Frozen fisherman

brrr

Muskies and pike circle this hut, waiting for a hand to get too close to the hole ....

"we're after the same rainbow's end ..my huckleberry friend...."

One guy, in a room in North London, makes his own choir.







Jacob Collier won two more Grammys last night, his third and fourth. A musical Michelangelo with a computer. He's 25.

His multi-tracked chords, dischords and harmonies bend your ear, break your heart, then push your spirit skywards.


Best arrangement, instrumental or a cappella

Moon River (Jacob Collier)

Best arrangement instruments and vocals

All Night Long (Jacob Collier, Jules Buckley, Take Six)


For Moon River, he got 150 friends to send him a video of them singing the word "moon" ... in the opening above, you can identify the faces of Quincy Jones, Coldplay, David Crosby, even his mum.

And then ... just see for yourself above. See/hear new colours. The final minute of his four key changes is electric. That last chord? Jeeze...

All the hundreds of individual tracks and images were done in Collier's music room in North London. Audio and video files, perfectly synched in a hellishly complex arrangement.


Johnny Mercer, Henry Mancini and Audrey Hepburn must hear something like this in the great beyond.

Or to see what he's done with Lionel Richie's party anthem, All Night Long, click here ...

https://youtu.be/nspqYGz-Z1s

He plays two dozen instruments.
With loops, he can back-up  himself.
Jacob live at TED, 15 minutes here at...

https://youtu.be/dDZoGcQVjJg 

Odd thoughts

Podcasts?

"It's just radio that's hard to get to."
--Ky Krebs

"Swatted a fly the other day and thought, Outlived you."
--Peter Schjeldahl 

"I changed my password to thisisamassivewasteoftimeandnotthepurposeofyourlifeonearth"
--Dayna Tortorici, on Instagram 

"Podcasts: they are the internet for our ears. Now we can be on the internet all the time"
--n&1

zefrank's puffins be dropping some beats

The new neighbours are nuts

mmm

Ye gods! Are Harry and Meghan mad?

Why would our Non-Royals choose to set up house on what my morning news feed tags as Vancouver Island--"a largely uninhabited" wilderness that "is no luxury retreat"?

More important, why do the rest of us cough up $300 a night to zone out in this wasteland?

Read this yourself:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/meghan-markle-and-prince-harrys-unusual-rustic-island-paradise?ref=scroll 

Astonishing!

Let 'em eat clams.

It snowed last night.

It's winter. It snows here all the time.

But each fresh morning, as sunlight pierces my house like a lightsaber, I pass these two in the dining room. The photo, from an old TV show, is the only thing I took with me to the next gig. Thirty years ago, this photo was already history.

Two stoic faces stare from yard snowdrifts, looking through decades of winters into mine. The photo haunts me. I tell myself the blue light in their upstairs window is Netflix. But it's not.

Their winter is unimaginable. 

And in the viewing, softens mine.

The horizon that marks earth from sky

Mom does not want to be hooked up to no machines  she texts

day after Auntie passes

That's no prolonging life   that's extending death.

--Tommy Pico, in Feed (Tin House Publishing)

Words I had to look up this week ....

numinous ... things that are numinous seem holy, spiritual and mysterious

foustie ... disgusting/putrid/over-ripe/mouldy  scottish dialect (north east), but has found a way into wider british english

dreitch ... bleak, miserable, dismal, cheerless, dreary 

smirr ...  a mist-like precipitation, Scottish ... a soft rain that coats everything

quotidian ... daily, occuring every day, ordinary, mundane 

Life is a portage ...

Northern Scavenger's epic Labrador trip goes up on youtube next month ... here's just a taste. Wow! Click above.

Alex and Noah are two affable guys who share their best Canadian wilderness adventures.

And while you wait, you will not believe the fish in ...

Ready for January ....

Oh my

What are the odds there's a Jeopardy-style game show hosted by Triumph, Insult Comic Dog famous from endless TV appearances? Or that somehow, some way MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, Pete Davidson and Anthony Scaramucci are panelists? Political jokes, media jokes, dick jokes are shouted into a rowdy crowd at a Brooklyn synagogue. There is only one episode so far ... it may be the only. Worth an hour of ear time, just for the Larry King joke.

True Facts: Mating Dance of the Ostrich

This morning, zefrank uploaded his latest triumph to youtube ... one of two dozen nature spoofs he's concocted over two decades.

It's true ear candy.

Can his Ostrich My Neck Out For Ya eclipse previous pitches for mudskippers and marsupials? I think Pete the Ostrich has a hit.

Click play above, and perhaps below ...

