From TORONTO,
March 16th, 2009
One year ago, Deeply Blessed Reader, I treated you to a little (invaluable, indespensably brilliant) missive containing The Skeptical Tourist's Advice to Young Actors. (See "The Practical Artist", March 2008 in The Skeptical Archives, at right.)
Since then, my people have been regaled, all but constantly, with demands for more. "What else?", you cry! How this, and Why that, and More More More!
When I run into recent theatre school graduates, or hold one of my impromptu five-hour talks in one of the schools, I am bombarded by young people who weep, fall to their knees, and tell me how much my advice has helped in their careers. Or something like that.
So now, Dear Readers, I lift you gently from the dirty ground and direct your humble eyes to my latest words of wisdom for those Treaders of the Boards out there. BEHOLD, my Little Reader:
THE SKEPTICAL TOURIST'S ADVICE TO YOUNG ACTORS......VOLUME II! The Super Awesome 2009 Holiday Spectacular (err....Spring Equinox? St. Patrick's Day?), Back By Popular Demand, New Improved Lost Weight Haven't You, Love the Hair, My God You're Sexy Edition! (Et cetera.)
And so I begin. Last time around, as you well remember, I gave a general(ly incredible) overview of the entire Business of Acting; today I will concentrate primarily on the stage itself(Which is usually very dirty, by the way, so always wear rubber gloves as part of any costume.)
First, some notes on connecting with your audience:
Since humour is the surest way to people's hearts (well, that and gifted oral), and since the whole point of this performing thing is to be the one they love the most....make 'em laugh!
Looking to spice up that little Holocaust comedy you're starring in? A well-placed fart joke goes a long way. But six fart jokes go even further.
Other popular methods include simulated humping (real humping reserved for dramatic moments/edgy Canadian plays only), open zippers on or around the crotch area, tripping, falling, double takes, spit takes, double spit takes, triple sow cow one eyebrow inverse reactive spit takes, and poo.
It's important to make eye contact with the audience as much as possible. This way, you can directly monitor that all-important connection, remaining in constant touch with how much the viewers are enjoying themselves. And it gives you something to do when you get bored. Calibrate your fart jokes according to both enjoyment levels, theirs and yours.
More essentially, this is your chance to scope out attractive audience members and decide which fans you'd like delivered to your dressing room for the traditional post-show psychedelic orgy.
In the case that there is an awards jury member, critic, or adjudicator of any kind at your performance that night, be extra diligent in maintaining eye contact and directing all your attention his/her way. It helps that you will have been alerted to the presence of such people by your faithful ushers, who will assist by keeping a flashlight beam continually trained on their faces throughout the show, making their reactions easier to spot. Again, adjust your performance as necessary. Lift your skirt in the critic's direction. Flash a little leg. Or a hundred dollar bill. Work his name into the show. In the case of The Toronto Star's Richard Ouzounian, make the play a musical that night. Jazz hands, people. And beam the entire curtain call at him. As he's running down the aisle towards the exit.
Find a way to make your character distinct. This needn't be anything huge or outrageous; something subtle like a hunchback or a twitch can be an equally effective choice. Be aware, though, that everything must increase exponentially in relation to the size of the theatre. In a larger space, try combining two or three memorable traits, such as the limp-funny accent-constant scratching combo. New York actors have been experimenting of late with exciting new combos, such as the funny accent-eye patch-projectile vomiting blend, with some success. Make this your own. Note, however, that 89% of successful combinations do begin with a funny accent. Hopefully your acting school will have given you the fundamentals you need to do dozens of dialects very badly. (Good renditions are rarely funny.)
Speaking of schools.....I must here take a moment to address a disturbing trend in actor training, something that's been upsetting me since first I heard about it. A lot is made, in theatre schools these days, of an experimental concept called "generosity". You must give to the other actors onstage, say your professors; you must make yourself "available" and "share" and be "unselfish".
Well, listen up, Young Actors! You needn't listen to this lousy bunch of Communists! This is America! (What's that, Editor?) This is Canada! And my forbears didn't fight for my rights, didn't forge the Declaration of Inde- What's that? - Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Emancipation Procla-Constitution just so I could be told by some precious pansy (peculiar purple pie) Professor wearing a beret and an I Vote Arts and Culture pin, that I have give up those hard-earned rights and SHARE.
