Archive for April, 2006

We’ll all have to Toss our Parents Onto the Heap of Dead People;

Monday, April 24th, 2006

The Heap of Dead People they Called their Friends…

Death has come close rarely, but near quite often. As with most of you, I have lost foolish friends, either in high school or in college, or at various points along this way to where we find ourselves now. Certain among us have experienced close death, AND have a far greater understanding of it than I will have for quite some time. To those, I say, let me seek your help when my time comes. I know for certain it will be coming soon.

It was a given that this objective to tell 100 stories of 100 friends would have to, at one point, settle upon dead friends. For me, fortunately, beyond the likes of Michael and a few others whose distance in time, makes their faces familiar but their names forgotten… for me, of the 100, but a few are gone.

The big lovable deaf guy at Colorization who suddenly died of cancer… the pain in the ass faggot who died of aids. Chris, a beautiful childlike soul, who just up and died before illustrating the most wonderful of pieces of music in pencil crayon. Friends who almost died… Or old friends like Steve Banks, whose memorial I missed just a few weeks ago. Funny, I wonder if he considered me a friend as I did him.

I’ve suffered very little… But I have watched, and am starting to watch with greater frequency my folks watch their friends fall dead around them. Funny enough, I’ve on more than one occasion; felt the loss of a friend of my parents pretty close to their loss… So I might say [?]

Ken Bailey

I consider my father to be my best friend. That said, my father comes from a different time, where certainly sons would not be best friends, and the associations they made with other men would not be held in the same light us little boys of the next generation hold our friendships to now. My father has stories of the boys he palled around with as a little trouble maker. These stories focus on events, rather than the feelings they held for one another. Secretly, I know that when my dad and Lorne, and whoever else it was with them; found 6 sticks of dynamite, and proceeded to blow up half of Markham Ontario; I secretly know that these men… where friends!

As a boy looking up to his father, you tend to miss the fact that your father is just the man you will eventually be. Actually, my father was quite a bit younger than me the first time I had enough forethought to think of things like this. My father was hard working guy, raising a family long before the age I thought maybe doing some hard work and raising a family might be an interesting endeavor.

Sometimes, I have tried to consider my father, NOT my father, and NOT my friend, but as a regular dude, with his own friends… he just happened to have a family as, ALL of his friends did. His, friends… Jim Honey, Jim Craig, Ken Richards, Ken Bailey… and honestly hundreds… more faces, voices, stories passing so rapidly in and out of memories that it would be absolutely impossible to catch them here. When I was young, I saw my father a king amongst his friends, as I grew older, I saw my father as a wonderfully friendly man. I have always aspired to my father’s friendliness…

A mother’s friend is the other woman who you know will always take care of you when Mom’s not around. Becky Coe, Mavis Weaver, Doris Rolf, Mrs. Collar, Mona Richardson, Gloria Honey…

In the late 70’s they found an illegal toxic waste dump on a farm across the bay from the small town I grew up… I still have questions as to why Mavis, Mona and Gloria are not playing bridge with mom, rather than being the first and many of bridge partners she’s lost since her 40’s.

Ken Baily lost his wife, Beano, another friend of our family while she was in her 50’s. Ken, Beano, AND Mona and a host of others all sailed happily on the bay upon which they found the dump… THAT is not the issue here. I grew up with my friendly parents friends, most on boats, most just living, growing and raising their families along side my folks who where arising theirs.

The callous title of this quick little story was meant to be just as it is. One day I WILL toss my parents on the heap of dead people they called their friends. They were my friends as well. One helluva a great big wonderful people. One great big heap of extended family; I slept in their homes, ate the meals they cooked their kids… their kids who forced me; or were forced by me into heaps of trouble.

No, I am definitely NOT looking forward to that day, but… as I have to, I will toss my folks in with their friends one day…

Posted in 4) '06 Exhale-Interuptus, The 100 Stories | No Comments »

Ya’ever Wanna Kill that Friend Who Up and Died on You?

Monday, April 24th, 2006

I’ve been a lucky man. I’m 43 and so far death hasn’t really hit me too hard. My folks are still alive [albeit, scaring me regularly with tales of ailments and hospital visits]. Same is to be said for the close Aunts and Uncles. I lost a few, lets say people I kinda knew in high school to the typical follies of, mostly alcohol and automobiles… I’ve been to two funerals; one that of the dear father of my oldest friend and the other, my Aunt Penny’s; my dad’s youngest sister. I loved Penny, but I remember that day NOT so much for the saying goodbye to Penny, but more for it being the first time I saw my “Captain in the Military” father cry. The pins, knocked right out from under me… The day your father becomes human… Funerals… I continue to count my blessings. Those are other stories…

This story is about Michael Prentice; a short story in so much as Michael was a very good but sporadic friend. He popped into my sphere of friends quite by happenstance, left the sphere then re-entered it again and again whenever that happenstance clock movements of friendships put his cog against the other cogs of friendship.

