Susan F Nov. 16/06
There were some pretty expensive new houses built along Four Mile Creek Road, backing onto the ponds. I always thought they were pretty iff sites for the very reason that the pictures show.

Rob Nov. 16/06
Then again, as the Greens have been saying for years - We All Live Downstream.

Rivers
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 8:06 PM
Subject: RE: Seedy underbelly of NOTL
Someone in Port Colborne must have flushed twice!

Rob
Subject: Seedy underbelly of NOTL
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:43:58 -0500
For many years I have been snapping images of what I call "the seedy underbelly of Niagara-on-the-Lake". Some are pretty darned funny, given the pretentious nature of the place, but tonight something in Four Mile Creek went way below seedy. I took these shots in Virgil between the dams at twilight this evening. I think maybe the lads in the Kraft/Delmonte cannery upstream let their lagoons out a tad early. Maybe the berm around their lagoons let go.

Alan Gummo
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 6:55 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...the CAO's sighting was a propeller-driven transport plane arriving at Frobisher Bay during a winter storm. Apparently there are two hills on the approach to the runway that create a venturi effect, accelerating the moving air mass against in-coming planes.

Stompin' Tom has a song about Frobisher Bay...

Rob Re: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 23:47:40 -0500
Planes do fly backwards in relation to their position on the ground. I learned quite a bit about this in Cessna pilot's school back in the 70's. If an airmass is moving east at 100 knots and a plane is flying west at 90 knots, the plane will appear to be flying backwards to a ground observer. In a similar case we had an instructor tell of flying a twin-engine Beechcraft into the updraft on the edge of a thunderstorm system. He put the Beech into a near vertical full power dive but the altimeter showed that he continued to gain altitude. The experience almost cost him his life.

susan filshie
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 6:10 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
....it makes me want to weep. And HOW much was he earning? And HOW did he
get that job? And WHO hired him in the first place? And HOW can i get such a
job, pray? It makes me crazy.
I must go back to to my yoga mat. No. Tylenol 3. So much more convenient.

Alan
Sent: November 17, 2006 5:12 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...Senior Management meetings were always a chance to sit back, hook yer
thumbs behind yer suspenders, and tell stories. At one such meeting he told
the story of the time he saw a plane fly backward. He left a table-full of
high-priced help absolutely speechless. No-one could think of a whopper to
top that one...

Alan Nov. 17/06
We got to Ivy Lea by a drive-away car (a dark blue Oldsmobile sedan) we picked up in Miami. It was owned by a Westmount doctor. Apparently this doctor collected paintings on velvet that he bought off shopping centre parking lots during his Florida vacations. The trunk was full of paintings on velvet. We'd been forewarned by the guy at the drive-away agency.
We told our customs guy in the shades we'd just come from South America, mentioning Colombia specifically just to see what he'd do.
He wanted to see what we had in the trunk. When we opened it and he saw what was in there he jumped back, covering his eyes with his forearm, and screamed at us to 'get the hell out of here!!'
I delivered the car to the Westmount address the next day, but didn't meet the doctor.

Rob Nov. 16/06
All that and no name :<( A CAO trail that wide would be hard to miss. Take some of the bureaucrats who drink at the Angels' Arms for instance. Some mighty long roads ended there. Some could use further exploring in the blog out there.
Who's in for Borat tonight? Some tender Montana's briskett and a kazoo riff or two up front?

From: Alan
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 7:37 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...heh heh. Back in the days of the great upheavals in Kingston (oh god, says Leah, not another Kingston story...) we had a new CAO drift into town driving a Lincoln Town Car with his clothes strung out on a rod across the back seat, and a U-Haul hitched to the back bumper.
His first day on the job he called all the staff into Memorial Hall (the ornate hall where Sir John A. laid in state before his trip up-town to the Cataraqui Cemetary), introduced himself, and announced to the whole assembly that what he liked to do was "fish fish fish work fish fish fuck and fish".
A few senior staffers learned that if he invited you out in the bass boat early in the morning it was going to be bad news, cause that's where he delivered it.
Fourteen months into a five-year contract he threw his dirty laundry into the back seat, hitched the U-Haul back onto the bumper, and rolled out of town, leaving a horseshoe of puzzled councillors wondering what had hit them.
Some of us figured he'd just fucked off to go fishing...(!)

From: Gord Pyzer
Thursday, November 16, 2006 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
Actually, I thought it was so that they might get to say .... "I know what you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

Rob Nov. 16/06
For you lurkers out there, Gord is Canada's "Outdoor Writer of the Year" [5th year in a row I think] and is the fishing editor for Outdoor Canada magazine and at least one US outdoor magazine - InFisherman I think. He's a retired MNR District Manager living in Kenora with his wife Linda. I bumped into the two of them back in the 60's at the Univ of Guelph. Gord appears regularly on CBC and on CHtv with Bob Izumi. I can't remember the last time we met face to face. I think it was around 1989 on Longbow Lake, west of Kenora. A developer flew me in there on a fishing trip out of Hamilton airport. The plane refused to take off again so we took a cab to Winnipeg and came home on Air Canada and limos to the door. Those were the days when consulting work meant some nice perks :<) Pic below - Gord in love on Lake Athabaska earlier this year.

Rob
Subject: Re: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:11:23 -0500
Those guys wear the big aviator shades on the off chance they might get to say "What we have here is a failure to communicate!"

From: Alan
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:50 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...to tell the truth Gord, I'm committed to never ever going to Mexico again. The police corruption and general attitude to foreigners are brutal. I passed through Mexico about a year later on an overland trek to La Paz, Bolivia, and ran into even worse stuff than on the first visit. I think I've tried to permanently block some of the more vivid incidents from recall, but they keep coming back to haunt me. Dead bodies by the roadside trumps anything I encountered, but I'm not surprised.

Incidentally, we had more mescaline than we could consume, so sadly had to throw some of it out the car window before we got to the border at Brownsville. Good thing. The border guards, or custodians, or whatever they were tore the seats and upholstery out of the car and left it lying on the pavement for us to put back together. When we got to Windsor, just at sunrise a few days later, the Canada Customs and Immigration official (wearing enormous black shades) asked where we'd been. When we said Mexico he asked if we'd brought anything back. We said souvenirs, did he want to see them. He said nope. Then he said, "And if you've got any of that marijuana, it's your's! Welcome home!" Welcome home indeed.

We crossed back into Canada at Ivy Lea on the return trip from South America. In that instance the Canada Customs official was also wearing huge black plastic shades. At 2:00 in the morning!

Rob Nov.16/06
Hmmm, nothing really changes eh Gord? All that just to get onto a hidden Mexican lake with gigantic largemouth bass!!! I saw that place on a clip for a US fishing show. I hope you got some good ones.
In Peru we paid the mountain guards with canned foods. On the trip from Arequipa back to Lima I travelled alone and ran out of canned food but on the coast highway the soldiers were more interested in the reed boat on my roof and what it might contain. They bayonetted it many times and by pure luck missed the ties that held it all together. Its now in the canoe museum in Peterborough, the only Titicaca reed boat in Canada.

From: Gord Pyzer
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
Allan - I used to think that too until a bunch of us crossed the border at Matamoros City two years ago. It took a total of 30 seconds and a handshake with $100 American inside to clear customs.
About three hours south - in real rural Mexico - we came upon a dilapidated Army checkpoint of corrugated metal siding. The "guards" that looked inside our van might have been 17 years old - too young to shave I can tell you that - and they were all brandishing Uzi submachine guns. Ten days earlier they rifled a car that failed to slow down quickly enough, dragged all of the now dead occupants (presumably drug runners) out onto the shoulder of the road and left them there as a "lesson" and "example" for everyone else driving by. They bodies roasted in the sun for the entire day before they were hauled away at sundown. Never had that happen on Hwy 400. :<)

Alan Gummo
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 11:35 AM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...booze and substances required no courage compared to driving through an Ontario white-out to go ice-fishing. I never had the guts for that one. Give me Mexico any day. I should leave for Oaxaca tomorrow (!)...

Leah Nov.16/06
Not every movie ever made. If you will recall, I made a request for "O
Lucky Man" - no such luck. Later we discovered it has never been issued on
DVD. Such a shame. Now there is a movie to watch while wasted - or I seem
to remember it that way.

Gord Nov. 16/06
Susan - I agree. I grew up about 10 - 15 blocks north of where you were working - MacPherson Avenue that runs off Avenue Road at the base of the hill just south of St. Clair Ave and north of Dupont.
I am just a few years older than you and spent much of high school years in the "Village" as we knew it at the time. It used to cost 25 cents to get in to watch and listen to Ian and Sylvia and a very young Gordie Lightfoot!

Susan F. Nov.16/06
I take exception. You were not in the middle of nowhere when you were at Bay and Bloor. It is, afterall, part of my natural habitat and has been since I got my first long lasting part time job in 1965 when I was 15. I worked at Bay and Bloor summers and Thursday nights, Friday nights and Saturdays for all of high school and well into university summers and holidays in a clothing shop. I watched that part of Toronto being transformed from the traditional 2-3 storey rertail shop fronts to soaring towers. In the summers, when I escaped from the store, I could stroll over to Yorkville, when Yorkville was really something, and hang out with the hippies before getting on the subway and then streetcar and then bus all the way home to sub-urban Etobicoke. It was such a very sexy time.
As for Quetico - it was the destination of my first honeymoon and we arrived at the camp gate with our overstuffed volkswagon in a downpour. I waited in the car until suddenly my car door was yanked open and a very be-panchoed park offical reached in for a big hug - it was a sweet friend from Guelph - one of my biology friends. He was working at the park and thank goodness because he later came by and started a fire for us - in the rain. His name was Vello - and suddenly I can't recall his lat name. I wonder whatever became of him. I heard wolves in Quetico for the first time. So neat.

Rob Nov.16/06
PS A viewing of the Pennebaker DVD set is long overdue. I was with Alan on a shaky trip into the BayBloor Vid Shop. Alan gets shakin in there for some reason some times, not sure why. But being in the presence of every damned movie ever made in DVD format is daunting even for me. The prices are usually only around ten bucks. I found some amazing old John Wayne stuff - my tastes are pretty simple in movies - no plot and lots of action. I also got Alvarez Kelly with Wm. Holden & Richard Widmark - now there's a fine film - "a herd of cattle is as strategic as a herd of cannon". Alan was just back from a month in Brazil with his two daughters - also just off to UofOttawa and Queen's grad school. He was tapped right out but he made the buy anyway and obviously under duress. A lot of people were impressed with his choice and his ability to overcome some major mental block. I helped him out of the store in a desperate search for coffee. My sense is that he may not remember actually acquiring the Monterey Festival set - we were after all in downtown Toronto, the middle of nowhere.

Rob Nov. 16/06
Heh, now there's a drunkard's dream if I ever did hear one [apologies to Levon]. Amazing how Mexico, except the nuevo parts, still remains in the middle of nowhere - you don't even need a passport to get in. I was just thinking that in all my back-country trekins and adventures to the middle of nowhere, there was never a thought of booze or substances. It was often dangerously remote and I guess going stone cold sober was a no brainer. I knew a guy who fell on a beer bottle in Algonquin Park, of all places, and permanently lost the use of a thumb. And there was always the issue of pack weight.

Many many years ago I spent a number of days in Quetico Park fishing for lake trout with Gord Pyzer. Quetico is huge and the most beautiful of all the provincial parks I have seen, on the edge of Lake of the Woods near Minnesota border. When I think of all the stuff we lugged in there [plus a 24hr drive from Newmarket] it amazes me to think now that we didn't have a wee bit of rare old stepfather along with us. Weeks later, when I went to pick up my photos, they were mounted on display in the front window of the store. Quetico has that magical look of the middle of nowhere.

For me, fishing with Gord Pyzer usually involved an adventure into the shadowy middle of nowhere. Stamina was a necessary ingredient - and good knees, sigh. Now that he's a grandfather, his trips are world class and spectacular but my sense is the element of danger is much diminished, as it should be. Gord was the guy who talked me into buying a rubber raft from Eaton's. That led to many inaccessible places including what would become a cottage life in the wild west side of Parry Hoot District. Hog Nose puff snake country - oh now there are some stories for the blog - those snakes scared me many times because I hate snakes. And the duck hunting. One morning Gord awoke to discover his decoys frozen in front of the Contau cottage in a thin sheet of new ice on the lake. He retrieved them in his Eaton's rubber raft, smashing the ice with a canoe paddle. And yes, there was a puncture, and what happened next was not pretty to watch. Innocent trips to the middle of nowhere would indeed make a great blog.

