Category: Memory

My interest in comic books stemmed from collecting cards at first but my (as far as I can remember) first experience with a comic book (other than Archies) was when I found Web of Spider-Man #36 in my Christmas stocking.  That would have been around 1987.  I can’t say I really had any revelations after reading this book.  If anything, I was probably wondering why the heck Spider-Man was wearing a black suit and not a red/blue one as found on the Spidey cartoon!

It wasn’t until years later when I had an interest in comic books that I received (what I found out through research on the fabled Internet) a ‘Marvel Value Pack’ which could be ordered from JC Penney and Sears.  It was a box along with 20+ comic books to introduce you.  I also remember a book along with it talking about comic book collecting in general.  I even found an old advertisement showing the set!  I still have the box and I must still have the comics although it may be hard for me to remember which ones came in the set.  It introduced to me to characters I wasn’t familiar with but I enjoyed the stories nonetheless.

It was a pretty smart idea to have these sets for beginner collectors like me.  I get a box to keep comic books in, and a book telling me how to keep them in good condition AND I also get 20 books to read?  Sweet!  I also remember getting this set at a Christmas in Scarborough.  Judging from the time I started collecting comics, I would think it was around ’91 or ’92.  I’ll have to scour the old photo albums to see if we did in fact end up in Scarborough for Christmas that year.

Let’s also not forget the Marvel Holiday Specials that would involve your favourite characters in some holiday hi jinx!

On Thursday I hung out with Carrie.  On my way to the hospital where she works, I spied someone partaking in an age old tradition and I decided we NEEDED to partake as well that evening.  As soon as I picked her up, we headed to Wal-Mart where Carrie was wondering what I had planned.

I headed to the toy section and scoured the shelves while she guessed what was going on. I couldn’t find the item in question (with just reason, it was end of season) but I managed to ask an employee where I could find it and sure enough, we found the last one in the store.

A kite.

That’s right, we were going to fly a kite!  When’s the last time you’ve flown a kite?  I think I flew a kite back in elementary school.  I still have this vivid memory of flying kites one afternoon out on a windy day and if you pull on the cord it dives.  I still remember Joshua diving into mine and mine went spiraling out of control.

Anyhow, we headed to the cash and we assembled it while in line.  This wasn’t your average kite.  This thing was a meter long and was in the form of an airplane.  Carrie commented that as soon as it went up in the air, people would think the Gay Pride Parade was in town as it was rainbow colours!  I begged to differ as it was multi-coloured, but surely not rainbow coloured.  Either way, we picked it up for a smoking five bucks (clearance item) and went into the parking lot.

Unfortunately the wind had died down and the only way I could get it in the air was if I ran along with it.  Carrie kept yelling “Run!  Run!” but it just wouldn’t get enough air.  We then headed out to a giant hill on Riverside where I thought we would be closer to the wind currents but we didn’t manage to get much out of that adventure either (although we ran around in the brush for awhile and got some exercise).

All in all, a giant failure of kite-flying, but a grand success of having a hilarious time.

We then went to the grocery store to pick up some essentials to make tacos; my request for a birthday dinner from Carrie.  I don’t know why I’m on a taco kick as of late, but I can’t get enough of them.  Every time I think of tacos I think of Eric coming over to my place when he was 16 and staying for dinner and it was the first time he had ever eaten a taco.  I had a good chuckle at him trying to assemble this thing.

We also picked up some beverages which included a Pumpkin beer (naturally) which we were intrigued about.  In the end, the Pumpkin beer was drinkable but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.  Ugh.

Tacos were great and the beer was great and before you know it, Alex and Holly had arrived home and we started watching a bit of the new Rambo film on Alex’s new free-to-air satellite dish.  This reminded me of the days where we used to have illegal satellite dish and every Saturday morning the boys would settle in and watch all the new pay-per-view films until the afternoon.  Rambo was quite over the top and I can’t wait to see the entire film as it is ludicrous.  We then surfed some other interesting channels and I settled into the guest room for the night.  I woke up in the morning with a fright as I had no idea where I was and that comforter was so heavy I thought I was going to suffocate!  I did manage to realize where the heck I was and headed to work shortly after that.

