go west, young tourist

From TORONTO,

December 29th, 2010

It’s ridiculous that I haven’t written. I’m aware of this.

I’ve been to Iowa. I’ve been to West Virginia. I’ve been to Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and to Texas. North Carolina, too. I’ve been to Belleville. I survived two weeks in London, Ontario, a bout of food poisoning on a two-show day (still puking at seven a.m.; call time at twenty-past – don’t order the pesto shrimp from Boston Pizza…as if you ever would), eight-hour drives in a five-person-jammed pickup truck; lugging a set that weighed at least NINE THOUSAND POUNDS in and out of stage doors and schools, up steps and over snakepits; lived through spats with my tourmates about trivia games, luggage and generally being up at six in the morning…

Nobody loved me. Everybody hated me. I went out back and ate some worms.

My back still hurts. My wrist is sore. And my liver is more than three parts booze. I drank enough one karaoke night in Alexandria, Louisiana that I, turning green and leaving early but disappointed to be going before my Bon Jovi tune had come up, had to be told that I had, in fact, already sung it. That’s where I left my jacket. I left my shoes in a hotel closet in Chicago, my Oil of Olay under a bed somewhere, and my heart in New Orleans. I left one adorable soul singer in Austin, Texas, standing in a bar with his heart on his sleeve, dreaming dreams of exotic Toronto, where all the girls have long black hair and ruby lips. And one sad, small second cousin twice-removed behind in Dallas, wondering why in God I’m not her mother and why she can’t leave Adrian and Jo in Texas once and for all and escape a fate of eating deep-fried butter and voting Bristol Palin 2024.

I left a sock in every town – “REMEMBER MEEEEEE, NORTH LIBERTYYYYY!!! I won’t remember yooooooouuuuu!”, most of the roaches (I hope) back in that dressing room in Texarkana, and indelible impressions on the minds of thousands of awestruck children and their teachers who had the pleasure of not only seeing me perform but hearing my sage words of long-winded wisdom in talk-backs afterwards. Will they ever again wonder How We Learn ALL THOSE LINES? I think not, dear readers, I think not.

I believe this picture just might say it all, tour-wise:

(This is Hallowe’en in Weston, West Virginia, incidentally. I am CLEARLY Amy Winehouse, but the locals, not knowing who that was, deducted I was “someone with a dildo for a head”. Close enough.)

Speaking of dildos…Rob Ford is the new motherfucking goddamn mayor of Toronto. (See the previous two blague posts for a sampling of my feelings about that.) I survive. Winter’s here…and still, I manage to go on. Christmas came and went and didn’t bother me a bit. I bought a tree and lugged it down the street. I baked ten billion cookies.

And yet I didn’t write.

It was all too much, My Puzzled Reader. As large and capable as my brain may be, it managed to get overfull, and not sure what to tell you, I told you nothing. I apologize.

But enough of the past two months. Instead let me tell you about…the Christina Aguilera movie.

Yes, Burlesque! Also starring Cher! And Stanley Tucci! What the fuck?!

I’ve been excited about this film ever since I was at the movies with Sarah Allen and we saw the poster of Christina and Cher’s big tall slutty faces and I peed myself. I didn’t know what it was and didn’t care. Christina was in it! It was called BURLESQUE! I tore off my now wet (first creamed, then pee-filled) jeans and ran a pantless bluestreak through the Scotiabank Theatre, screaming incoherent words of joy. Sarah managed to catch up with me and deal with management.

JUST LOOK AT ALL THOSE LIPS!!!

But it would be months - until tonight, in fact – before I would see it. Burlesque came out while we were on tour, and I did rope my other showgals, Emma and Krista, into seeing it with me. It was all we could handle intellectually at the time, and seemed a perfect way to celebrate our last week on the road. Plus we knew when we got home none of our friends there would want to see it.

Alas that was THE DAY OF THE SHRIMP PIZZA, and I stayed home (or, rather, hotel-bound) to lie in my own vomit – better than someone else’s, I suppose – while the intrepid ladies soldiered on without me.

I came home and fell into a deep deep sleep, the sleep of those just off a kids’ show tour, which means I didn’t even move for eighteen days (a rep from Actors’ Equity came by to hook me up to an I.V. – it’s in the union rules, go check it out) and by the time I emerged, Burlesque had closed.

However, this week it was playing at my neighbourhood rep cinema, The Revue. Of course it was, having just been nominated for a Best Musical/Comedy Golden Globe, and the Revue being a bastion of all things noble and artistic.

Now I had to go, and right away. I mean, what if ends up on the American Film Institute’s best movies of the decade list? I couldn’t even wait for the couple of friends/family members who may have actually gone with me. I was walking home from the gym and there it was!

And it was glorious…or maybe I was just flushed with endorphins from my workout.

I admit to being consistently distracted by Xtina’s new, enormous breasts. They actually looked normal enough, in a way, when she was all dolled up in push-up bustiers, but in the scenes where she was dressed casually, they were jarring. Especially when she’s supposed to be braless in PJs and has these sturdy rock-like things sticking straight out of her chest. At those moments her boobs had the look of an inappropriate accessory, like when you see someone wearing tons of eyeliner at the gym. And they didn’t even bounce when she jumped up and down. It was strange. I had to go straight home and watch some movies with properly bouncing breasts in them, just to make up for it.

But aside from that…it is “the greatest movie ever made”…says Sharin-Maizie Elliwand-Johannson of Arborg, Manitoba. Dolly32122 exclaims, “I was dancing all the way through the film in my seat paha”, while phatgurl509 calls it “so fun LOL” and male lead Cam Gigandet “off the hook for hotnesssss!!!!!!!!”

Christina’s acting is far less wooden than her immovable jugs. In fact – I’ll say it - I found her charming, though perhaps in a “Wow, she’s not half so horrible as I thought she would be” way. Her love interest had easily watchable pectorals and abs, heavily featured, Cher made you care just a little from time to time, and the dancing was sufficiently dancy.

And I was moved – yea, moved! - because that’s just the state of mind I’m in these days. I’m headed to Vancouver, you see, to try my luck in the little big city, and thus the story of a young starry-eyed girl headed to L.A. to strike it big was right up my proverbial alley. I’m going around with big new half-baked plans these days, involving being discovered in a soda shop, and I’m prone to saying things like “Wait’ll they get a load a’ me!” and “Look out world!” and “We’ll put the show on right here in the barn!”.

And it’s not just me. Today a friend – Jamie Wilson, whom I haven’t seen in years and who hasn’t heard my current schemes – happened to send me this clip on face&%*k, with the caption “This reminded me of you.”

See? That’s just the type of positive enthusiasm I’m putting out in the world right now, and Jamie must have sensed it from afar. Or maybe it was just Liza’s nose that he was thinking of. I’m hoping not her slightly wonky eye. Or her alcoholic mother shouting in the background. But hey, I’ll take it!

So yes, I’m off to be a huge voice star, start climbing mountains, achieve a black belt in Karate…and then the Coen Brothers will discover me. All this as I break into the elusive Vancouver Theatre Scene. OoooOOOOooooh.

OR…(in that Skeptical Spin you all so sickeningly crave) I come back in three months not triumphant but defeated; broken-backed and sobbing, “B.C. sucks! Nobody liked me! And I just missed                (insert your name here, Toronto resident) too much! I couldn’t bear it!”

For now, however, you will find me packing suitcases and singing this song:

(If, in a week or so, you should hear a story of a Vancouver-bound flight brought down for security reasons after a suspicious woman of ambiguous ethnicity wouldn’t stop belting a show tune at the top of her lungs, this will have been the one.)

I recently played this recording for a particularly handsome young man who happened to be sitting in my kitchen at the time, and was deeply disappointed that he didn’t seem to ‘get it’ like I did. I now realize that if a guy I was sharing pillow-space with did freak out over a Dionne Warwick recording of a show tune from a Natalie Wood movie, I might start to wonder. Or maybe I’d just take him to Burlesque and help him pick out panties. And then we’d do each other’s nails. To pass the time, you know, until the Coen Brothers happened by.

I’m stakin’ my claim. Remember my name…

The Tourist

Democracy in Action (Is this thing on?)

From THE MEGACITY,
December 5th, 2010

Readers....make your way through the thread below for a look at my scintillating correspondence with Councillor Karen Stintz (Rob Ford's new TTC chair). This makes me laugh. And then it makes me barf.



