Category Archives: Personal Bits

Just things from my personal life

Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

When I lived in Ottawa from 1994 to 1996, I was dating a Big Steel Man store manager.

I know, right? Big Steel Man. Who remembers those chrome and glass and NuWave consumer fortresses to men’s 80’s fashion? For my non-Canadian readers, Big Steel was a chain store that tried to usurp Le Chateau as a safe place for men to buy shoulder padded bolero jackets. It smelled like the death of the 80s when you walked in. I think Big Steel Man morphed into a trimmer, 90s-named “Steel” and then sold their last shiny suit in ’94.

I still have a Big Steel Man belt. Is that wrong?

I digress. His name was Marty.

…

Marty…

And Marty loved to Party.

*sigh* Yes. Yes he said that when I met him. When he said that I should have collected my shattered self respect and run the other way, but I didn’t. You see, Ottawa in 1994 was a gay wasteland with gay tumbleweeds and gay desert horizons. When you did hear of a gay in Ottawa they were one of only two types that populated our nation’s capital: Dinner Party Gays and Centretown Pub Trolls. I’ll explain:

The Dinner Party Gays were never EVER seen in a gay bar, purely because they held public servant positions and would never sully their reputation to be seen in career-killing establishments. It was like they were living in a Soviet Era spy novel. Like lava tube-hugging sea urchins at a great cold depth, DPGs would go from house to home and dine with political elites. They would skim the Ottawa gay barrel and invite the common gays into their realm every so often for amusement or scandal. If you were lucky to be invited to one of these parties and yet subsequently dumped by your invitee, it was impossible to stay within this realm, unless you suddenly sprouted a government job from your ass. I was dating one of these DPGs the first 3 months of my Ottawa occupation (a federal archivist with a hobby for poetry – yawn) and attended a couple parties where I was paraded as the “quaint new Torontonian”. When we broke up I was banished to…

The CentreTown Pub Trolls. These were your basic bar flies – but due to the hierarchy the DPGs created, the clique system within the CPTs was tight, savage. If you thought making friends in Toronto was hard, try chatting someone up in a gay bar in Ottawa – when a CPT found out you wern’t a DPG, slumming it for the night (or god forbid a snobbish ex-Torontonian) you were promptly branded and ignored. I didn’t seriously meet anyone for 6 months after my break up and when I did start to get into this fortress of gay, I was finding a castle full of queens and fools. No kings.

Marty… right… back to Party Marty.

He was dressed in a suit – which immediately made me think he was an extricated DPG, banished for some reason to CPT status. Today I realize Marty probably wore a loud suit of sorts but back then I was suit-blind. To me, a guy could be wearing a white suit with big lapels and cuffs on pantleg and sleeve, while it was October 12, and I’d only see “a guy in a suit”. I know better now. Marty was in a suit. I thought a suit in the Centretown Pub was classy. Memory fails but I am sure the suit was a big old shoulderpaddy monstrosity.

Hi… Marty… Party… Yes. The personal slogan tripped alarms off in my head. Instead of running, we grabbed a drink. And another. And… you get the drift. We closed the bar and managed to get back to his place. To my horror, his small apartment was decorated in Big Steel Man shop racks. I kid you not. Chrome and steel and glass clothing racks dominated the room. As store manager he was pilfering all manner of product and store display to bring home. It was like Hoarders, but with Confessions of a Shopaholic and Devil Wears Prada thrown into the mix. I swear we actually had to push through racks of poly-cotton blends to get to the bed.

Where nothing happened. We were too drunk.

Repeat three times. Three drunken dates where I tried to keep up with him, liquorly, but he was from the East Coast, where liquor is like air. I failed miserably but thankfully kept it all in and did not throw up on his massive collection of clothes. To this day I think I only ever saw Marty with his shirt off. We would collapse onto his futon fully dressed, pass out, and not do anything.

The upside was that I had fabulous clothes to wear home the next day. No walk of shame for me!

Explorer of the Seas

Personal Bits, Travel

Lately I’ve been scouring the innernetz for reviews on Explorer of the Sea, the ship we’ll be on in Feb 2010 for 12 days. What I’m finding is that a lot of people out there can’t express their opinions without some kind of gripe. That and The English hate cruising with people from New Jersey.

This review of a couple’s trip aboard the same ship reads like a play synopsis by Chekov (the dead boring writer, not the cool Star Trek guy). If you spend the time reading it (it’s long and oddly detailed), please do so in a Betty Draper, bored housewife nasal twang. Gems like this will become hillarious:

4:30pm was the Muster drill in the Maharajas Lounged. It was packed in there. It lasted until about 5pm and was very crowded trying to leave when the Muster Drill ended. We started sailing away while we were in the Muster Drill.

