Curling Gold? Outrageous. Curlers aren't supposed to have moms to call when they win; they're supposed to call their great-grandkids. With a tin can and a string.
The closing ceremonies I slept through a lot of........they're rebroadcasting in the background as I type this....but luckily I didn't miss the Canadian guy holding a fish in the air in order to convince the world to "come play with us".......and Andrea Bocelli singing while all those Italian girls wandered around dressed as brides.....I thought that was weird until I found out that each medallist in the games got to take one of them home. Cindy Klassen got five.
Okay - SORRY - what the fuck is Ricky Martin doing "singing" at the Olympics? Wasn't he dead?
One more week in Winnipeg, a place I find both lovely and a little sad. There seems a great divide between the chosen few who can afford the cars and bistros and clutch of trendy shops, and the legions of down-and-outers wandering the city. Toronto is the same way, I know, I'm sure I've just got my eyes wider open when I'm away from home. The difference here may be that the panhandlers are more persistent and seem more desperate; they'll swoop out and talk to you and follow you until you give them money. Not like Toronto homeless people who sit around in doorways with clever signs - all being recent Sheridan College Graphic Design grads. I talked for a while with Bobby, a homeless busker who plays really great harmonica (since his guitar was stolen) and sings in the underground at Portage and Main. He stands with his empty guitar case, which wasn't stolen, because "no one's gonna throw coins in a harmonica case". He told me about the Main Street Mission and how he would rather sleep on the street. To save money, they won't let the guys use hot water, he says, and the stench of the place is overwhelming. He mentioned how many dudes there are drinking whatever cheap thing they can get their hands on, mostly mouthwash. I pointed out that at least the overpowering stale urine smell was offset by all the minty fresh breath.
While things are rough here and there, I've never felt unsafe. The worst I've seen was some truly disturbing violent graffiti in the bathroom of the Royal Albert Hotel Bar. The stuff in the Garrick Hotel was mild by comparison:
"Carla Whiteway is a fuckin whore. She is dead. TELL HER SO."
"Carla has alot of frends! Watch yer back! Why dont you wash yourself you dirty black slut!"
And then a shot from Garrick's most sensitive (or merely curious) soul: "What makes you think she's black?"
The Garrick is one place that features an "eye opener special": Two buck shots and beers between nine and eleven am. And where, as it turns out, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton met for the first time, which is why it's designated a historical building and can't be torn down.
Some thus-far Winnipeg highlights:
The High and Lonesome Club, more commonly known as Times Changed, (thanks for the tip, Cam MacDuffee), the BRILLIANT Main Street honkytonk where we saw a FAN-TASTIC band called the D-Rangers (self-descibed "Bluegrass Madmen"), who, if I remember correctly, also come highly loved and recommended by Toronto's own Corin Raymond. You'll be happy to know, Corin, that we are likely going back this week to see your pal Romi Mayes, who is described in a review quoted on her poster as perpetrating "the sort of sound you'd want to hear pouring out of roadhouses as you drive up expecting to get drunk and maybe fall in love."
Also: Big Dave McLean, awesome local bluesman, whom a bunch of us caught at the Windsor Hotel singin' sad and funny songs and telling dirty jokes till closing time.
Festival Du Voyageur in St. Boniface (the French bit across the frozen river), where we oohed and ahhed at snow sculptures, ate Bison jerky and maple syrup frozen on snow, learned how to skin a beaver, went on a horse-pulled sleighride and heard people speak this funny thing they claim is Canada's other official language! Yeah right....I grew up in Scarborough - I know that Hindi is Canada's second language, you can't fool me. Silly Frenchish people. Tanja Jacobs' husband Jim and awesome child, Nina, were visiting, so my right side is still a bit sore from having had a nine year-old hanging off of it all day.....not to mention having had Gord Rand's wife Jeannie Calleja attached to my leg. But she only weighs fifty pounds, so that's okay. A great family-ish day out.
Back to Toronto on the 5th of March. See you there if that's where you are.
To snow, pink cheeks and minty alcoholics,
Lisa
peg o' my heart
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
January 23rd, 2006
My fellow Canadians: HI.
Well....Winnipeg's fine, the sun shines all the time, and the feelin' is laid back....
Oh, wait, those are just the lyrics from a Neil Diamond song. Good thing I stopped myself before the line about the palm trees, or I'd be sitting here in a puddle of tears in a minute.
So. Yeah. Winnipeg. It's actually not FOUR THOUSAND DEGREES below zero, as many BIG FAT LIARS THAT I CALL FRIENDS would have had me believe. So as far as my number one New Year's Resolution goes ("stop complaining about the weather"; closely followed by "Eat more vegetables" and "Stop killing people").....I'm kicking ass! I have now gotten 22 days into 2006 without once whining about how cold I am.
My magical Supercoat is a big help. My da and stepma got me this thing for Christmas; it's, like, a Swiss Army coat. Zipoff fur, secret pockets, knives, a corkscrew...you pull a thing and a parachute pops out; it mixes its own martinis, you name it. (GO GO GADGET BOOZE!) I don't even walk to work - a big plastic ball inflates around me when I walk outside and I roll everywhere. It's, in fact, not a coat - it's actually an intelligent life form. I'm a bit freaked out by the fact that it's been sneaking into my room and crawling into bed with me at night. I mean, that would be fine, but it whispers such strange things ("Jump off the balcony. Make a bomb. No, wait, make a bomb and then jump off the balcony........Fuck your mother.")
