rock_rabba

OH AND YES, my dad does own Rabba Fine Foods! i work at the one downtown, on front street, i was so close to offering Mika a Rabba Falafel Sandwich. SO CLOSE!

Mika Article by Chris Rabba “You only love him because he wrote a song about people like you Christopher Lee, people with cellulite.” She accused me. First of all, these aren’t cellulite, they’re dimples, my ass is smiling because Mika rocks. Second of all, the bold, witty content of his lyrics is just the beginning. His shocking ability to create stories that can draw almost anyone in, and fuse them with infectious melodies is what really makes Mika more delicious than falafel. And I’ve had some good falafel in my time. This is coming from a boy who’s father lies to the family, and says we’re going to spend the weekend shopping & partying in Montreal, when REALLY, we just spend obligatory hours, days even, taste-testing Arab dishes, and attempting to rip off recipes. I got a digital camera for Christmas, THOUGHT it was for my enjoyment, nope, rather, I’m baba’s spy photographer on Arabic grocery & food facilities. So yes, I’ve tried a lot of falafel, and heard a lot of music, but Mika gives more pleasure than any amount of friend middle-eastern cuisine. I love people, you know that! From the ugly socialites to the shy girls. I make a lot of friends. What can I say? The bellydancing, the whit, it DRAWS PEOPLE IN! Shut up! But when you’re an ostentatious, outspoken, middle-eastern boy, in an up-tight western environment…. It can be hard to relate sometimes. Don’t worry, I’m not depressed, there’s always nutella. In recent weeks, by the grace of Allah, I’ve discovered huge comfort in my ability to relate to 3 kinds of people: Homeless People, Psycopaths, and Mika fans. MIKA FANS, don’t you dare take offense, I’ll justify the statement, I swear. I was recently cast to play psych-ward patient “Cheswick” in the classic piece “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. I approached the role as a drama student, analyzing my character’s objectives, studying the novel. I have few friends in the cast, so I waste little time like I do normally, telling jokes about my body hair if you will. Rather, I focus on the character, I jump into it. 20 hours of rehearsal a week. Apparently I was going at it all wrong “Christopher Lee Rabba, look around you at the people in this room. They all have to TRY, they all have to ACT, to be believable as mental patients. YOU SIR, can just walk up there, say the lines like you would in your everyday life, and people will BELIEVE you live in an asylum”, I shat a brick. Compliment? Unlikely. My director continued, “ I did not cast an ACTOR for this piece, I cast, Chris fricken’ Rabba. And I know it’s not beyond your knowledge Mr. Rabba that you are a bit insane.” Shut up! You get thrown out of ONE math exam for singing out loud while writing, and all of a sudden you’re a psycho? So now in rehearsals I’m laid back as can be… I relate to psych-patient Chewsick SO WELL, I don’t even step into character, I just say the lines, and go home. We’re all a little insane. So the homeless shelter won’t stop calling me. I’m not going to lie, I love it there. They have these community dinners every Friday night, which are usually spent with a less-than-divine spaghetti meal, and a lame session of Bingo, for entertainment afterwards. They ask me to help out, I show up with apple pies, whipped cream, and a KARAOKE MACHIINE, and now we’re all best friends. You couldn’t PAY MOST PEOPLE, to spend the night listening to people with down syndrome sing Celine Dion songs all night, but I love it. 10,000 homeless people live in this city, and yet its an issue that gets SO overlooked, day by day. These people are judged not only because they live on the streets, but because they’re not afraid to BE FRIENDLY TO ANYONE, not afraid to stand up, SAY WHAT THEY FEEL and SING! I shared a conversation with an 65 year old woman I had just met about her sex life, fantastic. I shared a duet with a man who lives in a box under the port-credit bridge. We sang “If I was a Rich Girl….”