Friday, September 26, 2014
First Dog on the Moon: Isis' Letter To The West
Classic offering from The Guardian's First Dog on the Moon.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Scotch bar cites “dress code”, tosses kilted Grinch
So here’s one for ya.
Last Thursday 4.4 million Scots voted in a referendum to decide whether to yank the U outta UK, kick the Queen to the curb and go independent. As yer Grinch is Edinburgh sired and papered, he’s a degree of emotional investment in the decision and no strong opinions on the matter one way or the other. A she-kin reduced the possible severing of a 300-year-old relationship to the quandary any bar rat familiar with Last Call can relate to: “Heart says Yes, Brain says No”.
So I decided with a small group of like-minded Scotsmen and Anglos to meet at our local establishment for some discount libations before motoring over to a swanky whisky joint called Nip&Dram (#nipanddram) to mull early results over glasses of liquid fire culled from their (claimed) 400+ bottles of Scotch. I’d been meaning to attend the place for many months as I’ve had a twenty-year fling with single malt and thought it would be nice to meet some fellow travelers, have a cigar and chill.
It being a special occasion I wore my kilt and sporran with Doc Martens and a black-T.
1030ish we drift down to the Landmark Centre in ones and twos. The first hint something was off came when I discovered a gal-pal and her boy languishing in the parking area; refused entry because he’s in shorts and sandals. “Well… aye, I can see how a small, high end club might have a problem with that. Pity though… maybe next time!”
So yer correspondent rocks up, acknowledges the Meathead in a safari suit at the door, and is ushered inside where he’s greeted by two young women in LBDs and heels, one clutching a menu board. I catch my highland pal’s eye across the room; he’s comfortably ensconced with friends listening to the jazz trio opposite, and I make to join them. At which point menu board tells me I’m not allowed in because I’m wearing shorts. Clearly there’s some sort of misunderstanding, laughs I. Surely you recognize this as a kilt, formal attire worn by the male of the species in the lands from whence virtually your entire product line and by extension your current employment, hail! Let me speak to your manager.
The manager, no doubt a reasonable woman, a seasoned veteran of the higher ends of the hospitality industry here and abroad is just the person to see at a thirsty time like this, no? No. “We have a strict dress code and you cannot come in dressed like that,” says she, as Meathead #2 slips into the shadows off my starboard.
You understand that’s like telling a Javanese guy he’s not welcome at the wedding because he’s wearing a batik shirt, right?
Murrmmurr murmmer murmmmur
I’m still laughing when my pal ambles up, asks what’s the matter and makes to call the owner/partner at who’s invitation we’ve come this night. I tell him not to waste a dime because even if I get the green light I’d rather take power tools to my kilted goolies than put money in these fucker’s pockets. Poor fella has just got his obscenely-priced glass of hooch so I tell him to chill with our friends, I’ll wait car.
My pal the security guard Surya is a bit shocked to see me back so soon. He’d been surprised to see a whitey driving a car, let alone one who climbed out wearing a skirt. So I’d taken a couple minutes to educate him on the kilt in terms he’d grok. When I told him I’d been refused entry he was quite literally gobsmacked: he stood there for several moments with his mouth hanging open.
My buddy showed up not long after with the manager in tow: “She’s going to apologize to you now,” says he.
Which she did. Very sorry for the misunderstanding. Please come back… durka durka durka… and I started to think, okay, don’t be a complete ass, Grinch. If you don’t want to go, be gruff and gracious and accept her apology, she’s just a minion after all etc. And then she said the most amazing thing, words to the effect, “We’ll waive the rules this time” (presumably by order of the boss).
Charming, eh?
So, let me get this straight, you’ll let me in tonight but the next time a sober, well-heeled Scottish guy in a kilt shows up at your bar, whose reason for existing is to market and sell Scottish whisky, you’ll not let him in?
I laughed, told her hell would freeze before I’d set foot in her (strangled obscenity) of a bar. Then loaded up the rest who couldn’t be bothered staying, pointed wheels north and ten mins later landed back in the warm bosom of my local, sharing glasses of Quarter-cask Laphroaig with proper friends.
