Faster Than Dignity at the Food Bank

           

            When I arrived at the food bank on Wednesday, June 1^st, a garbage truck was in front, dumping the contents of the food bank’s two wheeled bins into the back. The big Rastafarian guy was sitting in the Muskoka chair near the tree where I lock my bike. Something relating to Indian culture was playing on his smart phone.

            There was no discernible line-up at all, but I oriented myself at a place near the sidewalk that felt like it would be where I would end up if everyone that was sitting around were to suddenly take their positions. The garbage truck rolled away, leaving behind the odour of rotten potatoes.

The outgoing, big, 30-something woman who is always there on Wednesdays had been sitting and smoking with another woman on the slanted cellar door that is probably technically not part of the food bank property. A few minutes later she walked up to me and asked if I’d been there before her. I answered that I was pretty sure I’d seen her there when I arrived. She asked her friend though, who confirmed that I’d been there prior to her. I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t going to argue about it. Anyway, she concluded that she was in line behind me, “Because we wanna be fair!” As it came closer to the time when they were supposed to start giving out numbers, all the people who’d been sitting or standing elsewhere came to take their places in line.

Ahead of me was a 40-something woman with whom I’d spoken the week before. She enthusiastically pointed out to me the red and white baseball cap emblazoned with a maple leaf and “Canada” and told me she’d bought it at Dollarama for three dollars. I think that she thought that I knew her better than I did, because she started a story that I found it hard to follow about somebody’s truck. “Whose truck?” I asked. “Al’s” she told me. “Who’s Al?” “Ken’s friend.” “Who’s Ken?” “My boyfriend!”

She told the big woman that someone they both knew had called her “psycho”, which she was clearly still upset about. She said that in response she’d called her “bitch”. The big woman commented that when people call her a bitch, it’s no big deal, because since she’s a woman, of course she’s a bitch, and then added, “I tell them to come up with something original!”

The big woman lit a cigarette, and though she was standing a meter away from the line, the breeze was coming from behind her. I told the person behind me I was stepping out of line because of the smoke. I went a few meters behind the big woman and read my book. When the line started moving though, I felt the need to return to my place, but she was still smoking and remained between the wind and I as she moved with the line to keep chatting with the woman in front of me.

At the point when I was at the very front of the line, Bruce came out and sat in the chair that was exactly between the wind and me. Then the vegetable lady came out and sat down beside him. He offered her a cigarette and when she took it she commented, “This place would make anyone smoke!” Well, it certainly makes everyone smoke second hand. I was choking as I waited for my turn to go inside. Just as Joe was about to light up a cigarette in the doorway, it was time for me to go in. I got number 11.

I rode to the bank to take out my rent and phone money, and then I went to Wind Mobile to pay for my monthly plan. Almost as soon as I got home the superintendent came for the rent.

I went back to the food bank at 12:30. The sunshine was warm and pleasant but I had to keep moving around to avoid the cigarette smoke. When numbers 11 to 15 were called, I walked in and didn’t need to sit down. While my helper was with me at the first shelf, offering me a choice of olive oil spray or curry paste, I was still getting my bags out, as I usually at least have time to do before my number is called. Bruce was with another customer behind me, already verbally offering her the same choice. He called out to my helper and told him to hand him a jar of the curry paste. He hesitated because he was still waiting for my choice. He finally handed him the jar and Bruce commented, “I thought you were gonna give me a hard time!” Then my helper gestured with his hand for me to hurry up, which I didn’t appreciate. Food bank customers should at least be given the dignity of the time to be discerning shoppers. I took the olive oil spray.

Lower down I took a box of organic crackers, which I predict will be horrible, but the word “organic” seems to have me trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs to salivate at the sound of a ringing bell, even though I’m disappointed almost every time. Or maybe it’s not so much the fact that something is organic that sways me, but rather what “organic” represents. Since organic food is more expensive, it gives me the subconscious impression that it’s more valuable. I would never pay the extra money for it in the supermarket, but when it’s offered for free it suddenly becomes attractive.

There was a choice between bottles of ice tea and one bottle of Jones orange-mango soda. I picked the fancy pop, but my helper gave me an ice tea anyway, which was nice until I got it home and realized it was another one of those artificially sweetened drinks.

From the bottom, my helper grabbed a handful of granola bars and a couple of 170-gram packages of honey glazed almonds and put them in my bag.

I was glad that I didn’t want any pasta, rice or sauce because it put me ahead of the people behind me and took the tick-tock pressure off of me.

I looked among the canned beans for pork and beans with molasses, because the homemade version was my favourite meal when I was a kid, but it never seems to turn up at the food bank. I took instead a can of beans in tomato sauce with pork.

From the top of the last shelf I took a family size box of multi-grain Cheerios and there was also a bag of granola lower down.

Across the aisle, Sue offered me a choice between a flavoured yogourt and six eggs. It wasn’t much of a choice. The yogourt would have lasted one meal whereas six eggs are good for three. When they offer eggs though, they are always just in a plastic bag and so one has to be extremely cautious while putting them in a bag, to make sure they stay on top. Couldn’t the food bank cut up the cartons the eggs came in and use the pieces as packaging for the eggs in order to protect them better?

Along with the eggs came a package of Carver’s Choice bacon. There were also a variety of fancy homemade frozen granolas. They’ve been offering those for the last several weeks, and some of them are almost as sweet as candy. I avoided the strawberry flavoured kind that I got a few weeks ago, that isn’t even really granola, but rather made from some finer grain that pours out in great slabs that are hard to break up. Anyway, there was a real breakfast theme to the stuff in the refrigerated section.

I took a loaf of whole grain bread and a couple of raisin buns.

The vegetable lady had whole bunches of bananas, but when I reached down to touch them I could feel that they were way past ripe. I shook my head and straightened up. She shook her head as well, perhaps in disappointment at my pickiness. I think she wanted me to take her rotten bananas home to make banana bread. I asked for potatoes and she gave me two. She inquired as to whether I would like a bag of strawberries. “You’ve got strawberries?” “Yes, in this bag that I’m holding up to your face!” I think the bag was behind the potatoes she was handing to me. 

Poetry and Conspiracy Theories at the Shab-e She'r Reading Series

            

            On Tuesday, May 31^st, as I was preparing to leave for the Shab-e She’r poetry night, I had trouble printing up “Killing Jar”, the poem I planned on reading on the open stage. Windows 10 had recently installed itself on my computer without my permission, and the new operating system had decided that my Brother printer was in error because it wasn’t the default printer that Windows had in mind for me. I had to uninstall my Brother and then reinstall it before it would work.

            Despite the delay, I arrived early, coming out of a hot, dry evening into the overly air-conditioned polar region of the Beit Zatoun Gallery. Bänoo Zan greeted me, but I got no hug this time around.

            Nick Micelli was already there, lounging alone on a couch. A few minutes later, someone else came in with whom he was acquainted. Nick told him that he’d received a notification for this event a week ago and had set himself the goal of writing a new poem for the occasion. He declared proudly that he’d written two.

            Shortly after that, I hear a woman say, “Hi Christian.” And I was surprised that it was Jeannine Pitas. I said, “I thought that you weren’t living in Canada anymore!” She confirmed that she isn’t but that she tries to get up here as much as possible. I asked if she came up specifically for Shab-e She’r, but she answered that she has a bunch of things she does when she comes. She added that if Trump wins the presidency she’d be moving back to Canada permanently. “You’re in the mid-west, aren’t you?” I asked. “I am! Iowa!” Then, as if it had surprised her to find this out, she told me that it’s actually pretty nice there. Then she declared proudly, “And we didn’t vote for Trump!” I commented that things are pretty interesting in the States right now, and she agreed. She told me that she’d been hoping that Bernie Sanders would win the nomination but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. I suggested that it would be an entirely different ball game once the primaries were over and that I couldn’t see Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton.

            Having been a child in the 1950s and living near the US border, it was not hard to pick up on the paranoia that US of Americans had about communism and socialism. I would be very surprised if they’ve gotten over it, so I really doubt that they would be willing to vote for a candidate like Bernie Sanders, who declares himself to be a socialist.