(The initial correspondence is my modified version of a letter found here: http://www.emailthem.ca/transitcity/ .)

Dear Toronto Councillors and MPPs:

As a citizen of Toronto and regular TTC user, I am upset and outraged that Rob Ford wants throw away all the hard work, time and money that has gone into Transit City,in favour of a "plan" to shove all public transit underground at great expense to, and unneccessary delay for, Toronto taxpayers.

Rob Ford claims that his having been elected is evidence that the people of Toronto have given him a mandate to do just this. However, many people voted for Ford based on his "stop the gravy train" rhetoric (or rather, incessant hammering). This action, in its throwing away of millions of dollars already spent and/or promised for Transit City, would go against the very principle of stopping wasteful spending that those voters so responded to.

Residents of Toronto desperately need accessible transit to get around our city. Facts prove that Light Rail vehicles - not subways - are the best technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Streetcars and LRVs have the lowest energy consumption per passenger mile of any mode of transportation. Replacing carbon-emitting buses with LRVs will also reduce emissions, leading to cleaner air to breathe and reduced healthcare costs.

Facts also show that subways cost far more and take much longer to build, thereby depriving Torontonians in priority neighbourhoods of faster access to better public transit and rapidly depleting our city budget. And a new line in time for the 2015 Pan Am games, starting from scratch NOW? How in God's name could any reasonable person think this possible?LRV expansion under the extensively researched Transit City plan will boost Toronto's economic productivity by easing congestion, which will prevent people and goods from being stuck in traffic. Building subways will mean this reduction in congestion will be severely limited in scope, compared with the Light Rail expansion planned under Transit City.

At the end of the day, cancelling Transit City is an attack on priority neighbourhoods, the environment and the public purse. I strongly urge you, as city councillors representing our best interests, to bring this matter up for a vote in city council on Dec 16th.I also urge MPPs who represent Toronto to be advocates for accessible public transit and keep the Transit City plan on track.

Mayor Ford declared that the war on cars is over, yet ironically the cancellation of Transit City will wage war on public transit users, particularly those who do not live near a subway or who cannot afford a car. Many taxpayers need the TTC; where's the respect for those taxpayers, Mister Ford?

If the new mayor tries to force this through without support of council, it is a slap in the face to Torontonians and an abuse of office. In that case, I urge councillors to walk out. Let's see how voters like Ford and his ever-present brother running things on their own, as the dictatorship they so desire.

Sincerely,
Lisa Norton
M6R2K5


Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 00:32:29 -0500
From: councillor_stintz@toronto.ca
To: n*******@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: RESPECT FOR TAXPAYERS? Don't let Rob Ford trash Transit City. (Transit City)

Thank you very much for taking the time to send me a note about your concerns.

As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan.

During the last municipal campaign, the voters of Toronto, through their support for Mayor Ford, indicated a preference for below-surface transit. Over the next few months, the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will revisit the current Metrolinx Plan with a goal to increase the amount of below-surface transit.

We all have a shared goal of a regional transportation plan that meets the needs of the riders of today and in the future. I am confident that the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will work together to adjust the plan in a fiscally responsible manner that will receive the endorsement of the residents of Toronto.

Yours truly,

Karen Stintz


From: n*******@hotmail.com
To: councillor_stintz@toronto.ca
CC: councillor_perks@toronto.ca
Subject: RE: RESPECT FOR TAXPAYERS? Don't let Rob Ford trash Transit City.
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 13:04:37 -0500

Councillor Stintz,

I'm afraid that your claim that by voting for Ford, Toronto gave him a mandate to do whatever he wants with transit, just doesn't wash. You and I both know that's not how the political process works, nor should it work that way. Toronto didn't just vote for Ford, they also elected a body of councillors, and expect them all to have a say (our say) in huge decisions like this. Furthermore, people who voted for Ford did so for a variety of reasons (chief among them being that many people believed, with his "gravy train" mantra, that he would be fiscally conservative and not go throwing their money away) and don't neccessarily support every facet of his platform or every idea that comes into his head. The man is a mayor after all, and not a king.

I, for one, live in pre-megacity Toronto, which overwhelming did NOT support Ford, and I count on my elected councillor to have a say. I believe he should have had a say before a call was made to the TTC telling them to stop work that was underway.

Now that it looks like Toronto's transit plan is inevitably changing one way or another, I do hope that you're right: I would love if Ford could find some way to get subways built quickly and safely and without huge extra expense to our city and billions lost in dishonoured contracts. But, to quote a popular phrase of late, that sounds like fairy dust to me. His logic and economics just don't add up, and I fear that we, the people of Toronto, will end up with NO viable replacement for Transit City, which was worked on so long and so hard by so many people only to be thrown away in one day...or at least end up with no replacement built for a decade or two in the future. What a waste.

Lisa Norton,
Ward 14


From: Councillor Stintz (councillor_stintz@toronto.ca)
Sent: December 5, 2010 1:05:51 PM
To: Lisa Norton (n*******@hotmail.com)

Thank you very much for taking the time to send me a note about your concerns.

As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan.

During the last municipal campaign, the voters of Toronto, through their support for Mayor Ford, indicated a preference for below-surface transit. Over the next few months, the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will revisit the current Metrolinx Plan with a goal to increase the amount of below-surface transit.

We all have a shared goal of a regional transportation plan that meets the needs of the riders of today and in the future. I am confident that the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will work together to adjust the plan in a fiscally responsible manner that will receive the endorsement of the residents of Toronto.

Yours truly,

Karen Stintz


From: Lisa Norton (n******@hotmail.com)
Sent: December 5, 2010 1:38:53 PM
To: councillor_stintz@toronto.ca

FYI: I was just sent the same stock answer that I recieved to my previous letter. My letter (this time) was in reply to what you've written below. Is anyone actually reading these things?

Lisa Norton


From: Councillor Stintz (councillor_stintz@toronto.ca)
Sent: December 5, 2010 1:39:51 PM
To: Lisa Norton (n*******@hotmail.com)

Thank you very much for taking the time to send me a note about your concerns.

As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan.

During the last municipal campaign, the voters of Toronto, through their support for Mayor Ford, indicated a preference for below-surface transit. Over the next few months, the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will revisit the current Metrolinx Plan with a goal to increase the amount of below-surface transit.

We all have a shared goal of a regional transportation plan that meets the needs of the riders of today and in the future. I am confident that the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will work together to adjust the plan in a fiscally responsible manner that will receive the endorsement of the residents of Toronto.

Yours truly,

Karen Stintz


From: Lisa Norton (n*******@hotmail.com)
Sent: December 5, 2010 2:41:37 PM
To: councillor_stintz@toronto.ca

You are a smelly smelly poo head. (Testing, testing...Is this on?)


From: Councillor Stintz (councillor_stintz@toronto.ca)
Sent: December 5, 2010 2:45:40 PM
To: Lisa Norton (n******@hotmail.com)

Thank you very much for taking the time to send me a note about your concerns.

As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan.

During the last municipal campaign, the voters of Toronto, through their support for Mayor Ford, indicated a preference for below-surface transit. Over the next few months, the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will revisit the current Metrolinx Plan with a goal to increase the amount of below-surface transit.

We all have a shared goal of a regional transportation plan that meets the needs of the riders of today and in the future. I am confident that the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will work together to adjust the plan in a fiscally responsible manner that will receive the endorsement of the residents of Toronto.

Yours truly,

Karen Stintz

rumours of my death are slightly exaggerated

From LONDON, ONTARIO
October 25th, 2010

I write this from a schoolyard full of screeching, flailing, wiggly children. Nearby, some kids hide from some other kids under a truck. Across the way, a few stray boys play a game of “Would You Rather?”, which seems to be comprised entirely of questions involving a gross girl named Jessica. “Would you rather never sleep again…or sleep with JESSICA?” “Would you rather have no face…or use your face to kiss JESSICA?” Tough decisions.

There is a reason for my presence here, and it goes beyond the usual stalking and staring. That’s reserved for high schools, incidentally, and I only ogle seniors. I’m performing a play for the lucky children of Southwestern Ontario, and later, through scattered areas of the United States. (Of America, not Mexico, alas.) It’s been twelve years since I did this kind of thing, and I was lured back by my dear friend and fellow actor Jamie Robinson, whom I now shake my fist at every day. This is hard work. Did you hear that? HARD WORK. EARLY MORNINGS. CARRYING STUFF. And this is me, Lisa Norton, the Skeptical Tourist, the long-acknowledged laziest woman in show business, we’re talking about.

