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