Zefrank's marsupials
https://youtu.be/gNqQL-1gZF8

West Vancouver sunset

Winter bossa novas....

Around 3:30 p.m. each day, the two would make their way from a backroom, where birds perch on makeshift trees and in cages, to the front of the store, where the cash register sits... their talons clicked against the tiles... Everyone knew what was about to happen for the next 20-or-so minutes.
--Washington Post

Music for parrots to spoon by ...

 

Algonquin Park, winter morning

The dog's favorite night

It is the best, it is the worst, it is the last, it is the first night of the year.

It's each dog's favorite adventure.

For shortly past ten each New Year's Eve, we load the red sled with cheese and cold apple wine, a few brittle bits of white birch, tuck a harmonica in my parka and begin the half-mile climb to … the waterfall.

It is New Year's Eve again … that final, perfect, bright white night of the old year.

You come too. Light the lantern.

Christmas is over.

For some of us, Christmas has been over for a long time. Christmas is too often guilt and greed and gluttony. Christmas is family stress and the Yule drool of over-stuffed, bad-tempered consumer children. Visa and MasterCard are the holiday's happiest celebrants.

But New Year's is another matter entirely.

New Year's Eve is a clean, cold, secular holiday which still happily resists drunks and the animators of TV cartoon specials. It's a fine time with none of the electric rat-rag icicles Canadian Tire crazies have hung on houses from here to Halifax and back again.

New Year's isn't rotten brats kept awake until midnight, nor know-nothing relatives hunkered down before the tube for an afternoon of imported football.

It isn't bumping bodies in Nathan Philips Square or blowing car horns up and down Yonge Street. It isn't dropping mortgage payments to throw confetti at bored headwaiters atop the city's higher hotels.

It isn't sitting home feeling sorry for yourself. Or a tear-y, beer-y pub crawl where strangers get sick on your shoes.

Put on your mittens. Follow me. We leave all that behind… the yahoos, the yelling, the shabby old year.

Climbing the high hill, the snow scrunches underfoot like cornstarch. Our breath floats away in icy fogs, like 2019. Don't be sad. It's just the way thing ought to be.

The dog pads along in happy wonder, putting his paws carefully in our footprints.

We leave the road now, to climb the ravine, half-hypnotized by stars overhead and the gurgle of the frozen brook wrapped in ice.

It's very quiet. And cold. Not lonely, but alone.

We are alone in this world. We come that way, we go alone as well. And New Year's Eve is a perfect time to rejoice in your own magical renewal, trapped in your unique travel between beginning and end in the baffling universe.

Catch a snowflake on your tongue.

Do you know the odds of eating that single ice crystal in all the world? The stars shine and we are here at the waterfall--for the what? A tenth, twentieth, thirtieth time?

The dog picks snow clumps from his paws. I light the fire while you make a snow angel. By flickering light, the frozen falls shimmer. High in the tops of distant trees, a stange call floats by on the night breeze. Wolf? Polar owl?

We sit on the buffalo sled robe, the sharp slice of cold apple wine in our throats, looking deep, deep into the fire.

Who knows where Justin or Drake are tonight? Who cares?

We sit in the snowdrift like the wolves, to sing in our souls and bay at the sky. We will be in love and out of love, or somewhere in between, thoughts suspended in flicker and hiss of the fire.

My harmonica notes float away in snow squalls, circling in spirals up til they vanish over the trees.

The fire crackles and over the hill the icebound lake crackles back.

The snowdrifts shifts … a hiss … a whisper … a lover turning in bed … the sound of rabbit whiskers when a nose crinkles … snow crystals tumble into drifts … drifts building, moving into one another … the drifts, the years, the sifting, shifting snow.

A crisp, northern New Year's Eve in a Zen forest, where trees crack in the cold, but no human can hear them.

We're here! We see it!

You remember a half-forgotten song. The dog digs a hole. The apple wine cuts our breath like an icicle.

And sometime between the lighting of the birch logs and the last ember,  it is 2020. And it begins to snow.

Hey, friend. I really like ya.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for being. Thanks.

The bottle is empty.

Our toes go cold and noses drip.

There is nothing left to connect us to the old year. So without a whimper or a bang, we put out the fire … and let it slip away.

The waterfall vibrates, ice spiders weave invisible webs in the dark and we walk, arm in arm, back to the road. The dog soils a snowdrift in celebration.

Hey! Got on the sled! With a plush you are off, hurtling downhill into the blackness. The dog disappears after you.

The sounds of sled and shout fall away, far below me. The sky shines, alive with stars. And four lines come as always from the depths of memory…

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide.
Above the earth is stretched the sky,
No higher than the heart is high ….

