HiR:tb Toots (@warwalker)
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By junior on August 31, 2008, at 10:57 pm …the First Annual Founder’s Day Celebration and National Holiday, including Festivals of Sport and Competition (a la Jacques Rogge) “a most remarkable success.”
Details to follow, but the winner of the inaugural Juniorvanian Open Championship of Par 3 Golf – with a score of 34 (+7) – is my father in law Harold. The rest of the family, despite a truly egregious amount of cheating, was unable to approach that level of athletic prowess, and our little Nation has its first sporting hero. In the evening, following the conclusion of the Feats portion of our program, all of the athletes participated in a most satisfying exhibition of carnivorous and diabetic excess, with the result that some of our younger competitors were perhaps dietarily prevented from retiring for the evening in the usual and expected fashion.
Spouse and I did not share the same difficulty following the conclusion of yesterday’s festivities. Whereas the little ones, propelled by sugary fuel and the momentum of excitement, struggled to fire their retro rockets and slowly fall out of high orbit to a gentle splashdown in a cozy bed, Spouse and I instead smashed through the atmosphere on an astonishingly aggressive and direct trajectory towards Earth. With a fiery trail marking our smoking path, we hurtled Skylab-esque into an exhausted, but very satisfied, pile of coma in our little tent on the front lawn.
Thanks to all of the athletes and participants, it was truly a Founders’ Day to remember.
By junior on August 29, 2008, at 9:21 am From email correspondence with my friend Todd:
| Todd: |
On an unrelated note, I was reading the messianic praise of Obama’s speech, and in the article in The Star was a quote from Reagan in the 80’s. He described the Afghans battling the Russian invaders as “freedom fighters”. It confused me. I thought that the term for people of a sovereign nation that attempt to oust or otherwise resist their country’s invasion by a non UN sanctioned aggressor nation was “insurgent” or “terrorist”.Would you help this poor, uneducated slob and show me the errors of my ways? |
| Me: |
DOES NOT COMPUTE
DOES NOT COMPUTE
DOES NOT COMPUTE
DOES NOT COMPUTE
DOES NOT COMPUTE
This is an automatic message from the Internet. Your email of: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:30:30 -0400 to junior@heroesinrehab.ca could not be transmitted because it contained a logical proposition purporting to demonstrate the moral illegitimacy of certain military actions of the United States of America. Pursuant to the Patriot Act and the Freedom of the Internet Act, this is completely and utterly illegal and really quite cheeky of you to even attempt. We’re the United States of America. We still control everything, including teh Intarwebs, and if you don’t like it, we’ve got two words for you, my friend: Dick Fucking Cheney. Bum ticker and all, that guy is our enforcer and he’s still roaming around “randomly” shooting people in the face. How’d you like to be next? I didn’t think so. Well, give your head a shake the next time you want to think about going and sending a message like that.
Suggested alternative content: “God Bless America.”
Thank you. |
| Todd: |
OMG!!!There must be a hacker in my system. I agree that America is the bestest country that ever was, is or ever will be. Their President is even more infallible than the Pope. He’s not just infallible. He’s infallibler.
As to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Cuddles to his friends, why, I would never like to come face to shotgun with him. unless he wanted me to, that is. Then for sure, I’m up for some “peppering”. I am, after all, also a lawyer, albeit somewhat less aged.
I also agree that they should leave their troops in Iraq for as long as it takes to break the fighting spirit of those Middle East people. It’s been done in the past, and it can be done again. It’s been done before, right? Didn’t the Soviets manage to….wait. Never mind. |
With love to the elephant sleeping next door, from your (sometimes slightly sanctimonious) friends, the mice.
By junior on August 28, 2008, at 10:51 pm Busy, busy, busy like a bee this week. It has been a heavy week at work for both Spouse and I, and we are starting to go into maximum-overdrive-on-the-border-of-but-not-quite-panicking (because that’s not productive) mode about the charity event we’re organizing. We are members of the committee charged with putting together the silent auction/kick-off party for this year’s fundraising campaign.