            Then I started wondering if Bernie Sanders is really more socialist than Justin Trudeau, who does not say that he is a socialist. I suspect that Sanders is only really a socialist by comparison to the ultra-conservative politics of the United States.

            I overheard Janine tell some one that she got a speeding ticket on her way here, while driving through Ohio.

            I went down to the toilet in the basement. Beit Zatoun’s men’s washroom has a normal sized washing area but a long and extremely narrow corridor leading to the toilet.

            The air conditioning was extremely high. I’ve never understood the logic of making oneself very cold as a response to a very hot day. When we heat our homes in the winter we don’t make the temperature stifling just because it is freezing outside.

            I had a conversation with Cy Strom about Serge Gainsbourg. He wanted to know if he ever wrote any serious songs. I think there’s something serious even about the funny ones, but I mentioned “Le Poinsonneur Des Lilas”, which is about a subway ticket puncher who gets so depressed about doing a monotonous job underground in a filthy Paris metro station that he finally shoots himself.

            As the event was about to start, we went to take our seats. Cy came and sat with me at the back. Bänoo was testing the microphones and spoke English into one of them but Persian into another. Cy commented that each mic speaks a different language.

            We started at 19:20. Banoo announced that this night marked the 40th Shab-e She’r event. She added that 40 is the age at which prophets begin to receive visions. I said to Cy that Jesus got started early.

            Bänoo told us that we were going to be surprised by who would be on the open mic that night.

            She told us that Jeannine Pitas would be our photographer for the night and then she listed several other people that help out either directly or indirectly and then mentioned my reviews. I’d never really thought of writing about these events, sometimes critically, as helping out.

            As is usually the case on the Shab-e She’r open stage, if the photographer is a poet, since she would be busy for the rest of the night, Janine got to read first.

            She asked us who has heard of Augustine of Hippo. A few had and Janine told the rest of us that he was one of the early Catholic Church fathers and that he had written “The City of God”. He was famous for living with a woman for fifteen years and for the prayer, “Lord grant me chastity, but not yet.” Jeannine wrote a poem from the perspective of the woman who bore the child of a saint – “ … Did he say, it’s not you, it’s me … Did she gather up his robes and fling them into the dusty street … Hadn’t she always known this day would come … I’d canonize her myself … I’d pull her from the shadows …”

            Next was Charles C. Smith, who told us, “I didn’t know I was gonna be up this early. I was relaxing. He said he was going to do a poem about Bert Williams, who was the first Black actor to ever star in films. Charles stated that Williams “had t wear blackface” while performing but I can’t find evidence that he was forced to do so. Perhaps he felt compelled to for theatrical effect because he was not a very dark skinned Black man. W.C. Fields said of Williams, “He was the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.” Charles’s poem was called “Natural Born Gambler” – “ … The black paint on your brown skin … and that bleached white shirt … pressing through the grimace … setting bodies into a flurry of smoke and steam … a Bohemian inside a tavern, standing still … cutting you inside more than out … your contempt clouded in laughter … devices: the shifty and lazy and dumb … the navy crowned a ship in your name you would not have been allowed to board …”

            After Charles was Sharon Goodier, who before starting her poem, wanted to add to Charles C. Smith’s reading by telling us that Black musicians were not allowed in Toronto jazz venues in the 1950s. Later, it took me only a quick search to find that Oscar Peterson had played in Toronto jazz clubs in the 1950s, so I doubt if he was the only African American to do so.

            Sharon’s first poem was entitled “Don’t Go Near The Horses” – “ … tired horses … rippled in sweat … The horse grabs her nose and flings the rest of her body across the street …”

            Her second poem was “Collateral Damage” – “ … Mr Oliverra opens the front door … Neighbours wakened by the noise and the flashing cruiser lights ask, why are you beating Mr Oliverra? Young officer says, oops … sometimes we get the wrong man.”

            Then it was Marketa’s turn. She told us that on the first of April she went to Germany because her ex-husband passed away. Her poem came out of that experience – “With April mandate, years separate … too much salt thrown into the flames … in rising fog, a cat in a window … words like bright half peaches …”

            When Bänoo called me to the stage. I read my poem, “Killing Jar” – “ … Many poems migrate over long distances, crossing borders or morphing to other languages

Poems feed on arousal, long walks on the beach, rolls in the hay, relationship feces, desolation and decay.  Many species of poem can live for centuries on one single carcass

and the nutrients that are collected from solitude’s detritus are frequently offered as a nuptial present to lovers during mating, along with the poetic spermatozoa …”

            Following me was Karen Lee, with a poem named “Flight” – “Wings forgotten … hope thickens blocked throats … push upright hard against the wills they own … the space they rent … curled backs shun blood spattered dreams … only to lose their tongues …”

            Bänoo then asked us if we wanted more open mic or if we wanted to hear the first feature. I think she’d been expecting a more enthusiastic response. No one seemed to have a preference, so she said, “Let’s have one more open miker!” Then she invited Georgia Wilder to the front.

            Georgia told us she would be doing something she called “Bliss In Ten Haikus”. I used to make the same mistake of adding an “s” to “haiku” to make it plural.

            From Georgia’s haiku set – “a three legged beast / bliss snips every snare / turns safewords into safe words.” This is a good poem but it is too idea based to be a haiku. Not one single line captures a moment in time, which is essential for haiku.

            In introducing the first feature, Robert Priest, Banoo told us that he had sent her at first a twenty-word bio. When she asked for more though, he sent her one that was too long to read.

            Robert began by informing us that on Facebook he had promised that he would be reading new poems that night, but then he forgot them at home. He shrugged this off though by noting that since he didn’t see a lot of familiar faces, his old chestnuts would be new to most everyone.

            Robert’s first poem was entitled, “A Streetcar Named Delay” – “Standing … we are in wait training … waiting is good for the economy … a few of us step out repeatedly … the words ‘out of service; become legible … our breath mists mingle in the night air … like a lateral rapture our car will come …”

            His next poem was “Aztechs” – “Aztech drones… obsidian missiles … Aztech jets … Here’s Sadam, his chest excavated …”

            To set up his third poem, Robert told us that the late poet, Milton Acorn, committed many acts of civil disobedience on behalf of free speech. Robert’s poem was called “Acorn’s Oak” – “ … The place where Acorn broke the law, when he shouted, I shout love, in Allan Gardens week after week, where Acorn spoke there should be some kind of oak … Where Acorn roared through streams of reeking cigar smoke … and mark the time and the law he broke by speaking in a public park to all the crowds of Sunday folk who came to Allan Gardens week after week to hear him speak …”

            Then, “The Book of Jobs” – “Once god was talking to satan and he commented how pleased he was now that people were finally good. Now that they finally truly loved him. But satan said, ‘They love you because you have given them abundant lives and much freedom. It’s not yourself they love you for.’ In this way god was tricked into testing people … He destroyed all unions … took away safety regulations … took away health care … people continued loving god. Satan was not persuaded. ‘They still have jobs … purpose. That is what they love.’ Ten million jobs disappeared … God took away their social assistance … their homes … their rights … he began to kill their children … but the people fell to their knees and prayed …”

            Robert said, “You can probably tell I write for children.” Then he read one of his children’s pieces – “My mother has millions of mothers … It took millions of mothers to make her … mothers of daughters who grow up to be mothers … It took millions of fathers to make my father …”

            Another poem was “My Father’s Hands” – “My father had so many hands he had almost three … My father had almost three eyes but not enough to see me perfectly … Beating at his children … My poor factory father …The winds gave him only one heart … Grit your teeth and count your children … My father had so many hands and he waves them now … What are they when they are not fists …”

            Robert told us that his dad actually apologized to him a while ago, and admitted that he had been rough on him. He said, “I haven’t written a poem about that yet.” Someone in the audience quietly asked, “Why not?”

            Robert moved to a poem named “Meeting Place” which he explained is what Toronto means in one of the aboriginal languages. From what I’ve found it actually means “the place where trees stand in the water”.

