What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Wednesday, May 31, 2006

   HOLA, SOLA!

I've been to many a show at Toronto's venerable jazz/blues club The Rex and, while their motto is quite rightfully "More Great Jazz than anywhere else, all the time!" the club still has all the comfort and ambiance of a Scarborough laundromat. Okay, maybe a fish and chips shop if the crowd is a good one but it takes a special kind of performer to really light up that place and Amanda Martinez is absolutely wonderful.

She's the host of Jazz FM's delightful "Café Latino" show (Saturdays, 4-6 pm) but, more importantly, she herself is a smooth bossa-influenced Latin jazz singer and guitarist. Now she's about to debut her first album, Sola. She'll be performing at the Drake Hotel on June 22 at 9 pm. She'll be fabulous, the band'll be tight and -- sorry, Rex -- the Drake will be the elegant venue she deserves. Come and see!

I once watched a nine-year-old boy stab a hooker to death.

No, not really but virtually -- an unlucky digital prostitute in Grand Theft Auto who wandered by the wrong carjacking. "That's kinda cruel, isn't it?" I said to the kid but he just laughed and shrugged, clearly capable of distinguishing between his fantasy killing spree and the real world. I asked his dad about it and he seemed fine so I figure it's none of my business.

Being so tolerant of virtual crime-wave murder means, however, that I can't get too worked up about the upcoming series of fundamentalist video games based on the disturbingly-popular Left Behind series. I'd be a hypocrite if I were bothered more by the notion of Christian "Tribulation Forces" using "physical and spiritual warfare: using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world." All I can say is wow, it's hard out there for a pimp!

Labels: family, religion

It's always fun to check out the worldwide iTunes Music Store Top 10 chart and see what the rest of the world is listening to, and this week, they're listening to the Pet Shop Boys. I've already whittered on about how "Fundamental" is the best thing they've done in over a decade but it's nice to see the rest of the world agreeing with me. Everyone but us, that is.

While "Fundamental" tops the charts in most of Europe, it didn't even crack the top 10 in Canada or the US, both currently dominated by the Dixie Chicks and American Idol. My first thought was that this is simply a question of regional tastes -- North America is far more fond of country and rock'n'roll -- but the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album is a huge seller in virtually every country on Earth (Go, Chilies!).

I hate to say it but "A Life in Pop," a new Channel 4 documentary on the Pet Shop Boys' twenty-year career, makes a strong case that the band's massive success in North America dried up immediately after the 1988 video for "Domino Dancing." The video raised eyebrows for its lovingly-photographed shirtless Spanish boys. Two years later, Bruce Weber's video for "Being Boring" got banned by MTV for its rear view of a naked man climbing out of a pool. The "gay band" label began being tossed around and the Pet Shop Boys' subsequent world tour lost money in America. Coincidence?

On the verge of the US release of their big-in-Europe debut album, Scissor Sisters' lead singer Jake Shears admitted encountering the same pattern:

“I never made a conscious decision to be out or not. This is just who I am,” he says. “It is funny because people always ask me the gay question, but in Europe nobody cares. It is all about the music and performance. I hope that people will see us as a rock and roll band, not a queer band.”

He feels that his homosexuality might be an obstacle in the U.S. “I just hope that we’re embraced at home like we were in Europe,” he says. “Our music speaks to everybody. It could happen that people might end up not giving a shit.”

Wal-Mart, the largest music retailer in the U.S., does seem to care. The company decided to ban the Scissor Sisters album from its shelves when it was released late July. “I think it is a little bit scary and hypocritical,” Shears says. “You can buy violent games like Manhunt for your PlayStation, but can’t buy music at Wal-Mart with the word ‘shit’ in it.”

Interviewed in "A Life in Pop," Shears says, "In Europe, they love their gay pop stars," but The Killers' straight-and-married lead singer Brandon Flowers adds, "In America, they're just getting used to the word 'gay'..."

But I should take heart -- if we can't handle the politically-charged dark disco of "Fundamental," at least we've learned to stop worrying and love the terrifying Dixie Chicks!

