But please don’t let me keep you from enjoying it. I am. I’ve managed to run some errands at the east part of town. The Beach.

I suspect I’ve mentioned the area occasionally. The beach is a fru-fru place, fairly expensive to live in, good place to inhabit if you’re a wealthy artist or a well-heeled bead maker. Well-attired hippies for the most part. Lots of dogs, babies, and lululemon.

Another way to know you’re in The Beach is that everything is suddenly beach-themed. It’s kinda sad in the middle of deepest darkest winter, but in the summer even I’d be willing to wear flip-flops on the street there.

And yes, I can confirm that the name actually makes sense. (I used to call it The Beaches too, I liked that better.)

The Beach area is just to the east of Woodbine Beach. At one time, I suppose, with the horse racing track the only other thing around, the neighbourhood was the only one near both beaches. But with the racetrack gone and replaced with housing, The Beach really is now only the length of one beach – Balmy Beach.

Woodbine is used for public events like the Victoria Day fireworks, but despite being one long continuous stretch of public sand, somehow Balmy Beach remains separated. Even the trash feels expensive, artsy.

However, as long as you have a lap dog or are hugging a fancy-looking coffee cup, or both, getting onto Balmy Beach really isn’t a problem. I mean, they let me roam around :)

So there you have it, dear reader, a slice of a sunnier Toronto to go with your holidays, and a long-standing controversy finally put to bed. The Beach really is The Beach. Balmy Beach. You’re welcome.

Hope you’re enjoying some of that traditional Easter pie and / or throwing back the booze like tomorrow’s the weekend. I’m fairly certain Jesus would’ve wanted that. Remember that water-to-wine shindig he hosted? Yeah.

Happy Easter :)

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So have you discovered how your life would be like a living dream if only you could _____________? Excellent!

At this point, many success-seeking guides would jump right into planning. The silly bastards. Now is when one learns to rein in one’s expectations.

Step 2 – I Didn’t Realize It Would Suck This Much

That’s me holding still for 15 seconds. I think it’s fair to say it was cold that night. But, I told myself I had to do it. No not the pose – well, yes, a little bit – but mostly I was there for the sand and surf. The most desolate time of the winter – the starkest of beaches. Way cool. I was extremely happy to be able to grab a warm streetcar back home afterward, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like I really earned these photos. I took every shot 3 times just for good measure.

Perseverance is a must. Plus, you pick up a lot of new things along the way that can end up being very useful later on. For example, I discovered that pure, concentrated pool-strength chlorine ooze can feel like jelly when you walk on it. Except it’s not! It’s the soles of your feet!

Haha! No, seriously, that was my first summer job. Totally unqualified lifeguard at a Czech community centre. I have no idea why they even had a pool; it was on the far end of a good stretch of land, over a steep and rocky climb up the main driveway, which was attached to a very gently trafficked stretch of road that meandered lazily through the valley. The community centre owned the property bordering that road – big enough for a generous public park. The entire summer, I believe we had two, possibly three customers.

I say we because halfway through my stint the management decided to wise up and hire an actual lifeguard. Unfortunately, the slight Asian kid seemed to be afraid of water, and definitely wanted nothing to do with chlorine. He tried to help me add it to the pool once but only managed to spill it on the deck and onto aforementioned feet. He squealed as he dropped it. I’ll never forget that squeal. It’s burned into my memory.

But I should stress that, having witnessed previous similar performances, I kept my expectations of him low and kept near to the water’s edge just in case. Which turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. So back to the topic at hand, if you kind of expect that things might suck a little, that’ll cushion the blow if they actually do. And if they don’t … g r e a t !

I followed the pool job with a jab at slinging hot dogs at Exhibition Stadium. I wasn’t expecting miracles. Nope. Caribana ended up being a total bust. I ended up thirty bucks in the hole — we bought from the people who ran the concessions and sold at a markup to the crowd, if we could sell it. We got an hourly pay but since most events lasted only one to two hours, and after deductions, that was just enough to buy a beer on the way home. I don’t remember if I was old enough to drink yet. Regardless, it was mostly to keep the business legit, not how we got paid.

Despite some crummy events there were also ones that brought down the house. Pink Floyd let loose there, as did the Rolling Stones, and a few other people also. Our passes allowed us to wander around pretty much uninhibited, so we would sometimes just clump together at some aisle section near the stage to watch the show. Then we’d disperse to continue selling hot dogs, or coke, or popcorn, or whatever we’d decided to carry that night. Or stay and keep rockin’ out. And I must be honest, drunk / high revellers are absolute dears when it comes to tipping. Ten bucks, keep the change, on a five dollar sale, on average. And that was already marked up!

We had many beers on those nights.

Perseverance, in other words, is just giving something a chance. Of course, if there’s something you really want to do, perseverance could also mean the drive to go after it. You know, when life hands you lemons, you punch life in the face and rub those lemons in the open wounds. Asshole.

