But I was There: When in Buffalo, Roam as the Buffalo Do

Exhibit A. It's Sometimes Sunny in Buffalo

Dear Reader, I am no longer a virgin.

It was my first NFL game and associated tailgate. This weekend I attended the Buffalo Bills–New England Patriots game with none other than…my Dad. It was everything I thought it would be, and something I would do at least once a year. Though this father-son moment is something most boys do with somewhere around the age of six, thirty seems about right. I won’t bore you with the details of the game other than to say that I saw two of my top ten all time favourite athletes connect on a touchdown (Brady to Moss), but (and cue the music) more importantly, I connected with one of my top ten all time favourite parents.

Here are the highlights.

8AM – woke up in Burlington at my Uncle's house. He is an awesome football fan and an actual University coach (like Craig T. Nelson, but real). I drank a delicious glass of orange juice and pa and me b-lined it to the Tim Horton’s for what would have been a lovely little commercial.

9AM – Driving through St. Catherines, I had the following exchange with my Dad (married 35 years to Ma), which is definitely, a top 5 all time for me:
Me: All my friends seem to be married now. How do you decide to finally do it?
Dad: If you think maybe you should marry the person you’re with, that’s a no. If you think yes, then get married.

9:30AM – We cross the border. I realize how much I’m like my Dad when I notice how panicked he gets around border guards. Border guards are pricks. There, I said it. I know this is part of the uniform they need to wear to catch Osama, but I actually think they will probably do more to increase terrorism than prevent it if they aren’t nicer to people: I should sell that to the government “Kindness: one weapon against terror.” When we handed him our passports, the border guard ordered us to hand them to him open as though he were ordering us to put all hands on the wall for a cavity search. I stuttered when he asked us our seats numbers and then laughed at how ridiculous a vetting question that is.

9:43 AM - Buffalo is a shithole. It looks like Hamilton except the billboards are for beer brands we don’t have.

10:00 AM – We arrive in Buffalo and pull into a parking lot. We pay someone in a yellow vest $25 dollars and park between two trucks. On our left, a group of guys bbq’ing chili. On our right, the same thing. In fact, everyone had chili on the go. My Dad and I feel slightly left out, so we go over to the KK Convenience Mart and pick up 18 Miller Lite and a bag of plain chips. We’re ready to roll.

Exhibit B. Friendly People

10: 15AM – We open the back of the Hyundai Santa Fe (painfully close to a Mom SUV) and sit on the bumper. It’s -5, there are drunk Americans everywhere, yet I feel like the Buddha must have felt sitting under the lotus tree for the first time.

10:20AM – I put on my New England patriots toque. Instantly, Bills' fans start yelling at me (e.g. “New England sucks!”), and Patriots' fans start offering me their first born.

10:26AM – A father and son selling pie to fundraise for their church tug on my and my father's collective heartstrings. We buy a peach and apple for 5 bucks each. They're not bad, more tarts than pies, but I guess their father son moment is a good cause; I have no idea what the church was: it sounded made up to be honest. 20 minutes later, high school cheerleaders come by and try to sell us peanuts. Though they'd go much better with the beer, I feel like I'm being pandered to and we reject. I'm glad we bought the cult-pies.

10:30AM – The first Miller Lite is going through me like water. My Dad and I start getting really folksy and I say something like “You don’t buy it, you rent it.”

10:32AM – I return from the portable toilet at the far end of the parking lot and warn my Dad that if he can avoid using them, to do so (then again, are they ever Shangri-la?). I should sell that name to a portable toilet company: Shangri-La Septic. My Dad tells me the second hand story he just heard from the group to our left of a guy who randomly had sex with some girl in a bar bathroom last night. When we’re kids, our parents try to protect us from these stories; I wish I were there to protect my dad from that one.

11:40AM - We get into an excellent conversation with the car to other side of us (I feel like we knew everything we needed to about the group to right). They are a group of Mormons (lapsed) from Erie. At first we talk about how my Patriots toque sucks “giant ass”, but then get into talking about the economy and careers. We offer career advice to a welder to look into the Alberta oil fields. It’s a completely asinine conversation to be having when 20m in the distance, I think I just saw someone throw up and urinate at the same time.

Noon – The game starts at one, so we decide to start making our way to the field. I see one guy so drunk, I wonder how (or why) he will get into the stadium. He’s doing that sideways walk thing, where the feet seem to be pointing to the side, but the legs and body continue to move forward. If he gets into the game, at least he can say, “I was there.”

1:00PM – The game starts. I scream like a little girl when Randy Moss and Tom Brady run onto the field. I take my hat off when the National Anthem begins (which you should do, even in a country where the border guards are dicks).