As for Drip and Dram? Well, y’all can…
Last Thursday 4.4 million Scots voted in a referendum to decide whether to yank the U outta UK, kick the Queen to the curb and go independent. As yer Grinch is Edinburgh sired and papered, he’s a degree of emotional investment in the decision and no strong opinions on the matter one way or the other. A she-kin reduced the possible severing of a 300-year-old relationship to the quandary any bar rat familiar with Last Call can relate to: “Heart says Yes, Brain says No”.
So I decided with a small group of like-minded Scotsmen and Anglos to meet at our local establishment for some discount libations before motoring over to a swanky whisky joint called Nip&Dram (#nipanddram) to mull early results over glasses of liquid fire culled from their (claimed) 400+ bottles of Scotch. I’d been meaning to attend the place for many months as I’ve had a twenty-year fling with single malt and thought it would be nice to meet some fellow travelers, have a cigar and chill.
It being a special occasion I wore my kilt and sporran with Doc Martens and a black-T.
1030ish we drift down to the Landmark Centre in ones and twos. The first hint something was off came when I discovered a gal-pal and her boy languishing in the parking area; refused entry because he’s in shorts and sandals. “Well… aye, I can see how a small, high end club might have a problem with that. Pity though… maybe next time!”
So yer correspondent rocks up, acknowledges the Meathead in a safari suit at the door, and is ushered inside where he’s greeted by two young women in LBDs and heels, one clutching a menu board. I catch my highland pal’s eye across the room; he’s comfortably ensconced with friends listening to the jazz trio opposite, and I make to join them. At which point menu board tells me I’m not allowed in because I’m wearing shorts. Clearly there’s some sort of misunderstanding, laughs I. Surely you recognize this as a kilt, formal attire worn by the male of the species in the lands from whence virtually your entire product line and by extension your current employment, hail! Let me speak to your manager.
You understand that’s like telling a Javanese guy he’s not welcome at the wedding because he’s wearing a batik shirt, right?
Murrmmurr murmmer murmmmur
I’m still laughing when my pal ambles up, asks what’s the matter and makes to call the owner/partner at who’s invitation we’ve come this night. I tell him not to waste a dime because even if I get the green light I’d rather take power tools to my kilted goolies than put money in these fucker’s pockets. Poor fella has just got his obscenely-priced glass of hooch so I tell him to chill with our friends, I’ll wait car.
My pal the security guard Surya is a bit shocked to see me back so soon. He’d been surprised to see a whitey driving a car, let alone one who climbed out wearing a skirt. So I’d taken a couple minutes to educate him on the kilt in terms he’d grok. When I told him I’d been refused entry he was quite literally gobsmacked: he stood there for several moments with his mouth hanging open.
My buddy showed up not long after with the manager in tow: “She’s going to apologize to you now,” says he.
Which she did. Very sorry for the misunderstanding. Please come back… durka durka durka… and I started to think, okay, don’t be a complete ass, Grinch. If you don’t want to go, be gruff and gracious and accept her apology, she’s just a minion after all etc. And then she said the most amazing thing, words to the effect, “We’ll waive the rules this time” (presumably by order of the boss).
Charming, eh?
So, let me get this straight, you’ll let me in tonight but the next time a sober, well-heeled Scottish guy in a kilt shows up at your bar, whose reason for existing is to market and sell Scottish whisky, you’ll not let him in?
I laughed, told her hell would freeze before I’d set foot in her (strangled obscenity) of a bar. Then loaded up the rest who couldn’t be bothered staying, pointed wheels north and ten mins later landed back in the warm bosom of my local, sharing glasses of Quarter-cask Laphroaig with proper friends.
As for Drip and Dram? Well, y’all can…
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
25 things you never wanted to know about Grinch On Tour
A while back - prodded by a social media 'poke' - I wrote 25 random things about myself. Here's that bit of navel gazing five years on.
