Lazy Sunday #261: Honest Trailers

It’s Oscar night. The hours long televised schmooze-fest dedicated to enshrining the most essential aspect of film making -– how important movies are.

There are a lot of good films competing this year. Solid entertainments with great stories, phenomenal actors, breath-taking special effects and musical scores that sweep us into the fantasy.

And we’ll be assured that every single one of them is –- important.

Not just a good time deliciously augmented with popcorn, a satisfying way to spend a date, a rewarding option to kill an evening, a respite from the real world or just good fun even the kids will get a kick out of.

Nope. These damn things are important.

Real important.

So important your life will be far poorer for missing even one of them.

Because that’s the impression hammered at you with every new trailer trumpeting the coming attractions.

And when a film makes a few bucks or gets some good reviews or is nominated for some trophies, the Hollywood marketing machine is all over us to make sure we understand it’s really because they’re not just good movies –- they’re IMPORTANT.

Nobody has grasped this concept better than the people behind an Internet sensation entitled “Honest Trailers”.

Spawned by the same demented folk who created the essential film website “Screen Junkies”, “Honest Trailers” delivers trailers that instead of hiding the faults and over-hyping the virtues of major Hollywood releases, simply reverses that process, hyping the faults and ignoring the virtues.

And delivering that message with the same “you simply cannot afford to miss this” passion of the modern day trailer.

Movies. Better than ever. And oh so important.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Sometimes It’s Not Just A Movie

When you live and work in Hollywood it’s often hard to remind yourself that there’s a real world beyond the klieg lights and the billboards.

Amidst the executive tantrums that wouldn’t be tolerated in any other workplace, the self-aggrandizing star demands and requisite red carpet goodie bags loaded with free bling, it can become difficult to grasp the realities of the true lives lived by those depicted on the silvered screen.

Fact is, there is a very real divide between those who make movies and the people or events on which the content of those movies are based.

It’s a world in which celebrities passionately take up political causes yet heap scorn on a famous brain surgeon for deigning to speak similar truths to power; a place where facts are often the first casualty in crafting drama and the fates of those dramatized forgotten in the quest for shiny statuettes.

A while ago, I pointed out that the current fave in the Best Picture category, “Argo” ignored the real story of the rescue of American diplomats from Iran in 1979 to concoct a pretty good movie that didn’t have as much basis in fact as it claimed.

It’s interesting to note that as the “Argo” plot has become more widely questioned, even producer, director and star Ben Affleck has changed his “the story that’s never been told” mantra to the old reliable “Hey, c’mon, it’s only a movie”.

Tomorrow night in Canada, CTV’s newsmagazine “W5” and renowned investigative journalist Victor Malarek will present a reminder of the real story that was known as “The Canadian Caper” for four decades before Hollywood took an interest.

Since CTV isn’t on the dial inside the Thirty Mile Zone, few of those who make movies there will see Malarek’s story. But millions in their audience will and might not be as easily suckered the next time “based on a true story” gets flung around.

Meanwhile, “Lincoln”, currently listed in Vegas as 9-5 to take home the Best Picture statue, has it’s own factual problems.

Recently, in response to a sincere request from the State of Connecticut to change two lines of dialogue in the DVD version so as not to continue to malign the reputations of its Senate representatives of 1865, screenwriter Tony Kushner remarked, “I hope nobody is shocked to learn that I made up dialogue, imagined encounters and invented characters.”

Basically, the writerly version of “Hey, c’mon, it’s only a movie” -- even when a copy of said film is being gifted to every school in America for educational purposes. 

In other words, Tony Kushner’s a guy who takes the big meetings now. He doesn’t have time for anybody’s dead ancestors –- or what your kids grow up thinking is History.

But the above are mere show biz quibbles compared with the fate of one character depicted in Best Picture dark horse contender “Zero Dark Thirty”.

Among those who gathered the intelligence which eventually located and led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden was a simple Pakistani doctor named Shakil Afridi (pictured up top).