Labels: Pet Shop Boys

This is a post for people who love bad writing. Really bad writing. Even if you don't know the story of US Senator Bill Frist -- stocks grifter, cat killer, doctor-by-videotape -- I hope you'll love this wildly-fawning profile of him by Laura Blumenfeld in yesterday's Washington Post as much as I did. I couldn't help but highlight my favourite bits of this astonishing literary blow job:

The houses were dark on Bill Frist's street. A morning bird chirped; the others were waiting for dawn. But Frist was awake, and his bedroom light was on. "I'm going to take a shower," the Senate majority leader said brightly. Ten minutes later, the blow dryer roared.

Absolutely gripping opener, no? But fasten your seatbelts -- it's about to get sexy!

Frist, at heart, is a doctor. At 5:45 a.m., before a recent Senate workday, he prepared for a quirky slice of surgery. During congressional breaks, Frist, 54, has been known to fly to Africa to operate. But in Washington, he has quietly cultivated another practice: gorillas at the National Zoo.
...
He climbed into the back of his black SUV; his driver steered toward the zoo. "I gravitate towards insurmountable problems," Frist said, his long legs spilling between the front seats. "I try to use creative solutions." One day, he hopes to cure AIDS or cancer. He sucked on the stem of his glasses: "The typical person around here may not understand."

At the zoo hospital, a team of four veterinarians, three technicians, an animal keeper and a veterinary dentist were wheeling a 350-pound gorilla into surgery as Frist arrived. They would perform an ultrasound of the heart, a root canal and a physical. Frist joined the team, as he had on other mornings, tying on a mask. He unbuttoned his business shirt, revealing jungle-pattern surgical scrubs and a pair of hairy, toned biceps.

"A little bit like Superman," said the dentist, Chuck Williams.
...
He pressed his stethoscope to the gorilla's chest and narrowed his eyes. Kuja, a silverback patriarch, was breathing isofluorine. He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females. When Kuja started to stir, a veterinarian injected more anesthesia. One backhanded swipe could break Frist's neck.

Frist listened to the heart; the gorilla's lub-dub sounded human. "When you're this close, you feel this kind of oneness with them," Frist said. The stink of ape sweat and gorilla testosterone soaked his hair and clothes. "Gorillas, people, men. You look at the people here, a symphonic flow of people pitching in. It's the oneness of humanity."
...
Afterward, Frist buttoned himself back up, into his blue shirt and into his senatorial reserve. "I need to be talking to the Israeli prime minister in 18 minutes," he told his driver as the SUV rumbled toward the Capitol.
...
At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table...Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.

Laura, please, you're embarrassing yourself -- Senator Frist is married! I can't really blame her though...by the end of the article, I wanted to sleep with him.

Meanwhile, here in testosterone-drenched Canada, Stephen Harper has been whining this week that the national media is biased against him, that "the press gallery at the leadership level has taken an anti-Conservative view." Maybe, or maybe it just seems that way because he's not getting his profiles from the Washington Post.

Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper

I'm just coming off a four-day weekend spent mostly in the park with my dog. I should be happier but my job's getting me down, the newspapers more so, my dad's talking divorce again and I'm worried about a friend in the hospital. What's weirder, I feel ungrateful for being blue, like I won't allow myself to be happy as long as someone else isn't. I try to knock it down -- worrying about other people may be a sign of caring but does nothing to truly help them and I can't help anyone if I'm wallowing in maudlin navel-gazing. (Except for this blog, of course -- this is vital reading!)

I hate the feeling of helplessness, the whims of moods. I celebrate the happiness that flits by and endure the despair that lingers too long but what's always confounded me is that grey area in between -- the foggy melancholy that makes one useless.

How odd then to find myself soothed this morning by Paul Simon of all people. His new album is called "Surprise" and it's just that -- a really lovely collection of wistful songs layered over spooky electronia flourishes from Brian Eno. It's the strangest collaboration in years between two men I couldn't imagine standing in an elevator together, let alone composing music, but it works gloriously. "Wartime Prayers" is one of the saddest songs I've heard yet Eno gives it a glimmer. "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean" is hopeful yet sinister, while "Father and Daughter" is sublimely sentimental.

I sometimes think I was born too late -- I'd have made a great Boomer. I listened to Simon & Garfunkel when I was younger and basked in songs like "The Sound of Silence" and "The Only Living Boy in New York." So beautiful. It's a real delight then to find that, forty years later, Simon still has his knack for songs that feel hopeful, melancholy, loving and resentful all at once.

