Tag Archives: Moe Gorman

Moe Gorman – Malcolm’s Goose is Cooked

Malcolm McKearney owes me a goose.

I’ll get to that.

If you don’t know Malcolm, he’s the one what’s always going on about being smarter than everyone he knows. And most that he don’t know.  Trouble is with Malcolm, it’s easy to prove him wrong, right. At least, it’s easy to prove him wrong to others. But Malcolm’s belief in his knowledge is stubborn. You can’t convince Malcolm of anything if he’s got his mind looking in any other direction.

Anyways, I see him there sitting in the corner there of the Seal Club and Sandbar Lounge. This is, what, about 9 months ago or so. Just before the latest incident with the shit socks at the Seal Club. The one that shut them down for them couple of months.  I see him there. Usually he’s with his boys, Arnold McCutcheon, DeBlois DeBlois, and Earle Stanley, but that night he’s sitting there all by himself.

He looks bored so I figure I’d take a trip over and gab a bit about this and that. You know, spill some time before heading back home. So I goes over and he looks up and nods.

“She’s some wet, what?” I go.

“Seventy-two millimetres since Sunday” he goes. Malcolm is all about the weather. He’s got all the amometers and measuring stuff that they got at the weather center in Charlottetown or wherever it is. He’s right into it, and it’s always a good way to start off a conversation with him by bringing it up. A sure-fire “in” if you know what I mean.

So I sit down and he brightens up and goes off on a long trail about the climate and his thoughts on all that. Me, I listen and nod every so often and take occasional swigs from the beer I brought to the table. He’s spouting off statistics and numbers and prognostications and whatnot, all about the weather. Honestly it was boring as shit, but I go along with the listening to it, just to pass time more than anything.

So that wraps up without much incident and then he goes off on another drive about stuff. Things he’s reading, ideas he has about things that should be invented if he had the time. You know, bullshit stuff.

Anyways, he goes “This May’s been the wettest May in the Northern Hemisphere since May 1912 when the Titanic sunk.”

And I’m thinking “Wrong!” Now I can let his wrong-headed opinions go because you can’t argue opinion, but I will always argue facts. And I know for a fact the Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912. Because April 14th 1925 is my Aunt Sadie’s birthday and they always talk about how it was her claim to fame that she was born on the same day as the Titanic sunk. Not the exact same date but the same day. So I know for a fact he’s wrong.

“Titanic sunk in April” I go. “Not May.”

“No, it sunk in May” he says. “Fact.”

“Not a fact” I go.  He can’t go calling something that’s wrong a fact. “Titanic sunk in April. April 14th 1912. I’m sure of it”

Anyways, we go back and forth, both claiming to be right about which month the Titanic sunk.

Finally, I have enough.  “Betcha double or nothing on one of your Christmas geese that you’re wrong and that the Titanic sunk April 14th.”

Malcolm is well-revered for raising top-quality geese. Geese ain’t as popular these days as they was back in the day, but enough people still like them for Easter or Christmas or Thanksgiving or any big celebration dinner over turkey.  Enough for Malcolm to keep at it, raising and selling geese to those that want them.

“You’re on” he goes and slams his hand down onto the table and laughs. “Easy money! Pay up!”

“Hold on” I go. “You can’t prove the Titanic sunk in May ‘cause it didn’t. It sunk in April, and I can prove it.”

“You can’t prove it because it sunk in May” he goes. Stubborn to the core.

So I pull out my phone and ask Google. “Okay Google, what month did the Titanic sink?”

Quicker than a flash the phone goes “The RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean.”

“Yow owe me a goose” I go.

“That don’t prove nothing” he goes. 

“Whattyamean” I go. “Proves everything. Proves you owe me a goose!”

“You can’t prove that machine is right” he goes.

I go “It’s Google. Of course it’s right.”

“Still” he says, “that’s not proof”.

“You owe me a goose” I go.

“I owe you nothing” he goes. “Titanic sunk in May.”

“You owe me a fucking goose” I go. I’m starting to get right agitated. He senses my irritations and goes even harder into his belief that the Titanic sunk in May.

“Sunk April 14th 1912. Same day as my Aunt Sadie was born, only thirteen years earlier.

“Wrong” he goes. “You owe me double a goose. And you don’t get the goose.”

I ask Google again and it says the same thing. “The RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean.”

“Aha” he goes. “You ARE wrong! Even if your Google thing is right, you said the Titanic sunk on April 14th.  Google said it sunk April 15th. YOU ARE WRONG” he yells.

I ask Google again. Sure enough “The RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean.”  My Aunt Sadie’s claim to fame was based on a lie.

I think for a minute and go “Well, it started sinking on the 14th probably. Probably took the better part of an evening to sink, and the actual sinking ended in the early morning of April 15th”.

“Either way, you said it sunk April 14th. Your Google says April 15th so you’re wrong. You’re both wrong, because it sunk in May anyway.”

And that was that.  I tried a bunch more to get him to admit he was wrong but in his mind he wasn’t wrong.  I went home furious and vowing to prove him wrong.

Month later I come into his shop – he’s an auto mechanic in the day, the goose stuff at night or whatever – with a picture of an old newspaper front page headline my nephew Donald got from provincial archives that states the Titanic sunk on April 15th.

