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There was a time in the early 90s when psychic infomercials were all the rage on late night television. Some of them had celebrity hosts like Philip Michael Thomas, Dionne Warwick, or Billy Dee Williams. They all promised that their army of psychics would help answer questions about money, their love life, or family grievances. At the bottom of the screen was this caveat: FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. On one of them, a psychic visited Alcatraz to psychically find out what happened to three prisoners who had broken out of the maximum strength prison in June of 1962. The psychic stood on the island and waved her hands at the water and determined that the three men had drowned in the San Francisco Bay. Miracle, I tell ya. - Those infomercials were fascinating in how terrible they were. The acting was awful, the scripting was even worse, and the so-called psychic miracles could be explained away by an intelligent eight-year-old. Still, these silly psychic hotlines made a pretty penny an...

 "I know that I know nothing." That sentence is usually attributed to Socrates. It is supposed to be something uttered by people who are incredibly wise. Solomon tells us that there is more hope for a fool than for someone who thinks he's a genius. I don't think I'm a genius. I think I'm an idiot. - The dialogue is supposed to go like this: Pupil: Oh beloved master, now that you are near the end of your life, tell us what you know for sure. Beloved master: What I do know, at this ripe old age, is that I know nothing. - "I know nothing" is an idiotic statement when you take it at face value. There are quite a few things that I do know. Since you're reading this blog, it's obvious that I KNOW how to turn on my computer, how to load the blogger web page, and how to edit a post. I also know that two plus two equals four, that the French word for window is fenetre, and that Jamie Marchand Forrest cheers for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I know tha...

I don't blame you for hating me I know that I was wrong And now I am in prison and I've lost all but a song   I know we all are sinners I know we fall from grace but no man should go breaking hearts with a smile upon his face   I know my wings are burning I know my glory's gone I know that you won't listen when I'm pointing to the Son.   Pitiless indifference or the devil fresh from hell. I'd rather you choose the latter if you think of me at all. Don't chain me to your future or love me like a God my precious hands are bleeding where the angels never trod. My friends have died beside me I am alone like Christ My final prayer is let there be in me a dot of light. - EA

There is nothing to admire about Tony Montana, protagonist of the 1983 movie, Scarface. Montana, as played by Al Pacino, is ruthless, impulsive, and driven only by animal desires. Early in the film, he tells his best friend, Manny, that his life's ambition is to acquire the world and everything in it. His journey starts at an immigration centre, where officers quickly determine that he's a Cuban criminal and send him off to a detention camp. He gets out after a local drug lord agrees to get him a green card if he kills one of his fellow prisoners. From there, he gets a job washing dishes at a roadside food stand but he doesn't last there very long. He gets into the world of drug smuggling and, before long, has become one of the biggest kingpins in the lucrative Miami cocaine trade. Somewhere in there, he acquires a trophy wife, several sports cars, and a palace-like estate complete with a jacuzzi big enough to live in.  And despite having all of that, he's not happy. By...

Driving back from Cornwall tonight. Weather isn't great but not terrible either. A little snow. Slush on the streets. I've seen much worse. As per usual, I've got my iPod plugged in and on shuffle. On comes Amanda Marshall's Let's Get Lost.  I switched songs immediately. It's not a song I can listen to anymore. It reminds me too much of the past - not really of a concrete memory but of a time radically different from now. Livin' in the darkness, baby Comin' all undone It's been a cruel December, now we're prayin' for the sun By the time the storm rolls in, we could be long gone Baby, let's get lost 'til the days get long Just you and I    So sings Amanda Marshall. Serendipity, perhaps, in that it was a cruel December and there was a storm rolling in tonight, but that song has always been a summer song for me. Just the title and Amanda Marshall's plaintive wailing. To me, that song is all "man life sucks right now and I've...

 1. Sometime this holiday season, I will watch the 1969 James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I mention this movie a lot on this blog - it is my favourite Christmas movie and probably my favourite movie of all time. I hope to, just once, see it on a big movie screen before I die. On Her Majesty's Secret Service takes place at Christmas and was released around Christmastime of 1969, a little more than three years before I was born. My mom would have been 19 when it was in theatres, my dad, 26.  I watch it every year in December. I don't like watching it when it's not December.  Another personal tradition of mine is to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. And I usually livestream myself singing with the kids at the end - complete with the mass synchronized inhaling. 2. Outside of Christmas, I have a tradition with vehicles. Every time I take ownership of a new one, I ensure that the first song I listen to in it is Prince's Let's Go Crazy. I time ...

