Links to the Past

Someone once said to me; “Golf is great, you get to beat something much smaller than yourself with a stick, what’s not to love?” I however have never felt that way.  There is in fact not much about the sport that I enjoy. Golf for me has always been several yards short of exciting.  Perhaps it is golf’s rather stodgy image that has kept me from being a fan and even Tiger Woods with his modern take on fidelity has not been able to win me over.

But all that has changed. Recently while I was traveling across USA, I came across a golf course, which made me rethink my view of golf as an unlimited yawn fest. And of all things, the course that made me reevaluate my attitude was a mini-putt course.

I know what you’re saying, I can hear it being trumpeted far and wide “That’s not real golf!”.  True, mini-putt has always occupied the trailer park portion of the golfing spectrum; silly at best, embarrassing and ghetto at worst. Normally checkered with windmills and gaping clown mouths, mini-putt has earned the stigma as a blight on civilization. This course is the exception and what raises it above the norm is its overarching theme, which is declared in its name “Great Assassinations Mini-Putt and Family Amusement Park”.

Let me say that the owners Carson and Bev Moore have tried their best to represent all countries and historical periods on this course but somehow America ended up with the most holes. Maybe it’s a cultural thing; their love of guns and their tolerance of everything including intolerance have made their society more susceptible to violence as a solution than most. Perhaps it was the elevation of firearms into their constitution and ultimately their founding mythology; Rome had Romulus and Remus, America has Smith and Wesson. Whatever the reason, violence is pervasive. Even their most beloved maxims have a sinister side. “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. A life lesson from a president or just sound advice to a would be assassin? I asked Carson about it and he just shrugged and said “Maybe we just don’t much care for our presidents”.

The first hole ‘A Night At The Theatre’ is of course a nod to President Lincoln.  The correct spin seemed to be the key in attacking this par 3. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, suffice to say that spin on the ball entirely depends on how the clubface hits it. Some swings will make the ball turn left, some right, some will even deaden the ball so it stops at the spot you want it to.  This hole is on 2 levels with the green separated from the tee by a fenced gully. After careful study I could see that it required a certain delicacy of shot.  Just as I stroked the ball, I jumped to left, over the gully and fencing which gave the ball the required spin. After it hit the backdrop of the play, it rebounded off a footlight and then came to rest within inches of the hole. I easily tapped it into Lincoln’s head and scored my first birdie.

The next hole was not as easy, which I guess is really the appeal of the course, some holes were fairly easy, a few required forethought and others immense physical skill. This Par 4  ‘A Tough Day at the Senate’ is a lively recreation of Julius Caesar’s final morning. Tough though doesn’t describe the half of it. The difficulty with this hole is that you can’t see the cup at all, for surrounding it were over a dozen men dressed in togas.  It took a full 9 shots on my part to finally sink the ball and even then chance played a large role as my shot bounded off 3 pairs of ankles before it finally fell into the cup.

The fifth hole, ‘A Very Long Siesta’, was of course, an homage to Trotsky. This was one of those holes that I described earlier, a challenging hole that required not only skill but a bit of brainpower also. After taking 2 shots, I realized that there was no way on earth to sink the ball going straight towards the hole and this was because there was an almost invisible lip surrounding the front of the hole. The only way to sink the ball is to approach the hole from behind. With that knowledge, my next shot went around the far side of the hole, bounced off the office walls so that when it came to rest, it was directly behind the cup. Then quicker than you can say ‘ice pick’ I sank the ball for a much earned par 4. At this point I was still 2 over par but not a bad start at all.

I continued to do well for a number of holes. The par 2, 7^th hole in particular, was one that I thought was unnecessarily easy. Entitled ‘Pick a Gandhi, Any Gandhi’; there were 3 holes on the green to choose from. At first I thought there might be some sort of trick to it but sadly there wasn’t, any and every hole was correct. A hole-in-one.

The superiority I was feeling was quickly dashed on the next one however. This hole was the only hole dedicated to Canada and their lone assassination entitled ‘Who’s That At the Door D’Arcy McGee?’. The difficulty with this hole lay in the fact that the green was elevated onto what appeared to be a door stoop. At first I assumed another trick much like the Trotsky hole but no. Here spin was required once again, this time to both knock the ball onto the elevated green and then have the backspin to make it stick. Needless to say I bogeyed this one.

After that I had a number of successful holes. The Archduke Ferdinand, Phillip of Macedon, and the extremely satisfying Reinhard Heydrich. There was even a hole for James Garfield, which much like his presidency, I have no real recollection of.

I wasn’t really challenged again until the final hole; ‘Welcome to Dallas Mr. President’. A very tough hole. I took a couple of practice swings to get the feel of the hole but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the ball anywhere near the hole. Every shot went entirely in the wrong direction.  I started to get the feeling that this hole was impossible. Then I examined it one last time, and I realized that if I just moved the ball from the book depository and instead teed off on the grassy knoll, the hole was a cinch. Another hole-in-one.

I finished the course at 5 under but best of all; I finally discovered a course that I enjoyed. Not only was this course challenging but it also served as a great refresher for any upcoming history quiz. . As a further note, Carson and Bev are looking to add another 9 holes, so that every time you play, there will be a different combination of holes; so you may never play the same course twice. And best of all, if you mention this article, you will receive a 10% discount. So what’s stopping you? Great Assassinations Mini-Putt and Family Amusement Park; fun for the whole family.

Just so you know, I really did work for two crazy men, so this isn’t just a title meant to draw you in.  If it were just that I would have spiced it up a little, I’d have gone with something like I worked For Two Crazy Naked Men and Their Harems of Crazy Naked Women and Took A lot of Pictures. But I didn’t, I went with I Worked For Crazy Men because I did.  So these aren’t going to be short stories with some kind of linear plot development, instead it will be some of the stuff I remember about working there.

So I should tell you a little bit about the job: I used to work in a store that bought and sold records, cds and dvds. And it was a pretty successful store except that we were always short of money. Not because of a lack of business but because of how the business was operated. When I arrived there were two owners, one we’ll call B and the other R. Eventually B drove R to what I believe was a nervous breakdown. I’m no doctor but I think anyone rocking back and forth saying ‘Fuck, Fuck, Fuck’ ad infinitum should qualify as some kind of breakdown. But maybe that’s just my opinion.

For me, I find the experiences are a lot like high school, funnier from a distance. Anyway, these are some of the things that happened, I hope you enjoy them.

#13

Notes From The Underground

B left this note for a co-worker and myself.  At that time, we were constantly short of money and were having a difficult time running the store. After complaining about it, B left us this note, which in his mind solved the problem forever. Now whenever we were short of cash, we were supposed to take this note to the bank, along with a store cheque that we’d written to ourselves and have it cashed.

The problem of course is that no bank is going to consider any note when cashing a cheque, let alone one that looked like it was written by a 3 year old. How anyone would believe that merely by presenting this note, a bank would cash a $1000 cheque is beyond me.

When I called B to say this idea was ridiculous and no one would cash the cheque, he told me I was wrong. With this note, they would cash any cheque. I said it was embarrassing to have to present a note like this. He said, “Take it to the bank.” It was as if it was some sort of magic note, written by fairies without any motor skills.

One day, with no money to operate the store, I was forced to swallow my pride and go to the bank  armed only with a cheque written out to myself  and my special magic fairy note. The employees of the bank of were amused of course. They had never seen a note like this. They passed it back and forth, spoke in hushed whispers. I believe I even heard a bit of sniggering.  Ultimately though, they refused to cash the cheque.

These were the type of ideas B was continually having. Like the idea that if he overpaid on what were at that time his GST payments, the government wouldn’t bother him if something went awry. A ridiculous assumption and a waste of money.

B really belonged in a small town. One of those towns where everyone knew each other and so when you went to the bank with a note like this they would know that it was just eccentric old B and they would chuckle at the note and cash the cheque.  There he would be colourful, one of the town eccentrics that everyone knew was a bit crazy but not dangerous.

I know because as a youngster I lived in one of those towns for a few years. It was a small town in Nova Scotia. We had moved there from Halifax because my father had been transferred. In that town was a small department store called Cox’s Department store. It was owned by old Mr. Cox whose family owned quite a bit of the town. Now old Mr. Cox was about 200 years old and moved accordingly. Everyone in the town knew about him. His sole purpose in life was to sneak up on the women who were shopping in his store and pinch their bums. It was no big deal in the town because, as I say, everyone knew. And he actually walked at a glacial rate much like that old Tim Conway character on the Carole Burnett show, so he was very easy to avoid. When he got too close the women when they were shopping, they would move to another aisle, he would follow, and when things were safe, they’d move back to the aisle they really wanted to look in.