Shortly after the SEAL team raid on bin Laden’s compound, Dr. Afridi was arrested and sentenced to 33 years in prison in Pakistan, where he is reported being repeatedly tortured.

The lack of action on his behalf by the American government has been widely criticized. And nobody associated with “Zero Dark Thirty” has spoken out in support of the man without whom they wouldn’t have had a movie to make in the first place.

Today, an ad appeared in the Hollywood trade papers asking somebody to do just that, on Oscar night, when Billions are watching.

Will anyone do so? We’ll have to wait until Sunday night to see.

But leave us not forget the examples of “Argo” and “Lincoln” or that Oscar night is the grand-daddy of all movie parties –- and I’m just not too certain that anybody who hopes to keep working in Hollywood might willingly poop it.

UPDATE:

…and nobody said a word. You’re so brave, Hollywood. So brave.

Lazy Sunday # 260: Gravity Is A Mistake

I’m sure my regulars have been wondering about the lack of blogging of late; suspecting this space is soon to mimic all those once iconic Canadian showbiz blogs that have shuffled off to obscurity.

To them and those eagerly living in such hope, I say “no”, I’ve just been stupid busy.

Which is not to be confused with my normal state of busy being stupid.

At the end of periods like this, I am in need of what I call a “Brain Flush”, meaning a wringing out of the internal sponge, clearing the mechanism of all the gunk gathered from too much focus and too little sleep.

Used to be I could do that in an afternoon spent doing something adrenalin fuelled or otherwise lacking an intellectual quotient.

One of my faves in this regard has always been the amusement park. Nothing like the terror of that first drop down a rollercoaster track or unexpected 360 roll in a tin can replica of an F-16 to snap you out of the fog of what has begun to pass for daily life.

If you ask me, Gravity is over-rated. If we all lived with the possibility of suddenly being slingshot off the planet by a momentary change in magnetic polarity we’d be a lot more “in the moment” and a lot less concerned with bullshit like political speeches and cruise ships stained with poo.

As an affectionado of all things amusement park, I’m especially impressed by the physicists and engineers who spend their lives designing new ways to freak the crap out of us.

Therefore, let me introduce you to one of the best in this regard, a man who has never allowed the laws of nature or the frailties of the human body to deter his quest for the ultimate thrill ride.

Enjoy Your Sunday!

The Centrifuge Brain Project from Till Nowak on Vimeo.

Lazy Sunday # 259: La Luna

I love 3D. Always have.

I can’t remember the first time I saw a 3D movie or what movie it was. But I know I loved it. Loved the experience of things flying out of the screen so believably that you ducked and weaved in your seat to avoid them.

And loved that experience so much that for a couple of years afterward, I’d go to the movies, wolf down my popcorn and spend the first few minutes of the feature transforming the box (popcorn came in boxes back then not tubs) into glasses in the hope of enhancing my film-going experience.

The process of constructing popcorn movie glasses was simple. So simple a child could do it. Tear off the top and bottom flaps to create a rectangular tube. Then fashion the narrow sides into spatulas (the parts of glasses that go over your ears) and shear away enough of the front and back to make room for your head.

Voila!

A lot of film aficionados will tell you that the end result is a comparable viewing option to the look of most current 3D offerings which appear muddy, dark and less crisp than their 2D HD versions.

I don’t care. I love 3D. The same way I love it when one of those Imax movies they show in museums and science centers flies you over a cliff. It makes the experience real.

Slowly but surely, 3D is coming to the internet. Youtube already has a selection of 3D channels and many other sites are beginning to embed 3D video.

Like movie theatres and 3DTV, you still need glasses to watch these films. And if you don’t have glasses, you can order them for free from any number of online sites.

The National Film Board of Canada will ship you two pair –- and up to ten if you can convince them they’re for institutional use. Simply send your name and address here.

