Jasen Fredrickson

So 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.  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. < 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.  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…?”

What 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.