Our Time on the Edge

Don't Work For Free

2010-01-29T21:12:00.002-05:00

It's really that simple, people. Four words that could start a revolution, if everyone suddenly started abiding by them. Some people reading this might be saying to themselves, "What the hell is she talking about? Work for free? That's preposterous!" You, my lovably naive friends, are clearly not working in the arts. Because if you were, you'd know that working for free is a generally-accepted norm, a given, a supremely discouraging reality. Until we decide to change it.

There may be critics out there who would say, "Why shouldn't artists and sundry other creative types work for free? That's the price they pay for not working in a real job." To them, I would say, among other, more inflammatory things, that you can go ahead and keep adhering to that view. But you must live without music, books, movies, theatre, dance, painting, sculpture...you get the picture. Maybe all some people need is an XBox and a 2-4 of Bud Light to have an entertaining weekend. But I'd like to hope that most humans crave more out of life than that. So premise number one of my argument: we need art. Can we all agree on that? Good. Let's move on.

Other critics of my position - perhaps even some people working in the arts - might argue that asking those pursuing careers in the arts to work for free early on in their career development is perfectly reasonable. If one doesn't possess the precise qualifications for a particular position, one should be willing to work for free until such time that one possesses said qualifications. Hence the popularity of the internship, where the opportunity to work in a given job is supposed to be payment enough for one's labour. Not only that, but interns are routinely expected not to get paid working anywhere else for the duration of their internship (or to work "without distraction" as it's commonly, euphemistically phrased). While these kinds of assumptions do crop up in other sectors of the economy, nowhere are they more prevalent than in the arts. Arts and culture job listings are dominated by internships and volunteer work. It's well-nigh impossible to gain work experience and be paid for it. In what other industries is this acceptable? Banks pay their employees to learn how to count money. Auto makers pay their employees to learn how to make cars. McDonald's pays their employees to learn how to flip burgers. But if you're answering phones for a film production company, or writing copy for a new on-line magazine, it's likely you're doing it for free.

Hold on, my critics will say -- there's one huge difference between banks, auto manufacturers and McDonald's, on the one hand, and film production companies and on-line magazines on the other. The former are reliably profitable (more or less -- I recongize the auto maker example is a weak link), the latter are reliably unprofitable. The worker has a choice: pursue the career of your dreams without getting paid, or abandon it to pursue a job where you will get paid. Fortunatley for them, those who dream of becoming construction workers, computer programmers, engineers, teachers, lawyers, or even fast-food workers rarely have to make that choice. Life's not fair. Deal with it.

Such is the prevailing view that has allowed working for free to remain a norm in the arts sector, particularly in the entry-level echelons. As if this harsh outlook isn't discouraging enough, we are still as a society very much under the sway of harmful Romantic notions of who artists are and how they tick: eg., they are perpetually starving (by choice), garret-dwelling (now, more commonly, basement apartment-dwelling), drug-addicted, solitary, moody, pasty, all-around unpleasant creatures who thrive on their own discontent while producing work that will inevitably only gain public admiration post-humously. While there are a few artists today that match this stereotype, the vast majority do not. They have families, mortgages, student loans, pets. They pay taxes, vote and are, by most counts, fine upstanding members of their communities. They don't want to die at 27. They also don't necessarily care about becoming famous (although it would be nice). They just want to make a living doing what they love and are good at.

I'm not arguing that those working in the arts should get paid the same amount or more than workers in other sectors of the economy. I'm just arguing that they should get paid. Period. Part of the responsibility for change lies with employers. My message to you: don't hire people to work for free. Be responsible to your employees. Recognize that they'd like to eat three meals a day and hopefully not live with their parents until they're forty-five. If they do work for you, pay them. It doesn't have to be much. Minimum wage will do for a start. And if you can't afford that, don't hire anyone.

My message to workers: don't work for free. I know it takes a tremendous amount of fortitude to pass up an offer of unpaid work that comes along with a golden promise of future paid work, or portfolio-building, or networking or whatever other kind of carrot is being held out to you, in the hopes that you will agree to labour for free. The trickiest part of all of this -- and the reason why my hopes are slim that my "don't work for free" campaign will ever succeed -- is that we all have to stick together. Solidarity, my friends. Employers can only ask us to work for free as long as there are those out there who are willing to do so. But what if we all just said no? If employers really need our time, labour and skills, they can pay us for them. And maybe they will, if that's their only option.

This One's for Dougie

2009-02-01T22:36:00.005-05:00

It's a sports-themed night here on Our Time on the Edge. Not that I care remotely about NFL football, but I did catch enough of the Super Bowl to formulate the spanking-new POLL on the right. Vote early and often!

Being a die-hard Leafs fan, the truly great sports moment of the weekend for me was watching Doug Gilmour's #93 get raised to the rafters of the A.C.C. There aren't really adequate words to convey just how beloved Gilmour was, and still is, by Leafs fans -- especially those like myself whose first real taste of Leafs glory was their 1993 Cup run, led by Dougie, Clarkie, and the formidable Pat Burns, my all-time favourite NHL coach. Not to mention superstar young goalie Felix Potvin, who my 13 year-old self was determined to marry ("Jordan who?").

I get choked up just thinking about watching those 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons with my Dad, who was just as enthralled with the gutsy, hard-working team that reminded him of how it had felt to be a Leafs fan thirty years earlier, in the last glory days. After the 1993 Cup run, the Leafs put out a video called "The Passion Returns", which detailed the highlights of that miracle season and heralded the dawn of a new era for Leafs fans. I still have it and watch it from time to time, with a Kleenex box close at hand. It was a truly magical time to be a Toronto fan and I am so glad that I was a part of it. But wow, it's starting to feel like a long time ago.

It's easy to get down about the Leafs these days. Since I moved back to Toronto in 2006, the magic's been scarce and fan morale has dipped dangerously low. The Leafs' own coach wrote this season off before it even started. Not a good attitude, in my opinion. But even at last night's game, when the distance between the golden days of Gilmour and the present seemed insurmountably great, there were glimmers of hope. Like, for example, my favourite new Leaf, rookie Luke Schenn, who dealt a f***ing awesome hit to Evgeni Malkin right in front of the Pens' bench, then took it upon himself to pound some sense into Tyler Kennedy when he came yapping after him for it. I love this kid! And a kid he is -- he would have been only three years old when Gilmour was scrapping with Marty McSorley in 1993. But he's got the true Leafs spirit -- something we haven't seen enough of in the past 16 years. However, we still remember the golden years well enough to recognize it when we see it, and being a true Leafs fan, I have to believe we're going to see it more often.

Living in the Now

2009-01-26T21:55:00.005-05:00

I realized that, as of late, my posts have been a little heavy on the nostalgia. While one of the key motifs, if you will, of my blog is paying tribute to the pop culture of my past, I don't want to write about the past so much that folks will start to wonder if I've left my house since 1992. In other words, it's time for granny to get off the porch, quit bitching about "kids these days" and write about some of the things I'm enjoying this very moment, in 2009. Besides writing about 1989, that is.

Music: City and Colour - Bring Me Your Love (best album of 2008, according to me)
M.I.A. - "Paper Planes" (DFA Remix)
Guns N' Roses - "Better" (new single from Chinese Democracy)

Movies: Slumdog Millionaire
American Teen (now out on DVD)

Books: Don Cherry - Hockey Stories and Stuff
Slash - Slash

Food and Drink: Pad thai noodles from the "new" (old) Green Mango
Cranberry juice and lime Perrier

Fashion: My new sunglasses, the cost of which I will avoid mentioning here, as I'm still a little
embarrassed to have shelled out so much for something I could potentially
leave behind on a bus.

Fun: Second City improv classes (highly addictive)
Guitar Hero World Tour (especially when I get to drum...or sing Pat Benatar)

The Booths of My Youth

2009-01-16T23:22:00.001-05:00

As my most seasoned readers will recall, the name of this blog is a reference to the immortal words uttered by Billy Hicks in the climactic scene of St. Elmo's Fire. That film was iconic of another generation, but the phrase "our time on the edge" resonates for mine as well. There are a lot of ways in which kids my age were living on the edge of a new era. Take, for example, the realm of technology. At my high school, we were the last class to learn how to type on typewriters in Grade 9 Business. The school set up an internet lab in our library the year that I graduated, but practically no one I knew I had e-mail. I'm pretty positive we were the last teenagers to go through their entire high school years without the "information superhighway" (as it was then known - did Al Gore coin that corny phrase?) being an integral part of our daily lives. I got my first e-mail account the summer before I started undergrad -- hard to believe how much has changed since.

Then there's the cell phone revolution...it goes without saying that cell phone use, never mind ownership, was entirely out of the question for teens in the early to mid-1990s. My family even held the touch-tone revolution at bay for as long as possible. Our collection of rotary-dial phones were quite charming, although it got increasingly frustrating to obtain movie times, concert tickets, or basic customer service of any kind.

If any "young folk" are reading this (unlikely, but you never know), you're probably wondering, what in God's name did we do without cell phones and text messaging? Well, back then, it was all about the exciting and sometimes dangerous cultural institution known as the Pay Phone.
We used them everywhere -- at school, in our dorms, at the mall, in dimly lit alleys and totally sketchy vestibules...it was the only option we had. And what's happened to them now? A few months ago, I began an investigation into the fate of the Pay Phone in downtown Toronto. Unfortunately, the results weren't pretty. But they remain on our streets as a reminder that not so long ago, we were still living on the edge of a technological revolution that had yet to happen. We didn't know how behind the times we were. And that was OK, believe it or not.

Here's a few from my collection, which I hope to expand before these cultural landmarks are erased from our urban landscape...

The Booths of My Youth - Photo Essay 1

2009-01-16T23:11:00.009-05:00

Growing Up Grunge, Part. 2: Let's Back This Up a Bit

2009-01-11T20:53:00.006-05:00

In a previous post ("Growing Up Grunge, Pt. 1"), I reflected on what it means to have come of age not just in the 1990s, but with the 1990s -- turning 11 in 1990 and 20 in 1999. I've been doing some more thinking about this lately, in particular about why the explosion of grunge had such a huge impact on kids my age. I should specify that I'm referring to when grunge music hit the mainstream -- that generation-altering year of 1991. It had, of course, been around since the mid-1980s. But for many kids like myself - who didn't have bad-ass older siblings and grew up in a sleepy small town - grunge did not enter our vocabulary until Nevermind and Ten hit the charts. To be honest, I was still pretty clueless about Nirvana and Pearl Jam even then. They were just so far removed from the poppier than pop Top 40 music I'd been grooving to all through grade school. And it is to that music, and the pop culture in general of the fabulous twilight of the 1980s that I will now turn.

Earlier I made a cursory list of grunge era icons, eg. Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, heroin chic, rock star suicides, and so on and so forth. Keeping those in mind, I'm going to now conjure up a similar list reflecting pop life as I knew it from about 1989 to 1991:

(For the full flashback experience, I recommend cueing up Waiting For a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl. Hit play now...)

OK, so here goes: Madonna's Like a Prayer (first cassette I ever bought), Pretty Woman, Wilson Phillips, Beverly Hills, 90210, movies starring the Coreys (Haim and Feldman, of course), Cotton Ginny, New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, The Wonder Years, hair scrunchies, sticker collections, Amy Grant's Heart in Motion, Salt-N-Pepa, chintz leggings (hello first day of junior high), Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Taylor Dayne, Milli Vannilli, my parents' Chevrolet Caprice, Murphy Brown, Parker Lewis Can't Lose...

And, oh yeah, the Gulf War. And the recession. But we won't get into that. Actually, maybe I will, if only to note that it seems bizarr-o to me that pretty much all of the pop culture that I can recollect from the "turn of the '90s" is so insanely fluffy, when the news was so bleak. But then again, I was only ten years old, and my biggest concern was whether Jordan Knight would be willing to wait for me until I was legal to marry him.

Point being that you cannot find a pop culture experience farther removed from the grunge era than that which immediately preceded it -- especially as experienced as a kid. Then 1991 came along. Did everything seem different only because we became teenagers? Or was it a real watershed? All I know is, Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbors and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves were a friggin' far cry from Pearl Jam and Reservoir Dogs. But they existed in the same moment.

There has to be some lasting scars on my generation from being forced to sacrifice our love of smiley, squeaky-clean pop idols like New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul in exchange for the angry, brooding and bedraggled likes of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. By late 1991, everything we loved as kids just was NOT cool anymore. There wasn't any time for sentimental good-byes. But maybe that's what becoming a teenager is all about -- leaving happy fuzzy childhood behind for a dark, uncertain, and possibly painful future. Interestingly enough, for kids of my generation, grunge took over the music scene at the exact moment we needed to articulate just how much it sucked to be a teenager. Therefore, I would argue, it's even more potent for us than for any other demographic in history. How's that for a sweeping statement? It feels right to me.

The Edge of 29

2008-11-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

Today is the first day of the last year of my 20s. Up until a month or two ago, I hadn't put any thought into milestone birthdays since my 19th, which was all about the promise of a new era of drinking and clubbing (a la Last Days of Disco - sans the clap) . Not surprisingly, I've had heavier issues on my mind leading up to my 29th.

I'm extremely fortunate in that the really important stuff in my life -- relationships with family and friends who I love more than anything -- is going just fine. There's just this little, tiny thorn in my side called "Lack of Career Fulfillment" that's really starting to drive me nuts. The enlightened side of me (grossly undeveloped as it is) wants to ignore it. You aren't what you do, so why should what you do matter? I've tried to burn that mantra into my psyche, but so far, it's just not working. I've grown up believing one's career is a huge part of one's identity. To which enlightened me counters, "Identity is an illusion!" Maybe so, but it keeps me awake at night.

So, my goal this year is to figure out what to do with my life. I'll write updates here and we'll see where I am this time next year. Maybe I'll find some answers, or maybe I'll develop my enlightened side to the point that I won't care about answers anymore. Either way, it's going to be heavy, man. I'm glad I have cake in the fridge.

Growing Up Grunge, Part 1

2008-11-09T20:27:00.005-05:00

I recently completed my third round of revisions on my third screenplay - my life's obsession since the summer of 2007 - and for the first time it feels like the end is in sight. At the same time, I'm at the very beginning of a brand new story. I've got the concept down, but the characters are just shadows at this stage. The more I work on it, the more I'll come to know.
Right now, one thing that's for certain is that the characters I'm writing will be my age, and given that, the question that I'm pondering tonight is, what are the lasting after-effects of growing up grunge?

I started junior high in 1991, the year that Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten exploded into the mainstream, causing a paradigm shift in rock'n'roll and pop culture as a whole. By the time I started high school in 1993, grunge was the mainstream. It defined my teenage generation, even though by about 1995, grunge was already starting to fade into the past, painfully superseded by the rise of Oasis, Dave Matthews and, eventually, Britney and the Backstreet Boys. It was around this time that I began to shun new music altogether and sought solace by fantasizing about what it would have been like to go to high school ten years earlier -- from grade 11 on, my music collection was almost exclusively devoted to New Order, the Smiths, the Cure, early U2 and the Psychedelic Furs. I don't know that I would be the 80s music fanatic that I am today if music hadn't been as goddamn awful as it was in my last two years of high school (notable exceptions: Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and the Foo Fighters. Youngsters these days might accuse me of being downright delusional for claiming that the era that produced these brilliant bands was a dark time for the rock'n'roll business. But they didn't have to live through the horror that was Hootie).

So far I've been writing more about the end of grunge than the era of grunge itself. With respect to the latter, I could free associate about Doc Martens, thrift store shopping, mosh pits, greasy hair, flannel, Reality Bites, My So-Called Life, black eye-liner, heroin chic, rock star suicides and overdoses, Lollapalooza, Woodstock II, Queen Street west (to Bathurst -- one needed to go no further in those days), Kurt and Courtney, SPIN magazine, Pulp Fiction and the cult of Tarantino...the list of icons goes on and on. What I want to nail down is how having one's teen years roughly coincide with the duration of the 1990s affected us, how growing up over any other span of time would have felt very, very different, even if it overlapped the era that I'm writing about here. We started grade 7 in 1991 and turned 20 in 1999 -- my gut feeling is that our experience was somehow unique. Perhaps not coincidentally, there were next to no contemporaneous teen icons in the media during those years, save for our generation's patron saint, Angela Chase in My So-Called Life -- perhaps the first and last time that a major network cancelled an overwhelmingly popular teen show, for seemingly no other reason than that it was just too damn good for television. As far as teen movies go, there were really only two -- Dazed and Confused (1994), which was, ironically, about being a teen in the mid-1970s, and Clueless (1995), a cheeky, uber-unrealistic adapation of Jane Austen's Emma, directed by Fast Time at Ridgmont High's Amy Heckerling. Both were great films, but neither reflected the reality of high school in the 1990s. Beverly Hills, 90210 came before us, Dawson's Creek came after. We were the teens in between, and there is virtually no pop culture record of our existence. Maybe that's why I'm so determined to try to define it, to articulate it, to convince those who didn't live through it -- and maybe even some of those who did -- that it actually happened. To one degree or another, we grew up grunge. What that means is yet to be determined. But I'm pretty determined to figure it out.

Generation Why

2008-06-16T23:08:00.004-04:00

I am weary from working late this evening, however I feel the need to write something, and, not feeling coherent enough to revise script pages, I decided I could perhaps muster a blog entry. You be the judge.

Last week, I did a couple of things I haven't done in a while. I "helped" a friend look for apartments in a variety of Toronto neighbourhoods. I don't think I really helped all that much, but I did enjoy being permitted to look around other people's wacky abodes. The experience led me to ponder numerous questions, such as why do single guys like fridge-magnet poetry so much? Can a futon ever really look "made"? And, what percentage of twentysomethings with Nietzsche and Kerouac on their bookshelf have actually read both Nietzsche and Kerouac? (such book collections seem more like intellectual IKEA to me).

I also applied for a(nother)/new job, which involved taking the rather satisfying/traumatizing step of deleting the line "PhD. anticipated 2008" from my resume. Then came the much-loathed task of writing a cover letter. One of the few things I despise more than bullshit is formalized bullshit. And that's pretty much what a cover letter is. One can try (and God knows I have) to make cover letters original, heartfelt, inspiring or just plain honest, but in the end, the rigors of cover letter rhetoric (read: bullshit) demand that they all sound ickily ingratiating. Furthermore, have you ever noticed that it's a HELL of a lot harder to make yourself sound less overqualified than it is to make yourself sound less underqualified? Why is that?!

So many questions, so few answers. And after tomorrow, so much Coldplay. Let's end on a positive note, shall we? Three very cool things I have experienced in the past 24 hours: Mark Ronson's Version, raccoon language, and three pieces of chocolate cake.

Madonna Memories No. 2

2008-06-05T20:34:00.002-04:00

Okay, so maybe I was just a little grouchy in my last post due to not having a snowball in hell's chance of landing Madonna tickets. I might placate myself by getting tickets to see the Foo Fighters and the Kooks at the Virgin music fest in September. But we'll see. The call of the cottage is mighty strong on Labour Day weekend.

So getting back to my trip down Madonna memory lane...

Madonna (1983) - specifically "Lucky Star" and "Holiday", and later "Borderline"

A dead-heat tie for my favourite Madonna album, along with True Blue (1986). I associate "Lucky Star" and "Holiday" with a Mini-Pops Madonna medley to which I used to choreograph dances in my basement with my best friends circa age six or so (if you read my "Madonna Memories No. 1" blog, you'll see that my preferred activities changed relatively little in high school). I also recall an "Easy Lover"/"Owner of a Lonely Heart" medley on the same cassette, as well as a pretty snappy melee of Duran Duran covers. I think I wore that cassette out, as it was pretty much our favourite until the Dirty Dancing soundtrack came along.

Perhaps due in part to its being left off the Mini-Pops' hit roster, I wasn't really familiar with "Borderline" until later on in high school, when I coerced my boyfriend to buy The Immaculate Collection on CD so that we could listen to it in his car. Since then, it's been one of my most-loved Madonna tunes. And now every time I hear it, it takes me back to being 17, a time in my life that, like early Madonna music itself, seems more and more rosy and innocent the further it gets in the past.

On that note, I shall sign off for now. But first, two more thoughts about Madonna albums of the 1980s: 1) True Blue is awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which is the dedication to Sean Penn in the liner notes... and 2) If there is one slow song I wish I'd danced to with a gorgeous boy in junior high, it's "Crazy For You" (off the Vision Quest soundtrack, but you already knew that, right?). Instead, we had Whitney Houston belting out "I-ee-I-ee-I will always love HUuuu..." And I always bolted for the refreshment table during the slow songs anyway (see: Backflip in the Long Program). But there you go.

