Master Minogue's Musings

Textin'

2011-09-09T12:50:00.001-07:00

My mother has the texting “skillz” of a teenager. A new millennial.

Just today, I received the following messages:

Ggle mad again.need new pass.loftperson.
Xaktly

From this I understand she’s locked herself out of her Gmail account. Again.

After receiving frantic texts and calls the last few times this happened, I ended up setting myself up as her recovery email address – it’s just easier.

Mum has the impression that her emails extolling the virtues on certain products, and her chastisements of other products are the hot commodity on the net. As a silver surfer, she changes her password at a rate most system administrators would find amazing. Sometimes I think she does it hourly.

The only thing wrong with this plan is that she sometimes (read often) forgets what her last secure password update was. Hence the teenage texts.

Anyway, all taken care of. Which resulted in:

Tku u2. love u mum

Tour of our new (penthouse) loft

2011-08-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

Leo and I are getting a loft in downtown Los Angeles. Here's a quick tour of the loft - waaaay prior to moving in!

Mr. Lick'em Chops won't know what's hit him! I am a tad worried he won't like being inside all day, but on the plus side - this will be the highest he's ever been, and he does so like impersonating a gargoyle looking down on folks and critters below.

Who knows, he may even seen pigeons fly past!

First Day of School

2011-02-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

My first day of class today - at a new school. No new friends yet, but old classmates and heaps to learn.

So strange how starting a new job still feels like starting at a new school. Where's the home room? Where's the canteen? Where's the bathroom?

This made me smile

2010-06-01T21:49:00.001-07:00

It doesn't include the $200 from yesterday, but yes, it's unusual indeed.

No Moon

2010-05-31T18:59:00.000-07:00

Luna died today. Well, she will die today. It’s strange, as she’s here with me still as I write this, but we have a vet’s appointment in 2 hours.

She’s sitting beside me on the trunk, panting. Almost I expect her to move from the pant sound, to the noise she makes when she’s about to throw up a hairball. Such a similar sound to the ear, and yet so different. I used to be annoyed at cleaning up hairballs, now, I wish that was the problem.

I was woken up around 3am this morning, by Luna – lying beside me at the head of the bed. She’s not been sleeping with me for the past few weeks, as it’s a lot of trouble for her to walk up the make shift ramp I’ve deployed by the side of the bed. A small water bowel on the third level in case she decides it’s time for a drink on the way to the top. But last night she made the trek, and woke me with an almost aggressive purr. She didn’t want water, didn’t want food – just wanted me – awake, to give her some strokes. A little time under the covers before she fell into a light sleep, curled up by my side, one paw stretched out to touch my arm.

Luna and I met while shopping – she wasn’t Luna then, rather she was a kitten being sold for $1 by a homeless man, I remember his cardboard sign, ripped from the side of a produce box. I was picking up some supplies for my first trip to Canada. I clearly remember some sirens sounding in the distance, and the homeless man ran off in a panic, abandoning the kittens he’d procured from somewhere in the hot August San Diego sun. Luna jumped out of the box and came trotting after me, on wobbly kitten legs as I entered the store.

I was leaving for Canada that evening, but was enchanted by her moxy, and huge, huge eyes. A girl who was adopting another kitten offered to look after her until I returned from Canada, and Luna has been with me ever since.

She’s named after a character on Sailor Moon – I felt it had nice symmetry. Dove tailing my love of cats, anime and Wonder Woman very nicely.

She’s done a lot in her life. She’s responsible for my friend David’s 5 cats. (He had a mean cat as a child, and didn’t like them. I had told him it’s all in how you raise them – Luna as living proof. She loved people, was good for a chat or a game, and never shied away from showing affection.)

Luna has been with me from my first long term relationship until my last. And god knows what in between. She’s always shown a preference for tall men, flirting with them outrageously with me in the room.

Luna was a drooler, from day one. She’d been taken from her mother when she was too young, so I had to bottle-feed her at first; paws knitting away, as she suckled on the bottle. From then on, whenever she was especially happy, she’d start to drool. Most noticeably on your lap, or shirt, or wherever you were holding her at the time, giving her a good pat. And she was happy a lot.

Right now she’s on the bed, breath coming in shallow gasps. They say cats hide pain, hide it well. And truth be told, she doesn’t seem to be hurting. That’s what makes it so hard. To my eye, she LOOKS fine. But from everything I’ve read, everything I’ve been told, she’s not fine. I know when I’ve been short of breath; every intake labored - how hard it is. When she is on my lap, her heart is beating so fast. So I know, intellectually she’s not fine; I just am having trouble reconciling the mental with the visual.

Her companion passed away 2 year ago now, in May. The years have just whizzed by. Luna has never been another cat cat – meaning she never suffered other cats willingly. But she and Artemis grew up together as kittens. They curled up, yin and yang style – her jet black to his creamy white. She’s off to join him now, and my house, and life will be emptier for it.

But my life has been far, far richer.

I love you Luna,

goodbye.

Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

2010-05-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

The post office is issuing stamps again.

Such a strange stamp, suitable to any occasion. I used it to post invitations to my wedding day, and now I blog about it here, in memory of someone who has died.

In other words, can't WAIT to be sending out heaps of mail with these stamps!

What's in a name?

2009-07-09T18:39:00.001-07:00

I was at work during most of the Michael Jackson Memorial. Over lunch, we headed to a local Vietnamese restaurant for a bite, and they were showing the live broadcast on ABC.

For whatever reason, the hard of hearing telex subtitles were on as well. Now, as this was live, those folks must have been typing up a storm, and they got a bit flummoxed when a boy from Wales came on stage to sing.

Shaheen Jafargholi.

Now, the boy can SING – but, he does have a hard name to spell, especially if you’re not from Wales.

This is what was said: “My name is Kenny, my name is Kenny Ortega, thank you, and I was Michael’s partner in the creating and directing of many of his tours, including “This Is It”. And Shaheen was invited by Michael to join him in London, for the show, so I just wanted to introduce him to everyone and to say thank you for coming out all this way to join us today Shaheen.”

What we saw on the screen was this: “My name is Kenny, my name is Kenny Ortega, thank you, and I was Michael’s partner in the creating and directing of many of his tours, including “This Is It”. Invited by Michael to join him in London, for the show, so I just wanted to introduce him to everyone and to say thank you for coming out all this way to join us today.”

The poor folks had no idea how to spell Shaheen.

You're how old?

2009-01-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

My agent calls me on Friday evening; he’s got me an audition spot at 10am on Monday for a print commercial. It’s a straight buy out, and they’re looking for a “Silverlake” type. In Hollywood speak this is basically edgy, fashionable, young, rocker, hip – the spot is for a mobile phone company.

Then comes the kicker, he got me a 10am spot, but realized that this is actually for the 18–21 year olds. But he says not to worry, as I can just go to the other slot that begins at 1pm, and explain that my agent booked me into the wrong slot. Making this a little bit worse is that this 1pm slot is for guys who are 24-25.

My agent commented that it wouldn’t be good to put me up against an 18 or 19 year old – all I can think of is that the casting director will need to have cataracts, cause the 25 set will need to have been doing a lot of hard living or we’ll just need to make sure there’s a good photoshop artist around if I land the job.

I can definitely pass for late 20’s – hell, I still get carded. But, even on my great days, passing for 24 would be a STRETCH.

Weighing the pros and cons

2008-12-19T19:31:00.000-08:00

I’ve been trying to catalogue the pros and cons of dating a 24 year old.

Pros:
• They’re 24

Cons:
• The fact that their house only has 1 towel (and by “house” I mean shared apartment where basic toiletries are strictly catalogued by roommate and can only be used by the official owner, and a bathroom that has to be locked in 2 doors so roommates don't inadvertently enter.)
• The twin sized bed with 1 pillow
• The lack of glasses (for champagne) and vases (for flowers)
• Having friends introduce your date at a party as “a very young friend of Mrs. DeWitt’s mother”
• Having said 24 year old ask what you’re doing for “winter break” this year

Hmm, well, after reviewing this, so far the pros still have it.

Dim Sum Sunday

2008-11-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

I went out for Dim Sum on Sunday morning, and my friend wanted me to try dishes I hadn’t tried before.

This is how I found out I am very western in my Dim Sum ordering: shu mai, hai gow, custard tarts, chicken buns, pork buns, Chinese broccoli, sesame balls, lotus balls, fried tofu – all good.

Though lately, my “strange” western palate has been pointed out by different Chinese friends. For example, people have chastened me for happening to like chili oil with my pork buns, and no amount of explaining will convince friends that a dash of soy sauce brings out the sweetness of sesame balls.

Anyway, growing up I was never a fan of kidney, liver or tripe. This really hasn’t changed. Which brings me to Sunday morning Dim Sum and my friend saying that I just had to try “nu zha”. I would have been fine doing that, but then he had to go and give me the ingredient list – with a literal translation.

“It’s made from pig’s intestine, pig’s liver, tripe, and then the soup is made with pig’s blood. Try it, it’s good.”

After that, going round and round in my head was “intestine, blood, tripe, liver, pig’s blood, intestine, blood, tripe, pig’s blood”.

I wish I’d just been told “it’s pork”. I don’t need to know where on the animal it comes from. If I know that, it just leads to thinking that has me joining Peta and becoming vegetarian with tofurky becoming a household staple.

I was eating the other dishes that arrived via hot steamy steel carts, but hadn’t yet got stuck into “nu zha”.

“You’re avoiding that, aren’t you?”

Well, yes, I was. But I picked up a piece of tripe anyway, and asked if I should add chili oil to it. The flat stare back was answer enough. I stuck it in my mouth and chewed. The taste was actually quite good, it was the texture that got me.

Like chewing gum, but without the gum.

Then with each mastication I could only think “pig’s blood, intestine, tripe, pig’s blood” like some strange voodoo ritual just inside my head.

I tried it – I ate it – I won’t order it again.

Nothing to fear execpt fear itself (and cars)

2008-11-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

Some days are just like this I guess.

Driving to work this morning on the 110 freeway in Los Angeles, I came to a large section of stopped traffic near the end of the freeway. The traffic lights were out, and a traffic cop was directing traffic.

It was at this point, I noticed my car taking a serious lean towards the right. This is how I came to find I had a flat tire on the oldest, narrowest freeway in Los Angeles. No shoulder, nowhere to pull over – just 1 of 3 lanes.

I put on the emergency lights, hopped out and opened the boot grabbing the jack and spare tire. It’s quite the special feeling to have a half mile of cars behind you, all stuck until they can get by you as you change a flat. On the bright side, the flat tire was on the side of the car away from the other traffic, and there were the lights that weren’t functioning. This meant that traffic was moving at a crawl anyway, so the chance of being mowed over by someone putting on makeup or texting was very slight.

Well, I’ve lived through one of my greatest fears – breaking down on the freeway – and lived to tell. With that one off the list, I hope this doesn’t mean that an actual vampire is going to break into my house at night, cause that’s on the list of my greatest fears too.

Riddle Me This

2008-11-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

I went for my naturalization interview yesterday.

After years and years of not even thinking about it, this last election season made me re-examine why I hadn’t done so earlier. Part of it was definitely not wanting to have any personal official document signed by the current president. And, at some point I would still like to go back to New Zealand. I think it’s just the fact that I’ve been very happy with my current state that it hasn’t been a pressing issue.

That said, I’ve also had more than enough of being hassled at customs due to my unique green card. You’d think, if you work for the government you should know the different types of green cards and immigration documents that are issued. You’d be wrong of course, but I guess it doesn’t mean that you still can’t think it.

My main worry had been the “test”. This consists of being asked a series of 10 random questions from a possible 100 – I'd been obsessing over the first 13 states, and the date the constitution was adopted. The rest were easy enough to memorize.

The government worker I got informed me my English was pretty good, so she was going to go fast. If I had questions, I should stop her, and then she barreled rapid fire into the questions.

1. What are the colours (sorry, colors) of the stars on the flag?
2. How many senators are there in the U.S. senate?
3. What are the three branches of government?
4. Who becomes president if the president dies?
5. Who is the current chief justice of the Supreme Court?
6. Who did we fight during the war of independence?
7. Who was president during the civil war?
8. How long is a member of the House of Representatives elected for?
9. What are the first 10 amendments to the constitution called?

AND...

10. What were the original 13 states called before they were states?

The last one ALMOST tripped me up, as I was wanting to rattle off the 13 names I’m memorized (in vain). But, I passed these questions with fly colors (still prefer colours).

Then she began to ask the questions that covered whether I was a drunkard or hired prostitutes or planned to overthrow any government. Perhaps America has had trouble in he past with drunk John's launching rebellion attempts. It sounds rather 1800's to me, but there you go. I guess it's best to learn from past mishaps.

Still when faced with absurd questions, there’s always that part of me that wants to answer “yes” and then launch into a very explicit explanation of why I did such a thing -

"Yes, I have frequented prostitutes while drunk, and OH the countries I would overthrow. Well, you see one night - after consuming 3 bottles of absinthe I ended up kicking Plantain out of the car, I didn't tip, well you know how that is. Prossies can so overcharge if they're just listening to you. I zipped up and thought about overthrowing Moldavia. Plantain asked for her bra back, "her" is the correct pronoun if they're transgender right? I forget. - Anyway, Moldavia is the country Michael Praed was from in Dynasty. I know it's not a real country, so I don't really think that counts as wanting to overthrow a government, cause it's a monarchy, but still, a pretend prince is better than not being a prince right? Sorry, what was the question again?"

– all of which would have been a complete fabrication, still, the urge is there.

I guess it's best that I didn't do any of that.

Jupiter's Ghost - 01/01/09

2008-11-10T09:43:00.001-08:00

Paradoxical

2008-11-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

My friend Mike and I were discussing ex's.

He mentioned that his ex has a lot of really ugly boyfriends in his past. Yet, his boyfriend thinks they were all cute.

And now, his boyfriend thinks Mike is really cute.

Is it a compliment to be told you're cute by someone with bad taste?

Does it call in to question how you view your own cuteness?

Let's hold hands

2008-09-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

I’m leaving Trader Joe’s this evening, and I was walking behind a mum taking her 3 year old(ish) daughter out to their car.

I had just seen them inside; the cashier had offered stickers to the little girl. She had readily demanded them, and her mum took the time to inform her of the polite way of accepting such a generous offer of free stickers.

Anyway, the mother, like me, had parked across the road from the crowded TJ parking lot. As they reached the sidewalk the mum asked in a super cheery voice:

“Who’s holding my hand as I cross the road?”

“Not me”.

I swear, that’s what came from the 3 year old’s mouth. A very sullen "not me". As I love contrary children to a fault, I thought this was a superb answer, though I can’t say that I think her mum agreed with me.

“Look, it’s either my hand or the cart, which is it?”

When you get into a debate with a 3 year old, I think you’ve already lost.

Nice accent

2008-09-01T13:06:00.001-07:00

So, I’m not English. I was raised in New Zealand, so have (currently) a curious mix of a kiwi and U.S Californian accent.

If you’re American, you can think of this as “British”. (If you're not American, then think "mutt".)

In America accents basically work like this; if you have fairish skin and don’t sound (American) southern, New York, Connecticut, or Californian, you are either:
a. Canadian, or,
b. British

If a & b don’t work, then in a pinch you are c. Australian.

That's it. Nice and simple.

This being the case, I wasn’t that surprised to receive a phone call from my agent saying he’d submitted me for a commercial on Thursday. It was an interstitial for Honda during the new season of America’s Next Top Model. They wanted someone to play a photographer, late 20’s through late 30’s, male, “think stereo-typical photographer”, oh, and British.

This was thrown in last minute. “Oh, and British”.

My agent explained to the casting director that I wasn’t “exactly” British, but (I was) from New Zealand.

Submit they said. So he did. And then he called to tell me.

Now, I can do a British accent, don’t get me wrong. But I’m more, “BBC English” or "Avon - from Blake's 7" rather than “lad about London” English.

Which is why my heart sank when I arrived at the audition and I felt as though I’d arrived in Chelsea in London – all the guys there were authentic “lads”. No BBC English in sight, nope, all lad about town, a little bit rough English.

Sigh.

Gone swimming!

2008-08-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

I ran across this picture from my mother that she mailed me. Not sure what it says about my Mum when I'm not surprised to see her in a bathing suit on her car port roof in the local paper.

The local city council had used ariel photographs to assess who in the neighborhood had pools, and sent bills out accordingly. The only problem with the technology is that Mum had a car port, but no pool. The first time she just went down to the council and informed them of the mistake, the second time she called the paper.

Bliss.

Got any tips?

2008-08-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

At the end of our day in Paris, Hide and I needed dinner prior to boarding the Eurostar for the trip back to London.

We crossed the road from the terminal and were roped into eating at a café right across the street. A swarthy European man with shoulder length hair pressed us first in French and then in English.

“I have English menu. It’s good, you’ll like it.”

Normally I’d need something more than this simple sell to get me into an eating establishment. Well, something more than that, or exceptionally cute wait staff – but I was tired, I’d been up since 4am in the morning, had been walking across Paris all day and just wanted to sit and something to eat.

So, his “hard sell” worked.

The wrangler passed us off to a server, who was an older French gentleman with white hair and a disturbingly waxed mustache. I say disturbingly as I haven’t seen a waxed mustache in person other than on film, and in historic photographs.

The place was reasonably busy, but not overwhelmingly so. The server took his time serving us, and he neglected to mention that the ice tea Hide ordered – not on the menu – would cost as much as the Kir Royale that I ordered.

