Waiting for Tom

YouTube is amazing, but, like all of us, not perfect.

Of late, all of my attempts to post videos to the blog have simply failed.

Yesterday, I tried 3 times to share a Tom Waits original with you. (To say Tom Waits and "original" in the same breath is redundant, n'est ce pas?) No dice.

But here, today, you have below, a Jim Jarmusch film with Waits turning a Sinatra classic on its ear.

tom waits _ it's alright with me

Tom Waits - On The Nickel

Imagine - John Lennon

AL JOLSON SINGING

Here's one of my fall-time favorite moments from a very corny movie that has had an enormous influence on my life. I was 4 years old when "The Jolson Story" was released in 1946. I saw the movie and how could I not be drawn by a story of a Jewish boy who loves to sing.

Larry Parks was nominated for Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the man, who for many years, was called "The World's Greatest Entertainer."

In this lovely moment from the movie, Jolson's Rabbi father encourages him to sing after the singer has taken a kind of false "retirment."

I post this for my sweetheart. We are celebreating tomorrow our One Year Anniversary.

Happy Anniversary, Baby...

Pill Takers Beware!!!

Shocking experience this morning. Lesson learned.

My normally reliable Safeway Pharmacy blew it Big Time in attempting to refill a prescription.

The particular formulation is one of the statin drugs used to get better cholesterol numbers. Thank God I'm a naturally chatty person. The pharmacist gave me the refill and I started talking about how simvastatin almost killed me 2 years ago with dreadful muscle ache side effects, and that I was so please with now using this older version, called pravastatin.

The pharmacist looked at me like she's just seen Jim Carrey naked.

Guess what?

They had given me the wrong scrip!!!

Fortunately, I still had 2 pills left and the bottle with me so I could compare and match the new prescription.

LESSON FOR ALL: Check, then double-check that you have been given the right poison.

Fire the Writers! Some Comedies Just Write Themselves

So we ask you to do something, and then you do it too well, so we stop talking to you.

Ecco the City of Vancouver.

For years, the City has been giving an east side neighbourhood trucks and bins to clean up their area. The neighbourhood won awards for their diligence.

Now, the City says that the 'hood is throwing out too much "personal" trash.

Result, the City is taking away the trucks and bins.

In fact, the City is threatening anyone who tries to throw out "unauthorized" garbage" with...wait for it..."a dumping infraction."

A dumping infraction....hahahahahaha....you can't make stuff like this up!

Only the City can satirize itself so successfully.

SHRINKING THE LAW

When will we remove psychiatry - that most witchy pseudo-science - from our criminal justice system?

In the latest travesty in which a head doctor hijacks a courtroom, someone claiming to be an "expert" in sleep disorders, changed the entire outcome of a dangerous driving case in a local court.

A woman fell asleep while driving at 6:30 in the evening and killed a 5 year old.

The psychiatrist convinced the judge that the driver was suffering from "undiagnosed chronic insomnia."

How does he know this?

Why would the judge and a set of appeal judges give this man any credence?

Cheques & (Bank) Balances

There is a disturbing trend in editorial writing these days.

This morning, The Vancouver Sun has published yet another piece decrying public disagreement with official policy. A consistent pattern has emerged in recent months in which the city's largest daily journal objects to debate or opposing opinions, favoring in each case, the status quo.

Today they say ,"Critique of Olympic Planning is Redundant and Wasteful."

And they may be right about the way this study was funded and other particulars. But isn't this the core of democratic process - checks and balances?

So a group was gifted $109,000 to rate VANOC's performance?

When VANOC is shrouded in secrecy and spending is astronomical and historical precedent tells us that Olympic Games are often in the red, why not ask questions?

The Fifth Estate can do better.

Doctor, Doctor. Gimme More!

Did you know that it is legal in America for a doctor to receive payment from a pharmaceutical company to prescribe the pharma's drug products?

And because it is legal and highly profitable, moral and ethical considerations never enter the equation.

