CELEBRITY SKIN

When we have an opportunity to meet celebrities or visionaries in the arts, it always seems very surreal. We are in limbo, somewhere in between defining our own character as we project on a total stranger this spanner in the works.

Is it because of the REALITY TV mentality that exists now, coupled with the place somebody on a pedestal just until we can rip them down aesthetic.

I was fortunate in this respect as a teenager because of my mother working with a celebrity. I was flung into a few environments where meeting these people was automatic. On many occasions I made a complete ass out of myself. What did I just say?

For example, I felt quite comfortable meeting a young, catlike and friendly Suzanne Sommers; not quite as comfortable talking with the legendary cerebral songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Iwas completely Tongue tied when meeting Gordie Howe and I was having a perpetual out of body experience when faced with Charleze Theron.

Strange days.

I also always seem to run into random celebrities on the streets of Toronto. Perhaps I am that stalker.

Just the other day I was walking with a friend and I pointed out Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp hailing a cab outside a hotel. My friend didn't believe me and she said that I was probably delusional.

(I love my aunts story about coming face to face with her idol Johnny Carson in the 80's. They were walking towards each other down the NBC hallway and just as they came into the same air space.......she put her head down and pretended not to notice him. She then ran back to see where he had gone, but the moment had passed)

Like most people growing up in the late 70's. I was sure that after being flown down to Florida for a commercial, celebrity lifestyle was coming my way.

Self paid trips to the Bahamas unescorted at 16, just didn't happen by accident. My thinking seemed to be that things came easily with simple attention. Charm was more important than hard work in achieving goals.

Perhaps somebody should have punched me out in an alley at that very moment and told me that this kind of thinking would lead me straight to a new kind of "hell". ( complete with white walls)

I would soon be in a therapists office, identifying with a book called "drama of the gifted child". Oh, and I was being filmed. The underlying message being.....don't let your kids do this, or else they may turn out like this poor guy.

Funny in retrospect. The truth should set me free.

Recently I had the luck of sharing some time with an author that I admired. Through a series of seemingly random events on a weekday, I was sitting waiting for a table at a restaurant when this gentleman approached. He seemed to be waiting for somebody.

I will refrain from using his name, just in case he remembers mine.

We obviously were going to have a couple of minutes together so I broke the ice with some random joke. Seemed to work. The conversation got on to our Hockey team and the Canadian mentality and somehow onto Shannon Tweed and Elton John adopting a baby with a Canadian guy. It was now obvious that I was completely aware of his celebrity.

I felt that I wanted to ask him something a little deeper about writing, before my time was up, so I gave it a shot.

RL " If you don't mind, can i ask you a question about your books?"

CP "Sure"

Speak Manchild.

RL "They say that there is no story without conflict. Conflict defines a character. Yet, your characters seem to just exist. They are incredible, I love them , yet, but I don't see alot of conflict going on, maybe I have the definition wrong"

What in hell did I just say?

CP "Are you a writer?"

RL " No just a random fan"

CP " In drama, action represents both form and content. The action and conflict aren't just the way you tell a story, but they convey the meaning of it too.

Most of my action is internal. That's the cascading landscape I am looking at. (beat) On most days"

RL (Laughing) "Well that went sailing over my head, but I appreciate it, I needed that"

CP (smiling) "Anytime, pleasure talking to you Rick"

And off he went to greet his girlfriend, or wife , or mistress or whatever she was.

Again I was strapped into my surreal chair. However, 2hours later....... It was back to my reality, home to buy some lettuce and some pizza pops at the local Loblaws.

Strange days.

Maybe I will do some writing. The problem. ..... I need to create something that is cascading.

Something needs to fall I think.

Rl.

SOMEWHERE IN TIME

I was preparing to settle down for a night of junk food and College Football. I was looking up the Odds for the game online and generally trying to lose myself in the process.


I wandered into a site that led me to an advertisement for the new film called "Somewhere". Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorf, The Chateau Marmont, Dakota Fannings little sister. It all seemed like an interesting combination.


From there my mind did a little jump to a memory of an old movie with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour called "Somewhere in Time".

I loved that romantic old film. I went to see it with my first serious girlfriend who I was madly in love with at the time.


Perhaps a little sad, but........before I knew it I was watching it again online. 30 yrs later ..Stagevu...


One of the things that struck me, seeing it again, was that the message seemed so clear this time. I will elaborate on that.


