It’s pretty rare for me to troll around on YouTube — regular web’s fancy enough for me.  But just as I was settling down for the evening I just spotted an article in The Star about local 26-year-old Jeigh Madjus who was recently found online by The Unmentionable One (last name borrowed from a famous hotal chain / personality-aborted blonde, first initial sounds like urine).

Jeigh put together a couple of audition clips for Fox’s Glee — a show that even a musical-hating person like myself can get something out of — and although I make have little musical experience I happen to think this guy’s got some skills. Doesn’t hurt that he’s from TO either.

Find more Jeigh on his YouTube channel, or just keep your eyes and ears open. Call me crazy but I think this young man may be heading places.

It was a hard slog today.

Every surface scrubbed, every possible source of food triple wrapped; still the fruit fly population seems to have doubled overnight. Their strategy appears to involve coating all my traps with the bodies of their dead, allowing the few that survive to fly kamikaze into the first available orifice:

Someone thought that printing house flies on the paper was a good idea. Momentarily fool you into thinking it’s more effective than it actually is, maybe?

The return of the 4 a.m. import glee club across the street compounded the struggle, making today very long and generally painful. Dragging my ass through the garbage battlefield in my dozy state would have been dangerous, so I chose instead to do a desk-bound reconnaissance of this conflict’s past through the Toronto Archives.

As always, I was left in awe of what people of the past were able to cope with; how much they were able to do with the simple mud streets and steamy horse shit they were given. The garbage collectors pulled the garbage carts around by themselves like real men. There would always be a partner to help position the pole (barely visible in the photo) from behind.

In the fifties, garbage collectors relaxed a bit as they were now relegated to merely tossing their cans in the rear. The white garbage trucks were probably a bad call, but at least the initial collectors on duty could be assured of looking fabulous while in them. Of course after repeated use, the back sides would become quite filthy.

Ah, those were the gay ol’ days. But that changed almost as soon as the union barged in, plopped on the couch, and cracked a beer. In no time flat, the city was employing five supervisors to one garbage collector.

And pretty soon the messy business we’re dealing with now took form in the appointment of two additional government clerks to ensure proper work apportioning. Everyone was fully qualified for one specific duty and also given special training to cease to comprehend English when a task was in danger of falling outside that duty, or on break time.

It’s not really so hard to understand how we got here, is it? If history teaches anything, it’s that modern-day garbage collectors are not expressing their flair nearly enough. No wonder they’re so pissy!

And there’s your golden nugget of knowledge for today. Tomorrow, if I get to sleep before dawn, maybe something else.

Today I’m pleased as punch to present the traveling variety show that sets up camp across the street from my apartment at this time of year. Give ‘em a chance; if the cheerful yolp in the first clip doesn’t brighten your day, very little will!