Coming Up Short, With Dignity

2008-05-25T22:05:00.005-04:00

Well, no Sticky and Sweet Tour tickets for me. Not that I really thought I had much of a chance of getting a pair, especially considering the half-ass effort I put into getting tickets to just about any Ticketmaster gouge-a-palooza. In every instance, I try the conventional, "little people" avenues of touch-tone redial and Internet queuing for what I deem to be a reasonable period of time relative to the show in question. For Madonna, this was about four minutes (no, really). I figured my efforts were pretty futile from the start, but it's kind of like Rolling up the Rim and hoping for a Toyota Prius, or trying to Scratch and Save 75% off at the Bay -- you know the odds are stacked miles high against you, but even so, for a brief moment in time, anything's possible so you try anyhow.

I always pretty much suck at getting hold of tickets to hot concerts. Usually, apathy and frugality are the primary causes. There's also a certain loss of pride involved in many of the methods via which people successfully land impossible-to-find concert tickets, eg. camping out overnight on Yonge Street, reciting ridiculous radio jingles, calling up that ex-boyfriend who's dad's company has box seats at the ACC....the list goes on. But I can't go for that. No can do. My dignity is more precious. Hence the fact, this summer, I'll be more likely to be seeing Def Leppard in concert for the third time than prostrating myself for a chance to land Madonna tickets. It's all about holding your head up high, folks.

The fact that I won't be seeing Madonna in concert any time soon has not, however, dampened my deep affection for her music, so I will resume my Madonna Memories reflections next time. Until then, perhaps some of you reading this entry would like to offer up some of your own fond recollections relating to Madonna's music, movies, fashion statements, etc. Or concert tickets -- I'll take those too.

Countdown to Sticky and Sweet Saturday: Madonna Memories No. 1

2008-05-21T20:16:00.005-04:00

This Saturday at 10 AM, I am going to try to achieve the impossible -- land a pair of tickets to Madonna's "Sticky and Sweet" show in Toronto this October. While I have little to no prayer of actually seeing Madge perform "Like a Prayer" live any time soon, for the moment I choose to live in hope that I just might be successful. Unfortunately, I have never seen Madonna in concert, but have been a fan since I was four, which is to say, since the dawn of Madonna's career. In celebration of my 25 years as a Madonna devotee, I've decided to write a series of blog entries on the memories that I associate with some of my favourite Madonna albums and songs. Today's selection: Like a Virgin (1985). Specifically, "Material Girl". As a side note, my two current favourite tracks from that album are "Angel" and "Dress You Up". But neither has the same nostalgic associations as "Material Girl". So here we go...

"Material Girl" - In high school, one of the dubious highlights of the spring semester was the Battle of the Air Bands contest. Some participants took the conventional route of lip-synching and/or air-guitar strumming along to a popular rock tune of the day. There were occasional creative and/or shocking variations, such as one group's dead-on re-enactment of the video for U2's "Numb", or the rather unfortunate stripping incident of '96, involving a pasty, scrawny-bodied male classmate who was dragged off the stage still thrusting away in his none-too-white tighty whities. Then, every year, you could count on at least one group of popular girls to push the envelope with a performance that was perennially well-received...the luridly suggestive, scantily-clad dance number to a super-hot Janet Jackson/Mariah Carey chart-topper du jour. To this day, I have no idea what qualified these performances as "air bands", so much as paper-thin excuses to prance around in front of the entire panting male student body in fishnet tights and heels and not get sent home to change one's clothes. The faculty seemed to condone these dirty little dances. Feminist-minded young women in the audience like myself perhaps should have objected to the blatant, well, objectification on parade, but we were too busy firing off catty remarks about which of the dancers' asses looked the fattest.

What the hell does all this have to do with Madonna, you ask? I'm getting there, I swear. OK, so by the time grade 12 rolled around, a couple of my best friends and I were ready to put our own take on the whole slutty air band phenomenon. The twist, however, was that we didn't want anyone to think that we were actually doing the performance in earnest. It was of ultimate importance that our camp intentions be at least somewhat palpable to our plebeian audience, otherwise we'd be no better than the girls we'd ruthlessly mocked for the past three years. In fact, we'd be worse because we weren't the hot, popular girls -- if taken as sincere, our act would end up looking like an excruciatingly naive, inept attempt at being something we were not, which to this day is, in my mind, one of the most mortifying acts one can commit. Even though right from the get-go, our goal was to subvert the very conventions of the erotic high school air band performance, we did hope that we might spark a genuine fan following amongst a gaggle of Farmer Ted-esque grade 9 guys who could be bribed to buy us cookies from the caf, or carry our backpacks.

Song choice was critical. Right from the beginning, Madonna was a front runner -- all of us worshiped her and her discography up to that point offered many rich possibilities for cheeky, postmodern-camp-kitsch air band interpretation. We eventually settled on "Material Girl", "Like a Virgin" seeming a little too "on-the-nose" even to our sassy, self-aware 17 year-old sensibilities. We talked about it for weeks, then met for one glorious practice session in my basement during which we dreamed up costumes (Flashdance risque in style), props, bit players (cameos from aforementioned Farmer Ted niners) and an impressive thirty seconds or so of actual choreography. I can still remember the saucy little snaps we had timed to the chime that sounds somewhere around the third stanza of the intro to that song. Unfortunately, we got no further than that. Term papers, prom plans and general apathy - the brilliant teenager's worst enemy - put an end to our air band dreams. But every time I hear "Material Girl", I think back to what might have been. I never once performed in front of my entire high school, preferring to embarrass myself in front of numerous select groups and individuals instead over my four years as a student there. Our (self-consciously) slutty Madonna air band could have been my moment to shine. Or it could have been my worst high school memory (and that's saying something). We'll never know. But thanks, Madge, for supplying the soundtrack. I couldn't have not done it without you.

You've Been Shamwow!ed

2008-04-29T20:30:00.008-04:00

There are many, many things I could be writing about this evening. But given that I've been up since 5am, spent 13 hours in the car yesterday and 8 hours slinging Madonna and Grand Theft Auto 4 today, I don't really feel bad about devoting a blog entry to a shady-looking but OMG-hilarious infomercial product I recently learned about via the wonders of American cable TV: the Shamwow!. Due to my own fatigue and the unspeakably amusing nature of Shamwow!'s promotional ads (don't miss the "Testimonials" videos on the website), not much more can or need be said in this blog entry, other than that Shamwow! is now officially my new favourite word (apologies to "bitchazz") and that I wish I wish I WISH I could find a link containing the ad I saw that depicts a dog being rigorously Shamwow!ed. So funny I could cry. Just take my word for it.

P.S. - I recognize that I'm coming rather late to the Shamwow! party -- online reviews and parodies already abound, many quite entertaining. But if only one person hears about Shamwow! for the first time here, I feel my blog will have served a noble purpose. I'm going to sleep.

Guttenberg Galaxy

2008-04-10T17:43:00.000-04:00

Not all that infrequently, TV provides the answers to my pop-culture prayers. Like that I'd live to see the day that Steve Guttenberg's career is resurrected to its former glory. Despite recent appearances in such films as P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! (2002), and Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus (2004; co-starring alongside Crystal Bernard, no less...still awaiting her own post-Wings resurrection a la Thomas Haden Church), Guttenberg has yet to make a Hollywood comeback worthy of his superstardom in the 1980s. For a number of years, I've found the Guttenberg situation troubling, to say the least. I mean, back in the day, this guy was the shit. As the charismatic, wisecracking Sgt. Carey Mahoney, he was the Tom Cruise of the Police Academy crew. Then came two more successful franchises, Cocoon - in which he more than held his own as the cast's sole non-octogenarian - and Three Men and a Baby. But the dawn of the 1990s seemed to bring an end to the age of Guttenberg. Then, almost 20 years later, along comes the 6th season of Dancing with the Stars, giving the much-deserving Guttenberg an opportunity to foxtrot right into America's hearts once again.

Granted, a Dancing with the Stars turn may not be the most preferable route to comeback heaven. But if any 1980s movie icon deserves a second chance at stardom, it's Steve Guttenberg. Should he sign on to a Police Academy 7 reunion project (which I'd pitch as Police Academy meets Cocoon), I'd happily forgive him for skipping out on Police Academy 5 and 6 -- which, looking back, was probably a really wise decision on his part. So Hollywood, if you're listening (and I mean YOU, Ron Howard), it's time to pay tribute to the Gutte and show him a little casting sugar. You know we love him. Now's the time to bring him back. And while you're at it, here's a few more 80s superstars who also deserve to be removed from the "Where are they now?" D-list and put back in the spotlight (a la "Dr. McDreamy" Patrick Dempsey, formerly known as "that guy from Can't Buy Me Love):

Kathleen Turner - Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, let's go for the trilogy, folks. I'm
sure Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito would be up for it. And think of the DVD collector's edition re-release box set sales!

Shelley Long - The world is divided into Diane Chambers people and Rebecca Howe people. I am a devoted Diane person, which is part of why I would looove to see Shelley Long make a comeback. She's a genius at screwball comedy (exhibit A, The Money Pit, one of my all-time favourite films). She's worthy of so much more than perennial Carol Brady gigs.

Nick Nolte - Unfortunately, young people these days know this former "Sexiest Man Alive" (1992) solely from his humiliating DUI mug shots. I stand by my claim that the man's still got it goin' on. I adored his turn in Paris je t'aime, and it got me thinking...someone needs to call up Sofia Coppola and put Nick's considerable charms back on the map with a Lost in Translation-esque age-gap romance. Brilliant, I know. Let's make it happen, people.

There's so many more stars that could be added to this list...perhaps this entry will have a sequel. Suggestions, anyone?

The Mighty iTunes Oracle

2008-04-02T21:45:00.000-04:00

For my first blog entry in many months, I looked to my iTunes for inspiration, and a little personality game I came across on My Boring Life. Try it out yourself - just hit shuffle and watch as some of life's big questions are magically answered right before your eyes! Just remember - no skipping allowed!

Q. What would best describe your personality?
A. Breathe – Michelle Branch

Hmmm…sounds girly and upbeat, but lyrics are about being this close to falling apart. Yep, I’d say that pretty much sums me up.

Q. What do you like in a guy/girl?
A. What’s New, Pussycat? – Tom Jones

Campy, over-the-top, worthy of getting random chicks’ panties thrown at him. Maybe my ideal man circa 1965? (hello Peter O’Toole!)

Q. How do you feel today?
A. Say Something – James

Sounds about right.

Q. What is your life's purpose?
A. Islands in the Stream – Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton

OMG – the all-seeing iTunes shuffle has spoken! I believe it is my life’s purpose to champion cheesy 80s music. That, and to sing a duet with Kenny Rogers.

Q. What is your motto?
A. Dance Dance Dance – Beach Boys

Fucking A!

Q. What do your friends think of you?
A. Glittering Prize – Simple Minds

Not sure what to make of this. Maybe that I’m sparkly? And also a prize.

Q. What do you think of your friends?
A. Over and Over – Wilson Phillips

Um…kay. Now this is just getting embarrassing. Yes, I have Wilson Phillips on iTunes. And I think this will surprise NONE of my friends.

Q. What do you think of your parents?
A. Stand Back – Stevie Nicks

This doesn’t really work either. But God I love Stevie Nicks!

Q. What is your life story?
A. Tu t’laisses aller – Charles Aznavour

Great...thanks for the self-esteem boost Chuck.

Q. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2

I want to be Bono.

Q. What is your hobby/interest?
A. Don’t – Elvis Presley

I am most definitely interested in Elvis.

Q. What will they play at your funeral?
A. I Wanna Be Your Lover – Prince

OMG, someone needs to put this in my will!

Q. What is your biggest secret?
A. Got to Get a Message to You – Bee Gees

Great, now everyone knows I’ve got early Bee Gees on my iTunes. But considering the Wilson Phillips debacle earlier, I guess this is pretty minor.

Where do I begin?

2007-07-30T22:32:00.000-04:00

We're almost halfway through the summer of '07 and it's been so long since I last posted, I don't even know where to start. So much to say, so much time...

Well, to kick things off, this has been a summer of happy Mondays thus far due to the return of Canadian Idol. While I have no clear-cut favourite yet, a la last year's Tyler Lewis, I have to say that this year's Top Ten is a pretty talented bunch. The judges have also been on the mark, by and large, and I think I may even be warming to Ben Mulroney after all these years (but he's no Seamus O'Regan).

In other news, I resisted the impulse to make a third trip to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto, although I am pretty stoked that Poison is coming to town during the Ex (lighters at the ready everyone..."Ev'ry rose has its thorn..."). Scorpions, not so much.

I visited a couple of clubs in the Richmond-John vicinity for the first time in years and discovered that little has changed since my undergrad clubbing days except, well, I'm no longer an undergrad. I think the door guys carded me just to be nice. Thankfully, my cougar years (oh yes, there will be cougar years) are still well ahead of me, but methinks I'd better start making hay while the sun shines. Or while the pants fit. Whatever.

In terms of new music this summer, I'm all about Arcade Fire and the White Stripes right now. But, as usual, I'm spending most of my time digging up way-back tracks, which have lately included a lot of Van Halen (a nice mixture of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar classics -- I'm a non-denominational Van Halen fan) and Supremes. On the 1960s girl group front, I'm desperately seeking a copy of Shirley Matthews' 1964 hit "Big Town Boy" which is--shamefully--absent from iTunes. Yet another reason why Mac people aren't really as cool as they would have you believe.

On the movie front, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and loved it (way to bounce back from Goblet of Fire); I saw Knocked Up and nearly went into an apoplectic fit at the film's Reagan-era-esque moral conservatism. Not like I was surprised. Why do I do these things to myself?

I think that about wraps it up -- gotta get back to "The Hills" marathon on MTV. Some people listen to Amazon waterfalls or Brahms chamber music to get to sleep; I prefer immersing myself in the blissful vapidity that is "The Hills". Oh, and one more thing -- I read Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" for the first time this summer and it was a life-changing experience. Not sure just yet in what respect the experience will prove to be life-changing, but something's gotta give. I can feel it. Or maybe I've just watched the opening credits of "The Hills" too many times. "The rest is still unwritten..."

Good night. :)

A Sobering Thought

2007-05-17T23:23:00.000-04:00

According to babycenter.com, American parents found 45 different ways to spell the name "Mackenzie" in 2006. For the record, that includes:

Mackenzie, Mckenzie, Mackenzi, Mackenzee, Mackinzie, Mackensie, Mackenize, Mackinzy, Mackinsey, Mackenzy, Mackenzey, Machenzie, Mackynzi, Mackinze, Mackenziee, Mackanzie, Macinzee, Machkenzie, Macenzie, Mckinzie, Mckenzee, Mckenzi, Mckynzie, Mckinzee, Mckenzye, Mckenzy, Mckenzey, Mckenze, Mckenize, Makenzie, Makenzi, Makenzy, Makensie, Makynzie, Makynze, Makenize, Makynzye, Makynzi, Makinzy, Makinzie, Makinzi, Makenzee, Makinze, Makinsy, Mykenzie.

Whoa. That's messed up.

My One Thought About the 2007 Stanley Cup Play-Offs

2007-05-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

Having only one Canadian team left to cheer for + That team is the Ottawa Senators = Being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Did Juno?

2007-04-04T22:19:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, the Juno Awards were held in the thriving metropolis of Saskatoon. It will likely come as news to all of my American readers (and quite possibly to some of my Canadian readers as well), that the Juno Awards are the highest honours bestowed by the Canadian music industry. The awards were named in honour of Pierre Juneau, former head of the CRTC and responsible for the implementation of the Canadian Content Regulations in 1971. This was a pivotal achievement because if radio stations here weren't legally mandated to have 35% Canadian content on their playlists, there would be no Canadian music industry. Kind of like how if your Lucky Charms wasn't fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals, you'd be anemic. As a further footnote, apparently the spelling of "Juneau" was changed to "Juno" when somebody realized that Juno had been the chief Goddess of the Roman Pantheon (See kids, it does pay to minor in Classics!).

Like the Canadian music industry itself, the Junos' history has had its high points (awards to friggin' awesome bands like the Tragically Hip) and its low points (see 1978-1979 below), I thought I would highlight a few of the Great Moments in Juno History. I pretty much skipped the 1970s (Rush, Anne Murray...and that's about it). I also left out most of the better-known superstars of Canadian music from the 1980s and 1990s--the Hip, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morrissette (post-1995--see below), and yes, Celine--in favour of shedding light on some of the Canadian music legends who have perhaps been a bit neglected since their days of glory. Props here to Barrie's Rock 95, a station that faithfully keeps much of Canada's musical past alive and well on the airwaves (the only station I know that has David Wilcox's "Do the Bearcat" on regular rotation). So here we go...

Selected Great Moments in Juno History:

1978 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single

1979 - Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" nominated for Best Single...again...
(Was the honesty too much the first time around?)

1979 - Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City" wins Best Single

1980 - Claudja Barry's "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes" nominated for Best Single
- Trooper wins Group of the Year

1981 - Martha and the Muffins' "Echo Beach" wins Best Single
(Also deserving of special award for Best Band Name of All Time)

1982 - Rough Trade's "High School Confidential" nominated for Best Single

1983 - The Payola$ "Eyes of a Stranger" wins Best Single
(beating out Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend")

1984 - Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" and Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" both
nominated for Best Single

1985 - Luba's "Let it Go" and Gowan's "A Criminal Mind" nominated for Best Single

1986 - Glass Tiger's "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" wins Best Single
(another great song title with embedded parentheses)
- A banner year in the Best Album category, with Glass Tiger, Loverboy, Platinum
Blonde AND Honeymoon Suite all nominated; Newmarket boys Glass Tiger win (woot!)

1987 - Kim Mitchell's "Patio Lanterns" nominated for Best Single
(also nominated for new national anthem by majority of Mulroney caucus)

1991 - Maestro Fresh Wes' "Let Your Backbone Slide" nominated for Best Single

1992 - Alanis' "Too Hot" (Hott Shot Mix) nominated for Best Dance Song
(oh yes, pre-"Jagged Little Pill", Alanis was a sweet little pop star)

1994 - Snow's "12 Inches of Snow" nominated for Album of the Year
(everybody all together now: "In-forrrr-mer!")

I would like to conclude this blog with some Canadian tunes that I think were definitely deserving of some Juno love, even if they didn't receive it:

"Day by Day" - Doug and the Slugs
"Dream Come True" - Frozen Ghost
"What Does It Take" - Honeymoon Suite
"Tokyo Rose" - Idle Eyes
"Heading West" - Mitsou

and

"Claire" - Rheostatics

All is Right with the Royals

2007-03-27T23:27:00.000-04:00

I, for one, am relieved by the latest breaking news stories on Prince William and Prince Harry, who have been photographed groping a girl on the dance floor and falling down drunk outside a nightclub, respectively. Proof positive, I say, that the young Princes are perfectly normal early twentysomething males. I'm glad they aren't missing out on any of the typical extra-curricular activities enjoyed by their MTV Spring Break peers. And you've got to feel sorry for the guys--I mean, how many of us would want hordes of papparazzi trailing us each and every time we go out for an evening of drinking and debauchery? Imagine a photo of you bumping booties with that random dude from your dorm making front page news in every national newspaper. Or worse, CNN running a video of you bowing to the porcelain god after a night of Jagermeister gone wild. Bottom line, the Princes are just as entitled to some wild and damaging partying as the rest of us. Just watch out for those hands, ladies...

The Captain and Tennille and Telus

2007-03-25T23:05:00.000-04:00

One of my favourite TV ads right now is TELUS Mobility's latest ad featuring the company's usual roster of devastatingly cute critters (forget the cell phone -- I want those rabbits!) and a much-welcomed revival of the Captain and Tennille's 1975 "Love Will Keep Us Together" (a cover of the Neil Sedaka original, it should be noted). In celebration of the song's reappearance on the pop culture radar, I offer up this link to Toni Tennille's fabulous blog, where you can read up on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Gordon Lightfoot, to the war in Iraq to the Captain's favourite pan-roasted salmon and mango salsa recipes. There are tons of great insights to be found, such as her take on "Muskrat Love" haters:

"Come on, people....did it ever occur to you that we might have performed that song with just a touch of irony?"

Loves it! And who knew she did background sessions for Pink Floyd? Rock on, Toni!