Yes.
Happy New Year.
See ya.

Merry Moosemass

The Dog Who Loved Christmas

 

 Shaefer/Graham Bezant

True, all dogs love Christmas.

But these next few days are the officially-sanctioned Dog Disobedience Days.

Nothing dogs do this week is worth the time or trouble to yell at them.

At last, there is enough going on to interest dogs.

Many of the best holiday events are conveniently staged below knee level, where dogs get the best view.

But one large dog--in his middle years and wise beyond time or space--shivers in delight at the first flakes of snow. 

He quivers on the day he first sees his breath. 

He knows the happiest hours are just ahead. 

This particular dog sings as The Great Day of Winter approaches: his is a sweet soprano whimper, as clear and determined as a kindergarten kid at a pageant, trying to soar to the tricky "sleep in heavenly peace" moment of Silent Night.

"Gosh," people tell the mutt, bending down to rub his ears whenever he sings: "You are certainly one dog who loves Christmas."

And he is.

Weeks before the big day, The Dog Who Loved Christmas tracks each present as it comes in the house, watches coyly as it's wrapped, and memorizes its hiding place til he is alone. He unwraps it so it can easily be re-wrapped, two or three times if possible. 

When the presents are finally moved to high shelves or locked closets, The Dog Who Loved Christmas opens whatever he can reach: eight-packs of toilet paper from the bathroom cupboard, boxes of corn flakes and raisin bran--often in the living room. When everything is finally moved out of his reach, he knows Christmas must be very, very near.

During those delicious last days, if the door opens and The Dog Who Loved Christmas is indoors, he seizes  the opportunity to go out. If the door re-opens and he's outdoors, he comes in. Sometimes he travels in the direction of the door-opener. Other times he races from the opposite direction, always timing his speed and momentum to squeak cleanly past his doorman's knees.

If anybody tries to direct the animal's activities, a kinder soul is sure to warn: "Hey, leave him alone! You know how much that dog loves Christmas!"

The Dog Who Loved Christmas most loves his tree. It is  always set up in the coolest room of the house, the very space the dog himself favors for sleeping. 

It is clear to him the people in the house bring the tree inside as a special present for the dog. 

He watches as it's decorated, sniffs the unfamiliar indoor odor of pine, sprawls for hours on the floor, using the family as cushions. He likes it when they turn the lights on. Or turn them off. 

The Dog Who Loved Christmas sleeps under the tree at night and pretends he is camping. He makes sure to sleep on the opposite side from where he marks the tree when no one is around. It is after all, his tree and there is a certain pride of ownership. Sometimes people stick their finger in the tree's pot. "Yep, still wet," they say. He is happy to help.

On the day the family decorates the biggest window in the house, The Dog Who Loved Christmas hurries upstairs. Standing on his hind legs, he presses  sweet, heart-shaped dog noses on the frosty windows of the bedrooms. Then he slips outside to admire his work, with a side trip under the porch--the better to coat his paws with clay to decorate the rugs.

"Look!" he imagines visitors cry in glee. "This house belongs to A Dog Who Loves Christmas!"

The Dog Who Loved Christmas counts on a fine buffet of appealing snacks on the holiday, always placed on coffee tables and low snack trays where he can see them. There are cheeses and round little crackers, sometimes smeared with stinky fish. 

The dog feigns disinterest and prays for a phone or doorbell to ring, the better to snatch a few. At Christmas, no one keeps count. 

Alone by himself at night, The Dog Who Loved Christmas helps himself to hard candies from a low bowl, sucks each piece for a few seconds, then spits it back to try a new flavour. They always wonder why the candy sticks together.

The Dog Who Loved Christmas enjoys an occasional lick of chip dip and sometimes, to amuse himself, carries a few potato chips in his mouth to his water dish. There, he floats them like boats. Then he whimpers pathetically til someone comes.

"What's wrong?" they are sure to ask. "Oh poor dog! There are chips in your water dish. Let me get you a new one." They fetch a fresh dish of lovely, cool water, give him a pat and sometimes a treat. Minutes later, there is a familiar whimpering, new chips in the water dish and a new victim to say, "Poor dog."

The Dog Who Loved Christmas rolls happily in the wrapping paper on Christmas Eve and--since he growls menacingly at anybody who tries to retrieve wrappings--gets to guard the paper overnight. It's collected the next morning, no piece bigger than a torn movie ticket, while the dog takes his morning walk. It reappears New Year's Eve as confetti.

On Christmas Day, The Dog Who Loved Christmas sits politely under the dining room table. He is so quiet visitors peek underneath to convince themselves he is even in the house.