1. I almost died of exposure as a child when my just-off-the-BOAC Dad and his just-off-the-coal-scow Welsh buddy took me hunting in the middle of a Manitoba winter and got stuck many miles up a disused logging road. As dark and almost certain death by exposure loomed, hero Dad flagged down a truckload of hydro workers who literally lifted our station wagon and pointed it in the right direction. A year later I fell through the ice in a pond behind my apartment building. In addition to being first in a long line of near-death experiences these incidents and Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon are among my earliest memories.
2. I write, carry a hammer and wear a watch on my right hand, but I throw, draw an arrow and lift heavy objects with my left. I punch and kick with either.
3. I can spit further and whistle louder than anyone I know.
4. For as long as I can remember I have spent idle moments I drawing imaginary lines of infinite length through the 90-degree angles formed by tiles so that my eyes pinball around the ceiling or floor until they finally arrive in a dead-end corner. Then I retrace/unravel the pattern. This hypnotic activity keeps me captivated for hours.
5. I feel like a Guy Lafleur soul trapped in a Gille Lubien body: if I have to explain that then fuggedaboudit.
6. At least once a month since I was a child I get the sensation that I'm a nano-second out of phase with the world around me. Ambient sounds echo in my head, my peripheral vision blurs and I become a detached third-party observer to what I'm doing. It can take hours for this sensation to pass.
7. I've always wanted hair like Jimmy Page (or Tony Alva).
8. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think about Trudy (The Wonder Dog) and the way the light in her cataract-green eyes faded and died as I held her in my arms.
9. The Life of Brian was the funniest movie released in 1979, perhaps the single greatest year for comedies: The Jerk, Richard Pryor Live in Concert, 10, Being There, Manhattan, Meatballs, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, 1941 etc.
10. I graduated high school because I could crib a year's worth of theorems or irregular Spanish verbs onto a 2cm x 2cm square of paper with an architect's pencil.
11. I spent a couple of years in my 20s playing Dungeons & Dragons in my buddy Ed's basement: Sunday noon-till-midnight marathons and at least one other day each week. When Tolgar, my righteous, ass-whuppin' Level 16 Paladin was seduced by a horny +24 Charisma wood nymph and vanished into a forest permanently I realized it was time to do something more productive with my life.
12. I never received a copy of my university diploma so I'm not even sure I officially graduated.
13. My first job was as a nine year old picking up newspapers on garbage nights in Montreal for a recycling venture an elder (like, 16) had cooked up. Around the same time I picked up my first Montreal Star paper route. Since then I have: delivered groceries on a 3-wheeled bike, tele-marketed (briefly), recycled newspapers, sharpened skates & sold sports ware, worked in numerous restaurants and bars, split wood, hauled lumber, loaded fat tourists on ski lifts, stocked supermarket shelves at night, made pizza, sold produce, worked as a courier, been a carpenters apprentice, painted many, many homes, committed journalism, worked as a carny, picked grapes (France), peaches, apples and tomatoes (B.C.), managed projects worth millions of dollars and been a tour guide at a Cognac factory. I imagine there’s a few others I’ve forgotten along the way. Ironically, at this time in my life I have a lot of trouble answering the question: “So, what do you do?” and its corollary, "where are you from?"
14. Weed makes me sleep (so what's the point), I dislike the artificial intimacy of club-drugs and 'shrooms take me places I don't wanna go, but I will always have a sweet spot for LSD-25 or a piece of Afghan black.
15. Once upon a time, someone (some group of people more likely) stenciled distinctive bird silhouettes on hundreds of highway overpasses and bridges across Eastern Canada. A guy at a Sally-An soup kitchen in Sudbury, Ontario, was the first to tell me the combinations of birds (sparrows, gulls, eagles, robins etc.) were a code for hitchhikers. One of my great regrets is that years on the thumb and many thousands of miles later I've never met anyone who claimed to be able to read 'em, and the images themselves are long gone.
16. I pepper casual conversation with references to movies, episodes of M*A*S*H*, All in The Family, Taxi and WKRP among others, song lyrics, arcane advertising slogans and other pop culture detritus that no one (except my buddy Marty) ever “gets” but amuse the hell out of me.
17. In my experience when a journalist says "If both sides are pissed off then I must be doing my job well" the opposite is often the case.