I refuse to be ashamed of myself! Don't you back down either, Actor-Reader! Take pride in who you are, white, black or...those other things! Take centre stage, God Dammit! And only move when you want to! Say what you want to say! And never, ever, look another actor in the eye! (Unless she has, say, green eyes and pretty lips and you plan to do her later.)
Pay no heed to the barefoot tree-hugging hippies who are trying to strip you of your rights as a Performer! Leave them, I say, in your theatrical dust! (Which is made of ground-up pixies, by the way, and available for sale at Theatrebooks on St. Thomas Street, just $18.99 a gram.)
Someone else who will try to tell you what to do is that asshole, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Some actors take his advice to the players as the word of God himself. But sawing the air with your hands and strutting and bellowing are staples of any strong performance. (In concert with twitches and flatulence.) And if you can't tear a passion to tatters, what can you do with it?
Hold fast, Young Thespian. Take my advice, keep getting better - though, sadly, never quite as good as me - and I will see you out there. I look forward to sharing the stage with you. Except not. You know what I mean.
Go, make you ready,
The Tourist
See The Tourist put all these principles - and more! - into action, in And Up They Flew, on now until April 4th at Toronto's Berkeley Street Theatre. www.theatrecolumbus.ca or 416 368 3110 for tickets.
the skeptical stage
lisa vs norton
From TORONTO,
February 11th, 2009
Lisa Michele Norton was born in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in 1975, into a family who loved her and whose names (Lolita, Mike and Nancy) began with letters that made up her initials. They later said this was coincidence. It made her feel, however, like the centre of their universe. This could be what you call "formative". Her initials are also in alphabetical order, a fact which always made her secretly believe she would one day marry a man named O'Patrick, thus becoming L.M.N.O.P.
Lisa's alter ego, Norton (one name, like Rihanna or Snoopy or Cher), was born a few years later, but is also somehow infinitely older. Norton raised herself.
The Skeptical Tourist came from Outer Space. To be reared on Earth by wild dogs.
Lisa remembers, at about age five or so, a legendary pie. The day her mother made the legendary pie, lemon meringue, her favourite. She remembers peering up at the kitchen counter, at all the mysterious implements, the strange actions. Rolling pin and alchemical charts; the dust of flour floating through a beam of light that shot through the kitchen window, a perfect afternoon light, a perfect summer afternoon. The comfort of being just knee-high to everything; of being surrounded, protected. The magic of pie, of lemon meringue, and of love.
Her mother claims Lisa's memory is faulty; continues to insist that this was not the ONLY pie she ever made. Lisa only pretends to believe her.
Norton's earliest memory is of arriving at Grey Owl Junior Public on the very first day of school, triumphant atop her dad's big black ten-speed. Pulling up, right to the door, the Queen of Sheba in the child seat, up so high above all the other kids who waited, leaning against the brick wall of the kindergarten, to be let in; being lifted down from up on high (in slow motion, it seemed) and lowered into the throng of staring children, who all gasped out in unison, "Wooooooow".
Lisa was named after a kid in her sister's class at school. I wonder where that kid is now.
Lisa is a girl.
Norton is a motorcycle.
The Tourist is a piece of macaroni.
Lisa's sister regularly forced her (crying, terrified) to put on cabarets for the family. So Norton became a performer. But Lisa is the better actor.
NORTON TAKES OVER.
Norton once worked at the LCBO and loved load day. Down in the store basement, running around, grabbing boxes from an ever-full conveyer belt, she got to feel her muscles growing stronger while people shouted things like "Move that skid!" and "Coming through!" and "Count of three!" Picking up two cases of wine, one on top of the other, to keep up with the boys.....the camaraderie of ice packs....the satisfaction of a sore back. The ladies all holding their own, "I'm stronger than I look, assholes", singing along to the Mighty Q, laughing, lifting, laughing....
(Lisa liked the way the boxes looked piled high and lined up row on row like a city of cardboard skyscrapers; she loved their numbers facing all the same way, their edges lined up nicely; balance, symmetry. She enjoyed the even numbers of six-packs, of two-fours, of cases of twelve; the ring of "Seven Hundred and Fifty Millilitres". She didn't care for ounces. Where did ounces fit in anyway?)
Lisa likes filing.