Ode to Wheels

2007-01-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to my favourite Degrassi character, the one and only Wheels (aka Derek Wheeler). There are so many reasons why Wheels was the most rad of the original Degrassi bunch:

First of all, Wheels is just the best nickname ever. OK, maybe it's a tie with Tootie. With an honorable mention going to Boner (remember, Mike Seaver's best friend on Growing Pains? Yes, it's true, Alan Thicke said "Boner" pretty much every other week in the first few seasons of that show).

Second of all, Wheels was the cutest Degrassi alum. He did sport rather unfortunate eyewear after about the second season (he got glasses right around the time he started growing the mullet, as I recall), but he still had it goin' on. The sultry Stephanie Kaye was all over him--and she knew her Degrassi men.

Third, Wheels had an awesome Ontario accent, embuing Degrassi with ever more distinctive Canadian charm. And fourth, Wheels really did try his darndest to be a good kid and to avoid getting sidetracked by Joey Jeremiah's zany schemes. But, as is the case with most Degrassi characters, tragedy befell Wheels and, well, his life went down the shitter. Even so, there is still a warm spot in my heart for Wheels. In the immortal words of the Zit Remedy (all together now): "Everybody wants something they'll never give up..."

A New Match for Marilyn

2007-01-14T21:22:00.000-05:00

OK, so this is week-old news, but just to re-cap: the latest star marriage to shatter into so many dysfunctional, yet gossip-mag digestible pieces is that of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese. The New York Post printed a decidedly Von Teese-sided article January 5th, titled "Dita Dumps Messed-Up Manson," that included the following synopsis:

"Sources say the raven-haired bombshell filed for the split right before Christmas, but Manson has been unaware of it because she couldn't get in touch with him....Friends say Manson had been boozing heavily last year, much to Von Teese's dismay, but she'd desperately tried to hold on. "She really tried to make this work," the friend said.""

A very sad state of affairs, apparently. Furthermore, from the same Post article:

"Von Teese's pals say they are squarely on her side. "Well, at least now she won't have to share her makeup," one quipped. [Ohhh, snap!] It's not known yet whether Von Teese plans to ask for custody of the couple's two cats, Lily and Aleister, and dachshunds, Greta and Eva."

No matter how nasty the break-up gets, let's keep the pets' best interests at heart, folks.

I can't say I've cultivated much personal fandom for Manson's music. In fact, it was around the time he made it big in the alt-rock scene that I started experiencing my first twinges of crotchetiness (sp? even a word?) towards "young people's music". Ironically, I was about 15 at the time, but I digress.

Even though I can't say I'm a fan, I certainly do hope that Manson's heartbreak heals and that he may even be back on the dating scene someday. I'm thinking that next time around, Manson should try courting a new type of gal for a change. Somebody preppy, perky and fond of wearing pastels. Somebody like...Mandy Moore. Perfect! Sort of like Marilyn Munster meets Marilyn Manson.

Sounds like a match made in, er...Hollywood? Hey, you never know.

The Steamy Side of Staples

2007-01-06T00:36:00.000-05:00

I recently heard that Douglas Coupland is writing a new novel about people who work at Staples. When explaining how the idea for the novel evolved, Coupland said that he tried to think of what the most boring place in the world to work would be and he came up with Staples.
Fair enough. But when I was shopping at my local Staples yesterday, I came to the realization that the stationary superstore is not so boring as it may seem. It's all about the writing utensil aisle, specifically the pens. As I perused Staples' copious pen selection, it dawned on me that pens and condoms share nearly identical marketing lingo. For example: the Round Stic Grip, the Soft Feel Stic, the Impulse, the Comfortmate, the Flexgrip Ultra, the Flexgrip Elite, the R.S.V.P., and, last but not least, the Dynagrip. Hot stuff, indeed. Perhaps Coupland could work some risque pen product double entendres into his characters' dialogue? (eg. "So, what do you say you and me stock a few boxes of Flexgrips in the storage room after work?") At any rate, it just goes to show you--with a little vigilance and some creativity, you can find your mind in the gutter anywhere, even in the shiny, seemingly innocuous, flourescent-lit aisles of Staples. Not so boring after all.

Keeping St. Elmo's Fire Burnin' (In Me)

2007-01-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

To celebrate the new year, an entry devoted to the lyrics to perhaps the most inspirational pop song ever penned. I know the unbridled 1985 sentiment is hard for your jaded, post-Cobain souls to embrace, but sometime (when no one is watching) just find this song, crank it up, and belt it out with as much earnestness as you can possibly muster (and yes, air-synthesizer antics are encouraged). It does the soul good.

If you need a little coaching, watch the video for inspiration. Even better, watch St. Elmo's Fire. Repeatedly. And try to channel the great Billy Hicks.

St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr

Growin' up, you don't see the writing on the wall
Passin' by, movin' straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You'll find you're all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can't quit until it's won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you're a lot like me
You're just a prisoner and you're tryin' to break free

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

Burning up, don't know just how far that I can go (just how far I go)
Soon be home, only just a few miles down the road
I can make it, I know I can
You broke the boy in me, but you won't break the man

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me

Just once in his life a man has his time
and my time is now, I'm coming alive

I can hear the music playin', I can see the banners fly
Feel like you're back again, and hope ridin' high
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire

I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me
Burnin', burnin' in me, I can feel it burnin'
Oooh, burnin' inside of me...

Merry Christmas to Me

2006-12-13T22:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I officially started my Christmas shopping, making the trek up to Bloor Street and the winter retail wonderland it holds. From the standpoint of finding gifts for loved ones, it didn't go too well (total gifts purchased = 1 book). From the standpoint of finding gifts for me, it went great--as evidenced by a trip to HMV that produced 2 new CDs by Charles Aznavour and Burt Bacharach (and Friends), respectively. With respect to the Charles Aznavour, I am proud to say that the album constitutes the first "World" music entry into my iTunes library. Brings the sophistication of the whole catalog up a notch, I think. Now, as regards the Burt Bacharach (and Friends), all I want to point out is the high concentration of freakin' awesome tunes we owe to this man. So, so great. Like, I think I'll be listening to Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" on continuous repeat for about the next three weeks. Followed by "Arthur's Theme" (yeah, baby). Followed by "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (never can have enough Dionne Warwick). Then, round out the mix with a little Neil Diamond "Heartlight." Can I just say, I had no idea the easy listening section could be so much fun? Unfortunately, no one on my gift list shares my love of Burt Bacharach and Friends. Yet...

Personal Kryptonite

2006-12-03T21:59:00.000-05:00

I think if we stop to think about it for a moment, we can all come up with the components of our own personal kryptonite--one or more essential elements that could be used by your enemies to annoy, repel, or even (worst case scenario) destroy you, depending on how they are deployed. For example, "Welcome to the Jungle" was Manuel Noriega's personal kryptonite (N.B. - it's never a good idea to let the U.S. Marines know what your personal kryptonite is). The Wicked Witch of the West's personal kryptonite was water. Superman's personal kryptonite was...kryptonite.

So you get the idea. I recently arrived at the recipe for my own personal kryptonite. As this blog is vaguely anonymous, I feel I can safely reveal it here. For my friends reading this...well, I trust you all to refrain from abusing your new power. This is very, very potent stuff.

My personal kryptonite = Rachael Ray + Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine" + Anne Geddes photography

Put those three ingredients together and all my superpowers would be completely incapacitated.

It Takes Two

2006-11-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

I think it's high time music industry bigwigs rediscovered a rare and much underappreciated genre: the pop male vocalist duet. Pop duets in general flourished in the 1980s, which was also the period in which the pop male vocalist duet reached its zenith, with the release of the two most undisputedly awesome pop male vocalist duets of all time:

To All the Girls I've Loved Before - Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias
The Girl is Mine - Michael ("I'm a lover, not a fighter") Jackson and Paul McCartney

Let's just take a moment, shall we, and bask in the glory of those two masterpieces.

OK, moving on--it's time for the pop male vocalist duet to make its triumphant return on the contemporary music scene. For those studly male pop stars out there keen to take the plunge, I will disclose to you the secret of pop male vocalist duet success: the more incongruous the duet pairing, the higher the Grammy-winning potential. Here's a few couplings that I think might just have the makings for pop male vocalist duet magic:

Justin Timberlake and Clay Aiken
Bono and Axl Rose
Ricky Martin and Toby Keith
Usher and Kid Rock

You get the idea. It's a one-way ticket to solid gold.

Just messin' with ya, eh!

2006-11-12T22:09:00.000-05:00

Above: The classic rabbit-duck optical illusion
Below: The Canadian version

What do you see?

Submit to IKEA

2006-10-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I went through a rite of passage that I'd been putting off ever since crossing the twentysomething threshold quite some time ago: I made my first trip to Ikea. I wasn't particularly insecure about my status as an Ikea virgin. In fact, I was quite content that way. But a need arose (cheap but not entirely ungodly window coverings) and I'll be darned if Ikea wasn't the most logical place to fulfill it. Or so it seemed.

Once I realized I needed to go to Ikea, I couldn't fight my anti-Ikea feeling anymore. You could say I'd forgotten what I was fighting for. At any rate, let the record show that my capitulation was not the result of peer pressure from any Ikea-slut friends. I went willingly, and of my own accord. And in true yuppie fashion, I drove my car. Because you never know what gigantic, unwieldy boxes you might end up bringing home from Ikea, once it gets its seductive, Swedish modern claws into you.

The parking lot alone was enough to start me questioning the decency of humanity. The entrance was congested with kindergarteners and over-eager parents, lining up in front of a large sign that stated that the wait for entry to the kids' play area was 30 minutes. Shuddering, I looked at the nearest store map and tried to locate the "textiles" section. I soon realized, with horror, that Ikea is modeled on the Honest Ed's floor plan: one entrance, one exit, and miles of non-negotiable, retail rat maze in between. Except no gefilte fish here.

Like many of my generation before me, I surrendered to Ikea's will and began trekking through the various showrooms. Not surprisingly, many people had apparently given up on shopping altogether and were instead taking up residence in the rooms: reading the fake books on the shelves, putting their feet up, noshing on meatballs and lingonberry sauce. Most surreal of all were the various young, attractive couples wandering the floor together hand-in-hand, pausing here at a "Hensvik" bookcase, there at a set of "Lisbet" pot holders, and staring into each other's eyes dreamily. I had a bizarre thought: Ikea stroll as foreplay? Whatever gets you through the night/TV & media solutions section, I suppose.

I hustled my way downstairs, eventually arriving at the curtain display I'd been seeking. I took some time to browse and was pleasantly surprised to find something close to what I'd been looking for. Positive feeling towards Ikea started to wash over me. Maybe I shouldn't have hurried through the showrooms, I thought. Maybe there was more, so much more, that Ikea could offer me.

But then I happened to glance across the aisle to where a cute, earnest couple stood locked in battle over a bin of "Ekvator" curtain rings. The loving looks I'd seen them exchanging before had completely disappeared; now, their voices were escalating in ever-sharper tones, their body-language increasingly confrontational (eg. demonstrative wielding of the "Lill" curtain rods). And then it became clear to me. Ikea may seem like it can help you. It might seem like your friend. But eventually, Ikea will break you. It turns children against parents, friends against friends, and lovers against lovers. So be forewarned. I got out, with my sanity and my relationship intact. But I was lucky. And I'm not going back a second time.

But if I do, I'm taking the subway.

Our home and native...stuff

2006-09-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

While civic duty dictates that I should be reading up on candidates in the upcoming Toronto municipal elections, I've come across a far more interesting democratic process in which to participate, and that is CBC's The Greatest Canadian Invention. 50 candidates have been selected, and you can vote on your favourite on the show's website. The results will air in early January 2007.

Here's a brief list of some of my preferred nominees:

1. The CPR mannequin: Not only integral to life-saving instruction, but also to making the swimming classes of one's youth a hell of a lot less awkward.

2. The fog horn: One of the greatest sounds ever, second only to the "Dixie" car horn.

3. The synthesizer: Need I say more?

There are also some inventions that could arguably be nominated as teams, such as:

1. The retractable beer carton handle and the Ski-Doo

2. The Wonderbra and the zipper

3. Poutine and the Bloody Caesar (OK, that one's pushing it)

Even if you don't get around to voting, be sure to check out the TV ads that the CBC is currently running to promote the show. They feature Margaret Atwood stating that the greatest Canadian invention is the caulking gun. Rad.

Tickle Me Emo

2006-09-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

What with tomorrow marking back-to-school for another crop of teenage freaks and geeks, the weekend news was peppered with a charming array of head-wagging, fist-shaking "Kids these days" types of articles. One of the most interesting of these was an article that appeared in the Toronto Sun this past Sunday on the definition of emo culture.

To my mind, emo is a relatively new-fangled cultural phenomenon. I'm familiar with Eno (as in Brian, or "Bubbly bubbly") and enamoured of E.L.O. (more on that later), but emo...it just sounded to me like yet another cool-kid thing that I was destined not to understand. From the scant research that I have thus far conducted into the topic, I have gleaned that to be "emo" is to possess a flair for the melodramatic, shrewd thrift-store shopping savvy, and an iPod packed with songs recorded by bands with names that sound like titles of sappy teen romance novels (eg. "Further Seems Forever," "Funeral For a Friend," "Matchbook Romance").

After taking a brief look into what I might be missing with respect to emo, I've decided that its particular cultural niche would be better filled by a revival of 1970s rock opera. Personally, I think that when it comes to music, "emotional hardcore" is more satisfyingly associated with the rockin' yet plaintive overtures of Meat Loaf, E.L.O., or some deep cuts from the Xanadu soundtrack. Pair that with a roller rink and some Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and you've got yourself one over-the-top, heart-swelling experience. If kids these days could only appreciate that, well, we'd have nothing to worry about.

Mama, I'm Coming Home

2006-08-25T16:42:00.000-04:00

(Actually, I've been home for over a week, but I just wanted to get a little Ozzy in there)

Yes, it's true--after five years living in the U.S., I have returned home to Toronto, the best city in the world. And I could not be happier, especially with all the traditional Torontonian activities I've been up to lately: biking to the Beaches, window shopping in Yorkville, going to the Ex, and walking down Yonge Street (which I will be doing much less of once the nostalgia wears off).

Sadly, the Ex was a bit of a disappointment, much like it was the last time I went eight years ago. I wish I could have seen it back in its heyday, before they tore down the Flyer and the Grandstand and before the Better Living building was converted into a giant casino. My biggest overall complaint was that there wasn't nearly enough livestock. That, and the carnies were too polite and well-groomed. But the Food Building still smelled the same (one whiff gives you your weekly dose of trans fat) and we did get to see a human cannonball, which was pretty awesome.

And while I did not get the TV unpacked in time to watch Canadian Idol this week, I am proud to report that my boy Tyler Lewis is still hanging in there and you can bet I'll be voting next week. Yes indeed, it is good to be back.

That's Hot?

2006-08-10T22:37:00.000-04:00

So I heard the new Paris Hilton song the other day. And...I don't hate it.

This is not a good sign.

Vice Patrol

2006-08-07T19:56:00.000-04:00

With Miami Vice receiving its big-screen revival this summer, I thought I would take a moment to spotlight an oft-overlooked echelon of the Miami Vice franchise: the fantabulous music careers of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.

I'll start with P.M.T. (not to be confused with "P.Y.T.", or any other Michael Jackson-penned acronym), whose music, as it happens, is a rare and expensive commodity these days. For example, a copy of his 1988 album Somebody will run you $69.99 on Amazon.com. Perhaps Thomas himself purchased all but two existing copies of the album--that's the only way to explain this phenomenon. Copies of his 1985 breakout album, Living the Book of My Life, are even harder to track down. Apparently he got hold of all of those.

(P.M.T. F.Y.I.: Thomas's pre-Miami Vice screen credits include playing the role of 'Stix' in Sparkle (1976, opposite Irene Cara, I should add) and the role of 'Purvis Mapes' in Mr. Ricco (1975, not to be confused, of course, with Uncle Rico).

Don Johnson fared somewhat better with his musical escapades, as those of you who hold fond memories of his 1986 rockfest Heartbeat will attest. Anyone doubting Johnson's crooner cred need look no further for proof of his success than his duet with Barbra Streisand, "Till I Loved You." You think Streisand duets grow on trees? Nuh-uh. (OK, so they were dating at the time. Streisand flings aren't easy to come by either).

If there's anyone who's not too cheesed out to read any further at this point, might I direct you to this snazzy Don Johnson fan discography. Note the particularly precious tank top/Vans combo he's got going on. 80ss fashion icon, folks. OK, I'm stopping now. I promise.

The "Awww" Factor

2006-08-01T19:56:00.000-04:00

As I've been residing stateside since the start of July, it's been a few weeks now since I last saw an episode of Canadian Idol. However, I've been keeping up with the results online and I'm happy to report that my favourite contestant in this year's competition, Tyler Lewis, is still burning it up in the Top 9.

Why do I think this kid should be the next Canadian Idol? First of all, he can sing. But more importantly, it's all about the "Awww" factor. Just check out these snippets from Tyler's brief bio on Idol's website and you'll see what I mean:

-He's 20 years old (Awww!)
-He's from Saskatchewan (Awww!)
-He would love to have the chance to see Bon Jovi or Guns 'n' Roses in concert (Awww! I guess that's pretty rare in rural Saskatchewan)
-His dream is to have a career like Bryan Adams (Awww!)
-He's a huge fan of both steak and potatoes and his belt buckle that sports a beer bottle opener (Awww! Cute and practical!)
-The song that best describes him? "Small Town, Big Dreams" (Awww!)

Plus, as I recall from the first episode on which Tyler appeared, he plays hockey and he can drive a tractor (Awww! and Awww!). If that's not a red-blooded Canadian boy, I don't know what is.

I realize that the "Awww" factor is not nearly as potent for the guys in the Canadian Idol audience (assuming there are any) as it is for the gals. However, if Don Cherry was a fan of the show (and hey, anything's possible), I'm certain he'd back Tyler all the way. This kid is the Dougie Gilmour of Idol crooning.

So my fellow countrymen and women, I exhort you to cast your votes for Tyler Lewis. It will put a feeling of gladness in your heart and you'll be doing Canada proud by selecting a talented Idol for its citizens. Plus, he's really really cute. Did I mention that already?

Pam Gets Rocked

2006-07-31T21:35:00.000-04:00

Congratulations are in order for Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, who threw one fabulous party in St. Tropez today to celebrate their not-quite-yet-legal marriage. In keeping with Canadian tradition, the bride wore a white string bikini. According to Pam's website, "Pics will be out soon, from inside the boat we took." Uh-oh. Pam + amorous husband + boat...

All the best to the happy couple, but let's hope they left the camcorder at home.

Studs With Studs: Discuss

2006-07-27T21:57:00.000-04:00

Question: What is the status of the earring in men's fashion these days? Has there been some kind of edict on this in the past five or six years?

Previously worn exclusively by pirates and Ziggy Stardust, the earring became a must-have male accessory around the time I was in the sixth grade (ca. 1990). Made impossibly cool by the likes of the Fresh Prince, the New Kids on the Block, Marky Mark and David Silver (OK, not such a good example), ear-piercing was all the rage among pre-teen boys, taking over where the rat-tail haircut left off (props to Jordan Knight for carrying the rat-tail torch into the 1990s). Fathers everywhere were cursing the day their sons came home with that shiny new gold hoop earring in their left ear. To my recollection, the left ear was the only acceptable ear to get pierced at this time. Getting one's right ear pierce was to risk utter and complete social alienation--that is, until it started to be cool to have both ears pierced. Then all hell broke loose (eg. Dennis Rodman).

It seems to me that the dark ages of the male earring started when AARP members like Ed Bradley and Harrison Ford starting sporting studs. That, and the freaky-freaky stage get-ups of such music artists as Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor started to make guys who wore earrings look about as bad-ass as Ward Cleaver (actually, I take that back--Ward Cleaver was pretty bad-ass on occasion).

In the three minutes I spent researching this post, I couldn't really find a clear answer on whether the male earring is still cool these days. What I did find was a 1998 Ebony article that cites examples of famous earring-wearers such as "trendsetting actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner" (aka Theo) to make the point that earrings are completely acceptable accessories for men.

The theologians among my readers (?) might be curious to learn that I found two articles that offer biblical answers to the question of whether men should wear earrings. This article makes the argument that men wearing earrings makes God angry. But this other article on the same subject is more wishy-washy. To be honest, I found both quite frightening.

