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PD Taylor
September 04, 2010
At the recent Emmy Awards, Mad Men picked up its third consecutive Best Television Drama win. The series is a critical and ratings smash for the AMC network. Every time you turn around there are more accolades, awards and mounting critical acclaim. I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get into Mad Men. You feel compelled to watch a show garnering this kind of reaction. Am I missing something? The San Francisco Chronicle calls it “the best show on television.” The series’ creator/writer/executive producer Matthew Weiner has created a fantastic cast of characters consisting of seriously flawed individuals, which makes for high drama, but it’s tough to find anyone to root for. There isn’t a sympathetic one, male or female, in the bunch. Each and every man Jack and Jacqueline of them is a shit-heel. But is that it? Nobody to relate to? No nice guys. Villains are often more interesting and compelling than the heroes set against them. Mad Men is a drama after all. I want to like this show. It depicts the era perfectly. Those were heady times for Boomers. Right before the generation started coming of age.
Then it struck me. It’s the smoking. Mad Men is a period piece set in the early 1960’s. In keeping with the popular practices of the time, virtually all of the characters inhale. I never took it up and have always found it irritating to be around. The smell is nauseating. When we were youngsters it seemed like every adult smoked and a number of the kids, too. While the writing and the acting is of the highest caliber, the show was making me physically ill. Every time somebody lit up on the screen, my stomach did a back flip. The way this crowd hauls on the pernicious weed makes Humphrey Bogart look like a casual puffer.
As kids, we weren’t allowed much leeway as far as voicing opinions about what the grown-ups were doing. The old adage, “children should be seen, not heard” was pretty much a universal dictum. We didn’t realize it at the time, but keeping our mouths shut was probably a lot healthier. Second-hand smoke? Are you kiddin’? The 1950’s into the early ‘60’s was experienced through a lingering blue haze of tobacco smoke. Our Moms smoked while carrying us. It’s a wonder any of us Boomers have functioning respiratory systems at all. There was no escaping it in any enclosed space: Homes, offices, factories, stores, clubs, concert halls, transit depots, hotels, motels, trains, planes and automobiles. It sounds crazy, but hospitals, too. Do you recall the famous question asked at airport check-in counters? Smoking or non? When smoking was allowed on planes there was no such thing as a non-smoking section. A jet aircraft in flight is a sealed, pressurized environment with a common life-support system. It’s not like you could roll down a window for some fresh air. What made anyone think that an imaginary line designated merely by a numbered row of seats would in anyway inhibit the smoke from being recycled again and again and distributed throughout the entire cabin? And restaurants. This was the absolute worst. Yeah, there’s nothing more un-appetizing when preparing to tuck into an expensive meal than a table full of clowns lighting up right next to you. When the ad boasted the best smoked meat in town, who knew the brisket was aged over smoldering Lucky Strikes? Smoking was so pervasive one got the impression society was constructed directly over the belching stacks of Dofasco. (That’s the Dominion Foundries and Steel Company for those of you un-familiar with Hamilton Bay at the western tip of Lake Ontario.)
This Boomer’s weak stomach aside, you have to give Mad Men props. Now in its fourth season it is more than just a hit television show. Mad Men has become part of popular culture. The true-to-the-era wardrobe has spawned a contemporary fashion trend. Designers like Michael Kors are reportedly taking inspiration directly from the show. Brooks Brothers is offering a Mad Men Edition suit while prestigious retailer Holt Renfrew reports a 20% spike in sales of pocket squares.
No matter how popular a show like M*A*S*H was, it didn’t influence our sporting bathrobes, Hawaiian shirts and combat boots like Hawkeye and Trapper. All In the Family, while groundbreaking and wildly successful didn’t inspire Sklar-Peppler to introduce a ratty, old easy chair like the one Archie Bunker parked his politically incorrect ass in at 704 Hauser Street, Queens. But Mad Men has created the kind of stir that moves out of the realm of entertainment to actually influence the zeitgeist.
Before you race out and pick up a Mad Men suit, realize that this is a very specific style that doesn’t work for everyone. You can’t be carrying around any extra tonnage if you hope to carry off this look. None. Zip. You can’t hide anything in those skinny-ass suits. If it’s any consolation to you hi-ball swilling hipsters, the look didn’t work for everyone back then either. The guy who looked the best in those clothes was Bobby Darin. There’s your touchstone. If you’re not rockin’ it like Bobby Darin, or Mad Men’s Don Draper, you might want to try on something a little roomier.
Advertising is legalized lying.
- H.G. Wells
August 28, 2010
The PNE is in full swing. This time of year finds the Mrs. doing her best to pry me off the couch and away from my Gilligan’s Island DVD Boxed Set long enough for a day at the Fair. She’s crazy for the PNE. She grew up in Calgary, so had the Stampede. All the fun of the Fair and the Granddaddy of all rodeos to boot! Hailing from Toronto, my counterpart was the CNE, the Canadian National Exhibition, affectionately known as “The Ex.” When we were kids, the Ex represented the last hurrah of summer before begrudgingly trudging our way back to school for another academic season. You stashed money all year long in order to have a “fair-sized” bankroll come the end of August.
The PNE marks its centennial this year and every indication is the celebration will be worthy of a 100th birthday. The great weather we’ve been experiencing is a boon to what some are predicting to be record attendance. Organizers wasted no time rolling out the big guns as the Fair kicked off with a concert by local son turned international mega-star, Bryan Adams. Opening for Adams was the venerable Beach Boys, who haven’t been actual boys for the better part of 50 years, but that has never stopped them from spreading fun, fun, fun, across North America for all those decades. Whether it’s the CNE, PNE, Puyallup, or Corn Crib Days in Mitchell, South Dakota, it isn’t summer at the Fair without the Beach Boys. The rest of the concert line-up is stellar. By the time you read this, along with Adams and the Beach Boys, acts who have already appeared include, Terri Clark, Michael Bolton, Huey Lewis & the News, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Wayne Newton and Kevin Costner and his band.
Usually the Mrs. has to do some cajoling to get me to the Fair, but this year all she had to do was mention that Los Lobos was appearing with John Hiatt and I was outside waiting in the car.
“They don’t play ‘til Monday night,” she said. “Do you want me to bring your dinner out there?”
Sly dog, she knows the music moves me. A Los Lobos show is a tutorial in roots music. The sound is a delightful fusion of blues, R&B, country, Mexican folk, cajun and rock & roll. Comedian Gary Shandling has called Los Lobos “the loudest conjunto band in the world.”
The best part is all of these shows are free with your admission. When was the last time you went to a concert for fifteen bucks? There’s a ton of other free stuff, too …the Mounties Musical Ride, Demolition Derby, Canadian Navy Tattoo, Pacific Spirit Horse Show, Lumberjack Show, Red Robinson’s Talent Showcase, Peking Acrobats and, of course, Superdogs. Who doesn’t like Superdogs?
One hundred years of anything qualifies for tradition. That’s what events like the PNE and the CNE are built on. It’s not just a case of sampling this week’s flavour or the current trend. It’s those things, moments and memories we cling to. Events like the PNE are exhilarating without your having to do anything. Merely stand in one spot almost anywhere on the grounds to experience the full-court press of sensory bombardment. Sight, sound, taste, touch and smell all get the major workout simultaneously. Especially that ambient aroma, a heady, hot-weather enhanced mélange of hot dogs and hamburgers with sizzling, fried onions, tooth cringingly sweet cotton candy, caramel corn and candy apples, whale tales and the exotic scents of every conceivable ethnic cuisine our little corner of the cultural melting pot can dish up.
Now, let me at those mini donuts.
The PNE is on through Labour Day.
August 21, 2010
Summertime, as the famous DuBose Heyward lyric claims, and the livin’ may be easy, but the driving is anything but. In our little corner of the Lower Mainland it seems that every major, arterial route and some of the neighborhood streets as well are under some kind of construction and/or repair. It’s tough enough getting around our streets at the best of times. Thank God we live in such beautiful surroundings. It offers something to gaze at while sitting in gridlock.
One particular crossroads in front of the local Mall had so much going-on it looked as though it had been leased-out as a location shoot for an episode of Canada’s Worst Driver. This was the intersection of two, connecting, numbered highways complete with those huge, green overhead signs, multiple lanes, exit-only lanes and tandem left turn lanes with advanced and/or delayed green lights in four directions. On a clear day without a lick of construction this is a tricky intersection for all but the most experienced driver to negotiate. Festooned with barricades, temporary re-directional signage, flags, flashing lights and those Dalek-like reflective, striped barrels, it’s like some bicycle rodeo from hell. The dominant colour scheme is orange day-glo with white, reflector accents. Approach lanes are blocked off. Left turn lanes are clogged with piles of gravel and stacks of lumber. Not only is traffic slowed down considerably by the roadwork, it is impeded further by driver confusion. It’s lucky if 2 or 3 cars can make it around on an advanced green.
You know how it is with traffic control cones and those orange, fence-post delineators. By accident or design, we’ve all run into one or two from time-to-time. Confusion often results when those things are laid out properly. Move a bunch of them around randomly and it makes for a more than interesting rush hour. Look upon it as an extra degree of difficulty. Maybe you’ll score higher with the judges.
Late one night waiting for a southbound red light to change I happened to notice a motorist approaching from the opposite direction entering the intersection with an advanced green. Just as most of us project body language while “dismounted,” it’s possible to read someone’s body language behind the wheel. Standard procedure for dealing with an advanced green light is to make the left turn expeditiously – read, push down on the gas pedal - and be on one’s merry way. Rather than accelerating through the turn, this particular motorist became hesitant, began to slow down and gave every indication of being fazed by all the conflicting signage. As mentioned this happened late into the night/early hours of the morning. Construction crews and flag personnel were long gone. All of the traffic control devices had been unattended for a number of hours. There’s no telling if the lane laid out in the morning was still the lane this distracted driver was trying to negotiate along with the left turn under cover of darkness. Unable to find the desired westbound lane, our intreprid traveler rolled to a complete stop in what appeared to be a small forest of orange and white “channelizers.” You could almost see an animated question mark appear above the car. This is the driving equivalent of hitting your golf ball into the rough.
I realized a twinge of schadenfreude while watching this unfold because anybody who has driven in the summer is sure to have experienced similar situations and can definitely relate. The light changed and it was my turn to advance through the intersection. Looking to the right I was able to steal a glance at what the other driver had gotten into. It looked like a trap. Checking the rearview mirror I could have sworn I saw the plastic devices moving in to menacingly surround the vehicle.
If robins are harbingers of spring, roadwork and the resultant traffic headaches, are as common a sign of summer as shades and sunblock. Only a complete dunderhead doesn’t understand that the brief summer months are the optimum time to do much needed, care and upkeep of aging infrastructure. We get it. It’s the longer, daylight hours and, hopefully, nicer weather conditions. An old, high school buddy hipped me that it was better to lay asphalt on a hot, sunny day. He used to work for a paving company. The crew was a ragtag bunch of like-minded, teenage idiots who wore bright, yellow T-shirts proclaiming, So-and-So’s Surfacing – “Let Us Fill Your Cracks.” Hey, it was 1970, a much different time social mores-wise. You could get away with crap like that.
Experiencing a bout of bumper-to-bumper during the recent little heat wave with no air conditioning in the family sedan only serves to ratchet things up a couple of clicks on the ordeal wheel. Sharing the GVRD’s highways and byways with construction workers and large, yellow, heavy equipment is part of our summer. Knowing why this goes on at this time of year, however, is little comfort while steaming and stuck in traffic.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you
is an idiot and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
- George Carlin
August 14, 2010
All eyes are on Tiger Woods for this weekend’s PGA Championship as he battles back from last week’s debacle at the Bridgestone Invitational. The much besieged golfer is experiencing another wave of media shock & awe after registering his highest 72-hole score ever. It was the worst showing of his entire career. Woods finished 78th at Firestone, a course he knows so well, he should be able to play it blindfolded. He made PGA history last year by winning for the seventh time on this course. Tiger Woods placing seventy-eighth!! Isn’t that one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse, right behind water hazards’ turning into blood? Even those who know nothing about golf are asking “what the hell happened?”
What many believe to be the greatest golfer of all time has hit some kind of wall.
Sportsnet Pacific’s Don Taylor couldn’t resist going for the obvious cheap laugh while running the high, or rather, low-lights of Woods’ meltdown on the Firestone greens. Voicing over a montage of missed putts, Taylor said: “the stick isn’t working for Tiger today – at least not on the golf course!”
HEYO!
Sometimes these things write themselves, eh Donnie?
But there’s the legacy of the sex scandal rearing its ugly head once again. Will the poor schmo ever be able to shake this one? It’s still way too fresh to expect anything approaching a respite from the barbs. We’ll have to wait and see what the public’s statute of limitations attention span is on this one. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been out of the crosshairs since his marriage imploded so suddenly and spectacularly last fall. By now, just about everyone is aware of the Thanksgiving night Motor Vehicle Accident involving Woods’ Escalade’s bouncing from shrub to tree to fire hydrant before coming to rest on a neighbor’s manicured lawn. Woods appeared to be in flight as the car hurtled down the driveway of his palatial residence in toney, Windermere, Florida.
While Woods has been tight-lipped about what actually transpired before he tired to lam it in his Caddy, you don’t have to be Kreskin to speculate on the events. Take it from a married guy, it probably went something like this: The Mrs. – Elin Nordegren – must have picked up his cell phone and found the incriminating texts to and from the mistress(es). Enraged, she lashed out with the nearest thing at hand, which was the phone. She couldn’t throttle the mistress(es) across cyber-space, but that ratbag husband was right there within arm’s reach. It appears as though she whipped him about the face and lips with the offending instrument. This being Florida, you wouldn’t even need to call upon Lt. Horatio Caine. A rookie CSI right out of the Academy would have had this one sussed before the first commercial break.
“Do you see where the iPhone logo is imbossed into Mr. Woods’ lower lip?”
“You have to hand it to Steve Jobs.”
“How so?”
“It’s tough to beat that kind of product placement.”
The damaging precision with which Mrs. Woods wielded the cell phone was bad enough. But when she went to Tiger’s golf bag and came out swinging a mashie was when he decided to beat a hasty retreat in the SUV with the wife in hot pursuit. When the vehicle came to an abrupt stop, Mrs. Woods started taking out the windows with the iron. Early reports painted her as attempting to free her husband from the wreck. She was trying to free him all right - from this earthly plane!
Following the Bridgestone breakdown, one dingbat reporter asked him if he was “having fun playing?”
“Absolutely not,” Woods shot back. “Shooting 18 over par is not fun. I don’t see how it can be fun shooting 18 over, especially since my handicap is supposed to be zero.”
You don’t have to be a board-certified therapist to posit that his turbulent, personal life has begun to affect his work on the golf course. If we’re to believe stories that flooded the media he was a renowned cocksman while on the road racking up all those major wins on the PGA tour. You just know he’s not getting his “oil changed” with anywhere near that kind of frequency now. Could it be that mentally his game is linked to his dink? Like Samson shorn of his locks, perhaps Tiger’s being denied all those sexual conquests he was used to has sapped him of his strength? Has he lost his mojo? A guy with Tiger Woods’ kind of prestige, power and money – even if he has to give the wife half, there’s still going to be hundreds of millions left over – is going to get laid. With the high profile infamy of the scandal, however, his field has narrowed considerably. With all the heat and media scrutiny generated, even the paid escorts are probably staying well clear of the One Eye of the Tiger.
I got my mojo workin’
I said, I got my mojo workin’
…what is a “mojo,” anyway?
- Robert Klein
Comedian
August 08, 2010
Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador pumped his way to a third Tour de France title in four years establishing himself as the sport’s new superstar. At age 39 former golden boy and 7-time champion Lance Armstrong valiantly rode to a respectable 23rd place finish in his last Tour de France. The big news for Canadian fans was the amazing performance by Victoria’s Ryder Hesjedal. When the dust settled on the Champs Elysees last weekend, Hesjedal had finished 7th. It was the best finish for a Canadian in the Tour de France since 1988 when Steve Bauer came in 4th.
A top 10 finish in the Tour de France is a remarkable accomplishment for any cyclist on the international circuit. But we have to put Ryder Hesjedal’s showing in perspective. When he traveled to Europe this summer he was under the impression he was competing in a support role only for the Garmin-Transitions team and wasn’t expected to finish anywhere near the top. That was until an unfortunate mishap thrust him squarely into the limelight. The Garmin team’s leading light, Christian Vande Velde was forced to exit the Tour after being injured in a crash during the second stage. This provided an opportunity for Hesjedal to step out and step up, which he did in spades. The next best finish on the Garmin team was Germany’s Johan Van Summeren in 30th place.
Watching Hesjedal doing those final laps around Paris and knowing that he was going to finish in the top 10 I imagined the scrambling that must have been going on among potential suitors looking to sign him to endorsement deals. You don’t have to be a top-flight, sports agent to see the possibilities. His name is Ryder for crying out loud! Imagine Mr. and Mrs. Piazza’s being J.D. Salinger fans naming their son Catcher instead of Mike? Hello, Ryder Trucks?
Picture big, sweeping shots of those yellow, rent-a-trucks making way through our BC mountains only to be shown up on a steep climb at Kicking Horse Pass by Hesjedal on a bicycle. If I’m a marketing exec with Canadian Tire I’m burning up the cell phone minutes trying to track this kid down.
The narrative plays out like a classic Hollywood “Star is Born” kind of script. The reigning Diva has broken her leg, or lost her voice and all hell is breaking loose backstage. The producers are aghast.
“But we open tonight! Everything is riding on this show. We’re ruined!!”
“What about that kid that makes the coffee?”
“The understudy? She’s just a little, nobody we use on the road for previews. This is Broadway!!”
Of course, the little nobody is Judy Garland who goes on, “kills” and before the final curtain falls is on the verge of becoming the Next Big Thing on the Great White Way. Bravos drown out cries and lamentations from a fading Diva, who tearfully makes way for the ingénue on the rise.
While Canadian cycling fans are pumped at Hesjedal’s placing, the classic, inter-clan rivalry that exists between us and our “cousins” south of the border makes it that much sweeter when finishing any athletic contest ahead of the USA. Anytime we can rub their noses in it is almost as good as gold. The best American finisher was Christopher Horner who placed 10th.
Some of the elite riders in the Tour must have felt like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when being chased by a posse led by the legendary Charlie Siringo. Do you remember from the Paul Newman/Robert Redford movie version? Try as they might, the two leaders of the Hole in The Wall Gang found it difficult to shake their pursuers.
“Who are those guys,” they’d ask looking back to see the horsemen hot on their tail with the dust clouds getting closer each time.
Riders like Contador, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans, Mark Cavendish, Robbie McEwen, and Thor Hushovd are used to looking around for each other at the front of the pack, but who the heck is Hesjerdal?
Do we Canuckleheads love this, or what? The upset victory. The come from behind. The kid from nowhere, bursting onto the world stage seemingly overnight. This is the stuff Tim Horton’s commercials are made of. Let’s hope Ryder’s parents have home movie footage of him taking those first wobbly spins on a “two-wheeler” so they can edit it in a la Sidney Crosby’s TimBits spots from last winter.
Victoria's RYDER HESJEDAL
If he’s still with the Garmin-Transitions team next summer for the 2011 Tour de France, Hesjedal won’t be a support Ryder.
We always knew he had the ability it was just a matter of him getting the confidence.
- Christian Vande Velde
July 31, 2010
White Rock Sun publisher and my personal strength and conditioning coach, Dave Chesney asked for this Boomer’s take on the recent passing of George Steinbrenner. Over the past few decades Dave and I discovered we have a lot in common, not the least of which is our affection for the Bronx Bombers. Lifelong Yankees fans, we were born a few days apart on opposite sides of the country. Kindred spirits walking separate paths together until those paths intersected in the bowels of an FM rock radio station at the corner of Nelson and Richards Streets in the now toney, Yaletown part of Vancouver. When Dave and I met, the only thing toney about the neighborhood was the street name most of the pimps in the area were using.
“Yeah, call me Tony, everybody does. You lookin’ for a date?”
“Are you any relation to Tony at the corner up on Seymour?”
“Sure. He’s my cousin.”
“And Tony on Helmcken?”
“My sister’s husband.”
Major League baseball lost one of its best known, most outspoken and controversial characters when Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner died of a heart attack at his Florida home on July 13th. In 1973 Steinbrenner used a chunk of a fortune earned in Great Lakes shipping to purchase the most storied franchise in professional sports history. Not shy when it came to spending money on getting things done, the shipping magnate is credited with contributing to the explosion in player salaries with the ushering in of the free agent era in 1975. George was 80 years old and from most vantage points appeared to have had a rich and fruitful life. Everybody knows the stats. In the 37 years that he owned the Yankees, they won 11 American League pennants and 7 World Series titles of the team’s total 40 pennants and 27 Series wins.
Unlike some owners who leave the running of their teams to the baseball people, George Steinbrenner was definitely a hands-on owner, much to the chagrin of many a frustrated Yankee manager who balked at his meddling and second-guessing from his perch in the private suite. They called him “The Boss.”
George Steinbrenner had the deep pockets and kind of mindset to readily dip into those pockets to preserve the integrity and exclusivity of the brand. He’d pony up for expensive free agents to insure that the team he fielded had what it needed to consistently compete at the top of the league. This leads to the common knock that the Yankees buy championships. Not so. New York City demands the best and George Steinbrenner delivered. The team plays in Yankee Stadium, not Safeco Field, the Staples Centre, FedEx Forum, 3-Con Park or General Motors Place. The only sponsor worthy of brand identification at Yankee Stadium is the team itself. What do you think that sponsorship would be worth on the open market? Can you imagine the New York Yankees playing at Pepsi Place or the Coca-Cola Centre? A lesser, tycoon could have realized an enourmous windfall profit in the blink of an eye. But that’s not the way George Steinbrenner rolled. Yankee fans and baseball in general is better for it. The New York Yankees set the gold standard for what it means to be a successful franchise not just for Major League Baseball, but all professional sports.
Winning is always sweet, but beating the Yankees is just that much sweeter still. Just ask Hall-of-Famer Bob Feller who said “I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no-hit game.”
Steinbrenner was a hugely successful man on many levels in many fields of endeavour. The Boss was larger than life. Even Jerry Seinfeld knew that, as he and Larry David made Steinbrenner a character on Seinfeld when George Costanza went to work in the Yankees front office. Boomer ball fans remember Steinbrenner as a guy who seemed to be always firing and/or re-hiring manager, Billy Martin. Poor Billy spent a lifetime getting crapped on by the Yankees and coming back for more. It’s much like being in love with the totally wrong for you, yet drop-dead beautiful woman. The kind who works your heart over like a speedbag, but she’s the best-looking dame in a place that calls itself the Big Apple and she’s saying “I love you” and maybe she really means it this time. Say what you will about the New York Yankees and that “Evil Empire” spin, but they are pretty. Those pinstripe home whites are, arguably, the finest unis in baseball. At the very least they look sharp, clean and elegant befitting the city the team represents. On the other hand out in Queens the Mets look garish. Electric blue and orange? What is this – Teletoon?
It all started for Billy Martin as a player back in the early 1950’s long before George Steinbrenner bought the team. The club’s brass thought Billy was a bad influence on his pals, Yankee stars, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. He was accused of leading them astray off the field with late-night boozing and carousing. Yeah, that’s right. Those two needed someone to teach ‘em to drink like Dracula needed somebody to show him how to bite necks. Nobody in his right mind with any baseball sense at all would trade away Whitey Ford, or God forbid, the Mick over here! Billy Martin was a more than competent second baseman. If he played hockey they would have called him “a scrappy, little play-maker.” But while Billy Martin was a feisty, fast, hard-charging, hustling kind of ballplayer, he was considered expendable. Back then things like morals clauses in contracts had a lot of weight. A player’s conduct on, and especially off, the field was monitored and could impact on his career. During the days of the oppressive reserve clause contracts the clubs effectively owned the players and could dictate not only where and when they could play, but if they would be allowed to play at all.
Was it coincidence on the day George died that the American League lost the All-Star Game for the first time in 14 straight years? There was definitely a ripple in the force.
One night I was watching a quiz show on TV and the question was,
“Name a baseball team synonymous with winning.” One girl said, “Dodgers.”
The other girl said, “Giants.” That made me madder than hell. I kept saying,
“Yankees, you dummies.” And of course the answer was the Yankees.
- Billy Martin
July 17, 2010
After 85 days and an estimated 184 million gallons of crude oil it looks like they’ve finally managed to stop the leak in the Gulf of Mexico. For just shy of three months we could watch an ecological disaster unfold, or rather, gush before our very eyes live on TV. Did you find yourself awed by the advances that could bring these pictures into our homes yet simultaneously boggled as to why it took so darn long to plug the hole? I can carry an entire record collection around in a shirt pocket. This is the 21st century. Surely there must be some kind of oil well hole stuffing machine. Apparently, there wasn’t. It’s too bad we lost Red Adair in ’04.
I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t some Ocean’s 11-like caper where a gang of ultra-smart crooks electronically swap a security camera image to cover what the camera is actually seeing. For all we know that oil is still blasting into the gulf and what we’re looking at on the screen is, as they say in the legerdemain business, “smoke and mirrors.”
We’ve become accustomed to instant gratification when it comes to new technology. Faster, smaller, better. From palm-sized wundermachines like iPhones and Blackberrys to those little chips that let you send birthday or holiday greeting cards voiced by Chris Rock, each new device or application never ceases to amaze. You feel compelled to wear special headgear to keep from having your mind blown every time Steve Jobs holds a press conference. But heaven help us if the stuff doesn’t work.
Have you seen former Python Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”? The brilliant, 1985 film is a peek at a futuristic society that appears to be technologically advanced but yet where nothing seems to function properly, or for very long. Further mucking up the works is a labyrinthine, civil service bureaucracy saddled with an antiquated data storage and retrieval system that would make Bob Cratchit feel right at home. And everything from the monumental to the mundane must be registered, approved and filed in triplicate!
No telling if his travel expenses have to be submitted in triplicate, but CNN’s Anderson Cooper probably had no idea what he was getting into when he flew south to cover this story. The correspondent steadfastly held his post, but you could tell the ordeal was taking its toll. In the midst of the crisis CNN edited together Cooper’s nightly invitation for BP CEO Tony Hayward to join him for a frank and informative discussion about the spill in the Gulf. The piece quickly became annoying after the third or fourth, “we invited BP CEO Tony Hayward to come on the show and yada yada yada...” But they kept coming. Talk about your tune-out factor? Okay, Anderson, we get it. You tried to get the BP Boss to answer for his crimes on your show, but he blanked you. Enough already! Was this intended to shame the embattled executive into acquiescing to A.C.’s 360 degree interrogation on live television?
“Oh, well, since you and your editor went to all that trouble putting together an embarrassingly tedious little sequence of begging, I guess I’d better just present myself to you and your cameras and face the bloody music.”
Tony Hayward may be a scoundrel, or the devil incarnate to shrimpers and the families of the Deepwater Horizon rig’s victims, but he didn’t get to be Chairman of British freakin’ Petroleum by being a dumb cluck. A geologist, he holds a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. The guy races yachts. If we are to glean anything from the infamous photo of Hayward at the helm of his racing sloop snapped during the height of the Gulf crisis, it’s his choice of headgear. A cap with the distinctive “RR” logo seems to indicate that he also pilots a Rolls Royce. Do you honestly think someone like that is going to just waltz into your little media Thunderdome? Two men enter – one man with the microphone kill switch and the final edit leaves.
It was a nice try by Anderson Cooper, but no matter how many black, Simon Cowell T-shirts he goes through in the humidity of coastal Louisiana, his cool quotient has sunk to an all-time low. Journalistic frustration aside, he came across strident, bitchy and desperate. Can you imagine the pouty calls home to his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt in Manhattan?
“Did you see me on TV tonight, Mumsie? I tried and I tried and I tried to get that mean, old BP Chairman to come on the show and debate me like a man, but he wouldn’t, Mumsie, he wouldn’t!”
The good news is, the oil has stopped…for now. Experts and media pundits alike are all treading cautiously lest this latest attempt at a fix not hold. The bad news is, even with this thing capped and sealed…for now, this is already the greatest ecological disaster in history and it is far from over. The superlatives have yet to be tallied on this one.
July 10, 2010
David Crosby Lets His Freak Flag Fly
I recently popped into the local barbershop for the summer shearing coming away with the shortest cut in 45 years. It’s what we used to call a buzz, or brush cut. I sported this ‘do for the first 14 years of life favouring its low maintenance. Make that no maintenance. It then turned 1965 and the buzz cut just didn’t cut it anymore. Seated in the comfy barber’s chair an earworm from the distant past popped into my head. It was that David Crosby song, “Almost Cut My Hair” from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Déjà Vu”? While much of that landmark album still stands up, this track does not. At the time of its release the cut was novelty at best. It’s flat-out parody now.
“Almost cut my hair,” sings Crosby, more defiant than dejected. “It happened just the other day. It’s getting kinda long. I could’ve said it was in my way. But I didn’t and I wonder why, I feel like letting my freak flag fly.”
Oh, boy. There’s one for the vault of embarrassment, huh? Long hairs were A.K.A. “freaks” - see Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers of underground comic infamy, or Shel Silverstein’s “Freaking at the Freakers Ball,” as recorded by Dr. Hook. Waving one’s freak flag meant males openly sporting long hair. Longhairs were freaks. It was one of the more goofed-out expressions from an era awash in idiotic idiom. It’s hard to believe after all the ensuing years that there was a time when young men growing their hair out was as much a political statement as it was fashion.
We often think of the 1960’s as being a somewhat more open, enlightened era. Well into the storied decade, conservative values and lifestyle were still very much the norm in our neck of the suburban, Canadian woods. In my high school if a male student’s hair grew over the shirt collar, he was sent home until such time as he got a proper haircut and was allowed to return to class. It sounds ridiculous today, but that was the dynamic.
The artist who became rich and famous as a member of the Byrds and CSNY has been lauded by fans and peers alike as one of the finest harmony singers of his generation. We shouldn’t hold “Almost Cut My Hair” too hard against David Crosby, who has produced some amazing music, including a personal fave, 1971’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” his first solo album released on the heels of and propelled by the success of “Déjà Vu.” It includes some truly, gorgeous sounds and melodies in songs like “Music Is Love” – co-written with Graham Nash and Neil Young - “Laughing” and an ethereal “Tamalpais High (At About 3).”
David Crosby apparently knew all about high, whether on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County at 3 in the morning or anywhere else. He was a renowned connoisseur of marijuana amongst the hip, dilettante, entertainment elite of the day. Like a vintner with a golden nose for the grape, folklore from the time attested to Crosby’s not only being able to identify where a particular strand of weed came from, but also what the rainfall was like in the mountains that year in the region of Mexico where it was grown with just one sniff of the baggie. He would go on to squander this sensory gift and a lot more besides in a well-documented descent into drug induced darkness that culminated with his arrest for free-basing cocaine on a commercial airliner in flight. He didn’t set off the smoke detector in the lavatory. He didn’t go to the lavatory. The guy was so deep in the life that he actually piped up while seated in first class! To his credit, he would go on to serve time, lick the addiction and get his life back on track. So much so that fellow artiste, Melissa Etheridge arranged for Crosby to donate sperm for the in-vitro fertilization of Etheridge’s then wife, Julie Cypher. Etheridge was said to have wanted Crosby’s gifted musical and vocal genes in her family. What about that nasty, old, addictive gene that finds someone brazenly smoking cocaine with an open flame in an oxygen-rich environment like the pressurized cabin of an aircraft full of fellow travelers and crew? Let’s hope, like baldness, that gene skips a generation, huh Melissa?
So with an historical nod to David Crosby, never mind the almost, I did cut my hair. It had nothing to do with a political statement. I just wanted to get my money’s worth on one last haircut before that damned Harmonized Sales Tax took effect.
“Thrifty is as thrifty does,” as Grandma MacGump used to say to us youngun’s.
Why did the shorthair cross the road? Somebody told him to.
Why did the longhair cross the road? Somebody told him not to.
- Old joke from the late 1960’s
July 03, 2010
Meanwhile back on the pitch in South Africa, World Cup 2010 continues. If you joined us in the Boom Room last week your humble scribe was trying to wrap his somewhat sports-centric mind around what is called “the beautiful game.” And they mean soccer, not the 1972 Summit Series in Russia! What was that about beauty and the beholder’s eye? Plunging into the World Cup has been most enjoyable. At the conclusion of the Round of 16 I found myself eagerly anticipating quarter final play to resume.
Say what you will about the games themselves, one can’t help getting caught up in all the ancillary drama. The French have launched a government inquiry into the why’s and what’s of their team’s unhinging in the opening rounds. Some of soccer’s giants – France, Italy, Denmark - didn’t make it out of the first round. How about Nigeria? Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, isn’t bothering with any nonsense like a government inquiry. Outraged over his team’s poor showing in the World Cup, the President has banned it from international competition for two years. Never mind the ramifications for international soccer and the team’s future. What kind of political machine gets a guy named Goodluck Jonathan elected head-of-state? Nigeria’s James Carville must be some kind of Mojo Man!
The upsets just kept on coming. Heading into its match with Spain, Portugal might not have been and kind of a lock, but when you can boast having the most expensive player in history, Cristiano Ronaldo, on your squad you’re definitely in great shape. The superstar striker’s transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid was worth 80 million pounds, or 132 million dollars (US). Ronaldo scored 33 goals this past season with club team, Real Madrid. Unfortunately, he only managed to put the ball in the back of the net once throughout the World Cup Tournament and that was during the 7-nil rout of North Korea in the opening round. One wonders if the North Korean squad will be put to death when it returns home to Pyongyang.
“I feel a broken man, completely disconsolate, frustrated and an unimaginable sadness,” said the Portugese star. “I am a human being and like any human being I suffer and I have the right to suffer alone.”
How much suffering does someone with that kind of jack actually do? No matter how bad you feel, chances are you’re not suffering anywhere near what the North Korean players are going through. And despite your vahnting to be alone Greta Garbo, your fellow countrymen and women are hurting right along with you. Privacy aside, it’s a safe bet a good number of them want some answers.
The talk of the soccer world was the Netherlands’ shocking upset of Brazil to advance to the semi-finals. This kind of puts a pall on the party coming up in four years when Brazil hosts the next World Cup. The BBC’s South American football correspondent, Tim Vickery, said: “when Brazil loses in a World Cup it’s almost like a death in the family.” The entire nation must be in mourning. Germany destroyed Argentina 4 – nil and look like the powerhouse team heading into the semi-finals. Plucky Ghana battled Uruguay to a 1-1 tie but lost 4-2 in the shootout.
As I go to bed with this, the table is almost set for the final four. Spain and Paraguay are on in the background.
When The Gong Gets Weird - The Weird Turn Pro
Hunter S Thompson
June 27, 2010
Lord knows I’ve been trying to get into the World Cup, but it hasn’t been easy. I’m not a soccer fan. I lean more towards baseball, hockey and football, but enjoy most sports in general. With soccer’s being the most popular in the world one feels compelled to, if not embrace it wholeheartedly, at least give the game its due. Like the Olympics, the World Cup rolls around every four years, so this is a very big deal everywhere on the planet except North America. The game’s popularity is growing in Canada and the U.S., where it remains one of the top participatory athletic pursuits. Lots of people like to play soccer in North America, but as a spectator sport it falls way behind all of the other more established games.
I can usually be found glued to the Olympics, but rarely watch any of the disciplines in the intervening years. Maybe, a little giant slalom here; some track & field there. This time around I wanted to treat the World Cup with the same respect and attention I devote to the Olympic Games.
This World Cup is historic – the first ever held in Africa. It was fun to see South Africa score the first goal of the tournament, but the host nation would win only one game in the first round and fail to move on.
Soccer on this side of the pond is lumbered with a bit of an identity crisis right out of the box, don’t you think? It’s the whole football/soccer name thang. The game’s being an import from Britain, it’s apropos that it got a little of the old Ellis Island treatment. It was not uncommon for those passing through the famous New York immigration terminal to have their names changed by officials who couldn’t spell the myriad ethnic monikers from the four corners of the globe. Football was re-Christened soccer just like Lipschitz became Lipton. It doesn’t make all that much sense, really. In North American football a foot only occasionally comes in contact with the ball. And just a couple of guys, on a starting roster of 22, or 24 on this side of the 49th, get to actually kick one in a game. Ball movement is primarily executed manually. How come our version didn’t wind up being called, “handball?”
There appears little to do about it at this point other than go with the “when in Rome” convention and learn to interject either name depending on the surroundings and personnel in attendance. If you’re having a pint with CBC analyst and former Scottish pro, John Collins, feel free to call it football. Grabbing a cold one with Bob Lenarduzzi, go with soccer.
Then there’s the match tempo. Having been raised on Hockey Night in Canada watching the likes of “Clear the Track Here Comes” Eddie Shack barreling down the ice, “footie” unfortunately has a hard time nudging our excitement meter into the red zone. We’re conditioned to expect a little more speed and a lot more crunch and bang in our favourite athletic pursuits. It’s cruel when some liken the sport to watching paint dry, but it is a tad on the slow side.
I also can’t seem to get my head around the clock’s counting up. Wazzup wi’ dat? When you want to know how much time is left in the match you gotta do some math. I came to watch a soccer game, not get tested by bouts of subtraction!
Just when the low scoring and nil-nil ties of the opening match-ups were beginning to act like a sedative, the French players, bless their hearts, decided to inject a little drama by getting into un contretemps avec le Coach. Okay. Now we’ve got something Canadian sports fans can get behind – a barney! If you missed it, halfway through the match with Mexico, French player Nicolas Anelka cussed out Coach Raymond Domenech in the saltiest of language and was not just sent off, he was sent packing back to France. In solidarity, the rest of the French squad boycotted practice the next day, which touched off what is being roundly called a meltdown. Back in France the home press called the players “mutineers!” A BBC anchor described the reaction of the French public as “incandescent rage.” Don’t you just love the Brits and their vocabulary? Like on American Idol when Simon Cowell calls some poor sap’s performance “dreadful” or “ghastly.”
Meanwhile back in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy is pressed into damage control mode and sics his Minister of Sport on the rebellious team. Counter revolution with Bastille Day a little over a month away? Tsk Tsk, Monsieur Le President. What would Citizen Robespierre say? Can you imagine a Canadian Prime Minister sending Cabinet goons down to the Air Canada Centre because a couple of hockey players dropped the gloves and got at ‘er? Only if the Minister of Sport and Recreation is Wayne Cashman.
So far, I’m enjoying this World Cup, but it’s doubtful we can look forward to something as entertaining as Le Grand Meltdown, nevertheless the match-ups in the Round of 16 look more than promising. I was hoping to throw my support behind Cote d’Ivoire. I don’t know much about the squad. I just like saying, “Cote d’Ivoire.” Alas, the Ivory Coasters didn’t make the cut. I’m goin’ with Ghana, the only African country left standing.
Now where did I put my vuvuzela?
Soccer, the sport for 4th Graders that foreigners take seriously.
- Stephen Colbert
June 20, 2010
Arguably, I watch too much television. I’d be the first to admit devoting more than my fair share of time to the national average. We Boomers were once known as the “Television Generation” and some of us embraced the medium more than others. Blame University of Toronto professor Marshall McLuhan if you want. His 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man was a landmark look at mass communications and introduced into the lexicon phrases like, “the medium is the message” and “global village.” Professor McLuhan outlined his concept of “cool medium/hot medium” to describe the ways consumers interact with different media. Print and radio would be “hot” media because the large amount of information delivered calls for less involvement on the part of the user. Television and telephone are “cool” as the lack of information demands a higher sensory participation.
Over the decades television has more than established its ability to entertain, inform or at times, simply divert one’s attention. It’s like picking strawberries. Sometimes you have to get down on your knees and rummage around in the dirt for awhile to flush out the ripe, succulent fruit. Do some research. Spend a little time shaking the leaves of the weekly television listings. Plot out a viewing schedule that puts you in charge of the time spent riding the potato couch.
Not that there’s anything wrong with numbskull programming. Again, sometimes all you want from an hour in front of the old box is mere diversion. One person’s Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Jane Austen is another one’s Wipeout Marathon on TV-Tropolis. Both can have their place and purpose in our busy lives. Take a cue from Marshall McLuhan and be further involved in the “cool” of television by acting as your own programmer. Old school VCR’s and the latest digital recording devices allow consumers to do just that. You say there’s “57 channels and nothing on,” Mr. Springsteen? Then it’s time to spool up those Ken Burns’ documentaries you pulled off PBS last week.
As a scribe I am drawn to documentaries highlighting readin’, writin’ and the development of language and communication. A lifelong history buff I was always struck by authoritarian and/or totalitarian regimes’ practice of burning books. Even as a child I tweaked to the power that must exist between the covers. Those guys had tanks, shock troops, einzatsgruppen and secret police, yet they feared the written word. “They” still do.
B.C.’s Knowledge Network is a treasure trove of good TV. Take a tip: always check their listings before any time spent mit das tube. A recent gem on Knowledge, Empire of the Word, is a 4-part mini series examining reading and readers through history. One episode demonstrated that television can, among many things, also be uplifting. It focused on the remarkable story of Luis Soriano, a primary school teacher in Colombia. The infamous nation best known as the world’s Numero Uno producer of illicit cocaine has been dealing with a major civil war for decades. The conflict has pretty much destroyed the country’s educational infrastructure especially in rural and out-of-the-way places. Soriano’s answer is Biblioburro.
Luis Soriano lives with his wife and three children in the town of La Gloria, Colombia. Their small house is packed floor to ceiling with books. Boomers of a certain age may remember the Bookmobile, old buses converted into rolling libraries. There were so many of us in the 1950’s that the hastily built schools in exploding suburban neighborhoods did not yet have libraries. Soriano took the Bookmobile concept and put it on the backs of his two burros – Alfa and Beto.
Two days each week Soriano takes to the hills with his two, faithful, four-legged colleagues laden with books from his own collection. Visiting 15 villages on a rotating basis they travel the steep, narrow paths to remote villages scattered throughout the mountains in the state of Magdalena. He has rigged home-made, brightly coloured boxes that both transport the books and function as display shelves. Children can select books, which Soriano lets them borrow for free until his Biblioburro returns. The sure-footed burros cannot possible carry the entire collection, so he provides the covers of other volumes and the children can pre-order for the next time Biblioburro clops into town. Soriano’s story is worthy of one of the valuable books he lovingly transports every weekend. One simple man who has dedicated his life to making sure children in these isolated communities can have access to reading.
The arrival of Biblioburro is an event. At one gathering, a small boy brings a live chicken his mother has sent for Soriano. Along with the books Soriano further encourages the children to keep journals and chronicle their lives in the war-torn country. When the children gather to borrow and exchange the books, Soriano has them read aloud from their journals. One delightful, young girl matter-of-factly reads a personal recollection of her family’s harrowing escape from roving, armed bandits bent on murder and mayhem. She and her family managed to hide out in the jungle, but the marauding thugs would steal everything from the village.
“So, where are we going to leave this story,” Soriano asks?
“In the past,” the children shout in unison.