And the oddest suprise of all is that, by allowing myself to wallow in several moods at once, each one's clamour for attention eases and I can focus. Be strong. Bring a gift to the hospital. Walk my dog. Call my dad. Invite a friend over for dinner as planned. Life goes on. Thanks again, Paul.

Labels: family, introspective

No, it's not my joke, just one of many painful puns on CTV News this evening -- all of them forgivable, thanks to the warm and cheery tone of their reporting on two RCMP Constables who are getting married next month. "To each other!" the reporter exclaimed after that perfect "dun-dun-DAH!" beat.

Const. Jason Tree and Const. David Connors live in Meteghan, Nova Scotia and have received nothing but support and best wishes from their colleagues, neighbours and community as they prepare to tie the knot next month. I love that the only reason this is news is because they happen to be the first RCMP couple -- someday soon, people of any gender from any profession will be able to marry whomever they're in love with and it won't raise a single eyebrow or boom mike.

Until then, however, I can't blame the media for giggling. Gay Mounties! Married gay Mounties! How cool is that? No more secretly swooning over Benton Fraser now that Constables Tree and Connors have (oh no, don't do it) got their man.

Yes, progress is a bumpy road.

My friend Robert recently started a blog of his own entitled The Bitchy Poet. I was once dubbed "the happy cumudgeon" so it feels as though Robert is the pepper to my salt (or salt to my pepper, I don't know).

I was reading his posts while checking out the international news, which is predictably strange and creepy: all this week, the US is seriously debating building a wall (a wall!) between it and Mexico while already-Iraq-battered National Guard troops are being sent to 'defend' the border -- such tactics are the first chunks of meat thrown to the dogs barking for Fortress America.

Thinking about all this and reading Robert's soulful poems inevitably leads me back to this:

Waiting For The Barbarians
Constantine Cavafy, 1899

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Labels: friends

Wow. Even for a grouchy pessimist like me, the last couple years have been surprising. We've proven that George Orwell was right and now it seems we can hand over a prize to Margaret Atwood:

New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.
...
Experts acknowledge that women with no plans to get pregnant in the near future may resist preconception care...So clinicians must find a "way to do this and not scare women," by promoting preconception care as part of standard women's health care...

On the surface, it all sounds so reasonable.

I'm trying not to post too much of the wingnut chatter this week -- honest I am -- but I could. Not. Believe. This take on the illegal immigration issue from 'Vox Day', a commentator on the right-wing site WorldNet Daily and "a member of the SFWA, Mensa[!] and the Southern Baptist church":

Not only will [massive deportation] work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

"To rid themselves"...
There you have it -- a solid example of textbook Hannah Arendt.

I'm in such a good mood today, even Office Hell can't bring me down (though it's trying its damnedest) -- I went out for lunch in the gorgeous sun, I bought a new pair of my beloved Chuck Taylor sneakers and I had the brilliant new Pet Shop Boys album pounding through my headphones.

Why, I'm so jolly, I didn't blink an eye when I read this transcript of Sunday's sermon from Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr., pastor of the 7,000-strong Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, in Washington, D.C.:

"It takes a real man to confess Jesus as lord and savior. I'm not talking about no faggot or no sissy. Wait a minute! Let all the real men come on down here and take a bow. All the real men -- I'm talking about the straight men. You ain't funny, and you ain't cranky, but you're straight. Come on down here and walk around and praise God that you are straight. Thank him that you're straight. All the straight men that's proud to be a Christian, that's proud to be a man of God."

And my family wonders why I don't go to church.

But you see? Any other day and I'd be all "Church this, Bishop that, grr, grr" but today? I found that friggin' hilarious! "Thank you, Jesus, for making me straight" -- that is comedy gold! And it's so nice of Bishop Owens to define the terms for us. Now I can proudly say:
I'm funny, I'm cranky, I'm gay!

Labels: Pet Shop Boys, religion

You know that feeling you get when you read something so crazy it borders on science fiction? I get that feeling from George Grant's now mercifully-out-of-print yet still influential book, "The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action." This passage from page 81 in particular gives me night sweats:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ – to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

Honestly, don't these guys know what they sound like???

What's particularly frustrating is that men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson will take all the same ideas, tone down the crazy (somewhat) and pass them along to FOX News as mainstream conservative thinking.

