Où Est Mon Père?

So I've comes to terms with the tipping. I've come to terms with the lack of ticket machines. I've even come to terms with the non-inclusive sales tax. However, today I saw something that I don't think I've ever come to terms with. Today, on a billboard, I saw...."Où est Charlie"!!
Now for those of you who don't know, Where's Wally is my biological father. I may have been raised by Mr and Mrs Wyeth, but I was conceived in a brief but passionate affair between Where's Wally and Gumby. For many years now I've been trying to find my real father, always just obtaining a glimpse of him, but never able to actually locate him. I was aware that he referred to himself as "Where's Waldo" in North America, this didn't hamper my search for him a great deal, Waldo is a fairly obvious form of the name Wally. But now I find that in Québec he works under the pseudonym "Charlie"! It's really thrown me. I fear my quest to finally track down my biological father will continue to be fruitless.

Apartheid Bus-Ride

Buses are just amazing. I was very excited about getting the Greyhound from Toronto to Montreal. I got to the bus station very early so I could be near the front of the queue and able to get a window seat. As the bus filled up it was looking very promising that I'd have the double seat to myself. Unfortunately, just as the driver turned on the engine a latecomer ran up to the bus and demanded to be let on. Much to my chagrin the driver actually let him on, and furthermore he came and sat next to me! Now, not only do I find not being punctual the height of rudeness, I also hate white South Africans. When travelling on public transport by yourself, if you do have to sit next to someone, the only type of person you want sitting next to you in a pretty girl. The last person you want sitting next to you is a late, talkative, nosey white South African male. Now I had specifically created a playlist for my iPod that was the exact length of the bus journey, and had designed the playlist so that the song "Two Girls From Montreal" by The Bicycles ("two girls from Montreal would you let me tag along?") would come on around the time of entering the city. Any interruptions would throw the audio journey out of whack. But interruptions are what I got. He wanted to know where I was from, why I was in Canada, what I was listening to, whether he could have some of my confectionary, whether I hated black people (ok, so I didn't ask the last question, but you know he was thinking about it). It was horrific. Having headphones on and staring out the window was not a hint to this fool. My precious bus ride had been spoiled. I was most upset.

I had organised to go view a flatshare the evening of my arrival in Montreal. So after finding a cheap hotel I went to view the flat and meet my potential flatmate. Although I am (obviously) a major fan of public transport, one thing I do hate is when a city's public transport does not have ticket machines. With ticket machines it is very easy to work out what ticket you need for your destination, but without them you're restricted to being a tourist and unavoidably looking foolish. This is compounded by being in a city where they don't speak English (or it's not the primary language in Montreal's case), and there's an added difficulty in getting the pronunciation of your destination correct. And not to mention having to sift through a handful of unfamiliar coins! The whole thing is just one big embarrassing exercise, an exercise that could so easily be avoided with the implementation of ticket machines. The Montreal city council will be recieving a letter.

The flat turned out to be great! The girl I'd be living with has a lot of the same interests (most importantly music and Arrested Development); it was in a good area, close to all the hip and happening scenes of Montreal. I expressed my interest in the flat and Lucie said that she too was into it. A deal was done.
I then ended up going to a gig with the girl whose room I'd be taking and some her friends. I was initiate into Montreal by getting my head bitten off by the bartender for not tipping her (don’t get me started on tipping).

For someone who likes his personal space, a month of not having a room has being quite upsetting. I'm feeling quite relieved at the moment. My new room is pink and has flowery curtains. I'm extremely pleased about this. I figure if I'm unable to get into a girl's bedroom I can at least have one of my own.

The acquisition of an abode has not ceased my travelling just yet though. In order to obtain my work visa for Canada I need to leave and re-enter the country. So I've decided to take the bus(!) down to New York for a few days. My enthusiasm for the bus hasn't been dampened by my previous experience, I'm, once again, very excited about my impending trip and have started working on a new playlist for my iPod.

I Believe In The Good Life

Whenever I go to an oriental restaurant I always have this major conflict between whether to order rice or noodles. I seem to think that there is something wrong with ordering noodles, and that rice is always the safer option. However 74% of the time when I actually take the risk and order noodles I enjoy them immensely. This is a metaphor for going out vs. staying in. Going out is the noodles. I frequently seem to think that it would be far too overwhelming to go out, and that I best just stay in.
I was all set for rice again tonight when I discovered that everyone’s favourite gay orchestral pop band – The Hidden Cameras – were having the launch of their new album. Although apprehensive I decided to go along.

It was a reasonable sized affair. Toronto’s indie elite were out in force, as well as the band’s traditional homosexual and faux-mosexual fan-base. All up maybe 150 to 200 people were there.