“We’re not going to tell that story again,” Soriano continues “or re-live it because we are going to replace it with new stories. Who’s going to change this country?”
“We are,” proclaim the little ones!
“We’re going to grow up to be honest Colombians,” Soriano encourages. “We’re going to be doctors, nurses, bosses, police officers, everything.”
With a “good-bye, my darlings,” Luis Soriano re-loads the cases of books onto his burros continuing on to the next isolated village where more eager ninos are waiting for his precious gift of the written word. It’s not just the children who benefit from Biblioburro. Since his personal literacy program began in 1990, Luis Soriano has not only helped more than 4000 youngsters, but parents and other adult readers often take part in the lessons as well.
“For us teachers,” said Soriano “it’s an educational triumph and for the parents it is a great satisfaction when a child learns how to read. That’s how a community changes and the child becomes a good citizen and a useful person. Literature is how we connect them with the world. This began as a necessity, then it became an obligation and after that a custom. Now it is an institution.”
Television has the power to do many things. It can infuriate and elevate sometimes managing to do both in the blink of an eye. Like much of modern technology, it’s all in how one uses it.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx
Check out this video of The Burro Bookmobile - CLICK HERE
June 13, 2010
YOU, ME AND RAIN ON THE ROOF
With all the crappy weather of late, have you been waving a white flag, or rather, a wet flag of surrender? We’re supposed to get depressed in late August as summer is winding down, not in June as it’s starting out.
On the bright side, instead of socking us in for weeks at a time, the weather gods have seen fit to throw us a bone now and again with the odd, sunny day dropped in amongst the wet ones. On those days the air is thick with the rumble and roar of mowers, trimmers, pruners, weed-wackers and sundry, power tools while everyone in the neighborhood hustles to “make hay,” as it were. Rust never sleeps and neither does your lawn and garden, which grows lusher and greener with each, falling drop. Without those yard-working windows of opportunity I was seriously shopping for an amphibious goat, or at the very least, a goat with galoshes. The lower 40 in the backyard has not yet dried out this year and remains a tad marshy. You don’t so much cut the grass back there as stir it.
This has been some remarkable rainfall, even by our sopping standards. While we might not have hit any record marks for overall volume, the intensity of individual storms was very pronounced. It’s easy to dial-out our ubiquitous precipitation until it becomes auditory. There’s that split-second of disbelief as the mind processes the signal from the ear.
“What’s that…is that, rain?”
The surround-sound system is shut off and, yes, it is the rain.
Despite our broad experience with the wet stuff, it’s interesting to find yourself impressed enough to go to the window and check out what’s causing that pounding on the roof.
“Wow. It’s really coming down.”
Do you remember what it was like back in February for the Olympics? While the alpine competitions were threatened by the melting snow, the outdoor street party was aided and abetted by the milder temperatures. It’s as if February and May swapped personalities this year. May is always a crapshoot. Can I get an “amen” from our Victoria Day long weekend campers? How many years has the Cloverdale Rodeo been a mud bowl? Fortunately, our long-term weather memory can be a bit sketchy. A couple of clear days here and there can make us quickly forget the rain.
This month is off to such a shaky start people have resurrected the “June-uary” moniker. Checking the long-range forecast, it appears we’re looking at some more than welcome sunshine for the next couple of weeks.
Living between coastal mountains and the sea means dealing with rainfall. If you’re unable to get out there and wallow in it, you’re not going to have much of a life around these parts. When the kids were small and reticent to leave the house if it was raining I’d pump them up with a little of the old Q&A.
“What’s the worst that can happen,” I asked?
“I dunno.”
“You’ll get wet!”
“That’s exactly the point, Daddy.”
“And when we’re wet, what can we do?”
“Uh, drip?”
“No, we can dry off. We’re not water-soluble.”
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yes…”
“What’s water-solububble?”
“It’s like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz,” I explained. “Now, go get your raincoats and boots, so we won’t melt on the way to the park. Just kidding! Can I get a ‘YAY’ in here?”
“yay.”
Here’s a helpful hint for getting a free umbrella. Walk into any bar, nightclub, restaurant, hair salon, retail outlet or public place anywhere in the greater Vancouver area and inquire at the front desk:
“I was in here the other day and left my umbrella. It’s a black, one.”
“Is this it?”
“You don’t have a Knirps back there, do you?”
Water-logged wet-coasters take heart. In a time of increased global warming, expanding desertification, longer and harsher droughts it’s good to be where the water is.
Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.
- Satchel Paige
June 05, 2010
On April 20th a disaster of monumental proportions developed when a blow-out rocked the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform situated about 64 km southeast of the Louisiana coastline. The undersea explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. Another 98 people managed to escape with minor injuries. Oil has been gushing into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico ever since. It is now considered the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.
Man walked on the Moon over 4 decades ago, but the best tech. minds British Petroleum can muster can’t seem to staunch the flow of oil from the stricken Deepwater Horizon. The crew of Apollo 11 wrapped up its lunar mission returning to Earth in a little over 8 days. As of this writing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is 45 days and counting. BP is one of the original “Seven Sisters” petroleum companies that dominated global oil before the development of OPEC. You’d think with the better part of a century in the oil business BP would be perfectly suited to resolve something like a leaking well. It is astonishing that BP had no contingency in place for such a situation.
Little Mrs. Nitwit from Wasilla puts the blame for this current ecological disaster on environmentalists. Isn’t she a hoot? She just keeps getting wackier. Through the looking glass in Palin World, because environmentalists demand tougher regulations for drilling operations onshore in places like, oh I dunno – ALASKA? – oil companies are left with no other choice but to drill deeper offshore. They don’t want to, but those damn environmentalists make them!
“Hey, we could be severely damaging Alaskan wilderness, but have it your way. We’ll wreck the Gulf Coast States instead.”
I first encountered sea-borne, tar balls on a Grand Bahama beach in the late 1970’s. There’s no way of knowing where the pesky little bastards had initially come from before being washed up with a bunch of kelp on what previously appeared to be pristine, white sand. Like a typical snowbird plunked into a setting right out of a Jimmy Buffet lyric I was blissfully schlepping along the beach mind befuddled by sun, palms and azure blue water. Who knows how long the refugees from a crude oil tanker had been bobbing about in the sea before making landfall outside Freeport. They remained undetected for a short time longer stuck to the bottom of my foot. When noticed the natural reaction was to remove them, which proved to be a challenge.
If you’ve only seen tar balls on television, let me tell you. Up close and personal those things are beyond sticky. They are nigh impossible to remove. Standing on a beach is like having access to miles of sandpaper. No amount of shuffling, scraping and/or vigourous rubbing with various degrees of grit and friction could get the tenacious black goo off the bottom of the foot. It had to wear off with time.
This brief encounter with ocean pollution got me to thinking. If this is how tough it is for one human to deal with a couple of tar balls on a foot, how horrible is it for our winged, shelled and finned friends when almost completely coated in the stuff?
Finally capping the leak off Louisiana is just the end of the beginning. Then comes the clean-up. The fall-out, political, legal, financial and environmental, will go on for quite some time. Mrs. Palin is right about one thing. The farther afield they must go to find the ever shrinking pockets of crude, the greater the risks, costs and the increased likelihood of mistakes and accidents. Brace yourselves for more disasters involving oil. It’s inevitable.
The world is clearly addicted to the black stuff. Well, the industrialized, G-whatevers part of it anyway. This kind of Jones makes crack look like child’s play. We’re never going to kick this habit until it’s all gone...every last drop.
I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I
hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
- Thomas Edison 1931
May 30, 2010
Did you catch the season finale of American Idol? It was a humdinger to be sure. Mega star power was in the house including all the previous Idol winners, a sexy-struttin’ Janet Jackson, Chicago, Alice Cooper appropriately declaring “School’s Out” and Joe Freakin’ Cocker still able to hit that amazing scream in “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and most recent winner of “Dancing With Death,” Bret Michaels was on hand to bang out a duet with Casey James on Poison’s “Every Rose Has its Thorn.” Michaels seems hell-bent on testing the maximum torsion strength of his sutures as he embarks on a one-man “Thank God I’m Alive, Are There Any More Interviews or Personal Appearances I Can Do Before My Body Finally Says Enough is Enough” Tour. I’m no neuro-surgeon, but one wonders if the altitude and pressure changes involved in frequent, flying is all that good for someone recovering from a cerebral hemorrhage? The guy must have some kind of constitution. Being diabetic since childhood doesn’t appear to have hampered his hedonistic rock star pursuits one iota. He was openly swilling champagne and wine to celebrate victories on Celebrity Apprentice. Isn’t booze a no-no for diabetics? A little over a month ago he was in an ICU listed in critical condition. With only a 10% – 20% chance of surviving a subarachnoid hemorrhage, Michaels said he’s “lucky to be alive.” No shit. He also had a stroke and while in hospital, doctors discovered a hole in his heart. And this guy is poised to hit the road for the summer with Lynyrd Skynyrd? Apparently his doctors didn’t know about the appearance on the American Idol finale until they saw it live on television like everyone else.
You can bet he hasn’t told them about Skynyrd either.
Admittedly, I’m an arms-length fan of American Idol. It’s fun keeping tabs on the competition, but I lack the true fan’s stamina to watch each and every episode. There’s no denying the kick you get out of those first few weeks of city-by-city auditions. From the hilarity of a William Hung she-bangin’ his way to far more than his allotted Warholian 15 minutes to the first time Fantasia Barrino opened her mouth and let loose. The television shook on its wall mount. My wife and I looked at each other and said in unison: “Finalist.” You didn’t have to be Clive Davis to realize you were witnessing a star’s being born.
Love or hate American Idol, you can’t ignore it. The program is one of those 800 pound cultural gorillas. Unless you’ve taken yourself completely off the print and electronic media grids it is impossible to avoid contact with the phenomenon that is the Idol franchise.
As to the controversy surrounding Ellen Degeneres’ credibility for being an Idol judge in the first place. Who better? Ellen appears to genuinely love music. The woman is constantly dancing. She’s got the music in her as the great Kiki Dee once chimed. So what if she’s not a professional singer, songwriter or producer. They’ve already got that angle more than covered with Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi. Call Ellen an educated consumer. The whole Idol deal swings on a public component. Ultimately, it is a popular fan vote that determines each new American Idol. Ellen has come to represent the non-professional musical element on the judging panel. Hence she is the fans’ ombudsperson in the Gang of Four. She is also a gifted, seasoned performer in her own right who understands the universal qualities of stage presence, stage craft and the ability to connect with an audience. These are all skills any entertainer, whether an idol, or a journeyman player will need in pursuit of a career. Ellen is about to pick up some hands-on experience by launching her own record label, eleveneleven. The first signing is 12-year old YouTube sensation Greyson Chance.
It was bad enough that Ellen got taken to task for a lack of musical cred. Then along comes this boil on the blogosphere, Gary McCullough, who claims via the “Christian Newswire” that American Idol’s recent decline in audience ratings is due to Ms. DeGeneres’ homosexuality. Yup, it’s the 5:15 to Crazy Town leaving on track 12 and conductor Gary McCullough is hollerin’ “All Aboard!”
Why do these asswipes
continually want to make their sorry points by getting down and wallowing in the ugly? Here’s the kind of crapola this so-called arbiter of better values employs to get a rise out of the rubes: “Perhaps next,” wrote McCullough “we will see the pro-pedophilia group NAMBLA use its influence in Hollywood to have ‘Dancing With the Stars’ seat Roman Polanski as a judge.” Say what!? Somewhere in a parallel universe Mr. Spock’s eyebrow has just ripped free of its moorings. Where’s the logical connection in that leap of farce? What kind of sick mind comes up with this stuff?
What is the big fear people like Gary McCullough are fanning up? Why should Ellen’s personal life have anything to do with American Idol? Does McCullough think someone sitting at home watching American Idol can somehow catch gayness over the airwaves? If, as this nitwit asserts, Ellen’s very presence on a popular television broadcast is capable of somehow making, what we have to presume is highly impressionable women opt for, according to McCullough an “alternate lifestyle,” how come she doesn’t turn these same vulnerable women into stand-up comics, too? The good Lord knows we can all use more laughs these days, not the least of whom are tight-arse, hate-mongers like Gary McCullough. Was predecessor Paula Abdul subtly promoting a heterosexual lifestyle when she was swaying and gyrating along with favourite Idol performances?
The big challenge for American Idol heading into the future has nothing to do with Ellen’s allegedly poisoning the ratings well, but rather who are they going to get to replace Simon Cowell? There’s your ratings plunge. Can the show even survive without Cowell? The man fans love to hate is clearly the star of the show. Agree or not with Cowell’s pronouncements know that he speaks the brutal truth and is never wrong when it comes to assessing musical artists. Cowell brings to mind the Monty Python created East London gangster Dinsdale Piranha. “He was a cruel man, but fair.” Cowell is an A&R man extraordinaire. That’s Artists & Repertoire, the talent scouts of the recording industry. Anyone with the ability to seek out and sign the “next big thing” in popular music has the chance to get stinkin’ rich like Simon Cowell. Everyone has personal taste and opinion. Most can recognize a good performance. Cowell has the vision and ability to turn talent into vast amounts of money. The producers of American Idol need to find someone with similar skills, intuition and “ears.”
Good luck with that.
May 22, 2010
I was at my customary ready station on the Starship Couchpotato absent-mindedly going around the horn with the TV remote. Breezing past CNN there was a familiar/unfamiliar face. A familiar face to countless, millions around the world but not all that familiar on CNN. It was Mick Jagger on Larry King Live. What the heck is Sir Mick doing chatting with Larry? It turns out the “what the heck” is a re-issue of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 classic double album, Exile on Main Street. Mick was stumpin’. Over on Sirius satellite radio, producer Don Was interviewed Keith Richards for Little Steven’s Underground Garage. There was something Stonesy every night this past week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. This launch was definitely getting the full-court press.
The Stones are marketing maestros. Well, Mick is for sure. In the band’s nascent days while Brian Jones and Keith Richards spent hour upon hour in a grotty flat listening to old blues masters, then trying to duplicate the sounds on their own guitars, Mick Jagger continued dutifully taking classes at the London School of Economics. If this pop group lark didn’t work out, a serious-minded, young man had to think about future employment. That time spent at L.S.E. no doubt helped Sir Mick build the Stones brand.
Admittedly, this one snuck up on me. I don’t treat the album like an historical document or museum piece because it never went away. Chez nous, much of the album is still in current rotation, as we used to say in the radio business.
Exile on Main Street could have constituted an entire career for some artists, but the Stones? It was a worthy milestone on a rock & roll road paved with them. This Stones’ purist tends to lean towards the song-cycle of Beggars Banquet/Let It Bleed. But with a career spanning the better part of 5 decades and counting there are a lot of favourites to choose from: 29 studio albums, 10 live albums, 30 compilations, 3 EP’s, 4 boxed sets and 92 singles. What a body of work; what a legacy.
There are 5 different versions in this re-issue: The original album re-mastered on CD. The original album re-mastered on vinyl, which Amazon is selling for $33.23. Who wasn’t thinking on this one? Jacking the price up by one thin dime totals out at $33.33 - like 33 and a third rpm. Get it? The deluxe 2 CD collection comes with 10 bonus tracks, or you can opt for a “rarities” disc of the bonus cuts to complement your existing CD copy. The true Stones-a-phile might want to step up to the super deluxe edition including the re-mastered CD, a disc of out-takes, the re-mastered vinyl album, a 30-minute DVD on the making of Exile plus “lost” and vintage footage of the Stones live on stage and a 50-page hardcover book
Seeing some of the documentary footage from the making of Exile, Keith Richards didn’t remember there being a movie shot at the time.
“Did you see any cameras around,” Keef recalled asking Charlie Watts?
Recording devices of every kind have surrounded and followed the Rolling Stones since the 1960’s. Being photographed was as common for them as breathing. When the band de-camped for tax exile in the south of France Keith was heavily addicted to heroin. Marseilles is in the south of France. Did you see Billy Friedkin’s The French Connection? Never mind motion picture cameras. Keith might not have noticed a full dress rehearsal of Showboat in his backyard pool.
As great a recording as Exile on Main Street was, and still is, the “Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World” didn’t dominate the charts in ’72. That year saw a bumper crop of stellar releases including: All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople, Black Sabbath’s 4th, Hot Tuna’s Burgers, Santana’s wonderfully ethereal Caravansarai, George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh live fundraiser, The Allman Brothers’ Eat a Peach and the Duane Allman Anthology, Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses, Rick Nelson’s Garden Party, two from Neil Young - Harvest and Journey Through the Past, Tim Buckley’s Greetings from L.A., Elton John’s Honky Chateau, Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson, Deep Purple’s Machine Head and Made in Japan. Smoke on the Water and a pounding live version of Highway Star…are you kidding me!? The 8-track in my Volkswagen bug had to be strapped down with extra bungee cords to keep it from bouncing out of the dash when playing those two.
Deep Purple weren’t the only ones releasing a Japanese live set that year. So was Chicago and Weather Report, which also put out I Sing the Body Electric. We got taken to school by Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s A Meeting of the Times, Sun Ra’s Space is the Place, Return to Forever’s self-titled debut and Light as a Feather, Skies of America from Ornette Coleman, On the Corner by Miles Davis and Charles Mingus’ Let My Children Hear Music.
We the childrens were hearing a lot of fantastic music, thank you very much Mr. Mingus. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by Bowie. Roadwork by Edgar Winter’s White Trash with Rick Derringer – one of the best live albums ever! Little Feat’s Sailin’ Shoes, Randy Newman’s Sail Away, Seals and Crofts’ Summerbreeze, Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything, Sometime in New York City from John Lennon, Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack for Superfly, Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, Lou Reed’s Transformer, Aretha Franklin’s Young, Gifted and Black, Bob Seger’s Smokin’ O,P.’s, the Moody Blues Seventh Sojourn, Bonnie Raitt’s Give it Up, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s monumental, 3-disc, Library of Congress worthy set, Will the Circle be Unbroken and hard-core, George Clinton funk with Funkadelic’s America Eats Its Young.
For the cognoscenti - how about the reclusive Nick Drake’s Pink Moon? There was the bombast of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Trilogy and Pictures at an Exhibition. Procol Harum made the trek to northern Alberta for its live collaboration with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Who doesn’t know the oft played FM staple, Conquistador?
Rod Stewart was solo with Never a Dull Moment and he and Ron Wood hooked up with guitar slinger Jeff Beck for The Jeff Beck Group. ZZ Top first popped up on the radar mired in Rio Grande Mud. Also delivering initial public offerings that year were: Jackson Brown, Loggins & Messina, Roxy Music, Steely Dan, Blue Oyster Cult, the Divine Miss ‘M’, Bette Midler and the Eagles. Two from Tull – Living in the Past and Thick As a Brick. Deadheads feasted on The Dead’s live set, Europe ’72 plus solo albums from both Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, the genius of Frank Zappa gave us the Mothers, Just Another Band from L.A., Waka Jawaka and the Grand Wazoo.
The Founding Fathers were still very active showing the new kids how it’s supposed to be done. The immortal Chuck Berry went into the Stones’ backyard delivering a rock & roll tutorial, The London Chuck Berry Sessions. As, George Thorogood says: “when you’re out of Chuck, you’re out of luck.” Jerry Lee Lewis offered The Killer Rocks On, Bo Diddley dropped Got My Own Bag of Tricks and Where it All Began, while the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown demonstrated why he was the “hardest working man in show business” with Get On the Good Foot and There It Is.
Even the “King of Rock & Roll” wasn’t resting on his throne in Graceland. Elvis cranked out no less than four albums in ‘72: Elvis Now, Elvis: As Recorded Live at Madison Square Garden, Burning Love and the gospel set, He Touched Me.
The Man in Black, Johnny Cash, gave the King a run for his money releasing three: A Thing Called Love, America: A 200 Year Salute in Story and Song, and Sunday Morning Coming Down.
It was a heckuva year. I fell in and out of love with two fabulous women that year. In between I got to see the Rolling Stones live for the first time as they toured in support of Exile. Tenth row floor seats in Maple Leaf Gardens! The seats were redundant as nobody in the venerable old hockey rink sat down for a second.
The thing about classic music is that it never really goes out of style. Exile on Main Street sounds as good now as it did 38 years ago. The individual Stones are all well into their ‘60’s, but they only show it on their faces. Not on stage. It is as vital a rock & roll band as it has ever been.
Well, I met a little girl
In a country town
She said, “what do you know
There’s Slim Harpo!”
- Hip Shake
Jagger/Richards
May 15, 2010
There are rock fans. And then there are Joe Walsh fans. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but the Joe Walsh fan is just a wee bit more out there, youknowhatimean? Kind of like the man himself. It’s not that his music is eclectic or unaccessible appealing only to a small, ultra-specific audience. On the contrary, Joe Walsh has found success both solo and in groups. His personal popularity has not waned. The oddball personality, strange voice, off-the-wall songwriting and unique, chunky guitar style put him in a league of his own.
To give you an idea of the Walsh personality, he was a guest on Late Night with David Letterman a short time after a good-sized earthquake rocked Los Angeles. Letterman asked Walsh, who had been in L.A. at the time, about the quake.
“I wasn’t sure if it was an earthquake,” said Walsh “or if it was just me.”
Mr. Walsh blew through Vancouver this past week with his back-up band, the Eagles. It’s a combo of some reknown, with or without Joe Walsh. But anybody who’s anybody who knows anything about music, including Don Henley and Glen Frey, themselves know that the Eagles are better with Joe Walsh.
Walsh showed up on the pop radar screen some decades back fronting the James Gang out of Cleveland, Ohio. The hard-rocking trio was very popular across Lake Erie in southern Ontario. After leaving the group, Walsh was effectively a solo act touring under a group moniker, Barnstorm. The band headlined Toronto’s venerable Massey Hall one Halloween night a long time ago. It was not uncommon for the acoustically superb Massey Hall to have the Toronto Symphony Orchestra rehearsing on its stage in the afternoon and Aerosmith pounding those same boards later that night.
The 1970’s was underscored by the finest of sounds. It may not have been the golden age of popular rock music, but it was most definitely a golden age. Besides the usual big names that have stood the ravages of time and memory, as well as those that pop up on late-night, Greatest Hits CD info-mercials:
“Ride Captain Ride,” by Blues Image…Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain,”…”China Grove” – the Doobies!!”
…one could also feast on the likes of Jean-Luc Ponty, Gentle Giant, Hawkwind, Weather Report with Wayne Shorter and the unbelievable bass playing of the late, Jaco Pastorius, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and the ubiquitous Grateful Dead. The touring road was alive with the most fantastic acts, criss-crossing North America performing jaw-dropping, mind-blowing music every night of the week for years on end.
Prior to the Joe Walsh show crowds were milling on Shuter Street in front of Massey Hall. A blood-curdling howl of a voice could be heard repeatedly screaming “Joe Walsh!” The sound was coming from around the corner on Yonge Street and getting increasingly louder as our avid concert-goer made his way south on Toronto’s main drag to the intersection at Shuter. This clown was more than a few sheets to the wind.
The local radio DJ du jour, Big Tom Fulton from CKFH, was dragged out to act as MC. The atmosphere in the hall was electric. It was positively crackling with excitement.
“Please welcome,” intoned Fulton “Don McLean.”
It was like a hull breach on Star Trek. All the air was sucked out of the room. There was momentary silence as a lone figure with an acoustic guitar strode out to centre stage. If the Amazing Kreskin had been in attendance his mind would have read a resounding, “what the hell?” from the collective thoughts of the 2700, or so in the sold-out stands. The murmuring and booing quickly followed.
Whose idea of a cruel joke was this? Had this guy been screwing his booking agent’s wife? It was a tough enough challenge for any act opening up for Joe Walsh, but one poor schmo with a flat-top box? At least a band could have cranked up the volume to drown out the boos. McLean was like a Christian being thrown to the lions in ancient Rome. He should have been playing the Riverboat in Yorkville Village, not totally mis-matched with a hard-rock outfit. At Woodstock, stage manager Chip Monck didn’t throw John Sebastian out there in front of the Who!
At one point in his brief set, McLean attempted to not only teach the audience some lyrics but actually tried to get the increasingly agitated mob to actually sing along. The song he wanted audience accompaniment on was “American Pie.” The track topped the charts for 4 straight weeks in 1972. The Massey Hall gig, however, was October 31, 1971. While the song would garner enough exposure and airplay to drive most of us nuts, nobody had yet heard of Don McLean or his epic song about the “day the music died.” McLean might have been more concerned with his career’s dying right then and there as he soldiered on against mounting hostility.
That guy who had been invoking Joe’s name like some rock & roll rallying cry was by this time draped over the row in front passed out in his own hurl, which due to the rake of the theatre was slowly oozing its way towards the lower orchestra seats. Charming, yes? But in the guy’s defense, with the concert’s falling directly on Halloween the confluence just naturally called for the celebratory bar’s being set that much higher. The party posture was ratcheted up a couple of notches and several drinks. This fella’s biggest sin was in not timing his drunk properly. I remember thinking: “when the late-arrivals holding the tickets on those seats get here, boy are they gonna get a soggy surprise.”
The booing, cat-calling, foul language and general bad manners ultimately drove poor, Don McLean from the stage with a parting:
“And fuck you, too!”
Atta boy, Donnie!
There’s no way of knowing if he got back in his Chevy and drove off in a huff looking for that levee because the rest of us only had eyes and ears for Joe Walsh.
Meanwhile, up in the canyons around Los Angeles, the laid-back, soft-rock, California, peaceful, easy sound while not invented by the Eagles is nevertheless being perfected by them. The Eagles would come to typify and dominate popular music in the 1970’s. The band’s Greatest Hits 1971-1975 package and Hotel California were among the top 20 best selling albums of the 20th Century. In 1976 at the height of their power and influence the Eagles didn’t need anything, yet they still asked Joe Walsh to join the band. Messrs. Frey, Henley and Schmidt are no instrumental slouches in their own right, but the addition of Joe Walsh turned them into a bona fide and very formidable rock & roll band. For fun, play the tracks “Take it Easy” back-to-back with “Get Over It” if you want a perfect example of the Eagles without and with Walsh.
During hiatus from his day job doing audio on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, from time-to-time, my baby brother Neil plays drums with Devo. Neil used to play with guitarist Johnny “Harp” Hormel. John’s late father, Geordie was a gifted musician and innovator who also owned the Village Recording Studios in West L.A. Mr. Hormel Sr. was a close friend of Joe Walsh. When Johnny was young and announced that he wanted to take up the guitar, it was Joe Walsh who gave him his first axe. Joe being Joe, he didn’t just walk up and hand Johnny an electric guitar. He waited until the youngster had fallen asleep, then crept into the room and slid the guitar into bed with the boy. Joe Walsh then sat down in a chair and waited ’til morning when Johnny woke up. He wanted to see the look on his face.
I like watching Walsh’s face in concert. He pulls the best guitar faces in the business. Every big chord, fast fill and bent string has an equally entertaining expression to go with it. The facial contorting clearly contributes to the execution. As my Dad used to say about tackling a particularly perplexing design, drafting or model-making challenge: “it’s all in the way you hold your mouth.”
From the stage at General Motors Place Glen Frey named the more than half-dozen sidemen fleshing out the band. Frey threw it to bassist Timothy B. Schmidt. Schmidt officially introduced Frey who then intro’d Don Henley. The group’s C.E.O. acknowledged the cheers of the crowd and then announced: “on lead guitar – Joe Walsh.” The place erupted. There was, is and always will be some massive egos in and around the Eagles. But within the Eagles itself, even Don Henley considers Joe Walsh the headliner.
Life’s been good to me so far.
- Joe Walsh
May 8, 2010
Those who stopped by the Boom Room recently found this astro-nut going off on a recent viewing of the 1951 sci-fi movie classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, where a benevolent, but stern, alien emissary visits Earth to deliver a warning. Science fiction got together with science fact last week when no less an august personage than Stephen Hawking weighed in on the topic of extra-terrestrial life. Arguably the most famous physicist on the planet, when Dr. Hawking speaks you gotta take notice.
If, “why are we here” is the number one cosmic question, a close second has to be, “are we alone?” Extra-terrestrial life-forms and human interaction with them is the essence of all sci-fi.
Where would Captain James Tiberius Kirk have been without all those hot, alien babes to woo across time and space?
There’s an old saying in comedy – buy the premise, buy the bit. If we’re to buy that extra-terrestrials are capable of visiting Earth, or as many believe, have already done so, then we have to accept that these beings will be superior to us. The mere fact that they managed to get here is testimony. In the end, that’s always the bugaboo about space exploration. How the hell are you gonna travel light years? Never mind all the time, energy and resources devoted to finding better potions to treat erectile dysfunction, let’s get those scientific minds focused on inventing warp drive or finding out how to “fold space” like a third stage Guild Navigator.
If aliens have the technological capability to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space, what other stuff do they have? There’s no guarantee that any off-world travelers are necessarily going to be nice. Look at how some of us behave in other countries when on vacation. Aliens could just as easily be boors, bad tippers, or much, much worse. We all hope the first beings from space to make themselves known to us will be of the Klaatu, or E.T. the Extra-terrestrial variety and not the reptilian Visitors of “V” who look upon us as a source of protein. This brings to mind the classic Twilight Zone episode: To Serve Man. In this story the alien visitors have presented Earth with a mysterious book written in a complex language.
Entitled, To Serve Man, it is thought to be some vital, life-altering information from an advanced culture. While linguistics and cipher experts labour to crack the code, the aliens invite lots of people to join them on a free trip to their planet. As the last of the human sight-seers board the spaceship the agitated, code-breakers come rushing out onto the tarmac.
“Stop, stop,” they cry. “To Serve Man” is a cookbook!!”
With that the alien flight attendant shoves the last of the bewildered cargo aboard and locks the door as the craft lifts off.
Even if they’re not planning on featuring us as the main dish in some alien luau, Hawking compares extra-terrestrials’ visiting Earth to Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” and its impact on the native peoples of the so-called “New World.” And we all know how that worked out for our indigenous brothers and sisters. How do you say “smallpox blankets” in Klingon?
Hawking warns that more than likely aliens aren’t going to look like Marilyn Monroe. He feels that we might discover some primitive life, but doesn’t think any intelligent species are within 100 light years of us, or we would have picked up their radio signals. He believes they will contact us first.
“If they are looking, they will already have detected us.”
Should they be monitoring pay-per-view en route and happen to catch any of the Saw series, they’ll probably make an abrupt U-turn and head home.
Actor-writer-comedian Dan Aykroyd was talking E.T.’s with CNN’s Larry King. The former Blues Brother, Ghostbuster and founding father of Saturday Night Live is a well-known believer.
“I don’t think we will ever have a formal relationship, a formal contact, with any alien species out there,” said Aykroyd. “Especially after 9-11 when we broke our toys in the sandbox. If they were observing that, goodbye human race.”
Aliens haven’t contacted us yet, except maybe in the state of Arizona.
- Stephen Hawking
May 1, 2010
The latest tatter in the social fabric of our American cousins seems to be this story of the Russian orphan who has been unceremoniously sent back to his country of origin as “damaged goods.”
Can I get a collective “OUCH” over here? How harsh is this?
In a letter, the adoptive mother, Torrey Hansen, wrote: “I’m sorry to say that I no longer want to parent this child.”
Hansen claimed she was lied to by orphanage officials in Russia concerning the child’s psychological problems. He reportedly lashed out violently at family members and threatened to burn the house down with them in it. He went so far as to draw a picture of the house on fire. Fearing for the safety of the family, the Hansens took drastic action.
The adoptive grandmother, Nancy Hansen, flew with the child, Artyom Savelyev from the family’s home in Tennessee to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. where she put the 7-year old on a one-way flight to Russia alone with no luggage and a note pinned to his clothing. He was to be “delivered” like a Fed-Ex package to the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. Again, how harsh is this? Even condemned prisoners get an escort!
As parents who raised a difficult child, my wife and I looked at each other and said in unison: “Who knew this was an option?”
Hey, we kid because we love, you know what I mean? In reality, we lived in Kitsilano when the children were born at V.G.H. It’s not like you could send them packin’ half a world away. To return them to their place of origin was only 27 blocks. As soon as they learned to walk, it was all over. Their legs might have been short, but they wouldn’t have required a G.P.S. unit to find their way home.
“There are two irate, little kids at the door honey. You wanna take this?”
Most everyone knows that making babies is one of the easiest things in the world to do. That’s why there are more than 6 billion of us and counting. While the begattin’ is easy, the raising is something else entirely. A few minutes of carnal knowledge leads to a lifetime commitment. Obviously, not everyone is capable of pulling off this thing called parenthood. But if you feel the need to adopt, why not seek out a child in your own back yard? What is it that compels people to travel to far flung corners of the globe to find a kid? Not everyone can be Angelina Jolie, m’kay? She’s a multi-millionaire movie star and does her own stunts.
Many years ago when our kids were small some friends took a shot at fostering. This couple had children of their own and hearts with enough love to share. Unfortunately their first foster kid was a troubled teenager. It was a nightmare. They experienced some of the same fright cited by the Hansens of Shelbyville, Tennessee…angry, anti-social behaviour, threats of violence and terrorizing the family, especially the children who were quite young and vulnerable.
This isn’t an indictment against fostering. After raising her own kids, my great aunt was a fantastic foster mother of some renown in Toronto where she was a go-to gal for the Catholic Children’s Aid Society. Auntie Minnie specialized in infants and would take her little charges three at a time loving and caring for them until the Aid found permanent adoptive families. We all loved those babies and marveled at Auntie Minnie’s stamina and organization. The babies were always spotless and dressed in wonderful, matching, pastel outfits lovingly made by Auntie Minnie who was to crochet what Bruce Lee was to kung fu. Working a humbug or a fruit pastille in her mouth, her hands were a blur. Balls of yarn disappeared before your eyes and then presto - sweater, booties and Auntie Minnie’s trademark “loopy” bonnet. It wasn’t named that because the bonnet was nutty or asymmetric, but rather because it was covered in tight, little loops.
What a difference a day makes in the era of the 24-hour news cycle. This is a fascinating story. But what’s even more interesting is how quickly something like this gets shuffled to the sidelines in the cloud of dust stirred up by the media whirlwind as it moves along. No sooner has a particular story or item caught one’s attention when bang, Lindsay Lohan’s father shows up at the front door of his estranged daughter’s house with the L.A.P.D. in tow and the public’s collective A.D.D. is going, “Russian orphan? What Russian orphan?”
Russians were outraged by the way young Artyom Savelyev was handled. In the wake of this scandal, new talks are slated between Russia and the United States to hammer out stricter guidelines for adoptions between the two countries.
April 24, 2010
AMC spooled up The Day the Earth Stood Still recently. The 1951 film directed by Robert Wise richly deserves to be called an American Movie Classic. Science Fiction was a popular film genre of the ‘50’s, but much of it was low-budget, shot quickly and destined for the B-movie circuit. Like its famous robot, Gort, The Day the Earth Stood Still stands head and shoulders above the standard sci-fi output of the time. It was never intended as a kid-focused, matinee or drive-in throwaway, but rather a serious dramatic piece with a message. It boasted a talented cast, including Michael Rennie as Klaatu, the amazing Sam Jaffe as scientist, Dr. Barnhardt, Academy Award winner Patricia Neal and the immortal Frances Bavier, Mayberry’s lovable Aunt Bee Taylor from the Andy Griffith Show.
The old, black & white film stock looks strangely exotic up against contemporary, state-of-the-art, digital photography and those miraculous CGI effects. The Day the Earth Stood Still was lit to produce lots of long, deep, spooky shadows. The soundtrack features that stalwart, ambient mood-setter of the era, the Theremin. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the device that made the loopy sounds in the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” Ever the sonic innovator, Brian Wilson was the first to apply the odd, electronic instrument to a pop song. All those sci-fi movies we watched as kids would not have been the same without the “oo-eeeee-oo-ee” of a Theremin. For the curious, BC’s Knowledge Network offers a terrific documentary, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey. As weird and mysterious as a Theremin sounds, it has nothing on the actual life story of its creator, Russian-born scientist Leon Theremin. As of this writing the Knowledge Network does not offer the program on-line, but check your local listings for re-runs.
An oft-repeated theme in science fiction is the Robert A. Heinlein concept of the “Stranger in a Strange Land.” While the “Spaceman” Klaatu is most definitely a stranger on a strange world, he didn’t travel all that way across space on some intergalactic, socio-anthropological field trip. He has not been sent to find out what makes us tick. He has come to deliver a warning, or better yet, an ultimatum. Through advanced monitoring of life on Earth the civilized worlds he represents know all too well what makes us tick and they don’t like what they see developing. The proliferation of atomic weapons of mass destruction coupled with the nascent space program creates off-world concern that mankind is about to gain the capability of taking its insanity to the stars. In this scenario the alien cultures have transcended war. They have no armed forces and no weapons. The other sentient species had no trouble as long as Earth kept its bloodlust and mass killing on terra firma, but the slightest chance that it might get exported to other planets was intolerable. Klaatu point blank tells Earth authorities that he, or rather Gort is capable of “leveling New York City, or sinking Gibraltar” to make a point. If they don’t get the message, the entire planet will be eliminated. How do you spell “extinction?”
Michael Rennie’s Klaatu doesn’t register the slightest irony in threatening total mass destruction of Earth in pursuit of lasting galactic peace. We’ve all lived with this irony since the dawn of the atomic age. The only way to keep the peace is to constantly prepare for and threaten nuclear war. They even came up with a clever moniker to describe it: M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction. The name is apropos. Sane people don’t “tickle the dragon’s tail.” As our Brit cousins would say, we are all absolutely “barking mad” to have those weapons poised, armed, targeted and hanging over our heads.
Much of the science-fiction produced in the mid-20th Century was allegorical. More often than not, the aliens from outer space were metaphors for the perceived, real enemy at home – the Soviet Union. One could make the argument that science fiction helped fan the flames of paranoia associated with the 1950’s. Keeping the fear up drove national security thinking in the years immediately following World War II…and still does. At the end of The Thing from Another World, another sci-fi gem also released in 1951, character Ned “Scotty” Scott hysterically cautions everyone to “keep watching the skies!” Yes, indeed Scotty. Keep watching the skies in case those pesky Russians try to sneak up on us over the North Pole. It’s no coincidence The Thing from Another World takes place in the high arctic.
1950’s paranoia wasn’t strictly reserved for the Russians. There was the potential “enemy within” – us, the Baby Boom Generation…a homegrown 5th Column. Child actor Billy Gray plays Bobby, who befriends the mysterious visitor Klaatu. Boomers of a certain age will remember Gray as Bud Anderson in the iconic, family sit-com Father Knows Best. Open, bright and inquisitive Bobby is the quintessential, Boomer kid. His easy acceptance of “the man who fell to earth” causes concern for his Mom, Patricia Neal, and the other adults. Authority figures of the time were mindful of easily corruptible youth. He’s making friends with some guy from outer space. What’s next…rock & roll!? The subtext is clear. What if the smooth-talking stranger is not a benign space visitor, but a communist agent polluting young minds with his pinko propaganda and trying to get them to hand over the keys to the Hoover Dam? It had nothing to do with communism some 15 or so years later when our parents’ worst fears would be realized as we encountered a group of strangers from the Palo Alto quadrant calling itself the Grateful Dead. And before you could say “Aoxomoxoa,” we were gone leaving behind strange burn holes in the carpeting and a faint whiff of patchouli.
Towards the end of the film a contingent of the world’s top politicians and scientists gather in front of the spaceship for an audience with Klaatu. Before departure the emissary promises that earth will be “burned to a cinder” if it fails to heed the warning he was sent to deliver. In a parting shot to the primitive nature of man, as the alien craft starts up the assembled leadership of the world flies into a panic not unlike household pets when the vacuum cleaner is switched on. They’re running willy-nilly, screaming, hollering and knocking over chairs in a blind panic attempt to get away from the scary noise. For all the nuclear energy, jet aircraft and other trappings of a so-called “advanced” technological society, when put up against a REALLY advanced culture, film makers like to drive home the point that man is not that far removed from the lower mammals.
I joined the Baby Boom the same year The Day the Earth Stood Still was released. Naturally, I didn’t see the picture in theatrical release but rather years later on late night television with the lights turned off for enhanced spookiness. Over the decades and multiple viewings it continues to connect. The central theme of nuclear disarmament resonates a little stronger of late with President Barack Obama’s re-opening the international dialogue on curbing and controlling further proliferation of atomic weapons.
Can you believe that ditz Sarah Palin and her extended coterie of tea-baggers, neo-cons and right-wing dingbats are actually against this? Even their guy, Ronald Reagan worked for strategic arms limitations.
These WMD’s will never be gone in our Boomer lifetimes, if ever. As far back in pre-history when, for whatever reason, Grog decided to smack his buddy Og upside his Cro-Magnon head with a rock, mankind has been constantly striving for better and better ways to blow itself to hell. Is it any wonder another central theme in much science fiction is the quest for a hero to save us from the million pound shit-hammer of the gods? A chosen one - a Neo, Luke Skywalker, Lt. Ripley, Muad’Dib...a Messiah.
Long live the fighters!
- Fremen Battle Cry
April 17, 2010
Do you believe the unmitigated manure being shoveled up by the Catholic Church? Caught in the midst of a heinous, sex abuse scandal and massive cover-up, the Vatican embarks on a bold public relations strategy. Does it involve admission of guilt, responsibility or, dare I say it, justice and restitution? No. It seems the Church of Rome has decided to forgive the Beatles.
Say, wha’?
Rampant hordes of pedophile priests have been systematically buggering little kids for decades and your response is to invoke the name of arguably the most cherished popular music group of all time? What do the Beatles have to do with any of this? You don’t have to be Kreskin to figure out what’s going on here. It’s bullshit and bafflegab 101, kids. The best defense is an absurd and completely unrelated offense. It seems the plan was to get the media mind on the Beatles and off the booty.
The Catholic Church was way out of touch when it condemned the Beatles back in the 1960’s. It was ridiculous 50 years ago and it’s pathetic now. Our beloved Fabs have been broken up since 1970. Who the hell are you to be forgiving anybody, let alone a quartet of pop musicians? Better you should be begging forgiveness from everyone on the face of the planet regardless of creed. Start slowly if you must. Apologize to the two surviving Beatles for dragging their good names into proximity with this muck. If Ringo and Sir Paul can cut you some slack, it might help you a little with the rest of us. Then get cracking on all those victims, the poor souls whose lives you’ve ruined.
Shame on you, your Holiness. Shame on your cardinals, bishops and every other hierarchical level of your Church. By all that is holy, your whole evil empire should be shut down, boarded up and sold off piecemeal by Sotheby’s to pay compensation to the thousands and thousands of those who were sexually, physically and mentally abused. The Church is supposed to protect the innocent not harbour criminals and sexual deviants.
Here’s the toughest part to fathom. Pope Benedict heads the original Christian Church. I can’t see him rising to the top gig in the organization without a fundamental grasp of its doctrines and beliefs. While able to trace his position on a direct line back to St. Peter himself, the Pope still has Someone over his head who he answers to. Benedict of all people has to know that unrepentant sinners eventually pick up the inevitable tab for the piper. A day of reckoning is coming. Jesus is not happy.
