Rumble in Ottawa

It looks like a rumble is shaping up between Harper et al. and the parliamentary press gallery. It all has to do with the new government limiting the media's access to them. The government says they are doing no such thing, the press gallery says they are. I don't know all of the ins and outs, being neither a member of the press gallery nor the government, hell I'm not even anywhere near Ottawa. But to me it all boils down to one thing: Lil' Beady Eyes and his Conservative-Reform Alliance Party (CRAP (No, I haven't given up on that)) know that their agenda is unpalatable to the majority of Canadians. They also know that as a minority government they won't have too long in power. (A minority government in Canada lasts about 2 years, on average.) So the only chance they have of being elected as a majority is if they can govern well and moderately in what little time they have, but more importantly if they can tightly control their image so as to appear to be something other than what they actually are, which is right-wing yahoos. The PM's office knows that by letting MP Jim Bob from Futtbuck, Alberta talk about god, guns and abortion, their days in power are numbered, but if they can pass themselves off as being more PC than Reform, they may have a chance. Here's me hoping Jim Bob speaks up.

V for a whole lot of things.

This one is for the person that found my blog by googling "Crazy Carpet."

A couple of reasons why V for Vendetta isn't a very good movie:

Natalie Portman has, I don't know, eight different accents.

It's really hard to have a main character with no facial expression. Maybe that was part of the point, but how can you feel for someone if you can't see their eyebrows move. Though I've got to say I'm really glad there was no emotional unmasking beauty on the inside type scene. That would have been crap.

A couple of reasons why V for Vendetta is a kind of good movie:

John Hurt as a totalitarian dictator on a big screen. Winston Smith becomes Big Brother. Oh, sweet irony.

V's speech that is an alliteration of the letter V. Nicely done.

But most of all:
Natalie Portman=Shaved Head.

I'm Tired

I'm tired. Not like I need sleep tired, more like fatigued and weary from working too much tired. One of the great things, for me, about the film industry is that you can arrange it so that you have time off. Lots of it if you want. And I love my time off. But this year, I didn't get my time off. I had two weeks off between seasons, which is not long enough. I probably shouldn't complain too much as there are a whole lot of people in the world who work a whole hell of a lot harder than I do. But they aren't writing this. When I'm working, for months on end a big chunk of my brain is occupied with a swirl of dates, numbers, deadlines, data, schedules, concepts, episodes and whatever else I cram in there to make things run smoothly. I'm good at keeping it all together, but still, it occupies a large piece of my mind. So when I have a couple of months off, or longer, it is a chance for my mind to let go of all that minutiae, to not worry about any of it, to get that brain space back, to live at a more natural pace. Two weeks isn't nearly enough time for that to happen, hence, I feel mentally exhausted. When I wake up in the morning I'm not raring to go, I'm wishing that I had nothing to do, and dreading hearing my cell-phone ring. What I want most is to spend the days sitting on my couch, drinking coffee and reading books. I want to ignore my phone, my e-mail, not talk to anyone, just sit and read and drink coffee, maybe play my guitar if I feel up to it, for like, the next 2 months. If my couch happened to be overlooking a river in the woods somewhere that wouldn't be a bad thing, but mostly, I just want the break.

Best Movie Title Ever!

Every now and then, Hollywood comes up with something that is pure fricken' genius. Coming out on 18 August is the movie with the best title ever, period. It is:

Snakes On A Plane

Absolutely brilliant. It's got it all right there. No one will be asking: "That Snakes On A Plane movie, what's it all about?" There are snakes. And there is a plane. The snakes will be on the plane. Chaos will ensue. I heard an interview with the movie's star, Samuel L. Jackson and he said as much, pointing out in particular the double whammy to people afraid of both snakes and planes.

I may never see the film, but if I decide to, I know exactly what I'll be about to witness. Deadly (I assume, the title makes no mention of it) snakes on a plane. Some people will be bitten and some snakes will be beaten. Genius.

My favourite line from the trailer: "Enough is enough. I've had it with the snakes." Here's betting we never see this classic in-flight.

Fun With Facial Hair #2

The Deuce is back! Thanks for the name, Cal.

Ouch!

The best sentence I heard spoken in a meeting this morning:

"We've got a lot of people that like to cut stuff up."

The Machine Needs Oil (a.k.a. My Crappy Day At Work!)

