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Hit by falling lumber...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2369
I'm in Nelson, going to visit (??), a large, Victorian property just off Baker Street, their doing renovations to it, it wraps the corner of the building, beautiful inside, and I'm thinking that it must have cost a fortune...
...a couple of friends approach me, (I don't know them), they offer me some "tobacco", I decline, and they laugh and assure me it's just "English Tobacco", burned cigarette ends...
...the building they're renovating, the doors are under scaffolding, they're gutting the upper levels, I duck through into the entryway and I'm hit by falling lumber, not too hard, and I'm a bit annoyed and when the construction workers pop their head around the corner I tell them that back in Alberta this would never happen...
and the one responsible, tall, long hair and a black and white painted face, I know him somehow, mutters under his breath that in Alberta we have "the restaurant" and I know what he means...somebody approaches, whoever I was coming to meet, is going to fire him, but I grab him by the arm and pull him back into the house ... "I might need him" I tell him, might be getting a job myself when I move here...
John Wick
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2632
I'm not making this up. After a 4 or 5 minute introduction designed to make us "feel" for the protagonist, a trio of evil Russian gangsters (is that a tautology?) make the mistake of stealing his car and killing his dog.
At which point he sets about on a homicidal killing spree that only ends with complete extirpation of the Russian Mafia.
A curious, alternate universe, in which hired assassins all have a secret underground world involving hotels, nightclubs, and the payment for everything in gold Krugerrand's, stylish and silly, but really, what can I say about a movie that justifies a 50 odd person killing spree with a line like "You stole my car and you killed my dog...", and ends a line like: "No more guns, no more bullets" during a hand to hand battle that involves the villain pulling a switchblade?
John Wick, the new and improved spokesperson for the SPCA.
3 Weeks to Go
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2370
Saturday, I'm a few minutes early, the last weekend of Stampede. 16 days to go before vacation, if I'm smart, organized, lucky, I won't be coming back.
The owner, he's outside, on the "patio", an umbrella and folding table sat out upon the parking lot, he's alone, an empty glass with the dregs of a glass of red wine in it. Is he drunk? How long has he been out here? How many glasses of wine is this? I say my hello, he grunts a response, time to get busy setting up the restaurant.
The hostess has been called in, less because of business (we're not busy at all, half as busy as the night before, no hostess or expediter was called in then), the hostess, an older woman, slightly younger than the owner, she's been called in solely to amuse the boss...
They play cards in the private room, G asks what they're playing for, the owner tells him "blowjob", it's not funny, was never funny, I've heard this a thousand times before. And the owner closes the door of the private room, no need for interruption, G and the new Italian waiter, they complain that she was called in for nothing, we don't need her, and I point out that they're both busy playing cards, he's in a mood, she's running interference, she's working for her money just like us, different than us, she's jollying the owner, the boss, and tonight, 3 weeks and one day to go, I'll pay her her cut.
They agree.
The night stays slow, a few last minute reservations, cancellations, it's Stampede, nowhere outside of the zone or theme is busy. After cards (and no one dares interrupt the game, the door closed, we avoid the passage by the private room entirely, no one wants to be indiscreet...) the owner walks through the restaurant. He wonders where all the customers are, why J*** hasn't dropped by in some weeks, maybe, somehow, we offended him? And it's not "we", the royal "we" is for blame and blame alone, it's him, his tirades and rantings about freeloading customers (he refuses to charge them) that sit on the patio with him, keep him company, drink with him while he gets drunk, while he complains about his child support payments, his children, his freeloading daughter that's moved back in with him, complains about paying his employees, the recession, complains about everything...and so it's not "we", it's him, but no one will say anything, still, watching him on the patio, alone, drunk, staring emptily into space, one has the feeling that maybe he somehow understands just how much he's the architect of his own misfortunes...
Rare to see him alone. Usually there will be someone there to ply with cappuccinos, wine, food, sparkling waters, some younger or older thing for him to grope while he protests his love for his new girlfriend...
...At the front door, sitting in a chair by the desk, pulling the hostess upon his lap, loud "jokes" while he makes excuses and pretenses for grabbing her tits, her ass...when she escapes she tells me "I hope you know how much I'm putting up with for you guys....". I acknowledge, I do, this perpetual innuendo, Pantalone forever in pursuit of his Francesca, and I suggest in jest that maybe if she just ... to get it over with ... Italians aren't known for their stamina ... and she tells me:
"I would if he'd just offer me some money..."
,,,and here, the sum of all womanly virtue. Undoing a thousand rants I've endured about the inequality of women and the abuses of men, agreed, for sure, but somehow this undermines all of the damage...
***
It's dismal, this, the new Italian waiter, on a Temporary Foreign Worker permit, thought that a change of scenery would do good for his mixed anxiety disorder, he was wrong, he knows this now. G, G, always G, I've figured him out now, he's completely lacking a subconscious, what would cause this? I don't know, a lobotomy, of sorts, cultural, ...
