Josh Dare
Toronto-based writer and media whore. Not the Perez Hilton kind, the 'will write for food' kind.
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Review: Toronto School of Philosophy
AWAKEN TO CONCIOUS LIVING, an ad for the Toronto School of Philosophy on the subway promised in larger-than-life capitals.
Being a new arrival in Toronto, it made me think the city must be an outrageously bohemian capital for there to be a school solely dedicated to philosophy: the dissection of reality, as I understood philosophy to be. And that school has such a wide reach that subway advertising was the most effective method of reaching prospective pupils – future students, ready to question the nature of their existence, and they just happen to be riding pubic transport. What kind of intellectual utopia had I moved to, and could I walk among them although my proverbial stature is no match for their apparent might?
The ad promised,“the school goes beyond ‘armchair philosophy’ and offers a setting for conscious self discovery.”
The first class
“Know thyself,” our teacher seamlessly carried on from the ad, before asking, “Why did you come to the school of philosophy?”
A hand shot up instantaneously. “I have social anxiety disorder. Speaking in groups makes me so anxious.” The group of 20 people half-heartedly listening suddenly got interested. “Speaking right now is really hard for me.”
Although this didn’t seem to be addressing question, or even adequately address why she felt it necessary to tell a group of strangers that she was scared to death of speaking to groups of strangers, the group of strangers responded in turn that she was doing fantastically, and they would have had no idea about her anxiety because she was doing so well.
Wisdom loving
Philosophy is the love of wisdom, the class was taught. What makes someone wise, we were asked. Answers popped up around the room. Calm, someone said. Another, fair. Informed, balanced, and pure and variations on like all made appearances at some point. Think of the wisest person you know, the class was implored. There was a heavy weight of a room full of people collectively thinking OPRAH.
The exercise
Each week, the class was taken through what is (cultishly) called The Exercise. Really, it’s just meditation, but at the SoP, it’s The Exercise. Rest your hands in your lap, then individually and systematically focus on each sense: touch. Smell. Taste. Sight. Hearing. Simply rest in this great awareness for a few moments, the instructions read. Or, ya know, in layman’s terms, ‘Just sit still’.
The cult of philosophy
The inference to a cult didn’t end with The Exercise. As people who were just starting at the School of Philosophy, we were ‘level one’. The servers in the cafeteria were level four, and in line with apparent level four curriculum, were sequestered to working in the cafeteria in order to become acquainted with servitude. The school, meanwhile, remained acquainted with free labour.
Beauty
There’s beauty in everything, the class was taught in another lesson. Or, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. See some beauty in something this week, the class was instructed.
I responded well. There was a person I work with that shat me. To tears. I looked at him. Not just with my eyes looked at him, but looked at him. Through him. Sure, I thought, there’s beauty there. Not physical beauty specifically, though I could see how someone could find him attractive once I took a step back from my preconceptions. Inner beauty. He meant well. To me, he may have been an annoying prick, but there was honourable intent in his endless whining. He was trying to help me when he could have been bitching me out to anyone who’d listen behind my back. That was beauty. He has it.
“I saw beauty,” another classmate offered after I shared my ultimate break though. “My good salad bowl,” she told us. “I only bring it out when I’m hosting a dinner party. Why is that?, I thought. So I ate my salad out the good salad bowl all this week.”
Reasoning
Much like a cult, people began to resign from personal ownership of their problems. The school offered an alternative to making tough decisions by yourself: levels of reasoning. Take it one step higher, the school taught. Is it best for the individual? If so, is it best for the family? The dilemma was propelled through society, humanity and the universe to reach a conclusive answer. Sound reasoning, to be sure. Class, discuss.
“I have a problem,” proffered one lady, who’d be fairly silent until this point. “I have a delivery coming by courier tomorrow. They say they can only tell me they’ll be at my house between 9am and midday! I have to be at work!”
Philosophising about what was learnered
The 10-week semester culminated with a bonus week where the class was invited to demonstrate to the class what they had learnt from the school. If not directly, evidently they were informed they could offer an abstract demonstration.
Salad bowl lady brought a bowl of salad for the class to share.
As per every single statement he had made in the class that semester, a man stood up prefaced, “I’m a graphic designer.” He continued, “But I’m also a spoken word poet. I’d like to perform for you all.” Which he did, before handing out copies of his CD to each classmate.
