life is large. why insist on living small?
live large. expand into the space. realize your potential. follow your dreams.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Progress

I went out last night after work, and was wearing my sexy new jeans. And sure enough it happened: somebody looked at me with lust in their eyes!

I think.

He had a lazy eye, so I'm not sure if he was looking at me or at someone in the crowd around me. Honestly, I just could not tell.

Ahhhhhh, who cares. At least it's progress.

Friday, May 27, 2005

twenty

Reading one of my favourite bloggers yesterday, I saw that this year marks the ten-year anniversary of his High School graduation.

Hmmm...2005, is it? Gulp! That means it's been TWENTY YEARS for me. I need to lie down now, as I'm feeling a wee bit dizzy.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

My window to the world hallway

It worked, it worked! My sign worked! I walked out into the hallway the other night and found a note to the captive (me), and an offering of Diet Coke and M&M's to help ease the punishment of my time in the torture chamber my room.

I love the fact that it took me 5 days to figure out who left the treats, and it was someone totally unexpected. Jeepers, I would never have guessed Box Office Boy!

And on an unrelated topic, I was peering out the same joke of a window and into the hotel hallway late the other night. I heard a noise; I wanted to investigate. It was just my colleague Ladybug walking by. No biggie. Except I forgot that I was wearing only my underwear. (Blush) Ladybug saw me, pointed her finger, and laughed as she got into the elevator. She was tipsy, I was busy, we both totally forgot about it.

Having completely forgotten about the incident, I then found myself talking to her boyfriend at the bar three nights later. And he casually identified my preferred brand of underwear with a sly, "So, Jeff, I hear you like to wear..." Now, someone's boyfriend identifying my preferred brand of undies isn't a new thing. Ya, so call me a slut -- what do I care? But I don't recall this particular boyfriend being someone with whom I've ever been in a compromising position -- trust me, I would have remembered! I was a bit taken aback, until it finally dawned on me. And I ran over to Ladybug, laughing and ranting out loud (very loudly) how, "LADYBUG SAW ME IN MY UNDERWEAR!! LADYBUG SAW ME IN MY UNDERWEAR!!"

She, too, had forgotten. But duly reminded of the late-night-window-into-the-hallway expose, Ladybug and I laughed our asses off. She said she was impressed by what she saw. I told her I wasn't even wearing my slutty underwear.

Jeepers, I've got some awesome colleagues/neighbours!

Releasing the J-LO sex god within

Oh God. I did it. I succumbed.

I bought a new pair of jeans that actually make me look like I have an ass aren't quite so loose as the ones I've been wearing for the past year. I admit it: I'm being totally shallow. But can somebody please look at me with lust in their eyes for a change?!

I'm not a bad man. I'm just lame weak.

The Good,
The Bad,
The Ugly,
and The Fucking Brilliant

The Good: the weather here has been freakin' unbelievable.

The Bad: it's a bit boring here. OK, a whole lot boring.

The Ugly: I'm sick of the dial-up speed of 28.8 kbps that I "enjoy" in my torture chamber serviced apartment.

But while we're at it, how about The Fucking Brilliant: going out for a drink the other night on my own (as usual), walking home all depressed and lamenting the fact that nobody ever calls me to invite me out with them, and then getting said call from two of my favourite people on tour (Surf Girl and The Boxer) who just happened to think, "I wonder what Jeff's doing. Maybe we should give him a call to see if he wants to join us."

That made my whole freakin' week! It's definitely been lonely at times, and I'm worried that things may stay that way, but once in a while you have this spark of life and you think, "Now that's more like it!"

Friday, May 20, 2005

I have a dream plan

Our new tour plan was finally announced. So now, without further ado, I give everyone the real deal for 2006:

North America!

Yup, in 2006 we'll be heading to the land of the free and the home of the brave (the country of the cerebrally-deficient leader), and that will be great. It's been a bit too long since I've been firmly affixed to North American soil, so I'm really looking forward to it. In fact, one of the very first things I did was look at a map to try and figure out which of the sites on our agenda is close enough to the home of Luscious Lorna to organize some much-needed power drinking R&R time. But it doesn't stop there: we also get to do a brief sojourn to the country north of the border that allows gay marriage! And how stoked am I about that?!!

