Movies: The List

I just came back from the movies after watching The Wolverine with the J Man. Great movie. Not one of my all-time favourites, but very good.

And that got me thinking about my favourite movies. I’m not a movie buff, so there’s lot’s I haven’t seen, but I’m old, so I’ve seen a lot of movies. Number one on my list is – and always will be:

Apocalypse Now!

I’ve blogged about my favourite Vietnam movies (love the genre) and this one comes out on top on my all-time everything list as well. I’ve seen it many times, most notably at the front row (we were late) at the IMAX Theatre at the Cinesphere at Ontario Place. Always epic. The Director’s Cut is pretty awesome too. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like…victory.” Duvall damn near steals the movie – he’s that good.

The Departed

This was the movie where I learned to appreciate Leo’s craft. And if I had any doubts as to his action hero chops, they melted away quickly. It's Martin Scorsese’s best film, and he has directed some of the best movies ever produced in Hollywood.

Schindler’s List

The most evocative movie I’ve ever seen and a shining example of how true heroism can be found in the most unlikely places. A magnificent film.

Shawshank Redemption

This one is on everybody’s list, no? It’s on mine. Triumph of the human spirit stuff. A classic.

After the big four, I have a bunch of great movies that are on my list. I just can’t rank them. They’re all awesome. They include thrillers like the Bourne Identity, action movies like Raider’s of the Lost Ark and Die Hard, and classics like Casablanca (more memorable lines than any movie in history, with Apocalypse Now! a close second) and To Sir With Love.

There are sports movies like Bull Durham (I wish I’d written Crash’s speech to Annie), super hero films like The Avengers (spectacular)and Dark Knight and more Vietnam movies, such as Full Metal Jacket, Boys in Company C and Platoon.

I have courtroom drams like 12 Angry Men and Philadelphia, movies that I can’t even begin to categorize, such as Last Tango in Paris, and more thrillers like Untouchables and Blood Diamond. Coming of age films like Stand By Me make my list, as does Green Mile, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Rain Man.

I didn’t forget comedies and animated features either, such as Austin Powers: Goldmember (that behind-the-curtain scene with Austin and Mini-Me gets me every time), Mask, Aladdin and Kung Fu Panda.

And I can't forget The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, because it stars the wonderful and legendary (not to mention my sister-in-law) Mary Krohnert.

That makes 28 movies, which is a pretty arbitrary number. So I better post this now before I change my mind.

Maëlle, Kaley and the smokin’ cop

We’ve got a new guy on our crew this week. Young fellow – just 18 – and the son of one of our new investors.

He’s also a champion snowboarder in the Snowboard Cross discipline. “Number six in Canada,” Tyler tells me proudly, and it’s all true. I looked it up.

But while I think it’s very cool to be working with a potential future Olympian, I was more interested in hearing him talk about Maëlle Ricker, Canada’s gold medal darling from the Vancouver Olympics. They’re in the same discipline, see, and Tyler says that when he’s in training with the National Team, he trains with her every day.

Never one to let a golden opportunity slip by, I told him that the next time he sees her, to tell her that I love her. Then I told him again, in case he didn’t quite understand the urgency.

Maëlle Ricker is a multiple X-Games champion, an Olympic champion (becoming the first Canadian to win on home soil) and a role model for young Canadians and indeed, any aspiring athlete. She’s also beautiful, just a little bit goofy, and at a couple of months from her 35^th birthday, way too old for Tyler.

But not for me. Tell her, Tyler. Tell her that my unrequited love is tearing us apart.

Don’t worry about forgetting. I’ll remind you every day.

*

Speaking of unrequited love, I just heard that Kaley Cuoco and Henry Cavill broke up.

I didn’t even know they were dating. But given that Big Bang Theory is a Warner Brothers production and Warner Brothers owns DC it tells me that Kaley – and I love Penny on BBT to bits – is a real team player.

But I think she’s playing for the wrong team.

Now I think anyone who watches or even has heard of Big Bang Theory knows the characters (with the exception of Penny) are nerds/geeks and are fans of comic books.  They’re not fans of all comics, mind you. Just those in the DC universe. You know, Superman (who Cavill famously portrayed in this summer’s blockbuster smash, Man of Steel), Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc. Those are also the characters you’ll see on Sheldon’s t-shirts, as well as the characters which might get a plug on the show.

I’m not surprised Marvel doesn’t get any love on the show (though Raj did dress up as Thor in an episode and if I recall, got lucky) but Ms. Cuoco could be better off expanding her horizons in her personal life.

Just think of the stars she could be including in her social calendar from the Marvel universe: Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman, to name just a few.

Or even Scarlett Johansson.

Jes saying...

*

And while I’m on the subject of beautiful women, we met a stunningly gorgeous cop the other day.

We were on our way back from a job and we stopped at a bin at the Durham Centre to unload our yard waste.

And there she was.

She was standing between the garbage bin and her cruiser, taking a break and having a smoke. Now I quit 13 years ago and I no longer associate sexy with smoking, but I made an exception with this woman. She really made it work. All of us – there were five in the truck – were momentarily left with jaws agape. I can tell you my heart skipped a beat.