Spoken word poet man had a talent for such things, but this was no requirement to contribute. Another man performed a song that he had performed at a friend’s wedding to great adulation from the other class members.
I feel it’s necessary to explicitly point out that these are demonstrations of what was learnt at the school of philosophy: spoken word poetry, off-key singing and salad.
I didn’t partake. I didn’t take part: because my ‘skill’ is writing. If I were to deliver an honest opinion to the class, I would have spoken about the notion ‘know thyself’. I now know myself, I would have begun, enough to know that I do not belong to the same category of broken that has encouraged the rest of the class to attach to this quasi-religious course with such gusto.
I’m glad I didn’t take that opportunity though. While the School of Philosophy didn’t dissect any fabric of the meaning of reality, it did expose a societal fabric that showed that, despite the flawed execution, these people were only trying to dissect their own reality. It’s not up to myself to take that away from them.
Toronto School of Philosophy
29 Madison Avenue, Toronto
416 960 4833
El Confuso
Got tired of waiting for Xtra! (Toronto's gay street press) to publish my piece. Figure I might as well get some mileage out of it. Enjoy.
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El Convento Rico: it’s Latin. It’s gay. But it’s also straight. So basically it’s College Street’s Ricky Martin.
If you’ve not heard of Rico bar, it’s a dingy basement Latin drag bar in Little Italy. The translation of the name is open to interpretation: “Convento” definitely means ‘convent’; however “Rico” could mean a number of things, like ‘rich’, ‘delicious’ or ‘tasty’ (which is probably the preference).
Open on Friday and Saturday nights (plus Sunday nights on long weekends), Ricos is decidedly a gay and lesbian bar. When it opened 17 years ago, it was a little thorn in the little boot of Little Italy. The area was densely populated by recent European immigrants who didn’t really take to the idea of a gay and lesbian bar right in their ‘hood. El Convento stuck it out, however, to become a staple of College Street, nestled right next to Blockbuster and a thousand Italian restaurants.
While not being in the confines of the gayborhood (read: Church Street) has been tough, they see their location as an advantage. “That’s what makes us different,” general manager Fab tells me. “And that’s what helps. It gives our gay clientele the feeling that they are accepted.”
Although they opened as an outwardly gay and lesbian bar, they’ve now “evolved” and pride themselves on their mix of gay and straight clientele. As Fab explains, “Originally we opened to the gay, lesbian and bisexual community, and now we have evolved to cater to… everybody. No matter what your sexual orientation is – gay, straight, confused – we’re just here to satisfy everybody.” He mentioned that there is a misconception in the gay community that the bar is turning straight. “Over the years, it has progressed– but I think it’s hit its plateau. I can honestly say we have a 50/50 mix.”
Fab doesn’t agree that the onslaught of straight punters cheapens the experience for the gay crowd. “A lot of our gay customers enjoy interacting with the straight community,” he countered when asked. “I think they feel that they’re not sequestered to being open about their sexuality just in a gay club. Or, be going to a straight club and not being able to be open. Here, you get a bit of everythingwhich makes them feel, ‘I’m just like everyone else’ and it doesn’t limit them to what they can or cannot do.”
They’re doing what they can to ensure that they don’t lose the gays. “A majority of our performers are female impersonators,” Feb tellsme. “We make sure that we do hold our special Mr and Miss El Convento Ricos; our anniversary parties, which are gay-orientated; our New Year’s party, which is gay-orientated. Our music in general – yes, we play Latin and top 40 – but you can’t get through a weekend without hearing that disco tune.”
Ask for any stories which illustrate the club, though, and you’ll hit a wall. “Stories do no justice,” says Alisha, the reigning Miss El Convento Rico. “You have to experience it for yourself.”
“I think it is a magical place,” Fab piped in. ”As soon as you walk in here, come down these stairs – it’s like a different place. Whatever problems you’re having in the world, or whatever problems you’re having in your day-to-day life, it all goes out the door. You come down here and forget about everything.”
I came down the stairs, and wondered if there was separate entrance that I missed because my perception of the world hadn’t changed in any seismic fashion. It was just a smallish room that was playing host to what appeared to be a stagette night. At least, that’s what the sea of feather boas suggested. During the course of the night, the TVs displayed “Congratulations to our new brides!” while the stagettes’ names rotated on a marquee and gaggles of hens squealed at the digital recognition.
