FlamingText

Edmonton, Alberta

The fire station right across from our venue, the Varscona Theatre

Lamont, Alberta

Just Beyond the Farm Equipment Graveyard

It's Not As Bad As It Sounds

Differences Pt 5

  As I believe I've mentioned, I'm on tour with a lot of English, Australian and Canadian people, and so I can't help but notice some interesting differences between our countries. Here's one I find especially interesting: When someone on the tour from any of these countries gets sick, say with an abscessed tooth or strep throat or something, they go to a doctor and get treatment. If somebody, for instance me, from the US gets sick, we do not. We mostly take lots of vitamins, get lots of sleep, and hope it goes away. If they get sick, they might have to pay a user fee and deal with some annoying red tape. If I get sick, I'm pretty much fucked.

  I have tried to explain this to many of my co-fringers over the last week, as I've been getting over a little bout of something or another; I can't say for sure if it's a cold or the flu or SARS or what, because of course that would require a doctor's diagnosis. When I explain to a Canadian that I don't currently have medical coverage and that in fact very few people in my line of work in the States do, I get a sympathetic look from them, as if to say "Yes, but I'm sure your government bought some very nice bullets with the money they saved by not providing you with any."

Differences Pt 4

The President
  The big stereotype about (or should I say "aboat") Canadians is that they are almost pathologically polite and, well, nice. This stereotype has a solid foundation in reality from all that I've seen so far. As a general rule, Canadians don't seek conflict and have a high regard for their neighbors to the South.

  Which is why when the subject of American politics comes up, they generally assume a slightly cautious posture while they try to determine the political bent of the American to whom they are speaking. That's because they want to be sure they won't offend someone by accidentally pointing out that our current president is as dumb as a bag of hammers. You see, Canadians watch a lot of American TV; In fact something like 75% of their TV is American content, and from this many of them seem to have drawn the conclusion that people in the states are unaware of this fact.

  Now there is a certain tendency among some people I know in the States to downplay the president's lack of qualifications and to try to concentrate on "the issues" in an effort to reach out to those crucial swing voters who may not like his policies but balk at what they perceive as mean-spirited attacks. So I hear a lot of "Oh, he's not really as dumb as all that. He just employs an 'aw shucks' plain-spoken speaking style to appeal to working-class voters." from liberals, or "He's obviously very shrewd at politics or he wouldn't be where he is today."

  Just to avoid confusion, I think I can safely say that nobody outside the US is buying it for a second. Our president is basically a laughingstock. That's not to say that people aren't terrified of him, but they certainly aren't terrified by his awesome mental facilities.

  The beauty of talking to British people is, unlike Canadians, they usually use the word "wanker" within the first ten seconds of discussing the American president. And they were part of the Coalition of the Willing! (Although judging from what I've heard from UK residents that is a bit of misnomer. Coalition of the Dragged Along Kicking and Screaming is probably closer to the truth.)

  Now because I am an American abroad I can't help but feel a certain knee-jerk response when I hear my country being criticized, no matter how valid some of those criticisms may be. It's sort of the "I can call my sister a bitch but if you call my sister a bitch then we're gonna have a fight" syndrome; I may be extremely critical of my government at home but outside my country I feel I need to represent. So I find myself standing up for the essential goodness of the American people, their commitment to democratic ideals, and the deliciousness of their home-baked pies.

  As to the president, about the best I can manage is to sheepishly look at the ground and laugh.
"Yeaaah. We know."

Differences Pt 3

The Queen

   Travelling as I am with so many people from the UK and the Commonwealth countries of Australia and Canada, the subject of the Queen comes up from time to time. As far as I can tell, most of them really don't give a lot of thought to the Queen, even though she's on all their money. In general the Australians and Canadians just barely acknowledge that they technically do still live under a monarchy, while the British are more conscious of having a queen but treat it as more of a quaint tradition than anything else.

