CALGARY, ALBERTA
October 7th, 2006
So here I sit at the end of two months in Cowtown, bracing myself for the giant email I owe you. Brace yourself, too. We'll get through this together.
I'm living in a week that includes eight shows over five days, many of them for evil callous teenagers, drinking too much with old friends, a Brazilian wax (the pain of which cannot be expressed in writing), a horrible lack of sleep, packing to go home......and if I can make it through all that...(OhPoorMeMyLifeIsHardIWishIWasInKazhakstan.)
You'll be happy to know I just took a moment to put some pants on. Love you as I may, it just felt too weird writing one of these letters without pants. You may take yours off if you like.
So....CALGARY THE UNKNOWABLE. Don't know if I've got any kind of a handle on the place. And I'm not sure who does. Locals seem to ask "What do you think of Calgary?" in a puzzled tone that suggests they're not quite sure what to make of it themselves. As if they're hoping that an outsider will be able to suddenly make it all clear to them. However, my experience of the place has been mostly the actor-hanging-with-lots-of-other-actors and working a lot and sleeping experience. I haven't had much time to mingle with the little people. Or the BIG people, I should say, what with their ten gallon hats and their high-heeled boots and their spurs and the raw meat hanging out of their mouths. (Just kidding, they apparently only dress that way during Stampede time.....and I think I dreamt the part about the meat.)
The theatre community is happily thriving. Seems new things are popping up all the time; new small companies, a good buzz in the air, a very supportive vibe in the community. I'm happy for them and hope it will continue. And that Ordinary Joe Calgary will put down his raw meat (and his Blackberry) for a minute and join in, so it's not just a self-contained thing with theatre people taking turns going around looking at each other. I fear that everywhere.
I do think it's an odd time to be here, what with the big BOOM and all. No one quite trusts it will last (and of course it can't, not the way it is now) and the town seems to be scrambling to get what it can, while it can. And to catch up with itself. It's great to have jobs flying around like confetti, sure, but if there's nowhere to house and school and take care of the sick among all these people...... There are folks with good jobs living in tents here. And winter's coming. Very strange days.
The cab drivers have no idea where anything is. If it stops pissing you off, it starts to become hilarious. They, of course, cleverly came to town from other cities and countries to cash in.....but they are so hopelessly lost out there that they seem slightly terrified all the time, poor buggers. The combination of a passenger new to town and a driver who got here last week can be ridiculous. And expensive. Luckily the meter rates are WAY lower than in T.O. On my birthday (September 15th - it rained and then snowed), which was also opening night, I decided to splurge and just take a cab everywhere while I ran all my opening night gift shopping errands and went to rehearsal. I felt so cosmpolitan actually getting a cabbie to wait for me as I ran in and out of places. But I can afford that here. Even when he got lost and we ended up in Jersey, it wasn't too bad. And New Jersey is quite the detour from Alberta. You'd think I would have noticed.
Yeah. Snow on my birthday. Unheard of. The weather in this place is out of its mind. Two days before the snow, it was thirty degrees celsius outside. And two days after, it was again. We're expecting locusts on Sunday, but it's so hard to predict, really. I've hired a dresser to follow me around in the streets with a suitcase. We stop and do quick-changes in phone booths whenever the weather shifts. Just another little luxury I've allowed myself - hell, I am in my thirties now.
Nobody jaywalks in this town. Not only that, but if you do, people look at you as if you're stabbing babies. Okay, so I did once jaywalk and stab a baby at the same time. But that was only once......and that kid was already dead. There are signs around saying "Caution. Do Not Jaywalk. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC." Well....in that case. I mean, I could make it across one lane, but if there are cars in both directions???! Wow, that's complicated.
White as Calgary is (by grew-up-in-Scarborough-live in-Toronto standards it's like some weird Caucasian planet), there is enough immigration to provide interesting places to eat. I've seen a few Ethiopian places, been to a Thai place or two, lots of Indian and Sushi around. It's taken being in Calgary to get me hooked on Lebanese takeout. And no, "Lebanese Takeout" is not a euphemism for "picking up chicks". Though there's always room for chicks.....like Jell-O!
As I write I am listening to a fantastic radio station called CKUA, somehow based in Calgary and Edmonton. Go to http://www.ckua.com/ and click "Live On Air" to listen to it right now. It's the country's oldest public broadcaster, founded in 1927 on the U of A campus. Hour by hour you never know what genre you're going to get, depending on who's hosting, but a lot of it is wonderful. Go there. I'm also hooked on CBC Radio 3 lately, which you can get on your itunes sattelite radio listings under "public". All Canadian indie stuff. Pretty great. But I digress...... You now have permission to skip a random paragraph. Or just read every other one from here on in. Though you may miss the bit that contains the meaning of life. And you'll just never know.
