Tag Archives: centre

Disney: Excitement

Travel

IMG_0582Things blind you in the World. You lose site of your behaviour at 100%, 60%, 40% levels of excitement relavite to the heart-racing thing you’re exposed to, while discovering things in the Parks. You come around the corner and there’s Goofy in a cowboy hat! Goofy! OMFG! HI! Then you notice he’s not noticing you. Then you notice the line for photographs. 100, 60, 40. Just like the forced perspective of all the buildings along Main Street.

In this fete of excitement you discover things about people you love. Things that may make you either love them more or question the whole foundation of your relationship.

Case in point: Lunch at T-Rex Restaurant. We’re stuffed to the gills on massive burgers and nachos and we’re walking it off in the gift shop. A section in the back is a Build-a-Bear outlet that had been modified into “build a Dino” in keeping with the whole restaurant theme. Nice. I’ve never been in one and wandered in for a browse. I’m looking at the different “breeds” of dinos you can get when I hear a manly girl scream.

“Look at these cute shorts!!”

Yes. It’s SharkBoy and he’s holding up a pair of cargo pants, sized for a baby or a baby dino or someone with serious medical problems. He’s gushing like a prom queen stuck in the football team’s locker room. The only other time I’ve seen him excited like this was when we bought lightsabers at our first trip to Disney. He immediately picks out an orange Raptor and thrusts it into my hand to get the attendant to stuff it while he wanders the isles looking for cuter outfits.

Not sure if you’ve ever done the “Build A Bear/Dino” experience. The stuffing machine attendant gives you a cloth heart that you have to rub, blow on, give a kiss, make a wish and CRAM into the centre of your creation. Yeah, I had to do that part. I wished nobody was watching.

At the end of the whole process (including making a birth certificate – say hello to Kiki2, newly adopted by yours truly, Libido Suiddlygoot), SharkBoy discovers a tiny pair of cammo tighty whiteys that illicit a final peal of delight and an extra reach for his wallet. Now, those were cute. I admit it.

Did this experience soil our relationship? Hardly. It made me love him more. It’s a rare moment to see this kind of behaviour from him and it also makes me love Disney even more.

Full Circle

Personal Bits

The phone rings last night and it’s the Old Audio Dude (my third in line brother), he’s coming to Toronto with Heather and The Mop, my incredibly thick-haired nephew. No really, this kid’s hair is incredible considering he came from our gene pool of hairy backed, thin-on-top family. He can take solace (or sadness?) in knowing that no Mii editor, no Xbox avatar creator, no PS3 Home builder, will every be able to recreate his large, unruly mane.

I digress.

He’s here in town and to give Heather the day to herself, SharkBoy and I are going to treat him to a march down Queen West and a movie (Marley and Me). I think there might be robot shopping involved. Expect pictures. What makes me feel incredibly old and expectant, is the fact that he’s the exact age when I started to come with my Dad to Toronto on business trips and run around alone on the subway downtown (yeah, they use to let 13 year old kids wander the streets alone back in the 70s).

I’m slightly weirded out that this is how the legacy is passed on – trips to the Silver Snail with $20 in his pocket, a ticket to a movie and popcorn, chased down with big gulps of sugar water. That arcade is closed so I can’t show him that – he’s voiced his desire to plug into our PS3/Wii/Xbox combo until his eyes bleed, anyway. If I had more time I’d take him to the Science Centre but that’s too late. Oh well, we’ll teach him the fine art of shopping. Every young lad should learn that early.

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.

Nooeet Blanch – Big Blue Turd Excites Us All

Toronto

Photos here.

My first NB was interesting. With all the crowds and revelry it actually felt like Toronto did something cohesive and collective as a city. And it was fun discovering a shop window showing a video or a sculpture instead of the usual goods and services. People were exposed to challenging pieces that, yes did make you scratch your head and wonder WFT? But the fact that the art got so many people out of their house and into the streets was a clear sign of it’s success. So what if you laughed at a big blue swirly turd hanging over your head in the middle of the Eaton Centre? You’re there, you’re experiencing it and it got you thinking, even if it was to laugh or get angry or wonder where your ScotiaBank savings are going. Art wins. Suck that, Stephen “I hate the arts” Harper.

One thing that really got me down though, was seeing Cabbagetown’s contribution. Sad. The section of street that was blocked off was utterly empty. I think amount of artists (I counted 6 “artists”) were dwarfed by the space that they had available. And considering how “funky” C-town is suppose to be, with it’s great diversity of neighbourhoods to the north and south. It really could have been a lot more. When we returned after being in the downtown core, there was one woman reading quietly from her literature (two people on bikes paying any sort of attention), a big screen video showing Breathless (original French version), a log tee pee and a bunch of drunk yuppies joking how they should burn the tee pee down. The local Liberal campaign office was busy, of course. But that’s hardly art these days.

One milestone: I’ve never stepped foot inside Maple Leaf Gardens before in my life and I broke my sports history hymen by visiting the dueling rambling milk blobs. It’s a shame that building isnt being used for anything these days. Damn you Lowblaws!

Next year, I’ll treat it like Pride: have a nice pre-Blance dinner party, plan an attack (avoid anything “Zombie” or “fame”) and wander around loosely after that.

UPDATE: I guess all the good stuff was in Zone B. Goes to show you where all the creative types live.