I wouldn’t have been that annoyed, but, after making the international subtle gesture that we were ready for the bill, he sat and watched some television, talked with other wait staff and began waiting on other tables with people who’d just arrived.

The bill finally arrived, and I asked for change. To which he gruffly replied “Tip is not included you know.” To which I believe I replied “good”.

Living in America, I’m now ingrained in the tipping mode. If someone tells you the time nicely, I'll probably tip. In New Zealand last year I was tipping bartenders who thought I’d forgotten my change – the other meals I’d eaten in France didn’t have the servers asking for a tip. I believe it my obvious foreignness that had him thinking he was entitled to a tip. I just don’t believe in tipping for poor service, no matter the country.

Like I like you

2008-07-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Over the last month, I’ve become enamored of manga. Just certain ones – notably xxxHolic by CLAMP. xxxHolic happens to cross over with Tsubasa, and as I’m waiting for the latest installment of xxxHolic to be translated into English, I’ve started in on reading Tsubasa while I wait for 2009 to roll around.

So, I have the Tsubasa manga that I picked up at Borders during my lunch hour on my desk at work. We have several Phd’s on staff here at work, and he spotted it; which prompted the following exchange:

“Manga? Dude, you read manga?” – Dr
“Um, yeah. Do you like manga?” – Me
“Like manga? Well, I like it in the way I like 6-year old boys.” – Dr
“Excuse me?” – Me
“I mean, I like them, but wouldn’t pick them up, I wouldn’t take them home and I definitely wouldn’t bring them to work to have on my desk.” – Dr

Not sure what to make of that. On one hand, super creepy, and on the other, quite funny.

When a god passes

2008-05-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Artemis died on May 15, 2008.

I'd been expecting it, but not really. In the way you expect to win the lottery, but never really expect to win the lottery - if that makes sense.

I guess I'd almost be wanting it to happen too.

Well, before you get ALL up in arms about that sentence, he was 12, 3 months shy of 13. Around 68 years in human terms. In the last year or so he'd decided that he didn't really like to use the litter box to pee. For him, right beside the litter box was good enough, or failing that, on any nice soft thing. Towels, rugs, socks – any comfortable material item near the litter box was better than actually stepping into it. For Artemis, taking the trip inside the box was strictly for his number twos.

I'm not sure what changed in his mind about this, but I do know it was really frustrating. For the first few months when he made the decision to not pee in the box, I didn't realize he wasn't using the litter box.

I'd get home, and notice a pool on the floor around the box. At first I thought the litter box had a leak in it. I put down plastic, and then I attempted to try and find the leak in the box itself. I pressure tested it, searched for cracks and became quite flummoxed.

I even switched the box out for a new container, but it still kept happening.

Finally this precipitated the move of the litter box from the back hallway to the bathroom, as I figured a urine wash probably wasn't the best thing for hardwood floors, and tile was much easier to disinfect.

After the move, I discovered it was actually the old boy peeing in the litter box proximity. After an examination of him and the house I just gave in and bought some designated "Artemis towels". He'd use those to pee on and I'd wash them daily. This way he wouldn't feel the need to drag my pajamas or bathmat over to the litter box in the morning; it really worked out for both of us.

I guess this means I'll be going through a lot less bleach, and I can move the litter box back out of the bathroom. (Luna still being a lady does her business either in the great outdoors or in the coziness of the box.)

But I will miss his waiting by the door when I come home, and his insistence that one helping of dinner wasn't enough, or just one helping of breakfast come to that. The consummate fatman, he was already thinking about his next meal while he was wiping away the crumbs of his current feast.

I didn't like him getting up on the bed once he decided that he also liked to go outside during the day. After both cats discovery of all things outside on the deck, I stopped letting my cats into my bedroom. Artemis being a very fluffy cat would get very dusty outside, and during the summer he'd have a weekly bath. During the colder months I wouldn't bathe him, as it just didn't seem fair.

I bought him a bed of his own to sleep in that was nice, soft and cozy – but, in the mornings if I left the bedroom door open while I showered, I'd enter the bedroom afterwards to find him comfortably ensconced in the middle of my bed.

Now Artemis was always a large cat, and unlike Luna he has never been one to jump "up" on things. I was quite proud of his efforts to get on my bed that I just let him stay. I purchased a new bed this year and it is probably about a foot and a half taller than my old bed.

I got to witness his "climb" one morning – it was all brute strength and claws. He'd stand on his hind legs, and then like one of those crazy folks at 24 Hour Fitness climbing the rock wall, paw by paw he'd climb up the side of the bed until he could haul himself onto the flat, where, exhausted he collapse on a pillow for a snooze.

The crook in his tail, his really high voice, his blue eyes and chocolate points.

I guess I'll miss the companionship of these last 13 years.

Can you spot the difference?

2008-04-29T14:46:00.001-07:00

Spring in California

Spring in Minnesota

Pretty Woman

2008-04-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

So my former boss invites me out to a BBQ with her and her boyfriend last weekend. It was up the road from me, I had nothing else on so figured why not.

It was a Saturday afternoon, balmy and lazy. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, Annie picked me up – she was in jeans and a t-shirt. We located the house and walked up the path to the back patio where the BBQ was happening.

Their former roommate was there, and his friends, and then two girls. Well, ladies. And when I say ladies, I mean the “of the night” variety.

I didn’t pick up on it at first, but I guess their black mini’s and loads of bling should have tipped me off that they weren’t there for the BBQ meat. Sure, they were there for meat, but that’s too easy a pun.

Annie called their profession within seconds of arrival. I didn’t believe her at first, and by the time I did – I realized they weren’t the Julia Roberts type of working girl – these were more of the “cut a bitch” type of girl.

Anyway, they disappeared in the back bedroom for 2 hours – and emerged later wanting their payment. $250 to be exact.

I had dinner with coworkers later in the week, and there was a definite split on the sexes here. The women were all “that’s CHEAP!” – while the gents were “Wow, that’s A LOT!”

Private Gym

2008-03-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful Los Angeles Saturday afternoon. I arrived at my trainers' early, changed and was ready to go for my private workout session. At the start of the session, I was ordered into a weight vest, and my trainer got out a bicycle.

“Great!” I thought, I get to go for a nice bike ride on a sunny balmy afternoon. Which is when my trainer said “We’re going for a jog”. By “we”, he meant “me” – he got to ride the bike and I got to run.

After about a half mile we arrived at a local park; it had a large basketball court, bars and rings, green grass, swing set and sand pit. It was also packed to the gills with people.

I found myself being led to the chin up bar, which was about 7ft from the ground and in the middle of the park. A nice view for everyone there, which is probably why the bar was bereft of people. Normally I’d be able to jump up and grab a bar that high with no problem. However, that afternoon I had a problem – I’d just been running for a half mile, and I had a weight vest on. At this point, just jumping an inch in the air would have been a feat to behold.

My trainer wasn’t worried, “I’ll help you get up there, don’t worry. Then it’s a set of 10.” I felt rather like a 3-year old as I jumped and he grabbed my vest bodily hoisting me up to the bar. Then it was up and down, up and down – and I guess most people probably aren’t watching me – but it sure felt like it.

Next I landed on the ground and walked/stumbled and over to the grass for pushups. Where apparently my trainer mistook by back for an ottoman – as he began to sit on me to increase the resistance of the pushups.

This was the point where I collapsed face first on the grass and said “I had no idea that personal training also included public humiliation.”

He reassured me that no one was looking, and even if people were they’d just be thinking how strong I was, and what a great workout I was having.

None of which I believed in the slightest. I know if I was watching this particular scene from the sidelines “strong” and “great” would not be two of the adjectives I’d be using.

Of course he wasn’t done yet, and I had to endure another lifting to the bars for more chin ups prior to having to jog back out of the park past all the people who thought I was so strong and great.

Man About The House

2008-03-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

An Asian lady came into Famima!! this morning. She had a hoodie shirt on, grey slacks, big dark sunglasses and a green frog-like purse. Very pretty, with a mysterious air.

She stood eyeing our Steam Bun display, obviously waiting for someone to approach her.

I gave her a cheery “good morning” and asked if she needed any assistance. Which is when, I was treated to the following.

Please keep in mind that she was never able to look me directly in the eyes, she had her hoodie up, with her black bob hair pocking out around her chin, her dark glasses were shading her eyes and she kept her hand up over the top of said dark glasses as though shielding her face from non-existent sunlight. (Perhaps the fluorescents were too strong…)

“The police told me to come here”.

I kid you not – this was the first thing she said to me. The Los Angeles police, told her to come here, to Famima!! There were several things wrong with this sentence, but I let them slide I mean, I’m paid to look after customers – even if they are sent by the LAPD.

“I have my own home, I’ve had it for over 3 years. There’s a Korean Christian man in my home.”

For me, the devil was certainly in the details here. I’m not sure why his being both Christian and Korean was relevant to what she was telling me, but there you go.

“I’ve tried to get him to leave for 2 years, but he won’t go. I can’t use my home because he’s in it.”

I responded with a murmured agreement of how awful that must be for her, not being able to use her home for two years as it’s being occupied by a Korean Christian man.

“So the police told me to come here. I’m in a homeless shelter, and I’d like some food. Do you have any food you can give me? I don’t have any money, and I can’t go back home because of the man. He’s got a knife.”

Now I know I should be feeling the milk of human kindness flowing forth from me at this point – but ALL I can think of is this TittyBangBang character. I want to laugh. I can’t laugh. Which makes me want to laugh more.

I’m winding up my tour of duty at Famima!!, and if this had happened a year ago when I started I’d’ve been getting a meal for her right then and there. Of course, since my beginnings at Famima!! I’ve been (specifically AT Famima!!):

1. Robbed
2. Fleeced out of $70 odd bucks (see earlier blog entries)
3. Threatened in person
4. Lied to
5. Insulted
6. Received obscene, threatening phone calls

So I no longer react to this sort of story as I once would have – for better or for worse. I politely explained that we didn’t have any free food, to which she replied:

“What, none today? Ok.” And left. That's it - just walked out.

During the week we often have free samples – and the key here is that they are FREE SAMPLES. No story needed.

Still, it was interesting. I mean, he had a knife.

Spring Training

2008-03-06T15:44:00.001-08:00

I hired a trainer; a personal trainer. He admits I’m the strangest client he’s ever had, as I’m very giggly. I just can’t help laughing at myself, as I know I must look ridiculous exercising away.

I keep seeing myself in my mind’s eye, as we’re doing sit-ups on a sit-up board and he’s lobbing a medicine ball at me to tap behind my head before I come back up to throw the ball back at him. This is just not a serious sight.

The nice thing about this particular exercise is that right before we started it, I had to sign my waiver acknowledging the fact that exercising is a dangerous activity, and I waive my right to sue if something goes wrong.

Al I could do was keep picturing myself getting hit in my face (my beautiful face) with the heavy ass ball and knocking out my front teeth. “Now I’ll never be a teen model.”

In any event, it’s good to have someone correct form and really push you towards a fitness goal. No wonder celebrities are so fit. It still strikes me as really funny though.

The Velveteen Shirt - A Christmas Story

2008-02-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

Several years ago now, I used to routinely receive clothing as gifts from my parents. Any gift is a really nice thought, and you shouldn’t really complain.

That being said - my brother and I used to have to keep our faces from falling when we’d unwrap a sweater that was on the stern side of conservative; jeans that were an inch too short, or a couple of years out of fashion. Christmas clothing was about the worst thing you could receive – other than one of those cards that read a donation was made in your name to “insert charity here”.

Finally the parental units just stopped the clothing purchasing at Chrissy which was a blessing. Well, most of the parental units.

Somewhere in her late 40’s our mother developed a great fondness for any type of silk shirt – especially if the shirt appears that it could have been worn by a waiter unlucky enough to find themselves working at a very seedy Vietnamese restaurant in the early 80’s. These types of garments are the ones she regularly “rescues” from various Thrift/Op Shops for the (bargain) price of $1. You can hear her say, and I quote, “Silk is so cool to wear. It’s so easy to wash, it’s comes up wonderfully.”

This past Christmas I was presented with a package from my mother that she’d had my brother smuggle past customs. J mentioned that he hadn’t wanted to bring it, but he’d promised.

To be fair to Mum, the shirt itself is something that I would have worn when I was 19 and sneaking into 21 and up clubs with my friend Mark down in San Diego.

However, I’m no longer 19, I don't live in San Diego, it’s no longer 1994 and I’m not usually one to wear crushed velvety vaguely snake like material. I was almost longing for one of the oft mocked (on my part) silk shirts.

Mum has asked if I’m wearing it out - my only valid excuse for not wearing it more often is my Thai Fortune Teller has told me not to wear red. You can’t go against that can you?

Kylie Kylie Kylie Kylie

2008-01-30T19:12:00.001-08:00

DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND, VIDEO MAY APPEAR SLOW. IF YOU'RE HAVING PROBLEMS WATCHING A VIDEO, CLICK THE PAUSE BUTTON, WAIT A FEW MINUTES AND THEN SELECT PLAY!

Style-less

2008-01-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I now realize that I need more style.

At work this evening (at Famima!!) 3 Japanese tourists came in. It's LA, it's raining, and it's at night.

One of the guys had silver reflective sunglasses on, and the other had great jeans to which he'd attached a Pooh Bear phone screen cleaner doll (it's a tiny, tiny thing) and on his belt buckle a mickey mouse type puppet. This too was super tiny.

I realized right away that if I was to be wearing any of these items - sunglasses at night, small dolls attached to jeans I'd look like:

a.) an idiot
b.) a sad, sad fool
c.) uber gay
d.) a very uncomfortable combination of all of the above

But on these guys, it was just - c o o l

Here I am typing away in green, and it's so not my colour...

Spic and Span

2008-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

My brother and I used to clean our Mum’s house when we were there over weekends; we’d clear away clutter, file paper, and throw away rubbish. By the end of our weekend stay, the place was always spotless, sparking, and the very look of a model home.

Mum always took this with good grace, and was genuinely pleased with our little boy efforts in the housekeeping arena.

I never realized what an annoying habit this can be until this New Years. I had a guest with me that’s a compulsive cleaner. All week long papers were stacked into neat piles and placed in strategic places around my apartment. Cards and pens would magically gather in new meeting places out of sight making the place look spotless.

In other words, I can no longer find anything as it’s no longer where I left it. I’ll never offer to clean for another soul again.

You look like....

2007-12-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Kevin Spacey?”

That’s what I got told yesterday when I was at work at Famima. A couple walks in, and the guy lays that one on me. He didn’t even have the courtesy to say “a young Kevin Spacey” – just that (to him) I look like “Kevin Spacey.” And apparently people should have told me this.

I ordered them out of the store.

What Not To Wear

2007-11-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

Cold is as cold feels. Or something like that. It’s “winter” here in Los Angeles. We’ve been in the midst of Santa Ana winds, and the temperatures have been a “chill” 75 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Celsius). Admittedly, over the summer we were in the 90’s (30’s C). Still, it’s not THAT cold.

However, Californian’s love the look of winter; folks are out and about in scarves, woolly hats, thick jackets, and gloves. Basically steadfastly refusing to admit it’s just not that cold. It’s winter according to the calendar, so the winter wardrobe needs to get an airing.

I was treated to the other end of the spectrum last week when I went to Seattle for the week. There temperatures were in the low 40’s (around 4 – 6 Celsius.) Now, while I was there, Seattle was treated to sunshine. So, it was REALLY cold, but sunny – which is when I was exposed to native Seattleans in their thick woolly winter jackets, shorts and running shoes.

My legs were aching in agony for these folks. It’s one thing to put on hats and gloves when you’re in the 70’s, but, to put on shiny above the knee basketball shorts & sporty shoes to celebrate the sun in a blind refusal of just how bloody cold it is, is just plain crazy.

Gimme a “Y”

2007-11-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

I love the fact that my Mum text messages. She’s in her 60’s, and likes to email, surf the net (at her local library) and now she’s gotten into the whole cell phone SMS revolution.

The thing that I don’t love is reading her texts. As my brother puts it, she texts like she is charged by the letter, with an extra surcharge for vowels.

The most recent example:
“early lunch @ choc fish. driving honda jazz 4 test. rtcle free weather ok. xs”

Ok – breaking that down.
Early lunch @ choc fish – this is fine, she had an early lunch at the Chocolate Fish (a restaurant in Wellington)
Driving honda jazz 4 test – got it, a test drive of the Honda Jazz.
xs – kisses, got it

The thing that has me stumped is “rtcle free weather ok”

Is that “article free weather ok”? – well, that makes no sense...

Perhaps “reticule free weather ok” – I guess that could make sense; she has no small fabric purse from the 18th century, so she’s “reticule free”, and “the weather is ok”. Still, that doesn’t seem like something you’d text someone. “I have no 200 year old article on me right now.” It’s not even something I’d say to someone face to face. “No reticules on me today.”

I guess it’s just a mystery that I shall leave unsolved. A cold case to crack at a later date.

I guess I DO get this all the time

2007-11-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

I guess I never look like myself. I have a “face” face; people see someone else’s face rather than my own. This being the case, maybe I should contact the CIA and get a job as an undercover agent – as like McCavity the Mystery Cat – I’m not there.

This time I was out to dinner and the waitress said:
“Excuse me, you must get this ALL the time, but you exactly like my friend Scott Lowell. Ted on Queer As Folk – wow, it’s uncanny. Sorry, I just had to say that.”

I’m never quite sure how to respond to things like this. I hadn’t in fact seen Queer As Folk, I don’t get that “all the time”. I just smiled graciously and thanked her, as she genuinely believed this to be a supreme compliment.