However, when my mother went to the store for the first time, she was not aware of the ground rules for shopping at Cox’s. So when she saw this ancient proprietor shuffling towards her, she didn’t give it a second thought. That is until he pinched her bottom. Then she moved. Afterwards the employees took her aside and explained  the ground rules when shopping at Cox’s.

In this small town everyone knew about Mr. Cox, he was colourful and eccentric, so people just dealt with it. He could do pretty much as he wanted and people would say, ‘ he’s Mr. Cox being Mr. Cox.’ This is where B belonged. Where his crazy cures for dandruff and his nutty notes would be accepted. Not in the city though. So maybe a case could be made that it wasn’t so much that he was crazy, but rather geographically challenged.

#12

It’s For The Ladies

Working in a music store was a lot like being a bartender. Sure you bought and sold music but you also interacted with everyone who came into the store. And many people came in for that interaction. For some it was just a ‘hi and good-bye’: others required more. They wanted to discuss baseball, business, the unfairness of life, health, plans for the future, family problems, whatever: each had their own needs. Some would come in once a day, some once a month. Everyone though was looking for some sort of validation.

There was one customer who would come in once a week and he loved soul music. He always played several discs and bought a few. All the while gabbing away about nothing in particular.

One day he came in as proud as Yahweh on the seventh day because he had just made a compilation cd of his favourite music. Now when I say favourite, I really mean songs with a funky, sexy feel. In addition he said he had made a cover for it and he would show us next time, if we wanted to see it.  He wanted us to say yes, our job was to say yes, and so we said yes.

The next week he came in again with a cover he made for cd. Now I have to say that I was not in that day and I never saw the cover and so can only go by how it was described to me. Basically it was him in bed, naked with strategically placed blankets to hide his manhood. The description reminded me of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment after it was repainted or as the Catholic Church said ‘corrected’ in the 1560s. This censored version looks like a hurricane touched down on washday which also happened to be the day the world ended, swept through a backyard full of drying towels and blew them into an oncoming rush of the resurrection whereupon they all came to rest in the genital area of both the elect and the damned. So it was with his blanket, some how it had gravitated to his genital area to give him what he considered a sexy look.

When we asked him what cd was for he replied “Its for the ladies, ho, ho, ho, ho.”. Apparently he was giving this as a gift to all his lady friends. Anyone who had the unfortunate combination of being both a woman and an acquaintance was to be given this as a reward. And when he said the phrase ‘it’s for the ladies, ho, ho, ho, ho’ it sounded like Santa Claus impersonating Barry White. It always creeped me out however he thought he was being sexy. So I’ve done my best to impersonate him. Give it a play and you decide. Creepy or sexy?

#11

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and The Crazy Man Behind the Counter

I’ve said several times that B mismanaged the store so that we were continually short of cash. Here’s a good example of what I mean.

B was working one Sunday. He had just bought a copy of ‘The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover’ on dvd and had left it on the desk. A customer came in, a man B disliked, in fact hated. I use the term hate because that’s the word B used. Why he hated this man, I don’t know. Granted he could be mildly annoying, he was one of those guys who always talked at you and never to you.  And no matter what you were doing, whether you were engaged with another customer or just swamped from the day-to -day running of the store, he would talk at you. This wasn’t that unusual though as many of our customers had a tendency to do this and to my mind, it was just part of the job. Just another lonely collector trying to make some form of human contact. So while at times I found him annoying, I never understood the hate part.

So this customer comes into the store and sees ‘The Cook, the Thief”… blah blah blah on the desk.

“Is that for sale?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says B.

‘How much?”

B looks at him. “It’s out of print, so it’s expensive. It goes for about $75 on line.”

“Yeah? How much then?”

“$13.99”

The guy is ecstatic. He starts to talk at B, tells him how much he loves the film, what a great price it is, how happy he is to get a copy and on and on and on.

I only know this story because the next day, B told it to me. When he told me what he sold it for, I just looked at him. It felt like a half hour but I’m certain it was only a couple of seconds.

Finally I found the words, “You sold it for $13.99?”

“Yeah.”

“Last time we got $35, most places sell it for double that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I told him.”

“So?”

“I hated the guy.”

The sentence was said with such finality that I knew it was meant to be the last word on the subject. It was as if this was the ultimate piece in his argument, an argument so convincing that I would be forced to throw my hands in the air and bow to the awesome nature of his mental powers. In a sense it did work. I was stymied and it did make me walk away. But all I could think of when I was walking away was ‘thank God he hated the guy, otherwise he might have paid him to take the dvd away.’

#10

Cleanliness Thy Name is Insanity

A customer came into the store. After looking around for a while, he came over to the counter. One of my co-workers was there cleaning a cd with a lint free soft cloth.

“Are those rags wet?” he asked.

“No, they’re dry.”

“Can I spit on them?”

I quickly came to the conclusion that there are no witty rejoinders to that question and so we passed on the opportunity to acquire a sample of his saliva.

After some deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that the customer was acting on some kind of rogue maternal impulse.  As a child whenever my mother and I were out in public, if at any point she saw a hint of dirt on my face, she would immediately spit into a Kleenex and wipe the smudge into oblivion. Being continually on the wrong side of the offending Kleenex however, I can assure you, you never feel cleaner.

I believe that some how this man had come to share some of my mother’s DNA and was overcome by the same misplaced impulse. Subsequently whenever he saw dirt, he instantly had an overwhelming urge to spit on any material in the immediate vicinity and clean.  So while I don’t blame him, I do pity his children.

#9

The Grass is Always Greener

At the height of the feud between R and B, B would regularly threaten to go and open a new store.  I was talking to a co-worker about this one day. I asked him where B wanted open this store.

“Little India” he said.

I looked at him “What’s he going to call it, ‘Who’s Sari Now’?”

#8

Round and Round and Round We Go

I find it amazing how what is considered ‘normal’ can shift over time to become something unrecognizable. A good example is the duct-taping and humiliation of city employees in Mississauga. Sadly, though, you don’t need to search the newspapers to find examples of this kind of behavior.  Near the end of my time at the store, I was perplexed at how working conditions had deteriorated over time. What was once a fun, well-paying job had become a nightmare with two bosses unable to reign in their worst impulses.

B hated notes from R. It didn’t matter much about the content, whenever he would see a note it would infuriate him. Leaving a note was like waving a red flag at a bull or booking Moby at a folk festival, there was only one outcome: hostility. If a note were left on the turntable, he would smash the turntable cover as soon as he spied it. If it were taped to the counter, he would tear the note off scratching the desk, literally leaving claw marks in the wood.

R on the other hand, would become incensed every time B bought unnecessary product, which was pretty much every day. His way of showing displeasure was to nail the unwanted product to the wall in the staff room as a warning to all. Records, cds, whatever, if R didn’t like it, he nailed it to the wall. Going into the staff room was like entering the territory of a tribe of headhunters but instead of shrunken craniums being the medium of the message, U2 albums and unremastered Who cds took their place. He railed against wastage while destroying hundreds of dollars worth of stock in a misguided attempt to stop wastage.

Perhaps R was just paying homage to the Romans and their favorite form of execution. Whatever it was, it sapped the morale of the staff. Foolishly I pointed out that all this nailing and smashing was costing us money at a time when we had very little to spare. This of course was greeted with looks of incredulity. It was as if I was dressed as a Martian, was speaking Urdu and using my tail as a third hand to enable me to smoke a hookah. So on went the nailing and smashing, smashing and nailing, and nailing and smashing until they eventually tired of that mode of expression and devolved to something else.

#7

Take a Letter Maria

Music is a powerful art form. It can motivate people, calm their nerves and even facilitate an emotional catharsis. I know at various stages in my life, I’ve played certain records or cds over and over and over as if somehow they had become the soundtrack to my life. When I was a moody teenager, I played Jackson Browne’sLate For the Sky continually one summer and later as an adult whenever I was looking to calm myself, I’d reach for Brian Eno’s album Music for Airports. Bach’s Cello Suites, Nanci Griffith’s The Last of the True Believers, Keith Jarrett’s The Köhn Concert and John Martyn’s Solid Air are just a few of the recordings that have anchored in time certain episodes in my life.

I mention this because working in a music store, I have found many strange things that people have left inside album jackets.  Notes to loved ones, hand written song lyrics, birthday greetings, grocery lists, photos of naked people, photos of people partially clothed, photos of people fully clothed, record reviews, bad poetry, and even lists of people’s names.  The lists of names have often intrigued me and I’ve speculated on what they could be; a random list of names, good people, a Christmas list, a hit list or perhaps a list of people who say the word ‘irregardless’ . In any case, I’ve always been intrigued by found memories.

