Neil Crone - Enter Laughing

Which floor do you 'get off' on?

You can't write stuff this good. Farhood Azarsina a 25 year old Iranian studying at St. John's Memorial University in Newfoundland has been sentenced to two months in jail for kissing a woman, 20, on her breast when the two shared an elevator. Now, I've been to Newfoundland several times. The people there are the friendliest on the planet. They'll give you the shirts off their backs. But, and I may be wrong, I think even Newfies draw the line at kissing boobs in elevators.
What is truly funny, in a darkly, medievally ignorant way, is that this guy's only defence was that he '...did not realize the seriousness of the offence in this country'. Love that. Because, as anyone knows, kissing strangers on the breast, in Iran, is almost a national pastime. This goof should be thanking his lucky stars he pulled this stunt on the Rock and not back home. If that were the case he wouldn't just be looking at two months in jail...he'd be looking for his own head.

Hard to hang onto the good stuff...

Woke up to two separate slaps in the face this morning before I could get the damned radio turned off. A friend, Michelle Hempen, lovely lady and mother of two had been killed in an auto accident with a drunk. Nice. Then the news of 4 very lovely girls, I'm sure, swarming another girl at my son's high school. One of them from my little town. Well, I guess we're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. I am positive that somewhere today some very wonderful things are happening. Courage and compassion and kindness and beauty are reigning...somewhere. Man it's hard to hang onto that sometimes. Don't waste this day folks. Love somebody, hug somebody, do something you love to do.
Peace.

Where are the Fathers?

I was reading, with some sadness, about the death of 22 year old Shawn McLean, the young man gunned down in front of a church and left to die, bleeding on the frigid sidewalk. No one knows for sure, at this point, why he was targeted. Theories abound revolving around his wearing a red Hoodie or sweater. The wrong gang color in the wrong neighborhood.
This is horrible and sad and frustrating and oh so very unnecessary. But there is something else here, besides the needless death of a quiet young man, that I find alarming and terribly distressing. Something that doesn't seem to be getting any press at all. I am seeing more and more, almost exclusively, in the cases of young black men in the news the complete absence of a father. The mother or the grandmother is quoted or the aunt or in the case of Shawn McLean, the uncle. Where are the fathers of these young men? This may just be a white guy talking through his hat, but help me out here folks? I read what I read, I hear what I hear. Am I wrong or is there a different kind of epidemic that needs addressing? I don't think it's any great mystery that young men need role models. They need fathers in the picture. Somebody either please correct me on this situation or fill me in. Where are these boys fathers?

12 Angry Men

I'm the first one to admit that when theatre is bad, it's really bad. In fact, there's not much worse. But when it's good it's life altering. Do yourself a favour and get down to the Princess of Wales theatre while you can and catch the production of '12 Angry Men'. It's terrific. We took my folks and our children down on Saturday and were blown away. An hour and forty minutes, with no intermission, that fly by. You are so completely engrossed in the 12 characters on stage that you completely forget where you are. This play, which was also produced as an incredible motion picture, starring the inimitable Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, is so superbly written and so completely relevant that it's message has just as much punch today...if not more, than when it was first produced some fifty years ago. That's what art is all about.

The idiot in my head...

Boy, somebody must've really pissed off the Traffic Gods this week. I don't think I've ever heard so many dire rush-hour commentaries. I just thank my lucky stars I was unemployed most of the week and didn't have to travel in. I didn't completely escape the bad 'car-ma' though. I had a 10:30 appointment this morning in Toronto. I left just before 9, giving myself plenty of time for what is normally an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half trip, max. I knew I was in trouble though, even before getting onto the 404 at Davis. I saw something I've never seen before in my fifteen years of commuting...southbound 404 traffic backed-up north of Davis. Yikes. I should've bailed right then and there, but it was too late. The vortex of anger and frustration had already grabbed my car and was sucking it down the ramp. The trouble, I soon divined was three snow plows stretched right across all three lanes of traffic, plowing along at 40 klicks. We rode that way all the way to highway 7.
I don't blame the plow guys. They were doing what we pay them to do, what we need them to do. I don't blame anybody really. As the saying goes 'Shit happens'. The trick, I've learned, is not to let it destroy your day. If you let something like that get under your skin, I guarantee the rest of the day you'll be putting out fires. And it's hard. That berserk idiot in our brains loves to scream 'panic' when stuff like this occurs. He'd love for us to get bent completely out of shape. He shows you a picture of the rest of your day getting worse and worse all because of what is happening right now. But you can't listen to him. You have to simply stay in the 'now' and find something, anything to keep you chilled and in love with where you are...every freaking, crawling at 10 kilometers an hour minute of it.
I made a phone call, told them I would be a while, slipped my ipod on and listened to a good book. From then on the day went marvelously.

