we are the fun percent

From TORONTO,
December 5th, 2011
Dear Talent Agency by which I am represented,
I recently sent a hopeful letter to my agent, who is a relatively recent addition to your company, asking whether there would be an agency Christmas party. The following was her unedited reply:
"No, they don't do those here."
I did not leave my bed in the week that followed.
Let me explain my position. Sitting on a chair in my living room, one leg tucked under me, rather grossly hunched over my keyboard; terrible posture, quite frankly.
No, not that position. This one:
I was self-represented for many years. I was so obviously untalented and unattractive that no one wanted to rep me. Or maybe it was the fact that I had a habit of cutting my own boy-short hair, and  agents were afraid I would be unmarketable, looking as I did like a crazed escapee from the Scarborough School for Worse Boys. Regardless.
When I did eventually grow out the bald spots and get an agent, she was a solo self-employed one, operating out of her high-rise one-bedroom apartment, her work mainly consisting of throwing her clients' résumés from the balcony and hoping they would land on the desk of an interested casting director. When she didn't opt to have a holiday party, there was a small sigh of relief from me and her other six clients, none of whom had relished the idea of singing carols on the couch with her Santa-hat-wearing cats and passing around a dusty bottle of Kahlua.
Meanwhile we heard rumours of the BIG AGENCIES and their BIG PARTIES; their wild-and-crazy goings-on, their open bars, their dressed-to-the-nines-ness and dancing. I dreamed of being invited as someone's guest, but it seemed everyone always brought a boyfriend or girlfriend or wife, and I was left out in the not-only proverbial cold, staring, in my threadbare parka, through a bit of fogged-up window, hoping that one of the guests would throw me a bit of a cheeseball or toss a dazzling smile my way.
Eventually the big agencies stopped allowing their clients to bring dates, a sensible austerity measure in the face of our struggling industry in those, as our friend Joe Cobden once put it, "hilarious economic times". Others joined me with their faces pressed against those windows. More still stayed at home and ate gruel and played at solitaire.
In 2005, I joined a medium-sized agency; only two agents but with plenty of impressive clients, an assistant in the front room, and an office that did not convert into a sleeping area at night. No cats. Hooray, I thought, this is my chance! December 2005, here I come! We may have to buy our own drinks, but just let me at those canapés!!!
Alas, Caldwell Jeffery had held what was to be its last Christmas party in 2004. The year I signed with them I remember them saying that they'd hopefully get around to planning a post-holiday gathering in January, which I believe they actually did. I was in Winnipeg, doing a play and dutifully sending home my commission, which may have paid for the streamers. I've never been sure whether to take that personally.
In 2010, as you know, Dear Agency, Shari Caldwell retired, and the Jeffery in Caldwell Jeffery went to work for you. A BIG FAT AGENCY, one of those whose parties I had shivered outside of, sniffing teary-eyed at their schmoozy good-cheer. Imagine my disappointment when I received Alicia's afore-quoted email.
I know it's not just you, Characters Toronto. I know it's not even our industry. I know that companies everywhere, in all business sectors, have cut back on perks like parties and dinners and gifts. My father, one recent Christmas, received as recognition for another profit-posting year of hard work, a Tim Horton's gift card in a red envelope. But at least he once — for a few decades, in fact — experienced the heyday of Christmas parties past. I was a KID in the eighties; those days passed me by! And now? What of the young actors born in the eighties or nineties, for whom, with fewer living witnesses each year, the legends of coked-up rehearsal halls and sex in the green room are becoming more and more faded and wan, less and less easy to believe? Do we bear no responsibility to them, or to the long-held traditions of our acting, singing, dancing and lampshade-wearing forebears?
What of the entire city, nay country, whose citizens should be able to look to their artists for examples of salacious gossip and hedonistic pleasure: who will the drones have to live vicariously through, if not us?
    
This one small outlet, but once a year: this is all I ask.
For, quite simply put, nothing happens anymore. I've taken to buying vintage gossip on etsy.com. It's just not the same.
 
Now and then we do hear of someone leaving her spouse and kid — but is she running off to live on an orgiastic, drug-filled commune; to smoke crack and sell guns and have rampant anal with underage hookers? Not usually. More likely, she's just amicably wandering off to find a new spouse and have another damn kid. Borrrrrrr-ring.
Gossip now:
 
“Did you hear? So-and-so and whats-her-name split up!”
"You're kidding! Was there someone else?"
“No, it just didn't work out and they're both very sad. I hear they're having trouble deciding who should keep all their stuff....he insists she should take everything, and she wants him to have it."
"Awww."
"In other news…I hear whos-his-face and whos-his-face are renovating their kitchen.”
“NO!”
"It's true!"

