4:03am...

Gene Wilder Wisdom

After deciding that I was no longer going to waste my time attempting to fall asleep and pull my ass out of bed... I took a 3-block hike on Queen to the local 24/7 Convenience Store. Sam's maybe? At any rate... a walk along Queen at 04:00 always leads to some new observation. Characters abound Queen and Roncy at this hour.

I greeted each with a hearty "'morning."

And in return I got a strong "Good Morning" (on the way to the store) and a slurred Top o' the day to ya (on the way back.)

As on my way ba-ack... I saw, there in the distance... the Golden Arch's of Mickey Dee's.

How could I not? Even after having breakfaster/dinner the call of the Sausage McMuffin (no egg) (x2) and hash-browns (x2) with a medium 2x milk / 3x sugar, stirred please... was one I could not ignore.

And so in I strode (at the above time) and was greeted again with the night-life that is Queen and Roncy.

It is, after-all, the first time I've lived anywhere East of the Humber.
So almost each day there is a sense of new-ness about the area for me.
Well duh...
My Mickey Dee breakfast is just that, my preferred choice of morning intake.

I am though, generally... left alone.

More so at this hour, but, ya... it's comforting (finally) to be at peace with who I am.

I am Me... after-all.
So no, I did not bring my newest staff (perfectly balanced though it is.

Finish my 1st breakfast of the day, walk home (carry delicious coffee), get home, finish off d00b from earlier, have smoke (gaaaa) and finish delicious coffee.

Nap time?

Ya... ri-ight... Read More...

Smoking... (Part 364)

The Evil Tobacco

For a change... I bought coffee instead of tea.

Instant coffee mind you... but coffee nonetheless.

As a life long drinker of Red Rose Orange Pekoe, for me buying coffee was not an easy decision.
Tea needs to be in a porcelain or glass mug, and not a styrofoam or paper cup. This won't happen when you're out of the house. So I have coffee... Mickey Dee's over Timmy's... Timothy's over Mickey Dee's. Fortunately... all three are within walking distance of home.

Sooo... I'm sitting here, having finished a bagel (with sliced cheese), having my coffee, and smoking what is my one of my last cigarettes.
My 'plan' is to take to The Boardwalk this afternoon, burn this 1/2 d00b, and enjoy what I want to be my LAST cigarette.

Should the rain hold off, of course.

Having spent nearly a year in the wilds of Northern Alberta I can say that I was absolutely looking forward to a Toronto summer.

Hasn't happened yet.
One can 'hope', right?

Since the age of 13, smoking has always held a challenge for me. See, I differentiate between the act of smoking and 'smoking' itself. I can enjoy a cigarette, but I do not like smoking.

That's right, there is a difference.

You see it now, don't you?
You're welcome.

Over the years I have successfully quit. Though I'd started again... I have to admit that I wasn't entirely 'successful'... While I've always viewed stopping/quitting smoking as a relatively simple endeavour (notice I said simple... not easy), the challenge has been in not starting again.

There are just so many occasions where a cigarette compliments an event.
A good dinner...
Fine glass if wine...

Bacon.

A fine woman.
...
*cough*
:l

A great d00b and a double Wisers.

You get the idea.

And that is where I'm 'at' today.
...
The longest I've gone without a cigarette is a little over two years.
I was in my early 30's at the time.
It was shortly after my divorce.
I'd also stopped for 14 months in my mid-40's.
Course, I also decided I wasn't going to exercise, but that I'd eat my way to health instead.

That didn't exactly work out all too well.

:l

I said I'd wanted to finally eradicate this menace once and for all by the time I hit the age of 50.
I'm now a little past 51.

That too hasn't exactly worked out either.

BUT THIS TIME!!!

This time will be different.
Be gone with you evil tobacco!

Be gone with you!

Leave the d00bs though eh.

And the bacon... and the Wisers... well, you get the idea here too.

I want to succeed.

Finally.

All I can ask is that you wish me well.

As I wish you. Read More...

Bacon at the AGO

Yesterday was the members preview at the AGO for the BaconMoore exhibit.

It also happened to be the day that Ali and I decided to go to the AGO.

Yes indeed, the day we go to the AGO is the day that bacon is prevalent. How fitting is that?

"Although they were neither friends nor collaborators, painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) and sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) were contemporaries who shared an obsession with expressing themes of suffering, struggle and survival in relation to the human body. Both artists survived the Second World War and were subsequently haunted by the conflict, which they represented through manifestations of the body in various states of contortion. Drawing on the artists’ own personal experiences during the London Blitz, the exhibition examines how confinement and angst fostered their extraordinary creativity and unique visions."

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. His painterly but abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon began painting during his early 20s and worked only sporadically until his mid-30s. Unsure of his ability as a painter, he drifted and earned his living as an interior decorator and designer of furniture and rugs. Later, he admitted that his career was delayed because he had spent too long looking for a subject that would sustain his interest. His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition.

He often said in interviews that he saw images "in series", and his artistic output typically focused on a single subject or format for sustained periods. His output can be crudely drawn as consisting of sequences or variations on a single motif; beginning with the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms, the early 1950s screaming popes, and mid to late 1950s animals and lone figures suspended in geometric structures. These were followed by his early 1960s modern variations of the crucifixion in the triptych format. From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Bacon mainly produced strikingly compassionate portraits of friends, either as single or triptych panels. Following the 1971 suicide of his lover George Dyer, his art became more personal, inward looking and preoccupied with themes and motifs of death. The climax of this period came with his 1982 "Study for Self-Portrait", and his late masterpiece Study for a Self Portrait -Triptych, 1985-86. Despite his bleak existentialist outlook, solidified in the public mind through his articulate and vivid set of interviews with David Sylvester, Bacon in person was a bon vivant and notably and unapologetically gay. A prolific artist, he nonetheless spent many of the evenings of his middle age eating, drinking and gambling in London's Soho with friends such as Lucian Freud, John Deakin, Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes, Daniel Farson and Jeffrey Bernard. After Dyer's suicide he largely distanced himself from this circle, and while his social life was still active and his passion for gambling continued, he settled into a platonic relationship with his eventual heir, John Edwards.

