OK, first of all, lemme just thank fellow TwoP stalwarts Synaesthete, Calamity, Marmie, shing, Sophiesmom and NocturnalBlond for being as nice and cool and funny as they are online (and then some). It was a big, big improvement over the Ex, where I basically had to stand there thinking snarky thoughts to myself because my next-door neighbor was preoccupied with her knitting.

It was especially appreciated because, well...this isn't so much a The Day I Saw Kalan report as The Day I Saw Random Parts of Kalan When the Line of Vision Was Just So.

Mind you, the parts I saw appeared to be in pretty good shape. For starters he once again survived the vast SCREAMing hordes with sanity intact, which of course has been impressing me for quite awhile now, but somehow much, much more so when you see it up this close. He seems actually to have developed a sort of private inner amusement over the whole situation, smiling and waving with a practiced briskness ("Hi, guys!" ) that was noticeably absent in midsummer.

Which is fine for him, I guess, but we still have to worry about being in a shopping mall surrounded by upwards of 1000-or-so fangirlies who have apparently mislaid their own personal sanity back at the print shop. There are signs - the DJs point out a few more Mrs-to-be's - there are photo blowups, there are shirts...there's one middle-aged woman with a Xlarge-size tee (if you get my drift) that has KALAN interspersed with little lipstick kisses. All over. I spent a few moments meditating on just marching up to this woman and demanding the story she told her loved ones. (Synaesthete has a shirt too, but it's a wonderful snarky shirt, about which much more later.)

What pushes all of this right over the top is the whole breast cancer deal - not the disease itself, of course; it barely had a chance. For starters not too many female people in this audience will have to worry about checking for lumps for a smart while yet, let's put it that way. Jann Arden came on a little while before Kalan and - while she didn't sing, booooo - did do a whole uplifting and very funny monologue about how a friend's mastectomy inspired her to go "have six or seven beers..and get her boobs smooshed" in the mammogram, after which she had to wear a "38-double-long" brassiere for a week. She raised barely a chuckle.

Many of the teenier fangirls were in fact looking at their parental units kind of wide-eyed, and the parental units were looking like they were wishing the other parental unit was there so they could just hand the whole thing over and go buy a big-screen TV or something. So at least we were chuckling...at that, and at a sudden mental picture of Kalan likewise coming out, sitting down with the DJs, and discussing breast cancer for three minutes. (You have to admit, it'd be a hell of a way to raise awareness.)

No, what's scary about this setup is that everything around is the colour of the awareness campaign: pink. Pink stage curtains - yes, this is a fairly small stage, but there was enough room for a wide swathe of bubblegum-coloured polyester - ginormous pink ribbons on the walls, pink numbers on the big pink tote board that's tallying up the pink pledges for the day-long pink radio broadcast-a-thon. Pink to a degree in most adults, including myself, would deem sufficient to meet their pink needs for this lifetime plus a few others in reserve, thank you.

Oh, and there are clowns. Not wearing pink. These clowns are in fact giving off the strong impression that they are random people, possibly random homeless people, who made these costumes at home - in the back of their cars, whichever - bought a couple .99-cent strips of temporary tattoos and headed out to 'entertain' the public out of the, um, goodness of their hearts. Poor Calamity in a bare-armed top practically had to beat them off with a stick, they were so eager to spread the goodness in the form of pressing damp sponges to biceps and yelling "One-two-THREE! Look!!" (In total fairness, it went over much better with the cute teeny fangirlettes in front of us. Maybe because the clowns were not much taller.)

During one particularly SCREAM-y moment one pulls the top off a plastic ice-cream-cone, waves a arm and - whoosh! Bubbles!! Gasps of childlike wonder! Sort of. In the immediate area of the homeless clown person, anyhow. You could not make this stuff up.

Our host for this day is CHFI 98.1 LiteFM, specifically morning show team Mad Dog and Billie - Billie's the girl - whose names made much more sense back when they were over on the rock station, trust me. (Amusingly, the poster behind them still shows Mad Dog with the funky hairdo from that era. Nowadays he's got fuzzy middle-aged curls.)

They're having a bit of on-air fun with the whole Kalan = SCREAM thing while they wait for him to appear, mentioning his name at random etc. Same deal as the Ex, basically: "Hey, look, the curtain twitched!!! SCREAM!!!!!"