Gossip after an office holiday party:
“Did you hear? So-and-so left whats-her-name!”
“Well, after all those people eating her out on the bar at the agency party, I gotta say I'm not all that surprised."
”Oh yeah! I think I was there for that!”
”There for that?? You were handing out the limes and salt!”
”Oh YEAH. Well, what happens under the mistletoe—”
”—Stays under the mistletoe.”
“…Speaking of which - have you seen my watch?”
(Dear Agency, I can't believe I just made the ol' watch-in-vagina joke. Do you see what you've driven me to?! Things are more dire than even I had realized. Save me from myself.)
Listen, I hate to sound paranoid, but should I be taking this personally? Do you fear that I’ll dance on the tables and make a fool of myself? In that case, it might be a good time for this confession, Dear Agency:
At age 36, I have yet to actually dance on a table. I did once, very recently (EXHIBIT A), wear my first lampshade, but that was not in a burst of drunken, party-down idiocy: it was merely punishment at the hands of my asshole friends for having lost too many hands in a row of "Stoned Bastard". We weren't even stoned at the time. In fact, it was the most boring experience of my life. I hate you, Andy and Jeff.


                    EXHIBIT A. MAN, THIS EXHIBIT SUCKS.

In any case, the lampshade thing is not likely to happen. Most bars don't have proper lamps with shades on them, for one thing. And no one's gonna dance around with a halogen bulb on his head.
As for table dancing, my opportunities are thinning out. How much do I actually leave the house, to begin with, let alone to land in an environment with A: enticingly high tables, and B: People who will encourage such behaviour? If not at an office Christmas party, when and where will my chance present itself?
Please, I'm begging you, provide the opportunity now, lest I, desperate and determined at age fifty, clamber onto the table of a local, half-empty drinking establishment, only to be quietly helped down by an embarrassed young barkeep who then discreetly confiscates my glass of cheap cabernet. Please let this happen where at least one person will whoop and where at least Shauna Black will join me.

Have your lawyers warned you of liability issues related to office Christmas parties? Are you concerned about possible drinking and driving? Where, I ask, are we all driving to? And in what? We're actors: three of us have cars, and only one of those three can afford gas. And in a week or two that will no longer be the case, so you needn't concern yourselves about that. (Besides, there are even actors who don't drink who can function as designated drivers. I know they exist: when I joined the union I had to promise to drink enough to make up for anyone who quit. I'm currently up to five.) So at worst we may spill into the streets and be loud and obnoxious in cabs and on streetcars. But it has been well documented that actors are on average 80% better looking and 22% more charming than your typical drunk, and in 96% more dialects. Our Irish accents alone will delight and entertain our fellow TTC travelers from The Beaches all the way to Parkdale. And back, should we get lost or fall asleep.
You have rosters packed chock-a-block with attractive, charismatic single (or, you know, not strictly monogamous) people. Together we have the potential to make one helluva party and some very sweet love; why would you want to keep us apart? Are you afraid of the nuclear-grade celebratory power that would potentially be unleashed? Or. Dare I ask...?
...Does the Harper government have something to do with all this? Does our fearless federal leader suspect that a tightly-packed communion of so many arty pinkos with nothing to lose could create something akin to a merry yuletide terrorist cell? Or, that in our inevitable pairings-off, one fateful couple with one fateful hole in one fateful condom may just create the next great magnetic leader of the left? RISE UP, Dear Toronto branch of the Characters Talent Agency, RISE UP! Don't pander to the PMO; don't fear them! We're the cool kids! Or we could be! Stand with us! We are the fun percent!
Have you learned nothing from the worldwide Occupy movement? One of these days, Dear Agency, if one is not provided, we may just storm the office and make our own party. Sit on the floor and drink egg nog and play spin the demo.
Oh, and we'll need the photocopy code so we can replicate this bum-Xeroxing thing we've all heard about from old reruns of Rhoda and Newhart. Party animals, we are. Come on, you were all there in the eighties. You had all your hair and your desks were full of blow and you partied your shoulder pads right off. Show us the way.

SAY, ISN’T THIS AGENCY PRESIDENT LARRY GOLDHAR AT THE 1992 PARTY? MUSTA BEEN COLD. MAN, YOU GUYS WERE INTREPID.

But assuming you get on board (and I do have faith), you had better plan this soon. We'll need a little notice, to get out of our shifts...catering other people's office Christmas parties.

Yours, just sitting here alone in my stilettos,
waiting,


Lisa Norton

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

touristmas time!

from TORONTO,
December 14th, 2007

"I KNOW! LET'S KILL THEM ALL!"

Oh my dear little chickens,

As I sit here in my cozy apartment with just eleven days 'til Christmas, listening to the ba-hoo da-hoos of all the Whos down in Whoville serenading me from my stereo, while cinnamon sticks simmer in water on the stove in order to fill the place with fragrant ambience and generally waste electricity as I write to you, I can't help but get that warm feeling in my cockles once again. That's right, my cockles are warmed. I may not know what they are exactly, but warmed they are, friends, thinking of how lucky I am to know such a lot of wonderful people.

And when I reflect further, on how very blessed you all are to know me......well then I get positively teary. Oh, you lucky, lucky bastards. God bless you, every one.

THE SPIRIT

So yes, I'm finally getting into full Christmas spirit. It comes late to me every year; I'm the one bitching about the carols playing in the stores week after week until I finally realize, Oh yeah. I guess it's acceptable to play Jingle Bells on December 23rd. And maybe I should start thinking about presents.