Heath Ledger

Yikes...better put your hard hat on. Celebrities are dropping like flies. Poor Heath Ledger. I liked this guy. Certainly liked his work anyway. Anybody who had the balls to tell the Brokeback story with that kind of frankness and beauty. Don't know what it is that makes life at that level of celebrity so painful. I've had very rare glimpses into it. Personally, my first trip to Los Angeles was enough to make me very much in love with my little life and my little family and my little town. It must take stronger souls than mine to withstand life in that particular fastlane, and remain not only centred, but sane. I've met a lot of celebs, worked with quite a few and know hundreds of 'would love to be's'. I can count on one hand the number who I thought were genuinely happy people. I don't think there's any great secret to the fact that when you chase fame for fames sake, it's a fairly pyrrhic victory. I'm not saying that's what's behind Heath Ledger's pain. I just think, at the rarified heights of Beverly Hills, the air is not only smoggy, but poisonous.

Barnum was right.

I saw this today, no kidding...more proof that P.T. Barnum was right on the money, one is born every minute. In Zehrs, my wife and I saw a display for a treadmill for toddlers. Not only that but one of those 'air walkers' like you see in gyms where your feet swing back and forth on gliders. For little kids. Not infants or even kids who are just learning to walk, but kids. Kids who run and jump and skip and play all by themselves very well and get all kinds of wonderful exercise thank you without the need of apparatus. What kind of dope would buy this stuff? For starters most kids that I know are way too smart to waste any amount of precious play time on something as mind-numbingly boring as a treadmill. This is marketing gone mad. Leave the kids alone. Give them the cardboard box the damned things come in, but throw the goofy gear out the window.

And Emily makes three...

So long Suzanne Pleshette...and thanks. What a wonderful voice. Maybe one of the sexiest on the screen, big or little. No wonder Bob Newhart was such a happy guy all those years. Weird that she won only one Emmy in her career. For a role on Dr. Kildare, of all things. Personally I loved her best in that weird role of the quasi-lesbian teacher in Hitchcock's The Birds. Which, if you haven't watched is still infinitely watchable and creepy. Plus, did I mention the quasi-lesbian thing? So, along with Don Whitman and Bobbie Fischer this rounds out the rule of 3 celebs punching the clock in one group. Hmmm...I wonder if she would've preferred a little more glamorous company? Don, okay..but Bobbie?

Booby Fischer

Bobby Fischer, Chess phenom, dies at 64 in Iceland. An amazing mind, but would anybody want to trade places with him? Not me. Fischer, for all of his genius, and perhaps because of it, was as troubled as they come. Able to see every conceivable move on a chess board but blind to human relationships and socially hamstrung. Something particularly fitting about him spending his last days in a land as cold and dark as Iceland. Sad though, very sad. He was really losing it. Had been ranting anti-semitic and anti U.S garbage for years. He actually cheered on 9/11. That, in my mind was when he officially crossed over from Bobby to Booby Fischer. Like I say, he certainly had more than his fifteen minutes, for a while there he was the Chess world and everything in it. But he paid a heavy, heavy price. Who knows, maybe he's going one on one with God right now over a huge pearl and black board. That'd be a match worth watching.

My breakfast with Jimmy

Occasionally I have an audition or recording session scheduled for 9 am. As a commuter who regularly logs over 100 km into the city, one way, this is the worst possible timing for me. To plan on arriving at 9 I must schedule in at least two, probably more hours in morning gridlock. I realized, some time ago, that a much more preferable option is to actually get up a little earlier and head into the city at 6 am. Leaving that much earlier means I miss the worst of the morning crush, save myself a whack of commuter frustration and get to have lunch with my Greek guys. Everybody should eat with a Greek guy or two now and then. I imagine you could get the same effect out of a Portugese guy or Mexican guy or really, any guy who runs a greasy spoon diner. My guy happens to be Greek. One breakfast of eggs, sausage and hash with 'Jimmy' every now and then is all I need to realign my perspective on things. 'Jimmy' or 'Djimmy' as he pronounces it, can talk virtually non-stop on anything from crime to pollution to kids today. All I have to do is throw a little ouzo on the flames with a casual 'So, Jim, d'you read about this latest shooting?' or 'Wow. Jimmy, what's with those Leafs?' And away we go. I sit back and enjoy breakfast and get the working man's viewpoint. He's spectacular and he never fails to delight. I couldn't take a steady diet of Jimmy, but now and again it's nice. Besides, his opinion never really changes. The Leafs still blow, kids are still lazy and crime is still outta control...no matter when I visit. But his delivery gets better and better and his breakfast is still the best deal in town under ten bucks.

