Hey Folks,

So, here I am back in ffice:smarttags" /> lace>Vancouver lace> after a stay in lace>Ontario lace> with family and friends. All-in-all, it was a good experience; a much needed one. A few things hit home while I was away. I’ve been seeing my father’s health deteriorate over the past years, and this definitely brings me to a new perspective of the important things in life such as family, friends, and relationships. If I have seemed distant over the past little while, please accept my apologies for being off-kilter.

I have also been in the midst (as some of you know) of some inner conflict on how to go about semi-reinventing myself in regards to what I do for a living, where my priorities need changing, and what it means to become a happy and well-adjusted person. This process isn’t always an easy or a pretty one to witness, so my apologies to those of you who’ve experienced my frustration in my wake. My paintings have brought a new enthusiasm of life to me – ask about them if you’re interested.

I have decided that, as adamantly I have steered away from the whole “workin’ for the man” thing in my life, there comes a time when the reality of bills, rent, food, and comfort sing a different tone in ones head – now’s that time for me!

I am looking for work in the Vancouver, BC area, and, naturally, the ideal would be in the fields that you’ve all seen me in over the past few years: promoter/publicist/emcee/performer/poet/broadcaster and all that jazz, but unless it can bring me some sort of solid and regular income, I will have to keep all of these things as supplementary incomes. I believe that this may also offer a certain novelty to these elements again, as they once had when it produced a certain amount of wonder for me in my life. I look forward to truly enjoying and appreciating these things again in the future, as opposed to feeling like I must constantly scramble to keep the rent paid and my wee belly filled. Full time or pat time works for me, so keep me posted. If you’d like to vouche for me and pass this on to folks who you know who may be able to help me out, please feel free to do so.

So – if any of you know of jobs available ffice ffice" /> > >

(any kind – don’t hesitate to tell me about a shipping/receiving gig, or a coffee shop/short order job) > >

PLEASE, LET ME KNOW!

For those of my friends who own businesses, > >

 you know that I am motivated and personable and adaptable, so think about me when it comes hiring time.

I hope that this note finds you all well, and feel free to drop me an email or a phone call sometime, as I am far less busy than I’ve seemed in the past!

Thanks for your help, guys! > >

>  >

Best, > >

>  >

T.Paul
a.k.a. > >

SwankHipster

> > 

since i arrived back home from my working vacation a week ago, i've been in a slump that's bordering on a depressive spiral...it's sort of a continuation of what i was dealing with before i left, amplified by the great time i had with my family and friends. aww...shit.

why would i post this? for the same reason i do when i post happy things - to get it offa my chest!

my trip made me wanna be closer to family, as my pops is showing early signs of alzheimer's (his dad died of it) and i found out a friend is h.i.v. positive. i miss those people. i miss my family. i also feel very trapped here as everything to do with relocating has large costs attached to it, both monetary and emotional. i've been seeing a gal who i dig and want to be around. my good friends of 10 years are here. i like this province...arrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

pros and cons are being weighed. right now going anywhere is not a reality.

see, when this sort of thing hits me, it hits hard and without discretion . i never walk around claiming that i suffer from depression - the pain only comes when it hits. i believe in full on accountability to my own life, but there are times when i simply feel worn ragged. this is one of those.

i'm tryin' to keep the ole chin up. almost any words'd help right now...

T.

me and my dad in 1969

I'm losing my clarity of vision - stopped fishin' for answers to my questions - thoughts become congestions of the mind while I sit quietly by asking the question but knowing the answers as to why I feel dead-stopped - track-halted - exalting the meaningless fluff of everyday existence over my once former insistence of the higher pusrsuits of the spirit-mind - pit-falling my self with expectations thereby blinded to the flirtations with the simple gems of life - I am tried and tired - uninspired by what had once fired my fuel - feeling foolishly locked in to this pattern that finds me pressed wall-flattened just to protect my back - wishing I could jerk-jack my timeline to a month an hour a minute a second before I made myself public property - to the time when the real me still peeked through the mist of my man-made myth shell...

 

...to be continued

So, here I am getting ready to hit the Vancouver Folk Fest, a festival that for the past 2 years I've produced stages for. This year, it changed, and I'm going to cover the event for Book TV. I dunno how to feel about this. I have a wee bit of resentment towards how the change in producers happened, but I'm pals with all of the folks involved on the stage, including the new producer.

I have to maintain some objectivity and set my differences aside in order to be a decent journalist - but DAMN! emotions can be intrusive!

I knew that I was destined to be a hepcat, a hipster when, after getting a wee stereo for Christmas when I was 8 years old, I took my paper route money and bought my first album - "The Drum Battle - Gene Krupa/Buddy Rich at JATP". To this day, I still have Buddy's drumsticks on my wall wth a poster signed by him & his band. My friends at first couldn't figure it...jazz? what the hell? They eventually came 'round to diggin' this album for it's high octane, ultra intense beats.

My grandpaps was a tailor through both world wars & onwards. He made uniforms for the troops. When it wasn't war time, this man made the swankiest suits, shirts, pants, dresses & acoutrement! I still have some of the pairs of pants he had made for my pops when pops was 18 - they fit me now! I'd visit him at his workplace, Goudie's Department Store in Kitchener, Ontario and watch him operate the push pedal sewing machine that he favoured. My taste for sharp lines in suits and well cut pants, porkpie hats & camel hair coats was an obsession when I was a child. I remeber being ecstatic when gramps tailored me my first suit, all green wool with coloured flecks, boxy-shouldered and razor sharp pleated. I felt like a small Ricky Ricardo in it!  With that gift,  that same Christmas morn came my first overcoat, a navy blue job with red lining...ahhhhh! At last!