  As an American, hailing from the only one of these English-speaking countries that took the trouble to throw out all those royal types way back when, the whole issue confuses me a little. I think I probably speak for many from my country in viewing the queen like this:

  "Oh, look at me! I have a special hat! This hat means I am in charge. It's made of precious metal and jewels, as you can see. This is because it's no ordinary hat. It's a special, magical hat, and it means whoever is wearing it is the most important and special person of all! For generations, people in my family have worn this special hat, and they were all special and important too, and everybody had to do whatever they said or else. And then they passed it on to their children, who were every bit as special and wonderful as they were."

   "When I drive down the street in my coach, everybody waves and smiles and positively bursts with happiness just to see me, even if I'm not wearing the hat at the time, because they know that sometimes I do wear it, and just the thought of me in the hat fills them with admiration."

  "Do you have a special hat like this one? No, you do not. You are not so special as I am, are you?"

  Of course, if I actually do say this to any of the "Crown's subjects," they act all uncomfortable about it, like I'm being rude or "cheeky" or something.

  Especially when I do the voice and the special dance that goes with it.

Differences Between... Pt 2

Money
  There are no one dollar bills. There are no two dollar bills, either. Or three or four dollar bills, for that matter.

  What they have instead are these little gold-colored coins with the queen on one side and a loon floating on a pond on the other. They're called "Loonies." And they also have these little silver coins with a gold-colored center that have the queen on one side and a polar bear crouching on an ice floe on the other. These are called "Toonies," because it rhymes with loony, and Canadians apparently find this wildly amusing.

  Most of their money has the queen on one side and some kind of animal on the other. The national animal here is the beaver, which is on the flip side of the nickel. The national emblem is the maple leaf, which is on just about everything else.

   I think it speaks volumes about our countries that our national animal is a bird of prey, usually depicted clutching a brace of arrows, and their national animal is the industrious beaver, usually depicted working on a dam.

  A loony is worth about 76 cents American.

Differences Between America and Canada, Pt 1

Purchasing Alchoholic Beverages

  It was in Thunder Bay that we first discovered this. One night after finishing a performance we were on our way back to the lakeside cottage where we were billeted (I know, I know. Pure dumb luck.) and we realized our beer supplies were on orange alert status. So we stopped at a convenience store to replenish. We walked in to the store (which shall remain nameless, although I can tell you that its name is actually two rhyming numbers seperated by a hyphen) and walked over to the cooler section where the beer is kept, only to find no beer whatsoever. There was no trace of beer in the entire store!

You call this a convenience store? This, sir, is an inconvenience store!

  We asked the kid behind the counter where we might obtain beer, and he said
"Oh, you gotta go to the cold beer store, eh? And they're closed by now. You could get bootleg, but that's eighty dollars a case."

  This was our first encounter with the Cold Beer Store concept, but it was not to be our last.

"Help me, doc. I'm all blurry!"

This is what I might look like to you after you've had twelve shots of mezcal.

Winnipeg Pt 9

Start From Beginning

  This morning at 9:30 I am awakened by a loud knocking on the back door. I can hear it from my room upstairs. It continues for a while and then I hear Dre get out of her room and go and answer it. A man with a high-pitched and tremulous voice is asking her for the key. It is Mr. Nussbaum, who she has never before met, and he is convinced that he needs to be here in order to get a key. She is patiently (considering the circumstances) explaining to him that she doesn't have the key he is looking for.

"Is this 123 Somewhere in Winnipeg Lane?" he asks, desperation tinging his voice.

Yes, she says, but I don't have anything for you.

"But I phoned!" is his reply.

Finally after a bit more of this Mr. Nussbaum apologizes for waking her and walks away, dejected.

  What seems like minutes later although it is actually more like an hour, I am awakened again, this time by a cat's yowl that sounds like the poor creature is in heat. In my groggy state I am thinking of a monologue by T.J. Dawes that I heard a few days ago about a cat in heat, and I linger for a while on the punchline, which was "will somebody please fuck that cat?" before a second insistent knocking comes at the door. The return of Mr. Nussbaum?

