The Best Moments of TV: My List (Part 1)

I've been watching a lot of TV episodes from my collection lately and marveling about how good some of them are. I decided to make a list of the episodes that had the deepest impact on me over the years. The eps tend to be on the emotionally hard hitting side, but don't worry, I'll start slow, with a few oldies but goodies.

M*A*S*H - "Dreams"

I was a big fan of this show when I was younger, thanks to my mom, although at the time I didn't get a lot of the jokes, or even the context of the humour. I do remember that the humanity of the characters showed through to me even then; the fact that they were all trapped in that war, the hopelessness, constantly being called upon to go above and beyond, and somehow managing to get through it.



There are so many good episodes of this show, stories that were emotional, but rather than pick the obvious one (the one where Henry Blake is killed off at the end) or the finale, I chose 'Dreams'. I doubt many people would have picked this for their lists, but I remember being particularly impressed with this one when it aired. Basically, the plot is a 36-hour non-stop barrage of wounded soldiers in the OR, and the surgical team works like crazy to get through them all. At various points in the episode, the main characters fall asleep for very brief periods and we are privy to their dreams.

Margaret Houlihan dreams of being with a lover in a bed in a field, until he gets up in the middle and marches away with a line of soldiers, leaving her alone with a pile of wounded men who have suddenly appeared there. BJ Honeycutt dreams of dancing with his wife, Peg, in the OR until he is called away to operate. Klinger sees himself on an operating table through the window of his favourite deli in Toledo. Col. Potter rides through the fields of his home on his favourite horse, Sophie, sees himself as a child and hears his mother calling him in for dinner.



Perhaps my favourite dream is the one that Winchester has, where he sees himself as a magician, performing tricks for the OR personnel, but when a wounded soldier is brought in, rather than operate, he simply does more tricks, which of course don't help the man. the soldier dies on the table a moment later, right in front of Charles with everyone looking on. As the body is carted away, Charles desperately tap dances waving sparklers which is read as a vain attempt to 'take it back' or somehow make himself appear better in the face of his failure as a doctor. There are some very nice shots in this dream and an especially nice close up of Charles with beads of sweat as he realizes the futility of what he's doing.

Finally, Hawkeye's dream finds him being addressed in the mess hall as though he is back in medical school. When he cannot explain the procedure for reattaching a limb, the professor tells him to remove his arm which is then confiscated (they use mannequin arms). Winchester removes his other arm and it's thrown into a lake where he find himself in a boat among a sea of other limbs. Finally he comes upon a stretcher containing a wounded man, and of course he cannot operate now because he's armless. It's very disturbing when you allow yourself to get into the feel of the sequence.



The contrast between the real and the dream states in this episode is very jarring at times (much like real dreams or nightmares can be) and you can tell the director, actors, screenwriters and filmographers has a lot of fun working on this one. They experiment with sets, costumes, camera angles and sound effects and it's all very avant garde when you look at it as a whole. I thought it was very effective at representing the underlying disparity of the characters and what they were forced to experience in their daily lives in Korea.

All In The Family - "Edith's 50th Birthday"

Like Mash, All In The Family had more than its share of great episodes. The show is widely regarded as being groundbreaking, and one of the first shows to deal with tough topics like racism, prejudice, homosexuality and getting away with it because of the Archie Bunker character -- being surrounded by people who contradicted his opinions and viewpoints made what he had to say seem perhaps less offensive because of the way he was portrayed, and because everyone around him was the exact opposite.

But apart from Archie, One of the best eps I've seen of this show was "Edith's 50th Birthday", because of the subject matter and it's portrayal in the context of a comedy. Some of the most effective scenes in TV and movies are the ones that mix comedy and sudden calamity because you are caught off guard. So on the occasion of Edith's birthday, when she is found alone in the house while her family is out preparing for her surprise party, you aren't expecting for her to be attacked by a rapist.

Posing as a detective, she unknowingly lets the man into the house, and he explains that there have been reports of a molester in the neighbourhood. He soon drops the act as he describes the assailant as being very much like himself. The man becomes more forceful (but not as much as someone in real life might -- it's clear they wanted to tone down the rape angle, the so-called rapist comes off as being almost polite at times) and pushes her down. She tries to dissuade him as he starts to remove his clothing by explaining that she's 'as old as Lindburg's airplane' and even offering him a cup of coffee. The next few minutes come off as very awkward as the man clearly wants to do this but Edith is rambling about how she has to be at her surprise party at 6:00.



When the man holds her down and starts his advance, the phone rings and Edith says she has to answer it because it's Archie who knows she is home - if she doesn't answer he will think something's up and come back to check on her. He allows it, but pulls out a gun and says to get rid of him, wherein Edith starts to panic. It's not Archie after all but her freind Cybil whom she promptly gets rids of. The man forces a kiss and Edith says she's gonna throw up. She runs into the kitchen and he is close behind pulling the shades. She says she has to go the bathroom, he follows her. She tries everything to stall him but to no avail. he eventually gets wise and ties her arms together.



When archie returns to the house and finds the door locked, the man pulls the gun again and tells her to say she'll be there in a minute. He threatens to kill them both unless she gets rid of him - he hides in the closet. A very difficult scene comes next when Archie rambles on about the punch bowl he needs, clearly unaware that Edith is close to tears and in serious trouble. He leaves, Edith breaks down and the man emerges from the closet.

Up to this point, Edith has mostly been shown as a 'dingbat' and not the most intelligent person in the world. But she does have brief moments of clarity and this episode shows one of them. When she smells something burning in the kitchen, she runs in and finds her cake smouldering in the oven. He tells her to take it out, and she does, but then jams the burning hot pan right in his face. He screams and tries to grab her, and she knees him in the crotch and pushes him out the door. Then she hightails it out the front door and over to Archie at the party. While they all sing Happy Birthday she cries on his shoulder, and no one is aware of what happened, until part two that is.



Because this show was taped in front of a live audience, there is a lot of misplaced laughter in the soundtrack. I think this is because they really weren't sure where or how far they were going to take this premise, weren't sure they were even supposed to laugh, and were really generally uncomfortable with what they were seeing. But that was exactly what I think the writers intended, so you can infer that they suceeded in what they were trying to say with this screenplay. Also, the writers wisely broke up the tension by cutting away to the scene of the party now and then. Given that this was probably the first time that rape had been openly fictionalized on prime time TV, they wanted to give the viewers a break, to prevent them from turning the channel due to the uncomfortable scenes with Edith. But there is a payoff for enduring the tough to watch parts, evidenced by the live audience's reaction to Edith's action and escape -- they cheer the loudest I've ever heard them cheer during the entire run of the show.

Hogwash Rebuttal

Editors note: I received a Facebook comment on my wall that was a lengthy rebuttal of my post, and I'd like to put my response to it here: I think even without the rebuttal included, my response will clarify a few things about what I wrote and point out an error or two.

Ok. let me take your points one by one, some of which are very good, and try to address them...

First off, I think I was clear in stating several times that what I had written was merely my opinion, and that people didn't have to agree if they didn't want to, a point which you've illustrated in your response to this. My main desire in writing what I wrote was to a) vent a little, and b) to advise people not to panic and to educate themselves before taking anyone's word for anything -- including what I think.

What I wrote was based on my own impressions and, granted, some of it may not have been complete or entirely accurate (even three hours of research and reading appears not to be thorough enough for something as low-impact as a blog post). I'm not a health professional or an educated man by comparison to others. People can and should make their own decisions about what to do in any situation, not just this. But it was a blog post after all, not placed in the venue of a medical website or other pedestal of authority. I think that most of the few people who read my blog and my FB page realize this is where I'm coming from.

As far as having diabetes is concerned, that is very unfortunate, and believe me when I tell you that I *am* hearing you on this. As you know my father died from it, and it was awful to watch, having received two amputations, and having died shortly after the second. However, I can't find a consistent answer either for or against the idea that H1N1 in its current state will infect or affect a diabetic any differently that someone without diabetes. In fact, people seem to be arguing over whether it's even an issue. Britain's NHS seems to think diabetics are no more likely to contract it than non-diabetics, and if they do, it may alter their blood sugar levels and require a diet modification, but not land them in a hospital per se. However, Canada's Public Health seems to think that diabetics are MORE at risk of contraction than others and that they should protect themselves accordingly.

So once again, it's difficult to tell people, as you have told me, and I have indeed suggested to people in my post, to 'research more' before they decide, when the information available is so contradictory and convoluded across the board. I have had my own troubles muddling through it as you can see... which is kind of my original point, and is why it was important for me to say what I said. In a situation like that, many people are likely to panic, and that is what they absolutely should NOT do. I hardly think that advising people not to panic and instead think clearly is a bad thing.