And J**** in the kitchen, Filipino, TFW, but he's now got his permanent residency, and I'm more than half betting, we all are, that he was dying to get out of here, that this citizenship the owner's paid so dearly for is more of a punishment than a reward. There are new employees, too, "Roxy", as I call him, 19 years old, slow, terribly slow, always distracted, daydreaming, worldly beyond his years, he assures me, he's a moderator on 4Chan and Reddit and the things he's seen...I don't doubt it, but the internet is no substitute for the real world, still, he gets my sense of humor, and fills in the requisite token Canadian member of staff....
***
Everyone here is broken, somehow. G, The new waiter, the disadvantaged immigrants, the customers.
***
A monthly regular, peculiar, older, perhaps 60, claims to be passing through on business. With a guest. Orders the most expensive wine on the menu, his "date", a younger man, perhaps 45 or so, they talk business, his date can't, won't drink the wine, AA I'm guessing, the customer offers the owner a glass. He's not a good judge of character, the owner has no appreciation, drinks the cheapest wine mixed with 7-UP, this gift is lost upon him. And so he offers in turn a glass to the new Italian Waiter, myself, explains that he's driving, talks about his business that is taking him from his family home in Scotland yesterday to Turkey tomorrow, and he has other Villas in Italy, Spain, ....
I'm suspicious, skeptical of him some how, he's too garrulous, rich people don't talk like this, tell you how rich they are, but maybe he's a remittance man, paid to stay out of the family business, I've known a few...
***
And T, beautiful, 30 something, fit, happily married in every realtor's dream, silk hotpants and low slung blouse, in for lunch, avoiding the owner's embraces and embarrassingly vulgar enthusiasms and gropings, here for lunch, her name on every bus bench in Mt. Royal, what is she looking for? Status? More money? Happily married and she begins discussing her online dating experiences with her date, OKCupid, POF,...
***
Countless others, few innocents wander through here, everyone here, one way or another, is broken...all are looking for something, more money, status, prestige...and I've 3 weeks left, I'm looking as well, for a way to get the hell out of here....
***
The owner, he's the most broken of all. Still, he's getting better, his rages abate, tantrums are slower, his ranting more prolonged, more ...well...but his friends have tired of hearing of them, the customers don't return after the inappropriate gropings, solicitations, innuendo....
The Beano Anthology
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2444
Waiting for the boy, a pleasantly rainy day turned into an annoying hot and sunny oven, Cafe Beano, Calgary's own haven for hipsters, surrounded on all sides by men and women writing in their journals.
These journals, some are big affairs, some are smaller, more pocket notebook, always they are spread out upon the table, the handwriting of each author and authoress an indication (I presume) of the quality of prose within, the lady beside me at the moment, schoolgirl writing, large journal, dollar store, half filled already, odd, I notice, she manages to justify in her cursive script both the left and the right margins....
...and the gentleman to the right of me, his a smaller affair, but almost done, dense, cribbed staccato writing in a small notebook, everyone, at this moment, has a notebook in front of them that their vigorously writing in, and a paperback or hardcover novel displayed on the table as an invitation to conversation or debate, me, I'm reading my novel, my journal is closed, the most I ever make are laundry or shopping lists...
But I have an idea. Actually, a couple of ideas, one broached by my left neighbors abandonment of her journal (and curiosity overwhelms me, she's so diligent, meticulous, thorough, how long will she be in the bathroom? I'm nothing if not curious....)
So I conceive the grand thought of photographing her journal, easy enough to replace (dollarama, $3 art sketch book), making a font out of her handwriting, and using a computer and one of those handwriting machines to reproduce it in it's every detail, except in lieu of her own entries (whatever they are, voluminous as they are...) with first person short stories from the Olympia reader....
Gaslighting extraordinaire, so that when they review their notes they discover another person, a new person, completely different than the characters or plots they were working upon, but in their own hand, in their own journal...and I'm charmed at the possibilities...
The boy, he simply tells me he's glad I didn't pursue my studies in Psychology, my defenses as to: "It's research, experimental..." fall largely on deaf ears...
And so I have another idea, a little more feasible, practicable. The Beano Anthology. Somebody, presumably a great deal more charming and persuasive than myself, persuades each of the writers in Beano, (hundreds, if not thousands), to offer a sample of their script and writing to be compiled into a volume that will be known as The Beano Anthology. Copies will be for sale at the counter with your Chai latte or Vietnamese iced coffee. Those writers that actually make a living at it will be charmed into including a short work to help their struggling brethren, vanity being a huge motivating force, I've noticed, and those unpublished will be grateful enough to bare their innermost souls and hopes for the possibility of understanding and recognition. Hmmm...
The script, or handwriting samples, they're provided to merely correlate the quality of handwriting with the quality of prose, my own theories debunked or validated...
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