Yesterday I fell in love. She was working out at my gym, Diesel Fitness, which has a reputation for its attractive female members. She wasn’t over the top beautiful. She was quiet and had an intelligent look to her. I figured she was a doctor or a robotics engineer. I saw another member talking to her, and afterwards I went up to him and asked him what her deal was?

“Oh, Angel? She’s a stripper.”

“What!” I was completely taken aback. At least she wasn’t a lawyer. But I was still less than pleased. “She’s a stripper? No! She seems so nice. So sweet!”

“Yeah. She is nice.”

“Nice? How’s she nice?”

“Whenever I go to Club Paradise, she always tells me who gives the best lap dances.”

I was heartbroken. The love of my life, grinding some guy in a club when she could be worshiping me. There is a part of me that’s always disappointed when I find out a woman is a stripper. But it’s not because I have a problem with stripping. If I were a beautiful woman, I would be a stripper. I would strip for a few years, rake in some serious cash and then use that money for a business or an education or a house. “You want to give me money for this? Yes, please. How ‘bout dat? Yah! Thank you very much!” I don’t actually have a moral problem with somebody voluntarily taking her clothes off for tons of money. I did far worse than that in my years working in finance. And now? Strippers may bare their bodies, but I bare my soul. And I’m not even getting paid for this.

But I’m not being honest. The truth is, I don’t think I could be a stripper. It’s not that I don’t have the physique. I’m six feet tall so my long legs would look great in a pair of six-inch stilettos. No, that’s not the problem. The problem is that strippers actually make the bulk of their money from lap dances — not stripping. This is something I’d be less comfortable doing. I feel bad for strippers who come face-to-thong each day with men’s depravity. I feel bad for strippers because I wonder what sort of normal life a woman could ever have if she worked as a stripper. I imagine she could never have a fulfilling relationship and would eventually grow to hate all men.

But then it suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea what a stripper would actually think, because I’ve never actually spoken with a stripper — outside of a strip club. For all I know, it could be liberating for them to truly understand what men are really like. Sure, it seems highly unlikely. I know the stereotypes. I’ve heard some stories. But I like to think of myself as open-minded. I don’t know if these stereotypes are actually accurate. In fact, as I write this I imagine that there might be as many different kinds of strippers as there are different kinds of doctors, lawyers and engineers. On second thought, that’s probably not true. There’s only one kind of lawyer — pure evil.

I start to think that maybe there is hope for the two of us. I begin to imagine a future with Angel, the two of us married and living in Forest Hill. During the days, I’d putter away on my laptop while she’d lie in the backyard tanning and reading a copy of Bonsai Bush, the Japanese periodical with all the latest in stripper grooming and fashion. In the evenings, I‘d visit her at her workplace, bringing her a thermos of hot cocoa and a fresh towel. And family? We’d have a dog and a cat and of course twins: a boy and a girl. We would raise our children in an open and honest environment. We would have lively debates over dinner about the ramifications of the decline of the bush in the West. Angel would teach our daughter, Angela, the importance of pole hygiene — always bring your own wet naps, sweetie. I would teach our son, Louis, the merit of wearing sweatpants before sitting down for a lap dance.

But life goes on. Angela turns eighteen and moves to Niagara Falls — can you blame her? Louis lives at home until he’s thirty before moving to Montreal to study at the prestigious linguistics center, the Gentlemen’s Club MC Academy. My heart is bursting with pride at my children’s accomplishments. Life has been good to me.

The seasons pass and I go gray-er. My muscles shrink and between my hernia, my plantar fasciitis and my arthritic shoulder, I can no longer workout let alone bench press 225 pounds for 3 sets of 12 repetitions. Instead, I focus on my daily walks, once a day around the block. I smile and make eye contact with every youngster I see during my ninety minute regime. Gotta keep moving. Don’t feel sorry for me. My eyes twinkle.

One day I come home from my morning workout to see Angel lying on her side in a puddle of clear liquid. She is unconscious. She has broken her hip doing her morning exercises and in the fall had burst a saline pack. When she returns from the hospital, she is changed. She is not the same person she was before. She walks with a limp, shoulders stooped, head down. But her eyes are wild. Her memory is fragmented: Alzheimer’s.

