33: The Year of Truth

I'm not exhausted, which is good because I've been exhausted for a while now. Add overwhelmed as well. Not by big stuff. Big stuff I can handle. 911 emergency? No problem. As for the piddly little stuff like laundry, dishes, scraping Chicken's petrified shit off various locations throughout the apartment... I'm having trouble.

No, no. I'll take care of it.

I take care of things. When the shit hits the fan or if there is a modest hand raised somewhere in a sea of people, I'm the front line girl who takes the shots, finds the quickest and dirtiest solution, and gets shit done. I like this position. It serves me well. In truth, it gives me hero/martyr status.

Last week was Ack's birthday weekend. Ack's the ex-husband/best friend. Fatty, formerly my 4 year friend, currently the love of my life, was busy working so he couldn't attend any of the festivities. On the Friday I had invited Ack over for lamb burgers, something he loves as it's one of those dishes that is easily paired with ketchup, his favourite mealtime companion. He shares this companionship with his mother.

Little known fact: When ketchup was first introduced to the Czech Republic, Ack's home and native land, his mother was found with her girlfriends gossiping and tittering while inserting straws into the slender necks of this newly imported premium sauce, sipping gingerly at first, then voraciously to the end.

After clearing once white plates of charred protein matter and smears of 57 spiced vermillion, I placed a wrapped gift in front of the slightly bloated, burping birthday boy.

Ack is an artist. As long as he could remember his life's trajectory has been gunning towards making pictures for a living.

Yeah, but...

[with heavy Eastern European accent] Vat are you goingk to do for livingk?

So being ever helpful to their son's life trajectory, they ripped pen out of hand, removed paper and replaced the objects he loved with a hammer or a handsaw. Useful things. Things that would allow him to get ahead in this world.

He still went to art school. He couldn't help it. In university he took as many mediums as he could. He became a jack of all art trades. Master of none. How could he master something he grew to be ashamed of? Something he had to hide between his mattress and rock spring. There were no magazines filled with flesh that was the ham in most every boy's bed sandwich; there were only secretly coveted art supplies.

Even though he earned back to back prestigious awards for creative web designs, even though he had risen in the ranks in art departments in film, Ack has no language in which to receive praise for what he does. There are parts of him still too ashamed.

He currently works in the crème de la crème of art departments. Most of the artists share credits from the X-Men film series. The most talented artists never had their pens and paper removed from them. As children, they were either encouraged or neglected.

The Applier was over at Ack's the other night. He's got a new/old girlfriend. During his foray into Let's-see-how-many -women-I-can-score-with-including-my-best-buddy's-ex-wife, his current girlfriend was 1 of 3 he was juggling on his member.

Keep your balls in the air!

I don't trust the Applier. Not 100%. Not even 50%. Not only did he try to ply his wares on me, the ex-wife of his reputed best friend, but after fully explaining to him the world of blogging, something he was completely ignorant of, he then stole not only the concept, but my identity including my real name, for a film project he is working on.

Without telling me.
But I found out.

The Comrade: Really? I want $100,000... in small, unmarked bills.
The Applier: I'm not even making that!
The Comrade: You thieving cunt. How do you live with yourself?

The Thieving Applier had expressed a stipulation upon embarking on his new relationship with the new/old girlfriend.

Thieving Applier: You have to understand that I have priorities. The first is to my son. The second is to my work. You will always come third.

He may be a thief, but at least he's honest.
And she's accepted this condition.


Ack is still dating the girl whose name translates to Truth/Freedom/Beauty.

The Comrade: How's that going?
Ack: I almost fired her the other day.

I asked him what her plans for his birthday were. She wanted to take him to Stratenger's, that fantastic bar that allows smoking, smoking, smoking indoors for a one time fee of $10. This bar is great for impromptu, casual double fisting, but as a birthday venue? Dubious. As I had not received a call from her I wondered if this was to be an intimate evening.

At the top 20 percentile of scummy bars around town.
Apparently it wasn't to be intimate. It was to be with other art department folk. People she feels comfortable with.

Ack: Who did you invite?
Truth/Freedom/Beauty: One other person.

Ack loves birthday parties, particularly in his own honour.

Calling all pals. Calling all pals.
Fifteen friends showed up with 2 hours notice, including the one invited guest TFB RSVP'd.

The majority were old friends of Ack's. There were those whose shared company spanned at least a decade. History. With history comes skip-regaling down Remember Avenue. This came in the form of roasting the poor boy, which was fun for all because most everyone, save 5% of the population, absolutely adores him. Nary an ill word is spoken. The 5% think he's an asshole. It's his own fault, really. Whenever he's being inauthentic, he comes off as...

well, please allow a preface.

One of the games instigated by me around a not quite round, but more L shaped table was:

The Comrade: What was your very first impression of Ack upon meeting him?

