I'll just tell you.

". . . we realize there are still seats RIGHT IN THE FRONT ROW. So we're like fuck, let's sit up there, that's fucking sweet. We chat about his nice suit and how everybody's had insomnia all week. The performance seems to start late. And then when it does . . ."

it's a one-man show of Hamlet. Uncut and commercial free.

Yes, children.

When Gigi and I discussed it afterwards, we realized the sequence of our reactions were the same.

1. Confusion. Hmm, this man doesn't look like the hot dancer on the flyers. Maybe he's the understudy. He's not bad, I guess. Where's the soprano?

2. Recognition. Gosh, the beginning of this opera/dance production sounds a lot like Hamlet. And there were posters up for Hamlet outside.

3. Denial. What a coincidence! I wonder when the singing and dancing will start.

4. Realization. Oh fuck, I think this is actually Hamlet and not the fucking opera/dance production.

5. Horror. Dude is doing all the parts himself. This is a one-man show. He's not leaving anything out. Hamlet is long. It's not my favourite bit of Shakespeare at the best of times.

6. Cornered. We're sitting in the front fucking row and can't leave. We're fucking here for the long haul. There's no escape.

6. Fury. That fucking cocksucking whore at the box office is going to fucking pay! I'm getting my money back and my fucking HANDS AROUND HER THROAT! SHE IS FUCKING DEAD LIKE DALIDA!

7. Repression. I mustn't look too furious. We're right in the front row and I don't want the actor to be distracted by seeing that I want to FUCKING THROTTLE HIM! FUCKING FUCK OH FUCK! Calm, calm, oh fuck, try not to look so FUCKING FURIOUS! FUCK!

8. Suspicion. (Both) Was that bitch at the box office nailing the actor? Did he put her up to this to pad his audience? (Gigi) Is Mlle La Spliffe a massive fucking crackhead who did this to me on purpose?

9. Resignation. (Both) Well, he's doing a good job of it. And I haven't seen or read Hamlet in awhile. (Gigi) Mlle La Spliffe looks like she's about to blow a gasket so I guess she didn't do this on purpose.

10. Baffled admiration. I can't believe he memorized the whole fucking play and developed so many characterizations.

11. Renewed fury on catching the voice of the soprano from the other theatre. Oh GOD, HOW COULD THIS FUCKING HAPPEN TO ME! THAT BOX-OFFICE BITCH IS DEAD! DEAD!

12. Baffled fury. Why the fuck did he memorize the whole fucking play and develop so many characterizations? And why is he making Darth Vader noises for the ghost of Hamlet's father?

13. Amusement. Ha, he makes Polonius funny.

14. Guilt. He's good. Don't look like you want to kill him, don't look like you want to kill him. Oh god, he made eye contact with us. Is it going to hurt his feelings if we don't show up for the second half?

15. Rationalization. If this was a weeknight and I could take some drugs first, this would be kind of cool.

16. Cognitive process. I have to pay so much attention to the words to keep my head from exploding in anger that I think I have a new appreciation for this play.

17. Goodwill. He is good. Maybe we should just stay for the second half now that we're here. I hope some agents are so impressed with this that they give him a part in something where he can act with other people and have a set and things.

18. Hunger. Nah, let's just get supper.

19. Fight-spoiling. After I get my fucking money back and tear a strip out of that box-office whore.

So there you are. The one-man was Raoul Bhaneja, who has a very interesting website, and who I would love to see performing again in a different context. He seems to play blues or jazz or something, so I'll make the effort. Gigi and I were both spoiling for an excuse to be fucking monumentally rude and walk out - we're both far too nice to do such a thing, probably, but we were looking for it. And Raoul Bhaneja managed to perform the entire first half of Hamlet all by himself without presenting us with it.

Except for that fucking Darth Vader shit, man, that was rough.