We spend our golden years sitting in the park holding hands and looking off into nothing. Young couples walk by. They smile at us two old lovers, before scurrying away in fear when Angel opens her legs at them, cackling wildly.

And then I get a phone call. It’s the police. Angel is inside a subway car. She is upside down, hanging from one of those poles that lead from floor to ceiling and she is refusing to move. Two policemen try to forcefully remove her but they cannot. The power of her stripper thighs has not diminished despite her age. It’s always the last thing to go, they say. I arrive and plead with her to come down. But she is crying and says repeatedly that she can’t come down until they play Joan Jett’s “I love Rock and Roll.” The police are concerned. There is no music playing. And besides, China is now the world’s sole economic and social superpower. Everybody’s listening to Cantonese opera-pop nowadays; it’s the law. Angel’s clearly lost her mind. They want to put her away in a nursing home. No, I beg them. Nursing homes are 80 percent women, and Angel’s never liked woman-on-woman action.

But they do not listen to me. Angel is locked away. Less than a year passes before she dies. I am left alone with my thoughts … and my memories. The days are difficult, the nights impossible. I find ways to pass the lonely evenings. I return to her old workplace. It has changed so much! I am amazed at the talent of these proud, young performers as they zoom above me on their bam-bam hoverstages with hydroponic stirrups. What will they come up with next? But despite all these newfangled gimmicks and accessories, I am relieved to see something that I had thought gone forever. The bush is finally back in all its 1970’s Devil in Miss Jones glory. The Brazilians had not killed it, after all.

I smile to myself. What comes around goes around. Angel was a good woman. She was a good wife. I had a good life. Life goes on. And I am wearing sweat pants.

————————————————————————————————

Watch my reading of this essay at Jazzoetry IV, in Toronto

————————————————————————————————

Ok, I ‘m freaking out a little bit right now. Trust me when I tell you that what I am about to write is 100 percent true.

So, I just got home thirty minutes ago from my morning coffee. And I stepped into the guest bathroom. Now I rarely ever use this bathroom. The toilet blocked on me once before so I stay away from it. I cannot remember the last time I used it. I have a main bathroom off my bedroom. That’s the one I use. I’ve had no guests over the last few days — not a soul.

So what do I see, but a wet bathroom floor and this:

Look carefully. It’s hard to tell from the picture that the floor is wet, but take me at my word, it is. But even more strangely — and you can see this in the picture — not only is the floor wet, but the plunger head and the first few inches of the wooden staff are wet too! And look at the toilet seat. That’s a drop of water just hanging off the toilet seat, ready to fall: a clear sign of a toilet that’s recently overflowed!

Somebody’s been using my toilet. There’s no fuckin’ question. And that same somebody blocked my toilet. And then that same somebody unblocked the toilet!

Now, the next part is going to sound even stranger. But I swear to God it is also true. It happened not forty-five minutes ago. When I came back from my coffee there was a fire alarm going off in my building. So, I’m standing outside by the fire truck and one of the residents comes up to me and says, “If you want, I’ll go to the bank with you later.”

I did not recognize her, and said “huh?”

She looks at me more closely and says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Steve. You look just like him. Do you know him? He lives in the building.”

I didn’t know him and I didn’t think anything of it. But she was awfully cute with long red hair. So I went up to her a few minutes later and said, “So, who’s this Steve? Is he your landlord? ”

“No. He’s the plumber. You really look just like him.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I said. “I look like the plumber. ” I told her the story of the time the casting agent wanted me to play the part of a stockbroker in a commercial.”

She laughed and said, “Wow. You really do look just like Steve. He even has a shirt just like yours!”

“What? This is one of my favorite shirts! I bought it at Urban Outfitters five years ago in DC. He uses this same shirt for his plumbing repairs?”

Fast forward to my apartment where I am getting awfully antsy about the bathroom. I decide to search the apartment for intruders. I hurried to my kitchen and grabbed the Chef’s knife. It’s exquisitely sharp courtesy of the honer which I finally learned how to use.