The Replies in No Particular Order:
Used car salesman.
Aloof.
Snob.
Long-haired hippy.
Art wank beret wearer, who happened to be hot, but not my type. (Mine)
Genuine.
Considerate.
Tamer of shrews.
Uncomfortable.

The Comrade: Uncomfortable?
Truth/Freedom/Beauty: Yes.
The Comrade: He was uncomfortable?
TFB: No, I was.
The Comrade: Yeah, but what did you think of him?
TFB: Uncomfortable.
The Comrade: He was?
TFB: No! Me.
The Comrade: [1/2 elapsed time] So, you were too uncomfortable yourself to make any judgment on him.
TFB: Yes!
The Comrade: I see.

I looked over to my friend Dirty who, with mouth agape, looked as if she was trying to find meaning in the heavens.
I looked across the street
To see a familiar '94 VW Golf
A car which Ack and I still share.

The Comrade: Dude. You drove the fucking car here?

As soon as I see anyone I care about in a state of alcohol induced disrepair, even if I too am drinking, I shift into another mode, one in which takes care of others. In this past year alone I have either personally driven or arranged cab passage home, of an inebriated loved one, 6 separate times. 6 separate loved ones. As soon as I assume responsibility, I cease drinking all together and every cell in my being straightens and sobers up with this new responsibility.

The Comrade: Don't worry, I'll drive your stupid, skank-ass home.

As Ack and I were married for 7 1/2 years and have been best friends for 9 years total time, many of the memories everyone had of Ack involved me. They noted the marked difference in Ack pre-Comrade and post-Comrade. All of these stories flew in the face of Truth/Freedom/Beauty.

When she left the table momentarily:

The Comrade: Dudes, this is really sweet and everything, but I think it's causing some upset in the new girlfriend with all the stories that involve me. Could you maybe tell the story while omitting me somehow?
One of the Invited Guests: Well, you're here aren't you?
The Comrade: Well, yes, darling. But I think it's causing a rift.
Another Invited Guest: You are a big part of his past. That's something she's going to have to get used to.

We were mid-roasting of the birthday victim when we all noticed the man of the hour was MIA. Halfway up the street Truth/Freedom/Beauty was giving Ack his birthday gears.

TFB: She wants you back.
Ack: What? No she doesn't. I explained this to you before: We're like brother and sister.
TFB: If it was my brother I wouldn't step on the toes of his wife. It's the wife's responsibility to take care of her man. I'm your girlfriend now. I'm supposed to take care of you.
Ack: Yes, but there's precedence. She does this. I've asked her to do this in the past.
TFB: I want to leave. I want to go back to your place.
Ack: Stop running away.

When they both returned, the stories had been modified with no mention of his former wife.

Seated at the table which had 8 remaining guests, Ack was visibly drunk though received a thorough exploratory tongue examination by his current girlfriend. All remaining grew exponentially more and more awkward.

Ack: Okay, we're going to go now.
The Comrade: Already?

Ack is known to be the last (drunk) man standing.

The Comrade: Do you want me to take you home?
Truth/Freedom/Beauty: [releasing a succession of razor-sharp Ninja stars from her eyes] I... will... drive... him... home.

Okay.

Ack: Do you even know how to drive stick?
TFB: Yes.

The difference between Truth/Freedom/Beauty and the Applier is that the Applier is not a liar.

What's in a name?
Sometimes wishful thinking.

She does not speak truths; she avoids them at all costs.
Her idea of freedom is abandonment; of running away.
As for her concept of beauty she is the industry prescribed 85 lbs, soaking wet. Her idol is Barbie. Her dream-boat is Ken.
In the art department, an office she and Ack share air space for 12 hours a day/ 5 days a week, there is a picture of the two of them taken by her on my deck with handwritten, 36 point font entitled: Barbie + Ken. Ack hasn't been taking pictures lately because the last digital camera he had froze and never thawed.

Ack has asked her to remove this picture from her bulletin board which welcomes directors, producers and production designers.

She's pushing.
Okay, so he says he just wants a casual relationship, but really, if I try hard enough, he'll want more.
It's what girls do.

Truth/Freedom/Beauty doesn't want what all of us are trying to stave off: the repetition of negative aspects of our pasts. She repeatedly finds herself in relationship scenarios with men who don't parade her around with pride. Who harbour her as a secret. Who don't take pictures of her.

The Comrade: His camera's broken, sweetie.

This comes as small consolation as she peruses his photo archives on his hard drive.
It's riddled with images of me.
Ack has always been my personal photo documenter, something I am eternally grateful for.

