This special little guy fell off the roof of the Bathurst Theatre just south of Bloor. Follow his progress three days hence.
Day One:
Day Two:
...and Day Three:
Saturday, April 5, 2008
When You're Summer Bored Circa 2006
The Bathurst Pigeon Progression
This special little guy fell off the roof of the Bathurst Theatre just south of Bloor. Follow his progress three days hence.
Day One:
Day Two:
...and Day Three:
This special little guy fell off the roof of the Bathurst Theatre just south of Bloor. Follow his progress three days hence.
Day One:
Day Two:
...and Day Three:
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ms Random Task 3.0
My final catering gig was at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church on St Clair Ave. It's much larger than its facade might boast, and I'm pretty sure the congregation is rich like filthy. In as far as Places for Prayer Solace go in the city are concerned, this one is totally pimped.The occasion was a rather solemn and teary funeral for a thrill-seeking son of a wealthy family. He apparently passed away whilst on vacation somewhere, but I never got the full story. Everybody was being too proper about it. The pews were absolutely packed for the service with a line-up past the staircase to get into the reception hall.
As luck would have it, there was also a gut-wrenching stomach virus making the rounds not only our fair city, but in that very building. The piles of food and debris left in the wake of the mourners makes me nervous enough about picking up something nasty, but a couple of hours into the festivities, Public Embarrassment 101 took place in the far corner.
Mercifully I was on the other side of the room when the actual expongeance took place, but quite suddenly a gentleman vomited in a rather abrupt and violent fashion all over the floor. He made a hasty exit through the door behind him.
I worked a double and passed out on my friend's couch, only to feel dreadful the following morning. After a few minutes of tossing and turning - WAM - I turned my head in time to completely cover their living room floor in my partially digested dinner. Only you know this time, there was no janitorial staff. Just a very flustered, sleep-deprived me with a mop and a decades-old bottle of Pine Sol.
Mercifully I was on the other side of the room when the actual expongeance took place, but quite suddenly a gentleman vomited in a rather abrupt and violent fashion all over the floor. He made a hasty exit through the door behind him.
I worked a double and passed out on my friend's couch, only to feel dreadful the following morning. After a few minutes of tossing and turning - WAM - I turned my head in time to completely cover their living room floor in my partially digested dinner. Only you know this time, there was no janitorial staff. Just a very flustered, sleep-deprived me with a mop and a decades-old bottle of Pine Sol.
Do I miss catering? No I do not.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Ms Random Task 2.0
The Racist Bar Mitzvah
Scheduled to do a catering gig in the north end of the city, a bunch of us carpooled to the event with some reluctance. Our latest quandary was a Bar Mitzvah of little 13-year-old Avi. His parents were celebrating the dawn of his manhood with indoor carnival games leading up to the main hall, a bar made of ice with small basketballs suspended therein, sweet cocktails that the children stole off of the roaming waiter's trays, vats of diabetic-coma-inducing candy, basketball-shaped topiaries constructed of orange roses as centre-pieces of each of the tables for the five hundred guests, and a dance floor designed to resemble a professional basketball court, complete with a scoreboard upon which the little man's name flashed.
With jaws dropping at the decor that met our eyes on the way to the kitchen area, all staff were immediately instructed to wear basketball jersies of little Avi's favourite teams. Agreements were begrudging at best. A server is a mascot anyway, any way you slice it. It seems however, that there are more tasteful ways of treating the staff (my costume for the AGOs Massive Party notwithstanding).
As the guests arrived and we circulated with our various duties, I was placed on hors d'oeuvres and others took their places behind the bar. There was way too much food, and on my third pass nobody wanted anything any more. I repeatedly came back to the kitchen with full trays. We were over staffed, but it had been made clear to us that everybody was to "look like they were working". My wrists were beginning to regret taking the shift.
Then I began to stand more, waiting for people to come to me. And that's when I noticed them. Large men were standing alone in the corners of the main bar room, their eyes surveying the crowd of tipsy adults and their little sugar fiends. These men didn't speak to anyone. They were clearly hired help, made all the more apparent by their referee uniforms. "What are they here for?" I asked a passing waiter. "They're the baby-sitters." He said, barely glancing at them before slipping behind the service curtain with his tray of empty glasses.
I stared at one of them. And then my eyes went to the next, and then the next. They were all black. My initial reaction was to place shame on whomever had done the hiring. But then again, hired help is hired help, and who cares? I thought to myself that my thoughts were largely symptomatic of the white guilt I've heard about in subsequent years, made hilarious by 30 Rock and The Chappelle Show.
