This will be a month where I’ll have to bring my “A” game to the blog pages I think. Our dear Nada has, or will soon, be putting up her new photo that I insisted grace the pages of her blog. You see, I rescued her from her evil clutches, and besides making a sizable but worthy donation of GPs to her chosen benefactor, I also got the honor of choosing her next blog photo. She’s a chameleon, our Nada, and I was only too happy to help out. I hope you all find it to your liking.

Moving on to other topics now....

I got in a bit of hot water the other night. As most of you will know, in one way or another, I do tend to be opinionated and like a laugh. And it is this quest for a laugh that has me in hot water. I understand that there is a thin line between humor and insensitivity and I believe that I have crossed it for one person. I’ve known her since she was just a pre-teen, the niece of one of my best friends. I’ve watched her grow up and often defended her when others were giving her a hard time.

I have been away from home for 15 months now, and most of my friends don’t have any recent photos of me. Even on Facebook, that ominous site where I spend too much time doing silly little quizzes and other time wasting opportunities, I have yet to upload my photos from Africa. And it dawned on me, having most of my friends connected to my network there, that I could post a new photo and they would remember me. And then I chose the photo.

We are, my small circle of friends here, taking part in a challenge to see who can lose the biggest percentage of body fat percent in two months. I think the contest is biased towards a couple of people but I’m game for a challenge. After the weigh-ins and a public announcement of how much percent of fat we have on our bodies, we are into our second week (my donut count is quite high!) One of our group members, as a joke, sent a photoshopped photo of another member on his wedding day, in which he “fattened” up the guy and said he might have lied about his weigh-in information. We all laughed, and I responded with a witty comment. Within minutes he had sent a photo of me to them all and added about 50 kilograms to my frame. And I laughed. Then I decided that this should be my new Facebook photo so my friends back home could remember what I looked like. All in good fun I thought.

Of course, no comedic routine is complete without a little foreplay so I have left a status change on my profile saying, “Geraint is about to unveil his huge secret.... watch this space”. The comments have come in requesting to know already. A teaser campaign can work in the right environment can’t it?

So, on Thursday night I was talking to this friend from back home and she asked me about the big secret. I sent her the photo and she was nothing but apologetic and asking how I’ve coped since I’ve always been trim and athletic. I immediately told her that it was a fake photo. I think, in hindsight, I should just have let her think I had put on the weight. I would have been called less scathing names I’m sure.

Long story short, she called me a “complete f***ing a**hole” and even used the c word to describe me. Apparently, it is people like me who make obese people (she used the word fat) have such low opinions of themselves. I didn’t think she had a weight problem (I still don’t think that) but she does. My apology fell on deaf ears and she immediately aborted our conversation.

And I’m more than a little pissed off about it. I apologized repeatedly, telling her that I was just being my usual self and no harm was intended to anyone. I reminded her that I was the one who would stick up for her all those years ago and that didn’t matter. And am I mad that a casual acquaintance has probably had her last conversation with me? No, I don’t think I am. I’m mad that she couldn’t separate humor from insensitivity.

Maybe I just look at the world differently. As a kid who grew up severely pigeon-toed, scrawny and gawky, with a stutter that kept me quiet for the better part of 3 years, I know all about ridicule. Hell, growing up with the name Geraint in Canada wasn’t exactly a bed of roses. People still can’t say it. But I laugh at these things. I did then too. I just don’t know about my place on this earth sometimes.

I would like to think I’m a good guy. People who have seen me in action with the snappy comebacks and arrogant comments know I'm a good guy. They know I’m just joking, just looking to stand out from the crowd. I’m not malicious or hurtful. I’m just trying to make a couple of people smile. But I guess one person’s laughter is another’s sorrow.

So, I won’t be posting my photo anymore and will have to come up with another huge secret to announce. Maybe the secret I’ll announce is that I’m finally going to stop trying to make everyone happy and smiling. Maybe I’ll announce that I’ve finally found proof that you can’t please everyone all of the time. Or maybe I’ll just announce that, like I tell people, I can be an asshole sometimes. I can, but I still like myself.

Who knew photoshop could cause such problems?

Cheers,
A still slim Penguin

 

As most of you are aware, our sweet Nada was being held captive and I managed to pay the ransom to rescue her. Because of my expert negotiating skills with her captives, and my ability to print fake Writing.com Gift Points in my one bedroom abode in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, I managed to muster up enough to get her out of a tight bind. The GPs will go to the writing.com group of her choice, a noble gesture I think. But, I also get something out of this. As an added bonus, and it is a bonus, yours truly gets to decide just what Nada’s blog photo should look like for the month of November. And here’s where it gets tricky.

I have promised her I won’t suggest anything that would make her or her hubby blush. She has publicly stated that she has been trying for years to make him blush and has only succeeded once (the reason for the success shall remain a secret) so it might be harder than originally thought. Halloween is tomorrow so I could dress her up. American Thanksgiving is later in November and that conjures up some images as well. But, and I’ll admit this here, I am a selfish and egotistical guy. I’ll probably just choose a photo that makes me smile the most. And I think I have a very good idea. Now, I wonder if Nada is flexible and not allergic to PVC?

