Guest writer - Lockie Young - Not Waxing Poetic

Lockie lives in rural New Brunswick. In 1995 he started writing and hasn't stopped. His story Ryan's Legend has just been accepted for publication by Morning Rain Publishing and will soon be available as an ebook. Find the links to his website below. He has been kind enough to share one of his short stories with us, it's very amusing.

 

Not Waxing Poetic

 

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal - the Epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now...the wax.  
My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, and play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours:
Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet. So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom.
It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off.
No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!)
So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees.
Cold Wax, yeah, right! I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. IT WORKS!
Ok, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.
With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip).

 

I inhale deeply and brace myself. RRRRRRIIIIIIPPPPPP!
I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!!.....OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!!
Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out. I repeated to myself ‘I must stay conscious… I must stay conscious.’
Do I hear crashing drums???? I breathe deep then breathe deep again. OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip. There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX????
Shyly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip is not on the strip!! I touch and I am touching wax.
I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake... remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down.
Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. As I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do next and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!' What can I do to melt the wax?
Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!!!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right?? WRONG!!

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture

prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit.
Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub, in scalding hot water. I soon discover the hot water doesn't melt the Cold Wax. So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!!
I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and, maybe, just maybe she has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter 'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!'
There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, 'are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?'
She's laughing out loud by now... I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.
YEAH!!!! RIGHT!!!! I should be the joke of someone else's night?
While we go through the various solutions, I drain the tub.  I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than having your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!!!!
By now my brain is not working. Dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling after this event.
My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace. The lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!
The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. Its sooo painful, but I really don't care. 'IT WORKS!!!! It works!!!!'
I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair. THE HAIR IS STILL THERE. ALL OF IT!
So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week I'm going to try hair color!

 I'm still laughing. Thanks Lockie. Please visit Lockie's website www.poems-and-other-ramblings.webnode.com Or you can find out more about his new book - Ryans Legend - at www.morningrainpublishing.com

 

 

 

 

4Q Interview with Yves Chiasson, Songwriter Extraordinaire

Yves Chiasson - musician extraordinaire, songwriter, kick ass guitar player has freshly returned to Montreal after a Zero Degrees Celsius reunion concert on August 15^th – Acadian Day, when the band played many of our favourite tunes, agreeing to answer some questions here at 4Q. He presently performs as Luther Chase. Links provided below, please check them out. 

4Q: The band played an awesome show on the 15^th Yves. Brought back great memories of when we watched you and the gang rock over fifteen years ago. What was the reunion like for you and the band members?

YC: It was extremely cool to hang out and make noise with my old friends again! My wife Renelle (keys, vocals, violin) and my brother Dan (drums) are both in the group so it was extra special to reunite with Poirier (front man) and Matt (bass) to perform our old songs together as a band. The original 5 members had not played together in 15 years, so we were pretty rusty at our first practice session. But once we got going the songs started to flow and that old magical feeling started to seep through. We had some pretty intensive practicing to do, but the group has a great sense of humor, so we laughed and joked around for most of our practice sessions. When we finally hit the stage and there were around ten thousand people cheering us on, it was surreal! And they were singing along and knew most of the words! That was by far the most beautiful part of the entire experience. The folks from our home town of Moncton singing the words from songs we had written as far back as 20 years ago! What a feeling!

 

4Q: You’re a great songwriter Yves, are you still writing. What inspires your songs?

YC: Well thank you for saying that! Since I was a kid I aspired to be a composer or songwriter. I studied classical music and still very much enjoy it. I especially love listening to Glen Gould play Bach. But then I figured out in my twenties that what I really loved were songs. And so instead of trying to compose classically inspired music for ensembles and orchestras, I went completely the other way and started writing songs for our band; songs that were rather simple and could be played by one person on a guitar. So I felt extremely liberated from the constraints that I had imposed on myself when I was trying to become a composer.

Nowadays I tend to write Blues/Country/Folk inspired songs that I still try to keep simple, and that have melodies that are groovy to sing. I record in my home studio and my partner/wife Renelle plays and sings on a lot of my material. Luther Chase is releasing a 7 song EP on vinyl this fall entitled Past the Empty Town. The album contains music written in 2013, and is independently funded.

4Q: Please share an interesting or fond childhood memory with us!

YC: I started playing guitar when I was fourteen. I had seen these guys a few years older than me at Parlee Beach playing Heart of Gold by Neil Young. So I was like, I want to do that too! My father had an acoustic guitar and he taught me three chords: G, C and D. I also discovered Jimi Hendrix during that period, so naturally I wanted an electric guitar. So for a while, every day after school I would go down to Moncton Music Centre and look at the electric guitars hoping to one day own one of these shiny beauties. So one day Big Bill, who was the nicest guy, saw me eyeballing the guitars AGAIN and said “do you want to try one plugged into an amplifier?”  I picked up a cheap Stratocaster knockoff (the same type as Jimi used), plugged it in and struck an awful sounding G chord, then looked up at Bill and said “It sounds just like Jimi Hendrix”. Bill just smiled and said “yeah it does!” 

4Q: What can we expect in the future from you Yves, musically speaking of course. Is it still your desire to perform live and if so, what kind of venues do you prefer?

YC: In the last few years I have not played live very often and therefore miss the energy that is shared between musicians and the crowd. Playing to 10 000 fans on August 15^{th 2013} (Festival Acadie Rock) renewed that need in me to share music with a live audience.

 My preferred venue is a “soft seater” or auditorium that has great acoustics because people are there to listen and the sound is pure and pleasing. A bar is fun too because there is generally a relaxed and casual atmosphere, but people are often distracted and are not really listening, which becomes a distraction for the performer. As I get older (I’m 43 yrs young) I prefer playing for people that are listening to the music. It makes the effort that mush more gratifying.

 
You can certainly expect more songs from Luther Chase in the future, as I am constantly coming up with new song ideas. And I really enjoy the work of putting music to tape and documenting ideas that might be forever lost were it not for the act of recording. 

 

 

I fondly remember listening to you singing Sister Morphine by The Rolling Stones many years ago at the UdeM campus, smoky little place called The Kacho. I had a good idea then that music would always be an important part of your life. Best of luck to you and Renelle with the new album.

Listen to Luther Chase at https://soundcloud.com/luther-chase and/or https://www.facebook.com/pages/Luther-Chase/