Then Jim made a joke about something and she smiled. And I melted into a puddle of goo.

Strong, powerful women have always excited me, and Durham Regional Police have been attracting quite a few women in that exclusive category into their ranks of late.

This officer was a perfect example of that hiring policy.

Please hire more.

Go, Go, GO station

While media attention was focused on police takedowns, assault charges and cries of corruption in Oshawa’s council chambers last week, a far more important issue was back on the radar in the Motor City.

The new GO Train station at the long-abandoned Knob Hill Farms site is a go again.

Well, here’s hoping anyway.

We all got excited a couple of years ago when Metrolinx declared it was building three new GO stations in Oshawa as part of an expansion of the train service into Clarington, with the main station to be located at the massive Knob Hills site off First Avenue.

This is the same First Avenue that lost Knob Hill Farms, its jobs and its cachet, in 2000. This is also the same First Avenue that watched as ... damn near nothing happened in the ensuing 13 years, unless you count a short-lived flea market as something significant. And yes, it’s the same First Avenue that lost Pittsburgh Glass Works in 2009 (a site occupied by a glass factory for nearly 100 years) and the entire Zellers Plaza membership list in the years that followed.

(Except for a furniture store where everything is on sale, all the time. Want a couch for $149? This is the place.)

Normally it’s pointless to cry over every neighbourhood that falls on hard times, but it’s called First Avenue because it’s the first important street you see as you come off the 401 at Simcoe, Oshawa’s main drag. With cars being built behind you and what looks like a ghost town in front of you, you’d forgive visitors if they thought they made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Detroit.

So when Metrolinx said two years ago the Knob Hills site was the perfect spot for the central GO station, we said, “yes it is,” and “build it please.”

That’s what I said anyway.

And then, just as quickly, Metrolinx pulled out, citing unspecified environmental remediation costs and the inability of the crown agency to agree on a price with the land owner. “No longer interested,” was the statement from November, 2011.

Now the deal is back on the front burner, as Metrolinx has decided that coy negotiating tactics weren’t going to work. They’re going to expropriate, instead.

It’s win-win for everybody, including the land owner, so shed no tears, please.  The land is currently generating zero revenue and is costing plenty in land taxes. Expropriation offers market value. And it offers the residents of Oshawa a solution to a huge headache that has plagued this city for a baker’s dozen years.

A new GO station would mean jobs and it would completely revitalize a historic and important neighbourhood, and a highly visible one, at that.

And it’s certainly far more important than changing regimes at City Hall.

That’s just politics.

Now if expropriation would only work for the Genosha Hotel, we’d be getting somewhere.

Yvonne Gone

Yesterday was a big day for the J Man.

First day of school for Grade Six. Not Big Man On Campus just yet – he’s got two more years for that – but it reminded me of my sixth grade year back at Yvonne Avenue Public School in Downsview.

Grade Six was the senior year for us in 1970 in the wacky world of the North York Board of Education, where junior high extended to the ninth grade, even though we were in the high school system by then. I (ahem) suffered through two teacher strikes in my high school days and during the first strike I stayed home while the other, less fortunate, Beverley Heights Junior High School kids had to go to school.

But I digress.

The reason I was reminiscing about my own Grade Six year is my old school has been reduced to a big pile of rubble. And I hate it.

I shouldn’t be surprised. The school has been closed for many years. A real long time, actually.

The school was occupied for brief periods over the past couple of decades – it was a temporary Catholic school for a while, and the community – where my Mom and Dad still live – made use of it for a spell as well – but mostly it was vacant, looking all the while like the Lord’s Manor, sitting up on the hill and gazing down on its subjects.

Truthfully, the school always looked bigger than it really was. There were maybe 120 of us in my final year – my happiest year in school (at least until college) – and enrolment was down to about 80 in the years before its closure. The neighbourhood got older and when new residents did move in they tended to gravitate to Catholic schools.

It happens.

But in all the ensuing years the school stayed in its noble spot: a reminder each time I came home of my childhood and its cherished memories.

Yvonne P.S. is where I grew up. It’s where I played on all the sports teams – two years on the soccer team, in fact – and I wore the school’s shiny gold jersey proudly. Yvonne is where we played shinny on the outdoor rink in the winter. It’s where I had my first kiss. Almost, anyway.

It’s where so many of the best memories of my youth spring from.

And now it’s gone. Yvonne is gone.

In its place the Toronto Catholic School Board will erect a new building to replace two local schools scheduled for closure: St. Gerard Magella, which opened across Black Creek from Yvonne after I finished Grade Six, and St. Phillip Neri, which has a history dating back to 1942.

The new school will be called St. Andre, commemorating a man of the cloth from Montreal who had a special connection with the sick and suffering and was so popular that more than one million people – virtually the entire population of Canada’s biggest city – viewed his funeral procession when he died in 1936. Brother Andre was beatified by Pope Benedict in 2010, the first Canadian male and the second Canuck overall to achieve sainthood.