Don’t be thinking the white suit, funny hat and car you can drive around in standing up is going to buy you squat when that “roll is called up yonder.” You do realize you’re all going to burn, don’t you? Do you think the Lord is going to let this one slide? The Crusades, the Inquisition …maybe you can chalk those up to youthful exuberance and growing pains associated with the development of a new theology. But this amounts to institutionalized child abuse by an organization calling itself “the Mother Church.” Some mother, huh? Aren’t mothers supposed to look out for their children?
Make no mistake. Judgement Day is a bitch. It’s the Lake of Fire for all you clowns.
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope, do you think he’s a fool?
- Black Sabbath
“After Forever”
Lyrics: Terry “Geezer” Butler
April 10, 2010
“Oh, I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused” sang Canadian-in-law, Elvis Costello delivering a great line from “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.” The song springs to mind with respect to Tiger Woods. When the scandal broke there was initial amusement but now disgust has definitely taken hold. Talk about familiarity’s breeding contempt, huh? While attaining almost god-like status on the links, off the course he comes across as a total twerp.
Have you seen Tiger’s controversial, Nike commercial? In a deadpan, silent, close-up shot, there he stands with an expression that has to be the antithesis of the “shit-eating grin.” What is that puss on his face? Penitence? Is he trying for contrition? It’s more like constipation. He looks as though he’s trying to pass a square stool. Meanwhile on the voice-over is Tiger’s late father obviously recorded for something else and now completely out of context. It gives the impression that dear old dead dad is somehow chastising his son from beyond the grave.
“I want to find out what your thinking was,” intones Mr. Woods Sr. “I want to find out what your feelings are and did you learn anything.”
Sounds like he’s talking to Tiger about the sex scandal, doesn’t it? Earl Woods passed away four years ago after a long battle with prostate cancer. Whether he knew about his son’s extra-marital activities before he died, rest assured that the “pep talk” in the commercial has nothing to do with Tiger’s Skankfest. And this humiliation is designed to sell sneakers and golf shoes. Are you kidding? Who isn’t creeped out by this? Disgraceful is only the first of many words that spring to mind.
What part of “honour thy father” don’t you understand, golf meister? Seriously! Your Dad, along with your Mom gave you the gift of life. Dad taught you to play the game and in doing so gave you the keys to the freakin’ kingdom. That should be more than enough for anyone, but do you let Pop rest in peace? Nah, you drag the poor guy from his eternal rest to shill for you on a television commercial. All this because you went off the rails getting in touch with your inner Wilt Chamberlain and couldn’t keep it in your pants. One can only speculate on the kind of advice you’re getting? Is this the kind of direction you paid former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer for?
How about that media conference down in Augusta? Can you say, “tedious”? Did we really expect Tiger to be glib? While brilliant on the links, he has never been much of a talker. That didn’t stop him trying to spin this cluster-you-know-what, playing parry and thrust with a bunch of numb-nut sports journalists who weren’t there for anything remotely approaching an athletic or golf angle. They were after what Joe Jackson referred to in his song “Sunday Papers” as “the stains on the mattress.” Check it out. That’s two – count ‘em, 2 – New Wave lyric references in the same piece. If I can manage to drop in a Graham Parker quote it nails the Men Without Hat Trick!
Dave Chappelle does a killer Tiger Woods. Please Dave, come back and give us an hour on Tiger’s trials and tribulations. We miss you.
Tiger Woods is seeking redemption the only way he knows how by making that dimpled ball bend to his will. Golf is what got him everything, including all that temptation he was unable to resist. We know this crap gets exaggerated and all, but with the number of women coming forward admitting to having affairs with El Tigre, one has to speculate on when our boy found time to actually play a round? The media and public aren’t allowed on the field of play. Out on the course might be the only place he can hide these days. Whatever legacy Tiger Woods leaves behind, however, is being seriously damaged day-by-day with each put-up sham of a press conference and continued airings of that ridiculous Nike spot.
Shut up and play golf, Tiger. You’re not helping yourself.
Give me the fresh air, a beautiful partner and
a nice round of golf and you can keep the
fresh air and the round of golf.
- Jack Benny
See TIGER WOOD'S controversial NIKE ad. (CLICK HERE)
March 27, 2010
After more than a year of tough slogging, President Barack Obama has managed to get his Health Care reform through the U.S. Congress. Other than those of us who find the world of American politics wildly entertaining, a lot of Canadians simply got bored with it all.
“Are we there, yet?”
“Wake me up when they finally get around to passing this thing, will ya?”
This was playing like a bad, made-for-TV movie, or better yet, a seemingly never-ending mini-series - some kind of “Rich Man, Poor Man” from Hell. Casually “going around the horn” with the remote over the past year, or so often brought up politicians and panels of pundits wrestling with the issue.
With what is referred to as an “historic vote” last Sunday, the US House of Representatives passed the reform legislation by a slim 219 – 213 margin. A report on the late CTV news that night said it “left a nation deeply divided.” When hasn’t America been deeply divided? Red States-Blue States…North-South…Crips-Bloods…Hatfields-McCoys…
Haves-Have Nots.
With no new, significant, social legislation since Civil Rights and Medicare in the 1960’s, on March 23rd President Obama put a couple of dozen pens to paper signing into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And then the fun started. Death threats, hate mail, strange white powders in anonymous envelopes, disgusting behaviour, intimidation and property damage. The most glaring example of the lunatic fringe, so far, is this clown Mike Vanderboegh out of Pinson, Alabama. Alabama – imagine that. An armed and obviously dangerous, ultra right-wing, loose cannon, who used to head up something called “the Alabama Constitutional Militia,” Vanderboegh is claiming responsibility for and openly soliciting more attacks of vandalism against Democratic Party and constituency offices.
“We can break their windows before we have to resort to rifles to resist their ‘well-intentioned’ tyranny,” wrote Vanderboegh on his blog. “These windows are not very far away from where you are reading this right now. In virtually every city and county in this land there is a local headquarters of Pelosi’s Party – the Democrat Party. These headquarters invariably have windows, so if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows. Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled, civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM. The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT. It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of thousands of Democrat Party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary. Break their windows. Break them NOW.”
Yikes! Can you say, “Kristallnacht?” All those SS men availing themselves of the Odessa network to escape Germany at the end of WWII didn’t need to make it all the way to Argentina or Brazil as it turns out. They could have simply moved to Pinson, Alabama and opened a brickworks.
We’re talking health insurance here people. This is not Bunker Hill. Nobody is “treading on” you. You’re oiling up the weapons and getting ready to launch a second Civil War because greedheads don’t want to share in a system that will put a cast on some poor kid’s broken arm? And you call this living the “American Dream?”
Many of us are standing on this side of the 49th parallel gazing south with our mouths hanging open. Our British friends and relatives call this being “gobsmacked.” Has a certain part of the American people been eating lead-based paint chips? The vitriol and hateful, inflammatory rhetoric is staggering. What the hell is going on down there? On her website, that complete idiot, Sarah Palin displays a map of the United States indicating the districts of congress people she doesn’t agree with – read: so-called, liberal Democrats. Does the golly-gee-whiz, shucks, down-home, right-thinkin,’ values-oriented Mrs. Palin use a star, or an “x” to mark the spot on her little, enemies’ map? No, Sarah Shoot-From-the-Lip, as well as the hip opts to employ gun sight graphics, symbolically putting her opponents in the “cross-hairs.” She is advocating assassination of elected officials. Isn’t that some kind of crime? This alleged proponent of law & order is condoning political murder and fomenting insurrection. I think it’s called “treason.” Shouldn’t the Secret Service or the FBI have Mrs. Palin in shackles doin’ the duck walk in a super-max lock-up? The Mike Vanderboeghs can, hopefully, still be dismissed as an extremist minority, but the Republican Party wanted Palin to be vice-President of the United States and potentially a heartbeat away from the highest, most powerful position in the world.
Here’s a nation spending billions of dollars (as of this writing the total is inching up on a trillion) to simultaneously conduct not one, but two wars on the other side of the world. Their advanced weaponry and smart bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and it’s far from over. This kind of expenditure is okay, but extending health care to all of its citizens is not?
America may be the richest nation on the face of the earth, but a serious chunk of its population is morally bankrupt.
This is a big, fuckin’ deal.
- Vice-President Joe Biden
March 21, 2010
After what we can only presume has been a successful stint in re-hab, Tiger Woods is slated to make his comeback at this year’s Masters Tournament - the most prestigious and coveted stop on the PGA’s annual tour. Can you call this a “comeback?” It’s not like he quit or retired. Has enough time elapsed? Is there a protocol for this sort of thing? A debate rages as to whether he is ready to return to work after his adulterous sex-life literally blew up in his face. I’m no CSI, but those cuts and bruises on his map following the infamous Escalade pinball incident appear to have been made by a cell phone wielded with Swedish ninja-like precision.
It’s not as though the guy had a substance abuse problem. Everybody knows that drugs and alcohol taken in excessive amounts tend to have a deleterious effect on the old physical plant and one’s ability to play the game at an advanced level. Some sardonic, links-o-philes are probably asking: “but what about John Daly?” That’s a hoss of a different colour. J.D.’s in a class by himself. John Daly is the Keith Richards of the PGA. I’m sure he’ll be the first to remind the kids not to be like him as he lights up a dart and bangs a 350 yard tee shot straight down the fairway.
Are we kidding ourselves, here? Tiger Woods has won 95 tournaments, 14 or them Majors. This includes 4 Masters and 4 PGA Championships. The man is the best golfer in the world and arguably the greatest to ever swing a club. Having too much sex is not going to stand in the way of his playing golf, nor continuing to win.
At least half the people on the face of this planet are not buying any of it. Sex addiction? Come on, man! That’s the load of crap the David Duchovnys of this world feed the Tea Leonis to try and weasel out of being, well...great, big, broke-ass, divorced weasels.
“It’s not that I enjoyed screwing all those women, honey. I have a problem.”
Trust me, wherever two or more males are gathered in casual conversation and the topic comes up, the utter disbelief and accompanying raucous laughter is universal. Tiger Woods is not a sex addict, he’s a man. His skills, fame and riches have given him the key to the proverbial carnal candy store. To the victor go the spoils, huh Tiger? A long time ago they used to call it droit de seigneur – the right of the master, the titled landowner to get on his horse whenever he got randy and ride anywhere on his property and have it off with any woman, or young girl on the place. For most of us in the industrialized, G-whatever countries feudalism died off a long time ago. Randyism, however, continues to flourish in every nook and cranny of the globe.
It’s not a case of the rich and famous having to sneak around dark corners seeking out cheating ops. It’s all spread out for them like a midnight buffet on a cruise ship. The beautiful, sexually-aggressive, elite cadre of groupies that travels around the upper echelons of the NBA, for example, thinks nothing of physically pushing wives out of the way in order to openly grope their player husbands. The same goes for famous musicians. Just ask Neil Young’s wife Pegi. Tiger Woods hauls in the kind of jack to make professional basketball and rock stars envious.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m doin’ more than okay. When I can’t drain the 22-footer anymore, I’ll still be set for life. But Tiger, man. He’s got some serious mon-ay.”
Could you imagine there might be women who felt they possessed the right kind of skill set to depose Elin Woods and become the future Mrs. Tiger? Is it possible Tiger himself floated the prospect when workin’ a tough close on the late night PGA après-golf nookie circuit? The man has a billion reasons why some women might find him attractive. Was there maybe one or two brash enough to give it a shot? One or two dozen may be closer.
Somebody chastised David Lee Roth one time saying to the legendary, former front-man of Van Halen:
“You get all the women you want.”
To which Diamond Dave replied:
“No, I get all the women who want me.”
There was a ridiculous, old wives’ tale of a notion that having sex before an athletic contest somehow had a negative effect on performance. This is strictly from the school of General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s satire, “Dr. Strangelove.” Played with steely, clench-jawed machismo by Sterling Hayden, the General tells Peter Sellers’ character his philosophy about adult relations.
“Women feel my power and seek my essence. I don’t avoid contact with women, Mandrake. I just deny them my essence.”
The General decided to deal with all this pent-up essence by personally starting World War III with an unprovoked nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Make Love Not War was a day-glo poster taped to many a teen Boomer’s bedroom wall.
There are probably coaches – professional and amateur – who think they can channel the spirit of Vince Lombardi and still cling to the tired concept of abstinence before a big game. This flies directly in the face of the John F. Kennedy Dickin’ Doctrine. Kennedy’s victory in the 1960 U.S. Presidential election was a squeaker. With his garnering 49.7% of the popular vote to Richard Nixon’s 49.6% (34,227,096 votes – 34,107,646) it was among the closest races in American history. It could easily have gone either way. Kennedy’s dominance of Nixon in a televised, pre-election debate is felt to be a key factor in his grabbing the big seat in the Oval Office. On TV Nixon’s pronounced five o’clock shadow and sweaty, jittery appearance was contrasted by Kennedy’s clear-eyed, robust, youthful, commanding presence. As the story goes, JFK got royally laid mere minutes before striding out on stage in front of the lights and cameras to do verbal battle with the former Vice-President. He wasn’t smiling that million-watt smile of his because he was happy to be there. He was happy before he got there. The release of endorphins and triumphant feeling of calm and sexual satisfaction had him mopping the floor with Tricky Dicky, who came off as a cross between David Copperfield’s Uriah Heep and Smeagol from the suburbs of Mordor.
The soon to be 34th President of the United States knew he had cleaned up in the debate and is reported to have whispered to an aide while confidently walking off-stage:
“That went great. We’ll have to line up a broad before every one of these things.”
The challenge has to fall to the people who craft the coveted, green blazers bestowed on Masters’ winners. Just like the tailors in the Roaring Twenties’ Era who made custom suits for mobsters and bootleggers. The tight-fitting suit jackets of the time had to be especially roomy on one side to hide a concealed-weapon in a shoulder holster. Another Masters’ sport jacket for Tiger will need to accommodate and try to mask the massive erection he must be carrying around since having to give up his double-digit, extra-curricular partnerships. Woods by name and if we’re to believe some mistresses’ accounts, wood by nature, too. That’s a lot of essence to be totin’ around.
Whether this will hinder his schwing at Augusta next month remains to seen.
March 14, 2010
Did you catch the Academy Awards? On Hollywood’s big night to shine a klieg light on itself – like it doesn’t every day? – it’s fun to try and guess the winners before someone breaks the seal on those Price-Waterhouse envelopes. Were you scoring at home with the ballot from the local paper? For that extra degree of difficulty, I like predicting the winners without having actually seen any of the movies. Clairvoyant? No. A movie buff, yes. But an old, Boomer buff who doesn’t get off his duff enough to screen the nominees before Oscar time rolls around. Not just a fan of the movies, I also get a kick out of Hollywood history and the whole dog & pony show machinations involved in bringing those flickering images to all of us, who “Sunset Boulevard’s” whack-job Norma Desmond calls, “those wonderful people out there in the dark.” Not having seen the nominated pictures and performances may seem like a handicap to the prognostication. Fortunately we have a pervasive entertainment media that keeps detailed tabs on everything and everybody remotely connected with Oscar. Keep an eye on the ones the designers and jewelers are draping expensive things on for free. Those are more often than not your front runners.
The Oscars is the one awards show I watch. It’s the granddaddy of them all and the only one that really matters. The others, like the Golden Globes, are lead-ups to the real thing. Opening acts and more often than not harbingers of the Oscars. While not actually making yourself sit through the plethora of ceremonies during “Awards Season” it’s important to keep abreast of the results as this will help in cribbing for the Academy Awards final exam. You need to catch Mo’Nique’s breathy, emotional, Golden Globes acceptance speech on Headline News the next day to gauge which way the wind will be blowing on Oscar night. The performers, presenters, poseurs and nominees get to “dress re-hearse” gowns and hair-dos before committing to the outfit for the red carpet.
Some whine there are too many awards shows. Delightfully, nutty, actor/comedian, Eddie Izzard, proffers there are not enough. The flamboyant, transvestite stand-up, who hosted the recent Indies – the Independent Spirit Awards, has called for lots more. He feels that sheer overkill would dull everyone’s taste for them.
“There’s too many of these things - either too many, or not enough. Maybe another 100. I think they should have compulsory ones,” said Izzard “compulsory awards that everyone has to go to. They’ll be going, ‘oh, another awards ceremony,’ and people are really ticked off when they win another one.”
It was too bad for fellow Canucklehead, James Cameron. Jim, you were showered with millions of dollars at the box office. Unfortunately, they figured that was enough. They weren’t going to give you the Oscar, too. Oh, they’d throw you a couple of FX and tech. “bones” for your landmark achievement with Avatar, but not the big prize(s). The sci-fi blockbuster predictably picked up Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. Not only did the Academy not want Cameron to have the Best Picture and Best Director statuettes, in a twist of irony worthy of a Hollywood movie, these two most coveted of categories were awarded to his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker.” The tense, gritty film about bomb disposal units in the Iraq war pulled off a nice “hat-trick” wining for Best Original Screenplay, too. Bigelow made motion picture history becoming the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar. “There’s no way to describe it,” she said. “It’s the moment of a lifetime.” A terrific film maker in her own right, prior to “The Hurt Locker” Bigelow gave us such gems as “Point Break,” “Strange Days” and one of the finest takes on the vampire movie genre, “Near Dark.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is somewhat two-faced. Not in a duplicitous, sinister way. It isn’t multiple personality disorder by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just that difference between who we are and who we think we are, or better yet, how we would like to see ourselves represented to peers and the public at large. Hollywood is all about the money. Make no mistake about that. No box office returns – no career. Three hundred and sixty four days of the year it’s all about the grosses. But when Oscar time rolls around it’s the art of film making that takes centre stage. Why do you think the Academy falls all over itself to shower honours on English actors? It reflects on Hollywood’s odd, inferiority complex that springs from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. The Brits are RADA trained. They must be better. Those accents sound so educated and Shakespearean. I’ve often mused on time travel’s becoming a reality. If one took a trip back to the glory days of Rome, would you be bummed when all the Romans didn’t have cultured British accents and the Bard for a scriptwriter?
“The chariot races were fun, but that Julius Caesar was such a disappointment.”
You’ll hear about Oscar “politics,” though it might be a misleading term. Voting trends tend to reflect human nature. The Academy represents the collective Hollywood community, not just the movie stars, directors, screenwriters, powerful producers and studio heads. It’s the unseen masses behind the cameras, the skilled trades-people, set decorators, costume designers, make-up artists, lighting and sound technicians, productions assistants, gaffers, gofers, key grips and best boys.
Sometimes Oscar’s kow-towing to the higher brow gets squeezed out by sheer force of numbers. Watch out if your film is up for a Best Picture against an epic. Large, sprawling, complicated productions like “Dances With Wolves” employ more people than a “Glengarry Glen Ross.” When the ads and trailers for their film boast “and a cast of thousands,” don’t spend too much time on your acceptance speech. That cast of thousands and all those folks prepping it for Mr. DeMille’s cameras like the work. They want to continue earning a living in motion pictures. Many are voting members of the Academy. Those worker bees in the Hollywood Hive want to continue buzzin’ along, so they’ll send a message to the studios. Keep on green-lighting those big, pictures and clear a space on top of the office credenza for a guy called Oscar.
As ground-breaking and history making as Avatar is, in the eyes of snooty, cineistes it is technical wizardry, not acting. The Academy voters like to send messages to directors like James Cameron, too. As nice as it is to show empathy for another sentient species somewhere in the Universe, we still want you to employ S.A.G. members when portraying the aliens.
The late Shelley Winters used to tell one of the best Oscar stories. The gifted actress had a rich and varied life in front of the cameras spanning more than 50 years. Late in her career she was up for a role with an arrogant, young director who insisted she audition, actually come in and read for the part. Dressed in her finest, “bag lady” togs, Winters bustled into the director’s office settling into a chair on the opposite side of his desk. Without saying a word she rustled around in a beat-up, voluminous handbag. Extracting an Oscar, she placed the heavy object on the desk with a loud thump. She sat back silently staring at him. As the experts often say on the Antiques Roadshow – “If you only had a pair.” She then rummaged in the bag extracting a second Oscar, which was plunked beside the first. Shelley Winters again sat back and continued to stare at the young director.
“Do you still want me to read for this part,” she asked dryly?
“No, Miss Winters,” came the sheepish reply. “Thank you for coming.”
With that the two-time Academy Award winner packed up her props and exited the scene. Those not familiar with the great actress’ work will probably remember her Oscar- nominated performance in Irwin Allen’s 1972 disaster flick, “The Poseiden Adventure.” She didn’t win for her portrayal of plucky, swimmer Belle Rosen who sacrifices her life to help save fellow passengers in the doomed, ocean liner turned upside down by a rogue wave. The two Oscars she intimidated the young director with were Best Supporting Actress awards for “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959) and “A Patch of Blue” (1965).
On the imaginary ballot I managed to nail all but one of the predictions for this year’s major categories. I missed Sandra Bullock, who is always terrific. I thought for sure they’d give the Best Actress to Gabby Sidibe for “Precious.”
Now comes the best part going out to see all the winning and nominated pictures.
The Oscar is the most valuable, but least expensive, item
of world-wide public relations ever invented by any industry
- Frank Capra
Director
March 07, 2010
You expect records to be broken at the Olympics, but record winter temperatures almost broke the Vancouver Games. The 2010 Olympics may go down as the most un-winter like, winter games ever. Those of us who live in the Lower Mainland always knew it was going to be a gamble pulling off nordic games in a temperate rainforest climate. But around here, rain would have threatened a summer games, too. Forgive our crowing about the record number of gold medals won by a host country, but putting the final medal count aside, it was the size, scope and intensity of the party atmosphere created that might be one of the biggest legacies of these Games. Win or lose in the various athletic arenas, we Canuckleheads definitely set the bar high for sheer, unadulterated celebration. Last Sunday, cops reportedly confiscated and poured down the drain 5-times the amount of booze they would on a Symphony of Fire Fireworks night in the summer. And that’s with the downtown liquor stores forced to close at 2 in the afternoon on men’s gold medal hockey game day. Watch for drunken snapper on Monk McQueen’s menu for a month.
In the 1986 Philippine national election Corazon Aquino rode her People Power to a 6-year residence in the Presidential Palace. In Vancouver it was ultimately Party Power that overwhelmed any dissent directed at the Olympics. A force of some 15,000 was assembled to provide security for the games. Add a few tanks and some armoured personnel carriers and that’s a full combat division. The fully armed muscle was redundant. The overall popular consensus was not prepared to stand for any black balaclava buzz kill. A relatively small group estimated to be about 150 strong tried to get something stirred up on the closing day of the Games. Blocking traffic with a sit-down on a main eastside artery forced private vehicles and busses carrying well-wishers to detour. Police made no attempt to intervene letting the situation succumb to its own inertia. Protesters were reportedly shouted down as fans poured out of downtown bars to heckle them. When your efforts are met with the kind of reactions reserved for small comedy clubs…
“You suck!”
“Who knew my mother was in the house, tonight. Hi, Mom. Can we give it up for the woman who gave birth to me?”
“You still suck!”
It might be time to step back and have a re-think on the overall tactical approach. Clearly the pressure has to be on the various anti-globalization groups which had planned to take advantage of the intense media attention surrounding the Games. They were unable to goad security forces into a violent confrontation on closing day. As far as engaging “hearts and minds” is concerned, it would appear they failed to reach the beer-swilling, hockey-loving hoi polloi. When you can’t count on the support of the common man and woman in the corner pub, your revolution is screwed, dude.
Hard to believe feelings and emotions would shift so dramatically in less than two weeks.
The death of Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili in a practice run leading up to the Games was read by many as a bad omen. It put a definite pall on what is meant to be a joyous event before it even started. The tragic accident notwithstanding, in the early days of the 2010 Olympics some idiots were already proclaiming it the “worst Games ever.” That’s right. Eleven Israeli athletes were murdered in cold blood in Munich and because there was a lot of rain on Cypress and the snack bar was inadequate, these were the “worst Games ever.” By the time the flag-waving, Maple Love Fest wound to a close last Sunday it was being trumpeted as the “best Games ever.” Oh, how the pendulum of pundit opinion can swing in a mere fortnight. In the end, it wasn’t what any of us expected.
Have a good time all the time.
- Viv Savage, keyboards
Spinal Tap
February 27, 2010
Can we stop beating ourselves up about Own the Podium? The other day I was watching no less an august national personage than Peter Mansbridge struggling to understand this hot-button issue. Worry lines on the trusted, news anchor’s follicley-challenged forehead grew deeper than usual as he and CBC correspondent Scott Russell wrestled with this seemingly vexatious topic. While the whole Own the Podium campaign seems to fly in the face of the country’s perceived persona, worrying about our offending people because of the brash slogan, now that’s as Canadian as muskeg or maple syrup, eh?
The Mrs. got to yukking about a filed report from a visiting journalist who was playing up our Canadian politeness claiming we would apologize if someone stepped on our toes.
“I’m so sorry that my foot got so inconveniently under yours. Forgive me, but did my face just get in the way of your elbow?”
The winter games deal in sport disciplines where first to worst is measured in 100ths of a second. The athletes who qualify for their national teams have been living with this reality for most of their lives. When success, or failure, is down to the blink of an eye one’s mental fortitude has to be as disciplined and hard-honed as the physical training necessary to compete at the highest level. In the end, there are more Olympic losers than winners. It has been this way since 776 BC when Greek athletes first dropped their gear and ran around Olympia trying to win some laurel leaves and the ancient world class bragging rights that came with ‘em. To one victor went the “spoils” while the rest walked away with little more than an overall tan.
Did we, as a nation, put too much pressure on the athletes to win? Maybe. Do we always expect our men and women to win? Hell yeah, especially in hockey! - way to go ladies! - But did any of us really believe we were going to win the most medals at the 2010 Games…more than the United States? Give your head a shake, Chester, your eyes are stuck.
“I don’t think its OTP,” said William Thompson, CEO of Skate Canada. “Did we feel pressure from OTP? No, to be honest, we really didn’t. Our pressure was we had a streak of medals going back many Olympics and we didn’t want to come out of this without one. And when you’re at home, you really want to win.”
Our athletes would not be where they are had they not been able to withstand stress and pressure way beyond their years. None of us armchair analysts or couch-bound coaching staff wants them to win as much as they do themselves.
Own the Podium is a rallying cry like, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” It’s hyperbole. It really means I sure hope those damn torpedoes don’t actually hit the damn ship I’m on, so pour on the coal and let’s sail this damn tub the hell out of Dodge. If you’re going to dream an Olympic Dream, why not make it a big one? Own the Podium is a slogan, designed to fire up our troops and throw a little mental mojo into the mix for the competition. Looks to have worked like a charm, eh?
In a previous lifetime I made a career stop in the Canadian recording industry. Compared to the United States, Canada is considered a “10% Market.” This is based simply on population where the U.S. has roughly 10 times the people. If a huge release sold 1 million copies in the States, on this side of the border 100,000 would mark Canadian platinum status. Do the math. The law of averages would have us pick up one tenth as many Olympic medals as the U.S. As of this writing the United States has a total of 34 medals. Using the 10% equation, we should have 3, but Canada’s total stands at 21 including the most gold – 10! Let that sink in for a minute…we have the most gold medals. Germany has 9 gold to the U.S.A.’s 8. We might not own the podium, but we’re sure as hell time-sharing the thing. OTP anxiety aside, Canada’s doin’ good…damn good!
Another stop along the checkered career path found me part of a team challenged with resurrecting the fortunes of a small, AM radio station. It was strictly from “WKRP in Cincinnati,” daddy-o, as almost overnight we transformed a sleepy, country music format to blowtorch rock & roll. Can you say, “KER-RANNNNNG!?”
We Boomers shifted our radio allegiance to the FM side of the dial in the late 1960’s. About the last time any of us actually listened to AM, Lesley Gore was still cryin’ her eyes out at that downer of a party she was throwing. The perception was cut and dried back in the day: FM was cool, AM was not. FM’s dominance sustained and remains. The Challenge: How do we as broadcasters transcend the real and perceived limitations of the AM signal and drag music fans back to the red-headed stepchild on the radio dial? Answer: Volume and a cocky, snotty ‘tude. The call sign was CHOG…the Hog. Loud, hard rock, vivid warthog imagery, actual grunting on-air, lurid, tabloid news and a straightforward positioning statement: “Everybody Sucks, But Us.” As Promo Domo in this cabal of idiots I did press interviews while wearing a hideous pig mask. It was ridiculous, theatre of the absurd and a whole lot of fun. We knew full well that this was a dumb-ass thing to say and that everybody else in fact did not suck. This was in-your-face, guerilla marketing. It was deliberately provocative and meant to make some noise, stir up the boneheads, draw attention and get people talking and squawking. Own the Podium is a kinder, gentler “Everybody Sucks, But Us.”
Some might suggest that what we need to do is own the right to own a slogan like Own the Podium and not feel bad about it. It might require our stepping outside the boundaries of good manners, hospitality and politesse we’re world renowned for. But to do that we have to become more like, guess who? For a long time our national character was not determined by what it was, but rather by what it was not. Isn’t that why we festoon our luggage and Tilley hats with red maple leaves when traveling abroad? It’s not so much that we want folks in other lands to know that we’re Canadians per se, but that we are not
Americans. The inscription on the Peace Arch in White Rock says it all: “Children of a Common Mother.” America is our older sibling - bigger, stronger, louder, richer and way more successful. What really bugs our big sib’ is regardless of its power, prestige and accomplishments we still walk around with a perpetual shit-eating grin confident in the knowledge that we will always be cooler. Canada’s the one in the clan who shows up with a lovely, covered dish, a fabulous mix disc of hot tracks and a bag of killer weed. We may not own the nicest car parked in the driveway, but we’re the life of the party and welcome guests at every family gathering.
God keep our land glorious and free.
February 20, 2010
Vive Alexandre Bilodeau. How about the back story on this kid? The wonderful relationship with his older brother Frederic, their support for each other culminating in an Olympic championship - this is Movie of the Week stuff. It seemed as though Frederic on the sidelines got almost as much camera time on television as his brother did bouncing down the course on Cypress. Way to go winning the gold medal in men’s moguls and thanks for finally getting this first Canadian to win gold on our native soil monkey off everybody’s back. Sheesh! Like competing in the Olympics isn’t stressful enough? The media kept parroting on and on about native soil... rawwwk…native soil. (do your best Jerry Seinfeld impression) What’s the deal with native soil? The only other time you hear anyone prattling on about native soil he’s usually from Transylvania and a real night owl. The entire Canadian Olympic Team must have been lining up to buy Bilodeau jello shots right after he cleared doping.
While Alexandre Bilodeau dominated on the hill, he found himself overshadowed on the podium by the remarkable showing of Silver Medalist Dale Begg-Smith. Did you see the face on him? Can you say, “sore loser?” The agony of defeat was etched all over de face. He looked like a pouty 4-year old. It was hilarious. If you’re looking for the poster child of “you don’t win silver you lose gold” look no further. Here’s a guy that should never play poker for money.
“Look,” chimed my wife “he won’t even hold up his bouquet.”
It’s a sad commentary on the Olympic Spirit when an athlete is too bummed to hoist his flowers on the podium. Those European people kissed you on the cheeks. Would it kill you to play along? Dude, you do realize that when the red light on top of the camera lights up, you’re on television? Everybody can see that puss on your face all over the world in real time. And that includes current and potential sponsors who are sitting in boardrooms saying: “there’s a face that deserves to be on a Wheaties box…NOT!” On a Whinies, box, maybe. Whinies – the breakfast cereal for petulant losers. Start your day like Olympic Silver Medalist Dale Begg-Smith with a brimming bowl of Whinies. Aw, hell, they never understood the sacrifices you made and what it took to get there. Go ahead, champ, have two bowls. Chocolate fans, try new Fudge Grudgies. Hmmmm, they’re bittersweet.
Begg-Smith is reported to be a millionaire many times over, but I guess there are things money can’t by, like aplomb, grace under pressure, sportsmanship and class. The scene was only slightly less amusing the following night when at the Medal Awards Ceremony in BC Place he managed to muster up some half-assed,
grin/grimace that he must have been torturously practicing all day in front of a mirror. Does this kid have a manager or an agent? Get him an acting coach or some improv classes, wouldja? No, on second thought, uh-uh! You don’t want to spoil the natural flow of this narrative.
The back story on Mr. Happy, Dale Turd-Smith, uh, Begg-Smith is he’s some kind of boy genius who started his own successful software enterprise as a teenager. The Vancouver born athlete was skiing for Canada when his business interests came into conflict with what his coaches demanded of him on the ski team. He and his brother defected to Australia where the child athlete labour laws must be more lax. Begg-Smith renounced his Canadian citizenship and started skiing for Australia, a country renowned for its winter sports, while continuing to develop his business. He excelled in the freestyle skiing department winning three World Cups and the gold medal at the 2006 Olympics in Turin. They put his mug on an Australian stamp like some kind of Canuckodile Dundee, for cryin’ out loud. He was ranked number 1 in the world coming into Vancouver. Was he on a mission coming into these Games? Did he have something to prove to Canada as he stood on a mountain overlooking where he grew up in West Van? Was the chip on his shoulder too heavy a burden to bear on the moguls course? Do you see what I mean about a Movie of the Week? You’ve got Bilodeau for the shining, Dudley Do-Right, Maple Leaf bedecked hero and a grimy looking, pinch-faced, sneering Dale “Snidely” Whip-Smith for the villain of the piece. Get that Atom Egoyan dude on the phone!
(you can do Jerry again, if you want) And what’s the deal with charging $22 to get into the Medal Ceremony? Are you kidding? Since when wasn’t it free to see athletes pick up medals? A family of four is well in over a C-note if you factor in transportation. I can’t imagine what Dome snacks are selling for with the Olympics Greed-Gouge surcharge added. A simple trip to a Medals Ceremony is gonna run you some big bucks.
For all of you who drove around in the years leading up to the Olympics with bumper stickers proudly proclaiming your “backing of the bid,” keep this in mind: Montreal’s tab for the 1976 Olympics was finally paid off in 2002. That’s more than a quarter of a century. That’s a mortgage. Montreal taxpayers had to pay off the mortgage on a “house” they didn’t get to live in. The 2010 Vancouver Games are estimated to cost 6 billion dollars. Like it or not, all of us will be backing the bid for many years to come. Our unborn grandchildren will be backing the bid, too. Be sure to save them a couple of those cute Muckmuck T-shirts.
It’s so warm in Vancouver for the Olympics that two figure skaters fell through the ice.
- David Letterman
February 13, 2010
 "What Am I Protesting Against? I Don't Know What Have You Got?"
This past Thursday morning I joined a large neighborhood contingent gathering in the pre-dawn hours to see the Olympic Torch pass through the community. It was one of those rare opportunities to bear witness to an event of some significance and with its occurring mere blocks from the front door it would have been ridiculous to not wander over and check the whole thing out. Our winter weather was doing what it usually does at this time, but the downpour did little to dampen the spirits of participant and spectator alike. Young and old bedecked in red & white maple leaf swag lined the curbs. With its being so early, local kids got a chance to be at the event before going to school. The downside was getting the poor, little things up so early and out into the rain, but none seemed to be complaining. Our little corner of the Lower Mainland is hardly a hotbed of political activism and social disobedience, so Police and security forces had little to worry their stern, game faces on this leg of the relay.
What was that Esther Phillips used to sing in the Disco Days? “What a difference a day makes?”
The Olympic Torch made its unfettered way around the world en route to the Opening Ceremonies at BC Place until, just blocks from its ultimate destination, passed through the Downtown Eastside. Anti-Olympic protestors massing near Victory Square Park were able to disrupt the proceedings and briefly block the Torch’s forward progress forcing organizers to make a short detour before returning to the scheduled route. Some obviously frustrated, older veterans found themselves in the eye of the storm at the Cenotaph in Victory Square. The small contingent was on hand to welcome and show respect for the Olympic Torch on behalf of veterans but were unfortunately unable to do so as the torch was re-routed around the demonstration. It was sad to see the distress and emotion on the vets’ faces who blamed the protestors. But it was sadder still that these stalwart gentlemen seemed to forget that this was exactly what they had fought for. Freedom. They, their brothers and sisters sacrificed and died for all Canadians, so we could live in a country where our rights of free expression, assemblage, worship and thought are protected by the highest of our laws. Authority, rigidity, obedience, conformity, fealty - that’s what you fought against. The Torch would be further challenged along Commercial Drive where protestors set up 2 roadblocks.
Meanwhile at the Art Gallery Corral on Georgia the armies of the night were gathering.
It was a loose coalition of some 40 anti-globalization groups with issues ranging from poverty, housing and aboriginal rights to the environment and the tar sands. There was an extremely agitated guy who appeared to be a one man posse opposed to the Gateway Project in Delta. I’m guessing all those big trucks are going to be roaring a few feet from his front door. While the causes and issues varied, all these groups were in total agreement on their opposition to the Olympics. The Gateway guy, however, who knows?
The crowd estimated in the several thousands created afternoon rush hour chaos along Georgia Street and later made a march on BC Place in an attempt to crash the Opening Ceremonies. A thick, blue line at the Robson and Beatty stood its ground prohibiting the mass demonstration from moving any further towards the Dome. In the end it only involved some pushing, shoving and name calling. Not unlike a typical Sunday dinner at Aunt Flo’s.
A Police spokesperson said the force found the protest “challenging,” but were pleased with the way it went. Protestors charged that the Police had agent provocateurs in the crowd. Two officers sustained minor injuries in the scuffling.
As I go to bed with this (Saturday, February 13) an anti-Olympic riot has broken out in downtown Vancouver with windows reportedly being smashed along W. Georgia Street.
Let the Games begin, indeed.
The Olympics is good for everyone, including the protestors.
- Sam Sullivan
former Mayor of Vancouver
February 6, 2010
I Can See Slearly Now
They took away Steve Fonyo’s Order of Canada. Wassup wi’ dat? Who knew they could do that? Make no mistake. I’m not a fanyo. The guy’s a colossal goof and an embarrassment to everybody and everything, but nobody made you give him the medal.
A little freshman level psychology can go a long way sitting in the amateur analyst’s armchair. But you don’t have to be Carl Jung to see Fonyo’s being a troubled, driven guy who it appears got some bad advice along the way or opted to ignore some good counsel. Either way, the dude made some terrible choices. The first of which was to pick up the banner dropped by Terry Fox. Fonyo should never have associated himself with Fox. The poor sap was doomed from the start.
Terry Fox is, in the stentorian words of “The Honeymooners’” Ralph Kramden, “a hero, Alice, HE-RO!!”
Terry Fox’s life is the stuff of legend. Steve Fonyo’s life is tabloid fodder.
He should have found another way to leave his mark. Look at Rick Hansen and his inspiring, Man-In-Motion Tour. How does a guy roll a wheelchair around the entire, freakin’ planet without his arms falling off? Halfway across Mongolia the arms would have been screaming:
“Okay, pal. You can stay here in Six Flags Over Genghis Khan, but we’re finished. Don’t try to stop us. We are so outa here.”
They pop off like in a Terry Gilliam animation, thumb a ride to Ulan Bator International and catch a flight home to BC.
Seriously. Sir Francis Drake…James Cook? It was tough sailing way back then and both men richly deserve their places in history, but it was sailing. These gentlemen had ships. Rick Hansen circumnavigated the globe by hand. How was that humanly possible? But Rick’s unbelievable accomplishments are Rick’s accomplishments. There are many similarities with Hansen and Fox. Each rose above physical challenges to excel. Both embarked on severe athletic campaigns to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes – cancer and spinal cord research, respectively. But while Rick Hansen’s name may be mentioned in the same breath as Terry Fox, the two men’s images are not compared to nor pitted against the other. Not so Fonyo. In the great ring saga of life, Fonyo is Smeagol to Fox’s Frodo.
As the stupid, old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, though why anyone would want to skin a kitty is beyond comprehension. So, too there are countless ways to mount a fundraising, promotional event. It’s called creative thought, or usin’ the noodle. Start riffin’ and spit-ballin’. If you’ve got the jam to go running across the country on one leg, you’ve got to be able to come up with a couple of back-up plans that don’t involve hitchin’ your wagon to somebody else’s dream.
Maybe you tour Canada in a bus stopping at malls and town halls. Don’t go directly east to west along the Number 1. Go serpentine, zigging and zagging to communities big and small bringing your message of courage, strength and hope in the face of physical adversity to as many people as you can. Be an inspiration to the kids. Have your donation bucket ready. Canadians will give you money.
“How about that nice young man who lost his leg? Imagine him coming all the way up here to Lynn Lake…or Val D’or…Lac LaRonge…Musgrave Harbour…Quesnel…Blind River …Wetaskiwin…with his tour of Hope. We’re going to give him a donation, right after we cook him dinner at our house.”
This isn’t to suggest that had Fonyo not put himself up for direct comparison to Fox his life would have played out differently. The end result might have been exactly the same, but he cold have saved the further ignominy of being judged up against a brave, handsome, young, dead-before-his-time, honest-to-God hero. Unfortunately for Fonyo, as long as he lives he will always be compared to Fox.
Okay, so the guy’s a weasel. But did he, or did he not accomplish something that was considered worthy of the award? History is full of scoundrels and tyrants guilty of far more heinous things than Fonyo. They wind up with statues erected to honour them and get their mugs printed on national currency. Ty Cobb was a horrible human being, who, among his many sins, would file his spikes to a fine edge to better cut up opponents while sliding into bases. The Georgia Peach was literally out for blood every time he took the field. Should Ty Cobb be thrown out of the Baseball Hall of Fame? How about Mike Tyson? Among his myriad transgressions is conviction for rape and a bout of cannibalism in the ring when he bit that chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear. The face tattoo? You do know that shit’s permanent, don’t you big guy? Should Iron Mike be made to return his championship belts or give up his gold teef? Are you gonna be the one to tell him? You could text him with the good news, but I’m betting he has a way to punch your lights out right through your cell phone like in a Popeye cartoon. Tyson downloaded the TKO app. The phone rings:
“Hello?”
BAM!
It then gets dark, like a sudden eclipse, and you don’t remember things for a few hours.
Steve Fonyo seems like one of those tragicomic characters out of the imagination of Rod Serling. He had a particular knack for crafting the schnook who always winds up the architect of his own demise. Fonyo would probably be the first to admit his life has played out like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Perhaps he should seek inspiration from another master of words, Charles Dickens, and find a way to have three ghosts drop by, scare the livin’ crap out of him and turn his sorry saga around.
January 30, 2010
I’ve had it with awesome.
Awesome this…awesome that…awesome, awesome, awesome. Enough,already! Can we make some kind of pact to ease up on the awesome? This is not to suggest dumping awesome from day-to-day discourse, just pick your shots a tad more discriminately. Everything can’t be awesome, m’kay? Didn’t Einstein write that in his little known Theory of Reaction, which outlines not necessarily the physical reaction to an experience, but how you express the feeling? This one is not as awesome, nor as celebrated, as his Theory of Relativity. It is the bitter, neglected sibling of the great physicist’s theories sometimes nicknamed the Theory of Overreaction, ‘cause boy does it get peeved when you bring up the old, E=mc2.