I was also seduced by the fact that it’s with Roseneath Theatre, a company I’ve long admired – and the show is pretty great, as are my colleagues (thank the lord above). There’s the added ego boost of the kids regularly guessing my age at around twenty-five, shaving off a nifty ten years and thus encouraging my wearing of ridiculous clothing far too young for me. I’m the proud new owner of a weird little pair of Nike sneaks that not only glow hot pink and even hotter purple, but have this crazy insert that communicates with my tunepod and my computer about my exercise habits. When I complete a particularly challenging run, Lance Armstrong’s voice coos sweet congratulations in my ear. When I cack out and quit, my ipod gives me an electric shock and calls me a fat whore. Neat, I know!

This gig also got me with that irresistable Norton kryptonite, the promise of travel – thus far, to exotic locales like Ingersoll, Ontario! Mississauga! Richmond Hill! Luxurious nights at the Hojo in London!
Ahead lie Texas and Florida and the midwest, where I plan to pick daily fights over abortion, health care and dirty Canadian Socialism. I’ll also claim that our version of So You Think You Can Dance is superior to theirs, which always gets those Yankee conservatives right where it hurts.

Anyway, who can complain? ME, that’s who, and well, and daily. I have to watch the sun come up on the way to work, and it’s all annoyingly beautiful and stuff, like “Oooh, look at me, I’m the sun.” . Some schools we play don’t even stock Monarch brand foaming hand soap in the bathrooms, which is like, totally my favourite. And I’m not even sure that life’s worth living ever since the Body Shop stopped making honey shampoo and conditioner. If I were Oprah Winfrey, I bet I could just call up the Body Shop and tell them to start making my shampoo again and they would do it, just like that. So my main problem in life is actually that I’m not Oprah Winfrey. But I will be. Someday.

I did have a moment of true and awful outrage yesterday evening when I left my house to head for London. As I exited my building, two men were walking away having just attached a huge “Rob Ford For Mayor” sign to our gate. This is a building full of artists, progressives and cyclists, and for those of you from elsewhere, Rob Ford is the big angry reactionary dude with zero arts policy who thinks only gay needle users contract HIV and who wants to scrap all bike lanes because roads are for cars and cyclists are a pain in the ass and just asking to get run over. He has no cohesive plan for our city whatsoever and no platform but to shout the words “gravy train” over and over again while steam shoots out of his ears.

From the sidewalk you could look to the right of the Ford sign and see about fifty bikes parked in our courtyard. In fact, I saw people doing just that, all seemingly as perplexed as I by the sign’s presence. I huffed and puffed and asked the guys who it was that had requested the sign. “Paul,” apparently, who is apparently the owner’s son, and for whom it wasn’t enough to put a sign on his own damn house but had to put one on daddy’s rental property as well.

As I said, I huffed around for a bit while waiting for the streetcar and wishing I weren’t headed straight to London so I could fashion some kind of enormous disclaimer, stating “This sign does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the people who live here”…or order competing Smitherman and Pantalone signs to place next to the offending one…or, at the very least, stand there spitting all night long. Maybe set the building on fire.

In the end, I predicted the sign wouldn’t last ‘til morning, and made my sneaky contribution by (shock of shocks!) undoing one of the four twist ties holding it to the fence, in aid of whoever had the balls – and time – to do the rest. I felt so baaaad. But still so angry. In the sexiest of ways. I’m just so hot when I’m political, am I right? Don’t fight it.

I should mention that the last half of this blague has been broadcast from Toronto, to which I returned this afternoon to discover that the sign was gone (a result of protest to the landlords, or of sneakiness like mine?) – as were the questionably kosher Ford signs on the construction fences in the middle of my street and on the old folks’ home. Yaaay, Roncey!

So now, tonight, we Torontonians wait with bated breath to find out whether our fair city will be soon mayored by the loudmouthed phenomenon of assholishness that is Rob Ford. I’ll admit to having had a certain bias against the man before ever even having heard him speak, his big angry red face being enough to put me off instinctively. But then he opened his big angry red mouth and spewed out his big angry red thoughts, and it got no better. For us or him. Here are some of my favourite Ford clips, which will be either hilarious or terrifying in the morning, depending which way this thing goes.

Note how happy he looks when he discovers he may have been called a fat fuck and has something to freak out about.

I actually teach children about this kind of behaviour in our show every day. I’m hoping if Ford loses he’ll join our tour and take over one of my roles, that of the school bully. He would be amazing.
The most disturbing thing about this last clip, perhaps, is all the youtube comments commending this performance for demonstrating that at least he’s real and stands up for what he believes in. I’m terrified. But if he’s fleeced enough people to win this thing, I give the guy six months tops before he blows a gasket screaming at someone in a meeting and drops of a massive heart attack.
Orrrrr…

Now that’s more like it. What Toronto needs is Princess Leia. And Oprah Winfrey. Pantalone (whom I didn’t dare vote for, sadly) for mayor and honey shampoo in every pot! Foam hand soap in all the schools! And no one has to get up before noon! Vodka in the water fountains! And winter is abolished! Down with menstrual cramps! All ex-boyfriends will be nice! Puppies everywhere! And cute friendly monkeys following behind to eat the puppy poo! Save the whales and sharks and fuck seals anyway, who the hell do they think they are?

Oh God Oh God. Just got a call from my stage manager informing me that A: My call time is ten minutes earlier tomorrow morning, and B: That Ford is leading the count at fifty percent.
WHAT KIND OF NIGHTMARE AM I LIVING?????!!!!!

I’m off now, to turn on the TV and watch the results roll in and drink and swear and smoke things.
And burn the building down.

Help me Oprah-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

moonwalker and me

From BLYTH, Ontario
July 25th, 2010

Okay, so yes, I’m away at the Blyth Festival again. Okay, so yes, that means I’m legally contracted to post about cows and pigs and country life; rep theatre and homemade jam; pies* and the lack of eligible cock around. (As opposed to cow and pig.)

*I wasn’t using “pie” as a euphemism for “vagina” there, by the way. I really did mean baked goods. It just happens to work on that level, too. (Bonus joke!)

However.

I don’t know if you guys have heard about this but…Michael Jackson died. A year ago. Oh, wait, what’s that - Michael who? Oh, he was this entertainer, he was really neat, you might be able to find a clip or two on the internet. Of course, he was never truly recognized and never achieved the success he might have, because he was black. If he’d been a white guy, “Michael Jackson” might have been a household name, or at least he might have had a hit or two, rather than dying in obscurity, almost completely unknown but to a group of prisoners in the Philippines that liked his dancing for some reason.

_________________________________________________________

(TAKE TWO…for real this time)

I promised one year ago, just after we all heard, to devote an issue of The Tourist to the gloved one. As I said at the time, I just wasn’t ready.

But now I am. Here goes.

At first we just friends. Or rather, he was a friend of my mother’s. It was her copy of Off The Wall that I would take out, unfold carefully and talk to. “Michael,” I’d say, “my socks never look that white. How do you do it?” I’d wonder at his flexibility, being capable of bending all the way in two like that. I’d listen to his groovy songs and try to dance, which I hadn’t quite figured out yet, but he was teaching me. Sometimes I’d fall down. Oh, we’d LAUGH! What fun!

I remember when we fell in love. It was Christmas, 1983. Michael had been away awhile. I’d moved on to other friends; he’d been working. I wasn’t angry, but we’d drifted. And then somebody, God bless them (Uncle Steve?), gave me Thriller as a gift. I unwrapped it and gasped. There he was, looking at me again. Different nose but those same old beautiful brown Michael eyes. He smiled. I smiled. Something was different. I was older now. Nearly nine. Practically a woman.

There, in front of the Christmas tree in our Scarborough living room, family shouting festively around me, I sat blushing as new Michael and the new me regarded one another. I felt shy. My noisy, laughing family may not have noticed the sparks suddenly flying, but I was embarrassed that they might. And suddenly I just couldn’t stand all these people being everywhere. We needed to be alone. We went up to my room.

I sat on the carpet and Michael sat in front of me. I unfolded him and laughed. “There you are again, showing off your flexibility!”

