Just like the popular glossy magazines, I've compiled a "What's Hot and What's Not" list, based on recent trends in my life.
DeAnne Smith's December: Totally Hip & Totally Skip!
Totally Hip! A sleeping-bag-like winter coat
Totally Skip! The appearance of a normal, human-shaped body
Totally Hip! Long underwear
Totally Skip! Remaining sweat-free in the metro
Totally Hip! Mittens
Totally Skip! Use of hands
Totally Hip! Hooded sweatshirt
Totally Skip! That other hooded sweatshirt
Totally Hip! Eating anchovies on toast
Totally Skip! Getting within 3 feet of humans with a sense
of smell
Totally Hip! Playing the ukulele
Totally Skip! Feeling in the tips of my fingers
Totally Hip! Spending money on ukulele-related paraphernalia
Totally Skip! Paying rent on time
Totally Hip! Watching season 5 of The Sopranos on DVD
Totally Skip! Meeting writing deadlines
Totally Hip! Questioning own sense of humor
Totally Skip! Carefree and innocent love of laughter
Totally Hip! Late nights
Totally Skip! More than 1 1/2 hours of sunlight a day
Totally Hip! Making Christmas presents
Totally Skip! Like, money and its capitalist trappings, man!
Totally Hip! Constant unnecessary worry about if my hair looks weird or not
Totally Skip! Whatever the opposite of that would be (Because I have no idea!)
Totally Hip! Learning about the Christian Quiverfull movement
Totally Skip! Sleeping peacefully at night
And that's how December's breaking down in DeAnne land! Stay hip, kids!
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
An Interview with DeAnne Smith
Talented Montreal-based stand up DeAnne Smith has many faces: comedian, comic, joke-teller. We caught up with the charming and quick-witted DeAnne Smith on this snowy Monday afternoon to find out just what makes this award-winning international comedian tick.
Q: Hey, so what's going on in the wacky world of DeAnne Smith?
A: I'm kind of busy right now.
Q: So, eating breakfast and wasting time on the internet is what DeAnne Smith calls busy!
A: I just wasn't ready for an--
Q: Sounds fantastic! What projects has DeAnne Smith got coming up?
A: Um...today? I don't know. I'm going to buy a tomato later this afternoon. I might get some laundry done.
Q: Wow! It's non-stop over there at the DeAnne Smith factory! Tell us, where do you find the DeAnnenergy?
A: The DeAnnenergy?
Q: Yes, DeAnnenergy! The energy that powers the awesomeness that is DeAnne Smith!
A: ...
Q: Where, DeAnne Smith, do you find it?!
A: I'm not sure I understand the question.
Q: Ha ha! Hilarious! Always a joker, DeAnne Smith!
A: ...
Q: Describe DeAnne Smith in 5 words or less.
A: Um, I...
Q: Quit it! You're killing me! But seriously, why do you think you're so amazing at comedy?
A: Um, that's very nice of you to say. I mean, amazing is a strong--
Q: Ha ha, I get it! DeAnne Smith won't give up the trade secrets that easily!
A: ...
Q: Do you think the fact that you're-- how can I say this?-- a "lady-loving-lady" has anything to do with how awesome you are at all things comedic?
A: I don't really think sexuality--
Q: So, DeAnne Smith is asexual! Breaking news here on the blog! Is it hard being asexual, DeAnne Smith? Are you afraid people will classify you as just another one of those amoebas or snails?
A: Are snails asexual?
Q: DeAnne Smith is an asexual snail! Sensational!
A: I really think snails--
Q: Some snails are self-fertile hermaphrodites! So, when can your fans expect your new DVD, "DeAnne Smith: Self-Fertile Hermaphroditic Snail," to hit stores?
A: I don't have--
Q: I see! Always keep them guessing! Hey, let's do one of the quick word associations you're so famous for!
A: I'm not--
Q: DeAnne!
A: Yes?
Q: That's the word to associate! Go! DeAnne!
A: Smith?
Q: Great! Stand!
A: Up?
Q: Correct! Self!
A: Serving?
Q: No! Wrong! Fertile! Self-fertile!
A: ...
Q: Many marine snails are free-spawners! Male and female snails shed their gametes into the seawater, and fertilization occurs in the water column!
A: ...
Q: Freshwater or terrestrial snails are almost always hermaphrodites! Individuals can mate with any other member of its species! Some hermaphrodites can even use their own sperm to fertilize their own eggs! That's what we in the business call a self-fertile hermaphroditic snail!
A: ...
Q: ...
A: Is hermaphroditic a word?
Q: Spell check seems to think so! Why doesn't DeAnne Smith trust spell check?
A: It just doesn't seem like a word.
Q: Does your innate distrust makes you a better comedian?
A: I don't have innate--
Q: So, you're saying that nothing about DeAnne Smith is innate! What's it like then, DeAnne Smith, being a construct, a fabrication? How do you live with yourself lying to your fans?
A: I don't lie to--
Q: Spectacular! DeAnne Smith is a faithless, deceitful, asexual mollusk! Why don't you believe in God, DeAnne Smith?
A: God?
Q: The supernatural creator and overseer of the universe! Also known as Yah-weh, Allah, and He-Man! The impossibly large, invisibly bearded man responsible for tuberculosis and your comedy career and Jesus!
A: He-Man?
Q: The one-liners just keep on a'comin' here with DeAnne Smith! Unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap this up, but before we go, let me ask you something. Does my hair look weird? Does it look weird right now?
A: ...
Q: DeAnne Smith, everybody! Outstanding!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
America's Next Top Model: Only Slightly Better Than Chewing Glass
On a rare night in, I decided to watch America's Next Top Model. This is exactly what happened.
7:57 p.m.
My girlfriend, HoneyButterMelt*, wrist-deep in salmon patty preparations, asks me to turn on the TV. A woman wearing very heavy eye shadow and a shirt that looks more like the idea of a tank top than an actual tank top cries and says she "loves people."
I am grateful that I have never seen an episode of So You Think You Can Dance Canada.
8:00 p.m.
America's Next Top Model begins. My excitement swiftly turns to mild disgust as a brief recap of last week's episode shows the models' childhood photos used as inspiration for creepy sexual pictures of them as adults. One of the models is in a clown costume, trying to look sexy. In an instant, everything I have ever thought about clowns, or sex, is not only challenged but metaphorically trampled upon. I fear my future enjoyment of both is severely compromised.
8:01 p.m.
Tyra struts and air-kisses her way through the intro music as we are introduced to the girls. Although I am immediately drawn to the bald Bianca, I keep this to myself, for fear that it makes me not only predictable but super gay.
still 8:01 p.m.
Commercials. Apparently, Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston are starring in an upcoming movie, along with that horribly grating "You Found Me" song. I try to imagine a pairing even more bland (Kevin Costner and Jennifer Love Hewitt? White rice and Pete Wentz? Saltines and Ben Affleck?) and find that I can not.
8:04 p.m.
A commercial announcer asks, "Do you think you have what it takes to get into the Coors Light Mystery Mansion?" I have to admit that if what it takes involves a desire to unravel the "mystery," the ability to stomach Coors Light, or an interest in actually getting into the Coors Light Mystery Mansion, I do not.
8:05 p.m.
ANTM is back.
I am introduced to Rachel, former Walmart cashier. It takes me a few seconds to decide, of all the bright-eyed woodland creatures she reminds me of, that she looks most like a fawn. The criteria are 1.), They have similar spacing of the eyes and 2.) They both look similarly incapable of succeeding at Boggle.
Forget bald Bianca. The Fawn is my favorite and the one I am rooting for.
The girls screech and run toward some kind of vault. The name "Tyra" is intoned. I have no idea what just happened.
8:06 p.m.
The girls meet with modeling agency bigwigs.
A girl with a severe limp attempts to catwalk.
One of the men inquires, "How much pain are you in doing that?" Limpy responds, "A lot."
8:08 p.m.
A girl who has a lazy eye walks into the room and is berated for having a lazy eye. She leaves.
