gor[b]

Thanks a lot, Rodin

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:12:00 +0000

Avi, cut it out.

I think you're a great host, a good journalist and an incredibly smart man from an incredibly smart family.

But don't let people take pictures of you like this.

I know, I know. The "thinking pose" has a long tradition, and nothing says intellect like ye olde hand on chin. It shows the weight of your enormous cranium.

Auguste Rodin made it famous, and doomed it to imitation by going so far as to call his famous statue "The Thinker".

So anyone who thinks strikes this pose, right? Wrong! Thinking people shouldn't pose, it's antithetical to thinking.

More to the point, unless you are carved out of bronze, and actually standing before the gates of hell, you can't pull it off without looking smug or effete.

At any age:

This old man can't pull it off

Nor can this baby

Or this boy

Or these girls

Or this geek

Or this bikini model

Or this frog.

Celebrity doesn't help, Avi.

Stephan Marbury can't pull it off.

Neither can Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O

or Kenneth Branagh

or Joseph Haworth

or Tiny Tim

or Jamie Foxx

or Peter Tork from The Monkees

or Eminem

or L. Ron Hubbard

or JFK

(Or Dodi Al-Fayed, in my previous post.)

So, next time someone from Communications calls up saying you need to do a photo shoot for your next show, say no to voguing. Your face is fine without your fist.

Identical Twins #5: Do[d]?

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:26:00 +0000

The other day, a cab driver told me I looked exactly like Dodi Al-Fayed. WTF?

I don't see it. Or, I don't want to see it. Unless he's comparing our wallets. Which he wasn't.

I told him to drive better than Dodi's driver.

Anatomically incorrect

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:27:00 +0000

Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with this billboard, directly across from the CBC.ca offices? Well, these things happen when you have 20' heads staring at you all day.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact they are the faces of our competition (I'm told we have a big billboard across the road from their digs too. How petty, and fun! Makes you long for the days of a good ol' penny press newspaper war!)

I actually love this series of ads, because they really reflect my city, and my country.

Among the things I learned from CTV's Thursday night lineup:

71% of us (5 out of 7) are doctors. The remaining 29% are detectives
86% of us (6 out of 7) have blue eyes [and get some coloured contacts, missy, or you'll never work in this OR again]
86% of us (6 out of 7) are beautiful [you in the middle, would it kill you to lose the beard, and a few pounds?]
100% of us (7 out of 7) are white
- 100% of us (7 out of 7) are Americans

So I was more than a little amused to read that CTV goofed up the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, airing episode #2 by accident.

(In this photo you can see the dastardly Satellite Feed Thieves using a crane to steal the first episode, taking it off to the secret hiding place where they keep The Scream and episode 3 of The One.)

Millions of people were left high and dry, unable to find out the resolution to last year's cliffhanger ending (something to do with George's hair, I believe.)

For those of you who missed out, I'm here to tell you what happened in the premiere:

Spoiler warning! Skip ahead if you want to be surprised!

A patient was sick with a bizarre illness. It was stranger than something out of P.T. Barnum, but less strange than an illness on House.
A female doctor was bitchy, and a male one was cocky.
Someone slept with someone they shouldn't have. McDreamy and Grey looked at each other in an elevator. There was insipid, dithering romantic angst all round.

There, all caught up.

I'm glad it wasn't CBC that aired the wrong feed for an hour - Bev Oda would have all our asses this time. Then again, such a slip would be unlikely - we do get most of our shows in-country, after all....

Not Tod worthy

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:19:00 +0000

I have a new part time gig.

For the next few weeks, I'll be filling in for Tod Maffin on Inside The CBC, CBC's official ("but never officious") blog. Tod is off on medical leave, and will hopefully be back soon, so I can give it back to him in one piece. In the meantime, I'm beaming good thoughts his way and I hope you will too.

Big shoes to fill, or at least keep warm. Tod was invaluable during the lockout, a contributor to the Manifesto, and I really think he's done a good thing setting up Inside the CBC. It's an interesting arm's length experiment in letting CBCers tell their own stories, an investment in openness and one of the few good things to come out of the lockout. Contributing to it should be quite a learning experience. (Where else does the corp let you go live, nationwide, without any vetting?)