He just giggled, playing with his baby tiger, Lisa, whom (he told me now) he had named after me. It had been the record company’s idea to have him pose with a cute, cuddly tiger cub in a ploy to show fans his sensitive side, as Michael was (for obvious reasons) always in danger of being pegged as “too macho”. But the cub had grown on him, particularly after he’d taken her on the road to keep him company on his latest tour.

It was there that he’d given her my name and would spend late nights confiding in her all his deepest, most private thoughts, pretending she was me. “But Michael,” I asked, “Why didn’t you just call me?”

“I wanted to,” he said. “But I know you’re busy with school and everything. I remembered you were in Mrs Thielking’s class this year, and we all know how tough that is. I just didn’t want to bother you. Congrats on all your track and field ribbons, by the way,” he said, gesturing to where they were tacked up on the wall. “Oh, Michael, I just think of you and I jump higher, run faster, go that extra kilometre - as we say here in Canada. I’m always picturing you out there on the sidelines, cheering me on.”

“I am. I cheer you on within my heart.”

I took down my high jump ribbon, my first of what would be a short but distinguished career, and I pinned it to his chest. “Ouch,” he said. So then I pinned it to his shirt instead. I held a finger to his beautiful forehead.

“Remember, Michael, wherever you are, no matter how far apart we may be…I’ll be right here.”

(NOT THE MOST FLATTERING PICTURES OF ME)

He took off one of his gloves and gave it to me. At first I wouldn’t take it, knowing how cold his hands always were. But he insisted.

“You’re such a P.Y.T.,” he told me.
“A what? What’s that?”
“Track eight," he said. “You’ll see.”
“Eight! My lucky number!”
“How could I forget?”

There were so many more things I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him all about Kim and Hansa and Mangala and Anita and all my other awesome friends. About last year, when red-haired Brandy had moved into town and bullied me and taken all those friends away and made grade three a living hell. How I’d beat her up and won them back. Wanted to show him pictures I’d drawn, stories I was working on. (Oh MY GOD, he hadn’t met my dog yet, Toby! Dad got him from the pound, surprised me!) I wanted to show him my moves.

But as the needle touched down on the record and he started to sing, I fell silent. Michael sang. And sang and sang. And sometimes Paul McCartney sang. I listened and we looked at one another. And it was good.

I should have known it couldn’t last.

THE POSTER

With Michael gone for months on end, I had only his recordings and occasional TV appearances as reminders. When he debuted the moonwalk on Motown 25, I was watching. Okay, everybody was watching. The next day at recess, as my classmates were trying it out, I just watched and smiled. Michael had tried to teach it to me many times. If he had failed, what chance did these clowns have? When he won those eight - eight! My number, again! - 1984 Grammys, I was at home, wearing the other glove. He had wanted me, not Brooke Shields, on his arm that night, but I had a geography project due the next day. I had all my friends over for the broadcast of the Thriller video. They gasped and danced and screamed; I cried. I missed him so.

Even though I was nine years old by this time, I still had no steady income. My sister Nancy, who was fourteen and rolling in cash, had a poster of Michael that I eyed and coveted for months. (Michael was too shy to send me pictures and I was too shy to ask.) Thanks to the magic of the intertubes, here it is:

Alas, there were no intertubes to be tubed at the time, and all I could do was hang around Nancy’s door and catch the occasional peek. Eventually she took pity on me and told me she would consider selling it. I made an offer of jelly beans and laundry folding. She held firm at twenty dollars. At the time, that was eight weekly allowances for me. (My allowance always being the going rate of a movie; this was in the days of Two-fifty Tuesdays).

I scrimped and saved and forwent movies with my friends for two whole months. One happy allowance day the transaction was made: I eagerly handed over my hard-saved quarters and two dollar bills; the poster was rolled up and delivered into my shakey little hands. By now it was edge-frayed and faded and everyone was saying Michael was gay. But it wasn’t until somewhat later that I realized that the store price of posters was eight dollars and that my sis had pocketed a tidy one hundred percent plus profit for a poster she didn’t want anymore. Clever girl.

When he would visit, it was lovely, just like old times. But those visits were seldom and we couldn’t help but drift apart. He had the Jackson Five Victory Tour, I had Speech Arts and volleyball. And in the spirit of total disclosure, there were other men, I must confess. Nigel Brown and I went so far as to hold hands, about which Michael never knew, but I had strayed all the same.

NAZEER PAREKH AND THE THRILLER JACKET

My friend and schoolmate, Naz, had a similar experience to my poster ordeal when he begged and begged his parents for a Michael-style red pleather Thriller jacket. They said, again and again, “Don’t be ridiculous", but eventually gave in when he met them halfway with his paper route money.

Little did I know how tragic, for me, would be the day when Nazeer finally showed up at school in the jacket. By this time, scorn for Michael had gotten vicious in the Grey Owl Junior Public schoolyard. He was lame, he was a loser, he was SO GAY.

And did I defend Michael as staunchly as I had the myth of Santa Claus only a year or two before, popping Michael Haynes in the nose for saying Santa wasn’t real? No, friends, I am ashamed to say. I took the easy, coward’s route, making a show of laughing with the others before leaving Naz to the wolves. Shaking my head that he didn’t know better, I retreated into the background. I turned my back on Nazeer just as they were tearing the arms and zippers from his coat and pooing on him, and just then noticed a shadowy figure on the other side of the chainlink schoolyard fence. The backlit halo of a jericurl caught my eye. I saw the glow of silver socks, the glint of a so-familiar glove, and as he turned away I caught sight of a single tear rolling down my poor, sweet Michael’s face.

I called out his name once, feebly, but I knew that what he’d witnessed had been unforgivable. A terrible betrayal. I had lost him, maybe forever. I stood there stunned, and could only watch him walk away.

I wrote letter upon letter, for years, pleading for forgiveness. Michael eventually responded with a hit single.

He became more and more reclusive and reports of his strange behaviour worried me. I wished I could be there with him, for him, provide some kind of grounding influence as I did for all my other international celebrity friends. But Michael had good reason to feel angry, and how could I help him when I was part of what had sent him spiralling into darkness?

Somehow, Michael eventually found it in his heart to accept me into his life again. He was in his “Man In The Mirror”/“Heal the World” period and it had affected him deeply. He wanted to let go of old grudges and move on. But he would always keep me at a distance. We were friends but didn’t dance. There was talk, but little laughter. Liz never trusted me and she was a big influence. But after what I’d done I was grateful to be in his life at all and was content to visit Neverland now and then and give Bubbles his baths. Now and then Michael would almost forget himself and it would be like old times…but that was mostly when we’d been drinking, or eating Pixie Stix.

And then there was the time that Michael took all those painkillers and married Lisa Marie Presley by accident, thinking she was me. I was there; he thought I was Diana Ross. I could have stopped it but my pride got in the way. (Plus I was kind of enjoying being Diana Ross for a day. Who wouldn’t? Now if only I could make my hair go like that.) But it hurt, I won’t lie. Especially because he’d taken the last of the painkillers and there were none left for me.

Things between us would never be the same. Visits became fewer and fewer, and more and more sad. I didn’t deal well with his legal troubles, and he didn’t seem to understand how hard theatre school can be.

When news came through that Michael had died I was working on a play in Gananoque, Ontario. All I could do was sit, stunned, in front of the TV like everyone else. And that, after all, was all I deserved.

So where does that leave me, Dear Reader? Alone, getting older, and full of regret. We never had our wedding on the Moon. We never had our honeymoon at Disney World. Sure, I force everyone to listen to, REALLY listen to, Man In The Mirror every New Year’s Eve…but did I ever actually tell him how I felt, how desperately I still loved him after all these years? No, I kept it all inside, kept it inside and let him fall apart and bleach himself and shrink his nose smaller and smaller, until like some pathetic symbol of all his and my romantic possibility, it caved in and disappeared altogether.

It leaves me here, Dear Reader, talking to you. And while you’re very lovely, you’ll never moonwalk through my heart like Michael did. No one ever will.

>

Blyth bonus issue! Now with 100% real Blyth!

From BLYTH, ONTARIO
July 16th, 2010

All right, all right, this isn't the Michael Jackson issue I've been working on....but it's close. Because Michael Jackson and The Blyth Festival are practically the same thing. I don't know what that means. But I refuse to delete it.

For all those who want a Blyth bedtime story, this is a little one. It's something I wrote for inclusion in the patrons' newsletter, and if they actually publish it I may be getting strange looks around town and gifts of lasagna for years to come. Here's hopin'!

(Moonwalker edition coming soon, promise.)

