Queen Street Stories,

part 2

Kick Ass Karaoke

Wednesday, June 19th, 2002

One Friday night, near midnight

“Accordion Dude!” called the kid from the steps of the Canada Trust bank at the corner of Queen and Spadina.

I didn’t recognize this street kid or his friends. That’s been happening more and more often now that the weather is getting warm; there’s a panhandler on every block of most major streets in downtown Toronto these days. I walked over.

“Heard you play earlier. Nice. Join us for a drink.”

I looked down and saw the bottle they were passing around. Listerine. Not the new mint flavour, but the battery-acid-flavoured original recipe. They were downing it as casually as most people can down Bailey’s Irish Creme.

“C’mon, dude, you’re not a real street kid unless you’re chugging the ‘Strene!”

Vile as the act is, I couldn’t help but smirk at the phrase “chugging the ‘Strene”. Gotta love street argot.

“How can you drink that shit?” I asked. “I can’t even gargle with it, never mind swallow it.”

“I hear ya. I’m all about the Scope myself, but this is all we got.”

“Here,” I said, tossing him a toonie, “go get a hot dog so you’ll have something to puke out later.”

“Thanks, dude, but I already got lots to puke!” he said, holding up a half-eaten pack of red Twizzlers.

‘Strene and Twizzlers. The breakfast of chimpanzees.

Recommended reading

Street Kids International. A charity that “creates opportunities for street youth to make better lives for themselves.”

Google search on the phrase “drinking Listerine”.

Google search on the phrase “drinking Lysol”.

Google search on the phrase “drinking Aqua Velva”.

And my cheap-ass poison of choice, Dubonnet. The red, that is.

Disappearing Radio

This story has been moved to my other blog, The Happiest Geek on Earth. You can read it here.

Photo of the week

I’ve always liked the gravity–defying hairstyles sported by anime characters, so when I woke up Saturday morning and saw this, I had to take a picture:

The difference

The difference between playing to not lose and playing to win may seem subtle, but it’s everything. Hopefully Marshall isn’t too mad at me for playing to win. You know how it is once I get my Sun Tzu on.

(Yup, another unbloggable entry. If you really must know, I will tell it to you if you buy me drink, and yes, the accordion is involved.)

It had to be said

Damn, those girls at the health food store near Queen and Peter Streets are cute!

More stories are forthcoming

To my faithful readership: sorry the posts haven’t been as substantial and as full of Joey goodness as usual — things have been a little hectic for your ‘umble accordion player over the past couple of weeks, what with work, housemate hunting, getting my finances in order and of course, girl-chasing. The good news is that all this activity means that I have stories to tell, most of them tellable on this weblog. I’ll get to the telling in short order. Thanks for your patience and understanding.