Underwhelming Gastronomic Adventures in Cuba

If you ask anyone who's ever been to Cuba what they remember most about their trip the answers will usually fall into the same three categories; the music, the beaches and the architecture/old cars. But no one, NO ONE, ever says "oh, you know, I had the most AMAZING plate of rice and beans. I mean, what a great way to get your complete protein!" Yes everyone loves the rum and the cigars but why is every other consumable in Cuba so mediocre? If you can bear to be cynically honest with yourself you notice that most middle-aged Cubans are quite plump. Not hyper-obese, not "I ride my Rascal down the middle of the road to the Walmart to buy 4 litre tubs of ice cream" fat, but people of a certain age are ... THICK! So obviously people are eating something and it must taste okay, otherwise Cuba's number one export would be supermodels and not cohibas (though both provide a pleasant oral experience, I'm sure).

So.

Despite my vegetarian disability working against me I set out to discover what it is Cubans eat, and eat so plentifully.

After an exhausting afternoon of queueing up at immigration, security scans, baggage check, customs and the currency exchange by the time my bag was deposited at the casa particular (Cubans rent out rooms to tourists as a black market method of making a buck) I was mother friggin' STARVING! Thank god only 200 feet away, located in a pleasant cobbled plaza, is Havana's only brew pub. After explaining to the waiter my disability he offered to 'do what he could' and I was tired enough to leave it at that. Before dinner arrived I had already sucked back a frothy mug of their absolutely delicious amber ale, the right balance of bitterness and body with a delicate lashing of sweetness on the back of the palate. Dinner, by comparison, was a horrible disappointment. The rice and stewed vegetables with a side of sliced raw cabbage bespoke of the most depressing institutional fare, the kind made famous in the workhouses and orphanages of Dickensian England. Thank god the precious and well crafted brew was there to fill the hunger gap, but Cuba and I were off to a bad start.

The next day delivered below my already lowered expectations. You know you're in a country that truly doesn't understand vegetarianism when you are forced to eat the exact same meal for both lunch and dinner because of the simple fact that there's NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN EAT! Of course there's always salad! This is a picture of my dinner at the extremely expensive (for Cuba) Tropicana nightclub which has been in operation since 1939 back when Cuba was a tropical version of Las Vegas. This storied institution had only one item on their menu I could eat, a cheese sandwich. Granted there is a lot of cheese there, enough to put a bull elephant into a fat coma. And if you're wondering what that delightful red condiment is which lines the lower edge of my top bun, it is ketchup. Yes, a cheese and ketchup sandwich. Just like the one I'd eaten for lunch at another tourist-death-trap of a restaurant. Though liberal doses of rum negated my despondency over the lack of victual variety I held out little hope for the days to come.

Day three in Cuba dawned with a warm and sultry greeting, sunshine dusted the cobblestones with gold and children screamed in their raffish way in the park across from the casa. A long and peaceful walk along the Malecon, or seawall, brought me to another of Cuba's landmarks from the good old, bad old days when gangsters and rich Americans used Cuba as their off-shore grotto for bad behaviour; la Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Absolutely everyone has stayed here from Al Capone and Frank Sinatra to Benicio del Toro and Steven Spielberg, even Jean Chretien stayed here (that wily frenchman!). The beautiful old building is a testament to "how things used to be made" and the lobby spanks of the glamourous days when art deco ruled supreme. The hotel sits on a small promontory overlooking the sea. What with the luxurious surroundings, the vitamin-D giving sunlight and the pleasant salty breeze, it seemed like a good place to have lunch. Of course I ate salad (ensalada de estacion, they call it) and rice and beans washed down with a crisp Cuban lager. It may have been the location or the framed photo of Will Smith which gazed on me as I ate, or it could have been the litre of rendered pork fat the beans were cooked in, but these were the best goddamn rice and beans I've ever tasted. So again, little in the way of surprises, but the execution was perfection.

Most of the best meals I had while in Cuba were the massive breakfasts prepared by the senora of the casa, Damayi.