Alan Gummo
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
...well, there ya go. Ever'body's got a story. Mine's about the trip to Mexico I took with the two Gary's in about 1971. We drove non-stop from Kingston to the Texas/Mexico border, then crashed by the side of the road just south of Nuevo Laredo. Along the way we were run out of the State of Oklahoma by a State Trooper. Somewhere north of Mexico City we found Radio Joventude on the FM band, and never left it. They played El Credence 24 hours a day. We bought some organic mescaline from a kid on the beach in Acapulco, and with El Credence as a soundtrack spent a very groovy month in Mexico. Unlike Rob, I do not recall many details. However, listening to this mp3 brought back some very distant Memory Traces, including spending 4 nights in a whorehouse in Mexico City. You'd think I'd remember that better. Those must have been the days.

As revealed in an earlier post, I have the Pennebaker documentary of the Monterey Pop Festival complete with the Big Brother and the Holding Company performance referred to by Rob, and would be pleased to open the subpenthouse to a Saturday evening viewing. Bring some of that organic sh_t, now that I recollect its amazing effects....

Rob Nov.14/06
I thought I'd forgotten it too Gord. Now I probably never will :<) Thinking of those days, here's another classic mp3 - Green River live by John Fogarty - he links it to Woodstock - wait for it. Just in from the blogosphere this morning.

From: Gord Pyzer
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: Piece of My Heart mp3 classic
Ah, Bob, I had completely forgotten about that trip. Your memory is still sharp as a tack though. Funny thing, I still love listening to old Janis Joplin tunes.
Thanks so much for this.
A friend.
Gord

Rob Nov.14/06
The Pantry Office is pleased to spam you with a newly-acquired rare mp3 by Big Brother and the Holding Company.

This band formed in San Francisco in 1965 and increased in popularity with the addition of Janis Joplin in 1966 as lead vocal. Their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival that year attracted national attention. The original version of Piece of My Heart was recorded by Aretha Franklin's older sister Erma Franklin in 1967. The song became more popular, however, when recorded by Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968 and moreso following a rad performance of it by Janis and the boys at Woodstock in 1969.

When I heard it early this morning, my mind snapped back to the frigid winter of 1969 maybe 1970. Gord Pyzer and me and Larry Maw and Jim Forbes decided to go on an ice fishing adventure to Lake Memesagamising - a Rez area just south of Lake Nippissing in the middle of nowhere. A storm was brewing but we drove my old Chevy II from Guelph down to some sportings goods shop on Queen or Dundas West in Toronto. It was storming bad when we arrived. The idea was to go on a schoolbus with a bunch of guys and drive all night to Memesag. The shop was badly lit and smelled of salted minnow bait - "salties".

I'd sold the MGA to make research trips to Toronto more tolerable on the 401. The Chevy was a wreck with a great new motor but no heater. White exterior with a bright red interior including a solid metal red dash that you could put your boots up on. We had to constantly scrape the ice from the inside of the windows to see out.

The trip was a nightmare that developed into an odessey. Years later I would meet Jim Forbes at The Old Firehall during a planning conference in Toronto - Jim had become the planning director for the City of Guelph. He said, while smiling but hanging his head and covering his eyes, "you know Bob, I sincerely thought I might die on that trip - you and Gordo were just a little nuts about getting out on the ice".

We drove into the night and headed north out of Toronto on Hwy 400. The wind was howling and it started to snow horizontally. We got as far as a Shell service centre at Hwy 88 and were pulled over by the OPP in total whiteout conditions. There we stayed all night playing poker with a stranded group of firemen on another trip of some kind.

When we got out of there we took the Chevy and drove all the way to Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe. No luck. Then over to Alf Hale's at Beaverton, thinking conditions would be better. No luck - they wouldn't take the bombadeers out. So we actually got back in the car, still with no sleep at all, and took off back to Guelph. Larry Maw passed out. He was a Minnesing farm kid who normally fell asleep the minute the clock said 10pm. He was in some sort of sleep-deprived shock. Jim Forbes was in the back seat with Larry buried under my granny's car robes. The storm eased and the sun came out but it was damed cold and still very windy.

I stopped somewhere along one of the high country highways and scrounged a cardboard box out of a ditch and jammed it in front of the rad. The engine was running rough. I took off the rad cap to find the coolant had turned to yellow slurpy. We were likely running air-cooled at that point.

The radio had never worked. Gord Pyzer slammed the metal dash really hard and whammo on came the radio full blast complete with back shelf speakers. It was Piece of My Heart full blast. That moment is frozen in time in my head, by the music, it was fantastic.

Years later I dropped by to see Larry at his farms west of Barrie. He took me out back to try some new shotguns against the barn. "Remember that ice fishing trip?" he asked. "Oh ya, never forget it" I said. "You guys were fucking out of your minds - ya know that?" "That's sort of what Forbes said" I thought to myself.

Rob Nov.10/06
The border crossing was classic. Young woman who turned on her red light as I approached but wildly gestured me in. "Just shutting down" then the regular questions plus a declared bag of kazoos which drew a quizzical look. "Did my Christmas shopping" I said. "Don't we have anyplace in Canada where you can get kazoos?" she asked. "Oh no. EdenNY is the only place in the English speaking world still making them - this plant dates to 1906 and still runs on old belted line shafts." "Riiilly!!" she blurted. "Did you buy anything at the Duty Free?" "Nope just a bunch of kazoos" I said. "What do they look like?" she asked as I quickly pulled one out of the bag and played the Hockey Night In Canada theme. "Wow, do you have the receipt?" she smiled. I gave it to her. I hadn't actually looked at the receipt, just keeping it for such an eventuality. "What's the Over The Hill Model?" she asked. At first that confused me but then I said "oh that's for a friend whose turning 60 next year - a birthday present - I didn't know that's what they called it." "Have a nice day" she said.

Rob Nov.9/06
Sometimes work habits are not up to what they should be in the Pantry Office. Today was one of those days. After weeks of pleading with people to return to Eden NY, I caved in today and went by myself. A return to the Kazoo Factory and a hunt for the old Croop Mill was too hard to resist.

The photos below are the site of the first lumber mill in Eden built by Elisha Welch in 1811 and the first grist mill in 1812. Then sold to Asa Richardson in 1859 who ran the mill for 56 years. Clement Croop bought and "modernized" the mill and when the timber dam "went out" in the 1930's, Croop re-powered the mill with his old Buick ragtop running on natural gas.

This afternoon's sun lit the old Croop Mill beautifully. Viewing it from the Belknap Road bridge I noticed some pretty big trout or salmon running up the Eighteen Mile Creek below. An old guy in hippers come around the bend in the middle of the creek - that explained the scared fish. I'd parked beside an SUV with "Catch 'n Release Trout Unlimited" on the plastic license plate holder. He was an elderly flyfisherman with dozens of emerger flies on his vest. Not the kind of bait I would use for the lunkers that just flew under the bridge, but who knows.

"Don't ya have cricks like this in Canada?" he quipped as he dragged himself up the bank. He'd read my plates too. "Ya but old wooden mills like this one are pretty scarce up our way" I said. "And its a nice day for visit to Eden." "Eden's a lovely town and you picked a perfect day to come down." "It is that" I said, "perfect weather and its so warm." "Yes its a warm day but what I meant was you picked the day the life-size chocolate turkeys go on sale at the ShurFine Foods." "Life-size chocolate turkeys?" I sort of gasped. "Oh yes and this is the first time in years because Effie Bley brought back the moulds" he replied. "Are they solid chocolate?" I asked as I wondered why this Effie Bley had taken the moulds in the first place. "No, she tried that once but people needed saws and hammers to break them up and I think she lost money. The ones at the ShurFine should be hollow but the feet will be solid chocolate. Thing is, they're huge, life-size!!" I said goodbye and drove on down into Eden, passing the ShurFine Foods store and stopping for a beef on weck at the Four Corners Cafe. I had forgotten about their bottomless mug of homemade rootbeer. A one-armed man walked by the window. But that's a tale for another post.

The Kazoo: A Historical Perspective

The following piece was rescued by the current owner of the Eden NY Kazoo Factory from the bottom of a box of packing material in a shed in back of the main building. It was inside a very beat up and moldy carton marked "North County Dulcimers". The current owner, who is unfortunately an above-the-elbow amputee, showed me this article as he stood beside one of his employee making foot-long kazookas by jamming metal pieces deep into a square wooden spout attached to a rotating leather belt leading from a spinning overhead line shaft. I couldn't help but wonder if that was how the owner came to be short a wing in the first place. Anyway, I think the contents of the mouldy article are exceptionally significant and deserve to be shared and here they are:-

While major kazoo research has been minimal for the past decade, those willing to explore the record will find the kazoo to have a long and fascinating history. Though some revisionist Biblical scholars would have kazoos, not trumpets, bringing down the walls of Jericho for the Israelites, substantial rumours place the origins of this instrument with the Roman military kazoo bands that led Caesar's legions against the hordes of Vercingetorix in 52 BCE. The record fades, of course, with the decline of Rome; however, through the oral tradition, we can follow the development of the kazoo within the Kingdom of Charlemagne, along the Mediterranean Crusade routes, and even across the English Channel with the more lyrical vassals of William the Conqueror. In fact, the kazoo, called the chasoux royale throughout the Dark Ages, was essentially a French device well into the 14th Century and was played at banquet or in boudoir by the nobility.

In the mid 14th Century, the name kazoo was first used to describe this instrument. The little known story of how this took place comes down to us from the scholarly works of one Ethelred, an Italian cleric and raconteur, will known in his day for his wit and charm, and remembered by historians as the "Fool of Bologna." As Ethlred recounts the event, the Dauphin, the future Jean II, surnamed the Inept, was entertaining at a court banquet and was wooing the lovely and ever-amenable Isabelle by playing chansons d'amour on his gold-inlaid chasoux royale. Ethelred then continues:

The Dauphine, full unto bursting with mirthe and merryment, did plaie both long and loud and with divers qualitie...and with great force did he bloe. And faire Isabelle near swooned for he did plaie but a handsbreadth from her ear. and at the height of that song's most prodigious volume...and thinking he to kiss her cheek at the completion of that verse and leaning he close unto here, the Dauphin did sneeze, and a most wondrous and exalted and abundant sneeze did he bloe, for he was of princely birth. The houndes did bark, the hawkes they did flutter; and all who did hear were amazed. And faire Isabelle did faint dead away across table and roasted pig, upon cleric and noble alike did she sprawl...and when her spirit returned and she did awake, she spake with voice aquiver and eardrums split asunder so that she did shout: "Good my Lord, I do but live by the grace and by thine every word; and thy words do fill me with joie and wonder and awe. Pray then, sire, was that last word not KAZOO?"
And of course, it was!

From this point in time, everyone is familiar with the meteoric rise of the kazoo in both liturgical and classical music. Who can forget Vivorelli's Kazoo Arrangements for Gregorian Chant? Or Zeitstein's Eine Kleine Kazoo Music? Or Paroushka's Kazoo Mazurkas and Polkas in F#? However, few are aware of the role of the kazoo in the 20th century Folk Rock movement. It was only a five minute "dinner concert" at the Chicago Music and Bratwurst Festival of 1938, but with this legendary performance, Richard "Blind Lemming" Kowalski began a musical trend that not only led to the rash of all-electric kazoo groups of the mid-sixties, but also to the development of the non-computerized, voice-synthesized kazoos in wide use in today's modern recording studios.

It is hoped that with this monograph now in print, the role of the kazoo will be better understood, and this instrument will take its rightful place within the musical community.

Alan
Not a problem. Bill the Cat was one of a small group of amusing and insightful characters inhabiting a rooming house in a topical toon strip called Bloom County sketched by Berkeley Breathed that ran in syndication in the 80’s. The toons were pulled together in a series of compilations, several of which have pride of place in the subpenthouse archives.
Bloom County also included a character known as Opus, a ‘flightless waterfowl’ (penguin) who achieved minor cult celebrity status in the late ‘80’s. Bloom County gave hope to an otherwise lost decade.
Bill had a prominent role in a number of shenanigans in the series, but the recurring gag was Bill coughing up a huge fur ball and shouting, “Acckk!”.

Compared to our mess, Bill was a model of hygiene and good housekeeping…

Robert Miller
Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:01 AM
Speaking of birthdays

Pard the mess if I created it. I took poach to mean cook to perfection in hot fluid. I gather from the reactions it meant to hunt something out of season on posted land. The boys from Ktown seem to talk in tongues. I for one am totally confused because I seldom do work where I live anymore. But I will say almost anything for big bucks.

Alan Wednesday, November 08, 2006 9:41 AM
RE: Speaking of birthdays
...(we need Bill to straighten out this mess)....