Matthew Edison (talented actor/playwright and fortunate friend of the Tourist) was commenting on the whole Christmas spirit thing yesterday. I noted that he was out wearing a green sweater layered over a red t-shirt (no pants of course) and asked whether this had been a conscious holiday-dressing choice, and he said that, yes, at this time of year he purposely tries to work a little red and green into his outfit every day. He went on to say that nothing brings on that holiday feeling like faking it for a while. Wear the red and green, put on the carols, watch the TV specials, and pretty soon you're running around feeling positively elf-like. I likened it to the proven physiological phenomenon that if you're feeling down and fake a smile it will trigger something that actually makes you feel happier. Unless, as Mr Edison pointed out, you actually have a damn good reason to be really miserable, in which case that theory is a load of crap.

THE SPECIALS
I have watched my share of the old TV Christmas specials this year. I might even try for A Charlie Brown Christmas this time, even though, let's face it - EVERYTHING ABOUT CHARLIE BROWN IS TOTALLY BORING AND SUCKS MY ASS. Except the music, which I can listen to on CD anytime without subjecting myself to a half hour of that bald little wet blanket and his boring so-called friends. And his smart-ass dog.

Have you ever noticed that the Peanuts books fall into two categories - those titled things like "It's Raining on Your Parade, Charlie Brown" or "Strike Three, Charlie Brown!"...... and those called "You're Our Kind of Dog, Snoopy!" and "You've Got to Be You, Snoopy!"? (All actual titles.) I mean, Charlie Brown, you poor son of a bitch. Everyone likes your dog better than you. Though perhaps that's pretty common among real people, too. A college friend and I once came up with our own list of great Peanuts titles, including "You're a Bald Little Boy, Charlie Brown", "Your Mother Didn't Want You, Charlie Brown", and my personal favourite, the simple yet brutal "Suck it, Charlie Brown!".

" I KNOW. LET'S KILL OURSELVES."

Back to what I was presumably talking about.....

Another show I've decided I simply can't handle is the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I just get too upset. I mean, not only is everybody unfathomably mean to poor little Rudolph, just because he has a birth defect......but they're mean to everybody else, too! There's little Hermey (voiced by Canadian actor Paul Soles), the totally Jewish, totally gay North pole elf who just wants to be a dentist and gets treated like crap by the other elves (which is particularly distressing because they're elves, for Chrissake - aren't they supposed to be nice?)....... And then even Santa's kind of a prick. At one point the elf choir, who have been practising all year, want to sing him a song, and Mrs Claus practically has to beg him to sit down and listen and then he's all, like, yeah yeah whatever I've got things to do and while they sing he fidgets and acts like an asshole and then tells them their elf-singing sucks. So no wonder they're mean to Hermey: they're working under extreme pressure, for a jerky boss who doesn't appreciate them. Bet they don't even have benefits.

At some point in this thing, Rudolph runs away and when his mom and his girlfriend Clarice want to help look for him they're told "No. A woman's place is at home. Stay here, bitches." Which always drives me nuts, because for one thing, they're not women...they're REINDEER! Anyway, they do sneak out to help look.....and they promptly land in trouble and need to be rescued. Because they're just girls after all. And don't even get me started on the Island of Misfit Toys! By the time Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh tonight, I'm yelling at the television, "No! Don't do it! Fuck him!".....And when the reindeer suddenly let him join in all their reindeer games - well don't tell me you didn't secretly hate them and their shallow changeability when you were a kid, and cross your fingers that ol' Rudy would get his revenge one day and murder them all in their sleep.

So clearly that's one Christmas special I can't watch anymore. I'm getting upset just thinking about it. I need another swig of Nog and Brandy. Ahhh....mama loves her Christmas cheer.

One that's definitely worth the time is Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, another stop-animation classic (1970), about how Kris Kringle came to be, and notable for its weird scene in which the future Mrs Claus literally lets her hair down and does a musical number straight out of an acid trip, twirling around in the daisies and singing about free love. The animation in that sequence is insane. Also notable are a bad guy called Burgermeister Meisterburger and Keenan Wynn (of film noir and Dr Strangelove fame) as the winter wizard, who gets to utter the unlikely Christmas special line "Hey, I'm not such a loser after all!"

This flick also features a song by Claus (Mickey Rooney) called A Kiss is the Price you Pay, meaning that if all the miserable kids in Sombertown will just sit on his lap and kiss him, they'll get presents. Hmm. Don't know if that song would fly today. I mean, amazing enough that all the overly protective parents of today are still okay with telling their kids a stranger's going to be sneaking into the house while they're asleep - but aside from that don't talk to strangers, of course! Poor little fuckers must be so confused. Gifts, lap-sitting, night visits from one strange old man okay.....all other strangers bad.

OTHER CHEERY STUFF
Best Christmas movie of all time, of course: Die Hard.
I also really like Elf. And in Scrooged, Bill Murray does one of the best prat falls ever recorded on film. Highly worth it for that alone.

Best Christmas song? The Christmas Song ("chestnuts roasting on an open fire" etc.) Duh. I mean it's called The Christmas Song. And if you sing it with pauses in funny places you get to say things like:

Everybody knows a turkey.
...And some mistletoe helps to make the season bright.

