tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62000474500509729942024-02-20T13:37:59.601-05:00Ehch's SpaceJust a place where the posts I don't have to lock down for privacy can go.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-57121465949794955162010-06-25T06:14:00.013-04:002010-08-20T06:11:46.276-04:00Tracy Wright: The light that will never go out.On June 23rd, 2010, I received an email I'd been hoping was a long way off. <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0942897/" target="_blank">Tracy Wright</a></b>, the brilliant, beloved Canadian stage and screen actress, had <b><a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/06/23/losing-and-discovering-tracy-wright/" target="_blank">passed away</a></b> the day before. While it was far preferable and much kinder to hear it from <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001528/" target="_blank">Don McKellar</a></b>, her husband and frequent collaborator, than to see it on the news (as so many others did), there was simply no way to dull the pain of hearing that she had lost the fight against cancer, and that we in turn had lost her.<br />
<p>I've long neglected this blog for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I've not had a lot to say. It's still too raw, too surreal, to say much of substance, but if anything could move me to write again, it's Tracy. I'll never do her justice, but that won't stop me from trying.<br />
<p><p><br />
<br />
Back when I was just a little kid, Tracy lived in the third bedroom of our apartment. She and my uncle had been dating for some time, and my family adored her, though perhaps nobody more than me. She had a crazy way of doing things, and was a constant source of laughter and music and cheer in our household; she was a fantastic playmate for me, too, and was certainly <i>creative</i> when it came time to watch over me for an afternoon. One of my mother's favourite examples of this took place when I was only three years old: Upon returning to our apartment from an afternoon out, my mother greeted Tracy and me, and asked how we'd spent the day.<br />
<p>"Oh, we did some singing," Tracy replied. Mom naturally assumed that I'd been giving ever-patient Tracy the preschool version of opera by way of Sesame Street, until Tracy added, "Heather, sing the song I taught you for your mom!"<br />
<p>My mother smiled and waited to hear some familiar kids' show tunes, but instead, she was surprised - and endlessly amused - when I opened my mouth and began to sing Ronnie Hawkins' "Who Do You Love," just the way Tracy had shown me to belt it out.<br />
<p>For anyone who doesn't know the song, and isn't sure why hearing it sung by a three year old would be hilarious, have a listen:<p><object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RQebygSuxgg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RQebygSuxgg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="364"></embed></object><br />
<p>Yep. Tracy was the best kind of zany. She was the poster child for the saying, "To know her is to love her." And I did. We all did. Had she and my uncle chosen to get married, I couldn't have asked for a better aunt. And, marriage or not, she had already become very much a part of our family.<br />
<p><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/uncledantracy_highpark.jpg"><br />
<br />
<small><b>[ Above: My Uncle Dan and Tracy, circa 1981 - I'll ask around to see if I can verify the date - on one of our many trips to High Park. ]</small></b><br />
<p><br />
<a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/?action=view¤t=IMG_0911.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/th_IMG_0911.jpg" border="0" alt="1982 letter" ></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/?action=view¤t=IMG_0910.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/th_IMG_0910.jpg" border="0" alt="1981 letter" ></a><br />
<p><small><b><br />
<p>[ Above: Letters to me from my Uncle Dan, who never neglected to tell me somewhere in there that "Tracy says hi!" Click to enlarge. ]</small></b><br />
<p>As it turned out, marriage wasn't in the cards for Tracy and my uncle, and over time we all lost touch with her. We knew she had gone to pursue a career in acting, and every so often we would catch a glimpse of her in a movie or on TV, and we would wonder aloud how she was doing, if she was happy, and I always wondered if she ever thought of me, or even remembered me. Even as a young girl I knew she was one of the funniest people I would ever meet.<br />
<p><object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CKc3LiLGKcg&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CKc3LiLGKcg&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="445" height="364"></embed></object><br />
<p>Fast forward many years. After taking a couple of film classes in university, I began watching movies more critically, and it wasn't long before I discovered the genius that is Don McKellar. When I first saw his 1998 masterpiece, <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156729/" target="_blank">Last Night</a>"</b>, it shot straight up into my Top 10 Favourite Movies Of All Time, and has never lost its spot. Of course, there was an added bonus to the film, too: Tracy was one of the stars. I loved her role; I loved the way Don wrote it, and I loved the way Tracy brought it to life. She had a sweetness and a vulnerability to her that made the audience connect to her, and she carried those qualities with her into other roles. Even now, when I mention an indie film in which Tracy appeared, friends who aren't as familiar with her work will ask which part she played, and invariably they'll follow it up with, "Oh, wow - she was my favourite character!"<br />
<p><p>In the summer of 2005, I happened to catch a movie after work one night. It was called <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415978/" target="_blank">Me And You And Everyone We Know</a>"</b>, and I knew nothing about it aside from having heard that it was being very well received by audiences and critics alike. Imagine my surprise when, only a few scenes in, there was Tracy, larger than life on the big screen in front of me. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but the performance that really stood out for me (and made me cry right there in the theatre) was hers. It was then that I decided to roll the dice and write her a letter, telling her how much I'd loved her portrayal of Nancy, who has what I and many others feel is the most poignant scene in the film. I figured that, even if she had no recollection of who I was, she deserved to get accolades for a job so very well done. I took a shot in the dark with the address I chose, enclosed a photo of a family wedding in which she'd been a bridesmaid and I'd been the flower girl (cheesily circling each of us and scrawling, "There's me...and you...and...well, you know how it goes!" on the back), and sent it off.<br />
<p><p><br />
A few months later, having very nearly forgotten that I'd posted that letter, I came home from work one evening and - lo and behold! - there was an email awaiting me, what she called a "long overdue reply" to my letter. She had even put "<i>tracy wright - thanking you for your letter</i>" in the subject line; that was how unassuming she was. She never expected <i>me</i> to remember <i>her</i> (!!!), and said that she was so happy to hear from me: "<i>i thank you again for your kind words and for making the effort to write. i remember you very fondly as a little girl. i am amazed if you remember me at all actually....you were pretty young. but, i always thought you were a special kid. [...] i didnt have a lot of experience with kids ... but, in any case, it was something i felt. so there.</i>" I couldn't help but smile. She also made mention of the current happy state of her life, and once again she showed how completely modest and unassuming she was: "<i>i am in a relationship with don mckellar (he's the guy who directed 'last night')and we live together in a nice house with our adorable little cat pinky. [...] so....life is pretty good.</i>" <br />
<p><p>Yeah, I was <i>fairly</i> sure I'd heard of that McKellar guy. And to find out that they were living contentedly in a lovely part of the city made me very happy. She'd always been so good to me, and she - the queen of the understatement! - deserved to have her life being "pretty good," at the very least.<br />
<p><p><br />
We stayed in touch over the following five years, and I was lucky enough to see her perform <b><a href="http://danielmacivor.com/wordpress/?p=2630" target="_blank">Daniel MacIvor</a>'s</b> fantastic play, <b>"<a href="http://www.nowtoronto.com/stage/story.cfm?content=169322" target="_blank">A Beautiful View</a>"</b>, with Caroline Gillis. <br />
<p><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/stage_2_468_7.jpg"><br />
<p><b><small>[ Caroline and Tracy in "A Beautiful View" ]</b></small><br />
<p>It was lovely to see one another again after so many years, and it was an honour to meet Caroline and Don, both of whom were very important people in her life. With Tracy, you always got the feeling that, if someone had gotten her stamp of approval, they must be pretty extraordinary. When she introduced me to Don, I considered that proof positive. They were a match that was a delight to behold.<br />
<br />
<p><p>And this is where the story turns tragic.<br />
<br />
<p><p>I happened to catch <b><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/season6/don_mckellar.html" target="_blank">an interview with Don</a></b> on <b>"<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/season6/don_mckellar.html" target="_blank">The Hour</a>"</b> one evening at the start of 2010, and noticed that he was wearing a wedding ring. Intrigued, I did a quick Google search, and was over the moon when I read that he and Tracy had tied the knot after so many years together. I immediately sent her a sappy email brimming with my congratulations and wishing them both nothing but the best.<br />
<p>The email I got in response, only hours later, was devastating. Yes, she said, she and Don had gotten married, and it had been a very happy occasion...but she added that she wanted to tell me something before I heard it from anyone else. She'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks earlier, and the prognosis was not good. I felt as though someone had kicked me in the gut. This wasn't fair. She was so young and healthy and happy. And, selfishly, I wanted more time with her, more chances to see her perform, more <i>everything</i>.<br />
<p><p><br />
I set about doing the only thing I knew how to do: I started sending her little things in the mail. Postcards from my travels. A chocolate bar with the wartime slogan <b>"<a href="http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/products/keep-calm-and-carry-on-chocolate-bars" target="_blank">Keep Calm And Carry On</a>"</b> emblazoned across its package, which, as she pointed out in her thank-you email, made it "not only delicious, but inspirational." I happened to meet up with her friend <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0567680/" target="_blank">Bruce McDonald</a></b>, another great Canadian director, while acting as an extra in his upcoming film project, and I asked him to pose for a photo with me where we'd wave at the camera and I'd email it to Tracy to make her smile. It worked; I got a message back the next morning thanking me for thinking of her.<br />
<p><p><br />
She fought hard right up to the end. She finished more than one project while she was still well enough to do so, and has therefore left us with things to which we can look forward. Hundreds upon hundreds of people turned up to her visitation yesterday - so many, in fact, that the messages of love from her friends and family in the condolence book drained the ink out of two pens in 3 hours, and I'm sure the third pen (which was the one I left for others to use before heading out) was well on its way to running dry, too. As I said to Don and several others, it was a true testament to Tracy's impact on the lives of everyone she touched, that <i>so many</i> words of love, kindness and sorrow were being left that they were demanding a fresh supply of writing implements.<br />
<br />
<p><p>That's just the kind of woman Tracy was.<br />
<p><p><br />
Whether you had the great fortune of meeting her, or have enjoyed seeing her <b><a href="http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0809/beautifulview/" target="_blank">on stage</a></b> or <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0942897/" target="_blank">on screen</a></b>, consider yourselves lucky. It's rare for a Tracy Wright to come along in life. I'll be forever grateful that she was a part of mine, and whenever I miss her - which will be often, I know - I can put in one of her movies and remember everything about her that was talented, and lovable, and completely, thoroughly unique.<br />
<br />
<p><p>I can remember her, Tracy Lauren Wright, as the light that will never go out on the Canadian stages she graced, and in my heart.<br />
<p><p><br />
<i>In lieu of flowers, a donation in her honour may be made <b><a href="http://www.torontoartsfoundation.org/Donate/Ways-of-Giving" target="_blank">online</a></b> to the <b>Toronto Arts Council Foundation</b>, or in person/by mail at 141 Bathurst Street, Toronto M5V 2R2.</i><br />
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<p><p><p><br />
<b>ETA:</b> Another big loss for Canada befell us when the great <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001999/" target="_blank">Maury Chaykin</a></b> passed away on July 27th, 2010, his 61st birthday. For a beautiful piece written by Daniel MacIvor about both Tracy and Maury, please <b><a href="http://danielmacivor.com/wordpress/?p=2671" target="_blank">check out "Blue/This Is Was"</a></b>. <br />
<p>Also worth noting: <b><a href="http://danielmacivor.com/wordpress/?p=2730" target="_blank">"TRIGGER," Tracy's project with Daniel, Don, Molly Parker, and Bruce McDonald, will be screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12th, 2010</a></b> and will open in other theatres two weeks later. It will be a lovely way to remember her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-74373885505724831612010-01-19T21:55:00.003-05:002010-01-19T23:22:32.825-05:00Stalkeriffic! When does being a "fan" go too far?I can spare you the English lesson about how the word "fan" is derived from "fanatic." But why, I wonder, do we give such a negative connotation to the latter when the former is perfectly acceptable? <i>Everyone</i> is a "fan" of something. But if you add those extra two syllables, you've basically just called someone "batshit crazy" and "obsessed." So where does one draw the line?<br /><br /><br />I bring this up because of <b><a href="http://ow.ly/YhuT" target="_blank">the recent brouhaha</a></b> over at <b><a href="http://ow.ly/YraO" target="_blank">Oh No They Didn't!</a></b>. (Let's skip past the whole "yeah, yeah, I'm a card-carrying member and contributor" bit, shall we?) A rundown, for the TL;DR crowd (that's "too long; didn't read," for you non-netspeak types): <br /><br /><br />A teenage girl - 13 or 14, it seems - somehow purchased the address of her favourite singer's private residence, got her mother (!!!) to drive her and a friend to said house, took a bunch of creepily intimate pictures (things like the guy's dogs, who were <i>inside</i> the house, and what was on his front porch, etc.), and then stuck around for 2 hours until he got home so she could get his autograph and take photos of <i>him</i> with them. (All of the photos and screencaps are at the above "brouhaha" link. I'd rather not host the Facebook profile 'caps of a kid here. Just in case.)<br /><br />I haven't quite made sense of what happened in which order, but it would seem that the girl proceeded to post the pictures of this guy's house (it was <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Time_Low" target="_blank">Alex Gaskarth</a></b> from <b><a href="http://www.myspace.com/alltimelow" target="_blank">All Time Low</a></b>, for the record) all over Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and anything else she could get her hands on...and someone, I suppose, directed Alex's attention to the things she posted. I guess he'd assumed, when he signed the autographs and took a picture with her, that she and her friend had just been passersby who were fans, and didn't realize that this girl had, in fact, hatched one hell of a scheme in order to get to him that night (including, as she so wisely posted back and forth with her friend on her public Facebook status, "Oh we are totallllly stalking him...we cann get arrested together...OMG we can tell the cops he raped u[s] and then we could ride in the same police car as him! FUCK I AM GENIOUS" / "oh my god. perfect! alex fucking gaskarth is a [r]apist! fuck yessss! now we just need someone to drive us.....").<br /><br /><br /><small>Needless to say, the foul language and spelling errors are not mine. The way moronic teenagers "spell" today is a subject for another blog entry entirely(yyyyy). I weep for our youth(hhhhhh).</small><br /><br /><br />But more importantly...did they <i>really</i> just post what I <i>think</i> they posted? Why, yes, they did! LOL LET'S ACCUSE OUR FAVOURITE SINGERRRRRR OF BEING A RAPIST SO WE CAN BE IN THE BACKSEAT OF A COP CAR TOGETHERRRRRRR LOLOLOL<br /><br /><br />What the <i>hell</i>.<br /><br /><br />I could spend hours dissecting the many ways in which this is just over the top stupid and flat-out <i>wrong</i>, but I trust you can come to those conclusions yourselves. Rape jokes aren't funny; false accusations aren't a joke anyway; these children need to be chained up...<i>ad nauseum.</i> Here's what appeared on the singer's Twitter page not long after he realized that this fan encounter wasn't quite normal:<br /><br /><a href="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/ONTD/ay6pn6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/ONTD/ay6pn6.jpg" /></a><br /><b><small>[CLICK IMAGE IF YOU CAN'T READ THE WHOLE THING.]</small></b><br /><br />I'm a little surprised he didn't call the police, but given the girls' plan, perhaps it was best he didn't. Ay yi <i>yi</i>. The fact that the girl has since taken to begging Alex's forgiveness on Twitter is an extra dose of disturbing. And some of the <b><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/43113559.html?thread=6855299415#t6855299415" target="_blank">discussions in the ONTD comments</a></b> don't help, either. I don't think it makes me a "special snowflake" if I say that no, even at 12 or 13, I didn't think stalking my celebrity crushes was something I just <i>had</i> to do. My friends and I had posters on our walls, wrote silly stories about meeting rock stars, giggled over late-night phone calls as we watched MuchMusic spotlights or stayed up to see our favourite actors in their latest movie. <i>That</i> is what I thought "normal" teenagers do when they're fans...but as you can see from that discussion thread, my opinion is but one in a sea of many.<br /><br /><br />Granted, somewhere in all of that talk, the subject of social networking comes up. I'd be stupid to say that the existence of MySpace and Facebook and Twitter - hell, the internet in general - hasn't drastically changed the face of being a "fan" since I was a kid. My favourite movie stars weren't accessible at <i>all</i> in most cases, beyond whatever interview popped up in the latest TeenBeat magazine. (Oh, god, I'm aging myself.) Nowadays, you can have long conversations with John Mayer or Clive Barker or Kevin Spacey on Twitter, because it's a safe space for them to get to know their fans, and for their fans to get a glimpse into what used to be a completely mysterious way of life.<br /><br /><br />(Ah, yes. The <b><a href="http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Nine_Inch_Nails" target="_blank">Trent Reznor/social media debacle of 2009</a></b> also begs for its own blog entry. Someday soon, I promise. In the meantime, <b><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/alt.gossip.celebrities/msg/fd039e3e32fc80b3?pli=1" target="_blank">this discussion</a></b>, to which I contributed, does a pretty damn fine job of breaking down the reasons why not ALL celebrities should let their fans see what's behind the curtain.)<br /><br /><br />Back to the original question, then: <b>What divides "fan" from "fanatic," aside from four letters and the idea that you're certifiable?</b><br /><br /><br />I've done some things that people might consider extreme to see a concert of a favourite band (whether spending insane amounts of money for the ticket or travelling to another country - or continent - for the show) or attend the reading of a favourite author (like wearing a bridesmaid dress and carrying a bouquet while roaming around downtown Toronto trying to hail a cab... It's a long story). But as far as I know, I've never crossed that creepy line. I've been lucky enough to meet all sorts of famous people, many of whom I admire greatly and whose work I love dearly. I've gone on to be an acquaintance or a friend of some of these people; others I've seen or met once and have been perfectly happy with that. The line, for me, is that I've never visited myself upon my favourite singer's private property, be it a car or a house or whatever else. Every celebrity meeting I've had has taken place in an open, non-intrusive way: I meet them at their public event, or I'm introduced by mutual friends, or we happen to be at the same club or party, where it's normal to approach <i>anyone</i> and have a drink and some conversation. If ever I end up with that famous person's home address or phone number, it's because that person gave it to me, and <i>nobody's</i> going to <i>buy</i> it from me for any amount of money. If we become acquainted with each other on a more friendly, let's-hang-out level, it happens organically. I'm a collector of experiences, that much is for certain, but I'm not one who is comfortable crossing any sort of line without a green light first.<br /><br /><br />Take my most "extreme" fan activity: Flying to the UK to see a concert. Yes, I did that in 2008. The band I'd loved for 20 years was touring, but not in my part of the world. I had a good job and was making good money at the time...so I just decided to go for it. My father and I took the whirlwind trip of a lifetime together, visiting our family's homeland of Scotland for the first time ever, and the concert was the icing on the cake. My mother wasn't well enough to come with us, and she'd asked if I would bring home one souvenir for her: A photo of me with the band she loved nearly as much as I did. So, once at the venue, I sent a note backstage with my polite request, and thought, "Hey, if they can do it, great. If they can't, I'm still so lucky to get to see them perform live after all these years." I could've remained just another anonymous face in the crowd and I'd still have loved that show. As it turned out, they were <i>extraordinarily</i> gracious, and invited me backstage to meet with them after the show, and my Mom got the picture she wanted so much. I also came away from that evening having met some fantastic new people, and loved the country so much that I went back again a year later, no concert tickets in hand that time. It was one of the best things I've ever done...and I got to meet some of my musical heroes without being creepy about it. I didn't lurk next to a stage door in the rain for hours, or hunt down their tour bus, or try to befriend security so I could sneak in somehow. I simply asked. And I was rewarded a thousand times more than I'd have imagined I would be.<br /><br /><br />Now, I know this can't possibly be a typical fan experience. I can scarcely imagine my hardcore U2 fan friends would get a response like I did to a pre-show handwritten note sent backstage. Even bands who aren't as detached from their fans as those heavy hitters are probably very often inaccessible to their audience. But that's the thing: I don't think a band being harder to reach means that a fan should <i>try</i> harder to reach them. It's a fine line, between lucking out and getting that autograph, and turning into a full-time, full-fledged groupie. (Don't get me started on <i>that</i> subject. The road manager of a friend's band once referred to me as a "groupie," and he nearly had his nose broken in return.)<br /><br />I ask the question again, and have no intention of answering it myself, because I think it differs for a lot of people...and, frankly, I just don't <i>have</i> the answer. Where is that line? What does someone have to do to escalate from loyal fan to psychotic stalker? And the question that is perhaps of the most interest to me: <b>How far would you go - or <i>have</i> you gone - to see or meet your favourite band/actor/writer/celebrity?</b> How far is <i>too</i> far? Is there a price tag, a measurement in miles, or a social line that you can point at and say, "I won't go past that point, right there"?<br /><br /><br /><br />Here's hoping the teenage All Time Low stalker asks these questions next time, before she again publicly makes an ass of herself. And let us hope, too, that this <i>was</i> her "all time low."<br /><br /><br /><br />I couldn't resist.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-55844428427668827352009-12-09T09:05:00.005-05:002009-12-09T18:46:18.217-05:00Rape? Not rape? Don't Ask Amy: Defaulting To "YES"I'm not normally moved to write about something such as this in a public forum, but after stumbling across <b><a href="http://ow.ly/K3lS" target="_blank">a link</a></b> yesterday, one that detailed the story of an <b>"<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-1127-ask-amynov27,0,759611.column?page=1" target="_blank">Ask Amy</a>"</b> column in the Chicago Tribune which blamed the victim of a rape (yes, the college student <i>was</i> a victim, Amy said, first and foremost of her "own awful judgment" for daring to drink at a campus party)...I can't <i>not</i> write something about it. I could so so in my private blog, but everyone over there has already seen the shocked Twitter updates and so on. It's better to say it all here.<br /><br />I think it was the somewhat frustrating conversation I had with my parents after reading all of this "Ask Amy" garbage that made me realize it wasn't a subject I could just shove aside and forget about. My mother and I have discussed similar things at length throughout my life; we've debated, argued, agreed, and most importantly have just <i>talked</i> about it. About rape. About power. About what is and isn't okay. We haven't always agreed on every point - hell, we've had some pretty bizarre arguments about what is "proper" for a young lady to do - but that's not what matters, from where I stand. She raised me to be able to discuss these things and be critical and careful in both theory and practice.<br /><br />My father is a bit of a different story. It's not because he thinks differently than I do; he's quite possibly able to become even <i>more</i> angry at the thought of a man thinking he has inherent rights to a woman that he clearly does not. He's the kind of dad who - no word of a lie, here - used to park down the block from my date's house, thinking I wouldn't see his car, <i>just in case</i>. In case of what? I don't know. I'm not sure what he thought he could do from his car to help if my date decided to attack me mid-movie in the rec room. But damned if he didn't sit out there and read his book, believing himself to be in "stealth mode" (even though I <i>always</i> caught him when I'd be getting into my car to drive home), <i>just in case</i> his little girl found herself in danger at the hands of a guy he didn't know well enough to trust. (I sort of wonder if such a guy exists, actually. I'll have to ask him if there's ever been a guy I've dated that he truly trusted not to harm me in some way. Hmm.)