Not For The Faint-Hearted!

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Pee now. It's a long one.

What is it with guys who wear sandals all-year round? Don’t your toes get cold? I’m standing in the U.S. customs line at the Halifax airport on my way to Australia, and the dude in front of me has flip flips on. In January. In Halifax. In Canada. And to top it off, his toes are ugly. He had weirdly curved nails that had kinda yellowed. Well, let’s face it, most of us have pretty ugly feet – I had a blackened big toe nail that I damaged while jogging in shoes that were too small for me. But I spared the entire world the sight of it by not wearing sandals or flip-flops. I have a good heart. But not this guy. Noooo, his comfort comes before others’ nausea. This is just one reason why I hate to fly.

I have flown quite a bit in my life, but especially in the past 3 years since I’ve worked on ships. I’m lucky in that I have no fear of it at all, and I don’t suffer much with my ears, unless I’m sick. But in the past, well – let’s say 2 months, I have had so many bad experiences at airports and on planes that I really dread flying the friendly skies. Maybe things would have been better if Air Canada employees were actually versed in civility and common decency. It’s as if there are about 6 brains to go around. What you are about to read is a story so horrifying, so ghastly, and frankly, so long (sorry…) that it may dissuade you from ever stepping foot on a plane ever again. At least an Air Canada plane.

The following cautionary tale contains coarse language. Parental discretion is advised.

I was flying from Montreal to Halifax to spend Christmas with the ‘rents. I had purchased this ticket 3 months in advance (since I was leaving on the 22nd of Decmeber – I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to cost me the equivalent of a condo in Manila). I spent a lovely night at my ex rickyd and his fiancé Photi’s house, and slept in the living room cuddling with my dog Buster so I wouldn’t have to go traipsing from the guest bedroom in the back of the house with my 429 pounds of luggage at whatever ungodly hour. The next morning, as I tore myself out of bed at 5 am for my 10 am flight, I looked outside the window to see a thick blanket of snow covering the streets. I dutifully checked the Air Canada website which told me my flight was cancelled. Fair enough. White shit happens. The website said to call the airline to find out what to do in such a case. I did so. I waited on the line listening to insipid musak for 2 hours. 2. Hours. T.W.O.H.O.U.R.S! Meanwhile, my dog Buster was doing the feed-me-I-gotta-pee-feed-me-i-gotta-pee dance around my ankles. (I didn’t want to let Buster out, because the other 2 dogs were asleep in rickyd and Photi’s room, If I’d put him outsde, Flora and Guinness would be doing the me-too-feed-me-I-gotta-pee-what’s-going-on-out-there dance, scratching at the door and causing a general disturbance.) So at 7 o’clock, I decided to call a cab, said a tearful goodbye to Buster, and headed to the airport where I would takes my chances. (Goodbyes are always tearful with Buster. He’s a 12-year old wise-as-the-ages devious-as-a-serial-killer Lab, who, despite being in fantastic health, has lived through 2 cancers and countless ear infections. Our Gay Poster Boy vet switched him to a vegetarian diet, and the ears cleared up. Like fathers like son.)