1:10PM – One row in front of us, this:

Exhibit C. The Worst Nap In Buffalo History

Now, I know what I paid for my tickets, and in this economy, I just can't believe this can happen. This lovely couple probably had a great Sunday morning, but they are to tailgating what the hare is to a race against a tortoise; furthermore, this kind of thing probably provides a lot of ammunition to people who try to argue that soccer is the better game than football (Let’s face it, Euro football vs. American football debaters: they are both boring. In fact, at some point, all sports (and sport blogs) can be boring if you aren't moderately drunk. But I think I’ll take the puking America tailgater stereotype over the murderous soccer hooligan stereotype for the simple reason that I can clean vomit from my clothes, but I can’t clean a knife from my chest).

1:20PM – A woman in her mid-50s sitting in front of me is offended by my Patriots toque. She takes a pink Buffalo Bills cap, puts it on my head, and takes my picture. If we were both half our age plus seven, we'd have exchanged facebook names and I'd be able to get a looksee how this picture of me turned out. Alas, not. Somewhere in Buffalo, my picture is on a her computer; I wonder what she’ll do with it. I worry that with the Pats toque under the Bills hat, I will someday be used for anti-Patriots propaganda, possibly with Perez Hilton style graffiti over my picture claiming that I am a "douchebag."

2:45PM – I brave the washrooms at Ralph Wilson Stadium. It's packed with men, of which I am one: when in traffic, don't complain, because you're a car too. If hell exists, it is found in a men’s washroom at a sporting event. All the senses are assaulted. I realize I'm growing up when the first thought that comes to my mind is whether or not the fire department would have a problem with all the people in this bathroom. A Bills' fan is banging on a stall door wondering what the person 'in there' is doing. A few minutes later, we all find out, when the guy who was in the stall exits, a fresh sheen of vomit down the front of his Terrell Owens jersey. But he was there. At least he was there.

4:15PM – The game ends and the Bills lose (see, I told you I wouldn’t bore you with the details). I take one last look back to see Randy Moss, and my Dad catches me. I quickly say something about girls.

4:40PM – We arrive back at the Hyundai Santa Fe and most people are on their way out except one group of Ontarians who can’t start their car. We give them a boost, talk about football, drink a beer and swear probably 30 times each. We wear the uniform of a tailgater to the bitter end.

5:35 PM – At the Niagara Falls border, the Customs officer wants to know why we both have suitcases if we were just in town for the Bills' game. We tell her the completely true story, that because of our nervousness sounds made up, about sleeping the night in Burlington at my Uncle's, a football coach, like Craig T. Nelson, only real...etc.

What I really wanted to do was to tell her to read my blog today—both to get her answer and to up the number of hits on my counter…just so she could prove, that yes, she was here.

Exhibit D. When in Buffalo, Roam as the Buffalo Do

On Disappointment: The Two Tigers

For a while, Chris Henry was one of my favourite NFL wide receivers. I’m not really sure why. He played on the Cincinnati Bengals which doesn’t really arouse anything in me, and he wasn’t even the best (or second best) on the team. He was fast and athletic: all the things you probably should be if on career day, the guidance counsellor says you should be an NFL football player. Chris Henry looked weird (my girlfriend recently called him “alien-like”), which was actually bonus, and I was pretty sure that by liking him, I would be alone, fulfilling the need that some of us have to like things that others don’t in order to seem indie or unique or ironic (other examples: Steely Dan, Raspberry ginger ale, not having a cell phone).

If you’re not up to speed on this, here are the basics (or reported basics as this story is less than a day old) regarding the recent death of NFL wide receiver Chris Henry. From espn.com:
“Police said a dispute began at a home … and Henry jumped into the bed of the pickup truck as his fiancée was driving away from the residence. Police said at some point when she was driving, Henry came out of the back of the vehicle."

There will be some speculation about what happened before Chris Henry fell out of the pickup truck (although much less than that surrounding the Tiger Woods vehicular-domestic dispute) and sadly, in a week, Chris Henry’s death will likely be forgotten or chalked up as inevitable given his history. Unlike Tiger Woods, Chris Henry had a pretty public spotty past: the almost cliché case of someone with all the talent in the world constantly disappointing those who took a chance on him. Since this is not setting out to be a tribute or obituary, I won’t shy away from some of those dirty bits. Since 2004, Henry had been charged or accused with the following: DUI, supplying underage girls with alcohol (though come on, they were 20), drug possession, gun possession, and assault (not against women), not to mention some pretty ridiculous on-the-field conduct where coaches referred to him as an embarrassment to the game. Note this is a game where Plaxico Burress goes to jail for shooting himself yet Ray Lewis stabs a woman, and wins a Super Bowl MVP the following year. Chris Henry’s crimes were largely the stuff of college movies and 1970s porn scenarios.

But this year, Chris Henry was moving on/growing up. The Bengals gave him a second (or tenth) chance, and at only 26, he was finally getting on with it. Sometimes it takes the first 26 years to sort your shit out (or if you’re Italian, 42). Chris Henry benefited from being not quite famous enough, which allowed him these under the radar chances, unlike say, Tiger Woods, who will, with little professional consequence, be just fine, despite the next few years of being asked about his “transgression.”

