The Mad Pixie

I am going to sell the PixieMobile.

I do love it so and we have been on many adventures together, including the cross country odyssey about a year ago.  It is the most fun car I have ever had and I will miss it, but the reality is I am  working from home most of the time now and only driving it about once a week.  The little silver bullet deserves to see more action. (I do too, but that is a whole other story.)

As the car has been garaged for the winter I made an appointment to have it washed and detailed so it would look purty for the ad I will place in Auto Trader.  I took it to Classique Auto Spa in Liberty Village which is not only close to home but got great reviews on several websites that I perused.  I dropped it off in the morning and returned a few hours later to retrieve it and noticed a chunk of paint was missing from the front bumper.  Not huge, about a silver dollar size (you can see it in the photo below – the black dot to the left) but definitely not there when I left it earlier.

Hmmm.

I have been trying lately to take a more philosophical approach to life and to not let things affect me too deeply.  Realistically this was an injury to a car, and not a grievous one.  With that thought in mind I took a deep breathe, squared my shoulders and went to talk to the owner (who, by the way, looks like Don Cheadle’s much better looking younger brother.  That didn’t hurt.)

He looked at the car, looked at me and proceeded to not only apologize for the damage but to assure me he would have his body shop guy take care of it free of charge and that he would make sure that he made it up for the inconvenience of having to bring the car back and have it be off road for a couple of days.  I found myself reassuring him by saying that it was an unfortunate mishap that could happen to anyone.  He replied “Not to me. Or my customers”.

At this point my head got a little swimmy.  A calm, rational and reasonable individual taking responsibility for his company and their services delivering a calm, rational assessment of the situation and offering a prompt solution without argument, blame or obsequiousness.  So, service.  Really good service.

I got the keys back so I could drive the car for the weekend along with a promise that the matter would be taken care of on Monday morning and left to drive around High Park with the lid off whistling a happy tune.  It isn’t often that an accident can leave me with a smile on my face and a hearty corporate endorsement, but there you have it.  Service.  It’s a beautiful thing.

I sit here today, taking a break in my extremely unstructured day to nosh on a little thawed something for lunch.  The food in question which emerged unlabeled from my freezer turned out to be some sort of thai chickeny something which I have absolutely no recollection of having either cooked or purchased.  I munch away, throwing all gastrointestinal caution to the wind, and find my thoughts turning to the concept of failure.

Perhaps it is a bad omen to be contemplating the nature of failure at exactly the time that one is building a new business and I certainly hope not to expand my knowledge base  in this area anytime soon but I wonder if I have been going about it all wrong by being morbidly afraid of not reaching all goals.

The concept of failure in an exercise regime is an extremely important one.  If you do not know how far you can push yourself before you can absolutely go no further you cannot glean what a reasonable level of effort truly is.  I was taking an exercise class recently (5 days a week at 6:30 AM, but we shall examine my sanity at another date) where the instructor routinely pushed the entire class to the point where they failed.  The result was an interesting one.  In many exercise classes there is a definite strata of ability and it can inspire a willful yet unspoken competition.  When everyone in the class is ultimately going to founder it breeds a real sense of camaraderie.  You encourage the people who suck because, well, you do too.  It is very friendly and I found I really liked being in the class, even though I was routinely collapsed in an unruly pile on the floor.

I have recently been taking an improv class.  The instructors reiterate the fact that “improv is 80% failure” (though in my case I suspect it is significantly more).  You cannot pre-plan an improv sketch and the second you TRY to be funny, you aren’t.  The excellent moments are never ones that are preconceived, they are the weird left turn reactions that people take and that everyone just decides to run with.  Improv teaches you to relinquish control and to just let things unfold which for a life long producer by trade and control freak by nature is no easy task.

I will never lose the fear of failure and I don’t think it would benefit me if I did, but I am glad that I am learning to embrace the fact that things going wrong can often teach the most valuable lessons.