Dear friends (and I say friends because I do consider all Blyth patrons as such...except for the ones that don't like me in the shows),

Heather Black, our marketing guru-ette extraordinaire, has asked me to share a few words on the Blyth experience from my point of view as an actor in my third season here. Never one to turn down a chance to write a thousand-word essay on my day off, here I am.

I could tell you about the shows, and acting here, but you've seen me do that. And really, what can I say? I put on funny clothes and pretend to be somebody else for a living. Eric Coates and company have assembled one of the finest groups of people in the country at putting on funny clothes and making faces, and I'm pleased and proud to be one of their number.

But what I'd really like to tell you about is the Blyth administrative offices. Nothing fancy, really, just a former bank divided up into a few working areas, mostly open concept except for Sir Coates' CUSHY CORNER OFFICE; a boardroom used alternately for having meetings or for eating sandwiches; the former bank vault used as a photocopy room (so they say, but I keep looking for the piles of money); the box office around the corner...

What makes the office special to me is the feeling I get there. It's such a fun and welcoming place to drop by, and to see people buzzing around, happy about the work that they're doing. Or maybe they're just nice to me because I keep hanging around and they think, "Poor girl. No one else will talk to her". But that's sweet of them, isn't it?

The first day I arrived in town this season to begin rehearsals, I dropped by the office to say hi to Deb Sholdice, General Manager, superhero and all-round cool gal. In pops Sharon Thompson, equally cool and always well-coiffed Head of Box Office, to talk some important business with Deb. Seeing me, she immediately shouts, "What's your shoe size?!" and runs out to her car. Seems the shoe shop in Wingham recently had a big sale at which the two of them went hog wild, buying even shoes that didn't fit anyone they know. Catherine Fitch has also just arrived and next thing we know, the Box Office and General Managers are down on their knees sizing us and shoving shiny new shoes on our feet. This is why I like working at Blyth; it makes me feel like Cinderella.

Of course, it's not all fun and games and shoe sales at the Blyth Festival; sometimes there's serious work to be done. For this, Deb employs a small brass wheel that sits atop her desk. You spin the dial and it points to "Maybe", "Pass the buck", or "Fire someone". Lacking this sophisticated technology, Eric sits in his office buried knee-high in new scripts under consideration, relying on the age-old technique of eenie-meenie-miney-moe. To cast the plays, he considers the pile of photos and resumes sent in by actors across the country and then throws them all up in the air, seeing which ones land on top. Since Canada has such a deep field of talented performers, this method has done well for him so far. Sadly, Gordon Pinsent's CV is too heavy and keeps getting stuck at the bottom.

A visit to the office isn't complete without some kind of comedy routine from Eric and Deb, who keep their doors open, I suspect primarily so that they can shout witty one-liners at each other. There's the occasional guest appearance from Deb's daughter and Box Office rep, Sarrah, who is a bonafide comedian and makes me run from the office in fear of laughing so hard that I'll pee. Then there's Heather Thompson, House Manager, who acted with me years ago in The Thirteenth One, which she takes as license to make fun of me and call me rude nicknames all day long. Hey, the office needs its insult comic, too.

In the middle of the room sits a desk sometimes used by summer interns and such, but more often covered in bakeware and crockpots. There's always some kind of potluck or bakesale or barbecue at the festival, another big reason I can't stay away. The Shaw Festival wants me back, badly, but I keep telling them, "Not until you put some pork on this here fork."* And Martin Scorcese keeps calling, but he hasn't learned to offer me a Bonanza Breakfast.

A new tradition at Blyth, one I find endearing and utterly characteristic of this place, is that, on a show's first tech rehearsal day (a twelve-hour day going from about noon until midnight), the stage managers and cast of the other shows serve a dinner in the lower hall to the cast and crew. This so that everyone can have one less thing to do or think about in the middle of a long, sometimes difficult day.

Of course, by the time I got to our dinner (a little late) for A Killing Snow, the food had run out and I had to go home and cook. (And I made banana bread and a rhubarb crumble for The Bordertown Cafe people.) I'm not angry or anything; somebody around here owes me some lasagna is all I'm saying.

Reluctant as I always am to leave the office (having never had one and suffering from cubicle-envy), I do inevitably have to pass through that back door and into the backstage area to get ready and perform. For the best, most responsive and warmest audiences I've ever experienced anywhere in my fifteen years as an actor.

And in case you were wondering, backstage is not exempt from the Blyth food culture. Every few days, we'll walk into the green room to discover Gil Garratt sitting there with a grin and a box of cream puffs from Culberts in Goderich, at which point we all shout at him (as best we can through pastry-filled mouths) for making our costumes not fit.

I can think of worse problems to have.


See you all out there,


Lisa

* A reference to an annual Blyth Country Supper event, hosted by the local pig farmers' association. It really is called "Pork on Your Fork".

P.S Touristas: http://www.blythfestival.com/ if you want to know what the fuss is about. Some excitin' new-fangled video clips on there and everything!

the skeptical whatsit

From TORONTO,

May 25th, 2010

Have you ever given blood, Dear Reader? Firstly, if you don’t, and you can, then you should. I’m a regular donor of platelets and blood and my great and powerful fluids have saved thousands of lives, made sickly people more well than they’d been in their entire lives, allowed newborn babies to leap tall buildings in a single bound… But maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, it’s a good thing to do, you get to feel like a hero….and then a lady gives you a cookie!

At every Canadian Blood Services outpost, there are these nice old lady volunteers who are sweet to you and thank you for your help and give you Tang and Chips Ahoy and make sure that you’re okay before sending you back out into the world.

Now have you ever given an audition? It’s very similar to blood donation: you give of yourself, empty out your very essence, as it were, feel somewhat drained and woozy - but nobody gives you a cookie, or even anything, which is my point. You immediately stagger out into the bright light of day after nary a kind word, depleted and stunned and confused. Old ladies don’t offer Tang; they glare at you for talking to yourself and running into them. (Or over them, if you’re one of the unfortunate five Canadian actors who owns a motor vehicle.)

“GODDAMN PESKY ACTORS!”

I’ve decided to start a volunteer brigade, comprised of kind old parents/grandparents of actors, and residents of PAL (Performing Arts Lodge), who will offer tea and sympathy at audition halls across this land. This shall be my legacy. Think of me while you’re crying all over that Oreo, a pair of comforting wrinkled hands smoothing your hair, a honeyed old voice saying, “There, there. There’s always teachers’ college.”

(In lieu of the not-yet-created Old People’s Audition Auxiliary, I will, after a particularly brutal audition, often take away the sting by treating myself to a nice brunch or a dress, spending money I'm not going to make on that job I didn’t just get. Sometimes I do this after a really good audition, too, because I’m just so darn excited!)

I’ll confess I’ve started to have fantasies of having other lucrative skills, like waking up one morning to realize that I have a profound knowledge of, say, biological warfare, or the tango. I’ll suddenly be in demand as a tango-dancing weapons-maker, travelling the world and making piles of dough, setting my own schedule, driving several fancy cars, three boats and a motorcycle simultaneously (a lasso ‘round my helicopter), appearing in the occasional play or movie as my exciting life allows. (I’ll suddenly be wildly in demand as an actor, of course, now that I’m no longer slithering into audition rooms wearing Eau de Desperation, but dashing around trailing tantalizing puffs of the sweet smell of success.)

But let us catalogue my actual other possibilities, in something we will call:

THINGS I MIGHT YET BE (vote now)

Thing #1: A crazy old lady.

Okay, maybe this one doesn’t exactly solve the financial worries or buy me that helicopter, but it’s something I’ve always dreamed of. And I think it could be creatively fulfilling. I’ve always been fascinated by the moment that a person cracks. I imagine mine would be sudden and dramatic. Like, what if I were on stage when it happened? What if, in the middle of act two of an Oscar Wilde play, I stripped down to my panties and ran into the audience, screaming random Gordon Lightfoot lyrics and mooing like a cow (to give the obvious example)? And the ushers had to chase me down. Or if, during some long, pause-y drama, I just paused forever and never spoke again? And refused to leave the stage, and the ASM had to come and lift me.

Of course now if I ever go nuts everyone will accuse me of faking.

#2: A politician.

This is merely so I can have the distinction, when the sex scandal breaks, of being the first elected official to say, "So fucking what. None of your business. Now go away....you idiots. And you can quote me on that." (All things Giambrone shoulda said?)