Then I got home.

Thanks to our good friends at IMDB I see that Scott is a good 7 years older than me. And while there is a passing resemblance – if you’re drunk and don’t have your (strong) prescription glasses on/a contact fell out – I’m not sure “exactly” is the best adjective to describe the situation of how much we look alike.

Though a quick highly unscientific poll of work peeps got me a list of responses along these lines:
“Yes, you do look like him.”
“A little bit, yes.”
“Not an exact match, but yeah, you do.”

At least one of them had the grace to say that he looks 10 – 15 years older than me…

I think I shall have to begin a list of people I look like in LA. And thinking about it, I guess I do get this sort of thing all the time. It's just the male that I look like that changes every time.

If we're going to be retooling my life and I'm recast, like another Darrin the Dick York me can easily be replaced with no one really the wiser to the change.

Glaucoma

2007-11-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

My grandmother passed away this past week. This got me to thinking about times we shared together, and some I’d like to share.

On my last trip to New Zealand my grandmother, Nan, asked me if I’d ever tried marijuana. Nan suffered from glaucoma. She had a friend Gwyneth, who was in her 80’s. Gwyneth was married; her husband’s name is Colin. Now Colin had done some research on the Internet and discovered that marijuana was good for glaucoma. Being an avid gardener and a good friend, Gwyneth procured some marijuana seeds and she’d been able to grow them on her Bay of Plenty section.

On their last trip to visit Nan, Gwyneth and Colin had taken some, I guess you’d call it “primo stash” to Khandallah; where at a dinner party of the over 80 set they’d all shared it - as Nan put it "like a peace pipe” being passed around.

I can just picture Nan and her WWII generation friends all trying marijuana for the first time.

After relating this, (relatively) shocking story to me, Nan got up and pulled out her left over stash from the party. She’d explained that she asked an uncle to try it with her, but he was “too chicken”. I’ve never done any sort of drug, and wasn’t about to start now. Though I know members of my family that do partake, in fact I call their home “The House of Hashish”. Nan was very pleased to hear this, as she didn’t want to smoke it alone.

Anyway, in Nan’s little plastic baggy were about 8 fat doobies. She explained she was very worried having them in the house, as she didn’t want to be “raided”. The scandal that would cause in Khandallah! She talked about transferring the illicit medicinal drug to said House of Hashish where she could enjoy it in like minded company.

I have to admit, I was very proud of her; having researched and then tried an alternative treatment to help her eyes, all in her late 80’s.

Nan was never one to shy away from adventure. She back packed across Europe in her 40’s, had traveled around the world in her 50’s, 60’s & 70's – she was the living embodiment letting all her knew her know there’s really no reason to not continue living life to the fullest, no matter what your age.

Like looking in a mirror, a fun house mirror

2007-10-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

I’m shopping at my local Trader Joes last week, right after the gym. I’ve just had a relatively long work out, so I’m still in shorts, t-shirt, I’ve got my glasses on and my hair is kinda flat and spiky from sweat (so I’m wanting a shower).

I get to the check out, and the cashier looks at me and then at the guy behind me and loudly exclaims, “Is he your brother?! Are you two related?! Wow, you two look A LOT alike!”

With a feeling of trepidation in my stomach, I slowly turn my head around to get a view of this doppelganger behind me; and it’s so much worse than I feared. The look-alike guy is:
a. yes, wearing glasses
b. yes, is wearing a white t-shirt
but he is also:
a. older than me (a lot older)
b. fatter than me (a lot fatter)

So, perhaps, in a parallel universe where I was born in the 60’s and not the 70’s, and I’d begun shoveling copious amounts of fried food into myself and exercising a hellava lot less than I currently do I’d be FINE with the comment.

But I’m not in that universe, and while I have just come from the gym, I don’t feel that just wearing glasses and a t-shirt makes someone look, and I quote, “a lot alike” end quote.

To make things just that bit worse, the guy chuckles and responds “Well I can’t help it these days when folks keep stealing my style”.

HIS STYLE!? Gym shorts, t-shirt and sweat stains are not, never have been, and never will be “my style”. And I certainly don’t think they should be anyone else’s. Other than perhaps long distance Olympic runners.

I’m not sure I’ll go back to that Trader Joes…

Dear Diary

2007-10-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

When my Dad remarried, I gained quite a few things. One, I gained a stepmother, and from her, a stepsister; from my stepsister I gained a diary. She’d had one given to her and hadn’t used it – so she gave it to me instead.

My initial entry in this book (of dreams) was in 1983 – and my last entry was in 1995.

Basically it covers my teenage years – I was a sporadic writer at best. (kinda like this blog.) Reading this historical document, um, several years later, is quite an experience. One that I’m about to share on stage.

I wish that I could say that in a drunken moment I auditioned for “Mortified” – but I was stone cold sober. This is an outfit that has folks read, present, show material that was created during formative teenage years. There are Mortified chapters across the U.S. and one opening in Sweden.

I’ll be going on stage and reading from my diary – to complete strangers. This doesn’t bother me at all.

What does bother me is that I mentioned this to friends at work, who are now all planning on coming to the show. I don’t mind baring all before folks I don’t know – but I’m not sure that I’m ready for my coworkers and friends to know the 13 year old D.

Pure Evil Bottled - Soju

2007-09-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

In the future I will know I've had too much to drink when Soju starts to taste good.

Karaoke evening in Wellington with my brother & sister-in-law this week. We hired a private room at the Korean BBQ on Willis Street. Now Karaoke is more fun when a little tipsy - however, my first taste of Soju was an instant "Oh this is awful". After 3 hours (and I dread to think how many bottles and ill advised songs) Soju was GREAT!

Until we got up to leave and found that walking, and keeping down the evenings meal was no longer possible.

J & I could do one or the other, but not both in conjunction.

Soju = pure liquid evil

Criminal Intent

2007-09-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm driving with my Mum back into Wellington the other day. As we head towards Porirua we pull up behind a BMW.

Mum immediately comments that the car could be stolen. I ask what has drawn her to this conclusion.

"Well, the car is dirty. Normally a nice car is kept clean, but that one is really dirty. So, it's most likely that the vehicle has been stolen."

I really need to make sure my mother never sees my car. She'll be handing me over to America's Most Wanted For Crimes I Didn't Commit with unfailing logic like that.

When wrong is right

2007-09-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Mother turns 10 minute drive into 30 minute tikitour of Wellington beaches.

Ms. G. Philips, mother of 4 sons, took a wrong turn on the way to 'The Chocolate Fish' in Scorching Bay, Wellington New Zealand on September 19, 2007.

While making a u-turn at a dead end on a hill in Wellington, Ms. Philips (after asking for directions) remarked "This is the right way to go" prior to making the next 4 lefts to get out of the hills and back down to the coast.

I think your dipthong is hanging

2007-09-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

I'm in New Zealand at the moment. I've had a rather good facility for various accents for as long as I can remember. Well, born in Oz, raised in NZ, lived in Brunei & the U.S., traveled to the U.K. - I've had a rather good dose of English in all it's various accents & disguises. Which makes the following all the more disturbing.

I answered the phone the other day at my brothers house, and the conversation went something like this:

"Good afternoon" - me
"Hi, is J there?" - dude on the other line
"No, I'm sorry he's not. Would you like to leave a message?" - me
"Sure - tell him that Noel from La *@##$$#Hc called. His loats are ready to be picked up." - dude that just id'd himself as Noel. (I was unable to catch the company he worked for...)
"Loats?" - me
"Yeah, loats. There's one box of loats, and they're ready to be picked up." Noel
"A box, of 'loats' are ready to be picked up." - (very uncertain) me
"Yeah, his loats, that's right. Cheers mate." - Noel

I'd repeated the mysterious word as I had heard it to him and after I got off the phone, "loats, loats, loats...." and I still had NO idea what loats were. Now, J, my brother is building some houses. This means it's quite possible that this is some new building thing I hadn't heard of before.

J came home & I gave him the message. Unfortunately J didn't know any Noel, and had never heard of loats either. As I hadn't gotten a number or the name of the business he was a little stumped.

Over the next hour or so he figured it out.

It was Noah, from Wellington Light & Electric who'd called, and his lights were ready to be picked up.

Miss Marple, you're needed

2007-09-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

I heard a scratching sound this evening, coming from the vicinity of my back door. With the recent opossum trouble around my place I quickly paused my Miss Marple mystery on my mac and went to investigate.

Los Angeles is currently in the grip of a 7 day heat wave. I had been doing chores outside earlier today, and had been taking a bit of sun. About mid afternoon I’d run a cool bath and had submerged myself in the poor mans pool for half an hour. The nights are still muggy and tropical, so I’d left my water in the tub and was planning to throw some ice in there later on and get back in. That way I could go to bed cool for once this week.

One bad thing about living alone is that currently Miss Marple is in my Netflix queue, and watching murder mysteries alone at night causes mysterious scratchings coming from where they shouldn’t to end up sounding like murder or something just as ominous.

Anyway, I make it to the bedroom door, and see a massive puddle and trail leading from the bathroom towards the front door. Luckily there was no body, and no need of a spinster detective to solve what had happened.

My cat Artemis had decided he’d like to lie on the cool porcelain bathtub surface, so he’d jumped in my tub – not realizing that it was quite full of cold water. The scathing had been him frantically clawing at the smooth porcelain surface in order to lift himself out of the water. Finally gaining a purchase he’d flung himself out of the tub, and was trying (unsuccessfully) to walk with a quiet dignity to the front door. His little legs, normally so fluffy were quite bedraggled as was his fine puffy tail. His staggering water-logged gait made him seem a bit like an old drunk man, vainly trying to walk a straight line for an officer when he’s being arrested for disorderly conduct. The puddle trail zig zagged as he’d made his way to the door where he was sitting waiting to be let outside. For all the world trying to make it look as though this had been his master plan all along.

I don’t think he liked me laughing at his misfortune.

I'm betting it's cold comfort to him that I had intended to give him a bath today, anyway I bet he’s cooler than he’s been all week.

The crime scene

Through the kitchen

One pissed off cat

My psychotic short film

2007-08-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

When will it be saved? WHEN?

2007-08-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

Ok - I know what this story from CNN is about, but I really think they should have done a better job with the cropping of this picture. It really makes Greg Letiecq look like he's campaigning for something else...

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House

2007-08-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

My cats are getting up there in years. They’re over 12 years old now; I have the feeling that they might be getting a bit senile.

About a week or so ago, they began defecating outside the litter box, and generally making a mess around the house. Well, the solution to this was to put them outside when I wasn’t home and overnight when I was in bed.

They’re old, but still quick. I have had them banned from my bedroom now for longer than this total house ban when I’m not home. I had left my bedroom door open one evening as I was going back and forth from the living room, and of course they always want to go in a room where they’re not allowed. As I return to my bedroom, my black cat Luna looks up, caught red handed in my room. She nimbly jumps over this weeks washing piles (sorted into delicates, white and dark colours) and speeds out the door. As I step to where she was I notice fresh poo.

Well, I was furious.

The litter box is clean, and accessible. I haven’t changed my schedule, their food, so I was very unclear why they were acting this way. I grabbed both cats and rather like Dino and Fred from the Flintstones launched them out the front door.

That night at around 3am I was waked by a “crunch, crunch, crunch” sound. As it’s summer, and hot, my windows are open. Noise travels a long way at night, so I thought it might have been some cat outside munching away on food left for strays by various neighbors. As I tried to settle back down to sleep, the “crunch, crunch, crunch” continued.

Had I left the door open? Was there a hole in the window screens that the cats had definitely climbed through to take their “rightful place” inside the house? Cause it seriously sounded like it was coming from within my house.

I got up and went into the kitchen and turned on the light. There, on the seat happily feasting on cat food was a baby opossum. This was the nasty thing that had been besmirching the good name of cats the world over. This was the evil creature that had been pooing and peeing with such abandon wherever it wanted. This was Satan’s spawn that Luna had been trying to warn me about in her trip into my forbidden room.

Seeing the light come on, the opossum hissed, jumped off the chair and ran under the sink. So began my next hour. Me, armed with my broom and various other objects trying to corner the opossum and get it back outside where it belongs. The opossum using its natural defenses of smells and nimbleness to escape under the old heavy stove trying to stay in what it considered its new home.

I finally had to get some sleep, but got up again after about 3 hours to try again. By this time, the opossum had retired to the lounge, where it had been climbing shelves, rearranging knick-knacks and tabletop items to suit opossum esthetics.

I located the evil looking thing at the bottom of my bookcase. I moved my couch giving it a straight line to the door, and opened the front door nice and wide. Then I grabbed my broom and vacuum for round two.

My cats hate the vacuum, and always head outside when they even see me grab it. I turned it on, and the opossum was no exception – but rather than going outside it squeezed itself under the bookcase.

The broom followed giving the opossum a sharp series of smacks each time I was able to locate it. Finally the punishment grew too much and it ran out from it’s refuge and up the side table leg. I managed to whack in on the head and it fell to the ground. I quickly flipped the broom around and began sweeping the spiteful thing towards the door. Just as I had it at the door it dodged a particularly fierce sweep that would have had it sailing out the door and it sped back inside to the kitchen and underneath the stove.

I had to get to work, so I informed my landlord, who:
A. laughed & laughed
B. said he’d help me move the stove that evening

We missed each other that evening – and the next morning there was more opossum opoo in the lounge.

When I returned home that evening, my landlord informed me that he had heard noises from my apartment that day, had gone in, and the opossum had decided it’s last redecoration of knickknacks hadn’t been quite right, so it was shelf climbing again. He’d swept it outside, and had hopefully scared it so much that it wouldn’t come back.

But, like some horror movie, that evening when I returned home, there sitting on my deck were the mother opossum and her two baby pups, waiting; just waiting for a door to open so they could scurry inside.

I slipped past the evil trio, grabbed a basin full of water and doused the lot of them. Then I grabbed my broom and sent them scurrying off the deck with sharp smacks to their hindquarters.

Yesterday afternoon, the baby devil opossum was back on my deck, and as I opened my door it ran towards it. My broom is now stored by my door and I grabbed it to smack it away – however it spotted the bristles heading its way and ran into the laundry room instead.

Well, if nothing else I owe my cats’ chicken dinners for a week. I’ve now begun disinfecting my entire house. It was in cupboards, under bookcases and my piano. Just everywhere – Luna has decided she doesn’t want to come back in the house, and she’s not convinced it’s opossum free.

As for me, it’s now constant vigilance my friends, constant vigilance.

Birthday Riches

2007-07-31T18:12:00.000-07:00

When my brother and I were young, one of the highlights of the year was our respective birthdays. The party, the cake, the presents – but, what we looked forward to at 5 and 6 years old was the money.

Our grandparents gave us a dollar for every year we turned older. $7 for turning 7 years old, $6 for turning 6. GRAND!

We used to have discussions before, during and after our birthdays, counting our riches – and speculating on turning 100, NO – wait, 150. This was a sure fire way to make money and get rich. All we had to do was just keep having birthdays, and, if the trend of getting a dollar extra every year continued there was no end to the amount of money we’d be bringing in on a yearly basis.

To my six-year-old self, $150 was more than enough to live on for, well who knew how long $150 would last. Kbars were 10c at the local dairy, sherbet was 25c, and comics were 75c. So, that was – hmm, carry the 1 – well, it was a lot. A lot more money than I usually had. I knew counting to 150 took a long time, so it surely was a lot of money. Every year, just more and more money pouring in.

My grandfather passed away in the early 1990’s.

The one flaw in the plan that the child in me failed to see was that things never stay the same. People aren’t always with you, that what you have today isn’t necessarily what you’ll have tomorrow. Well, the other flaw was I wouldn’t always be living at home not paying rent and being fed for free. But I’m pretty sure that’s a secondary flaw.

Still, a dollar for EVERY year – just think about turning 500…

Message from Ashley

2007-07-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

I woke up the other day and checked my email. I know, probably a bit sad, but it’s a habit now. Roll out of bed and on over to the computer; I click my nice gmail widgit and it tells me if I’ve received any new mail whilst I've been away from the computer.

I've always loved getting mail, physical or virtual - so I really like to see if I’ve received any missives from my various friends and family around the globe while I've been asleep. I mean they've had hours and hours to message me while I've been out with the sandman.

Anyway, the other morning my little blue message notifyer informed me that I had a new message from Ashley, on my MySpace page. Well, I only know one Ashely, she's in my improv troupe. I didn’t exactly recall adding her as a friend on my MySpace account, but we are in an improv troupe together, and we did have a show coming up. A rather big show in fact, where we were also going to be performing some originally sketch comedy. I'd written some material for the show, so perhaps something had come up regarding that.

Keep in mind it's the wee small hours of the morning, and as such I wasn’t that surprised to be receiving a message from her – though she does have my direct email, so it was a little curious as to why she’d be emailing me indirectly rather than directly.

Well, I brought up a new browser and diligently logged onto MySpace and saw the “NEW MESSAGES” icon. I went ahead and clicked this - which is when I received quite an eyeful for first thing in the morning.

Turns out it was THIS Ashley that was messaging me:

Not THIS Ashely:

I mean there’s anything wrong with either Ashley, but Ashley1 had a slightly different message for me than I was expecting at 6:30 in the morning.

Apparently Ashley1 wants me to respond to her outside email, she's got some really great pictures to share with me, but she "hardly ever" checks her MySpace account. Which is curious to me, I mean she logged on and took the time to message me....