The airport is a fucking zoo. Since I don’t swear too often in print, let me say it again. The airport is a fucking fucking fucking zoo. At least a thousand people are crowded into this confusing and poorly laid-out terminal. There are no AC (let me abbreviate Air Canada from now on so I don’t have to throw up a little in my mouth every time I type it) employees on the floor anywhere, but a lot of high school dropouts in yellow t-shirts are handing out Ziploc baggies in which to put your carry-on liquids. Yeah, like any one is going to get to use them today. (This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is your tax dollars at work.) I ask 3 different people which mile-long line to stand in, and get 3 different answers. So I flip a coin (a 3 headed coin) and decide on the ticket counter. There are probably about 100 people in the queue and 2 people at the desk. Two. People. T.W.O.P.E.O.P.L.E! Luckily, I have the latest issue of Men’s Health and my Ipod so I am prepared. (Note – why does the Spellcheck on my MacBook list Ipod as an incorrectly spelled word? For that matter, why is MacBook?) I inch forward at the speed of rock. There is, however, a really cute redhead in line about 3 people behind me, so I have more entertainment that I had previously thought. (Damn, he has a girlfriend.) I get to the end of my playlist just before I make it to the window. Good timing. The woman, obviously exhausted and frustrated but generally very polite, said she could rebook my flight, but I wouldn’t be able to leave until the 30th of December. 8 days from then. I asked her if AC (gag!) would perhaps schedule some extra flights to accommodate the stranded passengers, and she said it was unlikely. At least she was honest. She said to come back to the ticket counter at 5, and maybe she’d be able to fit me in on a later flight that day.I asked if could a meal voucher (as I got from another airline when my flight from Toronto to Montreal had been delayed 5 days previously) and she said I couldn’t, because if I got one, then everybody would have to get one. Uh… yeah. Isn’t that the point? It should be said that it was 10:30 in the morning, my cancelled flight would have already left, and I did not get a boarding card. I didn’t think there was any point, and was told as much by the counter attendant. This is an important point, and will be brought up later. Do not forget it.

Lucky me, I get to poop around the airport for 6 and a half hours. My sister very graciously offered to come pick me up or at least come to the airport to help kill the time. But I was fine. I had my brand-new sexy aluminum MacBook and a Facbook addiction. I paid 10 dollars to put my luggage into storage, which was well worth it, because I didn’t have to push this giant cart around, and I could go pee if I wanted without having to worry about leaving my bags alone and having some nogoodnik hiding heroin in my shaving kit. I find a table next to a power outlet (which was incredibly lucky!), and hunker down.

5 hours and 15 friend requests later, it’s 3:30. I decide that maybe I should go to back to the ticket counter early in case there have been some new developments. Ya never know. I’ve been standing in line for about 20 minutes when I overhear someone say “…bus…Halifax…” What? Squeeze me? So I jump out of line to find this person, who turns out to be a passenger who’s been waiting since yesterday to get the hell out of Dodge. She tells me that AC (puke!) has hired buses to get us to Halifax, and that I should hurry up and sign up, because they’ll be leaving at 5. That was how I found out. No announcement over the PA, no AC (Wretch!) employees on the floor to answer questions. No, I found out by divine accident. If I had waited until 5 to go to the ticket counter, I’d still be in Montreal. I run downstairs to get my bags out of storage, happy I’d be getting home before the New Year, but upset that I had to take a 17-hour bus trip. If I’d wanted to take a goddamn bus, I would have bought a goddamn bus ticket. It turns out I did.

Newly reluggaged, I venture to find where to register for the bus. I asked 3 different people who gave me 3 different answers, so I flipped my already over-used 3 headed coin, and decided on… that one. It was the wrong one. I was told to go…over there (insert tremendously vague hand gesture here). Well, the route over there was straight through a massive throng of tired, sweaty, stinky and frustrated (but since they were Canadian, polite!) fellow travelers, all of who must have thought I was trying to butt my way to the head of line. After about 20 minutes and countless “Pardon me what that your foot, I’m so sorry”s (remember, I have a cart with 736 ponds of luggage), I make it to the honest-to-God place I was supposed to be. It was 4:30, and my bus was going to leave in half an hour. Or so I thought.

Enter “The Bitch”.