A couple of weeks ago, at one of our (ten million) student matinees, a teenager tried to get up at intermission and felt something in his back go terribly, terribly wrong. He couldn't move and paramedics were called, who eventually put him on a morphine drip, right in the house, to try and loosen up his seized muscles so that they could move him. I imagine that may be the trippiest theatre experience you can have: being high on an Opiate in an audience while seven hundred people stare at you and whisper. Our intermission lasted an hour and thirteen minutes, during which we sat in the green room and placed bets as to whether the show would continue. It did, but only for about fifty students -the others all had to catch their buses back to school - and of course the kid with the back problem, who remains in the house to this day, and holds the record for most consecutive performances attended at the Max Bell Theatre. He is covered head-to-toe with gum and urine (mostly his), but still seems to be enjoying the production. He is considering a career as a theatre critic when he graduates. (By correspondence.) Poor kid. I hope he is okay. The back thing, I mean, not as a critic.
I spent my first month here billeting with a family up north of Kensington. I was meant to stay in an apartment hotel, but the place I chose (from the Theatre Calgary list) turned out to be a disaster. A rude, bitchy, falsely advertised disaster. $1750 a month for a one-bedroom with no phone, no internet access, no maid service, broken sauna...... Culminated in a conversation that ended thus:
ME: And you know the carpet in there stinks.
HOTEL BROAD: Yeah, well, a wet carpet will do that.
ME: You know, maybe you shouldn't move somebody into a room with a wet carpet. That's just bad service.
HOTEL BITCH: It's not bad service - it's called same-day turnover.
ME: Haven't you ever thought you shouldn't have same-day turnover into a room with a smelly wet carpet?:
WHOREY AWFUL HOTEL WOMAN: Well, I guess we've learned.
ME (trying to be tough and play hardball when they wouldn't give me back my FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR SECURITY DEPOSIT AFTER I HAD SPENT FIFTEEN MINUTES THERE): I'll tell you this - Theatre Calgary isn't going to be happy. They won't be sending any more business your way.
SKANKY HOTEL TROLL: I don't care about Theatre Calgary. I'll call them right now and tell them not to send me anybody else.
ME: Uh........
After much cajoling and badgering ("I know it's not you, but boy is your boss's policy unfair"...) they agreed to give me part of the deposit back ( I had to go back the next day to get it, and brought big tough Ashley Wright with me as goon backup.) I basically paid two hundred dollars to get out of there. Turns out Dennis Garnhum (TC Artistic Director) once had a strikingly similar experience there. I believe The Birkenshaw has since been removed from the housing list.
Anywaaay.....I ended up living with Tim and Alyson Culbert, this fantastic couple with whom I have become friends, and their three beautiful shy little girls, and their dog and cat and daycare. Became the sort of person who takes little kids to the Zoo on her day off, and thinks putting silly things on her head is the funniest joke in the world. Which it is, of course. I was also, though, the type of person who crawls in at two a.m., and spends mornings during tech week with a pillow on her head moaning "Shuuuuuut uuuuuup" as the dayhome kids arrive for a day of screaming and jumping. The Culbert kids (Sonya, Abigail, and Mikka - named after, no word of a lie, hockey fans, Miikka Kiprusoff, Calgary Flames goalie) were fantastic. At first they were very shy and suspicious of me, but I knew I was in when Sonya (the eldest and most painfully, sweetly shy) took me to her room to show me her glass collection. Her favourite is a unicorn. Glass Menagerie, anyone? Abigail is four, and wild, and Tim is sure it's only a matter of time 'til she is riding off with rough guys on motorcycles. I told him it was surely sweet shy Sonya who would go that way. He is terrified.
Day before opening I left my double life and moved into The Regency Suites, the place where every visiting artist in his right mind stays. Incidentally, Shanna Miller is here while she runs Ronnie Burkett's latest show at ATP; Chris Newton, David Boechler, Maria Vacratsis and Dixie Seatle the next TC show; Randy Hughson, Colombe Demers, probably Chris Abraham and Daniel Brooks, who are doing Insomnia ...... It's conveniently next to hooker Mac's, though I've only had one hooker encounter at the Regency, and that was with a very nice crack whore who thought her umbrella was attacking her. Unfortunately this did take place on the elevator, which is rather close quarters for an actor, a crack ho, a dealer or pimp or john or pal or whatever he was, and an active, flying umbrella. As the umbrella victim got off the elevator, she did warn me, while nearly poking me in the eye, "You gotta be careful.....the spokes'll getcha." One of the lonely maids seems to be slightly obsessed with me, but other from that the good ol' Reege is just peachy.
Another odd downtown Hot Dog Stand name: The Yodelling Sausage. I don't know about you, but if my sausage yodels at me, I'm suing. Or at least I want my money back.
Accidentally discovered Devonian Gardens the other day......This is a huge greenhouse that takes up the top floor of one of the malls downtown (TD Centre, I think). A great and relaxing way to spend a lunch hour, and a lovely surprise when you're not expecting it. Fish pools, fountains. Greeeeen-ness, which is fairly rare out here. Ahhhh. Of course I am spending far too much time at the mall, feeding my addictions (Shoppers Drug Mart, HMV, et cetera.)
Incidentally, don't you think when a skin care line is billed as "Non-Comedogenic", it should mean that it doesn't make you laugh? I want to put out a Comedogenic line. Active ingredient: Peyote.