Warning: What follows might be crazy and on the maudlin side.



The story centers around this young playwright who after celebrating the successful opening of his play in 1979 is visited by an elderly woman. She looks into his eyes, hands him a beautiful old watch and says "come back to me". Then she just walks away satisfied.



What follows is a bitter sweet love story. He becomes obsessed with a photo of the same woman when she was young. She is incredibly beautiful, with a subtle depth to her smile.


He has to figure out how to go back in time in order to fulfill their destiny. He does. When he first sees her back in 1912 by the water, she says to him "Is it you?". Oh man.


They literally only have one day together. The happiest day of their lives. The day of a lifetime. Ultimately to be taken away. It's crushing.


RACHMANINOFF RHAPSODY on a theme of PAGANINI OP.43 variation xviii is played over and over again in the background. Playing on the viewers mind and on the characters minds.


I won't give away the ending, which may be interpreted as uplifting. Although you will have to fight back the waterworks to get to that realization.


The reason that this resonates so much with me is not really about watching another movie. Yes, sometimes it has that bad 80's look to it and the usual over the top acting. However, Time has a very powerful message.


Perfect moments exist and then they are gone.


I don't want to be presumptuous or condescending to some of my younger friends when I talk about age. When I was younger I certainly felt equipped emotionally to deal with life.



The thing that you realize when you get older is that..... certain moments and the magnitude of the feelings attached to those moments will never repeat again in this lifetime.


You will have other moments. Different moments. More refined and deeper moments perhaps......but those moments on a sunny day..... laughing and kissing the woman you love out in a field (or whatever it was). These moments don't really exist anymore. They are gone.


They were perfect. They are perfect. They live on in memory but we forget so quickly.


The other issue we have with such memories is that we keep trying to recapture them. Impossible. There is the ultimate let down, but most of us still have to try.


It's so difficult; because society is saying we have to move on with our lives, sometimes against our will.


Be responsible. Take a course. Pay the mortgage. Bring up children. Bury our loved ones.


We try to be better people. To do the best we can with the challenges and learn. To help others cope along the way.


In the end, I would give it all up, just to be back there again one more time. To be able to stay there on that dock, on that sunny day with her. Forever. I wouldn't need anything more. Play that music again.


That's not reality though. Reality is harsh and less forgiving. Now, some of us take medications so we don't have to deal with these types of realities. (I am not taking any for the record, so instead i write this and you have to take the medication)


I don't want to be depressing. We might have many more of these special moments, and time will stand still for a second while we are living them.


It will stand still long enough for you or me to say the right thing. To really get through to that person. To let them know why this matters. This moment matters more than they can possibly know. Why?


You may never see them again and they are going to have to learn how to forget. We are programmed to forget and to move on. It must be for some sort of misguided survival purpose.


If you are having one of these surreal epiphanies with somebody now... Hit yourself. IF IT ALL SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.. Realize it. Speak about it. Hold on to it. Laugh about it. Thank a higher power for it.


I suppose the film did have an impact on me again. I am having flashes of special moments bombard me all over the room here...It was all in their eyes.


I should move on. It's definitely more healthy. Isn't there a football game on TV.
Turn the sensitivity button off Rick.


RICK

KAFKA ON MY SHORE

Surviving the negative energy and fallacious expectations that New Years Eve tends to bring out in the Urban Neurotics has to be handled with care.


From the November Christmas Lights to the Online Dating Sites. Hey, I sense a little rhyme. Perhaps a little groove. Very little.



Negotiating this time of the year is truly a Kafkaesque experience.


Live in the moment, but it's "normal" to think back a little..... To the buildup to the new decade. Past years.... I don't dwell, but I do like to take a little voyage of the mind.


The death in the family. The present buying for my first girlfriend. Waking up from New Years Eve and finding a stranger straddling my toilet.


New York and the carriage ride. Rescuing a date from the top of a skyscraper.


Experiencing the loneliness of needing to squeeze a kiss out of my good friends date, just as the clock strikes twelve.

Starting the New Year in another continent.


Then there is the old standard of waking up to find myself in another dimension.
It was nice to wake up to French Toast instead this year.



I tend to take a quick inventory of the close people in my life over the years. Where are they now? What were their choices? Are they people that I can still admire for their fearlessness, or are they people that tend to settle? Do I care? Should I send them some light?


I have to be careful when I go in this direction. Judgement is most often negative for me. If I spot it, I got it.