Some of the other tours have somewhat sexier plans than ours (Europe, other locales in NA, etc.), but that's OK. I have a feeling that ours will work out just fine for me, thank you very much. Not everyone is overjoyed (many on our tour have already done NA, some more than once), but I'm stoked. And while I can't discuss the plan in any detail -- well, not until the sites become public knowledge -- there is one particularly cool city coming up. It might not be everyone's first choice, but I think heading there is a capital idea : )

Oh ya, we had cultural sensitivity training in advance of our time in Singapore and Hong Kong. Jeepers, I learned some interesting stuff. And I found out that I'll be celebrating my birthday while we're in the city of the Frangrant Harbour: Hong Kong. A Hong Kong birthday. Now that could be interesting...

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Hands up if you remember Ace of Base!
I saw the sign...

I changed the sign on the window of my torture chamber bedroom. You remember: the window that looks into the freakin' hallway of the fleabag motel serviced apartment complex in which I'm currently housed.

HELP! I'm being held captive by circus freaks. Please send:
  • Scotch
  • $$
  • chocolate
  • M&M's
  • Diet Coke
Thank you in advance for your help.

Well, it keeps me and some of my fellow freaks amused.

::::KYLIE::::

Devastated

I got the news last night as I checked my text messages during a break from work. It couldn't be a joke. In the words of my friend Number One, not even Triple J would joke about something like that.

I know I'll get a refund on my ticket eventually. And I'm still going to Melbourne on Sunday. I just won't be standing with 19,999 other fans as the Pop Princess and her beefy dancers take us through a 17-year career that stretches from "I Should Be So Lucky" all the way to the current hits.

My flight is paid for, my hotel is paid for (in beautiful South Yarra, my temporary neighbourhood from my circus stay), and I still have friends to hang out with. I was just reallly hoping that I'd be hitting RLA on Monday night with all the other fags for a bit of Kylie Kaos. But sometimes it's just not about me.

The important thing is that she caught it early. Hell, even her mentor has beaten this. And according to all her famous supporters who have been interviewed by the media, she's a real fighter and has a great support network around her. Jeepers, no kidding -- just look at that spunk she shares her bed with. Yup, I suspect that, once this is beaten, she'll come back more adored than ever before. Bless.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

"Please don't feed the animals"

Premiere night in Adelaide went well. We had lots of celebrities in attendance: Olympic legend Marjorie Jackson, lots of actors and actresses from McLeod's Daughters, and plenty of buff footy players like Captain Mark Ricciutto and his Crows teammates. The tent looked great, the staff were attentive, and the show always speaks for itself.

The Premiere Party was cool. At a nightclub called Heaven, it started after the show (of course) and went until 2AM, following which we were hurried along to the other part of the nightclub complex, called Hell. We hung there for a while before going to some other place called Zhivago's, which you would think would be Russian or something. Right?!

Try Reggae instead. Imagine my slightly inebriated brain trying to reconcile a name like that with music and atmosphere like that. But in the end it just didn't matter, as our crew of 50 or so late-nighters played up until all hours. In fact, the club was closing just as we arrived, but someone in our entourage convinced them to stay open and profit from the patronage of a large group of heavy drinkers.

Cut to us stumbling home at 5:30AM. And then cut to me (well, pretty well everyone on-site, really) showing up with circus-sized hangovers the next day. Oi.

So that was Premiere. And now we're full-on into the daily grind of pumping out shows. After two weeks of picture perfect weather -- and two weeks of the locals repeatedly saying, "Honestly, it's never this nice in May" -- the rain finally arrived. It was still quite warm, and it wasn't the kind of horizontal rain that Vancouver sometimes gets, but it was rain nonetheless. Didn't cause us too much hassle, so in the end it was a non-factor. Still, I hope we get back to sunshine and mid- to high-20's again today.

