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| Monday, 12-Sep-2005 00:00 |
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Summertime.
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Philadelphia Freedom
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We're Number One!
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Big Things
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Jesui
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Air France
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Butter Elvis
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It's been slow on the blog front, and I apologize. Murphy http://murphy.fotopages.com has been kicking my ass in that area and frankly, just insufferable about it, so screw you Murphy. Here goes...
1 - The Liberty Bell
An annual US conference I go to every year was held in Philly this year. So of course, we all had to go see the Liberty Bell. Unfortunately, I went while debilitatingly hungover from the night before, so I don't really remember much about the Liberty Bell display, except that it's security gate rival's the airport, and that they don't sell Gatoraide there. I don't know whether it was the location or the weather or the stars, but on a scale of 1 to 10 for bad, obnoxious business trip behaviour - this trip rated about a 37.
2 - Phillies vs. Oakland
Later that same day, we took a bunch of clients to see a Phillies game. I'm not much for baseball, but I'll tell ya, Philadelphia has a great field. Tickets - comped. Snacks and beer for 6 - $57. Hats - $24. Sunscreen - $4. Getting to expense big foam #1 fingers - priceless.
Further to my mention of being debilitatingly hungover in #1, at this point I'd had an extra-large OJ, 1 large bottle of water, a Gatoraide, 2 bladder-buster diet cokes, and still didn't pee until around 5:00.
3 - Huge Shoe
I found this huge shoe while Devo, Chris and I were going for a walk one day. It was at least 4 ft. long and suprisingly well made. We have no idea where it came from. It was on top of a big pile of garbage that didn't appear to be connected to any of the surrounding buildings. The pile of trash also smelled really bad - like a big, fetid sneaker. It was cool. I took Derwod to see it the next day, but someone had taken it. Secretly Devo and I think it was Chris.
4 - Jesui
The Jesus collection may be winding down at home, but the dieties are alive and well and living at the office. The Buddy Christ from Dogma is my personal favourite, although the St. Clair - Patron Saint of TV is right up there. I'm pretty sure this is why I've not been promoted beyond manager.
5 - Air France
I don't know if you can see it, but that Air France plane that slid off the runway in early August was right by my house. If you look closely, you can see a vague stream of smoke in the distance. Traffic was backed up all over the city, and the west end of Toronto was a mess. Also, the entire are smelled like burnt wire and plastic. For days you could see the carcass of the plane lying wheels up from the 401.
Incidentally, this was the same week Derwood and I booked a trip to France in the fall. I mean, it seemed the safest place to go because, really, what are the odds?
6 - Butter Elvis
This is an Elvis bust made out of butter at the CNE. Usually you only see butter sculputers at the Royal Winter Fair in November, and then they have really big ones like whole cows and sheep and stuff, but this was still pretty cool. They've been doing this here for about 40 or so years. They had a great shot of the Butter Beatles from 1965, but I didn't get a shot of it. Sorry, it was quite something...
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| Sunday, 17-Jul-2005 00:00 |
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Pre-9/11
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This is Pooh. Pooh was the shit from 0 to about 6 years old. I have a couple of favourites, but Pooh is right up there. As you can see, he's worn to the cloth from being dragged all over hell's half acre. He has been washed more times that I can count. He had a shirt once, but we'll get to that in a second. He's a fixture in most of my baby/toddler photos. He's been on car trips, on planes, to the Carribean, across the US and back again.
I was talking to Murphy this weekend http://murphy.fotopages.com. She's still pissed at me about the time I got her kid, Mr. Bobo, a fish for Christmas which in turn gave birth to about 700 more fish. I told her she should start giving them away. She said she couldn't do that because it would scar Mr. Bobo.
For some reason it reminded me about this one time that my mom and I were crossing the border into the US on a car trip to Florida and the US Customs agent - a woman, by the way - took Pooh and tore him open on his back seam to check for drugs that my mother might be smuggling (for no apparent reason other than perhaps being by herself, driving a sports car, and being the original MLF - get where this is going?), right in front of my 3 year old eyes. I told Murphy about that and then she got real quiet and then had to go.