<br /><br />Did I mention that he was doing this stealth-driving act <i>while I was in university</i>? Yeah. Did I mention that my mother has always seemed quietly pleased that he did so? <i>Yeah.</i><br /><br />And, all in all, I can't say it ever made me angry for long. They weren't trying to ruin my fun or police my social life; they were trying, in their possibly insanely overprotective way, to make sure they were <i>there</i> if I needed them, because they both knew that <i>bad things happen</i> and that <i>some guys can't be trusted</i>.<br /><br />The trouble we ran into during our conversation about the "Ask Amy" situation yesterday stemmed from a very organic place. My mother knows what I mean when I say, "I wish our society didn't just assume that a woman defaults to 'yes,' and that she has to kick, bite, and scream 'NO!' if she's going to avoid being touched or grabbed or spoken to inappropriately by men." (I should probably qualify that by saying that <i>I do not think all men are inherently evil</i>. For the purpose of this post, I'm discussing the men who <i>do</i> think they have these rights, and who don't feel they ought to take any responsibility in what happens if a woman's resistance isn't "strong enough" or...whatever.) During the conversation, I made reference to something that had angered me last year: <b>"<a href="http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1087686.html" target="_blank">The Open-Source Boob Project</a>"</b>. I'd break it down if I could, but you're probably better served if you go to the link and read up on it (<b><a href="http://blergeatkitty.livejournal.com/1100856.html" target="_blank">this post in response</a></b>, written by a friend of mine, is excellent, too; there's something of a "highlight reel" <b><a href="http://txvoodoo.livejournal.com/928105.html" target="_blank">posted here</a></b>, along with a link to the response essay entitled, <b>"<a href="http://misia.livejournal.com/1055120.html" target="_blank">A Modest Proposal: Open Source Swift Kick to the Balls Project</a>"</b>). It did have that same feeling of "Women Default To YES!" to it, although it later came out that the whole situation had been poorly explained, and that the writer of the post is not an evil, woman-hating predator.<br /><br />Even so, it just happened that this post and its ideals surfaced only days after I'd been sexually assaulted in my workplace. The "Project" would have riled me up no matter what, but the timing certainly made it worse. The man who assaulted me was very clear about the fact that he thought he had every right to put his hands all over me, and that, because I hadn't backhanded him yet, he could just keep going. Never mind that I was in shock, or that I was afraid it would only escalate further if I angered him; it was my perceived halfhearted refusals to let him go any further (he'd gone plenty far enough, thanks) that seemed to embolden him, as though I actually needed to knock his teeth down his throat for the word "NO" to mean anything to him. Telling him to stop, to let me go, making excuses so I could escape his grasp...none of it worked. I only got away from him when he, rather dementedly, interpreted my "NO" and "MY BOSS IS RIGHT UPSTAIRS" as "You'll have another shot at me tomorrow when we're alone, I promise!" In the end, I don't care what it was that allowed me to get my wrists free of his hands. I got free. And <i>I</i> was the one who went through hell for months afterward, being persecuted by the insensitive police officers who didn't seem all that interested in my case if it wasn't "real" rape or if I didn't feel strong enough to go to court right away. On top of that, after my employers had to change things around to accommodate me and my (apparently ridiculous?) security needs, I was fired from my job only three weeks later. Draw your own conclusions there. It might be telling, too, if I add that I was forbidden to tell any of my coworkers - all of whom were female and had to walk a good distance to their cars alone, in the dark, right outside the very building where this guy worked and where the assault had taken place. They didn't want to "cause a panic." Yes. Better to leave them totally blind and not know that there was a pervert with access to their office. We wouldn't want a <i>panic</i>.<br /><br />Anyway. Tangent. Yes. My point, though, is that I'd told my mother all about the Open-Source Boob Project, and how much it bothered me that, even if the guys involved in the original post didn't feel "entitled" (even though discussing the fact that women who go to comic and sci-fi conventions dress provocatively <i>for the men's viewing pleasure</i> certainly smacks of it, doesn't it?), it was still a slap in the face to many of us who hadn't really thought about it before...but yes, our society <i>does</i> think that a woman's default is set to "YES." What we have to go through to prove that we mean "NO" is ridiculous.<br /><br />I hadn't ever discussed that whole issue with my father. He was with me the night the police came to get my statement, and he did his best to comfort me when I cried about how I just couldn't <i>understand</i> how someone as strong and (apparently) intimidating as I am gave off the signals to this guy that it was okay for him to grope and kiss me in an empty stairwell. (See? Victim-blaming, done by the victim herself!) But he's not as tuned into pop culture as I am (and as my mother therefore is, as she's usually the one who gets to hear all of my ranting), and he doesn't have the front row seat that we do to just how pervasive the Yes Default really is.<br /><br />For that reason, his immediate response to the "Ask Amy" situation was to go into Mr. Fix-It Mode, which seems to be common among the men I've known. He was full of solutions about how this particular fraternity should be handled, and what this victim needed to do, and so on. None of what he said was <i>wrong</i>, but it missed the broader point. We still live in a society that is completely permissive as far as things like this go. This girl went to a frat party, told this guy she would NOT be sleeping with him, had several drinks, still said no, took the guy at his word when he promised he wouldn't make a move on her and would just take her to lie down when she started feeling unwell from the alcohol...and when he raped her, she was still so unsure about whether or not it WAS rape - because, as she said, she wasn't physically strong enough to kick or punch him, and could only <i>verbalize</i> her rejection of his advances - that she wrote to an advice column to ask if she was really a "victim."<br /><br />It's encouraging to see the amount of outrage directed at this Amy woman's response, because it hits the nail on the head. Some of the comments had me chuckling darkly.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>"If you are a drunk man, it's not your fault that you rape someone; if you are a drunk woman, it's partly your fault if you are raped. LOGIC FAIL."</i><br /><br /><i>"Because rape isn't a choice or a deliberate action: it's a bodily function, like throwing up on someone because you drank too much. Which is also embarrassing, especially if you've 'done it before'."</i><br /><br /><br /><br />How could Amy <i>possibly</i> live with herself after <b><a href="http://ow.ly/K3lS" target="_blank">advising this girl</a></b> to <i>confront her rapist</i> to clarify <i>what actually happened that night</i> in order to ascertain if it was, indeed, rape??? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ANSWER IS THAT??? What woman, who already carries the shame of the attack (because it's rare, I've found, to come across a woman who's been assaulted and who <i>doesn't</i> at some point ask herself if she somehow did something to "deserve" it - myself included), would want to face her attacker and <i>talk it over</i>???<br /><br />I don't know if men, even the most well-intentioned of them all, will ever really understand what it's like to have the very real concern <i>constantly</i> in the back of their minds that today will be the day that someone will violate them. On the subway. In the parking lot. At work. In their driveway. Women live with knowing that there are far too many people out there who believe that, unless you're walking around screaming "NO!" at the top of your lungs 24/7, you are somehow giving permission. The way you dress, the way you walk, the places you go, the <i>oh, so absurd</i> idea that <i>maybe</i> you want to go shopping <i>alone</i> on your way home from school or work. Newsflash, gentlemen: Women are even less "allowed" to do things the way they'd like to do them than men are in saying or doing sexual and demeaning things to those women. <i>It happens to us every day</i> to some degree. EVERY DAY. We - none of us - have the luxury of setting foot outside of our houses without thinking about the precautions we have to take. I tried to explain that to my father. He tried to understand, but he always ends up back in the same place: "The guys I've known my whole life have never thought they could say or do those things and have it be okay." Well, that's good to know. I <i>like</i> knowing there are lots of men out there who don't think women are their property. I'm certainly fortunate to have so many men in my family who have such respect and empathy for women; not many people are as lucky as I am. But just because you haven't heard it, or seen it, or been surrounded by Bad Guys, does not in any way mean that they aren't waiting for one of us outside the grocery store, or that otherwise "well adjusted" men don't suddenly think that a girl getting drunk at a college party equals permission to do whatever he wants to her. And my father knows this, too; why else would he be parking one block down to make sure I was safe when going on a date with a guy he hadn't met yet?<br /><br />There is no logical conclusion to this post. I wish there was. I'm not a good enough writer to tie this up in a neat little bow. What I can do, though, is leave it off with a link to an essay that I came across while reading all of this "Ask Amy" crap, one that, maybe, if I read it to my Dad, would finally make things <i>make sense</i>. The fact that I've been on the unfortunate receiving end of <i>two</i> "Not Rape" situations (I won't discuss the other one publicly, because - as bizarre as I'm sure it would sound to most - I don't want to ruin the life of the guy involved, despite that experience being considerably more...well, it <i>was</i> rape, I've come to understand, but still... That one gets left alone) makes this essay that much more poignant.<br /><br />Read it here: <b><a href="http://ow.ly/Keco" target="_blank">The "Not Rape" Epidemic</a>.</b> Pass it around. And I sincerely hope you know someone - <i>anyone</i> - who hasn't had at least one of the things described in Latoya's essay happen to her. I'm not sure I do. And that makes me want to cry.<br /><br /><b>[ETA:</b> Amy has <b><a href="http://jezebel.com/5421814/ask-amy-responds-to-critics-apologizes-keeps-digging" target="_blank">addressed her critics with the lamest non-retraction/apology ever</a></b>. I sincerely hope the Tribune fires her sorry ass for this debacle.<b>]</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-42437584364651578782009-12-04T06:50:00.002-05:002009-12-04T07:09:57.754-05:00Have you ever seen a movie......that, hours (and, I expect, days, weeks, months, years) after the fact, still makes you want to scream and cry and scrub your brain with an SOS pad??<br /><br />Let me start by saying this: I originally posted this entry back in May, under lock and key, in my private blog. Over the years I've had a lot of people tell me I should start an actual movie blog, since I see so many films (and a lot of them are <i>not</i> playing at your local cineplex or sitting at your nearest Blockbuster; I go out of my way to find stuff that isn't dumbed down for the tween set). Perhaps I should. Maybe I <i>will</i>. But in the meantime, I wanted to post about <i>this</i> film in a public forum, because I want to know who else has seen it, and how much more violent my reaction to it may have been compared to, say, yours.<br /><br />So. On with it then. Here's my post from May, only slightly modified, and <b>IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS, but you'll have plenty of warning before you get there.</b><br /><br />~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~<br /><br /><u>May 15th, 2009</u><br /><br />Have you ever seen a movie that, hours (and, I expect, days, weeks, months, years) after the fact, still makes you want to scream and cry and scrub your brain with an SOS pad??<br /><br />I alluded to this in my last entry, but because I was on my way out I didn't have time to get into it. Now I'm laying in the dark and I simply <i>cannot</i> get those images out of my head. I honestly don't recall the last movie that did this to me.<br /><br />The movie is called <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141974/" target="_blank">The War Zone</a>"</b>, directed by Tim Roth and starring Ray Winstone and Tilda Swinton. It's based on a novel that, by all accounts, is actually more horrifying than the film, though I really have no idea how that's possible.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/1999_The_War_Zone.jpg"><br /><br />And that's all I'm going to say about it before I break this post up again, because there are a number of you who will NOT want to read this. <b>TRIGGER WARNINGS AHOY.</b> If sexual abuse-related material will upset you, just stop here. Please. <b>[Ehch's Note:</b> In my private blog, I'm able to put things behind a cut; that feature doesn't appear to be available here, which is unfortunate. If any fellow Blogger users know of how to do this, or to at least cut the post off with a "Read more..." link, I'd love to know how! For now, though, I've made the most horrifying spoilers very, very small, so odds are you won't accidentally see something if you're trying to scroll past.<b>]</b><br /><br /><br />~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~<br /><br />Ready?<br /><br /><br />I'm a big Tim Roth fan; I have been for years. I should've known better, though, than to get this on my ZipList (the Canadian version of NetFlix) when the reason I heard about it was because I was looking for an answer to a question I had about the film <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/" target="_blank">Irréversible</a>"</b> (Monica Bellucci & real life husband Vincent Cassel) and it was recommended in a thread on IMDb about <i>that</i> horrifying film. (If you're interested <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6QGcHDhMt0" target="_blank">this is an interesting review/analysis of "Irréversible"</a></b> that does NOT show the nastiest, most graphic scenes; it stops short and spares us. It's still NSFW, though, as we do get to see the gorgeous Monica sans clothes a few times, but in a perfectly sweet context.)<br /><br />Some of you saw my early-morning freakout on Facebook. I was finally watching <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141974/" target="_blank">The War Zone</a>"</b> after waiting for more than a year for it to become available through Zip, and when I got to something that I'd seen referred to as "the infamous Bunker Scene", I was...paralyzed. I wanted to make it stop, but I just...couldn't. And then I had to reach for my garbage can, because I was absolutely certain that I was about to throw up. I didn't (despite having done so in the past - once when I saw <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/" target="_blank">A Clockwork Orange</a>"</b> for the first time at the age of 11, and then the first time I ever saw the Nine Inch Nails <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103885/" target="_blank">BROKEN</a>"</b> movie, when I was about 20). But I think the reason I didn't was because I actually went into literal <i>shock</i>.<br /><br />(I suspect I'd have been sick at <i>Irréversible</i>, too, but the truth is that I've actually never been able to watch the whole rape scene; the two times I've attempted it, I can only get so far before I have to hit fast-forward and look away from the screen. There's another scene in that movie - those of you who've seen it will know what I mean when I refer to it as "the fire extinguisher scene in the nightclub called 'Rectum'" - which very nearly sent me running to the bathroom, but again, I've never watched it in full. I can't.) <br /><br /><br /><br />So. <i>The War Zone</i>.<br /><br /><br /><br />Here's the basic plot summary from IMDb - I suppose it should be considered a fairly major spoiler, but it's nothing you probably wouldn't find out from reading the description on the back of the DVD, or that you would figure out for yourself only a short ways into the film:<br /><br /><br /><b>***KINDA SPOILERISH PLOT SUMMARY (but does NOT give even HALF of what ends up happening)**</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>An alienated 15 year old (Freddie Cunliffe), forced to move away from his friends in London when his family relocates to rural Devon, struggles with the change and becomes an observer of the family. His mother (Tilda Swinton) is pregnant, his dad (Ray Winstone) is vocally abusive, and his 18 year old sister (Lara Belmont) is sexually active and open to her brother. However, the boy guesses at and finds that he is correct that his father has had sexual relations with his sister.</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Now, first let me say this about the movie: It is <i>beautifully</i> shot and directed, and the performances are extraordinary. The emotional notes these actors hit without so much as a word are incredible. Tim Roth did an amazing job adapting the book in such a way that there's a lot more of a gray area to certain elements. As movie-making goes, this one really deserves accolades. <br /><br /><br />But then there's that "infamous Bunker Scene". I really had no idea why this was called <i>The War Zone</i> and what this "bunker" was - if it was literal or figurative or a metaphor for whatever-the-hell - until that scene. And despite the constantly growing uneasiness that pervades the film up to that moment (and no, it's not the end, or even the climax, of the movie), there was nothing on earth that could have prepared me for what I saw.<br /><br /><br />Before I go 100% spoilery on you, let me show you two of the only three bits of trivia featured on the IMDb page for it. So help me god, if only I'd read these first... Maybe I wouldn't have seen the film at all, but at the very least, if I <i>had</i> seen it nonetheless, maybe I'd have been more...ready? I don't know. Here's what it says (spoiler-free):<br /><br /><br /><ul><li><i>According to director Tim Roth the bunker scene was so difficult to film that the sound man almost ruined a take by crying into his microphone. Ray Winstone also found acting the scene upsetting and nearly left the production because of it.<br /><br /><li>At a public screening of this movie during the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival, one viewer was so upset and devastated that he rose to his feet and shouted that he couldn't take any more, then headed for the exit, intending to pull the fire alarm. Tim Roth, who was in attendance, intercepted him at the door, and it took 20 minutes of intense conversation to calm the man down.<br /></ul><br /></i><br /><br /><br />Uh...yeah. I probably could have used that information beforehand. My own fault, I know. But I'd probably have found the idea of someone bolting from their seat at the TIFF, shrieking and heading for the fire alarm, laughable had I not seen for myself <i>why</i> someone would react like that. I'm not laughing now.<br /><br /><br />So, now, some of you who are reading this are dying to know what on earth could be so awful, especially knowing the kinds of things I can watch or read and remain relatively unaffected. And a couple of you probably need to know for sure what the Bunker Scene <i>is</i>, so you can decide for yourselves if this is a movie you can handle. I'll tell you. <br /><br /><br /><big><b>*****SPOILERS*****</b></big><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><small>The scene in question takes place when Tom, the 15-year-old son of this family, follows his suspicions about the things he's seen and heard as far as the relationship his sister and their father are having, and he walks out to this bunker that is on their property. (They're in the middle of nowhere, near the shore in Devon, and this big concrete outbuilding is at the edge of their land - I'm not sure if it's ever explained what it was originally for, but that's inconsequential.) The bunker has a foot-wide gap that runs around the perimeter of it, which allows Tom to look inside when he hears something.<br /><br />That "something" ends up being - filmed in one <i>excruciatingly</i> long, unflinching shot from a bit of a distance, presumably to give us Tom's true perspective as someone on the outside looking in - his sister Jessie, on her hands and knees on the cement floor, and their father pulling off her clothes and then his own, before he <i>viciously</i> sodomizes her (and yes, it is later made very clear that it is forcible anal sex, if it wasn't evident already). The shot is such that we don't really get to see Ray Winstone's face, and as I said, the camera doesn't move at all. It neither pans out nor zooms in. You see what you see. And you <i>mostly</i> are seeing Jessie's face and body, as well as that of her father behind her (up to about his shoulders), and she is crying out in agony while he hammers relentlessly at her for what felt like an eternity. It is graphic. The sounds made by the father, intermingled with the weeping and cries of pain from the daughter, were enough that, even if I'd closed my eyes and had only heard what was happening, I would be haunted forever.<br /><br />There are two more huge spoilers that I'll share here, in the interest of full disclosure. One is that their mother (Tilda Swinton), who is apparently oblivious to what's going on, has just had a new baby girl, and when a night comes that the baby has to be taken to hospital because she's "bleeding" (I don't think they get specific about that, but...the implications are very, very clear), Tom finally tells his mother that she needs to keep baby Alice away from the father. He doesn't say why; he doesn't have to. The look of horror on his mother's face as she stands beside her baby's hospital bed says it all.<br /><br />The second is that this new-found knowledge of the incest between his father and his sister really fucks Tom up, even more so than he already was, and it is heavily implied at the end (once the father is out of the picture - I'll leave that bit alone) that the cycle begins again, as Jessie finds Tom sitting in the bunker, and asks him what they're going to do now...and Tom gets up and shuts the bunker door, closing them in together. In the novel, it is explicitly stated that yes, brother and sister do go on to have an incestuous relationship; Tim Roth chose to leave the ending ambiguous in the film, but it was clear to me even before I'd read up on it. Tom had already turned his anger toward his sister after seeing what he saw in the bunker (and seeing several other disturbing things as well), going so far as to beat her up, burn her with his lighter, etc., as though he believed she'd seduced their father and it was all her fault. But he later defends his sister and faces his father with what he knows...so it's hard to say whether the sexual relationship between Jessie and Tom has evolved out of some twisted kind of love, or if Tom is simply using Jessie as a means to let out his fury over his family being blown apart, and Jessie is giving in because she's been a victim for so long already.<br /><br />An additional point: Someone in an IMDb thread said something about the fact that Jessie had agreed to carry on serving her father and not telling anyone, as long as he promised he would never touch the baby. Obviously, since the baby had to be taken to the hospital because of this mysterious bleeding, the father didn't live up to his end of the bargain. That seems to have been what pushed the two older kids to confront him at last.</small><br /><br /><b>***END OF SPOILERS***</b><br /><br />I don't really know how to make these images leave my brain. I've already seen another movie in the meantime, have been out with a friend, have conversed about fluff, and yet my ears are still ringing with the sounds from that bunker.<br /><br /><br />Have any of you seen it? Or have you seen something else that has messed you up as much as this has done to me? Am I the only one who has been driven to physical sickness from watching a damned movie?? How on earth does one go about deleting it from one's brain? Or is it there forever, because there's no such thing as being able to "unsee" something??<br /><br /><br />I'll leave you with a completely safe YouTube clip of the review Roger Ebert gave back in 1999, when it first came out. Then you can decide for yourselves if you would ever be willing to experience this film, for the sake of seeing an excellently made movie, and in spite of it being something you may never be able to wish away.<br /><br /><br /><lj-embed id="141"><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sLu9oB8OFMM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sLu9oB8OFMM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /></lj-embed>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-40232153195739125982009-11-30T17:23:00.002-05:002009-11-30T17:35:22.328-05:00NaNoWriMo is over. Donation time begins.The real entry is actually over at <b><a href="http://prettyh.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/nanowrimo-ends…al-work-begins/" target="_blank">my WordPress blog</a></b>, but for whatever reason, I wasn't able to embed the PayPal button - meant for accepting memorial donations for Martin Streek - over there. For the whole explanation, head on over to WordPress. If that's where you've just come from, here's the button you're looking for:<br /><br /><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"><br /><input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick"><br /><input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="10136967"><br /><input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!"><br /><img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1"><br /></form><br /><br />One of these days, I swear I'll update this blog properly again. For now, though, I'm just relieved that I broke 50K, won NaNoWriMo, and accomplished something long overdue. Thank you, again, to everyone who's supported me. Stay tuned - the book will remain Project #1 for me until it's in readable shape, so here's hoping I can do it justice.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-89151415610780312132009-11-17T21:02:00.003-05:002009-11-17T21:34:51.034-05:00NaNoWriMo = Radio Silence.I know. I've been terribly neglectful of my blog here. In truth, I've been neglectful of just about everything for the past couple of months; I was in pretty rough shape upon my return from Edinburgh, health-wise, and am as always struggling to regain some kind of equilibrium. (Sad, isn't it? I've been back since the end of <i>August</i>, for crying out loud.)<br /><br /><br />What's been taking most of my attention and energy at the moment, though, is something about which many of you know all too well, having survived it yourselves or, at the very least, having been part of someone's cheering section (maybe even mine): <b><a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user%252F108054" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a></b>. Yes, November is National Novel Writing Month, and yes, once again I'm putting myself through the wringer. This time, though, it's different.