Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: Who was the last person you hugged?
My father when he arrived yesterday. Shepherd was nipping excitedly at his feet the whole time and my father pointed at him and said “What’s that cat’s name?” I replied, “His name is Shepherd Pye, he’s a dog and he’s also your Grandson”. “Oh!” he replied and laughed. Dad thinks the puppies are hilarious, and Mom is genuinely crazy about them. I knew in my bones that having the whelps here would be good for both of them, and if yesterday was any indication – I was right.

Soup: Share a beauty or grooming trick or tip with us.
Don’t wait until someone remarks upon them to trim your nose hairs. We’re all getting older, boys.

Salad: What does the color yellow make you think of?
The first new Volkswagen I ever rode in. Incidentally, it was the very first one ever in England. Omar, one of the slightly dodgy “car dealers” who used to hang out at the Hinds Head, took me for a spin. Much to the chagrin of everyone else in the pub who wanted a ride as well. Or, more likely, for me to serve them another pint. Those guys were great when they weren’t hitting on my girlfriend.

Main Course: If you were to make your living as a photographer, what subject would your pictures revolve around?
I saw a book once of 19th century crime scene photos which I really dug. I leafed through the whole thing right in the store. Short of building a time machine that wouldn’t work, but my answer would have to be something as equally fascinating for me. So, in a word, porn.

Dessert: What was the longest book you ever read?
The third to last book I read, Brother Fish, took me months to finish. At 800 pages it’s on the long side, but it’s hardly the Winds of War. I just wasn’t into reading that much over the summer. I’m on a Canadian history kick at the moment, and am currently reading National Dreams – the thesis of which is that many Canadian Myths are just that. The valor of the RCMP, the CPR as a nation building catalyst, the ideology of the canoe, etc. I’m enjoying the heck out of it but it’s very lefty and almost facetious in the way it strives to break down absolutely everything this country holds dear and I’m keeping that well in mind. I went to high school in the States so I have a lot to learn in terms of the Great White North’s past.

Appetizer: What was your first “real” job?
When my family moved down to Massachusetts in 1988 it was at the very beginning of the summer holiday. I had no friends, nothing to do around the house and a father who grew up hard and had worked since he was old enough to walk. It wasn’t long before I was gently “encouraged” to find myself a job. I started working at the Concord Stop N’ Shop and actually kind of enjoyed it. I met Doug DeRome, who was older than me but would go on to be a friend through high school and beyond, and he taught me everything I needed to know about taggin’, stackin’ and stockin’. The manager called me into his office one day and told me he had checked with the head office and since I didn’t have a proper green card they had to let me go. “When you get permission to work in the States I’ll hire you back in a second.” It was all babysitting, snow shoveling, grass cutting and landscaping after that until I got my proper papers courtesy of Digital 2 years later. Needless to say, I did not go back to being a grocery clerk but instead started working in the service industry which would help put me through University and become a big part of my life for the next decade.

Soup: Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity?
Short of an opium den, I find blog memes like this very Friday’s Feast content-inspiring. A little prod can really open the floodgates and get you writing. I’d much rather have a proper muse, though. Albert Brooks had Sharon Stone running around naked in his guest house. Dudley Moore had Bo Derek. Damon Albarn had Justine Frischmann. John Lennon had Yoko O… scratch that last one. So basically, a hot and most certainly scantily clad woman running around the house repeating “You’re not getting any of this fat ass until you finish one more song/chapter/painting.”

Salad: Complete this sentence: I am embarrassed when…
People whom I respect want to discuss their opinions with me which, unbeknownst to them, I vehemently disagree with. My embarrassment doesn’t stem from feeling sorry for them – it’s nowhere near that simple or shallow. Rather, I feel uneasy because I have to ask myself: Am I getting something wrong? Do they know something I don’t? Am I ignorant, foolish or poorly read on this topic? If they’ve touched on an issue I feel strongly about, and I am confident in my knowledge of and ability to argue for it, I become uneasy because I’m then torn between keeping my mouth shut and avoiding a silly debate I’ve had a million times before with a million people before or nodding my head in faux-agreement like a eunuch and saying something like: “You’re right. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11“. I am embarrassed for having the audacity to think I know more about something than somebody else – when neither of us, short of reading a newspaper, have any divine source of intelligence on the matter. All you can do is keep reading those newspapers and put yourself in check when you’re simply repeating someone else’s dead horse rhetoric over flat beer. Stay current, and above all else discern unique, personal insight from the party line. If more people questioned their perception of reality on a daily basis, allowed themselves to feel a degree of embarrassment and always considered both sides of the coin instead of settling into a comfortable viewpoint that will never change – we’d all be a lot closer to a tolerable, excuse me, tolerant planet.