Not to mention:

They know that Santa's on his way. He's loaded!
....Lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.

I'm also partial to Baby it's Cold Outside. It makes me want to rub myself against things. See? Christmas can be fun in ways you never knew.

My favourite holiday image so far this year: About a month ago, went past the Eaton Centre Christmas windows on the streetcar when they had just been unveiled....and saw three grown men, strangers to one another, standing transfixed by a bunch of mechanical elves working in Santa's workshop. One Two Three: Awwwwwww.

My newly invented Christmas salad recipe: Baby spinach, pomegranate seeds, pecans, with a little olive oil and lemon juice as dressing. So festive in its red and green deliciousness that if you partake of too much food and drink at Christmas dinner and end up ill, you get to celebrate the colours all over again! YAY!

You will note that I keep talking about Christmas. I haven't mentioned Hannukah, or Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice or any of those other crazy chinky jew holidays.....'cause lets face it - I don't know shit about them, so I'm not gonna pretend that I do. The extent of my Hannukah knowledge comes from the fact that I was dating a Jewish boy last winter - and all I learned then was that all Jews are really really good at spinning dreidels and that if you keep one under your Christmas tree, it will keep them occupied for hours. I do plan to attend the Kensington Market Festival of Lights pagan solstice celebration (http://www.redpepperspectaclearts.org/) again this year, but that's just because they set a lot of shit on fire at the end. Seriously, it is the best event in Toronto all year - go if you can (December 21st, procession starts 6pm).

THE STUFF

I am trying to rethink my whole "buy lots of crap that no one really needs" approach to Christmas. I mean, my gift from my friend Kendra yesterday was a pretty little reusable jar of dulce de leche sauce that she made herself. I was happy as pie. After all, I really do need more caramelly, gooey ice cream in my life. And she got to be deemed my favourite friend ever without having to brave the malls or break the bank. So yeah, now you know: want to be my favourite friend ever? Give me food. Let the competition begin.

Here is the link to a film that I honestly believe everyone in the world should see, especially this time of year. Actually we probably should have seen something like this years ago, and taken it to heart.

http://www.storyofstuff.com//

It's a twenty minute animated piece about the hamster wheel that is consumer culture....it is funny, and engaging, and very smart. Please watch it when you have time. And then maybe you'll still head out in your brand new SUV and buy loads of crap that no one needs.....but not without feeling very, very bad about it. And so my work here will be done.

THE REST

So tomorrow I think I shall go and get the tree. I do love to kill a tree for my own personal viewing pleasure. And after the pleasant warm fuzzy feeling I got from helping Kendra decorate her tree as her baby snoozed nearby and I occasionally tickled her soft little belly (the baby's, not Kendra's - though who could lose either way?)........ I thought, hey, maybe when I get my tree I'll call my sister and ask her to come over and help me decorate. But then I remembered the fight that consistently brought about all through our childhoods. Every year the family would decorate the tree together, and every year Nancy would curate the tree. Seven year-old me would hang an ornament...and twelve year-old Nancy would move it. Over and over again, everyone would place our angels and stars and bows and see them disappear. Something about proportion or colour scheme or lighting.... Of course, eventually I became her eager apprentice, learning her (quite sophisticated) principles of tree decorating, and then we drove our parents insane together. They just gave up and drank. And eventually divorced. OH GAWWWWWD!

I have successfully evaded Christmas shopping with my mom once again this year. Not that I don't enjoy spending eighteen hours straight in an outlet mall..... but she also has this amazing ability to make you end up carrying all of her stuff for her, and you have no memory of how it happened. Seriously, my sister and I have both been amazed by this for years. It's some kind of hypnotism or sleight of hand or something; we have no idea how she does it.

AND FINALLY....

The advice of the century, just in time for 2008......

HOW TO MAKE YOUR KID BEHAVE THE WHOLE YEAR ROUND.

1. Encourage your child to compile his Christmas list early, say just after this Christmas is over.

2. Post it in a prominent location in your home.

3. Every time your kid does something naughty, sadly shake your head and say "Oh well, I guess that means Santa won't be bringing you this" - and cross an item off the list.

4. Repeat step 3 as needed.

5. Come December 24th, provided there is anything left on the list, buy it. If everything is crossed off, don't buy a damn thing......and enjoy your holiday, knowing that the coming year will bring you a possibly shaky, terrified and nervous, but incredibly well behaved child.

Afraid the kid will step up to the plate and be so good that he'll actually earn his entire list of ninety outrageously priced gadgets? Never fear: he will make a valiant effort as the list dwindles, but dwindle it will - no kid can be that good. And you can always resort to crossing things off for the most minor infractions. "Oh, sweetie.....you didn't tie your laces very well. You know, Santa hates that. Too bad he can see you."

(This plan has been parent approved, and is guaranteed not to backfire until some kid in the schoolyard informs your child that there is no Santa Claus and the reason he got nothing three years running is that his parents hate him. Then get the hell out of town and hope your offspring doesn't track you down. And don't come crying to me, lady.)