I want it now, not later

2007-06-22T14:40:00.001-07:00

I like the fact that the local sandwich place/coffee shop near work in Pasadena has espressos late.

Though as they actually shut pretty early, perhaps “late” is a relative term.

I mean COME ON - didn't *someone* at the sign place say "hey guys, this isn't how you spell latté"?

I'm on the phone!

2007-06-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

There’s a new kid at work. Work being my second job, and “new” in a relative sense; he’s been with the company for about 2 or 3 weeks now. So he’s newer than me, but he’s not so new as not to know what to do.

We were closing the store, and as the evening hours climbed ever higher, his output got ever slower. Until by the end of the night, I really wanted to do something like smack him, or poke, or anything – just to get him moving.

I was wondering if he was the slowest worker I’d ever had the misfortune to be working with, until I remember an old Toys R Us colleague – who TRU paid to do nothing, literally.

This was back in the earlyish 90’s, and our TRU store had just got itself a new hands-free telephone answering system. It came with two phone packs, employees would wear these – a nice headset, and while you were working on the floor you could take calls. This was especially great for stock checks on the fly, when a customer HAD to know if you had one of the new Cabbage Patch Picnic Time kids in, or how many Megazords were left in stock.

The arrival was precipitous, as it was Christmas time, and the phones lines were red hot with inquiries and parents searching for the must have toy. Miranda was an Indian girl, she was hired during the Christmas rush – the managers weren’t too familiar with the new headsets – but wanted to get them out right away to relieve some of the hold time potential customers were experiencing. Miranda volunteered to wear one of the sets on her shifts.

Miranda could then be seen walking the aisles, purposefully looking for items and talking into the headset. You could hear her tell callers how many Pink Power Ranger figures were left in stock, what Super Soakers were available. Miranda was clearly on the phone, so customers actually in the store were never able to stop her and ask for assistance, as she was clearly already assisting someone else – on her headset phone.

If someone was wily enough to ask a question in-between her sporadic speech into the headset, she make her way to the stock room for a quick check of an item that we were out of on the floor – but would helpfully send the customer to the front desk for more assistance as she disappeared into the cavernous “employees only” back stock room.

This was her regular routine for a few weeks leading up to Christmas, and about this time we got a new manager in the regular TRU managerial rotation. This manager happened to notice that Miranda’s headset was never turned on – in the back.

So all those phone calls hadn’t really been phone calls at all. Miranda had been coming in for 8 – 12 hours a day (with overtime) and just been wandering the store, talking out loud to herself. She’d been taking breaks, her lunches, and then heading back out for more....talking to herself.

I was impressed with her ingenuity – the amount of time to actually come up with these one sided communications was well played. But, I can’t help thinking that it would have been more interesting to actually take the phone calls.

Yum Cha!

2007-06-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if I find this funny, worrisome, or just sad.

I enjoy Dim Sum, or “Yum Cha”, depending on which part of the world you’re in. I will try new things, but am still too western in my thinking to get down with chicken feet – and my dislike of tripe makes me stay away from the beef tripe when it rolls by in a little steaming silver cart. And I get worried about silly things like, will the waitress think I’m stupid, what if I don’t pronounce the dish correctly when I order it – anyway, I get through this and order. Generally I’m with friends, sometimes with someone that speaks Chinese, sometimes not. But every time I’ve had a delicious meal, and I always want a lotus/sesame ball.

So, when I was with friends this evening and heard the following I didn’t know what to think.

Rog and his wife went for a Chinese meal this past weekend in Chinatown in LA. Their favorite place was closed, so they went upstairs to the Dim Sum place.

They knew what Dim Sum is, but didn’t “know” what it was. He explained they were expecting a menu, so after sitting down and having the lady arrive with a cart offering the steaming dumpling she had within the cart, they were thrown for a loop. Hence, they waved her on, the next lady was approaching, they looked at each other, said “no” (to each other in the way that couples have), and left. In the space of about 30 seconds.

Then, I was asked by Amanda where I’d gone on my vacation. I said Thailand. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Amanda:
OH! Have you been to Thailand before?

Me:
No, but now I have!

Amanda:
Did you like it?

Me:
YES! IT was AMAZING! Great people, great food, it was just awesome. I loved it! I would really love to go back.

Amanda:
So, did you meet any nice Taiwanese guys on your trip?

Me:
......Yes...... I did, in Taiwan. I also met some super nice Thai guys in Thailand. That’s where I went, Thailand.

Anyway…..

I’m not sure which interaction disturbs me more, and I’m not sure if I’m mad at myself for being disturbed. I have SO confused people and places before; I’ve also been worried about new experiences. Then again, the new experiences worries have generally been in a country I’m visiting rather than the one I was born and live in.

However, these are people that can vote in this country that I’m currently living in, and have some very definite views on immigration and other subjects.

Oasis

2007-06-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

I felt as though I’d been transported to Egypt yesterday. Walking with coworkers down to Famima!! for an afternoon coffee, we cut through the Vroman’s parking lot in Pasadena.

Then, appearing like a mirage in front of us, a woman emerged from the bookstore and walked past our group – stopping me in my tracks - literally.

It was a hot, sunny afternoon, she was wearing tan, Capri knee length shorts, reminiscent of an Egyptian desert – and in the midst of all this “sand” was a very large camel toe.

As she walked away from us, (ostensibly to her car) Vroman’s bag in one hand, purse in the other we had clear VPL.

There are some things I just don’t expect to see in an independent bookstore parking lot. And there are some things we should never have to see anywhere.

This fits both categories.

So fugly it hurts

2007-06-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

OMG

I can not stop reading this site. I am having to have the very painful silent laughter at my desk at work while waiting for my next project to arrive.

Acerbic, sweet, insightful, informative and just plain funny.

READ!

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

Deux cafés s'il vous plait monsieur

2007-06-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

I was in Target this afternoon picking up some Father’s Day cards, cat food, etc – and as I was selecting my items a woman with her screaming toddler were slowly perusing the same aisles.

The toddler looked to be about a year and a half old, and was screaming/wailing/crying up a storm. His mother was attempting some half hearted “calming down” techniques as she searched for what ever it was she needed.

I marveled at her forbearance, and her ability to block out piercing sound. This brought to mind a trip to the mall I made just prior to heading over to Thailand. I was in need of some new shorts, and wanted to stop by the mall to see what Guess had on offer.

As I entered the Galleria via one of their department store main entrances, I happened upon an 8 year old rather chubby child – he was on his knees sobbing, tears running down his round red face, and he was being dragged towards the door by his father.

Now part of what impressed me here was the father’s strength. The father was a short Mexican man, and his son was rather generously proportioned – the father was having very stern words with his son in Spanish as he step, by slow step dragged his crying son across the slick floor towards the doors.

The son replied in English to everything his father was saying in Spanish – saying how he’d be good, how he was so sorry, that he’d never do it again, and could they please, please, PLEASE stay, he didn’t want to go.

This is the second part of what impressed me. That while the parents may not have instilled in their son a proper sense of decorum of how to comport oneself when appearing in public, they’d done an awfully good job with languages. The crying boys bilingualism was in full force as he understood what his father said and answered in English – it brought to mind one of those immersion language courses where you’re only allowed to speak the language you’re learning. And I thought, once you’ve learnt two languages, it’s only a hop skip & a jump to learning three or even four. This kid could be some sort of translator, or diplomat or who knows what else if he keeps this up. Well, now wasn’t really the proper time to go over to the father and say how impressed I was with the two of them.

As I made my way across the store to head into the mall proper, the sounds of the sobbing tantrum growing fainter and fainter I only half hearted wondered what the incident was that made the father want to eject his son from the store. I regretted not continuing with my language studies when I was younger – as I only know smatterings of French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai & ASL. I’m more fluent in ASL than anything else other than perhaps French. Never having been to France, I may not be as good in French as ASL – as I can really only ask “if there is a bus for the swimming pool” and “how much is that” along with other niceties in French. “Deux cafés s'il vous plait monsieur.”

Anyway, I was heading for Thailand, and I needed those shorts – now, where’s a mall map when you need one?

Main Course

2007-06-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Years ago now, in one of my English courses in college I remember reading a short story about a young protagonist whose life changed over one summer. In part of the story, the character developed a “signature scent” (something Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez & Britney Spears have all done) at the behest of one the other characters in the story.

I liked the idea so much, that I began, back then to mull the thought over. When Garden Botanika stores were around, you could go in and mix and match in your own (semi) private “parfumery” – concocting enticing and mysterious scents to your hearts – well, at least your wallets content.

I knew I wanted something summery, warm, tropical – so I settled on something with hints of coconut and vanilla. I’ve been wearing it now for years, and it’s also a pretty good indicator of whether I’ll get on with someone. Those that don’t like it, are normally people I don’t get on with. The reaction from others has normally been somewhat uniform – with folks telling me that it’s light, not overpowering, that the scent inspires memories of summertime’s past, lazy days on the beach, tanning in the sun, or that it’s reminiscent of the scent of a fine cigar smoked by a favorite grandfather.

At least until I got to Thailand.

I was out for coffee and chit chatting with my friend Chai, and his friends. A tropical monsoonal downpour was happening, so we were safely ensconced in the coffee establishment – lightning overhead, thunder crashing – a young boy was frightened but excited by the storm, his older brother walked over to him and put his arm around him as they both watched the rain coming down in sheets – momentarily catching the city of Bangkok illuminated by the brief burst of lightening.

Anyway, the storm cleared, and we finished our drinks and then all made our way to our respective cars – Chai and I had to almost paddle through a new “river” created by the deluge of rain. His car was up to its undercarriage in water. As he went to get in his car, I said goodbye to the friends and would soon be off to my hotel.

Later Chai and I were talking, and he was laughing saying his friends said I smelled like coconut. He’d assured them I didn’t smell of coconut – but, he thought he’d better ask me just to be sure. I said that, yes, I do have a cologne and part of it has a coconut undertone. Too which he just laughed.

Chai began explaining that he’d NEVER heard of anyone using coconut in a cologne before – especially in Thailand where coconut is a staple of cooking.

So, while overseas my custom scent is “exotic, beachy and summery”, in Bangkok I apparently smell merely of that night’s main course. Or perhaps I’m a sous chef who’s just come from the kitchen without having had time to shower before going out.

Number One Factory!

2007-06-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

I learned some Thai prior to my Thailand trip. I thought it only wise to be able to say “thank you”, “hello”, “how much is this” and a few other choice phrases such as “this is delicious” and “I don’t want that” in Thai on my vacation.

By the end of my trip, I ended up feeling that I just hadn’t learned enough Thai. I say this because of my last “scam” experience in Bangkok.

Now let me just say that I had heard all about the “number one factory/jewelry” scam in Thailand from travel books and the Internet. So when I was approached by a tuktuk driver within hours of hitting the street on my first day in Bangkok I was too intrigued NOT to go.

Which is how I found myself visiting the temple of the standing Buddha and another Buddha temple for the low low price of 30 bhat. The tuktuk driver assured me that as it was a special holiday time in Thailand he would get a gas coupon from the government if I’d just spend 10 minutes in a “number one factory” in Bangkok. I could “Get nice suit, look good!”

He had such a toothsome grin and an appealing earnestness to his salesmanship that I actually began to believe that I might want to get a suit made for me at this “number one factory”. That is until the arrival at said “number one factory”. It wasn’t a factory, or at least, what I’d consider to be a factory. More a shop. A small shop, boasting material. It was run by an Indian gentleman and his "silent type" Thai assistant. As I said, it was small, rather cramped and filled to the brim with really ugly silk prints, tightly wrapped up in bolts. Nothing I’d ever want to buy, even when drunk.

So, I asked about the “free gas coupon”, much to the disappointment of the owner. He mumbled something about “yes, yes, coupon” and I left. This upset my tuktuk driver, as he said I hadn’t spent 10 minutes inside. I was feeling pleased I’d managed to last upwards of 3 minutes. Then my tuktuk man said that he had an “even BETTER number one factory to go to, much larger”. And off we went, bobbing and weaving among the Bangkok traffic. Sweat rolling down my back, as I tightly gripped the metal bars in the tuktuk to prevent me from flying out into the road and being run over by thousands of cars.

I said I didn’t really need to see another factory, and just how much was this “gas coupon” anyway? I’d PAY him for the gas coupon, and he can just take me back to the hotel. Well, he wasn’t having any of that, and we went by a 2nd “factory”/store. One through the doorway I made myself take slow measured steps, slowly counting off the seconds in my head to get up to the required “10 minutes” so my driver would get his coupon and then take me home. I was immediately set upon by another Indian gent, who again began to extol the virtues of the suit they’d make me.

I explained I didn’t want, nor need a suit, but did they have any t-shirts. They did, and I managed to knock them down from 1,500 bhat to 1,000 bhat – which I now know is still WAY to expensive. After 9 minutes in this place, I really wanted out. Plus I had a whole other building to walk through, and I knew I’d more than passed my 10 minute mark.

The 2nd building was pay dirt – it was a rabbit warren over 3 stories – and here was where I was offered my authentic “jewelry”. As I wandered about, having the virtues of cubic zirconium explained to me I was able to see other chagrined tourists being led through the same building. While I was finding the whole thing extremely amusing, these poor folks apparently hadn’t known what they were letting themselves in for – and they were NOT amused.

On the 3rd floor, an old Thai woman was really pushing me towards a suit she’d make for me and “Armani cuts” were her specialty. As I left and was guided through other areas stocked with knick knacks I might like to buy I stopped in the final room to look at (relatively) cheap souvenirs.

I managed to impress my Thai “hostess” by asking for the price of certain objects in Thai. “Ohhh, you speak Thai” she gushed, and actually gave me a “normal” price on one of the knick knacks. Feeling more warmly towards her than the suit lady, I paid the 100 bhat for a souvenir for my nephew and went on my way back to the tuktuk driver, who apparently feeling somewhat bad offered to take me around to some more places prior to the hotel. I declined and asked to JUST be taken back to the hotel – no need to stop at factories, number one or otherwise.

Which brings me back to my last scam. I was at the mall on my 2nd to last day in Bangkok, and was killing a few hours until my glasses would be ready. Glasses I’d ordered the day before – and for only $150 US would be ready at 5pm.

This was at the Silom center. I was just wandering looking at shops, food stalls and people. I’d noticed this Thai guy ahead of me a few times, and he’d positioned himself at the top of the escalator. I got off, smiled a greeting and kept walking. He obviously summed up his courage and then came up to me and said gushed “hello” in English.

I returned the greeting and we walked together for a bit away from the escalator making very small talk. “What’s your name”, “how are you”, things of that nature.

I wasn’t sure if he was wanting to chat, have a date, or something more. That is until I was able to make out, “come with me”, and “number one factory”. Well, by this time in Bangkok, I was hot, tired, and had no desire to tell more Indian gents that I really didn’t need a suit made, even if “Armani cuts” were their specialty.

I wanted to be able to express this to my new friend, but my Thai vocabulary was less than a 2 year olds – so all I could say was “I don’t want that” and “thank you”.

My new friend also had limited English, but he was able to get out a heartbroken “you don’t like me” when I told him “Mai ow” (I don’t want that). He looked SO distraught, and was very upset – I quickly said that “he was adorable”, and “it’s not that I didn’t like him” it was more that I didn’t want to visit any more “factories”, be they “number one” or not.

But he couldn’t understand me, and I couldn’t understand him – and this is why I’d wished I had the time to learn more Thai.

The fact that someone took the time to try and learn enough of my language to pull one over on me, was just so, well, nice. He was so nice about trying to get me to go with him to this factory that I still have a little sadness that this guy thinks I didn’t like him, which is why I wouldn’t go to see his factory, when it wasn’t that at all.

I guess there’s always next time. Who knows, by then I truly may need to have a suit, with a nice Armani cut or I may learn enough Thai to let my erstwhile scammer know that I like him, just not his scheme.

Mum shot

2007-05-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

Whenever my Mum travels, I get what I’ve labeled the obligatory “Mum shot”.

This is a picture, taken by her, of herself, shot at a *very* close angle - normally at her final location or on the way to her final location. When I was younger I’d roll my eyes upon receipt of such a shot in the mail – "Dear oh dear, a picture of Mum, in a hotel room, up real close." Not too much in the background, as her face normally filled the screen. Or, it would be a shot of her with her bags.

Now, years later I kinda treasure these pictures from her. Mum, on her way to a new adventure – Mum against the world. Well, rather Mum AND the world. She’s never been against it, rather she has reveled in her travels; new places, new people, new foods, new cultures – the newness of traveling.

So, when I arrived in Thailand at 1:30am and found my hotel had forgotten to ask their staff to meet me at 2am I found myself wondering “What would Mum do?” - this is ky much like, “what would Jesus do”, but more practical.

Well, as it was very hot – I knew my Mum would want a travel wash, and I was by the river. This would mean she'd strip down, lower something to the waters below and cool off with the newly sodden material. Then, she'd change into something summery and either have a quick explore round or read a book or knock out a few letters. But, as I’m me, and not my Mum I decided not to have a naked wash on a Bangkok river deck - BUT I wanted to at least get out of my close toed shoes and socks – exchanging them for my sandals purchased in New Zealand the previous year. I thought I’ll have a proper wash in the morning, well, later in the morning when the staff arrives. I did however have a quick explore down the street, greeted the local cats, wrote in my travel diary & read a few chapters on my book.

This was followed by the thoughts, this is Bangkok, I’m opposite the Temple of Dawn, Wat Arun – what better way to greet my first day break in Bangkok than by watching the sun rise by the Temple of Dawn.