<br /><br /><br />Remember <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2009/07/martin-streek-my-unlikely-muse.html" target="_blank">my farewell entry to Martin Streek</a>?</b> I do. Vaguely. And I remember saying that, come hell or high water, I would finish the book he knew I was writing. He was, after all, the inspiration behind it. I'd started my first draft back in 2006, when it seemed like we had all the time in the world... Martin was quick to give me whatever access I needed to do "research" (and yes, it was as much fun as it sounds - and <i>no</i>, that wasn't meant to sound vulgar! I simply meant that "doing research" by going out clubbing isn't exactly the toughest job in the world, especially with a guy like Martin holding up the velvet ropes for me anywhere I went). He was endlessly amused at the ideas I had for his alter ego. He'd already been a fan of my writing for almost a decade before that, and I guess it was gratifying for both of us to see me try to go "legit," especially since he'd had such a significant hand in it.<br /><br /><br />Anyway. That's all very well-covered ground by now. I just wanted to post something here - for those of you who've only been peripherally aware of where the hell I've been and what on earth I'm up to - to say that yes, I'm using NaNo as the kick in the backside I so obviously need to finally give this book the life it deserves. It's been an agonizingly slow process. I know what I want to write, but each time I sit down to do so, I find myself overwhelmed by memories, emotion, and the inescapable fact that Martin will never read it. To further motivate myself, I've opted to add even more incentive: If I do, indeed, reach the goal of 50,000 words by November 30th, I'll be pledging money to <b><a href="http://www.suicideinfo.ca/csp/go.aspx?tabid=5" target="_blank">a very important charity</a></b>, one that seems appropriate not only because of the subject matter of the book, but because of the man who inspired me to write in the first place.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/LiveSupporter/108054.png" /><br /><br /><br />I'm <i>way</i> behind in my word count so far. But there's time to catch up yet. I'm not giving up, no matter how many tears I cry or how many times I hear myself saying, "You can't do it. You're not worthy of this. Quit while you're ahead." I have to ignore that voice, because there's more at stake this time than just the self-congratulatory pat on the back that will come when I hit 50K. There are people who are pledging money to the charity alongside me, and...it matters. So I'm not quitting. I will soldier on.<br /><br /><br />If you'd like to watch my progress and give me the occasional smack upside the head when I falter, <b><a href="http://prettyh.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/locked-cranked-a-preview-and-an-explanation/" target="_blank">start here</a></b>. If you want to show your support by becoming my "fan" on Facebook, <b><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Heather.V.Swanson" target="_blank">there's a page for that, too</a></b>. If you want to pledge to the charity, let me know via one of my many contact routes. And come November 30th, one way or another, I'll be back to let everyone who's supporting me know that <i>I did it</i>, and can only hope that, if the man behind it all were still here with us, he'd be proud.<br /><br /><br />Thank you. To everyone who's had my back so far. You know who you are.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-58507308982310960402009-09-24T09:19:00.004-04:002009-09-24T10:27:58.690-04:00Kiwi: Three years later and I still sob!I don't cry a lot. I mean, I'm not one of those people who often finds herself getting misty in the Hallmark aisle, or gets that lower lip trembling at Tim Horton's commercials. (Okay, yeah, maybe one or two of those cell phone ads a few years back, but...cut me some slack, here. I'm trying to make a point.) And as much as I loathe all things <i>Seinfeld</i> (yes! I SAID IT ALOUD! ...surely enough for another entry on its own), I must say, as far as people who tear up easily go: "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." Some of my oldest and best friends get all soppy over the strangest things. I judge not, lest I be judged on the one day someone happens across me as I'm watching <b>"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs" target="_blank">Kiwi</a>"</b>. Because that day? <i>That</i> day you'll find me face down in a pile of Kleenex.<br /><br />Oh, would you look at that? TODAY IS THAT DAY. <i>Again</i>. I'm narrowing my puffy eyes at a certain friend from elementary school who posted a link on Facebook, but how was she to know that Kiwi and I have had a troubled history that goes back several years? It's okay, Tammy. I forgive you.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/f9a2ebd3.jpg"><br /><br />A small group of you are privy to my off-site locked blog (est. 2001!), and may remember the day I posted about an animation I'd come across that had surely caused a spike in tissue stock for the quarter. It'll take some doing to find that entry, but I'll transcribe it here when I do. I vividly recall several of my friends saying they weren't able to watch "Kiwi" and had no idea why I was weeping all over my keyboard; I guess the link I'd posted had gone down from traffic before most could see what the fuss was all about. I also remember, however, that several good friends posted countless comments containing their most adorable YouTube finds to cheer me up, even without having seen the sad little video about which I was blubbering. Now, see, I <i>really</i> need to find that entry, 'cos you're gonna need those happy, fluffy distractions after you watch "Kiwi." <br /><br />Notice I didn't say, "<i>if</i> you watch" it. Because you know you're gonna. And you won't feel bad about yourself afterward, since it's nothing like rubber-necking or Train Wreck Syndrome. It's a <i>cartoon</i>, at its base, and how can you be a bad person for watching a cartoon? No, the only reason you're gonna feel bad is because POOR KIWI AUGH.<br /><br />From the maker of this short and, clearly, utterly unforgettable masterpiece: <i>My Master's Thesis Animation, which I completed while I was at The School of Visual Arts, MFA Computer Art, in New York City. Created using Maya, After Effects, and rigged using The Setup Machine by Anzovin studios. If you would like to download there is a small version at my website: www.donysanimation.com</i>. Damn. I'd have given this student his/her degree on the spot.<br /><br /><i>So shut up already!</i> you're all saying. <i>Let me see what has you sobbing like a three year old, when not even those brutal infomercials make you blink!</i> Yes, yes, fine. A few words of advice, though: Don't read the comments left at the YouTube page before watching the clip. Go in blind and completely unprepared, as I was when I first saw this in 2006. I've already given you an enormous advantage by telling you that it made me cry; had I not said such a thing, you, too, would be staring at the incredibly cute little bird on your screen in mere moments and thinking, "Awwwww! This is adorable!" And then, just like mine did, your face would slowly contort into an expression that would be the offline equivalent of "WTF?!?" and then "OMG" and...well. You'll see.<br /><br />All right. Secure a handkerchief. Join the club. Take the plunge. Watch "Kiwi." <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sdUUx5FdySs&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sdUUx5FdySs&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />...is it over yet? Can I stop hiding my eyes?<br /><br />If you're among the people who don't understand what the hell you just saw, there is, apparently, a helpful site with some sort of FAQ here: <b><a href="http://www.isfat.com/happyjunk/kiwi.php" target="_blank">http://www.isfat.com/happyjunk/kiwi.php</a></b>. I for one had no problem absorbing its message - although "absorbing" makes it sound as though it was a slow and gentle recognition, rather than the slap across the face to which I'd rather liken it - but I've seen a lot of puzzled comments elsewhere, so if you're looking for insight, you know where to go.<br /><br />I really ought to leave a note for the person who created this animation. Something that would convey how oddly and unexpectedly powerful s/he managed to make an under-three-minute-long MFA project. Because, really...I'd long forgotten about little Kiwi, three years later and having only ever watched it once; yet all I had to do was glimpse the freeze-frame on my Facebook news feed and it all came rushing back. <i>That</i> is the mark of something pure. Yes, it's something that made me cry, but not in the way that a commercial for the Humane Society or the Hospital For Sick Children does. It's...different. It's...just <i>different</i>. And it makes you think, in a very introspective way. It doesn't surprise me to see that <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1051713/" target="_blank">"Kiwi" now has its own IMDb page</a></b>. I haven't looked at the Discussion Boards yet, but I'm guessing, by the millions of views on YouTube, that there are a lot of people marvelling at this beautiful little wonder as much as I have.<br /><br />By the by, if the original didn't quite accomplish the feat of wrenching a tear from your eye, <strike>DO YOU EVEN HAVE A SOUL???</strike> you now have the option of <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0G9vDKcdLg" target="_blank">having Gary Jules hurt your heart EVEN MORE at no extra cost</a></b>. Just sayin'.<br /><br />Quoting The Beatles is much more my style than referring back to Seinfeld, so I'll just leave you with the video, your tissues, and whatever you take from seeing that precious little bird, and will simply state: <i>I can say no more.</i><br /><br /><br /><br />P.S. <a href="http://www.savethekiwi.org.nz/" target="_blank"><b>http://www.savethekiwi.org.nz/</a></b>!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-4504286732798354512009-09-02T09:43:00.004-04:002009-09-02T10:46:31.226-04:00For those who've written to me about Martin Streek...I realize it's been a while since <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2009/07/martin-streek-my-unlikely-muse.html" target="_blank">my last post</a></b>, about Martin. I've received a significant amount of email in response, asking me questions that I either cannot or will not answer (which isn't meant to sound as harsh as it does; I simply don't feel as though I'm someone who ought to comment on certain things, nor do I feel that some subjects warrant discussion). I do realize that the reason I'm still getting these notes - mainly from strangers who were fans of Mr. Streek - is that, even seven weeks after we and the rest of the world lost a good man, a lot of people are still in shock, or are trying to understand, or are simply still mourning, as many of us will do for the rest of our lives.<br /><br />It's been surprising to me just how many people who never had the good fortune of meeting Martin, but who felt connected to him over the airwaves nonetheless, have sent messages my way. I hope so very much that Martin knew how far and wide his influence reached. This post is for them, the people who have said time and again on various message boards and memorial groups (like that on Facebook) that they are shocked at how big a void they feel, having lost someone they'd never even seen face to face.<br /><br />Instead of relying on my own words this time, then, I thought it would be best to make available to all who've asked (and even those who haven't) a small selection of other people's touching tributes to Martin. Because he meant something different to everyone whose lives he touched, it is only right that his fans - who may not have caught some of the blog posts and such in the confusing and heart-wrenching days that followed Martin's passing - should have access to the missives posted by a few of his old friends. In so many ways, they each said it better than I ever could.<br /><br />There are countless news articles and posts floating around in cyberspace about our Martin. Some contain misleading or outright incorrect information. After sifting through far too many, I always come back to the same ones, those that stand head and shoulders above the others, written by people who knew and loved the man. To see him through the eyes of friends other than myself, I highly recommend reading the following:<br /><br /><ul><li><b>"<a href="http://onemann.blogspot.com/2009/07/thoughts-about-martin-streek.html" target="_blank">Thoughts About Martin Streek</a>"</b> by Kneale Mann; <li><b>"<a href="http://www.exploremusic.com/news/2009-07-07/Martin-Streek-This-Charming-Man" target="_blank">Martin Streek: This Charming Man</a>"</b> by Alan Cross; <br /><li><b>"<a href="http://www.eyeweekly.com/blog/post/65382" target="_blank">Martin Streek Remembered</a>"</b> by Liisa Ladouceur; and<br /><li><b>"<a href="http://www.canadianthinker.com/2009/07/martin_streek_-_rip.html" target="_blank">Martin Streek: RIP</a>"</b> by Fred Patterson. <br /></ul><br /><br />As mentioned in my original post about Martin, the <b><a href="http://www.martinstreek.com" target="_blank">on-air tribute by Dave Marsden</a></b> is an absolute must-hear as well. And if, after all of that, you still feel the need to read an "official" news report, the only one I'd suggest is <b><a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/662512" target="_blank">posted on the website of the Toronto Star</a></b>, written by Ben Rayner.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/goodbye_martin_phoenix3.jpg"><br /><b><small>[</b> photo from the tribute held for Martin at the Phoenix, July 2009 <b>]</b></small><br /><br />If there are any blog entries, articles, tributes or other such material out there that you feel ought to be included in this list (since my blog apparently comes up at some point during Google searches of Martin's name, thus leading a number of his fans to contact me with questions that I cannot answer), or if there's something you've seen that you think I might like to read, please feel free to comment here, or to reach me <b><a href="mailto:prettyh@gmail.com?subject=Martin">via email</a></b>. I'd be glad to add to the list of posts that will induce a smile while reading, whether the reader is a fan, a friend, or his family. The tears haven't stopped, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that we're a little more ready now to laugh at the great memories with which we've been left.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/goodbye_martin_phoenix2.jpg"><br /><b><small>[</b> photo from the tribute held for Martin at the Phoenix, July 2009 <b>]</b></small><br /><br /><br />Thank you, to everyone, for the kind words and wishes. And I hope the links I've provided in this post will answer whatever questions for you that I cannot.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/000jan1_2000.jpg">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-40210826009911438852009-07-23T15:44:00.015-04:002011-01-06T14:55:54.924-05:00Martin Streek: My unlikely muse.Since Martin's passing on July 6th, I've been very much at a loss for words...or, at least, for the <i>right</i> words. My first draft of this blog entry took five pages just to explain how our paths first crossed in 1997; a second draft was so disjointed and scrambled that it was clear I wasn't ready to write about him yet. Usually putting my thoughts down on paper, or onto the screen of my laptop, is cathartic...but in the days and now weeks since we lost the man that so many of us loved in so many different ways, I've been surprised again and again by just how shell-shocked I've been left with him gone. Words haven't helped. And considering the fact that it was my writing which sparked our friendship 12 years ago, I've felt even more lost without it.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.martinstreek.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/joycammcs.jpg"></a><br />
<b>[ <strike>click photo to go to Martin's site & hear the on-air tributes done for him by the lovely Dave Marsden as well as a 3-hour 102.1 The Edge special dedicated to him.</strike> Sadly, as of 2010, the site is no more. The playlist, however, can be found <a href="http://martin-streek.info/">here</a>. ]</b><br />
<br />
The story of how <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Streek" target="_blank">Martin Streek</a></b> became someone I considered a friend is an amusing one. I've ditched the first draft and will spare you the painstaking details of our rather inauspicious beginnings, but suffice it to say that, when I found myself completely blocked for a writing assignment in university, the divine idea of using Martin's larger-than-life personality as inspiration ended up getting me an 'A'. We hadn't even really <i>met</i> by that point, beyond saying hello at the nightclubs in which he worked and I partied, but I could have written epic novels about this man, who was armed with such charisma and energy, with only the barest of introductions. At some point, on a drunken post-party evening on my university campus, my roommate Chris dared me to stop in at UW's computer lab and email this Streek fellow, and to tell him I'd gotten a good grade by virtue of him simply existing. Chris looked up Martin's email address, and I followed through on the dare. You can imagine my surprise, in the midst of a nasty hangover the following day, when I found a response from Mr. Streek himself, insisting that he ought to read what I'd written and asking if I'd send it along to him.<br />
<br />
I did. And that led to a lengthy back-and-forth between us via email. He even commissioned me to write more short pieces for him (I suppose my version of him was a flattering one), and eventually, as a token of his gratitude for indulging him, he'd put me permanently on his guest lists at the clubs I loved so much. I was always written down as "Heather/Hilary", a nod to the pseudonym all of my writings for him had borne. When at last we met and had a longer face to face conversation than just a casual hello or goodbye, I knew this was a guy I wanted to get to know better. I'd never met anyone like him before. That's easy enough to say, really, since I was barely 21 at that point...but now, a dozen years later, I can still say I've never met anyone like him. He was unparalleled in so many ways - he was hilarious, incredibly smart, engaging, and there was always so much to learn from him. He had a knack for providing random bits of trivia about nearly <i>everything</i>, from music and pop culture to literature and politics, and everything in between. He was a great debater; we had plenty of heated face-offs over the years. The bottom line: There was <i>nothing</i> about the man that wasn't interesting.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/?action=view&current=martin_me_halloween2001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/th_martin_me_halloween2001.jpg" border="0" alt="martin" ></a><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/?action=view&current=000jan1_2000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/th_000jan1_2000.jpg" border="0" alt="Martin & Heather, Jan. 1st/00" ></a><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/?action=view&current=fbs1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/th_fbs1.jpg" border="0" alt="Fatboy Slim night! Heather, Martin, Dwight & Laura celebrating at the Kool Haus." ></a><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/?action=view&current=23rdbday.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/th_23rdbday.jpg" border="0" alt="Heather\'s 23rd b-day, surrounded by friends! (Martin, Deb, Sean, Roger, \"Slam\", Jay and others)" ></a><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/?action=view&current=IP_110.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/th_IP_110.jpg" border="0" alt="martin" ></a><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/?action=view&current=goodbye_martin_phoenix3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/painful/th_goodbye_martin_phoenix3.jpg" border="0" alt="Phoenix Memorial" ></a><br />
<br />
When he and my mother first met, I had no clue whether she would agree with my assessment. But within moments of my introduction, I was impressed by how respectful and genuinely fond he seemed of her. The feeling was mutual. He could relate to anyone, changing like a chameleon to fit every situation without needing to be phony. My mother, a good judge of character, was immediately charmed, and though they only met a handful of times after that first evening, she always had a soft spot for him. It didn't hurt that his admiration for his own mother, Grace, was so plain. Martin could act like a badass, a tough guy, the leader of the crazy three-ring circus made up of Toronto's nightlife and his countless admirers, but he wasn't afraid to pull back the curtain every so often and allow us to see the depth and kindness that were just as big a part of who he was.<br />
<br />
We had occasion over the years to talk about serious stuff, too. I remember a lengthy conversation we had about a particularly tough break-up through which he was going, and I felt honoured that he trusted me enough to know that he didn't have to be "on" when I was around. He told me so many great stories about his brothers, about his parents, about his incredible experiences with famous people that most would give anything to have met... If ever I had a friend who wanted to interview him for their campus newspaper, or to photograph him for their portfolio, or to pick his brain about how to break into the radio business, he never hesitated. He was generous with his time and never once made my friends feel as though he was put out in the least. I can't think of anything I ever asked of him that he didn't do. <br />
<br />
I could go on for pages listing examples, but two jump immediately to mind. One took place at a birthday party that one of our mutual friends was throwing for me. Despite it taking place on one of his precious nights off, he came by long enough to buy me a drink and give me a hug. I found out later that he'd gone straight to the hospital in a taxi once he left, because he'd hurt his back while skateboarding earlier that day. The guy was in enough pain to warrant medical attention, but he still didn't miss my birthday. That's the kind of man he was.<br />
<br />
The other instance took place a few years later. I'd gone to one of his Sunday club nights to see him and visit with friends, and at some point I realized my very expensive and beloved watch had stopped working. Martin fiddled with it for a minute or two, to no avail, and then mysteriously excused himself. Twenty minutes later, he was back, looking victorious and saying he had something for me...and out of his pocket he pulled a watch made of candy. He said he and a friend had "broken into" Sugar Mountain, the candy store down the block from the club, but I never knew what really happened (or if his friend was in fact the owner of the shop). All I knew was that such a gesture was sweeter than the candy itself. <br />
<br />
That terrible night and morning, when the reality of Martin being gone forever was beginning to sink in, I was alone. I cried harder than I can ever recall doing before, my sobs coming from a place so deep that I never even knew existed. I'd sent him a goofy note on Facebook less than 24 hours before he died. We'd waved to each other only a few weeks earlier while attending the same concert. He'd scrawled all over my Facebook wall about Peter Murphy, an artist we both love, only days before <i>that</i>. It just didn't seem possible that this man, who had fought his way through so many tough moments in his life and was, in my eyes, finally the best possible version of himself...it wasn't possible that he was gone. But he was. He is.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/fb_martin_pmconcert.jpg"><br />
<br />
For whatever reason, as I wandered around my house at 5 a.m. in shock, I immediately thought of that candy watch. I'd never taken it out of its tiny plastic bag, and was, even in my disorienting grief, pretty sure I knew where I'd kept it. Sure enough, it was still in the pocket of the purse I'd had with me the night he gave it to me. I'd carried it with me for years; I've no idea why. But that morning, I was desperate to have a tangible piece of my history with him. A touchstone, of sorts. It has been brought out of its dark little hiding place now, and is on display in my house, where I see it every day and manage to smile.<br />
<br />
I cried a lot for days. Still do. I cried for myself, knowing I would never again have a silly Sunday morning email exchange with him about x-rated album covers or whatever other fluffy things we'd discuss. I cried for the friends of his who were closer to him than I'd ever been, for I couldn't imagine how much more painful his loss would be for them. And I cried for his family. He loved them so much. I knew that, if they loved him just as much in return (and surely they do), they must be devastated.<br />
<br />
In the last three years of his life, he'd given me access to whatever nightlife research I needed to do, because at long last I was going to attempt to parlay my skill (according to him, anyway) for storytelling into a bona fide novel. The central character? Yeah. You guessed it. I told Martin about his alter ego, and he was so supportive any time we talked about my slow-as-molasses progress. He even wrote some words of encouragement on the last page of the rough draft's notebook, addressing me as always by my real name as well as my <i>nom de plume</i>. Those scribbles will forever be one of the most precious reminders of him.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/martin_note_small.jpg"><br />
<br />
I never did get around to telling him that I planned to give the book a title meant to honour him.<br />
<br />
This is where I ask for your help. Martin was my muse for so many years; if ever I was stuck for something to write, he somehow managed to kick me back into creative gear. Now that he's gone, I feel like it's more important than ever for me to commit myself fully to finishing this book, the one about which he'd always ask as we drank mochaccinos and caught up on each other's latest travels and travails. It will no doubt break my heart to pick up that pen again, but I want to do him proud. I want to prove that he was right, that I didn't need luck to write it, that skill would get me through. I need you, my friends, to make sure that I don't find any more excuses to drag my feet. I need to not forget what a kick Martin would've gotten out of it, had I managed to finish a proper draft while he was still here.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I will miss him always. He left a void that nothing can ever fill. But maybe - just maybe - finally finishing <b>"Locked & Cranked"</b> is the best tribute to him I can ever make. Please, for him, don't let me fail at the last thing I can do in his memory.<br />
<br />
<br />
<img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/mcslonghair.jpg"><br />
