Category Archives: Stories

August 30, 2021

Random Thoughts On What Would be My Father’s 85th Birthday

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My father would have been 85 today if he were still alive. What would we have done today? For sure a family get together. He would have wanted to see his 2 grandchildren. Maybe he would have come to my house. Maybe he would have still lived in his house. If he did, we would have gone swimming. Maybe I would have taken him golfing at some point in the last week. The heat has been ‘oppressive’ though. He liked to say that about the heat. Especially near the end. Especially as it pertained to golfing in it. He would have been 85 so we would have had to go easy. He would have only looked 75. I would have only looked 36. Maybe by now I’d be able to beat him. To be honest though, I’ve stopped playing, but if he was alive I probably wouldn’t have stopped playing…… I was talking about him with my wife this morning. It’s funny what people remember. I don’t know how it got to this, but I remember when I was my son’s age, and my dad used to come home from work. I used to drop whatever I was doing and run to the front door to jump into his arms. He was always clean shaven, always with a suit, and one of those beige overcoats. Still smelling a bit like whatever mediocre aftershave we got him for his birthday and a little bit like smoke, not because he did, but everybody else smoked inside back then, and it would get on his clothes. He looked official. He’d probably have a briefcase or some groceries in paper bags (that’s how old I am…. that wasn’t even to save the environment, that’s just how they bagged your groceries, but then plastic bags came out…. not all new tech is better). He would say “HELLO HOUSE!!”. He was friendly in a way I still can’t imagine. We’d go upstairs together and I’d sit on his bed and talk to him about sports while he got changed into what I can only describe as ‘business casual’. This man didn’t really wear shorts or track pants. He would put away his stuff so neatly (I swear to god if I didn’t look just like him, you’d never know we were related in some ways…..but in others…..), and then he’d pull a chocolate bar out of his drawer. Probably from Christmas or Father’s Day or something. It would be one of those big ass Fruit & Nut bars (Cadbury??). He’d break off a square and eat it, and if you were sitting there with him, he’d give you a piece too. Then he folded it back up and put it away for tomorrow. Who has the patience for that?? It was a small indulgence for a man who didn’t drink or smoke, but ate cookies like a fiend (not for mess like cookie monster, but the sheer quantity was unreasonable at times)…….. We went on a Sunday drive today. I used to hate that. My dad LOVED a good Sunday drive. All of us hostages in his car after going to Church or some other thing. He wouldn’t tell you where he was taking you, or when you could expect to return. You were probably wearing uncomfortable clothes, and there were no gaming systems or portable DVD players in those days. He was a country boy at heart that married a city girl, and stayed down here, but if he got a chance to look at some trees or horses or barns or something, he was doing it. He didn’t give a shit what we thought about it. Crazy thing is I love driving around now. I blame Covid a bit. I mean as a family we’ve become way more in-touch with nature as we stay as clear from crowded spaces as we can. There’s no denying it though. I like a good drive in nature. I don’t know how my son stands it. Every time I’m driving along some country road and I say “Look, Horses!!!”, I’m slowly becoming my father…….. 85 is a milestone birthday. I wonder if we would have tried to take him to a restaurant. Maybe a nice little patio. We took him somewhere nice on his 75th. I chose that day to give him a sappy card for the first time in my life. I’m famous for finding the funniest card possible for every occasion, and almost nothing is off limits (fart jokes, ageism) as long as it’s hilarious. I also get that I do that more for me than I do it for other people because maybe I find ‘tender moments’ uncomfortable, or maybe I just like a good laugh. For the occasion of his 75th birthday I decided to get a card that said a bunch of really nice shit in it. He opened it and read it, and he looked up, and he looked like he was about to bawl, and for sure if he did, I would start to bawl too, and we can’t have that, so I said something funny, and he laughed instead. PHEW! I know if you’re reading this in 2021, and you know my dad died a year later, you’re probably thinking ‘why didn’t you just have a cry with your dad in a nice restaurant?’ I can’t. I don’t know why. I’m sure it’s not healthy, but I just can’t. No regrets though. I’m glad I got the opportunity to get him the sappy card for once in my life, and I meant everything that it said, and he knew that, and that’s why he almost cried and that’s why I almost cried, and we both laughed it off like a couple of guys. It was perfect.

Enjoy your B-Day in heaven Dad! Hope the heat isn’t oppressive 😉

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June 23, 2020

My Father’s Eulogy (2012)

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Happy Belated Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there…..

A few days ago my wife was cleaning up in our office and she found some folded up papers that were my notes for my dad’s eulogy speech.  I would’ve never thrown this speech out, but I didn’t exactly put it anywhere safe or memorable either.  So it was a pleasant surprise to see it re-surface, and have a chance to read it to myself for probably the first time since I was in a church saying the words out loud.  I had to do a Eulogy for my mother-in-law a couple of years later, and had the good sense to make it a blog post at the time (so the location of the paper version became less relevant).  Interesting fact….. It is the most viewed blog post I have ever written.  Even though this blog has kind of dried up in recent years, almost not a day goes by when someone doesn’t read that post.  I couldn’t understand the phenomenon, so I decided to google ‘mother-in-law eulogy’, and it’s on the first page of results.  I guess in laws don’t usually prepare the eulogies??  Anyways, my father’s eulogy never made it into blog form, so if you weren’t at the funeral, you never heard it (until now!!!).  He died in 2012, 3 days before my son was born, so I was a little busy, as you might imagine (and trust me, you don’t want to imagine).  It’ll be nice to post this and take care of this unfinished business.

