Wild Water Kingdom

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Superdad: A Memoir of Rebellion, Drugs and Fatherhood
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(Release: Sept. 30, 2010)
"Turns the urban dad story on its head—and then rights it again. Beneath Shulgan's outwardly loving life with his young family in a hip part of Toronto lurked a darkness; Shulgan was a hard drinker—and something of a crackhead. In an unsparing, but also comic, account of his ventures into the deep woods off the parental path, he explores his own notions of fatherhood. And challenges ours."--The Globe and Mail

"Infuriating, moving, and terrifying, Superdad is a journey into the dark heart of self-destructive hypermasculinty and out the other side into a kind of uneasy truce between the idea of 'father' and 'real man.' As a writer, I found myself awed by Shulgan's tale-teller's facility; as a dad, I found myself wanting to smack him until he stopped destroying his family and his life. Superdad is a brave memoir that humanizes the self-immolating urge of the crack addict." --Cory Doctorow, author of For The Win and co-editor of Boing Boing

“Christopher Shulgan pulls off a cool sort of alchemy; Superdad is an illuminating book about delusion, a wise book about idiocy, a kind-hearted book about acting like a jerk. And then on top of all that, the man makes writing look easy.” -- Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Down to This and Ghosted

My first book

Shortlisted for the National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

The Soviet Ambassador: The Making of the Radical Behind Perestroika
How diplomacy and a decade-long exile in Ottawa transformed Mikhail Gorbachev's trusted advisor, Aleksandr N. Yakovlev, into the most potent force for freedom and democracy ever to walk the corridors of the Kremlin.
Published by McClelland & Stewart.

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Yesterday for a summer holiday sort of shindig type thing we went to suburban Toronto's Wild Water Kingdom, which bills itself as Canada's largest waterpark. If you're tossing superlatives around I would also suggest adding "strangest" and "most dangerous."

We arrived yesterday around 11 a.m., and the first indication things were a little off happened at the booth where you pay for parking. We pulled up, our wagon one in a long line, and when we stopped alongside the kiosk the adolescent girl inside stared at us blankly. "Hi," I said, and she said hi back, and then silence. "Parking?" I asked. "Sure," she said. "Can we pay for parking?" I said, and she brightened, specified $8 as the fee and the transaction happened.

The next forty minutes we spent finding our way to our own cabana. We were with Natalie's brother and his wife, and their two kids (pictured above with Myron). The cabana cost us $40 but was totally worth it. I reserved a two-person tube. We arranged the diaper bags and did that towel-around-the-waist shimmy that lets you change into your bathing suit in public, then headed for the kids area.

Pretty neat. Giant elevated buckets filled up and tipped over, splashing the people below. Gently inclined slides spat kids into knee-deep pools. There was a wider slide where kids slipped down on inner tubes. Super-fun looking. We were walking along an incline that joined one little pond to another when the next sign happened. Most of the wet ground was coated in a layer of grit, to provide grip, and then Myron stepped at a spot where it was worn smooth. His feet went out from under him. He landed on his bum. "You OK buddy?" I asked, picking him up. He nodded. Another kid slipped on the same spot. A lifeguard watched. I expected something to happen -- a uniformed staff person to materialize, set down a pylon and announce the area off-limits. But the lifeguard just sat there.

We moved on... Myron went down this little frog slide. Penny freaked out over these little spouts of water that spat up out of the ground. We laughed at the come-ons from a megaphoned barker at the hot-buttered corn kiosk and bought a completely non-nutritious lunch of Pizza Pizza and fries that exploded the kids' heads with saturated fats and inorganic ingredients. But whatever. It was that kind of day.

What finally clued me into the vibe of Wild Water Kingdom happened just after lunch, when Myron went down one of the kids' slides by himself. This was a big deal. I had seen him looking at it earlier in the day, and when he asked to go on it he let Natalie hold his hand on the stairs leading up to the slide's beginning--something he's usually too independent to do. The slide was too flat to be much of a thrill; he had to scooch himself along on his heels at one point, to get some speed. It ended in one of the knee-deep pools. Where Myron lost his footing. His head went under. The lifeguard stationed at the slide's bottom just stood there, watching him. With Penny in my arms, I was sprinting into the pool when the lifeguard finally deigned to step forward and help Myron. He was freaked for a minute or two. I probably should have yelled at the lifeguard, something along the lines of "Do your job!" But the look of apathy on her face suggested it would be useless.

Thing was, all the staff in the place radiated a druggy apathy. The place felt like the lair of a James Bond villain, or one of those towns from a Twilight Zone episode that turns out to be purgatory. Or maybe it was just that every staff member in the joint had inhaled a little too much of BC's finest. Or maybe it's about to go out of business, so no one cares. At first it alarmed me. And then, the weird thing is, I started to enjoy it.

No one cared. The climbing wall had an age limit of 12, but the staff member operating the line let my 7-year-old nephew on the thing, no sweat. The batting cages had the ambiance of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. No staff anywhere. So we figured out how to run the pitching machines and swung at softballs until our arms got sore. Those smooth spots in the kids park? Once you realized they were there, you walked more carefully, and maybe even used them as slides themselves. And the playground structure was maybe 20 years old, with wood that looks like it's near collapse--but again, that made it sort of fun. There was a slide there that sagged in such a way that it threw up the slider right at the end of the ride.

A little bit of danger can make things thrilling. In its apathetic negligence, in its air of decrepit deregulation, the place was a refreshing departure from the atmosphere of hyper-vigilance that now pervades anything kid-related, where every ledge is bordered by a railing and every drop is bottomed with recycled-rubber cushioning. Wild Water Kingdom. Check it out yourself, before someone sues the place into bankruptcy.

Comments

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Wild Water Kingdom Customer service really sucks!!
I hava a bad experience there also. I am very dissapointed about this park. I would NOT recommend it to anyone!!
My family and I went there on Aug 16, 2009 and at the end of the day when we got to the car, we found out that the front windshield was broken with a Orange Pizza Pizza Golf Ball. I went to the office and complained about it and they just made me fill out an incident report. They don't want to pay the damage of my car.
After a week and a half of calling, leaving voice messages and e-mails to the Senior Manager, I got a call from a Lady who offer me free passes to the park. Are you joking me? Are you punishing me more? or You want my car damage again? After a bad experience I will never go back to this water park, and would never ever recommend to anyone!!! I want them to pay me back the windshield replacement.
I was inside the park in the mini golf area, and no one was attending the play area. The balls were in a basket and the clubs were on the floor, pretty much you can take any golf balls and hit them as in a golf range??
I must say that you pay $8 for a dusty gravel parking lot; pay for the rent of the tubes; some slides weren't working; batting cage weren't working; only one bumper boat was working (your kid got to bump her or himself); pay for a rusty small locker rent if you want; and last but not least, forced to buy food and drink inside because you are not allowed to bring food.
Do not go there, you will loose your money, time and will have a bad experience... you might get your car damage and they do not care!!

Posted by: Broken Windshield Guy | September 10, 2009 at 11:26 PM

Any thoughts on the reverse hyperextension and it's carryover into the deadlift?I will say this, close grip benching had a detrimental effect on my ring dips, which leads me to believe that both movements would be beneficial for the Press.

Posted by: jordan 7 | October 20, 2010 at 02:27 AM