So I will leave this question unanswered. Unlike bandannas, there is no clear right or wrong when it comes to earrings and men's fashion. I think the issue has to be painstakingly reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Now, the rat-tail, on the other hand--dudes need to bring that back.

You Go, Lance!

2006-07-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

Today, former N'Sync member Lance Bass officially came out, making the following statement to the media:

“The thing is, I’m not ashamed — that’s the one thing I want to say. I don’t think it’s wrong, I’m not devastated going through this. I’m more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I’m just happy.”

You know, I never was much of an N'Sync fan, but this was one of the most heartwarming news stories I've heard all week. You go, Lance!

Running Farrell

2006-07-21T00:23:00.000-04:00

My trip to L.A. is now officially complete--I have been to a red-carpet movie premiere. Miami Vice premiered tonight at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood and I simply could not pass up the opportunity to saunter down the street after dinner and snap some pictures of the divine Messrs. Farrell and Foxx.

Never having been to one of these gigs before, I wasn't exactly sure where the best vantage point for star-watching would be. I first stood on the street corner out in front of Stan's Donuts (where I've been three times in the past week) amidst a pack of professional autograph hounds who, quite frankly, frightened me just a bit. Some of them were kind of like the L.A. equivalent of Comic Book Store Guy from the Simpsons.

Fortunately, a security guard came along and offered to take a group of people to the red-carpet-side bleachers across the street. I opted to go along, which resulted in me gaining a clear view of the stars as they made their way down the press gauntlet.

Using my old-school 35mm point-and-shoot camera, I snapped photos of Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn, Tyrese, Victoria Rowell, Li Gong, Regina King, Pieter Jan Brugge (the film's producer), and, of course, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. I also took a nice shot of Philip Michael Thomas. Unfortunately, Don Johnson was nowhere to be seen.

All the actors looked every bit as attractive in person as they do on film. Which, of course, did not surprise me. All in all, this is probably one of the most aesthetically-pleasing trips I've ever taken. I'm going to have to ease myself back into reality slowly this weekend.

Fun, Fun, Fun

2006-07-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend playing tourist at various sites around L.A. and Santa Monica, some on the beaten path, some off. I did a lot of walking, got a lot of sun and had an awesome time. And yes, I rode the bus everywhere. Although I am now going to have to take back what I wrote in my last entry about the L.A. bus system being underused. It's actually pretty hoppin'. Still too many cars on the road, but the bright spot is that I have seen a lot of Toyota Priuses around town.

Saturday I took the bus to the north end of Koreatown and hopped on the subway up to Hollywood and Vine. Having only ever heard terrible things about Hollywood, I braced myself for the worst--however, I have to say it wasn't nearly as rough as I imagined it would be. Of course, I was there on a Saturday afternoon in peak tourist season. I'm sure it's no picnic at, say, 3 am on a Tuesday night. When I was there it wasn't so bad. It pretty much is what it is. Girls! Girls! Girls!--but not the Elvis Presley version. For my Torontonian readers, Hollywood Blvd. is a shade or two worse on the urban decay spectrum than the most decrepit blocks of Yonge Street. But the Walk of Fame is pretty awesome (except that you forget to look where you're going, which can get you into trouble). And I happened upon this fantastic movie collectibles shop at which I was able to pick up some lovely Rock Hudson production stills from 1952. Now that's what I call souvenir shopping.

If the tourist action at the Hollywood & Highland shopping centre (part of the complex that houses the Kodak Theatre) is any indication, Hollywood's darkest days are behind it. The mall is squeaky clean, upscale, and jam-packed with suburban families. Disney bought the El Capitan theatre across the street and has spruced it up as well. To anyone tempted to insert anti-corporatization grumbling here, can it already. If it's between pimps and Disney, I'll take Disney (and you can quote me on that).

After chowing down at Johnny Rocket's and taking a slew of requisite tourist photos, I journey back downtown to Union Station, which is an absolutely gorgeous building--an L.A. must-see, I believe. As is the Olvera Street marketplace, a fabulous oasis in downtown L.A. packed with vendors selling traditional Mexican goods. It was my first time visiting there and it's definitely one of my favourite places I've been in L.A. so far.

On Sunday I had to make a trip to the beach, so I bused it out to Venice. A totally crazy place, but another definite must-see. I watched both surfers and grafitti artists working hard at their respective pastimes, but was disappointed to find Muscle Beach more or less deserted. I suppose it was too hot to buff one's bod yesterday.

My favourite part about Venice is the Venice Canals Walkway, the network of sidewalks that you can take in and around all the positively stunning homes built on the existing canals. I kind of want one of those houses.

When I left Venice, I headed north to Ocean Park, the groovy southern Santa Monica neighborhood that is much quieter--and hipper, in my opinion--than the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica proper. The retail is soooo Californian: surf shops, yoga studios, organic tea shops, acupuncture clinics, and raw food cafes.

I wound up finishing up my day's travels in downtown Santa Monica, at Ye Olde King's Head pub, a favourite spot from my last trip to L.A. because of its tasty British fare that reminds me of pubs back home in the old country (by which I mean Toronto).

A highly satisfying weekend of sun, surf (watching) and local colour--I think this city is working it's crazy magic on me. Good thing I'm headed back home soon.

Get On the Bus

2006-07-13T00:09:00.000-04:00

I feel that I am now fully assimilated into Angeleno culture after making many, many trips on L.A.'s great yet sorely underused bus system today. Over the course of almost twelve hours, I got on and off buses in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood and Santa Monica today. A couple were packed. One was empty save for me for a while. I met some very friendly people and got to take in lots of the cityscape. For example, I am now extremely familiar with the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Veteran Avenue that I sat at for about fifteen minutes or more today, watching the traffic crawl towards the 405 freeway entrance. As many times as I've sat on the DVP in rush hour, I can honestly say I've never seen traffic move that slowly before.

The insanely bizarre thing about L.A. is, its residents think traffic like that is completely normal. They willingly sit through it every single day. I watched car after car creep by carrying only one person, a driver chatting animatedly on his/her cell phone and dealing pleasantly enough with the worst gridlock I've ever witnessed. C-r-a-z-y. I talked to a few Angelenos about their transportation situation today. One man had had his car totalled six months ago, decided to try out the bus for a change, and is happy with the switch. He says the subway's great too--I'm going to try that out on the weekend. Another couple of guys I talked to said they couldn't imagine taking the bus at all--they wouldn't even know which bus to take to get from where they lived to work each day. They thought I was properly nuts for even trying.

This seems to be the normal response from city natives when I tell them about my bus travels. I was told I was crazy for trying to take the bus from Westwood to Hollywood, but that worked out just fine today. Granted, I missed the stop where I had to transfer and ended up arriving at my destination about half an hour later than I'd planned, but fortunately, I'd left early. That's the thing about getting around in L.A.--if you have time to spare and can adopt a sort of Zen-like attitude towards the sometimes Herculean effort it takes to get from point A to point B, it's not so bad.

While L.A. makes me appreciate cabs, the TTC (yes, even the Queen streetcar at rush hour), and the possibility of walking anywhere, I can't say it hasn't started to grow on me in its own crazy way. No matter how frustrating the situation on the ground is, you can always look up and see a sunny, bright blue sky above, a palm tree or two, and sometimes, as was the case for me this morning, HOLLYWOOD beckoning to you in the distance. And that's pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

The Fresh Princess of Bel Air

2006-07-12T00:17:00.000-04:00

Having recently purchased new running shoes, I was excited to have the chance to break them in on my trip to L.A. on some sightseeing runs. So I ventured out for my first run this morning. I'm staying in Westwood village, right on the edge of the UCLA campus, so I figured that Bel Air would be a nifty running destination (originally I wanted to make it up to the Playboy Mansion, but then I realized it would be a touch too far--besides, isn't it more normal for women to run away from the Playboy Mansion than towards it?). I made my way on up north through the campus at a decent clip, feeling energized by the bright sun, blue skies, and deceptively invisible smog. Sure, there were a few hills...well, actually, running north in this part of town is pretty much all hills, all the time. Like, break-ass hills. Like there's a reason everybody around here is so crazy about yoga and pilates and all that jazz--it's because it's too damn hard to run anywhere. Particularly in Bel Air, which I found out has no sidewalks. I don't think residents venture outside the gates of their homes on foot. This morning, the only people on the road were me and legions of garden workers. I wondered if I might get thrown out by a security patrol for being on the street without a leaf blower in my hand.

An hour later and I was finally in sight of where I'd started, feeling very tired and keening for level ground. But the adventure was worth it. Bel Air, like most other locations in L.A., looks just as spectacular in real life as it does in the movies. What amazed me was that within a couple hundred feet of entering Bel Air off of Sunset Blvd., the noise of the traffic seemed to die away almost instantly and became replaced by the serene chirping of birds and hissing of garden sprinklers. The place isn't just a neighbourhood--I'm convinced it's a hermetically-sealed bubble.

L.A. Stories

2006-07-11T01:20:00.000-04:00

I have ventured once more out to the strange and marvellous world that is the west coast. I have two weeks ahead of me in Los Angeles, primarily shuttling around between Westwood, Beverly Hills, and anywhere else the Wilshire Blvd. bus can take me. Here are a few initial notes on my L.A. experiences over the past 24 hours:

You know you're on a plane to L.A. when a guy sitting in your row pulls out his screenplay for in-flight reading material. Good Lord--does it get any more L.A. than that? It was all pristine and crisp-cornered, with impressively shiny brass brads. I'm thinking, great, excellent, good for you--I mean, hey, I've got one of those kicking around myself--but it's soooo much less pretentious to just kick back with a vacuous magazine like the rest of your comrades in coach. You ain't gonna run into Jerry Bruckheimer at the back of the bus, buddy--better off snagging an FHM.

I actually saw people break into a car-fight today over entering/exiting a parking garage on La Cienega. I think that the car-fight might be an L.A.-specific phenomenon. It's like any other kind of fight, except the participants never get out of their cars; they just yell and gesture wildly as if they were within striking distance of their opponent. What happened was one car exited the parking garage at the same time another car was about to turn into it. They very nearly ran into each other--then both slammed on the brakes and started raising hell. I don't believe it had been resolved by the time I got to my bus-stop. They very well could still be out there.

Rodeo Drive actually sparkles. I think they use Crest Street Whitener (TM).

My cab driver yesterday told me he once gave Ashton Kutcher a lift before he was famous. Except the cabbie wasn't sure of Ashton Kutcher's name. He just said "You know--the guy who's with Demi Moore." Ooooh....SNAP!

More instalments are forthcoming (I'm hoping to write enough L.A. blogs that they can go into blog syndication).

Like Riding a Bicycle...Or Something

2006-07-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

Since I haven't contributed to my blog in quite some time, I figured I should take some baby blog steps toward making a comeback. So I will devote this entry to mentioning one small recollection that made me laugh really hard today. I was thinking for a brief spell about cats and cars, and I suddenly remembered how, about fifteen years ago or so, you couldn't drive anywhere without seeing at least two or three cars with one of those crazy-ass stuffed Garfield cat-butts hanging out of the window/trunk. C'mon--you know you remember those things (maybe you owned one?). I'm not really sure why it was considered hilarious to have half a stuffed cat protruding from your car and those things got natty after being exposed to the elements for a couple of months. But people loved them! And now the very thought of them makes me laugh.

Studies in Skid Culture #3

2006-06-14T09:54:00.000-04:00

So I've been kinda sorta neglecting my blog lately. To my tight-knit cadre of devoted readers, I apologize. Other writing projects, a testy dial-up internet connection, and the new season of Canadian Idol have all conspired to derail my once-regular ranting schedule. That, and I've been busy catching up on the local culture in my hometown, an entertaining, oftentimes scintillating, yet time-consuming task.

Just in case you thought I was indulging in a bit of poetic license in my first entry on skid culture a couple months back, I have recently gathered much empirical evidence that the skid community is still indeed alive and well around these parts. For example, when I was walking out of Swiss Chalet last night after dinner, I witnessed a truckload of skids drive into the local Tim Horton's (conveniently located across the street from Swiss Chalet). True to form, the boys had a rusted-out Skidoo in the back of their pickup truck. In the middle of June. I kid you not. They were hollering unintelligbly but gleefully out the windows as they drove past, perhaps in anticipation of picking up a few limited-time-only strawberry tarts from Timmie's along with their double-doubles.

Sometimes this place is just too Canadian to be true. I have to say, it's great to be home.

Deja Retro

2006-06-04T23:58:00.000-04:00

So I'm back home in Ontario for a couple of weeks--loving the new season of Canadian Idol, Seamus O'Reagan in the mornings, and easy access to Tim Horton's maple swirl doughnuts, but not so much the dial-up internet access that goes with my old rural stomping grounds. But I don't mind being patient with my connection tonight because I am enjoying a favourite Sunday night ritual of mine, 102.1 The Edge's Sunday night retro show. Back in the day, the broadcast was from Whiskey Saigon (a club which always sounded way more fun on the radio than it actually was), but has since switched venues to a favourite undergrad haunt of mine, The Velvet Underground. I have no idea what the Velvet is like these days, as it's been many moons since I hauled my black fishnet tights/Doc Martens-clad feet onto its dance floor. But it used to be a pretty good time (even though it never quite matched the Dance Cave).

For the record (and this should surprise no one who's read this blog before), I was into retro way before retro was cool. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, I made a serious effort to become a self-educated New Wave aficianado. While many of my peers were digging Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette or (insert Sideshow Bob shudder), Hootie and the Blowfish, I was stocking my music library with ABC, Human League, Bowie, the Cure, Duran Duran, General Public, Howard Jones, Joy Division, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, the Smiths, Split Enz, the Talking Heads, Talk Talk, and the Violent Femmes. At the time, the Edge's Sunday night retro show was the only place you could hear any of this stuff on the radio. Now of course any adult contemporary/pop station worth its salt has some kind of cheeseball 80s request hour on its daily programming schedule. But the Edge is still the best place to hear consistently good 80s music in a retro show. I highly recommend tuning in--you won't be disappointed. Unless 80s New Wave/ska/punk music is just totally not up your alley. But how can that be possible?

Doggy Fizzle Publishizzle

2006-05-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

According to an article published last month on The Book Standard, Snoop Dogg will be making his literary debut this October with his first novel, titled Love Don't Live Here No More. Not to be confused with the 1978 Rose Royce hit, "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," Snoop's novel will tell the story of "a young man living the hard life in Southern California while struggling to make it in the world of hip-hop."

The article goes on to note that the novel will be the first in a "street-lit" series headed by Snoop for Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Kathleen Schmidt, v.p. and director of publicity for Atria told The Book Standard that “Snoop, by nature of what he does, is a storyteller." Furthermore, Ms. Schmidt explains, “Books speak more to a female audience than does [Snoop's] music, so these novels give him an opportunity to show, particularly his female fans, another side.”

Rrrrriiiigghht. I assume she means the side of Snoop other than the one responsible for rapping such tunes as "Bitches Ain't Shit But Hoes and Tricks," "Break a Bitch 'Til I Die," and "Can You Control Yo Hoe?" (featuring the memorable lyric, "You've got to put that bitch in her place/Even if it's slapping her in the face"). We've apparently now entered a new era of Barnes & Noble-friendly Snoop (personally, I think changing the book's title to Love Don't Live Here No More, Bitch would help ensure a smoother trans-media crossover).

I wish Snoop the best of luck with his new endeavour. If nothing else, it's gonna make Book-TV a hell of a lot more exciting this fall. As far as winning over the female audience goes, I guess I should keep an open mind. Even old Doggz learn new tricks.

Analyze This

2006-05-22T22:30:00.000-04:00

The other day, I was thinking about movie costumes. From a rather young age, two movie costumes in particular have been my very favourites:

1. The skin-tight, black leather (or is it pleather?) outfit that Sandy wears to impress Danny at the end of Grease, for the "You're the One That I Want" number. I'm still looking for a pair of black Candies sandals like the ones she has on in that scene (the shoes responsible for the sexiest cigarette stomp-out in cinema history).

2. The crazy one-piece halter top/mini-skirt outfit and (most importantly) thigh-high, spiked heel boots that Julia Roberts walks her Hollywood strip in at the beginning of Pretty Woman. I've had a weakness for stiletto-heel boots ever since (and now own two pairs--neither, regrettably, are thigh-high, however). Oddly, her outfit is different colours on the movie's poster (hot pink and black) than it is in the film (white and turquoise). But it's all about the boots, really.

What should we make of this? One might conjecture that repeated exposure to such vampy star costumes in my pre-teen years permanently corrupted my fashion sense. But these outfits are so...great. Like, doesn't everyone wish they could wear stuff like this every day? No? Oh. Never mind, then. I guess it's just me.

Shoe Decorated My Life

2006-05-20T23:40:00.000-04:00

In recent "Where are they now?" news:

My favourite Madison television personality, former WKOW meteorologist Alan Shoemaker (affectionately known on air and among fans as "Shoe"), is apparently now thriving in his post as the weekend weatherman on Newschannel 5 in Weslaco, Texas.

Shoe--we miss you, big guy. You lit up my life on Wake Up Wisconsin for three unforgettable years. But you've got bigger storms to chase now. That's just the way life goes in the rough-and-tumble weatherman trade, I guess. Well, best of luck to you, Shoe--and thanks for the memories.

Summer Reading Adventure Vol. 1

2006-05-18T21:43:00.000-04:00

While summer won't officially arrive for another month or so, it's never too early to start thinking about what guilty yet exquisite reading pleasures you will include on your summer reading list. For bibliophiles, summer reading is kind of like a trip to Las Vegas: cheap, flashy, sex-filled and easily hidden from bosses and spouses. Best of all, there are no consequences. What happens during the summer reading season stays in the summer reading season. It is perfectly acceptable to burn through 15 Danielle Steel novels over a two-week period in August, then turn back to Thomas Pynchon after Labour Day. You will never be held intellectually responsible for your summer reading choices. It's one of the cardinal rules of bibliophile culture.

That said, I'd like to suggest some summer reading that will give you a powerful hit of nostalgic pleasure faster than a Kool Aid Jammer on a July afternoon. Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? You know, those fantastically easy-to-read, participatory paperbacks that zipped off your school library shelves faster than the latest installation in the Babysitters' Club series? Teachers never used to allow Choose Your Own Adventure books to count for "official" assignments like novel studies or even silent reading time. But we loved them just the same, especially since they only took about twenty minutes to read. They took longer if you didn't catch on to what page number the "page of instant and horrible death" was in the particular book you were reading. You remember what I'm talking about: you'd proceed through three or four choices, your character's situation gradually becoming more dire, when suddenly you'd come to a page that said something like: "Turn to page 72 if you choose to run away from the lion. Turn to page 36 if you choose to confront the lion." If you chose to turn to page 36 you would read that you had suffered a terrible demise. After reading that, if you were a smart cookie, you knew that any time the book offered you the choice of turning to page 36, it would be wisest not to do so. Then it was never much longer before you successfully completed your character's mission.

If you have fond memories of Choose Your Own Adventure books like I do, you'll be happy to find out that the series' publisher (the creatively titled Chooseco corporation) rereleased many of the series classic titles this spring, including Abominable Snowman, Secret of the Ninja, Lost Jewels of the Nabooti and many more.

If you are one of the few and the proud who can say that you've read all 184 Choose Your Own Adventure books published between 1979 and 1998, then you can check out the new A Date with Destiny Adventure series, which are Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired books written for adults and include such titles as Night of a Thousand Boyfriends and Escape from Fire Island!

I'll have more summer reading suggestions in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, try pulling out one of these books on the bus on your next commute to work. It's not summer yet, but who cares? Have fun. Just beware of page 36.

Pour Some Sugar on Me

2006-05-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

It recently came to my attention that my most favourite 1980s hair-metal band, Def Leppard, has formed an unholy alliance with Journey for their upcoming tour this summer. No way! Way! Pretty friggin' sweet, if you ask me. I can't imagine a concert tour more jam-packed with power chords, guitar kicks, and earnest, bare-chested, bandanna-ed balladeering than this one. Sadly, they will not be making a stop in Toronto--for once, Buffalo has one-upped us on something. Talk about bringin' on the heartbreak.

Anyway...I'm not too devastated about it because I've been to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto twice. Go ahead, mock me. I'm cool with it. I earned my serious concert cred as a teenager, delirious from sunstroke or caught up in a bone-crushing mosh pit at Molson Park, taking in then-unheard of Canadian bands like the Tea Party, Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and Big Sugar. I've since dropped all pretense of being a hip concertgoer. Now, it's all about listening to my inner cheeseball. Life's too short to deny my retro-pop instincts. Besides, to their credit, Def Leppard puts on a truly kick-ass show. And it's kind of nice to be among the youngest members of a concert audience for a change.