The great thing about these epic meals was that aside from the standard bread and egg component you get to chow down on a massive plate of salad and then an equally massive plate of fruit. You feel like such a glutton because of the sheer volume of food but it's all ultra healthy so NO GUILT! As I worked through these morning feasts Damayi would stand at the stove making pot after pot of sweet strong Cuban coffee and gossiping about the ongoing drama of her extended family.

In Santa Clara I stayed at another casa particular, an old colonial building in the centre of the town with windows onto the adjacent Parqeo Vidal.

This feast was prepared by the wife and mother of our host, Miguel, who hovered constantly at my elbow wearing one of his many fedoras and nagging me to recommend him to my friends in Canada. The bean soup had been slow simmered with fatty pieces of pork for many hours which made the broth hearty with a great depth of flavour.

The plantain were perfectly fried with a crispy outer shell and a creamy centre. More eggs, of course, and rice with salad. But everything was so lovingly prepared that it was truly fabulous.

This sight truly tempted my vegetarian convictions. The caramel coloured skin of a well roasted pig sets off some kind of primal device in my brain, I begin to salivate and clench my toes, my pupils dilate and an overwhelming desire for pork floods my being. All over the tiny town of Remedios there are street vendors all selling slabs of whole roast pig on white buns. As a sidebar, Cubans almost exclusively eat their bread in bun form, it is almost impossible to find sliced bread.

These vendors are set up to cater to the crowds who attend the annual festival of las Parrandas. The entire population of Remedios and the surrounding area appear to have three goals on the day of las Parrandas; blow shit up, eat lots of pork-on-a-bun and get stupid, stumbling, blindingly drunk on rum. At around noon I saw dozens of people swanning around the main plaza with nearly empty 26ers of rum in their hands. And why not? It's Christmas.

Back in Havana I made a pilgrimage to the bar El Floridita, where the world's first daiquiri was allegedly made. Ernest Hemingway spent so much time here that there is a bronze statue of him in the corner, leaning against the bar. The room was decorated in plush red velvet drapes ornamented with oversized candy canes. A plate of salty plantain chips appeared on the table almost immediately, the drinks were strong and tuxedoed waiters moved with professional efficiency. This is a bar where it would be very easy to get comfortable a la Hemingway who allegedly once drank 13 double daiquiris in one sitting. But at 6 convertible pesos per daiquiri maybe it's good not to get TOO comfortable.

Cuba certainly was no culinary wonderland but what it lacked on the plate it made up for it in so many other ways; the warmth of its people, the music which emanated from every home and plaza and the ethereal otherworldliness of place stuck in time and an ideal which are fading away before my eyes.

So it's with an authentic daiquiri in my hand and a Cuban cigarillo between my lips that I bid adios to Cuba. Mucho gusto!

Battle Royale

If love is a battlefield, then my life is love-ly.

This week I feel besieged from all sides, nothing can be taken for granted and even life's more mundane elements are in revolt.

Anyone who has been reading my blog knows that there is a long-standing duel between my inflatable bed and me. When I moved here in the summer it seemed cheap and practical. And for a time it served me well, inching me closer to my ceiling fan during the sweaty nights of the humid Toronto summer. However, we are allies no more.



Granted I expected the queen-size air mattress to be punctured eventually. When the sad day arrived I used one of the patches that came with it and moved on. But our relationship was never the same. The bed became temperamental, she wouldn't stay inflated for as long as she used to and deep down I knew that we no longer trusted each other. Another puncture, another patch. Then, mid-exam week, the situation turned nuclear. TWO PUNCTURES! And one on the bed's fuzzy upper surface. At first I lamely tried to cover the hole with masking tape which would sometimes hold long enough for me to get to sleep. But more and more as I would settle down for my slumber the pressure of my body would cause air to whine most insolently through the perforation.