"I can't believe it!" they cry. "My dog would be begging, barking and carrying on! Why I'd never know your dog was even in the room! What a Good Dog!" Dozens of times, hands appear under the table offering turkey and tidbits.

The Dog Who Loved Christmas learned at a very young age that dogs who never beg get more turkey than those that do.

Every guilty person at the table eventually offers something tasty, a careful pay-off.

Indeed, some years so much food is gingerly collected below the tabletop laughter and conversation, that The Dog Who Loved Christmas has to slip away to the basement two or three times during a meal, and ralph everything he's eaten into a cool corner.

He always upchucks against an outside wall, so no incriminating evidence can be found til Easter. Sometimes he re-eats the barf for snacks. Then it's upstairs for another pound or two of dinner.

After the meal, The Dog Who Loved Christmas races outside with the kids. It is his duty to destroy forts and snowmen as quickly as tots can build them. Bundled in snowsuits, the kids can barely feel his nips. The smaller ones have difficulty walking. 

The Dog Who Loved Christmas grabs them by their parka hoods and drags them backwards through snowdrifts, playing crack the whip. He does this only with wee ones who can't really talk, so they will not report him to the authorities. Of course, bigger kids all think it's funny.

On Christmas night, The Dog Who Loved Christmas sprawls on his back under the tree, fat and happy, his legs splayed like a broken toy with his mouth open and snores like a horse. 

Every year at midnight, they take his photo for the family album. 

There are eight years' worth of pictures of the animal, paws to the sky and snoring. 

So cute, so content, under his tree. 

"That Dog Sure Does Love Christmas," somebody always whispers, as the camera shutter clicks.

Sometimes the dog's eyes flutter open and he even hears them say it. 

It makes him very glad to please them so.

 

Hey! I smell Jingle Butt!

".... if the fates allow ... "

                         https://youtu.be/2qV-C3OU8hU

Winter solstice

"Finally, darkness is defeated ...
 We're moving toward the light."
                --Erik Normark

Erik lives in northern Sweden.
He's a naturalist and ace photographer.
He hikes. He sees.
Listen to the ice! 
Watch him here ...

https://youtu.be/Kf7eo1FB5wU?t=3

Moose mittens

December sun

Be a happy Xmas pup...

https://youtu.be/9O2EaREJeqg?t=19

Two weeks til Santa--but here's a killer gift. My favorite Christmas song is secretly a jazz samba? Thanks Gerald Albright! Very tasty!

Vince Norman arranged Cannonball's kick ass showpiece....

Click thru to....

https://youtu.be/9O2EaREJeqg?t=19 

 

Dog Who Loved Christmas coming

Are you a blog pal who asks about a much-remembered column, The Dog Who Loved Christmas? It will appear here holiday week...

"Here we are on December 7 — the day the president reminds us that Ukraine bombed Pearl Harbor."
 --Rahm Emanuel at Gridiron Dinner

The Ice Man Cometh...

How many politicians had to look up the word "valor" today?

Common Ground

So the world is a circle.

My favorite tune for decades comes from Paul Winter's 1977
album/CD, the title tune, Common Ground.

"Voices are calling round the earth, music is rising in the sea
The spirit of morning fills the air
Guiding my journey home
Where is the path beyond the forest
Where is the song I always knew
I remember it just around the bend
In the village, the music never ends ..."

I assumed it was a product of the Paul Winter Consort.
The only album credit is to the guy who sings it, Jim Scott.
He was the Consort's guitarist.

Last month, I discover Jim Scott in his garden on youtube--now 40 years older.
He sings Common Ground.
But his second verse is new! It doesn't rhyme.

The new verse:

"Somewhere is the melody we need
There is a certain harmony
Even a rhythm in the trees
In the song that we've always known
As every road comes to its end,
Every path must cross again
Now I'm returning to my heart
Back to the sound that is our own... "

A web search for that lyric produces a new clue: Velho Sermão.

That's Portugese!

Translation: Old/Ancient Lesson.

I enter the Portugese title into youtube. Deep dive.

Paul Winter's Common Ground came out in 1976.

But Velho Sermao was on another artist's Lp the previous year, 1975.

Scott's new verse is a literal translation of Portugese into English from the original recording.

Of course! The world is a circle!

I have every album by Ivan Lins, who actually wrote Velho Sermao.

He's been Brazil's premier tunesmith for decades.

-----

The bugs are back. Pollens drift. Eyes itch. Hear that 
rhythm in the trees? Every path must cross again ...

Sweet.

