Aug. 7: The Arms of Orion
I think it's neat that Orion is mentioned in the Bible.
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Orion was a great hunter and he could put the boys on Duck Dynasty to shame. Greek mythology holds that Zeus placed Orion among the constellations. If that's true, Zeus must have thought Orion was a pretty swell dude since his constellation is as easy to find as the big dipper.
All you have to do is look for his belt.
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When I was kid, I went through an astronomy phase. Mostly I was interested in flying saucers but since I knew I was never going to see any, stargazing came a close second.
I had this book that showed all sorts of constellations and there were check boxes beside it that you could tick off once you located them. The big ones, like Orion and the big dipper, were worth 10 points but the smaller ones, like ursa minor, were worth 25.
Some nights I would go out to the backyard, lie on the trampoline, and just stare at the night sky for hours. When I was nine, my dad told me there was going to be a meteor shower and that it might be fun if we drove out of the city - away from all the street lights - so we could get an unvarnished view of the heavens.
That night, looking up was like looking into a pool of crystal clear water. I could see millions of stars. The air was filled with the sound of crickets and now, more than 30 years later, I still associate crickets with stars.
Well, some of us ARE stars.
My dad was driving a sort of car/truck hybrid and we sat on the hood and leaned back against the windshield so we could watch the show. We saw about a dozen shooting stars (really meteors) and then an RCMP officer found us and told us we had to move because we were a traffic hazard where we were.
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Five years later, my best friend and I are 14 and I am nursing him through a heartache. I feel bad for him because his girlfriend dumped him and I am also jealous of him because he actually had a girlfriend.
My friend and I are walking back from 7-Eleven. He is telling me how much he misses his ex-girlfriend and how sad he is that he won't get the Led Zeppelin T-shirt back that he'd loaned her. We stop at the Eugene Coste tire park (since removed and replaced after the school board's insurance adjustor declared it a fire hazard.) We climb on top of the massive tire fort to drink our Slurpees. My friend is telling me that he won't be able to listen to Ozzy Osbourne sing Goodbye to Romance for a very long time because "that was our song."
I have no idea what to say to my friend but I am also wise enough to know that there are no magic words I can say - all I can do is just let him talk. He finishes yet another monologue full of teenaged puppy love angst and then takes another draw from his Slurpee. He looks up at the moon and says: "I wonder if she's looking at the moon now. I bet she is and I bet she knows I'm looking at the moon too."
And that is why the moon always makes me feel like I'm 14.
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I have never been able to take a good picture of the moon.
I have tried. Lord, how I have tried. I have even tried using the work camera that has a SPECIAL SETTING for taking pictures of the moon. Doesn't work. Whenever Shteevie tries to take pictures of the moon, it looks like a blurry white circle floating in a pool of ink.
That is why I hate photographers who can do things like this:
This photo courtesy of the Society of People Shteevie Hates.
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I can see all three of the stars in Orion's belt at the same time. In real life, the stars are hundreds of light years away from each other.
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When I was 19, I performed magic on Electric Avenue, which was a one-block strip of nightclubs in downtown Calgary. It's not there anymore. The city closed it down due to noise complaints. In its heyday, Electric Avenue was the place to be if you wanted to get drunk, go dancing, score some drugs, or have a one-night stand.
I never did the nightclubs. I just performed outside of them and impressed drunk people enough for them to throw loonies at me.
I loved my time there and it sad that what I remember the most are the bad times. Some highlights (or lowlights):
- The time this guy I went to high school with showed up. The guy was drunk and he was a mysogynist. He would hit on girls, call them hos, and solicit them like they were prostitutes. Once he shoved one. Another time he talked so crudely to a girl that she tried to kick him in the crotch. He looked at me and said: "Don't bitches piss you off, Steve?" Then the police came by and arrested him.
- This one idiot watches me do a magic trick and then proceeds to pitch Amway to me. He wouldn't leave my booth for an hour - insisted on telling me how much money I could make if I called everyone I'd ever met in my life and tried to get them to buy Amway from me.