My favorite of all my finds is a sad little hand written note. Now why would this note engage me more than the naked photos or the scathing record reviews of milestone recordings?

I guess it is because this note confirms my belief in the power of music. I’ve always imaged this scenario as to the origins of the note: some guy comes home heart broken. He immediately reaches for his favorite recording and listens to it while composing this note. The only thing missing are a few well-placed tearstains.

So I’ve scanned the original note and transcribed it for those who wish an easier read.

Sexual Lepar

“just friends” is a consolation prize

I’ll only ever be “just friends” with women

being “just friends” means I am pointless (sexually women don’t and therefore pointless)

I am worthless

I have no sexual value I am a sexual lepar

There are a lot of things you can say about the poem but I will limit myself to just two.  I especially love the snowman at the bottom of the page. Nothing says sexual lepar like translucent ice crystals packed together into a number of misshapen spheres and crowned with a hat. And finally I believe that some higher power was at work in getting this note to B’s store. Over the years B has turned misspelling into an art form and waged an unrelenting war on syntax. Speed was always more important than accuracy. So a note which throws punctuation to the wind and corrects the correctly spelled leper and turns it into lepar was meant to come to our store.  A serendipitous convergence in the universe allowed this note to finally go home.

As a side note if you are interested there is a web site that talks about  stuff found in records. Check it out.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/11/items-found-in.html

#6

Pick a Roach, Any Roach

One Saturday, B and I were working when a customer brought in a knapsack, put it on the desk and said he wanted to sell some cds. The knapsack was lying on its side, so instead of sitting it upright, I just opened it. Immediately a herd of cockroaches scurried out of the bag. I’m not sure that herd is the correct scientific term.  They certainly weren’t a flock, they were too haphazard to be a group and they lacked the required attitude to be a gang, so I will continue with the term herd. As soon as the herd of roaches bolt across the desk, B started to yell, “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”

What was disturbing was that none of the other customers bothered to look up, it was as if the phrase “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!” was not out of the ordinary for them. That for some reason, the idea of another’s impending death did not interest them in the least.

Anyway as B was yelling, I lifted the knapsack and he began to smash the little devils into another plane of existence. After a multitude of well-placed smacks, our little genocide was complete, so I started to close the bag.

“What are you doing?” B demanded.

“Putting this away. I don’t want to rummage through this. Besides there might be more of them in there and the last thing we need is to be infested.”

“Gimme that,” he said.

“You’re not serious.”

But serious he was. After all, he was the guy who bought everything and, by God, a plague of insects was not going to stop him from buying a 5th copy of Abba’s ‘Greatest Hits’.

#5

MR. FUCK

R was a strange fellow. Being an honest man, he always wanted to make sure that anyone who was selling us cds or dvds was not selling stolen items. He often relied on his so-called ‘spidey sense’. “My ‘spidey sense’ is tingling,” he’d say as he turned someone away.

His problem was that his ‘spidey sense’ was quite defective. It may well have been manufactured by Toyota and he sadly missed the recall. Still R went on and on about his great ‘spidey sense’.

There was this one guy who R always suspected. A middle age man who once every couple of weeks would bring in dvd’s to sell. R was certain he was selling stolen product. The only problem was that the guy never exhibited any of the tell-tale signs. He was never nervous, the product was definitely used, he could always answer any question about his films (proving he had watched them) and the selection of dvds he brought in was consistent in regards to taste. The rest of the staff was baffled, yet R was certain this poor guy was a crook.

One day after he sold a couple of dvds, R followed him out of the store to his car. Within a few minutes he came running back into the store “He’s definitely selling stolen things, I knew it, my ‘spidey sense’ in never wrong.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“His car had rust. How could a guy with rust afford dvds? “

R was to logic what Stalin was to economic planning. Long after R had left, this guy continued to come in and there was never a problem.

Then there was the case of Mr. FUCK.  Mr. FUCK had been a customer for about a year or so.  A reasonably nice guy at the beginning but it turns out Mr. FUCK had problems. At some point after starting to shop at the store he had become an addict. The bad part of that for Mr. FUCK was that he would buy a few cds one week and then have to sell them the next in order to pay for his habit. While it was a bit of a bonanza for the store, it became quite expensive for Mr. FUCK. Finally he had tired of this merry-go-round of buying and selling and came up with a solution to his problems. Now, a rational person might think about quitting. This however, was not the resolution Mr. FUCK came up with. Instead he decided to write the word ‘FUCK’ across the paper sleeves of all his cds and, that way, he would be unable to sell them to anyone. In fact, he had asked me if someone did something like this would we buy them?  On course, I said we wouldn’t. So off he went, bought a permanent ink marker and had himself a little arts and craft time from hell.

The problem was, when he needed a little snort, he came back in with his now specially monogrammed cd’s. We, true to our word, refused to buy them. He badgered us unrelentingly but we held our ground. So then he went home and scratched out the offending word as best he could with what looked like his fingernails and then tried to sell them to us again. At this point, everyone on staff was feeling a bit uneasy about Mr. Fuck and told R. We thought he was unstable and we were more than a little worried for our safety, not to mention the difficulty we had in dealing with some guy strung out and needing money to get his fix.

“No”, R said, “he’s fine, my ‘spidey sense’ says so and my ‘spidey sense’ is never wrong”. These positive affirmations of his obviously defective sixth sense reassured no one. So worry we did.

Shortly after this, we caught him stealing the paper sleeves for cd covers (you figure out why) and even with that R refused to listen. “He’s okay,” he’d say, “my ‘spidey sense’ says so.”

We had to catch him stealing a second time before R finally relented and Mr. FUCK was banned from the store. Still R would constantly talk about his ‘spidey sense’ always overlooking its rather spotty history.

#4

HAIRDOS AND DON’TS

B always had something to say about your appearance, he would comment on hair or clothes fairly regularly which I found odd coming from a man who would often as not wear a pajama top in place of a regular shirt. I believe that he was a regular contributor to ‘The Rummy’s Guide to Fashion’ however, I must admit I have no physical proof.

One day I was working with him and all of a sudden he started scratching his head. I asked him what was up. “Dandruff” he said.

“Yeah I can’t stand it. I need to get something for it.” he continued and he abruptly left.

He returned about 10 minutes later with a bag. I watched as he pulled a bottle of olive oil out.  “This’ll fix it,” he said as he poured a bit onto his scalp. After massaging it in he glanced up. He looked like an ad for pomade gone horribly wrong, he did however have the faint aroma of a Greek salad. And that’s how he worked the rest of the day.

As a side note, if you are interested in trying this look, let me tell you that it was extra virgin but not cold pressed. And the great news is that if you do try this and it doesn’t work, at least you can make supper.

#3

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A customer walked into the store one day with a bunch of cds to sell. He had open wounds and scabs all over his arms and face. He dropped the bag on the counter and said, “I want to sell these cds. I need to get some money to buy my Ferret some food.”

My co-worker looked at him ‘How’s it going with the ferret?’ he asked.

“Not so good.”

#2

THAT’S HOW I SPELL IT

We bought and sold cds but sadly because there are many people who like to steal, we were forced to leave empty cd cases in the sections. This meant that we had to file the cds behind the counter, so that when someone brought up a cd to buy, we would fill it. In theory, we filed the cds alphabetically behind the counter. I say theory because B was unable to file. Everyone makes mistakes but with B it was beyond belief. He was mildly dyslexic, inserted letters that were not there, could barely write and believed that speed was more important than accuracy.  My favourite misfile had to do with Bill Cosby. Every time someone would bring a Bill Cosby cd to the counter, I couldn’t find it.  Every time. Eventually I found a bunch of Bill Cosby cds together but they were filed as if the were spelled Bill Crosby. One day I pointed this out to B.  I told him where I had found them and then I mentioned that Cosby is not spelled with an ‘r’. B merely looked at me and said “That’s how I spell it”. There after whenever I looked for Bill Cosby, I always started looking in the Crosby section.