Well my sugar plums, Happy Holidays. And to quote those freaky little Whos in Whoville, remember:

Christmas day is in our grasp

So long as we have hands to clasp!

And if you don't have hands.....well then I guess you're screwed. In that case....Happy New Year! May someone buy you hands in 2008!

I simply must go (baby it's cold outside)....

The Tourist

the skeptical tourist vs. santa claus

From TORONTO,
DECEMBER 31st, 2006

My dear smushy sweet wonderful people......I have so much useless information for you, it boggles the mind. Where could one possibly begin? By giving you each an electronic holiday hug? By sending on Joy and Peace and crap like that? By telling you all about New York.....or the rest of the run of the show.....or my peaceful yet weird and unpredictable life of the moment? By absolving those of you who only ever get this far into one of my emails and then give up and go pick your noses and watch reruns of The Simpsons? By cursing those people who never even open them and just say "Oh, fucking Norton again."? Yeah. Let's start there. Screw those people. They suck anyway. I hope their 2007 is GARBAGE.

As for you.....well, enough about you. I mean, who am I kidding? As for ME, it all began in a shady New Orleans neighbourhood, where as a child I went from house to house selling coal to prostitutes in the red light district. Oh wait, that's Louis Armstrong. Sometimes I get us confused. (Useless Norton fact number one: I'm on part nine of Ken Burns' Jazz Miniseries. If I start talking about my gigs at Birdland and my heroin addiction - okay, well that part's true.) Who knows what lies I might tell you tonight? The other day I was so worn out from Christmas shopping and lack of sleep that I very nearly told the cashier at National Sports that I needed artichokes, Kalamata olives and a chicken. If only life were that easy.

Last we communed across the web of the wide world, I was telling you all about my (first ever) trip to Vancouver. I ran out of time, and energy, and the will to live in general - hey, it happens - and left you with a month-long cliffhanger. Stop salivating already. Cease the letter campaign. Leave my agents alone. Here, at long last, is the eagerly awaited sequel.

I came back to the T dot O dot et cetera dot in mid-October, and promptly began the run of Of Mice and Men at Canstage's prestigious yet perhaps-seen-better-days Bluma Appel theatre. (Sorry, Bluma: the 80s chandeliers are not lookin' so state o' the art these days.) One or two days of tech and the rehearsing in of a new dog and we were ready to go.

This, of course, would be our fourth official dog on the production. Dog number one, who so convincingly captured the energy of the old, sick, blind animal Steinbeck describes in the novel - wait for it - dropped dead before rehearsals even began. The Calgary Herald, which had shown an almost freakish obsession with our dog casting from the beginning, ran a front-page obit in which the dog's owners said that his ashes would reside next to the family hamster's cage so that the two animals could "talk to one another". Hm.

In a clear backlash against that experience, the replacement dog was Pookie, a spry, happy young thing who, in his scant two previews, was every bit as excited to meet the audience as they were to see him. Thank you Pookie, we have your resume on file.

Our third dog, Maggie, who apparently wowed 'em on the casting couch, was slow, partially deaf, had cataracts and a bad hip, and weighed at least two hundred pounds completely dry. I loved her. She had to be coaxed onto the stage and was just gonna sit wherever she was gonna sit. She might make it all the way to her mark.....or she might barely get onstage and decide it was time for a nap. By the end of the run, though, she knew her cues better than some of the human actors and, according to her owner, was showing signs of a new lease on life. Having a job had given her a sense of purpose, and approaching show-time, even on the day off, she would go out to the car, wagging her tail and eager to go perform. I fear old Maggie didn't deal too well with the closing. Following a brief appearance in Nunsense 3 at Stagewest, she found it hard to get acting work. She's now flipping burgers at a Calgary McDonalds and drinking heavily. But we've all been there, Mags. I mean, at least to buy a Happy Meal or something.

That brings us to Watson, our Toronto dog.....who was one of those hardcore method acting dogs who thought it necessary to live every detail of his character, particularly his oft-mentioned deathly stink, completely fully. I'm not sure how he did it, but MAN did that dog smell. I stopped petting him when I realized it was affecting my social life. Talk about taking "the method" too far! I mean, I may have given the occasional handjob in my dressing room to get inside the mind of a character that everyone calls a tramp.....but I was getting paid extra for that! Jeez.

Dogstink aside, the Toronto run went well. Our entire time at the Bluma coincided exactly with the construction of a three thousand story condo tower on the adjoining property, but by all accounts, the constant bone-rattling pounding of jackhammers only served to add to the growing sense of unease in the play. It certainly added something.....every performance, as my character's inevitable demise approached, all I could think was "kill me now." Of course, we only had to put up with the construction during matinees - three times a week. And the screaming and innapropriate laughter of the student audiences was almost enough to drown out the pounding.....especially on Special Scarborough Matinees, when there would be a curtain speech welcoming and thanking members of the Future Residents of the Don Jail Club. Only six shootings the entire run - a Club record!

