Month: October 2003

The play was almost sold out tonight.

Of course I seize ’em.
“Are you Toren?” I heard just as I arrived to the bus stop at Commercial and Broadway, from walking up from the Havana (In 14 trips, only twice would it have been faster to wait for the bus that goes down Commercial, though it’s easily 13 blocks). I turned to see the woman, perhaps in her mid-forties, who I soon came to learn was mother of Josh Stern, a friend of mine who I see perhaps once or twice a year, typically. Although she came because she knows the guy who plays Polish boss, she saw me in the play, but she recognized me from The Thickets. I guess she had come to see Josh’s band Sileophage, when they played with us. What’s odd is that she didn’t see the play tonight, she had seen it last Saturday. A ghost. A spectre!

JFK apparently said: one who is not afraid to fail miserably can achieve greatness. I thought he was a macho womanizing stud who conquered the moon!

Don’t it make your brown eyes blue?
So…If you want to make reservations at the Havana, you need a minimum of 6 people in your party and they add a 15% gratuity onto the bill. I have never heard of that before and I call bullshit on it. Now I don’t have a problem with 15% tip, I’ve been known to give 50% (is that because I found the service that much worth it, or because I ordered a meal worth $2.50 and only had a finn? Both to be sure) but I definitely have a problem with it being imposed against my will. I am thinking I’ll just get a table and not announce to the host that I have made reservations, and see what happens. That will stick it to them: the collective MAN!

I had a weird dream this morning. It involved jerks with superpowers destroying my home. Then I woke up asking myself the question, if you had to be shot somewhere, would you choose:

a) the eye (assuming the bullet didn’t touch the brain)
b) the thumb (of whichever hand you are -handed)
c) the genitals

And then Kodos was all up in my business.

Sleepy? Hungry? Gassy? Gassy? Is it gas? It’s gas, isn’t it?

First day of the second week of the play. Adrian and Kathryn and Mr. Slater came to see the theatrical shenanigans. Good show, but I was feeling gassy. Then when I got home for some weird reason, out of nowhere, I get a shooting pain up my back. This will make it difficult to draw. We’ll see how it goes. I’m off to try that right now.

I could post something else that would be more entertaining – maybe a rant or something, but instead I’ll just go draw, and let you fill in the blanks. Grab your favourite crayon: _____________________________________________________________
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Are you one of those people who will give out snacky or other food items freely, except when it’s the last one in the pack? I have experienced my share of “those people.” Is the last one somehow more tasty? Sentimental reasons? Saving it for a rainy day? What’s the story there? Situation: I have a pack of Juicy Fruit with two sticks left in it. I take one, then offer you the last one. Is this somehow significantly different than if I had offered you the second to last one and took the last one for myself?

Tonight Marlo came over and we watched Clone High. During the intermission (after episode 3) we started talking about relationships and whatnot–we got so involved that we talked for probably about 2 hours and never got around to putting Clone High back on. It was great, I do love a good conversation. It’s strange, and Marlo mentioned this tonight, that although we’ve known eachother for years now, we’ve never really had any meaningful, “deep” conversations. Typically thought exchange and (more often than not) superficial gab takes place over ICQ or blog comments. I was saying to her, and I think many people reading this will agree, that although I have a lot of friends – people in my social circle that I play D&D with or play tennis with or (when I had a job) work with – I keep intimacy level down with most of them: maybe you appreciate this; maybe you don’t care; maybe the gruesome details of my personal life make you uncomfortable and are at best contained on an impersonal blog entry that requires no emotional commitment on your end. I don’t open up to most people. Maybe that’s normal. I guess you wouldn’t expect me to pour my heart out every time we pass on the street. There are just particular friends in my life that by their very nature lend themselves to sympathy, sentiment, and confidence (as in to confide): most of these friends are girls. I think the reason for this is–and I don’t mean to stereotype, but–girls are generally more interested in and responsive towards intimate conversation. Secondly, I appreciate the female perspective simply because it is not the male perspective, which I have slightly less trouble understanding (for which I boldly gamble to assume are obvious reasons). In case you’re wondering why I’m being so verbose and informal – you’ve got Marlo to thank for that, she just got me started when she had to take off. But I’ve still got Kodos. I’ve always got Kodos.

So – nobody has a tape to tape recorder I can borrow, huh?

Fifth night of the play. I now get two nights off. Tonight was a pretty good show. I didn’t forget any lines. There were some lines I couldn’t deliver because some of the other actors forgot their lines that queued my lines, but it didn’t make any difference.

So on the second night of the play, I noticed that there was a board with all the actors headshots on it, which I guess is set up in the lobby just before the people (audience) arrive. I also noticed that my headshot was not on it. Obviously Dave had just forgotten to ask me for a headshot, and nobody noticed that mine was missing. Or nobody cared. So I meant to ask Dave about it (in some way that didn’t make me sound like a snarky whiner) but I forgot until last night–it was bothering me that much. The short version is that I brought my headshot, which is now fully 3-4 years old, in today, and I imagine they put it on the board. Mostly, I did it for you. I didn’t want to have to explain to any of my friends that came to see the play why my face wasn’t alongside the rest of the cast – firstly I can’t think of a more boring topic for conversation and secondly I don’t know what the answer is. I suspect that, as I mentioned, Dave just forgot. He’s a really smart guy and without a doubt he knows his stuff, but he does have D.A.S. (Dottering Absent-mindedness Syndrome).

