sweet daddy siki

anyone who knows me very well, (i.e. has had to endure a road trip with me) will know how i love signs. if something looks like it would be fun to say, i have to say it out loud. it can be something as simple as a restaurant announcing a "stack o' pancakes" breakfast special or a repair shop offering a "tire sale". i especially love some of the signs i've seen on churches. two great examples both seen in london:

1) god loves everyone, but he loves the toronto maple leafs more. go leafs go!
2) yeah, that love thy neighbour thing...i meant that. -- god.

i don't know if this goes back to the long road trips i had to endure with my family (and which i wouldn't trade for the world), bored and car sick and trying to focus on anything to keep my mind off the fact that i just barfed in the bag that held all my archie comics.

this love of signery (signification? roadside poetry?) continued it's hold with each drive into charlottetown when we passed the north river fire department that announced local birthdays ("lordy lordy look who's forty") and bits of cliched wisdom ("today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday").

one of my favourite sign stories happened in toronto when i was driving around with my friends andrew and meadow and reading out almost everything that passed in front of my eyes. eventually, they picked up the habit as well and as we were driving along queen street east, meadow read out "karaoke saturday nights hosted by sweet daddy siki". i freaked out. sweet daddy siki was a strangely prevalent part of my childhood. when my dad was a musician in toronto in the 1970s, one of the guys he used to play with was a wrestler named sweet daddy siki. i remember sitting in the basement fiddling around with my dad's drum kit or steel guitar and staring at the picture of the big black wrestler with his white hair and white trunks, standing in the middle of a ring with his arms raised in the air.

new cool word: enigmatology, (n.) the art of making or of solving enigmas.

current music: art brut, bang bang rock n roll. you have to find this album and listen to it. it's cool, post punk, brit pop with a great sense of humour. my favourite song may be "my little brother", though "moving to l.a." is also very funny/cool. but then, the song "modern art" starts off with this great line: "modern art makes me want to rock out (wooh!)." oh forget it, the whole album rocks!