What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Saturday, July 24, 2004

I THOUGHT I WAS SOMEONE ELSE, SOMEONE GOOD

For all the kvetching I do on this thing, I feel it's paramount to spread the love once in a while so here's a small list of reasons why today was perfect:
 
-- the gorgeous 22-degree, hot-sun-cool-breeze weather
-- the light green dress shirt my parents gave me last year that I look great in
-- Fire on the East Side, the restaurant with the amazing menu and nice patio
-- their 'kitchen sink' omelette: bacon, peppers, roasted garlic and asiago cheese
-- my friend Clinton who's a waiter there and always charming
-- Richard, the boy with the amazing blue eyes and the reason I was there
-- the bacon-loving bee that terrified us and gave us something to laugh about
-- Bloor Street West in the summer: just a pleasant place to be
-- the conversation we had that ruined our afternoon plans without us caring
-- Richard saying he'll come by this Monday after I said I'll see him after next weekend: a good sign
-- the strawberry 'frappacino' at Starbucks: can Hell produce Heaven?
-- the little guy at Sketchers who understood what a pain in the ass shopping for shoes is
-- the hideous surfboard-covered button-up shirt I found for ten bucks: my vacation begins here!
-- Bang-On T-shirts, whose 'Mod target/Canadian flag' T will make all of Boston know who they're dealing with
-- and, erm, all of you lovely people who read this drivel and actually enjoy it
 
I'm off to the pub in the best mood possible!

TOO HARD

So, yeah, I'm not quitting the pub.  Not just now, anyway.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, dammit, I need a vacation.  I feel absolutely spent and in no condition to begin another job hunt.  I'm not entirely happy about it but James is proud of how I backed him up to the management and other staff and that makes me feel somewhat better.

The surprising bit is the notion that I may have been too hard on the pub's managers.  Within days of my angry rant, they called me into the office to collect ideas from me on a security training manual and promise that there'll be a meeting between them and the doorman in the next couple of weeks when it's done.  I feel as though I actually may have changed something which, in this city, is a real prize.  None of this alters how I feel, sadly, but at least it's something positive in the midst of all this aggravation.

But speaking of aggravation, I've still got the other job as well, the one that -- as expected -- didn't send any vacation pay to me this week.  The payroll officer apparently received the request I faxed in to the accountant weeks ago just yesterday.  Yesterday!  She told me there's no way for her to get the money to me before next Wednesday -- after I'll have left.  "I'm not angry at you personally," I hollered into the phone, "but don't you see how my vacation is ruined because another person is lazy?!  How am I supposed to accept that?"  I never thought you could ever hear shrugging over a telephone line but there it was.  Tomorrow, I'll call the accountant and start the entire conversation over, in the vain attempt of getting paid still less than I deserve.

Oh yeah -- job hunt.  It's coming.

Labels: friends, working girl

NO MORE 'I LOVE YOUs' IN TORONTO

I went with Neeraj to the Air Canada Centre this evening to see fifty-ish icons Sting and Annie Lennox. Neeraj and I are both big fans of Annie and considered Sting a bonus -- "Maybe I'll come out of this a Sting fan," said Neeraj.

I enjoyed both performers but was struck by the change in their voices -- neither seemed capable of hitting the high falsettoes that seemed effortless in the eighties (especially Sting who no longer screams but growls about that red light in "Roxanne"), but both have more power and a pleasing roughness to their voices now. This was a change after noticing in previous concerts how little Bruce Springsteen and Michael Stipe's voices have changed.

Annie Lennox may have lost her girlish high pitch but her belting is possibly even stronger now than in her Eurythmics hey-day (and "Missionary Man" rocked). She dutifully covered all of her biggest songs but wasn't much for bantering between songs, other than a quick jab at her record company and a reminder that she played here last summer during the SARS scare -- "I didn't abandon you, Toronto!"