Fab had already told me that the bar is a popular destination for bachelorette parties. “They like to come and enjoy the show, watch everybody and party with everyone in here,” he said. “It’s one last hurrah. It’s a new alternative to going to a strip joint I guess.”
The music dimmed, and an announcement warned that a drag show was coming. The announcer also promoted the forthcoming long weekend Sunday night at Rico because the Chippendales were appearing. “And guys,” he cooed to the men, “if you’re thinking, ‘why would I want to go to that?’ – last year,all the women came and got all fired up over the men… but had no one to go home with.” I couldn’t see the announcer, but the tone of his voice in the conclusion suggested major sad face. So not only am I at the first gay bar inthe world that has to so desperately encourage their male patrons to come and see the Chippendales – the CHIPPENDALES – but they do so by promising a bounty of dripping wet pussy.
So, is it a gay bar, or is it a straight bar that features gay people? “We’re still a gay bar,” Fab reassured me. “We characterize ourselves as a gay bar and make sure everybody knows that we are. We’re proud to fly the gay flag outside.”
Drag shows are interesting at El Convento Rico, as there’s no stage – so the shows are perfomed ‘in the round’, with the audience making an accommodating wide circle on the dance floor so the queens can mime and gesture from the centre. The positioning means that really only one side of the audience at a time is getting to see the show proper; while the other half of the club is literally getting a bum deal.
Similarly, whether the gay crowd or the straight crowd is getting the best proverbial “view” at any time at ‘the tasty / delicious / rich convent’ is also open to interpretation.
El Convento Rico, 750 College Street Toronto.
http://www.elconventorico.com/
Write right
What happened to me? I used to write real good and stuff.
Facetiousness aside, it does feel like I’ve fallen off the horse. When people ask me what I do these days, I earnestly say, failed writer. And being endlessly self-critical while simultaneously magically blame-y, I have a few reasons.
I’m not writing much
lately
I had a run with posting daily on my blog to see if any magic would come from cyclically spewing words on to the page, but all that did was make my own voice echo in my own head with the sameness of each blog post.
This excuse wears thin though, because aside from the produced blog posts, I wrote few articles this year: several for CitySearch Australia, which is edited by a “friend” who was doing me a “favour” by letting me write for free in the name of getting me 'back on the horse'; and I’ve wrote an article for Xtra!, a gay paper here in Toronto. That article, which I’ve just re-read, was written on spec - and pretty damn good if you ask me. Good enough to be accepted by the publisher, so spec won – however it’s been ‘scheduling pending’ since August. Which is fucking ridiculous, and killed my confidence in getting paid work for the time being.
My head is busted
A dear friend told me that one of their concerns when I was in my traumatic brain injury-induced coma is that I would wake up and not be able to write – because “we know you like to think of yourself as a writer,” was the gentle way it was put. And honestly, this is the one that freaks me out the most – maybe I lost a bit of myself after the accident, and that was the bit that wrote well?
I only write about
myself
This one was pointed out by my travel buddy Bree, who has been urging me to write because I moan about it so much. When I told her I was writing this very blog post, she said, “Do you ever not write about yourself?”
Another monkey on my back, my sister Bec, has my blog bookmarked, which is awfully sweet and sisterly. When I noticed it recently, she asked why I wasn’t posting much. I told her I was bored of it; bored with my voice on it, talking about myself incessantly. “Isn’t that what a blog is?” she asked. “Kind of like your own personal reality TV show?”
Her idea of a blog’s purpose is contentious, but she was right about why I’m bored of it. I’m tired of talking about me. With the accident and moving to Canada, there’s been nothing but self-centric posting going on. I moved to Canada to escape the selfishness of overcoming trauma, except I only left the trauma behind and not the selfishness.
If there’s one thing working holidays are good for, it’s trying on new and different faces. So I’m starting a new tone for the blog for 2010. I plan on mixing it up with actual publishable work (addressing central questions and everything); maybe even some short stories, if I can develop my fiction-writing skills enough to produce something I want to share. And I promise: no poetry.
WATAH!
