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movie star

When I was a kid, I would sometimes deliver a monologue from a movie that I recently watched, to get my point across. Like one time my big brother told on me for a bunch of things I didn’t do but my parents wouldn’t believe me so I recreated that scene from Irreconcilable Differences where Drew Barrymore tells her quarrelling parents that she is more than the family dog who they can pet one day but ignore the next.

This only served to confuse my parents. Maybe a movie where someone was being falsely accused would have been more appropriate. At seven years old, I was embarrassed by the dramatic miss-fire. I decided no more quoting movies. Instead it would be more affective to speak from the heart. I would deliver monologs as me, my own character.

Create a masterpiece of my own living.

Workshopping dramatics served my childhood well. I was the director of many plays and musicals produced in my basement with the neighbour kids. I would call the adults down to watch and after the kids went home my parents would critique the show. Literally. Usually along the lines of “why didn’t you let any of the other kids have any of the good roles?”….(do you mean the roles that I created for them, from my imagination, as a child, in my basement, after dinner?). Better to assimilate into the tribe, then upset the neighbourhood with my artistic flare.

I guess they were just preparing me for the ‘real world’.

I left home at eighteen. Infinitely curious, I would never let myself get bored. Life was a playground and I, an urban monkey. Jumping from scene to scene turning up the volume of the plot without knowing where it was headed. My attitude being; would this be an interesting story I could later tell my friends? and I’ll try anything once. A mystical journey with no destination. A game of suspense held up by the infinite intrigue in every single moment.

In the summer of 1992, I began go-go dancing at a club in my home town called The Warehouse. It was a dark and sexy bar entirely in black light and heavy on the strobes. The DJ played really good 80s and 90s dance music. A mix of Industrial, Techno, Hip Hop and ‘Alternative rock’, the emergent genre at the time. I was underage and got the job using fake ID. I told the manager my name was Cindi-Loo-Hoo.

My friend Catherine and I traded Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night dancing shifts. Every night I climbed into that sphere-shaped cage at the head of the dance floor I immediately transformed into Cindi-Loo. My work uniform; tiny jean shorts, a lime green halter bra, vintage dark green aviator goggles (Army Surplus) and black patent go-go boots (mom’s from the 60s). It was Tank Girl meets a Russ Meyer pussycat.

Dancing in front of a packed nightclub of cool people that were older than me was a challenge, one that after a couple of shifts, I had overcome.

So now what.

Sometime during that summer Catherine and I decided we should start streaking. I had recently gotten sober (the first attempt of many), and was seeking thrills. I was also living with undiagnosed bi-polar disorder and had no idea about the nature of my illness. This combination of sober and not medicated made me manic. I had boundless energy with a surplus of creativity, lack of impulse control and way too much confidence. The perfect combo for devising and carrying out our top-secret, but very verbose, ‘social interruptions’.

We picked a popular pub that we frequented, usually lined up on the weekend nights. Catherine’s boyfriend’s punk band, Field Day, often played there and I dated a bunch of the bar; patrons and staff. This was part of the thrill as Catherine had noticeable tattoos and I had a unique belly ring yet we needed to remain completely incognito for this to work as beautifully as it had been written in my mind.

Literally minutes after verbalizing the idea, we were stripping naked down to our black patent boots. With paper bags over our heads we were in full disguise. Only two small eye holes to see and a small breathing hole to breathe surrounded by our giant read drawn on lipstick smiles. This is how we got into my car and drove to the pub, naked with paper bags over our heads, chains tied at the neck to keep them from flying off.

The first T-intersection a cop car slowly drove by in front of us and both policemen looked square at us. I undid my seatbelt to either run or put my hands up, I didn’t know which. Miraculously, they didn’t stop. It was the first surreal moment of the night, the movie had begun.

We parked in the back of the pub our hearts pounding like crazy. It was early Saturday night, still light out, there was no where to hide. Without saying a word, we got out of the car, hi-fived each other and took off running. Through the back door, we ran down a winding hall, past the restrooms, then into the live music room, past the dart boards into the area with the main bar.