So that’s good, I guess.

An old pal saved the school’s address letters from the demolition team, and a plaque honouring a long time janitor will be restored to its place of honour when the new school is built.

Also good.

That, and our memories, is all we have left.

Stan Lee

He is the legend. The Man. Stan The Man. And there he was on stage, mere metres from a thousand or so of his biggest fans, all of whom waited an hour or more in line just for a chance to see him; to hang on his every word.

Creator or co-creator of nearly every character in the Marvel universe. Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, Thor, Daredevil, Iron Man.  You could argue he is bigger than any super hero on the list. He is Stan Lee, and at 90 years old (91 on December 28) he ain’t slowing down just yet.

This is his thing now: talking to fans, spreading the good word about everything Marvel. Watching as his creations move to the big screen and make billions at the box office. He obviously loves his job (who wouldn’t?) and the fans – his fans – can’t get enough of him. They even ask him for marital advice – he’s been married for more than 65 years, which is not nearly as long as he’s been in the comics business – and they ask him about the secrets to living a long life.

“Don`t die,” is his response.

Eventually they get around to asking about the comics and how he came up with all those characters in the early 60s, launching the Silver Age of comic books. But if the fans were expecting some nuggets of comic writing brilliance, or even something he hasn’t told a few thousand times before, they would be disappointed.

But not too disappointed. It’s Stan Lee, man.

“I had to. It was my job,” answered the ever pragmatic Lee. “My boss asked me to come up with some superheroes and I had bills to pay, so I came up with super heroes.”

First out of the fertile mind of Lee was the Fantastic Four, which debuted in November 1961. The Hulk followed in May and in August 1962 he hit the home run with Thor and the Amazing Spider-Man.

Spider-Man, Marvel’s biggest star (besides Lee, of course), was also Lee’s favourite character, partly because the wall-crawler almost never made it into print, thanks to a sceptical Martin Goodman, Lee’s boss.

“I wanted a teenage super hero because there weren’t any of those around. And I wanted him to have problems,” he said, recounting a much-told tale that is never exactly the same with each telling.  “But my publisher thought it was the worst idea I’d ever had.”

“He said, ‘no one wants a teenage super hero – they’re only sidekicks. And no one wants a super hero with problems. That’s why they’re super heroes.’”

Lee decided to give his idea a shot in the Amazing Fantasy book, which was scheduled to be cancelled.

“We were killing the book so I figured I’d get it out of my system ‘cause no one cares what we put in the last issue,” he said. “After the sales numbers came in (Goodman) came back and said ‘remember that Spider-Man character we both loved?’”

These days Lee doesn’t get too creative anymore – though there is a movie in the works that features a brand new, Lee-created, Chinese super hero called the Annihilator – preferring to spend his time keeping an eye on his empire. He does voice-overs for animated features, works on new media projects, keeps an eye out for new artists/writers – “we always have to be on the lookout for new talent” – and hangs out with fans at conventions like Fan Expo.

The huge success of Marvel’s movie division has also been a pleasant diversion of late for Lee. The Avengers took in more than $1.5 billion and the Iron Man series has also been wildly successful. And we’re not even counting other Marvel properties, such as the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises, which are in the hands of other studios.

The films have been so successful, in fact, that there’s a back-up in the movie production department. The second Thor film opens this fall, the second Captain America movie will be released next year and Avengers 2, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are in production. That doesn’t leave much time for other projects, pleads one fan to Lee.

 “It’s not that Marvel and Disney don’t want to do it, but there are only so many days in the week and only so many people to do it,” Lee answers. “We’re trapped by our own success.”

After all these years and all these characters, another fan asked, was there a character he’d like a do-over on?

After some thought, Lee said, “maybe Diablo,” a villain he dreamed up in 1964.

“I was pressed for time on a Fantastic Four story and I don’t even remember doing it, so I guess I’d like a do-over on that. Did anybody even read that issue?”

One fan said he had and declared that it “wasn’t bad.”

“Oh well, I guess there’s nothing I’d do over,” he said to much laughter. “Everything’s great.”

By the way, Lee’s secret to marital bliss with wife Joan? Humility. “Here I’m being treated like royalty but at home she just wants to know if I took out the garbage.”

That’s why he’s Stan the Man.

Toadmageddon

It was Toadmageddon in Ajax this week.

Well, maybe not that bad, but there sure were a lot of them, and we found them in the worst possible spot. For them, anyway.

In the parking lot.

Toads have been getting some positive press these days, what with toad lovers around the world rallying to provide safe crossings for the little fellows as they head back to their spawning grounds by the millions in the spring. The carnage on the roads is pretty nasty at that time – toads, like people, will get pretty reckless when it comes to love and sex – so it’s understandable that people will want to give them a hand in their travels.

Considering all the stereotypes – you know, the warts and everything – I think it’s awesome there are people who will hop to it for the little toad. One friend of mine has named her local backyard toad and remains hopeful that a kiss will transform the creature into her Prince. I told her that only works with frogs, but she was not to be dissuaded.