I'll finish off this post with a link to the band's offical site (where, under Vivian's Diary, you can read his latest entry titled "My Pet Monkey") as well as a sampling of some of Def Leppard's more surreal lyrics. These guys know how to wail.

"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on/Livin' like a lover with a radar phone..."

"I'm runnin' with the wind, a shadow in the dust/And like the drivin' rain, yeah/Like the restless rust/I never sleep..."

"It's such a magical mysteria when you get that feelin'/Better start believin'..."

"I'll be your satellite of love"

"Take it, take it, take it from me/I got an itchy finger following me..."

"C'mon Steve..."

W.W.T.Y.D.? (What Would Tina Yothers Do?)

2006-05-07T21:41:00.000-04:00

The latest addition to my Amazon wishlist: Being Your Best: Tina Yothers' Guide for Girls.
I can only speculate on the valuable knowledge contained in this volume, but one would hope that there would at least be chapters devoted to eye-rolling, bang-curling and how to cope with your crush on Michael J. Fox (I'm still working on that one). Now that I know this book exists, I'll always wonder how my life would have been different had I possessed the wisdom of Tina Yothers in convenient paperback form during my adolescent years. Back to the future, indeed.

Why Does PE Suck?

2006-05-05T21:10:00.000-04:00

On a brief surf through the blogosphere this evening, I came across this post, authored by one britbrat, that succinctly summarises the reasons why PE (or phys. ed., as Canadians are more likely to call it) sucks. All I've got to say is, I hear that, sister. Nice to know some things never change.

My MTV: Tiara Girls

2006-05-04T21:05:00.000-04:00

As should be evident from previous posts dedicated to MADE and 8th and Ocean, when it comes to MTV, I'm an easy customer to please. I'll lap up pretty much any reality show they toss my way. So this week I gave the new MTV series, Tiara Girls a test run. Sadly, I think my favourite network has let the rhinestone-encrusted crown slip a little on this one. This show falls so much short of MTV's usual sassy standards that I doubt I'll be able to eke out a two paragraph blog about it. But, this being a slow night, I'll give it a try.

I think Tiara Girls was doomed from the start for the reason that beauty pageants make too easy targets for the kind of pseudo-satirical/pseudo-documentary teen reality shows we've come to expect from MTV with shows like MADE and Super Sweet Sixteen. We know that pageants are weird. We can conjecture that the surreal sub-cultures in which they flourish are disturbingly bizarre. We expect that teenage girls competing in pageants are going be spouting off the kind of anti-feminist remarks that would earn them a lot of furrowed brows and angry headshakes if they were appearing on Oprah. So when we see all these easily-anticipated elements come together on an episode of Tiara Girls, the result is just...yawn.

Maybe it's just that I personally find pageants unexciting. Growing up in Canada, it seemed pretty clear that pageants were a foreign phenomenon, and they didn't really hold all that much fascination for me (I was too busy idolizing Elizabeth Manley). These days, I find them to be one of the most tired feminist bad objects out there. Whether the world keeps turning with or without pageants doesn't really matter--either way, 99.9% of its problems are still going to go on unsolved.

Despite my negative review, I'm not really saddened by the lack-lustre appeal of Tiara Girls. This just means I'll have more time to keep up with my other MTV favourites. Really, my TV viewing schedule was getting packed as it was, especially having to fit various play-off games in. If you get a chance to check the show out, give it a try and tell me what I'm missing. Or not. It's really not as fun as MTV should be.

The DL on the DQ

2006-05-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

You'd think that living in the greatest dairy state in the U.S.A. for almost five years would have made me something of an ice cream connoisseur. I have indeed sampled some impressive ice creams and frozen custards in Wisconsin, including Michael's, Culver's, Schoep's, Chocolate Shoppe and, the pride of UW-Madison, Babcock Hall Dairy. The shocking truth is, however, that despite living in this land of plenty, my very favourite ice cream is still Dairy Queen soft serve. It's just such a classic, from its dependable vanilla flavour to its easy-to-eat consistency. You can dress it up with hot fudge sauce or dip it in a candy shell (with respect to dipped cones, I always went for the butterscotch, until I discovered the glorious new horizon of cherry--the shell is red and fantastically tasty, however there is nothing remotely cherry-like about it). Or you can go the purist route and just eat it plain. No matter how you order it, the DQ soft serve never fails to please.

I'm not sure how DQ soft serve ice cream is made, but I will hypothesize that involves vast quantities of prepackaged mixes of one kind or another. Then, of course, there's the machine that produces it, a marvel of mid-twentieth century mechanics if ever there was one. There is always a bit of excitement involved with the "pouring" of the ice cream onto the cone. Sometimes an inexperienced soft serve artisan will pour the cone at a dangerous angle, or panic the moment they have to perform that virtuouso twist of the wrist that finishes it off. It probably takes a little practice to get that wrist twist right. But it's worth doing well, and of course it's so much more sophisticated than just scooping ice cream out of a tub.

Despite my research efforts, I was unable to find out who the original Dairy Queen was or where she hailed from. I did learn that DQ has been around since 1940, that there are now DQs in 21 countries on 6 continents, that DQ and Orange Julius belong to the same parent company, and that ordering a large chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard will run you about 1320 calories.

I can't be the only person out there who is staunchly devoted to DQ soft serve. It's not just a cool treat, but the coolest treat around. Actually, I just like using the word "treat." Anyway, for another testament to the greatness of this ice cream institution, check out Parker Posey's brilliant performance as Libby Mae Brown in Waiting for Guffman: "I'll always have a place at the DQ."

Say It Ain't So, Kevbo

2006-04-30T11:18:00.000-04:00

Oh, how the once-mighty have fallen. No, I'm not talking about Keith Richards' recent plummet from a coconut tree. I'm talking about the recent allegations pertaining to Kevin Costner's, er, indiscretions at a Scottish spa. I do not intend to devote this entry to the nature of these allegations (N.B.--This blog deals only in oblique references to smutty gossip; if you want the real deal, you'll have to Google elsewhere. I have standards to uphold). Rather, I thought I would take this unfortunate turn of alleged events as an opportunity to cast a look back at the golden era of Costner's stardom and pause for a few moments to wonder where the hell it went and why.

Some fifteen years ago, it seemed Costner's star image would collapse under the weight of its own over-exposure. The man was skyrocketing into ever higher echelons of fame at a seemingly unstoppable rate. Recall the path he blazed to glory between 1988 and 1991: Bull Durham (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), Dances with Wolves (1990--the Best Director award/Best Actor nomination combo was, in hindsight, a harbinger of the madness to come. We can thank Mel Gibson for what we now know about such omens), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). Women around the world between the ages of 24 and 65, including my grade 7 homeroom teacher, succumbed to schoolgirl-like Costner crushes. I remember watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in class and not daring to question its relevance to French-Canadian fur trading routes. As far as my teacher was concerned, if it was Costner, it was kosher.

But then, then...Costner started engaging in some decision making that made us wonder whether he really wanted to hang on to the incomparable fame he had achieved or instead wished to see how quickly it would self-destruct. First, there was The Bodyguard (1992), a supremely odd and overblown picture in which Costner was entirely outshone by the soundtrack (never a good sign). Then, a couple of years later, we got to witness the now-mythical box-office disaster that was Waterworld (which, I actually went to see at the mall theatre with my friends--one of the lowest points of my moviegoing life). By the time The Postman came out in 1997, we knew Costner's days of superstardom were over.

To Costner's credit, it was a glorious, if perhaps overly earnest and oftentimes pretentious, ride. Now, it remains to be seen whether he will allow himself to be defeated by the dual Hollywood foes of scandal and age, or whether he will pull it out of the fire and turn both those foes to his advantage. Which is possible, if he can embrace those invaluable allies of fallen stars, camp and irony. I'd cite the John Travolta-Pulp Fiction precedent here, but, well, that hasn't panned out so good. Maybe Kevin Costner can make a lasting comeback. And hey Mr. C., if you do, make sure to write out clear instructions for Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt on how you managed it. Because in a few years, they're gonna need them (trust me on this one).

The Ifs and Ands of Butts

2006-04-27T22:47:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that spring and summer are the more lascivious seasons of the fashion year. Bluntly put, it's time to hooch it up. Pack up the wool coats and sweater sets and pull out the halter tops and short-shorts. It's all good. Or is it?

There's one article of clothing that I'm not sure is passable even in this casual climate. You see them all year round, but they become particularly prevalent as temperatures rise and fashion inhibitions lower. We're talking about pants...pants with writing on the butt. Sassy, yes. A fashion risk? Definitely.

To establish my credibility (or lack of it, depending on how you look at it) on this issue, I will confess to owning two pairs of said pants. Although both are extremely comfortable and, I admit, quite sassy, I adhere to a strict protocol when it comes to their display. Call me neo-Victorian (you'd be the first to do so), but I've always maintained that you can't just walk around anywhere wearing pants that shout "Hey, look at my ass!" (just like you can't just shout "Hey, look at my ass!" anywhere; there's rules about that too--we'll save those for another time). I believe the wearing of these pants is sanctioned in the following locations: grocery store, gas station, laundromat, McDonald's, Target, video stores and neighbourhoods where you don't live. On the other hand, for reasons of taste and safety, these pants should not be donned under any circumstances in the following locations: work, libraries, schools, government buildings, police stations, courthouses, airports, bus depots, subway stations, restaurants where your food doesn't come on plastic trays and movie theaters.

Two other issues to consider beyond appropriate locations for wearing words on your butt are: 1) whether men can or should do so and 2) are some words just inappropriate to wear on your butt? The answers:

1) No. Just...no.
2) Yes. Example: Thanks to Roots, you can wear "Canada" on your butt. Our nation's founders did not sit through 100-odd years of passive-aggressive subordinance to the British just so women could have this country's name plastered on their booties (or did they? Come to think of it, the fathers of Confederation probably would have been all over this idea)

Despite all the caveats involved, I will indeed be incorporating my letter-butt pants into my casual spring and summer wardrobe again this year. In fact, I may even buy a new pair. So long as one is aware of the risks involved, I think they can indeed be pulled off (pardon the pun) with happy results. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Hello Kitty, qu'est-ce que c'est?

2006-04-25T22:30:00.000-04:00

I have a tendency to want to address deeply philosophical questions in this blog, such as the question that popped into my head as I sat down at my computer this evening:

How did Hello Kitty get her name?

Furthermore, is the name meant to signify:

1. First name "Hello," surname "Kitty" OR
2. First name "Kitty," surname "Hello" OR
3. A greeting that accompanies this cute little nameless cat everywhere?

With these burning semantic issues at stake, I felt it was my duty to turn to the great Wikipedia oracle for some answers. Here's what I was able to glean from its "Hello Kitty" entry:

"Hello Kitty was given an English name because British culture was popular with Japanese girls at the time of her creation. Kitty's name came from one of the cats that Alice kept in the book Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll."

I should have known that with a character this wacky, Lewis Carroll had to be involved somehow. But reading on, I found that Hello Kitty lore gets even trippier. For example:

"When Hello Kitty's boyfriend "Dear Daniel" was created in 1999, designers took his name from the 1971 film, Melody, which starred Mark Lester as a character called Daniel, and features songs by the Bee Gees."

The BeeGees? What?!

The final odd pieces of information I learned about Hello Kitty during my brief foray into her strange and wondrous history this evening is that, as of 2004, Hello Kitty has a pet cat named Charmmy Kitty (a gift from her father) and also a pet hamster named Sugar (a gift from Dear Daniel). A cat with a hamster? Well...OK. But a cat with a cat? Now we're talking crazy talk.

I've always been a Hello Kitty fan, but it seems to me that she's just one of those wonders of the universe that is better left uninvestigated. Because otherwise, it's all too complex. Whew.

Memories...in the Corners of My Mullet

2006-04-24T22:15:00.000-04:00

OK, so mullets don't have corners (arguably). But according to the New York Times, Billy Ray Cyrus has penned a song for his new album entitled "I Want My Mullet Back." I'm thinking this tune should be turned into a multi-celeb charity caterwaul (along the lines of "We Are the World," you dig?) with the following participants joining Billy Ray:

Jaromir Jagr
Corey Feldman
Michael Bolton (he got Nicolette Sheridan back, why not the mullet?)
Dennis Miller
Florence Henderson
John Stamos
Joan Jett
Barry Melrose
Jerry Seinfeld
Richard Dean Anderson
Richard Marx
Pat Benatar
Randy Johnson
Zachary Ty Bryan ("Brad" from Home Improvement--if you're asking, Where is he now? , the
answer is: wishing he had his mullet back)

Any other suggestions?

P.S. - You must check out Florence Henderson's website (with sound on). That Mrs. B. is one groovy gal!

The Ex-Pat Playoff Experience

2006-04-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

I am in the unfortunate situation of having to watch this year's Stanley Cup playoffs on American television. No Grapes, no Ron McLean, and, worst of all, no Bob Cole and Harry Neale (actually, worst of all is NO LEAFS. But we won't talk about that right now). I share Lost in Wisconsin's frustration with the quality of hockey commentary south of the border. Really, it's a wonder our American cousins keep coming back to this schlock. You'd think they'd demand better.

Rap Traxx Dee-Lite

2006-04-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

Reminiscing about 680 CFTR the other day got me wondering where and how I might procure Rap Traxx albums. Produced by the prestigious PolyTel record label, Rap Traxx tapes were a must-have on the grade five party circuit. Mike Boon's blog (which is also packed with Canadian content) has an extraordinarily helpful list of the songs located on four Rap Traxx albums. I have many a fond memory of listening to hits from the original Rap Traxx like Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" (which, after being broadcast in class during lunch time, resulted in our school principal confiscating my classmate's tape), Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two" (an old-school classic), and Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" (which actually scandalized me when I was younger, but not as much as "Let's Talk About Sex"). Rap Traxx 2 has equal sentimental value, with such tunes as Young M.C.'s "Bust a Move" ("Dressed in yellow/She said hello/Come and sit next to me you fine fellow!"), Nenah Cherry's "Buffalo Stance," Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina," and Rob Base and D.J. EZ Rock's "Joy and Pain" (which was the first hip-hop song I can remember dancing to--it was in a friend's basement at an all-girl slumber party. Very street.)

Sadly, I never bought my own Rap Traxx tapes. It seemed like no matter whose house I went to, all my friends had them, so I invested in Madonna, Amy Grant, and Wilson Phillips tapes instead. Oh Rap Traxx tapes, why did I ever take you for granted? I've been keeping an eye out for them at garage sales and flea markets, but perhaps not surprisingly, they are difficult to come by. I mean, who in their right mind would sell off their Rap Traxx tapes? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to bust a move to Wilson Phillips instead. We create our own challenges in life, I suppose.

Soda Spectator (Vol. 1)

2006-04-19T15:44:00.000-04:00

Dr. Pepper Diet Berries & Cream

Price: $1.99

Country: U.S.A.

Region: Northlake, Illinois

Issue: April 2006

First release. Screw cap. Deeply coloured, full bodied, this is a fairly rich diet pop, which is long on the palate, and finishes with slightly sticky aftertaste. Supple in texture, with notes of berries and overtones of cream. Diet Vanilla Coke-like in style. Very easy to drink! Excellent value. Drink through 2007.

Radio Ga-Ga

2006-04-18T20:32:00.000-04:00

If, as those sage social commentators, the Buggles, told us back in 1979, video killed the radio star, then it is nothing short of miraculous that broadcast radio is showing any vital signs at all twenty-six years later. Cornered on two fronts by the onslaught of iTunes and ever-multiplying satellite radio stations, what remains of old-school AM/FM, dee-jayed radio is being forced to take its last stand. Given the quality of "programming" that most of these stations have had on offer over the past couple of decades, it's tough to make a case for broadcast radio's survival. What can they offer listeners that iTunes and satellite radio can't? Hmmm. Traffic reports and weather reports. Bland, ingratiating dee-jays who sling slogans, yak about contests, and re-hash Entertainment Tonight ad nauseum, but couldn't cough up an articulate opinion on music if their job depended on it (which, lucky for them, it doesn't). The syndicated sap of "Delilah." Oh yeah, and ads. But those aren't really so bad, in comparison.

I might not care about the fate of radio at all if it wasn't for two Toronto radio stations that have kept my faith in the broadcast medium alive over the past fifteen years. One is 102.1 The Edge, which, fortunately, is still going strong and strives to maintain its vital role in the city's alt-rock community. If you live outside of Toronto, you can check the station out via their website--a feature that is much-loved by many the ex-pat Torontonian.

The second station to which I wish to devote this paean to the dying art of broadcast radio is the dearly departed 680 CFTR. The station currently adheres to a news radio format, but many inhabitants of the GTA who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s have cherished memories of CFTR as the coolest pop station around. The fact that it was AM radio did not deter me and my friends from tuning in day and night (when, as any AM radio aficianado knows, the broadcast is accompanied by a charming high-pitched buzz kind of like communication intercepted from the alien mothership). To the best of my memory, the daily programming schedule went something like this:

Morning: The Jesse and Gene Show
The early morning shenanigans of Jesse and Gene provided junior highschoolers province-wide with any number of crude jokes and kick-ass comebacks to quote repeatedly to one another throughout the day. We also revered them for their virtuouso prank calling performances. Regular highlights included: Wreck-a-Wedding-Wednesdays, Spousal Arousal, Jesse and Gene's World Tour, Billy-Bob's Birthday Roundup (or was it Billy and Bobby's?), and, of course, the requisite call-in guest gags that involved getting dignitaries such as the Mayor or Gowan to say things like "There is no "f" in onion." Memorable songs included the Hamster song (to wit: "Hamster hamster, day or night/ hamster in a casserole is doin' it right/because they're nutritious/and oh so delicious/when they're in season/they taste pretty pleasin'"), and, after the 1993 federal election, "Bye Bye Campbell."

Midday: The top 12 at 12 was the highlight of the lunch hour, helmed, as I recall, by Tony Monaco.

After school: My beloved Tarzan Dan was the sole purveyor of tunes in this prime dee-jay slot. He was wacky and witty, loud but charming, and listening to his show was the best way to wind down after a long day in the eighth grade. By far, the hottest countdown of the day was Tarzan Dan's top 6 at 6, for which legions of teens called in to cast their votes for the likes of Bon Jovi, Wrex-n-Fx, Naughty By Nature, and Alanis (as pop princess, pre-"Jagged Little Pill").

Evening: As fond as I was of Tarzan Dan, I must confess that Cat Spencer was actually my favourite CFTR dee-jay. His domain was the top 10 at 10, which had a definite more suave and smooth night-time feel to it. He also refereed the numerous dedications that various of my lovesick/angst-ridden peers would call in over the course of the evening. And of course, Sunday night you had to tune in to Sex with Sue.

If 680 CFTR had any weaknesses as a pop station, it was its whoring out of Saturday morning programming to Rick Dees' syndicated top 40 countdown, and also the way in which "I Will Always Love You" was on half-hourly rotation throughout the entire fall and winter of 1992/1993. But these faults are slight and they do not hamper my nostalgia for 680 in the least. I loved that station with all my pre-teen heart and then some.

I still remember that devastating day it switched formats. Us loyal listeners were dumped out in the cold of a new and unfamiliar radio era. Some, like myself, tried to numb the pain by swallowing our pride and tuning in to rival station AM640 (now a talk radio station, but then the second-string pop radio station next to 680). After 640 folded as well, I meandered into the skid radio territory of Q107 for a while, which had the unfortunate side effect of me buying a Pink Floyd cassette. Finally, I came home to the Edge and I haven't budged since. Hopefully, even with the threats new technologies pose, at least one Toronto broadcast radio institution will stay alive in the years to come. At this point, I'm too fragile to handle another radio fatality.

My So-Called Wardrobe

2006-04-11T23:00:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about fashion lately, mostly due to my having plowed through a massive issue of In Style magazine last week on the plane from Milwaukee to Toronto. Spring is a great season for closet cleaning, an activity which--for me, anyway--is laden with opportunities for nostalgic reflection.

