I am waiting for the print shop to open this morning, watching the Yonge Street crowd trundling off to work and I spy a typical “bank worker” guy: almost-too-short cheap dress pants, nondescript shirt, backpack on his thin mid-twenties frame, glasses, just washed slicked hair.

And a samurai sword, sheathed, in hand. I love this city.

I have never posted anything regarding the contents of my iPod but I feel I have to since OldAudioDude gave me a $20 iTunes store and he may want to know what I spent it on. Special note to the people relieving one of these gift certificates: scratch lightly. I tried 27 of a possible 34 combinations to gain access when I accidentally dug so hard into the tail end of the Scratch Here! Revel in my first and last ever iPod music list (now with superstrength DRM!):

E=MC2, Big Audio Dynamite. Sample-y goodness!

The Globe, Big Audio Dynamite II. Reminds me of living in Brixton, near The Cube!

Train In Vain, The Clash. I had to get this. I only had Annie Lennox’s version.

Weathered Wall, David Sylvian. Lookit me! I’m an art fag!

We R In Need of a Musical Revolution, Esthero. She’s back! Her voice is Godzilla and my heart is Tokyo!

Rollercoaster (King Britt Scuba Mix), Everything But the Girl. I needed an atypical Tracy Thorn hit.

Emerge, Fischerspooner. Lookit me! I’m an art fag laughing at the old art fag!

European Son, Japan. Nigel once scolded me for placing England within Europe.

Night In My Veins, The Pretenders. Doin’ it up against a car!

Kid, The Pretenders. Rainy Earls Court song.

Absolute, Scritti Politti. Gay factor 9.5. Makes me dance like a lemur.

Breakout, Swing Out Sister. Rainy Brixton song.

Surrender, Swing Out Sister. Rainy Camden Market song.

Life During Wartime, Talking Heads. OldAudio might remember driving around in Mum’s new Pontiac 2000 with this on the tape deck.

The Rabbit of Saville, Warner Bros. Live. “Can’t you see that I’m much sweeta? I’m your little Sen-yor-ee-tur!”

Five Fathoms, Everything But The Girl. One of the first songs I ever downloaded. And lost.

Hollaback Girl, Gwen Stefani. There is an angry cheerleader in all of us.

Deeper and Deeper, The Fixx. No explanation.

I’ve packed waaay too much stuff. One hockey duffel bag full of t-shirts and telescope. One gym bag full of shoes. One knapsack full of electronics. Even all after all that, I have the little gnome on my shoulder nagging at me that I’ve forgotten something.

Okay kids, two low grade, hasbeen celebs just blipped on my radar, coming in fast from Hollywood Rag.

Carrot Top proves that steroids aren’t just for baseball players. His face looks eerily similar to Tim Allen’s… Mommy! Where are that man’s eyebrows!?!

Jack Osborne has shed some weight. He’s mugging here and still has a respectable amount of pudge, but in this photo, (via enter the chapel), he’s lookin LA rockstar hot.

Alhurrrk…

I’m sorry. I am still mesmerized by that low pants shot of Carrot Top.

11:30pm, Friday night. Sharkboy and I are eating our post-Bear night pizza on the steps at Church and Alexander.

A posse of 5 young men all approximately around 20 years old, their collective weight maybe 85Kg, noisily walk past us. Then walk back and park themselves in front of our pizza-noshing stoop. They’re all hootern’ and hollerin’ about something and its apparently everyone’s problem because they certainly aren’t at all concerned who might be overhearing their high drama moment. The kabuki phoniness of their gayness made me feel like we were watching some sort of street performance put on for the benefit of anyone who could hear them. Basically everyone within a mile, really.

A woman comes up to the group and starts to yell at the littlest of the group.

“Where where you!?!” she bellows.

“Don’t be getting in my face,” the tiny urbanite yells.

They continue on in this vein of MTV-like yammering and it becomes clear that the mini-fag is dumping the fag hag. As their conversation becomes increasingly heated, a group of three people try to pass the meelee, which has now expanded their stage to enclude the whole sidewalk. One of the passing three pipes up as they go around the schoolyard din:

“What are you? Five?”

Sometimes the simplest catty remark is the best.

Saturday night and Sharkboy and I are walking towards the campground’s party tent. We pass a small tree and instantly we’re covered in spider threads.

“I’m covered in websites!” howls Sharkboy. His English fails him in times of panic (he hates spiders).

“I’ve got URLs in my hair!” I respond.