(By the way, your eyes are not deceiving you. That oblong gash in my sheets is exactly what it looks like. A vagina. No. I'm kidding. That's where my threadbare sheets have actually ripped down the middle. Am I classy or what?)

I went to Canadian Tire and bought more patches. But these never stood a chance. My bed hated me now and was determined to undermine my comfort (and strain my neck). In desperation I tried to remove the fuzz from the bed's vinyl surface with my razor. But my razor was too sharp and her skin too thin. I would apply a new patch every night, praying that it would hold, but to no avail. I must now reconcile myself to the fact that my bed doesn't want me anymore. This morning I pumped her up at 9 a.m. when the door buzzer woke me at noon I was lying flat on the floor.



It's over between us. And so tonight I'll try to fortify my yoga mat with some additional blankets to make a poor facsimile of the bed I used to know and love.

Winter weather has descended on Toronto so that every exposed area of skin becomes numb and feels like some kind of dead organism coating your body. I knew it was coming and I dislike it just as much as I thought I would.

Every day I walk over to the campus gym only 10 minutes away from my apartment. Unfortunately the Chuck Taylor knockoffs I bought at Payless Shoes do little to protect my feet from the elements. Which is absolutely shocking considering the shoes consist of "sturdy canvas" and a "full half inch of rubber sole." When I yank them off in the change room I usually have lost all circulation in the bottom of my feet. Because there's no blood making it through my capillaries my skin becomes yellow, character-on-the-Simpson's yellow. It takes a good fifteen minutes of grunting exertions on the elliptical trainer for my extremities to tingle back to life.

When I'm done punishing my body I throw my winter wear on over top of my gym gear for the walk home. It seems silly to squeeze my sweaty ass back into my jeans for such a short walk.

On Monday I left the gym just as the early pre-solistice dusk was falling. Fine particles of snow blew into my eyes at a 45 degree angle and my cheeks stung like well-used pincushions. At last I was home. Now, just to put the key in the door and waltz into the heated loveliness of the foyer.



But my key stuck only a quarter of the way in. I tried again. I jiggled. I rammed. I cajoled. I took a deep breath. I jiggled again. Nothing. My key wouldn't slide into the lock. A warmly dressed couple stared at me through the foggy window of the adjacent poutine shop where they chewed their hot grease bomb with bovine placidity. My post-gym flush was beginning to fade and tendrils of icy wind wound themselves up my legs and caressed my upper thighs.

FUCK!!!

I dug around in the bottom of my gym bag for my cell phone and called my landlord. She called one of my neighbours who came to let me in. Though I'd probably been outside the building for only 15 minutes or so it felt like ages. The temperature that day, with the wind chill, was -23 degrees.

It turns out some water had gotten into the lock and frozen solid. The next morning my landlord shows up at my apartment door with a mini can of WD40.

"I already put so much in there the door is working now, but don't leave the apartment without it!"

After the front-door-not-opening debacle I had a hot HOT shower and settled down for a quiet evening. But a strange gnawing sound began to issue from the kitchen.



I had seen a mouse once before so I wasn't exactly surprised. There are still plastic garbage bags full of packing peanuts littering my kitchen so assumed that Mr. Mouse was commandeering some material for building his nest. It's not that I'm afraid of mine per say but where there's mice, there's mouse shit. Mouse shit is bad business. Also where there are mice there are mouse teeth, mouse teeth can bite you. A mouse bite means a tetanus shot, a shot (of any kind) is bad business.

So I decided to go on the offensive. Walking loudly into the kitchen I gave the pile of syrofoam peanut bags a tentative kick with my slippered foot. Nothing. A more aggressive kick.

Then I almost feel over backwards. A morbidly obese mouse leapt out of my Ikea garbage can, clearing the rim with inches to spare, and skittered away out of sight.

After my heartbeat returned to normal I took out the garbage and stored the organic scraps from the preparation of my evening meal in a bag in the refrigerator. Subsequently Mr. Mouse has taken his business elsewhere.