            From the poem – “Someone spilled the whole spice packet … we are rubbing one another raw like sandpaper … I come away, my skin with impressions of scars that are not mine … I dare say there are some days when I get a little Gay … The wind is full of colours that were once ours …”

            Then Robert did his “Marching Song” – “Rights left, rights left, we still have some rights left, right … What if we left right at the moment someone was trying to reduce the number of rights left …”

            Then he read “Poem For A Tall Woman” – “If you have ever seen the green in water in water that is forever flowing out to mystery and adventure then you know something of the colour of her eyes … there is a space in me that she steps into … an absence that howls like a grave or a dead wind when she is not there … I love Marsha Kirzner like the taste of my own spit … ready to melt in her heat like snow carried south and dropped in Pacific surges … She is another tall self I keep inside and lean on like a prop … Let me just lick … this lightning filament of her love and I will sizzle with it, a long green furrow in my spirit where a jade lake reaches for the peaks … draw the bow down again and play the long sweet notes of our love.”

            From “Reading the Bible Backwards” a poem entitled, “Noah’s Dark” – “ … Noah built an immense dark and he gathered the shadows of his family … all the herds of shadows of beasts and birds … and when the light finally came they were carried off beyond the cruel reach of resurrection.”

            Robert told us that the next poem was for Mohammed. “Everybody loves Mohammed!” Somebody whooped. From the poem – “Ali was the champ, bam bam bam … He laughed and he twirled … Now in those days, blam blam blam, there was a war in Vietnam … and when they called Ali to go … he just said no … I’ve got no quarrel with Vietnam, why would I kill my fellow man … If you don’t fight for Uncle Sam we’ll lock you up in the slam slam slam … He just said no to Uncle Sam … Not till the war came to an end would they let him fight for the prize again … He darted and he danced, spoke poetry and twirled … He was champ in the ring and a champ times two because Ali was the king of not fighting too.”

            Robert read a few of what he called “micro poems:
            “Resistance is fertile.”

            “Whitewash comes in many colours.”

            “O Canada, our stolen native land.”

            “In my country we don’t have free speech, but the speech we have is very, very cheap.”

            “Would you like a little assault with that pepper spray?”

            “I’m so far out I have to pull the envelope.”

            “People start as dreams and end as memories.”

            “The bomb that only destroys poetry is called poetry.”

            “Turn the other cheek, or I’ll turn it for you.”

            Robert read one more of those and then he received the biggest round of applause for any feature that I’ve heard at Shab-e She’r.

            Robert Priest is very much both a people’s poet and a populist poet. He writes cleverly and creatively in a manner that is accessible to most people, with very little symbolism or metaphor. The finest piece that he offered us though was “Poem For A Tall Woman”, which did lean heavily on metaphor and abandoned the clever and pithy lines that are his mainstay.

            Banoo announced that there would be a fifteen-minute break.

            I had noticed during the first half that Cy had been making little sketches while many of the poets were reading. I asked him about them and he showed them to me. Some of them captured the character of the reader.

            A couple of people approached and told me they liked my poem. Cy told me that the part of the piece that speaks of punctuation when applied to poetry as if it were the pins that fix a butterfly to a display was particularly strong.

            I was standing and chatting with Sidney White when George Elliott Clarke suddenly appeared, moving around the room like a nerdy whirlwind, handing out his business cards that read, “George Elliott Clarke: Parliamentary Poet Laureate: Parliament of Canada”. I remember when he was the poet laureate of Toronto, but this was a surprise, not because he doesn’t deserve it, but just because I didn’t know. It’s a two-year title and he’s had it for just over half a year. When I looked it up it up I was astonished at how little money the Canadian poet laureate gets: $20,000 a year plus $13,000 for travelling expenses. The U.S. poet laureate gets $35,000 a year.

            When George handed me his card, he recognized me and asked how I was doing. I wanted to know if he would be reading on the open stage and he said he would. I realized that George was the surprise guest that Bänoo had hinted about earlier.

            When the break was over, before the bringing up the second feature, she introduced George Elliott Clarke, the poet laureate of Canada.

            George that this was his first open mic in years. He was very up-beat and high energy as he began to read a poem called “Abandonment” – “I saw her who my soul loveth, I was languishing … I brought a dark, crimson wine …I wanted our bed to turn into a cake with frosting spilled about … She won’t be mine, not unless her church okays her … She’s a Bad woman, will make Bad wife, will make a Bad mother … This air has fangs, trees shriek back … I must cross over to New Brunswick … to find a dirty little pigeon … down on all fours.”

            Somehow I don’t think that Stephen Harper appointed him poet laureate of Canada.

            Then it was time for our second feature performer. Cassandra Myers is a slam poet.

            The first thing she did was to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that she was wearing a dress. I can confirm that she was wearing one, long and black as I recall.

            “Whoop whoop for dresses and summer!” she called out, and then added, “Boo for men who think dresses are an invitation to talk!” Then she proceeded to tell a story about how someone tried to chat her up on her way to Shab-e She’r. I don’t quite get the statement about dresses being an invitation to talk. I assume that if someone is attracted to her when she is wearing a dress, people who feel compelled to act on their attraction will approach her to speak. Is she saying that it’s wrong to approach and talk to someone with whom one is attracted?

            Cassandra’s first poem was “A Feminazi Walks …” – “A feminazi lights a match … refuses to put herself on the pyre … He offers you a drink … Accept and he won’t throw acid in your face …”

            Cassandra told us that a friend pointed out that her Facebook persona is angry.

            Sometimes it was hard to discern the line between Cassandra speaking to the audience and reciting a spoken word piece – “There was a time I didn’t believe I was Indian … When people look the same you can’t see colour …” She said of her father – “He’s so Canadian … He jokes that at least he wasn’t raised a towel head … We eat curry on pasta … They call us the mixed kids … Can choose to hide behind the privileged curtain … I am still my father’s daughter … I love my dad … We watch Food Network together … Poutine man makes butter chicken poutine in a crock pot …a collage of flavours … a chef is not required to reference his sources … My grandmother spends twelve hours in the kitchen, I’ve never seen a brown woman on Chop Canada …”

            “Mahatma Gandhi is another hero of mine … Gandhi was racist … In 1918 the Ganges turned from blood pudding to curdled milk … His corpse baptized the river … My people are prone to glaucoma … Gandhi saved my people … I do not call him a racist … If I did, who else would I call a hero?”

            Cassandra said she is going to enter the Miss India Canada contest – “Want to see brown faces … What better way to infiltrate?”

            “I wear shorts, and when I’m stretching you can see my pubic hair … There is a razor somewhere in my DNA curling with regret … I tug at my womanhood … misshapen jewellery …”

            “My mother and I have a difficult relationship. I am recently learning how to navigate that.”

            “The first stop on the guilt trip is the grocery store … the second stop is the Esso station … She kills the engine, hand to the keys like a shovel … your beginning and her end …”

            After that poem Cassandra said that she needed to clear the air so she asked everyone to rub their hands together and then hold them out to send energy around the room. The last time I saw this done was a couple of years before that at Shab-e She’r by another female slam poet. I rolled my eyes.

            “If being born is not a child’s choice, is your mother your first oppressor … My mother jokes, I brought you into this world, I can take you out … I’m sorry I look so much like my father … Infants are aesthetically pleasing to increase their chances of survival …”

            To set up her next piece, Cassandra let us know that she is studying to be a counsellor. The poem was entitled “A Voice Mail To The Crisis Line Worker Who Saved My Life” – “As a crisis line worker an answer could be a gunshot … What’s the salary to be god’s secretary … You’re not the only one to try to tether their souls with two tin cans on a string … I told you I was hanging on by the thread of a telephone wire … I do have a voice and every time I use it I’m saying thank you.”

            For her final offering Cassandra asked her friends in the audience for suggestions for her final poem. She seemed to think their choice was a bit risqué, but she did it anyway – “Never have I ever took it in the … This game is too easy … separate the girls from the sluts … That girl gets to be the best fuck in his memory … Why else would I have a copy of the kama sutra next to my vibrator … Would you believe the first time I gave a blow job I cried … Every itch will feel like chlamydia … When he offers you money you’ll wonder if your whore was showing … You can’t fuck away the lonely.”

            As I mentioned earlier, it was hard sometimes to tell the difference between Cassandra Myers’s spoken word compositions and her patter with the audience. Her writing had creative moments and sometimes it dipped into being poetic, but for the most part it came across like a motivational speech or a talking cure. There is no rhythm to her delivery and very few artfully sculpted phrases.

