Note To Self

Dear Self,

(re: the previous entry)

Please don't write blog entries after you have been drinking. They make no sense.

Thanks,
Self

Misconceptions

Sometimes you think everything is going just the way you want it to be going, but sometimes you are just plain wrong; it's not going like that at all.

Life's Big Questions #1

Why does the Blogger spell check always tell me that the word "blog" is misspelled?

I Wanna Love You Tender

This just may be the best worst music video ever. It's even better than the one with Mr. T wearing knee socks and short shorts.

Racing Mind

Sometimes I wish I could stop my brain. It goes into hyperactivity mode and I want to do eighty seven things all at once. More often than not it happens at night, when what I should be wanting to do is sleep. But no, instead I want to be reading three different books at the same time, go out and take some photographs even though it's night and my camera isn't working very well, watch a couple of films, write some as yet undreamt of masterpiece, chisel away at a new linocut, the list goes on. And on. I think what I need is to take up zen meditation and learn how to just sit and stare at a blank wall. Or maybe I need some coffee. The upside of it is that at times like this I feel at my most creative and I have a tremendous amount of energy. The downside is that for all the mental cogs a-whirring, for all the sense of urgency I feel, I can never seem to focus on any one thing, and so I get nothing done. Then the feeling passes, I go to sleep or work or whatever and I try not to think about the fact that my time is slowly wasting away and maybe I'm not using it as well as I ought to be.

My Inner Hooligan

Last year, my friend Paul and I became Vancouver Whitecaps seasons ticket holders. Our goal for the season, beyond just being able to tell people that we were seasons ticket holders, (does it matter for what?) was to find our inner hooligan. I'm not talking about your drunken-violent- throw-a- burning-moped-on-the-pitch sort of hooligan, more your mildly-buzzed-question-the referee's- parentage-throw-your-empty-beer-cups-on-the-grass-behind- the-goal-remind-the-opposing-goalkeeper-of-his-weight-problem- and-that-he-was-born-out-of-wedlock type hooligan. Now, I have a shaved head, so add to that my Whitecaps jersey and scarf and you'd think it shouldn't be much work. But I tend to be fairly quiet, I don't really shout or sing in public and I certainly don't litter. The easy solution was, of course, appropriate amounts of hooligan juice. Warsteiner tends to be my favourite, though the Guinness will do just as well. The first couple of games, I stood with the other hooligans and hopefuls, sipped my beer, looked on amused as they chanted, tried to mouth a few words then quietly snuck over to the garbage can to deposit my empty cup. With time I was able to start to vocalize and harmonize along. I could even anticipate what songs or chants would be up next. I think my big breakthrough came though, not in the singing front, but with the garbage. It was a few games into the season and I think I realized that it was time for the next step. Or maybe I was just feeling lazy. I think Paul, standing beside me, realized the significance, as rather than skulking off to the bin, I sailed my empty beer cup over the head of those in front of me and on to the swath of grass behind the net and in front of the boards. Mission accomplished. As the season wore on, and the hooligan juice continued to flow, I became more comfortable with the yelling, chanting, jeering, screaming and even the littering. I may have even initiated a chant or two. Sometime mid-season my buddy J-Mac started attending games. After our first round of calling the opposing goalkeeper a fat bastard he turned to me and said, "That's the funnest thing I've done all week." And he was right.

Throughout the winter, my inner hooligan has been lying dormant. The season opener is just 2 weeks away, my tickets are in the mail, so I guess it's time to start waking him up. Come on you Whitecaps!

We're All Terrorist Suspects, Aren't We?

This is great. An Indian-born British man was hauled off of a plane as a suspected terrorist after a cab driver reported the man's suspicious behaviour to the police. He was interrogated for 3 hours, a background check was run, then he was released. The behaviour in question...playing a Clash song and a Led Zeppelin song on his MP3 player through the cab's stereo and singing along. Apparently the cabbie thought the lyrics were suspicious. The questionable songs were London Calling and Immigrant Song. I've never been a big fan of Led Zeppelin so I'd agree that might be suspicious behaviour. But really, it's too bad that none of the stories about this have said anything identifying the cab driver, as I'm fairly certain he's got some public ridicule and mockery coming his way.

Cussing, Rebirth & Other Inconsequentialities

Laura and I were walking around Trout Lake today when we stopped to sit on a log on the beach. A small crowd had gathered there and a few of them were clearly getting ready to go into the lake. I would never swim in Trout Lake's brown goose shitty waters, but apparently others would. They formed a circle to pray, which should have been our first clue they weren't there to do regular lengths, but it was a cool day and the water was probably downright cold, so perhaps a bit of divine intervention was called for. As the group approached the water's edge, one of the swimmers stuck her foot in, quickly pulled it back, then shouted, "Praise his name!" Apparently the divine intervention had not come. The girl's epithet made it clear they were a christian group; but her words made me wonder, what is the difference between saying "praise his name," loudly as a response to something perceived as negative or shouting "jesus h. christ," or whatever variant of taking the lord's name in vain is your preference? They both seem like expletives to me. Anyway, an older man took one of the "swimmers" about 10 metres out into the water, then asked her aloud why she wanted to be baptised. She answered something, not loud enough for us to hear, then he dunked her under the water. All the while the rest of the group stood on the shoreline, digital cameras up and at the ready. After he pulled her up he walked her back to the shore, then they formed a cluster and prayed. They then went through it all again with the girl who had shouted "praise his name." It all seemed very strange to me. I'll be the first to admit that born again christians creep me out, but there was more to it. If people feel the need to have a religion it should be a personal and private thing, in my mind, not something requiring public proclamations. As well the mixture of digital cameras, dirty beach with dogs and purification ritual seemed incongruous to me. And I'm not even going to talk about the filthy lake water. I suppose saving souls is tough business and you just don't get any respect from cynical atheistic jerks like me.

Aphorism #1

Sometimes you have to let yourself fall apart, so you can put yourself back together again.

Big Furry Things

WARNING: The following post contains mascots!

I'm a little disturbed right now. I was watching Arsenal trounce Aston Villa today. Right at the start of the second half Thierry Henry scored a sweet goal, as he does, but as the ball was flying into the top corner, I noticed a large green thing running behind the net. Watching the replay I focused on that large green thing, and what it was, was this:

Dear readers, this is the Gunnersaurus Rex. In the past 15 years I have watched a lot of Arsenal games, far too many by some accounts, and not once have I been subjected to that. No wonder the Aston Villa goalkeeper let so much by him today (5 goals if you care); he was afraid of that thing behind him. I had no idea Arsenal had a mascot. I had no idea that European sports and soccer teams in particular had mascots, a clearly ridiculous North American phenomenon, as far as I was concerned, limited mostly to baseball. Sure, the Vancouver Whitecaps have that stupid duck, but it's, you know, for the kids. But Arsenal? My beloved Arsenal? With a mascot? A dinosaur? What the hell does a dinosaur have to do with the Arsenal? I'm hoping that this all fades from memory, that I don't see the Gunnersaurus Rex again for the next 15 years, and I can forget this whole sordid affair.

For those of you who are curious, here is a link to all of the Premiership clubs' mascots. Here is a link where you can see the Whitecaps duck, along with other USL mascots, including Portland's Timber Jim. If you'll notice, Timber Jim isn't a mascot, it's a guy.

DISCLAIMER: The Organ Grinder's Monkey in no way condones violent assaults upon mascots, though upon reflection may find them humourous.

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.