Standing atop one of the Lions with all of Howe Sound, the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island spread out before you with a vista all the way to Black Tusk? That’s awesome. So is visiting the Great Pyramid at Giza, or watching your baby being born. How about peeking over the rim of the Grand Canyon? Having your Canucks jersey signed by Trevor Linden, while undoubtedly a very, big deal to you is not awesome. Nor was that soup and sandwich from Tim Horton’s. I don’t care how hungry you were or how sweet a deal it was or that it came with a Bavarian Cream for dessert. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some Tim’s Bavarian Cream. Decadently satisfying though this Prince of Donuts might be it is a far cry from awesome.
Unless you’ve been in a cave somewhere, or grabbing some Z’s with Herr Van Winkle, you’ve probably noticed the Olympic Torch Run on its way through B.C. on the final leg of the worldwide journey. Did you catch the news coverage of the Run’s hitting Nelson? The lovely town in the Kootenays is known as a haven for draft resisters from the Vietnam War era and certain segments of the populace obviously still don’t mind letting their “freak flags fly.” As a small, but vocal, band of protestors shouted down the run, one local resident was interviewed, on camera grinning ear-to-ear saying it was - you guessed it – awesome…the run, not the protest.
It’s a commercial. Live though it may be right there before your eyes on Main Street, make no mistake. The Torch Run is a commercial advertisement designed to make you watch the Olympics, drive up the ratings and help both the host broadcasting network and VANOC turn a profit. It is no different than your tuning in a Canucks game on television and watching beer commercials during stoppages of play. You love your Canucks, but to see them on TV for free you have to let the brewers try and sell you some suds. The Olympic Torch Run is not about national pride, it’s about commerce. It could be a Febreeze ad. You’ve seen the one where the Mom walks into the kid’s room and is startled by the stench? Making a quick retreat Mom comes back with a bottle of Febreeze and in a few short squirts returns the bedroom’s ambience to non-gagging. It’s a valuable tip and darned handy when confronted with an unpleasant aroma. But for all its plusses, Febreeze is not awesome, nor is the Torch run. What does the Torch Run mean to some? How about two thousand dollars? That’s the current price being asked on-line for an Olympic Torch.
I wouldn’t want to dump on any of life’s events that have moved you, nor your memories of same. It’s down to how you express yourself. Some register the experience with an obviously challenged vocabulary. Once you’ve played the awesome card, where do you go? Is there such a thing as more awesome? What trumps awesome? How about “supercalifagilisticexpialidocious?” Nah. Only the fabulous, Julie Andrews can get away with saying something that goofy and not come off sounding like a colossal dork. Even back in sleepy, old 1964 when the word was introduced in Walt Disney’s “Mary Poppins,” it wasn’t “precocious” or “something quite atrocious,” it was dumbalocious.
I met Mick Jagger once. The Stones are and always have been my favourite group of all time. It is, without a doubt, the greatest rock & roll band in the world. A lifelong music lover, when asked what kind of music I prefer, I reply: “the Rolling Stones and bands that sound like the Rolling Stones.” Offstage, Mr. Jagger carries himself like an English gentleman - impeccable manners and impeccably dressed. He was wearing a sweater vest, for cryin’ out loud, which is a far cry from his traditional, performance wardrobe. Ordinarily, meeting someone of the famous frontman’s stature might easily fall into the awesome category, but it didn’t. Interesting, pleasant and highly memorable - yes, but awesome, no.
Meeting Keith – that would be awesome!
January 23, 2010
Regular visitors to the Boom Room know of my wife’s heroic, on-going struggles to keep me alive and kicking in the face of creeping sloth and inertia. Nothing says love, fellas, like the Mrs.’ naggin’ on you about what you eat and how you’d be better off with your ass wrapped around a bicycle saddle rather than a couch. Watch out for certain journals, newsletters and periodicals devoted to nutrition and something they call “wellness.” If your spouse gets hold of any of this hard data you are going to hear about it. Should you notice any of these lying around the house, get ready for a decidedly different snack spread on Super Bowl Sunday. Mmmm – veggie platter.
The opposite of this behaviour, however, is much more alarming. Beware the indulgent spouse my friends. Her not giving a hoot what you stuff in your pie-hole is definitely a red flag. If your wife is taking out huge insurance policies on your ass while giving you “bottomless” fast food gift cards, brother, you better wake up and smell the Altoids on the cardiac surgeon’s breath. Never mind a mistress. You’d best be sneaking around behind the wife’s back down at the gym. You don’t want to pick up other women - you want to start picking up weights...in sets … repeatedly. And forget that adage about living well’s being the best revenge. Living period will always be the best revenge.
My wife is under the care of a rheumatologist for arthritis. The specialist advised cutting meat out of her diet as it has been found to contribute to joint inflammation. He outlined the Nothing With Legs diet. It’s a very simple program. You’re more or less left to your own devices as far as what you eat, just nothing with legs. You’d have to be Tommy the Pinball Wizard to have missed the on-going, ever increasing flow of information and opinion pointing to the negative health effects of a diet heavy on animal protein. The rheumatologist had patients on the Nothing With Legs program for an entire month. The Mrs. wisely opted to ease us in to the meatless regime slowly, knowing it would be a tough sell for a whole month right out of the blocks.
I panicked a little at first recalling that classic Warner Bros. cartoon where Sylvester found himself left home alone while the family goes off on vacation.
“I’ll thtarve,” he cried.
Sylvester discovers this when he reads a note left by his family. While always portrayed as a hapless cluck perpetually outsmarted by a small, Tweety Bird and/or baby kangaroo he thinks is in fact a giant mouse, Sylvester, a cat, is nevertheless fully literate.
We had no problem with this. Buy the premise; buy the bit.
It’s no wonder the Baby Boom Generation is a little off-centre. Well, those elements whose formative years were shaped by wise-cracking, anthropomorphized rabbits, ducks, roosters, Tasmanian devils and stuttering pigs every Saturday morning on television. I’m well versed in the gospels according to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. More than 50 years on and the mind immediately tosses-up cartoon images when confronted with an everyday thing like a change in feed.
Shaking off the impulse to channel an animated cat, I recalled a former colleague who ate “nothing with a face.” On this particular regimen we’ll be able to eat seafood. It’s obviously not hardcore and a far cry from Vegan. I admire Vegans. Not so much for the diet or underlying philosophy, but for the sheer, triumph of their will in adhering to a highly restricted intake of food, or more importantly, types of “food.” The quotation marks are a shout-out to our Vegan brothers and sisters who would undoubtedly scoff at much of the traditional North American diet’s actually qualifying as real food. Have you ever eaten at a convenience store? I’m no expert, but they have a lot of nerve trying to pass that stuff off as food. Filler yes, but food? I dunno.
Back in the day I used to eat something called Koogle, a flavoured peanut butter introduced by Kraft Foods in 1971. “But peanut butter is already flavoured,” you say. “It tastes like peanut butter.” No, Koogle was peanut butter with added, artificial flavouring. There was chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and mimmicking the classic, peanut butter and banana sandwich, the preferred, banana-flavoured Koogle. My hippy-dippy, brown rice roomies were aghast. On more than one occasion I caught them in the kitchen doing some kind of Aztec cleansing ritual that involved sacrificing a jar of Koogle to some firey deity whose name was made up entirely of consonants. We had to repaint the kitchen a couple of times, but on the upside the peyote tea was always fun.
Hey, I’ll go along with a gag. Besides, when one is fortunate to have lived this long doing it the old-fashioned, Alfred E. Neuman, “what, me worry” way of stuffing some of the most heinous crap into the yap, it behooves you to maybe try something different in the autumn of the Boomer years. Or has it turned to “winter” already? Lord knows there’s enough “snow on the roof.” Even though more than willing to give it a go, I knew there were certain sacrifices that would be harder to take.
“How about my beloved pizza,” I wailed? “Pizza doesn’t have legs.”
“Your favourite pizza has pepperoni on it and pepperoni used to have legs.”
“I thought deli meats were engineered like tofu,” I offered. “And tofu always gets some kind of pass, doesn’t it?”
“Tofu is not engineered.”
“Well, then how come it tastes so…industrial?”
“What’s industrial is all the deli stuff you love,” she said. “It’s spiced, cured, seasoned prepared and preserved with all sorts of salts, nitrates, nitrites and who knows what else?”
Nitrites? Uh-oh. I knew when she started using the chemistry on me I was sunk as far as any reasoned argument was concerned.
I put up a lot of mock bitching and complaining like any good husband, but co-operate in the end because I know the Mrs. has my best interests at heart. Besides, if truth be told I’m eating like King Farouk and not once have I missed any meat. My wife, bless her is a fantastic cook and has been hitting the books boning up on dishes without legs. We kicked off the week with a killer, mushroom lasagna.
“If this is what Nothing with Legs week is going to be like,” I thought “I can do this no meat thing standing on my head!”
My wife excels at homemade soup. I have been forever spoiled and cannot eat canned soup. She put together a huge vat of vegetable soup for our No Legs week. It looks like one of those Thanksgiving cornucopia centerpieces exploded in your bowl. More like vegetable stew than soup. That alone and a couple of loaves of French Bread would have seen me through the week, but she’s kept it coming with baked Alaskan salmon in an amazing parmesan sauce.
I can’t attest to feeling any marked changes, so far, from not eating meat for a week. Like any alteration in lifestyle, it takes time to notice any effects I suppose. We’re planning on working up to the full month eating Nothing With Legs and see how she goes from there.
I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight.
- Rita Rudner
There's No Crying In Baseball
January 16, 2010
I had a Tweety Bird moment this week. No, I wasn’t being stalked by an inept, black cat with a speech impediment. I was in the sanctity of the Boomer Bunker in a meditative state absent-mindedly going “around the horn” with the TV remote. What was that?
“I tawt I taw Mark McGwire sniveling and sobbing on the telebision.”
Press “jump.”
“I did…I did taw Mark McGwire sniveling and sobbing on the telebision!!”
I was immediately struck with the image of Tom Hanks playing Rockford Peaches’ manager Jimmy Dugan in director Penny Marshall’s wonderful, 1992 film, “A League of Their Own,” about the All-American Girls Baseball League that played during the late years of WWII.
In a favourite scene, a severely hungover, tobacco-chewing Dugan is startled when one of his player’s, Evelyn, bursts into tears after he chewed her out for a bad infield play.
In the pre-television era, baseball wasn’t pretty. It was a hard-knock, tough scrabble world of itinerant, Damon Runyon-esque characters. Forget Steve Garvey, Gary Carter and Derek Jeter. Back in the first half of Major League Baseball’s history professional ballplayers were more than a little rough around the edges, socially, often staying out ‘til all hours of the day and night drinking, gambling, whoring and binge-eating…and that was just Babe Ruth! While one loved to see them battle it out at the ballpark, you wouldn’t want one to marry your sister. After years of playing and being in and around ballplayers, Dugan is incredulous. The look on Hanks’ face is priceless. It is arguably one of the best of this two-time Oscar winner’s illustrious career. For the record, Hanks did not win either of his best actor Academy Awards for his work in “A League of Their Own.” This does not in any way diminish the look of shock registered on the manager’s battered puss. He can’t believe his ears. He couldn’t have been more astonished if he’d seen this player pull off an unassisted triple play.
“Are you crying,” says Dugan looking through squinted, bloodshot eyes? “There’s no crying in baseball.”
It looks like that memo didn’t make it to Mark McGwire’s in-box. The big lug was pouring on the waterworks in his so-called “confessional” sit down with Bob Costas for the MLB network.
Bad enough you cheated your way to fame and riches, but when given a chance to man up, admit your mistakes and take the hit you chose to insult our collective intelligence and jerk everybody around with that crock of shit you opened up in the committee room on Capital Hill back in March, 2005. Was your brain still addled from the juice, Mark? Did you honestly think anybody was going to buy the unmitigated manure you were shoveling that day? Did you walk away thinking you had really put one over on those political stiffs? It was, in a word, pathetic. But what’s even more pathetic is your performance the other day with the too little, too late mea culpa and the crocodile tears.
“I knew this day would come,” said McGwire.
As Mike Meyers, in full Wayne’s World persona, would say: “Exsqueeze me?!”
If you knew this day would come, why did we have to sit through that dog & pony show you pulled off in front of Congress?
“I’m not here to discuss the past,” was the essence of your self-aggrandizing testimony.
Maybe not, but the government of the United States invited you to do just that. What did you figure all those Senators wanted to discuss with you…NASA’s next mission to Mars?
Around the same time another slugger mired in controversy, Sammy Sosa, opted to go flat out knucklehead and conveniently forget how to speak English.
Well played, hombre.
Unfortunately for Mark McGwire, he couldn’t play the no hable ingles card. He opted to simply obfuscate and bullshit his way out of accepting any responsibility whatsoever for his reprehensible cheating. When caught with his beefy, juiced-up pipes stuck in the proverbial cookie jar did Bash Brother Number One come clean and fall on his Louisville Slugger? No, McGwire opted to follow that classic, old, adage: when the going gets tough; the tough lie. He told Bob Costas that the steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) he used didn’t enhance his performance. Not only did steroids help McGwire hit homeruns, it would appear they also made him an M.D.
McGwire is set to go to work for his old skipper, Tony LaRussa, as the St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach. It would appear the retired slugger had to “clean house” before he could put his gear into a locker at Busch Stadium.
Do you want to know the truth, or see me hit a few dingers?
- Mark McGwire
Quick - what is the name of the infamous shoe bomber?
January 9, 2010
As the delightful fog of fairy dust lifts from holiday-besotted minds, those visions of dancing sugar plums are replaced with the everyday-to-day ritual I like to call, “What the…?!”
It happens each time I pick up a paper, tune in a television newscast or surf the blogosphere. There’s a stopwatch hanging on a hook beside the desk in the home office. It’s a memento of my days as a radio commercial copywriter when I worked in 30 and 60 second bursts of creativity. I like to play a little game where I push the start button on the watch and see how long I can read, or look at the news before total disgust sets in and I’m forced to look away or, for the sake of my own mental health, slip a DVD of “Wind in the Willows” into the deck. Trust me. Thirty minutes with Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr. Toad is more enjoyable and a whole lot cheaper than a visit to the shrink.
Getting caught up in the Holiday Season can be a once yearly welcome respite from the previous 11-month pummeling our psyches have been taking, not to mention what awaits us in the next 11. At this time of year it’s advisable to spend more time with Bing Crosby or the Griswolds than with Peter Mansbridge and Anderson Cooper.
I fully understand why many opt to tune-out rather than in. This 24-hour news cycle nonsense can be both exhausting and infuriating and might be stealing tiny bits of our souls. There are mental health practitioners who boldly tell patients to shut off the TV entirely, or at the very least put a block on every channel except Treehouse. But when you ignore what’s going on in the world, as distasteful as it often is, it can come back to bite you on the butt. Case in point: some friends who were scheduled to fly to Hawaii on December 27th. That’s right. Grab a little of that Mele Kalikimaka action, bruddah. “Oh, by gosh, by golly,” the yuletide dream of many a Canucklehead is to swap the “mistletoe & holly” for mistletoe and palm trees; exchange a new toy for a bowl full of poi. Travel in late December is busy enough at the best of times, but this year’s holiday airport crush got a tad more complicated.
Those in the loop were aware of that Nigerian dupe with the ginch full of explosives who tried to incinerate his balls and a planeload of fellow travelers while approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.
“Oh, boy. You don’t want to be flying anywhere anytime soon,” I opined to anyone in earshot. “Can you say DefCon Niner?”
Those of us with no further to travel than the well worn path between the fridge and the couch went back to a quiet family Christmas in front of the fire.
Those out of the loop swanned up to YVR blissfully unaware of the security nightmare unfolding on the other side of those automatic doors to the departures level. Bad enough there had been a for real, this-is-not-a-drill, terrorist incident less than 48 hours prior. But to further complicate the boarding process, the Dad carries a British passport, while the teenage kids are Canadians. Without an Aloha or a Mahalo this plucky little touring party was separated, screened, gleaned and dry cleaned. The only thing our Honolulu bound pals didn’t get put through was the full, body cavity search where lightly-trained security personnel operating far above their pay grade get to practice proctology without a license. Nothing says bon voyage like a total stranger looking up your hoop. They say travel is broadening, but they didn’t say it included broadening the cheeks of your ass!
Our friends missed their flight and spent hours and a bunch of international cell-phone charges scrambling to make alternate travel arrangements.
Thanks a bunch al Qaeda. Is it me, or are these clowns getting way more bang for their terror buck than warranted? One guy on a one-way, 3000 dollar, plane ticket with a few bucks worth of plastic explosive in his underwear? Now the annoyance of air travel has once again been ratcheted up to a new level. If this keeps up we’ll have to start camping out at the airport overnight if we’re to clear security for a flight the next day.
As to our intrepid jihadist from Yemen, that’s right Yemen. His no-return-ticket journey initiates in Yemen and nobody who you would think should be on the lookout for nuggets of information like this happens to raise any kind of alert or alarm. Nothing good can come out of Yemen these days, especially with no luggage and a one-way ticket. And no one seemed to notice that our world traveler didn’t even have a coat for his planned “visit” to Michigan in December!? The mission budget couldn’t come up with a knock-off parka? Okay, we know he’s not going to actually need the parka, (wink wink) but for the sake of those of us who’ve read a LeCarre novel would it kill ya to humour us? Have a little pride in your work. At least try to make it appear like an organized plot.
After all the years since 9/11 spent fighting the war on terror, don’t you think American “intelligence” should be capable of coming up with some kind of plan to bankrupt Bin Laden rather than the other way around?
December 12, 2009
It is at this time when many look back on the past 12 months.
This isn’t so much a re-cap of the past year, but a mental house cleaning
if you will. A way to purge some of the Cranial Debris that has been building
up.
The old year of 2008 rang out with Hollywood’s favourite dumpee, Jennifer
Aniston on the cover of Vogue quoted from the interview inside, “What
Angelina did was very uncool.” Uncool? What are you, 12? Hey Jen - on
those long nights when you’re alone in the fabulous mansion with a bottle
of really, good Chablis wandering from tastefully decorated room to elegantly
designed room and digging deep wondering why your husband left? Maybe it’s
because you’re 40 years old and still speaking like a Tween while he was
looking for a woman. Hey, you’re an actress – sort of. Here’s
an Actors’ Studio workshop exercise for you. Try acting your age.
Cookie is my favourite Muppet and coincidentally, Cookie is also my favourite
Rankin.
If Joaquin Phoenix tried a little bit harder…maybe dug just a wee bit
deeper, he could possibly attain biggest flake in the world status. Do you believe
this guy? He makes Crispin Glover look well-adjusted. After an embarrassingly
stupid appearance on David Letterman’s Late Show in February, Dave remarked
to his guest’s face, “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t
be here tonight. We owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett.”
Back in February, a business news item reported Global’s putting its “E”
cable channel on the market. Hard to believe the broadcasting giant would want
to dump a property of this caliber offering almost non-stop access to Ben Mulroney
and programming the likes of “40 Smokin’ On-Set Hookups.”
How did the Emmy nominating committee miss this gem? Help me. Is there a demographic
profile of the target viewer who wants to give up 60 minutes of the finite time
he or she has been allotted for this life to find out which young star is having
sex with which other young star? How about all of them? They work together in
close quarters. It’s only natural. I work in a supermarket and the young
folks in beauty and cosmetics boff their counterparts in produce, bakery or
deli. It’s what young people do and some of the luckier, old ones, too.
You do understand that it is the actors who are having the sex and not you,
right? And no matter how “smokin’” these on-set hookups may
or may not be, you’re not going to be able to actually see any of the
actual, um…smoldering. Take some advice off an old, veteran, Boomer campaigner
from the front lines of the Sexual Revolution. Take that hour in front of the
“E” Channel and turn it into your own smokin’ hook-up. Hey,
you can leave the TV on if you want and maybe take a few pointers from Justin
& Britney…or Justin & Cam…or Justin & Jessica…or
Justin & Rhianna…or Justin and…
In March some kind of tempest in a tank top erupted over US First Lady Michelle
Obama’s well-developed arms. Hey, if Mrs. Obama’s pipes have anyone
intimidated, just be thankful the President didn’t marry actress Angela
Bassett!
When Spring sprung, OctoMom was riding high on notoriety. It seemed like the
world was her carnival midway and the media voyeuristas amongst us were lined
up purchasing tickets to the tent show so we could witness what looked to be
the inevitable implosion. There was talk that her “look” is a plastic
surgery enhanced attempt to resemble Angelina Jolie, who OctoMom is apparently
obsessed with. Uh, OctoMom - you’re gonna want to try and get your money
back. It was a valiant effort, but your surgeon fell a little short of the goal.
You look more like Jar Jar Binks than the female half of Brangelina. Can you
say “Gungan?” That aside, how tickled must she be to see the media
shitstorm that has swallowed up the once charmed life of Jon & Kate? As
a classic example of art imitating life imitating a train wreck and the total
unreality of so-called reality television, some idiot is apparently pitching
a proposed show that would have Jon Gosselin trying to find romance with OctoMom.
The working title is: “Yours, Mine and Ours Over Kate’s Dead Body.”
Is it me, or is it a little un-nerving to see Billy Mays still popping up on
late night TV hawking laundry additives and plastic, dashboard brackets to hold
your cell phone?
“I’ve been dead for months now, but these deals are so good, I’m
compelled to contact you from the afterlife. Walk towards the light and I’ll
double the offer at no extra cost. That’s right – three, jumbo tubs
of Stain-Away and eternal salvation for just $19.95, but you have to call now.”
Have your credit cards ready; operators are standing-by.
September brought us a truly sickening, bombshell revelation from Mackenzie
Phillips about her affair with her own father. Well, thank you MacKenzie! While
one can understand the need to unburden your self of what has to be some truly,
heavy, emotional baggage, did you have to involve all of us in the process?
Ewwww! Again – Ewwww! Thanks for the really disturbing mental images.
Couldn’t you have kept this one to yourself and your therapist? Have you
no idea how disgusting this chapter of your life story is? The Universal Incest
Taboo? Does it ring any bells? This is Sociology 101 here, kiddo. It is freshman
level stuff. The most primitive of cultures don’t engage in the practice.
I have to go along with your former step-mom, Michelle Phillips: “I’m
so embarrassed – and mad,” Michelle is reported to have said, “at
Oprah, at the publisher and at Mackenzie, who should be on a psychiatrist’s
couch, not on TV.” I always loved the music of the Mama’s and the
Papa’s. Now, whenever I hear the lovely harmonies of “California
Dreaming,” or “Monday Monday” all I can picture is you boffing
your Dad. Can I get another Ewwwww, in here?
Sarah Palin. As big a wing-nut as she appears to be virtually every time she
opens her mouth, do you blame her for doing a bunk on elected office and taking
the cash? When she decided to step down as Alaska’s Governor that lakeside,
resignation circus and off-the-wall, speech looked as though it could have been
scripted by Looney Tunes maestro Michael Maltese and stage managed by Wavy Gravy.
Getting her ass out of the political pressure cooker and testing her worth in
the info-tainment world might be the sanest thing she’s ever done in public.
Go for the TV talk show, Sarah. You can’t possibly stink the joint out
any worse than Greg Behrendt on his short-lived, daytime chat fest. Hey, Greg,
I guess the viewing audience just isn’t that into you.
There’s a local radio station running television ads stating: “we
play your record collection.” Here’s how it works, platter people.
I can listen to my record collection anytime I want. I tune in the radio to
hear your record collection, m’kay?
Speaking of your record collection…I like Christmas music. Even the least
Grinchiest among us, however, can be tested at this time of year by the seemingly
ubiquitous festive tunes tinkling, chiming and sleigh-riding out of speakers
great and small. It’s the repetition, which can get positively wearying.
Don’t just sit there and let the local mall, radio station or Christmas
tree lot dictate your Holiday listening. While the seasonal songbook can be
limiting, the trick is to seek out the really cool, Yule sounds. Be pro-active.
Embrace the music and program your own playlist. Chris Isaak’s Christmas
collection is a little gem you might have missed when it was released in 2004.
With all due respect to Gene Autry’s classic version, Chris’ take
on “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” is probably the best cover of
this classic yet.
By all reports the Golf Industry is not looking forward to a very Merry Christmas.
His personal peccadillos aside, Tiger Woods is so important to the business
of professional golf that when he wrecked his knee last year and was temporarily
sidelined the PGA tour ratings and earnings fell by 50%. That is close to catastrophic.
In the midst of this mounting scandal Woods announced that he is “taking
an indefinite break from golf.” The loud bang heard ‘round the world
was the collective slamming shut of executive sphincters in the PGA, sports
broadcasting, network television, promotion, advertising, sponsorship, equipment
manufacturing, tournaments, travel & tourism. If they took a 50 point hit
for a bum knee, what impact will an “indefinite break” have on the
world of golf?
My only advice is, run. Run, Tiger run like you’ve never run before. Not
tomorrow, not later today, right now. Drop everything, grab the laptop and the
credit cards and get the hell out of Dodge. Don’t pack and don’t
look back. You’ve got a billion dollars, son. With that kind of scratch
you can start a new career. You can become a magician and disappear. Get on
your boat, slam that Styx Greatest Hits into the deck and “come sail away,
come sail away.” If you stay, they’ll make you go on Oprah and cry.
You know they will. As Popeye used to say: “how embarrasskin’!”
And that’s only the beginning. The next thing you know you’ll be
dealing with that idiot Dr. Phil and nobody in his right mind wants to be in
the same room with Dr. Phil. You’d be better off in a Khmer Rouge re-education
camp. Look what talking to Dr. Phil did for that poor sap Pat O’Brien.
Pat got to keep his job, but lost his dignity. While Nike is still one of your
sponsors, put on a pair of their best cross-trainers, make like the logo and
swoosh.
You need some time, Tige to let this thing cool down a little. Give you time
to think and for those cuts and abrasions on your face to heal. By then some
nitwit of a politician will have tapped his toes in a public crapper or a clown
will strap his wife and child to the side of homemade rocket in a bid to get
his own reality show and you’ll be off the front pages for awhile. You
won’t, however, be off the hook with the Mrs. You’ll still have
to deal with the wife, champ. I’m thinking being smacked about the face
and lips with your cell phone is the least of your worries right about now.
Whew! I feel better already. Lighter. Fluffier. Thanks for letting me clear
up some RAM space in the old noggin. Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.
December 5, 2009
This week marks the awful anniversary of John Lennon’s
murder. John’s memory is forever tied to the holiday season for us. As
we celebrated our first Christmas together my wife and I were putting up the
lights and tinsel around the little apartment in Kits when the news broke that
some “deranged fan” had shot and killed him outside the famed Dakota
where he lived in New York City.
While I was very fond of each and every one of the Fab Four, John was always
my favourite Beatle. Fellow Boomers will remember when it was de rigeur to have
a fave. Part of the Beatle mystique was the four distinct personalities that
made up the legendary combo. Paul, George and Ringo all had loyal camps of dedicated
followers, but John fans always felt like we were in on something a little deeper.
As demonstrated in films like “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help,”
John appeared to be the prankster…the wisenheimer. He was clearly the
leader of the group. His sometimes twisted, dark sense of humour was showcased
in two volumes of illustrated stories: “In His Own Write” and “A
Spaniard in the Works.” John’s whimsy, nonsense verse and liberal
use of malapropisms greatly appealed to me.
After the break-up of, arguably, the greatest pop band of all time, John went
on to have a successful solo career and claimed to not miss being a Beatle one
bit. We all missed the Beatles a lot more than he did. Though the Fabs had been
broken up for 10 years when he was killed, the band’s impact, influence
and steady album sales continued. In 1980 I happened to be working for Capitol
Records, the label that released the Beatles’ music in Canada. The company
launched a special Beatles retail promotion each year at Christmas. It sometimes
included an enter-to-win a Volkswagen “Beetle” contest tie-in. The
Beatles catalogue was, and still remains, a vast resource for parent firm EMI.
The Beatles could always be counted on to contribute to the record division’s
year end bottom line. Part of the Christmas push involved lavish, in-store displays.
As part of the P.O.P. – point of purchase material like posters, banners
and such - the plant would print overruns of the old, 12”x12” album
jackets to incorporate in window and in-store displays. Stunned by the news
of John’s murder, I needed something to occupy my mind. A lifelong doodler
and graphic arts dabbler I took one of the Beatles album jackets, cut out a
couple of images of John and fashioned them into a crude, arts & crafts,
tree ornament, which gets hung with all the family decorations each year. Pulling
it out of the Rubbermaid storage bin prompted this reminiscence.
You might not readily associate an artist like John Lennon with the holiday
season. Not in the same way as say, Andy Williams and his “hap-happi-est
season of all,” Bing Crosby’s dreaming of that “White Christmas,”
or Frank Sinatra and his “J-I-N-G-L-E Bells.” John did contribute
“Happy Christmas” to the contemporary Yuletide songbook. The song’s
refrain, “War is over, if you want it,” was printed on billboards
in major cities around the world, paid for by John and Yoko. Over the years
since John’s death, Yoko has continued to run the billboards. Christmas
is a time when we strive to promote one of the season’s tenets –
peace on earth and goodwill to all men. John Lennon was a man of peace who turned
his considerable, musical talent and personal financial resources to this end.
He walked the walk. Ironically, like many espousing peace before him, he met
a violent death.
What is it about the homicidal loonies of this world? How come the “voices”
in their heads only tell them to do evil things? Instead of “kill, kill,
kill,” why don’t the voices ever say: “help out at the neighborhood
food bank…donate blood…or volunteer down at the ‘Y’
teaching kids how to sink a 3-pointer.” If his convicted killer, Mark
David Chapman “wanted to be John Lennon,” as has been alleged by
some mental health practitioners who have commented on the case over the years,
then why didn’t he act like John Lennon?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way with the unhinged.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
- John Winston Ono Lennon
SHOUT IT SHOUT IT OUT LOUD
November 28, 2009
KISS blew through Vancouver a couple of weeks back. I marvel at the group’s
steadfastly continuing to grind out the same old same old after all these years
with only a modicum of talent. I often feel like the young boy on the side of
the parade route unabashedly proclaiming the Emperor’s nudity. If truth
be told, KISS is a terrible band – always was. This makes its survival
and continued viability all the more remarkable. Many, many a far superior group
disintegrated decades ago, yet KISS rolls on. A lot of it has to do with the
phenomenon that is the band’s bass player, Gene Simmons. Gene isn’t
a phenomenal bass player. Far from it, but he is some kind of entertainment
business phenom nonetheless.
Back in the 1970’s, KISS hit the touring circuit that saw tons of acts
criss-crossing North America non stop for years on end. Bands like RUSH, Aerosmith,
Cheap Trick, BTO, the Dead, Ted Nugent, Jefferson Starship, Styx, Bruce Springsteen,
Black Sabbath, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Southside Johnny, Bob Seger, Genesis,
Jethro Tull, Triumph, Santana, J. Geils Band, Blue Oyster Cult, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
the Kinks, ZZ Top. Turn the corner in cities big or small and you’d inevitably
bump into a tour bus idling by the curb outside the local hockey rink or concert
hall. It was the heyday of so-called “Album Oriented” FM rock radio.
And while all of the aforementioned acts were mainstays on FM rock playlists
across North America, KISS was not.
With so many acts on the road it was not uncommon for them to bump into each
other from time to time. If a far cooler outfit like Led Zeppelin were to come
up on KISS rolling along I-whatever, KISS was required to pull over onto the
shoulder. The touring party then had to dismount and stand silently by the side
of the road with heads bowed as the Zep entourage passed by. April Wine’s
Myles Goodwin said it best: “Rock & Roll is a vicious game.”
You didn’t want to mess with Jimmy Page. He owned Aleister Crowley’s
old place on the shores of Loch Ness. Calling himself “the Great Beast,”
Crowley was deep into the black arts and it was said, so was Mr. Page. An incantation
here, a modified “Red Shoes” spell there and the next thing you
know, Gene and company can’t stop dancing in their Patti LaBelle hand-me-down
platform space boots and there isn’t enough cold cream in the world to
get that goo off their faces.
At its best KISS was, and still is a novelty act. Change the outfits and alter
the musical arrangements and they’re Doodlebops. It’s live musical
theatre, more Rocky Horror Picture Show than real rock & roll. That’s
not to say KISS isn’t entertaining in a giant, blow up a monster truck
race kind of way. All along, what KISS lacked in chops was more than overcompensated
for with monstrous production. The make-up, nutty costumes and ridiculous footwear
were only part of the picture. From the very earliest days the band rolled with
such a huge amount of sound and lights as to make Nuremburg Rally stage manager
Albert Speer pea green with envy. Nobody had more pyro – pyrotechnics/explosions
- than KISS.
Through the expert manipulations and marketing savvy of Gene Simmons, KISS has
managed to attain a certain retro-cool status that it never enjoyed even its
heyday. Sheer longevity is a contributing factor. You have to hand it to Gene
for his magnificent handling of the KISS brand. As demonstrated by the memorabilia-stuffed
home office shown in his hit reality show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, the guy
will license the logo or likenesses for just about anything. From drink cups
to snowboards…action figures to lunch boxes. There are even KISS condoms.
Gene Simmons, a lizard-tongued, poster child for safe sex? The guy’s a
riot!
KISS is destined to be a footnote in the history of rock music. Face it, Return
to Forever these guys are not. Kudos, again, to Gene Simmons for his ability
to make such enormous financial hay while the sun is shining on his particular
shtick.
But the best thing Gene Simmons ever produced had nothing to do with music.
It’s his family. Those two kids are charming. But in this endeavour, Mr.
Big Shot wasn’t alone. The other half of the parental equation is Shannon
Tweed. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Tweed for Mom’s gene pool, huh Nick
and Sophie? We know you guys love your Dad, but no matter how much love, wealth
and privilege you were born into, you wouldn’t want to face life with
a kisser like your old man. Why do you think he and the guys have been hiding
behind all that Kabuki greasepaint for so many years?
Call this an open letter to Mr. Simmons. For crying out loud, Gene, would you
stop acting like God’s own schmuck and marry the woman? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we’ve heard all your claptrap about divorce statistics and your “being
happily unmarried” and whatever other tired old, twaddle you’ve
been shovelling out for years. Hell, even Hef gets married once in awhile. And
he’s Hef! What’s your game? Shannon has stood by your sorry ass
for all these years and given you two wonderful children. You get all teary-eyed
on the television show because you were off on the road making the family fortune
and missed much of your children’s growing up. It was Shannon who kept
everything together on the home front, rock god. She documented everything on
video and sent it to you on tour keeping you in the loop with birthday parties,
first steps…first teeth...real life. You’re obviously proud of your
kids. That’s down to Shannon, asswipe! If we’re to believe all the
hype and rock star back story, while she raised the kids you were busy getting
your pole shined every which way imaginable from coast-to-coast and back again.
Apparently you have thousands of rude polaroids to back up the legendary exploits.
What seemed like a cool idea in your twenties is now kinda icky when you’re
sixty, there Stickman.
Like too many “self-made men” you come off as a pompous arse. In
North American society, success is measured by how much money you have. Dollars
are the only points on the board that matter and if you can put up enough of
‘em, there’s a natural tendency to believe that your poop don’t
stink anymore and that anything you have to say is 100% right and everybody
should defer to you in all situations.
Despite Paul Stanley and those two anonymous sidemen you play with on stage,
you’re effectively a one-man band, Gene. That’s why you pulled the
pin on yourself when you appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice. There’s
no way the Simmons ego could be reined-in enough for you to be even a symbolic,
second banana, even though the celebrities were playing for charity and not
actually vying for an apprenticeship. You possess all the business chops necessary
to have mopped the boardroom floor with your competitors, but there’s
only room for one alpha dog in Trump Towers and he’s the guy on the other
side of the table with the bad, comb-over, so you bailed.
But this isn’t about your inability to play well with the other millionaires.
It’s about your not doing the right thing by Shannon Tweed. Come on, Gene.
It’s time to man up and marry the nice, Canadian girl. You’ve already
done the hard part – you bought her a sprawling house in Whistler! After
writing that kind of cheque, walking down the aisle and saying ‘I do’
should be easy-peasy.
Take a cue from one of your songs: “Shout it, Shout it, Shout it out loud.”
Last time I checked, the only one who owns me is the mother
who gave birth to me. In return for life she is allowed to torture
me. No other woman is allowed to do that. They have not
earned the right.
- Gene Simmons
November 21, 2009
The lingering pall of gun smoke has dissipated over the scene of the recent
Fort Hood Massacre, but the story of the man accused of the heinous crime is
anything but clear. More and more background information on U.S. Army Major
Nidal Hasan is trickling out daily via the media, but the deluge is yet to come.
If you thought the O.J. Simpson trial coverage was a mind-boggling spectacle,
just wait ’til this 3-ring circus hits the courts. Think Barnum and F.
Lee Bailey. They’ll have to sedate Nancy Grace. The poor woman could get
so worked up over a case like this that she might literally explode on TV right
before our eyes.
The town closest to Fort Hood is Killeen, deep in the heart of Texas just a
little southwest of Waco. Prior to this horrible event most of us had never
heard of Killeen outside of its showing up in a country music lyric or maybe
it was where Willie Nelson’s bus broke down once upon a time. As evidenced
by widely shown video surveillance, this numb-nut Hasan is living in post-9/11
Texas, for cryin’ out loud and parading his ass around town in full Muslim
drag and nobody taps him on the shoulder and says:
“Uh, hey…dude? Do you really think that’s the right thing
to be wearing off-base to the 7-11? At the very least you might want to get
a big old NASCAR logo on that sumbitch.”
Hell, in pre-9/11 Texas an outfit like that could have got you dragged behind
a car over several miles of back road just because it was Saturday night and
the 2-for-1, 6-pack o’ cold ones special was still on at the local convenience.
What was this guy thinking, or more importantly, what were the Army officials
around him thinking? He’s a mental health provider – a psychiatrist.
You know that old saying about a duck? If it dresses like a shrink, quacks like
a shrink and is usually seen in the company of other shrinks, how come one of
those other shrinks didn’t notice that the one over there in the 7th Voyage
of Sinbad gear was a bull-goose loony about to unleash hell on his “comrades-in-arms?”
These are the men and women charged with treating the mounting casualties whose
wounds aren’t visible. One or more of them should be handing back their
medical degrees and trying another line of work.
I’m not a Walter Reed Hospital trained military psychiatrist, but you
don’t have to be Carl Jung to figure out Hasan’s behaviour prior
to the massacre was some kind of cry for help, if that isn’t the understatement
of the year. Keep in mind, he snapped before going overseas. How did Hasan fall
through the cracks?
The numbers of returning war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan who are psychologically
damaged is staggering. Figures are as high as 20%. Clearly, none of these people
should have gone to war in the first place. Should they have known this about
themselves? Could they have known ahead of time how they would react? I’ve
never experienced combat, but I don’t think you have to actually dodge
live fire to conclude that it has to be one of, if not the most terrifying and
stressful occupations in the world. Don’t you think they’d be looking
for a particular type of candidate for this kind of job? Lives are in the balance.
Shouldn’t the screening process be a little more – diligent!?
And what of those who join the armed forces in time of war? There is no conscription
in Canada, nor a draft in the United States. For whatever reason(s), these individuals
chose to enlist. Are we led to believe that all of these volunteers haven’t
the first inkling of the dangers and stresses they are going to face in a combat
theatre? Have you never turned some store-bought ground beef into hamburgers
for the backyard barbecue? Do you know how ground beef is created? High explosives
do that to human beings in less than a blink of an eye. My heart goes out to
those traumatized by their combat experiences, but what did you think war was
going to be like? Have you never seen movies like “Platoon,” “Saving
Private Ryan,” “Blackhawk Down” or a documentary television
series called “The World at War?”
It would be akin to auditioning for a reality program like “Survivor”
or “the Amazing Race” without ever having seen either show before.
From the time the production company calls you up and says, guess what? You’ve
just been selected to appear on the next season of “Survivor,” until
you’re actually flown to Bora Bora or the jungle shores of Whatsitsnamia
and thrown unceremoniously off a sea-going vessel, I’m thinking a certain
length of time will elapse. More than enough to afford the potential contestant
the opportunity to maybe do a little homework like – oh, I dunno, maybe
screening an episode, or two of the program in question to glean a little insight
into just how the game is played? Knowing the rules of any game going in would
seem to be fundamental and essential to success. Call me “Old Fashioned”
but I like to know up-front that financial ruin awaits me if my game piece lands
on Pennsylvania Avenue with a hotel on it before I sit down for a friendly game
of, what do you call it? “Monopoly”? Keeping in mind that it was
you who went to all the effort of putting together a boffo audition tape implying
that you: a) want to be a part of the show, and b) presumably have a rudimentary
working knowledge of how it plays. Explain, then, the bozos and bimbos who,
season after season, land in their own particular chunk of rugged geography,
which they are charged to “survive” over the course of some 5-and-a-half
weeks, yet seemingly haven’t a clue as to just how the contest is conducted.
When the actual show airs we see all these hapless schmoes playing out their
ignorance in front of a swarm of cameras and microphones. I know these shows
are all about the editing and keeping the interest of we the home viewers, but
some of these clowns look like they’d never heard of this thing called
“Survivor” until they were actually being served the sea bass sphincters
in squid ink during the traditional eat disgusting things “Immunity Challenge.”
Hasan is about to get a lot of reality camera time. It’s too bad this
physician couldn’t heal himself, let alone the broken men and women he
was charged with treating and caring for.
There was a saying back in our ‘60’s Boomer youth when the Vietnam
conflict was raging – “Suppose they gave a war and nobody came.”
Yeah, just suppose, but don’t hold your breath. Since the dawn of time
we’ve been hacking and hewing on each other non-stop. War is a constant
in the history of our species. Peace, it would seem, is the anomaly.
An opinion survey commissioned by CNN this week found 64% or those polled believe
authorities could have prevented the Fort Hood Massacre. The U.S. Congress has
ordered the Pentagon to launch a full investigation.
November 14, 2009
Like many bazillions of us, my search engine of choice is Google. I’ve
always been taken with the amusing and often timely, changing graphics around
the Google logo when the homepage comes up. I recently twigged to a series of
the logo featuring Muppets from Sesame Street. Who doesn’t love Muppets?
Unless you have a chunk of granite for a heart, Muppets are pretty much guaranteed
to make you smile, which I did and then promptly went about checking out whatever
it is I wanted Google to search for. But you know how the mind can work. Those
lovable characters with the ping-pong ball eyes were frolicking around in the
subconscious. A thought burst through: “wazzup with all the Muppets?”
The whirring and clicking increased in volume as this Boomer’s brain started
riffling through the rolodex. It was like a delayed reaction to a missed joke’s
punchline when that symbolic cartoon light bulb shines over your head: some
quick math…2009 - so Sesame Street has hit the big four-oh!