Without further delay, here’s my portion of my father’s eulogy (my sister spoke before me….. I told her ‘you set em up, I’ll knock em down’ 😉 )

 

I’d like to thank everybody for coming in such great numbers and showing your support.  I’m overwhelmed, but not surprised.  As most of you know, my wife gave birth to our son, Ken’s first grandchild on Friday evening.  They’re unable to be here, as they are recovering at home.  My wife wanted to pass on a few sentiments.  Even though her absence is understandable, it’s quite devastating for her to not be here as she loved my father very much, but she also wanted to than everyone for their support during the major life events that have taken place here.

When talking to people that have come out this past week, the one main theme that keeps coming up is that it’s such a shame that he didn’t get to see his grandson…..  It’s okay to feel bad about that, but my father was the type of person that would have preferred a happy celebration of his life today.  He was a happy, positive man that would always look at the bright side, and there is plenty of bright side.  So rather than focus on what he didn’t get a chance to do, here’s what he did get a chance to do…….

  • He got a chance to grow up in beautiful Muskoka, where the air is cleaner, the people are friendly, and now people pay top dollar to vacation there.
  • He got a chance to play hockey, and was a good goaltender.  His childhood teams in Bracebridge won the Ontario championships on two separate occasions.  Coming from a small town, that was a big deal.  When he went to school at Ryerson, his team went undefeated for an entire season and won the championship, then he ‘tried’ soccer, and that team won the championship in the same season, and he won Ryerson’s Athlete of the Year award that year.  He is a 2-time Ryerson Sports Hall of Fame inductee, both as an individual, and as part of that undefeated hockey team.  Last I heard, his picture is still in a glass case at the Bracebridge arena.  Many people I spoke to yesterday that have known him for years said ‘I didn’t know Ken played hockey’, but he was modest… or like his coach said to me yesterday “He showed, but didn’t tell”.  To put his hockey achievements into perspective for non-sports fans, most of the things I listed off had ’50th anniversary’ celebrations.  You don’t celebrate something 50 years later if it wasn’t a big deal.
  • He got a chance to marry the girl of his dreams and spent 47 years with her.  They had 2 children who turned out alright.
  • He got to travel a lot, and has been on many great trips to many great countries, and has friends all over the world.
  • He got the chance to golf, which was his only real vice or indulgence.  He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and didn’t spend money on himself, but he golfed.  The powers that be blessed him with an ability to hit the ball 300 yards almost into his 70s.  They didn’t necessarily give him the ability to keep it on the fairway, but that always gave him the chance to go into the bush and pull out half a dozen new balls to replace the one he lost.  If you were on the course having a slow round, there’s a good chance he was out there in front of you  (Just adding this, but he didn’t even need those balls because everyone people kept giving them to him for Christmas…..  he literally brought them home, washed them off and put them in my golf bag *sniff*)
  • He got the chance to be good to people.  He volunteered his time.  He used to help raise money for Unicef.  Lately it’s been the church.  He worked as a greeter, helped with the banking, and drove some elderly people around to appointments.
  • If you were his friend, family member, casual acquaintance, or someone he just met randomly at the store, he was fascinated by you.  He loved hearing about you, and it wasn’t an act.  He was like that all day every day.  He had a magical ability to make whoever he was talking to feel like the most important person in the world at that exact moment.  You could be talking about a blade of grass, and he would hang on your every word.  Imagine that was your father?
  • He was loyal to everything and everyone he valued.
  • He was meticulous too.  Every job he did had to be done right.  Even if he was serving us dessert.  If he had to divide up a pie or cake, there was high level mathematics going on in his brain to make sure everyone received an equal portion.  God forbid someone ask for a smaller piece.
  • His Hellos and Goodbyes were legendary.  If you came to the house, he was like a friendly dog, only he smelled better, but he couldn’t wait for you to get in the house, and when you left, he stood on the porch and talked to you until you almost had to cut him off.  Then as you drove off, (Summer and Winter) he stayed out there and waved at you until your car was no longer in his sight lines.  Every time! (Just adding this….. the last time I saw him was like this.  My wife and I were leaving his house, and she must have been pregnant as hell, and I unlocked the door for her, but I didn’t actually go around and open it.  He was mortified because he’s such a gentleman…..  I was like ‘technology man….’  he didn’t like that, but we had a laugh.  Then he waited until we were out of sight before he went inside.  I never saw him again.)
  • I can’t begin to describe what kind of son, husband, father he was, but based on what I’ve said, I’m sure you can put the pieces together.  We’ve had a great life together.

My final thought is……  If there were such a thing as human cloning, and it wasn’t REALLY frown upon (this was funny because I was saying it in a church), I think he’d make an excellent prototype.

I would love to live in a world full of Ken Austins!

Thank you!

 

 

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May 26, 2020

Construction Ducks

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Is a story about two love birds, who returning north from wintering in some favorable climate, find each other and begin their courtship.  No online dating required.  Just good old Duck Talk pick up lines.  I mean they were probably flying when they met, what could you possibly say up there?

M – You’re hot

F – You look like you fly good

M – Wanna make babies?

