CreComm Year One

Okay, so I'm late with this post. I probably won't get any marks for it, but CreComm Year One is over now (short of a visit with my advisor), and I feel great. Going back to school after a few years of working in professional positions that just weren't me is the best decision I've ever made. I'm lucky that I was accepted into the program, and have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many talented people. I've changed for the better in ways that I can't fully detail,

Creative Communications is a tough course that seeks to test students at every turn, pushing us out of our comfort zones, leaving us with several deadlines hanging over our heads at a time. We learn a huge variety of skills during this first year, and I can't wait to join my Media Production compatriots for a second year full of amazing hard work and success.

Big ups to all the instructors at RRC's CreComm. They make the program what it is, sharing their coaching and mentorship with us lucky students. I look forward to learning twice as much next year and plowing through long Thursdays in Broadcast Journalism with Forde and Joanne. I've learned a lot, but I have so much left to go.

Making Friends Montage Video

Here, watch this short film I made. It's my excuse to make other people hear the song I've listened to every day for the last six weeks, No Sentiment by Cloud Nothings.

I shot my roommate as a disturbed man with an egg shortage. It's the third short I've made (the first in years), and I'm pretty happy with the results. I hope you like it.

Rick and Morty - Season One Finale

I'm no stranger to cartoons. I think I'm part of the first generation of people to have a lot of adult-oriented animation options, and I'm very happy that the nice creative people are making them for us grown-up types. There are an infinite number of stories that are not feasible to be told through live action, either due to technical or practical limitations.

Rick and Morty is my new favourite animated show, taking its place in the pantheon with Bob's Burgers and Venture Bros. (Archer has been slipping this season). You can read a complete piece on the show in my Pop Culture Cornucopia column in the most recent issue of The Projector if you're a Red River College student, to be re-published here in the near future.

Legit

This week, I've found the time to watch the entire first season of Legit. It's an FXX sitcom starring Australian comedian Jim Jefferies, former The Daily Show correspondent Dan Bakkedahl, and everyone's favourite emaciated scarecrow-man, DJ Qualls. DJ Qualls plays Billy, who has muscular dystrophy and relies on a wheelchair and support workers.

I've always found DJ Qualls annoying, but Legit is turning things around for me. The guy plays the character with loads of heart, and he's got good comedic timing.

The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia

I've been watching The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia since February, part of a trend where I seem to not be able to get enough UFC. I'm not even sure why I'm into MMA a lot of the time, and sometimes I even feel guilty about enjoying the sport.

On last week's episode, Chad Laprise had to face teammate Kajan Johnson. In past seasons, when teammates had to fight in the semifinals, their team's head coach would remove him or herself from the fight preparation, separating the coaching staff for the fight, and usually the fighters would be cornered by other members of their team.

For Laprise vs. Johnson, that's not how things went. Laprise was proactive, seeking out a coaching staff for the fight well in advance. He got two Team Canada coaches and one of the Australian coaches to be in his corner, he was being given advice (quietly but not inconspicuously) by head coach Patrick Cote, and he gave his coaches instructions to be super loud to damage Johnson's confidence.

Bill Burr in Winnipeg

I had the good fortune to see Bill Burr perform last night at the Burton Cummings Theatre. He's one of, if not the best, currently-working stand-up comedian. It was an inspiring show, one that has my mind deep into stand-up in the hours since.

Bill's opener was Paul Virzi, who was hilarious. They'd been in Canada for ten days already, so of course they had some spot-on observations and jokes about Canada and Canadians, but the pandering was minimal.

I listen to Bill's Monday Morning Podcast occasionally, but I avoided his material for the months leading up to the show so I could get a full, fresh dose of what's on his mind, and it was a treat.

Shout out to Just For Laughs for producing the tour. It's Bill's first Canadian tour and he claims he'll be coming back.

Sargent & Victor & Me (& Me)

While technology advances, live entertainment holds its value. The immediacy of being in the room for a performance captures a shared humanity whether it's in the form of theatre, music, comedy, sports, or even juggling.

There are many possible pitfalls for a one-person show, and many things need to go just right in order to pull it off well. I saw the one-woman version of Sargent & Victor & Me at the University of Winnipeg on March 4th, and found it a powerful experience at times. Debbie Patterson plays all the parts with equal commitment but varying results.

