Shoot!

Well, we took a bunch of photos with the digital point & shoot, hoping to upload some onto the blog, but no go. For some reason, the camera won't show up as a possible location to find files on this computer. I think they have a pretty smart multiple-user interface going on that won't let you frig around with the system at all.

I can tell you that we did some more snorkelling today and took pictures this time. Alison borrowed this cool underwater automatic camera from her work. I won't know whether they turned out until we get them developed, though.

We also got some nice ones of vultures soaring around at sunset. They're all over the place here. Kind of creepy, but they also look like mini-condors, i.e. majestic and beautiful if you don't know what they are.

We met a nice couple in their early fifties named Jane and Bill, whose asses we are going to kick at ping pong tomorrow. I told Jane this place was pretty great, although it reminds me somewhat of an old people's home, and then we found out she works in an old people's home. Bill is a car salesman.

There's a really great band of five older guys who play here regularly, in the tres guitar, i.e. Isaac Oviedo style. Tonight was "Noche Cubana" in the dining room, meaning that all the food was Cuban, and the band played unamplified. It was really nice.

The crazy old piano guy is playing now as I type. He just finished "Volare" and is now into "It Had to Be You". It started out as a tempoless cascade of notes, and is now a boogie-woogie barrel roll. We'll have to give him a nice tip.

It's so weird, the huge gap between the rich white tourists and the extreme poverty that's only half a mile away from this place. We biked through it pretty extensively yesterday, getting lost along the way. I used to think the housing in Preston was kind of bad. Some of the people seem to welcome the tourists and others give you stony stares and look away when you wave and say "Hola." I would be one of those ones.

The big whoop-dee-doo piece of crap high school variety show is about to start, so I'll have to tell you more tomorrow. Stinks about the no pictures. Maybe I can find a way around it.

See ya.

- Andrew

There's a computer here!

Albeit, a pretty slow one, but still... Man are we ever having a fun time. So far we've snorkelled, biked around, played ping pong, laid on the beach, read a lot, worked on the crossword, listened to the birds singing off our balcony, eaten lots of decent and lots of weird food, checked out a crazy old piano player and a fantastic tres guitar quintet, and taken limited advantage of the free booze all the time. Tomorrow will be tennis and suntanning, with maybe another short bike ride in there. The day seems so long when you can do whatever you want. Weather's been impeccable and everyone here is friendly and helpful. I'll have to give you more interesting detail later, as we're on limited time here and dinner's almost being served and we're freakin' hungry because we didn't eat much lunch.

One thing, though. Danny, if you're reading this, could you give us Johanna's address? We wrote her a postcard but can't send it. 411canada.com doesn't seem to know her street number. You could just put a number in the comments, if you don't want anyone to be able to see her full address.

Pictures to come, maybe tomorrow. I've got a pretty good idea for one that I'm hoping will work out.

Talk to you soon.

- Andrew

Good Times Are Coming

The usual Wednesday lunchtime production meeting was postponed this week, which meant Meg and I got to treat ourselves to the Wednesday chirashi lunch special at Dharma Sushi. Yum — chirashi. If you don't know what it is, as I didn't until I ate it the first time, it's a big bowl of seasoned sticky rice with lots of different kinds of sashimi (the slabs of raw fish with nothing else) sitting on top, along with some ginger and wasabi. It's a pretty nice treat, let me tell you.

Ali and I did some more tanning after work and we're actually getting some colour! I fell asleep in the tanning bed and dreamed I was in a spaceship. When the timer ran out and the lights went off, I woke up with a start and didn't know at first why I was in a highly constrictive pod in my underwear. Yikes!

By the way, here's a sample of that Congotronics 2 stuff I was telling you about. It's a pretty intensely happy sound.



I remembered something else I was going to warn you about. Don't go to see The Benchwarmers. It really stinks. Pee-yew. I laughed at it somewhat, but I really was laughing AT it, if you know what I mean. Serious stinkbomb. Smell-o-rama. An olfactory assault. Gas masks required. The only good reason for seeing it is if you're having flatulence problems and don't want to be discovered.

Neither would I recommend Caché, a postmodern cerebral French film in which I fell asleep. As the title suggests there are hidden layers to the film, and you're pretty much forced as a viewer to look for them because there's really nothing going on on the surface. Unfortunately when you discover the not very sub subtext it's every bit as boring as the rest of the film. I was woken up momentarily by one incredibly violent scene out of nowhere, but soon drifted off again as the camera lingered motionless on its aftermath for an eternity. This is a motif that repeats throughout the movie, if absolute silence can be called a motif. Oh yeah, did I mention it's a thriller?