F – You had me at ‘you’re hot’

Animal instincts take over, and they become a couple (actually animal instincts didn’t take over, they were probably running this scenario from jump).  It must have been so romantic they way they gazed into each other’s eyes the whole time, and completely overshot Lake Ontario.  Or perhaps they were looking for something a little more secluded.  Or perhaps he told her he had a private lake.  Probably that.  First body of water he sees that doesn’t look like it’s spoken for becomes the private lake.

F – Cool lake.  What’s with all the bulldozers?

M – Don’t worry about that baby.

So they made sweet love on their private lake, and began to build a nest.  Not a lot of options for nest locations.  This lake is a 5 or 6 day heat wave from not even being a lake anymore, it’s so small.  That doesn’t bother them at all.  They frolic around their little construction site lake, which is soon to suffer a fate, only foreman or contractor could predict.  They don’t need it that long.  How long does it take to make Duck Babies and teach them to fly?  Can’t be that long!

Almost every day I go to visit them.  Not only am I totally obsessed with their unique story, but I’ve been quarantining, and this is what qualifies as ‘getting out’ these days.  I haven’t seen them in a while.  I don’t know if the site didn’t work out, maybe too much construction noise.  Maybe they found a better spot.  Maybe they go out and grab dinner at around that time, because it’s usually 5pm, and everyone knows that Ducks eat dinner at around 5.  Maybe shit just didn’t work out between them.  After all, based on what I’ve said about them (and that’s all we have to go on), their relationship was kind of superficial.  My Duck friends will be in my thoughts literally every time I walk past their home.  I hope whatever has happened, it was for the best, and I wish my Duck friends well.  We’re not really friends though, I just visit them sometimes, and I like to quack at them, but they don’t really quack back, but it’s cool.

 

“Oh to be young, and to feel love’s keen sting!” – Professor Dumbledore

 

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March 27, 2020

A Chocolaty Dream

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

So Corona Virus got me not working.  The benefit of this is I’m sleeping 8 hours a night.  The best part of that is the last hour or so, which is bonus sleep because I should be at work.  I’m not one to remember my dreams all the time but for some reason, the dreams I have in that bonus hour are among the most memorable and at times absurd.  I’ll tell you about one.  My son thinks it’s funny.

I get sent (by my wife I can only assume) to park a car, but I’m at what looks like an all inclusive resort somewhere warm.  It doesn’t look exactly like any of the ones I’ve been to.  Also, there’s no reason for me to have a car at an all inclusive.  Maybe it wasn’t an all inclusive, anyways it’s not important.  I find it hard to write about dreams because I like to give all the details, but my dreams barely give me any details or context.  There’s a massive parking garage at this resort, and somehow the car gets parked and I’m trying to find my family.  I find my son (who’s 7, and I guess just wandering around on his own?  Not likely), and I see this table where the owners of the resort are giving away free artwork.  They call me over and tell me they have 2 pieces left, and would I like one?  They’re huge, and I feel like they used to be inside the rooms, but maybe they’re being re-designed?  I agree to take one, not really considering for the moment, like where the hell am I going to put this, how will I get it from said exotic destination to my home in Toronto.  Then I get a look at the 2 pieces, and they’re both pictures of the owners of the resort, who of course are the same people giving them away.  It’s a man and a woman, and the man has a great 80’s mustache with a white guy fro, and I can’t remember what his wife looked like, but she had money.  Now I’m being too polite to say that I no longer want this artwork, so I’m going to have ditch it somewhere (like in a dream I should be able to laugh at this guy and say I don’t want his shitty artwork, and segue right into a poolside Pina Colada, but then if I realize I’m dreaming, I’ll wake up, so I end up just doing the same goddamn things I would do in real life instinctively).

Then I see Vasek Pospisil (Canadian professional Tennis player), and thinking it’s cool that he’s there, but there’s no crowd or no sign that he’s doing a meet and greet, so maybe he’s just on vacation too at the same shitty resort I’m at where the owners seemingly have pictures of themselves in the suite.  So I ask him if he’s there doing autographs, and he says ‘yeah sure’, and so I grab my son because he likes tennis too.  Just as I’m about the quickly whisper in his ear, what to politely say to Vasek Pospisil when asking for an autograph, my son walks up to him and says really loudly “Do you have chocolate?”

Then I wake up.

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March 6, 2019

On this day in 1994

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Man, I looked down at the date today and it rang out in my mind. I couldn’t figure out why at first, was it somebody’s birthday? Did I have an appointment or something? I eventually remembered the significance of the day. It was my first hip hop concert. 1994. 25 years ago. Good lord! I had that ticket hanging on a bulletin board in my bedroom when I was younger, and that’s probably how I remembered the date. (Or…. the real story if you prefer is that it was the 1 year anniversary of my girlfriend at the time, and I felt shitty for not hanging out with her that night, but……) we were going to see De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest who to this day are my two favourite hip hop artists. What a show! The latter who I have to choose if asked for a preference, was at the absolute pinnacle of their career, which in my humble opinion coincided with the very peak of hip hop as an art form. This would be like seeing Led Zeppelin in 1971, or James Brown, or Elvis or something like that. Prince or Queen I suppose.

I went with my friend Brad. Which made me think of this picture. This picture is not from that night. I have no pics from that night. There were no camera phones back then. Most dudes didn’t carry cameras around with them. A good chunk of my life is undocumented. From whenever my mom stopped thinking I was cute 😉 (I wink there, because my mom will read this, and better still think I’m cute), to whenever I got it in my mind to buy a camera. Whatever those years were, there aren’t many pics. Maybe some birthdays or something.