Its a fun concept in terms of goals – to be the best failer that failure has ever seen.  I certainly hope I don’t start with my internal organs from ingesting this dubious freezer offering, but I am intrigued to discover what lessons lie in the future.

Ah, there is something delightful about starting a post with a Johnny Cash lyric.  I’ll be singing “Sam Hall”  all day now.

The inspiration for said quote is a recent and unpleasant revelation that took place recently.  Let me preface this by stating that I am, in general, I am one of THOSE people.  You know the ones.  The ones that never get sick.  I am a fully fledged member of this annoying clan.  I never get colds and when I do they last 24 hours.  I have absolutely no trouble with my breathing, or my knees or my back.  I have never had a yeast infection or bronchitis.  I still retain most of my original bits (appendix, adenoids, tonsils intact).  I have been in the hospital a few times but generally for accidents and usually as the result for some epically jackassian behavior on my part.  I heal well.  In all the years of regular race walking I never sustained an injury despite having hamstrings as taut as piano wire.  But this whole aging thing threatens to change all that and I am not pleased.

I made myself a preemptive appointment at an eye doctor recently.  I am the only member of my family that does not wear glasses and I had notice that there had been some changes to my vision.  Nothing too dramatic – I have yet to fall victim to the “shrinking arm length” syndrome that seems to be attacking my peers (especially when trying to decipher menus in low light restaurants), but I had noticed that when I rapidly switched focal lengths, like shifting from watching the television to checking the time on the microwave clock, that I was extremely aware of the mechanics of my eyes moving and pulling the new target into focus.  I decided to have it checked out.  After a series of unnerving tests and an afternoon spent wandering around Yorkville after a bout eye drops that made me look like I had been at a late night cocktail with Hunter S Thompson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Keith Richards it was revealed that I am need of readers.  Very weak ones – I only need a +1.  This evidently is one of the lowest possible prescriptions which gives me some room to retain my smug sense of physical superiority while simultaneously making said glasses impossible to find at a truly discount rate (like, say, at the Dollar Store).

I think the things that irks me the most, aside from the certain inevitable march through physical infirmity to my ultimate demise, is the fact that I have now been saddled with yet another small, infinitely misplace-able item at precisely the same time in my life cycle that I seem to be losing all small infinitely misplace-able items with astounding regularity.  It is only a matter of time before I lose them on my own damned head (c’mon, you’ve all done it).

Damn my eyes indeed.  And god help me when I think what might be next.

Ever had one of those days when you start the day believing you have everything organized?  All your appointments and errands arrange in tidy time slots?  And then by about 10:00 AM you feel like some supreme being has taken everything on your list, tossed it into a bag like the purple Crown Royal pouch that everyone seemed to keep their Scrabble tiles in and then randomly scattered the contents across your calendar?  I have had one of those days.  Actually, I have had several of them in a row.

It really started with discovering that my beloved “cat”, Liam, had once again licked a raw spot on his arm.  He has done this once before (See “Who’s the Boss” Oct 5/11 http://themadpixie.com/?p=1682)  and I was tormented by the fact that the vet I took him to had suggested the at the licking was behavioral and the implied result of my neglect.  Well, precisely zero had changed in the boys regime this time so I hauled him back to find out what the hell was up.  The new vet asked if the previous wound had responded to steroids treatment.  It had.  He assured me if that was the case this was an allergy that oddly manifests on the forearm and isn’t behavioral at all.  I am vindicated.  And blissfully the new vet agreed that trying to trap my mini Houdini in a plastic Elizabethan collar was a total waste of time (here’s the photographic proof http://themadpixie.com/?p=1706) so he has bestowed upon my pet a lovely cape for the same purpose.  I think he looks rather fetching.  Inspiring, even.

Anyway, all is well on the home front and I am beginning to realize no matter how organized you may be and how much of a control freak you are, trying to map out the days is like juggling Jell-O.  No matter how you try you will never get a proper handle on it.