  I hear Dre getting up to answer it and am bracing myself to hear another exchange with the mysterious Mr. Nussbaum, but instead I hear this:

"I'm sorry, but I just ran over your cat."

  Everybody in the whole house wakes up at this. The three of us are dressed and downstairs in minutes, in time to see Dre coming inside, cradling Benny who is wrapped up in a blanket. Her boyfriend Shaw, who stayed the night, is standing beside her. Nobody says anything. She is getting her shoes and purse so she can drive him to the pet hospital, and in another minute she and Des are on their way. As they pull out of sight, Shaw tells us that he's absolutely sure that Benny is dead, but he thought it would be better not to say anything.

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  Ten minutes later they are back,carrying the swaddled body of Benny, which is still warm. There is some horrible awkward silence as everyone tries to think of what to say. Dre has a very far-away look on her face, sort of shell-shocked. Distressed does not begin to cover it. She carries him out on to the back porch and we all follow. In the course of sitting around lamely trying to offer comfort we decide that maybe it would be useful to make some breakfast, so three of us take off for the Safeway and return with food some twenty minutes later.

  In our absence Dre has begun assembling significant items in her backyard for whatever ritual she is planning. She has begun digging a hole next to the bed of bachelor buttons. She has positioned various icons and artifacts at the four cardinal points of the compass and consulted several shamanic tomes for an appropriate eulogy. We are silent as she performs a brief ceremony and then puts Benny in the hole she dug and covers him with dirt.

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  Dre continues performing various improvised rituals throughout the afternoon. She confides to me at one point that a lot of people probably would think she's crazy, what with talking to invisible spirits and all. I don't say anything. I can tell that she assumes from our previous conversations that I am one of those people.

  And I am, but also I'm not. That is to say, I don't really know what really constitutes sane in the face of random death. How would a sane person react? Would a sane person say "Oh well. It's just a cat."?
  I've always thought that it's easy to be facile and dismissive of ritual and religion until you are faced with some situation of personal loss yourself. It's the whole "there are no atheists in a foxhole" thing again. What are you going to do when it's your cat, or your mother, Mr. Reasonable? This is the question I ask myself. You gonna read a little essay by Noam Chomsky at the service? Descartes maybe?
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  Later on, we are reconstructing what happened. When Mr. Nussbaum knocked on the door, it woke up Benny, who was sleeping at the foot of my bed, and he went outside to be let out. Dre let him out and went back to bed. And that was the last time any of us saw him alive.

  In reflection, we can't help but decide that in the future if Mr. Nussbaum comes a-knockin', it might be best not to open the door for him.

Winnipeg Pt 7

Start From Beginning

The Brokenhead Ditch-wavers

  We are driving out to the lake on our a day off. Dre tells us to keep our eyes peeled for the Brokenhead Ditch-wavers. The town of Brokenhead abuts an Ojibwe Reservation, and the ditchwavers are a family of locals who have taken it upon themselves to stand by the highway all day, smiling and waving at passersby. Dre tells us that she thinks that they are sort of simple-minded members of their community, but are considered a treasured, beloved institution. Ditch-waving is considered a perfectly honorable and productive use of their time.

  Before too long we see a red-faced man in an orange ball cap and overalls, smiling and waving to us from a ditch by the side of the road.

Winnipeg Pt 6

Start From Beginning

Energy
  The smoke in the room is clearing as the ceiling fan gets to work, and Dre is trying her best to explain something to us. Something about how everything is energy. And how this energy determines our health and, on a larger scale, the health of our world. How circumstances that appear to us as life-and-death struggles are no more than the ebb and flow of negative and positive energies manifesting themselves as material outcomes.

  I am having a hard time following exactly what she is saying. She seems to be shifting her usage of the word energy at will between literal and figurative meanings, sometimes using it to describe a metaphorical influence over events and actions (sort of "negative thoughts produce negative energy which cause negative consequences" kind of statements), and sometimes to describe what sounds like physical energy, like electricity or magnetism.

