Rotating Pineapple

 I have a space between my two front teeth. My grandfather had it and I inherited it from him. When I was younger, I had an opportunity to close the gap through the magic of orthodontics. I refused. I didn't want to wear braces for two years. I felt nerdy enough already, I didn't need a bunch of steel contributing to my nerdiness. When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I was told that the gap could prove disadvantageous. Film actors tend to have perfect teeth. Film actors tend to have perfect everything. Here is a list of famous people who have spaces between their teeth: - Madonna - David Letterman - Sandra Bernhardt - Willem Dafoe - Eddie Murphy - Anna Paquin - Elijah Wood Spaces didn't mess with them much. I'm in good company. - By the way, the formal name for having spaces between your teeth is diastema. Black people are more prone to this condition (Seal also has it) but I'm not sure why. Probably something to do with evolution.  

 Christmas Day of 2023 and girlfriend and me is sittin around the apartment, trying to think of something to do. We ate our dinner, swapped presents, and were trying to find something to watch on TV. Nothing. "Let's go see a movie," girlfriend says. "Okay," says I, and on go the coats and downstairs we go and into the car. Not sure what's playing but we know it's late in the year and that's when the good movies come out. Well, that's the way it used to be anyway. Get to the cinema and we see it's all a bunch of Marvel stuff and Disney stuff and movies with roman numerals in 'em. No good movies. No real movies. We're all depressed now and then girlfriend asks me if we still got that time machine at the university." "Sure do," I say. "Why?" "I was just thinking that maybe we could travel back in time to when they had real good movies on Christmas. You know? See a good classic in the theatre." "Gre

 DM: So you see... the taxi... S: Yes... DM: The taxis here are not yellow. S: I see that. DM: In New York they are. S: I know. DM: Why is that? S: Because yellow... DM: ...yes... S: ...is the first colour... DM: That's absolu... S: ...the eye registers. DM:tely correct. S: And this is why school buses are yellow too. DM: Yes. (Pause.) Should they all be that way? S: What? Taxis? DM: Taxis. Buses.Uhh automobiles... should they all be yellow? S: For safety? DM: Yes. S: No. I don't think so, no. It wouldn't be asethetically... DM: Yes, this is true. "Ah," but the critic says. "But is not safety more paramount?" Do you see? And this is why the theatre is dying... S: Because what they want... DM: Yes, in the interest of pragmatism... in the... S: ...and all the cars would be yellow. DM: Because yes, we as artists need to explore.And this is true even such exploration is dangerous because that's when it's more exciting. S: Mm. DM: More liberating... S

 I say all the time that 1984 was a great year for music. It was the year of Purple Rain. It was the year of Thriller. It was the year of Like a Virgin. If you know me, then you know that Purple Rain is my favourite of the three. I started 1984 as a Grade 4 student at St. Gerard's School. My teacher was Don Poilievre, the adopted father of Canada's Conservative Party of Canada leader, Pierre Poilievre. Don Polievre had a mustache. He doesn't anymore.  On January 3 of 1984, I turned 11. That was the first year mom made me a baked alaska cake for my birthday. It is also the year I fell in love with a heavy metal band called Twisted Sister. By the way, Twisted Sister once released a Christmas album. Here is a picture of it: The lead singer of Twisted Sister was a transvestite named Dee Snider. I'm not sure if it's blasphemous to let a transvestite sing O Come All Ye Faithful. I'm already on the record as saying that Twisted Sister's song Burn in Hell is more ac

 The day Steve dropped my Phoenix I was sleeping He left the papers there outside my door. I laughed when I read the part about the Roughriders, they didn't make the playoffs after all By the time I make my breakfast he'll be working Trying hard to bring the news to us He just don't understand the world has moved on. it's off the wall that's all By the time I get to Jack's Pub he'll be writing a council brief or maybe 20 Q's. we might cry to think he's doing this for nothing but he does it 'cause it's all he knows how to do - apologies to Glen Campbell

 I was 18 years old and sitting in the backseat of the SUV my parents had loaned me for my first year at the Bible college/theatre school. The SUV was parked at the lookout to Horseshoe Canyon, a popular tourist draw in east central Alberta. It was late on a Saturday night. I was not alone. There was a girl with me. She was also a student at the Bible college/theatre school. The people who ran the school would not have been happy knowing we were alone there. I had rescued the girl from some hot mess of a situation. Someone had betrayed her, taken advantage of her innocence and naivete, and she was feeling pretty ashamed and vulnerable. I found out about it and offered to take her out of town. This we did. We went out for dinner and she told me her side of the story and I think it calmed her down a little. But she was visibly nervous when it grew late and it was time to go back home. So we stopped at Horseshoe Canyon and I got in the back seat so we could talk some more. You know how te