Spring appears to have sprung (for the time being, anyway) and what better thing to do to celebrate than to immediately lock oneself in a dark room and watch a movie?  I just took in the inaugural screening at the Hot Docs Theatre in the newly refurbished Bloor Cinema.  They have done a lovely job.  Plush, comfortable seats with high backs, great sound system, a new curved screen (installed curiously high up, but that would be my only criticism).  The washrooms are nice, the small bags of popcorn they sell really are small and reasonably priced so you don’t end up plowing through a pillowcase of puffery that could reasonably feed a soccer team.  They do not sell bottled water but will happily hand over a cup of ice free of charge for you to fill at the drinking fountain.  They have done a stellar job, and as I am passionate about documentaries I forsee many the hour being whiled away in this comfortable lair.  I saw the film “Being Elmo” which covers the career of the man behind (underneath? inside?) the Elmo puppet of “Sesame Street” fame.  It was charming and touching and I left before the Q&A with the director as I had precisely nothing to either Q or A.

Film festivals are rampant in Toronto now.  Someone told me recently that there are about 90 being screened annually.  Hot Docs are my personal favorite, although I have been growing concerned that the it is almost too big now and is approaching critical mass.  I missed last year for the first time in ages, so I will see what the the 2012 line up has to offer.  I personally lost interest in TIFF long ago.  The lottery system doesn’t really work for me and the fact that the city is choked and locked down for the duration just annoys me.  I am, however,  delighted by the building of the TIFF theatre and have been trying to take advantage of it as often as possible before the eponymous festival begins.

One relative newcomer that I am determined to check out this year is the Silent Film Festival which runs from March 29 – April 3.  It starts with “Our Dancing Daughter” starring Joan Crawford at the dawn of her career, before she became famous for Mildred Pierce and a loathing of wire coat hangers.  The Festival was started by Shirley Hughes, who is amongst other things the partner of my Truly Excellent Ex, Marc.  Shirley is a force – she has her conviction meter registering about a 9 and her bullshit meter pinned to zero.  They have some great films scheduled and I hope everyone has a chance to check them out.

TIFF theatre, Hot Docs Theatre, Silent Film Fest.  I shall keep my fish belly pallor well in to the summer by the looks of things.

Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday proved to be as delightful as the rest of the week had been.  The temperature dropped but the sky was blue, I had another great meeting with some kindred spirits and hooked up with friends new and old.  I bid a fond farewell to the city and headed to the airport.

And I made a rookie mistake.  I didn’t bother to make sure that my flight was on time when I left for the airport, so I dropped off my rental car and made my way to an empty departure lounge where I realized my flight was fully two hours behind schedule.  LAX, unlike many airports, is NOT in the middle of nowhere but I had my flight case with me and there are no lockers on the premises. It just wasn’t practical to hop a bus to the nearby Marina to kill some time, but I did give the idea pause.  I ended up doing laps around the airport and then taking myself for a time wasting lemonade adventure to the restaurant that lies in the heart of the airport complex.

You may have seen photos of Encounter as it looms, Triffid-like,  over the terminals.

The cosmos theme is very much continued in the interior.  You start your adventure by entering a tiny elevator that cues eerie space music (or what passed for it and now sounds like a really stretched audio cassette) and ride up to the top.  The view is pretty good if you like looking at runways and the mountains that you could have been driving through had you the foresight to check your flight details.

The proprietors have resisted the urge to carry the theme to the menu – I had a berry salad and a lemonade that were thus named as a opposed to something like a “Moonberry green garden with alien sputem sauce”, but the kitsch continued to the decor which I suspect had not been modified since the early 80s.

The bathroom was fabulous.

All in all it wasn’t a bad place to spend an otherwise unclaimed hour.  The food was passable, it wasn’t the departure lounge of an international airport and the possibility of an abduction seemed positively ripe.  Still, I will endeavor not to make the same mistake again.  It is hard to stomach that you are looking at this:

When with a simple phone call or web surf you could be looking at this:

There are a few things that should be known about me.