#1

THE GUY WHO BUYS EVERYTHING

The dynamic between B and R was always very interesting to watch as they were opposites. B always wanted to buy everything while R was much more conservative.  This worked quite well for a while but eventually B became obsessed with buying to the point that R  stopped buying almost entirely. I remember one day when I was working with R, some guy walked in with a bag of the worst cds mankind has seen. We looked through them and had to pass on the entire collection. The guy then looked up and said “when does the guy who buys everything work?”. That was the beginning of the end for

You’ve seen the brochures for those all inclusive beach holidays. Pictures of semi-clad hunks carrying anorexic, yet some how well endowed blonde bombshells across white, shimmering sand. In other photos, the same couple are swimming, riding horseback and of course, partying. The subliminal message is always the same. “This could be you. Yes you, Mr. Boring. You could be laughing and partying and having friends. You could be living this dream.”

I am no longer susceptible to this type of advertising as I am well aware that I am past any possibility of being mistaken for a hunk. In my youth, a salesman in London once remarked, while I was trying on a suit, that it made me look like David Bowie, but being slightly over-weight, short and decidedly heterosexual, even then I was able to dismiss the comment as part of a sales routine. What did convince me to take the plunge and book this all-inclusive holiday was the scenery behind the people. I knew I would never be that guy on the beach but I figured that at least, the beach in the picture would be the same beach at my hotel. Besides, inertia had become one of my favourite forces and so the idea of sitting on a beach for a week seemed appealing on both the physical and metaphysical level.  So I bit the bullet, paid my fare and booked my all-inclusive vacation on a Caribbean Island.

To my surprise, the beach pictured in the brochure was not the one at my hotel. Yes there were similarities, both had sand, and sun and yes, even water, but at my beach you couldn’t actually run in the water. Or swim in it. At least not like they did in the brochure. To swim or run in my beach, you needed to wear a pair of sneakers because my beach was infested with sea urchins.  If you waded in these waters without sneakers, you risked stepping on one of those spiky little devils and skewering your foot on their spiny exoskeleton. Not being a fan of punctured feet or in fact, any of the major foot injuries, I turned my attention to others pursuits. After all there was still the horse back riding. So I signed up.

The itinerary was fairly straight forward, once I had signed up, they bussed myself and every one else who had signed up, to the other side of the island and from there, we were to disembark and then ride horses to a spectacular water falls. It didn’t quite work out that way. We did bus to the other side of the island and as far as bus rides go, this was certainly one of the best I have ever been a part of. The bus was air-conditioned, I had a seat for the entire journey, and best of all, we were not involved in any major traffic mishaps. The ride certainly rated an ‘A+’ in my books.

The excursion started to fall apart with our disembarkation. As we got off, we were greeted by what could loosely be termed as horses. The poor beasts were underfed, overworked and underweight. I am no horse expert, but ‘underfed, overworked and underweight’ are not the attributes I would look for in a horse.

The guilt I felt mounting my thin transport was considerable but being raised a Catholic, guilt was something I faced and overcame daily.  So I climbed aboard and began my ride. Unbeknownst to me though, the company had hired scores of young boys whose job it was to run alongside the horses and hurry them along. Some would even jump on the backs of the horses, behind the unsuspecting riders, and whip the horses to go as fast as they could. I refused to let this happen and so my horse and I leisurely strolled to our destination which wasn’t the water falls but instead a clearing in the trees only a short distance away. I felt a bit ripped at the brevity of the ride but I am certain that my horse was pleased to be shed of me so quickly.

Once there, the horses were rounded up and made available to the group that had just seen the waterfalland was now ready to return to their bus. And once again, the young boys were there to hurry the process along by pushing, yelling and slapping the horses to greater speed. For a moment I stopped, turned and watched the young boys as they herded their posse of pasty, overweight tourists into the late afternoon sun and their ultimate destiny, an air-conditioned bus.

From this point, we had to walk about 20 minutes through the forest to the waterfall. Beautiful? You bet.Would I do it again? Not on your life. Because once there, another team of young boys sprang into action. While several of the boys leapt from the top of the cliff, risking permanent injury, their entrepreneurial friends went amongst the tourists demanding money for the show.  Racked with guilt, we coughed up the required cash. By the end of the excursion, I felt lousy about the trip, terrible for the young boys and worse about the horses and their treatment. From here on in, I decided that I was just going to hang around my hotel. Nothing more. Besides there was the big New Year’s bash coming up and the brochure promised great partying, so I figured I’d save my energy for the party.

And what a party it was. It boasted the three main ingredients for any successful party: tepid food, a mediocre dance band and plenty of armed guards. Apparently at Christmas time, so I was told, there is an increase in theft on the island as people try to scrape money together to buy presents. Even with that knowledge, there is something about a plethora of shotguns that puts a damper on any festive occasion for me.

And as the night went on, our guards succumbed to the allure of the dance band, embraced their weapons as dance partners, and sashayed around the periphery of the compound. As I watched them bop and sway to the beat, it became clear to me that these custodians of my safety, were imbibing in a little yuletide spirit. Actually, a lot of yuletide spirit and by the time the last strains of music filtered across the beach, a tangible bond had developed between these men and their implements of death.

So there you have it. The only inclusive holiday that I have ever been a part of. What did I learn? Well, if you are going that route, do some research and ask questions, especially of your travel agent. Questions like “Will I be risking permanent injury if I frolic on the beach?” or “Will you be protecting me with drunken guards who have a fondness to slow dance with their loaded fire arms?” These kinds of questions can go a long way to avoiding trouble. And if you don’t feel you can ask your travel your agent, talk to other people who have been there or buy a travel book to get a few answers. Something. As for me, I go on my own from now on. Sure it’s more work, but at least now when I go to parties, the only thing loaded are the guests.

So on my first trip to Athens, I was keenly anticipating the food. Living in Toronto, I had sampled Greek fare many times in the Greek neighbourhood on Danforth Avenue, so to be at the source of many fine dining experiences, left me in a state of expectation akin to Christmas Eve.

On my first full day in Athens, I got up early, took my guidebooks to breakfast and planned out my day. After deciding on a morning visit to the acropolis and an afternoon in the Plaka, it was time for a decision on a dinner location. Again with the help of the guidebooks, I picked a small restaurant close by. It had much to recommend it, it was close, cheap and the food was good.  C C and G. What more could a traveller want? With the question being rhetorical, I didn’t wait for an answer and instead went about my sight seeing, spending the rest of the day with the anticipation of a good meal permeating my subconscious.

Late in the afternoon, I finally made my way back to my hotel. I showered, changed and then strolled back through the lobby. Before I go any further though, let me tell you a little bit about my hotel. I call it a hotel but in reality it was nothing more than a men’s club that rented out rooms. For in the lobby was a bar with a large TV and so every morning old men would gather, drink, and play backgammon. In the evening they would gather, drink, and watch soccer and at suppertime, they would gather, drink, and watch the weather forecast. You are probably wondering why they would watch the weather forecast?  A perfectly logical inquiry. And the answer, in a nutshell, was that this TV station employed a weather woman. A gorgeous, lanky individual dressed in a smart blouse and to compliment it, what can only be described as a wide belt. Others might venture to call it a skirt but I do not belong to that school of thought. In my mind, the division between belt and skirt is one of width and this was definitely a belt.

So these old men would sit with their eyes glued to the screen, coaxing, extorting and yes, even praying for a cold front to sweep in from the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Because if a cold front swept in the former Republic of Yugoslavia, it would mean the weather lady would have to stretch to the north and all the old men would experience the pleasure of seeing what evidently they could not in real life. As I walked through the lobby, it was revealed that the weather patterns for that evening were coming in from the east and with that realization, there was a collective groan from the weather aficionados. Tonight God had not smiled on their prayers.

The walk to the restaurant, was a short one and so I found myself there rather early for supper. In fact I was alone. I knew it was early but I had not yet adjusted to Greek time. What do you do? When you’re hungry, you’re hungry. So I went in.

The restaurant was staffed by three people. A middle aged man, the owner I think, whose job was merely get up from his table at the doorway, greet people and then sit back down to resume his love affair with the local wine. There was also an older, wiry man, probably the father-in-law, who was the waiter and finally there was a middle-aged woman working the kitchen, most likely the owner’s wife. As I sat at the table, the old, wiry man appeared instantly. He was able to do this because of the way he sat. He was perched on the rim of his seat, with the result that only very edge of his bum actually touched the chair and his legs were tensed like a spring coil. In this position, his legs could instantaneously catapult him towards any newly arrived patron.

Sadly no one associated with the restaurant spoke any English, so communication was through a combination of gestures, raised voices and monosyllabic grunts. After great exertion, he was able impart that they had no menus and instead I was to follow him to the kitchen area. Once there, through a series of general arm flailing and grunting, I was able to indicate my choice of food. Slightly out of breathe and my arms tiring from the transmission of my gastronomic desires, I headed back to my seat, where once more the wiry, old man appeared. This time I knew immediately the reason for his presence. “Retsina”, I said and he smiled approvingly, apparently also a fan of resinated wine.

