Tag Archives: theatre

The Lesson: From Root To Twit

Personal Bits

It’s 1996 and I’m working in a quiet cafe just inside the doors of a fading gay favorite gym called The Bloor Valley Club. All the members had to cut through my dining area to get to the change rooms or the cardio area, giving me a great vantage point for people watching. In the spring of that year a regular to the gym started to slowly, shyly, order snacks and cappuccinos from me and in doing so, started friendly small talk.

He was a nice guy. We started to talk about books and books into movies and theatre. We talked about music and pop culture and various gossip. We would make comments at the day time TV playing over the bar and confess our secret shames in the love of soap operas. We would shout out answers to quiz shows and try to outsmart each other. He was sharply funny and subtly witty and could smile easily. You can guess where this is leading: after several weeks of chatting, when he inevitably asked me out on date, I turned him down.

Why? Because he had long hair.

He had a slight goatee, stunning blue eyes and was over 6’2″. Because he was a regular to the gym, I noted that he had tree trunk legs and I could get glimpses of chest hair through his workout clothes. But I couldn’t get past the shoulder-blade length hair! His mane wasn’t ratty or look pre-Tyra makeover or anything, it was just long. At the time I was trying to pigeon hole my tastes into a well defined scheme: skinheads and ubermacho tattooed motorcycle freaks. I was so hell bent on self conditioning I couldn’t see myself being with any other type of guy.

I let him down rather inelegantly too. I did let him know I only dated smoothed headed dudes because of a “shaving” fetish I claimed to have at the time. I don’t recall his reaction but I do remember there was an awkward silence after my shot through his heart. I remember him walking away in disappointment.

A week or so passed and I was doing waitressy things, as one does when they work in a small restaurant. The front door opened and down the hallway towards the cafe came a tall, goatee’d man with the slightest 5 o’clock shadow adorning his genetically perfect cranium. Of course, my whoremoans went into overload as time slowed down as he walked towards me like a hot chick in a Michael Bay movie. Yes, it was my “friend”. He had cut all his hair off and had gone skinhead. He. Looked. Amazing.

I know my eyes said “HELLO!” and I think I said, “Hello!” and he leaned in close and said: “This is what you’re missing.”

And never said another word to me ever again.

Howard Hughes Invented a Bra For Me

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

I just scanned one of my flickr friend’s weekend pics and it made me a bit nostalgic for the days when SharkBoy and I use to run around like spies, tearing up the town.

However, would I say that the honeymoon is over, headed into our third year? I would say no.

Yesterday, SharkBoy took me to a movie. That in itself sounds staid but it was a mystery movie.

We were up early and our chores done and he got me showered and dressed for the early shows at AMC ($6 before noon!). We get to the theatre and I think “Cool! JCVD! That will be fun.” But no, he instructs me to purchase Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

“Serious?”

“We’re getting into the Disney spirit,” He beams.

I can’t love him any more.

At 1130am, we had the whole theatre to ourselves. We made loud comments at the screen like Howard Hughes screaming at Jane Russell’s tits.

Reconnecting

Distractions, Personal Bits
Here Be Dave

Here Be Dave

In the fall of 1981 I met Dave while doing props for a community youth theatre show. A few of us went over to his house for lunch on a break between rehearsals and while I was chewing away on a sandwich, Dave concocted a 2-second blood pack of ketchup and a ziplock bag, behind an open fridge door. He tried to throw at me as a joke and it didn’t work so he resorted to exploding it across his chest. Dave was obsessed with horror movies, you see. Not sure what happened, but when the prank failed miserably, I thought his cunning was a thing to be reckoned with.

Dave was one of two friends I did acid with for the first time. And was the reason I will never be 100% welcome back into his house by his mother. She’s convinced I shoved the tab into Dave’s pure and vestal mouth, when it was Dave who upped the ante with pot and a few drinks at his sister’s house while we waited for the drug to kick in. And kick in it did. When the acid refused to recede from our reality, Dave called his Dad to come get him before he “died”. What ensued was a comedy of sorts, seen through the fog of teenage drama, heightened by LSD: Police were going to be called; one friend’s career in the RCMP was going to be ruined; my mom would find out and I would cease to exist with one glare.

Things sorted themselves out when Dave’s older sister stepped in and told his mom that time will bring Dave down (he had tread a groove in his bedroom carpet walking off the acid) and that everyone should just calm down.

As you’ve probably guessed, Dave was the fearless one in our circle of friends. He would try anything if it meant getting a reaction from anyone.

And fearless he is. He has a wife and two kids and a house in the Beaches and is now sporting a huge CSI/Grisham-style beard because “it pisses everyone off”. Glad we were able to reconnect!

A Night of Art-ness Pt 2

General

Last night Sharkboy, Mom and a couple of her friends were treated to A Chorus Line by my brother Michael, who I thank with all my cultured heart.

Mike had “arranged them”. So I had to get them from the press desk at the theatre, which resulted in this conversation with the two most bitterest press desk employees ever:

Me: “I’m here to pick up tickets”
PD1: “Name?”
Me: “They’re under Michael Healey.”
PD1: “You’re not Michael Healey!”
Me: “I’m his brothe–”
PD2: (finding the tickets during all this and thrusting them at me) “CONGRATULATIONS. NEXT!”
Me: “…And his mother is coming too, you really don’t want to cross her.”

Bitter cow. Not even giving me the satisfaction to gloat over my brother’s success.

Every ten minutes after the show, Mom would turn to me and ask who paid for the tickets.

“Mirvishes,” I would say, which wasn’t far from the truth.

At this point, I would like to state that since I got the last two days of theatre tickets for free, my brother and I are now even for all those times I had to get up at 2am to go get his asthma medicine in the 70s. I absolve you of this debt.

Prior to the show, Sharkboy and I split up to try to intercept Mom as she arrived at The Canon Theatre. Who makes two entrances to a popular theatre on two different city blocks? I am sure many of dates are destroyed because the simple statement “I’ll meet you there” turns connecting outside the theatre a mood killing process. Anyway, Sharkboy took the Victoria Street entrance in case her cabbie took her to the “box office” while I stayed on Yonge at the “Main entrance”.

I see my Mom and her friends after a while and we greet each other with hugs. As this is going on, none of us notice the huge black SUV pull up to the curb beside us. I tell Mom to go to her seats while I go collect Sharkboy from the other entrance and we’ll be together soon. I turn to head around the block.

Wham. My nose makes contact with a solid wall of suit covered beef.

I hit a body guard.

One of David Mirvishes‘ body guards.

“Excuse me!” we respond simultaneously, politely.

I’m spinning around to see David Mirvish again but they’re swept into the theatre. I wanted to thank him for the tickets and insist that he continue to commission work from my brother.

By the way, I loved A Chorus Line. It was schmaltzy, self centred, self deprecating, navel gazing musical theatre that had me humming it’s tunes even as I type this.