1.  I am asked for directions everywhere I go, including when I am in foreign lands

2.  I can predict the location of any public washroom within a one mile radius regardless of what city or country I am in. (I inherited this skill from my mother)

3.  I have a serious shoe obsession

Today I was asked for directions to the washroom in Designer Shoe Warehouse.

I believe my life is complete.

So Hello Again California!

The PMA (Production Music Association) is an organization that is fairly integral to the mechanics of my new business and they hosted a seminar on Thursday night in Los Angeles entitled “What Is The Value of Music?”.  There was a similar event in New York in November which I elected not to attend and I have regretted it ever since.  I angsted over attending this one as it meant cashing in ALL of my travel points, but here I am.  I couldn’t be more glad I made the decision I did.

After an uneventful (and chilly) flight from Toronto I landed in Los Angeles.  The first thing that happened was I got an unasked for upgrade at the rental car place from a rather down-at-heel black Nissan Versa to a brand new silver Mustang convertible.  The second thing that happened was a high of 80 degrees fahrenheit.  The roof came off and the games began.  I had some time to kill before my first meeting of the trip so I drove to the Rose Cafe in Venice for lunch, which has long been one of my favorite places in town.  I ate, went to the Marina and had an absolutely brilliant meeting where I met the owners an operators of a great music library that will now be added to my stable of suppliers.  I drove into Hollywood with the top down, whistling a happy tune and checked into The Magic Castle Hotel.  I have long been fascinated by The Magic Castle which was built in 1909 and opened as a private club for magicians and sleight of hand performers in 1963.  I discovered upon my arrival that my room was not in the Castle itself but in a converted apartment building just adjacent to it.  My disappointment in not having a coffin in which to saw someone in half strategically placed in the living room was quickly assuaged by the fact that my room is bigger than either my apartment in LA or my current living space in Toronto.

I lolled about for a bit then drove up to Mulholland Blvd for a scenic drive that wound through Topanga Canyon to the ocean.  I drove along the coast for a bit and back down through Santa Monica, ending up in Venice again for a lovely dinner in a cozy Spanish restaurant.  Diver scallops, risotto and tea.

Thursday I ran errands and found myself on Hollywood Blvd, drinking in the most exquisite juice (a Fruit Rainbow – fresh squeezed oranges with water melon, strawberry and blackberry juices with a bit of honey) while I wandered over to see what my favorite mannequins were wearing for Valentine’s Day.

They never disappoint.

I had another meeting in Santa Monica which went beautifully (another library for the collection!) and I headed up to the Valley for the seminar.  It is always a tough call with these things.  They can be dry-as-a-bone dull, or absolutely fascinating and fortunately this was the latter.  I was amused to discover a few weeks ago that one of the panelists was a Torontonian guy called Steve Pecile who used to be Willard’s boss and I have known for 20 years.  ”Great”, I thought. “I am flying 2000 miles to see a guy I could drive 20 minutes to visit”.  It was worth it.  He looks great – relaxed and happy and 10 years younger than the last time I saw him.  I reunited with some of the people I had met with before, met some great new people and left the seminar completely fired up with enthusiasm and renewed vigor.

Today is another beautiful day.  I had breakfast with my old neighbour Ethan and am about to head out for a walk before my next meeting in Burbank this afternoon.  My hotel is located in the heart of Hollywood and is perfectly located for jumping off to the different parts of the city.  And the Designer Show Warehouse is one block south.  I guess I know what I am doing this afternoon.

I have this last meeting then an evening of uncharted excitement.  Tomorrow holds lunch with my friend Anny, then dinner and a sleep over with Jessica in Santa Monica.  Then home on Sunday.  All in all a healthy, happy, profitable and inspiring trip.

Time to take the top down and go look at shoes.  Does it get any better than this?

I rented “Moneyball” the other day.  It turns out it is a baseball movie about baseball.  I was expecting some kind of subtext, but no, it really is about a specific period in the history of a baseball team when the general manager decides to adapt a new method of developing said team.  At first it doesn’t work, then it does for a bit.  No real spoiler alerts there.