Which was hysterically echoed as, “THE GATE KEEPAH!”
Another time, also at work – did I mention this is my Canadian work, where they all have funny accents? – someone asked me, “Josh, say ‘water’.”
“Water,” I said.
“WATAH!” was once again echoed.
And I dreamt of cultural harassment laws that operate the same way as sexual harassment laws, which exist only in a world where I’m not forced feel like an Australian clown.
The reason we were talking about water, though, is because I was disgusted at the way water is wasted here. In fact, I raised the issue of water with the dude who mocked my “watah” because he left the tap running while he ditzed his way around the kitchen.
Coming from a country experiencing severe drought, I told him, you shouldn’t waste water like that. “I’m sorry,” he said, blankly, ingenuinely. While the water still ran.
There are small visual postcards that remind me of pre-drought Australia everywhere, from sprinklers to the OMG YOU CAN’T DO THAT hosing of driveways.
Canada is different to Australia though – they seem to be under the impression that their water supply is infinite. The poor bastards are snowed on for a majority of the year, so have a seemingly endless amount in their reserves from all the melted snow water.
I have read though that water is going to become the greatest commodity in the world as the population explodes and drinkable water becomes scarce. (Haven’t these people seen Tank Girl?)
So I guess it’s up to me to be this country’s water defender. I’m sorry, that's WATAH DEFENDAH.
Homesick
So I lied. They’re not my calculations at all; I just whacked the dates into a website and it spat all those numbers at me. The point of that exercise: that is exactly how long it took for my homesickness to kick in.
It came on quite suddenly and innocuously. It was actually a video on theage.com.au that did it. (Sorry, dear friends and family who are still in Australia.)
It was showing the new Fairfax building on the corner of Collins St and Spencer St that has just been finished. I worked just a few doors down from there and saw the foundations go in. It made my heart ache that I wasn’t there to see it complete. It looks like an awesome building. And just that one piece of architecture reminded me how freakin’ beautiful Melbourne is.
One thing that’s surprised me is how visually unappealing Toronto is. Sure, there are a couple of impressive buildings around the place, but there’s no cohesive beauty – at the risk of sounding biased, like you find in Melbourne.
Bias aside, I’m sure any impartial person could admit that Toronto is a little ugs. There’s not much pizzazz.
So I saw all these images of my home city, and I thought: I should be there. Why am I wasting my time here setting up a life? I should be there, my permanent home: setting myself up with a beachside apartment in Elwood, riding to work every day. Being a tourist in my own city, rather than a transient resident in this one.
It’s a very intense, hurried feeling – like you should be there right now because all of this is happening right now and you aren’t there right now.
Then it passed, as it always does, because I remind myself that Melbourne’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be there when the ugly beast that is Toronto chews me up and spits me out.
Telephunk
So, Kelly: I’m sorry I doubted you. (Oh, and happy birthday!)
Yes, Canadian mobile carriers will charge you to receive a call – the exact same amount they’d charge you if you made the call. Which sucks if you’re on prepaid, because if you have no credit, no one can call you. That would screw so many Australian prepaid users, who rarely top up – or even go weeks without buying more credit and just let people call them.
There’s no grace either – I was on a Very Important Call, discussing my banking or some such, and the call suddenly and mysteriously disconnected halfway through. Aww, you forgot to keep your account topped up, didn’t you newbie?
When I was signing up for an account (you totally can’t live on prepay over here), I said the guy in the shop, listen – I know you didn’t personally create the charge so I’m not blaming you, but how is charging to receive a call justified? “You’re still using the network,” he said flatly.
Hang on to your hats though! They’ve found a lot of other things to charge you for too. Like caller ID. Not receiving the caller ID of the person calling you, but actually sending your caller ID when you call people.
So, hypothetically, someone could be charged for answering a call from someone they didn’t want to talk to but they had no idea it was them because the caller ID wasn’t displayed. Get it?
Hi, I’m a Canadian mobile company. Dolla dolla bill, y’all.
What this does, however, is open up the market to selling ‘packs’. For example, for only $10 a month, all your incoming calls are ABSOLUTELY FREE. And look, for just $5 extra a month you can send your caller ID! OMG JOYGASM.
