Greyarea

I took the bus last week.

I sat at the front, as I usually do, directly behind the driver. The front is the best. I never fully understood why all the cool kids sat at the back because people usually barf from it being as bumpy as all hell. Plus, the front offers you a view like no other, as well as extra leg room and you get to be the first off. Although, a seperate question arose while sitting here.
I noticed that the bus driver was usuing a GPS navigation system. Is this wrong?
I concluded that it's not all that weird. After all, since when was it a criteria that all Greyhound drivers had to know all the direct highways across North America? However, it did effect the time it took to get there. This guy drove like he's never even seen London or Toronto before. Who takes Airport Road to get on to the 401 from downtown?

All in all, this was something I'd never seen before and it has further enlarged the amount of respect I have for every single Greyhound and public transit employee, because they have to deal with 50 per cent stupid people, and another 50 for the crazy assholes.

let's go places

I've always wanted to say it,

twenty tigress' and a single lion, in a jungle,

go ahead and arrest

i could use a little healing.

no big deal.

grrr, what a tone

what's the point?

it certainly isn't this.

this will never effect a "successful" person, ever.

you want to know why? because it's not in me,

it's in you.

Pain has always been of serious interest,

and anyone who knows anything about me knows this.

A little time to myself is good.

A little relaxation is great too.

Four wheels, rolling, laughing.

All for a nice couch, on pg. 87

God, that's fucking comfy.

A, perfect, space.

Doesn't that top-dollar taste good?

"Cuh-rear" makes a better backseat.

Did I mention there is an asshole on that couch?

A smack on the face,

a huge laugh, "in your room,".

healing has always been the most interesting part,

except for that part on my left arm. Christ, it hurts.

change everything, why don't you.

please baby, make your tits bigger.

Run from that post to that post.

okay, now from that post to that post.

Get some fucking control over those vices, already.

Although

Take a rest, I'll be back in fifteen minutes.

The Spaghetti Spoon.

The truth is, it's all been a huge lie and you've all been fooled.

Feel better?

Things have been going well.

moneymoneymoneymoneymoneythewordlosesallmeaningdoesntit.

get me drunk.

get me drunk!

Two words: twenty foot yacht

"oh shit, remember that forest of dandelions? hilarious!"

we could use one of those.

I love you.

GET YOUR OWN.

You look friendly, so I'm going to tell you a story.

Court-Appointed Attorney.

my dad can beat up your dad

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"I dreamt of you on a hill with an axe and a keg."

Put up your dukes and I'll lose. It's a given.

Fuck the young hottie at work.

Constructive criticism: not for everyone.

Orgasmic and organic are not the same thing, so please stop jacking-off.

We're all out of power cords, hunny!

Distortion on ten, please.

When did my hard-drive get so soft?

"That's where the party is,"

Scented candles, your moms best pie, and a well-cooked tofurkey.

Let us just close our eyes and pretend we're somewhere else.

everybody poos

While taking a shit today, I began to wonder who else was shitting at that same moment. Then I began to laugh, because I started thinking about celebrities shitting. After cycling through about a dozen shit-lebrities, I laughed hardest at the thought of Victoria Beckham shitting.

Think about it.

Posh Spice pinching off a huge loaf? Haaaahahaa!! I'm trying to imagine her struggling-poo face.

I'll try to think of some more funny ones.

Nicole Kidman, Ghandi, and Bruce Wayne are all funny too.

desaturated stories

One of the huge advantages to working in a coffee shop is the intense amount of people you meet everyday. On occasion, you will grow such strong relationships that you'll have a chance to hang out with some of these people outside of work, which is always fun. Joleen and Zubeen are two of our favorite customers. They invited me, as well as others, over for a game of Cranium and drinks the other week. Cranium instantly became my new favorite board game, probably because I kicked serious ass.

The game is divided up into four categories. One is trivia, another is charades, one is making objects using putty, and the last is drawing on a pad without looking down. I'm usually fairly good at these sorts of physical games, unlike Monopoly, where the greedy-asshole-bullshit-backstabbing-gutless side comes out of all your friends. My game of Monopoly usually ends by forfeit or fist fight.

Hova.

Hova.

This is Kudzai. He is easily one of the most genuine and honest friends I've ever come across. We've been close friends for almost a year now. He was born in Zimbabwe, moved to Atlanta as a refugee, then over to Toronto a couple years ago. He is always an hour early for anything and is more reliable than an elevator (note: elevators need repairing about every 500,000 miles). He is absolutely hilarious and can stretch a tiny story into an epic hour-long laugh fest.