            Upon thanking Cassandra, Bänoo immediately returned to the second half of the open stage.

            First up was Giovanna Riccio, who read from her book on dolls, a poem about Cindy Jackson, the human Barbie. The poem was called “On Plasticity”- “On the cusp of the age of better living through chemistry … miracle fibres form … bewildered by a chaos of replicas …”

            Next was Natasha Khan, who told us a story – Once upon a time in Persia there was a king. This king loved riddles …” Someone presented the king with three identical wooden dolls but was told that there was a difference between each one. But they – “weighed the same … smelled the same … Called wise man …” but the wise man saw no difference – “ … Bring in fool … juggled dolls …no difference … Bring story teller … plucked hair from king’s beard … put it in the doll …” It came out straight through the doll’s mouth – “ …This is the wise man …” He plucked another hair and ran it into another doll’s ear – “ … in one ear and out the other …this is fool …” He plucked another hair and inserted it into the third doll – “ … hair came curly out of doll’s mouth … This is storyteller, because will give own twist.”

            After Natasha was Sidney White, who shared some of a series of short pieces that she refers to as “Thoughts That Stray”:

            “People make churches because they can’t forgive themselves.”

            “Do I only see the worst in people or do I only know the worst people?”

            “I can’t kill myself. People would talk.”

“‘I want to find myself’ he said. I said, ‘I hope you’re not too disappointed.’”

“I’d like to sell my soul to the devil, but I hate standing in line.”

Then there was Nick Micelli, who read the new poems that I’d overheard him say he’d written for this event.

The first was called “Potato Paradox” – “From your damp, dark underground home … your seductive delight of sugary goodness … sleeping in endless peace … the mystery of the carbon molecule.”

His second was “Swimming In Infinite Choice” – “All in perfection, the great unfolding of me from the dead, fertile shadow …”

Before introducing the next open stage performer, Bänoo told us, “If you just make sense to people who look like you, you’re not making sense.”

Following Nick was Transient (aka Ikram) – “ … He said, I can tell you’re a daddy’s girl … I’ve only seen my father once … The male prostitute I met in Rome … He asked to take me out … Vaginas and wieners are everywhere …”

Bänoo commented before introducing the next performer that Shab-e She’r is getting more and more exciting every month.

Next was my old friend, Tom Smarda, who first of all let us know about a petition he had against an Ontario nuclear power plant in proximity of which two million people live.

Tom sang a song to the tune of Kerry Livgren’s “Dust In The Wind” – “Garbage dump, just a pile of crap that nobody wants, throw it away, but on a finite planet where will it go? Drowned in our shit, drowned in our poopies. Don’t buy crap, toxic waste ends up in our rivers …” Tom stopped to tell us, “Some guy wanted to punch me out in the subway for singing this!” – “ … Don’t give up, change our ways, we can live in harmony here on the earth, sustainably, we can all live sustainably.” Tom then urged us to send an email to Kathleen Wynn.

After Tom was a friend of Cassandra Myers named Londzo. She first of all exclaimed that she “loved Tom’s song so much”. From her piece – “They upped my dosage when I paid … I wasn’t willing to die … Speaking in tongues … Sometimes I feel that my therapist is not human … It hurts to heal … In this moment among the sallow imagery … This vacant chair sings songs to me … Father, it feels good to heal.”

Then Katch was called to the microphone. He wanted to first of all talk about the death of Prince. He declared that Prince was the most prolific artist of the last one hundred years. Then he wanted to emulate, for Prince, Cassandra’s rubbing of the hands and asked people to close their eyes while they did so.

Katch also wanted to acknowledge Robert Priest and to declare that “Song Instead of a Kiss” is one of his favourite songs. He confessed that until that night he hadn’t known that Robert had written it. Actually, I’d never heard of the song or even heard it before. After looking it up later, I saw that Robert didn’t write the whole song though, just the most important part, which was the lyrics. The music, written by Alannah Myles and Nancy Simmonds, is not particularly memorable. Of the lyrics, they don’t really say anything that hasn’t been said before, but I like the rhyming of “clutch” and “much”.

Katch finally got around to his poem – “Palestine in a state of decline …”

The penultimate poet of the night was Sarah Amelia Sackville-McLauchlan, who told us that she usually performs under the stage name of “Phantom Fem”. Before she could do the piece she’d planned she needed to find something in her purse and it took her a few minutes to do so. While she was searching, she commented that her “purse is a blackhole!” When she found it she declared that the “techno gods are kind!” What she had been looking for was her smart phone. The title of her song was “Catch 22” and she used a voice command to call up the music for the piece, which was kind of a gothic metal melody – “I’m afraid of what I see … dangerously close to places I don’t want to go … I hold onto the safety line of what I know is right … The world says you have to choose and you know there’s hell to pay if you lose … The smallest flame, like the darkest soul, give the monster a name …”

Before introducing the final performer, Banoo told us that it is our job to dominate this space.

Norman Perrin told us a story to close things down – “Once there were three young men … very poor … went to rabbi … who gave them seeds … first two cast out their seeds and grew crops … Third grew weeds … had nothing … The two others said they would share … He said they will each sell what they have grown … In the market he shouted Nothing for sale … People laughed … One person didn’t laugh … His daughter was dying and nothing could save her … He gave him money for nothing, then went home and found his daughter was okay.”

At the end of the night I had another chat with Sidney White. Sidney frequently identifies herself in conversation as an investigative journalist. Her area of interest is conspiracies and she has been lecturing at U of T on the subject for about sixteen years in a non-credit program. I think the university just provides the space and she does what she wants. In conversation I’ve heard her make some pretty bizarre claims.

Somehow this conversation ended up centred on the death of Lady Diana. She claims that she was pregnant at the time of her fatal accident. I have heard that claim, but had also read officially that it was false. She insists that there was a cover-up because Diana was pregnant with a “Muslim baby”. I had no idea that babies were religious. Sidney argued that the Rothschilds, the Jewish banking family which, according to Sidney control the royal family, Britain and most of the world, would not allow the world to know that a “Muslim baby” had come close to being born into the royal family. I was very sceptical. Sidney’s proof was that she’d heard the ambulance drivers say in an interview that Diana had said to them, “No drugs, I’m pregnant!” Sidney started getting mad at me when I kept on asking questions as if her evidence was not flawless. I just find this whole idea of the Rothschilds being powerful enough to alter official medical reports to be very far fetched, and more than a little racist. It’s this theory of the world Jewish banking conspiracy back in the 1930s that fuelled the world’s distrust of Jews and helped lead eventually to Jews being placed in concentration camps and ultimately led to the Holocaust. I didn’t quite get how the alleged testimony of a couple of French EMS workers could stand up against all the official reports. Sidney eventually walked away looking a bit pissed off at me.

First of all, what if Diana did tell the ambulance drivers that she was pregnant? Does that mean that she was? She happened to be dying at the time. Maybe she was delirious. Maybe she actually thought she was pregnant but hadn’t been to her doctor yet for him or her to confirm it. If she said it, did she say it in English or French? Could something have been lost in translation?

Diana was technically not even a member of the royal family when she died. Upon her divorce from Prince Charles, her title of “princess” had been removed. If she had been pregnant by an Arab man, why would the Rothschilds care? Chances are that her Indian great great great grandmother was a Muslim. If they didn’t care about her ancestry before she became a princess why would they care about her descendants after she was no longer a royal?

While I helped put the chairs away a couple more people came up to me and let me know that they’d liked the poem I’d read. One person wanted to know if I had a website. I told him that I have two blogs, but only know the address for one of them, which was my translation blog at www.fromthefrench.blogspot.ca but he could link to the other one from there.

Tom asked me if I wanted to sign his anti-power plant petition. I said that I didn’t want to sign anything.

