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13 July 2005 - 16:03 I found this meme at Mark's place and found it kinda interesting... hmmm... maybe I'll get into the whole tagging malarky and challenge others to do the same... 20 years ago I was 14, living with my folks on a farm in Scotland. Sounds fantastic, eh? Images of kilts and crofting? Roaming the barren yet beautiful highlands, surveying the magnificent mountains whilst tending to sheep and hielan' coos? WRONG! My mother had decided that she would open a horse riding school. Sounds great, eh? Doesn't every 14 year old want their own pony? Images of absolute freedom, galloping thorugh the fields, eternal friendship with a four legged, hoofed, beastie? WRONG AGAIN!! There were, at it's peak, 16 of these four legged walking shit dispensers. And who the hell do you think was sent out in the depth of my fourteen year old winter to break ice and pick up the eternal dollops of poo? That's right? Instead of investigating the curly coarse hair that was growing in places which had previously been balder than Kojak, I was out scraping the muck from stalls, a northern sweatshop... Was I bitter? Hell yeah - I spent large parts of the day washing the smell of manure off me, and pulling dry hay-dust from places I thought were unreachable. I was a wee shit at school. I gave my parents such grief in my 15th - I discovered cigarettes... luckily hadn't discovered beer - that was a joy yet to come. On the other hand, I was becoming quite the accomplished musician. I was a grade 8 trumpet player - led the school orchestra, and would skip classes so that I could practice musical instruments like the piano... I was always passionate about my music... I feel bad for the things I put my folks through - the constant calls from the school - the disappearances. I know I was rebelling; Against what, I don't know... life... the fact that I didn't live in the city with the other kids. Hindsight is, of course 20/20 and I know now that I had it good. I had more opportunities at 14 then most. I was exposed to and experienced all kinds of good stuff, horsecrap aside! I was 19 and had hair down to my ass. I had discovered rock music and was determined to move to LA and create a trashy rock band to match Guns and Roses, LA Guns and Faster Pussycat... Rrrowl. I was transitioning between a theatre arts course I had taken (alongside a now-celebrity of Star Wars sized proportions) into University at Durham. I lived at home for the first pat of the year... the horses had, for the most part, gone. My mother had had enough by that point - and we were down to a couple which was much more manageable. The glue factory was in big business. OK - that was a sick joke. We ate them. No seriously. Some asian restaurants pay big bucks for hooves. No. Honestly. They were sold to caring homes. That's all you need to know. I had quit rebelling, although my appearance may have created a different impression. I was a mix of bandanas, pinstripe jackets, velvet pants, cowboy boots and silk polka-dot shirts... my dad hated it. My mother, a good time North American hippy, understood and kinda embraced it. I was dating a girl called Jane. She was a Rock Chick... and hot. She was one of the only girls I ever dated that my sister actually liked. I treated her horribly. Without knowing it. Well kinda. And kinda not... I went with her when she moved to Glasgow university to help her move in... once I did that, I climbed on the train back to Edinburgh went to a party at a rock club called "The Venue"... and ended up glammed to the hilt at a house party in Leith with two girls. Damn. Another regret. She was nice too. Last time I saw her was later that year. She invited me up to Glasgow to go watch Faster Pussycat and the Almighty... We had break-up sex before we'd broken up. And we knew that we'd never see each other again but never said it. I did start a band at Durham University along with a series of other misfits: Rick, Paul and Kevin... we were called "Width, Thrash and Dump"... we took the polite colleges of Durham Uni by storm. I got my head screwed over by a girl called Jacqui... again with the hindsight - probably some appropriate karma for the way I treated Jane. Had a bizarre one night stand with a nurse I met in a kebab line-up. She kicked me out of her dorm at the other end of the city at 6:30am... apparently the matron of the nursing college was pretty strict... she aksed me if I would teach her how to play pool... I don't remember her name, but I do recall that on the way home it snowed and I was unprepared for it. My room was the coolest in the hall of residence. I had a basement room with huge wooden beams that ran across the ceiling... it was the scene of mnay a silly, silly party. One time, my friend, Richard and I fired golf balls into the river Wear from our back garden, until he really connected and we heard the shattering of glass on the far side. We didn't do that any more. Looking back at that year, it seemed like fun... which is strange, because I get a big dark unhappy feeling when I remember that place. Oh - I got my one and only tattoo. It's a wee laughing fox on my shoulder. So NOT Guns and Roses, LA Guns or Faster Pussycat. It sometimes wierds me out that I graduated over 10 years ago. It seems like last year. This was the year afterward that. The hair had been levelled. I had noticed some grey coming through. My musical tastes had matured someone. My brother had given me "Waking Hours" by Del Amitri a couple of years earlier, and I had relearned that subtlies in music were actually quite appealing. I became a house owner for