Once you’ve got them, you can watch such lovely little films as the one that follows. Nobody will toss things out of the screen at you, but you’ll still be moved.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

Lazy Sunday # 258: Bye Bye Miss American Pie

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, the day we celebrate and venerate all things American. Football. Chicken Wings and Chili. Excess and Commerce with a half time break for music.

The mid-game mini-concert usually features an act either at the peak of their career or who’s made a shitload of money for the music industry and might convince grandma to watch the game.

In the days before Vegas Sportsbooks took bets on what past hits or hairstyles would be featured at halftime, I remember Chubby Checker being wheeled out to the midfield stage. The network big shot hosting the Super Bowl party I was attending smirked, “Hard to believe Chubby had room in his schedule for this.”

Television and films have traditionally only embraced what was new and exciting in American music long after its star has begun to wane. Despite notably exceptions like Ed Sullivan and the Monkees, it’s almost impossible for those bringing something new and innovative to the music scene to have those national stages.

It’s a point poignantly brought home by the fact that this year’s Super Bowl falls on the anniversary of “The Day The Music Died”, February 3rd, 1959, when three of Rock ‘n Roll’s first stars, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash.

Volumes have been written and dozens of films made about those men and the tragic final tour that bonded them forever in death. And much more has been posited about what music would be like today if they had survived.

Whether or not they would have changed things can never be determined. But I’m fairly certain that had he lived, sometime in the 1970’s when the Dallas Cowboys were a football superpower, Buddy Holly would have been on that halftime stage.

And most of those watching would have found him old and tired, one of those American icons who had to be given their moment if only to prop up somebody’s flagging music catalogue.

Here’s a sample of what Buddy Holly had to offer. And the unforgettable song about what happened to “the music” after his death.

Bye-Bye Miss American Pie. Make Way for Super Bowl Chili.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

Lazy Sunday # 257: Missing In The Mansion

Understanding where the copyright lines are drawn these days is hard enough and what does or doesn’t constitute “fair use” in the modern copyright landscape makes the whole issue even more confusing.

Basically, copyright ensures the creator of any intellectual property the right to be credited for it, profit from it and determine how it is used; while fair use allows those using the property certain freedoms, like making copies for private use or educational purposes.

Fair Use also applies when the use of the original work doesn’t interfere with the copyright holder's right to exploit the work – and that’s where we get into the grey areas.

In days gone by, an author retained the rights to his creations for his lifetime and up to 50 years after his death –- at which time it went into the Public Domain where anybody could use or reproduce it as they saw fit.

This kept everybody happy until the Disney Corporation decided it would suffer catastrophic harm if such brands as Mickey Mouse could be used by the rest of us. Hollywood studios joined in the complaint and a compliant US Congress sided with the House of Mouse –- extending the life of a copyright while beginning an ongoing process of proscribing what constitutes fair use.

So it seems fitting that guerrilla filmmakers have targeted Disney in particular as they push their fair use rights to the limit.

Last week, the Sundance Festival debuted “Escape From Tomorrow”, a feature shot entirely at Disney World in Florida without the knowledge or permission of anyone at Disney.

Whether Disney will sue filmmaker Randy Moore or block the film’s release remains to be seen. A year ago, they didn’t go after pop artist Banksy, whose film “Exit Through The Gift Shop” clandestinely filmed scenes at the theme park, perhaps in the belief that the negative publicity wasn’t worth it.

And Moore doesn’t believe his work has done anything to harm any of Disney’s trademarks or infringe their multiple revenue streams either.

Either way, what this might represent is a change of attitude among those who have long been seen only as the consumers of media and targets of advertising.

Perhaps, they have had enough of piracy lawsuits, digital locks, commercials at the gas pump and urinal and other intrusions on their right to consume media how and when THEY wish –- since they are an equal partner in the transaction.

It would seem some have begun answering Banksy’s call (image above) to stop being passive in the face of insistent corporations and start making them accept your individual human rights.