The Fawn appears. She is asked to sing. Her mind goes blank, although this is difficult to tell, as her eyes remain precisely as big and shiny and vacant as they were before. "In this industry, you've got to be able to perform on the spot!" one man chirps, before sending her away.
The next girl walks in. "Five three?!" one of the men exclaims. "You are really pushing the boundaries." He says this spitefully, as if her height is a personal insult to him, as if the numbers 5 and 3 have recently tried to sell him a sub-par Caramel Macchiato and he holds her responsible.
8:10 p.m.
Bianca is on screen, briefly. The edits are made so quickly that I am starting to feel at risk of an epileptic seizure. I almost have a chance to form a thought about the fact that TV is not made for anyone with a reasonably healthy attention span, when it is announced that they are going to kick someone off the show. Right now.
The girls' hands fly up to cover their gaping mouths almost in unison. "This is real," one of the men says. He says this with rehearsed conviction.
8:11 p.m.
Commercials. I am called to the kitchen to help HoneyButterMelt.
I express my concern that I haven't yet seen the crazy Jesus-loving girl I heard so much about from last week's episode. HoneyButterMelt tells me that the crazy Jesus-loving girl is gone. Although I try not to be, I am visibly disappointed.
"There's another one that's kinda bonkers," HoneyButterMelt says, by way of consolation.
I decide the only way to get through the show is to wholeheartedly and 100% support The Fawn.
8:15 p.m.
One of the girls (it may have been The Fawn) explains how shocking this experience is. "I think I just like...everything just kinda like...what."
The Fawn is told to go home.
"I was expecting someone to pop out and go, 'Just kidding!'" She says, tearily adding, "Opportunities like this don't really come for girls like me." I picture her returning to Walmart, slipping on a blue vest, and resigning herself to a life of minimum wage and Big Grab bags of Lay's BBQ chips.
One of the men says, "The fact of the matter is this is a very harsh industry and we want to represent someone who has some kind of personality there."
I hate the men, and this show.
8:16 p.m.
The girls begin trash-talking The Fawn. The girl with the lazy eye is relieved The Fawn is gone. "Yeah I have this issue with my eye but I feel really, really good."
I decide that Lazy Eye is my least favorite. I hope she loses.
There is more screeching and running toward the vault.
A photographer named Jean-Michel appears, and screams at the girls. He claims he would rather "chew glass" than photograph them.
I wonder if Jean-Michel can imagine what chewing glass would actually be like.
Tyra bounds in dressed as a classic "nerd" and begins modeling while Jean-Michel yells at her. She takes her glasses off, flips her trench coat inside out and transforms into some kind of modeling super hero. She and Jean-Michel have a back and forth in what has got to be the most awkward role play I have ever seen.
I decide I would rather chew glass than watch Tyra Banks "act." I imagine what chewing glass would actually be like, and stick by my decision.
Super Tyra poses, while referencing the "smize." It becomes clear that "to smize" is to smile with one's eyes.
Tyra addresses the girls as the superhero Super Smize, and gets them to work on their posture. She asks them to think of something nice. "It could be a hot fudge sundae," she says. "It could be your boyfriend" (pause) "kissing your" (pause) "...neck."
I scan the room for glass.
8:19 p.m.
Tyra instructs one of the girls to "Give me the sound that the cat makes but continue smiling with your eyes. Now do it inside of your head." I consider the possibility that Tyra may be a Dadaist genius.
I look at HoneyButterMelt, who is now seated next to me on the couch. She is attempting to smize.
8:20 p.m.
One of the girls reveals that her secret to smizing is thinking about pizza. "Turkey pepperoni or real pork swine?" Tyra asks.
While I am struggling to understand the string of disconnected nouns that stream from Tyra Banks's mouth, HoneyButterMelt asks, "Can I smize?" She squints and purses her lips. She looks as if she has just eaten a lemon. I don't say this. Instead, I say, "Yes." HoneyButterMelt smiles.
8:21 p.m.
The girls are in weird, fencing-like body suits that leave only their eyes visible. They are going to have a smize off.
"You know who would have been excellent at smizing? The Fawn!" As I'm saying this, I realize I don't actually believe it.
I consider chewing glass as self-inflicted punishment for actually using the word "smize" aloud, in a sentence.
8:22 p.m.
Tyra reminds the girls that "Smiling with your eyes is not just squinting." I feel superior, having already figured this out.
Bianca beats Lazy Eye in the smize off. Big surprise.
8:23 p.m.
I remember that salmon patties are on their way. I am getting hungry.
8:25 p.m.
Bianca is in a black bikini standing over a dishwasher arguing with the girls about whether the dishes are clean or not. Her bald head looks less sexy than menacing. I don't like her.
8:26 p.m.
Commercials. I steal a small potato from the pot of potatoes HoneyButterMelt is mashing on the stove. I eat it over the sink, pretending I'm a poor Irishman from the late 1800s and this is all I have for dinner. In keeping with the fantasy, I think, "That was a right gud wee puh-tay-toe." Even in my head, I can't do a proper Irish accent. I head back to the couch feeling slightly defeated, but less hungry.
8:29 p.m.
The girls go to Santa Anita park, where they meet a man who looks like a photo negative of a regular human. He tries, unsuccessfully, to inject enthusiasm into his voice as he explains that for the next task, "You'll be up on the horse...nude."
The girls cheer and jump.
"You're going to take everything you learned from Supersmize and show us that you truly know how to smile with your eyes," he says.
A topless girl in a long, blond wig gets on top of a horse, elbows a jockey in the back, and smizes.
8:32 p.m.
Lazy Eye approaches.
"You look drunk," the photographer tells her.
"I have a condition of the eye," she replies.
Her horse freaks out.
8:33 p.m.
Photo Negative says of a model, "She gave me Italian Vogue...literally." I am certain he doesn't know what literally means.
8:34 p.m.
The word "smize" is spoken upwards of fifteen times.
Laura comes out and says in a southern accent, "I just like nudity."
She is my new favorite.
8:36 p.m.
Limpy is forced to wear a soft cast boot during the photo shoot. She is angry. It shows.
Photo Negative yells, "Smize! Don't forget!"
8:37 p.m.
Back in the house, there is a confrontation between Limpy and one of the girls. Someone in the room sings out "Awk-ward!"
8:38 p.m.
Commercials. HoneyButterMelt calls from the kitchen. "Sorry dinner is so late. I wish I was there eating and bitching with you!" I am happy to be in a solid relationship, one built on food and mutual judgment.
I stare at the commercials which, honestly, I barely understand. Someone asks me to, "Imagine the strength and flexibility of bamboo in a hairspray." I can not. I wonder if I really am out of touch with the rest of humanity, or if everyone feels this way while watching TV.
As if in answer to my question, a commercial for Dane Cook's upcoming concert at the Bell Center comes on. I decide I am out of touch with humanity.
8:41 p.m.
It is announced that the girl who wins this challenge will get a modeling contract with the bitchy men we saw earlier. I think how handy it is for them that this whole episode has been a commercial for their agency.
8:43 p.m.
The girls' horse pictures are judged by the panel, which includes Lauren Conrad (of whom I am only vaguely aware) and a black man with womanly lips, and sleeves that look as if they are eating his shoulders.
He critiques one of the photos by neighing like a horse, and then saying that the photo is lacking the particular horse noise that he just made.
8:44 p.m.
Lauren Conrad says of Lazy Eye's photo, "Your eyes almost look uneven."
"No, I have uneven eyes," she answers.
I wonder why she is even in the competition, but I start to admire her perseverance.
I ask HoneyButterMelt how to spell "perseverance." We sound it out.
"Oh! Not per-ser-ver-ance," I say, "but per-se-ver-ance."
"Gets you every time," HoneyButterMelt says.
"Actually, that's the first time it ever got me," I reply defensively.
I wonder if this onset of spelling difficulty is karmic payback for me making a wordnerd crack about Boggle earlier.
8:45 p.m.
Tyra tells Bianca that there is too much tension in her mouth. "Your mouth looks like 'Who farted?'"