I found myself tearing up several times during the performance, but it was more to do with my personal experience with people living with multiple sclerosis than anything else.

A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed

I recently read the book A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed (for school), and so now I'm writing about it (for school).

It was a decent book. I found it boring much of the time, the writing is very dry. It pulled me in at first, then worked diligently at alienating me. It felt like an engaging, 65-page coming-of-age story followed by three hundred pages of appendices.

The early chapters work well. Nahlah started her life in the neighbourhood I live in, followed by her parents deciding to move the family from Canada to a refugee camp in Jordan. They eventually return to Canada, but the backward-seeming move instantly hooked me. Unfortunately, once her early life has been established, I was left wanting throughout the rest. I liked reading the perspective of recent political and historical events from the people on the ground where they occurred, but I felt like Nahlah disappeared after the beginning.

Valentine’s Day. Enjoy it if you can. I’m going shopping.

I’d expected a smoother show for the second time around on Lollapaloser. I set it up to be a sad Valentine’s show, but my solo radio instincts have got a ways to go. I found my groove again around halfway through, maybe I need to do a 90 minute show, and not broadcast the first 30.

It would have helped if I’d remembered to put my phone into airplane mode.

I played some of my very favourite sad songs, including the saddest song I know, Sufjan Stevens’ Casimir Pulaski Day.

My greatest regret is that I didn’t fit in The Verve’s The Drugs Don’t Work.

Drive-By Truckers’ The Sands of Iwo Jima has made me cry numerous times. It’s nice to be reminded that you’re not a psychopath every once in a while.

*nervous laughter*

It also would have been pretty sweet if I had exposed a few new people to ‘Til Tuesday and Voices Carry. I still gave Aimee Mann’s Labrador a play, though, so that will have to be consolation.

This last link is to a low-quality Valentine's Day-inspired piece that I wrote and performed for the Comedy Loser live show four years ago. I look a lot different in it than I do now, but I think the piece still has some merit.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150196844665128&l=3705608179031137754

The High Horse Olympics

The 2014 Winter Olympics officially begin today in Russia. I didn't bother with the opening ceremonies. I'm sure it was beautiful, but nationalism leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Call me back when there's an interesting athletic competition so I can see who wins, and get back out before they start playing the winning country's branding song.

However, I have a problem with the anti-Olympic stuff I've been seeing online.

People who would have demonized gays 25 years ago are having a real nice time mounting their high horse when it comes to the Winter Olympics.

I’ve heard the Sochi Winter Olympics described as ‘the most anti-gay Olympics’ but that’s incorrect. We are sitting in a brief period of history where maybe there have been a couple Olympics that didn’t actively shun all gay people, but does anyone actually believe that it was more gay-friendly in Berlin in 1936, Los Angeles in 1984, or Calgary in 1988? AIDS had a lot of people afraid of gay people in the ‘80s, and I don’t think Hitler is known for his humanitarian record.

It’s a comfortable position, sitting in the saddle of a high horse, but with gay marriage not being legal everywhere in the US, maybe tone down the angry rhetoric.

The US should also stop looking down its nose at Russian corruption. Canada likes to compare itself to the US, because our policies pretty much always look good compared to them. We may be second-last in something, but as long as last-place goes to the US we feel accomplished.

The US has to compare itself to Russia to if they want to look good at all. That’s a pretty sorry state of affairs.

Sure, it’s troubling that Russia has passed anti-gay legislation. That said, I don’t recall hearing as many calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics, and there’s evidence that the Chinese government uses prisoners as organ farms.

I guess as long as your country’s shady bullshit is for the purpose of making money, that’s okay. Almost anything is okay when done in the pursuit of money (prisons, hospitals, schools), but Russia’s anti-gay activities don’t generate corporate dollars so they have to go sit in the corner until they can figure out a way to monetize their hatred.

His Airness

When I was a young, impressionable child, I collected some hockey cards like my classmates did, but I never cared about them as anything but a collection. I didn’t play or watch hockey. I only had a vested interest in Brett Hull, because we had the same first name and I knew he was good.

Seriously, he had more goals in the 1990s than anyone, haters.