Within a few minutes, the wine and the food arrived. I started to tuck in. I ate slowly, leisurely as only a vacationer can do. People came and went as I meandered through my meal. Near the end though, something very strange started to happen. The wiry, old man began to pick up tables and slowly moved them out of the restaurant and into the parking lot across the street. And he didn’t stop, after each trip, he would come back, hoist another table over his head and make his way through the restaurant and across the street. Table, after table, after table, after table. And he didn’t tell me what was going on. Nothing. Not a single flail. So I started to wonder. What could this be? Slowly an idea crystallized in my head…  maybe there’s a fire. Not a big fire, something small that doesn’t spread very fast. It seemed like an outside chance but just to be safe, I ate a little faster. By the time I’d finished, the old guy was through with the tables and had started to move the chairs. There is still no sign of a fire, so I took my last mouthful, leaned back and wondered about the old man and the furniture.

The old guy seeing that I had officially reached the end of my meal, smiled, obviously pleased that he could stop moving furniture, and brought me the bill. I too smiled, paid, and then ruminated on the tables across the street.  It was then that I made my plan. Reckless in its haste, daring in its simplicity, I resolved to return the next night… only much, much later. That way, if this was something that occurred every evening, I would see the end result. So I left, chuffed with my ability to solve this furniture mystery.

The next day I returned to my hotel in the late afternoon, during the weather report. The old men were asexpected, gathered in front of the TV, praying for a cold front or any weather disturbance as long as it emanated from the north. A collective gasp punctuated the lobby. Their prayers were answered. God, in his infinite mercy, had responded to their meteorological supplications and had blessed the region with a cold front. So many smiles, so much joy, all because of a disturbance from the north. I took it as a sign. The universe was smiling benevolently tonight. These old men had their most fervent prayers answered, so maybe I too would have my curiosity satisfied. I went to my room with a renewed sense of confidence, showered, dressed and slowly made my way back through the lobby. By now, the old men were animated in their conversation, some gesturing wildly, others pointing to their butts. Though I spoke no Greek, I felt confident that I had a handle on their conversation.

When I arrived at the restaurant, it was pretty much devoid of all its tables and chairs. They were now set up in the parking lot across the street, which gave it the air of a patio. A sad, misplaced, car-strewn patio but a patio nonetheless.

I sat down and immediately the old man was hurled from his chair toward me. Knowing the routine, I got up and accompanied him to the kitchen, where I grunted, pointed and gestured my way to a banquet of Greek delights. As I made my way back to my table, the word retsina fell from my lips, and immediately the old man made a beeline to fetch me a carafe of his best pine wine.

As I sat back down, I soon came to the realization that the restaurant did not own the parking lot that they were using as a patio. Cars were still arriving to park. A feeling of déjà vu swept over me as a car pulled up in front of my table. It was like the road hockey games of my youth. I had a tremendous urge to yell ‘car’ and help move one of the nets but there were no nets to be found. There was only myself, my table and a car waiting to park. The old man suddenly appeared and told the driver that there was enough room for him to get by but the driver did not possess the same confidence as the old man, with the upshot being that I grabbed one end of my table and the old man grabbed the other and we shifted it just enough for the driver to pass by comfortably. Once the car had past, the old man tried to help me put my table back to its original position, but I declined, instead preferring to have my table firmly out of the lane of traffic.

It was at this point that a woman arrived with her guitar. She seemed to be something of a local celebrity as she was cheered upon her arrival. As she entered the parking lot/patio, she placed her guitar at an empty table and went into the restaurant, returning quickly with a carafe of retsina. Apparently she was paid in retsina. So the evening worked something like this, she would sing until her carafe was finished, she would take a break, get more wine and then sing on until she polished off the next round, take a break, get more booze, sing some more, get more wine and so on and so on. And the thing of it was, she was not very good. The locals enjoyed her efforts, and cheered her accordingly but as the evening went on, she became less and less able to hit the proper notes, which I assume was as a much a function of her liquor intake as it was her lack of talent.

So cars were parking, she was singing, and soon a gang of homeless cats made their way into the parking lot, ostensibly to scrounge for food. Once there though, several cats turned on their friends and seized the opportunity to stage a coup, which resulted in a melee that was punctuated by yowling, hissing and floating tufts of fur. Then in a final crescendo, worthy of any Vegas show, one of the cars at the back of the parking lot, got stuck in a large hole, a pit really, and as the driver floored the vehicle in a vain attempt extricate himself, he raised the noise level to a deafening and fitting conclusion. It was during this climax of cacophony that I signaled to the old, wiry man using the universal sign of air writing, that it was time to bring me my bill. Satisfied with the meal, the entertainment and the final tally, I paid my debt and wandered back to my hotel satiated by evening of wine, cars and cats.

His office door was closed. His window was closed. The drawers to his desk and filing cabinet were closed. Every surface in his office was flush with its surrounding surface. Even the papers that had not been filed were arranged into neat piles on his desk, unless they were in the garbage in which case they had been neatly folded and carefully stacked into the waste basket. Cosmo was an accountant, a good accountant, a very good accountant. All his i’s were dotted, his columns correctly tallied and his receipts were in good order.

He had been audited once but his work was so meticulous that the taxman apologized sincerely and vowed to never bother him again. At least that was the rumour that had ran through the company. His work as well as his life were shining examples of what meticulous organization, long range planning, and the uncanny ability to neatly stack papers could do.

He looked around the office one more time and noted that in this sea of harmoniously flush surfaces only his brief case stood out as it hung open. It looked like a pimple on an albino but Cosmo wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t say anything, he would just close it, which he did. He picked it up, moved through his office door, locked it and moved towards the exit. He then realized that he had not checked his office door, so he immediately returned to find it locked. As he moved back towards the exit, his mind eased itself away from the office and gently settled on thoughts about tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow was his freedom day. The one day of the year when Cosmo lived on the edge. Taking chances he wouldn’t normally take, making decisions whose possible repercussions literally frightened him and generally living in a fashion that was so exciting, it could not be maintained for more than one day in the year. A smile appeared on his face and a trickle of sweat followed a path of least resistance as it flowed across his cheek winding its way toward his chin.  Unfolding a handkerchief, Cosmo removed this asymmetrical path from the left side of his face, opened his car door and made his escape to tomorrow.

As the light broke through his eyelids, Cosmo realized at once danger was lurking. Being freedom day, a day of chances, Cosmo had not set his alarm clock the night before and already he was paying for such reckless living.  Judging by the amount of sunlight in his room, Cosmo knew that he was a full thirteen and a half minutes late rising. The excitement began to mount in his body. Lateness to work was not tolerated as clearly stated in the employee hand book on page 7, paragraph 2 and to make matters worse, he had a meeting with the department head, Mr. Dombronski and a very important client at 9 AM sharp.  The mere fact that he had been so cavalier in regard to his position in the system known as Greenwich Mean Time meant that he was now at risk of being late. Lateness in such a case could only mean dismissal and that could set off a chain of events that could leave him unemployed, ostracized and homeless. This thought egged him on to nonchalance. Slowly, very slowly he got out of bed, he did not put his slippers on as was normal, thereby risking foot injury, gangrene and amputation and made his way to the bathroom, risking his life with each step.

Normally he started each day with an 8 minute shower, 5 minutes to dress, a 3 minute shave, then he made 2 pieces of toast and 1 cup of coffee in his special accountant cup ( a cup which never failed to elicit a chuckle from him as it read- accountants are sum kind of guys ). Today however was not like every other day. So he disrupted the order of his regular routine by shaving first and paying no regard to the timing of his endeavors.  His shower actually went 9 minutes, an extra minute of exposure to whatever impurities were in the water supply, in the 19^th century that certainly would have been an invitation to cholera.  Today who knows?   Then when he dressed, he threw tradition aside. Normally he knew the exact order of his clothes as  he had alphabetized his dresser drawers. The top drawer had socks, the next one down t-shirts and in the final drawer underwear and he would choose them in that order. Today however, he wore a blindfold when selecting the drawers. There was no telling what order would be chosen and as a bonus, there was the strong possibility that his socks might clash with his underwear or vice versa.

For breakfast. Fruit. Unwashed fruit. Cosmo could think of no higher disregard for safety than to eat unwashed fruit. Usually he bought prewashed and then washed them thoroughly but not today.  Who knew what he was putting into his body? Probably some tropical disease at the very least. Or chemicals, the residue of pesticides. 25 years down the road he may well pay dearly for such a reckless action. But Cosmo didn’t care for today was freedom day.