The Bitch (or TB for short) is an AC (barf!) employee faced with the daunting task of rounding up all us wannabe Haligonians (yes, that is the proper collective noun). She was at least 50, but had had so many face-lifts, she had a beard. Her makeup must have been applied by a trowel. She had aubergine dyed hair, long cotton candy pink fingernails, lips and cheeks, and more mascara than RuPaul at Pride. All of these elements actually served to make her look far older than she probably was. Understandably, she must have had a tremendously difficult day. However, it is always easier to say “I’m sorry sir, I don’t have the answer to that right now. I’ll try to find out for you. Thank you for your patience.” as opposed to “If you would stop asking me such stupid questions, I might be able to do my job!”. Oh yeah. When I first saw her, she was yelling, Yelling! at a man who had been stuck at Dorval for 38 hours (as I later found out) who had asked her if there would be food provided on the buses or if the bus would be making stops. He was not yelling at her. He was tremendously polite (Canadian!) and was actually laughing at the situation, because really, what else are you going to do? I asked her if I could sign up for the bus, and she started to yell, Yell! at me about how I should have done this a hour ago, and that she wasn’t there to be my servant, and how everyone has been bitching and complaining all day and she was fed up to here with all this shit. I started to laugh (which probably didn’t help matters) and suggested politely (I swear. I was ultra polite and I used my calm CBC voice) that since all the passengers were calm and trying to make the best of a bad situation, that maybe she could be a little understanding of our predicament and not take out her frustrations on us. Well, you would have thought I had skinned a hamster right then and there. She tore into me like there was no tomorrow. Who the hell did I think I was? Some jerk (yes, she used that word) who wants to get home to Mommy and Daddy. Clearly I had no fucking (yes she used that word, too) idea of what she was trying to do for all of you people! You, sir, don’t have my job!

And that’s when I came out with perhaps the best and snappiest off-the-cuff reply I have ever come up with. I said (calmly still politely, but with undertones of revenge on my breath) “Oh no. That’s where you’re wrong. I will have your job.” She turned around in a huff and left to a smattering of applause (Thank you, thank you. I’m here all week.) We were then told by another AC (spew!) employee, who was apologetically polite, that the buses wouldn’t arriving until 8 pm. 14 hours after my odyssey had begun, and far longer for many. I had 842 pounds of luggage, and I desperately had to pee.

At 7:30, I returned to the rendezvous point, figuring I’d get there a bit early. There were only 5 others waiting. Odd, I thought. As we were chitchatting, I remarked on how calm and un-angry we all were. We just wanted to get home (or wherever) and if we had to take a bus, we had to take a bus. After about 15 minutes, one of the guys gets up to find out what’s going on, since no one else has shown up. He returns minutes later and says he heard a rumour that the buses were picking us up downstairs at arrivals. A rumour. This is how I found out. No P.A. announcement, no employees on the floor. So we rush downstairs. The place is a fucking zoo. There must be 300 people waiting to get on what I still thought was 2 buses. I honestly just about turned around to head back to my sister’s for Christmas. O.K., there are actually 7 buses. But they won’t be arriving until 10 pm. At that point, that cute redhead from the first line asks me if I’ll watch his luggage while he goes to the washroom. Thank God, because I can ask him for the same favour when he gets back (and maybe a couple of other favours…) In the meantime, AC (heave!) employees start chucking those bags of pre-cut apples into the crowd like they were vendors at a baseball game. This is the first sustenance AC (hurl!) has offered us all day! I devoured them. They were warm and brown, but who cares? TB has reappeared, flames shooting from her eyes, and brimstone belching out of her mouth. All buses will be going directly to Halifax, except one, which will be making a stop in Moncton. I decide to take that one, since there’ll be a fair amount of people getting off, and I’ll be able to stretch out for at least part of my journey. So we are being herded onto the buses like cattle, I stand back and wait. I’m one of the last people to get on, and TB asks me for my boarding pass. I told her I never got on, since by the time I got to the airport, my flight had been cancelled. “Well, you can’t get on the bus”

What?

I was told I didn’t need to get my boarding pass well you were told wrong please get out of the line I have other people to deal with no you’re dealing with me right here right now I am getting on this bus whether you like it or not I have not I repeat NOT been waiting at this fucking airport for 15 hours without any offer of food or anything and been treated like shit by people like you who can’t be bothered to be decent or kind or polite to people who have it much worse than you or than me for that matter to be told that because I don’t have a boarding pass when I was told not to get one that I can’t get on a bus which will take 18 hours when I paid for my goddamn ticket for a goddamn plane to see my parents whom I haven’t seen in 8 months to spend Christmas with them for the first time in 8 years. You, Madam, are sorely mistaken.