I've had odd luck with objects here in Calgary. With interesting results. Allan Stichbury, our cavern-voiced designer (dogs can't hear him) refusing to carry home my pink gift bag that I left at the Auburn. Tough ol' John Wright happily wearing my lost feather boa back to the theatre after it dropped off me at the Opening Night party. Leaving a photo and resume that I promised to forward for someone in the cast at a corner store. Going back and getting it and then meeting the gang for dinner, after which I realize that I don't know where my bank card is (and that I have no cash). Returning home at three a.m. to a steamy tropical hotel room, made thus by a dishwasher that has been running for fifteen hours (and melting plastic things inside) since the cleaning staff turned it on that day. Dropping my cell phone (a replacement for the phone that I poured water all over in Toronto) in the street, where it gets run over by a (or several) cars. My subletter at home has broken my toaster, a wine glass and two tumblers. Somehow, he says my plants are still alive. Okay, most of those weren't technically due to bad luck - mostly they were me being stupid or forgetful. But the dishwasher? I mean, come on!
Two new glorious objects in my life, to make up for all the lost and broken ones. I gave in and bought a stupid cowgirl hat (orange straw, and I look fucking hot in it), and the most wonderful pair of cowboy boots I have ever seen, or touched, or smelled, in my life. Not that I go around smelling cowboy boots. Okay.......you got me!
Of course, I didn't buy the boots and hat until after I'd been horseback riding. Went to Rafter Six Ranch in Exshaw (Kananaskis country, halfway between here and Banff) with a few cast and crewmates for a trail ride in the woods. If Exshaw sounds familiar, it's where holocaust denier Ernst Zundel lived before he got deported. But this was not, I repeat NOT, a Nazi Ranch. My horse was named Himmler, but I think that's a very common name for mares. The ride was great, though it was a cold and misty day, so the backround view of mountains was not happenin'. Lovely though, and we hit the Banff hot springs after. Just like sitting in a big pool with a bunch of strangers. But it's a hot pool. Outdoors. With an amazing view. Pretty perfect after freezing cold horseriding.
So, yeah, I've become a social convenor in this cast. Yes, I, Lisa Norton, (happily) confessed LAZIEST PERSON YOU KNOW (c) have been arranging horseback rides, hiring the band for opening night, planning future potlucks..... Which tells you one of two things: A) Even the laziest woman you know is more industrious than your average nine males. Or, B) That I am super-industrious when I am out of town: witness all the soup kitchens I've started and all the Habitat for Humanity projects I've worked on. Okay, screw you all for knowing that I've only drunk booze and hung around flirting with strangers. But I did invent pomegranate raspberry pancakes....and how many of you can say that for yourselves? Hmmm? Thank you. Let's move on.
What else? Seen some plays, some movies (cultural highlight: Snakes on a Plane. Shudder), some old friends......Had an amazing time out with old George Brown pal Jacqueline Day the other night, who sends her love and hopes to see the gang at Christmas......breakfast tomorrow, I think, with Dean Carter, also from GB, who is now a teacher and married to Luka, with a seventeen-month old daughter, Eliza.
Guess I'm afraid of winter coming. And a long gig coming to an eventual end, leaving me high and dry again, waiting for the phone to ring. I had a dream the other night in which I found out that my friends Jeff and Rachel were storing nuts in their house. I broke in while they were out, searching frantically for their hoard so I could steal their nuts and hide them for myself.
Off on Sunday for my first trip ever to B.C., where I am lucky enough to be able to attend my pals Mike Wasko and Jenny Paterson's nuptials, and jet around Vancouver a little bit. And then back to Toronto to do Of Mice and Men at Canstage like crazy. Two or three nine-show weeks, designed to help Canstage out of financial trouble. If it works out, this will be the second time I've bailed out Canstage, since it's all the money I made them as a telemarketer back in the day that has kept them afloat until now. I was a disturbingly persuasive telemarketer, definitely a dubious distinction. Dread the day I turn my powers to real evil.
Hope you are grand and that I hear from you soon. Now for God's sake, put your pants back on.
Leese
where's the beef?
the norton stampede
CALGARY, ALBERTA
September 6th, 2006
THINGS I'VE SEEN:
The airplane view of the prairies. I don't know what I was expecting. One great boring field of homogenous yellow wheat? Yes, perhaps, since my previous experience of the landscape was car passenging through with my grandparents at age eight, which I definitely remember as a wake-me-when-I'm-there (and when the puking and the earaches stop) type experience. So I promptly and purposely went to sleep shortly after the West Jet safety dance, and woke somewhere over Saskatchewan, my head pressed against the window, and looking down upon the most glorious! surprising! wonderful! view. Those perfect squares of green and brown and beige and gold....I had no idea. All I could think was how it was as if someone - someone really BIG - had gone to Home Depot and then run around slapping down ceramic tile as far as the eye could see. That might sound like I'm reducing it to something puny and nonmajestic, but believe me, I'm thinking of really really nice ceramic tile. I guess I'm just not used to seeing any one thing as far as the eye can see, and that was astounding in and of itself.
My sassy new show haircut. New, improved, sexier than ever Lisa Norton! What's that you say? Impossible? Apparently not.
Mountains. (A day off in Banff and Lake Louise.) Again: Holy Fucking Christ. (I have no words big enough except for curses.)
