Archive for March, 2005

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Presley Grace

March 22, 2005

presleygrace_mommyPresley Grace Fredrickson was born March 20th at approximately 1:40pm at the Rockyview General hospital.  She weighs 6.5lbs, which is pretty darn good for someone who wanted out of the pod a month early.  Mommy is doing great.  Camden is still trying to figure what just happened.

Daddy is in Toronto and has the London leg of his tour left.

presley_first_phone_callFamily is taking care of everything, and I would like to extend thanks to everyone and their support. Trinda, Camden, and Presley are in very capable hands and they all know how much I love them all.  I’ve been pretty much told to finish what I need to do here.

It’s kind of cool though, to have such a life experience embedded in a life experience.  I talked to my daughter for the fist time in Peter’s kitchen.  When I heard her crying in the background, boom, waterworks for Mr. Daddy. I got to talk to her when she was crying, the stringbean stopped as soon as she heard my voice and let out a couple of screeches in response.  What a sweetheart.

Life is awesome.

Watch “I ♥ Huckabees”, a great flick on existentialism.  Existentialism 101 by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.

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Thursday In Mississauga

March 18, 2005

I haven’t really left the room today.  It seems that Mississauga is right outside this hotel, all around it.  I’m not sure how it happened, but it’s out there.  Personally I don’t have anything really against Missisauga, but I really don’t have anything about Mississauga that inspires me either.  Let’s call it a draw.  I’ll Forrest Gump this leg of the tour.  When I’m hungry, I’ll eat.  When I’m tired I’ll sleep.  When I have to do stand up, I’ll go do stand up.  And I’ll run everywhere I go wearing my shirt buttoned all the way up.

Blech.  Not much to add.  Thursdays.  Thursdays make me want to gnash my teeth. GNASH!  GNASH!  THURSDAY!  GNASH!

I have pictures of stuff, I have to get home to upload them, I left the cable there.  Home. It has such a nice ring to it.  Home. Such juxtiposition against “Thursday” and it’s cold embrace.

I think Mississauga is a nice place.  I can see it from here.  There’s a window in the room.  I don’t have anything at all to write, and yet I continue.  It’s one of the many hazards of connecting to the internet.  You’re there, may as well spew off rambling senseless crap.  Maybe go off and read someone else’s rambling senseless crap.  Maybe I can buy some senseless crap.  Just get online, send off a couple emails about some senseless crap that someone forwarded to me.

Ramble ramble ramble…GNASH!

Man, and it’s FRIDAY, not Thursday.  This is what Thursday’s do to you.  Damn that Thor.  Damn his day.

GNASH!

Oh yeah.  I met mark Mckinney yesterday.  Nice kid.

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Without Relent

March 17, 2005

Yesterday went well, more Toronto covered.  After the sushi, coffee, and a nap I did a spot at the downtown Yuk Yuks.  It’s refreshing to see that Wednesday crowds are as amazing as back in Calgary.  Yessir, a raucous bunch who didn’t let up laughter until the night was over.  They continued their applause for what seemed an eternity.  Wolf whistles, panties thrown at the stage, people passing out…

Yep, it was something else.

So after we got down from being carried around on people’s shoulders we headed over to Spirits.  I got five minutes stage time later in the evening where the people, my god the people.  There must have been five hundred people crammed into there.  How could I NOT go on with them chanting my name.  I thought for sure it was a fire hazard, but apparently some people had camped out for several days just to see me.  Well, I’m not one to disappoint.  Dan Gordon warmed them up sufficiently, I didn’t know if I could follow – they just wouldn’t let him leave the stage.  My dear God, the love that was shared!

…and then we ate polish sausages from some meat selling guy.

Second day in Toronto – filled with sarcasm.

The shows went well.  It’s an underrated feeling, “well”.  It’s like having a nice tall glass filled with lukewarm water.  Not bad, but it’s kinda feels like drinking piss without the salty

The weekend approaches.