I walked though my apartment, the knife held close to my body. I’ve seen enough movies to know that if you hold the knife out, somebody can grab your arm. I saw no evidence of a break-in. And nothing was missing. My roof door was unlocked but I may very well have left it open myself.

It doesn’t make any sense to me. If it was a burglar or even a poltergeist that used my bathroom, why would it clean up the mess? And if it was going to clean up the mess, why not do a better job and mop down the floor too?

And then I had a mental image: Jack Nicholson in the movie, The Shining. In the movie, he plays a writer who slowly loses his mind — in the isolation of a haunted hotel. Am I spending too much time alone? Have I lost my mind? Here I am suffering poltergeists in my toilet bowl while my next door neighbor mistakes me for the building’s plumber. What are the odds of that? Am I a plumber in some alternate, schizophrenic life of which I have no memory? Am I Steve? And if I am Steve the plumber then why isn’t my toilet working? It doesn’t make any sense.

___________________________________________________

Afterword: I bump into my superintendent and ask him if there’s been any technicians in my apartment for any reason. The answer is “no. ” I tell him about the toilet and he comes up to take a look. Turns out that the “thingamajig” is warped which in tandem with the high humidity has caused condensation to form on the outside of the tank. Now I know for certain that I’m not Steve. This leaves me rather happy. I always put 100 percent effort into everything I do, so if I’m going to be a plumber, I want to be a good one.

It’s 7 pm EDT as I write this and I’m about twenty-five thousand feet above Colorado, my head still pounding even though Burning Man ended some sixty hours ago. I’m flying back to Toronto after a one-day stopover in Los Angeles and yes — I am on an airplane. I apologize in advance for the length of this blog. A lot of stuff happened. There are many conflicting thoughts going through my head.

I decided to go to Burning Man for two reasons: One — some good friends were going. Two — it was a completely different experience, out of character for me. My 40th birthday is around the corner. I wanted to do something extraordinary.

My friends and I only participated in the second half of Burning Man, arriving Thursday morning at 10 am and departing Sunday morning at 5 am. Believe me — three days was more than enough. My body is still exhausted and my senses still in overdrive as I write this. To be frank, I was exhausted even before we got there, between flying to Los Angeles on Wednesday and then driving twelve hours in a rented van to the Burn. I slept perhaps three hours on the drive down, one hour on the first night, and two hours on the second.

My body broke down mid-day Saturday and I imposed myself on my new friends from Vancouver, who happened to have an air-conditioned RV. If geese have a god, then that god’s spirit — and feathers — stuffed the couch that graced their RV and on which I slept for a heavenly five hours that Saturday afternoon.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how anybody makes it through the whole week. Three days in a tent in the desert was certainly more than enough for me to taste the Burning Man experience. Perhaps my resistance to a longer stay is resentment because I did not personally experience that most meaningful of BM events. I am of course referring to the only BM that matters: the Bowel Movement. Ever since I ate at the Metropole hotel’s buffet in Vietnam seven years ago, my bowel movements have been as liberating as Operation Desert Storm. Nowadays, I can’t crap in a five star hotel when I’m on holiday, let alone the sweltering, Porta-Potty toilets that were our only option in this unforgiving desert.

Lack of BM aside, this was definitely one of the most intoxicating experiences I’ve ever had and I’m full of many conflicting emotions. Do I recommend it? Most assuredly yes. Would I do it again? Uhhh … let’s wait and see.

What is Burning Man? Well it turns out my previous post — which I wrote having never actually been there — is actually a pretty good starting point to understanding the Burn. Given that I like to think of my blog as a family blog, I’d rather not get into the specifics. Let’s just say that Hunter Thompson would have felt very much at home at Burning Man. Specifics aside, there are two things that make Burning Man very, very special in my mind:

• The overwhelming enthusiasm of its participants
• The harshness of the desert backdrop

The first thing I noticed at the Burn was an overwhelming atmosphere of (more…)

Last night, I performed at Yuk Yuk’s comedy club, as part of Amateur Night. I’ll let the video speak for itself, but on the whole I was happy with the result — particularly since it was my first time doing stand up. My biggest setback was that they cut me off before I finished my routine. I had gone well over the six-minute time limit. I was surprised that I’d gone over. I’d timed myself before I went on and thought I had exactly six minutes of material. But I’d forgotten to leave time for laughter. I guess at a subconscious level, I wasn’t overly ambitious.

