I fucking hate fucking Labour Day!

It’s the kind of Monday that may as well be Sunday – and not in a good way!
Instead it’s synonymous with the bulging eyes and greasy hair of Jerry Lewis promenading like a pansy around disabled people, flaunting his mobility and pocketing their dough.
It’s the day that unabashedly declares the end of summer.
Step aside, you pesky joyous season, so that autumn may man the helm for awhile until winter steps in and sinks the entire ship.

I mourn summer’s passing like I would a lost love, an absent friend.
I never quite trust that I will see it again.
We were just getting started.
We were just hitting our stride.
Then the road was ripped out from under us like a - a – carpet…of yellow and red crinkly leaves.

I am not ready to give up summer. No way. No how.
I haven’t yet sat out enough nights, laughing at strangers and savouring the flavour of the city;
I’ve yet to sufficiently burn the soles of my bare feet on hot concrete or create new crow’s feet from staring squinty-eyed up into the blazing sun.
I’m not done with the smell of barbecue mixing with the smell of chlorine in my hair.
But, most importantly, I am not done wearing my summer wardrobe.

I know the Fall lines are in all of the stores – I just can’t get excited about a season that demands I cover as much of my body as possible.
How can I get excited about a pair of tweed gauchos paired with an Argyle V neck sweater – even if I actually do like Argyle?
Clothes like that demand attention.
They need ironing, can only be washed in Woolite, can only be wrung dry, hung to dry, dry-cleaned, carried around in armour-like suitcases lest they wrinkle….and so on.
Shorts, skirts, shirts, flip flops…so easy. So beautifully easy.
Slip it all on, pull it all off.
Just like that.

Maybe it all does come down to fashion.
Maybe it's time for me to wake up.
Then I’ll be able to move on to loving other seasons as much as I do summer because I will explore them for what they are and not for what I might be wearing during them.
It won’t be about capris vs. snow pants;
It’ll be about lounging in a pool vs. lounging on the couch for 8 months.
Or leaving the house vs. seasonal agoraphobia.
Exactly.

Long live summer!!!!
Come back soon.
I will be here,
pining for you,
ready, once again.
To be swept off my feet,
brought to ecstasy,
then deposited tanned, sleepy and smiling on fall’s doorstep
With sand still on my sheets
Which is always better than crumbs somehow.

Dearest diary…
Still getting the hang of this blog thing.
It’s a little difficult to rant and rave as though there was an audience with the knowledge that you, yourself, possibly are the audience. But, in my diary, I always wrote - and continue to write - as though there was an audience. In my mind, sometimes the audience would be the daughter I ended up never having or my sisters after I passed on and the pile of dusty notebooks fell into their hands. Maybe my husband. But he’d just get so fucking bored after, maybe, two entries that he wouldn’t bother with the rest. And I’ve been keeping a diary in some form since I was about 8. That’s a lot of useless shit to wade through.
But, think, I have been keeping a record of my emotional growth for 35 years!!! And you know what’s scary as all get-out? I only started noticing evidence of actual growth over the past three years since, you know, the ‘deaths.’ There were some changes between 8 and 15 and then between 30 and, well, now.
I started off strong with my blog.
I had something I felt passionate about and suddenly my head was a-swarm with ideas of other things I could write about. I filled several notebook pages with my, often, substance-influenced, shakily handwritten ideas. Here are some samples: Get Thee to a Notary (about taking someone out of my mother’s will before she dies);
Robopop (about how my alcoholic father, who lived on cigarettes and steaks fried in an inch of grease, never seemed to get ill-much to dismay of myself and my sisters);
Ex-Best Friends from Hell: Everybody’s Had One (about my ex-best friend bitch from hell, Janet);
What is “I am an idiot,” Alex: Answering the Question Why Did I Not Qualify at the Brain Bus Jeopardy Contestant Search at the U-Mall in Burlington, Vt. (self-explanatory)
And other such important considerations.
But how many of those did I elaborate on? For how many of those wacky notions my fried mind concocted did I have one paragraph to show?
Yeah, you know the answer.
Still, it doesn't mean I won't. Once I get past this particular stumbling (writer's) block.
Because here’s the thing:
Such is the beauty and freedom of diary entries. Some will be amazing, some will be boring and redundant, some will be hilarious, and some will just be.
The fact that I take the time to stop and think about something and commit those thoughts to paper or hard drive is the whole purpose of writing in a diary. Stop.
Reflect. Consider. Learn. Realize. Grieve. Share. Fantasize.Vent. Bemoan. Lament. Rejoice. Remember.
But, of paramount importance, stop.

The same way someone might stop to read this.

"Rock Star’s" I’d Like To See

"Rock Star: Supernova" like its predecessor "Rock Star: INXS" is, in my opinion, an awesome viewing experience. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined a program on television that allowed me to, essentially, peep on a talent show made up of guys and gals all putting forth their interpretation of what it means to be a "rock star." None of them ‘get it’, of course, because if they did, they wouldn’t be on the show. Lukas Rossi, a small man from Toronto, is so fucking insincere and unauthentic, he may just be the definitive poseur and, therefore, the ultimate candidate. Looking like a cross between Ally McBeals’ Dancing Baby and Clint Howard in Goth make-up, Lukas Rossi sings and prances and bats his lashes with all of the conviction of Ashlee Simpson. He’d be perfect fronting Gilby Clarke’s band!
And that is precisely why I am so thrilled that Rock Star exists. I can hardly wait until next summer to see who else quickly assembles a band for this express purpose and which clueless wannabes will come out to whore for it. And though I’m sure Slash, Rikki Rocket, and Melissa auf der Maur are collaborating on band names as we speak, here are just a few suggestions for Rock Star’s I’d like to see:

Rock Star: The Germs
Rock Star: Beefheart’s Magic Band searches for a new Captain.
Rock Star: The Funky Bunch
Rock Star: The Carpenters
Rock Star: Garfunkel

Please feel free to add your own. It’s a very fun game.