Do you ever get in that mindset where you’re working out something and it just absorbs you – it’s a fantastic place. Though you may be on the bus or at work, you try to tune out the world so you can get back in that place where your brain is working on something you can truly get behind. Today I was working on a storyline for a Spaceship Zero adventure. I started thinking about it as I was walking to the bus stop, and though I brought some reading with me, I didn’t touch it. When I was on the bus I avoided all my usual people watching to figure things out… Is this guy going to secretly be bad or is that too stereotypical? What would happen if the heroes didn’t take this certain action? Oooh, what if the antagonists used this tactic?… that kind of stuff. I used to get into that (I hate to use this word:) zone all the time when I was writing stuff for Power Enterprise (my super-hero roleplaying game), but these days real life gets in the way all too often. Coming up with stories from nothing is something I never get tired of.

Fourth night of the play. My back hurts. I woke up with a dull pain (which then became a sharp pain, which then became a which leads me to blame a poor sleep. Another night of sleep may fix it, or I may need a massage. I’m actually not the kind of guy who goes around getting in on massages. They seldom do anything for me. They don’t relax me. I’m usually pretty relaxed at room temperature, so to speak. When I need a massage I need the kind that hurts: the meat-tenderizer variety; strong hands required. Anyway, the play went fine despite the pain. Have you noticed that typically pain gets worse later in the day? I actually think that it’s not the pain that gets worse, it’s your body that gets more sensitive. It’s true! And you know what else? The later in the day it is, the better things taste. ENZYMES. Yes. Which is ironic because it’s unhealthy to eat really late (i.e. 4 hours before you go to sleep or some such bullshit). My grammar has gone to pot. Strongbad would scold me.

Third night of the play – better than last night. It’s coming together, right now, over me. Had some guests tonight: Jon, Michael, others. Five in total. Also my agent came out as well. Everyone said they enjoyed it. Of course they are known liars. I botched up one of my lines, and I’m not sure why. It just kind of dropped. The line was “My client commited an act. He has been tried and found guilty of certain charges regarding that act.” For some reason, on the last word, I started thinking “act?” is that the right word? “Act?” I don’t know why I started second guessing it all of a sudden. Then I started to go backwards through my lines in my head, until I realized Idiot – you’ve got more lines to deliver…get going! And so I started stuttering out my next line. Then I recovered. I’m sure everyone noticed but it all happened in a split second so it’s no big deal. NO BIG DEAL!!!

Today I did s.f.a. Didn’t even get to do laundry because it was octopied. Mostly I fiddled around on the internet and went through my video tapes. I am trimming down my cartoon collection. Streamlining, if you will. Optimizing. I am taping over some stuff that I have, typically stuff that is of poor quality anyway so no love lost there. Goodbye Transformers: Beasties. I am excited about some of the second season Justice League episodes coming out though – from what I’ve heard they’re head and shoulders above the 1st season, which were entertaining, if not perfect.

Tonight Ween is playing, and I can’t go because of the play. Toren is sad. Even if I could go, I probably shouldn’t for monetary reasons. Hopefully Stephane will videotape it for me, if he’s going.

Tuesday Queens of the Stone Age is playing. I want to go see them, but I haven’t bought a ticket yet. I’m not sure if I will. I might be doing other stuff that night, I don’t know yet.

The good news is, this month sees a new Wheatus album. Remember that song “Teenage Dirtbag?” That’s Wheatus. I never really took much interest in them until I borrowed the CD and listened to it repeatedly while The Thickets were on tour one year. Turns out all the songs were quite pleasing to my ears. Now their second album is coming out, I only hope it’s as good.

As you all know, I am generally against blogs that just circulate URLs around the net, but this one is a particularly fascinating read: The Worst Jobs in Science (Fart smeller, Barnyard Masturbator, Isolation Chamber Tester, and more!). Thanks again to Phil….

In other news, nothing in this image actually moves, it’s all your brain:

Second night of the play – went much much more smoothly than last night. Although, in the intermission, I was supposed to put a chair onto the set. I forgot to do that. So during my scene I just grabbed it out of the dressing room and started my scene by carrying the chair on stage and sitting down, instead of starting the scene already sitting. It worked out fine. I forgot to mention that Dave (the director) gave us all gourmet jelly beans before the play on opening night, along with a personalized card for each of us. Tonight we didn’t get any jelly beans, so I compensated by buying orange Smarties.

I also went through the big book of coupons and tore out everything for Commercial Drive (that’s where the play is). Until now, I have only rarely been to Commercial Drive. What a fuckin’ weird street that is – a real salmagundi of classes, styles, and misc urban specimens. There is really no other street like it in Vancouver.

The crew invited me out for beers, but I declined in favour of going home and finishing my drawing. Which I did.