Click here to read the startling and detestable story. Then ask yourself to what degree does the same behaviour appear here in Canada. I don't know the answer. But I do know this. While I am happy to see many reforms in our health care system, including the embracing of some private components, the example herein points clearly to the disaster of free-market health care delivery.

What's a Girl to Do?

Poor little Christy Clark.

She felt "the injustice" of her MLA pay.

She quit politics to spend more time with her infant son.

And shortly thereafter, came out of mammahood to run for mayor.

Cry me a river...

Bang, Bang, You're in Jail

The Conservative Government has passed a bill which will call for more prison time for crooks with guns. Not much more, but some.

The NDP watered down parts of the bill saying that the bill as originally worded by the Conservatives would not pass the Charter of Rights Guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

They were probably right.

But what does that mean?

It means that in Canada, punishing a bad guy for owning, buying, stealing, using, waving a gun is defined by law as "cruel and unusual punishment."

And you wonder why we're in trouble...

Wake Up and Sing, Halleluyah

24 Hours reports this morning that Philip Mangano, executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness has succeeded in recent years in bringing down the rates of homelessness in San Francisco, Miami and St. Louis by 30 - 50 %.

How did he do it?

Simple.

He built homes. The US government funds the construction of housing through HUD.

Back in our own dear back yard, the Federal Government - that is the deeply caring Liberals - quit building new social housing in 1993, with the result that homelessness has doubled since then in Vancouver.

But 1993 is when I began at CKNW and 1993 is when I began saying in public that the feds had stopped building social housing, and I said it again and again until 2006.

Hey. Who Listens?

Project Civil City my ass. You can grandstand all you want. This is simple. The federal government which collects most of our taxes has cut back or down or entirely in the last two decades on social housing, medicare, education, police and the military.

Where exactly, besides Quebec, of course, is all this money going?

Search me.

What You Really Need to Know

Jordin will go tomorrow night.

She's delightful, she's lovely, she has great energy, but she doesn't have the pipes that Melinda and LaKisha have. And Blake is unique, an almost Sting, so he's safe for another week or two.

Next to go will be LaKisha. She's got this powerhouse killer voice. But married to that is a depressing kind of Victim Vibe. She always looks like she's in the middle of a gas pain or major tears. And she never, never, ever smiles. What's the part of Show Biz that she doesn't get?

Blake and Melinda will slug it out for the finale.

Melinda will win.

None of them is really great. They are all pretty good, but no one is bringing down the house.

Simon doesn't care, because Simon owns them all and they'll all be working for a while anyway.

Hi. My name is David, and I'm addicted to Idol.

fiddling...

Sorry about the lack of posts these past 2 days.

On Sunday, I simply took the day off.

This morning, I installed my new webcam and I am attempting - unsuccessfully, again! - to give you a video/audio post. Arrrrgghhhhh...

Soon...

Don't Look Now

The BCTF doesn't want the kids to be tested.

The Teacher's Union, that most militant and combative of orgs, is fighting tooth and nail to resist the Ministry of Education's directive to test kids in grades 4 and 7 in basic skills.

Why?

Every College and University professor across the land can attest to the horrible story that new students cannot write or spell, that half their classes are filled with people who shouldn't have been let into high school, let alone post-secondary education.

Can we suppose that if students are found lacking by these tests that might reflect on the performance of the teachers?

Can we suppose that the BCTF is once again hiding behind their apparent concern for students, when in fact they are covering their own backsides, us always?

Who's Running?

The election of Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday as President of France brings into focus a much larger issue.

Mr. Sarkozy, a conservative to say the least, defeated Segolene Royal, a socialist to say the most.

While the French pondered their political future and argued about how to vote, I attended a wedding. At our table, somebody, unprompted, called Sam Sullivan "evil." The rest of the table quickly concurred, adding, "the worst ever," "selfish," and "How did this happen?"