5pm We went back to our room to watch the sail away from our balcony.

I finished unpacking. I was shocked because I was able to find space for everything and we both are big over-packers. The suitcases/bags all fit under the bed.

Around 5:45pm maintenance came about the safe and fixed it He also looked at the metal shower shelf, tightened the screw a little and said he would tell someone else about that.

I was debating whether or not to get the soda card. I don’t really like fountain soda so didn’t know if I would really get much use out of it. I decided against it after all.

I can imagine their dinner conversation consists of pointing out other people’s clothes and what they’ll eat within the next hour:

We stayed in our formal outfits for the evening. We didn’t see many tuxes – maybe one or two.

We wanted to take a peek at the dinner offerings in the Windjammer just because we’ve never done dinner there. We wandered through. They had most of the entrees from the dining room available (but no Grand Marnier soufflé). The Jade section had sushi so Paul took a few pieces.

9pm Showtime. There were various songs from different Broadway shows. Paul fell asleep during the show.

The end of the review mirrors the end of their relationship:

After dinner Paul and I went back to the Casino. I played Let it Ride at the table. Paul played poker. I was having fun so didn’t go to the 9pm Vibeology Show. I found out that the later show is at 10:45.

10:30 I went up to the cabin to change out of my formal clothes.

10:45 I watched the Vibeology show. It was OK.

12:30 I got a slice of pizza at the promenade and went upstairs. Paul came up to change out of his suit. We had pizza together.

We played a game of mini golf. The course was pretty beat up.

I did a little packing.

We ordered a snack from room service – cheese & crackers, fruit, pizza, and cookies. We gave the guy who delivered it a $5 tip.

After our snack Paul headed down to the casino.

3pm We went to watch the Karaoke finals. The woman that won was fantastic. She was a better singer than some of the performers in the shows.

I know cruises get a bad rap since they’re seen as fat, old people barges and her review doesn’t assist on dispelling that myth. I know SharkBoy and I are going to have much more fun than her.

Rough Weather Run

Personal Bits, Toronto

Toronto’s first storm and my first rough weather run turned out to be a challenge. The slush on the sidewalk was untouched at 5:30am so I had to be careful how I landed my feet as the soup was about 2″ deep in most places. The rain/sleet felt like bees getting a hate-on all over my earlobes and cheeks. I was soaked through my gloves within 5 minutes.

But the best was the trees.

Right by the Toronto Necropolis there are a ton of fir trees that generate a special kind of noise when the wind goes through them. A noise that stirs something primal, like an alarm for us to head back to the cave and tend to a fire, because the weather is going to be the suck. When we use to go camping the fir trees near our site would whisper the coming summer storms just like they were this morning.

Rounding the corner of Sumac and Wellesley Street, I nearly slip. My ankles have been complaining since starting this endeavour and I’ve not been pushing it, but to have one suddenly lop to one side in the slush worried me some. I walked a bit. When I started up again, everything fine until I came to a downed branch across the sidewalk. Easy peasy, I just hopped onto the road and passed it. Jumping back up onto the sidewalk my foot slid about 4 inches. I went with it but it spooked me good. Combined with the complete soaking my feet had experienced, I thought it best to go back in.

As an aside, I am starting to name the scraggly people I see at this time of the morning. My favorite so far is The Black Chicklette. She’s 5ft nothing and wears black tights, super puffy black coat and a black touque. Think: an evil, anti-Fruit of the Loom grape. Twice I’ve rounded a corner and she’s scared the shit out of me.

Stuff I could populate our apartment with list is growing!

  • 2 Toilets!
  • A wicker porch chair
  • A canvas patio umbrella
  • A double mattress
  • An office chair
  • A surprise luggage case (I didn’t open it)

Extra, Extra – Read All About It

Personal Bits
I... Uh... You owe $2.75...

I... Uh... You owe $2.75...

They say that smell is the best thing to jog your memory. On Saturday SharkBoy and I wandered into a dollar store inside Jamestown (Speculate as to why in your head. Please don’t ask) and  instantly we were hit with a cloud of stale beer and lingering cigarettes (in a Dollar store? Really?). Like a sledge hammer to my brain the memory of being a paper boy, back in Brockvegas, when I was 13 oozed out of it’s hiding place.

I had a route with about 20 to 30 subscribers that displayed a perfect cross section of social classes living in Brockville: I delivered to both rich and poor in my 6 block radius. Back in the day, kids, to collect from each subscriber we use to have to knock on their doors and hole punch a corresponding card we carried around with us on a ring, like a cardboard jailer’s keyring. Taking money from people was one of my first life lessons regarding credit, payment and service.