He was a good friend.

I met Michael thru Doctor Giggles… I was just back from my Central American, post business failure misadventure. Floating around Toronto after a series of failed interviews. Soaking in my remorse that perhaps no junior manager/human resources minion would ever look fondly upon the resume of a failed CEO, President, entrepreneur… with anything but fear. To waste the time of non-employment, I wasted my time, some nights, sipping beers and playing NTN trivia at the “Hoops Sports Bar” on Yonge; really, as always… I was just out to kill time… Enter Dr. Giggles.

A short balding stocky man; a self-professed wheeler and dealer. A guy who hated being whooped trivia. I beat him a few times one night, he sidled up to me, we talked for a few hours; next thing you know I’m at a meeting with this Dr. Giggles, Syd Capp [whose story shall or has certainly been told], Michael and Jay Abrams… Jay Abrams, a co-founder of Alliance Atlantis films. In other words, beating Dr. Giggles at NTN trivia provided me a seat at the tippy-top table of the Toronto film and television industry. Not top brag, but firkin ho-hum. If there’s anything I despised more at the time it was the Toronto film and television industry.

Syd and Michael had joined forces to do something spectacularly dull. Syd who came from the “Clause 12″ world of Canadian Tax dollar sucking motion picture development had teamed up with Michael; who came from the “just barely better than industrial video” shoot it, cut it and sell it to cable bidness. They were going to as they said, “mine the back forty”, i.e. grab pre-shot footage, remix it and re-sell it to the exploding specialty cable station market. They would use dollars made in this nefarious venture to fund their own, more creative endeavors. Syd was the money gatherer, Michael was to be the guy who would get it done. On an aside, Syd had an interest in interactive media; liked my history and the way I spoke business, and so offered me a desk in his and Michael’s playpen.

It was actually kind of fun being with folks on the fringe of the most sycophantically ass kissing industry on the planet. An industry where name dropping, fables of historic non-deals made over “great meal stories” at fake restaurants was more important than actually turning revenue. I hung out there until I got a real job with another fake company out of Portland Oregon who were about to launch in Toronto. I left the playpen with Michael as a friend.

Michael was a big dude, taller than me and definitely heavier. A video production dude cliché from the top of his conservatively not short, but not mangy hair to his stovepipe cut jeans and cowboy boots. He drove a Bronco and had the, “No, the best place for… this” AND the “best place for that is…” attitude down to a T. The type of guy who would, when told that you really enjoyed the risotto at Bar Italia last night, would say… “No, the best place for Risotto is…”. Thankfully he wasn’t one of those, “the best place for risotto in… etc etc etc” type guys. Nope Michael was Strictly Toronto.

Strictly Toronto… Upper Canada College, Rosedale, Forrest Hill… I won’t get into it. Let’s just assume that Michael was an Anglican [Episcopalian for my American friends]; his folks moved to the gentle northern, pastoral ‘burbs; Michael, the Bronco driving black sheep who settled for trips to Thailand and film school over a life in finance. When I met Michael he had already parlayed the blue chips for a seriously entertaining list of stories of foreign miss-adventure; he had settled into the industry; he had socked away some dough; he had bought a house and was living with his wife in Forrest Hill. In other words, he had married a nice Jewish girl.

Outside of ALL the reason’s I could have really disliked Michael. His humorous disdain for the war between the Goys and the Heebs in the city of Toronto was precious. He bargained with his wife to pass on their son’s circumcision unless she was to allowed for their daughters to have the female version, all the rage in small villages in India… He won that battle; AND he continued to complained every time she forced him to donate that minimum $2,000 offering at temple; as for temple, he went every time it didn’t conflict with a round of Saturday morning TV/Film golf/bidness… Michael and his wife had two girls in quick succession; neither was circumcised [as far as I know].

This story ends in death.