On my way out the door, Katch came running after me to tell me how much he’d liked my poem. He also took down the url to my blog. He asked me for advice on his writing. I told him he was putting me on the spot, since I didn’t have a clear memory of what he’d read without my notes in front of me, so I just told him to keep writing. Upon reflection now I’d say that he should read his work out loud and edit it objectively, trying to develop rhythm with each rewrite. The only thing that I could comment on was what he’d said about Prince. I thought it was a pretty extreme claim that Prince had been the most prolific songwriter in a hundred years. I asked, “What about David Bowie?” He reminded me that he’d said “prolific” and I see now that to be prolific is just a matter of amount, whereas I’d always thought it had something to do with variety. I told Katch that Prince did repeat himself a bit, such as in the song “1999” the body of which has the same melody as that of “Manic Monday”. He didn’t think the songs sounded the same.

Then Katch began to make the claim that Prince had been murdered by Warner Brothers Records because he was worth more dead than alive. He said that the same thing had happened to Michael Jackson. He insisted that Prince could not have died from a drug overdose because he didn’t do drugs. At that point I recalled that Katch had been talking to Sidney earlier and that I’d overheard him tell her that he’d attended her lectures. That shows that he has that same mindset that leans towards conspiracies. The fact is that Prince’s people called up an addiction doctor and made an appointment for Prince the day before he died.

Whenever I talk to conspiracy believers though I always see a certain look in their eyes that suggests that there has been a lot more faith involved in the accumulation of their knowledge base than there has been investigation.

Singing in Tongues, After the Dark

           

  

            On the night of Monday, May 30^th, I locked my bike on Bloor Street just a few doors west of Brunswick and started walking to the Tranzac. On the corner was a gathering of some of the Tranzac open stage regulars: John P, Chas Lauder, Robert Labell and Steven Lewis. I didn’t stop to chat, but as I passed, I greeted the only one of them that saw me. John called to me though to inform me that there was a blackout at the Tranzac and that it was tentative whether there was going to be an open stage. I suggested that we could do an acoustic set. Steven made a comment that it wouldn’t matter to me since I don’t use a mic. Some of them agreed though that it might be nice to have a candlelight open stage.

            I went to sign in. They had moved the ukulele people into the Southern Cross room and the cute bartender informed me that the open stage would be starting half an hour later than usual because of that. I put my name on the list and then went outside. The whole street, south of Bloor was in the blackout. After tuning up I stood outside practicing my songs.

            Anhi (pronounced “an eye”) arrived, and I informed her of the delay. We chatted for a while as she contemplated whether or not to stick around. I asked her if she ever goes to Fat Albert’s and told me that she’d been a regular there for twenty years when they were on Bloor Street. She said that it had been a great place for Folk music at one time. I offered the view that Fat Albert’s is a little too folky for me. She said the fact that I can say that is evidence that there is something wrong with Folk music now, whereas it used to be on the cutting edge. It can certainly be argued that Folk music had a period of time when it was cutting edge, back when Bob Dylan was writing lyrics that one could get lost listening to. Anhi herself has a singing style that is so unique as to sound like it comes from another world. What one hears at Fat Albert’s or the Tranzac is mostly a rehashing of what was already done decades or even a century ago. Folk music these days is more about artisanry than art, but one has a chance of hearing something a little fresher at the Tranzac. Anhi told me that I’d convinced her to come back later, but then she left and didn’t return.

            Cad arrived and couldn’t see me at first in the dark with his bad eyesight.

            At around 22:00 John and the other guys came back, and while they were approaching the Tranzac, the lights came back on.

            The host for that night was Yawd Silvester, and we started at 22:30.

            The first performer, as usual, was Robert Labell, who began with Leo Kottke’s guitar composition, “William Powell”. His second choice was another Kottke cover, called “Ojo”.

            Next was Steven Lewis, with help on guitar from Robert Labell. Steven took the length of a song just to get ready to play one, and so there was time for Cad to tell me a story. Before he came to the Tranzac he went for a beef patty at one of his favourite places to eat in the neighbourhood. He said that while chatting with the woman behind the counter, she’d informed him, as she gave him his food, that she’d just thrown up.

            Steven’s first song was called “509” – “That 509 rolling away … always moving, that train won’t stay … Brings a tear to a cowpoke’s eye … the 509 is wailing … the whistle blows … That’s Alberta up ahead … where the wild horse rides like thunder …” About halfway into the song, Steven started to take a harmonica solo, but with the first note he realized that he’d slipped the wrong harmonica into his holder. “Such a shame!” he exclaimed.

            For his second song, which had the title, “Let the Music Play”, Steven told us that he was going to try something brand new that he’s never played before for anybody except his wife. He said she liked it and that was a good sign because she doesn’t usually like his songs- “There’s no lines to the music … like whispers whispered in a lover’s ears … Comfort us in times we are in fear … Lift our spirits high … Ladies dance tonight …” At this point Steven stopped, said the guitar was tuned wrong. He changed the position of the capo and then continued – “ … Send this message of love over the years … The times may change but the music still plays … It’s in the stars that light the dark, the voice of music can reach our hearts …”

            Then came John P., with the help of Chas on his electric lap steel guitar. As John was setting up he commented that it was so cold in the room that it was throwing his tuning off.

            John said, “It would have been cool if the power had stayed off.

            It’s interesting that though he said that and a lot of us agreed, none of us requested that the Tranzac just turn all the lights and sound equipment off. I guess we wanted to have circumstances force the situation upon us.

            Of his first song, John said that he wrote it at the cottage where he writes most of his songs. I always think of open stage musicians being poor but then my illusions are shattered with the information that some of them have cottages. I recall John’s friend Chas having told us last year about a trip to Asia that he took with his wife. For all I know now, both John and Chas are a couple of suit-wearing big shot executives during the day.

            From the song- “I was a ghost nearly all of my life, I stood around watching the world go by … I was a spirit all of my days, nothing could stop my spirity ways … I never thought I would ever get through till I met a phantom like you … Even though you can see through me, séances do nothing to me  …”

            John told us that he had written over two hundred songs, then he threw them out and started again.

            I added that Ernest Hemingway once said that the best thing that ever happened to him was when one of his wives threw out all of his writing.

            John introduced his second song by saying that he’d been doing it a lot lately and so this would be the last time for a while – “ … Would it be so bad if you told him your mind … I always thought that love was a crutch, I never lose but I never quite win …”

            Chas stayed on stage for his own set when John was done. He reminded us that he doesn’t really sing lyrics, but that this time he would do a song without words. He played the melody for the Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts”, but used different vocal sounds other than English – “Tadoora yanamda … dangatakayo … ayo chakeera alama … darolamda … keero alama …” Chas gave us a brief outline of the history of the Shakers and offered the view that their celibacy was counterproductive to the growth of the cult.

            For his second offering, Chas did piece that he called “Four Square Tons”, which was really a slow Blues instrumental improvisation on “Sixteen Tons”, which was either written by Merle Travis or George Davis.

            Then it was my turn.

            I started with “The Cha-Cha of the Wolf”, which is my English adaptation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Cha Cha Cha Du Loup” – “ … Well girls your age they’re afraid of guys like me, you’re much too sage to come and sit upon my knee, but I love you dear, so do not fear, come up to my side, I promise you that I will not bite …” I ended with an attempt at a wolf howl, and when I suggested that mine sounded more like a hamster going through a vacuum cleaner hose, John and a few others did their own wolf howls.

            My second choice was another attempt at my song, “Paranoiac Utopia” – “ … I take a brief ride on the bad ship donut shop so it can ferry me across a hostile ocean of time, I am a ghost, but only part, so pass painfully through borderlines …” I fumbled a bit on the chords, but it was a better live version than my previous efforts lately.

            Following me was Starros, who plugged a type of effects pedal between his guitar and the system. Yawd seemed to recognize the tool and commented that it was a nice one to have. Starros said that it’s great when it works.

            His first piece was an instrumental with lots of fast fingering of the strings and percussion on the body of his guitar. He started to sing, but then stopped to ask if the microphone was working as he swung it over in front of him. He was singing in another language that sounded like it might be Greek. Whenever he put his foot down on the pedal, it made a loud obtrusive snapping sound in addition to its function, which was to record segments of the piece that he was playing and then to repeat them on a loop while he played other sounds in accompaniment.