WARNING: ANGRY PARAGRAPH APPROACHING

I made the mistake of once again reading the reviews. I always do; I'm too nosey not to. In my particular case, the critics were split a pretty even fifty-fifty. Depending on whom you read, I was either the weakest link or one of the strongest. Which is so confusing! How am I supposed to know what to think of myself?! Oh well....guess I'll just go back to my default opinion that I AM FUCKING AWESOME. Some dickhead in the Sun, I think it was, said that the design was flawless and then in his paragraph-long diatribe against me, blamed me for the shoes I wore, of which he didn't approve. How did he know that they had made the actors stay up nights in Calgary, designing and cobbling our own shoes? Weird. The reviews that were harshest on the production were tempered by the fact that John Steinbeck himself didn't even escape the bile. Kamal Al SuckMyAss, of the Globe and Mail, said that while the novel is a beautiful and enduring classic, the play is a sentimental old chestnut that doesn't bear remounting. Strange, considering Steinbeck wrote them both and that they're almost word for word the same. Anyway, I felt in good company indeed.

Thought I'd be clever and wear the sexy green dress that I wore to the wedding in Vancouver to Canstage Opening Night. After all, it had gotten great reviews in Vancouver - strangers on the street calling out "Where did you get that dress?", gorgeous, fat burlesque dancers climbing all over me at the reception...... Who wouldn't want to repeat that? And besides, no one in Toronto had seen it. But then some stupid Ontario friends who went to the wedding just had to come to opening in Toronto, and be all supportive and stuff. Courtenay Stephens is now under the impression that I own one dress. You can't know, dear readers, how hard that is for me. ME, of all people! I actually have the biggest evening gown grow-op in Ontario. The smell of taffeta in the hallway is starting to make my neighbours suspicious.

It was a little sad to see the ol' Steinbeck go, though we had a good long run at it. Just a great gang, both on and off stage. Too bad I've forgotten all of their names. I was hoping what's his name might hire me for something some time. Oh well.

To hold the unemployment demons (albeit not the bill collectors) at bay, my mom, the lovely Lolita, suggested a mini-vacation to New York just after closing.

I think I ought to travel more in general. First of all, I love being away and broadening my horizons, if only so that I will have new and more numerous things to make fun of. And that's important. Secondly, I'm having a lot of fun, in this era of hyper-security, in seeing how much I can get away with at airports. At first, I would honestly forget I'd packed a nail clipper or a pair of tweezers or something. At the Calgary airport, I accidentally went through the scanny beepy thing (yes, that IS the technical term) with a pocket full of change - and no scanny beepiness! On my most recent flight I got through U.S. security with two lighters, several packs of matches and a dazzling assortment of undeclared liquids and gels. Next time I'm bringing a hunting knife, with which, after boarding the plane, I will pick my teeth while staring at fellow passengers in a menacing way. I'm not quite sure if there's a non menacing way to pick one's teeth with a knife while on an airplane..... If there is, I'll avoid it.

We also quite enjoyed the airport staff. Except for one dink at the Montreal airport (where we had a stopover en route to NY) who made fun of my French the second I opened my mouth and said it was "worser dan" his English, and then called me a "pretty lass"......everyone was great. A security chick at Pearson actually handed me back my I.D. saying "You're awesome". Chubby, nerdy U.S. customs officer Dansby happily chatted with us, taught us some interesting trivia, and called out "Ciao, Bella" when we walked away.

And what can I say about New York, really? First of all, I have no idea what to say because I can't remember it. It was so long ago now that I've forgotten all the details, and this as much a lesson in how old and senile I'm getting as anything else. Vague memories of tall buildings.... aggressive drivers...noise...Jon Voigt lookin' stupid...Diane Keaton in a shirt and tie...Dustin Hoffman in a dress.... Pretty good celebrity spottings, huh?

Speaking of celebrity spottings, we probably had the lamest ones of all time. We saw, not necessarily in order of unimportance: 1) The guy who plays Larry's agent, Jeff, on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe. I only saw the back of his head. 2) Some celebrity chef from some assy chef show in which he shouts at people on TV. Mom recognized him but couldn't remember his name, and if she had any feeling about him, it was a mild desire to kick him in the shins. And 3) Some Guy sitting near us in a pizzeria who I thought might be on a reality show or something but maybe not maybe he just looks like someone I knew once in school or something.

The most important person we met was probably this round and funny teenaged rapper who chatted us up and tried to get us to buy his homemade CD (after leaping out at us from behind and yelling in my ear, making me jump seven feet into the air). He said he was related to some "famous" hip hop artist I'd never heard of, and promised us he would make it big soon, too. Someday I'll see his big fat face on MTV and I'll regret not having had my picture taken with him. Or just going to bed with him, which was his other, very generous offer. He actually used the line "Once you go black you'll never go back." Look, I've had back-and-forth privileges since high-school, baby. Don't tell me where I can't go.