A gay conservative Christian named Bruce Bawer wrote a book around the same time, a decade ago, called "A Place at the Table." Bawer made a strong case to these people for gay equal rights but how successful could he be? They don't want him sitting at the table. They want the whole table, the dining room, the entire house. It's dominion they are after.

Labels: religion

Cheers to Andrew Sullivan for some delightfully-shallow researching:

Google has a new feature called Google Trends. It tracks the number of searches for various topics online, and also gives you some regional analysis of where those searches are taking place. A reader clued me in. And here's a somewhat revealing discovery. Who's looking for "sex" the most? The countries with the most searches for that word is - surprise! - Pakistan, followed by Egypt, Iran, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Hmmm. It couldn't have anything to do with all that Muslim repression, could it? Arabic is the most popular language for "sex" searches. Islamism, like Christianism, doesn't conquer sex; it just fetishizes it and forces it underground. The most sex-obsessed Christian country? Poland. Congrats to the Vatican.

Labels: Middle East, religion

In the wake of his excellent 'Reality' album, this news makes me a little sad but also happy -- my icon is doing what he wants:

David Bowie is taking a break from being David Bowie, at least for a year. “I’m fed up with the industry,” he said at the Vanity Fair party last week. “And I’ve been fed up for quite some time.” He greeted strangers with, “Hi! I’m David. I have seven children. And I’m fucking freezing.” So how does an icon slack? “Just don’t participate. I’m taking a year off -— no touring, no albums. I go for a walk every morning, and I watch a ton of movies. One day, I watched three Woody Allen movies in a row. I like going out to the Angelika: If the first one’s only okay, I’ll sneak into one after the other. It’s so easy.” He says he has no plans to take up hobbies either. “I’ve been listening to Arcade Fire and Secret Machines and this great opera from the eighties called "Nixon in China." It’s just that. He gets off the plane. He has dinner with Mao. Someday, I might do opera. But I don’t have a musical in me, much less a vampire musical.”

Peter Slevin, Washington Post, December 7, 2001:

The FBI will not be permitted to compare the names of suspected terrorists against federal gun purchase records, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told the Senate on December 6, offering no encouragement to senators willing to guarantee the FBI the authority to do so.

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, December 16, 2005:

At an April hearing on the Patriot Act renewal, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the FBI, "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?"

"Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens.

Leslie Cauley, USA Today, May 11, 2006:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement..."It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

Jack Cafferty, CNN, May 11, 2006:

The President...declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says okay and drops the whole thing.

Alright, America -- the alarm clock went off four years ago. Isn't it time to quit hitting the snooze button?

If you haven't discovered it yourself already, you're going to LOVE Pandora:

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Over the past 5 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

That may seem like an incredibly pompous introduction for an online radio station but what a radio station...enjoy!

An afternoon of e-nattering proves why I love my very sharp, very funny friends:

TREVOR [following much chatter about our Saturday night carousing]:

It it wrong that I'm listening to Madonna this early in the day? Much less at all?

JAMES A:

Yes, and, quite frankly, yes.

ME:

I went out for lunch, a walk in the sun and, as fate would have it, my Ipod shuffled around to "Cherish" -- that is one happy song, let me tell you.

I stopped by a store for a Snapple, cashed in that $35 million Super 7 ticket I bought last week and won! I'm a whole ten dollars richer and Madonna was playing the whole time.

So James, I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

JAMES A:

Ahhh... the leap of logic: Listening to Madonna makes the sun shine and money appear out of nowhere.

Scott, I have a lovely bridge to sell you....

P.S. At least you got out for lunch, I've been working on Excel spreadsheets all morning. Bleah.

ROBERT:

You're right -- Cherish is a sweet song, but "Runaway Lover" is vomit
inducing.

TREVOR:

I hate "Cherish." It's for simple-minded saps who think love is an unbridled
cornucopia of glee and frivolity, when in truth, its a miasma of pain,
agonizing self doubt and mind-bendingly awful delusions of completion that
will never be adequately fulfilled by anyone ever, and when you die alone
and unfulfilled in love, then you will realize that "Cherish" was all one big
ripoff, conning the naive idealistic pop romance brain-dead culture we exist
in.

But I DO like Material Girl.

ROBERT:

Okay, Morrissey.

ME:

Someone needs a hug...

TREVOR:

Shut up, slut.