A film crew is like an army. An army succeeds with reconnaissance, intelligence, communication, information and food. And really big equipment. Okay, I'm guessing it works like that; I've never actually been anywhere near the army, so I have no clue. But a film crew needs those things. The hit television series on which I work has been in production for a long time, so it runs like a well-oiled machine. Usually. Every now and then though, it all seems to break down. Like today. I suppose an army is big enough to keep trucking on, despite a few blips, as is this film crew. So, maybe no one but me noticed the breakdowns. But they were there. We were on a location survey this morning, traveling in our usual bus, stuck in traffic, when a horrible smell began. Apparently the engine was burning oil and it was backing up into the vehicle. Every now and then a little puff of smoke would come out of somewhere in the dashboard. The bus never actually broke down but as the survey progressed, more and more people abandoned that ship, getting rides from others where they could, leaving just a few of us to suffer the noxious fumes. Back at the studio I was informed that the deadline for submissions for a major awards show is tomorrow, so I then spent most of the afternoon scrambling to get a half-decent submission together. I think I may just get it done in time, and no one will be the wiser. Later in the afternoon, while scrambling to get that submission together, I got a cell phone handed to me with a somewhat panicky 2nd Assistant Director on the line telling me that I had to be on set in about ten minutes, at a location that is about 20 minutes away, possibly more with rush hour traffic, which is right when she called. I raced there, making a couple of minor traffic infractions along the way, I won't say which ones, and got there just in time for them to be finishing up what I needed to be there for. I should have known about it, but wasn't told by the people who are supposed to be in charge of telling me. It takes a whole lot of people to make a TV show happen and those people need to know what is going on. When those people don't know, things don't happen. Or, as I'm talking about myself here, if I don't know, I have to work harder and get stressed about it and make half-assed awards submissions that jeopardize my chances of winning and drive like a maniac. And I don't like that. So, communication, people. It goes a long way.

Why I Love Vancouver...

As a companion to why I hate Vancouver in the winter, here's why I love it sometimes...

It's the first day of spring and I had lunch on the patio of Havana in a T-Shirt and was worried about if I was going to get a sunburn on my face.

Enough said. Except that there's a week of rain in the forecast. Damn you, cruel city. You give me just enough so that I don't turn on you.

Actually, while we're talking about weather forecasting I heard a piece on CBC this morning about it. A prognosticator from Environment Canada said that longterm forecasting was pretty much a crapshoot, with 45-50% accuracy. Stating the obvious, that means they're wrong more than half the time. Why do they even bother? Couldn't they have just lied and said 50-55%, at least tipping the scales in favour of being correct? It's not like anyone would have bothered to check. Meanwhile, apparently there is a farmer in Saskatchewan, who predicts the weather using a frozen pig spleen and has about an 80% accuracy record.

Reel Despair

After a double whammy of downright depressing films tonight (Water and Paradise Now, if you care), my friend Paul said, "Sometimes I wonder why I do that to myself," or something close to that. I too have to ask myself that sometimes. But it is a common occurrence. The fact of the matter is, I really like difficult, depressing, disturbing films. I'm drawn to them. I don't think of myself as a particularly morbid person, but for some reason I like a bit of pain and torment in my cinema. I also like a good comedy, or some other bit of escapism every now and then, but the films that move me, that stick with me, that resonate within me, are, for the most part, a little bit dark. Why is that? I think, on some level, I go to see films because I want to be challenged, made a bit uncomfortable, forced to think about what I'm seeing, or made aware of a different mode of living than my own. But on another level, I think I may be looking to suffer a little. Luckily, in my life, I don't have too many problems or low points, so I need to find them elsewhere, even if that means creating them artificially. I tend to be a fairly unemotional person. Some may say downright cold. So maybe I want to watch films like that, so that I feel anything, even if it has to be despair. Or, maybe I am a morbid person and just haven't really realised it.

My Punk Band!

When I was an angry teenager, listening to bands like the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys, I fantasized about being in a punk rock band. I have absolutely no musical talent whatsoever, which really lends itself well to my chosen genre. Some friends and I actually did have a punk band called the Brain Fried Budgies. We recorded a few songs on a cassette tape with an acoustic guitar, a bongo, and some growled vocals, then called it quits on what could have been a brilliant career. All in one evening. Now that is punk. My fantasy never really went away; I just never found the time, the determination, the drive, the talent, or the band. I've had to accept that with this whole career/life thing going on, my punk rock fantasy probably isn't going to play out. Until yesterday that is. No, I haven't started a punk band, I've just had a brainstorm. I'll delay the music until I'm retired. It'll be a whole new sub-genre of punk called Geri-core. My band will be the rockingest band to ever play the retirement home circuit. I'll be holding auditions in about 32 years. My band's name...The Hip-Replacements.

Walken in '08

Apparently, Christopher Walken is running to be President of the United States. I'm not entirely certain that it isn't someone's idea of a joke, but if it is indeed true, I find it both mildly amusing and slightly creepy. He could tap dance his way through the White House and no doubt would give fantastic State of the Union addresses.

Tsotsi

I just saw the film Tsotsi. Seeing it has made the kerfuffle over whether Crash or Brokeback Mountain deserved the Best Picture nod more meaningless to me than it already had been. I only saw three of the Best Picture nominees and in my opinion this film tops each of them. It is gritty, harsh, difficult at times, yet for all that, it is movingly humanistic and redemptive. And with great music to boot. I've never been one for writing reviews...I can never seem to come up with enough adjectives, nor think of anything original to say. So I won't bother. I'll just say this: Sometimes, after seeing a film, I'm really glad that I went alone, so that I don't have to talk to anyone when it's over, for fear of losing some little part of the film that my mind is struggling to hold on to. Tonight was one of those times.