Everyone agrees that Laura's photo is great. I am happy my new favorite is doing well.
8:46 p.m.
"Because it's so strange, it's not hooch," Puffy Sleeves says. I have no idea what he's referring to or what this means.
8:47 p.m.
The concept of "a melancholy smize" is introduced.
8:48 p.m.
Commercials. I wonder if we find out right away who will be eliminated, or if we get to see the worst three girls humiliated first.
I hear HoneyButterMelt banging spoons in the kitchen. I'm starving.
I search Craigslist Montreal's furniture section for a floor lamp.
8:52 p.m.
The judges deliberate. "She's not smizing." "She is giving us an angry smize." "She can smize."
Tyra literally (literally, Photo Negative) smizes a guy right out of his chair.
8:54 p.m.
A steaming plate of salmon patties, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and arugula salad is placed before me. I have the best girlfriend in the universe. I am smug.
Tyra hands photos to the girls. I am pretty sure this means they continue to the next round.
8:56 p.m.
Bianca and Limpy clasp hands and step forward to dramatic music.
The problem is, as Tyra sees it, that Bianca complains and Limpy gave up on her shoot. Desperate for meaning, I decide to make this the show's moral. Be cheerful. Don't give up. Smize though your heart is aching.
Suddenly, Bianca wins.
"But Bianca looked like a man!" I protest. I am surprised, in the wake of The Fawn's demise, that I have any feelings at all about the outcome of the show.
"Who's going home?" HoneyButterMelt asks. "The limpy or the bald one?"
"Limpy," I answer. The girls cry.
A picture of all the girls dressed in rope flashes on the screen.
The preview reel for next week's episode shows a child strutting like a diva, and an altercation over Bianca's eyebrows.
Commercials. The show is over. I would feel empty inside, but for my salmon patties.
*not her real name
7:57 p.m.
My girlfriend, HoneyButterMelt*, wrist-deep in salmon patty preparations, asks me to turn on the TV. A woman wearing very heavy eye shadow and a shirt that looks more like the idea of a tank top than an actual tank top cries and says she "loves people."
I am grateful that I have never seen an episode of So You Think You Can Dance Canada.
8:00 p.m.
America's Next Top Model begins. My excitement swiftly turns to mild disgust as a brief recap of last week's episode shows the models' childhood photos used as inspiration for creepy sexual pictures of them as adults. One of the models is in a clown costume, trying to look sexy. In an instant, everything I have ever thought about clowns, or sex, is not only challenged but metaphorically trampled upon. I fear my future enjoyment of both is severely compromised.
8:01 p.m.
Tyra struts and air-kisses her way through the intro music as we are introduced to the girls. Although I am immediately drawn to the bald Bianca, I keep this to myself, for fear that it makes me not only predictable but super gay.
still 8:01 p.m.
Commercials. Apparently, Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston are starring in an upcoming movie, along with that horribly grating "You Found Me" song. I try to imagine a pairing even more bland (Kevin Costner and Jennifer Love Hewitt? White rice and Pete Wentz? Saltines and Ben Affleck?) and find that I can not.
8:04 p.m.
A commercial announcer asks, "Do you think you have what it takes to get into the Coors Light Mystery Mansion?" I have to admit that if what it takes involves a desire to unravel the "mystery," the ability to stomach Coors Light, or an interest in actually getting into the Coors Light Mystery Mansion, I do not.
8:05 p.m.
ANTM is back.
I am introduced to Rachel, former Walmart cashier. It takes me a few seconds to decide, of all the bright-eyed woodland creatures she reminds me of, that she looks most like a fawn. The criteria are 1.), They have similar spacing of the eyes and 2.) They both look similarly incapable of succeeding at Boggle.
Forget bald Bianca. The Fawn is my favorite and the one I am rooting for.
The girls screech and run toward some kind of vault. The name "Tyra" is intoned. I have no idea what just happened.
8:06 p.m.
The girls meet with modeling agency bigwigs.
A girl with a severe limp attempts to catwalk.
One of the men inquires, "How much pain are you in doing that?" Limpy responds, "A lot."
8:08 p.m.
A girl who has a lazy eye walks into the room and is berated for having a lazy eye. She leaves.
The Fawn appears. She is asked to sing. Her mind goes blank, although this is difficult to tell, as her eyes remain precisely as big and shiny and vacant as they were before. "In this industry, you've got to be able to perform on the spot!" one man chirps, before sending her away.
The next girl walks in. "Five three?!" one of the men exclaims. "You are really pushing the boundaries." He says this spitefully, as if her height is a personal insult to him, as if the numbers 5 and 3 have recently tried to sell him a sub-par Caramel Macchiato and he holds her responsible.
8:10 p.m.
Bianca is on screen, briefly. The edits are made so quickly that I am starting to feel at risk of an epileptic seizure. I almost have a chance to form a thought about the fact that TV is not made for anyone with a reasonably healthy attention span, when it is announced that they are going to kick someone off the show. Right now.
The girls' hands fly up to cover their gaping mouths almost in unison. "This is real," one of the men says. He says this with rehearsed conviction.
8:11 p.m.
Commercials. I am called to the kitchen to help HoneyButterMelt.
I express my concern that I haven't yet seen the crazy Jesus-loving girl I heard so much about from last week's episode. HoneyButterMelt tells me that the crazy Jesus-loving girl is gone. Although I try not to be, I am visibly disappointed.
"There's another one that's kinda bonkers," HoneyButterMelt says, by way of consolation.
I decide the only way to get through the show is to wholeheartedly and 100% support The Fawn.
8:15 p.m.
One of the girls (it may have been The Fawn) explains how shocking this experience is. "I think I just like...everything just kinda like...what."
The Fawn is told to go home.
"I was expecting someone to pop out and go, 'Just kidding!'" She says, tearily adding, "Opportunities like this don't really come for girls like me." I picture her returning to Walmart, slipping on a blue vest, and resigning herself to a life of minimum wage and Big Grab bags of Lay's BBQ chips.
One of the men says, "The fact of the matter is this is a very harsh industry and we want to represent someone who has some kind of personality there."
I hate the men, and this show.
8:16 p.m.
The girls begin trash-talking The Fawn. The girl with the lazy eye is relieved The Fawn is gone. "Yeah I have this issue with my eye but I feel really, really good."
I decide that Lazy Eye is my least favorite. I hope she loses.
There is more screeching and running toward the vault.
A photographer named Jean-Michel appears, and screams at the girls. He claims he would rather "chew glass" than photograph them.
I wonder if Jean-Michel can imagine what chewing glass would actually be like.
Tyra bounds in dressed as a classic "nerd" and begins modeling while Jean-Michel yells at her. She takes her glasses off, flips her trench coat inside out and transforms into some kind of modeling super hero. She and Jean-Michel have a back and forth in what has got to be the most awkward role play I have ever seen.
I decide I would rather chew glass than watch Tyra Banks "act." I imagine what chewing glass would actually be like, and stick by my decision.
Super Tyra poses, while referencing the "smize." It becomes clear that "to smize" is to smile with one's eyes.
Tyra addresses the girls as the superhero Super Smize, and gets them to work on their posture. She asks them to think of something nice. "It could be a hot fudge sundae," she says. "It could be your boyfriend" (pause) "kissing your" (pause) "...neck."
I scan the room for glass.
8:19 p.m.
Tyra instructs one of the girls to "Give me the sound that the cat makes but continue smiling with your eyes. Now do it inside of your head." I consider the possibility that Tyra may be a Dadaist genius.
I look at HoneyButterMelt, who is now seated next to me on the couch. She is attempting to smize.
8:20 p.m.
One of the girls reveals that her secret to smizing is thinking about pizza. "Turkey pepperoni or real pork swine?" Tyra asks.
While I am struggling to understand the string of disconnected nouns that stream from Tyra Banks's mouth, HoneyButterMelt asks, "Can I smize?" She squints and purses her lips. She looks as if she has just eaten a lemon. I don't say this. Instead, I say, "Yes." HoneyButterMelt smiles.