JAMES A:

"miasma". Sounds like someone hasn't had any candy lately. And I sure as hell hope that I won't be thinking about that song on my death bed! Something from Mahler probably, but certainly not Madonna!

Labels: friends

My decision to refrain from any more rants about George W. Bush has proven to be both harder and easier than I thought.

Harder because of his response to a German interviewer who asked what Bush considered to be his "most wonderful moment" as President:

"The best moment was -- you know, I've had a lot of great moments. I don't know, it's hard to characterize the great moments. They've all been busy moments, by the way. I would say the best moment was when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake."

Five years in office. A bass. Must...not...rant...

Easier because of his discussion of what to do with himself after his term finally ends:

"I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the de Tocqueville model, what de Tocqueville saw in America...I would like for there to be a place where young scholars come and write and think and articulate and opine and teach."

A George Bush think tank. You don't need me -- the jokes write themselves!

Labels: George W Bush

The office received a junk fax today from Walcon, a Guelph company making construction estimating software. They're scheduling an online seminar tomorrow to explain their new design software and they call it a "WEBINAR."

That's right, a WEBINAR.

The English language is being beaten like a baby seal.

My Hero of the Week is Vatican astronomer (!) Guy Consolmagno who's openly dismissed the notion that the world was created in six days as "superstitious paganism":

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
...
Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Brother Consolmagno went on to call the idea of papal infallibility a "PR disaster," instead saying the Pope is simply the Church's "boss, the final authority...It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.

Bravo, Brother, for injecting a little sanity into the proceedings (though I'm sure Pope Benedict has ordered his minions to take the astronomer out behind the woodshed by now). Just one thing, though -- the Vatican has a meteorite collection? What the hell?

Labels: Italy, religion

Sure I know how sad it sounds but dammit, I just about wet myself over this bit in today's Times:

He revived Doctor Who, but now Christopher Eccleston is set to take on another television hero with the starring role in a remake of The Prisoner.

The 1967 series, starring Patrick McGoohan as a former secret agent who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a mystery village, baffled millions of viewers around the world.

I'll say -- forty years on, pop culture still hasn't seen anything as subversive, as challenging, as gorgeously weird as this surreal spy drama about one man's fight to keep his own identity.

The new version, made by Granada for Sky One, will incorporate the paranoia, conspiracy theories and hi-tech action sequences of modern-day spy dramas 24 and Spooks [MI-5 in North America].

Lost, another offbeat hit series which has kept viewers hooked despite offering up few of its secrets, was influenced by The Prisoner.

Indeed, among TV writers, the influence of the sixties cult show is wide and deep -- The Simpsons did an entire episode parodying it and I remember both loving it and wondering how the writers could so happily leave 90% of their audience scratching their heads. Pure self-indulgence on their part but, like I said, me and a few million other Prisoner geeks were gleeful.

And now, as with Doctor Who, a solid performance from Christopher Eccleston will help reintroduce the show to a huge new audience. Fantastic!

Labels: Doctor Who

Dr. Evil would be proud: America is now one step closer to building its own Death Star!

The Air Force has pursued the secret research for several years but discussed it in new detail in its February budget request. The documents stated that for the 2007 fiscal year, starting in October, the research will seek to "demonstrate fully compensated laser propagation to low earth orbit satellites."

The documents listed several potential uses of the laser research, the first being "antisatellite weapons."
...
In 1997, the American military fired a ground-based laser in New Mexico at an American spacecraft, calling it a test of satellite vulnerability. Federal experts said recently that the laser had had no capability to do atmospheric compensation and that the test had failed to do any damage.

Little else happened until January 2001, when a commission led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the newly nominated defense secretary, warned that the American military faced a potential "Pearl Harbor" in space and called for a defensive arsenal of space weapons.

The Starfire research is part of that effort.

The observatory base is called "Starfire" -- is that not adorable?! Sadly though, the laser project was moving along swimmingly until Chief Inspector Dreyfus went insane and destroyed the UN with it. Curse you, Clouseau!!!

When I used to work at Britnell's Bookshop, Toronto's oldest and fanciest-schmanciest, I would often tell people buying a book that I'd heard the author would be on Talk Show X that week or that PBS was doing a televised version. They'd look at me like I had something hanging out of my nose and say, "I don't watch television," or better yet, "I don't own a television."