What a short, strange trip this blogging has been. From Chairman Mayo to Official Blogger in three months. There are better CBC bloggers and better CBC blogs - Gushue's is bigger, Mahoney's is better, and Ouimet's is more interesting - so while I'm flattered, I have a lot to learn (including the nuances of WordPress...)

Regardless, I'm very glad to see Inside back in play - it's a terrible thing to leave a great blog to wither on the vine. With any luck, those with e-mail and RSS subscriptions will know it's back in business, and spread the word.

Thanks to all those who helped steer me in the right direction. You know who you are.

Mac-tical joke

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:00:00 +0000

My boss bought a new iMac last week - one of the really nice ones, with a 7,000 inch screen and a sextuple-core processor and the R2D2 welding arm.

All week long, he's been pacing like an expectant father, and rushing back to his office to check the online shipping tracker. I get the hourly reports:

-It's in Central China!
-It's in Shanghai!
-It's in the South Pacific, 0°13'N 176°31'W, moving at 30 knots!
-It's at a truck stop in Tennessee!
-It's in the Green elevators, level B4... B3... B2...

Well, it arrived yesterday - shipped to CBC, and he was working from home. So, when the tracker said it had arrived and been signed for, he immediately e-mailed me asking for a report.

Instead, we found an old computer box, gussied it up and beat the crap out of it. Then I e-mailed him the following series of messages and images:

Hi,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you need to know.
Rather than try to put this into words, I borrowed a digital camera. Please see attached.
I'm so sorry. Did you buy it on a credit card?
Paul

Hi,
More photos. I think that documentation is important in these circumstances.
Paul

Hi,
We had an emergency meeting in your office, and you should know that we're all behind you 100% on this. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help.
Paul

Juvenile, I know. But this isn't an office where people play a lot of practical jokes, and it was kinda refreshing. It's not like we are going to start putting each other's staplers in Jell-o or anything.

But - and bite off those "my tax dollars" comments - maybe we should. I haven't seen or heard of a good practical joke in CBC's halls in, well, ever. I seem to recall vague, black and white stories of them in ancient CBC history books by Knowlton Nash or someone. And I know of a certain joker at Hockey Night, who waits for his employees to leave their desks, then e-mails sincere sounding love notes to other employees using the unattended GroupWise account.

But in general the corp is one serious place these days. (Witness fellow blogger Joe Mahoney's posted cartoon about jokes in the office today - though he also gets excited about a new Mac....)

Maybe all offices are like this, not the one on TV. Is there no room to play any more?

[Know a good office practical joke? Tell me about it in the Comments area! Please?]

Signage of the Apocalypse #4

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:09:00 +0000

Widows in every room

There's nothing I like better than mistakes in posters of stuff for sale or rent. Particularly when they are posted in a building full of 1,000 journalists.

The Canadian Broadcasting Centre has bulletin boards by each elevator, each jammed with ads for various things for sale. People waiting for the elevators have plenty of time to mull them over, and plenty of time to make editorial suggestions.

Here's one I noticed today, with the comments added by a helpful editor.

[Previous Signage entries: 1, 2, 3]

That smells!

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:06:00 +0000

I've been bummed out the past few days. Two of my oldest and best friends from CBC.ca - Catherine Jheon and Chris Harris are fleeing the corp for greener pastures. Pasture, I should say, as they are both joining Alliance Atlantis - along with at least five others from CBC.ca. I know where that began, but we'll see where it ends.

Not that I begrudge either of them the move - they jumped on amazing career opportunities, and I'm really happy for them. Just sad for me, and CBC, both poorer for losing them. They are both great journalists, and great people.

So, how to cheer myself up, I wondered as I paced around the building today at lunchtime. The answer, it turns out, was blowing in the wind: the irresistable smell of Don Juan's french fries!

Anyone who's been in downtown Toronto knows Don Juan. His aromatic chip truck has been parked outside the Metro Convention Centre (near the ~~Skydome~~ Rogers Centre and CN Tower - and CBC) for more than two decades.

Don (his first name really is Don, and he really is Spanish) is quite a character, and lives up to his namesake. He chats up the ladies, insults the men, and bare-hands fresh-cut fries directly from the boiling oil to your tray.