Dinner began without much change. After the ridiculous amount of candied booze and appetizers, barely anybody wanted the three course meal planned for them. As half of the crowd was children, I've got to wonder who needed a three courser, anyway. I remember being ecstatic when one of my friend's dad's bought us Happy Meals at McDonald's. I guess I grew up in the wrong income bracket. But seriously, kids don't know the real value of things are are pretty easily pleased. "Why go to all this trouble? This is a waste." I thought. And then it happened.
Somehow the boy of the hour had slipped away from the head table. After dessert was cleared the spot lights on the dance floor were illuminated and trumpets from the ample sound system erupted in a chorus befitting a Rocky Balboa tribute. Everybody cheered and my coworkers and I watched from the side lines as little Avi, the little prince, emerged from the curtains at the back of the stage.
He wasn't alone. With a huge grin on his face, he was sitting on top of a basketball shaped plush chair. A kid who loved his desserts, Avi couldn't be very light either, so he had to be supported. By four of the men carrying his chair like slaves would a litter in the streets of Cairo. I could sense the jaws of the staff who "got it" dropping across the room, but the guests found it most spectacular.
The trumpets faded away and the DJ put on the every popular "Havah Negilah," for the traditional birthday chair bounce. While extremely comical (and I'm sad my family doesn't have this kind of thing at special occasions) it was a pretty gross site to behold. There were the "baby-sitters" bouncing little Avi, who was surely that night the most oblivious and spoiled boy in town.
Perhaps it was coincidence that all the gentlemen were of (one) colour, and perhaps the boy just happened to have a smug look of satisfaction on his face, but the whole scene just wasn't right. I stood there with a pitcher of water, mouth agap. The age of political correctness seemed to be long-passed in that dining hall, as if it had come full circle to where racial stereotypes and lack of sensitvity were again, back into the realm of acceptability. Whatever the case may be, I still wish I had a camera on me. I still shed tears for the missed opportunity.
We ran from the event as soon as they began to cut staff. Nobody seemed to want to stay in the creep fest that was sure to be the world's worse sugar hangover for those involved. I did manage to steal some candy before I left, however. The kids can't have all the fun...
With jaws dropping at the decor that met our eyes on the way to the kitchen area, all staff were immediately instructed to wear basketball jersies of little Avi's favourite teams. Agreements were begrudging at best. A server is a mascot anyway, any way you slice it. It seems however, that there are more tasteful ways of treating the staff (my costume for the AGOs Massive Party notwithstanding).
As the guests arrived and we circulated with our various duties, I was placed on hors d'oeuvres and others took their places behind the bar. There was way too much food, and on my third pass nobody wanted anything any more. I repeatedly came back to the kitchen with full trays. We were over staffed, but it had been made clear to us that everybody was to "look like they were working". My wrists were beginning to regret taking the shift.
Then I began to stand more, waiting for people to come to me. And that's when I noticed them. Large men were standing alone in the corners of the main bar room, their eyes surveying the crowd of tipsy adults and their little sugar fiends. These men didn't speak to anyone. They were clearly hired help, made all the more apparent by their referee uniforms. "What are they here for?" I asked a passing waiter. "They're the baby-sitters." He said, barely glancing at them before slipping behind the service curtain with his tray of empty glasses.
I stared at one of them. And then my eyes went to the next, and then the next. They were all black. My initial reaction was to place shame on whomever had done the hiring. But then again, hired help is hired help, and who cares? I thought to myself that my thoughts were largely symptomatic of the white guilt I've heard about in subsequent years, made hilarious by 30 Rock and The Chappelle Show.
Dinner began without much change. After the ridiculous amount of candied booze and appetizers, barely anybody wanted the three course meal planned for them. As half of the crowd was children, I've got to wonder who needed a three courser, anyway. I remember being ecstatic when one of my friend's dad's bought us Happy Meals at McDonald's. I guess I grew up in the wrong income bracket. But seriously, kids don't know the real value of things are are pretty easily pleased. "Why go to all this trouble? This is a waste." I thought. And then it happened.
Somehow the boy of the hour had slipped away from the head table. After dessert was cleared the spot lights on the dance floor were illuminated and trumpets from the ample sound system erupted in a chorus befitting a Rocky Balboa tribute. Everybody cheered and my coworkers and I watched from the side lines as little Avi, the little prince, emerged from the curtains at the back of the stage.
