I don’t know what to call it, but I went to this thing where an author was being interviewed about a book he’d written. The nature of the book, being made up of interviews with many people, made it less authorly for the guy to give a reading. The author was more of an editor than he was a writer for the purposes of this book.

What’s the book you say? It is “The Uncensored, Unauthorized Biography of The Simpsons” or something along those lines. I can’t be bothered to dig up a link or google or it something. Pretty much, right now, I’m typing with one hand as the other caresses a warm cup of coffee. The author is John Ortved. I’d never heard of him before I read this book. He was being interviewed by Richard Crouse who I have heard of. Around Toronto, Richard Crouse is known as one of those guys who has a TV show and a radio show about movies. Every Friday, he reviews some new flicks on the radio morning shows. He looks like Hugh Dillon gone swing. (If that sentence makes any sense to you, then you can actually picture this guy perfectly, if it doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t sweat it, it’s a very obscure reference. It’s just that this guy looks like Hugh Dillon but made a much different choice of lifestyle at some point.)

This non-reading, book launch interview for a book that had been out for some time already was at the Gladstone Hotel. I don’t know if it’s still a hotel, but it’s more of a nightclub, intimate concert-venue type of place. It’s also in a part of town that I felt uncomfortable leaving my car parked down there. But it was a Monday night. The heroin addicts are probably sleeping off their high from the weekend on a Monday night.

This book itself, is more about the behind-the-scenes of the Simpsons and the writing staff. It’s a book I’ve been wanting to see get made for quite some time. Not that I knew this particular book was being written. I didn’t know what it was when I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore. I mean as a concept, I’ve been wanting to learn more about the Simpsons writing staff. This book is at times, about the warts of the Simpsons writers and producers. The Simpsons makes a lot of money and everybody wants their piece of the pie. And it is Hollywood. Everybody’s back has a spot saying “Insert knife here.”

The whole thing was interesting. I’d never been to a book launch before of a real book. In college, a couple buddies of mine got published in some annual short story collection compiled by the school’s resident grammar nazi. I went to the launch to support my friends, bought the book, had them both sign it. This signing though, I forgot the book at home. I wasn’t going to buy it again. And, my copy of the book, well, it’s been in the washroom already. I would feel uncomfortable asking an author to sign his book after I’d brought the book into the washroom.

I did ask the author a question. I asked “What of Swartzwelder?” John Swartzwelder is the man who has written the most Simpsons episodes of any of the writers. He’s no longer on the show. He has also written several novels which are pretty funny. He’s developed a reputation as being a recluse. There really is nothing more interesting that the mysterious. We all know that even though we’ve already won the red snapper, we can’t resist going for what’s in the box!

And my own thanks to Christielli for alerting me to this event. Otherwise, I would have stayed home, ate too much and watched some sucky television.

At the Falls, the Twins and I went in a couple of haunted house attractions. The first one was the haunted house in the Hollywood Wax Museum building. It wasn’t scary at all. Was pretty cool though. There was this guy strapped to a guerney and stood up. Upon approaching, it started shaking and writhing. Eventually, it was banging it’s head against the chainlink fence in front of it. Then there was this electric chair controlled by a big red button. Nobody sat in it, but when activated, it shook and made a lot, I mean a lot of smoke. That was all pretty cool.

The next haunted house we tried was called Nightmares. This one sucked. We had to wait in line for a long time as only a few people at a time were allowed in. While waiting in line, we saw more people leave through the entrance than the exit. Those were the people who chickened out. It wasn’t scary. Not at all. The entire time, the maze is pitch black. The only light is a series of red diodes we were told to follow. All the while, there’s an actor following us tickling us with feathers and stuff, making noises. It wasn’t scary. Very few things actually happened in this haunted house. I spent much of the time looking for the next red light to go towards.

Killing time in line for this crappy haunted house, my friends and I discussed what was actually scary. Haunted houses don’t scare me. So what does scare me? I know that nothing really bad can happen to me in a haunted house. Real stuff scares me. If I wake up and find a lump on one of my testicles, that would be scary. Cancer scares me. Diseases and stuff like that are scary. Vege-terrorists banning the eating of meat, that scares me. Health-freaks imposing their view of what to eat upon me, scares me a lot.