            When Starros had finished I asked him what language he’d been singing, but he answered that it was gibberish. I commented that this was a night of people speaking in tongues.
            Someone was impressed with Starros’s guitar and asked him what kind it is. He told us that it’s the cheapest classical guitar that Godin makes and that it only cost $375. That’s a lot more than mine cost.

            Ian, the guitar instrumentalist had been sitting at the back on a barstool earlier in the night, but he didn’t stay to play.

            The last person on the list was Erik Sedore, who shared a new song entitled, “Global Nuclear Winter” – “You laughed at me when I said we needed to get to the bomb shelter … Oh how you’ve changed, while I’ve stayed the same. You exploded, for example … It’s not fair, after all the time I was stuck in there … I returned to what was left of our house, there was a silhouette of you sitting on the couch, you cast such a long shadow.”

            For Erik’s second piece he began to change the tuning. Someone asked what tuning it was and he said that he makes up his own tuning because he doesn’t know how to do things the real way.

            Starros told Erik that he’s going to need a few guitars for the concert series.

            His second song was called “How I Killed All My House Plants” – “I let all my houseplants die one by one … starving to death in the artificial light … The punishment should fit the crime … they buried me up to my knees out in the yard … Please forgive me little ivy, forgive me bathroom cactus, forgive me ficus, forgive me rubber plant that got eaten by the cat …”

            With the open stage finished, our host, Yawd Silvester, then went to the piano to do a couple of his own songs.

            From the first- “ … Things have been lame since I changed my name … Now I’m wishing for a twist of fate and my fist in your face, yeah you balled my gal, you can go to hell.

            The last song of the night was called “Rebecca” – “All over town, folks are filled with indecision, I aint looking for a new religion, it’s you … All over town folks are looking for answers from the holy ghost, but I aint looking to be diagnosed … You can put the squeeze on the tuba, crazy glue, I aint looking for a new tattoo … Don’t call me Becky, you know I hate it.”

            Yawd told us that the songs he’d sung were ones that he doesn’t usually play solo, but rather with his band, “Tres Bien Ensemble”, which was named after the line from the Lennon-McCartney song “Michelle”.

            I walked out with Erik. On the way, Starros had high praise for Erik’s song about killing his houseplants and for his tuning and playing style.

            Personally, I don’t really understand other tunings, since the song that one has written will have the same melody no matter what the tuning happens to be.

            As we walked to Bathurst, Erik said he was probably going to take a break from coming to the Tranzac for a couple of weeks, until the next time Sarah Greene hosts.

            We chatted for a while at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor. Erik made a nice comment about the lyrics I write, saying they are some of his favourite.

Paladin

           

            There was a chance of thunder showers predicted for the afternoon of Sunday, May 30th, and I was looking forward to the break from taking a bike ride that the rain would give me. I thought for sure it was going to happen too, as around 16:00 the temperature dropped considerably and the sky became overcast. It didn’t happen though, so I went riding because I needed the exercise. I rode out to Torrens and Pape and visited several streets south and west of there.

            I would have been glad to stay home but once I was out and moving I was glad to be out there too. I’m starting to feel like some of the winter fat is coming off.

            That night I watched an interesting episode of Have Gun - Will Travel. It was a kind of cowboy murder mystery in which Paladin is captured, along with two other men wearing black, by a wealthy man whose wife has been killed. Paladin and the two others are suspects. The husband had caught a glimpse of a man in black with his wife, had fired as the man was escaping and inadvertently shot and killed his own wife. That was the husband’s story, but it turned out that he’d actually murdered his wife half an hour after the man had run away. Nonetheless he considered one of the men he’d captured to be the murderer because he had caused him to want to shoot his wife.

Sinead O'Connor as a Virgin

           

            On Saturday afternoon I took my bike ride. As I was going up Brock, past the railroad bridge, I noticed that someone had dumped several boxes and bags full of clothing, books and other items in the park beside the arena. A bunch of people were picking through everything but I made a point of remembering to check it out later.

            It was a hot day but for some reason it felt cooler east of Yonge Street. I rode to Logan and Cosburn and then down to the Danforth. I wanted to get a couple of cans of beer at the liquor store, and considered going to the one on the Danforth, but I figured it would be far more interesting to go to the LCBO in Parkdale.

            In front of my place, as I was waiting to walk my bike to the liquor store, a big tough looking bleached blonde Gypsy woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, accompanied by her stocky, tattoo covered mate, had just crossed the street. Suddenly though, her eye was caught by an adorable little East African girl of about three, who was waiting with her mother to cross the street. The Gypsy woman began to bubble over with affection for the child. She said a few a appreciative words in an eastern European language and blew a kiss at the kid before continuing on after her husband. I love Parkdale!

            When I got home, I remembered to stuff that had been thrown out on Brock, so I headed up there. There were still quite a few people going through everything. I found Patrick McCabe’s “The Butcher Boy”. I remember really liking the movie, which featured Sinead O’Connor as a foul mouthed Virgin Mary. I figure that if the movie was good then the book must be great because the movie is never better than the book. I also found a small pillow with an east Indian design.

One woman held up a little red t-shirt to show her daughter and said enthusiastically, “This is exactly your size. It’ll be great for the cottage!” Wow! People that can afford a cottage go through the garbage for clothing, grabbing stuff that poor people could use for their children!

If You Are Over Fifty, Get A Colonoscopy!

           

            When I got up on Friday, May 27th and looked out my window in the morning light, I realized that my new curtains were covering way too much window space. If I’d had rods I could have opened them right up but that wasn’t a current option. I found the solution fairly quickly though, by simply pinning the ties two-thirds of the way up, rather than halfway, I got back most of my view.

            I went to teach my yoga class, but for the fourth week in a row, no one came. I left PARC at 18:00 and went home to eat a frozen tea pop and drink a glass of water before taking my bike ride.

            I rode to Broadview and Westwood and then across to Donlands, exploring the streets that ran south to Mortimer as I went. It was hot going out but much cooler going home because the wind was coming from the west.

            I surfed the traffic lights and ended up at Lansdowne and Dundas, so I went to No Frills. The only thing they had that I wanted was yogourt this time around though.

            When I got home I remembered that my bedroom light had burnt out, so I went over to the Dollarama to buy bulbs. While contemplating which wattage to go for I ran into Barry Carleton who was looking for a calculator. I was surprised to hear that he was recovering from colon cancer and that in the aftermath of surgery he’d gotten an abdominal hernia. He’s reluctant now to get the hernia treated surgically, I guess because after six weeks in the hospital he doesn’t want to return. Plus he doesn’t trust the doctors that treated him in the first place and thinks that maybe he hadn’t actually had colon cancer in the first place. If I were him I’d get the hernia dealt with. It doesn’t help that he’s still smoking, which is apparently really bad for abdominal hernias because it causes acid reflux, which aggravates the problem.

It's Curtains for Me!

           

            On the morning of Thursday, May 26^th, I received a birthday present shortly after getting up. I opened my apartment door and my cat, Amarillo, came in after three and a half days of being away. He ate a bowl of kibble and then immediately left again, but it was a gift to know that he was probably going to be all right now that, despite his health problems, he’s out wandering around again.

            There were some greetings from Facebook friends that were in my messages already, and more trickled in throughout the day, as people were informed by the social network that this was indeed my day of naissance. Something I hadn’t seen before though was that Google Chrome, in place of the usual anniversaries of historically significant people had posted a happy birthday greeting to me. Then when I went to the bank, the teller looked at her computer and said, “Today is your birthday! Any plans?” I told her I was going to try to find some curtains. “Awesome!” she exclaimed.

            It had started raining, but I decided I’d go to the local Salvation Army thrift store at Queen and Lansdowne anyway. I got wet and felt uncomfortable on the way over there, and my search turned up nothing.

            I had set a goal for myself on my birthday to find some curtains for my living window, and the plan had been to head up to Bloor if the Sally Ann on Queen didn’t pay off. But when I left there it was still raining and I didn’t fancy spending my birthday getting soaked. I had a feeling that the rain wouldn’t last, so I went home for a while.

            On the way though, I stopped to get a beer at the liquor store. Coming in out of the rain to the refrigerated beer room at the back was like suddenly slipping back into winter.