The ongoing saga of the bed aside, I have been largely successful in rebuffing the attacks levelled at me by life during the past week. The WD40 never leaves my purse and I have a rotting bag of vegetable scraps in my fridge but I'd say that's a small price to pay for victory.

Look! My salad is Christmas colour coordinated.

No Rush

The last semester of my late return to higher learning is almost at an end. I've managed to survive living in the Bermuda triangle of grease (that being Pizza Hut, Ho Lee Chow and the downstairs poutine shop) without turning into a whale. Despite my rusty intellect which, until recently, was more attuned to eyeballing the correct amount of Crown Royal for 12 'King Kong' shots than to writing a critical compare/contrast essay on 'The Tempest,' I jumpstarted my brain function back to life. I was pleased to find that underneath the encrustation of rust there's still a blade with a bit of an edge on it.

When I think about the process of going back to school I feel deeply humbled.



I've learned how to make my own refried beans because those fancy canned ones are now too expensive for my meagre budget.

When my air mattress sprang multiple leaks I did my best to repair them with scotch tape, which worked very well for all of 20 minutes. So a couple of times a night I roll onto the floor to switch on the pump and reflate. Though the mornings seem colder when I wake up in a trough in the middle of my saggy bed, my ass touching the floor, and the mounds of my useless bed enclosing me like a fort.

I sit in class with people almost a decade younger than me and I marvel at their focus, their seriousness, their (for lack of a better word) 'adultish-ness.'

Visions of my 19-year-old self confront me when I look at them. I was dreadlocked, pierced, stoned (sometimes) and with a chip on my shoulder the size of a Buick, it's more like a teenage film cliche than who I used to be.



But the humility and admiration I have for my classmates has a vein of reservation running through it. In our print media classroom we all sit in front of our own massive flatscreen monitor. People also bring in their own laptops, cameras and smart phones. So many devices designed for something called "communication" which mostly serve to draw our eyes away from the faces directly in front of us and into the online, social media, blog, vlog universe. Which is somehow more valid because those cute witty updates and comments we make are enshrined for all to see. We can preen and revisit our cleverness, link it on our twitter feed, and make sure everyone knows how damn witty we are.

It is such an honour to sit in a class and talk about ethics and story. Now I'm no saint and probably check my facebook account more than a normal person should. However, after serving the drunk and ungrateful masses for the past five years something about the whole situation makes me want to scream.

"These are the best goddamn days of your life people!!!! Let's go to the pub. Let's talk. Let's be YOUNG!"

Today, outside my window, snow is lightly falling. Each flake is doing a dizzy, eccentric dance as it resists its journey to earth.

I relate. Once you hit the ground life is stationary, so why not prolong the dance as much as possible? Why ever stop dancing?

On the Guest List

So I've been making the most of the big city bigness, fastness, go-go-go-ness lately. I have learned that if you delve through the pages of any local entertainment paper you can find any number of soirees, events, symposiums, talks, roundtables, panels and a host of other possibilities for well-clothed elbow rubbing. And the greatest thing about this little underworld of events held weekly either for some obscure cause or simply self-congratulation. The great thing is, with a bit of persistence you can get in for free!!!

Two weeks ago on a shitty rainy night here in "the centre of the universe," when even the blinding lights of Yonge and Dundas square couldn't cheer up the sky, I made my way to my university's business school. Douglas Coupland was speaking on a panel with the founders of Roots Canada about the new fashion line he had designed. The invite had said 'reception' beforehand. Now over in the Journalism program the term 'reception' usually means coffee and a menu catered by Tim Horton's. Oh how different it is when you're in business. The reception room was thronged with well heeled students all trying VERY VERY hard to look fashionable and as if they go to these kinds of things all the time. A buffet table is set up in the middle of the room topped with mirrors on which rested rows of well-rolled sushi. The flickering tea lights gave, what is usually a classroom, a surprising amount of ambiance.

As I picked up my ticket I enquired: "Is it a cash bar?"