Lisa is a Virgo. Norton is a Scorpio. The Tourist thinks it's all a load of crap.
(TRYING TO CRACK UP CASEY WONG)
So does the Tourist.
Occasionally, even Lisa's caught on film.
Lisa was de-virginized in high school. Norton was born experienced. The Tourist thinks that virgins past sixteen are a myth, like satyrs or the Sphinx.....at least in Scarborough.
All three are perpetually two years behind on their taxes and many more behind on filing GST. They blame each other. Lisa starts to hyperventilate and cry when opening those off-brown envelopes from Revenue Canada. But Norton wins over the tax collectors. The GST agent assigned to her file recently wished her good luck on her upcoming show. They wished one another fond Happy New Years, and the agent is pleasantly surprised when Norton calls. She sniffs the cheques that Norton sends for traces of her scent.
Lisa fears she will never find true love. Norton and the Tourist both say "Fuck it".
In grade three, Norton forced her friends to perform in elaborate stagings of fairy tales strongly influenced by "Disney Classics", in front of the whole class. She was playwright, tyrannical director and star....though she did once cast herself in the more minor role of Sleepy dwarf, as, A) It was full of comic opportunity, and, B) She bristled at her grade three colleagues' assumption that she would play Snow White merely because she had black hair, pale skin and ruby lips. (Okay, so she didn't have ruby lips; I made up that last part. - The Tourist)
Lisa is easily humiliated. On the rare occasion she's involved in any kind of verbal altercation, she turns bright red and goes over every word that was said for hours.
Norton is dying to be on the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. If Lisa shows up we're in trouble. The Tourist would rock....or get the show a lot of angry letters.
Norton once gave a rollicking, rude, politically outspoken interview to Eye Magazine, completely on the record, but the writer, whom I daresay had a minor crush and didn't want her to get in trouble, instead wrote a lovely story about Lisa, and how doggone nice she was, and gee how much she loved being an actress.
Lisa says Hee Hee Hee.
Norton says HA HA.
(The Tourist says a doo doo doo, a da da da, this is what I say to you.)
Lisa has a recurring dream that she can breathe underwater. It's always so realistic that she is regularly devastated ten minutes after waking when it dawns on her that it isn't true. Sometimes even in the light of day she believes she's not like other people, and that if she just stuck her face in the water while having a bath and took a deep breath, she'd be fine. She keeps on meaning to try it.
Norton loves any kind of powder candy. Pixie Stix, Rockets, Lik'm'Aid.... Lisa makes soup and bakes cookies. The Tourist will eat anything, but do you think she ever lifts a finger to help?
When Lisa was seven, she made fast friends with a girl her grandmother babysat. They were in love with Eric Estrada and Larry Wilcox of the TV series Chips, and one day, while Grandma was upstairs and they were downstairs watching the show, they decided to write them a letter telling them so.
DEAR ERIC AND THE BLOND GUY. WE LOVE YOU. WE LOVE CHIPS. WILL YOU MARRY US?
They drew pictures of the men with their best crayons, folded the letter and addressed the outside with "CHIPS GUYS, HOLLYWOOD, U.S.A." Then, because they thought this was how it worked, they placed it in Lisa's grandparents' mailbox where the mailman would come and take it away. Instead, of course, her grandmother found it in the mail and read it, returning it directly to the girls. Grandma likely never gave it another thought; for Lisa, it was the most humiliating, mortifying moment of her young life. The girls fought over whose stupid idea it had been to put the letter in the house's mailbox.....and from then on could barely look each other in the eye without acute embarrassment, let alone be friends. Good thing Norton can laugh about it now.
Lisa is afraid of lots of things. For instance: spinning classes. She has yet to take one. The whole thing's terrifying: the hellish stench emerging from the glass cage where it takes place; the techno music; the fierce, tiny woman on the bike at the front of the class screaming "GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!" Norton could probably teach it. (The Tourist thinks it's just a load of crap.)
Lisa likes to be alone. Norton likes that, too. The Tourist just wants them to get it on already. Can't they see that they're in love?
Sometimes people invite Norton to the party and Lisa shows up. She does her best Norton imitation but the jokes are just not flowing. She wishes she could come back in the door and be herself.