Anyways, we got over it, especially since the staff were conciliatory and the box-office whore wasn't there anymore so I didn't commit any murderizing. We got stoned, ate greasy Chinese, watched a phenomenal movie - very ambitious but very successful - called Lilies (no more details, just watch it), and eventually managed to laugh ourselves stupid over the whole thing.

OHHHHHHHHH

I just got home and wrote this pre-bed email for someone - but I can't just send it to one person - everyone deserves this tale of fucking, fuck, man. Person who guesses closest gets something I crochet, someday. Goodnight.

"I think most of us have friends who have tried it once. Most of us have stupid friends. I mean, that's not what peeing OR other people is for!

I nearly fucking died tonight. Gigi and I had been planning on seeing this new opera for about a week - 'Yours to Break', an erotic song and dance thing between a soprano and a guy dancer - incorporating soul + old pop standards - really well reviewed, and, you know, I'll see a fucking opera if it's there, right, even if people say it sucks, because I won't believe them. And the opera is playing in a theatre with a couple of different stages. So I get there early to pick up the tickets and get seats because it's general admission, and the lady at the ticket office directs me to the back theatre, outside and around a corner. I meet Gigi, we go into the theatre, it's not too crowded and we realize there are still seats RIGHT IN THE FRONT ROW. So we're like fuck, let's sit up there, that's fucking sweet. We chat about his nice suit and how everybody's had insomnia all week. The performance seems to start late. And then when it does . . .

Okay, I'm too baked to type the rest of the story now and I got a singing lesson in ten hours. Guess what we saw when the performance started - and I warn you, your best chance of guessing anything close to the truth is to go for the palpably absurd and unlikely.

Your kitchen misses you, and the world misses you in the kitchen,

Mlle la Spliffe."

Don’t lick my tooooooes

Yesterday I was in a state of sheer exhaustion. Analysis was bizarre, since I hadn’t brought in any dreams but had a crapload of things on my mind and inundated that poor man with didn’t-sleep-last-night, everything-good-is-fate-and-everything-bad-is-my-fault verbal diarrhea. It was progressive, but we were both aware bringing in a dream gives the session far more focus.

By the way – can anybody think of a term for the everything-good-is-fate-and-everything-bad-is-my-fault condition? Besides ‘stupid’, ‘low self-esteem’, or ‘Catholic’? Something a little more specific, perhaps. That ‘low self-esteem’ term is starting to bug me. Some blanket term covering all sorts of mental states – sort of like how if anybody got a wasting disease in the Victorian or Georgian Commonwealth they’d just call it consumption and wring their hands.

Anyways, afterwards I wanted nothing more than to be asleep, but it was Miss B’s birthday and I’m a fan – she’s sharp, cares about food, and has the facial bone structure to carry off glittery eyeliner any time she damn well pleases. So I went to the Gladstone and caught the first half of the Wet Spots Big Ass Show with special guests Big Rude Jake and – oh hell – don’t ask me. I would have been asleep in my chair, except it was so fucking funny I nearly fell off laughing instead. I’ve never been witness to so much low-brow dirty humour combined with such good musicianship – the backing band was amazing. Oh – the bass player was the hot one whose hotness I wrote about when he played with Colonel Tom’s Swinging Door, back on the 10th of November. It may have been the same piano player too – not sure. Obviously on a personal level I enjoyed this a lot more than Colonel Tom’s Swinging Door because, you know, it wasn’t bluegrass and I don’t like bluegrass. Someone took some small issue with me voicing this opinion last night – he’d disagreed with me about the Sharon Jones show I wrote about on the 12 of November too – silly man – doesn’t he know I’m always right about everything? Anyways, the Wet Spots will be out of Toronto for a month or so, but when they get back I’m catching the show and think you should too. Miss B told me the second half features a burlesque. Hmmmm?

Corporate ladder in my stockings

I've been given a writing/research position at work. Very excited, and very hung over after dinner at Mr. C's. We had a long talk about lots of things. One of the things was the new position and how excited I am and all. Being drunk, I managed to talk about a real deep-seated fear - briefly, I don't know when I'm going to start exploring again.