Most people paid on time. Hell, some people left envelopes with cash in it taped right there on the front door if they knew they weren’t going to be home. This was the 70s in a town less than 2000 people, remember. Then there were the deadbeats. Funny thing was that the deadbeats lived in both the expensive mansions (“My good boy, I have paid. I sent a cheque to the Recorder and Times just this morning!”) and the slipshod abodes.

I have only one strong memory of collecting money while doing this job: the apartment building on Bethune Street.

This particular deadbeat lived on the ground floor apartment, it’s door just across the stairs in a Victorian home that had been converted into many apartments by some clumsy handed carpenter many years ago. You can imagine that it was a massive house in disarray: David Fincher would have gizzed over the crumbling rot of the molding, the high cobwebbed ceilings, the torn wall paper.

I had stopped delivering papers to this particular guy a couple weeks past, but he still owed me at least a month’s worth. We were instructed to stop delivering after a second week of non-payment and hand the account over to the office another two weeks after that. I felt sorry for the guy. He was always polite, in a boozy chum sort of way, and I knew he was sad for some reason. He would offer me smokes or a beer and I would nervously decline (I was 12!).

However nice he was to me in the past, this was my last attempt to get payment. I knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again. Shuffling. Moaning. Uh oh.

The door opens and I’m hit with a blast of stale beer. Cigarette. Puke. These sensory markers just added to the sight that stood before me. He was a handsome guy with a kind of faded football star build; but today he was at least three days without a bath. His housecoat hung loosely on his shoulders. No shirt, revealing a hairy chest that would normally make me notice but today it was overshadowed by a protruding gut that frightened me. And good lord… boxers. Open boxers. The root of his dick jutting out from the fly saying “Hey Kid! Mind turning out the lights?” He wasn’t hard or anything… just… not covered enough.

I’m stunned. As I stand there processing all this in he leans in close: “Whaaaaa…”

Imagine I’m Ripley and he’s the Alien from Alien 3. That’s how close and awkward it was.

Needless to say he didn’t have the money.

This morning as I’m running through Cabbagetown at 5am I’m watching beat up old cars driven by tired guys, delivering papers so they can afford a 1997 Taurus. . No kids doing this kind of work these days. The printed word is on it’s way out, so they say. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Creating

Personal Bits

I’m in the kitchen today. Creating.

Possibly the largest thing I’ve ever created.

No, not a turducken.

Let’s just say this will require all my patience, concentration and co-ordination. My resolve must be iron-clad. My focus unwavering. The horizon may be far but I am prepared for this long journey into my creative soul.

I’ve packed sammiches.

Hush Hush Sweet Gates

Personal Bits, Tech
My Ono-Sendai Deck

My Ono-Sendai Deck

This morning I transferred over the last of the files from the PC to the Mac in a bizarre dance of wireless acrobatics across our N network. Yes. It took me a week. See PCs generally don’t come with a Firewire plug and I couldn’t find any male to male USB cords.

I shut down the PC for the last time and started to unplug everything from the back of the beige brick. As I did I thought of all the artwork, websites, letters, pictures, anger, sadness, fruitless searches, laughter and stupidity I’ve experienced with this one computer. After over 6 years and 4 reinstalls, two major viral attacks, various upgrades I can’t help but think how it’s been a good run. Not that I’d run back to a PC any time soon but you never forget the thing that got you there.

Yank – the keyboard is unplugged. Glurk – the Bluetooth mouse is out. Schtuck – out come the jumble of speaker wires. Glik – Ethernet cable. Scruhscruhscruh – Monitor disconnected.

Hey wait a minnit… Thinking I could add the monitor to the iMac for a second screen – palates and Mail, I sat and started to surf to see what kind of adapter I needed.

As I searched, SharkBoy and I simultaneously stopped and looked at each other.

It was quiet. We could hear things out on the street. The tap dripping in the washroom. The cats snoring.

For the last 6 years (3 years for Sharkboy) the two fans that run the processor and the video card on that old PC have been a constant drone, a soundtrack to my home life. I knew when things were being processed or the insides needed a dusting from a blast of canned pressurized air,  just by the tone of the fans. Now it was silent. Like, deafeningly silent.

With the iMac, I hear… nothing. My fingers are the most noisiest thing in the office as I type on the chicklette keys.

Why didn’t I do this sooner?

Meeting the In Laws – Really

Personal Bits

Okay here’s the real In-Laws meeting story:

Due to the early curtain time my brother had given the tickets to his show to the new fiancé – let’s call her The Maiden- and we’re instructed to meet her at the front of the theatre. Armed with only a brief glimpse of a iPhone pic Da, Friend of Da, SharkBoy and I scan the crowd for her.

The Maiden arrives. Smiles and intros all around. She’s lovely. And brave to get thrown into the Gay Family Mafia with no Michael to fall back on.

The tickets are split in two separate seating groups: A pair together close to the front and 3 a bit further back.