Driving to work he refused to buckle up. Here the dangers were on several levels. There was of course the risk of being stopped and fined by the police, there was also the risk of injury to some sort of collision and finally there was the damage to his inner ear from the high pitched beeping of the seat belt reminder.

As he pulled into the parking lot, he noticed that due to his utter disregard for civilization’s rules he was a full 20 minutes later than normal, which meant he was only 10 minutes early. He shuddered at his tight time line. Would he make the meeting? Who knew? But yet who cared? This was freedom day, a day when normal worries are thrown away like twice used bathwater.

Once in his office, he opened the top drawer and removed his file, leaving the drawer open which was tantamount to open defiance of every safety regulation known to man. He then left the office without locking his door and casually made his way down the hall. Cosmo said “Good Morning” to everyone, even if he did not know them and then settled at the meeting table with less than 30 seconds to spare.

At the meeting and for the rest of the day, Cosmo made the ultimate risk, he broke all the rules of grammar. On purpose. Everything. He mixed tenses, embraced ambiguity, and turned a blind eye to syntax. As he often said on freedom day “Out syntax the window toss I”. Because this meeting and all his other meetings really only required him to relate figures, no one noticed his lapses in grammar, but that did not diminish the joy Cosmo felt. Maybe they would ask him a question, and if they did there was no telling what would happen. Double negatives, non-sequiturss, dangling participles were all fair game.  Each meeting, each conversation, each glance brought his heart to a stand still.  Any of these faux pas could end life as he knew it.

And so went Cosmo’s day, a day on the edge, a day of risks, culminating at 4:55 PM when he left the office a full 5 minutes early. So what if it was Friday and everyone else had left. Someone might phone his office and then the cat would be out of the bag. Or worse someone could be dallying in the washroom and would witness his unrepentant dismissal of authority. Such dangers could not sway him from his chosen path though. He left the office without checking to make sure the door was locked and made his way to his car and gently breathed a sigh of relief. For he had survived another day on the edge.

There are some things that stay with you all your life, a first kiss, your wedding day, the first time you see your child, but none of these can compare with my fondest memory, the greatest day of my life. The day my baseball team, the Toronto Americans won the world championship. My team had already beaten our arch rivals, the New York Performance Enhancers in the preliminary round and now we were up against the toughest team of all, The Los Angeles Bloated Millionaires. The first six games had been an even affair, with each team winning three games, so whoever won the next game would be world champion. And as luck would have it, my friend Chuck and I had tickets.

The game began much the same way all baseball games begin, after sitting through two unbearable versions of the national anthems, everyone got up and went for a beer. By the time Chuck and I returned to our seats, our team was down one to nothing. I looked around the stadium and noticed that most of the seats were empty.

“This is one helluva baseball town!” I yelled.

“What do ya mean? There’s no one here.” the guy sitting next to me said.

I felt sorry for him so I decided to explain the finer points of the game to him.

” These empty seats indicate true baseball fans. Real baseball fans don’t watch the early innings, they either are out getting a beer or they haven’t arrived yet. You see, baseball’s not a game you watch, baseball is a game you ignore until it’s almost over. To do this, you arrive either late or you can do what we do; get here on time but remain oblivious to it by drinking copious amounts of alcohol.” And with that Chuck and I got up and headed to the beer stall.

We couldn’t believe that guy. He didn’t have a clue about baseball. You want to watch baseball, you stay at home. You turn on the TV. You want to experience baseball, you come to the stadium and stand in the beer line. After we got a few more beer, we headed over to the souvenir stand, bought some plastic mementos to supplement our shaky memories, went back to the beer stall, stood in line for the washroom and then we went back for a couple more beers.

By the time we got back to our seats, it was the ninth inning. Looking at the scoreboard, we could see that our team had tied the game. It came down to this, if Toronto scored in this at bat, they would win the World Series. By now the remaining seats were filled. An air of anticipation filled the stadium as everyone waited for Toronto to bat. The first to hit for Toronto was the lead-off man, Tom ‘Lone Ball’ Bailey. Tom was a big favourite amongst the Toronto fans and had acquired his nick-name ‘Lone-ball’ not on account of his hitting prowess but rather in honour of his recent victory over testicular cancer. As Lone Ball reached the batter’s box, everyone in the stadium looked to the Jumbo Tron for instructions.

‘MAKE NOISE’ it read. So we all start to scream. I screamed “I am your father Luke” and other lines from the George Lucas franchise ‘Star Wars’. Soon the stadium was filled with a deafening roar.

The first pitch was high and outside, ball one. Lone Ball dug in and waited. Then ball two. Then ball three and finally ball four. He had earned a walk. Chuck and I and everyone else in the stadium looked to the Jumbo Tron for further instructions. ‘CHEER!,’ it read and everyone did. And really, how could you not with such excitement. The opposing pitcher threw the ball outside of the strike zone four times in a row and Lone Ball didn’t swing. That kind of inaction always brings people to their feet.

The pitcher caught the ball and set himself to pitch to the next batter. He looked over at Lone Ball who in baseball terminology was dancing off first which merely meant that Lone Ball had taken a lead and was now leaning in the general direction of second base. This act of leaning drove the crowd wild.

I remember being totally out of control.” He’s leaning.” I screamed. “He’s leaning. Maybe he’ll do something! Something might happen! Something might happen!” But of course this was baseball, so nothing did.

The next hitter grounded out to the first baseman, so Lone Ball moved up to second base. Now we had a man on second base with one out. The crowd looked to the Jumbo Tron. ‘THIS IS GOOD!’, it read and again the stadium erupted in noise.

After a few seconds of screaming, the pitcher was ready to pitch again. He looked back to second base to check the runner and then peered in to the new batter, Carter Robinson. As soon as the TV camera zeroed in on Carter as he began his normal baseball warm-up. He rubbed his crotch, spit, adjusted the gold chains around his neck and then rubbed his crotch one last time. After a few minutes of rubbing, a smile appeared on his face and we knew that his warm-up was over and with that, he stepped up to the plate and cocked his bat to the ready. The pitcher checked the runner one last time and then delivered the ball to home plate. Carter, being a first ball, fast ball hitter pulled the trigger and with one mighty swing lifted the ball to right field, where it was caught just shy of the warning track. Lone Ball realizing that the ball wasn’t going to be a hit, tagged up and easily made it to third without a throw. There were now two out but Lone Ball was on third base, ninety feet away from a victory. So we consulted the Jumbo Tron for more guidance.  ‘BUY AN OVERPRICED HOT DOG!’ it said. So everyone did.

After shoving large amounts of sodium nitrate into our already bloated bodies, we tuned our attention back to the game. The pitcher looked in at the new hitter, Willy Williams, then he looked over to third where Lone Ball was and then back to the hitter. With the runner on third, the pitcher decided to use his full wind-up. Just as he entered his wind-up, Lone Ball sneezed and his body jerked. The pitcher, not expecting any movement (after all this is baseball) hesitated before delivering the ball and immediately the umpire stepped out from behind home plate and yelled “Balk!”. The ball hit the catcher’s mitt with a dull thud. Williams looked around in confusion. Lone Ball was frozen not exactly knowing

what all this meant. The umpire also stood in silence, for he too was confused. So united by ignorance, we turned as one and consulted the jumbo tron for advice.

‘BALK!’ it read, ‘WE WIN!’

“We win! We win!” I yelled.

Really?” Chuck asked.

Yes” I replied, “the pitcher balked in the winning run. His sudden movement was illegal, so that lets the runner score from third without anybody doing anything.” Tears started to stream down our faces. I looked to the Jumbo Tron for advice. ‘CELEBRATE!’ it said. So everyone in the stands did just that.

I looked back at the Jumbo Tron for more advice. ‘SAY NO TO DRUGS!’ it said. So we started to chant “SAY NO TO DRUGS, SAY NO TO DRUGS, SAY NO TO DRUGS”. Even the ball players were chanting although their chants were half-hearted and heavily laced with irony.

I turned to Chuck who threw his arms around me and we hugged. All of a sudden we felt shame but the guy next to us said it was okay. “Men can hug whenever sports is involved” he said. So we hugged some more.

After about an hour of hugging, we noticed that everyone had stopped chanting. We looked to the Jumbo Tron for more advice.  ‘GAME OVER. GO HOME. RESUME YOUR SAD LIVES’ it flashed.  So we picked up our plastic memories and headed toward the exit.