Ack has turned 33 this year. 33 represents Truth in numerology. It is a significant year if you embrace Truth. It is my favourite number, one I share with my darling Fatty. It was the year I learned how to love properly. It was the year I started to love myself properly. It was the beginning of realising my own faults, accepting responsibility and making considerations about what I felt I deserved in conjunction with what was being offered.

One of the Top 5 reasons why Ack and I are no longer married is because his work will always come before any one.
This was never expressed in our marriage, but it was a reality.

In this year, his Year of Truth, he's needed to repeat his previously denied mission of creating art several times to TFB. It's something that he's no longer ashamed of. Something he no longer feels he has to fetishise. She counters that perhaps he's working too hard, therefore he'll burn out or is drinking too much.

He drinks just the right amount with friends.
He's working on a project which allows him more creative freedom and experimentation than he's ever experienced before. It is his dream job. For him to not give his whole would be redolent of looking back at his life with a sense of missed opportunity.

The Comrade: I've seen you tired. You look fine.
Ack: I feel good.

He's finally learned to counter the nay-sayers with a plainly stated, "You have no right."

I've been to many fine art galleries in my lifetime. As I'm going to Holland, the Czech Republic and Italy in the fall, I'm sure I'll see more fine art. Of everything I've seen, this, however, is my favourite painting.



A couple of years ago Ack and I went to visit a gallery in the District of Distillation. The gallery was adjacent to the restaurant I survived a 2 week tenure in. The exhibit was in the medium of digital photography. Each framed piece was at least 7'x9' in scale. They were good, but I knew Ack could do better. Ack had captured more important (subjective, subjective) subject matter than the artist whose work we were scrutunising. I examined the tags at the bottom right of the framed photographs.

None were less than $30,000.

Ack's truth is he is an artist. He's not always received the support he's needed. Not from everyone. Not from his immediate family. Not from the ones he's needed it from the most.

Though it did cost a limb, I bought Ack a 7.1 megapixel SLR camera for his birthday.

Fatty: Let me get this straight. Ack gets a digital camera and I get a bright yellow visor that says I'm Ship Shape?
The Comrade: And you look very sexy in it, my love.

I gave Ack 2 stipulations upon receiving his birthday gift.

1. As long as he keeps his girlfriend, he should be taking pictures of her.
2. I eventually want a big-ass, framed piece fashioned from this new tool.

He agreed to my conditions.

In the days succeeding his birthday weekend, we had a brief debrief on some of the events including those surrounding the new girlfriend.

The Comrade: So did she know how to drive stick?
Ack: No.
The Comrade: How did you get home?
Ack: I drove.
The Comrade: What?!

With jutting jugular I commenced a diatribe most fierce.

The Comrade: This was a pissing match on her end. If anything happened to you because of her vanity, and that's all that it was, I would hunt her down and kill her. And I mean that.

Everyone who knows me, knows this to be true.

It's a good thing he'll be taking pictures of her.
I might need a visual aid.

What I Really Want to Be When I Grow Up

So I meet this girl in a bar.

Well actually I've met this girl before. We shared a class together. I sensed her competition then, but found out she was just a Networker. Hobnobbing with everyone she thinks might have a glimmer of hope of aiding and abetting her dreams. Part of the Landmark Forum. It's akin to L. Ron's Empire. She invited me to an orientation session thinking I was of the right stuff. What my brain computed at the end of it was

CULT

Yes, I see that everyone else has a glass! As much as that Kool-Aid looks very tasty, I'm not thirsty, thanks.

So years pass. And this same girl walks into my bar - the once a week engagement I have at the Cheer's Equivalent. She's with a date. During the date she is coquettish. She whips out the wiles. They don't sit across from each other; they sit side by side. Time elapses and she begins to cry. Not quite Hollywood crocodile tears. That kind doesn't produce a facial bloating or extreme redness in and around fine features. Hollywood tears are a beautiful, lush, dropper-fed saline compound that is nothing short of haute couture accoutrement when plummeting down the right cheek of Cher.

They're not real though. If they were I think I'd cry in public more often.

After some time of waiting for the moment to pass, waiting for the swelling to reduce, I reengaged this girl by using the tactics learned from my brother, the one that Fatty most resembles in nature - generally being an annoying twat, but at least a funny one. And she tells me she's fallen in love with me.

People fall in love with me all the time. It's a curse.

I think it happens because I genuinely care about people. And I listen. And I make fun, while telling them exactly what I think. And I dispense wedgies. But mostly it's because I pour drinks. I mean, who's kidding who?

As she's about to leave she asks me if I'm still in the business. Film. I tell her that the business leaves me cold. I told her I got into it thinking there was a day coming soon where finally the business of race was irrelevant. I half stuck with it for about 5 years, but discovered it was getting worse. Further racial compartmentalising which may or may not have been due to homeland security threats were informing the parts written and subsequently the parts offered. I'm not speaking of my homeland. My own homeland is secure, thank you. It's the one south of me which is the Great Dictator, the one we look lovingly up to. The Big Daddy who sets the precedents and takes chances, pushes proverbial envelopes by squirting inordinate amounts of gall.