A year ago, filmmakers the Daws Brothers, posted their own clandestinely shot film set in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion on Youtube.

It’s worth a look, and might just be someday acknowledged as the moment when the creatives in our industry began pushing back the over reach and heavy handedness of the executive offices.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

Missing In The Mansion

And the making of…

Lazy Sunday # 256: The Fake Moon Landing

It has been said that the fanciful mind is indiscriminate about its phantoms. Anything beyond some people’s intelligence or experience becomes automatic fodder for a conspiracy.

Personally, I’m a fan of conspiracy theories. I don’t believe most of them because I know how impossible it is for almost anybody to keep a secret. And conspiracies usually rely on a whole ton of people keeping quiet, making the probability of an ongoing total news blackout that much more improbable.

But do I admire the imagination and dedication to detail required to develop and sustain one.

Among our longest running conspiracies, consistently revived and retooled with each new age of technological advancement, is that Apollo Eleven didn’t land on the Moon and all that “One giant leap for mankind” stuff was manufactured on a soundstage in Hollywood.

Most conspiracy theories evolve from a desire to make sense of inexplicable inhumanity like 9/11. But the Moon Landing Hoax appears simply bent on proving that one of the human race’s greatest accomplishments never happened.

Why? In the words of Tom Hanks, “There is no law against making money in the promulgation of ignorance." And in the words of P.T. Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The odd thing about the suckers who fall for this shit, is they never search out somebody who might know how you’d have to go about faking a moon landing in a movie studio.

Somebody who might explain that while we had the technology to fly to the moon in 1969, we didn’t have the technology to fake doing it.

Sorry to pop the balloon. But the explanation is just that simple.

Here, courtesy filmmaker S.G. Collins, is the proof. Enjoy Your Sunday.

The Sheep Return To The Fold

“The Shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”

So, Hockey’s back! A truncated season of 48 games. Games that will only be played between teams of the same conference to save on travel and stoke local rivalries, whether or not they actually exist.

10% Vancouver’s games will be played against Calgary. They won’t visit or be visited by 4 of their fellow Canadian teams and won’t encounter the league’s biggest stars or their own storied rivals.

The New York Rangers will travel to 45% of their road games in less than an hour –- and by bus. Meanwhile, last year’s Stanley Cup Champions won’t be seen in either America’s biggest media market nor face-off against the team they beat in the finals.

There will be no exhibition games in which unknown players can make a name for themselves and six day training camps mean most attending rookies will be back with their farm team by the weekend, leaving teams staffed by most of the same guys they had last year.

It’s a recipe that promises bland and familiar.

But Gary Bettman is “Sorry” and “The teams are waiting for you with open arms”. Although you can be sure neither will escort you to a seat unless you cough up the requisite cash.

Much was written during the lockout about the suffering beyond their ranks that the NHL had caused. Food vendors and ticket takers at the rinks. Guys selling League merchandise or running bars on Main Street. The sports networks and the CBC.

If you ask me, all of them should know better by now. This labor squabble, like the last two, has been about one thing, Bettman’s strategy of putting teams in markets with little interest in hockey.

That process has reduced the pot of money available to all teams and thus made those who are profitable even less willing to revenue share with the ones who aren’t.

That means they need to claw back from the players while reducing as much of their other expenditures as they can.

During the first Strike in 1994, I happened to visit Las Vegas, turning up at a pool patio wearing an NHLPA T-shirt. The bartender stared at me in disbelief. “What’re you guys doin’? The fans are gonna hate you for this!” I shrugged off the obviously lucid reaction.

I also told him I was Doug Gilmour and spent a great afternoon drinking free Mai-Tai’s and signing autographs for people who had clearly never seen a hockey game.

I was almost outed by a guy from Calgary, who stared at me for a long time through an alcohol haze before asserting that it didn’t appear moving to Toronto had been very good for me.