I think I could also suit it to meet my own needs and say that perseverance can also be defined as getting through something. I think that would still apply to the Woodbine Beach scenario. Sometimes, the path ahead is simply not yet paved – be sure to wear sensible footwear and watch your step. Or, in my case, the path ahead is just too damned long to see more of the same thing. Yeah, park benches, boardwalk, sand – I get it.

Finally, keep those plans tucked away safe. Boy, I gotta tell ya, there’s nothing worse than telling someone your intentions only to not go through with them. As someone with plenty of experience in that area, let me tell you that they don’t make hides thick enough to protect you from your own foot in your own ass.

By the way, I’m turning “The Three Easy Steps to Ultimate Success” into a comic book. It’s going to be a murder mystery set in the thirties with lots of action and intrigue. I think the kids of today would be hip to that sort of thing. Haven’t decided on a name yet but I’m leaning toward something with the word “Noir” in the title. I know the kids’ll dig that.

Continued in next part…

—

deck building

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I mean, it was nice to get outside and do some walking around, but the connections were, unfortunately, not revealing themselves. It left me feeling constipated. Until I sat down to enjoy some quality time on my gleaming ceramic throne. C’mon, you know full well that you do your best thinking in there too, admit it! (Okay, shower is a valid option as well – close second, but still.)

Well, you know, at times like those (“ceramic visions”, I call them), I get to thinking about the circle of life. The distance — theologically, spiritually, physically, and metaphysically — that the meal has gone, for example.

Right.

But it suddenly struck me that these pictures kinda remind me of how I arrived at my own station in life, or, “The Three Easy Steps to Ultimate Success”

When this goes into print, the comments will go on the jacket and in the foreword. ;)
When it’s an abject failure, I can point fingers. ;)

Step 1 – Get All Deep And Introspective (or at least fake it)

It’s good to take stock of what one enjoys in life. I kinda stumbled into what I’m doing today but the roots run pretty cleanly back to the early nineties. Ah, the nineties, KRS One was boogieing down, my now-ex had completed planning the first diabolical stage in my downfall (I didn’t even know her yet!), and I was lugging a heavy backpack and being propositioned by unsavoury gentlemen in Morningside Park on my way to be with my beloved computers at West Hill C.I. (collegiate institute = high school – don’t ask, don’t know). And the other classes too, I guess. Oh, and I had a few friends – outcasts. I know, everyone says that. But I really think we were.

One of my friends showed up at my house freaking out that his dad was gonna kill him. Ended up, that didn’t happen :) I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I think the family was connected to bikers, and this was more-or-less a regular drunken ritual when dad rolled in. They sure looked like bikers. Definitely the other side of the tracks.

My other friend threw a murder mystery game at his house. We all came dressed in costumes. I was a gender-neutral doctor (the invite didn’t specify!).

I don’t mean to imply he was gay. No, not that I know of, he was just somewhat eccentric in that Alfred Hitchcock or Orson Welles sort of way. If you get my meaning.

For some reason, I always imagined meeting K. at some time as an arch nemesis. It’s only fitting that we’d have been childhood friends; I could see him receding into the bitter shadows of the world and, after years of silent toil in the darkness, emerging and revealing some sort of terrifying new weapon with which to obliterate the masses. Unless his demands are met. Send in Agent Patrick.

As cool as that would be, I sincerely hope life’s treated him kindly.

Although I’ve diverged a bit from the original course, every point thus far could’ve been interjected with the amazement I felt upon first seeing a friend’s Atari 2600. Holy … freakin’ … shit … you can play games on your TV! Okay that was a bit earlier in my life, but later it was the Nintendo or the Genesis or whatever cool new gaming system they had. Halcyon days. So – futuristic.

A rear-projection TV was still the shit in those days, you must understand. All about context. But I can clearly recall dozens of examples where technology shone her bedazzling jewels before me – and I reached out. And look what we have now: Windows 7! (and whatever crap they have on the Mac) Again … context; everything on the computer at that time was DOS. Do you know what that is? And would you care if I told you? And would the explanation lull you into a gentle slumber? Right, so there you go.

Anyway, life was giving me a valuable skill, and I do so enjoy making a computer dance. And that, I believe, is where ultimate success begins. Finding that thing that one can devote slavish hours to. You can always change your mind later to one jackass pursuit or another, like blogging or taking photos. It’s not the end of the world. The important thing is the love. And that you can’t fake.

For me, that’s been there along with all the other things that happened (and keep happening), many of which you’ll have to read in the follow-up to “The Three Easy Steps to Success”. I’m tentatively calling it “An Immigrant’s Journey – The Writing of The Three Easy Steps to Success”. Heart-wrenching stuff.

Continued in next part…

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