I made these chicken wings last week after coming home belligerently drunk after a night on the Stoop. The kind of drunk that makes you call your friends the next day to apologize for last night. Anyway, I was really hungry when I came home and decided to make an entire box of chicken wings. Everything was going as planned: I set my timer for 30 minutes so that I could nap until I had to flip them in the oven. So I woke up, flipped the wings, and went back to sleep - sans timer! I woke up the next morning to the smell of barbecue. I had a big smile on my face because I thought my wings were done. Turns out they were done after about four hours of being in the oven! My brother woke me up to question what I was up to the night before, and informed me that he took out the wings around 6:00am that morning after going to the bathroom. Even after a week, my condo still smells like honey garlic. Look at those things! They look like petrified dino-turds.

Carribana was fun. I saw a really good steel drum band competition down at the Harborfront Center. This is easily the biggest singular cultural festival in Toronto. Although I didn't get to experience the parade, I did notice the extra million people flooding the streets and the nonstop partying in the streets until all hours of the morning. Darn Jamaicans!





This was taken outside of the Famous Red Rooster in Burlington during our mini-tour this summer. Although the pay is decent, the staff is nice, and the food is good, the crowds are terrible. Being heckled is brutal. If I could, I would take every narrow-minded, drunk, arrogant, American Eagle, jock asshole and let Jeffry Dahmer make cool new suits out of them. If you don't know who Jeffry Dahmer is, look it up, because it'll make that joke a lot funnier to you. Either way, I don't think we'll be playing there any time soon.

I challenged myself when taking this photo above. Bike said he was only going to run through the sprinkler if I took a decent shot of it. Well, the Waco Kid strikes again. Not only was it completely dark out (allowing zero visibility to focus), but he was running full speed at the thing, giving me no time! Needless to say, I want to blow up that photo and hang it over my couch.
Below is a photo taken standing between the median on University Ave. before entering Queen's Park. It's pretty tight in the middle, so it's fun to lay there and listen to cars zing past your head with friends late at night.


The other night I was walking home from a friends house when I was approached by a confused-looking man. He was a trustworthy-looking guy with a very thick European accent. He asked me if there were any stores open that would sell him liquor. It was 3:30 in the morning. I laughed and told him that's not how it works in Canada, and that not even a restaurant would sell him booze by this point. He looked very disappointed because I'm pretty sure he promised some people that he would return back to the hotel with some hooch. I saw the confusion in his eyes and desperation and said "Hey! Come on upstairs, I think I've got a little whiskey left." So we did. Turns out, the guys name was Juraj Lehotský. He was a Slovakian director and was in the city to premier his film at the Toronto International Film Festival. I snapped this photo of him below.

Juraj was an extremely nice guy. Through his broken, drunk english there was a lot of truth and passion for his work and life. He's married and recently became a father in his hometown of Bratislava. We sat and drank straight whiskey until the sun came up, talking about his film and how girls can tear you a new one. His film Blind Loves is a beautiful full-length documentary on blind couples living with the struggles only communication through limited senses. He gave me a couple tickets to the premier, where we met again and laughed about the previous events.

With the camera out, his directorial instincts took hold and he began snapping. He got down on his knees like Fredrico Fellini and snapped this photograph of me. I tried to explain to him how that camera works, and that there is no auto focus. I'm guessing through his drunk-goggles he assumed the photo would be as clear as a bell. Either way, I love it and feel quite privileged that such an accomplished filmmaker took my photo. I don't know, it's just neat to me.

come on everyone, lets see some smoke

For starters, I've finally finished making some adjustments on the photos I took for the 5x4 performance last month. I don't believe I've mentioned this performance on this blog before, but it was a stellar performance orchestrated by my two good friends Cara and Alicia. They approached me about photographing the event, to which I immediately agreed. We've worked together on a couple projects in the past with great success. The girls are lovely to work with and produce wonderful work.

5x4 was a performance piece that involved 20 performers interacting with 20 regular household items for over an hour. Each person was given a taped-off section, amongst a grid of other performers, to interact, personify and become involved with the item of their choice. Objects ranged from garbage cans, armchairs, mannequins, tables, books, to coat racks. Abstract soundscapes played and each person climbed, wrestled, lifted, and moved their object to it's within it's physical limits.

I was actually quite disappointed to hear that this would be a one-time performance. Each and every onlooker was fully engaged in this very physical performance. Although wildly entertaining and interesting, time is money and these spaces are not cheap to rent. At least the performance will live on through photographic proof.

Speaking of photography; this experience was actually a rare treat to capture from behind the lens. For a minute it almost felt like one of those silly tutorials that camera shows will put on where they'll have one or two well-lit models in a studio setting that fat old white guys will photograph to their hearts content, except on a much larger scale. The treat was that I had free range to photograph 20 individuals freely in a beautifully lit setting. I decided to avoid the distractions of flash photography, and went fully manual to avoid that "beep" when using auto-focus. I definitely did not want to be "that guy" who's clicking, flashing, and stepping on everyone throughout the entire performance.

The rest of the photos can be viewed on my flickr account at:

www.flickr.com/filmsnotdead