Moving on... you may well be correct about 1918, [he had stated that the Spanish flu back then was a killer and that a simple mutation of H1N1 could conceivably rival that strain in this situation. Ed.] I did not have time to delve too deeply into that realm, spending more time in 1976, but be that as it may, you are what-iffing. At the moment (as far as we know) things are not at that point yet. Medicine has progressed marvelously in the last century and we know more about viruses in general, we have a system of prevention in place with the CDC et al and the knowledge to act in a crisis (at least moreso than then). Spanish flu caught them off guard in 1918, it seems, and so it stands to reason that things got out of hand quickly. This is not 1918. To predict what *might* happen *if* H1N1 mutates into something more deadly is useless. There's always that possibility with any virus. If it does, there's nothing us normal people can do about it, that's a job for scientists and doctors. *We* can only protect ourselves as best we can, and what-iffing is only going to serve to give way to fear and panic.

As for me not getting the shot? I said it was my main reason, not my only reason. As you have pointed out I was off the mark on Tamiflu (I was tired at the end of writing that - I had those two items confused). [I had confused the Tamiflu drug as the 'flu shot/vaccine' when in it seems that it is in fact an antiviral that you take when you are already sick, an entirely different thing - I am still verifying this. Ed.] You were also partially correct that about the flu shot not containing the virus itself. I have since read that the vaccine in question does in fact contain dead virus bodies that are not supposed to harm you. Similarly, the nasal form of this contains live virus bodies that have been altered so as not to cause the illness [...] So I am willing to retract that portion of my post for the benefit of all readers and state that this is probably correct.

However, regarding my personal receipt of the actual flu shot, there is still the concern I currently have about some of the supporting ingredients in the mix (squaline, mercury); the validity and importance of which I am still looking into. There is also the idea that I personally may have some modicum of immunity since I found out from my mother that I was immunized in 1976 for that particular strain, although that seems unlikely from what I have read. There are other issues as well that I have, but suffice it to say I have enough doubts and questions to think twice or perhaps thrice until someone proves to me that my concerns are unfounded. I've never had a flu shot in my adult life, and have not been seriousy ill. Granted this is by no means a guarantee, but my personal stance on this still remains, if I ain't broke, don't fix me.

I repeat once again that this is my own choice, and while I stated in my post that I have been 'advising people' not to get the shot, it was hardly so clear cut as the advice I gave myself; perhaps I chose the wrong words in stating this in the writing... it was more along the lines of what I have already been saying: make the right choice for you, don't just get it because someone is foretelling doom and gloom about pandemics or that you are positively going to get it and die. Consider all viewpoints, even the ones that seem wrong to you. The fact of the matter is that there is an element of risk for each individual in getting the shot, albiet small possibilities, but still something to consider.

So what I'm saying is this: I think the general tenor of my advice makes it clear that it's simply that: "advice* that is coming from a layperson which can either be ignored or considered. I have seen and heard far more vehement standpoints about not getting the shot in Facebook and IRL than mine and some based on far more biased ideas. Furthermore, I think/hope I was clear in giving such advice, both in person and in on all other modes of communication, that I was only stating personal opinion. I tend to express myself this way when it comes to all sorts of topics -- I don't force my ideas on others and try to be tolerant and let people think for themselves.

I think I'm capable of conceding to any argument that refutes to my satisfaction something that I've said about this. You make a good point about flu-shot-abstainers inadvertently helping to spread the virus, but there is really nothing that can be done about this under our current system of government in North America. A recent US poll shows that roughly half of Americans will not volunteer to get the shot. Internet and social media is making this situation worse with people playing the telephone game and the message is getting garbled at the other end. Unless (or until) the governments of the world decree that everyone *must* receive a flu shot (which will likely cause an uproar), the only thing each of us has to help us decide is our own minds and the information we receive on the subject, and all I'm saying is make as an informed decision as you can. I can't tell people where to go to find the truth or the choice that suits them, I can only suggest they keep looking until they find it.

I will say this however about your comments -- they made me rethink and reconsider, to a degree, the points of my post to see if I was on the right track or not. It was enough to reconsider my thought that I should unilaterally decline the shot for my daughter and instead start up a dialog with her about it this evening, trying to give her both sides of the issue and see what she thought about it. It's still open for discussion. So I thank you for that because it allowed me to realize that I was not applying the same standards I was preaching about to someone in my own family (even if she is only six), simply because I have a position of caregiver over her.

I hope this clears the air a little and further clarifies my position on this.

Dr. Pig To The Rescue

Swine flu: A bunch of hogwash?

I keep getting notes from my kid's school about a local H1N1 'pandemic' and I'm seeing people on Facebook agonizing about getting the shot or not. It's becoming a little tiresome to be honest with you.

Personally, I never get flu shots. Not because I don't like needles (I don't, but I'm a big boy, I can take it... that's beside the point), but because there's something about shots in general that doesn't sit right with me. Briefly, in order to make the thing work, you have to include a small sample of the illness in order for the antibodies to know what they are fighting. I thought the idea was not to get the virus? But that's just me.

In any case, while doing some research into this, I quickly learned that this subject, like countless other hot topics, is so littered with conjecture, propaganda, half-truths, doom-sayers, religious or political zealots and paranoia-driven rhetoric, that it's difficult to see if there even is some truth there somewhere, let alone what it might be.

But before we get to that, I'll tell you that I have been advising people not to get the shot, because my personal feeling is that as long as you take care of yourself, get vitamins, eat well and you don't have any serious immunodeficiency issues, you probably won't get it. And if you do, given that all the above conditions are met, the worst that can happen to you is you feel like a bag of shit for two weeks, and then get better. Whereas, if you do get the shot, you risk getting sick from the very thing you are trying to avoid, because you've just put it into your body.

That said, I have no actual evidence to back up this claim that you can actually get any strain of flu from a flu shot (yet), but it stands to reason that in order for the shot to work, the forces battling against the virus in your body have to be stronger, and that's not always the case due to unforeseen circumstances. The antibodies can't work alone, they have to be helped by you being in generally good health, getting proper nutrients to sustain you, regular sleep, eating healthy and so forth. Again, just my opinion.

So when I read that the CDC is recommending that the highest risk people get the shot first, it raises my eyebrow. These are the very people whose general health is not good, aged or extremely young or those who are deemed to have medical conditions which would allow the virus to take hold more easily. I seems to me that these would be the last people who should get the shot, because it's a crap shoot isn't it? They have to hope that they can somehow fortify themselves enough to give the antibodies the help they need to function against it, and if they can't, then what?

Basically my main reason for declining the flu shot is embodied in this snippet from Wikipedia:

As of October 2009, only 39 out of over 10,000 samples of 2009 pandemic H1N1 (swine) flu tested worldwide have shown resistance to Oseltamivir.

However, A study published in the 2009 June Issue of Nature Biotechnology emphasized the need for augmentation of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) stockpiles with additional antiviral drugs including zanamivir (Relenza) based on an evaluation of the performance of these drugs in the scenario that the 2009 H1N1 'Swine Flu' neuraminidase (NA) were to acquire the tamiflu-resistance mutation which is currently widespread in seasonal H1N1 strains.

Basically what that means is that the virus can in fact develop a resistance to the inoculation over time. Viruses are cunning that way. So if you do happen to get sick and it happens to be the resistant strain, getting the shot after the fact won't help you much. At best, you'll just stay sick for a lesser amount of time.

Apart from that, we are just making the viruses stronger by continually creating new shots for them. In most cases, people get the flu and live, and then develop immunities to getting that strain again. Why should we help the fucking bugs get stronger just because we don't want to miss a few days of work?

All of the above is just my layman's view of what's going on. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Likewise, I have my opinions and make my choices, and no one else has to do what I do if they don't want to. But here's a bit of information that can be proven, regarding the alleged 'outbreak' of swine flu in 1976. It seems like a bit of history repeating itself. Basically, it goes like this:

• in February, 1976, a soldier at Fort Dix reported feeling weak and tired. He died the following day. Twelve of his comrades also fell ill similarly and one other death occurred.
  
• investigation proved that the virus was 'closely related' to the one that reportedly killed up to 100 million people in 1918. However, this is questionable since the medical community at large admits that they didn't really know a heck of a lot about virii back then, not having all the cool equipment that they invented later. To date, they still don't know where or how the 1918 strain originated.
  
• evidence and documentation has shown that this virus was only detected between Jan. and Feb. of that year, and was confined to Fort Dix. However increased vigilence and research uncovered a geographically separate but similar strain of swine flu which they called H3N2, and this was seen throughout the US up until March.
  