Mr. Toad

Anyway, with all the fuss over the spring mating migration, there’s nary a hue and cry over what happens when they’re all done in the summer and it’s time to go back to wherever they came from.

Which brings me to the other day, when dozens of little fellows were found in the parking lots of a plaza in north Ajax, all blissfully unaware of the dangers as they hopped their way from the pond. All was good, in fact, until we got to the high traffic areas and we started to see the bodies.

The things they do for love, huh?

Safe travels, little toads.

While I’m on the subject of cute little critters, I saw a budgie on Highway 2 in Ajax, just the day after the toad episode.

For a second I thought I was back in Australia, where these brightly coloured birds hail from. This guy was scratching about in the dirt in the middle of the road and as we were stuck in a traffic jam, I got out and cautiously approached her with the hope of, I dunno, seeing her fly onto my hand, I guess.

No such luck, as she flew away to the apparent safety of the parklands on the south side of the road.

A true bird in a gilded cage, she was somebody’s pet and her chances for survival are slim. But I’m hoping for the best.

The beautiful Budgie

And finally, speaking of all creatures great and small, I come to my personal nemesis in nature: the wasp.

I have been stung dozens of times by wasps in my day, including twice on the lip (once in front of the National Monument in Washington, D.C.), so it’s obvious we don’t get along.

Most of the incidents occurred in my childhood, but I have been plagued by the little bastards in my grown-up days as well.

Today was the latest encounter.

We were beautifying the landscaping beside the drive-thru at a Tim Horton`s in Pickering when I felt the first sting on my wrist. In the second it took me to realize what was happening I noticed three things. One: I`m standing on top of a wasp nest; two: there are a couple of dozen wasps angrily buzzing around my legs (can you blame them?); and three: I got stung again. This time behind the knee, and it swelled up pretty quick.

Little bastards. Lucky I’m not allergic.

The Bastard Wasp

(While this is going on I see a couple of dudes having a good giggle in their car in the drive-thru. They threw up the windows pretty damn quick, though.)

Not counting the wasp which came between the back of my hand and the window in the truck on the way back to the shop, I do get my own back on occasion, however.

My favourite wasp story happened 20 or so years ago in Etobicoke. There was a nest on the outside of my two-storey walk-up that I didn’t think much about until I entered the apartment one summer’s day to find several hundred wasps, having burrowed their way through the walls, making themselves right at home.

What to do? My fiancee headed straight down the stairs to safety so it was up to me to be strong and do something.

Can't say my bookie would have given me great odds, but I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and waded into the fray. Thuuup. Thuuup. Thuuup. And so on, until the bag was full of angry wasps and our apartment was safe once again.

And I only got stung twice.

Little bastards.

Better Days

It’s been a nightmarish ten days. My dreams are of better days ahead.

I spent the weekend worrying about David, my Father-in-Law. I’m still worried, but the last report I have is of him sneaking past the nurses to steal a smoke outside not long after his surgery, so I guess I can relax on that front.

On Thursday I paid my respects to a friend who died of lung cancer, and spent the afternoon after the funeral offering support and listening to stories told by his family.

The same day Doug died – the previous Saturday – my boss and his wife had to deal with the death of her younger sister, who was killed after a late night collision with a tree in north Pickering.

The next day I’m hearing the sad news from a colleague that his Step-Mom is terminally ill, with a prognosis of only a week or so to live.

Damn.

We’ve been sending lots of love and positive energy to David, who checked in to Hamilton General to deal with an aneurysm near his stomach. Doctors discovered a nasty blood clot on his lung during the operation, so that wasn’t a great update, and the two transfusions, the collapsed lung and the bout with pneumonia that followed didn’t fill me with good vibrations either.

But, like I said, he’s already been seen escaping from the clutches of his captors to grab a smoke, so he appears to be on the mend.

You get yourself home, David, and let Lene take care of you. I’ll be paying you a visit in Burlington soon.

My hope for better days ahead for David was preceded by memories of the good ol’ days gone by with Doug, who is the older brother of my pal Colin. Our day with Doug was bittersweet, as these occasions tend to be.

Doug, or Pluto, as he was affectionately called (because he was out there), had always lived life to excess, from his soccer playing days back home in Scotland as a youth – he was quite the talent, once upon a time – to his later years as a hard-partying, hard-living man here in Canada.

So the announcement that he had cancer wasn’t in itself shocking, especially as he had been feeling poorly of late. He was given nine months, which could give he and his family time to plan; to prepare.

He was gone in three weeks, after the cancer spread to his brain.

The funeral was difficult, especially for his nephew Justin, who lived with Doug, but the stories told by his family at his wake – usually involving Uncle Pluto falling asleep (anywhere), running out of gas (everywhere), or drinking (almost any time), helped ease the pain somewhat.

Doug lived just a short walk from one of the properties we maintain, so I'll always remember meeting him in the darkness on  random mornings as he strolled to the store. He'd be up before dawn every day, as I am, and we'd always stop and chat.

