- I dreamed I was cleaning out my ears with bobby pins. I’m sure it wasn’t the beer; it was the heat.
- I saw Rattlesnake Island, where Eddie Mansour came to grief, ultimately snapping and taking the staff of the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon hostage, because that is what you do when a clique of white good ol’ boys ruins your dream of a camel-shaped resort (with bonus pyramid!) on Okanagan Lake.
- Saw Eddie’s Castle (or Eddie’s Folly) the monstrously tacky, 70’s style, pink stucco B&B overlooking Rattlesnake Island, where Eddie slowly, and against all odds, recovered his wits and lost what remained of his fortune. If memory (of his autobiography, From Nuthouse to Castle) serves, several suites had circular beds, one was revolving, and of course there were heart-shaped jacuzzis. Available now for a round $1million, it looks as if it is haunted by the ghost of Robert Goulet: one balcony has fallen off entirely, sliding down the cliff face onto the highway. The once-beautiful view is marred by the semitransparent mist of organisms growing on the windows, and the land is slowly falling, piece by piece, into the lake. It would be a wonderful place to retire and slowly go insane. Perhaps I shall save up enough one day.
- I saw a double rainbow over Westbank and can now definitively state that the rainbow ends at Canadian Tire. Picture to follow.
- My only goals for this vacation were A) a sunburn and B) a hangover. A was accomplished the first day. And the second. I have high hopes that Winery Tour Day will allow me to tick off B as well.
- I can now identify, having towed it for several hours, a ’61 Nash Metropolitan.
Monthly Archives: July 2006
Happy 4th of July!!!
We all celebrate in our own unique ways. Some of my friends to it by firing off fireworks, eating BBQ, and drinking pisswater. My family does it by making sure the cannons at Windsor are still pointed across the river. I do it by posting anti-Bush videos from YouTube.
My Neighborhood, for real
So, as you might already know by my blog irregularity, I am experiencing a power crisis. I am without electricity. In Canada, we call this “anhydrous” but you might call it any number of things, including inconvenient.
But among other things, it means that I only have electricity between midnight and five in the morning, when I can safely run a power cord to the outlet down the hall without anyone ratting me out to the building manager.
However.
There are those who could bust me. In my hallway, there is a youthful Chinese girl who is carrying on an affair with a man on one of the upper floors, but who doesn’t dare let her father, with whom she lives, know. So, every night about twelve-thirty, I hear her door open and the elevator going up. About three, it comes back down and she goes back to her room.
She’s not about to rat me out for using the power. It’s mutually assured destruction.
When I go out to unplug the apparatus, sometimes I see some unusual things.
It’s four-thirty in the morning. It’s the Downtown Eastside. Of COURSE I see some unusual things.
But among them I do not expect to see an actual scimitar. Apparently, instead of the tai chi ladies who practiced there last year, each dawn is welcomed by an actual, fucking, practicing fucking, samurai.
He’s out on the patio, practicing his moves. I am well aware it should be a katana instead of a scimitar, but what can I say, the man is versatile.
And armed.
Oh, who are the people in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood. In my neigh-bor-hood? Oh, who are the people in my neighborhood. The people that you meet each day?
The samurai has a big sword
Don’t mess with him or you’ll get gored.
He practices each day at dawn
Could skewer you just like a prawn.
‘Cause the Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
In my neighborhood.
He’s in my neigh-bor-hood!
A Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
A person that I meet each day.
Oh, trysting kids are scaredycats.
Their dad might find out, don’cha kno?
They sneak around, it takes real gumption
They can’t expose me: M. A. Destruction.
Oh, a Samurai’s a person in my neighborhood.
In my neighborhood.
In my neighbrhood.
And the trysting kid’s a person in my neighborhood.
They’re the people that I meet
When I’m walking down the street
They’re the people that I meet each day and, by silent mutual agreement, do not appear to recognize.
The Golden Telephone
An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the world.
So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to Orlando, thinking that he would start by working his way across the USA from South to North.
On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read “$10,000 per call”.
The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for.
The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God.
The American thanked the priest and went along his way.
Next stop was in Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it.
He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.
She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.
“O.K., thank you,” said the American.
He then traveled to Indianapolis, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.
In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same “$10,000 per call” sign under it.
The American, upon leaving Vermont decided to travel to up to Canada to see if Canadians had the same phone.
He arrived in Canada, and again, in the first church he entered,
there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read “40 cents per call.”
The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign.
“Father, I’ve traveled all over America and I’ve seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I’m told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call.
Why is it so cheap here?”
The priest smiled and answered, “You’re in Canada now, son – it’s a local call”.
Octopus vs Shark
After all this time you aught to know how to handicap this. Actually quite gruesome, in fact.
raincoaster 