The fans did eventually come back. But much as the talking heads on CBC and TSN trumpet the growing excitement in the land, I don’t see it this time.

In an odd way, the lack of hockey has led media outlets desperate to fan any remaining embers of interest to release information about players that probably hurts more than it helps.

Today alone, I learned that the Sedin Twins have declined to appear as witnesses in Scott Moore’s $60 Million lawsuit against their former Canuck teammate Todd Bertuzzi, because they might be required to reveal what was said in the Canucks’ dressing room prior to the game.

And that would break part of hockey’s unwritten “code” –- even though said code brutally ended the career of a fellow player.

No wonder fewer and fewer people think of hockey players as “heroes”…

I also learned that Sydney Crosby spent some of his lockout downtime at a Justin Beiber concert.

Although, honestly, does the fact that Syd’s becoming more of a whiney teenage girl with every season really surprise anybody?

So far, in an informal poll I’ve been taking, not one of my research subjects has indicated a burning desire to get back on the couch for “Hockey Night In Canada”.

Most will, like me, be sitting this season out. We’ve all found something else to do during the past few months. And it’ll take more than a hollow “sorry” to convince me any continued interest benefits me even a fraction as much as it will the NHL.

I’ve also decided that, for the first time in seven years, I won’t be hosting the “Infamous Writers Hockey Pool” on this site come the play-offs.

If somebody wants to take it over, let me know and I’ll give you all you need to set it up. But I don’t have any interest.

And the hard reality is that the media and the League need us far, far more than we need them. We’re the ones who buy the seats and the Bud Light. We make up the ratings numbers that drive license fees and advertising rates. We’re the people who convince our kids they’d rather have a Stamkos jersey than one for Man United.

And if you dig a little, you’ll discover some of the NHL’s own partners are not as committed to them as they’d like you to believe.

Much has been said about an American network, NBC, coming aboard this season to finally offer US fans access to NHL games.

But a quick peek at the NBC schedule indicates that not only will those viewers not see a single Canadian team, they won’t see any games involving the small market teams in their own country.

No Nashville. No Phoenix. No Anaheim, Carolina, Colorado, Columbus, Dallas, Florida, Minnesota, San Jose or Tampa Bay. Not even a single NY Islanders game, even though they’re playing in Manhattan this season.

In other words, unless they subscribe to specialty cable channels, American “Fans” won’t see 2/3 of the teams in the NHL and two more, including the 2011 Cup winner, only once.

What’s more, 41 of the 70 games to which NBC has rights will be broadcast on NBC’s Sports Network, an outfit doing so badly that last month they didn’t have a single show that attracted more than 200,000 viewers.

The Shepherd needs you –- for shearing. It’s not because he really cares…

Lazy Sunday # 255: Look At This Instagram

What? Two weeks into a new year and there’s been no Nickleback at The Legion?

Well, let’s fix that right now. God knows this is a blog mostly devoted to Art.

A few years back, I sat in a network notes meeting on a France/Canada/Whoever co-production series also attended by a very fine French writer and a know-it-all broadcast exec.

Assuring us he was “the best dialogue man in the business”, said Exec set about acting out a scene in the writer’s episode he wanted revised, giving a performance that was not only completely bereft of creativity but revealed he didn’t have a clue what the show was.

Wrapping up the session with a self-satisfied grin, he snapped his fingers at the writer and said, “That’s how it’s done in Hollywood!” and swung out the door.

The writer dropped his head on the desk. I asked if he was okay. He responded quietly…

“Ses jours nous sommes tous des artistes…”

These days we’re all artists.

And –- these days –- what with the Internet, auto-tune and instagram, it seems most of us are.

Or think we are.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

I’m Just Sayin’…

CES (The Consumer Electronics Show) debuts today in Las Vegas and gadget sites are already giddy with all the new toys about to hit the marketplace.

Lexus has a new self-driving car. Samsung is introducing a fridge that keeps your grocery list up to date. Lenovo will roll out a coffee table sized tablet that up to four people can use at once.

