Cropdusting

The Bad, Toronto, You Stupid Dick

Last night, two stops from my destination, the subway decided to catch fire and I was forced, along with half of Toronto, to walk down Yonge Street.

I’m not complaining. I like a good walk after work. What got me pissed was having to walk behind a lot of smokers, which meant I had to endure clouds of second hand smoke and ashes blown in my direction. Ugh.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Urban Dictionary version of “crop dusting“:

Passing gas in a stealth manor [sic], usually while walking through a crowd or a group, so that someone else gets blamed for the stench, or at the very least people besides the assailent [sic] must suffer it.

Yes. I did a couple last night.

The twist on this tale, my friends, is how I alert SharkBoy that I’m going to assail some poor bastard behind us. This is what I say:

“Okay so he gets off the bus and he’s standing in the middle of a field all alone. Crazy long shot of him utterly alone. Two roads converging in the middle of nothing. And him alone! And suddenly a plane comes from no where and brrrooooffmfppp! It tries to run him down! A plane. Tries to run down Carey Grant. Forget that if anything touches your prop on a plane, you instantly crash. But on the second pass, a machine gun is fired, so that’s ok…”

I could go on but by this time I’m all farted out. Now all I have to say is: “He gets off the bus and it’s like, nothing around!” poot.

Anyway, back to last night.

I’m about to pass this munchkin of a man who is smoking like a drag queen (draws in a toke, throws head back and with pursed lips, exhales in a thin fast stream of vile choke). As I approach, he looks over his shoulder to see if any buses are coming. We lock eyes. My eyes say “you dirty fucker” because I’ve had to endure a block and a half of his weird smoking and ash flicking. His eyes say “get over yourself, Mary”.

I cut in front and release the solitary Carey Grant from my ass.

Actually that’s where my story ends. No sharting, no coughing, no other incident. Sorry.

AIDS Walk 2010

Personal Bits, political, Queer stuff, Toronto

This was my first time participating in an AIDS walk. Why did I wait so long? I can’t really say – apprehension? Worried I’d be branded? Lazy? Likely “yes” to all those but I do apologize for waiting so long. It was a great day for a walk and our meager contribution might have been small, I do feel like I belonged to something larger.

Well… “larger” is a relative term. In Joan River’s biopic A Piece of Work, she tells an AIDS joke (I’m paraphrasing): Joan mentions that she delivers meals to AIDS suffers and complains that so many are surviving that when she went to one house the guy opened the door, sees her, and says “You again?! Look, just leave it over there, I’m going to the gym.” She says, “The GYM?! Look, either the virus or my fists, someone is going to die today.”

Testament that the drugs that are out there are working in controlling the disease. If you call liver cancer or diabetes “control”. Regardless, you rarely hear of anyone wasting away like they use to. Just …complications.

We walked down Yonge Street, and as we neared Ryerson University, a young girl huffing a 7-11 slushie yelled into the crowd “YEAH! FUCK AIDS!!!” Most of the route-side volunteers were teenage girls, screaming their support and egging us on. Women were certainly represented on this day.

As we left the Corporate sponsored, post-walk drag show we passed the coffee shop at Church and Alexander, lovingly called The Bear Store, and we saw a few friends just sitting there. A lot of gay men who were not in the walk.

You can see where I’m going with this. The disease, and it’s funding, seems to be in decline.

But not gone.

Okay enough soap box yammerin’. Here’s some pictures!

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Buy My Crap

Distractions, Toronto

It’s that time of year again! SharkBoy and I are participating in the Cabbagetown garage sales festival (wait it’s a street party? Not a buy crap free-for-all? pfft.)

Anyway, I’m super thankful to postbear who has graciously offered his front lawn to display our stuff. I expect he’ll be getting a nice rough-hewn bowl that Da rescued from the Gardiner museum as thank you!

I love this day. I love garage sales. I love spying on people’s crap they don’t want anymore. It’s like being allowed to stare into someone’s soul and then buy it.

PS: If any of you want an all marble dining room table, make me an offer!

Ha, I think.

Celebs and Media

A woman the same age as I, bee-lines to me while on my shift at the Apple store.

“I want to ask you a question!” She says urgently.

“Sure!”

“Gwen Stephani did a song… well lots of people did this song… But I want to know who did it originally. The song It’s My Life…?”

I was expecting a tech question. This made me smile. Without missing a beat I said “The original band was Talk Talk.”

“THANK YOU!!” She focuses her attention to her iPhone iTunes app.

About 20 minutes later she returns: “Me again. The song Send Me an Angel”

“That was the one hit wonders Real Life.”

“Thanks. You seem old enough to remember these songs.”

Ha! …I think.

Later, two men are standing by the iPads. One lazily waves me over.

“Hiiiiii.” He draws it out like a song. “What. Okay… In the last year.” Pause. He’s having difficulty forming the question. Or getting the sing song quality right. “In the last year, what was your favorite video?”

“I… Look, I’m 45 years old. I don’t watch videos.”

“Really? 45?”

“Oh no wait, I’d have to say that OK GO video where they’re in the park.”

“Hmreallytheirnameis OK Go?”

“Yep.”

Never a dull moment.

Typical Morning at Casa RoboShark

Personal Bits

I’m in the washroom, brushing my toof. I can hear SharkBoy in the bedroom hustling to get ready for work.