• this sets the government into a tizzy and they start considering a program of mass innoculations in order to stave off a similar situation as 1918. Under pressure from public health officials, President Ford moves ahead on it.
  
• actual commercials aired at the time on US TV:
  

• from the start, the program is a fiasco, as many government initiatives can be. Delays and public relations mistakes confuse the issue. A few deaths occur as a result of something called Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing neuromuscular disorder. This syndrome is a rare side-effect of modern influenza vaccines, with an incidence of about one case per million vaccinations.
  
• Public outcry and panic as a result of the deaths ensue, and sway the general public away from such things as vaccinations in particular and government in general. By this time, over 48 million people in the US were inoculated. Nationwide monitoring revealed that just over 1000 people died from Guillain-Barré complications since the start of the campaign, and somewhere around 250 of those were directly attributed to the swine flu inoculation. The program was eventually halted due to the backlash.
  

So this is what we are in for, folks. Can you say this this is not bound to happen again? The fact of the matter is that people die from flu or complications of flu inoculations all the time. It's not uncommon. It's sad but not unprecedented.

This particular incidence of 1976 has caused a repercussion that lasts till this day, which is a distinct dividing line between pro- and anti-vaccination camps, as well as the general distrust of government-driven medical initiatives (many are screaming conspiracy! and some are stating that it's a poisonous toxin that is meant to reduce the population -- the extremists -- and this is a bad sign for people like Obama who is already the subject of intense scrutiny should this go wrong). We are seeing this now, with this new push for nationwide H1N1 inoculations and the banter within the social media realm both for and against as well as undecided and confused. Many people don't know what to think.

Fact is, we've been battling viruses for a long time, apparently, it never stops, but the human race is still here, and shows no signs of slowing its population growth, so I don't think we have anything to worry about for the time being. That's just my impression.

More to the point, have you noticed that no one is talking about the dreaded avian flu anymore? Or horse flu? Does anyone remember SARS? While I cannot comment on the relative importance or medical implications on any of those particular illnesses, I really don't need to. My point in writing this is that average people seem to be jumping from one implied threat to another with no consideration for facts or evidence, but fueled merely by the implied threat of global pandemic crisis. Is there any point to this? Naturally, the threat of a pandemic is always present, but so is the possibility that you could get run down in the street by a bus, or that a gamma ray burst in space could wipe out this entire solar system without so much as a warning. Anything is possible, but people in the medical community are working hard to control it, and I feel that people are just overreacting for some reason. Sure, be concerned, be diligent, but be realistic and don't panic until there is a reason to (Even then, panic won't help you). It's the same kind of thing that I saw after 9/11 when suddenly people didn't want to fly, or more absurdly, that they wouldn't get on the plane with anyone who looked like a terrorist, vis a vis, a brown man (Russell Peters points this out quite nicely in his standup).

Then there are those who are using the 'pandemic' keyword to cash in and take advantage of the ill-informed and naive. Like this person who is selling a mystery swine flu prevention plan for the low, low price of $7. Don't worry, he takes Amex. I have no idea what his report is saying, and I don't want to know. It reads like so many other scams I've seen before and if he really had the answer, why wouldn't he just tell us for free if he gave a shit? There are also scattered reports of medical offices and hospitals selling stuffed pigs in their shops to promote swine flu awareness. There are probably other more heinous infractions going on as well, I'm sure, because it seems there is money to be made from this, and humans are very good at exploiting people when they see people desperate for answers and solutions.

I could go on and on and on and on, but it's late and I've said all I want to say about this. It's really exhausting. Bottom line is, if you aren't sick, then don't worry about it. If you or someone you love is sick, then take them to the doctor and get them checked out. If you wanna get the shot, then by all means go for it. If you feel better keeping your kids home from school at some point, then okay. But for the love of Pete, keep your head about you and don't give into the surging cess pool of fear and hype about the swine flu. It is a real thing. It's just the marketing that's fake.

Storytime Gone Wrong #1: All About Kitties

Death of the Remixer

After spending a great deal of time going through my 26,000+ mp3 collection, I'm saddened by the fact that there are no good remixers anymore.

Back in the 80's and 90s we had lots. Of course that was because remixing was still new and novel. Shep Pettibone is generally regarded as the godfather of remixing. Before then, dance versions were basically just longer versions of the original mix. He was the one that invented the idea of programming additional sequences and parts separate from what was already there. Others took up the reins when he faded from the scene.

Unfortunately he set in motion a movement that would eventually spin out of control. If you grew up on the 80's 12" singles and dance mixes like I did, and still follow those bands that were out back then and still are now, the Depeche Modes, the New Orders and so forth, you begin to see that the gap between original track and remixland become further and further apart.

Take Mode for example. for the last, oh, seven years or so, I have been hard pressed to find even one really good remix out of many in a single release. Instead, the long time fans are fed a steady supply of versions so far removed from the album version as to be unrecognizable. Weird blips, pops, bizzarre stuttering and dischordant effects that sometimes sound like mastering errors rather than intentionally done. Many remixes fade into the lo-fi realm, and many have no elements of the original track at all, contrary to the whole point, really.

Remixing began as a way to create an enhancement or accompanyment of the single version, wherein the remixer is taking the best parts of the song and integrating it into his vision, to make it playable for clubs. Now, the single version has become the afterthought in many cases, where a completely different song is created from scratch and the original material is added later, if at all.

Some people will never like remixes, and that's fine. But there are many who do, and at one point, single releases were created for the sake of the fans who enjoyed them. Now the remixes are made for the sake of the remixers themselves, and others of their ilk, not for the fans, per se. I'm not sure what the MO is for some of them; they aren't danceable, they mock the song it was supposed to be based on and many are just unlistenable.

As a producer, however unfamous or unknown I am, I always try to keep the original version of the song in mind when I attempt a remix, because otherwise there is no point. Mind you I am old school...

Having said that, there are a few remixers out there still that 'get it' and to name a few, I can think of Tiga, Peter Rauhofer, The Thin White Duke, Richard X, Gui Boratto, Roger Sanchez, Sasha and BT for a start. but gone are the days of shep Pettibone, Justin Strauss, Arthur Baker and william Orbit, et al.

I used to rush to the store to get the latest 12' or CD single of a favouite band, but since about the turn of the centruy it's been a crap shoot, since more and more remixes become less and less appealing since you never know if you ar epaying for something that you won't like. Add that to the advent of file sharing, and people wonder why there is so much pirating going on. When it comes to dance remixes of modern day, most of it is not worth paying for unless being a DJ is your trade, or you are a hard core collector.

Just my opinion.

My Trek Is Showing

As most of you already know, I'm a big Star Trek nerd, and lately, with a decided lack of things to watch, I've gone back and started re watching the various incarnations of Trek, and rediscovering some of my favourite episodes. So I've decided to list them, for anyone who cares.

These episodes are in order of chronology in the Trek timeline.

The Original Series.

As far as I'm concerned, nothing can really top classic Trek for me, and there are so many good episodes that I like, it was hard to pick just a few. I've picked the ones that I think show the best aspects of the ship and the crew's personalities and abilities.

The City On The Edge Of Forever



This is a great episode for character development and pathos. A medical accident in the sick bay causes Dr. 'Bones' McCoy to inject himself with a dangerous amount of drugs which make him to go bonkers. He manages to run amok through the ship and escape to the surface of a planet they orbit on which a strange device exists; emanating waves of temporal distortions that they were sent to investigate. Turns out this device is a talking time portal and McCoy ends up running through it to Earth's past, and inadvertently changes the history of Earth. They crew must now undo what he's done, with the help of the portal.

When Kirk and Spock go back to the 1920's, where they determine McCoy also went, they attempt to assimilate themselves into the period, and end up at a mission house under the direction of Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins). After a few days, there is no sign of McCoy, but Keeler and Kirk strike up a burgeoning romantic relationship, which Spock warns him about: they must not make any alterations to the timeline. However, they soon discover that Edith Keeler is the key to the whole thing; whether she lives or dies is the pivotal point which changed history, but they do not know which.

Eventually Spock discovers that McCoy changed history by saving Edith Keeler's life. Keeler went on to organize a peace movement that delayed the United States' entry into World War II – and Germany was able to complete its heavy water and rocket experiments. With atomic bombs, and rockets to carry them, the Nazis conquered the world.

Soon enough, a deranged McCoy arrives in the past, and, after the effects of the drug wear off, he also ends up at the mission, unbeknownst to Kirk and Spock. At the end of the episode, Keeler casually mentions a man staying at the mission who says he's a doctor, and Kirk realizes that it must be McCoy. Leaving Keeler by the side of the road, he crosses the street to get Spock, and then McCoy happens to come out of the mission at that point. The three share a happy reunion, but mere seconds later, drawn to them by the display, Keeler crosses the street to join them, right in front of the path of an oncoming car. McCoy tries to run out there to save her, but Kirk holds him back, so that she can be killed and history will resume its normal shape.