- Some really drunk dude sets up right beside my booth and loudly tells everyone that if someone gives him ten dollars, he'll shit on the ground.
- One man, about 40, sees me with a deck of cards and makes a beeline toward me. "Let's bet," he says. "I'll cut the cards. If I cut to red, you owe me twenty bucks. If I cut to black, I owe you twenty bucks." I tried to say no but this guy was adamant. He was right in my face, totally invading my personal space, and I thought he was close to bowling me over. Luckily for me, I was holding a trick deck and I was able to force him to cut to black. He didn't pay me. Just spun on his heels and began walking away. I hollered after him but I didn't do anything about it. I knew the guy was a thief.
- A group of teenaged girls who may or may not have been living on the street. They said they couldn't tip me because they didn't have any money (one of them even asked if I'd give her some money so she could feed her cat.) I did my show and they applauded and one of them kissed my cheek. I saw that girl occasionally during my tenure on Electric Avenue and she would always stop long enough to kiss my cheek. Never said anything. Never asked me how I was doing. Never even introduced herself. Just kissed my cheek.
-
I saw this video once about how young women are harassed on the street a lot. And when I say harassed, I don't just mean construction dudes doing wolf whistles. I saw men approach women, complete strangers, and invite them to perform the most intimate of sex acts on them. It was disgusting; it reminded me of that guy I went to high school with.
If I was a pretty girl, I would tell those guys to go to hell. And if they had a buddy with them and the buddy was telling his friend that he was acting like a total douchebag, I would turn around and the kiss the polite boy's cheek and then I would give the other guy a look that said "You see what you missed for acting like an asshole?"
Either that or I'd just kick him in the balls.
-
I think it should be legal for women to kick men in the balls if they verbally harass them on the street.
-
I'm not sure what that has to do with Orion.
But as the great man once said:
When I am lost or feeling lonely, I just look 2 heaven
I find my comfort there
God only knows where U are 2night
-
Orion was a great hunter and he could put the boys on Duck Dynasty to shame. Greek mythology holds that Zeus placed Orion among the constellations. If that's true, Zeus must have thought Orion was a pretty swell dude since his constellation is as easy to find as the big dipper.
All you have to do is look for his belt.-
When I was kid, I went through an astronomy phase. Mostly I was interested in flying saucers but since I knew I was never going to see any, stargazing came a close second.
I had this book that showed all sorts of constellations and there were check boxes beside it that you could tick off once you located them. The big ones, like Orion and the big dipper, were worth 10 points but the smaller ones, like ursa minor, were worth 25.
Some nights I would go out to the backyard, lie on the trampoline, and just stare at the night sky for hours. When I was nine, my dad told me there was going to be a meteor shower and that it might be fun if we drove out of the city - away from all the street lights - so we could get an unvarnished view of the heavens.
That night, looking up was like looking into a pool of crystal clear water. I could see millions of stars. The air was filled with the sound of crickets and now, more than 30 years later, I still associate crickets with stars.
Well, some of us ARE stars.My dad was driving a sort of car/truck hybrid and we sat on the hood and leaned back against the windshield so we could watch the show. We saw about a dozen shooting stars (really meteors) and then an RCMP officer found us and told us we had to move because we were a traffic hazard where we were.
-
Five years later, my best friend and I are 14 and I am nursing him through a heartache. I feel bad for him because his girlfriend dumped him and I am also jealous of him because he actually had a girlfriend.
My friend and I are walking back from 7-Eleven. He is telling me how much he misses his ex-girlfriend and how sad he is that he won't get the Led Zeppelin T-shirt back that he'd loaned her. We stop at the Eugene Coste tire park (since removed and replaced after the school board's insurance adjustor declared it a fire hazard.) We climb on top of the massive tire fort to drink our Slurpees. My friend is telling me that he won't be able to listen to Ozzy Osbourne sing Goodbye to Romance for a very long time because "that was our song."