As the two of us walked out into the street, we were both happy and sad. Sad because the game was over but happy because for just one instant, for just one precious moment in our lives, we grabbed the bull by the horns, we screamed ‘carpe deum’ and then sat on our asses and cheered as over paid foreigners won a championship. And to this day, it’s those memories of other people exerting themselves that make up the greatest day of my life. The day my team won the World Series.

The light from the motel sign at the corner intermittently lit up the room with a blue tinge as it flashed its message to all passing cars. The rain slapped against the pavement as if it were moved by some vendetta, by some unknown event from long ago that it was only now exacting a price for. Brian’s eyes moved back to the sign.  It flashed ‘Sea Breeze’. Actually with the electrical problems it was experiencing, it read Sea B ee. Four hours before as Brian drove along the dark and drenched highway, that was what first attracted him. What the hell was a Sea B ee? And then the physics of it: how could it fly underwater? As he drove closer, he saw that not all the letters were flashing, but it stuck in his mind. It had to be a sign. To Brian there was nothing more fitting than a sign being a sign.

In fact that is what he told Carl the overweight night manager.

“Usually people stop here because of the promotion,” said Carl.

“Promotion?”

“Ya, we serve a topless breakfast…I guess the sandwich board musta blown down again. We were havin’ troubles with vacancies… you know, too many. Wouldn’t be a problem the other way. Anyway the company started this promotion.”

“I had no idea.”

“Jus’ as well really. The truth is all the waitresses quit when the policy was announced, so they stuck me with servin’ the breakfast. I don’t mind but lots of people who come get real mad. My only concern is that I might get some sorta chest cold. I got bronchitis, ya know. “

“No, I didn’t,” he said and he closed the door. Brian was tired and needed a rest, and there had been a sign. A sign that was a sign. It was decided; he would sleep here and be on the road again in a few hours.

He looked back into the room. The TV was on but the sound was turned down. It looked like a religious show, a preacher giving a sermon to a bunch of people. His arms were flailing and his gums were flapping. But maybe it wasn’t a religious show. What if it was just some guy flailing and flapping?  What if it was some new reality TV show, what if the camera was just following people who were deranged? Brian thought about turning up the sound to find out but instead he lit a cigarette.

He noticed there were burn marks on the carpet When he looked closer, he saw that they were more than just burn marks. They spelled something D…O…N. Hmmmm. Don? A name? Somebody had gone to the trouble of burning their name into a carpet, trying to find immortality.  This was proof their existence. This rag-tag, indoor-outdoor carpet, this argument against mad-made fabrics, this monument to beige this… this was proof of one man’s occupation of time and space.  I spell therefore I am. But then again, maybe it wasn’t a name. Maybe it was the beginning of a message, a message someone, maybe or maybe not named Don, had tried to leave but was unable to finish.  Could he or she have meant to say ‘Don’t Stay Here”

or possible ‘Don’t Leave Here”.  Either way it was a sign. A sign from a sign that was a sign. Just then the thunder clapped and Brian’s eyes went back to the window.

As he watched the rain fall, he wondered how he could have gotten into such a mess.  He remembered when he first joined the Beatlemania show, the excitement of traveling from town to town and the pride of playing the part of John Lennon. He had always wanted to be a singer and seeing as how he had little talent in writing songs, this had seemed like the perfect answer.  Besides he was playing the part of his boyhood idol. What more could he ask for? He was singing songs he liked and getting paid for it. So when anyone asked him what he did for a living, he’d quickly reply. “I’m John Lennon. I play the part of John Lennon un the Beatlemania show. I’m the first John Lennon they hired. I’m the original John Lennon.”

That was important point, “the original John Lennon,” because he wasn’t the only one playing Lennon in the show. There was another:  Todd Masterson played the early Lennon, the chubby Lennon, the grass-smoking fat Lennon from “Help!”. Brian played the later Lennon, the Lennon who experimented with heroin, the emaciated Lennon, the Lennon who got drunk with Harry Nilsson and stuck tampons on his forehead. The Lennon with an edge.  In  fact there was a physical resemblance that Brian worked on. Combing his hair properly, dieting strictly and choosing the right style of clothes all worked to give him a remarkable resemblance. Brian even made a vow to date oriental women, but this never panned out, because the only women he met were those who came to the show and these all tended to be white suburbanites.

The greatest compliment you could give Brian was if you came up to him and commented on how similar he was in appearance to John Lennon.  The comment, “Hey, you look a lot like that dead guy.” always brought a smile to his lips.  And because Brian could fake an English accent, he got the only Lennon lines in the show. At the end of one of the numbers, he would step up to the microphone and in his most droll English accent say “I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and myself and I hope we passed the audition.” He was hoping to get a new line in the show, the one from the Royal Command Performance. It would go like this: “We’re going to do another song now and we’ll need a little “Help!”. So those of you in the cheap seats just clap along. The rest of you can rattle your jewelry.” But because he had not gotten permission yet, it remained just that, a hope.

Brian’s eyes slowly started to close when a noise brought him back from the edge of sleep. His heart stopped. Everything stopped. Maybe it was just someone in the next room. The walls were thin. But maybe it wasn’t next door; maybe it was from the outside. Someone crashing into trash cans, someone sneaking around looking for something. With this realization his heart stopped again.  It took all his energy to force his body to move toward the window. Slowly with one last intake of oxygen, he opened the window and stuck his head outside. Nothing. Just rain. He looked as hard as he could but he could see no motion, No person hiding in the shadows. No one lurking to do him harm.  No person with an unidentifiable weapon pointing towards him. He was alone. Utterly alone. Brian moved back to the table, sat down and started to cry.

He remembered when he first called his mother and broke the news that he had gotten a job with the Beatlemania show. How proud she was, how he was a star. That was the closest that Sandy Point, Nova Scotia had ever come to producing a celebrity. So when he went home to visit, they had a parade in his honour. Actually two cars with bunting picked him up at the bus station and on the way home several people waved, so although it had not started out as an organized parade by the time the photo appeared in the Harbour Light, its caption claimed it to be a very successful homecoming parade.

He remembered the welcome home party, the Bright’s champagne, the cheese dreams and the abundance of over-inquisitive neighbours seeking autographs and pictures.  Brian didn’t mind the autographs but the pictures made him uneasy. He always offered to send them 8 x 10 glossies of him in his full Sgt. Pepper’s regalia, but most people refused. This always made Brian uneasy. Everyone commented that he was different. Of course he was different, that’s what success does to you. It makes you different, there would be no point in becoming successful if it didn’t change your life. And Brian… Brian was a hero. Well a hero once removed but a hero nonetheless. People came to see him sing. The idea seemed strange to Brian at first, people coming to see him sing, but that’s what they did. If they wanted to hear Lennon sing, they could just play an old song, but they didn’t. They came ti the show. They came to hear him sing.

What a wonderful feeling that had been, people coming to see him sing. Performing was a joy, the travel was mind opening and the celebrity status rewarding both materially and spiritually. Slowly, though, life changed. Ticket sales started to drop. Officially no one made much of it but behind the scenes rumours were flying. First there was the rumour of replacements. A new McCartney, a new Lennon. Then the  idea of several sets of Beatles. Different sets of visible minorities to play different ethnic communities.  Asian Beatles to play Chinatown and the Far East; a slightly swarthy set of Beatles to play Greece and the Mediterranean. Anything to stop flagging ticket sales. Then six months ago. a change occurred, a change no one predicted. They hired a Mark David Chapman look-a-like.

Brian thought it was in bad taste, but it had proved to be a boon. As strange as it may seem, the Mark David Chapman look-a-like had become the new star of the show.  He didn’t do anything. He just stood on the side of the stage holding his autograph book and looking at the band. Everyone on stage found it uncomfortable but the audience reveled in anticipation of what might happen. After the show, people would line up to get the Mark David Chapman look-a-like’s autograph, which further alienated Brian, but he consoled himself with the belief that this popularity was only due to the novelty of the situation. With time, people would grow tired.

He tried to get to know Chapman, but that proved difficult. Brian learned that the best description you could give of this Mark David Chapman was that he was “polite and quiet” and as any cop will tell you these are two traits to be avoided. Brian also noticed that a small bulge had started to appear under Mark David Chapman’s coat. Not large but noticeable, and always on the same side.

Luckily, time proved Brian right, and ticket sales started to fall again. This time management started to experiment with the Mark David Chapman character. Instead of having him on stage, they had him mingle with the audience and when there was a cast autograph session, he would stand in line, get an autograph, go back and get in line, ad infinitum. Nothing however, seemed to stem the falling tickets sales. Then early that morning Todd, or rather early, chubby, pot smoking Lennon, had been found dead. By the time Brian had heard about it in the late afternoon, ticket sales had tripled. Brian never heard how Todd died; he merely put one and one together, got in his car and drove. He drove and drove until fatigue and a sign that might be a sign drew him here to the Sea B ee.