On a sidenote, if I wake up and see a headline on the newspaper stating that fried chicken and donuts being banned by law, I would take up arms and just start hunting all the people responsible. This is not a joke. This is a real threat. Anybody who stops me from eating my chicken fingers and donuts will be assassinated by me. Maybe tortured too. You see, there is no punishment that scares me more than living a life of “freedom” that doesn’t include some chicken and donuts. I would rather be in jail with all the bad things that happen in jail than be living a life in which I’m told I’m free but doesn’t include chicken and donuts. Freedom for me involves the freedom to eat some fried chicken and some donuts. I would live the rest of my life in jail and all of the afterlife in Hell to protect my ability to eat a fried chicken and have a donut for dessert.

But back to the topic at hand, what is scary? What scares you? Are movies scary? What about listening to Black Sabbath in the dark at midnight during a thunderstorm? Is that scary? What are you afraid of?

The unknown, that’s scary. When you don’t know what is going to happen and you can imagine your own death, that’s scary. A haunted house attraction at Niagara Falls, that’s not scary at all. You know nothing is going to happen to you in there. Being that this is Canada, if somebody actually got scared to death in one of those places, it would probably get shut down. But it would also make the place a lot more popular until it gets shut down.

I now pose the question to you, what scares you?

Saturday morning, 6AM, I of course cannot sleep so I’ve decided to start dismantling furniture. But not just any furniture, a cabinet of drawers from my 15th floor hotel room at the Doubletree in Niagara Falls.

I guess when recounting some recent activities in my life that really didn’t happen for any real reason or result in anything of substance, I guess, the best way to start the story is in the middle with something surreal. Thus making the rest of the story a little less weird.

Friday night began a bit more exciting than the usual Friday. Janet was supposed to be involved but she sallied out. Shame for her. The Big Z just became the Big Z. Celebration was in order. Celebration began at Montana’s for some dinner. Then to Sogo for more dinner and drinks. (Not that we were that hungry. More like the Big Z couldn’t resist a cheap pitcher with some wings and my dinner at Montana’s was disappointing and left much uneaten due to the fact it was much uncooked.)

But it was dinner at Sogo where the Wonder Twins joined us. That’s where things got different. From a conversation that began as “What are you doing tomorrow?” somehow ended with “Okay, we’ll meet over there then haul ass to Niagara Falls.”

I brought the Big Z home then flew up to my house to grab a few things. By midnight, I was at the meeting place with the Wonder Twins and we were all piling into my car. And the three of us were off.

I’m not sure if it was the spontaneity or the caffeine or the lack of sleep (I’d been up since 4AM) or any combination of the three, but I was too jacked to get to sleep. I laid in my rented bed for over an hour before dozing off.

The insomnia I suffer from, or the effects of everything from Friday night shot me out of bed a little after 5. I didn’t want to wake up the Twins so I watched TV in my room and had a cup of coffee and did general boring things around the hotel room. It was still pretty dark outside so my not-so-great view was not really worth looking out. I ended up screwing around with the room’s furniture because I can. I watched an episode of Power Rangers RPM. I did a sudoku puzzle that was really just an add in the Yellow Pages. I watched the A&E Biography of Mr. T. (At 18, he legally changed his name to first name Mister, middle name period, last name T.) I pity the fool who doesn’t like Mr. T.

Around 8:30, I met the Twins in the hallway as we left to get some breakfast. But I felt the need to rock Niagara, WIGSF-style. Zan, upon seeing me said “Nice suit, but, running shoes?” I forgot my black shoes in the car. I made the switch down there. But the twins gotta nice kick from seeing my all spiffy and stylin’ but with a pair of bright red Pumas on my feet.

For breakfast, IHOP. I love pancakes.

We spent the rest of the day at Clifton Hill. We did the usual Clifton Hill stuff. Haunted houses, “4-D” rides, mini-golf, crap like that. The haunted houses weren’t scary. Jayna had her eyes closed the whole time and she wouldn’t stop screaming. The Brendan Fraser-starred Journey to the Center of the Earth “4-D” ride sucked. But I’m sure you knew that from the first mention of Brendan Fraser. Mini-golf, 7 over and I still won. Wow. I didn’t think I’d had beaten Zan with a score like that, but I did. I was consistent. That was good enough.