Thing #3: A Jedi.

Note: I wrote this one down and then got to the part in my pal Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s (or Young BS’s, to regular readers) excellent new novel, Ghosted, where the lead guy confesses that “Jedi” is one of his never-grown-out-of career choices. I AM NOT RIPPING YOU OFF, BS. I want to be a Jedi independent of you. Or rather, we could be Jedis together (fun – like Luke and Obi-Wan!), but I thought of it independent of you. Maybe it’s something everyone born between 1965 and 1980 wants to be.

Another note: when I imagine myself as a Jedi, I never think of myself as tall and cool and me-like in my Jedi gear. I always picture myself all small and wrinkly like Yoda. But I guess the wrinkly bit comes later, once I’ve been a member of the order for like five thousand years. I shall now try to amend my Jedi self-image.

Done. Damn but I look good in Jedi robes.

The other night I had a dream that I was a contestant on some actor reality show. Like that Sound-of-Music-Problem-Like-Maria thingy but without all the annoying songs. My friend Jeff Irving was on it, too. At one point they call us all into a room for a “talk” and when we get there it turns out to be full of important directors and all our friends and family, and we’re meant to give an impromptu audition, using material we’ve never read before. And we have to wear costumes, comprised of bits we pull from a tickle trunk at the back of the room. I’m given a monologue from Joan of Arc, and, grumbling along with the other actors about why we consented to be on this stupid show in the first place, manage to cobble together a costume out of odd bits of armour and scraps of clothing. I top it all off by putting a very large, red pointy shoe on my head as a hat, and I’m looking in a mirror, pleased at how surprisingly cool I look with a shoe on my head, when I realize I haven’t even looked at the monologue and it’s my turn.

Thing #4: One of those “professional eaters” who travels around competing to eat the most burgers or chili or blueberry pie (yes, I’m remembering Stand by Me) at state and county fairs. It would seem I’m infinitely qualified for this one – not only do I like to eat, I also have plenty of experience in making a spectacle of myself, and tend to enjoy the sensation of food dribbling down my chin. Multiple chins would be even better.

BUT THEN…I read this stupid article about the World Poutine Eating Competition, held just the other day here in Toronto.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/deep-dish-scarfs-down-13-pounds-of-poutine-to-wear-the-crown-of-curds/article1578435/

Apparently it’s really hard, and now I’m not so sure I’ve got the right stuff.

However, whether or not I ever win the Golden Corndog, I trust I have got what it takes to metamorphose into…

Thing #5: A very large woman. Not a profession, per se, this is along the lines of “crazy old lady” in terms of not being the most obviously practical choice, but truly fascinating. When I was a kid I always looked forward to the day that my metabolism would slow down and I would start to grow. I imagined a great power in taking up as much space as possible, rumbling down the street as everybody stared at me in awe and admired my latest African print muumuu. I think in my big fat woman fantasies I’m also black. I’m not sure how I’d pull off that part. Of course the myth here may be far more romantic than reality, considering that now, in my MID THIRTIES (gulp), I spend more and more time sharply turning on strangers and asking, “Were you looking at my thigh? The left one? It's big isn't it? Bigger than the right. Oh God, stop looking at it! I'm hideous!”

I’m rushed backstage at the Shaw Festival mainstage theatre, where I’m suddenly being thrown into understudy overdrive to IMMEDIATELY go on in Laurie Paton’s role in Candida. Time is tight, it’s all a jumble of corsets and wigs and people shouting blocking at me. The moment I set foot onstage, my wig gets caught in the doorframe and flies from my head. The audience roars with laughter. No going back to get and reattach the wig now, or rescue my cloak which has gotten snagged as well, so I wriggle out of the cloak and soldier on. Only when my fellow actor, the amazing Bernard “Bunny” Behrens, speaks to me, do I realize that in all the panic I didn’t take a moment to look at the script and I don’t remember a thing. The upstage part of this set, however, consists of a giant wall of bookcases and surely, I think, there must be a copy of Candida in there somewhere. As Bunny goes on talking to himself, I turn away from him and the audience, searching frantically….and there it is! A paperback “Plays Pleasant” by George Bernard Shaw! I sit down at the desk, open the book and start to read my lines aloud. By now, I’ve so thrown Bunny off that he’s forgotten what he’s supposed to say, and so he sits across from me, facing upstage, so he can use the book as well. We spend the rest of the show like that, passing the script across to one another, hunched over, reading the play in barely audible voices.

When I wake up, I think, Holy fuck! That was awful! I’d better brush up on my lines for Candida just in case. It takes me five full minutes to remember that I’m not an understudy for that show, and have only seen it once.

Alternate Career #6: A parody songwriter. Like Weird Al, but hot and girly. Funny, too.

I have a bone to pick with Weird Al. My own burgeoning songwriting career was sidetracked by a clear case of plagiarism on his part. It was grade four at Grey Owl Junior Public School, and my writing partner Hansa Prasad and I had just finished our final draft of “Eat It”, a comic refashioning of Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It”….when WE HEARD WEIRD AL YANKOVIC’S VERSION on the radio. It wasn’t near as funny as ours, which would now clearly never see the light of day.

We were so disillusioned and embittered by the experience that, there and then, newly angry, burnt-out nine-year-olds, we stopped working altogether. Which is a shame, really, because “Eat It” wasn’t even Norton & Prasad’s best work. It was less impressive than our master opus, “Get Away From George”, but had more of a chance at commercial success as “Beat It” was a much more ubiquitous hit than was “Get Into the Groove” by Madonna.

Our classmate George Karismanis wasn’t even a fat kid; he just wore lumpy sweaters and maybe five extra pounds around his waist. Maybe he ate a lot, I don’t remember. More importantly, he was a nine-year-old named George.

Some highlights? Why, I happen to remember a few:

Get away from George, ‘cause he likes to gorge

and he might eat you (yea-ah)…

He gets to know you in a special way,

And then he eats you for breakfast the next day-a-ay,

Only when he’s eating does he feel this free-ee,

At night I lock the doors so he won’t eat me-ee!

Get away from George (et cetera)…

I can assure you, we never sang this to, or even around, George Karismanis. (If it gets back to him now, I do apologize.) It was, in fact, our sensitivity to George’s feelings that made us not want to release it, instead pinning all hopes on “Eat It” as our first big single.

Until you, Weird Al.

P.S. UHF sucked ass.

SOMEONE KILL THIS MAN. (OH, LIKE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO ALREADY.)

#7: A Paralympic curler. This involves volunteers hacking off my legs or poking both my eyes out....and teaching me how to curl.

#8: A pool shark. Or a card shark. Some type of shark. (And YES, BS, I thought of this one, too, before I read your book. Wait a minute…Are you me?)

#9: A pinball wizard? Yeah, that’s the one.

Then I’ll feel real tough and cool.

I’m acting in a play on a stage that looks oddly like the one at my old high school. At some point, I realize that the imaginary “fourth wall” separating the actors from the audience is, in this case, very real. A construction crew is working on it as we speak, banging drywall up on a wooden frame, covering the few gaps through which the play can still be seen. I try to perform in the gaps, and then resort to clawing at the wall and trying madly to get to the other side. Everybody else has given up. The spectators talk amongst themselves.

#10: A software engineer.

My latest brilliant invention-in-my-head is interactive software that intuits your reaction to whatever application you’re using at the time and adjusts your computer accordingly. For instance, on opening an aggravating email from someone at work, you simply wave your hand dismissively at the screen while rolling your eyes – and your browser immediately opens some porn! To cheer you up! Just got a nasty online reminder that tax time is coming, or over, or exists in general? Give your computer the finger - and your browser immediately…opens some porn! (Other options pending.)

Recently my friend Ross Manson, after laughing uproariously for about an hour over some little joke I’d burped up, managed to calm down and said, “Norton, If you didn't exist, someone would have to invent you”.

Well, actually, I thought, someone did. All at once I realized with an absolute clarity that this whole “theory of evolution” I’ve always bought into is just so much bullshit. Because if I'm not the best argument for Intelligent Design out there, I don't know what is. Trees and, I don't know, diamonds, could have been merely randomly generated - but The Skeptical Tourist? Clearly the work of an awesome, benevolent God. (Who can also be cruel in that He won't let you have me.) All this to say that I obviously must become:

Thing #11: A left-wing Creationism lecturer.

Or there’s #12: A prostitute. (Image available…in your brain.)

