A Match of Games

Shocking news today: A hacker, or hacking group, broke in and stole a script to an upcoming installment of Game of Thrones.

That material has as much value to me as next season's unreleased NBA schedule.

I saw an episode of Thrones last year when Canada's CTV network ran a season. Even basketball is more exciting. And it has more-interesting characters.


(Note: The original posting stated that the stolen material was unreleased episodes, not a script.)

Calling Up Mary Hartman

One of two books I'm reading right now is an autobiography titled "Norman Lear - Even This I get to Experience". The film and television writer and producer knows how to tell a story in book form.

Of course he talks about the creation of my favourite television series, All in the Family, but not neglected are some of his other 1970s tele-tubes such as Good Times and One Day at a Time. Back in the day, these half-hour comedy hits were pretty hard to miss. However, there was a Lear show that I ignored, completely, even though I was aware at the time that it was garnering some raves and more than a few viewers: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Today I read the book's pages dedicated to the creation, production, marketing and distribution, and controversies, of Mary. (I had no idea that "that" was the show's premise.)

Now I have an almost 'I don't have a life' obsession to see it.

In preparation for this piece, but after I wrote the above, I learned that Shout! Factory released Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman on DVD.

On the Chalkboard: At the Front of the Class

Sometimes after I write a piece I feel I must chalk it up to the creative experience.


From April 14, 2016:
The Creative Writing Class

When I was going to high school, many and still-classified years ago, there was a push afoot to open up the curriculum and introduce programs not just "three Rs". One I took was Mr. Kelly's terrific "Creative Writing" class. It was a challenging but comfortable affair which nurtured the writing soul in me, and the souls of my fellow future Flauberts. ("Floberts? Doesn't he play for the Leafs? If he does he can't be very good.")

At the end of the year Mr. Kelly organized an "Academy Awards" for best writing in various categories. Over the course of a week or so we were to go through our classmates' writing files, which were open for all to see and review, and then make nomination lists. Mr. Kelly showed us an example of the trophy itself, a modified liqueur bottle. ("I want that bottle.")

One day I could hear a group of huddled students laughing and whispering. "This is so funny! He's hilarious!" Once I overheard this I sniffed and went back to my own writing, looking for just the right word.

Days later was Awards Day.

The air was tense with multiple categories.

"The Award for Best Male Humourist goes to....Simon!"

"Who, me?!" (Of course.)

I walked rather self-unconsciously to the front of the class to accept the award. I had been building, cultivating, a reputation for being 'out there', so I thought that since my fellow award winners thus far were self-consciously accepting their well-deserved trophies but not saying anything outside and above of "thanks", I should put my own spin on the festivities:

Once the prize was securely in my hands, I said, half-seriously: "I have no one to thank....it was just me."

The class laughed, so too did Mr. Kelly, and immediately I thought, "Gee, I guess I'm not just funny looking".

It was a good class; a good bunch; good times.

Post Script, and "as a comic, in all seriousness", as Bobby Bittman was prone to say: Brian Kelly was one of the outstanding teachers in my years of schooling.

How We Peg Things (A Banana in the Head)

"A Book Report."

William Barker Elementary School - CFB Borden - Early/Mid 1970s.

During recess one day I was talking with a friend about a book report that we had to produce. During this conversation I looked down at the concrete below me. There was a banana peel.

When I hear or read "book report" I think of bananas. And banana peels.

Time for a banana....

A Moment of CKVR (and SCTV)

Summer 1984; with friends I attended a special live-to-tape recording of a one-off television program.

During a break in the process I paid a visit to the mens' room. Before leaving I looked in the mirror and licked down a section of bang. Perfect.

I reached for the door but before my hand connected with the handle the door flew open, so fast that the bottom corner connected with my right big toe.

Hey, it's Kevin Frankish. Who looked up at me, the only possible angle from his vantage point, and said: "Saw-ree."

In my best Johnny LaRue I answered: "Little creep!" (Just kidding, of course.)