Over the years, I've gotten better about not hanging on to each and every fashion artifact that has graced my wardrobe. That said, I will admit that it is possible, indeed probable, to find items in my closet that date back to my junior high and high school years. Most of these articles of clothing are things that I kept because they are simply iconic of that particular time in my life. A few key pieces include:

Notre Dame hooded sweatshirt (c. Grade 8) - When I purchased this shirt, I had never been to Notre Dame and hadn't really the faintest idea who the "Fighting Irish" were. U.S. college football wasn't exactly huge among rural Ontario junior high students, but anything with Notre Dame, Georgetown, Michigan or Duke on it was. After seeing Rudy, my attachment to that shirt became slightly more sentimental. But not much.

Kilt (c. Grade 9) - It is a little known fact that the kilt experienced a brief frenzy of popularity amongst high school girls approximately five years before Britney Spears' skanked it up in her "Hit Me Baby (One More Time)" video. I can't remember details about wearing mine, except that knee socks were involved. I think I still have those too.

Various flannel shirts (c. Grade 9-12) - Here is the perfect example of how much teen fashion has changed in the past ten years or so. Today, a typical teen girl's outfit is comprised of skinny, low-rise jeans, visible candy-coloured thong, layered tight camisoles and a designer/knock-off designer handbag. Oh, and stiletto heels. But not so very long ago, we were pairing our father's flannel work shirts with t-shirts we wore in kindergarten and men's Levi's that were at least three sizes too big. Stains and/or rips provided extra appeal. Oh yeah--and going heavy on the black eyeliner was a must. Then, there was the requisite footwear...

Docs (c. Grade 12 - present) - What can I say? A classic's a classic. Mine are pretty standard-- 12-hole and black--but of course many variations exist. I used to think they went with everything, but I admit I've mellowed with age. Still, nothing else provides the same level of mosh-pit comfort.

Honorable mentions: Anything from Le Chateau (back in the day, it was kinda hippie, kinda slutty, always cool), Sex Pistols t-shirt, Converse sneakers, nylon Eddie Bauer backpacks, Swatch watches, silver rings (preferably at least one on each finger), my "Rachel" haircut.

Perhaps some of you who are reading this have fond memories of similar articles of clothing. Or perhaps there are other favourites you'd be willing to confess to/share? It's strange to think that some day, the 1990s fashion artifacts at the back of our closets will be "retro" and highly coveted by contemporary fashionistas. Of course, we must first be patient and sit through their requisite "painfully uncool" period as, for example, 80s styles went through while we were in high school. After that, I guarantee you'll be glad you kept your flannel and Soundgarden tees pressed and ready for revival.

Cottage Country

2006-04-06T22:38:00.000-04:00

I'm headed to the cottage for a couple of days of relaxation on the shores of Georgian Bay. Even though May 2-4 weekend is still a few weeks off, I thought I would kick off cottage season early by citing three of my favourite cottage country tunes:

Bobcaygeon - The Tragically Hip
Lake Fever - The Tragically Hip

and, the quintessential...

Patio Lanterns - Kim Mitchell

The official soundtrack of cottage country life in Ontario is available 24-7 on Barrie's Rock 95. Be sure to make a trip to the Beer Store before kicking back on the deck and tuning in. And if you can't make it to cottage country this spring, you can live vicariously through the angst-ridden teens on Falcon Beach, Canadian television's answer to the O.C. (Newport Beach, Lake Winnipeg, what's the difference?).

The Ice Woman Runneth

2006-04-05T16:56:00.000-04:00

I am loving the new running shades I got this spring. First of all, the way they are tinted makes me feel like I'm living in a Tony Scott movie, which provides extra workout adrenaline. Second, when I wear them, I look like I'm in a Tony Scott movie. More specifically, I look like Ice Man from Top Gun. That Ice Man--what a card! He sure kept Tom Cruise from getting on his high horse, didn't he? And talk about the right hair. If you ask me, that movie was all about the wrong character. It really was Ice Man's show. Anyway, I'm runnin' in the "Danger Zone" these days. Surprisingly enough, I have yet to download that song from iTunes to listen to while running in the Ice Man shades. I think that might be too much for me to handle right now. The shades are exciting enough.

My MTV: 8th and Ocean

2006-04-04T21:24:00.000-04:00

MTV is making it awfully hard for me get my ass off the couch these days (actually, it's a futon, but I digress). I'm still harbouring an addiction to MADE, am swiftly developing an addiction to the new season of The Real World, and as of last week, have started catching a few episodes of 8th and Ocean. The prognosis is not good. Like my erstwhile favourite MTV "reality" drama, Laguna Beach, it features generic California scenery, insipid dialogue and painfully slow-paced action. I think I'm gonna be hooked.

I'm not much of an America's Next Top Model follower, so I can't really say whether fans of that show will find 8th and Ocean equally enticing to watch. A big plus for 8th and Ocean is its Tyra Banks-free format. While the MTV show lacks Top Model's explicit competition, it is well-endowed with the more subtle variety, such as the sparks that are about to fly between identical twins, Kelly and Sabrina. FYI, Sabrina's unfortunate acne outbreaks constitute the show's core dramatic conflict at the moment. She feels left behind because the other models' careers, particularly her sister's, are starting to take off, while she keeps being told to avoid the light of day until her face is fit to be seen in public (I just assumed this was par for the course if you live in California, model or not). Apparently, in the next episode Kelly expresses interest in breast "enhancement" surgery, which upsets the insecure Sabrina even more. It's like Sweet Valley High in some alternate Botox-infused universe. If that's not enough to get you watching, I don't know what will.

After taking in the dramatics of 8th and Ocean this evening, I paused to consider that models have gained a lot of exposure in the past decade. Back in my junior high and high school years, which, fortunately for my formative self, coincided with the golden age of the Supermodels, models were seen and not heard. We didn't have television shows that revealed Cindy Crawford binging on Ben & Jerry's at one a.m., Linda Evangelista stealing cans of Red Bull from Christy Turlington's tote bag, or Naomi Campbell padding around in badly-fitted pajama pants and a trucker hat. We never saw these women without make-up, for Pete's sake. And only rarely did we see them off the runway. But now it seems that everywhere in the media, models both old and new are letting it all hang out. Sometimes I kind of wish they'd pull it all back in because, well, most of these people are just not that entertaining once they step off the cover of Vogue. It's the old "don't sit too close at the ballet" thing.

I'm not really sure why I watch any of the copious model shows on tv in the first place. Unlike some women, I don't really relish the chance to catch models looking "ugly" (which, let's be honest here, they never do. They're models) or saying "stupid" things (they don't get paid the big bucks to solve the world's problems, folks--that's, what, the President's job or something?). Furthermore, I don't secretly idolize models or covet their lives (oh hell no--I love my freedom, my sense of self worth and my Cheetos too much to buy into that crazy-ass fantasy). I guess I watch these shows because the modelling industry, like Hollywood, is so incredibly surreal in its workings: extremely irrational, extraordinarily shallow, fickle, dirty, backstabbing and occasionally heartwarming. In other words, a perfect evening's entertainment!

On Failing My Nunavut Readership

2006-04-03T21:44:00.000-04:00

I recently installed "SiteMeter" on this blog, a handy-dandy little web gadget that keeps track of when, where and how people are viewing this web page (if you're curious, you can check it out by clicking on the "SiteMeter" icon at the bottom of the sidebar). It's basically soft-core statistics porn, but the results are sometimes interesting. Like today, I learned that someone in Iqaluit (which is the capital of Nunavut, for those of you lacking in northern exposure) found my blog through Google by using the search terms "ski doo freestyle factory recalls". Thus far, the only place that ski-doos have cropped up in this blog is in my Skids in the Hall entry. Given the nature of his/her search, the anonymous Iqaluit surfer was no doubt disappointed with the content of my post. That doesn't trouble me so much as the thought that this person wanted to know whether their Ski Doo Freestyle is defective (perhaps dangerously) and my blog offered them no assistance in getting to the bottom of this (and having a potentially defective ski-doo is no laughing matter in Iqaluit).

So, on the remote chance that that reader ever visits this blog again, I apologize for my lack of expertise on ski-doo recalls. I hope that some other web page helped you solve your problem. If I could offer any advice, I would, but my Dad sold our ski-doo back in the mid-1980s. I don't even remember if it was a Freestyle. Really, I suppose Google is at fault here too, because it was their search engine that led this reader astray in the first place. But with a big corporate outfit like that, you're not going to get a sincere apology for wasting your time. Nope. It's just us insignificant web peons who have a heart for stuff like that.

I hope that I can overcome this incident among my Nunavut readership, however I would imagine bad word of mouth is the kiss of death for blogs in that place. Oh well. I can only hope that my first readers from the Yukon and the N.W.T. will have a more positive experience.

Karaoke Dreams

2006-04-02T18:21:00.000-04:00

Goals are important in all aspects of life: careers, relationships, shoe shopping, breakdancing, and, of course, karaoke. It so happens that my life-long karoake dreams can be summed up in three songs:

1. Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
2. Whenever I Call You Friend - Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks
3. Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee

Yes, all three are gloriously cheesy duets from the late 1970s-early 1980s. In my mind, performing any one of them would be the ultimate karaoke achievement. The trouble is, no one seems to share my vision. Sigh. Oh well. Some day, somewhere, my dream will be realized. I just have to believe.

They Are the (Moustache) Champions

2006-03-30T20:12:00.000-05:00

A few posts back, I speculated on the decline of the moustache in contemporary pop culture (NB- I also used the spelling "stash" at that time, but I have since decided to switch to the mose continental "'stache"). While George Clooney has not yet responded to my plea to be the 'stache's saviour in 2006, it seems that a vibrant international moustache community does exist these days. I learned this from a recent visit to the World Beard and Moustache Championships website, which is devoted to the biennial event of that name. Interestingly, Germany dominates the global arena of beard and moustache competition, both in the number of gold medals won and the number of world championships hosted. Categories in which moustache-wearers may compete include: Natural, English, Freestyle, Handlebar, Imperial, and then my personal favourites, the Dali and the Fu Manchu. Partial and Full Beard categories are also open to competitors. No Canadian champs emerged from the 2005 competition, however Americans can be proud of Toot (Toot!) Joslin's golden victory in the Sideburns category. With a little extra 'stache training, I think Jack Layton could do Canada proud at the 2007 championships. At any rate, it looks like the 'stache is going strong, despite its current lack of supporters among Hollywood stars. Its day is going to come, though, believe me--the 'stache will rise again.

T.G.F.E.S. (Thank God For Elvis Stojko)

2006-03-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

So far, 2006 has been a banner year for figure skating on television. But now that the Olympics and the Worlds are over, Skating with Celebrities has wrapped, and ABC Family is no longer running The Cutting Edge 2: Going for the Gold on a 24-hour loop (OK, they never did that. It just felt like it because of its utter and complete inferiority to the original...more on that another time) , I figured the skating TV boom had gone bust. Fortunately, the WE network came to rescue, churning out another figure skating-themed "reality" tv competition, Skating's Next Star. Phew. That was a close one. Thanks WE! I now forgive you for all those years of painfully mopey Felicity reruns.

So I've only seen two episodes so far and I'm still unclear on what exactly the contestants are competing for. Perhaps a lead part in the next production of "Dora the Explorer on Ice," or some such equivalent. Unlike Skating with Celebrities, the show does not feature the element of danger that comes from strapping skates onto frighteningly uncoordinated former sitcom/pop stars. But Skating's Next Star makes things hazardous enough for its bright-eyed hopefuls by having them skate on makeshift ice pads the size of your parents' rec room. Watching to see who will fly off the rink is one of the viewing pleasures the show has to offer.

Another bright spot is the tactful, good-humoured presence of former World Champion (and Richmond Hill, Ontario native, I should add--props to the York Region!), Elvis Stojko. On numerous occasions, Elvis saves Skating's Next Star from being too cringeworthy to handle. Exhibit A: One hapless lad accidentally kicked himself in the head or something while performing an ill-fated spin in the first episode. As if this wasn't mortifying enough, when he finished, judges Rudy Galindo and Oksana Grishuk laughed uncontrollably at him. Like, they couldn't regain their composure for at least a minute and a half. The poor dude had to just stand there with the camera on him the whole time. Thank God for Elvis. A true Canadian, he kept a straight face, showed concern, and asked the guy if he was OK (I would say that I hope he gave Rudy and Oksana a talking to afterwards, but that actually wouldn't be a very Canadian thing to do).

Though its production values may be low, its level of overall awkwardness high and its purpose ambiguous, I am going to tune in to at least a couple more episodes of Skating's Next Star. Maybe it's out of my sentimental Stojko attachment, or my fear that another figure skating show might not be in the works to follow it up. I can only hope that some tv executives somewhere are going to try and develop a "reality" gymnastics show along the same lines. Because every loves to see athletes get a second chance, especially when its a reeeal long shot (ie. in sports where they would usually be gathering dust by the age of 19). What's Mary Lou Retton doing these days, anyway? Oooh, and Mitch Gaylord! It'd be great! Someone tell the WE people! Anything to keep those Felicity reruns at bay.

Why, Vivi, Why?

2006-03-26T18:51:00.000-05:00

The American news media have, as usual, been recently devoting copious amounts of coverage to a story that, in a sane world, would barely register 30 seconds in a fourth grader's current events presentation. The particular story of which I write is that of Vivi the Whippet, the enigmatic show dog who tore down the tarmac at JFK Airport a couple of weeks ago moments before boarding the plane that would have transported her back to her California home.

Now, I have always been an animal lover and in my life I've experienced my own share of heartache over lost pets. The sight of a hand-drawn "Lost Dog" or "Lost Cat" poster, with the requisite family pet photo, on the bulletin board at my local grocery store brings me to tears if I stare at it for too long. So don't think I'm a callous and horrible person for questioning whether the search for Vivi should continue. I mean, I watched The Incredible Journey more than a few times as a kid and it seems to me that if a pet wants to come home, it will try to get there. When that's not possible, it will at least allow itself to be brought home by those who want to help it. But Vivi doesn't seem to want to be helped. And this has been one hell of a tough pill to take for the throngs of people who have joined the search for Vivi.

A recent L.A. Times article included the following quote from Bobbi Giordano, an animal rescue worker from Queens, on the emotional toll that the suspense of the hunt has taken on its participants: "It's like alcoholism....You just have to find out where, when, why. It's an obsession now. I don't think it has to do with the breed, or that it's a famous dog or anything. I don't even think it's the money anymore. I think it's just the love." Some, like Oklahoma pet detective Karen Goin, worry that the mean streets of New York may be too tough for the coddled California canine. Goin told the Times: "She's displaced, and has no bonds to anybody here....I've lived in cities, and I can assure you: New York was very different to me, and I'm a human."

It's a bizarre case of the hunter hunted, with people leaving out large hunks of cooked meat and other treats in the hopes that the troubled pooch can be lured back to captivity. The monetary reward that has recently been offered for Vivi has drawn some pragmatic Queens residents to the search who might not otherwise volunteer to wrangle a $15,000 whippet. Witness the following anecdote from the Times:

"Posters throughout the area advertise a $5,000 reward, which has brought another wave of searchers onto the scene. Among them is Vinny Chieffo, a cake delivery man, who has been scanning wooded areas after his shift ends at 3:30 a.m. Chieffo said his 14-year-old son wants to go to camp this summer, but the family could not afford it. The whippet seemed to offer an answer. "I mean, I like dogs. I'd really like to see this person get her dog back," said Chieffo, 48. "But I really need the money.""

Now that's a news headline I'd like to see: "Whippet Windfall Gives Deserving Queens Youth a First Chance at Summer Camp." It's so Dickensian, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Unfortunately, the longer Vivi is at large, the more likely she will revert to being completely feral. I've heard most whippets live on the edge of feral-ity (?) all their lives. Maybe Vivi wants it this way. Who knows--she may turn up at a rehab clinic in Palm Springs a couple months from now, unkempt, apologetic, and ready to talk to Oprah about the whole experience. Or maybe she'll spend the rest of her life in the mountains of Idaho, her life interrupted only occasionally by fleeting reminiscences of her high-flying past.

Vivi is the veritable Patty Hearst of lost pets. The future may hold few explanations as to the reasons for her escape from civilized society. In the meantime, maybe her owners could learn to love another pet--this time one from the local humane society that has been waiting all its life to run towards a home, not away from one. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. Jeez, no more pet blogs. It's just too damn hard. Why, Vivi, why?

Snakes on a Plane

2006-03-25T16:59:00.000-05:00

Albeit belated, I thought it was about time I wrote an entry on Snakes on a Plane, the much ballyhooed, Samuel L. Jackson vehicle due out this August that has snowballed into the biggest blogfest of '06 (N.B.--I don't really understand why the film isn't titled Snakes on the Plane. Why the indefinite article? WHY?) Just in case anyone who happens upon this has not heard of "SOAP," or perused a sample of the mountains of fan artwork devoted to it, I thought I would pass on a couple of links. The very premise of this movie (summed up entirely in its title, true to Hollywood-high-concept-on-crack form) is just too hilarious. My personal favourite contributions to the web frenzy over SOAP include this great cartoon as well as the riff on "McArthur Park" that can be found among the fan posters on this site (you'll need to scroll down a few to see it). More fan posters created specifically around a "Snakes... fill-in-the-blank-rhymes-with-plane" format can be found here. Be forewarned that some are highly offensive due to their racist and/or homophobic content. But most are just plain wacky; the ones I like best are "Snakes Who Look the Same," "Snakes Who Shift Blame," "Snakes Who Like Train," "Snakes and Elaine" (as in Benes) and the Gretzky homage, "Snakes Used by Wayne."

It doesn't really matter what the actual SOAP movie ends up being like; the multitude of parodies it has spurred are by far more entertaining than many Hollywood films end up being these days. The next logical step for high concept moviemaking is to just do away with the films themselves. Apparently, to generate a pop culture phenomenon, all you need is a kick-ass title, a trailer, a poster, and Samuel L. Jackson. Emperor's new clothes, indeed.

I will say that I find the idea of actually being on a plane with snakes absolutely terrifying.
If it ever happened to me, I guess I'd just tuck my feet up onto my seat. That'd show those snakes. And I hope it wouldn't be on a long flight, because hell if I'm getting up to go to the bathroom if there's snakes on the plane. Hmmm--this is starting to sound more uncomfortable than terrifying. Maybe I could deal with snakes on a plane after all. But let's hope it never comes to that.

Coffee Shop Confessional

2006-03-22T16:55:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. By saying what I am about to say, I fully recognize that I am running the risk of alienating myself not only from my peers, but from my entire generation--which, the last time I checked, was Generation Y. Or maybe it's X to the power of three. I should consult Douglas Coupland on this, although I'm pretty sure that he too would shun me for what I am about to write here.

I don't like coffee shops.

Like, I really don't like them. I don't like patronizing them, writing in them, or socializing in them. What I particularly can't stand is loafing around in them, doing none of the above, just sitting around reading The New York Times as if I'm enjoying it and acting as though savouring the whole coffee shop experience is a valid pasttime unto itself (NB--I should say that I've actually never done this, but based on my observations of what people who like coffee shops do, it seems like a highly popular activity).

The thing is, I feel that I am completely and utterly alone in my anti-coffee shop sentiments. Sure, I tried to like them, back when I was 15, just like I tried to like Tori Amos music and wearing weird-smelling "vintage" clothing. But just like the other stuff, I found out soon enough that coffee shops just weren't me. Will this undeniable truth have a devastating impact on my career as a writer? Probably. Am I worried? Not enough to start haunting coffee shops, that's for sure.

Lest coffee shop fanatics read this and think that I am missing out, let me mention the coffee shop alternatives that I have found to be ultimately more satisfying in my post-teen years:

1. Timmie's: We're talking plastic chairs, fluorescent lighting, fast food-style service and flocks of friendly older folk fresh off the curling rink. It's about calling a "small" a "small" and a "large" a "large," the superiority of Timbits over tiramisu, and not feeling ashamed about reading the Sun sports section instead of Foucault. Not that I haven't been known to indulge in a little post-structuralist theory now and then--just not with my donuts, thanks.

2. Bars: You say chai latte, I say Courvoisier. Socializing need not be any less intellectually rigorous and almost always proves more entertaining in a bar or pub setting than at a coffee shop. The music is better (more AC/DC, less Jewel) and no one is going to be sitting there typing away at their laptop, making you feel guilty that you "forgot" to bring that file home from the office.

With these two viable alternatives to turn to, I've not really missed the coffee shop these past few years. I wonder why it even seemed like a good idea in the first place--I think So I Married An Axe Murderer made the whole coffee shop scene look like more fun than it actually is. So there's my confession. Needless to say, no coffee shops were frequented during the composition of this blog entry.