Swimsuit Shopping

I recently learned that all women hate going shopping for bathing suits. It isn't something I'd given much thought to before, but since hearing this, my entirely unscientific research confirms this to be true. Anyhow, Laura, who is going to Hawaii "on business" soon, needed a new swimsuit. So yesterday we went shopping for one. I, being the one with the debit card, got to have my say. We chose a bunch of different tops and bottoms and Laura went in to try them on. One of the saleswomen set me up with a stool right outside of the change room, so when Laura opened the door, I was there to critique the various combinations. (Maybe that's why women hate this?) As I waited, there was another guy sitting outside of a change room as his partner tried on various suits. One of the saleswomen asked if either of us would like a magazine to look at. The magazine she was offering was the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, not surprising I suppose. The other guy said he would get busted looking at that, so I took it. Swimsuits being their business, someone had gone through the magazine, circling all of the different suits in the magazine that the store carried. As well, whoever had done it, took to critiquing some of the bathing suits. Comments were written on the page in thick black marker, saying things like "THIS DOES NOT FIT" with an arrow pointing at a particular top. One man's smut is someone else's...I don't know, something that isn't smut. Anyway, after various mix and match trials we zeroed in on a black combo, though not the top with the fake diamond bling circle between the cups, as fun as that was. As Laura got dressed again, I went to do my part. Another thing I learned yesterday...nice bathing suits are really expensive. Anyway, I think the whole process went smoothly. And Laura didn't seem to hate it too much.

Sofa Size Paintings...

Okay, maybe not. But if you're in Vancouver on 24 March, go to my friend Paul's art opening.

You can check out some of his paintings here.

Ali Farka Toure RIP

Ali Farka Toure, one of my favourite world musicians, died today. His music is a meeting of the Mississippi and Niger deltas. That is, it's African blues; his guitar playing and singing are deep, rhythmic, & soulful. If you ever get a chance to listen to him, do so.

Obituary

Why Blog?

On the phone yesterday, my Mom told me that she and my brother had had a conversation about why someone would write a blog, or a diary or journal for that matter. Since then I've been thinking about it and this is what I've come up with. As with most endeavours there is more than one reason. I have friends scattered to the winds, friends that I don't do as good a job of keeping in touch with as I ought to, so this is one way for them to keep up with what's going on in my life, should they so desire. As well, I like writing and don't do as much as I'd like to, so by having a blog it forces me to be more disciplined and regular with my writing. Writing is a great way to analyze what is going on inside your head, though I'm not sure how applicable that is here, as I haven't been getting too personal.

On some level though, and this feels most important to me right now, keeping a blog is about having a voice. As my friend Clay says:

"It's like having your own magazine- your own incredibly boring magazine. Maybe it's actually more like a brochure. To me it's amazing though. I've never had a brochure. That's the web for you: a huge never-ending stack of brochures."

I think as individuals we are all pretty powerless and voiceless, so this is an avenue, however meagre and insignificant it may be, for me to say what's going on in my mind, should I so choose. The night I started this blog it was in the middle of the Danish cartoon debacle; I stood and watched baffled as people rioted and died because of some drawings. I just didn't get it, but writing what I did, again however meagre and insignificant, made me feel a little better. Like I'd said what I had to say. I have no illusions that by writing what I'm thinking I'm affecting or changing anything. It doesn't matter so much if anyone reads what I write, though obviously that is what I would like. More importantly for me, my two cents are there for anyone to read; my little brochure is out there in the ether.

So, Mom, Pete, that's why this someone might write a blog.

Snowshoe Adventure #2

I went snowshoeing again today. This time I went to Cypress mountain (which actually isn't a mountain but three) with Laura and the Keatings. It was another clear, sunny day, though this time the snow was much better for snowshoeing. Snow had fallen recently so it looked nicer and wasn't as crusty as it had been up on Seymour. As well, in some areas you could go off of the trail and walk through the fresh unpacked fluff, being mindful of tree wells of course. At one point I went on my own path while the other three stayed on the trail. For my efforts, I was rewarded with a rabbit sighting. It sat there nice and still for me while I photographed it, but darted when I tried for a second.

We slowly made our way upwards on Mt. Hollyburn, criss-crossing the cross-country ski trails. Watching the skiers made me want be skiing, especially watching one of them go down one of the long, though not too steep hills. At the poorly named Highview Lookout we stopped for a snack of carrot sticks, apple wedges and trail mix. I say poorly named because there was only the slenderest of views off the mountain. Unless of course they mean "Lookout" in the sense of "look out or you'll miss it." Someone being cavalier with a chainsaw could fix that up, but I'm inclined to say leave the trees and change the name. At that point we decided to not make a push for the peak, rather we went back down to Hollyburn Lodge and drank hot chocolate and ate cookies.

After our rest, we ran along the trail back to the base camp. Well, most of us did. Laura doesn't run. Running in snowshoes is awkward and tiring, but also exhilarating. I got stalled by a little girl who wanted to just stand in the middle of the trail and play with snow while her parents tried to coax her on. Back at the base camp, after the other three returned there rental snowshoes, we headed back down to the city, calling it quits on another day of winter for me.

Einstein read my blog.