Throughout my formative years, I was confounded by my own natural displacement, my sense that everyone was missing something - lots of things. Things that seemed inexplicably beautiful to me. Ideas that never occured to the other kids in the schoolyard. And I was voiciferous...god, was I ever. My sis & I  went through an unfortunate public school system which now, incidentally, is being taken to court for ignoring the complaints of students for all kinds of things (yup - beatings, diddling, demeaning, ignored bullying from students & teachers). We had mutual teachers who called us both stupid or dumb. Good thing I knew otherwise..I just sat in class thinkin' ';bout all of the bigger pictures. I eventually gave the teachers what they wanted & played dumb all the while reading well beyond my grade level. Kids didn't get me, and that frightened them I suppose, to the point of getting down right nasty on the physical end of things.

Then, the MOVE. At age 11 in 1977, we moved to Camden Town, London England. This was at the beggining and into the peak of social explosions manifesting themselves with the Punks, spitting on Thatcher, sayin' "FUCK YOU" to the monarchy and all that jazz. This was the year that the IRA bombed London, the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols release God Save The Queen, the King of Rock'n Roll Elvis Presley dies, Marc Bolan died in a car crash, Johnny Rotten is attacked by razor-wielding thugs in North London, NY Supreme Court rules that David R. Berkowitz is competent to stand trial as the accused "Son of Sam" killer , Bob Crane from "Hogan's Heros" was murdered, "Rocky" hit the silver screen. Suddenly, I wasn't such a freaky kid. Pompadoured, garbed in the sharpest drapes, armed with a straightrazor, the world was our oyster - our 11, 12, 15 year old oyster. Kids...Teddy Boys & girls spending pocket dosh on records of Crazy Cavan & the Rhythm Rockers , going out to the local pubs at night for live music, whether it be rockabilly, punk or ska, hangin' on the high street corner tryin' to look tuff. It was one of the most profoundly life changing times in my life. Aside from the Ted action, I met Mary Tullett, my first love. Blonde haired (with a goofy lil' cowlick smack in the middle of her forehead) ice-blue eyed, lanky legged, poverty stricken Mary. She lived in a one bedroom flat in the row housing 'round the corner from us, sharing it with 12 others - mum, dad, aunt, uncle, cousins & brothers & sisters.She was sweet & tuff & older by a year and a half. She took me down that sweet carnal path...introduced me to the wonders of her lovin' & kissin'. I began writing poetry at that age - love poems about Mary, beat inspired situational pieces and so on.Carnaby Street was still a happening place in '77.Many days, I spent alone wandering 'round London Zoo, just a 15 minute jaunt from home, or lingering around Palmer's Pet shop on the high street talking with the lovely obese woman who ran the place & cared for the animals. My family and I would attend West End plays, concerts, exhibits and museums. My sis was also seeing someone, a West End actor 21 years her senior - he shall remain unnamed, as I have zero respect for the tawdry old fart.

 

Returning to Canada wasn't so glorious. I was tossed back into a bland, boring and nasty school system in Kitchener, Ontario. This is when I discovered acting through a teacher by the name of Cathrine Carlson - we're still fast friends. This became one of my creative outlets, alongside writing and music. I had a wonderful english teacher as well who would let me do the assignments around the books that the rest of the class was reading that I had already devoured years before and then grade my poetry & short stories. The garb I had worn in London altered. I began showing up to school each day as someone different, always sharply dressed. One day, I'd don a suit & thin tie & fedora, the next a black mod-like parka and peg-legged jeans, then full on leather clad rocker the next. It kept people angry and confused with their inability to categrorize me, so I then must've been a "fag". I dispelled that myth with Dana, my highschool sweetheart. I swear we spent more time finding places to sneak away and snog than we did in class. Good ole Grand River Collegiate, I can safely say, has been christened with sweaty teenage sex in every possible hiding place you could imagine. Well, I could hardly wait to finish school and get my bored and dissaffected ass to Toronto and begin my real life - my life as an actor.

Toronto opened up a hole new can'o worms for me, from being the youngest member of Q-ART THEATRE CO-OP where I performed in and did the publicity for plays like TWELVE ANGRY MEN, Dario Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, MEDEA, DIARY OF A MADMAN, Jean Genet's the MAIDS and more. I hit every jazz & blues club in the city, refound my sharp dress of London years before, did the art opening schlepping, the parties - all that stuff. I worked at all kinds of jobs, from colourizing B&W films at COLORIZATION, managing & doing the bookings for CHICAGO'S DINER on Queen St. (the place where Jeff Healy got his start), managing CHRYL LYNN'S DINER a fantastic tiny greasy spoon, worjking in wardrobe for IATSE on tons of shows. The wardrobe work, which kept my fingers in the theatrical pie when I wasn't acting, was perhaps the most fortuitous & life expanding carreers I ever had. I met BOB FOSSE , the late great jazz coreographer, director & filmmaker, shortly before his death while he directed SWEET CHARITY in Toronto. This career choice saw me travelling to Jupiter Florida inWest Palm Beach and working on DREAMGIRLS at the BURT REYNOLDS JUPITER THEATRE. Yup - I was one of Burt's employees for a couple of months. The cast & crew clubbed it up, played pictionary with Burt & Bert  -hell, I learned to water ski being pulled behind THE BANDIT, Reynolds' boat!

TO BE CONTINUED

* New tattoos by TREVOR at SACRED HEART in Vancouver and CAPTAIN DON LESLIE sideshow/tattoo legend * click here for more pix! *

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