This One's for Dougie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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!