The Pizza Dude (and other names)

I am the Pizza Dude.

It is an odd name, true, and it would be stranger still to those who knew me from my Domino’s Pizza days. Weren’t we all pizza dudes?

But it’s the name I get at my property maintenance job and it’s the name I have lived with for more than five years. It’s also the name I get called more than any other. It’s possible there are people I work with who don’t even know my given name.

I earned this title because I was managing a pizza store when I started with Brock Property Maintenance and would bring in a pie for the guys from time to time. And with a staff of North of Seven boys and assorted sketchy characters with handles like Chief, Squirt, Junior, Doo Wop and Jim Bob, it should not be surprising that I earned a nickname as well.

But unlike other pseudonyms which are part-time at best, Pizza Dude has passed the test of time. My boss only uses the name my Momma gave me when he’s trying to apologize (in his north of seven way) and (sometimes) when he’s handing out the pay cheques.

I’m comfortable with it. In fact, I treat it sort of like a badge of honour. THE Pizza Dude.  Delusionary, I know, but I’m comfortable with that too.

I get called other names as well. Some are even complimentary.

Number two on the list is the name I am most proud of: Dad. And who wouldn’t be. I am with my youngest son Jake a lot, so I get called that name a lot. Never get tired of it.

It was a tough call for third, but we’re talking about face-to-face name calling, not social media conversations, so Grampy Glenn would be next. I look after my three wonderful grandchildren often so I hear a lot of “Grampy Glenn, look at me,” and Grampy Glenn, you’re on my foot.”

Never get tired of that either.

Glenn would have to be next. I like my name and it would be nice to hear it more but I might have to change jobs for that to happen. (Not such a bad idea, come to think.)

There’s more. At my evening job with R ‘n D Delivery, I am called ‘33’ or Old Yeller. Thirty-three ‘cause that’s my number, as in “33 clear” and “33 is tired and wants to go home.” Old Yeller because Heather thinks I yell into the phone too much. My ex-wife would probably agree with her but neither one of them understands the magic of ‘projection.’ I know that if I were invited to address a few thousand people at a grand hall, you know, to accept an award for something, I wouldn’t need a mike to NOT thank them. So there.

There’s also Number Two Son. Old Friend. (Huh. Not that old, Don) And probably a few others that might be fodder for another blog.

I also get Handsome Devil and Sexy Beast a lot.

Okay, no one ever calls me that. But I’m trying to start a trend.

Hip on The Hip

Bourbon blues on the street, loose and complete

Under skies all smoky blue green

I can’t forsake a Dixie dead shake so we danced the sidewalk clean

That’s the opening stanza from New Orleans is Sinking (Up to Here, 1989), simply the greatest song in rock ‘n roll and the spark that ignited my love affair with the band and in particular, the lyrical talents of Gord Downie.

There’s wonderful weirdness, hearts of darkness, clever rhyming and sweet melancholy, often all on the same album. Take the chorus from Boots or Hearts (also from Up to Here):

Fingers and toes, Fingers and toes, 40 things we share. Forty-one if you include the fact that we don’t care

Who else but Downie could get fingers and toes away from barnyard country songs and into rock and make it work?

Downie isn’t afraid to write about Canadiana – rare among Canuck rockers looking to break into the U.S.  market – from Millhaven prison breakouts (38 Years Old) to a favourite Downie topic, hockey: 50 Mission Cap, The Lonely End of the Rink and Fireworks (Phantom Power, 1998).

If there's a goal that everyone remembers; it was back in old seventy two
We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger; and all I remember is sitting beside you

You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey; and I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way; you were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr

Downie did take a bit to hone his lyrical chops. The band’s first effort, the self-titled 1987 EP, holds a few treasures best left in the chest, such as the second verse from I’m a Werewolf Baby:

I lose control I just can’t stop; You look so good like a big pork chop

Ripped my pants ripped my shirt; I’m going to eat your mother for dessert

By the time Up to Here was released two years later Downie’s poetic skills were firmly established and his prose continued to mature in the decades that followed.

There’s Twist My Arm (Road Apples, 1991), which contains this ditty:

There she blows Jacques Cousteau, hear her sing so sweet and low;

Lull me overboard, out cold, gathered in and swallowed whole

And On the Verge, where he gets back to the down and dirty tone of the ’87 EP, but pulls it off with more skillful rhyming verse:

We got horse throated huckster's whispered gimmicks
Rubbernecking all the curious cynics
And headlong walkers, one born every minute
Do I plug it in or do I stick it in it?