Paul Winter, Common Ground:
https://youtu.be/EAIxjjPiDTs

Jim Scott, Common Ground
https://youtu.be/LpppGJlYeLs

Ivan Lins, Who Actually Wrote the Song:
https://youtu.be/vRR_pgprTpQ

Spring

Life is a one-way test.
The correct answer is always ... "yes"
                                 --Livingston Taylor

But spring is still coming, right?

"A strong low pressure system may begin as snow overnight but is expected to quickly transition to freezing rain or ice pellets and then to rain.

"Precipitation will change back to snow late Sunday afternoon. Total snow and ice pellet accumulations up to 20 cm. Strong winds with gusts to 80 km/h will produce zero visibility in blowing snow.... whiteouts, falling trees, hydro outages, extinction of small mammals, the  Apocalypse...."

Happy New Year

Larry Hart's birthday!

Night whisper

We are all connected to each other.... even the trees.
                                             --Arthur Miller

Saturday night at Mike Pence's

Barry Blitt's rejected Trump sketches for the New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/rejected-trump-sketches-by-barry-blitt


 The sketch of Trump and Bannon in matching bathtubs cannot be unseen ... LOL

Pray for an opening at Apple's genius bar

 "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart ... I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius .... and a very stable genius at that!"

 --Today's twitter from @realdonaldtrump

Gonna leave my footsteps on the sands of time....

Sad

Two real estate rich kids walk into a bar.

They are joined by a a Russian lawyer, a fat foreign showbiz agent and a shady political strategist.

Next arrivals: two Soviet-era spies, trailing a translator.

"Hi guys," sez the bartender. "You must be here to talk about adoption."

It's cool to be a cat

I wish I had nine lives

I bet it feels real nice

Sitting in the sun

Letting all the waves wash over me

I do what I want

Everybody wants to be a cat ...

It's cool to be a cat.

Why God gave you the Internet....

So here's all you need to know ... just three things.

*  yourclassical.org ... Minnesota Public Radio's never-ending streams of classical music, hosted or by genre ... make your iPad or Kindle soar!

*  thecurrent.org ... MPR's genius new music fountain, streaming or on demand, studio sessions with every new songster/band eager to knock your socks off

*  wnyc.org ... public radio's best host site ... here, find the New Yorker mag's podcasts, Jonathan Schwartz's jazz stream, WQXR, all searchable by program/topic/toontype


You will notice cbcmusic.ca does not make my cut. Why is that? Look. Listen. Pity.

This is how I spent my Saturday...

It's bug season in my part of the world ... so I spend the day watching this a dozen times ... is it the video? The audio?

Do I care? LOL....

Oh so spicy

Republicans hurry to floor for Trump vote

Your moment of Zen.....

The water's rising in eastern Ontario.....

Forget Hello Kitty. Welcome Hello Doggie.

Memories of page six

What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole?

Hot cross bunnies.

Bunny Eating Raspberries!

The sweetest season....

The chickadees are back.
Wrens pick pine nuts off the deck tree ...
Deer tracks disappear, ditto dirty snow.
We are very near now 
  to bunnies
  and green
And I search for Jimmy Scott...


"For this time it isn't  fascination
Or a dream that will  fade  and fall apart
It's  love
This time it's  love
My  foolish  heart..."

Jimmy Scott -- My Foolish Heart

Very Great, Very Important Words

http://bit.ly/2n7d5Ld

Everything's gonna be okay.

(This may be an alternate fact)

A moment from our sponsor

Vets group speaks to President Trump through ad

Evil afoot

Long night

Barack Obama offered what we can aspire to.

Donald Trump shows us who we really are.

Lucifer isn't just a hot sauce ...

July 23 2016

Donald Trump's GOP convention is over.

It made for a week of fascinating viewing on MSNBC, CNN and Fox, each with a twist on the line-up ... from the Ultimate Fighting Dude to subcontractors to the Hillary-murdered-my-son Mom.

Weeping. Screaming. Lynch mobs. Code Pink ladies in the balconies.  I'm afraid I logged dozens of hours, slack-jawed in front of the TV.

Melania's little oops was adorable.

Recurring audience shots of red faces in even-redder gag wigs and hats was well worth the price of admission--that price being a substantial number of brain cells. Who doesn't enjoy General Flynn, whose appearance on Bill Maher's show the night-after was a nice encore for the frightened. 

If Mike Pence is not a robot, he should be.  His sad eyes, like Chris Christie's, show what his ambition has signed on for. The body language between Pence and Trump is hilarious. Sealed with an air kiss.

The candidate himself is beyond words.