Alan November 7, 2006 4:06 PM
Speaking of birthdays
> …(now that we’ve made our move the only body left for us to poach out of Port C is Rivers himself…that insight should send him into a tailspin…)

Rob November 07, 2006 7:37 AM

Re: Speaking of birthdays
Heh, who are the poacher and the poachee? I assume the Region has finally put striker to their Bunsen burner.
Speaking of poaching, the 11-paged CIP/OPPI 2007 invoice just arrived. Payable New Year's Day - lovely touch. Up $22 from last year to $552.97 plus another $79.50 if you wish to call yourself a "consultant". "Associate" remains no charge. The assumption is that most memberships are covered as employee perks.
The additional $22 is apparently to cover "developing strategies on tangible actions throughout 2007 . . . to shape us in ways that we are only just beginning to appreciate - obeisity, heart disease, mental health, social isolation and air quality." A trip to EdenNY for a carton of custom kazoos would . . . later.
The insurance appears to be a deal, but *be warned*. It offers not a shred of defense against the verbal/written antics of a manic depressive off his meds. Defensive action against groundless slander, denogration, defamation, and libelous writings are *not* even contemplated by the policy. You're on your own if a lunatic calls himself "Friends of Commonyeti Lake" and writes to Dalton, OPPI, and a plethora of authorities claiming you to be in the pockets of land developers. Talk about social isolation - put the Encon Group on notice [as required in the policy] of such a nutbar and see what happens. Hint - if you make that call, have your case book open and tabbed for action. They are not prepared for claims by planners.

Alan Monday, November 06, 2006 10:29 PM
RE: Speaking of birthdays
...I had nuthin to do with it...I was tootin my kazoo in the back room the whole time...but we're sure looking forward to it...

Rivers Mon, 6 Nov 2006 21:39:45 -0500
You poach my planner again and you won't live to see another birthday!

From: Alan
Sent: November 6, 2006 8:59 PM

Subject: FW: Speaking of birthdays
...I for one SALUTE Wavy Gravy on his 70th!!!...never to forget him, kazoo in hand, ushering the children into Woodstock, August, 1969, and figuring prominently in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test...an inspiration to us all...Speakers on real loud....

Rob Nov. 5/06

The Life & Hard Times of Guy Terrifico (as recommended by Alan Gummo at Stunning Joe Banks halloween hideout)

Born Jim Jablowski, the son of Ukrainian immigrants to Alberta, he picked up a guitar at an early age and formed a band - Jim Jablowski and the Cabbage Roll Boys. As a young boy he performed the tune Cabbage Roll Blues on a guitar, a device his mom promptly dubed the "instrument of the devil". He eventually toured the United States, where he became a kind of folk troubadour.

Just before he could finish recording his debut album, Jablowski won the biggest jackpot in Canadian history - $8million. He threw a week-long party, a bacchanal where, in the words of one participant, there were “whores on horses, horses on whores.” After getting kicked in the head by one of the animals, Jablowski awoke to announce himself reborn as one Guy Terrifico.

Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Levon Helm and Ronnie Hawkins manage to keep straight faces as they gaze into the camera and recall the turbulent times of Guy Terrifico.

The question lingers three decades later when an album of duets called Retribution Honkytonkus is about to be released boasting brand new material purportedly provided by Terrifico. Kristofferson perfoms several of the songs.

A documentary crew sets out to interview friends, family and his former fellow musicians to see if anyone knows the true status of Terrifico. "If he is alive, tell him he owes me $40 bucks," drawls Kristofferson.

One night while performing with his band on stage, a wacked-out Terrifico began to dry hump the bass drum, much to the delight of the audience. The antic quickly became a ritual of his show when the audiences yell "hump the drum". "You can hump a friend and you can hump an instrument, but you shouldn't hump a friend's instrument," deadpans the drummer.

His combination of clumsiness and raw talent is made clear by numerous survivors, including still-devoted ex-wife Mary Lou. The career of this blonde backup singer, now known as Natalie Radford, was cut short due to her unfortunate tendency toward on-stage-fright flatulence.

In Nashville, he got beat up by Haggard and arrested for wreaking havoc on a Christian TV show. Terrifico's "a problem when he's stoned." Sums up Haggard: "He was an asshole, so I hit him."

Did Guy really die that fateful night as legend has it? Or is he actually still alive after all these years hiding out and strumming his guitar on some island paradise?

Haggard doesn't pull his punches: "Great music but he was just a turd of a person." Even Kristofferson, who was probably closest to Terrifico, is at pains to say something complimentary. "He's a hell of a lot easier to work with now that he's dead. But how could I not love him? He made me look like a choirboy."

Rob Oct 26/06

The Pantry Office can remember some pretty weird stuff too!! Like the time out at the Beverly doublerinks near Sheffield on Old 8 Highway between Galt and Christies Corners. Casper Binkley was about to drop the puck for a new season when over the PA came the hysterical voice of Wig Prentice crying "Casper evacuate, evacuate the kids - its Clive Crump - he's too low too low!!!!" That struck terror to heart of everybody in the arena. Clive Crump flew a home-made tow plane for the boys at the Rockton Glider Club over on the next concession. Some people still claim his right wheel clipped the arena roof as he went over and sort of bounced to a landing on the infield of the fairgrounds track. We all ran to the fence and Casper yelled at Clive "Are you alright? I thought you was a gonner." Clive was out of the plane kicking mud off the landing gear. He yelled back "I thought we was all gonners - I ran outa gas." Wig said "oh fuck, not again."

Alan

Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:29 PM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least
…I remember the League Commissioner walking out to centre ice on stilts to drop the puck at the start of each new season…(!)

Rob
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: I stole part of it at least

Dundas built a new single pad arena ontop of the old dump on Olympic Drive, next to the Desjardins Canal. They called it the Olympic Arena. They put the first ice in and the Squirt League roared out for game one and fell over unconscious in unison. The Board ruled it was caused by fumes from the newfandangled thing called a Zamboni. They got rid of it and instructed the Works Crew to hand scrape the ice then hose it down in the traditional manner. The Crew fell over in unison too. At that point the Board figured it could be dump gas and ordered an inquiry which found it seeping into the building through the footing drains. People in the stands, and tall folks, were fine. Squirts and short-ass bent over work crews fell over in unison. Exhaust fans, low in the walls solved the problem but not the source. Every time I did team photographs in there I came away with a headache.

Alan
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:04 PM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least

Kingston has a municipal golf course in the Inner Harbour that was the city dump from ’54 to the early 70’s. It’s used extensively by seniors and duffers from the North End cause the green fees are low. The joke is that if you hit one into the rough and go after it you can expect to lose the soles off yer golf shoes…better to take a one-stroke penalty…

…one of the ‘plutocrats’ who lived east of Guelph Line worked at Ford in Oakville. I asked him once what his job was. He said he designed ‘tools’. I asked what kind of tools. He said, suppose some cars are coming down the line with their doors on crooked. I design a tool to bend the hinges so the doors look alright.

Rob
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: I stole part of it at least

Speaking of sharpies, we had a Min of Environment back in the late 60's called George Kerr. He lived east of Guelph Line with the plutocrats over near the old Gummo place. Anyway, one day he figured he had the Bay all cleaned up so he went down to the old Macassa Wharf at LaSalle Park and jumped off the end into Hamilton Bay. Stories have it he was wearing a wetsuit disguised under his clothes and earplugs and noseplugs and vaseline smeared all over his face. He sunk like a rock and lost his breath thereby taking in a good dollup of Baywater into his mouth and lungs. They hauled him out and his face was so red it gave the spectators quite a fright.

Two years earlier, on the Hamilton side, I'd been working Westdale garbage days for the City. The Beasly Hollow dump had been closed for political purposes while they built the 403 through there and on through an ESA called Ainslie Wood. The City dump trucks were ordered to take the stuff over to what is now Pier Four and dump everything in the Bay, which we did. As we drove the trucks out onto the fill area, huge bubbles of gas would squeeze out and erupt in the Bay several hundred feet offshore. We would drive out on there empty just to make the bubbles come up. In the late 80's this site was landscaped over and opened as Pier Four Park & Beach to great fanfare by one Shiela Copps. She was supposed to dive in there like George Kerr. She took a pass because it was "too cold". I suspect she could remember the years of dumping - after all she was from Hamilton. Apparently the entire bottom of Hamilton Bay is covered with wiggling sewage worms akin to the ones the Sludge Worm Boys dig for off the Wiscassett sewage mud flats in Maine.

Alan
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 1:16 PM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least

…we had a sharpy in the Inner Harbour scrape some contaminated material from the surface of the site over to one corner, thereby converting the site from a ‘brownfield’ to a ‘hazardous waste disposal site’, froze up by MoE under regulation for 25 years with no Minister in his/her right mind ever likely to release it…

Rob
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: I stole part of it at least

I have a vague memory of such a book written by "The Department" back in the early 70's called Subject To Approval. Badly written of course but the intent was good. My vote for completing the set would be the so-called Attirontiri [sp] Development Plan in the lower Donlands. A planned new town for the area east of the Distillery District until it was discovered to be aglow with badness in the soils. If memory serves, it was one of the first scandalous headlines in the "new" Toronto Sun. Crombie had egg all over his face that remained there until he came out with Regeneration in the ealy 90's. Those headlines might have akshee been in the Telegram, come to think of it. I was a young cub riding the GO train to my first job in the big city. I frequently rode with a Phytomicrobiologist doing work on disgusting things in Toronto. He wouldn't talk about the Donlands. That plan sure looked great on paper.

Alan
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 9:11 AM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least

…I could write a textbook full of case studies like they teach in Biz Skool…I would deliver lectures via internet from a remote beach on the Brazilian coast…the case studies would start small, then build to a mind-boggling crescendo…it’s a toss-up whether the Kingston example or Southwest Airside would complete the set…

Susan
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 7:01 PM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least

Development Strategy 101. What a very good idea.

Rob
Sent: October 25, 2006 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: I stole part of it at least

Hmm. I assume PPP means power point presentation? Another "patently too large" plan I guess. I am not aware of *any* planning schools that teach development strategy. That's why planners are so miserably equiped in general to assess proposals when they come in. The development industry, on the other hand, is honed to razor sharpness by vast numbers of failures. "Nohing like failure to learn ya good, as long as it don't come too dear." Maine lobsterman.

Alan
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:07 PM
Subject: RE: I stole part of it at least

…we’ll buy Life Between Buildings as soon as we can get the bake-sale organized.

Jan Gehl never made it to witness status because the project (a $240million multi-use facility put forward as a PPP) never made it to the Board. It failed miserably as a business case and was abandoned by Council. It would have failed miserably as a planning exercise too…simply too big for the site, inadequate services, internal dysfunctions (eg a hockey rink/rock concert/performing arts venue which the acoustic experts acknowledged could not be properly sound-insulated because the components were too tightly packed), and a unique external hazard…it was put into a wind tunnel and determined that a pedestrian standing on the water-side public walkway would be blown into the Lake during typical winter prevailing westerlies.

I have numerous clippings from the Whig-Standard in my personal archives, hence the likelihood this will end up in the memoirs. As a matter of fact, it would make a wonderful case study for examination in any low-rent planning school that cares to teach development strategy…it was widely believed in the City that the demise of the Strategic and Long-Range Planning Group was a direct result of our opposition to the project, but that kind of opinion is mere conjecture, of course…remind me to tell you sometime about Helen Cooper and me in this debacle…

Rob
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: I stole part of it at least
Just back from the snowy but beautiful southeast Parry Sound. Golden with fall Tamaracks.
Two things.
What happened in Kingston with Gehl???? I have a sinking feeling he made a bad witness.
and
Could the Region buy Life Between Buildings and make it available to the public? What a rad idea.

Rob: Sunday, October 29, 2006 11:24 PM
Subject: Quest 07 - The Twisted Back Road

"I've taken a notion to march in the Corn Festival Parade, Old Timer. I believe I will join the Volunteer Fire Brigade Kazoo Marching Band, just for the occasion. Then after the parade I will partake of some of that sweet corn, fresh out of the pot, smothered in melted butter."

Rob: Epicurian vs Grace United
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 21:59:10 -0400

"We call it Quaker Hill in these parts, mister. You can see Buffalo and the lake clear as a bell from the Hill, on a clear day of course. What brings ya back this way, if ya don't mind me askin'?"

Rob: August 09, 2006 9:11 PM
Subject: Re: Epicurian vs Grace United

...and a smile on the lips and a spring in the step..."Make that a one-way ticket, Conductor, I reckon I won't ever be leavin' Eden..."

Rob:: Epicurian vs Grace United
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 21:01:21 -0400

Here here. And an analysis of Coke vs Pepsi with a soda fountain root beer winner that'd make a grown man cry.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006 8:54 PM
Subject: RE: Epicurian vs Grace United

...I'll have the smoked salmon and a glass of grape juice, please...

Take me back to the Four Corners in Eden...a man could lose his heart there...and get a decent roast beef sandwich...

Rob: Epicurian vs Grace United
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 20:32:17 -0400

Power bull horns and vents compete to ruin the cultural serentity of olde towne.