Way back in June of 2013, I decided to start doing the note-a-day project. It was inspired, in part, by my magician friend, Eric Leclerc, who had taken it upon himself to put up a video of him doing a magic trick every day for 365 days. I didn't want to be a copycat but I admired his tenacity, so I did the same thing, only with writing. The idea was to have a friend send me a title every day and I would write something inspired by it. I broke with tradition twice. Once I dedicated an entire month to writing notes based on Prince songs. Another time, I spent a month writing notes inspired by the work of David Mamet. It's different this time too. At first, I was going to have people send me titles again, but that just seemed old hat for December of 2024. I decided instead that I would let each day inspire me. I would go into an environment and I would take something from it and that would be my inspiration for the day's note. Yesterday, for example, I was inspired by some peo...

At church today, some singers sang a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, changing the lyrics to make it a Christian worship song. It's not the first time I have witnessed this phenomenon and although I don't fault my fellow believers who perform surgery on the late Mr. Cohen's words, I have to confess that I prefer the original. I understand that Hallelujah is something of a secular hymn; the journalist Larry Sloman says it's "one part biblical, one part the woman that Cohen slept with last night." The song, now 40 years old, has been interpreted by so many singers (my favourite being kd lang) and has taken on a mythic status. Indeed, you could build an argument for it being the most Canadian song of all time. What I like so much about art - and make no mistake, a song qualifies as art - is that the listener can interpret it for themselves. Sometimes this is bad (the novel Death Wish, was written as an anti-vigilante story but was adapted into a movie t...

The office was cold. Glen stood by the picture window that looked out on Main Street, watching as the Christmas Eve blizzard blanketed everything in snow, listening as the shrieking wind blew garbage cans across the street and made the ice caked telephone wires dance overhead. The  taxicab directly outside was already buried. It had been more than an hour since his last run. Some college girl had called from the city airport, desperate for a ride back to the small town where the taxi stand was located. Her parents were rich, she said, and would give him a healthy tip. They didn't. - He'd been working at Small Town Taxi for two months. October had been shit. Between Thanksgiving and Halloween he got laid off from the factory and then Lydia left him, taking their daughter to the city to start a new life with a real estate agent she'd met in the summer. He didn't blame her. He'd exhausted their savings to pay for his mother's cancer treatment and then, just as the ...

 Mariska Hargitay has become something of a constant visitor in our house. That is because Ash has developed an addiction to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, of which Mariska Hargitay has been a mainstay since 1999. She has spent a quarter of a century playing her character, Officer Olivia Benson, and she even trained to be a rape counsellor to help her prepare for the role. When you invest yourself in a fictional world - literature, theatre, film, television, video games - it sometimes blurs the fabric between fantasy and reality. I can't help but wonder if, in real life, Mariska Hargitay winds up listening to the real life stories of sexual assault victims. I bet she's a good listener. - Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of the late American actress and former Playboy playmate, Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car accident when Mariska was about three years old. Apparently, Mariska was asleep in the back seat when it happened. How's that for a traumatizing childhood? L...

Buzz went the bee. - I like the way my kid looks when he has a buzz cut. I tell the barber to put the clippers on setting one and go to town. Kiddo isn't bald but close to it, like he's in the Marines. Ash does not like it when he has a buzz cut, but she allows it in the summertime. - I had a buzzcut about 12 years ago. I agreed to let a student at the local high school shave my head if we could raise enough money for a local charity. It wasn't much fun. No one was excited about it. - I look better with short hair. In high school, when mullets were the rage, I had one. But it always looked silly. I was never destined to be a rock star.  - Buzz!!!

 Okay, thanks to the random person at Pizza Pizza for giving me this title. NHL predictions. Specifically, what are my NHL predictions for 2024-25? I'm a terrible prognosticator but here's my two cents. I predict that the Calgary Flames will not qualify for the playoffs. They surprised everyone at the start of the year with that incredible run, but I think they will play .500 hockey for the rest of the year and will miss the final wild card spot in the west by two or three points. That means that, once again, they will have a dismal end but will finish too high to get a really deep draft pick. I predict that the Toronto Maple Leafs will face the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs again, but this year, I think Trawna will win. I predict that the Minnesota Wild will win the President's Trophy but will exit the playoffs in the first or second round. I predict that Ovechkin will fail to break Gretzky's goal scoring record this year but he will do so next seaso...