With my hand-me-down amp (thanks OldAudioDude!) and garage sale turntable, I am about to embark on the greatest computer adventure ever… burning my old LPs to CD. When I lived in England I loved music, as opposed to these days where music and I nervously say “hi” while passing in the laundry room. Back then I would scour stores and boot-sales for the best of mid-80s extended remixes like ohh… (randomly grabs a record out of his old milk crate that could actually hold an album) this one: Zang Tumb Tuum’s release of Propaganda’s 12 inch “beta” version (they were so advanced! Using “beta” in the 80s!) P-Machinery or … this one… Vicious Pink’s C-C-Can’t You See

If you want a sampling of the music I’m burning, check out Club 80s with DJ Lex. Or if you have iTunes: Radio >> 70s/80s Pop >> Club 80s with DJ Lex. It’s no Dayglo radio (rest it’s soul) but it’s fun, nonetheless.

Why do teen girls wear those track pants with words printed across their butts? It makes them look whorish. Especially when they choose words like “Baby” or “Wiiiiide Load”.

I’m just sayin.

Part I – Miami
Part II – The Radiance of the Seas

Sharkboy and I barely slept all night. The wind picked up and howled outside our balcony door making the cabin sound like a windtunnel at a Honda Element testing plant. We wake to smooth rolling waves and somewhat overcast skies and discover that the balcony door was open ever so slightly causing the snarling wind noises. Closing the patio doors really helps keep the noise down!

We wander down to the dining room for breakfast and sit with a nice group of people (see previous mid-week post of Sharkboy’s attempts to create a common ground conversation). We ate and then wandered to the top deck to see Cuba. We go back to the room and got our sunbathing kits together.

The wind had picked up to about 45mph and the sundeck chairs would not stay open, towels wound up somewhere aft of the ship and drinks were knocked over. We set up beside a nice couple. I fell asleep instantly and the couple next to us gave up on the windy sunbathing. Meanwhile a group of 4 women arrive just as the deck begins to fill up. They noisily decide to take over three seats to our right and one seat to our left. This, of course, wakes me and I open my mouth to offer moving over one so they could be all together, but the singular left side lady starts to whine and complain and so I shut my mouth. Let her complain. Not one of them asked us to move so we didn’t offer. After a couple hours of them yapping between us, ordering drinks and arguing as to who was going to pay for them, we gave up and vacated the chairs. As we were leaving, they joked with us (finally acknowledging our existance) that our seats were “so taken”. “Where are you from?” Sharkboy asks.

“Hamilton. Ontario!” the leader pipes up.

“We’re from Toronto. That will be $10” Sharkboy says without hesitation.

We all laugh. Ha. Ha.

At this point I should stress that if we ask you to come with us on a cruise and create a group, we would have one major rule: you have no obligation to do what we’re doing and expect us not to follow you around either. These women could not do anything without each other. Hive mind, you know.

The rest of the day was a blur of eating, walking, $20 or so in the slot machines, some onboard shopping and bingo. $35 each bingo! And we won nothing! However, the caller was English and I believe that if Bingo ever becomes an Olympic sport, the English will bury us. The caller had 1000s of readymade expressions for call numbers and situations. “B-11! The two sexiest legs on sea!” or when they were confirming winning numbers (rapid fire, no pauses):
Checker: “B-2”
Caller: “That’s good.”
Checker: “I-20”
Caller: “That’s good.”
Checker: “Freespace”
Caller: “Cheater!”
Etc etc… He made spending $70 so quickly so fun!

Dinner (and every dinner after) was a combination of recounting the night’s and day’s adventures (gambling wins, drinking contests, cigars smoked, shopping conquests). All through dinner, the ship rocked and wind whipped spray up onto the deck around the windows.

We went to the Aurora Theater again for Bill Haley’s Happy Days show. Who is Bill Haley? Why he wrote and performed a little ditty called Happy Days (however, he didn’t sing the TV theme version). He was fun, energetic and I enjoyed it more than the previous night’s show. After one last wander of the decks, we snuck up to the Seaview Cafe and got take-away (risking having our plates ripped from our hands at 50mph winds) and watched a movie while nodding off. Life was good!

The next day, we throw back the curtains to Labadee! Royal Caribbean’s owned island off the coast of Haiti with ample beaches and waterpark for the kids. We opted to just get a chair on the beach and not do any of the excursions so we were one of the first people off the boat that morning. Our tender boat hit the docks and the skies opened up with torrential rain and we stood under a palapas until it slowed to a gentle spit. We wandered up the beach, looking at shells and sand and 4 metre high waves on the ocean side of Labadee’s jutty. We quickly learned that Labadee’s sandy coast was laced with large coral rock making our need for watershoes paramount if we were to venture out into the water.

We got two loungers and sat under a palapas at Hidden Beach which faced the ship. It was nice and dispite the rain, I was happy. When the rain stopped, we wandered down to the “marketplace” to see what was for sale. We were warned of their sales tactics but nothing could prepare us for the verbal assault given to us by the salesmen. It started by us walking by the closed market and a guy calling to us saying “You guys need anything?”

“We’re walking right now, we’ll come back,” says Sharkboy.