Operation "Give 'R"

2006-03-20T19:43:00.000-05:00

Canadians and Americans do a lot of things differently. Football. Health care. Same-sex marriage. The pronunciation of "foyer." The list goes on. Being a Canadian, I tend to like our way of doing things better. Sometimes I think that I should use the time that I am spending living in the U.S. to help promote the "Canadian way." But where to start? Americans have been doing things their own way for a hell of a long time now, and they don't generally have a track record of being open to foreigners' suggestions for change. So I've decided to start small. All I'm asking is that Americans try substituting one simple Canadian phrase for its lower-grade American equivalent. This move can be represented with the following equation:

"Git 'Er Done" (U.S.) = "Give 'R" (CAN)

It's that easy.

Of course, I don't expect most Americans to be easily persuaded on this straight off the bat. So here's a few reasons why one should substitute "Give 'R" for "Git 'Er Done":

1. Fewer syllables.
2. Because of 1, can be compressed into a single word/grunt more easily.
3. Fits better on a t-shirt/tank top/gimme cap.
4. Sounds more like encouragement, less like a command (hence its essential Canadianness).
5. Scientifically proven to make your buddy push your truck out of the mud up to 10 times
faster when shouted repeatedly.
6. Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector is going to tank at the box office--why should your
cred go down with it?

Make the switch today! I guarantee you won't be disappointed. And just for being so open-minded to Canadian ways, I'll throw in another favourite Eastern Ontario phrase that can be used interchangeably with "Give 'R": "Kick 'R Down Hard!" (KHDH)

I don't expect a revolution overnight. But that's OK--if Americans have the patience for "trickle-down" economics, I'm sure I can wait a while for this. Just go on and give 'r, boys and let the Canadian invasion begin!

Go raibh maith agat!

2006-03-18T21:08:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Things for Which I Give Thanks to the Irish:

1. My ancestors
2. Pre-Rattle and Hum U2 (OK, throw in Achtung Baby. And a few tracks from Zooropa.)
3. Sinead O'Connor
4. Daniel Day-Lewis
5. Jameson's Irish Whiskey
6. My first shot of Goldschlager
7. My first barfight (as witness, unrelated to #6)
8. Shamrock Shakes (not sure the Irish had anything to do with these, but they're goood)
9. Rudy (different Irish, but it's just so darn heartwarming!)
10. The Kennedys

Oh Cousin Larry...

2006-03-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

As I look out my apartment window this grey and snowy March afternoon, I find myself searching for a little inspiration to get me through the last few weeks of slush and slop that stand between now and spring. Next to Lionel Richie songs, one of the best places to find inspiration that I've found is 80s sitcom theme song lyrics. I think the most heart-lifting of them all is "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now" (not to be confused with the equally praiseworthy 1987 Starship chart-topper "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"), the theme from everyone's favourite "assimilating to American ways is fun!" sitcom, Perfect Strangers. The next time you're feeling down, just think of that lovable Balki Bartokomous, emerging triumphant from the relentless spin of the revolving door that is a metaphor for the chaos of our lives. Forge ahead, brave souls! And may the story of your life also begin with a sweeping aerial shot of the Chicago skyline. You think it matters you don't live in Chicago? In the ambiguously-accented words of the eminent Balki: "Don't be ridiculous!"

(Lyrics by Jesse Frederocl and Bennett Salvay, courtesy of www.stlyrics.com)

Sometimes the world looks perfect,
Nothing to rearrange.
Sometimes you get a feeling
Like you need some kind of change.
No matter what the odds are this time,
Nothing's going to stand in my way.
This flame in my heart,
And a long lost friend
Gives every dark street a light at the end.

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream.
Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream.

The rain and thunder
The wind and haze
I'm bound for better days.
It's my life and my dream,
Nothing's going to stop me now.

HELLO WISCONSIN!

2006-03-13T21:56:00.000-05:00

"Stand in the place where you live...": a collection of some of the local signage on view on Madison's south and east sides.

My Vinyl: Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours"

2006-03-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

Now that the great iPod iAge is upon us, I fear that the album may not have much of a lifespan left. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; in 1950s and early 1960s, record sales were entirely singles-driven, which meant that you could spring for your 45 of "Monster Mash" without having to suffer through 14 additional tracks of dubious artistic merit that Bobby "Boris" Pickett never really wanted to cut in the first place. But sometime in the mid- to late 1960s, probably spurred in part by the seemingly cool, but frequently awkward and pretentious Beatles collaborations of the period, the album overtook the single as the prime currency of the music industry. Ideally, an album is more than the sum of its tracks. It has beautiful, sometimes controversial, cover art; it has personal, sometimes indecipherable, liner notes; it features a collection of songs that enter into conversation with one another, that resonate with and play off of one another; and, perhaps most important of all, an album has a production history, often sordid and laborious, the knowledge of which can give individual tracks a kind of weight and meaning that they would never carry on their own.

The album that I wish to pay homage to this evening is Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours." Its tracks hold up on their own as some of the best songwriting the 1970's had to offer, and Stevie Nicks' voice is exquisite as always. But it's the circumstances under which the band produced and toured "Rumours" that makes this album so fasincating and heart-rending to listen to. Whenever I hear "Go Your Own Way," I think of Stevie Nicks on tour, having to sing back-up to the song that Lindsey Buckingham wrote about her, while still in the midst of breaking up with him. And John McVie had to play bass on his ex-wife Christine's "You Make Loving Fun," a song she wrote about her new love. I can't think of another album that captures the moment a band emotionally imploded the way that "Rumours" did for Fleetwood Mac. And it sounds beautiful, that's the kicker--that they pulled off such flawless songs in the midst of utter dysfunction. So it is that for many years now I've been obsessed with the melodrama behind this masterpiece. It's just so...great.

The Van

2006-03-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

Last night I returned from my trip to Vancouver, after a very Trains, Planes and Automobiles-esque travel day that involved a messed-up hotel alarm clock, a five-hour flight delay, a three-hour drive from Chicago, and a couple hundred iPod tunes. But the flight was safe and the trip was excellent. My last visit to the "city of glass" was at the age of 8 (my main memory of which was renting mountain bikes, then getting pooped on by birds in Stanley Park), so there was a lot for my narrowed, skeptical Torontonian eyes to take in. And I have to say, I loved what I saw. I read in my trusty Lonely Planet travel guide that one in eight Torontonians would gladly give up living in their city for a chance to start over in Vancouver. I'm not about to start talking that kind of crazy talk, but I would like to share some of the sights from my visit that struck me as quintessential Vancouver and contrast them with the more familiar sights of Hogtown:

The SkyTrain: The platform at Waterfront Station is so bright, airy and full of mountain-sweet air, it almost beats a weekend at the cottage. I saw a couple of teens get off the train carrying snowboards. So Vancouver! Toronto equivalent: Getting a brief glimpse of the sun at the Davisville or Old Mill TTC stations, riders bundling up for the winter sport that is waiting for your bus/streetcar transfer.

Coal Harbour/English Bay: I could not stop taking pictures of trees, mountains, boats, boats in front of mountains and trees, trees in front of mountains, etc. People were just walking their designer-clad terriers past this scenery as if it was nothing to gawk at--I guess it starts to seem normal after a while. Perhaps it even gets boring. Crazy! I was so struck by the seaside vistas that I sat on a log, watched the boats and hummed Gordon Lightfoot songs. Toronto equivalent: That's a tough one, as mountains and ocean are hard to compensate for. Kew Beach in August, with the sailboats barely visible on the hazy horizon of Lake Ontario, would have to be my pick. Just don't swim in the water. Or wade in it. Actually, just stay away from it altogether. That's what swimming pools and oceans are for.

Gastown: Cobblestone streets, quaint old brick buildings, Native art stores and western outfitters that got me hankering for my prospecting days. Toronto equivalent: Not being much of a Western outpost (except in the sense that it is west of Montreal), you can't really experience the same historical flavour in a Toronto neighbourhood. I guess your closest bet is the Distillery District. Alcohol played a strong part in the founding of both Toronto and Vancouver and residents continue to pay homage to this fact.

Other points of interest:

Yaletown: Snazzy retail, hipster restaurants, hot cars. Toronto equivalent: I think even an objective observer would say that Yaletown's offering of this particular combination of urban elements is modest in comparison to the ever-burgeoning King/Adelaide/Richmond entertainment district. Vancouver will get there, but well, we have more space to party. Sometimes a lack of mountains comes in handy.

Chinatown: Distinctly more old school than its Toronto counterpart. The neon signs are most excellent.

Robson Street: To a Torontonian, it's like Bloor Street and Yonge & Eg. all rolled into one, which is actually really convenient. Could we look into that?

Vancouver International Airport: It takes less than twenty minutes to get there from downtown and the drive takes you through gorgeous Kitsilano. No traffic jams on the 401, no endless maze of off-ramps to find your terminal. And inside, there's tranquil fountains and nature exhibits. The Toronto Zoo isn't near as relaxing.

So Vancouverites, all in all, you have a lovely city. I won't go into detail about the sights of Main and Hastings, which I also visited, except to note that even the most seemingly fortunate cities always have their own share of horrific social problems. That said, I've never seen anything like that area in any city I've been in Canada, the U.S. or the U.K. Hopefully it will only get better--I don't think it could possibly get worse.

Maybe it's true that one in eight Torontonians would be fickle enough to leave their home for snow-free winters and copious mountain views. I, however, I am going to have to side with the other seven crazy enough to choose heinous smog, DVP gridlock, cavernous subway stations, and having to commute to, rather than commune with, nature over West coast paradise. Why? It's just the best. That's it. It may not seem to add up, but...it does. Yes, I'm biased. But in Toronto, that's kind of par for the course.

Westward the Woman

2006-03-01T20:17:00.000-05:00

My blog will be on a brief hiatus until next Monday, during which time I will be venturing "out West" to Vancouver. In the meantime, repeat this month's mantra as needed. I have one anecdote to report before I go, and that is that I found it highly amusing to discover that the same Gowan song, "Cosmetics," is featured in not one, but two episodes in the last season of Degrassi Junior High (the episodes are "Pa-Arty!", the one where Lucy throws a bash at her house while her parents are out, and the final graduation dance episode "Bye Bye Junior High"). I think it may have been the only song these kids ever partied up to (hey, it could be worse--it could have been Loverboy). To my American friends unfamiliar with the illustrious Gowan, he is a Canadian pop icon famed for such hits as the aforementioned "Cosmetics," as well as "Criminal Mind," "(You're A) Strange Animal," and "Moonlight Desires" (my personal favourite). Back in the pre-Chad Kroeger days of Canadian male vocalists, we were blessed with the more dulcet musical stylings brought to us by Gowan and his cohorts such as Gino Vannelli ("Hurts to Be in Love," "One More Sunset on L.A.," "Wild Horses") and Bruce Cockburn ("Lovers in a Dangerous Time," "Wondering Where the Lions Are," "Waiting for a Miracle"), not to mention pretty rocker boys Corey Hart and Bryan Adams. I distinctly remember having a CBC "Video Hits" cassette with Gowan's "Criminal Mind" on it--unfortunately, it disappeared after a party I hosted. Who would swipe a "Video Hits" cassette, I ask you? Then again, it was a pretty hot show. Every day after school, Dan Gallagher kept us on top of the pops. I think it's a good thing I'm headed back to the home and native land for a few days. When you start keening for Gowan and Dan Gallagher's Video Hits, you know you've been gone too long. "These moonlight desires haunt me, they haunt me, they haunt me..."

This Month's Mantra

2006-03-01T13:21:00.000-05:00

Say you, say me.
Say it for always.
That's the way it should be.

Say you, say me.
Say it together, nat'rally.

-Lionel Richie, 1985.

"The Back Flip in the Long Program"

2006-02-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

With the close of every Winter Olympics comes a difficult period of adjustment in which we must deal with the fact that we have become over-saturated with detailed knowledge about a wide variety of winter sports. It is not so much the over-saturation that is difficult, but rather the reality that the bulk of this knowledge is going to collect dust for another four years (by which time we will have, of course, forgotten it, and thus need to be saturated again--so perpetuating the cycle). In the spirit of milking our newfound, collective status as Winter Olympic Experts just a little longer, I thought I would dedicate this post to the explication of a beloved idiom that my friends and I developed a few years back while sitting in a pub and watching (what else?) an international figure skating competition. Here it is:

"back flip in the long program"

Origin: In women's figure skating, back flips are verboten. Not really sure why; if anyone has some insight into this, I'm curious. Quite possibly the issue is an aesthetic one. At any rate, if a female skater performs a back flip in international competition, she is disqualified. At one time, there was a French skater named Surya Bonali who always seemed to come up short in the medal department, but had a kick-ass back flip (bear with me here, the point is coming). I seem to recall that on the particular day my friends and I happened to be watching Bonali skate on television, she had a messy fall partway through her long program that would have put her out of medal contention. But she finished the program with a back flip and so was disqualified instead of having to face the indignity of placing fifth (or whatever it was).

Usage: "Back flip in the long program" can be used to describe any situation in which someone purposefully screws themselves over to avoid embarrassment/failure. It's like, you know you're going down anyway, so you compensate for your shortcomings by grabbing an alibi.

Painful personal example: Back in grade 8, I went to all the school dances, hoping that the boy I had a crush on would ask me to dance. But whenever the d.j. threw on a slow song (Stevie B.'s "Because I Love You (The Postman Song)"--aaahh! again, the parentheses!--still has some particularly bitter associations for me) , I wouldn't hang around the edges of the gym, waiting for the invitation to dance that I knew wasn't coming. Nosirree--I bolted out to the hall with my friends, where we made sarcastic comments about all the dorky people who were sentimental and sappy enough to actually dance to a slow song to begin with. A clear-cut case of back flip in the long program. Had I stayed in the gym, I, like Surya Bonali, would have only had to face my disappointment head-on. Better to disqualify one's self with flair.

So there you have it. I encourage you to go forth and use this turn of phrase whenever you believe it is apt. Just remember, if you actually pull too many back flips in the long program, you'll never make it to the podium. And yes, that can be construed as a sexual metaphor.

Studies in Skid Culture #2

2006-02-27T22:43:00.000-05:00

Re: The Skids in the Hall 23/02/2006

I am adding this post to my newly begun collection of Internet references to skid culture:

Fries with Gravy: Metal Skids Unite!

Note that G'N'R is key. More to come...

Of Pop Grammatology

2006-02-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

While writing yesterday's post, I was reminded of one of life's great mysteries (as opposed to Father Dowling's Mysteries) that I really really really wish someone could solve and that is this:

What the hell is up with song titles with embedded parentheses?

Examples:

I'll Be Loving You (Forever)
(You Got It) The Right Stuff
Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)
(I've Had) The Time of My Life
All Night Long (All Night)
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection
Get Up! (Before the Night Is Over)
(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me
My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)
Whoomp! (There It Is)
I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
Sweat (A La La La La Long)

And the list (not to mention, the beat) goes on. Perhaps the part in parentheses is secondary, like if you were writing up the song in a magazine article or high school essay (eg. 300 words on "Why I Think Nelson Is The Awesomest") you could drop that part if there wasn't enough room to print it. This makes sense in some cases, but not in others (ie. "Whoomp").

I will say that in the instance of Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), the parentheses actually make sense grammatically. If I'm not mistaken, words in parentheses should be either explanatory or qualifying (props to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English). The qualifying thing definitely explains the Meat Loaf song, and also "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" (those New Kids weren't going to be tied down). But the rest, not so much. (It's Just) and (I've Had)? Which episode of Schoolhouse Rock were these people toking up to?

Whether arbitrary or artistic, the only people worse than pop music songwriters about deliberately reckless punctuation are deconstructivist theorists, but their thing tends to be more the "/" than parentheses. Maybe there's some kind of punctuation turf thing going on here, I don't know. But somehow, some way, I am going to (get to the bottom of this).

Jordan Knight: I'll Be Loving You (Forever)

2006-02-26T16:29:00.000-05:00

I have never been able to explain how particular songs get stuck in my head at various points during the day and have ceased to be alarmed at the zany randomness of this phenomenon. So it was that around 10:15 am this morning I found the New Kids on the Block's "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" looping incessantly through my mind. I actually haven't listened to this song nearly half as many times as most other women of my generation--not because I was not a consummate "New Kids" fan (had my life gone according to the master plan I devised at age nine, Jordan Knight and I would have now been happily married for approximately eight years, ten if the plan had involved getting married in Tennessee, which it didn't), but because I feared that by listening to my New Kids tapes too often, I might somehow damage them and suffer the horrible fate of never being able to listen to them again.

Despite my cautious listening habits, I did become intensely familiar with the entire New Kids canon. While I would not be likely to defend the artistic merit of many of their songs now that my pre-teen obsession with them is long past, I stand by the quality of Knight's solid interpretation of 1970s soul ballad style. His cover of the Delfonics' "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)" (a deep cut on the "Step By Step" album) is bang-on as far as vocal stylings go--the only problem is the late 1980s pop slickness of its instrumentals sadly pales in comparison to the rich, melodramatic strings of the original (which I intend to put on my turntable as soon as I complete this blog--damn, that's a good song).

The point is, however, that it is one of the gross injustices of the American music industry that Jordan Knight's singing career had to go down on the same ship as the rest of the members of New Kids on the Block. Thankfully, Donnie Wahlberg's acting career was somewhat salvaged, due to the near-miraculous comeback from early 1990s cheesedom pulled off by his younger brother. It hardly seems fair that a guy who went by "Markie Mark," hung out with the "Funky Bunch," churned out C + C Music Factory rip-offs and got famous on the gimmick of dropping trou with abandon now has an A-list movie career, while the very talented, and much classier, Jordan Knight is stuck playing this evening at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Indiana.

It seems to me that in certain situations, there should be a statute of limitations on boy band excesses. I would like to cite the Justin Timberlake precedent and argue that Jordan Knight has repaid his debt to popular culture and deserves to be redeemed. The guy can really sing--which is more than can be said for most pop idols, past or present. If you have any doubts, I can lend you my pristine New Kids cassette collection. Then again, I'd rather not. Just take my word for it. Oh yeah--and he's still pretty cute too.

The Skids in the Hall

2006-02-23T22:17:00.000-05:00

At my high school, one of the most well-defined, and most populous, demographic groups was the "skids." Thinking back, it is clear to me that calling someone a "skid" was a highly offensive thing to do. I don't really know where the phrase comes from, but it is pretty obvious that it must be in some way derived from "skid row" and thus laden with derogatory class connotations. But I don't remember the "skids" being defined entirely according to class. And if you were a skid, it wasn't really an insult to be called one; skids frequently referred to themselves as such. All this does not exonerate the wrongness of the term--if any skids happen to be reading this blog, please take this as an open apology for any injury our collective use of this term caused you. That said, the origins and definition of the term itself deserve further exploration.

Strangely, the meaning that "skid" took on in my high school's vernacular are not easily located in dictionaries or even websites devoted to Canadian slang. Evidently, "skid" is a narrowly regional term, but I believe that the individuals to whom this term refers are far more ubiquitous. The fictional characters that most accurately capture the skid persona are Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar--no coincidence I'm sure, as Mike Myers must have known a few skids growing up in Scarborough, Ontario. To my memory, identifying characteristics of skids include the following:

Music tastes: Heavy metal (eg. Warrant, Motley Crue, Metallica), occasionally country

Dress code-Guys: Ripped jeans, metal band/beer t-shirts under plaid flannel long-sleeve shirt, wallet chain, frayed baseball cap with beer/agricultural product logo, tattoos

Dress code-Chix: Skin tight jeans, tall boots, cleavage-baring tops, large hoop earrings, leather bomber jackets, tattoos

Hair-Guys: Mullet

Hair-Chix: Mullet or big and long (a la Pam Anderson)

Vehicles: Trucks, ski-doos (snowmobiles), or most commonly, truck carrying ski-doo in back

Beverages: Two-four

TV Programs: Pro wrestling, Baywatch, Cops

Leisure activities: Smoking, ski-dooing, field/pit parties, fornicating, fighting, vandalism

Celebrity mentors-Guys: McKenzie Brothers, Axl Rose

Celebrity mentors-Chix: Pamela Anderson, Lita Ford

What I want to know is, if there were/are individuals who more or less matched this profile at your high school, did/do they call themselves "skids"? If not, how are they designated? And if you yourself were a skid, did you wear the label with pride, or did you deeply resent it? The time has come for some serious inter/intra-skid dialogue, so crank some Ozzy, crack open some brews, pull up a seat by the bonfire and let it all out.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Bond Fan's Scorn

2006-02-22T21:39:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of anger out there in the world, but little did I know until today how much of that anger can be attributed to the hordes of James Bond fans who are getting ready to boycott Casino Royale because of how un-Bondworthy they believe Daniel Craig (the new Bond) to be. An entire movement is mobilizing against the poor bloke on www.craignotbond.com. Sample withering criticisms include:

"the bottom of the barrel"

"skinny, craggy and wholly unimpressive" (craggy Craig! Sorry, it had to be done)

"extraordinarily less handsome and charismatic than any one of the men who played Bond"

And...