This is how I also found myself wanting to take a “Mum shot”. Me, at my hotel, by myself, bags in tow. Somehow I wasn't able to get my face to fill the screen, but I'm young, I've got years to learn what my mother has perfected on her travels.

Let's Get Physical

2007-04-30T19:54:00.001-07:00

So, I’m working a 2nd job to help pay off debt more quickly. I know plenty of folks that are in the same boat. My 2nd job is part time, pays minimum wage – but there are some really fun people who work at the store. So, while the pay isn’t what I could get somewhere else, the coworkers, and the work itself isn’t bad.

I work for a premium Japanese convenience store in downtown Los Angeles. Movies stars & celebrities drop in, along with locals from the downtown region. I’ve been grifted in the store, and have made friends with some of my “regulars”.

As part of the hiring process, we were told we’d need an employment physical, the standard pee test in a cup sort of thing showing that you weren’t a drug user. For a place that pays minimum wage, they have really strict hiring standards. From physicals, to math tests, to background checks.

Anyway, I’d passed everything, and need to go for my physical prior to my probationary period expiring. Knowing that I’d have to pee in a cup later that afternoon, I’d drunk water at my regular job, and then had a nice large sports bottle of water in the car with me that I sipped as I drove the 30 miles in an hour and a half (Los Angeles traffic). By the time I arrived at the medical center in Redondo Beach I was really in need of the restroom.

I came in, filled out the paper work, and then was ushered into the back. Now this place isn’t a nice doctors office, it’s a transformed building that’s now serving as a sort of urgent care facility, but they also have a Dr. on staff to deal with company medicals.

As I head to the back, the nurse asks if I really want to work for this company. Which is kinda of a strange thing to ask, and I said, ‘we’ll, I have been working for them – it’s not so bad.’

“Oh” she answered as she finished taking down my weight. “Well, ok, come on in, we’ll need to do some back x-rays.”

Back x-rays??!!? My last physical hadn’t included a back x-ray.

I was told that the company wanted them done, so all of the folks went through it. Into the room, where she told me to remove my pants, my t-shirt could stay on and put on the robe, with the opening at the back. It was at this point that:
a. I wished I’d worn boxer briefs rather than just briefs today
b. I began composing my sternly worded phone call to my store manager who’d neglected to tell me I’d be “disrobing” for the physical
c. I was glad that though I wasn’t in boxer briefs, I was in new underwear that was cleanly laundered

After having to assist the nurse to find my belly button, and being turned over and x-rayed from several angles I was allowed to put my pants back on and follow the nurse to a room for the rest of the physical.

We passed boxes of latex gloves and I was sincerely hoping that there wasn’t yet another part to this physical that had not been mentioned to me.

The nurse then said we’d do the urine test and that she’d be right back with someone. The copious amount of water I’d consumed earlier now really needed to come out. It was at this point a young Hispanic male nurse came in and took me to the restroom, where he said he’d have to stay in there with me as this was a drug urine test. Meaning I couldn’t be trusted to pee on my own. Who knows what I might do. So he locked the door, and then like a bad hustler movie leaned against the wall, cocked one knee out while he rested his foot on the wall. I was pointed to the cups, asked me to write my name and then he just watched.

There is something really disconcerting about having to unbutton your fly, pull down your underwear, expose yourself and then pee in a cup. To make it worse, he added instructions, telling me that “filling it up halfway is ok”.

Like I might have wanted to overflow it, or reach back and take several of the cups and see just how many I could fill all the way to the top.

So, with this in mind, and my boy in hand I just couldn’t pee. For 45 seconds I just stood there, in front of the loo, cup in hand, looking down feeling his eyes on me as I’m not filling my cup to the requested halfway point. Not one drip, my bladder while completely full is in no way releasing any stream of pee.

Just as I’m about to say I can’t do this I remember my “yoga breath” from the classes I’ve been taking – “just breathe through a difficult situation”. Well, now’s a good a time as any to try this – as if I keep standing here, his eyes on the cup in one hand, penis in the other - one of us will have to ask each other for a number. And low and behold as I breathe I can pee – just a bit. I’m so thankful to get the thing quarter of the way full before the awareness of being watched kicks back in that I spill some urine down the side of the cup as I cover myself back up. Well, I thought it will have to do.

Yet another charming detail my manager had forgotten to mention. An audience as you urinate – how delightful. My phone rant just grew a little longer.

The rest of the physical was painlessly quick – check of the ears, throat, blood pressure – do you have allergies or family medical problems – then the Dr. showed me the door. I had to decline, asking if I could use the loo instead - as I really need to go now that no one was watching or telling me to fill something half way.

Oh I LOVE you. YOU! Sorry, who are you?

2007-04-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

I miss id'd a celebrity today.

The ultimate faux pas in name recognition.

Alex Borstein came into the store - most notably for me she of MadTV fame. I was ringing her up & had a recollection that I knew her face - see, that’s my problem - I'm brilliant with faces, it's the names that hang me up. I looked at her, she looked at me, she too recognized the recognition dawning on my face. (Probably at this point with something approaching fear. Something that only celebrities get - that foreknowledge that someone is going to say something, and it's probably not going to be good...)

The conversation went something like this:
“Are you from MadTV?”
“Yes.”
“Are you Mo (Gaffney)?”
“No - I’m the other one, I'm Alex.”

That's probably where I should have left it, but no, wanting to make up for the foot in mouth I continued:

“Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!”
“It's ok.”
“You're the favorite one. People love your characters.”
“Umm, thanks.”
“Yeah at work we have MadTV on reruns, and people still love Ms. Swan.”

I MEAN WHAT WAS I THINKING? BUT NO, I DIDN'T STOP THERE:

“So, ah, what are you, um, do you teach any classes around here? Do you teach?”
“No, I don't like teaching.”
“Oh.... Well, here’s your change. Have a great evening.”

I still have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach just thinking back on that conversation.

Still, at least I didn’t identify Vanessa Redgrave as Lynn Redgrave.

Who’s that girl?

2007-04-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

The other week at work, one of the guys brought in pictures of his baby. The kid wasn’t that cute when we last saw pix, but I will admit it is at a very adorable stage right now.

The girls on the team were “ooohing” and “ahhhhing” like there was no tomorrow. The squeals they emitted were treading into whistle tone territory.

Well I figured I’d bring in my old baby pix and see what sort of reaction I got. Both times I got “who’s that cute little girl?” and “who’s the girl in the red dress?” I felt like a Madonna song title.

I guess that the “onesie” corduroy outfit my Dad had made wasn’t that clear in the picture that it was a one piece pant overall – but I really don’t think it looks *that* much like a dress.

Weight Watching

2007-03-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

It’s January in NYC 2003. One of the worst snow storm in years has hit and the city is hip deep in snow.

J & M (my brother & sister-in-law respectively) were out from NZ for Chrissy. We’d all traveled to NYC for a visit and were on our way back to Cali. M had free miles on United, while J & I were doing the Jet Blue thing. As such we were leaving from different terminals & M was flying out before hand (being on an earlier flight). So prior to heading over to the Jet Blue terminal at JFK we were seeing M off.

The snow had (finally) finished coming down – the air was so clear and crisp – our breath was billowing around our heads in steamy clouds. We’d gotten out of the taxi, bags in tow. As we neared the terminal doors, a black sedan and a black hummer pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the terminal doors.

M was immediately sure it was a celebrity – and wanted to stay out in the zeroish temperature to see just who was flying out from JFK that day. J not being the type to get particularly celebrity struck was not amused by this idea. Myself being somewhat the type to get celebrity struck elected to stand with M to see just who was in the vehicle.

After about 4 minutes, the sedan ejected a couple of very large men who walked back to the hummer, and one opened the door.

“It’s the Duchess of York!” M squealed. She had a better vantage point that I did to see just who was in the vehicle. J was suitably unimpressed and took himself off into the heated terminal. On the other hand M & I were beside ourselves – so we were quite content to wait in the cold until Her Grace alighted from the vehicle.

And what a production that was – from my vantage point I was able to first see a hand extend from the back seat with a purse held out – one of the large men took it and handed it to a smaller guy who’d exited from the other side of the vehicle. He then disappeared to the boot of the vehicale where additional bags were collecting themselves. Next one leg (ending in a very fashionable black boot) swung out, followed by its mate (also in the same fashionable black boot) – and then Sarah, Duchess of York exited the hummer.

I will say this – she is much prettier in person than you’d expect. Really.

The big burly guys were looking at M & me a bit askance, so when Ms. Ferguson was in front of me I said, “May I have your autograph?”

To which Fergie replied, “Yes you may, and it’s so nice to be asked.” I guess crude Americans use "can" rather than "may" - I'm thanking my NZ education at this point.

Now the only bit of paper I had on me was a free post card from Tower Records advertising Rice Krispies – Snap Crackle & Pop. The post card has bubble wrap on one side, for you to pop (snap & crackle) or send I guess.

Sarah turned it over – a look of perplexity across her face. I explained it was the only “paper” I had and offered my (nice) black ink pen. With a slight shake of her head she extended her hand, and thin point sharpe was placed into her open fingers. She didn’t even have to look – the men just knew.

As The Duchess was signing my postcard, M let her know she’d stayed up all night to watch her wedding – and it had inspired hers – and she just thought she was tremendous and a great role model.

Sarah was quite taken and asked if M was from Australia. M politely corrected her letting her know she was from New Zealand. Fergie was most apologetic and mentioned how much she enjoyed visiting New Zealand and wonderful the people were.

During their conversation my postcard had been signed and handed back to me – I think I mentioned that I thought she was fantastic or something equally banal – the pen had been returned to what everplace the security guys secret those things in and then in a whirl wind of commotion they were headed into the terminal. I guess I hadn’t been allowed to use my pen as it may have been poisoned, or I may have tried to hawk it on eBay.

In any event, I had my royally signed postcard.

M & I were quite taken by her service – she hadn’t had to even think about wanting something, the guys had it for her before she’d even had to ask.

As a lark M & I began to play princess (duchess) and server – it soon grew old.

Anyway, we joined J in the heated terminal and breathlessly related out royal experience. J wasn’t impressed, and this being post 9/11 herded both of us to the screening area where we’d need to separate from M.

We saw M up to the checkpoint, where the security guards pulled her aside. That’s when we heard from the VIP line Sarah, Duchess of York shout “Let her through, she harmless, she’s from New Zealand!”

I always knew I liked her.

Biohazard

2007-03-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

The world has a more global reach than ever these days, except apparently in New Zealand. My father was a pilot for Air New Zealand, and he would relate with a touch of frustration (and a touch of amusement) the story of foreign pilots landing in NZ saying that the local time and date was (for example) 7:15am, Monday August 3rd – 1962.

Time did catch up with Aotearoa – but I do like the fact that you can walk into a local New World grocery store and buy yourself some SARS.

SARS for only 94c - that's got to be a deal.

A novel idea

2007-03-14T15:07:00.001-07:00

I’ve been novelized. That is to say, I have inspired a character in a novel. I wonder if this how Little Orphan Annie felt. Did she see herself on the page when reading about herself and Daddy Warbucks? Were there situations she wished the writers had written from a different perspective?

A friend that’s a (published) writer has finished his new book, and one of the main characters is based on me. Yes, me.

I’ve been lucky enough to read the draft manuscript – and it’s quite a surreal experience seeing things you’ve said on the page. The situations you were in, laid out for all the world to read. Well, those who purchase the novel anyway.

Of course, as it is a novel there’s a fair amount of story telling going on. So let me say here and now – that despite what my friend PC may tell you, I have never been a porn star, not appeared in any porn movies. Nor am I planning to become a porn star. The reason I mention this is because my character in the book has a back story, and part of the back story was being a porn star in his early 20’s.

What that says about the writers’ perception of me, I don’t know. I guess what it comes down to is if you have a friend that’s a writer, don’t annoy them. I was thinking about this, and on one hand - OH MY GOD – and on the other hand, very flattering. (From a purely physical perspective of course.) ^_^ Male porn stars are renowned for their perfect physiques – well in gay male porn at least. In the straight world, not so much – but there you go. Thankfully my character was a gay male porn star in his youth, not an overweight nasty-ass porn star.

I wonder who will play me in the movie…..

Accent grave `

2007-03-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

Being from New Zealand, I’ve never considered myself to have an accent. I mean Americans do, the English, the French – well, most everyone has an accent – but people who have them never think of themselves as having one.

I received an e-mail from a friend of a friend from Canada visiting New Zealand – I loved it SO much I’m posting an except here.

Language
I never thought this would be a problem for us; in fact I thought we had a leg up on most people in this respect. But oh no, we’ve had our share of difficulties. One night early in our trip before we became fluent in Kiwi-speak, we spent about three minutes explaining to a waitress that
we needed more BREAD. Simple enough you would think; well think again. After a great deal of arm waving and raising of voices she finally exclaimed “Oh that’s more BRID you want!”. I should have anticipated the problem because I had noticed the day before an elocution-trained TV announcer saying “This is Winsday, the sivnth of Fibrary”. You get the picture - the letter e is almost
always pronounced as an I. Ixcillent! The trick is figuring out why the third e in this case does not become an I. There are many such ixceptions. But after a whole month we’ve gotten a pretty good handle on the local dialect and we get by most of the time without having to resort to shouting.

Distance/Time
All the trailheads have a sign with a time shown but never a distance. I don’t think kiwis realize how stupid this is. It takes a while to develop the conversion factor from kiwi walking time to walking time for other (regular) people. After considerable experimentation we’ve finally
got it figured out. For example on a recent walk which was marked as 4-6 hours here are the conversions:
Time for a kiwi walker* - 4 hours
Time for a very fit foreign walker - 6 hours
Time for a normal/average walker 2x4 = 8 hours
Approximate time for other walkers including the slightly overweight woman from Minnesota in all new LL Bean gear:
2x6 = 12 hours.
*Kiwi walkers can be easily identified. They are never shorter than 6ft 3in, weigh less than 11 stone (154lb) without their boots, and have about 0.005% BFI.
Incidentally they always say, as they are flying past you on the trail, something like “Keep it up mate, you’ll get there in good time.”
What they are really thinking though is “I feel sorry for you mate. You just don’t have the
genes to climb mountains.” It was no coincidence that Edmund Hilary was a kiwi!

INDEED!
IXILENT!

wht r u doing?

2007-03-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure my mother gets what text messaging is all about. My brothers back in New Zealand got her a cell phone for her birthday. It’s finally been activated, and Mum really wanted to try out this "text messaging" she’s heard so much about.

As my number is the only cell number she knows, she began texting me. I responded to her (many) messages. (I hoped that she had added international texting to her plan or these quick text bursts could be really expensive.)

Anyway, a few days later I got a call from my mother asking if I’d received her texts. She was just calling to make sure they’d gotten through ok – I guess my replying to her wasn’t enough verification; she needed to hear as well as see the response.

Technology - making all our lives easier.

Except my mothers.

All that glitters isn't gold

2007-02-27T13:26:00.001-08:00

Hmm, well, despite what people on QVC tell you, weight is no sign of true quality. My nice old man ring is FAKE. Not in the “hologram” sense of being fake, it is tangible after all, more in the “not real gold” sense.

Over lunch today my friend and I stopped by our local pawn shop. I felt a tad seedy going in and producing a ring – thank goodness for good support from friends. Anyway, I handed the “jewelry” over. The pawner took a look at it, got out his eye glass and did a quick scratch test. Not real gold, not real diamonds, just fools gold & cut glass – all for the bargain price of $65.

I offered it to my friend for her upcoming nuptials – it’s a ring with history after all. She said no. Ungrateful I say.

On the bright side, I do know what I’ll be taking to my next white elephant party, complete with certificate of in-authenticity.

One ring shall rule them all

2007-02-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

I lost $65 the other day; somewhat carelessly I hesitate to add. It went down like this.

I was at my 2nd job in downtown Los Angeles on Monday night. During the evening a tourist entered the store needing directions to a place on 5th street – we’re on 6th – so I walked him outside and pointed him in the correct direction.

As I re-entered the store, an old gentleman approached me with another question. He explained he’d locked his keys in his car, along with his wallet. AAA had sent a lock smith out who required that he get paid prior to opening the door. Old man of course couldn’t pay as his wallet was in the car. He then returned to his cell phone to speak with the AAA, again explaining where he was and what was happening with his Mercedes.

Anyway, he asked if he could borrow $65 to pay the “bumbling locksmith” that the Auto Club had sent, and he’d come right back – he even offered to pay a borrowing fee, and could I please help an old retired attorney out.

It smelled like a rat, it really did. But, I was also thinking of my own grandfather, and getting locked out of the car. I should have offered to go out to the guy & pay him myself – and then collect the money back from the old guy then & there. I should have also remembered that my grandfather wasn’t the type to lock himself out of his car. But I did none of those things; we had other customers, and I kinda figured that maybe I was wrong to be so distrusting of the older generation.

I ended up loaning, well, “giving him” I guess - the $65, which is how I ended up with an 18 carat gold old guy ring. The really chunky kind that I’d need at least another 60 or 70 years on me to wear with anything less than irony. He left it with me as collateral.

I think I’ll try and pawn it….

Sorry, what's your name?

2007-02-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

Being the younger brother, I always had an "and" appended to my name when being introduced. I never got just “Darren”, it was always “Jason and Darren”.