It took a little longer than usual, but hey, the old synaptic receptors aren’t
firing off as crisply as they used to. It’s that age-old short term/long
term memory bugaboo for me. I kill at Trivial Pursuits, but I can’t recall
what I did yesterday. It’s like that with phone messages. I’ll retrieve
one from the machine and promptly forget. Several days later it will pop back
up on the cranial radar and I return the call. Plus I’ve always been easily
distracted by bright, shiny objects. Is it short term memory lapse, or did a
cherry, Shelby Cobra just go rumbling by? It was choice -metal-flake blue with
spoke wheels and monstrous pipes - the sound that thing was making…uh,
now where were we?
I turned 18 in 1969. ‘Nuff said? The particular zeitgeist that we have
come to recognize as “The Sixties,” if not dead by ’69, was
definitely on life support. Those slow moving ripples that fanned out from the
epicenter of San Francisco’s “Summer of Love” in 1967 took
a good two years to reach the Toronto suburbs. Those socially seismic waves
brought along the revolutionary sacrament that was marijuana, which arrived
in our neighborhood around the same time Sesame Street hit the airwaves on PBS.
Coincidence? Definitely, but one of marijuana’s effects is its ability
to help make connections between seemingly disparate events appear as cosmic
convergences.
“Did you catch that? When the traffic light on the corner turned green,
the phone rang. When I went to answer I saw the menu from the pizza place under
the phone. How did the traffic light know I wanted a pizza?”
Cable TV was in its infancy then. With access to fewer channels, “going
around the horn” was much quicker. Hitting the PBS station out of Buffalo,
New York our eyes were attracted to a fast-paced, brightly coloured, almost
hyper-kinetic program populated by the most amazing, puppet-like creatures inhabiting
a fictional neighborhood on a main drag called Sesame Street. So, there we were.
High school graduates on our way to various, post-secondary institutions of
higher learning sitting in the rec. room fascinated by a show teaching us the
letter ‘R’ and the number ‘5’. We may have had the volume
on the television turned down and King Crimson’s “I Talk to the
Wind” on the old, Elektrohome console stereo providing the soundtrack
for early experiments in multi-tasking.
Fast forward to the late ‘70’s/early ‘80’s when a lot
of us start raising our families. We have no qualms about plunking the little
ones down to watch Sesame Street.
“Has Daddy got a show for you, pumpkin!”
We must not have been the only Canadians smoking dope and watching a program
for pre-schoolers on American public television. When Lorne Michaels created
Saturday Night Live he included Muppets in the first cast. Jim Henson’s
gifted crew at his Creature Shop came up with a whole new group of bizarre Muppets
ostensibly targeted at a young adult, late-night audience demographic. As hip
and cool as they tried to make these Muppets, it didn’t work out. Legendary
madman comic John Belushi hated the Muppets. Belushi being Belushi you can bet
he lobbied behind the scenes in his own subtle fashion to get rid of them. When
the show hit big time, Belushi became an overnight star. The Muppets’
days were numbered at Saturday Night Live. They were gone at the end of the
first season.
Among our many Boomer monikers, they called us the “Youth Generation”
and pot was just some of the medicine we used to stay youthful. Those deep laugh
lines that now criss-cross our maps were honestly and joyously earned getting
high and watching Beverly Hillbillies re-runs after classes at University. Tell
me you didn’t piss yourself when Jethro was on his James Bond kick and
fancied himself a “double nought spy.” Do you remember his rigging
a full-size, wood-burning stove on the back of the Clampett Family truck so
he could lay down a smoke screen if pursued by enemy agents? Or the ejector
seat that wound up flinging Granny over the hedge into the Drysdales’
cee-ment pond?
Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street. Thanks for teaching us to count and recognize
colours and letters all over again. I never would have been able to graduate
had I completely forgotten what the letter ‘R’ was for. With what
we were up to during the program’s early years, it never hurt to have
refresher tutorials delivered to us by lovably engaging characters like Cookie
Monster and Big Bird. “Monster-piece Theatre” hosted by “Alistair
Cookie?” This is gold! That gag is a bit over the heads of most pre-schoolers.
Kudos to the writers for throwing the grown-ups a few choice bones, too. Boning
up on that letter ‘R’ came in real handy when I attended Ryerson
University and had to take the subway.
‘C’ is for cookie
That’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie
Cookie starts with ‘C’
- Cookie Monster
November 6, 2009
I’m allergic to penicillin. As allergies go, it’s not that much
of a lifestyle challenge. Avoid ingesting the stuff or getting injected with
it and I’m gold. Fortunately, for those of us who react to penicillin,
the life-saving anti-biotic isn’t floating around in the air like dust,
pollen and cat dander. As annoying as the red, watery eyes, itching, congestion
and the sneezing might be, as far as I know, ragweed is not fatal. A shot of
penicillin, however, could kill me.
Like a lot of Boomers, I entered this life during the polio epidemic in the
middle of the last century. Polio was a real life Boogeyman that scared the
wits out of parents in those days. Thousands of children who contracted the
then mysterious disease were paralyzed and/or crippled for life. When Dr. Jonas
Salk developed his polio vaccine in 1954 it was rightly hailed as a miracle.
The Salk vaccine, however, contained some penicillin, so I was unable to take
it. As the other kids were marched off to the gym at school to be vaccinated
I stayed behind in class happy to have avoided getting a “needle”
and too young to realize that I was in much greater danger of getting the horribly
debilitating ailment. I can still recall the look of concern and the worry lines
beginning to etch themselves into my Mom’s pretty, young face.
As I was not vaccinated against polio and much more vulnerable the pediatrician
advised my parents to keep me away from crowds and potentially crowded areas.
For a number of years during the peak of the crisis I wasn’t allowed to
go to movies, concerts, sporting events, live theatre, parades, the circus or
the EX – Canadian National Exhibition. The C.N.E. is to Toronto what the
P.N.E. is to Vancouver and it was an annual event no kid wanted to miss. We
planned and squirreled away our pennies all year long in anticipation. I missed
the movies a lot during my “voluntary” quasi-quarantine, but I missed
the EX most of all. It was too bad this ban of crowded areas didn’t extend
to our Boomer-swollen classrooms. It was just my luck to have a medical problem
that didn’t keep me out of school.
As it happened I was none the worse off for the isolation and thankfully dodged
the polio bullet. They eventually developed a polio vaccine without penicillin.
And good news - by this time the medicine was administered orally, so it was
win-win for this syringe-a-phobic.
We fast forward to the current flu pandemic to find the manufacture and distribution
of H1N1 vaccine is lagging and far short of initial production projections.
A recent poll found that 51% of us plan to take a pass on the shot. The reduced
demand should help balance the manufacturing shortfall. What would have happened
had all of us demanded the vaccine at the same time?
So, here’s a tip from a guy who early in life picked up some valuable
lessons on dealing with public health scares. Stay home. Don’t let the
name fool ya. The fact that you have no contact with pigs whatsoever is meaningless.
While called the Swine Flu, the H1N1 virus is carried by people and passed along
the old fashioned way from one of us to the other and so on and so on. If we
want to avoid the flu this season, we need to avoid each other. Okay, in a modern,
urban society that’s nigh impossible, especially when one has to venture
out each day to earn a crust. But you can avoid contact with large numbers of
strangers.
This is not going to be a popular concept with anyone trying to make a living
in the entertainment or hospitality industries. But do you really want to be
in a hot, sweaty, crowded dance club during a pandemic? We’re not talking
about a week of feeling lousy. This stuff kills.
This isn’t to suggest that one become a complete hermit, although you
never know. You might like the seclusion for a change. It could provide a chance
to finally tackle “Moby Dick,” or “Ulysses.” The good
Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise, this pandemic won’t
last long and we can all get back to our socially interactive and potentially
infectious ways.
Hopefully before Valentine’s Day.
Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
- Albert Einstein
"Oooooooohhhhhh Canada!"
October 31, 2009
Was anybody surprised a couple of weeks back when that ship carrying 70-odd
refugees got nabbed off Vancouver Island? It seemed to sneak up on all of us
including the authorities. The story has dropped off the media radar, not unlike
the ship itself while en route to B.C. I couldn’t help wondering about
the somewhat lax security posture. This rather casual attitude seems to fly
in the face of what we’ve been led to believe is necessary in this dangerous
world of ours. Whatever happened to all those spokes on the colour wheel U.S.
Homeland security selects to emphasize what Stephen Colbert calls “the
Threatdown”? When an unidentified, unregistered ship clandestinely sails
halfway around the world into our coastal waters, shouldn’t we be going
to Code Red, Orange…Magenta?
Compare this with what most of us experience in taking something as simple as
a domestic flight. This past summer I found myself flying to and from Toronto
and going through the now obligatory airport dance. After dumping what you think
is everything and anything metal into the plastic totes it’s time for
the metal detector shuffle. Back and forth BEEP…back and forth BEEP. I’m
told to remove my shoes.
BEEP!
“Is this thing registering the fillings in my teeth?”
“Could you please extend your arms sir?”
The security officer now swipes me with the hand-held unit.
Swish swish be-deep…swish bedeep…swish bedeep...bedeep.
“What’s that, sir?”
“I dunno…the zipper in my pants, maybe?”
Bedeep.
“A staple left over from my hernia operation?”
It is now time to set aside the electronic device and go hands-on. Since the
security officer with the portable metal detector is female, she has to call
for back-up - a male colleague to feel around my waistline.
There I am standing like an idiot in the middle of a bustling international
airport clutching my shoes in one hand while the other holds my beltless trousers
from falling down around my stocking feet. I seem to recall having the boarding
pass stuck in my yap to complete the overall tableaux. It’s the kind of
look that definitely screams, “SECURITY!” But not in a fit-the-profile,
charge up the tasers, let’s take this guy down kind of situation, but
rather in a sped-up, Benny Hill, chase the flight attendants around the terminal
with seltzer bottles and cream pies while a vintage recording of “Yakety
Sax” blasts from the overhead speakers sort of way.
It begs the question: How competent is the security in general? In expending
the time, manpower and energy to electronically scan and physically pat down
a dumpy, middle-aged doofus wearing corrective lenses on his eyes and carrying
corrective shoes in his hands, what more serious threats might this crack squad
of operatives be inadvertently missing? I had the attention of two – count
‘em, 2, I’m presuming highly, trained security personnel tasked
with rummaging about in the waistband of my baggy, GAP khakis. I know they’re
only doing their jobs, but what threat could a guy like me possibly be? The
only, risk I pose is to myself. I risk pissing those relaxed-fit trousers while
waiting in the line-up for the only working lavatory on the plane. I’m
an old guy with a bladder the size of thimble. I always take an aisle seat.
Agree to disagree about many aspects of life on the post-9/11 planet it is nevertheless,
what it is. Understanding and accepting it, however does not make an ordeal
like clearing airport security any less annoying. Nor does it make the least
bit of sense when compared to the apparent lapse of security around the most
recent voyage of the Ocean Lady, the mystery craft from across the sea. The
ship had been used to smuggle weapons from North Korea to Sri Lanka during that
country’s 25-year civil war You’d think with a reputation like that
it would have been intercepted much sooner. Are these good guys or bad guys?
We don’t know. Depending on what side of a conflict you stand, one guy’s
refugee is another guy’s war criminal on the lam. If Humphrey Bogart movies
have shown us anything, it is ships sailing out of war-torn countries are rife
with all sorts of unsavoury characters. Whoever they are and whatever they are
running from is beside the point. Regardless of what colour code the security
threat-o-meter was set to, the rusty bucket Ocean Lady almost managed to land
on Vancouver Island.
We were told this was a boatload of “Sri Lankan refugees,” who,
we must presume have fled their war torn country following the protracted Tamil
revolt. Please forgive my showing off the grade 6 geography education, but if
this bunch is fleeing Sri Lanka that means the vessel must have crossed not
1, but 2 of the Earth’s major oceans, the Indian and the granddaddy of
them all, the mighty Pacific, virtually undetected. Don’t you find it
the least bit curious that none of the flights out of Diego Garcia noticed anything?
How about radar or sonar? The US Navy’s entire Pacific Fleet, including
nuclear “shark” submarines was what – looking the other way?
Floating satellite tracking devices, local fishermen, tsunami buoys, Carnival
Cruise Liners, an albatross with an iPhone? Nothing and nobody picked up on
this phantom ship as it headed towards our west coast. Was this tramp steamer
fitted out with a Romulan cloaking device? Children in our society carry personal
gizmos in their Spiderman backpacks allowing them to communicate with pals from
Moose Jaw to Myanmar in real time. But a ship, allegedly owned by the Tamil
Tigers themselves sails quietly into Canadian territorial waters without anyone
noticing until these guys are all but sitting down to High Tea at the Empress.
If they hadn’t alerted hotel staff by ordering more scones in heavily
Sri Lankan accented English, for all we know they might have slipped through
Customs and be teaching drivers’ training out of a strip mall in Coquitlam
by now.
Speaking of security…Victoria girded itself with the largest police operation
in the city’s history Friday for the arrival of the Olympic Torch. Organizers
and government officials feared those wanting to protest against the 2010 Winter
Games would attempt to disrupt the ceremony. They rallied all this muscle for
a publicity stunt, if you will? Oh, sure. It is the Olympics and as such, even
the most mundane of activities are magnified on the world stage. But this is
simply an event promo and not all that different from Nearly Neil doing the
whole Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation shtick for noon-time concerts
at Guildford Mall during the big Sidewalk Sale. Citizens exercising their charter
sanctioned rights to gather, bear witness and/or express their opposition to
something generate more fear and warrant more security forces than complete
and utter strangers attempting to illegally infiltrate our sovereign nation?
Who are the alleged enemies, the so-called “terrorists,” those “refugees”
on the Ocean Lady? And who are the ones you have been allegedly charged to “serve
and protect”?
I’m confused.
The last train out of any station will not be full of nice guys.
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
October 24, 2009
Have you seen any of this propaganda clogging up our TV screens? No, not the
usual crap, but this new campaign that has the local television stations squared
off against the cable providers in some kind of set-to over guess what? Uh-huh
- money. Both factions are alternately running spots taking dumps on each other.
The stations are bonded together in some kind of deal with the devil coalition
under the banner “local TV matters.” Their spots invite us to go
to a website and “join the conversation.” Basically TV wants Cable
to pay it for the programming it provides and it wants us, the viewers, to write
the CRTC and tell the governing body that we want to cough up more for our cable
because television ad revenues aren’t paying enough anymore and whine,
whine, poor them.
All us Boomers grew up during the Cold War with the spectre of nuclear annihilation
hanging over our heads like some atomic Sword of Damocles. While a nuke is a
frightening thing, it was impossible to scare the Russians with one unless you
could convince them you could successfully get it to Moscow or Magnitogorsk.
The ICBM is the key. The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: the Delivery System.
You can’t ship these things via FedEx. I don’t care how good your
beets are Goober. Unless you’ve got the trucks and trains to get those
suckers to market they’re just some weird red things in the ground.
Some 40-odd years ago, television hooked-up with cable’s delivery system.
Now cable has television by the balls. Naturally, TV doesn’t like it and
they’re attempting to get us to enlist on its side of the argument. So
is Cable with its counter campaign. Hey, Cable. You’re our drug dealer,
not our friend. You get us what we want, sure, but make us pay dearly for the
service. TV, quit acting like what you offer is something akin to a commodity.
Stop making us feel guilty because your profit margins are off. Just because
you’ve been on the air forever, doesn’t make what you offer anything
approaching an essential service. Or that the community at large owes you anything
other than our captive attention, which you’ve been shamelessly hawking
to advertisers. For decades, television and cable systems have been hauling
the cash away in tandem dump-truck loads. Now that the general economy has slowed
and television has completely ignored the changing tastes and habits of the
viewership at large, it wants us to throw our tacit support behind some kind
of claptrap they’re calling “Negotiation for Value,” or “NFV.”
We’ve got nothing against your “negotiating for value.” G’head.
Negotiate your arses off for value. Find some mutual consensus between Cable
and local television, but leave us out of the equation. You fully plan to pass
any increased costs on to us, so quit trying to punk us out and make it seem
like it’s our duty to support you because, you know, you’re our
bros or something.
There’s been a revolution within the technological revolution resulting
in more and more audience fragmentation and diminishing numbers due to an ever
expanding range of alternate media. I guess the powers that be at Big Network
Television were so high on their own success that they couldn’t conceive
of the possibility of something else coming out of someone’s r&d to
blow them out of the race. It’s the buggy whip syndrome. The Horseless
Carriage came along and altered everything for the buggy whip manufacturers
who couldn’t or wouldn’t see change smoking and back-firing down
the streets.
What’s next? Are we going to see Tony Parsons standing at the corner of
Georgia and Granville with a begging bowl in hand and “Will Read the News
for Food” sign taped to his Hugo Boss suit jacket? It’s embarrassing.
Please don’t do this to Tony. Send Squire Barnes. He looks a lot more,
needy and has the potential to raise incremental funds. Maybe dress him in one
of Bill Good Jr.’s old suits with a big shiny backside from all that sittin’
around anchorin’. The oversized garment will make Barnes look more pathetic.
“Aw, the poor thing has to live with that head. Let’s give him something.”
When you, or your parent network, ran out of American cop, lawyer, hospital,
psychic cop paralegal with a side of paramedic shows to buy you produced tepid,
Canadian-made clone versions of same. You see here’s what happens when
you roll out so-called entertainment that makes us yawn. We tend to close our
eyes when this happens. It’s a natural reaction, but with our eyes closed
from all the yawning we can’t possibly see your lame shows, so it kinda
defeats the purpose. Do you see the root of your problem there V.P. of Programming
and Content Affairs?
Keep squeezing us. Your market share is eroding like hoodoos in the badlands
as you drive more and more of us away to other diversions and entertainments.
All the new audience – those highly coveted younger demographics that
should represent your future – is on line or on the phone. I understand
that increasing numbers of said demo don’t even own televisions. And you
wanna piss off the rest of us? That’s a real winning strategy, Lao Tzu,
destined to drop you in the land of nobody gives a rat’s ass.
The DVD collection is coming along nicely, thank you very much. Whenever your
bullshit programming gets a bit too much to take – see Bruce Springsteen:
“57 Channels and Nothin’ On” – I can always watch “Lawrence
of Arabia” or the “Seinfeld” boxed set at the push of a button.
I’ve got a feeling there are a lot of us out there just about ready to
turn you off permanently. Probably more than you think; probably sooner than
you think.
We’ve been invited to “Join the Conversation,” so let’s
do that. Let’s join the conversation.
Go screw yourselves!
Local television, parent networks, cable providers - da lot
o’ youse, as our pals in Newfoundland would say - go off somewhere, together
if you want or individually, make yourselves comfortable, maybe have a drink
or two and kindly screw yourselves.
The point is: local TV doesn’t matter anymore. If it did, you wouldn’t
have to be running this obvious scam of a tax grab disguised to cover the shortfall.
Do you think sending your perky weather personality on remote to the Chilliwack
Corn Maze in October constitutes community involvement? Your market share has
been steadily waning because you became bloated, boring and yesterday’s
news. The parade is passing you by and you expect us to voluntarily sign up
for an extra tax just to sit on the curb and watch the floats.
We’re your customers. We pay an ever increasing price for an ever decreasing
quality of service and content. Want more from us? Try giving more in return.
Make shows we want to watch. Make it cheaper to pipe those shows into our homes.
We’re all tightening our belts in these shaky economic times. How’s
about pulling yours in a couple of notches? Want to really demonstrate you care
about the “community”? Join and support us in the economic fight
of our lives instead of the other way around.
Your cable television is experiencing difficulties. Please do not panic. Resist
the temptation to read or talk to
relatives. Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation have left
your genitals withered and useless.
- Matt Groening
The Simpsons
SPORTSNET - We've Got You Covered.
Last Sunday I was coachin’ from the couch with Game 3 of
the Yankees-Twins American League Division Series on the box. The two clubs
had themselves one heck of a pitchers’ duel going with nary a run crossing
the dish for either squad through 5 and a half innings. The hometown Twins got
1 in the bottom of the 6th. The Yankees answered with two, solo shot, opposite
field dingers from A-Rod and Jorge Posada in the top of the 7th. Nobody scored
in the 8th and the Yankees took a slim, 2-1 lead into the 9th.
“We’ve got ourselves a ball game,” I thought.
No sooner was the thought formulated than Rogers Sportsnet Pacific abruptly
switches away from the baseball game and up comes the intro for the Canucks
at Dallas.
“Hey! The ball game isn’t over,” I holler in protest!
Sure it was just the American League Division Series, but it was an exciting,
really close game. I understand the sports pecking order round these parts.
‘Nucks Rule. But this was the 5th game of the Canucks season as opposed
to the 3rd and, as it turned out, deciding game in a baseball playoff series.
Nobody was expecting the Canuck game to be pre-empted by Game 3 of the Minnesota-New
York match-up, but would it have been too much to ask to postpone going to the
Canucks game until after the ball game was over? They didn’t have to cancel
the hockey coverage, just wait a few minutes. What’s really galling is
the hockey game didn’t bump the last inning of a 2-1 cliff hanger. The
pre-game palaver from the panel of analysts is what Rogers Sportsnet opted to
serve us instead of the exciting finish.
The baseball season is almost over. Hockey season has just begun. There are
plenty of chances to catch the Canucks throughout the 82-game schedule. Each
and every game is available on TV from either our friends at Rogers Sportsnet,
CBC, TSN or Canucks Pay-per-View. Would it have killed ya to let us see the
end of ball game? You could have caught up with the hockey “already in
progress.” We wouldn’t have missed much. Vancouver went on to beat
the Stars in Dallas 4-3. While every game is important, this particular contest
is not all that crucial. Those words could come back to haunt me at the ‘Nucks
face their playoff prospects next spring.
The network is naturally targeting the biggest audience for its advertisers.
That’s business. In the Great White North hockey is always a bigger draw
than baseball. But this isn’t an apples and oranges proposition over here.
Whether you call yourself a hockey fan, baseball fan, football fan or Man. U.
supporter, the unifier is that we’re all sports fans first and foremost.
It’s plural – sports. That is unless you get your updates from the
BBC where they refer to it as “sport.” While singular, it is meant
to be plural. The Beeb doesn’t just cover one sport, like their football.
There’s cricket, darts and Formula 1 racing, too. The BBC World Service
offered on our cable packages covers baseball, North American football and other
curious, colonial contests as well. Interestingly, our British cousins use the
plural of News – they don’t report the “new” headlines,
but somehow all the athletic disciplines are known as “sport.” Go
figure. In the end, the language is called English and I guess we have to defer
to them on the finer points. You say potato, I say potatoes. But I digress.
It’s okay to like more than one sport – even at the same time. That’s
why your television comes with a picture-in-picture mode, Sparky and the remote
has a jump button.
Nothing’s ever really a forgone conclusion in baseball. That’s one
of the greatest things about the game. It could go either way at any moment.
A mental gap here, an error there, a big fat curveball that didn’t break
left hangin’ out over the plate gets jerked into the seats and you’ve
got the proverbial, whole new ballgame.
It is a long season. I’ll give you that. One hundred and sixty-two, freakin’
games and that’s not including Spring Training, pre-season and, if everything
goes according to plan, the post-season. Baseball does ask a lot of its fans
in terms of commitment. But after putting in all that time throughout the regular
season, the payoff is the playoffs. Nail-biter baseball. There’s a greater
sense of urgency at this time of year. Nobody calls baseball boring in October.
“Hurry up, for cryin’ out loud. Let’s get this game in before
it starts snowin’.”
Call this a small ‘b’ bitchin’ session. It was only one game
in the first round of the playoffs that got cut off, albeit the 3rd game of
the best-of-5, American League Division Series. While a tad p.o.’d, Yankee
Fan, unlike his Minnesota counterpart, still has the ALCS to look forward to,
which as I go to bed with this, kicked off today (Friday) in the Bronx. The
Pinstripers take a 1 game lead in the best of 7 series beating the visiting
Angels from the City of Angels 4-1 on a frosty night at Yankee Stadium.
The best thing about the 2009 American League Championship Series is those godless
Boston Red Sox are not in it. Thanks to an Angels sweep in their Division Series,
the BoSox are watching their arch rival Yankees on TV just like the rest of
us.
At the risk of counting chickens a bit on the early side, an LA/NY American
League Championship sets the table nicely, as this year we have the makings
of the classic World Series match-up: Yankees vs. Dodgers. Except for the Montreal
Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, or maybe Celtic vs. Ranger, there is
no greater rivalry in professional sport – hey, you can use the singular
here! Nothing is better for Major League Baseball than a New York – L.A.
World Series, but don’t tell that to the Halos or the Philadelphia Phillies,
who took game 1 of the National League Division Series from the Dodgers at home
in Chavez Ravine.
What’s that Yogi Berra used to say about it's not being over?
Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror.
- George Carlin
October 10, 2009
The debate over driving while using cellular phones and other personal electronic
devices hit a little closer to home the other day. It was a beautiful, clear,
sunny morning as I sat at a red light. Glancing in the rear view mirror I noticed
the driver at the wheel of a small truck behind me. I was struck by his odd
physical posture. He was talking on a cell phone. Nothing out of the ordinary
these days. For some reason he held the phone in his left hand, but up to the
right ear with the arm across his chest. During the conversation he is nipping
what I presume is his morning cup of joe from a paper cup gripped in his right
hand that now has to cross over the other arm to reach his mouth which is doing
double time just like the hands.
“We can only hope that little buggy is an automatic,” I thought.
“That dude’s more than got his hands full and we’re all about
to make a hard left when the light turns green.”
Although what he planned to steer with I leave to conjecture.
For that extra degree of difficulty, we’re sitting in a double left turn
lane. These are always a challenge for the faint of heart or those lacking motor
skills.
Okay, he’s at the wheel on a hand held cell phone with a large, double-double
in the other mitt and guess what? Just as the light turns green he puts down
the coffee long enough to light up a dart! Self-medicating at the stoplight,
he’s got his caffeine and nicotine on, in gear and ready to pull out into
traffic. I’m aghast staring into the side mirror and praying the guy is
some kind of three or four armed mutant with more than enough limbs to pull
off this feat of dexterity. And that he’s not really the dangerously irresponsible
lunatic he appears.
Are you ready for the kicker? The little flat-deck is a vehicular “Mini-Me”like
those tiny milk trucks you see in European films. As I go into the left turn
with the advanced green I take a quick glance in the mirror and catch a broader
view of the truck including the payload. Whaddaya think our intrepid operator
is hauling today? How about propane canisters? That’s right. He’s
on the phone, drinkin’ a coffee, haulin’ on a butt and executing
a left hand turn in a toy truck loaded with gas bottles.
“This is unbelievable,” I say out loud. “The guy’s at
the wheel of a mini-me truck bomb and clearly not focusing on the task at hand.”
My mind was racing. It was like something out of one of those fast paced, movie
thrillers where the director makes rapid-fire cuts back and forth between shots
of the goof at the wheel, the cell phone, the propane bottles and whatever pending
doom is baring down on the hapless idiot. I found myself looking around for
Jason Bourne at the wheel of a fast moving Audi to come careening into view.
I was inches away from finding out first hand what collateral damage means.
My fear quickly turns to anger.
“Are you out of your tiny, little mind,” I desperately wanted to
yell at him. “Put out that cigarette, tell whoever it is your talking
to that you’ll get back to them when it’s safer to do so and try
not to kill yourself, or any of us today, m’kay?”
Do I allow myself an attack of small ‘r’ road rage and a torrent
of verbal invective? Lord knows somebody should be saying something to this
M.V.A. waiting to happen. While all in the name of public safety and the greater
good, y’understand, but there’s the dilemma. Should I lower the
window and berate the guy as we roll side-by-side down the highway? It could
be argued in this case that a blast of shit out the window is nothing more than
mobile, peer counseling and nothing less than this cluck deserves. Yeah, but
nothing says prudent behaviour like hurling profanity at an already multiply
distracted motorist as you’re both moving along at about 70 to 80 km’s
an hour. Like this clown needs something else to occupy his attention. He’s
juggling more things than the Flying Karamazov Brothers as it is and still conducting
a motor vehicle down a busy commuter route at morning rush hour. All I could
hope to add would only exacerbate the situation that got me riled up in the
first place. To pull it off I would have had to slow down, change lanes, wait
until the slower moving truck came alongside and somehow get this guy’s
attention all the time paying way too much attention to my mirrors and not enough
to what was going on outside right in front of my windshield. One’s self-righteous
position goes flying out the window on the wings of curses when the conduct
renders one more a part of the problem than the solution. When the problem is
safety on the road, the solution is not more dickhead behaviour behind the wheel.
Why are so many people seemingly unwilling to go with “hands free”
cellular use in the car? Back in the ‘80’s we had a boss who refused
to use the hands free option. Mobile phones, as they were more often known then,
were not as ubiquitous as today. The r&d was making leaps and bounds as
each subsequent generation of the devices got better and smaller, but they were
still a novelty to the population at large and predominantly used by business
professionals. There was still a certain amount of status involved in being
one of the early embracers of the technology. For our boss it was important
for people to know that he was one of those movers & shakers who had a car
phone. They had to be able to see him on the phone through the car’s windows
or it didn’t count. Besides, he didn’t want people to see him driving
around town seemingly talking to himself and think he was nuts. This was long
before blue tooth made yapping out loud while alone commonplace and not a cue
to summon mental health professionals.
In the end I opted to put space between myself and the little, propane-hauling
truck that could possibly explode on impact. A slight added pressure on the
right foot and I quickly pulled forward and away from the potential blast zone.
Alas, our doofus of a truck driver is hardly alone. Have you ever fallen in
behind another vehicle that is “driving erratically,” as law-enforcement
officers might say, and think the operator must be drunk only to notice he/or
she texting, tweeting or mass-killing some sentient, alien species with Halo3
on a palm-sized PlayStation? Hopefully that’s all it is and they’re
not drunk, too!
Will the powers-that-be pass legislation banning the use of hand occupying electronics
while driving? Should they have to? Isn’t this a common sense issue? Well,
yes it is, but an increasing number of motorists seem to be leaving their common
sense at home when they grab the cell and get behind the wheel. What about a
cup of coffee, tea or other beverage? How about eating? Who hasn’t picked
up a burger and fries to go? Do we leave ‘em in the bag to get cold? No,
we haul that big, drippy bastard out of its wrapper and start munching before
we hit the first speed bump leading out of the lot. That explains the mustard
and pickles on the steering wheel cover.
Let’s make a pact to pull over before any calling or messaging. Who knows?
If enough of us are pulled over to the side of the road, in parking lots, rest
stops or weigh scales, we won’t need to be on the phone. We can strike
up a conversation in person right there.
Juglito ergo sum - I juggle therefore I am
- The Flying Karamazov Bros.
The annual cold and flu season is upon us and if we’re to heed any of
the dire warnings, this one looks to be a doozy. The dreaded H1N1 virus is purported
to be a mass killer. We’ve dodged the bullet for the most part here in
the Great White North while areas of the world have already been hit pretty
hard. More than 300,000 laboratory confirmed cases were recorded as of September
20, 2009 with close to 4000 deaths (3917) in 191 countries and territories reporting
to the World Health Organization. As winter approaches, those of us in the Northern
Hemisphere are about to be shut up inside with each other and each others’
germs.
No less a personage than Libyan strongman Muammar al-Gadaffi weighed in on swine
flu during his rambling address to the United Nations recently. Marking 40 years
in power, the “Brother Leader,” as he likes to be called now, represents
the 3rd longest standing regime in the world. And they said it wouldn’t
last. His take on swine flu? Apparently it’s a “Zionist plot.”
Dr. Brother Leader also touched on something called the “fish flu.”
Yeah, that’s who I want to get my health and wellness advice from, Gadaffi
Duck. Proudly, our Canadian UN delegation took a pass on the speech. Hopefully
they TiVo’d it for laughs later back at Canada House.
Most of my young adult life was spent virtually ailment free. That all changed
when we had children. When the kids were small, I theorized that germs were
heavier than air causing them to gather low to the floor where the rugrats roam.
Kind of like those mists on the moors in Sherlock Holmes tales. What does a
little kid want most when not feeling well? They want to be picked up and cuddled.
As Howard Cosell would yell while narrating the high-light reel on Monday Night
Football: “There – right there!” It’s when you picked
up the little germ bag and transferred the heavier, infectious, microbes up
into your own, previously cleaner atmosphere. All kinds of goo are oozing from
every opening in your child’s head. The little face looks like a glazed
donut and it’s snuggling up against your neck. By 3:00 am you’re
rootin’ around for the bottle of Jameson’s and the adult-strength
Nyquil. It can be a tough grind for parents as children develop their immune
systems. Usually you’re fine until they start school. With the 3:30 bell
everything that’s going around is soon to be marching right through your
door. Even though her class was emptied by an outbreak, our daughter never actually
contracted chicken pox. She was, however, a carrier bringing it home to her
pre-school age, little brother.
Over the decades spent on this planet I’ve conducted my own, far from
clinical, research into the flu. Here’s what I’ve been able to glean:
I have ignored the annual flu shot and wound up coming down with the bug. On
the other hand, I’ve skipped the shot and not gotten the flu. I have had
the vaccine and made it through the season flu-free. I have also taken the shot
and still managed to get sick. Conclusion: with or without the flu shot, it’s
a crapshoot.
Whether it originated in Asia, or Spain, or some swine shed in Semipalatinsk,
by the time the disease has mutated through countless millions of us on its
way around the globe it is no longer the same strain they designed the vaccine
to fight.
Michael Jackson, rest his soul, was way ahead of the curve with those surgical
masks he wore. While arguments have been and still are being made with regards
to his playing with a full deck or not, Jacko might not have been all that wacko
on this issue, you know? Do you watch “The Amazing Race?” As the
contestants hurtle around the world in the travel equivalent of speed dating,
have you noticed any subtle differences in airline check-in staff from airport
to airport? More of the airlines’ front line people seem to be sporting
surgical masks. Air travel is how the germs race all over the world so quickly.
While the frantic traveler is leaning over the reservation desk trying to get
from Hanoi to Heidelberg and breathing heavily all over everyone and everything,
the airline workers are taking no chances. If this H1N1 is what it’s cracked
up to be, look for hazmat suits on the check-in staff and maybe some sneeze
shields from the salad bar duct-taped to the counter.
One of the challenges every flu season is sifting through all the information
flying around. The epidemic is supposed to peak by mid-October, yet a recent
CTV newscast reported the vaccine will not be ready to administer until October
13. Is this not akin to locking the barn door after your horse has already pissed
off? And this date only pertains to those at highest risk and health workers
who are naturally moved to the head of the line. The rest of the rank and file
will have to wait as long as the New Year for quantities of the vaccine to be
available. Whether you want to take the shot, or not, you’ll still have
to get through a few months at the height of the crisis without it. That damn
surgical mask is looking cooler and cooler, isn’t it?
I won’t be partaking of the flu shot this year. I’m blessed with
general good health and plan to fight off this season’s designer bug the
old fashioned way with my immune system. Regular visitors to the Boom Room may
recall past columns citing health practices initiated by the Mrs. She’s
still got me on the green tea and bee pollen every day. Add to that vitamin
‘C’ supplements and lots and lots of water. More fresh fruit and
veg and a pledge to try and get more sleep.
While I’m not yet Howard Hughesian enough to start going through the Kleenex
boxes by the gross while holed up in hermetically sealed hotel rooms, I have
taken to carrying little bottles of Purell in my pocket. I’m rinsing daily
with Listerine and fighting the urge to start carrying the oral antiseptic around
in a hip flask for periodic nips throughout the day. The hands are getting a
little red, rough and sore from all the hand-washing, but there’s a fine
line between personal hygiene and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when looking
down the barrel of a pandemic. In the face of H1N1, O.C.D. is going to have
to take a back seat and I’m going to have to get some lotion on these
hands.
If I should run into you between now and the first day of summer 2010, please
forgive my not shaking hands. I think I’ll be going for that “Dap”
fist-bump thing the kids and the Obamas are doing. And don’t be offended
if I reach for the hand-sanitizer. It’s nothing personal.
ONLY IN AMERICA? DON'T BE SO SMUG!
You know how it is in social circles when someone has an expertise. A doctor
gets asked medical questions.
“So, you’re sayin’ this rash will go away on its own?”
The lawyer gets pumped for free legal advice.
“Not that I’m in any way shopping, you understand, but just out
of curiosity…what would a divorce cost me…ballpark?”
Never mind couples counseling, a lot of marriages are saved by casual dollar
figures tossed over bowls of cocktail peanuts.
“All that and my bass boat? Ouch!”
One of our crew of happy hour irregulars is insurance broker, Joe Harrison.
Naturally he gets pestered a lot. Everybody’s got something to say about
insurance. On one occasion, Joe decided to put the insurance queries to rest
once and for all. Besides, he wasn’t on the clock and all the interrogation
was getting in the way of his social lubrication. It’s not like any of
us clowns were likely to buy any of his products.
“Gather ‘round fellas, I’m gonna teach you all about insurance,”
said Joe. “Petey lean in so you can catch this. Can everybody hear me?
Okay, let’s begin. We in the insurance industry are in the money gathering-in
business. We are not - repeat not - in the money paying-out business. Now you
understand insurance. Whose round is it?”
This simple concept has sparked a virtual firestorm of debate in the United
States over President Barack Obama’s trying to pass a universal health
care reform bill. That loud, whirring sound you hear is the late, honourable
Tommy Douglas spinning wildly in his grave. There are some 50 million un-insured
citizens on the other side of the line who could use a Tommy Douglas of their
own right about now. But how thick is the bullshit flying over this down there?
Carumba! Listening to the crazy talk one’s first reaction is to chortle
at the outright absurdity. That is until the laugh gets stuck in the throat
when witnessing images of what we can only assume are average, “law abiding”
citizens showing up at meetings to discuss the issue carrying high-powered assault
rifles and hand guns in tie-down rigs on their hips.
This isn’t “the British are coming…the British are coming,”
Paul Revere. Stand down for a minute, Minuteman. It’s not a life or death
situation. Nobody’s in imminent danger. This is a debate over insurance
for crying out loud. It’s not like the other students are making fun of
your black, trench coats! Are you out of your freaking minds? Would you discuss
your auto insurance coverage at the point of a gun? How long do you think you’ll
live if you show up down at the broker’s office in the local strip mall
cradling an AR-15 with a banana clip while raving about your collision deductible?
Can you say “S.W.A.T.?” Can you say “suspect was pronounced
dead at the scene?” The President of the United States and other elected
officials were speaking at rallies where people turned up toting loaded, semi-automatic
weapons. Hey, Travis Bickle, can you say “Dealey Plaza?” Was Secret
Service protocol thrown completely out the window of the Town Halls?
We need to ordain a Joe Harrison and send him on an evangelical, barnstorming
tent tour of the American heartland. Get him to go all Elmer Gantry on their
collective ass so they, too can understand how the insurance game works and
how it doesn’t have to involve any gunplay.
Rick Mercer had a recurring segment on “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”
called “Talking to Americans.” The brilliant bit found Mercer on
remote in the United States ambushing hapless U.S. citizens with a camera crew.
The premise plays off our neighbours’ ignorance of Canada. Mercer charms
his interviewees into saying the most hilarious things. Well, hilarious for
us Canuckleheads. The Americans targeted by Rick Mercer have no idea they are
being made the butt of the joke and prattle on blissfully unaware of how funny
it is to everyone north of the 49th parallel. Sometimes Mercer presents bogus
petitions which subjects are asked to sign and read out loud for the camera.
Often the petitions will be addressed to Prime Minister Tim Horton or Prime
Minister Jean Beliveau. I’m sure Mercer encountered Americans who while
maybe not completely up-to-date on the sitting P. M., were pretty sure it was
not Tim Horton. But where are the cheap laughs in that? Anyone hip to the obvious
gag got summarily dealt with in editing and never made it to air. One particularly
memorable installment of “Talking to Americans” had Mercer collecting
signatures petitioning the Canadian government to stop the barbaric practice
of abandoning our senior citizens on ice floes to perish. Somebody didn’t
understand that this was a joke.
While the world continues to scoff at Sarah Palin’s assertion that she
was able to see Russia from her house, I wouldn’t be surprised if she
might have been able to bring the CBC up on her satellite dish in Wasilla and
tuned-in to a “22 Minutes” re-run and a little taste of Rick Mercer
“Talking to Americans” about maple-styled euthanasia. How else do
we explain her ridiculously baying on and on about so-called, “Death Panels”
and our old folks’ catching the last ice berg out of Tuktoyaktuk? What
was that about “makin’ stuff up“, Mrs. Palin?
What kind of dumb cluck are you to believe we have “Death Panels”
deciding who lives and who dies? Canada doesn’t even have the death penalty
anymore for murder! Seriously -“Death Panels?” Are you all baked
out of your tree? Is that much B.C. bud getting across the border? Do you think
the Prime Minister is Dr. Josef Mengele? If you can believe it is Tim Horton
maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to think the “Angel of Death”
escaped to Canada at the end of WWII, successfully ran for Parliament and won
the leadership of his party. Besides, if there were “Death Panels”
don’t you think we’d know about them and be squawkin’ like
mad up here in our little “socialist workers’ utopia?” When
Sarah Palin was getting briefed on Canadian government geriatric policy via
the CBC, she should have stuck around for “the Fifth Estate.” Do
you honestly think something like the existence of “Death Panels”
could get past Hana Gartner or Bob McKeown?
Isn’t it ironic at these “Town Meetings” when individuals
who so vociferously present themselves as citizen “experts” on the
issue of health care feel compelled to come packing heat? Do they have the slightest
clue how ridiculous they look? As mentioned before, it would be laughable if
not so frightening. Having dumped “walking softly” altogether, this
part of the lunatic fringe still clings tenaciously to the “big stick”
half of the equation. It is armed to the teeth with the very instruments specifically
designed to promulgate a very un-healthy lifestyle, vis a vis “lead poisoning.”
Here’s one way to keep American health care costs down – stop shooting
each other! If you’re the kind of individual who doesn’t realize
when Rick Mercer is yanking your chain, I’m thinking the concept of irony
is lost on you, too.
If they’re ready to pull out the guns over a discussion on health care,
what are they going to do the next time the lights go out or the levee breaks…again?
You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see a future that resembles every
ridiculous, post-apocalyptic nightmare, movie scenario.
The uniform of the day will be leather pants and old hockey equipment.
Pad up!
“Two men enter; one man leaves.”
- Rules of Thunderdome
Saturday September 12, 2009
Although the fall equinox is still a couple of weeks away, the Labour Day Weekend
traditionally marks the end of summer. It’s all those years spent in school.
Our internal clocks seem hard wired on a September - August annual cycle. The
PNE though loads of fun is a doomsday clock counting down the last days of summer.
But we can’t complain about the summer of ’09. It’s been a
record breaking beaut.
I’m just back from “camp” in Ontario. My best pal, since before
we could read invited me back to hang at a cottage in lovely, Grand Bend on
the shores of Lake Huron. “The Bend” appears to be stuck in something
of a time warp. Add a few more vintage cars cruising up and down the main drag
and you’d swear you were an extra in George Lucas’ “American
Graffiti.” Huron has to be the jewel of the Great Lakes if the stretch
by Grand Bend is any indicator. Miles of un-interrupted sandy, beach and warm,
shallow water lapping at your feet. The weather for the most part was nice,
but not what you’d expect for this time of year. While I was lucky enough
to hit a good patch, folks in Southern Ontario have been having one of their
worst summers.