  Among the stacks of books laying around are titles concerning shamanism and various treatments of mystical and esoteric traditions from around the world. These combined with the Buddhist and Hindu wall hangings and her daily yoga ritual are my first indications that she is a spiritual seeker. This conversation is the first time she has really tried to explain her views, and although I feel like I am catching the gist of what she is saying, the specifics largely elude me. It seems like she is saying we are cogs in a much larger machine than we imagine, but what the function or purpose of that machine might be remains unclear to me.

   If you open yourself to the higher purpose, she says, it can make use of you for the betterment of the whole world.
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  Later in the week she will reveal that she is studying Native traditions with the goal of one day becoming a shaman. And that she decided to take on guests in her home when she did at the urging of her psychic advisor. I try my best to respect her beliefs but I think I may have transgressed during a conversation where she was explaining that disease is caused by an unhealthy orientation to the world, or is sometimes the result of some greater lesson that our spirit needs to learn by being sick.

  I balk at this a little, explaining that while I think mental attitude and physical health are closely related, I also believe that things like bacteria and cancer cells are real. If people get Alzheimer's because their mental attitudes are stunted, as she seems to be saying, I point out that it seems a pretty big coincidence that people who live near aluminum smelters are so much more likely to have stunted mental attitudes. Doesn't your view amount to blaming the victim, I ask?

  Then she relates her views to her mother's death from cancer and I realize what extremely thin ice I am skating on, and I do my best to back-pedal out of the conversation. As always, it is much harder to extract one's foot from one's mouth after the fact than to simply not stick it in there in the first place. If there is a lesson that my spirit needs to learn in this incarnation, it is apparently this one, because I seem to need to discover it the hard way again and again.

  Our situation sums up my relationship to mysticism pretty well; I tend to be highly skeptical about psychic advisors and anybody who claims to have supernatural insights, but the fact is that the three of us have Dre's psychic advisor to thank for our current living situation, which is about the best possible billeting scenario one could hope for. So there you have it. Maybe one doesn't have to believe in the mystic ways of of the great machine to have it work wonders on one's behalf. And maybe it's just my fate to not believe in destiny.

  Still when it comes to matthers of faith, I can't help but remember this sage piece of advice, gleaned from the 1977 Ray Harryhausen spectacular Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger:
"Trust in Allah. But tie up your camel."

Winnipeg Pt 5

Start From Beginning

Hostile Smoking Man
  The lines of his face have hardened into a permanent glare, all squinting eyes and creased brow and a chain smoker's permanent curled lip. A short while ago he'd taken a seat at the other end of the table Steen and I are occupying in the beer tent at four o'clock on this sunny weekday afternoon, asking as he did so if the seat was taken and if he was interrupting anything. We told him to help himself and returned to our conversation.

  After a few minutes I notice that he is staring intently at Steen. His eyes are narrowed to slits as he attempts to bore a hole into the side of her head with his stare, drawing on his cigarette with Eastwood-like intensity the whole while. Steen can't see this, but I can so I turn to him to see what's up.

"So what do you think of all this nonsense?" he says, gesturing around us with the tiniest wave of his cigarette hand.
"Come again?"
"All this Fringe nonsense. Are you part of this?"
We tell him that yes we are. We are performers.
"So what's it all about? It's nonsense, right?" He furrows his brow and takes another drag.
We explain to him that at least for the moment, it's our job. I ask him if he thinks his job is nonsense.
"It pays the rent." is his reply. Puff puff. "Does this pay your rent? What kind of show are you doing, anyway?"
We explain we are doing a show about pirates.
"Didn't Johnny Depp already do that?" puff puff glare.
I tell him yes, Johnny Depp did in fact do a movie about pirates last year, which I enjoyed quite a bit.
  "That's right. And he's living in a villa in the South of France with his wife and kids." Here he takes a significant drag as he delivers the coup de grace. "How about you? What are you doing?"

We explain to him, laughing, that we're having lots of fun doing this show, in spite of the fact that it won't pay for a villa in the South of France. I tell him I'm a musician in the show and ask him if he has ever played music.