"Nope"

I didn't know what to say. Free booze at a free event? The logic doesn't follow.

Needless to say I'm not going to wait on logic. So I happily slurped my hefty pour of white wine at the side of the room, perfectly content that I didn't know a soul.



After the talk Mr. Coupland did a book signing. I stuttered my admiration as he signed my copy of 'All Families are Psychotic' and he told me to "give Toronto a chance. That's the advice I give to all Vancouverites." Though he seemed infinitely more interested in his own over-filled glass of wine than talking to some west-coast ex-pat ragamuffin.

Then last week I weaseled my way into the G20 Legal Defence Fundraiser. Despite the fact that I was there as press (this time I wasn't a total impostor) the ruddy-faced overweight gorgon at the door still tried to hit up my camera op and me for a donation.

"Because you know...it IS for charity."

Let me digress for a moment. Now I do believe the police acted like thugs, they were often wrong, often cruel and did abuse their power. And they should be punished for that. HOWEVER, if you do a little digging into the anarchist organizations who were spearheading the rallying cry for the protesters you find some disturbing stuff. This wasn't about peaceful protest for some of the people there. There was a small group of protesters who went there with the clear intention of being violent. And in doing so did absolutely nothing to advance their cause, if anything, they degraded it. And thank goodness most of the people who were at those protests acknowledge the fact that violence and destruction of property only hurt their cause and diluted the message.

So back to the legal defence gala. The crowd, hilariously, was old. After shooting some b-roll in the auditorium we set up in the balcony to get a good view of the stage. It was a sea of silver-haired heads. The opening comic, who wasn't very funny, accused all those who didn't laugh at her jokes of being undercover RCMP. I pray that the RCMP has more important things to do than come watch the left-wing pat itself on the back.

Naomi Klein further illustrated the separation of this night's audience from the actual events at the G20 in June. "How many of you were arrested that weekend?" One solitary cry was heard from the back of the room. Looking briefly flustered she changed tactics. "How many of your children were arrested that weekend?" Crickets. But she barrelled on nonplussed, stating that we had to protect our children from injustice.



Now I think Naomi Klein is a very bright woman. And she has certainly earned her position as an authority on the dirty tactics of capitalism etc. But one thing kept bothering me throughout the evening. That small group of protesters who were deliberately violent were proponents of anarchy i.e. no government. If I'm not mistaken that's exactly what the Tea Party is advocating across our southern border. True anarchy, if it were to come about, would only let the free market run wilder than it already does. The power structure wouldn't change but only become more unequal.

The night left a bad taste in my mouth. It's the problem I always have with the left, though I consider myself to be a leftist. These angry, violent tactics only alienate the middle, who are the people you are trying to win over. That's the route to true change, the majority have to demand it. And I guarantee that what happened at the G20 didn't win any new supporters. Socialism has an image problem. It's an angry teenager wearing a black bandana over their face, screaming "fuck off" at the cameras while their buddies torch a police car.

Socialism needs a make over. If the middle is ever going to be swayed they need to be shown that the left is made up of intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate people. People like us.

Sorry, I'm off my soap box now, I swear.

I just bought a new camera so I've included some shots from around town. She sure makes a purdy picture.

Burn the Swine

Drumroll please!

Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrratat!!

We have a guest speaker!

*oohs* *aaahs*


Well, it was almost that exciting. This week I had a couple of guest speakers in my Information and Visual Resources for Journalists class (say that three times really fast without yawning); a photo editor and photographer from the National Post. And they talked about the most exciting thing to happen to Toronto since the Leafs won the cup during the cretaceous period: the G20 riots.

So they're mucking around at the lectern for twenty minutes getting their spiffy MacBook keynote presentation all cued up and then when the woman comes to speak it's like your drunk Aunt Doris giving an impromptu toast at a bar mitzvah. She practically giving the microphone fellatio, so that every 'P' or 'B' or even 'T' she utters jabs your ears with a boiling hot q-tip. And someone is a "P"icture editor talking about "P"age composition, setting "P"icture "P"recedent and assuring you that "P"ictures can happen in any neigh"B"ourhood, the hours start to feel really long.