Michael Jordan was unavoidable, even from Swan River in a pre-Internet age. MJ was always a much bigger star to me than Wayne Gretzky.

The Great One has always looked like he’s begging for someone to take his lunch money. He was always my least favourite of the Pro-Stars. He didn’t deserve to be on the same cartoon as MJ.

I read Sports Illustrated for Kids, and I was always on the lookout for new MJ stuff.

The only basketball jersey I ever bought was a Washington Wizards Michael Jordan jersey.

MJ’s tongue-wag makes Gene Simmons sick to his stomach with envy.

NBA players still wear Jordans.

MJ was so amazing that he got kids like me to wear a Bulls cap fastened with long, coloured laces and one of those springy-button doohickeys. I’m still struggling to prove that these existed, but I had one and it was super badass.

Michael Jordan is the only athlete of my childhood. Anyone else was a statistic.

The Drive-By Truckers

I think that The DBTs are my favourite band.

Definitely a country-influenced rock band. I never thought that would happen, but I cried today when I was listening to "The Sands of Iwo Jima" from their album, The Dirty South. I don't think I have ever cried listening to a song, but that one punched me right in the guts.

They have made some amazing records in the last ten years, culminating (in my opinion) with Brighter than Creation's Dark, their 2008 epic 19-track tale of the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Americana. Songs about the struggle of living, of surviving, in America. Tales of the people who exist in every city and town who have shit to deal with on a day-to-day basis, who ultimately seem to struggle and fail.

Do yourself a favour and give it a try. Even if you're not a country fan, any rock fan will find songs they can enjoy.

Cheryl Bernard

I'm going on record here, I've watched a lot more Olympic curling than I expected. I don't watch too much usually, maybe some of the Brier, but Olympics I always seem to watch. The men are more skilled and make more "wow" shots, but I love to watch the ladies, too. Cheryl Bernard is definitely the sexiest curler in the event. She may not be the youngest, or the prettiest, but she's definitely the sexiest. She has a crazy sexy intensity and I'm pretty sure that makes it more fun to watch. Ok, I'm very sure about it. So I guess if curling wants to get more popular, they'll have to run out an Anna Kournikova-style team that isn't really very good, but they're super sexy enough to get more fans into the game. They'd be an also-ran in all the big bonspiels, but they'd get press and it would be good for curling. Until then, though, Cheryl Bernard is the super-hot milf Queen of Curling. I'm expecting a good showing in the next year from Jennifer Jones, she's my homeskillet.

The mens curling has been great, too. Kevin Martin's rink has made some super awesome shots, just matter-of-factly. They are so good that you can't strategize against them because they make every single kind of shot look effortless. They are a robot curling machine sent from the future to dominate, and they will not be stopped. The Norwegian men made it to the gold medal game in curling based on a strategy that relied heavily on not being taken seriously as a result of their ludicrous pants. That gambit is up, I'm afraid, because Kevin Martin's robot rink is immune to the absurd. Their cold robotic logic is entirely unaffected by any psychological ruse. They will win and they will make it look like you played right into their hands. So may I present the almost-Gold Medal Canadian Mens Curling Team, the Puppet Masters of Curling, The Hammer from Olympus, Kevin Martron with Curlingbots 1, 2, and 3!

In other, pathetic curling news, the mens curling rink from the US has been a terrible disappointment. I have a hard time believing these guys are the best curlers in the US, they can't be. They look like they could be beaten at a weekend funspiel by senior citizens. I know how disappointed this has made the fans, because if they were good, more Americans would watch and get hooked on the sport.

It's one of the great life-long games you can play, and I look forward to my future bringing curling back into my life someday. I hope it spreads infectiously through the US, at least in the midwest through the northeast. More people should be enjoying this game, giving adults a sense of curling-club community so they can finally stop going to church.

Review: Kyle Kinane - Death of the Party

I would like to preface this review by stating that I was present at the recording of this album and I have fond memories of that night. I was first in line for a sweet show at the UCB in LA and I got the best seat in the house. So I may skew a little extra favourably of this recording.

It finally arrived in the mail 2 weeks after it was released, and so I am stoked to review this. I don't think there's enough buzz for a clearly talented performer. I find Kyle's cynical, wry, self-deprecating conversational style very engaging. I really enjoy when a comic's best material is from personal stories, the context and narrative is very fulfilling.