I was extremely well prepared for the act. Not so much in terms of my material — or haven’t you seen my rehearsal video? No. I was prepared in terms of supplies. I had all sorts of nifty things in my man bag, just in case:

• A banana: If I got hungry — which I did. I ate it right before I went on. It helped absorb the three rum and cokes I’d drunk before my set.
• An extra pair of contact lenses: In case my eyes dried out and I lost a lens before I went on stage.
• Hair pomade: In case my hair suddenly went ‘bad” before I went on stage. Now that I’ve seen the video I’m wondering if I should have brought a stylist. Or a plastic surgeon; is my nose really that big?
• A small hand towel: I have no idea why.
• A fresh shirt: Just in case my nerves overcame my sweat glands. I didn’t want to go on stage with sweat patches under my armpits. That’s also the reason I chose to wear a vest on stage. Wool has great absorbent qualities.
• Two hundred bookmarks: To hand out after the show — which I did, with the kind help of my friends.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to be prepared. I grew up in a loving but overprotective household — always expecting the worst. Whether it was driving a bicycle on the sidewalk or ensuring that nobody slipped drugs into my hamburger at lunch, there was so much danger to be avoided. I think many of the unconventional choices I’ve made in my life were attempts to conquer my fears.

I’ve always had tremendous respect for stand-up comedians. I actually surprised myself by deciding to try it for myself. I didn’t overly dwell on the decision. I pulled the material for my routine out of one of my book chapters: “Too Big or not Too Big — That is the Question.” The chapter as a whole — at 2,500 words — would have easily run over twelve minutes — without laughter. I cut it to 1,200 for the routine. I practiced it for a few hours the day of the show.

I didn’t want to memorize my bit. I thought it would sound too rehearsed. But I also didn’t want to risk panicking and forgetting my material during my set. So I employed a standard memory trick I learned back in college — word association. You take words that you would normally easily remember and associate them with words that you are trying to remember. The more ridiculous the association the more likely you are to remember it. For instance, let ’s say you are trying to remember the word dolphin. You might take a familiar place — such as your apartment —and imagine yourself walking through it. You might then imagine suddenly seeing a dolphin in the toilet. It’s that simple. For each word you want to remember, all you need do is remember the path that you “walked” through the apartment. This memory tool has always worked beautifully for me. But it’s not working so beautifully for me right now. You’ll understand it after you watch my routine, but as I walk around my apartment, all I can see are penises.

In six weeks I turn forty. I’m not leaving my thirties without a fight. I’m meeting some friends in Los Angeles next week and we’re driving ten hours to Burning Man. Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada and runs for seven days each summer. I’ve never been, but judging from the website, I’d say its Survivor meets Woodstock meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome meets the Museum of Modern Art. When I say it takes place in the desert, I mean it takes place in the desert. There’s nothing there when it starts and nothing there when it ends. Everything you need to survive you must bring with you. I’m bringing condoms and Honeycombs cereal.

Until recently, I hadn’t thought too much about turning forty. Thirty was a much bigger deal for me. When I was nine years old I saw the movie Logan’s Run. In this post-apocalyptic, futuristic sci-fi flick, all inhabitants are “renewed” on their 30th birthday. For some reason, this movie struck a chord with me, and over the years, images from it have occasionally flashed before my eyes. As my thirtieth birthday party approached, I had a flashback and remembered as a young boy thinking to myself, “executed at thirty - what’s the big deal? Who the hell wants to live past thirty?” Let’s just say that this particular movie memory dampened my party mood on the big day itself.

