Next Up On My Wall: 3 Autographed Samantha Fox Posters

Here is a post lifted from my Collectibles blog...

I received this cylinder in the mail two weeks ago and have been waiting to make good use of it ever since:

Yes, that's direct mail from Samantha Fox, my favourite lead singer of the 1980s, my favourite pop music queen, my childhood crush obsession, the lone ''non-rock'' patch on my teenage jean jacket...

I contemplated having its contents laminated, but because they are of ''unusual'' (read: British) dimensions (12x16.5 inches), I would have had to do so on larger-than-the-poster canvasses; it took me a long time to find ideal-sized and affordable frames... until last Sunday.

And so:

Oh, yes, these are going on my wall.

She sells unsigned versions of these at 10 pounds apiece ($20 U.S.), and signed ones for 30 each ($60 U.S.). I got them for much, much less than that - because I'm a musician, proved to be a true fan, did my best to attend every single one of her performances in my part of the world... and took advantage of a sale on her website. 1+1+1= oh yeah.

There are days where I regret some of the choices I've made in my life, like foregoing on a hockey career to pursue my education, or choosing the least faithful out of two possible ladies as a long-term companion, or leading a relatively unhealthy lifestyle without the trade-off of at least feeling like it was worth the damage done.

But there are days where I tell myself that every choice I've made has led me right here, and there is no way I could possibly want to trade that away. This is one of them:

There is a God - he just hasn't made me a photographer. BEST BLACK DRESS, EVER; ALL-TIME GREATEST USE OF WIND. I even noticed the shoes, and I'm neither gay nor a lady! Oh, and superb signature. I nominate this as the greatest piece of human history ever created.

There is also this sexy bustier shot, which I had a blown-up poster of (unsigned) earlier in my life:

And this one, showing a rather large tattoo I had never noticed on her before (let me reiterate that I've seen her perform live and state for the record that I've met her maybe 5 years ago when she came to town to play an outdoors show at out Gay Pride festival):

Another cool black dress, the like of could have been worn in a sexy, almost-goth fashionable wedding à la November Rain, the epic 1992 Guns N' Roses video. I volunteer to be the groom.

My Friends Are So Distressed

Our friendship started in late 1990, except it wasn't exactly friendship at first: we were sharing a dormitory with 100 other 7th-graders, and his bunk was next to mine. And that fucking Alexandre Paul, known to his friends as Po Paul, was a heck of a snorer. So eventually, I started throwing water at him when he snored - I fought fire with... water.

Maybe the water was an omen.

Anyhow, before the school year was over, we were inseparable buddies, part of a group of like-minded music aficionados, with a tendency bent towards hard rock. Sure, we had our differences - he preferred Nirvana and solo Ozzy Osbourne, I loved Pearl Jam and the first Black Sabbath line-up. Ultimately, though, we could agree on the important things: Guns N' Roses kicked ass.

We also got along outside of school, spending most of our weekends walking day-long treks from my house in the Western part of Montréal, through downtown with countless stops at HMV, Burger King, Sam The Record Man's and Labyrinthe, all the way to his folks' place, in the East end. If the night included a sleepover, we'd watch Saturday Night Live together.

The son of a fireman whose nickname he inherited, Po Paul always wanted to do whatever he could to help ensure he and we would be able to live in a better, fairer, safer, cleaner world, and so it was a match made in heaven when he joined Greenpeace some 15 years ago. From door-to-door canvasser to supervisor to rider of the sea, his ascension throughout their ranks is exceptional.

Then again, he's a pretty awesome guy to begin with.

I'm often asked why Montréal is home to so many activists and great artists, and my answer is usually two-fold and quite simple: it's an awesome place full of utopian potential, yet it was led to being a complete shithole by profiteers who took advantage of the people's good hearts. And so many are fighting to make it - or the rest of the world - a better place.

Po Paul's journey was put on pause recently when he and 11 other activists were arrested in Russia on charges of piracy, for attempting to board an oil rig; they were denied bail and the investigation will last 60 days, though they have yet to actually be charged with anything.

