Another Day...

Another Day...

Let's tie our ties together and trudge off to our jobs

Best we tow the line, lest we're labeled 'slobs'

I'll swing the hammer, break the rocks

With my other chain gang chums

We'll breathe in shoveled coal, ignore our aching lungs

What's mine is mine, so get your own

It's just the way of things

Once we lived on what was grown

Now it's what we bring

To the table let us sit and dine 

On what truly brings us down

We'll feed the giants table scraps

And starve our little towns

So wipe your brow and say your prayers

And marvel what you've got

When sun shines on our ashen soil

We'll gloat from 'neath our plots

"That's The Way (Uh Huh Uh Huh...)"

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As I Recall

It's a touch embarrassing that I have played pool casually/competitively for fifteen years or so, but I can still only fit a maximum of one billiard ball in my mouth.
One!

Hello there.
Good to see you again.

Grieving has become this weird pass time, kind of like a hobby that you want to spend more time at.
"Yeah, I bought the dongles, beads and hemp last summer, but so far I've only made two friendship bracelets.
Maybe this summer I'll make some more..."
It's a damning thing; choosing between obsessive, destructive misery or slowly forgetting...everything.
I try my best to remember her laugh each day, which was always jarring.
I try to picture her face (too long), and whenever I do she's wearing the expression she used to make when I cracked a joke that she didn't want to give me the satisfaction of laughing at, even though she found it funny. She'd put her tongue in her cheek at those.
I remember her eyes because they were green and that's a statistically less likely colour.
I try to remember her voice, but it only comes out in the tone she would use when she was talking like a stupid man, which is kinda fine, I suppose.
Otherwise, things have been fading already, much like the passport photo of her that I carry in my wallet.
I took it out the other day to see that she looks like an albino in it, and only those who know her would be able to look at it and say, "Oh yeah, it kinda looks like her."
When I noticed this, I threw it in the garbage, but then I took it out again and put it back in my wallet.
I have Peter White's passport photo in my wallet too, so I'm ready for him to die at a moment's notice.
I look at all of the photos of her staring out at me in her family home and get mad that most of them are airbrushed.
I think about the stupid gap in her upper row of teeth sometimes, but I tend to forget which side it was on - the left? It's easy enough to figure out, but it's more dramatic to leave me uncertain about it.
I've begun to read her blog, finally. I mean, I was reading it long before now, when she was in the habit of living, but even then I didn't keep up on it as well as she did mine.
I tended to be just a touch more self-centered than her. This distance grew as we aged.
I look at posts about her dilations and hospital trips and iron injections and keep asking myself, "Where was I?" 
Thankfully, I've thought of some stupid tattoos to get in her honour, which she'd be all about.
As I said a few months back (I think), she loved my stupid tattoos. She especially liked telling the women I was interested in about them before they had a chance to learn about them themselves.
She was there for my first. I can only remember how embarrassing she was acting in front of the biker guys.
She didn't care.
I sometimes tell myself that I am her conduit now, and if I concentrate really hard on her being in the room with me, I can fill in the blanks for those things she may have said, but I can't.
I haven't completely given up on the concept either, though. 
Some of the posts are hard to read (click 'older post' once at the bottom), but those get balanced out by any that I'm mentioned in.
I guess I just lament how few of those there are during the most important time of her life, as it would turn out.

A Sudden Shift

Did you survive a plane crash recently?
With your tie askew and your waist purple and bruised from the plane's seatbelt that you thought you'd never need, did you sit amongst the gasping and crying, your oxygen mask bobbing in front of your sudden stillness?
If so, did you immediately think, "I should be fucking women besides my wife," or did that come later?
That's the shock talking; she's the best thing to ever happen to you. 
You should be fucking other women, but that's an experience to be shared and discussed with her, in a trusting, openly-communicated environment.
They call it "swinging", and a lot of people who survived plane crashes are practicing it right now, this minute, in hot tubs all over the world.
This could be you.
Here's hoping you all get to where you're going safely.

Stand By Your Mixtapes

I make no apologies for my musical tastes or history.
You shouldn't either.
I've heard several people with arts degrees rationalize to one another why it's "okay" to be into Taylor Swift, or Perry or whoever.
I miss the era that none of us lived through when you listened to music because you yourself thought it sounded good.
Don't let the fans force you to shelter your playlist under a blanket with the lights out as if you're hiding smokes from your parents.
Even if 99% of an artist's fans are hard-ons, that doesn't mean that you are.
Even if the artist is a hard-on and you enjoy their sound, that doesn't mean you have anything to be embarrassed about.
It's just music. That's separate from all of the bullshit that comes with musicians.
I really love Flashing Lights, but I think that Kanye would benefit (actually benefit) from being horribly disfigured somehow. Like, if he lost an eye or something. Here's a dope MC who just doesn't have his head on right.
Death Cab For Cutie is one of my favourite bands, and I know that they're all card-carrying, hardcore vegans.
I love their music, however that doesn't mean I have to like them too, or stand by "where they're coming from."
Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to share a bus ride with them. 



