originally sent March 19th, 2004
| Since I retired my Bahamas Updates pages last year, I realized that I need to start up a Toronto Updates pages. This is only the second installment. I realized not much that's picture worthy (my pictures anyway) goes on day to day in Toronto. But wait till the end, there's a special reviival of the infamous Bahamas Updates: | |||
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The Devil and Ms Jones? - Actually it's the devil and Frida Kahlo. I haven't updated anything for y'all since, well... since Hallowe'en. And that night we all ended up at an small little backyard ghoulfest (it was unseasonably warm that evening) and amongst the illustrious guests were Charlie Chaplin (aka: Halina), and the guy from Twisted Sister (aka: Roger). But this guy is gonna be my inspiration for NEXT year's Hallowe'en costume. Hmmm... maybe it's not a costume after all? |
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Off-duty - When not in costume the loverly Frida Kahlo (aka: Sarah) and I can occassionally be found, champagne in hand, at art openings and other cultural events around town. This show, back in November, was at the new ArtCore space in The Distillery district of Toronto (hmmm... that explains a few things) and featured, among other works, 3 enormous inflatable white horses positioned in the centre of the room. Quite impressive! I seem to have a lot of friends and acquaintances in the art world and so I end up at a lot of gallery exhibits, some good, and some definitely not worth photographing. |
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Keep on Rockin' - What else do I do to keep warm during the long winter in Toronto? Well, I see a lot of concerts, and amongst the ones that I really liked last year were Scottish popsters Belle & Sebastian, Canuck rock stalwarts The Rheostatics, country crooner babe Shelby Lynne, laptop DJ scientist Luke Vibert, UK stoner rock lads Mojave 3, and local olde tyme hillbilly hipsters The Backstabbers (left). That's one way to keep out of the cold weather. Another is dinner parties, with old friends and neighbours, that sometimes end in "heated" situations. | ||
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T'ings I learnt in Da Bahamas - Around Xmas my friend Halina planned one of her large scale dinner parties, and decided an enormous grilled carp would be a perfect dinner centrpiece. But did anyone in the house know how to clean and gut a fish? No, and that's where I came in. My spearfishing experience, that I gleaned from 2 and a half years in The Bahamas, came in handy that day as I grabbed the little beast, took it outside (another oddly mild winter day in Toronto), and proceeded to gut, and scale Mr Fish. A messy job indeed but the meal turned out great, and was devoured in no time. It was a perfect kickoff to the holiday season! | ||
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Next Stop Greenwich Village - Unfortunately the rest of the holiday season didn't go quite so swimmingly. In fact, I was so sick with the flu come New Years Eve, that I actually stayed home that night for the first time in decades. So, after I recovered, I took off to NYC during the first week of January to have a little fun. A friend of mine had arranged a place for me to stay in The Village (the empty apartment of a guy she knew who was out of town) and I couldn't have been more grateful. Greenwich Village is a terrific part of New York and this pad was right off Bleecker St, near 6th Avenue. Plenty of classic diners, yummy pizzerias, amazing bakeries, and close to the beautiful Washington Sq. The location was also close to my favourite indie record shop, and my favourite discount booze emporium. Two shops you should visit next time you're in NYC. |
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Across 110 St - My NYC host Nichelle (see next pic below) lives up in the Bronx and as I'd never been there before, I zipped up to her 'hood one afternoon. Can't say there's much going on in The Bronx, but we did see an interesting little show at the Bronx Museum, including one room of which was entirely mirrored on two sides (I had to sneak this pic as the place didn't allow photography). We also passed by the infamous Bronx Courthouse (the setting for much of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of The Vanities) but Niche and I both agreed we should zip back downtown to the Museum of Natural History. The dinosaur exhibits (including our old friend T-Rex) are amazing, and the Planetarium show is pretty trippy as well. I saw lots of museums and galleries during my week in New York, including a cool show of 70s colour photography, and a huge retrospective of the painter El Greco at The Met. | ||
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With a little help from my friends - Nichelle took me one night to the seedy Don Hill's club, where we caught the tail end of Mayapalooza. The event featured lots of kickin' bands (most of whom Nichelle knew) and Maya herself closed the show with a spectacular rendition of Patti Smith's "Rock'n'Roll Nigger". In addition to the loverly Nichelle, I have a fair number of friends in NYC, and I tried to track 'em all down. My pal Eric is a good ol' Toronto lad who has been working in NYC for a while now, and I hung out with him and his girlfriend Sophia, at his swank pad for a few evenings during my trip. And the 3 of us got together with my old high school buddy Carol one night, and saw her friend's band (called the Featherdusters), at some Lower East Side joint. BTW I have to thank Carol for putting me up while in NYC. The guy who's apartment I was occupying in The Village came back early, and I found myself momentarily homeless one night. | ||