I play in a band with a group of fellows that I know through work; every year we take the stage and play some music at this event. I have played enough live shows to be generally comfortable with the idea of standing in front of my microphone and opening my mouth to see what comes out, but as this particular event occurs in front of an audience of my peers, many of whom I am certain are there only to see for themselves that I remain capable of making a fool of myself while pursuing both vocation and avocation, it is a little bit more intimidating than the garden variety gig. Despite the best of intentions – hearty agreement among band members when meeting one another on the street throughout May and June that rehearsals ought to begin imminently – the reality is somewhat abstracted from that diligent ideal. Thus, in contrast to our aggressively discussed and much endorsed plan of action, the actual truth about our active preparations is that, as always, they are rather last-minute in nature. Our first rehearsal was last week. I would prefer not to comment on the quality of the musical performances involved in that evening, particularly where the lead vocals and rhythm guitar is concerned. Suffice to say that neighbourhood cats and dogs can be cruel critics.
The success in general of our noisificating and melodization during tonight’s rehearsal was best described by our lead guitarist, who observed following one particular song: “That wasn’t anywhere near as appalling as I thought it was going to be.”
Our drummer is a gear-head, and he’s got a Disneyland-type setup in his basement; it’s a home studio with some really nice equipment, including one of these. Junior likes.
With all that technology so close at hand, though, it was impossible for us to resist the temptation to mike the instruments up and run the whole she-bang through various wires, plugs and gizmos in to Cubase, where our rehearsal was then digitally recorded for posterity. One thing I have to say about that is that the microphone is a harsh mistress; she is unforgiving, callous and stubborn. Make a mistake with her and you will never hear the end of it. For me, it’s been so long since I played with any regularity that my old nemesis – playing and singing at the same time – is coming back to haunt me. Having to concentrate on what I’m doing with my fingers means I can’t devote sufficient attention in the thinking-centre portion of my coconut to recall the proper lyrics* with sufficient alacrity and then propel them through my lips with some sense of a melody that is related to the musical context. My initial plan for performance night is to claim, loudly and often, that I am conducting experiments in contrapuntal atonality and dissonance, and to warn listeners therefore not to be alarmed by what they hear. If this does not work, I will fake a leg injury and flee the building.
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* at one point during tonight’s performance of “Folsom Prison Blues”, my version of the lyrics had the rich folk on the “fancy dinin’ car” behaving rather oddly; according to me, they were “smoking coffee and drinkin’ fat cigars”. Let’s you and me fire up a mocha while sipping Cojibas some day…
By junior on August 26, 2008, at 10:39 pm It’s been a busy few days; Spouse and I are readying the Nation for the First Annual Founder’s Day Celebration and National Holiday, including Festivals of Sport and Competition and particularly the Juniorvanian Open Championship of Par 3 Golf, which takes place this weekend. We are expecting the whole family to gather to partake in fun and games. We are also both busy at work, and – to boot – we’ve been busting our butts trying to get this charity event that we’re involved in all set to go. Time is running short, our silent auction night is September 18th. I’ve been busy coding a website/blog for the event, and Spouse has been burning up the phones trying to gather auction items and other donations for the charity.
We were actually on the way to one donor’s business premises this evening, to pick up a generous gift for the charity, when the subject of what was planned or wanted for dinner came up – hurriedly, and in between our discussion of all of these other matters. I asked if Spouse had anything in particular in mind to eat, and she said, “No, maybe we can just pick something up that’s on the road.”
I looked at her and assured her that I was not interested in dining on roadkill raccoon this evening; I would much prefer Italian.
By junior on August 24, 2008, at 11:18 pm Sunday was largely dedicated to some heavy slogging in Mission Control. The electronic nerve centre of Juniorvania has a sleek new look and – it is hoped – the technical capacity to produce some music. Now if we could only manage to reduce the temperatures therein to something less than “white hot blazing heat of a thousand suns”, we might have something here.
Note the flying flat screen mounted on a bracket on the left hand side of the desk. Very fancy. Careful observers will also notice the autographed photograph (or is that photographed autograph?) of Wendel Clark, displayed in a position of prominence and power, as is only correct.
By junior on August 23, 2008, at 5:43 pm One more day of Olympic fun, and then it’s a long wait until Vancouver.
I have to admit that Spouse and I have been complete summer games junkies over the last few days. We have been camping out at night on the fold-out sofa bed in the living room so that we can fall asleep in front of Bulgaria vs. Hungary in handball. I admit this is slightly odd.