Rest and relaxation were the orders of each day. On vacation, whatchagonnado?
Eat and drink beyond reason while sitting in the sun reading scandal rags. I’ve
been meaning to tackle “Moby Dick” lo these many years and this
would have been the perfect opportunity, but with all the sunshine, water, time
off and haunches of this and that on the ‘Q’…call me “Ishmael”
but I just wasn’t in much of a Melville mood, y’know? In between
finding out just what poor unfortunate young woman du jour was being dragged
through the tabloid press on the arm of Jon “the Horndog” Gosselin
I was thumbing through the local papers to discover they found out about those
notorious, Coors Light billboards. At the tail end of a write-off summer that
included a lengthy garbage strike might not have been the most opportune time
for some wise-ass ad agency to take shots at Torontonians about alleged coldness.
As you can imagine, they weren’t pleased. The basic gist of a number of
editorials was how little it mattered to them while what did matter was filling
the several remaining paragraphs with comparative crowing as to just how much
bigger, better, faster, richer and more important Canada’s largest city
is. It’s all true. No argument. You win. We’re in total agreement.
That’s why we’re grinning like Cheshire cats every time the subject
comes up. The Coors Light billboards were the height of sibling needling and
you took the bait. While giving us out here a wry smile we’ll have to
wait and see what the joke does to the company’s beer sales in the Big
Smoke. Can you say “blowback?” I’m thinking our Toronto cousins
will probably be reaching for the Sleeman’s and Stella Artois while the
Silver Bullet winds up a dud round in the chamber.
I was facetiously accused of hi-jacking Ontario’s summer. You know how
it is when you get together with friends and loved ones you haven’t seen
for some time. It’s part of that good natured, regional east-west banter
that calls to mind Brian Wilson’s Beach Boys classic, “Be True To
Your School,” – “like you would to your gal, or guy. Be true
to your school, let your colours fly.”
“You’ve got our summer,” they cried.
“Yes, and it has been wonderful. Could we please borrow it again next
year,” I asked?
Newspapers, bolsters, throw pillows and other soft projectiles filled the air
in my general direction.
While the concept of our stealing the good weather is meteorologically absurd
we have to cut the eastern kids some slack on this one. Our Ontari-arian brothers
and sisters are in shock over their dismal summer. Everyone loves a good summer,
but take it from a guy born and raised in Toronto, when you put up with an eastern
Canadian winter you need to know that there’s going to be a payoff come
June. Everyone justifiably feels they’ve more than earned a long, hot
run through September. Out here on the coast we always have the trade-off of
our wonderfully moderate, non-freeze-your-ass-off winters. The benign winter
and year round green while not the only reason I chose to become a born again
west coaster over three decades ago is still number one. A wet summer we can
deal with. Ice and snow? Uh-uh!
If you want to look at it from the somewhat skewed perspective here in luscious
LaLa Land, it starts out as our weather. The way things move about the globe
we on the wet coast side of the mountains get the first look at Canadian weather
courtesy of the Pacific Ocean. This body of water’s name is arguably the
biggest oxymoron on the planet. There’s going to be nothing pacific about
the El Nino we’re looking at this winter. With the jet stream and prevailing
westerly winds the weather is exported from B.C. to the rest of Canada. On the
journey from sea to shining sea it takes on the different regional influences.
Our mountains wring out most of the moisture and baked by the prairie summer
sun things traditionally warm up en route to Ontario where swelter is an oft
heard seasonal word…but not this year.
Global warming is a reality. The phrase itself however is completely misleading.
Pulitzer prize-winning author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has
coined the term “global weirding” to better describe what is happening
to the world’s weather patterns.
The weather is not all fun-in-the-sun, nor is it the driven indoors disappointment
of a rained-out picnic. Sometimes the weather can turn deadly in minutes. Ontario
was rocked by a series of tornados August 20th, one of which claimed the life
of an 11 year old boy in Durham, Ontario, 150 km northwest of Toronto.
Tornadoes in Ontario and the Lower Mainland’s marking the highest temperatures
on record definitely falls in the weird category.
So, how was your summer?
Saturday August 8, 2009
Crazy From The Heat
Did you survive the recent hot spell relatively intact, or succumb
to a puddle on the kitchen floor? Maybe just a couple of lost pounds of water
weight from the extended schvitz? Including the hottest day ever since records
started being kept, this was a remarkable stretch of summer weather. At the
peak of the heat I found myself looking at a thermometer hung outside and marveling
at the reading – 102. You know it’s hot when your Boomer mind starts
registering in the old, Fahrenheit scale. A hundred and freaking two degrees?
Are you kiddin’ me? That’s Africa hot. That’s Las Vegas hot
without the freedom to walk around the streets with a jumbo Mai Tai or tall,
frosty, Hurricane clutched in your mitt.
The shell-shocked look on many local faces attested to the rarity of this kind
of heat along the south coast. Having been born and raised in Toronto, I’m
more than used to high temperatures at this time of year. I hesitate to claim
that I am in any way immune to the kind of readings we’ve been experiencing
recently. I just have more memories of sweltering and gasping. And Toronto in
the middle of summer is not only hot, but sticky. It’s that one-two punch
that has you feeling like you just went a few rounds with Iron Mike Tyson when
all you did was walk up three flights of stairs to your top floor apartment.
If you’ve ever wondered what it felt like for Sir Alec Guiness when they
locked him in that sweat box in “Bridge on the River Kwai,” try
a top floor apartment in a solid brick Toronto building in mid-August. I’m
convinced they had the Big Smoke in mind when they coined the term “Humidex.”
I keep in touch with family and friends back east and ironically, they are going
through a much, much cooler summer so far, which must have been a little bit
of relief during their recent garbage strike. It was fortunate, if you can use
that word when talking about a prolonged civic strike that saw the withdrawal
of a variety of programs and services and mountains of household garbage piling
up in city parks and open spaces. But it could have been a whole lot more of
an ordeal with typical Metro heat and humidity.
Don’t get me wrong about our west coast heat wave. It was HOT! Even for
transplanted Hogtowners. After more than three decades living on the west coast,
one more than gets acclimatized to the moderate weather. It is, after all, one
of the principal appeals to life in these parts.
The Mrs. and I were in the local Future Shop early one recent morning to find
12,000 BTU portable air conditioners flying out the door like Slurpees at the
7-11. They’d only just opened the doors and sold 20 already.
“We sold 200 the other day,” said a clerk still a bit glazed of
eye from the experience.
There was a Sherriff’s Department vehicle parked at the curb taking on
an air conditioner with the assistance of friendly Future Shop staffers.
“The Sherriff’s Office must be too hot,” I said
But when dolly after dolly came rolling out with multiple units we deduced that
it must have been the local lock-up the deputies were eager to cool down lest
the overheated inmates start busting up the place.
For sun worshippers and beach fans it was fantastic. For first time visitors
it must have been mind-blowing. Unlike the poor tourists whose west coast vacation
can often coincide with one of our prolonged summer cold and rainy periods.
While folks with time off could do nothing but enjoy, it was a whole, ‘nuther
story for everyone else who had to go about their standard work days and weeks.
If you were lucky enough to toil in air conditioned, surroundings, good on ya.
If not, then you more than earned any and all Miller Times you took at the end
of your shift. Those who had to brave crowded, cross-town buses with all those
arms extended hanging on to the overhead bars - we salute you. In that kind
of heat even the best intentioned deodorants surrender after about 20 minutes.
What has resulted in some sleepless nights and increased A.C. sales for those
of us across the lower mainland has much more dire consequences for British
Columbians on the other side of the coastal mountains. I stood dumbfounded looking
at the thermometer in the backyard and thought, “if it’s 100 plus
degrees in the shade in this suburban Vancouver neighborhood, how hot is it
in the interior?”
The answer is tinderbox. While those of us across the lower mainland perspired
through what seemed a lot longer, but was really just 4 consecutive days over
30 degrees, up in Kamloops they’ve had 23, 30-plus days already this season!
The extended heat wave is contributing to what is being called an unprecedented
fire season in B.C. Most of the province is designated as high or extreme risk.
As of this writing valiant firefighters have managed to save Lillooet from the
advancing flames of the huge Mt. McLean fire however the BC Forest Service website
lists 134 “active fires of note and/or fires over 10 hectares.”
This past Tuesday alone, 100 new forest fires started over a 24-hour period,
9 were caused by humans and 91 resulted from lightning.
Enjoy the more moderate highs down here and pray for cooler and maybe wetter
weather up country and in the interior.
'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky
August 1, 2009
In a time when we annually celebrate record setting attempts to consume the
most hotdogs or blistering hot, chicken wings it appears we have passed another,
more disturbing milestone. The month of July has set a new, record high for
combat deaths in Afghanistan.
Not content with destroying the sovereign state of Iraq, the United States would
appear to be still searching for the “real terrorists” behind the
9/11 attacks and is re-focusing and escalating its efforts in Afghanistan. While
announcing the winding down of US involvement in Iraq with a complete pull-out
slated for 2010, President Obama has pledged another 30,000 plus troops be sent
to Afghanistan. There are close to 65,000 NATO soldiers currently in the country
with the U.S. contingent making up approximately half.
“If you build it, they will come” says the disembodied voice to
Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella character in the hit movie, “Field
of Dreams.” The militant forces of Jihad now operating in Afghanistan
are not carving a baseball diamond out of the poppy fields, although if it could
be shown that that would draw more American soldiers into their Valleys of Death,
they might want to put down the bomb making manual for a moment and look into
just how high a regulation pitching mound has to be. If you escalate the conflict
in Afghanistan more militants will come to get in on the Holy War action.
Some among the thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors that surrounded Custer’s
7th Cavalry that hot, summer day on the “greasy grass” in 1876 were
aware of the unique situation. Breaking off from the battle, they rode back
to camp to fetch their younger sons and return them to witness and participate
in what would be a great victory. The massive native encampment was a quick
pony ride away from “Last Stand Hill,” so it was easy to grab the
kids and be back in the thick of it within minutes. Custer’s scouts had
more than done their job. Not only did they find the “hostiles,”
they dropped the doomed 7th almost smack dab in the middle of the enemy camp.
Custer’s Crow Indian scouts told him it was the biggest Indian village
they had ever seen. While maybe not yet cognizant of the historical importance,
a number of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne braves knew time was running out
for their way of life. They wanted to give their youngest sons the opportunity
to be blooded in combat before it was too late.
The militant Islamists are not afraid of more American troops being deployed.
They welcome it. The more the merrier it would seem. They want the big throw-down
with the Great Devil, the United States, or anyone else who chooses to stand
with them. Camo’d from head-to-toe and all kitted out in helmet, goggles,
flak jacket and high-tech weaponry, it’s difficult for the Taliban forces
to differentiate British, French, German, Dutch, Polish, Spanish, Australian,
Belgian or Canadian troops from Americans. If it walks like a duck, talks like
a duck and is usually seen in the company of other ducks? Guess what? To simplify,
the Taliban fighters just shoot at all the foreign ducks. I don’t think
it matters all that much which nation’s flag is sewn on the uniform’s
shoulders. One man’s infidel is another man’s infidel.
The Taliban draws upon the same coalition of forces that went into forming the
Mujahideen, the Afghan “freedom fighters” who in the 1980’s
successfully fought and ousted no less an opponent than the Soviet Red Army.
This was the same Red Army that defeated the worst of what the Nazis could throw
at it. You don’t win what the Germans called a “war of annihilation”
by being nice guys. Are the allied NATO forces prepared to be more ruthless
and determined than the Red Army? We could not have won WWII without the Soviets.
They could not win in Afghanistan. Do the math Little Bonaparte. What makes
anyone think the outcome this time around is going to be any different? Just
as NATO is an alliance of like minded nations, so too is the coalition of individuals
and organizations that make up the world-wide network of militant Jihad. The
fighters are Palistinian, Pakistani, Hamas, Hezbollah, Egyptian, Chechen, Lybian,
Algerian, Iranian, Iraqui, Syrian, Saudi, Uzbek, Lebanese, Tatar, Balkan and
in some cases British and even American citizens. Like fanatic Kamikaze pilots
from the Pacific Theatre of WWII, these guys aren’t afraid to die and
if we’re to believe the propaganda, actually want to be killed.
Forgive me, but what’s the deal with the 72 virgins? Your idea of heaven
is 72 virgins? That’s 72 rookies in camp. Dudes, have you thought this
through? Seriously? Seventy-two first timers? You want to service 72 women –
I’m presuming they’re women and not that’s there’s anything
wrong if they’re not – with no sexual experience whatsoever for
ETERNITY. If you’re the kind of guy willing to vaporize yourself with
a suicide belt in the belief that you’ll be paid off in 72 erotically
inept women, I’m thinking you haven’t been up to the plate all that
much yourself, if ever. Am I gettin’ close here, Habib? What about female,
suicide jihadists? “Jihadistas?” What do they get in heaven…72
male virgins? Clowns a lot like their male counterparts in the movement? Seventy-two
guys a lot like you, pal? Oh, boy. Can you imagine the morning coffee klatches
in those celestial suburbs? Trust me. It won’t go well for you in chats
over the neighbours’ fences. Even if you bat .500 and I think I’m
being generous here, that still leaves 36 virgins to dis your ass all over paradise.
Suppose they hook up with the 36 who aren’t too thrilled with your pal
Ahmed’s performance. And the entire 72 who think Yusuf is a total dickhead.
Can you say “critical mass?” It’s too bad you guys don’t
drink. Yeah, that’s what you want all right…seventy-two virgins
‘til the end of time.
Better you should ask for 72, 18th century French courtesans. Or, how about
72 porn stars? Six dozen Jenna Jamesons could compensate your sacrifice in ways
you can’t even begin to imagine. Do you follow me, there, Hammer of God?
Math was never my strong suit, but there appears to be a rather glaring discrepancy
between the heroes of the faith owed their virgins and the heavenly stock of
same. Will apparatchiks at the Divine Ministry of Veterans Affairs have to shuffle
inventory, or, dare I say it, fudge eligibility requirements to meet what has
to be an ever growing demand with every attack?
“Hey, all of my virgins are over 65!”
“You show me where it said they had to be young? Keep the line moving,
martyr boy.”
Bless us and save us, said Mrs. O’Davis.
- Old Irish-American Expression
Baby You Can Drive My Car
July 25, 2009
Watching the late news on local TV a couple weeks back I caught
a piece on the Burrard Street Bridge bike lane. The camera crew had set up on
the sidewalk and was getting “actualities” – comments from
cyclists and pedestrians about the pending changes which would take effect in
the morning for the Monday rush hour. As the reporter spoke with one cyclist
a bright red pick-up truck pulled into view over his shoulder on the opposite
side of the bridge. Noticing the media and wanting to add his two cents to the
commentary this self-styled Andy Rooney flipped everyone watching the bird and
shouted:
“F%&k you, bike lane!”
It cracked me up.
“There’s the line of the week,” I said to the Mrs. in between
chortles.
The driver wasn’t some aging, old fart admonishing kids to “get
out of that Jello tree,” or take their road hockey game to the park. Call
me a stickler if you will, but it isn’t road hockey if it isn’t
actually played on a road, m’kay?
“CARRRR!”
“Game on!”
No, this was a young, 20-something guy. Someone with a lot more years left to
live on this planet than most of us. Someone you’d think would have a
vested interest in embracing more green-oriented lifestyle initiatives. Can
you say, “uh-uh?” I’m thinking “green” for this
guy comes in a Ziploc baggie tucked under his balls. Keep in mind this was on
a bright, clear, warm, weekend with the jewel of English Bay glittering some
meters below. If that’s the feeling on a summer Sunday in July, what’s
it going to be like Monday morning with a full press of commuters pouring over
the bridge in their cars and other motor vehicles with one less lane to pour
through?
The concerned motorist crudely voiced his opposition however his choice of a
pronoun to describe what is effectively an inanimate object – the bike
lane – brought about the humourous reaction of this viewer as I envisaged
the anthropomorphizing of the asphalt and someone actually trying to have intimate
relations with it. I know it’s only an expression, but weird things run
through your mind watching the news just before bedtime. As late night, fun
guy David Letterman would say: “there’s no joke here. I just like
to say ‘anthropomorphize’.”
The old adage about there being two sides to every story immediately sprung
to mind. Do you consider this as the “opening” of the dedicated
bicycle lane, or the “closing” of one of the car lanes? How you
see it determines which side of the controversy you’re on.
This is a “motherhood issue,” right? Knowing what we now know about
automobile emissions, pollution and global warming, it’s a wonder that
anyone in his, or her, right mind would squawk about something like this. Then
we are confronted with Mr. Fuckyoubikelane. The guy’s anger was palpable
as he hurled his symbolic shot across the bow. The issue is definitely polarizing.
What was that rallying cry of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters? “You’re
either on the bus, or off the bus.” Updating it for the time and circumstance
on Vancouver’s West Side, I guess one is either on the bike, or in the
car.
I’m blessed to be both a cyclist and a motorist. I know what the view
is like from both of these unique drivers’ seats. Each gives you a better
understanding of being the other. Having ridden a bicycle in city traffic makes
you more keenly aware of cyclists when you get behind the wheel. I’m not
now, nor have I ever been comfortable on a bike in traffic. Having lived in
Kitsilano and loving the ride around the Stanley Park Seawall I’ve bicycled
across the Burrard Street Bridge numerous times. This was all many years ago.
Too frightened to take the road deck, I always chose the sidewalk. The new dedicated
bike lane is something we could have used 30 years ago.
But this is still being called an “experiment.” If any part of the
country is going to lead the Green Revolution it has to be us on the Left Coast.
Lifestyle trends traditionally move from west to east in North America…skateboards,
mountain bikes, chopped Harleys, sushi. We’re dreamy-eyed, weirdos out
here in Lotusland. We either come up with the new ideas or we’re the first
to embrace alternative ways of doing things. If we truly want to get more of
us out of our cars more of the time, then we have to make it safe and easy.
This was a major plank in Mayor Gregor Robertson’s campaign last fall.
An avid cyclist himself, Robertson is determined to make this work. The city
will be reviewing the Burrard Bridge bike lane initiative at the conclusion
of the initial 90-day trial period.
As it turned out there was no Sharks & Jets style throw down in the middle
of the Bridge between irate motorists and those vexing cyclists. So far.
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.
- Mark Twain
July 11, 2009
Sarah Palin’s back in the news. You know, I’m beginning to think
this woman likes the limelight a little. Now this could be good news or bad
news depending on your point of view. I get a kick every time she stands in
front of an open microphone and she didn’t disappoint this time around.
Palin chose the 4th of July to hold what was meant to appear as an impromptu
media conference to announce her resignation as Alaska’s Governor with
17 months still to go on her first four-year term. Togged out in “farmer
john” neoprene waders on the shore in front of her lakeside home in Wasilla,
she continues to promote the image of Field & Stream Gal. It’s interesting
she chose the fishing outfit as there definitely has to be an angle to all of
this.
“I’m certainly not a quitter. I’m a fighter,” said Palin
emphatically. “That’s why I’m doing this.”
She’s not a quitter, so that’s why she’s, uh…quitting?
“People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s
more important to me than our beloved Alaska,” said Palin. “Serving
her people is the greatest honour I could imagine.”
If it’s the “greatest honour” you could imagine, why are you
leaving “her people” twisting in the arctic outflow winds?
Has Palin any idea what she’s saying or how she appears? What is this,
the (ex-) Governor’s New Clothes? She might not be naked in this updated
telling of the old Fairy Tale classic, but she sure is exposing herself. Is
she that stupid or just plain delusional? Is there anybody around her with the
guts to point any of this out? Apparently she’s being assailed by ethics
complaints, which appears to be at the bottom of her resignation. In Palinworld
the ethics complaints are just getting in the way of her getting anything done
so, she’s bailing. Why all the ethics complaints? If there weren’t
ethics violations, I’m thinking there would be no complaints to stop her
from carrying on the good work she’s been doing up there on the Final
Frontier.
Now an Alaska law firm – specifically a Thomas Van Flein of Clapp, Petersen,
Van Flein, Tiemessen and Thorsness – is threatening everybody and anybody
in the media with defamation lawsuits with the release of a blanket letter on
July 4th. How did you celebrate your nation’s vaunted Independence Day,
Mrs. Palin? Waving from a parade float rolling down Main Street in Wasilla,
cooking hotdogs, putting up the bunting, playing lawn darts and setting off
fireworks? Your day off might have been better spent reading over a little document
called The Declaration of Independence. Nothing says I love my country and everything
it stands for like having your lawyers attempt to bully the press on a national
holiday – make that the national holiday. And how big a client can Palin
be when the letter is drafted by the third ranking partner at the law firm?
In Mrs. Palin’s defense, it turns out that Clapp died earlier this year.
But where was Petersen?
And you think this kind of behaviour is going to help your future political
aspirations?
Harry S. Truman addressed the responsibility of leadership in his famous quote:
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If
Sarah Palin can’t stand the heat of running one state – albeit,
a big one – how can she ever hope to aspire to the job of running all
50 states in the Union? Now that’s some hot kitchen. Maybe that’s
not her ultimate goal anymore. She claims that she’ll be much more effective
and able “to make a positive difference for ALL our children’s future
from OUTSIDE the Governor’s office.” Does this mean outside of politics
altogether? Is she going to show up as a pundit on television or side-kicking
on conservative talk radio. Maybe they could team her up with Mad Dog Glen Beck
– now there’s a Regis and Kelly for the new millennium, huh?
But we have to be careful here. All of us who pontificate, report, write, blog
and blow off steam have a vested interest in not killing off this silly goose
that lays eggs of golden column ideas every time she opens her beak. Tina Fey’s
spot-on, impression of Sarah Palin is hilarious, but make no mistake about it,
Sarah Palin creates all the material herself. I’m sure Fey would be the
first to admit that “this stuff writes itself.” Every time Fey “does”
her, the now ex-Governor of Alaska should, at the very least, get a co-writer’s
credit on the crawl if not half the fee as well.
Will the Republicans be foolish enough to run Palin on either the top or bottom
half of their Presidential ticket in 2012? This remains to be seen, but we can
dream, can’t we?
I think all the liberal stylists really have a case.
She just begs for adjectives like flaky and wacky.
- Liz Trotta
FOX News
July 4, 3009
Comedian Lewis Black has a bit in his stand-up routine where
he claims that if a comic is ever stuck all he or she has to do is shout the
punchline, “Michael Jackson.” No premise, no set up, just the punchline
and it’s guaranteed to get a laugh. You just know L.B. has dumped that
joke from the act. On a recent Daily Show Jon Stewart asked if the dirt bag
media could finally stop referring to Michael as “Jacko?” Alas,
I’m thinking…not a chance in hell.
The untimely death of this icon has rocked not only music and entertainment
but the world at large. “Hello Canada” seems to have scooped its
magazine competitors this week with the first, glossy, M.J. “tribute”
issues to hit the stands. Look for your supermarket check stand to be awash
in these within days.
Running with my sub stratum in the Boomer pantheon, I was a tad too old and
way too immersed in British prog-rock for the Jackson 5 to make an appearance
on the Technics turntable. And while I might not have been a Jackson 5 fan per
se, I still knew the words to all of their songs. Back in the day they seemed
ubiquitous on radio and network TV. It was hard to ignore the hard working family
from Gary, Indiana. I didn’t spin their records at home, but that didn’t
mean the Jacksons weren’t totally entertaining. Some of us might have
gone so far as to think of the Jackson 5’s being “bubble gum,”
but that didn’t stop the then arbiter of cool, Rolling Stone magazine
from featuring Michael on its illustrious cover at the tender age of 11. Quite
a bit of rock & roll cred for one who was still a couple of years shy of
being a teenager, yet already a cagey, show-biz veteran.
While Michael Jackson has never been my musical cup of tea, there is no disputing
his unbelievable talents. He was as gifted a songwriter and performer as has
ever put pen to paper or set foot on a stage. He had very few peers. You want
to talk about setting the bar high? The back-to-back, one-two punch of “Off
the Wall” (1979) and “Thriller” (1982) set a whole new standard
for measuring success in the recording industry. Mere gold and platinum just
didn’t shine up against the glow coming off Michael Jackson’s career.
“Off the Wall” is certified 7x platinum in the U.S. and sold 20
million copies worldwide. In a little over a year from its release, “Thriller”
became and still remains the biggest selling album of all time, certified 28x
platinum with over 50 million sold around the globe…and counting. Oddly
enough, since I first heard of his death June 25th, I can’t get his songs
out of my head.
I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on television, but you don’t
have to be a board certified physician to figure out that something is, or rather
was, not quite right in the “through-the-looking glass” world of
Michael Jackson. He was said to have had a long struggle with insomnia and prior
to his death was calling out for a powerful sedative called Propofol. A real
doctor on television, CNN’s medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, said
Propofol “is not a sleep medicine” and “should not be used
outside a medical setting.” This powerful, central nervous system depressant
cannot be taken orally and must be injected. It is a general anesthetic used
to put a patient into medically-induced coma. Opaque white in colour it is sardonically
known as “Milk of Amnesia.” This is not the sort of meds you take
if you’re looking to catch 40 winks. You take this stuff to board the
Oblivion Express.
As I go to bed with this, toxicology results have not been made public. The
U.S. Federal Drug Enforcement Agency is already running its own investigation.
The DEA doesn’t get involved if all you’re taking before bed is
milk and Oreos.
In the end, I believe we’re looking at a good, old-fashioned, down-home,
run-of-the-mill drug overdose. And hasn’t that come to be a celebrity
cliché? As Popeye used to say - “how embarasskin’?”
One of the greatest dancers of all time, Michael went out dancing with the Devil
and it cost him his life.
In death Michael Jackson will continue to be an industry. A prolific artist,
he has left behind what is reported to be a virtual treasure trove of unreleased
material. A parting gift to fans, Michael?
A memorial is set for the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi
One Man's Junk Is Another Man's Junk
June 27, 2009
I woke up recently to a big screen TV. Every guy’s dream, right? Christmas
in June. This one, however, wasn’t in the house. It was sitting outside
in the street, or parked if you will, at the curb as it was about the same size
as a Smart car. Maybe Santa couldn’t get it down the chimney. It wasn’t
noticeable at first as we live on a corner lot and the big screen was stashed
down the side of the yard where the cedar hedge is quite high. It looked like
another example of the modern, affluent society dilemma – what to do with
our shit when we don’t want it anymore. That wrapper on the cheese? We
want that about as long as it takes to get it off the cheese. The big screen
TV is going to hang around for a little while longer, but eventually it’s
gotta go, too. Mind you it’s not as easy to throw away as that plastic
wrap.
We lived briefly in Peterborough, a small town in the heart of Ontario’s
picturesque Kawartha Lakes cottage country. It was there we first encountered
the practice of the annual city-wide spring clean-up. Ostensibly designed to
help residents get rid of anything and everything they no longer wanted, we
found that it also functioned to enhance social interaction. With the piles
of junk at the end of every driveway, the scavenging began. One person’s
junk is another’s treasure, so lots of locals were out and about browsing.
It was great fun wandering the neighborhood chatting with everyone and picking
through the crap at their curbside. Later you’d bump into each other again
as they made it around the block to your driveway. One item in particular springs
to mind. My wife found a rusty, old iron wheelbarrow wheel on a neighbor’s
pile and immediately dug it into our garden for the flowers to grow through.
It was perfect. My wife and I always got a kick out of seeing our pile of junk
alter day-by-day leading to pick-up. More often than not there was a lot less
for the garbage guys to handle than what was initially stacked by the curb.
Sometimes there would be stuff in our pile that we didn’t put out. Someone
must have found something they wanted more and did a quick swap or were forced
to lose something to make room for that choice piece in front of our place.
Not only is this program advantageous from an environmental perspective, it’s
also amusing.
“Did you see that chandelier somebody dumped on our pile?”
“Somebody actually had that hanging in their house.”
“In the right, kitschy shop, that thing’s a winner.”
A couple of mornings later the chandelier was gone.
Later you could walk the local streets and recognize a familiar item or two
now gracing someone else’s yard.
Upon returning to British Columbia we were pleased to find the spring clean-up
week concept had been instituted by communities in the Lower Mainland. I recall
sitting in the living room one night and seeing ominous bright lights sweeping
the street outside the window.
“Is somebody looking for E.T.,” I wondered?
Glancing out, I noticed a pick-up truck inching slowly down the middle of our
street. Flanking the truck on either side, people with flashlights were scanning
the piles for scavenge worthy items. The eeriness of the beams in the foggy,
night air put me in mind of a 14th century Plague scenario where cowelled figures
with torches called for you to “bring out your dead.” Or, in this
case, your expired electronics and dead bed springs. These guys with the flashlights
working long into the night were probably not looking for a cast iron accent
piece for the flowerbed. No, this had all the earmarks of a commercial enterprise.
We surmised that it might be somebody with an antique and/or thrift store doing
a little restocking of inventory.
This program is the essence of reduce, re-use, recycle. You don’t so much
throw stuff away as relocate it. That old rusty wheel went from garbage to landscaping
with little or no negative impact to the environment and no space required in
the landfill. The initiative is community wide and interactive promoting a sense
of collectively addressing the growing challenge of our waste.
Citing the usual blah-blah-blah about increased costs and claiming that people
from adjacent communities are bringing their trash over and dumping it, there’s
talk that our little burg is planning to cancel the spring clean-up week. It
is to be replaced by pick-up of large items 4 times a year. Apparently they’re
about to up the dumping fees at our local transfer station, too. Putting more
restraints and conditions on the disposal of trash is only going to result in
more clandestine night-drops of big screen TV’s and who knows what else?
The big screen sat outside by the curb for a few days until the regular, weekly
pick-up when our municipal guys had to deal with it in the end anyway.
My wife is always trying to get rid of me. The other day she told
me to put the garbage out. I said to her I already did. She told
me to go and keep an eye on it.
- Rodney Dangerfield
June 20, 2009
God Help Us
Sarah Palin’s back in the news, bless her wild game-shootin’
little heart. Ah, Sarah. We’ve missed you. Alaska’s Governor was
in New York recently doing what politicians do in the off-season between election
campaigns – stumping. Come to think of it, stumping is what they do during
election campaigns. It’s hard to tell the difference. No sooner is Mrs.
Palin in the Big Apple then she gets herself into a fracas with beloved, late
night TV talk show host David Letterman. CNN’s venerable Larry King called
it a “war of words.” In a syntax skirmish with David Letterman,
Sarah Palin is an un-armed combatant.
Dave did what he usually does, mines current events for opportunities to crack
wise about ‘em. Palin was “honoured” with a Late Show Top
10 List.
From the minds of David Letterman and his stellar writing staff, the Top 10
Highlights of Sarah Palin’s trip to New York:
10) Visited New York landmarks she normally only sees from Alaska.
9) Laughed at all the crazy looking foreigners entering the U.N.
8) Made moose jerky on Rachel Ray.
7) Keyed Tina Fey’s car.
6) After a wink and nod, ended up with a kilo of crack.
5) Made coat out of New York City rat pelts.
4) Sat in for Kelly Ripa. Regis couldn’t tell the difference.
3) Finally met one of those Jewish people Mel Gibson’s always talking
about.
2) Bought make-up at Bloomingdale’s to update her “slutty, flight
attendant” look.
1) Especially enjoyed not appearing on Letterman.
She’s just been “served” by one of the elite stand-ups in
the business and what is her come back? Palin calls Letterman “pathetic.”
Pathetic? How about adding a big, pouty whatEVER, there Mall Rat? What’s
pathetic is Sarah Palin’s continued lack of political savvy. It can’t
be chalked up to naivete anymore, can it? The woman’s been in the Presidential
election trenches and had her ass handed to her on many occasions. She has to
know and understand more than she lets on. Maybe it’s a strategy of sorts?
While she should have laughed it off Governor Palin’s reaction was what
you might expect. She took the bait. Well, Sarah, there is such a thing as bad
publicity, just like there are good walks in the country and bad ones, too.
A bad walk is when you step in a fresh cow pie in your new Nikes. Mrs. Palin
just stepped in a big one. What do most people do when they set foot in a pile
of bullshit? They curse, wipe it off in the wet grass and make a mental note
to be more vigilant the next time in cow country. What does Sarah Palin do?
She straightens the bun, adjusts her glasses and looks around for another cow
pie to dive-in head first. Tina Fey is taking notes, Madame Governor.
Dave’s producers must have tried to book Palin on the show during her
time in New York. I’m thinking she took a pass, which was a mistake. Was
Bill Clinton’s June, 1992 appearance on Arsenio Hall omitted from the
fast-track political tutorials leading up to your run for Vice President last
year? In case you missed it Arkansas’ Governor Grabass was booked on the
Arsenio Hall Show while running for President the first time around. Wearing
Blues Brothers’ shades and blowing sax with Arsenio’s band on “Heartbreak
Hotel” generously upped candidate Clinton’s cool quotient especially
with young and minority voters. Many attest to its helping him get elected in
’92.
Sarah Palin’s handlers should have made the first stop in New York a visit
to the old Ed Sullivan Theatre – Dave’s house. Wander out on stage
with the controversial grandbaby in your arms. Bristol’s kid: Trick, Tranq,
Tron…whatever his cute-arse name is. Dave’s a relatively recent
Dad himself and a middle-aged Dad at that. A lot of guys who come to fatherhood
late in life are real doters, especially the rich ones. He’d have been
a sucker for that baby. In the midst of the interview Sarah could have asked
Dave:
“Would you hold the baby for me? There’s something I’ve always
wanted to do.”
With that she plunks Tram, or Trix, or Trot on Dave’s lap and reaches
behind the couch to retrieve her flute cleverly secreted there earlier. Turning
to Paul Shaffer, she asks:
“Could I sit in with the band, Paul?”
Do you think a celebrity sycophant like Shaffer would say “no” to
that jam?
She could have rocked out on a Jethro Tull song and really made some points
with all those 50-plus, classic rock numb nuts nodding out on the couch. It
would have been one of those TV moments that show up on the “best of”
reels, especially if you didn’t brief Dave on having Tree…Trog…Trim
dropped on him unexpectedly. Babies are totally disarming. Fill the segment
with cute and flute and get out of Dodge with a road win. Leave all the ugly,
hate-filled, provocative, right-wing rhetoric for FOX News and phone calls to
Rush Limbaugh.
Alas, it did not go that way. A return volley by Dave involved the now infamous
joke about Palin’s “daughter being knocked up by Alex Rodriquez
in the 7th inning” at Yankee Stadium where the Palin party was taking
in a ball game. All sane, rational adults understood Dave to be referring to
daughter Bristol, who has become a prominent spokesperson for sexual abstinence
among teens after showing up on the cover of Time magazine dressed in her high
school graduation cap & gown proudly holding her cherubic baby Trick, or
is it Treat? Does the old saying about locking the barn door after your horse
has already taken off come to mind? Bristol’s sexuality was paraded for
all to see on the cover of Time. She’s a grown-up in spite of her tender
years and pretty much fair game for pundits and laugh merchants. Keep in mind
it is her mother seeking elected office. Parading the happy family on the campaign
trail is an important lecture from Politics 101, but some of Mom’s limelight
spills over onto the kids. If the spotlight is turned on you and you don’t
like it simply step out of the beam. If not, learn to dance. Take a cue from
Aimee Osbourne. Aimee Who? She’s Ozzy and Sharon’s oldest child
and the one who opted to not participate in the Osbourne family’s short
lived reality series.
What did Levi Johnston make of this whole Manhattan mosh? While he’s not
directly at the epicenter of this issue anymore, he’s definitely within
the blast zone. Levi is Bristol Palin’s ex-fiance and the father of baby
Trill…Troll…Trowel?
“I took it as a joke,” said Levi of Letterman. “It’s
what he does. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I don’t think he meant
Willow. He meant Bristol.”
David Letterman has sincerely apologized for the misunderstanding as the Palin
camp tries making hay with some truly ugly talk about raping under-aged girls.
What the…!?
An unfortunate reality for Sarah Palin is that she is sweet inspiration for
comics and comedy writers. Inspiration? More like manna from heaven. In a way,
however, you have to admire her jam. She willingly walked into the lion’s
den that is N.Y.C. and took on one of the biggest cats in the pride. It must
come from totin’ around all those big guns up on the wild frontier. Nothing
boosts self-confidence quite like “full auto.”
“Is Sarah Palin the future of the Republican Party,” asked Larry
King leading in to his June 9th CNN broadcast.
I certainly hope so.
Governor Palin is a moron and “the First Guy” is a tool.
- Kathy Griffin
Comedian
Taking Out The Garbage?
June 13, 2009
It’s the story that won’t go away. TLC’s runaway
hit reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8 drew 10 million viewers to its Memorial
Day Season Premier a few weeks back. Those are the kind of numbers the Sopranos
were doing at the height of that show’s popularity. While Jon & Kate
Plus 8, the reality show, is TLC’s top-rated program, Jon & Kate’s
marriage appears to be on the verge of cancellation.
Reality Television is an oxymoron. When cameras are aimed at ordinary people
reality goes out the window. Excepting perhaps Shirley Temple and the Olsen
Twins, what other pre-schoolers know what a boom mic is?
This contemporary cult of celebrity worship is fascinating. I know more about
Britney Spears’ underwear, or lack thereof, than I do about her music.
How about Lindsay Lohan? I found myself concerned about her shocking weight
loss before I had any idea who she was or what she did. To be honest, I still
don’t. I have not seen or heard a second of her “work,” but
do you think Lindsay and her lesbian lover, club DJ Sam, will ever reconcile?
It’s OctoMom one week, Kate Gosselin the next. Kirstie Alley loses weight;
Kirstie puts it all back on. Poor Kirstie. How would any of us feel if our scarfing
down a couple of tubs of Haagen Dazs was front page news? Except for the extreme
narcissist, who needs that kind of intrusion and scrutiny in their life?
The celebrity beat on today’s media is like some kind of Terminator. It’s
relentless. You can’t stop it. Celebs with a penchant for getting themselves
into peccadillos can only pray for somebody else to screw up. Just ask OctoMom.
She went from obscurity to vilification – including death threats –
in the wink of a CBS Eye. What kind of society produces death threats against
the Village Idiot? There’s talk of OctoMom’s getting her own reality
show. For now, she’s off the radar since former Goodie Two Shoes Kate
Gosselin landed on the shit list.
It’s startling how quickly this segment of the media can turn on you.
What did Kate do? Whose shadow did she step on? How did she go from America’s
Super Mom to super pariah seemingly overnight? When the OctoMom story first
broke, there was Kate on Larry King Live offering her insight and analysis as
America’s newly minted expert on multiple births. It was only a few months
ago that she, Jon and their delightful brood were posing in matching outfits
for happy happy joy joy cover shots in Home Journal and Redbook. The issue of
US magazine that broke the marital rift story sold 1 million copies. Since then
the couple has been featured on the magazine’s cover for 6 consecutive
weeks
The supermarket check-out stands are festooned with celebrity scandal mags now
featuring only unflattering photos of Kate while headlines scream: “JON
& KATE’S $10 MILLION DIVORCE.” “INSIDE JON’S PRISON
– Kate Has Him on a $5/day Allowance!” “KATE GOSSELLIN –
Her Lonely New Life.” “FROM MOM TO MONSTER!” “Screaming
Matches Lead to Kicking and Punching.” “Jon & Kate’s Kids
Beg, DADDY DON’T GO!” “Kids Afraid of Control Freak Mom.”
One magazine cover claims “JON WANTS OUT,” while another reports
“KATE KICKS JON OUT” and a third says “JON’S FORCED
TO MOVE OUT.” My favourite headline: “Family Shunned At Church.”
Yeah, like anyone is going to shun those kids. They’re like a litter of
puppies – adorable! Alongside all the twaddle from US, People, STAR and
the like sits Oprah’s June ’09 issue of her “O” magazine.
There’s the Queen of all Media posing for the cover under a passel of
puppies. Not the Gosselin kids - real puppies. They’re a new breed seeking
American Kennel Club recognition – Oprahdoodles.
You have to hand it to the Gosselins and their handlers. They are mining this
thing for reality gold! While the new, 1.1 million dollar house the television
show brought them is lovely, modern and spacious, it’s not Walton’s
Mountain. The Gosselins could really use a John Boy in their clan to help wrangle
the younger ones. Raising 1 or 2 kids is challenge enough for a lot of us, but
8? Never mind the stress of fame. How about the day-to-day stress of trying
to bring up two sets of “multiples?” Is it any wonder the strain
might have gotten to the Gosselins?
Some of the brouhaha surrounding this couple condemns them for staying together
for the money. Did the fact that there are 8 children to raise get by some of
you? When average Joes and Janes get divorced these days, do they quit their
jobs? Stay together for the money? They’d be nuts to give it up. Ray and
Dave Davies of the Kinks used to get into knock down fist fights before going
on stage, but still managed to crank out a killer “You Really Got Me”
on a nightly basis. Frayed family relations had a couple of the Beach Boys obtaining
court-issued restraining orders against each other. Yet they still performed
together on stage and flew between gigs on the same private plane! I’m
thinking there were very few “Good Vibrations” on that jet. Regardless
of what happens to Jon and Kate’s personal relationship, they will be
forever dealing with each other because of the kids. They have a moral obligation
to the family’s financial well-being to keep the cash flowing. “Eight
Little Faces?” How about 8 little prom outfits…8 first cars…8
University educations…what if all of the sextuplets want to be doctors?
TLC has cross-pollinated two of its best shows this week on a special 90-minute
episode of American Chopper which aired Thursday, June 11. The Jon & Kate
version airs in their time slot Monday (the 15th). The Gosselins pay a visit
to Orange County Choppers in upstate New York where the Teutels are building
a bike for Jon. In the glare of all the negative publicity, I’m sure Jon
wanted nothing more than to get on that one-of-a-kind custom presented to him
by Paul Sr. and ride off into the sunset, but that ain’t reality. “Easy
Rider” was somebody else’s vision quest, Jonny. You don’t
need an old fart like me reminding you of your responsibilities. No, the resigned
look of “let’s get through this” that we see etched on Jon
Gosselin’s face is probably the result of an intervention by the producers
of “Jon & Kate Plus 8.” They undoubtedly reminded Jon of the
contract he signed. Whether he and Kate are getting along, or not, is irrelevant.
The show must go on. Those kids are growing out of their sneakers 8 pairs at
a time. Now that they’ve become familiar with terms like “boom mike”
and “editing bay” their vocabulary can now be enhanced further with
“visitation rights,” “child support” and “lawyer.”
Lots and lots of lawyers.
As long as the public wants to buy, the service will continue. When we stop
being interested in Brangelina, Britneys’ crotch or Mel Gibson’s
love-child, scandal-skewed media will stop, too. But you’ve got a better
chance of spotting Ogopogo on your next trip to the Okanagan than you do of
seeing the end of what used to be called, “muckraking.”
Reality, phew, what a concept!