This pic is of Brad and I in the summer of 93. About to go on a road trip to Cleveland to watch the Blue Jays (who won the World Series that year btw…. and haven’t won since *sniff*). We were mad skinny, oh my god! Ready to drive a Pontiac Acadian over the border. I must have blogged about this car already, but it didn’t have power steering. If you’re under 40, you don’t even know what that means!!! If you’ve ever been to a theme park or carnival that had a spinning tea-cup ride, or some other equivalent, there’s usually this giant steel wheel in the middle of the cup that you can try to spin around while you’re spinning around to control freak your own turns, and it’s heavy as shit to turn. That’s what driving a car with no power steering is like.

Summer of 93

Look at us!!! Young and full of piss and vinegar. Look at my Chuck Taylors… man I gotta get another pair of those. That car embodies the phrase, ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. That car was a piece of shit. It looked cool though, and the system pumped. The rest mattered not. That was summer of 93. In the Fall, A Tribe Called Quest put out their best album ‘Midnight Marauders’ (apologies to Tribe fans who prefer ‘Low End Theory’…. you are not wrong either), and the Toronto Blue Jays would win that last World Series. I was 18 and skinny. Didn’t have any idea what I was doing, but I looked alright doing it. I’m not trying to say that was any better than 2018….. but it didn’t suck. That’s all I wanted to say.

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February 22, 2018

Etiquette For Taking A Shit In A Public Toilet

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I shouldn’t have to say any of this. I’m honestly not sure why humans….. oh never mind. Fucking humans! I’ll get straight to it. I can only tell you this from a man’s perspective. That should be disgusting enough without getting into what goes on in other washrooms, man I don’t even want to know.

Where to even start…. Let me start by saying I hate taking a shit in a public washroom. Now, not all public washrooms are the same, and we all know too well that not all shits are the same. It’s hard to avoid, as most working adults spend 8 plus hours away from home every day, and unless you’re blessed with an impressive schedule of regularity, and can time these things for when you’re in the magical royal comfort of your own throne, then you are probably dropping the kids off at the PUBLIC pool once in a while if you know what I mean. If it happens often enough like every day, then you probably don’t have too many issues with doing it, unless there are extraordinary circumstances on the part of yourself, or some other unfortunate soul that occupies the same space at the same time.

You probably wouldn’t guess this about me, but I feel pretty shy and reserved most of the time. So when someone who feels that way, which I think is a common way for a lot of people to feel, goes to a public washroom to drop a deuce, they’re probably hoping that nobody is in there. In fact, I’d venture a guess that most people are probably fairly relieved when they find out nobody is in there. Like the sun doesn’t shine on the same dog’s ass everyday, you are not likely to walk into an empty restroom every time you want to drop bombs, so now what? Well I would think that courteous humans might just respectfully recognize that multiple people being in the same situation might have similar needs and wants. The big want is to be alone. You can’t have that sometimes, so what is the etiquette? Treat others as you wish to be treated. If you are lucky enough to have a little separation from one another, then take advantage of that. You can’t be alone, but the next best thing is to have a stall or two between you and the other person that’s taking a shit in the same room as you. Are you gonna feel free to put your feet up on the door, and squeeze the metal bar on the wall (if you got the special needs stall), and just give er? Not the same way as if you were alone, but at least you won’t be as self-conscious of every little farty squeak you let out if the other person is 10 or so feet away.

This desire for privacy should be universal, so WHY IN THE FUCK do people always jump into the stall beside mine, when I know full fucking well they had at least 2 or 3 other options? Hey, sometimes the washroom is small, and there are only 2 stalls. This isn’t a perfect world, I know that, but if there’s 5 or 6 stalls, and 2 people pooing, there’s no good reason for the 2nd person to set up shop right beside the first.

I’m in Vegas last week, and with the amount of great restaurants there, and all the walking around you do, everyone is a ticking time bomb. Okay, I can’t speak for everyone, but I am certainly a ticking time bomb. I love casino washrooms, because they are huge. They’re comfortable and there’s lots of privacy. Does that seem odd to you? I thought about this. If you’re 10 feet from a slot machine, they don’t want you going up to your hotel room to take a ‘gambling shit’ because then you might not come down and gamble again. You might just have a nap or something. If they make it comfortable to shit in the casino, it’s more money for them. I bet your high school economics teacher didn’t tell you that. Anyways…. I’m at the New York New York hotel, and I go into the washroom. There’s like 17 stalls in there, and they’re all empty. It’s a great feeling to see that, I don’t care what you say. I sit down for a minute and these 2 drunk guys (I mean it is Vegas) come in and basically get into the stalls on either side of me to take drunk, stand up pisses in these toilets. One of them is groaning, like he held this piss to within an inch of his life, and they’re fucking talking to each other. Not only are there 14 other available stalls, but there must have been 30 urinals in there if they were just going to take a stand up piss. Here’s the thing. Have I ever been so drunk that I had to balance my head on the wall in order to stand straight and get the piss out? You bet I have, and more than I’d care to admit, but I’ve NEVER been so drunk that I walked into a urinal right beside some poor sucker who was trying to take a shit, when there were a dozen other options because no matter how drunk you get, that is horrible etiquette, and I was fucking raised better!