Alan: Aug1/06

….ah yes, those long hot manic days of summer…

Rob: Aug1/06

Amazing. A pair of chimps, one a lanky blonde with her own bottle of Vinho Verde, were up on the roof of the Nutty Chocolatier sharing a box of enrobed cherries as Six Gun Suzie rambled through the Riahannon set. Another box was being shared by the Chairman of the VirgilON Board of Trade who'd driven down in his 64 Poncho convertible for the hot evening concert. As the white ragtop bucked back into storage, the Chairman passed the box to his passenger, a stranger wearing a Tilley hat and sporting a long cigarette holder between his teeth. The passenger was pre-occupied. We could use a gal like that in City Hall said the Chairman. We could use a shooting platform like that, said the stranger as he stared up at Thing and Clintia dancing a somba and spitting pits on the crowd below. The Chairman was curiously as the stranger retrieved a Ping Berylium 9 iron from under the seat, stepped out of the Poncho and strode away toward the Nutty Chocolatier. Cintia polished off the Vinho Verde and Thing heaved the bottle high into the air over the canal. He was a great athlete with a great arm and he knew it. Clintia gave him a big kiss on the nose but was startled by the stranger walking up behind them on the roof. This is perfect, said the stranger, just perfect. Shotgun golf had come to Port.

Alan: August 01, 2006 11:19 AM

…as in ‘Belgian Chocolate Enrobed Cherries’, from a gourmet shop, you know where.

Alan: August 01, 2006 9:48 AM

…pretentious mayhem is such a poor substitute for genuine mayhem…

Rob: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 9:45 AM

Had a call from Fred Paul, no less, about this one. Even *he* has been unable to discover a Mad Slim CD. Fred is dusting off his vineyard jazz outfit. Welland may well pick up where pretentious mayhem left off in NOTL.

Alan Tuesday, August 01, 2006 9:33 AM

Indeed it does. Calendars have been pencilled on, picnic hampers are being dusted off, restaurant reservations are being contemplated as a good option, long-range weather is being scrutinized…in fact, just yesterday afternoon I ventured the possibility that this event might tempt me to relocate to Welland. To which a loud chorus in response, “To H… it will!!”

Rivers July 31, 2006 9:42 PM

Sounds like a good time!

Alan July 31, 2006 4:51 PM

…Ndidi Onukwulu and Madagascar Slim…

From: Susan Morin [ventureniagara.com]
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 4:35 PM
Subject: FW:

Venture Niagara is pleased to be involved with bringing the Niagara Symphony to perform in Welland on August 12th. “The venue for this performance will be on the banks of the recreational canal behind city hall,” said Sue Morin event coordinator.

Welland is becoming more and more of a destination for music in the Niagara Region, and this is just one more example.

Rob, July 31/06

Sue didn't actually disappear. She moved - to another port town along the shore with more action - a lot more action. In fact she was sighted last weekend singing lead with a group of Mennon sisters from VirgilON. The girls often swing down to the south end of the canal when the weather turns real hot.

There she was, Six-Gun Sue, with a Traynor amp belting out Lolly Pop Lolly Pop standing high on the wide leather saddle of a rejacked Harley, way over the line with a 350 Chevy8, headers and so much chrome it made you squint. The gas tank plate said "Brute". Two old boys in leather studied Brute so hard they could see Sue's butt reflected in the acres of chrome. Sue had seen that trick many times before at the Dover Lighthouse Theatre. The corky cue arrived in Lolly Pop, and the Mennon sisters popped their cheeks but Sue pulled both her 45's and fired full powder loads into the bikers' faces. The crowded street went wild as the boys hit the grassy bank along the canal and rolled down and away.

At that point, Sue and girls whipped off their cowgirl skirts to reveal matching sets of Sister Tommy thongs. Mayhem, total mayhem ensued as Sue kicked the wapedal and set off into her twenty minute rendition of Riahannon. A aging bat-faced waitress from Mitzeys Diner looked up at her beau and said "oh she sounds just like Dinah Shore".

Alan: Monday, July 31, 2006 8:02 PM
Subject: Re: Vinyl Tap

Whoa, I think we’ve got another character to watch out for the next time we travel down that long bent highway to Virgil ON.

‘Sweet Suzie’, aka ‘Six-Gun Sue’, or ‘Sherkston Sue’, or ‘Sidecar Suzette’ when the 13th falls on a Friday in Port Dover, worked the street corners and boardwalks of all the south shore towns with nothing but a twelve-string guitar and a heart of gold. Some said she could do more encores after midnight than any musician who thought, foolishly, that he or she was up to the challenge.

When the big-time theatre set up in that two-bit town on the north shore she migrated over there to check it out. Rumour has it Sue and her talents have disappeared into the bars and brothels that sprang up around the theatre. But nobody knows for sure.

Rob: Vinyl Tap
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:01:15 -0400

Holy crap!!! I see it I see it. I see it now!!! There is smoke coming from the sub-penthouse fosho.

Alan: Sunday, July 30, 2006 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: Vinyl Tap

...pearl-handled six-shooters in hand, a la 'Sweet Suzie' Wheler...

Rob: Vinyl Tap
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:47:58 -0400

And her good bud Jenny Warnes who did a killer backup for Joe Cocker. Imagine those folks doing a few bars in the subpenthouse. I can easily picture Stevie and Jen roaring around on the pedal.

Alan: Sunday, July 30, 2006 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: Vinyl Tap

...Stevie Nicks would also get in the door of the subpenthouse, no ID required...

Rob: Vinyl Tap
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:17:36 -0400

Agreed. She's another Stevie Nicks.

Alan: Sunday, July 30, 2006 6:00 PM
Subject: RE: Vinyl Tap

...of anyone's, I have no doubt Barb's ID would be the most valid. I'm sure she could find something to flash that would get her in the door...

Meanwhile, back to music. Today I'm strongly backing Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. This is the disc that will stay on your changer for days and days, and you'll be todely mesmerized. Garth Hudson, and Travis and Dallas Good, are in the background. Don't delay...go get it!

Susan: RE: Vinyl Tap
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:45:27 -0400

valid I.D.? What would constitute this? Presumably Barb wouldn't be allowed in.

Alan: July 29/06

OK. By now Steve has all of us coaxed into listening to Vinyl Tap on the Raydeeo, so we all heard tonight's show about the Monterey Pop Festival.

This is to remind everyone that I actually bought the 3-disc set (Criterion Collection) at Bay/Bloor Video for about 100 bucks a few months back, and it's available for viewing. This was before I'd calculated the total overall cost of Andrea and Carolyn's Gap Years, as a result of which I'm now clipping grocery coupons and scouring litter bins for recyclables.

Anyway, the three discs include the original Pennabaker theatre release, a second disc exclusively Jimi and Otis, and a third Outtake disc. You know this was an amazing concert when the OUTTAKE performances include Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, Paul Butterfield, and Laura Nyro. Laura Nyro does a very evocative performance of Poverty Train.

Janis Joplin does a breakout performance with Big Brother and the Holding Company. As the camera scans the crowd, Cass Elliot is seen simply open-mouthed and speechless. Jimi Hendrix closed the concert by setting fire to his guitar, not knowing what would happen, and wonder of wonders it kept on going! A legend was born.

Apparently everyone played for free. Those were the days...

Might make a good Movie Night at the subpenthouse in the cooler weather. Tie dye optional...hippies must bring valid ID...(!)

Alan: Aug7/06

Alright. The compilation I’ve got is an RCA re-issue of Tampa’s Bluebird recordings, Tampa Red: Guitar Wizard, RCA catalogue # AXM2-5501.

From Jim O’Neal’s liner notes, written in 1975:

“Few figures have been as important in blues history as Tampa Red; yet no bluesman of such stature has been so ignored or misunderstood by today’s blues audience. As composer, recording artist, musical trendsetter and one of the premier urban blues guitarists of his day Tampa Red remained popular with black record buyers for more than 20 years and exerted considerable influence on many post-World War 2 blues stars who earned greater acclaim for playing Tampa’s songs than Tampa himself often did.

But more than two decades have passed since Tampa played an active role on the Chicago blues scene. Personal tragedies and a desire to stay in a somewhat secluded retirement have long kept him out of sight. To the general music public, he’s a forgotten man. Several magazines and newspapers have reported him dead, and many of the musicians who knew him also assume he’s either dead of hopelessly insane. Only a few of his closest friends, like pianists Sunnyland Slim, Blind John Davis and Little Brother Montgomery have stayed in touch with him over the years. They still know him as the quiet, polite, easy-going little man he always was. But because he was at times in a mental hospital and because of other musicians’ stories of Tampa jumping out of a window, threatening to leap from a rooftop, and setting fire to his bed, a distorted image of Tampa as a mindlessly belligerent hermit has emerged….

At the H&T (a Chicago blues club) Tampa usually worked solo, accompanying himself on guitar and ‘jazz horn’ (kazoo). His kazoo appeared much more often on records from ’34 on than on the earlier sessions with (Georgia Tom) Dorsey, who’d always tried to discourage Tampa from using the odd instrument. Without doubt, however, Tampa became the most popular blues kazooist of all time – for what that’s worth – and he did inspire a number of other musicians to blow their own ‘jazz horns.”…

Editor’s Note: Tampa Red’s companion Effie Tolbert died two weeks after the above notes were written. Accounts of his past mental problems have discouraged friends from taking Tampa into one of their homes to live, and as of January 1975 Tampa is staying at a state hospital in Chicago.”

Meanwhile, gotta crank up the volume on 'When I Take my Vacation in Harlem', to be followed by 'Nutty and Buggy Blues'. Kazoo virtuousity for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rob: Subject: Re: My day at the Kazoo
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2006 11:43:12 -0400

The owner of the Kazoo factory had never heard of Tampa Red, the jazz kazoo player. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:yh98s31ba39g~T10 The owner had an artificial left forearm complete with hook. He wore a short sleeved shirt and jesticulated wildly in the air with the hook (quite uninhibited) as Alan informed him of the wonders of Tampa Red. Alan has a vinyl two-set of Tampa Red LP's - a fact that drove the owner to wave the hook around quite a bit. I asked him if he would like some MP3 for his website and the waving got even worse. We paid for the Kazoos and the owner made change with the hook, dropping a nickel and apologizing. Outside Alan wondered if he played Kazoo with the hook, and if so, did it alter the tonality? I went back in to ask the address of the Kazoo float in process and was sorely tempted to ask him about hook playing but didn't have the guts. My mother always told me to respect peoples' private problems and keep my big mouth shut.

Rivers: Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 10:35 AM
Subject: RE: My day at the Kazoo

Musical instrument?

Barb: Did you bring a souvenir kazoo for each of us……

Rob: Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 3:39 AM
Subject: My day at the Kazoo

Alan Gummo and I visit the fully-operating 1906 Kazoo factory in Eden NY. The Kazoo is the only musical instrument ever created in the US.

Alan:

Bloom County. RIP.

Rob: Subject: Re: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 07:26:28 -0400

We are venturing terribly close to the well-respected and oft revered MTPIC. Maybe it should be revived, for auld lang etc. Member of the Temporary Planning Institute of Canada. Has a nice ireverent ring to it. The logo should have Bill the Cat I think. Who was Bill anyway?

Alan: Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 7:12 AM
Subject: RE: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"

Alright! Anyone who can repeat the wisdom of Bill the Cat is hereby excused from the bar tabs...

Opus (Member Emeritus)

Rivers: Subject: RE: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 21:58:52 -0400

As Bill the cat said "Ggggaaackkk"

From: Alan Gummo
Sent: May 22, 2006 8:03 PM
To: rjmiller@; tcarter@; swheler@; sfilshie@; srivers@; leahdw@; fpaul1@; barbwiens@; amcilroy@
Subject: Re: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"

...the names attached to this post are hereby decreed to be Temporary Charter Members, and do not have to pay for the newsletter. However, this dispensation does not excuse them from picking up a Fair Share of the bar tabs...

Rob: Subject: Re: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 19:52:53 -0400

From the bar we organize the Royal Temporary Planning Institute [RTPI] for which we charge $463.85Cdn for the newsletter.

Alan: Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 7:45 PM
Subject: RE: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"

....I'm enamoured of the idea of Temporary Planning Schemes. If I have anything to do with it, the next Niagara Regional Policy Plan will be based entirely on such schemes.

By the way, Malta is the place I really prefer to retire to. When I retire I want to have an espresso bar in Gozo...

Rob: Subject: Malta-"Smoothing out quaint unreasonable spots"
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 04:36:20 -0400

Sunday Times, May 21, 2006
Rationalising development boundaries
Michael Falzon

The Government has finally decided to take the plunge and embark on an exercise aimed at addressing anomalies in the development boundaries of the 1988 Temporary Planning Schemes.

This is a course fraught with political dangers and could give rise to several complaints, most of which should be - hopefully - unjustified. Whatever is decided, there will always be those who cannot accept any point of view that looks at the problem objectively, excluding their own narrow personal interests.

My experience has bitterly taught me that these people will 'personalise' the issue and hold someone forever responsible for the 'misfortune' that hit their property. Some will proceed to resent (or even hate) the person so identified for the rest of their life... but this is the pericolo del mestiere - the danger of the job of being the responsible minister!