Here's our conversation today:

Don (to middle-aged tourist lady in front of me): Thank you so much, my beautiful, you come back and see me soon, maybe tonight OK?
Tourist lady: Titter titter.
Don (to me): Hey ugly, what you want?
Me: Fries and a hot dog, please.
Don: Hey, check out that beauty behind you! Hiya gorgeous! You coming to see me? Maybe later, Ok? What you want on the hot dog, ugly?
Me: Well, I'd...
Don: Never mind, you get everything on it, shut up!

And I did, and I got everything, and it was delicious. Never mind that I don't really like relish, or fried onions, or hot peppers on my dog - it's part of the charming package.

But the real draw is those fries. God, they smell fantastic! They are a comfortable old standby for CBCers. When someone takes them back to their desk, the scent carries you floating past security, up the elevator shaft and to their workstation, where the buyer has already been ripped to pieces by coworkers in a feeding frenzy.

The aforementioned Catherine Jheon - CJ, to me - described the narcotic aroma in a piece she did for Beyond Burgers on Metro Morning.

You can listen to her Don Juan's review here.

This olfactory experience almost makes up for a the way my nose was ruthlessly violated on Saturday.

I was taking my wife and kids on a walk through "second Chinatown", not far from our house. There was a delightful Chinatown Festival going on, with dragon dances, food stands and so on, and we were having a hoot.

Until we got to the corner of Dundas and De Grassi. All of a sudden, a wall of stink knocked us to the ground, sent both children into tears, tore off my nose and killed my wife (well, she got better.)

The culprit: an abomination known - officially! - as Smelly Tofu.

This horrific product is charitably defined as "tofu which has been marinated in a brine made from fermented vegetables for as long as several months."

But ask anyone who has smelled it - and lived - and you'll get more colourful descriptions. My favourite describes it as "a biohazard delight":

My wife Diane, who has survived a close encounter with stinky tofu (or phonetically in Mandarin Chinese - tsoh doh-foo), describes it as smelling like a used tampon baked under the Death Valley sun. When I hear that I have to roll my eyes and wonder, "Why the restraint?" Come on, for schnoz sake, it smells much worse. It’s like making a smoothie out of durian melon, Limburger cheese, kim-chee and nuoc mam then letting it fester inside a porta-potty for a month and then, as you have a taste, your dickhead big brother enshrouds a thick blanket over both of you and rips the worst fart ever.

I'm told the taste is relatively mild, and overall it's no worse than, say, blue cheese. Anyhow, the locals were lined up ten deep to get at the stuff. As for my poor family, we crawled out of Chinatown on our hands and knees and slinked home to bathe ourselves in tomato juice.

I've only seen one "food" item more offensive than smelly tofu: Surströmming (Sour herring):

a Swedish delicacy consisting of fermented Baltic herring. Surströmming is sold in cans, which when opened release a strong, foul smell....similar to fish gone bad or garbage left out in the sun for a couple of days

Surströmming is rightfully called "one of the world's strangest dishes". I heard about it when I was in Stockholm in 1998, building a website for Global Village.

We were attending Womex '98, a giant world music festival, and I was building a "live" website from the location. Turns out it's still online, inexplicably.

Anyhow, one of the features I proposed was a "Swedish Chef of the Day" (props to the Muppet Show!) One of the locals told host Jowi Taylor (to my delight, they called him "Yowi") about this legendary dish of fermented herring, which would rot in the can and release clouds of noxious fumes when opened. (Surströmming is aparently banned in many places, including hotels and airlines.)

I didn't actually have to smell Surströmming, but I met its first cousin. The Swedes are crazy for herring (strömming), and you can buy it on the street corner at one of the numerous fried herring stands. (They love hot dogs, too - Don Juan would be proud.)

On Day Two of Womex, Jowi and I visited one of these stands. Think he enjoyed it?

I still have the video of Yowi's experience, which I've now uploaded. It's hopelessly small and crappy RealVideo, but hey, this was 1998, and besides it's only half a meg to download.

And they say that Scottish food is based on a dare!

Eric Draven sends his regards

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:53:00 +0000

Like you, I was horrified and disgusted by the shooting spree that took place in Montreal on Wednesday.