The reason I like this episode is the blocking of this particular scene. The look on McCoy's face when he watches Keeler being run over, cut to the shot of Kirk's face over McCoy's shoulder, torn up inside, unable to watch but knowing exactly has done, to the shot of Spock watching the entire thing with an uncharacteristic empathy showing on his Vulcan face. Once the viewer realizes that Keeler has to die, the rest of the episode is a seat's edge viewpoint just waiting for the moment when it will happen, and just seconds after a cheerful scene of them finding McCoy. That's just good television in any era.

The Naked Time



The Enterprise investigates a planet doomed to natural destruction, and after beaming down to an outpost, discover the residents all dead under curious circumstances: some are found fully clothes in the shower, and all of them are frozen solid as the environmental controls were turned off.

Before returning to the ship, an Enterprise officer becomes infected by a few drops of contaminated water, and starts a chain reaction which infects most of the ship's crew over time. They all begin to display erratic behaviour; abandoning their posts and duties in order to embrace their most prevalent desires. Riley commanders the engine room and locks the controls, so now they are in the orbit of a planet about to explode but cannot get away.

Many people thought this was a hokey episode, but I like it because it shows off the amazing acting talents of Leonard Nimoy in one scene. Spock runs into Nurse Chapel, who has always harboured a major crush on him, once more professes her love for him, being under the influence of the water. She in turn infects him; he removes himself from Chapels arms, saying he can never love her, and leaves.

The next few moments are the best acting I've ever seen in the original series, and the scene was a single take by Nimoy, done at the last moment on the set as an alternate idea to the scene they were supposed to shoot. Spock begins to lose his Vulcan emotional control and struggles to get to his quarters so no one will see him. When he arrives, he struggles to regain control, reciting numbers and equations to himself, but ultimately failing and succumbing to the emotions he's repressed for so long. Simply brilliant.

The Next Generation

The only thing that's even comparable to Original Trek is this one, except for the first season, which I really can't watch now. But TNG was the show that led the way for further canon development, and is still the best incarnation of the franchise. I was even able to mostly tolerate the presence of Counselor Troi in most of the run.

Sarek



This episode features the amazing talents of two incredible actors, Patrick Stewart as Picard and the late Mark Lenard as Spock's father Sarek. In this episode, Sarek, still an ambassador but on his last mission as a peace negotiator before retiring, comes on board the Enterprise with his wife, Perrin, to hold the talks between two races. Soon, crew members on the ship begin to behave aggressively toward one another and no one can figure out why, not even the ones who were affected. After a concert where Data was a feature performer, Picard witnesses the supposedly unemotional Vulcan shedding a tear upon hearing the music, but then is ushered out by his wife and aides.

Picard soon becomes aware that Sarek is suffering from Bandii Syndrome, a rare disorder that causes Vulcans over 200 to lose emotional control, and he is unconsciously broadcasting his intense emotions to the humanoids around him. In this condition, he will not be able to continue the peace talks.

Confronting Sarek with this results in the first of two great acting moments, when Sarek becomes aggressive and angry at the suggestion that he cannot control his emotions, thus proving Picard's point.

The second moment comes later in the episode when Picard volunteers to mind meld with the Vulcan, in order to stabilize Sarek's emotions by giving him some of his own control. Sarek warns that in turn, Picard will feel the full brunt of his Bandii-affected mind, and it would be too much for a human to handle, but Picard does it anyway, and the resulting scene is amazing. Stewart as Picard (in a single shot) wrestles with Sarek's personal thoughts of sorrow, rage, fear and chaos in a mind-blowing feat of acting. Well worth watching again and again.

Remember Me



This episode isn't one that I think many people would say stood out, but it did for me for some reason. It was a very neat concept and executed quite brilliantly in the screenplay. Dr. Crusher is visited by her old mentor aboard the ship, a very elderly man, who is lamenting the fact that he is becoming increasingly lonely due to the fact that most of his friends and his wife have passed on. After this, she goes to visit her son, the prodigy Wesley, who is working on a warp experiment in engineering.

The next day, Crusher cannot find her friend aboard the ship -- moreover, she cannot find any evidence that he was ever there at all, and no one remembers him beaming up or being aboard. While trying unravel the mystery of this situation, she discovers some of her medical staff are also missing, and reports this to the bridge crew. No one seems to think this is odd. The situation continues and Crusher soon discovers that people on the ship are disappearing at an increasing level when Data casually informs her that the entire ship's compliment is 230, and not over a thousand as it is supposed to be.

Add to this the appearance of a strange explosion of light that appears to her alone, trying to draw her in but failing, and Crusher is faced with a serious mystery that she must unravel. Eventually almost the entire ship's crew disappears, including her son, and Crusher can only find Picard aboard -- the only other person aboard a ship that was built for a crew of hundreds. Picard, when confronted with this paradoxical information, simply says, "We've never needed a crew before."

Then Picard too vanishes leaving her alone, with only the computer to work with. It's at this point that we see that this bizarre situation is the result of Wesley's experiment with the warp drive; it has trapping her in a bubble of warp energy, the nature of which is controlled by her own thoughts -- she was thinking about losing people after her conversation with her mentor when Wesley botched the experiment, and now they have to find a way to get her out before the bubble collapses with her inside it.

The best parts of the episode are when Crusher is alone on the ship trying to figure out what's going on, and arguing with the 'computer'. She discovers that it's not only people that are disappearing, it's the planets and the entire universe (but really it's the warp bubble, not the universe). The look on her face when the computer tells her that the universe is "a spheroid region, 705 meters in diameter," is just priceless. Eventually she realizes that the light is related to Wesley's experiment and is a way out for her, and all is well again.

Parallels



Some of my favourite episodes are the ones where people are thrust into situations they have never been in before and also which they are ill equipped to handle. In this episode, on his Birthday, Worf returns from a fighting tournament dreading that someone will host a surprise party for him. Of course they do, and Worf is immediately uncomfortable. This sets the scene for the rest of the show, as Worf begins to notice slight changes in his surroundings. First he was told that Picard was unable to attend his party, then he was there eating cake.

As he goes about his day there is a lot of character development for Worf, as he has begun to feel romantic feelings toward Troi in this season, and there is much talk of his son, Alexander, and who would care for him is something were to happen to Worf, etc. This is all to set the stage for the events that follow, as Worf begins to experience dizzy spells, and every time he comes out of it, something is different. It begins to happen more and more, but when the differences become farther and farther removed from what Worf knows to be reality, he becomes rightfully concerned. He goes to visit the doctor for a checkup, who tells him that he must be suffering the effects of his concussion. Problem is, he hasn't had one. She insists he has, because of the injury sustained in the tournament, and a check of his quarters reveals a ninth place trophy, instead of the championship trophy he knows he's won.

The changes get worse, and the realities become more different. Worf begins to realize he's somehow shifting into alternate realities, but doesn't know how or why, and no one believes him. At one point, he finds himself in a universe where he is married to Troi, and he doesn't have a song called Alexander. A different shift plants him on the bridge and he has no idea how to run the security panel to fire the phasers on an attacking Cardassian ship because the panel is all different. His hesitation causes the ship to be fired upon and Geordi dies in the process.

As a result of this, Data runs a check and finds that Worf's RNA resonates a different quantum frequency and doesn't belong in their universe - he is from a different quantum reality. They surmise that he must have passed through an anomaly on his way back to the ship in his own universe that caused this to happen. Furthermore, they attribute the shifts in reality to Geordi's visor, because all the shifts took place when he was around Worf.

So now we come to the best part of the episode. In an attempt to locate the proper universe and return Worf to it, the Enterprise returns to the anomaly and does something wrong and opens up the barriers between universes and Enterprises from all quantum realities start appearing out of thin air. One of the best lines from this episode is, "Captain, we're receiving 285,000 hails." Then, when they discover which of the ships is the one from Worf's reality, they agree to send him back through the anomaly in their shuttle to hopefully return things to normal and stop the incursions from other universes before the universe collapses. Another great moment is when one of the ships from a universe where the Borg have taken over everything contacts them and a disheveled and insane Commander Riker refuses to go back and tries to fire on Worf's craft.

There are so many great moments in this episode, that I have to stop listing them, or they will go on forever...