I helpfully point out to my fellow TWoPers that at least there aren't Jacob fans around to hold SCREAM-offs with. They don't look any too helped, at least not before their hands drop from their ears.

So eventually Our Hero emerges to a crashing crescendo, looking almost comically normal and decent and just generally anti-climactic. He's apparently decided he likes having a fashion 'look' (vide Flare magazine) enough that he's keeping it. It may actually be the same outfit. I wouldn't know for certain. At this point, I was down to glimpses of individual pinstripes. Pretty sure there was black and dark blue involved, anyhow.

Also he's let the curls grow out a bit, probably just too busy to bother - I imagine a trip to the barber on that dime runs a few hours minimum - but has evidently acquired a new! improved! shade of gold from somewhere. (Pause while I enjoy a rather touching mental picture of Kalan, alone and really bored in his apartment one night, rummaging through his old box of L'Oreal and coming up with a packet labeled 'Brightener Rinse'...) Between this, his habitual stillness - weariness? - and the way the mall lighting was reflecting off his skin, he honestly did look rather like a porcelain doll of himself.

At any rate, as noted he settled casually, if not exactly cheerily, into Jann's spot beside the DJs. And the crowd goes wild. To hell with actually hearing their Idol speak! "So, Kalan...[inaudible]." Kalan: "[inaudible]." Me, mentally: "Pepper spray!" Synaesthete, aloud: "We're gonna have to get this off the Net in the morning." She had also brought chocolate-chip cookies. Wise woman.

Arrgh, I hate being at the back of a crowd. HatehatehateHATE it. I herewith apologise to any of my compatriots whom I may have annoyed bobbing in and out and under random elbows. Oh, and those three or four guys that hoisted their kidlets on their shoulders right in front of me, on the off-chance they may be psychic, uh, I don't usually think those words around small children, really...

I can't help it - I think it's the pedestrian version of trying to find a parking space at Christmas.

Eventually, Kalan at the stage mic: "I'm just gonna be performing my first single." Mm. As it turns out, he's going to be performing it about ten seconds before his cue, thanks possibly to the SCREAMs, possibly to the crappy karaoke backing track (hey, they didn't... They wouldn't...? There were HMV guys hawking it to the crowd all throughout...) Or of course is just suffering total recording-studio exhaustion, which is beginning to seem more and more likely as the, uh, night wears on. "What song is this again? It's Tuesday, right?"

Pauses for a look of self-disgust that is as usual aways out of proportion to the actual musical offense, starts again. And as usual performs the hell out of the stupid song, all seventy-five verses of it. Which, given that he must by now regard it as his own personal little two-ton millstone, may be a bigger compliment than I ever gave Nature Boy. His voice sounds just fine, and may even have acquired some texture from all the workout it's been getting.

Does not curl-clutch, but does rock back and forth for awhile (or so some of the others tell me later; I can't even tell if he's wearing shoes) and at one point the little hand-flicks. I get the hands in clear enough focus - and am by now determined enough to get my TTC ride's worth - to notice they do seem remarkably small and elegantly-fingered.

So eventually the song finishes, there's a bit more inaudible with the DJs ("[Mumblemumblegreatmumble]..like to request a song? "Sure! I'd [mumblemumble] some rock!", which Sophiesmom later identifies for me as Led Zepplin), and there's a stampede for the ginormous autograph line that includes Synaesthete.

shing, Calamity and I hang around speculating on poor Kalan and scary fans and whether it'd be worth heading around to take a look. Short answer: No. I discover what's been wrong with me all this time, in re: trying to get a clear view: my attitude. I have failed to cultivate worshipful appreciation for every fleeting glimpse of the curls. Also, I need bigger lungs. I'm doomed.

Back to speculation, and watching a janitor break a couple pink vases. OK, that I can appreciate fine. Synaesthete returns, shows us the still-on-her-back autographed shirt - it has Kalan in a cowboy hat on it! - we all get the squee!s out of our system...and she gives me the shirt for being the recapper. Seriously. I am torn between being so, so absolutely touched and honoured and wondering just how the hell I'm going to explain this to Shoemom. [Future Shoe:Actually, she took it rather well..."Cute, very nice of him. And her. Really, very sweet. You are not wearing that out in public."]

And thus endeth the Most Important Trip to the Mall Evah. Thanks, Kalan, you're a trouper in the best sense of the word. And thanks again, girls. :^)