And let me also state for the record that I'm irritated and bored by the boilerplate efforts to pin the killer's actions on some cultural phenomenon: Goth made him do it, or video games, or the media, or blogs, or websites, or gun control, or the lack of gun control, or poor gun control.

No, don't blame politics or pop culture. I'm inclined to agree with Rosie DiManno: Kimveer Gill was just a jerk.

That said, I was a little freaked to flip channels last night and see A-Channel airing The Crow - the most iconic Goth movie I know, about a creepy guy dressed in black who goes around killing people. No knock on the film itself - but the timing was unfortunate and insensitive.

But it wasn't unusual, either. Here's a snapshot of last night's TV schedule:

I'm the last one to blame the media, and I'm not saying the items circled in red are any worse than "Survivor: Race Wars" or "My Name is Trash" (aww heck, I'll admit I watched both those shows.)

But the theme is certainly pervasive, no?

The Mighty Gorbulon!

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:12:00 +0000

That's me, as a spaceman.

A friend of mine, mulling over my last name, once told me that if I was an evil supervillain I would be called GORBULON.

(He was drunk, and rather impressed with himself for only replacing one letter; he then went into gleeful elaborations on what my superpowers might be, and then I hit him.)

I've used Gorbulon for a few logins and such, but I've always wished I had a cartoonist friend to actually draw "Gorbulon" - it'd make a killer avatar. (Maybe I should have gone to the Doug Wright Awards last night to see if I could make a friend?)

But then I stumbled across this drawing while I was cleaning out a drawer, and I remembered that I do in fact have a talented illustrator colleague. It's just that she'd never admit it. She's now a manager at CBC, and so busy with grown-up managerial stuff that I fear she doesn't draw much any more. In fact, I'm not going to use her name here without checking first. I think that was part of the Manifesto.

Anyhow, she did this illustration in 2000, when I was working for CBC4Kids. We had just published a book called Write 2000: Stories by Canadian Children. It was a Y2K project that asked children to write stories about life in the future, pick the event of the millennium, and tell us what they would put in a time capsule to be opened in the year 3000. There were prizes, and the best entries were put into the book.

The book was illustrated by CBC Radio's Kevin Sylvester, and my colleague did the cover. She also did a version of it just for me, for which I'm eternally grateful (and eternally young.)

Per Ardua ad Astra! To infinity and beyond! Make it so!

Beck's Bling

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:28:00 +0000

I noticed this oddity on my way to work today: Sir Adam Beck sporting bling!

The statue of Beck was erected in 1934 at the intersection of Queen & University. I have no idea who decked out Beck (Buck?) with the classic dollar sign chain, but it was visible enough to cause me to get off my streetcar a two stops early.

(Again, apologies for the crappy Palm photo - wife has the digital camera today. For a nice photo of the statue sans bling, try here.)

For those who don't know, here's the Wiki on Beck: "Sir Adam Beck, (June 20, 1857 – August 15, 1925) was a politician and hydro-electricity advocate who founded the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario."

Beck's name also graces the giant hydroelectric stations at Niagara Falls, as well as the gigantic Niagara Tunnel Boring Machine that is currently tunneling under the city of Niagara Falls. It's known as "Big Becky". And there's an interesting story that came out today about Beck's original "electric circus": a 1912 demonstration of electricity in farming.

But why the bling? It it a protest against rising hydro rates? Is he dressed up for the film festival? Pimpin'?

Dunno. But now, unfortunately, I have to get back to my own "boring machine."

Golden State Worriers

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 15:14:00 +0000

Last night as I was putting my four year old to bed, she asked if I was going to watch television after she fell asleep. I told her I was planning on watching the Blue Jays play baseball against the Mariners. I then had to explain what a mariner is (easy enough) and why baseball players wanted to be called that (less easy.)

She then wanted to know what other teams were called. Lying on her floor in the dark, I rattled off all the professional sports franchises I could remember, while she passed judgment on whether or not their names were any good.

Some of it was interesting (she immediately noted the preponderance of bird and animal names), some of it was tricky (“Daddy, what’s a Redskin?”) and some of it was downright hilarious (she nearly wet the bed laughing at “Mighty Ducks”.)