As I had insisted ten months ago in this column ("Amending the Structure Plan" - July 17, 2005), MEPA's Local Plans exercise had excluded any serious attempt to review the 1988 development boundaries with the aim of removing the anomalies that resulted from the hurried exercise undertaken when the present boundaries had been established 18 years ago.

As it is, Government has now taken the bull by the horns and embarked on what it is describing as the "rationalisation of development boundaries".

Government has also established a set of written criteria upon which changes to scheme boundaries will be based - criteria that it considers to be fair and equitable while having the least possible impact on environmentally sensitive areas. The criteria are different for Gozo, where string development is the norm and hence the definition of a 'pocket' of land surrounded by development as applicable to Malta would create unrestrained expansion of developable areas.

No one can really argue with this. It is when people start applying these criteria to the new areas included in the schemes and the areas that were left outside, that subjective arguments start to crop up!

The offices of practising architects will now be inundated with people insisting that their property fits into the declared criteria when objectively the truth is otherwise. Architects end up making submissions for inclusion of areas within the boundaries, even if they know that they stand no chance of being accepted. People keep hoping against hope and insist that they can only try. Pressure will be exerted on ministers and MPs who will be enticed to push in aid of their cause by people whom they have k nown all their lives and by others whom they have never met before. But such is human nature.

A cursory look at Government's proposals published a week or so ago leads one to the conclusion that, by and large, the exercise does smooth out the quaint unreasonable spots in the existing boundaries - although I feel I must point out that in my personal opinion, there are one or two proposals that do not seem to be justified as exercises in eliminating anomalies. More so in cases of swathes of land proposed for the inclusion within the development boundaries when these areas were never included in any planning scheme regime prevalent at any time during the last 60 years.

There will be those, of course, who will be against any small increase in the development zones as a matter of principle, even if they do not have the faintest idea of how the current boundaries were drawn up and why they were called 'temporary' - a term that has now been overstretched to mean almost two decades! They subscribe to the notion that these boundaries have been somehow elevated to the status of the untouchable even though there was certainly no such intention when they were drawn up.

They will argue that within the existing boundaries there is more than enough vacant land to accommodate any shortfall in the foreseeable future of housing units and other development. The fact that the 1988 development areas limitation exercise was a temporary one that inevitably created some anomalies and injustices is of no consideration whatsoever to them. In any case, the areas within development zones will only be increased by some 2.4 per cent, including new roads and open spaces as well as areas that are already developed although they are strictly outside the existing boundaries.

Others will try to find a conspiracy theory behind every official proposal made and behind every decision that is taken. Every piece of land will be linked to the 'people' behind the 'people' behind the presumed owners. This is all grist for the mill in this rumour-infested island.

Government is aware of the pitfalls that make this exercise a veritable minefield and it will be very lucky if it survives unscathed. I, for one, think it deserves a lot of admiration for choosing to do the right thing rather than doing nothing about the problem and continue to postpone indefinitely the drawing up of the definite boundaries of development.

Oops!
George Pullicino, Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment, took me to task ("A tale of two weekends" - The Sunday Times, May 7) for my having asserted that MEPA's Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC) is an in-house advisory committee with no legal standing.

The minister insists that this is not so, as the committee is set up according to an amendment of the Development Planning Act that was approved as part of the Cultural Heritage Act (Act VI of 2002). I must admit that the legal meandering leading to this amendment had escaped me.

However, the minister failed to explain that the HAC existed as an in-house advisory committee with no legal standing much before the amendment of the law he referred to. In other words, it was not the law that created the HAC. The law only gave it a legal standing after it had existed for an umpteen number of years.

Surely this way of doing things shows that something somewhere was amiss!

Alan: Subject: Re: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 12:59:50 -0400

A movie indeed. Somewhere I have an ancient photo of a steam locomotive rolling through St. Davids on Hwy 8 on rubber tires. Truth is very strange. That scene could be recreated on the big screen with a chimp at the controls, tossing free Pez dispensers to crowds lining the route.

Rob: Subject: Re: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 12:59:50 -0400

A movie indeed. Somewhere I have an ancient photo of a steam locomotive rolling through St. Davids on Hwy 8 on rubber tires. Truth is very strange. That scene could be recreated on the big screen with a chimp at the controls, tossing free Pez dispensers to crowds lining the route.

Alan: Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm

...and the rest, as they say, is hist'ry...or as Arthur Miller might have said, 'What a buncha misfits...' To which John Huston might have said, 'I see a movie in that...' The parallels are amazing...

Rob: Subject: Re: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 12:33:50 -0400

Folks say about that time up Creek Road old Ife Stevens had a dream, a plan you might say. Convert the old Secord mill into a country inn and maybe, just maybe, Norma Jean and Joltin' Joe would slide by and stay a few nights.

Alan: Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 12:09 PM
Subject: RE: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm

...they were still shoeing horses, had started drinking lite beer, and all the curtains were drawn in the 'tourist rooms'....very intriguing...

Rob: Subject: St. Davids after a 1936 snow storm
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 22:37:32 -0400

I think this is the northwest corner of Creek and York Roads. Tuckett Cigars were made in Hamilton, I remember the old factory on King West.

><< CornerofSt.Davids1936.jpg >>

Rob: May 23/06 By jove we have our first entry.

Temporary Planning - An Amazing Possibility?
Virginia MCDONALD, Guelph
(May 23, 2006)

The wind in the willows wafted a Toad Hall boating party up a lazy Speed River. Toad and a few close chums were having a rollicking time pitching things overboard. Water Rat's oars skimmed the surface. They drifted aimlessly, chanting the song of the boatman: "Yo heave-HO! Downtown PLAN! Waste Plan, Green Plan, Yo heave-HO!"

"Hullo," said Toad in feigned concern, peeping into the picnic basket, "I thought we still had the Official Plan for leftovers."

Stoat, Weasel, Ferret and their Wild Wooder pals guffawed. Stoat wiped his streaming eyes on the Planning Act, and tittered, "Ferret used it as a bib." Ferret dabbed his mouth on the Heritage Act and chortled, "Only after Weasel made it into a boating hat." Weasel honked his nose into the Places to Grow Act and gasped, "It didn't suit at all, so I made it into a proper boat and set it on fire for a Viking funeral." Ratty wore a look of mock surprise. "I thought it was just the Budget!" They laughed themselves silly, rocking the boat until water rolled in.

"Ratty," said Toad, weak with laughter, "do row us out of downtown, where nobody in their right mind goes anymore. We'll stretch out our toes in some greenfields."

On they glided, but only past little and big boxes, built by Beavers and Wild Wooders who'd chewed down trees to build on every grassy patch. Crestfallen, they drifted back downtown through jumbly Gordon Valley where River Otter and his rag tag League of Civic Boaters were safely anchored in water not over their heads and near the high road. Their boat wasn't powerful or slick, but its jaunty flag said Amazing Possibilities. And they were singing, "Song of Our City . . ."

"Look sharp, Ratty," commanded Toad, "Row fast and hard to the right." Suddenly, they heard gnawing. Toad's boat spun like a weathercock. Ratty jammed down the oars. "Beavers are eating our rudder!" he shouted.

Toad's party cried out, but by now were so far off course Otter's league couldn't hear, so they cheered what they thought was singing.

Ferret angrily waved a stick, shouting, "River Bounders!" Otter's merry party waved back and shouted, "Yes! A river number! Two Beautiful Rivers," they sang, raising tankards to toast Toad's boat, yelling, "Toast! Toast!"

Weasel yelled, "Fools! We need your boat!" Toad sang out sweetly, "Yoohoo! Friends! Please help, just once more!" Otter's league applauded wildly, "No, no, two encores!"

"They do seem friendly, and they are so many of them," said Stoat hesitantly. Ferret snorted, "Have you taken leave of your senses?" Ratty shouted, "We'll sink!" Otter shouted back, "Yes, sing! Together!" A chorus rose up, "When St. George's Square Was Pretty," Someone yelled, "Bravo!"

The rudderless boat now rocked and rolled on swollen rapids and shot like a bullet towards the falls, for Beavers had even ripped up their own dam to build. Toad waved a white kerchief at Otter's league. "Help! We'll go down!"

"That's right!" cried Otter, "One more round! Everybody! Song of Our City . . ."

The boat twirled in a whirlpool of scattered plans. It stood on end. They all clung by their fingernails. "We declare this disaster officially open," they said and someone snipped the air with a pair of scissors. Down they plunged with a great "Ooooooo!"

River Otter gave them a gentlemanly tip of his hat as they went down. Then he cocked an ear. "Key of G. Of course! Perfect ending." And he strummed the last chord.

Rob: Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 9:20 PM
Subject: Re: I had no idea

I couldn't wait. Its sort of a temporary April Fool. Akin to a Temporary Plan for only one year. Actually I'm really getting into this concept of Temporary Planning. Its so real, after all everything is in fact temporary and the problem with our current system and statutes is their rigidity. The procedures for amending a Temporary Plan could be so simple - no need for a public meeting because all changes are only temporary in any event. I think we should have a call for papers to kick off the new Institute. The Temporary Planning Institute of Canada. The topic for this could be "The Dangers of Pretention in Temporary Planning?".

Alan: Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 4:35 PM
Subject: RE: I had no idea

...very very cuell, altho I did notice it's an April Fool kind of thing and this is, what, May 23rd?...

Subject: I had no idea
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 15:38:39 -0400

Yikes I won't Google "Alan Gummo" again!!

http://www.mymsnsearch.com/results.aspx?q=Alan+Gummo&FORM=97mwrtsaY6Ly

Rob: May 17/06

A tall lanky woman waiting for the steamer on the docks of Manaus. Waiting to begin a new life. A tour boat full of young people on an educational excursion nudges the dock but the crunch is unheard amid their laughter. Carolyn Gummo leaps onto the dock, takes two steps and collapses for lack of land legs. As she slumps she looks at the lanky woman and thinks "there's another animal I've never seen before". An empty thought balloon pops and evaporates above the lanky woman. A full circle has been made and broken.

Alan: Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 9:24 PM
Subject: Carol in the Amazon

I need a good cut-line for this one. Please forward suggestions...

Rob: May 16/06

There was a 70's fishing trip to our place in the wilds of west Parry Sound. Ten stressed guys from Philips. Now that I think of it, it was a pretty dangerous idea to simply let those guys unwind cold turkey on a northern lake. Only one of the Directors ever came along and he was from Kenora. He had control and the guys liked him - he's now the company President. He had control over himself even when blind drunk. Some of the boys went into town for supplies and made the fact known while staggering down the centreline of the highway running through the place. The OPP was called but no one had caught the license plate. The noise from the all night poker and dock dunkings rang for miles down the lake and into the forest. One person, the Baptist, was particularly loud and profane. The following weekend many people stopped by in their boats and asked who we had rented the place to the week before. My dad, in a wheelchair fishing on the dock, yelled [true to his father Ed Miller's brash style] "some goddam engineers from Oakville - all pricks - you should see how they left the place." I stood with my mouth open and dad said "that's once". I knew he would only ever cover for me that one time.

Rivers: Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 10:18 PM
Subject: RE: QuesT'06 and the blogosphere

'Minds me of the time we had a party at a cottage on the Moira River across from Vanderwater Conservation Area. A bunch of us high school students from all over Hastings County had been working for the Moira River Conservation Authority all summer. Towards the end of August the "boss", who was a real university student decided he'd throw a party for us in his parents cottage. It must have been a fairly quiet party because I can remember some of it! Wellll - I remember there was one girl who was very comely and as I lay with my head on her lap trying to look up into her eyes - I pointed out that since I was a baby I had always been fascinated by big tits - when I got up of the floor she was gone - go figure eh!

Alan: Subject: RE: QuesT'06 and the blogosphere

Thing laid his head on Lil's lap and stared deep into her dark brown eyes. A thought bubble began to form over his forehead. "About that homage to The Misfits we're making for the blog..."

"Alright", said Lil. "You can have the Montgomery Clift part. You want that scene out back of the bar with Samantha, don't you?"

A second thought bubble appeared above Thing's head. In it were the words, "Damn straight!"

Rob: Subject: QuesT'06 and the blogosphere
Date: Sun, 14 May 200 6 03:11:23 -0400

This compelling but long read sheds light on the meaning of our own evolving section of the blogosphere. The maniacly creative heart of QuesT appears time and again in the following piece. We are in fact not only riding on but creating a long bent highway in a whole new age of communication with each other.

Our Own Creative Land: Cultural Monopoly and the Troubles with Canadian Copyright
2006 Hart House Lecture

Michael Geist - Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

Bulte, Blogs, and Balance

On December 22, 2005, as most politicians were preparing to take a holiday break from the lengthy winter election campaign, I received an email titled “Sam Bulte – Democracy in Action.” Sarmite (Sam) Bulte was a Liberal Member of Parliament for the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park. (and on for 30 pages)

Alan: May17/06

adventure must be rewarded! This is a must-see for Summer06!