In Coconut Cream (Trouble at the Henhouse, 1996), Downie invokes the spirit of Dr. Seuss with these lines:

There’s a cannon shooting coconut cream; forty gallons in a steady stream

And it’s wing music to a happy cat; he likes his butterflies slow and fat

Or Freak Turbulence, a song from Music At Work (2000):

You’re older, you’re haunted, you’re ahead of your time

In corners of acres of blocks of straight lines

Blurringly, hourly we cross some great divide

Some heritage moments and some melodious minds

A voice above the engines and the jet stream combined, ‘It’s time sir, it’s time sir, do you have the time?’

Phantom Power (1998) gave us Bobcaygeon, perhaps the band’s most beautiful song and one that instantly transports me a lazy summer night in the Kawarthas where the sky was “dull and hypothetical.”

Could have been the Willie Nelson
Could have been the wine
It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations
Reveal themselves one star at a time

Then there’s The Hundredth Meridian (Fully Completely, 1992), and this little throwaway line, which turns the trick of being delightful while leaving me a little bit frightful: Left alone to get gigantic; hard, huge and haunted

I know this song is about the prairies, but you remember that guy from 38 Years Old, the one who escaped from Millhaven? This bit of prose makes me glad I’m not in the same cell as him.

The Tough Mudder smile. Also known as the everyday smile

My Heroes

First published Wednesday, December 26, 2012

I was thinking the other day about my heroes; the people in my life I look up to.

Most of them are women. Young women, in fact.

Some are very close to me – my step-daughter Adrianne tops the list by a mile – and some I barely know or met in person just once. But all these women – my everyday heroes – inspire me in some way, and all of them make me feel like a better person for knowing them.

Adrianne, as I said, is number one. I guess that would make her sort of a super hero, and I’m pretty sure me saying that is going to tick her off some. Too bad.

She is one of those right brain-left brain people; the kind who can build stuff and play the piano, sometimes at the same time. The kind who juggles three kids, her job and the demands of her friends and family with apparent ease, the kind who joyously celebrates every last morsel of life. And she does it all with this huge smile while spreading positive vibes wherever she goes.

But enough about Adrianne. I wouldn’t want people to know that I think she’s awesome. She has Facebook friends to do that for me.

Besides, I have other young women friends who are amazing. Take Lindsay, for example. She’s the only girl I know who can rival Adrianne for biggest smile. Thousand Watts, I call her, because that smile can light up a room and the lives of all those who are in it.

Then there’s Terrine, whose positive spin on the world, her friends and her family has made me smile for more than a decade, despite the fact she keeps forgetting my birthday. I hope the next six months go smoothly, T-Dot. Last baby, huh? Good luck with that.

Jen, another of my ex-Domino’s mates, earns high praise from me as well.  She’s another one of those people who can do it all, be it banging in a sweet backhand, balancing the books or breeding begonias – okay, I may have made that last one up – and she does it with a joie de vivre that is truly inspiring.

Jordyn makes it three from Domino’s, and she gets hero status for two reasons: one, she loves life like nobody else – you go, Shredder Girl! – and two, she has always shown courage in her daily decisions that has served as an inspiration to my dream of one day living a life without fear. I said to her once, “you have no fear, do you?” She replied. “Yes I do, but I choose to ignore it. It holds people back.” Wise words.

Cassie, my son’s best buddy, is another inspiration. I hardly know the girl but I always get a rise from her attitude towards, well, everything. Nobody can party like a rock star while keeping a clear vision on her future like her. You’ll make a great nurse, Cass.

Speaking of women I hardly know, we come to Jasmine. I met her once – when she was about 12 – and our relationship is tenuous at best: she is the daughter of my brother’s long-ago ex-girlfriend. And she lives in New Mexico. But ya know, that’s what Facebook is all about and I get to read about - and be inspired by – her life every day on social media. She’s an amazing young woman.

Another woman on my hero list I’ve met but once is Linda, and she’s the only one who no longer qualifies as ‘young.’ But if there’s a person I know who is younger at heart than her, I don’t know who it would be. Always positive, always challenging – herself, conventions and others – Linda is another whose actions I try to emulate.

There are other women (of all ages) who energize, engage and inspire me every day. There’s my sister-in-law Mary, my niece Julie, my friend Jules, my mom, Joan. My niece Natalie, my Aunt Norma. There’s Candice, Kristen, Christian and Caitlin. That’s not even including the under-12 set (hello Allison, Lauren and Vanny Pants!), who are my favourite teachers of all.

They all make my world a better place. That’s the best kind of heroes, in my books. 