Apologies to my mom and all her friends who read this for the salty content. It’s all true and it’s time someone said it 🙂

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November 20, 2017

That Time I Wrote/Directed/Acted In A Short Film

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

So this story could be a stand alone story or it could be considered a sequel to another story…. I made a short film. It’s the only one I’ve ever done, so I could just tell you about that, but there may be people who would wonder how you just do something like that with no background or experience. While my exposure to this world has been limited, I did act in a movie once, and if you’d like to hear that story first, you can read this link, therefore making this story a sequel.

https://thoughtsandrantsinjoggingpants.com/2015/09/06/that-time-i-was-an-actor-in-a-kick-ass-movie/

For those that didn’t feel like reading all that, I’ll summarize in one sentence. 2 of my close buddies are aspiring filmmakers (Director – Trevor Juras and Cinematographer Othello J. Ubalde), and Trevor thought I’d make an interesting character in his first feature-length film “The Interior”, in which I appear in only one scene, but have considerable dialogue, I feel like I nailed it, the film was well received at festivals, got a distribution deal, and is now available at most online retailers which is not bad for your first Indie Film. (Hey, I didn’t say it would be a short sentence). It was a thrilling experience for me who never thought he’d have an opportunity to be an ‘actor’, but in an amazing turn of events I now have that great story to tell potential grandchildren while I’m on that rickety porch with rocking chair and a shotgun, chewing on toothpicks.

So what’s next? Well this all happened because of who I know. So I started to wonder what else could happen because of who I know. Careers are made from people leveraging who they know. What could I do? Some more acting? I’ve made myself available to the one director I know, yes, but what about writing? I write! I have a blog as proof. What if I wrote a script for a short film? If it was good enough, perhaps I could get Trevor to direct it, and Othello to shoot it. If I wrote myself into the script, then I could act in it. Seemed like the perfect plan. So I wrote a script called “To Do List”. I thought it was hilarious, so I passed it on to my guys one at a time. Othello liked it right away, and wants to work and get as much experience as possible since he didn’t start doing this until a few years ago. I think he was on board to shoot it. When I showed it to Trevor (hoping he would want to direct it), I didn’t get the response I was hoping for. Not to say that he wasn’t totally cool and supportive, but I think I was hoping he would be super blown away and want to direct it. He’s more interested in writing his own stuff though, and suggested that I should direct it. He even offered to help me. He even told me directing isn’t as difficult as I think which to this day I believe to be complete bullshit. Regardless, I was kind of discouraged, and “To Do List” got shelved for a time.

After “The Interior” had made its rounds in the Festival circuit, there didn’t seem to be too many projects on the go. Trevor started writing his next feature, but it was a lengthy process. Othello was trying to shoot as many things as he could while we all waited for Trevor to make another movie, and I just went back to my normal life, fairly content for a while until the creative bug started nibbling again. Othello had asked me a few times to join his crew to help them shoot some stuff they had been hired to do. I finally joined them on a short film set. It was a first time director, but he had invested some money, and taken a lot of time and preparation to get this project together. This was the second film set I had ever been on. Instead of being an actor, I was now working behind the scenes, helping set up cameras and lighting etc. It was only 2 days, but as this project was moving along, it became more obvious to me that this director was really green, and so I made a suggestion about something, and he went with it, and it worked out. So I made another suggestion, and another and another. I felt bad, because it wasn’t my job to be doing that, but he kept getting stuck, and nobody wanted to say anything to him. I would have kept my mouth shut, but he was open to everything I said, and even started looking over at me to see if I agreed with things he was doing. It was weird, as I was the least experienced person in the room in some ways, but the director was willing to be collaborative, and didn’t have an ego about it. I think he may have been in over his head slightly, but I respected the fact that he had gotten off his ass and pursued his dream of directing a film.

It got me thinking about whether or not what Trevor said about directing was bullshit or not. I dusted off “To Do List” and read it over. I still thought it was funny. I sent it to Othello again, and he still thought it was funny. I asked Othello if he would help me make this film and be willing to babysit me through the directing process. I felt like I would be pretty comfortable directing people to help my vision come to life, but on the technical side I knew (and still know) nothing about making a film. This is why Othello gets a Producer credit on this film.

We planned for a 2-day shoot. I had an editor lined up for afterwards, who was an old high school friend with some experience. Othello’s crew that had worked on all of the projects that I’ve mentioned here agreed to help out, and I needed 2 more actors. Jennifer O’Callaghan who is a friend of Othello’s plays the female lead, and Patrick McFadden who stars in “The Interior” agreed to a fun cameo in my film as well. We scouted locations, and settled on pretty much the only ones available. We rented whatever equipment Othello didn’t already own, went to San Remo’s bakery to get their incomparable Apple Fritters, and we were ready to shoot. Trevor even showed up for the first day to keep an eye on things. My character was on camera for most of that shoot, so it was nice to have someone to direct me, since directing and acting in the same project is REALLY difficult, particularly when you have no sweet clue what you’re doing.