Frame Of Mind



This is a great Riker episode wherein he is rehearsing for a play that Crusher wrote, called 'Frame of Mind' - the story of an insane man who struggles to separate his delusions from reality. Though throughout the episode, Riker begins to experience similar delusions to the context of the play, something he initially attributes to being too close to the character he is portraying. But the delusions get worse over time, until he finds himself actually in an insane asylum, and told that he is only imagining being the first officer of a starship, it is part of his delusional state. In reality, he has killed someone and been found to be insane.

Riker passes back and forth from the insane inmate to being on the Enterprise, and back again, but he is constantly berated and scolded by his doctor in the asylum that he has to want to remain in this reality if he wants to get better. As a result, Riker works hard to resist the 'delusions' of the Enterprise and its crew when they appear, and in one situation, they appear and try to rescue him from the asylum, and he resists, calling for security, but isn't able to escape their grasp.

The last 15 minutes of the episode are the best, as Riker initially crumbles under the strain of living in both realities, but then starts to observe clues that tell him whether things are real or not. Eventually he gambles his own life to sort out the real from the delusional by pointing a weapon at himself and stating that if this reality is delusional then nothing will happen to him if he shoots himself. In this way, Riker 'shatters' the delusions one by one (they actually use a shattering effect, very cool for the time when this was aired), until he ultimately finds himself a prisoner in a medical lab, by a race of aliens that are trying to extract vital information from him, and from whose imprisonment he eventually escapes.

I just like John Frakes' acting in this episode, and once again, it's an episode containing alternate realities and insurmountable odds, so it's a no-brainer that I'd like it.

Deep Space Nine

While I did watch this show's entire run, I simply didn't like it enough to say I would watch it all again. Sisko was a great character, and Avery Brooks a great actor and that was mainly what kept me interested. But mostly, the show was far to politically based for me, what with the Cardassians, the Bajorans and the Founders and all that stuff, was a little to influence by Babylon 5, IMO. However, there were a few memorable episodes. Here are two.

Far Beyond The Stars



Like many of these other favourites, this is an alternate reality scenario, whereby Sisko begins to see visions and experience himself somewhere else. After a period of self-doubt about his command and his place as the supposed prophetic Emmisary, Sisko, sees visions of strange people walking around the station. They get worse, and he suddenly finds himself on Earth circa 1950 as Benny Russell, a science fiction writer working for a theme magazine. Furthermore, all the major players of DS9 are in this vision as well, playing Benny's fellow writers, his fiance, his detractors and so forth.

I've always been drawn to movies and television that deal with the history of race prejudice and discrimination, such as 'Malcolm X' and 'Roots' (which both Avery Brooks and LeVar Burton acted in), and this is the crux of this episode, and a very interesting take on the idea. The writer Benny, being a black man in the 50's cannot get his story of a futuristic space station published because the commander is coloured, and the publishers continuously veto the story saying the public will never accept the story of a negro in a position of authority. The story, of course, is that of DS9, the idea of the vision being that Benny's struggle with the issue of getting the story published will somehow help Sisko to put things in perspective about being on DS9 and the responsibility he holds.

While many might say that this is one of the preachier episodes, I agree that it may be, but the end makes it well worth the hammered-home message. Everyone at the magazine agrees that Benny's story is great and needs to be published, but the editor insists that it will not be unless Benny changes the character of the black commander. Someone then suggests that the entire story could be simply a dream, and this is the loophole they need to push it through. However, weeks later when the editor returns, he informs them all that the entire issue has been pulped as it 'did not live up the the usual high standards.' Benny knows that it was his story that caused this decision from the publisher and becomes hysterical with rage over it, eventually collapsing in an emotional heap. It is simply the best acting moment in the entire series.

There are many episodes of Trek that cover the issue of race discrimination, but all are couched in metaphor and allegory, using races and circumstances that only parallel real life... except this one."Far Beyond The Stars" hits home, accurately and powerfully, even so far as to use the 'N' word. It is definitely worth more than one viewing.

Trials And Tribble-ations



Ever since Frank Sinatra appeared in the vacuum commercial, dead stars are not safe, and yet this is the same technology that allowed the DS9 crew to travel back in time to Captain Kirk's ship, seamlessly and during one of the most loved episodes in the original series, "The Trouble With Tribbles."

Like the TOS episode, this one is very light hearted with many humourous moments, but the main draw for me was in seeing how the plot line, as well as the characters, interplay with that of the original episode. The creators, writers and effects people did an excellent job in doing this, reviving not only the episode footage, but the original sets, uniforms, and even actors to make this happen.

The basic premise of the episode was that Arne Darvin, the undercover Klingon agent conspiring in the original episode has done so again, and travels back in time (unwittingly taking the entire Defiant with him) to help his past self not be discovered as a spy and kill Captain Kirk. The entire story is framed as a flash back, as Sisko recounts the events to agents of Temporal Investigations -- they are there to determine whether harm was done and whether charges need to be brought against Sisko for temporal violations.

It's just a fun episode, and they pulled it off really well.

Voyager

I used to constantly argue with my mom about Voyager, because it's my least favourite show. Honestly, I dislike Captain Janeway very much. She assumed it was because I have something against women. That's not so. I really like Dr. Crusher's character, and also Ensign Ro and many others. I didn't like Janeway because I basically disagreed with every decision she ever made on the ship, right from when she made the decision which stranded her entire ship in the Delta Qaudrant. As a result of not liking her, I missed many of this show's eps during its run, but one episode does stand out.

Tuvix



This is an exploration of ethics, as a transporter accident causes the Vulcan Tuvok and the Talaxian Neelix, to become a single person, who becomes known as Tuvix. Not being able to reverse the effects of the meld right away, the crew and Captain Janeway have to come to terms that the two people they once knew are gone, and this hybrid is all they have left.

Eventually, Tuvix becomes a valued member of the team, and people start to regard him not as an accident, but as a unique individual, possessing all the best qualities of Tuvok, and Neelix... that is until one month later, the Doctor, under his original orders from the captain, discovers a way to reverse the meld.

When presented with this idea, Tuvix states that he doesn't want to go through with the procedure - he doesn't want to die. Although he refers to Tuvok and Neelix as his 'parents', and does care about them, he is afraid. It is Kes, lover to Neelix and protege to Tuvok, that ultimately convinces Janeway to somehow force Tuvix to undergo the procedure.

Janeway states her intention to Tuvix who pleads with the crew not to murder him, but finally realizes he has no choice, and allows himself to be led to Sick Bay. There, the doctor, citing the hypocratic oath to 'do no harm', refuses to perform the separation, so Janeway does it.

It is one of the only decisions of Janeway's that I did agree with, although the ethics surrounding it are murky, and it was clear that Janeway herself had doubts even after committing herself to the decision to sacrifice one life, such as it was, to save two.

Enterprise

Regarded by fans as the most controversial and argued over series in the franchise, I side mostly with those who like the show. While I did agree that they took many liberties, I think that what they did do with this was good-intentioned, and the grandiose ideas of prequel lore were mostly well-executed, especially in the final fourth season. But because the presentation of the show's plot was spread out over many episodes, almost in mini-series fashion, it was hard to pick episodes that stood out... except this one.

Acquisition



Trek lore states that the Ferengi race of monetarily minded aliens did not come into the foray until Picard's time. However, 150 years earlier, Picard's predecessor John Archer's ship was taken over by a contingent of them, in the form of looters.

A trap laid by the Ferengi causes the entire crew to be knocked out by gas, except for Trip, who was in a decontamination unit at the time. He leaves from there, and then discovers the crew out cold, and realizes something is up. In time, he manages to hit sick bay and grabs something that wakes up T'Pol and Captain Archer only. The rest of the episode is just gold, because the writing really goes out of the way not to outwardly state that this is the Ferengi race -- they are supposed to be unknown in this time period. But the viewer is aware of who they are and how they work, and we can also anticipate the Ferengi reactions to things which is a nice interaction. In any case, with enough clues, the three officers gather sufficient information about the inner workings of the Ferengi mind, which is powered by greed, suspicion and trechery. Trip and Archer basically mimic the Ferengi, act exactly like them, to stage a power play between them both, tricking the Ferengi into letting their guard down so the humans can gain control and put their ship back together. It's really a very well written and clever episode.

So there's my list. There are of course many more episodes that I like, but I won't bore anyone anymore with the stories of how I spent all day struggling to decide which ones were my favourite when I should have been working.

Consider Yourself Warned...

Check back here for more details.

Adventures In The Red Zone

For a band that I'm mostly ambivalent about, Last night's U2 concert at the Rogers Centre was very impressive. The spectacle of the multi-storey high construction that looked like the mechanical spider from Wild Wild West was certainly something to see. The music was excellent, and the band was in very good form. Also there was the fact of being a mere few feet from musical icons was very cool as well.

