Diary - Winter 97

Diary - Winter 97

Did New Year's with Chris - event culminated with him tossing zucchini out window into street while howling into mike praises of Jolt cola.

The teenagers were mostly blitzed out of their minds on beer and pot. God I wonder why people feel nostalgic for their youth. Only good thing is you're farther away from sterility and death.

He sold his club at the end of January, and I helped him "remove" a TV that someone had fixed to just project a squiggle on the screen that he left behind. Fun exploring an apartment building, the "Cooper" I think, one solitary man in attic, smoking a joint and in his own world, crammed firetrap basements in building with a creek running under the basement. Apparently someone from a mental hospital lives down there when he escapes. That is fun when you're young, you can do things like this that just skirt the law, exploring buildings and picking up things.

Jan 30 - Did little this month....... did story about foul mouthed

Dolls

Saw vampire role playing game. Some nice costumes. Silly as hell. "My character is like ambassador Sarak in Star Trek". People sort of like in a cocktail party. "Would you like to see my books"...... Like, get an afterlife!

Friend had made copper links to go over her upper body like chainmail. Fantasized about shorting out my 6 volt lithium battery on it.

90 year old woman murdered by 27 year old grandson in home she had lived for for 50 years, over money.

Feb 13 - Hey, Joyce Carol Oates called me back on a story I'm doing on a group that wants to remove her book Firefox from a local high school -- gee, I thought it would be hard to get ahold of her!

Feb 14 - Coroner's Inquest into baby girl who died after mother could not breast-feed her. Did not realize something was wrong when she did not wet her diapers. Dehydration after 11 days.

Went to film at Elora festival "Breaking the waves" -by Lars von Trier in English - great film! There was a coroner's inquest in the film. Odd doubling, and when another reporter who was at the film and with me at the real inquest earlier asked me if I liked it, I was a little confused as to which thing he was refering to.

Talked with Geoff Pevere, who has started working at the Star.

Feb 18 - Went to boxing gym for poetry reading - two poets going head-to-head in ring. Club owned by former golden gloves champ. Has a bulldog which snuffled loudly - - mostly women at gym, had poem about fighting sprayed on wall --- talking about every fighter fighting himself in the ring ---- having to defeat his own fear. He was badly cut, and had a touch of that sort of Parkinson's thing Muhammed Ali has. Sometimes fear does have something sensible to say to you........

Mar 11 - Felt so proud! Chris and his pal Dan are starting 'zine and are investigating a questionable land deal in Stratford. Chris called me at Yawp!, a poetry slam that Jake Brown of Montreal puts on, to tell me he got booted out of a high school students' conference in Owen Sound for disrupting everything and wearing a dress on the first day. He wanted to give Education Minister an "Anti Bad Grammar" helmet while in full drag, but had to leave before this... Damn kids -- everyone knows that you save your best dress for the last day!

No sooner did I get my story in the paper about the boxing ring than a girl who showed up to play guitar during the intermission called through to the paper, who put her through to me to complain that I did not put her name in. This never happens when I do crime stories.

Woman's Day - Saw Faith Nolan. Warm-up act very typical of "woman's music" - girl who did not bother to tune up guitar or sing on key, and left not long after Nolan started set, instead of sticking around to pick up pointers.

Nolan, who I've been a fan of for more than 10 years, is extremely professional, with great voice and guitar talent, and extremely intelligent with great between song schtick imitating different types of people, but Jesus! if you want to send a message, use Western Union!

Being a black lesbian from Nova Scotia is one thing, but politicizing it and mixing it up with Marxism..... Zzzzzzzz! 'Bourgeois Town' ? G-7 Economic group, which includes Japan, made up of 'seven white men'???.

Full house, but no lineup for the men's room after the show. Sad, she could reach a broader audience than lugs going through the "masturbation is a revolutionary act and should get government funding" stage.

Saw Michael Hollingsworth's Trudeau and the FLQ at the Factory Theatre in Toronto, by the VideoCabarat theatre. The stage was behind transparent gauze that they projected video on, and the actors used Tex Avery type costumes and props to make them look like cartoons. Interesting way to teach history.

In Guelph, I saw a one-woman thing done in the back of a cafe that impressed me a little more --- was a play called Fever by Wallace Shawn,and the girl doing was Christine Mathieson. Lighting as can be imagined, consisted of ticket-taker flicking switches by door! Wallace Shawn is the funny looking bald guy you see in some Woody Allen flicks and who, I think, wrote and starred in My Dinner With Andre. Mathieson amazed me by keeping up her voice and not needing cue cards for an hour and a half and only flubbed one line when she said "Green tomatoes and red vegetables"!

Mach 15 - Went to Edvard Munch exhibit at AGO - my pager went off just before the Scream and had to call the Star about the guy who won 35,000 on the price is right. Just had time to glance at it before running out. Nice bright colours! They have a 30 foot blow up of the Scream figure in the gift shop.

Took pix of Hale-Bopp comet with the CN Tower and the Skydome in foreground.

Huge number of beautiful women at the exhibit, then I met an absolute ravisher at the Idler -- blonde, blue eyed private investigator......

March 16 - Police shooting in Hamilton. Police garlanded neighbourhood with yellow tape. There was a little tiny old Hungarian lady standing on her front step looking at us. She wanted to give me and a police officer some candy.

March 18 - Saw Nino Ricci and Paul Quarrington at McMaster