Honesty is the best policy...

Which is why I was delighted to see the future of Canada, the youth of tomorrow, the next generation react with such brutal honesty to Stephen Harper's child care promises. I just wish he went for an eye or his larynx - you know, something more incapaciting. Because that's exactly what Harper's going to do to Canada. I'm glad our youth can see through his neo-con bullshit, because too many adults can't. Maybe there's hope for us yet.

People are strange...

When you're a stranger or when you're familiar. I was interviewed for a magazine called Virus (www.viruszine.com/_noise/2006/march/freepress/) and we started talking about the weird things that people say to each other. This happens minisculely more to me because I was on a television show. It doesn't really MEAN anything more, but people make assumptions about you or feel compelled to talk to you about nothing. Here's an average meeting with a stranger on the subway.

(J.D. reads on the subway platform. A young woman walks up to him and shifts around him, viewing him from as many as angles as possible to confirm his identity.)

Woman: Sorry to bug you, but aren't you on that show?

J.D.: Umm...Metropia?

Woman: Yes, yes!

J.D.: (Laughing) Yes.

Woman: And you play that guy!

J.D.: Garth.

Woman: Yes and you're dating that girl...that girl from the coffee shop!

J.D.: Marisa.

Woman: YES! I really like that show. But what's with your fiance?

(Uncomfortable silence and the train arrives, sparing J.D. from further conversation).

I have tried - on a few occasions - to try and explain that television is fiction. This only seems to confuse most people. To them, I am Garth. I am engaged to a woman that is cheating on me when I should be dating the lovely girl from the coffee shop who flirts shamelessy with me and I with her. It's strange. Even my family talks about that 'horrid' fiance of mine. Now, they know it's television, but they don't believe me when I say that my tv girlfriend is really a lovely woman with an hysterical sense of humour. "I'm sure she has a great sense of humour, but how can she cheat on you like that?" Forget it. God forbid I should end up playing a rapist or a child molestor in some movie. Yikes.

This is a tangent, but it's another instance of people just looking for something to say because I may or may not be famous. The other day, my girlfriend, Sara, was told by a woman (and granted, her musical tastes are probably more in the Gospel/R & B/Soul vein) the following about my singing:

Woman: His voice reminds me of...oooh...that guy...you know, the one with the gravelly voice? Ohh, what's his name. You know, the guy that likes America.

Sara: Bruce Springsteen?

Woman: YES!

For those of you who have heard me sing, you know this is something of a misnomer. I am to Bruce Springsteen as red is to blue. That is to say, completely different. I'll take the remark as a compliment, because the Boss has some serious soul, but I don't think I could sing like him if I tried. I'd have a better chance singing like Bjork (that is to say, strangling a cat inside my mouth while choking on a pair of fighting raccoons.)

We played at Healey's last night and we played 'Worst Case Scenario'. And we got to talking afterwards about an instance we had almost forgot. A woman approached us after we played and wanted to buy a copy of our cd. Of course we consented, because that's one of the points of making a cd. That is, getting people to buy it.

Woman: I really liked that last tune you guys played. What's it called again?

TFP: Worst Case Scenario.

Woman: Yeah. Is it on the record?

TFP: You betcha.

Woman: Great. Do you guys mind if I use it in my show?

TFP: You're in a show?

Woman: I'm an exotic dancer.

(A pause).

TFP: By all means. Use the tune. Make it famous.

And here there's a differing of remembrance (the band is divided into two camps - those that remember her just being a stripper and those that remember mention of some kind of jungle cat that was also in the act). Regardless, fame - in however small a capacity - convinces people to stay strange, strange stuff.

I've Been Up All Night...

And I might sleep all day
Get your dreams just right
Don't let 'em slip away

So, it's 11:10 am and I haven't been to bed yet. This is nothing new for me. It's getting tiring though (ha ha). I've been trying to work the line "Insomniacs who drift and daydream of sleep" into a song for a few years now, but I can't find a place for it. Anyway, I always get like this when I finish a job. It's amazing what the mind and the human body will do when there's nothing to anchor it in time or routine. And that's where I find myself now. Flipping channels, obsessively checking email at 5am (Who the hell - besides a pharmaceutical company - is going to email me at 5am?) and conceiving strange, strange ideas for stories and songs.

I went for a walk just now and it probably wasn't a good idea. I thought it would wear me out, but it just increased the stimuli to my brain. I had a strange, strange story idea worked out about a man who decides to become a Beekeeper because bees (for whatever reason) just won't sting him. Scientists study him and test him and try to determine if he's got some extra gene or emits some altered pheremone that placates bees. Anyway, he goes merrily through life until one spring when he goes to get the honey, half the colony stings the son of a bitch and he dies because it turns out he's allergic to bees. With all the testing and all the research, no one thought to check and see if he was allergic. They just assumed that since he was a beekeeper, he was fine. But life giveth and life taketh away.

If that was a dream, I'd be disturbed. But because I'm awake (although I question lucid) it seems like some kind of moral fairytale. What's more disturbing is what passes for news today. Someone in the Toronto Star is up in arms because they renewed Paul Abduul's contract on American Idol for three more years. Apparently she makes no sense and lowers the IQ of the show. Given the intellectual loftiness of the show, I wonder if the writer sees the irony in the article. It's like a midget bitching that all the light switches are too low.

There was also a ridiculous segment on CityTV about raccoon excrement and how it's bad for you or your animal to ingest. Seriously? I'll have to re-think dinner tonight then, because we sure were having raccoon shit l'orange. It was followed by an article that said cell phones might give you brain cancer. Wow. Really? Apparently the Swedes conducted an extensive survey and it's true! Nevermind that the other 19 studies have been inconclusive. The Swedes should stick to hockey and making assemblable furniture.

Well, it's 12:35 now. I can't decide on a grilled cheese or a long nap. I'll just start walking downstairs and if you haven't heard from me by tomorrow, call an ambulance. I'm probably broken and bleeding just inside the front door.

Hammy Hampster

I was discussing the adventures of Hammy Hamster and GP the Guinea Pig just a few days ago; remembering fondly the little props they had glued or stapled to their feet and the small pieces of decorative clothing they had cruelly fastened to their head or torso. I'm not for animal cruelty, but something about an image of GP in a row boat with two little oars stuck to his hands just makes me smile. Anyway, I found this today and sprayed Pepsi out my nose while I watched it. Coming soon to America's Funniest Home Videos.