Many of you on this site are taking part in the Nano again this year, or some of you for the first time, and I just want to send out my words of praise and admiration. I took part last year and learned an awful lot about the writing process, and my role in it. I won’t be taking part this year due to time commitments. The first half of November I’ll be involved in events for Health Care Quality Week at the hospital I work for. I’ve been roped into playing in the football (soccer) tournament again, and again look forward to being the only non-Arab playing. With 7 games in 10 nights, I won’t have much free time. The second half of the month will see me in the UK visiting some family, going to the zoo. It should be a great trip – and not one I want to dedicate my time writing on.

For the newcomers to Nano I hope you enjoy it and learn from it. I was desperate to succeed last year, and entered the final two days needing to write around 16,000 words to complete my task. Only sheer stubbornness allowed me to finish, with hours to spare too. But having finished the task, I realized that if push came to shove, that if I needed to write for a deadline, I could do it. Plus, I thought, that if I could force myself to write just under 1700 words a day for the sake of accomplishment, how many could I write if there was a paycheck on the other end of it? I know I am not writing for money, because I haven’t made much from my writing, I’m just saying that if I could write just for my sense of accomplishment, I bet I could write if someone was willing to pay me.

I also learned that it is good to set a schedule and try to stick to it. I know that I work during the day so I assigned myself 3 hours each night, without the Internet enabled, to try and write. I knew that I had marathon relay training sessions three days a week that would limit my writing time as well. On those nights, I only booked 1 hour for writing and made sure I made up for it on my day off. The plan did work, ultimately, but I grew tired towards the end as my schedule was overbooked. So, try and limit what you do this month and you will reap the rewards.

Good luck to you all as you start this journey. It is one hell of a ride and I’m betting you will all see it to its end.

Cheers,
The Penguin

 

First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of you who happened to stop by yesterday and announce, publicly, your well wishes about me staying on for another year. To be honest, I stayed on more for you than for my own writing. Seriously, what would I do without you guys? You complete me!

And now that the formalities are over with, perhaps it is time to again bring you the Penguin that you know and love. Today will not be a day when the Penguin marvels you with descriptions of African sunsets or the sweltering heat of shifting sand dunes. Nope, today the Penguin will finally sound off on the one person he really hates the most...

We all know this person too. I’m sure he or she isn’t only appearing in my life to piss me off. I am willing to bet that all of you know this person, are frustrated by this person, and would love to be able to just walk up to them and stuff your foot so far up his or her ass that his or her breath would smell like shoe polish. I’ve never actually tried to do that so I don’t know how feasible it is. I don’t think my legs are long enough, unless I meet a midget, a dwarf, or a stumpy person. I will never refer to them as vertically challenged. Political correctness is the language of the coward, and God hates a coward. But, I shall move on.

You will meet people in your life who, it seems, have done everything in the universe better than you have. Or they will know someone who has. Nothing that you see will be good enough for them either. And, believe it or not, you will also meet people who are grand tellers of tales. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad people; it just makes them annoying as fuck!

Case in point – the girl who joined our family on our trip to Wales in 1991. She was a friend of my older sister Susan and she tagged along with Susan and joined my dad, my younger sister Barbara, and I about a week into the vacation. We had never met her, so we didn’t really know what to expect. It didn’t take long to realize that we were dealing someone a little special. Maybe if I reflect on it, I can give her some benefit of the doubt because it can’t be easy joining another family, whom you’ve never met before, on holiday thousands of miles across an ocean. And we aren’t exactly your normal family either. Well, unless the normal family discusses at the dinner table during a Christmas Day feast that the scrotum is made from all the extra elbow skin that God had lying around? Hey, we’re a funny group.

We were weeks into the holiday, had traveled much of Wales, soaking up my heritage and watching my dad revel in his childhood. My sister’s friend had spent her honeymoon in the Caribbean, and thought that it would be a fair comparison to judge the beaches in Wales to the beaches in Jamaica. I don’t know about you, but (in commas for emphasis), that just seems a little far removed from the plot. Of course the beaches in Jamaica are going to be better. Here’s a heads up for you as well – the water will be warmer too. People don’t visit Wales for the miles of sandy beaches with girls in string bikinis. Although, having said that, there are some nice beaches around. Just don’t expect Caribbean nice.

It all boiled to a head one sunny afternoon at Margam Abbey. We’re walking through the grounds, the 400-year-old Abbey still standing, the typical green Welsh hills occupying the horizon. In front of the orchard, the large glass building that housed the fruit trees from years past, stood a tree unlike any I have seen. It must have been as old as the Abbey itself, its great trunk forking in several different directions as the branches rose into the sky before bending arc-like to the ground. The overall effect felt like you were standing under a waterfall of leaves, such was the force of the boughs and the overarching canopy. We stood snapping photos, in awe of this masterpiece, my dad commenting on the grandeur of it. From behind us we heard the all too familiar tone from my sister’s friend, “there is this tree in the Caribbean.”