The next few days of Chris Henry stories will all be the same. They will mention his checkered past, his attempt at redemption, and perhaps the astute attempts will recognize that he was just a kid. Unlike Tiger Woods, nothing much was expected from Chris Henry. Within 20 minutes of the news that Chris Henry died from his injuries, the news that Elin wanted to divorce Tiger Woods had already taken over the top story. Between you and me reader, I don’t give a sweet fuck. Elin will still be rich and hot; Tiger Woods will still be rich and have his pick of cocktail waitresses or celebrities who have recently broken up with A-Rod or Tony Romo. Their kids will be fucked, but there is a chance that is going to happen regardless when your Dad is the athlete of the century.

But back to Chris Henry: as Jerry Reed (another thing to like if you want to seem unique) said, “He who don’t expect much, ain’t gonna be disappointed.” So 650 words to get to my point: despite his rather cliché athlete existence, despite my constant vigilance to try (and fail) to not care about celebrity lives, and despite those low expectations, Chris Henry’s death disappoints me, not simply because he was young, but because he wasn't getting any younger.

How Fantasy Football Ruins Football and Lives (in that order)

This will make sense to no more than five regular readers of this blog. I'll get the rest of you next time. For those of you who do care to read, I have provided a glossary at the bottom of this entry.

Brady Quinn: Back in the day when things were cool
all we needed was bop ba ba ba ba ba du

My New Reality TV Show

Okay, so there's new reality show called Fantasy House...no, there are no women in bikinis, no beer coming out of the faucets, or any of those other erection inducing things that men aged 14 to 95 are want to like...this is about 10 men who have been kicked out of their own houses by the wives and girlfriends sick of hearing about their fantasy football team. For 16 weeks the men live, eat, and surf the internet for football stats, unfettered by Thursday night Dancing with the Stars' hiberdates, Saturday afternoon trips to the mall, Sunday dinners with family: the men are free to spend every waking hour in the fantasy house discussing how crappy their quarterbacks are and how much the other nine men in their house/league "suck ass" - they will lose all perspective, proclaiming that yes, they could coach in the NFL and yes, being 3-2 in the first five weeks is qualification enough to lead the Cleveland Browns (they would be right).

Viewers will tune in to watch the 10 men systematically begin to never enjoy football again. The game of football will lose all meaning, like a computer translating Hamlet into binary code and an audience hearing "To be or not to be" as "1 0 1 0 0 0..."

By the end of season one on Fantasy House, nine of the ten men will swear it's not worth the anguish, that they will never to play a season of fantasy football again; they will return home, without their signed football and $400 cash prize, to the open and forgiving arms of beautiful wives and beautiful girlfriends; they will return home to towels which match the bathmats; to meals with cilantro; they will return home to biweekly intercourse; and then, they will realize what's truly important, who the real 'keepers' are. And for eight months, they will have what the wise call perspective. They will have love (or at least a comfortable arrangement), and all will be right. Fantasy House will go on hiatus until the following August when the league commissioner email reminding you that September 20th is draft day; season two of the show will begin, and the fog will return like it was Devin Hester, all that hard-earned perspective will vanish as though it was Brady Quinn's career: yes, Yeats encapsulated man's loss of perspective best when he wrote those famous words: "1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0."

Glossary

• Brady Quinn - Former mancrush and all-American quarterback who was amazing in college at Notre Dame but sucks in the NFL, leading one to believe that he plays for God, not the Cleveland Browns
• Cleveland Browns - the worst team in football. They wear brown and have Brady Quinn as a quarterback.
• Devin Hester - A guy who runs fast and gets touchdowns sometimes.
• fantasy football - 1. sports gambling masquerading as friendship; 2. the activity that makes Sunday a bad day to make plans with a significant other and places the emphasis on a romantic Saturday.
• keepers - 1. Fantasy Football - n. an actual player who you have from one fantasy football year to the next (see, me: Brady f'ing Quinn); 2. Real Life - n. a romantic partner who you want to have from one actual year to the next.
• league commissioner - the friend who organizes your fantasy football league in much the same the way in which a drug dealer organizes your baggie. (AKA. Johnny Commish)
  

Eleven Rules for Talking About Sports in Larger Groups

Be it dog catcher Michael Vick being allowed to play football, poker being on sports TV five times a day, or MMA achieving Monster Truck status with audiences, the berth of what constitutes sport talk has widened. And so, I present a public service for those at the beginner-intermediate-“expert” levels of sports conversation. Even if you don’t talk about sports, one of these tips may save your (social) life one day and make you look exceedingly well-rounded as though you were of common the people.

The Eleven Rules

1. Pick your Spots: If you’re the only one in a gathering who wants to talk about sports, don’t push the issue. Now’s not the time or place. Save it for next time you’re with an uncle or stuck with your girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend who you’ve never met but find yourself at a table with while the girls have gone to the bathroom.