Main Course: What values did your parents instill in you?
For reasons I’ll probably never fully understand, my father had an incredible hatred of thieves. He went out of his way to hammer this into me (literally), and to this day I can honestly say I’ve never stolen anything – save for maybe a pack of gum when I was 13 and trying to be cool. But even that is a fuzzy memory that I’m unsure really happened. My father spent a good part of his youth pulling my Grandfather out of gambling dens and bars until he eventually died when Gordo was only 13. Pop then dropped out of school to help take care of his Mother and 3 siblings. Now that I see my extended Canadian family frequently I am learning more and more about the father I am quickly losing. I’ve long since forgiven him for any and all of his parental missteps over the years, should he care. He did a great job in spite of severe emotional disadvantages I can only imagine.

Dessert: Name 3 fads from your teenage years.
Here’s a fun one. This is hard to pinpoint or rank, so I’ll perform a brain-dump and hope it comes out kinda legible. Manchester music, definitely. So much of my Junior and Senior years revolved around a culture, city, record label and nightclub that was 3,000 miles away. Odd in retrospect, but then so is the fact that I still listen to and love all of those bands to this day. Tecmo Bowl was insanely popular and I spent many hours sending Bo Jackson up the middle of the gridiron with his four available running and passing plays when I was supposed to be studying. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out ran a close second. Concert t-shirts – I couldn’t get enough of them. Sometimes I think I went to concerts just so I could get a t-shirt and then wear it around school the next day. “Yeah, that’s right. I was at the Divinyls show last night. Jealous?”

Appetizer: When was the last time you were surprised?
I don’t really remember anything majorly surprisingly important. The last six months have been a bit of a trail. How about a couple of baby ones from yesterday? I am surprised at how good the new Radiohead album is. I have been listening to it non-stop for the last 24 waking hours. I was also very pleasantly surprised to learn that Simon Pegg has been cast as Scotty in the upcoming re-imagined Star Trek movies due to be released in late 2008. Scotty of the Dead, if you like. Kirk: “Scotty! I need more power. If you can’t charge the dilithium crystals and get us away from the Romulan fleet – we’re all doomed!” Scotty: “Yeaaaaaah… It’s not looking good, mate. Winchester?”

Soup: Fill in the blanks: My eyes are ____, but I wish they were ____.
My eyes are brown, but I wish they were x-ray capable and that I was standing outside Cate Blanchett’s house watching her take a shower on the 3rd floor whilst smearing Cheez Whiz on my naked chest and crying. You see why I hate these fill in the blanks questions? Because everyone always says the exact same thing.

Salad: If you were a Beanie Baby, what would you look like and what would your name be?
I don’t know much about Beanie Babies, so I had to do a little research prior to answering this question. OK – I am struggling a bit with this one. How about a dirty looking bird with plague spots all over it named “Poxy the Pidgeon? Or a new spin on the tie-dyed “Garcia the Bear” called “Pigpen the Dead from a Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage… Bear”? I am in the wrong line of work.

Main Course: Name two things you consistently do that you consider to be healthy habits.
I drink a ton of water everyday. At least 3 liters on average. I also make sure I eat a salad every night at dinner. The exercising is definitely not “consistent” per se, unfortunately. Other than those, it’s all liquor, beef jerky and unprotected sodomy over here.

Dessert: What brand of toothpaste are you using these days? Do you like it? Why or why not?
I don’t think we’re especially supposed to like the taste of toothpaste, are we? Brushing your teeth is a critical component of a reasonable personal hygiene regimen – not a fucking Pop Rocks and Coke party. It helps a little if you think of the process as self-flagellation… like the fat bald monk in The Name of the Rose. It kinda friggin’ sucks, but you have to keep it up daily or you’re going to hell, the dentist or both. How about some new flavors to make brushing a true act of churchy self-sacrifice? Body of Christ Blue Stripe – now with extra fluoride and glass.