As soon as we entered the room, I was struck by the crowd and the cacophony of revelry and chaos. I realized I could see thru only one of my peep holes as my paper bag had turned a little sideways. I couldn’t correct it because, should someone try to grab me, I needed my arms for defence.

With limited scope I could only see Catherine’s white ass and followed it like a fish grabbing for tackle. The bag created a cavernous reverb and any panic of breath was a clear indicator to slow my thinking. Stay in the moment, follow the ass, breath slowly….

it’s OK…. it’s a paper bag, suppose to stop hyper-ventilation…was I suppose to put my entire head inside of it ?…oh god, I’m going to pass out. I can not pass out, naked ,in this grubby pub…

We were almost in sight of the front doors when I heard someone yell “SSSSSTTTTRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAKKKEEERRRRSSS!!!!!”. It’s Okay, just follow the ass, breath normal, follow the ass, …..when suddenly I felt the need to raise my hands above my head and start yelling. Or yodelling. Or turkey gobbling or was it a mad combination of all of those? whatever it was, it felt invigorating to make sound. It snapped the room together.

We were running through the The Ship and Anchor pub, in the eye of the storm. I was yelling from deep inside the belly of a whale. A defensive cry as if to say “look at me! and stay the fuck away“.

Everything seemed to go silent and the room froze for a moment. This bought us a few safe seconds to reach the two front doors which were followed by another two doors…. So many doors!!!! I think we had both forgotten that detail. Ironically, opening all those doors seemed like the weirdest part of the night. We suddenly went from wild creatures to regular, butt naked, patrons out for a pint on a cool Saturday night. Totally pedestrian.

But wait….there’s a line up!!!!! still gotta run past the bouncers and the line up….What a way to freeze a scene. Stride confidently past it in the nude.

Thankfully Erin was waiting out front in the ‘get-away-car’ excitedly beeping her horn. I am sure we wouldn’t have found her otherwise, couldn’t see much at that point. Jumping into the vehicle, we had a moment to watch behind us as the pub emptied into the streets.

There was a lot of hollering and me-ham, they were running after us! The sound of car horns and the repeated cry of “streakers!!!” rippled up the street. A climax scene, action packed and cinematic. People were going bananas.

Thirty minutes later, we returned to the pub fully clothed. We were now in another kind of disguise; Normal Looking. A lot of people we knew were there and I enjoyed listening to their stories of the two streakers we had ‘just missed’. I spoke with an ex who told me the girls were ‘hot’. Another surreal moment. Like someone was telling me how hot Rachel Green was in the latest friends episode without realizing I was Jennifer Aniston.

This was almost the funnest part; hearing a good review of the movie I had just starred in while it continued to play out. Like a movie inside a movie starring I, the meta movie star.

Epilogue. Our three person team went on to produce another streaking movie. The next one took place at a Starbucks situated on the ground level of a corporate building downtown. It was a very sunny Wednesday in early autumn and the cafe was full of office folk on their afternoon coffee breaks.

I had been working there part time and was extra nervous when I realized my boss was working behind the counter. I hadn’t counted on that. This time I was to take the lead. This time there were foibles.

Running through the cafe was smooth but our get-away became harried. Erin was outside waiting for us but when the car behind her honked for her not to stop she drove away! We had to run down the highly populated street to catch up to her. Again with limited sight (forgot to fix the way too tiny peep hole) I ran smack into a shopping cart pushed by an old lady. I can still feel the metal grid on my naked stomach and thighs. Maybe left pubes in her groceries, I donno.

Once we had caught up to the car, we found ourselves deadlocked in the the middle lane of rush hour traffic without clothes or anything to cover ourselves up. It was that classic anxiety nightmare, you know: running naked through a city street trying to find cover, just to get stuck in a small car in rush hour, butt naked, trying to cover boobies and veejay at same time. Everybody honking. But I had noway of waking myself up.

