Weedeater
My friend, JN, wanted me to meet him.
We were 16. It was at the now defunct Heritage Mall in South Edmonton.
"He is so coool." he tells me. "His name is Weedeater...."
So I go along and meet him. And as the name might imply, he was a heavy stoner. Wearing a flannel lumberjack jacket, small, slender, perhaps mid 20's with a 5 day growth of beard on his face, greasy blondish hair. crazy eyes. He was a nut. But my friend, JN, liked him, he'd met him at the mall and been ever so impressed.....
When you're 15 you're easily impressed.
Weedeater was going to get us some weapons. Stilettos, switchblades, nunchuks, he had them all.
God knows what we needed weapons for, but the thought of weapons, illegal weapons, somehow excited us...
Weedeater was enjoying his new-found celebrity. So what if we were a couple of 15 year old idiots? Someone appreciated him. He smiled as he peeled the burger off my friends bun, licked the mayonnaise from it and swallowed it whole....
"Didja see that?" JN said later... "He just peeled the burger and ate it ... like he didn't care...."
I wasn't so impressed by that. But I was impressed by the inventory of goods that Weedeater, or "Weed" for short, professed to be able to get. We could start our own gang....
Weedeater arranged to meet us at the arcade in the mall the following week. He'd bring a bag full of Stilettos. $25.00 apiece, they'd cut through a 2X4 at the push of a button...
We met as promised, Weed showed, but there weren't any weapons. There'd been a problem. He'd need some money up front. Maybe $100.00. Trouble at the border. Complications, he didn't want to talk, didn't want to implicate us any more than he had to....
JN was in. "Weed" was his new best friend. Who knows, if we started with the stilettos, we could end up with better stuff...AK47's. hand grenades....
Weedeater nodded knowingly. he could get this stuff too....but he'd need the money up front...
$100.00 was a lot of money when you're working in a mall earning $3.45 an hour. But we were in. We met Weedeater, or "Weed" as JN now called him, outside the arcade in the mall, gave him the money, arranged to meet the following week ....
And that was the last we ever saw of him.
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The Brothers Quay
Nothing short of Genius. The stuff of animated nightmares, odd, compelling, deeply rich and evocative symbolism and themes.....
They credit their inspiration and influences in part to Jan Švankmajer and are credited for inspiring the likes of Tim Burton.
A short sample below, taken from "Street of Crocodiles", more can be found linked to it, or anthologies rented from Bird Dog Video.
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Jose
I'd walked by the restaurant a dozen, 2 dozen times, looking for work, it was always empty and so I never thought of applying.
Finally, though, in the interests of being thorough and leaving no stone unturned I dropped off a resume.
A younger couple, waiter and waitress, South American, took my resume, promised to pass it on to the manager.
That night I got a call. Thick Spanish accent, Jose was his name, wanted to know if I'd applied at his restaurant, I had I told him, perhaps then I could drop round and have an interview? Great.
Now it's not going to be a hot job, I know that, but anything is better than nothing, so I swing round for the interview. The younger waiter and waitress are gone, Jose sits me down, gets my experience, he's a shorter, burly and swart Spaniard. Makes sense, it's a Spanish restaurant. He tells me the other 2 servers, they've been fired, he found my resume in the garbage, they'd thrown it in there without showing him so he fired them both, besides they were stealing and can I start right away and am I available to work days and nights?
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St Criss Angel
He was on this kick for a while, watching all the Criss Angel specials on TV and recounting the many miracles therein to me as if they'd really transpired.
Now I'm a bit of an amateur magician myself, the keyword is amateur. About the only trick I've mastered with any proficiency is the vanishing of money, which nobody has yet paid to see me do. But from that perspective I tend to be a little skeptical of paranormal claims - "Extraordinary Claims demand Extraordinary Evidence".
He's not so skeptical.
I bought him a book on Criss Angel, an autobiography, it was appalling drivel, but key in it was Criss Angel's personal refutation of paranormal means to achieve his ends. Most magicians are like that, think of Houdini, Derren Brown, Penn and Teller. They deny that miracles occur because they are their stock in trade, they work behind the scenes and know how they're done, can do similar, and so themselves are great skeptics.
And for a time he doesn't bring Criss up anymore. Maybe 6 months. He's disappointed in him, his denial that he's the new Messiah.
But there was a new special on TV last night where Criss levitated and vanished and he has to tell me about it...
I'm impressed, I haven't seen it but I'm sure he's very good....
I'm not getting it.
"Wouldn't it be good if we could all levitate and turn invisible?"
"It would be good, but he is a magician you know, I think it's just a trick...." I tell him
Now he looks skeptical.
"Maybe. Or maybe he just wants us to believe it's a trick. He could be fooling us..."
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