The Skeptical Tourist hates Facebook. Lisa admits that maybe it helped her feel a bit less lonely the last week or two. (Lisa is going through a breakup, and it's hard. Norton hates herself for telling you that. The Tourist wonders whether it will land her any dates.)
Lisa fears she'll never write anything of note.
Norton brags that she will be the perpetrator of the Great Canadian Novel someday.
The Skeptical Tourist thinks this blog is the greatest accomplishment known to upright man and why bother trying to top that?
She may have a point.
the norton resolutions
From TORONTO
December 31st, 2008
You know, My Ruggedly Handsome and/or Voluptuously Stunning Reader, if you've been following along as you should (and if not, I don't even know why we're having this conversation - I spit in your lazy face! That's right.....but in a hot, sexy way. You know you love it, you filthy little slavehog, you.) Where was I?
Ahem. If you've been following along.....you will know my feelings on annual New Year's resolutions . Ridiculous, I always thought, and doomed to failure. Why bother? Why vow every year that we will become hipper, faster, stronger - when we would be better to just accept that we are pathetic, fat, uneducated losers and get on with it already.
More recently I thought, Hey (ding!), let me not be quite so defeatist about this whole thing. Why not set really, really easy goals for myself .....and then feel an incredibly huge sense of accomplishment for, say, ceasing to pee all over the toilet seat or for giving up eating cold lard in the New Year?
Hence, the last three years my New Year's resolutions have been as follows:
2006: Don't complain about the weather
2007: Take the stairs
2008: Stop swallowing gum
For the most part I've been successful in achieving these by-my-standards impressively challenging goals, though the gum-swallowing is still one day at a time. I'm not a former gum-swallower; I'm a recovering one, and will forever be.
But Lo! Behold! Hold the proverbial phone! Stop the virtual press! A heretofore unexperienced sensation has siezed me this year; a desire to set actual, real, difficult challenges for myself and then -gasp! - go about achieving them. What the fuck is going on?! Is it the lack of challenge in my everyday life? The need, at age thirty-three, to feel a true sense of accomplishment without actually, you know, having babies or getting a real job? Why so suddenly sick of easy and longing for HARD (oh yeah, baby)? Who cares why. There it is.
So, Without further ado, The Skeptical Tourist's Resolutions, 2009 Edition, are as follows:
I RESOLVE...
To Eat Some Human Flesh.
"What?!" you may be saying to yourself, "The Skeptical Tourist has never eaten human flesh? You must be joking!" But it's true, Astonished Reader. I've always meant to, of course, but have been held back by my irrational aversion to actually killing anyone. I mean, it would be a little silly to murder a whole person just to try a bite or, at most, a sandwich; what if I don't even like it? Maybe I could have some hardcore cannibals standing by ready to efficiently use up the rest? (Could be a way to meet some interesting new people.)
I'm sure, though, that I could find several individuals on the worldwide interweb who would be willing, disturbingly happy even, to volunteer to let me bite off a hunk of bicep or something.
Better yet....I'll carve a cut of my own tasty thigh, thereby also saving hours of useless toil at the gym. They do say the flavour's in the fat, am I right?
I RESOLVE.....
To Wear More Makeup and Sluttier Clothing.
Let's face it, time's a tickin'. I can't get away with dressing like a whore forever. So why not go big in '09?
To Keep in Better Touch with Mariah Carey and the Dalai Lama.
They keep having to do Mariah-Lisa-Dalai night without me. Sorry, guys!
To Make Some Negro Friends.
I have got Jamie Robinson. But he only counts as half. Plus it's hard to keep in touch with him because he's always busy eating watermelon and running fast. Then there's Marcia Johnson.... but she just wants me for my body. And you know how I feel about that these last two days.
Other from that, since I work in Canadian theatre, I haven't actually seen a real-life black person since leaving Scarborough in 1994. Therefore, Concernedly Weeping Reader, if you actually know/have seen/are a real black person, please feel free to help me with this.
Lucky coloured candidates can contact me at:
Lisa Can I Be Your Negro Friend
P.O. Box 779, Station A
Toronto, ON M6R 3A6
or at wantsitblack88@lavalife.com. (See profile in the "Casual Encounters" section.) What? Just covering all my bases.
Oh, and applicants should remember to include a photo and 500 word essay on how they would culturally enrich my life.
I RESOLVE....