I was dead awake.

The next day I went into work and my boss was there again. And again I listened while someone recounted the scene where two ladies run by, naked and yelling. Again I experienced, that surreality of someone talking to me behind my back, in front of my face. This time, however, my boss was really going off on the ‘tits action’ and how exciting it all was. Barf. A review I did not need to hear.

That would be our last movie about streaking.

familia

This family photo was taken on the beach in Mexico during a trip to celebrate my parents fiftieth wedding anniversary. My father wanted to take us on a holiday, a week long trip somewhere sunny. Just the immediate family; myself, my parents, my brother, his two kids, and his girlfriend and her two kids. I was invited to bring a guest but I didn’t because around my family, I fly solo. Avoid the complicated weather patterns.

We spent a week at a luxury resort in Nuevo Vallarta on the Bandaras Bay of Mexico’s Pacific coast. An all you can eat, all you can drink, all you can sit in pretty much one seat, vacation. I was happy to be ‘taken care of’, I was less happy about the ‘all you can drink’. Because I couldn’t and I can’t. I had recently celebrated my one year of sobriety and according to AA, was vulnerable to relapse. I had been working the twelve step program for months and was taught that in the first couple years I was to avoid people places and things that might trigger me. All you can drink is risky business but I had yet to be near the biggest trigger,

my family.

I’ve heard the AA horror stories: The thought crossed her mind, I’ll just have a glass of wine with dinner, one light Cerveza in a foreign land doesn’t count…Six days later she wakes up somewhere strange with no wallet, no shoes, and a beard. I didn’t want that to be me.

The first day, mid morning, I met my parents and brother, poolside. When the waiter came to take my order my father told me to ‘order two at a time, that’s what Kyle is doing’…..’O.K. two cokes please’. It seemed odd to me until I noticed Kyle’s half drunk beer in a plastic glass next to another full beer in a plastic glass. Then it dawned on me. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and it had been a few years, but I remember being that kind of drinker. Two beers out of the gate.

My two cokes arrived. By the time I drank the first one the ice cubes in the second had melted. The watery coke with a sad quarter of a lime seemed unappetizing but I drank it anyways. A swift downing of my first world gluttony guilt. The suggestion to me of a two drink order was dad downing his guilt regarding the problem drinkers in his house. By doing the same as my brother we fit nicely into his denial. An appendage of the Conservative belief system where the most salient behaviour in an ethical society is that everyone acts the same.

Poolside culture felt like a hot pot of pandering, I was spiritually suffocating. Lying around in my bathing suit melting into the chaise lounge, stoic waiters in sweaty tuxedos, bringing drinks in plastic cups. The luxury ceiling of this family resort stretched only so high; tuxedo yes, real drinking glass, no. And the luxury walls of the family resort only stretched so far. In a few days I would leave the pool and the waiters and plastic cokes to be united with my one-bedroom-survival-lifestyle-budget in the Artist End quartier of Montreal.

Which, is totally fine, familiar and real. Holiday borders are brief, a belief I couldn’t afford to suspend. In order to relax, the holiday would have to end.

At the centre of the hotel, in a curated jungle, was a large cage that housed a monkey named Pedro. He would run up to greet me, push his back up to the bars and point to where he wanted a scratch. I had, at the time, long manicured nails and made a really good dig in his simian hair. I felt a special bond with Pedro. Perhaps it was a shared appreciation for being in a beautiful oceanside resort, while not having the freedom to leave.

While my family spent the day by the pool, I literally spent hours scratching that monkey.

On our fifth night in Mexico, my brother and his girlfriend surprised us with a lavish sunset wedding anniversary dinner. Three waiters served us a six course meal. A violinist standing randomly to the side played soft classical hits but I wished they had given him a chair. Then we converged on the beach for a family photoshoot to commemorate the grand occasion.