8:21 p.m.
The girls are in weird, fencing-like body suits that leave only their eyes visible. They are going to have a smize off.
"You know who would have been excellent at smizing? The Fawn!" As I'm saying this, I realize I don't actually believe it.
I consider chewing glass as self-inflicted punishment for actually using the word "smize" aloud, in a sentence.
8:22 p.m.
Tyra reminds the girls that "Smiling with your eyes is not just squinting." I feel superior, having already figured this out.
Bianca beats Lazy Eye in the smize off. Big surprise.
8:23 p.m.
I remember that salmon patties are on their way. I am getting hungry.
8:25 p.m.
Bianca is in a black bikini standing over a dishwasher arguing with the girls about whether the dishes are clean or not. Her bald head looks less sexy than menacing. I don't like her.
8:26 p.m.
Commercials. I steal a small potato from the pot of potatoes HoneyButterMelt is mashing on the stove. I eat it over the sink, pretending I'm a poor Irishman from the late 1800s and this is all I have for dinner. In keeping with the fantasy, I think, "That was a right gud wee puh-tay-toe." Even in my head, I can't do a proper Irish accent. I head back to the couch feeling slightly defeated, but less hungry.
8:29 p.m.
The girls go to Santa Anita park, where they meet a man who looks like a photo negative of a regular human. He tries, unsuccessfully, to inject enthusiasm into his voice as he explains that for the next task, "You'll be up on the horse...nude."
The girls cheer and jump.
"You're going to take everything you learned from Supersmize and show us that you truly know how to smile with your eyes," he says.
A topless girl in a long, blond wig gets on top of a horse, elbows a jockey in the back, and smizes.
8:32 p.m.
Lazy Eye approaches.
"You look drunk," the photographer tells her.
"I have a condition of the eye," she replies.
Her horse freaks out.
8:33 p.m.
Photo Negative says of a model, "She gave me Italian Vogue...literally." I am certain he doesn't know what literally means.
8:34 p.m.
The word "smize" is spoken upwards of fifteen times.
Laura comes out and says in a southern accent, "I just like nudity."
She is my new favorite.
8:36 p.m.
Limpy is forced to wear a soft cast boot during the photo shoot. She is angry. It shows.
Photo Negative yells, "Smize! Don't forget!"
8:37 p.m.
Back in the house, there is a confrontation between Limpy and one of the girls. Someone in the room sings out "Awk-ward!"
8:38 p.m.
Commercials. HoneyButterMelt calls from the kitchen. "Sorry dinner is so late. I wish I was there eating and bitching with you!" I am happy to be in a solid relationship, one built on food and mutual judgment.
I stare at the commercials which, honestly, I barely understand. Someone asks me to, "Imagine the strength and flexibility of bamboo in a hairspray." I can not. I wonder if I really am out of touch with the rest of humanity, or if everyone feels this way while watching TV.
As if in answer to my question, a commercial for Dane Cook's upcoming concert at the Bell Center comes on. I decide I am out of touch with humanity.
8:41 p.m.
It is announced that the girl who wins this challenge will get a modeling contract with the bitchy men we saw earlier. I think how handy it is for them that this whole episode has been a commercial for their agency.
8:43 p.m.
The girls' horse pictures are judged by the panel, which includes Lauren Conrad (of whom I am only vaguely aware) and a black man with womanly lips, and sleeves that look as if they are eating his shoulders.
He critiques one of the photos by neighing like a horse, and then saying that the photo is lacking the particular horse noise that he just made.
8:44 p.m.
Lauren Conrad says of Lazy Eye's photo, "Your eyes almost look uneven."
"No, I have uneven eyes," she answers.
I wonder why she is even in the competition, but I start to admire her perseverance.
I ask HoneyButterMelt how to spell "perseverance." We sound it out.
"Oh! Not per-ser-ver-ance," I say, "but per-se-ver-ance."
"Gets you every time," HoneyButterMelt says.
"Actually, that's the first time it ever got me," I reply defensively.
I wonder if this onset of spelling difficulty is karmic payback for me making a wordnerd crack about Boggle earlier.
8:45 p.m.
Tyra tells Bianca that there is too much tension in her mouth. "Your mouth looks like 'Who farted?'"
Everyone agrees that Laura's photo is great. I am happy my new favorite is doing well.
8:46 p.m.
"Because it's so strange, it's not hooch," Puffy Sleeves says. I have no idea what he's referring to or what this means.
8:47 p.m.
The concept of "a melancholy smize" is introduced.
8:48 p.m.
Commercials. I wonder if we find out right away who will be eliminated, or if we get to see the worst three girls humiliated first.
I hear HoneyButterMelt banging spoons in the kitchen. I'm starving.
I search Craigslist Montreal's furniture section for a floor lamp.
8:52 p.m.
The judges deliberate. "She's not smizing." "She is giving us an angry smize." "She can smize."
Tyra literally (literally, Photo Negative) smizes a guy right out of his chair.
8:54 p.m.
A steaming plate of salmon patties, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and arugula salad is placed before me. I have the best girlfriend in the universe. I am smug.
Tyra hands photos to the girls. I am pretty sure this means they continue to the next round.
8:56 p.m.
Bianca and Limpy clasp hands and step forward to dramatic music.
The problem is, as Tyra sees it, that Bianca complains and Limpy gave up on her shoot. Desperate for meaning, I decide to make this the show's moral. Be cheerful. Don't give up. Smize though your heart is aching.
Suddenly, Bianca wins.
"But Bianca looked like a man!" I protest. I am surprised, in the wake of The Fawn's demise, that I have any feelings at all about the outcome of the show.
"Who's going home?" HoneyButterMelt asks. "The limpy or the bald one?"
"Limpy," I answer. The girls cry.
A picture of all the girls dressed in rope flashes on the screen.
The preview reel for next week's episode shows a child strutting like a diva, and an altercation over Bianca's eyebrows.
Commercials. The show is over. I would feel empty inside, but for my salmon patties.
*not her real name
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Punky Brewster or, Refrigerators Can Kill You!
DISCLAIMER: I will, in this blog about Soleil Moon Frye, known best for her portrayal of TV's young and plucky Punky Brewster, refrain from mentioning gigantomastia (extreme growth of the breasts). If, my friends, you're looking for cheap jokes about gigantomastia (bilateral benign progressive breast enlargement), look elsewhere. If you'd like to see images of gigantomastia (I recommend it), you have come to the wrong blog. Even if you'd simply like a medical definition of gigantomastia (seriously, it's like EXTREME growth), this blog will be naught but a disappointment to you. While easily exploited for both humor and shock value, gigantomastia (the largest recorded weight per breast was 67 lbs!) will not be mentioned even once in this blog. If gigantomastia (Google it) is what you're after, I suggest you move along. Thank you.
Here we go.
Soleil Moon Frye ranks up there with Nancy Reagan and Garbage Pail Kids as oddities from the '80s I have not thought of in a very, very long time. She came back into my life and consciousness much the same way the depressing theatrical works of Sarah Kane or the benefits of omega-rich flax seed oil or use of the word "perv" as a verb ("I was totally perving on that girl") came into my life: thanks to my girlfriend.
My girlfriend, who hereafter will be referred to as HoneyButterMelt,* has recently developed a weakness for celebrity Twittering. (Is that even the correct way to say that? Celebrity tweeting? Celebritweet? Mind-numbingly boring psuedo-newsfeeds?) In any case, it was a short-lived hobby of HoneyButterMelt's, but a relatively intense one. In the time she was into it, HoneyButterMelt learned everything there is to know about Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson (either a lot more or a lot less than you would imagine, depending on whether you have your own life), which led to her Nicole Richie's page, which led her to Sara Gilbert's page, which led her to Soleil Moon Frye. (Really, I'm not going to mention gigantomastia, so quit waiting for it.)
Soleil Moon Frye, it turns out, has gone from this:
To this:
Back to this:
Horrifying, isn't it? But not nearly as horrifying as the video I will link you to at the end of this blog (and no, it's not a video about gigantomastia).