I had an audience of one for about 20 minutes while scraping a good 25 pounds of ice-caked snow off the car this evening. My son. He watched me from the upstairs window, never taking his eyes off me. I waved to him. He waved back. He's 11. Autism.  Two days earlier, I performed for about 200 partygoers at the army base in Petawawa. It was a different kind of audience. In Petawawa, the audience was in search of entertainment. My son just wanted to observe me. - I've heard it said that when a child turns 10, parents should begin the process of letting go. It is not a selfish thing; it is a painful yet pragmatic piece of good advice. A parent must prepare his or her child to live apart from them because - statistically speaking - the child will outlive them. This letting go must be cruel at times and surely one of the saddest and shocking revelations of life must be that the world does not revolve around them. - I am my kid's best friend. At the age of 11, there is no one he l...

It seems like the game of chess should prove the existence of God. Chess is a perfect game; it's a triumph of design, strategy, and creativity. History has forgotten who invented the game, though it probably originated in India. Its unknown author probably grabbed the game from the ethos, not so much inventing it as he (or she) channeled it. There will never be a strategic game better than chess. Now I am a terrible chess player. My rating is probably around 1000. Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian chess master who once checkmated Bill Gates in about 10 seconds, has the highest rating in recorded history, which is 2882.    I was a member of the St. Stephen's Chess Club when I was in Grade 7 and part of Grade 8. I stopped playing chess when our coach, Mr. Campbell, said that if we wanted to improve our game, we had to study the game, do chess puzzles and exercises, and much much more than simply playing. I didn't like this, so I quit. I was an idiot. Fast forward 20 years and I a...

Recently, I have become a nominal fan of the Buffalo Bills. Not big enough to buy Bills wear or fanatically watch their games, but I like 'em enough to want to see them win the Super Bowl. Should they make it to the big dance next month, I might even try to watch the game. I cheer for the Bills because over the past few years, I have met a few people who are big fans of the Bills. Because I like them, I want the Bills to win. Here is a brief description of two of these people: - A local girl who is battling Chron's Disease. I have written a few news stories about her over the years and in one of the pictures we printed of her, she is wearing a Bills toque. She told me she's a big Bills fan so I want them to win because it will make her happy. - Another local family are such big Bills fans that they have dedicated one room in their house as the Bills watching shrine. It is painted in Bills colours, there is a Bills mural on the wall, and the family wears their personalized B...

 So I roll into the barracks in Petawawa, where I did a magic show this morning. I didn't have a title for note-a-day, so I decided to let the first thing someone said to me once I entered the barracks be my title. So... welcome to Petawawa. It was my first time in Petawawa and while there, I would learn that Petawawa is an Algonquin word that loosely translates to "somewhere where you can hear the water." That means if someone is having a shower in the next room and you can hear it, you're in Petawawa. - I thank the Lord that I was in Petawawa that day. I lost two magic shows this fall, one in October and one in November (the November show literally cancelled the day before, which reinforced my New Year's Resolution to ALWAYS get deposits when I book a show) so my time in Petawawa helped me break even. It also effectively ended my New Year's Resolution for 2024, which was to get at least one paying magic show for every month of the year. - They hired me to do...

 I don't know why I get all defensive and anxious at the prospect of learning something new. Maybe it's eldest child syndrome.* Maybe it's my sin nature. Maybe it's because I'm a Capricorn. There's this stupid part of me that thinks I am not good enough right now and that is why I have to go to someone else to get smarter. I know this is a stupid and dangerous way to think, but a part of me rebels at the idea. For some reason, part of me believes that education is for the ignorant and that the teachers are, by definition, enlightened. My brain knows this is not true; my heart does not. The late American magician, Eugene Burger, said that the task of the teacher is for his students to surpass him. "I don't want students to always be beneath my level," he said, and that strikes me as being profoundly true and extremely humble. The American actor Michael Jai White once said that he loves to be wrong because it presents an opportunity for enlightenment...

  I couldn't afford an apartment of my own, so I rented an office instead. "What sort of business do you run?" asked the pleasant looking lady who managed the commercial building at 4515 MacLeod Trail South. "I'm a writer," I said. She handed me two keys. One was for the outer door. The other would open the door to my office. My office. It was January of 1996 and I had just celebrated my 23rd birthday. The rent for my office was $150 a month. My office was small, barely enough room to lie down in. It came equipped with an old wooden desk, a steel chair, and one electrical outlet. I lugged my big clunky computer there, plugged it in, and turned it on. I was immediately jazzed by the prospect of unfettered and uninterrupted creativity. My office had no phone - the closest one was a pay phone on the street corner downstairs - so no one could call me and, perhaps more importantly, I couldn't call anyone either. There was no one to demand I stop wr...