Rob: May16/06

Time to move off the aute indeed. The '06Brazil Gig has been awesome to watch unfold. No doubt more amazing eye-dazzlers will come home with the young woman riding high in Manaus. As a last gasp, before switching gears back to QuesT blogosphere, I am attaching a looksee at one wall of 8x10's in this summer's Exhibition at the Niagara Historical Society & Museum entitled "The Evolution of Niagara's Agricultural Landscape". You may recognize some of the images. The panel describes a 2004 challenge met by me to photograph the look of farming today in NOTL. Some of the 400 shots are used throughout the Exhibit to show the fantastic contrast over 100 years. The show runs through May until November 2006. I have never stopped recording the migrant workers up close and personal for no particular reason. There's a sense of adventure every time I make an approach.

Alan: Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 9:06 PM
Subject: Brasil 06 - the denouement

It's time to move off the aut and back to travel in order to segue into a new subject line. But before I do, let me say thank you to all of you who've expressed appreciation for the travelogue. It's been my pleasure.

When I returned from Brazil I had over 400 images on a cd from Andrea's and Carolyn's cameras, plus another 240 or so images in the memory card of my own camera, plus 48 images on print film from the venerable Nikon. There's also a small number of mini-videos made with the Cybershots, but for some reason hotmail won't let me attach them.

I've tried to make some thematic sense of the images in the travelogue, but in terms of the overall imagery I've no more than scratched the surface.

The next post will be the Grand Finale. But in the meantime here we have:

1. and 2. Seldom-seen images of Rio from Sugarloaf.

3. Praia Trindade.

4. Beach in the Baia do Paraty.

The last two are my inspiration for a long, hot, lazy summer. Cheers!

Rob: Subject: Re: Brasil 06
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 22:13:52 -0400

Its a bugger when autistes are told there is a prize only to find, upon winning, that one will then and only then be thought about by the judges. Here's a shot of the addition to the Hoffman Grist Mill at Chadd's Ford PA. which affords multi-floor access to the Wyeth Family paintings at the Brandywine River Museum. The most breathtaking conversion of a grist mill I have ever seen. Frank Gehry comes to mind.

Alan: May14/06 Brazil '06

More images from the trek across Ilha Grande, all taken by Andrea. I suppose since there are no figures in these images, or advertising messages for specific products or services, these could be considered aut. If they are indeed aut, they could conceivably be entered in an aut exhibit. Provided there's a good prize, of course.

I can't think of why anyone would enter aut in an aut exhibit without first knowing whether there's a prize, but I suppose some autists might anyway....

1., 2., and 3. Images taken at a creek. I believe the autist can be seen reflected in the third image.

4. Bamboo geometry.

Rob: My loss is still sinking in - you're never too old to learn a thing or two

Toronto Star
COURTESY OF ALMAGUIN NEWS
White-bearded and with an impassioned voice, Richard Thomas was an actor, broadcaster, storyteller, guru, farmer, ecologist, politician, rebel and folk hero in the Almaguin Highlands, the lake-studded region north of Huntsville.

Richard Thomas, 74: Man with the golden voice
Saved Ted Rogers from drowning

`Ben' in Cracker Barrel cheese commercials
Apr. 17, 2006. 12:29 PM
JUDY STOFFMAN
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

White-bearded and with an impassioned voice, Richard Thomas was an actor, broadcaster, storyteller, guru, farmer, ecologist, politician, rebel and folk hero in the Almaguin Highlands, the lake-studded region north of Huntsville.

He was looking to sell the log house he had built from recycled materials when I met him in the late 1980s while hunting for a lakeside cottage in the area. Having come in sweaty from outdoor chores, he stripped all his clothes off right in front of me, jumped naked into the lake and was across in what seemed like a dozen strokes.

Later I discovered that this vigorous swimmer with a voice of gold had played a part in the cultural and political history of the province.

In the 1960s he was newsreader and morning show host on Toronto's CHFI radio, the nation's first FM station. Later, as one of the most sought-after commercial actors in Canada, he appeared in commercials for GM cars and Taster's Choice coffee, and played the idealized farmer Ben in Cracker Barrel cheese ads. He narrated scores of nature films for the NFB and educational films for director Budge Crawley.

In 1981, he had come within six votes of winning a seat in the Ontario legislature, representing Parry Sound riding for the Liberals (he was defeated by Ernie Eves) and a year later, went on to contest leadership of the provincial Liberals; he came in a strong third behind David Peterson and Sheila Copps.

He ran one more time for the Liberals (in 1985) before throwing in his lot with the Greens. He ran twice for the Green Party and still holds the provincial record for the most votes garnered by a Green candidate. Thomas was Reeve of Armour Township at the time of his death.

Two days after Christmas, as Thomas turned off Hwy. 11 in his blue Volkswagen pickup, he was hit by a panel truck and thrown through the window into a snowbank, breaking his ribs, pelvis and thigh bone, and suffering head trauma.

He was airlifted to Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital, where doctors in the ICU struggled for nine weeks to repair the damage. His wife Jenny kept a vigil at his bedside, often joined by his daughters Nell and Sarah, son Jeremy, and various grandchildren. (Another daughter, Pandora Thomas, checked in by phone from Salmon Arm, B.C.) A large man with the beefy hands of a boxer, he had an iron constitution but even so, he suffered a stroke from the long bed rest and his great heart gave out on Feb. 22. He was 74.

Richard Malcolm Thomas was a Toronto boy, born Feb. 4, 1932, the ninth and youngest child of Herbert Edgar Thomas, a Welshman, and Gladys Gertrude (née Brooks). By the time of his birth, his father, who kept a second family, had already left his mother. Young Richard attended Huron St. Public school and Jarvis Collegiate. He dropped out after Grade 10 but remained a lifelong autodidact, the only farmer in Burk's Falls who regularly read the Economist.

He was a musically gifted child and dreamed of becoming a concert pianist until a Kiwanis piano competition pitted him against a thin, nerdy boy his own age (then about 12). That boy was Glenn Gould and he won. Thomas instantly knew that reaching the same standard was beyond him.

"If he couldn't be the best, he didn't want to do it," his widow Jenny told me.

At 17, he left home but only got as far as Barrie. After feeding him a meal, the kindly police officer who had picked him up for vagrancy sent him to apply for a job at the local radio station. The station needed a filing clerk. Hearing his voice, the station manager of CKBB, Frank Snelgrove, handed the teenager a copy of Time magazine and said, "Here, read this."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`If he couldn't be the best, he didn't want to do it.'

Jenny Thomas, about her late husband

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Thomas went on the air the same day.

At 19, he went on the road again and ended up in Vancouver, where he met Jane Anne (Jenny) Campbell, a receptionist at CJOR radio, where Thomas, too, found a job.

The two eventually took off for California, but were repelled by the racism they saw there.

Thomas hitched back to Canada, and Jenny followed, already pregnant with the first of the their four children. Thomas worked at radio stations in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Peterborough before returning to Toronto, where — down on his luck — he drove a cab and lived in Scarborough with his family.

As a child, Thomas had been sent to a Sherwood Forest Camp in Haliburton where he saved fellow camper Ted Rogers from drowning one summer. While Thomas was driving his cab, he happened to pick up Rogers, who was by then building his communications empire. That fortuitous meeting led to the job at CHFI.

In 1967, he bought land in Kearney, a village outside Algonquin Park, where he built a log house and later, a recording studio. There he recorded country and western bands as well as his own voiceovers.

He commuted to Toronto for commercial work, which provided enough money for the hippie lifestyle.

Young people flocked to Kearney to sit at his feet and absorb his environmental and social doctrines. He liked to say that the ideal education was "a seminar under every tree."

"He introduced me to modern literature, poetry, to (Carl) Jung and the Russians like Dostoevsky and all kinds of music, both classical and folk — Fred Neil, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bach," recalls Patrick Corrigan, who was one of Thomas's acolytes and is today a cartoonist for this paper.

"He taught me the proper J-stroke. He was nicknamed Tarzan when he lived in Scarborough; he had long hair and he'd carry his canoe 2 1/2 city blocks down to the lake every day," says Corrigan.

Twenty years ahead of his time, Thomas ran his car on homemade fuel alcohol in the 1970s. Endeavouring to be self-sufficient on his land in Burk's Falls, where he moved in 1988, he grew Jerusalem artichokes that could be turned into ethanol, and raised pigs and goats until a fire destroyed his barn two years ago.

"He affected everyone who knew him," said Linda McElroy of Emsdale, a close friend for four decades who met him under the Scarborough Bluffs and followed him up north.

In keeping with his wishes there was no funeral. A memorial service will take place at Burk's Falls today from 2-5 p.m.

Rob: April 28/06 Tommy's Retirement [to Fritz at Philips Engineering, Burlington]

Hal-

Check the attached file. Such a temptation, but we could seriously damage what mental abilities Tommy has left. He's not going to do too well when they let him out. I'm told he's all ready to go with a new car, just like when he left PP+E. We could decorate his car with Christmas window foam - just enough to let him know who it was. Mind the time somebody nailed Sominex. Even that might put Tom into mental distress. We should at least send a card or gift to let him know we're aware of his release, and ha ha, we are still out here waiting. Perhaps a nice carton of nostril stepsoids.

Broom

Good Morning Everyone:

Our Tommy, (Tom Whitelaw) is retiring and we would love you all to come out and celebrate at his retirement party with us at Big Marco's on Fourth Avenue in St. Catharines on Tuesday, June 13 around 5:30 p.m.

Please read the attached flyer for information to buy tickets for this fun event and post it on your bulletin boards for everyone to see - thank you and see you at the Party!.

June Meller
Administrative Assistant to the
Commissioner of Planning and Development

Rob: April 10/06

Hey Paraty!! Trying to sinc with you is like Cheney on a trap range. Keep a lookout for good flipable real estate. If we bring in the indigent investors we'll need devel ops to move up in Moog fashion. Dalton is down in Chicago on "private appointments". Life moves on. I'm off to the north again tomorrow morning for a couple of days of dodging holes in the universe. Unseasonably warm here. Over and out and hey thanks for all the fish and whatever you do, don't panic in a heritage distillery.

Alan: Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 8:57 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Film by the Foot Gala Launch

...I believe the Bar Banana Blue post was from last year, but memories are short. Off to Trindade tomorrow (see previous post, also from last year, or maybe two years ago, who knows for sure), then on to the Heritage Cachaca Distillery. Next day we do an island excursion with beaches etc etc

This Paraty is one AMAZING place, and when looking for a retirement haven for indigent planners this would be a good look...

A

Rob: Subject: Re: Fw: Film by the Foot Gala Launch
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 21:51:15 -0400

Good to hear from you A. -stop- Worried you were down in a jungle crash -stop- All is quiet on the Bar Banana Blue front as far as we know -stop- missed your previous post but I think we can dig Banana Blue -stop- returned from Chadd's Ford with a table on board -stop- cachaca pinga scale -stop- needs '71 vintage christening -stop- left browser default at the T1 network at the Brandywine River Hotel set on QuesT for the 3Ten Hotel Lan chain - did wonders for traffic on The Long Bent Highway -stop- no shit aye what -stop- some forwarded to DC -stop- whoah no shit -stop- also Vancouver -stop- looking forward to seeing you at Singers on 23rd -stop- get me a cybershot image of a waterwheel mill at Paraty -stop- cream patries could be fun thong toss -stop- hi to the bevy of dollies on your tour - Pantry Office and Porto Geeko over and out and so long for now -stop.

Alan: Apr9/06 Film by the Foot Gala Launch

It~s film by the metre for the big guys.

We~re just back from the beach at Lopes Mendes where there was quite a stir, spoken in that particular pidgen of the surfer community, about an event here in Abraoa some days ago. Details are foggy, as is the nature of these things. As best I understand it, the gist of it is that on a particular day recently all the pastelerias in Abraoa were completely bought out. Later that evening the same pastries showed up at an event of undisclosed nature at an undisclosed location, but I~m suspecting the Bar Banana Blue (see previous post) where great fun was had with the pastries. Everyone who attended had their Cybershots set on Video, and I~m told there are some excellent digital tellings of the event floating around cyberspace. We should keep watch. Apparently it was all an homage to an undisclosed blog...these people are really really secretive about their cult stuff...and an anniversary memorial to a tragically lost spriritual cousin.

Will keep you posted. Meanwhile, tomorrow we~re off to Paraty, and another visit to the Heritage Cachaca Distillery up in the hills.

Did I mention that Lencois Paulista, where Caro is billetted, is the cachaca capital of the country? Due to proximity to the sugar cane. More stories will follow, but the important part is that I~m bringing home a bottle of pinga bottled in 1971...a gift from one of Caro~s host dad~s. I visited a working distillery where they have over 200,000 litres of the stuff waiting in wood barrels. More heritage stuff...appparently the industry has gone over to stainless steel. Gotta love those Rotarians...