Apparently, the only thing of consequence Soleil Moon Frye has really done in her life is portray TV's young and plucky Punky Brewster. Punky Brewster was great, but unless I'm drunk on tequila in a seedy strip club in Chicago, I really do not want to see a 33-year-old woman dressed up as her, flashing me a thumbs up. Excuse me while I shudder.
I got to thinking about the show, and I'm disturbed by how many details I remember. The main set up, as I recall, was that Punky Brewster (having been left in a shopping center by her mom) was a resourceful and courageous orphan who, along with her faithful dog Brandon, befriended Henry and taught the old codger to love again. I credit the show Punky Brewster with teaching me three important lessons I've carried in my heart throughout my life. 1. Quick wit and determination can get a girl out of a jam. 2. Friendship is the most valuable thing in life. and 3. MY MOM COULD ABANDON ME IN A SHOPPING CENTER.
Way to shatter my innocence, Punky Brewster. That little backstory detail, mentioned perhaps once in the first episode, stuck with me like the bittersweet memory of Samantha Ronson's loving touch sticks with Lindsay Lohan (which is to say, deeply). If Punky Brewster's mom could leave her in a store, my mom could leave me in a store. Why the heck wouldn't she? I was cute, sure, but not nearly as freckled or adorable or full of pep as Punky Brewster. Compared to the awesome Punky Brewster, I was totally expendable. Thanks to that show, my mom never had to tell me twice that we were leaving a store. I would be up and away from the Cabbage Patch doll display faster than Samantha Ronson can delete Lindsay Lohan's increasingly desperate tweet-attempts to win back her heart (which is to say, as hastily as possible).
A friend, who hereafter will be referred to as Diane Smithers**, suggested that as far as backstories go, the whole mom-leaving-you-in-a-shopping-center thing wasn't a horrible one. Diane Smithers said that the show's writers probably thought it was better than other possible explanations for why a kid would be orphaned. Imagine the brainstorming session: "How about Punky's mom is a crystal meth addict? Maybe her parents died in a fire? Her dad killed her mom and is now in jail? What if Punky's Chinese and her country has a one-child policy and seeing that her culture traditionally values sons over daughters, her parents felt the social pressure to produce a boy and abandoned her on a rocky hillside?" "...Or, maybe, her mom just left her in a shopping center?" "Yeah, that's good."
The other notable thing about Punky Brewster was that all the episodes had a message. Does anyone remember when the kids were playing hide-and-seek outside and one of them decided to hop into an abandoned refrigerator? Holy Macanole, that kid almost died! Inside a refrigerator! Unlike Lindsay Lohan getting the message when Samantha Ronson does not reply to her exclamation-point-heavy tweets (which is to say, not at all), I got the refrigerators-are-death-traps message loud and clear. Thereafter I eyed our refrigerator at home knowingly, with suspicion and contempt. You won't kill me, chilled place where we keep our produce!
Remember the episode where the illiterate girl who lied about being able to read had to face her ignorance when her little brother drank some cleaning solution and she couldn't read the poison control instructions on the back of the bottle? Or when all the picked-on kids ganged up against the school bully, Moose? I'm telling you, Punky always had a message. "Refrigerators will kill you. Punky Power!" "Don't lie about if you can read. Punky Power!" "Try not to drink stuff under the sink. Punky Power!" "Don't be a jerk to other kids. Punky Power!"
I'm tempted to go on, both about Punky Brewster (really, the amount of trivia I've retained about that show is troubling; I could write a thesis on the bleak theme song alone***) and the sad and shattered lovelorn LiLo, but I'll get to Soleil Moon Frye's video (which is definitely not about gigantomastia). Be warned, it is extremely disturbing. But be heartened, it is also extremely affirming. It will probably make you feel really, really good about the choices you've made in your life, seeing as those choices-- whatever they were-- did not lead you to make the following video. Enjoy. HoneyButterMelt, this video is for you.
*Not her real name, but a psuedonym designed to protect Sarah's anonymity.
**Not her real name, but a psuedonym designed to protect my ego and reputation from the fact that the "friend" I was talking to was me.
***"Maybe the world is blind (do do do do do do), or just a little unkind, Don't know...Seems you can't be sure (do do do do do do), of anything anymore...Oh no..." Those are the opening lines to a kids' show!
Well, they can't say they didn't prep us for a world in which moms shuck off their kids in shopping centers and refrigerators stalk and murder 8-year-olds.
Here we go.
Soleil Moon Frye ranks up there with Nancy Reagan and Garbage Pail Kids as oddities from the '80s I have not thought of in a very, very long time. She came back into my life and consciousness much the same way the depressing theatrical works of Sarah Kane or the benefits of omega-rich flax seed oil or use of the word "perv" as a verb ("I was totally perving on that girl") came into my life: thanks to my girlfriend.
My girlfriend, who hereafter will be referred to as HoneyButterMelt,* has recently developed a weakness for celebrity Twittering. (Is that even the correct way to say that? Celebrity tweeting? Celebritweet? Mind-numbingly boring psuedo-newsfeeds?) In any case, it was a short-lived hobby of HoneyButterMelt's, but a relatively intense one. In the time she was into it, HoneyButterMelt learned everything there is to know about Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson (either a lot more or a lot less than you would imagine, depending on whether you have your own life), which led to her Nicole Richie's page, which led her to Sara Gilbert's page, which led her to Soleil Moon Frye. (Really, I'm not going to mention gigantomastia, so quit waiting for it.)
Soleil Moon Frye, it turns out, has gone from this:
To this:
Back to this:
Horrifying, isn't it? But not nearly as horrifying as the video I will link you to at the end of this blog (and no, it's not a video about gigantomastia).
Apparently, the only thing of consequence Soleil Moon Frye has really done in her life is portray TV's young and plucky Punky Brewster. Punky Brewster was great, but unless I'm drunk on tequila in a seedy strip club in Chicago, I really do not want to see a 33-year-old woman dressed up as her, flashing me a thumbs up. Excuse me while I shudder.
I got to thinking about the show, and I'm disturbed by how many details I remember. The main set up, as I recall, was that Punky Brewster (having been left in a shopping center by her mom) was a resourceful and courageous orphan who, along with her faithful dog Brandon, befriended Henry and taught the old codger to love again. I credit the show Punky Brewster with teaching me three important lessons I've carried in my heart throughout my life. 1. Quick wit and determination can get a girl out of a jam. 2. Friendship is the most valuable thing in life. and 3. MY MOM COULD ABANDON ME IN A SHOPPING CENTER.
Way to shatter my innocence, Punky Brewster. That little backstory detail, mentioned perhaps once in the first episode, stuck with me like the bittersweet memory of Samantha Ronson's loving touch sticks with Lindsay Lohan (which is to say, deeply). If Punky Brewster's mom could leave her in a store, my mom could leave me in a store. Why the heck wouldn't she? I was cute, sure, but not nearly as freckled or adorable or full of pep as Punky Brewster. Compared to the awesome Punky Brewster, I was totally expendable. Thanks to that show, my mom never had to tell me twice that we were leaving a store. I would be up and away from the Cabbage Patch doll display faster than Samantha Ronson can delete Lindsay Lohan's increasingly desperate tweet-attempts to win back her heart (which is to say, as hastily as possible).
A friend, who hereafter will be referred to as Diane Smithers**, suggested that as far as backstories go, the whole mom-leaving-you-in-a-shopping-center thing wasn't a horrible one. Diane Smithers said that the show's writers probably thought it was better than other possible explanations for why a kid would be orphaned. Imagine the brainstorming session: "How about Punky's mom is a crystal meth addict? Maybe her parents died in a fire? Her dad killed her mom and is now in jail? What if Punky's Chinese and her country has a one-child policy and seeing that her culture traditionally values sons over daughters, her parents felt the social pressure to produce a boy and abandoned her on a rocky hillside?" "...Or, maybe, her mom just left her in a shopping center?" "Yeah, that's good."