It seems to me that Canada could not have picked a better athlete to carry our flag in the opening ceremonies than Adam van Koeverden. Scratch that, Canada could not have designed a better athlete to represent our country. The guy was a big favourite in the K1 500 and a medal hopeful in the K1 1000. For whatever reason (and van Koeverden, to his credit, has no truck with those who believe in the alleged “curse of the flagbearer”), he came out flat in the final of the K1 500 and finished eighth out of nine boats. He gets out of the boat, looks in to the camera and apologizes. He then rests for a day and comes back for the K1 1000 final, in which he goes out strong and leads all the way – until he is passed in the final 75 meters by a guy from Australia, relegating him to the silver medal position. In an interview with CBC’s Diana Swain broadcast here in the Eastern time zone this morning, van Koeverden says he is in no way disappointed, is honoured to have won a silver medal, and takes time out to voice his respect for the Australian athlete who nipped him at the wire. He also manages, in the course of about a five-minute interview, to point out the increase in collegiality among athletes at these games, where even sprinters (who customarily stare each other down as if they were rival gang members) are high-fiving each other and congratulating one another and observes (without sounding cranky or piqued about it) that athletes in the summer games sports who are not named Kobe Bryant or Yao Ming would appreciate it if people would pay just a little attention to their sports in non-Olympic years. This guy has more class in his little finger than most folks will ever see. I am so fiercely proud that my country produces athletes like this guy; I wish we could bottle what he has and inject it into the bloodstream of each and every player on my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs.
By junior on August 19, 2008, at 8:57 pm I wrote a little bit the other day about Canadian show-jumping phenomenon Eric Lamaze. Here is a great article about Lamaze from the Toronto Star; I don’t know how long it will remain online, but it gives some pretty good insight into the type of beginnings from which he arose.
By junior on August 19, 2008, at 8:11 pm I don’t like to tell tales out of school, but (hypothetically) someone I know – someone whose nickname on this site rhymes with “mouse” – has a bit of a problem with the Olympics. The Olympics cause this person to become a complete puddle of tears. Hypothetically, you could put a nine year old child in the centre of a stadium, singing (or lip-synching) a song in a language that this person cannot even understand; if you tell this person that the little girl is singing about the Olympics, the waterworks begin. Being the kind, caring and supportive type of person I am, I tend to let this type of behaviour pass without comment. It would be wrong for me to make fun of such this person’s charming and endearing little trait, right?
…or something like that. Anyway, karma is a bit of a beeyatch sometimes.
So there Spouse and I are, watching the CBC’s evening roundup of yesterday’s Olympic performances as we were preparing our dinner. and the men’s +105kg weightlifting class comes on the tube. I can count on zero fingers the number of times that Spouse and I have sat and watched a weightlifting competition together, but there we were watching the big fellas snatch, clean, and jerk. The announcers tell us that Germany’s Matthias Steiner has had a difficult time leading up to the Olympics, losing his wife Susann in a car crash a year ago. The announcers mentioned that he promised his dead wife that he would become a German (he was born an Austrian) and that he would become an Olympic champion for her.
Steiner battles it out with the other big men, misses an early lift in excruciating fashion, and appears to have lost the competition in this way. On his final lift, though, he plays out – in real life – the script of every inspirational sports movie, calling for an additional 10 kg to be placed on the bar for his final attempt. He has never lifted this much before. He steps onto the stage, absolutely stalks the bar, glaring at it like a sworn enemy, then makes the final attempt of the competition. He manages a relatively fluid clean, then struggles mightily with the jerk and emits a tremendous, joyful roar as his lift is validated by the judges, he throws the great weight to the ground in triumph and commences an alternately exuberant and despairing celebration. At first, Spouse and I laugh with joy at seeing his exuberance.
CBC cuts to video of the podium ceremony, and Steiner is displaying a photograph of his wife, smiling and crying. Spouse and I are no longer laughing, it’s very quiet in the room.
I need to go to the bathroom for a moment – I think there’s something in my eye.