What happened next is the stuff of legends in my house. My dad, isitt, blew a gasket. Normally calm and collected, his comeback silenced all around us. He didn’t even put his camcorder down when he blurted, “fuck the Caribbean”. My little sister and I had never heard him swear before that day – and I was a month from turning 20! And then, he walked into the orchard like nothing had happened. It was so cool. He’s the man. And dad, I know you’re reading this – I hope you are feeling better and you are in my prayers.

I have also had the privilege of knowing two of the best teller of tall tales ever. Both of these men deserve a special place in the Dr Seuss Wall of Fame. And you know the types of tales I’m talking about. One of them had a grandfather who defeated an entire battalion of soldiers with a 4-foot long stick. And the soldiers had a tripod-mounted machine gun too! This same gentleman, at 6 years old, kicked a soccer ball so hard it exploded. He was once asked to play for Portugal in football (soccer) but said no because he had to move to Canada. I think he forgot that I played against him for three years in a local league and he couldn’t run, couldn’t jump, couldn’t head a ball, and couldn’t pass. But apart from that he was an awesome player.

He was in the lunchroom one day at work, polishing off his fifth donut (and apparently having dropped 30 kilos on his new diet) telling a tale about the time his brother and he had a flat and forgot the jack. He held the car up while his brother changed the tire. Hercules had nothing on this guy. A quick glance around the room told you that while people were listening, no one believed. I had just started at the place but already knew tendencies for bullshit and the overhyped. I was sitting with Lewis, the guy showing me around and I started to speak so just about everyone in the room could here me.

“As I was saying earlier Lewis, when our plane went down somewhere in Panama none of us expected to live.” Of course, all eyes and ears turned. “Somehow, three of us survived, me and two Swedish girls who were in Mexico for a Hawaiian Tropic bikini pageant.” Lewis is peeing himself by this point. “The pilot was killed on impact, and pretty much splattered all over the cockpit. I didn’t think I’d be able to deal with it but I managed to go through his flight bag and pick up pieces of him that I thought might be handy. You don’t know how bone will splinter until you see it.” I took a swig of Coke. “As the girls were busy making us a shelter, using clothes from the dead and parachutes, I ventured towards the coast, not too far away, and tried to catch us dinner. I had about 40-feet of twine and a safety pin that I fastened into a hook. Maria came walking down towards me when the shelter was done saying that Pernella was resting as the wound in her leg was starting to burn. I told her to burn some of the sea water and we’d try and fix her when I got back. My own arms were throbbing. I didn’t find out until 6 days later when we walked out of the jungle that I had broken one of them and dislocated my other shoulder. I felt a tug on the line and began winding the twine around my wrists as I fought what was on the other end. The twine ripped through my skin but I knew the girls were depending on me. Blinded by pain I finally managed to haul in a marlin, not a big one, but big enough to supply us with food for a few days. I carved him open with one of the bones from the pilot’s arm, his ulna I think...”

The lunchroom, of course, was in tears, laughing so hard. Every single one of them knew what I was doing and loved it. The storyteller, for his part, tried to continue with his story but his audience was lost. They were mine now. For several weeks after that fateful lunch day, I had to tell them other tales of splendour.

Sometimes, it’s a curse being imaginative and an asshole.

Cheers,
The Penguin

 

Well, I've gone and done it again. I just couldn't stay away and now it's too late. Some things are just so addictive that you can't turn your back and walk away. Nope, I couldn't walk away.

You've got me for another year my friends. I hope you don't mind.

Cheers,
Geraint
 

I was having a discussion last night with a friend from back home, Nutmeg , and we were talking about the mixed tape. I don’t want to boast, but I was a mixed tape master back in the days when cassette tapes were the norm and a car CD player cost about as much as a second hand Hyundai does today. I miss the mixed tape.

Most of the tapes I made were for myself, only one girl ever received a mixed tape from me, and funnily enough, I had and still haven’t, met her. I was supposed to but chickened out the last time I went to the UK. Life is weird and all things happen for a reason I suppose. Anyways, back to the mixed tape.

As I said, most were made for my enjoyment. When my football team had tournaments away from home it would be my job to create the tapes to listen to when we were driving excessive distances. While my friends would enjoy the music as well, these tapes were solely for me. And the thought of making one for a guy was totally taboo. I liken it to the scene in Pulp Fiction when John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson are talking about foot massages and when asked if he’d ever given a man a foot massage, Jackson simply states, “fuck you.” While the foot massage might not be sexual, there is something sensual and intimate about it and a guy would not give one to another guy. The mixed tape isn’t sexual by nature, but the songs that I would put on mine are personal and therefore intimate. I don’t need to share that with other guys.