2. Take the road less traveled and make all the difference: One person should always take the least popular opinion on any sport debate. Possible POVs to try include women’s sports are not as interesting as men’s, North Americans who play soccer are douchebags, and baseball is awesome.

3. The Tom Brady Effect: Man crushes are allowed and cannot be judged under any circumstances. Who is anyone to get in the way of true love?

Figure 1. Take that David Beckham

4. The events in sports movies are fair game for discussion and can be argued with the fervor of actual sporting events: Ivan Drago really did kill Apollo Creed in Rocky IV, Kadeem Hardisson’s ghost really did help Marlon Wayans in The Sixth Man and there really were Angels in the Outfield helping Matthew McConaughey catch fly balls. [For less obscure references, please comment below.]

5. Yelling doesn’t mean you’re mad. It means you’re possibly wrong (see: Leafs fans, Italian soccer fans, those who earnestly follow Alpine Skiing).

6. Professional Wrestling is a sport. This became true in 1987 when Hogan body slammed Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III. When engaged in a wrestling conversation, excessive name-dropping is recommended for nostalgic purposes. What conversation isn’t improved upon by reminding everyone at the table of the existence of "The Natural" Butch Reed?

Figure 2. Does putting quotes around "The Natural" undercut how natural you are?

7. Telling friends about your Fantasy Sports teams is acceptable. Telling friends about your fantasy sex scenarios is not …unless you’re on a camping trip in which case, go ahead [Addendum: Camping trips are no place to talk about fantasy sports]

8. There’s no I in Team: Try to include everyone in the conversation, but don’t reach for it. If there’s someone who doesn’t like sports in the group, let them go: they’ll catch up during the next conversation topic. Though consider how strong your friendship is if you always seem to be talking about sports and they don't. Oh, and for ye who don’t like sports…

9. There’s no U in Team: If you don’t like sports and a sports conversation breaks out, you have two options. 1. Silence and 2. Steer the topic to your own field of knowledge for momentary cul de sacs (examples: A-Rod’s play at third base → A-Rod getting to third base with Kate Hudson; Michael Vick’s right to play → animal rights; O.J. Simpson savagely murdering people → O.J. Simpson comedically murdering audiences in the Naked Gun movies). However, under no condition can you chastise sports conversations as stupid or pointless: not every conversation is Douglas-Lincoln and not every one is Nelson Mandela (who by the way, used World Cup Rugby to unite South Africa shortly after apartheid ended - holla bitches!).

10. With the exception of wrestling, spewing sport history, stats or award winners do not make a conversation: no one likes a show off. Learn the art of gentle history dropping and don’t submarine people with wikipedia entries as though you were some kind of 5x AL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Dan Quisenberry

Figure 3. It is really hard to throw underhand and look cool. Dan Q could do it.

11. The Tennis Rule: Tennis is the least interesting professional sport getting regular television coverage that a group can discuss. If, after observing the above points, you find the conversation has found its way to tennis, do your friends in #8 a favour and change the topic to movies or sex, but never weather or politics, and only in certain climes, fantasy sex scenarios.

Now scroll back up to Figure 1...your man crush is safe here. Your man crush is safe here.

Day 34: Casablanca Dave and the Temple of Dumps

Indiana Jones feared snakes, Casablanca Dave apparently doesn’t care much for rats. Giant rats which drag tails the size of baby arms; rats that make Willard look like the recently deceased Taco Bell Chihuahua (Rest in Peace you 90s icon); rats that make you wonder what the hell little Michael Jackson saw in his pet rat Ben (if it’s not “too soon,” insert MJ joke now). Fievel might have gone west, but the rest of the rats are hunkering down right in the heart of Toronto.

So, I went back to the illegal dumping site today to get a better look:


Though it's not completely visible at this angle, in the bottom lefthand corner, and I shit you not, is an open bag of shit. This is not the cutesy garbage I thought I was going to explore. This is dirty, filthy trash that not even Oscar the Grouch would tolerate.

I didn’t get too close to this nasty pile as I was wearing my new Old Navy flip-flops (as all good adventurers do) and didn’t want to risk flesh-eating disease getting in through my toenails. Besides, the minute I arrived on the scene, a family of hedgehog sized rats came flying out of the pile and into the surrounding bush. For a moment I thought they were charging me, but this would have been far too dramatic to be true. As I walked the railway tracks home—don’t worry safety police, Via Rail went on strike today too—I realized what a big fat baby I was becoming.



My “eww” reaction to the rats surprised me since I never really considered them something to “fear”—in four years of a zoology degree I probably rooted around the large intestine of a dozen or so large white rats; I even recall a lovely three hour lab tweezering through fresh rat feces in the search for parasite eggs. I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for creepy crawlers and last night heroically* killed a bunch of spiders and a moth in my apartment, the latter of which unexpectedly had guts that looked like a Kraft Caramel. Alas, I did all this with nary a flinch.