Here, for your amusement, are a few of her actual observations:

Dad: Golden State Warriors.
Daughter: What’s a warrior?
Dad: Someone who is brave and fights a lot.
Daughter: Warriors aren’t brave. They worry all the time. Like Wemberly.
Dad: Warriors, not “worriers”.
Daughter: Oh.

Dad: Pittsburgh Steelers.
Daughter: Do they take stuff?
Dad: Huh?
Daughter: Like Swiper on Dora. Steal things.
Dad: Different kind of steel, with an “e”. It means someone who works with metal.
Daughter: Do they work with metal?
Dad: No.

Dad: Denver Nuggets.
Daughter: What’s a nugget?
Dad: A small bit of rock, or gold.
Daughter: Or chicken!
Dad: True! But I don’t think they’d want to be called the Denver McNuggets.
Daughter: Me neither.

Dad: New England Patriots.
Daughter: I’m not interested in that.

Dad: L.A. Clippers.
Daughter: That makes me think of hair clips.
Dad: A clipper is also a sailboat.
Daughter: Or toenail clippers.

Dad: Cleveland Browns.
Daughter: Brown isn’t pretty. Red is pretty.
Dad: Well, there are the Cincinnati Reds…
Daughter: Are they pretty?
Dad: Not really.

Dad: Chicago Bears.
Daughter: You already said Grizzlies and Cubs. There are Bears too?
Dad: Yep.
Daughter: They could be a family.
Dad: Yep.
Daughter: But they don’t really look like bears, just like grown-ups. Right?
Dad: Yep.

Dad: Buffalo Bills.
Daughter: Buffalo don’t have bills. Ducks have bills! That’s silly!

Dad: Atlanta Hawks.
Daughter: Zzzzzzzz.
Dad: I agree entirely.

Body count

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:03:00 +0000

I don't have a September 11 story worth telling. Thank God. Like everyone else in Canada, I arrived at work to see everyone gathered around a TV screen in shock and horror.

Among the things I remember from that morning: uneasiness at working directly beneath the CN Tower (which seemed like a likely target if the airplanes-into-towers thing went local), and the feeling that as a journalist, I should be doing something to cover the biggest story in years. Of course, I was working on a children's television pilot at the time, and was of no use at all. But feeling scared and useless were by no means unique.

(For a much better story, read the captivating account that my J-school colleague Karen Mah wrote about living beside the World Trade Center.)

I wasn't going to blog at all today - there will no doubt be many better things to read. But as I was parking my bike on this crisp September morning, I remembered another story of lives cut short that is worth telling.

On the southeast border of the CBC's Front Street offices is an unusual memorial called 100 Workers.

It's a long stone wall featuring the names of 100 Ontario workers who died in workplace accidents over the past 100 years. Actually, there are only 99 names - the final plaque is left blank, awaiting one of the nearly 1,000 workers who are killed on the job in Canada every year.

The installation spans the parkette between CBC and the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board offices located in Simcoe Place next door. But that connection isn't obvious. Most people who see 100 Workers are tourists, passing by on their way to a Jays game, a ride up the CN Tower or a Hippo bus tour of the harbour.

Given that frame of mind, the passers-by are usually caught off guard by small bronze plaques that read "pinned between tractor, scoop and ram", "engulfed in flames in a chemical explosion" and "bullet wound in chest."

I lock up my bike a few feet behind this monument each day, so I get to overhear snippets of tourists' conversations as they saunter along and read the names. The first reaction is always the same - a sort of snickering "holy crap, lookit this one!", followed by an attempt to find a method of dying more gruesome than the others. But after about a third of the wall, the snickering stops and the message sinks in. Not everyone sees the blank final plaque, but those that do are quieted for a few paces.

100 Workers is much more than a body count. There's a story behind each plaque, and each name. For example:

"Engulfed in flames" is Sean Kells.

He was 19 years old, killed on his third day of a job he didn't know was dangerous. When the 100 Workers monument was unveiled, Robin Kells was furious that his brother's entire life was reduced to a single line about his death. But he came around.