An airline poster on the way up in a mountainside gondola saying: Now wouldn't this ride be better with seatback TV? Four words: Boy. Cott. West. Jet.
Some oustanding roadside signs. On a hill near where I'm staying (North of Kensington), a Red Cross appeal for donors as rearranged by bored Calgary youth: RAVE LIVES! TITS NEEDED! IS SUMMER. DRESS SOC (Figure it out. I did.)
On a going-out-of-business barbershop: BIG HAIRY DEAL! And, my favourite hot dog stand sign ever anywhere: SAUSAGE PARTY! (Which is also, incidentally, how I'm trying to get Theatre Calgary to advertise Of Mice and Men.)
Oh, and Help Wanted Signs. Everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. They've become pretty pointless; you can pretty much assume that everyone is hiring. The cop cars have NOW HIRING bumper stickers. They're all over the buses. Billboards. Foreheads. If you've got an IQ of 5, one arm, no legs, a drug habit and a bad attitude: there's a job for you in Calgary! Heart of the New West!
And Money! Money everyplace! Falling from the sky! Gushing up out of the ground! Overflowing from construction sites, bursting office towers at the seams. Hundreds of homeless men chasing after it, only to see it hop in a Mercedes and tear away.
On our first rehearsal day, our cast and the entire staff of Theatre Calgary standing in a circle like all the Whos in Whoville. (Welcome, welcome, ba-whoos, ba-whoos, Welcome, welcome, da-whoos, da-whoos). And Dennis Garnhum's heart grew THREE sizes that day....
Shaun Smyth with a moustache. Move over, Magnum. Go fuck yourself, Burt Reynolds.
A T-Shirt bearing the words "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner". Do you want yours in pink or blue, Christine?
Jesse who runs the Auburn Tavern (the Calgary Theatre Bar I've been hearing about all these years). Nothing quite like a handsome man who leans across the bar, takes your hands in his, looks deep into your eyes and softly asks you what you want. And, if that wasn't good enough, he brings you booze, too! Long Live the Auburn!
The Calgary Zoo. Coool.
Today: two of those cyclists who are terrified to let their feet touch the ground at a red light and wobble around the whole time like a couple of morons. Off-topic, I know, but really, what the hell?
THINGS I'VE HEARD:
Rob Ursel and the Billionaires Club, Wednesday nights at Vern's, an excellent live music bar on 8th Ave. As if John Steinbeck had writtten songs. Tear your heart out. If this guy gets you reminiscing about the wrong person (or even the right one), you're screwed. At the very least, you'll come away with a generically broken heart. (And a tapping foot or two.) And, because he reminds me of Steinbeck, when I stay out till the last note well after closing time, I'm not partying.....I'm doing research.
The sadass off-key prerecorded "bells" that fart out of the Calgary Tower all day long. Oh, Calgary Tower. Must you have nothing going for you at all?
Christina Aguilera's new Album. That's right, you gonna make sumthin' of it?
But not the Sunparlour Players, not since I left home. (Can't find the album in Calgary.) Will someone mail me a copy?
Ashley Wright's farts. Every day.
THINGS I'VE SMELLED:
No Name Brand Fabric Softening Dryer Sheets in Mountain Fresh Scent....only two days after visiting Banff and Lake Louise and being surrounded by real-life mountains! Dude. Your dryer sheets smell nothing like mountains. Back to the drawing board on that one. Can't put nuthin' over on me, No Name.
Ashley Wright's farts. Every Goddamn day.
THINGS I'VE TASTED:
The genius of John Steinbeck.
Followed closely by:
The genius of a good perogie platter when you've been drinking for ten hours.
Ashley Wright's farts. Morning, noon and night.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED:
The street system in Calgary. Way too proud of myself on this one.
If you're the only chick in an otherwise all-male cast, you get to be the all-purpose date. Ben would have just felt too gay going to the mountains with another guy. And John Kirkpatrick couldn't very well have hairy male arm candy accompany him to the Betty Awards; he was a presenter after all. Somebody better take me to Vegas next day off - the bar has been raised, boys.
Oh - while at the Bettys, avoid saying things like "Yeah, I'm here with John. He's thinking of moving to Toronto, too, and, you know, getting a real agent." or "OH! I get it! So the Bettys are like the Doras, except they're just for Calgary. How nice that you guys get your own little theatre awards!" and, consequently, "The face! Ow! Not the face!" Just kidding.....I learned those all from a cautionary dream the night before. These gorgeous cheekbones are unharmed, dear reader.
You can hop on the C-Train in the free zone and then continue to ride it all the way home without paying and not get caught. But you will feel guilty for at least a day or two.
If you try to be funny and play tricks on your friends, it may backfire. Like, for instance, if you're at the bar with Sterling and Ben and decide that it will be really hilarious to set the hungry Cougar in the skin-tight denim vest and spray-on jeans with the waist-length hair (name of Chevy, "like the car, vroom vroom") after Ben as a funny joke, so you claim (married) Sterling is your boyfriend and leave Ben to defend himself, and keep dropping hints about how interesting and single Ben is and how he would LOVE to play pool with her, but then it becomes clear that she was interested in Sterling all along, not Ben, and that she now hates you for A) being his girl and B) being a jealous territorial bitch, and then you spend the rest of the evening wondering whether you're going to show up at rehearsal the next day with one of her Lee Press-On Nails (TM) embedded in your eye..... Yeah. Like that. Don't try that kind of thing in Calgary.
