Our son Jones is almost two and a half years old, and he is positively electrified by the creatures.
The idea of them are the current that runs through his body. His sun and moon. His east and west. They are spinning and shining and thumping and roaring through his days, they are everything he wants his universe to be. And so, on a cold morning in the disorienting limbo between Christmas and New Year’s, we took him to the Royal Ontario Museum.
Standing there as we entered, Jones twisting in his jacket to get free from my grip and and run to the “BIG DINOSAUR!”, I was hoping that my son might grow to love museums. I imagined him retreating into them over the course of his life the way he might a lake, emerging nourished and restored after each encounter. Sanctuaries of rich, wide spaces and cool tile. All the marvels of history respectfully arrayed before him, and always, he would have the sense of being somewhere else, a place just outside of time, and of being suspended right before a great mystery that was both his life and not his life.
And then he spun free and ran out into the great hall.
He was just so excited.
He tore from one wonder to the next, identifying each one as best he could. It was astounding to watch. He was a fever. A pinball. A waterfall. A million monkeys typing. I swear to you that he was glowing, he really was.
Watching, I wondered why our children, all so innocent and vulnerable, were attracted to the creatures we consider the most terrible and dangerous? Why run into the jaws of a dinosaur? Why the darkness? And all of the parents there, each one smiling through whatever weight it was their burden to carry, were likely pondering some variant of the same question as they watched their miracles of light streak so beautifully through the museum.
]]>
If you don’t know who he is, he was one of the stars of the hit 90’s sitcom Friends.
Don’t be impressed by that. There were too many “stars” to count on that stupid show. Even a monkey was a star on that show. A monkey. Not Curious George. Not the Ikea Monkey. Just a regular, annoying monkey, so Matthew’s “star status” is really no big deal at all.
Just like in high school.
Matthew may have had famous parents and a cheap California tan, but I was the real star at Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa. Not only was I president of the UFO club, but I was also a great athlete, and I used to crush Perry mercilessly at tennis.
All.
Day.
Long.
It used to infuriate him! He would throw his expensive tennis racquets all over the place, complain that I was “foot faulting” or not wearing proper whites. Bullshit stuff like that. Anyway, the bottom line is that I destroyed him and made the tennis team while he did not. This final humiliation seemed to break Matthew, and after that he was my subordinate, little yes-man.
Matthew has been pretty unemployable since Friends, and thirsty for a little bit of publicity, he recently went on Jimmy Kimmel and announced that he and another kid, “Chris Murray,” once beat up Canadian Prime Minister and sex symbol Justin Trudeau back in school.
http://www.womansday.co.nz/celebrity/matthew-perry-admits-he-once-beat-up-justin-trudeau-7383
This is not true.
As Matthew still respects and fears me, he wouldn’t dare use my real name in public, but I was the “Chris Murray” mentioned.
To make a long story short, I was giving a presentation– in the hopes of recruiting future members to my high school UFO club–to Justin’s fifth grade class. After my talk I opened the floor up for questions:
Justin: Je ne peux m’empêcher de remarquer que les filles semblent être sous-représentées dans le club UFO. Pourriez-vous nous expliquer pourquoi?
Me: What?
Justin: Oh, I see you don’t speak French. What a shame. What I was asking was why aren’t there any girls in the UFO club. Are they not allowed?
Me: Girls??
Justin: Yes, girls. They comprise over half the population. ( Class, including teacher, roar with laughter)
Me: No girl has ever tried to join the UFO club. Would any want to?? Do you think you could get us one!?
Justin: That’s not my job. Your job is to create a safe and inclusive environment so they’ll want to join. Girls, would you like to join this creepy, unilingual, UFO club for boys, or would you rather form your own right here?! ( Class, including teacher, roar with approval)
Some other things happened, but in short, I delegated Matthew to beat up Justin after school, however Matthew failed, as I should have known he would fail, and I had to step in to do the job properly. At this time in my life I got nose bleeds very easily, and my bleed had nothing to do with Justin, who mistakenly thought the fight was over and was walking away like a coward. I tackled him and was just about to apply the finishing gotchy when some little girl kicked me in the back of the neck.
I had to wear a brace for six weeks after that.
And sadly, Matthew and I then drifted apart and the UFO Club just sort of faded away.
Ford, perhaps anticipating all of the apologies he’s going to have to make as part of his 12-step program, is said to have already written one to Stintz:
Dear Karen:
Geez, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for saying that I wanted to fucking jam you. It was inelegant of me, and you are a classy lady who deserves better. In fact, when I get back (I will have a tan and expect to have lost another 30 pounds) I would like to take you out for an elegant dinner at Splendido (Spendido!).
Just the two of us.
On me, not the city.
I can apologize in person and we can talk policy and then you could listen as I explain how business and government work. You are easily the most attractive of my opponents, and it wouldn’t bother me in the least to give a pretty lady like you a little help.
I think it would have been cool if we went to high school together. I was really good at sports, rich and quite a bit thinner than I am now, and I bet we would have gone out. Do you ever think about alternate universes? I do all the time. In one alternate universe I bet we’re together, in an open kind of relationship, and are political dynamos. In another alternate universe I live in California and spend a lot of time on the beach and in another I’m an MMA fighter.
But right now I’m confronting reality head-on. It’s what a man does.
Anyway, now that I’ve wrestled and vanquished my demons, it’s time to forget the past and move forward. I’ve survived a terrible disease now, showing a lot of courage in doing so, and I’m no longer going to be a victim to drug monkeys, the media or left-wing politics. I am going to be a new and improved Rob Ford, slimmer and more deserving of having an affair with a woman like you. I swear, you’re so pretty that you could be a figure skater or a hot sportscaster.
I really respect you, Karen and look forward to working with you in the future!