My brother was very emphatic about being listed first – "no, it's Jason and Darren" whenever anyone mistakenly mentioned me before him. J took being first born son very seriously – we’re talking Ancient Asian Empire Dynasty, Curse of the Golden Flower brother trouble seriously. (Perhaps this explains his fondness for the novel Shōgun.) His pride of place in the family birth hierarchy was overwhelming. When asked about me, he’d reply something along the lines of “I’m the older brother. He’s my little brother.” Strangers would not have been amiss to think my name was actually “Andarren” from the way he carried on.

In any event, I have always been shorter than my brother, so I guess being the little brother was not only factual, it was literal.

One of my favorite home videos shows me at about 1year old, playing with a baby rattle quite happily. Along comes J, and seeing my happiness with the toy, decides it’s something he must have instead. So, he takes it. All documented right there on film. He just walks up to little baby brother me, Andarren, and swipes my rattle. What a two and a half year old wants with a rattle is beyond me, but there you go. Baby me of course, starts crying. J disappears from frame for a moment and comes back and dumps an orange in my lap.

An orange. I’ve never liked oranges – it probably stems from this documented event. I kept crying, and the video cuts off at this point. It probably showed my parents congratulating J on finding fruit in the house, and wasn’t he a healthy lad even at the wee age of two – all the while I’m left crying on the bed with a bloody orange. Ripe oranges don’t rattle. Now that I think about it, I didn’t even have a crib in that house. Or at least, none that you can see on the film clip.

When my Dad remarried, it became Jenny, Jason and Darren. And when my Mum had another son, it was Jason and Darren – with the littlest brother Daryl. Or, and THIS is Daryl. Daryl was suddenly moved up to guest star spot, while I was relegated to series regular, and not a popular cast member at that.

Case in point – in Singapore, J would be surrounded by people wanting to touch his toe headed locks for luck. People exclaimed over the blueness of his eyes, the golden color of his hair. While brown-haired-hazel-eyed me was left behind the crowd, waiting for the rockstar J to emerge from his throng of admirers so we could continue on to the Tiger Balm Gardens.

I'll tell you what you want, what you really, really want

2007-02-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

Picture it, the end of the go-go 90's, girl power is all the rage and Halloween is coming up – what are two friends to do? Well, if you're my friend PC & me, you gather 3 others and dress up as the Spice Girls for a Halloween romp.

During the Spice Girl revolution of 1997/1998 PC and I had spent many an hour driving to Los Angeles and back with the Spice’s debut album "Spice" blaring from the car speakers. I'd invariably take the parts of Posh and Scary, while PC would tackle Baby and Ginger and we'd share Sporty depending on who was singing when. Now and again we'd have heated discussions over just who was singing what part, and whether or not one of us had screwed up in singing a particular line.

Anyway, Halloween.

I was cast as Sporty, being a helluva lot more Sporty than PC or the three others PC had gathered to flesh out the group.

PC had a thing for Baby Spice, especially after I scored us near front row tickets during the Spice World tour. We got to see Baby practically push a kid off the stage when her "singing with children 'cause I'm so baby & nice" number was done. Baby even kicked one of the soft toys that was thrown on stage for her out of her way as she exited.

We arrived at the club, and standing inline as the famous fivesome, we were noticed, recognized and complimented. Our group effort even allowed to enter the club in a relatively quick fashion. The whole place had been decorated for Halloween, and as a special treat one of the upstairs rooms near a bar had been transformed into a lounge; the owners had even splashed out on plastic rubbery blow up furniture. You could lounge in an oversized blow up plastic chair, or sit with a couple of friends on a the inflatable rubber couch. The furniture was clear plastic, very thick and reinforced. What with the lighting, smoke, thumping music and alcohol the whole room was giving off a very cool vibe.

Now, what do five friends all dressed up on Halloween do at a dance club? Well, you continue what you started at home of course - you drink. I’m not sure how many times the phrase “Sporty needs another drink” passed my lips that evening, but there are sections of the evening that are still a little blurry for me.

I do remember “Baby” rolling up a sleeve of her baby-doll to secure a pack of cigarettes in place, ciggies purloined from some stranger in the club. This gave our Baby a unique sort of air; think a mix of BabySpice, hairy drag queen & the Fonze.

Baby had on fake nails, which she began popping off from the 2nd floor balcony down to the main dance floor at a later point in the evening. However, fairly early on, probably about 11:45ish we’d both collapsed on the main blow up plastic couch in the resting room – PC/Baby not used to having fake nails had inadvertently sat fake finger nails first and pierced the couch causing a slow leak. As the evening progressed and we made the rounds back to the room, the once firm, supportive couch collapsed into a pool of unusable clear rubber on the floor that people had to step around as they leaned against the wall. I don’t think there were cameras, and we were never asked to pay – so I think it’s an accident we walked away from with relative impunity.

Now as legend goes – well, the legend amongst my friends – I was hit on by a straight guy. This is the part I don’t believe, we happened to be at a gay club in San Diego – so it’s not too likely that it was a straight boy. In any event, I *do* remember chatting with the fellow who’d probably bought me a drink. Now, I looked somewhat like a girl – but I guess with club lighting, and a few drinks as the sailors say “any hull looks sound in the dark”.

I can recall his hand of my bared midriff, and that it wound its way up my torso slipping beneath the sports bra top for a quick squeeze – of what he found out was actually one half of a blue foam baseball. Yeah, Sporty Spice wasn't sporting a real spice rack.

Next is all rather vague, but I recall that somehow Scary was holding onto my legs, as the guy had me by the torso. Both were pulling me mightily in different directions - I was suspended above the floor in a pose much like something that the Chiquita Banana lady might do in a commercial hawking fresh fruit. Baby was drunkeningly laughing at the tug of war over Sporty and offering no help what so ever – Posh had already left with someone and Ginger was no where to be seen. So much for girl power.

Anyway, the relatively sober Scary had more strength than the masher – and I was pulled back to safety, or at least out of his arms.

In the years since, PC has held fast to his version of events, that Scary had saved my life. Or, at least saved me from a beating. I’m not so sure about that, but I do know I’m never dressing up as a Spice Girl ever again.

Oh yeah, we won a competition in the Official Spice Girls Fan Club dress up like a Spice Girl Competition.

A butt out of the gutter

2007-01-23T15:32:00.001-08:00

A butt out of the gutter.

That was a slogan used in the New Zealand “Stop Smoking” campaign several years back in the 1990’s. The very campaign that happened to feature my older brother Jason as their poster boy – his face was plastered on bill boards and bus stops from the tip of the North Island right to the bottom of the South Island.

Jason of the Golden Touch. When we were younger (when he wasn’t beating me up) Jason was always telling me that he was named after the Jason in “Jason and the Golden Fleece” – which is why he was always so successful in things.

Kinda spooky about how he almost always is really successful. Anyway, he’d gotten representation by a talent agent (as Jason lore goes) by being spotted in a Nightclub in New Zealand when he was dancing in a cage. Jason had ousted the actual dancer from their cage atop the pillar, and was going for it like there was no tomorrow. That’s when the agent happened spot him, gyrating away. When he descended from the pillar she pressed her card on him urging him to call – he had something, and she wanted to represent him.

Several days later he did just that, and was promptly signed. Now my brother is a surf freak, and would often skip auditions if the waves were good. His agent had gotten him an audition for the “Stop Smoking” campaign. On this particular day the waves were outstanding. Jason missed his scheduled audition time, but rolled into the studio just as they were getting ready to pack up for the day.

He then began spinning this yarn about why he was late. He almost hadn’t come as he had been so ashamed of his smoking habit. He knew he’d hit rock bottom when he was out of cash, walking down the street, and then picked a butt out of the gutter – just so he could finish smoking what the previous owner had left.

Jason of course told this with his typical blarney stone touch, and they ate it up – and even used his phrase “butt out of the gutter” in the campaign.

Now, this is all well and good – my only problem with this is that THAT STORY IS MINE! When we were about 9 years old, my Mum had a new boyfriend. They were engaged, and for that years summer holidays we were spending it with Mum, Roger and his daughter Joanne. Joanne was super old, I mean she was about 16 at the time. Maybe 15. And she smoked. Of course, Joanne introduced both my brother and me to smoking, letting us know how cool it was. That summer Jason and I had a pack of cigarettes when ever we felt like it, all we had to do was ask Joanne to go buy them for us (and give her a little extra cash for the trouble; or bake her some fudge).

We got home at the end of the holidays addicted to smoking, and were now without our cigarette dealer. What are underage boys to do? Well, I hit upon the brilliant plan of taking cigarette butts out of our grandparents ash trays. They were (and my grandmother still is) huge smokers. They’d often leave a fair amount of ciggy to smoke, and we could get our fix by secretly purloining these butts from their ash trays.

But, 9 year olds can only visit their grandparents so much in any given day, or any given week. Which is when I had my most cunning idea yet – walking home from a cigarette recovery operation I noticed all these cigarette butts in the gutter along the street – just laying there, unused! Why not collect these butts & smoke them!?! I mean it was cheap, economical, and in a way, recycling.

Anyway, that’s exactly what we did. Jason and I would pick butts out of the gutter, bring them home and when the folks weren’t around we’d scurry down to the bottom garden to have the last few puffs off of someone else’s cigarette.

Mmmmmm – smooth, clean taste.

So, you can understand my ire when I found out my childhood cunning had been stolen yet again by my older brother into a money making scheme.

It wouldn’t be SO bad, it’s just I never got my cut.

The whole truth, and nothing but the truth

2007-01-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

So, my brother phones from New Zealand the week before Christmas last year to again ask his annual yuletide favor of me – namely can I please purchase a Christmas gift for the folks state side in his name, wrap it, and deliver it. He’ll reimburse me by sending the money out as soon as he knows how much I spend on the gift and he’s willing to go up to $100 US this year. Oh, and can I please call him prior to delivering the gift, so when the folks call he can answer any questions about the gift.

Being a (now) dutiful younger brother I agree to this transaction.

This year, I did a gift basket thing around a movie theme. Fine New Zealand wine, and tasty nibbles from France to antipodes all from the lovely Cost Plus, all wrapped up in a custom basket – and then a gift membership to Netflix.

I called Jason to give him the cost of everything and I also explained what he’d “bought” for the parental units for 2006. I got to trying to explain “Netflix” to a New Zealander.

“It’s this online DVD rental store, where you select movies from their database and “queue up” the movies you want to see in your account, and for a nominal monthly fee Netflix mails them to you free of charge one after another. You can keep them as long as you want, there are no late fees and if you’re good about it – you can see dozens of movies a month." To which my brother replied, “Frankly, it sounds made up.”

This became my favorite phrase of December 2006, to anything I’d be muttering, “frankly, it sounds made up.”

Jason reminded me that their local video rental shop in Wellington still just asks for your home phone number when you rent a video. You don’t even need a credit card. Ahh, the good old days. On the plus side there, you can rent a “Sing Star” at the video store. The great New Zealand answer to karaoke on the play station – with Sing Star you sing along with the actual music videos, and the game rates you and your opponent as to your pitch, tempo and volume. After a couple of drinks, you’re all loving it. Well, anyone at the party is, the neighbors, not so much. I mean, there is a limit as to how many times your neighbors want to hear you belting out “The Reason” by Hoobastank or fumbling your way through “Shuddup” by the Black Eyed Peas. (Take Fergies part in that, BELIEVE me – the rap is murder on your score.)

Anyway, this all just came back to me today as I got a call from my brother, now almost a month after Christmas, letting me know that he’ll be sending me my reimbursement funds very soon – the cheque is in the mail, or soon will be. He needed to verify my address to ensure that my $100 will be state side soon.

Frankly, it sounds made up.

I confirmed my street address, let Jason know that yes, my city is still Los Angeles, (spelled it twice for him), gave out my zip code and then he added U.S.A. or “Gods own country” as Bush likes to think of it.

He promised he wouldn’t actually write THAT on the envelope, as I would like to see the cash and not some federal agents at my door asking about a smart arse in New Zealand that they’ve come across by opening my mail illegally under a legal law that was passed in the midst of night while the grunions were running that actually makes the illegality legal in all but the freak states of Alaska, Hawaii and Texas.

Valley of the Kings

2006-12-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

When I was younger I was a huge Wonder Woman fan. We’re talking pictures cut out of magazines, rushing home on Friday nights to catch Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman– well telling your Dad to apply the speed when driving your 6 year old ass home. Of course being six, I wouldn’t have said ass, but still, you get the point. I loved The Superfriends, and I even used to watch Batman in hopes that Wonder Woman would make a guest appearance (the closet we ever got was Batgirl). I also watched The Love Boat in the hope that Lynda Carter would be guest starring as my favorite Amazonian Princess – sadly the closest we ever got there was Charo.

I loved Wonder Woman SO much, that at school during playtime on the playground my friends and I would play Superfriends. I of course was Wonder Boy – with the girls fighting over who got to be Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl. The least popular friend of the moment was of course the evil villain we’d be fighting, and then we’d all battle crime on the jungle gym.

I had a costume party when I was 7; of course I had a red top with a WB logo on it (for Wonder Boy – not the WB network). There was a Wonder Woman cake with Wonder Woman paper plates, Wonder Woman napkins & Wonder Woman plastic cups – I even received a telegram from Wonder Woman wishing me a very happy 7th birthday. How did Wonder Woman know it was my birthday? Well, I’d invited her to my party - so she’d sent the telegram letting me know she appreciated the invitation but had business on Paradise Island that meant she couldn’t make it.

That year for Christmas I received perhaps the best gift a boy can receive – a Wonder Woman doll. Now this was New Zealand in the late 1970’s, so of course we didn’t actually have anything like an “official” Wonder Woman doll anywhere on the islands – those wouldn’t be available until the early 1980’s, but my Aunt was a doll maker, and a skilled seamstress. So my Dad had secretly commissioned her to make me a Wonder Woman doll. For Christmas that year, my brother and I had been with our mother in Paraparaumu – I still remember waiting with my brother in the hot New Zealand sun as my Dad was pulling up in his white Toyota to take us back home to Minihaha in Khandallah – Dad let us know he’d met Father Christmas that night and this year Father Christmas had left our gifts from him with our Dad. That way Dad was able to give them to us when we were picked up at the end of the weekend. Ripping the wrapping off the package, I can still remember the thrill of seeing Diana Prince right there in doll form. Diana had her own hand-sewn star spangled outfit, complete with magic belt, tiara, bracelets & lasso.

Later that year after Christmas when I was sick at home one week with some childhood illness (probably the mumps or the measles) my Dad even built Wonder Woman her own invisible jet out of plastic sheeting. I asked for and got my own mini “IRAC” computer – complete with blinking lights – both items had been built in my Dad’s workshop. With these accoutrements Diana and I were set for crime fighting.

Anyway, Wonder Woman was of course my most precious possession, and she was a huge hit with all my friends. Phillipa Scott would have me and Diana over for tea parties with Strawberry Shortcake and her friends Blueberry Muffin, Oranage Blossom and Lemon Meringue. Phillipa was sure that the boy of the Strawberry Shortcake bunch, Apple Dumpling, had a crush and as such would I mind very much leaving Diana with her sometimes so they could get to know each other better. Jodi-Ann Parker and Sharon O’Sullivan would always ask to play with Wonder Woman when they were at my house. Yes, Wonder Woman and I had a full social calendar, what with tea dates and saving other my other action figures and stuffed toys from certain doom at the hands of my brothers evil toys.

One weekend I went to stay over at Phillipa Scott’s house. She had a trampoline in her back yard and her mother was Scottish. Mrs. Scott made great rock cakes and Scottish Eggs. On this particular trip, Wonder Woman didn’t travel with me – I wasn’t sure she and Apple Dumpling were a good fit, and Phillipa and I had plans to be jumping on the trampoline a lot that weekend.

I returned home after a pleasant weekend of exercise and rock cakes to Minihaha. Things were eerily quiet down the far end of the house where my brother and I had our rooms. Walking down the hallway I made the right turn in the ante way to our bedrooms and opened the door to my room to be confronted from a scene taken from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. All of my soft toys were facing each, arranged from smallest to largest, forming a roadway up to an alter made of wood. Perfuming the air of my bedroom was patchouli, the fragrance coming from incense sticks; smoke lazily rising from the hot orange tips of the sticks, smoke hazing the air, the tips glowing amidst all the perfumey smoke. I was able to make out a sarcophagus resting on the wooden alter. (I later discovered the sarcophagus had been crafted from a Roses Chocolate box.)

There’s something strange about walking in on a reverent scene of stuffed animals and toys – you know something is very wrong, but you almost don’t want to disturb things.

I placed my overnight bag on the floor and approached the alter, being careful not to disturb the statuesque soft toy honor guard. I reached down and opened the sarcophagus, and found a mummy lying inside. A doll sized mummy. A doll sized mummy, tightly bound by strips of snowy white toilet paper.

Ripping the toilet paper shroud from off the mummy I was horrified to find that it was my Wonder Woman doll that’d been defiled.

This all smacked of the work of my evil older brother - JASON!!! I can remember crying and running out of my room, yelling for my Dad and my older brother. Yelling that he’d been in my room, and had touched my stuff. Tears on my face, my lovely weekend ruined by his evil ways.

Not even in the comics or on the TV Show had Wonder Woman ever been mummified.

The reaction I invariably get to this story is “Wow, your brother is SO creative. Wow, he’s really talented, does he still build things? Oh, yeah, poor you, that must have been bad.”

2006-11-27T16:52:00.000-08:00

Roberto - on his first blind date

Scene from a short film I did a while back.

2006-11-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

Wonder Woman OOWANOWTS

Me performing as Lynda Carter - the resembalance is amazing!