Thanks for Carrie for the excellent birthday dinner and to the others for the great company for the night of fun!

Mike and Melissa reminded me of this funny moment a few years back on a cruise around the Ottawa River.

Details may be a little fuzzy but Hot 89.9 was putting on a ‘singles boat cruise’ night where you load up on this boat and it cruises up and down the Ottawa River for the evening.  I definitely remember not really wanting to go but Alex wanted to go and he needed some people to go along with him.  In my memory it was only Alex and I, but Mike assured me that he was there along with Melissa.

Anyhow, this singles cruise was horrible.  I can remember about 3,000 men on board and 5 women.  It was like watching vultures circle a dying rodent in the desert.  Horrible.

So we had to make our own fun that night.  While I contemplated jumping overboard and swimming for shore multiple times during the night, I must have amused myself with a deck of cards.  Mike recalls that while Melissa was busy flirting with Mike, I handed him a card and then I handed some other guy a card and I said “This is from Melissa.  She will go home with the person with the highest card.”  Mike ended up having the King of Spades and the pour soul who I gave a card to had the Ten of some other suit.  But Melissa recalls that the guy still hung around seeing if he would have a chance eventually!

I had a good laugh when Mike and Melissa reminded me that I did this many years ago.  I like to spice up a party once in awhile.

Seven years ago, the Smashing Pumpkins as we knew them played their final show at the Metro in Chicago, IL. This was a crazy time for Pumpkins fans. Four months before, they spread a free album (Machina II – the friends and enemies of modern music) out to everyone. This album was arguably (and I’m arguing it) better than Machina – The Machines of God which had a proper CD release. But the record company didn’t think there would be enough interest in Machina II so they said “Nah.”

Then there was the November 29, 2000 show at the United Center in Chicago IL which was broadcast over the Internet. I remember sitting in my bedroom at Bayshore listening to the show and having this overwhelming feeling of “How can this be ending?” Nowadays, there’s a different outlook on life and if your favourite band breaks up, you move on easily. It’s not like your dog died. But back then there is so much passion put into your favourite band – going to the concerts, owning the t-shirts, having fan sites made for them…it was a part of your life.

The show at the Metro was their final show and it went back to where they started. They had played the Metro quite a few times while growing as a band so it was a fitting end. They ended up playing 4 1/2 hours which is insane. It was filmed for a DVD release but never released to this date which still angers Pumpkins fans around the globe. There were people paying $2000 to go to see their last show. There was a Machina Mystery contest which some girl in South America won which gave her tickets to the show but considering she couldn’t go, she gave them (free of charge) to some fan. Awesome.

I have heard a few songs which were bootlegged that night but there haven’t been any complete recordings that have come from it which I’m bummed about. I think there are some out there but people are just hoarding them for the time being.

In the end, this was the last time that we would see the band with James Iha. Seven years later, the Pumpkins are back with a vengeance but they lost their guitarist in the process (and one could argue their bassist as well but she was gone for awhile already). I dig the new incarnation of the Pumpkins but do yourself a favour today and put on your favourite Pumpkins album and think that seven years ago today, people thought that was it for the band.

Here’s the setlist from their amazing show:

Set 1:

Rocket
I Am One
Rhinoceros
Shame
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
The Everlasting Gaze
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Spiteface (tease)
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Blissed and Gone (with the Frogs)
To Sheila (with Linda Rowberry and the Frogs)
Mayonaise
I of the Mourning

Set 2:

Muzzle
Stand Inside Your Love
Perfect
This Time
Go
The Last Song
Last Instrumental
Age of Innocence
Thirty-three

Set 3:

Tonight, Tonight
Siva
An Ode To No One
Drown
Starla
If There Is a God
Cash Car Star
Rock On [Essex]
> Heavy Metal Machine
Today

Encore 1:

For Martha (with Billy Corgan, Sr.)
Born Under a Bad Sign [Jones/Bell] (with Billy Corgan, Sr.)