(The poor fellow doing vocals here, Tony Sly, died in 2012).



edit: This should go without saying, but to avoid potential lawsuits, please remember that if you are in fact hiding smokes from your parents, never light them under a blanket.
Otherwise, enjoy!

Played Out

It's today now.

So, we did the play.
Incredibly.
Seven weeks. Everyone memorized what they needed to memorize (I myself could recite the play for you, if you'd like, inflecting every student's inflection), painted what they had to paint, and did what they had to do.
The lighting guy did our lights, even though he didn't come to any practices and decided two weeks from showtime that he was going to go to a hockey tournament instead.
He changed his mind of his own accord. I told him to do what he wanted.
He won best lighting at the awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon.
That wasn't all, either.
We actually did pretty well.
Max won best lighting, which I went up to receive after coming back from the bathroom, having no idea what I was receiving.
"We won something? What did we win?"
When I found out, I made him come up onstage. I'd been calling him my 'man on the lights' from the moment he said he wanted to do the lighting.
Lauren won best supporting actress (junior), which she didn't expect because she covered her mouth the way girls do when they win something they weren't expecting.
Sebastian was nominated for best supporting for playing the main character's dad and that was awesome because he only had about five lines or so.
Cameron was nominated for best actor.
We were nominated for best junior play, which was pretty sweet, and even yours truly managed to go home with 'best original script', which I told myself I didn't care about winning, even though I did.
Here's a picture from the after-party:

Sarah also won something (post-humus!), an award that recognizes teachers/volunteers who contribute to drama on the whole.
I nominated her, telling everyone that she was a 'shoe-in' because she's dead (relax, she would have laughed at that), which proved to be true.
I left the theater and looked at my shitty little award in the passenger seat, welling up a bit.
Despite my best efforts, I actually managed to do something I said I was going to do.
I affected people.

I elicited change. I honored my friend.
And I left it all way too late, which she also probably would have done.
Someone asked me what's next after this project.
I have no idea, but perhaps I'll say that I'll do something else and then actually do it.
Who knows?
In the meantime, we'll perform the play again for the parents next month some time.
I'm looking forward to it.
All this effort, it's about time I get the opportunity to flirt with some moms...

Air Force Hole-In-One

How exciting was this round of golf that happened for some lucky rubes in California?
Imagine having a vintage World War II plane crash-land on the green, only to see Harrison Ford climb out of it, all bruised up and confused.
"Well, if a fuckin' plane lands on the course, I'm sure I'm supposed to get a mulligan.
Yes I am! Check the rules, I'm sure that's in the ru - holy shit, it's Harrison Ford!"

In other, less glamorous news, the kids perform their play for the festival tomorrow morning.
Which is incredible. It's incredible that this day actually showed up and that it's tomorrow.
I have no idea how we'll do.
The kids know the play, but did the writer write one that's long enough?
And did the director design an efficient set?
In this case, both of those people are me.

Pressed For Success

Artistic grads shuffle stools
Scratch their ass and wrack their brains
Try their damndest not to try at all
Not at all
Pot smoke wafts from the war memorial
Games simple soldiers never got to play
Could fill our city's hall

It's Saturday and the records are on sale.
I feel as though I don't have much to add to that, really.
I'm in the coffee shop I didn't plan to be in and everyone's dressed like they're bicycling.
It's February, so hopefully these people are just making a statement, which says:
"I want my pants to fit just tightly enough."
I had no idea what Norah Jones looked like.
Turns out she looks like someone I would undress.
That's not hard to do:

My own success has never been a preoccupation of mine.
That's not your fault.
Presumably, it's mine.
Y'know, I never get tired of walking into a place only to feel completely out of place there.
Fitting in is for HR representatives.
I thought about becoming an HR person, once.
However, that would have strictly been for the free 'recruiting' trips to Australia.
I don't know how much recruiting can be done while drunk and/or asphyxiated from a jellyfish sting.

We're Engaged

You heard it here first, folks!
And remember: 'Tragic Hero' is the  number one blog for updated information on the author of Tragic Hero.