So often there are more dimensions to films ostensibly about sports.  You hear phrases like “the triumph of the human spirit” and things of that ilk.  Not this one.  So it was with some interest that I read that both Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill were nominated for Academy Awards in (respectively) the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories.  For the life of me I cannot say why.  They were both passable in unobjectionable roles.  There was nothing particularly nuanced about either performance.  I didn’t snap off the TV and feel like I needed to learn more about the subject I had just watched.  I didn’t pause and take a breathe and express wonder at the miracle I had just witnessed.  They were … fine.

I know it is fairly common knowledge that the Academy Awards are a political game and rarely are nominations dealt out simply for excellence in a single performance.  But shouldn’t they be?  I noticed that Christopher Plummer was up for a supporting actor nod.  Now, Christopher Plummer is an incredible actor and I have not seen this film, but is he REALLY nominated for this particular turn or is it because he is really goddamn old and he has never won before?  Not to say you shouldn’t be appreciated for your entire catalogue of work but surely those are called “Lifetime Achievement Awards” and have their own special place in the world.

In the past, did Halle Berry win for “Monster’s Ball” because she was incredible (which she kinda wasn’t) or because no black woman had ever won best actress prior to 2001?  I hesitate to even write that lest I be accused of racism, but isn’t there really a bigger picture problem of no good roles being created or offered to black women that surely cannot be solved by a misplaced homage?

Did Charlize Theron win for “Monster” because it was outstanding, or because they transformed an insanely beautiful woman into an ugly one?  (And if walking around with no make up and sweatpants on harbouring resentment against the world is award worthy, then where the hell is mine?)  Even Sandra Bullock surmised in her acceptance speech that she thought she had finally won because the academy had grown tired of seeing her nominated without a win.

I harbour no malice to Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill or any other actor I have mentioned.  I just believe that  the point of having a show such as the Oscars is to honour tour-de-force acting in a specific film.  Athletes win medals because they excel in a specific event at a specific time.  You don’t win Olympic gold for being a generally good sprinter, or swimmer, or skier.  It all comes down to one moment, and one that you have worked your life to get to.  Makes it seem a little more important.  Makes you believe in the “triumph of the human spirit” after all.

I was wandering through the park today and I found myself in the old gravel pit section where families flock in winter to do a little tobogganing.  I espied a young unit who had kitted out some inner tube sliders with what appeared to be duvets.  Their children were nestled in like Faberge Eggs and having a whale of a time.  I can’t say I blamed them – their transports looked like elaborate barcoloungers with downy after market upgrades.  I wondered if they had cup holders.  Or MP3 players.

I have gone tubing before, and it is a whole pant load of fun, but these contraptions raised the common ‘boggan to a level of art.

I must confess to feeling more than a little envy.  Were I to embark on a sliding adventure I would certainly opt for the pleasure disc I observed over the strips of hard plastic (or industrial strength garbage bags) that served the same purpose when I was young.  Remember Super Slider Sno-Skates?  An item that probably should have been marketed under the far more accurate name “The Coccyx Killer” (perhaps with two “k”s, for effect).  Or the Krazy Karpet? (See!)  As low-tech as polymer can be and I loved them both.  I begged for them but my parent’s resisted so we consoled ourselves with the traditional toboggan. This probably explains why I have my original front teeth and enjoyed an intact tailbone for the duration of my childhood.

I tried to find pictures of the Sno Skates and this is the best I could find:

I could be wrong but doesn’t it look like this child’s family has preemptively strapped some braces to his legs?  The body language, the sense of impending doom – ah, the memories!

It has been an unseasonably warm winter to date (to be honest, the aforementioned family was really doing a bit more mud sliding than tobogganing) and I will not be heard to complain.  But when Old Man Winter eventually wraps his icy fingertips around this town you may find me across the street surfing down the park’s icy slopes.  IF I can find a way of sawing my sectional couch in half and taking the bedspread with me.  I am inspired.