And even if my mom was into that - which she most certainly is not - she would never have sewn it in my favourite bear. She'd have gotten me to hoop it.
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| Friday, 15-Jul-2005 00:00 |
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New Season, New Ink
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Long time no post.
Anyway, I've had a tattoo on my arm for about 4 years that I loved, but needed more stuff. However, it took me that long to decide what that stuff was going to be. Was I going to get a little soft with the Lucky 13 (yes, it's my lucky number. That's right...) or was I going to go totally Vegas? Naturally, I decided to go totally Vegas and I'd like to thank the boys at T.C.B. Tattoo Parlour for the fine ink work and entertainment last Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, little girl, big tattoo. But go big or go home, I say.
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| Tuesday, 30-Nov-2004 00:00 |
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Giant Underpants
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They were just displayed like that. Trust me, I didn't touch them. You can't really tell from the photo, but they were absolutely huge.
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| Wednesday, 17-Nov-2004 00:00 |
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Murphy runs a marathon
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The Money Shot
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Hey All,
First off, it's been a huge couple of months. Crazy, really. Work is insane and its not getting much better any time soon, but it's becoming handleable. Cowboy Junkie, I'm sorry I haven't dropped by for pie, I've been watching, I just haven't been visiting much. I'll take you up on that, and a shot of bourbon if you have it, real soon.
However, I have had one post in mind (one of several actually). This is Murphy finishing the Dublin Marathon. It's the money shot, and I'm so bloody proud of her, I'm about to have a smoke to celebrate.
Now, Murphy isn't so much my best friend as my hetrosexual same sex life partner. We talk, laugh and share far more than average friends. I couldn't talk about this on my blog for many months as she was doing this for her family as a suprise, and I ended up training with her until the nice weather hit and then beer and patio season started again. Sure, I was actually injured, I just had to make really sure I was healed. Anyway, Murphy managed the task of running 42K, or 26 miles, in a mere 9 months. It really was a case of going from zero to hero since there were, until the training, many smokes and hotboxes in the woodshop. However, never underestimate Murphy. She's a force.
The best part is we met a lot of cool and fun people along the way. No, wait, the best part is we can smoke in the woodshop again.
So Murphy, here's to you.
xoxoxo
Q
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| Friday, 10-Sep-2004 00:00 |
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The Hungry Man
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It's been an interesting summer. Granted, I've been too busy to enjoy it, but I managed to download the contents of my camera this week and start sifting through.
This little gem was taken in mid-August on a visit to the Home Depot with my mother. Beforehand we decided to get breakfast at a trucker diner not far from the big box mall - home of the 15 egg omlette, which you may remember from a past post.
The Hungry Man breakfast is 4 eggs, bacon, sausage AND ham, 4 slices of toast, and 2 lbs. of homefries and is well out of even my realm of volume eating. My mother, however, is a different story. Somewhere inside of her there is 400 lbs waiting to burst out, but until then, she's shovelling it in. I think it's because she moves fast, like a hummingbird, most of the time. The waitress felt compelled to tell us that a woman had never finished the Hungry Man before. The kitchen staff stared. My mother, undeterred, kept right on eating. She's all lady...
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| Thursday, 5-Aug-2004 00:00 |
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Crafts are the new Yoga.
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A lamp out of slides!
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Oh yeah, keep it comin'...
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Ohhh, bliss oh joy oh boundless rapture. Yes, today hearald's the discovery of Ready Made Magazine http://www.readymademag.com . It's cool crafts for the urban hipster. You can learn how to make a lampshade with slides, or a bag out of US Mail overnight packs, or order plans for a 100 square foot modular home. You know, like Popular Mechanics for grown-ups. Man it's cool.
See, I have a problem. My problem is that I am a hobby-addict. Compouding this is the fact that my mother and best friend, http://murphy.fotopages.com, are also certified hobby-addicts. Derwood is fairly certain that I will spin into hot-gluing googly eyes on popsickle sticks in our golden years. He's probably right. Which is why I must purchase that mini-postcard screener featured in Ready Made RIGHT NOW...