To Finally Live Out My Life-Long Goal of Blowing Up Revenue Canada.
Hey, and if I do it during office hours....maybe that's where all the roasted human flesh could come from! Guilt free!
Bonus: This is bound to help me realize that other life-long dream to get a day named after me. This would for sure put me over that Guy Fawkes dude, am I right? And Sarah Polley could play me in the movie.
To Learn How to Wilfully Breathe Out of Just One Nostril at a Time.
Come on, you try it! Not so easy is it, huh, Smugface?
To Start Documenting My Dreams Once and for all.
And then use them as the basis for a multi-million dollar hit film about a hobo and a skunk and my grandma who go on an adventure in a forest which is sort of a forest but sometimes sort of like my Junior High and sort of sometimes like my living room and then these guys are there whose heads are made of rubber bands and all my hair falls out and oh yeah Sylvester Stallone and Elizabeth May are there dancing the tango* but then suddenly I'm underwater and it's so cool cuz I can breathe and all the sharks are made of gorgonzola and I wake up screaming.
Three words for you. Box. Office. Gold.
(And Sarah Polley as Stallone.)
I RESOLVE....
To Start My Own Fashion Line and Call it Leese's Pieces.
To Master Not Only Peeing Standing Up, but Pooing, too.
Wish me luck. Accompanying video and inevitable worldwide YouTube sensation to follow.
To Quit Trying to Learn New Languages and Just Make Up My Own Already.
My language would rock, admit it. Will someone donate a tropical island for me to speak it on?
To Wear a Different Pair of Underwear Every Day.
Novel, I know. But worth a try. Fans keep mailing me sexy panties; the least I can do is try to get through them.
To Jump Out of an Airplane.
Or a moving bus.
Or maybe my bed.
To Finally Give in to Beyonce's Management and Let Her Have That Threesome with My Boyfriend and Me.
NO, Jay-Z, you're not invited. Go play with your money. I'll have her back by Tuesday. She's gonna be my special black friend.
To Give Up My Only Intermittently Successful Campaign to Stop Biting My Nails, Instead Seeing if I Can Go Right Through Them and Eat My Entire Hand off.
Hey - that would solve the human flesh conundrum, too! FUCK I'm smart!
To Make Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, Lick the Bottom of My Shoe.
You do know he's into that in private, right?
To Cause, Through Meditation, Hypnotism and Special Apparatus, My Left Foot to Grow Three Sizes Larger, While Making my Right Foot Shrink to a Five and a Half.
To Stop Being so Cold and Suspicious and Get to Know all My Neighbours. Biblically.
To Stop Cashing My RSP's Every Year to Get Through Christmas
....and instead cash them each year on some random day in July and blow the lot on popsicles and safety pins.
I RESOLVE.....
To Stop Using My Eyes for One Month to Test Whether I Develop Super-Sonic Hearing Powers.
(Or just ultra-enhanced good looks which will benefit mankind but madden me as I am forsworn not to look into the mirror to find out what all the fuss is about.)
To Stop Being Such a Wallflower and Let People Know What I Really Think.
Starting now, with you, Attentive Reader. I think you're a Dirty Whore. And God I love you for it.
All right, Sweet Things. Time to say farewell and go start off '09 in great style, doing what I do each year on New Year's Eve: Getting very drunk and forcing people to listen to Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror at midnight. You heard me. Make that change.
(And perhaps I'll eat some flesh by morning.)
Resolutely Yours,
The Tourist
* Little known fact: Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party (and welcome addition to any dream except maybe the sexy kind), is in reality, a fine Tango dancer and good friend of Sylvester Stallone.
lisa norton has one friend
From TORONTO
November 17th, 2008
No, really. Many admirers. Plenty of fans. People I hang out with, spend time laughing and sharing with, comparing fears, hopes, dreams......Swapping underwear, and lovers. And lovers of underwear. Gazing at the stars. Raising important existential questions, such as "If I were a bat, would you still hang out with me?" or even, "If you were a bat, what kind of bat would you be?" (West African sucker-footed fruit bat, by the way, hands down, no question. We're talking quality of life here, people.) Crying. Helping each other through breakups, shakedowns, stirfries, and other tough times. Getting piss-ass drunk. Getting sober, and still managing to enjoy one another's company. Talking about nothing.