The hotel supplied us with a photographer who directed us into many different poses; mom and dad with grandkids kissing their cheeks, son and son’s girlfriend with kids and step-kids hugging, all kids in a row jumping up like Gap Kids commercial, brother with sister on piggy back (my brother and I are in our forties). In other words, wildly uncomfortable snapshots of oddly cliched scenarios.

The photos were made into a large hard-cover coffee table book, to forever remember that photoshoot. Every page a different picture of the same people. As if someone had removed all the sample photographs from the picture-frame store and arranged them in a book. The story of a lovely, non threatening white but slightly browned from affluence, family. Happy, healthy, smiling, loving, jumping …..whatever! we were the photograph to beat. The family holding a place in the frame for another family who looked something the same.

We were nearing the end of the week and I was neither happy nor sad to be leaving. It was a fairly lovely trip with only a couple of deeply painful rejections of intimacy. I spent most of my time with Pedro or in my hotel room taking baths in the giant Jacuzzi. But the day before I was to fly home, I was in my hotel room slipping into my running shoes and found deep in the toe of my right shoe, a handful of large nails! picture hanging, wall perforating NAILS.

I pulled them out and looked at them. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7…seven nails. My heart dropped to my stomach and my arms begin to throb. My heart was racing, shifting my thoughts into another gear. Another sphere. I stared at the seven nails. Immediately my mind went to the One American Dollar I left on the pillow for the cleaning lady the day before. It was not enough of a tip for Louise, our friendly little Mexican maid. Especially because I left a tiny period on the fitted sheet which likely meant more work for somebody. I should have left more money. Now she’s getting back at me, by leaving nails in my shoe! I don’t even blame her…but I do feel scared...

I sat frozen on my bed. Too much adrenalin to think straight. Getting up to leave my room was impossible, due to the not being able to move. I needed to call somebody, but who? My mother would think I was high, my dad would pretend not to hear and then invite the maid to play badminton. Maybe my brother can help… He will also think I’m high and playing tricks, but I care less about his opinion. When he and his girlfriend got to my room I explained the situation and told them it was Louise, the sweet maid, who left nails in my shoe.

“I did aerobics in these, two days ago! with no nails! Who else had access to my room? Who else had motive?” I pleaded.

My brother sat beside me on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet. I could tell by his scowl that he was annoyed and was likely just waiting me out. Like If he let me talk enough I wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t said anything and then could leave when I ran out of breath because there was nothing else to say that hadn’t ‘already been said’. It wasn’t a conversation. Just crazy Kara talking in singular versation repeating the same refrain.

For the next minute nobody said a thing. Kyle was still looking at his feet, uncomfortable and ashamed, like a school boy waiting for dismissal from the principal’s office. HE didn’t do it. HE wasn’t there. HE doesn’t think that it happened!

How to handle your crazy sister, chapter one:

I was scared and looking for some guidance as to what to do next. Nails Omen. likely something very bad in Mexico, symbolic of my coffin being shut the fuck down. Tight. I’m deep in the ground. Might as well be dead so I marched all around the hotel. Walked up to the various staff held out my hand looked them square in the eye and asked, “did you leave these in my shoe? “.

“nails?” asked Louise…”you need nails?’….”how many???”.

“I see what’s going on here!” still holding out my hand, “what do you know about these nails?” (I realize now this is abstract phrasing for a non English speaker. Like ‘what does she know about how nails are made?’ or ‘what do you know about how they are used?’….or do I mean ‘do you know anything about these specific nails?’) “YES! I mean THESE SPECIFIC NAILS”.

“ok, you need nails!!, how many??…” Louise brushed past me out the door into to the open air hall. I had followed her cart into a room she was trying to clean and had unwittingly blocked the door.

Does she really not understand what I’m saying? It seems rather convenient she never learned English for times like these. To wiggle out of crimes committed against privileged white ladies who totally deserve to be nailed.

