All Talk

I want to have a late-night talk show on local TV.
Technically, I guess I'd rather have it on Showcase or something, but I figure I should take baby steps here.
If that's how Howard Stern did it, I should do it that way too.
Of course, he was the shock guy. That is, until he became the vibrating sex saddle guy (which is still shocking, I guess).
I'm not looking for anything quite as intimate.
I want a desk, I want two chairs (I'm thinking of calling it "The Desk and Two Chairs with Paul Warford"), I want a band guy and I want a fish tank, maybe.
Not a fish tank.
Maybe a fish tank.
And I'd like a piñata every week that the closing guest can beat the shit out of.
I just thought of that this second.
It's where I'm supposed to be.
Writing. Comedy. Begging for change.
Among all the things I excel at, late night is where I'm supposed to be.
I didn't grow up watching Carson or Letterman or Arsenio, but I'm not sure that matters.
It's where I should be anyway.
A different suit each night and an expectation to flirt with women in a way that doesn't go anywhere?
Perfect. That's the perfect fit.
I think I could make it really fun if I could do what I wanted and I had someone take care of me while I tried to figure it out.
My buddy Peter White did the same thing in Halifax (Mark Little kinda did, too), but Peter made the mistake of not putting me on the show.
I'm linking his Comedy Now! because he hates it, by the way. 
He's got great comedy and writing credits, he's very well-liked in 'the industry', and when he's drunk enough, he's funny.
However, the guy's got the personality of a wet sack, and if it were up to him, he'd only wear jogging pants with stuff written down one of the legs.
Showrunner. I wish he was around to do that with me.
However, he's slowly starving himself to average weight in London.
Anyway, I'm sure that this passion will last a week and won't come to fruition, but I want you to know that today I really think that this is something that I should be organizing and today I'm gonna do it!
We'll see where I'm at this time tomorrow...

And I could have a band each week and pretend I know their music.
And I could try to get Ryan Snodden on there, and despite our differences (that he doesn't know about), I have to admit that that would be awesome. 

Dog Gone

Watch yourself if you're the weather girl.
If you're on The Weather Network and you accidentally stumbled across this post while looking for the definition of a cold front, start putting out resumes.
I come to this damn "coffee shop" or whatever it is most days.
The Weather Network is always airing on the unnecessary (yeah, I said it) TVs that are bolted to the walls, and I have never seen the same weather girl in front of a map consecutively.
It's a new woman each and every time.
Maybe this is a tactic of the network guys. They have meetings and say stuff like, "...but how do we keep it fresh? We need to draw new sponsors, and our climate doesn't change because we're in the same country each week."
"Well, viewers have been responding to our sexy weather women; they like their hips. So, how about a new weather woman for each broadcast?"
"Yes! Saturday Night Live does that and they've been on the air for decades! Disposable weather women! It should attract the disposable razor people--get someone from sales to contact them right away!"

Some, but not all oceans are full of oil.
So that's something.

The dog ran away.
"You don't mention me in the blog. You don't talk about how nice the dog is. You don't tell them about all of my pleasant qualities. Write about me in there!"
That's what Andie will say while brandishing the rolling pin, in her kerchief.
When she bakes bread it's terrifying.
That's a joke, she doesn't do any of that and we have a lovely time.
I checked on her while she was sleeping the other night (not necessary, but not a bad idea), and she sat bolt upright in bed going, "Are you festive!? Are you festive?!"
And I was all like, "What in the fuck are you talking about?"
"I had a dream that it was Christmastime and you told me that you weren't feeling festive."
Even in a dream, that would concern her. She's wonderful.
Anyway, the dog ran away.
Like most of us, when the weather is no longer retarded outside, Gabby is content to just sit and be outdoors while not being miserable.
I love this about the dog because, quite simply, she's up my ass all the time.
She's the most caring, gentle dog you could meet. I can plop her in front of a three-year old, and that kid'll be poking her in the eyeball and shouting in her ears and I don't have to worry at all because Gabby would never lash out.
She doesn't do that.
The reverse of that, however, is that she needs your affection, or my affection, or whoever's. Someone's affection. It doesn't matter who's petting her, so long as someone is doing that at all times.
The fish monger. Whoever. Anyone will do.
Luckily, I don't have a lot going on during the day, but it's nice to just have Gabby go be herself sometimes.
Not only is it a break for me (us), I think it's nice for the dog. Even dogs should want to be alone sometimes, no?
Anyway, I tied her up outside and I checked the knot.
Getting out of the shower I realized that the dog wasn't doing stuff and we were like, "Oh yeah, we tied her up."
The rope was there and the dog wasn't.
As quickly as that, the day turns into, "Oh shit, the dog's gone. That's bad."
I was totally cool at first because she's the only Basset Hound in town, everyone knows Dad, people see me walking her, it'll figure itself out.
However, we left her out there for an hour before noticing that she'd Houdini'd out of there.
How much of that hour had she spent off the farm?
How far can a dog designed for tracking stuff over long distances go in an hour?
That part was kinda worrying.
Andie was more concerned that the dog was dead in a ditch somewhere (also a possibility).
To deal with that, she kinda ran around the yard while sobbing, yelling "Gabby!" over and over again.
Andie and the dog are special friends. It was a scary thing.
In retrospect, I'm a little surprised at how together I was about it.
I'd much rather have the dog up my ass versus never seeing her again.
Anyway, my parents spotted her, lumbering in the middle of the street, directly in front of the yard she had left.
Perhaps that's another reason I was calm; how far would Gabby really be willing to go without us?