The night was going along very smoothly, I’d met a nice young lady and was conversing quite well with her, when all of a sudden a rather butch transvestite appeared on stage and started doing a very dramatic mime of “River Deep, Mountain High”. After his/her performance he informed the crowd that he was in need of a good looking boy. Out came his finger and pointed directly at me. Reluctantly I made my way up there, only to be informed that I would need to take my shirt off. Now I don’t take my shirt off for anyone. Not even my closest friends have seen me without a shirt on, but transvestites can be quite persuasive, and with a few added heckles of “take it off” from the crowd, my t-shirt came off.
There I stood, on stage, in front of my indie peers, with my top off, being told by a transvestite that I’ll “never get a boyfriend looking like an Auschwitz victim”. He then asked me whether a dingo had stolen my baby, gave me some inane Q&A’s and attempted to prevent me from getting my shirt back. Now, this could have seemed humiliating, however, I loved it! Quite frankly it was great fun! And I also got a free copy of the band’s new album!

I feel this is part of a new page for me. I feel liberated and alive! Look out world, my shirt is off both literally and metaphorically. This little exhibitionist is looking for some action! Give me some noodles!

Take My Money, Please

Another day, another country. You know how it is when you’re indecisive. Just flying aimlessly around the world. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?
So I’m currently in Canada. Toronto. T-Dot, as the locals say. I arrived around midnight on Sunday and by 9am the next morning I had already been hustled. As most people who know me are aware, getting money out of me is like getting ice from the freezer. It requires a minimal amount of effort. In every country I’ve been to there has been some (ridiculous) case of me getting duped for money. It’s not that I’m stupid. I’m fully aware I’m getting swindled. I just have an inability to say no. To me losing my money isn’t as bad as being impolite. So I was walking down the street in search of a Mac store, as I’d left my laptop charger at Suzanne and Alice’s place, and this guy comes up and starts giving me this story about how he’d hooked up with some girl last night and she’d run off with his wallet and he needed to get a bus back to some town up north in order to see his kids. It was complete bullshit. I mean, the guy was pretty ugly, there’s no way he was hooking up with anyone. And even if he did have kids, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy that would actually go out of his way to see them. But I played along, there wasn’t really much else I could do, the guy had the Star Of David tattooed on his neck. And even though I have no German roots (unless you count back to when the Angles met the Saxons), I still felt compelled to give him $10.
I was a little upset by this incident as I had envisaged Canada to be like America but without any of the bad shit. In fact, isn’t that the Canadian Tourist Board’s new slogan: “Canada – America without any of the bad shit”?
Anyway, so to sooth myself I went and bought the 5th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm and spent the rest of the day in my hotel room watching that (it’s so good!!). Oh and I also bought a new charger. Which leads me to the one thing I hate about Canada already – paying GST at the till. This is the single most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever come across in my entire life ever! What’s the fucking point in labelling something one price on the shelf and then being charged a completely different price when you go and pay for it? It’s so amazingly absurd. I had to really restrain myself to not tell the poor girl serving me at the DVD store all about it. What if you only had a limited amount of money to feed your starving family, how are you meant to calculate how much food you can buy? HOW!?!?! If anyone wants to explain to me the benefits of not incorporating the GST into the price then please write to me. I’d love to know.
Today I went and purchased a bus ticket to Montreal. I think it’s the place for me. I had actually been far more interested in the place than Stockholm, but, I guess, it didn’t seem obscure enough for this little elitist. Anyway, I’m getting a Greyhound there, which I’m extremely excited about. It’s a 7 hour trip which is fantastic. Buses and books are the only two ways I like to experience a place (obviously, this is completely false, but I’m just trying to express a bit of individuality away from being a standard tourist type).
I’m hoping once I get to Montreal I can start meeting people and getting into some wild and crazy adventures. The highlight of my trip so far as been, whilst transiting in Detroit, seeing a police-cop using one of those things that GOB rides on Arrested Development (actually, that is going to take some beating). I'm really doing nothing at the moment as I'm trying not to spend money. And it's too sunny to go outside. The place where I'm staying had wireless, but I can't pick it up in my room, so I have to sit out in the hallway. And it's frustratingly slow.

To be continued.