I got on the bus.

Waiting for me at the airport was my Mom’s dear friend Kay, who drove the hour to the airport to drive me the hour and a half to Lunenburg only to drive back the hour to Halifax. I cried when I saw her.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my folks, and it was hard to leave to join the big Vee. I didn’t end up making a complaint about TB. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have her job, but she might have been a low-level peon who didn’t regularly deal with customers (with good reason). Or she could just be a raging bitch. I haven’t made inquiries into a refund. To be honest, I can’t be bothered. It would be too much work and pain and tsuris that I don’t need or want. That being said, I would rather jump naked into a pool of razor blades than fly AC (retch!) ever again. I wonder if Qantas flies to Halifax…

Give me the simple life.

It took me just 45 minutes to explore Picton, New Zealand. And that’s because I walked up and down the street twice. It says something about a town when the biggest store is the Discount Liquor Mart. Don’t get me wrong. It’s very nice. I like small towns. I lived in Charlottetown P.E.I for 2 summers in the early 90’s and they were the best summers of my life. (It might try to argue city status – but it’s called Charlottetown, not Charlottecity). My parents live in a charming Nova Scotian fishing village that has reinvented itself as a summer tourist Mecca. It’s even been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It looks the way New England used to look like, and whenever they have to film a Stephen King œuvre set in Maine, that’s where they do it. I think I might not go crazy if I had to live there (which I do anyway, technically. But I’m away 10 months out of the year). But Picton? Well…it might just be the Kiwi Skagway. (Those of you who work on ships know what I’m talking about. The rest of you, look it up. You’re obviously technically savvy if you managed to find my blog). (Quick aside: Why does my spell-check show blog as a misspelled word?)

That being said, I’ve been enchanted by this part of the world. Tauranga was as beautiful a place as I’ve ever been. There’s a mystical mountain rising up from the edge of the coast, which has spiritual significance to the Maori. The stunning white sand beach and gentle ocean invites frolicking in the waves and lazy afternoons curled up with the latest Jonathan Kellerman (who seems to come out with a new book about once every couple of weeks). There’s a respectable shopping district with New Zealand tchotchkes galore (lamb skin slippers boots, Maori carving necklaces and oodles of frangipani skin products). There’s even a great organic food store, where I bought some mixed nuts and some phosphate-free laundry powder. Christchurch is a charming place, which has been named the best garden city in the world. There are many lovely public parks, good shopping (although I’m puzzled why mouthwash has to cost $10 here. Should not proper dental hygiene be accessible to the disenfranchised as well?), and a great organic food store where I bought some gluten-free sunflower seed bread and some dried fruit. I haven’t managed to make it into Wellington or Auckland yet, but they look fabulous from the ship. And Dunedin may be my favorite of all. It’s NZ’s 5th largest city with a population of about 150 000, and a rich Scottish heritage. It boasts many well-preserved Victorian and Edwardian buildings, many dating back to the Gold Rush in the 1850’s. Shopping is great (though mouthwash is still expensive), with at least 3 big music stores (I bought a metronome there, which oddly enough has gone missing in the last couple of days) and a great organic food store, where I bought some tea tree moisturizer and a bottle of Vitamin C. But Picton? Well… Picton is very nice. It does have the oldest wooden ship in existence, but the museum was closed today. Oh, and a mini-golf course.

I’m not really complaining. I just had such high hopes. And I wanted to find mouthwash that I wouldn’t have to take out a second mortgage to purchase. I haven’t as of yet been able to explore any of the tremendous natural beauty of this country. There has been some fantastic scenic cruising, and there are mountains galore. I may just go on a hike tomorrow. In Dunedin lies the highest peak in this part of the country. Cadbury, fetch my boots!