            A couple of weeks before that I had bought a package of Wrap n’ Go spicy beef and bean burritos, but had kept them in the freezer. I heated up a couple in the oven and had them with a beer. They were delicious!

            The sun came out after a couple of hours and so I renewed my birthday mission. There was still a bit of rain falling as I rode up Lansdowne, even though it was sunny.

            I locked my bike near the thrift store at Lansdowne and Bloor where I’d bought my motorcycle jacket. They only had clothing on display but when I asked about curtains, the sales guy showed me a pile of material between the counter and the door. I looked through it, but found nothing.

            I left my bike where it was and walked east to the Salvation Army thrift store. Despite the fact that the Bloor Street store has a different layout than the one on Queen, the shelves pretty much look exactly the same with nearly identical items. They had curtains too, but nothing that I wanted.

            I walked a little further, past the House of Lancaster strip club to Ransack The Universe, which is a very trendy looking thrift store with trendy looking people behind the counter. The big blonde woman told me to look downstairs in the big wardrobe, which I did. There were curtains, but again, not what I was looking for.

            That was the end of the thrift stores east of Lansdowne, but there was still Value Village to visit. I walked back to my bike and rode to the other side of Lansdowne, but rather than riding a block and dealing with a left turn, I walked along the south side of Bloor, behind a young woman with a big, sexy behind and a walk to go with it. I thought for sure she was on her way to work at the Club Paradise at the corner of St Clarens, but she was on her way to Value Village as well.

            Once I was inside, I asked a young employee if they had curtains. She turned to face a distant part of the big store and looked like she was about to give me directions, but then asked me to follow her. At the farthest corner of that vast musty smelling market of second hand stuff was a stretch of curtains that ran down one aisle and up another. I went through everything and though I found some that might work for my window, the sizes were too narrow. I decided to check again. On the other side of the aisle there was a set that I’d passed by previously because of the crimson fabric being done in a vertically wrinkled design. It started to grow on me and it looked like the two pieces were wide enough for my window, so I took them.

            I found the same employee that had brought me to the curtains, working nearby, and asked her if they had curtain rods, but she said they didn’t. I walked back to the other corner of the store to look at the stuff on the shelves. I didn’t know if it was something that I’d touched among the other fabric, or the stuff I was carrying, but my arms were feeling itchy as I walked. There was nothing among the rows of plates, glasses, cups, utensils and knick-knacks that I needed, so I went to the checkout. The curtains cost me thirteen dollars and change.

            I then rode along Bloor to Brock, south to the back door of the Dufferin Mall and then walked to Walmart. I looked at curtain rods but they were twenty-five dollars, so I decided that I would just buy some thumbtacks for now and then worry about properly hanging the curtains later. I found a two dollar pack of a hundred tacks. I remembered the very friendly middle-aged Middle Eastern born woman in the headscarf. She looked my little package of tacks and exclaimed, “Oh! Good one!” Then she tried several times to get me to sign up for a Walmart credit card. I insisted several times during our brief transaction that I didn’t want any more cards.

            I decided that since I was at the mall, rather than riding to the supermarket, I’d walk to the No Frills. I exited the mall and went to the grocery store along the outside. It was so far I might as well have just gone to get my bike and ride somewhere.

I picked up a small bag of black grapes, a bag of oranges and some raisin bread. The birthday boy decided that he wanted steak for dinner and I found a pack of three rib-eye steaks on special for eleven dollars. I rarely buy potato chips these days, but for the occasion, since the PC “Loads Of” chips were on sale for $1.25; I picked up a bag of sour cream and onion.

Once I got home, set to work on putting up the curtains. They are perfect in terms of width, but they were about a third of a meter too long for my window, so I bunched up each of the loops through which a rod would go and tacked tacked them to the top of the window frame. Once everything was relatively even, I tied the curtains with the green ties that came with the green Martha Stewart curtains that I got from Zellers two decades ago and which hang over the inner part of my bedroom door. I never really used the ties for the bedroom, but they looked nice against the crimson curtains. The ideal would be to eventually get some rods and to have the curtains shortened, but for now they didn’t look too bad. Now though, the people in the building across the street won’t be able to see me naked as often. There’s always give and take in life.

Even though I felt sleepy in the late afternoon, I decided to milk the day and not take a siesta.

I grilled the steaks in the oven and had one of them with the chips, some sour cream and onion dip and a glass of Creemore. I watched the first two episodes of The Honeymooners. Show number one was centred around the Kramdens not having a television while the Norton’s had one on credit. Alice bugged Ralph about getting one because while he had his bowling and his lodge meetings, all she had was the walls to look at. Finally Ralph decided to buy a TV jointly with Ed and flipped a coin to see whose apartment the machine would be kept in. Ralph told Ed, “Heads I win, tails you lose” and of course he fell for it. It comes about that Ralph can’t tear himself away from the television and also that he and Ed fight over when they get to watch it. They make up and fall asleep together while watching the late late show, even though they both have to work in the morning. It seems that all of the early television shows that feature watching television as part of the story tend to portray it in a negative light.

The second episode involved some gangsters having left a suitcase full of counterfeit money on Ralph’s bus. Since they would have had to identify the contents, they didn’t go to pick up the money, so that meant that after a month, Ralph got to keep what he found, even though he had no idea there was money inside. Ralph needed fifteen dollars to pay his lodge fees but Alice wouldn’t give it to him. Ed suggested that he open up the suitcase to see if there was anything in it worth selling for fifteen dollars. When he did so, of course, Ralph thought he was rich and started living like a king, even quitting his job and calling his boss a “bum”. The gangsters come for the money and are just threatening Ralph and Ed when the police arrive to investigate the phoney cash.

Gleason and Carney were great comedic actors.

            I think though that these weren’t the very first episodes, since there were earlier short segments that appeared previously on the Jackie Gleason show.

Fat Albert's Visits Cabbagetown

            On the evening of May 25^th, I arrived at the Steelworkers Hall at 25 Cecil Street, and saw Ruth Jenkins talking on her phone in the little garden in front of the Steelworkers Dental Office. When she saw me she said, “Christian! It’s cancelled!”

I joined her to find out what was going on. She was on the phone with Glen Garry, but she explained to me that management had booked the room we usually have and the room that tends to be our alternative and we couldn’t take the upstairs room because there were no chairs. Glen was suggesting that we all go over to the Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre. An alternative that Ruth and I discussed was the little park in which we were standing. There is a long, semi-circular mortared stone bench for seating and a couple of picnic tables off to the side under a tree. It would have been ideal for an outdoor show on such a warm evening. When Mary Milne arrived, she was “gobsmacked” over the cancellation. She agreed that an outdoor open stage would be a good alternative. A few more people arrived, such as Bob Allen, Andrea Hatala and Bridget. Glen called Ruth and asked to speak to Mary. He convinced her to go to the space at 422 Parliament, above where the Ben Wicks restaurant used to be. I decided that everything being tossed into Cabbagetown for a night might make for an interesting review, so I decided to go. It took me thirteen minutes to get there on my bike. I saw Glen arriving just as I was locking my bike, so I was the second one there, beating Bob Allen’s car and its passengers by ten minutes. I helped set up some folding chairs.

The Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre has been serving the community since 1979. They offer after school music programs for young people and Glen is one of the teachers, in addition to being on the board. This is why he gets to use the space gratis for a weekly jam that he holds there and why he was able to hold Fat Albert’s there in this emergency situation. He said that the only reason he doesn’t just move Fat Albert’s there for good is because the CCAC is right now only living at that address from month to month, with an uncertain future in terms of having a permanent home. Glen didn’t want to put too much into setting up until after 20:00 because there was a music lesson going on in one of the little rooms.

I had put myself on the list for number three, but somehow the first two people on the list hadn’t arrived yet. If they could sign in telekinetically then why couldn’t they play telekinetically? It’s a mystery! So Glen asked me to go first. I played before a small group, and perhaps because of that felt less stage fright about my guitar playing and made fewer mistakes than the time before.

I stood between the stage and the audience and sang “Time of Yeah Yeah Yeah”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Le Temps Des Yoyos” – “ … Time of the yo-yo now has its epitaph, while the cradle rocks and rolls the time of yeah yeah yeah. Though all must change, I will never change, but in exchange, I’ll meet you halfway. Time of the yo-yo never wore a mask, but come incognito to play yeah yeah yeah.”