What else? I can't sleep. I'm needlessly thinking about some stuff that I shouldn't worry about outside of work. I'm still living in a teeny torture chamber of a room that has a hot water heater and no ventilation (the combination of which makes it a wee bit warm and a wee bit stuffy), with a window that looks out. Into the hall of the hotel! WTF?!

I taped a sign to my window, so that the other hotel guests (I think it's mostly circus freaks on my floor, anyway) walking down the hall and past my window, mere inches from my bed, see:

"Please don't feed the animals circus freaks."

Because I feel like I'm kinda on display. Yup, even more so that usual.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

"Sure Jeff, I'm in! I'll drink the kool-aid!"

Holy hell! I am soooooo over Set Up! It's hard work getting our tent ready and looking just-so for Premiere night tomorrow. I know I used to work a million hours a week for years and years in my previous professional life, but the past several days have been about long hours filled with manual labour, leaving me tired, sore, and desperately looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I have so many cuts and gashes on my hands from all the lifting, hauling, cutting, hoisting, and dragging I've done, that I'm gonna have to moisturize for weeks I finally have tradesman hands.

But the tent looks fabulous. We just have the finishing touches to complete tomorrow in advance of the Premiere, and then we're back to full-on operational mode. We have only 8 shows a week here in Adelaide, so that's scaling back a bit from the normal schedule -- and I ain't complainin' Mary!

I conducted the training session with my Adelaide team members today, and realized just how rusty I am. Developing and delivering training programs is something I love doing, and have a talent for. I know this. But having been away from it for nearly two years really showed today. It went OK, but I didn't find that I was able to get the team as enthused and motivated as I would have liked. Normally I can get up there and make them believers without any problems. "Sure, Jeff, I'm in! I'll drink the kool-aid!" Today I never felt like I got the buy-in that I was hoping for. I'm sure, however, that they'll be just fine and that this city will run smoothly. Sure...famous last words : )

Still, I realized a lot of wins today. I can't believe that some -- well, many -- of the things that I incorporated into today's training program had never, ever been done before. It seems to me that there was a lot of low-handing fruit just waiting to be picked, so I (naturally) picked it. Why hadn't these things been done before? Why had people complained about not knowing this or that, not having done one thing or another, when all they had to do was just freakin' do it?! Stop complaining; make it happen!

Oh well, it doesn't matter that these things haven't been done before, cuz they're sure gonna be done from now on! Hell ya! Three snaps. Go girl!

I am soooooo ready for the Premiere Party!

Saturday, May 07, 2005

"Join the circus. See the world!"

They told me, "Join the circus. See the world!"

It didn't feel all that glamourous during the couple of hours I spent today mopping the wooden floor in my tent so that it was ready for the carpet to be laid. Oh well, at least something is getting laid : )

I'm not so sure they really explained the whole Tear Down/Set Up thing. The last two days we've been in full-on Set Up mode, and imagine all of this in reverse. Yup, I've been in "Earl" mode again, with hard hat, fluoro vest, and steel-toes. It's hard work, but our tent will look great when it's all over.

I met my new team on Thursday at our orientation day. We've got all women this city, and I'm sure they're all going to be brilliant. Next week they'll get a full day of Merchandising training before joining me for my newly-rejigged job-specific training. I love developing and delivering training programs, so I'm really looking forward to it. But, jaysus!! There's a hell of a lot more work to do before then!

Adelaide is nice so far. Weather? Gorgeous. Architecture? Pretty cool. I still love the look of all the beautiful sandstone buildings that litter all Australian cities. If I can stay awake, I'm gonna try and go out tonight for a beverage or two. Then again, I'm pretty darn tired, so it may just be a quiet night in my teeny, tiny, windowless, unventilated torture chamber room.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

About a boy

I met a boy. And he's pretty cool.

The good news is, we're friends.

Damn.

On Monday we hung out together all afternoon and evening. For hours, his knee touched mine discreetly under the table while a group of us had dinner. He invited me to his apartment afterwards to have some drinks and watch an audition video he taped for a job he's hoping to get. We laughed, we chilled, we touched knees on the couch.