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Ground Zero - One bitterly cold morning I went to visit the remains of the WTC down in the financial district. The site is all fenced off, and the block where the Twin Towers once stood is a perfectly excavated pit now. There are plenty of US flags and other memorial items around, but for me the most interesting thing is the tiny St Paul's church that stood directly across the street from the WTC and survived the event intact. Down by the Battery Park there is a eternal flame memorial, the centrepiece of which is the oddly crushed remains of a statue that used to sit in the outdoor foyer of the WTC. Later that day I ventured up to Times Sq, walked past the Chelsea Hotel for the first time, and wandered thru the Lower East Side where we had all had a drunken 3am nosh at the 24-hour Odessa the night before. I had some sophisticated meals too, like at The French Roast uptown, but nothing beats a late-night New York rueben sandwich. | ||
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It's news to me - I was waiting for at least one paper to use this reference in their headline, and sure enough it happened, but as you can see it was record cold temps inside and out the week I was in The Big Apple, as people's heating, water, and power started to fail. You think I'm exaggerating how cold it was? Take a look at this winter fashion show the night I got together with my American friends Kristin & Dylan, and ex-Canucks Ed & Cynthia. It was so cold we didn't even take off our coats once inside the bar. Daytime wasn't much better, as you can see from Carol's fashion display in Central Park, and I even broke down and bought a 2nd hand sheepskin jacket just so I could handle going outdoors. I guess for skaters at Rockerfeller Plaza it was OK, but I was not into the cold. But it was nothing compared to what was waiting for me when I got back to Toronto later that week. | ||
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Stormy Weather - After the bitter cold temperatures of Manhattan, I came back to bitter cold and massive snowstorms in Toronto. Yikes! I managed to skirt three such winters while living in Nassau, but I guess it was payback time for me. Luckily I have a very cozy little apartment to come home to, and cozy bars like The Paddock around the corner where friends can have a pint or two. Another way to fritter away the cold winter nights is by playing a competitive game or two of Scrabble. Scrabble in the City is a weekly gathering of Scrabbleheads, which takes place every Monday at the Bishop & Belcher pub on Queen St. On my first night after joining, I managed to win my first game, against a very tough competitor, and I also got a prize (a travel-version Scrabble board) for the highest score amongst the newcomers that evening. Thank you Heather. And word-nerds of the world unite! | ||
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Conan The Barberian (Invasions) - How's that for a double-sided pop-culture reference? Well, in case it's lost on y'all, let me explain. During the first weeks of February, Toronto was taken over by Conan O'Brien fever. The red-headed Yankee talk-show host (I had to sneak the pic to the left off the audience monitor) brought his production up to Toronto for a week, and I was one of the lucky few who got tickets for a taping. My friend Kevin and I braved the freezing cold weather, and stood in a massive line-up for about 2 hours to get inside (more tix were given out than the theatre could accomodate). I mainly wanted to see Canadian country legend Stompin' Tom, who was on the bill that night, but the real show stealer was a sketch that lambasted Quebeckers and caused a unity debate uproar in the local media for weeks afterwards. Oy! The irony is that the funniest, and less offensive, bits of that Quebec sketch were in the outakes reel that they showed the studio audience after the taping. | ||
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Goin' Back to The Islands - Soon after the Conan scandal I packed up my snorkel, fins and mask and headed back to Nassau, Bahamas for 3 weeks. The trip was mainly to escape winter, but the fact that I had plenty of old friends to visit, and could pay for the whole trip with AirMiles, made the decision to go a complete no-brainer. The weather for the first few days was a bit cool and windy (see pic), but the sun finally came out and I was surburnt by the end of the first weekend. And so, with out further aideu.... here is the triumphant return of the much beloved Bahamas Updates. | ||
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that's that. Man that took a lotta work! Hard to make your life
sound more interesting than it really is. But I do try. Hope y'all
enjoyed this little update, and till next time, over 'n' out! |
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