The Big Sleep

I watched Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in 'The Big Sleep' tonight. Man they sure don't make 'em like that anymore. Those scripts must've been two feet thick there was so much dialogue per square inch. Really great dialogue too. Not anywhere close to the way real people talk, but then again, when I watch a movie I don't always want 'in your face' reality. I want to go somewhere else sometimes. Some place where they say stuff like:
'You know what'll happen to me if Canino finds out, baby? He'll slap my teeth out then kick me in the guts for mumbling'.
Now that's dialogue. That's what you get when you take Raymond Chandler and add a dash of William Faulkner. One of the other many wonderful things about those old movies is that they almost always had a perfect, cheesey line to end on. They didn't have CGI or the technology for huge car chases or pyrotechnics, so they had to rely on the word. The Big Sleep doesn't disappoint. Bogie, after saving the day, turns to Bacall and says: "What about you baby? What's wrong with you?" to which she then looks at him and says, 'Nothing you can't fix." And we're out. Love every frame of it.

Age of Wisdom

I got two really great Christmas presents this year. Riding lessons and Spanish lessons. Don't bother looking for a rhyme or reason in there. I'm not training for the day Spaghetti westerns make a comeback. Nor am I planning on conquering the new world. I just wanted to make sure I'm stretching. It's been a long time since I tried to learn something new. I haven't started the horsey lessons yet but I can tell you that a scant thirty minutes at the computer working over my Dondes and estas and my frontal lobe is totally winded. But that's good. It's really good. I can feel parts of my brain, long sluggish and cobwebby, suddenly sparking and firing again. It's bueno. Muy bueno. It's difficult, but I am bound and determined that my life not shape itself like a pyramid, narrowing as I age. I think it's a very natural thing, something that we've most of us forgotten, that it really should be the other way around. Our worlds should expand and expand and expand as we age. Isn't that wisdom?

Send some healing.

I keep thinkiing about that horrific crash in Bathurst, New Brunswick that killed seven members of a Highschool basketball team and the coaches wife. You can just imagine how that kind of tragedy is reverberating through a community of just over 12000 people. Reminds me, darkly, of Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter. Man, what does that much heartache do to the cosmos? Where is all that sadness going? I heard a quick soundbyte today from the captain of the basketball team, who, miraculously was spared making the trip, by an illness. What do you think is running through his head now? Pain, guilt, immense relief? I hope they've got some decent shrinks in Bathurst and a whack of good clergy wouldn't hurt either. If you've got a minute or two sometime tonight, you might want to just get quiet and send those folks some healing.

Sayyyyy...anybody ever tell you, you look a lot like your wife?

Hey, did you hear the one about the twins who were separated at birth then grew up to get married to one another? Great opening line,unfortunately it's not a joke. A very sad one actually. A pair of twins, in London England actually met, years after being separated at birth, fell in love and were married. It's unclear how they eventually discovered they were twins...I suspect it may have happened sometime around when they were naked, but that's just guessing. But, aside from being just weird, this is truly sad. These are human beings we're talking about and they apparently loved one another enough to want to wed. They must be in rough shape at this point. There's a whole slew of emotions, I am sure, that are flooding through their heads and hearts; sorrow, heartbreak, confusion and perhaps a large dollop of 'Eeeewwwwww'.

Black Hole in Sunderland

I must live within proximity of a black hole or some other entity that affects the time space continuum. It seems no matter what time I get my kids up in the morning they are always, always, always out the door just in the knick. We could keep them from going to bed at all, in fact keep them dressed in their outdoor gear, backpacks full, lunches prepped, standing at the back door, and they would still almost miss the bell. I need to call Stephen Hawking. I think he'd be intrigued by what's going on here. Although I'm sure he too would be at a loss to explain it. I think part of the problem is my kids are shower lovers. They're in there forever. Granted they are teenage boys, I remember what that's all about. But even THAT doesn't take that long. No, this has to do with physics.