It often seems a waste of my considerable carnal talents that I’m not having sex with as many people as possible. (And doing it for money would solve those oft-mentioned intermittent fiscal woes.) There’s usually a stigma attached to this kind of thing....but when you're the best there is at something, that oughtn’t to apply. In that case, I believe there's a actually a responsibility to share.... My being celibate right now is as if Gretzky had decided to hang up his skates in 1986. Tragic. Inconceivable. A blight on the human race, in the following sense of the word:

Blight (blaIt), noun

(3.) Something that impairs growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity.

See? That’s terrible! (Somebody fuck me, for God’s sake.)

Maybe what I need to do, Erect Young Reader, is let my hair go grey (as a grand symbol of, ahem, GROWING UP) and see what becomes of me. I keep wanting to, but then I have to audition to play some twelve-year-old so I pluck the silver hairs away and bid them fond adieus. (I must admit there's some fear & vanity involved here as well... Are you looking at my grey-haired thigh? The left one?)

If only I weren’t so fucking good at acting.

Yours, on the cusp of everything,

The Tourist

P.S. I've added a poll on the sidebar where you can help me to decide which of the eminently practical careers listed above is the one for me. So go ahead and vote now. And then I can get on with life.

own the odium*

From TORONTO,

March 23rd, 2010

So here I was, sprawled on the skeptical sofa, watching women's moguls through a veil of tears, and suddenly thought, I've gotta get outta here and own me some podium.

I know what you're thinking. Veil of tears??? Norton, our savvy old crony, surely when a relationship ends you just laugh, light a cigarette and call out “Next!”. You can't feel heartbreak like us mere mortals over here. Why, you're....you're....The Tourist! The skeptical one... Remember?

And the answer to that, my worried little friends, is that I don't feel heartbreak like anyone else. My heartbreak is HUGE. Thundering. Of epic proportions. The Tourist does heartbreak like no one does heartbreak.

I weep the most enormous tears, wail the biggest wails, yell at the neighbours, kick dogs. I don’t merely tear at my beautiful ebony hair; I set it all on fire - and grow it back within the hour. I fling things around my apartment, yelling, “Out of my way!” and “Shut up, you!” I wake to discover I’ve eaten three entire pillows out of madness and hunger for affection. I hurl all my pots and pans and the contents of my fridge out on the floor, because loud noises comfort me. I stare at one wall for hours on end, then cover it in feces and smears of dijon mustard.

I gnash my teeth, whatever that means.

It’s all either not a pretty sight, or intensely beautiful, depending what you’re into. I’m a weepy, snotty, angry whirling hurricane. Of love.

And on the seventh day, I walk into the Flight Centre, demanding to be flown somewhere.

In this case, Vancouver.

VANCOUVER, 2010

DAY ONE

I arrived in town with my Olympic gear (sweatshirt, t-shirt…alas, no coveted red mittens) and my excited Olympic grin secretly tucked away out of sight. Arriving from afar, I was expecting a grumbly, unenthusiastic Vancouver full of people who just didn’t approve. I thought I’d be conspicuous in my CANADA shirt. That only outsiders would be seen in such things.

I’d imagined the fans consisting of a few Japanese tourists ducking through as angry locals pelted them with organic yogurt and spelt (it’s a B.C. thing).

….Until I realized the gear (and the spirit) was EVERYWHERE. Who can hold onto boring old grumpy ideals when there are gold medals flying around? And when Alex Bilodeau and Jenn Heil are so darn cute?

I was staying with my buddy Christine Oakey, who was working for the Olympics (at VANOC headquarters, spending very long days saying, “Go here.” “Don’t go there.” “Stop picking your nose”). Mackenzie Muldoon (similarly bossing people around at the curling facility) was crashing on the couch. Except for that evening, Oakey and I would scarcely see or speak to one another at all until three days after the games, despite literally sharing a bed at night. It was a king size bed, and we didn’t even spoon. Perhaps we communicated telepathically, between the wee hours when I would crawl in and five a.m. when she would crawl out.

But that night, we went to the victory ceremony. Sadly, no canucks were receiving medals that night, but we yelled and whooped at Russians and Chinese and other types with great enthusiasm. It was “Newfoundland Night” at BC Place, which meant a whole lotta Sean Majumder, lots more fiddling, a song or two from Hey Rosetta among others, and a headlining performance by Great Big Sea.

That was fun, if made slightly trying by the presence of a very small, very drunk young diehard Great Big Sea fan standing right behind me, whose mouth was exactly at my ear-height, and who wailed along off-key to every word, even the singer’s impromptu riffing. I miraculously managed to hold onto my Olympic spirit and not wring her drunken little neck.

Oddly enough, I’d spent the previous evening at the C.R Avery concert at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, listening to songs all about Vancouver; now here I was in Vancouver, listening to a guy sing about Newfoundland.

After that we were deposited onto Robson street, where Oakey went one way (back to work) and I went the other: into the throngs celebrating the Canadian men’s hockey team’s defeat of Slovakia which moved them onto the final against the US.

It was fucking insane. Crowds of running, singing, high-fiving crazy people going absolutely wild. I remember thinking, It can’t get any crazier than this. What’s gonna happen if (when) we win the final? What will people do then? Blow themselves up? I guess this is ten and the knob goes to eleven.

It was a bit much to be alone in. After four thousand high fives and getting puked on once or twice, I started to feel infinitely lonely, and so slid into a coffee shop on Granville, to eat cheesecake and listen to an Irish guy play the guitar and wail about lost love. That was more my speed. As a backdrop to the music, you could still hear constant screaming in the streets outside; I started to play a game of pretending that everyone out there was being attacked by zombies as we sat in a café, waiting for the end to come.

DAY TWO

…Included a trip to Atlantic House on Granville Island, to see Nova Scotia’s own (excellent and rather dreamy) Matt Mays, though Oakey and her coworkers weren’t awake enough to last until he came on.

One of Oakey’s friends, an expat Brit, spent about an hour trying to figure out my accent – eventually bursting out with “I’ve got it! I know who you sound like: That scientist guy from the Simpsons!” (The guy who says “Glavin” all the time.) And then explained that it was just that I have “a very intellectual way of saying things”. Which may be the nicest way that I've been called a nerd.

When those assholes left, I got to spend the the rest of the evening with my real friends – a bunch of young yahoos from Coquitlam that I’d met in the lineup while waiting for Oakey and her gang. Perfectly friendly, gentlemanly yahoos, who couldn’t believe their luck in suddenly having a girl to hang out with, without pressing it. One of them, though, the most weavingly drunk one of the bunch, felt a constant need to grind my gears about being from Toronto. First he wanted to hassle me about being a Leafs fan; when I told him I didn’t really follow hockey, except during the Olympics, Go Canada, he switched to ridiculing people from Toronto for not even caring about hockey.

He asked if I followed lacrosse. I said no. He scoffed at that. I asked him “Do you play?” He told me he used to, before he decided to just go fuckin’ drinking every night. I eventually got to the root of his resentment: some lacrosse team from Toronto that was better than his lacrosse team had come out here and kicked his lacrosse team’s ass…and “they thought they were pretty fuckin’ great”. I pointed out that it was sports, not a tea party, and that if he had won, he would have thought he was pretty fuckin’ great, too. He almost conceded on that one, and was soon lifting me in the air during the Matt Mays show and nearly dropping me on people’s heads. Score one, snooty girl from the centre of the universe. Winning them over, five drunk boys from Coquitlam at a time.

DAY THREE

…And final day of the Olympics, I straggled over to my pal Mike Wasko’s house in Kitsilano for the game. Saw a sign for THE BEST CINNAMON BUNS IN THE WORLD as I stepped off the bus, so I had to take a detour, obviously, and was just coming out with my box of sticky goodness (insert…dirty joke here) when the bar next door erupted. First goal Canada! I ran the rest of the way to Mike’s place, leaving a trail of icing sugar and excitement in my wake, and got to watch the rest with a quality group of Wasko’s family, friends, a sandwich buffet and mimosas. (You got style, Wastich, my friend.) The buffet proved a valuable distraction; whenever the game got too tense, someone would declare, “I can’t take it anymore! I’m going to eat meat!” Except for Yurij, who kept threatening to walk around the block and was watching most of the proceedings from the next room, by the door, ready to flee….and whom everyone kept admonishing to stop being so goddamned Eastern European and have some faith.