Kyle masterfully relates his material to the audience on a variety of topics ranging from uncomfortable bathroom encounters to face-fucking bunnies, and really achieves a personal relationship with the audience. He flips over all the rocks and lets his doubts and fears out, and achieves a remarkable conversational/confessional style that I found extremely easy to relate to.

He relates an arts education to a parachute made of pasta,
and he is really adept at applying depth to every situation and idea, so that the audience is with him all the way and looking for every curve and bump in the ride, knowing that there's a never-ending supply of laughs.

Does that sound enough like a regular, stupid review? I think so. I'm not sure if it sounds pretentious enough yet. Alternative. Seriously, Kyle Kinane gets me, and I'm with him all the way. This is quickly one of my favourite comedy albums. Its an accurate representation of a single night's performance, which can be like lightning in a bottle. Transcendent. Beards. Sufjan Stevens. Kurt Vonnegut.

5 Stars out of 5 stars

Lebron James

Here's what I think is the best thing about Lebron James. He's 6'9", 235 lbs. and he is more athletic than all the guards in the league. He's a fast shot of liquid amazing on offense and not a liability on defense. This guy is 25 and playing in an era that can keep his already freakish body working for a very long time.

The best part of the future I see for him is that when he finally loses his step a little, he'll just play a power forward and become the best post scorer in the league. He is going to be a valuable part of a franchise as a top-3 rotation player until he's 40, and then he'll probably win a couple sixth man trophies when he's in his mid-to-late forties. The only thing that can change this future is if the man doesn't have the desire to play for as long as he can.

He seems to like being a celebrity, and that siren song may take him from the game prematurely. With today's training and medicine, I am confident Lebron could hang with the NBA talent in a useful capacity until he's 50. He could break all the records, even the silly ones that don't really even count in historical perspective, like Wilt's scoring record. Plus, wouldn't it be awesome to see him like late-80s Kareem, He'd be all bald but with a gigantic Kimbo Slice beard, he'd get even bigger like 30s Shaq, 6'9" and 290 lbs., he'd be hanging around the rim, playing defense and delivering punishing fouls.

 He would have the most amazing NBA career, not top five but number one. He would surpass Jordan as the most amazing player in the league. Jordan isn't really even the right comparison. He's more like a thicker Magic, capable of really playing any of the 5 positions at a high level. He's better than Magic, too, because his defense is better. So as long as his career doesn't get derailed like Magic's did, I think he really will go down as the best player the league has seen so far.

He won't win as many scoring titles as Jordan, he won't win as many rings as Russell, he won't put ahead a 50-point average season like Wilt, but he'll whip up a lot of triple-doubles in his career, he'll be the best player on his team for at least another ten years, and in this diluted and mostly well-managed league, he will be an envied asset for any organization. Especially when he realizes that he has hundreds of millions of dollars and only has to play to win.

He already makes his team play better, what will happen when he starts signing 5 million dollar deals to play with his buddies and win a few rings? Sports fans are a fickle bunch, though, and I have a bad feeling that if Lebron doesn't live up to that expectation, he may be remembered as a disappointment. Not because he wasn't great, because we already know that he's great, but because if he loses his desire to win, and retires before he's 40, true fans will feel like they got cheated out of seeing Lebron morph into Bill Laimbeer when he's reinventing his game for the third or fourth time.

He's just such a special player that everyone wants to see his gifts utilized 100% because we know that he has transcendent game within him and its magical to see and we will never be happy with the amount of transcendence he get from him. Make no mistake about it, he will be a bit of a disappointment if he doesn't surpass everyone else with his career.

I can't believe anyone ever even asks, "Kobe or Lebron?" It doesn't make sense. Just consider their positions and bodies. In the gap between players at their own positions, Lebron is far better than his competition at his position than Kobe is. Kobe is expected to score more at this point in his career. He's a perimeter player. Lebron makes up for it in that he makes his team better than Kobe does. He seems more well-balanced mentally than Kobe as well, so I think that he will be able to become a great big man, great sixth man, great role player, great clutch player on a lot of competitive teams. He'll get around a bit as he gets older, and he'll bring some personality to every team lucky enough to have him.