Re-taining

My youngest is at the orthodontist again today. He's been sporting braces as well as a retainer for the last year or so. Sometimes I really wonder about these guys. If they even get a whiff of a dental plan, it's gloves off time. You'd swear your kid was going to end up a drooling cretin unless they get some metal on those teeth and pronto. And what are you going to do? They know they've got you by the short and curlies...it's your kid for crying out loud. If it were just me I could tell them where to get off. I'm already a drooling cretin half the time. But when it's your kid?
Anyway, he is having to have a replacement retainer moulded. Why, I can hear you asking? Because he threw up the other day and then promptly flushed his stomach contents plus one recently ejected retainer down the dumper. Did we laugh? Oh I should say.

Why I write.

I had one of those 'bliss' days today. Days when you are engaged, fully engaged in something you love to do and time seems to disappear. I was writing. Writing a short story actually. I began at just around 8:30 in the morning not knowing what I was going to write about or what kind of a story I was going to tell, but then, as it always does, it just started to come. In a blink it was 3 o'clock and the boys were noisily arriving home from school. My writing day effectively ends at 3 anyway, as it is difficult to focus when someone is practicing the tuba or drums or bass guitar. Plus I like to see them when they get home, talk to them. But that day, from 8:30 to 3 flew by in the blink of an eye. Time stood still and I was somewhere else. I was in my story. I can't tell you how good that feels. I think that is why I write. It's like canoeing on a glassy lake or sitting in a stock still forest...when you are completely absorbed in something you love, you are as close to God as you can get.

The King of the Beasts and a Queen

I had some buddies send me a YouTube video today of a bunch of South African morons hunting a lion. It was supposed to be a funny video in that these idiots shoot at the Lion and he charges, knocking down one of the hunters and showing him for the absolute coward that he is. But I didn't find it in the least funny. I found it heart wrenchingly sad and even beautiful. Not the hunting part. There's nothing remotely sad or beautiful in watching a South African soil his Tilley's. But the courage of that Lion was unbelievable. Charging headlong into four or five rifles shooting at him. In fact, at the end of the video they re-show the Lion's charge and leap in slow motion and I was almost brought to tears by it. How could anyone kill something that noble? Man I sure hope evolution hasn't stopped.

Who says 6 inches is a lot to deal with?

Man, I guess the skiing will be nice at Tahoe this weekend. If you could get a flight. The storm systems battering northern California currently are predicted to dump anywhere from 5 to 10 feet...that's right, feet...of snow in the mountains. That's actually a little hard to feature isn't it? Especially when we measure really bad snow storms out here in inches. Wow. The kids must be bummed though. Nothing like a snowday on a weekend. And what do we have to look forward to out here? Oh, how about a balmy 12 degrees this week. Lovely. I can already hear the outdoor rinks gurgling. Ah well, there's always February, I can always count on February...can't I?

National Phone Treasure

My son and I just got back from a matinee showing of Nick Cage's new National Treasure movie. We had a ball. Nothing too taxing, but a good romp through tunnels, caves, booby-traps and bad guys. Two things stuck in my craw though. Number one was his hair. I've never seen a more unnatural dye job. It looked like he had a squirrel on his head. Nick...people get older, gray hair is not freakish. Roll with it dude. Secondly, a thought occurred to me midway through this flick...how in the world did we ever make thrillers before the invention of the cell phone. Cell phones do everything in movies these days. Need to track the goodguy? Bug his cell. Need to copy the info he has? Clone his cell. Need to get a photo of something important, use your cell. Need to make a cell phone call? Phones and computers everywhere. Still a fun movie and one you can take your kids to. Finally, I laughed out loud when I saw the great Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood doing a turn as the President of the US. I'd just finished a mini series with Bruce a month or so ago where he was playing the Prime Minister of Canada. The guy gets around.

Community is everything

You can't beat good neighbors. People who really know what community is about, and how it all works. We help each other, we don't keep score and everybody's lives end up better for it. I put a shinny rink in up here every year, right beside the arena. I do it for a whole whack of reasons, but mostly because it's just fun. This year I got clobbered by earlier than usual December snowstorms and the concrete pad that I normally put the boards and nets on is covered by a thick layer of snow and ice. Too much for one 47 year old guy, however remarkably fit and dynamic he may be, to clear. I called the township offices and the works department hoping to beg the favor of a plow to clear it off and, while they were not exactly saying no, I got the distinct impression I wasn't exactly job one. Then, out of the blue, a farmer neighbor, a good joe, a guy who routinely comes and plows out my driveway, came to plow out said driveway. He got talking with my wife and she explained about the Shinny rink snow issue. That was all he needed to hear. Thirty minutes later, the rink was cleared. That's community. This wonderful guy will never accept any kind of gift from us for clearing our drive. He says that what we do by putting the shinny rink together is more than compensation enough. And again...that's community. That's how it works.