Well, you know what happened, obviously, and obviously it was glorious.

There at Mike’s place, a contingent of us leapt into Sarah Cobb’s car and headed downtown where, indeed, the knob had been turned to eleven.

We wandered around, soaking it in and grinning ‘til our faces hurt. At least my snooty Toronto face did - I’m not used to that kind of thing.

(That second one is Cobb, almost passing for me.)

I must say, I do appreciate the ferocious return of the high five; it indicates people forgetting that they're too cool for such things. The sun is shining, we are the champions - what's not to high five about?

The cops stood in the middle of it all, grinning and receiving high fives themselves, looking proud as anything. A few of them , though, were just a-twitchin’, waiting for something to go wrong. One sports bar had imported some snow, the only snow in town, and had it piled out front. Some dude scooped up a handful, threw it at someone…and was immediately tackled by police! When I lobbed my modest snowball (gently, friendli-ly, at Nick Wasko’s feet), handsome, tall, grey-haired Officer Doom was instantly in my face, letting his presence be known.

“Haya doin’?”

“Great, officer! How about you?”

“I’m worried. Remember ‘94.” (When the Canucks lost the cup and downtown erupted in riots.)

“Yeah, but everybody’s happy this time!”

“Well they started off happy then, too.” (????)

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Everybody’s celebrating!”

“….You’re not from around here, are you?”

Maybe he was just trying to pick me up.

I'd love to know the numbers on how many people called in sick the next day (or just didn't show up for work).

We headed back to Mike’s place after an hour or two, to watch and ridicule the closing ceremony. It was so stinky (though I actually didn’t mind the Buble-and-the-beavers bit; it was every other stinky thing)….but valuable for this: it made me realize how lucky it was that the opening was so good. Thank God they saved the shite for when no one was watching.

DAYS FOUR THROUGH ELEVEN

The 2010 games over and life returning to normal, suddenly everyone was talking about something that any theatre professional instantly recognized as post-show depression. It was getting news time even, Brian Williams referring to the sadness and sense of loss spreading across Vancouver, and VANOC offering counselling to staff to deal with it all being over. My theatre friends working at the Olympics were used to this kind of thing: closing a show, saying goodbye to friends made and moving on…but for poor Joe Volunteer, having just participated in two weeks of the greatest show on earth, the feeling was new and devastating. Like a little kid leaving summer camp and bawling as her parents drag her away from her pals (unless she went to smelly Brownie camp). PSD for everyone!

People on the Skytrain looked wistfully around, wondering if anyone would high five them today. Someone in line at Shoppers Drug Mart saw someone else buying a half price Quatchi (Olympic mascot) keychain and sighed, “Wasn’t it awesome?” “Yeah…where were you for the game?” “I can’t believe how quiet it is now,” people kept saying.

Perhaps the saddest thing I saw was a city bus with its sign scrolling, “GO CANADA GO! SORRY…OUT OF SERVICE”. Okay, it seemed really poignant at the time.

As for me, I was feeling mostly okay, if occasionally blindsided by some stupid thought such as, That's it. Where am I ever gonna find another man who doesn't snore?

I was looking good, which added some spring to my step. As is always the case in such climates, my skin was all dewy; my hair had acquired a wave.

My postgames consisted of a lot of sightseeing, some visiting with friends (Hi there, Nadia! Good to see you, Challenor!), surprise Oscar night in Victoria with my stepmom Liisa and her family, and some good old fashioned B.C…exercise. See, you thought I was gonna say “bud”, didn’t you? Okay, that too. But mostly exercise.

And walking through Stanley Park one day, I felt really good. Like breakthrough good.

There you are, face to face with the mountains and trees, the ocean and sky…and you can’t help but think: Look at how small I am. How paltry are my problems. And look how beautiful the world is. There are worse things to be than alone. And, thinking these wonderful positive thoughts, you turn around and nearly smack right into this:

And then you cry for eighteen minutes.

I soon realized it was a marker for a path and, while certainly a kick in the shins from God, not only that. I decided to bravely follow the path, imagining it could still include me, one who, while not technically a “lover”, not right now, not in the classic sense of the word, was still a lover of nature, of life, of the mountains and sky….et cetera. The sun was falling rapidly as I ventured deep into the woods, hoping I would get to the other side before getting lost in blackness. And then industrious local rapists started jumping out from behind the trees, one after the other….so there was romance to be found in lovers lane after all! How sweet!

(Romantic post-ravagement idyll)

A day or two later, I did the “Grouse Grind”, a trek to the top of Grouse Mountain in North Van that I proudly finished in an hour and a half instead of taking the other option of giving up halfway through and rolling back down to my death. Oakey had heard it was “just a bunch of stairs", to which I answer, “Sure, Oakey...maybe if you're, say, Lance Armstrong or a mountain goat.”

In case you doubt me, here’s a word from Wikipedia, which never, ever lies: “(The Grind) is an extremely steep and mountainous trail that climbs 853 m (2,799 ft) over a distance of 2.9 km (2 mi), with an average grade of 30 degrees. The trail, nicknamed "Mother Nature's Stairmaster", is notoriously gruelling due to its steepness and mountainous terrain. - Total Stairs: 2,830.” So there.

Thank God for signs like this to let me know I was actually getting somewhere:

And ones like this, that made me feel dangerous and cool:

At the top, before lunch and hard-earned cider at the restaurant, I trekked around some more, and found myself walking down a grassy ski hill as skiiers slid down next to me. That was weird:

DAY THE LAST

While arriving at the airport drunk isn't exactly what I’d call a plan…it seemed to work for me. Wasko and I'd spent the evening previous at an improv show, and later in his kitchen, consuming whiskey and shouting at each other over topics far and wide. (Even though we agreed on almost everything, we still managed to get all hopped up and wave our arms around.) After hours of this, Mike finally squinted at the clock and said, "Hey what time's your flight?" I shouted, "AAAARGH!" and ran. I had two hours to cab home, pack my bags, wash dishes, and get to the airport to be scanned and prodded for a seven am departure.

The drunkenness allowed me a remarkable level of humour through the usual ordeal. I giggled my shoes off and barely stopped myself from saying, "Most action I've seen in weeks" as security was groping me for drugs. I swaggered though the terminal with that all-knowing, drunk girl leer we know so well, then flirted with my cute young seatmate, Eric, until falling into a satisfyingly deep sleep most of the way across the country. This could be the beginning of a bad habit or even a series of arrests, but it's what I'm doing from here on in.

THE NOW

And then I got home and the hurt hit me double. I was done running around and back on home turf, where the memories lived. Back to the couch, still carrying that broken heart, and now with a lot less cash to keep it warm.

There was the Paralympics to watch, but while CTV had coverage, it mostly played highlights, and rather silently, without anyone to provide context or tell you what the hell was going on. I’m not actually enough into sports to dig that.

I need colour commentary. I need juicy tidbits to keep me interested. Like, “Michael Such-and-such is a role model to many, having overcome his blindness AND cerebral palsy to become a world-class skier…but it’s a little-known fact that he murdered six people last year”…..or “Curler Helen So-and-so is a big one-legged slut who left her husband for her coach this month”…Stuff like that.

I liked the Paralympic closing ceremony, but when it came to the Sochi stuff, it begged the same question: The Russian anthem is about twenty-seven minutes long – are they gonna do something about that before 2014?

It also kind of made me laugh that one of the musicians featured sang a tune the refrain of which was, “You may think you’ve got it all, but it could be a pebble that makes you fall”. I imagined one of the athletes having a sudden flashback and freaking out: “It WAS a pebble that made me fall! That's how I got my spinal cord injury!”

So now it’s all over folks, nothing to see.

I could try to mitigate the sadness by jumping in bed with the next supermodel who happens by…but then, whoever gets to touch this body inevitably grows addicted and wants it 24 hours a day. And I'm not ready for that kind of schedule yet. (Not that my people aren't reviewing applications.... Operators are standing by.)

But hey, back when Mister Miyagi had me paint his fence, I did learn a thing or two about patience. Sometimes you just gotta wait this shit out.
And I really am getting better and better every day. (Except when I'm not.)

Wax on, wax off,

The Tourist

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*odium

n.

1. The state or quality of being odious.
2. Strong dislike, contempt, or aversion.
3. A state of disgrace resulting from hateful or detestable conduct.

BONUS SHOT:

Darth Fiddler, downtown Victoria