But when it comes right down to it, none of this really counts as friendship. Because according to Facebook....I only have one friend.
I just wrote the word "Facebook" on a non-Facebook affiliated website. (Or is it?) So rest assured they are watching me right now. And damn if I don't look good, those lucky sons of whores. (They're watching you, too, so do your hair for god's sake, would you? Jeez. You're a disgrace to your whole living room right now.) From now on I will refer to it in my usual way, as Facef**k. Not because it will stop the surveillance, but because I'm ten years old and think it's funny.
Of course, it is by choice that I have but one Facef**k friend. Well, I suppose my real choice would be for Facef**k not to exist at all, not to mention for us to get rid of these pesky Cellulite Telephones and Microwavy Ovens. These newfangled horseless carriages are getting to be a nuisance, too, but let us stick to the point at hand. Which is that I could obviously have as many FF friends as I wanted - I mean, who wouldn't like to brag that they are pals with me? Who isn't knocking down my virtual inter-door begging for the cyberprivilege to do so?
At this juncture, allow me to make my reasons for resenting Facef**k (to the point of calling it Facef**k all the time, tee hee) very clear, laying them out rationally thus: IT IS EVIL OH MY GOD IT'S SO EVIL IT WILL SUCK YOUR SOUL AWAY UNTIL YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY SHRIVELLED AND PRUNY and besides there is a reason I'm not in touch with everyone who went to my high school or that guy I once did a play workshop with and make awkward conversation with at the Fringe Festival once a year, also I already feel guilty for ignoring everyone on MSN (the stragglers who are still on it that is) and for not returning emails; do you really want me to have one more HUGE GIGANTIC THING that I am lax and inept at to make me feel like crap? HUH? DO YOU??? And everyone knows that the whole thing is half excuse to flirt with people you used to date, half fake way to feel cool and anyway I have a boyfriend now so the prospect of being poked by strangers doesn't have quite the appeal it used to....and I went on Bunker's Facef**k page for five minutes once and felt like puking after and anyway what if I do get hooked I'm lazy enough already I'll never accomplish anything again (especially with all the throwing up), Not to mention it is a WELL KNOWN FACT that Facebook is where Al Qaeda gets information about you (and about your babies and puppies and grandpa) or maybe I made that up but it sounds entirely plausible nonetheless so there!
And let me reiterate, in case you didn't catch this crucial point the first time: So there!
So how is it, Mystified Reader, that I came to have a "profile" at all, empty of photo and information as it is? Who is my one, consistently ignored Facef**k friend? How did such a strange thing come to pass?
Meet Kimwun Perehinec, Lucky Reader. Actually, you may have already met, or made sweet cyberlove, as she has about eight million Facef**k friends. Kimwun (or Kimwunowassis, if the shortened version of her name isn't weird enough for you and you're craving extra syllables) and I go way back. We were both proud and talented attendees of the James Brown Theatre School (Hit us one time!) back in the day. The day being March 12th, 1942...or thereabouts. We were in different classes, but became friends, especially after graduation, when we were neighbours, and did a horrible kids' play together at Stage West.
Chatting onstage during the show one day (it was a boring scene, come on), Kimwunowassis-a-ramalamadingdong and I discovered that we had both had the rather strange misfortune (or fortune, depending how one looks at it) to be nicknamed Macchio when we were kids. At the risk of dating myself - oh, if only I had the flexibility - and her, I will say that we were somewhere late in our grade school years when the Karate Kid was king. We were young, shorthaired and flat; so was Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio: hence the comparison.
I'd like to say that I was also a Kung Fu expert, and that was the real reason my friends called me Macchio...... so I will. This is my blague, after all. So, yes, I am a Kung Fu expert. Anyway, I look good in baggy white clothes with black belts. And that's gotta count for something.
OOOH, MISTER MIYAGI, I NEVER KNEW YOU CARED.
No wonder the weird old neighbour kept dropping by to offer extra pop and chips, muttering something about bleeding and breeding.
As for Kimwun, she denied and ran from her Macchiosity, burying it deep within some sobby dark place in her soul...until sharing it with me, and learning to own it proudly. You may have heard us hail one another as Macchio across a crowded room or discuss a possible Macchio & Macchio web series, one of the goals of which would, of course, be an ultimate guest appearance by old Ralph himself (our hero).