Winnipeg is very beautiful. No one ever told me that. The downtown still has all these gorgeous buildings from the early twentieth century. "Chicagoan Architecture", I'm told.....and chic it is. The banks look like banks, you know? You look at the Bank of Montreal here and say, now THAT's a bank. You wouldn't dare belittle a place like that by calling it BMO. Kevin Bundy, who is in the show I'm working on here, stood outside Harry's Bar the other day thinking "This place should be in a movie." And then he went to see Capote and there it was. It makes me ache to know that I live in a town that had all this, and then we went and tore it all down. Just thinking, in contrast, of the hunks of glass growing all over the Lakeshore - and EVERYWHERE - in Toronto, makes me want to tear them apart with my bare hands. Or something slightly more effective. Although I've got pretty effective bare hands; just ask any guy I've dated. (Comedy High Hat, please.)
Of course, our gang is staying somewhere neither old nor beautiful. We are at Holiday Towers, which, as one cast member noted, look about as inviting as the ones from Lord of the Rings. When I say we're all staying there, I mean all of us except for Master Playwright Michael Healey, who pulled the old "I'm allergic to smoke" scam and got put up somewhere else. Yeah - allergic to smoke! Like that exists.
We have noticed that they have all of the MTC visiting artists stacked up on room fifteen of every floor (215, 315, 415 etc.). Winnipeg officials can thereby wipe out a large portion of the local Arts Community at the push of a button, sending a missile sailing down through our section of the building but leaving our crack-addicted, house-arrested neighbours unscathed. Which is exactly what they are under strict orders to do the very minute Stephen Harper is elected. Similar strikes are planned for cheap hotels and theatre bars across the country. Tom McCamus, curiously, is in Suite 213, and thereby safely outside the COLUMN OF DEATH. But he played Wayne Gretzky's dad in a movie after all, and the government can't afford to have the wrath of Wayne on them. That's how you wake up with a severed horse's head. Rest assured that Michael Healey, safely ensconced in his fancyass smoke and bomb-free hotel, will be okay. Until they gun him down in the coffee shop. So there's the Arts Policy you were waiting for from the Conservatives. (Phase One. Basket weavers....you're next.)
We actually ain't got it bad. I quite like my room. And it's got everything I need. I found myself running around my kitchen the other day freaking out because I didn't have, like, ohmigod, a thing to close a chip bag with, when I was suddenly struck by one of those moments when you're forced to see your gross North American Consumerism in a magnifying mirror. Imagine displaced Indonesian villagers whining about their new home not having any twist ties. Well, they won't now - because I just sent a huge shipment of twist ties to the Red Cross! May those lovely little brown people never know my pain.
Winnipeg keeps you regular. No one told me that one, either. I've been pooing, like, three times a day. And I'm talking big, healthy dumps here. Okay....someone's going to make a joke about my having been full of shit living in Toronto all these years, and how I'm just now cleaning out my system. So there. I beat you to it. Just like Eminem in Eight Mile, Yo.
Nothing is open here on Sunday, which is our day off. I mean, no coffee shops, no stores, nuthin'. I guess if much of the world thinks of Sunday as a day of rest and time with family, I am squarely in the other group that thinks of it as that pain-in-the-ass day that the bank is closed. Fuck you, God! I need stuff at Shoppers! I've been trying to buy tampons for three days, for the love of Christ!
The fun Sunday event today, though, was going to see Hughie, a Eugene O'Neill play that Jeff Meadows and Ric Reid (Shaw folk, as is Kelly Daniels, who directed) are playing as part of O'Neill Fest. Every year, MTC spearheads a Master Playwright Festival, and everybody joins in for two weeks of plays, lectures, films. It's a fantastic idea. Other recent ones have been Tremblay-fest, Ibsen-fest, Norm Foster-fest (just kidding). And you can see the whole shamozzle for sixty bucks. O'Neill is particularly fitting: It's Winnipeg! It's January! If you don't want to kill yourself already, come see Long Day's Journey Into Night! Of which there is, by the way, a very fine production at the MTC Warehouse with Dixie Seatle and Graham Abbey and Shaw pals big fat pregnant Fiona Byrne and Mike Shara. It's pretty great. I love O'Neill, so Suicide Fest was made for me.
I'm also really enjoying working on my show (The Innocent Eye Test). The script is a blast - every cheap gag Michael Healey has ever wanted to write. He couldn't very well have the old dudes in The Drawer Boy farting and tripping over things, so it's all in here. It's great to work with Chris Newton again, the actors are all topnotch, the amazing Laurie Champagne is Stage Managing. I feel a bit like the kid who ends up in the Advanced Class when the teacher meant to write down "Special Ed". What am I doing with the frickin' A Team? And, no, that doesn't mean that Mister T is in the show. We've been socializing a lot, too, which may kill me eventually. Last night we had a dinner party in Tanja Jacobs house and I got so high that I came home, washed my face three times, brushed my teeth twice and shaved all nine of my legs. And then I just walked around my kitchen in circles. Wondering where the twist ties went.
I wish you love from this place.
And, oh the snow is beautiful at night......
Lisa