In response, the Toronto crowd was the usual Toronto crowd -- polite to a fault -- but, as the audience mysteriously leapt to its feet with wild applause for her encore, I realized that Annie Lennox is the ideal Toronto performer -- she's soulful and passionate yet chilly and remote and her songs attempt to reconcile that disparity, just as this city seems to.

After all that, Sting unfortunately seemed a bit too ordinary (yes, I know, "blander than Annie Lennox" borders on cruel) but his band was terrific and his stage featured the most beautiful video-projection backgrounds I've seen. It's not to knock the guy (he's already had Max Headroom, for God's sake, ask, "Do you ever get tired of being so...Sting?") but it's just that -- with his world-music dabblings and raspy-voiced-soul -- he comes off as Peter Gabriel without the pain, shiny happy shaman.

I did feel a bit sorry for him at the end of a fabulous rendition of his Quentin Crisp tribute, "Englishman in New York": he tried to get the audience to wave and chant "Be yourself, no matter what they say" and that darned Toronto crowd just sat there.

Maybe it was the message they didn't get, rather than the messenger.

Labels: Bruce Springsteen, Trawna

EASY THERE, TIGER

Despite feeling like a coward and a sell-out, I spent a day or two coming around to the realization that quitting the pub would be just stupid -- not as stupid ultimately as staying at the pub, but definitely not a wise move this week.

So, we stick with Plan A, which was to spend the summer trying to save as much money as I can to help quit, only now with more urgency. I'd been spending money on various books and DVDs and whatnot, and that will have to be dramatically curtailed (the occasional copies of "Entertainment Weekly" and "Harpers" were the first to go, sigh).

James seems OK about everything, though a little frustrated at the spin going on. The story now is that he had the victim down on the ground and was caught kicking him in the ribs. He's upset that people actually believe this but then, he generally has a higher opinion of people than I do. The important point is that he's painting for his show in October.

I had an inspiring lunch today with a new guy at the record store named Sergio. He's a music writer with a lot going on career-wise right now, while setting up a world-music department at the store to pay the bills. Unlike me, he's going in with no illusions that the chain will help him in any way but knows that doing this gibes with his own goals. Sergio suggested that chatting up people who share my values is the best way to finding a niche for myself and beginning to carve away at it. Plus, he was honest enough to tell me that my Brando impression is crap.

So, with all that in mind, I hereby declare: no more obsessing over the pub, no more obsessing over the record store. They don't care about me anymore, if indeed they ever did. As a professional, I will continue to do the best job possible but my heart and soul are no longer theirs. I will focus on me, glorious me. Now to figure out how...

Labels: friends, working girl

WELCOME ABOARD, MIKE

Buoyed by the wild success of "Fahrenheit 9/11," filmmaker Michael Moore has started up his own blog, trying to decide if he's...

Blogging away for the common good or just to keep from watching whatever crap is on TV right now. What is on TV right now? No new 6 Feet Under tonight. The Practice has been bounced. Can't Jon Stewart do a Sunday show?

I like him already.

WHAT DO I SAY? WHAT DO I DO?

My friend and fellow pub doorman James was called into the bar last Saturday night to remove a drunk and disorderly patron, one who'd wandered onto the patio shared with the bar next door (the one I referred to weeks ago as the "security nightmare"). The drunk guy decided to challenge him, yelling and waving his fists about, and it escalated into a fight. The guy wasn't seriously harmed but vowed to press charges. James was sent home immediately and called back into the office last Monday for a chat with the managers.

James was told that, thanks to him, the pub would have to pay very high legal fees, that he could be brought up on charges, that he was "not the same person" they hired anymore and that they would like him not to work there "for a while." When he asked how long, they just sat and stared at him. Finally, he sighed and said that he'd resign.