Less briefly:

Have you ever seen the 'Not Without My Anus' episode of South Park from way back when in the late 90's which was all Terrence and Philip, and Terrence's daughter by Céline Dion is kidnapped, and Saddam Hussein tries to take over Canada so the Canadian people fart the Iraqi army to death? It was action-packed. Yet occasionally this action was interrupted with an 'I say, Terrence, let's look for treash-ah!' 'Yes, let's look for treash-ah!', and the two heroes would take a moment from their action-packed adventures to start examining their surroundings for hidden treasure.

I think all I've ever wanted to do was look for treash-ah. For the longest time, I've associated that with a transitory lifestyle; screwing exotic men, getting into international scrapes, exploring new cities, eating regional cuisine that would make David Cronenberg furrow his brows in disgust. Throwing myself into new and incomprehensible things and seeing that the fuck happens to me. Every day, being surprised and confused by most of the things around me. Trying to find new ways to talk, to listen, and to make people understand each other.

Toronto was meant to be a pit-stop for me. I was planning in an alllllmost concrete way to fuck out of town again after I'd put in a nicely professional amount of time at the position I'm wrapping up - but now I'm going to have to start the 'nicely professional' countdown again, and on top of that, I'm not sure this job I'm going into is just going to be your typical résumé-builder. Most indications seem to be that this is a job I could really - you know - enjoy.

So the fear comes: I'm afraid I'm going to get soft and scared and shackled by the golden handcuffs if I stay too long - am I painting myself into a corner? I'm afraid when I think that most of the men who I've been nuts about haven't been Canadian - am I ever going to lose my mind over someone again? Most of all I'm afraid I'm not going to find any more treash-ah because without frequent changes of place, it's hard for me to believe life is going to surprise me all that much.

But just thinking out these fears makes me realize how dumb I am. Getting back to Terrence and Philip - when they searched for treash-ah it was in their living room or the metro. So if I can trust Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the search for treash-ah is wherever it crosses your mind to think of searching for it. The more I know people - my friends and family - the more interesting they are. The more I know Toronto, the more three-dimensional it gets, instead of just being some place where my bilingualism assures me of a decent job and I can see operas. The more I think about actually being able to write for a living, even if it's for an industry organization newsletter, the more jazzed I feel.

Ohhhhhhh. My brain hurts with changing.

This navel-gazing monstrosity is everything wrong with the internet. Sorry. Tonight I'm going to see a band called the Wet Spots that look pretty hilarious for Miss B's birthday, so tomorrow I'll post about something that isn't up my ass. Deal? Deal.

Oi amore!

Tony Blair sure does take hawt photos. Wish I could read German.

Enough, enough. Too much of this blog is taken up making fun of people and there just isn't enough love. So you know . . . I love the English for inventing this. And I love Italians for reporting on it.

Couldn't sleep last night. Big good confidential news that has me excited about the future. You know, that sentence alone probably blows the confidentiality if anybody at all associated with it reads this. Oh well. I’M ANONYMOUS! MADEMOISELLE LA SPLIFFE IS NOT, IN FACT, MY REAL NAME! HA! Whatevs. Fuck. That ‘whatevs’ word is addictive. I used it for the first time to make fun of the New Criterion jive Johannes posted and now I can’t stop. Even ‘whatever’ is an abuse of English. I like ‘n’importe quoi’ – exactly the same term but damn, it sounds a whole fuckload cleverer then ‘whatevs’, especially when some jaded-ass Parisian says it. La politique étrangère états-unienne? C’est n’importe quoi. Ils font n’importe quoi dans la banlieue.

Yeah, whatevs. Et les français votent pour n’importe qui et veulent prendre leur retraite à 55 ans n’importe comment, même s’il faut baiser l'Afrique pour maintenir leur économie. Ca, c’est vraiment de n’importe quoi.