Wait, shit. That's the wrong dog.

Oh! I almost forgot:
A cold front is defined as the leading edge of a cooler mass of air, replacing (at ground level) a warmer mass of air, which lies within a fairly sharp surface trough of low pressure.

Swing Life Away

I have sampled many lubricants.
All flavoured lubricants taste like flavoured lubricant, which does not taste like strawberries or pomegranates. Not that I've ever eaten a pomegranate.
Have any of us eaten one, really? Or have we just tasted it in smoothies and shampoos?
Isn't that the one with the seeds?
If I was a woman I'd be flat-chested and I wouldn't know how to pluck my eyebrows properly, I assume.
I don't know how to tweeze them now, so I guess it would be the same deal if I had a vagina.
Luckily, I'm a dude. Straight penis, poor circulation. Things could be worse.
They're not though, not right now. My across-the-island tour that I haven't really bothered to mention is drawing to a close this evening.
Tours are great if you enjoy being a vehicle's passenger and you tend to eat meals that come from vending machines.
Or, if it pleases you to tell jokes in front of 50 people in Clarenville on a Monday night.
It doesn't please me, really, but it was worth a try.
We ran out of gas once, saw a moose once, saw two caribou once (we yelled at them to come to our show).
The Grand Falls performance had a baby in it. Like, in the crowd there was a baby. I'd never experienced that before.
I ultimately kinda...kicked the baby out. I didn't mean to, but the mother was out in the lobby when Burton and I ventured to the balcony.
Called the baby a 'deadbeat'. It was great.
There's a poor audio recording of the exchange, perhaps I'll upload it when I become a better man.
It's warm, but it's chilly. Which is to say, it's sunny yet chilly.
However, it's May 2-4 weekend and spring has taken its time getting here, so we're gonna go ahead and pretend it's warm.
I'd be cold anyway--I believe I mentioned the poor circulation.

There I go again, over-thinking things.

I went to a wake in order to sign the guest book and score some coffee.
Actually, it was a family friend of ours who passed away. Mom's ol' college buddy. I'd be sure that they had a slew of tawdry university stories, but Mom was never one for tawdry (or stories).
We were all very close, though. They were our 'travellin' buddies' during our motor home days when we were still kids and we were legally required to enjoy one another's company.
They would travel with us every year, and I would sidle next to Pamela, the daughter, who was near my age and way more interested in swimming pools than myself.
I was more an arcade kinda guy at the time (as well as at this time), and even on a summer's day, I managed to find a dingy barn that was converted into a place that housed game cabinets.
Those were the days.
If there was no arcade (or no change), I guess I took a dip sometimes. I recall having a special towel, though I can't remember what was on it.
Is this trip down memory lane boring anyone else?
We were on the local news, once, during the weather. That was in New Brunswick, maybe. Pamela and I were on swings and the guy filmed us for a minute and said we'd be aired that night.
I'm still living off the royalties from that one.
Pam was at the wake, of course, because her mother had died. It was sad and bizarre, but wonderful to see her at the same time.
Yet I learned that you can't have a conversation at a wake. Not a Newfoundland wake, anyway.
When we'd try to catch up, some old person would approach her and interrupt by saying, "You don't know me, but..." and then they'd fill in the blank.
"I worked at the bank your mudder used to go to when she was first teaching."
"Your mudder and I used to play cards down at Daly's farm when we were youngsters."
It's beautiful that these people made a point of stopping by, but who gives a shit, y'know?
They were all lovely anecdotes that didn't go anywhere, but Pam and I shared actual experiences and I hadn't seen her in a decade. She lives in some country I can't point out on a map. Could you interrupt some other conversation? There are lots of people here...
But that's how it goes, I guess. Newfoundlanders have to make that connection with other Newfoundlanders, and that's just how they are.
It's unsettling to think that one day I might be at Pamela's wake, saying to her now-three-year old, "I knew your mudder when we were young. We were on a news broadcast together."

