Neil Crone - Enter Laughing

Chase your frisbees.

I just came in from a couple of my favourite things; splitting firewood and playing with my dog ( and no, the latter is not a sexual metaphor).  It's a spectacular morning.  2008 is going out in style.  You just don't get mornings like this at any point in the rest of the year.  Sunny winter mornings are like nothing else.  And man do you know you're alive when you feel that sun and you inhale that biting cold, fresh air.  And it's quiet.  All I could hear was the bite of the axe into the wood.  To feel your body, to feel your muscles working, your lungs filling with clean fresh crisp air...to be alive...all good, all wonderful.  Maudlin?  Maybe. Simple?  Certainly.  But I'll take maudlin and simple over bored and fancy any time.  I take a lot of my life lessons from that aforementioned dog.  When he's running and chasing his frisbee...nothing else matters.  Chase your frisbees folks.

Tom Hitlers one out of the park.

Just got in from a visit to the cinema to check out Tom Cruises latest offering 'Valkyrie'.  Excellent, two Heil Hitlers and a thumbs up.  Of course, I'm a sucker for anything with Nazi's in it...even good Nazi's.  Although, to be fair, the good guys aren't Nazi's in this film.  And it may come as a surprise to a lot of people that there were a good many people in Germany at that time, especially in the military, who despised what Hitler and the Nazi's stood for and were doing.  It's a nice bit of film making and one more time I've really liked Tom Cruise.  The guy may be nutty as a fruitcake in his personal life, but he takes his work seriously.  I've never seen a Cruise picture I didn't like.  Part of the magic of this one too, I think, is that we know how it has to end.  We know Hitler survived the 15 different assassination attempts but they still, even given that, make the ride very suspenseful.  It's paced beautifully too.  The time in the theatre flies by.

Dean & Me ...

My wife gave me a copy of Jerry Lewis's book 'Dean & Me - A love story' for Christmas.  I started it yesterday afternoon and I just finished it now.  Couldn't put it down. This one really struck a chord with me.  I've been an unabashed fan and stealer of Jerry Lewis's bits for all of my career.  He was a huge influence on me growing up in the sixties and seventies.  I still love his old films.  His stuff with Dean Martin was unbelievable.  No one had ever done that kind of thing on stage before. Had that much fun. This book was huge for me because in my own small way I get what he is talking about completely.  I've felt that special kind of fun with my own improv partner Kevin Frank.  I know how much you get to love someone that you work with and spend that much time with on stage, on tour and in hotels.  It really is a love story. The book is also a wonderful peek into a bygone era of entertainment.  Back when the clubs were all owned by mob guys and the biz was a lot smaller.  Loved it.

Blessings up the Ying-Yang

T'is the night before Christmas.  I'm sitting by the woodstove, the dog is curled on the couch beside me.  I have a rum and eggnog perched within reach.  My children are home and safe with us.  My wife still loves me.  We have a roof over our heads and cookies in the cupboard.  Life is good.  Life is very, very good.  Wishing you all loads of the same and blessings up the ying-yang.  Trust me, blessings don't hurt up the ying-yang.  Merry Christmas one and all.

The low, low price of liberty...

Did you read about the Easton, Pennsylvania couple who were up in arms because the bakery in their local grocery chain refused to decorate their child's birthday cake with the child's name?  Can you imagine the nerve of this store?  Apparently the parents, desperate to make their tots birthday a special one, tried a number of different bakeries, all of which refused, until finally they met their saviour in Wal-Mart.  The good folks at Wal-Mart had no qualms whatsoever in putting together a beautiful cake with little Adolph Hitler Campbell's name right there on top. I believe they even acquiesced to the Swastika as well. I mean really, who wants a boring old rose bud or happy face when you can have a swastika? Boy, you just can't get that kind of service anymore.  At least the happy family will know where to go when it's time for their other child (JoyceLynne Aryan Nation Campbell...believe me, I'm not making this s**t up) to celebrate her birthday in the true Campbell fashion. I wonder if they make Jack boots in a size 4 female?
Two things resonate with me in this story .  One, we have not, as much as we might like to think so, evolved all that much in the years since the holocaust.  This was not Germany or Libya or the middle east...this was Aw Shucks, small town USA.  And two, we must remember the words of Wendell Phillips "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".  Shame on Wal-mart for their lack of vigilance in pursuit of profit. One more reason to avoid the place like the plague.