Then I did my song “Paranoiac Utopia” – “A painful shedding of skin today as Parkdale’s paranoiac armour has been circumcised, only later to be reattached with the brain tissue solder of airplane glue …”

After me was Bob Allen, with guitar help from Glen Gary and acoustic bass playing by Tom Daniels, who commented, “Fat Albert’s isn’t very fat tonight!”

Bob sang “North To Alaska” by Mike Phillips – “ … Sam crossed the majestic mountains to the valleys far below. He talked to his team of huskies as he mushed on through the snow with the northern lights running wild in the land of the midnight sun. Yes Sam McCord was a mighty man in the year 1901 …”

There were nine of us in the room when the song began, but more arrived before it was over, including Tom Hamilton, the violinist, who immediately joined Bob on stage to help him out on Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”. Tom and Glen each got two solos distributed throughout the song and in the folds of the verses.

Then came Bridget, who like Bob, only got a vocal microphone. Glen didn’t bother on this emergency occasion with setting up a full sound system for performers. Because everything was quieter, Tom Hamilton pointed out before accompanying Bridget that he had attached a homemade mute to his fiddle so as not to overwhelm.

Bridget’s first original song was an ode to spring – “Like a baby coming out of its mother’s womb … the fragrances of joy that the springtime brings, it’s a beautiful thing … all the little birds are about to fly …”

Her second song was entitled, “So Alive” – “Oh honey do you love me like I love you, oh darling my poor heart is ravished over you … and that’s the only reason why I feel so alive … oh honey and you got me feeling so distraught … oh darling my poor heart is breaking over you … I feel so alive …” Now that’s a bi-polar song!

Next up was Brian Rosen, who started with “Something In The Water” by Brooke Fraser – “I wear a demeanour made of bright pretty things … There’s something in the water that makes me love you like I do … I’ve got halos made of summer …”

Brian finished his set with one of his favourites to sing, “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms” by Thomas Moore.

Following Brian was Marianne Peck, with help from Glen and the two Toms. First though, Glen’s guitar was out of tune and he had a frustrating couple of minutes before he exclaimed, “I’d have a big career if not for this tuning bullshit!”

As she so often does, Marianne sang “Your Cheating Heart” by Hank Williams. She still reads the words when she sings, but I wonder if she really needs to. Everyone on stage sang along as well, and of course, accompanying Marianne is another opportunity for Glen and Tom to get solos.

Marianne’s second choice was “Could I Have This Dance” by Wayland Holyfield and Bob House. Everyone on stage joined in to sing the final chorus.

It was now time for this week’s featured performer, Lillian Kim. She was joined on piano by Peter James and by the rest of the Fat Albert’s stage regulars with their respective instruments. Glen also found a cable so Lillian could plug in her guitar.

Tom Hamilton mentioned, I don’t know why, that Gillian Anderson wants to be the next 007 as Jane Bond. That might be interesting, but then so would Pee Wee Herman be interesting as Bridget Jones.

When Lillian introduced her band, Peter James corrected her and insisted that his stage name for this gig was Tony Escobar.

She told us that her first song was about second chances – “Can I tell you that I need you … I did not mean to compromise you … Give me something to hang on to …”

Lillian told us she’d found a fledgling bird in the back yard and didn’t know what to do until she was told that it had fallen from a nest and that it’s parents would continue to bring it food until it learned to fly. I didn’t tell her that it might become cat food before that happens though.

Her next song was called “Bird With A Broken Wing” – “They say life isn’t fair, that we really shouldn’t care … I saw your name on a bus, so it made me think of us … how we fell from that blue sky and held each other that night … She’s a bird with a broken wing, you can hear it every time she sings …”

From “Summer Song” – “Midsummer afternoon when you stole my heart in two … I waited for you … I’m still waiting for you … You said a million things that made my heart just sing …

Then a song inspired by a Rumi story on soul mates. Lillian clarified that in this definition, anyone that changes your life is a soul mate – “I spent my whole life searching for what I didn’t know … all change is good…”

Lillian asked if anyone has had their heart smashed – “I watch the clock, it’s half past eight, twenty-four hours, I still wait … did you see me …”

From “Mistakes” – “I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve come so far … to get things to move, to get things to change … I move on back to living in a cage …”

Lillian’s final song had the title, “Wish You the Best” – “Looking at the sky from the corner of the street … The flutter’s still inside of me every time I hear your name … When you looked into my eyes, I knew that I was done …”

Lillian Kim’s songs have some good melodies and her voice carries them well. In every song though, she takes the length of a verse to sing out the melody non-verbally as a type of instrumental break with heartfelt, extended “ooh”s or “whoah”s. This would be okay on one or two songs, but to do it every time gets a little tired. Her lyrics tend toward romantic clichés of heartbreak that aren’t very artfully composed and so they are the weakest part of her song writing.

The first performer after the feature was Peter James and he was joined on stage by the two Toms. Tom Daniels though was reluctant to accompany Peter because he knew that he would probably be improvising on the piano and that it would be very difficult to lay down any bass for his noodling. Tom Hamilton, however, dismissed Tom Daniels’s misgivings and encouraged him to sit in.

On Peter’s second improvisation, bass-Tom gave up on playing, while fiddle-Tom was enjoying the chance to play along.

My mind drifted while Peter was playing to the next time I perform at Fat Albert’s to a larger crowd and whether or not I should try using the microphone for “Paranoiac Utopia”. The thought came to me that for me to amplify myself to cover up the fact that people aren’t paying attention is like a singer wearing cologne because the audience hasn’t taken a bath.

Next was Glen Gary, with Tom Daniels and Tom Hamilton.

Glen’s first choice was the Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields song, “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” – “ … I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade …” Tom Hamilton sang harmony.

Then Glen played T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday”. At one point in the middle, Glen sang “Gotta get that harmonica up here right now!” Ruth Jenkins joined him on stage. Later in the song, Tom Hamilton took a solo that made everyone applaud.

When it was over, Tom Hamilton wanted to make sure that everyone knew that it was T-Bone Walker who wrote the song.

After Glen was Ruth Jenkins and so everyone that was already on stage stayed there.

Ruth began with Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon” – “ … My parents cannot stand him because he rides the rodeo, my father says that he will leave me crying … and when he comes to call my pa aint got a good word to say, guess it’s cause he was just as wild in his younger day … He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me …”

Ruth’s second offering was “Autumn Leaves”, which is Johnny Mercer’s adaptation of the Jacques Prevert and Joseph Kozma song “Les Feuilles Mortes”.

The second to last performer of the night was Wendy Chairnstrom, who started with Paul Simon’s “59^th Street Bridge Song” – “ … Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep, I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep, let the morning time drop all its petals on me, life I love you, all is groovy!”

Wendy chose to just read the lyrics to the second piece she did. Maybe she hadn’t learned to play Joni Mitchell’s “cactus Tree” yet – “ … He has heard her off to starboard in the breaking and the breathing of the water weeds while she was busy being free … She has brought them to her senses, they have laughed inside her laughter, now she rallies her defences for she fears that one will ask her for eternity … Her heart is full and hollow like a cactus tree …”

The grand finale of the night was a performance by Honey Novick.  She told us that when she was a teenager she’d heard Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” and she thought it was a horrible song. Later though she heard something beautiful by the same man. Then she sang, “Nobody’s Darling But Mine”, which Merle Haggard had recorded, but which he did not write. It was written by Jimmie Davis.

Then, with Tom Hamilton’s violin playing along, Honey sang her annual rendition of George and Ira Gershwin’s “Summertime”. When she got to the last verse, she stepped back from the microphone and belted it out. Then she scatted the melody for the length of a verse and sang the final verse again.

When she came over to say hello to me I told her that I’ve always thought that the lyrics to “Summertime” should be sung to the tune of “Danny Boy”. She looked at me like I was strange and said “oh … kay” the way we do when someone has said something absurd. But I was serious. Switching the two songs actually sounds good.

            I left Cabbagetown and actually got home more than an hour earlier than I usually do after a night at Fat Albert’s.