I was chatting with my beloved brother-in-law Drtr about memorable Thanksgivings and I realized that this year was the 20th anniversary of my favourite non-traditional Thanksgiving, which I spent with my BFF Padu in Toronto in 1996. Obviously, it was Canadian Thanksgiving but whatever, same diff.
It was my last year of university. My roommates has gone home for the weekend and Padu had trained in from Montreal. We were set for a magical celebration.
To kick off the day, we went to see a matinee of a play called Gulag by Robin Fulford. You can tell from the title that it's a cheery little number. Gulag is the sequel/companion piece to Robin Fulford's earlier play, Steel Kiss, which is based on the true story of a group of four teenagers who beat a gay man to death in Toronto's High Park and the sensationalistic trial that followed. We'd seen Steel Kiss at the Fringe in Edmonton a few years before and Padu was OBSESSED with it, probably because it's a really excellent and very compelling play. Gulag is about what follows - it takes place four years later, and we see the teen boys time in prison and a little bit about their lives once they're released. Spoiler alert - things aren't going well and it's, as the French say, un petit peu le downer.
After seeing some prison rape and hopelessness, we went to Wendy's for turkey burgers, because Thanksgiving.
Then it was movie time! Definitely important to see something light and fluffy after the pathos of Gulag, so of course we chose to see David Cronenberg's film Crash.
The Crash I am talking about is not the Oscar-winning movie about horrible racism and guns and cultural misunderstanding and car accidents. David Cronenberg's Crash is about people who get horny over car crashes.
For real.
Here is the trailer:
WHY DID WE SEE THIS MOVIE?? Oh god, it was so terrible. Maybe that's why we saw it. I just remember this one moment where Rosanna Arquette bends over and reveals a giant, vulva-like scar on the back of her leg and we're both like "OMG DON'T FUCK THE WOUND!" and the film did not oblige us.
UPSETTING.
After two hours of watching slightly bloody James Spader boning people in wrecked cars because it's the only way he could feel alive, it was obviously time for some shopping, so Padu and I hit the giant HMV store on Yonge St., where he LOST HIS SHIT because the original 1980s sci fi series "V" was on sale, so he bought it.
Padu: We should go back to your apartment and watch 6 hours of V!!!
Roro: Ha ha.
And then we went back to my apartment and watched SIX HOURS OF V and I will never be able to get this image out of my head:
And now, neither will you!
Thanks, Padu.
Anyway, I wish all of my American friends a happy, delicious, car-crash-sex-fetish free Thanksgiving.