There’s a pause.

Suddenly the culturally familiar “Vwwoooshh” of an expensive toy lightsabre being ignited can be heard.

The noise of something rustling off the bed onto the floor, nails trying to get a grip on the hardwood.

A cat flies past the bathroom door.

SharkBoy in his shoes and underclothes* runs past the door, lightsabre waving.

It certainly feels like a Monday.

*Yes he puts his shoes on first before the shorts so that his dress shorts aren’t wrinkled if he were to sit and tie his shoes. He’s pragmatic.

Pray Eat Love

Personal Bits, Toronto

Siamese TwinsIn that order.

Lately I’ve been having the spooky forgetful moments where I see something and think “I need to tell Dad…” and then stop myself. I’m told it’s inevitable when someone is taken from you so quickly.

However I like to turn it on it’s ear, and think it’s the other way around. The thing that I see that reminds me to go tell my father is actually Dad’s way of “talking” to me.

I know. Loony bin time.

Example: I noticed renovations to Dad’s old condo and I think I should tell him about it. And I stop. And say to myself “Yes, Dad. I see the new flowerbeds.”

I see a restaurant opening in his neighbourhood and think “I wonder if Dad would like to eat there…” I stop. And then I tell myself “I’ll eat there with you.”

Inevitably I will gain 30lbs with line of thinking.

Regardless, he’s still around. He’ll never leave.

We got through emptying 99% of the apartment on Friday with little kerfuffle or hullaballoo. At one point I was by myself loading a box into the service elevator and while I don’t have any strong attachments to the building (Da had not lived there long at all), to see his lemon yellow gaudy chair in the elevator made me cry. Fuck I hate that chair. But it was in a different environment. Another place, like my father was. And I got mad that this was happening and I was tired which lead to a floodgate opening. It took me the length of the hallway to get the crying under control.

Speaking of crying, I have to ask this to the people who have lost someone utterly important your life: Have you noticed that some people, when you inform them of your loss, their response is like they want you to cry? I don’t think they’re trying to purposely make you upset but their responses seems like they need for you to turn on the waterworks to validate the moment. Some people’s show of concern looks so awkward that it’s reversed, making them look at you like you’re a cousin that’s been found locked in the attic after 25 years. Their eyes searching yours for the welling up of tears, like they’ve reached into you and succeeded in pulling on one of your heartstrings. One person within a few words of telling her of my loss asked “What’s your fondest memory of your father?” Uh. Wow. I know they were trying to make me think happy thoughts but… Wow. One person replied “Well we all go sometime!” in all stoic seriousness. I know I’m not alone in this, SharkBoy and his friend have both experienced this kind of odd response too.

I digress.

This weekend, along with new found friend Starkiller Biggs (not his real name), a member of the elite 501st, as well as Grove of Blue and Fortress, all went off to the Canadian National Exhibition. I have to say that these people are a great new set of friends who I would kill for. They’ve let me rant and laugh about the last couple weeks with a nod or a thoughtful comment and have stood by me (thanks guys!). Yesterday was a great time and I was glad to have a decadent day of laughing, eating (yes, I had deep fried butter, deep fried Mac n Cheese, deep fried Snickers bar and a Corn dog or two) and hilarious people watching. SharkBoy has his post up here. His pictures are here and my pictures are here.

And while I’m at it, SharkBoy continues to make it incredibly easy for me to love him more and more. As I mentioned above, our new friend Starkiller Biggs came to town this weekend and told of many a fun time dressed as a Storm Trooper for the 501st. At one point, SharkBoy uttered “I want a Storm Trooper costume.”

I couldn’t love him any harder.

Twitter’d

political, The Bad, Toronto, You Stupid Dick

Yesterday I got mildly bewildered after reading about how (yet again) Rob Ford managed to be completely clueless about the social/political leanings of a room full of people he was going to debate in. I guess his crack team of minders forgot to tell him he was going into a room full of leftie-liberals.

I was tired of the whole political posturing at the beginning of this mayoral race and after reading that I was exhausted. None of these candidates spark anything but contempt from me. Some more than others, and I’m afraid that’s how I’m going to vote.

What is getting me down more is the rabble that pounce on any mayoral news story that has it’s comments turned on, ready to vilify anyone who has not forgotten that they had a joint on them when stopped by the cops in Florida.

In my ire, I twittered this:

So very tired of this #voteTO. Especially the “mad as hell” idiots who will blindly lead this city into another Lastman embarassment

Within seconds I was replied to by someone claiming to be a “lawyer” from Vaughn saying sarcastically “yeah how dare the suburban crowd be upset with how Toronto is run…” etc.  He fired off a couple blathering tweets about “downtown sensibilities” and I thought best if I block him, so I can’t quote him directly. His past tweets concerned themselves with how Michele Obama is ruining the US – you get the drift – raving neo-con teabagger.  My next tweet:

Irony, thy name is hashtag

Yeah I know I was asking for it in a public forum, the irony isn’t lost on me, but the speed and venom that this person appeared out of the woodwork convinces me that this election won’t be won by intelligence or by rational decision making. The pitchforks are out, the people are mad as hell and they’re at the gates.

http://www.thestar.com/article/853234