Cheers,
Rob Ford
Me: Rachelle! Rachelle! Are you there?
Rachelle: ( Moves hand as if swatting fly)
Me: What is your favourite crop?
Rachelle: Crop?
Me: Yes, like corn, wheat, tobacco or peanuts.
Rachelle: Mmmm. Peanut butter cups.
Me: Okay, next question. Who is the sluttiest person that you know?
Rachelle: Slutty sluts. They’re all sluts. You know that.
Me: Good answer.
Rachelle: Thirsty.
Me: I will ask the nurse if you can have an ice cube. What is your favourite natural disaster?
Rachelle: Twister. So. Very. Windy. Hide in the basement when the twister comes! Very serious. Lives ruined.
Me: And crops, twisters ruin crops too.
Rachelle: Twisters are ruiners.
]]>
Fun fact: The name Barbados is derived from the Bearded Fig trees once found in abundance on the island.
Fun fact: There are only three known ghosts on the entire island.
Fun fact: Barbados is the birthplace of Rihanna who lived here until the age of 16.
Fun fact: If a beach hustler with a gold tooth asks you if you want to buy a coconut or a seashell, he might mean cocaine or weed.
Fun fact: Bicyclists in Barbados do not wear helmets and shoes appear optional.
Fun fact: You will only see white women, as if in a movie they once saw, jogging on the beach.
Fun fact: Tiger Woods chose to have his wedding in Barbados in 2004.
Fun fact: Chickens roam as freely on the streets of Barbados as squirrels do in Toronto!
Fun fact: It is embarrassing to have your wife pull you to shore from an undertow when you were pretty sure you didn’t need any help at all, especially when cool looking locals playing dominoes were watching.
Fun fact: The people of Barbados have a long ingrained history of Christian principles.
Fun fact: Homosexuality is illegal in Barbados!
Fun fact: Some women in Barbados dress like superheroes– like those who wear capes and control the weather– for church on Sunday.
Fun fact: The middle-aged British women who sun on the beach all prefer reading crime mysteries to any other genre.
Fun fact: Sand crabs are faster and more perceptive than you’d think.
Fun fact: Finding an artificial flower petal washed-up on a gorgeous, dream beach is entirely dislocating.
Fun fact: The Six Million Dollar man is not a cultural reference widely understood by most Bajans.
Fun fact: Women who look like they might have worked at Coyote Ugly back in the day really enjoy the attention of beach hustlers.
Fun fact: Squid are also known as Seacat in Barbados.
Fun fact: Sometimes it is easy to mistake a night diver’s flashlight exploring the water just beneath the surface for sub-aquatic UFO activity.
Fun fact: In Barbados, one drives on the left side of the road, which is easy to forget, especially if you only have your Learner’s Permit.
Fun fact: Sometimes a monkey, as fast as a demon, will dart in front of your car.
Fun fact: Monkeys are not supernatural and can be killed upon impact with your car.
Fun fact: Monkey deaths are very upsetting.
Fun fact: The monkey face is very human and expressive and it is heartbreaking to see a dying one reach out to you with its little monkey hand on the side of a tropical road.
Fun fact: My wife can’t stop crying and I am pretty sure she now hates me.
]]>
We sat in the third row of this IMAX 3D spectacle, and I have to say it was the most concussive, punishing movie experience I have ever had. We were so close to the screen that we couldn’t actually see the screen, and appreciating the movie was more of a physical challenge than an aesthetic one. Strictly confined within the conventions of the genre, Pacific Rim was a living, evolving piece of abstract expressionism that came screaming out at us like some terrible flying monkey. We could only see gestures within the film– sound, colour and velocity—all swirling and spitting before us, but never did we have a clear, overview of things as they unfolded.
Of course, this didn’t really matter, because we knew exactly what was taking place. Pacific Rim is an action flick, a B movie writ monstrously large, and it followed the formula these movies always follow. This genre is now so much a part of me that I feel like it’s coded into my DNA, my understanding instinctive and unmediated rather than the product of conscious, cognitive functions, if that makes any sense.
Nonetheless, it was still a very disorienting experience ( I wanted nothing more than to inhabit a Brian Eno composition while there), and not simply because of the shock and awe campaign detonating around us. Pacific Rim (note the name) was a movie designed for a global audience rather than a North American one. The film was so flat and one-dimensional that it was little more than a series of symbols and cues. There was no nuance or complexity, and this was intentional, because it’s built to travel, to be easily transferrable to other languages and cultures. The primary human characters in it are a diverse array of ethnicities, and the world represented a global, cultural mash-up. You simply don’t have to speak the language in which the movie is made to understand exactly what’s going on, in fact, you might even be better served if you didn’t.
For a movie that was all about fighting, there was no real violence in it, and it was more like a gigantic puppet show than a graphic representation of what a robot three times the size of a skyscraper fighting a massive alien might be like. It was a kid’s movie, meant to move merchandize and launch a franchise that will have global appeal. Last year, I think the top 10 top grossing films in North America were all sequels or prequels. Losing market share to piracy and revitalized cable television, original one-off movies that aspire to art are not where the bottom line lives, and the Hollywood arrow no longer flies no toward the heart of North America, but is now launched like a volley out toward the rest of the world, where all the money and people actually live.
I love the taste of bacon.
I can fly, but because I don’t like to stand out in a crowd I never do.
I hate my mother for abandoning me, but then I went and did the same thing to my litter.
Even though my tribe continues to look to me for religious guidance, I have lost my faith.
I can only achieve orgasm when I’m on my wheel.
I know it’s wrong, but I hate horses. They’re so pretentious.
Everybody thinks that I’m really nice, but the truth is that I’m full of anger and hate.
I kill for fun.
]]>