He wasn't alone. With a huge grin on his face, he was sitting on top of a basketball shaped plush chair. A kid who loved his desserts, Avi couldn't be very light either, so he had to be supported. By four of the men carrying his chair like slaves would a litter in the streets of Cairo. I could sense the jaws of the staff who "got it" dropping across the room, but the guests found it most spectacular.
The trumpets faded away and the DJ put on the every popular "Havah Negilah," for the traditional birthday chair bounce. While extremely comical (and I'm sad my family doesn't have this kind of thing at special occasions) it was a pretty gross site to behold. There were the "baby-sitters" bouncing little Avi, who was surely that night the most oblivious and spoiled boy in town.
Perhaps it was coincidence that all the gentlemen were of (one) colour, and perhaps the boy just happened to have a smug look of satisfaction on his face, but the whole scene just wasn't right. I stood there with a pitcher of water, mouth agap. The age of political correctness seemed to be long-passed in that dining hall, as if it had come full circle to where racial stereotypes and lack of sensitvity were again, back into the realm of acceptability. Whatever the case may be, I still wish I had a camera on me. I still shed tears for the missed opportunity.
We ran from the event as soon as they began to cut staff. Nobody seemed to want to stay in the creep fest that was sure to be the world's worse sugar hangover for those involved. I did manage to steal some candy before I left, however. The kids can't have all the fun...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ms Random Task 1.0
While I've by no means held the shittiest jobs imaginable in our fair city, the majority of them haven't been exactly dynamite. This is especially true when they're remotely related to odd catering gigs in downtown buildings. Here, I decided to document a few of those happenings. While these are mostly for posterity, they also exist to remind myself not to take them on so often. In either case, one was as follows._____________________________________
The merciful thing about the odd catering job is that sometimes things so out of the ordinary occur that they entirely make up for all the hours you thought you lost to ennui.
One day a couple of Januaries ago, I had the dullard task of greeting people by the main entrance of the Design Xchange on Bay Street. It was some weird little diplomat/business function, mostly attended by men in terrible expensive suits who don't look anybody serving them in the eye.
I was standing for a good half hour with (practically) no entertainment (save the occaisional older man with a heavy french accent trying to flirt with me*) when something quite head fucky happened to cross my path.
Quite suddenly I heard the padding of feet behind me. You know, kind of like in a shower. It seemed strangely out of place, and not something you tend to hear in a hallway of any sort, much less the one of a public establishment. The footfalls echoed curiously for a couple of seconds before I realized that they were approaching me at a rather alarming rate.
I turned around to see a wet, sweaty man running past the main desk (at the time, just around the corner behind me) and making a break for the door. He was fat and terribly ill equiped to do whatever he had set out to accomplish. Apparently whatever he was trying to get at was by pretty dubious means, and plus, he had no shirt on. That's right. He almost looked more wet that way, cos his backhair was all slicked to his skin like some feline combed after a bath. He was also quite short. Almost mediterranean in appearance, but I never really got a good look at his face. No shoes, no shirt, and heading for the door.
Next I heard, "Stop that man!!!" Though you know, I really don't think anybody was prepared to take that one on. Besides, I think they were just as stunned as I was.
The shouting voice came from a man with, wait for it, a long flailing trenchcoat and an immaculate three-piece dark suit underneath. His coat tails gave quite the show whilst he pursued his topless quarry, now out of sight and assumedly running southbound down the street. I should mention here that he also had patent leather shoes. Magnificent.
I'm quite ashamed to say I was a little too good an employee and didn't leave my post to see what would become of these two individuals. I waited to see if one of the smokers would come in with news. Indeed, a lovely younger man with tailored attire that cost more than my parents country house told me he saw the topless man being caught by the trenchcoat. To my disapointment, the topless offender wasn't brought in the way he had exited, and I never saw him again.
After futher enquiries, I gathered that said man had apparently climbed in through a window. Where he had lost half his clothes remains a mystery, but still, what a poorly planned execution. Perhaps I'm just trying to convince myself that it really didn't matter what his plans were... Fat. Wet. Caught. I wonder if he ever reported back to the big boss.
*But you know, that's so balls. I'm used to that.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Local Stuff: The Interests of Tens
My on-going love affair with the writing of Christopher Hume reaches new heights this week. Rather than fight it, I'll just bask in the warm glow of the newspaper's crinkly embrace:
"Toronto doesn't know how to say yes."
"Toronto doesn't know how to say yes."
And Toronto isn't alone. "Fear of change is palpable everywhere in New York," reports Hilary Ballon, who co-edited the recently published, Robert Moses and the Modern City, a revisionist history of the controversial builder..."
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