Two more days until Cuba; I still can't believe it. I can picture myself lying on the beach only in a third person, visual way. I can't imagine what it will feel like to be that person. I started loading up the mp3 player tonight, but something weird happened where it thinks its full even though there's still plenty of memory left. Too bad — I had the ultimate mix of classic good time tunes and obscure gems planned.

Last night's yoga class was the most intense we've ever had, and I'm kind of still recovering from it, so I'm off to rest my elongated muscles now. Probably won't blog again before we leave, so love and kisses to everyone, we'll take lots of pictures, and who knows, maybe there'll even be internet access in a hotel lobby somewhere...

Buenos noches.

- Andrew

This blogging business is hard work.

Let me say first off that I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update this thing. In Neil Postman's words, we've been amusing ourselves to death somewhat. The final season of Six Feet Under is well worth the price of admission, for anyone interested in such things. Keep a healthy supply of eco-friendly tissues on hand, though. Infinite Jest is so far hilariously entertaining, if/because extremely wordy. And the latest album about which I have to insist "Buy! Buy! Buy!" is Congotronics 2, a compilation of contemporary bands from the outskirts of Kinshasa, Congo who are similar only in that they all play amplified thumb pianos, among other kooky and not-so-kooky instruments, through homemade sound systems that produce a crazy distortion to whose rhythm it is impossible not to dance. Maybe I'll put up a sample next time.

I guess I've also been kind of avoiding the home computer because there's been some work I didn't want to do and felt like if I sat down with Mr. MacIntosh I would have to get it done before I could do anything else. But I finally finished it off today at work, so now I can do whatever the heck I like. The project was writing explicit instructions for Meg, my friend and coworker, on how to produce the used car newspaper insert I work on for two days every two weeks. It was sort of an excruciating, drawn-out effort that made me realize I was crazy if I ever thought I wanted to pursue technical writing as a career. However, it's done now, which means Meg will be able to do the work next week, which means I can GO TO CUBA!!!

That's right — we've booked a trip to Holguin, where we stay at an all-inclusive resort for a week, and we leave this Friday. I can't really believe we're going and probably won't until the plane has landed. We've never really taken a "real" vacation together, so it's super duper exciting. There's a lot to do before we leave, though. This evening, for instance, we had to lie in tanning beds for eight minutes so we won't get a Canadian-style burn on our first day there and spend the rest of the week in agony. We also wanted to get our taxes done and sent off before leaving, but as I haven't done mine for 10 years now (shhhhh), I tried to take them to H&R Block, who said they would charge me about $700 to do them for me, so it looks like I'll be taking them with me for some rainy day fun. I'm not sure whether it was H or R I was talking to, but she also told me impatiently that I wouldn't be able to stay there and watch her while she did them. I don't really understand why she thought I would have any desire to do that. Wouldn't I just do them myself if having them done professionally involved my observation? Anyway, that's what is happening now, so I suppose it's a null point.

Let's see... what else?

Tim was down for a visit last week and we got to see him a few times, including at a softball practice, in the smokiest bar that has ever existed in a not-purely-for-torture capacity, and at various unanticipated times and locations around the city, which last was probably the nicest as it made us feel like he still lives here.

Speaking of softball, did I mention before that I'm going to coach some little kids on softball technique with a friend of mine this summer? Maybe I did; I can't remember and am too tired to check. But I'm really looking forward to it, anyway.

Continuing to speak of softball, Meg has agreed to try playing on our team this year, which is great news because a) she is awesome and b) we need another girl or two. Weekly practices will begin this coming Sunday, but of course I won't be here. I wonder if I should bring my glove to Cuba? Baseball's pretty big there, I gather.

I helped my friend Charles work on his new recording studio yesterday. It was the first time I'd been down there, and it's coming along really nicely. Looks like it's going to be a great spot — much bigger than the Mullet was and it's actually being built according to a design. I can't wait to see — and hear — it up and running.

We're probably going to be moving into that new place on Maynard at the beginning of June, so we're starting to look at getting rid of stuff. If we could reduce the quantity of our belongings by about half, I'd be happy. Anyone have any use for some moth-eaten sweaters and a box of used ice cream buckets? Danny, I'm looking at you.

I found some yoga poses designed specifically for my twisted old spine, and they seem to make my back feel pretty good. I recently had x-rays done and found that my scoliosis is even weirder than I'd thought, as my spine not only bends one way and then back the other, but it also twists around its own axis all the way down. Basically, it looks like a modern roller coaster. But so maybe these poses, and possibly a trip to a chiropractor, will help me not to be a hunchback by age 50.