Amy Sedaris

2006-10-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

I got to see Amy Sedaris *live* in person last week at Booksoup in Los Angeles.

Funny, witty - and she smelled grrrreat. I asked what she was wearing, but she didn't remember as she mixes two or three things together.

What, me read?

2006-10-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

My boss at work is crazy. Really. Well, crazy in her use of the written English language.

For example, yesterday she wrote that in our department I was a dianond in the rough.

Today we received the e-mail informing us that the department had to follow specific instructions in case A or B, and if we didn't do this then we weren't correct in either cases.

And a personal favourite - the e-mail thanking everyone for pitching in and going the extra milage.

I guess it's not so much that she's crazy (she is), but that she doesn't read what she's written prior to hitting send.

Or perhaps I'm not wordly enough. But, this does allow for work place jokes. I got to ask my coworker who's recently engaged how many carots her dianond ring is. With all theses cases around, who knows where to store anything - but it's lucky they're there with all the milage we've been putting on things lately.

Not dead yet

2006-08-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Bleeding internally. Well, that’s what the doctor says. Shouldn’t I urinate blood or something really dramatic?

Sadly no, in this case it’s nothing so obvious. I’m a bit tired now and again, but originally I just put that down to work. Maybe it’s actually cause my circulatory system is leaking itself into other systems in my body.

There was a boy in my primary school in New Zealand that used to pee blood. We were all really scared; partly cause he was mean as all get out, and partly ‘cause his urine was red. Other boys would go tell teachers, others would just steer clear.

Anyway, nothing so dramatic as crimson urine in my case, but still rather surreal. I feel phantom pains at weird times – especially as the doctor mentions different regions of the body, But I think that’s more cause I’m my Dad’s boy than anything else. All my Dad’s sons aren’t huge fans of hearing about blood or operations.

It’s well known family lore that when my sister sliced her wrist on an old door by accident that the nurses ran up to him when they arrived at the hospital leaving my poor sister with her tea-towel bound wrist clamoring for attention as my Dad looked so pale - like he was about to faint.

So, here I am, waiting to hear the results of my ultrasound. I wonder if Katie Holms felt like this when Tom ran the ultrasound over their kid.

I can't find my glasses - without my glasses

2006-08-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I can't find my glasses. My prescription sunglasses to be exact.

Very annoying. I remember having them as of Friday of last week, but now - the Borrowers have them I guess.

I hadn't even had them a year - sigh. I seem to be careless now and again with things like that, which is why I generally have a place for everything when I arrive home.

Keys on my monkey key holder right by the front door, rings in my African animal wood carving bowl, my bracelet from Boyd in my Fiji shell box on my dresser - but the sunglasses normally went straight back in their case in my bag.

The case is empty. Not even checking on consecutive days has had them turn up there. Strange how I do that, check the same place (in this case a very small space - the sunglasses case), JUST in case I missed them the first and second times I looked. I mean, my eyes aren't great, but they're not that bad.

I guess I'll go check the car,

again...

People are paying rent around here.

2006-08-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, that’s what I heard anyway. The other evening, my friends and I were leaving Largo in Hollywood – they’d driven up from San Diego to see Margaret Cho with me on my friend’s birthday.

As we walked down the street around the block from Largo, we arrived at their car. All of us were saying goodnight and then this tattooed guy in a wife beater comes purposefully marching up to us. Right away he demands that we “keep it down – ok” as “people are paying rent around here”.

Now, it’s not as if we’d been really loud – if we had then I could totally see his point. Anyway, his mission done with us, he immediately quick steps it over to other people coming on to the street also moving towards their cars. It’s always strange to me when folks feel they can impose their will on others with impunity.

Anyway, I spoke with my friends the next morning and it turns out the guy actually may have said that he has a 10-month old baby upstairs. Maybe I need to get my ears checked.

Well, whatever the case, it just makes it worse. 10-month old babies aren’t supposed to be asleep at night, and, shouldn’t he really have been at home looking after the infant, rubbing rum on the gums or something rather than accosting people in the street to keep it down?

I mean, people are paying rent around here.

Too Deep For Me

2006-01-08T21:52:00.000-08:00

Strange, 2006 is already here.

New Year, new beginnings. To have a beginning does something have to begin? Is there no beginning, only afters, and no befores.

That's what Momentary Gods say, they look after the now and pass their section of time onto the next Momeg - always an after, never a before.

I may not have known you before, but I'll know you later.

Extended Family Blogging

2005-11-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Well, as my friend PC got me into blogging, so too have I introduced my cousin to this part of the online world.

I've included a link to her (mildly) amusing blog in the link section.

Enjoy!

Mandarins are special people food

2005-10-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

“Mandarins are special people food. When we have guests come over, we want to be able to go to the pantry and know that there is a tin of mandarins in there.”

I can remember my stepmother being very empathic about this. She was furious that she'd found an empty tin of mandarins in the recyling.

With three teenagers at home, my parents had begun shopping at Price-Costco, buying the family groceries in bulk. The station wagon would pull into the driveway and they'd call my siblings and me out to the garage to help begin carting in cases of more green beans than anyone would want to eat in a lifetime as far as I could see. They'd gone overboard with French’s dried onions, canned peas, raisins and the aforementioned tinned mandarins in light syrup.

Not even extra fancy mandarins mind you, or mandarins packed in juice. Just your regular, run of the mill, light syrup mandarins.

Now, I have never, ever, ever, seen my parents serve a dish containing mandarins to guests that just “pop over”. A vodka tonic or other refeshment - yes. Tasty nibbly crackers with aged cheese and olives, yes, but mandarins? Tin opened and plopped into a bowl? No. Never. Not once. My Dad hasn’t in my recollection ever presented a mock Chinese stir-fry with mandarins to people that just happen to visit. He’s whipped up Indian chicken vindaloo, marinated beef satay, embezzlers purses, spinakopita, roast beef with roast vegetables, Boeuf Wellington with homemade horseradish. All of these items have been served to folks that have visited, but, none of these dishes contain mandarins.

Which is why it was curious that the parents of a family on a budget would be so up in arms that one of their teenagers had eaten a tin of fruit that cost under a dollar, way less than a dollar when you factor in that they were buying pallets worth of the same thing. A true low cost meal.

When I moved out, the first thing I bought when I went the grocery store was tinned mandarins. Drunk with new found freedom and purchasing power they were the first item opened when I got home and I ate them all - straight from the tin. I even left the empty tin on the counter for a few days.

So, if you happen to drop by, while mandarins are special people food you won’t find them here. After several months of gourging myself on the things, I can't stomach them now. I do however like knowing that I can get them whenever I want. So, if you do happen to drop my, how about some capers instead?

Wanna taste of the ladies?

2005-10-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up my apartment, and I came across what should be really be a prior crime shot. A picture of how I saw my brother for the 1st 13 years of my life.

Fist raised, coming towards me for some "excersise", or "rough housing" as my step-mother put it.

Note the rings, and the nice snap buttons on his blue shirt. I had one in brown...

These boots were made for walkin…

2005-10-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

A sentence to be wary of in any on line profile is “I like cowboy boots.” Take it from me.

It was one of those rare, rainy California weekends. The kind of indoor day that drives me to the net to pass the time. It so happened that I’d been chatting online, back and forth with a guy via email for a while. Will and I had gotten to the point of exchanging numbers and were around to the point of actually speaking on the phone.

You can tell a lot from a person by their voice. Someone might be able to maintain a fun face behind their email program, but it’s a lot harder to hide being a dud when you’re on the phone. From our conversation, all seemed normal and nice. Will and I shared musical tastes, we were around the same age, had comparable senses of humor - these are all good things to have in common.

So after an hour or so of chatting on the phone I agreed to drive on over, we could watch a bit of television, chat in person, maybe head out for a coffee or something.

Upon arrival, Will meets me on the landing in jeans, boots, a white t-shirt. He ushers me into his apartment where a Seinfeld rerun is just beginning. All normal there. He offers me some bottled water, and then asks “Do you like cowboy boots?”

Now, this is not a question I generally get, or, truth be told, expect. I often get where are you from, how long have you been growing your hair, do you pay taxes, are you legal, that sort of thing.

Thinking fast I explain that I don’t “own” any cowboy boots, but, I have in fact worn them on stage for several shows I’ve been in. Truthfully I only remember wearing them in Annie Get Your Gun, but I probably wore them in another production at some point.

My answer seems to please Will. He follows his first question up with “Would I feel embarrassed wearing them in public.” A little strange, but, I answered, that, no, I don’t think I would be.

Now, while I found it strange, the question caused me to have a sort of out of body experience. I was suddenly caught in a vision of all the “Help Desk”/Technical support assistance guys I’ve known at previous jobs. I could see the guys wearing cowboy boots with their acid wash jeans, old heavy metal rock concert t-shirts from the 1980s that they haven’t been able to give up tucked in and belted tight. The Scorpions logo stretched across an ever-expanding waistline.

I really need to learn to say “yes”.

Anyway, Will was delighted with my answer, and, he ran into the bedroom and returns with 3 pairs of cowboy boots; camel brown, black, and taupe. Will then asked me to put on the pair that I liked best.

Which is how I came to find myself on his couch, bottled water in hand and a pair of tight fitting black cowboy boots watching Seinfeld, desperate for the show to end so I can put my nice Rockport blue shoes back on and leave.

I don't cry at weddings

2005-10-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

As a rule, I don't cry at weddings. Weddings don't normally move me one way or another. I can understand the emotion being them - two people so in love, saying they'll spend the rest of their respective forevers together, blah, blah, blah - but, I just don't connect. I guess I just don't believe in forevers anymore.

Perhaps it's due to my parents divorce happening when I was so young. I don't remember them ever being together. My brother and I were one of the few children growing up with divorced parents in New Zealand, so I may have had a jaded outlook on the entire marriage affair. I mean, if it (it being divorce) could happen with my parents, then it, meant people change, and, what's todays' truth isn't necessarily tomorrows' truth.

So, seeing people up in front of others talking about their undying love has always seemed a little, well, hollow.

I can remember my Dad's remarriage. I was mad. Mad as hell. In my defense, I was 9. And, AND! I had never met the woman he was marrying. I didn't even know my Dad was seeing someone! We,( "we" being my brother, my Dad & I) were living in Brunei at the time.

For the school holidays my brother and I had been visiting my Mum in New Zealand. Surprisingly my Dad met the Air New Zealand flight my brother and I were on in Singapore. Ok, hold onto your hats - this was 1981, and kids flew alone all the time. I normally got to hand out the sweets at the end of the flight being a "help" to the airstewardesses. In any event, my Dad had me walking to Kindergarden when I was 4 years old. So, (working on) intercontinental flights was nothing.

Anyway, we didn't end up back in Brunei. My brother and I were hauled into a cramped phone booth in Changi International Airport in Singapore, we had a receiver thrust into our hands and we were made to listen to some American chick with a really weird accent tell us how excited she was, that she couldn't wait to meet us and become our "Mom".

It's still a sore point to my step mother that in her wedding pictures I have a look that can peel paint at 15 paces. Well, it's 1981, so I think she should be pleased I have an artistic look on my face rather than having a bad perm (which my Dad had) and shoulder pads (which she had). Still, they're not my wedding photos so I guess a little peevishness on her part is forgivable.

My brother got married in the late 1990's. The boy that had hanged my soft toys from my bedroom ceiling, mummified my Wonder Woman doll, strapped me to a tree and whipped me with holly, tried to suffocate me, got me drunk, kept me from seeking medical help when I had a fractured arm, complained that he didn't get a slurpee when I'd split my knee open, did drugs scott free while I was suspected of being an addict, shot small animals and skinned them, the boy that had administered daily beatings to me, got married.

Somewhere, the boy had become a man while we weren't together. He'd found a woman to temper him, and married her. The same violent child had been remade as an urbane man burst into tears seeing his soon to be wife walk down the aisle towards him.

Still - no tears from me there. Dry as a bone.

Though I almost did come tears at being made to watch their wedding video under duress. Thank goodness it was only the "highlights" and not the whole damn thing. I had to be there for the live event for heaven's sake. We're only on this earth for a short time, and your time shouldn't be taken up with watching someone else get dressed up and walk down an aisle on telly.

Which brings me to last Sunday. My friend Megan got married in San Diego, to a man she's loved for years. I began cajoling her once she broke up with the "love of her life" when we were both coworkers. I'd helped prod her towards this new man, this wonderful guy, that unfortunately wasn't gay, Well, if I couldn't have him, someone I loved should.

She's feisty, funny, smart, strong, caring, witty, locquacious, loving and Megan posses a beautiful soul.

So, seeing her get married was the 1st time I think I've experienced what marriage is truly about. Megan was married in San Diego, at the Catamaran Hotel, on October 9th, 2005 right on the beach.

As she appeared on a balcony overlooking the sand and surf, the sun highlighted her dress, making an aura around her. She descended the steps glowing, looking remarkablt like an earth goddess of old - tears held in her eyes as she made her way down the aisle on her fathers arm. Megan had eyes only for Jim, which was probably for the best. She even forgot which hand to place the ring on when the time came.

But, as I sat watching the ceremony I was surprised to fell wetness on my cheeks. Well, rules are made to be broken.

I was crying at a wedding, and it was quite ok with me.

That's the natural look?

2005-10-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Agent hunting is hard work. I have an agent at the moment, but of course, you’re always looking for the next step up until you’re with a top tier agency.

Along the way you’re sure to meet up with some, well, questionable folks.

I had a call a couple of months back now, from an agents assistant who’d seen my headshot and asked if I’d come in for a meeting with the head of their commercial division. Sounded great to me, so muggins said yes!

Well, to be fair, I submit myself on a daily basis, and with my day job I sometimes forget everything I’ve submitted for. And, it’s not unheard of to be called in for a job based on your headshot.

Anyway, the call turned out to be a cattle call for the agency in question. The audition was to memorize some copy (a photo copy of a loan ad for the guys, and a moisturizer magazine ad for the girls) and then do a read for the head of the commercial division. I’m not sure how you head yourself, being the only commercial agent on staff, but there you go. Melissa, the head of the commercial division headed herself.

They’re actually a small to mid size agency, they have a name, they’re not in the top 10 by any means, but, they’re bigger than the agency I’m currently with.

So I gave my reading of the “copy”, and was told that I did a great reading. Then, Melissa asked if I was currently signed to an agency. I explained that yes, I was. To which she replied, “Then what the hell are you doing here?” I mentioned that they’d contacted me, and asked me to come in.

Well, we chatted for a bit, she wanted to know if I skateboarded, I don’t, but, she asked that I contact her in a week if I was still interested. I left quite pleased, having successfully auditioned for a short film earlier that week.

I was still very interested, until I started receiving the agency emails.

Now my current head shots are theatrical, rather than commercial. Melissa wanted me to get some new commercial head shots done which is not unheard of. She also included a list of photographers that the agency recommends, and asked to be contacted prior to booking the shoot. Part of their contract required their final sign off on any photographer.

Well, all the photographers that were recommended were a tad on the expensive side. And while Melissa was touting how wonderful they were, I couldn’t help thinking that I was looking at proof sheets from the 1970’s. The majority of submissions are done on line these days, yet, they also recommended a printer for getting pictures run off.

I couldn’t see myself getting any photos done with the recommended lot, so talked with my good friend Elena (who has some superb headshots, both commercial & theatrical) and made an appointment with her guy – for less than 1/2 the price of what was on Melissa’s recommendation list.

Well, Melissa said no, I couldn’t use this guy, and that I need to pick someone from her list to make sure I “didn’t get the wrong shots”, as she didn’t want me to “throw away my money”.

To which I replied “it appears that the recommended photographers are rather expensive for the service they’re performing. Do you receive a commission or finders fee for referring clients to them?”

Melissa wouldn’t answer this question, but, she DID direct me to another photographer, not on the main list, which she thought might be a better fit.

Needless to say, I didn’t end up signing with her after that!

But enough about me, what do you think of me?

2005-09-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Now, don’t get me wrong, you can’t like yourself too much. The Charlie Brown record I owned as a young child taught me that. Lucy coming over the mono speaker saying she had "thick beauty" that went down "layer after layer". Wise words indeed.

Lucy said she’d been loving herself for years, and still felt she had a long, long way to go. When poor moon-headed Charlie Brown asked if she felt she might be conceited Lucy replied with all the disdain that Lucy can muster that that, was impossible, as you can’t like yourself too much. Formative words for a 6 year old.

And, surprisingly spot on. Well, comedy is like that, a kernal of truth surrounding a joke. Though how better off would so many people be if they could just love themselves the way they are.

Which, brings me to a date of a while back; Rudel. We’d met online, had chatted back and forth in emails for a while. Exchanged photos, telephone numbers and thoughts on a number of topics.

Rudel had a lot of pictures to share. Most of them “pensive”. That is, him, looking off camera with either a thoughtful or constipated look. Depending on how you interpreted the shot. Sometimes combining both, a constipated expression wondering when a bowel movement would occur.

Anyway, we met for dinner. I had decided upon Indian, and Rudel had agreed. He informed me upon picking me up that he was vegetarian. Well, a vegetarian that ate fish, milk, cheese, just no beef, as his body no longer produced the enzymes to digest red meat.

I was tempted to ask what tests he’d performed to ascertain this sudden lack of enzymes, and did we perhaps need to stop by an emergency room. Anyway, the dinner was pleasant, though I found myself getting more and more waspish by the end of the evening. I considered myself lucky to get out of there for a $40 meal.