Tchau!

Rob: Alas, penny hath not yet droppeth. Tempted we are as gentle rains from heaven to burst yon floodgate and out our Revan.

From: Angel Inn Productions
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 6:46 AM
Subject: Film by the Foot Gala Launch

Dear Friends of Angel Inn Productions,

Just a reminder that the Film by the Foot gala launch party will be taking place at Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate Winery on Wednesday, April 5th from 7 to 9pm.

Tickets are $40 each and include sponsorship of your first foot of film, wine, hors d'oeuvres and entertainment.

Tickets are still available at the Pie Plate Bakery & Cafe, Stonechurch Vineyards, Stone Road Grille, The Olde Angel Inn and online at www.angelinnthemovie.com. Tickets will also be available at the door.

Remember that you are always welcome to sponsor a foot of film for $35.

We hope to see you all on April 5th.

For more, visit www.angelinnthemovie.com.

Click here to send this to a friend

Rob: More QuesT poetry

Carnation Milk is the best in the land.
Here I sit with a can in my hand.
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.
-------------------------------------------------
Shake and shake the ketchup bottle.
None'll come.
And then a lot'll.

Rob:Mar28/06 Rivers Is Going To Egypt??

Cows With Guns (Another QuesT Poem)
(Rivers is going to Egypt?)

Fat and docile, big and dumb
They look so stupid, they aren't much fun
Cows aren't fun

They eat to grow, grow to die
Die to be et at the hamburger fry
Cows well done

Nobody thunk it, nobody knew
No one imagined the great cow guru
Cows are one

He hid in the forest, read books with great zeal
He loved Che Guevera, a revolutionary veal
Cow Tse Tongue

He spoke about justice, but nobody stirred
He felt like an outcast, alone in the herd
Cow doldrums

He mooed we must fight, escape or we'll die
Cows gathered around, cause the steaks were so high
Bad cow pun

But then he was captured, stuffed into a crate
Loaded onto a truck, where he rode to his fate
Cows are bummed

He was a scrawny calf, who looked rather woozy
No one suspected he was packing an Uzi
Cows with guns

They came with a needle to stick in his thigh
He kicked for the groin, he pissed in their eye
Cow well hung

Knocked over a tractor and ran for the door
Six gallons of gas flowed out on the floor
Run cows run!

He picked up a bullhorn and jumped up on the hay
We are free roving bovines, we run free today

We will fight for bovine freedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with [Am]guns

They crashed the gate in a great stampede
Tipped over a milk truck, torched all the feed
Cows have fun

Sixty police cars were piled in a heap
Covered in cow pies, covered up deep
Much cow dung

Black smoke rising, darkening the day
Twelve burning McDonalds, have it your way

We will fight for bovine freedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with guns

The President said "enough is enough

These uppity cattle, its time to get tough"
Cow dung flung

The newspapers gloated, folks sighed with relief
Tomorrow at noon, they would all be ground beef
Cows on buns

The cows were surrounded, they waited and prayed
They mooed their last moos,
they chewed their last hay
Cows out gunned

The order was given to turn cows to whoppers
Enforced by the might of ten thousand coppers
But on the horizon surrounding the shoppers

Came the deafening roar of chickens in choppers

We will fight for bovine freedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with guns

Rob:Mar15/06 Season Opener

Taweak or what? I'm too tired and/or intimidated to follow that knife through the muntins. I notice those other bloggers [the link] have a budget of $350,000 and they want people to buy/finance tiny pieces of their project. They are nuttier than we are - flip the tie, flip the tie.

Just back from The Great White Out and holes in the universe of epic proportions along the G'hurst trail. The Sundridge Deli has donated enough sliced luncheon meat to feed 350 people at the "celebration of Richard Thomas' life" coming up in April. That should be quite an event - planned for the main floor of the Burk's Falls Armour Ryerson Arena. Poor Jenny wanted something simple. The Legion is across the street.

Creeping though The Great White Out give you time to read road signs. Some quite creative, such as-

Rent a Hummer - Drive One Yourself - Com'on In and Tear Us All Up
5 Min Car Wash - Best Hand Job in the North
The Ultimate Feast - Shaw's Do It Yourself Pig Roast
Miekle's - Two Minutes Away - One If You Floor It
Deerhurst Resort - Try Not To Speed Up
And last but by all means not least, Tim Hortons - 4.5 km In Any Direction

Alan: Mar14/06 Season Opener

Alright. This adventure is evolving. We can do it in two ways...wait till it's nicely edited and polished up, or send it out as it comes along. So here's some more, including improved material from the initial post (no doubt worth a re-read just to check it out) plus new material. It still has holes (so to speak), and there's a conclusion in the can which is not included yet because, after all, if this thing veers off course we'll need a brand new conclusion anyway.

I like the link to the other blog. Those other bloggers are even nuttier than we are...

So here goes...any and all suggestions will be gratefully received, or greatly scorned, depending...

The Pie Hole Flap

The insurance adjuster cautiously approached the front door of The Angels’ Arms. The parking lot was full of tractor-trailers. They were all white, and had generators running. Thick rubber cables were laid out from the trailers to the front door. People were milling around looking busy.

At the doorway the cables stopped. The insurance adjuster stepped inside. The room was packed. A guy he’d never seen before was standing in the middle of the floor with a handi-cam telling people what to do. A woman with what appeared to be pastry flour in her hair was applying pancake makeup to two of the actors from the little theatre troupe. The actors were grinning nervously and holding hands in mutual support. The regulars were fanned out around the group in the center, holding down tables or just standing watching.

A banquet table loaded with pies stood between the crowd and the bar. There were more pies than the insurance adjuster had ever seen before in his life. Fruit pies, cream pies, nut pies, sugar pies, pies from the French tradition, German tradition, local tradition, all kinds of pies. They had upper crust, no crust, glazed crust, and, noticeably to the trained eye, meringue on top. A side table was neatly set with dainty sandwiches made mostly out of cucumber and cut in delicate shapes and sizes. Another side table featured elegant little Austrian style pastries heaped with thick whorls of schlagge. There was also a small circular table decorated with a fortress style construction made of petit fours. The piece de resistance stood against the back wall…a dining table taken from a monastery in the south of France, literally groaning under the weight of a giant ice sculpture of Niagara Falls (the bigger, Canadian falls), backlit by a string of pink accent lights from IKEA (pink accent lights PUSSIELIKK), on either side of which were arrayed healthy food choices consisting of fresh fruits and salads and varieties of cottage cheese. Each table had a small sign indicating where the food was from. The signs said, “Lovingly and specially prepared at the Pie Hole Bakery.”

The insurance adjuster approached the bar. “What’s going on here?”

The bartender nodded toward the group of strangers who’d taken over the center of the room. “Some kind of film crew. They’re not from around here. They’re from the Bay Area. Just after that Richard Florida guy stood on the coal docks and proclaimed the Bay Area was the next home of the Creative Class, this crowd arrived. First to set up shop in what used to be a basket warehouse. The economic development types call it an ‘incubator’. Now it’s full of indie filmmakers and music video types. I guess The Rebel Sell hasn’t got to the Bay Area yet. Anyway, this crew’s apparently made a big name for themselves: Pie Hole Productions.”

“Oh”, said the insurance adjuster. “Big name doing what?”

“Pet food commercials mainly. Then they branched out into training videos for the Bay Area Kennel Club. Made a piss-pot full of money with videos about housebreaking spaniels and Dalmatians. Sell them over the internet to places like Belarus.”

“Oh”, said the insurance adjuster. “What are they doing here?”

“It’s a fund-raiser for a movie they’re making. It’s set in The Angels’ Arms. Apparently some kind of psychodrama or melodrama or something like that.”

“That’s strange,” said the insurance adjuster.

“You got that right,” said the bartender. “There hasn’t been any mellow drama in this town for a long long time.” He poured the insurance adjuster a Seagram’s and Seven.

Lil came along and sat down beside the insurance adjuster. She was dressed in a peasant blouse with a long skirt and snakeskin boots. The insurance adjuster couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“So what’s this movie about?” she asked.

“Get this,” said the bartender. “The director’s just laid it out for me.”

“It opens with three kids playing in a sandbox. Two boys and a girl. The boys have their Tonka toys; they’re pushing dirt around for a road project. The little girl has Malibu Beach Barbie under a sun umbrella studying for her LSAT’s. The boys get into a pissing match cause one of them has just bulldozed the other one’s castle cause it was built too close to the road. The two little guys soak each other; the little girl doesn’t bat an eye.”

“Jesus Christ”, said the insurance adjuster.

“Hold on”, said the bartender. “It gets worse.”

“There’s a quick cut to ten years into the future. Three teenagers, two guys and a girl, are talking in front of a high school.”

“I think I can see where this is going”, said Lil.

“One of the guys is in a wheelchair. But he’s holding a football.”

“I knew it”, said Lil.

At that exact moment Thing jumped up on a stool at the end of the bar. He was wearing a Hawaian shirt, chino’s, and a battered pair of Birkenstocks. His sunglasses were propped on top of his head, and he was wearing a gold chain-link bracelet on his left wrist. He’d clearly been out in the sun most of the afternoon. His forearms were slightly tanned, and paler skin showed under the bracelet.

The bartender set him up with his usual. Thing slurped the banana daiquiri, and up-ended the aguardente. The bartender casually slid a plate of the cucumber sandwiches in front of him.

Thing picked up one of the sandwiches – this one was cleverly sculpted in the shape of a spade from a deck of playing cards – and sniffed it quizzically. Then, in an uncharacteristically clumsy move, he lowered it to his mouth. As he did, a chilled slice of cucumber squirted out of the sandwich and into the deep cleavage of Samantha Whales.

Samantha screamed at the shock of chilled cucumber on exposed flesh. As fate would have it, she was in mid-stroke of a deft slice into a chocolate meringue pie. She immediately lost control of the knife. It left her hand, shot into the air, and began flipping end-over-end high across the main room of the pub. It seemed to be in the air for an eternity before smashing through the front window.

“Nice catch”, said the bartender as Samantha retrieved the cucumber from her décolletage. Samantha glowered at him.

“That Samantha really can wail”, thought the insurance adjuster.

“Wicked throw”, the bartender added, glancing toward the broken window. Samantha glowered again. “That knife was coated in meringue. Too bad to lose it like that.”

“I’ll show you some meringue”, Samantha retorted.

“I think I’d like that,” said the bartender. He winked.

Samantha reached behind her for the nearest lemon meringue pie. Most everyone in the room knew what was going to happen next.

In a desperate pre-emptive move Thing grabbed a banana cream pie off the banquet table, tucked it under his arm like a pigskin in the Grey Cup, and sprinted for the Exit door. He straight-armed Junior Mennon midway across the room. Junior’s tremendous girth was propelled backward toward the table. He landed backside first in a seven-layer amaretto tort. The tort slopped on impact into the rather expensive but stylishly casual shirt of the movie director.

At that point all hell broke loose

Rob: Mar14/06 Epic Episode of QuesT - Season Opener

The first stunning posts of The Pie Hole Flap episode are now on QuesT '06 The Long Bent Highway. The pie fight at The Angels' Arms is about to erupt. A film crew, complete with tractor trailers, supporting lights and crew outside the pub soon finds itself in harms way. The scale of what is about to happen is, how shall we say, of epic proportions. Promising to be more creative and exciting than The Brazil Gig or even Shotgun Golf.

A one-word hyperlink connects the reader to the episode's motivation. In fact, clicking that link will reveal one of the cheesiest initiatives ever taken in VirgilON. The Pie Hole Bakery will never be the same, for this blogger at least.

Let's put it this way - The Pie Hole Flap has moved us to add a legal disclaimer on the blog's splash page.

Alan: ...oh dear...Rob's ripped again...

Rob: March 7/06
Samantha Whales is cuter
at closing time
which might be a miracle of scheduling
or a trick of the sudden
change in light but it is real
and important
because closing time is
when you leave
and even drunks have earned angels
to guide them into
the night
the poetry of the everyday
is never wasted

Rob: Feb20/06 Tired of the same drab politicians running our country? The Beer Store Campaign Interviews

Sick of the boring Liberals, Conservatives and all of the other parties that seemingly always have their hand out for more tax dollars? Fed up with wasteful government spending on things that have little impact on the everyday lives of Canadians?

So are we. That's why we decided to launch our own political organization, The Party Party, whose mandate is simple: Fun for all and all for fun. The first order of business was to find a charismatic leader to guide our fledgling party. Someone who isn't a stuffy bureaucrat. Someone who is a regular person who regular people can trust. Someone who knows how to have a good time.

After an extensive search through all the seedy bars, strip joints and backyard patios across the nation, we finally found a person who is all of that and more ... Meet Bubbles, the next Prime Minister of Canada.