But was it with her friendship that Kimwun lured me to the dark side? Or was it with my own pride and vanity? Take a wild guess, Dimwitted Reader. (Smart Reader, turn to page 28. And collect your prize. Ding!)
How it goes is this. It is December, 2007. I go to a party. A Christmas party. Matt Edison and Arwen MacDonnell's Christmas party to be exact, a party which I have attended several years running, but almost didn't find out about this season because the hosts, for the first time, just put the invite out there on Facef**k and didn't bother to make the usual phone calls or - god forbid - emails to luddites like me. I run into one of the hosts at the last minute and do attend....and spend the entire evening defending myself for not being a member of the Facef**k community. Every friend I run into there begins conversation with "Merry Christmas! Are you on Facebook?", which is a common thing at parties these days, and the reason I now carry a hammer with me at all times.
The next day, I receive an email from Kimwun, addressed to me and Aviva Armour-Ostroff as apparently her only friends who are not on FF. She invites us to look at the pictures from the party, includes a link which, she says, will let you look at the pictures without joining.
I have thought about it, I'll admit. Because, all this said, I am beginning to feel a bit like the cavegirl who insisted that this wheel thing was just a fad. The cavegirl who doesn't know what's going on in all the other caves. Who is afraid of missing caveparties with cavemusic and cavecanapes and catching up with old cavefriends. Who wonders how she will achieve world cave domination, particularly with her caveblog, if she continues to publish it with a tablet and chisel and rely on the five friends who come over to read it over her shoulder. Poor cavegirl.
"HEY GUYS! WAIT FOR ME!!!"
But there's the danger that by the time I do cave (haha) and embrace Facebook, it will be old hat and everyone will have moved onto something else. Hopefully something retro like Pong or velcro, or oatmeal; something warm and fuzzy that I can understand. Though I'm not quite sure about the social networking applications of oatmeal; I'll let the tech wizards figure that one out.
One thing's for sure. Waldo sure does look funny wearing two hats.
In good old-fashioned confusion,
Your favourite Stone Age hominid,
The Tourist
P.S. Please forward this to all your Facebook friends. Maybe, just maybe, it will lure some of them back to the analog side. At the very least it will let them know I exist. And that Wilson and I say hi.
"HI."
poverty is hot
From BLYTH, Ontario
September 5th, 2008
Two days left performing brilliantly on the Blyth Festival stage, Soft-Eyed, Shiny-Haired Reader, and my thoughts turn to the future. But first: whither updates on my summer? Why so quiet on all things Blyth, you ask?
Well...what can I say, really? Since one of my two shows closed, the schedule here has committed me to a gruelling six-hour work week (yes, you read that right), and the town itself, nestled as it is in its secret location eighty five kilometres outside the border of hell's half acre, leaves me with little to say. My biggest daily challenges over the last month have been deciding what to bake, stopping myself from leaping off the stage and tickling random audience members, and breaking out in a sweat on my couch watching tiny Chinese girls win gold medals at three a.m.
And what about my Great Big Vow Of Celibacy, you wonder? How is that particular challenge going for me? Well, let's just say that, as it turns out, the best way to meet somebody worth screwing on a regular basis.....is to take a Great Big Vow Of Celibacy. So ja, das vow ist kaput. And you certainly don't want to hear about that. Well okay, many of you do....but to those readers I can recommend several handy websites. No, I'm not on them - don't get your dirty little hopes up, Gutter-Minded Reader. I'm just saying.
So what do I have to share, from this time and place? What pearls of wisdom have my ruminations on the future yielded? Oh boy, you won't believe it! Here it is, my Squirty Little Honeys.....in preparation for my much anticipated return to Toronto and an(other) indefinite period of unemployment, I give you......
THE SKEPTICAL TOURIST'S GUIDE TO POVERTATIOUS LIVING, or.....
FUCK FUCK FUCK HOW DID I DO THIS LAST TIME?
There are always little things to get you through the hard times. Here are a few of my favourites:
Panhandle, late at night, preferably while wearing a balaclava, with the catchy pitch line, "Give me some money or I'll stab you in the face." Okay, so technically that's called "mugging", but must we get hung up on technicalities, people? God! I'm trying to get creative here; roll with it, will you?