Encore 2:

Cherub Rock (with Rick Nielsen)

Encore 3:

Disarm
1979 (with Matt Walker)

Encore 4:

Silvercrank

I was just talking with my buddy about how I didn’t bother going to see Zeppelin and he says:

“If jimmy page’s finger was still a-hurtin’ at the concert, you would have had the chance to get up on stage and replace him, dude! You blew it! ;)”

This brought up one of my favourite stories of yesteryear. I was back home for the holidays and the night before Dad drove us home (for some reason I remember Randy and Carol in the car…don’t know why Carol would have been with us. Maybe getting a bus to Oshawa from Ottawa?) we ended up at the Sunshine with Double Time (was that their name?) on stage. Double Time comes through town a few times a year and they are a great act.

So as the night weared on, I decided to hit the road as I was feeling good but a few people stayed over. Of those people, Randy stayed. Maybe Carol also? Carol, let me know in the comment section why the heck I remember you in this story! He ended up partying with the members of the band up in their room for the night and didn’t get home until 5 in the morning and we were picking him up between 6-7 in the morning!

He was in rough shape when we were cruising out of town. He was recounting this tale about how he was showing them some stuff on guitar but he was so drunk that he couldn’t play at all and it was horrible! We all laughed when Dad brought up the fact that Randy blew his one big chance to make it big! Ha ha, we kept razzing him about that for the rest of the trip. I’m sure he looks back on that day and realizes he could have been touring with Double Time by now!

iplaying: First Days of Spring – Neverending White Lights (Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies)

I may as well speak about the memories of the summer vacation. I was starting to write up stuff about this year’s vacation but then a flood of memories came back and I thought I should document them for my grandkids who are reading this one day.

They were long days in the car. I remember my sister and I not getting along too well sometimes and also remember suggesting (or at least having thoughts of) installing a cardboard wall between the two of us in the backseat! I remember sleeping a lot because I would get motion sickness a lot. Ugh, the Gravol! I remember that’s what knocked me out usually…that icky yellow pasty stuff you had to swallow so it killed off motion sickness.

Most vacations consisted of heading to Toronto for awhile to visit Aunt Dinah and Uncle Richard and also heading to Gaspe to visit Aunt Lana and Uncle Tony. I must admit that I never really cared for Gaspe when I was a kid but now I have learned to appreciate it. Perhaps it is because when you are a kid, you pretty well are stuck in a place and can only have so much leverage as to what you can do. This involved hanging out with my cousin Rocky who I didn’t see eye to eye with while growing up. 😉 I guess we were from two different worlds. We are fine nowadays but you know how kids are when they don’t get along. I also remember going across the street to swim a lot in some lady’s pool. There was also a convenience store down the road that we must have gone to quite a bit for the odd things (like candy). I remember Pal-o-Mine chocolate bars which we couldn’t get in Ontario but was a staple Quebec item.

I have random scattered memories of Gaspe – Aunt Lana doing the laundry in some machine that came out in the kitchen, lobster dinners, my birthdays usually being held there (as it was the time of the year), playing Nintendo in the later years and people wondering why I loved the video games so much instead of going outdoors, a bat flying around in the house one time, the Snorkels wallpaper in Jason’s bedroom, going over to Charles’ place across the street and seeing his Coleco-Vision video game system before I even knew what video games were, the hyenas (scratch that…they were coyotes. After hearing a phone message from my Dad laughing at the fact that I had written hyenas, I realized that I racking my brain this afternoon searching for the word…I thought hyenas was the wrong word but then thought it must have been it…clearly I was wrong!) crying down from the mountains and one time attacking the dog from what I remember, going to visit Aunt Eunice and Uncle Hally – I feel that when you are a kid you don’t really appreciate these meetings with older people because everyone just talks about older stuff but now I appreciate the memories of visiting these people. I always remember Uncle Hally sitting in his recliner and Maureen and I hanging out in the sun porch reading something (Archie comics perhaps?). I also remember visiting Great GrandDad’s place and thinking it was the oldest house in the world. I never understood why someone would want to live in something like that. I also have this vague memory of Maureen going up to see Great-Grandad and he was in his underwear putting his pants on. At least I think that’s what happened? Someone can refresh my memory on that one.

