The Annekenstein Monster

Last night’s Six Feet Under was, for the most part, amazing.
A couple of plot points that were a bit too soap-opera in their melodramatic unbelievability. But such great melodramatic unbelievability.

Some absolutely incredible scenes. The scene where Rico apologizes was perfect. The scene where Late Nate and David talk, fantastic. Yes, David, it is that simple “You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you’re alive.” The scene where Nate comes home, wonderful.

Overall, the season was miss and hit. It started out pretty rough (compared to its previous seasons’ standards) but by mid-season was finding its stride again.

I didn’t really like the whole Claire arc this season. She turned into an art-school asshole.

It will be far too long until next season begins.

My first day of school. Grade One. Very nervous. I believe we may have been a few minutes late. My mother takes me into the school, asks somebody where I go. Somebody points to a room. My mother leads me to the room. I go in. Door closes. I stand by the door. The teacher stops talking to the class. Everyone stares at me.
“Who are you?”, she asks.
“Robert MacDonald” I say.
She looks at her book.
“You don’t belong here!” she demands.
Bitch.
I begin to cry. “I know” I think to myself. “I belong at home, watching Sesame Street and Mr. Dressup.” I cried some more.
She shoos me out the door. In the hallway, I see my mother. She and another woman are laughing and drinking martinis, pointing at me. I get directed to another room and enter.
A wonderful piece of fuzz, softly and gently floating at the head of the class, asks me my name. I tell her. Her fluffiness embraces me and makes me feel welcome.
Thank you Mrs. McDonald for accepting me when I needed a place to belong.
Okay, so the martinis and the piece of fluff thing were made up, but they do illustrate my emotional state at the time.

It’s time for me to start my season of guessing who’s gonna win each NFL football game. My goal is to be at 60 percent correct at the end of the year. I’ll be guessing, I mean, calculating my picks on win or lose, not against the spread.

The first game of the season was Thursday night. I picked the Colts to beat the Patriots. So, I’m 0 and 1 so far.

Here are my picks for the rest of this week, with comments when I have something to add:

Indianapolis @ New England – Colts to win (I was wrong. I’m scared that the Pats may be better than they were last year.
Tennessee @ Miami – Miami wins. (Miami is expected to be pitiful this year. I expect them to surprise. I’ll say they get to the playoffs. How? I have no idea at the moment.)
San Diego @ Houston – Houston wins. (The Chargers will continue to suck. The Texans will continue to surprise)
Baltimore @ Cleveland – Ravens win.
Detroit @ Chicago – Chicago wins. (only because one of these two schmucks has to win)
Jacksonville @ Buffalo – Buffalo wins. (I don’t know how the Jags stack up this year, but I expect them to fail. The Bills have got to be better than they were last year. They’re on their way to healing)
Tampa Bay @ Washington – The Buccanneers will win. (The Redskins will once again this year prove that money doesn’t necessarily equal success)
Arizona @ St. Louis – The Rams win. (they better enjoy it. Wins will be scarce for St. Louis this year)
Oakland @ Pittsburgh – The Steelers will win (I hate the Raiders. They are the Heavy Metal Music of football)
Cincinatti @ NY Jets – Jets win. (Hate to say it, but the Jets will be a good team this year)
Seattle @ New Orleans – Seahawks win
Atlanta @ San Francisco – The Falcons win. (SF will continue to plummet from the quality team they were a couple of years ago)
NY Giants @ Philadelphia – Eagles win
Dallas @ Minnesota – Dallas wins (I expect Dallas to be as good as they surprisingly were last year)
Kansas City @ Denver – The Broncos will win, because it’s their home game. (should be a good game)
Green Bay @ Carolina – Panthers win (the Brett Favre era will be shown to be over this year.)

Of all the musical performances I’ve heard and/or seen, without question Bruce Springsteen’s performance of My City Of Ruin on the televised Tribute to Heroes broadcast had the biggest impact on me.
I couldn’t comprehend how he could sing that song without breaking down and crying, a mere week after the attacks. I was in awe of his professionalism. And, moreso, I was in awe of the song. At the time, I hadn’t realised that it was a song on his upcoming album, and I thought he had written it specifically for the broadcast. Under that belief, I was amazed at how he could have written such a beautifully poetic and powerful song, so close to the event (I thought) it described.
Even knowing that it was written before the attacks, I am no less amazed at how beautiful and poetic it is. It was perfect. It opened the show, and it was a perfect performance. I cried when I heard it on that broadcast, and I still get teary-eyed practically every time I listen to it. No other song even comes close to eliciting that kind of reaction from me.