As the years rolled on and technology improved, the mixed tape would be replaced by the rewritable compact disc. The two mediums share the same purpose, but are completely different. The mixed tape reeks of romance. An old school format that required precision to ensure the sound quality was the best. If you were one of the brave and daring who waited patiently with your hand on the record button listening to your favorite radio station in hope that you would press the button as soon as the first notes of your song came on and before the DJ talked at the end of your song I salute you. Many an obscure song has been ruined by the DJs voice singing along, or express some dimwitted response to a question posed by the song he is playing. It was frustrating and annoying, and the ultimate gift to give someone you cared about. What better way to show her your heart, in my case, than to offer up a mixed tape, created with passion and energy and time, loaded with songs that make you think of your past, your future, and of course her?

With the arrival of Compact Discs the mixed tape became a relic, a distant reminder to snotty nosed kids everywhere just how barbaric their older siblings and parents had it. The sound quality, the life span, and the fact that your tape deck wouldn’t eat the non-existent ribbon on your CDs ensured a better format for recording music. Technological advances made burning music onto a CD as easy as the girl we used to call “the bicycle.” You know it’s easy when there is the exact same amount of seconds between songs on a CD. The mixed tape, cruelly constructed with human devotion and error, would often lead pockets of white noise that would annoy and humiliate. But it was a wonderful annoyance brought about by someone caring to do something so time consuming and error prone. Ah, the good old days.

Now, you don’t even need the original CD the song was included on either. Why bother “burning” music from your CD onto your computer and then on to another CD when you can go to a music sharing site, a site where you can purchase individual songs, and just download those onto your system? Find the 80 minutes worth of music that you want, arrange them in the order that you want, re-arrange them if you want by dragging and dropping, and press “burn.” Within in minutes, your CD is ready. And if by chance you have included too much music, more than 80 minutes worth, your system will tell you. The days when you’d be listening to side 2 of your mixed tape and the final song stops half way through as the tape runs out are long over. This is now a science – a sweet calculated science that renders the user some God-like attributes.

I have made mixed CDs as well. I have made many of them actually. My football team threw an 80s themed party and I was responsible for providing the music for it. I created 9 CDs, some 13 hours or so worth of 80s music. The task was made difficult by saying we could only have one song per artist, but once the songs were found and decided upon, the creating of the CDs was easy. I had to find ways to challenge myself so I could stay awake during the process. Hey, I’m committed.

I have given friends and family mixed CDs as well. Somehow, they don’t feel as romantic and special as the mixed tape. Maybe I have an obscure way of looking at things. Maybe I just miss some of the sounds that I grew up with. Whatever the reason for my feelings, I shall continue making them and giving them away.

They will soon be nostalgic as well, by the way. The day will come when we’ll all be swapping iPods and our 2000 strong song lists. Wow, that would be embarrassing. I’m not even sure I like 2000 songs. I have the simplest most basic iPod on the market. It doesn’t have a menu screen, can’t hold video, and doesn’t plug into the car stereo. It holds 220 songs, or so, and I struggle to fill that at any given time. But, like the mixed tape, my micro iPod song list was created with love – have you ever tried to download a song on a dial-up connection in Saudi Arabia? I will not be downloading crap I can assure you.

And if anyone wants to know what is on my iPod these days, just ask. Music created with this much care should be shared – even if you are a guy! I might not be able to bring back the mixed tape, but it is good to know that some of us still value the romance that was borne from it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find an obscure cover by Robbie Williams on my dial-up connection.

Cheers,
The Penguin

 

I’m glad I’ve someone to think about recently, as this is the tail end of the time when Saudi Arabia really depresses me. The constant blue sky and sun (except for today) is a bonus, but believe it or not, it does get a little tiring when all you can see around you is brown. The sand is brown, the buildings are brown, and the skin color of most of the people is brown. As the temperature drops some wear thobes that are brown as well. And all of this monotony makes me miss this time of year back home.

I have just spent my second autumn season in Saudi Arabia, and I hope it is my last. Autumn is my favorite season, my ultimate favorite time of the year. And it is amazing just how much you miss it when you aren’t around it anymore.

Back home in Alberta, I was blessed to live where I did. While I grew up in a major city (now over 1 million people and growing) we had great expanses of parkland, and only minutes outside the city we had provincial parks and forested areas that came alive at this time of year.

Most people like spring, where the dull dejection of winter finally lifts and the hues of green burst out like the explosion of the Death Star in the original Star Wars movie. And while I see the appeal of spring, especially coming on the back of winters that would often see us watch the thermometers plummet to 40 degrees below the freezing mark, but spring never really did it for me. As I grew older, and I associated spring with the flimsy little dresses and tank tops that the girls wore as the walked the boutiques of the trendy avenues in the city it gained some appeal for me. But it gained appeal for all the wrong reasons.

Sure it was nice seeing the first signs of grass, the first leaves returning to the trees, and most importantly, not leaving for work and returning from work in the dark. And as the months rolled by and the days drifted longer into the evening all was good. But then August turns into September and I really came alive.

September marks the end of the golf season where I’m from, and the outdoor soccer season wraps up at the September long weekend with our annual provincial tournament for the best teams in their respective cities. And more importantly, to me, the weather begins to change from the stifling humidity and thunderstorms of the typical summer day to the cool and crisp snap of the autumn air.

The air feels lighter during the fall, and the chill that comes with it is invigorating to all the senses. With the light air comes a clarity that is only apparent during the fall. Gone are the breaths that are thick and heavy; the new breaths you take are untroubled and paltry. And on those rare mornings when you can see your breath for the first time, the thin mist floating from your mouth like a specter floats from the grave, you can’t help but feel alive.

Spring is supposed to signal the rebirth, the re-growth of everything that has died or slumbered during the hostile winters, but to me, and maybe I’m weird, fall just seems to be the period when things come alive. Sounds reverberate and echo long after the other senses have forgotten about what has happened. The skin prickles with goose bumps, turning a soft red on particularly cool days, and when held up close to the mouth, a warm breath is all it takes to make the skin dance, the capillaries frolicking like children on too much sugar. Yes, I love autumn.

But perhaps my favorite thing about autumn is that is a feast for the eyes. The trees explode with vibrant tones and hues, a veritable orgasm for the eyes to surrender to. Where I’m from, the pine trees and evergreens never changed save for a slight browning of the tips of the pine needles during periods of extreme heat in the summer. Most days they remained true to their nature, green and expansive, a reminder that they were the heartiest of the trees up here by surviving snow falls, freezing winds, and the occasional ice storm. In the autumn, the green glows again, as it does in the spring, but unlike the spring, the green of the needles offers a wondrous backdrop for the other plants that are fighting off winter’s cruel inclinations.

The leaves turn slowly, you see, and at first you’ll spot a few random speckles of yellow intertwined with the constant barrage of green dangling above you. But as the first ones fall, individually at first, then in clumps, the yellows and green decide to celebrate their deaths with a spectacle that never bored me.

Oranges that glowed like fire, purples that would make a violet blush, and reds that would have your wife or girlfriend weeping that she loves you if it was on a rose, burst from the branches. At this early stage the leaves were still big and plump, their edges refusing to wilt under the first signs of frost.

One by one they would fall, sometimes leaving a whole block of trees empty, their branches and twigs a skeletal remnant of the life it once supplied. The oddest moments, and the moments that reminded you that nothing was obvious, was when only one tree stood with leaves, practically all of them hanging from the strong branches, and the others around it were naked and twisted, a depressing recollection of season’s past.

You would have to rake the leaves from your lawn twice a week, and before you would bag them up you’d have to jump into the huge piles, the dried blossoms cracking under your weight, the sound echoing across your backyard and into the yard’s of all of your friends until you could hear them jumping into their own piles. God, I miss autumn.

And when the first snow would come that wouldn’t melt later in the day, the leaves were soon forgotten and replaced with woolen mittens, a thicker jacket, and a mad scurrying to find your ice skates. Autumn never lasted long enough for me. But the visions will.

Cheers,
The Penguin

 

While I am on this kick talking about the wonderful people who I had the pleasure of seeing during my life growing up, I thought I would talk about one more who left a bit of a mark on me. And this guy probably went through a bigger transformation than me.

His name was Doug, but everybody called him Dougie. Dougie was, to but it bluntly, very odd. He was older than I was, but we just weren't sure how much older he was or what he did for a living. Most days I would see him at the Southgate Bus Terminal when I was coming home from school. Even Doug was older than most of the people waiting to catch the bus (school kids), he would probably get beaten up more than any other person I had ever seen. But, people didn't beat him up for no reason.

Dougie, you see, was a bit of a preacher, if you could call him that. Dougie just like to talk about, and most of his conversations would somehow turn towards God, Heaven, and more importantly, how everybody besides himself was on their way to Hell. My most memorable time with Dougie was on one warm early summer day and I was waiting for the good old number 43 to take me home. I was just hanging out waiting, talking to no one, just minding my own business with a bottle of Coca Cola and a chocolate bar. Even though the bus station was packed, I sat by myself. In school, I was a bit of a loner. I just couldn't seem to make friends at all. My stutter ensured that I didn't speak to many people, and even though I played sports and was in drama, I still didn't spend too much with anyone else.

Dougie walks up to me and stands in front of me, which of course, draws a crowd. He's looking at me shaking his head. I pay him little attention and carry on doing what I'm doing. Then he starts to talk. To be honest, I can't remember the first 10 minutes of his diatribe, but I do remember how it ended. I remember getting more upset as the conversation kept on. He finally snapped, I guess, and stood in front of me, stared directly at me and proclaimed, "that I am certainly going to go to Hell because I [was] eating a chocolate bar."

When I queried why he told me that "chocolate was the Devil and all who ate it are his friends." My response to this was to bite off a bigger bite and yell at him, "if this is me going to Hell than I guess I'm going to enjoy burning. Burn baby burn."

I didn't see Dougie for many years after that until I was watching Late Night with David Letterman and David goes into to the street outside the studio to see if any of the people who couldn't get in to the show would run and get him a slice of pizza. When they came back from commercial he had 7 people on his stage that were outside and Dougie was one of them. I was like, "What the F?"

