It’s a dismal afternoon as Sharkboy stands on the train platform, his arms encircling his utmost love: 600 VHS videos with such titles as Monster Lake!, Pirannha II and Biker Werewolves from Arizona. Nazi guards are all around him, insisting he make a decision on which tapes he is going to keep and which must leave him.

“Schnell!” they bark.

Tears well up in his eyes. Will he let Food of the Gods go? Or will The Swarm meet it’s untimely end? He must choose! *

This weekend Sharkboy and I remodeled the office so I could fit my computer in there. Remodeling meant taking down the 600+ videos he had up along one wall and trying to cram half of them back into an Ikea cabinet and the other half would go into storage. It was sickening to see him get more and more frustrated.

Sunday night I spent an hour on the phone with Linksys trying to get XP to talk to the wireless router. Last time I did this, I spent 3 calls to support before realizing that I was on a 2.4G phone and thats why I couldn’t connect.

The office is far from done. And my monitor dominates my tiny desk but all should be righted in the next couple weeks.

* Please note, I have never actually seen Sophie’s Choice. Consider this a re-imaging of it for my blog entry purposes.

True to my word, I am starting the “guest banner” run this month.
I thank daryl vocat, first in with his redition of me in leather. Yeah that’s me when I was skinny, just behind the font there. He used that image for an article in Xtra magazine about sport and masculinity. You can’t see that I’m in all leather and gripping a pigskin.

So far, I’ve taken two improv classes out of 8 at the Bad Dog Theatre and in our class I can see the future comedy stars, shining through the nerves and the flumbled scenes… and I can also feel the black holes sucking all the comedy out of the room.

There are a couple people there who get up on stage, have the instructor fires off a scene or a set up at them and freeze. And I have the hardest time keeping my mouth shut, stiffling suggestions like “HE SAID YOU’RE IN A MALL. PRETEND TO SHOP!” or “HE JUST HANDED YOU AN AXE. NOT A SOCCER BALL!” It’s maddening for me to see people with absolutely no imagination. Our instructor says “There is only one wrong answer in improv – to stand there and do nothing or say ‘I don’t know’ when offered a scene.”

Bless the black holes for making an effort though. At least they’re there trying to overcome shyness or be more assertive or think faster on their feet.

Why am I there? Fucked if I know.

Maybe I want to be on stage. The other day the BDT newsletter fell into my inbox looking for volunteers to be on stage to flesh out an upcoming show and I bolted upright in my chair. Reading further they were looking for second series students. I was dissapointed but I was more surprised at my reaction.

I wanted to be on stage…

Weirdly enough right after thinking that I thought “Would anyone think I was riding on my brother’s coat tails, trying to be like him?” and it dawned on me that I have been saying that since high school. That I hadn’t gone into theatre (which I thought I was pretty good at back in the day) because Mike was there first and I probably would not be able to live up to the competition. Now I think I’m a bit past it to pick up acting but I do know that I’m having a blast in this class and I have good comedic timing as well as an active imagination.

I get up on that stage intent on killing and I will milk that class of 18 people for laughs at every opportunity given to me.

Who knows where this will take me? Maybe I might get serious about it but for now, I will gladly act like a goof for this room of strangers.

UPDATE: My bro has been voted best playwright for 2005 by eye weekly readers. Congratz!

Between 1992 to 1997 I was pretty much a geeky comic book t-shirt and jeans kind of guy. The odd sweater thrown over but not much else. I was working catering so I had “those clothes” (shudder) that would never see the light of day outside my apartment or wedding hall. When I started to work at the Black Eagle and met the oddball characters there, I was introduced into a whole new world of fashion.

When not stocking the fridges at the Eagle, I hung around with Andrew, arguably the most attractive bartender working there at the time. Andrew’s staple fashion statement was sleeveless flanel shirts and army boots. Think FoxTV’s version of a militant lesbian on a guy. He showed me the cheaper side of clothing shopping as only a vegetarian, agnostic mysenthrope could. I have a fond memory of digging into the bins at Goodwill’s “Buy the Pound”, where you rummaged through tons of bins, through piles of unsorted clothing and paid for your booty by the pound (duh!). 30 minutes into my first visit, Andrew taps me on the shoulder and says “Look at your hands.”

My fingertips were orange.

I flinch. I’ve been digging through sweaty, dirty cloth without even thinking about the crud that was sticking to my fingers like niccotene stains. Andrew produces a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket. He’s done this before. Dispite the grossness of it, you could walk away with some mighy cool rags.

“Don’t touch your ears or eyes until we get to a bathroom and you can wash your hands,” Andrew would warn after we left the Buy The Pound.

Ew.

We would try to outdo each other by finding the most outrageous tees ever. But they had to have a vibe to them that if we were to wear them at the leather bar, people would “get” the sarcastic or ironic message they displayed. Or the shirts had to be so uber-macho, they’d elevate us to “hottie” status. Girl’s field hockey shirts, religious conferences and CAT construction shirts were primo. It was in this contest that I discovered my love for hockey jerseys. They represented a masculinity that I was denied as a kid (I had weak ankles and couldn’t skate worth beans) and became like a fetish for me. Intricate fantasies were weaved as I pulled the artifical cloth over my head and smoothed out over my torso. The bizzare-er the team logo, the better. At the height of this madness, I had a sweater per day and could go three weeks without repeating myself. My prize shirt was a Russian jersey the colours of Ronald McDonal’s 70’s advertising palate, with cyrillic lettering blazing across the chest.

This excessive devotion died off when I got my “business casual” job. I only have two left now. A mesh with a big “T” on it and a white, snug jersey that accents my belly nicely, like I should be on footballbigguns.com.

This summer, Sharkboy has jumped on the groovy trend of graphical tees. He’s cleaned out every store from Old Navy to American Eagle. His favorite is a fluffy hammerhead shark applique on a “bar” t-shirt that states he got “hammered” there. Cute!

Today, I’m at McDonalds (no comments please) and I’m wearing a shirt that Sharkboy’s picked out for me: a baby blue Sioux City Tractor Pull ’82 shirt. It’s a romantic nod to our night at Simcoe’s tractor pull. I’m stuck on a 3 letter word of “Nasty!”, middle letter “L”.

“Sioux City is af frellgnuh keptpl!”

I look up. He’s got a pony tail, black socks rising up out of his deck shoe sneakers, up to his knees, and 6 days of stubble on his jowly face. He points. “Sioux City!”

“Ah. I …uh… got this shirt…” How does one explain this trendy shirt to someone so unhip? (I’m being delicate)

He mumbles something too. We both realize at the same time that speaking to each other was probably a bad idea.

I’m sticking to my flaming Darth Vader tee.

UPDATE: This image just in from Andrew:

He remembered that I have a secret crush on Jon Erik…