What we didn't find impressive was the Red Zone, the special area for people who paid 10-20% more for their tickets at auction, with the promise of special inscentives. All promotion material billed the Red Zone as a VIP section, with such perks as exclusive entrance, escorts to your seat by 'hostesses', exclusive food and drink vendor, exclusive merchandise kiosk and washrooms only for use by those with red zone wristbands.

Sounds great right? I can't speak for how the show will be set up in other venues, but at the Rogers Centre, here's where the whole thing went wrong.

The food and drink kiosk was a small table selling Stella and Keith's tallboys (and later they replaced Stella with Bud... as if) for $10 a piece, and bottled water. Pretty standard for the dome. Can't blame the promoter for that. But if you don't like beer, you were basically out of luck, you had to go all the way upstairs to get something else... which you aren't allowed to bring back to the Red Zone. And the food was Doritos and Maynard's candy, nothing really substantial. So far that's not much to complain about. Except that the whole operation shut down at 8:15, shortly before Snow Patrol finished their opening set, so Red Zone members had to go out to the other bar located outside of the red zone.

Next, we move onto the merchandise kiosk. It had less than 1/4 of the items that the other ones did. To my knowledge, it also shut down before the band took the stage.

As for seating, even though our tickets had seat numbers, there were no actual seats. There was a line of bench type things that were along the back fence of the enclosure, but they were folded up half way through Snow Patrol. Once again, not really a big thing, since who the hell sits down at a concert like this any way?

But perhaps most alarming about the supposed VIP area were the promised restroom facilities. We came down the ramp for the first time after passing through the red zone gate, and asked a security guard for the Red Zone washrooms. He looks sly and nodded to his left. There we saw to port-o-johns standing about 50 feet away. We chuckled a little and then said,' Yeah, no, really, where are they?"

We thought the guy was fucking with us. He said, "I'm the first to admit: I enjoy fucking with people, believe me, but seriously I'm not."

So basically the people who paid more for the tickets had to use the sub-standard rest facilities. This makes no sense. There was this guy standing at the gate when we were about to go in, and he looked like he was gonna shit himself, and was trying to convince the guard to let him use the port-o-john coz he really had to go, but the guard wasn't going to let him.

"It's right there," he pleaded, but he didn't have a wristband, so it was a no go. He clearly didn't get that We were VIPs and he wasn't, so the guard saw fit to explain it to him. "See, these guys are better than you, coz they paid extra for their tickets, so they get to use those, and you have to go upstairs." Sandra looked mortified. I just thought it was ridiculously amusing, since I really would have rather used the ones upstairs, if they weren't a five minute walk up the ramp and another 5 minutes back. I told the guy to consider himself lucky since at least if he went upstairs, there would be less of a lineup to use the facilities, and at least he could wash up afterward. He saw the logic in this and cheerfully went on his way.

Moreover, in the end, the security people were unable to prevent non-wristband-wearing concert goers from using the VIP shit stalls, and the notion of gender was thrown out the window. With the long lines, and the relative emergency levels of those standing in line, there were women using the mens one and vice versa, and they were absolutely disgusting by the time I had to use one, as one would expect from port-o-potties.

It seems whiny to be complaining about this, I know, considering that proceeds to the Red Zone tickets are going to AIDS research, but there are two problems with this whole scenario. I'm sure we can by now assume that not all the money is going to Africa. This is just a given: no charitible organization donates 100% of its intake to the cause: they have operating costs, staff to pay, and god knows what else. So being the cynic that I am, I can only surmise that this was a cash grab by Ticketmaster and its associates to jack up ticket prices for their own reasons, because they certainly didn't live up 100% to all of their promises of VIP treatment. It just seemed to me like they took peoples' money and did the bare minimum possible to follow through with their promises just to be able to say they provided them. But they weren't totally honest with the auction winners about the actual provisions would be.

So don't get me wrong, I had a great time at the show, and these things are not huge matters, and I'm not a priss when it comes to class or status or whatever. I was glad to be there at all, as I didn't pay for my ticket, to be quite honest with you: it was a gift. But I was not the only person witnessed expressing dissastisfaction over the So-called VIP treatment, and certainly not the the angriest. There were many more agressive complainers that I saw first hand.

So to anyone who is considering getting a Red Zone ticket for a future show, I suggest you just pay the general admission price, because you're still really close to the stage, closer in fact, and the 'perks' just aren't up to snuff. If it means that much to you, take the extra money you save NOT buying Red Zone tickets and donate it directly Red or another reputable AIDS charity, then go have a kick ass time at the show, because it's really something to see.

This isn't our video, this was taken from the front of the stage, and we were more to the right, but basically this captures our vantage point and experience pretty well.

Confidence Win

For the first time in a long while, I feel like there is hope for me.

Basically, I spent all day going over my bad money planning, and with a little brain-work on the part of my lovely Sandra, and a lot of sheepish admissions of idiocy from me (which she gracefully brushed aside), I think I might actually get out of this mess with sone dignity.

I told her:

I'm an intelligent person, but when it comes to money, I have a mental block. I was kept away from all talk of family finances when I was a kid, because we were always brokeass, and they wanted to keep me away from that. So I never learned how to manage money, or the value of a dollar."

...which is all true. If I had my way, I'd prefer to hand all my dough over to someone else and let them manage it (I say that as if I have TONNES of money. LOL) but I know that's not the intelligent thing to do, and it certainly won't teach me anything.

Now that I'm in my new place, and I've got Drew and me all settled into a routine, pretty much everything in my life is organized in some way, and that allows me to relasx a little... but there's always the money situation. For lack of any other assistance, I was forced by default to make bad decisions based on lack of experience and knowledge, and it took a loving kick in the ass from Sandra to give me some confidence that all was not lost.

I'm one of these stupid people (sometimes) who doesn't realize how good he has it until suddenly you're alone and you're going, "What the fuck am I doing?" And then you start thinking about all the things you could have done maybe a little bit better to prevent where you currently are, but by then it might be too late to get back.

Clearly, I've got a second chance here, so to you Sandra, let me just say that I won't let you down, now that you've helped me get this far, and I'll make the frustration you felt today worth it, so we can move on together, as a unit. I love you.

My Life (a poem by Drew)

Drew wrote this poem for me :)

My life page
Mom is good.
My life is great
Thats's why you are too
Pink is good
My life is the best!
I like cats
But my life more
I will love it. ♥

My Beautiful Child

While I was listening to some music on random play, the song that I wrote for my late niece, Kaleigh, who died from SIDS in 2007, came on. I decided to listen to it even though I usually don't because it makes me too sad. I was uncontrollably sobbing when I wrote it and I haven't been able to get through it since.

Regrettably, as it turns out, Drew was standing beside me, even though she was supposed to be in bed, but I let her listen to it anyway because she is interested in music in general, and how I make and write music in particular.

She asked me if I wrote it and I said yes. Then she was silent, and after a few moments, I was shocked to see her face get red and her bottom lip quivering slightly. I asked her if she was okay and she shrugged, meaning I don't know, or I don't wanna talk about it. Many things could have happened to cause this reaction. Drew has been overtired all day because she didn't get enough sleep, and cranky to boot. She reacted to the piece of music in such a way that I was almost overwhelmed with guilt that I had let it play. But I don't lie to my kid, when she asks questions, I answer them, as best I can.

Drew knows virtually nothing about Kaleigh, because I never mentioned it to her. She may have heard about her death in passing from either her mother, or perhaps one of my family, I don't know. In any case, the music is very sad and very moving as you might expect, and some part of her took that in and recognized it for what it was: a requiem.

I explained to her why I wrote the song, and how I felt when I wrote it, how I put all my emotion into the notes and music, and that's the way great music is made. I ended up telling her the life stories of Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms, and how they wrote music. She said she wanted to write a song too, and wanted it to be better. I told her it doesn't matter if what you do is better than anyone else, that's not why you write music. You write it to say something about yourself, your life, your emotions and what you feel -- and what really matters is the act of creating and how you feel about creating it, not how it stacks up to other peoples' work.

I had two startling revelations tonight: One is that the song I wrote for Kaleigh having had such an effect on her, an innocent child, that I was completely blown away (again) by how effective a requiem that piece turned out to be.

The other is that I have an infinitely empathetic child, who is swayed emotionally by music without really knowing the context, and can understand such concepts as I ended up having to explain to her this evening.

If she decides to follow the musical arts in any way, I can see by tonight's occurrence that she will prove to be a force to reckon with in the future.

Underworld

One question that bands and musicians are asked more often than anything else is what their inspiration is. What bands they listen to, who they try to emulate. I can say without a doubt that the band what I've tried most often to imitate is Underworld.