Don't smoke too much BC weed. (See above.)
Don't stand next to Ashley Wright right after he's been rehearsing the scene in which he eats three cans of beans.
THINGS I FEAR:
That some of you, glancing throught this email, and not realizing that it's one of my missives from away, may think it is a suicide note. (Things I've Seen, Learned, Tasted....) That being the case, that you may not know that I am safe and sound, and loving you from here. That I will grow old and lonely, never having achieved any great success, and that my body will have been rotting in my apartment for weeks and weeks before somebody realizes that the smell must be coming from that sad old lady's place. Et cetera.
Nothing matters,
Lisa
pegleg
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
Sunday, February 26, 2006
My God it's been a while. I apologize to all those who have written and whom I promptly...... ignored. Apparently Winnipeg has everything I need. But I do love you all dearly and will try to get back on top of the whole staying in touch individually thing. In the meantime....take a deep breath and dive in.
Firstly, many of you are surely drawing a relieved-type breath to find that I and my castmates did survive the election results. As a minority government, the Tories weren't sure thay could carry off the mass artist execution without someone calling them on it.
And yes, I have been surviving the cold in fine and uncomplaining style. (Fifty-seven days into 2006 and the Resolution is holding strong.) It helps that it was so unseasonably warm for so long, but when the cold did hit, everyone had been talking it up so much that it didn't seem so bad. Overrated. It did hit eight-thousand degrees below zero for several days (not a complaint, just a statement of fact) but there was a whole contingent of us Toronto people who refused to skulk along in the underground and walked outside instead. I think we mind it less because we're tourists - hell, this is just the kind of thing we're here to experience. Some places you get to ride a camel; here you get to be cold. "Cold tourism" is in keeping with Tourism Manitoba's campaign Winnipeg: There are Worse Places, which contrasts photos of freezing but smiling Winnipeggers with pictures of a Ugandan child soldier, a Vietnamese landmine victim and a suicide bomber in Baghdad. Odd campaign, but hey, whatever works.
There was a funny story on the news one night about a group here trying to get people out to an outdoor fundraiser to raise awareness for Global Warming.....on a day when it was fifty below with the windchill. Poor bastards. "We're not making this up, I swear! Did you feel that? Definite hot flash for a second there."
So the sightings have started. In case you haven't seen it yet, there is a GIANT PICTURE OF MY ASS on the outside of the Royal Alex Theatre in Toronto, which, of course, people keep calling to tell me about while laughing their heads off. Really, go look at it, I don't mind. After all, it's not every day there's a GIANT PICTURE OF MY ASS on display in public. My friend Tim Mooney called me while standing in front of it and stopping passersby to say "Hey you! See that ass? I'm talking to the girl whose ass that is!" My Mom left me a message telling me about it as if I had been drunk and wouldn't remember these photos having been taken ("You're wearing a bikini, it's blue and white, there's some furniture, Kevin is there...."). She and my Uncle, who were passing by on their way to see Lord of the Rings, took pictures of themselves with my ass, which is weird enough, but also didn't mind telling me that while they were doing this, a bunch of drunk guys walked past, put their hands on the picture and did "something obscene". Dear Mom: Thing I Do Not Need To Know, Number 278. At least I don't know what the "something" was. Maybe they barfed. Anyway, if my butt can help lure even one theatre-goer away from Lord of the Rings and over to The Innocent Eye Test, I'm happy. I'll show you One Ring to Rule Them All!
I have been feeling much more secure about being the bikini-clad hot hottie in a show, actually, ever since a postshow talkback the other day when a high school kid asked, in these very words, "What's it like to kiss Lisa Norton?". I said I found it awkward but nice. No, really, I wasn't there....the two guys who do smooch me in the show were perfect gentlemen and gave me a big thumbs down. The kid asking was apparently an incredibly good-looking young man with a sexy British accent. Maybe he'll grow up to be a handsome young millionaire who will come find me and whisk me around the world. WHISK me?! What the hell am I talking about?
A thing about Winnipeg no one ever tells you: there's an abbatoir, or a meat rendering plant, or some such sweet-smelling thing, near the theatre. So on rushing out to meet one's adoring (possibly sexy, possibly rich and British) fans, the first impulse may be to puke on them. If the wind is blowing the right way.
Was crazy for the Olympics......right from the Opening Ceremony, which I always love for its trippy-ass shit (and Italy seems to do trippy-ass shit better than anyone; it's like a whole country of Cirque du Soleil rejects)....and for its proliferation of silly hats. I think the parade of Athletes is a bunch of designers' revenge on all the jocks who beat them up in high school. "OH YEAH???!!! Two words: EAR FLAPS!!! TAKE THAT, BIATCH!" It is also, quite possibly, the best thing about the Olympics: getting to watch people stronger, faster, and more admired than ourselves forced to walk around in ridiculous clothing. In fact, whenever I want to feel like a champion, I put on a stupid hat and parade around my living room. The world is watching.