As I have mentioned Michael and I hooked up sporadically. After the film/TV bubble burst, and after he fell out of graces with Syd, we started to see more and more of each other. I was bouncing around from one pre or post public offering Internet venture to another. Alternately being wowed and bored by my 26, 27 year old employers who for the most part actually believed that the toilet paper they called stock was worth the millions that were listed on whatever penny ante exchange they had managed to list it on… From time to time I had easy access to you know what; Michael liked you know what and would ask me to set him up with you know what…

At a low point, I got Michael a job with an old business associate who wanted to add video production to her shopping list of media offerings… I left for New York. Michael seemed happy, working with this strong businesswoman associate of mine. We’d see each other time to time. Actually, we had drinks together at “The BEST place for martini’s in New York” once while he was shooting a G-zero spot for some project…

Yes, this story truly ends in death.

Then comes the day I get a call from this strong businesswoman associate/friend of mine. I’ve fired Michael; he’s a fuck-up. Then comes the email from Michael saying he had just landed a 12 show deal with some cable specialty channel; then comes the day I get a call from Syd saying they had found Michael face down on the couch in his quite comfortable Forrest Hill home one morning apparently having suffered a, you know what, induced heart attack.

A nice upbringing with good parents that as far as I know supported every bronco riding adventure and business venture he ever entertained. Relative success enough to plant real-estate roots in one of the better parts of town; a wonderfully friendly, smart as a bug wife who adored and raised the kidlets; a new path, a gig back to past successes from what I’m told… YEARS of experience with you know what to know what you know what can do to you; I mean, he handle a serious binge of you know that other thing in Thailand for two years [or so the story goes].

When I got the call from Syd, I was in my cubbyhole at the underwear office, submerged in my own problems and dealing with my own monsterish friendship with you know what. I remember being a bit sad, but not surprised. It was close enough to lunch that I could wander outta the office and over to one of the Irish Pubs on 8th. I ordered a Guinness [no significance there at all]… Raised it in the general direction of Toronto…

Michael, you stoopid FUCK, next time I see you, I am going to smack you so hard up side the head, you’ll die all over again. All these things, good things! To hell with all those good things Michael; you gave up on two beautiful little girls and the mother you left in horror to raise them.

Suicide has many a form.

Posted in 4) '06 Exhale-Interuptus, The 100 Stories | No Comments »

Reminiscing Around and About Clinton and Gore

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

Ahh, the heady days of ecstasy fueled DJ dance parties, ecstasy fueled Friday friendly get togethers, ecstasy fueled Wednesday walk abouts… ecstasy. So much freakin’ ecstasy; I seldom found the chance to be happy. Oh, those indeed were the heady days of living at Clinton and Gore.

I have found myself walking past Clinton and Gore quite often these last few weeks. Not so much in an attempt to wander down memory’s lanes; rather because it’s the shortest way home from the Dip. A reminder, that I am using the word “home” loosely these days; as home has become less a place than a mission these days.

My apartment at Clinton and Gore was a comfy place; two bedrooms, one of which became my Lego room when I was toying with the idea that I would entertain my mind by playing with Lego again. Did I mention, I was doing a lot of ecstasy. The Lego was eventually handed off to my cousin’s son and the apartment at Clinton and Gore was handed off to Carl.

That worked.

The apartment at Clinton and Gore was a small bit of punctuation I guess. It was from the apartment at Clinton and Gore that I ended my company and ended what I guess would be my first time in the city of Toronto. I left the apartment at Clinton and Gore to fly off on a disastrous adventure in Central America. Since then it has often felt as if I am always “Leaving the city of Toronto”.

I’ve actually been leaving the city of Toronto since I arrived here a way back in 1980. Of course back then the concrete was mostly freshly poured and to a set of young and excitable eyes, heavily wanting to be involved in the punk scene that was later found out to be long dead before I ever really got involved; I guess it felt like I was arriving…
Ah, the heady days of caffeine fueled angst ridden donut shop conversations that raged into the wee hours… beer fueled boppings at the Beverly when money was about… evening walks that sent me spinning through every last single one of these streets in the city of Toronto. As was the case with most of my young pals at the time, I had moved from somewhere smaller and was wowed big the bigness of this place.

Funny how small a big place gets with each year that passes. Funny how the walls start closing in after you’ve done every possible thing you could possibly imagine doing in the big place. Funny how you have to eject every last single item you’ve built for and around yourself before you can finally fulfill that pounding desire to leave the big place; funny how time after time after time again upon returning to that big place you can convince yourself that you’re NOT really there; it’s a mirage, a temporary landing zone, a place from which you will bounce onto the next place. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself over and over and over again.