But she is a housefly compared to the slimy cockroach photog who gets up to speak after her. Minutes into his presentation Senor Douche shows the pics of himself being arrested and all the 18-year-old bosoms in the room heave from "really, really like feeling his, you know pain and stuff." After which he brashly declares; "I'll just say this right now, I don't like cops." I can practically hear the swelling of teenage crushes behind me.

"You know I don't work like other photographers. I just don't work like that. You know most of the guys were wearing helmets and stuff. Of course I had mine with me but...you know I'm really trying to be down with these Black Bloc guys. You know, I was smokin' with them and stuff."

"Some of the other photo guys were wearing their gas masks." He jeers and clicks to a slide of a protester having his eyes flushed out with Maalox after being pepper sprayed. 'Yeah, I think, what idiots.'

Arman the nerdy (but really nice) kid who sits next to me in a lot of my classes raises his hand.

"Did anyone show up to the G20 protests wearing Guy Fawkes masks?"

"I don't know what that is?"



"It's the mask protesters wore in 'V for Vendetta.'"

Mr. Cool chuckles, "I don't watch movies."

Though ten minutes later he's dropping a Dr. Phil reference. Soooo, you don't watch those evil corporate picture shows but your schedule and your morals allow you to watch putrefying daytime television. Hmmmm, you really are a complex man aren't you?

To Mr. Cool's credit he witnessed and documented some major fuck ups by the police who ended up (violently) arresting mostly peaceful protesters. He showed one shot of a discarded pile of black clothing in a field where the instigating Black Bloc members had grouped together and shed their anarchist uniforms.

However, not before trashing Zanzibar a somewhat sad a rundown strip club on Yonge Street. Strippers are not generally included in the same category as Starbucks in terms of economic imperialism. And apparently the Black Bloc paused to discuss the value of trashing the source of revenue for a marginalized and looked-down-upon sector of society.

They thought about it....and then did it anyway. Smashing stuff is fun afterall.

The talk could have been really thought provoking. There were documented cases of police brutality and unlawful detention. The protesters degraded their cause through violence. The point is there was a lot to say that went unsaid because someone couldn't resist the opportunity to preen and bask in the unadulterated admiration of the naive.

Naturally there was a mob of eager women and a smaller number of shrugging wishful bromancers around Mr. Cool after the lecture. I made a b-line for the bathroom where a couple of pint sized hair-flippers discussed "like ohmygawd how hot was he?!"
"Oh I KNOW!"
"Why didn't we go talk to him?!"
"Well...like...what we're we going to say?!"
"Yeah, totally."

The irony of this circus frenzy and gee-whiz-aren't-newspapers-swell back patting is that the National Post is the most conservative right-wing piece of toilet paper currently in print. Its op-ed department is fond of publishing articles which voice support of Israel's naval blockade of Palestine and other such trendy neo-con causes.

I'm sure most of my fellow students thought the lecture was "great" and "entertaining" but it's all too easy to stand up there in a position of authority and shit on the cops, the protesters, the poor security guards who were scared shitless (had no guns) and were trying to not lose their jobs. It's easy to stand up there, charm everyone with seductive cynicism. But it's wrong because it is SO EASY. And if the goal is to turn this new batch of tadpoles into bait-swallowers, hook, line and sinker, then I say bravo. Mission Accomplished.

Poverty and Filth

You Know You're Ghetto Student-Poor When...

You stop buying those fancy expensive vegetables like tomatoes or mushrooms and start buying cabbage and 10 lb. bags of carrots.

Your sheets are threadbare...LITERALLY! You can feel the squeaky weirdness of your inflatable mattress through the bare patches.

You wear those embarrassing t-shirts you bought on vacation at that "really great bar down by the beach!", which has a cartoon shark drinking cocktails with umbrellas on it, because you don't have change to do laundry.