Oh sure, there is a lot of influence from (but not limited to) Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Faithless, The Beloved, Chemical Brothers, Moby, Yello, New Order, Art Of Noise, Juno Reactor, Kraftwerk, and a whole lot more that I can't even think of now. But Underworld is the driving force behind what I've done since 2005.

Underworld is a band that when you mention it to someone, they either a) think you're talking about the movie 'Underworld', b) have no idea what you're talking about, or c) go, oh yeah, "Lager Lager Lager', right?" More than a one trick pony, Underworld is a band that has been around in one form or another since the 80's, and I've tried to enlighten people to this since I first heard 'Second Toughest In The Infants' in 1996.

A brief History of Underworld, if you will:

Karl Hyde and Rick Smith began as two members of a synth-pop band called Freur in 1983, and their big hit was 'Doot Doot'. Their name was spelled as an unrecognizable symbol, beating Prince to the punch by several years.

In 1986 Freur became Underworld (Mark 1, as they refer to it) and it was a six-piece ensemble in the pop realm, They struck some minor success with their first album 'Underneath The Radar', and a second album didn't perform as well. 1990 saw the first incarnation of the band disappear.

in 1992, Karl and Rick teamed up with DJ Darren Emerson and they revamped the sound of their creations more to what insiders feel is the quintessential Underworld as we know it: driving beats, quirky, obscure and poetic vocals and synth sounds. After releasing a number of singles under the moniker Lemon Interrupt, they became Underworld Mark 2 and released a slew of singles, remixes and albums. The inclusion of 'Born Slippy.NUXX' to the 'Trainspotting' soundtrack in 1996 was their biggest coup, opening their music up to a whole new range of people.

Apart from this hit, their other notable singles include 'Cowgirl' (featured on the soundtrack to 'Hackers'), 'Push Upstairs', 'Pearls Girl' and 'King Of Snake'. Underworld have also lent their hand to many remixes for others, including Bjork, Depeche Mode, Leftfield, Front 242, Chemical Brothers, St. Etienne, William Orbit and Massive Attack to name a few.

On a personal note, I came to know Underworld as many others: from 'Trainspotting' But as I usually do in cases like this, I don't stop there, I find more and more music from an artist i like, go back in time and see where they came from, and what their MO is. I knew I liked dancing to the record, but was that all there was to it?

When I found and bought 'Second Toughest In The Infants', I was immediately hooked. The 16-minute long trilogy of an opening track ('Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream Of Love') simply captivated me in its intricacies, and I don't kind telling you that it brought me almost to tears on more than one occasion. I know this is hard for most people to believe that so-called 'techno music' could evoke such a response, but that is what Underworld do: they craft and sculpt a song or album in such a way that its more than just something to dance to. They put so much thought and emotion into it (I think) and it's not just about a beat or a synth, it's a process of exploration and seeing what happens. It's that creative process that I had been trying to achieve in my own work (and most of the time not to my expectations) and there it was right in front of me. To my mind, they had nailed what I had been trying to find in myself. The ability to put into music everything that I was feeling at the time of writing.

Oftentimes, as their career went on, I would hear a new song from Underworld, and immediately have an idea for a song of my own. For example. Since I heard the aforementioned album, I began to try to find a way to meld my own songs together to make longer tracks. I did this on my first collection with 'I'm Not Dead/1,269 and Rising', in 2006, but the pinnacle of this idea was made for me with the latest album which has three tracks combined together to form a 20 minute long track: 'Bad Day/Dad's Day/Hard Candy' aka 'The Unforetold' suite -- then I reversed and remixed the order for an alternate version called 'The Nine-Oh Five."

To me this is the best example of the effect Underworld has had on my creative process. I even managed to write lyrics based on their example. Karl tends to write what seems to be nonsense on the surface, but if you listen (or read their various explications of such things) you can see that every song does indeed have a theme. It may not sport proper grammar or even real words, but it's a theme all the same, in a stream of consciousness kind of way. That was how I wrote the lyrics for my latest record. I froze a moment on time, and explored every facet of that moment and put those facets into words, sounds feelings, emotions -- a very forensic process of observation.

And its more than just the music. You can tell that the members of Underworld are really digging what they are doing. They are a part of every aspect of their music, their live shows, their album art, their image, everything. Their website, underworldlive.com, features personal input from the band, blog-style, on a regular basis -- photographs, demo tunes, unreleased music and music that you can only get from their site. They have live podcasts of music that they like, some by unsigned artists. They manage their own graphic arts studio called Tomato, which often has 'Art Jams' featuring nearby creators who come in for a day or two and just do what they do. They have released a couple of typography books which read like the lyrics to their songs, but are creatively designed to be a visual experience as well as a verbal one.

In short, they expose every aspect of their art and their lives as it relates to the creative process, which is something I've also been doing for a long time. The creative process is so very important to those who have the talent, and they have certainly not dropped the ball in this department.

It's hard for me to really find any fault with them, quite frankly. Even the things I don't really care for, songs or pursuits or what have you, I really have to respect in spite of that, because they are doing it. Not for the money, I suspect. Just because they want to. And they want others to be involved. It reminds me of something a friend of mine said ten years ago about trying to gather a 'group of non-assholes', which I took to mean people who just wanted to create and be there while other did the same, with no selfishness or trying to steal the limelight. Unfortunately we never found it, but I'm glad to see that someone did.

On August 11, I will be seeing Underworld at the Kool Haus in Toronto for the first time since I started listening to them. I'm 36 years old and generally at concerts I don't move around much, I prefer to sit and take in the spectacle so I don't miss anything. But I assure you that if the show is anything even remotely like the 2000 Live DVD concert footage I have, I'm gonna be raving around like a teenager on X, even though I'm a 36-year old single father who doesn't do drugs. I simply can't wait. I'm actually going to take a half-day and go to a meet up party before the show with a bunch of people I've never met before. I'm so psyched that I'll be able to be in the same room with people that have made so much of a difference in my musical life.

10 REASONS TO LOVE UNDERWORLD

1: The video for 'Dinosaur Adventure 3D'

2: This lyric to 'Moaner'

the city loves you
city loves a boyfriend long walks with a boyfriend
city loves a boyfriend friends walking with the boyfriend
and the nights with the boyfriend
and the city loves you
loves you
loves you loves everyone
everyone is smiling
the smiling is pushing it around
pushing it around
like the shadows of evolution in the dark
super boys where time is all
and where time is everything
where time is all
time to earth
earth wind and fire
and the sun in your hair
black metal walls are falling
i'm the hunger
i'm metal
i'm stainless
i'm milk in your plastic

3: Many different digital downloads of live shows performed in 2007 and 2008, each with its own cover art, culled from the 'art jam' induced painting for the cover of 'Oblivion With Bells'.

4: The fact that they can do stomping hard trance and techno tracks and just as easily do a chill out track using only a retriggered guitar sample, cut up and affected and still make it seem like the same people doing it.

5: The 'Soft Mix' of Depeche Mode's 'Barrel Of A Gun'

Barrel Of A Gun [Underworld Soft Mix] - Depeche Mode

If this isn't enough to convince you, then just take my word for it.

Michael Jackson And The Social Media Revolution

It's time for me to chime in on the Michael Jackson thing. I have been following the story since the day of his death, and I'm truly upset by this, like so many other people. Those who know me know that I'm a bit of a fanboy; not quite as much as those grown men that I saw on some recent footage on CNN, who were seen screaming and crying like footage you see of Beatlemania, but I've followed his career and his music since the release of Thriller. I have a few books and a more than the average person's knowledge of his timeline.

I saw this coming, and I realized that I would probably be alive to see his death come to pass, but I didn't think it would be this soon. Then again, I also could not picture Michael being an old man, and I seriously doubt he could have seen it either.

The reason I'm writing this now is that I have found myself sucked into the social media frenzy surrounding this event, and as a result have signed up for a Twitter account, so that I could see the world's reaction to this. I had already seen some of this through my Facebook account, and it is by now a well known fact that social media websites took the forefront in spreading this bad news throughout the world. So I wanted to experience the memorial I just finished watching from this perspective.

Most of the 'tweets' I read were what I expected. Heartfelt sadness and celebrations of his life, well-wishes to his family and so forth. I found LeVar Burton's (Geordi from Star Trek TNG) Twitter account by accident yesterday, and added it to my following; today he was reporting several times from row 19 at the Staples Center. Most people reacted the way I anticipated.



And then there were the others. Because Michael was the way he was, and he had the life that he had, he has never ever been safe from the ridicule of others. Depending on who you believe, he brought this on himself with his bizarre behaviour. 'Bizarre' is a word that, by some accounts, he actually instructed the journalistic community to use when writing articles on him -- specifically in reports of sleeping in hyperbaric chambers and so on -- being of the opinion that no publicity is bad publicity. I can't confirm if any of that is true. But it's just the kind of confusion that has surrounded him his entire life.

