Billy plays 1979 riff

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The Clinton Caper

When I was in film school at York U, back in the 1920s, I met a nice boy named Tom Tennisco. Both of us were straight, and still are, so it wasn’t like that…

However, Tom reveled in the stories I told of the bizarre community from which I hailed – a very small town called Clinton near Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario.

He became particularly fascinated with some unusual stories that, I have to admit, would almost qualify as ghost stories, even though I am a die-hard skeptic.

One day, Tom appeared at my door with a poster for a movie that he thought we would one day make about some of those amazing stories.

This is that poster, recently re-examined and coloured by Tom Tennisco, Boy Genius, now all grown up.

Late For the Sky

Remember the heartbreaking scene in Taxi Driver when Travis is watching American Bandstand on a crappy little black and white TV and seeing a life that he will never be able to live?

The song on the soundtrack is Late For the Sky by Jackson Browne and it’s awesome.

Parachutes – Tree Roots Turn to Forts

A Critical View of Couples Retreat

I like all the separate parts of Couples Retreat.

Every male my age who saw Swingers saw themselves in a combination, with varying percentages, of Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn.

For months after seeing that movie, everything was so money and you didn’t even know it.

Maybe I didn’t go to and see Made, didn’t watch the Van Sant Psycho or some of the other stuff they did, but I followed those guys around along ever after. Yes I loved and bought the series Dinner For Five, so you know I’m serious. And I don’t want to brag, but I never doubted that Iron Man would be awesome.

So I had some idea that I would like Couples Retreat, even though I knew wouldn’t like it.

It is this paradox that leads me to the Internet on this day.

… Continue Reading

FauxPop at San Diego Comic Con 2009 – Report 3

Preview Night

I assumed that, after the initial stampede to get into the exhibition hall, there would be an ebb and flow to the action, a kind of natural rise and fall of crowdedness that would allow us to get around more easily after everyone had bought all their limited edition figurines.
My assumptions were based on blithe ignorance.

The crowds did not cease. Nor did they ease off, thin out or scale back.

People were everywhere.

Walking from one end of the hall to the other causes everyone to accidentally get to second base. I didn’t have this many breasts pushed into me slow dancing in Grade Eight. And I’m not just talking about female breasts. There is a heavy contingent of well-endowed gentlemen wandering about, and I don’t mean down below.

And when has shame disappeared from our culture?

I remember being a kid and worrying about who was going to go Shirts and who was going to Skins in gym class, but these days, there doesn’t seem to be such a stigma. There are people out there walking around as proud as punch, big, round people with plenty of self, and they’re wearing skin tight leotards, thongs, side cleavage-revealing dresses and bodystockings. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be wearing those things, because I fully support anyone’s decision to do what he or she thinks is right, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. But that doesn’t mean that he or she should.

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FauxPop San Diego Comic Con 2009 – Report 2

Countdown to Entry

If I admit that I had lunch at Fuddruckers, would you think less of me?

I know I do.

But I was faced with a series of unknowns: how much time would we spend having lunch? How could we eat food that would be healthy enough that we wouldn’t die once the carbo load of the Con itself was underway? How can I get Cousin Curt and Cub Reporter Isaac into a restaurant if they don’t see a menu up on the wall with hamburgers listed?

Plus, those fiendish bastards at Fuddruckers were handing out ad copy. Note to self – advertising works.

After a salad the size of my head we wandered back down 5th Street to check out the lines, and see if we could get our press passes.
We could, assuming we were willing to jump to the back of the… I am going to stop using the “L” word. No more whining about that. How many years did I wish I could make it here, and now that I am, am I going to cry about the queuing of the masses? No more.
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FauxPop at San Diego Comic Con 2009 – Report 1

San Diego Comic Con 2009 Report
Wednesday, July 22 – Day 1

I don’t want to write the same thing every other first time attendee starts off with, but my God, the line-ups!

We left L.A. early, rolling off Santa Monica Blvd around six, and thinking we would be the only ones on the road. Just like everybody else thought.

Two hours later we were ringing the edge of San Diego, funneling in with every other commuter.

We lined up to get off the freeway.
Lined up to go south along Harbor Drive.
Lined up to get into the parking lot.

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Why We Write

Why We Write

In the early days before America entered the war, Humphrey Bogart didn’t want to get involved.

But then Ingrid Bergman and Frank Capra produced a series of films made to convince his isolationist  government that they needed to dip their collective toe into the deep end of the European conflict and make it their own.

They did so with unparalleled industrial might and a vigour that has resulted in such excellent TV as Band of Brothers. Which is awesome.

That series was called Why We Fight.

But this post is not called that.

It is called Why We Write, which you have clearly noted if you had read this far. If you have not, I will give you a moment to go back up to the top and see that title.

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Introducing thelabcoatguy

INAUGURAL BLOG is not a very clever heading to open this up, I’ll admit, but it does satisfy at least one of the key aspects of effective titling.

Don’t you think a titling sound like something that will one day grow up to be a tit, assuming that it looks after itself, eats right and gets eight hours of sleep a night?

It sounds like that to me, which may reveal more than is wise to reveal about how my mind works, if indeed you can say it works at all.

But I have been rude.

Allow me to introduce myself: … Continue Reading