But the early hit of the show seems to be a Panasonic Smart TV device called “My Home Screen” which scans the faces of those in the room and offers programming suggestions based on past viewing habits.

Which may be a product not as completely thought through as the company wants you to believe...

An example:

I invite some friends over to show off my brand new big screen Panasonic Viera.

I turn it on and the app scans the faces in the room –- promptly offering me a wide array of Midget Orgy Porn.

Seriously, Panasonic?

Does Mom really want Dad to know she’s secretly addicted to Ezra Levant? Will Dad suddenly have to explain exactly why he’s been catching every episode of the HBO “Girls” Marathon?

And how do the kids feel about their friends realizing they have absolutely no interest in “Vampire Diaries” or “Buck Wild”?

Not Smart TV at all, Panasonic.

I’m just sayin’…

Lazy Sunday #254: SEE –- A Cast Of Billions!!!

When I was a kid, I loved those old posters for epic movies. They couldn’t scream loud enough about the spectacles that awaited you on the silver screen.

SEE – A Cast Of Thousands!

SEE – The Clash of War Elephants!

SEE – The Forbidden Dance of The Concubines!

It was more than any small town Saskatchewan kid could imagine. And a whole lot more than what you’d been told went on anywhere in your own country.

Canadians aren’t big about tooting our own horns. We just kinda do stuff and don’t much talk about it. And our newspapers would much prefer to keep you up to date on the Royals or the Kardashians (I know, I know, what’s the difference?) than see what one of us homeboys is doing down the block.

Which means few of us and hardly anybody on the rest of the planet has heard about a Vancouver company called Urthecast.

Part of that is because Urthecast is involved in designing a project for the International Space Station and anytime anybody in Canada talks about Space, the only things they mention are a handful of astronauts and the Canadarm –- which is, basically –- an arm.

But we’ve all heard about Google Earth and streaming video and Urthecast is about to install cameras aboard the Space Station which will stream live video of what’s going on below, down to a single meter in detail.

Tired of waiting to see how much damage some storm did, or have to watch the CNN version from as close to the destruction as the satellite truck can get? You don’t have to anymore.

Bored with the perspective of CBC News correspondents Skype calling from Jerusalem hotel rooms to report on events hundreds of miles away in Syria? Now you can see what’s happening for yourself.

Just want to show friends what your house looks like from space while you wave from the back deck? Well, you can do that too.

Before Spring, live video of Earth will be available to internet and smartphone users, allowing us all to watch events unfold in real time and even zoom in on the action if we want to.

App developers will have access to the data, meaning faster response to natural disasters and crimes. Teachers can show students exactly what it’s like to live on a farm in China or go to school in Malawi. And all of us can take a good look at that tropic resort whose online prices just seem too good to be true.

Urthecast’s system has the potential to revolutionize countless industries and give us more first hand knowledge than we’ve ever had before.

Plus –- there will be a “Cast of Billions”!

Enjoy your Sunday.

More Reasons To Cut The Cord

There’s always a different feel to the first week of a New Year. A kind of laissez-faire ease. Some places are open, some are still closed for the holidays. Some people are working, others are stretching out the seasonal break. But nobody sweats it.

And there’s a palpable optimism in the air. Those who have made resolutions are kicking up the positive vibes as they “improve” themselves. And even the ones who haven’t listed any bad habits to lose or new goals to achieve seem buoyed by the realization that some around them are finally trying to be better people.

And like every first week of any month, there’s a whole ton of new stuff to watch on Netflix.

I’ve been a big fan of Netflix since it first appeared. And even though the Canadian library offered still languishes under the yoke of past rights agreements, it remains a far better deal than subscribing to any specialty movie channel.

Plus -- if you’re in the mood for some Cancon, it’s often easier to find Canadian titles on Netflix than the Cable offered options. What’s more, you can see what you want when you want rather than waiting for the hours between one and five a.m.