He says yeah, he's played music. Still no trace of warmth in his voice whatsoever.

Well, I ask: Was it fun?

He says he's played with one of the biggest rock bands of all time.

I say really? What band? Maybe I've heard of you.

He takes a long time formulating his reply, his expression unchanging as he takes several long, deep inhalations of smoke to fill the pregnant pause.

"You ever hear of David Bowie?"

"David Bowie? Yeah, I think I've heard of him. You played with David Bowie?

He allows another pregnant pause.

"You ever heard of Mick Ronson?"

"Yes, I have. He was the guitarist in the Spiders from Mars, as well as Mott the Hoople. Fine guitarist."

He just leaves that hanging there and narrows his eyes some more.

"You don't believe me, do you?" he finally says.

"Nope. Not a word. Have a nice day!" I say, as we get up to leave.

Winnipeg, Pt 4

Start From Beginning

  We are driving through downtown and Dre is being our tourguide.
"See that guy wandering across the street in front of us? The Native guy with a rag in his mouth?"
  We see a dazed-looking man with a red rag hanging out of his mouth, staggering across the busy street as though oblivious to oncoming traffic.
"He's a huffer. That rag is soaked with gasoline. The two big problem drugs around here are gasoline and crack."

  The neighborhood surrounding most of the Fringe Festival venues is known for being sort of a First Nations ghetto (the politically correct terms here for what we in the states refer to as Native Americans are variously First Nations, which refers to certain tribes with recognized treaties with the Canadian government, and more generally Aboriginal People.) At any hour of the day or night there exists a large population of transients living on the sidewalks and vacant lots in this neighborhood of boarded-up storefronts and abandoned warehouses. During our stay here, we will witness several more people huffing from rags out in the street, be asked for spare change more or less continually, and witness one vehicle breaking-and-entering happening right across the street from us. The piles of broken glass that litter the streets makes it clear that this sort of crime is a way of life in this neighborhood.

  The festival makes for an interesting mix on the streets; basically a group of mostly white, mostly middle class artistic types from Canada, Britain and the United States dropped in the middle of an impoverished neighborhood, putting on shows for locals who mostly wouldn't be caught dead in this vicinity at any other time. Local attendance at the festival runs into the hundreds of thousands, but one gets the sense that when the festival is over these streets will be returned to the real residents. (Although how anybody could live without a home in the winter around here is a mystery to me.)

  Alcohol, pot and privilege, meet gasoline, crack and poverty. Play nice, everyone!

Winnipeg, Pt 3

Start From Beginning

  Benny the cat has a foot fetish. This is what Dre tells us by way of explaining his odd fascination with our stinky pirate feet. Benny (which is short for Benito Mouse-a-lini) is a long, wiry tuxedo black-and-white tom. He has an extremely affectionate personality; he demands petting frequently and purrs easily. He prefers to be the center of attention, quite literally taking his place in the center of the living room and then making the rounds so that everybody gets a chance to give him the ear scratching and belly rubs he so clearly feels are his due. It is hard not to like a cat with such an un-catlike personality.

  Benny is a shelter cat that Dre took in to keep Slim company. Slim is a small black cat with a more standard-issue cat personality. She is extremely reticent about the new people in her house and seems particularly interested in going outside to do Important Cat Things when we are inside, and on going back inside when we are out. She is a huntress and spends much of her day stalking birds and rodents around the yard. She also likes to sit in front of the neighbor's porch so that the dog can see her through the front door, pretending she is unaware of his obvious desperation to get through that glass pane and at her.

  She often comes home covered in dirt, or pollen, grass clippings and other unidentifiable substances.

  Dre bought this house last fall with money she inherited from her Mother after she died of cancer. She views the house as her first full-on plunge into responsible adulthood and is excited to be building her own nest, if a little overwhelmed at the vast amount of work it entails. She is also understandably ambivalent about the circumstances surrounding its purchase.