Greenpeace is protesting and appealing, but as we've seen with the Pussy Riot trials and the recent ''anti-gay-propaganda'' extravaganza, Russia - like Russians - couldn't care less about political or outside pressure; they beat to their own drum, and they drum loudly.

Which is the main reason why Po Paul's mom is freaking out, seeing as he's facing a possible 15 years of gulag jail time if he is indeed found guilty. For trying to make a difference, and almost standing in the way of Big Oil.

We'll know in a couple of months whether this farce will taste like Justice or Abuse Of Power, but there are lots of reasons to be scared.

Godspeed, my friend, and best of luck. You've been in our thoughts all week, and we're keeping you there front and center.

The Birthday Boy

I skimmed through a few birthday memories in this post, and some have been more memorable than others - my 30th was my all-time best, for sure, what with all the members of both my families plus childhood friends and my then-girlfriend together in the same room, most of them for the first time in 29 years, culminating with a short film recap of my life so far and everybody having chipped in for my trip to Cuba.

I've had some with events I regret - like when I was 3 or 4, coming home to a surprise party, pretending to be offended by it, and going as far as to refuse chocolate cake in protest of half my family being there. I still feel like a dick for it, and I felt like one even at the time (kids have consciences, I guess).

Then there's some like tonight: quiet, laid-back, just a few friends in a restaurant. Six people - enough to carry out and follow two conversations at once and have everyone involved, not too much to lose track of certain people deserving of your attention but too far to get it.

I'll remember my mid-thirties' anniversary because it was perfect: not overblown, over-hyped or out-of-proportion, no disrespect, no negativity, no one to mess it all up. Just good, old, middle-of-the-road, laid back fun.

Whale Of A Good Time

As a kid, I went on a beluga-watching trip with my family one summer. There were fewer than usual that day, perhaps because of the cold June temperature, maybe for another reason, but we still got a few, and I came back with a poster that I got laminated and that hung above my bed in my room for the better part of a decade, at first surrounded by Batman and Joker stuff, then band posters, then Samantha Fox and band posters.

I'm lucky enough to live in Montréal, where the St. Lawrence River (Fleuve St-Laurent) leads all the way to the ocean to the East, so without crossing borders or needing passports, I can live with all the advantages of a large city and escape to the Coast for the wildlife and salted water, lobster and everything else that makes the ocean side what it is.

Once in a while, a beluga will make its way all the way here, despite being some 400 miles from a salt water source; when it's a female of the species, since they are endangered (I was shocked to learn last year that the once-healthy population has been decimated to perhaps less than a thousand in total, and most of them now look like they have cancer), they usually accompany it back to its natural habitat, but apparently, for males, they leave them be, possibly to die in the more-polluted City water.

It seems we had one here a few weeks ago. There were sightings for a week or so, then none. It's assumed it's dead.

R.I.P. Pascual Perez

In the midst of racism in the news, conspiracy theorist Tila Tequila, the American elections, and the continuing saga of corruption in Québec politics, one subject fell through the cracks: the death (murder) of Pascual Perez, one of my favourite Montréal Expos pitchers.

The former All-Star was found dead at his Dominican Republic home:

Some of the reported details of Perez's death are gruesome, but they also have yet to be confirmed. One report says robbers waited for Perez, a terminally-ill kidney patient with five children, to receive his $2,000 major league pension check before surprising him at his home.

I couldn't describe him better than this if I tried to:

A brother to Melido Perez and Carlos Perez, both of whom also had substantial major league careers, Pascual Perez could follow a 95 mph fastball with a sleepy eephus pitch — just for fun. Listed at 6-foot-2 and 162 pounds, Perez was all arms and legs on the mound with a Jheri- curl mullet hairdo on top.

His rainbow pitch was a marvel to witness. It flew 15 feet in the air and looked like an easy, Little League pitch that was certain to get knocked outside the park - except it never was.