Lunch was at the Wild Mushroom. When I was taking a leak at the joint, the waitress walked into the mens room to do a scheduled cleanup check. She was all “Oh, sorry, didn’t know anybody was in here.” I didn’t care. I figured any woman working in a place with a mascot like this isn’t gonna see something she ain’t seen before. It didn’t bother me at all. Food was standard pub fare. Very tolarable.

The ended our day with a ride on that big ferris wheel. I never understood the attraction of a ferris wheel and the shitty smooth jazz playing in the gondola didn’t make the experience any less silly.

So there we have it. I did something spontaneous. Y’all happy now?

From now on, Bob must be referred to as The Big “Z”

I’ve been trying to write a post about how the francophones in this country should be bending over to kiss my ass if they want to stay in this country. Seriously, these treasonous bastards should either swear allegiance to the country or get the fuck out!

Christielli’s comment and my subsequent response to her comment got me thinking about this one time in my life, years ago, when I stood up against authority, and won.

The year was 1999, I was in my final year of high school. Back then, in Ontario, high school had an optional fifth year which pretty much every student with any sort of post-secondary education aspirations opted for. Also, in 1999, the provincial government of Ontario was having an election in the summer. This election would dictate who would become Members of Provincial Parliament and Premier of the province. The encumbant majority was the Progressive Conservative party and Mike Harris as Premier. Mike Harris, in his first term, built a very negative reputation amongst unionized workers throughout the province, especially amongst various teachers’ unions.

I was eighteen years old and frankly, quite excited to be taking part in my very first election as a registered voter. This was going to be my first time casting a ballot in a real election. Do you smell that? That’s the smell of democratic pride.

As I was saying before the patriotism kicked in, I was in my final semester of high school. The school year was coming to an end and my schedule gave me some wiggle-room in the afternoon. By wiggle-room, I mean I had no classes after lunch. My school day usually ended pretty early. Meanwhile, my friend Bob was starting to spend his spare periods at my high school instead of his own. He was dating a girl who went to my high school. I will repeat that statement because it deserves repeating. Bob was dating a girl. BOB! DATING! GIRL! That was ten years ago and it still amazes me. Whatever, good for Bob. So, one day, Bob was at my school and I was leaving school to go home. Instead of going home, I went with him, back to his school. He had one class left, a law class. His class would be watching the movie American History X instead of doing any actual work. I’d wanted to see that movie so I joined Bob in his law class. I wore one his shirts as this was a Catholic school and required a uniform. The policy in the school was pretty lax though. Half of the class went without uniforms that day.

The class sat silently as the second half of the film was shown in the darkened classroom. The teacher stopped the tape and fast forwarded through the “can’t show this to a Catholic classroom full of students” scene. You know the scene I’m talking about.

When the film ended, the class had some time left before the end of the period. The teacher used this opportunity to open a discussion on the upcoming election. I remember phrases like “This will be the first election for many of you,” being spoken by the teacher. The teacher then started referencing news articles about how bad the current administration in the province was and why they needed to be ousted from government.

I looked around the classroom. Was I the only person who heard the teacher spread political opinion in the classroom? Nobody had their hand up. So I put mine up. Bob shot me a dirty look.

“Yes, you over there in the back,” the teacher called on me.

“Sir, don’t teachers have to give both sides of a political issue in the classroom?” I asked inquisitively.

I wish I had a camera so as to capture the look of “oh shit” on this guy’s face. BUSTED!

“Oh well, uh yeah um. I guess, if you are interested in the lowering of taxes and reduction of government size, stuff like that, then yes, Mike Harris and the PC party would be the right choice for your vote.” Ladies and gentlemen, that’s the sound of a human being backpeddling as fast as he can.

Teachers throughout Canada are not allowed to present one-sided political opinion in the classroom. (In 2005, in the province of British Columbia, that rule was overturned.) I knew that because when I asked one of my teachers about an upcoming teachers’ union strike, my teacher responded with “I’m not really supposed to discuss that kind of stuff in school.” She then explained to the class how teachers are not allowed to present partisan or biased information to their students.