The other notable thing about Punky Brewster was that all the episodes had a message. Does anyone remember when the kids were playing hide-and-seek outside and one of them decided to hop into an abandoned refrigerator? Holy Macanole, that kid almost died! Inside a refrigerator! Unlike Lindsay Lohan getting the message when Samantha Ronson does not reply to her exclamation-point-heavy tweets (which is to say, not at all), I got the refrigerators-are-death-traps message loud and clear. Thereafter I eyed our refrigerator at home knowingly, with suspicion and contempt. You won't kill me, chilled place where we keep our produce!
Remember the episode where the illiterate girl who lied about being able to read had to face her ignorance when her little brother drank some cleaning solution and she couldn't read the poison control instructions on the back of the bottle? Or when all the picked-on kids ganged up against the school bully, Moose? I'm telling you, Punky always had a message. "Refrigerators will kill you. Punky Power!" "Don't lie about if you can read. Punky Power!" "Try not to drink stuff under the sink. Punky Power!" "Don't be a jerk to other kids. Punky Power!"
I'm tempted to go on, both about Punky Brewster (really, the amount of trivia I've retained about that show is troubling; I could write a thesis on the bleak theme song alone***) and the sad and shattered lovelorn LiLo, but I'll get to Soleil Moon Frye's video (which is definitely not about gigantomastia). Be warned, it is extremely disturbing. But be heartened, it is also extremely affirming. It will probably make you feel really, really good about the choices you've made in your life, seeing as those choices-- whatever they were-- did not lead you to make the following video. Enjoy. HoneyButterMelt, this video is for you.
*Not her real name, but a psuedonym designed to protect Sarah's anonymity.
**Not her real name, but a psuedonym designed to protect my ego and reputation from the fact that the "friend" I was talking to was me.
***"Maybe the world is blind (do do do do do do), or just a little unkind, Don't know...Seems you can't be sure (do do do do do do), of anything anymore...Oh no..." Those are the opening lines to a kids' show!
Well, they can't say they didn't prep us for a world in which moms shuck off their kids in shopping centers and refrigerators stalk and murder 8-year-olds.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Melbourne Int'l Comedy Festival Road Show: Western Australia
Friends, readers, strangers, and stalker (you know who you are, Rachel Templeton):
Hello! It's been quite a while since I've updated the blog. About, oh, ten months. A lot has happened in that time. A human fetus could have gestated, been born, and learned to blink in response to bright lights in that amount of time (you know who you are, newborn babies). A negligent container ship pilot could have completed a prison sentence for his role in a spill of more than 53,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay in that amount of time (you know who you are, Captain John Cota). A person could have gone through a mild seasonal depression, written a new one hour show, traveled to Australia for four months, eaten obscene amounts of Barramundi, and returned to Montreal in that amount of time (you know who you are, DeAnne Smith). It's a fair amount of time, is my point.
Thank you for your patience, friends, readers, strangers, and stalker. In exchange, I present you with a detailed account of my tour of Western Australia.
Well, mostly detailed. The thing is, I'm writing this from Montreal, sipping a limonade avec gingembre, where I sit in a cafe surrounded by sexy geeks staring at laptop screens, while accordian-heavy and increasingly disturbed French music plays in the background. The tour is a blur to me now. The ho- and motels I stayed in blend, in my memory, into one giant, beige carpeted room with grossly overpriced Toblerones on display, passive aggressive "We Care About the Earth! Do You?" signs in the bathroom, and a television continually playing the preview for "He's Just Not That Into You." I've decided to ascribe my hazy memory to the number of time zones I've crossed in the past few weeks and not, say, to potential lead poisoning I picked up in Port Pirie.
Here we go.
Margaret River (pop. 4,415) was the first stop on the tour, and where this:
and this:
greeted us backstage.
That's right, a half-eaten package of hand-labeled "GINGER" cookies, and a box of tap shoes. Oh, Margaret River, you have a way with performers! How did you know that my ideal way to "get in the zone" before a show is to chow down on stale, suspiciously-packaged sweets and strap on my dancin'shoes? Tippity-tap, tippity-tap, mmm mmm mmm!
The coolest part about the show in Margaret River was that we performed to a sold-out house of just over 400 people. It's not often that I get to be seen by 10% of the town I'm in. Or that .25% of that 10% would serve me breakfast the next day, simultaneously boosting and deflating my ego with the sentence, "I loved your stuff last night, but I'm not sure the crowd really got it." Uh, thanks?
Next, we drove to Bunbury, a town charming in its directness. The Bunbury library is unmistakably that:
And the fact that the town has just one Thai restaurant is not only acknowledged, but celebrated:
It's the "Choose Respect" signs that, while straightforward at first, become perplexing:
Sure, it's fine message for a town to promote. What unsettles me, though, is that the town feels it needs to tell its inhabitants to respect each other, and then reminds them what respect means. "Respect is to treat with care and consideration." I saw this sign on a doctor's office, a place I'd assume where people were always treated with care and consideration. What was happening in Bunbury's doctors' offices to prompt this campaign?
"Listen, tubso, you got a blood-pump so choked with grease you're gonna be dead by September if you don't lay off the sausage rolls. Now, scram!"
"Yeah, yeah, babies cry, it's what they do. Come back when that shit-machine's blue or old enough to tell me what the god damn problem is. Now, scram!"
"Mysterious lump? I got two of 'em, lady, and I call 'em my ballsack. I got bigger fish to fry. Now, scram!"
Maybe that's why the town's most prominent sculpture is a giant, disapproving head:
I'm not sure if Choosing Respect was what the woman who came up to me after the show and said, "You were great! I love your lesbian vagina...(insert uncomfortable, five second pause)...names" was doing or not. I will believe she was.
Only the second stop on the tour, Bunbury taught me a life lesson. Eating corn flakes out of a teacup with a tiny spoon in a '70s-style motel room off the main highway while watching a movie starring that girl from "My Girl," I realized that the touring life may not be all glitz and glamour. Thank you, Bunbury.
On to Geraldton! But first, this sign on the side of the road:
Did I say the touring life wasn't all glitz and glamour? I take it back. I can't imagine anything more glamorous than indulging in a cappuccino and/or exotic tea, as advertised on a light-up sign on the side of the road. Simple, elegant, understated, it is probably my favorite photo of the tour.
I have to admit, I loved Geraldton. While I was there, I breakfasted at Go Health Lunch Bar (named as if poorly translated from a non-Romance language, but nonetheless full of delicious treats), strolled art galleries, learned about the Batavia shipwreck at the museum, ate homemade ice cream, and didn't get carried away by a rip tide at the beach (our stage manager was not so lucky). So enamored was I with the town and its unexplained ship-ka-bob
that the ominous Christian propaganda on the front of the Salvation Army store didn't even phase me.
Where will I spend Eternity? I may just stay in Geraldton. Thanks for asking!
My love of Geraldton could have clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to board a flight to Port Hedland that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the omnipresent layer of red dirt on everything in Port Hedland that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that Port Hedland has two taverns, one named "Last Chance Tavern" and one that holds the world's record for the most stabbings in one night, that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that, despite the blistering heat, one could not go swimming in the beautiful, blue ocean surrounding Port Hedland for fear of being stung, bitten, or otherwise killed that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the hazy cloud of industrial-strength Raid that I slept under after being terrorized by Port Hedland's massive cockroaches in my hotel room that quite literally clouded my perception of Port Hedland.
I might have been inclined to call Port Hedland a hot, salt-minin' pit of despair if it weren't for this:
What you may not be able to see is the "No couples, grubs, or drunks" statement at the bottom of the room for rent ad in the left hand corner. Port Hedland, you've won me back! A town where you can get your freak on at a doctors and nurses party, get your recreational skippers ticket whenever you feel like it ("Give us a call and tell us when you want to do it") and get a room for a mere $275 a week (provided you're not in a relationship, on the sauce, or a beetle larva), is a town that's all right by me!
