Ahhh, Canadian Celebrity

For those of you who missed it, Todd “Teddy Fury” Franklin, ex-drummer of Canadian rockabilly legends The Bop Cats, was a victim of (sorry, was helped out by) HGTV’s “Colin & Justin’s Home Heist“, that wacky TV show where Canadian bad taste is assailed by the only two members of Glasgow’s gay community.

Though they made some curious decisions (Teddy has a huge collection of brightly-coloured Fiestaware, but they elected to use solid cabinet doors on the kitchen cabinets, instead of clear or frosted glass), the overall change is a huge improvement. You can see before’n’after shots here.

Of course, as often as HGTV re-runs things, if you missed it the first time, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding it again.

After The Warming….

I’ve just made an interesting discovery. Most of you probably know what a big fan of James Burke I am. His central theory, (that you can’t view technology in a vacuum – that most technological developments are the product of social and economic change that necessitate them) really does manage to change your perpspective on history. His original “Connections” (1978) and “The Day the Universe Changed” (1985) series are landmarks in documentary television.

I’m not a big preachy, environmental tree-hugger type guy, but in the early 90’s, Jim made a two part series on global climate change called “After the Warming“. The premise is that it’s produced in 2050, after we’ve managed to get a handle on climate change. It shows the mess we’d made, and the steps we took to get out of it. Though some of it is dated (and some assumptions of what would happen this decade are downright wrong), his perspective on how we got where we are today is quite insightful. Burke got absolutely skewered by the neo-cons for making this program, I suppose largely because he spoke so much of “market forces” in his earlier work, they assumed he was on their side.

I’ve just discovered that the whole two hours of this extremely rare, seldom broadcast TV special (it was, to the best of my knowledge, only available on video to educators) is now available as a single file on Google Video. It’s well worth watching (Hell, it’s better than Zeitgeist). You can see it by clicking here. It actually was, I’m fairly certain,  made in 1994, not 1989, as Google asserts.

 

OK, Karen…

This one’s for you…

Hulk’s Home in the Hammer

Film crews have been busy preparing various areas in Hamilton for exterior shots to be used in the new Incredible Hulk movie. Rick sent me this photo of a building facade in the Main St. /John St. area. It’s special to us because it includes the sign for the old Harmony Furniture store on Barton Street. Harmony’s storefront was a showpiece of period design smack-dab in the middle of a neighbourhood that we used to cruise looking for old neon displays/barber shops/soda fountains back when we were some of the very few people who thought mid-century/modern was cool.

Canadian Idle

I’m afraid that I (nor are any of the other Deacons, so far as I’m aware), am not much for whole “Cult of Celebrity” thing. Celebrity is hardly a meritocracy, and it seems that, every day, you need to to do less and less of anything special to be famous.

As a result, you will generally find us all reacting pretty coolly to “here’s a photo of me with XXX celebrity”. However, there are those who have contributed so greatly to what we here in the West refer to as “culture”, you can’t help but be impressed.

Exhibit A is erstwhile Deacon and lifelong friend Dan Thorpe, with ERIC freakin’ IDLE. Eric was in Toronto for a performance of “Not the Messiah” with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Dan, Monty Python freak that he is, couldn’t resist attending. Being that Dan and I agree that “Life of Brian” is indeed the funniest movie ever made, this is quite a treat indeed.

Python fans will note Dan’s t-shirt offers the (incorrect) answer to that age-old question, “‘OW many Romans?”

Some things just seem TOO perfect…

Mick Green, who many regard as one of the true pioneers of English rock’n’roll, and whom I have named in these pages as a personal favourite, (being the guitar player in the seminal band the Pirates [both before and after Johnny Kidd‘s demise]), has made his acting debut!

He plays  Des Gilmour, ex-rock’n’roll star and perennial troublemaker, who has been confined to a wheelchair after an onstage accident. The short film follows his misadventures as he gets kicked out of one National Health Service nursing home after another, until he’s finally forced to live with his brother in their decaying childhood home.

The film is called “Raspberry Ripple“, and is apparently intended to be a pilot project for a feature-length film. This version has already won the “Best Drama 10-30 Minutes” award from the Picture This Film Festival in Calgary.You can view Mr. Green excerising his acting chops in the preview clip below: