Bob Barker had it Easy

Being a freelancer means that I'm always having to evaluate new contracts as they come in. I don't know if it's someting about being a writer, but knowing how much you can charge for a project is always tricky. There's always a level of guilt involved somewhere along the way; it feels weird to be paid for writing. I got over that hurdle long ago, but the modicrum of guilt always hangs back there.

I just got an offer from a new potential client and it's a bit lower than I had hoped. Actually, it falls below the minimum rate I would've accepted. The problem is that I would really like to work on that project for a plethora of reasons, but I'm afraid it might be a bad business decision.

If I take this contract, I may not be able to pursue anything more profitable with my company for the next eight months (I'd have to work on it personally for the length of the contract). But I'd really love to work on it...

Do I take the fabulous car, yacht, and the family of pure-bred dalmations, or do I risk it all for what's behind Door Number Three. Damn you Bob Barker, with your manicured chrome dome, thin microphone, and Barker Beauties!

Argh. I'm trapped between my writing needs and my capitalist needs (the company's gotta make a profit!). Yeah, yeah... I know. It's a happy problem to have, but it's a problem none the less. Any thoughts?

Bovine Photography

So Zimmerman, Esmerita, and I went down to McGill University to find some statues to post with. These shots will be used as publicity photos to promote our show in the Fringe Festival (with our new storytelling company Word of Mouth Productions). I'm sorry to say that the statues in Montreal are not very gigantic. It must have something to do with our humbleness in historical matters.

We posed for a few shots with what we called "The Margarine People" on McGill College and I was suprised to realize that that statue isn't solid. It's a hollowed-out fiberglass shell.

Then we headed down to McGill to pose with James McGill himself as well as some semi-nekkid folks holding up some kind of bowl (we probably won't use those).

Then Zimmerman suggested we pose with the slightly larger-than-life bovine that is parked in front of the Fine Arts Museum. Considering that our show focusses on Jack Tales, and the most famous Jack tale involves a cow traded for some magic beans, this sounded promising.

Preparing for the Fringe Festival takes alot of preparation and footwork, but we're supported very well by the organizers. I hope the Fringe show (which takes place in less than a month!) goes over well.

RedBun! RedBun!

Ms. Carotte finds the weirdest things on the 'Net. My latest distraction has been watching condensed versions of movies that have also been bunnified.

So for your viewing pleasure, I invite you to view:

The 30-second Exorcist
The 30-second Shining

By the way, any ideas on giant statues in Montreal?

Hunting for Giants in Montreal

For our press releases, we need to take some striking B&W shots of Zimmerman and myself to promote our show in the Montreal Fringe Festival (website to come soon).

We brainstormed last night and thought it would be fun if we posed at the feet of a giant statue, making it look like we found a giant just like Jack did in the stories we're telling.

So I'll be spending this week looking for giants. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to look?

Also, we should come up with some publicity stunts to promote our show. Some of the ideas we've had were to hang beanstalks around the site with our flyers attached, have one of us walk around campus with a bloody (plastic) sword and a sack filled with giant heads, or making a giant papier mache shoe and leaving it in strategic places with flyers about the show.

You people, my beloved readers, are creative people. Any other suggestions?

Rising to New Challenges

Note: I had written an earlier version of this blog entry and published it by accident. I decided it was a bit too explicit, so I wanted to rework it.

When you hook up with someone new, she'll come with a whole new set of challenges that you'll have to learn how to deal with. Dating in your 20s is relatively issue-free since you're experience with the adult world has been mostly sheltered due to our studies (yeah, yeah... exceptions to every generalization, blahblahblah. This has been my experience, okay?).

The older we get, the more stuff we accumulate and lug around (both physical and psychologiical), and your mate is just going to have to deal with it. It can be just about anything from supporting a child, to persistent exes, to unresolved parental issues, etc.

Being with Ms. Carrotte means that I have to deal with low blood sugar levels, occasional bouts of catatonia, and seizures (like what happened on Friday morning which resulted in me phoning 911 while her skin turned blue, blood poured our from her clamped jaws, dealing with paramedics, and riding in the ambulance).

I imagine that this may mean I'll be seeing the hospital hallways a bit more than I'd like, but hey... I'm in love with the girl and baggage is baggage. I'm ready to take it on if it means I get to keep her with me for one more day.

Unspoken Conversation

In case you haven't noticed, Ms. Carrotte has arrived in Montreal and as I suspected, she's turned my life upside down in a good way. Spring is officially here... I'm in love.

And it's my birthday today. I'm the grand old age of 35 and still alive. Life is good (see above paragraph). I've gotten calls from a few friends and my parents. Drew even showed up this morning to decorate the front of my balcony with balloons and streamers. Her boy wanted to give me my present before he went off to school. Too cute.

On Saturday, after an evening of fine music, finer food, and extremely fine company, Ms. Carrote, Proust, Alberta, and myself headed to my place for a night cap on the balcony. I had some leftover Mango Mead and some Talisker Scotch to finish off the night (thanks be to Kensington).

Ms. Carotte and I had noticed some heavy flirting going down between Proust and Alberta, but it looked like the Scotch was helping to smooth everything out. Alberta was sleeping on my futon couch and it seemed like she was inviting Proust to share it with her, the lucky dawg.

While Alberta was distracted, I looked over to Proust and we had the following silent conversation using only facial expressions and gestures. This goes back to an earlier post about The Look that only two friends can share.

H: Arches left eyebrow.

P: Arches both eyebrows and grins.

H: Arches left eyebrow and holds hand close to head, forming a small square with fingers.

P: Lowers eyes, shakes head.

H: Holding fingers in square formation, gestures towards bedroom

P: Grins and nods head.

Get it?

A great weekend leading up to a great birthday. If you have the time, call me to wish me a happy b-day. I would love to hear from you today.

For the Record...

No matter where I live, be it at my parent's house or the various tenements I have resided in, the water that comes out of the faucet in the bathroom always tastes better than the water that comes from the kitchen faucet.

I'm not sure why that is, but it's one of life's little mysteries...

The Art of Avoidance

When I was a kid, I used to tell lies like it was going out of style. Apparently, this is a normal part of the growing up process when a kid starts to be able to distinguish between the truth and non-truth. I heard an interview on the CBC with a child psychologist about how a child start experimenting with truth and lies. The example was about a boy who breaks a lamp and then runs out to his mother and says "I didn't break the lamp and I'll never do it again."

It got so bad at one point that I was lying automatically instead of telling the truth automatically, so one day I just decided to stop lying (besides, it was getting too difficult to remember what I said to whom). Of course, now I'm a storyteller, so telling tall tales must mean I still have issues with my childhood. Feel free to analyze.

But before that happened, there was one particular incident I must relate. To you justice hounds, have no fear: I paid a severe price for this one.

This happened when I was in High School and I was dealing with the infamous Eileen Killgannan (God Rest Her Soul). She was a fire-and-brimstone, hard-as-nails Math teacher and she had no patience for any type of lolligagging (especially from the boys. To my mind, she was always easier on the girls in the class).

Like so many of my ilk, homework was always a problem, so on one particular incident when I didn't do it, Mrs. KIllgannan ranted and raved at me, saying that she was going to call my parents and have them straighten me out.

If you recall, having a teacher call your parents was the worst thing that could happen. It was an unnatural blending of school and home life and it rarely had happy endings. That must be why it feels so weird when your parents invite a teacher over for supper or the infamous Parent-Teacher night.

So to keep this from happening, I hatched a plan. Every day when I got back from school, I unplugged all the phones in the house from 3:30 pm until 6:30 pm (this is, of course, before the invention of the automatic answering machine). To avoid detection, I left the plug sitting in the outlet so it would look plugged in.

This worked for about a week, but Mrs. Killgannan eventually figured out that she could call after 8 pm. A quick comparison of notes and the jig was up. And it was a jig that ended up getting me in even more trouble than the original phone call would have. Kids are not known for their foresight.

Still... I look back on that little incident and I'm fairly impressed with myself. It was a damn clever, if not short-sighted, plan.

I'm going to give Bill a Nasty Papercut

This game is as close as I'll get to seeing any of the Kill Bill movies (thanks be to Scott).

I've never been a fan or horror films, but I've found that since 9/11, I've become extra-sensitive to violence in TV and movies. At first, I thought that I wouldn't be able to watch any kind of violence, but that's not true. I just don't like watching people suffer; I just can't detach myself from violent, graphic suffering.

I've heard about what goes on in the Kill Bill movies, and while I am a Tarantino fan, I know that I just wouldn't be able to handle it.

I went to see Hellboy last week with Drew. There was a point where she looked over to me and asked "Are you sure you can handle this level of violence?" I assured her that I could, because most of the violence was implied rather than exposed.

For example, there's a scene in the movie where two Disposable Crewmembers are tracking a beastie down in the sewers. Of course, they get separated and one of them gets jumped by the beastie. As the creature dispatches the lackey, its body blocks what its actually doing and the camera pans away, although you can hear his dying screams. He's clearly not being tickled to death.

That I can handle (although it does disturb me very slightly on some level), but if the camera had zoomed in on the guy and you saw the creature slice him open, break through his ribcage, and feast on his organs, I would be having shuddering for hours.

Oddly enough, I don't have this problem with video games. The gorier the video game is, the better I like it. For some reason, I can completely detach myself from the violence in a game that I'm playing instead of a movie that I'm watching.

Repeated viewing of this Post will make you go Blind

Note: Many of the links will lead to sticky situations at work.

So I walked into Cafe Eco-Vert on Sherbrooke for a quick tea and I perused the bulletin board (my friend Sasha was telling me something about a Co-operative Bartering group and their flyer was supposed to be here).

Instead, I found pamphlets for a very particular type of festival in May that just makes me grin and shake my head. When I think of the difficulty involved in organizing a Storytelling Festival (mostly to get venues and sponsorship money), I wonder how a festival like this gets off the ground.

I had no idea that May 16th was declared National Masturbation Day. If I had known, I would've saved up (actually, no I wouldn't have). Although I've never been a fan of sponsored Whatever-athons, you can download forms for the Masturbate-A-Thon and get your friends and co-workers to sponsor you in a day of self-bliss! That should jazz up discussions around the water cooler.

There are also Gala Events (known as the Jerk Off Cabaret) and a series of Workshops.

The next time someone gives me grief about the validity of a storytelling festival, I'll be waving these pamphlets in his/her face saying "If we can have a festival that promotes Hairy Palms, why is storytelling so far-fetched?!?"