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.