I should note, that I really didn’t leave the city of Toronto for NYC in search of a bigger place. I was quite happy to find little places in that big place that I could call home. OK, it was nice that there were a lot of these little places all piled in and around each other, and it was nice to walk from one place to the other, but it wasn’t the bigness of NYC that attracted me, it was just some place different. And, yes, I do miss the place.

So here I sit, waiting to bounce. I would seem that, considering the velocity at which I hit the city of Toronto this time round, it should be one very big bounce. Unfortunately at this particular moment in time I’m still kind of trapped in one of those ultra slow motion motion pictures showing the awesome compression and deformation of certain objects as they impact upon larger motionless objects; big hard cold objects; objects with no sense or feeling; objects that lack the ability to even recognize the fact that they are indeed being struck by an object traveling at extremely volatile velocities. Awesome compression and deformation indeed.

I have become more and more tired in all this waiting. Of course at lot of this was beyond my control as the pages of the calendar had to slowly turn; as I stared at the clock on the wall and watched every single second click past over the minute into the hour beyond the days and onto the months. Tired of constantly reminding myself that I am NOT here in the city of Toronto, that I am simply bouncing on through. Quite tired of each and every foot fall landing squarely within a chunk of land clearer demarcated as indeed a small, approximately four inch by twelve inch portion of land within’ the boundaries of the city of Toronto…

I’m expecting I’ll be walking on up to the Dip later today. I’m assuming I’ll walk on past the corner of Clinton and Gore. I’ll probably watch where I’m walking while looking at all the things I no longer see. I assume my mind will wander here and there and dig up the odd old memory… Memories of the days of concrete… perhaps. I expect, today I might pause a bit at Clinton and College; perhaps if I do pause, this pause may represent that frame in the film that marks the end of the awesome compression and deformation and the beginning of the awesome expansion and the natural, returning to normal. Perhaps if I just let myself be a bit more here, a bit more happily here, even just for a small moment, a quick pause; perhaps this pause will hasten this next departure. We’ll see what happens later today, and just exactly what is to be found, when I pause at the corner of Clinton and Gore.

Posted in 4) '06 Exhale-Interuptus | No Comments »

Here We Go Again

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

So it would appear as I have been suffering some form of mental laryngitis these past few months. Perhaps, or perhaps I’ve been suffering through yet another debilitating round of self-absorbed… Lost in my own head. Hit the eject button NOW or forever loose myself… I’m definitely not going to start this back up again to bore myself with tired old tirades on this so called predicament. I here, so there, move on.

Have you ever wished you could go back in time; knowing all you know… blah blah blah. Of course you have! Actually, I’d be willing to bet it’s a common theme in of those 15 minute out of every half hour that your mind wanders down the corridor, out the door and into that place we go when we’re just so bored of work we can’t bloody well take it anymore.

Careful what you wish for!

Back in time is where I am now. Thrown back onto the streets I got tired of looking at years and years ago… Back to Yonge Street, back to Parkdale, back to Little Italy… flat on my back. What to make of this; all I can say really is, FUCK I am glad winter is over and done with.

Let springs dreams turn into plans, and plans into action. As I ramble on into this first shot, I’ll let my mind wander about a bit. It really was all just a bunch of rambling moments anyhow. Rambling jumbled thoughts squirted out into words that we rolled around until they balled up into some vaguely coherent pitter patter. On occasion, this pitter patter had a nice ring to it… a tempo.

Perhaps starting with the staccato herks and jerks of poorly played improvisational jazz beats… nope, just a monkey pecking at the keys… desperately searching for the one that used to trigger the banana door… Perhaps I’m just trying to teach these fingers to tap dance again. Perhaps I’m trying to hard.

Careful what you wish for indeed!

I’m not finished yet. Not finished in the least. We have a long way to go and a huge pile of unfinished dreams to conquer. There are roads and paths we’ve never even imagined we’d walk down, AND there are places we’ve yet to rest our heads upon. I’m NOT finished yet! I have embarrassed myself; I’ve stood on my hands and spoken through the crack in my ass… I’ve walked backwards and bumped into folks whose names I have long ago forgotten and I have woken up in the ditch with my pants on backwards; but I am not finished yet.

Here we go again… another fine mess to be sorted, picked over and placed on these pages. To long a break… There are things needing to be said, projects to complete… Here we go again. You haven’t heard the last of me.

Posted in 4) '06 Exhale-Interuptus | No Comments »