Happiness by Aristotle

"Happiness is the exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope."

-- Aristotle

Motivation Inspiration from Goethe

"At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assure your success."

-- Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Hey, Let's Make a Musical About It!

Beautiful - the Carole King Musical is currently playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre here in Toronto; and is scheduled to do so until September 3rd. There are adverts everywhere: radio, television, and on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission).

I'm a King fan, and maybe I should get off my butt (and "but..."), pull open my wallet, rather, siphon a substantial sum from my bank account, and see the show.

All these musicals get me thinking: It makes sense that a musical is produced about a musician or based on a piece of music, but why are there ones about odd things? On that theme, why hasn't anyone done a musical about pest control?

Sold a Bag of The Goods

Ten o'clock in the evening may be too early to hit the silk. Woke up at about a half past four this morning.

Forget it; it's not going to happen.

Arise, make a coffee, pop on the television and watch that CBC show called The Goods. I'd seen the adverts but not the actual deal.

At least my caffeine-based drink was good; the cast of The Goods needs decaf. "Slow down, guys." Anyone who knows me must know I'm serious when I say something like that. They are trying too hard. So too are the show's producers.

It finished. Then came the morning's news via the CBC's Radio One (99.1 FM). On my television?....

What Canadian Film is This?

Whatever it's called I saw it about fifteen years ago on the CBC, late night. The premise is, at least the way I remember it, and I did join the flick in progress, a T-shirted, beer drinking, bearded male in his thirties plays and narrates home movies live-to-film.

We hear his French-Canadian-inflected voice: The man talks a bit as he changes reels on the Super-8 film projector; when the film is threaded he starts the projector. We see the lab-spliced Kodak white film leader run, and a few seconds later, just like the real deal, we have 'picture'. This happens a few times throughout the movie.

This proud researcher admits that he has come up empty handed. (I also admit that my efforts have been perhaps cursory at best.) Any help identifying this Canadian unknown classic would be much appreciated.

CBC Tonight: The Filmmakers - Atom Egoyan

At 8:30pm tonight, on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is part one of a new half-hour interview program I never knew existed until minutes ago:

The Filmmakers (interviews with Canadian filmmakers of the last 20 years)

Tonight's episode: "The Sweet Hereafter - Atom Egoyan"

The New Doctor Who

I found out this past week that the next "Doctor" will be played by a woman. It's about bleedin' time!

While I did clock some episodes in the new Doctor Who's first season (2005) I do not watch the show, but I know when it's time for a long-running television series to change with the times -- even when it's behind the times.

et prudentem in femina dolor

Employing a Question of Labour

Some parties here in Ontario, Canada, are whining about a proposal by the Kathleen Wynne government to raise the minimum wage from $11.40 to $15 per hour.

It's not just small businesses that are worried about the admittedly substantial in-one-shot increase, but big ones too.

What? Why?

How?

In 1981, while I whistled while I worked at CGE (Canadian General Electric) my efforts were rewarded with a rate of $8 per hour ($20 today). In 1984, as I did some last minute saving-up for school, the Radio Shack warehouse paid me over $6 per 60 minutes. (In both cases I was not 'union'. It's a brain-busting case, I know.)

Dirty little secret: Today, 2017, many if not most companies of industry pay "staffing" agencies 17 - 19, sometimes more, dollars an hour per employee. These middlemen turn around and pay workers our now gorgeous minimum wage.

Go figure it out.

Newton's Waste

Image Orthicon ---- Immy ---- Emmy.

Radio from my Youthful Old Age

"At the age of ten I was already an old man."

So opened my look back at my childhood's radio mornings. When the NHL (National Hockey League) mattered to me; before I got older and let the ice age slide into my then brief past.


From April 4, 2016:
Jack Dennett, CFRB, and Me

At the age of ten I was already an old man.