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<b>[ ETA:</b> There are countless news articles and posts floating around in cyberspace about our Martin. Some contain misleading or outright incorrect information. After sifting through far too many, I always come back to the same ones, those that stand head and shoulders above the others, written by people who knew and loved the man. To see him through the eyes of friends other than myself, I highly recommend reading <b>"<a href="http://onemann.blogspot.com/2009/07/thoughts-about-martin-streek.html" target="_blank">Thoughts About Martin Streek</a>"</b> by Kneale Mann, <b>"<a href="http://www.exploremusic.com/news/2009-07-07/Martin-Streek-This-Charming-Man" target="_blank">Martin Streek: This Charming Man</a>"</b> by Alan Cross, <b>"<a href="http://www.eyeweekly.com/blog/post/65382" target="_blank">Martin Streek Remembered</a>"</b> by Liisa Ladouceur, and <b>"<a href="http://www.canadianthinker.com/2009/07/martin_streek_-_rip.html" target="_blank">Martin Streek: RIP</a>"</b> by Fred Patterson. As mentioned above, the <b><a href="http://www.martinstreek.com" target="_blank">on-air tribute by Dave Marsden</a></b> is an absolute must-hear as well; if anyone knows of a current, working link, please let me know so I can replace it appropriately. And if you must read one "official" news report, the only one I'd suggest is <b><a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/662512" target="_blank">posted on the website of the Toronto Star</a></b>. <b>]</b><br />
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<b>[ **JUNE 2010:** TO DONATE TO ONE OF MARTIN'S FAVOURITE CHARITIES:</b> Go to <b><a href="http://www.pmhf.ca/Pages/ItsPersonal/ItsPersonal.Story.aspx?s=110" target="_blank">his legacy page</a></b> at the Princess Margaret Hospital website, read the wonderful story about his longtime support, and make a donation in his name to the Ride To Conquer Cancer foundation by clicking on the link to <b><a href="http://www.conquercancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2009?px=1738628&pg=personal&fr_id=1261" target="_blank">Martin's page</a></b>. To everyone who pledged during NaNoWriMo 2009 and helped us raise $1,000 for the cause, and to all who've contacted me to ask about how you can continue to keep his memory alive by giving: Thank you so very much. I made sure the donation cards reached his brother. <b>]</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-29420151134038844462009-06-18T17:57:00.031-04:002009-06-21T05:08:01.850-04:001st Annual "Ehch Is Bored" Contest on Twitter - come play!Mmkay. The <b><i>1st Annual</b></i> (or weekly, if these antibiotics keep me laying facedown in my bed for much longer) <i><b>Ehch's Boredom Contest on Twitter</i> will begin at 8 a.m. EST on Friday, June 19th.</b> Up to three prizes shall be awarded (if there are enough people playing along to warrant a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finish, that is), and they will be based on the recipient's taste (i.e. if the winner is a movie buff, s/he'll get a DVD; we'll discuss it once you actually <i>win</i>).<br /><br /><h2>**********<br />NOTE (Fri. June 19 @ 9:30 a.m.):</h2> The complete rules etc. can be read <b><h2><a href="http://prettyh.dreamwidth.org/2950.html" target="_blank">HERE</a></b></h2> (I removed them from this post to un-clutter things a bit - my friends' progress has already begun to be posted below!<br /><h2>**********</h2><br /><br /><br /><big><b>The winner(s) will be announced by 8 p.m. EST on Saturday!</big></b><br /><br /><br />I already have several challenges in mind, so I'll set about scheduling them into HootSuite ASAP. <b>:)</b> Let's have a little fun with our Friday, folks!<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/1245362771-.jpg"><br /><hr><br /><br />IT'S FRIDAY!<br /><br />Wanna keep track of people's progress?<br /><br /><h2>SO FAR...</h2><br /><br /><b>8 a.m. - #1. Upload a song about "morning" and post the link here on Twitter for me to download. GO! (Bonus points if it's "Friday morning"!)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 2 points for <b>"<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?amjzwlqmnqj" target="_blank">Friday Morning</a>"</b> (nicely done!)<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/j0n0p">j0n0p</a></b> - 1 point for <b>"<a href="http://bit.ly/rZ78v" target="_blank">In The Morning</a>"</b><br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point for <b>"<a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VYCFH0GW">Sunday Morning</a>"</b><br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a></b> - 2 points for <b>"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmcjKXOyACU">Thursday Night, Friday Morning</a>"</b>!<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>9 a.m. - #2. Be the first person to find a celebrity whose birthday is today (June 19th) AND who has a Twitter account. (There's gotta be someone!)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point for PAULA ABDUL!<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - honourable mention for being <i>so close</i> with the same answer.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>10 a.m. - #3. Six Degrees Of Separation: Connect any of the following (by musical association) to Level 42! : The Killers, Rod Stewart, Rihanna, INXS, Eric Clapton, Kanye West, Radiohead. (It's hard, so you get choices! There must be a MUSICAL LINK - played together, etc.) FYI re: #3 - you get a point for solving the link, no matter who's fastest, so no need to rush like mad on what I knew was a tough one. ;)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point for an INCREDIBLY impressive answer (which I won't post yet while others are working on it, but BRAVO)! <i>"Dominic Miller played with them in '79 later played with Sting - "It's Probably Me" (Feat. Eric Clapton)"</i><br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 1 point for ANOTHER impressive (and totally different!) answer! <i>"Mark King and Mike Lindup performed with Eric Clapton at Prince's Trust concert in '86..."</i><br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point for <i>Lethal Weapon</i>ry! <i>"Dominic Miller played with Sting, who sang "It's Probably Me" with Eric Clapton on the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack."</i><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>11 a.m. - #4.Name four Grammy-winning musical artists who are Canadian. Then link me to a video on YouTube by one of those artists. GO!</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - a TIE! 2 points for being the first, with Joni Mitchell, Michael Buble, James Ehnes, The Band<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 2 points - a TIE for answering at the same moment as <b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b>! Joni Mitchell, Michael Buble, James Ehnes, Celine Dion<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 1 point for Michael Buble, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah McLachlan<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point for Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen, and Celine Dion.<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a></b> - 1 point for Joni Mitchell, Michael Buble, K.D. Lang, Diana Krall<br /></ul><br /><br /><br /><b>12 p.m. - #5. It's lunch time here in Ontario! But here's a trivia question for you: How many time zones exist across Canada? (Ignore the DST thing!)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>1 p.m. - #6. Scavenger Hunt! Find 5 photos featuring my 1st name (NOT handwritten; I mean street signs, billboards etc.)! Links ok here or at DW.</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>2 p.m. - #7. Will you be the first person to persuade a famous author to send me a get-well Tweet?</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/j0n0p">j0n0p</a></b> - 2 POINTS for the sweet message from <b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/EmmaK67">EmmaK67</a></b>!!<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>3 p.m. - #8. Find a complete stranger on Twitter, send him/her a note saying you have a crush on him/her, & link me to the tweet. Bonus for reply!</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - LOL at saying "NOT!"<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - she did it! <strike>(link pending - 1 point)</strike> 2 POINTS! <b>http://ow.ly/f8tI</b> !<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>4 p.m. - #9. Put all of the songs on The Beatles' "Abbey Road" in alphabetical order & tweet the first word of each to me. GO!</b><br />(I'm granting points to all due to the creativity of presentation)<br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 1 point!<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point!<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point!<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>5 p.m. - #10. Do you think you can bribe/talk a famous musician into sending me a get-well tweet before 8 a.m. tomorrow?</b><br /><ul><li>PENDING!<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>6 p.m. - #11. Name 3 actors or actresses who died on this day (June 19th).</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point for <br />Geraldine Brooks, Jean Arthur, Bobby Helms<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point for Robert Shafer, Scott Merrill, and Zelda Crosby<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>7 p.m. - #12. Scavenger hunt! Can you find photos online of things that feature YOUR first, middle, and last name? (Each 3 can be separate pics.)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - her first and middle names! (half a point!)<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - all three names = 1 point!<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - all three names = 1 point!<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>8 p.m. - #13. Tell me, in 140 characters, about your worst date ever. ("Didn't get laid" isn't quite detailed enough, FYI.)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ANGRYSAM">ANGRYSAM</a></b> - 1 point! "In high school, first date, took girl miniature golfing, other friend swung club & slammed her in the eye. Had to go to hospital." <i>Ouch.</i><br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point! "5 Arby's melts for $5 and he was cheap enough to be pissed that we couldn't share a soda because I drink diet and he doesn't" Creep!<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point! "Worst date=Awkward guy. In a comic shop we had something to talk about;afterward, he was almost silent for 2 hours. Excruciating."<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>9 p.m. - #14. Name 4 films that are based on conspiracy theories (and tell me which theories they cover). The Mel Gibson/Julia Roberts one = NO. :-P</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point (great answers; will post 'em later so nobody steals 'em!)<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point (though I should deduct one for your choice)<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point (I especially liked "there is no spoon")<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>10 p.m. - #15. Trivia: How many American states either begin or end with the letter 'A'?</b><br />Okay, there is some debate over this one; I'll have to verify!<br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> says <strike>23</strike> [debate still raging over D.C. and other bonus trivia]<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> says 22 - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> says 22 - 1 point<br /></ul><br /><br /><br /><b>11 p.m. - #16. Send me a link to the very first baby photo taken of you! (Hint: it was probably with your birth announcement...)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 1 point ( http://bit.ly/njs2U - aww!!)<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>12 a.m. - #17. Go to this optical illusions site - http://ow.ly/eT90 - and tell me how many you get right. (No cheating!) Highest score gets 1 pt.</b><br />Apparently I am the devil and this was a terribly misleading question; points for those who played along!<br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>1 a.m. - #18. Write a Haiku for me about something we both love! Can it be done in 140 characters??</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 1 point for <i>"Watching horror flicks. / "We're never going there." Bad / things happen in corn."</i> (LOL!!)<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>2 a.m. - #19. Confess a slightly embarrassing factoid about yourself to me, something I didn't know before. (You can get back at me in one hour!)</b><br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 1 point<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>3 a.m. - #20. Name 3 of the best guitarists EVER, then link me to a solo by each of them on YouTube. GO!</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>4 a.m. - #21. Only a scant few hours left to convince a famous actor/actress to send me a get-well tweet... Good luck!</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>5 a.m. - #22. Okay, it's officially Saturday morning. Upload a "Saturday" song and link to it for download! (hint: you can use MegaUpload/YouSendIt)</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>6 a.m. - #23. Find and post a picture of someone who shares both your first and last name, but is NOT you!</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>7 a.m. - #24. Only one away from the grand finale! Trivia: Name Canada's last 4 Prime Ministers AND the last 4 leaders of YOUR country.</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>8 a.m. - #25. LAST CHALLENGE! Find someone famous on Twitter, of whom I'm a fan but am not already Following, & see if you can get THEM to follow ME! You have until 7:59 p.m. EST (June 20) to accomplish that feat. The Follow only has to last long enough for me to know!</b><br /><ul><li><br /></ul><br /><br /><br /><b><big>*** THANK YOU to everyone who devoted a full 24 hours to my amusement! I actually want ALL of your addresses - mail me at my username @ gmail!! ***</b></big><br /><br /><h2>STAY TUNED FOR FINAL SCORES (Saturday 7:59 p.m. EST...) You have until then to answer the last few!</h2><br /><br /><br />As of #18, here are the points:<br /><ul><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a></b> - 13<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/herstorian">herstorian</a></b> - 10<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ShayneWinters">ShayneWinters</a></b> - 9<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a></b> - 5.5<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a></b> - 5<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/j0n0p">j0n0p</a></b> - 3<br /><li><b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/ANGRYSAM">ANGRYSAM</a></b> - 1<br /></ul><br /><br />You can still get more with the remaining challenges!<br />_<br /><hr><br /><br /><h1>PLEASE NOTE:</h1><br />[Saturday night]<br /><big>Health issues have sidelined me for a day or two; apologies for the delay, and I'll do the final tally as soon as I'm able. Thanks, guys. xoxo</big>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-66466335356722933522009-06-15T08:52:00.003-04:002009-06-15T08:59:48.623-04:00Musings on Dunbar's Number: When do we "max out" on friends?On Friday, June 13th, 2008, a 20-year-long friendship came to a sudden, though not unexpected, end. I'd thought it was one that would last a lifetime; people don't generally see each other through so many of life's obstacles, victories and rites of passage only to toss aside one's partner in crime. Precisely <i>how</i> something that had seemed so fireproof went up in smoke within only a matter of months is a mystery that will confound me for years to come, if I let it. It is, perhaps, energy best spent elsewhere - I'll get to that - but the fact remains that I learned a solid and valuable lesson from the experience: There is no such thing as a sure thing. Oh, and as a TV show once told me (I listen to what the television says, you know), "Trust no-one." Damn straight.<br /><br />I preface my ponderings about Dunbar's Number with that bit of background mainly to exemplify one of its biggest points: Damage to our innermost social "ring" can knock you off your axis for an incalcuable amount of time, and you might surprise yourself with what measures you'll take to try to rebalance yourself. All of our "social networking" and society's sudden, strange fixation with "collecting" friends as Readers or Followers might be a direct result of us trying to fill a void - one that should be reserved for only a very few VIPs - by stuffing as many acquaintances into it as technology will allow.<br /><br />"But what the hell <i>is</i> Dunbar's Number?" you're thinking. You don't really wanna read on if I'm going to babble and analogize and never explain the theory. I don't blame you. So here's the quick and dirty <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number" target="_blank">Wikipedia definition</a></b>, for a start:<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.<br /><br />Dunbar's number was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who theorized that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained." On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themselves if they met again.</i><br /><br /><br /><br />That is only one facet of the theory, of course, but at its basest, it shows us that we all have a limit on how many balls we can juggle, and how valuable our nearest and dearest are in the grand scheme of things.<br /><br />If you're like my mother, your immediate reaction is to say, "Uh, no. My social circle doesn't come close to a hundred and fifty people." But when I started to elaborate - "Think of your Christmas card list, and all of the people who are offshoots of <i>those</i> people!" - my Mom had to admit that it sounded more plausible with an expanded definition. I used the analogy of our own personal universes having orbits around them, or <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr%27s_Atomic_Theory" target="_blank">Bohr's rings</a></b>, each populated by different "levels" of people in our lives. The innermost ring, for most, would include a significant other, or one's children, siblings, or best and oldest friend. The next ring would feature other close relatives and friends who are central to one's life. The next might have longtime colleagues or in-laws. And so on. It's a highly personal thing, the organization of one's particular universe, but you get the idea. Once you start to extend it to include the other people who exist in your sphere, in whatever capacity - those you know through work, old friends you only see once a year, people you've met through your boyfriend/best friend/boss - it's not hard to imagine 150 as being a reasonable middle-ground kind of number.<br /><br />I'd never heard of this theory before a few days ago - odd timing, really, since I hadn't realized that it was the anniversary of the annihilation of that aforementioned friendship upon which I stumbled across Dunbar. Of all days to be learning about the delicate balance of our social circles and the damage that can be done if an inner ring is somehow disturbed, I had a one in 365 shot that it would be that day. I hadn't even recognized it as being a day of any significance until I was reminded by someone about where I'd been a year ago that night, and things all fell into place from there. And yes, the theory is correct about just how whacked out your social connections can get when a fundamental party is obliterated by circumstance (death, divorce, drama). I'd experienced it before I knew that it had a name.<br /><br />The theory goes on to explain that we, as social creatures, are in a constant state of flux - the outermost rings of people coming and going, changing in their composition or their degree of importance to us - but that it is more important than most of us realize to keep some semblance of <i>sameness</i> to, if nothing else, the sheer <i>number</i> of people we're trying to juggle. With the onslaught of new social networking media, like Twitter and Facebook, we're bombarded by (or is it "with"?) the minutiae of more and more of our most distant contacts every single day...and it's screwing with our heads. Those of us who used to have close-knit circles of only our dearest friends and family, numbering nowhere near that magic Dunbar figure, are now in constant contact with people who would otherwise be relegated to "work friends" or "old schoolmates" or people we had simply shed as part of the process of growing and moving on. That's not to say the internet hasn't been an amazing tool, helping us to reconnect with countless people with whom we'd lost touch and being able to pick up where we left off; I don't know <i>anyone</i> who doesn't have at least one happy "you'll never guess who found me on Facebook!" story. But there's a flipside to that element of our lives: The energy we each expend nowadays, trying to maintain all of these new or revived relationships, can be <i>exorbitant</i>, and I know of a startlingly high number of people who suffer from what I call Facebook Guilt. It's that feeling you get when you see how many messages have been sitting, unread, in your inbox for days, and the endless little comments or virtual gifts left for us each day - kind and thoughtful though they almost always are - that makes turning on your computer start to seem scary as hell. It's the cyber-version of drowning in paperwork. Throw Twitter into the mix, add in your 24/7 availability via text message on your cell phone, and the capability to IM anyone from <i>anywhere</i>...and I'm betting your number has soared well beyond 150 and into the realm of "holy HELL how do I make the BEEPING stop?!?"<br /><br />It's not just me. Honest.<br /><br />So Dunbar has applied the whole "apes grooming each other" thing to us humanfolk, and has postulated that we're in danger of being driven crazy by too many people in our sphere or having parts of our lives and personalities neglected if we have too <i>few</i>. A line from <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/" target="_blank">Trainspotting</a>"</b> has come to mind frequently as I've pondered my own circle of friends: "It's a tightrope, Spud. A fucking tightrope." Truer words have ne'er been spoken. As our Contact Lists grow longer, our time spent cultivating the face-to-face variety of friendship grows inevitably shorter, and eventually we'll all find ourselves either loaded down with 400 expectant people or a scant few who can be bothered with us since we blew them off to catch up on our unanswered email or ignored them as we texted furiously under the table at dinner.<br /><br />I didn't have to think for long before I could say with absolute certainty that the number of people in my life who deserve to be slapped with the Truly Important To Me label is <i>laughably</i> higher than 150. I say that not to boast nor to complain, but rather to marvel. I didn't do an actual headcount, but I didn't need to. A quick scan of the people who can read my locked blog + the number of contacts on MSN + the list of cell numbers stored in my phone + the friends and family on Facebook = a metric crapload. (I mean that in a good way.) The majority of those people are ones I've known either long or well (or both) and would never want to "lose" in a Dunbar shuffle. I think that puts me in the realm of Critical Mass. And one might make a good argument that spending so much time tending to so many, and wanting to keep up on the details of that many lives, has (and still could) cost me some of the relationships I've had since before I became <b>@<a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh" target="_blank">prettyh</a></b>. Would I change it? Nope. Do I recognize the insanity of somehow really <i>knowing</i> such a high volume of people, and the effort it requires to be an active participant in their lives? YES. And since most of them (you might be one of Them, if you're reading this) are in the same boat, I think it's safe to say that they realize it, too. Thank goodness for that; I'm lucky to have a mightily forgiving lot of inhabitants in my life, all of whom know that the expected turnaround date for an email response or a phone call or a ReTweet or a night at the movies has grown exponentially longer because our social circles have exploded.<br /><br /><br />(Anyone who knows me at all just laughed aloud at the idea of me voluntarily making a <i>phone call</i>. It was just an example.) <br /><br /><br />It wasn't my ever-expanding clan that rendered my decades-old friendship extinct; the death of that relationship was inevitable, with or without 'net access. But I've seen it happen to other people, trading precious RL moments for a chance to bask in the adulation scrolling across their computer screen. I suppose the whole point of this blather is to say that we've lost sight of our Number and why it should matter to us. We expect ridiculous things of ourselves as we try to mete out the appropriate amount of time and attention to each and every member of our worlds and, without proper perspective, we're constantly in danger of denting our Inner Rings by letting the weight of the Outer ones crush toward the centre. Which is <i>us</i>. <i>We</i> are at the middle of our own universe by its very design; people are in our orbit. And we are in theirs. And we're no good to <i>anyone</i> if we're spread too thin, spending countless hours ignoring the relationships in front of us in favour of sending mass forwards to our 6,342 "closest friends." A tightrope, indeed.<br /><br /><br /><br />Does it shoot all of my credibility to hell if I confess that I Twittered about this very subject only days ago? Ahem.<br /><br /><br /><br />Take a good, hard look at your Number. Count your rings. Ask yourself if they're prioritized correctly. If the answer is no, it's time to back away from the mesmerizing pull of seeing lives in 140 characters. If the answer is yes...well, then, you're probably a lot further ahead of the rest of your pack. And Dunbar would be proud of you.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/dunbar_circles.jpg">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-48567504065469672042009-06-10T03:18:00.006-04:002009-06-10T04:16:31.486-04:00NIN/JA, fickle fans, expletives and videos: My farewell to one of my favourite bands.I was in the process of trying to find the exact set list for the NIN/JA show that took place on June 5th in New Jersey...and I'm coming across an awful lot of...well, frankly, <i>bullshit</i>.<br /><br />Read the comments to <b><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/05/11/nine-inch-nails-and-janes-addiction-launch-ninja-in-florida/" target="_blank">this Rolling Stone article</a></b> as a primer. Hell, just read the article itself. What the...?<br /><br />I found out from a friend maybe three days ahead of time that NIN would be performing before Jane's Addiction. (If I'd had half a brain I'd have seen <b><a href="http://tour.nin.com/" target="_blank">the huge notice</a></b> on the NIN website.) I said, "Wha...?" and then got over it. Because despite not even owning any of JA's albums, I loved the '90s alt scene, and I don't care in what order they play; seeing NIN and JA share a stage is like a rock-gasm for people who were heavy into the club circuit throughout the last decade. Having Tom Morello tossed in for good measure was simply a cherry on top of it all.<br /><br />I consider myself a pretty good critic as far as concerts go. Lord knows I've seen enough of them to be called, if not an expert, at least <i>thoroughly informed</i> on the subject. I've seen NIN five times (or is it 6...? Yes, it's six! HOLY CRAP), so I have a basis for comparison. And I would say that the NIN/JA show was easily the second best I have ever experienced. (The absolute best was on the summer leg of the <i>With Teeth</i> tour in '06 - it cannot be beat. Not only did Bauhaus open for them, but the electricity in the crowd, the gorgeous summer night by the lake - same venue as the one they played the other night - and the amazing set list and brand new light show were just unbeatable.) <br /><br />Having said that, one could argue that it's <i>because</i> I've gotten to see them so many times that I can feel as fulfilled and as happy with whatever Trent wants to throw at us as I am. I do wonder how I'd have felt if the NIN/JA experience had been my first (and, as it appears more and more each day, the LAST). But on the other hand, I know NIN's catalogue backwards and front, sideways and then some, and I didn't learn it from seeing them live; I already owned it all going in. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a set list that would disappoint me, because I love stuff from every Halo that has been put out.<br /><br />Trent made it <b><a href="http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?21,665342,666460#msg-666460" target="_blank">very public</a></b> that there would be no flashy light show this time, and that they wouldn't be playing <i>Closer</i> and all of the other mainstream pseudo-fan favourites. They just played those in November! (And, okay, AGAIN, I will grant that Toronto is insanely lucky because we've almost always gotten to see NIN both at the start <i>and</i> at the end of a tour, so we get two different shows with different set lists etc., while other cities get passed over completely. I saw one <i>Fragile</i> show, two on the <i>With Teeth</i> tour, two for <i>Year Zero</i>, and then the NIN/JA set. All in my own city. That's lucky. I do get that.) The point is that Trent made it abundantly clear that this was the <i>Wave Goodbye</i> tour, and it was for the die-hards, not the poseurs. Silly little blonde sluts who like to bump and grind to <i>Closer</i> at their local sleazy dance club were not the target audience. <br /><br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3IaywU2pIdc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3IaywU2pIdc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />(My clip, which sadly did not go far enough to let everyone hear me screaming, "IT WON'T GIVE UP IT WANTS ME DEAD GODDAMN THIS NOISE INSIDE MY HEAD"...because I wanted to <i>dance</i>, not film. Sorry 'bout that. I do know there's complete video of it elsewhere on YouTube, though!)<br /><br /><br /><br />So instead of the same old regurgitated set list for the umpteenth time, Trent opted to give the fans something else. Something about which, at least at the Toronto show, people in the audience were SO pumped. Nearly every song they played, you would hear thousands of people exclaiming things like, "Holy shit!! I <i>never</i> thought I'd hear <i>this</i> live!!" I was one of those people. I had to apologize to Ian, my intrepid partner in concert-crime, who is a relative NIN novice, because I'd sent him a bunch of MP3s to prep him for what he was likely to hear...and I think only ONE out of the 30+ tracks I'd given him ended up being played. But he was pretty amused to see me jumping up and down - literally - because we were getting to hear <i>Heresy</i> instead of <i>Closer</i>, and <i>I'm Afraid Of Americans</i> instead of <i>Only</i>. (You really must check out <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZphbKispmQ" target="_blank">this awesome footage</a></b> of <i>IAOA</i> from our show.) And despite only even recognizing two of the songs at all, and never getting to see the mind-blowing light shows that had marked the previous <i>Lights In The Sky</i> tours, and being younger than me (just shy of 24) and therefore never being exposed to NIN as part of his nightlife, he enjoyed it. I don't think you could <i>help</i> but enjoy it; there was just an energy in the crowd that was infectious, and everyone was simply there to have a great time. And I think everyone <i>did</i> - certainly everyone around ME, and the reports from other friends at the show were the same. <b>[ ETA:</b> Browsing the NIN.Com boards, I see that the West Palm Beach thread is mostly negativity, whereas <b><a href="http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?21,719369,page=1" target="_blank">nearly everything said about our Toronto show</a></b> was over-the-top positive. In the WPB thread, there is - seriously!! - a guy who says they were "entitled" to an encore. A contradiction in terms, to be sure, Einstein. <b>]</b> It was a nice way to say goodbye to the longtime fans, and clearly it was enjoyable for some of the newcomers as well.<br /><br /><br />I'll have to ask my friend EmCee to weigh in on this, too, because we were at the same show and she was in the section ahead of me, so she might be able to lend more insight into the vibe. But from everything <i>I</i> witnessed, people were having a blast, even while the sun was still up! (NIN in daylight is, truly, a weird experience.)<br /><br /><b>[ETA:</b> EmCee's response to all of this: <i>Yeah, I was at that show and people were totally into it from my POV.<br /><br />Hell, I know I loved it. I've never gotten to see NIN before and I am absolutely in no way disappointed with this being what is most likely the only one I'll ever see. IMHO, it was tight.<br /><br />Those tickets are pretty. Shame mine says [my brother's name instead of mine]. Oh well. Still look all shiny. Nicest looking ticket I've got on my board.<br /><br />Anyone who bitches and moans and acts all entitled can go DIAF.</i><br /><br />Well said, my friend. <b>]</b> <br /><br /><br /><br />Back to the über-bitching that's spreading across the 'net, then.<br /><br />(It's really not so bad, you know, once you get past the taste...)<br /><br /><br /><i>what a fuckn letdown man. if theyre really gone now an that was what we were left with than FUCKYOU NIN.</i><br /><br /><br /><br />I'm reading comments like these, and just shaking my head. Everyone's entitled to their (grammatically flawed) opinion, and of course there will be shows that are better than others, but come ON.<br /><br /><i>Went to the Austin show and it was awful. NIN was lackluster and sounded weak. Audience was not into the music. Trent recently tweeted about it: </i>“Not one of our better shows. Despite our efforts we seemed unable to win over the crowd. Texas ends with a whisper.” about 4 hours ago from Tweetie -<i><br />Trent should buckle down and focus on the tour and not his cheapo girlfriend.</i><br /><br />And then this:<br /><br /><i>There were a lot of very pissed off people at the West Palm show… NIN opened for Jane’s, but nobody knew that was going to happen. I guess my fault for showing up a little late, got there around 7:45 and NIN was already on stage. Then they didn’t even come out for an encore. The stage looked like they were going to come back out for a bit and then all of a sudden the lights came on and they started setting up the stage for Jane’s. Heard a lot of booing… Lots of pissed off people… </i><br /><br /><br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br /><br />Now, see, here's the thing. A lot has to happen to make a concert orgasmic. There has to be a certain synergy between band and audience. Sometimes it happens organically; sometimes it has to be pushed a bit before things start rolling; sometimes there's a misfire and the connection just doesn't take. Keeping NIN as the sole example (just because it could get messy if I start comparing good vs bad shows when I'm talking about totally different bands/crowds/expectations etc.), I can say that I was underwhelmed at the winter show of the <i>With Teeth</i> tour. Part of it was probably because the one I'd seen in July, only a few months previous, was The Best Show Ever. But there were other elements, too - the electricity wasn't the same. The set list wasn't as good. Hell, our seats were crap. But not in a million years would I go and post something like those comments above just because things weren't firing on all cylinders.<br /><br /><br /><br />I like this response, given by another Rolling Stone reader:<br /><br /><i>Hey Austin...How can you be mad at the band. They feed off the energy of the crowd. You got no feeling….you fail. </i> <br /><br /><br /><br />This is SO TRUE. Sometimes there'll be a crowd who come in with this indignant attitude right off the bat, thinking about what they paid for their ticket and having a specific set list in mind, and it's as though they've set themselves up to be disappointed. I've been to other shows like that, with other bands; you can <i>feel</i> it before the show even starts. Instead of there being a buzz in the crowd as everyone comes together in anticipation of what they're gonna see when the curtain comes up and the lights go down, there's an <i>expectation</i>. As though the band is a bunch of trained circus dogs who are expected to perform a certain set of tricks, and one false move totally kills the moment. The band is up there, working their asses off, and the crowd is barely moving. Because OH NOES THEY DIDN'T PLAY MY FAVOURITE SONG!! <br /><br /><br /><br />To which I say, "If you want to hear your favourite songs in the 'right' order in the 'right' way, STAY THE FUCK HOME and LISTEN TO YOUR iPOD."<br /><br /><br /><br />For the record, NIN has only ever played my "must-hear" songs once each. I wait with bated breath every single show, hoping to hear the first notes of <i>Ringfinger</i> and <i>The Wretched</i>. Only once, ever, did that happen. And y'know what? THE SHOWS WERE STILL AWESOME.<br /><br />And god forbid if the band acknowledges a night when the crowd wasn't feelin' it. Because then you incite remarks like this:<br /><br /><i>Did you see Trent Reznor whining about the Austin show on Twitter? Really, is he surprised? IT SUCKED! HE SOUNDED LIKE SHIT. He needs to grow up and stop being a ass. He’s “sad” that the crowd wasn’t into it, well if he had put together a tighter show, we would have been into it. </i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Now, okay, I wasn't at the Austin show. I can say nothing with any authority about how good or bad it was. And I've seen Trent whine (OY OY OY), and I've rolled my eyes at it too. But the remark he made about that one concert wasn't whiny. And when fans take something like that and twist it around, why on earth do they expect their supposed favourite band to work nearly as hard next time?? If they can do no right, why bother?<br /><br /><br /><br />I'm trying to find a comment that was made about how Trent "didn't interact at all with the audience" and that was a bad thing. I'll post it here if I can find it. But y'know what? TRENT DOESN'T TALK TO THE AUDIENCE. With the exception of ONE of the six shows I've seen - during which he actually dragged a stool to the front of the stage and sat on it to explain why he likes bringing NIN to Toronto more often than anywhere else, and what makes these shows stand out to him (it was quite a surprise to the whole crowd; fifteen thousand people fell instantly silent to hear what he had to say, and it was really very touching and kind of surreal) - he has always kept it to "thank you" and "good night" and that is IT. What the hell kind of NIN fan <i>are</i> you if you're expecting him to, like, get everyone singing <i>Head Like A Hole</i> in the round???<br /><br /><br /><br />(The idea of that just made me LOL.)<br /><br /><br /><br />Maybe it's just that the stereotypical NIN fan is all angsty and only happy when they're pissed off, or something. Get a load of this:<br /><br /><i>There was a BIG problem for those of us that bought nin.com Atlanta pre-sale tickets. This was COMPLETELY screwed up, they didn’t have the tickets ready at all! There were literally hundreds of people waiting in line to get their tickets. Once you got to the window (which took over an hour), you had to give them your name, and then someone had to run out and find them somewhere and bring them to the window. It was a total fiasco. I got there just before 7pm, and we didn’t get our tickets until almost 8:15pm. We missed Streetsweeper and half of the NIN set. And we were actually lucky because we were at the front of the line. I feel bad for all those behind us that were waiting. I WILL NEVER GO TO ANOTHER NIN CONCERT. That’s what you get for being greedy old man Reznor. </i><br /><br /><br /><br />...uh.<br /><br />This is NIN's fault <i>how</i>, exactly...? Sounds to me like the venue is shit. 'Cos <i>we</i> got NIN.Com presale tickets, and we were treated like royalty. No lines anywhere, a separate entrance, better seats (without the insane "convenience fees" from TicketBastard on them, no less)... Hell, even the tickets themselves are pretty! (I still have to take a photo of mine. <b>ETA:</b> Okay...that was harder than I thought.)<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/IMG_0290.jpg"><br /><br />It is a hell of a lot harder to photograph a shiny ticket in bad light than I expected it to be. Further attempts to show the shiny prettiness of my ticket did not turn out terribly well. But you get the point. Probably. It's SHINY and it has my name on it and it's purple and silver and stuff. Photos don't do it justice.<br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, I guess my point is that this is turning out to be one of the more controversial and talked-about tours that I've ever seen, and I'm genuinely shocked at how much of the talk is negative. I've done my fair share of bitching about certain concerts (is there a soul alive who <i>hasn't</i> heard my kvetching about the 2005 U2 gig where Bono lectured us all to call our PM - he even had the phone number up on all of the big-screens for us! HOW THOUGHTFUL - to get Canada to "drop the debt", and then told us how we could have better spent the $200 it cost <i>each</i> of us to see the fucking show???!?). Some concerts deserve to be bitched about. And as I've said, it is ALL a matter of opinion, and every show will strike something different in every member of the audience. But from where <i>I</i> was sitting (literally and figuratively), my assessment was that Trent Reznor went the extra mile to give his <i>actual fans</i> a proper farewell - from playing rare and thrilling stuff, to controlling the ticket prices (honestly, $75 to see three of the biggest music icons of my generation?!? WOW) and offering better seats/easier access/nicer treatment to the .Com crowd, to making sure that everyone was allowed to bring whatever cameras they wanted to bring without getting hassled by security - and for all of his efforts, he's gotten more shitty feedback than any of the truly awful bands or shows I've ever seen.<br /><br /><br /><br />I don't blame him for <b><a href="http://www.vimeo.com/5076966" target="_blank">waving goodbye</a></b>. If my "fans" were as greedy and thankless as the most vocal ones I've seen thus far, I'd have quit long before Trent did.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.nin.com/images/ninja2009.png">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-28976686714849711372009-06-03T09:06:00.002-04:002009-06-03T09:09:32.956-04:00My DVD Collection - a partial list...It's been suggested to me more than once that I try to get together a comprehensive list of every DVD I own, mainly so people can bug me to borrow stuff. So, at last, here is the beginning of said list. I'm nowhere near finished.<br /><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bHQ9MTI*NDAzNDE1NDI4OCZwdD*xMjQ*MDM*NDA*MTkzJnA9Mzk*MTgxJmQ9JTJmd2lkZ2V*JTJmODAyNjElMmZkdmRzJm49YmxvZ2dlciZnPTEmdD*mbz*4MjliMDQ4M2Y4Yjk*NjI4OTUxMDZmNDJlYmYwNzQ4MiZvZj*w.gif" /> <embed src="http://www.listal.com/listal/images/slideshow/coverflowrec.swf?xmlfile=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.listal.com%2Fviewlist%2Fdvds%2F80261%2F%3Fcoverflowxml%3Dtrue" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="430" height="330" name="Coverflow" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" > </embed> <br /> <a href="http://www.listal.com/list/my-dvd-collection-prettyh">My DVD Collection</a> at <a href="http://www.listal.com">Listal</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-56118616208211252432009-05-25T04:45:00.004-04:002009-05-25T05:18:36.443-04:00"Escape To Canada" - Must-See TVOkay, I rarely see a documentary that affects me so deeply, but if ever there has been a moment wherein I've been prouder to be Canadian, I can't think of one.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.elevatorfilms.com/ElevatorFilms/Escape_to_Canada_files/shapeimage_1.jpg"><br /><big>I beg of you, see <b>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434922/" target="_blank">Escape To Canada</a>"</b>.</big><br /><br /><br />I actually burst into tears several times. Once was when several gay American couples came to Toronto in 2003 to get married, and n <i>none</i> of their family members had agreed to come to support them...but more than a <i>thousand complete strangers from Canada</i> turned up to throw confetti after they said their vows.<br /><br />Once was when the mayor of Vancouver made an impassioned speech about how no other country is going to dictate drug policies to him, and that he wants to legislate the permanent decriminalization of marijuana, and control and tax it just like alcohol, and pour every tax dollar back into the B.C. health care system.<br /><br />Once was hearing some American military deserters - all of whom had already served at least one tour of duty in the Middle East - explaining why they couldn't go back, and what would happen to them if they are (were) ever caught by Bush's government.<br /><br />And just now I got teary-eyed again when it was shown that, in 2005, Canada's version of Webster's Dictionary changed the definition of marriage to be "the union between two <i>people</i>".<br /><br /><br /><br />It's not anti-American at <i>all</i> (it's just anti-Bill O'Reilly and anti-Ann Coulter). It's as critical of our PM Harper as it is of Bush. One U.S. citizen summed it up very well by saying, "We're not in Canada because we don't love America; we're in Canada because there are more freedoms here than there are in the land of the free. You can love both countries for different reasons." And there's a lot of celebration of California, too, which seems to be a state that has been adopted as Canada's sibling somehow.<br /><br />(Watching Pierre Berton explain how best to roll a joint, using one of his own hardcover bestsellers, is definitely a hilarious highlight. Hearing Jean Chrétien basically say, "Uh, <i>non</i>, screw the war in Afghanistan, <i>merci</i>," ranks up there, too.)<br /><br /><br />The whole thing is fascinating - I've learned more about my own country in two hours than I did in all of my years in high school. The push and pull over laws governing gay marriage, marijuana, even our "women can walk the streets topless" practice... I had no idea just how much has gone into all of this, and how hard people have been fighting, so quietly, for so long in order to get as much equality as possible.<br /><br /><br />So, to my Canadian friends, I beg of you: FIND THIS DOCUMENTARY. Revel in it! Hell, I've got it on my DVR, and I'll burn as many copies as <i>anyone</i> wants, whether you're Canadian or American or Australian or British...<i>any</i> nationality, <i>anywhere</i>... Email your address to me (below) and I'll send it to you. It is <i>remarkable</i>.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAxLK8ZmgR8&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAxLK8ZmgR8&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><b><big><a href="mailto:prettyh@gmail.com?subject:EscapeToCanada">Email me HERE</a></big></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-52838518742076586572009-05-21T11:11:00.003-04:002009-05-21T11:23:29.105-04:00And you thought YOUR house was a mess?Back in 2003, I stumbled across a thread in the <b><a href="http://www.somethingawful.com" target="_blank">SomethingAwful</a></b> forums. It was all about a college student whose mother's hoarding habits had more or less destroyed their house. The 5MB of photos this fellow posted left such a huge impression on me that I've never forgotten it; I use it in conversation sometimes, too, if my mother is troubled by the "horrible mess" in our living room etc. But until now, I hadn't been able to find those photos again to show her why a little bit of clutter here or there does not even come close to...whatever the hell this complete disaster is.<br /><br />I uploaded the 50+ photos to my Flickr account, put them all in order, and added the commentary from the original thread (made by a user named "Knormal" - all credit for the pics and descriptions go to him). You can now go through them, shot by shot, and read the explanation behind the horrors of this you'll-believe-it-when-you-see-it state of affairs.<br /><br />For the record, <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding" target="_blank">compulsive hoarding</a></b> (or <i>disposophobia</i> - yes, that's a real term!) is, in fact, recognized as a legitimate psychiatric issue; it has not, however, been defined in the DSM-IV as anything more than an offshoot of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.<br /><br />Without further ado, then, I shall direct you to <b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/36106120@N08/3551762690/in/set-72157618577735400/" target="_blank">START HERE</a></b>, the very first photo, and wander through the house as though you were there yourself. Just be grateful that you're <i>not</i>.<br /><br /><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2452/3550915559_19749ba52c.jpg?v=0">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-74330242797392589052009-05-02T04:31:00.004-04:002009-05-02T04:39:46.155-04:00Charges dropped against Steven PageIt's been a long time coming. An update on the sordid Steven Page/Christine Benedicto situation. I'd first posted about it <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2008/07/all-latest-on-barenaked-ladies-steven.html" target="_blank">when it happened</a></b> last summer, and again in February when <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2009/02/steven-page-bails-on-bnl-classy.html" target="_blank">Page officially quit Barenaked Ladies</a></b>. He's off the hook; let's hope he's off everything else, too.<br /><br />---<br /><h2>Charges dismissed against singer-songwriter Steven Page</h2><br /><i>Friday, May 1, 2009 | 1:38 PM ET</i><br /><b>[story from <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/05/01/page-dismiss-drug-charges.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r3:c0.0499247:b24247436" target="_blank">CBC.Ca</a>]</b> <br /><br />A New York judge has dismissed the drug possession charges against Canadian singer-songwriter Steven Page, former frontman of the pop group Barenaked Ladies.<br /><br />According to Page's lawyer Mark Mahoney, the singer met the conditions New York Judge Thomas Miller laid out for him in October, including passing a drug screening test, undergoing therapy and having no further arrests.<br /><br />Charges against the singer as well as his girlfriend and her roommate were dismissed earlier this week.<br /><br />Page, Christine Benedicto and Stephanie Ford were arrested in July 2008 at the Fayetteville, N.Y., apartment where the two women live. Police allegedly found the trio with cocaine and marijuana and charged them with drug possession.<br /><br />"The respect and responsibility I have earned over the course of my life and my career thus far are important to me and I am moving forward from this with gratitude and with hope," Page said in October.<br /><br />"I also apologize to all of those I have hurt or embarrassed during this episode."<br /><br />The dismissal of the charges means there will be no legal obstacle to Page entering the U.S., his lawyer said.<br /><br />Page announced in February that he was leaving the Barenaked Ladies to pursue a solo career. He was not with the band in March as they accepted a Juno Award for their recent children's album <i>Snacktime!</i><br /><br />---<br /><br />Well. I was wondering when they would get around to making a decision on this. It surprises me, though, that now, when I hear their music, I get sad. Maybe it's my sensitivity lately to watching what people will do to their best friend(s), the selfishness of it all...or maybe it's just that, in meeting Page, I'd have put him at the very bottom of my "he's totally gonna become an adulterous cokehead" list (did you know I had such a list? Neither did I...). Either way, listening to their version of <i>Lovers In A Dangerous Time</i> will never be quite the same for me.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2007/02/26/arts-steven-page.jpg">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-18192625444383093682009-04-30T05:51:00.004-04:002009-04-30T06:07:55.616-04:00Intro to Twitter: A batch of April's best Tweets (of mine)Chock full of the funniest and weirdest links, lists and pics I've been able to find over the past few days! I hope it provides some amusement. Judging by my international stats, I'm doin' an okay job of it so far. I've now got followers from every continent! If you're unfamiliar with Twitter, no worries - just click the <b>"ow.ly"</b> link next to whichever subjects grab your interest, and it'll take you to the article I'm discussing. Have fun, and get hooked like the rest of us!<br /><br /><b><u>April 29th</b></u><br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>00:41</em> What's the measurement term I'm looking for - furlong? Furlough?? Am I even close? Text my cell if you know! Settle a bet for me! <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1646246939">#</a></li> <li><em>02:28</em> RT @atomicrose: @prettyh Furlong! [Thank you, Casey! Bonus points: How MUCH is a furlong??] <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1646824259">#</a></li> <li><em>06:25</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/aliciamcauley">aliciamcauley</a> I am SO EXCITED about our upcoming @chuckpalahniuk experience! So...I'll be Scotland and you'll be Ireland? <a href="http://ow.ly/4lNQ">ow.ly/4lNQ</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1647745818">#</a></li> <li><em>08:40</em> I have vegetarian/vegan friends. We respect each other. Possibly why this ("they forced meat on meee!! RAPE!") irks me so. <a href="http://ow.ly/4lHt">ow.ly/4lHt</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1648402078">#</a></li> <li><em>10:20</em> Whoo, boy. LJ never fails to deliver ~DRAMA~. This time around it's a PostSecret about rape/not rape. See for yourselves: <a href="http://ow.ly/4mCi">ow.ly/4mCi</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1649129693">#</a></li> <li><em>19:55</em> My friend Lana, who works at CBC3, posted an amusing blog entry re: Music That Makes You Dumb (I'm smart; so there!): <a href="http://ow.ly/4sCX">ow.ly/4sCX</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1654078488">#</a></li> <li><em>20:30</em> RT @Carlanime: Speaking of the flu, WHO have finally raised the whatsit level to thingy. <a href="http://ow.ly/4sFu">ow.ly/4sFu</a> [LOL! Well put, Carla.] <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1654365982">#</a></li> <li><em>20:55</em> Doesn't surprise me: 60% of Twitter users quit within their 1st month. They're just not as good at link-hunting as I am! <a href="http://ow.ly/4sP2">ow.ly/4sP2</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1654572092">#</a></li></ul><br /><br /><b><u>April 28th</b></u><br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>16:17</em> Too much to dissect for Twitter. Pics of Michael Jackson's Neverland auction - am laughing and shrieking at same time: <a href="http://ow.ly/4hLj">ow.ly/4hLj</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1642263291">#</a></li> <li><em>18:29</em> This is just getting disgusting. Tori Stafford's mom says she had a secret meeting with a rich benefactor offering ransom: <a href="http://ow.ly/4iSJ">ow.ly/4iSJ</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1643313409">#</a></li></ul><br /><br /><br /><b><u>April 27th</b></u><br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>06:22</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a> Shush, you! We gave the Yankees AJ Burnett for a song, and now the poor fellow's under pressure. See: ROY HALLADAY! <3 <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619709991">#</a></li> <li><em>06:24</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/mattgood">mattgood</a> Are there specific Vans you're seeking? I've gotten some from a shop on Queen St/Toronto if you need details. Adidas & Chucks,too. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619715718">#</a></li> <li><em>06:25</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/strombo">strombo</a> I'm overtired, probably, but I read your Chris Walken hashtag as "douchedbyabadangel". Good band name, I think. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619718929">#</a></li> <li><em>06:27</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/madam_mina">madam_mina</a> My beloved Jorge Posada is not that far from 40 now! I can relate to the "OMFG I'M OLD" feeling! Our teams SUCKED today. Bah. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619723180">#</a></li> <li><em>06:55</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/johncmayer">johncmayer</a> Also not ugly, ever: soccer (er..."football") players. It's true. Watch the World Cup sometime. Wall to wall gorgeous. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619804629">#</a></li> <li><em>07:30</em> "Bewitched" movie is on TV. Lazy late nite/early a.m. viewing, y'see. But it's worse than the RottenTomatoes 25% implies. <a href="http://ow.ly/3Z9v">ow.ly/3Z9v</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1619912023">#</a></li> <li><em>08:50</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/shaynewinters">ShayneWinters</a> You should try AudioCaptcha. It's even more challenging to get right the first try. YouTube's doing it now, too. Stupid. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1620198197">#</a></li> <li><em>09:30</em> Everyone seems fairly convinced missing girl's mom (Tara, mom of Tori Stafford)is the culprit. Interesting Facebook group: <a href="http://ow.ly/3Z4J">ow.ly/3Z4J</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1620369388">#</a></li> <li><em>10:10</em> Unless you love Woody Allen, AVOID "Cassandra's Dream". HORRIBLE. Even Farrell, McGregor & Wilkinson couldn't save it! <a href="http://ow.ly/3Z4Q">ow.ly/3Z4Q</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1620556356">#</a></li> <li><em>10:41</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/pweifenbach">pweifenbach</a> So envious of you being in Vegas! Have you seen the Cirque "LOVE" show? What I'd give! Beatles fans unite!! <a href="http://ow.ly/3ZRK">ow.ly/3ZRK</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1620713666">#</a></li> <li><em>11:30</em> Question: Is there something other than LoudTwitter I could use to have my Tweets sent to my open Blogger? Can't find another shipper! <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1621000406">#</a></li> <li><em>12:43</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/shaynewinters">ShayneWinters</a> You need answers to WHAT? You only asked one question! And yes, thx, I'll take @stephenfry on "Bones". NAY to Cassie Clare!! <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1621459315">#</a></li> <li><em>13:25</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/aerojad">aerojad</a> !!! I think, short of proposing marriage, you joining Twitter is the grandest gesture a man has ever made for me. It's fun here! <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1621739060">#</a></li> <li><em>14:05</em> I sleep with a fan on me nearly every night, and I'd NEVER heard the urban legend that it's supposedly FATAL! WTF?? <a href="http://ow.ly/3Z5U">ow.ly/3Z5U</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622015325">#</a></li> <li><em>14:10</em> "I sleep with a fan on me every night" sounds more sordid than it is. I DO, however, have a Fan Club (I'm not allowed in): <a href="http://ow.ly/40hZ">ow.ly/40hZ</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622049765">#</a></li> <li><em>14:31</em> I think I'd like to be a BNF ( <a href="http://ow.ly/40jo">ow.ly/40jo</a> ), in my own fandom. As in, I'd be the BNF of Ehch Fandom. Is that a bit too...Mussolini? <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622197383">#</a></li> <li><em>14:45</em> One more thing re: me having fans: Why do only 19 people love me? Is it because I don't plagiarize fic??( <a href="http://ow.ly/40jQ">ow.ly/40jQ</a> )*sob*BE MY FAN! <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622294477">#</a></li> <li><em>15:15</em> I know every word of 'Trainspotting' film, but every fan MUST buy Director's Cut. The deleted scenes? SHOCKING. <a href="http://ow.ly/3Z6s">ow.ly/3Z6s</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622505703">#</a></li> <li><em>15:35</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/carlanime">Carlanime</a> You've gotta know that a pregnant woman in a Naughty Nurse costume is some kind of niche fetish. Lemme know how it turns out. o.O <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622649294">#</a></li></lj-cut> <li><em>16:00</em> Who among you has an account at Last.FM? (Aside from those already on my list.) I wanna spy on your musical tastes! Mine: <a href="http://ow.ly/40hK">ow.ly/40hK</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1622834965">#</a></li> <li><em>17:05</em> RT @MossySloth: @prettyh HOLY CRAP I didn't know Labyrinth was based on a book!!!! [See? My Tweets are educational! ~H~] <a href="http://ow.ly/3MyM">ow.ly/3MyM</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1623316967">#</a></li> <li><em>17:50</em> RT @yokoono: IMAGINE PEACE:Simplest most effective peace meditation. It's a space transformer.Transforming the world as quickly as possible <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1623630725">#</a></li> <li><em>20:25</em> I have about four years' worth of laundry to do. Think that means I have too many clothes. Diabetes Assoc.'s gettin' a BIG donation this wk. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1624663371">#</a></li></ul><br /><br /><br /><b><u>April 26th</b></u><br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>06:08</em> I'm laughing way too hard at this. It trumps all of the other terrible street signs. Who knew Welsh was so difficult?? <a href="http://ow.ly/3U2N">ow.ly/3U2N</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1611878991">#</a></li> <li><em>07:05</em> I've long bitched about Daddy having no cell phone. Now I think I'm grateful; he wouldn't like texts about my sex life: <a href="http://ow.ly/3U30">ow.ly/3U30</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612043969">#</a></li> <li><em>08:25</em> Twitter can, apparently, cost you your job, reputation, relationships... Here are 5 of the "Worst Tweets Ever": <a href="http://ow.ly/3U4I">ow.ly/3U4I</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612322883">#</a></li> <li><em>09:25</em> While not impressed with the resemblance to Heath OUT of makeup, this Joker figure ( <a href="http://ow.ly/3U8C">ow.ly/3U8C</a> ) is FREAKY in face paint!!! WOW. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612583873">#</a></li> <li><em>10:50</em> Punk'd by the 'net: how some companies have gotten SCREWED by social media. I still wonder about the iPod rumour. <a href="http://ow.ly/3U9e">ow.ly/3U9e</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1613043307">#</a></li></ul><br /><br /><b><u>April 24th</b></u><br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>03:05</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/mossysloth">MossySloth</a> We need to sit down (er, Skype down!) & compare sleep disorders, I think. That and myriad odd subjects, like: <a href="http://ow.ly/3CO6">ow.ly/3CO6</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1601834597">#</a></li> <li><em>04:11</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/shaynewinters">ShayneWinters</a> It scares me a little that you know enough about Dancing With The Stars to ask if the gymnast has been kicked off. And NO. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602096746">#</a></li> <li><em>04:25</em> Utterly fascinating link courtesy of @MossySloth, containing a whole lot of conspiracy theories and other überweird stuff: <a href="http://ow.ly/3MpH">ow.ly/3MpH</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602146176">#</a></li> <li><em>04:41</em> REAL JIGSAW KILLER:"Mr Howe's head, arm, leg & torso were found [...] Only his hands have not been found. " Why the hands? <a href="http://ow.ly/3MwM">ow.ly/3MwM</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602207173">#</a></li> <li><em>05:04</em> Another ex. of nature being warped: Cats in heat sound like babies crying. I hear one outside. It's creepy and makes no biological sense. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602293063">#</a></li> <li><em>05:20</em> Haven't yet read it, but LOVE the title of this article:"Children Don't Make You Happy, Says Expert Who Doesn't Have Any": <a href="http://ow.ly/3Mvb">ow.ly/3Mvb</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602349315">#</a></li> <li><em>06:10</em> Um..good god. "Australia's Miss Universe finalist dangerously underweight". D'you THINK?? I didn't know corpses qualified. <a href="http://ow.ly/3MvC">ow.ly/3MvC</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602532441">#</a></li> <li><em>07:05</em> Just FYI, all of my Thurs/Fri tweets have been scheduled as of Wednesday, so if I'm dead by then and you're seeing these, don't panic. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1602746793">#</a></li> <li><em>08:05</em> I can always outdo myself with weirder lists, you know. "Top 10 Greatest Floating Heads Of All Time". (Only 10?) <a href="http://ow.ly/3CEw">ow.ly/3CEw</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1603031955">#</a></li> <li><em>10:10</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/carlanime">Carlanime</a> You are the only person I've ever heard say, "I'm glad my sex life doesn't involve a speculum." It COULD! See: <a href="http://ow.ly/3CFq">ow.ly/3CFq</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1603883040">#</a></li> <li><em>12:30</em> LOL!! Re: the chick who was nearly lunch: "Logic tells us that polar bears will do this type of thing in this situation." <a href="http://ow.ly/3Mwn">ow.ly/3Mwn</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1605104976">#</a></li> <li><em>13:50</em> "British scientists study Happy Face Spider". What the hell?? Mother Nature is sicker than I thought; this thing is SCARY! <a href="http://ow.ly/3Mv1">ow.ly/3Mv1</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1605775022">#</a></li> <li><em>14:35</em> A hilarious collection of street signs and the like. This one forbids soft coconuts on hospital premises. AS IT SHOULD! <a href="http://ow.ly/3Mxk">ow.ly/3Mxk</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1606159091">#</a></li> <li><em>14:50</em> This should be a rule for LIFE: No obnoxious behaviour, no crying/unhappy children, or you'll be booted from the cave! <a href="http://ow.ly/3Mxz">ow.ly/3Mxz</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1606286824">#</a></li> <li><em>16:15</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/foresthouse">foresthouse</a> If YOU want a Dreamwidth code, ever, let me know! My beloved @jmatwood took care of me: <a href="http://ow.ly/3CGW">ow.ly/3CGW</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1607005559">#</a></li> <li><em>18:20</em> Top 10 Childrens' Books For People Who Hate Their Children (I'm noticing a theme in my tweets today...): <a href="http://ow.ly/3MyM">ow.ly/3MyM</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1608043486">#</a></li> <li><em>20:35</em> Another step in the neverending downward spiral of Lindsay Lohan: she's skinnier than the Aussie pageant chick. AUGH!! <a href="http://ow.ly/3MCa">ow.ly/3MCa</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1609020981">#</a></li> <li><em>20:36</em> @<a href="http://twitter.com/michaelsheen1">michaelsheen1</a> I totally read that wrong and thought you said you just had your makeup melting. Which does indeed sound mysterious. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1609032262">#</a></li></lj-cut> <li><em>21:15</em> A fresh, funny-as-hell take on Billy Bob Thornton's stupidity whilst visiting (read: forcing himself upon) my country: <a href="http://ow.ly/3MD2">ow.ly/3MD2</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1609293689">#</a></li></ul><br /><br /><a href="http://ow.ly/3Mxk" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01390/sign-pub_1390023i.jpg"></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-39672014833487585402009-04-26T13:13:00.004-04:002009-04-26T13:43:29.404-04:00Long time no update, but...TWEET!Yes, I'm overdue for a proper entry...but for the time being, I'll be sending my Tweets here, for those of you who follow the weird goings-on in my life and who get a kick out of my bizarre collection of links. It's mainly for those who don't have access to my private blog; I keep my Tweets suitable for public consumption. Usually. Ahem. (Yes, I know, there was that one <b>***NSFW*** "<a href="http://ow.ly/34Yf">Stages Of The Cervix</a>"</b> thing that got everyone all freaked out...but it got even more people offering up TMI in response!)<br /><br />If you'd like to subscribe, you can do so easily: either comment to this entry (and make sure you sign your name!), or use the "Subscribe" button on the sidebar of the blog. I try not to be one of those nonsensical, pointless Twitterers whose 140 characters make NO BLOODY SENSE, so I'm hoping you'll find some enjoyment in the links I provide when I get the chance.<br /><br /><br /><br />Please note that, with the exception of a very, very small number of people, this will be <b>opt-in ONLY</b>. If you don't leave a comment saying you want to read more, or if you don't subscribe to the posts, <b>this is the last notification you'll get about it.</b> You may have only gotten notification because your address is/was in my Gmail contacts list, so fret not - I'm not targeting anyone in particular! Don't panic and think you'll be inundated with 32,746 Tweets every day no matter what.<br /><br />And no, I won't be offended if you're not into my weird links and strange conversations with celebrities. As you can see, I get a lot of traffic already...<br /><a href="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/tweetstats_apr24.jpg?t=1240766895" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/tweetstats_apr24.jpg?t=1240766895" /></a><br />...from all over the bloody world! The above graph only shows a slow week. My monthly stats are usually around 1,500 clicks, and I seem to get a lot of traffic from Belgium, Spain, And Poland. Haven't quite figured out why just yet.<br /><br /><br /><br />Quite often I schedule a week's worth of links and such at a time, so I'm not actually sitting busily at my computer on a daily basis, hunting for material. I <i>do</i> have a life. <b>;)</b> If you happen to comment, or if you're on Twitter and you reply there and don't get an answer right away, now you know why: the Tweets you're seeing on Thursday could have been scheduled on Monday, and I'm nowhere near a computer!<br /><br />I'll be dropping in to do proper entries as well from time to time, of course, since sometimes 140 characters just can't say it all. But I wanted to give you guys a heads up, in case you wondered what on earth you were suddenly seeing here in place of my ranting and raving!<br /><br />To see who I'm following on Twitter: <b><a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/friends" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/prettyh/friends</a></b>.<br /><br />To see who's following <i>me</i>: <b><a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/following" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/prettyh/following</a></b>.<br /><br />Here's an example of what you'll be seeing:<br /><ul class="loudtwitter"><li><em>06:08</em> I'm laughing way too hard at this. It trumps all of the other terrible street signs. Who knew Welsh was so difficult?? <a href="http://ow.ly/3U2N">ow.ly/3U2N</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1611878991">#</a></li> <li><em>07:05</em> I've long bitched about Daddy having no cell phone. Now I think I'm grateful; he wouldn't like texts about my sex life: <a href="http://ow.ly/3U30">ow.ly/3U30</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612043969">#</a></li> <li><em>08:25</em> Twitter can, apparently, cost you your job, reputation, relationships... Here are 5 of the "Worst Tweets Ever": <a href="http://ow.ly/3U4I">ow.ly/3U4I</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612322883">#</a></li> <li><em>09:25</em> While not impressed with the resemblance to Heath OUT of makeup, this Joker figure ( <a href="http://ow.ly/3U8C">ow.ly/3U8C</a> ) is FREAKY in face paint!!! WOW. <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1612583873">#</a></li> <li><em>10:50</em> Punk'd by the 'net: how some companies have gotten SCREWED by social media. I still wonder about the iPod rumour. <a href="http://ow.ly/3U9e">ow.ly/3U9e</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh/statuses/1613043307">#</a></li></ul><br /><img src='http://prettyh.icons.ljtoys.org.uk/mi/dot.gif' border=0 alt=''><br /><br /><br /><br />Welcome to the new age of pseudo-blogging! Enjoy your stay, and have fun clicking the strangest links I can find!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-6336548214213501562009-03-27T09:54:00.004-04:002009-03-27T10:14:22.787-04:00If only FOX was truly "Gut"less.It seems I've been writing a lot of letters lately. Such a Canadian stereotype, I know, but I'm so tired of being prim and polite when it comes to international politics. I was just beginning to get past my rage concerning the O'Reilly keynote speech when another horrible bastard - from the same network! SURPRISE! - decided to insult my country, our armed forces, and therefore by default my grandfather, great-grandfather, and countless great-uncles who have served in the military. This man should be fired for the things he said, and I have sent a copy of the letter below to every available email address and bulletin board I can find. Once again, I acknowledge the fact that this is little more than tilting at windmills, but it took me three minutes to write it. A small sacrifice in the hopes that it just <i>might</i> affect <i>something</i>.<br /><br />I doubt it. But it makes me feel better, anyway, to unload my venom on someone who deserves it.<br /><br />A very brief primer, for anyone who's been living under a rock and hasn't heard word one about this situation: <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJn5XlbSFk" target="_blank">Watch the offending segment</a></b>, filmed the same day that four more Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Then have a look at <b><a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090323/national/fox_news_cda" target="_blank">what this prick is passing off as an apology</a></b>. And then see <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X9tBjt0DUk" target="_blank">how angry even our own journalists have become</a></b> as a result. If you're on Facebook, <b><a href="http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=56905110020" target="_blank">take note of the fact that all 600 of his 'fans' are disgusted Canadians</a></b>, many of whom have crossed the line into death threats. Not our proudest moment, to be sure, but I can't say I don't understand that kind of disgust and rage.<br /><br /><br />Consider yourselves caught up.<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>To Greg Gutfeld:</b><br /><br />I don't care how this gets to you, or if it's even read BY you. It would suit me just fine if your peers, however distant, and/or your colleagues and/or your superiors receive it instead.<br /><br />My American friends - none of whom even watch your poor excuse for a network, let alone the show in question - have been apologizing to ME because of what YOU said. It's truly pathetic when a good group of people feel the need to distance themselves from their own nationality because you've embarrassed them by being the ultimate stereotypical American that the world has come to loathe. What's worse is that you haven't even apologized for yourself! You made a pithy statement about how Canada "misunderstood" what you said. So that's our fault, too, huh? I think you've been watching too much South Park, pal.<br /><br />I just realized that I'm typing all of this under the assumption that you can read. That's rather foolish of me. Perhaps you can get Bill O'Reilly to sound out the words for you...?<br /><br />I'd never heard of you before this. I hope I never do again. And I hope someday the freedoms our soldiers have afforded you are snatched from your greasy little hands.<br /><br /><b>Part II - To everyone associated with FOX:</b><br /><br />You would be well advised to rid yourselves of this Gutfeld person and the others of his ilk; Canada is a very large country, full of consumers who are only too happy to boycott any product your advertisers are selling for as long as you allow uneducated mouthpieces to represent you.<br /><br />Unlike America, we in Canada are regularly shown our soldiers coming home in coffins. My commute every day is along what has been renamed the Highway Of Heroes, which runs through Toronto, and I have seen altogether too many processionals of these young men and women being repatriated. We gather on overpasses with Canadian flags and we honour them in silence as their caskets are driven past us. There is absolutely no room for humour in this.<br /><br />The talking heads responsible for this uproar need not offer another insincere apology. Fire them, save your ad revenue, and do not ever mention my beloved country again.<br /><br /><img src="http://profile.ak.facebook.com/object3/1118/10/n56905110020_2191.jpg">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-65517502961018684872009-03-14T03:38:00.003-04:002009-03-14T03:55:29.635-04:00The days of the true rock concert experience are dying.My 2009 summer concert list is getting rather unwieldy. <br /><br /><ul><li><b>Coldplay -</b> tickets are bought (show is July 30th)<br /><li><b>Depeche Mode -</b> tickets are bought (show is July 24th)<br /><li><b>Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction -</b> tickets aren't on sale yet, but I have a crack team working on snatching up a few when the time comes (show is June 2nd)<br /><li><b>U2 -</b> no onsale date yet, either (whyyyyy did they pick the lousiest possible venue??? Show is on September 16th)<br /></ul><br /><br /><br />And those are just the four <i>major</i> contenders; there will surely be others. Thank goodness I'm only actually paying for two of these at a time. And the Depeche Mode ones are actually a gift from my parents, which is a damn good thing, since they're $115 each. Compare that to the $50 apiece we paid for Coldplay, and it's outright despicable, really.<br /><br /><br /><br />Oh, before I forget (and completely off-topic!), I'm putting out a call to all: <br /><big><b>What's your favourite conspiracy theory?</b></big><br />Is there one (or more than one??) that you've always kinda thought had some merit to it? I'm doing a little research into some of the more popular ones, and was thinking of doing a few blog installments about them, so <b>tell me which conspiracy theories fascinate you the most, or which ones are completely ridiculous (and why!)</b>, and I'll get around to compiling a few posts looking a bit further into 'em.<br /><br /><br />Back to the concerts thing, then.<br /><br /><br /><br />Remember the good old days, when TRUE FANS would line up the night before or the morning of the tickets going on sale? When you'd befriend other fans in line and you'd see them again months later at the concert? Remember when people had to do more than sit on their lazy asses and click a mouse to go to a show? All of those things, that effort, really did <i>add</i> to the experience. Now scalpers get more tickets than fans do, and venues add an extra $20 to each ticket for "convenience charges" and so on. Mark my words: The days of the truly great rock concert are dying, my friends.<br /><br />The craziest ticket-getting experience I ever had was the bitterly cold January morning when my boyfriend Doug and I lined up to buy Pink Floyd tickets. We were actually going to see Billy Joel <i>that night</i> at Maple Leaf Gardens (this was 1994), so having to get up that early on a Saturday morning and then make the trek in a blizzard downtown in 12 hours was...not an exciting prospect. Still, it was PINK FLOYD. It was the <b>"<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Pink-Floyd-Pulse-Live-1994/dp/B000BTC5LW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1237015944&sr=8-1" target="_blank">PULSE</a>"</b> tour, in support of <b><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Division-Bell-Pink-Floyd/dp/B000002A3T/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1237015880&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Division Bell</a></b> *swoon*, and nothing was going to stop us from getting those tickets. There was no such thing as Ticketmaster.Ca or .Com, but you <i>could</i> do it by phone, if you were a wimp. This was also before the random wristbands; you had to haul ass to prove you were worthy of those good seats, damnit. And there was also a limit of 4 tickets, EVER, per person.<br /><br />What we didn't know, though, was that things were different that morning than they usually were when we'd gone to buy tickets at the record store. <i>Usually</i> the store employees would open the mall doors enough for us to at least wait inside for an hour or two, even while the whole place was still technically closed. So I hadn't dressed for -30°C temperatures. I had normal boots on, and a normal winter jacket, sure, but I didn't have a scarf or mittens or a hat, and the wind was bitter enough that I should have been wearing tights and extra-thick socks as well. We had to stand out there for two hours, after all...and that's enough to kill you if you're not dressed for it. (I was also a skinny little thing then - just shy of 5'6" and not even 125lbs. No natural insulation whatsoever.) <br /><br />After the first hour, my feet started to hurt so badly that I actually began to cry, and my tears froze at the corners of my eyes. Doug had been holding me as close to him as possible, but that didn't help my feet, obviously. So he had to <i>leave me there</i> (I'd only gotten my driver's license a few weeks earlier!), drive to my house several blocks away, and ask my parents for whatever they could give him so he could rush back to me and wrap me up in layers. By now I was getting those telltale white spots on my face, and the pain in my feet....GOD, it was INDESCRIBABLE. The people in front of me in line weren't in much better shape; they were two college guys who were wearing blue jeans and their leather jackets from school. The three of us took turns shielding each other from the wind, but mostly they felt sorry for me, this pathetic little 17-year-old girl with big blue eyes and frozen tears who kept trying to sing "Comfortably Numb" along with them so none of us would pass out.<br /><br />When Doug returned, he was the hero of the hour: My Dad had sent over a couple of extra sweatshirts and pairs of thermal gloves for the people around us, and my Mom had given Doug money to stop at Tim Horton's to get a whole tray of hot chocolate. Oh, it was bliss. He wrapped a scarf around my face, pulled a toque down over my ears (they hurt like a sonofabitch, too), helped me put on an extra pair of socks, and stuffed my hands into the biggest mittens I owned. He'd gotten 8 cups of hot chocolate, so everyone we'd befriended in this terrible melee was so grateful.