There's probably still more things I have to tell you, but if so they'll just have to wait until next time. Whew.

- Andrew

This Just In: Not Much Going On

I can't believe how little has happened in the past seven days. It seems like staying up late last Sunday after the you-know-what-o's and having a couple of beers pretty much threw me out of whack for the entire week. I was often cranky and stressed out at work, and never felt like doing much besides watching Season Four of Six Feet Under when I got home. There was no yoga class on Tuesday, so that might have had something to do with it. What if it turns out that yoga is actually bad for you, and only seems healthy because after awhile you start feeling sub-par if you don't do it, as with any addiction? Maybe in twenty years we'll see yoga instructors vilified in court just as harshly as the tobacco industry recently has been.

The SFU, by the way, is a season we already saw, but the fifth and final season recently came out and we wanted to be completely clued in before watching it. Season Four really held up to our intense and hungry scrutiny; the writing on that show is so terrific, as is the entire cast. We took the box set out for an extra week, but didn't end up needing it, and now we've begun watching Season Five.

Lest you think our time has been entirely unproductive, here's a couple of photos from a roll of film Alison finally finished off and got developed. The first is the parking lot outside the movie theatre from when we went to see The New World back in February. I think I told you about that. Oh yes, here it is: "When we got out of the film 2.5 hours later, the sun had just gone down and this really weird fog had settled everywhere. The giant yellow sulfur parking lot lights above it were creating purple haze without the drugs or feedback, and the sky was a brilliant indigo with a bright half moon right in the centre. It was really beautiful and Ali got a picture of it, but unfortunately it's analog on a roll of 36, so it won't be available for some time."

The second photo is a pair of shoes Ali spotted in a store window and had to document so that I would believe her. It's called "Let Me Check".

Also, I wrote a poem. It's sort of an ode, inspired by my dinner one night:
The mushroom is
A delicious fungus.
If you only eat one,
It should be humongous.

Krista suggested I do a whole series of them which could be made into a children's book. I think it's a fabulous idea. I would call it A Child's Garden of Vegetables, illustrations by Alison Beckett. Anyone have any suggestions for material?

We did some laundry today and went to the nearby bookstore while waiting for the dryers to finish, what with the hippy café being kaput and all. I picked up John Ralston Saul's On Equilibrium so I'll have it available for lending when anyone shows any interest in it, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I've been meaning to read the latter for a long time and by the sheer physical weight of it I think that's exactly what I will be doing. Seems like it's going to be pretty entertaining, though. Then there was an impromptu pre-season softball practice after laundry, and everyone was looking real good. It felt great to get some exercise outdoors, even though it was sort of cold and quite grey.

Oh of course, how could I forget? I also went to see a band from Montreal called Torngat play at Gus' Pub on Friday night. It was a really late night in a really smoky bar, for which I'm still paying today, but completely worth it. They're three multi-instrumentalists who make a huge experimental post-rock sound with drums, french horn, various keyboards and effect pedals, trumpet, and even sometimes a xylophone. Pretty exciting stuff and all for just five bucks, which included two other bands as well. My friends Meg and Tomomi were there too and we all super loved it.

But tonight it's early to bed for me, so au revoir for now.

- Andrew

I swear this is the last I'll have to say about the freakin' Junos.

So, as some astute observers noticed, Rich's in-ear monitors were not working at the beginning of the show last night. No one knows why, but I suspect sabotage. Because he was wearing specially made ones that were molded to the contours of his ears, the lack of any signal meant he actually couldn't hear a single thing. Once he popped them out, he could hear the sound coming through the speakers, but that was significantly delayed -- hence his behind-the-beat delivery. I also noticed on carefully analysing the videotape of the show that I got fairly gypped in the mix. Kind of a bummer to offer such a mediocre performance after so much preparation, but at least he got all the words in and didn't end up doing a little elf dance à la Ashley Simpson.

After that little ordeal was over, Rich's equipment was working fine again, and we had a great time watching a lot of the show from the floor. Coldplay were really great, and it was very surreal to be in the same room with Chris Martin, Pamela Anderson, and Bryan Adams all at the same time. Broken Social Scene came off a lot better live than they sounded on TV.

Our friend Krista was with us checking out the special appearances and hanging out backstage. Coldplay took off as soon as they were done, so we took over their dressing room, which had a television for watching the show. There had been some beers in our dressing room at one point, which had later gone missing, and we discovered them there, though I'm not pointing any fingers. There was also some delicious food which the sensitively anthemic Brits had very kindly neglected to eat.