I'll miss that.

Rest in Peace, Doug. You have a lovely family and you will be missed.

R.I.P. as well to Cheryl, and prayers and love to Brian’s Step-Mom.

Better days ahead.

The End of the Escort

“Ha ha, wow. That's awesome,” my son Cam laughed when I told him about how my car met her death at the hands of the Crusher. “At least she had an adventurous last day.”

My ’95 Ford Escort had been living on its last legs for most of the year-and-a-half that I owned it. When I bought it the rear struts were nearly gone and they gave up the ghost soon after. The tie rod ends – especially on the driver’s side – were toast a few months later, causing a great deal of concern with my tire guy, who I saw far too often.

“This is about to go,” he would say worriedly, as he wrenched on the wheel and shook it from side to side. “You really need to do something about this.”

I’ll get right on that, I would mumble, knowing full well I would do no such thing. I did add it to the list of Things That Need To Be Fixed on my car, however.

It was a long list. In addition to the struts and tie rod ends, the rest of the suspension was done in, making for a truly epic rough ride. I got used to it and got pretty skilled on avoiding big bumps, but my passengers always seemed ... a little nervous whenever they rode in my car. I also had a small oil leak – nothing major – and my radiator leaked as well, prompting my landlord to lay a car mat down on the driveway for me to park on.

It didn’t bother me much, but I know ol’ Bessie didn’t appreciate the gesture. Like wearing Depends, you know?

I put up with grinding brakes for a while as well, before the noise drove me to finally fix the front set, though a seized calliper on the passenger side (the pads were fine on that side, damnit!) meant we just did a three-quarter job.

Whatever.

For an $800 outlay I wasn’t going to stress myself out. I got 18 months out of that investment, so I considered myself lucky.

But all good things must come to an end, and deathtraps on wheels must as well. And so it was last week on Highway 2 in Ajax – not five minutes after I left work – when I lost all power and had to get it towed to my guy to assess the damage.

No compression, said Jerry. Timing belt, probably. Could be heads as well.

The bottom line is it would cost me a couple hundred dollars just to confirm that it would cost me at least a thousand bucks – probably much more – to fix it.

Not going to happen.

So the scrapper and a date with the crusher it is. The fact that Jerry only offered me the $90 I owed him for the car made that decision an easy one.

I arranged with a couple of buddies to help me get the car to the scrap yard – saves a ton of money that way – but when we arrived at Jerry’s shop on Wentworth Street we realized I may be able to get Bessie to the scrapper without a tow. Close, anyway. Worth a shot, says pal Steve.

I climbed in the driver’s seat (for the last time) and – when the way was clear on busy Wentworth – Steve and Adrian gave me a push and away I went.

It was 80 metres or so downhill to Nelson Street and I coasted there easy enough before turning right. Nelson was pretty flat but I had enough momentum to just make the crest in the middle of the 100 metre stretch to Waterloo before the stop sign loomed. A quick glance to my right and with no dangers (like oncoming cars - it was not a four-way) to contend with I was through the stop sign and turning left, down the slope towards the Gerdau Ameristeel Metals Recycling yard.

Now I’m picking up speed, and it’s about 150 metres to go, with Steve standing outside his pal’s truck, urging me to turn left into the scrap yard.

So I did. And I rolled right onto the damn scales. Just like I knew what I was doing.

Awesome!

With scrap prices at 8.5 cents a pound I wasn’t going to get rich selling Bessie to the crusher, but 2,800 pounds - minus 160 pounds to compensate for my sorry ass behind the wheel (don’t roll your eyes – I got the paper that says 160) – is still a lot of ’95 Ford Escort. That’s $224.50, to be exact, which is a damn sight better than the $90 Jerry offered me. Jeez, Jerry.

I’m picking up my next car today. A 2000 Chrysler Intrepid with 212,000 clicks on it for the bargain price of $800. (What else.) I`ve owned two Intrepids in the past and both experiences ended spectacularly bad, so I might be pushing my luck on this one.

At least I know I`ll have a few adventurous days with this car as well.

*

I remember, shortly before I bought my Escort, telling a former co-worker a few tales of woe about my lack of success with the ladies. Don`t you worry `bout that, Pizza Dude, said Pat. ``I’ll buy you an escort. ``

You still owe me $800, Pat.

Irie, Silver Medals and the Long Walk

I am currently without a car and I understand Durham Region Transit route schedules about as well as I understand how my new cell phone works.

So I walk a lot.

No car means I couldn’t do my part-time job (gotta earn that Pizza Dude nickname), so I had a free night Saturday and there was a reggae festival downtown I wanted to check out. So I walked.

From my house in the east end to my buddy Colin’s place, right in the heart of downtown – took 40 minutes. The walk a few streets over to the TD IRIE Festival at Memorial Park (after re-fuelling) took just a few minutes more.

IRIE is a celebration of Caribbean music – reggae, world music, soca, salsa and soul – that was born 11 years ago in Toronto. Along the way Mississauga was added and now Oshawa makes three (which is a reflection of Oshawa’s changing demographics, in case you were wondering), with more than 100,000 people expected to attend the three-weekend event.