So here I am ten years later, still having somehow dodged the Sandman. Now, partying with my best friends at Burning Man may be a lot of fun, but the event takes place several weeks ahead of my birthday. Any residual good —uhhh — “feelings” will have already left my system by the time my fortieth birthday rolls around. Which leaves me in a quandary. (more…)

I recently ended things with my lady. I kept it going longer than I should have, hoping that she was “the one.” But in the end I accepted there was no future. Since my divorce, I’ve recognized that in a healthy relationship, you both grow, basking in each other’s radiance. It can’t be a one-way street. But with her it was. I’m not saying there was anything wrong with her. “Nikki” was my perfect woman, but I was just “another guy” as far as she was concerned.

I can’t help but notice as I write this blog that I’m sitting in the exact same seat where we first met. I begin each day at the Starbucks across from my condo, with a coffee — grande mild. I putter away on my laptop, periodically lifting my eyes to check out the attractive girls buying Venti soymilk lattes. Nikki noticed me before I noticed her — or should I say, she noticed my laptop. She approached me and said, “I’m thinking of getting a MacBook too, do you like it?”

I looked up. My dream girl — right in front of me.

She was five foot six inches tall with bright green eyes, accentuated by too much eyeliner. She looked like a porcelain doll, her perfect Japanese Anime features made even more attractive by slightly crooked, white teeth. Her hair was cut in the angular style of Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element — Ruby Rush R68 by L’Oreal with a dash of Platinum Crystal 120 perhaps? Her naturally pale skin — while freckled and sunburned — still retained much of the effervescent quality of her youth; she was at least a year away from exhibiting the effects of too much sun exposure. She was wearing tight cropped white pants and a green v-neck sweater — the edge of a tattoo just visible in the gap between sweater and pants. And when she turned away, I saw a perfect apple-shaped ass just ripe for the picking, lifted in my honor by the highest heels I’ve ever seen — outside of a strip club that is.

She was so wrong for me. But oh … she was so right.

I answered her enthusiastically, gushing on the greatness of the Mac. By the time I was finished, Steve Jobs could have fathered my first-born. But I had little else to say to her; I was spent. As the last words dribbled out, she turned away, collected her Venti, and clip-clopped away to the streetcar.

The second time I saw her was two days later. I was sitting in my usual spot, the comfy chair near the window. I looked up and noticed her — just as she was leaving. I felt something in my chest ache. I was thunderstruck — without a doubt. I looked out the window and watched (more…)

I finally saw the movie Sicko, the Michael Moore documentary that unfavorably compares the US health system with other countries. I liked the movie but found the Cuba segment misleading. Walking out of the theater, one might almost believe Cuba is a utopian paradise — a retirement haven superior to Florida. But I know better. Why would anybody move to Cuba when there’s no Disney World — let alone Parrot Jungle Island?

I have only superficial knowledge of the diverse health systems mentioned in the film, but there’s little doubt in my mind that the Canadian medical system is superior to that of the US — at least for the patients. Overall, I’m proud to be a Canadian. I admire the concept of a capitalist system with socialist intentions. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” may be pretty effective in satisfying our insatiable demand for Playstations, Nikes and injections of Botox. But it hasn’t worked too well when it comes to intangibles like fresh air. Perhaps it’s because fresh air is also “invisible” — until it’s not.

Since I moved back to Canada, I can’t help but notice the smug attitude of many Canadians towards their friends down South. Granted, 49 percent of Americans are righteous morons — the reason George Bush was “elected” back in 2000 — and an even bigger offense: the reason we have to watch his cousin — that tool, Billy Bush — as a host on Access Hollywood.

Still, that’s no reason to look down on Americans. If anything we should feel sorry for them; Canadians have certain advantages they lack. Our kids can get a college education for less than half of what it costs in the US. Our life expectancy is two years longer. Even our minimum wage — what with the strong Canadian dollar — now surpasses the US. We’ve also got Tim Hortons, Harvey’s, Schwartz’s, and best of all: strippers for as little as ten dollars a lap dance — try and get that in the States.

Despite these advantages, we’re far from perfect, we may not have Billy Bush or American Idol but we do have Ben Mulroney and he hosts Canadian Idol. His wooden demeanor makes me nostalgic for The Beachcombers. I am referring to the logs — not Bruno Gerussi.