Toronto was always a marvel for me as I loved the city. I remember going to the Bridlewood Mall with Nanny (or Mom?) a lot. I also remember when I got older Dad would bring me to Toys R Us or some comic shops. Visiting Aunt Dinah was always a treat (it still is!) as she always offered me something to eat. I remember not really hanging out with my cousins as they were older than me. It’s funny when you get older that there is a bridge which is gapped. Now I see Rick at least once a year at Winterlude and I have a newfound friendship with Troy which has grown over the years of playing guitar and more recently, realizing that we are into a lot of the same things in life.

I also remember going to Burlington to visit my other Nanny and I always remember her bringing us to a movie. From what I can recall, it was always a Disney flick of sorts. I also remember her old apartment which had this hardwood floor which came apart in little pieces near the balcony and I would spend time taking this section apart and putting it back together. I can only imagine if someone was doing that at my house right now!

Clearly this post isn’t meant for everyone but it’s more of a documentation of my memories of a time and place long gone but still very vivid in my mind. When I lose my memory in years to come, at least I’ll have this as a documentation.

iplaying: Tarantula – The Smashing Pumpkins (Zeitgeist)

I was talking to Benoit yesterday who took a tumble off his bicycle and it reminded me of when I fell of my bike.

It was June 1991 – alternative music was on the cusp of breaking big (at least up in Northern Ontario). Everyone was into Guns N Roses (except for I, as I didn’t really know much about music back then. All I know is that everyone was listening to Use Your Illusion. Actually, here’s another memory – the first music video that really caught my interest was November Rain. I remember seeing it as Regan’s place as his mom was watching it on TV.

One night I was over at Regan’s place and we decided to bring some Super-Soaker water guns over to the park and just run around with them. I remember holding the gun with my right hand and trying to hold onto both of my handlebars.

Right near St. Pat’s we were coming down a dip and I was behind Regan and realized I should slow down a tad. But with the gun in my right hand, I couldn’t really get a grip on the handlebars to tap the back brakes so of course in my brilliance I tap the front one.

Well, that didn’t work out too well. The bike went out of control – essentially it veered left into traffic and I veered right into the sidewalk. It was one of those raised sidewalks also. My face hit first from what I can remember. The water gun went flying. I sat there dumbfounded as Regan was yelling at some lady who had stopped her car to see if I was alright. He was yelling “He’s alright, he’s alright! Move along!” where I was thinking “Am I alright?”

That was the first time in my life where I didn’t cry after getting hurt somehow. I was more concerned with that aspect of the event – “Hey, I didn’t cry! What’s up with this? I just did a faceplant into the sidewalk and now my face is hamburger meat, but heck, I must be a man now because I didn’t cry!”

I didn’t know what it looked like so we biked back to Regan’s place. It must have been pretty bad as Regan’s mom had this look of ‘OH MY LORD, what happened to you?!”

We went into the bathroom and then I saw it – my face looked like Freddy Kruger. The right side of my face at least. The other one emerged unscathed. But it was pretty bad.

The next day was the last day of school – the end of elementary school and the beginning of high school. Yikes! We went to school and I remember Steve claiming (as a joke) that him and I got in a fight the night before and this is what had become of me.

I can’t remember how long it took to fully heal (perhaps Mom or Dad could fill in this detail) but I remember that it left a scar above my lip (which you can still see today). I also remember it used to look like a giant pimple which was pretty gross and back when you’re a teenager you take these things to heart in the context that:
a) Will I ever grow a decent moustache if there’s a giant pimple in the way?
b) Will ladies find me attractive if they always have to take a look at a giant pimple?
c) Will the giant pimple grow into some monstrosity and take over my entire body? (Alright, maybe I’m pushing it.)

So…I don’t know how long it took to remove this thing off of my face (but for some reason I think it may have been a few years later as I remember working at Woolco and after the surgery, I remember telling some guy that I had it removed and he said that he always thought it was some giant pimple!)

I also remember getting it removed as the Doctor kept harping on the point that trying to remove a scar doesn’t guarantee that it will look any better. I stuck to my guns and went ahead with it. I don’t know why, but as I recollect this memory I don’t think Mom was too much in favour of the scar being removed. I suppose I will have to ask her about it.

That’s the story of how I have a scar above my lip. I enjoy when I get these flashbacks and I document them for future readings. One day when I go senile, I can read back on these entries and say “Hey, I remember that!”