You try and use only three squares of toilet paper per wipe (with a 50% success rate).

You spend an hour pulling the pill-y bits off your sweater because time is still cheaper than H&M.



You wear your sunglasses and stride purposefully down the street because it makes you feel important and like you have somewhere to go.

You factor in your overdraft limit when making sure that your rent check is going to clear.

You get mad when you waste a stamp.

You never talk to friends who don't have Skype.

You go crazy and splurge on a can of refried beans instead of your usual purchase: No Name beans in tomato sauce.

You look at the girls who wear make up to class in disbelief, mixed with a dash of envy.



Your wild saturday night includes a bottle of cheap local Chardonnay and watching TV on the internet.

You leave an increasingly threatening series of voicemails on your former landlord's cell demanding the damage deposit from the apartment you vacated 6 months ago.

You go weak at the knees and your vision gets blurry when you find a GST check in your mailbox.

You pore over those supermarket flyers which clutter the apartment foyer like they're a raunchy tabloid sex-scandal expose.

You realize that you really really love what you're doing; otherwise you'd never put yourself through this.

On a different note, I've always had a great nostalgia and sense of respect for the inherent patterns of our furry forest neighbours. Whether it was following deer trails as a young 'un through the thick underbrush of the verdant west coast rain forests or making sure not to put my delicate human ankle down a gopher hole while romping around the prairie; I've always accepted the fact that animals leave their mark on the world. And since homo sapiens sprawl over most of the planet's surface I think it's only fair to cut the poor disadvantaged animals some slack. However, when the goddamn raccoons decide that my back step is their personal lavatory I TAKE EXCEPTION! Cute little mask-faced assh*les can go rot in a sewage pile. Since I'm sure some of you think I'm overreacting I documented the extent and (rather impressive) volume of defecation which occurs in front of my door.



Yes, frightening isn't it.

And if there wasn't enough icing on the cake already, what with the rampant squirrel problem thanks to the poutine shop having its dumpsters next to my other door, I came home this evening to find the item below on my stoop. Crumpled and used up, like my patience.

Damn dirty humans!

Ridiculous: Found

Late September is an odd time in Toronto; the white-knuckled grip of humidity finally breaks and the headiness brought on by frosh and TIFF has faded like the next day's hangover. The city seems to be settling, perhaps hunkering is a better word, any way you want to slice it, preparing, for the long dark seasons yet to come. But before this present gloom descended there was one hell of a party.

Toronto during TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival) is like a city possessed. A rabid energy seems to take hold; the bars stock up on top shelf liquor, orange-shirted volunteers swarm the streets and everyone with a set of vocal chords starts speculating where the 'it' spot is going to be this year. This year the centre of the festival has been moved down to King Street, near 'the people' since the residents of Yorkville are no longer human but honorary members of the botulism species.

Unfortunately I work on King Street...and I'm just trying to get to work on time.

The sidewalks on Yonge are clogged with overflow from the rush ticket lines. The clock is ticking. I step out into the street to navigate around the crowd since traffic is at a standstill. Several bike couriers almost run me over and I'm feeling so harried that I don't even stop to mock Rick Campanelli's horrible fuchsia dress shirt as he hurries past me in the other direction. As a matter of fact not one of movie goers who are standing in line with bovine passivity notice Rick either. You've fallen far since your Much Music days Mr. Campanelli.

I do make it to work on time and as I scrub the restaurants patio railing, water and suds flying everywhere very much reminiscent of a cheap soft core flick, I notice an increased number of fedoras and superfluous looking scarves being worn by the usual hipster passers by. Ah yes, everyone has busted out their 'look I'm a filmmaker' costume kit.



It's Saturday night and the star fuckers are out in droves their plastic tits hoisted up, necklines pulled low and all standards for decorum and good behaviour have been completely forgotten. Anyone who is engaging in the favourite celebrity habit of wearing their sunglasses after the sun has gone down is instantly mobbed in the remote possibility that they might of had three lines in a Twilight movie.