"a round 0 out of 10, a number that surely matches his moon-faced countenance!"

Ouch. Not since the debut of America's Next Top Model has such a sweltering blow been dealt to the age-old happy-fuzzy axiom "It's what's on the inside that counts." Apparently Bond is in the eye of the beholder. If the anti-Craig movement wins the day and forces Eon/MGM/Sony to re-open the casting call for the next instalment in the series, I believe they should look no further than Colin Farrell to re-vamp Bond for the next decade of the new millenium. Farrell shares many qualities with the current International Bond Standard (IBS), that being Sean Connery (no arguments accepted, challenges may be forwarded to the International Bond Tribunal in the Hague): both speak with sexy brogues, both are tall, dark and handsome, and both definitely have a way with the ladies. Farrell's casting would necessitate that a few small changes be made to the classic Bond persona: the vodka martini, shaken not stirred would be replaced by pints of Guinness, 007's suave, sophisticated Bondspeak would be infused with copious profanity, and he may become embroiled in more than a few pesky sex tape scandals. But having Farrell as the new Bond would re-vitalize the screen hero's image and perhaps do worlds of good for Anglo-Irish relations. And, I have no doubt, should the Bond fanatics behind the current backlash against Daniel Craig decide to attack Farrell, they would likely get as good as they gave, and then some. So there's my vote for who the new Bond should be. In the meantime, can someone give this Daniel Craig guy a hug? He has feelings too. After all, it's not easy being Bond...

Where's My Stash?

2006-02-19T17:05:00.000-05:00

Much like the cropped mesh tank top, the mullet and tiger-striped Zubas pants, it seems like the moustache (or "stash," as it's colloquially termed) has become obsolescent from men's fashion. While we may not question the rightness of the former items' expulsion from the hip male's style lexicon, I believe the stash is a more complicated case and as such is deserving of a moment's reflection. Without a doubt, in its heyday, the well-groomed stash was a symbol of swashbuckling virility. Cases in point: Chuck Norris, Tom Berenger, Rob Reiner, Barney Miller, Mr. Kotter, Lionel Richie, Lanny McDonald, Larry Csonka...the list goes on. Of course, the ultimate Stash belonged to Tom Selleck as Magnum, P.I. (N.B.--I never really understood why Richard Dean Anderson didn't follow his lead where the stash was concerned, as it would have been particularly cool for MacGyver to have been able to pull the odd toothpick or safety pin out of his stash in a hairy situation). I believe the death knell for the stash sounded that fateful day in 2001 the world's other eminent stash icon, Alex Trebek, chose to lose his. True, he grew it back, and other prominent stashes, such as those sported by Prince and Victor on the Young and the Restless have never left us. But it seems to me that unless one sports an authentic, vintage stash (ie. one that dates back to circa 1987), one cannot now have a stash whose glory is not tainted by the trappings of post-modern irony (incidentally, "moustache" and "pastiche" sound a lot alike). Could the stash one day rise again? If so, who should be its saviour? Bono? (no--he has enough on his plate already) Prime Minister Stephen Harper? Simon Cowell? George Clooney? Hold the phone--there's an idea. Is there anything George Clooney can't do, really? He even gave the stash a trial run in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (and as I recall, it was pretty stash-tastic). Alright, I hereby leave it to George Clooney to single-handedly resurrect the stash to its former glory. If he could only manage to simultaneously banish the soul patch in the process, all would be right with the world.

Coincidence? I Think Not.

2006-02-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

Over the past two weeks, I have purchased a slew of Jerry Bruckheimer films on DVD, including The Rock, Crimson Tide, Con Air, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Bad Boys II and Black Hawk Down. Then, in today's mail, I received an envelope from the U.S. Marine Corps inviting me to train to be a Marine Corps Officer. Is it possible that Pentagon has joined forces with Amazon.com? Naaah...

One-Minute Sports Reel

2006-02-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

Top 5 Winter Olympic Events that Likely Have Their Origins in a Dare and/or Freak Accident Someone Managed to Miraculously Survive and/or Norwegian Drinking Game:

1. Ski jump

2. Freestyle Aerials

3. Luge

4. Skeleton

5. Ice Dancing

The Mix Tape: A Dying Art

2006-02-13T17:46:00.000-05:00

As a companion to my last entry, which addressed the proper selection of Valentine's Day viewing material, I would like to address the related issue of the proper selection of a Valentine's gift. The gift that I have chosen to feature may not be just the ideal Valentine's gift; it may in fact be the ideal gift for any and every possible situation. What is this magical object? The answer is none other than the mix tape. First off, I want to clear up any confusion regarding the mix tape's ontological status. A mix CD is not the same as a mix tape. They might seem like functional equivalents, however, as anyone who considers themselves a master of the mix tape craft will tell you, significant differences exist. Remember your Marshall McLuhan, kids: the medium is the message. Burning CDs is a fast and loose kind of process. Sure, you select the tracks and choose the order in which they'll play, but it's all over in a matter of minutes, and you don't have to listen to a single song that you've picked for your giftee. Now, dubbing a mix tape takes time, patience, and dedication, as you must not only select the songs, but cue them up and listen to them from start to finish, in real time, while the recording process takes place. It is this latter stage that keeps the dedicated coming back to the art that time is rapidly forgetting. Unlike burning a CD, or (the unthinkable) making an iPod playlist for your loved ones, making a mix tape involves taking the time to experience the musical memories that you wish to share with them. Indeed, by the time the tape's finished, you may even find yourself writing heartfelt liner notes inspired by the mix tape crafting process. Hopefully a few artisans will keep the mix tape alive in years to come. I suppose the real question is, will anyone still be able to play them? Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right?

Saving All My Love for You

2006-02-11T18:01:00.000-05:00

Whether single or attached, the last way anyone wants to spend their Valentine's Day is in video store purgatory. Movies can provide fine holiday entertainment this time of year, however selecting the right combination of films is a task every bit as difficult as choosing the right shiraz to go with your $200 Valentine's dinner. In fact, it's more difficult, because there are so very many bad, bad choices to be made. So here is a menu of viewing options that, much like the wine list at the $200 dinner, will help you to choose high-quality products that will enhance your overall Valentine's experience:

(The list is comprised of films to be viewed in combination. Of course, they can also be viewed individually, but the richly satisfying interplay of flavors will be sarcificed.)

1. Valley Girl + Peggy Sue Got Married + Moonstruck
Young, vulnerable, dashing Nick Cage at his romantic comedy best. The "Melt With You" montage sequence in Valley Girl is one of the most get-you-right-here portraits of young love in contemporary cinema. Too bad Burger King had to go and totally ruin that song in one fell Whopper campaign swoop a few years back. But in 1983 it was pretty much perfect.

2. The Sure Thing + Say Anything
Young, vulnerable, dashing John Cusack at his romantic comedy best. It is my belief that amalgamating 1980s Nick Cage with 1980s John Cusack would produce the Platonic ideal of twenty-something man (and for this reason, their films should be required educational viewing for all males under the age of 18--along with Dirty Dancing, of course). The Sure Thing is a loopy, sometimes tasteless sex comedy, but it packs a heartstring-pulling emotional wallop in one of its final scenes via Lionel Richie's Penny Lover. And as for Say Anything, it's the It's a Wonderful Life of Valentine's Day. Watch and learn, boys, watch and learn.

3. Sixteen Candles + Pretty in Pink + Some Kind of Wonderful
In the 1980s, John Hughes made more than his fair share of contributions to the canon of teen romantic comedy classics and it is impossible to watch these films too many times. Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink both of course feature the feisty Molly Ringwald triumphing over adversity to win the fantasy boy of her dreams. But they also feature the bittersweet musings of the young men whose hearts she lays waste to in the process: the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall) and Duckie (John Cryer). Hence the inclusion of Some Kind of Wonderful in the mix: just when the melancholy induced by the first two films gets to be too much to take, you get to see Keith (Eric Stoltz) break quirky sidekick Watts' (Mary Stuart Masterson) heart, only to recant when he realizes what he's been missing. Stellar soundtracks for all three as well.

4. Peggy Sue Got Married + Chances Are + Big
Should the Nick Cage, John Cusack or teen love combos suggested above not meet your tastes, the more nuanced category of 1980s romantic-comedies- involving- time- travel-and/or-reincarnation might hit the spot. For the merits of Peggy Sue Got Married, see #1 above. Chances Are is a screwball romp that features surprisingly delightful chemistry between the dreamy Robert Downey, Jr. and the always fabulous Cybill Shepherd. And Big, well, it's exhibit A for why Tom Hanks should never have stopped doing comedy. With respect to both Chances Are and Big, it's best not to dwell too long on the full implications of the age and body-shifting plot twists, as they are indeed kind of creepy in terms of sexual dynamics. Just go with it and let the soaring Cher and Peter Cetera "Chances Are" theme carry you away on a crest of romantic bliss.

5. Say Anything + Singles + Jerry Maguire
The first of two auteur-based combinations on the list, this one provides a definitive collection of Cameron Crowe's sentiments on romance through the ages, from high school to mid-life-crisis. I personally admire this triology because these films wear their hearts on their sleeves. They are cinematic kryptonite for cynics and are thus routinely shunned by hipsters. But in the game of love, you've got to play to win and Mr. Crowe shows us all how to put it out there. Coincidence he's married to Nancy Wilson of Heart? I think not.

6. Reality Bites + Before Sunrise/Before Sunset
In the 1990s, love, along with every other emotion, was shot through with angst and Ethan Hawke was the gorgeous, skulking, greasy-haired embodiment of this. In Reality Bites, he and Winona Ryder became the decade's quintessential couple. In Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, he and Julie Delpy bring one of American cinema's all-time best romances to the screen, right up there with It Happened One Night and Annie Hall, in my opinion. Definitely required Valentine's Day viewing.

Still undecided? Perhaps one of these last three more eccentric combinations will appeal:

7. Bonnie and Clyde + Badlands + True Romance + Guncrazy
Fugitive couple crime films are hot. There's more carnage than comedy, and happy endings are not an option, but when it comes to raw sexual energy, few mainstream Hollywood films can compete with this rock'n'roll sub-genre. Just don't try any of the illegal stuff at home.

8. Romeo + Juliet + Moulin Rouge
If you're having trouble feeling any emotion in your hardened heart these days, these two selections from Baz Luhrmann's opus are guaranteed to beat your sentiments back into shape. You might have trouble closing your eyes, sitting still, or breathing normally afterwards, but this can be easily remedied by taking two Nora Ephron films before bed on a full stomach.

9. Rocky + The Karate Kid
Since this Valentine's Day coincides with the XX Winter Olympiad, you may be feeling like less movie romance and more athletic ass-kicking. Rocky and The Karate Kid are glowing illustrations of why pure love is more powerful than steroids.

Made in the U.S.A.

2006-02-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

Lest it be assumed, based on my last three posts, that my pontifications are limited to 1980s pop culture and do not span into the present, I have chosen to devote today's entry to my favourite current television show, MTV's Made. For the uninitiated, Made is a "reality" tv show with the ostensible goal of helping average American teens realize their dreams, while of course having fun and coming to an easily-encapsulated-in-fifty-words-or-less sense of self-knowledge along the way. Here is a sampling of a few choice episodes:

the sensitive jock who wants to become a ballet dancer
the shy tomboy who wants the female lead in the school play
the band geek who wants to be crowned a pageant queen
the skinny nerd (male) who wants to join the wrestling team
the skinny nerd (female) who wants to be a cheerleader
etc., etc. (for more examples, visit MTV's hopelessly unnavigable website).

In each episode, the protagonist is a wholesome, down-to-earth, more or less emotionally stable kid. Of course, these kids have a few problems, but that's why they're on Made--so that MTV can whip up a 28-day, action-oriented solution to their teen angst that, if successful, will help them to disavow the realities of adolescence and adopt a perky, all-American, can-do attitude the likes of which we haven't seen in TV teens since The Brady Bunch went off the air.

So how does this mythical journey unfold, you ask? Here's a brief synopsis of the narrative arc that characterizes most episodes of Made, accompanied by my notation of the various blatant fallacies embedded within it:

We meet the teen/hero. Teen does not fit in at school, as evidenced by the fact that they do not belong to the "popular" crowd [blatant fallacy #1: entry to the popular crowd = instant happiness]. We get a glimpse of the "in" crowd, which is contrasted with the teen's friends. We are asked to empathize with this teen's feeling that his or her high school experience is in some way deficient. This feeling is frequently compounded by there being a big brother or sister in the picture who is perfect in every way and rubs this in with our teen/hero at every opportunity [I must confess, the bitchy blonde big sisters are my favourite, but that's probably because I never had one].
The teen/hero identifies a goal that they have . They believe that if they could somehow meet this goal, they will be able to have a beautiful, fulfilling high school experience [blatant fallacy #2: there is no such thing as a beautiful, fulfilling high school experience].
The teen/hero meets their Made coach. This individual is an expert in the field associated with the teen's dream and has been assigned to basically kick his or her ass repeatedly over the course of one month in order to ensure that dream gets realized (kind of like Mr. Miyagi, but sadly minus the Buddhist enlightenment factor).
The teen/hero's road to success is a rocky one. Along the way, they usually build up enough confidence from the progress they're making towards their goal to think that it's a good idea to ask out somebody who's way out of their league [blatant fallacy #3, and damn, is it a pervasive one: it is never a good idea to ask out somebody who's way out of your league]. This pretty much always crashes and burns [which sort of acknowledges the reality of blatant fallacy #3]. Further conflict ensues when the old, uncool friends start getting pissed that the teen/hero not only wants to ditch them, but has solicited the help of a national TV show to do so. Family conflict may flare up as well, particularly in situations where the parents were slackers/nerds in high school and feel threatened by their progeny's quest to better themselves.
The teen/hero finally (like in the last 5 minutes of the show), takes a test that will determine whether or not they have met their goal. And here's where it gets super-interesting, in my opinion, for a mainstream American tv show: the teens usually FAIL! OK, they don't totally fail. The band geek won Miss Congeniality, the skinny nerd (female) made the junior varsity cheerleading team, the shy tomboy got a speaking part in the play. But they aren't blazing success stories either--especially in a country where world-class figure skaters, Democratic presidential candidates and that Bo Bice guy from last season of American Idol are berated for coming in second in their respective arenas of competition. [NB: Now, with Canadians it's a different story. We're willing to designate friggin' national holidays for people who come in fourth.] At any rate, Made tries its darndest to gloss over the fact that its protagonists come up short in their quests to attain their goals [which brings me to blatant fallacy #4: it's not about winning or losing, it's about how you play the game. Yeah, right. Jerry Bruckheimer ain't never making your biopic if you believe that kind of claptrap].

As with any kind of journey (except for "Journey," who will be the subject of a later entry), lessons are learned along the way. Here's a few that I gleaned for myself from repeated viewings of Made:

Popular girls are nice.
Popular guys are nice.
Pageants, especially the mettle-testing swimwear competition, can be the answer to one's self-esteem problems.
Forcing oneself to conform to dominant notions of gender identity that feel completely and utterly foreign to one's self isn't as bad as feminist theorists make it out to be. Especially if there's a chance it'll impress a boy.
High school can be fun--you just have to have the right attitude and a willingness to repress certain personality traits.

Perhaps what I like best about Made is how it makes a highly persuasive case that this is how the American high school experience should be: everyone can participate, everyone can get along, everyone is entitled to social climb as high as is decently possible, everyone can have a great yearbook photo, everyone can be a team player, everyone can love high school from the bottom of their hearts if only those hearts are open to the possibilities of personal betterment. What's that? You disagree? Sounds like somebody needs an attitude adjustment! You'd better sit yourself down and watch a few more episodes of Made.

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

2006-02-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

When I was in the third grade, there was no slumber party contraband hotter than Dirty Dancing. Some girls in my class had parents who banned them from watching it. Other girls--the Dirty Dancing pushers, if you will--had parents who not only let them watch it, but willingly rented it for sleepover exhibition. Talk about badass! At any rate, by year's end, every single girl in the class had seen the movie at least half a dozen times. Now, normally I do not ascribe to the tantalizing, Althusserian notion that when a person watches a Hollywood movie, he or she soaks up its ideological poison like a sponge. But I make an exception when it comes to the reception of Dirty Dancing among pre-teen girls circa 1987-1988. That movie f***ed with our heads, man, and here's why: it propagated the idea that every girl deserves, nay, has the God-given right to find a man who can dance. More specifically, a man who can dance like Patrick Swayze.

After being indoctrinated with this fallacy at a young age, I entered my teen years outfitted with fantasies of having the time of my life practicing lifts in a lake at sunset, or mambo-ing into the spotlight with a dance partner every bit as talented (and looking every bit as hot in black polyester pants and a cummerbun) as Swayze's Johnny Castle.

Sadly, after a few junior high dances, the reality began to sink in that I'd been duped. Not only do very few men dance like Johnny Castle; the vast majority of men hate dancing, period. Except for spit-swapping slow songs, and the odd fool-proof, family- reunion- calibre standard (eg. "Y.M.C.A."...insert Sideshow Bob shudder...), most guys wouldn't get out on the dance floor unless their lives depended on it (as in, "Alright, we'll spare you--but only if you can shake it like Beyonce").

The worst part is, most guys I know think that not dancing is a good thing. For some bizarre reason, they think that not dancing and "looking cool" trumps making an effort and looking like a dork. But they're wrong! One need look no further than Patrick Dempsey's tour de force solo number in Can't Buy Me Love as evidence of the fact that it's all about the "E" for Effort when it comes to impressing girls on the dance floor.

There are, of course, guys who love to dance. However, they're in the minority as far as I can tell. And so it is that women the world over become harshly disillusioned in their quest to find the Patrick Swayze to their Jennifer Grey. And men take the blame for only doing what they honestly believe to be cool. Sigh. Why couldn't my friends' parents have just gone and rented friggin' Howard the Duck instead?

Overworked and Undersaxed

2006-02-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, I thought I should take a moment to observe one of the most glaring deficiencies of today's pop music: the dearth of sultry saxophone solos. Nothing sets the scene for romance like a smooth, seductive sax solo. Not to mention the fact that "sax" is one vowel away from "sex" (as are "six," "sox," and "sux"--but that's beside the point). So why is the sax solo conspicuously absent from pop tunes these days? To craft an unsubstantiated yet highly convincing answer to that question, we must first re-visit the sax solo renaissance that was mid-1980s pop music. A glance at Billboard's Top 100 of 1984 reveals a goldmine of sax virtuosity: Sade's "Smooth Operator," Wham's "Careless Whisper," Lionel Richie's "Hello," Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen"....But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the sax solo entered its baroque phase. In other words, it got out of control and started to piss people off. Michael Bolton and Kenny G. are the standout figures in this controversial period and their overindulgence is largely responsible for the sax solo's virtual extinction from pop music today. But it's been a while, and time heals all wounds, and...well...all I'm saying is to give sax a second chance. Because when it's right, it's ohhh sooo right. You know what I'm talking about. If you don't, slide on Tina Turner's "Private Dancer" this Valentine's season and engage in a night of casual sax--no strings attached.

I Heart Billy Hicks

2006-02-07T22:45:00.000-05:00

I dedicate this inaugural entry to one of the greatest characters of 1980s cinema, the one, the only Billy Hicks, as realized by Rob Lowe in the timeless classic, St. Elmo's Fire (dir. Joel Schumacher, 1985). Billy, I love your sexed-up saxophone stylings, your impeccable flair for skinny ties and turned-up collars, your ebullient promiscuity, and your zeal for all things "out of hand." You are a speaker of many truths, and despite what you say, you have the "right hair." I discovered these many charms of yours while in the midst of my mid-1990s adolescence and am so grateful that I did. I scrawled your wisdom on my binder in English class because there are fewer more powerful words for the young in Hollywood cinema as your poetic advice to Jules, spoken directly to the camera with a look of camraderie and condolence:

"We're all going through this. It's our time on the edge."

And it still is.

So Billy, this one's for you. Don't go changing just to please me.