I have a small connection to another plaque, and I keep waiting for an opportunity to explain it to some meandering tourist who reads it out loud, as they often do.

"Bullet wound in chest" is Edmund Tong.

Tong was a Toronto police detective who was murdered when he pulled over a car containing two bank robbers. Those robbers - Steve Suchan and Leonard Jackson - were members of the notorious Boyd Gang of the 1950s, and the subject of one of the first items I did for the CBC Digital Archives.

The Boyd Gang is often remembered fondly for their daredevil ways - they busted out of the Don Jail twice, the first time using a hacksaw blade hidden in Jackson's artificial leg. Their second jailbreak became the subject of CBC-TVs first news report.

Captivating stuff - but every time I see the plaque, I am reminded that they were also cop killers. And yet, even cop killers have families, and their deaths are mourned.

Suchan's mother was a cleaning lady at a law firm. One night she begged famed lawyer J.J. Robinette to defend her son. He lost the case, and Suchan was sentenced to death. So was Jackson, who had merely been along for the ride. The two men were hanged simultaneously, with their backs together. Robinette was so upset that he left criminal law to become legal counsel.

I screened another archival clip (which was too laden with copyright issues to use) featuring an interview with Jackson's son, who watched his father hang. The guards forced Jackson to remove his artificial foot, and his son had to watch his dad hop awkwardly on one foot towards a gallows that he had to share with the real murderer.

That image bothers me. I can't see Jackson's death bringing the world any more satisfaction than Tong's, or Kells', or the 3,000 people who died on September 11th, 2001, or the 1,000+ American soldiers or the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since. Every single one was preventable, and every single one is missed by someone. They died because they showed up for work, or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How many blank plaques do we need, exactly?

Signage of the Apocalypse #3

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 18:24:00 +0000

If it's too inept...

If you read my haphazard Blogger profile, you'll notice that one of my favourite books is Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. It's a sad and wonderful collection of short stories about small-town characters, woven together by the experiences of a young reporter named George Willard.

Like George, I grew up and got my first newspaper gig in a small town. And like George, there was a defining moment when I knew I had to leave.

Now, unlike George, my departure wasn't facilitated by a death, a failed romance, a fight and an adolescent epiphany - though it did make me briefly consider my hometown (Woodstock, Ont. - hmm, it even sounds like that book title) to be "squalid and commonplace."

My epiphany was written on the back of a 1970 Chevelle.

Woodstock is one of those towns with a "main drag", where the main dragsters cruise endlessly and pointlessly up and down all night long (Dundas Street, from the Tim's to the McD's and back), showing off their pseudo-muscle cars with their Cragar rims and chrome headers and whatnot.

Some of these cars had catchy slogans (or car stereo brands) plastered across their back windows. The Chevelle in question had the following, stuck on with those gold-coloured, trapezoidal letters that people used to use for boat numbers and mailboxes:

OK, so this graphic is a mock-up based on my fuzzy memory - it could have been a Malibu or a 442, and I don't know if it was powder blue - but the spelling has HAUNTED ME FOREVER.

Four spelling mistakes in seven words! You couldn't do worse if you tried.

I'd think that if you were driving down to the Canadian Tire or the Co-Op to buy letters to permanently pimp your ride with a classic, stick-it-to-the-man phrase (anyone know where it originated?), you might check the spelling with a friend who had passed Grade 10. But no, 1980s Woodstonian, you did not.

One look at that car, and I knew my time was up. Like George Willard, I packed my bags and left town for good, letting Woodstock "become but a background on which to paint the dreams of my manhood."

Except my manhood will go through a spell checker first.

[Previous Signage of the Apocalypse here and here. Apologies for the posting gap - I was having "broken pipe" problems between Blogger and Netfirms, which seem to have been resolved. For now.]

Opening lines

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:31:00 +0000

Help me out here. My whole life, I’ve been one anecdote short of a good conversation starter.

I used to go to a lot more concerts than I do now (thanks a lot, two small children!) One of the things I really used to enjoy was listening for the concert’s opening line.

Here’s the scene:

You got your tickets weeks ago. Tonight, you arrived early, and have been waiting in a hot, pressing crowd for ages. Finally, the lights dim. The band walks on stage and takes up their instruments. As the cheering dies down, the lead singer steps to the mic, leans forward, and says…

Well, I have two great examples, but I need a third. Here are my two:

1) New Model Army, at The Trasheteria in Guelph, Ont., 1993.