I heard it all from James that day and all I could say was, "I go away for one weekend and look what happens!" It was the only joke I could make. I've been furious all week, furious that my colleague and friend was fired for doing his job, furious at knowing that the incident probably would've played out the same way if I'd gone in there, furious that the managers side with some disruptive creep who wasn't even our customer, and furious at their cowardice in the face of a legal challenge that I believe any right-thinking judge would throw out.

I worked at the pub all week, trying to work through my anger and not have some messy emotional display but the anger never faded -- especially on this past Friday, when yet another messy person tried to shove past Lloyd into the bar. When Lloyd grabbed the guy to stop him (an action I've been expressly told never to do -- I'm apparently "too handsy" with people), the guy began screaming death threats and racial epithets at him. I just stood there, feeling completely useless, until the guy finally gave up and wobbled off down the street nearly fifteen minutes later.

This morning, after two more shifts, I wanted to quit. Wanted to quit really badly. It was no longer merely an emotional reaction but a moral one. The doormen at this pub are not supported. Last year at Pride, I got clocked in the side in the head so hard I thought I'd faint. No one said anything about it and neither did I -- it's just part of the job -- but I don't feel so stoic anymore. For months now, working for these people has started to feel like being in an abusive relationship and no amount of money is worth that.

I walked into the office this morning, plopped myself down in a chair, and laid it all out -- my ugly weekend, my disappointment with James' firing, my disgust with the ongoing dirty laundry within the bar (none told here, sorry!) and my feelings of, well, abandonment. In each case, I was met with variations on how difficult running that place is, how a reasonable person would understand and how I don't know the entire story, just the gossip.

"But that's just it," I countered, "this place has been a nest of bitterness and gossip for months now and you haven't done anything about it. No one's heard your side of the story because you can't be bothered to tell it." It's true what they say -- gossip breeds in an information vacuum.

I had my resignation letter in my jacket pocket the entire time, ready to lay it down on the table and stomp out in some Bette Davis huff, but the half-hour conversation drained the life out of me. Bad enough to live in a world full of greedy, evil people caring nothing for those around them; worse to discover that most of them are just well-meaning, stupid people who've no clue how to stop causing harm.

I hoped I could splash some rhetorical cold water on their faces but I left feeling defeated and impotent. Their attempts to make me "listen to reason" made me realize that quitting now would just seem like an overblown emotional reaction -- and worse, maybe it still is.

All I know is that I'm filling with a bubbling, oily disappointment in this pub I've faithfully served for over three years. How can I continue on, when it means turning angry and bitter? How can I leave, when it means financial suicide? And worst of all, from bookstore to office to record shop, why does it keep turning out like this? Are my sights too high? Too low? What the hell do I do next?

Labels: friends, working girl

A MAJOR LABEL

Strange to notice this week that four of my favourite new records -- from artists Sam Phillips, David Byrne, Wilco and the Magnetic Fields -- are all from the same record company.

Nonesuch is a subsidiary of Warner Music, previously responsible for the marvellous Afro-Cuban All-Stars album from a few years back and a longtime home to those ubiquitous Gipsy Kings.

Now the label seems to be getting into pop in a really interesting way, creating space for artists as diverse as Laurie Anderson, Emmylou Harris and Youssou N'Dour. And I'm really intrigued by the upcoming "Hymns of the 49th Parallel," k.d. lang's first album for Nonesuch, honouring the "Canadian songbook." Label president Robert Hurwitz says, "To begin this relationship with a record as moving and brilliant as Hymns is more than we could have ever hoped for."

Could I actually be rooting for a major record label to succeed?

Labels: Canada

AN ACTUAL HONEST-TO-GOD WEEKEND

I had worked an exhausting six days, EIGHT nights in a row, including the horrors of a gay-bar-doorman shift on Pride Sunday which, as I said, was surprisingly trouble-free. This year, I told people, I was merely threatened with a punch to the head, rather than last year's actual punch to the head.

