Backslapping

Self congratulatory "evolved" dads sit in a Starbucks and congratulate themselves.

Dad 1: It's a great day to be a stay at home dad!

Dad 2: S.A.H.D.  Sure makes you appreciate your wife though doesn't it?

Dad 1: Oh, yeah!

Dad 2: OH YEAH!

Dad 1: Sometimes, I think about all those times I said no when she asked for help with food or whatever and....

He trails off and there is an awkward silence.

Dad 2: OOOOOOOH YEAH!!!!!!

They laugh a little too loud.  They laugh a little too long.  There is actual backslapping.

I only have one question.  Where are their children?

A Living Tribute

Apparently, David and Victoria Beckham have named their newborn daughter Harper Seven Beckham.  I only have three questions:

1. Are they Mickey Mantle fans?
2. Are they George Costanza fans?
3. Is this a joke?

I'll say this, either one of these answers will give me a new respect for this couple.  Welcome, Seven.  You are a living tribute.

Kind of like that FREE HUGS asshole...

Source

I was on the subway yesterday and I saw a billboard that said "Renew someone's faith in mankind.  Smile at them."

When I see things like that it only serves to make me want to sucker punch a perfect stranger in the nuts.

You don't think that says anything about my personality do you?

Signs of spring in our neighbourhood...

Lenny and I were sitting on the front porch enjoying an early evening breeze.  I love our front porch, especially in the spring around dinner time.  You can always smell somebody's barbecue working and the wafting sweetness of the lilacs from next door.  Neighbours wave hello.  Lenny chews on the ears of her teddy bear.  The Robeau has done such a nice job with our front garden.  It really is a peaceful, quiet little oasis, right here in the city.

All of the sudden, the calm was broken by the sound of a high strung looking guy yelling into his cell phone. Picture Ziggy from The Wire in a stiff Blue Jays cap.

"Bro, I can't go to jail for this, Bro.  If I go back in I'll do six months this time, BRO!!!"

He stops to listen to whatever his "bro" on the other end of the line has to say for himself and starts pacing in front of our white picket fence.  His eyes wander and he catches a glimpse of Lenny.

"Oooooohhh!  What a CUTIE!"

He waves at her, adjusts his ball cap, rolls his eyes at whatever he just heard through what I can only assume is a pay as you go "burner" mobile and then, back into the cell phone:

"BRO. Listen to me.  If I do six months for this, I'm gonna get out and KICK. YOUR. ASS. Dawg.  Believe it, Bro." 

And just like that, he was gone, speed walking towards the Danforth.

"Well, what do you think of that?" I asked Lenny.  She looked thoughtful and replied with by blowing a long, wet, raspberry.  "Me too, Bro" I said, "me too".

Eeeew.

So there's this billboard at the corner of Main and Danforth for Baxters Soup, a company that apparently boasts soup that has been hand crafted by four generations of the Baxter Family...JUST FOR YOU. And all I can think about when I look at it is The Aristocrats.

The sudden rise of ROOIBOS.

Seriously. What's the deal with Rooibos? Where did it come from all of the sudden and why is it in all of my teas, smoothies and lotions?

Wish List

I can't get enough of that Marvin Gaye video I posted earlier (see below). Casting Idea for a biopic: JESSE L MARTIN. Hollywood, steal this idea! Steal it!

It's not just Marvin that makes that video special though. I really admired and connected with the direction and camera work, so I looked up the Director of the film "Save The Children". Here's the cool part - it's not that Stan Lathan's work connected with my aesthetic, it's that he probably had a large role in forming it. His first big gig as a Director before making this movie was working on a new show on PBS show called Sesame Street, so yeah. How cool is that? It kind of blows my mind. His resume after Sesame Street and Save the Children is a laundry list of episodic TV from the era.

Then, In 1989, Lathan and Russell Simmons partnered to create one of the most successful franchises in entertainment: HBO’s Def Comedy Jam series, which started the careers of folks such as Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle, Martin Lawrence, Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, Mo'Nique, Mike Epps, and D. L. Hughley.

Crazy.

So I want that Jesse L Martin / Marvin Gaye biopic...and I want Stan Lathan to Direct and Produce it.

Gifted

I'm on the phone with Bookvixen. She, like most everyone I know, has been bitten by the Facebook bug. The weirdest part about Facebook is reconnecting with people you haven't seen since grade seven. "There's nothing quite like playing online scrabble with people you went to gifted with", she says. I can't imagine she's wrong.

No known cure.

Those skin tone fishnets make you look like you have a rare skin disease.

"Discover the Norah Jones of Rieslings"

What does this mean??? That it's really young and old people LOVE it?

