Don't Believe Everything You See And Hear

Did someone send you this image a year or two ago?



I remember a friend sending it to me a while back. I laughed out loud when I saw it. It screamed Photoshop yet it was being sent around as though it really happened. People are so gullible.

Speaking of gullible, I think a lot of people have a false impression of what it's like to be a certified Leisurologist. They think the Leisurologist is a man of culture: wine taster extraordinaire, poetry writer/reader, fashionista. No, that's a flaneur. There are regular flaneurs, and then there are dandy flaneurs, like this...



This in not me. I am not a dandy flaneur. I'm not even a flaneur, really, it's just that in Toronto there's so little adventure for me that involves danger or elevated heart rates that I resemble a flaneur in my approach to city life (though not in my approach to fashion).

In Cambridge-Narrows everything is different. I am a true Leisurologist. Just take a look at this morning's image....

So you took the garbage out...big deal. The whole world knows that Monday is garbage day in Cambridge-Narrows. How does this make you a world renowned Leisurologist?

This picture doesn't, but what happened leading up to it does.

More details, please.

Everyone takes the garbage out except Klever O'Leary and Toe-nailed Drump. What separates the Leisurologist and everyone else is the manner in which the garbage disposal is executed. I decided this morning that I would celebrate the ritual of taking the garbage to the end of my driveway. But how to celebrate it....

By making a movie!

I recently purchased a device known as a Dolly Kit Skater for D-SLR. Translating into English for those of you who speak hinglish as a sick hound lang gwidge, it's a mobile roller-skate-like device to which you can attach a camera and make forward or reverse movement.

Okay, lousy explanation. Here's a picture of the g-d thing....



I thought that I'd make a movie to show the Leisurologist lifestyle. The lifestyle is not the action of taking the garbage out, rather it's the action of making a movie about taking the garbage out. It's a celebration of the mundane. That is what a life of leisure has given me....an appreciation of the ridiculous (and also the odd windsurfing adventure).

So where's the movie, Steven Spielbum?

Well, I set everything up almost perfectly. The camera was mounted on the Skate Dolly. I tied a piece of fishing line to the dolly and held the other end in my hand in order to tow it as I walked up the driveway. This was to be an 'action' film. I pressed start on my camera to get the movie going and then I walked up the driveway, garbage bag in hand, dolly and camera following and filming my every step. The camera fell over once and swiveled backwards once. I made adjustments and comments, thinking it would make for hilarious cinema. When I finally deposited the garbage at the end of the driveway I had some witty repartee with the camera, then went to turn the video off....

Shit! It's at that point I noticed that I hadn't put the camera on video mode, but rather it had been set to take one single underwater image. Sigh. My movie got two thumbs down, mostly because it wasn't a movie.

Then what?

I had a decision to make. Do I walk the garbage back down the driveway an re-film my blockbuster movie? I decided that if my neighbour was watching me walk my garbage up the driveway while towing a small roller-skate with a camera attached, then she would think that I'm very odd. If I did it twice then she'd think I was completely insane.

Ultimately I decided not to re-film my garbage adventure. I settled for a still shot of me posing next to the garbage bag. This morning's adventure was a good lesson for me. I am still not a professional Leisurologist...there is room for improvement. Though my actions may be leisure-like, there must be proof positive that I am really what I claim to be. That said, things could have been more unbelievable...