I have no idea what to say to my friend but I am also wise enough to know that there are no magic words I can say - all I can do is just let him talk. He finishes yet another monologue full of teenaged puppy love angst and then takes another draw from his Slurpee. He looks up at the moon and says: "I wonder if she's looking at the moon now. I bet she is and I bet she knows I'm looking at the moon too."
And that is why the moon always makes me feel like I'm 14.
-
I have never been able to take a good picture of the moon.
I have tried. Lord, how I have tried. I have even tried using the work camera that has a SPECIAL SETTING for taking pictures of the moon. Doesn't work. Whenever Shteevie tries to take pictures of the moon, it looks like a blurry white circle floating in a pool of ink.
That is why I hate photographers who can do things like this:
This photo courtesy of the Society of People Shteevie Hates.-
I can see all three of the stars in Orion's belt at the same time. In real life, the stars are hundreds of light years away from each other.
-
When I was 19, I performed magic on Electric Avenue, which was a one-block strip of nightclubs in downtown Calgary. It's not there anymore. The city closed it down due to noise complaints. In its heyday, Electric Avenue was the place to be if you wanted to get drunk, go dancing, score some drugs, or have a one-night stand.
I never did the nightclubs. I just performed outside of them and impressed drunk people enough for them to throw loonies at me.
I loved my time there and it sad that what I remember the most are the bad times. Some highlights (or lowlights):
- The time this guy I went to high school with showed up. The guy was drunk and he was a mysogynist. He would hit on girls, call them hos, and solicit them like they were prostitutes. Once he shoved one. Another time he talked so crudely to a girl that she tried to kick him in the crotch. He looked at me and said: "Don't bitches piss you off, Steve?" Then the police came by and arrested him.
- This one idiot watches me do a magic trick and then proceeds to pitch Amway to me. He wouldn't leave my booth for an hour - insisted on telling me how much money I could make if I called everyone I'd ever met in my life and tried to get them to buy Amway from me.
- Some really drunk dude sets up right beside my booth and loudly tells everyone that if someone gives him ten dollars, he'll shit on the ground.
- One man, about 40, sees me with a deck of cards and makes a beeline toward me. "Let's bet," he says. "I'll cut the cards. If I cut to red, you owe me twenty bucks. If I cut to black, I owe you twenty bucks." I tried to say no but this guy was adamant. He was right in my face, totally invading my personal space, and I thought he was close to bowling me over. Luckily for me, I was holding a trick deck and I was able to force him to cut to black. He didn't pay me. Just spun on his heels and began walking away. I hollered after him but I didn't do anything about it. I knew the guy was a thief.
- A group of teenaged girls who may or may not have been living on the street. They said they couldn't tip me because they didn't have any money (one of them even asked if I'd give her some money so she could feed her cat.) I did my show and they applauded and one of them kissed my cheek. I saw that girl occasionally during my tenure on Electric Avenue and she would always stop long enough to kiss my cheek. Never said anything. Never asked me how I was doing. Never even introduced herself. Just kissed my cheek.
-
I saw this video once about how young women are harassed on the street a lot. And when I say harassed, I don't just mean construction dudes doing wolf whistles. I saw men approach women, complete strangers, and invite them to perform the most intimate of sex acts on them. It was disgusting; it reminded me of that guy I went to high school with.
If I was a pretty girl, I would tell those guys to go to hell. And if they had a buddy with them and the buddy was telling his friend that he was acting like a total douchebag, I would turn around and the kiss the polite boy's cheek and then I would give the other guy a look that said "You see what you missed for acting like an asshole?"
Either that or I'd just kick him in the balls.
-
I think it should be legal for women to kick men in the balls if they verbally harass them on the street.
-
I'm not sure what that has to do with Orion.
But as the great man once said:
When I am lost or feeling lonely, I just look 2 heaven
I find my comfort there
God only knows where U are 2night
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