But call me conservative, there is something about a big fangy rat bursting from a crap pile that makes me wonder how much longer Toronto can go on like this. It’s now day 34 of this CUPE strike; even Gandhi's hunger strikes didn't go on this long, and CUPE, I saw Gandhi, I knew Gandhi; Gandhi was a friend of mine. CUPE, you're no Gandhi.**

What started as potentially gross has now become potentially plague inducing. Parks are closed, social assistance paperwork isn’t getting filled out, people are blaming EMS workers for heart-attack deaths, union workers are punching people at garbage drop sites, and that 16 year old lifeguard blogging for The Star is showing me up with her good writing, mature perspective and first hand knowledge of the city strike. Meanwhile the rats are having a big old laugh as they develop our taste for convenience.

Frig, I should go wash my feet.

And speaking of feet, here are the footnotes.

*Heroically because my girlfriend watched me do it! Nothing shows you're a man like killing bugs in front of a woman. And unlike Indiana Jones’s girls, I am pretty sure mine won’t turn out to be a Nazi.

**One of the top 5 most obscure allusions. I barely even understand it. Lloyd Bentsen on Dan Quayle anyone? Anyone?

Raiders of Illegal Dumping: Part I

Last night, I felt like a Goonie. Go on you say? Okay. I will.

Which Goonie was I? I don’t know yet. I wish I could say I was Mikey, but the reality is, I was probably Chunk. While I’m sure there is some facebook application called “Which Goonie are you?” I’m going to do this the old fashioned way: self-reflection based on reaction.*

Last night, while walking home from my local Loblaws (the one that had a rat infestation last spring), I decided I would take a shortcut and walk along the railway tracks. In hindsight, this decision was an attempt at a Stand By Me moment, not a Goonies moment, but I guess we can’t pick which 1980s coming of age stories find us when we’re in our 30s.

So, here I am, walking the rails, trying to get all Will Wheaton, when I happen upon an illegal dumping site. Now, there is a dirt road to access this area, but other than that, I am walking in a very out-of-the-way area by Toronto standards (meaning I can’t see a Starbucks, anyone in skinny jeans, or hear a horn honking for no good goddamn reason). This is the type of area where you have bonfires or drink 4 bottles of Red Dog before your 10PM curfew.**

So, I come upon this giant pile of garbage filling up a natural valley made by the railway and high grass on one side and anonymous warehouse walls with half-assed graffiti on the other. Remember when the Goonies found the Fratteli’s hideout? Yeah, I know…I know.

The trash is fresh, and not even proper trash—a lot of it was simply white paper and other materials which are apparently recyclable (plastic and wrapping). But there was a shitload of it. It honestly looked like office waste, not household waste; I decide I’m in Dateline Investigation territory here. I pull out my camera to take a picture (‘cause this would be wicked investigative blogging) ready to blow the whistle on some corporate scandal and get a street named after me...when I hear a car approach…


Now, if you can picture a grown man scampering, well, shit, I scampered. I am not sure when the last time I scampered was: at least 20 years ago and probably on a Christmas morning. I ducked to the other side of the railway tracks and once there, self-conscious as I am, pretended I was “just chillin’” lest someone in a high apartment or literally, on the other side of the tracks, saw me making this bizarre move. My position must have represented the most unnatural “just chillin’” pose of all time: man with grocery bags, sitting on the rocks beside a railway track, looking intently at nothing in particular, holding an open cellphone, and I probably started whistling…a sure sign of someone who hasn’t seen something.***

I had to take a look at the car, so I peaked over the tracks where indeed, a Reliant K Car**** pulls up, and a man pops the trunk and dumps a few garbage bags into the pile. What was I supposed to do? Does Canada have citizens arrest? Should I call Mayor David Miller? I have raw chicken in my grocery bag! Do I really care that much? And what were the dumpers going to do if they saw me? Frig, what would a Goonie do?

Well, this Goonie hid out and waited for the car to leave. Yeah, I know: way more Chunk than Mikey.

So tonight, while many of my friends prepare for upcoming weddings, the birth of first children, maybe pay a bill and eat a meal with some vegetables, David Brock (b.1979) will put on black clothes, pretend he’s “just chillin’” and go check out the secret garbage dump by the railway tracks. Anyone want to come on an adventure? There are still positions available for a Corey Feldman type, an older brother in the mold of Josh Brolin, and a Data.*****

Footnotes (because they are important):
*Besides, I was slightly dissatisfied with recent Facebook application claims that my Punk Rock self is Iggy Pop (I wanted Fat Mike), my Sesame Street Character is Elmo (screw those second generation SS characters) and my Theatre Career should be Lighting Designer (I wanted “None of the above”).

** Anyone remember the rumour that the logo on a Red Dog bottle cap was supposedly Batman performing oral sex on Catwoman?

*** Or “hasn’t seen anything”. Or “has seen nothing.” There are too many indefinite pronouns which seem to make sense here.

**** Indeed is an overstatment. I don’t think it was a K Car, but it’s the crappiest car I can think of. It was probably a Contour or Malibu or something. I don’t know cars and am a crap eyewitness.