After the class, the teacher approached me and asked me who I was. I made up some cock and bull story about being a student in the school but was just auditing the class for the day as I had a spare period or something. He then reiterated how teachers should be unbiased in the classroom.

I was just one student on one day in one class. Who knows how many students over the years this teacher was indoctrinated with his own political beliefs? An eighteen year old mind is very impressionable. The average high school student hasn’t been out in the real world, hasn’t developed the mindset to properly evaluate all the political rhetoric and speechs to make an informed decision at the polls. The average high school student trusts what the teacher says in the classroom. It still to this day makes me wonder how much of this goes on in classrooms. How much does this affect the average student’s political opinion that first time around at the polls?

If you’re a teacher, think about whether or not you’ve expressed your own personal political beliefs in the classroom to your students? If you’re a student, are any of your teachers getting political in the classroom?

For people who don’t want to read a post about my political rants and ramblings, here’s a list of movie ideas I would like to see be made into movies.

• “Flubber on Ice” – Basically, Flubber but with hockey instead of basketball.
• “The Adventures of Abraham Lincoln in the 21st Century” – President Lincoln is brought back to life and is reinstated as President.
• “The Mirror’s Reflection” – A super-secretive assassin is hired to assassinate himself.
• “LAX Blues” – A Richard Simmons-type character and a Rush Limbaugh-type character are stuck next to each other on a grounded plane during a freak snowstorm.
• “Dollhouse” – A militant, man-hating, butch lesbian has to pretend to be a sexually-aggresive heterosexual woman in order to please her conservative parents who don’t know she’s gay.
• “Flip the Bird” – A little boy unwillingly becomes a reality TV star after being caught on live TV picking his nose.

Anybody remember that post a few months ago where I blogged about being oblivious to tornados because I was too busy smashing Nazis? Oh, you don’t. Here it is.

Good for me, I was unharmed as was my entire neighbourhood. But others in my city were not so lucky. Many homes were damaged beyond repair, cars tossed around and destroyed, trees fallen, various other things uprooted and mangled. Pretty standard tornado fucking shit up kind of stuff.

My city, the city of Vaughan asked the province of Ontario for emergency disaster relief funding. Sounds pretty much like standard procedure to me. The province of Ontario denied the city of Vaughan’s request for relief because the city is too financially strong.

Excuse me. I didn’t hear that right. Sounds like my city is being punished because we aren’t grossly in debt.

This wasn’t some tornado sweeping across a barren field. This thing hit homes. This thing went through the oldest part of town, one of the most densly populated areas of the city. Gee, I don’t know. Sounds like a disaster to me.

This is not the first time this year the province has denied disaster relief. Apparently, in the summer, there was massive flooding in Hamilton. I recall that flooding pretty well for a guy who pretty much stays clear of “Toronto for people without sleeves.” The flooding in Hamilton actually affected me as I was trying to go through the city via a flooded expressway. (Read the Sunday portion.) Hamilton is a city that’s been in the decline for quite a while. It’s a steeltown, ’nuff said.

Looks to me like if the voters of this province develop a memory, they’ll go looking for a new party to sweep into Queen’s Park. But that of course, requires the voters of this province to develop a memory.

Anybody remember the campaign that got these guys in office? “No new taxes!” First thing they did in office, new tax. Sorry, sorry, a new “health care premium.” Anybody remember the promise to close the coal power plants? Psst. They’re still open. How about the billion dollars spent to set up an electronic database for health records? I wonder how that’s going. Oh right. The system isn’t operable yet and has shown no progress towards ever being operable. So where did all that billion dollars go? It went into private bank accounts of the people entrusted to setup the system.

To all Ontarians, next election, don’t vote Liberal. Unless of course you want to pay for your own repairs from flood and tornado damage, pay more for healthcare that doesn’t actually provide any care. So go ahead, keep voting for the Liberals. You know they’re going to trot out the official party line again “Blame Mike Harris.” Because after eight years in absolute power, the Liberals have done nothing to correct the mistakes they claimed Mike Harris made. Why would they correct them? They need the spectre of Mike Harris to get re-elected.

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