He, like many Expos, had a pretty bad cocaine problem, twice going into rehab in his three-season stint in Montréal. His brother Carlos also played here, and Éric Gagné mentioned him in his autobiography, saying ''he always had two things on him: a million dollars in cash, and a loaded gun''. Freak family, but beautiful to watch play.

The Burger King

If you know me personally, you probably know I've been a huge Wayne Gretzky fan for... my whole life.

As a child, I'd beg my parents to let me watch a single period of his games, which came so late in my time zone (Eastern) that they played after my hometown Montréal Canadiens' games, oftentimes ending at 10PM, way past my curfew. Needless to say, when I was be able to see him play, it was special for more than one reason, usually a special event, usually during the Holidays.

For Christmas, I'd ask my parents for Gretzky jerseys - first with the Edmonton Oilers, from ages 4 to 12 (every time I'd outgrow one), then with the Los Angeles Kings, for the first half of the nineties, which were my high school years. Then I moved out and was on my own to provide jerseys for myself, and could only afford a Gretzky three years ago - a beautiful Oilers one, in blue.

The one jersey I never got, though, was the ''Burger King'' Kings one, and to this day I can't find one anywhere. Lucky for me, though, McFarlane Toys made 250 of them, usually selling for $100-400 apiece:

Now you know what to get me for Christmas.

I thank you in advance.

R.I.P. Gary Carter

As a kid and teenager, my favourite baseball player was Tim Raines (still my all-time favourite), but Gary Carter was the one that got me interested in the sport itself.

Heck, when I was growing up - and even after he was traded to the New York Mets in 1984 - all of us kids in Montréal wore our caps backwards to be ''just like The Kid, as he was known, despite the fact that all catchers wore their caps backwards when behind the plate. To us, it was a way to identify with him even more than we already did, and we did a lot.

He loved the cameras, loved to smile for them, talk in front of them, pose for pictures - and all the cameras - and the people behind them - loved him back.

In a city all about hockey, he was as big a star as Guy Lafleur, the Montréal Canadiens' last star forward; he was the playoff hero in the failed 1981 NL run, one of four starting Montréal Expos at the 1982 All-Star Game (a fifth starter, Pete Rose, then of the Philadelphia Phillies, was a former Expo), the most charismatic figure in the history of the team.

I still remember when he was traded in 1984 (December 10th!) and against whom (Hubie Brooks, Floyd Youmans, Herman Winningham and the guy who replaced him behind the plate for half a decade, Mike Fitzgerald), and the World Series he won with the Mets in his second season in New York still stings.

He was treated like the living legend he was when the Expos brought him back to finish his career here in 1992, a year removed from Dennis Martinez' perfect game, two years before the kids (Delino DeShields, Marquis Grisson, Moises Alou, Larry Walker, Mel Rojas and John Wetteland) unexpectedly became the best team in the NL two years too early under the watchful eye of Felipe Alou.

When he was inducted in the Hall Of Fame in 2003, he said he'd want to be inducted as a member of both the Mets and Expos, but since Cooperstown decrees players can only represent one team, he favoured NYC because of his championship, but felt like a Montrealer despite this. The Hall decided to make him an Expo, and he was always bittersweet about it. He is now joined in the Hall by Andre Dawson, who was his enemy in the clubhouse. I hope Raines joins them soon, he is also very worthy of the Hall.

Today, Carter died from the multiple tumours in his head. Today, baseball died again in Montréal.

So I've Always Liked Strong Women To Match My Own Character

As a kid, I watched a lot of TV: G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man, Thundercats, M.A.S.K., Go-Bots (a cheap Transformers knock-off), Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, Goldorak, Astro Boy, Albator, Mazinger Z (the poor man's Goldorak), Voltron... lots of guys with big muscles and cars that turned into shit, and things that turned into giant communist (all the heroes in the same character) robots. And an anarchist pirate.

And, for a short while... She-Ra. I'd add ''in my defense, I was only watching it in case He-Man made one of his many cameos'', but even I'm not sure if that would make me admit I'm more or less manly. But the truth hurts, that idiom stays real.