Memorial Park was bursting with people Saturday night. The air was thick with the smell of roast fish, jerk chicken and oxtail, and reggae beats were blasting from the stage. The stylings of King Fabuloso, the Black Latino, to be exact, who describes his roots thusly: “I’m from New York, with Jamaican parents. Born Costa Riiiiica (you gotta kinda sing that last part), and I now live in Pickering.”

So there you go.

Anyhow, we didn’t stay long at the festival – Colin is not as big a fan of reggae as I am – but we caught the King’s entire set and I enjoyed some fried snapper on rice (with a little oxtail gravy). And we drank in the sights. Good music, a little dancing, and so many beautiful women.

Definitely worth the walk.

Speaking of walking, the walk home (after some more re-fuelling) took a little longer than the way there, but I think I was singing along the way.

That always slows me down.

**

I didn’t get a chance to catch any of the lacrosse action at the Civic this past week. That’s too bad: it’s not often we get treated to a World Championship of anything right in our backyard.

The United States, as expected, had little trouble winning the gold in the 2013 World Cup women’s lacrosse tournament, but Canada enjoyed its best ever performance by reaching the final against the mighty Americans.

The two games against the U.S. were Canada’s only losses in the tournament, in fact, though the scores in those two games weren’t close. The U.S. crushed our girls 13-2 in the preliminary game, while the gold medal game was more of the same, as the Americans didn’t break a sweat in winning 19-5.

But with four grads of the Oshawa Lady Blue Knights on the Canadian team, a silver medal and a packed grandstand for the final, the tournament can only be described as a huge success locally and for the national program.

As I said, I didn’t see any action, but I did run into the American team enjoying a post-match re-fuel at East Side Mario’s Thursday evening.

I couldn’t help but notice that they were all very young – early 20s – and they were all very beautiful.

The young part is easily explained. Field Lacrosse – especially for women – is a college game south of the border, and there’s no pro league or Olympic Games or any other incentive to keep the girls playing after their NCAA careers are over.

The beautiful part? They are athletes, after all. Strong, smart, bold and full of confidence. Being beautiful is only natural.

Movie Magic – it’s all in the family

The J Man is an actor. Says so right on his Facebook profile, so it must be true.

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Anthony, it’s an accurate assessment of his occupation, at least as far as an 11 year-old can have an occupation. In fact, thanks to movie-making Anthony, nearly everyone in my family can make that claim. Everyone ‘cept me, but that’s okay. Maybe next time.

Jake’s debut was in The Land Between, a television documentary which told the story of the land between the Canadian Shield and the St. Lawrence Lowlands –essentially Ontario’s Muskoka-Kawarthas cottage country. Part history lesson, part environmental message and beautifully shot with gorgeous photography, The Land Between featured stellar performances (I’m biased, of course) from my wonderful clan.

For the record, top marks go to number one son Matt and brother-in-law Adrian for the meatiest of roles, while the J Man, who played a child sneaking up to the campfire to hear the grownups talk, took home the Oscar for best scene-stealing ‘look.’

Anyhow, Jake brushed off his resume and we gathered up his lovely nieces Allison and Lauren and headed to High Park in Toronto Monday night for another performance for the ages. This time for a scene in a 30-second spot for the Toronto International Film Festival.

This was the first time seeing Jake and the girls in action, and the first time watching Anthony, who wore a producer hat for this gig, work his movie magic.

The setting was the back yard of a beautiful home (owned by a bank executive) high on a cliff overlooking Grenadier Pond. A million dollar home (maybe $2 million: what do I know?) with a ten million dollar view, for what it’s worth.

The shoot was for a promo for the Midnight Madness horror section of the festival. The scene? It called for the kids – there were seven, as I recall, with the youngest just three years old – to play summer campers innocently roasting marshmallows on the campfire until a horror named Igor arrived to interrupt their reverie.  Jake and his fellow actors were expected to scream in terror when Igor (actually a nice dude  named Lars, who is a stand-up comic when he’s not scaring children) arrived, carrying the limp body of a camp counsellor in one hand while brandishing said counsellor’s gouged-out eyes in the other.

Scary, huh?

I’d tell you more about the shoot, except Anthony told me it was still all hush-hush. So you didn’t hear this from me.

The scene went beautifully –it only took nine takes – and the kids were awesome. It was also very cool to see my bro-in-law in action, though during a coffee run to Starbucks he was asked by the barista if he was the “production assistant.” (Maybe that was the hush-hush part. Sorry, Anthony.)

There was even a little excitement in the evening, when immediately after the final take and the applause was awarded, one of the neighbours started shouting obscenities about the presence of spot lights on his lawn. Or something.

Some people just don’t appreciate movie magic.  

*

While I’m handing out laurels to the kids, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to my friend David, son of my buddy Don and Anne, who is also a friend from college.