 I don’t know if I’m him. I used to think I was. I jokingly say that I am 17% him. What I do know is that he lives with me always, even though I haven’t written a word for him all year. I know I will though. In the end, I might be the only one who cares. Every year on his birthday, I write about him. It is getting boring for my readers. I am sorry. There was a man sitting at the picnic table.  The boy didn’t like it.

 In Bible college, someone told me that the peace sign is a broken cross, that the hippies who employed it believed that shedding Christianity was one step toward the attainment of utopia. Years later, in Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis, someone explains that the peace sign is inspired from the semaphore alphabet. Semaphore is a way of communication using only two small flags, one held in each hand. Each letter has its own semaphore tradition and, if you're adept at it, you can probably send and receive messages as fast as I can type this paragraph. In semaphore, the N is conveyed by holding a flag in each hand and pointed at the floor at about 30 degree angles from the body. The D is conveyed by holding one flag straight up at the sky and the other pointing straight at the ground. When you superimpose these two semaphore positions together, you get something that looks like the peace sign. ND stands for Nuclear Disarmament. - The world would be a better place if we didn'...

 Usually I never ask for material things but I sure want one of these this year: Now what is that monstrosity? It looks like what an IPad might look like if it was built in 1980. No, it is a freewrite, a no frills laptop that allows writers to do nothing but write. There are no email portals, web browsers, or a boatload of notifications. You plug it in and let the muse carry you away. I used to be a prolific writer but my output went way down when I got on social media. My problem is that my writing machine is also my entertainment delivery machine. I want a freewrite so I can discover my first love again.  But if that’s too pricey for you, Santa, I also need socks

About 10 years ago, my friend, Natalie, and I were discussing our respective journalism careers. Hers started in 1998 in a small town in southeast Saskatchewan. Mine started in Regina in 1999 after I moved there with her. She got a job at a weekly paper there and she introduced me to her editor, who hired me. "I owe my career to you," I told Natalie. This did not impress her. She said that her role in my career trajectory was an infinitesimal one, that I should give myself some credit for my own success. - Still, if I didn't meet Natalie, I might not be where I am right now. When I moved to Regina, I had no ambitions toward a journalism career; all I wanted to do was write a novel. Natalie told me about the job at the paper and encouraged me to go in and meet the staff and see what happened. I wound up surprising myself, I was a pretty good - if not raw - reporter and that job in Regina led to further opportunities in Saskatchewan, Quebec, Alberta, and Ontario, where I re...

 No idea. The gremlins must have eaten it. Sorry.  I think the original title was something like: Ways to Get There. Something kinda vague. Maybe it's a good idea I didn't write anything that day.

Some editors hate exclamation points. They don't think they're necessary. But I like 'em. Exclamation points make comic books possible. - Even so, I rarely use exclamation points. I don't think I've ever used them in note-a-day. Maybe I should start. !!!!!!!!! How's that? - In researching this note, I came across a LinkedIn article written by a guy named Jason Piasecki, who is the CEO of Revel. Jason has a bone to pick with marketers who rely on exclamation points. He points out that exclamation points are supposed to be used to convey strong emotion like anger or joy. Then he complains that the things copywriters put on billboards are not deserving of exclamation points. Seriously, does anyone get super excited about Mattress World having the largest mattress collection in the tristate area? Or that Berk's Fried Chicken has a three-piece meal on sale for $7.99 until the end of October? He has a point. My heart doesn't skip a beat when I find out I can g...

 So here we are at a place called Pine Ridge Park, about half an hour away from where Kel lives in Pembroke. Somehow, we managed to snag reservations for something called the Laurentian cabin, which is a four-bedroom cottage on the shore of the Ottawa River. We got an off-season rate and, since there are six grownups here, we all chipped in and rented the place for a song. I'm here, Ash is here, Kel is here, Tara is here, as is her son, Nick, and Kel's boyfriend, Curtis. And the B-Man is here and Curtis' two kids are here. It's a merry stay. The temperature hovers around 20, but it gets colder at night. Curtis and Nick made a fire outside. I sat by it and ate one marshmallow. When I was called inside, I was grateful. We went swimming in the river. It was cold at first, as it always is, but got warmer. There were a whole lot of rocks on the way in and no one cared for that very much. I was the first one in - I went into the water in my blue bathing suit that I bought at ...