<br /><br />By the time 9:59 a.m. rolled around, and the line began to move toward the door, I could barely walk. Doug dutifully dragged me along, with the help of one of the college guys who'd gratefully taken one of my Dad's sweaters, and the normal inside temperature of the mall felt, comparatively, like we were entering the mouth of hell as we hobbled through those doors.<br /><br />There was an unspoken code in those days: When you got your tickets and came back out of the record store, you would announce to everyone in line behind you which section you'd gotten, so everyone could calculate which seats were left and so on. Sometimes, if you'd spent enough time together and had become friends while you waited, you might even try your luck at getting tickets for all four of you - two and two, of course, to better the odds, but it still saved precious seconds from ticking away for those people behind you. In this case, though, we opted to go it alone. We wished the college boys good luck, and we watched like hawks as they stood at the Ticketmaster counter, trying to read the lips of the girl behind the register. As it turned out, we all got really good seats, and the guys waited for us outside the store to give back the clothes that had probably saved them from freezing to death. They promised they would remember this, and that they'd see us 7 months from now at the show and would make it up to us.<br /><br />That night, while we sat at Maple Leaf gardens singing along with Billy Joel, I had to fight back tears because my feet and legs still felt like someone was stabbing them with red-hot knitting needles. But the concert was fantastic, and the fact that I enjoyed it anyway really says something.<br /><br />Fast forward to July 5th, 1994. January was long forgotten, as was the miserable weather we'd endured to allow us to end up at Exhibition Stadium. It was a gorgeous summer night, and Doug and I were over the (dark side of the) moon about seeing Pink Floyd. We had watched <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Delicate-Sound-Thunder-Pink-Floyd/dp/B0007WZX9E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1237015773&sr=8-1" target="_blank">A Delicate Sound Of Thunder</a></b></i> on VHS so, so many times, and we were ready to have this experience firsthand. Our seats were breathtaking. And it was the final night of an annual tradition in Toronto - the Symphony of Fire - so we got to watch a most extraordinary fireworks show before the concert began. The stadium was right on Lake Ontario, and the moon was full, and it was just...idyllic.<br /><br />Not long before the show started, I was startled when something landed in my lap. It felt like...clothes. I looked around and couldn't tell in the throngs of people who had thrown it. And then I lifted it up. It was the Division Bell concert t-shirt. Seconds later, Doug got hit in the face with one. And then we saw them. Our college guys! They were only about seven seats over from us, had spotted us earlier, and had gone to the concession to buy us these shirts. They hadn't forgotten the payback they'd promised. It was lovely. We convinced the couple next to us to switch with these guys, and so the four of us were able to bask in the glory of the opening notes when David Gilmour first came onstage.<br /><br />It didn't hurt that they'd also brought the purest pot I have ever smelled. They offered, and we declined, but I was rip-roaringly high off the secondhand smoke, which made Doug laugh, because I kept bursting into happy tears and saying, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" whenever the lights turned into green lasers. (The inflatable pigs with the floodlights for eyes FUCKED ME UP, though.)<br /><br />There were no email addresses to exchange back then - not really - so at the end of the show, we simply thanked our new/old friends for being so generous, and they thanked us again for rescuing them on that wintry day, and we parted ways. I still have the shirt, and so does Doug.<br /><br />These are the experiences we miss out on nowadays. Hiding behind our computers, selling our tickets on eBay, waking up two minutes before the onsale time hits... It may seem perfectly normal to some of the younger folks reading this, but you're missing out. You truly are.<br /><br /><br /><br />I have always wanted to tell that story. I'm glad I have. Am I the only one who's had such a fondness for the way getting tickets <i>used</i> to work???<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/pink-floyd-the-division-bell-54888.jpg?t=1237016258">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-6829435644119605792009-03-13T19:12:00.005-04:002009-03-13T20:13:04.783-04:00My open letter to - and final words on - Bill O'Reilly.The <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2009/03/bill-oreilly-petition-i-had-to-post-it.html" target="_blank">petition</a></b> to have the <b>It Happened To Alexa</b> foundation withdraw its invitation to Bill O'Reilly started out seeking 10,000 signatures. The engagement is only 6 days away, and the goal has now been lowered to 2,000. As of my last check, it hadn't even broken a thousand names.<br /><br />Disheartening.<br /><br />So I went to IMDb, planning to post a thread in O'Reilly's message boards with a link to said petition, and wouldn't you know it? His profile is up and running, but the message board dedicated to him is marked "Section Closed".<br /><br />Next step: the man's own website. Apparently you have to <i>pay</i> to become a <i>premium member</i> if you wish to use the "Contact Bill" form. I'm not even willing to pay extra on the cable bill to get FOX News, so I'm sure as hell not going to give a dime to <i>talk</i> to him in cyberspace.<br /><br />Final step, then: I found his email address, and I wrote the most restrained, polite message I could manage without gagging. You catch more flies with honey, after all, and I don't think my message would hold much water if I was simply being one of those screechy bitches our friend Billy seems to loathe so very much. Instead, I polished a few paragraphs and hit 'send'. Chances are it will make no difference whatsoever. Few things do when it comes to people like him. But at least I can say I did it.<br /><br /><b>---Original Message---<br />To: </b>Bill O'Reilly <b><oreilly@foxnews.com><br />From: </b>me <b><prettyh@xxxxxxxx.xxx><br />Subject:</b> The "It Happened To Alexa" Hullaballoo<br /><b>Date:</b><br /><br /><i>Mr. O'Reilly -<br /><br />Surely you've received a mountain of mail about your upcoming talk at the "It Happened To Alexa" luncheon, and the petition asking for your withdrawal. I'll keep mine as short as I can.<br /><br />Please don't speak at the engagement.<br /><br />I realize that part of being an on-air personality is putting across what is often a more extreme and exaggerated version of yourself; perhaps the many comments you've made that lead the public to believe that you're a misogynist, among other things, is a direct result of those exaggerations. But I will say this: I was sexually assaulted a few months ago (and no, I don't expect you to care; maybe it would make a difference if you knew that I was wearing medical scrubs at the time, and was alone inside the building in which I worked, and was not in any way making a target of myself the way you said Jennifer Moore did...?), and when I tried to imagine sitting at a luncheon and listening to you speak about rape survival, I felt ill. I couldn't handle hearing a man who has been quoted more than once saying things that amount to "s/he deserved it" or "s/he brought in on him/herself" telling me that he's on my side.<br /><br />I ask you, Mr. O'Reilly, to please simply consider what your television audience has seen and heard from you, and then think about what the rape survivors at this luncheon will be feeling when you take the microphone and do an about-face (and lie to them?) by saying women's rights matter to you. Please don't make any of those women feel even more belittled and guilty and humiliated than they already do. I can only assume that your reason for never apologizing for some of the more truly upsetting remarks is that you believe you are right, and that there are times and places wherein assault is justifiable. It won't matter what you say on March 19th; what you've said in the past is already out there, and you can't unring that bell. <br /><br />I appeal to your obviously sizable intellect, and whatever humanity you may have behind your on-air blustering, to reconsider this speaking engagement. Your withdrawal from it would speak volumes about whether or not you actually DO care about how a woman who has been raped or otherwise assaulted should feel. There are so many topics about which you are the perfect man to speak...but the degradation and abuse of women is not one of them.<br /><br />I'll never know, as we no longer get FOX News here without paying a small fortune for it, but if you did read this far, I thank you.<br /><br /><br />~Heather xxxxxx<br />Toronto, ON, Canada</i><br /><br /><br /><br />You have the link to the petition. You can try your luck at IMDb, if you like ( <b>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0971123/board</b> ). Now you have his email address, too. <br /><br />Six days left. Never say never.<br /><br /><br />And that's the last I have to say about it.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/oreilly_parade.jpg?t=1236987398">Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-71276803770300696822009-03-07T04:43:00.006-05:002009-03-07T16:33:24.576-05:00The Bill O'Reilly petition. I had to post it.I don't have a lot of faith in what petitions can do, really. Life is not just one big Erin Brockovich lovefest. But every so often I'll see something that makes me practically <i>erupt</i> with rage, and I feel like I'm better off just sharing the damn thing, whether it has any effect or not.<br /><br />This time it's Bill O'Reilly who's made me feel homicidal. Not that he usually doesn't anyway, just by existing. But women who've been victims of sexual assault - or, hell, just PEOPLE in general - need to know about this disgusting error in judgment (that's putting it kindly) and should say something about it.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-oreilly-speech-to-rape-victim-support-group" target="_blank">O'Reilly has been invited to speak at The <i>It Happened To Alexa</i> fundraiser</a></b>, which, if you didn't know, is a foundation built to raise awareness about rape and to offer support and resources to victims of sexual assault. I can think of a few men who might be worse choices, but...not many.<br /><br />I'm borrowing liberally from my friend Rachel's note about this in order to give background to why this bastard doesn't deserve to have an oxygen supply, let alone have the opportunity to listen to himself talk in the presence of the very people upon whom he likes to prey:<br /><br /><i>Bill O'Reilly is scheduled to speak at a fundraising luncheon for the rape survivors advocacy group It Happened To Alexa Foundation at the Ritz Carlton in Manalapan, Florida, on March 19th, 2009. This is, simply, outrageous.<br /><br />According to its website, the purpose of the It Happened to Alexa Foundation is to "help support rape survivors through the trauma of the criminal trial, in the hopes that more survivors will go through with the prosecution in order to put these perpetrators behind bars...[and to] assist rape victims families with travel expenses during the litigation process."<br /><br />A laudable mission, indeed. But not only has O'Reilly been accused of sexual harassment at work (settling out of court and paying his accuser a multi-million dollar sum); he also has a history of making blame-the-victim comments about sexual assault, including the following:</i><br /><br />"These two girls come in from the suburbs and they get bombed, and their car is towed because they're moronic girls and, you know, they don't have a car. So they're standing there in the middle of the night with no car. And then they separate because they're drunk...<br /><br />"Now Moore, Jennifer Moore...She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff... So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug... And the thug takes her over to New Jersey in the cab and kills her and rapes her and does all these terrible things to her..." (Bill O'Reilly, The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 8/2/06)<br /><br />"And the question is, why didn't [11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, kidnapped, held and raped for 4 years] escape when he could have?...The Stockholm syndrome thing, I don't buy it...The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted...I think when it all comes down, what's going to happen is, there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances." (Bill O'Reilly, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, 1/15/07)<br /><br /><i>We can only presume that the board of the It Happened to Alexa Foundation were unaware of O'Reilly's history when they extended the invitation to him. But unfortunately, all objections to O'Reilly's appearance since then have been met with a polite rebuttal.<br /><br />We consider it wholly inappropriate that Bill O'Reilly should be given the opportunity to promote his new book by associating himself with an organization that does such laudable work on behalf of rape victims.<br /><br />Please join us in asking the It Happened to Alexa Foundation to withdraw their invitation to Bill O'Reilly and replace him with another, more appropriate, speaker.</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Do whatever you feel is right. Sign the <b><a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-oreilly-speech-to-rape-victim-support-group" target="_blank">petition</a></b>, don't sign it, watch his show, turn it off, buy his books, burn them, whatever. I've done what <i>I</i> feel is right, and that is to bring this to the attention of my friends and readers. People like Bill O'Reilly do not deserve to have their crimes and misdemeanours swept under the carpet; if a petition can make <i>someone's</i> life a little more difficult - be it his or that of the moron(s) who chose him as a speaker - then it was worth the ten seconds it took to type in my info and hit 'enter'.<br /><br /><img src="http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/petition_images/petition/041/220898-1236120648-main.jpg"><br /><br /><br /><b>**AN ASIDE:**</b> I know I don't update this blog often; I do, however, provide daily links of all types (including the above-mentioned) via <b><a href="http://twitter.com/prettyh" target="_blank">my Twitter account</a></b>, so please feel free to follow me there, too.<br /><br /><br /><br /><b><big>***ETA:***</big></b> A kind commenter added this additional link for those looking for more background about why O'Reilly is such a heinous choice for this engagement: <b>"<a href="http://www.newshounds.us/2009/03/06/oreilly_should_apologize_to_rape_survivors_gets_worst_person_for_four_straight_nights.php#more">O’Reilly Should Apologize to Rape Survivors; Gets Worst Person for Four Straight Nights</a>"</b>. Thank you, <b><a href="http://www.onemorevoice.net" target="_blank">C</a>.</b><br /><br /><br /><b>If you think others would get something out of reading this, PLEASE pass it along, via email, Facebook, Digg or any other means. As I so often say, every little bit helps.</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-52757020108991346152009-02-25T05:39:00.002-05:002009-02-25T06:53:03.766-05:00Steven Page bails on BNL. Classy.I'm...kinda stunned. Obviously we don't have all of the details yet, but what we <i>do</i> know is that the guys in Barenaked Ladies stood by Steve while he was cheating on his wife with a groupie and snorting all the coke he could find in upstate New York...so what's the deal??? (Click my <b>"celeb stuff"</b> tag to go back and see earlier coverage of this whole mess, or <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2008/07/all-latest-on-barenaked-ladies-steven.html" target="_blank">read this old entry</a></b> from July 2008.)<br /><br />Comments on an entry from <b><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/32569387.html" target="_blank">Oh No They Didn't</a></b> has one of what will likely be many versions of what happened, but here's the sanitized (and practically useless) blurb from <b><a href="http://www.bnlmusic.com/" target="_blank">the Barenaked Ladies' official website</a></b>:<br /><br /><i>By mutual agreement, Steven Page will be parting company with the remaining members of Barenaked Ladies. Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will continue recording and touring together as Barenaked Ladies. Steven Page will pursue solo projects including theatrical opportunities while the band enters the studio in April 2009, and hits the road in the fall.<br /><br />Page says "These guys are my brothers. We've grown up together over the past twenty years. I love them and wish them all the best in the future."<br /><br />The band also wish Steven well in all of his endeavors. Ed Robertson says: "It's the start of a new chapter for all of us. Here's to the future!"<br /><br />Everyone is looking forward to making new music and thanks their fans for their support.</i><br /><br /><br />...uh...right, then.<br /><br />More details if/when I can find 'em.<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/ONTD/Barenaked-Ladies-rp03.jpg?t=1235561230"><br /><br /><b>ETA:</b> News from <b><a href="" target="_blank">Globe & Mail</a></b>, reproduced in full below:<br /><br /><big><b>Page leaving Barenaked Ladies</big><br />JOSH WINGROVE<br />February 25, 2009</b><br /><br />Steven Page is no longer among the Barenaked Ladies, the band has announced.<br /><br />Mr. Page, who co-founded the group, is leaving to pursue solo projects and a theatre career in what was called a "mutual agreement."<br /><br />"These guys are my brothers. We've grown up together over the past 20 years. I love them and wish them all the best in the future," he said on the band website.<br /><br />Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will continue recording and touring together as the Barenaked Ladies, the band said. They are preparing to be in the studio this spring before a fall tour.<br /><br />"It's the start of a new chapter for all of us," Mr. Robertson said.<br /><br />It's the latest in a tumultuous year for Mr. Page, who was arrested in New York last July after being found with cocaine. In October, the charges were reduced. If Mr. Page adheres to a set of conditions, the charges are to be dropped by April.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Also: <b><a href="http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/592750" target="_blank">The Toronto Star</a></b> has this to say:<br /><br /><b><big>STEVEN PAGE STEPS DOWN</big><br />The Canadian Press, Feb. 25th, 2009</b><br /><br />The Barenaked Ladies will be hitting the recording studio this spring — without one of their founding members.<br /><br />Steven Page has left the popular band he helped form in Toronto more than 20 years ago.<br /><br />The band’s website said Wednesday that Page will be parting company with the remaining members of the band to pursue solo projects including theatrical opportunities.<br /><br />The other band members, Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will go back in the studio in April and out on the road in the fall.<br /><br />The news comes months after drug charges against Page were dropped in the U.S.<br /><br />Page wished them the best in the future. "These guys are my brothers," he said. "We’ve grown up together over the past twenty years. I love them and wish them all the best in the future."<br /><br />The band also wished Page well in all of his endeavours. "It’s the start of a new chapter for all of us," Robertson said. "Here’s to the future!"<br /><br />Page, his girlfriend and her roommate were charged with drug possession in July after police found cocaine at a Fayetteville, N.Y., apartment.<br /><br />In late October, all three secured a deal that will result in their charges being dropped if they stayed out of trouble for six months.<br /><br />In December, the band members joked about a tough 2008.<br /><br />Robertson told a sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Massey Hall that he felt a little neglected last summer when his personal crisis was overshadowed by the turmoil in Page’s life. "I survived a ... plane crash and it barely made the news," Robertson said with tongue in cheek.<br /><br />"Everyone said, 'Who cares, what’s going on with Steve?"'<br /><br />Just two months after the May release of their children’s album, "Snack Time," Page was arrested.<br /><br />That album is now nominated for a Juno, for children’s album of the year.<br /><br />The image of Page’s dishevelled mugshot flew around the world on the Internet and the charges forced the band to bow out of a Disney charity show and stay below the radar for months.<br /><br />The band’s second scare came in late August when Robertson crashed his float plane in a wooded area north of Bancroft, Ont.<br /><br />Luckily, he walked away unhurt along with three other passengers.<br /><br />The Barenaked Ladies went on last fall to mount a mini comeback with a series of concerts and TV appearances.<br /><br />Page told fans on his blog that he was "doing great," and feeling healthier after shedding 40 pounds.<br /><br />He said he looked back at 2008 as a year with a lot of positive experiences among the really bad ones. "Yes, it’s been a terrible year for the band, and for me personally, but there have also been many things to be happy and grateful for," he wrote.<br /><br />"Falling in love, a renewed sense of peace, the best health of my adult life, some amazing creative and artistic opportunities, and the chance for a renewed and fruitful relationship with my band, friends and loved ones."<br /><br />The band’s recording of their own version of the old "Hockey Night in Canada" theme song for TSN also brought them back into the spotlight.<br /><br />Page played guitar for the band, which he helped form and shared lead vocal duties with Robertson.<br /><br />His distinctive vocals are featured prominently in many of the band’s hits, including "One Week," "Brian Wilson," "If I Had $1,000,000" and "Jane." <br /><br />---<br /><br /><br />I'm not even gonna touch that "falling in love" bit. (See: <b><a href="http://prettyh.blogspot.com/2008/07/all-latest-on-barenaked-ladies-steven.html" target="_blank">Christine Benedicto</a></b>.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-53825450537501856812009-02-08T10:28:00.003-05:002009-02-08T10:42:51.812-05:00Oscar Season! Reviews, predictions, and oversights galore.Let's talk <b><a href="http://www.oscar.com/" target="_blank">Oscar</a></b>, shall we?<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/random%20stuff/400_oscar_statue_09.jpg?t=1234096014"><br /><br />Every year I do my damnedest to see as many of the big nominees as possible, and this year I have to say I'm doing incredibly well. With two weeks to go, I've knocked down one hell of a lot of 'em, and have arranged access to the four or five that still remain (two in theatre, the rest all rentable). I wish I had more friends within easier distance who are as movie-obsessed as I am, because I throw a mean Oscar party, but this year it'll just be a quiet evening, methinks. My Dad has seen several of the contenders, too (he's actually taken me to a few of them; it's been cool to have him back as my regular movie buddy on Saturday mornings), so he and I can settle in together and rob each other blind on high-stakes award show betting.<br /><br />So, for those of you who are <i>not</i> nearby but who've seen some of these films, I shall share my thoughts and see <b>who among you is willing to place wagers for February 22nd. (Terms to be negotiated. I say the one who guesses the highest number of winners correctly should have a movie bought for them off their WishList. I'm in if you are!</b> But we'll hold off 'til the 21st, since there are still unseen nominees...)<br /><br />Here goes: What I've seen (as of now; I'll edit as the next two weeks rack me up), what I've loved, the reviews I've written on Facebook, and what's yet to be watched. (And my bets on who'll win.) Be prepared - it's a loooong entry! (Reprinted from my private blog.)<br /><br />_______<br /><br /><b><big>BEST ACTRESS</b></big><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000701/" target="_blank">KATE WINSLET</a> (<i>The Reader</i>)</b></u><br />This role, when I finally found myself invested in the movie, blew my mind. Kate was barely recognizable, and not just because of the makeup. She <i>became</i> Hanna, with a harsh voice and Berlin accent, with new mannerisms and expressions... I've always loved her, but this really put her up to the next level for me. <b>My review of the movie:</b> I spent the first hour-plus wondering why I wasn't more emotionally invested in these characters. Certainly Kate Winslet gives yet another brilliantly layered performance, and her young co-star does a good job of keeping pace...but I wasn't IN IT. There was just something putting distance between me and the screen, and aside from the vague but persistent dread in my gut, I wasn't feeling as much as I'd expect to feel about such obviously painful moments in life and history. Until the last fifteen or twenty minutes, that is. At which point my heart began to hurt, and it hasn't stopped. Complex material that'll leave you turning so much over in your mind for a long time coming. (A side note: I can't recall a movie in recent history with as much full-on nudity as this one. Goodness me.) I'm told the book is far more haunting. I don't think I could take it. The man sitting next to me in the theatre turned to me when the closing credits began and sighed, "Well, THAT was...uplifting." I could only sniffle and smile before we all scattered out into the snow with very, very heavy hearts. <br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000658/" target="_blank">MERYL STREEP</a> (<i>Doubt</i>)</b></u><br />I don't think I've ever seen Meryl give a sub-par performance (of course, I've purposely avoided <i>Mamma Mia</i>...), but this one stands out. She managed to be brash on the surface while still keeping a few tiny nuances that let us know there was more going on underneath. <b>My review of the film:</b> I've been unable to stop thinking about this haunting film since I saw it a week ago. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance was so perfectly nuanced... My loyalties were torn from the first frame to the last, and what Streep and Adams brought to the table just added to that feeling of conflict...and, well, doubt. Serious props to Viola Davis for one of the most searing, painful scenes I've witnessed in a very long time. See it. <br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001401/" target="_blank">ANGELINA JOLIE</a> (<i>Changeling</i>)</b></u><br />Haven't seen in yet. It's out on DVD on the 17th. I'd wanted to see it as soon as I heard it was out, but I missed it. This may be one of two major oversights (in my opinion) involving Clint Eastwood, who directed <i>Changeling</i> and was the mastermind behind a completely ignored and horribly underrated <i>Gran Torino</i>. As for Angie's performance, I expect it'll be solid, but not enough to knock Kate or Meryl off the stage. And I feel like Cate Blanchett should have been given this slot (for <i>Benjamin Button</i>) instead...but, again, I can't say for sure until I've seen it.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004266/" target="_blank">ANNE HATHAWAY</a> (<i>Rachel Getting Married</i>)</b></u><br />Will be seeing it on Wednesday, as it's been re-released in Toronto (yay for that!). I'm impressed that Anne has made it from bubblegum Disney movies to serious indie flicks so early in her career, and I'm really looking forward to seeing this one.