.SHUT UP! He did fantastic harmonies. Homeless people aren’t afraid to laugh. I’ll always be the first person to get in trouble for emitting a giggle at a funeral. There are so many people spending their nights crying, why hold in a laugh? Ever. It’s too effin’ precious. One character at the homeless place, however, we’ll call her “Cynthia” or Cynth for short, I could NOT relate to. She was the diva of the homeless community. She wanted her pie baked fast, and her grocery store gift certificates stacked high. Dressed in torn jeans & plad ( and not Spring-line H&M torn plad sexy stuff, the actual rags) she was a force to be reckoned with. That is…. Until I saw her the following week, dressed in what DID look like a brang-spakin’ new, spring line outfit, with a 7 dollar latté in hand at the local chique coffee house. She avoided eye contact with me, the friendly arab boy, who had served her a paper-plate full of spaghetti only nights before. Now, let’s get to the Mika fans ok. They have the colorfulness in personality of a Cuckoo’s Nest Character, the vivaciousness of the homeless karaoke crowd, and millions of more amazing qualities that made them easy to relate to. They love to laugh, they love to sing, and they appreciate a good jiggle. God bless ‘em! Praise Allah. It wasn’t what I was used to within the Toronto rock scene. They’re NOTHING like Evanescence fans. Amy lee has been a source of musical infatuation for me for a while, I will admit, but the crowds she draws in, are NOTHING like the crowds mr. Mika draws in. Evanescence fans yell at me for getting too close to them and dancing in the mosh-pit. “This is a mosh pit sweet cheeks, if you don’t like body heat you should’a went to the Bonnie Tyler show” I reply. Evanescence fans yelled at me for singing out loud “YOU NEVER CALL ME WHEN YOU’RE SOBER”, Mika fans rather, sing along! I was in a bad mood when I first met Mika in person. LIVE ON MUCH MUSIC, I had just ended a tiny argument with a VJ who’s name I won’t mention. Beneath my feet was the wrapper to a Kodak disposable camera (yellow in color, resembling a Lay’s chip bag). “Hey Big guy” he called to me almost egotistically, “you can’t have your chips in the studio, you’re gonna have to go an hour without them”. I SHAT! “First of all sir, I don’t eat carbs on weekday nights, second of all, it’s a disposable camera”. Then, when came time for me to ask Mika a question, he couldn’t seem to remember my name, “Chris”. After his 3rd time asking me to remind him of my name, the producer had to spell C-H-R-I-S on a big Bristol board behind the camera so he could remember to say “our audience member Chris has a question for you Mika”. Dressed colorfully to kill, Mika was a pleasure. I wanted to ask him why his song “Happy Endings” left the album off on such a pessimistic note, set in a minor key, contradicting strongly the rest of his up-beat album. Does Mika not believe in happy endings? Or are the stories of his characters, “Billy Brown” and the rest, still unfinished? The producers didn’t dig the question, I had to ask him what his most embarrassing moment was. Turns out he once lost his trousers on stage, sorry I missed that. Mika soon after performed, banging the piano keys with his hands, attached to skinny arms, JUST hairy enough so that you could tell he had SOME Arabic in him. He seemed to like the giant card I made him, he hugged me, bless his heart. Poor him. Those hot studio lights had me sweating…. I didn’t just have B-O, I had B-OH My God. The card I gave to him was decorated in Arabic phrases. Neither of us can read the language, I just typed in “Arabic words” to google & cut\pasted my way from there. I hoped they weren’t swear words, or erotic terms. The next day was Mika’s college street show! Usually I don’t expect very much out of a 15-dollar Mod Club performance, but wow. He managed to create a “Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory”- like effect. Balloons everywhere, characters on stilts and handing out lollipops, it was enchanting. I thought Mika might recognize me, so I wanted to do something else fun for him. I managed to steel of my mom’s silk panties (this woman’s got a 36 inch waist ok), signed my name on them, and threw them to Mika, appropriately, during “Big Girl You Are Beautiful”. I didn’t realize until just before throwing them, a strange hole\flap in the middle area, that I thought only existed in men’s underwear. I soon learned that this was NO pee flap….. don’t judge me Mika, I didn’t know. I hope Mrs. Rabba isn’t missing them come anniversary night. God bless. It was an amazing two days, it was the kind of happy feeling that can only depress a person, because it was a bliss that couldn’t possibly sustain itself. Certainly, I went to bed ecstatic. I woke up joyful. By lunch time I was….. happy, the afternoon I was ok, night time….. I seemed to be nearly suffocating in negative emotion. Maybe Mika did me more harm than good, because he provided the kind of unreal experience that can only make one worry will never come again. One flew east, one flew west, one fell south and slept….depressed. If Mika keeps making music I’ll be dancing so hard that they’ll be no jiggle left. I’ll go from Jig to twig. I can’t wait to go jean shopping.