Well, Rudel had a better time than me, as he asked me out again. I guess being a sucker for a pretty face, or a glutton for punishment, you be the judge, I went. This time it was Japanese, where I was maligned for liking California rolls. Needless to say, I didn't pay this time.

Well, longer story longer, we went to his place to chat after dinner. Where I noticed upon walking him, a picture of him. Nothing too unusual about that, other than it greeted you upon walking into his place. Rudel eagerly offered to give me a tour of his apartment.

In the hallway, his cheery face greeted me from four pictures, in the bathroom Rudel looked again pensively downwards (the constipated look suitably fitting the room). The guest room had more shots of his face, and his master bedroom had him not only on the bedside table, but also on the walls. Framed, and lit.

I mentioned the many photographs of himself that were adorning the walls. Rudel was shocked to think there might be someone else there.

He ran to get a photo displayed on the coffee table with him, and his nephew. He was adamant that he didn’t only have pictures of himself displayed. I asked if the only reason this was out was because he really liked the way he looked in the shot, and the nephew was only incidental. Rudel mumbled something about liking the way he looked in the picture, but, his nephew was there too. Which is an error I’m sure would be corrected once Rudel became more proficient in Photoshop. Nephew, what nephew?

Now, I finally think I met someone who liked themselves too much. I do have pictures of me at my house. However, these are with friends, not solo. In fact, the only solo shot I have displaed is one that was taken by my mother, and I didn't tell her to take it.

None of my other pictures are of me, posed by me, directing friends to take me in the “pose” I had adopted. Rudel proudly explained that he’d thought of each shot, and had made his friends and siblings take the pictures. Then he broke out his laptop for an evening of viewing him in different poses in places he visited.

For some reason he started to get offended when I asked if there were any pictures with his shirt off. Don’t get me wrong, he had plenty of shots of him without a shirt, and in his underwear and swimwear. But, he was offended that I only wanted to see those.

He stated that if I thought of him as just meat, I could leave.

So I did.

I mean, don’t press me, give me an out, any out, I’ll take it!

Thank fully he hasn’t called again.

But, at least I’ll always have the (many) pictures he gave me.

Not long for this world

2005-09-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in New Zealand, my older brother was my nemesis. We’re 18 months apart, and actually get along really well now. J used to great pleasure in beating me up, and I took great pleasure in trying to avoid daily beatings.

I had some very good friends when I was younger, all girls which apparently was of some concern to my father, but not so much the various psychologists he consulted. Anyway. stayovers were always a treat.

I had an extensive collection of stuffed animals; I still have most of them now! There’s Koala Bear, Gregory – Koala Bears’ best friend, Yellow (a yellow bear), Dumpty Doo, and a whole bunch of others. Thinking back in their names right now, I see that I veered from the very creative “Dumpty Doo” to the banal “Yellow”, who is, in fact, yellow.

I remember staying over at my friend, Jodi Ann Parker’s house. They had this huge dog; well, huge to a 6 year old, called Dfa. “D for dog” was his full name, but we all called him Dfa. I guess I also had friends who were either lazy, needing help remembering that it was a dog and not a cat, or, really cutely creative. You be the judge.

The house where we lived at the time in Khandallah was called Minihaha. Named after the Indian princess. How a house in New Zealand built in the early half of last century was named after an American Indian princess is strange and a mystery I never looked into, but there you go.

My brother J and I finally had separate rooms at Minihaha, having shared a rooms since we were tiny. Mine private room being called the “old kitchen”. It was actually the old kitchen. It had a pantry, which you could access by rolling up a panel in the wall. This made the room rather cold during the New Zealand winter, and just as cold during the week of the New Zealand summer.

Anyway, I digress. I returned to Minihaha from my sleep over to find every soft toy I owned gently swinging by their necks from rope nooses all fixed to the ceiling of the old kitchen. Apparently as I had not been around for my brother to pound on, he’d taken to lynching all of my precious soft toy friends. A mass hanging is not something an under 10 year old reacts to well.

Forget about your worries and your wife

2005-09-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

Had a VERY strange dream last night - it was a Doris Day/Cary Grant movie. An old Hollywood Comedy. The plot was Doris Day as a hussy stealing Cary Grant away from his wife. Being an old Hollywood Comedy there was, of course, musical numbers. What I remember best is Doris Day singing to Cary the following - to the tune of "The Bear Necessities":

Forget about your worries and your wife,
If you find that you can get with me,
We'll see how far we can be.

Hey - I just dreamed it, I never said my unconsciousness was the Tim Rice of lyricists....

Birthdays!

2005-09-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Birthdays, what to say about birthdays? Well, another one of mine has come and gone. This year with intentionally little fan fair.

Now, my brother and I have had a contentious relationship throughout the years, with us settling into an affectionate comradeship that could never have existed 15 years ago. This year I sent him an electronic birthday greeting, to which I received “Big D, a virtual card, how thoughtful. I shall place it on my virtual mantelpiece in cyberspace for all my virtual friends to see.”

J (my brother) & M (my sister-in-law) always seem to take holidays in celebration of my birthing. Here is the (real) post card I received from them this year:

“Dear Big D,
As has become our custom, we have once again celebrated your B-day with a trip to an exotic location. This year we have gone all out! We have taken a suite at the City Palace complex in Vdaipur on the shores of Lake Pichola. And last night for your birthday we dined at the Lake Palace Hotel, which floats majestically in the middle of the lake. Look it up on the web, search “Lake Palace Vdaipur.” A grand opulent affair – no expense was spared on this special occasion. I hope you appreciate it, we always try and do something you’ll enjoy.
Love,
J & M
*A word of advice, if you travel to India, remember this. – Do NOT eat chicken curry at a small roadside restaurant in the middle of NO WHERE – run by Hindu vegetarians who have never heard of salmonella! The result is as bad as what you can imagine!”

They’ve traveled to Indonesia for my birthday, Fiji & Tonga too! They must certainly hope I live a long time so they can continue their August travel tradition. I’m sure if I pass away in the near future they’ll just switch it to a memorial tour, but that doesn’t have the same panache as a birthday bash.

This certainly was a year for postcards. My Mum sent me a postcard too – my Nanny (grandmother) had a stroke earlier this year. Mum has had her moved to a full time care center in New Zealand. I found out late last week that Nanny believes it’s 1946. She knows she’s not in her 40’s, and accepts she could be 70 or 80, but she is firm on the year being 1946. Nanny doesn’t know who Mum is, who her grandkids are or really why she’s in this strange place. She isn’t talking, but she is beginning to write again which is how Mum has been communicating with her. For my birthday Nanny signed a postcard for me, “love from Nanny.”

I think that may just be the best birthday present I ever got.

Friend's Like These

2005-08-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

My pen pal in England – yes, a true blue postal service using pen pal – asked for some recent pictures of me. Well, specifically she asked for copies of my latest headshots. So, being a nice pen pal I sent off a couple of pics for her perusal.

I just got her return letter, “par avion”, I have it in front of me so as not to miss quote. Her first, FIRST sentence, mind you reads “Just got your pics/letter today, tah – can’t believe how much you’ve aged!!”

Not only did she use two, count them, TWO exclamation points (!!!) she apparently “can’t believe” that I’ve aged. We’ve been writing now for about 12 years, did she think I was friggin Peter Pan for gods sake? That perhaps like Dorian Grey I have a portrait stashed in the attack?

Well, just another reason to dislike the English as much as the French I say.

On a note of why America isn’t as bad as the Canadians think – I was carded buying champagne today. In a Trader Joes I frequent no less!! (A sentence that *deserves* two punctuation marks.)

So take that English pen pal, yeah, while you may think I have “aged unbelievably” I still get carded when shopping for libations.

A nothing post.

2005-08-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am again on my blog, blogging. It took a while to find a browser that was compatible with the darn site. Nice. Listening to Swedish pop, now, I don't understand Swedish but I'm sure it's all very tasteful.

Speaking of tasteful, I'm still not sure why my mother likes underwear purchased in America rather than New Zealand, but she does. I've again been tasked with picking up new smalls & body lotion for her. There's nothing quite like going into Target & searching through the lingerie section for a soft cup 40D bra. If you haven't done so, please go, don't take my word for it.

When will the day arrive when a man can't search for large soft cup bras without encountering looks? Hmmm? When is that day going to arrive?

I also find it hard to believe that in all of New Zealand there's not another skin lotion as good as African Royale's "Soft As Me" skin lotion. However, my mother won't hear of it. So, I've been given $100 U.S. dollars to get the lotion that she proclaims causes her skins to sing "food" when she applies it.

Now, just how many bra's I can get for $100, and how much lotion you can purchase for another $100 I'm not sure, the only thing I am glad of is that these items aren't found in the same store.

Work/election post.

2004-11-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

I'm here at my new job as the election results trickle in. The trainer is there scratching his head, though he does that a lot anyway. So that's not really about the whole election things. Anyway, need to go read some stuff.

2004-10-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Summer's Over

2004-09-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Autumn is finally here, the long lazy glorious summer is over. So too my break from writing. I've told myself in quite stern terms to get back to it, I don't always listen to myself as I can be a bit of a nag, but I just need to make sure I understand.
It's so hard getting things through to the people of today.

Picture Perfect

2004-08-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

One of the more mysterious things about the charms of the president of our company was related to me by our former HR director, Susan. A few years ago now, an employee came over to Susan in HR to voice their concern over another employee in their department, and this other employees ”actions”.

Susan took the employee into the HR conference room where she felt safe to explain her concern to Susan:
“She has a picture on her desk.”
“A picture?” Susan asked.
“Yes, a picture.”
“I see, is there something wrong with this picture? Perhaps an underdressed model or something?” Susan inquired.
“No, nothing like that, it’s a picture of her and Les (the president) at the Christmas party.”
“I see, a photograph of her, and Les, at the Christmas party, and this is on her desk?” Susan reiterated, to make sure she had a full grasp of the complaint.
“Yes, and what I want to know if what are you going to do about it?”
A little taken aback, Susan continued, “Do? I’m not quite sure what the problem is. It’s a photograph taken at the office Christmas party. It doesn’t sound like it’s offensive or violates any HR guideline. Is there another issue here, has something else happened?”
“But it’s facing out!”
“Out?” Susan asked.”Yes! OUT!” The employee announced, becoming more enraged the further she got into her complaint, “She doesn’t have the picture facing her, she has placed the picture so it’s facing outwards, so everyone can see she had her picture taken with the President of the company at the Christmas party. She’s just showing off and I don’t like it!”
“Would you like me to see if Les can take a picture with you?” Susan offered.
“No! I just want her to face her picture in. I don’t want to see her showing off how ‘buddy buddy’ she is with the President - I don’t want to have to see that everyday when I come to work.”
I don’t recall how Susan diffused this situation, though I do remember seeing the photograph, and now that Susan mentioned it, it was still facing out….

Le râteau

2004-08-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

I can remember being thoroughly impressed when I found out that Susan had worked for non-other than Martha Stewart herself. Perhaps from that moment forward Susan shone with an inner light not quite seen before, whatever the case, here was a great chance to find out what the real Martha Stewart was like.

Susan related several stories, the most memorable being the gardener and the cats. Susan was outside on a crisp New England morning, new to her position, eagerly waiting for the show to begin filming. Susan waited with interest as Martha called over one of her Mexican assistant gardeners and requested that he bring her “le râteau” for the next shot.

Perhaps all of Martha’s gardeners are required to speak French, however, Susan hadn’t known this when screening people to work for Ms. Stewart and this poor fellow spoke fluent Spanish and a smattering of English, but no French.

Susan watched as the gardener blinked a few times, then obligingly ran off to fetch whatever Martha had requested. Susan, not speaking French either was wondering what Ms. Stewart had asked he bring her, perhaps a kettle, maybe a garden gnome or possibly a modicum of potpourri to sprinkle on the ground.

The man ran back to Martha with a shovel in tow, which he presented to her, rather like a peasant approaching a haughty queen of old with a gift to appease the gentry. Well, Martha exploded, yelling “I clearly asked for le râteau and here you come with la pelle! Are you an idiot? Don’t you know what le râteau is? Because this ISN’T IT!” Here was where Susan began honing her HR skills that would serve her so well at CSA.

After smoothing over the situation, a harried Susan recalled how they then went inside for an interior shot, Martha’s famous long haired Himalayan cats were carefully positioned by the set designer on the sofa next to her in an artful arrangement. This piece of the show had Martha extolling the virtues of cats and how to take care of the long haired breed.
The moment “cut” was yelled, Martha shoved the nearest cat from the sofa and was demanding the rest of the animals be removed from her furniture, and where was the cleaner with that damn “le chiffon”?

Sandie Shaw

2004-07-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sandie Shaw has always been pretty special to me - before Kylie, before Dannii, before Mariah, there was Sandie! I really love her website.

Sandie Shaw was a sixties singer, she has an amazing life outlook that really inspires me. I love to read her newsletters about what's going on in her life - I've even written to her & she's written me back!

Sandie has a voice like no one else, and perhaps it could be said, introduced me to the wonder of the solo female artist.

Anyway, check her out, she's one amazing human being.

Does your mother....?

2004-07-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

I don't recall.

2004-07-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

I had the misfortune to catch part of a Full House rerun the other night. I’d clicked the channel, sat down with my burrito bowl from Chipotle & couldn’t get up once the show started.

But, the episode did get me thinking, where are all the good amnesia plots these days? This used to be a staple of shows in the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s. A crack on the head & BAMN, you’ve forgotten everything.

I always wanted to experience this as a kid. Not that I’d run into things in the hope of knocking myself out, (as this seemed to be the only thing that needed to happen to fall victim to the illness that robs - amnesia.)

Still, I always wondered, would I be a whole new me should I be so lucky as to lose my memory? Perhaps I’d be reinvented as a more kindly child, well liked with adults looking on with great concern thinking what a strong 7 year old with no memory I was.

Which brings me back to Full House, Michelle (played by the monkey-like Olson twins) fell from her horse. I was hoping for death, or paralysis on what could then be correctly termed as a “very special” episode, but regrettably she only lost her memory. I mean not even a broken bone.

Still, to my mind losing the memory of Bob Saget as your father would be a good thing.
Anyway, the rest of the cast all rallied around & sang to Michelle (either Monkey-Kate or Ape Olson, hard to tell) to jog her memory. My favorite part was seeing actress Jodi Sweetin all grown up at 13, being a sort of bitch on screen to Michelle. Acting or realty coming through? Hard to tell…

But I believe that Entertainment Tonight or Everybody Loves Raymond should employ the old amnesia trick, with the stars getting knocked in the head & forgetting who & what they are. That’s TV gold people, TV gold.

Taken To Task

2004-07-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

Mr. John Carpenter took me to task for not posting anything, so I need to get off my duff & write some more.

Hence this short but sweet post. There are other stories & ideas for me to work out in prose, but with my wrapping of a film & call backs for another I haven't carved out the time like I should have for some additional writing. Bad D, bad, bad, D!

Yes, perhaps there are hints there of stories to come, from the field of entertainment....

Sweet.

Oh, and ladies, John is single....

Never Wrong Wong

2004-06-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Christy Wong – at my job, Christy joined the company some years back now. A friend of a friend, she arrived about the same time as PorkChop (see earlier posts), they had a, um, friendly rivalry going. Both were hired the same week, both got promotions the same day (Christy got hers 2 minutes before PC, a fact she lorded over him for as long as she worked there). She was a hard worker (in the beginning), had amazingly red hair, porcelain skin, she was a large girl with a marriage arranged by the Internet.
While at work, she used to speak with a lisp around people in authority, I’m guessing to make herself seem cute & wide eyed.
Anyway, one lunch break she & PC were down in the employee lunch room, discussing things, as you do. Christy could never admit to being wrong about anything. In fact, she was so incredible about coming up with excuses a new term was born – “WongTonging” – this came to mean any fantastic reason as to why something, anything at all, wasn’t your fault.
Sometimes PC would set her up to fail, just so he could go over & hear her WongTong.
That days lunch conversation had turned to the differences between men & women. Christy earnestly explained that men & women’s elbows were different, and that if a man & woman stood with their backs against a wall, a woman could lift up a chair while a man, try though he might, could not.
Well, never one to let a challenge go by, or one to let a chance to prove Christy wrong in front of others, PC immediately said he was sure he could lift a chair while standing against a wall. He promptly got up & did just that.
This of course, meant war.
Christy couldn’t let this go, so she immediately began a series of WongTongs – “No! that’s right, if you’re facing the wall, bent over, with the top of your head touching the wall, a woman can lift a chair but a man can’t.”
PC of course debunked this right away, by turning to the wall, putting his large round head to it & lifting the chair.
“No, no, no – um, wait, yes, that’s right, if you’re facing away from the wall, standing on one foot bending so the top of your head is on the wall a man can’t lift that, that’s right, now I remember.” Christy exclaimed, lisp starting to slip.
Quite the crowd had gathered, and all expectantly turned & watched, as PC, a malevolent gleam in his eyes, as he turned, assumed the position & hoisted the chair into the air.
Christy, a little bead of sweat on her pale brow ran up, grabbed the chair placed one foot on the wall, bent over the chair & said
“No, now I remember, one foot on the ground, one on the wall & if you lift really quickly” well this is the point where she frantically lifted the chair with such force she whacked herself in the forehead.
Hurriedly dropping the chair, grabbing her throbbing skull which now had a red brand standing out from her porcelain skin from where the top of the chair had made contact, sobbed “That’s not it, no, that’s not it.”

Later that afternoon she explained she was going to talk with her mother, who would remember what the difference was.

We never heard about this fabled difference again…