I have great memories from shooting this. I also have some hilarious outtakes which made watching it after the fact just as much fun as shooting it. The interesting part about making a film and watching the footage a few times, is that there’s a possibility you’ll start to hate it. This definitely happened to me. It’s a comedy, so once you see the funny parts about 25 times, you start to forget that they’re funny. This is where editing comes in. I said I had a guy, right? The guy I went to high school with? I forgot to mention that he lives in Montreal. I also forgot to mention that this is a ‘Passion Project’ which is another way of saying I didn’t have money to pay anybody for this. Now I need an editor to clean up whatever directorial mistakes I’ve made, and make this a good film. This is where we got held up a bit. Crazy things were happening in my editor’s personal life at the time, and he does this kind of thing for a living, so in order to pay his bills, he had to prioritize paid work over passion projects which is absolutely reasonable. This started to drag out a bit. Just the logistics of getting him the hard drive involved me waiting for him to visit his family in Toronto so I could pass it off in person. It was starting to look like this would never get done. Then Trevor stepped up and offered to have a look at it for me. I was so relieved that we would get the ball rolling again. Sad that I didn’t get to work with my original guy, because we’ve been talking about working together ever since high school when we would be in writing and drama classes together, but I believe there will be other opportunities for us in the future. It took Trevor a little while to get around to it as well. Passion projects man….. You get what you pay for sometimes. If you can’t pay, you gotta be patient.

Trevor came through for me though. Just in time to submit my film to the Toronto International Film Festival which would have been my ultimate goal for this film. We didn’t get it in, so I had to re-adjust the goals. I started submitting to festivals that were either road trip distance, or had a theme that I thought this film might fit in with. I’ve been talking with Trevor and Othello about this, and I really would love just one festival to screen this film. It’s my first time. I have no directorial experience. I know there are thousands of films being submitted to these festivals right now, but I just feel like if I got shut out, that it would be really disappointing. JUST ONE FESTIVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After many kindly worded rejection emails, I finally received word that “To Do List” will make its World Premiere at the Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival on December 1st, 2017. I’m super excited. Tampa Bay is a little far for a road trip right now, but I’d been considering that heavily as the festival approaches. I hope it gets in to more, but if it doesn’t, I can honestly say the experience of doing this has exceeded my expectations, and I don’t know if I’ll do it again or not, but the story keeps getting better.

http://tbuff.org/selections2017/to-do-list.html

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October 8, 2017

Elevator Chit-Chat

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

For those of us that get into an elevator frequently, there are decisions to be made daily that are perhaps a lot trickier than they look. What do you want your elevator game to be like? Do you want to be that sociable chatty person that acknowledges everyone, and perhaps engages in small talk? Would you rather stare at the door, (or if you’re lucky, some magical piece of information posted on a sheet inside that you can pretend to be really interested in) and be anti-social. Is one better than the other? What does your elevator game say about you as a person? I understand both sides.

My father was a supremely talented small-talker. He never missed an opportunity to engage in conversation with a complete stranger. He thrived on it, and I’m not playing favourites when I say I never saw anyone as good at it. The best part was that he gave no shits whether the person wanted to talk to him or not. It never entered his mind that someone wouldn’t want to talk to him, and he was absolutely charming enough to pull it off even with the toughest of crowds. You’d think the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree. In a way it doesn’t. I totally CAN talk to strangers too, but when I get into an elevator I want nothing more than for it to be empty. If it’s not empty, I really enjoy walking into an elevator with people who are on their phones or not attempting to engage me in any way. If I can’t have either or those, I’ll take a head nod on the way in, awkward silence until we arrive at the floor, and a polite ‘have a good night’ on the way out. My last choice would be to have someone start chatting me up about something. Unless it’s them telling a quick (really entertaining) story, and me having to come up with a smile and a one-liner at the end, which I can tolerate.

I live on the 6th floor of a Condo building. I used to live on the 5th floor of a Condo building. Coincidence? No. When we picked the floors, I was thinking of two things. One, I’m afraid of heights, and if the shit really hit the fan, I’d like to know that I could tie some bed sheets together and shimmy down some balconies to safety. Two, I hate long elevator rides. Is it the length of the rides themselves that I hate? Or do I hate talking to people in the elevators? A little bit of both.

As a reader, you might be thinking, ‘hey, this guy has a blog, he has lots to say…. why doesn’t he want to talk?’. I do want to talk. Just not to strangers on an elevator. It’s OK though, I tolerate it. There’s one thing I can’t tolerate though (and if you were wondering what prompted me to write this blog, here we go), and that’s someone who starts a conversation in an elevator that they themselves are not interested in. What? Does that actually happen, and more importantly why would it happen? Yes it happens. I don’t know why. It mystifies me, but it does happen periodically, and I can only think that perhaps some people just feel like they SHOULD engage in chit-chat every time they’re in the elevator. Maybe they think it’s impolite not to, or it makes them better people. All of which is fine, but I had a guy the other day start chatting with me, and then when it was my turn to talk, COMPLETELY lost interest in the conversation. Buddy, first of all, I had NO interest in talking to you to begin with, and now here I am, scrambling to say something interesting about the weather, and you’re fading on me???? I live on the 6th floor!!!!!!! It wasn’t a long ride. Focus or fuck off!

To summarize, I think the world has all kinds of people in it. Different people have different elevator etiquette, and that’s OK. I don’t judge anyone, but all I ask is commit to it. You wanna avoid the social awkwardness of neighborly small talk? Me too. You wanna be a Chatty McChattster? Be true to yourself, and annoy all the introverts. BUT…….if you’re gonna try to chat, you better be ready to talk and listen. If I have to take my brain off auto-pilot to have a conversation with you, then finish what you started!

