Here’s a killer photo of Paul during his taekwondo demo taken by our friend Josh Meles. It’s taekwontacular!
The rest of Josh’s photos are here, my photos are here, and the videos I shot are here.
Here’s a killer photo of Paul during his taekwondo demo taken by our friend Josh Meles. It’s taekwontacular!
The rest of Josh’s photos are here, my photos are here, and the videos I shot are here.
Last Friday, Eldon invited me to join him at Jo-Anne Liburd’s 30th birthday party. It would’ve been a fairly mellow evening if not for a couple of notable events. Jo-Anne is a friend of Eldon’s and one of the organizers of the For the Love of Breasts gala where I had a very, very, very good time.
(By the way, the Flash-only nature of their site makes them terribly hard to find on the web — it turns out that the number one Google result for the phrase “for the love of breasts” is this blog. It’s flattering, but that spot truly belongs to them, and they should post some pertinent data such as how many people attended, how much money was raised for breast cancer, and to whom and how the money will be handed over. All I have is a set of photos showing how much fun the event was and how much fun I had, and some elliptical hinting at the ensuing make-outs. Interesting reading, but the point of the event was to raise money for breast cancer research, not to provide me with opportunities to snog.)
Let me digress for a moment: the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, starts with the “Kobayashi Maru” simulation, in which a ship’s commnder is led into a trap from which there is no escape. It’s called the “no-win scenario”, and it’s a test to determine the character of a potential captain. It requires a large room to simulate the bridge of a starship, plus “actors” to play the part of the bridge crew.
It would be simpler and cheaper to simply put the test candidate in a party full of WASP chicks. You’d get the same result.
One of the first people I ran into at the party was Alison, who is the wan-looking woman in this photo (first shown in this entry):
She’s also the happier-looking woman in these photos from when we joined the band onstage.
She introduced us to her sister and a friend of hers, and we started talking. Ten minutes into the conversation, I was feeling a few hunger pangs as a result of having had a light dinner and looked to the table to see what kind of snack food was available. The table was to my left, and Alison stood between me and it.
While I was checking out the table, Alison’s sister leaned over and whispered into her ear. Alison made a look of mock horror on her face, turned to me and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Accordion Man,” she said. “My sister says that you were checking out my boobs.”
“Beg pardon?” I asked, still thinking about how nice some sliced green peppers in sour cream would be.
“My boobs. You were checking out my boobs,” she exclaimed. She cupped each breast in her hand, lifted both and pointed them straight at me. It was then that I notcied that she was wearing a white tank top, which only served to reinforce the fact that she had breasts, and that you should look at them.
“Well, they’re very nice, but…”
“So you were looking at them!” she exclaimed.
“I told you!” said her sister.
I sighed. There was no winning this argument.
“That’s okay,” said Alison, who then pinched my cheek. “It’s kind of cute how you boys deny everything. I’m going to get some wine now.”
As she left for the kitchen, her sister leaned over to me and said “I saw you checking out her boobs. They’re pretty nice, huh?”
“Um, they’re quite…becoming.”
“Okay, but you shouldn’t stare. Girls don’t like that.”
It was too late. Just like someone who’s told not to think of a purple cow, the breasts that originally held no interest for me were like eye magnets, and I spent the rest of the evening trying not to look at them.
That’s the downside of being a guy in North America at the start of the 21st century: I’m forever getting blamed for 10,000 years of sexism that I didn’t even get to enjoy.
Here are the videos from Paul’s black belt demos. They’re all in QuickTime format, and 2MB or less.
The photo album of Paul’s earning his black belt (and the ensuing booze-up) is up: Black Belt Baranowski.
Here’s a photo of me and Sam at the drinking party that followed the black belt ceremony (where Paul got his black belt last night) at World Taekwondo in Kensington Market. I’m always up for having my picture taken, but Sam’s not so sure…
Last night’s band rehearsal — the first for me — went quite well, if late into the night (I got home at 2:30 a.m.). Pete’s driving the bus song-writing-wise, and he’s excellent: the songs structures are remind me at times of The Smiths, Radiohead (especially with Pete’s singing) and Game Theory (especially with the me manning the synth).
It’s been a while since I’ve played synths with a band — the last time was probably 1999, with our improv ambient electronica band Lion, with Karl Mohr, Krista “Lederhosen Lucil” Muir and Rachel Smith.
Pete’s providing a Korg Triton, which is probably the best synth I’ve ever been assigned. Even through the guitar amp that I used last night, I can hear great things coming from it. I need to fix up my trusty Rhodes keyboard amp this weekend and bring it back to life. The last time it saw active duty, I was with Kingston’s loudest band, Volume, and George (on bass) and I cranked both our instruments through it. That’s probably what blew its speakers in the first place.
The rehearsal space is a little shack out in Mississauga, a satellite city just west of Accordion City. It is blessedly close to a Starbucks and a Rabba (a chain of 24-hour grocery/deli/convenience stores), an absolute necessity for band rehearsals.
Goofy band exchange of the evening:
Wil (raising his fist and looking right at me): Asian gang!
Me (returning the gesture): Asian gang, yo!
Wil (to the other three guys in the band): Look out whitey, me and Joey outnumber you.
Me: Uh, Wil…there’s two of us and three of them. Two is less than three.
Pete: I thought you guys were supposed to be good at math.
There was also an interesting discussion where we concluded that you should not get a Brazilian wax from family members, even if they’re in than line of business. Ewwww!