“Could be photoshopped” he goes.  

Fucking asshole. I knew then and there that  I’d never get my goose outta him.

So I wrote this song about him.

Malcolm McKesrney’s Goose Is Sunk

It took an iceberg to sink the Titanic on April 15th 1912

Though probably started sinking the evening before.

But it would take something harder than that berg

To get Malcom McKearney to say he’s wrong.

He says it sunk in May. Don’t matter what Google says

Or the Provincial Archives, his ignorance stays alive.

How do you prove that two plus two is four?

Or that the sun rises high in the sky?

If Malcolm thinks otherwise you can’t.

No matter what he thinks 

Malcom McKearney owes me a goose for Christmas.

Don’t make a bet with Malcolm McKearney even if it’s based on fact.

Malcolm ignores facts in favour of his own stubborn brain.

Don’t make a bet with Malcom McKearny and expect to get his goose.

No matter what he thinks

Malcolm McKearny owes me a goose for Christmas.

Variations in Theme Song (Moe)

After the first episode of Moe’s Island Jamboree, and its unadorned theme song which was more of a spur of the moment attempt just to get the episode out, I attempted to make a proper theme tune. And by proper, I mean a quickly tossed off and one-take piece of simplicity. I figured that something with too much shine on it wouldn’t befit a show of the quality that Moe Gorman would be involved in.

Here’s a quick tip to any aspiring writers or creators – one that I have learned to excel at: Create characters who are punching above their weight. If they’re a bit simple or base or low on talent or ability, it makes it easier on you, the writer, when coming up with their output. Create a genius and you kind of have to make them sound like a genius. Whereas, someone who writes terrible songs makes it easier to create their terrible songs. And people will often believe there is a profundity behind the creations – but in reality, you’re just writing terrible songs.

Anyway, here is the theme song I came up with. Since abandoning it, I have not listened to it again until today, and I must say – I’m not very fond of it.

Rob’s Never-Used Theme Song for Moe’s Island Jamboree

As I do with many things, I asked Dave Stewart to take a listen and to offer his opinion. He gallantly said it perhaps didn’t suit the mood of the project, and asked (or I asked him, I forget) if he could have a go at the music. A few moments later, he sends me back a file, and I instantly recognize that this is the theme. I added vocals, and this is the ear-wormy result:

Dave’s Often-Used Theme Song for Moe’s Island Jamboree

Dave and I are sort of the Lennon/McCartney of our friendship. A bit of a friendly rivalry, perhaps, but we often will make each other’s output better when asked to contribute. And together, we’ve made a few, imo, pretty good things.

So, thanks Dave, for being so awesome at making stuff I do so much better. That tune is sickingly catchy, and a perfect addition to Moe’s Island Jamboree!!

Moe’s Island Jamboree – MaryAnne FitzPatrick

One of the more fruitful creative wells I’ve supped from (ugh, metaphor) is my weekly lunch-time drive around the city with my pal of pals, Dave Stewart. While driving, we gab and complain and make jokes and come up with ideas that run the gamut from asinine to amazing. Many of my favourite sketches that I’ve written over the years have emerged from these lunch-time free-for-alls.

The last time (I think it was the last time) we had one of these drives, before the pandemic boom hit, I was just about to drop him off at work. We had been talking, I believe, about things I could do in my new role as Writer-In-Residence at The Guild. I had been mentioning my desire to create some sort of video series that could incorporate talents, or lack-of-talents as the case may be, of fellow Islanders. As he was leaving the car, he says something like “what about a talent show with you as host – like a Rob’s Video Island Jamboree”. Something like that.

The idea immediately appealed to me, and after a few hours of thought, and a few title changes, it transformed into “Moe’s Island Jamboree”.

graphic designed by Dave Stewart

The idea would be that my character from years ago, Moe Gorman, would host an online entertainment show. Moe would host and sing a song or recite a poem or whatever, and then introduce that episode’s special guest.

Moe is a guy who fancies himself a poet/songwriter who specializes in works about people who piss him off

Upon approval from Alanna Jankov at The Guild, the call went out, to friends mostly, asking people to send in videos of themselves being entertaining in some way.

Not long after, we got our first contribution, from MaryAnne FitzPatrick, who decided this was a perfect opportunity to jump out of her comfort zone and commited to singing a song – something she loved to do in a past life but hadn’t done much singing recently. That first episode of Moe’s Island Jamboree is below. I’m happy to report that MaryAnne has continued with her Singing While Cooking videos on Facebook, and am thrilled that she seems to have rediscovered her love of singing!

Moe recites a poem about Malcolm McKearney and guest MaryAnne FitzPatrick sings a song!

This is the first episode in the series, and its rawness can be exemplified in many elements within, not in the least the unadorned theme song. I (or I should say Moe) wrote the poem about Malcolm McKearney a month or so before this was shot. I didn’t have it memorized, didn’t have the desire to memorize it, and so I came up with the clunky editing style you see here. I would go on to utilize this “line at a time” editing style in many of Moe’s videos.

More on more of Moe’s Island Jamboree episodes, and other things, in future posts.