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September 24, 2017

Did I Accidentally Train a Jedi Master?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My son is in Kindergarten. He got to go to his first ‘new-school-friend-birthday party’ today. I got to go as well. Yay for me. There was coffee, pizza and wasps. I enjoyed two thirds of that. This isn’t about me though. Or maybe it is. The party was pretty awesome all things considered, because it was a ‘Star Wars’ themed gathering. My son is pretty into Star Wars (and everything else), and I was too at his age, and I’m old, so I think it’s remarkable that Star Wars is still as relevant today as it was then. Who could have guessed? Neither Farrah Fawcett nor Lee Majors would have guessed that shit.

My son probably became obsessed with Star Wars at the age of 2. He loved Darth Vader. He used to tell me he was my father, like all the time, and he hadn’t even seen the movie, like I have no idea how he knew that line. He was pretty into Stormtroopers as well, but seemed to have no love for Luke Skywalker, and when I was 4, I was all about Luke Skywalker. I was very ‘good over evil’, but it was the 80’s and this is a different time. That said I was a little concerned how drawn to the dark side of the force my son was at such a young age. He seemed a bit like the type that would love to crush the rebellion in one fell swoop (see, I thought it was foul, but I didn’t know whether to spell it foul or fowl, so I googled it, and they were like ‘ACTUALLY…… it was originally FELL’, but that doesn’t sound as good because people I’m sure have been using ‘foul’ for ages now, perhaps in error, and I’m so committed to the line that I’ll just leave it as is, but with an explanation……or I can edit it later, and you’ll never know we had this conversation.) So we would have these light saber duels. He always wanted to do it. They kept getting bigger, and sometimes they weren’t even light sabers, but swords (toy swords of course), or baseball bats, or anything he could pick up and hand me, and he’d say “Let’s fight Daddy”. So we would duel, and he would put on his Darth Vader mask, and hit each other’s swords while he tried to intimidate me by saying all sorts of menacing things in his freaky little bad guy voice. If I had to do it over again I probably should have laid down and played dead at some point so he would think he won, but screw that, man. I’m not letting him win. He thinks he’s just going to defeat me in a battle and then take over the household, no way. So we’ve had a lot of sword fights in the past couple of years. His hand skills are well-developed for a toddler I think.

So today…… a couple of ‘characters’ showed up at this birthday party. The first was a Jedi Master. He was going to train these kids to become Jedi, and had them running and jumping and doing obstacle courses. Parents stood around making awkward conversations with other parents they had just met, but we all nodding in approval like ‘yeah these suckers are gonna sleep tonight!!!’ Then there was light saber training, where each kid would pick up a fake light saber and hit this guy’s light saber a few times. I knew my son would get a kick out of that. Then a guy dressed as Darth Vader came in, and the kids were super excited, and it was a really great kids party I thought. Then….. before the food, but just after Darth Vader had come in, the Jedi Master decides the kids should pit off against one another in light saber battles, and the winner was going to get a prize. Ughhhhh. Before I could get to my son to read him the riot act, he was paired off (with the birthday boy no less) for the first fight. It all happened so fast, like one of those early Mike Tyson fights. Like in the original Star Wars movie, my son was Darth Vader and this kid was the old version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. My son went in on this kid, and I just remember screaming “Not his head, not his head”, and then the kid started crying (maybe more from my screaming than any actual pain… they were fake light sabers), and then my son started crying because his friend was crying….. it was emotional. I was kind of embarrassed, but the birthday boy wasn’t hurt, and moved on pretty quickly, somehow won the prize (which was either always intended for the birthday boy, or given to him out of sympathy.)

It all got smoothed over quickly and we all enjoyed the rest of the party. Soon it was like it never happened, but in the car I could tell my son felt bad about it, and I thought it was a good teaching moment, but then I had to quickly figure out what I wanted the lesson to be. Be gentle?? I guess, but he was ASKED to engage in a light saber battle, and the winner was offered a prize. He tried his hardest to do what he was told to do, and I can’t really fault him for that. I did try to remind him that I’m 5 times his size, so when he hits me with a light saber, it doesn’t do as much damage as when he hits some 40 pound kid, so am I telling him to play down to his competition? Like not try his hardest when competing against someone who isn’t as good (by good I mean specifically at light saber fighting) as him? If he plays sports and he doesn’t try his best because he thinks the other team isn’t good, that will drive me nuts, so I don’t think that’s the lesson. For the purpose of this blog, I’ll say the lesson is ‘Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’, but I don’t know if a 4-year old can grasp that or not, so I just said ‘keep the light saber away from his head next time.’

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October 17, 2016

Hockey Dad

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

This isn’t about hockey dads. It’s about my dad….. and hockey. My father passed away 4 years ago today. I write a blog about him on this day every year. They started off really sad. Now it’s just random memories that I don’t want to forget. I know my last post was about my dad too, on what would have been his 80th birthday. Apologies to anyone who reads this blog, but I just haven’t been writing lately. I’m sleepy a lot. I like to doze off on the couch more than I like to write. Sad but true lately. Anyways, this isn’t about hockey dads. It’s about my dad….. and hockey. Oh I said that.