  She picked up Slim from a shelter when she first moved in to this house by herself, and Benny followed later when friends heard her speculate that Slim might want some company. She jokes about becoming a Crazy Old Cat Lady, one of those women with fifteen cats that she talks to in place of any human contact. And indeed she does converse with her cats as though they were people, and she does leave the radio on when she is at work to keep them from getting lonely. But overall she doesn't seem to be in any greater danger of becoming a Crazy Old Cat Lady than any of the other half-dozen 30-ish women I know who I've heard expressing this same anxiety.

    Is the Crazy Old Cat Lady the modern version of what used to be called an Old Maid? I've heard this from so many different women that I can only conclude that the fear of turning into the town's eccentric spinster is alive and well in even the most liberated of women.

    Go figure.

  Benny and Slim generally get along well, but our presence seems to have sparked some rivalry between them as the much larger Benny bullies Slim out of the way if he feels that she is stealing his spotlight. Our first night here a minor brawl breaks out between them which is broken up with a flung sandal. When it settles down Benny takes his place at the foot of the bed for the night. He purrs as he falls asleep.

Winnipeg, Pt 2

Start From Beginning
  She ushers us inside her smallish house, through the screened-in porch that seems to be a mandatory feature on Winnipeg houses (on account of the plagues of mosquitos), and into a cluttered interior; stacks of boxes covering spaces not occupied by furniture on the wood floors. She explains to us that she has only recently purchased this house and has been frantically making renovations in anticipation of our arrival. We are to be her first houseguests.

  There is ample evidence of her work all around us. The stripped wall where the kitchen sink used to be, exposed support beams and plumbing where walls are being redone, stairs that are basically angled wooden ladders -- and yet the whole feel of the place is remarkably homey. There are stacks of books, CDs and painting supplies covering the desk and tables.

Dre is a scenic painter in the film industry, which is currently a big employer in Winnipeg. She tells of the long, stressful hours on the job, filling us in on the details and gossip of her current project. It is an under-budgeted historical drama that is constantly teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and the crew are working feverishly to get everything shot before the money runs out. This means a lot of extra hours and brutal deadlines.

  It never occurred to me before now, but apparently when you are watching actors up on a movie screen, there is a pretty good chance that the wall you see in the background is actually covered in wet paint. If the movie was shot on a tight schedule, then it's not unusual for the painters to finish at nine or ten and the camera crew to begin filming at ten thirty or eleven. So if the actors were to lean against anything during a scene, they'd end up sticking to it and getting paint all over themselves.

  Wet Paint Signs would spoil the illusion.

Winnipeg, Pt 1

Dre's Place
Today we left Thunder Bay and are driving from Ontario into Manitoba, land of ten thousand lakes and ten billion mosquitos. An hour outside Winnipeg Des calls the number we have for our billet and talks to Dre, who will be hosting us at her house. She tells Des that she has our room ready and has some scotch, vodka and various mixers waiting for us when we arrive. She apologizes in advance for the state of her house. Des thanks her and hangs up.

"Sounds like Dre likes to party."

As we pull into Winnipeg we call again and she brings us in for a landing. We drive down Main Street through a section of town where the streets are lined with boarded-up warehouses. There are large numbers of people milling about on the sidewalks who don't appear to have anywhere else to go. Past this is a strip of small businesses and community gathering places: the Video Cellar, Love Pantry (where leopard-print thongs never go out of style), the Polish Men's Association, the Knights of Columbus, Rotary Club and the Russian Orthodox Church. Past the Santa Lucia Pizza shop we see our turn and hang a right onto a wide tree-lined residential street right out of the nineteen fifties. There are kids out riding their bikes and playing hide-and-go-seek (or some modern derivation) at dusk. Past the Jumbo Foods corner store we spy our address and park the van across the street.

As we disembark with our bags, we see that our host has been waiting for us on the porch. She comes over to greet us as we walk up the path. She is wearing a black tank top and paint-spattered cut-offs. Short brown spiky hair framing a ruddy, beaming face.

"Welcome to Winnipeg." She says.