Louise asked the floor manager to give me some nails and I tried to explain to the manager, I didn’t need any and was trying to find the saboteur who left these ones in my shoe. Language still seemed to be the issue. Getting nowhere with the manager, I approached a group of handymen with tool belts and power tools and asked to see their nails. They actually showed me some. Theirs didn’t look at all like mine, another dead end. The only progress I was making in the investigation was that I was making more enemies in the wing of my hotel.

They all know what room I’m in, I’m more than fucked, I’m dead end dead.

With the help of a pill no bigger than a wink, I fell quick asleep. In the morning things looked different. Brain felt at ease. Everyone was smiling and I was smiling back. I was waving good bye and the staff was waving back. I found Louise and gave her a smile. She looked down at her cart and didn’t smile back. Maybe she’s still mad at me because of our fight from yesterday. Well….I’m still not 100% with you either Louise. I still don’t know whom was that omen.

In any case the nails situation seemed less dire to me. Soon I would be flying back to Canada, I was almost home free.

Unpacking from my trip I noticed the nails from my shoe matched the nails found in other parts of my suitcase. Did the maids put nails in my shoe AND in my winter jacket that was on the bottom of my suitcase? …..hmmm, Wasn’t this the same suitcase I used to travel back and forth between my house and Jen’s during that month when all the apartments around me were being renovated? Thats right! I would walk a few blocks to Jen’s to get a good night sleep. I had hung black-out curtains in her room to keep out the sun… The nails looked very familiar…

Right. These are my nails. They belong to me.

Oh my. Big sigh. It’s happened again.

unpack.

The last day spent in Nuevo Vallarta, two storylines funnelled through my brain. One under the direction of a shared common experience, called reality. The other under the influence of some fucked up alter ego with the voice of a schizoid detective. The Great Sleuth piecing together a story to explain a crime that was never committed. To lead me down the path of persecution using a brain map of paranoia.

Para (beside) and noia (mind). I was literally beside my mind, observing the scene, narrating the narrator, auditing both.

This may shed light on a disturbing situation but it doesn’t erase the fact I acted disturbingly. That I possibly embarrassed someone or scared someone. Did I hurt dear Louise? Realizing I have made unfounded accusations, out of identifiably true situations, is horrifying. How could I get so lost? Who noticed? And who noticed but chose not to help? It’s like that un-glorious song, I came in like a wrecking ball. But kept my clothes on. So nobody noticed.

My brother saw it. His reaction was ‘correct’ however unsympathetic.

It doesn’t take forty-six years to realize my FOO are not the people to turn to when someone plants nails in my shoe, I knew that when I was fifteen. This family photograph is but a shiny happy veneer covering all the messy shit that would make people bummed out to hear. Everyone wants a sunny fun holiday, not a six night stay at the garbage dump. We all have refuse too shameful to share for instance, my family dynamic lacks equal rights and the right kind of care.

But I am a member, I am not a fan. This is a family, familia, familiar, a chronic

monochrome

life insurance plan.

Relative words construct irrelevant stories.

The big bang shoots out gets bigger and farther, touches the stars

and burns at the alter.

Tied together tethered to nothing

I keep on busy

scratching the monkey.

Kara can be fou

alone

The body is never alone but when it thinks it is, the body feels lonely. The soul wants to be alone but is often drawn by the distraction of an objective world into the realm of the body where it quivers and shakes in search of itself. For this, one must simply return to being alone. Perhaps in body but definitely in soul.

Of all the talk of ‘the challenges of this quarantine’, feeling isolated is not one of mine. Isolation for me is like being in a dark movie theatre watching a movie I want never to end. Or the feeling of endlessness and wonder I felt while living alone in a tent in the Cloyoquat Sound rainforest at the north western tip of Vancouver Island when I was 20 years old. The fear I felt there was of the animal variety; Is that a bear, am I going to get arrested for sleeping in this abandoned Mercedes I found on the beach, am I going to drowned in the ocean trying to return to my tent in the middle of the night. A fight or flight response, clear and comprehensive. No psychic confusion or grappling with my ego.