The Solstice is upon us.

The winter solstice.  The shortest, darkest day of the year.  Thank God Christmas and not Remembrance Day is only a few days away.  Can you imagine heading into Remembrance Day in the midst of this dismal half-light?  Yikes.  But take heart. From here on in it gets brighter and brighter.  Every day, by only seconds or minutes, is creeping back to glorious light filled spring and summer.  Still, there are wonderful gifts to be had even in these dark days.  Our homes feel just that much cozier this time of the year.  Hot chocolate, eggnog and single malt taste better at this time of the year than at any other.  And a walk in the snow muffled stillness of a winters night is still one of the best things I know of. Hang in there and hang onto friends. There are always gifts.

Bad Santa stumbles again...

Had another hilarious morning with Derringer and the gang at Q107 today.  Reprised my 'Bad Santa' character. That's me with the wickedly funny Mo Holloway above.  Love this show and John D. for giving me the opportunity to play this kind of a character.  I never get a chance to be this wonderfully coarse anywhere else.  It's almost therapeutic.  Almost... If you're interested in hearing the bit you can check it out here in  Derringer in the Morning's Clips.  Thanks for listening.

Welcome to the millenium.

Boy times have changed.  I found myself making cappuccino's for my two sons at breakfast this morning.  I didn't mind, mind you.  I've always counted the opportunity to have breakfast with my kids as one of the blessings of a life as an unemployed actor.  My Dad was inevitably up and gone even before we were out of the rack when I was a kid.  The only evidence that Dad had even eaten breakfast was a plate with some egg yolk smears and toast crumbs on it.  Even on weekends my Dad was up and going before most of us.  And I don't think 'Cappuccino' for the kids even crossed his mind.  This was Scarborough in the 70's too.  I don't think too many of us even knew what a cappuccino was.  Sounded awfully foreign.  No, we wouldn't find out about that kind of stuff until channel 47 hit the air. 
Still, it was nice to be able to do this for my kids.  My seventeen year-old, in particular, made quite an eclectic picture as he sat there in his newly shaven Mohawk, sipping a cappuccino.  Welcome to the millennium.

Approaching Ape!

Okay, I have passed boredom and am now officially beginning to go 'ape'.  This bum leg thing has had me pretty much housebound for the past two weeks.  To fully appreciate my pain and frustration you have to first understand that I am a man.  Like most men I am more than happy to allot a good two or three days of convalescence to most injuries. It has been proven scientifically, I believe, that two or three days is the boredom threshold for most men.  During this time we will happily play video games, eat, watch television read and scratch ourselves.  After three days however we don't know what to do with ourselves and we have run completely out of patience for whatever has laid us up.  I am now at day 11.  I am beginning to eye the vast quantities of prescription painkillers that I so malefully eschewed in those first three days.  A little constipation would be a small price to pay for some mental distraction right about now. Of course, the way I've been moping about the house like a bored seven year old, my wife may well beat me to them.

Something rotten in Afghanistan

Bach Bazi.  Not a classical music piece. Not an odd Yuletide greeting.  Not even a Pop star from the Ukraine.  It means 'Boy Play' in Afghani parlance. It means sodomy, it means sexual slavery and it's been going on for millenia. The fact that they actually have a name for it tells you how endemic the problem is. Warlords and members of the Mujahadeen apparently very big on it. Big surprise there. Something to do when they're not reading Proust or Emerson. Nobody over here really knew how big a problem this was until Canadian soldiers, good kids from good families in good prairie towns starting bumping up against this, sometimes right within their own bases. Afghani interpreters and militia engaging  in this God awful practice very often within spirit-crushing earshot of our soldiers.  Apparently our guys have reported it to their superiors and to their chaplains but very little, it seems, is being done.  No one wanting to rock the pedophiliac boat.  Upset the allies. Good lord.  We have men and women dying over there to protect people who are taking part in this?  I'm no arab or islamic scholar, I think that's obvious, but there are some real, fundamental problems with a society that claims to respect women by covering them up and turning them into chattel and then making young boys dressed as women into the objects of their repressed sexual ardour.  It's not rocket science.