*****Must provide own spring mounted boxing glove, oil dispensing sneakers, and booby traps (that’s what I said, booby traps).

4 weeks In...

For those of you that I had reading this on the first 4 days, my apologies...I was taking my 18 sick days. Now that I know what it's like to take 18 sick days, my sympathies are creeping towards those city workers. We should all get AT LEAST 18!

Refreshed, I will resume...starting tomorrow (it's after 5PM...you can't expect anyone to work after 5PM).

Day Four: I Forgot About the Garbage Thing (MJ)

If I may indulge...

If you are even close to my age (and if you’re not a baby or 125 years old, you are), then you probably owned Thriller. If you were born between 1965 and 1983, you probably had the first release of the record while you still lived with parents—in the days when records were the only choice and not the hipster alternative to practical listening.

Thriller wasn’t even music for me when my parents bought it: I was four and liked album covers (which explains Taco’s Puttin on the Ritz, Abba’s Super Trooper and Laura Brannigan)…Thriller’s cover was perfect: a good looking black man in a white suit with a tiger. When you’re four and don’t know what sex is, this IS sex.

Though I wasn’t born in the peak Farrah Fawcett age, I get that she was the icon for many of those in pre-sex mode. I wish I had more to say, but Lynn Crosbie’s Globe and Mail piece on Farrah Fawcett from a few weeks ago says it much better (actually, Lynn’s eulogizing is much more polished than this attempt).

Back to Michael Jackson. His death today is not heartbreaking. That doesn’t mean it’s not too bad (no pun intended), but it’s not something that shocks and saddens as much as Larry King claims it does. Michael Jackson’s death is reflective and symbolic. No one will miss the Michael Jackson of Jay Leno jokes, Oprah interviews, court cases, or cosmetic surgery. We’ll miss Thriller Michael.

The Michael we miss, we missed long before today.

In 2004, my cat Kamala died. Our family had had her since 1987, and while we were all upset, I don’t know if we were sad at her actual death, but rather, the thought of 1987 and the simple thought of how much time had passed. The death of a pet always seems to elicit a montage: when Kamala died, I was 25 and all I could think of was getting her when I was eight years old and a few other scenes, none of which involved me as an adult. Michael Jackson’s death has the same effect for the 8 billion people on the earth who don’t know him personally: nostalgia. But we already had that.

I don’t compare the death of a man I didn’t know to a pet I did, but last week, if asked why the world liked Michael Jackson, no one would have called him the King of Pop for anything after the Bad album. It was Thriller. It was Off The Wall. It was the Jackson Five. Watch the news: any music we hear will be 25 years old* and amazing and not pop music as a synonym for empty sounds (looking at you Will.I.Am).

Today when I heard that Michael Jackson died, I thought of 1983: I was four and he was awesome and my mom made all my meals and all we had were records. Fuck the Thriller album was good. So was that cover.

The Michael we miss, we missed long before today. Yeah, okay...today is sort of heartbreaking.


(* Not including his 1995 duet with Janet Jackson Scream which is still a pretty amazing song)

Day Three: My Garbage is Boring.

"A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense." - General Dodonna (Star Wars)

Today I left home with a little grocery bag (the green kind that costs 99 cents). I brought it out with the expectation of buying tonic water, limes, and BBQ corn chips (see Day 2). I ended up not purchasing any of those items and thus, write Day 3 stone cold sober. Sort of.

With no open trash cans and no shopping spree, I found myself using the bag as my own little garbage tote. When I got home, I was fairly astonished at how lackluster my garbage production can be on a typical day:

Plastic Starbucks cup
Nivea water bottle
Extra Gum wrapper
Flyer for some play I wasn’t going to go to
Bank machine receipt
Debit receipt for a white shirt

If garbage is any indication of a man (“man”), frig I’m boring. Uninterested with my on-the-go garbage and needing personality vindication, I decided to look into the bin under the kitchen sink—which has not been taken out since Monday. It smelled a bit, but Honourable Mayor David Miller told me to keep my trash inside for a week: maybe it’s the 25% Greek in me, but if Leonadis’s 300 Spartans could rally around a leader at the Battle of Thermopylae, why the hell can’t I support my elected official (I didn’t vote) in the Battle of the City (needs a better name)? The Casa Blanca apartment complex doesn’t have compost, so pardon the lack of green-savvy, but here’s what’s in the kitchen sink garbage as of now:

Corn husks and Various Vegetable parts
Tin Foil
A burned CD labeled “White People Music Mix #2”
A snapped screwdriver
A flower
Something I can’t identify and don’t remember throwing in the garbage.
A penny

My house garbage is far cooler. This is the sort of thing that leaves some questions! This is the sort of thing that TMZ would report! Also, it sort of reads like a list of possible murder weapons for the board game Clue.