Me: (taking charge) We’ll take the two so you and Dad can talk.

The Maiden: …And you and SharkBoy can neck.

I love her instantly.

Our meeting was all too brief. I can’t wait to officially welcome her into the family.

Meeting the In-Laws

Celebs and Media, Personal Bits, political

This afternoon I was treated to free theatre by my brother, Michael. Bless his heart, without him the only culture I’d get would be PS3 gaming blogs for cheat codes.

He’s in “Stuff Happens” at the Royal Alexander Theatre, playing George Bush in a play that is…

a dramatic speculation, authenticated from multiple real-life sources, on the behind-closed-door proceedings that have shaped recent world events

When we had dinner earlier in the week we talked about the play and how it was coming along but he failed to mention he was playing GWB. As the play started and we were introduced to the political figures that shaped world politics during 9/11, my brother rose to speak and a ridiculously frank Texan accent came pouring out. Being his brother and have listened to countless jokes and impressions from him all my life, I couldn’t tell if he was pulling it off. However I was very excited. As far back as I can remember, he is cast as the slovenly neurotic schlep that everyone falls for and I think this was his second political figure he’s ever played (he played an advisor in Frost/Nixon), certainly the most colourful/famous. The laughs he garnished certainly was indication the audience was buying it. The woman in front of me turned to her husband and made some remark, her finger stabbing at the stage at my brother. I think he did well.

In fact the entire cast did really well. The play pulls from actual quotes and situations and relives the insanity of a world wanting and resisting going to war after America’s greatest attack on it’s soil. There were curious dramatic tensions (a suggested budding romance between Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?) and fly-on-the-wall imaging of back room conversations that were interesting to see but would probably make a Right Winger stand up and yell “THAT NEVER HAPPENED!!”, however they never crossed the line into an overt Liberal love-orgy. I would hope that if it ever plays in the US that many people go see it in  “Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it” kind of way. But I think is pretty doubtful, unless Michael Moore produces it – SharkBoy’s comment after was “I doubt they could stand it”

The kick in the gut line says it all: “After 9/11 America became stupid”

PS: The whole reason I wrote this was to say I met my brother’s fiance. Hello Morwyn!!

Run, Fatboy. Run.

Personal Bits

This morning I was woken by the cats at 4:30am with their regularly scheduled playfight. They tend to start flailing themselves across the hardwood floor of the hallway about that time. It sounds like someone tossing a fur-lined bag of meat into a wooden shipping container.

Regardless, I was awake. While I waited for sleep to come back to me I hopped on my iPhone and checked out various social mediums. Two people I know on Facebook are preparing for marathons. These two are both people I’d think were the last to actually go out and get sweaty – one being a bookworm I’ve known since high school and the other an IT professional who writes on the side. Couchy potatoey types training for a marathon at the same time. Huh. Weird.

I flip over to my blog feeds and see that Don (StudioYVR – who has modeled his blog after the Apple site – trez trendy) is prepping for no less than 11 marathons next year.

I can’t even schedule my next Doritos run. Oh yes I can. Usually at 7pm every night.

And as I thought about these people getting out there and just doing it, SharkBoy rolls over and hugs me. His hand slips under my gut.

Le Sigh. I haven’t been on my bike in a while and the gym membership has been on hold since the strike/Workshare summer. I’ve gained about 10lbs in the last couple months. With the impending Pig Trough on the Ocean vacation coming up (swimsuits – yikes…), I decided it was time to get back into it. And that there was no better time to start than right at that moment.

5am and I lean into SharkBoy’s sleeping face: “I’m going for a run.” I whisper.

“Really?” The word “really” sounded more like “You’re fucking kidding me.”

I start with stretches out in the back parking lot behind the apartment. George Hamilton 2, the neighbour’s cat who looks like our George Hamilton, greets me as I grunt to touch my toes. In the silence of the morning I can hear… a lot of cats meowing, either to be let in or just because that’s the time they all sing. Or they’re fucking. Cats. Go figure.

I set off towards Riverdale Park at a decent trot. I’m mindful of how my feet are landing and that I’m not clenching my fists. I loosen my shoulders and breathe deep. Within a half block I am wheezing like an asthmatic who has just had a massive roll of $20s thrust into his hand and has been walked into a stripper bar. I manage a half block walk, half block jog as I run around Cabbagetown. Over my gasps for air I hear… nothing. The drone of the DVP in the valley and the odd car going down Parliament Street. After a good 30 minutes I decide to return home.

As an added bonus to myself I ran by a Tim Hortons so I could breathe in donut exhaust.

Will I continue? I think so. Not sure how I will manage on wet or snowy days but for now, I’m not hating it. It’s actually fun.

At home I jump back onto the Wii Fit. “Really?” it says.