In Ship News: I just played a Disco night. It sucked. No, let me rephrase that. The audience sucked. The band was great, and I even got to sing ‘Play That Funky Music, White Boy’ (How appropriate, since I am the whitest person ever to walk the face of this planet. Well, no, there’s Maggie Thatcher.) It was going great until the lyric “Gonna take it higher now”, and my poor little voice, parched and already stretched to its’ limits, did not want to take it higher at all. No amount of note modification or Monty Python falsetto was going to fix what was already a disaster in the making. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll transpose it down a key next time. There were maybe 40 people in the bar (which can comfortably hold 250), and they were separated from the bandstand by this enormous chasm of a dance floor. Apparently, not everyone was feeling the groove. Nobody danced. When we did ‘The Hustle’, Rebekah, our eager party planner, leapt to her feet. No one followed. She executed a few hopeful, lonely steps, and slunk back to her seat, defeated and demoralized. Now she knows what it feels like.

It's Up To You...

I know I know I know. It’s been a while. What can I say? My computer broke and I lost momentum. This writing thing is not something I had ever done on a regular basis, and when I got out of the routine, it was hard to get back in.Don’t fret, however, dear readers. I got some pages up my sleeve. I’m currently on the big Vee (that’s slightly dirty, eh?) touring around Australia and New Zealand. In March, we embark on a 60-some odd day trek through most of South-East Asia, and I end up in Vancouver, where I get to go home. (Home? I have no home…) I figure I’ll have a fair amount to talk about.

During my break, I went to New York and Toronto – to see family and friends. So I’m sitting in LaGuardia, wondering why the hell there isn’t free Internet ($7.95 for the 45 minutes before my flight? Really?) and kind of pissed that my flight has been cancelled – I’ll be arriving in Toronto about 2 hours later, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but I have a concert to go to. I’m eating a hotdog wrapped in pretzel dough (yes I know, I shouldn’t be eating meat, but there honestly isn’t anything else. Really. Food at LaGuardia is a big bag of suck) and reading the special Rolling Stone with Obama on the cover. I have just sorta kinda maybe almost made the decision to move to New York when my next contract is up in May. It scares the shit out of me. But every time I come to New York, I think to myself: Why the hell aren’t I living here? I love the city – the electricity in the air, the hustle and bustle, the 24-hour access to everything from prescriptions to groceries to photocopies to tourist tchotskis . I love that on any given day, I can go to any number of museums and see famous paintings and sculptures that I saw in textbooks in school. I love that Patti LuPone, Liza Minelli, Stockard Channing (no relation to Carol), Kirsten Scott Thomas, John Lithgow and a naked Daniel Radcliffe (Leave me alone! He’s legal!) all live and work within blocks from each other. I love the way when it’s -15 in Montreal, it can be +10 and sunny. I love that bars close at 4, and you can still take the subway home. I love Hell’s Kitchen. I love Central Park. I love MoMA. I love New York (insert song here!)

It doesn’t hurt that several of my nearest and dearest friends have moved here over the years, and every time I come, I’m welcomed with open arms. I had lunches and dinner with about 10 different people, and I’m sure I managed to piss off a bunch of folks I didn’t get a chance to connect with. (Sorry Scott, if you’re reading this). And whenever I come to NYC, there’s always a big surprise. This time, my old old friend Geoff (who I have known since Grade 1) was in town with his wife. I hadn’t seen him in almost 10 years. It was like I saw him yesterday. It was the same with my friends Robin (known since Grade 3), Naomi (1990), Alex (1994) and my dear Big Apple host, Michael (since 1989). Usually when you run into old friends, the conversation is about 20% catch-up and 80% reminiscence. But I found with all these old chums I hooked up with, it wasn’t like that at all. Sure, there were “Remember when…” moments. But we were all able to have proper adult conversations.