I know it’s corny and ultimately worthless, but:
On this anniversary, my heart goes out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives as a result of those attacks.
It also goes out to the friends and families of those innocent Iraqis, and of the 1000+ soldiers, who’ve lost their lives as a result of the mis-guided retaliation of those attacks. And to those innocent Iraqis whose lives have been saved as a result of that mis-guided retaliation.

Confession time.
It’s been years since I’ve stepped foot in a libary.
As the computer has gradually taken up more and more of my spare time, and since I spend all day reading and writing, I find it more and more difficult to set aside time to read. And any reading I do is reading of a book or magazine I’ve purchased. My reasons, then, to enter a libary have dwindled to, well, none.
This is my great shame, I suppose.

The last time I entered a libary, I was looking for a book for my son, who was probably 4 or 5 at the time. So, that’s like 6 years ago.
At that time, I was looking for some material for him to read, or (probably, since he probably wasn’t quite able to read yet) for me to read to him. One of my favourite early-school year reads was the Noddy series of books, by Enid Blyton, so I thought I’d look for some at my local libary.
The libary didn’t have them. Or maybe they were signed out.

Anyway, I left the libary with my Noddy. And I haven’t been back since.

There. There’s my libary story. And, yes, I know how to spell it. I choose not to.

Just so stuntmen and key grips can keep their jobs, my family went to see Hero last night at the gigantic movie complex where one’s snacks end up costing as much as a Swiss Chalet meal.
The movie is gorgeous, both visually and poetically, and I appreciated the morality and philosohy it contained. I recommend it to everyone.
My only criticism is that, during the wonderfully balletic battles between adversaries, the danger of death/dying seemed to be largely absent. I enjoyed watching them as pieces of art and movement, but they lacked the notion of consequence. As such, it made it difficult to invest my emotions in the outcome of each battle.
But that’s a minor quibble. A wonderful movie, in my opinion.

Had my first rehearsal for Enemies, an improvised soap opera, last night. It will run for three consecutive Thursdays at the ARTS Guild, beginning Sep.30. This year, most of the action takes place in Las Vegas, so we’re hoping it’s a big, bright, glittery production.

I was involved, last summer, in the second season of the show, and it was a fun, interesting, challenging experience. This year should be likewise.

Basically, what happens is we are given a pretty detailed (6-7 pages each) synopsis of the three episodes (written by Sean McQuaid). We then spend the rehearsal process familiarizing ourselves with the necessary plot points, improvising as we go along. The goal is to have a quasi-improvised performance of each episode. The challenge is to familiarize ourselves enough with the plot so that we all know where we are headed in the scene/episode, yet not so much that we lock ourselves into any scripted dialogue. We want to know where we’re going, but we don’t want to really know how we get there.

I’ll be directing, and acting in this season’s episodes. Also performing will be Graham Putnam, Carly Martin, Joey Weale (all returning with me from season two), and (returning from season one) Patty Larsen.

Just gotta say…without question, the best cheeseburgers in Charlottetown are found at Cedar’s Eatery.

Without question. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

I remeber it perfectly.
It was a Friday night and I was sitting on the couch at my friend Wade’s house. His parents weren’t home and we were listening to CBC on the radio. The Piano Has Been Drinking came on and I remember it was like a wonderful slap in the face. Huh? He’s not playing the piano very well, missing a lot of notes, and his singing is like someone who’s chewed a hundred razor blades. What the hell kind of music is this? I loved it.
That was my introduction to Tom Waits. I immediately (well, the next day, let’s say) went and bought his The Asylum Years compilation double-album and was hooked, utterly and completely. I remember Colin (the guy who introduced me to The Clash, and whom I subsequently introduced to Hank Williams) saying that I was out of my mind for liking this guy. In fact, he was ashamed that would even suggest that he listen to John Waite. No, it’s Tom Waits and you’ll love it. And he did. We were two Parkdale PEI boys discovering a shared love of music, and spent the next year or so bringing new (to us) music to each other’s attention. Wade’s impression of Tom Waits: Meh.
Over the years, there’ve been a handful of artists whose records I’d buy irregardless. Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, R.E.M…. I gave up on REM first I think. I hung on to Elvis Costello longer than I should have, but eventually stopped getting his stuff automatically too.
Tom Waits, though. Album comes out. Rob buys it. I think he’s the only artist now I trust to do that.

Ramblin’ Man – Hank Williams
So, I had my Beatles obsession. I was working through all that punk. Naturally, from there, I turned 180 degrees around and became instantly enamoured with Hank Williams when I heard this song. I was wallpapering a bedroom with my father, and there was a Hank Williams album playing. I wasn’t really paying much attention to it, though, because as a punk, country was not cool, guv’nah. This song, though, made me re-evaluate what I was going to choose to listen to. I credit this song, Hank Williams in general (and later, George Jones) for turning the light on in my brain that said “listen to whatever the hell you like. If you like it, listen to it.”