I don't want to let my mind start saying... "Hey that guy has been doing the same thing for 10 years, he will never change, he doesn't see his limitations as a challenge, he doesn't add one infinitesimal creative thought to this existence. What is the point?


Let them be, they have the freedom to make their own choices. Who am I to judge? What could the set of prolific criteria actually be anyway?.... Parenting= Idiocy and food intake over limitations....squared? That's actually a hostile thought. No way to start the calender year.


There is a subtext coming.


I see some people that didn't start off as mercurial enigmas. They didn't walk into a room and immediately turn any heads.

However, their drive, self-confidence and balance has been really impressive, I admire them on many levels.


We all make little decisions that build up to lifestyle choices. Many people are happy being the center of their self created "circle" of friends. No criticism needed.

There is something comforting in texting the same 5 people day after day. These people are coming with you for the entire ride. Wow. They must really like you. Or am I really that fascinating?


You are a big big fish in a very small pond. It's Kafkaesque but it's most people's reality. (What is the largest pond available?)


We go forward into a new decade with hope though. (Let's not think about the Korean crisis)


For the people I know well, this last year had alot of ups and downs; some serious challenges. Socially it was tough and physically we almost didn't arrive at all.

I admire the fight and I admire the tenacity it took to get here.


To the people that are no longer in my life. I hope you find that special happiness that you have been looking for.


To the sports team that has been breaking my heart for decades. Please show me some mercy or some kind of sign. Anything. I need to build on something man.


Not taking myself too seriously is a good way for me to negotiate these first few weeks of the new year.


I may be doing some world travelling soon and I still have a few weeks left for my usual angst to manifest; over neurotic beautiful woman and ultimately the absence of time.


RL JAN1

ENID AND THE HIPSTER SUBCULTURE

" I think the general negativity of my teenage years has blossomed into a much healthier selective cynicism"


These are not my words but that of a precocious young woman who was about 16 when she fell in love with a movie from 2001 called "GHOST WORLD". In particular, the character of
ENID embodied to perfection by Thora Birch.


Enid gave a voice to the alienation and isolation felt by many gifted suburban girls.



Jam packed with the classic lines like "I'm tired of all these extroverted pseudo-
bohemian losers." The message resonated.



In the real world these young woman started to pop up everywhere. At the time I was oblivious, until recently when I dated two.



With their Buddy Holly glasses, full lips, existential angst, ironic logos, depth beyond their years, and their proclivity for depression. The impression was very powerful. That is, if you had the good sense to take notice.



However these same young ladies have often graduated into what now would be categorized as the "HIPSTERS" of today. Watch out.



The "Hipster" subculture cannot be missed in and around a city like Toronto.
To be honest, I am not sure what to really make of it. My general reaction is one of
surprise and a distant Marshall Mcluhan like interest.



Are they going for IRONY or is this supposed to be the REAL THING?
Even better than the real thing?



What is a Hipster? Let's bring on the depth of Wikipedia. Can we go wrong?


Hipster (contemporary subculture)

Hipster is a slang term that first appeared in the 1940s, and was revived in the 1990s and 2000s to describe types of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly indie rock, independent film, magazines such as Vice and Clash, and websites like Pitchfork Media.[1] In some contexts, hipsters are also referred to as scenesters.[2]
"Hipster" has been used in sometimes contradictory ways, making it difficult to precisely define "hipster culture" because it is a "mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior[s]."[1] One commentator argues that "hipsterism fetishizes the authentic" elements of all of the "fringe movements of the postwar era—beat, hippie, punk, even grunge," and draws on the "cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity", and "regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity."[3] Others, like Arsel and Thompson, argue that hipster is a cultural mythology, crystallization of a mass mediated stereotype generated to understand, categorize and marketize the indie consumer culture rather than an objectified group of people.


INTERESTING?


Other contemporary Urban Subcultures that pop into my mind are Goths and Urban Primitives. Belle Legosi's Dead.



The HIPSTERS seem to have morphed tree hugging and 70's fashion... Monogamy and pot smoking... Moustaches, sushi and cunnilingus... Bad sunglasses and Beatnik authors.
Vinyl records and Peru...The list goes on.



As somebody that has ridden a few waves in my time from Disco to the Dead Kennedy's...
There is always something cooler(this word isn't cool anymore) coming soon ...the real reflection of your generation...or a sublime anti-reflection of your generation.