The restaurant is beyond busy, it's slammed. And for once everything runs smoothly. The restaurant's record for covers (people served) in one night has been surpassed and all without tears, drama, hair-pulling, threats etc. And if I can permit myself to be immodest for one moment, I rockstarred it up! As I'm doing my cash out I tally up the amount of tips which I made, unfortunately for the tip pool and not myself, it was over $700.

Walking home I was tired as hell but I was happy, I was proud and best of all I felt like there was hope that work was going to be something other than a dead and festering albatross around my neck.

And then I came into work on Tuesday and my delicately dream of a happy work life was shattered.

According to those who were there it was the restaurant's worst night...ever! And that's all they would say, no one wanted to talk about it or provide any dirty details other than the fact that Woody Harrelson came in during the height of the shit storm. But based simply on the vacant listless gazes of those who had survived this apparent night from hell it must have been a doozie.

With 'the fear' already creeping up my spine at the pre-shift meeting my worst suspicions were confirmed: Saturday night had been a fluke.

At 5 pm the entire floor staff is sitting at the bar ready for our daily meeting. Bootylicious is not there. Napoleon pulls on his cuffs and aggressively slurps his coffee.

"See this is what I'm talking about, WASTING TIME!"

Bootylicious is apparently upstairs printing new wine lists for the third time this week. Every time she prints a new batch Napoleon finds a spelling mistake (anyone interested in a fine bottle of Pinot Noor?). Though apparently the printers are not working, naturally we require wine lists for service which brings the situation to this impassable juncture.

His patience exhausted Napoleon starts yelling at Bootylicious in the office upstairs through the ceiling and to make the situation even more ridiculous she yells back and they proceed to have an entire conversation in this manner.



"__________ EVERYONE IS WAITING!"

"THE PRINTER IS BROKEN, I'M TRYING TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW DRIVER."

"I GUARANTEE YOU THAT THE PRINTER IS NOT BROKEN."

"IT IS BROKEN! I WAS TRYING TO GET SOMEONE TO COME HELP ME BUT NO ONE WOULD COME HELP ME. CAN SOMEONE COME HELP ME?"

"THEY DIDN'T COME 'HELP YOU' BECAUSE THEY WERE SETTING UP THE FRIGGIN' RESTAURANT FOR SERVICE."

"WELL THAT DOESN'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM DOES IT?"

And so on.

That night were busy. It's TIFF, people who want to pretend to be someone or maybe just see someone who's someone flood our doors. Service is scrappy. We get through it but barely. And I decide I've had enough.

"Don't you dare leave me here!" Says K, the other girl who started at the same time I did. "No one else has a goddamn sense of humour about anything!"

But I'm not going to wait for this silly restaurant to break me. It's better to leave as a rockstar than as a bitter flat-footed waiter.

It's time to boldly go and seek ridiculousness elsewhere and in this city it grows in abundance. The pictures attached to this post were taken at the university mall a couple of days ago. One of the candidates in Toronto's mayoral election staged an 'I care about the plight of the indebted student' photo op bringing a legion of green shirted buffoons...I mean supporters with him. What you can't see is that dancing around behind the cameras is a spin doctor, PR type who keeps miming gestures to the slack-jawed supporters reminding them to smile. He's the fellow wearing a blazer on the left side of the photo directly below. Too bad computers aren't equipped with 'Slimeball O' Vision' though I think he does a pretty good job of oozing through the screen all on his own.

Mission, find ridiculousness: Accomplished.

I Spy...

For various reasons I don't feel particularly verbose this week. So I thought I'd post some photos of the KISS concert from a few weeks ago, some streets scenes of the city and conclude with a picture of my bed which has been doubling as an "office" for the last few days. There are more hilarious stories close on the horizon, so trim that sail ye yella' bellied land lubbers and prepare to be boarded by the infamous and bloodthirsty Captain Rhetoric sometime very soon. Yaaarrrr!