The Republican hoohah was missing only an appearance by Lucifer, God of the Outer Darkness.

"Yes," he would thunder. "Hillary worships me."

If Ben Carson--Lucifer's spotter--lurks anywhere near a Trump White House, pray they give him nothing to play with but toys.

But I imagine the Politburo of Trump Children will see to that.

Scratch Don Jr, who will dance on Bill de Blasio's ass in the NYC mayor's race.

If I were young Barron Trump, I would change my name soon. Pray the witness relocation program can rescue him from this hotbed of ego and ambition. 

And oh, poor Hillary.

I'm not surprised, just disappointed in Clinton's choice of Tim Kaine--a bland, pudgepoop of a running mate. Was Lucifer not available?

Yes, my fellow cynics ... two women would have been Too Much, and Cory Booker would be PC's Memories of Obama sauce. So no Bernie, Warren or Booker. Why deliver anything to the base in this all-important Trump showdown? The Democratic candidate picks the establishment, golly-jeepers white guy. Here, pass the mayo.

Hill and Tim will be trounced in every news cycle.

It will not be pretty.

And with every Breaking News TV banner, Trump will grow stronger.

I think Hillary Clinton has taken an impossible and dangerous risk.

Not even one hand clapping.

It's just an election, right?  Right.

Enter the new year....

It's 5 a.m. Christmas Day, driving thru Algonquin Park. The lakes are still open. The New Year seems as ominous as the old.

Cookie season

When a gingerbread man breaks an arm or stabs his leg with a knife, you have to let him vent ....

All dog cookies must have smiles on their faces, for Christmas....

Parka Patrol

For CBC Radio fanatics who've asked about Parka Patrol, there is new evidence it existed.

The 54-episode series ran Saturday nights for two years in the '80s. Call it an odd blues fantasy, worshipped by forest rangers, loons and bath water boilers in the Canadian Outback.

Do you hear wolves? Me too. Hear them at....

https://soundcloud.com/gary-dunford/parka-patrol-cbc-birthday

Great Pumpkin puck puck

Hooray! It's fall cider time!

County Cider

Spent a week roaming around Prince Edward County, Picton and Sandbanks Provincial Park on Lake Ontario.
Third fall trip down there, the prettiest sideroads in autumn.
Most of the pics below and above come from there.

Blood orange cider from County Cider ... pumpkins too.

Hilltop heaven

Fences make nice neighbors

You could wait forever

The dog's favorite walk, Mcfee's Bay

The road to McFee's bay

Paugh Lake

Explorer

Dog day afternoon....

Everywhere

                     Is there a restaurant in Canada that doesn't have this sign posted somewhere on the premises?

                     It's the Hang-in-there Cat Poster of 2015....

The Wiz

Who knew the CBC had advance clips from NBC's Christmas musical, The Wiz?   

We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy....

Urine trouble now....

Among the many tweets and twitters concerning a PC candidate's exit from the election race after being caught peeing in a homeowner's coffee cup, was this one ....

Janis Millar

Laughter is always the best medicine and if that's what it's going to take to throw the cons off stride then start laughing everyone. Everyone should go out and buy one coffee mug and when the con candidate comes to your door just hand it to them with a big smile. If you can find one with a zany saying all the better. Start laughing people.

Call it the Tempest-in-a-Teacup strategy.

August 2015

How wet can you get?

So here we are in 2015, the snow dripping off the roof

So here we are in 2015, the snow dripping off the roof.

What is the warmest word in any Canadian's vocabulary?

THAW.

And in the spirit of rebirth ... the blog begins again.

Perhaps start with a joke?

How To Escape a Polar Bear

If you know the BBC's not-quite-a-game show Qi,  you may already have the answer.

When chased by a polar bear, simply toss off your clothes.

First your hat, then your coat, toss your gloves ...

Keep running.

Then your sweater, next the t-shirt, then your pants ....

Keep running.

Toss your shoes behind you, and your socks ...

Keep running.

The bear will stop to carefully paw each item.

Sniff it. Lick it.

This gives time to put distance between you and the bear.

You may escape ... 

Or wind up on the icy barrens, naked and afraid.

If you eventually meet the bear, he will say:

Oh good ... an unwrapped one.

Sons of the Snow Scoop

A half dozen e-mails and the occasional letter still pop up annually about Parka Patrol.

Ah, the sweet little Saturday night blues and Bambi fantasy about a lovesick ranger in a fire tower.
Once in a while he got into town to play the jukebox at the local hotel, which curiously only played B-17, a reference to the long-ago pop tune and Bingo.
Listeners were praised as hardy countrymen and Sons of the Snowscoop.