It seems important to identify with some sort of outer extension of your soul. Wear yourself on your sleeve so to speak. Some or the male fashion statements seem to be yanked right out of a 70's porno movie or the Walberg spoof "Brock Landers".



I shouldn't really say too much more as I listen to "that 70's channel" on live 365 internet radio and can identify any song within seconds. "Get down boogie oogie oogie"



"THEY WANT YOU AS A NEW RECRUIT"



Even though I am a male and a little long in the tooth at that.
I get ENID. She really was cool, even in my somewhat jaded opinion.



I am just not sure I want to join in anymore which is a pity. I've had my 15 minutes of fame and I am still trying to recover.



RL

ANNE SEXTON AND MERCY

I was playing around with words and wandered to a poetry site. If poetry is really good, I often don't understand why it is structured the way it is.

What is the meaning of that one word sitting on a line by itself?


Is this an exposition
of character or a metaphor or an overture? Often I don't get it and I end up
slightly frustrated.


If in the last 20 years I had spent a little less time watching sports and a little more time between the pages of some meaningful art, it might all make a little more sense.


Heterosexual men like myself were told that keeping diaries with poems was a feminine thing to do. It's no wonder that the intention and depth of some of these geniuses can
fly right over my head.


I get so caught up in keeping emotion inside that something visceral often evades
me. Let me not go there.



THIS POEM HOWEVER is not so full of abstract images, as to evade.



Anne Sexton was on
my mind tonight so here she is.


Some part of me was screaming self-indulgence.

Don't post a poem I thought.
It's usually a sign for me to do the exact opposite.





45 MERCY STREET
BY ANNE SEXTON





In my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign -
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.

I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the three flights of the house
with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode
the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares
like strange giant's teeth
on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there.

Where did you go?
45 Mercy Street,
with great-grandmother
kneeling in her whale-bone corset
and praying gently but fiercely
to the wash basin,
at five A.M.
at noon
dozing in her wiggy rocker,
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry,
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid,
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower
on her forehead to cover the curl
of when she was good and when she was...
And where she was begat
and in a generation
the third she will beget,
me,
with the stranger's seed blooming
into the flower called Horrid.

I walk in a yellow dress
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs
for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead
and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids
sucked up like pollen by the bee in me
and a husband
who has wiped off his eyes
in order not to see my inside out
and I am walking and looking
and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.

Pull the shades down -
I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate
who wants to own the past
that went out on a dead ship
and left me only with paper?

Not there.

I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth
between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one
and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook
into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off
and slam into the cement wall
of the clumsy calendar
I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up
notebooks.

Anne Sexton



AIN'T THAT TOUGH ENOUGH?

TWO MEN OF SUBSTANCE

I have been gathering some ideas from a book recently.


One of the chapters was talking about aging and the need to ask the kind of questions of yourself that will provoke you to think deeply, and to connect you with what matters most.



Here are 5 questions that were suggested to ask yourself.

Imagining that today was the last day of your life.



Did I dream richly?
Did I live fully?
Did I learn to let go?
Did I love well?
Did I tread lightly on the earth and leave it better than I found it?


The idea behind these questions is that by journaling about these questions, it will hopefully help you live with more authenticity, passion and joy.



There are many best selling books out right now based on this very idea.
I know that it seems a little touchy feely and on the new age side. Especially if you are a blue collar man. (Not a slight against hard work)


You be your own judge. For me, all of these questions are powerful and remind me of how far I have to go, one day at a time.



Recently I have had the privilege of meeting two special men that are over 80, and have really inspired me.


One of them I refer to as Mr Lee. I am not really sure how to pronounce his first name or if I am on equal ground socially and feel comfortable giving it a try.


Mr Lee has come into my life as an instructor of an Asian discipline called Qi (chi
Gong. Let me immediately say that I am just a novice but am trying. If I start telling you to "be like water" I hope the BS meter would start ringing.


He has been battling Cancer for a long time and somehow through this Chinese discipline of exercise and energy release, he has been healthy and happy for many
24 hours now.


This man positively radiates when he walks into a room. He is always smiling and goes the extra mile to actually listen to you when you speak. He is also always quoting the most obscure references that invariably put a smile on my dour face.

He was really smiling when for fun he showed me a move where you could strike somebody under the armpit with a quick shot that would terminate them. I was horrified and he was laughing. Precious.