Making matters worse, you have this whole matter of the child molestation charges, which brings a whole new flock of haters to the table. You only have to mention this topic to bring out the rage. The facts are that he was acquitted of those charges -- twice -- and that is supposed to be enough to convince everyone that he is in fact innocent. But of course that doesn't happen on a global scale. There are those who will believe vehemently in his innocence, and those who will forever label him a diddler, and that's all there is to it.

I don't know whether he did those things or not. I don't pretend to know -- I wasn't there... which is why I prefer to concentrate on the good things he did - his music, his talent, and the good works he so obviously did for the world at large. I'm not saying he wasn't a weird guy. That's apparent. But with the reality of his death firmly established, some people still feel the need to express their oh-so-tired opinions of Michael in the world forum and stir up a bunch of bad feelings and cause trouble.

Some were more or less in bad taste -- a similar flavour to the jokes that circulated when Michael was burned at the Pepsi commercial filming -- such as this one scanned on twitter:

Wouldn't it be funny if Michael Jackson lept out of the gold coffin singing "Thriller" and then did the zombie dance?

I myself might be guilty of a similar exercise in possible tactlessness when I said to a friend in England that he could probably still sell out the O2 shows even if they just put his coffin on the stage. However, seeing the fervour around the memorial service and the amount of people who wanted to get in but couldn't, I'm not so sure that I was actually incorrect in saying this.

Some, I feel, really believed that the death was a hoax, and that somewhere, Michael was getting reconstructive surgery to cash in on his death and live the rest of his life in seclusion. Some people have predicted that Michael Jackson is the new Elvis, and sightings of him will be reported for the next 10 years.

Then there those who felt the need to ramp it up a little. I won't pay blog service to any of them, but some were actually happy the man was dead, and cited his alleged-but-not-proven child molestation as a justification for his death. One twitterer actually responded to Smokey Robinson's comment that Michael was looking down from heaven by saying that he was in fact screaming up from hell. So much for innocent until proven guilty.

And then there were those who had just lost perspective on what is actually going on, such as an L.A. resident who reported that

the traffic in LA is even worse than usual. Even in death, MJ still sucks.

There is more, much more than what I am relaying here. Pages and pages of people who really have no concept of karma, disrespecting a dead man, first and foremost. One has to wonder whether such people would react the same if a funeral procession of a so-called normal person was hindering their ability to get somewhere in a timely fashion... Are they just inherently cold-blooded, or was it the fact that Michael was probably the most famous and controversial entertainer in history and they had to add their voices to the fray?

Some in my age range might remember that at one point it was taboo to admit to liking Michael Jackson. I remember on several occasions I would be ridiculed on the playground for wearing a Thriller t-shirt and being called a fag. The battle between Jacko lovers and haters has been going on since the beginning, at a feverish pitch near the start, and then dissolving into a relative cold war in the 90's. Now it seems that some of it is back as the man's demise takes over the media and everyone has to pick their sides in this final chapter of the man's life.

It's truly saddening to realize that some people just don't get that a man is dead, and regardless of the life he led, it's not appropriate to publicly badmouth the man regardless of what you think of him. Of course it's the ease of social media that makes this possible, and prevalent in our society, the ability to express bullshit opinions to a much larger audience then was possible before. You're able to piss so many more people off nowawdays, and certain individuals just can't seem to resist the temptation. For their sakes, they should hope that karma actually doesn't exist, because I have to believe that dissing a dead man is probably among the worst offenses in this realm.

For my part, I remain a fan, and I was truly moved by most of the appearances at the memorial, and was completely blown away by Stevie Wonder who sung my favourite song of his, "They Won't Go When I Go." Over the next days, I feel that more information about the circumstances of his death will come out, whatever they may be, and sadly the detractors and naysayers will only get louder. Thankfully, I think, they are of the minority.

As a last message to those of you out there who feel the need to speak ill of the dead, I urge you to watch the last few minutes of the memorial where the Jackson family all got up to speak and the daughter of Michael began to cry while saying that her father was the best daddy ever. Only the most stone-cold bastard could watch that and not be affected by the sight of a little girl crying at the death of her father. Even if you don't like the man, you need to shut the hell up for the sake of those that remain, and have some damn respect. It's easy to sluff this off because he's a celebrity and you don't know the man or the family involved so why not say whatever you want? You need to check yourselves: real people are dealing with real loss, that's life, and you would only want the same for yourself if it were to happen to you... and it will -- eventually. That's all.

The Bottom Line

The more I deal with government agencies, the more I realize how trapped we are as a society with the financial bottom line. In trying to find a way to sort out my deteriorating financial situation, I am repeatedly shot down by everyone because on paper I make too much.

To illustrate, I recently applied to a municipal government agency which provides short term loans to pay off rent arrears to those individuals who find themselves behind or in danger of eviction. My situation hasn't gotten that dire yet, I am in no danger of getting thrown out since my landlords seem willing to work with me. But having found myself in a situation where I am living one paycheck ahead of myself in order to pay for all the expenses I have accrued, I thought it wouldn't hurt to apply for this service. I expected to be turned down, and I was not disappointed.

I wrote down all of my income and outgo, and the numbers clearly indicate that the expenses are more than what I make at the moment, and if that weren't enough, I also wrote a 2-page letter describing the circumstances behind this problem, and why I felt that I should be considered for the loan, even in light of the fact that I am slightly over the poverty line, and the fact that I have my daughter to take care of.

Got the call today and naturally, they unilaterally denied me the service based on my income alone. This is the same answer that I have been given by just about every service that I have applied. There is simply no service out there that will assist someone with an income over poverty. They will not take the time to look at the numbers involved or each person's individual situation, they only look at one number and that's all.

I even asked the woman at this agency what a person like me is supposed to do. Clearly, I am not making it, and there are no more resources like theirs that I can ask for help. She had the usual useless suggestions; ask family or friends for help, ask my bank for a loan. I told her that if I could do any of those things, I wouldn't be talking to her. At this point, i heard in the underbelly of her voice that she just wanted to get off the phone, so rather than force the issue (even though I was extremely frustrated) I simply hung up.

So I am back to where I started from; trying to operate on a deficit, and hope that the government money that I have been expecting comes when it is supposed to. Drew is out of daycare at the end of this week, and the last check I wrote them has already bounced. My new sitter that I have hired for the summer at $100 a week is supposed to start next week, and I'm not sure how I'm going to pay her. I've simply run out of money, and I'm writing checks for things that I need, and I haven't the slightest idea how to cover them all. I'm exhausted in thinking about this, and exhausted physically. I have no energy anymore, and the phenomenon is causing me to fall behind on the household chores.

To make matters worse, I tried to do a cleaning blitz yesterday, and I was having one of those days where I should have just stayed in bed, because everything I try and do ends up a disaster. Yesterday, in trying to clean behind my computer desk, I stood up and cracked the left side of my head on my wall shelf, and in recoiling from that, I cracked the other side of my head on the sharp corner of the hutch, and now I have symmetrical goose eggs, and I don't feel so hot, and should probably go get it checked out.

This is not a good place to be.

Pig Fucking Government Jerks

The Family Responsibility Office dragged its ass in processing the Notice of Withdrawal from the agency, and as a result, siphoned an additional $432 off me for child support payments, three months worth, the same three months I had my kid in my care. They refuse to return it.

The Canada Revenue Agency is dragging its ass in processing my applications for the Child Tax Credit and Universal Child Care Benefit and I need those assessments in order to apply for the municipal Daycare Subsidy program. One person told me it could be a month, another said it could be up to 80 days. They cannot tell me at what stage it is, or whether there is a problem with the application. I'm just as likely to receive a letter in mid-july, rather than the money I'm entitled to, asking for additional information, which will no doubt take another fucking 80 days to process.

While that busload of dung is going on, the Municipal Daycare Subsidy has a waiting list a mile long, and I would be a fourth tier applicant, which is to say, my child isn't handicapped, I do have a job, and I make over $20K a year. I might not become eligible for that until the fall, if at all, for all I know. Again, no one has any way of knowing.

Meanwhile, Drew is out of school in two weeks, and I absolutely cannot afford full time daycare at the price they are charging. Full time daycare is more than my rent for god's sake. I can't afford the part time I'm already paying for.

Something needs to be done about this ridiculous system that is in place now. When a person like myself, who has worked hard for a long time, struggling to be a producing and economically useful member of a working class, finds more benefit in solving his problems by getting fired from his job and going on welfare so that all manner of assistance and opportunity can be bestowed upon him, then, my friends, its time to fucking pack it in.