Or was it a fantasy? The show took its mail at a post office box in Maynooth, ON, which is on the way to Algonquin Park.
(I wanted to use Snowball, ON as our mail drop, but it was too far to go. LOL)

For 25 years, I commuted into Toronto to do Toronto Sun humour columns, and broadcast projects like Parka Patrol, and a later weekly CFRB opus, Recordhounds.

Once a month, I'd lumber into CBC Radio's old Jarvis St. Kremlin to tape three episodes. All of the strange records were my own, a frightening insight into my head and interests over 40 or so years. We'd have a lead sheet for the tunes, and a nearly complete script.

I'd say our greatest achievements included the National T-Shirt Trade, a national unity parody.

Listeners sent us their favourite small-town t-shirt and we'd trade it for one of the same size from somewhere else. Local fire companies, gas stations and unheard-of cafes seems to be the most popular. The mail handler (me) nearly went insane. In the two years of the show, we drew about 1,200 letters--all answered with a note, bumpersticker or Maynooth Bears t-shirt. Alas even then, the CBC had no budget for inspired craziness.

Our other big bark was the Parka Patrol Dog Show.
Listeners sent in a pic of their adored mutt, and the object was to send a Best in Show ribbon--100 printed up at a trophy store--to EVERY dog entered, mention each dog BY NAME on the show and send each one a ribbon. Every dog a winner! The Dog Show had about 80 dogs, with appropriate thoughts on their talents. (Owners had to tell us their talents, which included drooling, humping and farting).

We sent listeners Bingo cards for National Bingo Night. Many numbers called. Very confusing. Many winners.

A plugged-in pal got then-Communications Minister Marcel Masse to record us a promo: "I am the Minister of Communications. You are the People of the Parka." It was Very Official.

Anyway, the mail load, timing tunes and chasing ever-weirder music began to impinge on my real job as daily columnist. I begged the CBC to at least run off some pre-printed postcards--the same wolf image and the exploding pineapple seen here. Nada.

So Parka Patrol went away, to wherever old radio goes.
No more music for the Saturday night bath.
No word of whether Bambi won Bingo.
No more recipes for Stuffed Porcupine or how to catch one.
(Wait on the corner of the porch until porkie comes to eat the house. Bean a big can of V8 off his noggin.)

Where will the young learn such stuff?

Never cry wolf

Postcards killed the radio show

Hard to believe, but this postcard killed a radio show.

CBC's Parka Patrol, the wry Saturday night show that apparently came from a forest ranger tower near Maynooth, ON, disappeared after a successful two year run in the '80s.

The first year, it drew 350 pieces of mail. The second year, nearly 700.

Funny thing about the intimacy of radio: each single listener feels he or she knows the little voice in the box. They want contact.

The poor sap who wrote and voiced Parka Patrol answered the mail.

"If we could just print up some postcards, life would be so much easier," the Corporal of the Cordwood begged. "The mail load is impossible."

"What would be on the front of the postcard?" asked the Corp.

I made one for them.

I found it this morning.

They said no.

The show ended.

Sigh.

The Sun never sets

Fans and critics of the Toronto Sun know that over the years, John Cosway compiled a fascinating blow-by-blow account of its rise, flubs and failures. Virtually every staffer contributed to his feisty independent blog. Way kewl.

(See it at torontosunfamily.blogspot.com)

In the fall of 2011, the Sun "celebrated" its 40th anniversary.
Quietly is an understatement.

But Cosway solicited every staffer to contribute memories of their time at the word factory.

They're all at the above e-address.

Here was mine....

----------------------------

WEDNESDAY, 26 OCTOBER, 2011

Memories of the Toronto Sun - Gary Dunford


Bruno Gerussi - the Stratford actor-turned-Beachcomber - scored me the longest gig I ever had.

He was chums with TV critic Bob Blackburn and the amazing Kathy Brooks and knew more than most about the death of the Tely and birth of the Sun.

As the Sun invented its new Sunday edition, Gerussi insisted I meet Brooks and pitch a humour column. I added it to my handful of freelance gigs, which included Bruno's radio show and his fledgling Beachcombers.

My weekly Sunday Sun playlets mostly centred on Tiny Perfect MayorDavid Crombie and his civil circus. Three or four people found them funny. I was at the one year mark and counting - mostly counting myself lucky. But then Brooks calls . . .

Kathy drags me in to see J.D. MacFarlane when Slinger left for the Star. The scowly editorial director owl seemed dubious I could file 34 column inches, five days a week. But Brooks charms him. "I want items!" he thundered.