Mr Lee went out of his way recently to teach me some special exercises and is actually bringing me back a list of new breathing moves when he returns from hong kong.

Also, the other day, he took time out of his afternoon to accompany me down to China town where we invaded a couple of shops and asked for some strange remedies and Black and White dried mushrooms that apparently have some incredible medicinal capabilities.

Why did he do this? Because I am such sterling company? I think not.


He is just the type of guy that leaves nothing behind. He wants to reach out and help, to make a difference in your life.


Why was this person put in my path? I am sure it can't be by pure chance, it seems
pretty prophetic from where I am sitting. Great guy, I am lucky.


I met this other gentleman Les through an organization that I am involved with. He reached out to me as well.

I had just finished speaking to a group of Strangers where I was talking about some of my past flawed philosophical stances and ridiculous life choices. I ended the talk by saying that some days I was sure I was a genius.

This was said facetiously and after the talk I gave, this older man came up to me and said.....Great talk...My name is Les, and I am another genius.

This guys sharp wit and honest eyes endeared him to me immediately. He imparted many
words of wisdom over lunch that day, and his diabolically dark sense of humour will stick with me for a long time to come.

I lost touch with him for a few weeks and then I recently heard that he was quite ill.

After a few days living with my usual procrastinations, I called him up.
He was energized and eager to here how my life was going.

When I finally asked about his health, he nonchalantly told me that the doctors told him that this was the final curtain call and that he only had a few months left.

I tried to give him a reply that was genuine and I told him that he had made a difference in my life although I only spoke with him a couple of times.

He seemed overjoyed. I said I was sorry and hoped to see him soon.

If he is up to it, I may tell him to look
into the Qi Gong and Chinese Mushrooms.


These two men are great examples to me of what is possible. I have know idea what their answers would be to the 5 questions listed above? However,I am sure that they would not be leaving much white space on the page.


I have the genius of their actions to inspire me on those days of feeling a little depressed and beaten down. There is not much more to say. Except maybe, thanks.

RL

BE YOURSELF TONIGHT

I was just rereading a couple of recent posts and my feeling is that I need to strip this entry down a little bit.


Come down off my cozy pedantic cloud and face a little bit of the metaphysical music.


See I really don't enjoy doing it. Let me refrain from using the word "process".


Does anybody in the real working world really fckn care what the difference is
between an allegory and a metaphor?


Maybe. But are they REAL?........



Tonight as I was multitasking watching Vicki Christina Barcelona online and the Football game on TV and researching the Buddhist centre right across the alley from me, (and listening to the Shins) I came to a realization.



(I am not sure if this was before or after I started downloading the original "Night of the Living Dead".)




We all need to keep busy and distracted from the big questions of existence to maintain our equilibrium and a semblance of sanity.



Sure it is necessary to visit that place in your mind, and quite often if you are really brave. (Unless you have tunnel vision and are oblivious)



The best way around this situation is to be in a relationship with a partner that understands you and also understands the big void out there.



Solution. Find a person that likes to enthusiastically search for the mystery, and more than that,
wants to share it directly with YOU.



(No you don't need somebody to complete you......)




It would also be nice if this person had a wonderful, exciting best friend that came along for the ride , just in case that the initial chemistry with your partner wears off.

(This is an attempt at late night humour)



I may have somebody in mind. If I do, may God be with them.



Sometimes I think my sanity is bordering on the truly subjective.
Better than robotic I suppose.





I AM in desperate need of some new exploration though.





New Music. Opera?

An airplane ticket.

A late night rendezvous in the old part of town with a woman with strange Tattoos.

A poetry reading on an Island.

A sweaty Concert.

I am reaching.



A specific tangible involvement in a movement that makes sense like SOLORAID. That sounds plausible.




For now I am semi-content to be aware of all the brutal injustices but be hopeful that the best is yet to come.



In small portions and in moments, but coming soon.

Perhaps it is time to take out an AD.



"Content, confident, driven, and drooling man seeks big adventure and a mysterious woman with big desire"


or



"Are you brilliant, insecure, dynamic, neurotic and a load of laughs?
There is a sensitive ass of a man waiting for you"



For now at the beginning of the long Winter, I will watch some sports, eat some comfort food, and listen to Bryan Ferry.



Settling can become a very dark art that I am beginning to synthesis.




That is the stripped down version for tonight.


RL