In any event, I always like when pop culture catches up to She-Ra, proving I wasn't the only one who liked watching re-hashed stories involving He-Man's cuter little cousin - with smaller boobs.

As a matter of fact, someone on HelloGiggles - Zooey Deschanel's own blogosphere that she shares with her friends - made a list of 5 things they learned from She-Ra...

Video Of The Week: Break Machine

Before I was a writer, a musician, a hockey player... I was a child. A break-dancing, spin-on-my-head on a cardboard box child, living in a huge apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks by the St-Lawrence river in Pierrefonds.

Not all my childhood years, but, say, ages 3 to 6. Before living in Verdun for 3 months, and then NDG for the remainder of my not-adult life.

There was one kid I'd play with - we both had Star Wars figurines and could have fun all day playing with them - that was, of course, decades before keeping them hidden in a closet and not playing with them would have made us millionaires.

But when that friend wasn't available, it was either learning to ride a bike, or dancing - usually by myself, on cardboard boxes.

In 1983, I started listening to 3 artists that would keep me going pretty much until the end of the decade - or at least until Guns N' Roses came along... a man: Michael Jackson, a woman (hey, I was 5, I didn't know!): Boy George (and Culture Club), and a song: Break Machine's Street Dance. And eventually, Samantha Fox took over Boy George's place, but that's a whole other story.

But Street Dance stayed with me a long time. To this day, I put it in my iPod rotation for a couple of weeks every year; it had that (little) bit of edge that Thriller didn't have, the street smarts, the balls. Although in '83, Jacko had balls, he was even black. Again: whole other story.

For some reason, today, at work, it came upon the subject that, as a kid, I was a full-fledged break-dancer. That I had all the fucking moves down, whcih is kind of hard to believe given my actual physique, I'll admit taht much. But still...

If 1993-96 were the defining years of my teens (and the best years of my life, probably), 1983 was the year that made my childhood. Starting kindergarten, making new friends at school but rarely seeing them after school and/or on weekends, my mom working her ass off to raise me and make ends meet - but caring, full of love, happy. Shit, if my childhood had been my 1983 for all years until I was 12, then my teens would have been 1993-96 three times over, fairy tales would not have matched my level of love for life and happiness ever after. I wouldn't have even needed adulthood, my life would have been complete.

But no, I had to witness the rest of the '80s. To this day, having lived it once, I can't understand the whole ''80s revival'' bullshit that's seemingly been going on for 10 years, not even in a sarcastic way: it wasn't just terrible, it was awful, wretched, horror-disguised-as-fuchsia-and-pastels, decadence for assholes and idiots, shitty beers, terrible TV, the worst music of all time, extravagance for the sake of absent-mindedness.

It wasn't the worst decade of the 1900s, it was the worst decade of all fucking time. 1984 isn't just a book by George Orwell, it's a fucking way of life embodied by Duran Duran wearing pastels on a boat in Miami harbor; by haircuts so bad the male cast of Friends wouldn't even dare touch it with someone else's ten-foot pole; by the stench of sweat mixed with cheap cologne drenched in cocaine and that shit that makes Cracker Jacks stick; by an Albertan oil magnate selling the services of a human - the best at what he does, ever! - and not doing jail time for it; by extremely Conservative politics vying to bring back The Church's Values that the people had pushed aside 20 years prior.

It was the worst of times, it was the... worst of times. Until 1985 came along. Then 1986. Then most of 1987. And a bit of 1988, and quite a big chunk of 1989, too. Even 1990 wasn't immune to the shit - thanks, Technotronic.

So I always have 1983 to go back to, the one shining beacon in a decade of black holes and eclipses (and general fecal matter for the soul). And a big part of what made 1983 so special was this song, my Video Of The Week, Street Dance. Thanks for your patience.




Oh, and yes, I know Break Machine was actually produced/kind of put together by Jacques Morali, the brains behind boy-band-of-its-time Village People. So what. It's good, and it's street.