Terry Fox: A True Hero

In the late 70s Real People, an offbeat precursor to today's reality TV boom, hit the airwaves. They usually profiled people like a pint-sized preacher and Disco Larry. But they really hit it out of the park with this profile of Canada's Terry Fox, a young man who became a true national hero by undertaking a cross-country run for cancer research after his own cancer diagnosis. Faced with almost insurmountable hip pain, Terry made it almost halfway across the country, never stopping until the spread of the cancer to his lungs forced him to.

I remember raising money for him when I was at the Glenrose School Hospital in Grade 2. We were all pulling for Terry to make it the whole way, and were heartbroken when he passed. But his accomplishments and humble nature live on in the yearly run that has been held across the country for nearly 40 years.


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Bill Matheson: A Class Act

There are many many people in broadcasting who view small-to-midsize markets like Edmonton as way stations, places to pass through on the way to Toronto or elsewhere in North America. Not so Bill Matheson, who almost instantly became a part of our community from his arrival in 1976 to his departure 20 years later. He is no longer with us, but will remain in our memories and our hearts forever.


And lest we forget, Bill was also a radio star on 930 CJCA along with Bill Jackson on "The Bill and Bill Show" from 1976 to 1992 (thank you Mark Summers):





And I have to admit that Bill was a class act when I met him at CHED in the early 90s. He happened to open the door for me as I left. "What's the weather gonna be like?", I asked.

"Should be sunny, not too bad", said Bill.

"I'm gonna hold you to it!", said I.

Thank God he smiled.


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Star Wars: A Special Moment In Time

I dearly hope that Disney and related copyright police do not take this off of YouTube. Because let's face it, we all had visceral reactions like this when watching Star Wars and other movies that turned out to be cultural touchstones.

I saw Star Wars not in its original 1977 run but as part of a 1983 double feature with The Empire Strikes Back in 1983 which coincided with the imminent release of Return Of The Jedi. The double feature was enjoyed at Edmonton's Capitol Square Theatre by our family, and Jedi at the Westmount theatre on its second weekend.

Oh what a simpler time to live in, where a family could bring in a device like this





and theatre management would not notice (or care).

Kind of makes me wish I'd brought one in 1984 when I was watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at the Paramount Theatre downtown. Particularly during this scene:




during which I screamed, "CUT THE BRIDGE!!!", thereby startling my father, sister, and her friend, on the movie's second Friday.

And  to Mr. William Forsche, who has shared this piece of his life with the world...what a special way to remember your mother.

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Phantom of the Opera Car?

Well, not really, considering that the Mercury XR7 predated the Phantom of the Opera stage play by over 10 years. But the commercial is very cool and almost makes it seem as if the car could have been used as a promotional tie-in for the play.


Oh, and here's a 1977 ad starring Farrah Fawcett plugging that year's model:






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Gord Downie : The Humble Icon

We knew this day was coming, and that it was coming soon.

But it is still heartbreaking.

So much not like a typical rock star was Gord.

Yes a select group of them were Canadian hits.

But they weren't specifically crafted that way.

I mean, a song about a 38-year old who hasn't kissed a girl?

Another about a guy locked in the trunk of a car?

How quintessentially Canadian.

Did the rest of the world get it? Probably not.

Did that fact overly concern Gord? Again, probably not.

Because he downloaded poetry direct from his soul.

And uploaded it to us.

Come to think of it, if either the 38 year old or the trunk occupant actually exist, they are probably stars at their local Timmies.

That would probably tickle Gord pink.

Because as multifacedly talented as he was, he was very approachable.

I know this because I saw the Hip in 2002 at Edmonton's Jubilee Auditorium.

Or rather I should say heard, because people stood in front of me from beginning to end.

But in this case that was fine, because I got to witness the rapt crowd energy more akin to a church service.

And that did me just fine.

As did the opportunity to meet Gord after the show.

I was very excited to have the opportunity, but as my buddy Ralph and I waited, I worried that I did not have a Hip album with me, in fact had never owned one.

But I knew hit songs like Courage, Ahead By A Century, and Blowing High Dough from the radio.

I hoped that made me enough of a fan.

In the end it did. In the brief time that we spoke, Gord seemed genuinely interested in chatting.

And once Ralph let my writerly ambitions out of the bag, as he often does, Gord was advising me on who I should read in the Toronto Star.

I followed that advice, and it planted the seed for a freelance writing career that lasted a few years.

So today I will remember Gord Downie as a musician and lyricist without peer.

A Canadian icon.

And a humble man.

RIP sir. You did good. Rest well.

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Al Pacino Is The Man!

From Any Given Sunday:




Enough said.

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Brilliant IT

I must admit right now that I had never been to a packed horror movie screening prior to a first night screening of IT.

I was 4 years old in 1975, so I was not among JAWS's opening audiences by a long shot, instead catching it on network television, heavily edited for time, in the mid 1980s.

And I saw a smattering of Nightmare On Elm Street installments over the years on video.

So I was primed to do some screaming.

And I did.

For the uninitiated, IT the Stephen King novel and previous 1990 TV two parter concern a group of outsiders-cum-best-friends who deal with the evil clown Pennywise in 1950s Maine after he murders one  before reuniting as adults in the late 80s when OMG!...he comes back! Both the novel and the TV movie spend a lot of time jumping back and forth between decades, which blunts the effectiveness of the terror in those mediums. But director and co-writer Andy Muschetti has made the very wise decision to keep the action set in 1988 and 1989 with school-age kids in their own world, all brave bravado and scatological humor they are just beginning to understand. But the thing that they do understand is that sweet have-your-backness that the best of childhood friends seem to have. Now for a pictoral comparison:


Tim Curry as Pennywise (1990):





Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise (2017):



Obviously Curry, as creepy as he is, was reined in by network standards and practices. But Skarsgard has no such worries in the film.

He is free to scare the shit out of us.

And he does.

But even though Skarsgard as Pennywise is unforgettable, he is not the only memory you will come away with.

Come on now. Which of us wasn't the new kid at school at least once? The fat kid (or the one who felt fat and ugly inside)? The overprotected kid? The bullied kid? We have all felt that way in our lives at one time or another, whether we want to admit it or not. How about the first time you just plain liked a girl in junior high, and it was cool because she was one of the gang? That's here too. As is the basic idea of facing your childhood fears, whatever your IT happens to be. The final confrontation in the third act runs a little long with the cut-cut--cut editing, but that's a minor quibble. Otherwise IT's a new dramatic horror classic.

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