As for the civic update, things didn’t seem that filthy on the streets today. I jogged in a park that was still litter free, and the only thing that seemed out of place on the Toronto streets was a pile of dog shit in front of a Toronto Star Newspaper box (though this may have been a dash of biting media commentary—I noticed no such defecation at the Globe and Mail box).

I don’t know what I was expecting today, and day three was a bit anticlimactic on the garbage front. The drama has yet to crest in mid-town unless you have kids in daycare, in which case, your Day 3 blog would probably be far more interesting to read (the home garbage to my portable garbage, if you will).

Tomorrow, I’m going to the reported mother of temporary dumps: Christie Pitts.

Day Two: Liquor Store? I Hardly Know Her Store!

Well, it’s day 2 in the great city strike of 2009. I haven’t been to Chinatown (this isn’t racist, my mom’s Chinese) or any city parks yet, so I haven’t quite noticed trash on the streets. In the thirty degree heat, I smelled pretty bad today, but the air stench remains negligible.

Someone (the city?) has taken the mature step of putting a thick saran wrap over garbage cans with a sign saying “Not in Service”—this has the same affect of putting a “No Girls Allowed” sign on your treehouse: you’re only going to get MORE girls—and people have brilliantly poked a hole through the saran wrap and jammed garbage in anyway. Screw you talking, garbage can! Don’t tell me what to do!

The more exciting news of the day was the rush on liquor at the LCBO (which is set to strike as of midnight tonight). As I love the combination of booze and panic, I thought I would join my fellow Torontonians and check out the liquor store.

Have you ever been dumb enough to buy your booze on New Year's Eve? I have. This was times 10! The competition for bottles was fierce! Elbows were thrown...bodies were bruised. If you've seen Jingle All the Way, it's like the scene where Sinbad and Schwarzenegger fight over a Turbo-Man Action figure for their sons on Christmas Eve.

I haven’t seen a gin shelf this ravaged since I visited my Grandma Todd (love you, Grandma!)
*Note how no one seems interested in the Russian Prince Vodka.

Though I’m pretty sure the booze strike will end before the garbage strike (we have our priorities) and there will be no shortage of getting a buzz-on (beer stores and crappy Ontario wine stores are still open), it was fun to look at all the empty shelves and see everyone filling baskets, sure that sometime soon, they will NEED peach schnapps.

Ah, Toronto. You’re a mess. If this was an episode of Intervention, we’d be bringing in Jeff Van Vonderen to take you on a plane down to New Beginnings in Miami.

And speaking of Intervention, here is my 2009 panic haul.
p.s. Don’t Intervene on me. I got caught up in the frenzy.

Tomorrow's Day 3. And you know what happens on the third date?

Day One: City of Toronto versus City Workers

Well, it's not a sport, but it's going to be a competition: Toronto vs. Toronto City Workers (and let's be honest, despite public pools, daycare, and a few museums being affected, this is going to be called a garbage strike). As of day one, I am on the side of the city, but I'm also a bit ignorant...all I've heard is that city workers want 18 sick days. That sort of feels unreasonable, then again, all the exposure to spores, sick kids, public pool feces, and... museum specimens (?) must mean more susceptibility to illness with this group. All I know is, it's going to suck and a lot of people are going to be saying this sentence: "I pay my taxes, and this is ridiculous."

Today is normally garbage day in front of my building. So we're already one week in...last week I put half a cooked turkey in the garbage. I bet that starts smelling first.

While Toronto is gripped by 30 degree heat, garbage in city parks, and now, an impending liquor store strike, I'll be filling this blog with daily installments to distract myself from the smell and lack of gin.

It's CITY VERSUS CITY WORKERS!

Here we go. Let's get ready to rumble.

Gym Culture: The Sauna

Tell someone you just came out of a sauna and, 83.2% of the time, watch their noses and foreheads scrunch (in all languages, the semiotic connotation is “Ewwww. Gross”). The gymnasium sauna conjures up the most odious of images: sweaty bodies oozing last night’s toxins, pools of bacteria festering in deep cedar crevices, orgiastic bath houses, Finnish people.


But I sauna at my gym. I admit it. Scrunch if you must, but know that I have a routine in all public places where genitals are exposed (my public bathroom ritual is well-documented). The gymnasium sauna is not an imperfect place; in fact, it can be downright carnal and disgusting (not that carnal can not also be pretty great). But, oh sauna, place where almost anything goes, you need reformation. Oh, the things we tolerate in cedar boxes...

Here are my 5 Theses for safe and courteous sauna’ing:

1. Sit on a towel. I’m perplexed by the amount of people who are comfortable sitting bare-assed (and because of the heat: bare-balled) on a place where a stranger also may have sweat bare-assed/bare-balled. I am convinced this activity alone contributes to most of the sauna’s bad reputation.

2. Don’t make eye contact. Look, I know we’re both naked, sweating, and close to meditation, but let’s not ruin it, okay? This is as far as our bond needs to go. Effective saunas are about pretending you’re alone. And while we’re at it, don’t say anything: Yes, it is hot enough for me, and yes, I do think it’s quite a nice thing to sauna after a workout (The no contact rule has been adapted from my previous: “How to Piss at a Urinal in a Civilized Society.)