On a good day my space was an odd mix of jokes, media whispers, quizzes, blind items. It took about two years to become Page Six, a smart alec spreadsheet of local heroes, CBC excess and sheepdogs.

John Downing was my Sun guardian angel and mentor. It was Downing's IBM Selectric I used til he came over from city hall late afternoons. It was Downing who often advised on what was total or partial B.S. in the flotsam I collected. And it was Downing's unseen hand that allowed a wildcard freelancer - who "served at the pleasure of the publisher" for 23 years - to be treated like Sun staffers, which was very well indeed.

To repay him, I kept an ugly eight-foot tall cardboard palm tree on his desk for about 10 years, an eyesore to most, but a fine landmark for incoming Strip-o-grams.

"Gary," a worried Marj Henry would whisper into my extension: "I think there's another crazy person here to see you." Keep them in the lobby. I'll come out.

For a few years, Mark Bonokoski and I shared a back corridor office, prime real estate with a glass window allowing us to scout every model, actress and bunny wannabee, rushing with her makeup bag to a SUNshine Girl photo shoot. I think Bono missed a few stunners while out at the city desk, barking at some hapless editor about his missing adjectives. Go figure.

Old fogie that I am, I well remember Jim Yates handing me my first Radio Shack TRS-80 Model100 word processor, the cutting edge of 1983 technology. With about 10 pounds of cables and teacup-sized couplers, you could be 60% certain of filing a column into the Sun's cranky computer room. It was a miracle that dwarfs the iPad. Okay, some nights, you had to file four or five times. Up to a dozen if there were thunderstorms.

Since I was a pioneer telecomuter, my space at the Sun changed as often as fall fashion. My desk was once close to Peter Worthington's editor space: I was aware of every column complaint he took from the boss of CFTO.

Did Doug Bassett know how many iffy items came hand-written on cream-colored Desk of Douglas Creighton memo paper? Maybe. Gossip fresh from Winston's. I was a hapless pawn in some decade-old Tely payback I knew nothing about. Honest.

For two happy years, I got to see every crutch, sling, bandage and ankle cast editor Barbara Amiel sported, rolling into the office from her exercise, falls and social wars. It made me much more health-conscious.

Much has been made of what a party school the Sun was. How many Columnists' Dinners were there? Too few. Doomed by wretched excess. It was Sun style. Party hearty. Go big or go home. Rent SkyDome. Get a carousel in there. And don't miss the after-party at Hoofer's. Crooks. Betty's. Go if only to hear the Star people bitch.

Tom MacMillan was every columnist's co-conspirator, mine more than most.

What newspaper in North America underwrote every-10-year sabbaticals? Played Santa Claus in good years and bad? Cut some stock aside for those who weren't Day Oners in Sun Media's IPO? Did we know how good we had it? You bet.

A dozen wage slaves were airlifted annually to "Sun Seminars" in distant cities. Mine was in New York City in 1984. There, in the swank Hotel Pierre ballroom, I showed the directors a home-made video that mocked the paper, its editors, its readers. The legendary Amiel Reel, tagging her as the Black Queen of King Street. Always bite the hand that feeds you. It was possible. Humour was not a firing offence. MacMillan intro'd me as asked as loner and loon. True.

I'm always amused when Cos includes some whippersnappers' complaint that TSF is for and by boomers looking backwards at an amplified, impossible, golden and glorious past. How can the present ever compete with such B.S?

Memory is a blessing, kiddos: time erases most of the petty, stupid and awful. (Did we really drag Liz Braun to lunch at the House of Lancaster? May we all burn in Hell.) But you have total recall of the good stuff. Memory is sweet.

And for Sun staffers of most of the last 40 years, there was a generosity of spirit afoot that quite simply was unique.

Worth celebrating.

Awesome.

New dog in town

new dog in town

Back at the dawn of TV, on Sunday afternoons there was an NBC show called Wide Wide World.

Dave Garroway hosted this hour experiment, as they attempted to put up a live picture of Niagara Falls, a live street fair in Chicago, traffic moving across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Since this was all done with patchplugs, coaxial cables and transcontinental switches, it was about 20% static and 80% miracle. When things went wrong, Garroway turned to his closeup camera--while technicians scrambled--to explain how impossible it was to do such a show in the 1950s.

Like much in life, the long-ago show lives in memory as a childhood miracle, flickering images that beget videotape, satellites, high def.

At the end of each Wide Wide World, Garroway would recite the following benediction:

"The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide...
Above the earth is stretched the sky,
No higher than the heart is high."

He'd hold up two fingers and add: "Peace."

I think of the verse ever time I go kayaking....