A M

Fuck comedy! Billy the Mime is the future of tragedy!
and/or And the fact that people laugh at it as though it were funny is a huge part of what makes it so tragic.
By A M
Tonight I saw Billy The Mime. Yes, I saw him perform in a wonderfully intimate theatre on Ste-Catherine East as part of the Just for Laughs festival. Guess who ain't laughing?
The only reason I left there without feeling like I'd seen someone strangle a puppy was because I knew his game. I knew what he was trying to do - depressing me that way. Shame on you, Mr. Mime. You have a lot to answer to.
As Iggy screamed in Fun House, "I came to play," I too scream:" I came to laugh." So make me laugh, Mr. Funny Man. Or I'll mime you giving me back my money!
But Billy the Mime is totally amazing.
His art is so refined and considered and executed, it is almost breathtaking at times.
Billy the Bummer and Billy the Anti-Comic were alternate titles for the show, I'm certain.
I sat behind a row of idiots who sat behind other rows of idiots and so on and so on and so on.
I won't say that everyone there was an idiot (because I was there, as were Chris and Steve, my husband and friend respectively) but the ones who reacted like insecure elementary school kids chiming in late with a laugh at a more popular kid's joke, they were easy to pick out.
The row right in front of me consisted of a certain breed of idiot, the kind that's at an awkward stage but doesn't have the humility to admit it. Perhaps, first-year-University or, well, that's pretty much it. First-year-university covers it. Oh and first-year-University-just-moved-to-Montreal-from-somewhere-in-Ontario. There was this one guy, let's call him Tuque Skywalker. He laughed like a seal and I know that's an over-used and abused cliche but he really laughed like a seal. And, in case you couldn't tell from the name, he was wearing a tuque. You know, a winter hat.
It's so fucking humid out that you can barely step out your door before your body is slick with sweat and he has a tuque on. How pretentious is that? He doesn't need that hat; he's wearing it only because he thinks it looks cool. And why won't he take it off inside the theatre where he might be obstructing someone's view? For the exact same reasons.
So when not blocking my view to talk to the chick beside him whose cell phone went off - with an annoying personalized ringtone - he was leaning his tuqued head against the wall.
It didn't obstruct my view but it bugged me all the same.
Two strikes already: Seal laugh. Tuque.
Third strike:
His laughter seemed so insincere and so misplaced that it felt deliberate and forced. Like, "Oh, I know that otherwise this would be a real buzzkill but it would be politically incorrect not to laugh."
Billy the Mime can say what he wants (ha! Get it? He's a mime; he doesn't say anything!) but what he does ain't comedy. What Stephen Colbert does is comedy. Yet they both do what they do with equal finesse. And they both tell the truth.
Billy the Mime just wrings out every last drop of what might make a certain situation funny and, after he wrings it out, he looks at you with his white-face on, corners of the mouth slightly up-turned, and, basically, shrugs. That's the effect of the blackout. It's like, saying, "What do you want me to do? It's all true. I'm not responsible for why this is so depressing but here it is, here ya go. Have fun. Try not to kill or blame yourself. See ya. Gotta go mime walking out of the building and stepping in front of a bus."
And he does it so darn well.
Meanwhile...
The idiot with the tuque, the seal laugh and the slightly delayed laugh of a troubled eight-year old is chortling away, loudly proclaiming his ignorance, and yak yak yakking with the cell phone chick. Then, in another act of incredibly bad taste, he yells something out like he's at Rocky Horror or something.
You are not the show. Take your fucking tuque off and frown until the corners of your mouth are permanently down-turned.
But at the same time he serves as the perfect illustration of my point.
I love comedy. Passionately. Not even deliberately. I just love it. I need it, it's its own oxygen. And I can laugh at things that are tragic, no problem, BUT another lowdown dirty trick of Billy the Mime's is to highlight all of the aspects that illustrate perfectly the essence of why these things are so tragic. And that's really not something you can laugh at with the kind of ease that Tuque-y the Seal did.
And it's also not an easy thing to do.
Do you see?
I realize that I sound extremely judgemental. Oh, it's because I am.
I am only highlighting the truth - much in the same way that Billy the Mime does. It ain't pretty but, fuck, it's the truth.
He does what he does extremely well.
And he further reinforces the notion that no matter how you slice it or what you slice it with, mime is just not funny. It can be good. Very good.
Billy the Mime is very good at what he does and he deserves mad props and, though I can't see me and Billy hanging out, doing hot knives while watching "South Park," I think I could see myself doing that with Steven Banks,his creator.
Because you have to understand - and love - comedy in order to create tragedy.
And I now understand why he treats Billy the Mime as a person apart from himself.
That's because, more than a character, he is a person apart from himself. If Steven Banks were Billy the Mime all of the time, he probably wouldn't be able to create his art.
And that'd really shut Billy up for good.
Phew. I feel so much better.
Thank you, Billy the Mime for doing something that's pretty darn risky really darn well.
Bravo.

Here is a sampling of the pieces he performed:
The Abortion (a real knee-slapper in a "been there - done that" kind of way!)
JFK, Jr: We Hardly Knew Ye
Close to Her: Karen Carpenter
San Francisco Nights, 1979
World War II
The Priest and the Altar Boy
and the gloriously up-lifting A Day Called 9/11
and more...

The work speaks for itself. Pun intended.

Check out:

http://www.billythemime.net/

http://www.colbertnation.com/

www.jerriblank.com (Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris also deserve mad, mad, MAD props)