Wow. So long-time no post. No real legitimate excuse except for laziness, business and the blahs. Spring is performing her slow striptease here in Toronto. I feared that by putting away my winter jacket I’d jinxed her into hiding after bearing the forceful winds on a coffee & Saturday Globe run yesterday morning. & on that note, could we please stop obsessing over the frumpy fashions of our PM? Tho it is refreshing to see a male leader in the stylist hotseat, it seems more efficient to fret over the impeding ID cards & general GWB coziness. But I digress.
This week was weird. We herded the inter-office cats for a sporting outing. It went surprisingly well - for us, that is, not for the Raptors, of course….in classic tradition, the Raps choked in the fourth quarter & walked away from a convincing lead they had maintained throughout the first three quarters. It’s been over 10 years, this is just getting eerie - we either need to completely clean house (again) or hire some Phil Jackson motivational-speaking, crystal-spinning coach to deprogram the inferiority self-sabotaging pattern that plagues these athletes. & can I get a witness or some support in my claim that when Oakley wore the red’n'purple he was his slowest-oldest-fattest-laziest self? There must be something in the water that doesn’t agree with professional sportsters…too bad it doesn’t work on visiting teams.
My inner-office colleagues were herding cats of their own - tho they were sassier, richer & more demanding cats than any of us lowly interns. Betty Freidan was right to keel over in early February, because if shimmery-sheened, short-skirted, uber-hyped & PR-perfect spin is the future of feminism, I’d rather burn calories spinning in my grave for eternity than witness the desecration on something I worked so hard to build. Ask me if I think that Spice World is an integral part of the second-wave feminist discourse & you’ll get the same succinct (perhaps vulgar) answer to how I feel about all long-legs, no leg-work group of ‘lobbyists’ that descended upon QP this week. Let’s hope that mommy & daddy hire them at their respective law firms & advertising co.s before they do any more damage to the f-word.
This weekend’s DST throws a spanner in the works - just when I thought that I’d recovered from livin’ la vida rockstar in Nash Vegas, I owe my body another hour of rest….Tho any excuse for a mid-afternoon (or late-afternoon or early evening, etc, etc.) nap is a good one & should be redeemed.
I apologize for the brutal blogging of lates, the other hobbies are going well, though. I have tried to keep my Japanese phraseology on hand for my transit times, & I have been exploring the archives of the Everyday Food magazines & uncovering interesting new recipes….The Japanese review did come in handy in Kensington Market yesterday while vintage shopping. I was admiring (eavesdropping on?) a hella-fast conversation between a young staffer and a customer & when it was my turn to pay, I sheepishly admitted that I was trying hard to learn their language…We introduced ourselves & shared where we were from & my amount owing was considerably less than what I expected from the tags. Sweet, all that global village crap is finally paying out dividends to me.
Catching up on DST lag won’t be too difficult, tho. It wasn’t a particularly late night for the Art Brut gig . Argos, the AB lead singer, was full of genuinely funny banter. 
After enduring shoe-gazing meekness for too-long, it’s greatly appreciated: On playing two new songs in a row, the set-list faux-pas: “F*c% frontman school, f*c% that singing institution.”; On finally re-connecting with ‘Emily Kane’: “I realized that I wasn’t in love with Emily Kane, I was in love with being in love when I was fifteen.”; On having a hit single in ‘other markets’: “This song is number one in Japan, number one in Australia, number one in Disneyland, number one in Narnia, etc, etc.; On winning the crowd over with requisite local references: “RUSH/Broken Social Scene/Death From Above - Top of the Pops.” You had us at Rush, Argos, you had us at Rush….
Anyway, the first opening band was the real surprise. I had high hopes for AB, because their reviews were consistantly good & I’d expected a Hives-style (warp-speed), witty lead singer, audience participation-filled romp. The Disraelis - were the real standouts of the night, IMHO (not to be confused with the nonprofit organization of disabled Israelies, these guys are Toronto’s newest BRMC/J&MC/New Order inspired band with a mehriffic frontman, but a great guitarist & solid drummer & strong songs - I’m officially on the lookout for an upcoming headlining gig of theirs).
The night was long-tho…Few actually turned out to witness the Disraelis & by the time AB finished, we’d been in the venue for far too long….& this is where we left Anamoly-ville into Bizarro-realm: Population - Fans without perspective. I lent a pen to a young-ish lass that wanted a setlist signed. Okaaay - I’ll admit that I’ve stolen my fair share of post-concert deritus - picks, posters, setlists, drumsticks, etc - pretty much anything that wouldn’t result in a police report being written up. But to see this pen get passed around like Penny Lane at a Stillwater poker game was surreal.
Would I loiter around a cleared-out concert hall to get a setlist or album signed? By a Pitchfork-bubble-famous frontman? Lemmethinkaboutitno. I started running through my sporadic brushes with celebrity, peeps whose scrawls might venture a $2-$200 bid on eBay. It included A-list indie rockers, classic rock/country dinos, various film & tv personalities, sports celebs…I’ve certainly chatted’em up when I was brave (drunk) enough, met’em awkwardly or even asked them to perform specific duties at events I was hosting/organizing, congratulated’em on wins/albums/shows/films, but to request a ‘Herbie Hancock’ seemed creepy & depersonalizing (”Does that make me crah-azhy? 
Probably…..”). Anyway, enough overanalyzing a somewhat merited ego-boost for hardworking touring dudes. Time to get my learn on at the 
natural-light lovin’ Gerstein Library & weasel the Beau into stopping (again) in Kensington Market for 
an empanada.
Peace
meegs