I went to the home opener of the Toronto Maple Leafs last night with my sister. The 100th season of the Toronto Maple Leafs, therefore the 100th home opener. It was a lot of fun. They paid tribute to a lot of the former Leaf greats. Players who had been honoured by the team in the past, but never got their numbers retired actually got their numbers retired, so no Maple Leaf player will ever wear those numbers again. Some great names…. Tim Horton (who coffee enthusiasts will know of), Bill Barilko (who Tragically Hip enthusiasts will know of), Ace Bailey (who I believe is my grandmother’s cousin, or something like that…. I should ask my mom to log onto ancestry.com to verify), Johnny Bower (who became a player scout when he was older, and my dad saw him in a half empty arena once, and sent me up to him to ask for his autograph even though I had no idea who he was at the time), Red Kelly (who served as a member of parliament while playing for the Leafs…Whaaaaa???? Did you know that? I just found out yesterday), Darryl Sittler and Borje Salming (who at the very moment I was old enough to start watching and understanding hockey, were basically the only 2 reasons to bother watching Leaf hockey, and more contemporary heroes like Doug Gilmour, Wendel Clark and Mats Sundin, among others. Such a fun presentation. Was totally worth missing a Toronto Blue Jays playoff game for.

But did I in fact miss a Toronto Blue Jays playoff game??? NO I DIDN’T, thanks to technology. What I’m about to say will not surprise anyone that is even the least bit astute when it comes to cell phones and technology, but I watched the game ON MY PHONE!!!! I never gave a shit about tech, but I just got my first iPhone, and stuff that was blowing you guys away 10 years ago is blowing me away right now. I was walking towards the arena with a crystal clear image of the Jays game ON MY PHONE. Like George fucking Jetson, I have arrived in the future!!!!!

Those seats we sat in were my dad’s seats. He was a season ticket holder for like everything. Leafs, Jays, Argos, The Royal Alexandra Theatre for crying out loud. The man loved his season ticket subscriptions. He didn’t go to all the games, but he knew enough people who would share the games with him, so he’d just go to a few, but he got all the season ticket holder perks. Once he was even the ‘season ticket holder of the game’ which is a nice honour for long time seat holders. They toured him around the building, introduced him to the crowd, and gave him a Leafs jersey with his name on the back. My sister was wearing it yesterday.

In the 80’s when times were good, my dad would get 11 pairs of tickets per season for himself. Always fair and equitable, that meant he would rotate who he took to the game. Between my mom, sister and I, it would be a 4-4-3 split. The person who only got the 3 games would get first choice, and would choose a premium opponent. The dream was to see a young Wayne Gretzky with the Edmonton Oilers, or maybe a game against the Montreal Canadians who were great non-division rivals. I always took 4 tickets. I didn’t care who they played. I was there to see the Leafs. A horrible fucking team for most of the 80’s but I (like my father before me) was a optomist, and always believed that they would win, even though their skill level was at a clear disadvantage pretty much every time they laced up their skates. Sometimes my mom would get lazy and just give me one of her games because she didn’t feel like going downtown, so if I played it right, I might have gone to 5 games a year. In 2016, if you want to know how much those particular seats cost for 11 games….. well you’d be well on your way to paying some kid’s college tuition I would think.

I loved EVERY weird part of that experience. From the minute we left the house. Even down to the car we drove. My dad used to work as a Fleet Administrator for a pharmaceutical company, and got a company car as part of the deal. It wasn’t always the same one though. If a different make or model came into the fleet, I suppose it was important for him to ‘test them out’, so you never knew what kind of car he was going to be driving. I loved sitting on the Gardiner in traffic, talking about the Leafs, and getting excited about the game. Parking like a kilometre away from Maple Leaf Gardens to save a couple of bucks, but it allowed for a nice walk in the city, which I otherwise never saw at that age. Walking through Maple Leaf Gardens, and looking at all the black and white photos of all the old Leaf players, and if we had time, stopping to look at each one. He would buy me a program every time, giving me yet another resource to fuel endless amounts of useless hockey information into my brain. We’d go out to our seats, and you could see the haze of cigarette smoke in the upper parts of the facility (I know it sounds disgusting, but I miss that smell). A few times if we got there really early, we might go down to the Gold section and watch the players shoot around. If you were standing in the right spot as they came off and asked the right guy for a hockey puck, you might get one. Now that I think of it, I have no idea how we pulled that off, but my dad was a really likeable guy, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for things. 5 minutes of chatting up an usher could always come in handy. I don’t think that’s why he did it. He just liked talking to people. I think the saying “The world is your oyster” is kind of dumb, but the world absolutely was my dad’s oyster, always. We’d go back up to the Green section to sit in our aisle seats right at center ice. We’d watch the game until the first intermission, and my dad would chat up another usher, always remembering their names and what they had talked about last time. Then if he saw I was getting too bored, he’d try to work me into the conversation. Then we’d watch the 2nd period, and after that was over, we’d go to the concession stand and buy Fruitella candy. So delicious, and I feel like it’s the only place I ever saw it. It might be in every store, but I only ever ate it at a hockey game. By the third period, somehow, the Leafs would always still be in the game. As horrible as this team was, they always played great when we were there. I remember it would drive my dad nuts when people would leave 3 or 4 minutes before the game was over just to beat the rush. We would always stay until the end, and then wait for the 3 stars of the game, and he’d take the heat from my mom if it was a school night. Then the long walk back to the car. At that age it felt cool to be walking around downtown late at night, like I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Then the drive home where we’d re-hash the night, or I’d nod off in the car.

It was all fucking perfect somehow. I miss my hockey dad.

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