David was proudly representing District 3 at the Special Olympics Provincial Championships last week in three events – the Shot Put, the 50-metre dash and the Standing Long Jump. He ended up medalling in, let’s see, carry the ten and...ALL THREE events, with silver in the 50 (he told his mom he was wearing his magic shoes) and a pair of bronzes in his other disciplines.

Pretty damn special, if you ask me. Awesome job, David!

Killdeer and the booty fluff

It’s amazing what some parents will do to protect their children from giant monsters and their thunderous machines of death.

Killdeer are a kind of plover that long ago decided to leave their shorebird cousins at the beach and toss their lot in with humans, figuring shopping mall parking lots and the surrounding landscaping offered better opportunities for their families.

The little birds are everywhere – ubiquitous, really – and they are among the first birds to greet the day with their melodic kill-deer, kill-deer songs.

And normally we humans greet them with some level of affection – if we notice them at all – except on those days when we must maintain our man-made geography. Grass-cutting days can be hell for a ground-nesting bird.

On one such day I was confronted by a frantic Killdeer as I was pushing my mower around a flower bed. She was employing the classic broken wing ploy, where the predator (me) is supposed to follow the supposedly injured prey (the bird) away from her babies. I was amused, but as I was being paid to cut the grass and not terribly interested in a meal of Killdeer, I ignored her and continued on.

So she (I’m being sexist here as it could have been either parent) moved on to step two, which is to turn around and show me her beautiful backside, or more specifically, the rich brown feathers on top of her booty which are normally hidden by her wings. And proceed to fluff them feverishly to get my attention like a stripper hepped up on extra-strength goofballs.

The classic Killdeer Booty Fluff

Well, she (or he) got my attention. Now I’m nervously looking around, fearful that I’ll run over the little fellows. And suddenly there’s two of them, both giving me the stare down. If looks could kill, I’d already be tarred AND feathered.

On my final pass around the flower bed I finally spotted the nest, with Dad guarding four tiny speckled eggs, casually plunked in the dirt, less than a foot from the grass and my approaching blades.

The bird is used to humans, and if I look like a monster to him, I’m probably thought of as a mostly benevolent one. What he thought of the lawn mower, all sound, fury and destruction, nobody knows. But he bravely stayed on the nest until I was mere inches away before exploding out of the bed and onto a nearby sidewalk, shitting himself in the process. He then proceeded to regale me with the most spectacular mash-up of the broken wing ploy and booty fluff-up in the history of Killdeers.

I was in awe.

I was still staring at this brave bird when my boss drove by. “Quit bothering the birds, Pizza Dude,” said Harry, “and get back to work.”

It ain’t easy being a monster.

Happy Canada Day, eh!

Aah, to be Canadian on this most hoser-ific of days.

I was never a big fan of the eh! characterization of Canadians, thinking I was a little better than the stereotype. I didn’t say eh!, damnit! And I didn’t say ‘oot and aboot, either.

But I did, on occasion. Eh!, that is. Not ‘oot and aboot. No self-respecting Canuck says that. But eh! worked its way into the vocabulary of all of us back then. Some more often than others, of course.

Bob and Doug McKenzie said eh!, a lot. Thanks to Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, those two letters became Canada’s catch phrase, much like Yo, Adrian! Was for Rocky, Hi Neighbour was for Mr. Rogers and Sufferin’ Succotash was for Sylvester the Cat.

And to think it all started as filler on SCTV to both satisfy and mock Canadian content demands.

When the show moved to CBC in 1980 the network asked (ordered?) the producers to add two minutes of ‘Canadian content’ to the show for its national audience. Moranis and Thomas thought this was a stupid idea and came up with the Great White North talk show as a sort of protest. The show featured the boys as a couple of tuque-wearing hosers talking about important Canadian issues, such as doughnuts, back bacon and how to get a mouse in a beer bottle.

(To get free beer, of course.)

Much to everyone’s shock – especially Moranis and Thomas –  the skits were a smash hit and became a pop culture phenomenon, spawning a movie (Strange Brew, which starred my friend and college roommate Steve as an extra), a Grammy-nominated comedy album (remember Take Off! With Geddy Lee, and The Twelve Days of Christmas?) and leaving behind a linguistic legacy.

We do have an accent, eh?

Moranis remembered in a 2000 interview coming up with the material on the fly in the studio.

"Rick and I used to sit in the studio, by ourselves – almost like happy hour – drink real beers, cook back bacon, literally make hot snack food for ourselves while we improvised and just talked. It was all very low key and stupid, and we thought, 'Well, they get what they deserve. This is their Canadian content. I hope they like it.”

And they did, especially south of the border, with the U.S. network NBC specifically asking for the “two dumb Canadian characters” when they ordered the show for syndication in 1981.

And for those too young to remember SCTV, an animated version of the show debuted in 2009, with Thomas reprising his Doug McKenzie role while Dave Coulier (yah, the Full House dude) voiced Bob’s character.

I don’t hear eh! much anymore, but I figure I’ll hear it plenty on National Hoser Day. That’s today, eh?