My favourite radio station at the time was Toronto's "old person's" CFRB. This past week long time CFRB morning show host Wally Crouter died and this sad news reminded me that every school morning in the early to mid 1970s I would tune my Sanyo portable radio to catch the news and, more importantly, grab the previous night's National Hockey League scores from sports man Jack Dennett.

There I'd be sitting, on a chair with my Molson NHL schedule in hand ready to jot down the final scores as Dennett read them out to me. Like any good radio man, he gave you the impression he was speaking to you directly. I can still "hear" Dennett's relaxed voice: "The Boston Bruins beat the California Golden Seals by a score of seven to one."

Unfortunately this comfortable arrangement all came to an end in August of 1975 when Jack Dennett died of cancer. About this time my interest in the NHL was beginning to wane, anyway, as it does for most young men who start discovering other things: like, movies; and other things. Less than a week after Dennett passed away I was in high school.

Needless to say, CFRB is hardly the radio station it was forty-plus years ago. The market has changed. Times have changed. Now we get lots of pasteurized crap (with a Stretch Cunningham-like I.Q. of "one").

If CFRB were to go back to its olde format and sensibility I'd be ready for them in little more than ten or fifteen years.

I've Been Asking for What City?

This morning I saw a television advert for a new movie that looks an awful lot like a run-of-the-mill video/computer game.

Titled Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets it looks like one of those contraptions that begs the viewer to look at every point in the frame before the next image rolls along. (I am aware of its comic book origins. Which is probably where it should have stayed.)

While the ad wound down I could swear I saw a critical rave text piece that said something like: "The movie you've been asking for!"

I don't know about that. I've been asking for a good movie.


(Post Script: It looks to me like Valerian needs some Valium.)

A Precious Toronto Maple Leafs Stanley Cup Photograph

Nineteen sixty-seven was a long time ago, folks. Canada celebrated its 100th birthday that year.

This year, a solid fifty years later, this great country is hitting the 1-5-0. And the Toronto Maple Leafs is celebrating the fully-solidified half century that has passed since that above photo was taken. (Half century. That's a lot of years.)

Here's to fifty more....

From the Vandal

Interpretation keeps incontrovertibility at bay; certainly in 'art'. An acrylic painting of an apple is one thing, but a painter's acrylic painting of an apple is quite another.

From August 24, 2016:

Graphic Vandalism Graphic

Bonding Songs on Zoomer Radio

I'm whistling while I work. "Saturday Night Bandstand" on Toronto station Zoomer Radio AM740 plays in my background.

Show host Tarzan Dan played some songs from the "Bond" films.

Great!

Well, great until the first in the cinema chain played Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" (kill me now) -- before you get your knickers in a knot, I'm a Paul McCartney fan, but I think his Bond tune is one of the worst.

Then Dan played one of the best, "The Spy Who Loved Me". That's what I call a comeback.

On to the very best, "Goldfinger".

The ring was complete.

Until Tarzan Dan capped it off with "Skyfall", in my over-charged opinion, the absolute worst of the Bond songs; and one warbled by Adele.

The night the whistling stopped....

Decisions at the Imperial Six in 1978's Summer

While I was visiting Toronto with a friend in the summer of 1978 a decision had to be made: the right one could bring cinematic pleasure (not that kind of movie!), the wrong one could make us reel. We were teenagers, sponges, but James and I did want to do the right thing that beautifully warm and sunny day.

Outside the Imperial Six Theatre -- remember that? those? -- on Yonge Street we stood, monitoring the colour television monitors which unreeled clips from the movies on offer.

Should we make a bee-line for the Master of Disaster's new epic, The Swarm, or take a promised ride with some novice's Corvette Summer?

This could take some time, and it did, believe me. Deciding some years later what VHS tape should be rented from the local video store had nothing on trying to pick between two new hot summer films -- ones aimed perfectly at teenagers.

Corvette Summer, starring that Mark Hamill guy from the summer before, was not bad. Entertaining with some good characterizations.

The Swarm?! Word got around quickly regarding that disaster; James and I must have known....