 I will start this note by making a list of all the concerts I have attended: - Amanda Marshall (x3) - Weird Al Yankovic (x3) - Alice Cooper - Aerosmith - Prince (x2) - Don Henley/Susanna Hoffs - Van Halen (with DLR) - Roxette - John Mellencamp - Huey Lewis and the News - Trisha Yearwood - Sass Jordan - Lee Aaron - Kim Mitchell/Allannah Myles - Raffi - Of them all, Raffi was the worst. He came onstage about two hours late, was obviously high on opium and Cheez Whiz, and then yelled at a bunch of kids in the front row for wearing Sharon Lois and Bram shirts. Raffi refused to play any music, set fire to the stage, and then wiped his nose on his tuba player's eyebrows.* - Seriously, I hate to say it but Sass Jordan and John Mellencamp were both pretty bad, but I don't fault either of them for it. I had gone in with high expectations, hoping to see a show as hopping as they were in their respective heydays, which were the 80s and 90s.  I saw Mr. Mellencamp's concert in Ottawa w...

 The title comes from someone at the table where I am sitting as I cover an awards ceremony. I don’t think I have been on a horse in more than 25 years. I have never been on a wild horse. I have some people attempt it. Rodeo. In Stettler, a cowboy got his hand caught in the harness. The horse wound up dragging him all over the ring, the cowboy screaming the whole time. I got a picture. When he got free, the cowboy lay in the dirt face down, clutching his injured hand. The photographers went crazy. One of the other cowboys told them to cool it. I can’t find that picture online. The cowboy is probably grateful. - I don’t care what PETA says, rodeos are fun to photograph. Even if you’re a beginner photog, you can get a shot. That’s all folks. Duty calls 

There is the story of the young piano student who goes to the concert hall to see a world famous maestro perform. For an hour, this master musician tickles the ivory, navigating his way through a virtuoso selection of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. When the concert is over, he has the following brief exchange with the young student: Student: Maestro, I would give my very life to play the way you do. Maestro: I already have. - I am a magician but by no means am I a master magician. I won't use that adjective to modify my (sometimes) occupation. To do so would be an insult to the true masters. I am friends with dozens of magicians on Facebook, some of whom I would consider to be masters of their craft. One of them is one of the best card mechanics in the world. Seriously, this dude can do anything with a deck of cards. I have seen him take a shuffled deck, spread it out on the table, spin a poker chip and make it land on the Ace of Spades. He can bottom deal and centre deal flawlessly,...

Today, I brought $100 to my son's school. This money was for the chocolate bars that we sold on behalf of the school. I imagine the money will go to field trips or presentations or end-of-year celebrations. The chocolate bars were three for $5. They were made by World's Finest Chocolate. They were all purchased by friends of the family. I did not buy any. I don't like World's Finest Chocolate. I don't think the name is accurate. Maybe if they called themselves World's Twentieth Best Chocolate, I would agree with them. - I am a little ashamed to admit that I am a chocolate bar junkie. In case anyone is interested, here are my favourite chocolate bars, ranked in order of preference: 1. Snickers 2. Big Turk 3. Eat More (technically not a chocolate bar, but who cares?) 4. Reese Peanut Butter Cups (but I liked them better when they had the crunchy peanut butter or the honey peanut butter) 5. Wunderbar. Obviously, I am not allergic to peanuts. - Did you know that the ...

In David Fincher's 1997 movie, The Game, billionaire Nicholas Van Orton sees his life unravel shortly after his 48th birthday. This is entirely because his estranged brother, Conrad, persuades him to visit a corporation that specializes in creating life-changing experiences, or games, for their clients. Van Orton visits the office, goes through a number of tests, fills out a lengthy questionnaire, and is then informed that he has been rejected, But he hasn't been rejected. He finds a clown doll with a key in its mouth. The anchor on the evening news begins talking to him via the television set. He gets trapped in an elevator, thrown into the ocean in the back of a taxicab, has his mansion vandalized, and is left for dead in Mexico. Watching the film, the intelligent viewer has to ask a number of questions. How does Mr. Van Orton (played my Michael Douglas) know that the key he found in the clown's mouth will get the elevator to work again? How does he know that the crank he...

I spend about one week every year visiting campgrounds. For about a decade now, I have supplemented my income doing magic shows at various campgrounds or resorts. I always do my shows over the Labour Day and Victoria Day weekends. I try to get three shows for the Saturday and three for the Sunday. I was able to fill all the slots when I started doing this but it's becoming increasingly harder to fill my roster. Maybe I'm getting too old. Maybe the campground ownerfs are just getting tired of me. Maybe it's the recession. Who knows? - Usually, when a campground books me, they tell me that the show will take place in the recreation hall. Before my first campground show, I had a mental image of what the rec hall would look like. I pictured it to be a small theatre with proscenium stage and tiered seating, maybe a tech booth in the back where someone would run lights and sound. Not a chance. Some of the rec halls were just tents, open on all four sides but with canvas on top to...