Knock over a liquor store. By "knock over", I don't mean rob it. I mean steal a wrecking ball and KNOCK OVER A LIQUOR STORE. It won't do you any good financially, but fuck, dude, it will be awesome.
Go to a grade school during morning recess and play poker for the kids' lunch money. Careful, though, some of the little bastards are sharks. Beware grades three and up. And High Park Junior Public is a bitch. Try to find a school with lots of "special" kids. But not the freaky little smart autistic ones. If they don't have cash, play for gummy worms and sandwiches. In Scarborough, guns. Bonus features: Learn all the latest schoolyard poker slang. And meet hot teachers while being escorted off the premises. Get the digits. Note: Toronto District School Board teacher to unemployed actor = Hot Sugar Daddy. Avoid art and music teachers.....though I hear they may be cutting math and science, too.
Make your own currency using colourful pencil crayons and construction paper. If local merchants refuse to accept it, break things in their store. When cops arrive, offer hand jobs all around. Scot free! Repeat.
Wait for the phone to ring with auditions and job offers. Check for dial tone. Smash phone.
Want to keep busy with a hobby or classes during your unemployment? Interested in learning a new language? Easy. Since you can't afford fancy language classes or CDs...simply find a family that speaks the language you wish to learn and force them to be your new best friends. Invite yourself over for dinner. Make your own key. Sleep with their nieces and nephews.
In my case, I'd like to improve my Spanish, so both the food and the sex should be good. I'll spend Wednesdays with some Guatemalans I've been casing, Fridays with a nice old couple from Madrid, and Sundays - after Spanish-language services at Our Lady of Guadalupe (694 Weston Rd., free blood and body of Christ too....yum) - having dinner at Father Lopez' house.
Put things you can't afford on your one credit card that's isn't yet maxed out. Or, better yet, a borrowed one! Buy some electronics. Spend a day at the spa. Get that diamond-encrusted pimp-cup you've always wanted. And keep a baseball bat by every door of your apartment/cardboard box to deal with creditors. When things get really hot, change your identity and skip town. Hitchhike south and move in with Father Lopez' cousin, Ignacio, in Guadalajara. Get caught stealing avocados and move into a Mexican jail. Learn Spanish there....for free!!!
Entertainment on a non-existent budget? Watch TV through peoples' living room windows! Use your swiped universal remote to change the channel to what you want to watch. Tap on the glass and gesture for them to open the window so you can hear, goddammit.
Speaking of entertainment, the Toronto International Film Festival (or tiffy tiff tiff, as it's known to insiders) is in full swing right now. You know what that means - prime opportunities to take revenge on rich people. Get in line at galas and red carpets and yell, "You suck! Boooo!" at the stars, and try to get their bodyguards to tackle you so you can sue. Bonus points for kicking Angelina Jolie in the shins. Double if she's holding a baby at the time.
Think you can't eat well when you're down and out? Two words: Raccoon bake. Toronto also has no dearth of squirrels, bats and crawling rodents. That neighbour's yappy dog that won't shut up? Chihuahua quesadillas! The cat that keeps spraying your back porch? Tabby on a stick! That's right. This is my territory, bitch.
When feeling particularly bitter, go to Holt Renfrew, gather armfuls of beautiful designer clothes that you can't afford to buy, and ask to try them on. Take them into the dressing room and pee on them. Ha ha! That'll show you, Stella McCartney! Fuck you, Alexander McQueen! That's what you get.....ill-paid store employee! Oh.
Stand in the lobby of a bank and cry. Go ahead, let it all out. You'll feel better. Again, try to break and/or pee on something before leaving. Preferably a manager.
Keep a positive attitude. By murdering at will.
When bill collectors call, talk really, really softly. On being asked to speak up, apologize, saying that there's a problem with your phone and that they'll have to turn the volume up on their end. Once they've done so....scream as loud as you can into the receiver and hang up. Laugh...and laugh....and laugh..... (For some reason, this is even funnier when the caller works for Revenue Canada. I don't know why.)
Move into High Park. keep moving. Don't let the bastards catch you.
And finally, if, even with all of these suggestions for keeping your destitute life kicky and fun, you somehow get tired of being poor:
Take back what you said about Internet porn and pay the bills, yo. It's the responsible thing to do.
Always glad to be of service,
Your hero,
The Skeptical Tourist