Now that it was all over, I found myself with Friday AND Saturday night off. I couldn't believe it -- a real weekend, just like normal people, so here's what I did:

Friday:

Spent the day at work mulling over the pros and cons of purchasing a wildly-inappropriate yet impossibly-cheap home theatre system from a shop on College Street. Having no willpower at all, I obviously bought it but, again, it was cheap and I did spent a few days trying to talk myself out of it.

After a couple hours of hiding copious amounts of wire behind the sofa and bookcases, I basked in the joys of surround sound with the gorgeously-noisy "X2" and the wonderfully-subtle ambience of "Six Feet Under" (season 2 is finally out and fantastic). The subwoofer brings out my inner Catholic in a big way, however. My neighbour downstairs insists it's not a problem and the upstairs guys...well...karma, baby!

Saturday:

More "Six Feet Under" -- I know, it's a sickness.

More lolling on the sofa on lengthy phone calls with Tara and James.

Grabbed my tickets to see The Magnetic Fields in the beloved venue of Trinity-St. Paul Church at Bloor and Spadina. Opening act Andrew Bird proved to be wildly talented on several instruments, notably the violin, and you've got to love anyone with a song called "Fake Palindromes." The big act themselves were as wry and charming in their banter as the songs they were performing, mostly from the new album "i" which is amazing. I went with my friend Gil, who I rarely get to see, and we hung out over milkshakes and a knish at Mel's Deli under nearly two in the morning.

Sunday:

Popped over to the bright-red-and-jolly 5-Alarm Diner for breakfast with Neeraj, our first visit in many, many weeks. Both of us single, we did the usual 'sex-in-the-city' banter and Neeraj discussed his theory of 'penetrative vs. receptive energies' -- traditionally yet erroneously labelled 'male' and 'female' -- and how much of the irritating gay drama we encounter is due to confusion surrounding them. Neeraj comes off as a lovely, almost delicate fellow but is learning that he's actually more aggressive than he's allowed himself to be.

I told him about the encounter I had last week with a guy who told me that a date between us four years ago(!) hadn't worked out for him because I hadn't "made a move". I'd asked him out, chosen the restaurant, initiated much conversation and invited him back to my place where he sat and blankly looked my way -- what more did I have to do, I grumbled. It occurred to me now that this could be my weakness in dating (if you could call it a weakness): once I 'penetrate', I like to back off -- leaving the ball in their court, I'd say -- but this could be confusing for someone who, as Neeraj says, is very receptive. What I consider direct may not be direct enough.

With Neeraj off to visit his folks, I hooked up with Robert for coffee at Jet Fuel and the previous conversation sort of carried right on. If Neeraj considers himself possessed of 'receptive' energy, Robert is decidedly 'penetrative', carrying himself with a confidence bordering on terrifying. I look to him for advice and I don't have to search too hard -- he thought the guy I talked to last week sounded like a complete idiot but admitted that I could stand to be a lot more obvious with guys I'm attracted to, so we'll see. Robert and I then strolled over to the supermarket -- it's certainly more fun to do your grocery shopping with someone else.

A thunderstorm struck down around five and, yes, I racked up another couple episodes of SFU while the rain pounded my windows. After dinner around eight, I realized that my weekend was over -- I was due back at the pub for nine pm.

So not quite an entire two days off but still a terrific stab at normalcy for yours truly. I'll need to study this further...

Labels: friends

BECAUSE THAT LAST MOVIE NEVER HAPPENED

He's back! My beloved Batman is being reincarnated onscreen by "Memento" director Christopher Nolan and the first photos of actor Christian Bale in the black suit are striking indeed. Add this to that three-point list from last Wednesday.

Labels: comic books, homo-a-go-go, movies

SORRY TIM, I LOVED HER FIRST

Timothy Noah over at Slate does a spot of cheerleading for brilliant columnist Barbara Ehrenreich, who's covering for Thomas Friedman this month on the op-ed page of the New York Times. Noah argues that she should be kept around permanently and how could I disagree -- she's been pictured on my Favourite Writers page for years now.