On the drive to Karratha, we stopped at Whim Creek. We weren't planning on it, but we were suddenly struck by a capricious and eccentric idea to do so. (See what I did there, vocab lovers?) Whim Creek, according to Whim Creek, is a must:
Remember that red dirt I was telling you about in Port Hedland? Well, it's everywhere in Western Australia. So overtaken by the crimson dust, people can't even be bothered to write "Wash me" in it.
Because that wouldn't be funny enough. What's a hoot, though, is labeling handicap bathrooms like this:
Wheelies! Leave it to blunt, fun-lovin' Aussies to give their differently-abled brethren a nickname and some speed lines! This sign makes being in a wheelchair look so awesome, I almost wish I didn't have full physical control of my lower limbs.
Despite full physical control of my lower limbs, I didn't get out much in Karratha. As far as I could tell, the main highlights of the town were its shopping center and its ability to attract cyclones. When we asked the hotel receptionist what there was to do in town, she shrugged her shoulders and stared. I'll remember Karratha for two things: the moist burp by which I was heckled, and the amount of dust in the theater's green room.
Next stop: Perth! We were in Perth for a week, which I mostly spent window shopping and taunting people with real jobs. My favorite past time in Perth became eating fancy lunches at places frequented by business people, and then staring at them with open mockery when they had to leave to return to work. "Nice life, suckers! I'll be here eating salmon tartar and thumbing through the entertainment section of the paper while you sit in front of a computer screen in a fluorescently lit office cubicle, weakening your vision, but still clearly able to see your dreams wither and die."
Most of Perth was hiding behind plastic construction fences, on its way to being built up or knocked down. In the midst of all the construction, I never one saw one person working.
The best store in Perth has got to be this one:
I know they have Aboriginal artefacts, but d'ya reckon they sell didgeridoos?
Esperance was our second-to-last stop on the Western Australia leg of the tour. It's also the place where things tend to fall out of the sky, like wild birds poisoned by lead, and pieces of the Skylab space station. ("It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...well, kind of both of those things. But much more foreboding.")
We were there briefly, so my main memory is of the motel room. And what a motel room it was! It had three beds, and a bathroom bigger than my Montreal apartment. The bathroom actually had two chairs in it, should one get winded walking from one end to the other and need to rest. I hadn't felt lonely on the entire tour until, in this Esperance motel room, I realized I could have had four other people and a rugby team in need of a shower traveling with me. And there I was, small, alone, cold, sleeping in a scarf and beanie.
In an effort to warm up and alleviate my loneliness, I thought about maybe guttin' and cleanin' some fish. Luckily, I saw this sign posted near the door:
Ah well. No fish foolery for me.
On the drive to Kalgoorlie, we passed Norseman
and its cave of activity. Activities include erecting ladders, smoking, and scaring children.
Then, there was what looked like the worst-ever place to picnic, in Widgiemooltha:
First of all, yes, Widgiemooltha is the real name of a real place. It's no Salmon Gums or Mount Remarkable, but I like it.
Secondly, I may not be great with spatial relativity (any of the bruises I've incurred by simply trying to move from one room to another in my apartment could serve as proof), but it looks to me as though the festive yellow concrete stumps surrounding the table would not allow one seated on them to actually reach the table. "I'll just scootch this forwa...oh, nevermind. Pass the cole slaw?"
Kalgoorlie is amazing. It's a historic mining town, and home of the Super Pit, an open-cut gold mine about four kilometers long, one and a half kilometers wide and 500 metres deep. Standing at the edge of the pit, listening to the faraway rumble of gigantic trucks below, I was so mesmerized, it was easy to forget I was witnessing complete environmental degradation. But hey, if it's gonna look so cool! I would pay almost any price for gold now, after seeing the sheer amount of drudgery and toil it takes to get that stuff out of the earth.
I could post a picture of the Super Pit. Or I could tell you how the mine will be used up by 2017. (Sidenote: if you're ever performing in Kalgoorlie, don't mention it to the people in the crowd, all of whom are somehow financially dependent on the mine, 'cause they're a bit touchy about it.) Or I could describe the mechanized toilet stall in the middle of town that played an instrumental version of "What the World Needs Now is Love" but I won't do any of those things. I will leave you with this:
There you have it, friends, readers, strangers, and stalker! That's my experience of Western Australia. I know it may have been a lot to get through, so here's handy reference, likening each city the tour played in to the Australian celebrity it most resembles.
Margaret River = Olivia Newton-John.
Cute, and full of wine.
Bunbury = 1930s race horse Phar Lap.
Straightforwardly doing its thing. Then allegedly killed by gangsters.
Geraldton = Crowded House.
Awesome.
Port Hedland = AC/DC.
Way too heavy and one-note at first, but won me over with its unrelenting commitment to being itself.
Karratha = Natalie Bassingthwaighte
Not bad, but essentially, there's nothing there.
Perth = Nicole Kidman.
Nice to look at, but under constant construction.
Esperance = Air Supply.
Made me feel cold, lonely, and as though I should skin fish.
Kalgoorlie = Heath Ledger.
Beautiful, awsome, and ultimately doomed.
Stay tuned for the South Australia leg, coming soon!
Hello! It's been quite a while since I've updated the blog. About, oh, ten months. A lot has happened in that time. A human fetus could have gestated, been born, and learned to blink in response to bright lights in that amount of time (you know who you are, newborn babies). A negligent container ship pilot could have completed a prison sentence for his role in a spill of more than 53,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay in that amount of time (you know who you are, Captain John Cota). A person could have gone through a mild seasonal depression, written a new one hour show, traveled to Australia for four months, eaten obscene amounts of Barramundi, and returned to Montreal in that amount of time (you know who you are, DeAnne Smith). It's a fair amount of time, is my point.
Thank you for your patience, friends, readers, strangers, and stalker. In exchange, I present you with a detailed account of my tour of Western Australia.
Well, mostly detailed. The thing is, I'm writing this from Montreal, sipping a limonade avec gingembre, where I sit in a cafe surrounded by sexy geeks staring at laptop screens, while accordian-heavy and increasingly disturbed French music plays in the background. The tour is a blur to me now. The ho- and motels I stayed in blend, in my memory, into one giant, beige carpeted room with grossly overpriced Toblerones on display, passive aggressive "We Care About the Earth! Do You?" signs in the bathroom, and a television continually playing the preview for "He's Just Not That Into You." I've decided to ascribe my hazy memory to the number of time zones I've crossed in the past few weeks and not, say, to potential lead poisoning I picked up in Port Pirie.
Here we go.
Margaret River (pop. 4,415) was the first stop on the tour, and where this:
and this:
greeted us backstage.
That's right, a half-eaten package of hand-labeled "GINGER" cookies, and a box of tap shoes. Oh, Margaret River, you have a way with performers! How did you know that my ideal way to "get in the zone" before a show is to chow down on stale, suspiciously-packaged sweets and strap on my dancin'shoes? Tippity-tap, tippity-tap, mmm mmm mmm!
The coolest part about the show in Margaret River was that we performed to a sold-out house of just over 400 people. It's not often that I get to be seen by 10% of the town I'm in. Or that .25% of that 10% would serve me breakfast the next day, simultaneously boosting and deflating my ego with the sentence, "I loved your stuff last night, but I'm not sure the crowd really got it." Uh, thanks?
Next, we drove to Bunbury, a town charming in its directness. The Bunbury library is unmistakably that:
And the fact that the town has just one Thai restaurant is not only acknowledged, but celebrated:
It's the "Choose Respect" signs that, while straightforward at first, become perplexing:
Sure, it's fine message for a town to promote. What unsettles me, though, is that the town feels it needs to tell its inhabitants to respect each other, and then reminds them what respect means. "Respect is to treat with care and consideration." I saw this sign on a doctor's office, a place I'd assume where people were always treated with care and consideration. What was happening in Bunbury's doctors' offices to prompt this campaign?
"Listen, tubso, you got a blood-pump so choked with grease you're gonna be dead by September if you don't lay off the sausage rolls. Now, scram!"