Head I

Crucifixion (1933)

Head VI

During his lifetime, Bacon was equally reviled and acclaimed. Margaret Thatcher described him as "that man who paints those dreadful pictures", and he was the subject of two Tate retrospectives and a major showing in 1971 at the Grand Palais in Paris. Since his death, his reputation and market value has steadily grown. In the late 1990s a number of major works previously assumed to have been destroyed, including popes from the early 1950s and portraits from the 1960s, surfaced on the art market and set record prices at auction. On 12 November 2013 his painting Three Studies of Lucian Freud set the record as the most expensive piece of art ever auctioned, selling for $142,405,000.

Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA RBS (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art.

His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his birthplace, Yorkshire.

Moore was born in Castleford, the son of a coal miner. He became well-known through his carved marble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form of modernism to the United Kingdom. His ability in later life to fulfill large-scale commissions made him exceptionally wealthy. Yet he lived frugally and most of the money he earned went towards endowing the Henry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.

Reclining Connected Forms

And yes, the above sculpture should look familiar to you as there is another sitting in front of our City Hall.

"Henry Moore has always been an important artist for the city of Toronto. In 1958, Finnish architect Viljo Revell won an international competition to design Toronto's City Hall. Revell admired the work of Moore and recommended that the city purchase one of his bronze sculptures for the new building. A controversy over cost erupted, and the sculpture, The Archer, became the most talked about work of art in the history of the city."
I know that Ali would agree with me when I say that the exhibit will not be forgotten. It was meant to disturb, and that it did.
I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience it with my daughter. Read More...

Light 'em up

The Huffington Post has an interesting article here on the topic of marijuana use by those over the age of 50.

Apparently marijuana relieves pain, and those over 50 experience pain.

Who'da thought that?

"The most recent data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration show that marijuana use has increased among individuals over the age of 50 in the past decade. In 2012, 8 percent of those aged 50-54 said they’d used marijuana in the past year, nearly double the percentage from 2002. Users aged 55-59 more than quadrupled, from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 7.4 percent in 2012. Among people 60-64, use nearly doubled, from 2.4 percent to 4.4 percent in the same period. The data were collected for the agency’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which polled more than 68,000 Americans over age 12 in 2012."

Of course, how marijuana usage in the movies is portrayed somewhat differently, isn't it? For example, marijuana.com has a page entitled the Top Ten Stoner Characters in movies.

With the currently pro-marijuana climate in the states growing, and world-wide, governments are decriminalizing pot completely, and seeing usage and crime decline, it's only a matter of time before the wonder drug is available to all.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago it could be had over the counter at your local pharmacy.

In my mind though, it won't happen in the Great White North until such time as governments can figure out a way to effectively tax it. Talk about paying off the debt!

And just in case you're confused...

Light 'em if you got 'em. Read More...

Everything happens for a reason.

Those words were said to me again, just last night.

There are 3 young people 'round Brad and Ali's age living above me and Thursday one of them (Sam) knocked on my door 'asking' (I kid thee not) if I wouldn't mind him having a birthday party the next day (Friday). He was turning twenty, and said I should drop up for a beer and such.! Now, 20 is a big birthday, so I thanked him for politely asking me, and said I'd come by.

So, that's exactly what I did.

After a coupla games of poker/pool (and such), I got the munchies and went home.
Brought up a few beer and walked in to an ongoing kitchen party.
I like kitchen parties and this one was no different.

Blah blah blah...
Yadda yadda yadda...
Swap a yarn here and there and I find out that only Sam's Grandmother had sung him Happy Birthday.
Of course I could not allow this to pass, so...
After getting the attention of everyone (now 30 people or so) there *ahem*... I led them in a rousing edition of the traditional Birthday greeting.
:l

Did I mention that Sam's good friend is the young man who picked me up hitch-hiking on the final leg of my journey just outside of Yarmouth?

I KNOW EH!

Just leaving Thursday and I hear "you've been living downstairs the whole time?"
I'm like wtf!
I know this guy, but from where?
He's sittin in his car and he mentions the burn mark on his seat and it clicks.
OMG this is the Benjamin!
Too funny.
We agree to speak at the party.

To the party... and he's grilling me on a variety of subjects, as are a lot there. Some know Brad (some Alicia).

I stand out in a crowd and the party is no different.

Good conversation and laughter is had by all.

Thanks for the ride.

I leave after 'bout an hour and I realized that yet again I had just had another good day and I thought you should know that.

Read More...

Friday the 13th Part Two...

Hadn't been to Gretsky's nor had I been to Second City since its (now second) move to Blue Jays Way.
So, this Friday past (after an afternoon of BEER on a patio) I ventured out to see a friends friend on the main stage.
Was an absolute blast!
Made some new friends (thanks guys!)

Am working on an epic post about growing up in the city.
That's all I'll say for now. Read More...

But... that's not what I heard!

A humourous take on 10 myths/facts on 420 can be found here. Read More...

I think, therefor I am...

In keeping with today's obvious theme, (insert Captain Obvious intro), here is a story (including slideshow) on drugs and their influence on different arts through-out history. Read More...

A little history.

An interesting read on the history of the phrase 420 can be read here.

Enjoy! Read More...

On this day...

In honour of today being both Hump Day and 420... I give you;

Peace! Read More...