We did see Jon Stewart, but he wasn't within hugging - or shin-kicking - range. Mom and I are both huge fans, and this being her belated birthday vacation, I thought I'd surprise her by booking tickets to a taping of the Daily Show. Yes, free tickets, big spender that I am.....but we all know it's not about the money - or didn't you watch your Christmas specials this season, boys and girls? Of course, you can't just book tickets and show up; they routinely overbook the show by half, so you have to get there early to ensure a seat. An odd birthday present, really: Surprise! You get to sit on urine-smelling pavement for three hours waiting to see something we could have watched on TV later tonight! But we did get to see Jon in person. And he comes out between the warmup dude and the taping to field questions from the audience. I sat there petrified with fear that either Lolita would say something mortifying, or that I would be unable to stop myself from blurting out the only question I could think of, which was "WILL YOU EVER LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU?!" Not cool.

After the Daily Show we went for a fantastic dinner at a very good Ethiopian place, the name of which I of course don't remember. (See? Old.) New York - or I should say Manhattan, which was all we had time for - was a pretty great gourmet-on-a-reasonable-budget experience. Between wandering around and trusting serendipity to do its bit, which it always seems to, and an emailed Cheap Eats guide courtesy of Derrick Chua, we just went around happily stuffing our faces for four days straight. At first when deciding, we'd say, "Oh look, this place is Zagat rated"....until we noticed that every fricking restaurant in the city is in the Zagat Survey. The street meat vendors have been reviewed for God's sake. Breast-feeding babies get shoved aside by food critics: "Move it, kid; we haven't reviewed these boobs yet." "What do you have to do to get a good table at this rack?" "We gave her crotch a great rating last year - you'd think she'd be grateful for all the business we've gotten her."

My favourite may have been an adorable and delicious joint on 10th Ave called Empanada Mama. Great food, cool decor and a cute waitress with a funny accent. We thought at first of limiting our trip to Matriarchal experiences, like Don't Tell Mama piano bar, the MOMA, Empanada Mama, Mamma Mia, etc. Fortunately, we're not morons. One fun meal was at Mara's Homemade (almost a Mama name) in the East Village, a personal recommendation from Derrick, who drops in whenever he's in town. It's a Cajun/southern comfort food place, run by a cool chick from Texas who you'd swear was a born-and-raised New York Jew. We feasted on oysters and barbeque ribs and catfish and collard greens and crawfish etoufee and sucked back hurricanes all night.

When Mama Lo was in the washroom having her wash, I secretly ordered a chocolate souffle, and when it came, I, timid Canadian, coaxed a bunch of New Yorkers into singing her Happy Birthday. Dessert was warm and gorgeous and gooey, and I was feeling the same way at this point, so I decided then to be all generous and make this a Big Birthday Meal On Me. Of course, I was doing the math through a haze of rum and chocolate......so it didn't turn out quite as smooth and cool as intended. "Happy Birthday! Um.....do you have a twenty on you?" And then we walked out into a crazy wind and rainstorm. Hey, better than the pee-covered sidewalk.

Our hotel was The Paramount on 46th Street, a block from Times Square and right across from the half-price ticket booth. It's a pretty groovy boutique hotel where everything is designed by Philippe Starck, and where they pay good looking people to hang about the lobby being cool. Shaun Smyth later told me there's a line in Patrick Marber's play Closer about the Paramount Hotel being staffed entirely by hookers. So you can get a little more than a mint on your pillow if you know what I mean. If only I'd known. Come on, people, you need to give me useful travel tips before I go somewhere.

The rooms, according to the Paramount website, feature "the now legendary gilt-framed headboards, most depicting images from famous Vermeer paintings". Ours were blank. Blank canvasses. Legendary my ass. Mama Lolita suggested we fill them in with our sharpies. I was thinking feces. You know, I like to live on the edge. Plus I like to mention poo in my emails whenever possible.

Speaking of legendary art/poo (check this segueway, people!), we spent most of one day at the MOMA, which was fantastic. Had the classic "I could have made that" vs. "Yeah but you didn't" argument, which is unresolvable but fun.

Did Central Park, too, of course. I'd convinced La Lolita to add one pair of non-pointy, un-high-heely shoes to her collection - and that was a struggle; we kept the staff at Discount Shoe Warehouse up waaay past their bedtimes, while she tried on every shoe in the place....including all the pointy black leather high-heeled boots. Anyway, I had to teach her how to walk in flat shoes, and she did crawl a lot of the way, but we had a lovely time, and Central Park was amazingly beautiful and still autumnal, by which I mean lots of purty leaves on the trees.

Have I mentioned the weather? Aside from that windy rainstorm - which was a lot of fun to walk in, actually, and strangely pretty in its spectacle of abandoned broken umbrellas everywhere like the corpses of crows - the weather was amazing. Mostly grey, but so beautifully warm that we were walking around in T-shirts half the time. We're talking mid-November here. We'd walk out of our hotel, take off our coats....and Al Gore would come running across the street with a blanket, crying "Cover yourselves up for Chrissake! Don't encourage it!" Poor Al. If only he could learn to love Global Warming, like the rest of us.

We only hit one play while in town. I figure we watch so much theatre at home that we didn't need to spend our entire vacation sitting inside in the dark. I mean it's not like we're from Moosenee and only get to see the local seniors put on Dreamgirls once a year. Our pick was The Drowsy Chaperone, good little Canadians that we are. I had seen the Toronto Fringe production in '99, and it was great to see it all expanded and so successful.