By junior on August 16, 2008, at 11:03 am Usain Bolt: the guy nearly stumbles coming out of the blocks (dragging his left toe on the first stride), shuts the engine off at about 80m (foregoing a full-power effort for the last 8 strides of what is for him a 42 stride race) and STILL shatters the world record and lays down a 9.69. I really, really hope that’s not chemically-assisted, because I want to like this guy a lot. On the CBC, Elliotte Friedman kept his impeccable record intact for “most consecutive interviews featuring at least one astonishingly stupid question”. He mentioned to Bolt that Michael Phelps has seven gold medals in swimming, then pointed out that Bolt still has the 200m and the 4×100 relay to go and asked whether he could “equal” Phelps. Bolt gave him a look, you know the one, the “are you really saying that?” look, then said “No, I don’t think I can equal that guy – he’s great.” Next up in Elliotte’s interviewing arsenal: “Usain, in a fight between an eagle and a dolphin, who would win?” and “Usain, who was smarter: Leonardo da Vinci or Charlie Babbit from the movie Rain Man?” It must have been tough for Elliotte to fit that one in to what was a relatively brief exchange, just a minute or so in duration, but – as always – Elliotte made the bold choice to forego asking the questions the viewer would like to have an answer for, such as “why did you let up in the last 20 meters”, instead choosing to concentrate on some nonsense about a guy from a different country who competed in a different event on a different day and in an entirely different physical medium. In fact, the fascination with Michael Phelps is becoming somewhat thematic with Mr. Friedman; last week he asked Canadian swimmer Brian Johns, who had swam a Canadian-record time to simply qualify for the 400 IM final what it was like to swim against Michael Phelps – that is to say that in the immediate aftermath of the crowning athletic achievement of this young man’s life, seconds after he has finished competing at the highest level he or anyone else could imagine after years of solitary hard work and lonely dedication to purpose, Friedman essentially took him aside, pointed at Phelps and said, “Canada wants to know: don’t you think THAT GUY is fast?” Keep it classy, Elliotte.
This morning, Spouse and I were watching a bit of the women’s trampoline competition. We were having the perhaps inevitable conversation about the legitimacy of this event as an Olympic sport, when one of the announcers observed of a particular competitor that she needed to “bounce back” from a disappointing performance. We descended into gales of laughter and pretty much didn’t hear another thing anyone on the TV said because we were too busy wheezing and gasping for air in between howls of laughter about trampolinists on the rebound, trampolinists failing to obey the law of gravity and simply shooting off into space, etc. Oh, sporting cliches: you give us so many hours of joy, and what do we give you in return?
Spouse and I are both excited about the upcoming equestrian show jumping competition. The first round of competition was yesterday morning – we watched bits and pieces of the round as we were dressing for work and later – when we had gotten to work – certain of the trips via CBC’s streaming feed on the Net. Canada’s Mac Cone and Eric Lamaze each laid down a perfect trip with no time faults – Lamaze and Hickstead, in particular, were absolutely blazing around the course finishing three seconds under the alloted time on a course where I would venture to guess more than half the competitors accrued at least one time penalty. Canada also benefitted from Jill Henselwood and Black Ice’s clean, but slightly slow round (1 fault) and Ian Millar and In Style’s 4 jumping fault trip. Captain Canada and In Style got a little unlucky on that one, when the horse’s trailing legs came down on the top of the far rail of the last oxer, rattling the rail out of the cups in circumstances where it might just as easily have stayed up. Canada stands tied in the team competition for second place with one penalty (the lowest individual score posted by a team member in each round is not counted), behind a U.S. team that managed to post a penalty-free score with strong performances from Laura Kraut, McLain Ward, and – as always – Beezie Madden and Authentic. Biggest surprise so far: poor performance of the German team, who posted twenty-two faults in all, and who were well back in the pack.
I don’t want to jinx it, but based on the way Eric Lamaze and Hickstead have been going all year, I will not be surprised if they end up battling for individual gold with Beezie Madden and Authentic in a jumpoff for the Olympic title. It would be a great story of personal triumph for Lamaze, who has twice previously been expelled from the Canadian team for drug-related reasons, and who comes from a disadvantaged socio-economic background and had to scratch and claw for everything he’s gotten in what can be a somewhat elitist sport, so going to places like the Asheville Recovery Center is one of the better solutions to face this problem. It is tough for me to root against Beezie, because she just seems so genuinely nice, but I have to confess there is a part of me that would like to see Lamaze put his Olympic issues behind him most emphatically with an individual gold. Spouse and I have been fortunate enough to see him ride Hickstead on a number of occasions, and – although I don’t pretend to know a lot about the sport – this partnership seems like one in which absolutely everything is going the right way at the right time.
By junior on August 12, 2008, at 9:12 pm I have been away from the blogging for a while. It matters not what lame excuse I might offer. According to WordPress’ little numbering system, this is post number 200, so maybe I just had a little mental block about the double century. Whatever.