After that, Dougie became a bit of a local celebrity. Somewhere along the line he decided that he needed to bulk up. It was probably done to stop people bullying him, but Dougie soon resembled a carrot - big up top and skinny through the legs. And his celebrity was about to take off.

Edmonton, where I grew up, is known as Festival City. We have over 30 festivals a year, many of them during our summer months, and two of the most popular are the Street Performers Festival and the Fringe Festival. Dougie, would soon become a regular attraction at both. The Fringe Festival has plays and productions, buskers and artists, and people of all walks of life celebrating one crazy week in August.

And that first time I saw Dougie there, with his boom box and blankets, I thought something was up. He soon became known as the Push-Up Guy, as he would do push-ups for money. I was there one night when he did 1000 of them, half of them with a child on his back. Whatever it was that pushed him to do such things, it must have been a mighty force because Dougie would just not stop.

He later went on to set the World Record for most push-ups in a minute, although based on the video link I'm going to show you, these are the worst push-ups I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcUhrtuMqew

Seriously, do you agree that if I was the pavement I'd be screaming rape after that happened to me? Those aren't push-ups, I'm sorry. It looks like he's trying to slam his head against the ground and is just chickening out. He's still an idiot with no sense of commitment I guess. Maybe someone told him that push-ups are a tool of the Devil and he just can't do them properly.

Oh well, what do I know? If you excuse me, I'm going to ravage my carpet doing push-ups Dougie style.... Hey, could be an interesting sexual position couldn't it?

Cheers,
the Penguin
 

I am a dedicated follower of fashion, as you know. I do tend to be a bit daring in my choices sometimes, and will often wear things I tell other people not to wear. I, however, have never understood the reasoning behind the thong. Especially on men. And especially on overweight men. And extra especially on “The Thong Guy” who lived in downtown Edmonton.

I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend at the time just off Jasper Avenue, the main thoroughfare that ran east to west in the downtown core of the city. We lived on the west side of the downtown core, far enough away from the real delinquents, but we had our fare share of drunken souls sleeping in the parks around our apartment. Living above a nightclub also provided some interesting moments as well. It would have been an ideal place for a single guy to live so he could just mosey on downstairs to the club just before last call and prey on the drunk and naive. I wasn’t single and the bar, The Gas Pump, scared the Hell out of me. It was infested with cougars, those mid-30 to mid-40 year old women who prey on younger men to ravage for an evening. Leopard print belongs on leopards, not on the fake tanned torsos of sluts. But, what do I know.

We had a 24-hour Shopper’s Drug Mart on the corner of our block and I would never let my ex walk there alone, at any time of day. Plus, she was a community health care nurse and probably knew many of the people who would loiter around the store. All things being equal, I am a nice guy I’m afraid.

We decide to go for a walk one Saturday afternoon down Jasper Avenue and plan on stopping in at all the little boutiques that lined the streets. It was pleasantly warm, the sun was out, and the usual mixture of trendy socialites and urban street dwellers littered the streets and shops. A crowd had formed in the parking lot of the local convenience store and liquor store so we stopped for a bit. It turns out that a young lady was rollerblading around, her light frilly summer skirt twirling in the breeze, her large breasts poking through the fabric of her dress without a bra to keep them in place. And as she picked up speed, and twirled with great fervor, her dress spun around her, revealing her pantiless torso complete with tattoos and a neon green tuft of pubic hair. You couldn’t help but notice it. You could lay her on a runway at night and use it to land planes it was so bright.

We didn’t need to linger so we kept walking. After a few blocks my ex stops and says, “The Thong Guy is here somewhere.” She’s pointing at a bicycle with stickers all over it and rainbow colored pom-poms hanging from the handlebars. I am confused and wonder why she would know him as the “Thong Guy.”

When he comes marching out of the diner, a take away cup of something in his hand my jaw hit the floor. The man is a brick shit house, solid through the shoulders with a walrus-like moustache. His hair is a perpetual mess, brownish but graying, dirty and dull. He is wearing a white t-shirt with a happy face logo on it, but the t-shirt looks a good ten years old. He’s also wearing black cycling shorts, possibly three sizes too small. Over the shorts he’s wearing a bright pink spandex thong, and as he turns, you sense that he is now the second largest canyon in all of North America.

He smiles at my girlfriend, who sees him regularly through some of her patients, and he mounts his bike. He rides it standing up, showing off his chunky legs and the bright pink thong. Occasionally, he thrusts his ass backwards to let the passersby see just how deep the little pink fabric actually plunges.

From that day on, I saw him on a nearly daily basis. You’ll be pleased to hear that his thongs came in a multitude of colors, and he’d put on bright suspenders on special occasions and holidays. He never said a word to me, or to my ex, whenever we saw him. In fact, I have never seen him say a word to anyone.

I would run into him at the nearest shopping mall, hanging out with the guy with a terrible disorder, the name of which escapes me at the moment. His eyes were too large for his head, and almost seemed to be popping out of their sockets. He never blinked, I don’t think he could, and when he looked at you you felt like your life was going to end horrifically. But somehow, as you should, you just felt sorry for him. You know that he has been ridiculed and trod on his whole life and yet, you were about to do the same.