Besides the performance going slightly awry, the other bummers of the evening were that I couldn't find the media centre until the ET people were gone and so didn't get to meet Cheryl Hickey; that I wasn't given one of the prestigious swag bags worth $5,000 that most of the nominees and performers got; and that Alison didn't think to bring her camera out onto the floor — she's pulling the last two hairs out of her scalp as I write this. Highlights were the Coldplay/Kraftwerk song; finally meeting Rich's fiancée, Claire, and his family; hearing Pamela Anderson get booed; hearing Jann Arden's retort get cheered; peeing in Coldplay's toilet; and getting to hang out with an awesome bunch of friends. Here are some backstage photos:

Don't ask me what the heck was going on here. That's Claire in the background.

Here's me; Rich's manager, Piers; Rich; Rich's other manager, Nick; and Charles in the dressing room.

Ali and Krista freaking out in front of "Dplay's" dressing room.

No beer tastes better than the beer that Coldplay steals from you and then you steal back once they're safely out of the building.

- Andrew

Best Minute and Forty-Four Seconds Ever

That's what you're going to see tomorrow night at 7:00 EDT. Well, maybe not REALLY, but I've gotta pump myself up a little. I am quite excited about it and it should go off without a hitch. We've practiced it many many times now, out of and then in the Metro Centre where the awards show is happening. Yesterday morning was three and a half hours of rehearsing the performance over and over again, with about fifteen minutes of staring into space in between each time, while the technical people sorted out camera angles and sound and technical type things. Ben Mulroney and his female e-Talk Daily counterpart, whatever her name is, were spotted sniffing around and filming some little incidental segments. He has a very large head.

I thought I'd probably be meeting Pamela Anderson somewhere in there, but now realize that the closest I'll come to her will be when the actual show happens and she steps onto a stage about 50 feet from ours as we finish our bit. Not that I was especially keen to meet her or anything, but I did have myself kind of psyched up to be as normal as possible and follow Alison's advice of "look her in the eye". But they really have the whole shenanigan planned out so that the high-level and low-level celebrities are kept well away from each other in both time and space. However, Coldplay's dressing room is right across from ours, next to the garbage storage area. I don't know what that means.

One "celebrity" I will get to meet is Cheryl Hickey. A woman who used to live in the apartment above us in Halifax, and now lives in Toronto, showed up at the bar where we were with some friends last night, and turns out to be working for Entertainment Tonight Canada. I told her, truthfully, that I think the show is a lot more interesting than its American counterpart, and revealed my embarassing but not insignificant crush on Ms. Hickey, the main host. Yeah, yeah, I know. So she says, "Well, you should come by the media area at the show. We'll be there, and you can meet her." Yikes! Hilarious, weird, and awesome.

This whole town has gone Juno crazy and there've been all sorts of shows and parties, most of which Ali and I have successfully avoided. The one last night at the bar I mentioned was The Self-Conscious, Mike O'Neill's new band. I think I've already raved about them on here, but no harm in saying it was really really enjoyable. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. The place was a madhouse of squashed together bodies, many from out of town. Normally, that would be a definite minus, but I kept running into people I know and everyone was so keyed up and full of good will that the mood was pretty infectious.

The evening before that was a free outdoor concert in the Grand Parade (Toronto translation: = Nathan Phillips Square), starring Joel Plaskett and Matt Mays. We couldn't wait for the Mays set, but Joel had the enormous crowd (4,000?) in the palm of his hand as he belted it out and pontificated Springsteen-style about the meaning of a hometown. Shameless Hali-pride pandering abounded. Hundreds of little kids were lifted onto as many pairs of shoulders. Many balloons were lost forever to the clear twilit sky. It was great.

And tomorrow night promises to be no less of a spectacle. Unfortunately, Rich's entourage seems to somehow be short a couple of tickets for the show, which means that both Charles and I have to give up our seats in order for our significant others to be able to attend. So you may catch glimpses of us after our opening bit, milling around down in the general admission section in front of the performance stages. I'll be the one punching the air to the Black Eyed Peas.

This whole thing has sure been a good time, and I'm pretty excited about tomorrow night. Playing with Rich again and getting to spend some time with him and Charles has been really nice -- I wish we could do some more of it. And I'm getting paid very handsomely too, even after you subtract the musicians' union's penalty for not being a member. Man, I hate that union. See you on the red carpet, maybe, I'm not sure, probably not.

- Andrew