I always found this attitude strange since -- like books, movies or any other media -- 80% of television is indeed crap but some of it is very, very good. Some may think my 80% figure is too kind but even so, why dismiss an entire outlet when you can just be selective about it?

James Poniewozik, the TV critic for Time magazine agrees with me but far more authoritatively:

It's easy to knock the TV Turnoff Network as Quixotes, Luddites and naifs -- I've taken my own shots at them in the past -- but here's their dirty secret: they don't actually want you to turn off your TV. Not for good anyway. In a chat on the Washington Post web site, the group's director allowed that what they really want is for families to spend fewer hours in front of the tube: 1 or 2 hours per day, perhaps.

You can argue with the number (OK smart guys: America's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, Lost and South Park are all on Wednesday night -- which ones am I supposed to drop? Am I made of stone?). But it's reasonable to say that people should be more selective about what they watch, and, especially, teach their kids to watch it critically.

So why not make that the goal of the week -- Watch TV Smarter Week, etc. -- rather than a kill-your-TV crusade that is, rightfully, almost bound to fail? Probably because, by asking people to turn off the TV altogether for a week, the group gets more publicity. But much of the publicity focuses -- again, rightly -- on how little success the group has: the Nielsens show no dent attributable to its efforts. Year after year, the group comes off like cranks, and incompetent ones at that.

Their message should be not that people should watch less TV but that they should work harder at choosing the TV they and their families watch. I have little patience for people who dismiss TV across the board: it's ridiculous to claim there's no qualitative difference between, say, The Sopranos and Date My Mom. But I also have little patience for people who let their young kids run the remote unsupervised.

Electronic media is a big part of modern life: rather than shield your kids from it, teach them about it just like you'd teach them about hygiene or traffic safety. Talk about what commercials are, why they're trying to get your money, and whether you can believe them. Talk about what they like and don't like on TV and why. In other words, teach your kids to be their own media critics, because that's what we all need to be these days.

In the end, that's a more realistic goal than unplugging your TV set--and, truth be told, much harder work. If there's a legitimate complaint about TV as a medium, it's that it too often discourages critical thinking and offers easy, simplistic answers. Ironically, that's also exactly the problem with TV Turnoff Week.

Labels: back in the day, bookworm, TV

From the "Oh, for Fuck's Sake" department:

Polar bears and hippos have now been added to the Endangered Species list. This is insane. I thought it was bad enough that we've been merrily eradicating butterflies, frogs, fish, flowers and sharks. Sure, no one's going to miss the sharks (or maybe even the polar bears) but hippos? Everybody loves hippos! They've got their own game!

I've always argued that the environmental movement shoots itself in the foot by constantly bleating about 'saving the earth.' That's ridiculous. Long after the insects, the plants, the fish, the animals and finally the people have all been starved or poisoned, the earth will continue to spin on, just fine without us.

Forget terrorism -- the environment is clearly becoming our most important issue as even large mammals like ourselves are unable to survive. Why does the fate of polar bears matter to us? Edward O. Wilson, take it away:

Some ecologists and economists have estimated that the total value of these natural ecosystems, that's the total amount of services they provide to humanity, is in the vicinity of 30 trillion dollars a year. That's more than the total of the gross national products of all nations combined. And it's free!

To save and make fuller use of them in a non-obtrusive way is economically valuable to us. To destroy them is to force humanity into an artificial world in which we have to personally manage our water systems, our food supply, and our atmosphere by prosthetic devices day by day instead of relying on powerful organisms to do the work for us. Do we want to turn Earth literally into a spaceship that requires constant tinkering?

Conservation International has a terrific listing of tips entitled -- obviously -- "What You Can Do" and, while I can't see most people wanting to let their front lawns 'go wild', there's still a lot we can do to help. I for one just don't have the space to adopt a polar bear.

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that if I bring Tegan to 'doggie daycare' or just simply let her run around the park all afternoon on a Saturday, she would actually sleep through the night. Bravely or foolishly, I started letting her sleep on my bed on such evenings and the results were adorable -- she kneads the bedding with her paws for a minute, then curls between my knees in a little ball. Awe-inspiring cuteness.