I put my hand on his calf. What a calf! I kept it there to see if he would do or say anything. To see if he would lean in and pull me closer to him. To see if he would just put his hand behind my neck and yank me closer, locking his lips with mine for a kiss that I so want to feel.

On Tuesday we hung out again all afternoon, taking in a movie and then doing some window shopping together. He flirted with me and made me feel like we were on the same wavelength.

The good news is, we're friends.

Damn.

When I saw him Wednesday, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him that he was torturing me with his 3-day stubble, with his sleeveless t-shirt, with his devilish smirk. I wanted to leap into his deep green eyes and swim around for hours and hours, coming up only for the occasional breath of air and to thank God that he let me in.

The good news is, we're friends.

And he's all I can think about.

Suddenly I realize that this touring thing could be a freakin' lonely experience. I look at a few couples and wonder whether there's any chance I'm gonna find someone -- anyone. And I realize that the odds are stacked against me.

And then I get exhausted. Depressed. Sad. And I wonder what I've gotten myself into. I mean, I know that my track record hasn't exactly been sterling in the past, and there are no guarantees that I'd find someone if I were staying put in one place. But I also think I may have shot myself in the relationship foot by coming on tour. Opportunities are just not making themselves obvious.

Yes, joining the circus was the right thing to do. I'm just so fucking sick of being lonely. And telling myself, "It will happen when it's supposed to happen" is getting really old.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Plumber Butt: the nasty secret
is finally revealed (so to speak)

After slaving away at Tear Down the other night, I now know how Plumber Butt happens. I'm wearing a comfortable pair of pants, with a radio hooked onto the waistband. I'm bending, I'm stretching. I'm delivering, I'm fetching. I'm leaning, I'm crawling. I'm lifting, I'm hauling.

And after pulling up my pants the first 10 or 12 times, I just really couldn't care less. There were more important things to worry about, like making sure that everyone called me "Earl the Pearl," the new tradie name that I had scrawled on my fluoro safety vest. When you're really and truly in Earl mode, somehow showing the top of your underwear, along with a bit of butt cleavage, doesn't really seem at all unusual.

Adelaide is 27C today. Back to work tomorrow, but for now I'm working on renewing my passport. Does anyone know a Justice of the Peace in Adelaide who can be a guarantor for me? Ya, I thought not.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Earl the Pearl

Yesterday...

  • it was beautifully warm after a night of rain
  • we hosted our final two shows in Melbourne, each of which was 100% sold out
  • I worked from 9:30AM until midnight
  • I said good-bye to our last guests at 6:30PM with a smile and a tip o' the hat
  • I donned my steel-toed boots, hard hat, and fluro safety vest (upon which I inked the tradie name "Earl the Pearl")
  • I saw my tent descended upon by a horde of other hard-hatted, fluro-vested men who seemed to appear out of nowhere, totally reminding me of that scene in ET where the white-suited men suddenly pour into the house where the family is harbouring ET
  • I moved the following items with a forklift: a pallette of wine and beer, a honkin' big storage crate that was about 5 metres by 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres, another pallette of odds and sods, and something else that I honestly can't remember...
  • I hoisted upon my girly-man shoulders and hauled about a billion rolls of really heavy carpet
  • I discovered a brand new workout regime in the process: The Tear Down Fitness Plan
  • I worked with my colleagues to load everything from my tent into a few huge freight containers
  • and watched in awe as an entire tent city -- Big Top, 2500 seats, artistic tent, technical tent, my tent, concession tents, sponsor tent, all the toilets (which meant I had to hold it until midnight), and everything else -- came down around me

When I left just after midnight, there were remnants of our Melbourne site still standing. But, boy oh boy, not for long. It was an amazing logistical operation that showed me just how organized this whole process is.

From even before I started this job, I had heard "Tear Down" referred to with reverance and a sense of pride. Now I finally understand.

Next stop: Adelaide.