The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Shwa
Not a creature was stirring, not even the law
The eggnog was spiked with the finest in cheap rum
‘Cause I know that St Nicholas would want to have some

My youngest was nestled all snug in his bed,
While visions of Memorial Cup tickets danced in his head
And me in my boxers, the presents in a heap

Had just passed out for a short Christmas sleep

When out on the driveway there arose such a din
I sprang from the couch, knocking over the gin
Away to the door I ran, but I stumbled
My boxers were tattered my fingers they fumbled

I made it outside in time to see a rare thing

The Mayor of Oshawa in full gangsta bling

He gave me a nod to say it was safe to go home

He didn’t see the sleigh all shiny and chromed

The man in the suit, I knew him straight away

I saw him downtown already today

His sleigh-pulling team, faster than eagles

Was six Silverados and one really strong Beagle

Now Neal! Now Giberson! Now Chapman and McConkey!

On Gray! On Nicholson! On Hurst! On Tito-Dante!
To the top of the building! To the top of the sky!
I put down the bottle ‘cause I'm switching to rye

As dry heaves convulse me for I’ve seen far too much
I’ve seen bloody Santa Claus, his presents and such

I shielded my eyes as his sleigh-cars they neared

No quiet night tonight; it's just as I feared

And then, in a flash I heard a noise on my ceiling
Like the BIA chatter, when one side’s appealing
I raced in the house in time to see Big Red

The jolly guy himself asleep on my bed

He was dressed in bright red, trimmed in black leather
He looked like he could handle any foul weather
His big sack of toys had fallen to the floor
The mud from his boots left a trail to the door

His eyes, how they sparkled! I’d say if he woke

But alas! I just hoped he hadn’t had a stroke
His face was all crimson, that was a concern

It could have been the virus, or maybe just sunburn.

His lips lacked the pipe he smoked in the day

Santa quit smoking, hip hip and hooray,
He had a kind little face and a six-pack for a tummy

He’d been to the gym; Mrs. Claus didn’t raise no dummy,

He jumped to his feet; Santa was ready to go

There were kids to appease, he couldn’t say no

He gave me a smile, a nod and a wink

And said he’s off to drop toys at Harmon Park rink

He floated out the window and onto his sleigh

And revved up the engines, like’s he’s done every day

He gave me a wave and he soared o’er the trees

The Oshawa Centre be the next thing he sees

He blared all his horns as his sleigh flew away

Christmas, he yelled, comes only today
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Welcome to The Shwa

It has become so easy to knock the old girl down.

I go to work and I have to hear my redneck buddies from North of 7 razz her. I go back to the old neighbourhood in Toronto and I hear the jokes. Whitby snickers, Ajax feels just a little bit superior.

The small towns like Bowmanville and Uxbridge are more than happy to send their citizens down here to work. But they wouldn’t want to actually live here. Even Hamilton … okay, Hamilton doesn’t say much, actually. But they get to make fun of Buffalo.

Try googling the ‘Shwa’ (or if you’re feeling adventurous, the ‘Dirty Shwa’), and you get all kinds of offensive posts from the bizarre to the ridiculous. Sorry, nothing sublime here, unless you consider this ‘definition’ from the Urban Dictionary to be a backhanded compliment:

The city of Oshawa, Ontario, a city east of Toronto.  Known for its car and truck factories and the largest crack deals per capita in Canada.

I’m going to assume that the trolls who contribute to Urban Dictionary and other similar online sites are outsiders, but I can’t be sure of that. My friend Cindy, who works in economic development for the City of Oshawa and would know this, has told me more than once that when it comes to self-flagellation, we are often our own worst enemy.

Oshawa residents, if they’re not crapping on their fair city themselves, are perpetuating the myths about the downtown, the south end and everyone who lives in between.

Enough already.  Promise me that if we survive the End of the World today you’ll stop dumping on the Shwa.

Oshawa is a great town filled with outstanding people. I know a whole bunch of them. I’ve been here since 1994 and the city has changed dramatically since then. When I got here it was a whitebread, burgers and pizza kind of place, with the spectre of The Motors shutting down looming over us each day. It was also one the largest cities in Ontario without a university of its own.

Nearly 20 years later Oshawa is a booming, cosmopolitan, shawarma and sushi kind of place that still makes damn good burgers and pizza. GM’s footprint has shrunk over the years but it still produces great cars and we welcomed our first university a decade ago, with UOIT bringing with it new ideas, new visions and a wealth of intellectual capital.

Welcome to my Oshawa. It's a helluva great town.