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0502425/" target="_blank">MELISSA LEO</a> (<i>Frozen River</i>)</b></u><br />It's on DVD, so I'll be seeing it this week sometime. I have to say, this one surprised me, mainly because I'd heard nothing about this movie before the nominations came out. Still, Leo has been a great character actress for a while now, so it's nice to see an underdog in the race.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> Based on the only two performances I've seen thus far, Kate Winslet deserves to <i>finally</i> get a bloody Oscar. Her role as Hanna Schmitz is jaw-droppingly convincing. I forgot it was Kate on screen, quite frankly, after only a short time - long before the makeup and costume wizards aged her so many years. She was fantastic. To be fair, Meryl Streep's turn in <i>Doubt</i> gave me chills, too; she managed to pack so much emotion into such a restrained performance. But between the two, Kate wins for me. I can't see that changing even after I see the other three, but you never know...<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> Kate. Her only real competition, I think, is Streep, and I think the many awards Kate has already won for the role tell us that the Academy is ready to pass the torch, rather than add to Meryl's massive collection. Again, though, I have to reserve my final opinion until I see the others!<br /><br />______<br /><br /><b><big>BEST ACTOR</b></big><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001449/" target="_blank">FRANK LANGELLA</a></b> (<i>Frost/Nixon</i>)</u><br />Wow! Who woulda thunk it?? I've loved Frank for eons, so it's pretty cool to see him get nominated for his first Oscar (especially for a role that has already earned him a Tony Award). The odds of him winning are slim to none, I fear, but that's not for lack of a strong performance; the competition is just too strong this year. <b>My review of the movie:</b> Having been only a baby when this historical interview happened, I went into the film not knowing a whole lot. I came out thoroughly impressed with how well I was filled in, and how bizarrely sympathetic Langella's Nixon managed to be without twisting who and what the man really was. As for Michael Sheen...I was afraid this was going to be kind of like his Tony Blair impersonating David Frost, but no! He even got the speech patterns down. Truly impressive film. But I still can't get over the fact that it made the Best Picture short list over "Gran Torino". THAT I cannot abide. Even so, a worthwhile 2 hours all around. <br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000620/" target="_blank">MICKEY ROURKE</a></b> (<i>The Wrestler</i>)</u><br />Augh. This one's still too fresh. I may have to cry again now. Looking at Rourke's once-beautiful face, you'd think he'd have a hard time conveying emotion because of all of that surgery...but man, that couldn't be further from the truth. Every eyebrow raise, every half-smile, it all spoke volumes about this broken man and how desperate he was to make something - <i>anything</i> - right again. He was brilliant, playing what he knew but never stepping over the line into parodying himself. <b>My review of the movie:</b> The night I saw "Slumdog...", I came out of the theatre and heard two guys - who were just leaving "The Wrestler" - saying that they wanted to kill themselves after "that experience". I had forgotten about that moment...until I saw the movie for myself last night. Mickey Rourke has officially broken my heart into about eight thousand pieces. He has my vote come Oscar night. Marisa Tomei is so good you forget she's naked for 90% of her screen time. The whole experience... Just see it, and be ready to feel a little bit shattered when the lights come up. <br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/" target="_blank">BRAD PITT</a></b> (<i>The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button</i>)</u><br />As a rule, I'm not a Brad Pitt fan. That's probably a weird thing to say, coming from someone who includes <i>Fight Club</i> and <i>Se7en</i> among her favourite films, but it's true. He's okay. He's done some fine work. But I'm not a fangirl. Having said that, though, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised at the gentle way he handled his character's evolution. It was unlike anything I've seen him do before, and he did it very effectively. I don't think he deserves to win, but I can see why he was nominated. (I just wish it hadn't been at the expense of Clint Eastwood! There I go again...) <b>My review of the film:</b> I started crying about 15 minutes in. I didn't stop, not for a moment, until the end credits. Even then I had to suck it up. The performances were outstanding, especially by Blanchett and Henson, and the direction and cinematography made me feel like I was there...but there were parts that dragged on a bit too long, and that yanked me out of the frame. I also felt like some of the sentimentality of it all was heavy handed and emotionally manipulative, rather than being sincere (using Hurricane Katrina as the current setting?? Ouch)...but maybe I'm just angsty because I cried for three hours in public. It doesn't deserve to win Best Picture, and I still can't believe it was nominated instead of "Gran Torino", but it IS a beautifully made film. Just make sure you bring Kleenex.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000576/" target="_blank">SEAN PENN</a></b> (<i>Milk</i>)</u><br />Haven't seen it yet. The plan is to catch it the same night as <i>Rachel Getting Married</i> this week. But...it's Sean Penn. He's going to be great. Great enough to blow the other guys out of the water? Maybe, maybe not. But he's won before, which may leave room for a sentimental favourite like Mickey Rourke...<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0420955/" target="_blank">RICHARD JENKINS</a></b> (<i>The Visitor</i>)</u><br />Another one I have yet to see - it's out on DVD already. I actually said aloud, "What the HELL??" when I heard he was nominated <strike>instead of Clint Eastwood?!? WTF!!?!?</strike>, but he's kind of like Melissa Leo in my mind: a solid actor who's put in a lot of great performances and has paid his dues, and it's nice to see him being recognized for the first time. I hope I enjoy the movie, even though I can't for the life of me see how he could win over Pitt, Rourke or Penn.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> OH, MICKEY, YOU'RE SO FINE... Of the performances I've seen, his moved me the most. I wasn't expecting to be as impressed as I was; I thought it would just be too easy, with him playing a character that mirrors his real life too closely. But he hit hard, and he hit deep, and for that reason I would love to see him getting a standing ovation as he walks up to accept an award he probably never imagined could be his.<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> I'm kind of afraid that Sean Penn will swoop in and snatch this one up. I can't say he wouldn't deserve it, since I haven't seen his movie, but the guy is walking Oscar-bait every damn year. With the timing of Prop 8 and the buzz around the film, there's a very good chance Penn's got the cards stacked in his favour.<br /><br />_______<br /><br /><b><big>BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS</b></big><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0378245/" target="_blank">TARAJI P. HENSON</a></b> (<i>The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button</i>)</u><br />This woman blew me away when I saw her in <i>Hustle And Flow</i>, so it's great to see her getting recognized for a very solid turn in <i>Benjamin</i>. But, really, as good as she was, I don't know that it was a performance that was Oscar-worthy. I think she <i>will</i> have a lot more chances in the future to be a winner, but there wasn't quite enough to her character, for me, to put her up against the likes of Marisa Tomei this year.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000673/" target="_blank">MARISA TOMEI</a></b> (<i>The Wrestler</i>)</u><br />Anyone who thought Marisa's Oscar for <i>My Cousin Vinny</i> was a fluke can set that aside now. She brought almost as much heartache to the screen this time around as Mickey Rourke did, and that's saying a lot. Extra props to her for A) having the guts to spend most of her screen time naked and grinding against a pole, and B) looking absolutely fabulous (and convincingly broken) while doing so.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0010736/" target="_blank">AMY ADAMS</a></b> (<i>Doubt</i>)</u><br />I fell in love with Amy Adams as soon as I saw <i>Junebug</i>. This is a woman who has a lot of nominations, and likely wins, in her future. The trouble is that <i>Doubt</i> was so much an ensemble piece that it seems like she had the least amount of stuff to do on screen, which makes it hard for me to see her winning this year. On the flipside, she made the most of the time she <i>did</i> have, and she played someone completely unlike any of her previous characters...and she was spot on with it. I'm kinda torn about this one, but she definitely deserves the nomination, and I look forward to what great things she'll be doing in the future.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0205626/" target="_blank">VIOLA DAVIS</a></b> (<i>Doubt</i>)</u><br />This goes almost completely against what I've said about Amy Adams and Taraji Henson, but considering Viola had only a single 12-minute-long scene in the whole film, I can scarcely believe the impact her few short moments made on me. Her scant dialogue with Meryl Streep cut like a knife and added something to the film that was essential in creating the entire atmosphere of it all. Truly one of the more powerful appearances I've ever seen, and she managed to stuff everything we needed to know into twelve measly minutes. Commendable.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004851/" target="_blank">PENELOPE CRUZ</a></b> (<i>Vicky Cristina Barcelona</i>)</u><br />Haven't seen it. Don't want to see it, but it's on DVD, so I'll suck it up. I loathe Woody Allen movies (the sole exception being the astonishing <i>Match Point</i>), and on top of that I completely disagreed with Cruz being nominated for <i>Volver</i> a couple of years back (overrated in a big way, IMO). But I'll give it a fair chance, since both Cruz and Allen have managed to surprise me in the past.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> Augh. This is hard! I'm gonna have to go with Viola. Even though half of my brain is rooting for Amy. Augh. (This does prove, however, that <i>Doubt</i> was another oversight in the Best Picture category, doesn't it?)<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> I honestly don't know if it'll be Amy or Taraji. Both are fairly new-ish to the Big Time, and both have created a lot of buzz with their performances, this year and in recent years. If I had to guess, I'd say Taraji will get it.<br /><br />______<br /><br /><b><big>BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR</b></big><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005132/" target="_blank">HEATH LEDGER</a></b> (<i>The Dark Knight</i>)</u><br />I really hate hearing people say that Heath only got the nod because he's not with us anymore. If you saw the film, you know bloody well that his performance was one of the greatest things to witness all year. All sentimentality aside, I'd have been pissed if he'd been left off the consideration list; his Joker blew everyone and everything away (literally and figuratively). <b>My review of the film:</b><br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000450/" target="_blank">PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN</a></b> (<i>Doubt</i>)</u><br />Interesting to note that Hoffman's <i>Capote</i> won out over Heath's cowboy in <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> a couple of seasons ago. And this time around, a win would be well deserved, indeed. He left me completely dumbstruck when I saw <i>Doubt</i>; I watched every expression on his face, every bit of body language, and I was so impressed with the complexity and depth that he gave to the priest he played. I have a feeling that he'd be a lock in this category if not for Heath.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0788335/" target="_blank">MICHAEL SHANNON</a></b> (<i>Revolutionary Road</i>)</u><br />This was another "WHAT THE HELL???" moment for me when the nominations were announced. Shannon has been one of those guys who has turned in a lot of good performances as a character actor, and I'd like to see him in more films, but...I cannot for the life of me figure out how he landed on the short list with his very brief (and not terribly consequential) role in <i>...Road</i>. He did a great job with what he had, but what they gave him wasn't much, and in my world it just doesn't feel like an Oscar kind of role. If anything, Leonardo DiCaprio should have gotten this nomination for the same movie. I like Shannon, and I liked what he did in the film, but it's not even in the same stratosphere as the above-mentioned performances.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000375/" target="_blank">ROBERT DOWNEY JR.</a></b> (<i>Tropic Thunder</i>)</u><br />Aaaaaand yet another "WTF?!?" from me. Don't get me wrong; I <i>adore</i> RDJ, and think he should be swimming in Oscars by now, AND I haven't even seen the film in question yet (another renter)...so maybe I should just shaddap until I see what the deal is. But...seriously?? Of all the great parts he's played...??? Dev Patel (<i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>) should have gotten a shot at this instead. Or Leonardo, again. Or Colin Farrell for <i>In Bruges</i>! This one baffles me. Maybe it'll make more sense once I see <i>Tropic Thunder</i>, but I can't imagine a comedic performance in blackface alongside *shudder* Ben Stiller and Jack Black could possibly hold a candle to the other guys I mentioned.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000982/" target="_blank">JOSH BROLIN</a></b> (<i>Milk</i>)</u><br />Again, haven't seen it yet, so I have no idea whatsoever about this one. His last few roles have impressed the hell out of me (and I kinda thought he might even get nominated for his brilliant portrayal of Dubya, actually), so I'll be waiting on this call.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> This sucks. I want Heath Ledger to get it, but knowing how much he hated award shows, plus the fact that he's not here to receive the recognition for his amazing role, I feel like Philip Seymour Hoffman should really be the one to walk away with the Oscar. I'm positive it'll be one of the two, and I know I'll be both happy and sad no matter which one wins.<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> Heath. As a salute not only to the brilliance we've seen, but also to what we know we're going to miss out on.<br /><br />______<br /><br /><b><big>BEST DIRECTOR</b></big><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000965/" target="_blank">DANNY BOYLE</a></b> (<i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>)</u><br />I love Danny Boyle. He's made so many of my absolute favourite films (<i>Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, Millions</i>), and he's never been recognized for any of them. Now he's been nominated for something that is miles away from his most famous endeavours, which gives him points for amazing versatility. The undertaking of such a huge production with <i>Slumdog</i> earned him a spot at the top of this list. <br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/" target="_blank">DAVID FINCHER</a></b> (<i>The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button</i>)</u><br />Another one of my favourite directors. (I've forgiven him for the atrocity that was <i>Zodiac</i>.) And I love that he took on a project that's so different from the films for which he's best known. He, like Danny, has proven that he's no one-trick pony, and <i>Benjamin</i> had to be one hell of a big job. He pulled it off and the end product was beautiful.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0197636/" target="_blank">STEPHEN DALDRY</a></b> (<i>The Reader</i>)</u><br />If I'm not mistaken, this fellow has only directed two feature films - the first being <i>The Hours</i> - and is therefore batting a thousand in terms of nominations. He really caught the atmosphere in this one, so I'm glad he's gotten a nod, but I think it was his direction that caused the disconnect I felt through the first chunk of the movie. I'm not sure how I feel about who got left OFF the list as a result of his nomination (Clint, again, and Darren Aronofsky). I dunno. I think we can expect more good things from this guy, but I'd sort of like to see him establish himself a bit more before he starts collecting statues.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000165/" target="_blank">RON HOWARD</a></b> (<i>Frost/Nixon</i>)</u><br />I liked the movie quite a bit, but...nothing about it felt like there was a Ron Howard signature to it, if that makes any sense. Had I not known it was his film, I wouldn't have been able to pick out his style. (Does he <i>have</i> one?) I generally like the movies he puts out, but as I said above, I think Eastwood or Aronofsky were overlooked and deserved a shot for their films more than Howard does this time.<br /><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001814/" target="_blank">GUS VAN SANT</a></b> (<i>Milk</i>)</u><br />Once more: haven't seen it. Gus is hit-and-miss for me. (He, at least, has a distinctive style, like the first two nominees; sometimes it works, in films like <i>Elephant</i>, whereas other times it misfires - <i>Psycho</i> and <i>Last Days</i> come to mind.) I'll reserve judgment.<br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> Danny Boyle. The way he managed to weave that story together and never lost any momentum is extraordinary. But I can't say I'd be disappointed to see David Fincher get it, for similar reasons.<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> Danny. He took such a unique approach to <i>Slumdog</i>, and made it into something unlike anything we've ever seen before, that I'd be surprised if anyone else won.<br /> <br />_____<br /><br /><b><big>BEST PICTURE</big> (my rating out of five stars)</b><br /><ul><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/" target="_blank">THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON</a></u> - ****</b><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/" target="_blank">SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE</a></u> - *****</b><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870111/" target="_blank">FROST/NIXON</a></u> - *** and a half</b><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976051/" target="_blank">THE READER</a></u> - ****</b><br /><li><b><u><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/" target="_blank">MILK</a></u> - N/A</b><br /></ul><br /><br /><b>Who I think SHOULD win:</b> <i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>. Hands down.<br /><br /><b>Who I think WILL win:</b> Having not yet seen <i>Milk</i>, I can't be confident in saying <i>Slumdog</i> will get it. I'm even a little nervous about <i>Benjamin</i> getting in there. But I think I'd have to put my chips on <i>Slumdog</i>. Here's hoping I'm right.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That took me TWO AND A HALF HOURS to write.<br /><br /><br />I'll post an actual poll (on my private blog) when the date gets closer, but in the meantime, fill me in: <b>Which ones have you guys seen? What have you loved/hated? Have any of you seen the ones I haven't</b> (and if so, are they worthy of their nominations)<b>?</b> Am I on crack for being so bent out of shape about the Clint Eastwood/<b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/" target="_blank"><i>Gran Torino</a></b></i> thing?? (I'm also a bit baffled about the barely-there recognition for <i><b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959337/" target="_blank">Revolutionary Road</i></a></b>.)<br /><br /><br /><br />Thoughts?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6200047450050972994.post-24647010308044303152009-02-07T08:20:00.004-05:002009-02-07T09:23:43.915-05:00Celebrity Scandals: From Christian Bale to Steven Page to John Travolta (and back again?)It's been a long while since we've heard much from the Barenaked Ladies' camp. Steven Page's drug scandal in July 2008 was hushed within the month, if you follow the dates on the associated stories in the press. The hoopla did make <b><a href="http://www.macleans.ca/culture/media/article.jsp?content=20080723_87241_87241" target="_blank">the cover of MacLean's magazine</a></b>, but beyond that, the newswire went quiet. The last info I managed to find was in November, when Jason Priestly inexplicably made the rounds defending his fellow Canuck:<br /><br />_____<br /><br /><b><big>BNL's frontman 'upset' by drug scandal: Priestley</b></big><br /><br /><b>Updated Thu. Nov. 27 2008 10:50 AM ET</b><br /><br /><b><i><a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081127/priestley_page_081127/20081127?hub=Entertainment" target="_blank">The Canadian Press</a></b></i> [ click to read full article; truncated version below ]<br /><br /><b>TORONTO --</b> Former "90210" hunk Jason Priestley says he was as stunned as most Barenaked Ladies' fans when his longtime friend Steven Page was convicted on drug charges earlier this year.<br /><br />The Vancouver-born actor, who forged a relationship with Page and other members of the quirky pop group in the 1990s, says he is among several friends rallying around the singer in the wake of Page's cocaine arrest in upstate New York.<br /><br />"It was surprising," Priestley said Wednesday of the summer drug scandal in which Page was caught near Syracuse with cocaine.<br /><br />"(I offered) all the support that he needed and whatever he needed to help him, whatever I could do to help. And I think everybody offered him that same support, how could you not?"<br /><br />Last month, a New York state judge said Page would be acquitted of drug charges if he stayed clean for six months. Priestley said his friend is doing well, but is "upset" that he got caught up in the situation to begin with.<br /><br />The former teen heartthrob said he planned to hang out with members of the Barenaked Ladies while he's in Toronto this weekend to host the Gemini Awards, which honour the best in Canadian drama, comedy and variety TV.<br /><br />Priestley will be handing out trophies along with current "90210" star Shenae Grimes, who will appear as a presenter at Friday's glitzy gala.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Priestley said next September could also see a special DVD release of "Barenaked in America" to mark the film's 10-year anniversary. He said it would include extra footage and bonus material.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />_______<br /><br />Not exactly what you'd call "news". But after some digging, I did find <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Page#Drug_arrest" target="_blank">one source</a></b> stating the following: <i>On October 28, Page appeared in court in Fayetteville, New York. Charges against him and the two women were reduced to misdemeanor possession. If Page complies with the terms of the arrangement for six months, including drug screening, the charges will be dropped.</i> So we wait until April, then, to see if Stevie can keep himself out of trouble.<br /><br /><br />Also interesting - but not surprising whatsoever - is the radio silence following <b><a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090106/travolta_autism_090106?s_name=&no_ads=" target="_blank">the death of John Travolta's son, Jett</a></b>. The latest news from that camp has steered all attention away from the strange circumstances surrounding the tragedy, and has instead been focusing on <b><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4353590/Death-of-Jett-Travolta-Paramedic-charged-over-alleged-extortion-plot.html" target="_blank">the alleged extortion plot visited upon the Travoltas by a paramedic</a></b>. A good PR move, really; it makes John and Kelly revert firmly back into Victim Mode, and makes others look like The Bad Guys. I'm curious about what the paramedic knows that would have been worth so much money, though... Stay tuned on that one.<br /><br /><br /><br />Other celeb scandals, as I'm sure 99% of the planet now knows, are <i>much</i> more visible. For example...<br /><br /><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/prettyh/celebs/american-psycho-02.jpg?t=1234015176"><br />(I do love that picture. And from here on in, I'd say it's a good idea to consider this post <b>VERY NSFW</b>.)<br /><br /><b><a href="http://defamer.com/5148140/a-repentant-christian-bale-asks-have-you-ever-had-a-bad-day" target="_blank">Christian Bale has offered an apology</a></b> for the embarrassing freakout he had (also in July of '08 - was that a bad month for the star set, I wonder?) on the set of the upcoming <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438488/" target="_blank">Terminator</a></b> film. If, by some strange chance, you haven't heard the audio or read a transcript of the expletive-laden outburst, you can find both <b><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ontd/112043.html?thread=23547563#t23547563" target="_blank">in this post from OhNoTheyDidn't</a></b> (just scroll up to access the links to the 4-minute long tirade; reading it just doesn't do it justice). Celebrity insanity at its finest! <br /><br />I'm glad he's apologized, but I have to wonder if this will have any lasting effect on his career. Maybe, maybe not. Strange what people hold grudges about, y'know? Everyone got back to adoring <b><a href="http://www.tmz.com/2007/04/19/alec-baldwins-threatening-message-to-daughter/" target="_blank">Alec Baldwin PDQ after he was recorded in 2007 calling his 11-year-old daughter a "thoughtless little pig"</a></b>. Many would argue that's far worse than having it out with a colleague on a film set...but Baldwin never missed a step, and his Emmy shelves get more crowded all the time. Perhaps Christian Bale will be similarly fortunate in getting his once-adoring public's forgiveness.<br /><br />(If you haven't heard it yet, the <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTihsJQHt48" target="_blank">dance remix for "Bale Out!"</a></b> is not to be missed. The "video" is below, although it's just a montage of photos featuring Bale looking crazy.)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YTihsJQHt48&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YTihsJQHt48&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />This wouldn't be a post worth making if I didn't add one last list of Actors Gone Nuts. In my travels, I came across <b><a href="http://www.reelzchannel.com/article/836/when-actors-attack-top-10-celebrity-outbursts" target="_blank">ReelzChannel.Com's collection of "WHEN ACTORS ATTACK!"</a></b>, a top ten list of the best (and weirdest) outbursts from famous folks over the years. I have to say that Casey Kasem's rant made me laugh the hardest, but the Quentin Tarantino interview is just squirm-worthy enough to enjoy, and...well, there's not much surprising about the likes of Bill O'Reilly going off on people, is there? (Be sure to check out someone's <b><a href="http://balevsoreilly.ytmnd.com/" target="_blank">clever mashup of Bill versus Bale</a></b>; it's bloody hysterical.)<br /><br /><br />One of these days I'll have to make up my OWN list of favourite celebrity meltdowns. But for now, the above bits o' scandal should tide us all over, yes?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0