“You need water shoes?”

We’re stunned, how did he know? We had discussed getting a pair before hitting Jamaca, our next stop, and thought we would pick some up then. We agree to see what he’s got inside the long, low cabin and before we enter he says in all seriousness “Follow me, and don’t talk to anyone even if they start talking to you.” After hasitly buying the shoes, we literally had to fight our way out. They were relentless with their calls for attention. Not a good way to sell to Canadians: trying to be polite quickly dissolved to rude ignorance to their calls for attention and walking away was the only way to avoid their sales pitches. Before this, I felt like the Haitians were angry that we were there, even before they tried to sell us stuff. Now I was pretty sure they were bitter at the presence of tourists.

We get back to our private-ish beach and discover that Sharkboy’s shoes were actually pink and mine were “previously worn”. Ew. I shrugged and put my head down and slept. At least I had added to the island’s economy a bit. We woke to the sun cracking through the clouds and we put on our “new” shoes and ventured into the somewhat choppy water. Frolic! After a while, Sharkboy says “Is there a plastic bag in the water?” and I simotaneously yell “JELLYFISH!!” We leave the water quickly. The dang thing was brushing up against our legs when I noticed and had not got it’s stingers around to us. My left thigh was covered in goo. Great. Humped by a jellyfish.

During the BBQ lunch, a huge BBQ for the couple hundred people off the ship, with carved watermellons, burgs and dogs, fruits and cakes, I noticed a couple janitors cleaning up the big dining area who were alarmingly skinny and I wondered how many workers at Labadee were HIV+. Haiti has the greatest amount of HIV cases in all of the Caribbean and I wondered how much Royal Caribbean’s presence in Labadee was helpful yet a hinderance. I pondered this all day and couldn’t decide either way.

We stayed as long as we could and as long as the sun tried to stay out. We were back on the ship by 4pm. I did have a good time but I couldn’t shake this feeling of dissapointment and a bit of sadness towards Labadee/Haiti. Given the chance, I would probably choose not to go back there.

Before the formal dinner we got our picture taken with the Captain. The poor poor captain who looked like a carboard cutout by the time we posed with him. His face was a mask of stern patience and offered us a curt handshake. As the photographer took the picture, the captain’s hand was literally pushing us out the way for the next couple. We found out during dinner that the Speedboat tour was so choppy, necks were sore and people got wet from high spray. The tour was nearly rained out (or should have been) and we guessed that sitting on the beach was probably the best.

We skip the show (a tribute to 50s and 60s music and wander the ship. Again back up to the Seaview cafe for hand-delivered cabin service and a movie before bed.

Rub my gallery and watch it grow.

I am extremely sorry I haven’t gone to Sloppy Joe’s site sooner when the URL was passed to me on a dirty Black Eagle trick card.

You should go now. While you’re still in the Xmas spirit. Sloppy Joe loves video and it shows. Watch The Story of Jesus for stellar scripting like this:

God: Mary, this is GOD!
Mary: Where are you?
God: In … the air.
Mary: Oh wow!

Enjoy!

What kind of day did I have today? Let me sum it up with a song from Spongebob Squarepants:

The F.U.N. Song
(Speaking Part)
Spongebob: It’s not about winning, it’s about fun!
Plankton: What’s that?
Spongebob: Fun is when you…fun is…it’ like…it’s kinda…sorta like a… What is fun?? HERE…Let me spell it for you!

Spongebob:
F is for Friends who do stuff together.
U is for You and me.
N is for Anywhere and anytime at all.

Sea Creatures:
Down here in the deep blue sea!

Plankton:
F is for Fire that burns down the whole town.
U is for URANIUM…BOMBS!
N is for No survivors when you’re-

Spongebob:
Plankton! Those things aren’t what fun is all about!
Now, do it like this,
F is for Friends who do stuff to-

Plankton:
Never! That’s completely idiotic!

Spongebob:
Here, Let me help you…
F is for friends who do stuff together.
U is for You and me, TRY IT!

Plankton:
N is for Anywhere and anytime at all.

Sea Creatures:
Down here in the deep blue sea!

Plankton:
Wait…I don’t understand …I feel all tingly inside…
Should we stop?

Spongebob:
No! That’s how you’re supposed to feel!

Plankton:
Well I like it! Lets do it again!

Spongebob: Okay!

Spongebob & Plankton:
F is for Frolic through all the flowers.
U is for Ukelele.
N is for Nose picking, chewing gum, and sand licking.
Here with my best buddy.

(Laughing part)

Sea Creatures: Down in the deep blue sea.

From WeMakeMoneyNotArt

I would consider putting one of these on (scroll down a bit) for a scene (hell, even while shopping at Costco). I would NOT consider working over a slave wearing one without running from the dungeon, stifling laughter.