3. Don’t shave in a sauna. Now this seems obvious, but on numerous occasions, I have seen men using their sweat as shaving lubricant. Stop doing this. Do I need to go into all the reasons why?

4. Don’t eat in a sauna. I’ve never witnessed this one first hand, but a fellow teacher I know who saunas (though it’s a female sauna, so maybe it’s a different world in there) has told me of a woman eating a sandwich in a sauna. The idea of a ham and cheese slowly melting in the steam of a sauna is enough to make me regurgitate last night's toxins. Eating and sweating don’t mix.
a. Addendum to rule 4: Don’t vomit in the sauna.

5. Legs together, both feet on the ground/bench below you. Let’s keep the money shots to a minimum. To get a better idea what I'm talking about, envision Kevin Costner in this picture but with no pants on:


Next week I shall nail these rules to the sauna door at the gym. Like Martin Luther, I hope to begin the reformation of sauna culture, so that we might all sweat in peace.

Amen.

Top 5 Musicians with Muscles

Every once in a while, someone known for athletic pursuit will attempt a foray into the arts. This sort of fish out of water story makes news when it's really incongruous: Pro QB Randall Cunningham took ballet, WWE Wrestler Chris Jericho has a “band,” and Dancing with the Stars is doing a great job at softening (or ruining, depending on how much you like cars and Budweiser) Hall of Fame Football players' reputations.

Usually this blog attempts ridiculous amounts of masculinity (see my mini-ode to Elisha Cuthbert). Well, this week, let’s mix it up a bit. At the risk of changing the usually uber-masculine tone here (or come to think of it, confirming it) and stepping on Sean Horlor's Up Your Alley terrain of showing lots of near-naked men (http://www.xtra.ca/blog/vancouver/), this week I’m taking a look at those artists who "go" athlete?

Below…my top five athletic Musicians. I realize that all musicians require some amount of physical ability and endurance, particularly drummers, singers, and people who blow air into things (if a Tuba player ever had the balls to play shirtless, I bet we'd see a severe drop in Pilates DVDs in favour of tuba lessons); however, this week's list has three eligibility criteria:

First: It will be only male musicians. This saves me a boatload of trouble when I choose five female "musicians" (i.e. Fergie) and open up a can of worms on what exactly constitutes a healthy/athletic body. Not going there, sister. (For the record, Tina Turner would be on the list).

Second: It will only be people I’ve heard of. If there is some bodybuilding opera singer living in Romania, post a link to his freakish, talented figure…we’ll all be more cultured for it.

Third: It will be pretty shallow, based mostly on some male physical ideal formed in my impressionable childhood brain while watching Superstars of Wrestling on Saturday mornings. The reality is, a number of the people on this list are surface athletic: 80s Stallone on the outside, 90s Billy Joel on the inside…and so…

Boyd Tinsley – Electric violinist for the most abused rock band in history, The Dave Matthews Band. Not only is this guy ripped (who knew the violin weighed so much?), but he also started his own tennis tournament. Clearly he has a string fetish.

50 Cent – Who knows how much resistance training he receives from carrying around bullets lodged in his body, but the fact is, 50 Cent is freakishly large for someone who MCs with such malaise. 50 might be on roids, but are you gonna accuse him?

Glenn Danzig – Though he was sort of skinny during his days in the Misfits, well, punk and muscles don’t really go—sort of like punk and bike shorts (though what do bike shorts go with? I’m not sure they even go with bikes). Once Danzig went more metal, dude made even the most testosterone-y teenage boy feel inadequate.

LL Cool J –Though his music is near unlistenable these days (notwithstanding his part on Hit ‘Em High for the Space Jam soundtrack), this guy has his own workout book! I bought it. It was a bit embarrassing. I hide it when you come over to my house. But I tried it. It worked a bit. Though it didn’t say much about drinking draft beer as a muscle recovery drink, so I’m willing to take part of the blame for that one.

Nikki Sixx – I recently finished Nikki Sixx’s journals The Heroin Diaries. Well worth the read. What astounded me about the Motley Crue bassist was that he was strung out on heroin, cocaine, Jack Daniels, pills, etc. and every once in a while, he’d go to the gym! Unlike LL's diet book, Nikki's seems to work pretty well. Oh, and let's not forget, Nikki Sixx died twice. Once in 1986 and once in 1987 when on both occasions, his heart stopped. Do you know how hard it is to live after your heart has stopped? And we think Michael Phelps has a strong cardiovascular system....

On the Bubble: Usher (but there was no way I was putting his shirtless body on my blog), Sepultura's Derrick Green (You’ve heard of him right?!), Henry Rollins (He did pushups in the video for Disconnect), Gwar (But I think they just wore body armour), Times Square Naked Cowboy (the term artist is used loosely), Grace Jones.

Did I miss anyone? Let me know...