"Yeah, yeah, babies cry, it's what they do. Come back when that shit-machine's blue or old enough to tell me what the god damn problem is. Now, scram!"
"Mysterious lump? I got two of 'em, lady, and I call 'em my ballsack. I got bigger fish to fry. Now, scram!"
Maybe that's why the town's most prominent sculpture is a giant, disapproving head:
I'm not sure if Choosing Respect was what the woman who came up to me after the show and said, "You were great! I love your lesbian vagina...(insert uncomfortable, five second pause)...names" was doing or not. I will believe she was.
Only the second stop on the tour, Bunbury taught me a life lesson. Eating corn flakes out of a teacup with a tiny spoon in a '70s-style motel room off the main highway while watching a movie starring that girl from "My Girl," I realized that the touring life may not be all glitz and glamour. Thank you, Bunbury.
On to Geraldton! But first, this sign on the side of the road:
Did I say the touring life wasn't all glitz and glamour? I take it back. I can't imagine anything more glamorous than indulging in a cappuccino and/or exotic tea, as advertised on a light-up sign on the side of the road. Simple, elegant, understated, it is probably my favorite photo of the tour.
I have to admit, I loved Geraldton. While I was there, I breakfasted at Go Health Lunch Bar (named as if poorly translated from a non-Romance language, but nonetheless full of delicious treats), strolled art galleries, learned about the Batavia shipwreck at the museum, ate homemade ice cream, and didn't get carried away by a rip tide at the beach (our stage manager was not so lucky). So enamored was I with the town and its unexplained ship-ka-bob
that the ominous Christian propaganda on the front of the Salvation Army store didn't even phase me.
Where will I spend Eternity? I may just stay in Geraldton. Thanks for asking!
My love of Geraldton could have clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to board a flight to Port Hedland that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the omnipresent layer of red dirt on everything in Port Hedland that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that Port Hedland has two taverns, one named "Last Chance Tavern" and one that holds the world's record for the most stabbings in one night, that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the fact that, despite the blistering heat, one could not go swimming in the beautiful, blue ocean surrounding Port Hedland for fear of being stung, bitten, or otherwise killed that clouded my perception of Port Hedland. Or maybe it was the hazy cloud of industrial-strength Raid that I slept under after being terrorized by Port Hedland's massive cockroaches in my hotel room that quite literally clouded my perception of Port Hedland.
I might have been inclined to call Port Hedland a hot, salt-minin' pit of despair if it weren't for this:
What you may not be able to see is the "No couples, grubs, or drunks" statement at the bottom of the room for rent ad in the left hand corner. Port Hedland, you've won me back! A town where you can get your freak on at a doctors and nurses party, get your recreational skippers ticket whenever you feel like it ("Give us a call and tell us when you want to do it") and get a room for a mere $275 a week (provided you're not in a relationship, on the sauce, or a beetle larva), is a town that's all right by me!
On the drive to Karratha, we stopped at Whim Creek. We weren't planning on it, but we were suddenly struck by a capricious and eccentric idea to do so. (See what I did there, vocab lovers?) Whim Creek, according to Whim Creek, is a must:
Remember that red dirt I was telling you about in Port Hedland? Well, it's everywhere in Western Australia. So overtaken by the crimson dust, people can't even be bothered to write "Wash me" in it.
Because that wouldn't be funny enough. What's a hoot, though, is labeling handicap bathrooms like this:
Wheelies! Leave it to blunt, fun-lovin' Aussies to give their differently-abled brethren a nickname and some speed lines! This sign makes being in a wheelchair look so awesome, I almost wish I didn't have full physical control of my lower limbs.
Despite full physical control of my lower limbs, I didn't get out much in Karratha. As far as I could tell, the main highlights of the town were its shopping center and its ability to attract cyclones. When we asked the hotel receptionist what there was to do in town, she shrugged her shoulders and stared. I'll remember Karratha for two things: the moist burp by which I was heckled, and the amount of dust in the theater's green room.
Next stop: Perth! We were in Perth for a week, which I mostly spent window shopping and taunting people with real jobs. My favorite past time in Perth became eating fancy lunches at places frequented by business people, and then staring at them with open mockery when they had to leave to return to work. "Nice life, suckers! I'll be here eating salmon tartar and thumbing through the entertainment section of the paper while you sit in front of a computer screen in a fluorescently lit office cubicle, weakening your vision, but still clearly able to see your dreams wither and die."
Most of Perth was hiding behind plastic construction fences, on its way to being built up or knocked down. In the midst of all the construction, I never one saw one person working.
The best store in Perth has got to be this one:
I know they have Aboriginal artefacts, but d'ya reckon they sell didgeridoos?
Esperance was our second-to-last stop on the Western Australia leg of the tour. It's also the place where things tend to fall out of the sky, like wild birds poisoned by lead, and pieces of the Skylab space station. ("It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...well, kind of both of those things. But much more foreboding.")
We were there briefly, so my main memory is of the motel room. And what a motel room it was! It had three beds, and a bathroom bigger than my Montreal apartment. The bathroom actually had two chairs in it, should one get winded walking from one end to the other and need to rest. I hadn't felt lonely on the entire tour until, in this Esperance motel room, I realized I could have had four other people and a rugby team in need of a shower traveling with me. And there I was, small, alone, cold, sleeping in a scarf and beanie.
In an effort to warm up and alleviate my loneliness, I thought about maybe guttin' and cleanin' some fish. Luckily, I saw this sign posted near the door:
Ah well. No fish foolery for me.
On the drive to Kalgoorlie, we passed Norseman
and its cave of activity. Activities include erecting ladders, smoking, and scaring children.
Then, there was what looked like the worst-ever place to picnic, in Widgiemooltha:
First of all, yes, Widgiemooltha is the real name of a real place. It's no Salmon Gums or Mount Remarkable, but I like it.
Secondly, I may not be great with spatial relativity (any of the bruises I've incurred by simply trying to move from one room to another in my apartment could serve as proof), but it looks to me as though the festive yellow concrete stumps surrounding the table would not allow one seated on them to actually reach the table. "I'll just scootch this forwa...oh, nevermind. Pass the cole slaw?"
Kalgoorlie is amazing. It's a historic mining town, and home of the Super Pit, an open-cut gold mine about four kilometers long, one and a half kilometers wide and 500 metres deep. Standing at the edge of the pit, listening to the faraway rumble of gigantic trucks below, I was so mesmerized, it was easy to forget I was witnessing complete environmental degradation. But hey, if it's gonna look so cool! I would pay almost any price for gold now, after seeing the sheer amount of drudgery and toil it takes to get that stuff out of the earth.
I could post a picture of the Super Pit. Or I could tell you how the mine will be used up by 2017. (Sidenote: if you're ever performing in Kalgoorlie, don't mention it to the people in the crowd, all of whom are somehow financially dependent on the mine, 'cause they're a bit touchy about it.) Or I could describe the mechanized toilet stall in the middle of town that played an instrumental version of "What the World Needs Now is Love" but I won't do any of those things. I will leave you with this:
There you have it, friends, readers, strangers, and stalker! That's my experience of Western Australia. I know it may have been a lot to get through, so here's handy reference, likening each city the tour played in to the Australian celebrity it most resembles.
Margaret River = Olivia Newton-John.
Cute, and full of wine.
Bunbury = 1930s race horse Phar Lap.
Straightforwardly doing its thing. Then allegedly killed by gangsters.
Geraldton = Crowded House.
Awesome.
Port Hedland = AC/DC.
Way too heavy and one-note at first, but won me over with its unrelenting commitment to being itself.
Karratha = Natalie Bassingthwaighte
Not bad, but essentially, there's nothing there.
Perth = Nicole Kidman.
Nice to look at, but under constant construction.
Esperance = Air Supply.
Made me feel cold, lonely, and as though I should skin fish.
Kalgoorlie = Heath Ledger.
Beautiful, awsome, and ultimately doomed.
Stay tuned for the South Australia leg, coming soon!
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