Take The 17 To Contentment

So, I'm in London. As some may know I lived here 2001-2003 so it's nice being in a familiar place. Unfortunately due to Britain’s ridiculous immigration laws I can no longer live and work here. It's outrageous! I mean, half my ancestors invaded and conquered this place around 300 AD just like the majority of people here. And the other half were those they conquered! It's political correctness gone mad! Anyway, so I plan to go live in Canada, where they are much more accepting. However with Joe Al-Qaida* causing a bit of trouble with the planes it'll be Sunday before I can fly out. This has allowed me some time to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes - riding the London buses. I can ride around happy as can be watching the city, ticking off references from Saint Etienne and Suede songs, and compiling lists of my favourite routes. London bus routes are meticulously planned. Well, I like to think they are. I'm hoping they didn't just fall into place. I have this vision of some guy spending his days working out routes which are not only convenient to the public in terms of getting from A to B, but that also provide interesting scenery along the way. There are plenty of buses in London that go past a good selection of major landmarks (as well as landmarks only interesting to chumps like me). I find this very advantageous as I have no desire whatsoever to look like a tourist, and so I am able to see these landmarks whilst looking like I am going about my normal daily routine. The 344 is the bus I used to use to get to work. Every morning I would go past the Battersea Power Station (with the Battersea Dogs Home just next door), Lambeth Palace (where the Archbishop of Canterbury lives), Parliament from the south bank and great views both east and west along the Thames as the bus went over Southwark Bridge (the most underrated of the central London bridges and therefore my favourite). The 344 is definitely in my top 3 favourite bus routes. I shan't go into the other two in detail, but they are the 29 (a socio-economic dream-ride!) and the 68 (all those who've read Bill Drummond's 45 will know why I like this route). I actually jumped on the 68 today after getting the 12 to Dulwich. The 68 comes down Herne Hill through Denmark Hill into Camberwell. There's an interesting little observation for Melburnians here. Denmark Hill Road leads into Camberwell Road in London. Now if you are in Melbourne and find yourself on the tram or driving along Burke Road from Glen Iris towards Camberwell Junction, the last street on your left before you hit Camberwell Road is Denmark Hill Road. How about that? Coincidence, or something more sinister?
I have some vague fantasies about writing a book on the London bus network one day, but I'm sure some arsehole like Paul Morley will beat me to it.

I spend the rest of my days looking at flatshares in Montreal. Now it would be a lot wiser to move to Toronto, but I'm one of those people who needs their lessons slapped into them, and also Montreal just seems a much cooler place.


*In an episode of The Newsroom, Jim, the anchor, gets a job on an American morning show, and on air claims that "Joe Al-Qaida" isn't going to stop him from having children.

A Nordic Misadventure

First of all I need to make note that I stole the idea for the title of this blog from goodhodgkins.com – a truly brilliant name for a site that is bound to bring a smile to the face of every Curb Your Enthusiasm fan. So inspired by that (and thus hoping to get a link off Goodhodgkins) I decided to take my name from an episode of the Canadian black comedy The Newsroom. Anyone unaware of this show should immediately go to Amazon.ca and order at least the first season, if not all three seasons and the movie-length “Escape From The Newsroom”. Writer/director/star Ken Finkleman is every bit the arsehole genius that Larry David is.

So in what is presently looking like one of my dumber ideas, I have moved to Stockholm. I don’t know anyone, my knowledge of the language is minimal at best, and I have no idea how I’m going to find a job, let alone a place to live. Add to this that fact that I am starving due to a combination of lack of cooking facilities, my belief that cold food is ridiculous and the Swedes not being so hip to the idea of vegetarianism. Although starving will probably soon be moot as having only ever lived in countries that drive on the left-hand side of the road I am finding crossing the street to be absurdly difficult and it’s only a matter of time before I get hit by a bus.

Even though all Swedes speak perfect English I’m still having trouble talking to people because of my guilt at the Anglosphere’s belief that everyone should linguistically come to us. So instead of making life easy for myself by simply starting a conversation with “Talar du engelska?” which I know the answer to will be “Yes, how may I be of assistance?” I choose to either use my basic and broken Swedish in essential situations or just not talk at all. One could view this as ideologically admirable, similar to Castro’s refusal to speak English even though he can, or just plain stupid. It’s beginning to look like the latter.

Last night I thought I’d attempt to go out and meet people by going to an indie club in Södermalm (or just “Söder” as the locals say). However, as all the kids in the queue looked like the kids from Ding Dong in Melbourne I was overcome with “hipster fear” and couldn’t go in.
This morning I had another brilliant idea to go meet people. I would track down a cool record store and hang out there, you know, kind of like High Fidelity, but with twee Spanish pop and Japanese electronica. So the internet pointed me in the direction of Pet Sounds, also in Södermalm (which I guess is the “alternative” area of town). Now the name should have given it away because when I walked into the shop they were playing Bowie. Pet Sounds + Bowie = Mojo readers. This actually reminds me of an incident in London the other day – walking past a parked car that was playing music rather loudly the following exchange took place:

Grant: I fucking hate The Beatles.
Alice: Yeah. But that was Bowie.