When I moved out of the downtown core I moved away from the Thong Guy. It has been years since I’ve seen him but my sister says he is still around. My new home when I was in Edmonton was in a new suburb full of people way more affluent than I so I missed the crazies. Well, there was the Maritimer who lived two apartments away from me who wore his brief underwear while BBQing and had a mail order bride from Malaysia... but that is another story for another time.

Cheers,
The Penguin

 

Does every neighborhood have that one resident who is at least one brick short of a wall? We had one that lived on my block, a short walk from my house actually. To say she was a brick short would be a massive understatement. To say she was fucking looney may have been closer to the truth. But, maybe I am biased.

She lived on the other side of the street, some seven houses away, but I think the whole block was her domain. We called her Mrs. Frick. I'm not even sure if that was her real name or just the name that one of us gave her. I guess I'll never know. She died a few years back, or so we think, and the daughter who lived with her, also a tad on the odd side, was nowhere to be seen. When I moved out here, the house she lived in was vacant.

Her lawn had no grass on it, and she would often be seen watering it in the middle of a thunderstorm late at night. And when I say late at night I mean well past midnight. She didn't have a fence, and no rails on her steps leading up to her front door which was always closed. Her curtains on the big bay window were always drawn, but if you were lucky you would see her shadowed face peering out of the corner, yelling at you from inside her house.

Besides her penchant for late night gardening, Mrs Frick also liked to swear at kids at when she would encounter them anywhere. I remember one time I was in a local grocery store buying a 2 liter bottle of Coca Cola and some potato chips and she entered the line behind me. I didn't even know she was there until she called me every name under the sun and then started swearing at the poor cashier girl. I was in my late teens, probably a little shit disturber, but I was just buying some junk food. She threw her coupon book at my head before I could leave the line. I mean, seriously, who does that?

One day she showed up outside my house when I was in the yard. We had a dog, a big husky/collie cross and he lived outside all year round - even in the dead of winter. The dog was a gentle giant, weighing about 100 pounds and all bark and no bite. He was the perfect guard dog. He knew everyone who lived in the neighborhood and if he saw someone he didn't know, especially at night, he'd bark. He was awesome and we had him for about 15 years. We would have had him for a lot less time if Mrs Frick had had her way.

She stood, on the other side of my fence, swinging a shovel over head, yelling at me to let "that fucking flea bag off his leash so he can get what is coming to him." Apparently, he had been digging in her yard. He never left our yard without us with him. And we never took him near her house in case he decided to dig in her yard and uncover dead bodies. We were kids, what else were we to think?

I mentioned that she had a daughter and her daughter didn't fall far from the same tree either. My friends and I were walking down the middle of the street on our way to the local field to throw the football around when we see this figure lurking before the row of corn stalks growing on their front yard. Yes, you read that right, corn stalks. I told you this lady was a little on the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest side.

The daughter comes walking out until she is standing on the walk in front of her house yelling at us to leave them alone and stay away from their property before something terrible happens. Of course, this isn't totally out of the ordinary, but when you're waving a curved bladed knife above your head, presumably for lopping ears of corn from stalks, it does look a little odd to any passersby. She actually took a few steps into the street and walked towards us but ventured no further. We kept on walking towards the fields, but not until we called her a few dirty names.

Three times she called the fire department when we were having BBQs in the yard. And not over an open flame grill either. She just liked being who she was I suppose. Three times a fleet of fire trucks would show up outside our house. When they went to knock on her door no one answered, a head would just pull a portion of the curtain back and leer outside, all the time shouting what was most likely obsenities. Good times I imagine.

Looking back, we probably weren't the nicest we could have been to her. We peed on her lawn, threw eggs at her house on Halloween, and called her every name we could think of. Clearly, she was a lady who needed help but no one really cared. She had a daughter just as troubled as she was, no visitors, they rarely left the house, and no one to care about either of them. It's sad really, isn't it?

Mrs Frick was probably the weirdest person on my neighborhood and I didn't think I would ever meet anyone remotely as weird. But that all changed much later when I moved downtown and met a man simply known as "the Thong Guy."

Cheers,
the Penguin
 

Could this be time for another embarrassing story from my past? It’s been awhile since I’ve delighted you with tales of a young and stupid Penguin growing up and being an idiot. I will embarrass myself yet again. Don’t thank me; it’s my pleasure to entertain the masses.

I wish I were musically gifted. My parents bought me a guitar for my 13th birthday and I picked it up three times. For some reason, and it pains me to say this, I didn’t think it was a cool enough gift. God, I must have been an awful son. But, let’s move on shall we. I have no musical talent whatsoever, save of course for a very dodgy addiction to karaoke in Saudi Arabia. This then, is the story of the day the music died for me...