These have been the parts that have been offered to me. In no particular order:
Asian Shopkeeper
Asian Reporter #1
Asian Reporter #2
Kung-Fu expert
Doctor So-and-So
Pharmacist

I think the only reason I haven't been asked for the role of Pianist is because my hands are bigger than some men.

The Comrade: There's nothing for me. Out of 200 scripts there is one that actually makes me think. I want to do something that changes the world. I'm sick of the constant pandering to the lowest common denominator.
The Girl: I want you to write something with me and my writing partner.

Fatty, the love of my life and joy of my loins, took me out to a wonderful restaurant a few weeks ago. The French name literally translates to an amusement for the mouth. I don't know how amused my mouth was, but it was more than a little delighted with the massive plate of seared foie gras brought to the table. This dish would certainly be one component of my last meal scenario... if given a choice.

During dinner Fatty and I made a pact. Individually or collectively, we would accept offers of any hair-brained scheme that came our way.

We shook on it.

The Comrade: I've never done it before, but sure, I'll write a movie with you and your writing partner.

Which took 2 sessions.
Which was great fun.

These two girls who became my writing partners met at the L. Ron Look-a-like, but without the alien infestation. The organisation's greatest espousement is the actualising of one's dreams. These two girls became Power Women to me. They get shit done.

Like...
Securing locations for nothing.
Rounding up 40 cast and crew who worked either pro bono or for a small honourarium.
And did it tirelessly.
Getting all the equipment and consumables needed for making this short film a reality.
Shooting in public without a permit and not getting arrested.

Without...
Any shame of asking.
Any fear of the answer "no".
Feeling responsible for everyone else's satisfaction.

It was in the can by 1:30am Monday morning.
They even had a bottle of bubbly
Which was cracked directly after the last shot.
They did it right.

I was hungover when I went for rehearsal.
It was Ack's birthday weekend.
But, I learned my lines.
It was the least I could do.

Throughout the process my body was retaliating. For years I thought I didn't want to be in the business because there were no parts for me. But the truth is I don't like the medium. I find having a marker snapped 2" from my face rather frightening. I find having a bunch of cooly dressed young sycophants telling me how wonderful or how great or how beautiful I was in that last shot really rather irritating and mostly unbelievable.

And that's it.

Film is the business of induced reality.
It's not real.
It's pretending.
It's nothing I'm about.

Random Person: Do that thing again.
The Comrade: What thing?
Random Person: You know. That thing you just did. It was fucking hilarious.
The Comrade: I can't. The moment's gone.

Last week I helped Fatty make a gift for his 90 year old grandfather. It was to be a story told in 4x6" photographic allegory. I shot it in black and white digital, had it processed online at the very convenient and most impressive Vistek - a mere 3 blocks away for photo finished pick up. It's all to be arranged in an acid free flip book adhered with old photo corners. We're employing adhesive UHU, sticking little captions under most of the 90 commemorative shots. Thus far, this process has been sent through 6 different computer applications. Though much time has been massaged upon it, it has been nothing short of a labour of love.

Last night at my once a week night of employ at the Cheer's Equivalent Bar I felt shy. It happens sometimes. There are some times that I like to retreat into a bit of a shell. I like to do a bit of behind the scenes orchestrating. Sometimes I don't like fronting. But I eventually warmed up a bit. Naturally. Something you don't have the luxury of in front of a 35mm lens.

I'm happy to be doing little projects that don't make my wallet any heavier, but do make my heart fuller.

I went out for lunch with my brother Vince today.

Vince: The problem with kids today is they have no direction. They don't want to do anything except hang out with friends and play video games.

The Comrade: But those are fun things to do.

I was waxing politic on the entire education system in North America and the dangers of sending a child through all the steps a parent thinks a child should go through.

The Comrade: Well, what is he good at and what does love doing?

Languages.

The Comrade: Why isn't he being guided in that direction? Why are you setting your kid up for either middle management or slave cubicle farmer?

In 2 weeks I will be 37 years old. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Not in that sense.

I don't want to be a hypocrite. I believe that parents shouldn't foist their own trajectories or dreams upon their offspring. Each child is an individual but certainly part of the Collective. The answer to the question: What do you do for a living? should be I do happy for a living.

Jimmy, my darling brother-in-law who is married to my sister whom I can't even look at right now because she's too appalling at the moment, once said: Love ain't gonna pay the bills.

It's a hair-brained scheme, but I'm going to find a way for it to.

This Frustrates Me Too

Little Ferg Buddy.

I got one on the hopper, I promise!