Still, the average Canadian does have it good. There are a number of reasons: our higher taxes — 37 percent versus 34 percent in the US — give the government more cash to play with. Moreover, there does appear to be a genuinely more compassionate social mindset here. But not everything can be attributed to our eh- xcellence. The other reason for our success can — in my mind — be summed up in five words: The United States Armed Forces. (more…)

Due to (lack of) popular demand, I’ve reset the comment feature on my blog. Previously, one had to fill in a form, choose a password, and await a registration email from my website. I haven’t done too well in the comment department; I’ve had three in total. The first was back in May — which I faked. The second was in June and was spam — I deleted it. The third was just a few days ago, an automatic notice of my shortlisting for “best post” by the editors at www.postoftheweek.com. I was flattered that I was shortlisted for this contest, although I’ll admit I asked two friends to nominate me and wrote the email for one of them. I mistakingly deleted this comment.

I wonder if Pink Floyd was thinking of internet passwords when they wrote that 1979 song:

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
I’ll need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

Personally, I hate it when websites make me fill in a form and choose a password. I’m too paranoid to use the same password twice so I have dozens of passwords — all slight variations of the one before.

I chose my very first internet password back in 1995. It was a bright, sunny day and almost lunchtime. I was setting up a hotmail account. Hotmail asked me for a password. I chose “hotdog747.” I figured I would remember “hot” because of “hotmail.” And I would remember “dog” because of “hot” and because I was hungry. I chose “747” because that was the first three digits of my phone number at the time.

Eventually, I was on a different site and the next inevitable request for a password came along. So I chose a slightly different password: “hotdogboeing.” “Boeing” was my brain’s logical leap from “747.” I figured I was being clever, since I didn’t want any one entity to potentially have access to all my accounts. But then the next password request came along, and “hotdogboeing” became “hotassboink.” And then one day “hotassboink” became “lickass69.” “Lickass69” eventually became “lickasswhenim” and so on and so on. “Whenim” — by the way — was a mental leap from “69″ and a tribute to that Beatles song, although I realize I’m off by five years. It’s also probably more of a logical leap than a mental leap, because unfortunately it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be licking much ass “when I’m 69″ — or even “whenim 64″ for that matter.

(more…)

There is obviously something seriously wrong with my brain. Today, I saw some pictures of young, party girls that are auditioning for my video. My director, Mark, had placed an ad on craigslist and was forwarding their resumes for my feedback.

If I´m to be completely honest, the truth is that as I looked at the pictures, the very first thought that passed through my brain was, “mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmmmm!”

There´s nothing wrong with making a video and in the process getting myself a hot twenty-five year old girlfriend, is there? Let´s not forget that I´m recently divorced. I´m supposed to be “in pain.” Even the most ardent polygamist would allow me two-to-three years to pull myself together before society requires that I get married again. Take it easy . . . relax . . . have some fun.

Then I looked at the advertisement Mark had put up on Craigslist. He had written it himself.

As I read the ad, I felt – a little – disheartened. The words “laughing at him” and “older guy trying to fit in” left a hollow feeling in my chest. So much for my twenty-five year old girlfriend … (more…)

I´ve been in Montreal these last few days, visiting my parents and my brother – who flew in from Vancouver. My parents split up several years back and it was not amicable. It´s always very difficult to see my father who´s aged well before his time. While most of his peers are spending their golden years complaining about their tennis elbow or their golf handicap, my father complains of relentless leg pain and uncontrollable shaking. He suffers from Parkinsons, and has great difficulty controlling his movements, let alone walking. He has lived in a nursing home for the last five years with people fifteen years his senior. He spends his days sitting in a wheelchair watching television, often unable to move. Parkinsons is a lifelong jail sentence with his body the prison cell.

What makes our encounters even more difficult is that our relationship has been strained for many years for other reasons. These unresolved issues still hang over me like a dark cloud. They don´t hang over him though because the vibrant, energetic person my father was when he was younger no longer exists. Nor does the person that I´m angry with. I am not altogether sure what has affected him more: the misery of Parkinsons or the mind numbness of American Idol and Maury. What I do know is that his once-quick mind has slowed. Occasionally, I´ll have moments with the man I remember – opinions that have burned themselves into his cerebral cortex will come out. But for the most part he´s changed. (more…)