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Toronto Virginity – Gone

March 16, 2005

toronto_skylineSo this is Toronto.

I’m well into my second day here having had an odd experience eating sushi with Peter Anthony.  There is a place near his where they make some outstanding dishes. The service was complete with a poor waiter who had literally just got off the boat; we actually helped him with his bags.  The guy was super nice and the food was fantastic, it could have only been better if he had a clue what we were trying to order.  We wanted to share a plate with the regular assortment of fish flesh, underwater foliage, green hot paste, and rice.  The confusing part was the soup and salad that came with the order.  Peter in his maniacal state, asked nonchalantly to magically turn the soup into a salad as well so we could both enjoy the exact same meal. four salads What was he thinking?  What kind of person does this?  It made no sense, what did we want again?  Four salads?  Of course.  That had to be it.  So the polite, bespectacled waiter sloshed off in his still drying, ocean water soaked shoes to get us four salads.  This is exactly what we wanted after all.  I won’t mention what happened what happened when I asked for water AND green tea for both of us…and the ‘jug’ of water request from Peter.

He got a nice tip, I’m not a dick.

After the crazy night at the airport waiting for my flight to Toronto, all is more that I could expect. <That's right - Hot AND Sexy I hitched a ride with my father in law at about 10:00pm being my flight didn’t leave until 6:00 am, I had to be there for 5:00am, whoever would have given me a ride in the morning would have had to be up at about 4:30am.  No good.  Think about getting an 8.99 month pregnant woman (a very hot and sexy woman may I add) out of bed, heartburn, ongoing cough due to cold and all.  Get the same pregnant (hot and sexy) woman to wake up the two year old, who is ALWAYS pleasant when he low on sleep, get ready and drive daddy to the airport.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  So I went with a night at the airport.  I am lucky my day job has a good drug plan.  That’s all I’m saying about that.

Question: Are airports always under construction?

Peter gave me the quick and dirty tour of Toronto.  I think tours of Toronto are probably always dirty, regardless of the time spent.  After eagerly piling into a double fistful of spicy East Indian Roti and a damaging round of Texas Hold ’em with Peter’s roommate Christian Hopson and their buddy, Eric Bowden (both goodfellas), Peter and I went off to the Underground Garage.  It was pretty empty at 10:00pm. Picnics Gone Wild We were the first there. Very pubby with low light ambience, Polaroid’s as wallpaper, an amorous aromatic mix of nutty beer and bleach cleaned hardwood floors, with the piece de resistance of misplaced bras lining the bar ceiling.  Sort of a slut couture I suppose.  But it wasn’t a sleaze place, don’t get me wrong, the only sleaze would have been the newly jiggle tatted skink (skank plural) who did NOT make any appearances that I could smell.  I wonder what those poor sluts wake up to the next day after something like that. “Jesus.  What happened last night?  Who are you…and you…and you…what is that taste in my mouth?  It tastes like day old stale pickled ass.  AND WHERE IS MY BRA?!?  Whew, that’s right, I took it off at the bar when it got all itchy and respectable.  What is that shoved up my…?”

Freddy in action - Hot AND SexyWhat would have been an early night turned into a rocking eve with the advent of the comedic contingent. John Dore, Tim Rabnutt, and Steve Dylan Patterson made the grand entrance forever changing my Toronto experience.  “Of all the bars…”  Maybe it was the microphones.  Maybe it was the demonic rhythms pulsating from the jam session, maybe it was the incessant cajoling of Peter, but Freddy brought out the ‘no harmonica’ harmonica.  The backup accompaniment took a 180 at the realization that no one was doing vocals.  I tore into a fifteen minute song I call “Done Too Much”.  An eloquent and universal hymn singing the praises of going way the f*ck overboard.

Toronto rocks.

Revelation: Frozen orange juice mix should ONLY be prepared in a blender.

Day one point five…done.