I actually can't sign a wake's guestbook because I can't help but write something retarded in guestbooks, wherever they are.
I didn't want to seem insensitive by writing, "Try the pie!" next to my name, or something like that.

A Shot In The Arm

So let's all get a look at this before I show you a dozen times later.
Great to get a picture of your tattoo as soon as possible so it looks like a gross, bloody sunburn to everybody.
First of many, probably.
Oh! There's a horse going down the road!
There's a police officer riding him--it's not some animal that got over the fence or anything.
Anyway, what are we talking about?
Sarah's dead! Yes. Right you are.
I'm going to add other notes of hers that I have found, over time.
Her written word entices me more than everything else, and I'm always scanning her home, looking for stray greeting cards or grocery lists (they all just say 'avacado').
I was originally going to get an image of her face on me somewhere, like a dead dog, but they were gonna charge more to do her nose, so I changed my mind.
Man, these jokes were way more fun to make when she was around to read them.
Now there are just folks who will read them and think, "I don't know about that...you shouldn't laugh at a dead person's nose."
You should, though. As well as their feet and gait and whatever other physical faults they had.
Because we're still here, and we have the luxury of doing things like laughing and eating yogurt.
Why not enjoy both today?


*I have in fact added many notes to my bicep, just as I said I would.
There's a certain satisfaction to the process; the indelibility of it, maybe. Amidst the chaos and change that Sarah's death has brought about, I can have these million little punctures set aside where I please, and know that no matter what else happens, they'll be there.  I sport them like a badge of honor and shave my upper arm every now and then, for the sake of presentation (I feel ridiculous when I do it).
The only tricky aspect of it is that people inevitably ask what they all mean, and I can only respond by telling them that my friend went and died, so now I'm one of those guys who gets tattoos about it. Then they inevitably feel compelled to gush on about how sorry they are and that sort of thing. It's all understandable, but there's no need to apologize. None of you invented cancer. Bill Gates caused it, didn't he? Didn't he develop it in a lab somewhere? I heard that once. Whether it's true or not, if I ever meet him I'm giving that guy a piece of my mind.
This feels like I'm shoehorning content a little bit, but I'm gonna mention Belling again. Near the beginning of her paper, she mentions this: "The medium that carries and communicates the burdens and lessons of past suffering is narrative. Suffering must be constituted within a story told be a narrator who can inhabit and convey the experience of the sufferer." I don't know why, but I feel as though this is the place where I should bring this up. I mean, these notes were all first-hand markings that we shared at one time--specifically, during our Education degree, when we were supposed to be paying attention in class. Again, it seems like I'm just reaching to bridge my blogging (my ink; my tats) with my assignment, but who knows? Maybe I stick them all to plain-sight-parts of the body on purpose. Maybe I'm trying to structure the tiniest hint of narrative onto myself. Maybe I want people to ask about the tattoos. Maybe I want to get right into people's faces about it. Maybe I feel as though I'm responsible for getting her name out there, and for getting her name in people's heads.
I've been trying to come up with a stock response for anyone who says, "I'm so sorry" after asking about the tattoos--stock responses were a sort of interest for Sarah and I. I'd like to come up with one that is genuine and funny that Sarah would have appreciated. Maybe something like, "Oh, your friend passed away? I'm so sorry!"
And then I can say, "Not as sorry as her insurance salesman!" or something like that.
 
The tricky thing is that  even though I'm maybe more suited to be her narrator than anyone else, I can't "convey the experience of the sufferer." So far as I know, I don't have cancer. 

The Princess Is In Another Dimension

The stupid royal baby was born.
Royal witchdoctors claim there are no mutations of any kind, so they've decided to name her.
They're going with Princess Glenda.
I always caution parents: Name your daughter Glenda and she might end up marrying a Barry.
Duke Barry of the Gas Station, maybe.
Lord Barry of the Moors.
Anyway, you all know my thoughts on the royal family.

If I might discuss we peons for a moment, I did a thing the other night.
Turpin's school held their first annual Talent For Turpin talent show.
This is designed to make children feel sad while bilking parents out of donation money.
It's a good thing.
They asked me to be - not a judge, exactly - but like, a talent-advice-coach-guy.
It was pretty neat for the most part.
A lot of kids from the play were involved, so that was cool.
The entire time I wrote stuff for Turpin in the margins of my program. The sort of notes (insults, mostly) we'd write to one another if we were watching something like this and she was alive.
It made the boring performances a little more fun.

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...)"

Hey, check it out!
Facefuck Like button at the bottom of all posts.
Now, instead of shouting at passerby that you enjoyed one of my pieces when you finish reading it, you can just click the button instead.
Try it now, puppets!

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...