The only downside is that, for reasons known only to her, God or science, Tegan wakes up exactly one half-hour before my alarm. Every day, like clockwork. I used to set it for 7:30 am -- being awakened by her whining to get out of her crate at 7 -- and now, with the new earlier job, I set it for 7 and she starts howling at 6:30. In short, I spend my mornings begging -- begging for just 30 minutes more sleep.

Today, woken by Tegan licking my face, I actually managed to get her to go back to sleep. She obediently lay back down and I thrilled to my success before nodding off. About twenty minutes later, I awoke from a violent nightmare involving the dog viciously tearing apart my sofa. I staggered out to the living room, feeling stressed and angry, but aside from a few tiny holes where she has indeed attacked my sofa, there was no damage at all.

I looked at the tiny dog, staring up at me from her food bowl and the truth hit me: she's telepathic. She'd sent me a mental warning to feed her or suffer the consequences. It's all so clear to me now.

Labels: Tegan the Jack Russell Terrorist

Having spent so much time cheerleading for out and open homosexuality in our society while criticizing those who seek to eliminate it, it's only fair that I comment on the terse negotiations currently taking place on 'the front lines' of gay culture. In both San Francisco's Castro district and New York's Chelsea neighbourhood, the out-and-proud 'here, queer, get used to it' mentality is giving way to a more mature, family-friendly vibe:

In the Castro, restaurants oriented toward gay singles now offer child-size portions and even highchairs. One coffee shop features a hot chocolate 'Castro Kids Special,' a popular item during the morning rush that the owners call the 'stroller hour.' At Cliff's Variety store, children shop for toy unicorns and jasmine-scented clay putty alongside cross-dressers perusing feather boas and rhinestone tiaras.
...
"Our kids need a place in the community," said July Appel, executive director Our Family Coalition, an organization for gay families and a lesbian mother of two. "The Castro is big enough for everyone. Gay cruising has its place. But so do playgrounds."

And she's right -- this sort of cultural mixing is everything a city needs and, as New Yorker Sophie Miodownik says, "Our hallway in the Mercantile is an amazing combination of young couples, gay people, families, older people, professionals and people who are at home." So why, then, do some of us feel so uneasy about it?

For many gay residents the change gives rise to mixed feelings. On the one hand, the arrival of straight neighbors makes Chelsea less of a ghetto. On the other hand, a safe haven of sorts is lost. "My friends and I talk about this all the time," Mr. Skroupa said. "This is what we wanted, but in a way we're losing our little nook in the world."

The problem is not the families moving in but the gentrification process the gay people themselves created:

"The gays came in and gentrified the neighborhood, and it's become a much nicer place to live," said Christopher Mathieson, a broker with JC DeNiro & Associates.
...
"The young gay kids who are marginalized from around the country come here and then find they are priced out of the neighborhood," said Johnnie Tiedemann, who was shopping last week on Eighth Avenue.
...
Richard Silvera, 23, who was sitting in Big Cup last week, said he wanted to move to Chelsea after graduating from New York University but couldn't afford it. "Young gay people don't have the money but need the perks of a gay neighborhood the most," he said. "You have just come out, you are trying to figure out who you are and who your social circle is."

And a neighbourhood full of high-priced lofts and 'family-friendly' chain restaurants won't do much to help. Young gays will have to do what they've always done -- find another sleazy run-down area of town, move in, make it fabulous, raise the market value and then get bought out by Starbucks and Baby Gap. It's the circle of life, after all.

Meanwhile, the transition could prove rocky for the families as well:

The annual LGBT Pride Parade in San Francisco, by far the largest in the country, now provides a children's area with licensed day care. This year's parade will include a float celebrating gay families, complete with children singing Village People songs.

Village People songs?? Oh dear. If you must try and make the little ones gay, at least do it with Erasure or the Teletubbies or something with flair. Won't someone please think of the children?

The annual White House Press Correspondents' Dinner is a nauseating little affair that lets those members of the press chummiest with the government enjoy an evening of schticky stand-up comedy from the power-brokers they're nominally supposed to be watching on behalf of the American people (And yes, I felt the same way when Clinton was in office).

So imagine the horror that wafted through the room when Stephen Colbert, host of "The Daily Show" spin-off, "The Colbert Report," brought his right-wing-blowhard persona to the podium and tore the press to shreds. The mainstream media has ignored it but the Internet is abuzz over the bravery/gall of a comedian making savage fun of the President sitting right in front of him! Now there's a man with gravitas!