Jerks. Annnnnnyways . . . look, Moldova doesn’t even get its own sentence in this one. Speaking of forgetting the weak . . . it isn't just the Democrats anymore.

Gigi punked out of the erotic opera/dance production because he was almost as cracked out as Lady yesterday. So we're going Friday and last night I had a few drinks with my prospective informal roommate, did some proper writing, and listened to Marvin Gaye standards. Oh, I’d have been your witness, Mr. Gaye. The Dusty Springfield album I’ve lately picked up had her doing 'Can I Get a Witness' as well. I’d have been her witness too. A word of warning to fledgling Dusty fans – the bonus track remix of 'I Only Want to Be with You' on the A Girl Called Dusty CD is nowhere near as good as the single version. Her vocals come off less ballsy and there’s not enough bass. Can some awesome DJ please do a bass-heavy remix of that song? In Toronto? And let me know when and where?

Back to work. Back to madness. Could somebody please give me a job washing oil spills off of or lobbying for cute, preferably house-broken baby seals? Are you reading, Bri-Bri? I'm a misanthrope too! And on an ideological level it doesn't bother me at all that Jane Birkin faked an orgasm way better than you on 'Je t'aime (moi non plus)'.

Serge Gainsbourg is starting to freak me out, by the way. I heard 'Lemon Incest' for the first time this weekend (I bought a Serie Masters compilation of his in tandem with the Blossom Dearie) - his duet with Charlotte, who I believe is his daughter by Jane - and, well. Fucked-up shit. 'Love on the Beat' is also fucked up, though rather less so. It's pretty hard to tell if the noises in the background are happy or not. Man. Serge Gainsbourg.

Tonight Gigi and I are going to see an opera/dance production called Yours to Break. Looks pretty horny. Eyes on the prize, La Spliffe, eyes on the prize. You work, you get money, you can afford to go to experimental erotic opera/dance productions. Television is for the birds. Movies are too, sorta. Last night I punked out of my glossary and watched Downfall instead. It was good, but, blahhhh. How many uber-realistic movies have come out about the Third Reich now that humanize the perps? Maybe I watched this too soon after watching Conspiracy. Even though that was a good year ago. What can I say - sometimes I get the feeling certain things should remain incomprehensible to the world. That's probably naive. Yeah, that's naive. Oh well.

Work. Time. Boo.

Angelina Jolie is pregnant, the Ukraine just won a staring match with Russia, and I got a Blossom Dearie CD. What a 24 hours. I think I'm more or less humanly healthy again - a little dopey but there's a shocker.

If you look at the Ukraine article, you'll see a very, very brief bit in it about how Moldova's gas supplies have been cut off too. No talk about renewing that. I find it almost endearing how journalists don't even pretend to care about countries like Moldova. At least they're being honest. It's pretty dumb though - today Moldova, tomorrow the world. Russia is scary.

Yay! 2006!

Last night the Parisian Miss C went to see Swan Lake to ring in the New Year. I wonder if this is the one she saw, and if the male corps-de-ballet does any en-pointe work. That sounds like it was the best plan ever. I dragged my ass out of bed for about three hours to ring in the year with other people. Thank god for cabs. I know alot of people have been making alot of resolutions this year. The only one I can come up with in my present state of head-stuff is to fill my life with as many beautiful things as I have time for. There's so much that can be complained about that can be taken as read at a certain moment; it would probably be a good habit to get into, to start taking these things as read:

1. Television is just a bad medium
2. Breaking up is hard to do
3. I'm not going to like 90% of music in wide release at any given moment
4. Other people have stuff I want
5. Eating alot of delicious food makes me fat

And then stop repeating them.

Yep, there it is. There's my resolution. I'm going to pull a Johnny Mercer and accentuate the positive. In aid of that, I'm going back to bed for a few hours.