- Robin Williams
Saturday May 30, 2009
I don’t have a cell phone. I know…I know. The boys
and I were talking about it just the other day down at the buggy whip factory.
If it wasn’t for the Amish and the S&M crowd we’d hardly have
any customers at all. The old techno-phobia is not acting up again. It’s
not like I’m some out-of-the-loop, old fart standing in the middle of
the on-ramp to the information highway shaking a gnarled fist at those “durn
fool wireless carriages.” Cellular phones are actually very cool. Is there
anything these things can’t do?
Whether it’s a land-line or hand-held, however, I just plain don’t
like the telephone. It’s not rooted in some irrational childhood fear
or pre-natal trauma. To the best of my knowledge Mom wasn’t frightened
by a big, black, Bakelite, rotary-dial while carrying me. It was adult trauma
brought on by a 25-year career in the promotion, P.R., publicity and marketing
business.
The high-priced consultants and “In Search of Excellence” management
trainers the brass used to sic on us back in the “Greed is Good”
‘80’s emphasized:
“When the phone rings, that’s my job calling!”
It never stopped ringing. It got to where I could hear it in my sleep reaching
complete saturation when I’d answer the phone at home on the weekend:
“Promotion.”
My soon-to-be son-in-law is a graduate of UBC’s Engineering Faculty and
a brilliant techno dude. He proudly carries an iPhone and keeps me apprised
of all the things it can do. A lot of what he tells me sounds like Mongolian.
For all I know, it could be. He travels a lot. He’s been dazzling me with
all these amazing and amusing apps. Me? I’m just tickled that I know what
an app is. How about the Zippo lighter app for encores? I applaud the obvious
safety factor of an electronically reproduced image of a flame over an actual
open flame indoors. Depending on the size of the venue and the draw of the act
you could be dealing with potentially tens of thousands of flames. I’ve
attended many a concert where the person sitting next to me shouldn’t
be at large unsupervised let alone with a cheap, easy-to-use source of ignition
held aloft in a disturbingly trembling hand. Psychotic, pyromaniacs aside, the
effect is not quite the same with the app lighter as opposed to a real Zippo.
If you’re sitting in the nosebleed section you’re going to be looking
at the back of a lot of iPhones instead of the several thousand points of light.
The lighter tribute is ostensibly directed at the performers on stage, but it’s
dazzling for the audience as well. It gets you feeling all “I’d
like to teach the world to sing with a mouthful of Coke.” Can a brother
get a “Kumbaya” in here?
The obvious question: what are you doing in the cheap seats if you can afford
an iPhone? Maybe if you cut back on your minutes, or get a new plan the next
time Foo Fighters blow through town you won’t have to sit way up in the
toolies. And as dazzling as the iPhone is, it can’t actually spark up
that fattie you’ve been saving for the drum solo. But don’t put
anything past Steve Jobs and the brainiacs at Apple. By the time I go to bed
with this, they might have found a way for you to download actual fire.
“Man, you gotta get the flamethrower app. You never know when you’re
gonna be stuck in traffic in Johannesburg.”
Friends and family are exasperated.
“Why don’t you have a cell phone,” they cry? “You gotta
get a cell phone.”
They try to give us their old models when upgrading to the latest Blackberry
or the aforementioned miracle, the iPhone. Regular visitors to the Boom Room
know of my undying love for my iPod. I have no stock in either company, but
would like to put in a plug for the Blackberry. Anything that is going to help
swell Mr. Balsillie’s coffers and get another NHL franchise in the Great
White North is all right by me. I was born and raised in Toronto. As a lifelong
Leaf fan, my wet coast brothers and sisters have no idea what kind of rivalry
awaits an NHL team in Hamilton. Oh, boy. Can you say Hatfields and McCoys? If
you thought there was a lot of heat when Edmonton plays Calgary? A Toronto-Hamilton
rivalry would be like putting your face in front of one of those Dofasco blast
furnaces on the Ontario lakeshore just down the Q.E.W. from the Big Smoke.
It would seem that most people want to be connected and stay in touch 24/7 these
days. I, on the other hand, take a cue from the classic (aren’t they all?)
Monty Python sketch, “Trying Hard Not To Be Seen.” If anyone is
looking, I’ll be the goof with his arse parked on a rest stop bench just
past the exit on the information highway marked “Alexander Graham Who?”
Middle Age is when you’re sitting home on Saturday night
and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you.
- Ogden Nash
May 23, 2009
If you’re looking for the dust to settle from the recent provincial election
there’s no need. The abysmal voter turnout stirred up very little en route
to setting a record low – a full 8 points below the 58% that cast ballots
in 2005. I’ve been trying to get my mind around the fact that one out
of every two potential voters opted to not participate. I’m sorry, but
I just don’t understand. Our fearless leader, Dave Chesney, took a run
at it last week in his “Yell It Like It Is” column. He and I have
been kicking it around for this past week.
How can one not vote? In this day and age with so many vital issues facing us
locally, domestically and internationally, who thinks it’s a good plan
to take a pass on the very thing that is the foundation for our way of life?
Democracy was invented by the ancient Greeks. While the theory has been around
for more than a couple of millennia, democracy in practice is still relatively
new. For the bulk of recorded history tyranny and force of arms has been the
most lasting system of governance for most of the world. A large chunk of today’s
global population does not enjoy our democratic freedoms. Some of these people
have been known to stand in front of on-coming tanks because they so badly want
a system like ours. What do you think those extremely rash, yet very brave individuals
in Tiananmen Square would make of people who have democracy yet don’t
take part in it?
Aren’t you the least bit curious? I know I am. I’d love to see the
results if every one of us who was eligible actually voted. One hundred per
cent turn out! Is it that a radical concept?
Dave told me about the Australian practice of leveling a $500.00 fine for not
voting in that country’s elections. Trust the folks down under to apply
extreme measures to the problem, huh? A nation/continent born of extremes -
extreme climate, extreme isolation…Heck, their idea of relaxation is Aussie
Rules Football! The non-participatory fine is a great idea, but I think you’d
have a hard time getting it off the ground here.
Premier Campbell and his BC Liberals wound up with around 46% or the popular
vote to the NDP’s 43%. Six new seats were added to the Legislature in
this election for a total of 85. The Liberals won 49 seats, the NDP 36. Not
exactly a waxing. It’s a victory, for sure. You can’t take that
away from the Libs, but it’s nothing to crow about. We’re a hockey
loving people. Putting the election in hockey terms, it was a 4-3 win. It says
you squeaked one out, but you’re hardly dominating your division.
How about the Single Transferrable Vote (STV) referendum on the ballot? STV?
You just know there’s a slice of the populace that thought they were voting
for or against gonorrhea, don’t you? Roughly half of the eligible voters
in the province already can’t find a good enough reason to go out and
exercise the old franchise and you want to throw a whole new balloting system
at them? And this one involves advanced math? They clearly can’t put a
simple “X” in a white circle beside 1 name out of 3 or 4 or 5 and
STV proponents expect John and/or Jane Q. to calculate what minute percentage
of their vote is going to help some Green candidate from Tumbler Ridge win an
all expenses paid, four year trip to Victoria. Is it any wonder that one bit
the dust?
We took advantage of advanced polling this year. How good is that? If your argument
was not being able to get to the polls on election day, what the heck were you
doing for the entire week in advance? It was a leisurely stroll less than 10
minutes from home. There was no line-up. We were in and out in under 5 minutes.
Who can’t or, more importantly won’t take 5 minutes out of one day
every four years to participate in something so precious?
Don’t think for a moment there aren’t forces that would dearly love
to scrap democracy. You don’t want to wake up from your apathy one day
to the loud thud of jackboots separating your front door from its hinges. Oh,
look…it’s a couple of big lads from the Party.
“Here are your short pants and arm band. Put ‘em on and start goose-stepping
you little turd!”
In the end it’s not about Gordon Campbell and his Liberals, Carole James’
NDP, the Greens, the Marijuanas or the Let’s Party. It’s about a
system that we often take for granted. It’s flawed to be sure, but it’s
the best there is. Don’t believe me? Go live in Pyongyang.
Democracy is the worst form of government except all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
- Winston Churchill
Saturday May 16, 2009
The Victoria Day long weekend is upon us. This marks the kick-off for the summer
camping season in southwestern BC. Usually, the weather is horrible. But that
doesn’t stop the stalwart from packing up the tents, coolers, camp stoves
and sleeping bags and heading into the woods. There are those who steadfastly
camp every Victoria Day weekend rain or shine. They fly their blue tarps proudly
like badges of courage. Hardcore tenters scoff at those fair-weather types who
won’t venture outdoors unless conditions are ideal. I wonder if the hardcore
will be disappointed if the weather turns out to be not bad this year? Where’s
the fortitude in that? Anybody can go camping when it’s nice. It takes
a real coureur de bois to bivouac on a traditionally wet May long weekend in
B.C. 2009, however, looks to buck the trend. While the weather outlook is not
going to be stellar – mostly cloudy all weekend with a 30% chance of rain
on Saturday and Monday with Sunday’s calling for only a 20% chance –
it will not be a wet one.
I don’t camp. Between high school and university I spent the better part
of a year in the bush. My idea of roughing-it is black & white TV, or a
hotel where Room Service shuts down at midnight. The time in our boreal forest
was a wonderful experience, to be sure, but I’m long past doing that sort
of thing for fun.
While I won’t be haunting any of our provincial parks this weekend, local
paths and trails will be feeling the crunch of my bicycle tires. Not just a
marvelous two-wheeled conveyance, my bike is a time machine. The moment I get
on and start to pedal I’m immediately 10 years old again. It’s nice
to be back on the “two-wheeler.” I truly love roaring around on
a bicycle. It drives the Mrs. nuts when we ride together.
“Why do you have to ride so fast,” she asks?
Seated on my time machine, the response is from another age, too.
“Because.”
I’m way more ‘fraidy cat than daredevil. I don’t have a lead
foot behind the wheel. The words, “let’s go bungie jumping”
will never come out of my mouth. White water rafting? Not a chance. On a bicycle,
however, I have only two settings: stop and GO! On foot, my wife can walk rings
around me, so it’s a push.
Vancouver’s new Mayor, Gregor Robertson is an avid cyclist and commutes
to City Hall on his bike. As part of a drive to make Vancouver “the greenest
city in the world,” his Honour is encouraging more of us to get out of
our cars and on our bikes. I salute those who hardily commute via bicycle in
our climate. I’m still a fair-weather biker and stick pretty much to the
flats. The time machine gathered some cobwebs during our years in North Van.
Upper Lonsdale to the Quay? No problemo. Lonsdale Quay to home? What do I look
like, Lance Armstrong? Only guys with legs like a Rodin sculpture can cycle
on the North Shore. Just because they’re called mountain bikes doesn’t
make it any easier to get up the darn mountain.
That’s the fascination with the Tour de France. We can all relate a little.
Not everyone golfs, plays hockey, surfs, has a wicked curve ball, throws a javelin
or a perfect spiral. Almost everyone has ridden a bicycle. Some may not have
been on one since childhood, but I’ll bet the memories are relatively
fresh. The days of the Inquisition and its infamous, rendition techniques are
relegated to the history texts. France, however, still puts cyclists through
a three week, trial by ordeal every summer. The time trials are all well and
good, but it’s the mountain stages that separate the men from their leg
tendons and ligaments. The hills that I’ve faced on a bike are mere bumps
in the road compared to taking on the French Alps. Alps are for skiing down.
How do those guys cycle up mountains, let alone race up?
Whatever activity calls your name this weekend keep in mind the words of Sgt.
Phil Esterhaus from “Hill Street Blues.”
“Let’s be careful out there.”
Look for me on the bike paths. I’ll be the one in the Rhodora the Explorer
helmet with a propeller on top.
Vamos, Diego.
Sunday May 10, 2009
Spring on the West Coast has finally sprung. The fruit trees
are in bloom, those with seasonal allergies are cursing between sneezes and
the Stanley Cup playoffs are in full swing. At this time of year with warmer
temperatures beckoning us to come outside and enjoy the weather, hockey fans
are stuck indoors with bigger fish to fry. This is the “real” hockey
season. What we know as the regular season is basically an extended elimination
round. The World Cup only subjects soccer fans to this kind of build-up every
four years, whereas hockey runs the planet’s longest qualifying tournament
every year. The “cheese is on the table,” as legendary pool hustler
Minnesota Fats used to say. Fats was referring to money...the wager...the “cheese.”
Fats claimed to have “never lost a game of pool for money in my life.”
When the “cheese” was on the table there was no fooling around.
Pool was serious business to Minnesota Fats. This is serious hockey. With Vancouver’s
sweeping St. Louis in Round 1, never mind the swine flu, Cup Fever is spreading
like mad.
I’m not a Canuck fan. I’m a Leaf fan. Hey, take it easy…little
ears, man, like, little ears! The kids might not be asleep yet, y’know?
I was born and raised in Toronto in the 1950’s. I can’t help it.
Besides, I don’t care how many vile names you call us, Leaf fans have
been punished more than enough over the past four decades. I could care less
about the Canucks, however I am a fan of Canucks’ fans. They’re
loyal, steadfast, supportive and seemingly hard-wired to accept disappointment
over and over. They’d make a good wife. I’m gonna take a lot of
heat from my Toronto peeps, but I feel ‘Nuck fan deserves a Stanley Cup
more than Leaf fan. With that I’ll probably have to start wearing a disguise
and sneak into the Big Smoke under the cover of darkness if I want to visit
my Mom. Even though Leaf supporters have been having our hearts broken since
1967, those of us who are old enough can still remember the glory years. Can
you say “Johnny Bower,” “Eddie Shack”…”Frank
Mahovlich?” And they’re the Maple Leafs. How Canadian is that? Only
the Habs trump us by actually calling the team, Canadiens. When I was a kid,
Hockey Night in Canada was either Montreal at Toronto, or Toronto at Montreal.
The other four teams in the “Original 6” seemed as though they existed
because the Leafs and Habs needed some tune-up games between playing each other.
Don’t get me wrong. I want another Championship for the “Buds.”
Montreal can go piss up a rope! But Vancouver needs it a little more, I think.
Get that monkey off its back and that first Championship banner up in the rafters
of the Garage. We Leaf fans can do like we traditionally do during the off season
– return to our churches, temples, synagogues, cathedrals, mosques, ashrams
and corner bars and get the prayers started early for next season.
In the local supermarket parking lot I noticed a late model Jeep Patriot festooned
with no less than 6 Canuck flags. Six! How badly do you think this guy wants
to see a Canuck victory? Driving down the highway he must flap more than a flight
of Canada geese. The Saudi Ambassador to the U.N. doesn’t fly that many
pennants on his limo and he’s a Prince, for cryin’ out loud. His
cousin is the King!
As I go to bed with this, Vancouver has just put its collective back to the
wall by dumping Game 5 in Chi Town. It has been an exciting series to watch
so far and Game 6 should be a barn burner. The action on the ice is one thing,
but it’s the post game activities that have a lot of people concerned.
The memory of the Riot on Robson is still remarkably fresh, when 50,000 people
tore up the joint following Vancouver’s loss of game 7 in the 1994 Stanley
Cup Final. Hence the heavy police presence on the streets following the Canucks’
taking Game 1 of this round.
You can’t celebrate every win like it’s a cup final, m’kay?
You know how children can get all jacked-up in the days leading up to Christmas?
It’s a little like that. Kids easily get overexcited. Hockey fans too.
If they keep hitting the streets and ramping up the celebrations with each match
the potential exists for another mob scene to reach critical mass. If they’re
already at a fever pitch in the first game of the second round, how are those
fans out on the lunatic fringe going to react if the team gets closer and closer
to the prize?
I’ve never been able to grasp the mentality that thinks: “My team
just won the big game. I’m very happy. Let’s go wreck some stuff.”
You don’t have to be Mr. Spock to find no logic at work here. Burning,
looting, smashing windows, violence, general mayhem and property destruction
- what has this got to do with supporting the local squad and being pleased
with its success? I’m not a mental health practitioner, but you don’t
have to be Dr. Phil to know that happy, well-adjusted people don’t attempt
setting fire to downtown at the conclusion of a professional sporting event.
So, the excitement and tension builds with each game.
“What if they actually go all the way and win,” I asked at a recent
lunchroom round table? “What if they go all the way and lose,” countered
one of the younger guys?
Back in the turbulent 1960’s when race riots set fire to a number of American
cities, Soul Brother Number 1, James Brown – the Godfather of Soul, J.B.,
Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business - was asked to help.
James Brown had the power to walk down the middle of the street in the middle
of honest to God, burn the place to the ground, bullets flying civil unrest
and ask everyone to chill out…and they did!
With all due respect, I’m not sure that Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy has
the presence to put down a riot. I wonder if Tom Cochrane would be willing to
stroll down the middle of Robson Street with his guitar playing “Big League”
should Vancouver fans get out of control?
Win or lose, please don’t hurt Robson Street…or each other.
Go ‘Nucks Go.
Saturday May 2, 2009
With yet another provincial election inching our way, the old B.S. detector
is getting a workout. It seems like the filter needs changing with every newscast.
How’s yours holding up? We’re once again faced with a choice between
the lesser of idiots. Quite frankly, none of them speak any kind of language
that I understand. I’ve got little or no use for Gordon Campbell and his
alleged Liberals. That faint, whirring sound you hear is the Honourable Pierre
Elliott Trudeau spinning in his grave over these clowns’ appropriation
of the name Liberal. But whatcha gonna do? It seems like the hapless NDP, true
to form, can’t organize a piss-up in a brewery. Case in point the recent
scandal erupting from what some might deem inappropriate photos posted on the
Facebook page of Ray Lam, who at the time was the NDP’s candidate running
in the Vancouver-False Creek riding. Who’s in charge of vetting potential
candidates in NDP Land? How did these pictures manage to fly under the radar?
One smiling shot had him cupping a woman’s breast. It should be noted
that the woman in the photo did not appear to be the least bit offended by Lam’s
copping a feel. Another showed a man and a woman yarding on Lam’s underwear.
Lam didn’t seem to be fighting off their advances.
Hey, this is the west coast for cryin’ out loud. A guy with another guy’s
hand down his pants is as common as barbecued salmon. And like the Seinfeld
crew hilariously pointed out to us, “not that there’s anything wrong
with that,” unless, it would seem, one is running for elected office.
In an official party press release Ray Lam apologized to “Carole James,
the NDP and the voters of Vancouver-False Creek. I do not want this to be a
distraction in the election campaign and have advised the party that I am stepping
down,” he said.
If you’re that dumb a cluck to not realize posting a photo like that would
ultimately come back and bite you squarely on the butt, then maybe the nasty
world of politics is not quite the right fit for you. Perhaps, in the end, a
bum bite is, or was what you’re after. Not that there’s anything
wrong with that, either, except in the cold, clear light of the internet…in
full-colour...digitally preserved …forever. Just sitting there softly
ticking like a career killing time bomb waiting to go off, oh, I dunno, when
you’ve thrown your hat into the political ring and instantly gained a
whole bunch of enemies you haven’t even met? Yup, right around that time.
Chances are the outcome of this election will usher in a few more years of the
same old same old. Just like a blindside vote at Tribal Council on “Survivor”
shakes things up and makes the show much more entertaining, so too would an
upset victory at the polls May 12th. Wouldn’t it be fun to have Premier
Campbell and his cronies miss the big, Olympics Party up in Whistler next year?
There would be some kind of justice in his having to watch the whole thing on
TV like the rest of us schmos, but Carole James has as much chance of hosting
that bash as I do of playing right field for the Yankees.
As annoying as today’s politicians get, we should enjoy them while we
can. I’ve got a feeling the ones to come are going to be a whole lot meaner.
The kind of guys who will make Dick Cheney look like Deepak Chopra. I’ve
seen the future and it’s totalitarian, or at the very least, authoritarian.
Some might accuse me of reading too many Philip K. Dick novels at an impressionable
age, but each to his own “Nostradamus.” One man’s seer is
another man’s sci-fi hack. Do you honestly believe the so-called New World
Order is going to achieve a single, global economy or one world government by
being nice guys?
This isn’t a warning. It’s already too late.
Tomorrow’s Gestapos, KGB’s and CIA’s won’t need to hook
your testicles up to car batteries in clandestine, “black” prisons
unless purely for their own enjoyment. It won’t be to extract any information.
You have no secrets. The odd, titillating snapshot on a social networking site
like Facebook will be the least of your worries. Those who need to know have
all the access with the best hackers and programmers money can buy. They already
know everything about you – especially your weaknesses. They know what
kind of pizza you like and at what time of the day or night you like to eat
it. You won’t have to rat out any of your friends, immediate family, business
associates or distant relations. They know all about them, too and their connection
to you and anybody else they know. Their pizza preferences are no enigma either.
They know what kind of porn turns your crank and how often you log on. How about
the last time you went to the Doctor, or the next? They got that and through
the computers at your local pharmacy, they know all about the cream for the
rash on your wiener. They know how much you make, where you bank, all your passwords
and P.I.N.’s. Go ahead and change ‘em every so often. They’ve
got a list of the next possible 100 you’re going to come up with before
you do. They know where and when you spend almost every penny, unless you’re
spending cash in the underground marketplace. But I’ve got a hunch they
know about that stuff as well. Maybe you’re paying your dealer in cash,
but did you pick up those Zig Zag Whites with your groceries and use your supermarket
credit card for extra bonus points? Ouch! You’re on your way to having
enough points for a floating, combination thermometer and pool alarm that looks
like a duck. Oh, yeah, and a visit from the Secret Police when the time comes
for the big Round Up.
. With all of today’s sophisticated, personal electronic devices dialed
up, logged on and interfaced we’re a hop, skip and a jump from joining
Neo and all the other “batteries” in the Matrix.
I can picture in my mind a world without war a
world without hate. And I can picture us attacking
that world because they’d never expect it.
- Jack Handey
“Deep Thoughts”
Saturday April 25, 2009
Drink Up! It's Good For You
I’m the Quartermaster for our family platoon charged with keeping the
fridge and larder stocked. It’s only natural, as I toil in the retail
sector and find myself in a store every day. Since I’m already there,
I might as well do some shopping and save a trip back, know what I mean, Vern.
At the end of a shift I’ll check in with home to see if anything’s
needed. More often than not it’s the usual requests: butter, eggs, bread,
T.P., pomegranates, teabags…apple cider vinegar pills.
“What do you want,” I ask “the 1 liter or 500 ml bottle?”
“Not vinegar - Apple cider vinegar pills,” my wife repeats on the
other end of the line.
“Say, what?”
“Pills. Apple cider vinegar in pill form.”
“Okayyyyy,” I offer rather unconvincingly.
“Just ask somebody in the pharmacy,” she says.
I’ve never heard of these things before, but my Mrs. is way ahead on the
health and nutrition curve, so I dutifully add it to my “wrist list.”
For most of my life I’ve had the attention span of a gnat on espresso.
Easily distracted by bright, shiny objects I tend to write reminders on my left
wrist. It’s an old habit, which I think will come in handy should the
family Alzheimer’s gene take hold. The disease has cropped up on both
sides of the clan. My Dad had it, but our hereditary cardiac trouble trumped
the mental disorder. A heart attack took him out before the Alzheimer’s
could. I think about this more and more as I age. The day I can’t run
the “World War II” category in Double Jeopardy is the day I know
I’m in trouble.
“Who is General Heinz Guderian?”
“What is Operation Overlord?”
“Why did General Patton slap that guy?”
Watching the legendary game show and doing crossword puzzles is part of my personal,
mental acuity, DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line. It’s all well and good
to be able to hold my own with Alex Trebek and knowing a 5-letter word for “fish
basket” (creel), but I came of age in the late ‘60’s. Never
mind whether it’s “live or Memorex.” How about, is it Alzheimer’s
or delayed fall-out from consciousness altering
experimentation back in the day? I followed graduation from University
with a decade-long tenure in what I like to call G.A.R.B. – the Golden
Age of the Record Business. Beatles’ publicist Derek Taylor (no relation)
wrote a book about his time with the Fabs. He titled it, “The Longest
Cocktail Party.” Working for major record labels in the 1970’s was
kind of like that. Every night was New Year’s Eve – literally! As
a matter of fact, we tended to take December 31st “off” for a quiet
evening at home. As friend, mentor and life coach, Dr. David Chesney put it:
“I stay home on New Year’s Eve because all the amateurs come out
and draw way too much heat.”
Sometimes I’ll have so much ink scribbled on the forearm as to resemble
“joint tatts.” It reminds me of that movie “Memento,”
starring British-born, Australian actor Guy Pearce as a man with severe shot
term memory loss. To compensate, the character takes tons of Polaroid pictures
and has important information like names, places, dates, etc tattoo’d
onto his skin. The gifted Pearce is best known for his role as Russell Crowe’s
Los Angeles police force superior in “L.A. Confidential.” I’ve
never actually seen his turn in “Memento,” just clips and trailers.
I get the odd feeling that I’m channeling Martin Short’s brilliantly
absurd Jiminy Glick character. Glick is a guy doggedly covering the Hollywood
beat, yet woefully ill prepared and under researched for the job. Short plays
him with oily glee. While interviewing Rob Lowe, Jay Mohr or some other scenester
willing to go along with the gag, Glick will openly admit to not having seen
any of the subject’s work prior to the sit down. He knows this person
is a celebrity, but not exactly sure why. Referencing a particular role or film,
he’ll confess:
“I didn’t see it,” Glick admits “but I heard it was
good.”
This weekend, maybe I’ll drop a couple of apple cider vinegar pills and
rent that Guy Pearce movie. Where’s my pen?
September 18, 2008
What’s the deal with Billy Bob Thornton? Did you catch his “act”
recently in Toronto? If you missed it, he was in the Big Smoke for a Massey
Hall date with his sideline music project playing drums and singing with a rockabilly
band, the Boxmasters. It was part of 6-date Canadian tour leg opening for the
legendary Willie Nelson. Doing the radio interview to drum up interest is as
common a pre-gig activity as stopping by Long & McQuade for new sticks or
guitar strings. And so, Mr. Thornton found himself in the CBC Radio 1 studios
with Q host Jian Ghomeshi, that urbane hipster with the sideburns and Small
Faces’ haircut. Apparently there was some kind of clause or codicil on
the agreement hammered out prior to Thornton’s appearance that prohibited
mentioning anything to do with his being, well, uh…an actor.
Ghomeshi committed the cardinal sin for interviewers by going
all “rogue” on his ass and actually having the temerity while intro-ing
the guy to use the “A” word that was supposed to be left unsaid.
That was all it took for Thornton to throw his questionable, P.R. skill-set
out of the studio and commence acting like a Grade ‘A’ Jerk. He
refused to answer questions, pretended he didn’t understand, offered up
rambling non-sequiturs and then became verbally insulting and abusive to Ghomeshi
and, ultimately anyone listening. To Jian Ghomeshi’s credit, he remained
polite, earnest, engaged and most importantly, professional doing his best to
gently apply the brakes to a train wreck of an interview. Try and pull that
crap on Howard Stern’s show and Howard will direct sidekick Artie Lange
to fart on you.
‘Yo, William Robert…here’s a newsflash for y’all: you
are an actor and a darn good one. You rocked in “Slingblade.” They
gave you an Oscar for the screenwriting, but that doesn’t take anything
away from your chops as an actor. Why didn’t you simply approach the radio
interview as if it were an exercise in acting class? Your assignment today:
try acting like a decent human being!!
Can you believe this guy?
If Jian Ghomeshi had really wanted to blindside your ass, Willie Robbie, he
could have asked you about swanning around with Angelina Jolie’s blood
in some kind of mythic vessel hung around your neck? Do you have any idea how
creepy that was then and still is? Being the pompous arse that we now see struttin’
his stuff I’m betting no, you don’t have a lot of objectivity when
it comes to your rather skewed perspective on the world.
And speaking of Angelina Jolie…seen any Brad Pitt movies, lately? Again,
probably not, I’m thinking. According to some anecdotal evidence, one
glimpse of Johnny Handsome Brad up there on the big screen can make one’s
blood boil. How about if the blood is in some kind of amulet on a chain? Would
that thing be hoppin’ and boppin’ around on your chest? You’re
not still wearing that thing, are ya Bill Bob? Who gained custody of the blood
when you two split up? Did each of you get your own back? Angelina’s a
notorious nomad travelling to some of the darker corners of the planet. If she
gave your blood to a Voodooienne in Port Au Prince some moonless night, it might
explain that lingering, lower back pain you haven’t been able to shake.
Do you see? These are the kinds of questions inquiring minds want answered.
We really don’t give a rat’s heinie about your little part-time
combo. You’re a wing nut. We want to hear about the wing nuttiness. Like
this ridiculous, little turdfest in a teacup you stirred up with our boy Ghomeshi.
We don’t have a problem with your playing music on the side. Take a look
at Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael. Do you think Kevin Bacon would have
a tantrum on the radio if somebody mentioned his being an actor when he’s
out stumpin’ a Bacon Brothers gig? Never mind 6 degrees of separation
from Kevin Bacon. Six degrees of separation from the Billy Bob Thornton might
not be adequate. Six restraining orders would seem more prudent.
I love Rockabilly. Like Ska, or Bluebeat, is to Reggae music, so Rockabilly
is to Rock & Roll. It was the precursor. As the name would suggest its a
little more “Hillbilly” in flavour and leaning to the Country and
Western side of its heritage. As Rock & Roll developed emphasis was put
on the Blues/R&B side of the family tree with a more rhythmic, driving,
bottom end and less of the “twang.” While I loves me some twang
now and again, Rockabilly, like its cousin, Bluegrass, is an acquired taste.
After its brief moment in the popular music sun in the early 1950’s the
genre, while surviving and thriving in pockets – British Teddy Boys for
example – has been more or less reduced to a footnote in musical history.
The Teds have loyally flown the duck’s ass pompadour flag and kept the
rockabilly drive alive in England for over 50 years. “For every rockabilly
festival staged here,” said Brian Setzer “there are 10 held overseas.”
Setzer knows what he’s talkin’ about. His Stray Cats sparked a Rockabilly
Revival against the backdrop of the so-called “New Wave” of the
late 1970’s – early ‘80’s. If you want to bop to top-flight
rockabilly you want some Brian Setzer, Robert Gordon, Dave Alvin, the Blasters,
Sleepy LaBeef, Carl Perkins…Jerry Lee…Elvis. I’m sorry but
Billy Bob Thornton just doesn’t show up on the rockabilly radar. Yet he
somehow has the bad manners to book an interview, pick a fight with a soft-spoken,
radio host and then proceed to malign and insult the entire nation live on-air.
If we like you we’re more inclined to indulge your little, Dorsey Burnette
fantasies. But if you’re gonna come up into our “house” with
your poor man’s Joaquin Phoenix bit all sullen, incoherent and unco-operative,
we’re gonna call you on it.
Creative expression aside, no matter which discipline one hopes to present –
music, comedy, motion pictures, live theatre, dance – for a paying audience
the prime directive is to put bums in the seats. There’s nothing more
off-putting for a performer than an empty house. That’s why going on the
radio before a show is so important to pique the interest of potential ticket
buyers. Indulging in a personal fit of pique defeats the purpose and tends to
negatively impact on the number of bums you can expect to show up.
Hey, B.B. did any of your people happen to mention that the medium you were
guesting on was our national radio service? You weren’t on the Crave,
the Comfort, the Buzz, the Boss, Manny, Moe & Jack-FM or Warm 106. No, Dude.
It wasn’t some local station with a regional audience. You were embarrassing
yourself from coast-to-coast-to-coast.
“Canadian audiences,” said Thornton, “are like mashed potatoes
without the gravy.”
Have you tried the poutine, Rim Job? Don’t go for the condiment metaphor
up here ‘til you’ve tried the poutine, m’kay? Yeah, we got
your gravy right over here!
Cancelling out the remaining dates of your short Canadian tour is your answer,
huh Bill Bored? You didn’t consider cranking up the Fender reverb amps
and dropping the hammer on a kick-ass set to figuratively flip us the bird?
You know, “let the music do the talkin’,” as Joe Perry says?
In the end it has nothing to do with the music, which is ironic since it was
the music that brought the Boxmasters here. In trying so vehemently to not have
the focus shift away from the music the band’s reluctant celebrity did
the very thing that would make that happen.
Despite the Oscar and a solid body of work in his field we are now forced to
add this guy to a long list of celebrity loogans that includes the aforementioned
Phoenix, Crispin Glover and Courtney Love. What’s next for ya, champ?
A ghost-written, “tell-all” book and then you share a room with
Poison front-man Brett Michaels on the next flight of “the Surreal Life?”
When you let your ego out-distance your appeal, you’re on the slippery,
celebrity slope to riding around L.A. in a van with Andy Dick, pouring out your
troubles to Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Billy Bob Thornton…what an idiot!
With the body count mounting almost daily, the Good Guys took a major leap forward
in the local gang wars this past week with arrests in the year and a half old
Surrey 6 Massacre. Twenty-seven year old Red Scorpion Dennis Karbonavec has
pled guilty to committing 3 of the murders and conspiracy in the others. He
is the lynch-pin pulled which has forced the wheels off of the notorious Bacon
Brothers’ little red wagon.
Capturing and charging these clowns is one thing. Successfully prosecuting and
convicting them is often another story. In high profile cases, such as this,
enormous pressure is brought to bear on the police and crown counsel. The public
wants results. Law enforcement and the courts don’t want to make any mistakes
that might compromise the case(s). Hence, they’ll take the time necessary
to get all their legal ducks in a row. The wheels can grind very slowly. With
a rapidity that made all of our heads spin, Dennis Karbovanec was arrested,
pled guilty and sentenced before most of us learned how to pronounce his name.
Earlier in the week media pundits were wondering if some kind of deal had been
hatched. Do ya think? Can we get a collective “DUH-UH,” in here?
Karbovanec went from nabbed to 15 years to life in less than a week. The Due
Process Machine was switched to warp speed for this one.
Can we all breathe a little easier? Well, yes…and no.
When dealing with a poisonous snake you isolate and chop off the dangerous part
– the head. Organized crime is not so much a snake as a Hydra, the nine-headed
monster from Greek Mythology. Defeating this formidable beast was one of the
“12 Labours” assigned to Hercules, but as soon as he severed one
of the heads, two more would grow back to replace it. Yeah, this one made the
5th Labour – muckin’ out the thousands of stalls in King Augeas’
Stables - seem like a brisk walk in the Agora. Keep in mind the mighty Herc
was half-human/half god and he more than had his hands full. Mere mortal men
and women in uniform face down criminal gangs on our streets every day. Organized
crime is very “Hydra-matic.” There is a whole bunch of snarling,
snapping “snake-heads” lined up ready, eager, willing and waiting
to fill the recently vacated spots in the executive offices of the U.N., the
Red Scorpions et al. If you think the lead has been flying hot and heavy of
late, just wait while they stage a few more impromptu “board meetings.”
Whether, or not our streets throughout the Lower Mainland are now safer remains
to be seen. Taking down gang leaders like the Bacons is an absolute necessity.
You don’t have to be an expert on organized crime. One viewing of “the
Godfather” explains how it works. The other five New York Families thought
that clipping Sonny would bring down the Corleones. The pre-emptive strike at
the toll booths on the L.I.E. back fired big time. The vacuum created brought
a reluctant Michael to the head of the Family. A hot-head like Sonny they could
have dealt with, but a smart, quiet guy like Michael? The other five families
awoke the dragon. What they got was the climactic Baptism scene.
CUE: MUSIC and CARNAGE.
Of course “The Godfather” is fiction. Mario Puzo made the whole
thing up when he wrote the novel. It’s not a paradigm for crime. It’s
just a movie, right?
The heart breaks a little bit every time you see poor Mrs. Mohan. I guess this
is some kind of “closure” for her and the Schellenberg Family. To
be brutally frank, I’ve never understood what “closure” is
to be realized having our courts make an S.O.P. deal-with-the-devil allowing
some smarmy asshole to plead guilty to a heinous crime and wind up sentenced
to a few years in the joint watching DVD’s and lifting weights. I’m
a bit too Old Testament when it comes to “closure.” Real closure
would be having each and every one of the gangbangers involved sat down on the
couch from suite 1505 in the Balmoral Tower and having their brains blown out
one-by-one – what does the media call it? Oh, yeah, “execution style”
- making sure that each of them gets the grey matter of the other guy splattered
all over him while he waits his turn. A bit too, much? Hey, one man’s
“closure,” eh? You say “potato,” I say “waste
‘em!” If our vaunted national police force is capable of instantly
trying, convicting and executing Robert Dziekanski for “making threatening
motions with a stapler,” surely their must be some kind of mechanism that
can be put into place to deal with cold-blooded murderers like Karbovanec, the
Bacon Brothers and their ilk?
In his “Pretty Boy Floyd,” the great Woody Guthrie sang of “some
men robbing you with a six-gun; some with a fountain pen.” Even as far
back as the “Dirty Thirties” and the Great Depression Era, fear
of desk-top implements ran rampant. If only our local gangsters were packing
staplers instead of illegal, high-powered, semi-automatic hand guns. The cops
could have shot them down right in front of their luxury condos. BA-DA-BING!
For the rest of us law-abiding taxpayers the savings in court costs and incarceration
would be significant and I’m betting welcome, too. And don’t worry
about our men and women standing watch on the Thin Blue Line. All the officers
have to do is shrug their shoulders and clearly state:
“He had a stapler.”
SFX: GAVEL DOWN
Can you say “righteous shoot?”
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive
measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
- Woody Allen
How about those JUNO Awards hitting the west coast last week? From all appearances
it was one, King-Hell, whoop-de-doo! Vancouver definitely put its best good-foot
forward rolling out the hospitality wagon. It was refreshing to see televised
footage of a public gathering on Granville Street without the traditional knifings,
clubbings and gun-play. Even though I don’t know most of the acts involved
from Adam, I was intrigued by the fan fest atmosphere displayed on TV. It looked
like a lot of fun and, while the lifelong rock & roll fan in me was tempted
I was reticent to face that kind of celebration these days. I’m way too
long-in-the-tooth to mosh with the punters anymore. I had All-Access laminates
in my 20’s when I was a lot more flexible and resilient. At this age the
body tends to do a lot more rattling with the shake and the roll, knowhatI’msayin’?
Back in the day, the JUNOS was strictly a music business trade function. While
it was always a tremendous, raging scene in the hard-living, ‘70’s
and the partay event of the industry’s year, it’s a whole, lot better
with public access and the fan component. It’s the fans after all who
do pay for the whole she-bang. To paraphrase Chilliwack’s Bill Henderson:
no audience – no show. The last JUNO Awards I attended was 1980. They
threw my sorry arse out of the record business in ”BC” - before
CD’s. I was Analog Man - a vinyl dinosaur at the dawn of the digital age.
And like the giant reptilians that used to rule the planet, I didn’t see
my own personal extinction event coming either. Well, that’s not entirely
true. Bruce Allen tipped my 7 months pregnant-at-the-time wife a couple of days
in advance, but despite the Boss’ doing me a solid with the head’s
up, there was no dodging that career-killing comet.
Speaking of Bruce Allen, their former manager, it was wonderful to see Loverboy
finally getting its much-deserved induction into the Canadian Music Hall of
Fame. Never mind those famous, red leather pants. From the looks of things,
lead singer Mike Reno probably needs a giant sized shoe-horn to get himself
into his beloved, vintage Porsche rag-top for a tool to the 7-11. Michael, while
there’s lots of cash to be had playing casinos these days, between sets
you gotta back away from the buffet, boychik! Never mind that “Kid”
you keep singing about. It gets hot up on stage. We worry about you. We’re
counting on your kickin’ off every summer weekend ‘til they plant
us all.
Loverboy is a great bunch of guys and a great band which can still bring it.
Keyboardist Doug Johnson took his moment in front of the mic to acknowledge
the tragic death of bassist Scott Smith, who was lost at sea in December, 2000.
Congratulations to Nickelback who cleaned up in the rock category. The band’s
3 awards – Group of the Year (which it won for the 4th time), Album of
the Year and the Fan Choice Award – dominated this year’s JUNOS.
But there’s still some work to do. At the 1982 JUNOS, Loverboy took home
an unprecedented 6 Awards, a record that still stands. Thanks to the Loverboys,
as well as Bryan Adams and BTO, there were so many JUNO Awards floating around
the Water Street H.Q. of Bruce Allen Talent, that a few of the large, old-school,
designs – the pyramid shaped ones that looked like the TransAmerica Building
in San Francisco? – were sometimes pressed into service as doorstops.
Hey, in the summer it can get hot and stuffy in those old, converted Gastown
warehouse spaces.
Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger took a brief moment while accepting the Fan
Choice statue to take a snide shot at the media. Is he still upset about his
brief moment of public roasting following the much ballyhooed bust for impaired
driving in June, 2006? Whatever prompted this fit of pique at the podium is
irrelevant. Chad, the JUNOS is not the forum to air your petty, little grievances.
Save that shit for your own website or interviews with Kerrang!
I know some guys who formed a band back in Toronto. They called themselves RUSH.
They still do. This power trio was killing in the clubs 6 nights a week all
over the Big Smoke. No record company would return their calls. The band and
brash, young, teenaged booking agent turned manager Ray Danniells started their
own record label. The band continued to pack Tarawna rock bars selling beer
like it was Chicago in the Roaring ‘20’s. They would perform two
or three sets of original material. You might get a couple of sweet covers like
Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” or Junior Walker’s “Shotgun.”
RUSH did a killer “Shotgun.” If you caught the guys in a playful
mood, they might roll out Leiber and Stoller’s “Jailhouse Rock”
– in Serbian!! I kid you not, with Alex Lifeson’s taking the lead
vocals. It was like seeing a major headliner in your favourite club every night.
Despite this groundswell of success and support, local media wouldn’t
give them the time of day. The city’s radio stations summarily ignored
the band’s self-titled, self-released debut album. Did they whine? Nope.
Just piled into a rented station wagon with the Maestro of Road Managers, Howard
“Herns” Ungerleider at the wheel and disappeared into the American
Rock & Roll Heartland. Many years later when they emerged as stadium filling,
bona fide, international rock stars, the Toronto media was all over their “favourite
hometown heroes.”
Did RUSH go for the cheap payback and take a dump on the media? Uh-uh. Displaying
their usual grace under pressure they handled it all with gentlemanly aplomb
and diplomatic grade tact and class. That’s part of the reason the Governor
General invited Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart to Ottawa on a frosty,
February day in 1997 and gave them a little thing called The Order of Canada.
Don’t get into a pissin’ contest with the media. I’ve got
two words for you, Chad: Gary Hart. Yeah, you’re of the age that would
probably respond: “Gary Who?” I suppose you can be forgiven, Chad,
my lad, for not knowing about Gary Hart, or his fractious relationship with
the press corps. You were just 14 at the time of Hart’s unbelievably,
ill-chosen bout of hubris. And if we’re to believe the Nickelback biographical
back story you were far too busy breaking into your school for a little petty
thievery. Working one’s way through the Alberta juvenile justice system
definitely eats into your viewing time for Meet the Press and the McLaughlin
Group. But believe me when I tell you, there was a time when “Gary Who”
had a very real shot at being called Mr. President. The former Senator from
Colorado got himself into an extra-marital affair while on the U.S. Presidential
campaign trail in 1988. He wouldn’t be the first, or last, candidate for
higher office to be caught parking “Air Force 1” in the wrong hangar.