Lonely Planet

Have a good time in Mars.
What happened to sending chimps first, that's what I wanna know.
Animal activists have actually come that far - they'll be damned if a monkey will be shot into space on their watch, so let's send some substitute teachers from Arizona instead.
These poor monkeys have families.
Mars! You don't come back from Mars.
I just watched them interview a Mars One finalist from B.C. on the television.
The reporter asked her the obvious question:
"How do you feel about the whole 'one-way ticket' thing?
Aren't you concerned about landing on Mars and then staying there?"
What did the woman from B.C. say? What else could she say?
What other sort of person could ever be convinced to do something like this?
She said, "Well, sure it's scary, but it's such an adventure."
What an airhead.
If you want adventure, you don't blast off to fucking Mars.
It's much less complicated to rent a hang glider down south somewhere.
I can't even talk about it, it's too frustrating.
They've all been convinced that they're going to be honored as some heroic group of pioneers.
Instead, they'll be associated with going back to the drawing board.
We're talking about colonizing planets. I'll say it again: colonizing planets.
Do these people really think that we're going to get that right the first time?
Please.
These finalists need to research the origin of flight, learn about how many sods plummeted to their deaths along the way.
Nobody remembers those guys, and these (doomed) Mars One people are living out the exact same concept.
It's right in the article, in black and white. This is one of the organizers or commanders or whatever:

"...the organization believes its greatest need is not to find the smartest or most-skilled people, but rather the people most dedicated to the cause."

Apparently, these space cases aren't great at reading between the lines.
"We'll send up the capable people after the first wave of losers set up the tents and die of various causes that we haven't accounted for yet."
I'm not sure how intelligent these people are supposed to be, but anyone as intelligent as one should be to colonize a planet would never agree to go in the first place.
I don't give a shit how many parabolic flights these finalists have been on - how many times they puked in that thing that spins around really fast, you can't convince me that they have really thought this through.
They haven't. If the woman I saw on television had thought this through, she would have been weeping during the interview.
"I'm going to Mars. I'll never come home. I'll probably die within the first year."
Half of them probably expect to see a Subway or A&W immediately after they land.
I can't express how upsetting I find this. But I guess I just tried my best to express it.
And now I'm done.
"It'll be such an adventure!"
Have a nice trip. We'll all be thinking about you until the first week has passed when we'll forget about you entirely. 
Alright, now I'm done.
Mars.
Honest to Jesus.

edit: Just to clarify, I'm not upset that these people are being sent in the first place. Sacrifice is necessary for progress. I'm upset that these fools are daft enough to agree to go. 

Demi-Glace, Semi-Gloss, The Glossary

As of 2015 (what year is it now?) I decided to add a glossary to my blog. This is it.
If you come across an emboldened word, clicking the link should bring you here, where I will explain said word in some cutesy, demeaning way.

Andrea: Married to Brian.

"Around the bay": This is a Newfoundland expression that is actually sorta self-explanatory, I guess. It any context I'll be using it in, it describes leaving the area of St. John's in order to get to another part of the island that involves a bay in some way. Going "around the bay" almost certainly means leaving St. John's in order to drive to my home in Bay Roberts (an hour away).

Brian: Middle brother and all-around black sheep. By the time I was old enough to get in trouble, I rarely did because Brian was generally doing something far more concerning from a parent's point-of-view. Brian was the first male at our high school (and, truly, probably our entire town) to pierce both of his earlobes. Brian has given me several hundred 'charley horses'.

Bridey Malloy's/The Celtic Hearth: This is a combination of restaurants on George Street, housed in the same building and accommodated by the same kitchen, which I worked in for a summer. Read my retelling of the job's interview here (it's about halfway through this gigantic post). The locations are both 24-hour operations, one of the few establishments to boast this sort of open-all-nightery on the street. Consequently, I prepared a lot of nachos for drunk people while working a lot of night shifts. 

Charlotte: Married to Colin.

Colin: Eldest brother and card-carrying curmudgeon. Easily the contrariest person I know. Colin enjoys wearing pajama pants and hates/loves a day's work. Colin once captured a lizard while we were vacationing in Florida which he left it in a glass encasement on a picnic table at our campground while we went to Disneyland. When we got home that evening the lizard was very dead and somewhat melted.

George Street: Located in St. John's, the capital city of Newfoundland, this street (allegedly) boasts the greatest number of bars per capita in all of North America. I cannot verify this fact with confidence, but I can assure you that I have vomited there many times.

Mozzy: Newfoundland term. Referring to a specific sort of precipitation, 'mozzy' is not quite drizzle and not quite rain, but it is somewhere in-between. A heavy drizzle would be an acceptable definition, I suppose.

On da go: A Newfoundland expression, this means sex, kinda. To get a woman 'on the go' is to start dating or sleeping with them, or both.