NMA is one of those energy bands, even better live than on disc. Their music is raw and melodic, politically edgy, angry and sad both.

I drove to Guelph to catch their show with a couple of friends from Trent University. The Trash was (is?) a dark, hole-in-the-wall sort of affair, with a giant fake lizard affixed to the black ceiling. We waited for at least an hour in the middle of the crowded room, sliding into a good spot behind the mixing board.

The roadie who manned it was wearing the band’s Thunder & Consolation tour shirt. Staring at his back, we read off the names of the previous stops on the tour: Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, London, New York, Chicago… we got lucky to catch them here.

Finally the band takes the stage. Lead singer Justin Sullivan, who sometimes goes by the name Slade the Leveler, is not a pretty man. Lank hair, tattoos and jewelry, scowling eyes, English teeth.

He straps on his guitar, steps the mic, and surveys the crowd. Pauses. Obviously he’s thinking of the concert shirt locations too, because he says only this (in his working-class English accent) before launching into a barrage of guitar distortion:

"Guelph...... at last!"

2) Art Bergmann, at Call The Office in London, Ont., 1995

Art Bergmann is no pretty boy himself.

I have a thing for rock ‘n rollers who really look like they’ve earned a rock ‘n roll living, and Art has cred to spare.

From his early days with the K-Tels and the Young Canadians to his later solo years, Art lived hard. He was a drunk of the Shane MacGowan school and has the same hard-bitten look and sharp eyes of NMA's Sullivan.

The tour I saw was for the What Fresh Hell Is This? disc (his "I've just kicked heroin" album).

My J-school buddy Mike (now at the Globe) dragged me out to see Art at Call The Office – a good place to see bands, though it was decidedly better-heeled than the Trash; the lights were bright, the crowd orderly.

Except for up on stage. Somehow, Bergmann has managed to already take exception to someone near the front row before the show even started. Without warning, and without his band, Art stumbles up to the mic and points and accusatory finger.

Art is not a young man, and he’s not in good shape, but he’s ready to ditch the concert and start a fight. As his band scrambles to get the music playing and restrain their singer, Bergmann turns to the crowd and says:

"If buddy wants to fucking go, I’m fucking ready!"

Priceless! But if I had a third anecdote, it’d somehow feel like a legit topic instead of two mildly interesting memories.

So, until I get back out there on the scene, tell me yours. Remember any good concert opening lines? Witty banter between songs? Highlight-reel moments? I want to hear them!

Signage of the Apocalypse #2

paul@gorbould.com (Paul Gorbould) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 05:29:00 +0000

Einbahnstrasse

This one happened to my parents, not me, but I can certainly sympathize.

Both my parents come from England, and speak only English. But they were both Geography teachers, and really had the travel bug.

Before I was born, my folks had toured all over Europe, and even lived in Kenya for a couple of years after they got married. When my sister and were old enough to travel, our family would spend each summer living in a different part of the world, courtesy of house exchanges or traditional vacations.

Mom and dad got to be pretty good at navigating the planet. But once in a while the simplest thing would throw them off.

Case in point: One time, before I was born, they took a trip to Germany. They rented a car, and drove to a major city. Being good geography teachers, they had maps and had studied the landmarks, but they were still nervous about finding their way around the narrow streets.

After parking the car, they were careful to take note of where they left it. They looked around for the name of the street - they knew the German word for "street" was "straße" ... and saw a rectangular sign that looked about right: Einbahnstrasse.

They diligently wrote down Einbahnstrasse, and went sightseeing.

Of course, they had quite a time finding the car again. They found Einbahnstrasse, but no car. They they found a different Einbahnstrasse... then another, and another.

As you probably know (but they didn't): "Einbahnstrasse" = "One Way Street".

I'm still not sure how they managed to figure out "strasse", but not "ein" (they could count to ten in German) and "bahn" (they drove there on the Autobahn). But they learned to pick apart those damnable German compound words in a hurry.

[Signage of the Apocalypse #1 can be found here]