18. "It's astounding" but I can still remember the words/crowd responses to most of the songs in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
19. I believe there is no greater threat to personal freedom than social orthodoxies and prejudices buttressed by religion in the hands of a Charismatic.
20. I have never been happier than during my solo bike trip across North America on a beat-up 1000cc Yamaha Virago that literally disintegrated 45 minutes from the end of an 8,000km journey.
21. Being a freelance journalist in Asia is the greatest job on earth. Being a freelance journalist in Asia is the worst job on earth. This is not a contradiction.
22. I'm a fan of things that require no improvement: 10-year-old Laphroaig quarter cask and good Cuban cigars; the Coleman cooler; knee-high Sorels; CCM Super-Tacks, ACS 651 skateboard trucks and Salomon 747Equipe ski bindings; my 20" iMac, the basic Bic ballpoint and lighter; Volvo D240 station wagon; the combination of a black cotton t-shirt, 501s and Dayton boots; the roll-up crazy carpet snow sled; Export-A rolling papers and, the wooden-handled 4-inch Mora belt-knife.
23. If I could go back and do it all over again I would try not to be such a complete asshole to my parents during the worst of my hormonal teenage years.
24. I'm enjoying watching my face age. From the time I got my first line at 21/22, I've tried to imagine what I’d look like at 80. I even started a scrap book of head-shots – one per page – for ever year starting in 1965 to see the progression: its in a filing cabinet I've not seen in 10 years, 12,000km from my current locale. Now pushing 50 I'm generally satisfied with the pace of decay but would dearly love to drop this last 15 pounds so I can get into a size 32.
25. At the end of it all, I want a proper Irish wake; laid out on the table, lotsa whiskey and poitÃn, singing, coins on the eyes, candles and photographs and stopped clocks and smoking, much gnashing and wailing and lamentations and laughter, and carousing in the shadows. I've even got an informal list of songs I want played but I'm careful to never settle on more than nine: why tempt fate, eh?
1. I almost died of exposure as a child when my just-off-the-BOAC Dad and his just-off-the-coal-scow Welsh buddy took me hunting in the middle of a Manitoba winter and got stuck many miles up a disused logging road. As dark and almost certain death by exposure loomed, hero Dad flagged down a truckload of hydro workers who literally lifted our station wagon and pointed it in the right direction. A year later I fell through the ice in a pond behind my apartment building. In addition to being first in a long line of near-death experiences these incidents and Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon are among my earliest memories.
2. I write, carry a hammer and wear a watch on my right hand, but I throw, draw an arrow and lift heavy objects with my left. I punch and kick with either.
3. I can spit further and whistle louder than anyone I know.
4. For as long as I can remember I have spent idle moments I drawing imaginary lines of infinite length through the 90-degree angles formed by tiles so that my eyes pinball around the ceiling or floor until they finally arrive in a dead-end corner. Then I retrace/unravel the pattern. This hypnotic activity keeps me captivated for hours.
5. I feel like a Guy Lafleur soul trapped in a Gille Lubien body: if I have to explain that then fuggedaboudit.
6. At least once a month since I was a child I get the sensation that I'm a nano-second out of phase with the world around me. Ambient sounds echo in my head, my peripheral vision blurs and I become a detached third-party observer to what I'm doing. It can take hours for this sensation to pass.
7. I've always wanted hair like Jimmy Page (or Tony Alva).
8. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think about Trudy (The Wonder Dog) and the way the light in her cataract-green eyes faded and died as I held her in my arms.
9. The Life of Brian was the funniest movie released in 1979, perhaps the single greatest year for comedies: The Jerk, Richard Pryor Live in Concert, 10, Being There, Manhattan, Meatballs, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, 1941 etc.
10. I graduated high school because I could crib a year's worth of theorems or irregular Spanish verbs onto a 2cm x 2cm square of paper with an architect's pencil.
11. I spent a couple of years in my 20s playing Dungeons & Dragons in my buddy Ed's basement: Sunday noon-till-midnight marathons and at least one other day each week. When Tolgar, my righteous, ass-whuppin' Level 16 Paladin was seduced by a horny +24 Charisma wood nymph and vanished into a forest permanently I realized it was time to do something more productive with my life.