Our only other dark theatre experience was seeing Babel at the fifty-something screen Empire Theater on 42nd Street, and we only did that because some passerby, hearing us discuss whether we were too tired for it, fairly forced us to go inside. The man felt so strongly about us seeing this movie, I thought he'd cry if we chose not to. I now suspect he works there. When we left, he was in tears telling some tourists how moved he was by Jackass 2.

All in all, New York was fucking fantastic. I found myself, while looking down from a revolving restaurant high above the city, thinking "How do I get to live here?" And wondering how long it would take until I did. This was on my very first day. People who know me even a little have always told me I would love New York. They were definitely not wrong.

Since coming home, I've been living the unemployed life, catching up with friends and my apartment, celebrating Christmas with my family, doing the occasional audition. Don't think life is all just one big lazefest for me, though: I've decided to devote myself quite seriously to the art of masturbation. I mean, there are just too many armchair masturbators out there who do it as a hobby, and not enough people really putting in the time and dedication it takes to further it as an art form. I proudly consider myself a professional. For tips on how to join our ranks, go to www.wanking/whyjustahobby.ca .

Another industrious move is my taking baby steps toward getting my driver's license at long last. I'm doing Young Drivers of Canada, and my Dad's joke that I should be at Middle-aged Drivers was confirmed when I walked into a YD classroom full of sixteen year-olds. The in-class portion of the training was all this week at Bloor and Islington, with a bunch of rich Etobicoke kids who can't wait to get their hands on Daddy's SUV. I mean, teenagers have always wanted Hummers, but that used to mean something different. Something much more innocent.

At first I was disheartened by how reticent these kids were. They were so concerned with being cool, so worried about looking stupid, that they wouldn't answer anything, let alone ask any questions. For instance, there were the Sarahs, two blond high school hotties and obvious BFFs (that's Best Frendz 4Evah, oldie). The Sarahs sat at the back and didn't talk to anyone except each other and their cell phones. If the instructor asked one of them a question, they'd look at one another and giggle and say "I dun-noOOoo". If anyone else spoke to them, you'd hear a faint beeping and a tiny voice calling "Intruder Alert. Intruder alert. Outsider attempting entry to Sarahtown." Yeah. It was weird. Lucky for you, if they ever manage to get licensed they will outfit their matching Escalades with vanity plates that say I'MDUM and YAY. Wow... Should I have put an anger warning on this paragragh, too? You'd think cute blond girls were mean to me in high school. When in fact it was the Chinese.

Over the week, a few of the students did come out of the cool shell, which is nice. My favourite was The Doomsayer, who seemed to have a morbid example for everything the instructor brought up. Like "Yeah, you have to be careful? Cuz my cousin was driving, right? And this guy threw down a bucket of acid from an overpass? And it like burned through her windshield and melted her face." Or "I read in the paper one time about how with hatchbacks, sometimes all four tires just, like, fly of off all of a sudden. And then you get raped."

The holidays have been great except for the complete lack of snow. For those of you not in Toronto, we didn't have a single flake of snow for Christmas. Well, there was one......but he looked around, said "What the hell....I thought there was supposed to be a party down here tonight," and went straight back up. Al Gore ran after him, screaming "Come back!!! Come back!!!! Bring your friends! Pleeeeeeeaaaase!!!!!"

Tonight is New Year's Eve and I'm exhausted, since Tracy Dawson and I went out last night determined to go dancing the night before New Years Eve, and I was up till five. I hate going out on the 31st and being surrounded by drunken assholes. I'm drunken asshole enough for me, thank you very much. I don't need any other morons stealing my thunder. Shortly I shall rent some stupid movies and head over to Bunker's to hang about and try to feel the year change.

I do encourage you all to make at least one New Year's Resolution, the Lisa Norton way, which is......pick something easy! Really....choose one or more totally attainable goals and don't worry about the big ones like "Quit Smoking" and "Stop the Killing Spree". You will never win with those. A couple of years ago, I chose "Take the Stairs", and I have scarcely ridden an escalator since. Last year? Stop complaining about the weather. And my great big resolution this year: Don't Swallow Your Gum. This one I started early, and it's proving SO DAMN EASY that I may have to add another. Of course I have been swallowing gum for twenty years or more, so I may have a relapse at some point. If I show up at your house at three a.m. begging for Hubba Bubba, well.... give me some. But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make sure I throw it out when I'm done. Anyway, regarding my next resolution, I'm open to suggestions. As long as you take mine. You shall begin by wearing less underwear. And drinking eight to ten glasses of brine per day. Nothing like it for the kidneys. Send ideas to: http://www.youhavetoomuchtimeonyourhandsnortonyouidiot@loser.net/

Stay tuned for tips on how to live like a tourist in your own hometown, a fool-proof method for making your children behave, and instructions for building an eight foot christmas tree out of pipe cleaners and icing sugar. Oh, who am I fooling? I already told you that all I do is play with myself.

Keep hope alive (unless it signed something saying it didn't want to be on life support),

Your coolest friend,

Lisa