October 2001

October 28, 2001
This just in from correspondent, moglia:

"Childbirth is harder than my third tour in Vietnam."

More to follow...

October 23, 2001
I think they say that of all our senses, our sense of smell has the greatest potential to elicit strong memories from our noggins. I have a dismally poor sense of smell, though. I wouldn't smell the apartment burning down until I had toe-smores. It's sound, specifically music, that pulls memories kicking and screaming to the front and center for me.

I suppose this must be nostalgia (ick), but it feels more... visceral than that. It's weird how vividly I can recall events or places or people just by hearing a few strains of, say, "Private Eyes-era" Hall and Oates. (Yeah, you grew up listening to Miles Davis, right? Shut it.)

I think I have a deeper understanding now of why my Dad would always tune in "oldies" stations on the car radio when we went on long family trips. He was probably re-living bits and pieces of his life. Then again, maybe he was just trying in vain to drown out the kids in the back. Who knows, really?

I guess this is what it is to be old(er?). For my Dad, it's early Ray Charles records; for me... it's Duran Duran?

No justice, no peace.

October 17, 2001
As if I needed more proof that clowns are scary.

Once, when I was a little kid, my parents took my sister and me up to the Toronto Zoo. It was a pretty neat place. I remember there were these big, painted footprints (like, sasquatch-big) on the concrete paths. They were color-coded - the red footprints led to one area, the green to another, and so on. Great fun.

Anyhow, there was a clown at the zoo and he was making balloon animals for all the kids. He would ask you your favorite color, and then make you an animal with a balloon of that hue.

I've never particularly liked clowns. That is to say, I sort of actively dislike them. That is to say, I kinda hate 'em. (sorry to any clowns out there. I'm sure you're very nice.) I've never understood how painting one's face up in garish, freakish color, then donning outlandish garb - enormous shoes, big, sausage-fingered gloves - is supposed to endear you to all around. But I guess the main reason I don't care much for clowns runs a little deeper than that.

I was painfully shy as a tyke. I still am, largely. I had trouble even speaking to anyone in public other than a close friend or family member. But I was kind of excited to get a balloon animal in the color of my choosing. The balloon-animal-making clown asked me what my favorite color was.

"Black," I answered.

"BLACK??!! What kind of color is BLACK??!!" the clown shouted at me.

Even at that age, I could recognize rhetoric. I kept my mouth shut.

"HOW ABOUT.... YELLOW? DO YOU LIKE YELLOW?" the clown sneered with derision.

I'm certain I thought, "I like yellow a lot more than getting yelled at." But I don't recall saying anything to the children entertainment professional.

He twisted some kind of macabre form out of a yellow balloon and tossed it my way, laughed at me and walked away.

That absolute fucker.

October 15, 2001
I must be losing my touch. I had two interviews last week that I thought I nailed. I walked out of each confident that I'd be offered the gig. No word on either yet. Hardly time to throw in the towel, but certainly not cause for celebration.

Luckily, the contract jobs keep coming.

I've noticed a lot of military planes in the air lately. No surprise, I guess. At the train station last week, I counted four jet trails in the sky. I haven't been aware of fighter jets in the sky since I was a kid. I think they ('they' being, some branch of the military) used to train pilots over Lake Ontario. When I was running around the back yard like a maniac, occassionally I'd see jets leaving parallel trails up above. Cooler still, sometimes formations of camo-covered heliocopters would thunder over the neighborhood.

Course, if I witnessed a similar exhibition today, I'd likely wet myself and dive under the bed.

October 13, 2001
Have you ever temporarily forgotten what you look like just before seeing your reflection in the mirror, and then been somewhat startled/surprised by the sight of your reflection? That just happened to me.

October 12, 2001
Wrong drummer. Danny Gottlieb is a jazz player. I overcame my sluggishness and did a little research on Billy Squier's drummer. Bobby Chouinard is the guy I was talking about. Unfortunately, he's dead.

October 11, 2001
I'm deriving a truly embarrassing amount of joy from my new cd burner. It was a completely extravagant and unnecessary purchase, which makes my enjoyment all the more taboo. Mad-style shoutout to Motorbike Morton for instructing me in the ways of tech bargain hunting. I can now burn a cd-worth of tunes in 4 minutes or so WHILE simultaneously using other applications. Behold the joys of buffer underrun protection.