With the bad comes the good though – I guess they make up for their shitty, shitty pricing by chucking the word unlimited on to everything else to balance it out. For $35 a month, I’m on a fairly reasonable plan: 1,000 minutes peak, and unlimited after 7pm and weekends. And unlimited text messages. Considering it’s rare to make many calls before 7pm, that pretty much means ‘unlimited everything’.
Does this balance out the dual arse rape of paying to receive calls and again to send your caller ID? Just give me a ring and you'll find out.
Cloudy with a chance…
HOW’S THE WEATHA?
It’s cute that it’s a conversation topic for pretty much every Australian, especially Mum. I get it – Canada’s got a reputation for being cold; Australia has a reputation for being hot: conversation ensues.
However, disappointingly in terms of conversation, so far the weather has been entirely agreeable.
When we got here in July, there were some hot days. It was summer, of course, so… kinda expected. But almost immediately after we landed, Canadians were apologising for the season. It’s not usually as mild, apparently. Which is odd, because honestly, it was pretty freakin’ hot.
Well, a little more ‘sticky’ than hot. The difference with Australian summers is the humidity, which is outta control here. It’s not something I’d ever really considered before, being from Melbourne, but the air is so thick with heat, it feels a shitload hotter than the actual centigrade temperature would have you believe. Because of that, every weather forecast contains the actual temperature and a handy little “FEELS LIKE” box. I can only remember one day where it ‘felt like’ 40, so I suppose that’s mild by Australian standards.
We’re in the midst of fall now though, so the thermometer’s dropped a bit. After a cold snap last week where the days were starting out around zero and reaching only 8 or 9, we’ve climbed back up to days of around 16 or so, which is totally doable.
What’s a little less tolerable though is the perverse amount of pleasure Canadians take in deriding their weather. “How are you liking the cold?” they’ll cheerfully sneer. I tell them honestly, I’m a winter baby; I love the cold. And without fail, every time that’s countered with a maniac, “JUST WAIT TIL WINTER!”
It’s almost as if they think we haven’t heard that Canada gets a bit cold. On the contrary, I’m looking forward to it – it’s totally different for me, ya know?
That said, the thing I’m actually looking forward to the most is surviving my first winter here so I can reply flatly, ‘ya know, it’s really not that bad’ – despite the fact I froze my nuts off the whole time.
This blog eats me
Searching through the “rooms, shared” board is draining, especially because we’re looking for two bedrooms and it’s hard to narrow your search for two separate furnished bedrooms and get decent results. So we’ve placed ads in the “rooms wanted” category.
Our ad basically read: we’re looking for two separate furnished rooms at a place that’s walkable to a subway. When you place an ad is you’re given an anonymised address (az56523178324@craigslist.org, for example) and when someone emails that, it’s forwarded on to your proper email address. You can’t email from that address, so you have to use your own email – so that’s where the anonymous privacy stops. That’s why you only write back to decent offers.
Such as the one we received from someone called Judy. “I have a 2 bedroom apartment in my home which is located 5 minute walk to Eglinton West subway station,” it read. It carried on, and she sounded like a pretty nice chick with a suitable apartment for us.
So I wrote back a basic reply using my mail@joshdare.com address, saying the place sounded great and we’d like a viewing. The problem being, of course, that my email address is derived from my website – so if anyone had the wherewithal to even care, from the email address you could figure out there’s website at joshdare.com. And if you did have enough sneaky sneaky about you, you could visit that website, see the links and realise, oh hey! He has a blog too!
And then proceed to read it in meticulous crazy stalker detail.
Then reply:
Thanks for your reply.
I was reading your blog. I don’t want to find myself or my home described on your blog…About the loud music, I hope it won’t be an issue. I didn’t quite understand what you were saying about the person who hit you.
It is possible to see the apartment as long as you agree not to write about it on your blog. If you don’t like it, that’s fine and that should be the end. When would you like to come by? Phone me or give me 2 or 3 times you might be available. When do you want to move?
What. Do. You. Fucking. Mean.
She’s gone ahead and over-reacted over the two most recent posts where I described the houses we’d viewed, and how the hostel told me off for music that wasn’t actually loud. She missed the point of both entirely, but I suppose the two posts she referenced could be construed as somewhat relevant to a landlord.