What’s more, Netflix has begun offering quality content Canadian networks would never consider making, let alone make with as clear an agenda of delivering quality at any cost.

This, for example, debuts next month…

…and debuts all 13 hours of the first season (two seasons have been ordered at a budget of $100 Million) on the same day for those who like what they see and want to continue viewing according to their schedule and not whichever one works for a broadcaster or its advertisers.

People, we have entered a world where HBO level programming is available without paying HBO level fees.

And similar content is either in development or will soon be available via set top boxes from Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft –- literally the new studios of the 21st Century.

Chip maker Intel will soon join the club, offering consumers the ability to subscribe to content per channel (no more bundles) and even to subscribe per show if the majority of a channel’s content isn’t to their taste.

And which of us doesn’t fall into that category?

Intel’s service also gives customers a “Cloud DVR”, allowing them to watch any TV show at any time, without the need to record, pause live or rewind shows in progress.

According to Intel, their system has the further potential to bring consumers live sports and TV schedules that match broadcast, something no other online service so far can.

Think of it as simultaneous-substitution for all.

Think of it as no longer paying for channels you never watch or having to buy an entire service for the one show you do want.

Realize it is the end of massive profits for Bell, Shaw, Rogers and other cable operators as well as the entire Canadian system of funding indigenous production.

And since none of them have ever shown any inclination to even attempt a project like “House of Cards” –- or much else that attracts a mass audience –- how big a loss will that really be?

Maybe instead of appearing before the CRTC to beg salvation for a failed and outmoded business model, perhaps its time for we industry players to lobby Parliament for financial rules that will make film investment a legitimate business again.

Maybe a business where the customer rules, not faceless and taste bereft bureaucrats or rapacious corporate monopolies.

What A Night! What’s For Breakfast?

Happy first post of 2013!

Ooooh, Yeeaahh! Might be one of those mornings we start with a little hair of the dog, huh? And frankly, it’s not a school day –- so what’s wrong with something stronger than OJ with breakfast?

Used to be, all famous writers were Scotch drinkers. Nowadays, it seems the beverage of choice among screen scribes leans toward Bourbon. So here’s a tasty way to integrate Bourbon into the most important meal of the day.

And remember to turn down the sound when we reach the shaker stage of the recipe. Those cubes can wreak havoc if you’re feeling a little –- shall we say –- sensitive.

The Best of 2012

Year–end lists are inevitably subjective and usually pointless. Unless you or something you’re intimately involved in is on one, they’re pretty much of little consequence.

So, once again, instead of listing my favorite tunes, movies and books I want people to believe I actually read, I’ve decided to go Full Narcissist and list the best things I posted on this blog in 2012.

And this is no piddly “Top Ten”. Because ten would barely scratch the surface of the brilliance shared here on a regular basis. So what follows is one or two gems from each of the past twelve months.

I am nothing if not consistent –- in my self regard.

Have yourself a Happy New Year.

JANUARY

The Epiphany

White Out/Black Out

FEBRUARY

They Always Need Indians

Burying The Future

MARCH

Is There A CBC Hush Fund?

The Crayon Is Mightier Than The Narrow Mind

APRIL

Beaten By A Dead Horse

MAY

A Man Of The People

JUNE

Mea Maxima Culpa

JULY

The Only Remaining Decision

Desperately Seeking Validation

Not Unless Somebody Dies, You’re Not!

AUGUST

An Open Letter To Ken Gass

SEPTEMBER

The Four Truths Of Being An Artist

OCTOBER

The Scroungers

ARrrrrrrrrGOoooooos!!!

NOVEMBER

It’s Never Too Late For An Awesome Childhood

See Tomorrow’s CBC Shows Today

DECEMBER

Canada’s Tall Poppy Death Penalty

My Way Or The Highway

All my best for the coming year. And I’ll do all I can to make visiting the Legion worthwhile in 2013.