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| Wednesday, 4-Aug-2004 00:00 |
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For Juli
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So, it's taken me a while to get to this, but this is for Juli at http://cowboyjunkies.fotopages.com.
I may have mentioned in my last photobog or two that I collect slightly disturbing devotional art. This is one of the finer pieces in my collection. It's a Last Rights Box, and I got it after lusting after Murphy's grandmother's box at Muphy's house for a while http://murphy.fotopages.com.
This would have hung in a family's house for when a member of the family died at home. You know, before we began shuffling them off to hospital's and old folks homes. It's got Mary holding Jesus, and a place for your holy water, candles, rosary and whatever else one uses to give last rights to the dying. It was, at some point, used to lay a family member to rest at home.
I came across it in an antique store by my office when I was out with my mother. My Jewish mother. Regardless, I bought it and in the house it hangs. It used to be in the diningroom, but then I told Derwood what it was and I promptly agreed to moving it to what I like to call "the Spiritual Hallway" in the lower half of our condo. That has Days of the Dead art from Mexico and some wierd-ass Brazillian stuff that was left behind at a friend's office. It all adds nicely to the collection of stuff from Dead People.
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| Saturday, 3-Jul-2004 00:00 |
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More Art from Dead People
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In all it's glory!
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Shadows and light
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The fine detail of the lattice! Nice!
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Murphy found this at the Goodwill for me, and it's just way to freaking cool.
First off, it's the perfect peice of SoBIG art (So Bad It's Good) as it satisfies both my preoccupation with slightly disturbing religious devotional art AND my love of garage sale paint-by-number paintings! Could it GET any better?
Why, yes! Yes it could!
The fine detail! No lumpy bits! No painting outside the line! The fine brushwork! Who painted it? Was it someone who really loved the Last Supper and wanted a really nice one and not one of those cheesy paper prints with the raised detail or 3-D effect (although really, the latter would be pretty fucking cool)? Or was it a relaxing summer project for a cottaging Catholic?
It's glorious...just glorious...
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| Wednesday, 16-Jun-2004 00:00 |
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Band-Aids.
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I spent today helping my mother move to a new, very cool place about 4 blocks away from her old place. First off, moving 4 blocks is about the same as moving 40 miles, there's still a ton of shit to do. But my mother and I work well together. She doesn't get pissed off when I get a little bossy, and I don't question the fact that she needs two shower rods because she likes the look of a cloth curtain but she can only shower with the clear liner pulled over since seeing Psycho in 1960. We're both eccentric and understand eachother as only another true eccentric can.
One little idosyncracy that my mother and I have never seen eye to eye on came up again today in the form of band aids. I cut my finger and needed one, and my mother didn't have any. Not because we were out or couldn't find them, but because she is absolutely, totally convinced that band aids are a complete and utter waste of money.
Now, my mother is in no way cheap. She will freely spend money on all manor of things, and is, in fact, almost embarassingly genorous. To name one example, she bought me a $550 toaster last year for my birthday. Granted, it makes absolutely stellar toast, but for $550, someone should show up and butter it for you, you know? It's extravagant. So, money is not the object here.
Anyway, she fixed me a band aid out of black electrical tape and a folded square of toilet paper. Sometimes it's masking tape. Other times just regular scotch tape. But never band-aids. Needless to say I just "let the air get at it" a lot when I was young and kids were cruel. Doesn't matter what it is, either. Cuts, scrapes, blisters, there's nothing you can't fix with electrical tape and toilet paper. "Band aids are for wimps" is her motto.
I have bought her band aids, which sit unused in her medicine cabinet unless someone cuts themselves and then she'll give them a band aid, along with 23 extras in an attempt to rid her house of the box, but she'll never be caught dead with one. It's a sign of weakness in one's moral fibre.
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Get yourself a 1974 Plymouth Roadrunner and find out what I'm talking about. Make sure it has loud dual exhaust, then get drunk and do burnouts!