As for my actual Athletic aspirations, Thank God for the Skeleton guy. (Duff Gibson, THIRTY NINE.) I was beginning to think that, at age thirty, my hopes of a medal had slipped away. I had always thought that Curling would wait for me. I'd start at, like, fifty, and bring my Gold back to the old folks' home.....but now, what, twenty-five year olds are winning Curling Gold? Outrageous. Curlers aren't supposed to have moms to call when they win; they're supposed to call their great-grandkids. With a tin can and a string.
The closing ceremonies I slept through a lot of........they're rebroadcasting in the background as I type this....but luckily I didn't miss the Canadian guy holding a fish in the air in order to convince the world to "come play with us".......and Andrea Bocelli singing while all those Italian girls wandered around dressed as brides.....I thought that was weird until I found out that each medallist in the games got to take one of them home. Cindy Klassen got five.
Okay - SORRY - what the fuck is Ricky Martin doing "singing" at the Olympics? Wasn't he dead?
One more week in Winnipeg, a place I find both lovely and a little sad. There seems a great divide between the chosen few who can afford the cars and bistros and clutch of trendy shops, and the legions of down-and-outers wandering the city. Toronto is the same way, I know, I'm sure I've just got my eyes wider open when I'm away from home. The difference here may be that the panhandlers are more persistent and seem more desperate; they'll swoop out and talk to you and follow you until you give them money. Not like Toronto homeless people who sit around in doorways with clever signs - all being recent Sheridan College Graphic Design grads. I talked for a while with Bobby, a homeless busker who plays really great harmonica (since his guitar was stolen) and sings in the underground at Portage and Main. He stands with his empty guitar case, which wasn't stolen, because "no one's gonna throw coins in a harmonica case". He told me about the Main Street Mission and how he would rather sleep on the street. To save money, they won't let the guys use hot water, he says, and the stench of the place is overwhelming. He mentioned how many dudes there are drinking whatever cheap thing they can get their hands on, mostly mouthwash. I pointed out that at least the overpowering stale urine smell was offset by all the minty fresh breath.
While things are rough here and there, I've never felt unsafe. The worst I've seen was some truly disturbing violent graffiti in the bathroom of the Royal Albert Hotel Bar. The stuff in the Garrick Hotel was mild by comparison:
"Carla Whiteway is a fuckin whore. She is dead. TELL HER SO."
"Carla has alot of frends! Watch yer back! Why dont you wash yourself you dirty black slut!"
And then a shot from Garrick's most sensitive (or merely curious) soul: "What makes you think she's black?"
The Garrick is one place that features an "eye opener special": Two buck shots and beers between nine and eleven am. And where, as it turns out, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton met for the first time, which is why it's designated a historical building and can't be torn down.
Some thus-far Winnipeg highlights:
The High and Lonesome Club, more commonly known as Times Changed, (thanks for the tip, Cam MacDuffee), the BRILLIANT Main Street honkytonk where we saw a FAN-TASTIC band called the D-Rangers (self-descibed "Bluegrass Madmen"), who, if I remember correctly, also come highly loved and recommended by Toronto's own Corin Raymond. You'll be happy to know, Corin, that we are likely going back this week to see your pal Romi Mayes, who is described in a review quoted on her poster as perpetrating "the sort of sound you'd want to hear pouring out of roadhouses as you drive up expecting to get drunk and maybe fall in love."
Also: Big Dave McLean, awesome local bluesman, whom a bunch of us caught at the Windsor Hotel singin' sad and funny songs and telling dirty jokes till closing time.
Festival Du Voyageur in St. Boniface (the French bit across the frozen river), where we oohed and ahhed at snow sculptures, ate Bison jerky and maple syrup frozen on snow, learned how to skin a beaver, went on a horse-pulled sleighride and heard people speak this funny thing they claim is Canada's other official language! Yeah right....I grew up in Scarborough - I know that Hindi is Canada's second language, you can't fool me. Silly Frenchish people. Tanja Jacobs' husband Jim and awesome child, Nina, were visiting, so my right side is still a bit sore from having had a nine year-old hanging off of it all day.....not to mention having had Gord Rand's wife Jeannie Calleja attached to my leg. But she only weighs fifty pounds, so that's okay. A great family-ish day out.
Back to Toronto on the 5th of March. See you there if that's where you are.
To snow, pink cheeks and minty alcoholics,
Lisa
peg o' my heart
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
January 23rd, 2006
My fellow Canadians: HI.
Well....Winnipeg's fine, the sun shines all the time, and the feelin' is laid back....
Oh, wait, those are just the lyrics from a Neil Diamond song. Good thing I stopped myself before the line about the palm trees, or I'd be sitting here in a puddle of tears in a minute.
So. Yeah. Winnipeg. It's actually not FOUR THOUSAND DEGREES below zero, as many BIG FAT LIARS THAT I CALL FRIENDS would have had me believe. So as far as my number one New Year's Resolution goes ("stop complaining about the weather"; closely followed by "Eat more vegetables" and "Stop killing people").....I'm kicking ass! I have now gotten 22 days into 2006 without once whining about how cold I am.