Now that may illustrate a point to some, however I still stand by the fact there’s nothing I find more offensive than old music. Everyone who knows me has heard me rant long and hard about this topic so I shan’t do so here, other than to make the point that the female readership of Mojo (and Uncut for that matter) is precisely zero. Think about it.

Now this is probably being a little bit unfair to Pet Sounds. It is one of the better record stores I’ve been in. It did actually acknowledge the existence of the Nineties and Noughties, had a nice range of books and magazines as well as cds and vinyl and will undoubtedly be able to adequately service my music requirements whilst I’m in Stockholm. Unfortunately though, due to being thrown by Bowie, I was unable to make any friends.

I’m currently without a next move.

Saturday 5/8/06

This week is Gay Pride Week or something in Stockholm. The hostel I’m staying in is next to the park where the celebrations seem to be centred. As a result the hostel is full of homosexuals from all over Sweden. I have no problem with this, however it seems Sweden’s homosexuals have a problem with me. The following conversation took place yesterday:

Gay guy: Have you been to the Gay Pride?
Grant: No.
Gay guy: Oh. You’re not interesting.
Grant: I’m not interesting?
Gay guy: You are gay though?
Grant: No, I’m not, sorry.
Gay guy: Ok. Bye.

The most unfortunate thing about this is not that apparently I’m “not interesting”; but that this is the most substantial conversation I’ve had since arriving in Sweden. I thought that trying to make friends might be a little bit difficult, but I never expected to have to endure rampant displays of heterophobia.

Finding a place to live is made extremely difficult due to all the housing websites being in Swedish. Obviously being Sweden they are entitled to conduct their business in Swedish, however this doesn’t help me much. Sitting around with a dictionary is frustrating and time consuming. The process is exasperating and I see little to no light at the end of the tunnel. Also having been told by employment agencies that as I don’t speak Swedish I’m effectively useless isn’t particularly fun.

I’ve managed to get some work with Vice Scandinavia. It was going to be my last resort, but I got worried and had to approach them. Luckily for me, being a pan-Scandinavian magazine, they publish in English. However, this’ll hardly sustain me and I don’t think it’s likely that there are any other magazines here that are in English (I’ve looked, and there doesn’t seem to be).

The whole situation took a major twist today when I realised that my Dollar to Krona conversion was all out of goose. The whole time I’ve been here I’ve been thinking that it was 15 Kronor to the Dollar. I’d been going around thinking “Sweden expensive? What are people talking about!?” Today I discovered that it is actually 5 Krona to the Dollar. So everything I’ve bought is actually triple the price. Food that I thought was quite reasonable I now realise was quite dear. And the $3 I thought was a little bit excessive for half an hour on the internet turns out to be a fucking ridiculous $9! (Seriously, what the fuck!?!?). I got suspicious about the conversion when I was looking to purchase that Beirut album (I’ve heard it’s da bomb) and it was only about $12. I don’t know why I was considering buying it. I don’t really get that A Hawk And A Hacksaw album, I only bought it because Mia Clarke was into it. And I totally dig Mia Clarke. Yes, I know she’s a lesbian, but I like lesbians. We have a mutual interest.

My current state of mind could be considered demoralised, and the following options are being considered:

• Leave Stockholm for either Malmö or Göteborg (although I don’t know what difference this will make)
• Move to Canada (which is where I should have gone in the first place but my pathetic need to be “different” got in the way)
• Suicide.
• Return to Melbourne (although this would result in my parents being victorious and so the above option is more desirable).

The more I think about Canada the more it seems like a sensible idea. Of course I’d have to make it a little bit difficult for myself by living in Montreal (proving I never learn from my mistakes). However, at least I know someone in Montreal, my 6 years of French has to be a little bit more advantageous to me than my 1 year of Swedish and all essential services will be provided in English as well anyway. Also, job opportunities (especially writing) will be greatly increased and I’d get ample chances to see bands that I like!

This is probably looking rather weak of me after only 4 days in Sweden, but as a wise man once said – it’s my prerogative.

Although Sweden is an impenetrable ice queen (apologies for the crude metaphor), I think the major problem is staying in a hostel. I despise hostels. Especially hostels with segregated dorms. I have no desire whatsoever to share a room with men, let alone snoring Frenchmen and farting American “dudes”. And I find the forced social interaction truly abhorrent. I become like one of those bugs that roll themselves into a little ball and cry like a big baby whenever they sense the slightest amount of discomfort. So as a result of staying in this hostel all the hard work I’ve done in the past eight years in getting from agoraphobic, to socially anxious, to socially awkward, through to reasonably competent human being has been undone.

Tuesday 8/8/06

I’ve returned to London.