Suddenly there was a knock. Brian froze. Who could it be? It wasn’t a light knock. The knock of a friend. In fact that wasn’t even a possibility as no one knew he was here. No, that was an aggressive knock. A demanding knock. A knock that wanted something. It came again.

“Jeez, I know you’re in there. It’s me Carl… from the front desk.”

Brian opened the door a crack.

“you okay?” Carl asked.

“Fine.”

“A while ago, the people nex’ door complained about some crashes, garbage cans or somethin’,,, I’da been her sooner but I had to get the dining room ready for breakfast.”

“It wasn’t me. I’ve been asleep.”

“Oh… you comin’ to breakfast?”

“Why?”

“Jus’ tryin’ to figure out how many tables to clean.”

“Ya, I’ll be there.”

“You know what? You look like someone. I’ve been tryin’ to figure it out all night and now it hits me. You look like that dead guy. What’s his name…that dead guy.”

“I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

“You sure?”

“Ya.”

‘Oh. Well, see you in an hour anyway.”

“Right.” Brian closed the door, relieved. He would be safe. In an hour he would have breakfast and then he would be on the road again. He settled into the chair and started to look at the TV again. There was another preacher on now but he was different.;  it wasn’t his arms that were flailing, it was his legs. On closer inspection Brian could see that the reason the preacher accentuated his legs was that his arms were deformed. Small and useless.  So now his legs carried the message of God.  Brian’s eyes began to close.  The preacher flailed. Brian drifted off.  The preacher introduced a choir.  Brian slept. Again there was a crash outside his door but this time, the noise outside did not wake him, it did not compel him to the window. For better or for worse, Brian slept.

So ground rules needed to be established. After all, how can anything be judged without some kind of criteria? Fox News may not agree with that supposition, but I thought it was important, so I came up with a set of ground rules. Firstly, there were to be 4 categories for scoring: taste, selection, price and service  and all categories would be scored out of 5. The first three categories were easy enough to judge but service was not. I mean it doesn’t take much ability to serve up an ice cream, so I decided to ask a question with each cone. In each case I mentioned that I had some allergies and I needed to know what was in the ice cream. Finally there was the question of which establishments were to be included in the contest. Laura Secord and Baskin Robbins were shoe-ins, as they serve traditional ice cream. But what about Dairy Queen and McDonald’s? They serve ice-milk products. I decided to include the Dairy Queen but not McDonald’s because McDonald’s had such a poor selection, there you had a choice of vanilla or vanilla. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against vanilla. Some of the finest rap stars to have graced our planet, have used it as part of their moniker but to me, this was not enough to be included in my little contest. Frozen yogurt was also excluded because it was that one step too close to health food. After all this was an ice cream contest and calories had to be involved. Sure these may seem like arbitrary decisions but that’s only because they were. Besides, it was my contest and if I wanted to abuse power so be it. So with the rules set, off I went in the search of the ultimate cone.

I started with Laura Secord.  There were 24 flavours to choose from and an array of different cones. I went with the frosty mint in a sugar cone. For me the mint flavour was pronounced and the fudge was the right amount of chocolaty taste to balance the mint. A fine cone that but I felt it was a little high in price considering the size. When I asked about the ingredients, they said they didn’t have any pamphlets but I could look at their binder to see the ingredient list. Here’s some of those ingredients: modified milk ingredients, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, potassium sorbate, modifies milk starch, peppermint oil, corn, eggs, carrageenan, oil and fat, monosodium glutimate, peanuts, soybeans, tartrazine, aspartame, citric acid sulphites or sulphur dioxides, and the ever popular polysorbate 80. Mmmmmm sounds good doesn’t it? Undeterred by the ingredients, I soldiered on to the Dairy Queen.

Not much selection here as my choice was plain vanilla or vanilla dipped in chocolate.  Feeling a bit edgy, I went with the vanilla dipped in chocolate. The ice cream or rather ice milk had a faint artificial taste to me but the chocolate dip masked the slightly off-putting flavour of the vanilla. And the price was almost 20% less. Again they had no information pamphlets but that didn’t stop these employees. After searching a lengthy time and coming up empty, one enterprising employee located an empty milk bag and showed me the contents on the packaging. These people really went above and beyond the call of duty and were the most helpful of anyone. Here’s the contents listed on that bag: modified milk ingredients, sugar, glucose, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, carrageenan and of course, my favourite polysorbate 80.

From there, I made the 2-minute hike to Baskin Robbins in about 25 minutes. They boasted 31 flavours on their sign but I counted 32. Either way this was the best selection in the Eaton Centre. And like Laura Secord, they had a choice of three types of cones. To compare accurately, I choose the mint chocolate chip with a sugar cone. The price was right in the middle, higher than the DQ cone but less than the Laura Secord. The mint flavour was as fresh as the Laura Secord but the chocolate was not as pronounced and so the overall effect was, to my mind, not as good. And then came my question. Upon hearing it, the woman who was serving me, seemed to loose consciousness and stood mouth agape, staring in my general direction. Seconds ticked by and yet nothing emanated from her lips. I asked again. Her eyes seemed to glaze over. Nothing. Still no sounds stirred from this paralyzed creature. I thought maybe she was astrally projecting herself to some distant Baskin and Robbins outlet, a special magical outlet that didn’t allow customer questions. Then, without warning, she turned her back on me and walked away. I tried to get her attention but she started serving someone else and for the rest of the time that I remained, she never looked in my direction again. Maybe this was some obscure way of showing respect but I suspect not. So if your idea of good service is to some kind of out of body experience, this is the place for you.

With the ice cream sampled, it was time to compile the results.

Place                             Taste             Selection            Price                   Service              Total

Laura Secord                       4                       4                       2                        3                     13

DQ                                       2                        2                       3                        5                     12

Baskin Robbins                 3.5                    4.5                    2.5                     1.5                    12

Well there you have it, the results of my quest for the best ice cream cone in the Eaton Centre. It was close but Laura Secord prevailed, at least for today. Tomorrow would be another day, and who knows maybe another quest would be in order and maybe another clerk would wait on me at Baskin and Robbins and maybe they would squeeze out a victory and maybe a national magazine would read about my quest and send me on a world wide trip to test ice cream and maybe the people of the world would be so impressed with my quest that they would elect me king of the world. Or maybe not.

urinating for the enjoyment of passersby. For others, it is a walk in the Museum of Fine

Arts, strolling past masterpieces by Van der Weyden, Rubens, and Magritte. And as

enjoyable as these are, for me a visit to Brussels is more than just taking in its sights. You

have to take in its sounds as well.

I like to travel to Brussels in the fall, which not only coincides with smaller

crowds and cooler weather, but best of all, the beginning of the concert season. The last

time there, I was lucky enough to catch a performance by the Huelgas Ensemble of

Renaissance music in one of Brussels’s oldest churches, the Eglise Notre Dame de la

Chapel. The church itself is predominately gothic though parts of it are Romanesque and

date back to the 12^th century. Not that architectural styles usually matter but in this case

the pointed arches and stone walls only add to the ambience to make for an unforgettable

evening.

The set-up was simplicity itself. The performers were gathered in a circle in the

centre of the church with the audience forming concentric circles around them. The light

splashed down highlighting the performers and then dissipated so that much of the

church remained in shadows. From the first notes of Thomas Tallis’ “Spem In Alium”, it

was clear that this building was meant to do more than just hold the congregation. It was

as if you could follow each note as it rose upwards until it was finally enveloped by the

shadows. This was a place where voices could mingle and rise to create a kind of heaven

on earth which was exactly the idea of the composers. Desprez, Ockeghem, and De

Manchicourt, all were given the same glorious treatment compliments of the Huelgas

Ensemble and the Eglise Notre Dame de la Chapel.

Personally I can think of no better way to see a church or cathedral than as a

backdrop for such heavenly strains. Some cathedrals try to cater to tourists by piping in

Gregorian chant, but this poor cousin cannot hold a candle to the breath taking

enchantment of live music. It may be true that at these evening concerts you cannot see

every statue or detail in the stained glass but yet you come away with more. It’s no longer

just another building that you’ve checked off your list, rather it is an experience and one

you will treasure for a lifetime. So next time you’re visiting Brussels, don’t just take in the

sights, take in the sounds of the city as well.