My magical Supercoat is a big help. My da and stepma got me this thing for Christmas; it's, like, a Swiss Army coat. Zipoff fur, secret pockets, knives, a corkscrew...you pull a thing and a parachute pops out; it mixes its own martinis, you name it. (GO GO GADGET BOOZE!) I don't even walk to work - a big plastic ball inflates around me when I walk outside and I roll everywhere. It's, in fact, not a coat - it's actually an intelligent life form. I'm a bit freaked out by the fact that it's been sneaking into my room and crawling into bed with me at night. I mean, that would be fine, but it whispers such strange things ("Jump off the balcony. Make a bomb. No, wait, make a bomb and then jump off the balcony........Fuck your mother.")
Winnipeg is very beautiful. No one ever told me that. The downtown still has all these gorgeous buildings from the early twentieth century. "Chicagoan Architecture", I'm told.....and chic it is. The banks look like banks, you know? You look at the Bank of Montreal here and say, now THAT's a bank. You wouldn't dare belittle a place like that by calling it BMO. Kevin Bundy, who is in the show I'm working on here, stood outside Harry's Bar the other day thinking "This place should be in a movie." And then he went to see Capote and there it was. It makes me ache to know that I live in a town that had all this, and then we went and tore it all down. Just thinking, in contrast, of the hunks of glass growing all over the Lakeshore - and EVERYWHERE - in Toronto, makes me want to tear them apart with my bare hands. Or something slightly more effective. Although I've got pretty effective bare hands; just ask any guy I've dated. (Comedy High Hat, please.)
Of course, our gang is staying somewhere neither old nor beautiful. We are at Holiday Towers, which, as one cast member noted, look about as inviting as the ones from Lord of the Rings. When I say we're all staying there, I mean all of us except for Master Playwright Michael Healey, who pulled the old "I'm allergic to smoke" scam and got put up somewhere else. Yeah - allergic to smoke! Like that exists.
We have noticed that they have all of the MTC visiting artists stacked up on room fifteen of every floor (215, 315, 415 etc.). Winnipeg officials can thereby wipe out a large portion of the local Arts Community at the push of a button, sending a missile sailing down through our section of the building but leaving our crack-addicted, house-arrested neighbours unscathed. Which is exactly what they are under strict orders to do the very minute Stephen Harper is elected. Similar strikes are planned for cheap hotels and theatre bars across the country. Tom McCamus, curiously, is in Suite 213, and thereby safely outside the COLUMN OF DEATH. But he played Wayne Gretzky's dad in a movie after all, and the government can't afford to have the wrath of Wayne on them. That's how you wake up with a severed horse's head. Rest assured that Michael Healey, safely ensconced in his fancyass smoke and bomb-free hotel, will be okay. Until they gun him down in the coffee shop. So there's the Arts Policy you were waiting for from the Conservatives. (Phase One. Basket weavers....you're next.)
We actually ain't got it bad. I quite like my room. And it's got everything I need. I found myself running around my kitchen the other day freaking out because I didn't have, like, ohmigod, a thing to close a chip bag with, when I was suddenly struck by one of those moments when you're forced to see your gross North American Consumerism in a magnifying mirror. Imagine displaced Indonesian villagers whining about their new home not having any twist ties. Well, they won't now - because I just sent a huge shipment of twist ties to the Red Cross! May those lovely little brown people never know my pain.
Winnipeg keeps you regular. No one told me that one, either. I've been pooing, like, three times a day. And I'm talking big, healthy dumps here. Okay....someone's going to make a joke about my having been full of shit living in Toronto all these years, and how I'm just now cleaning out my system. So there. I beat you to it. Just like Eminem in Eight Mile, Yo.
Nothing is open here on Sunday, which is our day off. I mean, no coffee shops, no stores, nuthin'. I guess if much of the world thinks of Sunday as a day of rest and time with family, I am squarely in the other group that thinks of it as that pain-in-the-ass day that the bank is closed. Fuck you, God! I need stuff at Shoppers! I've been trying to buy tampons for three days, for the love of Christ!
The fun Sunday event today, though, was going to see Hughie, a Eugene O'Neill play that Jeff Meadows and Ric Reid (Shaw folk, as is Kelly Daniels, who directed) are playing as part of O'Neill Fest. Every year, MTC spearheads a Master Playwright Festival, and everybody joins in for two weeks of plays, lectures, films. It's a fantastic idea. Other recent ones have been Tremblay-fest, Ibsen-fest, Norm Foster-fest (just kidding). And you can see the whole shamozzle for sixty bucks. O'Neill is particularly fitting: It's Winnipeg! It's January! If you don't want to kill yourself already, come see Long Day's Journey Into Night! Of which there is, by the way, a very fine production at the MTC Warehouse with Dixie Seatle and Graham Abbey and Shaw pals big fat pregnant Fiona Byrne and Mike Shara. It's pretty great. I love O'Neill, so Suicide Fest was made for me.