Is this pandemic panic really a fear of being alone? or is it panic all on its’ own. Like a fight or flight response that is born of a real threat but that becomes mutated by our perception. A fear that spreads like a cancer from the body into the soul echoing through the societal body. A widespread hysteria, no thanks in part to the media.

A calculated function of the News; Create co-dependancy with people in order to keep them tuned in and strung out in a dealer-addict supply chain. A news story is both anxiety inducing and anxiety assuaging. It feeds us the stories of chaos while giving us a sense we have some control over it. By simply presenting information, the news freaks us out. It sparks fear by insinuating that if we don’t keep abreast of the situation we will be caught off guard. A hurricane might come. A murderer might murder us. A giant virus might eat me but if I stay tuned in I will learn in what neighbourhoods I should be the most scared and the most suspicious of others.

In other famous words; the medium is the message. This is the great Capitalist paradox. A pandemic is perfect fodder for panic propoganda. And in this case it actually is on all our doorsteps, but that is just a coincidence. Media got lucky.

This pandemic is an opportunity for a spiritual revolution. A mass lift in world consciousness. Let go and surrender, the future is never. Don’t look at the news, even if it’s looking at you. Pay no attention for in deficit you will be if you are paying to attend to what a servant would do for free. And I am against all slavery, especially my own. I don’t want to engage, I need freedom from hope. We need space from the future an impossible stake. Yet behaviour will take a posture of confidence to carry the con. Convince me tomorrow is better and beyond but a con is a fake, tomorrow never comes. When I’m working for tomorrow I’m networking big so big of a net it snags me then frays.

I Thank the lord for giving me space. Not for the virus for the deaths and the pain, but anti social introverted me is happy for the quarantine. To be in the clear without the clutter of small talk bound to the fantasy status quo.

lifestyle style

Life is to lifestyle
what body is to corps

The style of current wellness brands is disturbing. A single candle can cost 150$ and smell like somebody’s orgasm who I don’t know well enough to want to smell. It is a toxic industry because while posing as ‘wellness’ it is really selling something far off that track. We actually need to go against the philosophy of wellness in order to obtain it.

The Minimalist aesthetic is the first rotten bone that throws us off our hunt. These are ‘luxury items’ that require extra spending on non essential stuff. The ‘be your best self’ slogan is actually Perfectionism. Be perfect skin, white teeth, clean kitchen, natural wood something or other, perfect spiky desert plant, mid-century chair, lady with blond hair.

Make a ‘simple’ and gorgeously FRESH SALAD whose diverse colour cornucopia of vegetables is itself a privilege of free time and purchasing power.

Is this Wellness not just a contemporary name for Beauty? A word now antiquated in comparison to the ubiquitous presence in the 1950s et al. Nothing more than a skin deep projection of the patriarchy, a surface value system. We are trying to go deeper now; not just our skin, but our homes. Not just the way we look, but how good the environment around us smells.

We are into friends and Labradoodles and picnics on our rooftop patios. Basically the same unattainable shit as always. It is a white washed world enough to make anyone trying to attain its’ perfection, go totally mental.

Maybe we aren’t suppose to attain it. Maybe this truly is the sophisticated church of Capitalism. The white guy in the sky is pure, powerful and gentle; Gwenyth Paltrow’s Goop, is white bread in the kitchen, soft, smiling and deceivingly omnipotent. We feel envious of her life, we want it and feel guilty that we don’t have it. Our kitchen’s have mould and our teeth are un veneered. We must be unwell.

So we spend money to relieve that guilt, because it is one thing to keep up with the Jonses but another to be unwell. This perpetuates the un-sanity. A product or idea never lasts in making us feel good and this becomes our church. Our searching for relief, salvation, heaven.

It is a Mental-Illness-Wellness cycle. It is not a parody of the creator story, but a sophisticated, multi billion dollar simulation.

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