the first time. Penny Cottage in the wee Hamlet of Normanby-by-Spital, Lincolnshire. There was one street and one pub: The Bottle and Glass, then owned my Roy & Pat. A pint of hand-pulled John Smiths (heh - that sounds really, REALLY BAD - it's a beer) was �1.20. I was all grown up. I lived with Beverly, who would later go on to screw me over royally. We had cats. Marcie - rescued from a psychotic cat woman in a rough Lincoln housing estate... I sang with a band called Mr Hyde, who were really crap. But I joined them a year earlier, as their keyboard player. Then I pulled a coup and got their singer sacked so that I could!! Ha! I'm such an evil bastard! I left the Lincolnshire Youth service and went to work for the monopoly that was East Midlands Electricity... this is how I met Beverly. A quiet word of advice for single people. *ahem* NEVER EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER DATE SOMEONE YOU WORK WITH.But 1995 was a good year. It was a year with little incident. I was actually pretty happy. In my wee cottage in the Lincolnshire countryside. Probably the biggest year so far... I moved (back) to Canada... the high. The low? Yeah - most of you know. My sister got married. It was not a good year for marriages!!! That's such a tragic sentence but it just made me belly laugh. It was a year of absolute possibilities. A brand new start. I'll never forget the feeling of giving away the last of my keys on the day before I flew with Air France to Montr�al. I had no keys and next to nothing to call my own. I had sold all my furniture, my car, I reiterate: It was the most bizarre sensations. I said goodbye to a lot of people I cared about. I had seen my last Lincoln City football match. I had played my last gig with The Soul Solution a band I genuinely loved and gave all of myself to. And it was the biggest leap of faith I ever took. And, as it turns out, probably the finest decision to date. I took a 4 month vacation before 'settling' in Toronto and trying to find some kind of meaningful employment. Which was crap of an education. I felt like I was fresh off the boat - and even though I proudly held a Canadian passport, I was regarded very much as an immigrant, and was turned down time after time for jobs I was extremely well qualified with the excuse that I didn't have enough "Canadian Experience"... *insert jaw dropped face here* What the fuck was Canadian experience?? I eventually began to challenge people about this. One woman told me it was about geography and finding my way around. I told her that I owned a car and could quite happily navigate my way through the underground system to the office. ...and of course I smiled. Another told me that maybe I do things "differently from them". Um. Hello? Isn't Canada renouned and the envy of most of the western world for it's cultural diversity and acceptance of differences in culture and the such? I did land a job eventually co-ordinating some projects for an internet banking company. I did begin to rebuild. New car (Honda Civic hatch), a hoard of IKEA furniture... I once again had keys... Rented an attic apartment in the High Park area of Toronto... above a bunch of Swedish airline hostesses. At least that's what I thought they were. Maybe they were dutch. They would leave in blue air hostess uniforms. The apartment was at the top of an old Greek Couple's house. All of there furniture was covered in plastic. The heating system was a central vent that released hot air from a central source. I think it may have been connected to their oven or some sort of cooking device as my apartment smelled of perogies. Or greek cabbage... I almost ran into Marylin Manson on Queen Street... I wondered if I'd done the right thing in moving to Toronto. It wasn't so much my scene... I wouldn't have to wait long before getting out. I had discovered theater again. After a 12 year hiatus, I took to treading the boards as Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew... I played Eddie and Dr Scott in the Rocky Horror show. I was involved in my first fringe experience. I had also been laid off from my first major job and had gone through the ups and downs of job hunting in Montr�al. The good news is that I had learned about dealing with it through 'the first time' and of course, I wasn't faced with that whole "Canadian Experience" crap. I also had Jen, my partner in crime and everything else to keep some perspective. To help me up when I was down and to kick my procrastinating ass when I needed it. She moved in a year ago. It's been a pretty happy home since then... I flooped out of bed, after sleeping for about 1/2 hour due to the heinous humidity. The cat was grumpy. In a downright filthy mood. Yeowl. Yeowl. Yeowl. *breath* Yeowl. Yeowl. Yeowl. *breath* Yeowl. Yeowl. Yeowl. *breath* Yeowl. Yeowl. Yeowl. *breath* Jen had kissed me goodbye and headed out the West Island... I walked through the downtown core to the orifice. Where I spent a day contemplating wrist-slitting. (don't we all have days like that) Had a rehearsal with the SalC show which is going on at Ernie Butler's Comedy Nest Tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. I hadn't seen Jen since she left at 7.30 that morning... until I crawled into bed at 12:30 in semi-slumber state... Oh and I grossed her out with my description of my Mayonnaise/onion bread sandwiches. Yum. well... that was an experience... SO I will tag the following and challenge them to do the same. Um.... Jonas Parker is that all I have to do?? To, you know, "tag" someone?? How do you know if you've been "tagged"??
   My life is rated NC-17. What is your life rated? |