 Noise pollution. That's how one of our grandparents described the heavy metal music we kids listened to back in the 1980s. Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, RATT, and my favourite, Quiet Riot. A friend of mine gave me Quiet Riot's 1984 album, Condition Critical, for my 12th birthday. My mom looked at the cover and told me it was in poor taste. - I'm of the opinion that music is the closest we can come to time travel. When Quiet Riot comes on my iPod, I am instantly transported back to a dolescence. I am 12 years old again, listening to Kevin DuBrow and Quiet Riot sing that Love's a Bitch and that metal health will drive you mad. These are meaningless stanzas, by the way. There is no such thing as metal health, so it can't drive you mad. But Quiet Riot knew that. They knew they were composing an anthem for teenagers. It didn't have to make sense. It just had to be a catchy song that young people could rally behind. - Heavy metal used to be the music of

 Melly had a belly and her belly was so smelly because all that poor old Melly ever ever ate was jelly and the jelly that old Melly liked to eat was really smelly it was smelly smelly jelly in the belly of old Melly Well one day on the telly Melly saw an ad for jelly they said this brand of jelly was jelly that's not smelly Well Melly felt all swelly because she really loved her jelly but the only jelly Melly could find was really smelly So now our good friend Melly has a belly that's not smelly 'cause the jelly on the telly was sold to our friend Melly Melly shows her belly and she says: "will you please smell me? Smell the jelly on my belly 'cause the jelly isn't smelly."   Well Melly's good friend Kelly knows that Melly isn't smelly 'cause the jelly on her belly isn't smelly Melly jelly   but Kelly wants some jelly so she bought some jel from Melly but the jelly Melly sellied was the smelly Melly jelly Well now old Kelly's belly is s

 I lost my best friend on April 29, 2006. It still hurts all these years later. That wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to be best buds for life. He was supposed to be super excited when my son was born, was supposed to be absurdly touched that he's named in his memory. Didn't happen. Life isn't fair. - I have a vague memory of Mr. Hooper, who was the storekeeper on Sesame Street. The actor who played Mr. Hooper died in real life and the Sesame Street writers decided to incorporate his death into the show. They weren't going to lie to the kids about Mr. Hooper getting a better job on Poppy Street or Electric Avenue, nor were they just going to drop the character entirely. Instead, they did a segment where Big Bird was really torn up about Mr. Hooper's death and all the Sesame Street regulars - the live actors, I mean - did their best to console him. Nothing works. The Talmud says that there is nothing you can say to a person who is grieving, that the on

It is my humble opinion that no dog should ever be named Snoopy. This would be a wonderful act of respect for the most famous dog of all time. Charles Schulz once said that Charlie Brown reminded him of who he actually was; Snoopy reminded him of who he'd like to be.  Snoopy has a rich fantasy life. He's a world famous author, an attorney, a check out boy, a scout leader, a college student and, most famously, a World War I flying ace. Charles Schulz had a thought on that too: "Snoppy has to retreat into a fantasy life because a dog's life is so boring." True, dat. I've never been in prison, but I imagine it's a lot like that too. - I've never had a dog named Snoppy. It would be a sacrilege. I remember having three dogs in a row named Spanky. The first was a beagle, the second was a golden lab, the last was a dalmatian. I was really young and thought all dogs had to be called Spanky. If I ever own a dog, I might call him Spanky. Why not? The circle can

 Megan Follows was perfectly cast as Anne of Green Gables. I mean, who else could have pulled off that role? If you've seen the movie and then read LM Montgomery's books, you'll find it hard, or even impossible, not to picture Megan Follows' face on Anne with an E. Heck, she even won a Gemini Award for her work and we all know how prestigious THAT is. I mean, if you win a Gemini Award, you'll never be starving for work, that's for sure.   - Near as I can tell, there is a triple threat of redheads in popular culture, all of 'em with pigtails. There's Anne of Green Gables, there's Pippi Longstocking, and there's the corporate logo from Wendy's. One is Canadian, one is Swedish, one is American. As always, Canada wins. - A while ago, I posted a hypothetical question on Facebook. It was this: Who would win in a fight, Anne of Green Gables or Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was the majority consensus that Anne would win. Redheads, apparently, are fiery. I