The important point is that I have received a clear and unambiguous signal from my psyche and/or whatever Supernatural Overlord of the Universe you happen to believe in that it is important for me to blog. Specifically, I dreamed that Daryl Hall competed on, and won American Idol. I won’t bore you with all the weird and wacky dream logic details; suffice to say that, in my dream, there was this somewhat (ahem) more “mature-looking” dude with long blond hair and a gawdawful black trenchcoat* entered in American Idol. It was Daryl Hall. I knew it was Daryl Hall. It was obvious it was Daryl Hall. But nobody else seemed to notice that it was Daryl freakin’ Hall.
Now I need to be clear about something at this juncture. The old saw goes something like this: “there’s no accounting for taste.” I respect your right to have your own opinion about the degree to which certain forms of art successfully aspire towards the Platonic ideals of beauty. I accept that there is an element of individuality necessarily inherent in any artistic transaction; the viewer or listener brings his or her own baggage, understanding and preconceptions into the mix, necessarily imbuing the piece under consideration with a unique and highly specific meaning, leading to a potentially wide diversity of opinion concerning what is – and is not – “beautiful.” Thus, while you may, for example, quite firmly believe that Nickelback’s latest composition represents nothing less than the sound of angels exulting on earth, while I may quite reasonably believe that it is more representative, aurally, of a pack of mangy feral cats warring over garbage. Importantly, it is possible – according to the above-described paradigm – for us both to be “right.”
As a theorem, this highly inclusive, tolerant and respectful model is rather like the Newtownian system of physics: it satisfactorily describes and predicts the behaviour of the universe, but only within certain limitations. It breaks down entirely though, so far as I am concerned, with the likes of Daryl freakin’ Hall. Daryl Hall is where everything goes quantum. Limitations of space prevent me from elaborating herein upon the theory of art that is analogous to Einstein’s conception of the universe. Suffice to say that there is another such more comprehensive and complicated model, and suffice to say that this theory is able to much more objectively describe the reality of a given piece of art. Please understand, therefore, that the following statement is not just my opinion, it is an inescapable scientific conclusion: “Daryl Hall is to Philly Soul what Kenny G is to jazz.” You would be correct to conclude that I do not like the music of Daryl Hall; this is so not because my tastes differ – reasonably – from yours, but rather because it is an incontrovertible fact that Mr. Hall’s “music” is horrible shite. If you disagree with me on this point, there is simply no other way to put it: you are wrong.
Keeping these background contextual facts in mind, I am sure you can understand my dream-self’s consternation about the (apparently undetected) presence of Daryl Hall on American Idol. America wasn’t sending him home! Each week, he warbled some pap-crap blue-eyed soul abomination and – far from being pelted with the appropriate amount of vegetable material and broken glass – the American public was eating it up. Hall’s fans could be seen celebrating every such performance with Beatlesque sign-wavery and adulation. Week after week, they encouraged him to continue murdering the very notion of music by voting for him in droves. It was obvious to me that the public was deceived; they obviously didn’t recognize the blond contestant “Daryl” for what he was: a malevolent musical assassin with a proven record of musical crimes, bent on destroying joy and making Santa Claus cry with his execrable caterwauling. In my dream, I tried to warn the public: like any good Canadian, I wrote letters to the editor. I rented a billboard by the highway with a two-storey warning message. I made videos to be posted on YouTube, I went on network television and I even took out an ad in the newspaper trying to spread the word about the villainous Hall and his malevolent musical designs.
But I didn’t blog about it.
In my dream, Daryl Hall won American Idol, and – as a result – he started doing something so frightening and fantastical, I was both certain and highly relieved that I was in the middle of a dream. He started recording and selling his “music”. Thank God that’s not likely to happen for real anytime soon.
I awoke with a start, breathing heavily and sweating profusely from my nightmare. It was obvious to me that something, somewhere was trying to warn me to pay more attention to this blog, lest horribly unthinkable consequences be visited upon the entire earth. So here I am, tippy-tapping away again, telling you about it.
For the love of Pete, if Daryl Hall goes on American Idol – don’t vote for him.
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*I have this recollection of a Daryl Hall music video in which the criminal Hall appears in a long, black trench coat, gyrating awkwardly and emoting away with clenched fists as he lip-synched to his latest piece of inveterate garbage. This particular composition, I believe, was one in which the equally egregious Oates was not complicit. I have spent more time this evening than I care to admit (to either you OR myself) pawing through the video evidence of Mr. Hall’s detritus on YouTube, but I haven’t been able to confirm my very vivid horrific recollection. It is a process that is complicated by the fact that I can’t remember the name of the song in question. Is anybody able to help me solve the mystery?
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