I remember the day well. There were no newspaper reports, no terrible news of plane crashes that killed three promising musicians. There was only a class of about 24 students, all 13 years old, all unsure about what exactly “Music Class” would incorporate. Of course, we didn’t use the word incorporate back then. At that age we probably thought, “can’t we have an extra class of gym instead?”

1984 was a great year for me in many regards. I first played ice hockey that year, and I was playing soccer for the mighty Royal Gardens, even though I lived two districts away. We were an awesome team. I’m not sure if it is documented anywhere but we were probably the Manchester United of our time because of our foreign contingent of stars. Anyways, this is not a football blog this is a music blog. This was the year I got my less than seldom used guitar so won’t surprise many when my tale is finished. We also got two new cable movie channels that year and the first movie shown on each one was Star Wars. I must have watched that movie about 100 times that year.

We are sitting in music at my small junior high school. I was in grade 8, one year removed from the days of getting 15 minutes off every morning and afternoon to go outside and play. We were adults now. We had to learn to work through the whole day. And this is exactly what we did. One day, I hope James Blunt writes a song about us. If he doesn’t, I might as well try.

Our music and drama hall wasn’t much to look at. It was a carpeted room across from the main gymnasium, tucked in the back corner of the school. If you could bust down the back wall you could have made a run for the park but we just couldn’t figure out how to do it. Sure, we could build stink bombs out of lit bags of manure, but the Internet wasn’t around back then to learn how to make real bombs. We had to have different kinds of fun back then. We like to call it human interaction. Today, the only human interaction kids get is playing the game The Sims on their computer.

Our music teacher was a grumpy old woman with little patience. She would arrange us alphabetically on the three tiers of this room, all facing the blackboard, and have us come up one at a time and draw treble clefs until our wrists were limp. When it actually came time to learn about music, we were all a little lost. Some of the kids, the ones whose parents knew they had no athletic talent and social skills had been studying music before (I’m only saying this because the six kids in my class that could play an instrument probably still haven’t seen another human being naked that wasn’t on the cover of a magazine), soon became the teacher’s favourites. I promise I don’t feel this way about all musically gifted people. I truly am envious; I just can’t let you all know that.

We would all have to learn the recorder. Now, the recorder is like the uncoordinated, geeky, always touching his penis in public little brother of the flute. The recorder, let it be known, requires about as much musical coordination as a guitar with no strings. And guess who had one for two months and couldn’t even play the first song we were given to learn? Yup, me. All I had to do was blow into the mouthpiece, and lift and place my fingers on the six holes on top of this thing and I couldn’t do it. I, however, was not alone.

My two best friends at the time, Roy and Greg, were just about as useless as I was. The teacher went searching for something else for us to do. She didn’t want to fail us. I asked if I could play the bongos, to which she agreed, for about three classes until she realized I had no intention of learning anything on them and just wanted to bash them like Animal from the Muppets. The tambourines the school had were too expensive to let us near so they were given to the respectable girls. I thought this unjust, and made sure I let the girls know by pulling on their bra straps at lunchtime. The ones who didn’t get wear a bra yet were just called “talent less boys”, which probably hurt more than a snap of the bra strap.

Seeing that she had three idiots more intent on being idiots than learning music, she did what any respectable cranky old cow would do: she gave us the idiot-proof instruments. I was presented with the triangle. The triangle doesn’t even come with sheet music for fuck’s sake. Roy and Greg fared even worse than I did – they got a block of wood with a wooden stick, about as long as drumstick, and they would just tap the block with the stick at opportune times.

Basically, my role in our class band was to tap the side of the triangle as soon as the final note had been played. My teacher argued that by having the last note, as it were, I would be the one who actually called to end the performance and thus be remembered. Even at 13 I knew this to be a big heaping pile of bullshit and decided to improvise. I reckoned that the triangle had three sides to tap so I would tap them all at the end of our final song. When my obvious lack of coordination (but give me a hockey stick and I can make a puck dance damn it) came to the forefront in an ungodly sound, she threatened to remove the triangle and put me in charge of cleaning up after class. Hey, the triangle may be an instrument for idiots, but at least it was an instrument.

Soon Roy, Greg, and I had to be separated and put on different tiers to stop us from competing for who could make the loudest accompaniment sounds. My triangle must have been dull because it squealed about as much as a mute duckling. Stupid triangle. We never performed for anybody. Just as well I suppose because we were awful. Roy managed to break his thumb when he was too busy watching Pam (the only girl in class with boobs bigger than her head) blowing into her recorder and he smacked his thumb with the wooden stick.

Despite my creativity and vigour, I was not allowed to incorporate the triangle solo I had developed into any of the pieces that we would practice. My roll was simple, one simple “TING” at the end of the song. Even an idiot could do that. On June 22, 1985, I handed in my triangle with the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to take music again. As my teacher closed the door to the stock room, my dull boring triangle laying lonely on a chair, I turned away.

I’m still waiting for someone, anyone, to come out and record a tear-jarring rendition of “While my Triangle Gently Weeps” but it hasn’t happened. Somehow, even then, I knew it wouldn’t.
The music died for me that day.

Cheers,
The Penguin