I'm also really enjoying working on my show (The Innocent Eye Test). The script is a blast - every cheap gag Michael Healey has ever wanted to write. He couldn't very well have the old dudes in The Drawer Boy farting and tripping over things, so it's all in here. It's great to work with Chris Newton again, the actors are all topnotch, the amazing Laurie Champagne is Stage Managing. I feel a bit like the kid who ends up in the Advanced Class when the teacher meant to write down "Special Ed". What am I doing with the frickin' A Team? And, no, that doesn't mean that Mister T is in the show. We've been socializing a lot, too, which may kill me eventually. Last night we had a dinner party in Tanja Jacobs house and I got so high that I came home, washed my face three times, brushed my teeth twice and shaved all nine of my legs. And then I just walked around my kitchen in circles. Wondering where the twist ties went.
I wish you love from this place.
And, oh the snow is beautiful at night......
Lisa
The Joy Of: a nortinblyth story
BLYTH, ONTARIO
July 28th, 2005
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
"Show you my what?"
Eliza and Jacob were sitting in an empty horse stall in the barn, hiding out from the heat and from little brothers, as they had often done this summer. It was a long break between school years, especially for Eliza, who wasn't yet quite used to life in the country, and she had gotten to treating the farm next door as if it were her own.
"You know, your thingy," she said, gesturing toward the crotch of Jacob's wornout overalls.
"Why would I want to do that?"
Eliza shrugged. "I dunno. Sump'n to do?"
"Psh," Jacob said. "You're weird. Besides, what would you want to see that dirty old thing for? I sure don't wanna see your peehole."
"But it's not just for peeing, Jacob, I told you."
"Oh, come on, Eliza! Are you on about that Sets thing again?" He got up to leave the barn, brushing hay off of his legs and behind. "I told you, I don't believe you."
Eliza caught up to him, grabbing him by the arm. "But I didn't just make it up, Jake......I heard all about it when I lived in the city. I even saw this book once. I wasn't supposed to, but I looked all through it, it explained the whole thing, it even had these pictures. I think it was called The Love of Sets or something like that."
"I dunno, Eliza," whined Jacob, "You can't believe everything you read. I mean, how do you know it wasn't one of those, you know, joke books? Like my grammaw has this book about gnomes and it has, like, all about their personalities and what they eat and stuff, and I asked her and she said it's not for real. It's just a joke."
"SETS IS NOT LIKE GNOMES!" shouted Eliza, turning even redder in the face than her usual sunburn. "AND I'M SICK OF NOBODY BELIEVING ME!"
Eliza realized too late that this last bit had been overheard by Jacob's cousin Munroe, who was just now entering the barn. She usually took care to say precisely nothing within the older boy's earshot, especially nothing that ran the risk of being mocked. Munroe had made every effort to make Eliza feel as unwelcome as possible ever since her family had moved to Blyth, and never missed an opportunity to make fun of "city girl".
"What's her problem?" This, of course, aimed at his cousin; Munroe never looked Eliza in the eye.
"Sets," muttered Jacob, dropping back down on the hay and playing with his sneaker. Eliza glared at her friend, but he just picked away at the rubber of his shoe.
Munroe had burst out laughing. "Is she on about that again?! Don't you know she's just messing with you, Jakie? Sets is one of those rumours city folk tell us so we'll go repeating it and look stupid. Don't listen to a word she tells you."
"Oh yeah, mister smart guy?" fumed Eliza, who had turned an even deeper shade of red since Munroe had interrupted them, "If you're so smart, then where do babies come from? I suppose you have the STORK in Blyth?"
Munroe laughed again, a hard little bullet of a laugh. He nudged his cousin's head with a booted toe. "Tell your girlfriend that she's dumber than I thought."
"Okay, well where do babies come from, Mister Munroe? Huh? Huh? You're so smart?"
"From the baby farm, you moron."
Eliza was incredulous. She looked down to Jacob where he sat on the ground and had now succeeded in tearing a hole in the side of his shoe. He said nothing.
"The BABY FARM, Munroe? Your mother is the baby farm! Didn't you notice how big she got just before your sister was born?"
Munroe turned to face Eliza for the first time since his initial harsh appraisal seven months before. The colour of his angry face now rivalled the redheaded girl's, late-August sunburn and all. "Don't you call my mother fat, you bitch," he spat out from between two tight, angry slashes of lip. And then he turned and was gone, kicking a lounging kitten out of his path as he went.
Eliza sank down on the hay beside her friend, shaken by the encounter with Munroe. "Jake," she said, "Why didn't you back me up?"
"I dunno, Lize......What was I s'posed to say? I mean, I don't believe in Sets either," he murmured. ".....And you really shouldn'a called his mom fat. She's just big boned my mom says."
"But I didn't......." She trailed off, sighing. "Why won't anybody believe me?"
"I'm sorry, Lize, it just seems so......weird. I mean, a guy putting his -" He started to giggle even attempting to think about it.
In spite of herself, Eliza started to laugh a little, too. "I know, I know, it's really gross. But it is for real." And here a thought struck her. "And I can prove it to you. I can prove to you that it's possible."
"How?" ventured Jacob, looking up from his tattered shoe, curious.
"Like I said, you show me yours...."
Jacob thought for as long as it took. "Okay," he said finally. "But don't touch nothin'."
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Hey folks. It's been a long dry summer. Hope all is well where you are.
Kill me now.
Leese