**

I actually got my patriotic Canadian mojo going a couple of weeks ago when I had the honour of participating in a flag raising ceremony in Ajax.

Okay, it wasn’t an official ceremony. It just felt like one to me.

The giant Canadian flag flying from the Best Buy plaza at Harwood and Highway 2 in Ajax needed to be replaced, so Rio Can bought a new flag and we (and by we I mean me and my Brock Property ‘A’ Team crew) put it up.

Raising a flag is pretty straightforward but this flag raising felt different. For one thing, this flag (Original Flag Store, $1,015 plus tax) is huge. It’s 15 feet high and 30 feet wide and is a pretty impressive sight when it’s raised.

I felt very ‘Canadian’ doing it. Sort of like Joe from the I Am Canadian ads, but quieter.

My job was to ensure my half of the flag didn’t touch the ground during the unfurling process (it’s an international sin to let that happen – CSIS is watching) and I didn’t let the team down.

I felt proud.

**

I had all the kids over for dinner tonight. All four of them, plus girlfriends and all three grandchildren.

It was a combination Canada Day/belated birthday bash for my son Cam, who turned 22 more than a week ago. I called it CAM-ada Day. Clever, no?

It was also a chance to finally pay Cam for winning the family hockey pool. He didn’t get all that was owed, but he left with $10.25 in his pocket and as far as I could tell he left happy.

It was nice. We ate pork loin and birthday cake and sat around and talked about the Simpsons, the Leafs and gender equality.

It was all so beautiful I didn’t even make it down to Lakeview for the fireworks. Christian-Ann was taking the J Man down, so I went to bed instead.

Happy Canada Day, eh!

Superman, Daredevil and the Fan Boys

Oh, those Fan Boys.

The J Man and I went to see Man of Steel last weekend. We loved it.

As a superhero action movie, it was one of the best we’ve seen in a while. It had that galactic, end-of-the-world threat at its heart – ala The Avengers – with wildly entertaining CGI-based aerial fight scenes that were spectacular and reminded me of the Iron Man movies.

Better than Iron Man, actually.

And the fan boys hated it.

Despised it, to be more accurate.

Even Mark Waid, the current Daredevil writer and a former Superman writer who penned the Birthright limited series (which formed part of the Man of Steel story arc) trashed the movie.

“At its emotional climax, at the moment of Superman’s ultimate victory,” wrote Waid in his blog, “Man of Steel broke my heart. I mean, absolutely snapped it clean in half.”

Tell us how you really feel, Mark.

On the Comic Book Resources website the fan boys took a strip up one side of the film and down the other, taking issue with the needless carnage (with half of Manhattan reduced to rubble, it’s conceivable that many thousands of people died) , the lack of chemistry between Superman and Lois Lane, the corny plot twists, etcetera, etcetera.

A Whatculture blog even called the film The Stupidest Superman Movie Ever. And that’s saying a lot.

I get that the plot has more holes than SpongeBob SquarePants. I share the fan boys’ displeasure with the disaster porn, specifically Superman’s lack of desire to take the fight outside the city to save the lives of the humans he has sworn to protect.

I am less concerned with Superman taking a life, which has most of the fans in a tizzy. But that’s just me.

Maybe if this was a Marvel project I’d be more inclined to nitpick. But this is Superman, a character who can turn a lump of coal into a perfectly cut diamond, simply by squeezing really hard. This is a character that once saved Earth from certain disaster from an incoming asteroid by pushing the planet out of the way.

So I don’t expect much in the way of plot from a Superman movie. Ergo, I wasn’t really disappointed.

We paid extra to see the film in some sort of fancy 3D, with our butts enjoying extra plush seats, so Jake and I just expected to be thoroughly entertained.

And we were. It wasn’t The Avengers, but as an action movie, I give it four stars out of five.

***

Speaking of fan boys, I just finished reading the eight-issue Daredevil mini-series End of Days.

This was a series set about 10 years in the future and kicked off with the brutal  and very public death of  our main character at the hands of Bullseye, with the rest of the series told through the eyes of reporter Ben Urich as he tries to unravel the mysteries of Daredevil’s death.

There were two mysteries to be solved: who or what was Mapone, the word Daredevil said before he died (sending Bullseye spiraling into madness); and who was the mystery Daredevil seen offing bad guys throughout the series?

The series was written by DD veterans Brian Bendis and David Mack with gorgeous artwork by Bill Sienkiewicz and Klaus Janson, who can trace their Hornhead roots back to the Frank Miller days.

And when it was over, the fan boys wrote in to say they hated it.

Liars.

The first six issues were among the best comics I have ever read and the reader comments on the blogs and web sites reflected that. In the seventh issue the ‘mystery Daredevil’ was exposed and while it was a bit underwhelming, it was still a good read.

The final issue gave us the ‘Mapone’ reveal and it sent the fan boys back to the message boards. I wasn’t keen on the final issue either, but I will buy the hardcover collection when it goes on sale this week.

So will most of those fan boys (and girls), their whining notwithstanding.

Now bring us the movie.