However, casually trying to clarify what my opinion was of the person who sent me into a coma and a month of rehab: you fucking crazy, lady. On which planet would that be OK? Why is it any of your fucking business? And get to that post, you would’ve read my more morose posts where I acknowledged the somber gravity of what happened; and how much it fucked my head. Why you think it’s even polite to bring it up in conversation – when I don’t even know you – is a concern.
At the end of the day, I put the blog posts up for the whole world wide web to read, so shouldn’t be surprised when someone does. It’s just that I don’t put them up for prospective landlords to read. If she’d read it and kept it to herself, fine – but I certainly don’t put them up so they can serve as fodder for a paranoid grilling.
So, from now on, think I’ll just go back to using my Hotmail.
Welcome to suburban Canada
The scene in our street is like every Hollywood suburban movie you’ve seen: big ass cars (and we are talking huge trucks, like Hummers only bigger) driving down wide tree-lined roads which are dotted with quant little houses, most of them with a porch.
However, they’re not called porches here – they’re ‘patios’. And they substitute for a backyard; in the sense that during the warmer months, people sit outside on their patios for the cool. Because you’ve seen it on TV before, it’s probably easy to imagine a fat old black lady sitting on her patio sunlounge, next to a screen door, fanning herself and drawling, “… it shure is HAWT to-day…”
And you’ve seen it on TV because it’s actually like that. For real.
I suppose sitting in such an accessible spot promotes more of a community feel, but because I’ve been raised with the Australian backyard mentality, I don’t think I could do it – I’d feel naked exposed. It’s about a metre away from the bitumen, so it’d seem like the cars driving up the street were watching me as they drove by. It’s a moot point at any rate because we don’t have a patio – we have a massive backyard instead. With a BBQ and all, so I feel right at home.
With Halloween approaching, the neighbourhood has gone crazy with decorations. It’s only October 22, but there’s so many houses with spooky motifs already. Jack-o-laterns, cobwebs across everything, “boiling” cauldrons, spookily-lit windows – the 31st is going to be insane.
If that all that wasn’t every-low-budget-suburban-sitcom-ever-made enough, imagine my face when I walked down the street one day and saw a LEMONADE STAND. Honest. To. God. A 5c-a-cup lemonade stand. Not only did I assume homemade lemonade stands never left the movie screen; I never thought they would have left the 1950s… especially at that price. Still only a nickel! Plus America – so, by extension, North America – seems to be gung ho on safety – to an extreme paranoid level – and it’s children making lemonade, so there’s zero accountability or responsibility there. Or, y’know, respect for basic hygiene.
But the one thing that absolutely clinches our desolately suburban location for the locals we talk to here: we can walk to a WalMart. That is apparently a very sore thumb to the ‘middle of nowhere’ argument, because as it turns out, WalMarts only start where the city stops.
We came here for Toronto city, not Toronto “outskirts” – so after only a brief stay at this suburban residence, we’ll be moving downtown in the coming months... just as soon as we scout out another location.
Damn, those crickets are loud
That’s because I had a little epiphany that made me decide to be more ‘in the present’. Yes, blogging relates to that. How? Think of it as the text-based equivalent of a camera: to take a photo, you have to have enough foresight to have the camera out; or walk around with the camera in hand, ready to pounce on any picture moment. So the blogging equivalent is walking round seeing everything through the eye of the blog instead of my own. As in, when doing something, I’d think about how it would fit into my blog – rather than actually doing it. It sounds retarded, because surely I could just do whatever and just happen to write about it later, but I don’t work like that. The blog would be sitting on my shoulder the whole time, whispering about how cool whatever I was thinking about doing would write up. So I wouldn’t feel like I owned any particular thought.
Why this in mind, then, you may wonder why I decided to embark on a Twitter crusade last week. Isn’t that, oh, exactly the same thing? Turns out: yes.
For a week, I pledged to make a daily tweet to see if there was something about the service I was missing that could only be garnered by regular usage of the micro-blogging service.
There’s not, but I did take a major positive away from the experience: I should blog more. Not this micro-blogging crap, but proper full size blogging. If only due to the fact that I’m not doing a hell of a lot of paid work, so I should keep on my literary toes.
So I’ll be doing my best to post more often, and have a list of blog topics I will mine through over the next few days to bring this puppy up to speed – so you can be in my present, too.