This is the definitive ranking of all 25 of EON Productions' James Bond films. I am the world's foremost authority on James Bond movies. If you disagree with anything on this list, then you are wrong. 25. Diamonds are Forever. 1971 . What a mess of a movie this is. Terrible continuity, a story that makes no sense, nonsensical developments, Blofeld showing up in drag for no reason at all, and a 40-year-old Sean Connery, somehow looking like he's in his late 50s, sleepwalking his way through the flick. Even bringing Shirley Bassey back to sing the title song can't save this turkey. Sure, Jill St. John gets some credit for being the first American Bond girl, but the whole thing stinks. 24. The Man With the Golden Gun. 1974 . The book is so so so much better than the movie. In the book, the stakes are super high. In the book, Bond is brainwashed by the enemy and returns to London to assassinate M. He fails in his quest and, instead of being handed a court martial, is sent o

Here are things I don't like about the Christmas season: These songs: John Lennon's Happy Christmas, Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime, Mariah Carey's All I want for Christmas is you, plus any version of Santa Baby, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas and ESPECIALLY Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Oh I hate that song. Last year, while covering a tree lighting for the newspaper, the people in charge said they were going to sing Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Some middle aged women in the crowd groaned. I was one with them. Man, do I ever hate that song. It wasn't even cute the first time I heard it. Since then, it has graduated from annoying and is now teeth grindingly exasperating. I hope I never have to hear that song again. Ever. - My dad used to get annoyed when his kids wanted to open their Christmas presents early. He believed that Christmas Day was the proper time to open such presents. When I was a kid, I was a stalwart defender of "let u

The Irishman is surely the most tragic movie of Martin Scorsese's career. It follows the same trajectory as his other beloved films Goodfellas, Casino, and Wolf of Wall Street. In all of those movies, a criminal's life comes crashing down. In Goodfellas, Ray Liotta's Henry Hill aspires to be a gangster, only to have to betray his mob brothers in the end to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. In Casino, a wannabe enforcer is beaten to death with a baseball bat while his colleague loses his family and winds up a lonely man. In Wolf of Wall Street, a dishonest wall street stockbroker loses his trophy wife and winds up having to betray the very people he helped set up so he can stay out of jail. But in all of the above tales, everyone gets a slice of the good life, at least for a little while. They do copious amounts of drugs, have sex with all kinds of women, and earn a whole lot of money in the process. In the end, they have nothing, but at least there's a mountain in a life

"A newspaper is the first draft of history." The above was said by our county archivist, who had been invited to a special meeting of an interested party who was interested in resurrecting our local weekly newspaper, which shut down three months ago. I was the editor of that newspaper. Those of us who used to work at the paper appreciated the sentiment because it validated the idea that we did important work there. The problem, of course, is that so many people today - young people mostly - don't give a darn about print media. As one joyless soul told us when news of the paper broke: "I don't feel bad for you. Print is dead." - In early October, I decided to start my own online weekly newspaper. It is a shell of what the old newspaper was, mostly because I am the only one working there. At the other newspaper, we had an editorial staff of three and we also had two people running the front desk, two people in production, and two in advertising. I am not makin

Campbell's cream of tomato soup is the best lunch ever. I don't want a grilled cheese with it either.* Just a bowl of cream of tomato soup, made with milk, with crackers I can crumble in it. I could that for lunch everyday if I wanted to. - Cream of chicken is also good as are cream of mushroom and chicken noodle. But cream of tomato will always be the pinnacle of soups.  - I am not sure when soup turns into stew.  Soup is just flavoured water, really. My beloved Campbell's tomato soup is just water that is flavoured with milk and tomatoes and other stuff that probably isn't good for me. But if I add pieces of chicken and beans and licorice and marshmallows and Orville Redenbacher popcorn, it stops becoming soup and starts becoming stew. If you can eat with a fork, it's stew. If you can't eat it with a fork, it's still soup. - Here is a picture of Soupy Sales: Soupy Sales is dead now. He was a Capricorn, like me. He was also a slapstick comedian, unlike me.

 I took my son swimming today. While he enjoyed himself at the waterslide, I fell into conversation with the lifeguard, who is in her third year as a sociology major. She told me she was born in Thailand, where her parents worked for an organization that helps refugees. She also spent some time in Mexico and the United States before ultimately winding up in Canada. Like me, the lifeguard is a Christian. She told me that she finds religion fascinating and is particularly interested in certain facets of Christian fundamentalism that deny climate change. We both agreed that it's not a good witness for us to throw our garbage everywhere and say: "It's okay, Jesus will clean it up." - I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray. But when I woke up this morning could have sworn it was Judgment Day. The sky was all purple there were people running everywhere trying to run from my destruction, you know I didn't even care. Those are the opening lyrics to