REBEL

He doesn't care about your sign.

He doesn't care about your tape.

He's a REBEL.

The art of irony.

Last week, Mo and I went to see an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) featuring the photography of Ansel Adams and Alfred Eisenstaedt. There were some really amazing and inspiring works on display, but I have to say my favourite moment happened just outside the exhibit (click on this pic to make it bigger and get the...full effect).


No sense of irony at the AGO. None.

Well, he is the cute one...

I’ve noticed some alarming graffiti cropping up in our fair city. Who is the culprit? Is this a woman in her 50’s going through a mid-life crisis? A teenage kid trying to be ironic? Or is the man himself, trying to get some grass roots publicity? What possible explanation could there be for the words PAUL McCARTNEY #1 being scribbled on whitewashed walls and on subway platforms? I’ve seen it in five different places in five different neighbourhoods in the last two weeks. Now, while I don’t disagree with the sentiment, it strikes me as a really odd outlet for a Paul McCartney fan. What’s next? “LEONARD COHEN ROCKS MY WORLD!” “LIONEL RITCHIE 4EVER (+ INFINITY)” or maybe, “FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL HEATHER MILLS….”

While this public declaration of love for Paulie does strike me as somewhat odd, I have to say that I hope whoever is responsible for this keeps it up. It always makes me smile. And I’m always left with a favorite McCartney tune running through my head. A day spent with “Maybe I’m Amazed” running through your head is a good day. Besides, for my money, he’s still the cute one.

Burned out by the Blackout.

I’m sick of this story already. And I lived it.

Great. The lights went out. We all had to walk places and sweat more than we usually do. It was the biggest blackout in North American history! Great.

Wonderful. We were gauged for $30 by greedy variety store clerks when purchasing water and batteries. We listened to politicians shift blame. We cancelled our weekend plans. Wonderful.

Fabulous. Our mayor has officially shifted from “scary crazy” to “kinda funny crazy”. I am left wondering, when did Mayor Mel perfect his Mel Brooks 2,000 Year Old Man impression? Fabulous.

Blackout, Shmackout.

Place LOGO here

So people like to wear shirts with corporate logos on them. I’ve noticed this. They like to wear their Nike and Addidas and what not. That’s cool. Whatever. I generally refrain from wearing stuff like that because it probably only serves to make people wonder why I’m not working out more. “She has the T-shirt, why doesn’t she MOVE more?”

It’s kind of like girls that wear t-shirts with pictures of other girls on them. You’re not going to catch me wearing a t-shirt with a picture of another girl on it. Like I need absolute strangers thinking, “Sure, she’s pretty, but she’s no Marilyn Monroe. How do I know? Cause she’s RIGHT THERE on her shirt.” I do not need the scrutiny. I do not.

I bring this up because I saw a nice looking fellow walking down Yonge Street this weekend in a T-shirt that read, in big block letters, NOT ENDORSED BY ANYONE. I see what he was going for. A nobody owns me, Naomi Klein, defiant attitude.

Problem is, it just made him look like nobody likes him.

For those of you about to ROCK!

Well, here’s the day we’ve all been waiting for! Actually, I’ll be honest; I forgot today was the SARS concert until I saw it on the news this morning. And I guess I shouldn’t call it the SARS concert either, because that might give the wrong impression. It’s the concert to make us forget about SARS and remember that Mick Jagger is a BIG, BIG star. Seriously. He’s a BIG star. How do I know this? Our city is banking its entire recovery on him. The weird part? I think it has a very good shot at working.

Call me crazy, but when I think of Mick Jagger I immediately think of two things. Richard Belzer’s impression of him and the fact that he just turned sixty. Neither of those things makes me think “tourism dollars” and “economic recovery”. Then again, I can’t budget for a metropass and Mick has a degree from London University in economics, so I should probably just shut up. Shut up and be glad that I’ll be able to catch The Guess Who’s portion of the “concert to support Toronto’s economic recovery from the disease whose name we shall not utter and the fact that Mick Jagger is BIG star” on TV.

I love The Guess Who. I actually went to an Argos game last year to see them perform at half time. That’s right, I went to an Argos game by choice. My observations? Burton was a little bloated and his keyboard was unusually tiny (what does the man play, a Casio?) but he sounded amazing. He could have been a Broadway star. Great pipes. Randy Bachman who was all decked out in denim and his obligatory leather vest seems to be the man that time forgot. He’s lost a bunch of weight. He’s a freakin’ super model. But can he play the flute? Our Burton may be a tad bloated, but he’s still got a way with the woodwinds.

That’s right, I’d take Burton over Mick any day. And that, my friends, is why I have to walk to work.