12. I never received a copy of my university diploma so I'm not even sure I officially graduated.
13. My first job was as a nine year old picking up newspapers on garbage nights in Montreal for a recycling venture an elder (like, 16) had cooked up. Around the same time I picked up my first Montreal Star paper route. Since then I have: delivered groceries on a 3-wheeled bike, tele-marketed (briefly), recycled newspapers, sharpened skates & sold sports ware, worked in numerous restaurants and bars, split wood, hauled lumber, loaded fat tourists on ski lifts, stocked supermarket shelves at night, made pizza, sold produce, worked as a courier, been a carpenters apprentice, painted many, many homes, committed journalism, worked as a carny, picked grapes (France), peaches, apples and tomatoes (B.C.), managed projects worth millions of dollars and been a tour guide at a Cognac factory. I imagine there’s a few others I’ve forgotten along the way. Ironically, at this time in my life I have a lot of trouble answering the question: “So, what do you do?” and its corollary, "where are you from?"
14. Weed makes me sleep (so what's the point), I dislike the artificial intimacy of club-drugs and 'shrooms take me places I don't wanna go, but I will always have a sweet spot for LSD-25 or a piece of Afghan black.
15. Once upon a time, someone (some group of people more likely) stenciled distinctive bird silhouettes on hundreds of highway overpasses and bridges across Eastern Canada. A guy at a Sally-An soup kitchen in Sudbury, Ontario, was the first to tell me the combinations of birds (sparrows, gulls, eagles, robins etc.) were a code for hitchhikers. One of my great regrets is that years on the thumb and many thousands of miles later I've never met anyone who claimed to be able to read 'em, and the images themselves are long gone.
16. I pepper casual conversation with references to movies, episodes of M*A*S*H*, All in The Family, Taxi and WKRP among others, song lyrics, arcane advertising slogans and other pop culture detritus that no one (except my buddy Marty) ever “gets” but amuse the hell out of me.
17. In my experience when a journalist says "If both sides are pissed off then I must be doing my job well" the opposite is often the case.
18. "It's astounding" but I can still remember the words/crowd responses to most of the songs in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
19. I believe there is no greater threat to personal freedom than social orthodoxies and prejudices buttressed by religion in the hands of a Charismatic.
20. I have never been happier than during my solo bike trip across North America on a beat-up 1000cc Yamaha Virago that literally disintegrated 45 minutes from the end of an 8,000km journey.
21. Being a freelance journalist in Asia is the greatest job on earth. Being a freelance journalist in Asia is the worst job on earth. This is not a contradiction.
22. I'm a fan of things that require no improvement: 10-year-old Laphroaig quarter cask and good Cuban cigars; the Coleman cooler; knee-high Sorels; CCM Super-Tacks, ACS 651 skateboard trucks and Salomon 747Equipe ski bindings; my 20" iMac, the basic Bic ballpoint and lighter; Volvo D240 station wagon; the combination of a black cotton t-shirt, 501s and Dayton boots; the roll-up crazy carpet snow sled; Export-A rolling papers and, the wooden-handled 4-inch Mora belt-knife.
23. If I could go back and do it all over again I would try not to be such a complete asshole to my parents during the worst of my hormonal teenage years.
24. I'm enjoying watching my face age. From the time I got my first line at 21/22, I've tried to imagine what I’d look like at 80. I even started a scrap book of head-shots – one per page – for ever year starting in 1965 to see the progression: its in a filing cabinet I've not seen in 10 years, 12,000km from my current locale. Now pushing 50 I'm generally satisfied with the pace of decay but would dearly love to drop this last 15 pounds so I can get into a size 32.
25. At the end of it all, I want a proper Irish wake; laid out on the table, lotsa whiskey and poitÃn, singing, coins on the eyes, candles and photographs and stopped clocks and smoking, much gnashing and wailing and lamentations and laughter, and carousing in the shadows. I've even got an informal list of songs I want played but I'm careful to never settle on more than nine: why tempt fate, eh?
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