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