This summer, Michael came to visit me in the Med, and we spent 2 weeks gallivanting around Europe. I was an amazing amount of fun! As a thank you, I got Michael a ticket to see Patti LuPone in Gypsy. He’s seen it already, I’ve seen it already, but I could sit through Gypsy with Sally Struthers and Jamie Farr, I like it that much. Naomi also has procured a ticket. This is really exciting, because not only have I not seen Naomi for over 10 years, Michael has not seen Naomi for almost 16 years! They played husband and wife in a production of Company I directed 17 years ago. (Side note: Company is a faaaabulous Sondheim show about a single man turning 35, and the 5 married couples who are his best friends. It’s a show about the fear of commitment and the fear of intimacy. When we did it, we were about 15 too young. Now, I’m 3 years older than the main character. Oi) . Naomi hadn’t changed at all. She looked fantastic, she was ebullient and effervescent and argumentative and loud and funny and awesome! We had a really good dinner consisting of Korean dumplings and rice, and good stimulating conversation. But Patti could not be keep waiting!

I cannot rave about this show enough. It is definitely directed as a star vehicle for Patti, and she does not disappoint. There isn’t a piece of scenery left unchewed. She belts, she rants, she dances, she seduces, she cries, she laughs, she screams, she has a breakdown. And yet, there is so much subtlety (yes, subtlety… ) to her portrayal. It is performance for the ages, a role she was born to play. There isn’t a false note. Despite all the histrionics she can (and has) (and does) indulge in, this is a performance of absolute truth. There are so many heartbreaking moments, made all the more powerful by the tremendous emotional and technical framework she has built. And if that weren’t enough, Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti as Herbie and Louise match Patti note for note in beautifully nuanced performances that crackle with energy. The last 20 minutes of the show are absolutely devastating. Naomi, Michael and I were all sobbing at the end of Rose’s Turn, and found ourselves unable to clap. And the strippers at the end almost succeed in stealing the show away (which they often do). There are a few, hmmm…. not quite mistakes… let’s say, miscalculations, in the show. Dainty June delivers a one-note performance, and that note is flat. Her big scene is awful. Truly. And Arthur Laurents, the book-writer and director, has inserted a couple of unnecessary cheesy bits that get a laugh, but they’re cheap laughs (although my idol, Phyllis Diller, once said there’s no such thing as a cheap laugh). But why quibble? It was perhaps the most satisfying night of theatre I have ever experienced.

After the show, I went to have drinks with 3 ship friends – Drummer Dom and his beautiful girlfriend Marisha (to whom I lent my cabin while on the big Zed – please refer to my previous blog “How Shipbound Got His Cabin Back”), and Saxy Tom, who’s studying at Columbia (please refer to my previous blog “If They Ever Put A Bullet Through Your Brain”). Naomi came as well, for which I was really happy. Michael went home. He was tired. Anyway long story short, we got kicked out of one bar, closed the next at 4 in the morning, and I ended up staying at Tom’s (his couch was comfy) because he lives on 110th, and Michael lives on 174th, so Tom’s was just that much closer. He lives right across the street from the “Seinfeld” restaurant, which is pretty cool, even though I’m not that crazy about the show. I know if Tom’s reading this, he’s aghast, since Seinfeld is his favorite show EVER.

The following evening, I also saw my dear friend Zarya, who I have known since we were 6. She sings with a wonderful choir, and I went to their Christmas concert, and I went to dinner with her and her boyfriend, her awesome friend Carol, and another gentleman whose name I’ve forgotten. He was very nice though. We went to a Peruvian restaurant with amazing food and horrid service. I had a wonderful evening with old and new friends

In fact, I had a wonderful weekend. I am tremendously lucky that at this point in my life, I’m able to have enough disposable income to be able to travel and see people in my life that mean so much to me (Next up: In June, visiting my friend Kate and her family in Prince George! I just haven’t told her yet!). Also, being able to afford a coupla tickets to a legendary performance in one of my favorite musicals ain’t so bad either.

So there you go. A new post. A loooong one. Happy now?