 A while ago, I read an essay from a boxing enthusiast who opined that boxing should be taught in schools as part of the education curriculum. Not sure I agree. There's always a hyper aggressive kid in the class who will happily pummel their meek classmates. I thought wrestling was bad enough.  But hey... boxing is a great way to teach kids to man up, I suppose. I'm cool with it if it's going to be taught by some no-nonsense military type who will whup the asses of smartass tough kids.   - Besides that, there should be a class that teaches kids not to be idiots. That's a great name for the class, actually. HOW TO NOT BE AN IDIOT101. I don't think I'm biased here when I say that boys need the class more than girls. I believe the data backs me up on this because men are charged with sexual assault a helluva lot more than women are. At my high school, Bishop Grandin (since renamed Our Ladies of the Rockies after it was discovered that Bishop G was a fan of the resi

Somewhere in there, I became distressed that the people doing the live nativity at Heritage Park were Mormons. I knew enough about Mormon theology to know that Mormons and Christians have radically different concepts of Jesus. Historic Christianity teaches that Jesus is the second person of the trinity, God in human flesh, read the Nicene Creed for more. Mormons believe he's the spirit brother of Lucifer and something about gold plates on the Hill Cumorah. I told my mom this once while our family was hightailing it out to Heritage Park and she told me to shut up. - Long before I began diving into pseudo-Christian theology, my earliest memory of going to the live nativity at Heritage Park was this: Holy smokes are my feet ever cold. I guess I wasn't wearing wool socks in my -30 winter boots, which turned my feet into ice cubes as I stood in the snow and watched a white shepherd pretend to get all sanctified as the white Mary held up a doll. I couldn't wait for it to be over

How many denizens are left  who long for your completion? And why do you stay with me, lingering in my soul, like you own it too? I've grown tired of speaking of you. You have robbed me of my youth. And you won't go away. For I am nothing without your story. All you who think you know me - father magician editor lover whatever. It is the Electric Angel who sits on my shoulder asking his eternal question: When? I am prepared for the controversy. Let the God haters condemn me for inhumanity. Let the believers accuse me of blasphemy. Let Malona wherever she may be wait for me at the lakeshore. Let the lightning strike the lake. Let the guilt define him some more. Let the blood flow from his hands. Let the women fall at his feet. Let his friends die by their sin. And let the eagle's wings sprout from his shoulders. And yes there is a picnic table that still overlooks Jackfish Lake. A ghost will always sit there. One day, I will give him his flesh.

Bless my mom, who gave me the title for this note. She hopes I will examine such fare as White Christmas, Bells of St. Mary's, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Grinch, Elf, and Love Actually.  How terrible it is that I have never seen any of those movies. - As much as I champion On Her Majesty's Secret Service for being the best Christmas movie of all time (Die Hard is not a Christmas movie), I still have to tip my hat to A Christmas Carol. It is unique for several reasons, one of which is that it has one of the least sympathetic protagonists in all of literature. Come on, kids, and let's go back to Grade 7 language arts class where we learned that the protagonist is someone who is trying to accomplish something; the antagonist is someone (or something) that is trying to stop the protagonist from doing so. We learned that there are three kinds of protagonist/antagonist relations. There is man against man (James Bond trying to stop Blofeld from unleashi

My dad likes to tell the story about the time he went to see the movie, Murder by Death, sometime in 1976. He was on a business trip somewhere and decided to take advantage of a night off by going to the movies. "I had no idea what the movie was about," Dad told me. "But it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen." Still today, I can count on my dad to laugh whenever he watches Murder by Death, particular the first act before all five of the detectives reach the house. When he watched it for the first time in 1976, he was screaming with laughter. He laughed so hard that he cried. Even funnier to me is his description of the other people in the movie house with him. "A bunch of old ladies," he says. "None of them found it remotely funny. I was the only one laughing." It's great when that happens. You have decide if Group A is at fault for being so easily amused or if Group B is at fault for being bereft of a sense of humour. - To the uninitia

 For my inaugural December post this year, I suppose I could write a lengthy and profound essay on the wisdom I have garnered through interacting with children, mine in particular. But who's got time for that nowadays? Yes, I learn a lot of important life-altering stuff from the kiddie corps, but I learn a lot of useless stuff too. Unlike teachers, I am not surrounded by kids most days. But when I go into a school to do a day's worth of magic shows - something I do about 50 times a year - I know I'm going to learn a lot about the day-to-day lives of kindergarten students. Here is an example: That is a picture of an egg bag, a magic trick that magicians have been performing for well over a century. The premise is that you put an egg in the bag, you make the egg disappear, and then you make the egg come back again. I know that the premise sounds pretty lame but that's just fine. It is the job of a magician to get his audience emotionally invested in that egg. Then the tri