The first pictures from the Puck Bunny Ball are starting to come in. Here's Ra McGuire with Mike Smith (Bubbles), who played guitar and sang in 'Good Time', 'Hell' and 'Sportscar' with Trooper as they closed the show on Saturday night.

Ignore the fact his glasses are thicker than the lenses in the Hubble telescope. Don't listen to the whispers of naysayers who point out that he lives in a shed in a Nova Scotia trailer park and hangs around with known felons. Forget about his uncomfortable fascination with kitties. Disregard the fact he almost starred in a porno film. Overlook his bizarre passion for repairing shopping carts.

He is the man for the job because he is a stand-up guy. A rock for his friends to lean on when the chips are down. A man whose uncanny ability to solve problems has made him a beloved figure in Sunnyvale trailer park. How did we discover Bubbles, who gets his name from his most-prized possession — a 1961 Electro-Bubblemaker.

Easy. We saw him on TV. One of the conditions of his friend Julian's parole was that he would allow a documentary team to follow him around and film life in Sunnyvale. The Trailer Park Boys has become a cult hit and the popularity of Julian, Ricky and Bubbles has skyrocketed ever since the first episode hit the airwaves on Showcase.

But we didn't just pick Bubbles for shock value. Yes, we laugh at the antics of the boys, but we interviewed hundreds of potential candidates and none of them measured up to the Plato-reading Bubbles. We knew you wouldn't believe us. We knew that everyone would think this is just some crazy publicity stunt. That's why we decided to print our previously confidential interview with our new leader. So you could get to know Bubbles.

Bubbles speaks-

Why should people vote for Bubbles?

Well they should vote for me because I wouldn't f--- around like the guys who are running things now do.

What is the first thing you would do if elected?

If I was elected Prime Minister one of the first things I would do is get rid of the f---ing taxes on necessities like cat food. It's considered a luxury item right now, but I'd like to know what in the f--- they expect my kitties to eat. If I wasn't supplying them with cat food they would all be drinking garbage juice and licking f---ing chip bags.

Bubbles is a whiz at fixing things, how would he fix what ails Canada?

I'd probably just get everyone to write down the things they don't like and then just go through them all. It would probably take a long f---ing time, but once I was done nobody would have a f---ing thing to complain about.

How did you come to live in the trailer park?

Well, I have been living in the trailer park for as long as I can remember. I actually lived in a trailer with my parents up until I was five years old or so. Then, for some f---ing reason, they went away and that's when I moved into Julian's shed.

How did you meet Ricky and Julian?

I've known Ricky and Julian ever since I was a little guy. They've lived in the park their whole lives too. We just all sort of met f---ing around in the playground and stuff I guess. Julian's grandmother always used to have bottles of liquor lying around and we used to get into those together and then we just became best friends.

Often friends or relatives can harm a politician's career. Does Ricky and Julian's shady past worry you?

It doesn't worry me one bit actually. If someone doesn't like you because they don't like your friends then they can go f--- themselves as far as I can tell. Ricky and Julian are the only family I got now.

If you had to choose between your friends and becoming the leader of our great nation, which would you pick?

Take a wild f---ing guess.

When a PM is elected he usually finds work for all of his cronies. Do you have government positions in mind for your friends if you are elected?

I'd probably give jobs to all my friends in the park. I would probably let Julian look after all the finances because he knows all about that sh--. I think Ricky would probably do good if he was in charge of importing and exporting different types of things.

The aim of our new party is to have a good time, how would Bubbles put the fun back into government funding?

I would make sure all of the kitties in the country were taken care of first, then I'd probably just split the rest of it up between everyone to drink with.

Where does Bubbles stand on the issue of adding more long weekends?

Well, I think if every weekend was a long weekend the country would be a lot f---ing better off. People would have one extra day to f--- around and get drunk while having a barbecue and that would make the days where they do have to go to work less of a pain in the f---ing arse.

What is your position on the decriminalization of pot?

I would try to decriminalize the f--- out of it so that my best friends Ricky and Julian would stop going to jail all the time. I'd hire Ricky to grow all the dope that would be sold in the 'Dope Store' too.

Sitting Prime Ministers live on Sussex Drive, where would Bubbles reside?

Even if I did become Prime Minister I would probably still just live in my shed in the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Ricky and Julian are the only family I have so I would never just f---ing take off on them because I got a fancy new house unless they wanted to come with me. Then we could all live there and not have to worry about Lahey (Sunnyvale's supervisor) trying to f--- with us.

Do you think Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could survive more than a week at Sunnyvale?

If either one of those c---suckers showed up they wouldn't last a minute because I'd f---ing crank both of them. I don't like to throw sucker punches but I would have no problem sucker-punching either one of those arseholes.

Ronald Regan was an actor before he became president of the U.S. Does Bubbles see any similarity between himself and Ronnie?

Who in the flying f--- is Ronald Reagan? George Bush is the President of the United States.

How would you improve on our education system?

The first thing I would do is tell the teachers to stop using big fancy words all the time so that people like Ricky can understand what in the f--- they're saying. Ricky's not stupid, but once a teacher starts using all their fancy "book learning", as Ricky calls it, he just f---ing train wrecks.

What would you change about our heathcare system?

I'd probably change it to include free healthcare for kitties, that would help me out a f--- of a lot.

Where does Bubbles stand on animal rights?

I think they should have as much rights as anyone else. They probably shouldn't be able to get their drivers license though.

Cancon, the legislation that says Canadian radio stations must play a Canadian artist every fifth song, helped to produce bands like The Tragically Hip and Rush. Would you change the legislation, scrap it, or leave it the way it is?

I'd probably sink a lot more money into bands like those because they always invite us to their shows and bands always have all kinds of free food and liquor in their dressing rooms.

What would you do to fix hockey, our national game, now that everyone thinks it's boring?

I think the players should be allowed to drink on the bench. Maybe some guys might get a little more courageous than normal and there would be a lot more fighting. I think I'd probably slim the f---ing league down to the Original Six again too and tell everyone not to wear helmets like in the old days.

Trying to buy something over 50 cents with just pennies is illegal in Canada. Would Bubbles change that?

You're f---ing right I would. A tin of Fancy Feast is 47 cents so every time I go to buy it with pennies, I can only buy one and then go to the back of the f---ing line again to buy the next one. It's a pain in the f---ing arse.

In Windsor recently, the city contemplated passing a law that prohibits the tossing of dwarfs. Where do you stand on this issue?

I think it should be up to the f---ing dwarfs. Did anyone even ask the dwarfs what they thought? I know if I was a f---ing dwarf and I wanted someone to throw me around I'd be pretty pissed off if there was a f---ing law against it. I think if a dwarf wants someone to grab hold of him and see how far they can throw him then let him do it. I'd let them build dwarf catapults if that's what the little guys wanted.

We haven't had a ladies man as PM since Pierre Trudeau. How would the fact that women think of you as being Bubblicious affect your campaign?

What ladies are you talking about? I'd like to meet them.

l In what ways could you help Bubbles get elected?

Ricky: I would grow a bunch of dope and sell it to help fund his whatever you call it, I know the word sounds a lot like camping, but it's not camping. Anyway we could also get like these special rolling papers that we could hand out to people that say "vote for Bubbles" on them or something.

Julian: I would try to keep Lahey the hell away from the Bubbles' campaign headquarters and I'd make sure that Ricky didn't try to destroy Bubbles' chances with all his dope issues.

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l Would you be willing to clean up your act and stay out of jail so you don't sully Bubbles reputation like Jimmy Carter's idiot brother did?

Ricky: I don't understand what the f--- the word "sully" means. So because whoever asked this question decided to use big fancy school words that I haven't learned yet, I can't f---ing answer that.

Julian: Lots of people in jail have friends in politics. I think people will take us for who we are. We don't plan on trying to cover up anything. Cover-ups always turn into sh--storms, politicians should just try being honest.

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l Why do you think Bubbles would be a better Prime Minister than Jean Chretien?

Ricky: He's way more smarter than him, and he talks better. Plus he could give me a job and also I'd get to smoke dope in those big fancy buildings in Ottawa which would be really cool.

Julian: Nice answer Ricky. See man, getting your Grade 10 did help with your thinking!

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l If Bubbles is elected, what is the first thing he should do to fix Canada's problems?

Ricky: What else? Legalize dope and start selling dope, get this country out of debt. Julian: Lower university tuitions. Breaking the law is much easier than working for minimum wage for a university degree.

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l Being the brains of the group, what role would Julian play in Bubbles' government?

Julian: I would be the Minister of Finance. I believe I could get this country out of debt in one year and I'd make sure our hard earned dollar wasn't being spent on first-class bullsh--.

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l Ricky is always intimidating people. How could he use that talent to help Bubbles make Canada a world superpower?

Ricky: I didn't realize that I was intimidating but if I am, that's awesome, kind of like Clint Eastward or Jack Nicols. I guess I could go to those big fancy world meetings with court clothes on and kick some ass. Canada is the best country in the f---ing world and I think maybe we should try to make the whole world just one big f---ing Canada. Take right over, but in a peaceful kind of stoned way. F---, I forgot the question.

Rob: A murder mystery perhaps?

Susan: Now that little ditty is subversive.

Ok - A stanger. Pondering, pondering, pondering....

Rob:Feb22/06 The first woman to ever walk on water - sounds like an interesting twist. But don't forget the stranger - a common thread in the last four episodes.
Imagine the sound of nuns singing through an open window at Stella, echoing out over the river-

Whosoever cometh need not delay,
Now the door is open, enter while you may;
Jesus is the true, the only Living Way;
Whosoever will may come.
Whosoever will, whosoever will,
Send the proclamation over vale and hill;
Tis a loving Father, calls the wanderer home:
Whosoever will, may come.

Then a blood curdling scream from inside the convent.

Susan: Feb22/05 A "man" walking on water? What's wrong with this picture? I think it should be Samantha.

Rob: Feb21/06 The Samantha Whales episode of the QuesT blog is on line up to date and I must say the last entry is amazing when you take the time to read it a dozen times or so. A lot of almost subliminal stuff happening. Brilliant writing A, congrats.

Torino hack is gone but our own line of branded products at the ON Line StORE is accessible from the bottom of the nav frame or by clicking the logo. The QuesT black T is selling well to people in the Indian sub continent - our most consisten readers.

We are at a milestone with the blog. Where she goes from here nobody knows. Personally I think we are about ready for a Christian miracle on the Niagara River as Commander Buck Coffin attempts to hustle Ladanian and Blueberry back over to US custody. Imagine the effect of a man walking on water in front of the Stella Niagara convent of Franciscan sisters?

Grampa Thing's paintings go on sale in England
Steven Morris
Thursday May 12, 2005
Special to the Globe

He was known as the Cézanne of the simian world. Picasso was the proud owner of a painting by Grampa Thing the chimpanzee while Miro swapped two sketches for one of the ape's creations.

Now, for the first time, three Grampa Things have come on to the open market and will be auctioned alongside works by Renoir, Andy Warhol and the Chapman Brothers at Bonhams in London this month.

The pictures, created with tempera on paper, are from the artist's most productive period in the late 1950s. They are estimated to be worth between £600 and £800 for the three, but such has been the interest already that they may well fetch much more.

Grampa Thing became a household name when he appeared alongside Desmond Morris in the television series Zoo Time. At the same time Dr Morris began a series of experiments to try to find out about the artistic sensibilities of chimpanzees.

At first Grampa Thing splashed the paint on, as any chimp would. But Dr Morris yesterday told the Globe how over two years in the late 1950s Grampa Thing suddenly changed the way he held the brush and became much more intense about his paintings.

Dr Morris said: "I was amazed. He focused on what he was doing. Every line he made logically followed the last one."

Grampa Thing confined his work to the sheet of paper or canvas in front of him, rarely letting the paint dribble on to the table or floor.

The chimp also seemed to know when a picture was finished, putting down his brush. If the picture was taken away and brought back later he would refuse to work on it. But if a fresh canvas was presented he would set to work again.

In 1957 some of his best work was showcased at an exhibition at the ICA in London entitled, rather unambiguously, Paintings by An Old Chimp. It received mixed reviews, but the public was enthusiastic and snapped the pictures up. Forgeries were also made - though Dr Morris insists he can spot the real thing.

Rob: May4/05 Just what the blog needed. Some Brazilian content and political opinion from a former penal colony. Santa Teresa no less! The Shotgun Golf episode has been given a rather fitting ending for those of you wishing to check it out www.hips.com/quest But, as the backstreet Inet lurkers on the arc of Copacabana note so insightfully, there are many loose ends hanging but that's only because of a setback caused by the sad death of one of the key characters.

On the road back to the Farkin Barn, Meech was steering the Fargo with one hand while using his teeth to twist the cap off a warm Bud when he hit a pothole. The impact shook the Bud which popped its cap down Meech's throat, causing him to gag and steer the truck into a ditch. He was smiling broadly but lost consciousness and departed this earth while the Fargo radio blared a country classic - "Stand By Your Man".