When confronted with the allegations he did have the balls, however, to dare
the media to follow him if it thought he was doing anything wrong. The media
took up the dare and guess what? The young woman’s name was Donna Rice.
Today he’s known simply as Mr. Hart, doesn’t have his own library
and doesn’t get 24-hour a day Secret Service protection for the rest of
his life.
Unlike us mere mortals, the 24-hour news cycle never sleeps. You can’t
win against the media. It rules the electronic bully pulpit and commands the
editing suite. The media has final cut and always gets the last word, m’kay?
Nickelback doesn’t do anything for me. The sound is far too derivative
for anyone who cut their teeth on Boomer bands. If I want my ass kicked sonically,
I still dial up some RUSH or Led Zeppelin. Hey - old habits die hard for old
habituals. I’m a pathetic, retro fart to be sure. But if some genius of
negotiation were to ever manage re-uniting Zep with Bonzo’s kid Jason
whackin’ the tubs behind Page, Plant and Jones? Let’s say Nickelback
found itself playing the same city on the same night. Which show do you think
would be sold out? Nickelback would probably wind up cancelling its show so
they could catch Zeppelin, too.
While I don’t particularly care for Nickelback’s music, as a fellow
Canucklehead I’m tickled the band has attained so much international success.
Talk to anybody who has ever picked up a guitar or sat down behind a drum kit
and tried to make a go of being a professional musician. What did April Wine’s
Myles Goodwin tell us about “Rock & Roll’s being a vicious game?”
Ask Myles, or any number of old campaigners from what the Rheostatics’
Dave Bidini calls “The Cold Road” touring back and forth across
our very large nation. It ain’t easy to make a living playing music in
Canada. Breaking out of the Great White North and making it in the United States
is next to impossible. Nickelback and anybody else who manages to pull that
off deserves all the props, shout-outs, kudos and JUNOS we can throw at ‘em.
Continue traveling the globe. “Keep on rockin’ in the free world,”
and maybe some of the not so free world if they’ll allow you in, let you
set up your equipment and play. You might catch a break and they’ll let
you back out without a tune-up from the Secret Police. Enjoy the hard-earned
fruits of your labour. Chad, you’ve made it, boyo. It’s time to
swallow some of the old bile, grimace and bear it. Put a P.R. spin on your face.
Be the bigger man. At the end of the night, those media clowns are getting into
a leased Subaru or a mini-van with baby hurl on the seats. What are you driving
back to Langley, Chad?
Take the high road and who knows? If you’re as good as you think you are
and Nickelback can stay at the top of its game for close to 40 years, you and
your band mates might just find yourselves in Ottawa with the G.G. just like
Geddy, Alex and Neil. Just like ‘em, Curly!
For the words of the prophets were written on the studio wall, concert hall.
- Neil Peart
“The Spirit of Radio”
I Can See Clearly Now
The first inkling of vision challenges hit back in the early 1970’s. It
was Toronto street signs. The Big Smoke’s signage features black lettering
on a bright, white background, which while driving became difficult to read
until almost past the block.
“What’s up with this,” my youthful brain wanted to know immediately
demanding answers from the sight and sound division?
Sometimes the answers aren’t readily available, or more importantly, not
readily acceptable. Denial is not something reserved for us aging Boomers. Hell,
no. We’ve been avoiding facing up to shit our entire lives. If you think
we’re ducking stuff now, you should have seen us back in the day when
we were all thinner, healthier, stronger and faster.
“Catch us if you can-an-an-an-an, catch us if you can,” sang the
Dave Clark 5.
The quick reply came back: Too much pyro and aircraft landing lights at the
rock show last night and the night before and the three gigs you took in last
Wednesday. There comes a point, however, when you can’t simply lay it
all off on the L.D. (Lighting Director) anymore. A number of months stumbling
and bumbling my way around Canada’s largest urban centre led inevitably
to the optometrist.
An eye examination revealed short-sightedness (myopia). Regardless of whether
or not I can blame it all on rock & roll, the fact remained – I needed
glasses. That was the slightly, bad news. The good news was a prescription so
mild as to be almost window glass. All I required was a little help in focusing
up things in the distance: driving, at movies or live shows. I was blessed with
not having to wear glasses all the time and I still only need them occasionally.
My Mrs., on the other hand, was cruising along just fine in the vision department
when all of a sudden like a bolt out of the blue…BANG…ZOOM, she
needed glasses. But there was no gradual progression here. No slightly, fuzzy
street signs or difficulty determining who the key grip or best boy was while
the credits rolled for the latest Indiana Jones installment. She doesn’t
start out with a mild prescription like mine. Oh no. She goes from I can see
clearly now to Coke-bottle lenses in the blink of a middle-aged eye.
“How is this possible,” I ask. “Are you Saul of Tarsus suddenly
struck blind on the road to Damascus?”
In the meantime, my prescription hasn’t changed in 35 years. I’ll
get new frames every couple of seasons to replace the broken and abused pairs,
but the lenses still get the same old grinding. I keep waiting for the other
shoe to drop, so to speak. When will I need a stronger prescription, reading
glasses or have to move to a bi-focal situation? I love to read and dread the
thought of not being able to focus on the small print in a Kinky Friedman paperback
novel. While I get new frames, my dear wife requires ever increasing strength
in her lenses. And she’s dealing with a triple challenge requiring help
with reading as well as short and long sightedness. These are effectively tri-focals,
though my wife purchases “graduated” lenses which eliminate the
distinct lines.
“I’ve finally gone blind,” my wife hollered.
She emerged from the bedroom the other day “unable to see a darn thing!”
Her initial agitation quickly abated when realizing she was wearing my glasses.
The frames are virtually identical in shape and reaching behind her in bed prior
to getting up she had no way of knowing by touch that they were not hers.
“Sooner, or later,” said my optometrist “everybody will need
glasses.”
And he parted with this advice nearly 3 decades ago. It makes me wish I would
have had the “vision” to buy stock in LensCrafters way back when.
If you find yourself excessively squinting to bend the eyeballs into focus to
see what inning it is at the ball par, or you notice that you’re playing
air trombone with reading material, chances are it’s time to step up to
a pair of “cheaters.” As my Dad, the immortal Bob Taylor, used to
say: “I don’t need glasses. I need longer arms.”
Recently, the Mrs. mentioned having difficulty in the shower figuring out which
of the bottles was shampoo and which was conditioner. Minus her glasses with
the water running and the billowing steam it was impossible to make out the
smaller print under the brand logo. Both of the Joico bottles were identical
in design, shape and colour. To further cloud the issue, the one product is
called “Conditioning” Shampoo. So here’s one of our graying
Boomer tips for the focus challenged: with a Sharpie marker – you need
that indelibility where the bottles are constantly wet – write a big “S”
on the shampoo container and a “C” on the conditioner.
I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.
- Leo Durocher
The wife has me eating Bee Pollen. That’s right. Bee…Pollen.
“Isn’t pollen that stuff that makes you sneeze,” I inquire?
Unlike my often congested better half, I am blessed by not having allergies,
except to penicillin, which can be dire if I get injected with it. Fortunately,
unlike pollen, the miracle antibiotic doesn’t float around in the air
every spring.
After all these years together the Mrs. has a vested interest in my health and
well-being. There’s the ticket, fellas. Stick around long enough to become
a kind of collector’s item like a Duncan Phyfe dining room chair or a
mint, ’55 T-Bird. Some people tinker on vintage cars or try to resurrect
old thrift store furniture. My wife’s hobby seems to be keeping me alive.
“I’ve been training him for the better part of 3 decades”
she says. “I simply haven’t got the time left to break in a new
one.”
It’s tough to argue with that kind of love and devotion, but she has me
eating stuff that bees eat, for cryin’ out loud. Don’t get me wrong.
I love bees. Bees make honey. I love honey. It’s our sweetener of choice
consumed mainly in tea. We purchase the precious stuff in 3 KG tubs. I like
the bees so much that I feel bad taking their sustenance.
“Should we be scarfing down their special food,” I ask? “What
about making honey, honey? Don’t they need those nutrients and energy
to keep so, uh…busy?”
With this she thrusts an information sheet under my nose touting the staggering,
nutritional value. Bee Pollen would appear to be, if not the “food of
the gods,” then the next best thing. In ancient times it was called “the
life giving dust.” The list of benefits is so long you get the feeling
you’d be nuts not eating this stuff. Described as nature’s most
complete food, Bee Pollen contains all of the nutrients necessary for life.
Dial it up on the interweb and prepare to get bombarded with all the good news.
Here are just a few highlights: Bee Pollen contains higher amounts of vitamins
B1, B2 and E than found in fruits, berries and green vegetables. It contains
59 trace minerals all in a highly digestible form. It is the only known food
to contain all 22 amino acids.
Bee Pollen is effective in relieving arteriosclerosis, asthma, fatigue, low
blood pressure, pre-menstrual syndrome and menopause, prostate irregularities
and skin conditions. It is known to enhance mental functions such as focus,
alertness and general feelings of well-being. It can counteract the effects
of radiation and chemical toxicity, increase athletic endurance and boost your
immune system. It’s win, win, win and then some.
An old friend, Bob Kidd, used to sing the praises of Bee Pollen years and years
ago. He was the first human I ever knew who ate it. If the name seems familiar,
fans of vintage Vancouver R&B might have bopped with Bobby when he played
with Jason Hoover and the Epics and the legendary, Scrubbaloe Caine, one of
Canada’s greatest unsung bands. When Bob hung up his bass guitar he took
over running the family honey business. Lots of BC Boomers grew up on Kidd Brothers
honey.
It was fun to drop in on Bob at the Kidd Brothers plant in Burnaby. In summer,
the large shipping doors stood open to catch the breeze and, naturally, bees
would fly in attracted by the delicious, intoxicating smell of honey. Bees are
known to be highly intelligent. You didn’t have to be the Stephen Hawking
of the bee world to know that it was much easier nipping in to Kidd Brothers
for a quick snack than actually putting in all the toil and flight time to actually
crank it out back at the hive.
This infuriated Bob, who took perverse pleasure every time some bumbling bumbler
flew into one of his bug zappers.
“Heh, heh, heh,” he’d chuckle with each snap, crackle and
pop.
“Bob, that’s horrible,” we’d cry. “The poor bees!”
“They’re trying to steal my honey,” he growled.
“You stole it from them in the first place. They’re just trying
to get it back!”
It was much like certain US Special Forces in the Vietnam War would eat local
food so when out in the jungle they could think like Charlie and stink like
Charlie. It was hard to sneak up on the Vietcong when they could smell the Prell
and Old Spice a mile away. I always felt Bob ate Bee Pollen mostly to level
the playing field and become one with the bee, his nemesis, yet benefactor.
Tragically, we lost Bobby in a motorcycle crash in 2000.
I’m trying the magic elixir he told me about way back when. Every time
I eat some, I think, “farm.” It tastes like a hayloft. If you’ve
ever been in the loft above a barn after stacking in a new load of hay bales,
you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s more than the smell
as the sensation seems to flood both your olfactory and your palate at the same
time. It’s a mélange of wet earth, sunshine and fresh cut hay.
I’ve only been using this for a few days now, so can’t attest to
any appreciable buzz thus far. I was lounging in bed watching TV recently and
went rummaging under the duvet for the remote. Instead of the familiar, electronic
device I come up with a fistful of what do you think? Bee Pollen. I know we
don’t keep bees and it isn’t my pollen. How diabolical, I think.
She’s got me eating bee chow, yet hiding hers in the bed.
“I was wondering where that went,” replied my wife when confronted.
“It’s not how it looks.”
“I want my pizza ration back,” I said.
March 13, 2009
Looks like the host of CNBC’s aptly titled, “Mad Money” has
found himself wrapped up in a web of his own, homespun BS courtesy of a clever
bit of editing and commentary served up on a recent Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
This one is sweet. There’s nothing quite like someone letting the air
out of a blowhard.
Most of us know about the concept of being caught with one’s hand in the
proverbial cookie jar, but this huckster gets nabbed with his head stuck so
far up his own ass as to make locating the cookie jar impossible. It’s
appropriate as Cramer appears to be the kind of guy who would rather sniff his
own exhaust than get the record straight. But hey, Jimbo, from one bullshitter
to another – never let the facts get in the way of a good story or performance,
am I right? Can a brother get a “hell, yeah” in here?
Strangely, Cramer was acting as though he was the injured party. No, dude. You
just got “served,” as the homies say. And when you called down the
whole NBC/CNBC/MSNBC Famiglia to back up your lame play, guess what? You got
the whole corporation served, too. Now just how well do you think that’s
going to sit with all the high-powered suits and board members who call the
uppermost reaches of 30 Rock home? Easter might be around the corner, but nobody
likes egg on their face. I can only presume that Jim Cramer has actually seen
his own show. He has to be aware of the potential it holds for parody. The irony
here is that “Mad Money” is parody in the first place. How do you
parody parody? You don’t. It makes its own gravy.
But while you have the stones to deride Stewart and his amazing writing staff
at the Daily Show for doing what they Emmy Award winning do, they are further
outclassing you in the journalism department as well. THAT’S RIGHT THE
FAKE NEWS SHOW IS PROVIDING BETTER, MORE ACCURATE REPORTAGE ON CURRENT EVENTS
THAN THE SELF-PROFESSED “JOURNALISTS” at CNBC. And isn’t this
really why Jon Stewart is being vilified by Cramer and his cronies? It’s
not just that you were made fun of by the comedian, who readily admits that
this is, in fact, his stock-in-trade. But he further handed you your ass in
reporting to the American people, dare I say it, the truth. It would have been
oh, so easy for Cramer to do a quick mea culpa admitting something to the effect
of, hedging stocks isn’t an exacting science and a lot of it is hunch
or going with your gut. Sometimes you get it right. This time I got it wrong.
Over the long run you hope you get it right more times than you get it wrong
blah blah blah and hope the thing dies down quickly in the ever shifting 24-hour
news cycle. But no. Opting for the best defense is a good offence, Cramer fanned
the embers into a blaze taking his sad case on the talk show “road.”
As part of his rapid deployment, damage control tour, Jim Cramer made a stop
at NBC’s Today Show where he uttered the words “comedian”
and “entertainer” like it was the worst kind of profanity. At any
given manic moment during his CNBC show Cramer can be found swinging a mallet
at a large gong and working the sound effects board like some low-rent morning
zoo radio DJ in the middle of meth run all the while laying down some non-stop
babble and he has a hard time with Jon Stewart’s being an “entertainer?”
Perhaps the strain of performing his ridiculous, hyper-kinetic shtick all this
time has taken its toll. It might not have damaged his brain, but can the same
be said of his judgment? Never mind investment advice. Would anyone take directions
to the washroom from him now?
Today’s hyper-charged, ultra competitive, mass media circus likes nothing
better than a good, old-fashioned, high-profile rivalry. Angelina and Jen, anyone?
But this feud is clearly Cramer vs Cramer. It’s a self-inflicted wound.
Jim Cramer chose to be a laughingstock. All Jon Stewart did was expose him for
what he is and provide us with a bunch of yuks, which is, again, simply doing
his job. How in this economic climate can anyone advocating the free market
take exception with a guy for working hard and very successfully at his craft?
In the end you could give Cramer some kind of props, I suppose, for having the
gall to actually chuck himself voluntarily into the lion’s den this past
Thursday night with a trek to the bottom of Manhattan to actually appear opposite
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. But what about the damage done to his reputation,
not to mention, credibility? How about his network?
“They (CNBC) do fluff pieces on Wall Street,” reports Cenk Uyguy.
“So, if you want to know what the companies are telling the public, check
out CNBC. That’s also a service. Buyer beware. If you want hard-hitting
business journalism, look elsewhere.”
Uygur hosts “The Young Turks,” the web’s first, daily, live
talk show. Boasting in excess of 3 million viewers each month it is one of YouTube’s
Top 100 partners.
Jim Cramer and his defenders might dismiss Jon Stewart’s program as some
kind of dog and pony show, which is true. It is some kind of dog and pony show.
The fact that it’s broadcast on the Comedy Network (Comedy Central) might
provide a clue. Cramer’s, “Mad Money” on the other hand, is
a dog and pony show.
Guesting on Martha Stewart’s show, Cramer admitted to his being nervous
about appearing with Jon Stewart later that day.
“You should be,” advised Martha.
Stewart – Jon, not Martha - took Cramer to school for what has to be the
un-funniest Daily Show ever. Stewart was clearly uncomfortable in the role of
the firm, but kindly Head Master of Comedy Central Preparatory Academy for Boys.
It looked like something both of them would have preferred to have avoided,
but the whole thing had to be brought to some kind of end.
If you’re scoring at home, advantage Daily Show. When the dust settled
on what CNN anchor Kiran Chetry called “a grudge match,” Jon Stewart’s
ratings went up by 20% while Jim Cramer’s dropped by 24%.
Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.
- Dorothy Parker
Regular visitors to the Boom Room have probably noticed my referencing television
on a regular basis. It’s no secret that I like to watch TV. We Boomers
have been heavily influenced by the medium our entire lives. They didn’t
nickname us, the “Television Generation” because we were all fans
of Tom Verlaine. TV has always been my “window on the world,” but
lately, Bruce Springsteen’s haunting, “57 Channels (and Nothin’
On)” has been playing in my head every time I sit down in front of the
tube. There are in excess of 57 channels coming through the wall now, but more
often than not, again, there’s precious little on worth watching. And
I’m not all that discriminating a viewer. Ask my wife. She’s always
amazed at the crap I’ll sit through. I’ll watch everything from
“Pinks” drag racing on Speed to Chef Duff and his quirky “Ace
of Cakes” crew on the Food Network. As a matter of fact, those are two
of my favourite shows. If you can show somebody decorating a cake while popping
a wheelie, count on me to be tuned in.
Recently, the Mrs. and I were chatting about the huge ratings success of the
final episode of M*A*S*H, which aired February 28, 1983. We were never big M*A*S*H
fans preferring the movie version. With all due respect to Alan Alda, who seems
like a lovely man, Donald Sutherland – he’s “Hawkeye Pierce.”
My Mom’s not going to be pleased with this as she is a huge fan of the
TV version and Mr. Alda in particular. M*A*S*H the motion picture is darker
and much more allegorical to Vietnam and as a result tends to hit a little harder
and resonate a little more with some of us Boomers. Ironically while the Korean
War only lasted 3 years, TV’s M*A*S*H version of the conflict had an 11-year
run culminating with the final show’s drawing a staggering 77% of the
available audience - 106 million viewers in the United States alone. It is the
most watched episode of a series in U.S. television history, a record that is
not likely to be surpassed.
Another big powerhouse sit-com of the 1970’s, “All In The Family,”
had a 30.5 rating in the 1978-’79 season indicating that almost one third
of the homes with televisions were dialed in. To put this in perspective, a
current hit, “Desperate Housewives” pulled a 10.9 in 2007-’08.
Does this conclude that “All In the Family” was a better show, or
was it simply a matter of 1970’s viewers having less selection?
Today’s collective mass media audience is much, much more fragmented.
Not only are there a lot more television stations, networks, satellite services
and cable outlets – forget about the Boss’ measly “57 Channels”
– there’s competition from video games, MP3 and portable DVD players,
the internet, podcasts, all those amazing cell phones, twitter, tweeter, pumpkin
eater. Most of us Boomers know exactly where we were when President Kennedy
was shot in Dallas in November, 1963. A few months later we were all in front
of the box that February Sunday night when the Fabs - John, Paul, George and
Ringo - appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time kicking off the
“British Invasion.” Today it is nigh impossible to get enough people
together at one point in time focused on the same thing for it to have the kind
of penetration and lasting impact necessary to create a milestone like “Who
Shot J.R.” or “Goodbye, Farewell, Amen,” the final episode
of M*A*S*H. A lot of pop culture tidbits used to emanate from Madison Avenue.
“Where’s the Beef?” “Wazzuppp?” “The Real
Thing.” Now, with sophisticated recording devices like DVR’s, as
well as on-line access to streaming video content and YouTube hi-lights, one
doesn’t necessarily have to watch commercials at all, unless of course
they’re the big budget spots created for the Superbowl. Since our domestic
cable outlets won’t let us see them during the big game, in Canada, we
go to YouTube to see those, too.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some nostalgic old fart lamenting
for the good, old days of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre scaring the piss
out of what had to be a nation of rubes with its “War of The Worlds”
radio broadcast for Halloween, 1938. While not being all that proficient with
contemporary, technology I love it nonetheless. I don’t go anywhere –
including to bed - without my iPod and I’m all over YouTube. It’s
where I go when television sucks, which happens with more and more frequency
of late. Admittedly, I’m usually searching out Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page
in old Yardbirds footage, King Crimson live in concert, or catching up on Manson
Family parole hearings. Hey, if they’re even merely thinking of letting
one of them out, wouldn’t you want a little “heads up?” I’m
lookin’ at you, SoCal.
Here in Our Home and Native Land, the CRTC, the government’s broadcast
watchdog, is apparently set to re-tool prime time television by instituting
a cap limiting the amount of money Canadian broadcasters can spend on foreign
– read American – programming. The Commission is looking at requiring
our domestic providers to commit one dollar creating Canadian programs for every
dollar spent on foreign content. CTV announced last week projected losses of
$100 million in 2009. This coming on the heels of parent corporation CTVglobemedia’s
writing down some $1.7 billion in television assets in the last quarter of 2008.
I’m no high powered programming executive, just a guy in a comfy chair
with a remote in his hand. My advice to CTV would be to simply load a Brink’s
truck with cash, back it up to Brent Butt’s front door and beg him to
keep making “Corner Gas.” It’s the best thing to happen to
Canada’s “other” network since Johnny Esau.
The central theme of author W.P. Kinsella’s wonderful “Shoeless
Joe”, which inspired the movie “Field of Dreams,” was “if
you build it, they will come.” The same can be applied to television.
If you create good programming, the audience will watch. It’s as simple
as that. Keep shoveling up the same old, same old and, in the words of the legendary,
country singer George Jones, “when your phone don’t ring, that’ll
be me.”
In the end, they’re just TV shows, right? Popular culture is often a matter
of individual taste. One person’s popular is another’s, “are
you shitting me?” Is big network television going to roll over and die?
Maybe - but not peacefully and not anytime soon. There’s too much at stake.
But, there was a time not too long ago when radio used to rule the media roost.
It was forced to change with television’s fast developing dominance in
the 1950’s. So too will network television have to adapt and evolve its
programming to deal with shifts in not only demographics, but in media itself.
No longer do the networks merely compete amongst themselves for audience share
and ratings. It’s not just individual stations and networks struggling
to succeed. Television itself is in a fight for its life.
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating
peanuts.
- Orson Welles
Previous Episodes of I BOOMER
February 27, 2009
I’m sitting on the D.L. with a messed up shoulder. Along with the rest,
anti-inflammatory medication and physio, the Doctor has instructed me to start
drinking lots of water. Fortunately, I like water. It’s my favourite beverage,
although being a native born Hoser, beer is a very close second, eh? And while
beer is mostly water and brewery advertising would have us believe that drinking
it is oh, so refreshing, it is ill-advised to use beer as a hydrator.
Whether you’re nursing an injury or not contemporary thinking is all over
the positives resulting from our drinking more water. Some nutritionists go
so far as to claim 80% of us are walking around dehydrated. According to the
guidelines, we all should be knocking back from 8 to 12 glasses a day. The health
benefits of drinking water are staggering. It cushions and lubricates your joints
and muscles, which fits in with the physician’s orders for treating this
shoulder ailment of mine. Your skin will be healthier and younger looking. It
will increase your mental and physical performance and you’ll have more
energy. Water helps in flushing toxins, regulating body temperature, burning
fat, building muscle, keeping regular, losing weight, reducing headaches and
aiding proper digestion. It reduces the risk of disease and infection and enhances
overall health. Good old H2O would appear to be something of a “wonder
drug,” which can even lessen the risk of heart disease, still the number
one killer. And if you’re taking meds for whatever, you want to do Mr.
Liver and Mr. Kidney a solid by stepping up the water intake, knowhati’msayin’?
My darling wife doesn’t like water at all. It’s not just the taste,
which she abhors. She doesn’t swim and is frightened of open water. Water
is dark, mysterious and foreboding to the Mrs. Ironically, she works for BC
Ferries, though not on the boats preferring to stand her marine watch on solid
ground. My wife isn’t a big fan of hydration and could probably eat a
bowling ball before she could drink 12 glasses of water in one day. Like the
Tuareg women in the deep Sahara of West Africa, she prefers to ingest water
after it has been brewed into tea. Tea and pomegranates are where she gets life
nourishing liquids. She often cites the desert tribes-people, who to this day
still trade and transport salt via camel caravan, as they have done for 2 millennia.
“The Tuareg don’t drink 2 liters of water a day,” she says
“and they can traipse all over the Sahara with only tea breaks.”
“They are a remarkable people,” I offer, “like the ‘Fremen’
on ‘Dune.’ But life expectancy for the Tuareg is about 45 years.
Do you think it might be the water, honey?”
I recall as much as 30 or more years ago seeing Jack Nicholson out and about
at special functions like the Academy Awards. Along with the ubiquitous, black
sunglasses and perpetual shit-eating grin you’d always see him cradling
a bottle of Evian or some other premium brand of water. I often wondered if
Jack was abnormally thirsty. Or did his research into playing Private Eye, Jake
Gittes in “Chinatown” hip him to more dark secrets about SoCal’s
water supply than were revealed in the film? One thing I do know: You don’t
want to be drinking L.A. tap water. Spoiled as we Canadians are with abundant,
sparkling, clean, fresh water, I’m reticent to even shower in Los Angeles.
You can scoff, but our skin is porous. What about osmosis?
I first tried the serious hydration thing while working in a small office that
did publicity work for major motion picture studio clients. Maybe taking their
cues from Jack Nicholson and other, designer water loving Tinsel Town celebs,
my colleagues were health conscious and all big water drinkers. The dominant
sounds in this busy concern were the incessant ringing of the telephones punctuated
by the gurgling of the water cooler.
“While in Rome,” I thought, “or in this case, South Van.”
I joined the queue at the cooler to see if I, too, could swill my way to improved
health and well-being.
I can’t testify to feeling any appreciable difference, but I was getting
more exercise running back and forth to the washroom. While doing my bit to
wear a path in the carpeting from office to loo, I got curious and set the bezel
on my watch. At the height of the hydration exercise I had to pee every 16 minutes.
There’s that improved regularity, if by improved you mean more frequent
– much more frequent. You’ve gone way beyond thirsty when putting
away 8 – 12 tumblers of water per day. No matter how much you like the
stuff, getting that kind of volume down in your waking hours is somewhat of
a chore. And don’t think about straying too far from a bathroom. I don’t
know about your metabolism, but if I’m in hydration mode, all travel and/or
activity has to be broken down into 15 minute blocks. No matter where you go,
the first thing you do is hit the bathroom. And it’s the last thing you
do before you leave. Heaven help you if you have to take a bus in rush hour.
In the end, who has that kind of time management skills?
But Doctor’s are orders, after all, are Doctor’s ord…Oops
– I gotta go!
Later.
I never drink water. Fish fornicate in it.
- W.C. Fields
MICHAEL PHELPS FEBRUARY 21, 2009
It was the bong hit heard ‘round the world.
If you haven’t seen the photo, you’re probably aware of Olympic
swimming champion Michael Phelps’ taking a pull off a bong with the image
then posted on the internet. There’s no way of determining exactly what
was being inhaled, but we’re all grown-ups here. You don’t have
to be Kreskin to figure it out. When the smoke cleared Phelps was in it up to
his neck and his people were in damage control mode. Major sponsor, Kellogg’s,
who were to put him on the corn flakes boxes, couldn’t drop Phelps fast
enough when the story broke.
Is it really that simple? Just get the swimming dude off the weed and life in
America can return to Eden? With all the challenges, crises, hardships, war,
famine, pestilence and death bearing down on the human race, this…this
is what certain elements in U.S. society feel is some kind of priority? What
have you been smoking?
Oh, what you do to your heroes, huh?
A sidebar to Kellogg’s: Hey, Battle Creekers. Who do you think is chowing
down all those boxes of Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Krispies late
at night while playin’ vids? Current statistics say 42% of Americans have
smoked marijuana. That’s just a little shy of every other person in the
country! How many of those folks are cereal eaters, do you think? The Kellogg’s
mascot is Cornelius the Rooster, but the real dumb clucks would appear to be
occupying the executive offices.
The incriminating photo of Phelps hit the internet and sparked the inevitable
media brushfire. Can you blame the media? Sure, but should you? I’m reminded
of a classic Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon. It’s a courtroom
scene with a crocodile on the stand.
“Of course I’m a cold blooded killer,” the defendant says.
“I’m a crocodile!”
You really can’t blame a croc for doing what a croc does. You were the
one who decided to take a dip in the Zambezi. The same argument can be applied
to media. They’re just doing what media does – biting the unwary
on the ass, not unlike our crocodilian friends.
We live in an information age. Information is not just the currency traded it
is the very plasma that fills the media’s veins. There’s just so
darn much media swirling around us competing for our ever shrinking time that
should anything tasty come up, the feeding frenzy is instantaneous. And now,
in the age of iReporters and amateur paparazzi, close to everyone has a small,
portable, digital recording device in the palm of their hand 24/7. Whether it’s
your Uncle Jim taking a wiffle bat to the nuts or an Olympic champion taking
a hit of a different kind, there are no more secrets and very few places to
hide. The media is a giant beast that needs feeding every day. With our attention
spans being what they are, the 24-hour news cycle may soon give way to the 24-minute
version. Most of the media are pros. They want to get it right. They’ll
research, spellcheck and vett. They’ll run it by legal upstairs. The piece
will be timed, tweaked, polished, colour corrected and edited to a razor sharp
edge. But they won’t be thinking of Michael Phelps, personally. It’s
the story, the item, the bit, the segment. Phelps is just the famous guy who
got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing in front of a
camera. They’ve got a photo of a 20-something guy with a bong pressed
to his yap. As far as “breaking” news is concerned, shouldn’t
this item have been tossed in the “dog bites man” file? Ordinarily,
yes, but the fella with his mitt wrapped around a plastic pot pipe just happened
to win 8 gold medals last summer. It’s tough to fly under the radar with
all that heavy metal dangling around your neck.
“He’s marinated in chlorine,” quipped comedian/political commentator
Bill Maher. “He deserves it.”
The authorities down in Peckerwood County, South Carolina where this alleged
infraction took place back in November decided against bringing charges against
Phelps. It’s not fair to paint the local Sheriff, Leon Lott, as a headline-grabbing,
movie cliché kind of southern, law enforcement official. He had no choice.
If that misguided clown at the party had opted to: a) not snap a picture of
Phelps with the bong, or b) having snapped the shot, kept it for personal use
and not shared it with the cyber universe, then Sheriff Lott wouldn’t
have had anything to investigate. As it was, the man had to do his sworn duty.
It’s not his fault if he makes some hay towards re-election.
Michael Phelps is going to be okay. Any guy who can swim 8-hours a day for years
on end has the kind of will, stamina, drive and determination to weather any
shit storm thrown his way. But it ain’t ever going to be the same. The
Michael Phelps who amazed the world last summer? He’s gone. He’s
been betrayed. He’s going to be more guarded, withdrawn and suspicious
of anyone he comes into contact with from here on. Any of you nice folks who
genuinely care for Michael and wish him well? Guess what? The shit heels have
ruined it for you, too. You’ll never get a chance to get close to your
hero. Even if you battle your way to the front row of the swimming meet and
he actually pauses by your seat for a brief word or maybe to sign something,
you’re not going to get the contact you crave. It’ll be the quick
showbiz shuffle:
“How are ya God bless ya thank ya for comin’, goodnight.”
And he’s gone.
The guy’s innocence was stolen in exchange for a brief moment of scandal
and an opportunity for the tooth suckers amongst us to adopt some kind of position
that speaks more about them than the issue at hand. It’s not about Michael
Phelps. It’s not about drug abuse. It’s about you, the individual
who feels you’re better than everyone else. You wear your self-righteousness
on your sleeve like some whacked-out political party emblem. Harbouring thoughts
of superiority is one thing. But it’s not good enough for you to simply
lead a moral, upright life. No, you need the validation. You have to shout from
the rooftops just how much better you are. If someone should slip, you pounce.
“J’accuse!!!”
Swim, Michael, swim. That’s all you can do. Get in the pool and keep pounding
those laps. Zone out all the idiots with favourite tunes on your iPod and the
sound of water rushing past your ears.
Win, Michael, win.
Make them eat it.
Et tu, Brute?
-William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
A ROD & THE JUICE KINGS
Say it ain’t so, A-Rod. The pitchers and catchers haven’t yet reported
to camp for the start of the 2009 season and Major League Baseball is already
reeling from the latest doping scandal to go off in its face. But this time
it’s not some “long-in-the-tooth” slugger trying to grab a
little more of the “glory days” and the paycheques that go with
them. It’s the highest paid player in the game – Alex Rodriguez…The
Anointed One…The Golden Boy.
“I was stupid,” said the Yankees star third baseman. “I did
take a banned substance.”
Sports Illustrated broke the bombshell story last week. In it, Rodriguez admitted
to using steroids while with the Rangers from 2001-2003, citing the enormous
pressure to perform he felt he was under in Texas. The source of the article
is a Major League Baseball survey report. It was supposed to have been anonymous
and classified. What did Uncle Boomer tell you kids last week about secret files
and reports, like the Do Not Call List? That’s right. Three people can
keep a secret if two of them are dead.
This isn’t so much an “A-Ha” story, as it is an “Oh-No.”
Alex Rodriguez doing steroids? The only thing that might be more shocking is
if it was discovered that Gifford did steroids. No, not Frank – Kathie
Lee!
We can even forgive the guy’s getting mixed up with Madonna. She was hot
once. There are those who still consider her hot. Madonna, for instance; she
thinks she’s totally hot. A-Rod should get a pass for this one. If being
a fool for a woman was a hangin’ offence there’d be a permanent
shortage of rope. Cheating on the wife is one thing, but someone with his gifts
and skills cheating at baseball? Maybe like the wronged Mrs. Rodriguez, the
fans should also be entitled to half his money and get to live in one of his
houses.
For the record, Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, a
steroid drug that can be either taken orally or injected. While baseball banned
steroids in 1991, there was no testing until 2003. That year, Major League Baseball
carried out survey testing to determine if a permanent policy should be introduced.
Rodriguez was among 104 players registering positive, but remains the only one
named publicly, so far. Again, refer to those three people trying to keep something
on the Q.T. There were no penalties in place at the time and the report was
to remain sealed. In the wake of the now infamous BALCO investigation sparked
by Barry Bonds and Olympic runner Marion Jones, however, US Federal agents seized
the report while raiding labs used by Major League Baseball for the testing.
In a backhand way, you have to give it up to A-Roid. He kept a pretty good lid
on it to all outward appearances. Compared to the likes of Barry Bonds or the
over-inflated, He-Man action figure proportions of Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire
or Sammy Sosa, he maintained a lean, much more streamlined physique. For anyone
sniffing out steroid abuse, it was the kind of body that didn’t raise
too many alarms when compared to the exaggerated, Cro-Magnon features of Bonds.
Not unlike a B-movie, Dr. Jekyll, Barry Bonds appeared to be morphing into some
kind of home run smashing Mr. Hyde right before our eyes. On the one hand it
was interesting to watch the transformation as if you were sitting in a darkened
theatre for the Saturday Fright-Fest matinee. But on the other hand, it was
a little bit creepy pondering when the change would halt. Was he going to wind
up looking like Brundle-Bonds in a Giants uniform? Japanese baseball fans worried
about a visiting Bonds running amok stomping on Tokyo.
“Is his head going to keep getting bigger,” the little children
would cry?
You can laugh, but have a thought for the equipment manager. That poor sap had
to keep coming up with bigger and bigger batting helmets.
Never mind an “asterisk season,” how about an asterisk era? Steroids
are going to taint and define this period in baseball. There’s no telling
whether records of the future will be officially marked as such, but these past
years are indelibly stamped with the steroid stank. Alex Rodriguez was the ideal
player for MLB to hitch its reformed, re-vamped, drug-free policy wagon to and
ride into a scandal free sunset of renewed interest in America’s national
pastime. Baseball purists looked longingly for him to wrest Hank Aaron’s
home run record from Cheater Bonds.
Alex Rodriguez looked like a lead pipe cinch for first ballot admission to the
Hall of Fame. But now? Recent revelations would seem to put that in doubt. If
you’re going to keep denying Barroid & the Brainless Bash Brothers
access to Cooperstown you have to take a hard look at Rodriguez’ chances.
His seemingly sincere, emotional apology this week flies in the face of a one-on-one
interview he did in 2007 for CBS’ venerable 60 Minutes. Denying that he
ever took performance enhancing substances, “A-Fraud” flat out lied
through his teeth to Katie Couric – and everyone else.
The Golden Boy is tarnished now. But save your tears for the guys who play clean.
In spite of their best efforts, their accomplishments will be forever under
suspicion. After all, if Alex Rodriguez has to cheat, what chance do mere mortal
players have to not only compete on the field, but escape the blanket perception
that “they all must be doing it?”
“I’m not here to talk about the past.”
- Mark McGwire
testifiying before Congress
March 17, 2005
Open memo to any and all of the reportedly 6 million of our fellow
Canuckleheads who fell for and signed on the so-called, Do Not Call List and
are now registered on BAIPOL - the national Boy Am I Pissed Off List: What were
you thinking? You all can’t possibly believe in unicorns or that Chris
Angel can really levitate, can you? Don’t get me wrong. Chris Angel is
amazing and maybe the best illusionist working today. Did you see him do that
card trick where the Ace of Diamonds winds up embedded inside a glass panel
in one of the entrance doors to the Luxor in Las Vegas? You wanna talk about
a “Mind Freak!!” It’s there today. The card is inside the
solid pane of glass! How does he do it? I’ve watched it a number of times
and I’m still shaking my head. But, I digress.
Let’s be brutally frank - very few of us like those unsolicited phone
calls.
“They always seem to call when we’re in the middle of dinner!”
Can I get a collective “DUH-UH,” brothers and sisters? When did
you expect them to call, when you’re at work? Maybe you’re a student
and you think they should only be allowed to call during school hours? Here’s
a news flash for ya, Garbo. You might vhant to be alone, but they’re trying
to sell you something. Your not being able to get the call tends to impact negatively
on their ability to close, don’t you see? Who are you, Major Major Major
from Joseph Heller’s brilliant novel “Catch 22”? The only
time you’ll see anybody at your office is when you’re not in your
office?
Don’t want your dinner hour disrupted; don’t answer the phone. I
have call display. Any numbers I don’t recognize, I don’t answer.
A lot of numbers I do recognize, I don’t answer. Leave a message. If I
hear my Mom’s voice, I put down the fork and pick up the phone.
“Hey, Ma….nah, just wait…when it stops whirring and screeching
we can chat.”
If you do answer the phone and it is some unwanted solicitation, simply say
“no thanks” and hang up. How tough is that? Don’t want to
be civil? Yell an obscenity, then hang up. Don’t want to use rude language
in front of the kids sitting at the dinner table? Don’t say anything.
Just hang up. On the other hand, maybe your carpets are looking a little shabby.
This could be your lucky day. It might be the King of Floors on the other end
of the line with some laminate to die for. Who doesn’t love a good deal
on laminate?
Upon graduation from University, along with the sheepskins, the mortarboards,
the gowns and the alumni pins, we also got a bag of crap: pamphlets and other
printed matter for life insurance and the like. Vital information intended to
help us make the transition from campus life to real life. Also included in
this grab bag of advertising and promotion was a subscription offer for Time
magazine with a very special “grad” discount. “Time is dialed-in,”
I thought. It’s still an important, news periodical, but its reach and
impact in the dark, old, pre-Internet days, was much more powerful. They were
offering me a subscription at literally pennies per week – an offer I
couldn’t refuse. Creeping maturity was overtaking and I owed it to myself
to stay informed. Being a Time Magazine subscriber was good place to start.
I read my weekly Time zealously for a year. As expected, the renewal rate was
much higher than the introductory, recent-grad price and I let the subscription
lapse. The 1970’s had locked-in big time, anyway and I needed the extra
money for concert tickets and consciousness alteration. As far as staying informed
was concerned, I needed to know when the Pink Floyd show started and where I
was supposed to meet that Hopi shaman on the floor of Maple Leaf Gardens. Apparently
I wouldn’t be able to miss him – this Don Juan guy really could
levitate.
“Ticking away the moments that make up dull day, you fritter and waste
the hours in an off-hand way-ay.” Speaking of, “Time.”
Time Magazine abruptly stopped arriving at my door. In a very short time, however,
everything under the sun started showing up in the mail box. Who knew there
were that many muffler shops in the area? Somebody wanted me to register a team
for a lesbian slo-pitch league while the League of Decency was getting all worked
up about something or other that, to their way of thinking, wasn’t all
that decent. The completely unaffiliated League of Descents wanted to teach
me how to rappel in one short two-hour session. “Who are all these people
and how did they get my a-…?” I was a relatively savvy, young man.
I’d been University trained, for cryin’ out loud. So it didn’t
take too very long for that little, silent alarm to go off inside my head. DING.
You know that old saying, “every time a bell rings a dimbulb gets a clue?”
“Time-Life must have sold my name on that mailing list,” I surmised.
That post-secondary, store-bought education was paying off dividends already.
Left to the randomness of computer-assisted dialing, the telephone solicitors
may or may not find you and interrupt family pasta and parcheesi night. But
put yourself on a special list and see if that ain’t some beacon in the
darkness for the forces of evil. You just know from the first mention of a National
Do Not Call List all those telemarketing operations had just one thing in mind:
we gotta get a copy of that list – stat!
It reminded me of that colossal sting perpetrated by the Bolshevik Secret Police
(Cheka) in the early days of the Russian Revolution. The head Chekist, Felix
Dzerzhinsky, created a secret anti-Bolshevik organization called the Trust.
It was a lightning rod to rally the international, monarchist, White Russian
and émigré elements plotting against the Revolution. This supposed
counter-revolutionary movement was controlled entirely from Dzerzhinsky’s
office at the infamous Lubyanka Prison. If you can’t lick ‘em, fool
‘em into thinking you’re joining them. Those hooking up with the
Trust unwittingly signed their own death warrants.
Don’t want to buy a time-share in Punta Del Guano? Fine, but the lost
commissions have to be de-frayed somehow. How much do you think NAMBLA will
pony up for this bootlegged copy of the Do Not Call List?
There’s some irony for you. We live in a society that appears to have
9 out of 10 people yapping on personal, portable, electronic devices at any
given time while spilling out intimate details of their lives on MySpace or
Facebook. All this staying connected and in touch seems to fly in the face of
a Do Not Call List, don’t you think?
Never wise-up a chump.
-W.C. Fields
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