To think that, in my youth, I would use a tape recorder to copy songs off the radio by holding it up to one of the speakers on my parents' stereo... (the burned cds sound better than those tapes, by the way. Substantially. Thought you should know.)

My two latest moglia-factured discs are Orbital's Altogether, and a compilation of old Billy Squier tunes. A couple observations:

• One of the Orbital tracks has a neat sped-up sample of Tool's "Sober."
• Orbital also do a nifty version of the Doctor Who theme. (I know cause I'm a geek.)
• Billy Squier had a really solid drummer. I think his name is... Danny Gottlieb? I'm too lazy to go to Google. Anyhow, his kick drum reminds me of Bonham, a bit. Really heavy. Great feel. Fills were not his forte though.

That is all.

October 10, 2001
God bless Rutger Hauer.

I don't think he even reads the script before taking a role. I'm guessing his agent just writes what the job pays on the cover pages of scripts with a sharpie, and Mr. Hauer picks the highest number. My hero.

October 9, 2001
I read somewhere... Yahoo news, I think... that the government has set up a 'focus group' of sorts with a bunch of Hollywood writers and directors and such. Apparently, they want the 'creative types' to brainstorm ways that terrorists might wage war on our soil. It doesn't make me sleep all that much better knowing that our government is taking its anti-terrorism cues from the guy who penned a coupla episodes of MacGyver. Unless, of course, the terrorists are armed only with bubble gum, super glue and a pipe cleaner.

I wonder if they're going to hit up Matthew Broderick for some ideas on making our military's computer networks more secure...

Just a little WarGames reference for my friend, Dave, there.

October 8, 2001
Proof that goodness still exists in the world:

A couple friends stopped by last night to drop off a chocolate chip banana bread, completely unsolicited. They decided to bake a bunch of loaves and drop them off at friends' houses/apartments like Banana Bread Santa Clai (I took Latin). And that is goodness. Tasty goodness.

Thank you.

Spam sender and subject line of the week

Yeah, sure. Lemme add you to my Buddy List.

October 6, 2001
Stumpy has a slick new look that I really dig. Now if I could only get him back up North, so we could put the band back together...

So, there's this television commercial for Baileys Irish Cream® that I just adore. Perhaps you've seen it. In said ad, this comely young blonde is at a pool hall with three of her most lecherous (one hopes) male friends. She sets down her Baileys Irish Cream® on the table to break, and then notices someone has drained her libation whilst she was unawares. Being a proper lass, she then strolls over to her penised compatriots and examines their breath for evidence (?). Finding the likely absconder, she grabs and tongue kisses him (judging by the spit trail, that is) to verify her hunch. Cut to the next scene - all four dregs hudled close, laughing about their little misadventure.

I guess the message Baileys Irish Cream® is sending is thus: Drink our alcoholic beverage so that you can become a whore.

October 3, 2001
My unholy fascination with Starsky and Hutch continues (see July's S&H entry)... I've discerned three separate and distinct opening credits for the show. All are similar visually - it's the soundtracks that make the difference.

Here's the rundown:

1. The supafunkadelic-tinged intro, replete with thumpin 70's score. This is the opening credits I remember best, at least musically.
2. The Dragnet intro, so named because of the "old cop show" feel of the music. Seems out of place sitting on top of images of the red Gran Torino flying down the street piloted by guys in crocheted Earth Daddy sweaters and bad tan leather jackets.
3. The Mission Impossible intro, so named because of the dramatic arrangement and odd time signature of the score. Like the Dragnet intro, totally incongruous in concert with the visuals. The composition weighs ridiculously heavy on the introduction of Antonio Vargas as Huggy Bear.

In related news... further evidence of homoeroticism in Starsky and Hutch: One of the "alternate" opening credits features the detectives creeping around what appears to be a bath house, clothed only in bright orange towels and shoulder holsters with their weapons drawn and ready.

There's got to be a lost episode that begins with the boys waking up in bed together.