TheWIFTS Awards

Not to brag, but I’ve accepted many awards in my time.  I’ve won cross-country races (malnourished, mind you), seats to an NHL hockey game (nosebleed included), a karaoke contest in Thailand (a sloppily drunken duet of ‘A Whole New World’), several pats on the back, and perhaps a few random pieces of candy from a strange man at my church (I’ve developed an acquired taste for warm Smarties straight from suit pockets). Perhaps I’ve confused ‘awards’ with ‘rewards’. Or just ‘random shit’.

Either way, all that random shit didn’t involve standing up, gesturing proudly and bragging about how much harder I trained. Nor did it involve taunting children at recess with facts on why the teachers preferred me to the rest of them.

‘Mrs. Young likes me better because I don’t masturbate while she’s erasing the chalkboard.’

And I wouldn’t exactly say that accepting a children’s bucket full of cola, Thai whiskey and an illegal energy drink really warrants any pride in oneself. It’s an award best enjoyed surrounded (and hidden) by your incoherent peers.

So, even with all these awards/rewards/random shit that I’ve accepted over the years, I have never once been asked to make a speech. Or at least that was the case until December 3rd of last year.

At first I didn’t care. I wasn’t worried about what I should say or what was even appropriate. Being myself seemed simple enough. I’d get up to the podium, point my finger out at the crowd, and whoever thought I was pointing at them, they’d be thanked for EVERYTHING! I wouldn’t even get into specifics. I’d just say:

‘This, *still pointing finger* this is all because of you.’

Then I’d wipe away a fake tear, make an understated fist pump to God and stumble off the stage with my award. Meanwhile, everyone will be turning to see who I was blindly pointing towards. There’ll probably be this one guy in the center of the audience that’ll just shrug pathetically. Or better yet, it’ll be a deaf and blind elderly woman who’ll be ignorantly sitting there with the biggest grin on her face. Perhaps medication for her cataracts will lightly stream from one eye as though it were a single tear of joy. Then the crowd will be so touched and awe inspired that they’ll stand and applaud ferociously for the next day or two.

However, by looking at the photo you’ll see that I didn’t end up going with the ‘pointing’ route. In fact, I went the opposite. It actually looks as though I realized that not even a hypothetical old woman with vision and auditory problems was deserving of my fake gratitude. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to insult anybody but myself with that last comment. If I said to myself, as a random person in an audience, ‘This is all because of you’, I’d feel threatened!

‘What the f___ did I do?!’

Eventually I’d go home and torture myself trying to figure out if I should be calling my lawyer or The Iceman. ‘What did I do? What did I do?! WHAT DID I DO?!‘  It would all start with me not having done anything, and end with me starting a bloody massacre!

So, you understand why instead of pointing a finger, I opted for a simple speech along the lines of:

‘My mother thanks you all for this award and wishes she were here. Thank you’

Prince ConcertToronto 2011

The shot is over-exposed and the quality is akin to that of a bottle of  Baby Duck, but it’s the best result I could get from an iPhone hidden behind a tall can of Heineken. (Prince doesn’t like his photo to be taken at concerts and has security to enforce this rule). At first I was a bit baffled by this restriction considering the man is a performer, but upon realizing that he wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath his tight spandex I soon realized its validity. (Though it’s not as if I had a zoom lens attached to a microscope). (That wasn’t a comment on his…errr…size).

Anyhow, this was taken during his performance of ‘Purple Rain’. He was making a deeply sexual expression as he masturbated his guitar into a sexy solo while purple and gold confetti fell in flirtation from above the stage. It was mesmerizing. This I had to see straight from my eyes with no lens playing the mediator. My thumb blindly pressed away at the shutter hoping to get at least one decent photo. And I suppose I did.

I just wish I had a photo from when I saw the concert from his point of view. When will Kodak invent a device that actually prints your memories?

Why do I keep watching this movie? Oh right, for the music.

Donna Ferrato

Amazingly heartbreaking work. I’m jealous. (Then again, I’m always jealous of the work I love).

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/helping-the-people-beyond-the-pain/

Lennon and I