When I told a friend of mine the next day about this extraordinary conversation, amidst the flowers and chocolates and the view of the sea, he said, "Yes, that's all true, but Jim Green would have been even worse."

Why?

"Because he would have spent all our money."

Kerry-Bush, Sullivan-Green, Sarkozy-Royal. The lines are frighteningly clear. All the choices are bad. In so many of the federal elections of our recent past here in Canada, the choice has always been for so many of us, "the lesser of two evils."

At least, in NIxon-Kennedy, one had the sense that a real choice was being made, one that would strongly set a new direction for a country.

In Harper vs. Anyone From the Liberals, so many of us voted Aybody but the Liberals. And we continue to hold our breath and our noses during the harper administration, hoping against hope, that we will never have to succomb to a Stephane Dion Parliament.

So what is the problem exactly? How have we come to this perilous place in modern Western democracies where there is hardly a Good man left? Was it ever thus?

Has politics become such a scoundrel's bath that no decent person will be seen within a mile of it?

Thanks, and Many More

I've tried several times today to upload this video from YouTube, but things in cyberspace, like things in life, are not always perfect.

Therefore, I ask you to please click here to see and hear a very special piece of film history.

"The Jolson Story" was released in 1946. I was 4 years old and I remember clearly seeing this movie at the College Cinema in Winnipeg.

How could I not be drawn into a story about a Jewish boy who loves to sing?

Larry Parks was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Al Jolson, for many years known as "The World's Greatest Entertainer." Parks played Jolson again a few years later in "Jolson Sings Again." However, Joe McCarthy and the Communist witch hunt essentially destroyed the career of Larry Parks.

The voice is, of course, Jolson himself. There is even one sequence in the film, which if you watch very closely, you can tell, is Jolson himself. He is singing "Swanee" and he begins to whistle and dance on the runway that he invented to get closer to his audience. Jolson, the supreme egotist, convinced the producers that he and only he could do this particular action. So there he is in black face and shot from the balconies of the theatre.

The song, "The Anniversary Waltz," is also something special to me. I've always loved the corny, deliberate lovely melody.

But tomorrow, my sweetheart and I will celebrate our One Year Anniversary.

Happy Anniversary, Baby.

You Need Not Apply

Global Television is advertising (It's easy and cheap for them to advertise; they own the paper.) for Future Broadcasters. More accurately for "Broadcasters of the Future Awards."

Who is eligible?

Aboriginals, Visible Minorities and the Physically Disabled.

That's good.

And what about broadcasters? That is, The Skilled, the Trained, the Talented, the Disciplined?

Not that any of the categories of aboriginal, visible minority or physically disabled are automatically excluded from the realms of Merit.

But where, exactly, is Merit in this equation?

LET'S MAKE A DEAL!

Mayors of small towns - Come on Down!

Owners of Big venues, like, say, Hockey Arenas - Come on Down!

RCMP officers who are given specific warning of murderous disasters - Come on Down!

Well, isn't that a lovely front page this morning?

Dirk Dorkhead, the mayor of some village in God's Country takes a $2,000 payment to his driving school (Are you on the floor howling already?) and years later, without ever explaining what this cheque could possibly be for, denies he did any wrong.

They have churches up there, don't they? They have schools. They have parents. At what point in Dirk's cheesy, little life did he miss out on the Right and Wrong Lesson?

3 arenas, 3 different deals - Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you your Olympics.

Only one question: When all of these millions of tax payers dollars are going to this fab event, why is there so little transparency or accountability? Sorry, for asking. Just a curious citizen.

And then there's Air India.

Kill the Prime Minister. Blow up the Toronto subway. Lovely.

And then the revelation that the man who is now Ontario's lieutenant-governor gave the RCMP specific warning about a planned bombing for June 22-23, 1985 and they "hissed" at him.

I don't know about you, kids. But if the weather holds out, I'm going to play tennis this afternoon. And I'm really, really going to HIT some tennis balls....